Paris in (Stop) Motion

in Random | July 31st, 2012

Thanks to Mayeul Akpovi, we’ll always have Paris.…

via Devour

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Le Fla­neur: Time Lapse Video of Paris With­out the Peo­ple

It’s 5:46 A.M. and Paris Is Under Water

Tui­leries: A Short, Slight­ly Twist­ed Film by Joel and Ethan Coen

Neil deGrasse Tyson’s StarTalk Radio Show Podcast Tackles the History of Video Games

in Physics, Podcasts, Science | July 31st, 2012

Neil deGrasse Tyson has a pod­cast. I repeat, Neil deGrasse Tyson has a pod­cast. If you’re unfa­mil­iar (and you shouldn’t be), Tyson is Astro­physi­cist-in-res­i­dence at New York’s Nat­ur­al His­to­ry Muse­um and Direc­tor of its Hay­den Plan­e­tar­i­um. He’s also the most promi­nent advo­cate for a revi­tal­ized U.S. space pro­gram. Okay, back to the pod­cast. As an avid con­sumer of every sci­ence-based pod­cast out there, I can tell you that the StarTalk Radio Show (iTunes — Feed — Web Site) has quick­ly risen to the top of my list. The very per­son­able Tyson is the big draw, but he has also made the wise deci­sion to include “come­di­an co-hosts, celebri­ties, and oth­er spe­cial guests.” In the episode right below, Tyson and come­di­an Eugene Mir­man (whom you might rec­og­nize as the voice of Gene from Bob’s Burg­ers) mix it up with video game design­er Will Wright and author Jeff Ryan.

Ryan’s Super Mario: How Nin­ten­do Con­quered Amer­i­ca—and the his­to­ry of video games more generally—is the top­ic of the show. Despite the less-than-stel­lar audio qual­i­ty, this is not to be missed. The con­ver­sa­tion is rapid-fire: Mir­man inter­jects hilar­i­ous inani­ties while Wright and Ryan speed through the fas­ci­nat­ing his­to­ry and Tyson throws knuck­le­ball ques­tions and enthus­es (at 4:30) that the “first real video game,” Space Wars, was about, what else, space. We also get the his­to­ry of the unfor­get­table Pong (at 5:59), the orig­i­nal Star Wars game (at 8:17), and, nat­u­ral­ly, Don­key Kong (at 3:19), designed by the now wild­ly famous (in Japan, at least) Shigeru Miyamo­to–who also invent­ed Mario, and who had nev­er designed a game in his life before Don­key Kong. All this and some clas­sic 8‑bit video game music to boot.

StarTalk in gen­er­al has much to rec­om­mend it. Tyson is the “nation’s fore­most expert on space,” and is prob­a­bly instant­ly rec­og­niz­able from his host­ing of NOVA sci­en­ceNow and his best­selling books. He is the pub­lic face of a sci­en­tif­ic com­mu­ni­ty often in need of good press, and he has the rare abil­i­ty to trans­late abstruse con­cepts to the gen­er­al pub­lic in a humor­ous and approach­able way. Pre­vi­ous guest­s/­co-hosts have includ­ed Janeane Garo­fa­lo (in the “most argu­men­ta­tive Startalk pod­cast ever”) and John Hodg­man (of the Dai­ly Show and the “Mac vs. PC” ads). But above all, c’mon, it’s Neil deGrasse Tyson. The man deserved­ly has his own inter­net meme, inspired by his dra­mat­ic ges­tures in this video dis­cus­sion of Isaac New­ton from Big Think.

Enough said.

Watch the full Big Think inter­view with Tyson here. And don’t for­get to sub­scribe to the StarTalk Radio Show (iTunes — Feed — Web Site).

Josh Jones is a doc­tor­al can­di­date in Eng­lish at Ford­ham Uni­ver­si­ty and a co-founder and for­mer man­ag­ing edi­tor of Guer­ni­ca / A Mag­a­zine of Arts and Pol­i­tics.

Star Trek Celebrities, William Shatner and Wil Wheaton, Narrate Mars Landing Videos for NASA

in Astronomy, Sci Fi, Television | July 31st, 2012

NASA and Star Trek — they’ve been joined at the hip for decades. Back in 1972, when NASA launched its very first space shut­tle, they called it the Enter­prise, a clear nod to the star­ship made famous by the 1960s TV show. In 2011, NASA brought the space shut­tle pro­gram to a close, and they fit­ting­ly asked William Shat­ner to nar­rate an 80 minute film doc­u­ment­ing the his­to­ry of the auda­cious space pro­gram. (Watch it here.)

Now we’re one week away from anoth­er NASA mile­stone — the land­ing of the rover Curios­i­ty on Mars — which can mean only one thing. William Shat­ner’s back, and he’s pre­view­ing the action that lies ahead. First the Curios­i­ty’s dif­fi­cult land­ing, the so-called Sev­en Min­utes of Ter­ror. And then the rover’s mis­sion on the Red Plan­et. Shat­ner’s clip will give geeks north of 40 a lit­tle nerdgasm. For younger geeks (said affec­tion­ate­ly), NASA has Wil Wheaton, the star of Star Trek: The Next Gen­er­a­tion, read­ing the same script. You can watch it below.

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Andrei Tarkovsky’s Voyage in Time: A Portrait of the Filmmaker in Exile

in Film | July 30th, 2012

By 1982 Andrei Tarkovsky’s bat­tles with Sovi­et cen­sors had reached the point where he could no longer work in his native coun­try. This rarely seen doc­u­men­tary shows the great Russ­ian film­mak­er tread­ing unfa­mil­iar ground as he trav­els across south­ern Italy in search of loca­tions for his first film in exile, Nos­tal­ghia.

Voy­age in Time (Tiem­po di Viag­gio) is less about the Ital­ian coun­try­side than Tarkovsky’s inner land­scape, as he strug­gles to express his views on film­mak­ing and art to Toni­no Guer­ra, his co-writer on Nos­tal­ghia. Guer­ra, who died ear­li­er this year, was a leg­endary Ital­ian screen­writer. He col­lab­o­rat­ed with Michelan­ge­lo Anto­nioni on many of his great­est films, includ­ing L’Avven­tu­ra, La Notte, and Blow-Up, and with Fed­eri­co Felli­ni on sev­er­al of his lat­er films, includ­ing Amar­cord. The 63-minute film was pro­duced for Ital­ian tele­vi­sion and com­plet­ed in 1983, the same year as Nos­tal­ghia, with Tarkovsky and Guer­ra shar­ing the direct­ing cred­it. Voy­age in Time has been added to our col­lec­tion of Free Tarkovsky Films Online.

Note: If you don’t auto­mat­i­cal­ly see sub­ti­tles, click CC at the bot­tom of the YouTube win­dow.

Relat­ed con­tent:

Tarkovsky’s Solaris Revis­it­ed

Andrei Tarkovsky’s Very First Films: Three Stu­dent Films, 1956–1960

Wim Wenders Creates Ads to Sell Beer (Stella Artois), Pasta (Barilla), and More Beer (Carling)

in Film, Television | July 30th, 2012

Few would call Wim Wen­ders, the auteur behind Paris, Texas, Wings of Desire, The Bue­na Vista Social Club, and last year’s doc­u­men­tary Pina, a “com­mer­cial” direc­tor. Yet he has, now and again, put in time as a direc­tor of com­mer­cials — adver­tise­ments, that is, for beer, food, and cam­eras. His per­son­al hymn to Leica’s crafts­man­ship aside (“As a boy,” he nar­rates, “I looked at my father’s Leica like a sacred object”), these spots don’t imme­di­ate­ly betray the iden­ti­ty of the man at the helm. Even if you’ve seen many of Wen­ders’ fea­ture films, you might not guess that he made these com­mer­cials if you just hap­pened upon them; you would, though, feel their dif­fer­ence in sen­si­bil­i­ty from the ads sur­round­ing them. The Stel­la Artois clip above includes sev­er­al atten­tion-draw­ing tele­vi­sion tropes like a pic­turesque Euro­pean coast, fast cars and motor­cy­cles, vin­tage musi­cal instru­ments, alco­hol, and fem­i­nin­i­ty, but it approach­es them in a non­stan­dard way — one that, con­se­quen­tial­ly, actu­al­ly stands a chance of draw­ing your atten­tion.

“There’s a cer­tain amount of objects that men like a lot,” says Wen­ders in a short doc­u­men­tary on the mak­ing of the com­mer­cial, “and they like them so much that they give them their girl­friends’ names.” We see first a motor­cy­cle named Sophie, then a con­vert­ible named Vic­to­ria, then a gui­tar named Valerie, then a beer — Stel­la. We nev­er see any actu­al women, or, for that mat­ter, any men; just places and things. Wen­ders imbues the sequence with human­i­ty through the cam­er­a’s gaze, and the behind-the-scenes footage shows it as no easy task, requir­ing take after pre­cise­ly lit take shot with cam­eras mount­ed on elab­o­rate mechan­i­cal arms that look more expen­sive than the trea­sured objects them­selves. (It also requires the direc­tor to issue instruc­tions in no few­er than three lan­guages, though I under­stand that as busi­ness as usu­al on a Wen­ders set.) For an entire­ly dif­fer­ent per­spec­tive on beer, watch his spot for Car­ling that involves bicy­cling over a water­fall. For a more epic take on the rela­tion­ship between mankind and machin­ery, watch what he put togeth­er for food con­glom­er­ate Bar­il­la’s 125th anniver­sary.

Relat­ed con­tent:

Wes Anderson’s New Com­mer­cials Sell the Hyundai Azera

Fellini’s Fan­tas­tic TV Com­mer­cials

David Lynch’s Sur­re­al Com­mer­cials

Jean-Luc Godard’s After-Shave Com­mer­cial for Schick

Col­in Mar­shall hosts and pro­duces Note­book on Cities and Cul­ture. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall.

The Strawberry Fields Forever Demos: The Making of a Beatles Classic (1966)

in Music | July 30th, 2012

In 1966, John Lennon found him­self in Almería, Spain work­ing on Richard Lester’s film, How I Won the War. Between shots, he began writ­ing Straw­ber­ry Fields For­ev­er, a song Lennon lat­er called “psy­cho­analy­sis set to music” and “one of the few true songs I ever wrote.” Although the song became one of the Bea­t­les’ most refined and intri­cate record­ings, it start­ed off sim­ply, with Lennon try­ing out lyrics and chords on his acoustic gui­tar, then record­ing solo demos upon his return to Eng­land. Lis­ten above.

Once the Bea­t­les start­ed record­ing the song in Novem­ber, 1966, the band spent at least 45 hours, spaced over a month, work­ing through new ver­sions. Around and around they went, tweak­ing, pol­ish­ing, record­ing new takes, try­ing to get it right. Even­tu­al­ly the song, as we know it, came togeth­er when George Mar­tin, the Bea­t­les’ pro­duc­er, pulled off the “Big Edit,” a tech­no­log­i­cal feat that involved speed­ing up one record­ing and slow­ing down anoth­er and fus­ing them into the song we know today. (Amaz­ing­ly, the two tracks were record­ed in dif­fer­ent keys and tem­pos.) Straw­ber­ry Fields For­ev­er was released as a dou­ble A‑side sin­gle in Feb­ru­ary 1967 along with Pen­ny Lane, and it was accom­pa­nied by a pro­mo­tion­al film, a pre­cur­sor to music videos we know and love today. You can watch it below.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Here Comes The Sun: The Lost Gui­tar Solo by George Har­ri­son

The Mak­ing of “Tomor­row Nev­er Knows”

Gui­tarist Randy Bach­man Demys­ti­fies the Open­ing Chord of ‘A Hard Day’s Night’

The Bea­t­les’ Rooftop Con­cert: The Last Gig

Great Cities at Night: Views from the International Space Station

in Astronomy | July 26th, 2012

Dur­ing his time on the Inter­na­tion­al Space Sta­tion (ISS), astro­naut Don Pet­tit endeared him­self to me in two ways. First, he invent­ed a handy-dandy “zero‑g cof­fee cup” that lets you drink cof­fee in space with­out using a straw — some­thing we’ll all hope­ful­ly use one day. Next, between 2002 and 2008, he took some strik­ing images of great cities and their lights shin­ing at night. The open­ing min­utes explain how the shots were actu­al­ly tak­en. Then, at the 1:45 mark, the tour begins. Zurich, Milan, Madrid, Athens, Lon­don, Cairo (includ­ing the Pyra­mids), Jerusalem, Mec­ca, Tokyo, Sao Paulo, San Fran­cis­co, Las Vegas (the bright­est spot on earth) — they’re all includ­ed on the tour.

Pet­tit nar­rates the entire video. And, along the way, he takes care to under­score an inter­est­ing point — each cul­ture cre­ates its cities in its own way, using dif­fer­ent­ly geo­graph­ic lay­outs and tech­nolo­gies. Those dif­fer­ences we can see on the ground from one per­spec­tive, and from out­er space from yet anoth­er van­tage point.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Neil deGrasse Tyson Explains What Hap­pens If You Fall into a Black Hole

The Auro­ra Bore­alis Viewed from Orbit (and What Cre­ates Those North­ern Lights?)

What a Hur­ri­cane Looks Like From Out­er Space

The Science of the Olympic Flame; Ancient Style Meets Modern Technology

in History, Science, Video - Science | July 26th, 2012

For all the recent scan­dal and the trau­ma of past Games, the Olympics remain a pageant of grandeur and glo­ry, and there is no greater sym­bol of its ideals than the Olympic Flame. The video above, from the Ontario Sci­ence Cen­tre, explains the evolv­ing tech­nol­o­gy that keeps the flame burn­ing from its light­ing to the clos­ing cer­e­monies. It’s a pret­ty cool sto­ry, set to a bom­bas­tic sound­track wor­thy of its sub­ject and car­ried by an ani­mat­ed run­ner who just peeled him­self off of an ancient Athen­ian vase.

Intro­duced in the 1928 Sum­mer Olympics in Ams­ter­dam, the flame revives a sym­bol from antiq­ui­ty, com­mem­o­rat­ing Prometheus’s audac­i­ty and remind­ing war­ring city states to put aside hos­til­i­ties for as long as it burned. In the mod­ern Olympics, between the light­ing and the open­ing cer­e­monies, the flame, in its styl­ized torch, makes a pil­grim­age to the host city via relay, a prac­tice that began with the 1936 games in Berlin. This year’s relay start­ed on May 19^th in Land’s End in Corn­wall and ends this Fri­day, the 27^th at the open­ing cer­e­mo­ny in Lon­don. The torch will have trav­eled through 1,000 places in the UK, cov­ered a total of 8,000 miles (and pass­ing through 8,000 hands), mov­ing over land, air, and water, with­out once hav­ing to be relit.

Fol­low us on Face­book, Twit­ter and now Google Plus and share intel­li­gent media with your friends! We’ll thank you for it.

Martin Scorsese Appears in New Apple Ad with Siri, Plays on His Chilling Cameo in Taxi Driver

in Business, Film, Television | July 25th, 2012

In 1976, Mar­tin Scors­ese made a chill­ing cameo appear­ance in his thriller, Taxi Dri­ver. Per­haps you remem­ber the scene: Play­ing a beard­ed, name­less char­ac­ter, Scors­ese enters a cab, boss­es the dri­ver around for a while, then pro­ceeds to explain, in an uncom­fort­ably mat­ter of fact way, how he plans to kill his wife. It’ll make your hair stand on end. In a new com­mer­cial for Apple, Scors­ese plays a bossy back-seat rid­er again. But this time, there’s no killing involved, just shilling. It’s an ad for Apple’s iPhone, and it’s the lat­est in a new series of ads fea­tur­ing celebs like Zooey Deschan­nel, Samuel Jack­son and John Malkovich.

Of course, the par­al­lel between the Siri ad and the 1976 film was spot­ted by Roger Ebert. All props to him.

P.S.: In case you think we’re see­ing a par­al­lel that does­n’t actu­al­ly exist, it’s worth not­ing that both cabs have the same num­ber. Great spot by @sinyc.

John Cleese Explains the Brain

in Comedy, Television | July 25th, 2012

We all know John Cleese can be fun­ny, but watch his dis­cus­sion of the human brain above and wit­ness how adroit­ly he can rise to the occa­sion when it comes to a seri­ous sub­ject. The clip comes from a video pod­cast in which he starred from 2006 to 2009, and which dealt with the big top­ics: sci­ence, God, the monar­chy, and air­line ser­vice, to name but four. (He fol­lowed it up with the Head­cast.) Here, Cleese dons a lab coat to solemn­ly explain, in an eru­dite and high­ly tech­ni­cal man­ner, the work­ings of our gray mat­ter. I mean, I assume that’s what he’s explain­ing; being untrained in neu­ro­science, I sup­pose there’s a chance I can’t tell whether he might sim­ply be engag­ing in that rich British satir­i­cal tra­di­tion of appear­ing to say a great deal of the utmost impor­tance while actu­al­ly say­ing noth­ing at all, in lan­guage bare­ly even rec­og­niz­able as made up of words.

You can see Cleese in a dif­fer­ent mode in anoth­er van­ish­ing­ly short-form video, the new DirecTV com­mer­cial. Speak­ing with blunt sim­plic­i­ty, he pitch­es the satel­lite tele­vi­sion provider’s ser­vice pack­age in the char­ac­ter of a wealthy Eng­lish­man engaged in a vari­ety of increas­ing­ly absurd wealthy-Eng­lish­man activ­i­ties: sit­ting fire­side in a volu­mi­nous smok­ing jack­et, receiv­ing a mas­sage on the hood of his Bent­ley, prac­tic­ing indoor archery, din­ing upon a lob­ster the size of the table. As an exam­i­na­tion of the aris­toc­ra­cy, Grand Illu­sion it ain’t; it does, how­ev­er, shed some light on Cleese’s dis­tinc­tive comedic skills. In both of these videos, Cleese uses a seri­ous demeanor to his advan­tage, but his decades of expe­ri­ence allow him to use dif­fer­ent nuances of seri­ous­ness appro­pri­ate to each per­for­ma­tive occa­sion. He has his fun­ni­est moments when he assumes the char­ac­ter­is­tics of the per­fect­ly humor­less, hav­ing mas­tered and long resided in that lim­i­nal state between laugh­ter and stul­ti­fi­ca­tion, irony and straight­for­ward­ness, that the most respect­ed British come­di­ans have made their own.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

John Cleese Plays the Dev­il, Makes a Spe­cial Appeal for Hell, 1966

John Cleese on the Ori­gin of Cre­ativ­i­ty

John Cleese, Mon­ty Python Icon, on How to Be Cre­ative

Mon­ty Python’s Away From it All: A Twist­ed Trav­el­ogue with John Cleese

Col­in Mar­shall hosts and pro­duces Note­book on Cities and Cul­ture. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall.