The Hourglass: A Short Film that Celebrates Time, Slowly

in Art, Video - Arts & Culture | April 25th, 2011

Marc New­son is one of the world’s most respect­ed, exhib­it­ed and award-win­ning design­ers. Accord­ing to his web­site, he’s also the most high­ly-val­ued. New­son’s pieces have set so many records at auc­tion that his work now accounts for almost 25% of the total con­tem­po­rary design mar­ket. It there­fore comes as no sur­prise that the hour­glass­es he has designed for Ike­pod’s reboot cost any­where from 9,000 to 13,000 Euros.

It’s tempt­ing to dis­miss Ike­pod’s new Hour­glass video as a sleek ad for an over­priced prod­uct, espe­cial­ly since that’s exact­ly what it is. But the video is also an ele­gant, visu­al­ly strik­ing trib­ute to a van­ish­ing world, in which time (and time­pieces) seemed to move more slow­ly.

Sheer­ly Avni is a San Fran­cis­co-based arts and cul­ture writer. Her work has appeared in Salon, LA Week­ly, Moth­er Jones, and many oth­er pub­li­ca­tions. You can fol­low her on twit­ter at @sheerly

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The Soundtrack of the Universe

in Astronomy, Music, Science, Video - Science | April 25th, 2011

We think of space as a silent movie, some­thing we see but nev­er hear. Yet space cre­ates a sound­track of sorts (even if sound waves can’t real­ly trav­el through the cos­mos), and now sci­en­tists and musi­cians want to play that sound­track for you.

Ear­li­er this year, Jan­na Levin, Pro­fes­sor of Physics and Astron­o­my at Barnard College/Columbia Uni­ver­si­ty, described how we can math­e­mat­i­cal­ly mod­el the sounds made by black holes. Fast for­ward to the 10:27 mark of her TED Talk above, and you will hear what it sounds like when a lighter black hole falls into a heav­ier black hole. The lit­tle guy bangs against space, kind of like a drumb play­ing faster and faster … which brings us to Mick­ey Hart, a for­mer drum­mer for The Grate­ful Dead.

In 2010, Hart teamed up with George Smoot, a Nobel Prize-win­ning physi­cist at the Lawrence Berke­ley Nation­al Lab­o­ra­to­ry, to repro­duce the sound of The Big Bang and super­novas. (Berke­ley Labs post­ed this super­no­va clip above.) You can read more about the unlike­ly pair­ing and the “Rhythms of the Uni­verse” project here, then expe­ri­ence more celes­tial sounds recre­at­ed by Hart here.

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A Perfect Springtime Animation: The Windmill Farmer by Joaquin Baldwin

in Art | April 24th, 2011

April may be the cru­elest month, mix­ing mem­o­ry and desire, etc. But Mr. Eliot nev­er depend­ed on sea­son­al change for his liveli­hood, except per­haps in the vaguest metaphor­i­cal sense. For a more uplift­ing take on spring, here’s The Wind­mill Farmer, a charm­ing short film by one of our favorite young ani­ma­tors.

Joaquin Bald­win, 27, earned his MFA at The UCLA Ani­ma­tion Work­shop. He was born in Paraguay to an envi­ron­men­tal activist moth­er and an artist father, and you can see the influ­ence of both voca­tions in his shorts, which have already won over 100 awards, and often have an envi­ron­men­tal theme. For more infor­ma­tion about his work and back­ground, check out our edi­tor’s 2010 write-up over at Brain­pick­ings. And enjoy those lilacs while they last.

Sheer­ly Avni is a San Fran­cis­co-based arts and cul­ture writer. Her work has appeared in Salon, LA Week­ly, Moth­er Jones, and many oth­er pub­li­ca­tions. You can fol­low her on twit­ter at @sheerly.

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Astrophysics Goes Extreme

in Physics, Video - Science | April 22nd, 2011

You would­n’t nec­es­sar­i­ly guess it, but astro­physics comes with occu­pa­tion­al risks. Try­ing to unrav­el the mys­ter­ies of the uni­verse, some physi­cists jour­ney to inhos­pitable parts of the world (Siberia, the Antarc­tic, deep mine shafts, etc.), search­ing for ide­al con­di­tions to per­form exper­i­ments into dark ener­gy, dark mat­ter, and beyond. This all gets detailed by Anil Anan­thaswamy, a soft­ware writer turned sci­ence writer, who recent­ly pub­lished a new book The Edge of Physics: A Jour­ney to Earth­’s Extremes to Unlock the Secrets of the Uni­verse. The talk above was pre­sent­ed at the INK Con­fer­ence last Decem­ber. You can also watch him give a fuller 50 minute talk at Google here.

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Kevin Spacey & Alec Baldwin Go to Bat for the Arts

in Art, Current Affairs, Video - Politics/Society | April 22nd, 2011

Both Alec Bald­win and Kevin Spacey are long­time advo­cates for gov­ern­ment fund­ing of  the Arts. If you missed their tes­ti­mo­ny before the House Appro­pri­a­tions Subcom­mi­tee on the Inte­ri­or ear­li­er this month, you aren’t alone. They were kicked off the sched­ule because of prepa­ra­tions for a con­gres­sion­al shut­down. These speech­es were deliv­ered not to the sub­com­mit­tee but to a crowd of advo­cates and fans.

Both are well worth watch­ing. Spacey, who is also the artis­tic direc­tor of Lon­don’s Old Vic The­atre, has long been one of the most respect­ed and artic­u­late actors in Hol­ly­wood. (See his inspir­ing pep talk to a young actor on Inside the Actor’s Stu­dio here.) He packs more wis­dom in these 12 and a half min­utes than some per­form­ers do in a life­time.

As for Alec Bald­win, his speech is short­er, but equal­ly com­pelling. If you’re in a rush, head straight to minute  4:00, which begins with this teas­er: “I come from a busi­ness where we all know a great secret …”

Sheer­ly Avni is a San Fran­cis­co-based arts and cul­ture writer. Her work has appeared in Salon, LA Week­ly, Moth­er Jones, and many oth­er pub­li­ca­tions. You can fol­low her on twit­ter at @sheerly.

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The Beatles: Live at Shea Stadium, 1965

in Music, Video - Arts & Culture | April 22nd, 2011

Here’s a Fri­day treat: The Bea­t­les’ 1965 con­cert at Shea Sta­di­um. At the time, this was the biggest rock con­cert in his­to­ry, with 12 cam­eras, a heli­copter fly­over, and 55,000 scream­ing fans. Best of all were the boys them­selves, still gid­dy enough about their own fame that they were crack­ing up on stage.

You can find a full set list for the show, and don’t miss John Lennon’s ter­rif­ic work on “Tick­et to Ride,” start­ing at minute 10:45. Just the day before, the band appeared on The Ed Sul­li­van Show for the fourth and final time, and we have the per­for­mance here in HD. Watched togeth­er, the two videos give a nice sense of how exhil­a­rat­ing Beat­le­ma­nia must have been.

The full Bea­t­les at Shea doc­u­men­tary (68 min­utes) can be watched over at Veoh.com.

Sheer­ly Avni is a San Fran­cis­co-based arts and cul­ture writer. Her work has appeared in Salon, LA Week­ly, Moth­er Jones, and many oth­er pub­li­ca­tions. You can fol­low her on twit­ter at @sheerly

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Eagles Hatch, Millions Watch

in Video - Science | April 21st, 2011

The Iowa-based Rap­tor Resource Project works to fos­ter pop­u­la­tion growth among threat­ened bird pop­u­la­tions through­out the mid­west. They man­age 23 nests, edu­cate oth­ers in nest-site man­age­ment, and — best of all for those liv­ing far from the wilder­ness — main­tain sev­er­al web­cams at their sites. You can fol­low sev­er­al fam­i­lies online, includ­ing fal­cons, owls and osprey.

But the most pop­u­lar live stream keeps track of these bald eagles in Dec­o­rah, Iowa. While we were typ­ing up this post, we had the stream up in anoth­er win­dow: Along with about 90,000 oth­er view­ers, we watched one of the eagles shel­ter­ing three eaglets from a strong wind, 80 feet high in the snow-cov­ered nest. The oth­er was pre­sum­ably out hunt­ing. (The RRP’s blog has a nice expla­na­tion of how the par­ents pro­tect their young from cold and snow, both in the moment and through smart nest design.) The video above shows the 24-hour hatch­ing of their first egg, on April 1st and April 2nd, edit­ed down to just 10 min­utes.

Sheer­ly Avni is a San Fran­cis­co-based arts and cul­ture writer. Her work has appeared in Salon, LA Week­ly, Moth­er Jones, and many oth­er pub­li­ca­tions. You can fol­low her on twit­ter at @sheerly.

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Charlie Chaplin Mini Film Festival

in Film | April 21st, 2011

A few things to know about Char­lie Chap­lin. He starred in over 80 films, reel­ing off most dur­ing the silent film era. In 1914 alone, he act­ed in 40 films, then anoth­er 15 in 1915. By the 1920s, Chap­lin had emerged as the first larg­er-than-life movie star, if not the most rec­og­niz­able per­son on the plan­et.

The actor still holds enough cul­tur­al sway that Google gave him a spe­cial doo­dle for his birth­day last week. And now we give you a 4‑in‑1 col­lec­tion of Chap­lin films. Cre­at­ed in 1938, this mini film fes­ti­val, run­ning 46 min­utes, presents The Adven­tur­er, The Cure, Easy Street and The Immi­grant, all filmed in 1917. (Find an alter­nate ver­sion here.) Plus if you head into our col­lec­tion of Free Movies Online, you will find anoth­er 10 Chap­lin films, all free. Just scroll down to the Silent Film sec­tion, and you’ll be on your way…

via Curios­i­ty Counts

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Diary: The Last Short Film by Tim Hetherington

in Current Affairs, Film, Life | April 20th, 2011

Ear­li­er today, Tim Het­her­ing­ton, the pho­tog­ra­ph­er who pro­duced and direct­ed the award-win­ning film Restre­po, was killed in the Libyan city of Mis­ura­ta. Although inter­est­ed in diverse art forms, Het­her­ing­ton spent more than a decade work­ing in war zones. He was a cam­era­man on Liberia: An Unciv­il War (2004) and The Dev­il Came on Horse­back (2007), then direct­ed Restre­po, a film about a pla­toon of sol­diers in Afghanistan. It won the Grand Jury Prize at the 2010 Sun­dance Film Fes­ti­val. And, that same year, Het­her­ing­ton also shot a short film, Diary, which he sum­ma­rized in this fash­ion:

‘Diary’ is a high­ly per­son­al and exper­i­men­tal film that express­es the sub­jec­tive expe­ri­ence of my work, and was made as an attempt to locate myself after ten years of report­ing. It’s a kalei­do­scope of images that link our west­ern real­i­ty to the seem­ing­ly dis­tant worlds we see in the media.”

You can watch Diary above and also vis­it a slideshow of Het­her­ing­ton’s pho­to­graph­ic work here.

via Boing­Bo­ing

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The Symmetry of Life

in Radio, Video - Science | April 20th, 2011

Last year, film­mak­ers Will Hoff­man, Daniel Mer­cadante, and Julius Metoy­er III pro­duced their first con­cep­tu­al video based on a Radi­o­Lab episode called “Words.” Now the trio is back, play­ing on ideas explored in a new Radi­o­Lab episode, Des­per­ate­ly Seek­ing Sym­me­try, which med­i­tates on how “sym­me­try shapes our very existence–from the ori­gins of the uni­verse, to what we see when we look in the mir­ror.” You can watch their lat­est video above, and stream below the radio episode upon which it is based. And if you’re not famil­iar with Radi­o­Lab, a pro­gram that’s chang­ing the medi­um, then def­i­nite­ly check out this pro­file in The New York Times.

via Brain­Pick­ings

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Paul Simon’s Christmas Gets Animated in April

in Music | April 20th, 2011

So Beau­ti­ful or So What – Paul Simon’s 12th solo album (and his first release since 2006) hit the streets and ether last week. Crit­ics are call­ing it his best album since The Rhythm of the Saints (1990), if not Grace­land (1986). And it all starts out with “Get­ting Ready for Christ­mas Day,” a song that works well out­side the con­ven­tions of your usu­al Christ­mas song. As The Tele­graph reminds us, the song is over­whelm­ing­ly sec­u­lar, even a tad polit­i­cal:

I got a nephew in Iraq
It’s his third time back
But it’s end­ing up the way it began
With the luck of a begin­ner
He’ll be eat­ing turkey din­ner
On some moun­tain top in Pak­istan.

And it’s writ­ten by some­one out­side the Chris­t­ian faith, though that nev­er stopped Neil Dia­mond, Bar­bara Streisand or Car­ole King from knock­ing out a Christ­mas tune. If there is a spir­i­tu­al ele­ment, it per­haps comes down to this: Quite catchi­ly, the song’s cho­rus builds around excerpts from a 1941 ser­mon by the Rev. J.M. Gates, an influ­en­tial preach­er who became the most record­ed Gospel singer before World War II. Get more on Gates and his sam­pled ser­mon here.

Today, we’re offer­ing three videos that accom­pa­ny this song. First, a splen­did ani­ma­tion fea­tured above. Next, the offi­cial­ly released video. And final­ly a live per­for­mance record­ed on The Col­bert Report late last year.

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