May 25, 2011
The Shining is a 1980 psychological horror film directed by Stanley Kubrick, co-written with novelist Diane Johnson, and starring Jack Nicholson and Shelley Duvall. The film is based on the novel of the same name, by Stephen King, about a writer with a wife and young son who accepts the job of an off-season caretaker at an isolated hotel.
The son, who possesses psychic abilities, is able to see things in the future and past, such as the ghosts in the hotel. Soon after moving in, and after a paralyzing winter storm that leaves the family snowed in, the father becomes influenced by the supernatural presence in the haunted hotel; he descends into madness and attempts to murder his wife and son.
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May 25, 2011
The Shining is a 1977 horror novel by Stephen King. The title was inspired by the John Lennon song ‘Instant Karma!,’ which contained the line ‘We all shine on…’ It was King’s third published novel, and the success of the book firmly established him as a preeminent author in the horror genre. A film based upon the book, directed by Stanley Kubrick, was released in 1980.
After writing ‘Carrie’ and ‘Salem’s Lot,’ both of which are set in small towns in King’s home state of Maine, King was looking for a change of pace for the next book. He opened an atlas of the US on the kitchen table and randomly pointed to a location, which turned out to be Boulder, Colorado. So in early 1974, King and his wife, Tabitha, and their two children, Naomi and Joe, moved across the country to Colorado.
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May 25, 2011
Randy Marsh is a character on the US TV show, ‘South Park.’ His name is derived from series co-creator Trey Parker’s father, and Parker describes Randy as ‘the biggest dingbat in the entire show.’ Randy is voiced by Parker.
The show established Randy and his wife Sharon as being a couple as young adults during the flower power era. Their marriage has not been without its frequent arguments, which are usually instigated when Sharon is annoyed, ashamed, or disgusted by Randy’s eccentricities. The two even once went through a brief divorce. After quickly entering a new relationship, Sharon realized how much she was still in love with Randy, and the two promptly reconciled. Randy and Sharon tend to showcase liberal viewpoints, having protested the 2003 invasion of Iraq and supported Barack Obama during the 2008 presidential race.
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May 25, 2011
Creed Bratton (b. 1943) is an American actor and musician best known for playing a fictional version of himself on the American adaptation of ‘The Office.’ Born William Charles Schneider, he grew up in a small California town near Yosemite National Park.
His grandparents, mother, and father were musicians, and he took a liking to music at a very early age. He became a professional musician during his high school and college years. He decided to try life as a traveling musician and made his way on a global excursion, during which he changed his name to Creed Bratton. He traveled through Europe, Africa and the Middle East. Appearing with his group the ‘Young Californians,’ he played guitar at a large folk festival in Israel.
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May 25, 2011
Richard Frank Oznowicz (b. 1944) , better known as Frank Oz is an American film director and puppeteer who is known for creating and performing the characters Miss Piggy, Fozzie Bear, and Animal in ‘The Muppet Show’ and for directing films, including the 1986 ‘Little Shop Of Horrors’ remake and ‘Dirty Rotten Scoundrels.’ He is also the operator and voice of Yoda in the Star Wars series, as well as Grover, Cookie Monster, Sam Eagle, and Bert on Sesame Street.
In addition to performing a variety of characters, Oz has been one of the primary collaborators responsible for the development of the Muppets over the last 30 years. His puppetry work spans from 1963 to the present, though he has retired from the Muppets. His Muppets were taken over by Eric Jacobson, though Oz still performs his characters on occasion. He also worked with the puppets on the movie Labyrinth, starring David Bowie.
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May 24, 2011
Bauhaus [bou-hous] is the common term for the Staatliches Bauhaus, an art and architecture school in Germany that operated from 1919 to 1933 in Germany and in the United States from 1937-1938. The most natural meaning for its name (related to the German verb for ‘build’) is Architecture House.
The Bauhaus school was founded by Walter Gropius in Weimar. In spite of its name, and the fact that its founder was an architect, the Bauhaus did not have an architecture department during the first years of its existence. Nonetheless it was founded with the idea of creating a ‘total’ work of art in which all arts, including architecture would eventually be brought together.
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May 23, 2011
Lazar Markovich Lissitzky (1890 – 1941), better known as El Lissitzky was a Russian artist. He was an important figure of the Russian avant garde, helping develop suprematism with his mentor, Kazimir Malevich, and designing numerous exhibition displays and propaganda works for the former Soviet Union.
His work greatly influenced the Bauhaus and constructivist movements, and he experimented with production techniques and stylistic devices that would go on to dominate 20th-century graphic design.
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May 21, 2011
A doodle is an unfocused drawing made while a person’s attention is otherwise occupied. They are simple drawings that can have concrete representational meaning or may just be abstract shapes.
Doodling can aid a person’s memory by expending just enough energy to keep one from daydreaming, which demands a lot of the brain’s processing power, as well as from not paying attention. Thus, it acts as a mediator between the spectrum of thinking too much or thinking too little and helps focus on the current situation.
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May 21, 2011
Marc Newson (b. 1963) born in Australia, and now based in London, is an industrial designer who works in aircraft design and product design. He incorporates a design style known as biomorphism to his various designs. This style uses smooth flowing lines, translucency, transparency and tends to have an absence of sharp edges.
He is currently adjunct professor in design at Sydney College of the Arts and is the creative director for Qantas. He co-founded and owns the Ikepod watch company. One of his three Lockheed Lounge chairs sold for $968,000 at Sotheby’s in 2006. Every year he races one of his four vintage sports cars – an Aston Martin, a Lamborghini, a Ferrari and a Cisitalia, in the Italian Mille Miglia.
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May 20, 2011
Wallace Wood (1927 – 1981) was an American comic book writer, artist and independent publisher, best known for his work in EC Comics and Mad. He was one of Mad’s founding cartoonists in 1952. Although much of his early professional artwork is signed Wallace Wood, he became known as Wally Wood, a name he claimed to dislike.
EC publisher William Gaines once stated, ‘Wally may have been our most troubled artist… I’m not suggesting any connection, but he may have been our most brilliant.’
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May 20, 2011
RiP!: A Remix Manifesto is a 2008 open source documentary film about the changing concept of copyright directed by Brett Gaylor.
Created over a period of six years, the documentary film features the collaborative remix work of hundreds of people who have contributed to the Open Source Cinema website, helping to create the ‘world’s first open source documentary.’ Gaylor encourages people to create their own remixes from this movie, using media available from the Open Source Cinema website, or other websites like YouTube, Flickr, Hulu, or MySpace.
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May 20, 2011
TrustoCorp is an artist or a group of artists based in New York City.
They are known for their humorous street signs and product labels, which can be found in New York City, San Francisco, San Diego, and Miami.
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