ARTHUR MAGAZINE ARCHIVE

Arthur C. Clarke presents this unusual documentary on the mathematical discovery of the Mandelbrot Set (M-Set) in the visually spectacular world of fractal geometry. This show relates the science of the M-Set to nature in a way that seems to identify the hand of God in the design of the universe itself. Dr. Mandelbrot in 1980 discovered the infinitely complex geometrical shape called the Mandelbrot Set using a very simple equation with computers and graphics.

R.I.P. Benoit Mandlebrot

An unusual breed of Asian snakes can glide long distances in the air, and the Defense Department is funding research at Virginia Tech to find out why.

“Basically . . . they become one long wing,” said John Socha, the Virginia Tech researcher who has traveled extensively in Asia to study the snakes and to film them.

“The snake is very active in the air, and you can kind of envision it as having multiple segments that become multiple wings,” he said. “The leading edge becomes the trailer, and then the trailer become the leading edge.”

It gets stranger. During a technique not yet understood, some of the snakes can actually turn in air. What’s more, they all take a flying leap off their perch to get airborne, then drop for a while to pick up speed before starting the motion that keeps them aloft much longer than they would otherwise.

Socha’s initial research was sponsored by the National Geographic Society, but his most recent work and paper were funded by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. The agency is involved in advanced military technologies of all kinds, and Socha said the physical dynamics of snake flight (and how other creatures stay in the air) is of great interest to the agency. (Washington Post)

Serpent Science: DARPA Wants to Know Flying Snakes’ Secret | Popular Science

Pentagon seeks flying snakes’ secret

Directed by Ursula Meier

Starring Isabelle Huppert, Olivier Gourmet, Adelaïde Leroux, Kacey Mottet Klein

Official Selection: Cannes International Critics’ Week
Official Entry from Switzerland for the 2010 Academy Awards

A family’s peaceful existence is threatened when a busy highway is opened only meters away from their isolated house in the middle of nowhere. Refusing to move, Marthe, Michel and their three children find innovative ways to adapt to their new environment. They continue their happy-go-lucky routine despite the daily stress of hundreds of noisy speeding cars. But suspicions about the highway’s unknown long-term dangers cause family tension. Remaining in the disrupted household might not be so easy, but it’s still their home.

Not rated. Running time: 98 minutes. In French, with English subtitles.

http://www.home-lefilm.blogspot.com/

THE YELLOW BITTERN, a new feature documentary from Alan Gilsenan, is an intimate, confessional yet highly cinematic film charts the remarkable rise to fame of the Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem from their small-town beginnings in County Tipperary in Ireland to the folk hey-day of Greenwich Village in the Sixties where they absorbed black musical influences and out-sold the Beatles. But these devil-may-care Irish actors (as they were then) were, in turn, to influence a host of artists from Bob Dylan and Pete Seeger to The Pogues.  But this darkly revealing portrait also goes behind the mask of the performer and delves into the psyche of Liam Clancy and his troubled personal life where the excesses of rock-and-roll found their way in to the world of folk.

Find out more at liamclancyfilm.com/

From Magical-Secrets.com, “Always ahead of his time, New York artist and performer Rammellzee (born in 1960 in Queens, New York) is credited with being one of the inventors of graffiti art as we know it. Through writing, drawing and painting on subway cars in spray paint and felt-tip pen in the late ‘70s, he became interested in the symbolic value of letters, seeing for example the letter “A” as a pyramid or taking “W” to mean “double-you.” He has continued to explore these ideas through a variety of media ever since, from the paintings that in 1988 Gerrit Henry described in Art In America as having “a Star-Wars-via-Jackson-Pollock look” to the legendary hip-hop single “Beat Bop” that was produced by the artist Jean-Michel Basquiat, and became not just one of the most collectible hip hop releases ever, but a model for generations of witty and experimental musicians after him.

In the mid-80’s, Rammellzee became associated with a group of artists who painted or tagged in a style known as East Village wild style. This was an illegible, dynamic style of writing letters derived originally from the Gothic script of Medieval manuscripts. In 1982, he appeared in the seminal hip hop documentary Wildstyle by Charlie Ahearn. Rammellzee named his style “Gothic Futurism,” describing the battle between letters and their symbolic warfare against any standardizations enforced by the rules of the alphabet. When his style of writing became more mainstream in the world of graffiti, Rammellzee built his letters into flying armored vehicles, bursting forth with a style and philosophy all his own that he termed “Ikonoclast Panzerism.” Jan van Adrichem and Marjin van Nieuwenhuyzen wrote in the catalog for his 1986 retrospective that, as in the biblical story of the city of Babel, in Rammellzee’s system “people do not use language, language uses people; it has become an autonomous force.”

“Conversation with an Insect” originally published in ‘Soul Underground’ magazine 1988.

Read his Ionic Treatise of Gothic Futurism

Can’t imagine how upset he would be about the oil spill in the Gulf.  He hung out with the street people and wrote greater and greater songs all his life, this is just one of them…

Good article here.

Some examples of Aborignal fine art from a West Melrose gallery with a location also near Sydney’s Manly beach.

“With over 12 years experience in Aboriginal Fine Art, our gallery has developed relationships with artists and staff from diverse communities throughout Australia.

These include the Central & Western Deserts and art centers such as Utopia, Yuendumu and Papanya Tula. We source works from highly acclaimed prize winning artists who are represented in major public and private collections and especially encourage younger and emerging artists. We rely on our depth of knowledge and experience in observing the on-going development of the Aboriginal Art movement. We encourage our customers and collectors to be aware and concerned that aboriginal people should directly benefit from sales. This experience and knowledge ranges from very good to exceptional with one thing in common, a passion for Aboriginal Art and the importance of cultural continuity.”

Slideshow Gallery

sold out, but more on their way!!

A preview for the forthcoming film documentary about psychedelic funk legend Sly Stone. Anticipated to be released in 2010.

“If I was the mayor of San Diego, I’d give Lou the key to the city” – Michael Taft, head of the archives of the American Folk Life Center at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C.

This past weekend the San Diego Union Tribune ran a great feature story about Lou Curtiss, patriarch of the San Diego folk scene known worldwide for his vast knowledge and appreciation of folk, blues, jazz, rhythm & blues, rock & roll, show tunes and a vast inventory of 78 rpm records.  Folk Arts is the home of the Lou Curtiss Sound Library, which comprises over 90,000 hours and 90 years of vintage sound recordings.

Lou hosts Jazz Roots every Sunday night on KSDS 88.3 FM in San Diego. You can listen online at jazz88online.org.  On the 2nd and 4th Tuesdays of each month, Lou hosts a “Singers Circle” at Club Kadan, a pub on the corner of Adams Avenue and 30th Street. Come down and bring your instruments, the pickin’ starts around 6 pm.

Over the course of the past 30 years, Lou has organized or booked over 50 music festivals in San Diego, including the Adams Avenue Street Fair and the Adams Avenue Roots Festival.

Lou also writes a column for the San Diego Troubadour, worth reading to find out about some of the preservation work that is going on to maintain Lou’s library.

Some of my best experiences buying records and learning about music have happened in Lou’s shop.  The history of Folk Arts in San Diego has been carried forward by people like Lou and the community of singers, writers, players and musicians that surround the store.  Plan a journey, I’ve always found something at Lou’s shop unexpected or that I never thought I’d see again.