Saturday (not morning) Awesome: Homeless man's cover of "Creep"

This is a homeless man named Mustard, covering Radiohead's song Creep on the Opie and Anthony's satellite radio show. Must give a language warning for all the kiddos out there.

He owns this song, and I just can't stop watching. Hope you enjoy it too.



Bp

Little Dudes: Spotted Bat (Euderma maculatum)

Michael Durham Photography has a plethora of great wildlife photos posted on his blog, which I encourage you to check out. This post with the Spotted Bat really caught my attention.

Here are some of the photos, click here for the rest. Oh and remember you can click on the photos to get bigger versions.





Enjoy little spotted furry flying dudes,

Bp

[all picture credits at Michael Durham's site]

New band: The Finches

Ok I hesitate to post right off Boing Boing but I couldn't resist. Here is a video of finches 'playing' electric guitar.

But here's the capper -- what made me have to post this.

"the best angular, atonal, postpunk, improvisational guitar I've heard in a while."

Awesome. And a tip -- stick to .46 to see the stick-bowing finch rip it up.



Enjoy birds out-doing Dinosaur Jr.

Bp

100 days in Glacier National Park

Here is a really awesome photo set from Bostom.com's "The Big Picture."

Part of their writeup:

This summer, Glacier Park Magazine editor Chris Peterson undertook a photographic project to take photos of Montana's Glacier National Park over 100 consecutive days, starting on May 1, 2009, for a traveling photo show in 2010 to commemorate Glacier's Centennial. He used a mix of film and digital cameras, including an 8 by 10 field camera, a Kodak Pocket Vest camera, circa 1909, and a Speed Graphic, among others. His idea was to use the cameras that would have been used over the course of the Park's 100 years.

Here is the whole set of 100 photographs with the artists comments, well worth your time. Some great reading, as well as more amazing shots.

[remember to click images for larger size]

check the foreground right on this one



The beargrass in this one reminds me of my days in the fire lookout.



Bufo! [that one's for you Wife]



[As is this one] Smallest bird in North America, Calliope hummingbird (Stellula calliope)



And you gotta have bighorns.



Enjoy phenomenal photography of nearly untrammeled nature,

Bp

[via my faithful Canukistani operative "Yuri", all image credits in linked photo set]

"Tony Steinberg: Brave Seventh-Grade Viking Warrior," by TAYLOR MALI

Long time readers of this blog may know that I'm a big fan of Taylor Mali. I can watch his "What Teachers Make" video any time my willpower to become a teacher flags, and it perks me right back up.

Prepare for a few sniffles on this one, it's excellent.



Enjoy people who can truly put it down,

Bp

[via my soft-hearted Canukistani Operative "Yuri"]

Vincent Floderer's origami mushroom instructions

If you have any interest in mushrooms, or origami, or... I suppose The French, this aught to be of interest to you.



Enjoy awesome, kitchey art,

Bp

[via "Yuri," my faithful Canukistani Operative, via Boingboing]

Excellent mobile home commercial

First off, here is the commercial -- I'll let it speak for itself:



The commercial was produced by a strange little project called I Love Local Commercials. These guys find small businesses to make commercials for, creating instant internet viral material like you saw above. If you are interested in the making of the epically honest mobile home commercial, click here for some good video on it.

Enjoy folks doing their ironic media work and accidentally helping small business in the process,

Bp

Lindy Hop Showdown

These people are all insane, and double jointed.



To quote Yuri -- "All I can think about when I watch this is knee surgery."

Enjoy talent on hyperdrive,

Bp

[via my faithful Canukistani operative "Yuri"]

German Biological Illustrations from 1904 --- Gorgeous Stuff

The book is Ernst Haeckel's Kunstformed der Natur (Artforms of Nature). The prints are fantastic, classy, beautiful, etc. Check out the wiki commons page here for more. [I must admit, it also makes one wonder just how many tattoos out there in the world are based on this work, I'm just sayin']









Enjoy awesome art inspired by science,

Bp

[via the always-classy Dani of Dani Boynton Photography, Canukistan]

Free books online, no joke

The Burgomeister's Books is a site where you can find scads of books for free.

The terms are completely reasonable. You can only download 5 books in a two week period. And when done, you nuke them from your hard-drive.

It's a free service, but the kind host does appreciate donations to keep it going.

Enjoy public access to goodies,

Bp

[via Canukistani Kate, illustration is The Librarian, by Guiseppe Arcimbolo, via Wiki Commons]

Fantastic Eye Candy -- Scintillation by Xavier Chassaing

"This is an experimental film made up of over 35,000 photographs. It combines an innovative mix of stop motion and live projection mapping techniques."

Just watch it.

SCINTILLATION from Xavier Chassaing on Vimeo.

Enjoy being totally harnessed, visually,

Bp

[via Dani Boynton Photography]

Saturday Morning Awesome: ZeFrank is back

As long-time readers of this blog know, I'm a big fan of ZeFrank. This morning, ex-pat, Canunistani Uncle Ted sent me a link to a Time.com piece done by ZeFrank himself. Too awesome, I'm glad he found work.

I'll keep ya'll updated whenever I find him popping up again.

Enjoy underground artists getting paying jobs,

Bp

List of 50 classic Dystopian movies

Ok actually the list is "top 50 dystopian movies of all time" -- but that's a bit big in the britches don't ya think?

It's a good list, nonetheless.

Kinda freaky how many of these I've seen. What is so damned appealing about Dystopias?

Enjoy the future bummer, in art,

Bp

[via Uncle Ted, image credit in linked article]

PS22 Chorus performs Don't Stop Believin'

Ok look, I hate Journey. I know hate is a strong word, but -- well it's appropriate here.

BUT

These kids are so damned cute performing their song I had to post it. Check out the facial expressions, especially of the two little boys in the front right -- simply awesome.

The PS22 Chorus Blog has more videos and info.



Enjoy cuteness when you can find it,

Bp

[props to the Portland Mercury Blog for finding this]

Saturday Morning Awesome: Best Photo Ever

First the photo:

I'm speechless. This photo so full of awesome I can hardly stand it.

And win. It's full of win too.

I saw it in the Portland Mercury Blog, Blogtown, Pdx. Apparently it was stolen by someone who worked in a photo lab. So it's not only awesome in its own right, it's anonymous and stolen -- which just punts it into the stratosphere.

I had to delay posting this a few days to make it the Saturday Morning Awesome. For all I know it's viral by the time this post goes up.

If you are into Haiku, Blogtown is challenging folks to Haiku the picture in the comments. Which is also awesome.

Enjoy bathing in anonymous awesomeness,

Bp

A little peek into the workings of The Daily Show

Here is a bit of an interview with some Daily Show folks that ends up shining a light on how the show works in the field.

It's Colbert talking about how the show got sued over a piece they did in Southern California. In the process of telling the story you get a glimpse into how sneaky they are in pulling this stuff off.

Very entertaining.

Enjoy peeking behind the scenes a bit,

Bp

[via the fabulous Dani of Dani Boynton Photography, up in Canukistan]

Dave Carter and Tracy Grammer perform "When I Go" (Portland, 2001)

I've heard this song before, but not for a while. My friend Lisa E. posted this and reminded me how effing fantastic it is.

Here is the youtube poster's note: "The late, great Dave Carter and the very much alive and vibrant Tracy Grammer performing at the St John's Pub, Portland, Oregon, 2001"

This is a song for the ages. Just one of those songs that gets it right and sets the bar. Definitely worth setting aside some time and having a moment.



If you enjoyed that version, check out Bryan Bowers covering it on autoharp.

Enjoy hearing music that you know carries weight from the past, and will survive long into the future,

Bp

Fantastic talk on Creativity, Art and Artists

Ok all the Ted Talks are pretty damned good. Many are brilliant, actually.

This one is most excellent. It's inspired, fresh, and worth your time, I assure you.



Enjoy being released from some sneaky, negative shit in an interesting, charming way,

Bp

[via Dani of Dani Boyton Photography]

Saturday Morning Awesome: Wingnut Confections

What is more awesome than candy? Well locally made, organic, fair-trade, vegan bike-delivered candy of course!

Wingnut Confections is the brain-child my friend Dave Beer. With a history as a pastry chef, and an adoration of dark chocolate, he decided to create candies of an entirely different caliber. Since Dave has plenty of friends with an intolerance to dairy, he worked to create luscious chocolate without it. He figured it out.

I can vouch for the truffles, they're amazing. They're fantastic. He has some trippy flavors as well, including Thai Chili, and Habanero Mole.



I don't know that I could say what my favorite truffle is, but some days its Thai Chili, and others (many others) its Earl Grey. Of course there is much research yet to do, as he has candied Oregon nuts, candied citrus, and Goji berry/Brazil nut clusters that I haven't even tried yet.

It's a rough assignment, but I'll do it -- for you, the reader.

Where do you get em? First off -- you can get them on line. Better yet, you can find Dave at the People's Farmer's Market year round (Wednesdays) and Saturdays at the Hollywood Farmer's Market (which just opened May 2nd). They are also carried in many local stores, including Whole Foods, the Alberta Co-op Grocery, and Proper Eats (among many others, check the link).

Now if I can only convince Dave to start mass-producing his fruit meade so I can have it more often...

Enjoy your friends pulling off epic business feats,

Bp

[all photo credits at the Wingnut Confections website]

Saturday Morning Awesome: Stills

Since I don't have any moving-picture awesomeness, I thought I'd provide two stills.

This first one is so awesome I have a hard time looking directly at it for any length of time -- it burns with awesomeness. I, unfortunately, have no attribution. My source was a Facebook group called "I have to pee when I get home." Basically an enormous compendium of intartube randomness.

I know that's a lot to take in, I'll leave it at that.



Another unattributed photograph posted at xx-xy.org (whatever that is) that rocks so hard I had to share it. It's also begging for a caption, but I won't put ya'll through that.



Enjoy following the quirks of the kids these days,

Bp