The Fantastic Mr. Fox

Details about Wes Anderson's The Fantastic Mr. Fox have been scarce until a trailer recently surfaced showcasing a lot of impressive stop motion animation and design in the film. The animals and set pieces look wonderful and the cast a pretty classic line up of great actors. The approach to the material seems classy and sober without pandering to a particular kind of audience. I think this is highlighted by a lot of the deadpan humor in the trailer. Count me in. Should be a rewarding experience to sit through.

When you have great children's books being picked up by guys like Spike Jonze and Wes Anderson you are in a special time and place.

1930s-40s in Color

Kitchen utensils hanging below a spice rack with mint, caraway, tyme, and sage jars

between 1941 and 1945.

Marine lieutenant, glider pilot in training, ready for take-off at Page Field,
Parris Island, S.C. 1942 May.

"Backstage" at the "girlie" show at the Vermont state fair,
Rutland, 1941 Sept.

Women workers employed as wipers in the roundhouse having lunch in their rest room,
C. & N.W. R.R., Clinton, Iowa 1943 April.

Woman aircraft worker, Vega Aircraft Corporation, Burbank, Calif.
Shown checking electrical assemblies 1942 June.

Mind boggling images from The Library of Congress' photostream on Flickr. The original images are color transparencies ranging in size from 35 mm. to 4x5 inches. The Library of Congress also has a huge and free assortment of some of the earliest films ever shot in the iTunes U Store. Check out the Edison Companies section. Thanks to Karl for renewing my interest in these remarkable photographs.

Lamb Shawarma

Posts have been scarce these days. I've been enjoying this summer so much that it has left me unmotivated to blog. However, I would like to take this time to point out that Hallava Falafel in Seattle is one of the break out hits of the season for me. Get the lamb shawarma. I'm telling you.

Being unemployed for most of the summer has not worked in favor of some of my artistic pursuits. It has in fact thrown a large wrench into the plans I had made. Thankfully I managed to test shoot with my Super 8 camera; the footage should hopefully become available to capture soon. As of a few days ago I've been fortunate enough to catch a break and find some temporary employment. The contact which I've made via craigslist could be more valuable then the actual brief amount of work I'm required to do. Mark Tribe is an artist and curator whose interests include art, technology, and politics. He has tasked me to assist him in retrieving some video footage of police surveillance from another contact here in Bellingham. From the project description:

The Utopia Files is an experimental video project that examines contemporary forms of political activism through the lens of police surveillance. The project will premiere as a multi-channel installation at the DeCordova Museum in Lincoln, MA as part of their New England Biennial in January 2010. The project will also be presented as a single channel video.

From "Democracy in America" video installation. Mark Tribe, 2008.

I'm pretty interested to see how this project forms and to hopefully continue working with Mark.

In other news, some of my good friends from Syracuse made their way to the Pacific Northwest. Jeff, Shimpei, and Caleb have embarked on a journey across the continental United States and I had the pleasure of co-hosting them in Seattle for a couple days with the great Mike Wilson. We hopefully captivated them with the sights of Ballard, Gasworks Park, and Dick's, both in Wallingford and Capitol Hill. They are attempting to produce a larger portrait of their travel experiences through various photography projects. Both Jeff and Shimpei are MFA candidates in photography at Syracuse University while Caleb is an MFA candidate for film at the School of Visual Arts in NYC. You can follow their activities over at The Epic Buffet.

Jeff's Portrait at the base of the Freemont Troll.