Peas Peas Me

Does anyone else see violinist Anne-Sophie Mutter's name and think of Mutter Paneer?

I just had to put down the New York Philharmonic's 2010 season catalog last night to raid the refrigerator. (The best I could do was a bag of frozen peas and an unopened packet of paneer.)

Why, I wonder, does seeing Pavarotti's name in print not lead to cravings for bread? [Pav (in Marathi) = Pão (in Portuguese) = bread and Roti = a type of Indian bread. A good thing his first name isn't Nanni. Opera fans can't live on bread alone.]

In Which ToI Explores Seismology

"Will 47000 cleavages cause a quake?"

But because that pronoun-less headline doesn't directly engage the reader, this:

"Can your cleavage cause an earthquake?"

You can look up Times of India's website and locate these headlines yourself. I'm too busy unleashing tremors with my cleavage.

I hope they will consider funding the "will 22000 butt-cracks set a rain-forest on fire?" study. (No, I do not wish to know what could cause a plague of lice or make a volcano erupt.)

Go Stream 'Em

Hush-hush. An online radio station streams 1001 - that's right, 1001 - classic rock, metal, jazz, soul,rap, New Wave, blues, pop, '90s alt-rock and folk albums.

I know the "snoboscenti" might scoff at seeing (some) familiar fare, but being able to stream Jacques Brel, Metallica, Dylan, Muddy Waters, Bad Brains, Leonard Cohen, N.W.A. and Miles Davis from one radio station is not just cool but actually vital to the well-being of the universe. OK, that is hyperbole.

But let me tell you just how special this stream is - it has a John Prine album. And an album by Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan with "Allah Hoo" in it. And there's Kinks' Arthur. And there is....sorry, but my musical-ADD just flared up. I went from playing "Speed King" to "Yaad-e-nabi gulshan mehka".

BTW, if you are playing an album and wish to browse other album-pages, the stream stops. But you can resume the song by simply clicking on the gray "volume-level strip" next to the progress bar in the site's media player.)

Radio Romania rocks very very hard.

(Learned about this radio station from a TIL on Reddit. Those guys are something else.)

The Tanganyika Laughter Epidemic

"According to reports, the laughter was incapacitating when it struck"

Wiki article

Wouldn't it be fun to call in sick at work with that ailment. ("My doctor has advised immobilization and three days of watching nothing but "According to Jim"...?)

According to the Wiki, the symptoms of the epidemic included farting, attacks of crying and random screaming. What are the odds of those three symptoms ever occurring at once? Who cries while farting? And who farts while screaming?

Think about those questions. Then, watch the funniest joke in the world.

Marlowe

"She smelled the way the Taj Mahal looks by moonlight"

"She gave me a smile I could feel in my hip pocket."

- Philip Marlowe (Via Roger Ebert's twitter feed).

I'd Ask My Friends To Come And See

Man goes for a swim in the ocean, starts video-shooting an octopus when suddenly.... you must watch the video for the rest of the story.

(Via MetaFilter)

Guess Who Won A Pulitzer This Year?

Hank Williams. OK, it's "Special Citations" and not a Pulitzer Pulitzer, but still.

He wrote "Move it on over" and deserves at least a couple of Nobel Prizes for that song alone.

Twin Peaks

David Lynch's Twin Peaks turned twenty.

I'm not sure if this is true for you but I can remember my first viewing of anything by David Lynch. It may not make total sense at the time, but I always remember the experience - with that heavy, uneasy feeling of dread in my stomach. Twin Peaks and Fire walk with me are no different. Maybe I will muster up the courage to watch the whole show again one of these days.

Just thinking about some scenes from the show - and that strange "Lynchian" atmosphere - gives me the chills. If you've never seen the show, start with the intro theme. Yikes. Still creepy.

Four Truths, Three Jewels, One Remote

The Buddha airs on PBS on April 7.

Shakyamuni, of course, could not care less if I watched the show. Or didn't.

But I will.

That will show him.

Le Ziguezon Zinzon, Or, An Ear-Worm This Way Comes

Somebody help! I can't stop playing this song.