A video making the rounds of the web shows a man apparently fixing a flat tire by spraying it with a can of starter fluid and setting it alight with a lighter. Hoax? Cola-plus-mentos-style mind-blowing miracle of science? DRIVEN investigates after the jump.
A little bit of music and a Happy St. Patrick’s Day from DRIVEN
However you choose to mark St. Patrick’s Day—whether you plan to catch a leprechaun, dance a jig, drive the snakes from your lawn, or have your historically unprecedented economic surge come crashing down around your ears—DRIVEN hopes you have a good one. We look forward to the day when all such cultural celebrations are so widely enjoyed, and all such ethnic stereotypes are rendered as relatively harmless, as are those of the Irish in North America.
Indulge in a little bit of music and visuals from the Emerald Isle after the jump.
Better! Get a bucket!
Now, here’s a novel idea: apologizing, in person.
Special this week to BBC online’s “60 Seconds to Change the World” column, and inspired by real-life U.K. bank managers prostrating themselves before the House of Commons’s Treasury Committee, American author Tom Perrotta has audaciously upped the ante by suggesting that people saying sorry face to face would be good for society.
Scandalous, I know. But Perrotta inadvertently goes a long way towards semi-vindicating my disdain of cell phones, email, and email-equipped cell phones. Allow me to explain.
25 years of Macintosh (or, when 1984 wasn’t like “1984”)
Date: January 24, 1984
New product debut: “Macintosh” computer
Features: 9-inch screen, 128k of RAM, ‘mouse’
Price: $2,495 US—and, if you can put a valuation on what history deems the catalyst for a revolution, worth every penny.
In adjusted dollars, by the way, the peppy little machine that popularized the mouse and made a computer with a graphical interface “affordable,” for lack of a better word, would today cost… Read More
Alan Arkin hams it up
That most people would be pretty slow to name an Alan Arkin movie is a testament to his acting skills. He’s not a showy actor like his contemporaries, De Niro and Pacino, he’s simply a very good one. Maybe by now you can think of the profane grandfather from Little Miss Sunshine, or one of the sadsack salesmen from Glengarry Glen Ross, or if you’re really on your game, you’ll recall Captain John Yossarian from 1970’s Catch-22.
What you probably didn’t know is that he’s also a composer, a pretty darn good singer—and quite the swingin’ cat, too, as evidenced by this clip from a little show from long ago. Arkin sings one of his own compositions, fronting a band called The Electric Mayhem.
2009 Mercedes-Benz McLaren SLR Stirling Moss: Million-dollar baby
I don’t remember my dad as being a particularly big fan of racing, but I do know that his favourite driver was Stirling Moss, the British legend who tore up the Grand Prix circuit in the 1950s. So, a few years ago, when I had the chance to meet the man in person, it was a genuine thrill by proxy.
Recommended: “Last Call” by Tim Powers
You like stories about Las Vegas, right? You know, stories about washed-out, recently-widowed, alcoholic card sharks, and the thugs who try to kill them before the one last big game? If you do, and you won’t be scared off by some deftly handled mystical mumbo jumbo along the way, you’ll get a kick out of Last Call. Read More
Recommended: Parts & Labor, “Solemn Show World”
The year’s end nears, and the best-of music lists come out of the woodwork; if DRIVEN had compiled one, Brooklyn-based alt.noise quartet Parts & Labor would have been on it. But we decided to do things a little different…
Joe Eigo: Style in action
If you were astounded by the amazing acrobatics captured in the December DRIVEN’s “Prêt à parcour” fashion shoot (pp50-57 of the magazine), you may want to see a little more of our spectacular stunt-model. Joe Eigo. While we can’t help you see a little more, we can certainly help you see a lot…
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Dust never sleeps: Behind the scenes at a DRIVEN video shoot
Three things worth mentioning: We were shooting a brief video to serve as the holding page for the at-the-time under-reconstruction DRIVEN website, we had access to the car for just three short hours and our director, clearly a fan of Robert Altman and Orson Welles, wanted to capture the whole sequence in a single, continuous shot.
