Iceland, Gibberish & Nuclear Fallout - On MTV

The video posted below is from a band called Sigur Ros (some of you have probably heard of them already). They're from Iceland, and although I wouldn't be able to translate for you, I've been told that some of their music is sung in Icelandic, while the rest of it is imaginary words and sounds. The song below is called "Untitled #1" from their album "( )." Yes, the album is called open parentheses closed parentheses, and no, I never claimed they were a mainstream band. The video won a major award on an MTV awards show, although I can't remember which one, even though the video itself was never aired on the channel. I got the video from YouTube, and if you look at the comments people left below it, a lot of users claim this is their "favorite video ever" or that it "always makes them cry," etc. Personally, I wasn't that affected by it, but that's just an opinion. Enjoy:



- Jamie

del.icio.us

I am really excited about this site, which I just started using yesterday. This is an intro from the site's about page:

What is del.icio.us?

del.icio.us is a collection of favorites - yours and everyone else's. You can use del.icio.us to:

• Keep links to your favorite articles, blogs, music, reviews, recipes, and more, and access them from any computer on the web.
• Share favorites with friends, family, coworkers, and the del.icio.us community.
• Discover new things. Everything on del.icio.us is someone's favorite -- they've already done the work of finding it. So del.icio.us is full of bookmarks about technology, entertainment, useful information, and more. Explore and enjoy.

del.icio.us is a social bookmarking website -- the primary use of del.icio.us is to store your bookmarks online, which allows you to access the same bookmarks from any computer and add bookmarks from anywhere, too. On del.icio.us, you can use tags to organize and remember your bookmarks, which is a much more flexible system than folders.

You can also use del.icio.us to see the interesting links that your friends and other people bookmark, and share links with them in return. You can even browse and search del.icio.us to discover the cool and useful bookmarks that everyone else has saved -- which is made easy with tags.

I've started collecting links for this class. You can see them here. My user name is biancaGLS so add me to your network if you do sign up (you could also post your name in the comment section for this post). I hope that you all will sign up and start sharing sites. This is a great way to keep all of your research in one place so that you can use on different computers. I also think it is easier than a usb key or other storage device.

The site is very intuitive and it is really easy to get started.

If you use Firefox as your browser (it's much better than I.E.) there is a cool extension that you can download. It puts del.icio.us buttons ("My del.icio.us" and "tag this") right on your navigation bar.

-bianca

P.S. There are a few catalog records that I tried to save. The links are expired because ALADIN uses session numbers. You can still copy and paste the titles right into the Gelman homepage and do a search for the books from there.

atomic KIT(S)CHEN

according to the publisher:
"There was a time when customized meat forks and devices with specialized slicing action were the marks of a well-equipped kitchen. Conscious cooks in the 1950s equipped their drawers and cupboards with the latest and greatest doohickeys, thingamajigs, and must-have products. From the Saucy Stovetop Butter Melter to the Chop-o-Matic, if there was a vegetable to chop or meat to be carved, there was a device to make it better and easier! Atomic Kitchen presents a gallery of gadgets, features, and cooking devices that appeared and, in some cases, disappeared during the creative cooking of the 1950s. Accompanied by vibrant, original packaging and vintage advertisements, you'll marvel at the ingenuity of the minds that brought you the Weenie Wheel, Bean-X Bean Slicer, Cookie Gun, and much more."

what's most puzzling (and simultaneously striking) is the word, "atomic." how can a word that originally connoted mass human destruction on a catacylsmic level suddenly be used to casually talk about spaces within the home - a private, closed space where the family believed it was kept safe from the unfamiliar world outside? how might the home be interpreted as a symbol of maintaining domestic, national security in the face of a potential nuclear attack from the soviet union? at what point does "atomic" signal "kitsch," the mushroom cloud become a wearable vestige of the masses that were excluded from the firsthand horrors of hiroshima and nagasaki?

meet miss atomic bomb, 1957

"Devilish Leopard!...

Radiation turned it white
And killed it in an hour.
Greasing the bodies of adulterers
Like Hiroshima ash and eating in.
The sin. The sin..."

The above is an excerpt from "Fever 103," a Sylvia Plath poem we'll be reading later in the semester. What current primetime television tells me is how it might be a long while before the "fever" unleashed by the dawning of the atomic age subsides to a mere simmer. Still it unceasingly grips the public imagination, and I wonder what about TV as a space for fictional storylines and characters (which could be said about novels, films, etc.) allows us to dream apocalypse. Just a few clips from several shows (which I, with my head hanging low in embarassment, have yet to see):

24
jericho

Oh, and a hearty welcome to all students, families and friends of students as well as peers and colleagues in the academic community.