This week’s episode of Flight of the Conchords was fairly weak, but Murray’s first music video, “Leggie Blonde,” more than made up for the rest of the episode.
Last week’s episode was stronger — especially for any Bowie fans out there. I love Jemaine’s imitation of “1972 David Bowie from the Ziggy Stardust tour”:
So many good lyrics:
Warriors of the French Foreign Legion looks at the infamous “army of cutthroats and thieves,” where new recruits leave behind their pasts and take on a new name and a new identity.
Within the Légion étrangère, one unit stands out as even more elite, the second paratrooper regiment. Here’s what happened to the first:
The 1st Régiment Étranger Parachutiste (1st REP) was established in 1955 during the Algerian War and disbanded in April 1961 as the entire regiment rose against the French government of Charles de Gaulle (Algiers Putsch), in protest against moves to negotiate an end to the Algerian War.
The nightlife in Japan is surreal and — to a westerner — bewildering. The Great Happiness Space — how Japanese is that title? — is a documentary from 2006 that explores host bars, where androgynous young men with big peroxide hair entertain young women. Get ready for some culture shock.
Come back to it later if you don’t have time now. You definitely want to get to the first “plot twist” about a half-hour in.
I have been watching and enjoying Human Weapon on the History Channel, but two things have bothered me.
First, they pretend that after training for a few weeks, our hosts will be able to compete against a master of that particular style. The masters are clearly toying with them, sparring lightly, but the show doesn’t admit that obvious fact.
Second, while Jason Chambers is a well-trained martial artists, his football-player co-host, Bill Duff, is a meat-head. Here’s what a Canadian judoka training in Japan had to say:
Training was going really well for a long time. I felt strong, techniques were clicking, and all in all things were excellent.Then last Wednesday people filming a show for the History Channel came to Tokai to do a show on judo.
After a four and a half hour practice, after I had cooled down and stretched, I was asked by Agemizu sensei to have a little match with one of the History Channel guys, a six foot 5 or so, 230+ lb man.
Now, knowing well that this guy was a beginner, it wouldn’t look good if I slammed this guy, so I took it easy and was just moving around, going in for techniques half-heartedly, and just kind of messing around. No one told me that this guy was going to fight me like his life depended on it.
So, long story short, after being at Tokai for well, almost a year now, and training with World Champions and the like, for the first time since my shoulder surgery, something in my shoulder popped when this oaf jerked my arm back with both his arms with all his might.
I acted like nothing happened, and got up and moved around some more with him, and at that point he started sticking his bald sweaty head in my face while pushing me straight back, and then he grabbed my leg, and I just hopped away, thinking he’d let go, but instead he football tackled me from behind.
Weird California describes itself as “Your Travel Guide to California’s Local Legends and Best Kept Secrets,” and as such it lists the sites of a number of utopian communes, including the Rancho Santa Fe location of the Heaven’s Gate mass suicide of 1997.
You may recall that the cultists were dressed in identical black shirts and sweat pants and brand new black-and-white Nike tennis shoes, with purple shrouds over their dead bodies. There were two details I didn’t know though. First, their track uniforms included patches saying “Heaven’s Gate Away Team”. (That seems darkly comical.) Second, they each had their passports and $5.75 in hand.
Weird California claims that the protagonist of Mark Twain’s Captain Stormfield’s Visit to Heaven takes his passport and $5.75 for fare to Heaven, but that’s simply not the case.
Lester Hunt is amazed by The Wisdom of Ratatouille:
In an animated feature that has both human and animal characters, usually the humans are the bad guys because they either a) kill and eat the cute animals or b) pollute the animals’ environment and despoil the earth or c) both a and b. This is the story of an animal who wants to be human, or at least live like a human being. In other words, human is good! And the film explains what the essential difference between the human and the animal is: humans make, animals take. Rats take other people’s food, humans invent new foods. Thus, cuisine is a symbol of what gives human beings whatever dignity they may have. Remy, the cute animal protagonist, is a rat who wants to be a chef. Throughout the movie, stealing food (even to feed hungry friends!) is treated as the one thing he must not do, or he will lose his hard-won human dignity. We repeatedly hear the motto, “Anyone can cook” (ie., even a rat). At the end, we realize that what this means is not that everyone can be a great cook (sorry, not everyone is great) but that greatness can come from anywhere.
Of course, I expected nothing less of Brad Bird.
Taylor Dinerman looks at Robert A. Heinlein’s Legacy — and starts by looking at science fiction’s legacy:
Science fiction at one time was despised as vulgar and “populist” by university English departments. Today, it is just another cultural artifact to be deconstructed, along with cartoons and People magazine articles. Yet one could argue that science fiction has had a greater impact on the way we all live than any other literary genre of the 20th century.When one looks at the great technological revolutions that have shaped our lives over the past 50 years, more often than not one finds that the men and women behind them were avid consumers of what used to be considered no more than adolescent trash. As Arthur C. Clarke put it: “Almost every good scientist I know has read science fiction.” And the greatest writer who produced them was Robert Anson Heinlein, born in Butler, Mo., 100 years ago this month.
A recent Wired Fetish column spoke to me:
After the apocalypse, you won’t have the luxury of hitting REI for propane to cook that fillet of zombie. You’ll have to make do with what’s available. There’s only one stove that efficiently burns any liquid fuel, from butane to biodiesel, without requiring extra parts: the Brunton Vapor. Twist the top of the burner cap (with the flame off) to tweak its variable air intake; this alters the oxygen-to-fuel ratio to ensure a hot blue flame. Oh, it’s also useful for pre-Armageddon camping.
Vapor $149, www.brunton.com
I was mildly upset to find that Amazon did not carry the Vapor, at least not yet, and I was shocked that they didn’t carry the Gerber Flik either, since they carry so many other Gerber knives and multi-tools. (It turns out the Flik isn’t available until Fall 2007.)
While researching Gerber though, I found their ad archive, and I must heartily recommend it for some deep, manly laughs.
I just came across an amusing term, Potterdammerung, for the end of the Harry Potter phenomenon.
For those who don’t follow German opera based on Norse mythology, the Götterdämmerung was the Twilight of the Gods — and the last of Wagner’s four Ring-saga operas:
The title is a translation into German of the Old Norse phrase Ragnarök, which in Norse mythology refers to a prophesied war of the gods which brings about the end of the world. However, as with the rest of the Ring, Wagner’s account of this apocalypse diverges significantly from his Old Norse sources.The term Götterdämmerung is occasionally used in English, referring to a disastrous conclusion of events.
Grylls series ‘to be transparent’ — because it hasn’t been so far:
The US Discovery Channel is to ensure a survival show is “100% transparent” in future after conceding parts could have misled viewers, according to reports.Man vs Wild — called Born Survivor on Channel 4 in the UK — saw Bear Grylls supposedly abandoned in the wild.
But a consultant said Grylls stayed in a motel and had scenes set up for him.
“Isolated elements” were not “natural to the environment”, Discovery said in a statement to the Hollywood Reporter, and promised greater clarity in future.
“For health and safety concerns, the crew and host received some survival assistance while in the field,” the channel told the publication.
“Moving forward, the programme will be 100% transparent, and all elements of the filming will be explained upfront to our viewers.”
Discovery also promised that any repeats of the series would be “edited appropriately”.
Some specifics:
The issue of scenes being manipulated was raised by Mark Weinert, a US survival consultant.He told the UK’s Sunday Times that Grylls spent nights in a motel in Hawaii when he was claiming to be stranded on a desert island.
Mr Weinert also alleged that a raft was put together by team members before being taken apart so Grylls could be filmed building it.
Ouch. This is not how to handle the situation:
Channel 4 said the programme never specifically claimed Grylls was coping “unaided”.
I just re-stumbled upon one of my favorite Robert A. Heinlein quotes, from Time Enough for Love — which, I must admit, I have not read (yet):
A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.
Adam Smith might not agree.
I recently read Lucifer’s Hammer, by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle, and I realized that it made terrible bed-time reading — because it was entirely too thought-provoking, and I couldn’t get to sleep.
The premise is that a comet collides with the earth — or, rather, that many mountain-sized chunks of the comet collide with the earth — boiling the oceans, hurling tsunami waves to shore, triggering earthquakes, and sending enough water and dust into the air to ruin any hope of farming until next year.
Civilization breaks down, and few people are prepared for the disaster, which defied astronomers’ calculations. What do you do when there’s enough food for everyone for one month, and no more is coming for another year? One way or another, 11 out of 12 “survivors” are going to die. You’d better decide what to do quickly, because the refugees are on their way…
One of the heroes of the book, an übergeek JPL scientist, races back to his home as soon as “the Hammer” falls and frantically packs in plastic all the books mankind will need to rebuild civilization.
This is something I’ve been thinking about since I read Earth Abides years ago. What books go on the list? How do you rebuild 21st-century America, knowing that we haven’t been able to bring most of the existing world to that level, even with a working example?
Kevin Kelly has given the notion a bit of thought over at his Technium blog. There he notes that “A favorite fantasy game for engineers is to imagine how they might re-invent essential technology from scratch”:
Occasionally tinkerers get to engage their fantasy. In February 1942, R. Bradley, a British Officer in the Royal artillery in World War II was captured and then held prisoner by Japanese in Singapore. Their camp was remote, supplies were almost non-existent, and they were treated roughly as POWs; when they rebelled they were locked in a confinement shed without food. But they were tinkerers, too. Together with some other POWs in his camp, Bradley stole hand tools from the Japanese soldiers and from these bits and pieces he transformed scrap metal into a miniature lathe. The small lathe was ingenious. It was tiny enough to be kept a secret, big enough to be useful. It could be disassembled into pieces that could be tucked in a backpack and moved in the camp’s many relocations. Since large pieces of metal were hard to acquire without notice, the tailstock of the lathe was two steel pieces dovetailed together. The original bed plate was cut with a cold chisel.
The lathe was a tool-making egg; it was used to manufacture more sophisticated items. With it the prisoners machined a duplicate key for the solitary confinement shed (!), and manufactured a hidden battery source for a secret radio. During the two years of their interment the lathe remade the tools — like taps and dies — which were first used to create it. A lather has those self-reproductive qualities.
That is a wonderful story, and he presents another such wonderful story of a fellow named Gingery who was able to bootstrap a full-bore machine shop from alley scraps by making rough tools that made better tools, which then made tools good enough to make “real” stuff.
Kelly runs with the notion of bootstrapping and suggests a Forever Book as a seed for regrowing society (or the technium):
Clearly such a library would have to be able to convey, among all the other things, how to make a library full of books, since that is in many ways an essential part of civilization. Thus we have the library that can self-replicate, the forever library. What is the smallest possible self-replicating forever library? It is possible that with digital technology it will someday be no bigger than a book today. And since it contains primarily information we could think of the self-replicating forever library as a self-replicating book, Forever Book.
Of course, engineers generally side-step the much larger issue of creating a society where technological progress is likely to happen, where it’s rewarded, and where the fruits of ingenuity aren’t immediately seized or declared heretical.
Would texts on anthropology and economics be more important than texts on engineering?
One colleague made the interesting suggestion of using texts full of practical know-how to ensure literacy. If everyone learns the basics of daily survival through books like The Foxfire Book — which covers “Hog Dressing, Log Cabin Building, Mountain Crafts and Foods, Planting by the Signs, Snake Lore, Hunting Tales, Faith Healing, Moonshining” — then perhaps they won’t need literacy foisted upon them.
At any rate, I’d love to find a good book on bootstrapping technology.
When I read The Mysterious Island years ago, I realized that — unlike the Victorian-era engineer protagonist — I had no idea how to perform any useful chemical reactions without nicely labeled jars of simple compounds.
Frankly, in primitive conditions, I’m afraid I’d end up like the 20th-century American in Poul Anderson’s “The Man Who Came Early” (which is reason enough to buy The Best Time Travel Stories of the 20th Century). In Viking-age Iceland, without modern infrastructure, he finds himself useless, as none of his technical innovations are practical.
I’m not sure what to make of these Peanuts characters redrawn in Japanese manga fashion. Charlie Brown looks like he’s about to unleash his devastating psychic powers…
This Tapout T-Shirt at Hot Topic is one more sign that MMA has gone mainstream:
Get the ultimate gear for your no rules extreme fightin’ fix. This black T-shirt features a white front screen of the Tapout logo with a grey caged design. White eagle logo on back shoulder. In ya face! 100% cotton. Wash cold. Dry low. Imported.
Wait, Hot Topic isn’t mainstream!, you might exclaim. Well, Hot Topic is not punk rock either.
I don’t know how much I trust the New York Post Gossip column, but this is a crazy story that nonetheless rings true:
Laugh Factory owner Jamie Masada, who witnessed the assault, said, “Jon picked Andy up by the head and smashed him into the bar four or five times, and blood started pouring out of his nose.” Lovitz told Page Six, “All the comedians are glad I did it because this guy is a [bleep]hole.”Lovitz and Dick have been at loggerheads since a 1997 Christmas party at Hartman’s house, five months before his troubled wife Brynn flipped out, fatally shooting Hartman, then killing herself. “Andy was doing cocaine, and he gave Brynn some after she had been sober for 10 years. Phil was furious about it – and then five months later he’s dead,” said Lovitz, adding that when he filled in on Hartman’s “Newsradio” sitcom, “I told Andy, ‘I wouldn’t be here now if you hadn’t given Brynn that cocaine.’ “
Last year, Lovitz related, a drunken Dick strolled up to his table at Ago in West Hollywood, rudely downed his guests’ peach liqueur drinks, and “looked at me and said, ‘I put the “Phil Hartman hex” on you – you’re the next one to die.’ I said, ‘What did you say?’ and he repeated it. I wanted to punch his face in, but I don’t hit women.”
When the two ran into each other at the Laugh Factory last Wednesday, “I wanted him to say he was sorry for the ‘Phil Hartman hex,’” Lovitz told us. “First he says, ‘I don’t remember saying that.’ Then he leans in and says, ‘You know why I said it? Because you said I killed Phil Hartman.’ Which I never said. Then he asked me to be in his new movie.
“I grabbed him by the shirt and leaned him over and said, ‘I don’t want to be in your movie! I don’t want to be in your life!’ I pushed him against the rail. Then I pushed him again really hard. A security guard broke it up. I’m not proud of it … but he’s a disgusting human being.” Dick’s rep said he had no comment.
Dick’s weirdness has been well documented. Last year, he licked the faces of Farrah Fawcett, Carrie Fisher and Patton Oswalt, then groped and bit the hand of Post reporter Mandy Stadtmiller at a comedy-festival taping.
I’d like to think there’s a special place in hell for a guy who offers coke to a recovered addict.