Category: Oddities

Telefon Tel Aviv is an ambient duo from the US. Here is an excerpt from an interview they gave Joel Bordeaux:

JB:

Is there any significance of the name "Telefon Tel Aviv," other than the consonance?

Charles:

Just the poetic quality. We wanted it to be something to invoke imagery. I don’t think we need a meaning. But we were invited to go play in outside Tel Aviv, in the desert. It looked like The Last Temptation of Christ, which was really cool.

JB:

Did you do it?

Josh:

No. We got kind of scared, what with the suicide bombers and all that. We didn’t think two American Catholic boys would fare well over there with both sides trying to put an end to it. I’d probably the only person in the entire Middle East with dreadlocks.

How charming when "Tel Aviv" becomes just an exotic word, like "Tokyo", "Singapore" or "California". Then you remember that "Beirut" and "Sudan" are also just exotic words to most people.

The lab report you wished you would have written:
Electron Band Structure In Germanium, My Ass.

[link from boingboing]

A Brief Guide to Islamic Sects gives a moslem prespective on some of the more exotic Islamic heresies, such as the Yazdis:

The ‘Peacock Angel’ is their symbol for a fallen angel Malik Taus, who is their euphemism for evil or the devil, who they fear and seek to appease. According them evil is part of divinity as is good. The Peacock Angel is used in their festivals where they carry out strange and very secret rituals. They also believe that evil is found in lettuce, and are very careful around lettuces.

Other sects mentioned include Hafez Assad’s Alawis and the Druze, who are reviled for being members of the "ZOF" (Zionist Occupation Force). Yep, when this site says "fair and balanced", it uses the term in the FOX news sense. Except that the bias is Sunni Moslem.