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01.14.09 by ScottC @ 1:01 pm Many of us here at Needcoffee have their own projects. For example, Widge has his upcoming book There's A Zombie In My Treehouse and Minister of Music J. M. Tuffley has his music podcast Radiowerks. As for me, I have Curious Echo Radio Theater. What is Curious Echo Radio Theater?  Once upon a time (in 2002 in fact), Louis Gutierrez and Sharon Moskowitz (two good friends with a mutual history of sketch comedy, improvisation, writerly experimentation, and dedicated geekdom) went to a big convention and saw – er, heard the brilliant Atlanta Radio Theatre Company at work. Whereupon, the glint of mad creation came into their eyes, and they turned to each other and said, “Hey, we can do that.”
This made the audience rather unhappy, as they were all trying to listen to the show. Nevertheless, the two persevered, and found that they could not, in fact, "do that." They would need help. So they dragged in their loved ones and invited other funny, exhibitionist, writerly- and improvisationally-inclined geeks to help. The result was curious. I was one of the 'geeks'. I guess exhibitionist is a nice way of saying attention whore. Curious Echo has performed live 'radio' shows for local audiences here in Tallahassee and even at Necronomicon 2004 in Tampa. We've put up the recordings for our Sunday show, Elizabethan Radio, in our Listening Room. Categorized as: Stimuli
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01.13.09 by ScottC @ 10:31 pm  "Uncle Scott, I want a pet." I look down and I see that it is the junior science villain Joseph. "But you already have two dogs and cats," I said. The young evil mastermind sighed and said "I want a real pet." He then hands me a book. I read the front cover. "Welcome to Monster Isle. Written by Oliver Chin, illustrated by Jeff Miracola." I sigh and understand why Joseph has come to me with this. I'm the Uncle, therefore the soft touch. I guess I should be grateful that he didn't find a Dungeons and Dragons Monster Manual. I look at Joseph and he's got an innocent look on his face. It's one he's going to use if he ever has to appear at The Hague. I open the book. Categorized as: Stimuli
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01.13.09 by Widge @ 3:21 pm  Yes, it's time for more cool shots from CNN of space. Please hear the word "space" with an impressive echo in your head. That pic up there is not, in fact, from the last batch of brownies I made but is instead from the rover Opportunity on Mars. It's a combo of 276 exposures. Huge vistas of another planet = we're living in the future. Nice. They also have in this batch, a bunch of stuff from amateur astronomers. In fact, the title this week is "Amateur Astronomers Show Off." Damn straight they do. They've got a great shot of Saturn and four of its moons taken by Richard Scott, who "used his 11-inch Schmidt Casagrain Telescope, mounted on a computerized German Equatorial Mount, and an Orion Star Shoot Deep Space Imager camera to capture this photo." Jesus, I get lost sometimes in the remote control to my television. Show off is right. Geez. Categorized as: Stimuli
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01.12.09 by ScottC @ 7:32 pm  Here's the latest bit of Japanese weirdness careening through the Interwebs. Direct link for the feedreaders. After watching this, I had some questions. Besides the usual WTF? normal in this situation. Categorized as: Stimuli
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01.11.09 by Widge @ 10:17 pm 2008 was the official year of the return of Robert Downey Jr. and I was surprised to find that not many people had seen his great performance as Chaplin before he, you know, sort of did his personal meltdown thing. So if you haven't seen the film, I urge you to do so. Downey is fantastic. And speaking of fantastic, here's something Mark Evanier posted, which is timely, because I just watched the Chaplin special Paul Merton did as part of his Silent Clowns series. And part of this footage was in there. In short, Chaplin, after having been in exile in Europe, returned in 1972 to collect an honorary Oscar. He was greeted by a five minute standing ovation, reportedly the longest in Oscar history. Here's a cut down version of the intro and Chaplin's acceptance. And another great Chaplin after the break. Categorized as: Stimuli
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01.11.09 by Widge @ 1:20 am This is FANtastic. Apparently back on October 12, 1951 when they were filming the sixth episode of I Love Lucy, somebody in the audience snuck in with a 16mm color camera and filmed the filming, grabbing snippets here and there. So you get to see the actual colors of sets, costumes, Lucy's hair--the whole nine. They've taken this and thrown in some bits from the actual episode so you can get some context--this is available on the most excellent Complete Series DVD. Direct link for the feedreaders. You can read the full story over at TV Series Finale, regarding this and the split-screen bit of the colorized version of "Lucy Goes to Scotland" I've got for you after the break. Found all this via Mark Evanier. Categorized as: Stimuli
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01.10.09 by Widge @ 7:14 pm No, seriously. And let's face it--Bollywood "borrowing" from Hollywood is nothing new. They've taken, for example, Superman and Thriller. And now: Memento. This discovered via the Variety review of the film. Check out this trailer: Direct link for the feedreaders. The thing seems positively schizophrenic, doesn't it? It's like musical, musical, dancing, happy, DAVID FINCHER DIRECTING A FU MOVIE, happy, dancing, yay, end. Welcome to Bollywood. Speaking of which... Categorized as: Stimuli
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01.09.09 by Widge @ 12:50 pm  New Something Else is up. Finally put my time playing Urban Dead to good use--had this one in my head for a while. Categorized as: Stimuli
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01.07.09 by Widge @ 1:57 am So there I was watching another TED video, when I ran across a guy by the name of Bruno Bowden (who apparently is a Google engineer...a Googineer, perhaps) and digs folding paper. So he decided to fold some paper while blindfolded. This was...novel, to say the least. And puzzling. And distracting, because the guy I really wish they would have spent more time on was Rufus Cappadocia, who was improvising on his electric cello while Paper Dude had his way. So here's Rufus, sans paper folding. Direct link for the feedreaders. That song can be found off of his Songs for Cello album. You can snag it from Amazon here. Categorized as: Stimuli
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01.06.09 by Widge @ 12:00 pm  When The Neil makes a comment like "There aren't enough Russian tango bands covering classic Bowie," he definitely has my attention. Because let's see, the last time I ran into somebody covering classic Bowie, it was Seu Jorge. And we all know how cool that was. It was better than the movie that featured it, that's for sure. But who is The Pozitive Orchestra? A string quartet plus a guy playing a--what the hell is that? Some kind of mandolin? I could have sworn that instrument had a specific name, but all I can do is sing, so I'm musically useless for the most part. Anybody help me out on that? (The name of the instrument, not my singing.) Hear more of them here. Their official site is here. But is in Russian. So. Direct link for the feedreaders. Categorized as: Stimuli
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