Last Sunday at the 1 Wall / 25 Gears Benefit For Todd Blair, Shannon of the Neverwas Haul crew gave me a demonstration on how they steam cook hot dogs (aka “steam bangers”), a traditional Hibernian steam cuisine, using the Neverwas Runabout.

According to Shannon they are not “Steampunk”, but “Steam Bohemian”.

photo by Scott Beale

guest post by Aaron Muszalski

British actress and comedian Nina Conti (daughter of actors Tom Conti and Kara Wilson) displays her uniquely deconstructed approach to ventriloquism.

photo by Lewis Houghton

A typeface crisis takes place at the Font Conference by College Humor.

Our friend David Calkins, founder of RoboGames and robotics instructor at SFSU, was the guest on today on Episode #61 Systm, the Revision3 show hosted by Patrick Norton. On the show David shows off the versatile RoboNova Android and talks about how to build and program your own humanoid robot.

via Suicide Bots

guest post by Aaron Muszalski

A drinker, smoker, Irishman and atheist, Dave Allen was, above all, a natural raconteur. A fixture on British television during the sixties and seventies, he became known in America when re-runs of his shows began to air on late-night public television.

Allen’s act was typified by a very relaxed, intimate style — he would sit on a chair, smoking and holding a glass of whiskey. An atheist[1] (according to Allen himself, “what you might call a practising atheist”), he would often make jokes about religion, particularly the Roman Catholic Church and the Church of England. Along with his seated stand-up routines, his television shows were interspersed with sketch comedy. He had a lasting influence on British comedy, and influenced many 21st century British comedians. [Wikipedia]

As a child, I remember regularly staying up past my bedtime to watch Dave Allen At Large on PBS, and being struck by his amiable iconoclasm; Allen wasn’t interested in killing sacred cows so much as getting comfortably drunk, and playfully tipping them over. By couching his irreverence in cordiality, he made his free-thinking bent all that much more infectious.

A perfect example of this was Allen’s famous send-off, in which he managed to both gracefully acknowledge the beliefs of others, while simultaneously excusing himself from any part in them:

“Goodnight, thank you, and may your god go with you.”

See Also:

- Dave Allen [Amazon], Dave Allen audio snippets
- Dave Allen At Large intro [YouTube]

Post inspired by (and title borrowed from) His Wholiness The Reverend DrJon

Here’s the trailer for the upcoming film Watchmen directed by Zack Snyder and based on the limited issue DC Comics graphic novel series written by Alan Moore and illustrated by Dave Gibbons. The film is scheduled for release on March 6th, 2009.

“Lathe Operator” by Dr. Sphincter and the Hunger, recorded live at The Southern Theater in Minneapolis. This would have made shop class so much more enjoyable.

Here’s an MP3 of “Lathe Operator”.

Thanks to M2 for the tip!

Adam Sandler performed a parody version of “Magic Bus” as a tribute The Who, introducing them as they took the stage at the VH1 Rock Honors Award Show.

“Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog”, the latest project by Joss Whedon (Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, Firefly & Serenity), is a three part web-based musical mini series staring Neil Patrick Harris as Dr. Horrible, Nathan Fillion as Captain Hammer and Felicia Day as Penny. All three act are online now and available for free through July 20th:

Act One

Act Two

Act Three

Annalee Newitz has a great write-up on Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog over on io9.

After losing federal funding, PBS falls on hard times and hires POYKPAC to produce the new thought-provoking series ‘Llectuals.

“Simon’s Cat in TV Dinner”, the 3rd hilarious episode in the Simon’s Cat animated series by Simon Tofield. Previous episodes include “Cat Man Do” and “Let Me In!”

See Previously: Cat Man Do by Simon Tofield

JibJab presents Time for Some Campaignin’, which can be personalized to include a person’s photo and shared as a JibJab Sendable. Here’s some background on the video from the JibJab production team.

Ze Frank was recently of guest on a live taping of The Sound of Young America, hosted by Jesse Thorn during Sketchfest NYC at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theater in New York. During the interview Ze mentions that he is close to finishing co-writing a screenplay for Universal Studios.

via Fimoculous

The new Radiohead music video for “House of Cards”, directed by James Frost, was created entirely using data visualizations without traditional cameras or lights. “House of Cards” has been released as an open source project hosted on Google Code.

No cameras or lights were used. Instead two technologies were used to capture 3D images: Geometric Informatics and Velodyne LIDAR. Geometric Informatics scanning systems produce structured light to capture 3D images at close proximity, while a Velodyne Lidar system that uses multiple lasers is used to capture large environments such as landscapes. In this video, 64 lasers rotating and shooting in a 360 degree radius 900 times per minute produced all the exterior scenes.

Here’s the making of video for “House of Cards”.

guest post by mikl-em

The Real Tuesday Weld plays this Wednesday (07/16/2008) at Café Du Nord.

Years ago, at the late lamented Ideas in Animation series run by Nik & Nancy Phelps, the above animated music video “Bathtime In Clerkenwell” was shown. Needless to say it made a huge impression.

Nik is an internationally-known scorer of animations, who records with Tom Waits amongst others, and was featured in Laughing Squid’s Tentacle Sessions. The “Ideas” series brought animations from around the world to the Bay Area, where Nik & the Sprocket Ensemble performed live beside them. There was always a very high quality of work presented, but still this one short (which Nik does not play on) really stood out.

A second video by the same combination of musical artist and animator was shown later in the series, and I was dying to learn more about it. The music was by The Real Tuesday Weld –what a strange name, is it man, woman or band?–while the visuals were created by Aleksey Budovsky, born in Russia and emigrated to New York; a prodigious talent of only 27-years old at the time.

Details were spotty 6 years ago now, but turns out that Stephen Coates is the driving force behind the music. Coates seems to also be known as The Clerkenwell Kid and he’s been steadily releasing albums and growing in noteriety. Now he’s on a US tour, and this week he’ll be in San Francisco to play that great former speakeasy Café Du Nord with a sizable band; it should be a great show.

From the bio on the Du Nord website:

Originally inspired by a dream of British 1930s crooner Al Bowlly and American actress Tuesday Weld, Stephen Coates began to create music to try to recreate the sounds he heard in his childhood home - ‘the crackling of radios playing swing and easy listening in some distant room.’ As The Real Tuesday Weld, Coates doesn’t hesitate to put those sounds to subversive use much like some of his most illustrious forebears and influences—such as Serge Gainsbourg and Ennio Morricone.

Coates has a real appreciation for animation and most of his videos feature great retro-animations like these which match very well with the style he’s created and calls “antique beat”.

The next clip actually features Nik Phelps on horns, it’s based on the classic tune “Brazil” and is called “(return I will to old) Brazil”. Nik & Nancy nowadays live in Belgium. They keep in touch with us old co-conspirators via tantalizing blogposts.

Here’s another Coates/Budovsky collaboration “Terminally Ambivalent Over You”:

More of the band’s videos here

Last week Gary Vaynerchuk was in San Francisco for Wine Library TV episode #500, which was recorded and streamed live by Revision3 from the wonderful Crushpad wine making facility. In the episode, which is now up on Rev3, Gary takes us on a tasting tour of the Rioja wines from Spain.

Here are a few photos I shot at the Wine Library TV episode #500 recording.

See Previously:

- Wine Library TV, A Daily Wine Video Blog by Gary Vaynerchuk
- Wine Library TV Party At De Loach Vineyards In Santa Rosa
- Gary Vaynerchuk’s Wine Library TV SXSW Meetup at Cork & Co.

photos by Scott Beale

Jessica Lynch was shooting video of a rain storm and was suddenly struck by lightning, capturing it all on video. Luckily she wasn’t injured, just a bit shook up.

From what i understand, it went through my left hand holding the camera, crossed my back and exited out of my right hand holding onto the metal railing. No entry or exit wounds, just a really good zap!

via Flickr Blog

Joseph Herscher created a really cool Rube Goldberg style machine that makes a “Falling Water” cocktail. Roboexotica should fly this guy out to Vienna to give this year’s keynote address.

via Boing Boing

Here are a couple of videos of the beautiful kinetic sculpture developed by ART+COM which is currently on display at the BMW Museum in Munich.

The mechatronic installation made up of 714 metal balls translates a virtual design process into the space around it. Seemingly weightless and guided solely by the power of the mind, the sculpture moves through a cycle of free abstractions and typical BMW vehicle forms.

Speaking of the BMW Museum, the building is made in the shape of the BMW logo.

via Engadget

photo via BMW Group

“Western Spaghetti” is the latest brilliant stop-motion animated short by PES.

See Previously: Game Over by PES, Arcade Game Stop Motion Animation

via Neatorama