Graphic version of the Dunning-Kruger Effect?

April 13, 2011

Mark at Sting of Reason may have the graph to illustrate the Dunning-Kruger Effect perfectly:

Saturday Morning Breakfast Comics for March 8, 2011

Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal for March 8, 2011, via Sting of Reason

Original here, at Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal.

Does that pretty well nail Dunning-Kruger, or what?


Then and now: Capitalism vs. Labor 1883, and today

April 2, 2011

Alas, it’s almost exactly the same now as then:

"Tournament of Today:  A set-to between Labor and Monopoly," Cartoon by Frederick Graetz, Puck Magazine, August 1, 1883 (from files of Georgia State University); click image for a larger view at Georgia State

“Tournament of Today: A set-to between Labor and Monopoly,” Cartoon by Frederick Graetz, Puck Magazine, August 1, 1883 (from files of Georgia State University); click image for a larger view at Georgia State

Information on the cartoon, from SuperITCH: Frederick Graetz, a chromolithograph that was the center spread for Puck Magazine‘s issue of August 1, 1883.  Monopolists portrayed are, from left to right, “businessman, financier and telecommunications pioneer Cyrus Field; railroad tycoon William Vanderbilt; shipbuilding magnate John Roach; financier, railroad mogul, and speculator Jay Gould; and an unknown monopolist.”  Some might say that the “unknown monopolist” bears a striking resemblance to one of the Koch brothers, but that’s fanciful thinking.

Cartoon - Labor vs Monopoly, Graetz, Puck 8-1-1883 (GSU image)

Labor vs Monopoly – click on this image for a larger version of this historic Puck Magazine cartoon

Tip of the old scrub brush to One Penny Sheet’s “condemned to repeat” feature.

More:


Another Brazilian wins Lurie Cartoon Award from UN Correspondents

March 20, 2011

2010’s Lurie Award Winner for cartooning was another Brazilian — as in 2007.  The subject is global warming, with a wistful look at what might happen:

Lurie Award Winner, 2010 - Raimundo Waldez Da C. Duarte in Amazonia, in Brazil

Lurie Award Winner, 2010 - Raimundo Waldez Da C. Duarte in the publication Amazonia, in Brazil

Ice continues to melt at the South Pole, alas.  How to break it to the penguins?

Cartoonist Raimundo Waldez Da C. Duarte, Amazonia, Brazil

Cartoonist Raimundo Waldez Da C. Duarte, Amazonia, Brazil

Raimundo Waldez Da C. Duarte took $10,000  from the award.  He cartoons for Amazonia in Brazil.

You may view the 1st, 2nd and 3rd place cartoons, and ten citations for excellence, at the Lurie Award site.


Dunning-Kruger effect — in a cartoon?

February 18, 2011

A cartoon from Jon Wilkins at the Santa Fe Institute, no less.

Dunning Kruger Effect, cartoon by Jon F. Wilkins

Dunning-Kruger Effect by jonfwilkins

(Yeah, I know — it’s not big.  Click the image, go see a bigger version at Wilkins’s site.)

Wilkins added:

Kruger, J., & Dunning, D. (1999). Unskilled and unaware of it: How difficulties in recognizing one’s own incompetence lead to inflated self-assessments. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 77 (6), 1121-1134 DOI: 10.1037/0022-3514.77.6.1121

Earlier and other flotsam in Millard Fillmore’s Bathtub:

  1. “Quote of the moment:  Bertrand Russell on the Dunning-Kruger Effect, 64 years prescient”
  2. Dunning Kruger Effect explained, with links

Tip of the old scrub brush to Jason G. Goldman at The Thoughtful Animal.


A day that will live in obscurity

January 8, 2011

Except of course for you, Dear Reader, who knew that January 7 is the anniversary of the birth of Millard Fillmore, our 13th president.

But, did Brian Crane know that when he penned this Pickles strip for January 7?

Pickles cartoon strip, for January 7, 2011

Pickles cartoon strip, for January 7, 2011 - Brian Crane, Washington Post Writers Group

Could it really be just coincidence that Crane picked Fillmore for the punchline, on Fillmore’s birthday?  Or is it really that great an inside joke?


Historical inquiries at Christmas: Who invented Santa Claus? Who really wrote “Account of a Visit from St. Nicholas?”

December 24, 2010

An encore post from 2007

Thomas Nast invented Santa Claus? Clement C. Moore didn’t write the famous poem that starts out, “‘Twas the night before Christmas, and all through the house . . . ?”

The murky waters of history from Millard Fillmore’s Bathtub soak even our most cherished ideas and traditions.

But isn’t that part of the fun of history?

Santa Claus delivers to Union soldiers, "Santa Claus in Camp" - Thomas Nast, Harper's Weekly, Jan 3, 1863

Thomas Nast’s first published drawing featuring Santa Claus; for Harper’s Weekly, “A Journal of Civilization,” January 3, 1863 Nast portrayed the elf distributing packages to Union troops: “Santa Claus in camp.” Nast (1840-1904) was 23 when he drew this image.

Yes, Virginia (and California, too)! Thomas Nast created the image of Santa Claus most of us in the U.S. know today. Perhaps even more significant than his campaign against the graft of Boss Tweed, Nast’s popularization of a fat, jolly elf who delivers good things to people for Christmas makes one of the great stories in commercial illustration. Nast’s cartoons, mostly for the popular news publication Harper’s Weekly, created many of the conventions of modern political cartooning and modeled the way in which an illustrator could campaign for good, with his campaign against the graft of Tammany Hall and Tweed. But Nast’s popular vision of Santa Claus can be said to be the foundation for the modern mercantile flurry around Christmas.

Nast is probably ensconced in a cartoonists’ hall of fame. Perhaps he should be in a business or sales hall of fame, too. [See also Bill Casselman’s page, “The Man Who Designed Santa Claus.]

Nast’s drawings probably drew some inspiration from the poem, “Account of a Visit from St. Nicholas,” traditionally attributed to Clement C. Moore, a New York City lawyer, published in 1822. The poem is among the earliest to describe the elf dressed in fur, and magically coming down a chimney to leave toys for children; the poem invented the reindeer-pulled sleigh.

Modern analysis suggests the poem was not the work of Moore, and many critics and historians now attribute it to Major Henry Livingston, Jr. (1748-1828) following sleuthing by Vassar College Prof. Don Foster in 2000. Fortunately for us, we do not need to be partisans in such a query to enjoy the poem (a complete copy of which is below the fold).

The Library of Congress still gives Moore the credit. When disputes arise over who wrote about the night before Christmas, is it any wonder more controversial topics produce bigger and louder disputes among historians?

Moore was not known for being a poet. The popular story is that he wrote it on the spur of the moment:

Moore is thought to have composed the tale, now popularly known as “The Night Before Christmas,” on December 24, 1822, while traveling home from Greenwich Village, where he had bought a turkey for his family’s Christmas dinner.

Inspired by the plump, bearded Dutchman who took him by sleigh on his errand through the snow-covered streets of New York City, Moore penned A Visit from St. Nicholas for the amusement of his six children, with whom he shared the poem that evening. His vision of St. Nicholas draws upon Dutch-American and Norwegian traditions of a magical, gift-giving figure who appears at Christmas time, as well as the German legend of a visitor who enters homes through chimneys.

Again from the Library of Congress, we get information that suggests that Moore was a minor celebrity from a well-known family with historical ties that would make a good “connections” exercise in a high school history class, perhaps (”the link from Aaron Burr’s treason to Santa Claus?”):

Clement Moore was born in 1779 into a prominent New York family. His father, Benjamin Moore, president of Columbia University, in his role as Episcopal Bishop of New York participated in the inauguration of George Washington as the nation’s first president. The elder Moore also administered last rites to Alexander Hamilton after he was mortally wounded in a tragic duel with Aaron Burr.

A graduate of Columbia, Clement Moore was a scholar of Hebrew and a professor of Oriental and Greek literature at the General Theological Seminary in Manhattan. [See comment from Pam Bumsted below for more on Moore.] He is said to have been embarrassed by the light-hearted verse, which was made public without his knowledge in December 1823. Moore did not publish it under his name until 1844.

Tonight, American children will be tucked in under their blankets and quilts and read this beloved poem as a last “sugarplum” before slipping into dreamland. Before they drift off, treat them to a message from Santa, recorded by the Thomas Edison Company in 1922.

Santa Claus Hides in Your Phonograph
By Arthur A. Penn, Performed by Harry E. Humphrey.
Edison, 1922.
Coupling date: 6/20/1922. Cutout date: 10/31/1929.
Inventing Entertainment: The Motion Pictures and Sound Recordings of the Edison Companies

Listen to this recording (RealAudio Format)

Listen to this recording (wav Format, 8,471 Kb)

But Henry Livingston was no less noble or historic. He hailed from the Livingtons of the Hudson Valley (one of whose farms is now occupied by Camp Rising Sun of the Louis August Jonas Foundation, a place where I spent four amazing summers teaching swimming and lifesaving). Livingston’s biography at the University of Toronto site offers another path for a connections exercise (”What connects the Declaration of Independence, the American invasion of Canada, the famous poem about a visit from St. Nick, and George W. Bush?”):

Henry Livingston Jr. was born in Poughkeepsie, New York, on Oct. 13, 1748. The Livingston family was one of the important colonial and revolutionary families of New York. The Poughkeepsie branch, descended from Gilbert, the youngest son of Robert Livingston, 1st Lord of Livingston Manor, was not as well off as the more well-known branches, descended from sons Robert and Philip. Two other descendants of Gilbert Livingston, President George Walker Herbert Bush and his son, President-Elect George W. Bush, though, have done their share to bring attention to this line. Henry’s brother, Rev. John Henry Livingston, entered Yale at the age of 12, and was able to unite the Dutch and American branches of the Dutch Reformed Church. At the time of his death, Rev. Livingston was president of Rutgers University. Henry’s father and brother Gilbert were involved in New York politics, and Henry’s granduncle was New York’s first Lt. Governor. But the law was the natural home for many of Henry’s family. His brother-in-law, Judge Jonas Platt, was an unsuccessful candidate for governor, as was his daughter Elizabeth’s husband, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Smith Thompson. Henry’s grandson, Sidney Breese, was Chief Justice of the Illinois Supreme Court.

Known for his encyclopedic knowledge and his love of literature, Henry Livingston was a farmer, surveyor and Justice of the Peace, a judicial position dealing with financially limited criminal and civil cases. One of the first New Yorkers to enlist in the Revolutionary Army in 1775, Major Henry Livingston accompanied his cousin’s husband, General Montgomery, in his campaign up the Hudson River to invade Canada, leaving behind his new wife, Sarah Welles, and their week-old baby, on his Poughkeepsie property, Locust Grove. Baby Catherine was the subject of the first poem currently known by Major Livingston. Following this campaign, Livingston was involved in the War as a Commissioner of Sequestration, appropriating lands owned by British loyalists and selling them for the revolutionary cause. It was in the period following Sarah’s early death in 1783, that Major Livingston published most of his poems and prose, anonymously or under the pseudonym of R. Ten years after the death of Sarah, Henry married Jane Patterson, the daughter of a Dutchess County politician and sister of his next-door neighbor. Between both wives, Henry fathered twelve children. He published his good-natured, often occasional verse from 1787 in many journals, including Political Barometer, Poughkeepsie Journal, and New-York Magazine. His most famous poem, “Account of a Visit from St. Nicholas,” was until 2000 thought to have been the work of Clement Clarke Moore (1779-1863), who published it with his collected poems in 1844. Livingston died Feb. 29, 1828.

More on Henry Livingston and his authorship of the Christmas poem here.
Thomas Nast, Merry Old Santa Claus, Harper's Weekly, Jan 1, 1881

Our views of Santa Claus owe a great deal also to the Coca-Cola advertising campaign. Coca-Cola first noted Santa’s use of the drink in a 1922 campaign to suggest Coke was a year-round drink (100 years after the publication of Livingston’s poem). The company’s on-line archives gives details:

In 1930, artist Fred Mizen painted a department store Santa in a crowd drinking a bottle of Coke. The ad featured the world’s largest soda fountain, which was located in the department store of Famous Barr Co. in St. Louis, Mo. Mizen’s painting was used in print ads that Christmas season, appearing in The Saturday Evening Post in December 1930.

1936 Coca-Cola Santa cardboard store display

1936 Coca-Cola Santa cardboard store display

  • 1936 Coca-Cola Santa cardboard store display
1942 original oil painting - 'They Remembered Me'

1942 original oil painting - ‘They Remembered Me’

Archie Lee, the D’Arcy Advertising Agency executive working with The Coca-Cola Company, wanted the next campaign to show a wholesome Santa as both realistic and symbolic. In 1931, The Coca-Cola Company commissioned Michigan-born illustrator Haddon Sundblom to develop advertising images using Santa Claus — showing Santa himself, not a man dressed as Santa, as Mizen’s work had portrayed him.

  • 1942 original oil painting – ‘They Remembered Me’

For inspiration, Sundblom turned to Clement Clark Moore’s 1822 poem “A Visit From St. Nicholas” (commonly called “‘Twas the Night Before Christmas”). Moore’s description of St. Nick led to an image of Santa that was warm, friendly, pleasantly plump and human. For the next 33 years, Sundblom painted portraits of Santa that helped to create the modern image of Santa — an interpretation that today lives on in the minds of people of all ages, all over the world.

Santa Claus is a controversial figure. Debates still rage among parents about the wisdom of allowing the elf into the family’s home, and under what conditions. Theologians worry that the celebration of Christmas is diluted by the imagery. Other faiths worry that the secular, cultural impact of Santa Claus damages their own faiths (few other faiths have such a popular figure, and even atheists generally give gifts and participate in Christmas rituals such as putting up a decorated tree).

For over 100 years, Santa Claus has been a popular part of commercial, cultural and religious life in America. Has any other icon endured so long, or so well?

________________________
Below:
From the University of Toronto Library’s Representative Poetry Online

Major Henry Livingston, Jr. (1748-1828)

Account of a Visit from St. Nicholas

1 ‘Twas the night before Christmas, when all thro’ the house,
2 Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse;
3 The stockings were hung by the chimney with care,
4 In hopes that St. Nicholas soon would be there;
5 The children were nestled all snug in their beds,
6 While visions of sugar plums danc’d in their heads,
7 And Mama in her ‘kerchief, and I in my cap,
8 Had just settled our brains for a long winter’s nap –
9 When out on the lawn there arose such a clatter,
10 I sprang from the bed to see what was the matter.
11 Away to the window I flew like a flash,
12 Tore open the shutters, and threw up the sash.
13 The moon on the breast of the new fallen snow,
14 Gave the lustre of mid-day to objects below;
15 When, what to my wondering eyes should appear,
16 But a miniature sleigh, and eight tiny rein-deer,
17 With a little old driver, so lively and quick,
18 I knew in a moment it must be St. Nick.
19 More rapid than eagles his coursers they came,
20 And he whistled, and shouted, and call’d them by name:
21 “Now! Dasher, now! Dancer, now! Prancer, and Vixen,
22 “On! Comet, on! Cupid, on! Dunder and Blixem;
23 “To the top of the porch! to the top of the wall!
24 “Now dash away! dash away! dash away all!”
25 As dry leaves before the wild hurricane fly,
26 When they meet with an obstacle, mount to the sky;
27 So up to the house-top the coursers they flew,
28 With the sleigh full of Toys — and St. Nicholas too:
29 And then in a twinkling, I heard on the roof
30 The prancing and pawing of each little hoof.
31 As I drew in my head, and was turning around,
32 Down the chimney St. Nicholas came with a bound:
33 He was dress’d all in fur, from his head to his foot,
34 And his clothes were all tarnish’d with ashes and soot;
35 A bundle of toys was flung on his back,
36 And he look’d like a peddler just opening his pack:
37 His eyes — how they twinkled! his dimples how merry,
38 His cheeks were like roses, his nose like a cherry;
39 His droll little mouth was drawn up like a bow.
40 And the beard of his chin was as white as the snow;
41 The stump of a pipe he held tight in his teeth,
42 And the smoke it encircled his head like a wreath.
43 He had a broad face, and a little round belly
44 That shook when he laugh’d, like a bowl full of jelly:
45 He was chubby and plump, a right jolly old elf,
46 And I laugh’d when I saw him in spite of myself;
47 A wink of his eye and a twist of his head
48 Soon gave me to know I had nothing to dread.
49 He spoke not a word, but went straight to his work,
50 And fill’d all the stockings; then turn’d with a jerk,
51 And laying his finger aside of his nose
52 And giving a nod, up the chimney he rose.
53 He sprung to his sleigh, to his team gave a whistle,
54 And away they all flew, like the down of a thistle:
55 But I heard him exclaim, ere he drove out of sight –
56 Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good night.

Online text copyright © 2005, Ian Lancashire for the Department of English, University of Toronto. Published by the Web Development Group, Information Technology Services, University of Toronto Libraries. Be sure to visit this site for more information on this poem, on Maj. Livingston, and on poetry in general.

Nota bene: By no means should readers assume that I’m saying the authorship of  “A Visit from St. Nicholas” is settled.  There remains much controversy, and many people convinced that Moore was, indeed, the author.  See this comment from an earlier posting, for example.


Christmas greetings, unapproved by Dallas First Baptist Grinchlist

December 23, 2010

This video does NOT have the seal of approval from Dallas First Baptist Church.  Also, the composer of the song was Jewish.  Reasoning Person discretion advised:

A 2007 post on YouTube, with these details:

Sung by The Drifters. Cartoon by Joshua Held.
Featuring Bill Pinkney on lead bass and Clyde McPhatter on tenor.
An animated Christmas Card, and a homage to a great song, a great band, and a great Holiday.

More me on: http://www.joshuaheld.com

Tip of the old scrub brush to Oh,  For Goodness Sake.

__________

Some guy, Melvin Rose,  posted this comment on a Dallas Morning News blog about First Baptist’s Grinchiness:

Pastor Jeffress, Dallas's Chief Grinch

Pastor Jeffress, in his deepest Grinch voice, orders the Whos in Whoville to toe the Christmas line. If you're not "religiously correct," you'd better watch out!

Imagine if a guy had a really primo parking space at the mall, right by the door, and you were circling round and round looking for a space, and he said to you, “Happy Holidays! I’m leaving. Would you like my space?”

Who amongst us, no matter what flavor of religion they choose, would turn the guy down?

Two people complained about it. I kid you not.

It’s not the War on Christmas we need to worry about — it’s the War for Fundamentalist Correctness that threatens us more.


Sherffius cartoon on DADT repeal

December 19, 2010

Sherffius cartoon on repeal of Don't Ask/Don't Tell

When does Sherffius get the Pulitzer?

Sherffius, cartooning in the Boulder (Colorado) Daily Camera.  When does he get a Pulitzer?


Sherffius on tax cuts for the rich: When does he get the Pulitzer?

December 11, 2010

So, when will Sherffius win a Pulitzer for his cartoons?  Did you see what he had to say about the tax cut legislation?

Sherffius cartoon from the Boulder (Colorado) Daily Camera, via Lobsterscope

Sherffius cartoon on tax cuts, from the Boulder Daily Camera

Tip of the old scrub brush to Under the Lobsterscope.


Roadrunner and Wile E. Coyote on the Constitution

August 30, 2010

You have a right to fail, as Wile E. Coyote demonstrates — another one-minute Public Service Announcement from Warner Bros., circa 1986.

Also see Porky Pig and Petunia about women running for office, here.


Bugs Bunny on the Constitution

August 30, 2010

Was this from 1989, the Constitution’s Bicentennial?  I dimly remember these PSAs.

This one isn’t brilliant — n.b., the Constitution can be amended — but it is Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck.

I just stumbled into it on YouTube.  Is there a good collection somewhere?  Are the others better?


Cat and Mosque, at Dogboy and Mr. Dan

August 19, 2010

Mark Fiore’s latest animated political cartoon won’t be popular with Newt Gingrich.  But then, Fiore won the Pulitzer, not Gingrich.

(This cartoon is not available on Fiore’s YouTube Channel, yet.)

(Oh, and remember:  This is the guy whose app got Apple’s panties in a wad — while you’re there, iPhone users, get the app that Steve Jobs thought mean for ridiculing those who so richly deserve ridicule.  Ain’t the First Amendment grand?)

Tip of the old scrub brush to Jennsmom.


Cagle Cartoons gets trite, and wrong

August 19, 2010

I’m a great lover of political cartoons and political cartooning, of all stripes.  Great truths sneak out of the pens that produce stunned laughter in a reader (viewer), I think, especially when they stun me into a new realization.

Political cartooning stumbles along through hard times.  Where once upon a time a major U.S. city, like St. Louis, would have three or more daily newspapers, each of which would employ more than one cartoonist, the newspapers themselves disappear (more slowly this year, but no new ones have been birthed, either), and those few surviving newspapers try to get along with one or fewer political cartoonists, and they even reduce the number of syndicated cartoons.

Where U.S. history teachers revel in the glorious images and humor of Thomas Nast (even though he was a Republican sympathizer), Thomas Keppler, Berryman, Ding Darling, Herblock, Bill Mauldin, and other bright cartoonists of the 19th and 20th centuries, Daryl Cagle has gallantly tried to preserve the profession and the art, with a group that spreads cartoons of a lot of cartoonists employed by papers or free-lancing.

I subscribe to the electronic newsletter of Cagle Cartoons.  I’ve found their processes for getting approval not to work well for me (or work at all — I have yet to get any response on any cartoon I’ve asked them about).  But I hope cartoonists like the brilliant Sherffius, or Calvin Grondahl from my almost-native Utah, get enough additional exposure to make them comfortable and keep the cartooning.

Lately I’ve been despairing.  Cagle added columns by cartoonists and others.  Most of that material tends toward hard conservatism, I find, and lack of reportorial and intellectual rigor.

Like this piece of guano from a reporter named Phil Brennan. Oh, we should have expected it to be  lightweight, his being a regular contributor to the disinformation source NewsMax.

But still.

Brennan argues that birthers should give up on their challenges to Obama’s eligibility, because of the chaos that would be caused were Obama to be replaced by John McCain so far into an administration.  (Yeah — just hold on.  I know.)  All the laws Obama signed would be nullified, Brennan wrote, all his appointments nullifed, and the slate wiped clean for McCain and Palin to occupy the White House. Obama’s defended his birth in a U.S. territory successfully so far, so birthers should give up trying for change.

Just for a moment, imagine that the Court does its job and it turns out that Obama can’t come up with a legitimate birth certificate showing that he was indeed born on U.S. soil in what was then the territory of Hawaii, and the Court declares that he is therefore ineligible to serve as the nation’s chief executive.

Should that be the case nothing that he has done, no appointments that he has made nor executive orders he issued would be valid. And under the provisions of the Constitution, John McCain would be declared the legitimate President of the United States and Sarah Palin the Vice President starting with Inauguration Day, 2009.

It might cause a civil war, Brennan says.

Mr. Brennan:  I know the U.S. Constitution.  I’ve read the U.S. Constitution.  The U.S. Constitution is a friend of mine.  What you describe is not in the Constitution, and doesn’t bear any resemblance to reality.

Here’s the comment I posted to Brennan’s piece at Cagle Cartoons:

A couple of fact checking issues here:

1. Hawaii was a state in 1961, not a territory. Hawaii became a state in August 1959.

2. Under the Constitution and federal laws on succession, if the person at the top of the ticket becomes ineligible to serve, the person next in line in succession becomes president. Were Obama declared ineligible, we’d have President Joe Biden.

3. There is no provision to nullify laws and directives of a federal officer later found ineligible for the office. Under pretty well-established law, all of those actions stand unless repealed later. Congressional actions, especially, would not be rolled back. All appointments stand.

4. Obama has already provided unassailable proof of his birth. Under the full faith and credit clause of the Constitution, all states and the federal government must honor official actions of the states. Hawaii issued, under seal, a document verifying that Barack Obama was born in Honolulu in 1961. “Under seal” is the highest authority we can give a document under statutory and common law — it’s got more than 800 years of precedent behind it. The only possible way to get at a document under seal is to provide clear and convincing evidence of fraud on the state. There is no showing of any fraud that stands up in court, under Hawaii or federal rules of evidence.

In short, almost everything stated as fact for the premises of that piece, is fiction.

Bad enough that joints like the Discovery Institute, NewsMax, the Washington Times and others have fired all their fact checkers — but shouldn’t a high school-educated person know better?  Is there no editing at Cagle Cartoons at all?


Academy Award winner: “Logorama”

August 16, 2010

Delightfully creative.  Surely there is at least a bell ringer in here, just in identifying the different logos.  For economics and sociology classes, this is a study in branding, done in very interesting fashion.

Can you use it in class, even at 16 minutes?  The language may be too edgy for freshman and sophomores, yes?

A short description from the Vimeo post, by Marc Altshuler, who owns the company who created and recorded the music for the film:

This is a short film that was directed by the French animation collective H5, François Alaux, Hervé de Crécy + Ludovic Houplain. It was presented at the Cannes Film Festival 2009. It opened the 2010 Sundance Film Festival and won a 2010 academy award under the category of animated short.

In this film there are two pieces of licensed music, in the beginning and in the end. All the other music and sound design are original. The opening track (Dean Martin “Good Morning Life”) and closing track (The Ink Spots “I don’t want to send the world on fire”) songs are licensed pre-existing tracks. All original music and sound design is by, human (www.humanworldwide.com)

Brilliant little work even if you can’t use it in class.


More Billy Blob: Bumble BeEing and the Butterfly Effect

August 16, 2010

Also from Billy Blob (as the Space Probe cartoon posted here on August 15), “Bumble BeEing, Part 1:  The Butterfly Effect.”

How to categorize such a cartoon:  Philosophy?  Science of Chaos (from which we get the hypothetical “butterfly effect”)?

Education?  Religion?