There is a fence on the left hand side of this picture stretching diagonally  from right to left. i swear it’s there.

We have two feet of snow here in the Greater Philadelphia area, and I’ve been eating soup and watching youtube.

This is what I’ve been watching:

Thanks to Hank Green for this one, which is unfortunately must be watched on youtube, but while you’re there, watch this one as well.

Here’s Hank Green himself:

And just for kicks, I’m super obsessed with this song:

Stay warm my friends!

This past weekend I went to a mini lecture about Jews in TV from the past year.  There was an array of shows from CBS’s The Big Bang Theory to NBC’s Mama’s Boys, but there was one clip that caught my eye.

January Jones, from the show Mad Men hosted SNL this season (not to great reviews).  Here she hosts a how to segment helping with party tips for the 1950’s woman:

This clip reminded me of Monty Pythons’ (better) sketch of “Party Hints by Veronica”:

Though this is from 1972 and not 2009, I don’t think it’s outdated, in fact I think it’s much smarter and funnier.  You’d think that there was a better, more interesting way SNL could write their party tips sketch than using cheep shots at women and minorities as a crutch.  Yes those were the times, and it’s amusing to look back and exaggerate how ridiculous it was, but it’s kind of played out.

I thought this was fitting for today’s apple announcement:

The New York Times and Hulu within the last 2 days announced they are developing new paid service structures.

I’m not so surprised.  It seems that both models will work on the basis that the casual user can continue for free and the more dependent user will, for a slight (in the case of Hulu) and slightly more (the potential case for the NY Times) fee.

As the LA Times points out, Pandora has been doing this for some time. They give you 40 hours of music for free, then they’ll charge you.

I don’t disagree with this method. Though it would be great if we could just share all information for free, that is not how our economic system works. There are so many people who work to make these services possible that if the user does not, as Pandora founder, Tim Westergren said in the LA Times article, “…put some money into the tip jar,” then they don’t work and we loose key elements to our modern civilization.  (Perhaps an over statement, but I happen to feel very strongly about all of these services.)

As we have seen in the non-profit world, asking people to help fund things that they use on a regular basis has worked very well. In the instance of Wikipedia, the Wikimedia Foundation raised “over $8 Million USD Raised by 230,000 donors in Campaign to Protect Wikipedia” in about 6 weeks. Just as in the case for the Charity: Water campaigns, it’s the commercial equivalent of using the individual Internet consumer to spread out the financial burden.

Though neither Hulu nor The NY Times are charity organizations, they are a part of our everyday information distribution and culture, and for that we must pay the price.  Advertising is changing and is not keeping up nor able to play the part it has in the past.  Now it’s up to the user to step up if we want to keep these establishments so what happened to such important, seemingly stable titles such as Gourmet Magazing and (what may still be saved, fingers crossed) Kirkus Review can be avoided.  Print media is going through some more than tough times, and this is what our choices have become: pay or shut down.

If you are strapped for cash and don’t want to give up the services, I say go in with a (trusted) friend, share user names and split the cost to help pinch your pennies.  But, don’t give up on these old, new and changing institutions.

I follow NPR’s music round table discussion and new music discovery show All Songs Considered on twitter (I also high recommend catching their podcast here).

This lead me to a blog post written by contributor and producer, Robin Hilton explaining how he recently came across an album whose title aptly described his entire life.  I decided to use my blog to see what yours would be.

Also, to kick off my odds and ends style of blogging (structure stolen from this fab blog).

Instead of inundating my facebook and twitter with information I find interesting, I’ll put it in my blog, since that is what it’s for in the first place.

So, what’s yours?

Mine currently may be ‘The Blueprint 3′ by Jay-Z.
Though, I aspire to Missy Elliot’s ‘Supa Dupa Fly.’

People are musical and people are clever and when we get these things together, we get people making music with their cars.  This is not an exact formula, but I have come across at least two different videos that exhibit people using the sounds of the car for an artistic purpose.

1. We have the editing styles of Michael Aranda. A wee bit of background, Ford gave a handful of YouTubers a Fiesta for free to include in their videos – not to say good things about, but to use in creative ways and talk candidly about.  This is one of the things that YouTube partner, Micheal Aranda did (Keep in mind it is quiet, then he beeps his horn for a while as a warm up of what is to come, but then it gets into the good stuff – so please hang in there.):

2. A group of kids who live in a neighborhood (that I’m glad i don’t live in – I can only imagine the rehearsals) take all the sounds of a jeep and, like Mr. Aranda – create music, but this time it’s all live with no edits. This starts out quiet then a sound check, then gets to the sounds and they can be loud, so check your speakers before playing.

The Internet may be for porn and silly viral videos that make us laugh, but there is this other part of the Internet that is using the same viral methods for good.  In this TED Talk (Technology, Entertainment, Design), Jonathan Zittrain discusses the way the Internet only works because of  ”random acts of kindness by geeky strangers.” (some of it seems a bit too technical, but the larger strokes/points are very interesting and are absolutely true!)

From there, we go to my loves, the vlogbrothers who do all they can to decrease world suck and have fun while doing it.  They are the poster children for youtube’s Video Volunteers.

This brings us to the reason for this post: to get people involved in a project that is so simple and free that I want everyone to get involved, even if only for the shortest amount of time, just for the sake of awesome.  This is the vlogbrothers yearly initiative called the Project for Awesome where you can make a video promoting your favorite charity, and rate and comment other people’s videos for the P4A so many times that youtube’s ‘featured videos’ are all promoting some organization that is trying to decrease world suck.

Hank will explain it better.  You can skip to 2:21 to hear about it!: (Also, for side note on the DARPA balloon project he’s talking about in the beginning, watch this)

So I ask you. oh few who read this blog, spend some time on Thursday and Friday (12/17 and 12/18) commenting and rating videos for the Project for Awesome just to show that the internet can be used for good. (they should have a thumbnail that says “Project for Awesome.”) (here are some links to get started)

To prove that the Internet can be used for awesome, here are some recent ventures that have used the internet as a tool to promote a charity:

In Great Brittain, a group of four prominent youtubers, calling themselves the “Chart Jackers,” got together and facilitated the creation of a pop song for charity. Their goal was to use youtube to get people involved and come up with lyrics, a melody, find singers, find a band and then create a video for a single that would sell enough singles on itunes to get the song onto the British Top 40 charts so it would then be played on the radio thus selling more singles. Every step was created for free just in order to create something that would benefit a good cause. The entire project was done using the Internet (and a few spot light episodes on BBC Switch which is BBC for teens), then after the completion of the song, the rights were given to the British charity called Children in Need who all the money went to.  These teens just created this project, executed it, and actually got the song in the top 40. It took a huge push from everyone involved, but they got it done and it helped decrease world suck by raising over $16,300.

Here is Charlie (one of the “Chart Jackers”) explaining it a bit as an introduction to the music video they made for the song:

Then we have Alyssa Milano’s currently on-going birthday campaign.  In celebration of turning 37, Ms. Milano is raising money for the organization Charity: Water. According to this tonic article (one of many interviews she has done), Ms. Milano set up her project page and then turned to twitter:

“Then, something magic happened: Last week, Milano alerted her nearly 500,000 Twitter fans to her goal, and those Twitter fans came out. In droves.

‘My first goal was $25,000,’ Milano recalls. ‘We reached that in five hours.’

Tearful and overwhelmed, Milano raised her goal to $50,000 — and Tweeted again.

Six days later, that goal was reached.

‘So I thought, “I’m gonna go for $75,000!”‘ she says with an audible thrill. ‘And $75,000, that’s [enough to put clean water in] 15 communities. That’s 750 families that we can give clean water to. Like, 4,000 people.’”

If you go to her page, you can see all the people who have donated, and it is not her celebrity friends (though Nathan Fillion did donate, and tweet about it, which is how I found out about it) instead it’s a mass amount of people giving what they can in a virtual collection bucket.  There are several donations for $5 and under, some even for just $1.  This is when it is about the volume of people giving some and not just  few who give a lot.  ”A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step” and so does making sure the people of the world have clean water.

Another example of something you can do that costs nothing, but will directly benefit someone who needs it, there is a youtuber named Tessa Violet who has entered a Lash Allure MD contest to win $100,000. The entry is a video that states what you would do with that amount of money and who ever has the most ratings and most comments (one per day per commenter/rater per day) wins. She explains it better in this video. (the beginning is her being silly, but really she needs it for her edu):

And finally, if you want to find your own charity to give to, but are not sure if they are for real, The American Institute of Philanthropy rates charities on different criteria, but mainly it’s based on how efficiently each organization uses it’s funds for the actual cause it’s promoting.

I know it’s hard this year, the economy sucks for everyone, but maybe just think about giving even the smallest amount to a charity you like, or just comment and rate some videos for free and still do some good for the world!

Also, even Micheal Ian Black is tweeting about using viral techniques for a good cause! Now that is saying something. You can even go to his link: http://bit.ly/80pl9k

So, it’s been longer than I had planned, but here it is.  I want to talk about other things, but feel I can’t without getting through this first, so here we go and keep a look out for more soon!

We shall start with my favorite of the collection:

Weapon Of Choice by Fatboy Slim featuring the ever amazingly fabulous Christopher Walken

Spike Jonez is a great fan of the Beastie Boys and was all too happy to collaborate with them on their Sabotage single video from the album “Ill Communication”

According to the Wikipedia entry,  Sabotage was “played extensively on MTV. As an homage to (and parody of) 1970s crime drama television series like Hawaii Five-0, The Streets of San Francisco,S.W.A.T., Baretta, and Starsky and Hutch, the video is presented as the opening credits of a fictional 1970s-style police show called Sabotage, with the band members appearing as the show characters. Each band member is introduced as a fictional actor, and the names of the characters are also given.”

Bjork’s “It’s Oh So Quiet” – again according to the Wikipedia entry – “remains her biggest hit…Fueled by the Spike Jonze-directed music video clip, the single also shot Björk into the spotlight in the United States, peaking at #9 on the Billboard Bubbling Under Hot Singles Chart (#109 on the Hot 100). In the United Kingdom the single has been certified as Gold, having sold upwards of 400,000 copies. [1]“

And finally we have Weezer’s “Buddy Holly.”  I am feeling a bit lazy this evening, so I’m going to stick with Wikipedia since they have served me so well for the above videos.  ”The video portrayed Weezer performing at the original Arnold’s Drive-In diner from the popular ’70s television show Happy Days. The video combined contemporary footage of the band with clips from the show. Happy Days cast member Al Molinaro made a cameo appearance in the video.”

So, as I mentioned, Spike likes to bring the element of surprise and unknown to his media.  Lots of the Sabotage footage was filmed without a license (according to a New York Times article). “Weapon of Choice” is just surprise after surprise, and “…So Quiet” is filmed in the same vein of altered dancing/flying reality.  In “Buddy Holly” Jonze has taken us back to the time (though, of course, Happy Days is a throwback in itself) to the time of Buddy Holly’s popularity playing music that is inspired by, but is so beyond, that time and place.

I’m not going to go off about the film.  I really enjoyed it; I laughed and James Gandolfini, as a muppet, made me cry. I think it was genius, but I would like to see it again and see if it holds up.  Also I can’t speak for children, but I think that film is now trying to take them seriously, and rightly so.  See this article from A.O. Scott in the New York Times.

Since friday is the release date for Where the Wild Things Are, I thought it would be good to see what other projects Mr. Jonze has done in his career.

He started off in the skateboarding world revolutionizing the way videos were produced for amateur and professional skating.  From there he went into the commercial and video front.  Today we will look at the comercials and later in the week we will look at music videos and trailers for his previous films.

I’m not sure when these came out chronologically, so we will just go through them in alphabetical order by company, cause why not?

So here we go…

Adidas: The music is by KAren O from the Yeah Yeah Yeahs who is also doing the music for WTWTA!

Gap: Who hasn’t wanted to do this?

Ikea: I remember seeing this one with Ms. Katie and thinking it was hilarious.

Levi’s 1: This one is simple in Jonze terms, but still has his flair for the ridiculous and awesome.

Levi’s 2: This one is more of a story/music video inspired which is a good one to leave off on for our transition to music videos later in the week.

Overall, Jonze’s common thread through out all of his videos, commercial or music videos, or movies, tend to deal with ideas of the “wouldn’t it be cool if…” (both Levi’s) scenarios or flipping the conventional way of doing something on it’s head (Ikea personification of lamp), or both combined (Gap’s take on new beginnings). These themes all flow into his other works, as well, as you will see soon! (Or you can always youtube them yourself if you are so inclined, impatient or just curious, as I would be.)

Only at first.  I think it has to do with the piano.

and