NPR

wired: popculturebrain: We Made You Some ‘Arrested...

Fri, 24 May 2013 12:38:29 -0400

wired:

popculturebrain:

We Made You Some ‘Arrested Development’ Emoji | Vulture

Gettin’ ready for the big event! — heidi

(via Moore Finds Comfort In Animals Who Survived The...

Fri, 24 May 2013 10:26:00 -0400

(via Moore Finds Comfort In Animals Who Survived The Storm : The Two-Way)

Marilyn Degman holds her 10-year-old toy poodle, Angel Baby, outside the First Baptist Church in Moore, Okla.

Half a dozen temporary shelters have been set up for animals lost when a terrifying tornado hit Moore, Okla. One veterinary technician says, “It’s pretty amazing anything could survive what happened, but animals are pretty resilient.”

Photo: Katie Hayes Luke for NPR

life: Teen mom, 1971 edition. Photos from a 1971 LIFE magazine...

Fri, 24 May 2013 10:13:36 -0400

life:

Teen mom, 1971 edition.

Photos from a 1971 LIFE magazine story on teen pregnancy, “Help for High School Mothers,” chronicling the lives of teen moms and moms-to-be.

(Ralph Crane—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images)

Excellent photo essay on teen moms from 1971. Life revives these amid news that teen pregnancies are on the decline. — heidi

(via Liu Bolin: “Hiding in the City” uses invisibility as a...

Thu, 23 May 2013 16:35:22 -0400

(via Liu Bolin: “Hiding in the City” uses invisibility as a visible protest movement)

Can you find the artist hidden in this photo? — heidi

Ambrose! —Wright

Thu, 23 May 2013 15:33:33 -0400

Ambrose! —Wright

"Sports-talk radio was abuzz Wednesday morning with some comments that Sergio Garcia, the..."

Thu, 23 May 2013 15:15:00 -0400

“

Sports-talk radio was abuzz Wednesday morning with some comments that Sergio Garcia, the professional golfer, made about his frequent foil, Tiger Woods.

“We’ll have him ‘round every night,” Garcia said. “We will serve fried chicken.”

The comment came after Garcia was asked if he would invite his rival, with whom he has a frosty relationship, to his house during next month’s U.S. Open. Woods responded to Garcia’s tweets on Twitter: “The comment that was made wasn’t silly. It was wrong, hurtful and clearly inappropriate … I’m confident that there is real regret that the remark was made.” (Garcia offered a textbook nonapology apology.)

Wait. This again?

This black-people-and-fried-chicken thing is really old — it’s not even the first time a professional golfer made a joke about fried chicken and Tiger Woods.

What is it with this stereotype about black people loving fried chicken?

”

- Where Did That Fried Chicken Stereotype Come From? : Code Switch

(via Amid Nails And Mud, Oklahoma Neighborhood Pulls...

Thu, 23 May 2013 13:31:00 -0400

(via Amid Nails And Mud, Oklahoma Neighborhood Pulls Together : The Two-Way)

Siblings (from left) Alan, Sylvia and Ariel Trillo pose for a portrait at their home. The Trillo home is one of a few in their subdivision that is still standing though everything inside is damaged. Sylvia was amazed at the outpouring of help the community received from strangers.

Click on the link to see more photos from Moore, Okla., and read Alan Greenblatt’s report from the Heather Wood neighborhood there.

Photo: Katie Hayes Luke for NPR

Be nice, worship God and eat pigs’ feet: That’s how Jeralean...

Thu, 23 May 2013 11:58:54 -0400

Be nice, worship God and eat pigs’ feet: That’s how Jeralean Talley of Inkster, Mich., says she lived to celebrate her 114th birthday today — and be crowned the oldest person in the United States. Using census records, the Gerontology Research Group verified her title after the previous oldest American, Elsie Thompson, died at 113 in March. Talley is still a youngster, relatively speaking, compared to the world’s oldest person, Jiroemon Kimura, who is 116 and lives in Japan.

— Oldest American, Jeralean Talley, Turns 114 Years Old

Photo: Courtesy of Michael Kinloch

yahoonews: This is the office phone of a famous technology...

Thu, 23 May 2013 11:45:57 -0400

yahoonews:

This is the office phone of a famous technology writer. What is the oldest tech gadget you still use?

reuters: From our Editor’s Choice (photos from the past 24...

Thu, 23 May 2013 11:34:03 -0400

reuters:

From our Editor’s Choice (photos from the past 24 hours)

Vendors nap at their stalls inside a market in Jiaxing, Zhejiang province, China. REUTERS/William Hong

"A Seattle Times review of a recent Madonna tour stop praises the artist for “rocking us as a..."

Thu, 23 May 2013 11:32:49 -0400

“

A Seattle Times review of a recent Madonna tour stop praises the artist for “rocking us as a feminist icon” and applauds the singer for her brazen sexuality: “stripping down to a bra, then pulling her pants down below a thong and baring her cheeks to the Key [Arena].” Even the Guardian’s Freeman, in an ode to Like a Prayer, the writer’s favorite album, speaks longingly about Madonna’s midriff-baring ’80s fashion and the video to the title track, which “featured a woman named Madonna apparently giving a blow job to a black Jesus.”

Through a career that has included crotch-grabbing, nudity, BDSM, Marilyn Monroe fetishizing, and a 1992 book devoted to sex, Madonna has been viewed as a feminist provocateur, pushing the boundaries of acceptable femininity. But Beyoncé’s use of her body is criticized as thoughtless and without value beyond male titillation, providing a modern example of the age-old racist juxtaposition of animalistic black sexuality vs. controlled, intentional, and civilized white sexuality.

”

- All Hail the Queen? | Bitch Media

The hand-distressed Levi’s that Mark Hamill wore to play...

Thu, 23 May 2013 11:19:26 -0400

The hand-distressed Levi’s that Mark Hamill wore to play Luke Skywalker in Star Wars sold for $36,100 in an auction this week. Wired reports that auction house Nate D. Sanders had hoped the pants would sell for as much as triple that.

— Dirty Levi’s Jeans Sell for $36,100 - The Cut

This map shows just-released satellite imagery of the damage...

Thu, 23 May 2013 11:06:23 -0400

This map shows just-released satellite imagery of the damage from the tornado that struck Moore, Okla., and vicinity on May 20 — one of the most destructive storms ever recorded. Zoom in to see the extent of the damage.

This was a great show live. The low end vibrated our eyelids, no...

Thu, 23 May 2013 10:58:28 -0400

This was a great show live. The low end vibrated our eyelids, no joke, esp during I Never Learnt To Share. Also, really nice performance throughout by his drummer Ben Assiter. — heidi

"What happened over the weekend? At 8:34 on Friday night, Kanye West tweeted. He said he’d be..."

Thu, 23 May 2013 10:53:10 -0400

“

What happened over the weekend? At 8:34 on Friday night, Kanye West tweeted. He said he’d be premiering a song in a half hour and we’d have to do what he said to hear it – we’d have to go to a particular address and stand outside with other people and watch a video projected onto the side of a building. Of course, the first video of the video was up within minutes, so most people didn’t have to do any such thing. “New Slaves” spread, the texting and Vineing and opining ran rampant. A few hours later even Michael Moore was Rap Genius-ing the song. The next night Kanye was the musical guest on the season finale of ‘Saturday Night Live,’ where he premiered another new song, “Black Skinhead,” performed “New Slaves” for the first time and stood alone while the cast hugged around him and the credits rolled.

He came for us on wavelengths old-fashioned and new, inserting into our conversations two songs that are stacks of questions without answers. Received as part of Kanye’s 15-year career, they make sense – from the composition that is both heavy-handed and deft to the singsong retort of his flow and the lyrics that combine insecurity with callous certainty, that decry consumerism while refusing to give it up, that drag internal conversations in front of a mass-market, hair-trigger, blinkered audience. “New Slaves” is the “c’mon, c’mon” in the “All Falls Down” hook 10 years and millions of dollars later. He’s got more on the line now — a decade of living has made him less inclined to sugarcoat.

”

- Kanye West Stands Alone : The Record

Federal prisoners can request compassionate release if they are...

Thu, 23 May 2013 10:39:52 -0400

Federal prisoners can request compassionate release if they are terminally ill, but a recent investigation found that many die while their requests drift through the system. Now, prison leaders say they will simplify the approval process and start tracking requests electronically.

— Sick Inmates Dying Behind Bars Despite Release Program

Photo: iStockphoto.com

Elysha O’Brien calls herself a “Mexican white...

Thu, 23 May 2013 10:28:10 -0400

Elysha O’Brien calls herself a “Mexican white girl.” Not just because of her ethnically ambiguous appearance, she says, but also because she can’t speak Spanish. Fearing their children would experience discrimination if they spoke Spanish, her parents chose not to teach them their native tongue.

— Living In Two Worlds, But With Just One Language

Photo: Courtesy of the O’Brien family

Before I went to see Before Midnight, I watched Before Sunrise...

Thu, 23 May 2013 09:06:00 -0400

Before I went to see Before Midnight, I watched Before Sunrise and commented that it was startling, even as someone who’s seen it many times, to see how young they really were. And someone pointed out something remarkable to me: For those of us who were roughly the same age as Jesse and Celine, it’s not that we don’t remember how young they were; it’s that we never registered how young they were to begin with, because we didn’t register how young we were. (via ‘Before Midnight’: Jesse And Celine Are Older Now, And So Are We : Monkey See)

Photo: Sony Pictures Classics

nprfreshair: Ken Tucker reviews the new album from Daft Punk,...

Wed, 22 May 2013 16:03:53 -0400

nprfreshair:

Ken Tucker reviews the new album from Daft Punk, Random Access Memories:

I freely admit that, until the new Random Access Memories, I wasn’t much of a fan. I could appreciate the craft and imagination that went into creating the French duo’s mixture of electronic genres — techno, house, disco — but the mechanical repetitions and heavily filtered vocals didn’t turn me on in any other way. But now, Thomas Bangalter and Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo have come up with an album that exposes the human side of their musical impulses. It’s the equivalent of removing the helmet-masks the pair invariably wears in public performances. Random Access Memories is a collection filled with music that suggests mad romance, heartache and an embrace of the past that’s never merely nostalgic or sentimental.

Image courtesy of Sony Music

audiovision: “There ought to be a monument to the man who...

Wed, 22 May 2013 11:12:09 -0400

audiovision:

“There ought to be a monument to the man who invented neon lights,” the fictional detective of Raymond Chandler’s crime novels once said.

Los Angeles itself could be that monument. Our boulevards are lined with neon pinks and blues. The oldest operating neon sign ever found was uncovered just last year.

Photographer Vicky Moon set out to document the neon signs that are slowly getting overtaken by flashing LED lights.

For her project “Expired LA” Moon hopped on her pink scooter and made long exposures with expired film. See more of her work on KPCC’s AudioVision.

What adds a layer of intrigue here for me is that the film Vicky Moon used was decades old, discovered at a flea market. — heidi