A couple recent StoryCorps intervus—

Antoinette Franklin (R) and her niece, Iriel Franklin, talk about relocating to Houston after Hurricane Katrina (2:40):


Peg Steinberg and her son, Dan, talk about Peg’s battle with cancer (2:07):

Goggles, GoogleMaps flash Flight Sim (beta)– tres kewl.

via some velvet blog.

Below. a few photos of Ron Mueck pieces, an Australian hyperrealist sculptor, sez Wikipedia. Sez Snopes, “Ron Mueck is a London-based photo-realist artist. Born in Melbourne , Australia , to parents who were toy makers… His work is lifelike but not life size.”

Two Women (2005)

In Bed (2005)

Boy (2000)

Mueck working on “In Bed”

More photos of Mueck scupltures: WA Post | Crazy Russian | James Cohan Gallery

Digg turned this up today:

How Toons

a collection of science- and engineering-related web comics.

I’m a bit partial to the form, my long-standing affair probably started about the time I got my first Dr. Seuss book. This struck me as particularly infectious — possibly because I’ve been re-immersing myself lately: novelized pastiches such as geoffrey woods’ Leaper and Austin Grossman’s Soon I Will Be Invincible; Moore and Gibson’s The Watchmen, Alex Ross and Mark Waid’s Kingdom Come, Frank Miller’s irrepressible Dark Knight and nearly everything Brian Woods has done; films such as Unbreakable, Sin City, Superman Returns, Batman Begins, and, of course Heroes.

What impresses me most, I suppose, is the resilience and versatility — how and why comics have persisted…

From Current TV, a four-part vid by TAL’s Ira Glass on Storytelling.

On the basics…

On finding great stories…

On great taste…

On two common pitfalls…

via Gregg McVicar- Undercurrents.

As the recent victim of a bike theft, this story in today’s Washington Post was particularly poignant:

As Web Fuels Bike Thefts, Victims Turn Vigilantes

Favourite Quote:

“You steal someone’s bike, and God have mercy on you if they ever find you,” he said. “It’s something so insanely personal. People have a more personal connection to their bikes than their iPod.”

and, this admittedly depressing closer:

“He posted to the site startlingly clear photos of a man riding what he said was his bike, and he filed a police report. Police have followed up on his tips to no avail, McKenna said.”

Exquisite field recordist (and ex-Cabaret Voltaire band member) Chris Watson has new site up with news, bio, and downloads.
Form Touch Sampler 3, Chris Watson, “Out of Our Sight” (2:59 mp3):

“Motionless anticipation, along the dry sandy banks of the Zambesi a Mozambique nightjar is sucking in all the remaining light.”

This week’s HV cast: The last half of A Hot & Dry Summer Special, hosted by Ben Adair of APM Weekend America: The Quiet American (Aaron Ximm) sound-captures the forbidding warning signs rattling in a harsh wind and “Desert Sun” outside the nuclear Nevada Test Site north of Las Vegas. Back in the early 1990s, SLC producer Scott Carrier found the Basin & Range, near Nevada’s “Battle Mountain,” beautiful, lonely, dreary, and full of sagebrush, solace and stories. And more of Bernie Krause’s Desert Solitudes. A special from Hearing Voices, “Desert Air 2- of 2″ (29:00 mp3):