sundance

PRODIGAL SONS and superlative filmmaking

Kimberly Reed’s documentary PRODIGAL SONS expanded to a few cities over the weekend, one of which is my Athens-Ohio-Main-Street-USA theatre, the Athena. The winner of a number of recent festival awards (two with “bravery” in the titles), the film is a jaw-dropper, the kind of “you can’t write this!” content that only, and I mean only, exists in life. Stranger than fiction, indeed, and more tragic, more superlative: More more more.

Travel to a national park… by train

Planning a trip to a national park or monument this summer? You may not need to make flight reservations or pack everyone into the car: Amtrak’s new Parks in Your Backyard site helps you plan a trip using rail and public transportation.

Launched earlier this month, the new mini-site exists to make national park travel greener: “Passenger rail and national parks have rolled through history in tandem since the 1880s,” said Dean Reeder, National Tourism Director of the National Park Service. “By facilitating visitor access to the many wondrous experiences available in many of our nation’s parks, Amtrak helps us advance the values of sustainable tourism.”

Scissor Sisters return

The gayest band in the world, Scissor Sisters, are heading back into the spotlight. You may ask, Bradford, how can you call Scissor Sisters the gayest band in the world? Hmm. Let’s see. Disco cover of Pink Floyd. Collaborations with Andy Bell of Erasure, Pete Burns, Kylie Minogue, and Elton John. They got their start [...]

Unabridged list of fears

Artist Brian Rea lived in New York City (fear: crowds) for 11 years (fear: aging) and during his last year in the Big Apple (fear: choking on apple seeds) in 2008, he began keeping a list of fears and grouped them under these categories: physical, natural, political, random, and emotional fears. Using chalk (fear: chalk [...]

In Henry Darger’s world

At this point we’re all more than familiar with outsider artist Henry Darger and his widely analyzed propensity for painting, among other things, little girls with penises. The American Folk Art Museum has amassed an impressive private collection of his work, but what people are not as familiar with is his everyday life aside from the fact that he was a staunch recluse and more than little strange. But just exactly how did he live?

Sex, drugs, and carbon emissions: Pearl Jam to offset ’09 tour

Is there such thing as a green rock star? I know my colleague Chris Baskind of More Minimal doesn’t think so: adding up the environmental impact just from touring makes the concept difficult to swallow.

While I agree with Chris in principle, I’ve got to admit that I like any genuine effort that a band makes to lighten its environmental footprint… and Pearl Jam’s announcement of its carbon mitigation strategy for last year’s world tour (as well as upcoming time on the road) has a lot to recommend it.

Draw My Tweet

I think the blog Draw My Tweet is good fun. Featuring cute drawings in a childlike style, the site’s author/artist chooses random Twitter updates and turns them into art. Anyone can submit their tweet, or their friend’s, to be included with a simple tag. The collected group of images, and unrelated tweets, begin to tell a story. Now if only mine gets picked!

Naked News: What About Prom, Bleckley?

• In modern John Hughes-ish news: After months of negotiations (and getting thrown out of his house by his parents), a gay boy in Bleckley County, Georgia is finally given permission to bring a same-sex date to his prom. (And then a couple of loser students protest the decision.)
  
  
• In geek news: The future of porn is 3-D.
  
  
• In kinky science news: Turns out black truffles have sex lives, too.

SUNRISE: A Song of Two Humans

When F.W. Murnau and screenwriter Carl Mayer set out to make their very first Hollywood picture they were given an almost unlimited budget and complete artistic freedom. The result is SUNRISE (1927), one of only a handful of silent pictures without titles (or nearly without them). One of the wisest uses of that budget was hiring Janet Gaynor, one of the biggest names of the time and also one of the few actresses able to retain her star status even after she made the move from silent films to talkies. Her expressions say more than titles ever could have and transform the movie into something more like a visual poem.

Blind artist paints by touch

Psychology Today has a fascinating read on blind artist John Bramblitt who didn’t start painting until after he had lost his sight in his twenties. While his “twenty-five years of visual experience provided him with mental images of what he wanted to paint,” an activity he picked up mainly as an outlet and act of [...]

Take This Job and Shove It

Paula Froelich kisses a giraffe in Kenya

Heh. So. I am trying to get a life. No. seriously. Quit my full time job at the New York Post on July 25, 2009 — otherwise known as “Independence Day” and yes, I played the Martina McBride song over and over as well as “Take This Job and Shove It” when I announced the news. So anyhoo. I have been enjoying life since then — went to Africa, Mexico, Sundance, LA several times, Oscars, you name it. But after a certain point in time, ennui starts to set in along with brain rot. And I will not Brain Rot! Unless, of course, it’s called for.

One-Night Stand Wisdom from ’80s Song Lyrics

When we published “How to Greet a Former One-Night Stand” on our site last week, Madamoiselle L suggested the worst way ever to do so: “Hey, how are you doing? Oh, I’d like you to meet your son.” To which Spes responded, “Wasn’t there an ’80s song about that?” Reader SS to the rescue! “Googling this was much more fun than folding laundry,” posted SS, “which is what I’m supposed to be doing.” So here, thanks to SS (and Madamoiselle L and Spes for the inspiration), are the weirdest — or, at least, most specific — lyrics about a one-night stand that we’ve ever heard.

Passover celebrations include focus on food deserts

In a blog post this morning for CNN’s American Morning, the Progressive Jewish Alliance‘s executive director Elissa Barrett uses the occasion of Passover and the traditional Seder meal (which happens tonight) to discuss the issue of urban food deserts. According to Barrett,

On Passover we trace our path from oppression to redemption, from suffering to opportunity. As we recall our wandering through the desert on the way to freedom, our minds turn to those who are suffering today, to those still wandering the desert. The Progressive Jewish Alliance seeks solutions to repair injustices in our cities here and now, calling attention to the reality that millions of Americans live – unnecessarily – in “food deserts.”

Read More »

Comments: Posted by: Jeff McIntire-Strasburg

Green

Share This! Tweet This! Email This!

Tags: community gardens / farmers markets / food deserts / food justice / judaism / Los Angeles / passover / progressive jewish alliance / religion / seder

Virtual choir

Using the YouTube community and platform, composer Eric Whitacre via a prerecorded video virtually conducted 185 separate singers from 12 different countries into this astonishingly coherent virtual choir.

Cy Twombly at the Louvre

The latest addition to the Louvre isn’t a centuries-old sculpture or Renaissance painting but a commission from contemporary American artist Cy Twombly. Twombly is the third contemporary artist who has been invited to install a permanent work at the Louvre, an effort to show the museum’s commitment to living artists and probably a smart way to keep it relevant. Anselm Kiefer was asked first in 2007 followed by Francois Morellet earlier this year, but previous artists have included Le Brun, Delacroix, Ingres and Georges Braque.

Comparing apples and oranges

Tackling the adage, “comparing apples and oranges,” which is commonly used to express “the impossibility of comparing dissimilar objects or ideas,” the National Geographic with the assistance of Cornell University horticulturist Ian Merwin posted this neat infographic that attempts to actually compare apples and oranges.

Chat Roulette meets Lady Gaga

Chat Roulette and Lady Gaga go hand in hand. Within the urban gay community I run with (and also the Suburban teenage girl community I don’t run with) they’re the two most talked about things. Like, um, really. This Gaga Telephone spoof may be deemed too lowbrow by some Sundance lovers. Which is precisely why [...]

FULL FRONTAL FASHION highlights

Illustration inspired by the Chris Benz Fall/Winter 2010 collection, by Danny Roberts Think of this as your FULL FRONTAL FASHION cliff notes. Get an up-close look at legendary photographer Bert Stern as his brand-new spring 2010 campaign for Club Monaco launches. Don’t miss the latest illustrations from artist Danny Roberts, inspired by New York Fashion [...]

Flame painting

Flame is a fun online painting program where you can manipulate a lot of different settings to create some neat effects. Unleash your inner dragon artist! [Via]

Can you fix ChatRoulette’s penis problem?

Last week, we wrote about how the ChatRoulette improv piano guy almost makes you forget about all the purple throbbing genitals you were forced to weed through on your first and only foray into that weird world. (We’re still trying to decide which was more disturbing: Seeing a guy jerking off the first time we logged [...]

The Fairy Queen kicks off BAM’s Opera Festival

“It’s like opera on acid,” I overheard a woman say at intermission. She was probably talking about the stage-full of humping bunny rabbits – that’s actors dressed in full-body Easter bunny costumes happily humping away about two hours into Henry Purcell’s “The Fairy Queen.” There’s lots of classic opera staging too, like the scene in the photo above with set pieces that descend and separate to expose a courtly, bewigged rider atop his golden-winged horse. That’s part of the thrill of this particular production: it exists in no time. Actors are dressed in costumes that reference parliamentary England or the midcentury American housewife but most costumes defy reference to any time at all.

March Madness by the numbers

Aside from Chat Roulette, most of the country right now is obsessed with March Madness, the annual NCAA basketball tournament. GOOD Magazine shares this interesting infographic from Fast Company that explains how this tournament pays it forward.

Green tech finds (3/25/10)

Is the solution to carbon capture sitting in your conditioner bottle? This, and more, at this week’s green tech finds.

• Biomimicry and boat-building: We noted earlier this week that David de Rothschild set sail on the Plastiki. Designer Michael Pawlyn explains how biomimicry played into the creation of this boat made from plastic bottles.
  
  
• A greener web: Greentouch, a consortium of academic and corporate partners, is exploring methods to make the internet, and other computer networks, much more energy efficient.
  
  
• Another greener smart phone: Sprint has unveiled its LG Remarq at the International CTIA Wireless Show. The phone features some recycled materials, and meets RoHS standards; its charger is even ENERGY STAR certified. (via TFTS)

The best period commercial, period

We saw this fantastic ad for a new line of period products called U from Kotex while we were watching American Idol the other day. (We can admit this viewing habit without shame because in the same week we watched the 13-and-a-half-hour, black-and-white German film “White Ribbon,” which pretty much balances things out.) Anyway, the commercial makes fun of all the stupid things most period product ads employ — beach scenes, slo mo, white spandex, blue liquid. So we did some more investigative work, and found two other awesome spots (heh heh) from U: in one, respondents taking a Rorschach Test do everything in their power to avoid saying “vulva” or “vagina”; in the other, a clueless boyfriend tries to get help in the feminine protection aisle (the lady who says “It’s a man’s world” is our new hero!). We’re not convinced the hip packaging will make menstrual products seem cool, but we’re sold on U’s marketing mission: helping girls (and society) get over their embarrassment and squeamishness about something so normal and natural — and that’s not just periods, but anatomy too.

Laid: Luscious sex toys for men and women.

With every passing day, it seems like it gets easier and easier to find well made, well designed, body friendly sex toys–something we’re quite pleased about. Today we discovered a new company to oo and ah over: the Norway-based Laid. Though their selection of toys is currently limited to two cock rings and a dildo, [...]