Fleet Foxes: White Winter Hymnal

Good indie music: The Fleet Foxes (die flotten Füchse) who debuted this year with an album that sounds like the Beach Boys jamming with Neil Young and Bill Withers in a trance. “To me, the most enjoyable thing in the world is to sing harmony with people,” Robin Pecknold told NPR. Stunning private session at […]

Wijng

Wijng is an emerging online platform for learning English, and currently it’s free. I’ve looked at a few of the units, including one on skiffle, that nice music of the 50s, and here are a few thoughts: The makers of this platform are taking existing videos, e.g. on YouTube. These are not skripted or specifically […]

Janelle Monae

Hot stuff. Beautiful jazz voice. Quirky imagination. Playing a robot in love and singing about “the walking dead”, Janelle Monae is anything but robotic. She comes from a family that suffered from crack addiction, so she’s got a good attitude about keeping her head straight. Coming from the underground scene, she counts Prince among her […]

2000 year old computer attributed to Archimedes

The Ancient Greeks were even more technologically advanced than previously thought. The Antikythera mechanism, a geared device found in a shipwreck a century ago, has been recreated. Gears turn hands (or pointers) on dials, and the device is driven by a hand knob. The computer predicts the movement of the planets and is now being […]

French and Saunders: The Lord of the Rings

Oldie but goodie: My favorite parody of Lord of the Rings. Brilliant French and Saunders are Bilbo Baggins aka Dildo Daggins (and later she is Frodo/ Dodo) and Grandalf aka Grand Alf.  It’s a long feature, 19 minutes, so get yourself cozy. I think every minute is worth it, but particularly love minute 2:30-3:00. Dawn […]

Sister Rosetta Tharpe: Up Above My Head

Sister Rosetta Tharpe, the first great recording star of Gospel music in the late 1930s. Merry Christmas! Up above my head I hear music in the air I really do believe there’s a heaven somewhere All in my room there is music everywhere I really do believe there’s a heaven somewhere Variations I really do […]