Current Events

There is something happening in the blogosphere today; BIRDS!

Flippin’ the Berd:

Eagle-eyed fans of street and guerilla art have no doubt noticed a proliferation of these yellow birds dangling over major intersections throughout the city over the last few years. The person behind them has been quite a mystery, but bLA’s intrepid Will Campbell used some good ol’ fashioned investigatifying and managed to track the artist down. Don’t miss Will’s revealing Q&A with the bird-flipper.   

via abLA

The Mockingbird Project:

Once programming was finished — completed entirely by Mutlu and Isaac as the first official project of the Allentium Lab — Isaac set to work on developing the visual animation for each of the layers. Mutlu integrated that into the design of the home page. Mike and Gunny finally settled on a name for the project — Mike’s idea had been to call it the Mockingbird Project.

And thus the Mockingbird was born.

via rhizome.org

2008 Olympic birdsnest :

These construction photos of Herzog & de Meuron’s new Beijing National Stadium – aka the 2008 Olympic birdsnest – were pointed out to me the other day; they combine the skewed angles and weird lighting of German Expressionist films with the stitched-together, black voided frame that I’ve commented on before.
So I decided to post them.

via BLDGBLOG

Hyungkoo Lee _ ANIMATUS

ARARIO gallery will show a new series of works by Hyungkoo Lee, September 1 through October 7, 2006.

via Wooster Collective

The Pervert’s Guide To Cinema:

The Pervert’s Guide To Cinema takes the viewer on an exhilarating ride through some of the greatest movies ever made. Serving as presenter and guide is the charismatic Slavoj Zizek, the Slovenian philosopher and psychoanalyst. With his engaging and passionate approach to thinking, Zizek delves into the hidden language of cinema, uncovering what movies can tell us about ourselves.

via The Pervert’s Guide

The Birdman of Alcatraz:

Robert Stroud, who was better known to the public as the "Birdman of Alcatraz," was probably the most famous inmate ever to reside on Alcatraz. In 1909 he brutally murdered a bartender who had allegedly failed to pay a prostitute for whom Stroud was pimping in Alaska. After shooting the bartender to death, Stroud took the man’s wallet to ensure that he and the prostitute would receive compensation for her services.

via Alcatraz History

Charlie "Bird" Parker:

During the late 1940s Parker toured in Europe, and by 1951, he rose to the status of the most influential jazz musician in the world. His notoriety as a heroin addict had also become legendary, and the New York police eventually withdrew his cabaret card (a requisite to working in New York nightclubs). Thereafter, he adopted a more itinerant lifestyle, playing with pick-up groups in Boston, Newark, Philadelphia, Chicago, and in California. His cabaret card was reinstated in 1953, but by then he was beset by sporadic employment, debt, and failing physical and mental health. He twice attempted suicide in 1954 and voluntarily committed himself to New York’s Bellevue Hospital. His last public appearance was on March 5, 1955, at Birdland, the club named in his honor in 1949.

via Sinewaves.it

AVIAN FLU:

The World Bank is calling for an additional $1.5 billion to fight avian flu. One-third of the funds are to be directed to sub-Saharan Africa during the next few years.

This year $96 million has been spent on bird flu prevention in Africa.

The H5N1 virus has been detected in eight countries on the continent since February and African Union officials announced during the conference that new outbreaks are still occurring in Nigeria, Egypt and Sudan.

via Favbuzz

Operation Mockingbird :

Operation Mockingbird is a Central Intelligence Agency operation to influence domestic and foreign media, whose activities were made public during the Church Committee investigation in 1975 (published 1976).

The word Mockingbird was first used by Deborah Davis in Katharine the Great (1979). There is no evidence that the CIA called it this. Cord Meyer said that when he joined the operation in 1951 it was so secret that it did not have a name.

via Wikipedia