October 18, 2010
Robert Crumb (b. 1943) is an American artist, illustrator and musician recognized for the distinctive style of his drawings and his critical, satirical, subversive view of the American mainstream. Crumb was a founder of the underground comix movement and is regarded as its most prominent figure.
Though one of the most celebrated of comic book artists, Crumb’s entire career has unfolded outside the mainstream comic book publishing industry. One of his most recognized works is the ‘Keep on Truckin” comic, which became a widely distributed fixture of pop culture in the 1970s. Others are the characters Devil Girl, Fritz the Cat, and Mr. Natural.
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October 18, 2010
‘Cleatus the Robot,’ is the official mascot of Fox NFL Sunday, named by a viewer during a contest in the winter of 2007 in which fans were able to submit entries as to what they thought the robot’s name should be. Cleatus made his first appearance during the 2005-2006 NFL season, but was not used regularly until the following season. Cleatus mainly appears during the intro sequence of the show as well as brief commercials for movies and TV shows.
In commercials he commonly gets attacked by a CGI character from whatever the advertisement is about. He has thus far been attacked by Iron Man, a dragon, and a Terminator robot. Cleatus is also known to hop on two feet, play the electric guitar, shake out his limbs, and do dance moves such as the swim and the electric slide. In response to Cleatus, NASCAR on Fox created ‘Digger,’ an animated gopher mascot.
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October 13, 2010
A meme [meem] is a unit of cultural ideas, symbols or practices, which can be transmitted from one mind to another through writing, speech, gestures, rituals or other imitable phenomena. Supporters of the concept regard memes as cultural analogues to genes, in that they self-replicate and respond to selective pressures. The British scientist Richard Dawkins coined the word in ‘The Selfish Gene’ (1976) as a concept for discussion of evolutionary principles in explaining the spread of ideas and cultural phenomena.
Examples of memes given in the book included melodies, catch-phrases, beliefs (notably religious beliefs), clothing fashion, and the technology of building arches. Meme-theorists contend that memes evolve by natural selection (in a manner analogous to that of biological evolution) through the processes of variation, mutation, competition, and inheritance influencing an individual meme’s reproductive success. Memes spread through the behaviors that they generate in their hosts. Memes that propagate less prolifically may become extinct, while others may survive, spread, and (for better or for worse) mutate.
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October 12, 2010
The Turk was a fake chess-playing machine constructed in the late 18th century. From 1770 until its destruction by fire in 1854, it was exhibited by various owners as an automaton. Constructed and unveiled in 1770 by Wolfgang von Kempelen (1734–1804) to impress the Empress Maria Theresa, the mechanism appeared to be able to play a strong game of chess against a human opponent. The Turk was in fact a mechanical illusion that allowed a human chess master hiding inside to operate the machine.
With a skilled operator, the Turk won most of the games played during its demonstrations around Europe and the Americas for nearly 84 years, playing and defeating many challengers including statesmen such as Napoleon Bonaparte and Benjamin Franklin. Although many had suspected the hidden human operator, the hoax was initially revealed only in the 1820s by the Londoner Robert Willis.
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September 25, 2010
The Flat Earth Society is an organization that seeks to further the belief that the Earth is flat rather than the scientifically accepted view that it is a sphere or a geoid. The modern organization was founded by Englishman Samuel Shenton in 1956. The belief that the Earth was flat was typical of ancient cosmologies until about the 4th century BC, when the Ancient Greek philosophers proposed the idea that the Earth was a sphere, or at least rounded in shape. Aristotle was one of the first thinkers to propose a spherical Earth in 330 BC. By the early Middle Ages, it was widespread knowledge throughout Europe that the Earth was a sphere.
Modern hypotheses supporting a flat Earth originated with English inventor Samuel Rowbotham (1816–1884). Based on his interpretation of certain biblical passages, Rowbotham published a 16-page pamphlet, which he later expanded into a 430-page book, ‘Earth Not a Globe,’ expounding his views. According to Rowbotham’s system, which he called ‘Zetetic Astronomy,’ the earth is a flat disc centered at the North Pole and bounded along its southern edge by a wall of ice (Antarctica), with the sun and moon 3000 miles (4800 km) and the ‘cosmos’ 3100 miles (5000 km) above earth. As of September 2009, two web-based discussion forums exist devoted to the Flat Earth Society is also represented on Twitter and Facebook.
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September 24, 2010
In its original sense, a shaggy dog story is an extremely long-winded tale featuring extensive narration of typically irrelevant incidents, usually resulting in a pointless or absurd punchline. These stories are a special case of yarns, coming from the long tradition of campfire yarns. Shaggy dog stories play upon the audience’s preconceptions of the art of joke telling. The audience listens to the story with certain expectations, which are either simply not met or met in some entirely unexpected manner.
A boy owned a dog that was uncommonly shaggy. Many people remarked upon its considerable shagginess. When the boy learned that there are contests for shaggy dogs, he entered his dog. The dog won first prize for shagginess in both the local and the regional competitions. The boy entered the dog in ever-larger contests, until finally he entered it in the world championship for shaggy dogs. When the judges had inspected all of the competing dogs, they remarked about the boy’s dog: ‘He’s not so shaggy.’
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September 20, 2010
Nacirema [nak-uh-ree-ma] (American backwards) is a tongue-in-cheek reference to the people of the United States. Anthropologists and sociologists use the term to examine (with a degree of anthropological self-distancing) aspects of the behavior and society of American people.
The original use of the term was in ‘Body Ritual Among the Nacirema’, which satirizes anthropological papers on ‘other’ cultures, and the Northern American Culture. Horace Miner wrote the paper and originally published it in the June 1956 edition of American Anthropologist.
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September 20, 2010
Rat Fink is one of the several hot-rod characters created by artist Ed ‘Big Daddy’ Roth. Roth’s hatred for Mickey Mouse led him to draw the original Rat Fink, who came to symbolize the hot-rod and ‘Kustom Kulture’ scene of the 1950s and 1960s. Although Detroit native Stanley Mouse is credited with creating the so-called ‘Monster Hot Rod’ art form, Roth is accepted as the individual who popularized it. The Rat Fink is a green, depraved-looking mouse with bulging, bloodshot eyes, an oversized mouth with yellowed, narrow teeth, and a red T-shirt with yellow ‘R.F.’ on it. Other artists associated with Roth also drew the character, including Steve Fiorilla, who illustrated Roth’s catalogs.
A Rat Fink revival in the late 1980s and the 1990s centered around the West Coast grunge/punk rock movements. The term ‘fink’ was originally underworld slang for an informer, comparable to ‘stool pigeon.’ It is also thought to have been a toned-down form of ‘ratfucking,’ a slang term for playing dirty tricks.
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September 20, 2010
AOHell was a program that modified early versions of America Online. It included a fake account generator, social engineering (or phishing) tools, and email, IM, and chatroom automation. Released in 1994 by a hacker known as ‘Da Chronic,’ AOHell provided a number of utilities which ran on top of the America Online client software. Upon loading, the program played a short clip from Dr. Dre’s 1993 song ‘Nuthin’ but a ‘G’ Thang.’ It was the first program of its kind, and spawned a large number of copycats. Over a period of 10 years, more than 1000 programs would be released for various versions of AOL.
In the manual, the creator of AOHell claims that he created the program because the AOL administrators would frequently shut down hacker and pirate chatrooms for violation of AOL’s terms of service while refusing to shut down the pedophilia chat rooms which regularly traded child pornography. Da Chronic claimed when he confronted AOL about it, he was met with an account deletion. His goal was,'[To have] 20,000+ idiots using AOHell to knock people offline, steal passwords and credit card information, and to basically annoy the hell out of everyone.’
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September 17, 2010
Mars Blackmon was a fictional character from the 1986 film ‘She’s Gotta Have It.’ He is also the alter-ego of filmmaker Spike Lee. In the film, he was a ‘Brooklyn-loving,’ die-hard New York Knicks fan. During the late 1980s and early 1990s, Blackmon became the primary pitchman in Nike commercials for Air Jordans, the basketball shoes worn by Michael Jordan. In these commercials, Mars Blackmon popularized the phrases ‘Is it the Shoes? Is it the Shoes? Is it the Shoes? … Money, it’s gotta be the shoes.’
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September 13, 2010
An announcer’s test is a test sometimes given to those wanting to be a radio or television announcer. The tests usually involve retention, memory, repetition, enunciation, diction, and using every letter in the alphabet a variety of times. One of the more well known announcer’s tests originated at Radio Central New York in the early 1940s as a cold reading test given to prospective radio talent to demonstrate their speaking ability.
There are many variants, but most begin thusly: One hen. One hen, two ducks. One hen, two ducks, three squawking geese. One hen, two ducks, three squawking geese, four limerick oysters… and so on.
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September 13, 2010
Eddie the Head is the mascot for the British heavy metal band Iron Maiden. He is a perennial fixture in the album cover art, as well as ever present in their live shows.The character was created by artist Derek Riggs. Riggs claimed that the design was based on a Japanese head he saw on a television documentary, hanging on the side of a burned out tank at the Matanikau River during the Battle for Henderson Field, October 24, 1942. The original Eddie was just a theatrical mask. It was connected to a pump that would eject various kinds of liquids, from food dye to paint, and would drool over Doug Sampson who was the drummer at the time.
The name originates from an old joke: Eddie the head was born with no body, no arms, and no legs. All he had was a head. But despite this major birth defect, his parents still loved him very much. So on his sixteenth birthday, his parents found a doctor that could surgically give Eddie a body. When the parents got home, they couldn’t wait to tell him that he could finally have a body and be like other normal people. When Eddie got there, they were really excited and said, ‘Have we got a surprise for you. It’s the best present ever!’ And Eddie said, ‘Oh no, not another f*****’ hat!’
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