The Third & the Seventh
While Avatar has changed expectations for CG rendering in major Hollywood blockbusters, the following short film “The Third & The Seventh” obliterates limitations placed on independent and solo animators. It is 100% computer generated, yet many elements are utterly lifelike. Quite simply, it is the most photorealistic CG animation I have ever seen, and it was produced by one man, the Madrid-based Alex Roman. And it prominently features libraries.
Roman’s goal was to highlight architectural art through CG rendering, but his effort far exceeds that limited ambition, with his use of movement, music, simulated timelapses, changing light, and shifting focus lifting this work into the realm of genuine art itself. Of particular interest to librarians and archivists are the library and institutional spaces he highlights, internally and externally. One such example used is the Shiba Ryōtarō Memorial Museum in Japan - its awe-inspiring spaces are stunning even in the stills contained in Roman’s online portfolio. The video then brings this towering space to life.
The film features recurring themes of analog technology - film and film cameras play a narrative role, and the tone of the piece is established by early shots of fluttering polaroids and card catalogs. The images and music serve as a beautiful requiem for the passing of the old into the digital world of the new. There is an empty concert hall, then towering library stacks - full in one library, empty in another. Each space is highlighted in a breathtaking way. The wordless film is not without an arc; perspective and light shift as the film goes on, and ultimately the heightened reality moves into a certain magical surrealism (that seems to be an inspirational nod to René Magritte).
Please make use of the “Full Screen” option on the embedded video to properly appreciate this artwork, and allow for the 12:29 running time. You will not soon forget watching it.
The Third & The Seventh from Alex Roman on Vimeo.
If you click through to Vimeo, you can also watch various previews and “behind the scenes” videos Roman produced.
Credit for turning me onto this video is due Adam Whitehead, British-based author of the outstanding speculative fiction, film and game review blog The Wertzone.
Hired! Temporarily
I have been hired. It’s temporary, but it’s still very exciting regardless. I’ll start working 30-hours a week for the California Academy of Sciences Research Library after Martin Luther King Jr. weekend (I officially started last month, but it’s been just one day a week for training so far). I’ll be the temporary fill-in for the Archives and Digital Production Assistant as she goes out on maternity leave.
So what will my responsibilities entail? The bulk of my workload will be digital archiving - scanning the Academy’s impressive collection of archival and curatorial photographs (from prints, books, slides and transparencies) to CDL standards, creating the accompanying Dublin Core-based metadata, organizing the servers, and operating the Cumulus digital asset management system that stores the collection. I will also pitch in on archival reference questions, serving as the aide-de-camp for the Archives and Digital Collections Librarian as needed.
Of course, it’s great to find a paying job in the current economic climate. But beyond the wages, this job is a fantastic opportunity because of the new digital archiving skills I’m learning, the fantastic workplace and coworkers (with whom I’ve been interning since the summer), and the overall mission and orientation of the Academy, very much in line with that of my former longtime workplace, The Nature Conservancy. It further burnishes my credentials in the natural sciences, an area of interest of mine.
As a temporary position, this role adds to my résumé while still leaving me free to pursue longer-term appointments for after it wraps in mid-April. It all adds up to being the perfect opportunity.
A Not Unfortunate Event
One of the most satisfying book series I’ve read is Lemony Snicket’s magnum opus (ostensibly for children), A Series of Unfortunate Events. A verbose, witty look at the unceasingly unfortunate lives of the Baudelaire Orphans, it was the brainchild of San Franciscan (and fellow Lowellite) Daniel Handler, the author of such grown-up books as Adverbs and The Basic Eight - the latter being set at a thinly disguised version of Lowell High. The subject of Handler came up when I was out with friends Saturday night. One of the friends went to Lowell with me, while another is a fellow fan of The Magnetic Fields, a band with whom Handler has played (accordion). With the one friend I discussed The Basic Eight and its portrayal of our high school, and with the latter I discussed the upcoming Magnetic Fields tour and their shows in San Francisco and Oakland.
I openly wondered if Handler would be playing his accordion live with the band.
Lo and behold, today I ran into no less an authority on the subject than Mr. Handler himself, apparently taking a stroll in a Victorian neighborhood near one of San Francisco’s hilltop parks. It must have been a strange encounter for him - it was a chilly day, and I was on my bicycle with my three-year-old daughter, who was clad in a rainbow of colors, with silver sequined shoes and a shimmery silver scarf, sitting in her rear-mounted seat. I suddenly stopped mid-street, just ahead of him, and waited for him to catch up before disrupting his reverie. After verifying his identity (needlessly; I was certain it was him), I said I had just one question - would he be playing with The Magnetic Fields during their upcoming local shows?
I suppose it might have seemed less odd if I explained that I had just been asking that question (to people of lesser expertise) in a bar the prior night. Or, perhaps, that would have made it more odd.
In any case, he graciously said yes, he would, and that he was excited about the new album they were releasing. In fact, he didn’t seem startled by my shock assault at all.
I didn’t bother him for an autograph. I was on my bike, already confusing my daughter with my bizarre behavior, and without a pen or paper. That, and I already have his signature. I let him return to his brisk walk, and resumed our brisk ride.
When we got home I introduced Mather to the music of the Magnetic Fields, to which she responded, predictably, by dancing. A few years down the line she’ll no doubt be introduced to Violet, Klaus and Sunny Baudelaire. Hopefully she can one day mirror their ingenuity, but hopefully without a series of unfortunate events.
Playing Dress-up
I’ve been remiss on recapping the card catalog cocktail party! Some two-dozen current or recent SLIS graduates assembled at our house a few weeks ago to celebrate the newest set of MLIS-degree recipients. And to put an entertaining twist on things, we all (well, most of us) dressed up in our best stereotypical librarian garb for the occasion.
My attempt to go a more formal route was undone by Tom and his husband Mike, who forced me to wear Dame Edna-esque cat-eye glasses, but I was impressed by the efforts of many of my peers. Of course, at least two party-goers declined to participate in the official costume contest on the basis that that’s exactly how they usually dress. Of course, I’m equally guilty. In the run-up to the party, my wife was surprised to see me changing clothes - since I had been already wearing an argyle sweater.
Here’s an assorted few photos:
Not actually prescription glasses.
Yes, that’s exactly how Adina usually dresses.
I wouldn’t dare complain about my overdue fines to Carolyn.
Tawnie went with pink argyle and knee-high stockings.
Sjuli went classy with fancy footwear and a pearl necklace.
Greg stepped up as resident guybrarian.
Ironically, with all those MLIS-holders present, the winner isn’t a librarian at all, but rather my wife’s co-worker and best friend Anastasia, who came as an austere, stern shusher:
Her grand prize was a set of argyle-and-skull stockings, which she promptly added to her look:
The runners-up each won their very own stub-length pencil. To which Tom (a page at an SFPL branch) responded, “It’s my job to stock those!”.
Happy New Year’s, by the way…
School of Fish
I got a Flip camera for Christmas. On Monday, my wife and I visited the Monterey Bay Aquarium. Naturally, I couldn’t resist recording a school of fish from the Aquarium’s Outer Bay Tank:
School of Fish from Daniel Ransom on Vimeo.
I also used this as an opportunity to play with Vimeo, a higher-brow alternative to YouTube. I could sign-in via my Facebook account (it’s nice not having to sing up for another online service) and the content is limited to user-created videos. It functions much more like a social-networking site than the barebones (and crude comment riddled) environment of YouTube. So far I’m a fan.
iMUSÉE?
Shortly after writing about “Digital Museums“, I came across a curious iPhone app called “Musée du Louvre“. Officially produced by the namesake majestic Parisian palace (the most visited museum in the world) it bills itself as a virtual tour and information source. Now, it hardly replaces a visit to France on your itinerary. It features text, videos, and photos of only a handful of the museum’s most famous works of art (such as the Venus de Milo, the Law Code of Hammurabi, Winged Victory, the Coronation of Napoleon, and of course the Mona Lisa). Still, since it includes floor plans, museum hours and historical information on each wing, it could make a nice companion to a physical tour.
While it’s ambition may be limited, it’s certainly a highbrow app to carry on your phone - it certainly looks better than the latest “Blond Jokes App” if you loan your phone to a friend (make sure to place it on the same screen as the Works of Shakespeare and New York Times for extra snob appeal). The price is also right - it’s free.
And of course I’d be remiss if I didn’t toss in this decade old photo of my wife doing her best Mona Lisa impression during our real life trip to the Louvre…
I do think this app shows a certain potential for individual institutions. Since programming applications for iPhones and Google Android products is relatively simple, many information institutions - museums and libraries - have the capability of designing their own apps.
Should larger public and academic library systems take the time to design and publish dedicated smart phone applications? What tools and capabilities might a library’s app feature? Are there existing examples?
Be a Flâneur
Someone scrawled the phrase “Be a Flâneur” into wet sidewalk cement near my parents’ house. I’m not sure how long it has been encased in concrete, but I know I passed it many times before my curiosity got the best of me, and I googled the word “flâneur“.
I was more than a little enchanted by what I discovered. Adapted from a French noun for “stroller”, it was coined by the poet and writer Charles Baudelaire to mean “a person who walks the city in order to experience it”. Magic. I’ve loved walking cities my whole life; growing up I frequently walked home from elementary school via increasingly crooked routes that I called my “AdventureWALKS” (which I then wrote stories about after arriving home; I wonder if my mother saved any of these infantile attempts at literature?).
Now, my preferred form of transit is the bicycle, and I frequently carry my daughter to her preschool in a childseat. But yesterday threatened rain, so we took the train to school. I had an appointment downtown, so after leaving her behind, I hustled on to the financial district via subway. When I was done (getting a filling and finding out my new crown didn’t fit), I was downtown, a few miles from her school with a few hours to spare. And the promised rain was nowhere in sight. So I wandered back via streets big and little, boulevards and alleyways, as big as Market Street and as small as Maiden Lane - I became a flâneur, and lived the City.
As much as I love the bicycle, you see more on foot, moving a little slower, stopping when you want, and not having to dodge taxis and busses. Since I didn’t have my usually ubiquitous headphones, I was especially plugged into my environment - sights, sounds, and all the other senses mixed and mingled to let me know where I was. Thoughts both deep and fleeting get to mingle and float as you walk, slowly turning over and developing into something bigger. Blood flows through your veins a little quicker. Crisp December air refreshes the lungs. Long strides stretch tired legs.
My walk started in the heart of the Financial district, close to where the concrete canyons of Sansome and Montgomery originate off the diagonal slash of Market Street. I walked by the venerable and beloved Mechanics’ Institute Library, on Post Street (the City’s oldest library, predating San Francisco’s public library by more than a quarter century) before ducking into a store on Maiden Lane (Christmas shopping is upon us, after all). After shopping, I walked up Geary past (not into) Union Square. I still think the new design is unfortunate and uninviting, with an intimidating front face of concrete facing Geary. Then I followed the cable car path back down to Market Street.
My walking route
Mid-Market remains a troubled area for San Francisco, but it makes a fascinating walk nonetheless, particularly with the current “Art in Storefronts” program adding color to the scene. Of course, I also had to trot into the Main Library on my way through - there is always something to look up or look for!
Walking through Hayes Valley after that was something of a revelation. It’s not an area I’m in very often, and even less often on foot. Now, the area has had cute boutiques and upscale restaurants for quite a while now (ever since the tear-down of the Central Freeway overpass that blighted the area), but it seems to have reached a critical mass in which the variety of stores and eateries both on and off of Hayes Street are feeding off of each other’s success in drawing foot traffic to the area. It was midday on a Tuesday and the sidewalks were busy. I spent a few minutes sitting on a bright green bench studying a bright green door in an otherwise gray storefront. I felt simply enchanted by the addition of color to gray.
Taking in the contrast of color I had a mini-epiphany - part of the reason that San Francisco’s Victorians and Edwardians are so lively and lovely is the contrast between the rich colors in which they are painted and the frequently silver-gray sky settled in above our heads. Civic Center is a collection of handsome, gray beaux-arts beauties, from City Hall to the Old Main Library (now the Asian Art Museum) and the War Memorial Opera House. But the European-style boulevards and open areas of Civic Center often seem lifeless, and it is because the opulent stone buildings look drab when matched with our gray sky. But our Victorians, our wonderful, colorful, bursting Victorians - even the modest ones, the slightly faded ones - sing out under our silver sphere.
I got to enjoy many of those Victorians in my remaining walk up from Hayes Valley into the Haight and Castro, with little surprises and architectural novelties along the way. Walking on little streets you see also unexpected glimpses of art and ideas shared with passers-by.
A decorated garage in an alley near Hayes Street
Small, colorful Victorians on Linden
A modern house spiked with color
And of course, from downtown to uptown the best part of the walk was always the people-watching. I won’t elaborate except to say it is delightful to see how meaningless stereotypes can be - you get little windows into other people’s worlds as you walk, snippets of conversations, glimpses of activity and you’re reminded of the infinite possibilities in life and how rarely anyone fits into a singular box - even in just a moment of time.
Near the end of my walk was one of my favorite San Francisco features - obscure public stairs. A hilly city, San Francisco has many shortcuts cut between houses, stone and wood stairways, some with their own street names and addresses (there is something wonderfully romantic and old-fashioned about a street that can only be traversed by foot - no cars, no exhaust, only hustle). Someday I hope to have find and walk them all (this website should help me locate them).
The Roosevelt-Henry Steps
It is rare to have as much free time as I did yesterday, but even when it’s hard to scrape together time it’s always worth remembering to walk a little. Walk alone, or walk with a friend, walk for miles or walk a few blocks, and walk to remind yourself how a city breathes and feels. And let’s ditch the term “pedestrian” - it is so pejorative, an unfortunate surrogate for “bland”, and remember to all be flâneurs instead.
Cataloging Cocktails
This Friday night, my wife and I will be hosting some thirty-odd current and alumni students from San Jose State’s School of Library and Information Science for a graduation party in honor of all those who’ve completed their degrees this Fall (which, yes, includes me).
I’ve always been amused by the defensiveness I see from some quarters when it comes to “stereotypes” about librarians. Of course I understand the argument about how changing technology and information needs are altering the nature of the MLIS degree, and I know the core skills of the librarian are constantly in evolutionary flux. My own skillset, interests and education are all reflective of a 21st century librarian. But since when did a good argyle sweater become something to be ashamed of? Heck, even pop stars are mimicking librarian style these days (and I rock a good argyle whenever I can).
So for this party, we’re organizing a bit of a throwback: we’ll give a special doorprize to the best librarian “drag” worn by an attendee - sweater vests, lead-pencil hair buns, the works. And I borrowed a typewriter, bought some index cards, and pulled out the hole punch to create a cocktail menu on a set of catalog cards:
Of course, cocktails aren’t something you’d typically catalog for a library. So I used a little creative license: “The Great Gatsby” has been cataloged under its namesake novel’s Dewey Decimal call number, and the Library of Congress Subject Headings for the “Bloody Mary” have more to do with an English monarch than they do tomato juice. Here’s the complete set (10, one for each class under the DDC):
