Short Takes: News From All Over: April 29, 2004

Staff Utne.com

Krumping: The New Expression
Thought you'd digested all the latest avant garde moves. Well, here's a new one: Hip-hop clown dancing, or clowning, jumps out of South Central L.A. and right into Sundance's shorts. This form of combat dancing called 'krumping' is part tribal, part stripper, and all cray-zay! Check out the clip from renowned filmmaker David LaChappelle's documentary. -- Jacob Wheeler
http://www.ifilm.com/ifilmdetail/2532341
http://www.davidlachapelle.com/

CAFTA -- The Trojan Calf
Things are not always what they seem, especially when the gringos offer them as gifts. In the latest Flash Action movie from Free Range, the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) has been offered to Central America as a gift, but like the Trojan Horse, it's really a vehicle for American corporations to secretly invade new markets. -- Jacob Wheeler
http://www.quixote.org/calf/

No Sex Please: We're Too Busy Making Ends Meet
Is Canada the land of milk, honey, and caribou? Apparently not, opines Murray Dobbin from Rabble News. More than half of all Canadians are 'highly stressed' at work, and one quarter of them work more than 50 hours a week. The birth rate has fallen to 1.5 children per woman, down 25 percent in a single decade. Conclusion: If Canadians don't start working less and having more fun, the only mammals to our north will be those walking on four legs. -- Jacob Wheeler
http://rabble.ca/columnists_full.shtml?x=31880

Worldwide Pinhole Photography Day
In these instant-click digital days, it's easy to forget that a box or a can, a pinhole, a single frame of film, some sunlight, and the space of an afternoon are all anyone needs to record a photographic image. The participants in Worldwide Pinhole Photography Day haven't forgotten. On April 25, participants in 33 countries recorded 542 images with their homemade cameras, and put them online for everyone to enjoy. The fourth annual event was created simply to 'celebrate the joy of simple creativity using the medium of lensless photography.' -- Eric Larson
http://www.pinholeday.org/

Biking through Chernobyl
The perfect joyride for Elena, a Ukrainian girl, on her 147 horsepower Kawasaki Ninja motorbike is to the Chernobyl 'deadzone,' north of the capital Kiev where, in the absence of people, 'nature is blooming.' Chernobyl was cemented in history when its Soviet nuclear reactor blew up in 1986, spreading deadly radiation as far away as Sweden. -- Jacob Wheeler
http://www.angelfire.com/extreme4/kiddofspeed/

Inflatable Museum
Reptiles in wedding dresses, worms cuddling with each other, inflatable rooms. The inflatable museum is a gathering place for objects, performances, and environments that are resigned to instability. Artists explore the structural parameters of a virtual exhibition space by contrasting flat 'cyber' space with images of inflatability. -- Jacob Wheeler
http://www.kissmachine.org/inflated.html