Why changing our city-dwelling ways is the only way to keep our cities.
We’ll be brief today, because our video spotlight isn’t. But it is as culturally relevant and compelling as they come: It’s a talk by World Changing founder (and TEDster) Alex Steffen, given at the Danish Architecture Centre, where he makes a radical case for sustainable cities with 20 proposed solution spaces, each the domain of great urgency for change.
Long as it may be, the talk is altogether excellent — if there ever was a blueprint for a healthy planet still inhabited by our urbanite species, Alex Steffen has just laid it out.
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The world’s most international passport, why cassettes are the new Buddhism, and what Thom Yorke has to do with motion typography.
We love music. We love art. Naturally, we love seeing the two meet and make out. After last week’s Meta-Vinyl Creativity, we’re on a mission to dig up creative projects that pay visual tribute to everything music stands for, both aesthetically and conceptually. Here are our top three finds.
RAM FM
To celebrate the culture-crossing, border-blind power of music, Palestinian and Israeli radio station RAM FM channeled its slogan, Music has no boundaries, through a brilliant visual metaphor — artist portraits “painted” with travel stamps.
It’s one of those rare concepts that you instantly get — not merely because the campaign creative captures the positioning brief so wonderfully, but also because you can simply relate to it on a personal level. We certainly can — what better way to live vicariously, to connect and converse, than through music?
RAM FM is actually known as Peace Radio and serves a greater social purpose — to serve as a cultural bridge between the people of Israel and Palestine, through the most universal social glue there is: Music. Which makes us love the campaign on yet another level.
Non-traditional media artist iri5 works with old books, playing cards, magazines, credit cards and other everyday miscellany to create compelling, double-take-requiring artwork. Her Ghost in the Machine series uses recycled cassette tapes to create phenomenal portraits of musicians from their original cassettes.
The project is inspired by the philosophical sentiment that the body is but a package for the spirit.
I imagine we are all, like cassettes, thoughts wrapped up in awkward packaging.
The GRAMMYs. What a cultural icon. While it’s easy to dismiss them as an entertainment industry popularity contest, we like to think of them as a way of honoring the music that inspires, impacts and moves the greatest number of people.
This year, The Recording Academy wanted to capture this very sentiment in a fully integrated campaign that asks a simple yet profound question: Do we make great music or does great music make us?
It’s no secret we’re big fans of motion typography, so we love both the concept and the brilliant execution.
Out of TBWA\Chiat\Day.
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What Grandma’s nutrition facts have to do with the aerodynamics of a retro Volkswagen van.
For a quick treat, here is a brilliant interpretation of the Brothers Grimm classic Little Red Riding Hood, reimagining the beloved tale as an animated infographic inspired by Röyksopp’s Remind Me.
Bringing you (ad-free) Brain Pickings takes hundreds of hours each month. If you find any joy and stimulation here, please consider becoming a Supporting Member with a recurring monthly donation of your choosing, between a cup of tea and a good dinner:
You can also become a one-time patron with a single donation in any amount:
Brain Pickings has a free weekly newsletter. It comes out on Sundays and offers the week’s best articles. Here’s what to expect. Like? Sign up.
Why Ringo Starr may not be the lovable Liverpudlian the world’s most liberal media portray him to be.
In 2007, four fantastic musicians came together in Brisbane to form an equally fantastic band. It was called Goodnight Vienna. Then they got a legal threat — from none other than Richard Starkey Jr., better known to the rest of us as Ringo Starr. Turns out, Goodnight Vienna was the name of Ringo’s fourth studio album and although he “thoroughly enjoyed the music,” he felt “obligated to dissuade any profiteering which resulted from the use of his intellectual property.”
Ahem.
So, naturally, the band changed its name to Blame Ringo.
Genius.
Today, Blame Ringo is on a mission to seek revenge on Ringo — which, of course, is just a tongue-in-cheek front for imparting their excellent music on the unsuspecting world. And excellent it is — if Fleet Foxes, Beck, I’m From Barcelona and Guillemots went on tour together, Blame Ringo would be that tour — vocals that flow from hauntingly cloudiness to peppy sunlight, guitar solos that can put George Harrison to shame, and an occasional jazzy trumpet that’s like the dash of cinnamon on top of your cappuccino, taking it from delicious to pure delight.
And, yes, there may be a bit of that Beatlesque vibe in there, too.
But what we loved most about the band was their wonderful and clever promo for Garble Arch, the first single from their debut album Lucky Number 9 — A Day in the Life of Abbey Road, an utterly delightful stop-motion video shot on, yes, the Abbey Road.
So if you’re a Beatles aficionado, an appreciator of quirk, or just a lover of really, really good music, grab Lucky Number 9 and join the conspiracy. And take a moment to explore the band website, full of delightfully hilarious nuggets of anti-Ringo propaganda.
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Brain Pickings has a free weekly newsletter and people say it’s cool. It comes out on Sundays and offers the week’s best articles. Here’s an example. Like? Sign up.
