Aerial Photography

Aerial photography goes back 150 years. From Slate, here is a set of historic aerial photographs.

From National Geographic here is a video of one of their latest contraptions designed to take aerial photographs.

The Wordy Shipmates

Sarah Vowell talking about her book on the early years of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Titled The Wordy Shipmates, the book focuses on the writings of the early settlers, including John Winthrop's sermon "A Model of Christian Charity". 17th Century New Englanders argued about justification by grace, the way people today argue about a balance budget. The subject may change, but the argument remains the same.

No matter what topic Vowell decides to write about, she can always make it engaging.This book was published a couple years ago, but I just got around to reading it.

Vivienne Westwood Speaks

A clip of a Vivienne Westwood interview from the guardian.uk.co.

Dumbarton Oaks

I was going to title this post "If you need a picture of wisteria, I'm your man", but decided that was too long. Anyway, here is a set of photographs I took today at Dumbarton Oaks.

Dumbarton Oaks - 2011

Happy Easter

For Easter, some pictures I took this morning of the courtyard of my building. I have added these to the spring flowers photo set.

Spring Flowers - 2011

Huge Disappointment

I saw Water For Elephants, and it was a huge disappointment. I might say that taking such a visceral book, and turning it into such a bland screenplay probably took a great deal of work. Add to that an overbearing and overwrought soundtrack, and you are off to a pretty bad start.

The animals have great acting skills, but Robert Pattinson does not. Reese Witherspoon is good, although her role was not that demanding. No one can beat Christoph Waltz when it comes to playing sophisticated, but diabolical characters, so it was not all bad.

There is a lot a tension created in the book, because at beginning you know, or think you know, what is going to happen in the end. That structure was not used in the film. Recreating that structure in the film was probably beyond the ability of the screen writer and director here, but I do think that something was lost by dropping this. It is always a shame to see so much money wasted on a such a mediocre script.

So I don't end on such a negative note, the cinematography was pretty good, and I also enjoyed the scene, near the end, when the wild animals got loose and chase everyone through the circus tent.

If you are interested, I posted the trailer in my March 8, 2011 post.

Symmetry

This is the second video from Radio Lab that I have posted. My August 16, 2010 post included their video "Words".

This striking Radiolab video made by Everynone was inspired by Radiolab's Desperately Seeking Symmetry episode. Filmmakers Will Hoffman, Daniel Mercadante, and Julius Metoyer III play with our yearning for balance, and reveal how beautiful imperfect matches can be.

"Symmetry"

Photographs for Earth Day

From http://www.smashingapps.com, a selection of photographs for Earth Day.

28 Beautiful And Inspiring Photographs
Dedicated To Earth Day

Kinetic Typography

From Rogers Creations, a video of a Stephen Fry polemic on language.

Milch und Musik

What could go together better than cows and classical music.

Pratt Street Riot

I know that there were some deaths at Fort Sumter due to misfiring of cannons and such, but, as anyone from Baltimore knows, the first blood shed of the Civil War happened 150 years ago today at the Pratt Street Riot. During the riot, which took place at the Inner Harbor around where the Power Plant is today, four soldiers and twelve civilians where killed. Here are a couple videos to commemorate the event.

I think Baltimore may have been referred to as "Mobtown" even before this Riot, but this event nailed that epithet down for good.





Here is another video. The Baltimore Sun put this up today.

 

Abandoned Movie Theaters

From BuzzFeed, photographs of seventy-five abandoned movie theaters from across the U.S. Included is this picture of Baltimore's Mayfair. One of the worst films I ever saw was shown in this theater. The sight of Richard Gere dancing around in a diaper, in the film King David, is definitely one of those movie moments that I could have done without. The only film about royalty that could possibly have been worse than this one was Sofia Coppola's Marie Antoinette.

As is obvious from this photograph, the theater has since suffered the wrath of God.

75 Abandoned Theaters From Around The USA

On War

Confederate batteries opened fire on federal troops defending Fort Sumter on South Carolina’s seacoast 150 years ago today. From the Denver Post's PLOG, a collection of Civil War Photographs. Included is this photograph of the destroyed railroad bridge at Harpers Ferry. This Bridge was destroyed, and rebuilt several times during the war.

On War: The 150th Anniversary of the Civil War

The Beatnik Riot

Fifty years ago today the New York City Police clashed with a bunch of kids singing folks songs in Washington Square Park. I don't remember knowing about this before, but NPR had a segment on it this morning. At the time a permit was required to sing or play music in the park, and the Park Commission—after previously granting a permit—decided to deny the permit to the singers. The resulting scuffle was captured in a short documentary by filmmaker Dan Drasin. Titled Sunday, you can watch the film at the link below.

What strikes me, watching this film 50 years later, is how unthreatening these protesters look. Whereas today everyone has a look that they are defined by, back then everyone does seem to have looked about the same. I cannot even image what would have happened if these police officers had been confronted by punk rockers from the 80's. They might have thought they were aliens from another planet.

Sunday

Flower Power

A great set of photographs from the boston.com's photo blog, The Big Picture. The picture below is from the set, but here I have turned it upside down, which makes it a bit disconcerting.

Flower Power

More Spring Flowers

A bunch of photographs I took today have been added to the photo set I created for Spring Flowers. One of the photos included is the one below, which is just around the corner from me, on P Street.

Spring Flowers - 2011