Red Hot Implied Bestiality Riding Hood

Not everyone in Hollywood was so enamored of order or happy endings or the sentimental school of mindless, grinning "funny little animals." Perhaps the least enamored was Tex Avery, who during his stint at Warner Bros. and MGM made seven formal, recognizable fairy tales and one blackout film ("A Gander at Mother Goose") between 1937 ("Little Red Walking Hood") and 1949 ("Little Rural Riding Hood").
In the opening sequence of "Red Hot Riding Hood," a simpering narrator says, "Good evening, kiddies! Once upon a time Little Red Riding Hood was skipping through the woods…" But this time the Wolf stops and refuses to continue: "I'm fed up with that sissy stuff … Every Hollywood studio has done it this way!" Taken aback by this sudden revolt, which Granny and Red also join in, the shocked narrator agrees to try a new tack. Thus the terrified little-girl Red is reborn as a red-hot mama who performs at the local nightclub. Her lyrics are unapologetic in demanding material reward for sexual favors: "Hey Daddy … you better get the best for me!" But, as in "Swing Shift Cinderella," Avery surprises by devoting most of the time to the Wolf's frantic attempts to escape the violent attentions of an older woman, Granny, who's now a sex-mad hepcat.The film's original conclusion, deleted for reasons of implied bestiality, had Grandma marrying the wolf at a shotgun wedding (with a caricature of Tex Avery as the Justice of the Peace who marries them), and having the unhappy couple and their half-human half-wolf children attend Red's show. However, a military officer arranged for an uncut version for military audiences overseas.
(read more...)(via Presurfer)

Cigarettes and Coffee - Lefty Frizzell

Nashville songwriter Harlan Howard remembers Frizzell from the "Town Hall Party" days. "He was a wonderful guy, someone who was just about as loose and free as any rock star you ever saw - on and off stage. He was really flamboyant, a good looking guy with curly hair." In listening to Lefty, you feel the conflict between the lure of good times and the melancholy ones. Frizzell was not only original in his vocal sound - he was the first country singer to wear rhinestones on stage. Although Frizzell liked sharp clothes, it took some convincing by a Los Angeles tailor, Nudie Cohen that women loved men that looked "flashy", and that rhinestones would work.
(more...)

Can this be Better than DannyBeer from Ein Hod?

When Clifford Stoll speaks, you can't help but listen. Full of restless energy, he jumps from one topic to the next, darting back and forth across the stage. You may not be sure where he’s going, but the ride is always part of the adventure.
An astronomer (though his astronomy career took a turn when he noticed a bookkeeping error that ultimately led him to track down a notorious hacker), researcher and internationally recognized computer security expert -- who happens to be a vocal critic of technology -- Stoll makes a sharp, witty case for keeping computers out of the classroom. Currently teaching college-level physics to eighth graders at a local school, he stays busy in his spare time building Klein bottles.
Clifford Stoll first came to national prominence in 1989 with the publication of his book, The Cuckoo's Egg, an amazing account of his search across the Internet to catch a German cracker who was breaking into military computers all over the world.
Mr. Stoll is an astronomer by trade, who was “promoted” to Systems Manager at his lab. While examining the accounting records, he noticed a 75-cent error in the billing logs. He began investigating the logs to rectify the error, and discovered enough discrepancies to make him believe someone was tapping into their system illegally.Before the search was done, the Central Intelligence Agency, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and the National Security Agency were involved. but Mr. Stoll was the one who finally tracked him down.
The perpetrator was a twenty-five year old German hacker named Markus Hess who was selling US government secrets to the KGB for money and cocaine.
Since the publication of that book, Mr. Stoll has been widely sought after for speaking engagements, and has written a second book. One wonders where he finds the time to pursue astronomy.

Abby Mann (December 1, 1927 – March 25, 2008) -from Nurnberg to Kojak

Abby Mann, who won an Oscar for writing the 1961 drama "Judgment at Nuremberg" and devoted his career to exposing failings in the U.S. criminal justice system, has died, the Los Angeles Times reported on its Web site on Thursday.
He died of heart failure in Beverly Hills on Tuesday at age 80.
Mann, the son of a Russian-Jewish immigrant jeweler, grew up in the 1930s in East Pittsburgh--a predominantly Catholic working-class neighborhood he describes as a "tough steel area." As a Jewish youth in these surroundings, Mann felt himself an outsider. Perhaps this in part explains the persistent preoccupation, in his scripts, with the working poor and racial minorities--outsiders who are trapped in a social system in which prejudice, often institutionalized in the police and judicial apparatus, is used to deprive them of their rights.
"A writer worth his salt at all has an obligation not only to entertain but to comment on the world in which he lives," Mann said when he accepted his Oscar for "Judgment at Nuremberg," the Stanley Kramer film that dramatized one of the many post-war trials of top Nazis.
Judgment at Nuremberg is a fictionalized film account of the post-World War II Nuremberg Trials, written by Abby Mann and directed by Stanley Kramer, starring Spencer Tracy, Burt Lancaster, Richard Widmark, Marlene Dietrich, Maximilian Schell, Judy Garland, Montgomery Clift, Werner Klemperer, and William Shatner. Originally written for television,[1] the film depicts the trial of certain judges who executed Nazi law. Such a trial did occur: the film was inspired by the Judges' Trial before the U.S. Nuremberg Military Tribunal in 1947. By the time the film was made, all of the convicts had already been released, including four of them who were sentenced to life in prison.(read more...)

A man behind the gun, and a woman behind the man

The Man Behind The Gun
There are many to sing of the noble deeds of Kansas' favorite
sons
The men who stood in the early days so manfully by their guns;
Who shed their blood at the Nation's call for the martyr-state's
release,
And led her out of the depths of war and into the ways of peace.
I honor them all, but I honor, too, the Infinite Wisdom's plan
Of putting a man behind the gun, and a woman behind the man!

The men of the days of Old John Brown Lord love them,
every one!
Each is a hero in Kansas' eyes, and each is a favoriteson.
But I venture to say that you'd find, if you got right down to
the truth of things,
They were mostly held to their duty's post by a couple of apron
strings !
For who could waver, or who could fail in the struggle in
Freedom's name,
When woman's courage and woman's faith were backing him in
the game?

Our dear fore-mothers! who lived and loved in the days when
the State was young,
(And many have gone to their last long rest, unhonored, un-
known, unsung.)
For Woman rose to the needs of the hour when the dear-
bought peace was won,
And backed up the man at the plough as well as she'd backed
up the man at the gun!
He gave his strength for the land's increase, his voice to the
new State's good,
But back of his every word and deed some valiant woman stood.

There are men at the front in our State today, and back of each
one stands
Some dauntless woman with loving heart and ready and will-
ing hands.
I do not ask for her, Equal Rights, nor a place at your polls
as yet,
(For Heaven knows I am anything but a rampant suffragette !)
But give her a place in your Halls of Fame, along with your
honored ones;
Let Kansas' favorite daughters rank as high as her favorite sons.
I pledge you loyally, heart and hand, as only a Kansan can,
A toast:
To the Man who is at the front and the Woman
behind the Man!

The Call of Kansas and Other Poems
Esther M. (Clark) Hill

Hello, Pearl Bailey!

Never formally trained in music, Pearl Bailey credited her love of music to growing up in a "Holy Roller" evangelical church where her father was the minister. In her early career in amateur shows and nightclubs she developed her throaty style, embellished with asides and ad libs.
Pearl Bailey sang with bands, later on stage and in films. The all-black version of Hello, Dolly! is one of her best-known roles; she played that role from 1967 to 1969 and in a later revival. Pearl Bailey was a frequent guest on television variety shows and had her own show on ABC in 1970-71.
At age 67, Pearl Bailey graduated from Georgetown University with a bachelor's degree in theology. In 1968, 1971, 1973 and 1989 she published books on her life, cooking, and educational experiences. In 1975 Pearl Bailey served as a special ambassador to the United Nations and in 1988 received the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
Pearl Bailey was married three times. The last marriage, to drummer Louis Bellson, lasted 40 years. Together they adopted a daughter and a son.(from Aboutcom)

Russians In Hawaii

In June 1804, the first Russians arrived at Hawaii in the sloops Nadezhda and Neva, during a series of round-the-world explorations. One of the aims of these voyages was to locate both supply points for Russia's holdings on the Pacific (including Alaska), and markets for the products of those areas. Expedition leader Lieutenant Ivan Fedorovich Krusenstern missed meeting King Kamehameha, who was invading Oahu at the time, but did talk to King Kaumualii on Kauai. Kaumualii asked the Russians for protection from Kamehameha's armies, but the Russians had neither the manpower nor the firepower to offer assistance, even if they had wanted to. Word about the expedition's primary purposes apparently reached Kamehameha, though, and in 1806 he sent word to Alexander Baranov, the Manager of the Russian-American Company, offering to send a ship to Sitka once a year for the purpose of trading food including swine, salt and sweet potatoes, for sea otter pelts. The following summer, the Nikolai brought the first cargo of food from Hawaii to Sitka.(read more...)

Breast and Penis: Roman Votive Offerings

Alexander Thomson of Banchory House (1792-1868) was a man of his time. A country gentleman with a thirst for knowledge and a determination to improve the world around him. His numerous interests included Natural Science and Natural Philosophy, geology and agriculture, Scottish history and classical antiquity, penal and educational reform, and the sanitary conditions of the Poor. He was a man of religion and a man of science, who revered his Queen and had much in common with the Prince Consort. His home was filled with books and the curious objects which reflected his travels and opinions.

"The photograph shows two fired clay votive offerings, this one being a model of a female breast. They date from the Roman period, probably 2nd century BC to 1st century AD, and were collected by Alexander Thomson as part of a collection of pagan and Christian, 'popish' votive offerings which he made in 1863 while in Rome. Similar pre-Christian, clay votive offerings of other parts of the body, such as one of the eye, which is is Thomson's collection, were also made. The 'popish' votive offerings also show parts of the body, and are made in pressed metal. As a Protestant and a participant in the Disruption, Thomson was anxious, in his display in Banchory House Museum, to show the two types of offering together, to illustrate the similarities in thought and belief between those of the pre-Christian pagans and those of the Roman Catholics"

(more...)

Ahmadinejad 's Secret Weapon

Miniature painting showing a Persian couple copulating
Illuminated manuscript
Published: 1824
Folio 19 verso
Size: 280x180 mm
Collection: Asian Collection
Library reference no.: WMS Persian 223

Mohsen Namjoo Again

"There are times in one's life when we think that nothing new will happen, at least in some ways. So it was an absolutely wonderful and delightful pleasure when I recently came to love, appreciate and feel a young artist. In my opinion, he is the most important thing that has happened to the Iranian music scene in a very long time. His blend of traditional Iranian music and words, along with rock and blues, challenges his listeners as well as taking them to a higher level of doubt, joy, pain, beauty and essence of life and existence, past and present, while all along retaining our Iranian heritage and feelings. He has revolutionized Iranian traditional music and with his art and talent has taken it, with a few giant leaps, into the 21st century."

(read more...)
For older posts click HERE

Myth Busted Glasses

Latest Australian research into myopia or shortsightedness reveals that people who wear glasses are not stereotypical geeks or nerds.
"We have literally busted the myth that people who wear glasses are introverted or have particular personality characteristics. They are more likely to be agreeable and open, rather than closed and introverted," said A/Prof Paul Baird of the University of Melbourne's Centre for Eye Research Australia.
For the first time in a study into personality and myopia, participants were analysed using a state-of-the-art measure of the five major personality factors (Openness, Conscientiousness, Extroversion, Agreeableness and Neuroticism), administered by psychologists from the University of Melbourne.
Results revealed that comparison of family members and twins showed no link between myopia and introversion; however there was a significant but small association with myopia and Agreeableness.(read more...)

A flirt and a Hypochondriac Vegetarian

Art is life, life is life, but to lead life artistically is the art of life.
People who are interested in something they are not interested in at all
A happy couple: he does what she wants and she does what she wants
Religion is a kind of ideal application of persecution complex on human nerves
There is only one thing indecent with nakedness, and that is to find nakedness indecent.

Though Altenberg loved all women, and wrote of loving them frequently and well, he was as ugly and as mostly chaste as Socrates. That, at least, was the philosopher to whom he was often compared by Platonists eager to pay his tab at the Café Central, that symposium on Vienna’s Herrengasse where Altenberg received both visits from the muses and his mail. Not only was the author a flirt, and a hypochondriac vegetarian, but he was also a smoker, drinker and addict of morphine who, prematurely aged, found himself institutionalized in sanatoria, and converted to Catholicism. He slept in cheap hotels, and the list of those who footed his bills reads as if a short history of the modern German arts: Hermann Hesse, Hugo von Hofmannsthal and Max Reinhardt most of all. Adolf Loos was a supporter, and Schnitzler, Rilke and Kafka, the last of whom called him, with a touch of jealousy, perhaps, “a genius of trivialities,” admired and even emulated his style

(read more...)

Wood-fired Teabowls

Makoto Hatori's "Wood-fired Teabowls," wheel-thrown Bizen stoneware, natural wood ash glaze 1280 degrees C., reduction or oxidation eight days in Japanese bank kiln.

An artwork has its own raison-d'etre as an objective substance. The essence of an artwork does not necessarily draw its artistic power from the subjective self of the artist. Conventionally, however, people who try to appreciate an artwork tend to regard the artwork as an expression of the artist's internal self. The conflict between the artist and the recipient, in terms of the artwork, starts from here.
In some eras religious passion stimulated the imagination in the internal self of the artist. For instance, in the Western Middle Ages artists devout belief in God --- and the internal imagination that accompanied it --- produced large numbers of Christian paintings. Painters and people who view these works share a universal episteme stemming from the Belief, which reflects the completion of the religious doctrine. Buddhism also produced a large number of Buddhist artworks designed to spread the Buddhist doctrine.
In the present era, when the uniformity of time and space is increasingly under doubt, and perceived as something more chaotic, the external world itself is perceived as containing the artistic image. Thus, the image of the internal self is understood to be its shadow, a phantom whose substance exists in the external world. The present-day sense of creativity, therefore, resides in how to find the artist's self among these external images.
It has long been the case, in fact, that the image that produces an artwork is often external and does not come from the internal self of the artist. We can readily see this in the uniform craft pieces produced by long experience (which tend to lack originality and logic) or in the fancy, smart and/or stimulating works accepted in sub-culture.
It is easy to unilaterally critisize the destruction of stone statues of Buddha by religious fundamentalists. Upon reflection, however, in the relation and conflict between internal and external images as well as in the relation between the artists and the recipients, I saw, though it is possibly imprudent to say this, the destruction as a sublime artistic performance. It is us, as well as them, who assign cultural value to the pieces of destroyed statues for sale in the Western fundamentalism called commercialism.

(more...)

With a Dxie Touch

Out on the plains down near santa fe
I met a cowboy ridin the range one day
And as he jogged along I heard him singin
The most peculiar cowboy song
It was a ditty, he learned in the city
Comma ti yi yi yeah
Comma ti yippity yi yeah

Now get along, get hip little doggies
Get along, better be on your way
Get along, get hip little doggies
He trucked em on down that old fairway
Singin his cow cow boogie in the strangest way
Comma ti yi yi yeah
Comma ti yippity yi yeah

(chorus)

Now singin his cowboy songs
Hes just too much
Hes got a knocked out western accent with a dixie touch
He was raised on local ways
Hes what you call a swingin half breed
Singin his cow cow booogie in the strangest way
Comma ti yi yi yeah
Comma ti yippity yi yeah

(repeat chorus)

(read more...)

Another Highbrow Blow from Julian Chagrin

A spoof Commercial for an anti farting product using real clips from Kung Fu Movies. http://julianchagrin.blogspot.com
Watch more Julian Chagrin HERE

Same ol' spin

Barack Obama talks to the American people before he announced he was running for President in 2008.
RealScoop utilizes proven voice analysis technology to analyze statements made by public figures. The BELIEVABILITY METER™ analyzes each celebrity video second by second, displaying the real-time results in a color-coded manner from left to right. The most believable statements are green, gradually turning red as they become more questionable.
This one is fun as it was made before Barack Obama announced he was running for President. And it demonstrates the obvious spin that is put on your typical "to the people" speech that so many politicians give. This was most likely a rehearsed speech and probably had a teleprompter going during as well, but it is stiill interesting to watch the Meter on specific points. Is running for President a tough decision? (:10) Does he really believe that it's all bad in DC and the economy? (:50) The ending is fun as well as he says he "believes in you" (2:22) and "looks forward to continuing our conversation in the weeks and months to come". (3:05)

Wonder Woman Burning in USA

In the late 1940s and early 1950s, thousands of American kids discovered just how flammable comic books could be. Egged on by parents, teachers and such guardians of piety and patriotism as the Catholic Church and the American Legion, countless children (sometimes willingly, but often reluctantly) participated in schoolyard re-enactments of the Bonfire of the Vanities, setting aflame horror and crime comic books that allegedly had the power to corrupt their young innocence and transform them into juvenile delinquents
Comic books were born in the Depression-era United States as a tawdry, plebian offshoot of the more respectable Sunday funnies which ran in newspapers. Initially, comic books merely reprinted and imitated such established comic strip stars as Buck Rogers and the Katzenjammer Kids, but in the late 1930s, the medium was seized by a cohort of very young would-be cartoonists, often just teenagers who had no other prospect open to them. These cartoonists were a rag-tag collection of outsiders: Many were first- and second-generation immigrant Jews and Catholics; some were African-Americans; others artistically inclined young women who were hampered by sexism from working at ad agencies or newspapers. What united them was a Depression-fuelled desperation to turn their pulp-fiction-inspired dreams into bright, four-colour fantasies. Although they worked for fly-by-night publishers in sweatshop-like conditions, putting out garishly produced pamphlets that were sold for a dime to children, these pioneering cartoonists created a pantheon of heroes that would soon define U.S. culture: Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Captain America, Plastic Man and many others. It's a world that is superbly recreated in Michael Chabon's Pulitzer Prize-winning 2001 novel The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay. (read more...)

Chopping down trees is selfish and criminal

A COUNCIL has taken the extraordinary step of stacking two empty shipping containers on a clifftop to spoil water views for householders suspected of illegally cutting down trees.
Port Stephens Council put them there - with a crane, at a cost of more than $10,000 -to punish those responsible for cutting down 20 trees.
Irate locals are calling the green monolith "a monument to stupidity'' and complain they are being treated like children.
And the council agrees, according to group manager, facilities and services, Mike Trigar.
"Obviously those people who weren't involved (in chopping down the trees) and now have their views obstructed are not happy, and we appreciate that position,'' he said.
"But it's like if you can't find the perpetrator in school, so everybody is held back for detention.''
But Mr Trigar is unrepentant: ``We've told people that chopping down trees is selfish and criminal, but that hasn't worked, so we've had to go to the next level.'' (read more...)

Dogs, Love and Used Books

The short made in 2006. Shot it in one day and for under three hundred dollars. It’s a story of one books travel through a unique used books store and the quirky characters it passes along the way. Starring: Danielle R. Bourgeois, Chuck Slavin, Frank Budelman, Glenn Shea, John Ring, Darya Zabinski, David Lavallee Jr., Mia Shaffer, Jacqueline Middler, Tim Thibodeau, Melissa Bowler.
Awards: Official Selection - The Rhode Island International Film Festival
read more

Sir Arthur Charles Clarke, CBE (16 December 1917 - 19 March 2008)

Arthur C. Clarke presents this unusual documentary on the mathematical discovery of the Mandelbrot Set (M-Set) in the visually spectacular world of fractal geometry. This show relates the science of the M-Set to nature in a way that seems to identify the hand of God in the design of the universe itself. Dr. Mandelbrot in 1980 discovered the infinitely complex geometrical shape called the Mandelbrot Set using a very simple equation with computers and graphics

Coleman's Crisis

Ornette Coleman in concert at New York University on March 22, 1969 with Don Cherry (trumpet) Charlie Haden (bass) Dewey Redman (tenor sax) and Denardo Coleman (drums)
Ornette Coleman: Crisis (1969)
Side 1
Broken Shadows
Comme Il Faut
http://www.mediafire.com/?yz4gxcmjdpz
Side 2
Song For Che
Trouble in the East
Space Jungle
http://www.mediafire.com/?1mmm05w2y4z

“Broken Shadows” is four choruses of an AABA dirge. During the first three choruses, two of the horns play the melody while the third improvises. Between the melody and Charlie Haden, a consonant chord structure is strongly implied. However, none of the soloists relate to the “chords,” instead pursuing melodies that have only their own logic, not the logic of any normal harmony. Like all of Ornette’s music with multiple horns, the texture on “Broken Shadows” is just ragged enough that you can hear each player phrase the tune his own way. But the emotion is absolutely unified, especially since all the horns are playing very loud all the time. There is not really “figure and ground” between the soloists and the other horns here, instead just communal mourning. In the last chorus, the feeling intensifies as the horns play the tune harmolodic style, as if they are all reading off one chart without transposing, or at least getting to pick the harmony they want as long as the shape of the tune is preserved. Usually Ornette would have either Don Cherry or Dewey Redman playing with him, but Crisis is a rare and wonderful example of all three men onstage together. Charlie is grim and resolute, barely changing his bowed bass line during the four choruses.

(read more...)
Via Schadenfreudian Therapy

Horny Morning Feral Chicks

Hens solicit sex in the morning to avoid sexual harassment in male-dominated groups of chickens, shown in a new study by Hanne Løvlie of Stockholm University, Sweden, and Dr Tommaso Pizzari of the University of Oxford, UK.
In the animal kingdom, males more often than females can increase their reproductive success by being promiscuous. This in turn can result in males imposing high numbers of copulation attempts and sexual harassment on females.
In the promiscuous feral chicken, males initiate more than 90 per cents of all copulation attempts; most of them in the evening after hens have laid their eggs and are most fertile. In female-dominated groups hens are also interested in sex in evenings. However, as shown in a new study published in American Naturalist, in male-dominated groups hens rather initiate sex in mornings.
‘Sexual harassment in evenings in male-dominated groups may just be too much for the hens’, says Hanne Løvlie from Stockholm University, one of the researchers of the study. ‘Hens were exposed to more intense sexual harassment in male-dominated group. By initiating sex in mornings when the cockerels are less amorous and the free-ranging chickens also are more spread out foraging, hens may avoid the intense sexual harassment in evenings.’ (read more>>>)

The Mille-feuille,Cremeschnitte and Napoleon

The Mille-feuille (French 'thousand sheets'), Napoleon, vanilla slice, cream slice or custard slice is a pastry made of several layers of puff pastry alternating with a sweet filling
Names for the Napoleon pastry in other languages:
In Arabic "ميل فى" [mīlfī]
In Dutch "tompoes", (or En:Tompouce) and in Belgium, near the French-Dutch language boundary also "mille-feuille" pronounced as [me'fj].
In English (Australia) "Vanilla slice"
In English (U.K.) "Vanilla slice" or "Cream slice"
In English (U.S.) "Napoleon"
In Estonian "Napoleoni kook" or "napoleonikook" ('Napoleon's cake')
In French "Mille-feuille" ('Thousand sheets')[2]
In German "Cremeschnitte" ('cream slice'); the dough is "Blätterteig" ('sheet dough'); also "Napoleonschnitte"
In Hebrew "קרם שניט" [krem nitte]
In Hungarian "Francia krémes"
In Japanese "ミルフィーユ" [mir fījɯ]
In Norwegian "Napoléon's kake" ('Napoleon's cake')
In Polish "Napoleonka"
In Portuguese "Mil-folhas" ('Thousand-sheets')
In Russian "Наполеон" ('Napoleon').
In Spanish "Milhojas"
In Swedish "Napoleonbakelse" ('Napoleon pastry')
In Turkish "Milföy"
read more

The Moran Singers Ensemble

The Moran Choir was founded 1986 by its present conductor and music director, Naomi Faran. The Choir was established in the Moshav "Beit Yitzhak", Emek Hefer, Israel and during its almost two decades of activities, has achieved exceptional musical and educational success. The choir's outstanding musical qualities stem from an in-depth musical education, consisting of: voice training, instrumental training, general music appreciation, movement and drama, all instilled in its members from an early age.
The Moran Singers Ensemble is composed of singers who are seniors of the Moran Choir - mostly music students at the Music academies, ranging between the ages of 18 and 30. The ensemble was established in 1998 as a professional representative choral ensemble.
The ensemble has performed with the best orchestras in Israel and has presented some of the greatest choral pieces. In addition, the ensemble has sung original works by leading Israeli composers such as Gil Aldema, Gil Shohat, Menachem Wiesenberg, Haim Permont, Yehezkel Braun and Shlomo Gronich.
In the summer of 2002, the ensemble received first prize at the Takarazuka International Choir Competition in Japan and received two gold medals in the Shirat Hayamim International Competition in Israel.
The ensemble performed at the Bach Festival in Eugene, Oregon in the USA, at the Liturgy Festival in Germany and as the representative choir at the Expo 2000 in Hanover, Germany. During the 2002-2003 season, the ensemble performed in the operatic productions of Henry Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas and Mozart’s Missa Brevis and also participated in the season opening of a concert series with the Kibbutz Chamber Orchestra, in a chamber series with the Israel Symphony Orchestra Rishon LeZion and in a season-ticket holders’ concert series for the Israel Chamber Orchestra. In addition, the ensemble also performed a special production of Carissimi's oratorio Jephte.(read more http://www.moran-choir.co.il)
To my old posts click HERE

Mukhosransk & Pizdelokh

In Hebrew, the word זה (zeh, meaning 'this') is a placeholder used in place of any noun. The most popular personal name placeholders are (mahshmo) or 'whatsisname' (thus: 'Tell mahshmo to put the zeh on the zeh'), מֹשֶׁה (Moshe = Moses) and יוֹסִי (Yossi, diminutive form of Joseph) for first name, and כֹהֵן (Cohen, the most popular last name in Israel) for last name. However, in ID and credit card samples, the usual name is Israel Israeli for a man and Israela Israeli for a woman (these are actual first and last names).
The traditional terms are Ploni פלוני and his party Almoni אלמוני (originally mentioned in Ruth 4:1). Ploni Almoni also is used in official, contemporary situations. For example, addressing guidelines by Israel postal authorities utilize Ploni Almoni as the addressee.[8]
A vulgar term for an unspecified place mostly popular in the Israel army is פִיזְדֶלוֹך (, formed from the Russian pizda, pussy, and the German and Yiddish Loch = hole). Also quite common is תיז (א)נביא (Tiz (e) Nabi “the prophet’s ass”, from Arabic), and again Timbuktu. A kadigan for a time in the far past is תרפפ"ו (pronounced Tarapapu, which somewhat resembles a year in the Hebrew calendar but is not quite one).
Especially older Ashkenazi speakers often employ the Yiddish placeholders "Chaim Yankel" and "Moishe Zugmir". Buzaglo (a typical Moroccan-Jewish last name) is a placeholder for a simple lower-class citizen. The term Buzaglo test was coined by then-Attorney General Aharon Barak in the 1970s for the proposition that the law should apply with equal leniency (or severity) to a senior public official and to the simplest ordinary citizen.
In Russian, among the common placeholder names are это самое (this particular [object]), штука (thing; diminutive forms also exist), ботва (leafy tops of root vegetables), фигня (crud) and хуйня (in mat slang; roughly translatable as something dickish), хреновина (). A term for something awkward, bulky and useless is бандура (bandura, an old Ukrainian musical instrument, big and inconvenient to carry). When speaking about something ideal, non-realistic, an idiom "сферический конь в вакууме" (literally, "a spherical steed in vacuum") is (jokingly) used. A kadigan for a monetary unit is тугрик (Tögrög, the monetary unit of Mongolia)
Obscene
На хуй, meaning to hell or anywhere out of here
В жопу and в пизду meaning deep to hell
A derogatory kadigan for a remote and uninteresting town is Мухосранск (Mukhosransk, "Fly's Shit Town"). (read more...)

Coxcombs, Tendons and Trotters

On a rainy Tuesday night in lower Manhattan, about 80 people gathered in a long, brick-walled room above a liquor store to eat the parts of animals that most people throw away. Cooking this six-course tour of the abattoir floor was Chris Cosentino, the head chef at Incanto, in San Francisco, and the proprietor of Offal Good, a blog devoted to exactly what you think it's devoted to.
Cosentino's head-to-tail dinners have become something of a cult foodie event in the Bay Area; this was the first time he had done one of them away from home. Michael Ruhlman, a food writer whose book "Charcuterie" (written with Brian Polcyn) is indispensable to anyone with even a passing interest in cured meats and sausages, emceed the event. (read more on Moreintelegentlife)

Feel guilty, if you must

The Strand Bookstore pays the homeless handsomely for their troubles. Owner Fred Bass tells Al Jazeera how this section of society has been instrumental to the success of his business.
Hundreds of men and a smaller number of women eke out a living scavenging books in Manhattan, according to Mitchell Duneier, author of “Sidewalk,” a book about the subculture of sidewalk book scavengers and vendors. Some of them sell their books on the street; others, the less entrepreneurial, or the more impatient, go for the surefire cash at the Strand.
Is there any other industry in which such high-quality goods regularly make their way to consumers via a trash bin? Stand in the bookselling line at the Strand and the store starts to feel less like a dusty bastion of erudition and more like a messy, mulchy place where old ideas struggle to find new life.
Even in better days than these for books, the economy of publishing was bloated, based on guesswork, mercurial taste and the talents of people whose keenest interests rarely included making money. Book recycling in Manhattan is just the opposite, a perfectly efficient system with no fat at all: So many discarded books go from someone’s garbage to a scavenger to a bookseller and, often enough, land gently in someone else’s home. Feel guilty, if you must, for never finishing Tony Judt’s “Postwar: A History of Europe since 1945;” but don’t feel guilty for chucking it. It will most likely live to haunt someone else’s bedside table. It will find a new home.(from NYtimes)

Jewesses in Slavery

Esther Lurie was born in Liepaja, Latvia, to a religious Jewish family with five children. Her family were forced to leave during World War I because the city's importance as a military port. In 1917 they shifted to Riga, where Lurie graduated from Ezra Gymnasium (high school). She already showed artistic talent in kindergarten and began to develop professionally from the age of fifteen, studying with various teachers. From 1931-1934 she learned theatrical set design at the Institut des Arts Décoratifs in Brussels, and afterwards studied drawing at the Académie Royal des Beaux-Arts in Antwerp.
In 1934 Lurie migrated to Palestine with most of her family and worked at various artistic activities. She designed sets for the Hebrew Theatre, as well as works for the Adloyada in Tel Aviv, the Bialik exhibition and the Eastern Fair. When events limited theatrical activity in Palestine, she devoted herself to drawing - producing many portraits. Her favorite subjects were dancers and musicians. She also travelled to many kibbutzim, painting the landscapes of Palestine, and her works were exhibited in kibbutzim dining rooms. Her first exhibition took place in Kibbutz Geva in 1937. In 1938 she was accepted as a member of the Painters and Sculptors Association in Palestine. She held solo exhibitions in Tel Aviv, Jerusalem and Haifa. In 1938 she won the Dizengoff Prize for Drawing - the most prestigious prize - for a work entitled "The Palestine Orchestra". This was shown at the general exhibition of Palestine artists in the Tel Aviv Museum.
World War II had begun while she was in Lithuania and during the Nazi occupation (1941-44) she was imprisoned in the Kovno ghetto along with the other Jews. As soon as she entered the ghetto, in mid-1941, Lurie began to sketch views of her new world. She has left behind a detailed written testimony of her life and work during World War II. This combination of literary and visual testimony make up a "living witness" (the name she would later give to one of her books). They enable us to enter deeply into her life as an artist during this period under these difficult conditionsLurie drew everywhere in the ghetto, including the various workshops. Among the workshops she was permitted to visit was the pottery workshop. During her visits there, Lurie got the idea of asking the Jewish potters to prepare a number of jars for her. She would use these to conceal her art works if the situation worsened. The situation did grow worse. After the deportation of 26 October 1943, in which 3,000 ghetto inmates were removed to forced labor camps in Estonia, Lurie hid her art collection - approximately 200 drawings and watercolors of 25 x 35 cm - in the large jars she had prepared in advance. Some of her works were photographed beforehand for ghetto's hidden archive.
In August 1944 Lurie was moved, along with another 1,200 prisoners, to forced labor camps in Germany. She was sent to Leibitz, where she depicted several of the prisoners
Lurie was liberated by the Red Army on 21 January 1945. In March 1945 she reached a camp in Italy, where she met Jewish soldiers from Palestine who were serving in the British army. One of them, the artist Menahem Shemi, organized an exhibition of drawings from the camps, which resulted in the publication of a booklet Jewesses in Slavery. This contained drawings by Lurie from Stutthof and Leibitz and was published by the Jewish Soldiers' Club of Rome in 1945.
Esther Lurie passed away in Tel Aviv in 1998.(read more...)

Craig Venter: Let the Force be with You

Craig Venter, the man who led the private effort to sequence the human genome, is hard at work now on even more potentially world-changing projects.
First, there's his mission aboard the Sorcerer II, a 92-foot yacht, which, in 2006, finished its voyage around the globe to sample, catalouge and decode the genes of the ocean's unknown microorganisms. Quite a task, when you consider that there are tens of millions of microbes in a single drop of sea water. Then there's the J. Craig Venter Institute, a nonprofit dedicated to researching genomics and exploring its societal implications.
In 2005, Venter founded Synthetic Genomics, a private company with a provocative mission: to engineer new life forms. Its goal is to design, synthesize and assemble synthetic microorganisms that will produce alternative fuels, such as ethanol or hydrogen. He was on Time magzine's 2007 list of the 100 Most Influential People in the World.
In early 2008, scientists at the J. Craig Venter Institute announced that they had manufactured the entire genome of a bacterium by painstakingly stitching together its chemical components. By sequencing a genome, scientists can begin to custom-design bootable organisms, creating biological robots that can produce from scratch chemicals humans can use, such as biofuel.

Breviarium Romanum dominicale et feriale

Book of hours, composed for an unknown convent in the diocese of Basle: excellent example of early Gothic book art. With a Calendar, 14 miniatures of the life of Christ and Mary, the Psalter, Canticles and an All Saints' Litany.
St. Gallen, Stiftsbibliothek, Cod. Sang. 402

Albert Beger's Big Mother

The cover of Israeli saxophone player Albert Beger's Big Mother captures your attention immediately. Yinon Tubi's photos of an anonymous, depressing rubbish dump frame Beger's love cry on behalf of all mothers, a conceptual six-part suite that calls us to action before it's too late.
The new work challenges Beger, who usually opts for shorter compositions that emphasize his abilities as an improviser and his close interplay with his partners. Most noteworthy, these have included bass player William Parker and drummer Hamid Drake, with whom he recorded Evolving Silence, Vol.1 and Evolving Silence, Vol. 2 (Earsay, 2005 and 2006). This time Beger has chosen to focus on the collective qualities of his new quartet.
The line-up feature Beger's trusty bass player Gabriel Meir, and two new members, piano player Aviran Ben Naim and drummer Yoav Zohar. Naim brings a deeper dimension to the quartet with his Ellingotinian harmonic sophistication, and with well-articulated solos that contrast and comment on Beger's fiery Aylerian blowing. The muscular drumming of Zohar supplies a steady beat, and enables Meir to use extended techniques on the bass and to introduce more sounds and colors to the palette. Beger concentrates on tenor saxophone. (from Allaboutjazz)

Screw the Copyright

These are strange times indeed. While they continue to command so much attention in the mainstream media, the 'battles' between old and new modes of distribution, between the pirate and the institution of copyright, seem to many of us already lost and won. We know who the victors are. Why then say any more?
Because waves of repression continue to come: lawsuits are still levied against innocent people; arrests are still made on flimsy pretexts, in order to terrify and confuse; harsh laws are still enacted against filesharing, taking their place in the gradual erosion of our privacy and the bolstering of the surveillance state. All of this is intended to destroy or delay inexorable changes in what it means to create and exchange our creations. If STEAL THIS FILM II proves at all useful in bringing new people into the leagues of those now prepared to think 'after intellectual property', think creatively about the future of distribution, production and creativity, we have achieved our main goal

. (from stealthisfilm )

Russian Imperial Stout or Danny's Challenge

When Peter the Great opened Czarist Russia to the West in the early 18th century, dark ales called "Porter" were all the rage in England. Porters, named after the working class who devoured them, were relatively easy-drinking brews with a small percentage of highly roasted malt. The result was a dark brown, toffee-flavored libation fit for mass consumption. Arthur Guinness took the idea to Ireland, increased the dark, coffee-tinted profile and added “Extra Stout” to his label, thus creating another new beer style.
Peter the Great fell in love with stouts during his 1698 trip to England, and he requested that some be sent to the Imperial court in Russia. Much to the embarrassment of the English, the beer had spoiled somewhere along its tedious thousand-mile journey! Determined as always to save face, the Barclay brewery of London came to the rescue by rapidly increasing the amount of alcohol and hops for their second effort. The result was an inky black concoction with enough warmth and complexity to immediately become a sensation throughout Russia. The “Russian Imperial Stout” had been born and quickly became popular throughout European Russia.
While hugely popular through the 19th century, Porters had fallen away completely from consumer's tastes by the end of the 20th Century. The style may have disappeared altogether were it not for the newfound bravado and quirkiness of the emerging craft brewing scene in the U.S. Anxious to brew all things intense, extreme and obscure, many small batch American brewers began resurrecting and re-inventing the old Russian genre. Today’s versions are even bigger and bolder than the originals.
“The Czar” from Avery Brewing Company in Boulder, Colorado is an excellent example of the new American rendition. At nearly 12 percent alcohol, the Czar will warm the cockles of any Russian heart in the dead of winter. Enjoy with Stilton cheese, gourmet chocolates or a nice maduro cigar. Whatever you do, take your time and indulge like royalty. Danny's stouts are not so strong but they are here in Ein hod!
(more...)

Eater or Eaten

In Forest of Bliss, Robert Gardner uses cremation rituals and funerary preparations as shorthand for the metaphysical ideas they reflect and realize. His understanding of those metaphysical ideas as fundamentally dialectical is reflected in the quotation from Yeats's translation of the Upanishads with which he begins the film: “Everything in this world is eater or eaten, the seed is food and fire is eater.”
Forest of Bliss spans the course of a metaphorical day. It begins with a boy seeming to pull the sun into the sky with his kite, and ends with the sun setting on a cremation. Unidentified men wake and perform their given ritual tasks. One travels down myriad stairways to the river to bathe and pray. Another, wealthier and more powerful, receives the bereaved.A third ritually blesses a boat, possibly one in which corpses are carried into the river. They laugh, grunt, burp, sing, fart, eat and everything else people do in the course of things. And about them the city teems with life. Dogs, birds, monkeys and sacred cows wander amidst crowds of people, all going about their business. (more...)

A Fore-edge Painting ?!

Some old books contain a wonderful surprise - if you know where to look! Because a fore-edge painting is hidden, someone who does not know what they are looking for will miss it completely. You need to take the pages and fan them out slightly, and if there is a fore-edge painting, it will appear.
To create a fore-edge painting, the pages of the book are fanned out and then held in a vice. The painting is then applied, using water colours. Once the painting is dry, the book can be released from the vice. If this was all, you would still be able to see the fore-edge painting on the edge of the book even though it was flat, so to conceal it, the edge of the book is hidden either by using gilt, or sometimes marbled. Now the fore-edge painting would be invisible, unless you fanned out the pages.
Simply painting the visible edge of the book is a very old idea, maybe a thousand years old. But hiding a fore-edge painting under gilt dates from the 17th century. William Edwards of Halifax, who were bookbinders and booksellers, created some of the best examples of this art, from around 1750. Such was the demand, they opened a shop in Pall Mall in London.(more on Grandillusions)

Par desmit minutem vecaks

What "anti-system," "anti-Soviet" things could be seen in the Herz Frank's (cameraman Juris Podnieks) small film "Ten Minutes Older" (1978) that became an original business card of both Frank and the new Latvian documentary filmmaking? In this one-take film, a very small boy, with great devotion, lives through apparently a theatre show (film viewers see neither the stage nor hear what actors talk), he laughs, he cries, his facial expressions change continuously, and from this we can read all what he feels. It is very amusing to follow it. And is this all? The longer you watch the screen, the more worrisome you feel. Ideas are coming into your mind about what will happen to the young hero when he grows up, how his life will develop. And then, insensibly, you look back to your own life; what has happened to you since you were as ' old as this boy? And why the ability to live with such devotion has been " lost? Why the ten minutes are so thick and where the time of my only life is lost? There are no words in this film, but there is something that does not let you go and, actually, makes you think about the meaning of life.Merely a little film. Why should the authorities turn against it? It could be even used as advocacy for the beauty of childhood in the Soviet country. Unless it would make you think so irresistibly...(more...)
Герц Вульфович Франк (17 января 1926, Лудза) - латвийский и израильский кинодокументалист.
פרנק, יליד לטוויה, הוא ממייסדי אסכולת הקולנוע התיעודי הפואטי של ריגה; אסכולה הדוגלת בחשיפת הערך האמנותי של המציאות המתועדת באמצעים פואטיים-פילוסופיים ומדגישה את חשיבותה של שפה חזותית ייחודית. "אני לא עושה סרטים, אלא מצלם את החיים, מתבונן בהם", הוא אומר בראיון בדירתו בירושלים. "אני מאמין שכמו אלוהים שיצר את האדם בצלמו, גם אנחנו מצלמים את המציאות בצלמנו. כלומר, אנחנו מצלמים את זרם החיים שלפנינו, ותוך כדי כך רואים את בבואתנו משתקפת בזרם הזה. הרי את הסרטים שאני עשיתי, אדם אחר היה עושה באופן אחר".
פרנק הוא מאסטרו, הוא אחד הבמאים הגדולים של הקולנוע הדוקומנטרי העולמי", אומר לב, במאי סרטי תעודה בעצמו ומרצה לקולנוע בבצלאל ובבית הספר סם שפיגל. כל סרטיו של פרנק מנסים לחשוף את המתרחש בנבכי הנפש האנושית, ולדברי לב, הם בעלי עוצמה ויזואלית עזה בין היתר בזכות יכולתו המרשימה לתעד נופים, חללים ופנים של אנשים. "פרנק הוא החוקר הגדול של נפש האדם בקולנוע התיעודי. הסבלנות שלו להתבונן היא קולנוע דוקומנטרי קלאסי במיטבו, ובמובן הזה הוא באותה ליגה עם דוד פרלוב", אומר לב. הוא מוסיף כי קוסאקובסקי, במאי התעודה הרוסי המוערך, היה תלמידו של פרנק ומקפיד לתת לו את הקרדיט על כך .
(להמשך)

Thomas Alan Waits (born in 1949)

Tom Waits's style is a mesh of the beat poet, the eccentric satirist, and the dramatic orator; a mongrel storyteller, mixing Bob Dylan, Frank Zappa, and Freddie Mercury into a medley of vaudeville, jazz, show-tunes, blues, folk, and rock. With his arsenal of an unique, otherworldly voice, a long life of hardship and happiness, and over-the-top exaggerations of the extreme and normality, Waits brings a new and often overlooked depth to songwriting.
Besides being a mastermind and a wordsmith, Waits is a brilliant storyteller. Weaving tales that are beautiful and treacherous, burlesque but refined, folksy yet urbane, he draws listeners into humanity's dark-side, dragging mankind's sins and shame under the examiner's spotlight, showing every speck of the grit and grime. Not withstanding this dreariness, he still gives the listener moments of levity, rays of light among the rain clouds, a joke, or a fragment of uplifting philosophy. He shows love, sacrifice, beauty, and worship, all the while holding up a mirror, reflecting misery, greed, vanity, and blasphemy. (more..)

Sally Johnson on Clark's Fiddle

Few events in the history of old-time music can match the excitement that there was when the legendary Clark Kessinger appeared at a fiddler’s contest in 1966, over 30 years after making some wonderful 78 rpm recordings and then effectively disappearing from the scene. Amazingly, the master musician was still every bit as good as his early recordings would indicate, both as fiddler and entertainer. In a few short years Clark Kessinger—then in his early 70’s—won contests at Dublin, VA, Galax, and Union Grove, NC, appeared on the Today Show, at the Smithsonian Folklife Festival, with Flatt & Scruggs on the Opry, and numerous other high-profile events, and recorded four fine fiddle albums.
In this clip Clark Kessinger plays "Sally Johnson" (a Texas Style Old Time Fiddle tune) at the Newport Festival

Last night’s reading

The traditional bedside table doesn’t always fit how we spend the last few waking moments in bed but it’s not something we think about either. Designer Stephane de Sousa wanted to design a minimalist bedside table in powder coated steel to address what we really need - a waterproof surface, bookshelf, and a simple way to remember where you left off on last night’s reading.(via Frogsmoke)

Feel Fine with Beatles and Pescado Frito

Pescado frito or peixe frito, or fish (usually cod) deep-fried in vegetable oil, is a traditional Shabbat dish amongst Spanish and Portuguese Jews. The deep-frying in vegetable oil makes this fish crisp and light even when eaten cold, and it has therefore been a favourite dish of the desayuno (late breakfast/lunch) after synagogue services on Saturday morning. It is also eaten in the Philippines, a former Spanish colony, where it is called pinritong isda in Filipino.
It is generally believed that pescado frito is the origin of the fish part of fish and chips.

Something of a freak

At the time, Cage was teaching Experimental Composition at New York City's New School. Eight years beyond 4:33, he was (as our smoking MC informs us) the most controversial figure in the musical world at that time. His first performance on national television was originally scored to include five radios, but a union dispute on the CBS set prevented any of the radios from being plugged in to the wall. Cage gleefully smacks and tosses the radios instead of turning them on and off.
While treating Cage as something of a freak, the show also treats him fairly reverentially, cancelling the regular game show format to allow Cage the chance to perform his entire piece.

Old Fuck Is Bad for Ya

George Carlin is still packing venues with fans who crave his legendary brand of observational, cantankerous wit.
At 70, he isn't just mailing it in, either. He performed about 80 shows across the country in 2007, and is still razor-sharp and very much on his game.
But with a record 14 live HBO stand-up comedy specials under his belt -- most recently a Saturday outing dubbed "It's Bad For Ya" -- Carlin admits to having a different take on things now.
It's not that he has exactly mellowed. Mellow isn't in Carlin's makeup. But no longer is he motivated to push the comedic envelope as a pioneer, as he did so memorably as a barrier-busting, hypocrisy-exposing rebel of the Las Vegas stage and the man who would become a Supreme Court test case via the famed "Seven Dirty Words" television furor in 1972.
"I accept it as someone looking in from the outside that the culture is destroying itself, and as someone who is no longer part of the human race, I can be fascinated by it rather than mourn it," he says.(more...)

Lora Verhovsky In Ein Hod

Lora Verhovsky is an Artist that revives the old technique, called "Leather Intarsia", but in new forms of expression and new subjects, as a contemporary form of decorative art, and creates large Leather Pictures so unique, that other like works simply do not exist
"Leather Intarsia" technique have been used by French and Italian artisans in 17-18 centuries, when the majestic Baroque stepped elegantly aside in favor of the playful Rococo.The variety of products, such as book covers, decorative boxes, wallpaper for carriages and clothing, had been created using this complex and labour-consuming technique, demanding huge patience and time. Today, unfortunately, only in few museums around the world we can see and admire those creations (more...)
Lora Verhovsky is taking part in a exibition in Ein Hod on 8th of March

Gaia and Predictions of Doom

"What would Lovelock do now, I ask, if he were me? He smiles and says: "Enjoy life while you can. Because if you're lucky it's going to be 20 years before it hits the fan."

Professor James Lovelock discusses his concerns about the impending consequences of global warming at the lecture Climate change on the living Earth'. He will argue that although the scientific language of the IPCC report is "properly cautious", it gives the impression that the worst consequences of climate change are avoidable if we take action now.
Instead, his view of the future is much more frightening. Even if we act now Professor Lovelock believes that six to eight billion humans will be faced with ever diminishing supplies of food and water in an increasingly intolerable climate and wildlife and whole ecosystems will become extinct. He argues that we have set off a vicious cycle of positive feedback' in the earth system whereby extra heat in the atmosphere from any source is amplified, causing yet more warming. He will say: "We are at war with the Earth and as in a blitzkrieg, events proceed faster than we can respond."

"Lovelock believes global warming is now irreversible, and that nothing can prevent large parts of the planet becoming too hot to inhabit, or sinking underwater, resulting in mass migration, famine and epidemics. Britain is going to become a lifeboat for refugees from mainland Europe, so instead of wasting our time on wind turbines we need to start planning how to survive. To Lovelock, the logic is clear. The sustainability brigade are insane to think we can save ourselves by going back to nature; our only chance of survival will come not from less technology, but more.
Nuclear power, he argues, can solve our energy problem - the bigger challenge will be food. "Maybe they'll synthesise food. I don't know. Synthesising food is not some mad visionary idea; you can buy it in Tesco's, in the form of Quorn. It's not that good, but people buy it. You can live on it." But he fears we won't invent the necessary technologies in time, and expects "about 80%" of the world's population to be wiped out by 2100. Prophets have been foretelling Armageddon since time began, he says. "But this is the real thing."

(read more...from Guarduan)
thanks to Emanuel Yakobson, Ph.D.