Things Other People Accomplished When They Were Your Age
At my age (36) “Barthelemy Thimmonier developed the world’s first practical sewing machine.” In the words of Tom Lehrer, “It’s people like this that make you realize how little you’ve accomplished. It is a sobering thought, for instance, that when Mozart was my age, he had been dead for two years.”
[via diveintomark]
Victory over communism! The indestructible sandwich…
Straight from the pages of Buckaroo Banzai’s airdroppable watermelon, comes this story…
The US Military has perfected the indestructible sandwich. Capable of surviving airdrops, rough handling and extreme climates, and just about anything except a GI’s jaws, the new “pocket” sandwich is designed to stay “fresh” for up to three years at 26 ÁC (about the temperature of a warm summer’s day), or for six months at 38 ÁC (just over body temperature)
[via bOing bOing]
George Lucas has no clothes
Remember the threadbare attempts to link Star Wars to Joseph Campbell’s studies in meta-mythology? I’ve always suspected that it was Lucas’ attempt to de-emphasize the pulp sci-fi underpinnings to the movies, because pulp SF wasn’t Serious Literature. This Salon article dog piles more criticism onto Lucas, most of it valid, but still takes a couple of unfair potshots at the SF genre. Some worthwhile background on Leigh Brackett (the real screenwriter of Empire Strikes Back) too. Speaking of which, everyone has seen The Hidden Fortress, right? [via Slashdot]
Music from TV Commercials
Mostly complete list of TV commercial soundtrack songs.
Fast forward road trip from NY to SF
A photographer hooked up a camera to the odometer of his car and drove from New York City to San Francisco taking a picture every mile. The whole sequence is up on the web as a QuickTime movie. [via Slashdot]
Build Your Own Monorail
The future begins today, for only $4000 in parts. Part of the much larger Monorail Society web site which is worth investigating. [via Slashdot]
What EPCOT was supposed to be like
detailing Walt’s original plans for EPCOT, which was going to be a real futuristic city with a central translucent dome, monorails everywhere, and real residents . Lots of old-school retrofuture material here.
[via bOing bOing]
Mark Twain on James Fenimore Cooper
Possibly one of the best poison-pen reviews ever…
I may be mistaken, but it does seem to me that “Deerslayer” is not a work of art in any sense; it does seem to me that it is destitute of every detail that goes to the making of a work of art; in truth, it seems to me that “Deerslayer” is just simply a literary delirium tremens.
A work of art? It has no invention; it has no order, system, sequence, or result; it has no lifelikeness, no thrill, no stir, no seeming of reality; its characters are confusedly drawn, and by their acts and words they prove that they are not the sort of people the author claims that they are; its humor is pathetic; its pathos is funny; its conversations are — oh! indescribable; its love-scenes odious; its English a crime against the language.
Counting these out, what is left is Art. I think we must all admit that.
Terry Gilliam on current movie making
Gilliam’s the man!
“The guys who are shooting films now are technically brilliant. But there’s no content in their films.”