Monthly Archives: January 2012

Eyecatchers: Claire Brewster’s Birds

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Back in March 2011, I blogged about the stop-motion animation work of Anderson M Studio, having been blown away by the painstaking paper art involved, and today I discovered some more beautiful paper art, this time from British artist Claire Brewster.

Brewster’s work, cut out of old maps, is a wonderful salute to the bird’s ability to fly freely above the topography that we ground-bound creatures must work so hard to navigate. The maps themselves add color, texture, and a 3-D quality to the birds that I find very appealing.

Via Colossal, here’s a sampling, though I highly recommending checking out Claire’s blog to see more of her work:

Oh, and I must say, I couldn’t help it, but Claire Brewster’s work made me think of this:

TED Talks: Peter van Uhm: Why I chose a gun

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I’m continually surprised by how many times I’ve recommended TED Talks — those incredibly thought-provoking, inspiring, often moving products of the various TED conferences held around the world — to people who have never heard of them, for I find them so thoroughly accessible, with each talk lasting no more than 18-20 minutes.

I mean, we can all find time for a few of these a day, or more scattered throughout the week. Right?

Well, it’s been a while since I last posted a TED Talks video, and today I’ve got a juicy one for you.

This was a challenging video for me, as I suspect it would be for most of my fellow peaceniks. The assertion made by Peter van Uhm, Chief of Defense for The Netherlands, that guns and armies are necessary tools for peace, rubs me the wrong way. And yet, having been raised Jewish, I carry the inherited trauma of the Holocaust, and I’ve struggled my whole life with the question of whether or not violent military action is justifiable in order to save people from oppression or genocide.

Now, I don’t agree with everything that Mr. van Uhm says, but I admire the TED organization for inviting him to speak and present his case, and he does so eloquently, with great sensitivity, and with great respect for his fellow TED presenters and attendees, who are trying to make the world a better, more peaceful place via a variety of other means.

Tweet of the Day: #WittnerFabrice

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If I had more time, I’d do an Eyecatchers installment on the eerie and moving light stencil work of Wittner Fabrice.

Alas, all I can manage is sharing this tweet via @itsolossal. Check it out, you won’t be disappointed.

Video Fridays: Yeah Yeah Yeahs

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For this installment of Video Fridays, I was inspired by a Yeah Yeah Yeahs song, their 2003 debut hit Maps, a song that I’ve loved for a while, but then I saw the following live acoustic version and it knocked my socks off all over again.

I thought it would be interesting to post both the acoustic and the original electric versions here for comparison’s sake, but it took some time for me to decide in which order to post them. Ultimately, since one of the pleasures of hearing an acoustic version of an electric song that you know well is noticing the differences — how the instrument choices, playing technique, and in this case the vocal delivery are changed to suit the arrangement — I figured I’d start out with the original for the sake of anyone who isn’t familiar with the song.

There are two notable things about this video:

  1. The story goes that Yeah Yeah Yeahs singer/songwriter Karen O wrote the song for her then-boyfriend Angus (Maps is an acronym for My Angus Please Stay), at a time when the relationship was on the verge of breaking up, and on the day they shot the video Angus was supposed to be there, he was three hours late, Karen went ahead with the performance, not knowing whether he’d show up or not, and the result is incredibly moving. It seems at the beginning that she has her eyes fixed on the back of the room, still hoping Angus would arrive, she tries to carry on but you can see it’s a struggle, holding on to the microphone as if it was a lifeline, and then, at around the 2:50 mark, she’s overcome and the tears are real. Just.Wow.
  2. Musically, drummer Brian Chase’s syncopated beat is trance-inducing and he brings some awesome power to the crescendos; and guitarist Nick Zinner is frickin’ amazing, building an incredibly lush sound that makes you forget that it’s just him and that there’s no bass player.

And at last, the acoustic version, which doesn’t require nearly as much of an explanation. Nick Zinner plays a sweet-sounding Martin guitar, adapting the main power riff into a beautiful, gentle arpeggio, and Karen delivers a subdued, melancholic vocal, still full of sadness, but also a touch of resignation and even acceptance that Angus is never coming back.

Wilco Meets The Flaming Lips!!!

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Anyone who has been reading Fish & Bicycles for a while will know that I’ve blogged multiple times about my two favorite bands: Wilco and The Flaming Lips.

What, then, could be better than the two bands coming together…at least in part?!

Not much.

Well, until today, it was just one music geek’s dream, but this morning The Flaming Lips tweeted a video from their 2012 New Year’s Eve Freakout, wherein, joined by Wilco guitarist Nels Cline, they kick out a 17-minute long, brain-melting cover of The Beatles’ 1969 Abbey Road nugget I Want You (She’s So Heavy).

Just be warned, this really will melt your brain, so make sure that there’s nothing important or particularly brain-dependent that you have to do when the 17 minutes is up.

Now, just in case you were left wanting more from the rest of Wilco, I thought it fitting to include another video released today, and while it won’t necessarily melt your brain, it certainly is it’s own kind of freaky, with the band appearing in a Popeye cartoon.

Via Pitchfork: