Elephant dreams. I completely lack the words to describe this site. It's overwhelming—and worth upgrading to Flash Player 8 for the enhanced experience.
Phil Plait, over at Bad Astronomy is outraged over the meddling of George Deutsch in NASA's press releases about science matters. Deutsch, a 24-year-old political appointee and college dropout, is entitled to his opinions on scientific matters, of course, but it does seem—shall we say presumptuous?—to insist on editing real scientists on matters of scientific "accuracy."
I think Gene Weingarten may be the best long-form newspaper writer in the country and this profile of Doonesbury artist-writer Garry Trudeau is Exhibit A.
Wonko the Sane sends along this fascinating link to New Music Box on Philip Glass. Yes, I know the knock-knock joke, but actually experiencing Einstein on the Beach was a life altering experience for this good ol' country boy. As WTS said, it is the soul of minimalism—and EOTB definitely has got soul, if you've got big ears.
Whether it does or not, you know you're going to. Eskie lists 60 things worth shortening your life for. I must be boring—only about 10 appealed to me, although I did find #s 38 & 39 intriguing.
Holy moly! An Aquarium Drunkard has posted an entire album's worth of outtakes from the 1962 The Freewheeling Bob Dylan sessions. That's 25 tracks—cancel work for today!
After the Nubble, we switched cars and I got to ride in the rear right seat of a Continental Flying Spur with a "Comfort" package. That means better leather, a rear-seat entertainment package (including DVD player and noise suppressing headphones with a Bentley logo) and a lumbar-massaging seat, which really made being driven an even better experience.
Yeah, that's a shock to anybody who has ever seen any of those commercials on late-night TV. But here's the thing, this Claire Hoffman article from The Los Angeles Times is a wonderful piece of participatory journalism.
Like many perpetually adolescent, emotionally-stunted hipsters, I had a radio show at the campus station back in the day. Crafting a show that had flow was an arcane artone that is virtually impossible to experience on commercial radio stations with limited play lists. Therefore, it was an art that, once mastered, would be of almost no practical use. It certainly wasn't going to get you a good paying job.
I've been fascinated by AMC's summer series Mad Men. Its depiction of 1960 America is revelatory—even though I was alive then, if only eight. And, as Ellen Feldman observes, it's not just the details that make it so powerful, it's a throwback in terms of character development and, dare I say it, pacing. Although AMC has commercials, it doesn't observe the same rhythm other channels do, so some scenes develop for 11 or 12 minutes before a break.