Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes (Knees and Toes)

So this past weekend my friend Allan came to visit NYC before being shipped off to whatever desert nation people in the National Guard get shipped off to these days. The Guard trained him in Arabic so he can better communicate ultimatums to evildoers. He was saying that in English when we call someone we love a "sweetheart" an Arabic speaker would reference a different body part - the kidneys. So a love letter might start with "Oh, my dearest kidney" or something like that. Kidneys, in Arabic, are the love-center of the body, I guess.

Then, today, I stumbled onto this website which has analyzed over 10,000 songs to find which body parts are the most commonly mentioned in a particular genre of music and picto-graphed the results.Eyes are the most-often sung about anatomical item in most genres, though both Blues and Gospel songwriters prefer to talk about hands (doing field labor and reaching out for Jesus's grasp, respectively, I'm assuming).Hip Hop's most popular people portion is the ass (or booty, or junk-filled trunk, or ba dunk a dunk, apple bottom or lady lump). Hip Hop also seems to be the only genre that really covers both the male and female genitalia in a comprehensive way (shockingly, weiners are more sung about than vajayjays!)

If you'd like to see what appendages you seem the most fixated on, grab a piece of your writing and copy and paste it into this form on the website. Lower lumbar was the most-frequent body part mentioned on my resume, for example.

PUPPET NEWS ROUND-UP ACTION NEWS FLASH

This is the first installment of what will become a regular feature of Putting Things in Plain Site: PUPPET NEWS ROUND-UP. This is where I'll bring you the freshest, crunkest, puppetest headlines from around the 'Net.

First up -- Everyone's second favorite puppet clan, The Fraggles, will be coming soon to a big screen near you! That's right! The Weinstein Co. will turn the Jim Henson series "Fraggle Rock" into a live-action musical feature. I can't wait to hear songs about RADISHES, THE GREAT HEAP, DOZERS and RADISHES. I bet you can't either!

OK, so I guess that's really all the puppet news out there today. See you tomorrow when I'll be back after hopefully reading a news story about a puppet, or something that sort of tangentially relates to a puppet or puppeteering or marionettes or even has a little to do with something kind of puppety like nut-crackers or sock monkeys. Til then, here's one of my favorite puppets, Kermit T. Frog singing one of my favorite suicide songs, Elliot Smith's "Needle in the Hay". Play us out, Kermie.

...I've heard it a thousand times.

I keep claiming to be the lame duck when it comes to music on this blog, but I keep stumbling across all these great info-tainment music finds. Like this one:

Peppe Giorri plays Gran Vals para Guitarra composed by Francisco Tárrega Eixea (1852 - 1909).



Just past 15 seconds in, see if you recognize "the most listened to melody in the world." Over 800,000 people all over the world play it several times, even during movies, every day.

[source] - don't click until you've figured out where you know this tune from.

The Best Video Ever

Is this Crazy-Ass Goose terrorizing the waterways of Maryland? The dog looks like a Chesapeake Bay Retriever, at any rate.

The coolest person with spinal muscular atrophy ever

A sad, happy, uplifting, depressing story Matt & I watched on the premiere of the This American Life Showtime TV series. Definitely one of the most thought-provoking things I've seen in a while; at least since the season premiere of The Hills.

This article tells Mike Phillips's story, and updates us a bit on how his life's been since his visit from Public Radio International's Ira Glass.

Oops!

[source]

What the hell am I doing here?

The artist currently known as Prince covered Radiohead's "Creep" at the Coachella Festival this past weekend. Watching the video, it struck me how much it sounded like a Prince song. Like a song it made sense for Prince to perform.

The more I thought about it, though, it dawned on me that "Creep" is probably one of those classic for-all-time songs now: a song that anyone can sing and get some great emotional mileage out of: A New American Standard. Like "Unchained Melody" or "Hallelujah" or "Yesterday" it's just an undeniably great song thats going to trigger a response, no matter who's performing it. I could see a middle school chorus recital opening with "Creep" as soon as 2012.

What defines a classic song? I don't know. I guess it can't be a song that's dependent on a particular style of performance, so that leaves out all of rap. It has to be a song that could be enjoyed by whoever hears it, no matter the age. It can't be a song that only makes sense when performed by one artist or group.

... I think "Satisfaction" may be the only classic Stones song. Well that and "Time Is On My Side"...

I'm wondering now what other future classics may have sprouted up in the 90s-00s unnoticed. "Hey Ya" - doubtful. "Smells Like Teen Spirit" - only makes sense coming from Kurt Cobain.

All I can come up with is that R. Kelly song from Space Jam. I'm pretty sure both Mariah Carey and Oasis have at least one classic in their respective songbooks, but I'm not sure which it is yet.

So what songs from 1990-today will we be hearing our genetically-manipulated mulatto superbeing grandchildren mangling in 50 years?

Also, what song from the past 20 years is crying out the most for a genre-bending cover version?

Branson's Back in Salty Balty

Bob Dylan, Iggy & the Stooges, Paramore, Chuck Berry (backed by the Silver Beats), the Black Keys and Wilco will join previously announced headliners Foo Fighters, Jack Johnson, Kanye West, Nine Inch Nails and Stone Temple Pilots for the third annual Virgin Mobile Festival at Pimlico Race Course in Baltimore on Aug. 9-10.
[source]

I'd like to ask Dick Branson for a ride in his space machine.

Mathematical Music: The Golden Ratio, The Amen Break and The Entire Fucking Universe

I am not a musician; I am not "into" music. I do not understand chords or keys or scales. I like clever lyrics and a good beat. I didn't know it until today, but one of the best beats in popular music actually has a name -- The Amen Break. Maybe all you bandidos and citizens of the Rhythm Nation have heard of it, but even if you haven't, you've definitely heard it. It's here: (here).

It's from a 1960's Wilson Brothers B-Side and artists as diverse as James Brown, NWA and NIN have all used it. [source] The crazy thing is that not only does it sound good, it fits a mathematical design principle called "the Golden ratio". Here are what the audio waves of The Amen Break look like:



If you haven't guessed already, the sound waves of the fucking Amen Break fit the Golden Ratio format perfectly. How do I know? Because this guy "used homemade Golden Ratio calipers to examine the peaks. Indeed, peaks pop up at Golden Ratio intervals." (I am Alchemy(TM)'ing Golden Ratio calipers right now).

This is where it starts getting Da Vinci Code-y. Other examples of the Golden Ratio include the Parthenon, the Pyramids, your fat face, Lee Harvey Oswald's assassination, nautilus shells, your paper and plastic, the distance from your shoulder to your elbow and your shoulder to your wrist, even the fucking fingers I am using to type this with have the Golden Ratio all over them.

Does this prove there is a God? That there is no God, just math? That aliens built the pyramids and probably ran Columbia records? I don't know. I'm not a math person.

I Love the World

I love this commercial. It's kind of corny, but fills me with joy in the same way John Adams does.

All except for Mike Rowe from Dirty Jobs, he's a fucking prick.



This one is OK, too. Also for the Discovery Channel.

Quickly, before I start my taxes...

If the shovelglove hasn't been having the desired effect, you might want to try this.

[photo source]

The marathon is easy. There are no lions.

I am liberally copying / pasting / plagiarizing /rearranging all of this post from this original article in the UK's Guardian newspaper.

This is the true story of Six Maasai warriors picked to run the London Marathon to raise money for a well in their village. Isaya, 24, is their chief. They'll work together and have their lives taped to find out what happens when people stop being polite and start getting real.

Isaya's diary:

Friday April 4
The plane was so big and frightening, and I closed my eyes. My family didn't want me to come to England because they never saw a plane before.

Our elders told us we can do the marathon because we have been running all over, killing a lion and herding cattle. I sometimes run for two or three days with my cattle, and I have to protect them from lions.

Saturday April 5
I miss meat and blood very much. Not vegetables because they are food for a woman. There is milk here but blood is better because it gives energy. English tea with sugar is good and we tried Coco Pops, but the nicest food is croissants.

We heard about showers before, in a briefing about the country. It said be careful - when the shower is hot it is really hot, and when cold, really cold. This is true.

Tuesday April 8
The Houses of Parliament are the best buildings in London. They use very strong materials. We hoped to see the Queen in London very much, but she is never there.


Thursday April 10
We rode a real horse for the first time too. It is amazing that people can talk to them, tell them where to go and they do it.

Saturday April 12
I am excited to get the marathon done and get clean water to save lives. We have a dam that we share with wild animals so every morning the children go to get water, it's dangerous for them. Some have lost their lives. Next week we will drill and get clean water for the top life. Then I would like to study community development in America so I can be a great chief to my people.



It's like a real life Jungle 2 Jungle, only no Tim Allen!

Big Profits in Back Yard Frog Raising

I first came across this article a few months back: long before anyone was putting anything in plain site. Given the current economy, I thought it might come in handy. If anyone's got the space for a few 20' x 20' ponds and needs an extra pair of quick hands, let me know.

Highlights:

A back yard is large enough to start the thriving business of frog raising. How to build up a big income with a very small investment is told in the following article. The white meat, with a taste similar to a tender, juicy squab, is greatly in demand.

...

When ready for marketing, the frogs are caught at night by blinding them with a search light. When the catcher gets a frog he puts it into a burlap sack with others. They are then put into small pens awaiting the dresser who grabs them by their rear legs and pierces the head with a nail by a downward stroke of the hand. The entrails are removed and the frog is ready for shipment in barrels of cracked ice

[full Modern Mechanix article from May 1934]

Don't Go Takin' My Heart

This story is like something out of Edgar Allen Poe. Or CSI: Miami.

Suicide claims two men who shared one heart
By RENEE DUDLEY
Published Saturday, April 5, 2008

After Terry Cottle killed himself more than 12 years ago, his heart beat on in former Hilton Head Island resident Sonny Graham.

Grateful for the transplant that saved his life, Graham wrote to thank the Cottle family. Through that correspondence, he met Cheryl Cottle, his donor's widow. Then the unexpected happened -- they fell in love and married.

Earlier this week, the unexpected happened again, when Graham's life ended the same way Terry Cottle's did.

On Tuesday, Graham took his own life at his home in Vidalia, Ga. He was 69. ...

Click the link for the rest of the story and for a picture of the twice-widowed wife. She's suprisingly young-looking for a gal hitched to a 69 year old.

Was foul play involved? Or does Cheryl Cottle just chew her dinner so loudly that two separate dudes couldn't stand to live in a world with her in it? Or maybe it was some sort of cursed voodoo witch heart? Or maybe Terry Cottle didn't like the idea of this guy mackin' on his lady and used some sort of psychic afterlife connection to drive Graham to self-extinguish.

Delicious, refreshing, meaty

http://dinnerinabottle.com/ is my pick for today's best foolishness.

Completing the triptych

She'll fight for the little people

It's Raining McCain!

Ya'll wanna draw a cartoon?

LOS ANGELES, California (AP) -- Radiohead allowed fans to choose a price for their latest tunes. Now, the best-selling band is hoping fans will make them a music video, too.

TBD Records, Cartoon Network's Adult Swim and animation Web portal Aniboom.com are sponsoring an online contest inviting Radiohead fans to produce an animated music video for any song from "In Rainbows," the band's popular 2007 album that was originally available for download at an optional price.

Information can be found at http://www.aniboom.com/radiohead. (Cartoon Network is a unit of Time Warner, as is CNN.)

Online voters and a panel of judges will select finalists with Radiohead choosing a winner who will receive a $10,000 prize to produce a full-length animated music video. The competition began Monday and continues through April 27.

Sybille II by Wim Delvoye

Possibly the most disturbing video I have ever seen. How long can you watch before closing the window in disgust? I got to the 2 minute mark, about halfway.



If you visit the video's YouTube page you'll see what could be even more disturbing: the HUGE number of videos with the same theme. Grotesque.