A decade on, the Coen brothers' woefully underrated
O Brother, Where Art Thou? [alt] is remembered for
a lot of things: its sun-drenched, sepia-rich
cinematography (a pioneer of
digital color grading), its
whimsical humor,
fluid vernacular, and
many subtle references to Homer's
Odyssey. But one part of its legacy truly stands out:
the music.
Assembled by
T-Bone Burnett, the soundtrack is a cornucopia of American folk music, exhibiting everything from
cheery ballads and
angelic hymns to
wistful blues and
chain-gang anthems. Woven into the plot of the film through radio and live performances, the songs lent the story a
heartfelt, homespun feel that echoed its cultural heritage,
a paean and uchronia of the Old South.
Though the multiplatinum album was recently
reissued, the movie's medley is best heard via famed documentarian
D. A. Pennebaker's
Down from the Mountain, an
extraordinary yet
intimate concert film focused on a night of live music by the soundtrack's stars (among them
Gillian Welch,
Emmylou Harris,
Chris Thomas King, bluegrass legend
Dr. Ralph Stanley) and wryly hosted by
John Hartford, an accomplished
fiddler,
riverboat captain, and
raconteur whose struggle with terminal cancer made this his last major performance. The film is free in its entirety on
Hulu and
YouTube -- click inside for individual clips, song links, and breakdowns of
the set list's fascinating history.
[more inside]
posted by Rhaomi
on Dec 22, 2011 -
107 comments
The Free Art and Technology (F.A.T.) Lab is an organization dedicated to enriching the public domain through the research and development of creative technologies and media. You may know them from such projects as
How to build a fake Google Street View car,
public domain donor stickers,
internet famous class, the
first rap video to end with a download source code link, or their numerous
firefox add-ons (such as
China Channel,
Tourettes Machine, or
Back to the future). FAT members have been hard at work standardizing various open source graffiti-related software packages, including
Graffiti Analysis,
Laser Tag,
Fat Tag Deluxe and
EyeWriter [previously] to be
GML (Graffiti Markup Language) compliant.
Fuck Google.
Fuck Twitter.
FuckFlickr.
Fuck SXSW.
Fuck 3D. FAT Lab is
Kanye shades for the open source movement.
posted by finite
on Mar 13, 2010 -
8 comments
Are
times of
recession good or
bad for the
contemporary art market and
artists? "Affordable" is becoming a
leitmotif: there are
events,
international fairs, as well as
various galleries.
Some collectors and artists are sharing
survival tips and
tricks; and there are plenty of special offers to be had: Josh Poehlein - screenshot collages,
free ; Shepard Fairey - "Obey Eye" screen print, 18 x 24 inches, signed and numbered, at a random time on April 21st:
$45.00 ; Michel Gondry - your portrait, signed:
$19.95 (allow 6 to 8 weeks for delivery); 'Damien Hirst' - "For the love of Paris" postcard, 10.5 x 14.8 cm, signed and sent:
€ 1,80 ; Banksy - original, freely usable, high-quality jpg files:
free.
posted by progosk
on Apr 16, 2009 -
31 comments
Anglo-Finnish artist
Sanna Annukka's vibrant, flat design work (especially her
Icons series) got me curious about her, well, iconography.
She mentioned
The Kalevala previously, the Finnish national epic poem (
in Finnish here), a tale of creation and heroism that arguably spurred the Finns to independence from the Russians.
Like so much else epic and awesome, it spawned a '70s prog band, with
three albums.
posted by klangklangston
on Feb 25, 2008 -
23 comments
The Toymaker offers over 40
free paper toys and pretties you can print out (
PDFs) and make yourself, as well as "
Stories to be Told by Firelight" - online versions of author/illustrator Marilyn Scott Waters' children's stories and
lots of
other fun
goodies. For people who have kids, people who know kids, people who
are kids, and people who love papercraft, illustration, toys, and tales.
[more...]
posted by taz
on Jul 24, 2006 -
18 comments
Web Gallery of Art - "The Web Gallery of Art is a virtual museum and searchable database of European painting and sculpture of the Gothic, Renaissance and Baroque periods (1100-1850), currently containing over 14.500 reproductions. Commentaries on pictures, biographies of artists are available. Guided tours, free postcard and other services are provided for the visitors."
Direct Links seem to be turned off.... lame, but the search function is worth checking out. One of the coolest features is being able to search for artists based on country, style, or time period.
posted by sourbrew
on Dec 17, 2005 -
14 comments
Microsoft is giving away a nifty piece of software. It's the beta of Expressions 3 by Creature House, something I used to use back in my Mac days but hadn't heard anything about in a long time. Apparently MS bought Creature House last year. I downloaded it (after filling out a somewhat arduous survey/profile thingy) and think it a nice drawing program. Both Mac and Win versions are posted.
posted by bz
on Jun 9, 2004 -
30 comments
Free Words came first, a project of 2000 books stealthily placed in museums, libraries, and bookstores. Next, Sal Randolph spearheaded the
Free Biennial during the Whitney Biennial. This week, she spent 15K and
Ebayed her way into the contemporary art mega-exhibition
Manifesta to present:
Free Manifesta. Sal Randolph is single-handedly bringing free art "to the people, man."
posted by RJ Reynolds
on Apr 24, 2002 -
3 comments
