sundance

Storm Troopers break dance to “Singing in the Rain”

When not stepping up and serving it up to the rebels, storm troopers save the last dance. Watch this trio of funky storm troopers dance to a futuristic version of Singing in the Rain (actually a remix by Mint Royale). Chewbacca thinks this video is RAWWRRRRsome.

Carole Feurman’s swimmer sculptures

Thanks to Sprayblog, we were just introduced to Carole Feurman‘s hyper-realistic, larger-than-life sculptures. She currently has a one-person show going on through September at the Louise Alexander and Ilan Engel Gallery in Italy, which is particularly well-suited for the end of the summer: large sculptures of swimmers in caps, suits and goggles. They don’t exactly represent the physical variety we see at our swimming pool, but there’s no doubt she knows how to capture wet perfection. Check out a few of them below. You can see a lot more on the gallery’s website.

Justinnnnnn Bieberrrrrrr

Is it a voice of an angel singing in a cathedral? No, it’s only Bieber singing “U Smile,” but slowed down to 1/8th speed of the original resulting in a 35 minute long song of pure ambient zen. And the Internet is loving it. The grammar and math corners of the Internet are also enjoying [...]

Green tech finds (8/19/10)

A zero-emissions race around the world, whiskey biofuel, and more… your green tech finds for the week.

• Energy efficient motors mean green jobs in Arkansas: Electrocraft, Inc. has announced it will start producing energy efficient electric motors for heating and air conditioning units in its Searcy, Arkansas plant. This means 55 new green jobs for the small town.
  
  
• Cell phone tech meets data centers: Data centers (aka server farms) suck up a lot of energy. Start-up Smooth-Stone thinks it can cut that power use by applying “low-power cell phone technology to servers…” A number of VCs think they can do it, and have provided $48 million in funding.

I paint dead people

Don Florence is back with a new show at boltax.gallery on Shelter Island. Called “Good-bye,” this exhibit features paintings of people recently dead, both the famous and forgotten. The author states “I don’t think it’s morbid at all, I find the obituaries informative, filled with details and really inspiring.” Florence’s style has always been a [...]

The sound that wood makes

Walking through a forest or even by a single tree you’re probably only aware of the sounds you can hear in your immediate vicinity, but below the tree’s bark is a cacophony of the daily lives of the insects who live there. One such resident is the woodworm. A woodworm is any of several species of woodboring beetles, basically a little bug that lives in wood and eats it, and until now you’ve probably never heard what they sound like. In fact, you’ve probably never thought about the fact that they make a sound at all. That’s okay. It doesn’t make you a bad person. But Swedish artist Zimoun was interested.

What’s in your bag?

Photographer Jason Travis’ “Persona” is a voyeuristic collection of Atlanta residents and the stuff in their bags. Now I understand why some guys and gals lug around such large bags and purses. Aside from the simple interestingness of this project, viewing his series is even more enjoyable for the volume of attractive people Jason photographed. [...]

Should anonymous sperm donation be banned?

Is anyone not thinking about sperm donation right now, given the ubiquitous billboards for the movie THE SWITCH featuring Jason Bateman sniffing a cup of jizz?

Anonymous sperm donation is now banned in Britain and several other European countries, and some people are pushing for the same to happen here in the U.S. Proponents of the ban point to a recent study by the Commission on Parenthood’s Future, titled “My Daddy’s Name is Donor,” which surveyed 485 sperm donor offspring (all now adults) and found that they were more prone to depression and other emotional troubles compared to other young adults in control groups. The authors of the study recommended an end to anonymous sperm donation.

David Chang in Vogue

The blogosphere of foodies and fashionistas merge in the upcoming September issue of Vogue, which includes the above spread featuring David Chang, the genius, foul-mouthed lord of the Momofuku restaurant empire who was once quoted saying, “I don’t want shithead bankers and the friends of dickhead traders.” I can see that Vogue is making a [...]

Scissor Sisters’ Any Which Way

Scissor Sisters‘ new video for the song “Any Which Way” is a welcome return to flamboyant form for the NYC quartet. Their new album, Night Work, is sinister and sticky, a great party record. Not taking themselves too seriously and returning to the imagery of their NYC club roots, this video, shot by Ace Norton, [...]

The organic golf course: green or greenwash?

US presidents golfing on vacation is hardly news, but President Obama’s choice of a course for his ten days of family time in Martha’s Vineyard this month did make the New York Times… because the Vineyard Golf Club “is thought to be the only completely organic golf course in the United States…”

The Seed Cathedral

The UK Pavilion might easily be the most remarkable building at the upcoming Shanghai Expo in 2012. Designed by architect Thomas Heatherwick, the so-called “Seed Cathedral” has already won Britain’s top international architecture award, The Royal Institute of Architects Lubetkin Prize. Most notable for its texture, the pavilion is made of 60,000 transparent rods, each 24.5 feet long, that move like stalks in a wheat field; each acrylic rod contains a several seeds, 200,000 in all.

Cardboard sneakers

Dutch designer Jurjen Semeijn combines sneaker freak and papercraft culture with his “Out of the Box” series where he builds popular kicks out of the same cardboard shoe box. Relatedly, also check out his concrete sneaker project. [Via]

The illustrated guide to a Ph.D

My brilliant scientist friend Evan shared this link which I thought was just too good to not share and should be appreciated by those of us who spent some time in academia: Matt Might, an assistant professor at University of Utah, created this hilarious “illustrated guide to a Ph.D” to help explain to “a fresh [...]

Sarah Keogh talks eggs

Last week I spotlighted the new zine Put A Egg On It. This week I caught up with one of the creators, Sarah Keough, to talk about the project.

Why did you start Put A Egg On It?

We wanted to make a magazine together and figured there were already plenty featuring photographs of scantily clad gentlemen so we chose our other favorite topic: food. We were also interested in having fun and creating something with the same kind of feeling as the dinner parties we have with our friends.

Lelo’s siriously powerful new toy, the Siri

Lelo’s new vibe, Siri

A few weeks ago we mentioned that one of our favorite conscientious toy manufacturers, Lelo, came out with a new line of sophisticated sensual accessories. Well, we can’t keep up with them, because they’ve got another new product out, the Siri — and it’s got a lot going for it.

Bartering services now available to cash-strapped green businesses

Bartering’s been around nearly as long as human beings themselves; in recent years, the concept has gained new attention with the advent of services like Freecycle, Bookcrossing, and Swapstyle. It’s a pretty green model, as people are usually swapping used goods… and, of course, it’s cheap.

Bravo’s “Work of Art:” The Next Great Artist?

“Art and TV have always been bad bedfellows; They never get one another.” So says Jerry Saltz in his recap of the season finale of the Bravo reality show Work of Art: The Next Great Artist. The show’s format is a lot like Project Runway or Top Chef, following 14 contestant throughout a series of challenges (i.e. art inspired by nature, shocking art, art inspired by childhood) for the grand prize of $100,000 and a show at The Brooklyn Museum of Art. Saltz, art critic for New York Magazine, is a judge, along with Bill Powers, co-owner of Half Gallery, gallerist and consultant Jeanne Greenberg Rohatyn, host China Chow and mentor Simon de Pury, who may have one-upped Tim Gunn in the funny voice category.

25 bands, 25 cover songs, 1 room

Yes, this is ad sponsored, but I can’t deny its rad’ness: the AV Club invited 25 bands, some I’ve heard of and others I hadn’t, to cover a selected list of 25 songs from one room. The caveat for bands was that song selection was on a first come, first serve basis. Some of the [...]

Tightrope Classes by Man on Wire

One of my favorite documentaries from 2008 is Oscar-winning MAN ON WIRE which recounted Philippe Petit’s daring tightrope walk one morning in 1974 across the World Trade Center’s twin towers to the astonishment of the world. Last week at Streb Lab for Action Mechanics (SLAM) in Brooklyn Mr. Petit, who still practices walking on a [...]

The Sexy Book of Sexy Sex

We’ve been a fan of Kristen Schaal’s since she played super-fan Mel on the awesomely genius show Flight of the Conchords. (If you’ve never seen it, stop reading this post immediately and add it to your Netflix queue. But come back!) She’s now a correspondent on The Daily Show, where her boyfriend Rich Blomquist is a writer, and they’ve written a book together called The Sexy Book of Sexy Sex. As you might have guessed, it pokes (heh) fun at the sex-writing biz. But we can take it. Really, we can. Just to prove it, here’s an excerpt — a 12-step guide to being a bad girl, a.k.a. a toad-licking crazy girl. And yes, for the record, we know that kink and crazy are not the same thing. But that doesn’t mean that they’re not occasional bed partners.

College students spend summer building a passive DIY freezer

How’d you spend your summers during college? Working a crappy job? Taking more classes? Laying around in front of the TV at your parents’ house? In Burlington, Vermont, a group of students undertook an internship under the tutelage of physics teacher Tom Tailer to eliminate the the electricity use of refrigerating and freezing food by building a passive freezer “out of mostly local, recycled or reused products.”

Launching Cleantech 2010

The depressing strip of grey concrete nothing-ness you see in the photo above runs through East Downtown LA, right along the LA River. It’s the site of the Los Angeles Cleantech Corridor and Green District Competition, recently announced by SCI-Arc (The Southern California Institute of Architecture) and The Architect’s Newspaper. The hope is to transform this zone into “an integrated economic, residential and cultural engine for the city,” and asks architects, landscape architects, designers, engineers, urban planners, and environmental professionals to challenge conventional wisdom about civic development and green architecture to create a thriving, livable new space.

Oops… Wrong Cookie.

Here’s something to bring a little levity in your day: Jennifer 8 Lee (a must-follow on Twitter and author of “The Fortune Cookie Chronicles,” a book exploring the history and Americaness of Chinese food in the US) posted on her blog the above funny fortune that she received in a fortune cookie during a taped [...]

BEHIND THE SCENES of This American Life

This American Life is not only one of the most listened to radio programs and most downloaded podcasts, but it has managed to bridge the gap between sight and sound with the “This American Life” TV series, which is just as thrilling to watch as the show is to listen to. The staff behind the program isn’t big, and yet every week they bring listeners one hour of original, insightful, often funny and frequently groundbreaking material. Just how do they do it?