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YooouuuTuuube

Makes any video look cool… (click the image to see what I’m talking about)

delete Durham billboards

Fairway Outdoor Advertising’s attempts at wooing City Council into removing the current ban on new billboards may not be going so well. At least, not for Fairway.

The billboard industry suffered a trouncing at the March InterNeighborhood Council meeting, but the City Council vote that will ultimately decide the fate of Durham’s billboards will come later this summer. The persistence of both advertising as a phenomenon and the belief that people are essentially consumers with obligations to subject themselves to advertising in public spaces warrant more discussion, and Fairway’s recent attempts at infiltrating community groups leave the public to wonder why the ad giant doesn’t want a real conversation.

Not only is it becoming clear that the community doesn’t support the attempt to supersaturate the Bull City with corporate advertising, in the process of covering the issue, the Independent has identified and mapped 110 billboards in Durham — 89 of which are permitted and 21 that are not. (Note: Fairway currently owns 45 billboards in Durham.)

If those billboards identified as illegal are not dealt with by “the proper authorities,” then who knows what will happen to them.

Perhaps, someone might by inspired by a recent public art campaign in New York, which reclaimed public space from illegal billboards by whitewashing, then replacing with art.

Alternatively, in Edward Abbey’s The Monkey Wrench Gang, there is a compelling description of what happens to billboards that violate the spirit of community aesthetic.

Whatever the resolution, there’s new stuff to read on supportdurhambillboardban.com:

• a video of the InterNeighborhood Council’s vote, overwhelmingly supporting the City’s current policy on billboards
• emails sent to contact@supportdurhambillboardban.com
• updated list of letters to local newspaper editors

And if you haven’t yet voiced your opinion on whether Durham needs more billboards, just send an email or write a letter to the editor of a local newspaper.

wish I lived in…

	Discover the Rail Way on National Train Day, May 9, 2009
	National Train Day is upon us and this year the celebration is bigger and better. This Saturday from 10am to 3pm, enjoy live musical entertainment and educational and interactive displays about train travel in the past, present and future, including: Exhibits you can only find at National Train Day include: • Trains Move Our Economy: An in-depth exploration of rail’s current and future role in American society, learn about proposed high-speed corridors, the upgrading of rail infrastructure, electrification and the role of freight trains in our economy. • Go-Green Express: Discover the green aspects of rail travel – energy efficiency, electric rail, regenerative braking, etc. – with this free-standing interactive display. • Honor the Bright Land: Trains and the Preservation of America’s Great Places: This art gallery will honor the connection between trains and our national landscape through the art of J. Craig Thorpe. In his work you’ll find a beautiful representation of the spectrum of rail operations in three different settings: urban, rural and wilderness. The gallery will also feature a new commission from Amtrak on the future of rail. See trains up close and personal with exclusive displays that include historic private cars, commuter and freight cars, and Amtrak equipment: Washington, DC Dover Harbor Georgia 300 (President Obama’s historic inaugural private train car) Acela, Amfleet and Superliner Cars Chicago Warren Henry & Evelyn Henry Horizon Club-Dinette Amfleet II and Superliner Cars Philadelphia Epicuris Cab Car Acela Set Amfleet Cars Electric Locomotive Los Angeles Overland Trail Scottish Thistle Operation Lifesaver Wrapped Locomotive GM & O 50 Steam Locomotive Superliner and Surfliner Cars

there’s probably no god, says British ad campaign

Proselytizing atheists… that’s a new one on me.

The hot pink link scheme on their website is enough to leave one searching for a new religion.

Trips for Kids benefit art show, Cinco de Mayo

The cycling community has a reputation for creativity — the annual Bike Art exhibits (I, II, III, IV), the Bicycle Film Festival, and the alt-bike phenomenon each attest to the restlessness that two-wheeled travelers often feel. By restlessness I mean an inability to accept the world as ordinary. Perhaps nowhere is that restlessness evident than in North Carolina, where a bicycle mechanic on the Outer Banks once said to his brother, “what else can we make with these tools?”

Danielle Riley, a Durham school teacher and editor, is sharing her art with the cycling community for the month of May. Andrea Hundredmark, Durham Public Schools teacher and Director of the Triangle chapter of Trips For Kids, says…

Danielle Riley is showing her photography for the first time EVER at The Broad Street Cafe.  Her work will be up for the month of May.  The kickoff for the show is Tuesday, May 5th at 7 pm.  There will be a wine tasting as well.

Please check out the link [sic] to learn a little about Broad Street Café, their menu and Danielle.  There is a short artist bio and some samples of some her photos on the site.

20%  of any proceeds from the sale of her work will be donated to Triangle Trips for Kids – a non-profit organization that takes children living in at-risk situations on bike rides, teaches them about cycling and how to build bikes.

To learn more about Trips for Kids, check out their website or this article written for the Herald Sun last year. The Broad St Café is located here.

Library of Congress, on Flickr

Search within any Flickr user’s account, then click the Slideshow icon/link in the top right to create your own. Grab the embed codes from the Share link (once you’re looking at your slideshow).

Kicking It

Watch the whole 90 min film at full screen resolution over at Hulu.com.

In the summer of 2006, while the football world’s attention was focused on Germany, thousands of players around the globe were training hard and competing to be part of another World Cup … The Homeless World Cup. It had been a wild idea by a Scot and an Austrian—to give homeless people a chance to change their lives through an international street soccer competition.Five years later, the annual Homeless World Cup had become an internationally recognized sports competition. 500 homeless players from 48 nations would ultimately be selected to represent their country in Cape Town, South Africa – coming from such disparate parts of the world as war torn Afghanistan, the slums of Kenya, the drug rehab clinics of Dublin, Ireland, the streets of Charlotte, North Carolina, the overflowing public shelters of Madrid, Spain, and the unforgiving city of St. Petersburg, Russia, where the homeless have no rights or identity. Win or lose, for these players it would be the journey of a lifetime.

U.N. launches World Digital Library

Last week, the United Nations launched the World Digital Library, featuring historic books, maps, recordings and other artifacts from many of the great institutions around the globe. The WDL draws on the resources of the Library of Congress, UNESCO, and other cultural institutions.

For example, below is a digitized film from 1899, shot by Thomas Edison (yes, that Thomas Edison), of the NYPD bike patrol.

Description
The film shows members of “New York’s Finest” parading at a crowded Union Square. Seen are members of the Bicycle Squad, mounted horses, and two regimental marching bands. At the time of filming, the New York City Police Department was still recovering from the corruption scandals of the early 1890’s that had severely tarnished the reputation of the department. A State-Senate-appointed group known as the Lexow Committee investigated the department and issued a scathing report that detailed serious criminal activity within the department. In 1895, public opinion was so low that the annual parade was not held. That same year, Theodore Roosevelt was appointed president of the Police Board, and he is credited with initiating strict and effective reform measures that helped restore the public’s confidence in the police.
Date Created
June 1, 1899

local media watch

PennSound

Poets are social critics by default. That is, since not very many of us take the same care to craft our daily language that poets do, poets often are (or see themselves as) outsiders. And as outsiders, many poets are well-positioned to see things that not everyone is able to see. Hence the buzz of excitement Obama generated just by carrying (and thus being photographed with) a collection of Derek Walcott’s poems three days after the election. Imagine… a politician with a daily habit of thinking about something in a meditative way.

Celebrations of the power of words, succinct demands for our attention, suggestive as well as demonstrative. When done well, poems — like film — leave the reader/viewer with much to think about, much to interpret.

There are many, many poetry websites that host, share, invite, and collect the written text. But like Meyer Abrams argues, poems should be read aloud. I remember well the first time that I heard a college friend, poet Edward Bartók-Baratta, perform a collection of his writings. Without artificial amplification, his normally quiet voice took possession of the stirred atmosphere inside the Northampton, MA church. It was a look inside the soul of someone I knew best as a baker and gardener.

PennSound is a remarkable online archive of poetry readings. Supported by the University of Pennsylvania’s English Department Center for Programs in Contemporary Writing and the Kelly Writers House, the web-based project is directed by poets, and the recordings are of poets reading poetry. [Thanks to Al Filreis for the correction.]

Collecting original recordings as well as hotlinks to recordings hosted in other archives, PennSound is the “first and the biggest site of its kind,” says Charles Bernstein, an English professor and the site’s co-director.

Launched in January 2005, their first press release boasted a collection of 1500 recordings. By 2007, the site had aggregated more than 10,000.

According to a May 2007 Associated Press article, recordings are…

contributed by poets, fans and scholars worldwide and converted to digital format. Some, such as Gertrude Stein recordings from 1934, date back decades.

The site mainly focuses on historical avant-garde and innovative contemporary poetry. So while you can hear Allen Ginsberg or current U.S. Poet Laureate Donald Hall, you won’t find Maya Angelou.

You won’t find Billy Collins or Rita Dove, but you will find plenty of contemporary and historical readings, mostly with an avant-garde bent. Don’t miss the extensive set of Ezra Pound readings.

Sticking with the theme of this site, below is a poem that includes mention of a two-wheeled pilot.

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

John Tranter reads “God on a Bicycle” at a March 30, 2005 reading at the Kelly Writers House.

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