jim henson

Another week shoots past in the blink of an eye, and what have we learned?

1. 'The Queen of Glean,
or the high-life among the lowly'

- Follow the link ⬆ to read a wonderful article that ran in last week's Pacific Sun, the local free-weekly for my old stamping grounds back in California.

I enjoyed the read not just for the personal old-home town flavor of it, and not just because its anonymous writer is an acquaintance who happens to be one of the most enchanting people on the planet, but because it offers a positive and hopeful view of low-rent survival in high-rent times, where "poverty is illegal".

Take a gander!





2. Old news to many, but golly-gosh I sure enjoyed finally getting around to seeing
'No Country For Old Men' at a late show last night. Great performances, great story, amazing tension, and beautifully shot.

I appreciate it when the Coens reward me for finding something to love about everything they do...

3. The 'Robot Chicken' Star Wars Special will finally hit DVD coming up in May.

I'm looking forward...

4. Not to be confused with last month's equally disturbing
Celebrity 'Mouth Eye' Pictures photoshop contest is the 'Inverted Celebrities' pictures gallery that ran at FreakingNews.com a couple of weeks later... ⬇⬇

Fun and freakish and fascinating.

I think it's interesting who remains recognizable and who doesn't, and the most odd may be those who hardly look different.

There's a different view of Angelina Jolie there that puts me in mind of Grace Jones.

I think it's interesting to note too, that an upside-down smile 'reads' not at all like a frown.
It's still a smile. There's a lesson there somewhere.

(Found via CityRag, via Egotastic!)


5. Some sad news, as we say goodbye to
Dave Day Havlicek, the banjo player from The Monks.

He passed away last week, at age 66 in
Renton, Washington.

Fortunately, we can still celebrate the great music he made.
The Monks continue to be hailed as proto-punk pioneers, the first avant-garde rock band, the most badass bar band ever, and more - - and it's all true.

In the mid-sixties this group of American GIs stationed in Germany certainly stood out.

Audiences didn't know what to make of their monastic shaved heads and in 1966 their music was like nothing that had been heard before.

You can check out a very thoughtful article on Dave and The Monks that ran last week in The Stranger out of Seattle.
It includes a pretty amazing video clip of The Monks performing live on German TV. (Thanks KALX.)

- See also: The Monks Official Website

6. 'Falling From Space'
I love this little piece of video. ⬇ It's taken from a fixed camera mounted to one of the twin rocket boosters on the Space Shuttle Atlantis. It shows its view of the separation from the shuttle, then tumbling through space and re-entering Earth's atmosphere as it falls back to the surface. Mesmerizing!