Tag: var-scpt

Before anime, Japanese paper theater entertained 1-million kids a day

See sample pages from this book at Wink. Manga Kamishibai: The Art of Japanese Paper Theater by Eric P. Nash Abrams ComicArts 2009, 304 pages, 8.6 x 9.2 x 1.1 inches $29 Buy a copy on Amazon Manga Kamishibai tells and shows the fascinating history of Japanese paper theater, a lost storytelling form and the link between Edo-era Japanese ukiyo-e prints and modern day manga and television. I say “and shows” because this art form combined the spoken word with compelling visuals in uniquely Japanese storytelling performances and this book is rich with many wonderful reproductions of the hand-painted artwork. Picture this: In devastated post-WWII Tokyo, a man stops his bicycle on a street corner. On the back of his bike is mounted a large, sixty-pound wooden box. The man flips a few panels around to reveal a stage-like picture frame. He noisily clacks together two wooden sticks, hiyogoshi , to call the neighborhood children. As they gather to see and hear the free show, the man sells them home-made penny candies, including a not-too-sweet taffy that’s pulled and stretched using a chopstick (like today’s movie business, the real money is in the profitable concessions!). The paying customers get a front row seat to the performance. The man slides a sequence of large, colorful panels in the frame “screen” as he tells adventure stories, quizzes the audience, and weaves tales of suspense, all with character voices and sound effects. As the story ends on a dramatic, to-be-continued cliff-hanger, the man packs up his two-wheel theater and pedals away … until next time. They are all but vanished now, but these performances date back to the 1930s when 2,500 kamishibaiya in Tokyo alone entertained 1 million kids a day. Any fan of manga, anime, as well as comics in general will devour this book. The reproductions of the lurid images of action heroes, monsters, villains, and damsels in distress in the stories embody a potent mix of influences: Japanese ink brush work, movie posters, silent film and cinematic design, and plenty of Western references. The army of artists that painted these panels freely borrowed from many genres, from Betty Boop to folk tales. In turn, kamishibai set the stage for the manga and anime that took its place (many of the same artists moved along with them). As the advent of television made these live street performances obsolete (television was first called denki kamishibai , or “electric paper theater”), the artists lifted from popular TV shows for their dying art form. Holy copy-cat, Batman! You’ll enjoy the witty captions, wide–ranging historical references and the clever writing style. This book also shows and tells how kamishibai was used to disseminate news, spread propaganda, illustrate war survival techniques, and fight prejudices. In a parallel to the congressional hearings and criticism by Wertham of the U.S. comic makers, kamishibai also was investigated and regulated. You’ll read (and see) other interesting facts, like the technological and historical reason why comics have always been an important media form in Japan. (Hint: what if your language doesn’t suit itself to using Gutenberg’s movable type?). Manga Kamishibai is a real treat for any fan of Japanese pop culture (candy not included).

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Before anime, Japanese paper theater entertained 1-million kids a day

Disneyland’s Tower of Terror is turning into a Guardians of the Galaxy ride

The beloved Tower of Terror ride at Disneyland California Adventure features some of the most elaborate themeing and set-dressing of any of Disney’s built environments, consisting of a series of staged scenes that are reminiscent of interactive theater troupe Punchdrunk’s sets, followed by a spectacular thrill-ride — it rarely has less than a 30 minute wait. (more…)

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Disneyland’s Tower of Terror is turning into a Guardians of the Galaxy ride

University of Oxford acquires rare map of Middle-earth annotated by Tolkien

The Bodleian Libraries at Oxford acquired a recently-discovered map of Middle-earth annotated by JRR Tolkien , “which reveals his remarkable vision of the creatures, topography and heraldry of his imagined world where The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings take place. The annotated map went unseen for decades until October 2015 when Blackwell’s Rare Books in Oxford put the map on display and offered it for sale.” (Thanks, Gary Price!)

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University of Oxford acquires rare map of Middle-earth annotated by Tolkien

Medieval music recreated and performed for the first time in 1000 years

https://youtu.be/PwAKPIUKAyM ‘Songs of Consolation,’ performed at Pembroke College Chapel in Cambridge last month, was the first airing in a 1000 years of a medieval tune the way it would have been. …reconstructed from neumes (symbols representing musical notation in the Middle Ages) and draws heavily on an 11th century manuscript leaf that was stolen from Cambridge and presumed lost for 142 years… Hundreds of Latin songs were recorded in neumes from the 9th through to the 13th century. These included passages from the classics by Horace and Virgil, late antique authors such as Boethius, and medieval texts from laments to love songs. However, the task of performing such ancient works today is not as simple as reading and playing the music in front of you. 1,000 years ago, music was written in a way that recorded melodic outlines, but not ‘notes’ as today’s musicians would recognise them; relying on aural traditions and the memory of musicians to keep them alive. Because these aural traditions died out in the 12th century, it has often been thought impossible to reconstruct ‘lost’ music from this era – precisely because the pitches are unknown. They believe they’ve pieced together about 80-90% of the melodies. The performers are Benjamin Bagby, Hanna Marti and Norbert Rodenkirchen. Here’s more: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q14wI3cZoDQ

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Medieval music recreated and performed for the first time in 1000 years

British Library posts 1m copyright-free images online

The British Library has posted over a million copyright free images taken from books prior to 1900 on Flickr. That means if you need decorations of virtually any type for a website or book, you’ll find more than you can imagine among these visual riches. Just click through! [Via Digital Arts Online ]

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British Library posts 1m copyright-free images online

Hackers take $81M from Bangladesh’s central bank by pwning its $10 second-hand routers

The central bank of Bangladesh lost $81M in a digital heist whose perpetrators have not been caught, thanks in large part to the bank’s decision to run its computers without a firewall, and to run networking with second-hand cheapie routers it sourced for $10 each. (more…)

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Hackers take $81M from Bangladesh’s central bank by pwning its $10 second-hand routers

Piracy dooms motion picture industry to yet another record-breaking box-office year

Once again the MPAA has released its box-office numbers for the year, and once again, this year has smashed all records (as has been the case throughout our young century ) ( really !). As always, the astronomical rise-and-rise of their fortunes is somehow used to launch a call for more publicly subsidized enforcement against “piracy.” (more…)

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Piracy dooms motion picture industry to yet another record-breaking box-office year

Radiooooo: Pick a country, pick a decade, and listen to the popular music of the era

Radiooooo lets you pick a decade and a country, and will dispense popular music created then and there. (Note the “weird” option, disabled by default.) Thanks to this, I rediscovered Blue Boy’s Remember Me (UK, 1990s, fast, weird), which remixes Marlena Shaw’s Woman of the Ghetto into something very different. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fKKNPLowteY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jMOGy3MXQSA

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Radiooooo: Pick a country, pick a decade, and listen to the popular music of the era

Rare Shakespeare’s First Folio found in Scottish isle

A rare copy of Shakespeare’s First Folio turned up on a Scottish island, reports the BBC . Only 230 copies are known to exist, or thereabouts, and the last to be sold fetched £3.5m (about $5m) in 2003 and £2.8m in 2006. Countless fakes are knocking around, too. This copy of the first collected edition of Shakespeare’s plays, published in 1623, was found at Mount Stuart House on the Isle of Bute. Academics who authenticated the book called it a rare and significant find. … Emma Smith, professor of Shakespeare studies at Oxford University, said her first reaction on being told the stately home was claiming to have an original First Folio was: “Like hell they have.” But when she inspected the three-volume book she found it was authentic. The folio represents the first legitimate compendium of Shakespeare’s work; we wouldn’t have much of Macbeth were it not for its publication, among many other works preserved in it.

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Rare Shakespeare’s First Folio found in Scottish isle