Tomorrow is April Fools Day, and for some inspiration, here are a few pages from the excellent Snopes web site. First, a little background history, and as always it’s well researched and an interesting read. Then there’s a listing of some of the more memorable pranks throughout the years.
It’s pretty easy to fall for an April Fools joke if you are unprepared; last year I was almost fooled into thinking that Bob Dylan was playing at a seedy dive in Lillestrøm.
The site Ghost Town tells the story of a girl who goes cruising in the restricted zone around the old nuclear reactor at Chernobyl on her motorbike, equipped with a Geiger counter and camera.
The result is pictures and words of a place where time has stood still since that tragic day in late April 1986, and which very few people will get the chance to see.
I’ve used the Internet Archive several times before to find old web sites and articles, but not really browsed around the other stuff. Today I was referred to the site by the new B3ta newsletter, and found out that their collection consists of much more; classic b/w movies, computer animations and non-commercial music among other things.
I think this is a fantastic resource for the Internet community, and deserves all support and attention it can get. They also have an RSS feed, where you can check the latest additions to the site. I’ve put Night of the Living Dead on download, so tonight I’ll enjoy some classic 60s horror.
Yesterday I went to see the new movie from Hans Petter Moland, Beautiful Country, about a young Vietnamese man, Binh, who sets out to find his father, an American who served in the country during the Vietnam war. It is an often sad and moving story that touches upon subjects like the plight of refugees, modern slavery and how a war affects people and their destinies long after it is over.
In one of the scenes, where refugees are on board a small, waterlogged boat in a storm, I was reminded of the Tampa incident a few years ago. But through all the misery there are also scenes where glimmers of hope and humanity shine through.
The main characters are excellently portrayed by Damien Ngyen and Bai Ling, in other roles Tim Roth and Temuera Morrison are very realistic in the roles of the cold-blooded captain of the slave ship and a greedy slave trader, and Nick Nolte gives a great performance as Binh’s father . I highly recommend this movie, and hope that more people go see it in the coming weeks.
After all the hype and attention DJ Dangermouse‘s The Grey Album and the Jay-Z Construction Set have gained the last weeks, it was of course inevitable that more bootleg mixes would pop up. Here’s the latest on the scene: Jay-Z + Weezer = Jay-Zeezer.
Now, I’m not a big fan of Jay-Z myself – he’s at best a mediocre rapper – but have been (and still is) a Weezer fan, so I think this is pretty cool stuff. Four songs have been released so far, you can download them by clicking on the note icon beside the song name, and more might come.
Although the musical quality of this type of bootleg mixing not always is the best, it’s an interesting example of how computers and the Internet is changing the way music is perceived and distributed.
My heartfelt condolences and sympathy goes out to the Spanish people after yesterday’s cruel attack on innocent civilians in Madrid. In the honor of the dead and their families I display this Spanish flag with a black ribbon:
My first thought on who might be responsible for the atrocity was, like many others, the Basque separatist movement ETA, who have used bombings in their campaign for several decades, but it now also looks like the case for Al Qaeda being responsible is strong as well, which is a much more worrying prospect from a European perspective. Whoever it might be, I hope they catch the bastards…