Goodie Bag

Hollywood vs. New York

Four decades of celluloid New York annihilation distilled into one musical montage.
Music: “Rhapsody in Blue” by George Gershwin

Weekend Watching: The Elephant Man

The Elephant Man (Hulu; US only)
Directed by David Lynch
Watch the trailer

Bonus pick for the serious film geeks, The Auteurs has three Luis Buñuel films available.

People love cheap merchandise after a holiday

Amazon has some great deals on their Black Friday page. Some of my favorites: 2001 on Blu-ray for 8 bucks; BBC’s Planet Earth series for $30; Vegas Movie Studio 9 for $60 and Apple MacBooks for $899 (savings of $150). Shop Amazon via these links and you help support GoodieBag.

Visualization of the decline of Western European empires

See also Food Fight, the story of American warfare told with food.

The Sprinkler Rainbow Conspiracy

We need to get to the bottom of this refraction-of-the-sun’s-rays conspiracy.

Thanks to Stephan

Keanu Reeves is immortal

The second flimsiest conspiracy theory I’ve ever heard. (Find out #1 tomorrow.)

Thanks to Stephan

Sources for the 2012 episode

Illustration above by Sam Gorrie

Some of the materials I checked out while researching the latest episode.

Failed End-of-the-World Predictions

The Jupiter Effect and Harmonic Convergence

The World Will Not End in 2012

InfoWars.com
Site of Alex Jones, king of the conspiracy radicals

David Icke
The lizard guy

Coast to Coast AM
Long-running syndicated radio show dealing with conspiracies, the paranormal, etc.

Institute for Human Continuity
Tongue-in-cheek viral site for the 2012 film. It’s amusing if you’re savvy about interpreting media, but alarming if you aren’t.

World to End in 2012: A Hoax Gone Too Far?
Editorial discussing the site above

Dead City Radio

The audio clip tucked away at the end of “2012 and The Conspiracy Conspiracy” is from the track “No More Stalins No More Hitlers” on William Burroughs’ album “Dead City Radio“.

Michael Shermer on why people believe weird things

In this TED Talk Michael Shermer, publisher of Skeptic Magazine, briefly discusses the appeal of irrational thought, including the backwards “Stairway to Heaven” meme. You can read much more about this in his book, Why People Believe Weird Things

Welcome to the new Goodie Bag blog!

I’m still getting things set up so you might encounter some bugs. I’ll get my first post up on Monday. Stay tuned!