South African artist William Kentridge made this film in 1996. It concerns the recognition of white guilt expressed through the medical investigation of a real estate magnate as he lies in a hospital bed. Kentridge makes his films by drawing and erasing in charcoal. He photographs each alteration to create movement.
Author Archives: Editor
Animation: Machine Gun
From Super Electric Video comes a music video for a new single, Machine Gun, by Noisia. Hands rule the world and get nasty and destroy everything.
Via Dangerous Minds
Animation: Vegeterrible
Did you know this was going on inside your fridge? I think not. These terrible rotten avocados should be dealt with harshly. Henrik Sønniksen made this short and sweet animation that’s full of action and humor.
Podcast Novel: Pirate Jack (Chapter 14)
This book contains pirate battles, violence and death. Please use your judgment before playing for very young children.
Here’s a free podcast of our fantastic pirate adventure novel written for young readers. It’s got hidden scrolls, time travel, ships, battles, navigation, gold, islands, jungles and helicopters in it.
You can purchase the paperback from Barnes & Noble (Price: $11.95)
You can also get it on Scribd.com as a download for just $1.99
Description:
Young Jack Spencer sees his father’s boat-building business destroyed by a powerful land developer. Then Jack unearths three ancient scrolls that propel him on a dangerous adventure through time in search of a pirate treasure.
When Jack finds himself aboard the pirate ship Revenge with Captain Jameson’s crew, he enters a life or death world of ship battles, jungle islands, prison escapes, gold, and treachery.
Set during the golden age of Caribbean piracy, Pirate Jack combines rollicking adventure with the moving story of a boy’s love for his father and a courageous effort to save a way of life.
Get all the chapters of the book podcast here.
You’ll find regular podcasts of all the chapters over the next couple of months. Subscribe to our feed.
This book is read by the author.
All audio stories are Copyright © Candlelight Stories, Inc., All Rights Reserved.
Reading On a Kindle Is a Pleasure
After two years of reading reviews, watching products come out and compete, listening to people gripe about DRM and ebook pricing, I jumped directly into the fray and opted for the Kindle from Amazon.
Cartoon Supporting Student Protesters in Iran
Simon Ampel made this animation to support the student protest movement against the barbaric and brutal religious government of Iran. It’s very well done and it drives its message home.
CAConrad – Wicked Philadelphia Poet on a Roof
Mature Poetic Content: If you think this shouldn’t exist here in this site, well… sorry, but this site switched tracks long ago. You just didn’t know it.
When I see a recitation
from a poet
I want to intervene
Drag him into a street fight
Crack a crutch
across his head
It’s attempted
resuscitation~Editor
Well, I think I’ve just been punched in the mouth. Wouldn’t have it any other way. I keep looking for mean mad poets. This guy’s one I think. He’s doing his Beatles impersonation on a frozen roof in Philadelphia and he’s wearing purple. He seems to be someone who could knock me down and I’d know I’d been treated gently. This guy’s poetry sounds wicked and mad and full of love at the same time. It’s the kind of thing I’d read over and over again. His poetry is like something he’d say in a room without thinking much about it. I love the thing about Poe and his bones and Frank answering in a different voice at the 10:50 mark. Ha ha! Love that. That’s what it’s all about isn’t it? Saying it back as if you’re the guy. It’s how you travel in time and make magic happen. It’s the hidden art. I know a lot about that poem. So, okay, there’s a poet in Philadelphia who’s not afraid of the snow and keeps a fur hat on top of his head. I’ll be looking for this guy and reading his books. He’s CAConrad. You can buy his The Book of Frank here.
I found this via the ever-pernicious Silliman’s Blog.
Barnes & Noble Nook is a Dreadful Failure
I’ve been so waiting with my bated breath and all for this magical Nook machine from Barnes & Noble. I was in a right dither tonight about an hour and a half ago as I shoved my reading glasses into my pocket, put my regular glasses on my face and piled into my car for the short ride to my nearest Barnes & Noble bookseller. But I stopped first at the Lenscrafters to run in and have them adjust my frames because my glasses are so new and have been drifting over lopsided all week. So the woman there fixed them up nicely and shined them good. Then I drove on toward my Nook encounter.
The store had a lone unit attached to an anti-theft device that scared the hell out of me because I tend to demonstrate new devices to myself until nearby customers think I’m a lunatic and I certainly didn’t want to raise any alarms. The Nook said, ‘Press the Power Button to Wake Up.’ I spun the device around several times until I located said button embedded in the upper edge of the Nook. I pressed it.
I waited.
Then I pressed it perhaps fourteen or fifteen times to try and make something wake up. Then the screen went through a series of blinks, flashes and some rather frightening symbols appeared and then disappeared. And then the machine said, ‘Press the Power Button to Wake Up.’
Podcast Novel: Pirate Jack (Chapter 13)
This book contains pirate battles, violence and death. Please use your judgment before playing for very young children.
Here’s a free podcast of our fantastic pirate adventure novel written for young readers. It’s got hidden scrolls, time travel, ships, battles, navigation, gold, islands, jungles and helicopters in it.
You can purchase the paperback from Barnes & Noble (Price: $11.95)
You can also get it on Scribd.com as a download for just $1.99
Description:
Young Jack Spencer sees his father’s boat-building business destroyed by a powerful land developer. Then Jack unearths three ancient scrolls that propel him on a dangerous adventure through time in search of a pirate treasure.
When Jack finds himself aboard the pirate ship Revenge with Captain Jameson’s crew, he enters a life or death world of ship battles, jungle islands, prison escapes, gold, and treachery.
Set during the golden age of Caribbean piracy, Pirate Jack combines rollicking adventure with the moving story of a boy’s love for his father and a courageous effort to save a way of life.
You’ll find regular podcasts of all the chapters over the next couple of months. Subscribe to our feed.
This book is read by the author.
All audio stories are Copyright © Candlelight Stories, Inc., All Rights Reserved.
What’s Wrong with Scientology’s Ideas?
I am impervious to the persuasions of all clubs, organizations and religions. I’ve read the entire Old Testament and know that god has never spoken a single word to any living human being in history. I’ve been in terribly close proximity to Catholic priests for extended periods of time, argued with them and sat gritting my teeth through their best attempts at mass. You can burn all the bushes in my backyard and come down the hill with as many tablets as you like and I’ll know you’re a damned fake. So I can watch L. Ron Hubbard speak through all six parts of the interview above and have not the slightest fear of showing up in a Scientology storefront with my wallet out. However, I don’t really see anything terribly wrong with what Hubbard says in the interview. What’s all the Scientology warfare really about?
Animation: The Cowherd’s Flute
Chinese animator Te Wei made this film, The Cowherd’s Flute, in 1963. The boy plays a magnificent flute, then he falls asleep in a tree and dreams about losing his water buffalo. How does he find his friend again?
I found this via Cartoon Brew.
Fake Artist Sues Photographer for Taking Pics of Public Sidewalk Art
Some abject fool of an artist named Jack Mackie made a deal with the city of Seattle to embed an artwork called Dancers’ Series: Steps into a sidewalk back in 1979. Then a photographer named Mike Hipple went and did a logical thing; he took a photograph of a public sidewalk with the artwork in it. Now the nitwit fraudulent artist is suing him for using his artwork in a photograph! It’s jackasses like this Mackie dude that need to be put out of business. By this jerk’s reasoning I would have to pay royalties to all of the architects responsible for the design of every single building in the Manhattan skyline if I took a photograph of New York. Ridiculous! This fool is an insult to artists and intellectual property courts all over the country.
The only good thing about this Jack Mackie art is that people get to step on it.
I have an idea for a great photograph. Someone goes up to Seattle with a jackhammer for a 4:00 am dig-and-run operation then takes a photograph of the hole that’s left and its caption reads, ‘Please Fill This Hole.’
And this would be something to do to every public artwork attached to a moronic lawsuit like Mr. Mackie’s. Every time one of these lawsuits is filed, destroy the artwork. Eventually, corporate midgets like Jack Mackie will go away.
And another thing, Mr. Mackie, I recognize the concrete incorporated in your artwork on the sidewalk. It’s extremely distinctive. My uncle owns the mill that made that concrete and he will expect to be compensated for the use of his concrete in your public artwork. You owe him $600,000. He’s coming to collect. His name is Lou. Smile when you open the door.
Hazardous Players Tell Tales of Hilarious Chivalry
What we have here is an enormous tale of medieval chivalry, dragon lore, heraldry, round-tableness, and the insane goings-on of knights and their goonish glory. The magnificent squad of funny men behind these tales of audio craziness call themselves The Hazardous Players. Their ongoing comic production is a series of tales called Knighttime, which follows the lunatic adventures of Sirs Cottington and Bratwurst through the kingdom of Udenland.
Give a listen to the first episode, called The Problem in Pimpleton – Act I:
The audio stories are full of eccentricity reminiscent of Monty Python, Firesign Theater, Shakespeare, Douglas Adams,Terry Prachette and Christopher Moore. They contain great bits of self-referential humor and constantly break out of the stories to comment on the very story that they find themselves in. Characters do odd things like take breaks to go off to the bathroom. They get enthusiastic when the laugh track goes off and start playing to the audience for more laughs. It’s hilarious and engages the listener in the wonderful world of pure storytelling. This kind of silliness that works so well is very hard to find and makes the Web a pure joy when you do find it.
The Hazardous Players have built a web site (www.hazardousplayers.com) around their world of funny characters, complete with sketches and a blog that chronicles various happenings in their story kingdom. The audio is of excellent production value and uses music and incidental sounds with great precision and comic effect. The vocal performances are magnificently ludicrous and enable the listener to clearly imagine each character in perfect detail. I look forward to many more episodes in the silly kingdom of Udenland.
Film About Blue Brain: Attempt to Build a Working Brain Model
Using IBM computers, Dr. Henry Markram is building a model of the human brain that he hopes will take about 10 years to complete. Filmmaker Noah Hutton is chronicling the endeavor in an ongoing documentary that will be finished once the brain model exists. This is one of the most fascinating and important efforts I have ever heard about in modern science. The brain project is called Blue Brain and is located at École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne. The idea to build a model based on minute and precise observations of how the brain synapses and cells actually work is a good one. Dr. Markram emphasizes that once you understand certain principles you can start to build models that increase in complexity and accuracy until you have have an understanding of how things work. Careful observation and exact mimicry will lead to a functioning model. Markram goes further to say that eventually you will be able to teach the model languages and watch it learn. He’s talking about artificial intelligence. He’s talking about making a machine think.
This is the modern world’s alchemy. The simplistic understanding of Medieval alchemy is that it was the attempt to turn base metals into gold. We are now trying to turn base metals into thinking beings. It is a logical thing to do. Think about it. Every household and every pocket in almost every developed nation on earth has a small thinking machine in it. What does that really tell you? It tells me that our main effort on a planetary scale – a human species level – is to make machines think. We aren’t going to the moon. Or going to Mars. Or trying to travel to the stars. What we’re actually doing is trying to make metal and electricity think. To live.
A working model of a brain is going to take us places we never thought we could go.
Comic About How Future Will See the Internet
I’ve pilfered the vault over at BoingBoing again because Cory Doctorow posted this hilarious comic by Stephen Collins about how a post-apocalyptic future world will view the Internet. The cartoonist does lots of work for the U.K.’s Prospect Magazine. I like the inky black outline drawings. Mr. Collins has an off-the-side kind of humor that takes me quite a while to actually get because I’m not always the brightest bulb. I’ve always felt that the best cartoonists are never immediately funny. It’s the slow-burn ones that put a little confusion into the picture that really get me.