Disyembre 20, 2008
"Now superimpose on me someone's ugly house...."
Literal video.
UPDATE: I've removed the link, since the video's been taken down -- as has an earlier example of "literal video," which you've probably also seen. The earlier one used "Take On Me," and the one I'd linked here used "Under the Bridge." You saw the band's original video and heard the instruments, but the song was re-sung with lyrics that told you what was happening in the video -- like "now superimpose on me someone's ugly house...." It was very funny, and in both cases, it reminded us of an excellent music video and made us re-experience song, look at the video close closely, and enjoy everything in both the old way and an inventive new way.
UPDATE 2: But wait! Reading the Wikipedia entry for "Take On Me," I find the "Funny or Die" page with the video -- which is by Dustin McLean -- and must have been done with permission. Here. And now I can get the "Under the Bridge" one: Here! Yay!
Here's a link to the DustFilms page in "Funny or Die."
UPDATE: I've removed the link, since the video's been taken down -- as has an earlier example of "literal video," which you've probably also seen. The earlier one used "Take On Me," and the one I'd linked here used "Under the Bridge." You saw the band's original video and heard the instruments, but the song was re-sung with lyrics that told you what was happening in the video -- like "now superimpose on me someone's ugly house...." It was very funny, and in both cases, it reminded us of an excellent music video and made us re-experience song, look at the video close closely, and enjoy everything in both the old way and an inventive new way.
UPDATE 2: But wait! Reading the Wikipedia entry for "Take On Me," I find the "Funny or Die" page with the video -- which is by Dustin McLean -- and must have been done with permission. Here. And now I can get the "Under the Bridge" one: Here! Yay!
Here's a link to the DustFilms page in "Funny or Die."
test
ADDED: I'd intended to delete that (after testing what was causing the problem described here), but since commenters have gathered -- eager to take the professor's test -- I can't delete it now. Maybe in some way this blog is a test, in which case, thank you all for taking it. I will grade on a curve.
"Court Strikes Rule That Let Plants Sometimes Exceed Limits."
Well, then. Plants better read that opinion and get in line.
You know, it's not easy being a plant. You try to spread your wings, to break out of that plant box, and someone is always trying to knock you back down. You're a plant, dammit, and that's all you'll ever be.
You know, it's not easy being a plant. You try to spread your wings, to break out of that plant box, and someone is always trying to knock you back down. You're a plant, dammit, and that's all you'll ever be.
The dynastic struggle.
Ooh, this is just so frustrating for Andrew Cuomo.
From 1990 to 2003, Cuomo the Younger was married, Montague-and-Capulet style, to Robert F. Kennedy's daughter Kerry-and was close friends with Caroline's brother John Jr., from 1988 to his 1999 death. The marriage ended in a bitter divorce after Cuomo reportedly discovered his wife had an affair with a polo player....I didn't follow the divorce hijinx, but if it's true that Kerry cheated on Andy, then it's only fair that Andy should be Senator.
"Incestuous, intermarrying with one another to take over the crown and consolidate power," is how one Nassau pol described the Kennedy-Cuomo relationship....
Why music? And why so much music?
The Economist asks:
Anyway, The Economist notes 3 theories for the evolution of music in human culture: 1. sex, 2. social glue, 3. accident and invention. All 3 theories are discussed at length at the link, but let me concentrate on the sex theory -- that people make music to attract sex partners. The theory is reinforced by the way musical achievement tends to track the human being's sexual development. One study of jazz musicians found "that their output rises rapidly after puberty, reaches its peak during young-adulthood, and then declines with age and the demands of parenthood."
This may be the best answer to the question my son Jac asked the other day: "Why does every great, long-lived rock band lose their greatness?"
Meanwhile, just yesterday, I was going on and on about how there's way too much music. It's playing everywhere, people are listening on iPods everywhere, and that I hardly ever want to listen to music. There is a lot of music that I acknowledge is good and that I even know I like, but that doesn't mean I want to listen to it. I specifically enjoy the absence of music, and I seek it out. If silence were a track I could have on my iPod, it would be on my most-played list. Etc. etc. etc. Now, I'm thinking: What was I saying???
Other appetites... have been sated even to excess by modern business. Food far beyond the simple needs of stomachs, and sex (or at least images of it) far beyond the needs of reproduction, bombard the modern man and woman, and are eagerly consumed. But these excesses are built on obvious appetites. What appetite drives the proliferation of music to the point where the average American teenager spends 1½-2½ hours a day—an eighth of his waking life—listening to it?1½-2½ hours a day? That seems positively abstemious. I had the impression that many people were listening to music constantly. And why stop at "waking life"? Aren't people playing music all night?
Anyway, The Economist notes 3 theories for the evolution of music in human culture: 1. sex, 2. social glue, 3. accident and invention. All 3 theories are discussed at length at the link, but let me concentrate on the sex theory -- that people make music to attract sex partners. The theory is reinforced by the way musical achievement tends to track the human being's sexual development. One study of jazz musicians found "that their output rises rapidly after puberty, reaches its peak during young-adulthood, and then declines with age and the demands of parenthood."
This may be the best answer to the question my son Jac asked the other day: "Why does every great, long-lived rock band lose their greatness?"
Meanwhile, just yesterday, I was going on and on about how there's way too much music. It's playing everywhere, people are listening on iPods everywhere, and that I hardly ever want to listen to music. There is a lot of music that I acknowledge is good and that I even know I like, but that doesn't mean I want to listen to it. I specifically enjoy the absence of music, and I seek it out. If silence were a track I could have on my iPod, it would be on my most-played list. Etc. etc. etc. Now, I'm thinking: What was I saying???
The most annoying thing about Blogger.
It is way too easy to accidentally publish a post. It happens all too often that I'm only beginning a post and I do something -- perhaps hit the return button twice -- that makes the post publish.
Just now for example, I wanted to do a post on this Economist article about music, and I copied and pasted the whole article into the "compose" window so I could read it and cut it down to a few choice quotes. I then made some mistake that made a post of the entire thing -- with no identifying link or even quote marks to show that it was copied.
Sorry. And Blogger, please fix that.
Just now for example, I wanted to do a post on this Economist article about music, and I copied and pasted the whole article into the "compose" window so I could read it and cut it down to a few choice quotes. I then made some mistake that made a post of the entire thing -- with no identifying link or even quote marks to show that it was copied.
Sorry. And Blogger, please fix that.
Christopher Hitchens has a few more problems with Rick Warren as the inauguration prayer-leader.
He asked:
What Hitchens would prefer, it seems, is what Justice William Brennan called "ceremonial deism":
Will Warren be invited to the solemn ceremony of inauguration without being asked to repudiate what he has directly said to deny salvation to Jews?So who should do the invocation -- assuming we must have an invocation? "[L]et it be some dignified old hypocrite with no factional allegiance."
Will he be giving a national invocation without disowning what his mentor said about civil rights and what his leading supporter says about Mormons?
Will the American people be prayed into the next administration, which will be confronted by a possible nuclear Iran and an already nuclear Pakistan, by a half-educated pulpit-pounder raised in the belief that the Armageddon solution is one to be anticipated with positive glee?
As Barack Obama is gradually learning, his job is to be the president of all Americans at all times. If he likes, he can oppose the idea of marriage for Americans who are homosexual. That's a policy question on which people may and will disagree. However, the man he has chosen to deliver his inaugural invocation is a relentless clerical businessman who raises money on the proposition that certain Americans—non-Christians, the wrong kind of Christians, homosexuals, nonbelievers—are of less worth and littler virtue than his own lovely flock of redeemed and salvaged and paid-up donors.
What Hitchens would prefer, it seems, is what Justice William Brennan called "ceremonial deism":
[G]overnment cannot be completely prohibited from recognizing in its public actions the religious beliefs and practices of the American people as an aspect of our national history and culture. While I remain uncertain about these questions, I would suggest that such practices as the designation of "In God We Trust" as our national motto, or the references to God contained in the Pledge of Allegiance to the flag can best be understood, in Dean Rostow's apt phrase, as a form a "ceremonial deism," protected from Establishment Clause scrutiny chiefly because they have lost through rote repetition any significant religious content. Moreover, these references are uniquely suited to serve such wholly secular purposes as solemnizing public occasions, or inspiring commitment to meet some national challenge in a manner that simply could not be fully served in our culture if government were limited to purely nonreligious phrases. The practices by which the government has long acknowledged religion are therefore probably necessary to serve certain secular functions, and that necessity, coupled with their long history, gives those practices an essentially secular meaning.More recently, Justice O'Connor wrote:
Given the values that the Establishment Clause was meant to serve, ... I believe that government can, in a discrete category of cases, acknowledge or refer to the divine without offending the Constitution. This category of “ceremonial deism” most clearly encompasses such things as the national motto (“In God We Trust”), religious references in traditional patriotic songs such as the Star-Spangled Banner, and the words with which the Marshal of this Court opens each of its sessions (“God save the United States and this honorable Court”). These references are not minor trespasses upon the Establishment Clause to which I turn a blind eye. Instead, their history, character, and context prevent them from being constitutional violations at all.In my Religion & the Constitution class, I like to say that no one believes in ceremonial deism. It's no one's religion, just a mode of using religion in the public setting. And yet, if anyone is a ceremonial deist, I'd say that person is Barack Obama. I air my suspicion -- and praise that religion of no religion -- here:
Disyembre 19, 2008
We just brushed the snow off the top of the car....
... and backed out.
***
That reminds me: Bush bails out the auto industry.
IN THE COMMENTS: Ron says:
Ah, snowy, silver Silvio...how we've missed thee!
No new wheels for you, Althouse? Not even a new TT? (I know you didn't like last year's!)
Maybe for Christmas...
The car is too perfect for me: beautiful, fun to drive, great in the snow and ice. I just can't think what could replace it. See what a 2009 Audi TT looks like. Men must have their mean car face, so Audi lost a customer. I'll be doing my best to preserve my 2005 car -- which has less than 40,000 miles on it and only one very tiny dent.
Some people sneeze when they think about sex.
Who knows why?
Sherman the Monkey. What is he thinking?
Anyway... sneezing and orgasms: compare and contrast.
1. Just thinking about sex might make you sneeze.
2. ...
Sherman the Monkey. What is he thinking?
Anyway... sneezing and orgasms: compare and contrast.
1. Just thinking about sex might make you sneeze.
2. ...
Bristol Palin's possible future mother-in-law...
... arrested on drug felony charges.
Questions:
1. What drug?
2. Will Bristol Palin ever marry Levi Johnston?
3. Bristol's baby -- a boy -- is due tomorrow. Will Andrew Sullivan stop obsessing about whether Trig -- born April 18, 2008 -- might have been Bristol's baby and not Sarah's?
Questions:
1. What drug?
2. Will Bristol Palin ever marry Levi Johnston?
3. Bristol's baby -- a boy -- is due tomorrow. Will Andrew Sullivan stop obsessing about whether Trig -- born April 18, 2008 -- might have been Bristol's baby and not Sarah's?
Operation Santa Claus squelched.
Because the Post Office discovered that one guy -- who probably only wanted to do a good deed -- was -- like 644,000 Americans -- a registered sex offender.
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