You know you should be glad

The Johnny Pez blog now presents the Beatles performing "She Loves You" live at the ABC Theatre in Ardwick, Manchester on November 20, 1963.

Because Beatles.

David Bowie 1947-2016

Today's embedded music video features David Bowie performing the title track from the 1986 film Absolute Beginners.

High on legal marijuana

Time for another embedded music video here at Johnny Pez blog. Today we bring you Halsey with "New Americana".

Believe in me

The Johnny Pez blog now continues a venerable tradition dating back to its earliest days: marking time by posting embedded music videos. Today we have Smashing Pumpkins with their 1995 hit "Tonight, Tonight".

Road to Nowhere

Yesterday, I blogged about the planet Trantor from Isaac Asimov's Foundation series, and noted that my friend Christina is right when she points out how terribly underpopulated it is for a supposedly planet-wide urban area.

One issue that Christina doesn't mention, and Asimov didn't either, is the question of just how the people on Trantor found their way around the place. Trantor is supposedly a single city with an area of 75,000,000 square miles. Let's say you're a tourist visiting the planet. Like Gaal Dornick, you can take a taxi from the spaceport to the nearest hotel and book a room. And then?

Asimov never showed any of his characters trying to find their way around the planet. Dornick didn't have to bother, because he was escorted everywhere on the planet by government agents, or by Hari Seldon. When Lathan Devers and Ducem Barr visited the planet two centuries later, we never saw them navigating the world. We just cut from the two of them standing in a terrace outside the spaceport to the two of them meeting with a bureaucrat in his office. Then, after the bureaucrat tries to arrest them and Devers kills him, we cut again to the two men back in the spaceport hanger where their ship is docked. And so they leave Trantor. Finally, there is Asimov's 1988 penultimate Foundation novel, Prelude to Foundation, in which Hari Seldon visits Trantor for the first time, and ends up settling there. At one point early in the novel, Seldon finds himself sitting in a park, but Asimov never indicates how he made his way there. Other than that, Seldon, like Gaal Dornick, is escorted everywhere on Trantor by various people who know where they're going and how to get there.

This is not to say that nobody has considered the question of how to navigate a planet-wide city. In Harry Harrison's 1965 novel Bill, the Galactic Hero, the title character visits a Trantor-like planet-city called Helior. Bill makes his way through Helior by carrying a street atlas the size of a Gutenberg Bible. Bad things happen to Bill when he nods off and his atlas is stolen, leaving him lost and incapable of making his way back to his barracks. Donald Kingsbury's 2001 novel Psychohistorical Crisis is an Asimov pastiche set after the formation of the Second Galactic Empire. The Second Empire's citizens use symbiotic computers to augment their memories, allowing them to access built-in GPS systems to guide them around the world-city of Splendid Wisdom. One character who has had his symbiotic computer destroyed is able to manage by using an old-fashioned Google glass-type device to project navigational information onto his retina.

A latter-day Asimov writing a story set on Trantor would probably have his characters use smartphones with GPS aps to find their way around, just as people today use them to find their way around unfamiliar places. It's a pity; I'm going to miss those massive street atlases from Bill, the Galactic Hero.

And, hey, as long as we're on the subject, here's the Talking Heads with "Road to Nowhere".

When the morning comes

Well well, it looks like I'm blogging again. You all know what that means ...

MORE EMBEDDED MUSIC VIDEOS!!!1!

Today it's OK Go with the Rube Goldberg video for their 2010 song "This Too Shall Pass".

Leonard Nimoy 1931 - 2015

R.I.P.

A calm day will come

And now, the Johnny Pez blog closes out the year 2014 with ... an embedded music video. Here is The Joy Formidable's "The Greatest Light is the Greatest Shade" in a fan video by Steve Orchard.

Don't let them win

Time for another embedded music video at the Johnny Pez blog, because that's a thing we do from time to time. From 1986 comes Crowded House with "Don't Dream It's Over."

Can you hear the sound of hysteria?

Time for another embedded music video. Today it's the title track from Green Day's 2004 album American Idiot.

It's too cold

Blogging has been a little light while I've been recovering from a cold I picked up last weekend. To help fill the void, here's an embedded music video of The Neighbourhood's "Sweater Weather."

Come on come on come on come on

It's been entirely too long since we had an embedded music video here at the Johnny Pez blog, so here is L7 with "Pretend We're Dead".

I know you little libertine

I admit it. The Johnny Pez blog has been terribly lax in the matter of embedded music videos. To remedy the lack, here are The Breeders with their 1993 hit "Cannonball".

That's all you left for me

Time for another embedded music video. Here is a live performance of "Silent Treatment" by The Joy Formidable in January 2013.

That's when they'll disappear

You know what we could use around here? An embedded music video. So here's the Go-Go's with their 1981 hit "Our Lips Are Sealed".

A likely story

So, how long has it been since the last embedded music video? Long enough.  Here is No Doubt with their 1995 hit "Spiderwebs".

I got no regrets

That's right, once again the Johnny Pez blog is pleased to present for your entertainment an embedded music video. Today we have Postmodern Jukebox performing a swing jazz interpretation of Selena Gomez's "Come and Get It."

You asked me what's my pleasure

Time for another embedded music video, because that's a thing I do from time to time. Today the Johnny Pez blog celebrates the new year by bringing you Blondie performing "Dreaming" live at Glasgow's Apollo Theater on New Year's Eve 1979.

Dressed up to the eyes

Time to break up the Sobel Wiki tedium with another embedded music video. Today it's The Cure with their 1992 hit "Friday I'm in Love".

Some sweet company

I think we could all use a little break from the Sobel Wiki articles, so here's an embedded music video of Anna Kendrick singing "Cups".