Caught a bit on NPR the other morning on “Embrace the Suck – A Pocket Guide to Milspeak.” My favorite term was “fobbit,” which basically replaces REMF as the term of choice in a place where there is no rear but plenty of fortified bases.
Here’s one Fobbit def, and another — the latter being more informative but perhaps a bit less kind. And here’s the Bob on the FOB Comic Archive.
What be Web 2.0? In 5 minutes or less- The Machine is Us/ing Us:
Produced by produced by Mike Wesch, Digital Ethnography, Kansas State University.
Journalism.org just released a massive report on The State of the News Media 2007. We @ HV are most taken with revelations in the Radio chapter, such as:
When you finish with the factoids, do waste some more time with their “Design Your Own Chart” feature.
Skye Rohde’s sound and images from her day at the annual cultural show in Goroka, in the Eastern Highlands Province of Papua New Guinea. This is the social event of the year, a swirl of colors and costumes, traditional songs and dances. (Broadcast: Mar 12 2007 on NPR Day to Day):
WFMU’s Beware of the Blog just posted A Batch of Theremin Videos. There’s Debussey, Saint-Saens, Jon Spencer, and the old man himself, Leon Theremin at age 95.
Airing today on NPR Day to Day: An audio postcard from the Goroka Cultural Show in Papua New Guinea, by producer Skye Rohde.
Just in case some of y’all don’t know about Ask A Ninja, thot I’d post an epsiode. This one explains in precise detail the technology of podcasting:
Two very different videos, both with the same song, both beautiful in their own opposite ways. First, a TV ad for the video game Gears of War:
Next, the music video for the song:
The song’s a cover (improvement) of Tears for Fears “Mad World.” It was done for the Donnie Darko soundtrack (the music video is on the Director’s Cut) — a great flick w/ score by composer & pianist Michael Andrews. The singer is Gary Jules.
That’s Jules and Andrews are on the rooftop of the music vid, which was directed by filmmaker Michel Gondry (Endless Sunshine, Human Nature, Science of Sleep).
In perhaps the first case or reverse censorship, the squeaky clean John Denver turns out to be sex-crazed in Annie’s Song (mp3):
Edited by WFMU DJ Scott Williams; found at WFMUs Beware of the Blog.
Greetings from Israel, the Disneyland of monotheism. But all the characters have guns. Big guns. Nothing like a Rabbi with a sidearm playing kickball with his students.
Visited the church where Jesus was crucified, buried and resurrected. Recorded beautiful singing by competing Christian groups, each claiming parts of the complex for themselves. Since they can’t get along, an Arab holds the key to the main doors. Now to grab some lunch and head to where the ‘last supper’ was held. It’s Sabbath, so maybe a nice felafel.
Going over the wall on Sunday.
Your roaming HV producer.
The Nature Conservancy: Nature Stories podcast has been having an HV orgy lately. Recent casts include HV pieces by Scott Carrier, Jeff Rice, Jack Chance, and me.
Good story in the March 12 NewYorker: “See the Other Side” by Tatyana Tolstaya. Actually not just a good story, it’s a great one-especially considering how short it is. The first paragraph or so you think probably it’s just another one of those boring New Yorker stories about nothing. But her train picks up speed mighty quick, and at the end she freaking nails it. Never read anything quite like it. Raymond the Russian says one of the best -known writers in Russia right now. And yeah, she’s related to Leo Tolstoy.
Once you read that Tolstaya story, re-read it asking “how the fuck does she do it?” It’s honest, of course. But technically it has to do with repetition, that is, repetition-with-variations., and with each repetition a deepening echo. This is a technique more common in music and poetry than prose. I’m thinking it might work in radio too. Imagine the story as a radio piece.
“The tomb of Dante, exiled from his native Florence. The tomb of Theodorich. The mausoleum of Galla Placidia, sister of Flavius Honorius, the very man who made Ravenna the capital of the Western Empire. Fifteen centuries passed. Everything changed. Dust gathered; the mosaics crumbled. What was once important is now unimportant; what once excited has vanished in the sands. The sea itself has receded, and where merry green waves once splashed there are wastelands, vineyards, silence.” –Tatyana Tolstaya
Oakbog – Maintaining your Macintosh, a new reference from Oakbog studios covering: Memory and Disk Problems, RAM and Disk Space, and Routine Disk Maintenance.
Once again I try to get music stuck in my head out, and into yours. This week it’s Samuel L Jackson’s smokin’ cover of the trad Stack-O-Lee (mp3):
It’s from the soundtrack to the movie Black Snake Moan, w/ R L Burnside’s band backing. For you fellow on-air radio types, here’s an edited (de-fuq-ified) FCC-friendly clean mp3, cuz the original sure ain’t.
Found the file at Salon‘s Daily Download, which also linked to the masterful Mississippi John Hurt 1928 vers (mp3 at archive.org):
Today on KUER: Jim Harrison – Returning to Earth. Literary legend Jim Harrison has been capturing beauty and a zest for life with his poems, novels and essays for more than 40 years. He’s written about the spiritual pleasures of the natural world and the physical pleasures of the body in works like Saving Daylight, Legends of the Fall, and The Raw and the Cooked. Jim Harrison has recently published his ninth novel Returning to Earth, and in it looks from the good life to the good death. He is in Utah, and Thursday, RadioWest will air a conversation between Harrison and independent radio producer Scott Carrier.
MP3 of the hour now online.
Also check our Weekend America story on Harrison.
If Al Queda recruited door-to-door like Mormons:
This 1980’s recording caught KABC-TV Los Angeles news-face Paul Moyer not playin’ nice with his co-anchor Ann Martin just before they go live:
(MP3 found — okay, stolen from Jim Russell’s Program Doctor site.)
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The other night, I walked into a liquor store in San Diego. I wanted a bag of chips. I walked over to the rack. I couldn’t buy the bag of chips. But I left with a new found respect for OCD.
It’s a behaviour that can produce aesthetically pleasing results.
I downloaded some audio (OCD Chips, the soundtrack mp3) from an experimental narrative film about OCD called “Closed In,” filmed by Nathan Heartman.
I like to imagine it’s what goes through the store owner’s head when he’s putting chips on the shelves. Listen here:
As promised in prev post, here’s our latest HV Podcast:
The Kiss and the Dying by Ceil Muller (7:36)
“His mouth might have been the most antiseptic place in that hospital. Certainly it was the most welcoming. Greedily reaching out for every possible life giving experience he could get. Death was not without pride, it just was greedy.” An etiquette list for those who may be dying soon, and for the soon-to-be survivors. (Photo by Man Ray.)
We’re now working on two new Specials; one for Memorial Day hosted by US Army Major Robert Schaefer, and one for Father’s Day with Jay Allison hosting. If you know of any audio that might work for these hours, post a comment w/ urls and info. Thanks.