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That Eric Alper

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Amanda Palmer Gets It Right On Being An Artist

Mar 1, 2015

Rock star, crowdfunding pioneer, and TED speaker Amanda Palmer knows all about asking. Performing as a living statue in a wedding dress, she wordlessly asked thousands of passersby for their dollars. When she became a singer, songwriter, and musician, she was not afraid to ask her audience to support her as she surfed the crowd (and slept on their couches while touring). And when she left her record label to strike out on her own, she asked her fans to support her in making an album, leading to the world’s most successful music Kickstarter.

Even while Amanda is both celebrated and attacked for her fearlessness in asking for help, she finds that there are important things she cannot ask for-as a musician, as a friend, and as a wife. She learns that she isn’t alone in this, that so many people are afraid to ask for help, and it paralyzes their lives and relationships. In this groundbreaking book, she explores these barriers in her own life and in the lives of those around her, and discovers the emotional, philosophical, and practical aspects of The Art of Asking: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Let People Help. In one of many, many brilliant passages, Amanda talks about the harsh criteria for what it means to be an artist, and the little voice in your head, telling you you’re not worthy of such ideas, no matter how many hours of practice or experience you have.

People working in the arts engage in street combat with The Fraud Police on a daily basis, because much of our work is new and not readily or conventionally categorized. When you’re an artist, nobody ever tells you or hits you with the magic wand of legitimacy. You have to hit your own head with your own handmade wand. And you feel stupid doing it.

There’s no “correct path” to becoming a real artist. You might think you’ll gain legitimacy by going to university, getting published, getting signed to a record label. But it’s all bullshit, and it’s all in your head. You’re an artist when you say you are. And you’re a good artist when you make somebody else experience or feel something deep or unexpected.

How to mess with your brain with M&Ms

Mar 1, 2015

This optical illusion will blow you away. Exactly 200 tiny handcut squares of paper placed at specific points on a checkerboard pattern make for an interesting illusion.

U2’s Deal With Apple Pays Off Massively

Mar 1, 2015

Annoyed as some Apple customers may have been over being “force-fed” U2’s new album last fall, the impact of the free release is still visible five months later. Twenty-three percent of all music users on Apple’s operating system listened to at least one U2 track in January-more than twice the percentage who listened to the second-placing artist, Taylor Swift (11%).

KEY NUMBERS

23%of iOS-device music users listened to U2 in January
11%listened to Taylor Swift
8%listened to Katy Perry

Apple teamed up with the powerhouse rock group to make its latest album, “Songs of Innocence,” available to iOS users for free in the month following the smash debut of the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus. In the face of user complaints about not wanting the album, the amount of memory it consumed, etc., U2 publicly apologized and Apple posted instructions for how to remove the album from a user’s device.

Loud as the complaints may have been, however, Kantar determined that nearly every iOS device user who listened to U2 in January – 95% of them – listened to at least one track from the new album.

Following U2 at 23% and Taylor Swift at 11%, 8% of music users on iOS listened to at least one Katy Perry song in January, 8% also listened to at least one Maroon 5 song, and 7% listened to Rihanna.

Source: Kantar

How many formats have you used?

Mar 1, 2015

Fred Rogers’ Final Message to those who grew up with the Neighborhood

Mar 1, 2015

Shortly before he died 12 years ago, he recorded a brief video message to the adults whom he taught and grew up and older with through his television work. It was only a few days ago that the Fred Rogers Company released the video to the public.

Fred Rogers Message to those who grew up with the Neighborhood from The Fred Rogers Company on Vimeo.

Leonard Nimoy Explains Origin of Vulcan Greeting

Mar 1, 2015

As part of the Yiddish Book Center Wexler Oral History Project, Leonard Nimoy explains the origin of the Vulcan hand signal used by Spock, his character in the “Star Trek” series.

A Rap Battle You Can Only Compliment Your Competitor

Mar 1, 2015

Don’t Flop Entertainment organizes rap battles…with a twist. As most rap battles are insult-fests, this battle has a twist: you can only compliment your opponent. 8 Mile and Eminem would have turned out a bit different…

Stream “The UK Gold” Soundtrack Featuring Thom Yorke, Johnny Greenwood, Massive Attack’s Robert Del Ninja, and Elbow’s Guy Garvey

Feb 28, 2015

“The UK Gold” follows the dramatic battle of a vicar from a small parish in the London Borough of Hackney as he goes head to head with an ancient and mighty heavyweight, revealing its central status as the tax-haven nerve centre of the world.

As if that doesn’t sound like enough to make you want to see it already, its soundtrack was composed by Thom Yorke, Johnny Greenwood, Massive Attack’s Robert Del Ninja, and Elbow’s Guy Garvey. Take a listen to it below.

Jimmy Page On The Artist Who Most Changed His Life

Feb 28, 2015

Forty years ago this week, Led Zeppelin released the band’s monumental sixth album, the double LP Physical Graffiti. This is a great time as any for Jimmy to look back at his biggest influence:

There was this sort of explosion of music that happened for the youth in the ’50s. And quite clearly it was rock and roll, but also what we had over in England was this guy Lonnie Donegan. And he spawned the whole skiffle movement and caught people’s imagination. And he was superb. He was absolutely superb, but there he was playing like an acoustic guitar and doing these performances. Every Saturday there would be a show on the television where usually he was on, every other week, and it was just something to behold at the time. Just his whole passion and the way that he delivered his material. Now the thing is that he’d been in a jazz band prior to that, Chris Barber’s Jazz Band, and Chris Barber was very much somebody who … he played trombone, Chris Barber, but he was very much into the blues. In fact, he was behind getting Muddy Waters to visit in England in the ’50s. Absolutely astonishing stuff, isn’t it? And so when Lonnie Donegan was playing the banjo in his sort of traditional jazz band … I guess when Lonnie Donegan wanted to sort of do these songs, [Barber] was fine with it. Bringing through the sort of blues, American country blues and all of that. So Lonnie Donegan is playing “Rock Island Line.” Which at the time, obviously, we thought it was a Lonnie Donegan song, but it sort of goes back more to the sort of roots of Leadbelly. And he really understood all that stuff, Lonnie Donegan. But this is the way he sort of, should we, say jazzed it up or skiffled it up. But it was to the point where so many of the guitarists from the ’60s will all say Lonnie Donegan was the influence.

Via NPR

That Time Dr. Timothy Leary Was A VJ On MTV

Feb 27, 2015

In 1987, Dr. Timothy Leary was hied by MTV to be a guest VJ. The good doctor had more than a few things to say than the usual tour date listings or gossip about artists – Here’s his set up for David Bowie’s “Let’s Dance”:

Now this is a real heavy one—I don’t know what this means. It has something to do with the third world and the exploitation by the first world and our hopes that the third world will get behind the camera and start becoming part of the cybernetic age. I don’t know. Watch it and make up your own mind. It’s a good tune.