How’s this for a different kinda Santa? Her colorless outfit is 100% real, not manipulated electronically. It’s also brilliant!
Brody S. is at it again, confusing people at San Franciscos 2010 Santacon with her Desaturated Santa costume. At first glance, its easy to assume that these images were photoshopped. Amazingly, they were not.
To create the illusion, Brody wears a custom black-and-white Santa Claus costume, a grey wig, contacts, and Kryolan body paint.
Ahhh, the unedited ”Close to the Edit” by Art of Noise. Still one of the best/weirdest videos I’ve ever seen, awarded by MTV for Most Experimental Video and the Best Editing. The bits where they destroy classical instruments actually pissed off some in Britain, leading to a different video later on. But look how much fun it must have been!
Oh, this is wonderful: a new website reveals and tracks those who donate to the National Organization for Marriage (N.O.M.). These are the bastards who fight gay rights and same-sex marriage all over the country, funded mostly by religious organizations. You know, those groups who are supposed to be helping the poor, hungry, and abused of our society but instead choose to focus their attention and funding on restricting the rights of people they don’t like. Oh yeah, and they do it without paying any goddamn taxes.
“We want to out NOM for what it is—a secretive player in antigay politics, which is posing as an offshore company for antigay religious money,” says Michael Cole, a spokesperson for the Human Rights Campaign.
After months of poring through public documents including court and tax records, the Web site, viewed in advance by NEWSWEEK, details NOM supporters like the Mormon and Catholic churches, as well as Opus Dei. It also posts items about organizations and individuals that have publicly expressed antigay rhetoric and activity and their relationship to NOM. The site includes a graph to show the phenomenal growth NOM has enjoyed over the last three years, going from a budget of $500,000 to $10 million in three years.
via Newsweek
Naturally, NOM is playing the victim card (via their sniveling little spokescreep), claiming that revealing this donor info will put them at risk for violent retaliation by fired-up queens and lesbos with an axe to grind. Poor, poor donors, what EVER shall they do now that their rights-stomping ways are exposed? I don’t wish violence on them, but maybe a little fear and paranoia is just what they need. They have chosen to side with an oppressing force in a country which is supposedly free, so fuck ‘em if they’re spooked.
Holy shit, what a movie! It's been a long time since I've seen such an engaging and complex story, one that challenges you rather than spoonfeeding you the answers. At one point the movie has four simultaneous storylines, one nestled within another like an onion, all skillfully arranged and edited together to be easily followed if one pays attention to the details. The special effects were incredible but not overused, and the use of time-warped musical cues within the "story onion" is genius. It's also a very long movie, clocking in at around 2.5 hours, but it's well worth the time.
If you haven't seen it yet, do it now! Even if you're at work, just drop what you're doing and go grab a ticket. Your boss will understand. Then come back and read these for more insights:
Finally, some baby pictures that are actually fun to look at.
The finest selection of babies with laser eyes on the webernets.
I don’t have kids and I have no desire to ever go there, but I’m thoroughly enjoying the latest kids’ album by my favoritest band ever. It’s catchy, it’s smart, it’s cheap (currently just $10 for the CD/DVD combo on Amazon), it’s silly and weird enough for kids and adults, and…it’s TMBG! A much better review was posted on Boing Boing recently for those interested (see link above). Very highly recommended, though not for those whose ears bleed at the utterance of the word “evolution” or vague, playful jabs at non-sciency beliefs. 
I like those stories
About angels, unicorns and elves,
Now I like those stories
As much as anybody else,
But when I’m seeking knowledge,
Either simple or abstract,
The facts are with science,
The facts are with science,
Science is real!
This is the album They Might Be Giants was put on Earth to record: they are genuine science nerds, and it shows.
For Here Comes Science contains a broad, inclusive and thought-provoking tour through science in all its facets. Songs like “Science is Real” (which explains how scientific beliefs are different from beliefs in unicorns and other beliefs formed without rigorous testing) and “Put It To the Test” (possibly the best kids’ song ever written about falsifiablity in hypothesis formation) cover the basics, the big Philosophy of Science questions.
I haven’t seen many interviews with her but this makes me want to hunt ‘em down. If you don’t know who she is, this will give you a little taste. Shazam!!
Leslie & the Lys returned to Seattle, this time taking over Neumos which is somewhat divey but quite a step up from last year’s show at the shithole dump El Corazon.
Words simply can’t describe a Leslie Hall show…you just have to see one for yourself, and if you can’t do that, watch some videos. I’ve posted two from Tuesday’s show: Part 1 (9 minutes) is a montage of clips from her various songs plus some silly banter, and Part 2 (4 minutes) shows two gem-sweatered girls being anointed in one of Leslie’s hilarious onstage ceremonies. If you liberate a fabulous gem sweater from the fate of thrift-shop abandonment, bring it to one of her shows. Chances are it will not only be christened with a name she makes up on the spot, but you’ll walk out with a signed “certificate of authenticity” and a slight dizzy feeling from being hip-slammed in the head by Leslie while you were kneeling. If all that makes no sense at all, watch Part 2 and you’ll understand completely…the 2nd girl really gets it. It’s a riot!
I also took photos of the t-shirt and other knicknacks I bought afterwards, which you can see in the video gallery. It’s one of the best concert shirts I’ve ever seen…not bad for a $10 show! If she’s headed to your area, make an effort to go. Her show is fairly short, usually an hour or so, but it’s totally worth it just for the bizarre spectacle. I think she’s a genius.
Yesterday I noticed that Thomas Dolby’s live album The Sole Inhabitant is now available on Amazon as a MP3 download for only 7 bucks. These are free of copy protection, unlike what iTunes sells, so you can do with them what you wish. (I’ve stopped using iTunes for digital music shopping, unless it’s the only shop that carries what I’m looking for. I love what Amazon is doing with their MP3 store.)
So I quickly snapped the album up and have been loving it. These songs take me back not only to my teen-ish years when his albums helped shape my musical tastes, but it also reminds me how much fun it was seeing him perform in 2006 (which I gushed about), which is the tour these songs came from. The music ranges from high-concept to cheeky fun, and though he’s got enough equipment to create any sound he wishes, he made sure it retained its 80′s synthpop flavor while still sounding “retrofitted” for today. That synthpop sound that he helped pioneer is now popular again, so it’s only fitting. When listening to it I’m still so impressed that he performed it all himself, even though I watched him do it…he didn’t just press a button and let his Mac do all the work, either, he actually played it all (obviously some looping was done). It makes my inner nerd proud! So if you’re a Dolby fan, grab these tracks pronto. He’s also got a concert DVD, not sure if it’s the same performance but it’s from the same tour. It’s next on my list.
P.S.: Critter told me the other day that Jill Scott’s website had linked to my YouTube videos from the Seattle show. How cool! Ahhh, the magic of Teh Internets™.
Yeah, it’s stupid. But goddamn if it doesn’t make me laugh! The snotty voice, the vacant expression, the single-minded obsession…it’s non-budget music video genius and it gets more and more ridiculous as it goes along. He’s got both of us tacking the word “BETCCHHH” to the end of random sentences, it’s just plain wrong. I just hope he’s got something else funny up his sleeve, ’cause he’s opening for Margaret Cho on her new tour…
