Female street artist Yseult aka “YZ,” pronounced as “Eyes,” created this meditative stop motion video “Still Alive” of blues icon BB King animated from almost 70 street posters. For more information on this artist check out this interview.

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If you spent the beginning of the summer stuck in the Public Theater’s virtual line for Twelfth Night (has anyone actually gotten tickets this way?) instead of sucking it up and waiting in the physical line all day you have now, like me, arrived at the end of the run without seeing it. And because I’m not about to camp out in Central Park overnight, which is apparently what one must do at this point, I’m turning to SPF.

Hosted by the Public, SPF produces new work by emerging playwrights. These are full productions, not staged readings, put on at no cost to the writers. What’s more, they accept unsolicited submissions and even help place the writers into the greater theater community. SPF puts on an intense month of theater-going, with two different plays a night almost every night until August 2nd. And no messy lines, virtual or otherwise. You can reserve your seat for a measly $10 from the comfort of your very own home.

Now playing, Reborning by Zayd Dohrn, directed by Kip Fagan, with Ally Sheedy and The Chimes by Kevin Christopher Snipes, directed by Adam Immerwahr with Graeme Malcolm (Equus). For the rest of the festival line up, go here.

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Pope Benedict XVI added to his growing reputation as the “green Pope” yesterday  (July 7) with the release of a new encyclical Caritas in Veritate (Charity in Truth). A call for sustainable development in the broadest sense, the Pope’s letter addressed the human and environmental costs of “business as usual,” and established “doing well by doing good” as the business philosophy most consistent with Church doctrine and Biblical teaching.

Chapter Four of Caritas in Veritate addresses environmental issues directly; among the arguments the Pope makes for “creation care”:

• “The environment is God’s gift to everyone…”: Benedict argues for a sustainable approach to the use of natural resources, claiming that human use of nature carries “a responsibility towards the poor, towards future generations and towards humanity as a whole.”
• “Nature expresses a design of love and truth”: In this section, the Pope carefully lays out a scriptural argument for creation care… but also make clear that he’s in no way presenting a case for “neo-paganism or a new pantheism…”
• “The Church has a responsibility towards creation…”: Here Benedict argues for the concept of “human ecology” — that environmental challenges directly affect not only human prosperity, but the prospects for human survival.

There’s no doubt that the new encyclical will receive criticism from the Church’s left and right wings: while the overall message has a definite progressive bent, Benedict stays firm on Church doctrine concerning sexuality and respect for life (i.e., birth control and sex education aren’t the answers to overpopulation). It’s a fascinating read, though, and should spark a lot of debate over the relationship between faith, economics, and sustainability.

Read the encyclical? What did you think? Let us know in the comments…

Image credit: Tadeusz Górny at Wikimedia Commons

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photo via Hamburger Morgenpost

At first glance, this news story about a German prostitute’s tombstone being deemed “too slutty” seemed like just another one of those “Oddly Enough” stories that every paper traffics in (”Drunken Tractor Driver Leads Police on Slow Chase” et al). Until we got to the part about how the tombstone in question was designed by none other than illustrator Tomi Ungerer, best known for the classic — and brilliantly illustrated– children’s book Flat Stanley. (The book which launched a million grade-school projects.) Consider our minds blown. Apparently Ungerer was a long-time friend of Domenica Niehoff, who died earlier this year of a lung illness. Niehoff campaigned tirelessly for the rights of sex workers; thanks in large part to her advocacy work, Germany legalized prostitution in 2002. To honor her achievements, she was the first (retired) sex worker to be buried in Ohlsdorf Cemetery’s Garden of Women.

Ungerer wanted to honor her legendary 48″ bust with a tombstone that involved two curved slabs of pink marble. Unfortunately, cemetery officials declared that Ungerer’s design was inappropriate and “too slutty.” We’re guessing this also means that we’ll have to wait a few more years for the guaranteed-to-be-a-classic children’s illustrated book “The Very Friendly Sex Worker.”

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Cartoonist Neill Cameron has been illustrating the alphabet “awesomely” from A to Z that is a hilarious mix of familiar pop culture icons and informative alliteration. He’s currently at Q. Here are a couple more examples that made me chuckle.

[Via]

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The crowd enthusiastically hung on Redford’s words. This was no doubt because of the star power of the great actor, director and Sundance Institute creator (particularly because the audience skewed toward his generation), but perhaps even more so because the crowd was packed with committed environmentalists. This was a special, intimate conversation between Redford, a longtime green leader, and veteran radio journalist Bob Edwards (formerly of NPR and now of Sirius radio), hosted by the New York-based Natural Resources Defense Council (Watch video of NRDC head Frances Beinecke accepting a 2009 Heart of Green Award).

The conversation wound from Hollywood war stories to reflections on Redford’s lower class upbringing in Los Angeles to the making of an environmental leader. One theme common to Redford’s work seemed to be his passion for, and belief in, that which is uniquely American. He told Edwards that he was always most interested in projects that explored American life. Especially “looking for the truth behind the truth in the slogans I was told as a boy,” he said. “As a kid growing up I played a lot of sports,” Redford continued, “and I was told it doesn’t matter if you win or lose, it’s how you play the game. Later I realized that so much of everything was really about winning.”

Redford said that Hollywood in the 60’s and 70’s had many preconceived notions, among them being that political and sports movies were box office death knells. “So of course I went in that direction,” quipped the actor. He spoke about the four years of hard work that went into All the President’s Men (Edwards praised him for helping make “journalism cool”), his battles with studios to get The Natural made, how he turned down The Graduate, and how Paul Newman fought for him to co-star in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (originally to be titled with those names in reverse).

Redford also talked about the founding of the Sundance Institute, which he pointed out is much more than the famous film festival. He donated land and resources to get the institute running in Utah, to serve as a laboratory and supporter of independent film and related arts. The festival itself is said to bring in $50-60 million to Utah over its 10-day run.

“At Sundance we say there is a connection between art and the environment,” said Redford. In fact, this has been true throughout most of the star’s life. “I’ve been involved in advocacy my entire adult life,” he told Edwards. Redford said his commitment to the planet came about as “a lot of things came together,” including growing up enjoying the ocean, then the Sierra Nevadas (he even worked for a time at Yosemite). As a key fixture in a young, vibrant Hollywood during a time of dramatic change, Redford found himself increasingly involved in the environmental movement.

“In the early years protecting the environment was not a popular notion,” said Redford. “You got hammered when you spoke about it. I used to help everyone that I could [who was fighting for the Earth], and there were a lot of startups back then, but I soon realized that was taking too much energy. So I decided to focus on a group that would have the most impact. I thought of NRDC because they could sue to protect it.”

Edwards asked what happened to the seemingly good old days of environmentalism, when a conservative Republican like Richard Nixon was signing landmark green laws like the Clean Air Act and the Safe Drinking Water Act, before the green movement was largely considered a subset of the left. Redford answered that he wasn’t sure what happened to make things as polarized as they seem to be today, though he said part of it was likely due to the fact that conservatives were so shocked and injured by the fallout from Watergate that they regrouped in a vindictive, defensive way. “There will always be challenges that keep coming, so you have to keep fighting,” he added. “The last administration was literally trying to destroy the Earth. Back then the best we could do was hold the line and hope for change.”

Now that a more hopeful administration is in power under Barack Obama, Redford pointed out that there is great opportunity, as well as a tremendous amount of work to do. Not only does the new president have his hands full in rolling back some of the damage done by Bush and the emboldened extractive industries, but he also has to contend with serious foreign and domestic problems taxing our resources and energy, as well as the slow nature of federal government itself.

“As time goes on I’ve become more radical, because I’ve seen what’s been lost, and how many of those things can’t be repaired,” said Redford. “That’s why I’ve been going back to the grassroots,” he added, to much applause. When Edwards asked about specific issues, Redford called the idea of drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge “insane.” After he wrote a letter to the past president urging him to consider other alternatives, some 750,000 others followed up with their own correspondence. “I have faith in the American people, if you get to them and tell them the right story,” said Redford.

He added that it used to be that environmentalists were usually seen as negatives, telling people what not to do all the time. “Now there are many wonderful positive solutions we can offer,” from renewable energy to new efficiency technologies, such as the exciting green features in the NRDC’s Los Angeles headquarters, which bears Redford’s name.

Redford said the issue he is most passionate about currently is preventing destructive drilling projects on public lands (including offshore). “The meter is ticking [particularly in the face of climate change], so you’ve got to get to as much as you can as fast as you can,” he warned. “I grew up with ‘This Land Is Our Land,’ and public land doesn’t belong to that administration or this one,” said Redford. “We want our kids to grow up with real natural places, not just photos of them.”

Well said, almost like he’s a Natural.

by Brian Clark Howard.
Photo Credit: Anthony Clark/NRDC

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Two recent articles in the New York Times caught my eye. Michelle Orange’s piece about Lynn Shelton’s film HUMPDAY, “She’s a Director Who’s Just another Dude” and “Action!” Manohla Dargis’s profile of Kathryn Bigelow and her film THE HURT LOCKER.  Both articles made much of the fact that these female directors are working with male stories and male actors. Dargis describes how Bigelow “steered clear of the industry ghetto to which female directors are usually consigned, bypassing the dreaded chick flick for stories and archetypes traditionally if reductively seen as the province of men.”  Orange quoted one of HUMPDAY’s actors Mark Duplass who described “…her greater affinity for men”: “You know those girls who are closer with dudes, in general? She’s got a little bit of that going on, so that obviously plays into it.”

Is it just me… or does this is all feel a bit grating that at this point in time when a female filmmaker makes a good film, the angle of the story still ends up being about how she’s not a guy?

I don’t blame the journalists. It seems that the world still needs to be reminded that it IS possible for a woman to tackle subject matter that’s perceived as traditionally male.  Or at least be shown some sort of special reason for why it happened.  Even though it’s perfectly ho hum acceptable when a man directs a chick flick. Are men really from mars… is it really beyond the ability of women to get inside their heads? Come on people… So on that note, let’s look at these two examples and burn their memory so deeply in our brains that next time around we can get closer to celebrating the filmmaker, not the female.

Katheryn Bigelow, who’s been directing action movies for what seems like two decades has (surprise!)….  done it again. This time she’s taken on war. THE HURT LOCKER follows a three-man bomb squad as they disable bombs and find that the experience of war can be addictive and mind-bending. The visuals create a powerful visceral experience and showcase her background as a talented painter. A.O. Scott writes in his review, “If “The Hurt Locker” is not the best action movie of the summer, I’ll blow up my car.”

Lynn Shelton’s HUMPDAY, coming out this Friday, is about two old friends (dudes) who decide to shoot an artistic porn flick as a way to break out of their stultified existence. Shot on a microbudget over several days, this is Shelton’s third feature and her second small budget D.I.Y style film.  I admit I have not been to an advance screening but I have high expectations due to the reviews and the rating on the “tomatometer.” Usually I ignore the tomatometer but at 94% positive… how can you?  David Edelstein writes in New York Magazine: “Lynn Shelton’s marvelous chamber comedy Humpday butts up against the same sort of taboos as Brüno, and in its fumbling, semi-improvised way, it’s equally hilarious and even more subversive.”  Todd Mccarthy writes in Variety, “Shot in a manner that feels as improvised as the dialogue, “Humpday” nonetheless possesses a comic structure as rigorous as any “I Love Lucy” episode.”

This tiny film, made with freedom for what a studio would consider zero money, has already garnered much praise and is probably going to make a decent profit. Now that’s something to wonder at.

-LR

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Though we’ve been led to believe that pillow talk is something that just comes naturally–that we’ll all just magically know just the right thing to say in the heat of the moment–the truth is often anything but. Sure, sometimes we managed to pull it off, but more often than not, words fail us (or, worse yet, the wrong words arrive).

Thankfully, some kind soul has created a diagram of things to say (and not say) during sex, helpfully dividing a wide range of orgasmic exclamations by category–as well as indicating whether they’re good or bad things to say while in bed. Print it out poster size and hang it up by your bed…and you’ll never be speechless again.

Things to say during sex [imgur.com, via Tiny Nibbles]

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An interesting tribute to the King of Pop, a publicly funded radio station in Belgium also known at StuBru, has created Eternal Moonwalk, a video slideshow of people, animals and inanimate objects doing Michael Jackson’s signature move. Each video clip is about six seconds long and a counter keeps track of the number of meters traveled as you watch. A continuous music loop plays as a soundtrack and you can click on a series of buttons to add the various exclamations that Jackson was famous for. At the time of this posting, there are already over a 1,500 video clips on the site!

Be warned, this is one of those websites that can be very addictive.

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Last week in London the National Portrait Gallery launched the exhibit “Gay Icons,” a collection of portraits selected by a diverse group of gay who’s who: Elton John, Billie Jean King, and Alan Hollinghurst among them. Their selections are broad, including “include artists Francis Bacon and David Hockney; writers Daphne du Maurier and Quentin Crisp; composers Pyotr Tchaikovsky and Benjamin Britten; musicians k.d. lang, the Village People and Will Young; entertainers Ellen DeGeneres, Lily Savage and Kenneth Williams; sports stars Martina Navratilova and Ian Roberts and political activists Harvey Milk and Angela Mason.”

My only complaint is that list is so small. On the 40th anniversary of the Stonewall riots, they’re obviously more than 60 icons to celebrate. Running through October 18, 2009.

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