Found this one browsing current:
The Democratic Messiah? by Josh Faure-Brac
Speaking of voting for hope, Stefan Gruber linked to this promo he did about Instant Run-off Voting in a comment. In case you missed that, here it is:
On a more reverent note, this one comes via Dustin:
History of Evil by Ole-Magnus Saxegaard
check out her new animation, Surfacing
awesome carrots
Originally uploaded by tvol
carrots are a very special food. tvol‘s flickr makes me hungry.
Impressive student documentary of all the intense events that happened at my high school the year after I graduated, when students decided to join together to bring about change and unify the school. Really inspiring. How have I not seen this until now? Why isn’t this happening everywhere?
The whole video is 45min, broken up into parts because youtube is annoying. But very much worth the effort to watch. Anyone know what Columbia is like now? Is there anything alums can do?
After seeing the near-total lack of protest (at least at this scale, relatively) on both the Berkeley and Harvard campuses, I have to give major props to my peers from CHS for making this happen. By luck I was on break from college the day of the big walkout, so I was there, and it was far more inspiring than anything I’ve seen on campus. I would not be surprised if a number of our generation’s leaders come from the halls of Columbia.
One School
Written, produced, and directed by Cris Thorne
My friend & former housemate Jenna Mellor managed to snag an impromptu interview with Kucinich for Hbomb Magazine. This being the Harvard sex magazine (and Jenna) all the questions are about sex. Most are policy-related but some are quite personal. Then they hug. Twice. Its definitely the most adorable thing I’ve seen all campaign season.
YouTube – H Bomb at the New Hampshire Primaries: STRIPPER CUM NATURIST
She also got a pretty funny one with a virgin paultard.
I just finished the cover for the 2008 Cal Disorientation guide. Inspired by Jono‘s tattoo.
To all my family & friends,
I am so insanely lucky to have you in my life. A blog post feels massively inadequate for expressing my gratitude, appreciation, and love for all of you, but to not use this space to say something seems wrong. Because of you, I think it is fair to say that I have had the most exciting, educational, and life-affirming year of my life. I hope that your 2007 was wonderful too, but more importantly, that your 2008 is even better. May the new year bring you peace, health, love, growth, and happiness.
To Marjane Satrapi and Vikram Seth,
Thank you for making art. Marjane, thank you for reminding me how powerful and beautiful animation can be. Vikram, thank you for writing a novel about San Francisco in verse. To both of you, thank you for demonstrating the importance of not compromising as an artist, for giving me a reason to look forward to tomorrow’s cross-country flight with a 2 hour layover, and for helping me view life with some reverence (the good kind). May the new year bring you success and inspiration, and may your work influence our culture.
To the weather,
Thank you so much for snowing today in Cambridge. I really needed that. May the new year keep you safe from global warming.
Love,
Rebecca
Last week Creative Commons published Sharing Creative Works, the comic I’ve been working on for the past month or so.
Originally intended as documentation for our OLPC collaboration, we settled for trying to come up with something American kids (and adults) would understand, as we realized we were pretty unqualified to educate children in the developing world. So in true collaborative form, the comic is on the wiki (admittedly, a poor presentation format) and all the SVG artwork is online, in the hopes that people who have a stronger knowledge of the different cultures the laptops are going to will give us feedback or make improvements.
I wrote the bulk of the script (with lots of help from Jon, Alex, and Asheesh). This is the product of 4ish years of trying to explain CC to friends, family, and whoever else would listen. I’m really curious about how successful it is. Its definitely the approach I’ve found work best in conversation, but this is a comic. Of course I’ve been working on it for too long to have any sense if it works or not (but Valleywag twice blogged us).
As far as the artwork goes, I storyboarded it and then passed it on to our awesome graphic designer, Alex Roberts. He did most of the panels in Inkscape until he got bored of it, and threw it back to me. The art is kinda tricky because of how abstract the ideas are, leading to an over reliance on arrows and such. I had fun with the facial expressions towards the end though.
This is my first real project using vector graphics and its made me a lot more savvy with Inkscape, which is great. I definitely miss ink & bristol, and hopefully will have something new in that medium up here soon. On the other hand, SVG makes it so easy to revise and mess around, like with this final panel that didn’t make the cut:
During summer 2004 I spent 4 weeks intensively studying & making animation at CalArts through CSSSA (ambitious/masochistic young animators, check it out). This past week I got news from two of my favorite people from that summer. First, my friend Winona found me on myspace after a couple years of lost contact. I’m very happy because in addition to being able to catch up with her, she has a fanciful website and blog full of her beautiful art. And she’s working on a new film about “witches, love, and adventures into the cosmic altered mind!” Goodie!
We’ll trim their trees but not our own by Winona Regan
Then I learned that one of our instructors, Stefan Gruber, finally updated his interactive-animation experiment of a website, Fantasy Pleasure Complex. F.P.C. 10 features four new films, including Anaelle, which I remember him working on at CSSSA when it was hundreds of tiny little drawings in thick flip books. Petting Zoo (1) is also great, like a wonderful nightmare.
Anaelle [mov] by Stefan Gruber
Tim, Christina & co are up to some craziness back in Cambridge. On April 25-27, they will attempt to open the hellmouth:
This is the ongoing record of an effort to assemble every famous internet meme or celebrity to come to Harvard in the spring of 2008 to attend a conference.
Presumably, they’re going to talk about fame online.
:::ROFLCon:::
So far the guest list includes xkcd, dinosaur comics, the oneredpaperclip guy, and others. They get goatse and I’m buying a plane ticket.
To get you psyched:
Internet People
Animation by Dan Meth
Music by Dan Meth & Micah Frank
From MethMinute39, CC-BY-NC-SA
Suggested Reading: The Secret Strategies Behind Many “Viral” Videos
