Death to Powerpoint or Pecha-Kucha

[With thanks to CDN in San Francisco for the tip: for those of us frequently caught in mind-numbing PowerPoint presentations, the practice described in the video above and text below—reprinted in full from the YouTube description—may provide some rays of hope. In any event, it's an interesting phenomenon reflecting how people are grappling with communications.]

"Let us now bullet-point our praise for Mark Dytham and Astrid Klein, two Tokyo-based architects who have turned PowerPoint, that fixture of cubicle life, into both art form and competitive sport. Their innovation, dubbed pecha-kucha (Japanese for "chatter"), applies a simple set of rules to presentations: exactly 20 slides displayed for 20 seconds each. That's it. Say what you need to say in six minutes and 40 seconds of exquisitely matched words and images and then sit the hell down. The result, in the hands of masters of the form, combines business meeting and poetry slam to transform corporate clich into surprisingly compelling beat-the-clock performance art.

The duo — Dytham is British, Klein Italian — invented pecha-kucha four years ago to help revive a struggling performance space they owned. The first presentations were such a hit that they began hosting monthly pecha-kucha events, boozy affairs at which Tokyo architects and designers showcased their streamlined offerings to crowds of hundreds. Now there are pecha-nights in 80 cities, from Amsterdam and Atlanta to San Francisco and Shanghai. Why? Dytham believes that the rules have a liberating effect. "Suddenly," he says, "there's no preciousness in people's presentations." Just poetry.

By Dan Pink | Wired Magazine Issue 15.09"

Holding Out and Hanging On

[with thanks to our Buffalo scout EC for the tip:]

Studio Hart
65 Allen Street | Buffalo, New York

Holding Out and Hanging On: Surviving Hurricane Katrina
Photographs by Thomas Neff
Through October.

As a volunteer in the city in the early days after the flood, Baton Rouge photographer Thomas Neff witnessed firsthand the confusion and suffering that was New Orleans as well as the persistence and strength of those who stuck it out. Neff subsequently spent forty-five days interviewing and photographing the city's holdouts, and his record is a heartbreaking but compelling look at the true impact of the disaster.


Holding Out and Hanging On: Surviving Hurricane Katrina, Neff's first book will be released in December, 2007, by The University of Missouri Press.

[photo of Antoinette K. Doe by Thomas Neff]

The Nature Of The Universe

"personal histories, enigmatic codes, and visions of the Apocalypse meet in Kamau Patton’s new exhibit at Machine Project.

Equal parts religious rite, glam spectacle and public access television show, Kamau’s installations bring a personal cosmology to bear on existing folk narratives. For this exhibit at Machine, Kamau’s work investigates the media produced of African American cult activity in America, including the 5 Percent Nation, Nuwaubian Nation, and the Black Hebrew Israelites. Also discussed will be the Nature Of The Universe."

Through November 3rd

more

Blogger Play

Blogger recently released a feature called Blogger Play:

Blogger Play displays a real-time stream of images being uploaded to public Blogger sites. Clicking on the images will take you to the sites.

Blogger hosts The Data Stream and is owned by Google.


[Screen grab from Blogger Play]

New Yorkers Ride Bikes

The New Yorker Festival

October 7
7:30 p.m. Town Hall ($16)
123 West 43rd Street
(Tickets are also available at the Town Hall box office. Free valet bicycle parking will be provided.)

Saturday Night Special
David Byrne Presents: How New Yorkers Ride Bikes

David Byrne will host an evening of music, discussion, film, readings, and surprises dedicated to the advancement of bicycling in New York City, including talks and performances by the Classic Riders Bicycle Club, Jan Gehl, Buck Henry, Calvin Trillin, Paul Steely White, Jonathan Wood, and the Young@Heart Chorus.

David Byrne is an Academy Award-winning musician and visual artist who co-founded the rock group Talking Heads in 1976. He has bicycled in New York City for almost thirty years.

The Classic Riders Bicycle Club is a Brooklyn-based group of antique-bicycle enthusiasts.

Jan Gehl is a Danish architect and the author of “Life Between Buildings: Using Public Space.” His work in Copenhagen and elsewhere has sought to improve the environment for cyclists and pedestrians.

Buck Henry is an actor, screenwriter, and director. He co-wrote “The Graduate,” co-directed “Heaven Can Wait,” and has appeared in more than thirty films.

Calvin Trillin has been a staff writer at The New Yorker since 1963.

Paul Steely White is the executive director of Transportation Alternatives, a New York-area citizens’ group working for better bicycling, walking, and public transit.

Jonathan Wood is the deputy chairman of the Warrington Cycle Campaign, which promotes safer cycling in Warrington, England, and aims to enable more people to travel by bicycle in the town through more equitable sharing of roadways.

The Young@Heart Chorus was formed in 1982 at a meal site for the elderly in Northampton, Massachusetts. Its current members are between seventy-three and eighty-eight years of age.

[image: 1983 New Yorker cover by Jean-Jacques Sempé]

The Art of Lee Miller

Victoria & Albert Museum
London

The Art of Lee Miller

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[image from V&A Web Site. Caption: Women with fire masks, Downshire Hill, London, 1941. Lee Miller. © 2007 Lee Miller Archives. All rights reserved"]

John Coltrane | September 23, 1926

The 'Stream' is delighted to mark the eighty-first anniversary of the birth of John Coltrane, one of the twentieth century's greatest composer|musicians, with a YouTube clip of a performance of one of his signature renditions, the Oscar Hammerstein|Richard Rogers tune "My Favorite Things" from "The Sound of Music."

The clip provides the following information: "1961 in Baden-Baden Germany.
John Coltrane - soprano sax, tenor sax
Eric Dolphy - flute, alto sax
McCoy Tyner - piano
Reggie Workman - bass
Elvin Jones - drums"

From many interesting clips on YouTube we include a second below, a performance of his composition "Naima" [identified as from 1965] with the 'classic' John Coltrane Quartet, with McCoy Tyner, piano; Jimmy Garrison, bass; and Elvin Jones, drums.