Witch, Screenshot, Puzzle, Love, Snowball
The Night Witches
Carter Dishman | YouTube | 23rd November 2021
A story that would make a great movie: Wearing hand-me-down male uniforms, an all-female squad of Soviet soldiers flew plywood planes ("certified death traps") into Germany, without instruments to guide them through the darkness. "The sound of the wind on their canvas wings supposedly sounded like a broomstick flying through the air"—hence the moniker, the Night Witches (8m 18s)
Screenshot
Johannes Binotto | Vimeo | 18th August 2021
A man habitually takes screenshots of films. Gradually, they pile up on his computer, until he has a compendium of thousands of randomly juxtaposed images. "What I see now in these images are not just the film scenes I was fascinated with, but my own desire to get a hold of these moments, to enter them, to both possess and inhabit them." At the end, a beautiful montage (8m 32s)
Solving James Brown's Rhythmic Puzzle
Adam Neely | YouTube | 24th November 2021
When James Brown sings "I feel good," where's the emphasis? "I"? "Feel"? "Good"? All of the above? A musician is stumped—so stumped that he concludes there may not be an answer to the question. "Syncopation really shows the limitations of a traditional strong/weak understanding of rhythmic structures in music" (14m 39s)
Radical Love
William Kirkley | Vimeo | 24th May 2021
Snapshot of the social movements of the 60s and 70s through the lens of two lawyers, Michael and Eleanora Kennedy, who always took the side of the radicals. The "rule of a radical lawyer" is to "make the courtroom a site of resistance." But their allegiance to the law was questionable; as Eleanora says, their imperative was to "help the Weathermen in any way we could, legal or illegal" (20m 34s)
Browser Video: Tom Wright On Corruption In The Us Navy
"Fat Leonard" made billions as a contractor for the US Navy. "He was paying for prostitutes and orgies for navy officers, all the way up to admirals." Though "gifts for their wives, Chanel handbags, Cohiba Cigars, $30,000 dinners," he secured inflated contracts and the redirection of US ships to ports under his control. Now Leonard awaits trial, but senior admirals remain uncharged (20m 34s)
Old Video Of The Week
A snowball fight...from 1897
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