This Book Will Not Be Digitized

Jonathan Safran Foer's new novel

To the list of labels Jonathan Safran Foer has acquired over the years–wunderkind author, outspoken vegetarian, one of those Brooklyn “Jonathans”–  we can now add “literary sculptor.” This month he’s turned the paperback novel into an interactive sculpture which needs no battery power or wifi. Foer’s new book will *never* be able to fit on a Kindle or Nook and that’s kind of the point.

Published last week by Visual Editions, based in Britain, the book takes a pre-existing text — Bruno Shulz’s Street of Crocodiles, a 1934 short story collection translated from Polish — and transforms it into a surprising reading experience.

It’s like a shuffled deck of Swiss cheese slices: every single page has holes in different places. But the holes are blocky and rectangular. Trying to read an individual leaf won’t do you any good, a page needs to be resting on the stack so the words peeking through from beneath complete the narrative. Foer’s title for the new book is Tree of Codes (get it?).

The physical concept for Tree of Codes was so outlandish (and daunting) every printing company the publisher approached said that the book was “unmakeable.” But the Belgian printers Die Keure accepted the challenge, and went about crafting a unique die-cut for every page of the book.

A die-cut page from "Tree of Codes."

They even made a video showing how the elaborate printing process jammed their machinery.

With the design world abuzz about the book (thank you swiss-miss! ) it’s easy to let the ingenuity (um, gimmick?) make us forget it’s literature. We’re hoping to get our hands on a copy soon to see if the story’s any good.

– Michele Siegel

Jonathan Safran Foer has always had a thing for kooky sculpture. Back in 2006 he told Kurt Andersen about his love of the artist Joseph Cornell’s boxes.

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Join a Choir Without Singing a Note

Recordings of choral music can be discouraging: soft and diffuse, like the music is coming through cotton balls, evaporating like fog.  Even live performances can prove disappointing when lyrics are lost to the acoustics of a venue, and you experience a wash (rather than a wall) of sound.  I think the best place to hear a choral performance is inside of one — but then you have to work for your pleasure.

That’s what so fantastic about Janet Cardiff’s sound installation “The Forty-Part Motet,” now on view at Jazz at Lincoln Center in New York City.  The Canadian artist presents the wickedly complex work of 16th century English composer Thomas Tallis with brilliance and clarity.

Tallis wrote “Spem in Alium” (“I have hope in none other than Thee, O Lord”) for eight choirs of five singers, each singing a unique part – that’s 40 distinct vocal lines.  Cardiff recorded the Salisbury Cathedral Choir singing the piece, putting each voice on a separate channel.  For the installation, each voice gets its own speaker – arranged in a circle, you can wander between the voices, checking in with various singers, catching the interplay of melodies.  Stand in the center and the voices combine into something truly transcendent.

"The Forty-Part Motet" in Tokyo (Photo by Atsushi Nakamichi/Nacasa & Partners Inc. | Courtesy of the Fondation d'enterprise Hermes, 2009, Janet Cardiff, Luhring Augustine, New York and Galerie Barbara Weiss, Berlin)

You can really feel the changing shapes, colors, and textures of the music – qualities so rich and real you almost see them: “It reveals the piece of music as a changing construct,” Cardiff explains. “I am interested in how sound may physically construct a space in a sculptural way and how a viewer may choose a path through this physical yet virtual space.”

You can get a taste of “Spem in Alium” (performed the traditional way) in this episode of BBC Radio 3’s “Discovering Music.”

“The Forty-Part Motet” is on view (for free) in the Frederick P. Rose Hall at Jazz at Lincoln Center through Saturday, November 13 as part of Lincoln Center’s White Light Festival.

– Jenny Lawton

recordings OF CHORAL MUSIC CAN BE discouraging: soft and diffuse, like the music is coming through cotton balls, evaporating like fog.  Even live performances can prove disappointing when lyrics are lost to the acoustics of a venue, and you experience a wash (rather than a wall) of sound.  THE BEST PLACE TO HEAR A CHORAL PERFORMANCE IS INSIDE OF ONE, . . .  BUT THEN YOU HAVE TO WORK FOR YOUR PLEASREU But I’m biased – I love choral music because I sing in a choir and I get to experience it, literally, from the inside.

That’s what so fantastic about Janet Cardiff’s sound installation, “The Forty Part Motet.”  Cardiff presents the wickedly complex work of 16^th century English composer Thomas Tallis with brilliance and clarity.

Tallis wrote “Spem in Alium Nunquam Habui” for eight choirs of five singers, each singing a unique part – that’s 40 distinct vocal lines.  Cardiff recorded the Salisbury Cathedral Choir singing the piece, putting each voice on a separate channel.  For the installation, each voice gets its own speaker – arranged in a circle, you can wander between the voices, checking in with various singers, catching the interplay of melodies.  Stand in the center and the voices combine into something truly transcendent.

[IMAGE]

You can really feel the changing shapes, colors, and textures of the music – qualities so rich and real you almost see them… but, of course, you can’t. And that’s the point: “It reveals the piece of music as a changing construct,” Cardiff explains. “I am interested in how sound may physically construct a space in a sculptural way and how a viewer may choose a path through this physical yet virtual space.”

“The Forty Part Motet” is on view (for free) at Jazz at Lincoln Center through Saturday, November 13 as part of the White Light Festival.

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Choose Your American Icon

What do Lucille Ball and Malcolm X have in common?

They’re both part of Studio 360 American Icons series.  This fall, we’ve traced the impact of The Autobiography of Malcolm X on race relations and glimpsed the dawn of the American sitcom with I Love Lucy.  Last week we visited Monticello – Thomas Jefferson’s home in Virginia – and in wandering the building and the grounds, confronted some lingering questions about the country and its founding.

Monticello (photo by Geoff Kilmer / Monticello)

Now we’re turning to you for a little “listener support.”  No, it’s not a pledge drive (though we encourage you to support your local station…).

Tell us what we’ve missed. We’ve produced nine new Icons — we want you to decide the tenth.  If your pick is selected, we’ll make a radio story about it — and you could be a guest on an episode of Studio 360.

We put out the call a few weeks ago, and our listeners have already come up with some surprising and impressive ideas. They range wide across America’s cultural landscape: from My Antonia and The Sound and the Fury to Bugs Bunny, from the Airstream Trailer to Apollo 11.  Daniel Leathersich, of Kutztown, Pennsylvania, suggested Bruce Springsteen’s “Thunder Road” because it’s a “quintessential song of the dreams of youth, the wonder of escape, and what people become from their memories.”

We need to hear from you.  Tell us your ideas…and listen for our tenth American Icon!

– Michael Guerriero

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Performance-Enhancing Jewelry

The World Series starts tonight.  And if you’ve watched any Major League Baseball this year, you’ve probably noticed the twisted metal chains many of the players wear.  If not, take a closer look at the necks of Texas Rangers’ shortstop Elvis Andrus or San Francisco Giants’ outfielder Andres Torres. The necklaces, which are often coordinated with team colors, are all over the league – they caught my eye mainly because they look really uncomfortable to wear.

Andres Torres, San Francisco Giants (Ben Margot/AP)

So what is this cumbersome accessory?

The necklaces are made out of titanium by a company called Phiten.  It claims the jewelry is specially designed to enhance an athlete’s performance by providing pain relief, improving circulation, and reducing stress: “Phiten products work with your body’s energy system, helping to regulate and balance the flow of energy throughout your body. Proper energy balance helps to alleviate discomfort, speed recovery, and counteract fatigue. Athletes find that they tire less easily and recover faster from intense physical activity.”  Former Yankees pitcher Randy Johnson is credited with starting the craze after discovering the product on an All-Star trip to Japan in 2001.

There is no scientific proof that Phiten’s products work, but players from 2003 World Series MVP Josh Beckett to 2008 and 2009 NL Cy Young Award-winner Tim Lincecum use and endorse the necklaces.

A Phiten titanium necklace costs around $40.  The company has several other products on the market as well, including lotions, stress relieving patches, bracelets, socks, and compression shirts and shorts.  The accessories are even starting to be used in other sports as a legal performance-enhancer.  Whether the effect is bona fide or placebo (athletes are, of course, also known for their superstitions), for many these necklaces are a must-have on the field.

– Max Bass

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This Week in Swag

Feeling adventurous this fall season? Well National Geographic has you covered with this zebra-printed Great Migrations reusable accessory. If you’re in need of a new handbag, tote bag, grocery bag, or Mary Poppins bag (you know, the ones you just throw a lot of junk in and call it a purse), this is your lucky day.

This bit of swag promotes the episode “Zebra on the Move” from the new series Great Migrations, premiering November 7th.

There’s also a beautiful book of photos that goes along with the series.

We also got a blue super air blaster from co-sign collective (a group of independent business owners and contractors within the entertainment industry) — but this has us scratching our heads. How do you use it?

Air Blaster anyone?

When you find out let us know!

– Georgette Pierre

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Stewart, Colbert to Rally at Lincoln Memorial

Last night, Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert announced that they would hold sort-of-but-not-really-competing rallies at the Lincoln Memorial on October 30th.

Stewart’s “Rally to Restore Sanity” will be the voice of reason countering Colbert’s alarmist “March to Keep Fear Alive.” It’s a real-life satire of Glenn Beck’s Tea Party demonstration called “Restoring Honor” held on the National mall this past August. And it brings Comedy Central’s continued lampooning of absurd punditry and broken politics to a whole new level.

The Lincoln Memorial is America’s soap box. Most famously, in 1963, Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech catapulted the efforts of the Civil Rights movement, and it helped make the memorial one of the country’s most powerful architectural symbols.  It’s without a doubt a solemn space for Americans, but not one the comedy world hasn’t touched before.  After all, Legally Blonde’s cartoonish “Elle Woods” and the actual cartoon Lisa Simpson have both found inspiration there.  Who knows if history will be made there on October 30th, but we can probably count on Colbert and Stewart being pretty funny.

A few years ago, as part of our series American Icons, Studio 360 devoted a whole hour to the Memorial, in which Kurt Andersen looked at what makes it the place to give a speech.

This fall, our Peabody Award-winning series returns.  Studio 360 will bring you stories on I Love Lucy, Jimi Hendrix’s “Star-Spangled Banner,” the Harley-Davidson, and that other piece of architectural Americana, Monticello (an episode that, coincidentally, features Stephen Colbert).  American Icons picks up next week with the premiere of our one-hour episode on The Autobiography of Malcolm X.  Don’t miss it!

-Stephen Reader

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Getting Lost with Hand Drawn Maps

A map to a 2008 election volunteer booth

I like to collect old road maps, and when the need arises for me to draw a map for a visiting friend or relative, I’ll admit I fancy myself a pretty good cartographer. But sometimes I find myself the artist of a bizarrely scaled and oddly detailed map which names all the trees, statues, and potholes in the vicinity but omits important details like street names.

After finding a map just like this in a trash can in Scotland, graphic designer Kris Harzinski became fascinated with finding and preserving maps drawn by hand. So he founded the Hand Drawn Map Association in order to collect the discarded drawings that he says “accidentally explore the importance of place, ephemera, and documentation” in our daily lives.

A map of Manhattan, drawn circa 1980

His website celebrates these unintentionally beautiful drawings, and gives them props for representing stories from people’s lives around the world. There is the young woman who maps the years since she left home to move to New York City. Or the map of the Istanbul Mountains seen from a plane enroute to Scotland. And the touching map of a young woman suffering arthritis who maps the medicinal injections she receives. The maps on the site are as remarkable and poignant as the stories of the people who drew them.

Some of the best maps from the collection have been compiled into a book, out next month. From Here to There: A Curious Collection from the Hand Drawn Map Association features a wide variety from the collection, including some drawn by well-known historical figures like Abraham Lincoln and Ernest Shackleton. While you’re waiting for the book to be published, visit HDMA’s website – an extremely pleasant place to get lost for a few hours.

– Britta Conroy-Randall

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MoMA’s Chicken Coup

Be careful what you wish for. New York’s MoMA thought it had commissioned a group of artists and architects to create a farm in the courtyard of it’s Queens outpost, P.S.1.  And on opening day they didn’t disappoint.

Surprise! Unbeknownst to MoMA, a “tool shed” the architects were building was actually a chicken coop. On the day of the opening they smuggled in six chickens and a dozen chirping chicks.

But all chickens aside, P.F.1 (Public Farm 1) was a very impressive achievement. This urban farm supported more than 30 varieties of vegetables, herbs, and flowers — it also included a solar-powered phone-charging station and even a juicer for fresh veggie cocktails. A project this ambitious took a team of architects, farmers, politicians, artists, and scientists several months to put together.  The video below (by architecture partners WORK) gives you a sense of the logistics required for a project of this scale.

The team’s efforts are chronicled in Above the Pavement – The Farm!

P.F.1 reminded me of another outrageously ambitious urban farm project: “Wheatfield – a Confrontation“.  In the summer of 1982, a flourishing field of wheat sprung up in a vacant lot near the World Trade Center. It was the work of ecological artist Agnes Denes.

It took two assistants and a bunch of volunteers to help her remove trash from the land, spread truckloads of topsoil, and plant nearly two acres of wheat. The result: a beautiful field of golden wheat planted among the sleek steel skyscrapers of downtown Manhattan. After harvesting, the hay was fed to the horses stabled by the New York City Police department and the grain traveled around the world as part of an art exhibition organized by the Minnesota Museum of Art.

Dene’s art and efforts like the P.F.1 project prove that we can use our cities as laboratories for experimentation, and that even the most impossibly utopian visions of green city living may be within our reach.

-Britta Conroy-Randall

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Keep Calm and Cary Grant

I recently moved from the UK to the US, and in looking for the perfect souvenir that would encapsulate the years I’d spent in Old Blighty, I stumbled upon this poster.  And, corny as it may sound, it spoke to me.

For me, the poster evokes nostalgia for a brand of Britishness – stiff upper lip and all that. I only learned later that it was produced by the UK government at the beginning of World War II, to raise public morale in case the Nazis ever succeeded in invading Britain. Luckily that never eventuated, and for years the poster was little known and never used.

But in 2000, the owners of a second hand bookshop in Northern England discovered the poster amongst stacks of dusty books.   Since the copyright had expired (and the artist is unknown), the image is free to be reused, leading to a cornucopia of t-shirts, mugs, posters, doormats, novelty underwear, pet goods, baby clothes, and other incongruous merchandise. And it just begs to be parodied.

And now, in our troubled economic climate, the poster’s message has hit the mark again, with reports the image has been ordered in bulk by American financial firms. As heartening as its sentiment may be, it begs the question: do we really want Wall Street to “Keep Calm and Carry On”? How about a poster that reads “Do You Really Need that Bonus”?

– Britta Conroy-Randall

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Extreme Makeover: Uncle Sam Edition

I’m as patriotic as the next guy.  But this morning on the subway, I couldn’t help but feel a bit deflated by this:

Uncle Sam, how could you?!  Playing into our all-American desires to get rich quick and bling ourselves silly?

That’s why we at Studio 360 proposed a radical redesign of our nation’s spokesman.  We got dozens of submissions: from Sam recast as a wizened little old lady, to more overtly political stand-ins.  You can see all the submissions here.

Our favorite was Brendan Condit’s “What You Can Do” series.  Inspired by President John F. Kennedy’s inaugural address, Condit wanted to encourage Americans to find their own ways to contribute to the public good.  (Serve.gov is a real website managed by The Corporation for National and Community Service.)

This week on the show, Kurt and a team of experts deconstruct Uncle Sam – and consider if the National Anthem might need a make-over as well:

Thanks to everyone who submitted their designs.

Brendan Condit, we salute you.

– Jenny Lawton

http://www.studio360.org/episodes/2010/07/02/segments/156720

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