Persistence of Vision

From a comment received yesterday from sjhart regarding this post and the embedded video of the White Stripes' Hardest Button to Button compared with Marcel Duchamp's Nu Descendant un Escalier:

Synchronicitously, when I saw your blog I was half way through re-reading “The Myth of Persistence of Vision” (http://tMoPoV.notlong.com) which one of my holography gurus recommended to explain aspects of my experiments in holographic movies AND which yesterday’s photo-3d@yahoogroups.com was discussing in a debate about the Pulfrich effect and last weekend’s Super Bowl in amongst the fact that the recently departed Lux Interior was a well-regarded stereophile. And tMoPoV recommends Norman McLaren's “Pas de Deux”, [it's cheating to only watch the end], which my dance guru recommended I make a holographic movie of in the first place. Small world.

"The Myth of Persistence of Vision" by Joseph and Barbara Anderson is a paper which goes to great lengths to explain that the apparent motion of objects in a film is produced by a processing area in the brain, and has nothing to do with "images persisting on the retina". The latter has been trotted out as a reliable old warhorse for approximately a hundred years, is found in modern film books and film courses, and is quite wrong.

The relevant passage is:

A typical explanation of persistence of vision went something like this: when the human eye is presented with a rapid succession of slightly different images, there is a brief period during which each image, after its disappearance, persists upon the retina, allowing that image to blend smoothly with the next image. Such an explanation might begin to account for a sense of constancy of the light source (flicker fusion), but it is, of course, a totally inadequate explanation of the illusion of motion in the cinema. The proposed fusion or blending of images could produce only the superimposition of successive views, as in Marcel Duchamp's painting "Nude Descending a Staircase" or a frame from Norman McLaren's Pas de Deux. The result would be a piling up of images, or at best a static collage of superimposed still pictures, not an illusion of motion. It is the obvious inadequacy of the explanation, coupled with its recurrence in film literature for almost a century, that arouses one's curiosity about the origins of the notion and the means by which it has been perpetuated.

In other words, if persistence of vision were true we would see people moving in real life as if they were a tube shape carved out in the air – like Marcel Duchamp, above, descending a staircase in the same manner as his earlier nude.

The movie mentioned, Pas De Deux, is by Norman McLaren (1967), and is of two ballet dancers filmed against a black background to an accompaniment of pan pipes. Optical effects are used to make previous images of them persist as the new images appear, which produces the effect I'm rather denigrating by calling a "tube shape" and I'm sure it won't help at all to describe it as the type of trail you see moving objects leave when you're tripping. (Allegedly.) If you can take 13 minutes of black and white trippy ballet, it's a beautiful piece of animation. A still does not do it justice, as it's a film specifically about motion, but what the hell, here is one.



The movie is available for watching here.

And Lux Interior, RIP.

***

Button Day

Coraline's out. It's in 3D, as is the new fashion. I won't be seeing it – I don't like movie theaters – but I'm jealous of those who will be. It's about, among other things, a hidden world where everyone has buttons for eyes. A little girl finds the entrance to the world and meets her "other mother".

Here's Neil Gaiman with a creepy little piece on koumpounophobia - fear of buttons - and Coraline.



He doesn't discuss the hardest button to button (the family member who does not fit in). We have the White Stripes to thank for that concept.



Excellent video – when I first saw it a few years ago I'd never heard of the White Stripes and it just floored me. (In truth, I'd never heard of the White Stripes until fa few months ago, despite the video. My mind is quite capable of compartmentalizing something into a class, like a video, and not realizing it exists outside that boundary.)

The drumkit-on-the-stairs sequence (starts around 23 seconds) was reminiscent of Marcel Duchamp's lovely futurist Nu Descendant Un Escalier

- except Duchamp's nude is an attempt to show a period of time in a single frame and the video appears to be an attempt to retain history in a series of frames already simulating a period of time as they move on beyond the initial image. If that's the case, it's a shame the director had to use 32 drumkits to simulate the retention rather than it just happening in some cool unexplained way. It must have been one of the most annoying and arduous videos to film ever.

Edit: for more on nudes, staircases, Duchamp and apparent motion, see a post based around a comment received below here.

***

Brand new Led Zeppelin footage released

Completely new, never before seen footage of Led Zeppelin has been released on to YouTube.



Uploader ddimatteo attended the first Led Zeppelin concert at the Fillmore East on January 31st, 1969 and took about 50 seconds worth of silent footage.

Its appearance on YouTube has floored the Led Zeppelin online community. Imagine, he kept it for forty years - and then released it for free!

It's beautiful too - full color, shot from close up, with Robert at his young puppyfat best and Jimmy in a leather jacket playing the Dragon Telecaster with a bow. Dig the oil-wheel psychedelic light show behind them threatening to come alive and eat the band.

A fun find - no, a treasure!

Today's Picture.

Jimmy Page sitting on the rail of the Boathouse. He must have had good equilibrium as there's nothing below that rail but a long drop into the Thames.



No reason. Someone cool shared it with me so I'm sharing it with you.


***

If you want it, here it is, come and get it, but you'd better hurry 'cos it's going fast

ZOMG! Controversy!

Amanda Palmer on 'Oasis':

So:
my label in the UK has been gearing up to promote “oasis” as a radio and video single.a few days before i left for london i got this email from someone at roadrunner:
”Hi Emily/Amanda,Hope you are both well, I just thought I’d let you know that we have been met by fierce opposition on the Oasis track. Which is disheartening, as combined with the video, we all felt it was a great promotional tool and track. All our TV outlets have refused to play the video due to it “making light of rape, religion and abortion”. This is the audio as well as visual. Many of the stations like the track, and even the video but are bound by strict broadcasting rules. I personally find this quite ridiculous.”
dude.wasn’t this the UK, land of black humor blacker than blackest black itself?i emailed back and asked which outlets. the reply:
”NME tv, Scuzz, kerrang, MTV, Q, the box … to name a few. There is only a few networks: bauer, chartshow and MTV. They control all stations and they all had the same issue….”
and i sat there thinking, wow. here we go again. why can’t ANYTHING just be effing EASY this year?

Here's her video. It's about abortion, rape, art and humor, at least that's the title of her blog. Warning adult subject matter and all that jazz.



The song is poppy and upbeat, nice hook, but dated and a bit tired. The video looked like a Saturday morning kids' TV sketch with added ass-rape and coathanger abortions. A bit of a mixed bag, I thought. Ironic, yes. I got it, but do I want it?

The bass-player's hot, though.

I'm big on condemning censorship, but on the other hand I can't work up a flying fart about the NME etc refusing to promote the song. We have a fundamental right to speak, but no one has a fundamental right to using someone else's property to get heard. If it pisses off their readership, they probably won't want to run it. Boo hoo.

Offensive? Censored? Mr Big stamping out the struggling little guy?

Snooziferous?

Judge Dread

Those of us who have read Charles Stross' book Halting State will get a little chuckle out of this. Those who haven't will get a little chuckle out of this also.

Halting State is a techno-crime thriller that starts with a team of Orcs raiding a bank in cyberspace. Not bankofamerica.com, but a virtual bank, inside a role-playing game world online. The scenarios are so near-future some of them are actually happening today and the rest are expected shortly. This one wasn't in the book, but it could have been.

An Orange County Justice, William Bedsworth, writes in A Criminal Waste of Space, of Japan, where:

…this nice, quiet, 43-year-old piano teacher in Sapporo created an avatar for a game called Maple Story, described by the Associated Press as one in which players “engage in social relationships and fight monsters and other challenges.” I can’t speak to the quandaries encountered in Maple Story, but I’d rather fight a monster than engage in a social relationship any day. And sure enough, the social relationship part is what got this lady thrown in jail. […] Apparently unable to retain a virtual Gloria Allred, Ms. Doe released her own statement: “I was suddenly divorced, without a word of warning. That made me so angry.”

But as commonplace as her public statement might have been, Ms. Doe’s revenge was a tour de force of imagination befitting someone with a background in monster eradication. Using login information she obtained when their characters were happily married – virtually – Ms. Doe logged in with her virtual husband’s password and caused his avatar to walk in front of a truck.Yep. Flattened him.

Dead before the virtual paramedics arrived.

She is now in jail, awaiting sentencing. Justice Bedsworth goes into some diversions here and there on the arcane sentencing laws in California, and the headaches it brings him contemplating the ever more arcane sentencing laws it will take to bring justice to someone who arranges to have a virtual character 'killed'.

It's not often I read a blog on a website by the Orange County Bar Association, but this one's worth it.

Swot

Hee hee. I win the internets. A nice pick-me-up on a cold and worky Monday morning.

There Are 0 Gaps in Your Knowledge

Where you have gaps in your knowledge: No Gaps! Where you don't have gaps in your knowledge: Philosophy Religion Economics Literature History Science Art

Do You Have Gaps in Your Knowledge?

Photos of London At Night

Breathtaking aerial views.

London from above at night by Jason Hawkes.

Playmobil Security Check Point

You too can have a miniature TSI Security Check Point so you and your dolls can stage Security Theater in the comfort of your own home.



The reviews on the Amazon page for the Playmobil Security Check Point give heartwarming affirmations that it really does teach kids how to obey authority unquestioningly and learn that not everyone in a uniform is your friend.

loosenut (Seattle, WA) says:

I was a little disappointed when I first bought this item, because the functionality is limited. My 5 year old son pointed out that the passenger's shoes cannot be removed. Then, we placed a deadly fingernail file underneath the passenger's scarf, and neither the detector doorway nor the security wand picked it up. My son said "that's the worst security ever!". But it turned out to be okay, because when the passenger got on the Playmobil B757 and tried to hijack it, she was mobbed by a couple of other heroic passengers, who only sustained minor injuries in the scuffle, which were treated at the Playmobil Hospital. The best thing about this product is that it teaches kids about the realities of living in a high-surveillence society. My son said he wants the Playmobil Neighborhood Surveillence System set for Christmas. I've heard that the CC TV cameras on that thing are pretty worthless in terms of quality and motion detection, so I think I'll get him the Playmobil Abu-Gharib Interogation Set instead (it comes with a cute little memo from George Bush).

And so forth. Shame I found this out too late for Christmas.

More Government Bailouts...

Paul Craig Roberts served as an Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan Administration and earned the name "Father of Reaganomics". He was an editor and columnist for the Wall Street Journal, Business Week, and Scripps Howard News Service. I read his net articles regularly.

A recent Information Clearinghouse article entitled, Is It Time to Bail Out of the US? set out the reality. The US is broke. Magicking money out of a hat to pay bankers to fly their private jets to parties and to pay armies to drop bombs on ordinary people who didn't use to have much antipathy to the US is not going to end well.

California State Controller John Chiang announced on January 26 that California’s bills exceed its tax revenues and credit line and that the state is going to print its own money known as IOUs. The template is already designed. Instead of receiving their state tax refunds in dollars, California residents will receive IOUs. Student aid and payments to disabled and needy will also come in the form of IOUs. California is negotiating with banks to get them to accept the IOUs as deposits.California is often identified as the world’s eighth largest economy, and it is broke. A person might think that California’s plight would introduce some realism into Washington, DC, but it has not. President Obama is taking steps to intensify the war in Afghanistan and, perhaps, to expand it to Pakistan.

It concludes:

The banksters robbed us twice. First it was our home and stock values. Then the government rewarded the banksters for their misdeeds by bailing out the banksters, not their victims, and putting the cost on the taxpayers’ books.The government has also robbed the taxpayers of $3 trillion dollars to fight its wars. About $600 billion are out of pocket costs, and the rest is on the taxpayers’ books.When foreign creditors look at the debt piled on the taxpayers’ books, they don’t see a good credit risk. Washington is so accustomed to ripping off the taxpayers for the benefit of special interests that the practice is now in the DNA. While bailouts are being piled upon bailouts, wars are being piled upon wars. Before Obama gets in any deeper, he must ask his economic team where the money is coming from. When he finds out, he needs to tell the rest of us.

RIP John Martyn

I just heard the news. A real character and a peerless musician and writer. What a loss.

Here's his last interview, at Word Magazine.

I saw him with Paul Kossoff in Leeds in 1975, when I was a real Kossoff fan and could care less about John Martyn. I was a kid then.

The stories I heard about that gig since! And they're not even the weirdest tales in the Martyn biography. He was legendary.

Giant Squid Cake

It's too cold, I've been diagnosed with vitamin D deficiency (apparently vast tracts of humanity are deficient - more on this later) and I have a terrible cold. Apart from that, everything's fine. At least I'm not trapped in an ice-world like one of my friends.

Another friend sent me this Boing Boing piece on a Giant Squid Cake. Two of my favorite things in one cakey package!

Scatological Friday

The New York Times has an article about British place-names. They're often from dialects or languages no longer spoken, and in modern speech sound kinda rude. The NYT gets a giggle out of it.

No Snickering: That Road Sign Means Something Else




Growing up in northern England, I found places like Penistone and Wetwang to be perfectly normal.

The NYT don't mention that the U.S., which doesn't have the excuse of obsolete words in its place names, has a few of its own. Pennsylvania alone has Beaverdale, Bird-in-Hand, Blue Ball, Intercourse and Stalker.

Also, in the Fisting the Night Away stakes, we have Fox News explaining what Barack Obama and the First Lady get up to when they're alone.

Jimmy Carter and the Killer Rabbit

I didn't live in the US in 1979, and my knowledge of the doings of presidents was limited. One thing I did know, however, was that President Jimmy Carter was attacked by an aquatic Killer Rabbit. This has always impressed me mightily. I'm a glass-half-full sort of a person, and rather than thinking that Carter was the sort of person rabbits picked on, I got the impression of a man of so large a stature that killer rabbits flocked to try to take him down.

I hadn't thought about it too much recently, but STB sent me a link to a Freepers article about the incident.

Here's a picture of the bunny in question, and I am not making this up.




Picture courtesy of the Jimmy Carter Library.

There is a large photo of Jimmy Carter and the rabbit at the Freepers page above.

Cecil Adams' Straight Dope says:

The rabbit incident happened on April 20 while Carter was taking a few days off in Plains, Georgia. He was fishing from a canoe in a pond when he spotted the fateful rabbit swimming toward him. It was never precisely determined what the rabbit's problem was. Carter, always trying to look at things from the other guy's point of view, later speculated that it was fleeing a predator. Whatever the case, it was definitely a troubled rabbit. "It was hissing menacingly, its teeth flashing and nostrils flared and making straight for the president," a press account said.

The Secret Service having been caught flatfooted--I'll grant you an amphibious rabbit assault is a tough thing to defend against--the president did what he could to protect himself. Initially it was reported that he had hit the rabbit with his paddle. Realizing this would not play well with the Rabbit Lovers Guild, Carter later clarified that he had merely splashed water at the rabbit, which then swam off toward shore. A White House photographer, ever alert to history's pivotal moments, snapped a picture of the encounter for posterity.

Apparently it is a swamp rabbit. I have no idea if that makes this more freaky or less freaky.

Roots Music Listening Room

I know I said American folk music was on sufferance with me, but I have no problems with spreading the word.

The Roots Music Listening Room has a huge number of streaming files for your listening pleasure. Run by Juneberry78s.com, the listening room contains public domain music files from their collection of:

Rugged and Ragged Blues Piano from the 1920s
Blues from the 1920s (subset)
Gospel from the 1920s (subset)
Old-Time Country Music from the 1920s & 1930s
White Country Gospel from the 1920s-1950s

Vintage Hot Jazz from the 1920s
Louisiana Cajun Music from the 1920s - 1970s
Irish Dance Music from the 1920s - 1970s
Folk Music from Mexico 1920s - 1950s
Luther Strong's 1937 Library of Congress Recordings
Other Library of Congress Fiddle Recordings
Cape Breton Fiddle Music from the 1930s - 1950s
Calypso Music of Trinidad from 1930s - 1940s

S'free music. It's historic. Have at it!