Happy 2011

And here´s wishing you the bluest sky...



Um bom ano procê.

Feyleez Nahtaul to all

Merry Christmas.

39 Degrees North: Christmas Card 2010 from 39 Degrees North on Vimeo.

Just Lovely

Via this awesome site.

Thought of You from Ryan J Woodward on Vimeo.

Mr. Gottschalk, New Orleans and Dom Pedro ll

Louis Moreau Gottschalk led the most interesting of lives. He was born in New Orleans to an English Jewish father and a Dominican Creole mother. Educated in classical music, yet with an ear for the African rythyms which permeated New Orleans, Gottschalk composed pieces which were perhaps beyond the reach of those solely trained classically . His "Bamboula" was a hit and derived much from his observations of the music of slaves and timing behind their dances. He was sent to France to further his studies but was at first shunned by the Paris Conservatoire for being, well, too American. After winning the French over he returned to America.
Gottschalk´s curiosity took him to Central America and finally to South America where he established residency and ended up composing the "Marcha Solene Brasileira" which is the hymn of the Brazilian Army. He was also summoned by Dom Pedro ll to create a piece honoring the Brazilian National Anthem. The result was brilliant.
Unfortunetaly Gottschalk died on stage, in Rio de Janeiro, at the age of 40.

Below the "Bamboula".



Here is his "play" on the "Hino Nacional Brasileiro" ( the Brazilian National Anthem).



Let´s wrap it up with his "Escenas Campestres Cubanas"

Brazilian President Elect's Hidden Past Revealed

In her youth she consorted with bank robbers. The rumors of carpet munching began then and persist while fashion sense remains elusive. However, all this pales in comparison to Dilma Rouseff's recently disclosed past in competitive sports.




Ahead of us four years of this. Oh the dismay.

The Great Stephen Merritt

Playing a nifty little song game on NPR.

Conan O"Brien vs Google

"You seem stunned and unhappy"

Charlie the Chimp Dead at 52

Charlie the smoking chimp passed away in Bloemfontein, South Africa last Wednesday. Charlie is survived by long time female companion Judy the chimp.


Expert analysis from the pundits below.

The Purple One.

Just being hispurpleawesomeself.

Paint a perfect picture
Bring 2 life a vision in one's mind
The beautiful ones
Always smash the picture
Always everytime

Remembering Siskel and Ebert

Great interview of the late Gene Siskel and Robert Ebert here.

Listen to it before you watch their review below of Francis Ford Copolla's "Peggy Sue Got Married".



Peggy Sue is a story about the past yet it is bittersweet, it does not dwell for it is above all analitical. It is a beautiful movie.
A similar feeling dawned on me as I listened to S&E being interviewed, poking fun at each other and engaging their audience once again as they speak of movies in the intelligent, concise and never condescending fashion that became their trademark.

The Great Greg Gutfeld

At UC Berkley, go figure.

Dana Vachon

Taking some heat on Red Eye



and talking about his book.

One little, two little...

Having found a textual analysis thing-a-ma-jig
via Crooked Timber I decided to experiment with the tool. This is done by inserting text into a box to then get a matching author for that specific text thus suggesting that the first author´s writting is similar to the latter´s.

I started with "Ten Little Indians", a well known children´s rhyme.


One little, two little, three little Indians
Four little, five little, six little Indians
Seven little, eight little, nine little Indians
Ten little Indian boys.
Ten little, nine little, eight little Indians
Seven little, six little, five little Indians
Four little, three little, two little Indians
One little Indian boy.

The match is Daniel Dafoe . I wonder if this is really due to style or if it´s minority related, you know because of Friday. Anyway I proceeded to put Twisted Sister´s "We´re not Gonna Take it" under the microscope.

"Oh We're Not Gonna Take It
no, We Ain't Gonna Take It
oh We're Not Gonna Take It Anymore

we've Got The Right To Choose And
there Ain't No Way We'll Lose It
this Is Our Life, This Is Our Song
we'll Fight The Powers That Be Just
don't Pick Our Destiny 'cause
you Don't Know Us, You Don't Belong"

and the winner is...Kurt Vonnegut.

Twisted Sister = Kurt Vonnegut.

Humn, what if we insert an excerpt of Vonnegut´s 1973 novel Breakfast of Champions

"This is a very bad book you're writing," I said to myself.
"I know," I said.
"You're afraid you'll kill yourself the way your mother did," I said.
"I know," I said.

Text inserted resulting in J.D Salinger.

Kurt Vonnegut=J.D Salinger

Yet the program asks for at least a few paragraphs for the sake of accuracy and in fairness I tested Dafoe´s Robinson Crusoe using two and it checked out. Below three paragraphs, again from Breakfast of Champions.


"Dwayne was a widower. He lived alone at night in a dream house in Fairchild Heights, which was the most desirable residential area in the city. Every house there cost at least one hundred thousand dollars to build. Every house was on at least four acres of land.

Dwayne's only companion at night was a Labrador retriever named Sparky. Sparky could not wag his tail--because of an automobile accident many years ago, so he had no way of telling other dogs how friendly he was. He had to fight all the time. His ears were in tatters. He was lumpy with scars.

Dwayne had a black servant named Lottie Davis. She cleaned his house every day. Then she cooked his supper for him and served it. Then she went home. She was descended from slaves"

The software answered David Foster Wallace, wow.

This time around Kurt Vonnegut=David Foster Wallace.

Now for my final test. This entails selecting one of the previously tested authors and considering the resulting match, then getting the first name you associate with that author and inserting his work for analysis to see if the match is the same. I chose Twisted Sister (who was matched with Kurt Vonnegut) and the first thing that popped up in my mind was Quiet Riot and their song "Cum on Feel the Noize". So by association the match of the song´s lyrics should point to Mr. Vonnegut.

Let´s see what happens.

"So you think I got an evil mind,
I'll tell you honey
I don't know why
I don't know why

So you think my singing's out of time,
it makes me money
I don't know why
I don't know why, anymore
Oh no

So come on, feel the noise
Girls rock your boys
We'll get wild, wild, wild
Wild, wild, wild"

Wierd. The match is Mark Twain.

Quiet Riot, which should equal Kurt Vonnegut, = Mark Twain.

This method would suggest that, to me, Twisted Sister is to Quiet Riot as Kurt Vonnegut is to Mark Twain. I have concluded that the method is flawed and that I´d rather listen to a song than continue doing this.

End of experiment.

Sans Instruments

Thank You For Your Efforts

Yet it was not meant to be. Life goes on.



Thank you Dunga. You will not continue to coach the national team due to our shortsightedness.

Você é um campeão.

The World Cup Ace Ventura Play of The Day

Brought to you by Gabriel Heinze.

The Rise and Fall of the Nazi Dinosaurs

Lol.

and so she slept...

in the back of the net.




Oh yeah

Yuichi Nishimura wins The Señor Chang Award

The Señor Chang Award goes out to those whose achievements, for one reason or another, go against common expectation. The panel will focus on outstanding World Cup related performances.
The tournament´s first round edition of the SC Award goes to Senõr Yuichi Nishimura.



Yiuchi Nishimura is a ref, in fact the best referee so far in The Fifa World Cup presently held in South Africa.
Being Asian, Japanese to be exact, a nation with feeble tradition in both soccer and officiating World Cup matches, his impecable guidance of two matches earned Yuichi this premio of premios. Nishimura produced the first red card of the tournament sending off Uruguay midfielder Nicolás Lodeiro plus he kept both Spaniards and Hondurans on their best behavior. One could argue that discretion and efficiency set him apart and if merit is the rule of thumb then his arbitration will continue on to the knock out rounds. This seems to be a pretty simple call yet Fifa often gets it wrong. Perhaps with a SC award under his belt Mr. Nishimura avoids getting sidelined. De nada pun loving justice freaks.

On the flip side is French referee Stephane Lannoy, a Champions League veteran , he takes home a YANTCA ("You are not a Tigre Chino Award") for his disasterous performance in this game.
The YANTCA aims to recognize those who due to positive prejudice are expected to do well ( think Swedes in any meatball related event) but in the end fail miserably.

Congratulations gentlemen. Senõr Chang pays hommage to youstedes below.

About Jane, Dick, and, well...

Oh the torture that is Facebook.

On A Nice Day

I don´t care what they say.

R.I.P Arnold

Gary Coleman dead at 42.

The opening of season 5 here.

Triumph The Insult Comic Dog

The one where he insults Star Wars nerds.





As Conan O'Brien said this is the best 15 minutes of television in the past 8 years.

Lovely Jenny Lewis

here with the Watson Twins




and before that in Rilo Kiley

And so the Conversation Turned...

Until the sun went down
And many fantasies were learned
On that day














A couple of years ago I saw a band called "Bondage", pictured above. It was a fun show. A mixture of Human League and Soft Cells go Vaudeville. Music meets theatre.

I tried to find them on-line, so to see if they are still playing. I could not find much but hopefully I will and they still exist as a band.
A video below.

Your sorry eyes; they cut through the bone...

"There's too many people you used to know
They see you coming
They see you go
They know your secrets
And you know theirs
This town is crazy
Nobody cares"

Les Zazous

Because I like them.

Alex Chilton and his September Girls

Alex Chilton dead at age 59.

R.I.P

Red Eye Tackling Issues Others Dare not Touch

Change we can´t believe in

Artie is a philosopher.

Time May Change Me

But I will always love this, regardless of how much time goes by.



Plus this brilliant version of "Changes". A song also featured in "The Breakfast Club".



The original version below

Kookaburra vs Men at Work

Because of this



I apologize for posting this without giving credit to the lovely song below.



Perhaps better to hear it in his own words.

Greats Moments in Sports Journalism

"There are no better teams today than New Orleans and Indianapolis, so, naturally, the expectation is that they meet in the Super Bowl. Only I'm here to tell you they won't. One of them won't make it, and maybe neither gets that far."

"That is not an opinion. It's a history lesson...."



Pick up your pencil and start taking notes Pointdexter, lesson one...

Le Plus Beau Regard

She´s back



Courtesy of the best links ever.

The very Thoughful John Stossell

being interviewed by, well, Greg.

Je ne veux pas Travailler ...

If Ye Love Me

Originally written in C, by Thomas Tallis.

Happy 2010