Animator Michael Stevenson of San Fransisco State University made this claymation cartoon. It’s short and sweet. Clay animation is very difficult to do well and this animator does it brilliantly. He gets a lot a character out of his clay and the film has a wonderful gentle humor that is very European in its flavor. The entire film was shot frame-by-frame with a digital SLR camera. There’s a behind-the-scenes web site where you can see photos of the film’s set.
iPod Art: Yard Umbrella
I’ve been having fun with my iPod Touch today. I got inspired to draw with the excellent Brushes app but my fingers are big fat and clumsy, so it required lots of zooming to make the view big enough so my painting wasn’t just a bunch of gigantic blobs. I drew the umbrella against a backdrop of foliage in my yard. The weather has been just as excellent as it should look in the picture.
I’ve learned that David Hockney, one of the greatest artists in the world, is drawing on his iPhone with the same application. His drawings are much more successful than mine, but it’s fun for anyone to draw with a finger!
Book Trailer: Inherent Vice
I’ve never been able to get through a book by Thomas Pynchon. Well, I should reveal that I’ve only tried once with his Against the Day. Unreadable as far as I’m concerned. But I still went out and bought a copy of Gravity’s Rainbow. James Joyce is unreadable too and yet I still like him. I never hold unreadability against a writer because I know how truly stupid I can be while reading – sometimes falling asleep and having to reread many pages. But this video is probably the best book trailer I have ever seen. I’d been thinking that the book sounded like a bore, but this trailer has me digging into the side pouch of my briefcase to find some spare change for the bookstore.
Another thing – whoever did the voiceover for this little movie is a stark raving mad genius. He should read the entire book out loud. I’d buy that too.
Film: Scintillation
Here’s an experimental film by Xavier Chassaing that uses 35,000 still photos with some stop motion animation and something called ‘live projection mapping.’ The music is by Fedaden.
I found this via Coilhouse.
Poem: Each Night I Go to Bed
by Lethe Bashar
The poet is the editor of Escape into Life, arts/culture web-zine and fine art auction. He is also working with an illustrator from Argentina on a graphic novel. Besides that he keeps up an essay-blog, The Blog of Innocence, that covers topics in the arts, social technology, and a general philosophy of life.
This poem was originally posted on Twitter as an experimental project in spontaneous poetry via Twitter with @paulokoba
Each Night I Go to Bed
each night I go to bed
a little bit later
I wake up in the morning
forgetting the past
days add up like coins in my pocket
I’m rich with hours
another little bit has passed
I find another hobby
swear to myself I’ll get healthy
another little bit has passed
I think about the news
write about my views
another little bit has passed
when will this world come to an end?
it seems so eternal right now
Poem: The Moth Approached Me Like a Blinking Eye
by Lethe Bashar
The poet is the editor of Escape into Life, arts/culture web-zine and fine art auction. He is also working with an illustrator from Argentina on a graphic novel. Besides that he keeps up an essay-blog, The Blog of Innocence, that covers topics in the arts, social technology, and a general philosophy of life.
The Moth Approached Me Like a Blinking Eye
The moth approached me like a blinking eye,
I was having a cigarette in the garage.
The birds squeaked in the far off darkness,
a menacing sound disrupting the night.
I pressed the moth to give me her reasons
for staying up as late as she did–
She continued to blink, and I awaited her answer,
but nothing came.
The birds heckled the darkness and the darkness
heckled back–the chaos persisted but
remained subdued and the neighbors
stayed in bed.
The children, in their warm beds,
were dreaming of magical places,
and I bemoaned my condition
while having my cigarette in the garage.
I thought of summer, which was expected
to come, maybe tomorrow or never,
I figured I’d be sleeping when it did.
I thought of the hours I’d missed.
The moth returned after awhile,
she blinked her wings again and again,
She seemed to know I had a mild fever,
she seemed to know my memories too.
Let me go, I said. Be off. I want to sleep.
Animation: Gumms
Anton Bogaty’s new film is Gumms. It’s not intended for young children – mature subject matter. A cartoonist works for a bubblegum manufacturer making those little comic-strips that go inside the wrapper. He’s looking for an idea. Bogaty uses interesting techniques in his films. He seems to edit them together almost as if he were just making a storyboard. The drawing is deceptively simple. The animation is minimal. But it all adds up to some of the most interesting films being drawn. Really nice troubling work. This Bogaty is an artist. I like him.
Dante’s Inferno: The Game
Improving upon the most boring character in the history of world literature, Electronic Arts is going to release an action game called Dante’s Inferno. From the looks of the preview, this version of the Dante character is much more interesting and capable than the literary original who is the main character in the Divine Comedy trilogy consisting of the epic poems called Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso. Author Dante Alighieri wrote himself into his epic poem as a rather stolid, questioning dullard who follows the ghost of Virgil around in hell. He whines about all the people who did him wrong in life and coincidentally runs into almost all of them during his sour-grapes tour of Satan’s domain. But this video version of Dante kicks some smokin’ butt. This is the Dante I’ve been waiting for and I am going to relish using my Xbox controller to stomp around and cut the heads off some nasty devils and repentant sinners.
It’s probably best to at least read Inferno before playing so that you can agree with me on how to improve the irritating main character. But I will credit Mr. Dante Alighieri with one major achievement: he seems to have invented multi-level game play. His version of hell is a series of rings that descend toward the most terrible of sins and punishments. That’s pretty much the definition of modern computer gaming.
A Nasty Puzzle: Tomb of the Mummy
So, have you tried this puzzle yet?
It’s hard. Don’t cheat. Leave comments here if you want to beg for clues or insult the game-maker. And remember… it’s really hard. You have to get the mummy out of the tomb. You can hear him pleading with you from behind that door. Listen. Set him free… if you can.
Cambridge Cop Refuses to Apologize for Unconstitutional Arrest of Black Professor
So President Obama sat down today for beers in the Rose Garden with professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. and the cop who arrested him for being uncooperative and making loud insulting remarks to the police while inside the comfort of his own home. Apparently, Obama felt bad for having called the Cambridge police ‘stupid’ after receiving news of the arrest for what the police call ‘disorderly conduct’. Many disorderly conduct laws have actually been ruled to be unconstitutional and the idea that a person could be arrested for insulting a police officer while on his own property is frightening. Anywhere in the United States, a person is free to insult police officers without fear of arrest. Such speech is fully protected by the U.S. Constitution. We are also free to not cooperate with a police officer when asked questions or when asked to step outside of our homes. We can refuse totally without any fear of arrest whatsoever. Any police officer who arrests someone under such circumstances is breaking the law and is denying someone their clear constitutional rights. I would not have any beers with such an officer. I would not attend any meetings with him and the president. The officer said in his press conference that both men had agreed to ‘look forward, rather than backward.’ I’m really not sure what forward he could possibly mean. It would be more productive to look squarely backward at his illegal and shocking arrest of a man who simply didn’t like him.
I watch the officer in the video above and I see a person of limited intelligence, with no understanding of his unlawful act. Harvard University needs to move itself the heck out of Cambridge if this guy is an example of how the locals are thinking up there. What an embarrassment.
Christopher Hitchens has written an excellent short article about why race is not as important a factor in this episode as one’s constitutional right to mouth off at police officers.
Also, in Washington, D.C. this week a young attorney was out with his friends discussing the Gates arrest. He decided to have some fun and test the constitutional principal which gives protection to people to who express their dislike of police. He walked past several police cars that had stopped another vehicle and he chanted ‘I hate the cops. I hate the cops.’
According to him, he was immediately rushed by an angry D.C. police offer who pushed him against a utility box and said, “Who do you think you are to think you can talk to a police officer like that?” The officer arrested the young attorney for disorderly conduct. The young man now has an actionable claim against the police department and is probably going to sue them and win because, contrary to what the cop thinks, the young man does have the right to talk to a police officer like that. Many police seem to think that because they protect security they have rights and privileges beyond what the U.S. Constitution provides. This problem is getting worse, not better. The fundamental right to freedom of speech and the right of free assembly in this country is under direct and heavy assault from police who see their responsibility to protect security as trumping all other rights and constitutional safeguards.
Police who do not understand that people can insult them and dislike them and say nasty things to them should be dismissed immediately from duty wherever they serve. And our president should feel free to call them stupid.
Podcast Novel: A Princess of Mars (Chapter 10)
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 10: John Carter meets the beautiful prisoner and proves himself more than a match for a martian green warrior.
You’ll find regular podcasts of all the chapters over the next couple of months. Subscribe to our feed.
Duration: 00:21:39
Read by Alessandro Cima
All audio stories are Copyright © Candlelight Stories, Inc., All Rights Reserved.
Simon’s Cat: New Animated Episode
The new episode of Simon’s Cat is called Fly Guy. It’s by UK animator Simon Tofield. This hilarious cat absolutely must catch the fly. The cat is just unbelievably funny, especially the way it uses its paws. This cartoon is simply loaded with character-driven expressive humor.
Amazon Shows Us Why DRM Must Go
Last week, Amazon.com unwittingly dealt an enormous body blow to the concept of Digital Rights Management (DRM) by remotely deleting legally purchased copies of George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four from all Kindle ebook devices. The excellent TeleRead site devoted to all things e-book and e-reader has a very well-considered post about the dangers of DRM and how we must protect ourselves against a world where customers don’t really end up owning digital copies of things they buy online.
When Amazon can connect to your Kindle device and blow away the book you bought, it means that you never really owned it at all. You’re a renter. Get used to it. Almost any online service you can think of that sells you a book or a piece of music can come into your device and zap your stuff. They consider it their right to do so. We need laws that make our digital purchases our very own property and forbid anyone from modifying or deleting them for any reason.
The TeleRead article draws the connection between the ability of a company like Amazon to zap books and government censorship. Since the technology can zap books, it will zap books because governments will consider it an effective means of censorship.
Someone: CG Animation
DeK at No fat clips!!! pointed me to this CG film by Magali Barbe and Jean Constantial. It looks painted, like oil paint strokes and spatters. It’s mysterious and I like it. Lots of reflections and a lone figure trying to differentiate and perhaps become individual.
5-Year Old Collects Cans, Feeds 18,000 People
A 5-year-old girl named Phoebe decided she wanted to collect cans in order to raise money from the 5-cent per can deposits. With the help of her day care center in San Francisco, she raised $3,736.30 from cans and cash donations. That translated into 17,800 people being fed via local food banks. If a 5-year-old can do that, imagine what wealthy Americans and corporations could do.