John Green's Blog, page 61

Phineas Gage: A Song

In which Hank sings a song about a guy who had an iron rod shoot through his brain and survived for 12 years before eventually dying of severe seizures. His name was Phineas Gage, and his tale is fascinating, so I wanted to write a song about it.

Consider the Lemming

Esther bracelets: http://www.dftba.com/esther

In which John discusses lemmings, the role the 1958 Disney documentary Winter Wilderness played in perpetuating the lie that lemmings commit suicide en masse, the limits of online video when it comes to education, Susan Sontag's book Regarding the Pain of Others, the Internet's fascination with decontextualized trivia, and a forthcoming vlogbrothers project. Also nerdfighter pumpkins.

Hank Has Questions

Esther bracelets: http://dft.ba/star and LAST DAY for Giraffe Love Orders: http://dft.ba/giraffe

In which Hank asks a lot of questions...most of which are unanswerable. But, those happen to generally be the most interesting and even useful questions to ask. And I'm very curious about why that is. He talks some about The Rocky Horror Glee show, which, if you're wondering, he liked about 50% of the time, which is a pretty low percentage in his television viewing experience. And he talks about Fable 3, which is giving him a pretty hard time these days...keeping him up late trying to save his citizens from almost certain doom. Seriously, he think he's going to have to play it through again from the start to get everyone to live.

You Are Awesome

Esther Bracelets: http://dftba.com/esther The bracelets benefit the This Star Won't Go Out Foundation, a new organization set up by Esther Earl's family to help families of kids with cancer and other projects in Esther's memory.

Shawn's Uncultured Project on youtube: http://www.youtube.com/unculturedproject and twitter: http://www.twitter.com/uncultured

James at War: http://www.youtube.com/jamesatwar

In which John discusses the many ways in which nerdfighters are decreasing worldsuck, from hospitals in America to villages in Bangladesh. Thanks for being awesome!

Rocky Horror + Glee = ?

In which Hank discusses why he had a viscerally negative reaction to the news that Rocky Horror was doing Glee.

Yes, there's part of me that doesn't want to see Rocky Horror get auto-tuned. And let me be clear when I say...NEARLY EVERY SONG ON GLEE IS AUTOTUNED. I don't know why they do it...the kids can sing...but they do it anyway, which I find extremely annoying.

But it's cool for a few reasons too.

But I think the big reason that I have an issue is that Rocky is about an experience. People often take it out of the theater and wonder "what's the big deal?" Because, without the theater experience, it isn't a big deal. The "big deal" of it is that the people who watch the Rocky Horror Picture Show made movie-watching a two-way experience. They became part of the movie...and they will forever be a part of the movie...if only in my head. I can't hear the lines of the actual songs anymore...I hear the callbacks.

I don't know how glee will handle it, but I anticipate that they will strip out all of the interesting things about RHPS and just sing a few songs. Who knows though!

But if you're over 18...you should go try and find a Rocky Horror showing in your area...because it will be an experience...it might be awkward...it might be conusing...but it will be an experience.

Making Adorable Music

Preorder a giraffe shirt: http://dft.ba/giraffe

In which John auditions to join his brother Hank's band. The toys I use in this video are called sing-a-ma-jigs; kids REALLY LOVE THEM and I have to confess that this adult kind of does, too. http://www.thesingamajigs.com/landing...

(And no, singamajigs did not pay me to make this video. We don't accept paid product placement precisely so you don't have to ask yourself that question.)

Strange Charm: A Song about Quarks

http://dft.ba

In which Hank plays a song for you...the video was made in Illustrator and After Effects and it took a ridiculously long time to do. I hope you like it.

http://dft.ba/quarks

Giraffe Love: A Terrifying Introduction to Nature at Work (and Play)

Giraffe love shirt: http://dft.ba/-totallyawesome PREORDERS will be open for two more weeks; shirts will ship first week of November.

In which John discusses the sexuality and mating habits of the giraffe, giraffe bisexuality, the importance of people who love giraffes who love giraffes to the vlogbrothers youtube channel, and his brother's cute but totally misleading t-shirted illustration of giraffes in love.

TOP 7 FAILS OF HISTORY

The other day I said I would speak at an event here in Missoula. I slept in, missed my speaking slot, and felt like a totally failure. So I read about some of the worst fails of all time to make myself feel better. I may have let some people down, but at least my fail didn't lead to the deaths of millions of people.

On Hope and Chile

In which John joins the world in watching watching Chile and the extraordinary rescue of the Chilean miners who are being rescued after more than two months underground. He also discusses the relentlessness of human hope, beckoning lovely, the fact that it gets better, and 10.10.10.

It Doesn't Get Better...Than These It Gets Better Videos: http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list...