Evening _flossers! It’s once again time for the game that’s sweeping the nation — GUESS THE THEME! All the clips below have something in common. Leave you best guesses in the comments.

Bob Dylan – Blowin’ In The Wind (more…)

Musician, artist, and “edutainer” Tom Kaufmann makes unique instruments called lithophones, which are similar to xylophones, but created from various stones. Here’s how Kaufmann describes them:

Another happy coincidence led me to my current fascination with constructing lithophones. I was tossing around some scrap pieces of granite countertop that I’d gotten for one of my Upright Furniture projects, and as one of the chunks landed, it rang as clear as a bell.

I’d been looking for stone suitable for building lithophones for a while, but never suspected I would find a source of such readily available and inexpensive material.

Litho is Greek for stone, and phone is sound, so a lithophone is a musical instrument made from stone. They are one of the most ancient instruments, and in China the sound of stone is as elemental as metal or wood. In Viet Nam a stone instrument called a “dan da” was found that is believed to be over 9,000 years old. Western civilization didn’t use stone for music until the 1840’s. There are links to some great sources of information about lithophones at the bottom of this page.

Here’s Kaufmann playing the “Flintstones” theme on a lithophone made from Michigan’s State Stone: Petoskey Stone (fossilized coral that lived 350 million years ago). By the way, did you know Michigan had a State Stone? Enjoy:

Floor Tiles & Wrenches

Not all lithophones are made of such exotic materials. This video shows a series of lithophones made from floor tiles, then a toolbox glockenspiel (made from wrenches and bolts, complete with some mild tuning problems):

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Anyone who saw last year’s riveting Oscar-nominated documentary Exit Through the Gift Shop (available to watch instantly through Netflix) will want to check out the Huffington Post Arts article on the Mr. Brainwash Art Show 2011, which took place recently in Los Angeles.

The street artist turned gallery cash cow is really one of the most fascinating film characters to come along in the last few years. And he’s (supposedly) a real person. His intrigue is built around the myriad debates that he sparked as people try to define him: He’s a genius, he’s a fraud, he’s completely clueless and staggeringly lucky, he’s the beneficiary of illogical art world trend chasers.

The content of his latest show probably won’t do much to un-blur all the fuzzy characterizations of him. The article explains the odd scene:

Aside from that debacle, Brainwash was still in the process of putting the show together, after it had already opened. As he threw stuffed animals onto a giant Mike Kelley-esque mountain, press were snapping away. It is unusual for an artist to so blatantly flesh out their ideas in front of an audience, unless the performance was the final product.

Good morning! Here’s a brand new Think Thursday challenge for today’s mentalfloss.com Brain Game. Good luck:

What letter is missing in the following
alphabetic list, and what do these letters
have in common that no others do?

F, L, M, N, ?, X.

Today’s 5 Questions quiz promises to See You in the Funny Papers

The 7 most newsworthy dogs of 2011. That’s a good dog, every one of them.
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The best (or at least most memorable) mug shots of 2011. Catching people at their worst is even more so when they make faces at the camera.
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Die Hard, Interrupted is a mashup of the communications in the movie Die Hard. NSFW language, but if you’re lucky, you’re still off for holiday vacation.
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Gingrich, Perry, Bachmann, and Santorum Go Extreme on Abortion. Opposing abortion even in cases of rape and incest is theologically consistent, but may be too much for voters.
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Why would a soft drink vending machine offer free wi-fi? Because you have to stand close to the machine to use it, and you will eventually get thirsty. Genius!
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Introducing LEGO Civil Unrest building sets, featuring Occupy Wall Street and Arab Spring versions. I would buy both if they were real.
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If a celebrity were going to move in next door to you, who would you prefer to have as a neighbor? Let’s see who everyone else selected.
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MIT Developed a Suit That Makes You Feel 75 Years Old. Its purpose is to make you young whippersnappers aware of how really difficult it is to physically deal with a world that routinely ignores the aging.
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The Win/Luck Compilation of 2011 video shows people (and animals) getting the most out of life. It’s as if they tried to make a fail compilation …and failed.
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Weapons of Mass Seduction: 5 Infamous Female Spies. You would have never known them -if you had ever known them.

Elvis Presley was known for his generosity, but he didn’t just stop at free show tickets or 500% tips at restaurants. One of Elvis’ favorite ways to show his appreciation was to drop a cool $11k (we’re talking the ‘60s and ‘70s here, so don’t laugh) on a new car. His first big Cadillac purchase was a Pepto-pink Caddy for his mama, Gladys, who was presented with the extravagant gift in 1955. She couldn’t drive, but hey, it’s the thought that counts.

The cotton candy-colored car was just the beginning. From that moment until his untimely death on August 16, 1977, the King bought an estimated 100+ Cadillacs and Lincolns for friends, family, and even total strangers. Here are just a few of those stories:

A Seriously Happy Birthday

A bank teller named Mennie Person happened to be in the right place at the right time in 1975. She was window shopping at a car dealership in Memphis and noticed Elvis’ custom limo parked there. He was inside giving the necessary details on yet another mass Cadillac purchase. As she was admiring his luxurious ride, Elvis came out to talk to her. “He said, ‘That one’s mine, but I’ll buy you one,’” Person said. He also found out that her birthday was two days away and presented her with “a substantial” check, saying that she needed some new clothes to go with her new car.

As Seen on TV

In January 1976, Elvis was on vacation in Colorado to celebrate his 41st birthday. Perhaps feeling like he wanted to give some gifts to commemorate the occasion, Elvis went to Kumpf Lincoln-Mercury in Denver and purchased a handful of Caddies and a couple of Lincolns. The lucky recipients? Three policemen, a doctor, and a newscaster on a local TV station. Anchor Don Kinney’s gift happened after he gave a report on Elvis’ buying spree. As anchors tend to do, Kinney finished the story with a quip: “Elvis, if you’re watching, I wouldn’t mind an economy car.” As a matter of fact, Elvis was watching. He immediately called the station and said there was a car waiting for Kinney if he wanted it. Convinced a friend was playing a joke on him, Kinney hung up on the King – several times. He was finally convinced it was the real deal when Detective Ron Pietrafeso, one of the other car recipients, got on the phone and assured him that Elvis was really on the line.

TCB with Karate

Elvis practiced Karate since his Army days, and in the early ‘70s, he contacted Memphis instructor Kang Rhee to see if he would be interested in continuing his training. Rhee agreed, but had Elvis complete his training in a class with other students. Over the course of about four years, Elvis took classes and was awarded an eighth degree black belt. Grateful for the normalcy, maybe, Elvis gifted Rhee with one of his own customized Cadillacs in 1973. Rhee now runs “Elvis Karate.” You should probably experience his website.

Other people who received a set of wheels: Elvis’ doctor, dentist, jeweler, hair stylist, valet, bodyguards and his maid. In fact, maid and cook Mary Jenkins, said she received a total of six cars from him over a period of 14 years.

For his generous gift giving practices, a Memphis dealership allegedly presented Elvis with a plaque for being the “World’s Best Car Buyer” that was engraved with the names of the 31 people he had purchased cars for through that dealership alone.

If you forgot about someone this holiday season and you’re scrambling for a belated present, there are always gift-of-the-month clubs. While wine and cheese clubs tend to be the norm, there’s guaranteed to be a subscription service out there for anyone on your holiday list.

Homemade Goodies

From eye shadow to jams to earrings, Etsy is a great place to get one-of-a-kind subscription services for those you love. Of course, since anyone can list any thing they want on the site, that also means there are a lot of bizarre gift clubs as well.

Does someone you know have a hard time finding enough vintage button rings to suit her interest? Then perhaps she needs a subscription to the Vintage Button Ring of the Month Club.
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• Walnuts may have originated in Persia, but they were used and discussed at length by the Greeks and Romans (particularly by Pliny the Elder). Pliny recommended walnuts for all sorts of things, from breath fresheners to helping eliminate gas in the intestines. Walnuts were also used in wedding customs, scattered by the groom among young people while they sang “obscene songs.” Paintings of walnuts and their carbonized remains in the ash of Mt Vesuvius appear to point to their popularity in that region at the time.

• During a time when the “doctrine of signatures” was popular (the principle being that plants resembling organs and body parts could aid in healing those organs or body parts), the walnut was known to the Greeks as karyon, or “head” (you can guess why). The Romans, however, thought the nut looked more like testicles, and called walunts the “glands of Jupiter.” Eventually this lead to its scientific name, Juglans regia, literally, “royal nut of Jupiter.”

• When the plague hit England again in the mid-seventeenth century, walnuts (combined with other ingredients) were often recommended for those wishing to avoid “this pestilence.”

• What we do know for sure about the health benefits of this nut is that walnuts are loaded with antioxidants and may help fight breast cancer.
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David J. Peterson is one of many conlangers: people who invent languages. His most recent work is the Dothraki tongue shown in HBO’s “Game of Thrones”; the spoken language had to be invented for TV because it’s rendered in English in the “Song of Ice and Fire” novels. It turns out that the word of conlangers is just what you’d think it is: very geeky, full of highly-educated people, and surprisingly populous — I wouldn’t be surprised if we had conlangers in the mental_floss readership (if we do, perhaps you can tell me if ‘conlanged’ is an appropriate past-tense for the verb ‘conglang’). For specific languages, there are fan sites — Lekh Dothraki is devoted to Dothraki, and of course the Klingon Language Institute claims that Klingon is “the fastest growing language in the galaxy.” (There’s even a Klingon Language Version of the World English Bible — while not a translation per se, it’s…something.)

Recently the New York Times profiled Mr. Peterson, taking the opportunity to examine the broader conlanger culture. Of course, this activity has been going on for centuries, but now it’s a legitimate job. From the NYT piece:

“The days of aliens spouting gibberish with no grammatical structure are over,” said Paul R. Frommer, professor emeritus of clinical management communication at the University of Southern California who created Na’vi, the language spoken by the giant blue inhabitants of Pandora in “Avatar.” Disney recently hired Mr. Frommer to develop a Martian language called Barsoomian for “John Carter,” a science-fiction movie to arrive in March.

The shift is slowly transforming the obscure hobby of language construction into a viable, albeit rare, career and engaging followers of fantasies like “Lord of the Rings,” “Game of Thrones” and “Avatar” on a more fanatical level.

At “Game of Thrones” viewing parties in San Francisco, fans rewatched Dothraki scenes to study the language in a workshop-like setting. Last October, a group of Na’vi speakers from half a dozen countries convened in Sonoma County, Calif., for a gathering known as “Teach the Teachers.” Mr. Frommer gave attendants tips on grammar and vocabulary and fielded any questions they had about the language. The rural, wooded setting felt “almost like being on Pandora,” he said. At a question-and-answer session in July that he participated in, at least a dozen attendants rattled off their questions in fluent Na’vi.

“There’s been a sea change in Hollywood. They realize there’s a fan base out there that wants constructed languages,” said Matt Pearson, a linguistics professor at Reed College in Portland, Ore. He created Thhtmaa (pronounced tukhh-t’-mah), the language of termite-like aliens in the short-lived NBC series “Dark Skies.”

Read the rest for an excellent look into this awesomely geeky subculture, to listen to clips of translated Dothraki sentences, and for this trivia tidbit:

…Suzette Haden Elgin created Láaden as a language better suited for expressing women’s points of view. (Láaden has a word, “bala,” that means “I’m angry for a reason but nothing can be done about it.”)

If you want to hire Mr. Peterson and his associates, the Language Creation Society has very reasonable rates — starting at under $1,000, you could have your very own (and very basic) language. See also: Dothraki.com, the official site of “a language of fire and blood.”