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Many countries, if they so wished, could develop nuclear weapons without much, if any, help from outside. We wanted to know, hypothetically of course, which countries could develop nuclear weapons the quickest. […]
While I have the fortune of attending Sundance Film Festival this year, I arrived after the media circus debauchery that was Kevin Smith’s public tirade against mainstream film distribution and the concurrent (yet unrelated) protest and meta-protests that flooded Main Street.
So, I checked in with some filmmakers to get their two cents on Smith’s bold move to reject multi-million distribution deals and why they think of self-distribution for the future of indie film.
Here’s what they said:
A more complete article accompanying this video also appears on NeonTommy.
On January 1, 2010, my boyfriend made a New Year’s resolution to take a picture every waking hour for the whole year.
We live together.
For the past 364 days, the iPhone “Harp” alarm has filled our ears every hour that we are together. It’s become like white noise to me:
He broadcasts the photos online at EveryHourOnTheHour.com as as sort of “eff you” to Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, Tumblr… all the social networking sites he has shunned since the demise of Classmates.com disillusioned him so many years ago. Robert Cannon, the anti-social networking photographer with a mission.
At first, I was intrigued, yet hesitant. My halfhearted complaints went something like: “But what if we’re having a romantic moment together? … What if you’re in a job interview? … What if I’m in the shower and you pop your head in? I can’t be naked on the Internet. I just can’t.”
It only took about 8 months for an accidental shower photo to make it on the Every Hour website, and by that point, I had become the project’s wingman. Accomplice to taking photos at even the most inappropriate times. The shower photo made TV news when our local ABC affiliate, KABC 7, visited our apartment to do a story on the project as it dwindles down to its last days. Check it out (will post ad-free version soon):
It’s using your yard for more than just grass. That useless, stubborn weed.
One family in Pasadena, Calif., took this idea and ran with it. Nearly every nook and cranny of their yard sprouts something edible. Last year, they grew more than 4,000 pounds of food, including fruits, vegetables, herbs, eggs, milk, honey and more. And they live within a stone’s throw of Pasadena’s bustling shopping district.
Check out the video to catch a glimpse of their rural city life, which they’ve dubbed: Urban Homesteading. Sit back and meet Anais, Justin, Jordanne and their father, Jules, who pioneered this movement decades ago.
People love new buzzwords and phrases like “the death of print”so much that even lit lovers like (you and) me start to believe it. And since I’m knee-deep in journalism “J-school,” I often see this notion passed around like herpes at a Four Loko-sponsored event. It spreads as fast as mouths can move.
But print can’t die, book-lovers retort. Fine, screw newspapers, they say. But books are personal. You don’t mess with books.
And you know what? They’re right.
I set out to investigate independent bookstores in Los Angeles, expecting to find that shops were closing left and right, sales were down and customers were abandoning indies for e-books, Amazon.com and Borders. I mean, their discount e-mails are incredible, come on.
I was wrong.
Of course, indie booksellers still face the challenges of any small business, but they are loved by their communities. People still seek the well-loved pages of used paperbacks. House cats are still a staple of musty, literary aisles.
Check out this video story about a shop in Echo Park, Ca:
If you enjoyed this, check out my first-ever Square Syndrome review, which was about book sculptures and other ways artists repurpose used books for visual art: And Books Are Not Enough
Alright, so dodgeball, pudding and Bogotá are only vaguely related, but the news package I shot and edited on Sunday, 10.10.10, brings them all together in one neat little package. News package, that is.
Viva Colombia! The idea for planned ciclovías started there, and… well, just watch. This post ain’t about no text!
New gadgets and apps stir the masses like no teenybopper concert can.
More than half a million people pre-ordered the iPhone 4 as thousands more camped out on sidewalks outside Apple stores across the world. News about insignificant changes in Facebook-land generate more articles than the midterm elections. And if you wanna talk obscure, the new iTunes icon even gave life (life, I say!) to a confrontational curmudgeon of a Twitter personality, dropping F bombs whenever Steve Jobs does something badass and unverified.
So it’s refreshing when humble technologies from older eras find their way back to relevancy.
It isn’t too often that you get invited to hang out in a room teeming with warm, glowing faces and finger-snapping support for five minutes of completely uncensored stage time. The concept of “safe space” comes to mind.
I recently attended the definitive soapbox, an open mic devoted entirely to amateur appreciation, gratuitous introductions, and performance for the soul, not kudos. I met the host when the series lived in San Francisco, when an artist friend of mine would bring me along every few weeks. We’d cheer, laugh, snap and sometimes put our names on the list.
Only once did I take the stage. It was an impromptu romp on the piano, which had been suddenly discovered underneath some papers and a huge honking amplifier. At that point, I had lived in San Francisco for four college years, and none of my friends had ever heard me play the piano. It wasn’t something I got to do very often, and I was moving back to Los Angeles soon. What a great way to say goodbye to that quirky, foggy city.
Fast forward a few years later, and soapbox now lives down south in Long Beach as a bi-monthly event. The host saw that I was local, and he Facebook-invited me, tempting me with the promise of a coffee-shop piano.
I considered this. On average, coffee shop pianos have more than 50% of working keys, at least 25% of which are tuned to a level acceptable by most deaf people. They’re usually used as tabletops, a crime that would make my high school jazz band director’s ears bleed. Coffee shop pianos are almost always upright beasts, and one leg is always shorter than the others. Daring to sit on the wooden bench is like asking for a tailbone fracture. I was sold.
I filed down my acrylics and jumped on the 710 South, eager to yet again meet fresh-faced poets, music lovers and random acts.
An act I’ve done since the pimply 7th grade, it always brings me joy. And since this blog is my one true definitive soapbox on the Web, I would be amiss to not share it here.
If you know anything about ragtime, you know what it’s like to bounce up and down in your seat as it fills the room. One of the jolliest (for lack of a less-corny word) forms of music, ragtime is my favorite genre of instrumental music. It’s loud, it’s strong, it’s playful, it’s jarring, it’s badass.
Piano sheet music can be pricey, and since mommy and daddy don’t pay for my piano lessons/expenses anymore, I’m on my own to keep the skill alive. I signed up for MusicNotes.com’s free sheet music download of the month a while back, but most of the free music has been hokey, unknown seasonal stuff that no one would buy anyway. March’s was some Irish folk jig.
But for April, they’re offering a free, printable copy of Scott Joplin’s “Stoptime Rag.” I thought it was an April Fool’s Day joke at first, but there it was, free for piano or guitar. (Guitarists who play ragtime… I can’t even comprehend how much time you must sit in your room just getting stride down.) And even though my printer is out of black ink… I’m determined to go mooch off of someone’s printer in the next few days to start learning this song on my electric piano. (Honkey-tonk upright would be ideal, but cut me some slack, I live in an apartment.)
The “stoptime” component of “Stoptime Rag” is said to have been Joplin’s way of indicating cues to dancers. There’s no dancing here, but here’s a good recording of the tune. Hit play and minimize the window unless you want to have a staring contest with the king of rag.
Since I’m bashing on all things hokey, it’s only fair to admit that I’ve done my share of hokey gigs. Here’s my attempt at a Scott Joplin classic, “Maple Leaf Rag,” in 2009 dressed as a cowgirl for a western-themed speech tournament awards ceremony at Glendale Community College.
For those of you who have an ear for this, please keep in mind that I played this tune much more fluidly ten years ago, as an eighth-grader. Much thanks to Scott Stalnaker for shooting and editing out the parts where my out-of-practice hands could no longer keep up with the pace.
- girl geeks
- guys who like girl geeks
- scientists
- documentary-lovers
- hungry artists
- artsy web developers
- Trekkies
- cat owners
- single-celled organisms, because they don't know any better
- scholars
- grad students
- people who buy magnetic poetry kits
- people who receive magnetic poetry kits as gifts
Piled Higher & Deeper by Jorge Cham www.phdcomics.com title: "The Avoidance Cycle" - originally published 5/14/2012 For the latest news in PHD Comics, CLICK HERE! […]
Piled Higher & Deeper by Jorge Cham www.phdcomics.com title: "Grad Stereogram" - originally published 5/9/2012 For the latest news in PHD Comics, CLICK HERE! […]
Piled Higher & Deeper by Jorge Cham www.phdcomics.com title: "Where are you from?" - originally published 5/7/2012 For the latest news in PHD Comics, CLICK HERE! […]
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