Kecak (pronounced: “KEH-chahk” …), a form of Balinese music drama, originated in the 1930s and is performed primarily by men. Also known as the Ramayana Monkey Chant, the piece, performed by a circle of 100 or more performers wearing checked cloth around their waists, percussively chanting “cak”, and throwing up their arms, depicts a battle from the Ramayana where monkeys help Prince Rama fight the evil King Ravana. Kecak has roots in sanghyang, a trance-inducing exorcism dance.
If this track is anything like the rest of his upcoming album, Finding Forever, then I’m all over it. Common’s 7th studio release will feature Kanye West who also did a majority of the production along with the late J Dilla, Dwele, Lily Allen (what up girl?!), Bilal and D’Angelo. Comes out the 10th of July so heads up.
Probably the most poignant interview I’ve seen with John Stewart — this time on Bill Moyers Journal — discussing the role of the Daily Show, Stewart’s opinions on the war, and offering a few props to the political blogosphere.
[The war] hasn’t affected us here in the way that you would imagine a five-year-war would affect a country. (…)
The president says we’re in the fight for our way of life — this is the greatest battle of our generation, and of the generations to come. (…) Iraq has to be won, or our way of life ends, and our children and our children’s children all suffer — “so what I’m going to do is send 10,000 more troops to Baghdad.” So there’s a disconnect there between — you’re telling me this is the fight of our generation, and you’re telling me you’re going to increase troop strength by 10% — and that’s going to do it. I’m sure what he’d like to do is send 400,000 more troops there but he can’t because he doesn’t have ‘em. And the way to get that would be to institute a draft, and the minute you do that, suddenly the country’s not so damn busy anymore. And then they really fight back, and then the whole thing falls apart.
So they have a really delicate balance to walk between keeping us relatively fearful, but not so fearful that we stop what we’re doing and really examine how it is that they’ve been waging this.
Boston.com estimates the total cost of the War in Iraq at around $456 billion. What could we have bought instead? Among other things:
According to World Bank estimates, $54 billion a year would eliminate starvation and malnutrition globally by 2015, while $30 billion would provide a year of primary education for every child on earth.
At the upper range of those estimates, the $456 billion cost of the war could have fed and educated the world’s poor for five and a half years.
Not only does the engine run off of methane, which is abundant in all kinds of interesting destinations like like Saturn’s moon Titan, but it looks freaking awesome. Check the full res version for the full effect.
ARTICLE/VIDEO [press release, more info, full res video] (NASA)
At first glance, the manuscript appears to be a medieval Christian prayer book.
But on the same pages as the prayers, experts using a high-tech imaging system have discovered commentary likely written in the third century A.D. on a work written around 350 B.C. by the Greek philosopher Aristotle.
The discovery is the third ancient text to emerge from the layers of writing on the much reused pages. In 2002 researchers had uncovered writings by the mathematician Archimedes and the fourth-century B.C. politician Hyperides.
Last year one of the pages was found to contain a famous work by Archimedes about buoyancy that had previously been known only from an incomplete Latin translation.
Project director William Noel, curator of manuscripts at the Walters Art Museum in Baltimore, Maryland, called the latest discovery a “sensational find.”
LINK/IMAGES [website: more info & image bank] ARTICLE ["New Layer of Ancient Greek Writings (...)] (National Geographic)
Proposed for construction in Shanghai to coincide w/ the 2010 World Expo. The Chinese character 人 (romanized “ren”) means person or people.
The first building, emerging from the water, is devoted to the activities of the body, and houses the sports and water culture center. The second building emerging from land, is devoted to the spirit and enlightenment, and houses the conference center and meeting facilities. The two buildings meet in a 1000 room hotel, a building for living.
The design comes from the Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG) in Copenhagen. Previous World Expo architecture includes the Eiffel Tower and Seattle’s Space Needle.
Disney/Pixar’s Ratatouille comes out June 29th. In the meantime you can catch two 9-minute clips from the movie at Disney’s website. These may not be available for long so check them out before they’re gone.
LINK/VIDEO [Disney's home page w/ previews] LINK [Ratatouille website] VIDEOS [trailers] (Apple)
This slipped by me unnoticed until today. Mstislav Rostropovich, former director of the National Symphony Orchestra in Washington, DC and virtuoso cellist died last Friday morning in Moscow, the city he considered home. Included in this post is a recording of him playing Haydn’s Cello Concerto No. 1 in C with the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields.
ARTICLE [(...) Mstislav Rostropovich Dies (...)"] (Washington Post) LINK [Google News search for "rostropovich dies"] ARTICLE [Mstislav Rostropovich] (Wikipedia)
Update: Encore: Bach’s Suite No. 2 for Cello in D Minor — a piece he’s better known for and something more demonstrative of his skill. Podcast updated.
AUDIO [Rostropovich - Bach Suite No. 2 For Cello Solo In D Minor, Mvt. I] AUDIO [Rostropovich - Bach Suite No. 2 For Cello Solo In D Minor, Mvt. II] AUDIO [Rostropovich - Bach Suite No. 2 For Cello Solo In D Minor, Mvt. III] AUDIO [Rostropovich - Bach Suite No. 2 For Cello Solo In D Minor, Mvt. IV] AUDIO [Rostropovich - Bach Suite No. 2 For Cello Solo In D Minor, Mvt. V] AUDIO [Rostropovich - Bach Suite No. 2 For Cello Solo In D Minor, Mvt. VI]
9 Beet [sic] Stretch is Ludwig van Beethoven’s 9th symphony stretched to 24 hours, with no pitch distortions.
It’s broadcasting 24/7 as a streaming webcast, and will be released to DVD later this year. A classic Beethoven symphony takes on the ethereal dissonant properties of something reminiscent to a Philip Glass composition — I’ve been listening to it now for a couple hours. See the website for more info, including photos of public spaces where the work has been exhibited.
![Living Comic Book Costume [PIC]](http://img.ffffound.com/static-data/assets/6/c8bd7842ea4803b3e641733e1577a15b7ccf18bb_xs.jpg)
