February 22, 2011
The Coup is a political hip hop group based in Oakland, California. It formed as a three-member group in 1992 with emcees Boots Riley and E-Roc along with DJ Pam the Funkstress. E-Roc left on amicable terms after the group’s second album. The duo is politically Marxist in its music and aligns itself with other radical hip-hop groups such as Dead Prez. The group’s music is characterized by electronic sounds and bass-driven backbeats overlaid by humorous, cynical and sometimes violent lyrics criticizing capitalism, American politics, patriarchal exploitation, and police brutality, among other things.
In Novemeber 2001, The Coup released ‘Party Music’ to widespread praise and condemnation. The original album cover art depicted Pam and Boots standing in front of the twin towers of the World Trade Center as they are destroyed by huge explosions, and Riley is pushing the button on a guitar tuner. The cover art was finished in June 2001. In response to the uncanny similarity of the artwork with the WTC attack of 9/11, the album release was held back until alternative cover art could be prepared.
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February 21, 2011
A platonic [pluh-ton-ik] solid is a three dimensional shape where each face is built from the same type of polygons, and there are the same number of polygons meeting at every corner of the shape. There are only five Platonic Solids: Tetrahedron, Cube, Hexahedron, Octahedron, Dodecahedron, and Isosahedron. The shapes are often used to make dice, because dice of these shapes can be made fair. 6-sided dice are very common, but the other numbers are commonly used in role-playing games. Such dice are commonly referred to as D followed by the number of faces (d8, d20 etc.).
The tetrahedron (4 sided), cube (6 sided), and octahedron (8 sided), are found naturally in crystal structures. In meteorology and climatology, global numerical models of atmospheric flow are of increasing interest which use grids that are based on an icosahedron (20 sides,refined by triangulation) instead of the more commonly used longitude/latitude grid. This has the advantage of better spatial resolution without singularities (i.e. the poles) at the expense of somewhat greater numerical difficulty.
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February 21, 2011
Shoefiti is the practice of throwing shoes whose shoelaces have been tied together so that they hang from overhead wires such as power lines or telephone cables or onto trees or fences. This practice plays a widespread, though mysterious, role in adolescent folklore in the United States. Soldiers leaving the military often paint a pair of combat boots yellow or orange and toss them over a power line or telephone wire near the barracks or unit to which they were assigned.
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February 21, 2011
Canard [kuh-nahrd] is the French word for duck. The word also can mean an unfounded or false, deliberately misleading fabrication, a false report, rumor or hoax. That usage derives from the phrase ‘vendre un canard à moitié’ (‘to half-sell a duck’), thus, from some long-forgotten joke, ‘to cheat.’ The Canard Digérateur, or Digesting Duck, was an automaton in the form of a duck, created in 1739 by Jacques de Vaucanson (the French inventor credited with creating the world’s first true robots, as well as the first automated loom).
The mechanical duck appeared to have the ability to eat kernels of grain, and to metabolize and defecate them. While the duck did not actually have the ability to do this – the food was collected in one inner container, and the pre-stored feces was ‘produced’ from a second, so that no actual digestion took place – Vaucanson hoped that a truly digesting automaton could one day be designed.
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February 21, 2011
Matthew Lillard (b. 1970) is an American actor known for his roles as Stu Macher in ‘Scream,’ Stevo in ‘SLC Punk,’ and Shaggy Rogers in the ‘Scooby-Doo’ film series – he has taken over the providing the voice of Shaggy in the cartoon series since the reboot ‘Mystery Incorporated.’ Lillard made a dramatic turn in Alexander Payne’s critically acclaimed comedy-drama ‘The Descendants.’
Lillard attended Foothill High school in Santa Ana, California and later the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in Pasadena, California, with fellow actor Paul Rudd, and later, the theater school Circle in the Square in New York City. While still in high school, he was co-host of a short-lived TV show titled ‘SK8 TV.’ After high school, he was hired as an extra for ‘Ghoulies 3: Ghoulies Go to College’ (1991).
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February 21, 2011
SLC Punk! is a 1999 American independent film, written and directed by James Merendino. The film is about the young punk rock fan Steven ‘Stevo’ Levy, a college graduate living in Salt Lake City. Merendino created the film based on his experience growing up in Salt Lake City. Although not autobiographical, Merendino has said that many characters were based on people he knew. The film features several cliques presented as ‘tribes’: Punks, Mods (wear suits and ties, and ride scooters), Rednecks, Skinheads, Heavy Metal Guys, and New Wavers (neo-hippies).
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February 20, 2011
Paul Verhoeven (b. 1938) is a Dutch film director, screenwriter, and producer who has made movies in both the Netherlands and the United States. Explicitly violent and/or sexual content and social satire are trademarks of both his drama and science fiction films. He is best known for directing the American feature films RoboCop (1987), Total Recall (1990), Basic Instinct (1992), Showgirls (1995), Starship Troopers (1997), and Hollow Man (2000).
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February 17, 2011
The Droste [dro-st] effect is a specific kind of recursive picture, one that in heraldry is termed ‘mise en abyme’ (French for ‘placing into infinity’). An image exhibiting the Droste effect depicts a smaller version of itself in a place where a similar picture would realistically be expected to appear. This smaller version then depicts an even smaller version of itself in the same place, and so on. Only in theory could this go on forever; practically, it continues only as long as the resolution of the picture allows, which is relatively short, since each iteration geometrically reduces the picture’s size.
The effect is named after the image on the tins and boxes of Droste cocoa powder, one of the main Dutch brands, which displayed a nurse carrying a serving tray with a cup of hot chocolate and a box with the same image. This image, introduced in 1904 and maintained for decades with slight variations, became a household notion.
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February 17, 2011
‘The Ugly Duchess‘ (also known as ‘A Grotesque Old Woman’) is a satirical portrait painted by the Flemish artist Quentin Matsys around 1513. It shows an old woman with wrinkled skin and shriveled breasts which are partially visible from her low-cut dress. She holds a red flower in her right hand, at the time a symbol of engagement, indicating that she is trying to attract a suitor. However, it is a bud that will likely never blossom. The work is likely drawn from two sources. One is Erasmus’s ‘In Praise of Folly,’ which satirises women who ‘still play the coquette,’ ‘cannot tear themselves away from their mirrors’ and ‘do not hesitate to exhibit their repulsive withered breasts.’
It also bears a resemblance to a caricature head drawing by Leonardo Da Vinci. It was originally half of a diptych, with a ‘Portrait of an Old Man.’ The portrait is held to be the inspiration for John Tenniel’s 1869 drawing of the Duchess in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. In 2008 it was claimed that the sitter, possibly Margaret, Countess of Tyrol, was suffering from a rare form of Paget’s disease, in which the victim’s bones enlarge and become deformed.
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February 17, 2011
The Alamo Drafthouse is an American cinema chain founded in 1997 in Austin, Texas, United States. It has screens in nine locations across Texas and one in Winchester, Virginia. The company began as a second-run movie theater, and distinguished itself by the food and drink service offered inside the theater, including cold beer. The seating is arranged with rows of cabaret style tables in front of each row of seats, with an aisle between each row to accommodate waiter service. Customers write their orders on slips of paper, which are picked up by black-clad waiters moving quietly between the rows.
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February 16, 2011
Wiley Wiggins (b. 1976) is an American film actor and visual effects artist. A native of Austin, Texas, he is the nephew of Lanny Wiggins, who was a member of Janis Joplin’s early band, The Waller Creek Boys. Wiggins starred in Richard Linklater’s films ‘Dazed and Confused’ (at the age of 16) and ‘Waking Life’ (at the age of 25), for which he also served as an animator for.
He was involved in early ’90s cyberculture, and wrote occasionally for such magazines as FringeWare Review, Mondo 2000, and Boing Boing. His current weblog, ‘It’s Not For Everyone,’ focuses on film, art, technology and free culture.
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February 16, 2011
The Octopus Project is an American indietronica band based in Austin, Texas, active since 1999. Its unique sound, blending pop and experimental elements, is a combination of digital and electronic sounds and noises (including drum machine, keyboard, synthesizers and other devices) and analog equipment (including guitars and live drums). Its music is mostly instrumental.
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