Alma is a short animated film directed by Rodrigo Blaas, an animator at Pixar.
The Making of the Grinch
In 1994, TNT aired this holiday treat, hosted by the great Phil Hartman, that featured some of the extraordinary talent that brought “How the Grinch Stole Christmas” to life: Thurl Ravenscroft (the voice of Tony the Tiger, who sang “You’re a mean one, Mr. Grinch”), Albert Hague (who wrote the music), and Chuck Jones (animation legend of Bugs Bunny fame).
Thurl Ravenscroft had the best face. I could watch him talk all day.
Don’t miss part 2.
Ulysses: Fast Track to 1934 Best Seller
While James Joyce was still writing his novel Ulysses in 1918, the journal The Little Review began serializing it for the American audience. When they got to the episode that portrays the novel’s protagonist Leopold Bloom masturbating, an obscenity charge was leveled at The Little Review, and Ulysses was subsequently banned in the United States. Random House was committed to publishing it, though. They went so far as to have a French edition of the book imported, and then informed customs of its arrival so that it would be seized – all so they could contest the ban in court.
Imagine you’re a big American publisher, and there’s a book infamous for its subject and language that you want to publish — but first, you have to go up against the US government to prove it should no longer be banned. And, given the publicity of the court case, you want the book in the bookstores as soon as it’s legal.
This describes the situation facing Random House in 1933 as they waited to publish James Joyce’s Ulysses, which had not been allowed into the US for 12 years. How they got the ban dropped and delivered the book at just the right moment is a short tale of legal, design and production choreography.
Don’t miss the slide show. I’d love to get a closer look at this spread published by Random House in Saturday Review of Literature:
The Known Universe
The Known Universe is a new film created by the American Museum of Natural History that begins over Mount Everest and pulls back through space to the edge of what we have been able to observe and map of the universe. Every detail of scale and location is accurate, as it’s based on data from the Digital Universe Atlas, a continually updated four-dimensional map of the universe.
Pixar’s Up Trailer Recut
Mashup of the Gran Torino and Up trailers. Well done.
70 Minute Phantom Menace Review
Divided into 7 bite-size chunks, it’s a long review, but funny and spot-on in its comparison of the original trilogy its first prequel.
The unfortunate reality of the Star Wars prequels is that they’ll be around… forever. They will never go away. They can never be undone.
Painfully true.
Cecilia/Amanda – Previously Unreleased Elliott Smith
Available for free download from indie record label Kill Rock Stars is “Cecilia/Amanda,” a unreleased Elliott Smith song recorded in 1997 (scroll down to the bottom for the download link). On April 6, 2010 Kill Rock Stars will add Roman Candle and From a Basement on the Hill to their catalog, giving them the full set of Smith’s independent releases.
Manageable Tongue Twisters
Tongue get tied easily? The good folks at McSweeney’s have you covered. Try this one:
Fuzzy Wuzzy had been a bear.
But he was bald.
So, if this was the case,
He couldn’t have been very fuzzy, right?
Or maybe this one:
James bifurcated corn,
Although I don’t really give a shit.
Solar System Scale Model
Finding all the planets can be a bit tough on this scale model of our solar system, but that’s because the page is over a half-mile long.
This page shows a scale model of the solar system, shrunken down to the point where the Sun, normally more than eight hundred thousand miles across, is the size you see it here. The planets are shown in corresponding scale. Unlike most models, which are compressed for viewing convenience, the planets here are also shown at their true-to-scale average distances from the Sun. That makes this page rather large – on an ordinary 72 dpi monitor it’s just over half a mile wide, making it possibly one of the largest pages on the web.
(via coudal)
We Three Kings – New Video from Blondie
Brand new song and video from Blondie. Apparently there’s also a new album due out next year.
You can download the song for free on Blondie’s site.
Iron Man 2 Trailer
The Iron Man 2 trailer is out.
Christmas Tree Fire
Check out this PSA video of a dry Scotch Pine catching fire and setting the room ablaze. Scary quick.
Effort to Remove Atheist From City Council
Cecil Bothwell could be in for a long legal battle after taking the oath of office for the Asheville City Council in North Carolina because of his lack of religious beliefs.
Asheville City Councilman Cecil Bothwell believes in ending the death penalty, conserving water and reforming government – but he doesn’t believe in God. His political opponents say that’s a sin that makes him unworthy of serving in office, and they’ve got the North Carolina Constitution on their side.
Bothwell’s detractors are threatening to take the city to court for swearing him in, even though the state’s antiquated requirement that officeholders believe in God is unenforceable because it violates the U.S. Consititution.
“The question of whether or not God exists is not particularly interesting to me and it’s certainly not relevant to public office,” the recently elected 59-year-old said.
Bothwell ran this fall on a platform that also included limiting the height of downtown buildings and saving trees in the city’s core, views that appealed to voters in the liberal-leaning community at the foot of the Appalachian Mountains. When Bothwell was sworn into office on Monday, he used an alternative oath that doesn’t require officials to swear on a Bible or reference “Almighty God.”
That has riled conservative activists, who cite a little-noticed quirk in North Carolina’s Constitution that disqualifies officeholders “who shall deny the being of Almighty God.”
(via cynical-c)
LucasFilm’s 2009 Christmas Card
This years holiday card from the folks at LucasFilm, featuring gingerbread cookie Clone Wars characters.
Wall of Knowledge
Concept for the Stockholm Public Library International Architectural Competition.
Jawbox Reunites!
Jawbox, one of my all-time favorites, played together for the first time in 12 years on Jimmy Fallon last Tuesday. Alas, it was only a one-time thing, to plug the re-issue of For Your Own Special Sweetheart, remastered by Bob Weston and released in a collaboration between indie record labels Desoto and Dischord.
They did “Savory” for TV, and 2 more, “FF=66” and “68,” that you can watch online.
(thx, rae)
Norman Rockwell – Photorealist?
Before picking up the brush, Norman Rockwell spent a great deal of time directing and composing photographs that he would use to create his iconic (and oft-derided) paintings.
Photography has been a benevolent tool for artists from Thomas Eakins and Edgar Degas to David Hockney. And to illustrators, always on the lookout for better ways to meet deadlines, the camera has long been a natural ally. But the thousands of photographs Norman Rockwell created as studies for his iconic images are a case apart. A natural storyteller, Rockwell envisioned his narrative scenarios down to the smallest detail. Yet at the easel he was an absolute literalist who rarely painted directly from his imagination.
Instead, he first brought his ideas to life in studio sessions, staging photographs that are fully realized works of art in their own right. Selecting props and locations, choosing and directing his models, he carefully orchestrated each element of his design for the camera before beginning to paint. Meticulously composed and richly detailed, Norman Rockwell’s study photographs mirror his masterworks in a tangible parallel universe. Photography opened a door to the keenly observed authenticity that defines Norman Rockwell’s art. And for us today it is a revelation to discover that so many of his most memorable characters were, in fact, real people.
Say what you will, Rockwell was a master of facial expressions.
Norman Rockwell: Behind the Camera is a new book that details his creative process, and there is a companion exhibition at the Norman Rockwell Museum, in Stockbridge, Mass., through May 31st.
There’s more at NPR’s The Picture Show.
(via pdn)
Remembering John Lennon
Roger Ebert remembers John Lennon, December 10th, 1980, 2 days after the ex-Beatle was shot and killed in New York City.
The news that John Lennon was dead came as an immense shock, infinitely sad, because one was grieving not only for his death but for the death of an era, and for the Beatles songs that played all through that time, over and over, giving it texture and a bittersweet flavor. The silly, innocent songs, like “I Wanna Hold Your Hand” and the songs so deep they were poems, like “Eleanor Rigby,” and the albums that a generation scrutinized for secret messages.
What is most touching, when you remember how we used to study the album covers and try to listen between the words of the songs for the messages the Beatles had allegedly hidden there, was that we really believed the Beatles had a message worth listening for. At their height they commanded more ideological currency than all of the candidates in the last presidential campaign — not because they had more to say, but because they were in a world still eager to listen.
Now Lennon has been shot dead and the Beatles are no more. Ringo, Paul and George still live and the albums are still on the shelves, and Monday night all the radio stations were playing them over and over, but there is no kidding ourselves. The era they sang to, which hung on here and there long beyond its time, is over now.
Fox News: 120% Of Americans Have An Opinion On ‘Climategate’
Fox News has their way with the results of a Rasmussen Poll on a December 4th edition of Fox & Friends.
The actual results:
- 35% Very likely
- 24% Somewhat likely
- 21% Not very likely
- 5% Not at all likely
- 15% Not sure
(via marginal revolution)