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Click through for some excellent pictures of the Supermoon from...

Mon, 07 May 2012 13:06:00 -0400

Click through for some excellent pictures of the Supermoon from Boston.com’s Big Picture! From the site:

“The night sky on May 5 was animated by the once-a-year cosmic event of the perigee moon. Popularly known as the “Supermoon”, the moon appears much larger above us when the elliptical orbit brings it within 221,802 miles to Earth, the closest point. The effect is magnified during a full moon, when we see our nearest celestial neighbor appear roughly 20 percent brighter and 15 percent larger. Collected here are images taken just before, during, and just after the perigee moon of 2012.”

Beastieography After today’s sad news of the passing of...

Fri, 04 May 2012 19:40:00 -0400

Beastieography

After today’s sad news of the passing of Adam Yauch, I felt compelled to watch MTV’s documentary about the Beastie Boys - Beastieography. If the amount Googling it took me to track this video down is any indication, I feel like the Beastieography has been kind of forgotten. Which is a shame, cause it’s terrific.

Note - this user only has the first part uploaded. The second part, along with the rest of the documentary, has been uploaded by a different user, who doesn’t seem to have the first part, for whatever reason. But there’s no content missing between the two.

I remember I had the whole thing taped on VHS when it aired way back in the summer of 1998. The Beasties were my buddies that summer as I had just moved a new state, between my sophomore and junior years of high school. I watched it over and over again (then of course lost the tape in college). I haven’t seen it in years, so this is a bittersweet treat. If you haven’t seen it, well… now’s the time.

RIP MCA.

“Fabulous and miserable at the same time.” If you...

Tue, 01 May 2012 18:14:00 -0400

“Fabulous and miserable at the same time.”

If you didn’t catch it last night, be sure to tune in to PBS tonight (at least in the NY area) to watch this fantastic segment from Bill Moyers and Company. Really though, you should just stream it online now, because it is essential.

In last night’s episode, Moyers sits down with Marty Kaplan, director of USC’s Norman Lear Center, to delve into some of the most trenchant criticism of our modern media environment that I’ve heard in a long time.

The segment is, to quote Kaplan, “fabulous and miserable at the same time.” If it weren’t for Kaplan’s smiling demeanor and upbeat personality, I don’t know if I could have taken everything without putting a shoe through my TV.

At one point, Kaplan goes into details about how US military generals had to lobby the producers of FOX’s 24 to tone down the torture in the show. This was especially resonant to me in how it compared to, of all things, a recent Thomas Frank write-up of Andrew Breitbart that I randomly read in the latest issue of Harper’s. In it, Frank’s description of the incredibly powerful influence of Hollywood (and Breitbart’s never-ending hatred of it) struck me as a tad hyperbolic. But by the end of this Moyers/Kaplan interview, it made all the sense in the world.

I suppose it would be easy to dismiss a lot of this as overwrought, Orwellian conspiracy theories. However, the deeper you get into this meaty 45min, the harder it is to keep up that skepticism. Kaplan seems devoid of any sort of modern political agenda. His politics seem to be rooted in a calmer, less frenetic past. That’s not to say he is paralyzed with nostalgia, but rather very aware of how things were, how things are now, and how the two are not compatible with one another anymore.

Actual, substantial change seems to be all the more difficult the faster things are moving. I believe Kaplan is saying that unless we try to slow things down a bit and update some terribly-outdated governing practices, the inertia might be taking us off a cliff. Anyone up for a media fast?

God light in Mammoth Hot Springs, Yellowstone #2 (Taken...

Mon, 30 Apr 2012 17:36:00 -0400

God light in Mammoth Hot Springs, Yellowstone #2 (Taken with instagram)

Polica on Jimmy Fallon.

Thu, 26 Apr 2012 03:54:00 -0400

Polica on Jimmy Fallon.

nprfreshair: David Bianculli’s ticket from a Dylan/The Band...

Fri, 20 Apr 2012 10:28:32 -0400

nprfreshair:

David Bianculli’s ticket from a Dylan/The Band concert on Jan 19th 1974.

God light in Mammoth Hot Springs, Yellowstone #1 (Taken with...

Fri, 20 Apr 2012 09:13:00 -0400

God light in Mammoth Hot Springs, Yellowstone #1 (Taken with instagram)

Alrighty then… looks like today is Bob Dylan day in my...

Mon, 19 Mar 2012 12:54:26 -0400

Alrighty then… looks like today is Bob Dylan day in my iTunes.

via rocketboom:

Bob Dylan’s first album was released 50 years ago today

Pismo Boardwalk (Taken with instagram)

Sun, 18 Mar 2012 22:37:13 -0400

Pismo Boardwalk (Taken with instagram)

+1 to foreign movie posters. via criterion

Thu, 15 Mar 2012 12:13:23 -0400

+1 to foreign movie posters.

via criterion

Masterful. via lonelysandwich and atencio: Key & Peele:...

Wed, 07 Mar 2012 17:35:59 -0500

Masterful.

via lonelysandwich and atencio:

Key & Peele: Flicker

This is my favorite sketch of the season, and by far the one I spent the most time on in post-production, trying to get the timing of the edit and the music just right…

Brooklyn laundromat in my neighborhood. (Taken with instagram)

Tue, 28 Feb 2012 17:32:18 -0500

Brooklyn laundromat in my neighborhood. (Taken with instagram)

Watching this awesome whale show on PBS right now, so I figured...

Wed, 22 Feb 2012 22:26:14 -0500

Watching this awesome whale show on PBS right now, so I figured it’s as good a time as any to share this pic of Big Blue, the biggest whale on Twitter - @NatHistoryWhale. (Taken with instagram)

Deep Thoughts by Jack Handey They all contain the blueprints for...

Mon, 30 Jan 2012 13:24:46 -0500

Deep Thoughts by Jack Handey

They all contain the blueprints for Internet humor. Especially this one.

Steve Jobs was cooler… but Bill Gates is the...

Wed, 25 Jan 2012 15:52:00 -0500

Steve Jobs was cooler… but Bill Gates is the man.

fastcompany:

Can you guess who has saved more lives?

Infographic of the Day: Bill Gates Is A Better Superhero Than Batman

Sometimes I forget how amazing The Kids in the Hall was. Thanks,...

Fri, 20 Jan 2012 03:10:00 -0500

Sometimes I forget how amazing The Kids in the Hall was. Thanks, YouTube! #FUSOPA

Looks like there really will be a better tomorrow,...

Thu, 19 Jan 2012 09:52:18 -0500

Looks like there really will be a better tomorrow, tomorrow.

via thedailywhat:

Colbert/Cain 2012 of the Day: Stephen Colbert announced today that he will be co-holding a rally in South Carolina’s College of Charleston alongside former presidential candidate Herman Cain.

The Rock Me Like A Herman Cain: South Cain-olina Primary Rally will be held this Friday, January 20th @ 1:00 PM in front of C of C’s historic Randolph Hall.

“Herman is the only former candidate who truly shares my values,” said Colbert in a campaign press release. “It’s like our values were separated at birth. And our ethics are at least first cousins.”

The “Peabody Award-winning Grammy winner” released a political ad earlier this week though his unaffiliated SuperPAC asking South Carolinians to vote for Herman Cain.

The press release directed all questions concerning the rally to Yahoo Answers, as “they always know everything.”

[buzz-pol.]

via npr: I thought it would be fun to start the year addressing...

Wed, 11 Jan 2012 19:12:04 -0500

via npr:

I thought it would be fun to start the year addressing some questions that many people have about the universe. Mind you, some of these are far from simple, true to what Milan Kundera once wrote, “the only truly serious questions are the ones that even a child can formulate.”

—Marcelo Gleiser fills us in on “What Happened Before The Big Bang? And Other Weird Cosmic Questions”

Yes!

Will also give a plus one to the latest in the collaborations between NOVA and Brian Greene - The Fabric of the Cosmos. Between this and Carl Sagan’s Cosmos on Netflix, there’s plenty for us computerchair cosmologists to enjoy until Neil De Grasse Tyson hits the FOX airwaves sometime after in 2013 (that’s assuming there’s still a post-apocalypse system in place for broadcasting).

Very excited about this evolution of The Sound of Young America!...

Tue, 10 Jan 2012 16:06:18 -0500

Very excited about this evolution of The Sound of Young America! Love the new look and feel.

via putthison:

As I’ve written here before, the past few weeks I’ve been furiously working on launching a new public radio show called Bullseye with Jesse Thorn. It’s about the good stuff in popular culture. In-depth interviews with creators, recommendations from top critics, and original comedy.

You can hear the show on public radio stations around the country, including WNYC in New York, WHYY in Philadelphia, KALW in San Francisco and XM Public Radio (channel 133). You can ask your public radio station to check it out - it’s distributed by Public Radio International. You can also get it free in iTunes.

Below is a segment from our second episode, an interview with the comedian Chris Gethard. You might have heard Chris on last week’s This American Life. He’s had a crazy life, and has a great new book out called A Bad Idea I’m About To Do.

It’s the kind of interview where he has to say out loud the sentence “Your parents shouldn’t watch from a window as you beat a dwarf with a bat.”

So listen to it, then subscribe to the show in iTunes. That way you won’t miss upcoming interviews with Jack Handey, Jenna Fischer, Tim & Eric, Aisha Tyler and Werner Herzog.

The 12 Days of Christmas Vacation I am very excited about this...

Mon, 19 Dec 2011 16:58:00 -0500

The 12 Days of Christmas Vacation

I am very excited about this piece I wrote for Splitsider today about my favorite Christmas movie of all-time:

One of the best things about this time of year is getting to watch National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation. Of all the Christmas movies out there, it’s definitely my favorite. Watching this third installment of the Griswold family was something of a tradition for the Worcester family, and even after countless viewings, it still makes me laugh out loud every year.

If you’re like me and consider yourself an extended member of the Griswold family, read on at Splitsider.