The Sale of Manhattan: A Saul Bass Gem Circa 1962

What Saul Bass has to do with George W, or why Manhattan is worth $32 worth of junk jewelry.

Today’s short-and-sweet is a cultural gem in more ways than we can count — illustrated by iconic graphic designer Saul Bass, this animation segment comes from the 1962 ABC hit special Stan Freberg Presents: The Chun King Chow Mein Hour and tells, humorously and creatively, the story of The Sale of Manhattan.

Although undeniably marked with the stylistic stamp of that era, it isn’t hard to see how this short is a distant predecesor to the animated political comedy of today. (JibJab’s This Land, we’re looking at you.)

Or, it’s simply a testament to our timeless cultural need for storytelling, humor and art.

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The Housing Crisis in 3D

What Donkey Kong has to do with the global economic landslide.

Last month, we loved FlowingData‘s 27 visualizations and infographics that shed light on the financial crisis. Today, we’re going even more abstract with subprime — a fantastic 3D piece of visual storytelling that shows us in simple yet crisply graspable terms just how the housing market went haywire. 

And despite the video-gamesque sound design, subprime doesn’t fail to call out the 800-pound gorilla in the room: Our present housing situation is more King Kong than Donkey Kong.

Out of beeple, a delightfully irreverent studio for “audio/video works and art crap.”

Lynching Moby

The antidote to selling out, or what a 6-year-old has to do with a Beatles reunion.

Despite a certain eponymous equation, we like Moby. The man is a solid live performer, a smart businessman, and just a nice guy who, like us, likes tea and lowercase. And his is new video, Shot In The Back of The Head, makes us like him even more — because it was directed by none other than David Lynch, and done so brilliantly.

Somehow, in 3 minutes and 15 seconds, Lynch manages to unleash all his neo-Renaissance personas — film director, screenwriter, producer, painter, cartoonist, composer, and sound designer. The video is part Mulholland Drive, part German Expressionism, part reckless 6-year-old on the run with a black crayon.

The song itself, a dreamy instrumental departure from Moby’s usual commercially licensable fare, is a free download on Moby’s website. It comes from the forthcoming album Wait For Me, out June 30th.

As unlikely as the Lynch-Moby pair may be, the two already crossed paths at Lynch’s Change Begins Within benefit earlier this month. (Yep, same one where the closes thing to a Beatles reunion took place.)

And given Lynch’s history of casting musicians in his films (Sting in Dune, David Bowie and Chris Isaak in Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me, Billy Ray Cyrus in Mulholland Drive), we won’t be too surprised to see a Moby cameo in Lynch’s forthcoming My Son, My Son, What Have You Done, or maybe even a surprise one in the already-in-pre-production King Shot, out later this year.

Plus, there does seem to be a running theme there with all the shooting.

Creative Pause: Todd St. John & HunterGatherer

What preschoolers have to do with a dancing robot and Jack Johnson.

They had us at the brilliant Buckminster Fuller portrait for Mined Magazine.

In 2000, NYC-based designer, animator and filmmaker Todd St. John founded HunterGatherer — a bleeding-edge design, illustration, animation and production studio. Their shtick is combining experimental and hand-built techniques with more complex methods. And they do it brilliantly.

From a phenomenal stop-motion music video for preschoolers, to an incredible visual interpretation of Nike’s “Considered” manifesto of sustainability, to a delightful poster for Jack Johnson’s music label, their work is nothing short of stride-stopping.

They even collaborated with our favorite magazine in the educational Transparency series.

Take a look at the entirety of HunterGatherer‘s portoflio or quick-sample their showreel, and be sure to check out Todd St. John‘s personal site for some compellint experimental and noncommercial work.

You’re bound to find radically new ways of doing — of combining materials and techniques, of animating, of visualizing the expected in unexpected ways.