The Flatlanders (Jimmie Dale Gilmore, Joe Ely, Butch Hancock) (isn’t that a fine photo?). Terry Allen, Tommy X Hancock. David Byrne(!).
A sweet documentary of the Lubbock-area music scene as exemplified by a bunch of fine musicians, every one a mensch. Great music making, and great movie making. You know I haven’t steered you wrong before; [...]
‘Lost’ music instrument recreated
New software has enabled researchers to recreate a long forgotten musical instrument called the Lituus.
The 2.7m (8.5ft) long trumpet-like instrument fell out of use some 300 years ago.
Bach’s motet (a choral musical composition) “O Jesu Christ, meins lebens licht” was one of the last pieces of music written for the Lituus.
Now, for [...]
Mark Liberman quotes Yeats (”Letter to Michael’s Schoolmaster“):
Teach him mathematics as thoroughly as his capacity permits. I know that Bertrand Russell must, seeing that he is such a featherhead, be wrong about everything, but as I have no mathematics I cannot prove it. I do not want my son to be helpless.
A while back I pointed to a website publishing Bill Hedrington’s collected poems. For the last week or so, Michael Smith and I have been updating the site, and I think you’ll find the new edition a nice improvement. The PDF is redone as well. Go. Read.
The Voices
I was born on the downhill side,
late in [...]
IOZ on the new Star Trek.
This is the Internet; Ergo, Star Trek
… I would go further. The original crew of the Enterprise were types, and god help us, it was up the actors to invest them with character. Now the filmmakers have attempted to craft arcs of character that will catapult each character firmly into [...]
Say amen, someone.
Invasion of the Neutered Sprites
… The traditional habitat of the Sprites today, of course, is Nonprofitland. Finding them isn’t hard. Look for logos for organizations dedicated to community-building, or health-supporting, or any kind of relentlessly positive thinking. There you will find these little figures by the dozens, prancing around, holding hands, embracing [...]
Enjoy this, please.
The Teresa Carreño Youth Orchestra is the national high-school-age youth orchestra of El Sistema, made up of the best young musicians from throughout Venezuela. Gustavo Dudamel, himself a product of El Sistema, is the new musical director of the LA Philharmonic.
The music here is Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 10, 2nd movement, and Arturo Márquez’ [...]
Background: In a NY Times review of Alexander Waugh’s The House of Wittgenstein, Jim Holt refers to Ludwig as “was the greatest philosopher of the 20th century.” This inspired Brian Leiter to run a poll to “settle this once and for all” (answer: Wittgenstein by a narrow plurality). Harry Brighouse, at Crooked Timber, linked to [...]
Leonardo’s reputation as a sculptor rests on a statue of a horse that he never finished. His patron, who was to have eventually been portrayed on the much-greater-than-life-size Gran Cavallo, had war and money troubles and swiped Leonardo’s bronze for cannon-building.
Leonardo thought that a giant rearing horse would be cool, but couldn’t figure out how [...]
I figured I’d repost this from Paul Krugman on the strength of his title, an allusion to a Schiller line that I use from time to time over there on the left: Mit der Dummheit kämpfen die Götter selbst vergebens (”Against stupidity the gods themselves struggle in vain”).
Say amen, someone.
Against stupidity…
The most valuable lesson I [...]
Today is, of course, the fiftieth anniversary of Buddy Holly’s death in a plane crash in Iowa. A lot of rockers have died too young, but it’s hard to believe that any of those deaths represented a greater loss to music than Holly’s.
Even with his incredibly short recording career (first single in mid-1957, first album [...]
OK, it’s not actually a statue of Bush.
(Sofa-sized?)
Saddam’s hometown unveils statue dedicated to man who threw shoe at President Bush
Many Iraqis considered it poetic justice when a journalist tossed his shoes at President George W. Bush last month.
Now the bizarre attack has spawned a real life work of art.
A sofa-sized statue of the shoe [...]
John Mortimer has left for that great Pomeroy’s Wine Bar in the sky.
As it’s impossible to think of Mortimer without thinking of Horace Rumpole, it’s impossible to remember either without remembering Leo McKern, who was born to play the part. McKern died in 2002.
Lift a glass of Chateau Thames Embankment to the memory of [...]
OK, a ten-best list ought to be eccentric. After all, how many times do we need to be pointed at Casablanca or Kane? But…Groundhog Day?
The 10 Best American Movies
It’s Top Ten time again, and like everyone else I have a list, in my case a list of the 10 best American movies ever. Here it [...]
There are lots of reasons to read economics blogs. Here’s one of them (something to do with Facebook, apparently; I couldn’t tell you what).
Austenbook:
via Brad DeLong
James Surowiecki says uncharacteristically little in this NYer piece: Wall Street seems to like T-Sec-designate Timothy Geithner, and said Geithner is a not-so-bad choice.
Pretty clearly, the article was an excuse to use a great title, a Shakespearean stage direction paraphrased from The Winter’s Tale.
Antigonus
… Weep I cannot,
But my heart bleeds; and most accursed am I
To [...]
Royal Shakespeare Company to stop using ‘distracting’ real skull in Hamlet
The use of the skull had been kept a carefully guarded secret throughout the play’s four month run in Stratford until leading man David Tennant disclosed that the skull belonged to the late pianist Andre Tchaikovsky — who bequeathed his skull to the RSC for [...]
more
via John Gruber
We have here, courtesy of Jonathan Hoefler, a sample of a pixel font from 1567.
The struggle to adequately render letterforms on a pixel grid is a familiar one, and an ancient one as well: this bitmap alphabet is from La Vera Perfettione del Disegno di varie sorte di ricami, an embroidery guide by Giovanni Ostaus [...]