Neal Stephenson, SciFi Author, Crowdsources $500,000 for New Sword-Fighting Video Game

in Literature, Technology | July 11th, 2012

Neal Stephen­son (Crypto­nom­i­con, Snow Crash, Anath­em) is a hard­work­ing man. In addi­tion to not get­ting any of his sci-fi nov­els made into movies, hang­ing out at Google, writ­ing some of the most fas­ci­nat­ing non­fic­tion in print or online, and being awe­some, he’s work­ing on a project called Clang, a first-per­son sword­fight­ing game, and he’s fund­ing it through Kick­starter. As of yes­ter­day he exceed­ed his goal of $500,000 with over 9,000 back­ers. And why not? Like most of Stephenson’s ideas, it’s bril­liant.

Stephenson—a self-described “swords­man­ship geek”—explains in the video above why he’s decid­ed to cre­ate a real­is­tic sword fight­ing game, in a gam­ing scene rid­dled with high-tech first-per­son shoot­ers. And even though Stephen­son admits to being only a “casu­al gamer,” as you can see, he’s dead­ly seri­ous about the devel­op­ment of Clang. Watch him test sev­er­al dif­fer­ent medieval weapon designs to repli­cate the weight and feel of a real blade and cre­ate the intense inter­ac­tive expe­ri­ence of games like Medal of Hon­or and Met­al Gear Sol­id.

Stephen­son and his team are mak­ing use of a cut­ting-edge track­ing tech­nol­o­gy devel­oped by a com­pa­ny called Six­ense, which promis­es very low laten­cy and “unpar­al­leled pre­ci­sion.” The Clang team are con­fi­dent that their track­ing tech­nol­o­gy, embed­ded in the Raz­er Hydra game con­troller, will bring the thrills and chal­lenges of Medieval sword fight­ing into the hands of fel­low geeks very soon.

Josh Jones is cur­rent­ly a doc­tor­al stu­dent in Eng­lish at Ford­ham Uni­ver­si­ty and a co-founder and for­mer man­ag­ing edi­tor of Guer­ni­ca / A Mag­a­zine of Arts and Pol­i­tics.

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Tom Waits and David Letterman: An American Television Tradition

in Music, Television | July 11th, 2012

Whether or not you lis­ten to his music, you have to appre­ci­ate the fact that a singer like Tom Waits has enjoyed decades of fame. When I first heard a song of his — “Inno­cent When You Dream” over the end cred­its of Wayne Wang’s Smoke — I assumed the voice I was hear­ing could­n’t pos­si­bly have come from a human being. Or if it did, maybe it came from a human being imi­tat­ing the man­ner of some sort of crag­gy, immor­tal mon­ster, processed through sev­er­al dis­tor­tion box­es. But no, I was hear­ing the sound of purest Waits, one of the few per­form­ers who deliv­ers an entire per­son­al­i­ty — whether his own or one he’s invent­ed — when deliv­er­ing a sin­gle line. You’ll find evi­dence of his cap­ti­va­tion fac­tor above, in a per­for­mance of “Choco­late Jesus,” a song inspired by lit­er­al­ly that, on Late Show with David Let­ter­man. Per­haps you won’t feel it, but you can’t argue with its view count on YouTube — 5.3 mil­lion and ris­ing.

Waits has made some­thing of a tra­di­tion of vis­it­ing Let­ter­man’s show, or maybe Let­ter­man has made a tra­di­tion of invit­ing him. Music jour­nal­ists often slap the word “reclu­sive” in front of his name, but Waits does make his media appear­ances, the best of which he makes on Let­ter­man’s show. You’ll find many such seg­ments on Youtube, includ­ing ones from 1983, 1986, 1987, 1988, 2002, 2004, and this year. In 1986, Let­ter­man intro­duced Waits as “prob­a­bly the only guest we’ve had on this pro­gram who was born in the back of a taxi,” which I assume still holds true. Just above, we’ve embed­ded his 1983 Christ­mas­time sit-down, which Waits’ fans seem to regard with spe­cial fond­ness, and in which Let­ter­man first learns this choice fact. Beyond that, Waits sings two songs and dis­cuss­es his var­i­ous unortho­dox res­i­dences (motel, trail­er, car), the use of brake drums as per­cus­sive drums on his then-lat­est album, and how he inter­vened when a school­boy was sus­pend­ed for bring­ing one of Waits’ records to show-and-tell. In Waits, we have the prime liv­ing exem­plar of a cer­tain par­tic­u­lar­ly Amer­i­can style of per­form­ing and song­writ­ing, and in Let­ter­man, we have the prime liv­ing exem­plar of a cer­tain par­tic­u­lar­ly Amer­i­can style of simul­ta­ne­ous­ly sil­ly and self-aware humor. What luck for the coun­try that these two can get togeth­er as often as they do.

Relat­ed con­tent:

Tom Waits Fish­ing with John Lurie: ‘Like Wait­ing for Godot on Water’

A Brief His­to­ry of John Baldessari, Nar­rat­ed by Tom Waits

Tom Waits Reads Charles Bukows­ki

Tom Waits Makes Com­ic Appear­ance on Fer­n­wood Tonight (1977)

Col­in Mar­shall hosts and pro­duces Note­book on Cities and Cul­ture. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall.

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An Abridged History of Western Music: “What a Wonderful World” Sung in 16 Different Styles

in Music | July 10th, 2012

Joe Sabia, Michael Thurber and Matt McCorkle teamed up to form cdza, a group ded­i­cat­ed to cre­at­ing “musi­cal video exper­i­ments.” They start­ed with a His­to­ry Of Lyrics That Aren’t Lyrics and A His­to­ry of Whistling. Now, nine months into their project, they’re up to their Opus No. 7 — An Abridged His­to­ry of West­ern Music in 16 Gen­res. In a fun three min­utes, they tease apart Louis Arm­strong’s chest­nut, What a Won­der­ful World, pre­sent­ing it in var­i­ous West­ern styles of music. Gre­go­ri­an Chant. Baroque. Blue­grass. Reg­gae. Rap. Punk. The list goes on. Enjoy.

via Boing Boing

Relat­ed Con­tent:

David Atten­bor­ough Reads “What a Won­der­ful World” in a Mov­ing Video

Lis­ten­ing to Music. Yale Course added to our col­lec­tion 500 Free Cours­es Online

The Open Gold­berg Vari­a­tions: J.S. Bach’s Mas­ter­piece Free to Down­load

New­ly Dis­cov­ered Piece by Mozart Per­formed on His Own Fortepi­ano

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Cindy Sherman and the Art of Impersonation

in Art, Photography | July 10th, 2012

This Sat­ur­day the much-not­ed Muse­um of Mod­ern Art ret­ro­spec­tive of pho­tog­ra­ph­er Cindy Sher­man’s work will make it’s West Coast debut at the San Fran­cis­co Muse­um of Mod­ern Art. The show, says New York Times art crit­ic Rober­ta Smith, reveals “an artist with an urgent, sin­gu­lar­ly per­son­al vision, who for the past 35 years has con­sis­tent­ly turned pho­tog­ra­phy against itself.”

Where the medi­um typ­i­cal­ly involves a pho­tog­ra­pher’s direct obser­va­tion of the world, Sher­man usu­al­ly points the cam­era at her­self as she takes a vari­ety of guis­es. “Aid­ed by ever-shift­ing arrays of cos­tumes, wigs, make­up tech­niques, acces­sories, props and at times masks and pros­thet­ic body parts,” writes Smith, “Ms. Sher­man has aggres­sive­ly role-played and stage-direct­ed her way through, and in many ways laid waste to, a lex­i­con of most­ly female stereo­types.”

The role-play­ing is appar­ent­ly infec­tious, because when NPR’s Ira Glass and a friend vis­it­ed the exhib­it before it closed in New York, they met a woman claim­ing to be Sher­man. Unsure whether she was the real thing or an imper­son­ator, Glass decid­ed to tele­phone Sher­man. You can lis­ten to her response at This Amer­i­can Life.

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James Baldwin Bests William F. Buckley in 1965 Debate at Cambridge University

in History, Life, Literature | July 10th, 2012

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Author of the nov­el Giovanni’s Room and the non­fic­tion col­lec­tion “Notes of a Native Son,” James Bald­win was also a scathing social crit­ic, a wit­ty yet for­mi­da­ble media per­son­al­i­ty, and a lit­er­ary ambas­sador for civ­il rights. And, as an out­spo­ken gay man, he decried dis­crim­i­na­tion against gays and les­bians. In 1965, he accept­ed an invi­ta­tion by Cam­bridge Uni­ver­si­ty to debate the “father of Amer­i­can con­ser­vatism” William F. Buck­ley on the sub­ject, “The Amer­i­can Dream is at the Expense of the Amer­i­can Negro.” In the video above, Bald­win (intro­duced as the “star of the evening”) deliv­ers his stir­ring open­ing remarks, set­ting the tone he main­tains through­out and pulling his near­ly all-white audi­ence to the edge of their seats.

Buck­ley, found­ing edi­tor of the con­ser­v­a­tive jour­nal Nation­al Review, had come out four years ear­li­er against deseg­re­ga­tion and Civ­il Rights leg­is­la­tion and was in the midst of his ulti­mate­ly failed 1965 New York City may­oral cam­paign. He was always will­ing to engage with his ide­o­log­i­cal adver­saries (see him debate Noam Chom­sky in 1969 on his long-run­ning tele­vi­sion pro­gram, Fir­ing Line), but remained a staunch oppo­nent of lib­er­al­ism. In this clip from the debate, Buck­ley responds to many of Bald­win’s asser­tions:

Bald­win had just fin­ished his nov­el Anoth­er Coun­try when this debate took place. He was 41, Buck­ley 40. While both are well-known for the rhetor­i­cal savvy on dis­play here, in this case at least, Bald­win proved the more per­sua­sive voice. After the debate, the Cam­bridge Union Soci­ety took a vote and decid­ed the issue in his favor, 540–160.

You can (and should) view the full debate above.

Josh Jones is cur­rent­ly a doc­tor­al stu­dent in Eng­lish at Ford­ham Uni­ver­si­ty and a co-founder and for­mer man­ag­ing edi­tor of Guer­ni­ca / A Mag­a­zine of Arts and Pol­i­tics.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

375+ Episodes of William F. Buckley’s Fir­ing Line Now Online: Fea­tures Talks with Chom­sky, Borges, Ker­ouac, Gins­berg & More

James Bald­win Debates Mal­colm X (1963) and William F. Buck­ley (1965): Vin­tage Video & Audio

Great Cul­tur­al Icons Talk Civ­il Rights: James Bald­win, Mar­lon Bran­do, Har­ry Bela­fonte & Sid­ney Poiti­er (1963)

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The Tour de Francis: Can an Amateur Tackle the World’s Greatest Cycling Race?

in Current Affairs | July 10th, 2012

Could an ama­teur bik­er han­dle the rig­ors of the gru­el­ing Tour de France? Hal­fords, a UK spon­sor of the 2012 Tour, and their ad firm, DLKW Lowe, decid­ed to find out. The rid­er is Dan Fran­cis, a 29 year old employ­ee at a Lon­don phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal com­pa­ny. The bike, a $1500 rebadged Car­rera Vira­go. The route, five clas­sic stages from The Tour de France. And it’s all doc­u­ment­ed in a 15-minute film play­ful­ly called The Tour de Fran­cis.

The ride is gru­el­ing, yes. And it’s only com­pli­cat­ed by the unusu­al road con­di­tions — the snow block­ing the roads in the Alps, cars lit­ter­ing the already treach­er­ous roads in front of the Tui­leries in Paris (where I hap­pened to see Miguel Indurain win the Tour three times). How does Fran­cis han­dle it? No spoil­ers here. We’ll let you find out.

via @Coudal

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Sci­ence Behind the Bike: Four Videos from the Open Uni­ver­si­ty on the Eve of the Tour de France

The 1910 Tour de France Revis­it­ed

Brus­sels Express: The Per­ils of Cycling in Europe’s Most Con­gest­ed City

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Six Early Short Films By Tim Burton

in Film | July 10th, 2012

If you’ve gone to the movies late­ly, you may well have seen the trail­er for Tim Bur­ton’s upcom­ing Franken­wee­nie. While its black-and-white stop-motion ani­ma­tion looks nifty — and it’ll sure­ly look even nifti­er in IMAX 3D — Bur­ton enthu­si­asts know full well that the film isn’t entire­ly new. The orig­i­nal Franken­wee­nie, a much short­er and rougher-edged but nev­er­the­less unique­ly charm­ing pic­ture, came out 28 years ago, and you can watch it free on Youtube today. A live-action film with a kinet­i­cal­ly askew visu­al sen­si­bil­i­ty, this first Franken­wee­nie tells the same sto­ry as the new one: a boy brings his beloved dead dog back to life using the reviv­ing pow­er of elec­tric­i­ty, but few res­i­dents of his small town approve of the result­ing bolt-necked, stitched-togeth­er crea­ture. Bur­ton has made the long, hard road to accep­tance faced by well-mean­ing but ram­shackle beings one of his dom­i­nant themes, so his desire to make a sec­ond Franken­wee­nie comes as no great sur­prise — espe­cial­ly since he also made the first one.

Work­ing for Dis­ney at the time, the young Bur­ton man­aged to land play­ers like Shel­ley Duvall, Daniel Stern, and a 13-year-old Sofia Cop­po­la for this charm­ing­ly goofy homage to Franken­stein. Sad­ly, the stu­dio ulti­mate­ly con­sid­ered the project a waste of mon­ey, and too scary to screen for chil­dren, and sent Bur­ton pack­ing. But how­ev­er dis­cour­ag­ing the expe­ri­ence must have felt in the moment, it gave him 30 full min­utes to tell a sto­ry. His ear­li­er shorts, like the thir­ty-sec­ond Hou­di­ni: The Untold Sto­ry above, had to oper­ate under much more com­pressed con­di­tions. (Leg­end has it that Bur­ton turned that film in to a teacher in lieu of a book report.) After his 1985 fea­ture break­through Pee-Wee’s Big Adven­ture, he still found the occa­sion­al chance to make a short, as when he cre­at­ed The Jar, for the tele­vi­sion series Alfred Hitch­cock Presents.

Some view­ers like Bur­ton’s movies bet­ter the more resources he has to make them; oth­ers pre­fer the fruits of his more con­strained (and thus restrained) years. To best decide for your­self, you’ll want to take this high­ly enter­tain­ing course in the for­ma­tion of his dis­tinc­tive style by watch­ing his ear­ly shorts, six of which have become avail­able online.

Relat­ed con­tent:

Tim Burton’s The World of Stain­boy: Watch the Com­plete Ani­mat­ed Series

Franken­wee­nie: Tim Bur­ton Turns Franken­stein Tale into Dis­ney Kids Film (1984)

Vin­cent: Tim Burton’s Ear­ly Ani­mat­ed Film Tim Bur­ton: A Look Inside His Visu­al Imag­i­na­tion

500 Free Movies Online Col­in Mar­shall hosts and pro­duces Note­book on Cities and Cul­ture. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall.

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When Super Heroes Get Old and Retire to Miami

in Animation, Comedy | July 10th, 2012

What hap­pens when seem­ing­ly immor­tal fig­ures end up being mor­tal after all? What hap­pens when four super friends — Bat­man, Robin, Super­man, Aqua­man — end their crime fight­ing days and live out their gold­en years in Mia­mi? You’ve got to admit, it’s an intrigu­ing con­cept. And Kevin Bapp plays out the sce­nario in this fun­ny lit­tle trail­er for a poten­tial Car­toon Net­work pilot. Enjoy…

via Slate

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