Category:
Music
Music
Ethel Smith at the Organ
Elton John, Billy Joel and Ben Folds--eat your hearts out!If you wish to see a much crisper version of this clip that forbids embedding, please go here.
Posted By: Paul - Thu Jun 04, 2009 -
Comments (2)
Category: Movies, Music, 1940s
Bathing Beauty
Please enjoy this over-the-top water ballet from the Esther Williams film BATHING BEAUTY.For a non-embeddable version of much higher clarity, please go here.
Posted By: Paul - Thu Jun 04, 2009 -
Comments (0)
Category: Movies, Music, 1940s, Dance
Wouldn’t That Be A Great Band Name?
I know you've had this thought at least once... you and your friends are sitting around, drinking a few brewskis (or shooters or whatever it is you drink). One of your friends says something completely off the wall and you think, "that'd be a great band name." Oddly enough, that is how some of the best known bands get their names. Other bands have their names chosen for them by record producers or managers (how boring). In the end, how a band gets its name seems to be as different from one band to the next as their various playing styles. Here is a comprehensive list, in alphabetical order, of some of the most popular bands in recent history and where their names come from. I admit that the list itself is not particularly weird, but the way some of the bands ended up with their current names definitely is.
Posted By: Nethie - Wed Jun 03, 2009 -
Comments (3)
Category: Art, Entertainment, Music, Odd Names
Kate Smith
Sure, Susan Boyle's great, even if she did finish second. But what exactly was so surprising about a fat, homely gal with a great set of pipes? Has everyone forgotten Kate Smith so soon?
Posted By: Paul - Sun May 31, 2009 -
Comments (1)
Category: Music, 1970s
Cocktails and Records
As WU readers might have guessed, I love strange music. That's why I was thrilled to discover the blog called COCKTAILS AND RECORDS.Here's a groovy sample: THE BEATNIK'S WISH.
Enjoy.
Posted By: Paul - Sat May 30, 2009 -
Comments (2)
Category: Music
Super Clarinet
A reader named Luke--thanks, Luke!--points us toward this triple-sized musical instrument. It reminds me of something Dr. Seuss would've drawn.
Posted By: Paul - Fri May 29, 2009 -
Comments (2)
Category: Inventions, Music, Technology, Reader Recommendation
Four Jills in a Jeep
The embedded video at the bottom of this post consists of an entire feature-length film titled Four Jills in A Jeep. It recounts the based-on-truth activities of four female stars on the USO circuit during WWII. You are kindly invited to watch the whole thing if you wish: there's some good singing, and a few laughs amidst the corn. But if you only have three minutes to spare, please do this:1) Allow the whole video to load, with the sound off if you wish. It'll take a little bit, depending on your connection, natch.
2) Push the slider to the one-hour-and-nine-minutes mark. That's when our gals arrive at a North African village.
3) Wait patiently until, at the mark of 1:11:27, Kay Francis says "They brought us in on a camel caravan."
Watching this at home, we almost fell out of our seats, and had to replay the line several times to make sure we had heard right, laughing harder each time. I can guarantee you will not witness a funnier line-reading for a long time.
What makes it better is knowing something about Kay Francis's offscreen life. As we learn from this site:
A combination clotheshorse/workhorse, Kay Francis made 67 films from 1929 to 1946. Her life and career are a splurging record of indulgent consumption and extravagant dissipation....She usually drank a tumbler of gin for breakfast, got bored very easily, and slept around indiscriminately [with both men and women], racking up a high number of abortions... Kear and Rossman's book quotes liberally from Francis' diary, even using pull quotes from it on many of the pages, so that you feel their subject is talking directly to you. Kay repeatedly calls herself a bitch and a slut, proclaims her pooped-out boredom, and runs down her list of conquests. "Had merciless afternoon with Maurice (Chevalier)," she reports. "Four times in two hours." Her taste ran to talented directors too, like Goulding, Mamoulian, Lang, and Preminger. She could be generous: "Had to sleep with her because she wanted me," says one entry.
Four Jills in a Jeep
Posted By: Paul - Fri May 29, 2009 -
Comments (2)
Category: Movies, Music, Sexuality, Sex Symbols, War, 1940s
Wraygunn
The Portuguese band called Wraygunn is my new favorite. How can you beat the brilliance of a lyric like "Go-go dancer, maybe my big sister"...?
Posted By: Paul - Thu May 28, 2009 -
Comments (1)
Category: Music, Dance, Europe
Funky Space!
Posted By: Paul - Wed May 27, 2009 -
Comments (0)
Category: Fashion, Music, 1970s, Yesterday’s Tomorrows
Monorail!
Or listen to this:
Posted By: Paul - Wed May 27, 2009 -
Comments (3)
Category: Fairs, Amusement Parks, and Resorts, Futurism, Music, Technology, Cartoons, 1950s, Yesterday’s Tomorrows
| Who We Are |
|---|
| Alex Boese Alex is the creator and curator of the Museum of Hoaxes. He's also the author of various weird, non-fiction, science-themed books such as Elephants on Acid and Psychedelic Apes. Paul Di Filippo Paul has been paid to put weird ideas into fictional form for over thirty years, in his career as a noted science fiction writer. He has recently begun blogging on many curious topics with three fellow writers at The Inferior 4+1. Contact Us |