Malcolm X: ‘The Ballot or The Bullet’ speech

On 21 February 1965, Black Nationalist leader Malcolm X was assassinated.
The following is a short film by Liam Donovon featuring a recording of The Ballot or the Bullet speech, set to music by the film’s director. Malcolm X was born in Omaha in 1925 as Malcolm Little. His father, a Baptist minister, was an [...]

Happy Birthday Bowie

Celebrities are fellow human beings who are better than us because lots of people know who they are. Everyone loves celebrities.
Even those who claim to despise celebrities would, if they were honest, prefer to share a drizzly afternoon birthday tea with a 60 year old David Bowie than spend one more second in my revolting [...]

Edie Sedgwick: “After Hours” video

Edie Sedgwick was born in 1943. She met Andy Warhol in 1965 and became one of the Factory regulars around March of that year. Warhol has often been blamed for Edie’s descent into drug addiction and mental illness but her family has a history of both.
She was first institutionalized in the autumn of 1962 [...]

“Lie to me…”

I have no use for the truth. There’s a dead piano in my basement and I ain’t no undertaker.

“Alice”

From 2004-11-23 London – part 4 of 10. Tom Waits sings “Straight to the Top” and “Alice.”
“The male spider, when he’s finished building his web, climbs up to the left hand corner, sticks out ‘the leg’ — it appears to be ‘the leg’ — and he, strums… the web.”

Mona Lisa descending a staircase

Found this truly devastating short film directed by Joan C. Gratz, in which images of the human face are subtly morphed to communicate the graphic style and emotional content of key 20th century artworks. It won the 1992 Academy Award for best animated short film. The soundtrack is pretty amazing too.