here's how wikipedia describes Frank Zappa,

Frank Vincent Zappa (1940 – 1993) was an American
composer, electric guitarist, record producer and film
director. In a career spanning more than 30 years,
Zappa wrote rock, jazz, electronic, orchestral, and
musique concrète works . . .

Many of his albums are considered essential in rock
history, and he is regarded as one of the most original
guitarists and composers of his time; he remains a
major influence on musicians and composers . . .

Zappa was posthumously inducted into the Rock and
Roll Hall of Fame in 1995 and received the Grammy
Lifetime Achievement Award in 1997.
 - wikipedia

now all the above is true, but what's not included is
something that for many was the most striking and
appealing part of the Zappa phenomenon -

an unrelentingly sardonic, "tell it like it is" style;
a bristly style that comes across in the video below -

it's Zappa in a nutshell

a duet with James Brown, "The Godfather of Soul",
and Luciano Pavarotti, one of Opera's Three Tenors?

Opera and Soul? - Why not!

as jazz great Miles Davis once said, "Good music is good
no matter what kind of music it is."

Pavarotti and Brown did in fact take the stage together;

they did so back in 2002, in the late Pavarotti's hometown
of Modena, Italy

the two sang Browns' 1966 hit, It's Man's World

check it out in the video below

in 2005, the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay
went to Charlie Kaufman for his work on Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

the screenplay may have been new and original, but its
underlying sci-fi premise wasn't

this premise pretains to the concept of medical memory erasure
and it's effects those troubled people who opt for the treatment

Steven Johnson writing for Slate magazine described the story
and its premise as follows,

The film, as you may already know, tells the story of two star-crossed lovers whose stars have gotten so crossed that they decide to erase their memories of each other, using the services of a company called Lacuna Inc.

Lacuna's offices have been cunningly art-directed to look like a low-rent plastic surgeon's, which is precisely the point. Memory erasure, in Eternal Sunshine's world, is just the next logical step up from breast augmentation and Prozac.
- Slate 3/22/04

back in 1966, almost 40 years prior to the film, author and
humortist Jean Shepherd laid out the concept of commercial
memory erasure and its likely effect on those who are treated

he did so on his late night radio show, which aired on WOR,
New York, throughout the 60s and 70s

Shepherd's June 28, 1966 anticipation of Eternal Sunshine
is featured in the soundtrack of the video below



let me make it clear that it is not the purpose of this post to
detract from the merits of Charlie Kaufman's great screenplay,
but rather, to draw attention to underrated and nearly forgotten
work of Jean Shepherd

for decades he sat behind the mike at WOR and laid out
mind-bending ideas, while most of us, like the fellow in the
video above, were sleeping soundly

for those interested, a downloadable recording of the complete
6/28/66 show can be found at iTunes, along with hundreds of
other episodes - all free

also, for more on Jean Shepherd's life, work and career
checkout Eugene B. Bergmann's Excelsior, You Fathead!:
The Art and Enigma of Jean Shepherd

typically, only one or two of the songs on a Beatles
album is written by George Harrison; the remaining
songs are Lennon/McCartney collaborations

was there a "quota" on George's output?

did John and Paul subtly "hold him down"?

and if so, did this contribute to the dissolution
and break up of the group?

George Harrison addresses these questions in the
video below, an excerpt from a 1971 interview on
ABC's The Dick Cavett Show

the term antimatter has the ring of something that is
pure science fiction -

but in reality, it is science fact

NASA's Cosmicopia Glossary defines antimatter as,

matter composed of the antiparticles of normal matter.
A particle and its antiparticle have a number of opposite
properties. A proton is electrically positive; an antiproton
is electrically negative. When a particle and its antiparticle
meet, they annihilate into pure energy. The antiparticle and
particle have exactly the same mass and so are affected by
gravity in the same way

in Unexplained Mysteries, an episode from the History Channel's
The Universe series, antimatter is described as follows,