Author: Ted Hope

New York Is A Zoo

Post author By Ted Hope
Post date July 10, 2008

The City is a playground. Art is all around. Good ideas abound. Huckleberry is a hound.

Thanks to street artist Joshua Allen Harris for these wonderful creations. Clink on the link to watch the video and see them come alive — sorry about the commercial, but it can’t be helped… (And thanks Melissa G. for the tip!)

Street Art: Joshua Allen Harris

Tags NYC, Street Art

Bowl Of Noses

Recommended Viewing #2: Pom Poko

Post author By Ted Hope
Post date July 7, 2008

The greatest animation company ever, Studio Ghibli, produced this fantastic movie in 1992. You can tell the makers of OVER THE HEDGE watched it but, boy, does their movie stink in comparison! They missed all of the fun, ideas, and greatness of POM POKO. Being a Racoon was never so much fun — nor was pranking the humans. It’s a great tale of resistance and rebellion. There’s a couple of spooky sequences and you can see the creatures’ private parts, but still we think it’s appropriate for age 6+.

Tags animation, Recommended viewing

These Are Those Things

Scavenger Hunt

Post author By Ted Hope
Post date July 5, 2008

Maybe this is what all those people looking up at the sky are doing. It’s one big scavenger hunt where we all have to find each letter. Now I realize one of those things that I have been missing: I don’t think I have ever spotted a single letter by looking at how buildings rest against the sky. I better get cracking.

Tags buildings, typography

These Are Those Things

One Of The Top Films Of All Time: Chris Marker’s La Jetee

Post author By Ted Hope
Post date July 1, 2008

Chris Marker’s LA JETEE haunts many filmmakers’ work. When I went to NYU, it was required viewing and I think you can see it’s influence in many grads’ work. Its marriage of form and content has rarely been equaled. His film SANS SOLEIL has also forever provoked me to deliver a true Essay Film — and I will one day. Both are Required Viewing.

One of the beautiful things about his work is that its effect runs far beyond the work at hand; he changes how we look at things, makes us reflect upon our own choices. Marker is a true believer in the power of the dialogue between screen and audience. He recognizes how some of the best work is created when our imagination fills in the gaps. Today far too much is actually shown, preventing us from becoming complicit in the narratives. His great essay on Hitchcock’s VERTIGO makes clear his passion for this process. If only others could follow this lead…

There’s a lot of great writing on this film out there. Here’s Senses Of Cinema’s…

Tags Chris Marker, films, La Jetee, Recommended viewing, Required Viewing

Bowl Of Noses

Building Better Transport Systems

Post author By Ted Hope
Post date June 30, 2008

Why do grown-ups take so long to figure things out? Cars have polluted the atmosphere for so long we now have global warming. Gas is running out and what do the grown ups plan to do? Our train system is outdated. Isn’t it time for a better mousetrap? Who’s building it?

Courtesy of the writer of Future Tech we get to see how things may get better. I love all these images and the book is on my Wish List. This train system above is in development in Japan; not only would it go faster than trains today, but it would also generate excess clean energy via wind and solar panels.

If that looks good, I think this looks even better. The SkyTran system is a maglev system for individual two-person transport.

London, Belgium, and The Netherlands are soon getting a similar system called ULTra which will be individual electric cars running on either elevated or ground level routes. It looks just as cool without the monorail.

But what we really need is a sky taxi, or the plane that we can drive on the road.

Wow. The exiting thing is that these are all in development. Hopefully it won’t take fifteen years like most things seem to. (thanks! Dark Roasted Blend)