In "Curious George"

There's a fantastic set of compilations of world psychedelic music, called "Love, Peace & Poetry." Their volume of Mexican psychedelic music is excellent.

In "Mrs Mortimer hated everywhere she went."

To me, the fascinating thing is that Mrs. Favell Lee Mortimer, the most popular travelogue-ist of her generation, barely ever set foot out of her hometown. The beginning of Pruzan's book ran about one month ago in the New Yorker and it was a fascinating read. Unfortunately, I can't seem to find a link to an online copy. Luckily, this NPR link reproduces most of the content. And for those really brave souls who want to know more (and I admit, I'm not yet one of them), Project Gutenberg has a copy of one of Mrs. Mortimer's books, the *ahem* classic Far Off.

In "<b>Delerious George</b>...songs that make it summer "

these ones are kind of on the nose: The Sea & Cake - Shoulder Length Lee Hazlewood & Nancy Sinatra - Summer Wine Koop - Summer Sun Smokey & Miho - Summer Rain here's some that do it for me: Rosemary Clooney - Mangos Tortoise - I Set My Face To The Hillside Blackalicious - Make You Feel That Way Minutemen - Corona

In "Curious George: What do you love about America?"

While reading this, was anyone else reminded of Woody Allen's "Why is life worth living?" speech from Manhattan? "Why is life worth living? It's a very good question. Um...Well, There are certain things I guess that make it worthwhile. uh...Like what... okay...um...For me, uh... ooh... I would say ... what, Groucho Marx, to name one thing... uh...um... and Wilie Mays... and um ... the 2nd movement of the Jupiter Symphony ... and um... Louis Armstrong, recording of Potato Head Blues ... um ... Swedish movies, naturally ... Sentimental Education by Flaubert ... uh... Marlon Brando, Frank Sinatra ... um ... those incredible Apples and Pears by Cezanne... uh...the crabs at Sam Wo's... uh... Tracy's face ... "

In "Jacques Derrida, RIP"

...It's been a long time since I subjected myself to Derrida And judging from your understanding of his work, it is clear that you didn't do it for very long, or very effectively, at the time. Here's your homework, Skrik: go back and show me where Derrida argues that there is no meaning in language. In the meantime, you might wish to lay off both the insults and the memorializations. What you've done is one of the worst examples of trolling I've yet seen on here on Mofi.

In "The Virtual Suck Tour Of Arlington, Massachusetts"

I can't believe no one's posted it yet, here or in The Blue! No one's posted it here yet. But it has been posted on the blue, back in May. No matter, it's still amusing. Though I've said it before, and I'll say it again: Arlington, MA is nice. Having travelled far far from the metro Boston area, I have to say that those who live there can't complain. And I've said this before too: I wish my town had a safety iguana.

In "Let's All Sing Like The Birdies Sing...."

The Backpedaling: Well, er, yes, what Wolof said. So never mind the bit about "chances are it don't make noise," because that's not true at all, though it's fair to say that I can't hear them from here. Chirp, chirp.

In "I don't need anything except this"

You're not carnival personnel! Hey! He's not carnival personnel!

I was just talking yesterday about this film, and that "I need this!!!" scene in particular, to describe what I want to do every time I set foot in an IKEA -- "Disposable lamps! Bathmats! And Batteries! And that's ALL I need!!!" Oh, and one of my goals for 2004 was to make one of those 70's-style "Bull-Sh*t" T-Shirts that the kid on the train was wearing. All of which is a long way of saying thanks for the link -- it made my morning.

In "mew! mew! tiddles!"

And the metafilter thread posts it as via monkeyfilter, which was confusing until I found the monkeyfilter posting, and noticed that that, too, was from Wolof. So, thanks, Wolof. It's a great site, and I'm glad to see it at both MeFi and MoFi. But my head is spinning right now at the recursive-ness of all that.

In "Ever wondered if they know?"

...people need to have the piss taken out of their unexamined musical choices... NEED?! I laughed so hard when I read this, soda came out of my nose. Seriously, in the spirit of listmaking, go ahead and make a list of what people need: you'll probably find this one coming in at #10,000 or so, right between #9,999 Alien Death Ray Insurance, and #10,001 A good swift kick in the nuts. And if that's what music writers think -- that they're providing something people need -- well, that goes a long way to explain why so many of them are just unreadable these days. So get over yourself. Really. Allowing for a plurality of musical enjoyment, even of things you don't like, is less a "let them eat cake" position than it is admitting that "prejudice apart, the game of push-pin is of equal value with the arts and sciences of music and poetry."

In "I want a short wave radio please."

The Conet Project.

In "The All Music Guide gets reworked."

And the new tab format is just awful, if you ask me. If they wanted to do something useful, they could have worked on re-enabling right click for opening in a new browser window. Lots of compatability problems with everything but IE too, it seems. Lately I've been just using MSN's music site, which is driven by AllMusic's engine, but isn't timing out like AllMusic is lately. Hopefully they get the bugs worked out soon.

In "I presume it is your intention to start upon a Vaudeville career."

I just love the illustration of the trick pianist so much (page 9). Soooooo much. I'm thinking a career change is in order, actually.

In "Eats, Shoots and Leaves"

I love Louis Menand's criticism in the New Yorker but in terms of sheer bravado, this essay comes in a pale second to the one he wrote about the new edition of The Chicago Manual of Style. I'm always a little concerned, though, when I find myself having such a good time reading reviews of books about grammar and usage. I'm not a grammarian -- certainly not in practice -- but I find this stuff to be completely captivating.

In "Dressed to the nines: a history of the baseball uniform."

This is actually really really good. Thanks!

In "Thai Elephant Orchestra:"

best. post. ever.

In "The Loftcube Project."

Once I got to the flash bit which scrolled past an animation of 3 of these on a single roof, and then again during the discussion of wind resistance, it occured to me: The dominant vision of social organization here is a trailer park, but for hipsters...

In "Le singe est curieux."

For modern-age French music, David Byrne's Luaka Bop released a great compilation called "Cuisine Non-Stop" that's well worth checking out.

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