Monthly Archives: April 2009

Audio Poem: Ode to a Nightingale

by Editor

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For the last day of National Poetry Month 2009, here’s a reading of Ode to a Nightingale, by English poet John Keats.  It was written in 1819 after the poet had been listening to a nightingale in the yard of a friend one morning.

Here is the text of the poem:

My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains
My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk,
Or emptied some dull opiate to the drains
One minute past, and Lethe-wards had sunk:
‘Tis not through envy of thy happy lot,
But being too happy in thine happiness, –
That thou, light-winged Dryad of the trees,
In some melodious plot
Of beechen green and shadows numberless,
Singest of summer in full-throated ease.

Continue reading …

Manifestations: Gorgeous Student Animation

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Wow!  Look at this.  Manifestations is a film by Giles Timms at the UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television.  He made this with Flash, TVPaint, and After Effects.  The imagery is beautiful and layered.  I always like colorful fuzzy things with lots of darkness and transparency.  The film seems to be about a little non-human character who is in love with a human and goes across a world and through many battles both modern and ancient to find his love.

Flight to Mars: Science Fiction Trailer

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This is a 1950 movie trailer for Flight to Mars.  It’s a grade B science fiction pulp adventure about an expedition to mars that encounters an underground civilization.  I think it actually has a very nice look with lots of color, great sets and fantastic costumes.

By the way, if you like pulpy sci-fi and Mars, head over to our ongoing Princess of Mars podcast.

Noteboek: A Tricky Hand-Drawn Live-Action Film

by Editor

Noteboek is one of those films that illustrate what personal filmmaking is. It’s an artist’s hand-made, direct expression. Evelien Lohbeck is the performer and animator in this little gem. There’s something a little Chaplin-like in her clever tricks with drawings and food. I love the part where she’s reflected in the drawing in her notebook. This is really excellent and gently humorous work.

White House Terrorizes New York City

by Editor

The Obama administration has committed what amounts to an act of terrorism.  The president’s Air Force One backup plane was flown low in banking circles around lower Manhattan, trailed by an F16 fighter plane that appeared to most observers to be giving chase.  In an FAA memo released today it became clear that the administration knew the flight could cause panic in New York but threatened the New York City police and the mayor’s office with federal sanctions if they let the secret get out into the public.  The president has since apologized and said that he is furious and had no knowledge of the flight.  But it’s his plane.

I am becoming increasingly concerned that my support of Mr. Obama may have contributed to placing an absolute incompetent in the office of president.  An act like this shockingly callous flyover simply beggars belief.  Having lived in New York City for ten years, I know that if you manage to send thousands of New Yorkers running out of their buildings screaming in terror, you have really done something profoundly frightening.  New Yorkers are a hardy lot and have a real ‘been there seen that’ attitude.  These people were terrified at what was happening in the sky above them.  The windows of their buildings were shaking because the plane came in so low.  It came right at them!  The White House says it was for a ‘photo-op’ so that they could take pictures of their airplane with the Statue of Liberty behind it.  Seriously!  These people are running the United States.

I think that the hero-worship of Mr. Obama needs to end immediately and we need to ascertain just exactly what is going on here.  The NBC video above which shows Obama’s press secretary saying ‘I don’t know’ about the flight is very scary.  Perhaps Mr. Obama will consider parking a yellow rental truck in front of an Oklahoma federal building next week for a ‘photo-op.’  That should help build his reputation there, don’t you think?

By the way, NBC news anchor, Brian Williams is furious too and thinks somebody should pay for what happened.

75 Ways to Draw More: Advice for People Who Don’t Draw

by Editor

Michael Nobbs has posted a little booklet on Flickr that has a list of 75 ways to draw more.  Interesting concept.  But of course it should go without saying that if you need to read a list of 75 ways to find more time to draw, you probably should be doing something else anyway.

I think the main information to take away from an illustrated list like this is from the illustrations that show you how to print the list out.  What they show you is that you can just look at an object and start drawing lines on a piece of paper.  Something will emerge.  It might be messy.  It might be neat.  That will be your drawing.  I call this little piece of advice ‘1 way to draw less.’

Drawing Words and Writing Pictures: Making Comics

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Drawing Words and Writing Pictures: Making Comics: Manga, Graphic Novels, and Beyond

This is a book by Jessica Abel and Matt Madden that leads the reader through a full tutorial in writing and drawing comics. It includes many examples and information about what materials to use for your comics. There are 15 lessons in all which cover everything from writing your story, to laying out your panels, to lettering for dialog.

Travels of Thelonious: Graphic Novel for Young Readers

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thelonious2Travels of Thelonious (Fog Mound)

This is a beautiful graphic novel written by Susan Schade and illustrated by Jon Buller for readers 9 – 12 years old. It’s about a post-apocalyptic world in which humans are gone and only exist in legends and in the artifacts of their once-great civilizations. After being swept away by a flood, Thelonious finds himself in a city filled with criminal animals. As he tries to find his way home again he discovers clues about what happened to all the humans.

The Hunt for Gollum: Lord of the Rings Fan Film

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The Hunt for Gollum is a 40-minute fan-made film that will be available for free downloading on May 3, 2009.  The film was made through open collaboration of enthusiastic fans working under the leadership of director Chris Bouchard.  The all-volunteer production looks so much like a Peter Jackson LOTR movie that it’s almost scary.  One wonders why all the big budget money was spent if the films could have been produced by this crew of hard-working talented volunteers!  This film looks like it’s going to be a serious lot of fun and will be a great addition to the LOTR world for its fans.

Podcast of Henry David Thoreau on Poetry and Writing

by Editor

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In 1839, Henry David Thoreau and his brother made a river voyage in a boat that they built themselves. This voyage became the subject of Thoreau’s first book, A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers, published in 1849 at his own expense. In this thirty-three minute excerpt, Thoreau finds himself describing the incredible beauty and serenity of the natural scene around him. But his mind wanders into a profound examination of poetry and the requirements of good writing. His call to man for a life of poetry and his demand that writers create simply from an impulse to action are powerful and true. I don’t think there is a better piece of advice that exists for writers and readers alike.

Thoreau frequently quotes from Homer’s Iliad and other sources in this piece. I have tried to separate his quotes with pauses and a change in reading tone. You might want to glance at the actual words as you listen for clarification.

Here is the text of the reading:

What would we not give for some great poem to read now, which
would be in harmony with the scenery,–for if men read aright,
methinks they would never read anything but poems. No history nor
philosophy can supply their place.

Continue reading …

Podcast Novel: A Princess of Mars (Chapter 4)

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A Princess of Mars

This is the first John Carter of Mars novel by Edgar Rice Burroughs, the author of the Tarzan books. It was his first novel, published in 1917 and it’s a work of rip-roaring science fiction that has inspired many of the great writers in the genre.

Chapter 4: John Carter is a prisoner of the strange martians.  He is taken to a magnificent structure where he is introduced under strange circumstances to a leader of the martian warriors.

You’ll find regular podcasts of all the chapters over the next couple of months. Subscribe to our feed.

Duration: 00:12:54
Read by Alessandro Cima

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