Friday, August 22, 2014

Woman killed with banjos

Thanks to our friend Dean Ericksen for passing this one along. maybe the strangest part of the story is that he had a backup banjo, when the first one broke.   /Mona G

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Painting: "jack brummet A jury of your peers"

By Jack Brummet


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Thursday, August 21, 2014

A brilliant tweet from Robyn Hitchcock on demonizing our fellow homo sapiens

By Mona Goldwater, Social Mores Ed.


Robyn Hitchcock (@RobynHitchcock)
When we stop demonizing each other, peace will come. But the spiral of justified grievance is endless.
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Wednesday, August 20, 2014

Spiders on drugs, spinning webs

By Jack Brummet, Cootie and Critter Ed.

Do you remember the experiments they performed on spiders to see how psychoactive drugs affected their web-spinning abilities? Here is an undrugged web, along with ones created under the influence of mescaline, caffeine, LSD, marijuana, chloral hydrate, and Benzedrine (for you young folks, essentially meth).



Benzedrine web

Caffeine web

chloral hydrate web

LSD web

Marijuana web

Mescaline web


A straight spider, on no drugs
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George Bush takes the ALS ice-bucket challenge (and challenges his friend Bill Clinton)


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Monday, August 18, 2014

Richard Linklater's "Boyhood"

By Jack Brummet


I was moved, delighted, amazed, and heartened by Richard Linklater's new movie Boyhood. It covers 12 years in a fictional family's life, and was filmed over 12 years. The cast is amazing and it tugs your heart like his movies often can. It will be a felony if this doesn't win an Oscar for best picture, Ethan Hawke, and Patricia Arquette, for the script, director, supporting actors, and more. I also always love his inobtrusive, delicate camerawork and this ensemble is stunning--Ellar Coltrane and Linklater's daughter...just wow. I really suck at reviews. Just go see it. It made my heart sing.
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Sunday, August 17, 2014

Swarming Robots

By Jack Brummet, Spooky Futures Ed.


The concept of Swarm Robots or swarming robotics is amazing, and more than a little scary.  There is a fascinating article by the Wall Street Journal here.
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