Get Cynical

From the Old Grey Whistle Test in 1975.

I’m not even sure there’s a word that can sufficiently describe the level of geekiness that this video displays.

Oh, and what’s a theremin:

The theremin (originally pronounced [ˈteremin] but often anglicized as [ˈθɛɹəmɪn] [1]), or thereminvox, is one of the earliest fully electronic musical instruments. It was invented by Russian inventor Léon Theremin in 1919, and it is unique in that it was the first musical instrument designed to be played without being touched. It generally consists of two pitch and one volume radio frequency oscillators and two metal antennas. The electric signals from the theremin are amplified and sent to a loudspeaker.

To play the theremin, the player moves his hands around the two metal antennas, which control the instrument’s frequency (pitch) and amplitude (volume). The theremin is widely associated with “alien,” surreal, and eerie-sounding portamento, glissando, tremolo, and vibrato sounds, due to its use in film soundtracks such as Spellbound, The Lost Weekend, Ed Wood, Mars Attacks! and The Day the Earth Stood Still. Theremins are also used in art music (especially avant-garde and 20th century “new music”) and in popular music genres such as rock and pop.

I’m always skeptical about Stephen King’s work being translated into movies except when:
1. Frank Darabont is involved
2. It’s one of King’s short stories.

This meets both criteria and the trailer looks good.

I’ve never read a Harry Turtledove book before, although I did know that he wrote a lot of alternate history fiction. But I was browsing the used section of the Harvard Book store last week (The Harvard Book store isn’t as big as The Harvard Coop but if you go downstairs they have a terrific used section which is perfect for browsing when you’re not sure what to get) when I came across this cover:

Robert E. Lee with an AK-47? (“It is well that war is so terrible, so we will cap a yankee’s ass with our AKs”) The story is about a white supremacist group who uses a time machine to supply the confederacy with AK-47s to give them the advantage in the Civil War. Giddy up.

So Cynics, have you ever bought a book because of its cover?

From The Smoking Gun:

Janis Joplin was arrested in November 1969 in Florida and charged with disorderly conduct after yelling obscenities at police officers during a Tampa concert. Charges were later dropped after it was ruled that the singer’s actions were an exercise of free speech.

Is it just me or does this look like a trailer for a video game instead of a movie.

(Insert Bill O’Reilly Joke Here)

Like Hansel and Gretel hoping to follow their bread crumbs out of the forest, the FBI sifted through customer data collected by San Francisco-area grocery stores in 2005 and 2006, hoping that sales records of Middle Eastern food would lead to Iranian terrorists.

The idea was that a spike in, say, falafel sales, combined with other data, would lead to Iranian secret agents in the south San Francisco-San Jose area.

The brainchild of top FBI counterterrorism officials Phil Mudd and Willie T. Hulon, according to well-informed sources, the project didn’t last long. It was torpedoed by the head of the FBI’s criminal investigations division, Michael A. Mason, who argued that putting somebody on a terrorist list for what they ate was ridiculous — and possibly illegal.

A check of federal court records in California did not reveal any prosecutions developed from falafel trails.