2014
Wayback Wednesday: Challenger Expedition 1872
University of Washington
Author: William Frederick Mitchell
One hundred and fifty years ago, today…
The Challenger expedition of 1872–1876 was a scientific program that made many discoveries to lay the foundation of oceanography. The expedition was named after the naval vessel that undertook the trip, HMS Challenger.
The expedition, initiated by William Benjamin Carpenter, was placed under the scientific supervision of Sir Charles Wyville Thomson of the University of Edinburgh and Merchiston Castle School, assisted by five other scientists, including Sir John Murray, a secretary-artist and, a photographer. The Royal Society of London obtained the use of Challenger from the Royal Navy and, in 1872, modified the ship for scientific tasks, equipping it with separate laboratories for natural history & chemistry. The expedition, led by Captain Sir George Strong Nares, sailed from Portsmouth, England, on [December 21, 1872]. Other naval officers included Commander John Maclear.
Under the scientific supervision of Thomson himself, the ship traveled approximately 68,890 nautical miles (79,280 miles/127,580 kilometres) surveying and exploring. The result was the Report of the Scientific Results of the Exploring Voyage of H.M.S. Challenger during the years 1873–76 which, among many other discoveries, catalogued over 4,000 previously unknown species. John Murray, who supervised the publication, described the report as “the greatest advance in the knowledge of our planet since the celebrated discoveries of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.” Challenger sailed close to Antarctica but, not within sight of it. However, it was the first scientific expedition to take pictures of icebergs.
Wikipedia Summary
Additional:
From Deep Sea to Laboratory (The First Explorations of the Deep Sea by H.M.S. Challenger 1872-1876)/ISTE UK Website
Then & Now: The HMS Challenger Expedition & the Mountains in the Sea Expedition/NOAA Ocean Explorer/2003
HMS Challenger Expedition/Natural History Museum UK/2014 (Web Archive)
HMS Challenger/USCD Aquarium/2008 (Web Archive)
Hans 2021 Song Draft: Round Ten-Pick Seven-Bad Weather-Emily Hackett (2014/2015)
Hanspostcard has a song draft challenge. This is my Round Ten and final pick.
Back in 2014, I happened to catch a wonderful song that played during a commercial on HDNET (movies). HDNET didn’t have normal commercials, they just had clips from movies that it was showcasing, changing each month. I loved the song but, had no idea what the name of it was, other than what I could glean from the lyrics. I desperately wanted to know who the singer was because she had a beautiful voice. I could find nothing, so, I contacted HDNET for help. Her name? Emily Hackett. The song? A Heart Worth Saving (and I wasn’t the only one asking). It is the third track from a short compilation album called Girl Electro Pop, released July 11, 2014 (as best as I can tell). There is no chart information on the album or the song and what lyrics that are on the Internet do not match all of the words she sings. That being said, I was overjoyed to find it and download it.
That brings me to Bad Weather (no chart information on it, either). In digging around for data on Emily, I found a demo video of her singing the song with a guitarist. Then, I found the album it was on…The Raw EP, released July 24, 2015. It’s a beautiful, sad song that reminds me of a stripped down Carrie Underwood piece.
“I started this song in California when I was making lunch one day at my parent’s house. My boyfriend, Mikey, was goofing around on the guitar and I stopped him like, “What is that? We are writing that. It’s awesome.” It wasn’t until we got back to Nashville, a couple months later that we sat down with our friend Adam James and poured out this song in a couple of hours. It felt so right, we just went with it. It’s one of my favorites I’ve ever written.”
Daily Discovery: Emily Hackett
Songspace
American Songwriter
2014
She was born in Cleveland, Ohio and was in high school in Georgia when she took off with a friend to visit Belmont University. Headed for the University of Georgia, she fell in love with Nashville and interned in the music industry:
“Here I was in Nashville at school. I had no idea that there was this whole world of music where you could have careers. I didn’t realize there was so much to it. It was cool to be studying the music business at college. I thought I could always be a writer and in Nashville, writers actually get to perform.”
Music Spotlight: Emily Hackett
Bethany Bowman
The Tennessee Star
October 17, 2018
Some months ago, I commented on one of Music City Mike‘s blog posts, regarding interviews of local musicians in Nashville. I told him about Emily but, I don’t know if he ever got the chance to chat with her. Give her a listen. She is a different genre from Lissie but, just as talented.
Thanks, Hans, for the invite to participate. Much like the movie draft, picking favorites is a tough go. There is SO much good music out there. I look forward to sharing more in the upcoming 2022 Draft. ~Vic
Official Website
Bandcamp
Reverbnation
Soundcloud
Additional:
Emily Hackett Looks To The Past & Future On “Nostalgia” (Taste of Country/Sterling Whitaker/08-10-2017)
CMT’s Next Women Of Country (People Magazine/Katie Kauss/11-16-2018)
Cleveland Native Emily Hackett Comes To Beachland (Cleveland Scene/Jeff Niesel/12-04-2019)
Emily Hackett Releases Heartfelt “Handle” (The Virginia Star/Bethany Bowman/05-29-2020)
Emily Hackett Is Creating Magic (The Aquarian/Debra Kate Schafer/05-31-2020)
Demo In The Attic
HDNET Commercial
Royals Cover With Megan Davies
Happy Christmas Cover
Weird S*** Wednesday: Cyborg Has Fins Implanted Into Skull
From Oddity Central:
Spanish artist Manel de Aguas doesn’t consider himself human but, something else. A founding member of the Trans-Species Society (a now defunct website), he uses technological implants to experience the world differently than the rest of humanity. Twenty-four-year-old Manel […] first made international news headlines in August of 2017 when he built the first prototype of a device that allowed him to feel atmospheric vibrations. At the time, it was nothing more than an exposed circuit board that hung on a headband at the back of his head. The following year, he started attaching a pair of fins to the sides of his head and announced his intention to have them implanted into his skull. Earlier this year, de Aguas did just that, turning those decorative fins into functional organs that perceive the temperature, humidity and atmospheric pressure and, send sounds to Manel’s brain via bone conduction.
01-11-2020
In June of 2019, the […] artist sat down with VICE Magazine and explained his intention to have [the] artificial [organs] […] implanted:
“The atmosphere will sound inside my head, and depending on the atmospheric conditions in any given moment, I will have the experience of being submerged in one type of medium or another. As for the outer part, the organ will have an appearance inspired by the fins of flying fish and I will implant a fin on each side of my head, at the same level as the temple bone in my skull.”
“I have always felt a special connection to the rain, so when I found out that there was a way to feel this sense within me, I thought it would be good to create [an organ] that would connect me even more to rain, as well as other atmospheric phenomena. As for the shape of the organ, I have always been interested in marine species, both real and mythological, so the idea of creating a fin-shaped organ simply came from within.”
“I will be exploring the weather through this new sensory organ,” […] de Aguas posted on Instagram, where his new look has been getting a lot of attention.
Manel described himself as a propioespecie, or his own species, his response to the anthropocentrism of today’s society, which puts human beings on the highest echelon of a false hierarchy of species. In January of this year, [he] was finally able to make his dream a reality. He had the artificial fins implanted into his skull at a clinic in Japan, after being refused by several doctors in Spain. The fins weigh 500 grams, can be recharged with solar energy and can connect to various devices via WiFi.
I wonder if those wings let him Phone Home. ~Vic
Additional Reading:
Cyborg Foundation
Manel de Aguas (Facebook)
Manel de Aguas (Instagram)
Color Blind Artist Implants Antenna (Oddity Central 2014)
Moon Ribas Can Sense Every Earthquake (Oddity Central 2016)
Cyborg Artist Can Sense The Weather (Vice Magazine 2019)
Neil Harbisson (Wikipedia)
Moon Ribas (Wikipedia)
Foto Friday: Furry Characters
These four furries showed up at one of our local Farmers’ Markets on October 18, 2014. Why they appeared there, I have no clue. Their costumes were really cute. Digeri was the only one that spoke. The pictures turned out surprisingly well from my old flip phone. Click on each image for a larger view. ~Vic
with the different colored eyes.
One of the farmers assisted.
Song Sunday: Call Me (Blondie)
Returning to my phone playlist, I submit for your approval on this chilly Sunday night, Blondie‘s Call Me, the theme from the 1980 movie American Gigolo. I was 13 when this film came out and, with its “R” rating, I wasn’t allowed to see it (I caught it on HBO, later, tho…). The drum beat opens the movie as Richard Gere cruises in a black Mercedes. This movie was so bad-ass (to a teenager) and Siskel & Ebert gave it a decent rating but, the rest of the critics panned it. Oh, well. This was the movie that put Gere on my radar (I hadn’t seen Looking For Mr. Goodbar).
Produced and co-written by Giorgio Moroder, he originally approached Stevie Nicks to assist in composing and performing a song for the soundtrack but, she was prevented by contract to another company. Moroder then asked Debbie Harry and she fashioned lyrics, and the melody, in a few hours.
The song made it to the #1 spot on Billboard’s Hot 100 and stayed there for six weeks. It also made it to #1 in Canada, the UK and in Record World magazine. There are 20 covers of this song with Blondie re-recording it in 2014 and, a live cover done in 2002.
Movie Opening
Single
Extended Version
FFTD: Tulips & Narcissus
A companion piece to an earlier post, the white Narcissus is a beautiful contrast. The telephone pole, not so much. I still don’t remember where the pix were taken. ~Vic
Flower for the Day
Foto Friday: Ice Storm 2014
Since we are in the 90s+, here are some pix of cooler weather. We got a lot of these things back in the 70s when I was a kid. They are a little more rare, now. ~Vic
03-07-2014
Narcissus in the process of blooming. They don’t care.
Feel cooler, now?
Movie Monday: The Other Woman 2014
Five years ago, today, the #1 movie at the box office was The Other Woman, a comedy starring Cameron Diaz, Leslie Mann, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, Don Johnson, Kate Upton, Taylor Kinney and Nicki Minaj. Released April 25, it was directed by Nick Cassavetes (the son of John Cassavetes & Gena Rowlands). Melissa Stack was hired to write a screenplay that was based on the 1996 movie The First Wives Club.
After discovering her boyfriend is married, Carly Whitten tries to get her ruined life back on track. But, when she accidentally meets the wife he’s been cheating on, she realizes they have much in common and her sworn enemy becomes her greatest friend. When yet another affair is discovered, all three women team up to plot mutual revenge on their cheating, lying, three-timing SOB.
Quotes
From Justin Chang (Variety):
[…] an ungainly, often flat-footed yet weirdly compelling romantic dramedy about two gals who become unlikely best friends when they realize they’re being screwed (literally) by the same man. Like a watered-down “Diabolique” or a younger-skewing “First Wives Club,” this latest mainstream rebound from director Nick Cassavetes taps into the pleasures of sisterly solidarity and righteous revenge. Beneath the wobbly pratfalls and the scatological set pieces, there’s no denying the film’s mean-spirited kick, or its more-than-passing interest in what makes its women tick.
From Todd McCarthy (The Hollywood Reporter):
A female solidarity adultery comedy that’s three parts embarrassing farce to one part genuinely comic discharge.
From Christy Lemire (Roger Ebert):
Trouble is, Cassavetes, working from a script by Melissa K. Stack, veers wildly between cautionary tale, revenge comedy, scatological raunchfest and female empowerment drama. In theory, the joy of watching this kind of movie comes from seeing such a smooth operator squirm as his schemes are revealed and destroyed. […] plot contrivances abound […], along with not one but, two instances of characters, um, graphically relieving themselves at inopportune moments. The joke isn’t funny the first time and this kind of gross-out strain of comedy clangs uncomfortably with the feel-good message […]. Any semblance of intelligent humor or insight into female aging that may have existed gets tossed out the window of Carly’s high-rise office by the end […]
[There are, literally, NO good trivia bits for this movie. ~Vic]
Shutterbug Saturday: Critter Collections 2.0
This is a continuation of nature’s creatures.
Part I was posted on April 6.
All photos are my personal collection. ~Vic
10-08-2014
10-08-2014
Poor focus but, still beautiful.
07-31-2016
Also a poor focus. I was keeping some distance.
My phone didn’t want to coöperate.
The tan blur in the center is said spider.
09-06-2016
A light rain highlighted the web.
09-30-2016
The neighbor’s cat brought me a present.
10-21-2016
She is almost the same color as the table.
Most of the ones I have encountered, before, were green.
More to come…
Shutterbug Saturday: Critter Collections
Nature’s wonderful creatures with many legs or, none at all. All photos are my personal collection. ~Vic
Found the little guy in our shed in the backyard (mating season).
I had trouble snapping his picture as he kept moving and I kept jumping.
09-10-2008
We turned him over to a friend who had Tarantulas as pets.
Nature Preserve in Round Rock, TX.
10-25-2008
Nature Preserve.
06-20-2013
He had places to go.
08-30-2013
More to come…
30-Day Song Challenge: Day 28
A song by an artist whose voice you love…
I covered Darius Rucker, Linda Ronstadt and Susanne Sundfor, yesterday. I’ve posted Paul Durham, Maria McKee, Emily Hackett, Pat Benatar, Sarah McLachlan, Enya, Amy Lee, Miranda Lambert, Carrie Underwood, Anna Nalick, Sia, Patty Smyth, Loreena McKennitt, Kenny Loggins, Kelly Holland, Elvis and George Harrison.
Here are five more…
There are SO many Olivia songs…way too many to choose from. This song, in particular, showcases her range well. She was my hero as a teen…beautiful voice, gorgeous face, stunning hair and perfect teeth. We may not have her much longer. She is my mother’s age.
I was given a CD of her music by a friend. She is my age and such a powerhouse. She did a CMT Crossroads episode with Pat Benatar and she was an even match in range.
And, of course…Adele…
I like her squeaky voice.
This one is so cute.
30-Day Song Challenge: Day 20
A song that has many meanings for you…
“So little time to make you see…
What can’t be undone…
Was maybe never meant to be…”
“And when we’re done…
Soul searching…
And we carried the weight…
And died for a cause…
Is misery made beautiful…
Right before our eyes…
Mercy be revealed…
Or blind us where we stand…”
“wasting time…
lost my mind…
where’s the sign…
look for higher…”
“tell the sun, warn the moon…
the night and noon…
we’ve been waitin’…”
30-Day Song Challenge: Day 17
A song you’d sing a duet with someone on karaoke…
With a woman, this one (these two are SO badass).
With a guy, this one.
Just for the sake of the beautiful harmony (male or female), this one.
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