President Obama reads "Where the Wild Things Are"
President Obama reads "Where the Wild Things Are" to a group of kids at the White House.
http://www.associatedcontent.comvideo/230158/president_obama_reads_where_the_wild.html
Saturday, October 3, 2009
President Obama reads "Where the Wild Things Are"
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
Sunday, September 20, 2009
The Golden Record
"The Voyager Golden Record is a phonograph record included in the two Voyager spacecraft launched in 1977. It contains sounds and images selected to portray the diversity of life and culture on Earth. It is intended for any intelligent extraterrestrial life form, or far future humans, that may find it."
The sounds section contains greetings in 55 different languages, natural and man made sounds, and 90 minutes of music from around the world.
The images (115 of them) start w/mathematical formulas, show the development of humans (some nudity should you be showing it to kids), the earth's terrain, other creatures, food, architecture, tools, transportation and ends with a musical score and violin which correlates w/the last sound piece, Beethoven's string quartet No. 13.
Which leads to the question(s):
What would you put on a Rooftop Golden Record?
What has gone missing in Rooftop?
What do we want to remember?
Maya Lin What is Missing website
Here is Maya Lin's "What is Missing" site.
It has a slow scroll of her statement about what is missing (interesting & easy for kids to read) and there are 4 video demos about: unchopping a tree, the blue fin tuna, the prairie chicken, and the exhibit in China. Use the skinny white line on the right of the video to scroll down to see the other videos.
Sunday, August 23, 2009
Brainstorming innovation ideas for the classroom 8-21-09 PD
On Friday's PD, staff was given 3 minutes to brainstorm ideas on the theme of innovation and then pick the one they thought was best or that they wanted to work on. Here's the list. Notice any commonalities?
Innovation Notes
Brainstorming session led by Joyce 8-21-09
o Order books from SF public library online (students)
o Computer-aide music program – GarageBand
o Using blogs or the idea of text messaging in terms of communication
o Using library catalog ---move from cards(history/past) to electronic(now/present)
o Science – experiment --- follow directions -- innovate
o Look around --- observe --- think what you see -- create….
o Have kids create their own way to measure wind or rain
o Identify strength & area of need. Students help each other create toolbox rather than reinvent the wheel.
o Research that leads to prevention/cure of AIDS
o Innovative places/ways to write
o Recruitment for MathCounts- Dailies, posters, visit classrooms, rewards, integrate into curriculum
o Create your own game; make your own equipment for the game
o Student needs collaboration between services for success
o Show ‘n Tell: At least 3 times during the year, create something at home & tell how you made it & what it’s for
o New extensions on topics
o Deepen understanding
o Use types of cooking or different foods to design clay bowls appropriate to the food.
o Creative reuse of familiar object. Eg.- Galileo used opera glasses technology to make telescope
o Design paper, cardboard or wooden airplanes through looking at existing test planes
o Expressing creatively through self portraits
o Reading comics –encourages writing – reading – overcoming fear of self expression
o What can you do to create a process/organizer/check sheet for an essay or edit a paper that works for you
o Using innovative strategies in working with middle school girls…
o Early communities and collaboration
o Earth Day. Give a simple item for child to create something new
o Redesigning challenges
o Back to School Night during the day
o Local history ---- architecture---Academy of Sciences, GG Bridge, City Hall --- EQ retrofit --- seismology
o Ending with your product
Innovation Notes
Brainstorming session led by Joyce 8-21-09
o Order books from SF public library online (students)
o Computer-aide music program – GarageBand
o Using blogs or the idea of text messaging in terms of communication
o Using library catalog ---move from cards(history/past) to electronic(now/present)
o Science – experiment --- follow directions -- innovate
o Look around --- observe --- think what you see -- create….
o Have kids create their own way to measure wind or rain
o Identify strength & area of need. Students help each other create toolbox rather than reinvent the wheel.
o Research that leads to prevention/cure of AIDS
o Innovative places/ways to write
o Recruitment for MathCounts- Dailies, posters, visit classrooms, rewards, integrate into curriculum
o Create your own game; make your own equipment for the game
o Student needs collaboration between services for success
o Show ‘n Tell: At least 3 times during the year, create something at home & tell how you made it & what it’s for
o New extensions on topics
o Deepen understanding
o Use types of cooking or different foods to design clay bowls appropriate to the food.
o Creative reuse of familiar object. Eg.- Galileo used opera glasses technology to make telescope
o Design paper, cardboard or wooden airplanes through looking at existing test planes
o Expressing creatively through self portraits
o Reading comics –encourages writing – reading – overcoming fear of self expression
o What can you do to create a process/organizer/check sheet for an essay or edit a paper that works for you
o Using innovative strategies in working with middle school girls…
o Early communities and collaboration
o Earth Day. Give a simple item for child to create something new
o Redesigning challenges
o Back to School Night during the day
o Local history ---- architecture---Academy of Sciences, GG Bridge, City Hall --- EQ retrofit --- seismology
o Ending with your product
Tuesday, August 18, 2009
Innovation Song/Video
Here's the Innovation song/video through another link besides Youtube. Hopefully it can be seen at school now, though it is on a small screen.
Friday, August 14, 2009
Innovation Song/Video
Success! I have to remember to copy 'the embed' code from the youtube site and then just paste it into my blog post. The blogger help videos are actually quite helpful!
Thursday, August 13, 2009
Tuesday, August 11, 2009
The Spirit of Saint Louis
Louis Armstrong recorded "When the Saints Go Marching In," in 1938 and the song has remained a tried and true staple of American Music since then. There are close to 1,000 different recordings of the song, and the song received the distinction of being named a "Towering Song" by the Songwriters Hall of Fame. When a song achieves that level of fame, it becomes known as a "standard." Here you can listen to eleven different versions of the song by artists as different as Bruce Springsteen, Ray Charles, the Cincinnati Symphony, Fats Domino, The Preservation Hall Jazz Band, James Brown, and even the Beatles, whose version was on the "B" side of the their first commercial release in 1961. But it's Satchmo's version that people turn to capture that familiar New Orleans Spirit.
When the song was first played, the traditional use of the song was as a funeral march. In New Orleans, accompanying the coffin to the cemetary, the band would play the song slow and sad, but on the way back, after the funeral, the song would be played in an upbeat tempo. Louis said this about this tradition of the returning funeral parade, "the second line is a bunch of guys who follow the parade. They're not the members of the lodge or the club. Anybody can be a second liner. Whether they be raggedy or dressed up, they seemed to have more fun than anybody."
When the Saints Go Marching In
We are trav'ling in the footsteps
Of those who've gone before
But we'll all be reunited (but if we stand reunited)
On a new and sunlit shore (then a new world is in store)
O when the saints go marching in
When the saints go marching in
O Lord I want to be in that number
When the saints go marching in
And when the sun refuse (begins) to shine
And when the sun refuse (begins) to shine
O Lord I want to be in that number
When the saints go marching in
When the moon turns red with blood
When the moon turns red with blood
O Lord I want to be in that number
When the saints go marching in
On that hallelujah day
On that hallelujah day
O Lord I want to be in that number
When the saints go marching in
O when the trumpet sounds the call
O when the trumpet sounds the call
O Lord I want to be in that number
When the saints go marching in
Some say this world of trouble
Is the only one we need
But I'm waiting for that morning
When the new world is revealed
When the revelation (revolution) comes
When the revelation (revolution) comes
O Lord I want to be in that number
When the saints go marching in
When the rich go out and work
When the rich go out and work
O Lord I want to be in that number
When the saints go marching in
When the air is pure and clean
When the air is pure and clean
O Lord I want to be in that number
When the saints go marching in
When we all have food to eat
When we all have food to eat
O Lord I want to be in that number
When the saints go marching in
When our leaders learn to cry
When our leaders learn to cry
O Lord I want to be in that number
When the saints go marching in
OPENING ACTIVITY — MACHINE IMPROV
Mary Ann got the ball rolling with an idea...
we could do groups creating human rube goldberg machines.. then set them in motion to a rhythm someone in the group beats out and then have someone in the group film it or snap it. whichever groups want to get up and share can. then post/display them for all to enjoy!
ties in rube,tech,innovation, music,creative movement, improv,collaboration, creativity and fun!
in improv/theatre games it is called,"make an offer, take an offer", or the "yes, and..." game, where you take a suggestion and , add to it, tweak it, modify it..etc. so this is a starting place.. let's see where it will evolve into something fun for our starter!
A few more ideas get tossed in...
Maybe with the sound that you can incorporate your name in some interesting way to go with your movement? Maybe try adding the red ball in somehow too? And then of course you be sure to add the big invisible steering wheel or button adjust for the machines sound volume and speed.
...and we share some video examples of what we are talking about...
Improv Warm-Ups: Machines -- powered by eHow.com
The Warm Up activity goals are:
- Make sure everyone introduces themselves.
- Make sure that everyone can feel comfortable enough to say something, but keep it moving so you don't get anyone stopping the activity from picking up momentum.
- Make sure that you encourage people to work in a variety of social interactions: together in a big groups, in small groups (or partnering) and individually (quiet journaling + out there crazy collaborative games).
- Make sure that there is built in success for everyone.
- Make sure that it's fun, fun, fun.
- After everyone has fun, fun, fun, be sure to deconstruct the lesson in an engaging way. (so everyone understands the step — break it down — so they can duplicate the activity with their kids in the classroom)
- Allow for comments/reflection/journaling.
- Give everyone a take away sheet that outlines the activity so they have a way to remember. And put that info online for downloading too.
Monday, August 10, 2009
What to do with Your Leftover Post-It Notes...
Thought you might enjoy this Post-It Animation on YouTube.
The post-its would be a good material for kids to play with.
DEADLINE post-it stop motion
Directed by Bang-yao Liu
Music by Röyksopp (http://royksopp.com)
Sound design by Ian Vargo, Shaun Burdick
Actor: Chun-yao Huang
Music by Röyksopp (http://royksopp.com)
Sound design by Ian Vargo, Shaun Burdick
Actor: Chun-yao Huang
This is my senior project at Savannah College of Art and Design. Where my idea comes from is that every time when I am busy, I feel that I am not fighting with my works, I am fighting with those post-it notes and deadline. I manipulating the post-it notes to do pixel-like stop motion and there are some interactions between real actor and post-its.
And if you are wondering how they did it, and how much time it took..
DEADLINE the making of
Calling for the Innovation Station... All aboard!
The innovation bug bit me yesterday, so I sat down to bang out a website for the Innovation study.
http://web.me.com/rooftopart/ArtIsInnovation/Welcome.html
I was inspired by the innovative pairings that have taken shape.
I added Rube Goldberg and IDEO in... They are a nice local pairing with the same playful spirit.
And there was a need to consider the representation of the school community, and the muralists were a natural and on Lilli’s list.
There is an inherent study structure to look at how artists play with ideas through time with art and learn from those who came before them.
Let me know what you think. If anyone has specific content that they want included in the website, I can easily copy and paste in from an e-mail.
By studying these artistic pairings at different points in the timeline, we can see how ideas get passed on and played with across the long-line of time.
Through these pairings, we are once again looking at the Past, Present & Future (the kids).
But while the focus of last year’s “Art Is... Memory” study was about remembering the past through the lens of the present,
the focus this year’s “Art Is... Innovation” study is about imagining the future through the lens of today.
We’ve determined that the artist really never knows if he or she is truly innovating while doing.
The artist gives shape to the idea, does the work, and steps back and let others judge.
With art, humanity has a way to look back. Experiments and ideas are given shape, and change can be recorded.
Art gives humanity a way to record growth, Art is evidence of innovation.
THE STUDY OF MEDIA, TECHNOLOGY, ARCHITECTURE & DESIGN IS ALSO WRAPPED WITHIN ALL OF THESE IDEAS... AND TIME is a huge concept of the study.
On the resources section of the website, I’ve put up your brainstormed list of innovators in an Excel file on Innovators that can be downloaded in pdf form. This could be done with website links, books, etc.
****************
It is interesting to look at the family history of the some of artists that have been selected.
As children, their families endured great hardship, and their courses were set with extreme events.
Slavery and Jim Crow laws, WWI, poverty, bankruptcy, WWII, Internment camps, the Holocaust, the Mexican Revolution and the Cultural Revolution.
AND Because I’m totally obsessed with the parallels between now and then...
Here are some of facts that I discovered about 1923, prepare to be amazed!
On March 20, 1923, the Parent-Teachers Association was organized at Twin Peaks School.
On July 30, the San Francisco Board of Education voted that a kindergarten would be opened at Twin Peaks School.
AND
Warren G. Harding, the President of the United States dies in San Francisco, in the Palace Hotel.
Houdini escapes before 30,000 people, hanging upside down 100 feet up from the side of the Hearst Building at 3rd & Market.
San Francisco Opera has its first performance, La Bohème at the Civic Center.
The Steinhardt Aquarium opens its doors, and thousands come "viewing with evident awe the strange collection of water life gathered from all corners of the world."
Lombard Street is opened, designed so cars could manage the 27 degree hill slope.
The Crystal Palace, a San Francisco supermarket is opened.
The Whitney brothers, the founders of Playland, create a fast-photo finishing process that allow people to take their pictures once rather than having to wait for days.
The State Legislature passes the Golden Gate Bridge and Highway District Act of California into law, and Hetch Hetchy is built.
Walt & Roy Disney found The Disney Brothers Studios.
The Equal Rights Amendment is introduced in Congress.
The property of Black Mountain College is developed as a summer camp and inn in North Carolina.
Louis Armstrong is recorded in Chicago for the first time.
The concept of Planned Obsolescence is hatched.
Siqueiros helped found the Syndicate of Revolutionary Mexican Painters, Sculptors and Engravers, publishing a paper on the necessity of a “collective” art.
Laszlo Moholy-Nagy is appointed to the Bauhaus and introduces the ideas leading to the importance of typography in corporate identity in graphic design.
Hitler is arrested and charged with treason.
King Tut’s Burial Chamber is opened.
I whisper to you all, eyes wide in my best Sixth Sense voice... “I see connections...”
http://web.me.com/rooftopart/ArtIsInnovation/Welcome.html
I was inspired by the innovative pairings that have taken shape.
I added Rube Goldberg and IDEO in... They are a nice local pairing with the same playful spirit.
And there was a need to consider the representation of the school community, and the muralists were a natural and on Lilli’s list.
There is an inherent study structure to look at how artists play with ideas through time with art and learn from those who came before them.
Let me know what you think. If anyone has specific content that they want included in the website, I can easily copy and paste in from an e-mail.
WALT DISNEY >>> PIXAR
(FILM & ANIMATION & beyond, if you consider Steven Jobs role & Walt’s vision of EPCOT)
LOUIS ARMSTRONG >>> MARCUS SHELBY
(MUSIC LEADING TO SOCIAL CHANGE)
RUTH ASAWA @ Black Mountain College >>> MAYA LIN’s “What Is Missing” @ CAS
(EXPLORATION OF MATERIALS & FORM IN VISUAL ART)
MAURICE SENDAK On SENDAK @ CJM >>> LEMONY SNICKET
(LITERARY ARTS LEADING TO WORK IN OTHER ART FORMS)
SAN FRANCISCO OPERA >>> THE ADLER FELLOWS
(PERFORMING ARTS - COLLABORATIVE)
LOS TRES GRANDES: SIQUEIROS, OROZCO, RIVERA >>> JOSEF NORRIS
(COMMUNITY-BASED ART)
RUBE GOLDBERG >>> IDEO
(FLIGHTS OF FANCY LEADING TO INDUSTRIAL DESIGN & SOCIAL INNOVATION)
By studying these artistic pairings at different points in the timeline, we can see how ideas get passed on and played with across the long-line of time.
Through these pairings, we are once again looking at the Past, Present & Future (the kids).
But while the focus of last year’s “Art Is... Memory” study was about remembering the past through the lens of the present,
the focus this year’s “Art Is... Innovation” study is about imagining the future through the lens of today.
We’ve determined that the artist really never knows if he or she is truly innovating while doing.
The artist gives shape to the idea, does the work, and steps back and let others judge.
With art, humanity has a way to look back. Experiments and ideas are given shape, and change can be recorded.
Art gives humanity a way to record growth, Art is evidence of innovation.
THE STUDY OF MEDIA, TECHNOLOGY, ARCHITECTURE & DESIGN IS ALSO WRAPPED WITHIN ALL OF THESE IDEAS... AND TIME is a huge concept of the study.
On the resources section of the website, I’ve put up your brainstormed list of innovators in an Excel file on Innovators that can be downloaded in pdf form. This could be done with website links, books, etc.
Anyone want to take on the task to start an Excel file of books, emails, etc. with a sorting code that references the different works. Or everyone can agree on the format, and we can provide a template that you can add to and merge the date. Maybe Tamra & Rittenell could help too.
The file could start out small and be updated add as people contribute their ideas. Same with the innovator sheet.
If we could ID the downloadable lesson plans, and nail who will be responsible, it can be done pretty quickly.
****************
It is interesting to look at the family history of the some of artists that have been selected.
As children, their families endured great hardship, and their courses were set with extreme events.
Slavery and Jim Crow laws, WWI, poverty, bankruptcy, WWII, Internment camps, the Holocaust, the Mexican Revolution and the Cultural Revolution.
AND Because I’m totally obsessed with the parallels between now and then...
Here are some of facts that I discovered about 1923, prepare to be amazed!
On March 20, 1923, the Parent-Teachers Association was organized at Twin Peaks School.
On July 30, the San Francisco Board of Education voted that a kindergarten would be opened at Twin Peaks School.
AND
Warren G. Harding, the President of the United States dies in San Francisco, in the Palace Hotel.
Houdini escapes before 30,000 people, hanging upside down 100 feet up from the side of the Hearst Building at 3rd & Market.
San Francisco Opera has its first performance, La Bohème at the Civic Center.
The Steinhardt Aquarium opens its doors, and thousands come "viewing with evident awe the strange collection of water life gathered from all corners of the world."
Lombard Street is opened, designed so cars could manage the 27 degree hill slope.
The Crystal Palace, a San Francisco supermarket is opened.
The Whitney brothers, the founders of Playland, create a fast-photo finishing process that allow people to take their pictures once rather than having to wait for days.
The State Legislature passes the Golden Gate Bridge and Highway District Act of California into law, and Hetch Hetchy is built.
Walt & Roy Disney found The Disney Brothers Studios.
The Equal Rights Amendment is introduced in Congress.
The property of Black Mountain College is developed as a summer camp and inn in North Carolina.
Louis Armstrong is recorded in Chicago for the first time.
The concept of Planned Obsolescence is hatched.
Siqueiros helped found the Syndicate of Revolutionary Mexican Painters, Sculptors and Engravers, publishing a paper on the necessity of a “collective” art.
Laszlo Moholy-Nagy is appointed to the Bauhaus and introduces the ideas leading to the importance of typography in corporate identity in graphic design.
Hitler is arrested and charged with treason.
King Tut’s Burial Chamber is opened.
I whisper to you all, eyes wide in my best Sixth Sense voice... “I see connections...”
Monday, August 3, 2009
For #4-How is the ability to empathize and use multiple...
Since I can't seem to edit in green on JT's actual blog entry, I will put my suggestion in this post.
For # 4 , from the Getty Museum, a whole curriculum for all ages on "Historical Witness,
Social Messaging". It starts out with...
Over the course of history, powerful works of art have depicted examples of social injustice, utilized propagandistic techniques to exert power and sway public opinion, and communicated aspects of current events during times of war, slavery, racial and gender bias, and unfair labor practices.
This curriculum explores the many ways that art can provoke dialogue about the costs and consequences of significant events in U.S. and world history while simultaneously effecting social change and increasing awareness among individuals and governments.
There are lesson plans, an image bank and it's a great resource.
http://www.getty.edu/education/for_teachers/curricula/historical_witness/?cid=gtu031
For guiding question #6 ("fostering an atmosphere that encourages creativity and innovation") there is this advocacy article for the power of music by Ted Barone,
principal at Albany High School. I think he was my kids social studies teacher at AP Giannini!
It starts out:
The budget straits the state of California is facing are forcing our leaders to make a series of pernicious choices with legacy implications. One such choice is whether to fund music programming or refocus our funding priorities to the "core academics" (which happen to be those subjects tested in the statewide testing system).
I propose that we really don't have a choice. We must fund music.
From the rhythm of our breathing as infants...
This is a good question to pose to our children as well. They are constantly bombarded with preparing for the "test", and the underlying premise that the "core" academic subjects are the ones to value. How does this focus help our students think outside the box?
http://tinyurl.com/m86kja
Saturday, August 1, 2009
7 guiding questions RD of activities - add to it!
Started a rough draft activity list. Feel free to add in green. If you're viewing this blog, then:
- Log on
- click on the e icon at the left top of the blog
- go to the 'Innovation' blog', 'edit post'
- select this one (7 guiding questions...)
- add your changes
- publish post
If THE BIG IDEA is: INNOVATION is a creative and collaborative response to a problem worth solving.
THEN: The study should allow for exploration of “worth” - this idea of value.
“ART IS INNOVATION” LINE OF INQUIRY:
How do artists explore diverse perspectives and processes to work on problems worth solving?
Guiding Question #1:
How do artists observe and identify problems worth solving?
What were the problems Pixar artists identifying in Wall-E?.
Guiding Question #2:
How do both play and hard work foster innovative thinking?
- Explore improvisation with exercises that involve theater improv, call & response, scatting, visual mindmapping, mirror dancing & drawing.
Guiding Question #3:
How can we grow by challenging ourselves and working through failure?
- -look at examples of struggle and success on the blog
- watch the video about Nick Vujucic
Keep on Keeping On! Thoughts on the Benefit of Failure
- look at / read about Disney's 1st clips, how his idea was stolen, but he went on to create another cartoon icon and other innovations.
Guiding Question #4:
How is the ability to empathize and use multiple perspectives important to effective problem solving?
- What perspectives is Maya Lin using in her latest memorial? What is she empathizing with?
- 6 blind men and the elephant story. Blind feel. Group participants in 4s. Give each member a different piece of an object in a bag to feel only. They have to describe their piece to other members and try to figure out the object.
- 3 blind mice and the elephant story. (different version of the 6 blind men.)
- A perspective story (video). Uses seasons as the different parts 4 sons see.
Guiding Question #5:
How do artists use materials and experiment with artistic forms?
- Disney clips
- Maya Lin study
- Ruth Asawa study
- Marcus Shelby study
- Joseph Norris study
Guiding Question #6:
How can we foster an atmosphere that encourages creativity and innovation?
Guiding Question #7:
How have artists used their creativity and art to help others?
- Fundred Bill
- Burma project
- Playing for Change
- Creativity Explored
- Study of our artists in residence or from past studies (Ruth, Shannon, Marcus, Josef,
- The Concert for Bangledesh
- SF Mime Troup and politics
- Marcus Shelby and Port Chicago work, the civil rights movement on the west coast
- Bono & other stars and their charitable work
or
How does creative thinking push us to imagine new possibilities in solving problems?
AC 7-22-09 notes 7 Guiding ?s
If THE BIG IDEA is: INNOVATION is a creative and collaborative response to a problem worth solving.
THEN: The study should allow for exploration of “worth” - this idea of value.
“ART IS INNOVATION” LINE OF INQUIRY:
How do artists explore diverse perspectives and processes to work on problems worth solving?
Guiding Question #1:
How do artists observe and identify problems worth solving?
Guiding Question #2:
How do both play and hard work foster innovative thinking?
Guiding Question #3:
How can we grow by challenging ourselves and working through failure?
Guiding Question #4:
How is the ability to empathize and use multiple perspectives important to effective problem solving?
Guiding Question #5:
How do artists use materials and experiment with artistic forms?
Guiding Question #6:
How can we foster an atmosphere that encourages creativity and innovation?
Guiding Question #7:
How have artists used their creativity and art to help others?
or
How does creative thinking push us to imagine new possibilities in solving problems?
Harness that Incredible, Generative, Capacity
Here is an article that shows how we have plenty of company on board with our theme of Innovation and creative habits of thinking. Obama sees the importance of recapturing the
"spirit of innovation" to build a stronger foundation for our country's future.
And the future is our children-right!
Obama: 'Spirit of innovation' key to the future August 01, 2009 9:33 AM EDT WASHINGTON - President Barack Obama, citing fresh evidence the recession is winding down, says the country's future economic prosperity depends on building a new, stronger foundation and recapturing the "spirit of innovation." "Innovation has been essential to our prosperity in the past, and it will be essential to our prosperity in the future," Obama said Saturday in his weekly radio and Internet address. The president cited Friday's Commerce Department report showing that in the last few months the economy overall has done "measurably better than expected." He credited his $787 billion economic stimulus program for much of that progress. "This and the other difficult but important steps that we have taken over the last six months have helped put the brakes on this recession," Obama said. He mentioned his administration's efforts to limit home foreclosures and unlock frozen credit markets to encourage lending to people and businesses, along with the mixture of tax cuts and spending included in the stimulus program. Obama reminded the nation that full recovery will not happen overnight, but rather will take many more months. "Even as we rescue this economy, we must work to rebuild it stronger than before," he said. "We've got to build a new foundation strong enough to withstand future economic storms and support lasting prosperity." That means having the best-educated, highest-skilled workers in the world, a health care system that fosters innovation by holding the line on costs, building a clean energy economy and investing in research and development, Obama said. "It is only by building a new foundation that we will once again harness that incredible generative capacity of the American people," the president said. "All it takes are the policies to tap that potential - to ignite that spark of creativity and ingenuity - which has always been at the heart of who we are and how we succeed." Obama said he will discuss the foundation he wants when he makes a second visit to Elkhart, Ind., on Wednesday. Layoffs in the recreational vehicle industry account for much of the job loss in northern Indiana, which is struggling with an unemployment rate near 17 percent. "For communities like Elkhart to thrive, we need to recapture that spirit of innovation that has always moved America forward," he said. Senior administration officials, including Vice President Joe Biden, are likely to discuss those issues during meetings Saturday to assess administration progress at the six-month mark and plot a course ahead. Obama was headed to Camp David for the weekend, and was not expected to participate in the sessions.
Thursday, July 30, 2009
A Trip Down the Rabbit Hole and Back Up with Walt Disney
Thanks to the invention of YouTube, today it takes only the click of a mouse to witness the evolution of the animated film. Walt Disney, the alter-ego of Mickey Mouse, was one of the most far-reaching American innovators of all time. Today, you can hardly find a place on earth that hasn't been touched by Disney's imagination.
The Disney Brothers Studio was launched in 1923 with the purchase of a used camera for $200. There were many failures and setbacks on the road to success. Disney was constantly pushing the envelope, often putting himself in financial jeopardy, for the sake of tackling a problem that he was determined to solve. He said, "I've always had a feeling that any time you can experiment, you ought to do it. Because you never know what will happen."
Enjoy this look back at some of Walt Disney's most innovative experiments.
Alice Gets in Dutch (1924) — Disney's first silent movies featured a real-life Alice who travels to an animated cartoon land.
"Trolly Troubles" Oswald the Lucky Rabbit (1924) — Disney's first successful animated character, Oswald the Rabbit, was stolen from him, leading to the creation of Mickey Mouse. (The soundtrack to this originally silent movie is an addition)
Plane Crazy (1928) — The first adventures of Mickey Mouse and Minnie Mouse were silent, inspired by the adventures of aviator Charles Lindberg. After Disney's setback with the theft of Oswald, animator Ub Uwerks worked in secret to created over 8,000 drawings to make the cartoon. Carl Stalling's soundtrack was added later.
Steamboat Willie (1928) — The first animated cartoon with sound
The Band Concert (1928) — The first color Mickey Mouse cartoon using the Technicolor process
Snow White (1938) — Trailer for Disney's first animated feature-length movie, "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs"
How Disney Movies Are Made (1938) — A documentary outlining Disney's process to create the first animated feature-length movie, "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs"
The Disneyland Story (1954) — The first episode of Disney's new television show that helped to fund and promote Walt's new family theme park, "Disneyland." The show was filmed in color, even though the show was broadcast in black and white. Disney knew that not too far in the future, television would be broadcast in color.
With Disneyland, DisneyWorld and EPCOT, Disney's experiments went beyond animation to explore the possibilities of a completely new kind of entertainment experience that Disney called "imagineering." Imagineers include artists, writers, architects, landscape architects, engineers, model builders, construction managers, technicians and designers.
The Walt Disney Studios 2009's offering of animated movies can be seen in a theater near you!
The Frog and the Princess (2oo9) marks a return to hand-drawn animation and features Disney's first African American princess, Tiana, who lives in New Orleans during the Jazz Age.
Up (2oo9) from Disney/Pixar is presented in digital 3-D.
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