Syndicated Sunday is expanding to include noteworthy articles and other Internet flotsam and jetsam that catches my eye. To reflect this broadening content I’m changing the series title to The R/CT Sunday Review.
***
ARTICLES
Will the FUC Kit (Free Universal Construction Kit) be the ?
“In March Levin and his former student Shawn Sims released a set of digital blueprints that a 3-D printer can use to create more than 45 plastic objects, each of which provides the missing interface between pieces from toy construction sets. They call it the Free Universal Construction Kit. The tens of thousands of consumers who now own devices such as MakerBot’s $1,100 Thing-O-Matic can download those files and immediately print a plastic piece that connects their Lego bricks to their Fischertechnik girders, their Krinkles to their Duplos, or half a dozen other formerly incompatible sets of modular plastic blocks, sticks and gears.”
Amarillo Slim is an .
***
BOOK REVIEWS
China Mieville, one of my favorite authors, is writing a comic for DC – . Mieville’s new novel, will be released in the US this Tuesday.
Nice use of the public domain. HiLoBooks is publishing a series of SF from the . (And, if you’ve never checked out , do it now.)
***
CARTOONS & HUMOR
Dan Piraro’s
by Bill Watterson
by Max Cannon
by Tom Tomorrow (May 07, 2012, “Circular debate”)
by Ruben Bolling
by Drew
by Randall Munroe
by Ryan North
Daryl Cagle’s
***
COLUMNS
by Rob Brezsny
by Chuck Shepherd
by Dan Savage (May 09, 2012, “Unscrew the Pooch”)
by Cecil Adams (May 11, 2012, “Did the creator of the Schmidt Sting Pain Index volunteer to get stung by everything on earth?”)
Wikipedia’s Featured Article for May 07, 2012: (See the entire entry .)
“…an American Western/science fiction television series created by Jeffrey Boam and Carlton Cuse. It ran for 27 episodes on the Fox network starting in the 1993–94 season. Set in the American West of 1893, the series follows its title character, a Harvard-educated lawyer-turned-bounty hunter hired by a group of wealthy industrialists to track and capture outlaw John Bly and his gang. Bruce Campbell plays Brisco, who is joined by a colorful group of supporting characters…. While ostensibly a Western, the series routinely includes elements of the science fiction and steampunk genres.”
***
POLITICS
A significant majority of young people leave their Christian church because they perceive .
“Most feel that the Church’s response to homosexuality is partly responsible for high rates of depression and suicide among their gay and lesbian friends, particularly those who are gay and Christian.”
Can we end the TSA yet? Their scannners , they’re , and they’re . This kind of makes Americans look like incompetent frivolous cowards.
***
MOVIE REVIEWS
AV Club:
Film Threat
***
MUSIC REVIEWS
AV Club: –
– You can get CMJ’s free monthly download at their (you probably have to “like” or “friend” them first).
Skyscraper Magazine
– Covering the Tampa Bay music scene.
***
ART/IST OF THE WEEK
– Spectacular porcelain work
***
BONUS TRACK
My favorite track off Leonard Cohen’s most recent album – from
If there’s anything you’d like to see appearing regularly on Syndicated Sunday, let me know by email or in the comments.
***
ARTICLES
“Independent security researcher Dan Kaminsky says he’s glad the security bubble has finally burst and that people are realizing that no network is immune from attack. That, he says, means the security industry and its customers can finally face the uncomfortable fact that what they’ve been doing for years isn’t working.
“‘There’s been a deep conservatism around, ‘Do what everyone else is doing, whether or not it works.’ It’s not about surviving, it’s about claiming you did due diligence,’ Kaminsky says. ‘That’s good if you’re trying to keep a job. It’s bad if you’re trying to solve a technical problem.’
In reality, Kaminsky says, ‘No one knows how to make a secure network right now. There’s no obvious answer that we’re just not doing because we’re lazy.’”
Stalin and his gulags didn’t imprison as many people as we do here in the US. .
“In the past two decades, the money that states spend on prisons has risen at six times the rate of spending on higher education.”
***
BOOK REVIEWS
–
Speaking of the failing educational system, in Dr. Ashwin Ram makes what I think is an important distinction between education and learning.
“With the advent of open education resources, social networking technologies and new pedagogies for online and blended learning, we are in the early stages of a significant disruption in current models of education. ‘Learning’ is beginning to peel away from ‘Education’ as a separate market, with its own set of opportunities and challenges for practitioners, technologists, and entrepreneurs. While ‘education’ is driven by schools, colleges, and governments, ‘learning’ focuses on empowering the individual to take charge of their learning.
“Interestingly, a similar phenomenon is occurring in healthcare, fueled by the confluence of similar trends and technologies: open health resources, social networking technologies and new methodologies for consumer engagement. ‘Health’ is starting to emerge as a separate and disruptive market, with its own opportunities and challenges. While ‘healthcare’ is driven by providers, payers, and governments, ‘health’ focuses on empowering the consumer to take charge of their health and wellness.”
– One of my favorite modern-day authors writes about one of my favorite all-time writers. .
***
CARTOONS & HUMOR
Dan Piraro’s
by Bill Watterson
by Max Cannon
by Tom Tomorrow (April 30, 2012, “Conservative Jones, citizen journalist!”)
by Ruben Bolling
by Drew
by Randall Munroe
Daryl Cagle’s
***
COLUMNS
by Rob Brezsny
by Chuck Shepherd
by Dan Savage (May 02, 2012, “Busted”)
by Cecil Adams (May 04, 2012, “What purpose do allergies serve?”)
Wikipedia’s Featured Article for April 27, 2012: (See the entire entry .)
***
MOVIE REVIEWS
AV Club:
Film Threat
***
MUSIC REVIEWS
AV Club: –
– You can get CMJ’s free monthly download at their (you probably have to “like” or “friend” them first).
Skyscraper Magazine
– Covering the Tampa Bay music scene.
***
ART/IST OF THE WEEK
likes to put up giant posters of people, often making funny faces.
Abrams just published a book about his “Women Are Heroes” exhibition. These works were originally exhibited on the the “walls, roofs, trains, [and] sidewalks” of “Sierra Leone, Liberia, Sudan, Kenya, Brazil, India and Cambodia.”
If there’s anything you’d like to see appearing regularly on Syndicated Sunday, let me know by email or in the comments.
***
BOOKS & READING
– Renowned physicist Steven Weinberg wrings his hands over in the US. I suspect the next investments in Big Science will come from techno-libertarian plutocrats interested in .
[VIDEO]
“Planetary Resources, the world’s newest and most audacious space company, is set to start prospecting near-Earth asteroids by the end of 2013.
“The asteroid-mining startup, backed by billionaires such as Google’s Larry Page, Eric Schmidt and famed director James Cameron, held its launch event Tuesday at the Museum of Flight in Seattle.”
Neil Gaiman in King’s beach house outside Sarasota.
***
CARTOONS & HUMOR
Dan Piraro’s
by Bill Watterson
by Max Cannon
by Tom Tomorrow (April 23, 2012, “Mitt Romney: man of the people”)
by Ruben Bolling
by Drew
by Randall Munroe
Daryl Cagle’s
***
COLUMNS
by Rob Brezsny
by Chuck Shepherd
by Dan Savage (April 25, 2012, “Hooking Up”)
by Cecil Adams (April 27, 2012, “Followup: How much energy is wasted hauling around U.S. body fat?”)
Wikipedia’s Featured Article for April 26, 2012: (See the entire entry .)
“Richard Hakluyt (c. 1552 – 1616) was an English writer. He is principally remembered for his efforts in promoting and supporting the settlement of North America by the English through his works, notably Divers Voyages Touching the Discoverie of America (1582) and The Principal Navigations, Voiages, Traffiques and Discoueries of the English Nation (1589–1600).”
***
MOVIE REVIEWS
AV Club:
Film Threat
– Ebert adds The Tree of Life to his list of .
***
MUSIC REVIEWS
AV Club: –
– You can get CMJ’s free monthly download at their (you probably have to “like” or “friend” them first).
Skyscraper Magazine
– Covering the Tampa Bay music scene.
***
ART/IST OF THE WEEK
This week’s artist of the week is local artist – Jeffrey DeBlasio. I have workshop envy.
I recently picked up one of his yard birds. You can find him at the monthly . I also recently noticed that one of his now lives at Ella’s.
***
BONUS TRACK
The Garbage Pail Kids (1987) rip off a non-union sweatshop (conveniently labeled) to assemble the tools they’ll need to help some random adolescent impress a shallow babe. An atrociously bad movie that I find oddly appealing.
If there’s anything you’d like to see appearing regularly on Syndicated Sunday, let me know by email or in the comments.
***
BOOKS & READING
There are multiple recently released books on the Occupy Movement. I haven’t had a chance yet to see which ones are good and which ones are shite, but if you need something to help explain to your friends or family what it’s all about you might check out some of these titles.
by Janet Byrne
by Carla Blumenkranz, Keith Gessen, Mark Greif and Sarah Leonard
by Sarah van Gelder and staff of YES! Magazine
by Lenny Flank
I’ve been fascinated by the nation of Mali and the Taureg people for years, so made for captivating reading.
“But for nearly a millennium, Timbuktu has defied the sand. Founded around 1100 by the Tuareg, a Berber people who moved on camels through the Sahara, it sits a few miles from the Niger River, just distant enough to keep the mosquitoes at bay. Because of its position on the river, it served as a conduit for trade not only for the desert oases around it, but also for the populations closer to the coast. Rice and cassava sped off into the desert to feed the traders, and soon other, more lucrative African commodities followed: gold, musk, ivory, even slaves.
“With that trade came a cosmopolitanism unfamiliar in the region, and a multiplicity of people that allowed for both cross-pollination of knowledge, and more desire for learning and culture. Black traders from along the coast, as well as Arabs and Tuaregs, found their city flush with money.”
The gets closer every day.
***
CARTOONS & HUMOR
Dan Piraro’s
by Bill Watterson
by Max Cannon
by Tom Tomorrow (April 16, 2012, “Sparkman and the Blinkster”)
by Ruben Bolling
by Drew
by Randall Munroe
Daryl Cagle’s
***
COLUMNS
by Rob Brezsny
by Chuck Shepherd
by Dan Savage (April 18, 2012, “Ass Ed”)
by Cecil Adams (April 20, 2012, “Is marijuana stronger than it used to be?”)
Wikipedia’s Featured Article for April 19, 2012: (See the entire entry .)
***
MOVIE REVIEWS
AV Club:
Film Threat
***
MUSIC REVIEWS
AV Club: –
– You can get CMJ’s free monthly download at their (you probably have to “like” or “friend” them first).
Skyscraper Magazine
– Covering the Tampa Bay music scene.
***
ART/IST OF THE WEEK
More from Sterling on the .
– (Caution: Flash-rich site starts making sounds when you visit. Check your volume at work.)
“They found that men with a couple beers under their belts were actually better at solving brain-teasers than their sober counterparts.
“To reach that surprising conclusion, the researchers devised a bar game in which 40 men were given three words and told to come up with a fourth that fits the pattern.
“For example, the word “cheese” could fit with words like “blue” or “cottage” or “Swiss.”
“Half the players were given two pints. The other half got nothing.
“The result? Those who imbibed solved 40% more of the problems that their sober counterparts.
“Also, the drinkers finished their problems in 12 seconds while it took the non-drinkers 15.5 seconds.”
If there’s anything you’d like to see appearing regularly on Syndicated Sunday, let me know by email or in the comments.
***
BOOKS & READING
– Are we really about to end the “War on Drugs”? Alma Guillermoprieto argues in that Latin American leaders will break with the US in the decades long “war”.
I recently picked up a copy of David Graeber’s . I’ve just started reading it, but can already recommend it.
“In the best tradition of anthropology, Graeber treats debt ceilings, subprime mortgages and credit default swaps as if they were the exotic practices of some self-destructive tribe. Written in a brash, engaging style, the book is also a philosophical inquiry into the nature of debt — where it came from and how it evolved. Graeber’s claim is that the past 400 years of Western history represent a grievous departure from how human societies have traditionally thought about our obligations to one another.” –
It turns out .
***
CARTOONS & HUMOR
Dan Piraro’s
by Bill Watterson
by Max Cannon
by Tom Tomorrow (April 09, 2012, “Goofball & Galahad”)
by Ruben Bolling
by Drew
by Randall Munroe
Daryl Cagle’s
***
COLUMNS
by Rob Brezsny
by Chuck Shepherd
by Dan Savage (April 11, 2012, “Premarital Counseling”)
by Cecil Adams (April 13, 2012, “Does Daylight Saving Time increase road kill?”)
Wikipedia’s Featured Article for April 12, 2012: (See the entire entry .)
***
MOVIE REVIEWS
AV Club:
Film Threat
***
MUSIC REVIEWS
AV Club: –
– You can get CMJ’s free monthly download at their (you probably have to “like” or “friend” them first).
Skyscraper Magazine
– Covering the Tampa Bay music scene.
tbt*’s 2012 . The previous link features the top ten. You can sort of read about the rest at the following, difficult-to-navigate, difficult-to-read, drm-rich link:
***
ART/IST OF THE WEEK
I’m kicking off this new Art/ist of the Week section, not with an artist, but with a critical rant from my favorite futurist, Bruce Sterling.
“”
“The New Aesthetic isn’t a chromed android glistening with scifi robot-vision aura. The New Aesthetic is a rather old, and hearteningly traditional, story about a regional, generational cluster of creative people who are perceiving important stuff that other, older, and dumber people don’t get quite yet. It’s a typical avant-garde art movement that has arisen within a modern network society. That’s what is going on.
“We’re all supposed to think that an avant garde is impossible within postmodernity, so we don’t talk about it much nowadays; the very term “avant-garde” sounds musty and weird now, very old-fashioned future. However, time passes, and such things happen anyhow, because generations change and technologies change. Changes in personnel and the means of production will trump the formulations of an aging philosophy. These avant-gardes pretty much must happen, and there isn’t any honest way to fob this problem off onto some romanticized vision-bots. The bots are just not going to carry that water-bucket. There’s an Uncanny Valley there.”
If this sort of stuff interests you, check out everything on his blog tagged ‘.’
If there’s anything you’d like to see appearing regularly on Syndicated Sunday, let me know by email or in the comments.
Self-referential editorial: The first step in getting back into the blogging swing is the return of Syndicated Sunday. I have been avoiding the Internet like crazy, but Sunday afternoons are a good time to take some time and glance over all the stuff I missed over the last week.
***
BOOKS & READING
I recently received my copy of Lawrence Lessig’s . For my money Lessig provides the clearest road map to extricating ourselves from our current broken political system. Electronic copies of this work are only a couple of bucks.
“Something is clearly rotten in our Republic. Americans are disillusioned with the political system and angry as hell. They feel like outsiders in their own nation, powerless over their own lives, blocked from having a real voice in how they are governed. But all of this can change. Lawrence Lessig, the renowned Harvard Law School professor and political activist presents a user-friendly, bipartisan manifesto for revolution just when we need it the most. His audaciously simple solution? Kill political corruption at its root: money.”
Speaking of the corrosive effects of money in politics, Mother Jones has started a series looking at all the secret donations funding our current crop of plutocratic lickspittles.
***
CARTOONS & HUMOR
Dan Piraro’s
by Bill Watterson
by Max Cannon
by Tom Tomorrow (April 02, 2012, “Health Care Glossary”)
by Ruben Bolling
by Drew
by Randall Munroe
Daryl Cagle’s
–
***
COLUMNS
by Rob Brezsny
by Chuck Shepherd
by Dan Savage (April 04, 2012, “Catnip”)
by Cecil Adams (April 06, 2012, “Can a hard-hit baseball crush your skull (revisited)?”)
Wikipedia’s Featured Article for April 06, 2012: (See the entire entry .) (Hmmm, history or George R. R. Martin?)
“Offa was the King of Mercia from 757 until his death in July 796. The son of Thingfrith and a descendant of Eowa, Offa came to the throne after a period of civil war. In the early years of Offa’s reign it is likely that he consolidated his control of midland peoples such as the Hwicce and the Magonsæte. Taking advantage of instability in the kingdom of Kent to establish himself as overlord, Offa was also in control of Sussex by 771, though his authority did not remain unchallenged in either territory. He extended Mercian supremacy over most of southern England and regained complete control of the southeast. Offa was a Christian king but came into conflict with the Church, and had long-running disputes with both the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Bishop of Worcester. Many historians regard Offa as the most powerful Anglo-Saxon king before Alfred the Great. His reign was once seen by historians as part of a process leading to a unified England, but this is no longer the majority view. Offa died in 796 and was succeeded by his son, Ecgfrith, who reigned for less than five months before Coenwulf of Mercia took the throne.”
***
MOVIE REVIEWS
AV Club:
Film Threat
***
MUSIC REVIEWS
AV Club: – started in my absence. Here are “Just What I Needed.”
– You can get CMJ’s free monthly download at their (you probably have to “like” or “friend” them first).
In the 1970s Peter Frampton wowed stoned hippies with his talking guitar. A decade earlier Pete Drake was wowing drunken hicks with his talking steel guitar.
“ played on such hits as Lynn Anderson’s “Rose Garden”, Charlie Rich’s “Behind Closed Doors”‘ Bob Dylan’s “Lay Lady Lay”‘ and Tammy Wynette’s “Stand by Your Man”. … Drake played on Bob Dylan’s three Nashville-recorded albums, including Nashville Skyline, and on Joan Baez’s David’s Album. He also worked with George Harrison on All Things Must Pass, and produced Ringo Starr on Beaucoups of Blues in 1970″
The video is a clip from Second Fiddle to a Steel Guitar (1965) featuring the iconic Arnold Stang
Blockbuster movie season has arrived! This my favorite time of the movie year. I have a weakness for simple-minded plots of good versus evil, heroic characters in primary colors, chase scenes and explosions.
Typically there’s a movie that’s a clear indicator of the beginning of the season. Marvel has owned the launch of the season for the last few years, and this year is no different with The Avengers hitting screens on May 4. However, there are also a few that try to sneak in before. This year Disney tried to get a jump-start on the competition with $250 million debacle that is John Carter. I think The Hunger Games, out March 23, is going to have a very good box office, and I’m counting that the first weekend of blockbuster season. From March 23 until early August I’ll be hitting the theater every weekend. I’ll also be avoiding every movie review so my enjoyment is not tainted by sour-faced critics who object to movies made solely for big braindead fun times.
Some of these I’ll be watching from my car at the Fun-Lan Drive-in, some I’ll watch with my SO on date night, but most I’ll watch at a Saturday afternoon matinee when the theater is almost empty. Not every weekend has an over-the-top sci-fi superhero debut, and so an occasional big-name comedy sneaks in for a week or two. Here’s my viewing schedule for this summer –
March 23 – Hunger Games (I actually read these books last week because I like to read the books before I see the movie. Meh. If you want a really good young adult sci-fi trilogy let me recommend Scott Westerfield’s Uglies series. Nonetheless, I think this movie will be just peachy.)
March 30 – Mirror, Mirror (Do I have to justify this? Good Lord, I hope not. I’m going to these movies for the fun of it, not to be edified or enlightened. I had absolutely no hesitation about seeing John Carter, for example, even though I knew full well it was going to be a Barsoom-sized pile of dreck. I’m not expecting much from Mirror, Mirror, but I want to compare it to the other Snow White movie coming out this summer.)
April 6 – Iron Sky (The big movie release this weekend is American Reunion. But, having never been a fan of the American Pie franchise, I’m hoping Iron Sky will find its way to the Tampa area. I suspect it will have a limited release, but I’m looking forward to this indie homage to B-movie kitsch where the earth is attacked by Nazis from the Moon.)
April 13 – Cabin in the Woods (Joss Whedon takes on the horror genre in a movie that’s getting a lot of positive early buzz. Some possible alternatives for this week is Guy Pearce in Lockout (i.e. Escape from Outer Space) and the Three Stooges (which I suspect will kill the careers of everyone involved.)
April 20 – Marley (Predictable, I know, but what else can you watch on 4/20 other than a documentary about one of the giants of ganja? I think he also might have been a performer of some sort.)
April 27 – Pirates! Band of Misfits (I love . With any luck this will be the best Python-esque film since Life of Brian.)
May 4 – The Avengers (The true beginning of blockbuster season.)
May 11 – Dark Shadows (Every fiber of my being tells me to skip this movie. Ever since Tim Burton eviscerated my beloved Planet of the Apes I’ve harbored a blinding, Hulk-like hatred for him and everything he touches. Unfortunately I’m also a huge Shadows fan (remind me to tell you some time about the winter I watched the first 211 episodes on DVD until the arrival of Barnabas Collins. Nowadays I watch streaming episodes available at Netflix. I suspect I’ll be in a deep, deep depression after watching this movie, but right now I’m still hoping that for the first time in two decades Tim Burton will make a good movie.)
May 18 – Don’t know yet (Battleship is the big movie of the weekend, but I might still be recuperating from my post-Dark Shadows suicide attempt. Or, I might use this as an opportunity to see one of the under-the-radar movies that getting rave reviews. , for example, might turn out to worth seeing. Or, I might do something stupid like go see The Dictator.)
May 25 – Men in Black III (I’m not expecting much, which is probably the best way to approach the latest entry in this franchise with what looks like two principle actors phoning it in, and a raft of single-entendre jokes. Hippie-bashing jokes were old 40 years ago, I don’t think they’ve gained anything with time. Nonetheless, it will probably be a nice way to while away a box of popcorn.)
June 1 – Snow White and the Huntsman (That’s right, there are TWO Snow White movies this year. The Julia Roberts vehicle is a comedy, while this one is a dark magic action-adventure with the awesome Charlize Theron as the wicked witch.)
June 8 – Prometheus (I have to see this one before the previews because I think it’s going to be a spectacular bomb.)
June 15 – A weak week. Adam Sandler continues in his successful effort to remain the unfunniest comedian in show business. This might be a good week to take a break from weekly movies and hit the beach. Or, more likely, a chance to catch or .
June 22 – Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter (The title alone makes it a must-see. However some of you might want to see Disney’s first movie with a female hero – Blaze, or the Steve Carrel-led comedy about the end of the world.)
June 29 – The blockbuster of the weekend is G. I. Joe, but I’ll probably see Magic Mike, Steven Soderburgh’s movie about Channing Tatum’s years as a male stripper in the Tampa Bay area.
July 3 – The Amazing Spiderman (This reboot is the tent-pole movie of the summer, opening during the coveted long 4th of July weekend. This version emphasizes Peter Parker’s science nerdishness. So, for example, he will be building his web-shooters (as Peter Parker did in the original comics) rather than have them be a part of his mutation (as happened in the Tobey Maguire-era Spidermans.)
July 13 – This weekend probably belongs to Ice Age 3, but I bet I’ll be hitting the beach. Some of you may want to see Seth Macfarlane’s Ted with Mila Kunis and Mark Wahlberg. I’ll probably wait for it to come out on DVD. Maybe I’ll spend this weekend watching the first two Christopher Nolan Batman movies in anticipation for…
July 20 – The Dark Knight Rises – (The final, and probably the darkest, of the Christian Bale/Christopher Nolan vision of Batman.)
July 27 – Another weak week. The big release is Neighborhood Watch with Ben Stiller, Vince Vaughn, and Jonah Hill in a science fiction comedy penned by Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg. Maybe a good weekend for the drive-in.
August 3 – Blockbuster season ends with the latest Bourne movie, Bourne Legacy, this time without Matt Damon. Jeremy Renner takes the lead role in a movie that is not based on a novel by Robert Ludlum. Renner will not be playing Bourne. In fact, I’m not even sure if the Jason Bourne character appears in this movie. It will probably be fun, but I have my fingers crossed for the re-make of Total Recall. I am (if you’ll excuse the expression) a total Dick-head. This is based on Philip K. Dick’s story “We Can Remember It For You Wholesale.” I think if this is done well and remains faithful to the source material it could be a great way to end blockbuster season.
Spring is in the air and I’m feeling bloggy stirrings in my brain. Things will still be slow around here for the next month or so, but I think I’m ready to start posting again.
Not sure what’s next for this blog. It may be that I’m simply going through a brief period of burn-out (which happens occasionally) or it may be that the time has come to close up shop. I’ll probably figure it out over the next couple of months. I’m in no hurry. I’ll just wait and see if the blogging inspiration returns.
In the meantime here’s Shel Silverstein singing a song he wrote and Johnny Cash made famous — “A Boy Named Sue.”
Jon Dengler talks about how his visit to Manila profoundly changed the way he sees the world, and prompted him to create , an intentional community in Tampa.
“We must rapidly begin the shift from a thing-oriented society to a person-oriented society. When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights, are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, extreme materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered.” –Martin Luther King, Jr.
The is the third Monday of every month from 6:30 PM until 8:30 PM at Tre Amici at the Bunker in Ybor City.
If there’s anything you’d like to see appearing regularly on Syndicated Sunday, let me know by email or in the comments.
***
BOOKS & READING
–
Unfortunately, many people who are sympathetic to the concept of evolution don’t know much about it. At Scientific American why missing links and great chains of being have no place in discussions of contemporary evolutionary theory.
“The dichotomy between what scientists know and what the public is presented with still hangs on now, even as research conducted within the past 30 years has shown horse evolution to be a tangled story which cannot be corralled into a straight-line narrative. Not only were there multiple radiations of horses over time, but there were even some reversals in which large lineages became dwarfed. There was no onward-and-upward march towards Equus.”
***
CARTOONS & HUMOR
Dan Piraro’s
by Bill Watterson
by Max Cannon
by Tom Tomorrow (January 16, 2012, “The Romdroids”)
by Ruben Bolling
by Drew
by Randall Munroe
Daryl Cagle’s
–
***
COLUMNS
by Rob Brezsny
by Chuck Shepherd
by Dan Savage (January 18, 2012, “Out Now”)
by Cecil Adams (January 20, 2012, “Are blue states smarter than red states?”)
Wikipedia’s Featured Article for January 18, 2012: (See the entire entry .)
“Nick Drake (1948–1974) was an English singer-songwriter and musician, best known for his sombre guitar-based songs. He failed to find a wide audience during his lifetime, but now ranks among the most influential English singer-songwriters of the last 50 years. Drake released his debut album, Five Leaves Left, in 1969. None of his first three albums sold more than 5,000 copies on their initial release. Drake suffered from depression and insomnia throughout his life, and these topics were often reflected in his lyrics. On completion of his third album, 1972′s Pink Moon, he withdrew from both live performance and recording, retreating to his parents’ home in rural Warwickshire. He died from an overdose of amitriptyline in 1974.”
***
MOVIE REVIEWS
AV Club:
Film Threat
***
MUSIC REVIEWS
The
– You can get CMJ’s free monthly download at their (you probably have to “like” or “friend” them first).
Over my recent break I had the chance to read Alfred Jarry: A Pataphysical Life by Alastair Brotchie.
is one of my intellectual and artistic favorites. There’s something about the concept of Pataphysics that resonates strongly with me, along with the anarchistic, vulgar, and absurdist nature of Jarry’s work. What is ? Glad you asked.
First, I can hear those of you who already know what it is muttering under your breath “moron-there’s-an-apostrophe-in-’pataphysics-’to-avoid-the-obvious-pun’.”
Here’s Brotchie on the apostrophe –
“The apostrophe to the word Pataphysics is not used (except in reference to the College de ‘Pataphysique). Jarry signaled its desirability, but never employed it himself.”
In chapter 3 “Our Science of Pataphysics” Brotchie provides Jarry’s definitions.
“An epiphenomenon is that which is superimposed upon a phenomenon. Pataphysics [...] is the science of that which is superimposed upon metaphysics, whether within or beyond the latter’s limitations, extending as far beyond metaphysics as the latter extends beyond physics. And an epiphenomenon being often accidental, Pataphysics will be, above all, the science of the particular, despite the common opinion that the only science is that of the general. Pataphysics will examine the laws governing exceptions, and will explain the universe supplementary to this one, or, less ambitiously, will describe a universe which can be–and perhaps should be–discovered in the traditional universe are also correlations of exceptions, albeit more frequent ones, but in any case accidental data which, reduced to the status of unexceptional exceptions, possess no longer even the virtue of originality.
“DEFINITION. Pataphysics is the science of imaginary solutions, which symbolically attributes the properties of objects, described by their virtuality, to their lineaments.”
I’m not quite exactly sure what any of that means, but I find it compelling nonetheless.
In Caesar/Antichrist a character defines Pataphysics thus –
“Axiom and principle of the identity of opposites, the pataphysician, clamped to your ears and your retractable wings, flying fish, is the dwarf atop the giant, beyond metaphysics.”
Brotchie see Pataphysics as an argument for a “supplementary universe in which imagination would have a reality equivalent to that of the actual.”
Jarry daydreamed his theory of Pataphysics while taking philosophy classes from Henri Bergson.
A teen-aged Jarry just before he had to cut his luxuriant locks for a mandatory stint in the army.
Jarry is probably better known for his play Ubu Roi than his whimsical creation of a new scientific discipline. For some theater historians the debut of Ubu Roi marks the beginning of the modern era in theater. The opening night of Ubu Roi is famous in French theater because of the chaos it caused among the audience. The crowds went wild, some factions stamping and booing, others whistling and cheering. The offensively scatological dialogue and the reprehensible Ubu offended many patrons who were used to seeing serious dramas like the latest from Henrik Ibsen. Those enthusiastically cheering the performance were the bohemians and anarchists delighted by the childish humor and tweaking of authority.
Brotchie helps deflate this story a little by finding references to similar outbreaks at other play openings and some reminsceses from Jarry acquaintances suggesting that Jarry asked his friends to disrupt the play. If people cheered they were to boo, if people booed they were to cheer. Jarry wanted the notoriety that would come with creating such chaos.
He got more than he bargained for and his association with Ubu Roi became his main claim to fame. Think of a pop musician with a single hit song.
For my money, though, it’s the poetical science of Pataphysics that sets him apart from his punk-theater peers.
Brotchie’s biography alternates biographical chapters with thematic chapters covering Jarry’s influence, influences, and the era in which he worked. He does an excellent job of dispelling many of the myths surrounding Jarry (and confirming others), and illuminating how productive and creative he was in his short life-time.
Jarry died at the age of 34 from tuberculosis.
Here is Jarry in his mid-20s at the peak of his career. Ubu Roi has made him the most notorious playwright in Paris and he has moved to the country to pursue bicycling, fishing, drinking, and writing.
A friend describes Jarry’s death –
“The last time that I went to see him, I asked him if there was anything he would like. His eyes lit up. There was indeed something that would bring him much pleasure. I told him I’d get it for him immediately. He spoke. What he would like was a toothpick. I dashed out straight away to buy some for him and came back with a whole packet. He took one between two fingers of his right hand. Joy visibly spread across his face. It seemed a if he suddenly felt filled with a delight as great as when he set off on one of his fishing, boating, or cycling expeditions, his three favorite activities. I had hardly taken a step or two away to speak to the nurse when she told me to look back: he was breathing his last.”
May 22, 1944 Life Magazine Picture of the Week, "Arizona war worker writes her Navy boyfriend a thank-you-note for the Jap skull he sent her"
I guarantee you — pissing on dead bodies is not the worst thing soldiers do to lose the hearts and minds of the “benefactors” of our latest colonial adventure. Americans have a long history of desecrating the enemy dead and keeping war trophies. , anyone?
From the Indian wars to the Civil War to the Philippines to WWII, Korea, Vietnam and our current GWoT there have been a minority of soldiers who commit war crimes. It is as predictable as the sun rising in the east and a warmonger being elected president of the United States.
The real news (should anyone care to report it) would be explaining what we’re doing in Afghanistan. Are the people of Afghanistan really an existential threat to the US? And if they don’t really threaten out existence, then what exactly are we doing there?
Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Barack Obama approved the drone strike that burned this girl and killed her family. This is just the kind of stuff that happens when you’re part of a belligerent, aggressive, war-loving nation. Too bad there’s not an anti-war candidate we can vote for (who might actually win).
If there’s anything you’d like to see appearing regularly on Syndicated Sunday, let me know by email or in the comments.
***
BOOKS & READING
.
Captain Beefheart’s .
The Believer .
***
CARTOONS & HUMOR
Dan Piraro’s
by Bill Watterson
by Max Cannon
by Tom Tomorrow (January 09, 2012, “Greetings, Earth-penguin!”)
by Ruben Bolling
by Drew
by Randall Munroe
Daryl Cagle’s
– Know your .
“Supercut videos (a.k.a pop culture megamixes) are video montages made of overused movie or TV platitudes. Very often, they are meant to highlight how certain hackneyed lines have lost all meaning due to their continuous employment by lazy screenwriters.”
***
COLUMNS
by Rob Brezsny
by Chuck Shepherd
by Dan Savage (January 11, 2012, “Santorum Surges”)
by Cecil Adams (January 13, 2012, “What’s the best animal to slice open and crawl inside to stay warm?”)
Wikipedia’s Featured Article for January 09, 2012: (See the entire entry .)
“The Green Child is the only completed novel by the English anarchist poet and critic Herbert Read. Written in 1934 and first published by Heinemann in 1935, the story is based on the 12th-century legend of two green children who mysteriously appeared in the English village of Woolpit, speaking an apparently unknown language.”
***
MOVIE REVIEWS
AV Club: – Interview with .
Film Threat
Jason Fetters at Crazed Fanboy gives us a retro review of Jackie Chan’s 1995 .
***
MUSIC REVIEWS
The – AV Club’s Gateway to Geekery this week is about SST Records. SST introduced me to a world beyond classic rock on commercial radio.
– You can get CMJ’s free monthly download at their (you probably have to “like” or “friend” them first).
Attention conservation alert: Boring chatter about changing stuff on the blog.
It’s time for this blog to do something else columns/series-wise. Effective immediately, Politics Monday and Across the Tampa Blogosphere are on hiatus. I’ll continue the Community Informatics series, but it will go up when I have a posts ready instead of trying to force them out once a week.
My new schedule has me working 8-5. Writing time on the longer project is between 7 and 9. Saturdays are dedicated to another project that I only work on on Saturdays. That means there’s not much time for substantive blog posts. So, I dunno, maybe some art or monsters or art about monsters or something.
Or maybe some floating whales…
or our diabolical ant overlords…
Not sure yet, but I’m almost positive it will be substance free.
If there’s anything you’d like to see appearing regularly on Syndicated Sunday, let me know by email or in the comments.
***
BOOKS & READING
.
The Atlantic has an interesting essay on the ethics of military robots. We already use them to kill enemy combatants (as well as children and civilians), should we also use them to torture those captured on the “battlefield” (which now covers every inch of the globe, including the USA)? by Patrick Lin.
“This point about deception and bad faith is related to a criticism we’re already hearing about military robots, which I mentioned earlier: that the US is afraid to send people to fight its battles; we’re afraid to meet the enemy face to face, and that makes us cowards and dishonorable. Terrorists would use that resentment to recruit more supporters and terrorists.”
Every time I think about robots on the battlefield I think about Robert Sheckley’s story “The Battle” published in 1954. In “The Battle” all warfare is done by robots and humans sit safely far away from the battlefield. Humanity has reached the point of Armageddon and as the robots fight the hordes of Satan the heavens open up and the angels descend and take all the robots to heaven, leaving humanity behind.
Check out Kirkus’ .
***
CARTOONS & HUMOR
Dan Piraro’s
by Bill Watterson
by Max Cannon
by Tom Tomorrow (January 02, 2012, “Sensible thinkers”)
by Ruben Bolling
by Drew
by Randall Munroe
Daryl Cagle’s
***
COLUMNS
by Rob Brezsny
by Chuck Shepherd
by Dan Savage (January 04, 2012, “Meet the Monogamish”)
by Cecil Adams (January 06, 2012, “Why can’t we use lasers as ray guns?”)
Wikipedia’s Featured Article for January 01, 2012: (See the entire entry .)
“The song was composed during a transitory time in musical history when songs first began to be recorded for the phonograph. It was among the earliest pieces of popular music to be recorded. Dresser’s inability to control the distribution of phonograph cylinders led him and his company to join other composers to petition the United States Congress to expand federal copyright protections over the new technology.”
***
MOVIE REVIEWS
AV Club: — This week’s feature covers .
Film Threat
Michael A. Smith at Crazed Fanboy reviews .
***
MUSIC REVIEWS
The
– You can get CMJ’s free monthly download at their (you probably have to “like” or “friend” them first).
Skyscraper Magazine
– Covering the Tampa Bay music scene.
Thanks to BB for pointing me to this of end-of-the-year music best-of lists.
via
“It’s December so it must be time to list the best songs of the year. and , , , and , , , Rolling Stone’s and , , , , , , and .”
I’ve added a new page titled R/CT Recommends. In the right-hand column you’ll find a list of 20 logos and images for things around Tampa I think are worth recommending. To keep the front page from loading too many images I took the complete set of 120 items and divided them into six groups of 20. The six groups alternate randomly, so you should see quite a variety as you visit. If you want to see the entire collection you can find them here. The list is in no particular order.
This is a work in progress. As soon as I collect 20 more things to like I’ll add them to the group.
Note that these are not paid endorsements. As of now, R/CT no longer accepts advertising, or runs Google ads. Everything on here is stuff I like or think is worth recommending.
Last week’s Politics Monday post announced a short series looking at the information ecology of Tampa. To accomplish this I’m going to use as a guide.
The first step in this project is reading through “” published in 2009, and the subsequent that followed.
While I’m reading through that I’ll be compiling a Community Info Checklist. I thought this page () would provide a checklist (and that I’d run the results of the survey today), but it doesn’t. Or, if it does, I didn’t find it. Which means I’ll need to put together my own checklist and answer the questions.
Since this will be a time-consuming project, I’m going to alternate the Information Needs series with a political pranks series. For example, Abbie Hoffman throwing dollar bills onto the floor of Wall Street is a political prank. I expect both these series to run to eight posts, and then I’ll put them all together into a compilation post at the end of the series (the same convention I used for last summer’s Cemetery Summer series).
There’ll be no Politics Monday post next week since I’ll be out lollygagging by the pool.
On a side note, I recently became a full-time employee. My years as an impoverished student, and an underpaid part-timer, seem to have finally come to an end. What that means for this blog is that it will be updated less frequently. My hope is that as the quantity of posts is reduced the quality will be increased. In addition to the two series’ announced above I’m also working on a bit of Ybor City history that I’ll run as a series as soon as it’s complete.
I’ll also be reading the works of as I prepare for this project. Here he is giving an introduction to Community Informatics.
“The application of information and communications technology (ICT) to enable and empower community processes, the goal of Community Informatics is to use information communication technologies (ICT) to enable the achievement of community objectives including overcoming “digital divides” both within and between communities. However, community informatics goes beyond discussions of the “Digital Divide” to examine how and under what conditions ICT access can be made usable and useful to the range of excluded populations and communities and particularly to support local economic development, social justice, and political empowerment using the Internet. Community informatics as a discipline is located within a variety of academic faculties including Information Science, Information Systems, Computer Science, Planning, Development Studies, and Library Science among others and draws on insights on community development from a range of social sciences disciplines. At the forefront of this new field of research is Michael Gurstein, Director of the Center for Community Informatics Research, Training and Development in Vancouver, Canada, which works with communities, ICT practitioners, researchers, governments and agencies as a resource for enabling and empowering communities with Information and Communications Technologies.”
If there’s anything you’d like to see appearing regularly on Syndicated Sunday, let me know by email or in the comments.
***
BOOKS & READING
.
from DC bookstore Politics and Prose via Salon.
The Browser is running a terrific series of the .
Longform has their selection of the from 2011.
Here’s Brain Pickings . She also has best of series’ for children’s books, art and design books, photography books, science books, history books, and food books.
The Toronto Review of Books offers a .
And the best history of Chistmas is Stephen Nissenbaum’s .
“Anyone who laments the excesses of Christmas might consider the Puritans of colonial Massachusetts: they simply outlawed the holiday. The Puritans had their reasons, since Christmas was once an occasion for drunkenness and riot, when poor “wassailers extorted food and drink from the well-to-do. In this intriguing and innovative work of social history, Stephen Nissenbaum rediscovers Christmas’s carnival origins and shows how it was transformed, during the nineteenth century, into a festival of domesticity and consumerism.”
***
CARTOONS & HUMOR
Dan Piraro’s
by Bill Watterson
by Max Cannon
by Tom Tomorrow (December 19, 2011, “Year in review, part one”)
by Ruben Bolling
by Drew
by Randall Munroe
Daryl Cagle’s
***
COLUMNS
by Rob Brezsny
by Chuck Shepherd
by Dan Savage (December 21, 2011, “Good Friends”)
by Cecil Adams (December 23, 2011, “Should I worry about bugs in my Christmas tree?”)
Wikipedia’s Featured Article for December 24, 2011: (See the entire entry .)
“Harold Pinter (1930–2008) was a Nobel Prize-winning English playwright and screenwriter, with a career that spanned more than 50 years. His plays include The Birthday Party, The Homecoming and Betrayal, and his screenplays include The Servant, The French Lieutenant’s Woman and Sleuth. Pinter appeared as an actor in productions of his own work on radio and film. He also undertook roles in works by other writers. He directed nearly 50 productions for stage, theatre and screen. He was born and raised in Hackney, east London, trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art and the Central School of Speech and Drama, and worked in repertory theatre before achieving success as a writer. In his later years, he was known for his political activism and his opposition to the war in Afghanistan and the invasion of Iraq. Pinter’s last stage performance was as Krapp in Beckett’s play Krapp’s Last Tape, for the Royal Court Theatre, in 2006.”
***
MOVIE REVIEWS
AV Club:
Film Threat
Michael A. Smith at Crazed Fanboy reviews .
***
MUSIC REVIEWS
The
Undercover 2011 returns with a special Christmas music edition: .
– You can get CMJ’s free monthly download at their (you probably have to “like” or “friend” them first).
Skyscraper Magazine
– Covering the Tampa Bay music scene.
Thanks to BB for pointing me to this of end-of-the-year music best-of lists.
via
“It’s December so it must be time to list the best songs of the year. and , , , and , , , Rolling Stone’s and , , , , , , and .”
***
“ did the Christmas covers on Galaxy Science Fiction magazines from 1951 through 1961. Along with aliens and robots, a recurrent theme was the jolly old four-armed Santa.” ()
“Krampus is Santa Claus’ whip-toting Christmas sidekick. According to legend, Krampus joins Santa where he tends to the children on Santa’s naughty list. No coal here though. Instead, Krampus whips and licks children into shape or carries them off in his sack.”
I don’t know why I haven’t mentioned this site before. I read it regularly. is an independent journalism site dedicated to covering the Occupy movement in Florida. Quite a bit of their work covers Tampa.
by Cari Welsh
“Rather than continuing the search for [shooting suspect Darnell] Ammons, who should be considered armed and dangerous, Tampa police focused on arresting peaceful, unarmed protesters. It leaves one to wonder, where are the priorities?”
***
has the recipe for .
***
Tampa Bay History remembers when . That’s right, first there was a Tampa, then there was no Tampa, then there was.
“Lesley ran for mayor on the platform that if was elected he would abolish Tampa’s city government. He won in a landslide and, true to his word, he saw that the city’s charter lapsed, therefore ensuring that it would not fall into the hands of Carpetbaggers (Northerners) and Scalawags (Southerners aiding the Carpetbaggers). Tampa would not become a city again until July 1887.”
***
and is looking for stakeholders to put up some money. In return this membership will allow special goodies like a swag bag and custom passes.
“They’ve thrown several awareness events and have created a special membership program that’s been dubbed the Ring Of Fire. And it’s not called that for no good reason.
“According to an information pamphlet, members of the Ring of Fire are ‘energetic Tampa residents passionate about continuing the cultural development of the Tampa Bay area’ who will be stakeholders in the festival that connect with other ‘music enthusiasts, area professionals, and community leaders looking to build the festival into the signature music event in the region.’
“Membership is $1,000 and gets you a slew of perks which include two VIP tickets to the inaugural festival as well as two “lifetime” general admission tickets. Members will also a swag bad that includes gear and custom passes as well as recognition in print and web materials.”
The Trib’s TBO re-runs a classic Tampa Christmas story.
This story by Josh Poltilove was originally published Dec. 25, 2003 in the Tampa Tribune.
“But believe it or not, this was the lesser of the show’s Santa woes.
“Clark’s Credit Clothiers was allowing the show to use a dressing room for the Santas to change into costume. That worked well until one Santa stayed hidden in a dressing room until the store closed.
“When the coast was clear, Santa broke through the wall to the building next door, Hayman’s Jewelry Store. Santa practically cleaned out the place.”
My friend posted a link to about a Children’s General Assembly.
“Dozens of parents and children gathered in Union Square, New York, on a Saturday morning for the ‘Children’s Anti-Bullying/Police Brutality March.’ A General Assembly (GA) was held, Occupy-style, for children. Following the GA, the demonstrators planned a march to Foley Square, in downtown Manhattan.”
Let’s create a central location where children can gather from across the city to discuss issues important to them.
Tampa can sponsor an annual (at first) Children’s Parliament allowing children to debate, lecture, learn, and help plan the future of the city. This gives children a chance to speak and the adults an opportunity to listen. In the Children’s Parliament only the children decide which ideas are good and which are not. The adults listen and work to understand instead of lecture and pontificate.
It is important to know how children see the world. When we ignore children, we are contributing to our ignorance instead of increasing our knowledge.
Tampa wouldn’t be the first city to institute a Children’s Parliament, and with any luck it wouldn’t be the last.
Scotland has a Children’s Parliament providing civic education to kids under the age of 14. What would our primary school citizens recommend we do about the problems facing us all?
How do you discover and share information about your community?
Regardless of how you define your community information plays an important role. If you have a little league baseball team you need to know who plays whom and when. You need to know the rules of the game and how to find them should a disagreement arise. You need practical information on where to buy uniforms and equipment. You need to know how to get medical attention in case someone gets hurt.
If you’re an informal organization you probably don’t need a formalized history, someone’s memory will serve. More formal organizations keep records and try to translate human memory to paper and electronic files. These tangible memories must be stored, and stored in a way they can be accurately retrieved.
Communities come in all shapes and sizes, and have a wide variety of needs and wants. The study of how they use information is known as informatics.
I am particularly un-fond of the word informatics. It’s clunky and hard to parse. Nonetheless, there’s not really another word that stands for the study of information systems and how they are built and used. An information system is a method of storing and retrieving information.
For the next few weeks I’ll be thinking about what kind of information is most useful for cities, specifically Tampa.
Some of the information we need is readily available from the website. The City website can tell us when trash pick-up day is, where parks are located, who our City Council representative is, etc. Our ability to collect and disseminate this sort of mundane information is greatly enhanced by computers and the Internet.
Over the next few weeks I’ll write about this mundane access to information, but I’ll also spend some time thinking about the more intractable problems of informatics. For example, people are largely indifferent to the quality of information they receive. Study after study has shown that people are just as willing to accept medical or financial advice from friends and relatives as they are willing to accept such advice from doctors or accountants. Is there a way to draw sharper distinctions between the value of high-quality information and low-quality information?
The defines CI this way: “Community Informatics (CI) is the study and the practice of enabling communities with Information and Communications Technologies (ICTs).” Over the next few weeks I’ll be considering the information ecology of Tampa and thinking of some imaginary solutions to make it better.
Here are 20 businesses, bloggers, non-profits, and events in and around Tampa I think are worth recommending. You can find the complete list of 100+ Re/Creating Tampa Recommends at this link.
by Janet Byrne
by Carla Blumenkranz, Keith Gessen, Mark Greif and Sarah Leonard
by Sarah van Gelder and staff of YES! Magazine
by Lenny Flank
