Everything is Interesting
An Urban chicken or backyard chicken is a chicken kept in a city. The primary reasons for keeping chickens are the food and income made by selling the eggs and meat. Other reasons include use in ceremonies and as gifts or even as pets. Keeping chickens in an urban environment is associated with the ‘Urban Agriculture Movement,’ which is the growing practice of cultivating, processing and distributing food in cities.
The Technics SL-1200 are a series of turntables manufactured since October 1972 by Matsushita under the brand name of Technics. Originally released as a high fidelity consumer record player, it quickly became adopted among radio and club disc jockeys. Since its release in 1978, SL-1200MK2 and its successors have been the most common turntable for DJing and scratching.
The MK2 presented several improvements, including to the motor and casing. Since 1972, more than 3 million units have been sold. It is widely regarded as one of the most durable and reliable turntables ever produced. Many of the models manufactured in the 1970s are still in heavy use. In the autumn of 2010, Panasonic announced that the series was to be discontinued due to marketplace conditions.
David Elsewhere (b. 1979) is an illusionary dancer from Santa Ana, California. He became known through a viral video of his participation in the 2001 edition of the Korean American talent show ‘Kollaboration,’ dancing to Kraftwerk’s song ‘Expo 2000.’ The clip showcased Bernal’s characteristic take on the contemporary dance styles of popping and abstract waving. Performances of these dances were rare at the time, and the clip became very popular when it circulated on the internet.
Bernal was later hired to participate in advertisements for Heineken (dancing to ‘Cobrastyle’ by the Teddybears), Volkswagen, Apple iPod, 7-Eleven Slurpee, Pepsi, Puma, and Doritos. He also made a cameo appearance in the movie ‘You Got Served.’ Computer graphics technology were used in several of the commercials Bernal took part in, superimposing others’ faces (old, young, male, female) onto his body so that they appeared to dance like him. In one of his most popular ads, a commercial for the Volkswagen Golf GTI created in January of 2005, Gene Kelly’s head was superimposed onto Bernal’s body in a re-enactment of ‘Singin’ in the Rain’ remixed by Manchester group Mint Royale.
The Book of Mormon is a musical written by South Park creators, Trey Parker and Matt Stone, and Avenue Q writer, Robert Lopez. The show tells the story of two young Mormon missionaries sent off to spread their faith in a dangerous part of Uganda. Scott Rudin and Anne Garafino are listed as the producers. The show debuted on Broadway at the Eugene O’Neill Theatre in 2011.
McIntosh Laboratory is a manufacturer of high-end audio equipment based in Binghamton, New York. Founded in 1949 by Frank McIntosh, the company is noted for its extremely high build quality and excellent technical specifications. The ‘classic’ vacuum tube components of the 1960s include the MC275 power amplifier, the C22 preamplifier, and the MR67 tuner. Later McIntosh solid state power amps are known for their distinctive blue colored meters. In 1946, McIntosh, a design consultant for broadcast and TV stations, hired Gordon Gow to help him design a high power, low distortion amplifier needed for his clients. This amplifier would become the 50W-1. It included McIntosh’s first patented circuit, the Unity Coupled Circuit, still used by current products.
McIntosh amplifiers were used at the Woodstock Music Festival in 1969, and the Grateful Dead’s ‘Wall of Sound’ reputedly utilized forty-eight 300-watt per channel McIntosh model MC 2300 solid state amplifiers for a total of 28,800 watts of continuous power. The company was purchased by Japanese car audio maker Clarion in 1990. In a speech shortly after the purchase, Clarion president Yutaka Oyamada told McIntosh employees, ‘…we like McIntosh as it is, and we have no intention of changing what has made it so successful.’ In 2003, McIntosh was sold by Clarion to D&M Holdings, also of Japan.
The French Paradox is the observation that French people suffer a relatively low incidence of coronary heart disease, despite having a diet relatively rich in saturated fats. The term French Paradox was coined by Dr. Serge Renaud, a scientist from Bordeaux University in France. It has been suggested that France’s high red wine consumption is a primary factor in the trend.
This hypothesis was expounded in a 60 Minutes broadcast in 1991. It is believed that one of the components of red wine potentially related to this effect is resveratrol. Statistics collected by the WHO from 1990–2000 show that the incidence of heart disease in France may have been underestimated, and may in fact be similar to that of neighboring countries.
Resveratrol is a chemical produced naturally by several plants when under attack by pathogens such as bacteria or fungi. It is found in the skin of red grapes and is a constituent of red wine, but apparently not in sufficient amounts to explain the French Paradox. Resveratrol is currently a topic of numerous animal and human studies into its effects.
Whisky production in Japan began around 1870, but the first commercial production was in 1924 upon the opening of the country’s first distillery, Yamazaki. Broadly speaking the style of Japanese whisky is more similar to that of Scotch whisky than Irish whiskey, and thus the spelling typically follows the Scottish convention (omitting the letter ‘e’).
There are several companies producing whisky in Japan. Perhaps the two most well known are Suntory and Nikka. Both produce blended as well as single malt whiskies.
Cthulhu [kuh-thool-hoo] is a fictional cosmic entity created by horror author H. P. Lovecraft in 1926. Cthulhu is the high priest to the Great Old Ones and one of the central figures of the Lovecraft Mythos. It is often cited for the extreme descriptions given of its hideous appearance, its gargantuan size, and the abject terror that it evokes. Cthulhu is depicted as having a worldwide doomsday cult centered in Arabia, with followers in regions as far-flung as Greenland and Louisiana.
Mowgli syndrome is a term used by Wendy Doniger O’Flaherty in her 1995 book ‘Other Peoples’ Myths: The Cave of Echoes’ to describe mythological figures who succeed in bridging the animal and human worlds to become one with nature, a human animal, only to become trapped between the two worlds, not completely animal yet not entirely human.
It is also a rarely-used descriptive term for so-called feral children. The term originates from the character Mowgli, a fictional feral child from Rudyard Kipling’s ‘The Jungle Book.’
The high five is a celebratory hand gesture that occurs when two people simultaneously raise one hand, about head high, and push, slide or slap the flat of their palm and hand against the palm and flat hand of their partner. The gesture is often preceded verbally by the phrase ‘Give me five’ or ‘High five.’ The origins of the term are said to belong to U.S. basketball, and the use of the phrase as a noun has been part of the Oxford English Dictionary since 1980 and as a verb since 1981.
K Foundation Burn a Million Quid was a performance art/ political exercise that took place in 1994, in which the K Foundation (an art duo consisting of Bill Drummond and Jimmy Cauty) burned cash in the amount of one million pounds sterling on the Scottish island of Jura. A single house brick that was manufactured from the fire’s ashes. This money represented the bulk of the K Foundation’s funds, earned by Drummond and Cauty as The KLF, one of the United Kingdom’s most successful pop groups of the early 1990s.
The incineration was recorded on a Hi-8 video camera by K Foundation collaborator Gimpo. In 1995, the film was toured around the UK, with Drummond and Cauty engaging each audience in debate about the burning and its meaning. Later that year, the duo pledged to dissolve the K Foundation and to refrain from public discussion of the burning for a period of 23 years. Despite this Drummond has spoken about the burning in 2000 and 2004. At first he was unrepentant but in 2004, he admitted to the BBC that he regretted burning the money.
The Daily Omnivore 