This Gun for Hire

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This Gun for Hire. This is a very average movie. But it does have Veronica Lake. It’s also fun to see some of the cliches we still use 70 years later: evil paraplegic businessman; tense stand-off in a chemical plant; escaping from police pursuit via jumping on a train from a bridge; poorly aimed gunfire piercing barrels, which then leak; etc.

Sexual Politics of Dancing: The Secrets of Looking Good on the Dance Floor

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This whole article is great. (via)

The largest degree of satisfaction can be found in girls under the age of 16. “They see dance as something fun, not as part of mating behavior,” says Lovatt. That changes around the age of 16. “Between 16 and 20, dance confidence among girls falls markedly,” says Lovatt. “Girls begin to see dance as a social act rather than a way of expressing themselves. They begin to worry about how they look and start searching for a boyfriend.”

But once young women have come to terms with their lost dancing innocence, the satisfaction ratings start rising again. From the age of 20 onwards, their opinion of their own dance floor competence starts to improve and keeps increasing until the age of 35. After that it hits a plateau, however, as satisfaction levels stagnate. From 55 onwards, the value even drops. “That coincides with the menopause,” says Lovatt. And it doesn’t get any better: “Dance confidence remains low for the rest of a woman’s life.”

The pattern is somewhat different among men. Their dance confidence levels keep rising until the mid 30s. It then stagnates before starting to sink from the age of 55 onwards. But then, surprisingly, men get a second wind. From 65 on, they start to once again see themselves as pretty smooth operators on the dance floor.

Sexual Politics of Dancing: The Secrets of Looking Good on the Dance Floor

January 22, 2010

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Satisfaction is a product not of where you are, but of where you’re going. To get calculistic, it ain’t about your value, it’s about your first derivative (and maybe your second). In this light, statements like “When x happens, I’ll attain happiness” don’t make sense, but ones like “While x is happening, I’ll be happy” make somewhat more.

Colin Marshall.

January 20, 2010

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noiseforairports:

Here is a more in-depth video about Pat Metheny’s Orchestrion Tour. In it, you can see more of the variety of instruments LEMUR has constructed for Metheny, and you can see the awesome processing that allows him to play a xylophone with his guitar, live. (Yeah, whoa.)

It’s all really interesting stuff, and exciting for me personally to see this potential resurgence of explicitly “mechanical” music.

I have a love/hate relationship with Pat Metheny’s music but I find this fascinating. So many possibilities!

(Source: https://www.youtube.com/)

Blue Velvet

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Blue Velvet. Really disappointed with this one. I love the way that David Lynch framed his shots, used color, and put together some incredibly intense scenes. But, wow, he surrounded them with 1.5 hours of slight, incredibly tedious storyline.

Craig Schuftan: Hey! Nietzsche! Leave Them Kids Alone

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fuckyeahphilosophy:

“Who knew Lord Byron had something in common with My Chemical Romance? Armed with an encyclopaedic knowledge of pop culture, Craig Schuftan traces the history of romanticism in rock and roll, drawing comparisons between 19th century poetic giants and the heroes of indie, glam and emo music. In this talk with Zan Rowe, Schuftan explores the links between music, philosophy and literature and why nobody wants to own up to being emo.”

Craig Schuftan: Hey! Nietzsche! Leave Them Kids Alone