I’ve recently discovered the Perry Bible Fellowship. It’s a brilliantly illustrated comic with a twisted sense of humor and cute imagery. I love combinations like that. It’s definitely worth checking out for it’s sheer creativity.

Plus, for the fact that it is most definitely NOT a Perry Bible Fellowship.

I’ve always been fascinated by human movement. The frenetic energy, strength, and flexibility of the human body never ceases to amaze me. In the past, I’ve been involved in various different kinds of artistic movement, including ballroom dancing, breakdancing, martial arts, popping, and gymnastics. I’ve found that there is a core set of movements and skills that are common in all of these activities. After watching countless videos, I’m convinced that all of these activities can be tied together in a huge graph mapping out the various human movement characteristics.

This is why it’s always a joy to see two videos highlighting the similarities between two disparate movement arts. And, it’s even more satisfying when the two movements have radically different demographics and culture.

I stumbled upon an amazing Lindy Hop competition video that reminded me of the energy and movements in breakdancing. The video highlights a lot of fast and technical footwork similar to top rocking in breakdancing, in addition to the high flying acrobatics. Without further ado, this is the video of the Ultimate Lindy Hop Showdown 2006:

Now, compare this to the footwork of Dyzee, one of my favorite breakers. Pay attention to the footwork after the first cut (the rest of the video is a bit low on quality). Dyzee just has one of the most fluid footworks I’ve seen, and mirrors the footwork seen in the Lindy Hop video.

Also, here is another oldie but goodie from Dyzee. I remember watching this in my college days:

UPDATE: And let’s not forget the original Lindy Hop style, captured in this video from “Hellzapoppin” (1941) featuring Frankie Manning (in the Mechanic’s Dungarees).

I haven’t had a whole lot of time to play Cloud, a game where you’re a boy flying freely through the air interacting with clouds. From what I’ve seen, the game itself is simply beautiful, and includes hand painted graphics, somewhat like the ones seen in Final Fantasy VII and VIII. Actually, this whole game reminds me of the Square games. The music is peaceful, with a flair of Nobuo Uematsu.

What else is neat is that it’s produced by the Division of Interactive Media at the University of Southern California School of Cinema and Television, and they’re giving it out free. EA Games also helped them get this game out. I think these types of collaboration between industry, academia, and art is where the interesting games will be coming out. I’ve seen enough first person shooters. Give me something thats different, and perhaps a little more peaceful and poignant like Cloud.

This past Saturday, I went to an exhibit in the Hayes Valley Market called “The Most Powerful Sound”. The description of the event said that the pieces were inspired by “scientific sonic phenomena such as infrasound and sonoluminescence”. The gallery consisted of a motley collection of art, sound, and technology. A lot of the artwork I saw were post-modernistic, and some very abstract.

Some of the interesting pieces were books (which were almost zine-like in nature) that were accompanied by sounds. You’re instructed to listen to a specific audio segment while digesting the printed material. Other pieces were videos accompanied by (usually eerie) sounds, live sound work by two people who were blowing a hairdryer into a microphone and using potential differences in antennas to produce truly bizarre sounds, a room with barious bottles to bang on, and a puzzling golden foam ball hanging from the ceiling.

All in all, it was an interesting evening. The fence along the market was set up to be an impromptu art gallery where any artist could put their piece up for sale. A young girl had put one of her pieces up (probably with an encouraging word from the mother) and actually got it sold. When she found out, she wasn’t very happy, saying that she wanted it back.