Unicorn in Captivity 01/18/06

And now in a few weeks, my love for this piece will be married with my interest in technology. Stumbling across this event quite by accident was another unexpected delight:

When Science Meets Art Program #2 — The Unicorn in Captivity

To create an exact visual reproduction of one of the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Unicorn Tapestries, digital cameras photographed every inch. When the hundreds of digital photographic files didn't fit smoothly together, the Chudnovsky brothers with their supercomputer were brought in to figure it out. Mathematical geniuses, David & Gregory Chudnovsky are renowned for having built their own supercomputer from mail-order parts. Hosted by Amir D. Aczel, author of Fermat's Last Theorem and Pendulum.

The Chudnovsky brothers have been featured on Nova ScienceNow (last summer, you can read the transcript).

Also of interest, a fascinating New Yorker Article on the tapestries.

Friday the 13th with DOLEMITE!!! 01/13/06

OH. MY. GOD.

Signifyin'! Monkey!

Dolemite (Rudy Ray Moore) in person!

Nothing says good clean raunchy fun like Rudy Ray Moore, also known as the legendary blaxploitation hero DOLEMITE! Rudy started his career as an R&B singer (and a darn good one, we might add), but became truly known for pushing the boundaries of good taste with his hilarious profanity-filled comedy routines (his version of The Aristocrats can probably never be told). Then in the 70s he morphed again into the super-hero Dolemite, who fought da man in a series of hilarious and fun independently made action films.

A major influence on many of today’s comedians and hip-hop artists (some say he started rap with his rhyming comic patter), Rudy Ray Moore joins us IN PERSON with his own blend of comedy, music, and our favorite of his Dolemite films, THE HUMAN TORNADO.

In his second film, the rappin', snappin', action packin' Dolemite lets loose with a whirlwind tour-de-kick-ass! After Dolemite gets caught in bed with a racist sheriff's wife, he and his posse go on a cross country run. Along the way Dolemite does it all: he escapes naked down a hill; he changes jumpsuits, he fights off sucka hick cops; he busts rhymes and does stand up. Finally, he and his crew land in California just in time to help his old friend Queen Bee save her club (and her well-endowed girls) from a mafia plot to muscle her out.

Extreme Makeover: Mural Edition 01/11/06

When Science Meets Art Program #1 — Extreme Makeover: Mural Edition

Featuring: Gianfranco Pocobene, Head of Conservation, Gardner Museum and Richard Wolbers, Associate Professor of Art Conservation, The University of Delaware and Moderated by Kathryn Acerbo-Bachmann, Director of Art & Architecture Program, Trinity Church

In “One of the most significant restoration projects anywhere in America,” science and art merged to conserve the John La Farge murals at Trinity Church Boston. But what happens when the conservation choices are not clear cut – and the world is watching?

A limited number of tickets will be sold for seats in the theater with the speakers. Tickets: $10/night. Includes dessert reception. Advance purchase is strongly recommended.

Limited additional seating in a separate theater with simulcast projection of the event will be available for FREE thanks to the generosity of the Lowell Institute. Free seating tickets to the simulcast available to the general public in the Museum lobby beginning at 5:45 p.m. the evening of the program; first come, first served.

Bruce! Campbell!

Tuesday, June 21, 2005 6:00PM Coolidge Corner Theatre, 290 Harvard Street

Tickets for reading: $2 available at Brookline Booksmith, 617.566.6660
Tickets for film: $12 available at Coolidge Corner Theatre, 617.734.2500

BRUCE CAMPBELL – Make Love the Bruce Campbell Way Bruce Campbell is the b-movie dude. As the star of the Evil Dead series, folks around the world recognize his chin that can kill. With this special event, Bruce will read from his new novel (you heard it right, a novel), Make Love the Bruce Campbell Way, and will discuss and screen his new celluloid masterpiece The Man With The Screaming Brain. Just to make things complicated, reading tickets are available from us and movie tickets are available from Coolidge Corner Theatre.

Mirrormask Trailer

Bill Moyers on PBS reform

In an historic speech on Sunday, legendary television journalist Bill Moyers blasted Kenneth Tomlinson of the Corporation of Public Broadcasting (CPB) for launching a partisan witch hunt at PBS and called for a series of town hall meetings across the country.

"I simply never imagined that any CPB chairman, Democrat or Republican, would cross the line from resisting White House pressure to carrying it out for the White House," Moyers told a packed room at the National Conference for Media Reform. "And that's what Kenneth Tomlinson has been doing."

You can now watch or listen to Moyers' entire speech on the Free Press Web site:

An audio recording can be downloaded at:
www.freepress.net/conference/audio05/moyers.mp3

Or you can watch the video at:
www.freepress.net/conference/audio05/freepress-closing40515.mov

Transcript online (as soon as it's available) at www.freepress.net/conference

In his first public statement since the controversy at PBS emerged, Moyers endorsed a call by media reform groups for a series of town hall meetings nationwide so that Americans can speak directly to station managers and policymakers about what they want and expect from public broadcasting.

More than 50,000 Americans have already signed the Free Press petition calling on Kenneth Tomlinson to resign and demanding that the public be put back into PBS.

Please add your name to the petition by clicking www.freepress.net/action/pbs.

"That great mob that is democracy is rarely heard, and that's not just the fault of the current residents of the White House and Capitol," Moyers said. "There is a great chasm between those of us in the business and those who depend on TV and radio as their window to the world. We treat them too much like audiences and not enough like citizens. They are invited to look through the window, but too infrequently to participate and make public broadcasting public."

Please support Bill Moyers, public broadcasting, quality journalism and democracy by signing the petition and passing along this message to everyone you know.

Onward,

Robert W. McChesney
Free Press
www.freepress.net

School version of Supersize Me coming

In other news, the educationally enhanced version of Supersize Me is now available, and they are looking for underwriters so they can donate copies to schools that cannot afford it. That's a damn fine cause, i'd say.

And it is so cool that they are nominated for an Oscar^®. The fact that Fahrenheit 911 wanted to air on TV before the election rather than be eligible makes it worth hoping for a win. (That's OK, the peoples choice award is just fine too.)

A win for SSM is therefore probably going to be the only good thing to come out of the @#*% election, unless the Democrats also regroup.

People's Choice Awards

sheesh

Super Milk Chan

Watch the show, you dumbass!

Phil Hartman

"Your Order Has Shipped"

YAAAAAAAAAY

View order:
Items shipped on December 26, 2004:
Delivery estimate: December 31, 2004 - January 4, 2005
1 package via USPS

* 1 of: The Lord of the Rings - The Motion Picture Trilogy (Special Extended DVD Edition)

Creepy!

Save 'THE WIRE'!!

'The Wire' fears HBO may snip it

NNNOOOOOOOOO

More in link

Bye, Bill

Moyers retires his bliss

Bill Moyers is retiring from PBS after a long career... ...that included working with President Johnson. After 33 years as a TV journalist and commentator - and prior careers in the Lyndon Johnson White House and as publisher of Newsday - Bill Moyers is walking away from television.

The final installment of "NOW with Bill Moyers," his eclectic and thoughtful PBS series, will air tomorrow night at 8:30 (on WNET/Ch. 13).

Still reserving judgement

Studley! Dudley!

EABF21 - Treehouse Of Horror XIV (First Aired 11/03/03)

sound clip 1 (mp3) sound clip 2 (mp3)

Announcer: He explored the behaviour of individual molecules in chemical reactions. She's the sexy star of Alias. Please welcome Nobel Prize winner Dr. Dudley Herschbach and Emmy nominee, Jennifer Garner.
Jennifer: You know Dr. Herschbach, our jobs are actually not that different.
Dudley: I disagree.

later

Jennifer: This is the most exciting nobel prize ceremony ever!
Dudley: I disagree!

According to The Crimson Article there was a lot mre dialogue, i will have to get it on tape and capture it one day.

Gibson Blog

Neil Gaiman supplied the pointer.

Wake him up before you go-go

Thanks, Matt.

Happy 50th, Big Guy

Tatou et Jeunet encore!

Un Long Dimanche de Fiançailles (A Very Long Engagement)

Skip the flash site and go straight to the French trailer...

or go to the English-language version of trailer with annoying vo guy.

Exuberance

One of the things that's striking in academic literature in psychology is how many words we have for depression and anxiety and fear and how relatively few words we have for joy. If you really looked at where the words for joy come from they come from theology and literature. But we don't really talk about joy a lot. We look for it, but I don't think we talk about it.

Salon interview (registration required)

And this little piggy went

Man i suck at this but the piggies are SO CUTE.

Thanks, Charitee

Exercise & Nutrition good!

A comprehensive report on the causes and solutions for childhood obesity in the United States has taken a new approach to the epidemic. The report, which was released on Thursday by a panel of top researchers, calls for a broad societal strategy rather than focusing on personal responsibility.

The proposals, by the National Academies' Institute of Medicine, include healthier meals in schools and restaurants; more opportunities for physical education at schools and in communities; restrictions in television advertising to children; and education of health professionals and children to make better choices.

<<snip>>

The committee recommended:

• The enactment of nutritional standards for all food and beverages served in school and development of programs to teach health education with annual assessments of student weight;
• Expansion of physical activity for students in school to at least 30 minutes a day;
• Voluntary development and setting of guidelines for advertising and marketing to children;
• Authorization of the Federal Trade Commission to monitor the guidelines;
• Availability of more healthful food and beverage options, including nutrition information;
• Community programs to promote nutrition and regular physical activity, with changes in zoning to include sidewalks, bike paths, parks and playgrounds;
• Availability of healthy foods at home; parental encouragement of physical activity and limiting children's recreational viewing of television, video games and computers to less than two hours a day;
• Creation of a federal interagency task force to coordinate activities.

Dr. Shiriki Kumaniyika, an associate dean for health promotion and disease prevention at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine and a committee member, said the problem could not be addressed piecemeal. "You can't remove any of the recommendations in order for them to work," Dr. Kumaniyika said.

More in link

06:31 PM | Comments (0)

Read!

Trompe l'oeil

Thanks Keith Loh

Bye, Johnny Ramone

At least he didn't go out like Dee-Dee, it was prostate cancer. (The #1 in estimated new diagnoses in Men for 2004, the #2 in estimated deaths, see p 12.) He suvived for five years after learning he had it.

Oooh, CLASH

Thanks, Dietsch

John Sayles for President

if only!

i really want to see Silver City. It isn't doing so well on rotten tomatoes but small- number statistics... How great is it that Sayles is trying to delay the release in Ohio until late October? Hey, i thought Sayles was going to be at the Coolidge to premiere the film this month, but i cannot find anything :( Did i already miss it?

More John Waters Goodness

John Waters' A Dirty Shame Opens Fri Sep 24 at The Coolidge A DIRTY SHAME is a return to form for the bad boy of cinema, John Waters. This unapologetic NC-17 comedy is the story of a quiet suburban housewife becomes helplessly addicted...to sex! Starring Tracey Ullman as the heroine, Chris Isaak as her hapless hubby, Selma Blair as the more-than-ample bosomed daughter, and Johnny Knoxville as a sleazy sexual guru named RayRay. Raunchy and rude, but with a heart of gold, director John Waters has described this movie as "a cunnilingus comedy for the whole family." Official site | More on the film from Waters regular Mink Stole.

"End of the Century"

End of the Century: The Story of the Ramones

...The Ramones weren't just part of the mid-1970s New York punk scene; in their sneakers, leather jackets and limp, stripy T-shirts, with an exuberantly messy guitar sound cobbled together from oddly shaped driftwoody bits of '60s surf pop, they essentially carved it out. The original four members of the band, Joey, Johnny, Dee Dee and Tommy, used the same surname, as if they actually did belong to the same family -- no one ever even considered them by their real names, Jeffrey Hyman, John Cummings, Douglas Colvin and Tom Erdelyi, respectively. Four misfit kids from Forest Hills, Queens, they were united by their common love for Iggy Pop and the New York Dolls and perhaps not much else.

Snicket gets "too commercial"

Birth of a Nation

East St. Louis, Illinois ("the inner city without an outer city"), is an impoverished town, so poor that Fred Fredericks, its idealistic mayor, starts off Election Day by collecting the city's trash in his own minivan. But the mayor believes in the power of democracy and rallies his fellow citizens to the polls for the presidential election, only to find hundreds of them turned away for trumped-up reasons. Even sweet old Miss Jackson - not to mention the mayor himself -

is denied the vote because her name turns up on a bogus list of felons. The national election hinges on Illinois's electoral votes and, as a result of the mass disenfranchisement of East St. Louis, a radical right-wing junta led by a dim-witted Texas governor seizes the Oval Office.

Prodded by shady black billionaire and old friend John Roberts, Fredericks devises a radical plan of protest: East St. Louis will secede from the Union.

August 27, 2004

Mirrormask

07:16 PM | Comments (1)

August 22, 2004

OSLO, Norway - Edvard Munch's famous paintings "The Scream," "Madonna" and others were stolen from an art museum Sunday while stunned museum-goers watched armed men threatening the staff at gunpoint as they took the art work to a waiting car. "We don't have all the details on the situation, but we are searching for the suspects in the air and on land," Police Spokesman Kjell Moerk told the public radio network NRK.

"Hitchhiker's" trailer

Raiph is Voldemort!

No. Fair.

Duke freshmen will be attuned to iPods

Duke University freshmen will get something even more trendy than a Blue Devils T-shirt when they arrive next month: a free Apple iPod digital music player.

On Monday, the university announced a deal with Apple to distribute 1,650 of the hand-held gizmos to first-year students. Duke will get a discount and give them free to freshmen -- for keeps.

Outfoxed

http://www.outfoxed.org/ View the trailer. Thanks, Keith Loh.

From the NYT (registration required):

''Outfoxed'' has been made in secret. The film is an obsessively researched expose of the ways in which Fox News, as Greenwald sees it, distorts its coverage to serve the conservative political agenda of its owner, the media tycoon Rupert Murdoch. It features interviews with former Fox employees, leaked policy memos written by Fox executives and extensive footage from Fox News, which Greenwald is using without the network's permission. The result is an unwavering argument against Fox News that combines the leftist partisan vigor of a Michael Moore film with the sober tone and delivery of a PBS special. A large portion of the film's $300,000 budget came in the form of contributions in the range of $80,000 from both MoveOn and the Center for American Progress, the liberal policy organization founded by John Podesta, the former chief of staff for Bill Clinton; Greenwald, who is not looking to earn any money from the project, provided the rest.

Woody Guthrie Rolls in his Grave

Thanks, Mopsy!

Fahrenheit 9/11 update

Fun facts from Moore's July 4th message:

More people saw "Fahrenheit 9/11" in one weekend than all the people who saw "Bowling for Columbine" in 9 months. "Fahrenheit 9/11" broke "Rocky III’s" record for the biggest box office opening weekend ever for any film that opened in less than a thousand theaters. "Fahrenheit 9/11" beat the opening weekend of "Return of the Jedi."[emphasis mine --SG] "Fahrenheit 9/11" instantly went to #2 on the all-time list for largest per-theater average ever for a film that opened in wide-release.

David Letterman hasn't been funny in years, but every now and then there is a glimmer of his former glory. Also from Moore's site:

Letterman's Top Ten List: Top Ten George W. Bush Complaints About "Fahrenheit 9/11": Continue reading "Fahrenheit 9/11 update"

Mass MoCA

Matthew Ritchie: Proposition Player was like Neil Gaiman if he also did sculpture and computer generated crap games with the universe and pseudo-scientific tarot and cool diffraction grating wall murals. Hey, that article claims he has "movie star good looks"! Hmmm. He was at BU for a year at about the same time as Neil Stephenson, it seems like they would have run in the same circles.

"The Interventionists" is a highly amusing and thought-provoking exhibit featuring the ideas of socially conscious activist artists (many of whom do not have tangible art you can put in a gallery.)

Also, you SIMPLY MUST speak up on behalf of Professor Steve Kurtz, for now he is facing charges that could result in a 20-year sentence for doing TOTALLY LEGAL & SAFE science-related art, and being careless enough to have his 45-y.o. wife expire from a heart attack which attracts police and FBI attention when they enter the home and see chemicals and equipment.

Sweatshop

http://www.sweatthefilm.org/ Through the impassioned journey of a soccer coach — hell bent on finding the truth about Nike's overseas operations — SWEAT explores the lived reality of Indonesian factory workers and shares a perspective on globalization and sweatshops that has yet to be seen by mainstream America.

Free Comic Book Day

It is actually the fake FCBD manipulated by Marvel to coincide with the release of Spiderman, or so i read on the internet. The real FCBD would have been back in March, i think. Some comic book stores went ahead and did it. They ROCK.

But it certainly is not as lame as pushing back the 9/11 Memorial Groundbreaking to coincide with the Republican National Convention.

It is especially lame doing it two weeks before the third anniversary. Oh, how i hate them. i don't think i am alone, because when you Google "republican national convention" several protest links and links like http://www.rncnotwelcome.org/ come up first. HA.

Kill Bill 1 & 2

i am not up for it tonight, but i am going to try for tomorrow... if there is plenty of coffee available.

Alice in Wonderland

Penn Jillette at the Coolidge

Wednesday, July 7, 2004 6:00 PM Coolidge Corner Theatre $2 PENN JILLETTE (of PENN & TELLER) - SOCK Imagine a world where your favorite magician (Penn Jillette of Penn & Teller fame) stops by your favorite theatre (that's the Coolidge) to amaze you with his dazzling and dark debut novel written from the point of view of a sock monkey. Now imagine popping into the Booksmith to pick up your ticket!

Spiderman 2

Thanks for the passes, Matt.

Day of the Gods

For years i had a few Gauguin prints that i just adored, including this one:

And my friend just scored me a free ticket to the MFA exhibit for Saturday, just when i thought i would not be able to go. Life is good.

30 Days

From TVTome:

Morgan Spurlock ("Super Size Me") has scored a pilot commitment from the cable channel for a new one-hour documentary series that plants an individual for 30 days in a completely different lifestyle, whether religious, economic or ethnic. The news marks John Landgraf's first pilot order since taking over the entertainment reigns of the network. Spurlock, who will have an on-air role as host in the pilot, says possible storylines include a wealthy person would discover what it's like to be poor, or a prosecutor would try a 30-day prison sentence. He'll executive produce the project via his The Con production banner along with Ben Silverman, H.T. Owens and Mark Koops of Reveille Entertainment ("The Restaurant"). Also as part of the pact, Spurlock will get a blind script commitment from FX for a potential scripted series. FX is believed to have been involved in a bidding war for the project with at least one other broadcast network.

Howard Zinn

Howard Zinn: You Can't Be Neutral on a Moving Train

The life and times of historian, activist and author of the best selling classic A People's History of the United States, Howard Zinn. Featuring rare archival materials, interviews with Howard Zinn as well as colleagues and friends including Noam Chomsky, Marian Wright Edelman, Daniel Ellsberg, Tom Hayden and Alice Walker, this film captures the essence of this activist and thinker who has been a catalyst for progressive change for more than 60 years.

Word Wars

There is a dedicated community of people for whom SCRABBLE is more than a domestic nicety – it is an obsession. They devote years of their lives to mental and physical preparation and travel the country – some full-time – competing in cutthroat tournaments. The dictionary is studied with religious devotion, each obscure word another weapon for the ultimate battle. For some, the game keeps them teetering on the safe side of sanity. For others, it has pushed them just over. Some scrape by on the meager winnings alone. More in link

Stalking Errol Morris

A morsel of wisdom from the main page of his website:

Why It Makes Sense to Bite the Hand that feeds you

Hand bound to betray you eventually. Preemptive strike. Get it before it gets you Alleviate protein deficiency Keep gums healthy Hand less likely poisoned than food Tastes good Why not... ?