Archive for the ‘art’ Category

Steamboat Willie

Behold. “Steamboat Willie” was the first Mickey Mouse cartoon. [First distributed in theaters, not first produced —Ed.] It premiered November 18, 1928, at the Colony Theater in New York City. It was also the first cartoon to have synchronized sound. If you watch the whole thing, which I had never done until last year, you’ll [...]

14th June 2011 | Tags: , , , , , ,
Posted in art, history, movies, music, race | No Comments »



David Levine

A great talent whom I’d meant to write more about sooner. He died today. I knew his work through the New York Review of Books, for which he’d been drawing for nearly 50 years. Some of my favorites of his include: He drew with an appealing wit and detail. The circumstances of the job meant [...]

29th December 2009 | Tags: , , ,
Posted in art | No Comments »



Trip the Kite Fantastic

It’s fun to take pictures from high up. A few years ago, a friend working as a wedding planner let me roam around the top floor of the Bank of America building as she set up someone’s wedding ceremony. These were the best sustained views of San Francisco I’ve ever had. In the picture above, [...]

1st July 2009 | Tags: , , , , , , , ,
Posted in art, cool | 1 Comment »



The Tower of Babel

I finally saw the 2005 film The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. I thought it was pretty good, actually, despite the initial criticism. Anyway, Pieter Breugel the Elder’s The Tower of Babel, 1563, has been on the mind of late. The Old Testament, keeping things interesting.

1st April 2009 | Tags: , , , , ,
Posted in art | No Comments »



Following up on the Bad Case of the Mondays; or, the Golden Spike.

On Tuesday, I wrote about the financial mess on Wall Street, and pointed out that the gold-medal-winning US women’s soccer team rang the closing bell on Monday. “There’s no investment like gold,” I wrote. Gold! I should have put my money where my blog is. Wednesday, the price of gold rose more in value that [...]

18th September 2008 | Tags: , ,
Posted in art, money | No Comments »



Winners and Losers: A bad case of the Mondays for some; others, not so much

Rough day in the markets today. We saw it coming last night (we’ve seen it coming). Choose your loser. But it ended on a high note, right? The champion U.S. Olympics Women’s Soccer Team was on hand to ring the closing bell at the New York Stock Exchange. So there were a few winners on [...]

15th September 2008 | Tags: , , , , , , , ,
Posted in anticipation, art, money | 3 Comments »



He Met the Walrus

1969+clever teenager+John Lennon+reel-to-reel audio tape = Oscar nominated short film. Go to the Youtube site for a high-res version.

30th July 2008 | Tags: , ,
Posted in art, ideas, music | 1 Comment »



The Magnetic Movie

Would be nice to have a little color around here. You’ll learn something, too. Magnetic Movie from Semiconductor on Vimeo. Posting will be slow, er, slower, until the home internet thing is straightened out.

18th July 2008 | Tags: , , , ,
Posted in art, science | 2 Comments »



The Abenteuer of Prince Achmed

I recently saw a scene from a film called The Adventures of Prince Achmed (Die Abenteuer des Prinzen Achmed), accompanied by original score, on an arts channel a couple of weeks ago. Here’s a short clip of what I saw, with a new score by the Khoury Trio. Achmed has escaped to China with the [...]

8th July 2008 | Tags: , , , ,
Posted in art, movies | No Comments »



Enormous Changes, Last Minute: About Grace Paley

Grace Paley died two days ago. She was a sweet and humane poet and short story writer, one of those individuals for whom many will admit a familiarity with the name if not a specific knowledge of the work because some high school English teacher somewhere along the line (but a fan, truly) assigned a [...]

24th August 2007 | Tags: , ,
Posted in art, history, ideas, language, life, poetry, talent, unfortunate | No Comments »



I Want One: The Sultan’s Elephant

One of my Flickr contacts is a talented photographer named Simon Crubellier. I like his photos very much. They possess a certain elegance, such as this haunting, lovely photo of Canary Wharf. And there must be something to the kind of person whose interests would run to “urban paranoia and dereliction,” part of the description [...]

8th May 2006 | Posted in anticipation, art, cool | No Comments »



Makin’ movies. How do you do it? What’s it like?

An older and very accomplished journalist once wrote to me that the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, where he went, is “a jealous god.” And sometimes, I think, so am I. Let’s say “demigod.” That accursed Wes Anderson. He is so good, our sensibilities are so complimentary, I would love to make the movies [...]

27th April 2006 | Posted in art, money, movies | No Comments »