Artist Camille Rose Garcia has illustrated a new version of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. I’d read her book instead of seeing the Tim Burton film. He’s really just the most obnoxiously untalented movie-maker.  He is mistakenly called a ‘dark’ director.  He is not.  Actually, he is as moronically cheerful and sunshiny as Walt Disney. And Johnny Depp’s entire talent and technique as a performer resides within his wrists. It’s bravura wrist-acting.  So skip the lumbering slog of a film and read the excellent book with the beautiful illustrations by Garcia.

Her pictures make me want to read the book again.  Here’s a L.A. Times Jacket Copy article about the artist.

From Russian animation studio Toonbox comes this marvelous animation based on a poem by Sasha Svirsky. I don’t understand a word of it but I love the sound of it. I really must find the woman who does the voice-over.  She is just magnificent and totally fearless.  The drawings are fascinating.  The rhythm is catchy.  Toonbox does so many of the best animations that I see.  They seem to balance their commercial projects with artistic ones very well.

Via Cold Hard Flash

This is British artist Banksy sneaking out at night to deface a wall that has a security camera. It think in general that it’s a pretty neat idea to deface, destroy, disable, or demolish any wall that has a security camera. This artist is unidentified because he probably likes it that way, makes more money that way, and avoids arrest that way. He uses stencils a lot. Seems like he can draw. Seems angry in a mild sort of way.  Seems like he runs away a lot.  But I think his pictures are good.  I like them.  I keep looking for more of them.  The odd part is that I don’t look at them for long.  Very short lifespans.  About seven seconds.  Then finished.  Like signs passing on the road.  They hit fast then run.

I think he should make a picture that you are supposed to look at for an hour.  But when have you ever seen someone doing that?  Stand in front of picture for an hour.  You’d think they were nuts, wouldn’t you?

About art galleries Banksy says:

These galleries are just trophy cabinets for a handful of millionaires, the public never has any real say in what art they see.

Damn right. When you give the public a real say in what art they are going to see, you know what you get?

A T-shirt.

This 2008 film was written, produced and directed by Javier Chillon of Madrid, Spain.  The director of photography was Luis Fuentes.  Artistic direction by Ángel Boyano.  In the fifties, a Soviet cosmonaut chimpanzee crash-lands in West Germany.  Within weeks, a deadly virus has spread across the country and confounds all the scientific experts.  The film is composed of entirely original footage made to look like a fifties documentary or newsreel.  The very first shots with the camera tilting down through the trees to show us the crash site at long range is a nearly prefect rendition of old documentary style right down to how the camera would move.  You have to really know what you are doing to come up with shots like that.  Very fine work.

This is science fiction that is a deadly accurate portrayal of the calm, governmental, ponderous yet urgent, carefully-framed and full-of-import quality found in mid-century documentary films.  The humor is sly and builds its effect gradually.  It’s also somewhat frightening.

Found at No fat clips!!!

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Per l’Italia! For playing in the living room!

This is one of the great gifts from Italy to the children of the world. Carlo Collodi’s 1883 masterpiece, The Adventures of Pinocchio, is the story of the wooden marionette who desperately wants to be a real boy. His adventures are full of mischief, wonder, sadness, joy, treachery, danger and all the exuberant life of a real Italian boy. This is the English translation by Carol Della Chiesa. The first seventeen chapters of this wonderful novel were recorded intermittently between 1999 and 2006, specifically for children to enjoy on the web. But I was unable to finish it. It is a very long story indeed and the demands of this particular recording were very great. I have decided that it would be a good thing for Italy and its most beautiful living rooms if I were to finally finish the book. I am cleaning up the sound a little bit and will start recording the eighteenth chapter soon. So here we begin the long story and in a few months we will reach the finish!

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Reading and illustration by Alessandro Cima

All audio stories are Copyright © Candlelight Stories, Inc., All Rights Reserved. Do not distribute copies of our MP3 audio or video stories. They are for your personal use. If you choose to burn our MP3 stories onto a personal CD, do not make copies of the CD or distribute them to other people. Also, do not sell CDs containing our audio stories. All audio stories are copyrighted by Candlelight Stories, Inc.

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Per l’Italia! For playing in the living room!

This is one of the great gifts from Italy to the children of the world. Carlo Collodi’s 1883 masterpiece, The Adventures of Pinocchio, is the story of the wooden marionette who desperately wants to be a real boy. His adventures are full of mischief, wonder, sadness, joy, treachery, danger and all the exuberant life of a real Italian boy. This is the English translation by Carol Della Chiesa. The first seventeen chapters of this wonderful novel were recorded intermittently between 1999 and 2006, specifically for children to enjoy on the web. But I was unable to finish it. It is a very long story indeed and the demands of this particular recording were very great. I have decided that it would be a good thing for Italy and its most beautiful living rooms if I were to finally finish the book. I am cleaning up the sound a little bit and will start recording the eighteenth chapter soon. So here we begin the long story and in a few months we will reach the finish!

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Reading and illustration by Alessandro Cima

All audio stories are Copyright © Candlelight Stories, Inc., All Rights Reserved. Do not distribute copies of our MP3 audio or video stories. They are for your personal use. If you choose to burn our MP3 stories onto a personal CD, do not make copies of the CD or distribute them to other people. Also, do not sell CDs containing our audio stories. All audio stories are copyrighted by Candlelight Stories, Inc.

I sat down with my Kindle e-reader on Saturday morning to read the Los Angeles Times.  There was an article about an L.A. used bookstore called Iliad Books.  Sounded nice.  So I went.  What should I find but a section of books about books and publishing.  There was a copy of The Nature of the Book: Print and Knowledge in the Making by Adrian Johns. The author’s main thrust is to examine how books in early modern England influenced and largely caused the development of the modern scientific method and the general acquisition and spread of knowledge. He wonders why readers assume that books are accurate and fixed. This is an interesting inquiry in light of the recent changes in publishing which involve ever-changeable electronic publishing and web postings. The history of the effort to make books fixed and true representations of their authors’ intentions and ideas is a fascinating one. It includes an analysis of widespread piracy that dogged publishers of books from the very beginnings of printed material.

Thinking about the nature of books and their history, along with the underworld of book manipulation, piracy, copyright, and the conveying of knowledge is essential as publishing undergoes its greatest changes since the beginnings of the printed page.

Popular Science magazine has put its entire 137-year history of issues online for free.  In partnership with Google, the magazine is offering a search tool that will allow you to read anything it ever published.  Here’s an example of a publisher who actually knows what it is doing in the 21st century.  There are very few magazines staffed by people who understand which century they are playing in.  Popular Science is apparently staffed by people who can read, write and tell time.

The Love Police in the U.K. went to the Tower of London with their cameras and a megaphone to utilize their right to free speech. The guards at the Tower objected and called the London police. What you see in the video is the leader of the Love Police group speaking very intelligently and effectively to the lead police inspector about what the law actually says and what his rights are under that law. He successfully argues for his right to refuse to identify himself or to be searched under the Anti-Terrorism Law in the United Kingdom. What is so interesting about this video is the clear and overwhelming evidence that the police in London do not at all understand the laws they are enforcing or even which laws they are enforcing. They have clearly met more than their match in this instance and are in fact at serious risk of getting their department into liability troubles. The same problems with police are encountered here in the United States. There is the same lack of education and training in police ranks and the same willingness to try to remove basic rights from citizens.

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DOWNLOAD PINOCCHIO – CHAPTER 1

Per l’Italia!  For playing in the living room!

This is one of the great gifts from Italy to the children of the world.  Carlo Collodi’s 1883 masterpiece, The Adventures of Pinocchio, is the story of the wooden marionette who desperately wants to be a real boy.  His adventures are full of mischief, wonder, sadness, joy, treachery, danger and all the exuberant life of a real Italian boy.  This is the English translation by Carol Della Chiesa.  The first seventeen chapters of this wonderful novel were recorded intermittently between 1999 and 2006, specifically for children to enjoy on the web.  But I was unable to finish it.  It is a very long story indeed and the demands of this particular recording were very great.  I have decided that it would be a good thing for Italy and its most beautiful living rooms if I were to finally finish the book.  I am cleaning up the sound a little bit and will start recording the eighteenth chapter soon.  So here we begin the long story and in a few months we will reach the finish!

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Reading and illustration by Alessandro Cima

All audio stories are Copyright © Candlelight Stories, Inc., All Rights Reserved. Do not distribute copies of our MP3 audio or video stories. They are for your personal use. If you choose to burn our MP3 stories onto a personal CD, do not make copies of the CD or distribute them to other people. Also, do not sell CDs containing our audio stories. All audio stories are copyrighted by Candlelight Stories, Inc.

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Crusoe explains how he made his own tools and built his home on the island. He begins to show us his journal entries which track each day’s activities. He goes hunting and, much to his surprise, begins to use agriculture. All his mental efforts are bent toward making his survival upon the island long-term. He even considers what he will have to do to ensure his survival when his health and strength begin to fail. The inclusion of the journal entries, which actually repeat some of the very things Crusoe has already told us, are a striking literary device on the part of Daniel Defoe. Pay attention to how the voice (I mean the literary voice, not the audio voice!) of Crusoe changes ever so slightly with these journal entries as compared to the rest of his narration. Crusoe also begins to struggle with religious thoughts and wonders whether some sort of divine providence is behind his being the sole survivor of the shipwreck.

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Illustration by NC Wyeth (1920) Crusoe carves his cross on the beach to keep track of passing days, weeks and months.

All audio stories are Copyright © Candlelight Stories, Inc., All Rights Reserved. Do not distribute copies of our MP3 audio or video stories. They are for your personal use. If you choose to burn our MP3 stories onto a personal CD, do not make copies of the CD or distribute them to other people. Also, do not sell CDs containing our audio stories. All audio stories are copyrighted by Candlelight Stories, Inc.

Oscar Sharp made this beautiful short film in London. It stars Jethro Skinner as Ben, the ‘board guy.’ The performance is endearing and full of intelligent energy. The film was shot in HD by Anthony Gurner. I love the way the people have all these colors in their clothes and then the colors are repeated in the backgrounds. The colors of this film stand out brilliantly. I also enjoy the film’s subject matter. Many people do jobs that they are simply very happy to have and they find themselves truly and fully present in their moment.  It’s one of life’s little important lessons.

Head is an Argentinian animation by Matias Vigliano and Dante Zaballa.  Lots of things going on at the same time.

California is hurting financially and so its muscular governor and legislature have cut $17 billion over the past two years. College students are outraged and are demonstrating and taking over school buildings. Classes are overcrowded. Libraries are disappearing. People are angry and wonder why corporations are getting tax breaks while public education suffers.  I would point out that I watched one of our state’s public universities stage several large football games in a colossal stadium this winter.  That does seem odd if they are in financial straights. But in general such massive cuts in public education are a very bad thing for a state like California that depends heavily on knowledge for the health of its economy and for its future.

Stand Up For Schools

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Crusoe experiences a terrifying shipwreck and is the only survivor. His struggle for food, water, and a place to sleep begin. No matter what situation Crusoe finds himself in, he never stops thinking.

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Illustration by NC Wyeth (1920) Crusoe takes supplies off his shipwreck on his hastily built raft.

All audio stories are Copyright © Candlelight Stories, Inc., All Rights Reserved. Do not distribute copies of our MP3 audio or video stories. They are for your personal use. If you choose to burn our MP3 stories onto a personal CD, do not make copies of the CD or distribute them to other people. Also, do not sell CDs containing our audio stories. All audio stories are copyrighted by Candlelight Stories, Inc.

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In this section of the novel, Crusoe continues making good on his escape. He then makes a series of fateful decisions as he tries to get on his feet and make a life for himself.

Defoe begins to get into the slavery issue and how it plays the major role in Crusoe’s single most important decision.

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All audio stories are Copyright © Candlelight Stories, Inc., All Rights Reserved. Do not distribute copies of our MP3 audio or video stories. They are for your personal use. If you choose to burn our MP3 stories onto a personal CD, do not make copies of the CD or distribute them to other people. Also, do not sell CDs containing our audio stories. All audio stories are copyrighted by Candlelight Stories, Inc.

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Crusoe learns more of what it means to be a seaman. He is captured off the west coast of Africa and made a slave.

In this section of the novel we get into Defoe’s treatment of the issues of slavery and race. Reading the early parts of the novel, one might get the mistaken impression that Defoe is intolerant of other races. This is not the case. One must remember that he was writing his book before 1719. His continued treatment of the slavery issue throughout the novel is many years ahead of its time and shows him to be a deeply thoughtful and serious commentator on the social injustices he saw around him.

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All audio stories are Copyright © Candlelight Stories, Inc., All Rights Reserved. Do not distribute copies of our MP3 audio or video stories. They are for your personal use. If you choose to burn our MP3 stories onto a personal CD, do not make copies of the CD or distribute them to other people. Also, do not sell CDs containing our audio stories. All audio stories are copyrighted by Candlelight Stories, Inc.

DOWNLOAD ROBINSON CRUSOE – PART 1

This novel written by Daniel Defoe in 1719 is considered to mark the beginning of English novel-writing. It is one of the greatest books ever written and will completely enthrall readers and listeners alike. If you have only seen movies from the book, you are in for a big surprise. So get comfortable, turn off the TV and listen to the original ‘lost at sea’ novel.

Young Robinson Crusoe decides he wants to leave his father and mother to go to sea. He refuses to take their advice and sets sail.

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Illustration by NC Wyeth (1920) Young Robinson Crusoe refuses to take his father’s advice.

All audio stories are Copyright © Candlelight Stories, Inc., All Rights Reserved. Do not distribute copies of our MP3 audio or video stories. They are for your personal use. If you choose to burn our MP3 stories onto a personal CD, do not make copies of the CD or distribute them to other people. Also, do not sell CDs containing our audio stories. All audio stories are copyrighted by Candlelight Stories, Inc.

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Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs is possibly the greatest fairy tale of them all from the Brothers Grimm. In this full 30-minute production you will hear a cast of characters, completely original orchestral music, songs, and fantastic sound effects. We tell the story in a way that is unlike any you have heard before. When we made this audio story we worked very hard for months to get it right. We made it as carefully as we would make a film. The entire production is cinematic in its scope and we think it is the most exciting story we have ever done. So turn off every distraction, dim the lights, and enjoy thirty minutes of incredible adventure.

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