Writer’s Block in Stop-Motion, Shakespeare-Style

What Romeo and Juliette have to do with William Shatner and modern justice.

395 years ago tomorrow, the great William Shakespeare took his last breath. Shakespearean Tragedy (A Comedy) is a lovely Claymationesque animated short film about Shakespeare’s writer’s block by 24-year-old Jerusalem-based animator Anna Cohen, exploring something we have an ongoing fascination with: What is creativity, and how do we overcome the obstacles in its way? After previously hearing from the very real Scott Belsky, Rainn Wilson, Kurt Andersen, Stefan Sagmeister, Steven Johnson and Isaac Asimov, it’s time we heard from imaginary-Shakespeare:

Bonus points for the Spakespearean facepalm, no?

Here are a few more intelligent ways to commemorate the iconic playwright:

• How To Read Shakespeare, part of Simon Critchley’s excellent How To Read series on the Western classics
• Approaching Shakespeare — fantastic free iTunes U course from Oxford University
• How to Think Like Shakespeare — ambitious BigThink series featuring a number of video interviews with and articles by cultural critics, neuroscientists, theater directors and more
• A Thousand Times More Fair: What Shakespeare’s Plays Teach Us About Justice — fascinating new book by Kenji Yoshino, incredibly timely in the cultural context of today’s global politics; TNR has a thoughtful review
• William Shatner on Shakespeare vs. new media

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something: An Open-Story Plot Device for Life

An antidote to friend buttons, or what Shakira, Seth Godin and JJ Abrams have in common.

We’ve got something, something we share with Sir Richard Branson, Dave Eggers, Shakira, and Seth Godin, among others. And now, you too can have something — for free.

something is a plot device in a story you choose to ascribe it to, part MacGuffin Library, part Significant Objects, part creative vehicle all its own — a fascinating side project by our friends at m ss ng p eces, whom you might recall from the lovely Behind the Scenes of a TED Talk, the Michael Wolff mirco-documentary on the three muscles of creativity and last month’s excellent James Murphy interview on the future of taste and music discovery.

Today, we sit down with founder Scott Thrift to talk about something.

What, exactly, is something?

ST: something is a profoundly simple work of art that connects people, inspires new ideas and generates curiosity.

How did the something story start?

ST: After film school my writing was taking me deeper into the meaning of the moving image. The impact a single frame could have on someone began to hold more interest for me than a feature film. While applying pressure to what a one second film might feel like; I began to wonder what media, books, or art ‘do’ in the first place. What do we ‘have’ with us after the experience? I wanted to be able to grasp that intangible mystery. I wanted to ‘have’ what I wanted an original film to ‘do’ to people, without making the film.

Where is something going?

ST: For the past nine years I have given it as a gift to people who have meant something to me. It’s an effective way of giving thanks for everything beyond words. I would estimate that there are close to 500 pieces throughout the world.

One of my favorite things about something is that it cannot be downloaded. I’ve always wanted to send something to people in the mail to celebrate the physicality of connection.”

I kind of miss that in a world of friend buttons, so I’m going to give that a go and see what happens.

What has been the most surprising response to something that you’ve seen?

ST: Something connects people to the present moment. In the newness of that moment I’ve seen people bite it, laugh uncontrollably, shake it next to their ear, try desperately to open it, smell it, go on a pun fit or become frightened, confused, jubilant, jealous, I’ve seen it make people cry, become furious, throw it or take a picture with it but most commonly, share it with everyone around them. The most enjoyable responses for me are the surprising insights and deeply interesting conversations it inspires concerning meaning, perception, value and the thingness of things.

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Symmetry: A Split-Screen Exploration of Duality

What the origin of the universe has to do with gender identity, binary parallels and anatomy.

Nearly a year ago, WNYC’s Radiolab (which we love) and New York filmmaking trio Everynone (of Everyone Forever Now fame) brought us On Words — a spellbinding short film that examined the importance of words by imagining a world without them. Today, the team is back with another gem of a collaboration.

Symmetry is a mesmerizing split-screen short film exploring the poetic parallels and contrasts of our world — birth and death, heart and brain, masculinity and femininity, all many more of humanity’s fundamental dualities. It’s the best thing you’ll watch all week, we promise. (Or, as Kirstin Butler put it, “[S]top everything and watch the most beautiful, satisfying split-screen video.”)

The film was inspired by Radiolab’s Desperately Seeking Symmetry episode, which examines how symmetry and its pursuit shape the core of our existence, from the origins of the universe to what we see when we look in the mirror.

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