January 2010
42 posts
4 tags
Spoon - Written In Reverse (Transference, 2010)
...
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Vulnerable Parasites Uncovering Ecological...
The Perfect Prescription by Ian Grey (Baltimore City Paper): Listening to ELO saved Ian Grey’s life; he explores how music helps those with mental illnesses. [via]
Could We Improve Our Marriage? by Elizabeth Weil (The Guardian): Any relationship is an equilibrium of compromises and unsaid, submerged, grievances; is it worth it to stir these up in order to try and improve it?
Is There An...
8 tags
Pretty Blue Johnny Usurps Breakfast Summit
The Bitter Tears of Johnny Cash by Antonino D’Ambrosio (Salon): When Johnny Cash met Richard Nixon, Nixon asked him to play “Okie From Muskegee”. Cash, instead, played “the Ballad of Ira Hayes”, a ballad about an American Indian who was immortalised in a famous World War II photo, but later died a tragic death from alcoholism. [via]
Before Martyrdom, Breakfast by...
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Incendiary Dinosaur House Freezing Pirate Culture
This Is The Title Of A Typical Incendiary Blog Post by Chris Clarke (Coyote Crossing): This is a succinct summary of the content of the linked article, possibly including a humorous or poignant observation or commentary. [via]
The Pirate Stock Market by Michael Scott Moore (Miller-McCune): Somali pirates are bankrolled by a stock market, in which investors put money into pirate missions and...
2 tags
Tallest Man On Earth - King Of Spain (The Wild...
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I Am Trying To Break Your Heart - JC Brooks and...
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Dumb Multiplexity Grief Rules Good Flag
Good Grief by Meghan O’Rourke (New Yorker): That familiar litany of the emotions someone cycles through after hearing terrible news - denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance - was invented by Elizabeth Kübler-Ross, a Swiss-born psychiatrist. Kübler-Ross was primarily interested in the experiences of the dying, and felt that the contemporaneous approach (i.e., pretend it’s...
8 tags
Miracle Work Below Yowie Listener Robot
The Listener by Timothy Lavin (The Atlantic): George Noory is the king of graveyard shift radio in the US, and his show is weird, as if it is broadcast from a parallel reality where we live in the world of the X-Files. [via]
The Miracle Woman by Rebecca Skloot (Oprah.com): Henrietta Lacks died in 1951, but, in a very real sense, she is still alive today.
At Work, Part II by various photographers...
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Midlake - Children Of The Grounds (The Courage Of...
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American Self-Help Superstition Exposed Second...
American Legends by various contributors (The Guardian): Fantastic series of articles, introduced by Nick Tosches, in which musicians talk about what they love about legendary US musicians; some examples include Ray Davies on Jerry Lee Lewis, Billy Bragg on Pete Seeger, Roger McGuinn on Ramblin’ Jack Elliott, Seasick Steve on Pinetop Perkins, and Charlie Watts on Sonny Rollins.
The Great...
6 tags
Elizabethan Venus Emerging Crying About James
The All-Singing All-Dancing Elizabethan Stage by Lucie Skeaping (History Today): If you saw Hamlet in 1602, it was probably followed by a jig, an Elizabethan artform which was half country dance, half pantomime, and wholly indecent.
The Venus Flytrap’s Fatal Allure by Abigail Tucker (Smithsonian): The tenuous existence in the wild of the most famous carnivorous plant. Seymour! [via]
James...
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Enough Giant Queer Months Absolutely Universal
Absolutely (The Economist): Power does corrupt, but only if the powerful feel entitled to power. [via]
Giant Cattle To Be Bred Back From Extinction by Nick Squires (telegraph.co.uk): Our modern cows are descendants of the now extinct aurochs, which was sort of like a cow except that it had the size and temperament of a rhinoceros. [via]
Climate Change Catastrophe Took Just Months by Jonathan...
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Cocaine Tits Makes Kids Sin Myths
The Cocaine Coast by Mario Vernaschi (Virginia Quarterly Review): Vernaschi explores the drug trade in Guinea-Bissau, where South American cocaine is directed into Europe, often by Lebanese traffickers looking to make money for Hezbollah with the help of the local Al Qaeda. Reads a lot like a sequel to The Wire. [via]
The 4 Big Myths Of Profile Pictures by Christian (OKTrends Blog): OKTrends...
5 tags
Goat Predictions Guess Pinball Medical Report
Musical Predictions by Jonah Lehrer (Frontal Cortex): Lehrer reports on a recent paper which finds some electroencephalographic basis to provide support for the idea that the psychological processing of musical expectations being behind much of our emotional response to music. Not that it needs EEG support, considering how awesome the Leonard Meyer book from 1956 that Lehrer mentions is (my PhD,...
3 tags
To be of use
tomewing:
I am coming to the end of the annual “argue all day about Pazz and Jop” day and it’s been as entertaining as ever, thank you all.
One point that I don’t think has been made though is about the use value of critically acclaimed records. What is, say, Bitte Orca meant for? How is it designed to be used? It CAN be used for an awful lot of things but which are most common?
This might be...
7 tags
Winning Haiti Places Making Golden Enigma
Haiti Six Days Later (The Big Picture): If anything these pictures are more shocking and terrible than the last Big Picture set I posted. And that’s before the most recent aftershock quake.
Making Out Is Its Own Reward by Roger Ebert (Chicago Sun Times): Ebert remembers a time when there was a national uproar over a Professor suggesting that college students were adults and should be able...
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The Middle East - The Darkest Side (The Recordings...
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Professional Chess Martyrs Campaign Gone Bad
Are We Too Professional? by Ed Smith (More Intelligent Life): Not only has Ed Smith played cricket for his country, but he has also written an intelligent, thoughtful essay about the the downsides of professionalism, which references poets, economists and The Wire. The bastard. [via]
Chess Intuition by Jonah Lehrer (The Frontal Cortex): What’s going on in the brain of the 19 year old...
5 tags
Heartbreak Horse Happiness Labelled Clear Upside
The Slow Death of Sticky Carpet by Marieke Hardy (The Drum): A loving requiem for the Tote, the sadly now shut down Melbourne venue where I won a scrabble competition, where I saw my girlfriend play her EP launch, etc.
Heartbreak And Home Runs: The Power Of First Experiences by Jay Dixit (Psychology Today): In the psychology of memory, there is a primacy effect - we typically remember the first...
1 tag
Cheers + Ask
sayyes:
o-song, i love your link posts/summaries so much…
Cheers, sayyes, it’s fantastic to see people I barely know showing their appreciation for what I’m doing here.
I’ve also just enabled that tumblr ask thing, wherein you ask questions and I answer. So feel free, everyone.
7 tags
Corporate Office Murderer Tipping Moscow's...
How I Convinced A Death-Row Murderer Not To Die by Michael Finkel (Esquire): Christian Longo, after killing his family, assumed Michael Finkel’s identity whilst on the run. Longo has the kind of interesting insights into death row you’d expect from a reader of Vonnegut and Infinite Jest, and the story has its brutal moments - Finkel doesn’t shrink from Longo’s actions. But...
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WatchWhite Russian Doll - The Lucky Soul on Vimeo in HD (mp3 stream here)
The Lucky Soul’s 2007 album The Great Unwanted lived in the middle ground between The Pipettes and Camera Obscura; 60s-girl-group-influenced British indie pop with generally catchier and more upbeat tunes than Camera Obscura and more substance than the Pipettes. I was surprised that they didn’t hit the big time with...
7 tags
Neglected Failure Burns Lost Supernatural...
As The World Burns by Jeff Goodell (Rolling Stone): In the US, there are five climate change lobbyists for each congressman. And only 1 in 10 of those lobbyists advocate doing something about climate change. Chances of the US doing what needs to be done about climate change are not high. [via]
System Failure by Christopher Hayes (The Nation): The US has reached the point where fixing major...
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About O Song!
O Song! is a blog that happens to be on tumblr.
I aim for O Song! to have a daily linkdump, which I give a surrealist kind of name based on words taken from the titles of the articles and blog posts I link to. There are plenty of other link aggregator blogs out there: Boing Boing, Kottke, 3quarksdaily, Bookforum, The Browser’s Best Of The Moment, Mind Hacks, Andrew Sullivan,...
6 tags
McGurk Prostitutes Debate Secret Emotions Spotters
Five Emotions You Never Knew You Had by Jessica Griggs (New Scientist): Elevation, interest, gratitude, pride, and confusion; a nice summary of what psychologists know about these feelings. Though, what you call an emotion depends on how you define emotion, and the article doesn’t define emotion. [via]
Debate Over Cognitive, Traditional Mental Health Therapy by Eric Jaffe (LA Times):...
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Haiti Earthquake Greening Worm Depression...
Earthquake In Haiti by various photographers (The Big Picture): 48 pictures from Haiti. Not for the faint-hearted. Also, while we’re here, why the earthquake happened and info on the best local charities to donate to.
Haiti: The Land Where Children Eat Mud by Alex von Tunzelmann (TimesOnline): Haiti was also an unbelievably terrible place to be before the earthquake too. [via]
Renovating A...
8 tags
New Oral Employee Worried Conversations Pal
A New Approach To China by (Google lawyer) David Drummond (googleblog): Google aren’t so happy about Chinese hackers trying to access the gmail accounts of Chinese human rights activists, and have decided to stop censoring google search results. [via Joshua Gans, who called it one of the most remarkable blog posts ever]
Green Sea Slug Is Part Animal, Part Plant by Susan Milius (Wired): Put...
8 tags
Hot Fox Hitting Back Viral Cats
Hot Air by Charles Homans (Columbia Journalism Review): Asked who they would most trust to tell them about climate change, Americans nominated TV weathermen. TV weathermen, however, mostly don’t know the research, and many of them think global warming is a scam. [via]
Roger Ailes Of Fox News Has An Agenda by David Carr and Tim Arango (New York Times): A fascinating insight into one of the...
6 tags
Mental Elizabeth Human Truth Snowballs Mindfully
The Americanization Of Mental Illness by Ethan Watters (New York Times): Mental illnesses are a result of time and place as much as they are a result of neurochemistry and biology; hysteria was common in the 19th century, but is very rare today, for example. The ubiquity of the DSM-IVR worldwide means that its diseases are often seen as the diseases, when often they’re as culture bound as...
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Gold Soundz - Pavement (Quarantine The Past,...
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Idle Mickey Hybrid Images Semantic Cambodia
Lost In Cambodia by Andrew Anthony (The Guardian): What got an intelligent, thoughtful person into a position where they became a Khmer Rouge apologist?
Semantic Time Travel by Caleb Crain (New York Times): “At court she receives no letters but those of a compilator of corantoes, but she weens to enjoy privily a tale of werewolves’ congress”: The publishing of the Historical Thesaurus...
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Field Music - Measure (Measure, 2010)
Field Music...
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Suicide Noughties Punish Montaigne 100 Nil
Nil By Mouth by Roger Ebert (Chicago Sun-Times): Film critic Roger Ebert details lovingly the meals he’s had with friends, now that he can no longer have meals with friends. [via]
Cleaner Fish Punish Cheats Who Offend Their Customers by Ed Yong (Not Exactly Rocket Science): Cleaner wrasse get their meals by eating parasites and gunk off the skin of bigger fish - by cleaning the bigger fish,...
3 tags
Australian #1 Singles: "Fireflies" by Owl City
Inspired by Tom Ewing’s excellent Popular blog, which has an entry on every British #1 single from 1952 up until 1986, I’ve decided I’m going to write about every song that gets to #1 in the Australian charts from now on until I get bored. I don’t really listen to modern chartpop music, but I’m not particularly against it, it has a place, is appealing to a certain audience, etc. This is a sort of...
7 tags
Foxhole Nadir Ideas Hitting Human Earworm
Hitting Bottom by Chris Norris (New York Times): US TV’s Dr Drew hosts reality shows where celebrities go through rehab for their addictions - does putting all this on TV help or hinder? (Also an subtly illuminating portrait of what drives a TV psychiatrist).
A Natural History Of The Earworm by Christian Jarrett (BPS Research Digest): Someone finally does some decent research on earworms...
6 tags
Celebrities Brain Teacher Hits Frontier Mosquito
What Makes A Good Teacher? by Amanda Ripley (The Atlantic): The Obama administration is offering $4 billion to US states to try and identify good teachers and what makes them good. [via]
A World Of Hits (The Economist): In this world of the long tail, the biggest hits are bigger than ever - people like being able to share cultural moments. I went and saw Avatar yesterday. It was, unusually for a...
6 tags
G-Spots Lens Mutating Waziristan Brain Story
Where Did The Time Go? Do Not Ask The Brain by Benedict Carey (New York Times): The reason why we think time flies on the long scale - “is it August already?” - is because we get stuck in the same old habits, and so we don’t remember them. But if lots of interesting things fill our time, it slows down a bit.
Becoming Better Mind Readers - To Work Out How Other People See You,...
6 tags
Toxic Security Fear Fruitful Redemption
Fruitful Decade For Many In The World by Tyler Cowen (New York Times): There has been a loud of chorus of “worst decade ever” in the last few weeks. And so perhaps it has been for the US - the last decade’s been good for Australia, where I live, and countries like Indonesia, China, Brazil, and India are richer and better connected than ever before. [via]
Is Aviation Security...
Power Evil Tanning Cancer Lights
Female Power (The Economist): Women entering the workforce and good wages has had a profound effect on the world, and different countries are wrestling with the consequences (both good and bad) in different ways. [via]
Lights On - Or Off? Low-Carbon Living Is Anything But Easy by Tim Harford (Financial Times): One of the advantages of a carbon trading scheme over carbon taxes (or whatever vague...
7 tags
2010 Pet Prions Hype Psychoanalysis History
Evolution Without Genes - Prions Can Adapt And Evolve by Ed Yong (Not Exactly Rocket Science): Prions are abnormal diseased proteins that - sort of like ice nine in Vonnegut’s Cat’s Cradle - convert normal proteins into prions; they’re what’s behind mad cow disease. Yong discusses prions evolving to fit their surroundings, even without having DNA, which is interesting in...
11 tags
Devils Music Affairs Shadow Good Detectives
Scientists Discover Origin Of A Cancer In Tasmanian Devils by Carl Zimmer (New York Times): The contagious facial cancer that has killed 60% of Tasmanian devils since 1996 may actually be a new organism; the cancer cells are descendants of the cells of the first animal to get the cancer, and it looks like the cancer cells themselves are replicating and spreading throughout the population.
How To...
December 2009
38 posts
6 tags
Vulture Terrorists Abandon Global Poop Celebrants
Childbirth At The Global Crossroads by Arlie Hochschild (American Prospect): Examines the rise of surrogate motherhood being outsourced to India, and the experiences of the surrogate mothers. [via]
Science Question From A Toddler: Why Is Poop Brown? by Maggie Koerth-Baker (Boing Boing): Because bile, which breaks down food, is metabolised by bacteria in your stomach. A byproduct of this process,...