video – Page 2 – A Honey of an Anklet

Happy

Featuring (now) full-time colleagues Alex and Maanvi.

And check out the cameo by Stacey at 1:39.

That sound you hear is my head exploding

Chris Ware, Ira Glass, Nico Muhly, and John Kuramoto, d.b.a. “Phoobis,” create an animated cover for this week’s issue of The New Yorker. Guest-starring a former Secretary of State.

ᔥ kottke.org

The best part is when he stops for gas

This showed up on VH-1 this morning. It’s easily the dullest, lamest video that the 80s has to offer.

He had me at the mbira

If your cellphone rings in the middle of a John Cage concert, Paolo Angeli knows what to do with it: he’ll fine some way to wedge it into his baritone guitar.

A musicologist’s wet dream.

Syllabary

ᏍᏏᏉᏯ (Sequoyah) explains how Cherokee script has evolved and adapted with changes in technology.

ᔥ Eduardo Avila, PRI

From time to time I would remember a TV series from my childhood with a fairly simple premise: whatever the problem at hand might be, it could be solved by hopping into an airboat and zipping through the bayous to the other end of the county. Sky King of the wetlands, as it were. But the name of this series eluded me.

At long last, after a bit of stumbling about with the Googles, I turned up the name of the series: Everglades!. It ran for 38 episodes in 1961-62. Some sources connect it to Ivan Tors, producer of Sea Hunt and Flipper, which makes sense, because when I would describe this show to my friends, they would say, “Oh, you’re talking about Flipper.” But Flipper didn’t know how to pilot an airboat, as far as I can remember. (The IMDb entry says that ZIV Television Films produced Everglades!, but a Tors connection is not out of the question.)

The internet is amazing: 1

An unsold television pilot of Larry Shue’s The Nerd was made in 1989 and aired in 1996. Some of the corners are rounded off—Rick isn’t nearly as obnoxious as he could be—but the basic comic situation of the dinner party with the Wal(d)graves is there.

Now I understand why the “next train” announcement is so echo-y

Juicy views of the model board at NYC’s West Fourth Street control tower.

The spokesmen for the subway system walk that fine line between letting people know that the system is safe, but oh so riddled with technical debt.

ᔥ kottke.org

Doors open on the left

So it’s the week of meet-the-voices. Vox points to this video introduction to Lee Crooks, voice of Chicago’s El trains.

Stand clear of the closing doors

Not to be outdone by WAMU’s profile of Randi Miller, the voice of Metro, The New Yorker offers this video video vignette of Charlie Pellett, the voice of NYC’s subway.

ᔥ kottke.org

On the teevee

CBS This Morning finally ran its feature about Bob Boilen and Stephen Thompson’s Tiny Desk Concerts. They were there to film on a couple-three occasions many weeks ago, including February’s awesome Mucca Pazza show. Apparently the producers felt that my colleagues made for more interesting audience shots than me, but you can see my chin and my wristwatch starting at 3:59.

50 feet to the inch

Glen Creason takes us through the map collection at the Los Angeles Public Library.

ᔥ NYPL Wire

Titan

So, picking up some vibration in the air or other, I recently watched Keep On Keepin’ On (2014), Alan Hicks’s documentary about the relationship between veteran jazz trumpeter Clark Terry and the young pianist Justin Kauflin. The film was thin in the areas I was curious about, namely Terry’s career in the 1940s and onward—his departure from the Duke Ellington orchestra gets only an offhand mention, for instance—but it does a good job of telling the story it wants to tell. Terry was an influence on so many players, and he continued to nurture talents like Kauflin’s into his 90s. His body ravaged by diabetes, Terry kept on teaching.

My familiarity with Terry’s work is rather limited, but he was a gateway drug for me, like Dave Brubeck. I have a vinyl recording of Terry performing live with the Ohio State University Jazz Ensemble; this would be early 1970s, as I bought it after then band played a high school assembly for us. His work with the horn impressed me less than his vocal work, especially his signature piece “Mumbles,” an encore bit of rhythmic whimsy.

Anyway, it came as a slight shock to learn that Terry had died just this past week, as Reuters reports. Another one gone, but we have his recordings (more than 900 of them!) and his students.