Pretty Big Dig: Construction Cranes as Ballet Dancers

Mechanical grace, or how to never look at a construction hat the same way again.

When Canadian choreographer and filmmaker Anne Troake was passing by a construction site one day, she observed the incredible orchestration with which the enormous machines moved, a special kind of mechanical choreography. So she wondered what it would be like to actually choreograph these giant dancers into a graceful ballet. The result was Pretty Big Dig — a poetic 2002 short film that articulates the assimilation of machines in the visual language of dance, with Troake’s characteristic undertone of humor and irreverence. This ABC clip about the project is the last remnant of the film online — a hint at the tragedy of how much creativity gets lost in analog archives and buried in closed-access libraries — but what it lakes in completeness it makes up for in sheer charm and inspiration, a beautiful manifestation of the incredible creativity that thrives at the intersection of wildly different disciplines.

More of and about Pretty Big Dig can be found on FREEDOM — a fascinating documentary about Troake’s work and unorthodox, cross-disciplinary approach to dance, alongside more of the world’s most eccentric, extraordinary dancers, choreographers and urban performers.

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Designing Minds: Uncovered Video Profiles of Prominent Designers

Peeking inside creative crania, or what giant bananas have to do with the difference between design and art.

In 2008, a now-defunct podcast program by Adobe called Designing Minds — not to be confused with frogdesign’s excellent design mind magazine — did a series of video profiles of prominent artists and designers, including Stefan Sagmeister (whose Things I have learned in my life so far isn’t merely one of the best-produced, most beautiful design books of the past decade, it’s also a poignant piece of modern existential philosophy), Yves Behar (of One Laptop Per Child fame), Marian Bantjes (whose I Wonder remains my favorite typographic treasure) and many more, offering a rare glimpse of these remarkable creators’ life stories, worldviews and the precious peculiarities that make them be who they are and create what they create.

My favorite quote about what is art and what is design and what might be the difference comes from Donald Judd: ‘Design has to work, art doesn’t.’ And these things all have to work. They have a function outside my desire for self-expression.” ~ Stefan Sagmeister

When designers are given the opportunity to have a bigger role, real change, real transformation actually happens.” ~ Yves Behar

While the series may now be a sad ghost town of creative investment, as many such short-lived corporate initiatives tend to wither into, it remains an illuminating time-capsule of our era’s design thought-leadership. Luckily, all 70 episodes remain intact — and free — on iTunes.

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Frank Sinatra: A Rare Documentary from 1965

What the evolution of popular music has to do with turbulent love and fostering the art of patience.

I am a big lover of jazz, and have always had a soft spot for Frank Sinatra. (My first iBook, the first computer on which I had iTunes, was promptly named Francis by my college housemates because all I played on it was Sinatra.) Though some may say he diluted “true jazz” and turned it into musical pop candy, there’s something to be said for his incredible talent and charisma, which broadened the audience for music in a way few artists have single-handedly managed in the history of contemporary music. Known by many names — Frankie, Francis, Ol’ Blue Eyes, The Chairman of the Board, The Voice — and often revered as the most popular and enduring singer of the 20th century, he borrowed from jazz, swing, pop, big band and more to weave together a style that was distinctly his own.

In 1965, CBS News spent six months with Sinatra, exploring what it is exactly that made him so special, getting unprecedented access to both his recording career and his private life. The resulting documentary was broadcast on November 16, 1965, and now, thanks to YouTube, we have access to this rare footage, in which Sinatra talks about everything from his childhood in Hoboken to his legendary love affairs to the cultural role of the entertainer across time.

I would like to be remembered as a man who brought an innovation to popular singing. I would like to be remembered as a man who had a wonderful time living his life, and who had good friends, fine family, and I don’t think I could ask for anything more than that, actually.” ~ Frank Sinatra

I’ve always admired people who are gentle and who have great patience and, apparently, what I’ve done without knowing is I’ve aped these people and begun to follow that kind of line.” ~ Frank Sinatra

For another intimate look at Sinatra’s relentlessly fascinating life and career, you won’t go wrong with The Sinatra Treasures: Intimate Photos, Mementos, and Music from the Sinatra Family Collection — a stunning and loving homage to the iconic singer by Sinatra family archivist Charles Pignone, full of over 200 black-and-white and color photographs alongside reproductions of rare memorabilia like radio scripts, telegrams and letters, piano scores and more, as well as a bounty of thoughtful, witty and true to character quotes from The Voice himself.

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How Ralph Waldo Emerson Shaped the American Ideal

Philosophy, entrepreneurship, and what classic spiritual movements have to do with modern geeks.

Poet, essayist, lecturer and philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson, a man of great wisdom on everything from the key to personal growth to the two pillars of true friendship to what beauty really means, is celebrated as the father of Transcendentalism — a belief system in which spirituality transcends the physical and the doctrines of organized religion, and is instead based on the individual’s intuition, advocating for “a poetry and philosophy of insight and not tradition.” His iconic 1837 speech, The American Scholar, is commonly considered the American “Intellectual Declaration of Independence.” His seminal essay on self-reliance remains one of history’s most important works on individuality and anti-conformity.

Emerson: The Ideal in America is the first documentary about the life and work of the great thinker, whose belief in “the infinitude of the private man” is embedded in contemporary concepts ranging from spirituality to spirit of entrepreneurship to ideals of individualism and personal agency. The film is available both online in its entirety and on DVD, and is very much a must-see.

Here is the real secret to Emerson’s work: He stands still, he listens to his heart, and he writes as he listens.”

To commemorate Emerson’s legacy, Seth Godin’s Domino Project has released a fantastic new edition of Self-Reliance, featuring self-reflections from both historical and contemporary luminaries, as well as quotes from icons like Henry Ford, Helen Keller, Steve Pressfield, and Milton Glaser. In classic Domino Project fashion, it’s a multiplatform release including a hardcover, audio CD, mp3, Kindle ebook, Audible audiobook, limited deluxe edition (with cover design eerily similar to the Holstee Manifesto), and shareable multi-packs.

Complement with Emerson on how to live with maximum aliveness.

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