sundance

Green tech finds (2/18/10)

Wave power, robots, and solar roads… it’s time for this week’s green tech finds. Use your iPhone to argue climate science: Gotten into yet another argument with your conservative brother-in-law about the facts surrounding climate change, and need support fast? There’s an app for that… (via The Guardian) Wave power coming to the Pacific Northwest: [...]

Gaga meets the Pet Shop Boys

It seems Lady GaGa’s not had enough of gay pop star collaborations. A mere weeks after her dueling piano duet with Elton John at the Grammys GaGa showed up at the BRIT awards, the UK equivalent to the Grammys, and performed with the night’s honorees, The Pet Shop Boys. GaGa filled in for Dusty Springfield [...]

Gifts to Paul Smith from his secret fan

I find this slightly creepy and completely fascinating: For the past 20 or so years, an anonymous person from the United States has been sending designer Paul Smith various whimsical and slightly vintage bric-a-brac. S/he doesn’t package it in a box. Instead the requisite number of postage stamps are stuck to the item and mailed [...]

Everything you wanted to know about marriage but were afraid to ask

Neither one of us ever read Elizabeth Gilbert’s bestselling memoir Eat, Pray, Love (soon to be a movie starring Julia Roberts) — we were both faintly annoyed by the idea of being along for the ride while some over-analytical divorcee worked through her problems on paper. But then Curtis Sittenfeld’s review of Gilbert’s Committed: A Skeptic Makes Peach with Marriage convinced us that Gilbert was a smarter, funnier, more insightful, and less annoying writer than we’d assumed. She was right: Committed — a sequel of sorts to Eat, Pray, Love — is a compelling take on marriage and its discontents. Sure, at times it feels like being along for the ride while some over-analytical affianced woman works through her issues on paper. In fact, it feels like this a lot of the time — but it is only very occasional annoying. The memoir is likeable for multiple reasons, but here are five of our favorite relationship tips that we took away from it (whether or not Gilbert intended them that way):

BROKEN EMBRACES: Almodovar’s picture puzzle

With the Oscar buzz in full swing, I decided it was time to catch up on some of the films that probably should-have-been-but-were-not part of that buzz starting with Pedro Almodovar’s BROKEN EMBRACES. It’s not fair to blame the Academy, after all Spain’s Oscar shortlist committee were the ones who curiously snubbed it. Once in the theater however, I forgot all about the Oscars. I dropped happily into Almodovar’s magical world of films within films, boldly graphic sets with paintings of fruit the size of boulders, and his headstrong Spanish women who seem to charge into every scene like beautiful matadors. Sure some of the dialogue was a little clunky and some of the twists and turns a tad more melodramatic than I usually like. But all I could think as I was leaving was a quote that I’ve heard attributed to the screenwriter Robert Towne: “A movie is five or six moments.” I, however, would tweak that slightly and say… an Almodovar movie is five or six luscious images you can’t forget…

Orgasmatron 3000 puts the fun back in household chores.

Today in unnecessary (yet totally amazing) sex toy innovations: the Orgasmatron 3000. What is it, you ask? Why–and we mean this quite literally–a leather clad washing machine outfitted with a saddle. So that the user can literally ride the waves generated by the sheer awesome power of the household gadget. Our only question: does it [...]

Pac Man Skeleton

As a long time video gamer I love this skeletal big-headed structure of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named-By Ghosts or Pac-Man. This was built by artist Le Gentil Garçon and paleontologist François Escuilié. Study in plaster of a complete skeleton of Pac-man, created by extrapolation from a comparative observation of a human skull and different predatory animal skulls. If [...]

The school community garden: college students getting their hands dirty

You likely associate community gardens with neighborhoods: residents (either with permission or “guerrilla gardening”-style) take over an empty lot and turn it into a green space. It turns out that colleges and universities have gotten in on the act: a number of schools around the US now offer space to students, faculty, and staff members who want to dig in the dirt, and grow their own food. The University of Idaho is the most recent school to host a community garden; others have done it for years, or even decades. Here are just a few…

Light writing proposal

Light Writing Proposal from Derick Childress on Vimeo. Derick Childress wanted to propose to his girlfriend Emily in a unique manner, certainly a more unique one than via the jumbotron during a basketball game. He hit upon the idea of spelling out his question using light writing on an epic scale. He scouted variation locations [...]

Billie Ray Martin returns

Billie Ray Martin should be a household name. Her voice is epic. It recalls Aretha and soul singers of another era. Ms. Martin is German. And white. And loves the Pet Shop Boys and electronic music. And disco. She’s always been a bit before her time. And those are the reasons why she’s not a bigger star. She may be too talented.

United Nations Climate Chief Resigns

The top United Nations climate change official said today that he has made the “difficult decision” to step down.

185th Annual at the NY National Academy

The 185th Annual: An Invitational Exhibition of Contemporary American Art is described by the National Academy Museum & School of Fine Arts as “an inter-generational biennial invitational.” That a lot of words for an art show. If you have the patience to bushwhack through the website’s verbal jungle, you’ll discover its attempting to describe what is actually a very interesting concept, one that has celebrated the work of new artists for nearly two centuries. The artists themselves are all non-Academicians (their words) whose work has been selected by a jury of National Academicians (their words again).

Scientists Desperate to Protect World’s 25 Most Endangered Primates

Nearly half the world’s 634 primate species – gorillas, orangutans, monkeys, lemurs, gibbons and other primates – now are in danger of becoming extinct due to the destruction of tropical forests, illegal wildlife trade and commercial bushmeat hunting.

Green Lent: Eco-friendly fish fries and more…

It’s Fat Tuesday, and you may be gearing up for a parade, a party, or a big meal featuring Cajun cuisine. While Mardi Gras has become a largely secular celebration, for many Christians around the world, it represents the last blow-out before the season of Lent. Tomorrow, many will attend Ash Wednesday services, and commit to fasting, prayer, meditation, and confession in anticipation of Easter.

As Baptist minister Chad Crawford noted a couple of years ago at sustainablog, the concepts and practices associated with Lent ties in well with green thinking and activity. No, that doesn’t mean that environmentalists are gloomy and demand constant sacrifice; it does mean that this period of reflection and simplicity can allow for meaningful thought on our relationship to the natural environment.

Fabulis videos

As someone who is a shameless self-promoter I have no issue whatsoever in showing SUNfiltered readers the videos I have been collecting over at my day job. I recently became Creative Director of a soon-to-launch gay networking site, fabulis. In the months ramping up to the launch we asked gay men across the country to make videos asking “what makes you fabulis?” What started as simple exercise has turned into a remarkable collection.

“Off the Set: Porn Stars and Their Partners”

Photography duo Paulie & Pauline are coming out with a new book in April called “Off the Set” which features porn stars and their partners in intimate, non-porn moments. Paired with the images of the ten couples are essays by the photographers and some of their subjects, actual love letters, and stories that humanize people often thought of as sex machines. We asked Paulie and Pauline to give us some background on a few of the images from the book (which you can pre-order from Amazon):

“This cover photo is of Digital Playground contract star Jesse Jane and her husband Rich. Her given name is Cindy, which is just perfect because she reminds us of sweet little Cindy Loo Hoo from How The Grinch Stole Christmas! She’s a tiny slip of a thing, especially when she’s standing next to her husband, who could easily be mistaken for a Na’vi from Pandora if you painted him blue. We photographed them one hot summer morning at their home outside Oklahoma City earlier this year.

South Carolina Publisher First to Use 100% Environmentally Certified Paper

The publisher of thousands of local and regional histories has become the country’s first major book publisher to achieve the use of 100 percent Forest Stewardship Council certified paper across its entire book publishing program.

Neighborhoods Get Federal Help With Brownfields, Housing, Transport

A new Office of Sustainable Communities is being created within the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to help communities take an integrated approach to making environmental, housing and transportation decisions.

Rotterdam Film Festival at BAM

The International Film Festival in Rotterdam wrapped earlier this month and what with all the other film festivals this time of year, chances are you weren’t in attendance. Never fear, BAM is screening several of the festival’s best films, including ALAMAR directed by Pedro González-Rubio. One of three films to win the VPRO Tiger Award, [...]

Kermit the Frog is a terrible boyfriend

Julie Klausner’s new memoir, I Don’t Care About Your Band, is one of the funniest books about dating we’ve ever read. And this is coming from two women who are kind of sick of (a) memoirs and (b) books about dating. Her book will remind you that dating can always get worse — but fortunately, the worse the date, the better the story it’ll eventually make. (If nothing else, you’ll be comforted by the fact that your blind date was never arrested for kidnapping.) Here’s an excerpt in which she compares Kermit the Frog to skinny hipster bad boys/bad boyfriends:

Obama Backs First New U.S. Nuclear Plant with $8.3 Billion

President Barack Obama today announced that his administration is offering conditional commitments for a total of $8.33 billion in loan guarantees for the construction and operation of the first U.S. nuclear power plant to break ground in nearly three decades.

Aquamantra: A greener bottled water?

Nothing raises the ire of a good greenie like bottled water, right? You only need to review the Sierra Club’s bottled water facts brochure (or watch a film like FLOW) to recognize the source of that anger: individual plastic bottles of water create costs at all points in their lifecycle, from the pumping of spring water (when that’s the case), to production of bottles, to transportation of the product, and finally to disposal of the empty bottle. These processes impact environmental quality, broad access to fresh water, and even human health… an awful lot of bottled water doesn’t stand up to claims of a cleaner, healthier product.

Ellen von Unwerth’s “Fräulein”

NY Fashion Week is good timing for Taschen’s release of “Fräulein,” the 482-page trip through Ellen von Unwerth’s erotic “female fantasy land.” A model herself for the first decade of her career, Unwerth gained notoriety only when she stepped behind the lens. Her photography revisits past decades from the silent film era to the 1950s, and is often set in a bedroom, boudoir or late-night Parisian cafe-cabaret. She has been compared to Helmut Newton for her portrayal of women as powerful, strong and sexually aggressive, though her propensity for fetish, domination, whips, chains, strappy lingerie, high heels, lots of makeup and very little clothing goes somewhat beyond even Newton’s scope.

Sleep talkin’ man

This (awesome?) wife has thrown her husband underneath the Internet bus for our amusement. On the website The Sleep Talkin’ Man she chronicles the nighttime murmurings and proclamations of her husband, a “mild mannered English husband [who] lives quite a colorful existence in his dreams.” A few (hilarious) recent examples: “Horray for me! Yup, I [...]

Weir Roundup: Olympic Fever!

Johnny gets competitive. Image courtesy of NBC.

With Johnny performing his short program tomorrow and his free skate on Wednesday, Tom Hammond, Scott Hamilton and Sandra Bezic discuss the strength of the U.S. men’s figure skaters. It’s a loaded competition field for the men, where about nine skaters are believed to be contenders for the three top slots. Johnny is slated to perform in the 5th group, the 25th slot in 30. Don’t miss his performance; check out local listings here.

Reigning Olympic champion and this year’s favorite to win Evgeni Plushenko of Russia raises questions of bias in figure skating judging.

Also, with Plushenko’s return from retirement (he left the sport after this gold win in Torino, was out of the sport for three years, then came back this season just to compete in the Olympics once again), other male figure skaters ask themselves: to quad or not to quad? While landing a quad can mean big points, not landing it can bring a bigger penalty than it’s worth. Execution of the quad jump embodies not only high risk, but how the sport’s new judging system, according to some critics, has favored technicality over artistry and expression.

Check out video of Johnny practicing the quad, his interview with both Wall Street Journal and HBO Real Sports, after the jump.