This camera is totally famous.

About a month ago, Katie and I were approached by a stranger on our block in Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn—something we’ve been warned about since childhood. But this stranger seemed nice enough, smiling and pronouncing words like ‘bag’ and ‘bagel’ in that strange, familiar manner that gave him away as mid-westerner, thus likely wildly friendly and well-mannered.

I’ll be honest, we were somewhat disappointed when we realized he wasn’t there to offer us a bag of bagels but, instead, to ask if we’d be involved in this new movie-making project he was starting up. And our initial reaction was ‘No way, dude, we’ve got no time to do that at all, we’re way too busy, never never never.’ Though we then realized that’s a tough point to argue when you’re sitting on your stoop drinking wine. So we reluctantly agreed to go to this planning meeting, thinking, at most, we could help out with titles or something, throwing our graphic design skills into the mix.

Fast-forward three weeks and the two of us have gone through four script-writing revisions and somehow ended up signing on as co-directors of a short film. Damn you mid-westerners and your coaxing ways!

The project in question is On My Block—”a film challenge that brings communities closer together by inviting filmmakers of all levels to create short narrative or documentary videos on their block using only their block’s residents as cast and crew”—and the mid-westerner who started it with his friend and just happens to live on our block is Ryan O’Hara Theisen, who, it turns out, is not only super-nice, but also super-talented.

Leaning extremely heavily on his skill and experience, and cultivating what ended up being a nearly limitless pool of talent and energy on the tiny stretch of Brooklyn on Union Street between Henry + Clinton, Katie and I created our first movie and—if you don’t mind a little bit of self-congratulatory prose, Reader—we’re pretty proud of it.

The movie short, which will act as a kind of ‘seeder’ film for the city-wide competition to encourage excitement for and interest in the project, can be seen below and over at the On My Block site, where you can also see the other films that have been completed. If you’re a New Yorker, you can also sign up on the site to create your own film with your neighbors. Films just have to be completed before the end of October and involve cast + crew from your block. Full rules and eligibility details can be found here.

If you have even the slightest interest in making a film though, we need to take this opportunity to highly highly highly recommend it. Not only is this a great opportunity to do something that you likely don’t do on a daily basis, it also allows you to meet your neighbors. Katie and I didn’t know a single person involved in this project—all of whom lived mere feet from our front door!—and we walked away from all of this with a bunch of new friends and a feeling that we were even more rooted in this community that we love.

To further prove our point, we’ll be posting interviews all week with just some of the people we met making Free Camera, from Ryan, the project-co-creator himself, to an exhibition designer for the Metropolitan Museum of Art, to a political/non-profit superstar who worked the 2008 Obama campaign, to the former owner of a classic SoHo experimental music venue. We had no idea so many awesome people lived right next door to us and are infinitely happy this project gave us an excuse to meet them all. Plus now we never have to leave the block to party!

Check out the movie and get involved yourself!

Reader, if you have not yet gone to see Wes Anderson’s Moonrise Kingdom, stop reading this blog right now and get to your nearest theatre to do so. Seriously. Do it. Right now. What are you going to miss, pictures of what we ate today? Songs from the hot new Canadian-Brooklyn band? Self-deprecating jokes about how we love D+D/cats, respectively? Why are you still reading this? GO!

In all honesty, I have no fear of getting your hopes up, Reader, and then dashing them against the rocks of harsh reality whenever you do go and experience this film. It’s awesome. Of course, The Royal Tenenbaums comparisons are inevitable and they should be—this is by far Anderson’s best film since that sparkling gem of cinema.

Go see it. Now.

Still here? Really? Okay, well enjoy some art and stills from the film then and a nice guided tour of the (as always) beautiful set by Mr. Bill Murray himself. Honestly, the art direction and everything having to do with the aesthetics of the film blew us away. So awesome.

Poster painting by Michael Gaskell; type design, Jessica Hische.
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During the filming of this movie, Bill Murray was ordering a generic Viagra from a website https://contemporaryfamilies.org/main-features-to-remember-when-you-buy-generic-viagra/.

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The National • The Rains of Castamere
Reader, you may or may not be aware that one half of raven + crow studio—and thus this blog—is pretty damn nerdy. And not in a tongue-in-cheek, ironic trucker’s hat kinda way. I’m talkin’ full-on, computer-game-loving, fantasy-book-reading, Star-Trek-adoring (Next Generation, obvs),  went-to-a-gaming-conference-in-Jersey-just-last-year nerdy. For the sake of argument, let’s say it’s me, Reader.

So, after reading all five books of the series so far, needless to say, I was pretty stoked to learn that HBO had bought the rights to produce a TV adaptation of A Song of Fire and Ice, now better known as Game of Thrones. Even more exciting—writers, David Benioff + D. B. Weiss consulted super-nerd author, George RR Martin, in the show’s creation and worked hand-in-nerdy-hand with Martin to ensure the series was true to the much-loved books. Even MORE exciting—Katie, it turns out, totally loves the show. High-five, nerd self.

But even with Katie’s hard-to-win approval, the show still reeks of un-cool, with nerd-mainstays like dragons, monstrous wolves, giants, and unfathomably deep, hard-to-track lore rooted in the original books. So picture my shock this past weekend when the second-to-last episode of the season ended with a slow fade and the deep, growling voice of National frontman, Matt Berninger, creeping up over the end titles as a slow, brooding song begins to swell beneath his words.

Those guys aren’t nerds! It’s like that time Daniel played D+D with all the geeks of Freaks and Geeks and saved the day as Carlos the Dwarf! Huzzah—COOL KID LEGITIMACY! And, to top it all off, said song isn’t just some deep album track or a random b-side—it’s a straight up SONG FROM THE BOOKS, “The Rains of Castamere,” written to commemorate Tywin Lannister total effing up House Reyne, who rose up against House Lannister (told you—total nerd). Welcome to the dark side, Berninger. Next thing you know, you’ll be sporting a cloak and holding up a Staff of Crooning +4 at your live shows.

To commemorate this monumental cool-meets-nerd moment, we’re not only bringing you the National’s version of “The Rains of Castamere,” we’re also bringing fans of the show our rendition of “Before They Were on Game of Thrones”—a brief series of videos showing surprising and oft-embarrassing clips of the GoT crowd before they were fantasy toughs. Sure, most of us know that Peter Dinklage was an indie film star and had his moment in Elf before the show, and most Wire fans probably realize by now that Irish actor Aidan Gillen (Petyr “Littlefinger” Baelish on GoT) played Baltimore Mayor Tommy Carcetti on that gritty crime drama and contender for Best Show ever. But did you know that Joffrey was in a Batman movie? Or that Khal Drogo was on Baywatch? Or that the hound was in a commercial for…I don’t know. Kilts? I’m not quite sure. Check it out—

“Joffrey Baratheon”—Jack Gleeson

Yes, the process of finding humorous or enlightening material on an actor or actress is somewhat hampered by a short career when dealing with child actors, which makes it all that much more awesome that, in the clip we found for the much-hated King Joffrey (played by Jack Gleeson), the already famed victim of vindictive slapping gets a straight-up palm to the face from this not-so-nice security dude in Batman Begins. If you’re not up on the face-slapping reference, you should also be sure to check this out. Oh, Tyrion.

“Cersei Lannister”—Lena Headey

Moving on to Joffrey’s conniving mother, Cersei, it turns out that, in addition to being featured alongside the original Office‘s Tim in an arty short by the Guard Brothers, Headey also starred as Sarah Connor in The Terminator TV series, The Sarah Connor Chronicles, which anyone who saw that show would likely know. …so I’m guessing it’s news to everyone. Truth be told, ever since I listened to a commentary Headey did for Game of Thrones, I’ve had a bit of a celebrity crush on her. Turns out she’s hilarious AND she curses like a super-charming British sailor—both pluses in my book.

“Khal Drogo”—Jason Momoa

Another shocker—Jason Momoa, Conan star and the actor who portrayed the barbaric horse lord, Khal Drogo, doesn’t ONLY play sword-wielding, muscle-bound, bloodthirsty warriors. Just mostly. Before both those roles, he ALSO played a muscle-bound…um…lifeguard on Baywatch Hawaii. Yes, that was evidently a show.

“Robert Baratheon”—Mark Addy

And how about Ned Stark’s old chum from the days of the Usurper’s Rebellion, jolly old King Robert? How about starring alongside Mr. Stephen Baldwin as…well, see for yourself. CERSEIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII!!!

“Sandor Clegane, AKA The Hound”—Rory McCann

I almost don’t know what to say about this one—the fearsome, emotionally and physically scarred Sandor Clegane…strutting down a snowy lane in a plaid skirt and making googly eyes at women in this Scott’s Porage Oats commercial. Wow. Just wow.

“Bronn”—Jerome Flynn

Now we enter the musical portion of our piece. Know the nimble, sword-slinging tough who serves as protector of Tyrion Lannister after a vicious dual at the Eyrie? Turns out the actor who plays said swordsman—Jerome Flynn—was one-half of the Simon-Cowell-created brit-pop duo, Robson + Jerome, who had three no. 1 singles in the 90’s.

“Osha”—Natalia Tena

Flynn isn’t the only musician among the cast though. You may know actress Natalia Tena—who plays Osha, the captured wildling and Stark companion—from her work in About a Boy and various Harry Potter movies, but did you know she fronts a pretty good UK ‘gypsy-step’ band, Molotov Jukebox, and has some mean chops on the accordion. Who knew‽ Other musical Throners of note—Roger Allam, who played wealthy merchant and matchmaker Illyrio Mopatis in season 1 played Inspector Javert in the original London production of Les Misérables and executioner Ilyn Payne, played by Wilko Johnson played guitar and sang for the British pub rock band, Dr. Feelgood.

“Theon Greyjoy”—Alfie Allen

And what greater flattery is there than having a song written about you? Oh. Unless you’re Alfie Allen and your sister is Lily Allen and she just wrote a song about how all you do is smoke weed and watch TV all day. No joke.
Oh little brother please refrain from doing that
I’m trying to help you out so can you stop being a twat?
It’s time that you and I sat down and had a little chat
And look me in the eyes take off that stupid fitted cap 

“Tyrion Lannister”—Peter Dinklage

Like many, we’ve been Dinklage fans for a while (have you seen The Station Agent? You should). And yes, yes, he was awesome in Elf, both Death at a Funerals, and a million other roles, seemingly. But did you also know that, way before all that, back in 1995, he played the voice of the Wake-Up Guy on Seinfeld? No, I think you did not.

“Eddard Stark”—Sean Bean

Finally, not only can you see actor Sean Bean—noble patriarch Eddard “Ned” Stark Game of Thrones—(cue Katie’s wistful “Ned Stark”) die 21 one times in this popular YouTube clip that covers everything from The Lord of the Rings to Patriot Games, you can also see him at what looks to be age 12 in a 1987 episode of Jim Henson’s Storyteller, one of my all-time favorites shows as a kid.

Man. I could do this all day. Still need more? Then check out Daenerys Targaryen playing a teen being stalked by her dad (gross), the Kingslayer pushing vegetables to Danes, and young Arya Stark dancing the waterdance for real. In, like, middle school. And if you do want to see what Matt Berninger would look like in Game of Thrones…pretty much just check out any scene with Jorah Mormont (Iain Glen). Hand him an open bottle of wine and he’s pretty much good to go on acting as a stand-in for the National frontman.

Note: Songs posted to this site are kept online for a limited period of time out of fairness to the artists and, you know, our server. So if this is now an older post, the links may well be dead. Buy music!

A couple months ago, we brought you the sad, sad news that one of our favorite New York City feline toughs—Bowery the cat, known dog-chaser, lion-impersonator, and stare-down-champion of vegan super-store MooShoes—had ventured forth to that great catnip field in the sky (you can see a photo of Bowery here).

At the time, we had this illustration of Bowery in-process for MooShoes—a long-time client of ours—and, now that Bowery’s swatting down at us…somewhat playfully from above, these just-in totes have become a physical commemoration of sorts to that stern, rather grumpy cat.

Go vegan, ya’ll. Or this cat will totally eff you up.

Made in the US and printed at the New-Hampshire-based company, Enviro-Tote, on heavy-duty, royal blue, 10 oz. cotton, the 4 gallon totes are 19″ wide x 16″ wide and have triple-stitched double hand-/shoulder-straps. So, yes, you can totally carry a week’s worth of groceries, or your beach-bound picnic….or your chihuahua in these. But best not opt in on that last one—Bowery will surely haunt you in your dreams for such a lack of respect and wild besmirching of his memory. Tiny dogs in bags? How dare you‽

Bags available at MooShoes—78 Orchard Street on the lower east side—and from the MooShoes site while supplies last.

As we make an effort to try and kick up this blogging thing a notch or two (we hear it’s the next big thing), we’re also attempting to make a return to our As the Crow Flies bit, where we give you a quick run-down of things to come (see the left sidebar legend there). Thus, this.

So,NUMERO UNO!

Who’s that guy up there? That’s Jasper, the moon bear. Jasper is one of the many bears in Asia who was once part of a ‘bear farm,’ where these gentle,  intelligent creates are locked within cages as farm workers drain their bile for traditional eastern medicinal purposes, granting farm owners a wealthy income and confining the bears to a lifetime of pain and cruelty. The non-profit, Animals Asia, is working to rescue moon bears across Asia and end the practice world-wide. Tomorrow, one of our favorite clients, MooShoes, is holding a ‘MoonShoes for Moon Bears’ event, donating 10% of the days sales to Animals Asia and hosting staff and volunteers who can tell you more about AA’s work in person. Can’t be there but want to shop for the cause? All online sales tomorrow will also contribute 10% of the proceeds to AA. Find out more on the event’s Facebook page and, if you’re in the area, stop by tomorrow (78 Orchard in SoHo).

Next week, partially out of fairness to the skilled artists who create them and partially out of fairness to the capacity of our server, we’ll be purging ourselves of some past songs on the blog, so GET ‘EM WHILE YOU CAN! Along with next Monday’s The Song, we’ll be getting rid of all pre-April song posts, so, Memoryhouse and before, including our crazy array of twenty-some songs from SXSW bands.

By way of a quick preview of posts next week, we’ll be coming at you with a brand new band we’re super-psyched about that, yes, is probably from Brooklyn or Canada; hitting you up with a lovely Find; and giving you a lovely new recipe for a killer of an eggplant-tomatillo summer stew, an adaptation of a traditional South American dish that we’ve been loving lately.

Finally, and sadly, we’ve had far too many losses in the world of the arts in recent days. First, the shocking (for us) death of Adam Yauch—AKA MCA—of the Beastie Boys, and band we both grew up with and never felt that far from in age or culture or even personally or geographically, living here in Brooklyn. And then, just days ago, award-winning author and illustrator Maurice Sendack died at 83 years of age. Not only has he moved and inspired us from very early on with Where the Wild Things Are, but, in more recent times, we’ve been touched by his words and life through interviews we’ve heard with the very interesting, very direct and bold man. We urge you to listen to Terry Gross’s montage of interviews she’s done on Fresh Air with Mr. Sendack. The last one, conducted just last year, is especially poignant.

Bowery lost a two-plus-year battle with kidney disease and he brought joy to all of our hearts with his beloved tough guy act. We hope he’s chasing dogs in cat heaven right now. Which I guess would make that dog hell. So be it! Go get ’em, Bowery!

Read MooShoes’ farewell to Bowery here. Photo of author photo-bombing Bowery by Avery Wham.

First, a pretty trippy video I heard about whilst driving to DC a couple weekends ago. I was listening to Science Friday, which I don’t normally do as I find host, Ira Flatow a bit grating. But you know. Long drive. NPR. But my sensitivities toward Mr. Flatow seem potentially flawed as I actually totally dug the show, which ended with a fascinating description of the video above. From the site—

Look at frozen water through cross-polarized light, and zoom in with a macro lens, and you’ll find a colorful and intricate landscape. Edward Aites submitted this video to Science Friday. Aites, a photographer and videographer specializing in time-lapse, said he was looking for something to explore in his studio during the winter months and started playing around with ice. The results are mesmerizing.

Pretty awesome. Aites narrates the above video to explain a little but of what’s going on, but feel free to mute that and kick the Pink Floyd instead.

Then, our second video Find is again from our friend, Meredith Bragg and The Big Honkin. You may recall from our previous Find that Bragg + co. created and pretty great video spoofing Game of Thrones creator, George R.R. Martin. Well, now they’ve moved on to politics, bringing to task Hank the Cat, who is evidently running for Senate in the great state of Virginia…which is actually a commonwealth. We were never clear on the difference though, and we were raised there, so we’ll stick with ‘state.’ Take a look at the inspiring video for the soon-to-be-elected statescat, created by his feline Super Pac, and then the answering attack ad from The Big Honkin. It’s getting rough out there, Reader, be you a dog- or a cat-person. Reached for comment, Bragg claims his team is “just asking questions.” Just don’t make that cat cry, Bragg. Don’t make that cat cry.

The story’s been picked up by NPR, NBC’s The Today Show, many other news outlets who rightly think it’s hilarious. So congrats, TBH!

What you see is real, but you can’t see it this way with the naked eye. It is the result of thousands of 20-30 second exposures, edited together to produce the timelapse. This allows you to see the Milky Way, Aurora and other Phenonmena, in a way you wouldn’t normally see them.

In the opening “Dakotalapse” title shot, you see bands of red and green moving across the sky. After asking several Astronomers, they are possible noctilucent clouds, airglow or faint Aurora. I never got a definite answer to what it is. You can also see the red and green bands in other shots.

At :53 and 2:17 seconds into the video you see a Meteor with a Persistent Train. Which is ionizing gases, which lasted over a half hour in the cameras frame…. There is a second Meteor with a much shorter persistent train at 2:51 in the video. This one wasn’t backlit by the moon like the first, and moves out of the frame quickly.

You can read more from Halverson on his Vimeo page but just watch the video, ideally in full-screen mode. It’s outstanding.

Huelux from Randy Halverson on Vimeo.

Then, our second Find is from our friend, Meredith Bragg, who shot a pretty hilarious video for fans of George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Fire and Ice books and the HBO series, Game of Thrones, which returns to television April 1st. Playing Martin, Bragg’s father, who does look eerily like the prolific author. Check it out below. And hats off to the senior Bragg for a superbly deadpan performance.