Beirut by way of Brooklyn

While I have not been frequenting Pitchfork as much as I used to, I did stop by the site earlier today and found this cool film in the One Week Only section. It's a film produced for La Blogotheque site of Beirut playing their album The Flying Club Cup all around Brooklyn. A word of warning though, La Blogotheque is in French, so make sure to translate it first. For those of you who enjoyed the films of the Arcade Fire playing parts of Neon Bible in elevators and other such random places, I think you will also enjoy this film of Beirut. Below you can see the first song of the album, but go to the Pitchfork or La Blogotheque links to see the rest of the album.

It's Electric!

I was reading Seed Magazine's "Daily Zeitgeist" today, and stumbled upon this nifty article on Nikola Tesla and his quest for wirelessly powering the world. Now I'm sure many of you have often wanted to rid the area behind your entertainment system and computer areas of the Gordian knot of power cords, but Tesla was seeking to rid the whole world of power lines and phone lines. Everything wireless powered and transmitted. 

Unfortunately this dream of his never came to fruition, due to lack of funds and manpower, but one can't help but wonder what the world would be like now if the Information Age had begun at the turn of the 19th century. Perhaps like this:

Oh, and here's David Bowie with a horrible accent, playing Nicola Tesla in The Prestige: 

Enjoy!

Why You Should Admire Mr. Miyagi

For those of you who saw The Karate Kid, I'm sure you remember this scene, where Mr. Miyagi and Daniel-san, try to catch a fly with chopsticks:

Well, now scientists at Caltech, led by chief investigator Michael Dickinson, have figured out why it is so hard to swat a fly, and how the fly manages to evade the impending doom of your hand. Apparently, not only do flies have near 360 degree vision, panoramic vision, but they also can decide within 200 milliseconds of seeing the swatting hand, how to position themselves and alter their center of gravity in order to leap out of the way. Amazing.

Today's Letter is A, as in Absurdity

I found this ridiculous video of Neil Patrick Harris as the "Shoe Fairy" in the new season of Sesame Street via Salon's Critic's Picks, so I thought I would share it with you all. Definitely worth the 1 minute 52 seconds of your time, for the sheer absurdity of watching Neil Patrick Harris dance and sing while wearing fairy wings. Also includes a wonderful tap dancing interlude. 

The Frenchman with the Movie Camera

In a preview of Sunday's Boston Globe online, there is a great article in Movies section by critic Mark Feeny on the French filmmaker Chris Marker (born Christian Francois Bouche-Villeneuve). In one of his own films, Marker introduces himself as "CHRIS MARKER, THE BEST KNOWN AUTHOR OF UNKNOWN FILMS," which definitely shows the man's humor. While Marker has requested his films not be embeddable  from YouTube, you can still watch the short film here. 

He sounds like quite the interesting filmmaker, and Feeny compares him to the famous Soviet Dziga Vertov (of The Man with the Movie Camera), in their similar love of film, and in their "both being so constitutionally radical, artistically even more than politically." One can read a profile of Marker here. One can also read many articles on the filmmaker here, in a site devoted to him.

This is one director I will have to explore.

Awash in a Sea of Information

This first entry for "A Dump Truck to Unload My Head" will basically serve as an introduction to the purpose of this blog, and as a preview of what lies ahead. My first foray into blogging was through the political blog Heartless and Brainless co-founded by my friend B. Tau. While this has been quite entertaining to write on politics, I feel myself being constrained by the format and themes of Heartless and Brainless, so I have set up this as a way to write and comment upon the other interests that I harbor. 

A brief list of areas you might stumble upon here: films, music, science & technology, politics, literature, religion, etc. etc. Basically whatever my mind happens to find interesting at the moment. And so this will serve as an area to "unload my head" as Dylan puts it. 

Hopefully you will enjoy these unloadings as much as I will.