Culture jamming

This looks like fun! I'm going to do it.

Maybe a project is going to be to compile a set of culture jamming activities.

A dancer's life

In this video, you see an excerpt of a much longer dance-performance "Cédric Andrieux by Jérome Bel", an event I attended last night. During an hour and a half, the dancer himself, Andrieux, narrates and performs the history of his relationship to dance, including his years as a member of Merce Cunningham's company. He joined when Cunningham was already 80 years old, but was still pushing the boundaries of dance, as he had throughout his long life as a creator.

What this video shows are Andrieux's performance of two Cunningham solos he shared with us, one that he performed over 110 times (Biped), the other a role danced decades earlier by Cunningham himself.  What you don't see in this video is everything else the audience for the Bel-Andrieux piece learned about the dancer himself, how he came to dance with Cunningham, what the daily routine of Cunningham exercises was like, the intensely hard work of learning the choreography, how a rehearsal worked, what it felt like to perfom, the emotional ups and downs of relationships over the years.  Our experiencing of watching him perform pieces was transformed by the dancer's knowledge he had shared withus with us, and it was an amazing gift. 

Choreographer Jérome Bel explains the process of collaboration that created this particular piece, which is one of a series of such dancer-biographies he has created, in this fascinating  "Talk Dance" podcast from The Walker Art (27 minutes).
This excerpt from the piece he created with Véronique Doisneaux gives an idea of what we experienced with Cédric Andrieux.

And in this second excerpt, she dances a Cunningham piece as well as something from Giselle.

For my daughter on her seventeenth birthday

 Carole King, "Child of Mine"


Dar Williams, "The One Who Knows"


Sweet Honey in the Rock, "On Children"

"This is Halloween"

The opening sequence to Tim Burton's movie The Nightmare Before Christmas. We are big fans of this movie.

I love maps. When I was in fifth grade, our teacher told us all we would get to spend time on a hobby. I had no hobbies (all I did was read, and reading was not going to count as a hobby) so I decided that mine would be maps. This was related to my desire to travel everywhere in the world some day. I didn't quite know what to do with this hobby, so I made a copy of a map of Australia. I think my teacher was disappointed, but I enjoyed it.


This Social Network map (2010) below, by Ethan Block  is a tribute and is an updated version of the hilarious xkcd map of Online Communities, , which in turn is a modification of the highly entertaining xkcd a 2007 map


A visual representation of the actual nodes and flows of the Internet can be seen here.

For updates on explorations of our changing digital mindscapes, check out this new blog Ethnography Matters from whence I took the above links.

The three-card monte analogy

Jay Smooth breaks it down, and as usual, he is right on. ( via zunguzungu's invaluable Sunday Reading round-up).

"The Divided Brain"--Iain McGhilchrist

Iain McGilchrist's argument about the relationship between brain physiology and culture, given visual form in the RSA's Animations.

feeling good

Queen," Don't Stop Me"
CCR, "doot doot doot"

 
Brian Eno, "St Elmo's Fire"


Sigur Ros, "Ara Batur"

Leonora Carrington

I discovered this fascinating interview-portrait of the artist Leonora Carrington while preparing my classes on Frida Kahlo in film for the week. It is an excerpt from the film Gifted Beauty
LEONORA CARRINGTON by Pamela Robertson-Pearce from Neil Astley on Vimeo.

You can find more about the work of Pamela Robertson-Pearce at her website. Here's the description of the film project from the Vimeo site:

LEONORA CARRINGTON (born 1917) is an English-born surrealist artist and writer who has lived in Mexico since the Second World War. She is the last surviving original member of the celebrated group of 20th-century women Surrealist artists who came together in Paris which included Leonor Fini, Frida Kahlo (co-opted by André Breton), Lee Miller, Meret Oppenheim and Remedios Varo. This video is an excerpt from the film GIFTED BEAUTY (Ragg Film, 2000) which examines the work of all six artists along with that of the contemporary Norwegian artist Vilde von Krogh. It features the interviews with Leonora Carrington (in Mexico City and New York City) used in the film made by filmmaker and assistant director Pamela Robertson-Pearce, along with her footage of Mexico (the Day of the Dead and Leonora Carrington's sculptures in the boulevard on Paseo Reforma, Mexico City). GIFTED BEAUTY was directed by Anne Kjersti Bjørn, with music by Maia Urstad and animations by Gustav Kvall. 

Gotta stand up, be proud, and hold each other near

Barbara Ehrenreich brings the class analysis, as usual This song brings the hope:
Ari Herstand: http://ariherstand.com • http://youtube.com/ariherstand •

Lyrics:

Dear Washington and Wall Street,
We are the 99% and we're here to stop the machine.
Why is that we only come through in times of crisis
Can't recognize the need while we stare at our devices
See, I got the graph and I got the stats
And I got the need to keep people from the rats
More than simply a game of motivation
The idea that together we're better then evolution
Not me against you
But really an us
See, The world is our oyster
Only we can destruct
Democracy seems really cool
The idea that we give voice, even to the fool
But see that's the problem
With our system of learning
The fantastic drips down
And infects the yearning
Are we meant to play the game on even ground
Or is that the fairytale that makes the merry-go-round
Used to be tribes
Then the nation state drew borders
Every revolution comes from disrespecting orders
But I got hope
And I believe in peace In Korea, South Asia and the Middle East

Cause the youth, yeah, we're finally here
Got a future full of love Love without fear
Cause the youth, yeah, we're finally here
Got stand up, be proud, hold each other near

He said good morning could you raise your right hand
Step into the jurors box and take a stand
On trial are the quiet dreams of our fathers
See those dreams draw lines between us and others
Built our corporate present on them dotted lines
It's those strange shapes that seem to plague the mind
Mine and yours
An equation outdated
The prosecution suggests it be recalibrated
My patriotic dream is recast as struggle
We the people be building out of this rubble
How many more rotations about the sun
Before my brothers in arms will lay down their guns
"We the people" is beyond a battle cry
A Formula for peace and progress in our time
The current manifesto manifests too small
Promise of living is dwarfed by the wall My aim is not guilt nor material goods
My sights on inspiration cross all latitudes
My declaration declares one thing
Creation exists in each human being

Cause the youth, yeah, we're finally here
Got a future full of love
Love without fear
Cause the youth, yeah, we're finally here
Got stand up, be proud, hold each other near
Whispers of the revolution are getting louder on the
Wall Streets and Main Streets from New York to Los Angeles and around the world
See, we need the corruption and greed to end
And we need to learns respect for all of our brothers and sisters

See youth, it's a state of mind and we preach a future full of
Love Hope and progress

Cause the youth, yeah, we're finally here
Got a future full of love Love without fear
Cause the youth, yeah, we're finally here
Got stand up, be proud, hold each other near

Enough hypocrisy

Our busy, busy cells

Have you had a flu shot yet? This NPR visualization of the flu virus comes via Open Culture. I"m endlessly fascinated by the intricate dynamics of every cell, acting in concert with every other cell.

soothing cephalopods on Science Friday blog

Argh, grading can be so tedious! even though my students are doing very well. Here's a cephalopod break for my brain. Science Friday is one of my favorite radio shows, and their web page is full of goodies for when you need to take a break from work.

St Vincent show

We saw St Vincent (Annie Clark) at the Walker's McGuire Theater, the first stop on her tour for her third album Strange Mercy.