Let's Go Surfing!

Those of you who are regular readers and who assiduously study the Blog Roll over in the left-hand column (scroll down, you'll find it) will notice a few new additions.  You know what that means! Time once again to help you break up the boredom with another collection of some of the niftiest stuff I've found out there in my travels across the big, wide Internets.  When you're not spending your time here, take a moment and drop by these sites.  In no particular order...

This Charming Charlie
I have noted before that I generally don't get Tumblr blogs, but I do know a damn brilliant concept when I see it, and This Charming Charlie is about as brilliant a concept as I've seen on the Internets.  Like most examples of genius, it's a simple proposition: mash together frames from old Peanuts cartoons with lyrics from The Smiths.  So basic, and yet each new creation has me gnashing my teeth saying "I wish I'd thought of this first!"  Whether it's Lucy sitting on a front stoop musing "Now I know how Joan of Arc felt," Snoopy and Woodstock thinking "That joke isn't funny anymore," or Charlie himself quoting "How Soon Is Now," the concept works so well because the lyrics are so perfectly matched to the personalities we know these characters to have.  Well played.

Arcane Radio Trivia
For a broadcasting history buff like me, Arcane Radio Trivia is a treasure trove of neat stuff.  You'll meet a collection of the most fascinating characters to ever take to the airwaves; you'll hear scratchy audio of early broadcasts rescued from chipped and deteriorating transcription discs; you'll learn about the technological advances that made broadcasting possible in the first place.  Recent posts have included a review of the spectrum of sounds that actually make up what you and I hear as static, a report on the finding of a stash of operating logs from Franklin & Marshall College's WFNM dating from 1976, and rescued audio of the final outs of  the second game of the 1947 World Series.  Bookmark this one!

Paracinema
"Genre Films," the flip side of the Art Film coin, are celebrated in both the blogosphere and the print world thanks to the utterly wonderful Paracinema.  The online presence both supplements the far-too-sporadically published magazine of the same name, and stands independently of it; together they gather some of the best independent writing critically assessing everything from Spaghetti Westerns to Sexploitation flicks to direct-to-video films of all stripes, and much more celluloid insanity.  If you're looking for an explanation as to why Phoebe Cates' pool scene in Fast Times At Ridgemont High became such an iconic '80s moment or a history of how the non-existent Alan Smithee came to direct so many films, the folks at Paracinema are waiting for you to stop by. And at $7 an issue delivered, it's well worth supporting.

Or, As We Used To Call It: Talking To Yourself
So, a good friend I've known since eighth grade started up a blog a short while back.  Since he doesn't use his name on the blog, I won't give it away here.  I will just say you are missing out some excellent commentary on cultural current events and truly intriguing essays on assorted films (the Film Friday posts are not to be missed!) if you are not treading this one.  No frills here - no flashy images or fancy backgrounds, just damn good writing.

*stills
*stills is a fascinating commentary on our cultural history from the early-to-mid 20th century, done without words.  For many years, silent 8mm home movies were the way families documented the important events in their lives - more often than not, the annual family vacations.  Emma Hurst worked as a research intern under Rick Prelinger, scouring through thousands upon thousands of home movies as part of the creation of his 2012 film No More Road Trips?, and in this Tumblr blog she collects some of her favorite still frames from those movies.  Simultaneously nostalgic and telling, you see what was important to our parents and grandparents without having to sit through hours of clacking home projectors and bad splice jobs. Remember kids, one day this is how future generations will look at your Instagram shots...

Everything Is Terrible
Quickly becoming one of my favorite sites to visit each day, Everything Is Terrible proclaims itself to be "this world's only psychedelic found footage comedy website that tours the Earth with face-melting live shows that include puppets, Jerry Maguires stacked to the heavens, and adoring cloaked followers begging EIT! for more! And we make DVDs!" Imagine taking the contents of your local video rental shop circa 1984, pouring it all into a blender and pressing "puree." All kinds of neat things surface here, remixed and video-collaged into handy little chunks of head-shaking, jaw-dropping goofiness. An instructional tape for how to play (not necessarily how to win, but how to play) Las Vegas slot machines, a recruiting tape to try to sell you on running your own 1-900 phone line (remember those?), and Goldie Hawn and the Harlem Globetrotters singing "Short People" are just some examples of what you're in for here.  Mind-numbing fun!

Weird Universe
In a similar vein, Weird Universe is a repository for, well, damn weird stuff of all types.  Where Everything Is Terrible has a specific niche, Weird Universe casts as wide a net as possible, finding strange old advertising, unusual news items, rare clips from the early days of television, and more.  I have literally found myself spending hours digging through the site's archives. So much weirdness = so much good stuff.

Zombie Dead Blog
Blogging can be a chore.  Many, many folks start out with great intentions of creating their own little corner of the Internet where they can hold court on any number of topics.  Many, many folks find that they burn out after a short while.  A precious few continually struggle onward, sometimes going on brief hiatuses here and there, but never giving up.  And then there are those who never quite got out of the gate.  It is those bloggers whose candle burned out moments after coming up with a great blog name, or those whose debut post turned out also to be their swan song, who are celebrated at Zombie Dead Blog.  Think of it as a virtual tour of the abandoned houses and forgotten ghost towns of the blogosphere, or a brief glimpse of what could have been if so many muses hadn't gone silent.  Fascinating.

The History Of Phone Phreaking Blog
Many people think the rise of the Hacker is a relatively recent phenomenon, tied to the 21st century technology surge, computer viruses and online trolling.  In fact, hacking has been around since long before the Internets arrived in our homes, and many of today's hackers - from the amateur just curious to try to figure out how all this tech stuff works to the seasoned pro who can seem to find a way into any system and cause all sorts of havoc - can trace their lineage back to characters like Joe Engressia, the mysterious Captain Crunch, and a couple of fellas named Wozniak and Jobs who, in the 1960s and 1970s were exploring the labrynthian telephone systems of the world with a whistle and a blue box. Go, read, learn.

I'll Take Ten!
What's that? You say you need a cat hammock, a roll of glow-in-the-dark toilet paper, and some bacon lollipops, but you just don't know where to go to get them? You want to fry an egg in the shape of a handgun and open your mail with miniature samurai sword, but your stumped as to how to make that happen? Can't make it through another day without french fry lip balm and caffeinated soap?  All this and more can be yours at I'll Take Ten!  Me, I'm saving up for the $350K life-size moving triceratops...

OK, so there's my current list of neat items that I think are worth sharing with you.  If you've missed any of the previous times I've recommended blogs, books, podcasts, etc., click on the "Recommended" link at the top of the page.  Also, please check out the sites listed on my blogroll on the left-hand side of the page (keep scrolling, you'll find it).  I share these items with you because I think they are worth your time and attention - I'm not receiving any compensation from any of these folks for pointing you towards them.  Heck, most of them have no freaking clue who I am!  Still, if you find something you like, let me know in the comments below.  Similarly, if you have some recommendations to add, feel free to list them in the comments, or contact me through the blog's Facebook Page to talk about a guest post.  Let me hear from you!

Let's Go Surfing!

So you're sitting around on a Sunday night with not a lot to do, no desire to watch a Hillbilly Handfishing marathon or whatever other mindless programming the idiot box might spew at you, and no wish to prattle on endlessly about what you had for lunch on Facebook or Twitter?  Bored to pieces and looking for something new and different to fill up that empty space in the back of your mind? Friends, I'm here to help with yet another collection of some of the coolest, awesomest, and all-around bestest things I've found on the big, wide Internets lately.  Check 'em out and enjoy:

Network Awesome

Those of you who remember the heady days of the early-'80s cable boom will probably recall spending many a Friday and Saturday night sitting blurry-eyed in front of the TV trying desperately to stay awake to see all four hours of the then-fledgling USA Network's greatest contribution to pop culture history, Night Flight.  If you are among those smiling in fond remembrance of that program, you need to bookmark Network Awesome immediately.  Just as Night Flight did in the era when folks were abandoning network television product for the uncharted frontier of cable content, so Network Awesome does in the now when folks are trading in their cable boxes and bloated cable bills to find better, more imaginative content online.

Network Awesome repurposes content in much the same way Night Flight did thirty-odd years ago: the site's ever-expanding crew of curators sift through the immense amount of detritus filling online video sites to find rare gems in the form of long-forgotten  documentaries, episodes of foreign TV shows, short-subject animations and independent films, music videos both popular and obscure, and just enough original production to tie everything together into loose "themes" for each day's six-hour block of programming.  Rare concert footage, bizarre broadcast experiments, and programming not seen in decades is not only presented, but examined in short essays. Watch what you want, when you want - everything is archived. You are likely to find something fascinating that you never knew was out there.  Don't waste time with sites that simply stream internet versions of cable product (I'm looking at you, Hulu). Not when there is Network Awesome to be had!

Greta's Records

I'm not one who normally goes for Tumblr blogs.  Never really got the whole point.  There some good ones out there, a handful of which even appear on this site's Blogroll.  But it always seems to me that there is some special secret way I'm supposed to interact with Tumblr blogs that I don't understand, so I feel like I'm not in the club when I'm visiting one. (Do not even get me started on Pinterest! That's thoroughly alien territory from where I sit!)

That said, filmmaker Allison Andrews has created a Tumblr blog that just may prove to be my gateway into that secret club, because of its utterly fascinating subject.  Ms. Andrews went out and bid on a lot 50 record albums from the estate of movie legend Greta Garbo, and dangit if she didn't win!  Armed with this stack of celebrity-owned vinyl, she pulls one album from the lot for each post, and not only plays and shares the music within, but attempts to glean something about the famously enigmatic star's deeply private world from the choices she made at whichever record shops she frequented.  She was a Beatles fan? She was hep to Professor Longhair? She did the Twist?!? The things Garbo chose to listen to when she "vanted to be alone" are truly fascinating, and Andrews does an excellent job of exploring the unanswerable question that seems to pop up with each selection: what is this record doing in Greta Garbo's collection? 

Hope From Nope

One of everyone's great fears is the fear of rejection, no matter what form that rejection takes. Whether it is a fear of social rejection that is keeping you from asking that special someone out, fear of professional rejection that stops you from presenting your ideas to your boss, or whatever rejection you fear in a given moment, it can be paralyzing, humbling, and at times, humiliating.  But can the fear of rejection, seemingly hardwired in us, be overcome, as many other phobias can, through aversion therapy?

That question is the basis of entrepeneur and blogger Jia Jiang's Hope From Nope project.  Subtitled "100 Days of Rejection Therapy," Jiang's project is to go out each day for 100 days and ask a random person for something that he will most certainly be refused, record the interaction on video, and blog about the results.  In doing so, Jiang reverses the standard expectation of personal interaction: in this project, being accepted is actually failure while being rejected is the success sought.  The results are both hysterical and deeply insightful. Starting out nervously asking a security guard if he can borrow $100 on Day 1, Jiang has shown a marked increase in confidence and poise as he has steadily worked through his self-prescribed therapy. He has asked for a "burger refill" at Five Guys, he has challenged a local CEO to a staring contest, danced with a mall Santa and attempted to name his own price at Dollar Tree.  Entertaining and inspiring - check it out!

MajorScaled TV
Feeling a bit low lately? Overtaken by moodiness? Are the grey skies of winter causing your seasonal affective disorder to kick into overdrive? Well, spend some time over at Vimeo with MajorScaled TV, and you will have the musical frown turned upside-down!  Not sure how this digital magic is worked, but MajorScaled TV somehow takes recordings of great downbeat minor-scale tunes reworks them with their major-scale equivalent chords, recasting the dirge into a bright sunshiny piece of poppy ear candy guaranteed to set your toes a-tappin'.   It's like listening to a radio transmission from a parallel universe where there are no hassles, man, just good vibes.  Behold as The Doors' "Riders On The Storm" morphs into an easy-listening smilefest. Marvel as Metallica's "Nothing Else Matters" comes back sounding happily lobotomized.  And, well, just listen to R.E.M. sounding shinier and happier than ever:



Jimmy Slonina
OK, if MajorScaled TV didn't put a smile on your face, then a few minutes with Jimmy Slonina certainly will.  You remember as a kid standing in front of a mirror lip-synching to to your records your the radio?  Come on, fess up - we all did it.  Well Jimmy still does it, only these days in front of a video camera. The fact that he is blessed with a very expressive face and clearly has a brilliant sense of humor helps immensely, and if you can get through his takes on "Under Pressure," the theme from Hong Kong Phooey, or "Total Eclipse Of The Heart" without cracking a grin, there may be no hope for you. And if this run-through of Screamin' Jay Hawkins' "I Put A Spell On You" doesn't do the trick, well, just go in a corner and mope until you're ready to join the rest of us in hysterics over here!




The Pitch Drop Experiment

The science geek in me has always been intrigued by the concept of time and how surprisingly elastic it can be.  You may recall in one of my Now Hear This! posts back in August, I directed your attention to the work of an artist named Buttress O'Kneel who was working with songs slowed down and stretched out to almost incomprehensible length (check that post to listen to "Heaven," in which she stretched a recording of "Stairway to Heaven" out to 77 minutes and 7 seconds.) Experiencing things on such extreme time scales forces a re-evaluation of time itself, as you quickly learn that even in immense slowness, things can occur that are so quick you might miss them.

Underscoring that concept is an ongoing experiment at The University of Queensland in Australia. In 1927, Professor Thomas Parnel put a bit of pitch, a highly viscous tar-like substance that, at room temperature, appears to be solid yet is actually a liquid, into a funnel over a jar, and let it begin to drip. Over 85 years later, the pitch has dripped only eight times - yet when it does eventually drip, the drop falls so quickly that, to date, no one has actually seen it happen!  The ninth drop has been on the verge of dripping for about five years now, and these days there is a webcam trained on the funnel in the hopes to finally catch the event.  There are pitch geeks around the globe who keep the webcam page open day and night hoping to see it live. Me, I just check in every now and then. You might want to also. You just might see something no one has ever seen before!

Vegan Black Metal Chef
So you say you're a vegan who is into death metal, but you just don't have time to cook a decent meal? Pish posh! Since 2011, Brian Manowitz has been posting video tutorials on making quick, easy, and delicious vegan dishes that even the least versed in culinary arts can follow - just be sure to crank the volume! This is right out of the Things I Wish I'd Thought Of file, and is just sheer brilliance!  Must be seen to be believed and yet there he is, exactly as promised in the name. Mr. Manowitz, you see, is the Vegan Black Metal Chef. This is not your parents' cooking show, my friends.  The guy makes a mean pad thai, lemme tell you:




Zombo.com

Far and away my favorite site on the entire Internets.  If you have never been to Zombo.com, you must stop everything you are doing right now and go to Zombo.com!  There simply is no other site like Zombo.com. You can do anything at Zombo.com! Zombo.com is the site we never knew we needed until it was here. Zombo.com is the epitome of websites; the ultimate purpose for having an Internet in the first place. You will never feel so welcome, at ease, and at home as you will at Zombo.com. Don't waste time just reading about Zombo.com - go now to Zombo.com! You will be so happy you visited Zombo.com. I'm going there now - meet you at Zombo.com!

So, I'm an Old Facebook Fogie?

Over at Time Magazine's website, Lev Grossman wrote a great article on why Facebook seems to be custom-made for those of us who are - ahem - a little bit older. In Why Facebook Is for Old Fogies, Grossman spells out ten reasons why, when every other social networking website you could name is overrun by high schoolers (or those who never progressed beyond) spewing their L33T-speak, Facebook remains for the most part the realm of the forty-ish.

Gotta say, as one who is dead-smack in the demographic's wheelhouse, Grossman is on the money on 8 of 10 points as far as I can see. I don't have kids, so that point doesn't apply; although those of my friends who do are just as happy to show you their pictures as he describes. OK, Lev, I'll give you that one. 9 of 10. Not a bad average!

The only point I have to take exception with is his declaration that "We don't understand Twitter." On the contrary, Mr. Grossman! I happen to enjoy Twitter very much, and many of my Facebook friends are followers/followees on Twitter as well. They work together surprisingly well: Twitter is the cocktail party where you get to meet new people; Facebook is the neighborhood bar where you all wind up daily to discuss the day.

That point aside, I wanted to share Grossman's piece with my readers, as I know many of you have found this blog through Facebook. The list will make you smile; it's funny because it's true.