On January 1, 1969, Rolling Stones frontman Mick Jagger wrote artist M.C. Escher a letter asking Escher to provide an image for the Stones' second volume of greatest hits, entitled Through The Past Darkly. Jagger was a big Escher fan, and addressed the letter to "Maurits," the "M" in "M.C." Well...turns out Escher was NOT a Stones fan. Below is the correspondence, as reproduced by a World of Escher forum post from 2002. It's kind of mind-blowing to think that an artist would turn down the chance for a... READ ON

Ladies and gentlemen, prepare to have a crush on one or both of the fine young kids in the band Pomplamoose. A duo based in California, they practice a new art form called the "VideoSong" described by the band as follows: This cover is a VideoSong, a new medium with 2 rules: 1. What you see is what you hear (no lip-syncing for instruments or voice). 2. If you hear it, at some point you see it (no hidden sounds). And as far as I can tell, they're right -- they really do film every single... READ ON

Nerd parent alert: new TMBG album of science stuff for kids available now! (iTunes Link) Indie pop icons They Might Be Giants have long been known for embedding factoids in their songs. For example, their cover of "Why Does the Sun Shine" features the opening hook: "The sun is a mass of incandescent gas; A gigantic nuclear furnace; Where hydrogen is built into helium at a temperature of millions of degrees!" (To be fair, TMBG didn't write that tune; see the original version by Tom Glazer.) But then... READ ON

In some cities, driving a taxi is considered an important, valued, even elevated vocation. In London, for example, you need to study and train for about three years before you can get a license. Three fourths of those who begin the taxi training course, never make it to the end. Because of the seriousness with which they take the job, London cab drivers have even been the subjects of brain studies, which have discovered that the cabbies have a larger hippocampus compared with other people.... READ ON