The Giving Tree

I felt like revisiting childhood stories today and immediately I thought of this classic favorite -- The Giving Tree. To my delightful surprise, I stumbled upon a movie version narrated by Shel Silverstein himself.



Unconditional love means that you're willing to give your all and never expect anything in return.

Sing Sang Sung

Wildly colorful organic animation to Air's lovely "Sing Sang Sung". My kind of music video! Suddenly, I have an urge to watch Yellow Submarine again.

AIR MUSIC VIDEO SING SANG SUNG from MATHEMATIC SAS on Vimeo.

Life feeds on life...

Gigantik from Nigel Upchurch on Vimeo.

Annecy Awesomeness

Here's a wildly impressive collection of short animations from Gobelins for this year's Annecy.

Wabi-sabi

A Drop Of Blue Salt from Vida Vega on Vimeo.
A beautiful, simple animation I came across today inspired by the Pablo Neruda sonnet below.

Sonnet IX: There where the waves shatter
by Pablo Neruda

There where the waves shatter on the restless rocks
the clear light bursts and enacts its rose,
and the sea-circle shrinks to a cluster of buds,
to one drop of blue salt, falling.

O bright magnolia bursting in the foam,
magnetic transient whose death blooms
and vanishes--being, nothingness--forever:
broken salt, dazzling lurch of the sea.

You & I, Love, together we ratify the silence,
while the sea destroys its perpetual statues,
collapses its towers of wild speed and whiteness:

because in the weavings of those invisible fabrics,
galloping water, incessant sand,
we make the only permanent tenderness.

Everything is Illuminated

via Lost At E Minor, I came across Orange County artist Kristian Olson today. I love the outer-worldly subjects and mysterious organic themes, the often muted color palette, the detailed ornamentation influenced by cultural motifs and the skillfully crafted combination of mixed-media (designed digital artwork, giclée printing, acrylic paint) with illustration.

"Kristian Olson’s illustrations look like Magic Eye posters that have come to life as marauding, fractal-shooting creatures from Technicolor hell."

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The photo below captures a new interactive Dobpler LED wall in Sandnes Sentrum, Norway that transforms shadows into light as people walk through a pedestrian subway tunnel. Perhaps this is the kind of multifunctional ingenuity we need here to encourage more public transit riders.

via Inhabitat:

"The Strømer is an interactive wall that weaves a wonderful mixture of art, energy-efficiency and play into the fabric of daily existence."

Watercolours, the project website for the installation in Sandnes states:

Sandnes’ city centre is split in two parts by the railway line. A new, creative illumination of our railway station subways will give us safer traffic and walkways. The subways become lighted portals, pleasant to use, mirroring the users who can observe themselves and others as active elements of the township.

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A less useful but rather amusing LED tech gadget is USB powered Tengu, who's facial expressions and mouth lip-syncs with the sounds in the room - whether it be you or your music. This little buddy keeps you company when you're on the comp and he even sings Seu Jorge in the video below! Awesome.

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WTF?! Disgusting full-blown desperation...

A West Plains, Missouri billboard via SLOG

"I've been thinking about this McCain-Palin Obama "palling around with terrorist" idea more lately. The saddest thing about many Republicans isn't just that they disagree with liberals on race--it's they are largely ignorant on race. When the McCain campaign cast the spell of diabolical jingoism, they have no idea of the forces they are toying with. We remember Martin Luther King's murder as a sad and tragic event. Less remembered is the fact that ground-work for King's murder was seeded, not simply by rank white supremacy, but by people who slandered King as a communist."
-Ta-Nehisi Coates

This gotcha clip reveals how McCain's "straight talk" is going hate talk express. The Nation's Ari Melber on pathetically injecting baseless hate:

Words are never enough...

In the midst of American chaos and the largest U.S. bank failure in history, there's nothing like delightful animated videos to both enlighten and lighten the mood:

With rhetoric flying and words holding so much weight in our world, here's a clever animation that speaks to us in a different language, appropriately titled "Typolution". "Nostrand" by Ratatat perfectly accompanies the typography storm.



Home Videos - a Cartoon Network oldie but goodie! This episode is classic.



Oktapodi - a creative and impressive clip from a French animation studio.