Happiness Is...: Hot Boys with Hot Toys

Fire in Paradise:


And in Kiev:


Hah! Girls spin too!:



(More vids on playpoi.com)

Today is Ana Day! ;)

Ana Vidovic:









September 15, 2012 - 8:00 PM - Baltimore, MD, An die Musik, Recital

PBS/NOVA on Concussions

Please try to ignore poor Neil being his goofy-cute but not always charismatic TV-persona:

Watch Phoenix Mars Lander, Brain Trauma, Mammoth Mystery, Judah... on PBS. See more from NOVA scienceNOW.

Mommas, don't let your babies grow up to play football...

The guitar is a brilliant instrument: Usman Riaz & Preston Reed on TED

Not enough, was it? You can listen to more Preston Reed on his website. And Pakmusic.net has collected videos of Usman Riaz.

PBS/NOVA Katrina Program

Watch Storm That Drowned a City on PBS. See more from NOVA.

Beasts of the Southern Wild Background Stuff

Official Trailer:


I loved the movie, which I saw in Annapolis Sunday night with JMax. Looking up stuff to try to persuade a friend at work to take his daughter, I found some interesting background stuff.

The acting was specatacular. This "sneak peek" is an interview with the actors who played Hushpuppy and Wink. Dwight Henry, the actor who played Wink, is not a professional, he's a baker. This is how he was selected for the role:


Further background, including the inspiration:

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Go see this movie. You won't be sorry. This goes double if you're a Daddy.

PBS/NOVA on How we "think" about $...

Watch Mind Over Money on PBS. See more from NOVA.

For Blanka, who loves Truth. And Movies, sometimes.

Background: The novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest was written in 1962 by Ken Kesey. The (classic) film, released in 1975, was directed by Milos Forman, who had immigrated from still-communist Czechoslovakia in 1968. (He also directed Amadeus, which was also great.)

Personal background: I was very moved during the Velvet Revolution by watching days of huge crowds gathered peacefully on the streets of Prague. This was about 6 months after I (finally) graduated from college and about a month after I had moved into my apartment on St. Paul Street, across from Penn Station, a couple blocks south of North Avenue in Baltimore. (So, not the best neighborhood, you couldn't park on the street without getting your window busted & my landlady put bars on the building's windows shortly after I moved in, but I was young and it was just me & a cocker spaniel and a cat, so what did I care?) Day after day on the news, I saw so many people staying so sane, and there were stories of the PA equipment being used to locate parents of misplaced children and so forth. I recall being very impressed that so many people had gathered so peacefully, and I even remember thinking that if that many people gathered in Los Angeles (just pulling an American city out of the air), it would be a riot. (The L.A. Riots happened 3 years later in 1992, around the time of what the BBC calls here "The Velvet Divorce".)

Finally, the post itself: This talented film director of classic films, Milos Forman, has pointed out in the New York Times that all of the name-calling of President Obama's platform and accomplishments as "Socialism" isn't just the ho-hum hyperbole we expect and ignore in an election year. It isn't just inaccurate. It is a profound "misunderestimation" (to throw out a classic Bush-ism) of world history, and ignoring such nonsense just because we know it's nonsense (and assume everyone else does) isn't right.

Thank you, Mr. Forman, for speaking up. We needed to hear that from an authentic voice such as yours.

Obama's Response to ACA Approval by the SCOTUS

Article in Forbes by Michael Waldholz.

Classic Method to Chill With

Roll It Up


Funny Break (live, turn it up))



And if you've got some time, you can have Better Living Through Circuitry:

String Theory

Listening as Independence

Happy Independence Day!

Independence is in context.



Evelying Glennie's biography from the TED page:

Why you should listen to her: .Evelyn Glennie's music challenges the listener to ask where music comes from: Is it more than simply a translation from score to instrument to audience? How can a musician who has almost no hearing play with such sensitivity and compassion? The Grammy-winning percussionist and composer became almost completely deaf by the age of 12, but her hearing loss brought her a deeper understanding of and connection to the music she loves. She's the subject of the documentary Touch the Sound, which explores this unconventional and intriguing approach to percussion. Along with her vibrant solo career, Glennie has collaborated with musicians ranging from classical orchestras to Björk. Her career has taken her to hundreds of concert stages around the world, and she's recorded a dozen albums, winning a Grammy for her recording of Bartók's Sonata for Two Pianos and Percussion, and another for her 2002 collaboration with Bela Fleck. Her passion for music and musical literacy brought her to establish, in collaboration with fellow musicians Julian Lloyd Weber and Sir James Galway, the Music Education Consortium, which successfully lobbied for an investment of 332 million pounds in music education and musical resources in Britain.

WIN from The Network

Truly. Winwinwinwinwinwinwin!!!!