A Short Animated History of the GIF

in Art, Creativity, Design, Web/Tech | April 29th, 2013

In 1987, Com­puserve begat­teth Image For­mat 87A.

Image For­mat 87A begat­teth Graph­ics Inter­change For­mat or GIF (rhymes with a cer­tain brand of peanut but­ter, the video his­to­ry above help­ful­ly points out).

The pro­lif­er­a­tions of free online GIF gen­er­a­tors begat­teth the count­less annoy­ing, smarmy, bone­head­ed ani­mat­ed loops you’ve seen junk­ing up emails, pro­file pic­tures, and MySpace pages.

Of course, some of them are also pret­ty cool, which is why they’re being cel­e­brat­ed with a fes­ti­val at the Brook­lyn Acad­e­my of Music. No tick­ets nec­es­sary. Mov­ing the Still: A GIF Fes­ti­val will be screen­ing through June on the out­door elec­tron­ic bill­board meant to pro­mote upcom­ing and cur­rent attrac­tions. Con­ceiv­ably, view­ers with wheels and time to spare could take it in on an end­less loop of their own, by cir­cling up Flat­bush to Lafayette, then mov­ing up when the light changes, bat­tling traf­fic from the near­by Bar­clays Cen­ter on the return leg.

What do we stand to see in this fes­ti­val? The video his­to­ry leads us to believe that any­thing is pos­si­ble, though cer­tain things—accidental hap­pen­ings, laser cats, col­or­ful barf­ing (…wait, col­or­ful barfing?)—have a built in appeal.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

A Gallery of Stan­ley Kubrick Cin­ema­graphs: Icon­ic Moments Briefly Ani­mat­ed

Kids (and Less Savvy Mar­keters) Imag­ine the Inter­net in 1995

Ayun Hal­l­i­day grav­i­tates toward the paper GIFs known as flip books. Fol­low her @AyunHalliday

No Women Need Apply: A Disheartening 1938 Rejection Letter from Disney Animation

in Animation | April 29th, 2013

Put your­self in the mind of an artis­tic young woman who goes to see Dis­ney’s Snow White and the Sev­en Dwarfs when it first opens in 1937. Cap­ti­vat­ed by the film’s ground­break­ing cel-based cin­e­mat­ic ani­ma­tion, under­stand­ing that it rep­re­sents the future of the art form, you feel you should pur­sue a career with a stu­dio your­self. Alas, in response to the let­ter of inquiry you send Dis­ney’s way, you receive the terse rejec­tion let­ter above. “Women do not do any of the cre­ative work in con­nec­tion with prepar­ing the car­toons for the screen,” it flat­ly states, “as that work is per­formed entire­ly by young men. For this rea­son girls are not con­sid­ered for the train­ing school.” Your only remain­ing hope? To aim low­er on the totem pole and become an “Inker” or “Painter,” but “it would not be advis­able to come to Hol­ly­wood with the above specif­i­cal­ly in view, as there are real­ly very few open­ings in com­par­i­son with the num­ber of girls who apply.”

Times have changed; women now cre­ate ani­ma­tion. But to catch a glimpse of the indus­try in decid­ed­ly pre-changed times, revis­it the 1939 pro­mo­tion­al doc­u­men­tary short How Walt Dis­ney Car­toons Are Made. In it, you’ll see these very young men hard at work, as well as those “pret­ty girls” hired to do ink­ing and col­or. Pre­war Dis­ney turned out some mas­ter­pieces, no doubt, but by today’s stan­dards their atti­tudes toward gen­der may leave some­thing to be desired. “This let­ter orig­i­nal­ly belonged to my grand­moth­er,” writes the user who dis­cov­ered the note above. “After she passed away we dis­cov­ered it and were sur­prised at how well it was pre­served for being near­ly 70 years old.” Young women like her, aspir­ing to high places in ani­ma­tion, found them­selves forced to find alter­nate routes in, although after receiv­ing that rejec­tion let­ter on that sta­tionery — embla­zoned with Snow White her­self, adding insult to injury — I would­n’t blame them for look­ing into oth­er fields entire­ly.

via Soci­o­log­i­cal Images & Mefi

Relat­ed con­tent:

How Walt Dis­ney Car­toons Are Made

Don­ald Duck Wants You to Pay Your Tax­es (1943)

Walt Dis­ney Presents the Super Car­toon Cam­era (1957)

Col­in Mar­shall hosts and pro­duces Note­book on Cities and Cul­ture and writes essays on lit­er­a­ture, film, cities, Asia, and aes­thet­ics. He’s at work on a book about Los Ange­les, A Los Ange­les Primer. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall.

Tilda Swinton and Barry White Lead 1500 People in Dance-Along to Honor Roger Ebert

in Film, Life, Music | April 26th, 2013

The rela­tion­ship of movie star to crit­ic isn’t always as par­a­sitic and fraught as you might imag­ine. Wit­ness Til­da Swin­ton bounc­ing around the Vir­ginia The­ater in Cham­paign Illi­nois, urg­ing audi­ence mem­bers to get up and dance in hon­or of the late Roger Ebert. (He gave high praise to Swin­ton’s 2009 film Julia, one of the offer­ings in this year’s Ebert­fest.)

Pri­or to leap­ing into the audi­ence to the strains of Bar­ry White’s “You’re the First, the Last, My Every­thing”, the actress decreed par­tic­i­pa­tion was manda­to­ry, no voyeurism allowed. With Ebert’s wid­ow, Chaz, bust­ing some seri­ous moves in sup­port, most of the 1500 atten­dees seemed con­tent to split the dif­fer­ence, cheer­ful­ly clap­ping along in their seats (though check out the grim “how long ’til we’re released from this hell” faces of the cou­ple in the bal­cony at the 4:10 mark).

Remem­ber White Men Can’t Jump? One is tempt­ed to tack on “or dance,” watch­ing the few game souls who tru­ly threw them­selves into the spir­it of the thing. No shame in that. It was, in Swin­ton’s words, a “spir­i­tu­al ser­vice”, not a tal­ent con­test. Sure­ly the biggest win­ners are the ones beam­ing breath­less­ly from the stage at song’s end. (Hon­or­able men­tion to any­one who’s inspired to nev­er again let a fear of embar­rass­ment lead to inac­tion.)

Life is beau­ti­ful. Life is short.

- Ayun Hal­l­i­day wish­es she had been there, for sure. Fol­low her @AyunHalliday

Mark Rothko is Toast … and More Edible Art from SFMOMA

in Art, Food & Drink | April 25th, 2013

If you head to SFMO­MA’s café on Third Street in San Fran­cis­co, you can order up some Damien Hirst “Amy­lamine” lemon vel­vet cake, Don­ald Judd toma­to soup, and Mark Rothko Toast. The Rothko Toast comes paint­ed with apri­cot but­ter along the top, and wild blue­ber­ry jam along the bot­tom, cre­at­ing an edi­ble imi­ta­tion of Rothko’s paint­ing known as “No. 14, 1960.” The paint­ing (see below) hangs at SFMOMA, the West Coast’s first muse­um devot­ed to 20th cen­tu­ry art.

via Boing­Bo­ing & sfist

A Middle-Eastern Version of Radiohead’s 1997 Hit “Karma Police”

in Music | April 24th, 2013

We’ve shown you Pak­istani musi­cians play­ing an amaz­ing ver­sion of Dave Brubeck’s Jazz Clas­sic, “Take Five”; also Jimi Hendrix’s ‘Voodoo Chile’ per­formed on a Gayageum (a tra­di­tion­al Kore­an instru­ment); and then the Talk­ing Heads’ “This Must Be the Place (Naive Melody)” played with  tra­di­tion­al Chi­nese instru­ments. There’s noth­ing bet­ter than these felic­i­tous meet­ings of east and west. So, today we present a Mid­dle-East­ern fla­vored ver­sion of Radio­head­’s 1997 hit “Kar­ma Police,” which orig­i­nal­ly appeared on the album OK Com­put­er. The video above fea­tures Tel Aviv-based singer Rotem She­fy on vocals, Leat Sab­bah on cel­lo, Yaniv Taich­man on the oud, and Ori Dekel on per­cus­sion. This video emerged from a Kick­starter cam­paign that was suc­cess­ful­ly fund­ed at the end of 2012.

If you would like to sup­port the mis­sion of Open Cul­ture, con­sid­er mak­ing a dona­tion to our site. It’s hard to rely 100% on ads, and your con­tri­bu­tions will help us con­tin­ue pro­vid­ing the best free cul­tur­al and edu­ca­tion­al mate­ri­als to learn­ers every­where. You can con­tribute through Pay­Pal, Patre­on, and Ven­mo (@openculture). Thanks!

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Radio­head-Approved, Fan-Made Film of the Band at Rose­land for 2011′s The King of Limbs Tour

Radiohead’s Thom Yorke Gives Teenage Girls Endear­ing Advice About Boys (And Much More)

Led Zeppelin Plays One of Its Earliest Concerts (Danish TV, 1969)

in Music, Television | April 24th, 2013

Here’s a great record of what Led Zep­pelin looked and sound­ed like in the first year of the band’s exis­tence. The date was March 17, 1969. The group’s debut album, Led Zep­pelin, had been out in Amer­i­ca for almost three months but would not be released in the UK for a cou­ple more weeks. Led Zep­pelin was on a tour of the UK and Scan­di­navia when they stopped by the TV-Byen stu­dios in Glad­saxe, Den­mark, a sub­urb of Copen­hagen, to play four songs from the new album:

1. “Com­mu­ni­ca­tion Break­down”
2. “Dazed and Con­fused”
3. “Babe I’m Gonna Leave You”
4. “How Many More Times”

Zep­pelin had only been togeth­er a lit­tle more than half a year when the TV show was record­ed (the band’s first gig, on Sep­tem­ber 7, 1968, also hap­pened to have been in Glad­saxe) but they sound tight. Some of the band’s trade­mark the­atrics are already in place, includ­ing Jim­my Page’s ethe­re­al vio­lin-bow gui­tar solo. Page is play­ing his clas­sic 1959 Fend­er Tele­cast­er, a gift from Jeff Beck that Page had paint­ed a drag­on on and used as his main gui­tar dur­ing his days with the Yard­birds. Only a month before this broad­cast, dur­ing Zep­pelin’s kick­off tour of Amer­i­ca, Joe Walsh had giv­en Page a Gib­son Les Paul. By the time Led Zep­pelin II was fin­ished, Page had switched to the Les Paul and basi­cal­ly retired the Tele­cast­er, though he played it on his famous 1971 solo in “Stair­way to Heav­en.”

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Jim­my Page, 13, Plays Gui­tar on BBC Tal­ent Show (1957)

‘Stair­way to Heav­en’: Watch a Mov­ing Trib­ute to Led Zep­pelin at The Kennedy Cen­ter

John Bonham’s Iso­lat­ed Drum Track For Led Zeppelin’s ‘Fool in the Rain’

Jim­my Page Tells the Sto­ry of Kash­mir

Inside Breaking Bad: Watch Conan O’Brien’s Extended Interview with the Show’s Cast and Creator

in Television | April 24th, 2013

“The Mad Men col­lec­tion at Banana Repub­lic is okay,” joked a com­e­dy-writer friend of mine, “but the Break­ing Bad col­lec­tion at TJ Maxx is to die for.” A fan­tas­tic line, for sure — though I would argue that Banana Repub­lic’s Mad Men col­lec­tion is not, in fact, okay — and one that high­lights just how wide a spec­trum of sen­si­bil­i­ty and set­ting this new wave of crit­i­cal­ly acclaimed cable tele­vi­sion offers us. Over the past half-decade, these two dra­mas, Mad Men set in the ear­ly six­ties’ high-fly­ing adver­tis­ing indus­try and Break­ing Bad set on the con­tem­po­rary New Mex­i­can meth-cook­ing scene, have togeth­er drawn the lion’s share of this acclaim. What’s more, they’ve both done it on AMC, the chan­nel whose pre­vi­ous ser­vice con­sist­ed pri­mar­i­ly of Audrey Hep­burn movies, served to your great aunt. Sure, maybe you’d expect from them a peri­od series some­thing like Mad Men. But the grit­ti­er, more trou­bling Break­ing Bad? How did all involved pull it off?

In the hour-long video above, the astute inves­ti­ga­tor known as Conan O’Brien leads a pan­el dis­cus­sion about the show fea­tur­ing, among sev­er­al oth­ers, cre­ator Vince Gilli­gan and star Bryan Cranston. From his web series Seri­ous Jib­ber-Jab­ber, on which he’s held in-depth con­ver­sa­tions with the likes of his­to­ri­an Edmund Mor­ris and sta­tis­ti­cian Nate Sil­ver, we’ve learned that Conan can do long-form inter­views and get answers to the impor­tant ques­tions. Here we have the impor­tant ques­tion — not least, nat­u­ral­ly, to AMC itself — of how Break­ing Bad became, in the words of var­i­ous crit­ics, a “taut exer­cise in with­held dis­as­ter,” a “feel-good show about feel­ing real­ly bad,” a “superla­tive­ly fresh metaphor for a mid­dle-age cri­sis” and a “com­bi­na­tion of stag­ger­ing and trans­fix­ing weird­ness” that “ele­vates the artis­tic achieve­ments of the medi­um,” ulti­mate­ly becom­ing “one of tele­vi­sion’s finest dra­mat­ic accom­plish­ments.” If these words strike you as hyper­bol­ic, watch the com­pi­la­tion just above that pro­files the long-term trans­for­ma­tion of Bryan Cranston’s pro­tag­o­nist Wal­ter White. Then you’ll want to watch the series, which ends this sum­mer, and add some words of your own.

Col­in Mar­shall hosts and pro­duces Note­book on Cities and Cul­ture and writes essays on lit­er­a­ture, film, cities, Asia, and aes­thet­ics. He’s at work on a book about Los Ange­les, A Los Ange­les Primer. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall.

Amazing Flipbook Animation Shows Off the Skills of Ronaldinho

in Animation, Sports | April 21st, 2013

Ronal­do de Assis Mor­eira, oth­er­wise sim­ply known as Ronald­in­ho, plays football/soccer for Atléti­co Mineiro and cur­rent­ly cap­tains the Brazil­ian nation­al team. And the artist ‘Etoilec1,’ whose real name remains obscure to us, cre­ates some amaz­ing flip­books, includ­ing this one that ani­mates Ronald­in­ho’s finest moments on the pitch. You can watch real high­lights of Ronald­in­ho’s foot­work here, and find more care­ful­ly wrought flip­books by Etoilec1 here.

via mefi

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Read the First Page of Thomas Pynchon’s New Novel, Bleeding Edge

in Books, Literature | April 21st, 2013

Click the image for a larg­er view. And if it does­n’t get large enough, click it again…

Pyn­chon. What to say? An all-night marathon read­ing of Gravity’s Rain­bow changed my brain chem­istry. A cou­ple days locked in a room with V altered my real­i­ty for­ev­er. I read the first chap­ter of Mason & Dixon. Bought and for­got a copy of Against the Day. Scanned a review of Inher­ent Vice.

So maybe the lat­er Pyn­chon hasn’t grabbed me, or my leisure read­ing time has just evap­o­rat­ed. Or both. I’m sure I’m not alone in this. But now we’ve got anoth­er chance to gape at the reclu­sive paranoiac’s labyrinthine prose, since his new nov­el Bleed­ing Edge comes out Sep­tem­ber 17th. And pub­lish­er Pen­guin has thrown us a morsel—you can read the first page of Bleed­ing Edge (above), from Penguin’s Fall 2013 cat­a­log.

Described as a “his­tor­i­cal romance on New York in the ear­ly days of the inter­net,” Bleed­ing Edge takes place in a pre-lapser­ian 2001, “in the lull between the col­lapse of the dot-com boom and the ter­ri­ble events of Sep­tem­ber 11th.” The nov­el promis­es plen­ty of intrigue, dark humor, lay­ers of occult fore­bod­ing, “lamen­ta­tions about the ’60s coun­ter­cul­ture,” and “shady fascis­tic orga­ni­za­tions with futur­is­tic names.”

Read the full descrip­tion of Bleed­ing Edge at Gothamist.

Josh Jones is a writer and musi­cian based in Wash­ing­ton, DC. Fol­low him @jdmagness

Ira Glass on the Art and Craft of Telling Great Radio Stories

in Media, Radio, Writing | April 20th, 2013

As tele­vi­sion news con­tin­ues its pathet­ic slide into the abyss of celebri­ty wor­ship, polit­i­cal par­ti­san­ship and 24-hour pun­dit­ry, its encour­ag­ing to note that in one area of tra­di­tion­al broad­cast­ing there is actu­al­ly some­thing of a renais­sance going on. Pub­lic radio is buck­ing the trend with pro­grams like Radi­o­lab and This Amer­i­can life, shows that do noth­ing to con­firm our bias­es, but instead engage our curios­i­ty and teach us some­thing new.

In this fun­ny and thought-pro­vok­ing talk from the 2007 Gel Con­fer­ence, Ira Glass, host of This Amer­i­can Life, explains a lit­tle of what goes into a good radio sto­ry.  “Nar­ra­tive,” he says, “is basi­cal­ly a machine that’s rais­ing ques­tions and answer­ing them.” Glass’s talk is very much like his radio show. In exchange for a lit­tle patience, you will be reward­ed with a good sto­ry and per­haps an insight or two.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Ken Burns on the Art of Sto­ry­telling: “It’s Lying Twen­ty-Four Times a Sec­ond”

The Moth Now Streams its Bril­liant & Qui­et­ly Addic­tive Sto­ries on the Web

Ira Glass on Why Cre­ative Excel­lence Takes Time