Brooke finishes the book with a manifesto of sorts, a call to arms to press, politicos and public to confront the coming deluge of data and channel it for transparency and accountability, but away from surveillance and invasion of privacy (a delicate operation, to be sure!) and to resist using the net as an excuse for more intrusive information policy.
Found this on BoingBoing – it is chock full of awesomesauce. I grew up on the films of Ray Harryhausen and worked with my friend Bryan in his mother’s garage (and in the back room of our art teacher, Paul Jones) to make our own dubious works of art. Like so many before and after me, a large part of my aesthetic has been informed, coloured and directed by Harryhausen’s films.
Can you name them all? I can. Along with the cast, the crews and an endless litany of minutia. I’ve watched them at 3 in the morning on a small screen black and white TV with shabby reception from Barrie – I’ve luxuriated in theatres as their light has basked me with its Dynamation goodness – and I own several copies of each on various media (including some on flip books for cryin’ out loud) – and I never tire of tasting with all my senses the works of Mr. Harryhausen.
My Missus, through her work with Cuppa Coffee Animation, had the opportunity to sculpt a stop-motion figure of Harryhausen himself which was presented to him when he came to Toronto to promote his book and gave a talk. I had the chance to meet him then – but stayed at the back of the room – nervous and fearful for I do not know what – but happy to just be where I was, always was, in the dim shadows observing the show before me.
Thank you, Ray.
Cheers.
P. S. You can find our Ruffus The Dog homage to Ray Harryhausen in the Sinbad episodes here and here. Enjoy!
Cory Doctorow posted on BoingBoing about how Jack Christie (a 12th grade student at Donald A. Wilson Secondary School in Whitby, Ontario) has been suspended indefinitely for posting his animated videos on YouTube. Christie was originally given a one day suspension and ordered by the Principal, Warren Palmer to immediately remove the videos. Jack Christie refused and was then given the indefinite suspension. When Gavin Russell (prime minister of the student council) and others took up a petition to get Christie back in school they were told to stop and threatened with punishment.
Way to go, Mr. Palmer.
That’s a really unique way of teaching the fundamentals of democratic rights and freedoms to the youth of our country. But, of course, that’s not really what you were doing, was it? And, of course, they don’t really need to be taught these things, do they? No.
As amply demonstrated in Jack Christie’s rebuttal to the school board, it is the staff of Donald A. Wilson Secondary School (in particular Mr. Palmer) and the Durham District School Board that need to be taught the basics of our Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
Take it away, Jack:
To be fair – not all school administrators are as thick as Mr. Wilson. However, the pinheads who do exist in positions of authority within our school system need to remember they are running (not ruling) institutions of learning – not prisons. Students are citizens. If a person in such a position of power is incapable of seeing the inappropriateness of their response to a situation and then wield their power further in a blind insistence of their authority – it becomes obvious that such a person is not worthy of maintaining that position.
The principal of Donald A. Wilson Secondary School – and the Durham District School Board – owe Jack Christie a very humble and public apology.
Shame on you, Mr. Palmer.
Jack Christie – you fucking rock.
Never apologize. Never retract. Never back down.
Cheers.
P. S. I especially liked the part with: “Look at the fucking puppety puppet!” – but maybe that’s just me.
P. P. S. You can read further coverage by the Globe & Mail here – where the comments are priceless. And there’s a report over at ParentCentral with a great photo from one of Christie’s videos where he suggests Sen. Joe Leiberman has sexual relations with goats.
Ryan Varga made this excellent mini-doc about the Toronto Mini-Maker Faire which I and my family attended last weekend. It was an awesome display of wit and intelligence and talent – and all of it open and inclusive.
I love the ethos of the Maker culture and wholeheartedly embrace the idea of knowing what the fuck is going on inside our gadgets – so we can make our own and better and more individualized creations.
Time to pump some humanity into the culture of tech which we find ourselves swimming in. If the future is, as Ray Kurzweil suggests, inevitably headed toward a Singularity where our machines become sentient and we become our machines we’d better be damned sure our humanity goes along for the ride.
Found this post by Cory Doctorow over on BoingBoing – it’s Bruce Sterling at the Vimeo Festival giving the closing keynote on vernacular video. He references the Dick Van Dyke Show, amongst other things – like: the future will be filled with old people, afraid of the sky, living in dirty cities – great stuff.
His phrase “obsolete before plateau” is just as brilliant as “pants like a kangaroo” and “life span of hamsters”. Sterling has the ability to inspire and this is an inspiring talk – just not in the way you’d expect from Sterling. Despite his habitual snarkiness, here he’s almost a cranky luddite as he proclaims the “future is not going to be as smart as you want it to be”. And he’s right. It’s no reason to give up, curl in a ball and die. It’s just a very realistic look at where we’re going.
Short strokes? We’re inexorably crawling deeper and deeper up our own ass.
Enjoy the ride.
Cheers.
P.S. I’ll be the guy on the left-turn corner of your colon, just past the burrito obstruction, with his hat out for spare change as he gives a little song and dance. Watch out for the corn.
I found this over at BoingBoing where Cory Doctorow said: “This young man is one of the best speakers I’ve heard, and I salute his passion and his integrity.”
I have my faith in humanity restored whenever I hear young men and women speak words like this:
They can’t stop us demonstrating, they can’t stop us fighting back, and how ever much they try to imprison us in the streets of London, those are our streets. We will always be there to demonstrate, we will always be there to fight… We are no longer that generation that doesn’t care, we are no longer that generation to sit back and take whatever they give us. We are now the generation at the heart of the fight back.
They deserve our praise and, more importantly, our support. There is a very big fight coming. Large storm clouds of unrest are looming on the horizon of our lives. The stakes are going to be very dear and the end result – as much as these things ever have any true end – is in no wait a certainty. The next decade is going to be hell. No doubt about it. The young men and women who think and act as this student does will bear the brunt of the fight. Old farts like me must be prepared to do more than write angry blog posts or rage on Twitter.
I have a lot more to say about the recent events around the world with respect to freedom of speech and the right to dissent. There is a post-production deadline I must endeavour to meet and that will keep me busy for the next few weeks. Come the new year there be other projects that will occupy my time. But I do have more to say and I will find the time and the various ways and means of doing so. In the meantime, don’t be cynical, don’t be depressed, and don’t be savagely angry. Just be determined to add your own voice, in whatever way, regardless of how trivial it may seem. We are Spartacus, we are Anonymous, we are Assange, we are the Who’s of Whoville – and we will be heard.
Today I posted this short video as part of our last efforts to raise productions funds through IndieGoGo for “Ruffus The Dog’s A Christmas Carol”.
The process of using IndieGoGo has been interesting and I’m pretty sure it will prove to be useful for other projects we come up with in the future. Our initial goal was for $8,500 which was a painfully low amount considering how ambitious this production has become. With only 5 days left to our IndieGoGo deadline we have only managed to secure about 20% of our goal – but we’re forging ahead with production regardless.
I’m sure I could have done a better or more aggressive job of promoting our efforts to raise funds but all excuses and caveats aside – I’m a puppeteer, dammit! We did manage to get a very nice mention in BoingBoing which helped draw a lot of attention to all this nonsense we’re up to.
Luckily, I’ve been blessed with a team of friends and colleagues who are both dedicated and talented. Their generous contribution of time and skill will be what makes our version of “A Christmas Carol” really shine.
Our shoot days are coming up fast and I’m looking forward to the four days of hilarity and hard work that lie in store for all of us.
The miraculous Jane Edmondson, assisted by Tatiana Hernandez-Deutsch, has been creating wonderful miniature ealry Victorian wardrobe for our cast of puppet characters. And our designer, Karen Valleau is crafting new puppet characters and just finished an exquisite snowglobe with St. Paul’s Cathedral inside.
Earlier this evening I had a Skype call with our composer, JP Houston – he’s currently in L.A. recording and rehearsing for a European band tour – and he’s been sending me demo tracks of the songs for this production and they are frickin’ awesome. Unfortunately he won’t be able to come to Toronto for the song recording sessions so we’ve been organizing a back-and-forth effort with him sending tracks here – we record the vocals and send them back – and so on and so forth until my brain melts out my ass.
It’s all fun and games until someone’s brain melts out their ass.
And for those who know me well – today I found myself alone in the kitchen making production sketches – and involuntarily let loose with one of those maniacal laughs.
Felt good.
Please, do what you can to help us out – or at least encourage others to help – every little bit is greatly needed and appreciated. The finished show WILL released online on December 21st. So there.
Here’s the original IndieGoGo pitch video:
And here, of course, is the widget that leads you to our IndieGoGo pages:
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go edit some footage of Sinbad the Sailor and these two pigs, Ray & Harry, the Hausen brothers.
I found this over on BoingBoing and it reminded me of that really great photography book called “From The Desk Of” – which is now out of print but I have a copy of it somewhere – on my desk. It features a shot of the late Studs Terkel’s desk which was an absolutely delightfully abomination of chaos and intellectual strata.
I’ll happily post a photo of Studs’ desk – and my own desk – if I can find it. The desk, that is.
Cory Doctorow posted this on BoingBoing and I thought I’d share it with you. James Boyle, Jennifer Jenkins and Keith Aoki – the same folks who brought us “Bound By Law” – have another treatise on copyright in comic book form coming out called: “Theft: A History Of Music”.
I found this over at BoingBoing – It looks like one of those extraordinary RSA Animate works that visually distill a talk and embed it securely into the depths of your brain – but since it’s not on the RSA site proper I suspect it’s actually just a promo for Steven Johnson’s book done in the same style.
Regardless – it’s pretty good and worth 4 minutes of your time just for the nifty drawings:
Or – you can just watch his great TED Talk and get 13 minutes more of Johnson’s good ideas.
I'm going to be slowly making some changes to the website both in format and content - and I'm pretty sure even the URL will change.
It's going to be more of a personal news aggregator with a featured video blog from yours truly. We'll see how long that lasts. So bear with me - thanks.
It's going to be more of a personal news aggregator with a featured video blog from yours truly. We'll see how long that lasts. So bear with me - thanks.