Bought another signed Ray Bradbury Christmas broadsheet:
Bradbury, Ray. Christmas Greetings 2008 (Imagine that you have been dead). Privately printed, 2008. First edition Christmas broadsheet, a Fine- copy with slight corner bumping. Signed by Bradbury. Bought for $25 off eBay.
Well of course he did.
Here he is showing off the thermite launcher:
Here he is making the thermite:
And here he is building the the launcher:
Just think, if YouTube didn’t exist, Colin Furze would probably be off somewhere designing industrial flanges rather than enthusiastically garage-engineering amazingly cool and exceptionally dangerous devices for our amusement and edification.
I’m not going to post a “Do not attempt this at home” warning, because every Colin Furze video comes with an implicit “do not attempt this at home.” It’s also possible that Furze’s thermite thrower may qualify as a destructive device under BATF laws, depending on whether it would fall under the pyrotechnic exemption.
But if you do build a thermite launcher, at least wear eye and hand protection…
With Calvin and Hobbes 2016:
Looks like it’s shaping up to be World Music Week here at Futuramen, so here’s Luna Lee covering “Smells Like Teen Spirit” on the traditional Korean Gayageum:
If you’re a fan of the film Genghis Blues (which you should be; it’s a swell film), then you might very well like this performance of “Crazy Horse” by Mathias Duplessy and the Violins of the World.
That weird instrument on the left is evidently the Nyckelharpa, or key fiddle.
Unfortunately, the album this is from doesn’t appear to be available in the U.S. yet…
Darker My love shows up on the Every Noise at Once Shoegaze map. And even though “Two Ways Out” sounds pretty close to straight pop, there’s just enough reverb and treatment on the guitar line for me to include it here.
Multiple items of interest to the fanatical H.P. Lovecraft collector are coming up for auction soon:
There are also numerous Lovecraft items, most from Stu Schiff’s collection, coming up at Heritage Auctions on April 6. Including:
If you’re a serious Lovecraft collector, April looks like it’s going to be quite expensive…
Picked up a few more items signed by Ray Bradbury:
I now have three of the Bradbury Christmas broadsheets (which he sent to friends as Christmas gifts/cards), all signed.
Keith Emerson, the keyboardist for Emerson, Lake and Palmer, has died at age 71.
Along with Rick Wakeman and Tony Banks, Emerson was one of the great progressive rock keyboardists, and was one of the first players brave (or foolhardy) enough to take the massive, temperamental modular Moog synthesizer on the road.
(Note the shout-out to everyone’s favorite rock documentary…)
Here’s more on Emerson’s modular Moog for the analog hardcore:
Their song “Lucky Man” ends with Emerson’s classic Moog solo:
Here he is doing “America” from West Side Story on David Letterman:
In 2011, Emerson actually let keyboardist Rachel Flowers borrow his modular Moog to play a cover of ELP’s “Trilogy”:
And here’s Orange, another “classic” shoegaze band I never heard of before St. Marie Records started planning a re-release of their work.
Either you’ll love Sonya Waters’ vocals (a beautiful high warble somewhere between The Cranberries’ Dolores O’Riordan and Dead Can Dance’s Lisa Gerrard), or they’ll drive you to distraction. I’m in the love camp, so here’s “Against Nature.”