Mermaid Day Parade 2010 – part 1 #fb

Sunday, June 20th, 2010

[full set of images and videos on my Flickr]

The Mermaid Day Parade 2010 opened with a bang! A great procession down Surf Ave and then onto the boardwalk featuring last year’s King Neptune and Queen Mermaid, that is Lou Reed and Laurie Anderson respectively. Lou rocked the push-throne with his baseball-cap crown and pink-n-green cape-robe. Brilliant! Freaks to follow:

This was a pretty timid Mermaid Day Parade in my mind though. It was good, don’t get me wrong, but there were a couple points to reckon with:

the BP oil spill theme was a little too much. I mean one or even two costumes dealing with it seems okay, but I counted about a half-dozen if not more, including some entire sections that were just BP-related. Yes, it doesn’t effect NY yet; yes, it will someday; yes, people who live in NYC are from areas effected by the spill; BUT, I think the overt, acute nature of the costumes really doesn’t do any good. Straight up.

not enough Freaks on the whole. Just an observation. Not sure what it means.

per above comment, that means I must get involved next year! even though I’m Normal.

stilt-walkers these days just buy their stilts – not sure how I feel about this.

not enough electro-art costumes – again, I must get involved!

most of the music – save the Hungry March Band – sucked. banging on wooden boxes out of rhythm doesn’t justify your participation in the parade! At least figure out ONE tune and play it well – within 50 feet I can’t hear you so it doesn’t matter if you’re on repeat.

group and collective thematic sections were the HIGHLIGHT: from the sailor booty-bass section to the Flea Circus even to the Coney Island Brewery girls, it was the sections that were driven by a group energy that proved the most exciting for the audience to cheer on!

Please someone tell me you know who this is! I’ve seen her around town before and I want to involve her in some upcoming projects. She’s totally wicked!

And finally for part 1, the Hungry March Band. They rocked, without a doubt, and their gold-n-white theme showed how to unify a section and really drive the energy levels UP! The kids up front were absolutely adorable and the puppet in the rear was a great finishing element!

[full set of images and videos on my Flickr]

some Maker Faire videos #fb

Friday, June 11th, 2010

BIG UPS to Becky Stern and Collin Cunningham for their excellent work on these videos from the Bay Area Maker Faire 2010. These videos will show you just some of the many excellent projects that were taking place at and in some cases being made on-site at the Maker Faire! And even I need to watch these videos to see what I missed! Like the aerial photography pole project – yup, didn’t even know about that until I saw some photos after the event was concluded! With over 670 projects happening simultaneously over two days, me and the pole-guy must have ran laps around each other in Expo Hall! Hah!

what do you want to un-learn?

Monday, May 17th, 2010

“School of the Future is a project about what a school can be.”

For the month of July a bunch of artists are constructing a free school in a park in north Brooklyn; collaborating with architecture graduate students from Columbia University; and engaging the surrounding community to bring them free classes and workshops on subjects they want to learn, or conversely, teach! There’s a running list of current learning deficits and you are free to suggest your own – just visit the School of the Future website or visit Sgt. Dougherty Park and fill out one of the slips and drop it in the yellow box!

the School is currently running a kickstarter campaign (yes, another!) to raise a measly $1000 to help buy materials to build the school. C’mon help us un-learn education!

TODAY: ITP Spring show 2010 (and tomorrow, but today is today!)

Sunday, May 9th, 2010

Sunday, May 9, 2-6pm & Monday, May 10, 5-9pm

721 Broadway, 4th Floor NYC

St. Louis in 3D

Thursday, May 6th, 2010

Having just uploaded an anaglyph video myself to Vimeo, someone put it in a 3d channel, that I looked at and clicked to watch this video, only to be surprised that it’s my hometown of St. Louis, MO! Pretty nifty. And yes indeed viewing 3d over the internet does work – maybe it’s a monitor refresh-hertz thing, but I found if I’m a certain distance from the screen the glasses translate the image correctly; move forward or back and they didn’t seem to work as well. Probably something with how the eye perceives, then flips, and how the brain is cross-wired. ISN’T SCIENCE GRAND!

Mike Patton rocks my jock

Tuesday, May 4th, 2010

so strange. Earlier today I was listening to Faith No More’s Angel Dust, only to then stumble upon these brilliant videos of Mike Patton performing songs from his newest solo album Mondo Cane, which was released today. Is there anything this guy can’t do? It’s like if it involves the voice and awesome he’s got it on lock. You can listen to other song samples on the album amazon page.

found via Flavorpill’s Daily Dose