Terje Sorgjerd spent a week capturing in time lapse one of the biggest aurora borealis shows in recent years. Shot in and around Kirkenes and Pas National Park bordering Russia.
Monday, March 28, 2011
Friday, March 25, 2011
True Canadian
"A biracial Jewish former child star from Canadian television who’s a multimillion-dollar selling artist? You couldn’t create a better Canadian in a science lab."
Evan Newman, director and management guru for the Outside Music label, on why Drake is the ideal torchbearer for the Junos.
Evan Newman, director and management guru for the Outside Music label, on why Drake is the ideal torchbearer for the Junos.
Inventions
Festo's Bionic Learning Network just invented a robot bird that can actually fly like a real bird. Put some feathers on it, and it's a hawk. The SmartBird is an autonomous bionic bird that can be controlled and monitored from afar using a radio.
And the japanese, even in the middle of catastrophe, are still able to take us to a next evolutionary stage: they just recreated perfectly fine and reproductive sperm in a lab from cloned cells. As if reproduction weren't easy enough.
And the japanese, even in the middle of catastrophe, are still able to take us to a next evolutionary stage: they just recreated perfectly fine and reproductive sperm in a lab from cloned cells. As if reproduction weren't easy enough.
More cool videos
English Lessons. Lesson 2 is kinda hilarious (at 3:08 min.)
Beth Ditto re-writes Justify My Love video.
NASA shoots the sun spewing hot lava (and sucking it back up).
Dirty South featuring Rudy - 'Phazing'
Thanks J@v@ Junkie!
Beth Ditto re-writes Justify My Love video.
NASA shoots the sun spewing hot lava (and sucking it back up).
Dirty South featuring Rudy - 'Phazing'
Thanks J@v@ Junkie!
Wednesday, March 23, 2011
Brazilian Robocop
Brazilian director José Padilha (Elite Squad) signed up to direct the remake of 80's sci-fi Robocop. Brazilian directors are taking over Hollywood.
Monday, March 21, 2011
My new favorite image(s)
Animal edition.
From a series of photographs by Carol Beckwith and Angela Gisher about the Dinka.
Röyksopp
The Norwegian band played in Toronto last week, opening their North American tour in support of their new album Senior.
The album is a bit of a departure from Röyksopp’s usually ebullient pop ditties, but thankfully the concert didn’t focus on its more somber, abstract and down-tempo tracks.
Compact and powerful vocalist Anneli Drecker was a welcome and lively presence on stage.
Despite being a band with such a cool videography, Röyksopp didn’t bring any visual aids on tour. No projectors, no laser beams, not even LED lights! All we got was the guitar player with a pillowcase over his head.
In all fairness, Drecker stroke the most curious poses wearing an elaborate head piece.
And band member Svein Berge wore a cool bracelet made of light!
Overall, the concert had a very experimental feel to it, but the band still delivered the hits and made an explosive finale. Much a propos for a band whose name in Norwegian means the mushroom cloud that appears after the explosion of a nuclear bomb (an ecstatic fan volunteered the factoid to me.)
New Wonder Woman for TV series
© 2011 NBC/Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. All Rights Reserved. Photo Credit: Justin Lubin
The most wonderful thing debuts
The long-waited score that the Pet Shop Boys have been writing for a ballet premiered last week at Sadler’s Wells in London. The contemporary, full-length narrative dance -- choreographed by “scandalous” Javier de Frutos -- is the adaptation of a fable by Hans Christian Andersen, about the construction (and eventual destruction) of “the most wonderful thing.”
When choosing a fable to adapt, I’m sure it didn’t go unnoticed the marketing angle of “The Pet Shop Boys Release The Most Incredible Thing.”
“In the past we have written dance music, so to write music for a ballet seems like a logical development. Also we have always been fascinated by giving our music a theatrical context,” said former pupil of Newcastle’s St Cuthbert’s High School, Neil Tennant. "When you have a long career like ours, you have to keep things fresh. You have to be excited and smiling and scared shitless about something."
The Pet Shop Boys will also release the score as an album tomorrow, and despite being mostly instrumental, Neil’s vocals percolate, like in Battleship Potemkin.
Neil and Chris wrote all the music, and are billed as Tennat/Lowe – and not as Pet Shop Boys. They’re branching out.
Of course, there’s still quite a bit of PSB-like theatrical drama in the show. The three-act ballet including their score is backed up by film projections and a 26-piece orchestra.
From what I’ve seen and heard of it, it looks and sounds pretty sharp, and the reviews haven’t been bad. Perhaps they’re better off writing scores instead of musicals.
Wednesday, March 16, 2011
Red Riding Hood
Not much to be afraid of in this current production of the ancient fable besides the heavy hand of director Catherine Hardwicke, (she also directs the Twilight phenomenon), Gary Oldman yelling all his lines and Amanda Seyfried walking around with a constant facial expression of surprise, her big saucer eyes wide open. Incongruent hairstyles, stilted acting, and Julie Christie looking out of place with her dreaded locks don't do the movie any favors. Worst of all, the wolf wasn't very impressive.
Monday, March 14, 2011
Janelle Monáe
The Arch-Android was in town last Saturday night headlining the Indies Music Awards, "the Grammy's of the indie scene" that is part of the Canadian Music Week, a music convention in Toronto. I thought the award celebrated independent music talent in Canada, so getting a Kansas City girl to headline it seems like an odd choice, but I'm not complaining.
It’s like she came straight from the land of Oz, by the way of Fritz Lang’s Metropolis. With a sound that transcends and mixes funk, punk, pop, rock, rap, r&b and even country (!) Janelle has the imagination and the flair for drama that makes her music translate perfectly to the stage and the live act.
This and the fact that she’s cute as a button, reminiscent of a young Lena Horne (“big mouth, big voice”) and with a boundless energy and consummate showwomanship.
Her antics included having dancers dressed as nuns, painting on stage, and reenacting Eyes Wide Shut. She sang while collapsed on the floor and, in the end, threw on a cape à la James Brown.
At the end, after a triumphal concert in the Royal York Hotel and with her pompadour a little out of whack, Janelle didn’t hesitate and went crowd surfing, while looking totally terrified/elated. This one’s got the goods.
Wednesday, March 9, 2011
Tata Pixel
Finally a car I would really like to have. I'm just not sure how to open the doors in a place with low ceilings...
WW
Is it just me or is Wonder Woman everywhere these days? Even at the mall: she just released a makeup line for MAC. When does she find time to save the world? (Drawings courtesy of the great Mike Allred.)
New t-shirts and fashion shows at the New York Fashion Week borrowed heavily from WW’s sense of style and iconic imagery.
At carnaval, a magazine had a special spread on heroines, and guess who looked better naked and spray-painted?
And the talk on TV is the new Wonder Woman series, for which casting has been ongoing. Elizabeth Hurley was cast in the pilot as the superhero nemesis (not any of the classic ones, mind you).
Speaking of Wonder Woman TV series, check this pilot for a silly and thankfully unaired show.
Now it’s just wait until she gets off that silly costume she’s been in lately.
Here are some fantastic Wonder Women that Brazilian artist Ed Benes has been producing for the Amazon lately.
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