Sir Ian McKellen, who played Gandalf in the Lord of the Rings Trilogy, is a very accomplished (to put it mildly) stage actor. Indeed, he is starring in a critically acclaimed production of King Lear by The Royal Shakespeare Company, directed by Trevor Nunn. I mention this all because this once-in-a-lifetime experience will be passing through Minneapolis in early October, at the newly built Guthrie Theater.
To see it or not to see it? That is the question.
The Richard Mille Tellurium-Planetarium involves the most intricate gear-work I have ever seen. This extremely expensive and precise (yet also decorative) device tracks the relative movements of the Earth, Moon, Sun, Mercury, Mars, and Venus.
It isn’t surprising that only a high-end watchmaker like Richard Mille could produce a work like this. “It is still possible today to restore watches that are more than 6 centuries old. The Richard Mille planetarium-tellurium will not be an exception to this rule; each component can be manufactured again. But by way of an example, the mainspring is designed to last approximately 350 years.”
If you have 20 minutes, then you can watch this great video which “explains the world’s most important 6-sec drum loop.” A commenter on the video writes: “This was probably the most educational sixteen minutes I’ve spent all week.”
Anyhow, the name of the loop is “Amen Break,” and it was an integral part of the rhythmic genesis of hip-hop in the 1980’s, continuing on to spawn an entire sub-genre in the 1990s.
Hours after I learned about this ubiquitous drum beat, I heard it while working out at Lifetime. It lives on!
Geekologie recently featured a 360 Degree Light Field Display, which sounds pretty vanilla… what is that, a panel of LCDs that surround you? Actually, this is very exciting technology: it’s the closest equivalent to the three dimensional display we see in movies that we currently have. The technology combines a extremely fast spinning specially shaped mirror with a custom image output system to project objects in three dimensions, which you can actually walk around as if they really existed. Plus there are no special glasses required.
The video of the phenomenon, combined with the demonstration of the scanning and subsequent reproduction of a three dimensional object, is pretty stunning. However, the running man animation at the end is the single most stunning display demonstration I have ever seen.
Want to make an Old West style wanted poster? Well, Clarendon would be your typeface of choice. See it (or a very similar derivative of it) used to great effect on the tremendously well-designed site for 31Three, the design studio of Jesse Bennett-Chamberlain.
Coudal Partners brings you another entry in the series entitled “Regrets.” This film is a cautionary (and incredibly funny) personal tale about… well, you’ll have to watch.
Since you’re so interested in model railroads, maybe you should, you know, buy a model railroad.
Thanks, Coudal Partners.
Jeremy Messersmith, a Minneapolis musician who Mykala brought to my attention recently, has a good set of tunes from his latest album at his website. You can listen to his entire track “7:02,” which Mykala had been searching for. Perhaps she found it here. You can, too! If you really dig the stuff, you can purchase Jeremy’s latest effort, “The Alcatraz Kid,” for $10.
How about a Staple Free Stapler, which attaches up to 5 sheets of paper without the need for crazy metallic staples! Amazing. As an office supply junky, I’m inclined to spring for this, as it is only $6.
Time for a spot/spate/bit of recent t-shirt items I’ve seen that have the rare quality of humor and viability for personal wear.
With that we conclude this irregular edition of t-shirt redux.
The Wikipedia entry about Jeremy Bentham, a 1900s “philosopher and social reformer,” proves that the British have better senses of humor than the Americans:
As requested in [Jeremy Bentham’s] will, his body was preserved and stored in a wooden cabinet, termed his “Auto-icon”. Originally kept by his disciple Dr. Southwood Smith, it was acquired by University College London in 1850. The Auto-Icon is kept on public display at the end of the South Cloisters in the main building of the College. For the 100th and 150th anniversaries of the college, the Auto-Icon was brought to the meeting of the College Council, where he was listed as “present but not voting”. Tradition holds that if the council’s vote on any motion is tied, the auto-icon always breaks the tie by voting in favor of the motion.
The picture of the Auto-Icon, complete with wax head, is amazing.
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