Alright, I’ll level with you. I don’t have anything super pertinent to bring up this week and my internet connection has been temperamental at best; however, I figured some of y’all might appreciate a literary freebie–so to speak. I mean, really, who doesn’t want a T.S. Eliot typography wallpaper? Eh?
I don’t always catch episodes of This American Life on National Public Radio (NPR) — though I have taken to listening to them online now — but I caught one by accident a few weeks ago. By the time I finished my drive home, I was glued to the story and sat parked in front of my home.
“Remember Me” aired in early April, and it focuses on how individuals try to shape how their legacies will be remembered. I was struck, touched, disappointed, and then oddly relieved in hearing the first story (starting at minute 9). I don’t want to give it away; in fact, if I were you, I wouldn’t even read the description of the story online but just simply listen to it. Its unfolding is captivating.
SpaceCollective seems to have found a nice cushy spot where their members intersect between science and art. My, my, how I love it so.
To be honest, I haven’t watched Sesame Street in… well, many many years. I did, however, stumble upon these YouTube clips of Sesame Street‘s versions of popular adult crime shows: Law and Order Special Letters Unit and Rhyme Scene Investigation (RSI). While the videos are–in keeping with SS‘s mission–educational, it’s a little ballsy to connect a children’s educational show to adult crime shows, especially to one that focuses on sexually heinous crimes. I’m guessing SS just wanted to throw its adult audience a bone.
Law and Order: Special Letters Unit:
RSI: Rhyme Scene Investigation:
David Byrne has just released 4 live tracks to benefit Amnesty International. Check them out below and download them here for a mere $3.99 that all goes to Amnesty.
I know about this because I got another email from DB this morning:
Some time ago Amnesty International asked if I might do “something” for that organization this year- (in previous years I had done one of my tour dates as a benefit for them). Amnesty has such an amazing and consistent track record of speaking out and helping to illuminate courageous people who might otherwise not be heard from so the answer was “yes.”
It was decided to record some songs from my current tour for them to be sold as a download with the proceeds going to Amnesty. As there are no physical costs with digital distribution this means more of the sales percentage actually goes to where it’s supposed to. So, thank you for supporting a great organization and I hope you like these recordings too.
Still loving that name in my inbox…
Poor guys…
Today’s NYT contains an article, “Disney Expert Uses Science to Draw Boy Viewers,” that made me feel sorry for them. Keep your heads down, boys — they’re using “science” to find your boy-princess sweet spot!
I like the word choice of “science.” Or, in this case, focus group research, maybe even ethnography-lite — and I mean lite: What teen is going to open up to an adult with a video camera while shopping with mom?! (Perhaps they should be researching how to research.) And they call the head researcher–whose background is in casinos–the “kid whisperer.” Giving kids a whole lot of credit, aren’t they?
To be fair, maybe they’re trying. Disney is actually marketing this marketing research:
Fearful of coming off as too manipulative, youth-centric media companies rarely discuss this kind of field research. Disney is so proud of its new “headquarters for boys,” however, that it has made an exception, offering a rare window onto the emotional hooks that are carefully embedded in children’s entertainment. The effort is as outsize as the potential payoff: boys 6 to 14 account for $50 billion in spending worldwide, according to market researchers.
Fascinating. This actually makes me want to watch Disney tv to see just how this transparency plays out. Do they mention that $50 billion? Do they have polls about color schemes? Do they ask for interactive responses to the bold move of having a protagonist struggle with (gasp) not being the star basketball player?
The coolest part, I think, is one insight:
In Ms. Peña’s research boys across markets and cultures described the television aimed at them as “purposeless fun” but expressed a strong desire for a new channel that was “fun with a purpose,” Mr. Ross said. Hollywood has been thinking of them too narrowly — offering all action or all animation — instead of a more nuanced combination, he added.
I love the idea of kids telling Disney they want “fun with a purpose.” I wonder what Disney will decide that looks like? Or more importantly, how to make money off it…?
I’m teaching a course on documentary this term, and today my students were watching/analyzing An Inconvenient Truth. I picked this doc because we’re talking about the use of personal narratives in/and public rhetoric, and I’m kind of fascinated with the “Al Gore Show” woven throughout the film.
For the most part, of course, we see Gore’s slideshow presentation and listen along with his (rapt) audiences. (As one student suggested, the director lays the prophet robe on Gore a bit heavily.) But every so often, that lecture is interspersed with Gore’s reflections and anecdotes about how he came to be offering that slideshow. And at those junctures, his voice changes, becomes low and intimate, the footage becomes soft-focus or creatively aged, and the pathos becomes a bit heavy-handed.
… as a student’s sudden snort made abundantly clear. It was the snort of a burgeoning rhetorical critic, and it confirmed my hunch about some of the risky, even reckless rhetorical choices Gore and the director made in that movie. And the personal quest angle isn’t the only one. I wonder whether the warm fuzzy fatherly feelings would work on audiences alienated by his Bush jokes? Or are we to assume that no one who voted for Bush (that’s a lot of people) belongs in this doc’s audience?
More as my students figure this all out…
I’ll admit to liking TLC. In most circumstances, I have no problem saying that I like programs such as Jon & Kate Plus 8, but I have been a bit disturbed by their schedule lately. You can take a look for yourself at TLC’s TV schedule by both the daily and weekly listing.
I suppose that it’s entirely possible that I never paid attention before, but it seems like that station has been overrun by what we might call the exotic. That is, almost every show on that schedule seems to have some fascination with situations that are out of the norm. Seriously, these day it’s all Little People, Big World, 17 18 kids and counting, LA Ink, Miami Ink, Table for 12, and Toddlers and Tiaras.
I’m concerned. That’s all. If we look at everything expecting it to be exotic, then does the mundane lose power? I’ve always been a strong believer in making the mundane seem as wondrous as it really can be. One of my favorite videos of late is that of Louis CK on Conan. . .
And I guess this is my point and my concern. If all we seem to want to see are the absolute extraordinary rarities that happen in life or the attempt at rarity, then aren’t we missing out on some of the actually extraordinary every day things?
Nothing I like more than a little analysis in a hard candy coating and, well, I feel like sharing.
Is He Bona Fide?
Is He Bona Fide? from Daniel Anderson on Vimeo.
“This video essay explores the theme of sincerity in the film O Brother, Where Art Thou?. The essay is composed in video form, using clips from the film as quotations and layering analysis over the clips through narration.”
Remix Culture II
Remix Culture II from Ricardo on Vimeo.
“My second mashup for the
Total Recut Video Remix Challenge 2008
“What is Remix Culture?”Here’s a list of all the entries in the competition:
http://www.totalrecut.com/contest-videos.php”
Watchmen Video Essay/Review
Watchmen Video Essay/Review from Adam Schoales on Vimeo.
“Here we go kids, after hours of writing, editing, shooting, cutting, and recutting my review… err… video essay for “Watchmen” is complete.
I’m going to work on creating a more concise version thats more along the lines of an actual review, but this should whet your appetite.
(and yes, I’m reading from a teleprompter. you try doing a 20 minute review from memory and smoothly…)”
The World is Flat 3.0
This is more of a lecture, but still mighty thought provoking. I especially like starting at the 29:30 minute mark when Thomas Friedman says that being able to use “imaginative thinking” and connecting dots, in the way liberal arts does, is essential. Then again, I’m a bit biased.
Bringing liberal arts into the equation is more important than ever, because we’re in a world now where imagination and mashups–the ability to mash things together through really imaginative, I think, thinking–is going to be such a huge advantage. . . I think inspiration, innovation comes from having two or more specialties and applying the framework of one specialty to the framework of another. And so, it is great, it is critical, it is essential. We have people who are experts at dots, but we also need, as individuals and collectives, to be encouraging the connecting of those dots and the mashing of them together.
More fun with David Byrne.
Thanks to Chris Higgs and brightstupidconfetti.blogspot.com for bringing this gem to my attention.