IF YOU WANT SOMETHING VISUAL THAT’S NOT TOO ABYSMAL ...

As some of you may know, I’m a fan of the B-52s. They’ve had their high points and low points, but they’ve always been about goofy kitschy fun.

Now, like a lot of bands that have been together 30+ years, the B-52s trade largely on their classic back catalog. Which is why I didn’t buy their comeback album Funplex last year. It wasn’t bad – but it wasn’t essential either. I felt that I already owned far better music from them.

That said, there are still a few enjoyable songs on Funplex – nothing to rival their classics, but you wouldn’t change channels, either. Still, if MTV ever proved anything, it’s that sometimes the experience of an average song can be improved immensely with good and appropriate video footage.

Like, say, go-go bikini dancers from old Scopitones videos.

Result!

Granted, it’d be better if they’d set the same footage to “Rock Lobster”, but I’m sure someone will get around to it.

BONUS RESEARCH MATERIAL: If yr not familiar with Scopitones, it was a video jukebox invented in 1960. Big in Europe, less so in the US, died out by the end of the 1960s. Go here for background and here for samples of the original Scopitones videos.

Bedazzled also has a fine collection, with downloads suitable for yr iPhone/iPod.

Shake that cosmic thing,

This is dF

DANCING TO A DIFFERENT BEAT

re: Scopitones

To give you an idea of the fun of Scopitones, here’s a video of Brook Benton singing “Mother Nature, Father Time”.

Featuring sexy go-go dancers dancing to a completely different song.

See what they did there?

Let’s just keep dancing,

This is dF

KNOW YR CHEESES

It’s official: the oddest book title of 2008 is The 2009-2014 World Outlook for 60-milligram Containers of Fromage Frais.

Source: The Bookseller magazine.

Personally, I think it should have gone to Baboon Metaphysics.

Previous winners:

1997: The Joy of Sex: Pocket Edition
1998: Development in Dairy Cow Breeding and Management: and New Opportunities to Widen the Uses of Straw
1999: Weeds in a Changing World
2000: High Performance Stiffened Structures
2001: Butterworths Corporate Manslaughter Service
2002: Living with Crazy Buttocks
2003: The Big Book of Lesbian Horse Stories
2004: Bombproof Your Horse
2005: People Who Don't Know They're Dead: How They Attach Themselves to Unsuspecting Bystanders and What to Do About It
2006: The Stray Shopping Carts of Eastern North America: A Guide to Field Identification
2007: If You Want Closure In Your Relationship, Start With Your Legs
2008: Greek Rural Postmen and their Cancellation Numbers

Cheesy,

This is dF

THE MEME INTERVIEWS, PART 402: BOOK NERD EDITION

By order of jasonfranks , a book interview meme, for yr pleasure:

( 33 questions of literary importance! )

Read all about it,

This is dF