January 17, 2015
NEON GLITCHY PIXART MADNESS
It's gloriously incomprehensible and very Japanese, but still: BUGGG, a game, or rather several games. (Requires Unity) [more inside]
"A fetishized nostalgia for the 1970s and early '80s"
They Say Art Is Dead in New York. They're Wrong. – Alan Feuer, NYT (December 2014):
Somehow, in the last few years, it has become an article of faith that New York has lost its artistic spirit, that the city's long run as a capital of culture is over. After all (or so the argument goes), foreign oligarchs and hedge-fund traders have bought up all the real estate, chased away the artists and turned the bohemia that once ran east from Chumley's clear across the Williamsburg Bridge into a soulless playground of money.
Last year, the foremost proponent of this doomsday theory was the rock star David Byrne, who complained in The Guardian that artists, as a species, had been priced out of New York. This year, others joined him. The novelist Zadie Smith lamented in October, in The New York Review of Books, that the city's avant-garde had all but disappeared. The musician Moby wrote a comparable essay in February, describing how creative types are fleeing New York and referring to his former home, accurately but narrowly, as "the city of money." Just a couple of weeks ago, Robert Elmes, the founder of the Galápagos Art Space in Brooklyn, declared the indigenous "creative ecosystem" was in crisis — so, naturally, he was moving to Detroit.
goin' jukin' tonight
LAST OF THE MISSISSIPPI JUKES is Robert Mugge's 86-minute film from 2002, focussing on the juke joint tradition in Mississippi, with special emphasis on Jackson's Subway Lounge and Clarksdale's Ground Zero Blues Club.
"Is this what you want? he asked, and I said yes, so..."
He Took His Skin Off For Me. "The story of a man who takes his skin off for his girlfriend, and why it probably wasn't the best idea..." Based on the short story by Maria Hummer. [more inside]
"the pull of sentimentality away from reality’s hardness"
Lyrical Extinction
Wild Ones Live is an arresting reading accompanied by music, a collaboration performed as part of a live magazine by author Jon Mooallem, a science and nature writer whose book Wild Ones ruminates on the strange, ignorant, hopeful and poignant ways humans imagine other animals, and the musical project Black Prairie. Listen at your desk if you must, but if you can, pop in your earbuds and go outside for a long walk while you take it all in. [more inside]
"...we are alive and they are not."
'Are we becoming too reliant on computers?' by Nicholas Carr [The Guardian]
Freak Like Me
Empowered by cheap car insurance, Dave lets it all hang out. (Single Link Brit Ad YouTube)
Words of the Year of the World
Were you dismayed at the lameness of "vape" and "culture" being named by Oxford and Merrian-Webster (respectively) as the 2014 words of the year? Are you wondering what words English should steal from other languages? Mental Floss has you covered with its roundup of 13(ish) words of the year from other countries. [more inside]
Alt Animation
From The Adventures of Prince Achmed to The Lego Movie, check out this list of Non-Disney, Non-Pixar and Non-Studio Ghibli Animated Films. [more inside]
"in the old-world timber beam there may be lurking some treacherous knot
Michael Green, a Canadian architect responsible for the Wood Innovation and Design Centre at UNBC presents The Case For Tall Wood Buildings [PDF]. He also gave a TED Talk: Why We Should Build Wooden Skyscrapers (transcript) [more inside]
A few ways to take 20 minutes a day for a better you
Despite the hyperbolic title Scientists recommend 20-minute daily walk to avoid premature death, The Guardian has a good summary on the study that looked at 334,161 European men and women over a mean follow-up time of 12.4 years, and comments from Study leader Prof Ulf Ekelund. 20 minutes is a common time period when it comes to recommendations for better health, from the suggestion to stand up for 2 minutes every 20 minutes for those who are sedentary much of the day, to exercising your eyes by looking 20 feet away for 20 seconds for every 20 minutes you spend reading a book or computer screen. If you're looking for some mental well-being from a cleaner home, Apartment Therapy has a plan for cleaning your house in 20 minutes a day for 30 days. For something more strenuous, there are a number of 20 minute workouts, from Men's Fitness, Fitness Magazine, Shape, and Military.com.
Karl Lagerfeld's Muse: Brad.
The Jet Set Life of Karl Lagerfeld’s Favorite Male Model
He let the thought linger. “There’s no other male model in the history of the world doing these kinds of things,” he said. “I’m not bragging or anything, it just is what it is.”
Two great films about 1980's youth counter culture in Europe
We are the best (2013) is a Swedish film set in 1980's Stockholm, about three young punk girls who form a band (mainly to play a song dedicated to their gym teacher called "Hate the Sport"). It's fairly lighthearted, but there are some deeply poignant moments that really capture what it's like to be that 13 year old girl with the short hair and all the usual insecurities, finding solace in friends, music, and giving the finger to mainstream society.
This is England (2006) is another counter-culture-coming of age film, about a group of skinheads in England, c. 1983. This is a much heavier film, exploring serious issues of race, gender, social class, family relationships, and how these tensions eventually lead to the adoption of skinhead culture by white nationalists. All of this is set to an awesome soundtrack featuring the likes of Toots and the Maytals, The Specials, Jimmy Cliff, and Soft Cell.
Feta than ever
The second annual Big Block of Cheese day (previously) will take place on Wednesday, January 21st, using the hashtag #AskTheWH.
The festival of Sant’Antonio
She's out back counting stars
Blooming Zoetrope Sculptures
"When the sculptures are spun at just the right frequency under a strobe light, a rather magical effect occurs: the sculptures seem to be animated or alive!"
These 3D printed sculptures were designed by artist, inventor, and Stanford design lecturer John Edmark using Fibonacci's sequence to determine the placement of the appendages. They appear animated when their rotation speed is synchronized to a strobe so that one flash occurs every time the sculpture turns 137.5º - though in the video above, the camera was set to a very short shutter speed (1/4000 sec) to achieve the effect without using a strobe. Here's a clip of just one sculpture with the strobe going.
These 3D printed sculptures were designed by artist, inventor, and Stanford design lecturer John Edmark using Fibonacci's sequence to determine the placement of the appendages. They appear animated when their rotation speed is synchronized to a strobe so that one flash occurs every time the sculpture turns 137.5º - though in the video above, the camera was set to a very short shutter speed (1/4000 sec) to achieve the effect without using a strobe. Here's a clip of just one sculpture with the strobe going.
Homocentric Spheres
What Eudoxus and Aristotle thought about planetary motion. You'd think there would be nice animated illustrations of this stuff on the Web somewhere, but I didn't manage to find any, so I made my own.
Twang!
If you still think Saturday morning is a good time for cartoons, enjoy The Son of 666, a short but sweet clip by animator Vivienne Medrano. It concerns banjos, fiddles, and evil.
What do you think of machines that think?
'We should be as important as Oasis or Blur'
The Prodigy have a new album, The Day Is My Enemy, out soon. Interview in the Guardian. Nasty [more inside]
Enter The (4-year-old) Dragon
Friends. Family. Purpose. Burritos.
A subtle thesis on the art of not giving a fuck. And conversely saving those fucks for the things that matter.
Veni, Veni Emmanuel
The Gesualdo Six is a new group of young undergraduates and recent graduates from Cambridge who specialise in singing renaissance polyphony. Hear them sing Veni, Veni Emmanuel, a traditional carol arranged by Philip Lawson.
Fare Thee Well
"Fare Thee Well: Celebrating 50 Years of Grateful Dead" at Chicago’s Soldier Field on July 3rd, 4th, and 5th, 2015. "To celebrate the 50th anniversary of Grateful Dead, the four original members — Mickey Hart, Bill Kreutzmann, Phil Lesh, and Bob Weir — will reunite at Chicago's Soldier Field, nearly 20 years to the day of the last Grateful Dead concert, which took place at the same venue. 'Fare Thee Well: Celebrating 50 Years of Grateful Dead' will occur over three nights on July 3, 4, and 5, 2015, marking the original members' last-ever performance together. The band will be joined by Trey Anastasio (guitar), Jeff Chimenti (keyboards), and Bruce Hornsby (piano). The group will perform two sets of music each night." Jerry Garcia's daughter Trixie Garcia announced the shows. [more inside]
That Annie should magically combine meekness and moxie is so important.
The Teflon Kid: How ANNIE enables apathy about inequality.
Little Orphan Annie on going to public school for free (November 8, 1935 comic strip):
"Free!" Hun~ Nothin' is free -- It all costs somebody-- Too many people are livin' "free" off o' other people -- I'll keep trying to earn my way. [more inside]
Little Orphan Annie on going to public school for free (November 8, 1935 comic strip):
"Free!" Hun~ Nothin' is free -- It all costs somebody-- Too many people are livin' "free" off o' other people -- I'll keep trying to earn my way. [more inside]
"A long torture trip was being prepared..."
Extracts of Mohamedou Ould Slahi's Guantanamo diary are read by Stephen Fry, Colin Firth and others as part of the Guardian's Guantanamo Diary series.
Previously on Metafilter. [more inside]
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