American Animals
I think they wanted things to come easy for them. They didn’t want to work for a transformative experience. They didn’t want to help other people achieve a transformative experience. I find them all very selfish.
-Betty Jean Gouch
I still have trouble figuring out how a person crosses a line in their own mind, to be willing to hurt another person to get what they want. I think once you’ve crossed that line, I think it’s a dangerous line to cross.
It makes me wonder if they really know why they did it.
American Animals is a 2018 movie based on the true story of four young men who attempt to execute an audacious (and ill executed) art heist by stealing 2 rare Audubon books from a nearby library’s special collections. Struggling to find meaning in their dull lives, they formulate a daring plan for the robbery only to watch their mistakes and reality catch up with them.
The quote comes one of the real life office workers who encountered them when they tried to steal the books. Of all the characters, I think she grasps the humanity of the situation the best.
Doug Aitken’s Lighthouse
Doug Aitken’s ”Lighthouse’ outdoor art project uses projectors placed outdoors and cast rolling hills, open fields, and hardwood forest onto the structure. The artwork phases in and out of synchronicity with its surroundings, shifts between the seasons, and drawing on both micro and macro views.
See more at doug aitken’s virtual road trip through the creative process.
Mother 2 interview with Shigesato Itoi
GameCenter CX is a Japanese show with comedian Shinya Arino (one half of the comedy duo Yoiko) who plays home console video games from previous decades and usually attempts to get the game’s ending within a single day. The show has been on-air since 2003 and has gone for over 15 seasons and hundreds of episodes. You can watch re-runs on Twitch.
When Arino played through Shigesato Itoi’s game Mother 2 (released in North America as EarthBound), Itoi came to visit Arino Kacho while he made his way through the game. They talked about their memories of the game on the 30th anniversary of the original Mother title.
Read the transcripts of their discussion here:
https://www.1101.com/gccxmother/en/
Fractal moving art
Pouff creates moving images using fractal math, and makes their own music to go with. Their YouTube channel is loaded with colorful and hypnotic visuals, like this clip of intricate, organic looking structures, accented by brilliant backlighting.
10 years of staring at the sun
As of June 2020, NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory — SDO — has now been watching the Sun non-stop for over a full decade. From its orbit in space around the Earth, SDO has gathered 425 million high-resolution images of the Sun, amassing 20 million gigabytes of data over the past 10 years.
Klingon Rap
Kyoto Jidai Matsuri Festival
I was lucky enough to see this parade on one of my trips to Japan. I didn’t know so many of the characters had such colorful back stories and it covered such a long period of Japanese history.
Now for some ambient music
Tetris Effect
This amazing soundtrack can be streamed for free on BandCamp, and can also be found on Spotify, YouTube Music and Amazon.
Oregon 1986
Set in the fictional city of Providence Oaks, Oregon in 1986, Lake is an upcoming, chill-looking game where you deliver mail and get to know the town’s quirky locals.