_It is known all over the world.

_It is known all over the world. According to an article by Hiromi Oketani in the Osaka Shoin Women's College Annual for 1994, it is known in Japan as Neko Funjatta (ねこふんじゃった, I Stepped on the Cat), in Spain as La Chocolatera, in the Netherlands as Vlooienmars (Flea March), in Belgium as Valse de Puce (Flea Waltz), in Russia as Sobachiy Val's(Собачий Вальс, Dog Waltz), in Poland as Kotlety(Cutlet), in Bulgaria as Koteshki Marsh (Cat March), in Hungary as Szamárinduló (Donkey March), and in Majorca as Polca de los Tontos (Fools' Polka). In Mexico it is called Los Changuitos (The Little Monkeys), in Finland Kissanpolkka (Cat's Polka), in the Czech Republic "Prasečí valčík" (Pig Waltz), in Sweden Kalle Johansson and in Slovakia "Somársky pochod" (Donkey March). In China it is called “跳蚤圆舞曲” (Flea Waltz). In the United Kingdom, the melody is known as Chopsticks, while in the US that name refers to another melody._
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Der_Flohwalzer?wprov=sfla1

The Mathematical Hamilton Parody You Never Knew You Needed

http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/roots-of-unity/the-mathematical-hamilton-parody-you-never-knew-you-needed/

NYTimes reports on the breakup of SMAP, a perennial Japanese boy band (now a middle-aged man band):

NYTimes reports on the breakup of SMAP, a perennial Japanese boy band (now a middle-aged man band):

To understand the bedlam unfolding here, think of the Beatles’ breaking up, the airing of the final episode of “Seinfeld” and the “conscious uncoupling” of Gwyneth Paltrow and Chris Martin all rolled into one — the end of an era on the Japanese cultural landscape.

SMAP’s most famous saccharine single, “The Only Flower in the World,” is regularly taught in Japan’s schools. But SMAP is not just a wildly popular band whose albums have sold more than 35 million copies, making it one of the most successful musical acts in Japanese history.

For two decades, its five members — Masahiro Nakai, Takuya Kimura, Goro Inagaki, Tsuyoshi Kusanagi and Shingo Katori — have also hosted one of Japan’s top-rated television programs, “SMAP X SMAP,” a family-friendly variety show in which they cook for celebrity guests, compete in games, perform comedic skits and, of course, sing. Each has starred on his own in numerous television series, movies and commercials. The frontman, Mr. Nakai, has been a newscaster for several Olympic Games.

The group, whose members started out as teenagers performing on skateboards and now range in age from 39 to 44, managed to both broaden its audience beyond adolescent girls and hold on to them over the years. Many of their most ardent fans are women who grew up with them.

SMAP, an acronym for Sports Music Assemble People, also has legions of fans in China, South Korea, Taiwan and elsewhere in Asia.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/20/world/asia/japan-smap-breakup.html

Hellig Usvart is a seminal 1994 album by Australian metal multi-instrumentalist Jayson Sherlock.

Hellig Usvart is a seminal 1994 album by Australian metal multi-instrumentalist Jayson Sherlock. Dubbed "unblack metal" or Christian death metal, it's unclear whether the album is a proclamation of Christian faith in a death metal idiom, or a deadpan parody of death metal's Satanic tropes. Consider the track list:

1. "A Church Bell Tolls Amidst the Frozen Nordic Winds"
2. "Blasphemous Abomination of the Satanic Pentagram"
3. "Behold, the Rising of the Scarlet Moon"
4. "Thine Hour Hast Come"
5. "Release and Clothe the Virgin Sacrifice"
6. "Drink From the Chalice of Blood"
7. "Silence the Blasphemous Chanting"
8. "Invert the Inverted Cross"
9. "An Abandoned Grave Bathes Softly in the Falling Moonlight"
10. "Crush the Bloodied Horns of the Goat"
11. "Weak, Feeble, and Dying Anti-Christ"
12. "The Day of Total Armageddon Holocaust"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hellig_Usvart

The new film Florence Foster Jenkins, starring Meryl Streep and Hugh Grant, tells the story of a wealthy New York...

The new film Florence Foster Jenkins, starring Meryl Streep and Hugh Grant, tells the story of a wealthy New York narcissist who imagines herself a great performing artiste -- a political allegory for our times without the frightening edge of fascism.

Here are the reminiscences of Madame Jenkins' accompanist Cosmé McMoon, who had no illusions about her lack of skill. 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r42IE6DX9io

For Google Play Music-using Geeps, here's a list of recordings I found fun/interesting.

For Google Play Music-using Geeps, here's a list of recordings I found fun/interesting. Discussion or recommendations for further listening welcome!
https://play.google.com/music/playlist/AMaBXyl0JeKIbTA2T5q4jao8jzp3jEFnRfFB6NZ6w3eLYbdWf7Con9uMxRDnpIFXsu4EpXufE906i47clq_vzNjKsL72KufBWw%3D%3D

Music is present in every culture, but the degree to which it is shaped by biology remains debated.

Music is present in every culture, but the degree to which it is shaped by biology remains debated. One widely discussed phenomenon is that some combinations of notes are perceived by Westerners as pleasant, or consonant, whereas others are perceived as unpleasant, or dissonant1. The contrast between consonance and dissonance is central to Western music2, 3, and its origins have fascinated scholars since the ancient Greeks4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10. Aesthetic responses to consonance are commonly assumed by scientists to have biological roots11, 12, 13, 14, and thus to be universally present in humans15, 16. Ethnomusicologists17 and composers8, in contrast, have argued that consonance is a creation of Western musical culture6. The issue has remained unresolved, partly because little is known about the extent of cross-cultural variation in consonance preferences18. Here we report experiments with the Tsimane’—a native Amazonian society with minimal exposure to Western culture—and comparison populations in Bolivia and the United States that varied in exposure to Western music. Participants rated the pleasantness of sounds. Despite exhibiting Western-like discrimination abilities and Western-like aesthetic responses to familiar sounds and acoustic roughness, the Tsimane’ rated consonant and dissonant chords and vocal harmonies as equally pleasant. By contrast, Bolivian city- and town-dwellers exhibited significant preferences for consonance, albeit to a lesser degree than US residents. The results indicate that consonance preferences can be absent in cultures sufficiently isolated from Western music, and are thus unlikely to reflect innate biases or exposure to harmonic natural sounds. The observed variation in preferences is presumably determined by exposure to musical harmony, suggesting that culture has a dominant role in shaping aesthetic responses to music.

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v535/n7613/full/nature18635.html