Reading Offline: Elephants on Acid: And Other Bizarre Experiments
by Alex Boese
Really odd book about various "scientific" experiments, some gruesome, many just insane. Have't yet gotten to the elephants on acid part, but am definitely freaked out by the "let's decapitate an animal and try to keep just the head alive" chapter. Ugh.
Savage Beauty: The Life of Edna St. Vincent Millay
by Nancy Milford
I never read much of Millay before, but Milford wrote a really interesting biography of Zelda Fitzgerald, so I was interested to see her next book. Still in the first chapter, but the prolog was amusing in itself. I always appreciate reading the background of how the author started on the book.
Kitchen Confidential Updated Ed: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly
by Anthony Bourdain
I gave this to Jon as a gift a while back and only just recently remembered I never did borrow and read it myself. Am very amused so far. Sadly it's not the updated edition I've linked to - preface in our copy's dated Nov. 2000. Wonder what's been added/changed/corrected.
The New Kings of Nonfiction
by Ira Glass
Collection of nonfiction articles previously published in various magazines. Bought a while back in an airport and there are still a few articles I haven't finished reading. I really liked the Bill Buford article that became Among the Thugs.
...About?...
Batgrl is a pop culture junky who loves to mess about with cameras and video games. And is constantly amused by Jon, who she did honest and truly did meet online. Though she's been blogging since the '90s, evil sp@m'rs managed to break the old blog, and thus there's only more recent stuff here. (No great loss, actually!)
I love this video, and because I keep watching it I now have the song in my head. (And will probably end up cheerfully buying it at some point.) Thanks to being on Adam Savage's twitter feed - that's what made me watch this the first time.
Info on the video:
Directed by James Frost, OK Go and Syyn Labs. Produced by Shirley Moyers. The official video for the recorded version of "This Too Shall Pass" off of the album "Of the Blue Colour of the Sky". The video was filmed in a two story warehouse, in the Echo Park neighborhood of Los Angeles, CA. The "machine" was designed and built by the band, along with members of Synn Labs over the course of several months.
Highlights for me:
-spoons hitting drinking glasses
-sledgehammer smashing tv screen
-guy in blue (sorry, I don't know bandmembers' names) sails backwards into wall of cardboard boxes
-rain of black umbrellas
Which will only make sense once you've watched it.
Betcha can't just watch once!
That was so incredible. I can't imagine the amount of work that went into pulling that off. I have so many questions: how did they rehearse? how many TV's did they go through? how much stuff was destroyed until they got it right? etc.
And it appears to be done in one shot. Although, I was so entranced, I may have missed an edit here and there...or maybe all the edits for that matter. But still, it was seamless. Amazing.
The BuzzOutLoud podcast interviewed the guy that did it. 60 takes, with three going the whole circuit in one take. But the video was edited, so as seen it's actually two takes. I got the impression that was to make the music sync better. But yes, other than that it's unedited.
The hardest part was the balls in the wood tracks, since their speed depended on the temperature and humidity.
All the TVs they went through are in the background. Along with several extras yet to be destroyed.
Dangit, I missed that Buzz Out Loud - do you remember the date?
And wow, I was sure there were more than one edit, just to fit it all in there - that's amazing.
I also watched it and thought - wow, that's a lot of heavy equipment, which means a lot of places crew could get hurt. A sledgehammer that falls by mistake for instance. Definitely a major undertaking.
