Category Archives: Reflected Glory

Reflected Glory, video

Moments of Wonder Special

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If you’re a fan of Moments of Wonder, there’s some cool news. As part of the BBC’s celebration of the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare’s death, there will be a half-hour special featuring Philomena Cunk, who will tell you everything you need to know. According to the BBC,

Unrivalled wordsmith. Unequalled genius. Scholar of the Human Condition. Philomena Cunk is the ideal candidate to give the BBC Two audience a comprehensive guide to William Shakespeare.

A regular contributor to Charlie Brooker’s Weekly Wipe, Philomena has proven herself a shrewd interviewer, an insightful critic, and a voice of wisdom for our troubled times.

She’ll bring all of these considerable talents to bear as she authors a documentary about the Bard, across 30 factually accurate minutes.

If you haven’t seen Moments of Wonder, here’s episode 1 of the series: Time.

And, for the biologists among you, episode 3 is on Evolution:

Honestly, all television should be this.

art, music, Reflected Glory, video

Do Heart Transplants Cause Lesbian Bestiality? We Investigate!

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So, this video is straight-up awesome, as is the song, which was the inspiration for the video. Over at Boing Boing, they have an interview with songstress Kim Boekbinder, artist Molly Crabapple, and animator Jim Batt, who collaborated to put this thing together. The interview also features behind-the-scenes photos, which give a sense of the scale of the project. The figures look to be maybe six inches tall, while the paper-craft buildings are maybe three-feet tall.

If they’re smart, they’ll auction off the set, for which someone would certainly pay 10 kajillion dollars.

Speaking as a biologist, I should note for the record that I am unaware of any replicated, double-blind studies showing a statistically significant association between organ transplants and having steamy lesbian pirate sex with cats.

Update: I just went and checked out the dedicated website (ihaveyourheart.com), which has a series of blog entries following the project from its beginnings in May 2010 to July 2012. Awesome.

poetry, Reflected Glory

1971 Bukowski letter on poetry reading

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So, I’m not a huge fan of Charles Bukowski’s poetry, but the dude wrote some awesome letters. This one was posted yesterday at Boing Boing. It is his response to a request to perform a poetry reading.

Just check out that last paragraph:

I’m working on my 2nd. novel now, THE POET, but I’m taking my time. They say it’s 101 [degrees] today. Fine then, I’m drinking coffee and rolling cigarettes and looking out at the hot baked street and a lady just walked by wiggling it in tight white pants, and we are not dead yet.

You read that in a letter and it is smoking-hot prose that makes you want to go get drunk with the guy. That’s a paragraph that could only be written by the coolest person you know. But somehow, his poetry all sounds exactly like that. And, for me at least, in the context of a “poem,” I would probably feel that it was trying to hard. Or, rather, trying too hard in some ways and not hard enough in others. Maybe it is the extra expectation that is placed on words when you call them a poem, or maybe the sense of deliberateness that it implies. I’m not sure.

I think when I read that paragraph as a spontaneous statement, it crackles, but if I assume that it is deliberately crafted art, the crackle goes away. It makes me wonder if it would seem as compelling if it were written in 2001, rather than 1971, using a word processor rather than a typewriter. Maybe even the typo in “degrees” is key in conveying the authenticity / spontaneity of the statement.

Anyway, Mark Frauenfelder at Boing Boing got the letter from the tumblr this isn’t happiness, which is full of cool stuff. If you don’t already follow it, you should. Here are just a few of many, many gems to be found there (arranged roughly from FTW to WTF):

comic, music, Reflected Glory, science

I Am An Action Scientist

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So, I Am An Action Scientist is an excellent little song by Adam WarRock written for the Atomic Robo comic. About Atomic Robo:

Atomic Robo is secretly hired by the US Army to infiltrate the hidden Himalayan mountain base of Baron Heinrich Von Helsingard before he perfects a superweapon for the Nazis.

So, you know, sort of like Captain America meets Short Circuit.

This is my new motto: “I am an action scientist. / That’s why the science is guiding my fists.”

Notice: best heard at max volume with pipette in hand.

Check out the comic here. Download the mp3 here.

via Boing Boing.

Reflected Glory, video

Dr. Breakfast

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So, this video is called Dr. Breakfast. It will be at Sundance in 2012. The official description says:

One day at breakfast, a man’s soul busts out of his eyeball. While the soul roams the earth eating everything in sight, two wild deer bathe and dress the man’s catatonic body. . . 

Which, you know, yeah, it’s that. There’s a certain something-else-ness to it, though. Watch:

via The Awesomer, who call it “bizarre, yet heartwarming,” and I’m all, yet?

The filmmaker, Stephen Neary, has a blog where he has a bunch of interesting stuff about how the film was made, his other art, and words and stuff. Much of it has a similar something-else-ness, which is similarly enjoyable.