All Night Long (1962) Trailer

One of the strange things about the internet is how obituaries have a way of kicking up all sorts of flotsam, like this ad for a British beat-jazz version of Othello.

Louis Sullivan: the Struggle for American Architecture

Blendie

"Blendie is an interactive, sensitive, intelligent, voice controlled blender with a mind of its own."

Golly, I love surprises

For your perusal, The Recently Deflowered Girl by Hyacinthe Phypps (with illustrations by Edward Gorey).

Dig through the comments for a link to a .pdf, should one be required.

 

Maple Syrup for One!

 

The Secret History of bugs

You know those blasted things that show up in the corners of the screen on television, so that if you tape something, you will always know what channel you taped it from (and what would have been on next or a week later, etc)?

They did it in silent movies too.

Do not sniff the pugilist

Offered without comment.

Great Moments in Home Movies

From the Hartford Courant:

Robbins Barstow of Wethersfield, who last week learned a home movie he made in 1956 has been admitted into the National Film Registry, has gained a new pen pal as a result of the honor.

After the news hit that "Disneyland Dream," filmed on a family vacation to Anaheim, Calif., had been chosen for preservation, Barstow received an e-mail from actor and comedian Steve Martin.

Martin, a self-described "Disneyland junkie," wrote (reprinted with permission from Martin): "At age eleven I worked at Disneyland. I sold guidebooks at the park from 1956 to about 1958. I am as positive as one can be that I appear about 20:20 into your film, low in the frame, dressed in a top hat, vest, and striped pink shirt, moving from left to right, holding a guidebook out for sale."

You can watch the film here.

But if you're impatient, here you go:

I might have enjoyed this. Oh well.

From the BBC Press Office:

King Kong airs on BBC Four on Saturday 27 December at 11.30pm and viewers can press the Red button to hear Rob da Bank's personal choice of tracks to go alongside the film.

Rob has dug through his crates to put together a tracklisting of weird and wonderful gems from Sigur Ros, Flaming Lips, Radiohead, Lee "Scratch" Perry, Black Sabbath and Portishead to The Ho'Op'I Brothers, Harry Connick Junior, Bon Iver, Laurie Anderson and Tunng.

Here's the tracklisting if you want to play yourself:

• 1) Hudson Mohawke: Star Crackout
• 2) Trentemoller: Vamp
• 3) Sigur Ros: (Intro) Svein G Englar
• 4) Paul Whitheman and his Orchestra: Rhapsody In Blue
• 5) Lucky Elephant: Lucky Elephant
• 6) Ralfe Band: Attics
• 7) Xia Pang Jeng and the Chinese Orchestra of Shanghai Conservatory
• 8) The Flaming Lips: In Excelsior Vaginalistic
• 9) Rusko: Woo Boost
• 10) Metronomy: Nights Outro
• 11) The Ho'Op'I Brothers: Hawaiian Cowboy
• 12) Rusko: Woo Boost
• 13) Lazyboy: Dubstep
• 14) Himalaya: Dawn
• 15) Wax Stag: And How
• 16) Metronomy: Night Out Intro
• 17) Drums Of Death: Sleep In Fire
• 18) Bon Iver: For Emma
• 19) Lee "Scratch" Perry: Voodoo
• 20) Himalaya: Dawn
• 21) Reso: Eye Of Ra
• 22) Generation X: King Rocker
• 23) Bakka Beyond: Call Of The Forest
• 24) Rusko: Woo Boost
• 25) Kotchy: Let Loose
• 26) Black Sabbath: Voodoo
• 27) Radiohead: Faust Arp
• 28) Dinosaur Jr: Freak Scene
• 29) Don Rimini: Let Me Back Up
• 30) Fleet Foxes: Mykonos
• 31) Laurie Anderson: O Superman
• 32) DJ C: Animal Attraction (ft Zulu)
• 33) Bruce Springsteen: Born To Run
• 34) Rusko: Woo Roost
• 35) Portishead: Machine Gun
• 36) Paul Whiteman and his Orchestra: Rhapsody In Blue
• 37) Tunng: Bullets
• 38) Ian Brown: Fear
• 39) Harry Connick Junior: It Had To Be You
• 40) Goldfrapp: Train
• 41) Brian Eno: Here Come The Warm Jets
• 42) Pixies: Monkey Gone To Heaven

I see no track name for number 7 either...

I am tilting and shifting.

I've been waiting forever for an easy to tinker with (or simulate) tilt-shift photography, so I can turn this:



Into this:


And here we are.

"On this day in 1825, the 23-year-old Alexandre Dumas (pere) engaged in his first duel. He lost both the duel and, somehow, his pants, which fell down during the fight."

via

He called it! Sorta!

Lawrence Miles' Doctor Who Thing, Nov 3:

"Middle England might just about accept a black Doctor, but they certainly won't accept one they can't pronounce. Hartnell! Troughton! Pertwee! Baker! Davison! Baker! McCoy! McGann! Eccleston! Tennant! Eji… Ejoili… Ej… oh, **** it, let's just hire Matt Smith instead."

I had no idea

There was a Bonanza episode about Emperor Norton.

Interesting

Three things about the Lyricblogging from yesterday:

1. I've removed the Amazon banner on the side as the info from it was starting to blend in with the Amazon images with the individual posts. No worries, I was sceptical of the thing to start with, and this was the tipping point.
2. The RSS feed seems to have been overloaded! Folks reading on a feed might not be seeing every single post, and apparently they are coming in a random order and with some delays. It's now eleven hours later and some from the middle have just popped into my reader.
   
3. If you are reading on a feed reader, you likely won't be seeing the Amazon links, so the posts will make even less sense to you!

Other than that it worked fine.

Johnny's in the Basement

Amazon has made it easier to link to pages, so I'm lyricblogging to test it out.

This is a book about a kid with a bottle cap collection. The Statistically Improbable phrases are "bottle cap collection," "more bottle caps," and "purple bathtub."

Mixing up the Medicine

This project has been sitting in my to-do list, for a while now - it seems sort of like cheating to have it be a "New Year's project" but I think that the blogging needs some jumpstarting.

I'm on the pavement

The full title of this book is "Lightning strikes reinforced concrete pavement (M.I.T. Dept. of Civil Engineering. Research report) (Unknown Binding)"

I can't imagine that lightning generally has much to do with pavement - but then I am not a civil engineer.

Thinking about the government

So anyway, what I'm doing is taking each line of this song and plugging it into the search box on Amazon. Then I am linking to the first item that comes up.

At least I'm linking to the first item that came up last October and November. It took long enough to get that ready - I am in no mind to go back and double check.

The man in the trench coat

One of the things that I notice with the way blogging works is that the more one posts, the less important each individual post becomes. While posting more often raises your profile, it also brings the new eyeballs to different items.

If you are someone who doesn't want too much attention (or at least too much of the wrong attention (whatever that means)), this can make the process a bit strange.

Badge out, laid off

I am writing now with an intention of posting this on New Year's day - I have a few days off, so this is something nice and big to do on my downtime.

Says he's got a bad cough

It is currently quite cold out. There's been a ghastly flu going around for a while, but I've managed to avoid it.

This book, by the way was hit number three in the last line, but the number one result for this one. The song I'm doing was quoted in it.

Wants to get it paid off

Generally I put Amazon links up because I'm talking about something and an Amazon link can often be as informative as a Wikipedia link. I will also put a link up because I find it amusing to. Like now.

I've gotten a tiny trickle of income from these links, and, with the times being the way they are, I think I shouldn't expect much more. But that's ok, this is a free service - so right now I'm still breaking even on it.

Look out kid

A while ago, I did one of those things where my blog text was analyzed for profanity. I scored low.

I think it was Kurt Vonnegut who, late in his career, said that he discovered that if he swore a lot all it did was give people an excuse not to listen to him. That's where I stand on such matters. If a swear word is supposed to have any power, it's in the power to shock. It isn't shocking if it's expected.

It's somethin' you did

This isn't the video. It's the script. They actually published the script.

I read (or saw. I can't remember now) a review that pointed out that as this sequel takes place a year after the first film, it should really be called "I Still Know What You Did the Summer Before Last."

I'd go see that.

God knows when

In order to get this to work the way I want it to, I start loading the posts in and adjust the time stamp so that each post is a minute apart. Then I save them all as drafts so that when they are finally ready, I can just change the date to the current day and let them all post. This way anyone looking at the blog can see the lyrics in the correct order rather than the "posted" order, which is backwards.

Of course, if you are reading this via RSS feed, you will get the posts arriving backward. Which is a problem if your reader is set up to read the oldest post first. So I might start posting just after the time stamp on the final post (which should be the one you read first) and post backwards.

This sort of thinking is one of the reasons I don't actually post as much as I should.

But you're doin' it again

One of the latest features that Amazon has to blow my mind with is a "Concordance" which gives you all sorts of stats based on the text. From it I learn that the most common words in this book are "Daddy," "Time" and "Ya."

You better duck down the alley way

"This boxed kit from the world's foremost authority on teddy bears, The Boyds Collection, Ltd., features a three-inch fully-jointed plush Boyds bear along with a 16-page paperback book featuring full-color photos and uplifting verse to comfort and inspire anyone who is feeling down."

Result number two was a Cher album.

Lookin' for a new friend

Among the things that I haven't had much time to deal with are all of the new settings and widgets that function as a means of slowly turning Blogger into some sort of fake MySpace/FaceBook thing.

Theoretically, I can add a doo-dad to the side that will not only give you the names of all the people who are willing to publicly declare that they enjoy reading this blog, but will also show their photos in an array of tiny mug shots.

I haven't worked up the courage for this.

The man in the coon-skin cap

You know, it's been ages since coon-skin caps were in fashion. Same with pince-nez glasses.

Perhaps soon both will be hip simultaneously! That would be a look.

In the big pen

Here is what seems to be the world's biggest pen. It's twelve feet, eight inches long and you can write with it. With the help of a winch.

Wants eleven dollar bills

Now is that eleven singles, or one bill in an eleven dollar denomination?

I'll bet there's a big argument on some web forum about just that thing.

You only got ten

I have to say that of all the titles I've seen for published proceedings of governmental arts policy conferences, this has to be the most dramatic I've seen by far.

Maggie comes fleet foot

Chapter three of this bad boy is an essay on "The Ethics of Encores." I am curious about this.

Face full of black soot

I have to say I was worried about this one.

Talkin' that the heat put

Interesting fun fact: I have now published more posts today than I did in the last two months combined!

There were no results for this one. Here is the best result for just the words "heat" and "put."

Plants in the bed but

Ok. Time to level with you. I'm completely stalled out. There is nothing interested I can think of to say about this, and I'm a little frustrated.

The phone's tapped anyway

The first hit was the Springsteen book that we saw a few lines back, and the second is a book about Dylan, so I've decided to go with the third. Just because.

Maggie says that many say

I wonder if there are edible wild plants that can combat diabetes.

Greetings, people who are wondering the same thing and trying to use Google to find out!

I wish you luck in your search!

They must bust in early May

When I was going through these, I didn't notice that this one had already popped up. I suspect there was a week between the two.

As I write this now, I'm in the home stretch, so I'm not going to find an alternative.

Sorry.

Orders from the D. A.

The second hit was an episode of Law and Order from the Amazon on-demand video thing.

Look out kid

This is the second time that this lyric line pops up so here's the second hit:

Don't matter what you did

Now this is the third time that I've done this, and it is by far the most difficult. I suspect that one of the reasons is that the lyrics for this song are three times as long.

Walk on your tip toes

I imagine that walking through the Bible on tip toes is the way to do it. Otherwise you might rip the pages.

Don't try "No Doz"

Interestingly, you can buy No Doz on Amazon, but it doesn't come up as a hit here.

I suspect because they want you to try it.

Better stay away from those

I am finding it interesting how many books on Christianity are popping up here.

Author and Chaplain Michael T. Abadie shares lessons that have been plentiful as a member in the fraternity of “Ride, High Side, and Slide”. This diverse and colorful brotherhood rejoices in the awareness that being a bit different from mainstream society is not necessarily a bad thing. God loves bikers too, and Shiny Side Up is Michael T.’s way of spreading the word.

And I suspect he quotes some Dylan on the way.

That carry around a fire hose

If you carry around a fire hose, perhaps you might be interested in learning to fight fires!

Keep a clean nose

Dang! This one again! Arrgh.

Anyway, if you would like to keep your nose clean, perhaps you might like a nasal saline kit. I read that they are a good way of keeping yourself from catching some airborne disease if you use one just before and again just after a plane trip.

It is sort of pleasantly reminiscent of being a kid playing at the beach and having some saltwater get up your nose. And, I suspect, just a teensy bit like being waterboarded.

Most importantly, I didn't get sick.

Watch the plain clothes

In my experience it's the people in really spiffy expensive clothes that you need to watch out for.

You don't need a weather man

Statistically Improbable Phrases:

straining wires, decking boards, wood bin, wood preserver, power washer, cross rails, paving slabs, fence panel, paint particles, wall anchors, gloss enamel

To know which way the wind blows

Hey, it just occurred to me. You need to know which way the wind blows because the answer is blowing in it!

I'll bet this is already on that webforum, isn't it?

Get sick, get well

"Join Joshua & Prudence, the adorable characters from the best-selling Once Upon a Potty books, in a new series of charming adventures."

Perhaps Joshua & Prudence will be nasally irrigated! That might be charming.

Hang around a ink well

At this point I would like to mention that I pulled the lyrics for this song from Bob Dylan's own site.

I point that out now, because I really have nothing to say about Gas Wells.

Ring bell, hard to tell

This might be a format thing, but this book's full title (Sir Robert Bell and His Early Virginia Colony Descendants: A Compilation of 16th, 17th, and 18th Century English and Scottish Families with the Surname Bell, Beale, le Bel, ... et al.) has been abbreviated in my preview view as "Sir Robert Bell and His Early Virgin."

Greetings Google searchers! I wish you luck finding what you are looking for!

If anything is goin' to sell

This was the only hit. We've managed to get this far without putting up anything specifically Dylanny, I suppose it's only a matter of time. I hope it sells.

Try hard, get barred

The full line gets the Springsteen book and a Dylan book. This is the result when the search is just for the words "hard" and "barred."

Get back, write braille

It never occurred to me before, but it's sort of hard to find braille books on Amazon (at least from what I can tell after about five minutes clicking around). Luckily they have links to Amazon Affiliates who specialize in such things.

Get jailed, jump bail

I don't know how telling it is that the first Key Word for this book is "Duck Tape." Here's all those things that you need to know to avoid being frogmarched off to word jail.

Join the army, if you fail

I have decided to be a blogger.
I know that I am blogging.
This is how I do my blog.

(click through to figure out what I'm on about.)

Look out kid

I was so confused putting this together that I thought that this was only the second time this line shows up. It is in fact the third. Here's the second hit again anyway.

Sorry.

You're gonna get hit

Hey, drug book! Are you all paranoid being lumped in with the Christian books and Army books?

But users, cheaters

I've now put up more posts today than in the last three months combined.

Though you might think that I was cheating by doing it this way.

Six-time losers

There are six different types of procrastinators. One of these days I'm going to find out which one I am.

Har har har.

Hang around the theaters

This is one of the last ones for me to do - so I'm really in the homestretch. This means that I will be able to post this on New Year's Day. Which is a holiday.

Woo.

Girl by the whirlpool

This is perfect! Just buy this book and set it next to a girl. Instant song lyric!

Sometimes these things just write themselves.

Lookin' for a new fool

After all these lines, finally we have an mp3 from Amazon Downloads. I've been expecting to see one - and here we are.

Don't follow leaders

And this is an article for download in html form. The author is listed as "Chief Executive (U.S.)," and the publisher is "Chief Executive Publishing."

I would imagine that if you are wanting people to be sceptical of leaders, perhaps "Chief Executive (U.S.)" is not the best name for you to use.

Watch the parkin' meters

You know what I hate? Those new meters with the eye-beams that clear the extra minutes out of the meter when you pull out of the space. I like to think that someone who just needs to park for a minute or two can use some of my leftover time that I bought and paid for.

And don't get me started on road salt. That's all I can say.

Ah get born, keep warm

It's true. Dylan's website confirms that he wrote this line with the word "Ah" instead of "I." He's not worried about getting thrown into word jail.

Short pants, romance, learn to dance

In this lucid political memoir, veteran anti-capitalist activist Michael Albert offers an ardent defense of the project to transform global inequality. Albert, a uniquely visionary figure, recounts a life of uncompromised commitment to creating change one step at a time. Whether chronicling the battles against the Vietnam War waged on Boston campuses or the challenges of creating living, breathing alternative social models, Albert brings a keen and unwavering sense of justice to his work, pointing the way forward for the next generation.

As I write this, the temperature in Boston is 21 degrees Fahrenheit. Albert must have particularly cold legs.

Get dressed, get blessed

I imagine that busybodies can only get blessed if they are dressed.

I'm really cranking on these now. I am in the zone!

Try to be a success

One of the things that I dislike about the whole Amazon links thing is the shrill e-mails that they send me from time to time about how I really ought to do better at this whole wheeze, and I would do, if only I put up their new flashing banner ad so they can sell shoes.

You know, not many people stop by this little hunk of the internet, and in all honesty I could spruce it up a bit and put more effort into the damned thing, but really. I like it fine the way it is. And you, you happy few who are out there reading this, I love you guys. Whoever the heck you are.

So just chill out, Amazon.

Now who's for a pizza?

Please her, please him, buy gifts

The most used word in this book is "Gift" and the key phrase is "Valentine's Day."

Hey, Guys! How 'bout giving that "100 More Things You Don't Need a Man For" book? That would make V-Day exciting!

Don't steal, don't lift

A good way to way to entertain people is not to steal from them. Lifting them isn't the way to go either.

Or so I'm told.

Twenty years of schoolin'

Twenty years of schoolin' will get you to a Masters Degree. In Danger.

And they put you on the day shift

It would be much better to work the night shift if you had a Master's Degree in Danger.

Not only would you have more job opportunities, but you would get the off-cycle shift premium.

Look out kid

And here is the third hit for time number four:

They keep it all hid

Once I'm done with this massive lyricblogging thing, I will have some other changes and fiddly things to get cracking with.

What are they? I'm keeping them all hid.

Better jump down a manhole

This is another one that has been causing me trouble, because I keep on wanting to make it be all about CHUDs.

And then I think that's daft, and I decide to try writing about something else. And fail.

So CHUDs it is.

Light yourself a candle

I took a look at the text stats for this. This book has 277,416 words, which puts it into the second percentile (so only two percent of all the books that Amazon is aware of are bigger than this one).

This thing is a brick!

The most common word in this book is "kellen" which appears 2,843 times.

Now, when I go search Amazon's book for the word "kellen," To Light a Candle doesn't show up in the top 12.

Number one is Tamoxifen: Beyond the Antiestrogen, which was really amazing to my until I figured out that the author's name is John Kellen.

One of the Key Phrases of Tamoxifen: Beyond the Antiestrogen is "Clin Oncol" which is odd, because that's one of the major characters in To Light a Candle.

No. You caught me. That last bit isn't true.

Don't wear sandals

Amazon does sell sandals, but size 2 is for Children, so real women will probably not be able to wear them.

Try to avoid the scandals

This post is the last in this wave of Lyricblogging that I am writing. I've been trying to avoid it.

I keep trying to write about how I, for the most part, have kept the tone here on an even temper. Going into detail about this only forces me to mention the bits where I've come short, and I'm not in a mood to do that.

Don't wanna be a bum

If your dream is to be a bum, perhaps you should give it up.

You better chew gum

"Do Bananas Chew Gum" is apparently the first question on a test for dyslexia. For the record they don't.

But if they did, then they wouldn't have quite so much trouble with their ears popping on airplanes. They might do well to irrigate their noses as well.

The pump don't work

I have nothing entertaining to say about insulin pump therapy. Even if the pump is working.

'Cause the vandals took the handles

I imagine that this book has the song lyric quoted in it, perhaps as a little wingding to start a chapter off with.

It would be better if the book involved zombies that shut off everyone's water by stealing the pump handles. That would be exciting, and perhaps even scary.