Random videos

[Frank Cox]

The Swedish city of Malmö is taking dirty talk to a whole new level in its latest effort to clean up the streets.

By installing talking garbage cans that dish out racy audio messages after being fed trash, authorities are hoping for an increase in rubbish being deposited.

Pedestrians that drop trash into one of two bins on the city's Davidshallsbron bridge are rewarded with extremely positive feedback from a sultry female voice, who offers a range of responses.

It says "Come back quickly and do that again", "hmmm, thank you", "ooooh, yeah, right there", and "aaaah, that was crazy good", and "hmmmm, more", and then back to "Come back quickly and do that again".

[Frank Cox]

After 140 years, this old technology still keeps trains safe

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mzAfich6mow

[Frank Cox]

A very interesting look at the limits of human perception.

https://youtu.be/nUHEPmg0sPo

[Frank Cox]

This short claymation film was made by a 12 year old girl from Fort Qu'Appelle, a town not too far from here.

Her dad did the music.

https://youtu.be/HekpOfWixaQ

She said it took her about 17 hours to create the animation.

Here she is working on her next video:

emora-baggett-12-fort-qu-appelle-claymation.jpg

[Frank Cox]

A wild monkey in Mauritius:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jQeFK5m04tg

[Frank Cox]

“Spot Me Up” | The Rolling Stones & Boston Dynamics


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XnZH4izf_rI

[Frank Cox]

Their town was flooded so this couple floated to their wedding in a large cooking pot.

https://twitter.com/Shilpa1308/statu...11699378266116

[Frank Cox]

Now that's precision driving.

https://youtu.be/8Cge1zClOrs

[Frank Cox]

All of the pow wows were cancelled last year. This year, the first pow wow at Onion Lake is huge, with an estimated 1200 dancers and community members.

Grand entry: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c4pxawjlncA

Senior Men's Traditional Dance: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bFM1Kp32Ii0

[James Biggins]

Mystery of the Vanishing Piano

Wow! I remember seeing David on television in the 1950s, and it seems he's still with us at the age of 94.

[Frank Cox]

Mystery of the Vanishing Piano



https://youtu.be/DI8sc_D86sg

[Frank Cox]

Dog interrupts live weather report in Moscow borrowing journalist's microphone

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RlaNuXUJdIg

Now that's a real newshound.

[Frank Cox]

Khraniteli: A Soviet television adaptation of The Fellowship of the Ring (1991)

This is a stage play recorded in the format of tv movie which was aired just once on television before disappearing into the archives of Leningrad Television. Few knew about its existence but Leningrad Television's successor, 5TV, has now posted the film to YouTube. The score was composed by Andrei Romanov of the rock band Akvarium,

Part One:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vquKyNdgH3s

Part Two:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oLevCLNnLmg

[Frank Cox]

Boss to ex-employee: Keep the change! All 500 pounds of it.

Guy gets paid in 504 pounds of pennies ... oily, smelly pennies.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eMyE9TgP5JU

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TiX9yaJvd5A

[Randy Stankey]

I used to think that TikTok was the most inane website I have ever seen. After seeing this, I have had all doubt removed!

The biggest trend on TikTok is Sea Shanties!

https://www.npr.org/2021/01/16/95759...en-over-tiktok

SCOTT SIMON, HOST:

Argh, the latest trend in pandemic distraction may be - shiver me timbers - sea shanties.

(SOUNDBITE OF VIDEO)

UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #1: (Singing) There once was a ship that put to sea, and the name of that ship was the Billy of Tea.

SIMON: Landlubbers on TikTok and other social media are now appreciating the 200-year-old art form.

MARY MALLOY: Sea shanties are a particular kind of song that accompanies work.

SIMON: That's Mary Molloy. For 25 years, she taught a program out of Woods Hole, Mass., called the Sea Education Association Semester. She says sea shanties are influenced by the rhythms of African work songs with lyrics that are Anglo Irish. Mary Malloy is also a folk singer. How could she not be with so fine a name? And yes, she sings sea songs. Here be Mary.

MALLOY: (Singing) Oh, when I was a little boy, or so my mommy told me, away, haul away, we'll haul away Joe.

There's a singer who is the chanty man, the leader, who sings a line, and then everybody together joins on that second one. (Singing) Way, haul away. We'll haul away Joe.

And on certain words you would actually haul on the line.

SIMON: Which brings us now to the social media phenomenon known as ShantyTok. It took off after Nathan Evans posted his covers of sea songs. People started to add to his version of "Wellerman" using the TikTok duet feature.

(SOUNDBITE OF VIDEO)

UNIDENTIFIED GROUP #1: (Singing) Soon may the Wellerman come to bring us sugar and tea and rum...

SIMON: Then other scallywags began posting their own sea shanties.

(SOUNDBITE OF MONTAGE)

UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #2: (Singing) Oh, you hear a lot of stories about sailors and their sport, about how every sailor has a girl in every port.

UNIDENTIFIED GROUP #2: (Singing) What should we do with a drunken sailor early in the morning?

UNIDENTIFIED GROUP #3: (Singing) Soon may the Wellerman come to bring us sugar and tea and rum...

SIMON: Now, "Wellerman" is by far the most popular ShantyTok, but it's technically not a sea shanty. Blow me down - it be a ballad.

MALLOY: The songs that are now appearing on TikTok, a lot of them are actually songs that were sung on shipboard, but they weren't sung for work. So technically they're not shanties.

SIMON: But TikTokers don't care for technicalities.

(SOUNDBITE OF VIDEO)

UNIDENTIFIED GROUP #4: (Singing) Soon may the Wellerman come...

FRANKLINE UZOWULU: I still can't see what other people are seeing in the video. Like, it's just another car ride.

SIMON: That's Frankline Uzowulu of Houston, Texas, talking about his viral TikTok that shows spread of shanty love from him to his older brother, Promise.

PROMISE UZOWULU: I liked what I listened to, and I really bumped to it.

(SOUNDBITE OF VIDEO)

UNIDENTIFIED GROUP #4: (Singing) One day when the tonguing is done we'll take our leave and go.

KATHRYN VANARENDONK: It just feels, like, such an uncool, weird thing for everyone to really get into right now.

SIMON: That's Kathryn VanArendonk, a pop culture critic for Vulture and New York magazine, breaking down the why of this latest trend and that video by the Ozowulu brothers.

VANARENDONK: It puts that uncoolness on display and then watches someone come around to it anyhow. By the end, it feels OK for us to bop along to it because he is bopping along to it.

SIMON: Sea shanties can provide a sense of togetherness. Think about it. Songs written to be sung together in a time and place that can feel isolating and tedious.

Mary Malloy thinks there's another reason why we love sea shanties right now.

MALLOY: The sea has traditionally for centuries been thought of as a place to escape, to escape from whatever your reality is and that, I think in isolation, the idea of the sort of boundless sea in a place to be on a ship, it's a great sort of escapism.

SIMON: ShantyTok is also evolving as it grows.

(SOUNDBITE OF VIDEO)

HUNTER EVENSON: (Singing) Somebody once told me the world is going to roll me. I ain't the sharpest tool in the shed. She was...

SIMON: Hunter Evenson is turning pop songs into sea shanties. That's his version of "All Star" by a Smash Mouth. Someone else, Sam Pope, is doing the same. Ahoy, me hearties, name this tune.

(SOUNDBITE OF VIDEO)

SAM POPE: (Singing) Boys row. Another one bites the dust. And row, boys, row. Another one bites the dust. And another one gone, and another one gone, and another one bites the dust. Hey, hey. I'm going to get you, too. Another one bites the dust. Hey.

SIMON: This be WEEKEND EDITION from NPR News. Argh, I'm Scott Simon.

Warning! Don't open this video unless you want to catch an ear worm!