Here are the 29 biggest pop hits of 2011 in Germany, according to Mashup-Germany.
Archives for video
How about a burger with that McPaper?
Thirty years ago, it wasn’t hard to understand why readers began to flock to USA Today. It was in color. It featured graphics. The stories were short. There was this Al Neuharth-dictated emphasis on USA. Mainstream media made fun. Called it McPaper. Of course, McDonalds hasn’t done badly the past 30 years. But USA Today? New president Larry Kramer wants to give folks to read USA Today. Again. Check out this interview.
Honoring our Veterans
AARP has a nice video feature on Rolling Thunder, a nonprofit organization dating back to 1995. Members bring attention to soldiers who are prisoners of war or missing in action. Annually on Memorial Day weekend, Veterans and non-veterans gather together in Washington, D.C., to ride through the city to remember and to remind.
All the people featured in this video are part of Run for the Wall, a group that commemorates all POWs and MIAs by traveling from California to Washington, D.C.
Memories of MacDougal Street in the Village
There are songs Rod MacDonald sings — “Every Living Thing,” “The Aliens Came In Business Suits,” and especially “American Jerusalem” — that resonate more in my memory, but this song, “Big Money,” from Rod’s latest CD, “Song of Freedom,” has a fun (and very political) YouTube video along with it.
I go back a long way with Rod, to MacDougal Street in Greenwich Village in the ’80s, and I treasure those memories listening to Rod and other members of the Musicians Co-op at the Speakeasy. Suzanne Vega and Shawn Colvin started there, but it’s Rod’s guitar and voice I can still hear.
OK, so I might as well post my favorite MacDonald song, “American Jerusalem.” Love the guitar.
And if you want a real folk song, there’s “The Death of Victor Jara.”
‘My Time Is Now’
Nike knows how to do advertising, as you can see with its new Euro Cup epic commercial featuring the biggest names in soccer: Franck Ribéry, Wesley Sneijder, Neymar, Andres Iniesta, Mario Gotze, Gerard Pique, Mesut Ozil and Cristiano Ronaldo. And all in 3 minutes.
The ad features a match between the Netherlands and France, but the game is interrupted when a group of young players crash the proceedings.
The video comes after Nike’s hugely successful “Write the Future” ad, also from ad agency Wieden + Kennedy, London, that has logged more than 28 million views. That ad, introduced in 2010, marked the beginning of that year’s World Cup.
How email works
You write, you press send, it shows up in someone’s inbox. Email. Simple, right/write? Pretty much, but here’s a little more about how email works if you’re interested.
The first Bond ‘Skyfall’ trailer
This is for my oldest son, Adam, a big James Bond fan (OK, so I am, too). We’re both looking forward to the new Daniel Craig Bond movie, “Skyfall,” this fall. This is the trailer.
The view from Planet Money
I don’t look at the NPR website as often as I should. Here are just a few recent stories and info graphics that help make sense of our lives and world:
- 50 years of government spending
- What America buys
- What America sells to the world
- What America does for work
All four come from NPR’s Planet Money section.
The essence of science
Here’s how the world works in a nutshell: guess, compute, compare, experiment. This thanks to a lecture by Cornell physics professor Richard Feynman in 1964.
Help me out with this one
From Gizmodo, this is a science video about fluid dynamics phenomena called “Compressed Experiments,” created by Kim Pimmel and set to the “Katamari Damacy Theme.”
I have no idea what it is, what it means, or what the music is all about. But I think I’m going to play it at the start of my “Writing Across Media” class on Monday at George Mason University and see how the students react!
Studying Torts, part II
The John Tortorella press conference is fast becoming an art form in how not to deal with the press.
The place to meet on the Fairfax campus
The George Mason statue is kitty-corner to the Johnson Center and the Mason Pond Parking Deck, where guests can easily park on the first three levels (Fairfax campus map). As soon-to-be emeritus faculty, I'm always happy to meet with friends and my former Mason students on campus.
Alum Kevin McCarthy at work
Film critic and GMU alum Kevin McCarthy encouraged students during his many visits to my GMU classes to pursue internships and "get noticed!" See some of Kevin's terrific interviews on his Nerd Tears website.
The One Thing
So, as Billy Crystal asked Jack Palance in "City Slickers," what's "The One Thing"? To find out, just contact me by email to set up a "Journalism for the Rest of Us" seminar, workshop or program.