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September 30, 2017

Betsey Johnson's New York Apartment

Posted by the Flea at 06:29 AM

The Andrea True Connection - More, More, More (Musikladen May 29, 1976)

Thanks to Mr. Percifield.

Posted by the Flea at 06:27 AM

September 29, 2017

The Early Middle Ages, 284--1000 (HIST 210)

14. Mohammed and the Arab Conquests

"In this lecture, Professor Freedman introduces Islam. He begins with a discussion of its geographical context: the dry desert lands of the Arabian peninsula. The Bedouins, or nomadic Arabs of the region, lived in a tribal society somewhat similar to the Germanic tribes discussed earlier in the course. Their raids against the Byzantine and the Persian Empire, for lack of strong opposition, would lead to the Arab conquests. The second half of the lecture focuses on the life of Mohammed (570/580 -- 632) and the early years of Islam. Mohammed's revelation was one of the unity of God and a progressive interpretation of God's prophets, with Mohammed as the last of these. Early Islam was slow to differentiate itself for Christianity and Judaism, though this process accelerated after Mohammed's flight to Medina in 622. Professor Freedman ends with a discussion of the tenets of Islam and anticipates the discussion of the Arab conquests in the next lecture."

Islam Part 2: 15. Islamic Conquests and Civil War

"In this lecture, Professor Freedman discusses the Islamic conquests. Although they were in some sense religiously motivated, Arab did not attempt to forcibly convert or eradicate Jews, Christians, or other non-Muslims. The conquests began as raids, but quickly escalated when the invaders discovered that Byzantium and Persia were too weak to withstand their assault. In a relatively short period of time, the Arabs were able to conquer an area stretching from Spain to India. Against this background of successful conquests, Islam began to experience deep internal divisions. These began as criticisms of the election of Mohammed's successors, but broadened to criticize the Caliphate and the ruling family. Out of this strife came the division between Sunni and Shiite Muslims. Professor Freedman concludes the lecture with observations on the increasingly non-Arab Muslim populations."

Posted by the Flea at 08:14 AM

The Sisters of Mercy - Lucretia My Reflection

Posted by the Flea at 08:11 AM

September 28, 2017

Meet The Man Who Dresses Melania Trump | In the Studio

"Hervé Pierre designs for a very specific customer: First Lady Melania Trump. We take you inside his New York City studio."

Posted by the Flea at 12:07 AM

Chrysta Bell & David Lynch - Beat the Beat

Posted by the Flea at 12:05 AM

September 27, 2017

Jack Anderson - Wire Cutters (2017)

Posted by the Flea at 04:12 AM

The Human League - Being Boiled

And: What's On Granada TV (1978).

Posted by the Flea at 04:10 AM

September 26, 2017

The Spanish Earth (1937)

Commentary and narration by Ernest Hemingway.

Posted by the Flea at 08:14 AM

The Spanish Civil War - 1. Prelude to Tragedy, 1931-1936

I posted this six years ago but, as I'm watching it again, I'm posting it again too.

Posted by the Flea at 08:11 AM

Bauhaus- Who killed Mr Moonlight

Posted by the Flea at 08:10 AM

September 25, 2017

Mattel Agent Zero M

Mattel's Agent Zero-M Transistor Radio Rifle and Jet Coder Pen featuring a young Kurt Russell.

Posted by the Flea at 07:04 AM

Enigma (1982

"Enigma is a 1982 Anglo-American thriller film directed by Jeannot Szwarc and starring Martin Sheen, Sam Neill, Brigitte Fossey, and Kevin McNally. Based on Michael Barak's novel Enigma Sacrifice, the film centers on a CIA agent that tries to infiltrate Soviet intelligence in order to stop a murderous plot."

Posted by the Flea at 07:02 AM

The Fixx - The Sign Of Fire

Posted by the Flea at 07:01 AM

September 24, 2017

William Shakespeare presents Terminator the Second

Action is eloquence.

Posted by the Flea at 10:54 AM

Black Marble - Cruel Summer

Lets go home, do you know?
Through the line, through the line
There is a place out of space
Follow on all the time
Draw the window, draw the window, draw the window
In your... wouldn't fall to..
In your... with a long way
Will you know this
Do you know they are
Draw the window, draw the window, draw the window
Draw the window, draw the window, draw the window
Lets go home, do you know?
Through the line, through the line
There is a place out of space
You're going on the city alone

Posted by the Flea at 10:51 AM

September 23, 2017

Comic Book Girl 19 - Appreciating Game of Thrones while still accepting its flaws

Posted by the Flea at 06:38 AM

Jaira Burns - Ugly

Posted by the Flea at 06:37 AM

September 22, 2017

Debbie Harry/H.R. Giger - Newsnight BBC2 (1981)

"The Koo Koo art by Giger represents a great deal to Debbie and myself. A period of time in the course of fresh ideas, breaking through the stale shell that crusts over the arts, ideas always rejected before being embraced, the schizophrenic relationship of the artist to society, the reaction of the media (all too often subject to the identity crisis of people or things close to creativity) which frequently considers itself an art form rather than the buzzing of so many angry insects biting a fresh bit of prey (though perhaps a poor analogy, bugs being a superior form to most journalists)."

Posted by the Flea at 08:19 AM

Debbie Harry - Now I Know You Know

Posted by the Flea at 08:18 AM

Debbie Harry - Backfired

Posted by the Flea at 08:17 AM

Pale Waves - Television Romance

Posted by the Flea at 08:14 AM

September 21, 2017

Roger Scruton - On 'Harry Potter'

Posted by the Flea at 07:58 AM

Grace Davies - Roots (Lyrics)

Posted by the Flea at 07:57 AM

September 20, 2017

Walter M. Miller - Dark Benediction

"Dark Benediction" is a science fiction novella by American Walter M. Miller, first published in 1951.

The story is set about two years after the collapse of civilization due to a mysterious disease called neuroderm. The "disease" is actually caused by a symbiotic micro-organism sent to Earth from another inhabited planet, and is actually beneficial, though seen as disfiguring because of the graying of skin which eventually spreads over the entire body.
Posted by the Flea at 08:28 AM

Dean Lewis - Waves (Acoustic)

And the official video:

Posted by the Flea at 08:24 AM

September 19, 2017

Sea of Faith - Wittgenstein & Religion (1986)

Posted by the Flea at 11:38 PM

Mirror Fury - The One I Love

Posted by the Flea at 11:30 PM

September 18, 2017

The Cinnamon Story

"Ceylon Cinnamon and Sri Lanka's affinity is so strong that the very botanical name of the spice - Cinnamomum Zeylanicum is derived from the island's former name, Ceylon. We ship worldwide.

"Ceylon Cinnamon groves in Sri Lanka lie exclusively in its western and southwestern regions, north and south of the country's commercial capital, Colombo. The tropical sunshine and abundant rain in these areas provide an ideal habitat, but even here the quality of the spice varies with soil conditions. The sweetest, most prized variety grows in the "silver sand" coastal belt of the Negombo district, just north of Colombo.

"A laurel which in its wild state grows up to 20 meters high, the cinnamon tree is pruned down hard two years after a seedling is planted out. This produces "tillering" - a profuse, bushy growth of bark-yielding twigs whose five-nerved, shiny, fragrant leaves (like all laurels) sing melodiously in the wind. At blossom time the small, creamy-white flowers attract swarms of birds and bees, which find their spicy fragrance irresistible.

"Ceylon Cinnamon Oil owes its distinctive, spicy fragrance to a volatile oil that it contains. Cinnamon oil is distilled in copper stills from off-grade bark, leaves and roots. The distilleries are always located close to Farms, have a very pleasant effect on the surroundings and scenting the air with a sweet and spicy perfume."

Posted by the Flea at 07:59 AM

Talk Talk - Living In Another World

Posted by the Flea at 07:57 AM

September 17, 2017

Sapphire & Steel - Assignment 1

Escape through a Crack in Time. Assignment 1 of Sapphire and Steel.

Posted by the Flea at 08:14 AM

Bonjr - It's Ok, You're Ok

Posted by the Flea at 08:13 AM

September 16, 2017

Queens of British Pop: Siouxsie Sioux

Posted by the Flea at 11:48 AM

Chaos Chaos - Do You Feel It?

Posted by the Flea at 11:44 AM

September 15, 2017

The Making of Blake's 7

Posted by the Flea at 11:22 AM

Blancmange - Living on the Ceiling

Posted by the Flea at 11:21 AM

September 14, 2017

Edgar Allan Poe: Broke-ass freelancer

"Even when Poe did manage to sell his literary wares, he didn’t earn very much, as this chart I assembled shows. Over time, he did his fitful best to make his art commercial; he simplified his language and tried his hand at popular forms. Some of these experiments worked and some didn’t. Poe still wrote “in a style too much above the popular level to be well paid,” as his editor-friend N.P. Willis put it.

"Why? The usual reasons, as I see it. A writer’s heart wants what it wants. It’s not at all a simple matter to ditch the obsessions that drive you to write to begin with, and it’s hard to change your natural register, no matter that commonplace comment in MFA programs, Maybe I’ll just write a romance novel for money. If it really were so easy to write popular stuff, wouldn’t we all be churning out viral articles and paying the rent with royalties from our bestselling YA werewolf romances? In between writing prose that makes the Nobel people tremble, I mean."

Posted by the Flea at 05:37 AM

Lamb - What Makes Us Human

Posted by the Flea at 05:34 AM

September 13, 2017

Who is Rachel Whiteread?

"Tate Curator, Linsey Young, explores the work of Rachel Whiteread, one of Britain’s leading contemporary artists and the first woman to win the Turner Prize in 1993. Using industrial materials such as plaster, concrete, resin, rubber and metal to cast everyday objects and architectural space, her evocative sculptures range from the intimate to the monumental."

Rachel Whiteread: Drawings.

Posted by the Flea at 07:29 AM

Skinny Puppy - Assimilate (Dolce Vita, 1986)

Skinny Puppy - Live in Toronto, 1987

Posted by the Flea at 07:27 AM

September 12, 2017

Greece vs Rome, with Boris Johnson and Mary Beard at Central Hall Westminster (November 19, 2015)

"On November 19th Intelligence Squared hosted the ultimate clash of civilisations: Greece vs Rome. It was also the ultimate clash of intellectual titans. Boris Johnson, Mayor of London and ardent classicist, made the case for Greece; while Mary Beard, Professor of Classics at Cambridge and redoubtable media star, championed Rome.

"As Boris argued, the Greeks got there first: in literature, history, art and philosophy. The Iliad and the Odyssey are the earliest surviving epic poems, the foundations on which European literature was built. The Greek myths – the tales of Oedipus, Heracles and Persephone, to name but a few – contain the archetypal plot elements of hubris and nemesis on which even Hollywood films depend today.

"It was in ancient Athens that the birth of democracy took place under the leadership of the great statesman Pericles. And in that political climate with its love of freedom and competition, and passion for argument, the great cultural flourishing of classical Athens occurred: the tragedies of Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides; the philosophical writings of Plato and Aristotle; and the marble and stone wonders of the Parthenon. Nothing before or since has matched that explosion of talent in a slice of Mediterranean coast smaller than Gloucestershire, with a population the size of Bristol’s.

"But as Mary Beard reminded us, Greece eventually lost out to Rome. Little Athens, with its loose-knit, short-lived empire, had nothing to rival Rome’s scale. From Hadrian’s Wall to north Africa, from Spain’s Atlantic coast to Babylon, the Romans stamped a permanent legacy on architecture, language, religion and politics.
Although nothing can detract from the brilliance of Greek literature, the great Roman writers have an immediacy unmatched by any other ancient culture. Virgil’s epic poem the Aeneid, while invoking Homer, conveys an ambiguity towards war that appeals to modern sensibilities; Catullus’s taut analysis of his own complex emotions and the scatological insults he hurls at his rivals make him seem like the kind of clever and amusing friend we all wish we had. These poets reach out to us with voices that make the intervening 2,000 years vanish.

"While Athens declined into a forgotten backwater, Rome became the eternal city, home to the greatest classical buildings on earth – the Colosseum, the Pantheon and Trajan’s column. It is thanks to a Roman emperor, Constantine, that Christianity became both the presiding European religion and the force that shaped the Renaissance. Europe is still built in Rome’s image, despite the fall of the Roman Empire.

"Some say that if Mary Beard had been in charge, the Roman Empire would never have fallen. Others say Boris is soon to be the Pericles of Downing Street. Who gets your vote?"

Posted by the Flea at 06:24 AM

Lebanon Hanover -- Gallowdance

Posted by the Flea at 06:22 AM

September 11, 2017

Rich, Russian & Living in London (2015)

“Those guys who are worth, say, 100 million, they say: ‘We are not wealthy because there are guys who are worth a billion,’” Igor explains. “Those guys worth a billion say: ‘We’re not wealthy because others have tens of billions.’” Got it.

Posted by the Flea at 07:52 AM

Mylène Farmer - L'Âme-Stram-Gram (Stade De France, 2009)

Posted by the Flea at 07:51 AM

September 10, 2017

Heather Dewey-Hagborg's Stranger Visions/Invisible

"It all started with wondering what I could learn about someone from a little piece ... they left behind,"" says artist Heather Dewey-Hagborg. Using discarded items like cigarette butts, chewing gum, and fingernails, she extracted traces of DNA to create masks based on the owner's genetic profile. While difficult to determine how closely these portraits match the original holder, they do put a human face on larger questions surrounding genetic surveillance. Filmmakers Veena Rao and Emily Sheskin present Dewey-Hagborg's Stranger Visions"" series and her counter-surveillance product Invisible, a set of sprays she claims erases the majority of one's DNA footprint."

I steal DNA from strangers | Heather Dewey-Hagborg | TEDxVienna:

"For your protection against emerging threats to biological privacy."

Posted by the Flea at 10:58 AM

Cage The Elephant - Cold Cold Cold

Posted by the Flea at 10:54 AM

September 09, 2017

David Lynch on Cooking Quinoa

Posted by the Flea at 05:14 AM

Beinecke Ms. 408

Voynich manuscript: the solution.

Medieval lettering is notoriously fickle: individual letter variations, styles and combinations are confusing at the best of times. I recognized at least two of the characters in the Voynich manuscript text as Latin ligatures, Eius and Etiam. Ligatures were developed as scriptorial short-cuts. They are composed of selected letters of a word, which together represent the whole word, not unlike like a monogram. An ampersand is just such an example. The design combines the letters “e” “t”; and “et” is the Latin word for “and”. On the strength of this I consulted the Lexicon Abbreviaturarum of medieval Latin (1899) by Adriano Cappelli, sometimes referred to as the medievalists’ Bible. Systematic study of every single character in the Lexicon identified further ligatures and abbreviations in the Voynich manuscript and set a precedent. It became obvious that each character in the Voynich manuscript represented an abbreviated word and not a letter.

And while we're at it: "A 17th century 'letter from the devil' written by a Sicilian nun who claimed to be possessed by Lucifer, has finally been translated thanks to the dark web."

The coded letter was written by Maria Crocifissa della Concezione at the Palma di Montechiaro convent in 1676, and she claimed it had been scribed by Satan using her hands.

Some 340 years later, a group of Italian computer scientists unscrambled the code using decryption software they found on the dark web, and found it does carry a devilish message - describing God and Jesus as 'dead weights'.
Posted by the Flea at 05:12 AM

Human Tetris - Here Comes the Rain Again

Posted by the Flea at 05:11 AM

September 07, 2017

The Nerd Crew Episode 5 - The Last Jedi Trailer #2 Breakdown!!!

Posted by the Flea at 07:38 AM

Lebanon Hanover - Babes of the 80s (She Past Away)

Posted by the Flea at 07:37 AM

September 04, 2017

The Last Question, read by Isaac Asimov

"The Last Question is a science fiction short story by American writer Isaac Asimov. It first appeared in the November 1956 issue of Science Fiction Quarterly..."

Posted by the Flea at 07:54 PM

FRB 121102 Audio Analysis

Repeating radio signals coming from deep space have been detected by astronomers.

Has anyone actually listened to these? I've processed some of these recordings and now we can all analyze them further!

As I like to play with sound here and there I was pretty immediately familiarized with the high pitched screech in these 2s clips as they sound like an accidental export of a track at 100x its regular BPM.

I reduced speed of 9 of these recordings as provided by Harvard database (see below) to about 1% of the original speed and this quickly rendered an audible, irregularly oscillating hum between approx. 20-400Hz (low bass range).
Posted by the Flea at 07:51 PM

September 02, 2017

The Epic of Gilgamesh, Lecture by Andrew George

"Andrew George, Professor of Babylonian, School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London

"The Epic of Gilgamesh is a 4,000-year-old Mesopotamian poem about a hero who embarks on an arduous quest to find the secret of immortality. Preserved on clay tablets in cuneiform script, it is generally considered to be the earliest great work of literature to survive from the ancient world. In this illustrated lecture, Andrew George, author of a prize-winning translation of the Epic of Gilgamesh, explores four themes related to this Babylonian masterpiece: the archaeology of the poem’s recovery, the reconstruction of its text, the story it tells, and its messages about life and death."

Posted by the Flea at 09:37 AM

Karl Sanders - Contemplate This on the Tree of Woe

Thanks to Barbarian Steve.

Posted by the Flea at 09:34 AM

Neuromancer (2002)

"The BBC World Service Drama production of Neuromancer aired in two one-hour parts, on 8 and 15 September 2002. Dramatised by Mike Walker, and directed by Andy Jordan, it starred Owen McCarthy as Case, Nicola Walker as Molly, James Laurenson as Armitage, John Shrapnel as Wintermute, Colin Stinton as Dixie, David Webber as Maelcum, David Holt as Riviera, Peter Marinker as Ashpool, and Andrew Scott as The Finn. It can no longer be heard on The BBC World Service Archive."

Posted by the Flea at 08:59 AM

The invisible library of Saint Catherine’s Monastery

"One of the languages to reemerge from the parchments is Caucasian Albanian, which was spoken by a Christian kingdom in what is now modern day Azerbaijan. Almost all written records from the kingdom were lost in the 8th and 9th century when its churches were destroyed."

“There are two palimpsests here that have Caucasian Albanian text in the erased layer,” says Michael Phelps, the director of the Early Manuscripts Electronic Library and leader of the project. “They are the only two texts that survive in this language ... We were sitting with one of the scholars and he was adding to the language as we were processing the images. In real time he was saying ‘now we have the word for net’ and ‘now the word for fish.’”
Posted by the Flea at 08:58 AM

Nostalghia - Cool For Chaos

Posted by the Flea at 08:57 AM

September 01, 2017

Modern Times: The Last Dukes (2015)

"Dukes exist for the same purpose as the rest of the English aristocracy – to amuse everyone else on television."

Posted by the Flea at 07:44 AM

Poppy feat. Charlotte - My Style

Posted by the Flea at 07:42 AM