Your Reader Tips are, as always, welcome in the comments.

Welcome to the Wednesday (EBD) Late Nite Radio. In 2005, while strolling on a winter evening in their native Finland, Tellervo Kalleinen and Oliver Kochta Kalleinen had a flash of inspiration:

In the Finnish vocabulary there is an expression “Valituskuoro”. It means “Complaints Choir” and it is used to describe situations where a lot of people are complaining simultaneously. Kalleinen and Kochta-Kalleinen thought: “Wouldn’t it be fantastic to take this expression literally and organise a real Complaints Choir!”

As complaining is a universal phenomenon the project could be organised in any city around the world…

After the first Complaints Choir formed in Birmingham England (“the participants…understood the concept instinctively”) dozens of Complaints Choirs sprang up all around the world, from Budapest to Hong Kong to Buenos Aires to Jerusalem. The best ones understand that quotidian kvetching about small things is the whole point; others, such as the Hamburg Complaints Choir, start off promisingly – “My lawn doesn’t grow – the days are too short!” – but then launch into a litany of civic/political complaints that are about as amusing as a 60’s protest song or a letter to the editor.
The Tokyo Complaints Choir – “The cat that lives near my house ignores me” – hits the mark, as does tonight’s featured choir from Sweden, whose complaints – “nobody wants to buy my sofa on Ebay,” “I’m so tired of headwind,” and “cupcakes are too big” – are the embodiment of pointless kvetching. Here they are then, for your amusement: the Complaints Choir of Sundbyberg. Enjoy.
Your Reader Tips are, as always, welcome in any format in the comments.

Your Reader Tips are, as always, welcome in the comments.

Your Reader Tips are, as always, welcome in the comments.

Your Reader Tips are, as always, welcome in the comments.

Good evening ladies and gentlemen, welcome to SDA Late Nite Radio. Tonight, for your delectation, here is the Eugen Maersk, II, III, IV, V, episode of Mega Builders: “Building the World’s Largest Container Ship”, from the Odense Steel Shipyard, in Denmark, in 2008. The Danish registered Eugen Maersk is 398 meters or 1,305 feet long, and 56 meters or 154 feet wide, and she has a deadweight of 156,907 tons. Her Wartsila diesel engine delivers up to 90 megawatts (about 120 thousand horsepower), and she has the world’s largest propeller (with a diameter of 9.5 meters or 31 feet). And for your ease of reference, here’s a link to our November 14, 2009, Late Nite Radio show on large ship engines.

Your Reader Tips are, as always, welcome in the comments.

Your Reader Tips are, as always, welcome in the comments.

Your Reader Tips are, as always, welcome in the comments.

Welcome to the Wednesday (EBD) edition of Late Nite Radio.
Anyone fortunate enough to have seen the late Ray Condo in a small club setting can attest to what a great live performer he was. His studio recordings never managed to fully capture either his mischievous joy or the whip-crack energy of his live performances, but tonight’s selected album cut comes close to doing that, thanks in part to a nicely-done video comprised of footage shot by his drummer on a 1994 European tour. Here it is: the title track from Ray Condo & His Hard Rock Goners’ 1994 Album Come On.
You are invited, as always, to provide your Reader Tips in the comments.

Your Reader Tips are, as always, welcome in the comments.

Your Reader Tips are, as always, welcome in the comments.

Good evening ladies and gentlemen, welcome to SDA Late Nite Radio. Tonight, for your delectation, here are Anne-Sophie Mutter and the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra performing the first movement, Allegro, of Antonio Vivaldi‘s concerto #4 in F minor, Winter ¤ (3:38), from his The Four Seasons, with our old friend Herbert von Karajan conducting & playing harpsichord.

Your Reader Tips are, as always, welcome in the comments.

Your Reader Tips are, as always, welcome in the comments.

Your Reader Tips are, as always, welcome in the comments.

Your Reader Tips are, as always, welcome in the comments.

Welcome to the Wednesday (EBD) SDA Late Nite Radio.
Tonight’s selection is a light-hearted paean of sorts to the quotidian pleasures of long-distance domestic bus travel. Massachusetts native Jonathan Richman paints a picture, in short strokes, of the on-the-ground American expanse and the motley group of strangers who find themselves barreling down the highway together for a moment in time before disembarking, at various announced stops, to persevere with their unknown lives. We’re talking drunks, wailing infants, welfare moms, grit, rolling pop cans on the floor, unpleasant smells – and he likes it. Here it is: Richman’s live performance of You’re Crazy For Taking The Bus.
SDA Readers and visitors are invited, as always, to provide links to any interesting blog posts, news items, essays, ephemera or interesting tidbits you feel might be of interest to others.

Your Reader Tips are, as always, welcome in the comments.

Your Reader Tips are, as always, welcome in the comments.