Recommended short film: "John and Michael" is a deeply moving story, beautifully animated

The National Film Board of Canada (NFB)is celebrating its 70th anniversary this year.
From their site:

To help mark the occasion, we’ve opened our vaults and put over 700 full-length films, trailers and clips online, free for personal use and on a subscription basis for schools and institutions.

Our collection includes animation, documentaries, experimental films and alternative dramas. We showcase films that take a stand on issues of global importance that matter to Canadians – stories about the environment, human rights, international conflict, the arts and more. Works that push the boundaries, give a voice to the underrepresented, and build bridges between cultures.

I was very happy to find this gem amongst the films that are being generously offered for free personal use -- Shira Avni's 2004 short, John and Michael, a wonderful and deeply moving piece of art. The animation, painstakingly created with clay on glass plates, is truly magical. Take the time to watch this one.

John and Michael, Shira Avni, provided by the National Film Board of Canada

link

Please Drive Quietly

drive-quietly, originally uploaded by philosaurus.

My favorite road sign in all of Milwaukee County.
Shh!

At the doorstep

From Angola, blogger Nate Miller tells the story of surviving a 2007 plane crash in his own front yard.



Links:

Lost

Back in M'banza

Deaf People Aren't Psychic, Are They?

Retreat back into fantasy

From a meditation on the monster of dispassion lurking in the Fort Hood tweets right back into imaginary monsters. Much less scary, I suppose.

From the Flickr set "1,000 Beasts" by Aeron Alfrey:

Twitter Culture and Humanity: After Fort Hood

For those who missed it, Paul Carr had a provocative piece at TechCrunch a few days ago discussing the actions of a Twitter user present at the shooting at Fort Hood:

In the actions of Tearah Moore at Fort Hood, we have the perfect example of both kinds of selfishness.

There surely can’t be a human being left in the civilised world who doesn’t know that cellphones must be switched off in hospitals, and yet not only did Moore leave hers on but she actually used it to photograph patients, and broadcast the images to the world. Just think about that for a second. Rather than offering to help the wounded, or getting the hell out of the way of those trying to do their jobs, Moore actually pointed a cell-phone at a wounded soldier, uploaded it to twitpic and added a caption saying that the victim “got shot in the balls”.

Read the article and, don't miss the amazing video from This American Life.

Technologies of communication always change us, because we exist in, through, and because of communication. So we'd best be careful of what we are slouching toward.