animation, art, cambridge, comix, culture, event, free culture, illustration, linux/open source, made by me, nrrrd, sfbay

October Update: California, Lampoon, Creative Commons…

Its been a while since my last post, but not for lack of things to say. Instead, my bandwidth for online activity has been consumed by two other endeavors. First, I gave the Harvard Lampoon website a complete redesign using Drupal. Its still very much a work in progress, and considering my attention span, it may stay as such for a while. But check it out, as we plan to update the content quite frequently (including comics illustrated by yours truly).

However, despite what my recent contributions to the Lampoon may seem, I am not back in Cambridge. My love affair with California is still going strong and I’ve decided to stay in Berkeley for the semester. Peace out, Puritans. Hello, beautiful hippie people.

And what have I been doing out here? Besides making lots of friends, art, and sourdough, I’m pleased to announce that I’ve been hired as a Business Development Assistant for Creative Commons, the awesome organization I interned with over the summer. I blog for them a couple times a week, so that’s definitely been eating into the energy I have for this site. More to come on what else I’ve been working on there, but for now I should mention that we just launched our Annual Fall Fundraising Campaign, and along with it, a slick site redesign. Those of you already familiar with the great work CC is doing, consider making a donation!

Support CC - 2007

For the uninitiated, this video is a pretty good introduction to what Creative Commons is all about:

culture, musings, religion

mystics & messiahs

A genuine first-hand religious experience like this is bound to be a heterodoxy to its witnesses, the prophet appearing as a mere lonely madman. If his doctrine prove contagious enough to spread to any others, it becomes a definite and labeled heresy. But if it then still prove contagious enough to triumph over persecution, it becomes itself an orthodoxy; and when a religion has become an orthodoxy, its day of inwardness is over: the spring is dry; the faithful live at second hand exclusively and stone the prophets in their turn. The new church, in spite of whatever human goodness it may foster, can be henceforth counted on as a staunch ally in every attempt to stifle the spontaneous religious spirit, and to stop all later bubblings of the fountain from which in purer days it drew its own supply of inspiration. Unless, indeed, by adopting new movements of the spirit it can make capital out of them and use them for its selfish corporate designs!

-William James, The Varieties of Religious Experience

(via Mystics and Messiahs: Cults and New Religions in American History by Philip Jenkins. A good read if you get the chance.)

animation, art, friends

yo gabba gabba

Just got this email from Lori D., an awesome animator who taught me at CSSSA:

Hi everybody!
I did a simple little animated music video for this great new preschool kids show called ‘Yo Gabba Gabba’.
My little 2 minute piece is about ‘Listening’. I don’t know when in the show it comes on because I haven’t seen the episode and I myself do not have le cable television…
That episode will be playing on Monday at 1pm Eastern Time…on Nickelodeon.
Hope you all are doing well!
Love,
Lori D.

http://www.nickjr.com/shows/yo-gabba-gabba/yo-ga-about-the-show/yo-ga-about-the-show.jhtml

I don’t have television so I’ll have to wait for youtube, but if you do have tv you should check it out! Here is one of her paintings to whet your appetite:

lori d painting

Rebecca R. Rojer