WoW dance moves come from…

Wonderland
The genealogy of WoW /dance moves

Okay, this actually made me squeal in delight. Some utter genius has mapped out some of the moves that “inspired” the WoW dance patterns: hardly inspiration in some cases, as you can see.

Add comment Datestamp: July 29th, 2007

The Dark Side of Green Light– Recycle your Low Energy Bulbs

In The New York Times
THE first meaningful step that many Americans will take to combat global climate change will be to replace their incandescent light bulbs with far more efficient compact fluorescent bulbs. Switching just one bulb prevents about 100 pounds of carbon dioxide from entering the atmosphere. If every household replaced its five most frequently used bulbs, according to the Department of Energy, greenhouse gases would be curtailed as much as if nearly 10 million cars were taken off the road….

Consumers should make the switch to compact fluorescent bulbs as soon as possible. But we must also work to ensure that the new bulbs are disposed of properly. Sealed inside the glass tubing of each bulb is about five milligrams of highly toxic mercury, which assists in converting electrical current into white light. (While some European manufacturers use less mercury, and some American bulb makers plan to follow suit, no one has yet come up with a way to eliminate it.)

—–

This article fails to tell you where to recycle them. Small oversight. Follow this link to find a place in New York City.

Add comment Datestamp: July 29th, 2007

Decades After a Plant Closes, Waste Remains

In the New York Times
IN the summer of 2005, around the time that residents of Upper Ringwood, N.J., began to wonder whether the skin rashes, nose bleeds and bronchitis that plagued their community were more than bad luck, the Ford Motor Company and the Environmental Protection Agency made a request: the automaker and the regulator wanted access to the yards around two families’ homes to remove waste that had been dumped in the area. Ford boasts in its ads that “It’s Easy Being Green,” but residents feared the request suggested something not so easy at all. From the mid-1950s to the late 1970s, Ford operated an assembly plant in northern New Jersey, in nearby Mahwah, that cranked out millions of passenger cars. Ford closed the plant in 1980, after dumping what the E.P.A. describes as thousands of tons of paint sludge and other waste in Upper Ringwood, a community of about 350 working-class residents located in the foothills of the Ramapo Mountains.

Add comment Datestamp: July 29th, 2007

Free-My-Tripod

My little guy has never looked sadder…

This here is a funny, great video response from Super Deluxe Rap. [BTW, SUPERDELUXE.com is part of the TURNER YOUNG ADULT NETWORK. Yeah, I know — but it’s still a great spot.]

Add comment Datestamp: July 28th, 2007

Picturing Protest, Artists Organize to Fight Camera Permit Proposal

New York Times
As the city considers rule changes that would require a permit to photograph and film in public places, a coalition of filmmakers and photographers is mobilizing a campaign against the rules by using the very medium they believe the regulations would constrict.

Members of a newly formed advocacy group called Picture New York gathered recently at a gallery in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, to harness their creative skills to express their opposition to the rules by planning demonstrations, including one that was set to take place yesterday in Union Square. The public comment period ends next Friday.

>>And this on the local news

Add comment Datestamp: July 28th, 2007

Radio with NeuroTransmitter

WUNP - Saturday - July 28, 2007 // 6PM CEST (Berlin)
On the Air — 95.2 FM (Berlin)
Via Internet — http://www.unitednationsplaza.org/radio.html

Hosted by neuroTransmitter
with Special Guest:
Rubén Ortiz-Torres - Power Tools

Taking cue from the subtitle of Rubén Ortiz-Torres’ blog, Saturday’s conversation is a live rant about art and culture across borders in the post colonial era.

Ruben Ortiz-Torres was born in Mexico City in 1964 and has been living/working in Los Angeles since 1990. He was educated within the utopian models of republican Spanish anarchism confronted by the tragedies and cultural clashes of the post colonial third world. After giving up the dream of playing major league baseball, he decided to study art. After enduring Mexico City’s earthquake and pollution Ortiz-Torres moved to L.A. with a Fulbright grant to survive riots, fires, floods, more earthquakes, and proposition 187. During all of this, he has produced artwork in the form of paintings, photographs, objects, installations, videos, and films which, since 1982 have been featured internationally in numerous solo and group exhibitions. He is part of the permanent Faculty of the University of California in San Diego.

Add comment Datestamp: July 28th, 2007

Data Vis

A Periodic Table of Visualization Methods

For the information visualization graphics gurus out there…

Add comment Datestamp: July 27th, 2007

Picture New York

Petition on Steroids!

The e-petition we put up Wednesday night has already gotten 3500 signatures as of Friday at noon. We’re currently averaging 5 signatures per minute. This obviously attests to the depth of concern over these regulations. If you haven’t yet, please sign the petition and tell your friends to do the same. You’ll be joining the likes of Michael Stipe, Patti Smith, Larry Fink, John Cameron Mitchell, Barbara Kopple, and photo editors from Magnum, Getty, USA Today, Time Magazine, Fortune Magazine, and Forbes.

Add comment Datestamp: July 27th, 2007

For Immediate Release

Picture New York / Press Release

Artists Band Together to Fight Restrictions on Street Photography

“Picture New York” Formed In Response to Mayor’s Plans to Limit Cameras

YouTube “Video Public Comments” to be Submitted to Mayor’s Office

NEW YORK CITY: Picture New York WITHOUT pictures of New York. The most photographed city in the world is about to be shut down visually by proposed regulations which would basically make it illegal to film or tape in NYC without a permit and a million dollars of insurance.

An overnight, massive grassroots fight against these proposed regulations has sprung up under the name ‘Picture New York.’ Fighting back with YouTube videos, petitions, handwritten letters, a website, Flickr space and a rally and press conference this Friday in Union Square, this ad-hoc group of working artists, photographers and filmmakers vow to stop the regulations going into effect as scheduled in September from the Mayor’s Office of Film, Theatre, and Broadcasting (MOFTB).

Albert Maysles, Patti Smith, Michael Stipe and Amy Arbus are among the celebrated artists who have already signed on to demand the MOFTB extend the period of public comment, currently ending August 3, and eliminate the proposed regulations: 11 pages of single-spaced rules where none existed before.

Jem Cohen, the critically-acclaimed filmmaker whose alarmed e-mail prompted the first formal meeting of concerned filmmakers, says, “Because street photography is, by its very nature, inextricably born out of free and random movement through the city, street photographers cannot know exactly where and when they intend to work, or for how long. One cannot regulate an art form or activity by negating its very premise. The proposed rules, in refusing to recognize the spontaneity which is at the core of street photography, are untenable for that reason alone.”

“I already have a permit for my camera,” says another of the group’s founders, Beka Economopoulos. “It’s called the First Amendment.”

Since the Mayor’s Office has asked for public comments, Picture New York has come up a new form: the Video Public Comment. The first - perhaps ever - Video Public Comment has already been posted to YouTube by artist Juliana Luecking and more will follow. Picture New York wants to invite anyone who loves the city and their camera to make one and post it. (To learn how to make a Video Public Comment, please see the website at pictureny.org.)

The proposed regulations will affect every kind of filming and photography in the city, aside from artists. Industrials, fashion, wedding and architectural photographers will need a permit and insurance for anything that takes more than a half hour and two people to shoot. A film school graduate with a camcorder, four friends and a dream will now have to pay the same fee to New York City to shoot as HBO does – because the regs include anything that takes more than 10 minutes to shoot with a tripod. Even parents making home movies in public parks would fall under the new rules.

As the Daily News says the regulations “are, in a word, nuts. . . “They were written as if small bands of rogue photographers were running amok. And they won’t withstand court challenge unless the cops come down equally on everyone taking pictures, including mom and dad filming junior and pals at the playground.” The conservative New York Sun agrees: “It would be a sad day if New York became a place where a family has to get a permit before making a home video.”

The proposed rules are reminiscent of the MTA’s failed attempt to ban photography in the subways two years ago. “If we can take photographs underground without permits,” points out television producer Susan Marcoux, “we certainly should be able to take them above ground.”

“This is micro-management of public space taken to an absurd level. What are the police going to do – time people holding cameras?” asks Eileen Clancy of I-Witness Video who has written about conflicts between police and camera people after September 11th. “These new rules give the police another excuse to arrest anybody they don’t like with a camera.”

These regulations violate the First Amendment right to photograph in public places, points out the NYCLU, and follow a slew of recent laws that already restrict rights in New York City to parade, dance, meet, bike, shout, and assemble. Draconian noise ordinances and the new parade and assembly laws make constitutionally-protected dissent almost impossible. Now, with regulations on street photography, New York City adds yet another infringement on civil liberties and free expression, which is why Picture New York will be participating in a press conference and First Amendment-themed rally at Union Square at 6:30pm this Friday, July 27.

* Friday, July 27, 2007 – First Amendment Rally with Reverend Billy north end of Union Square Park

www.picturenewyork.org

info@picturenewyork.org

Mayor’s Office on Film proposed regulations text www.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=1pbHXqoxKex52O1XQcPzddbDTjrVwmsQ

View signatures on ePetition www.pictureny.org/petition/index.php

Union Square Rally: Friday, July 27 www.pictureny.org/?cat=8

Daily News and The NY Sun editorials links: www.nysun.com/article/57680

www.nydailynews.com/opinions/2007/07/03/2007-07-03_lights_camera_inaction.html

Juliana Luecking’s YouTube response to the proposed regulations www.youtube.com/watch?v=DCsLBts0pw8

Add comment Datestamp: July 27th, 2007

REMEMBER: THE FIRST AMENDMENT IS YOUR PERMIT!

Picture New York
Please join the Filmmaker/Photographer contingent at this Friday’s First Amendment rally at Union Square. Recently proposed regulations seriously threaten the rights of photographers and filmmakers to operate in NYC, and they could go into effect as soon as this August. Other laws already restrict our rights to parade, dance, meet, bike, shout, and assemble.

Join performance artists Reverend Billy and the Stop Shopping Gospel Choir, the Rude Mechanical Orchestra, Critical Mass bike riders, and Picture New York — a new coalition of concerned filmmakers and photographers, for a festive and un-permitted celebration of the First Amendment.

Friday, July 27, 6:30pm
Union Square, north end
Press Conference and Creative Rally

Add comment Datestamp: July 26th, 2007