January 6, 2010
Fresh Air: A Bit of Humor and Culture to Ease in 2010
Here are some items to hopefully ease you back into regular life from the two-week weirdness that is the Hanukkah/Christmas/New Year period (dominated by terrorism, of all things). In other words, nothing too serious.
Here’s funny man and Daily Show correspondent John Oliver discussing his new comedy show:
And actor Stanley Tucci talking about his recent work in film:
Enjoy. And remember to support public radio.
January 1, 2010
Science Friday: Oysters in Our World
Happy new year!
Blog Alley’s regular postings of Science Friday videos, a series we began when we launched the blog in the summer of 2009, are often our most-viewed posts. We are glad you like them; these short videos make complex topics a bit easier to understand and are just plain fun to watch.
As long as the Science Friday crew keeps producing these pieces (remember to listen and donate), we’ll keep sharing them in 2010, starting with this one on the role of oysters in our world.
Below and here.
Support Science Friday.
December 31, 2009
Dance, Dance, Dance
Celebrate the end of 2009 with these.
End-of-the-Year Blogging: 2009 Lists | Arts and Culture
Today in 2009 lists: arts and culture.
- Via Boing Boing, Olympus BioScapes 2009 Winners Gallery (one is pictured here).
- Andrew Sullivan’s top-10 posts of the year, by traffic.
- Smithsonian’s A Decade in Food Trends.
- Juxtapoz, an arts and culture magazine, lists its 100 Best Moments of 2009 (this is way cool).
- Ideastream, a collection point for public media, has a Best of 2009 project featuring notable moments from the year. (Scroll around on this page.)
- New Yorker staffers, Looking Back, Looking Ahead. (I like Nick Paumgarten’s take: “I predict another ten years of baloney.”)
- NPR’s The Best Music of 2009.
- And, not finally, Mel Brooks, Dave Brubeck, Grace Bumbry, Robert De Niro, and The Boss:
December 30, 2009
Sunday Talk Shows: An Interesting Idea
Jay Rosen posts an interesting article that talks about his idea for fixing the stupid, boring, vapid Sunday political talk shows, where “newsmakers” and pundits meet to reduce the collective sanity and intelligence of a viewing nation (well, of nine or 10 million of us).
Perhaps someone would instead act* on my idea to purchase the URL www.stopsundaytalk.com (it’s available!) and use it to virtually brow-beat the public to stop watching and to hopefully kill all of these awful shows permanently.
If you must take them in, do so via Jason Linkins’s hysterical live blog, every Sunday.
*rudimentary graphic goes to anyone who sets up the Web site.
