Photolog pt. V - Berlin Off The Cuff

Finally managed to make my cellphone and my computer like each other.
I thereby discovered lots of photos I shot during the last two years. Most of them have this nice "cool cowboy style" that you can only get by off the cuff shots with crappy cellphone cams. I'll post some of my favorite ones--such as this somewhat mystic Berlin shot from 2005/6.

Linguistic History - Noam Chomsky's Thesis Draft

Wow--160-something posts and not even a single linguistics tag.
After I have been fed up a little bit with theoretical linguistics after having written my BSc thesis on what I would like to call Linguistic Neuroscience, I am currently regaining confidence and I think that at least basic linguistic concepts are useful in research on the Neuroscience of Language.
Material:

1. Present & Future: Gregory Hickok's and David Poeppel's review in the brandnew Nature Reviews Neuroscience May 2007
   
2. Past: Noam Chomsky's original thesis draft has been digitalized and can be downloaded at http://alpha-leonis.lids.mit.edu/chomsky/ (be aware: 919 pages, 439 mb, Chomskian writing)
   

Ratatouille Movie - Pixar in Paris

"An original in a season of repeats" was the NYTimes title about the new Pixar movie Ratatouille [rat-a-too-ee] that seems to be based on the simply elegant and elegantly simple idea of being a gourmet rat in Paris ("shut up and eat your trash").
Loooooovin' it already (sortie le 29 juin).
Check out the trailer and the teaser on their website.

Photolog pt. IV - German Blossom

That's how the southern German something blossom looks like. Taken a week ago.

Dancin': Funky Chicken, Boogaloo and James Brown (1978)

What I have been occupied with lately:
Paradoxically, I have been theorizing about the art of dance and its potential of expression which has to be split up in an external and an internal aspect. But 'nuff of that...
Furthermore, I have been digitizing musical art from the 1970's and 80's in order to make a new Funktape this summer (the last one has been in 2004).
The two threads converge in the following video on the dancing of James Brown--check out especially the guy explaining the styles (Camel Walk, Funky Chicken, etc.) from minute 2:00 onwards. Great stuff!

Internet Nostalgia and Digital Timetravel

Bizarre--
I'm getting nostalgia feelings using the Wayback Machine to timetravel the internet.
Apparently since the late 1990's archive.org backupped the whole internet every 2 months.
Now you can use the Wayback Machine to surf the homepages from back in the days when 28.8K was the standard and the funny squirking sound of the fax modem indicated the opening of the digital door to the world.

At least some of the ancient websites still exist...
Ahh-- the first announcement of seminal Lyricist Lounge Vol. I on the Rawkus Website in May 1998.

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Addendum 19 04 2007: Just heard on Gilles' Show that Rawkus is indeed back. Watch out!

Familiar Voices - Classic HipHop is Back 2007

It feels good, so I have to blog about it immediately:
I could comment several pages on this track but I'll keep to the modern info-in-digestible-chunks paradigm.

Kanye West, Rakim, KRS One, and Nas are rapping on a dope DJ Premier beat on the brandnew oldschool track "Classic".
I'm not sure what Kanye is doing on there but it were probably his manager qualities who brought these allstars together. Primo at his best, Rakim, KRS, and Nas shining like back in the days. Still, they've (we've) all visibly gotten older...
Check out especially the nice intro and the great a-cappella sections in the video.