Friday, January 13, 2012
Thursday, January 12, 2012
WARNING ONE
Tomorrow is Friday 13th and this would seem to be a fine day for early warnings. In addition to what you see below it’s most likely inadvisable to take the green acid.
Click here for the inevitable Jim
The secret word is Finale
Wednesday, January 11, 2012
THE INVISIBLE GORILLA
Focused. Yes, I have been focused. I have been so damned focused – and also still taking fistfuls of meds – that I frequently have a feeling that the undefined is passing me by, unknown entities materialize sight-unseen without me knowing anything about them except some Ballad-Of-A-Thin-Man suspicions. But then our pals at Delancey place clued me in on the invisible gorilla, and I released the focus was to blame…
"Intense focusing on a task can make people effectively blind, even to stimuli that normally attract attention. The most dramatic demonstration was offered by Christopher Chabris and Daniel Simons in their book The Invisible Gorilla. They constructed a short film of two teams passing basketballs, one team wearing white shirts, the other wearing black. The viewers of the film are instructed to count the number of passes made by the white team, ignoring the black players. This task is difficult and completely absorbing. Halfway through the video, a woman wearing a gorilla suit appears, crosses the court, thumps her chest, and moves on. The gorilla is in view for 9 seconds.
"Many thousands of people have seen the video, and about half of them do not notice anything unusual. It is the counting task-and especially the instruction to ignore one of the teams-that causes the blindness. No one who watches the video without that task would miss the gorilla. Seeing and orienting are automatic functions of System 1, but they depend on the allocation of some attention to the relevant stimulus. The authors note that the most remarkable observation of their study is that people find its results very surprising. Indeed, the viewers who fail to see the gorilla are initially sure that it was not there - they cannot imagine missing such a striking event. The gorilla study illustrates two important facts about our minds: we can be blind to the obvious, and we are also blind to our blindness. – Daniel Kahneman, Thinking, Fast and Slow (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
Click here for Bowie
The secret word is Guy
THE FROZDICK FAMILY
Vladimir Ilyich Frozdick was probably the only one in the family who really knew the score.
Sunday, January 08, 2012
ELVIS SUNDAY
Click here
The secret word is Forever
Sunday, January 01, 2012
SUNDAY BREAKFAST
Yes. I had a very good New Year’s Eve, thank you. And now it’s 2012, okay? To paraphrase Pop – another year for me and you, another year with (I suspect) plenty to do.
Click here a whole lotta Jimi
The secret word is Ringing
THE FROZDICK FAMILY
Vaclav Frozdick greatly resented that Elvis had a gold suit and all he had was a stupid uniform and an ugly hat.
Saturday, December 31, 2011
Saturday, December 24, 2011
THE TIDE OF YULE
The tide of yule sweeps all before so how can we resist? Have a fabulous 2012, friends and neighbours, even if the Maya are right and it really is our last.
The secret word is Pudding
Monday, December 19, 2011
HAVE THIS DREAM STOPPED!
Click here for Santa back in town.
Do we want Kim Jong Il to RIP?
The secret word is Saturnalia
Tuesday, December 13, 2011
DID YOU EVER HAVE ONE OF THOSE DAYS?
But, of course, I do have a mission. (And the God Particle is coming.)
Click here for the Rolling Stones
The secret word is Images.
Monday, December 12, 2011
THE FROZDICK FAMILY
Georgiana Frozdick did not realize her wings were on fire, and needless to say, the rotten Indians didn’t bother to warn her.
Sunday, December 11, 2011
SUNDAY BREAKFAST
Well, no, in fact my physical well-being – after a couple of unfortunate setbacks – is decidedly improved. To the point that I’m actually becoming a tad neurotic about all the catching up required of me. I fret over all the commentary I have not delivered, the madness that is unwritten, the overdue correspondence, the burden of faux-divine inspiration that has yet to be committed to print, not to mention the so-called civilizations that require saving. But the solstice is upon us, my strength returns, and in the New Year, (maybe our last -- wink) I’m devoutly hoping that even more offers of events, projects, performances, and suitably bizarre propositions will be beating a path to the door of this ancient poet.
Click here for JB
The secret word is Regroup
Tuesday, December 06, 2011
AND TOMORROW WE ASK YOU TO BELIEVE IN SANTA CLAUS
Click here for a younger Elvis
The secret word is Questionable
Friday, December 02, 2011
...OR BE SQUARE!
The secret word is Comeback
Wednesday, November 30, 2011
Tuesday, November 29, 2011
I JUST LOVE THIS (Thursday On My Mind)
I couldn’t resist lifting this from Dangerous Minds. The Norse gods really don’t get their due recognition.
Click here for The Beatles
The secret word is Valhalla
Monday, November 28, 2011
AND YOU THOUGHT ROCK & ROLL COULD START RIOTS?
Our pals at Delancey Place send over this account of the riotous premiere of Stravinsky’s Rite Of Spring.
"All the excitement [of Igor Stravinsky's early career] was nothing against the impact of Le Sacre du printemps, which had its premiere on May 29, 1913 [when he was thirty]. Stravinsky had conceived the idea for it while working on Firebird. 'I dreamed of a scene of pagan ritual in which a chosen sacrificial virgin danced herself to death.' Work on Le Sacre was dropped for Petrushka, but Stravinsky soon resumed work on the new ballet. (He has said that The Coronation of Spring would be closer to his original meaning than the usual translation, The Rite of Spring.) Vaslav Nijinsky was the choreographer, and the premiere resulted in the most famous scandale in the history of music. Hardly anybody in the audience was prepared for a score of such dissonance and ferocity, such complexity and such rhythmic oddity.
"Nobody connected with the production had the faintest idea that the music would provoke a visceral reaction. As soon as the bassoon ended its phrase in the high register, at the very opening of the ballet, laughter broke out. Soon there were whistles and catcalls. Nobody could hear the music. Diaghilev had the electricians switch the house lights off and on, in an effort to restore order. Nijinsky, in the wings, yelled the rhythms to the dancers. The Comtesse de Pourtales stood in her box, brandishing her fan, and shouted: 'This is the first time in sixty years that anybody has dared make fun of me.' People hurled insults at each other. The Apaches, [a musical school of thought] headed by Ravel, shrieked their praise. Stravinsky himself, in his Expositions and Developments, has described the famous evening at the Theatre des Champs-Elysees:
"Mild protests against the music could be heard from the very beginning of the performance. Then, when the curtain opened ... the storm broke. Cries of 'Ta gueule' (shut up!) came from behind me. I heard Florent Schmitt shout 'Taisez-vouz garces du seizieme' (be quiet, bitches of the sixteenth!); the 'garces' of the sixteenth arondissement were, of course, the most elegant ladies in Paris. The uproar continued, however, and a few minutes later I left the hall in a rage; I was sitting on the right near the orchestra, and I remember slamming the door. I have never again been that angry. The music was familiar to me; I loved it, and I could not understand why people who had not yet heard it wanted to protest in advance. I arrived in a fury backstage, where I saw Diaghilev flicking the house lights in a last effort to quiet the hall. For the rest of the performance I stood in the wings behind Nijinsky holding the tails of his frac while he stood on a chair shouting numbers to the dancers like a coxswain.” -- Harold C. Schonberg: The Lives of the Great Composers (Norton)
Click here for Igor
The secret word is Bird
AND WHAT COSTUME SHALL THE POOR GIRL WEAR…
…for all tomorrow’s parties?
Click here for the Siouxsie version. (Image of near naked Nico submitted by HCB)
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