THE CULTURAL JACKDAW

The Streets

Street Style has hit the mainstream in the last few years with famous blogs attracting millions of daily readers.

Big brands have been pulled in by the lure of street style's cred appeal amongst the young fashion obsessed.

But documenting street style is nothing new.

Bill Cunningham (now in his 80s) is a New Yorker who for the past 50 years has been cycling around Manhatten taking pictures of fashion on the streets for magaiznes and papers including the New York Times, for which he provides two popular weekly colums called "On the Street" and "Evening Hours."

Last year a documentary looking at Bill's passion was released in the US and it's been getting reviews here in the UK in the last few weeks. Here's the trailer:

 

 

Pirate Time

In May last year I started to spot a few Pirate inspired cultural events.

The Pirates of the Caribbean - On Stranger Tides launched:

There was  National Pirate Day in Marlow:

The Museum of London Docklands hosted a Pirates exhibition to mark the anniversary of the execution of Captain Kidd, the exhibition explored the history of pirates in London. It told tales of the high seas and the corruption of London's East India Company and the show revealed how close the links between the city and piracy really were:

Then flash-forward to this year and I've recently heard about the great work that these guys are doing in East London to help young people develop literacy and creativity. 

This is a play that is now on tour across the country:

And the new animation from Aardman called The Pirates - In an Adventure with Scientists, a film it took five years to put together, launches later next month. 

A while ago I wrote that Zombies may be the new Vampires but now there's no doubt that Pirates are the hottest fantasy characters capturing people's imagination.

I'm looking forward to the rest of this year to see what other cultural ideas they inspire.

 

Francis Ford Coppola

If you're stuck creatively, how do you get unsuck?

If my intuition doesn't give me an answer, I have a little exercise: What is the theme in a word or two? In The Conversation, it was privacy. In The Godfather, it was succession. I encourage my children to do the same, to break it down. If you have that word, then when you reach an impasse, you just say, "Well, what does the theme tell me?" And usually that will suggest to you which way to go and break the roadblock.

Indian Winter

There's been a lot of justified talk recently about China's growing cultural influence on the West. But hot on its heels is India. This amazing and colourful country (I should admit that's it's my favourite place I've travelled to) is inspiring new films, music, fashion and architecture.

In the UK recently we've had the release of two new films, including Michael Winterbottom's latest, that shine the spotlight on Indian culture and M.I.A's new video for her track Bad Girls was filmed in the country that feeds the soul like no other place on earth.

Michael Winterbottom's Trishna played by Freida Pinto

 

Jeff Bridges

The dude is a legend and his blog is one of my favourites.

Good mix of art / writing / thoughts.

I love his tone; gentle, humble. human and heartfelt.

 

Technology x Music x Art

These three ingredients are "coming together to produce radical new interactive forms" (Dazed & Confused).

Led by a new school of directors from Warp Films.

"The uneasy marriage between art and technology has gone from strength to strength since the birth of the net. Armed with a grab-bag of raw data and lines of code, creative technologists have developed a range of artistic forms - from image patterns that grow organically on screen, to repurposed video game engines. The impulse is subversive and playful - a digital decoupage that revisits early web design and drags it kicking and screaming into the here and now."

Aaron Meyers (the guy who did Radiohead's awesome House of Cards video):

David McCandles

Daniels

Saman Keshavarz

Tron's Legacy

"Without Tron there would be no Toy Story"

John Lasseter, PIXAR.

Robot Opera

Tod Machover has been dubbed "America's most wired composer."

A renowned musician and forward-thinking inventor of music technology, he is Head of the Hyperinstruments/Opera of the Future group at MIT Media Lab and has collaborated on projects with Peter Gabriel and Prince. He also invented the interactive Brain Opera which set the technological template for Guitar Hero and twenty three years ago he created an opera called VALIS based on the Philip K Dick novel of the same name.

He's currently working on a robotic opera (that's been ten years in the making) called Death And The Powers.

Machover is naturally restless and experimental. He's always finding new ways to mix technology and music together.

In the same vein, and at the same time, Daft Punk are combining Classical music with Electronic sounds to create an Orchestral score for the year's biggest Sci-fi spectacular Tron: Legacy.

Not long until that drops. Can't wait.

Are Zombies the New Vampires?

Pop culture has been obsessed with Vampires for the last few years -  True Blood, Vampire Diaries, Twilight - but could Zombies be the next big thing? A new film called Play Dead and new TV show Walking Dead are both about Zombies.

Pie Chart Reviews

Infographics used to review films and music.

I spotted these in the new (and badly named) mens magazine Gaz7etta - which is the male version of the UK's Grazia.