"Press Input"

“Leave Me” - 3 minute short film

(Source: shortfilmmasterpieces)

Ms. Stein and Friends                                                                       The New York Times

COLD SPRING, N.Y. — Ms. Stein to celebrate her 40^th birthday combined her love of cycling with a cross-country writing project. Stein is a poet and from time to time caterer. She plans to ride 40 miles a day for 40 days with a typewriter along until she gets to Milwaukee. This is where the design for the first typewriter was made in the 1860s. She is delivering the typewriter to public spaces and inviting people to type also.

“It’s an unfolding adventure,” she said.

Ms. Stein raised $16,000 to help with expenses on Kickstarter, a Web site where people ask for money for many projects. She explain how her father kept a typewriter in the hallway.

“I want to bring that communal hallway back,” she wrote on her  Kickstarter page, adding, “I want to make a space for collaboration and creativity, to invite people to contribute their voices to the larger story of the community we’re all in.”

Since leaving her home in Amherst, Mass. on May 5, Stein has set up in multiple venues. This includes the Cherry Brook Garden Club plant sale in Canton, Conn., and the Freight House Café in Mahopac, NY.

 

A dozen pages, filthy with ink and numerous typos, uncover passages ranging from the meditative — “Do you remember when we were deep oceans moved by the movement of the moon?” — to the heartbreaking:“It wasn’t my fault. I was only six. I didn’t mean to throw the stick in the road. I didn’t see the car coming. I didn’t mean for her to die. I loved my dog and it’s taken me years to getover the accident.”

The experience is providing inspiration for her own writing, which she is doing daily at type-rider.com.

“I saw a man mowing his lawn and I loved catching that moment,” Ms. Stein said. “All that I see in between stops, that’s a treat. That’s my gift to myself.”

Inside the RV, which she rented with her budget money, she packs a ream of paper and extra ribbon. She carries gum, chocolate and juggling balls for quiet moments when people stare but do not stop.

In Fishkill, NY on Wednesday yielded just one participant, Mark Etri, 52, an out-of-work teacher and pizza maker from Marlboro, N.Y. He leaned over the typewriter, cautiously pecking away. His black shoes, dusted with flour, tapped as he typed:

“It comes down to this: that you see everything as a pizza maker, from laugh out loud customers to screaming babies to a juggling cyclist on her way to Wisconsin. It’s not how you get there but the path you chose to arrive there.”

Aside from giving advice on the physicality of the typewriter — “Punch the keys hard!” — and writing a daily prompt to counter the fear of a blank page, Ms. Stein waits for people to find her.

“I don’t want to be the salesman who makes you feel trapped,” she said.

If Fishkill was quiet, Cold Spring was flooded with typees. A dozen people sat to type, beginning with Ms. Wagner, a Garrison resident who had read about the project in the paper before spotting her riding down the road.

“I think it’s such an amazing idea,” she said. “I thought about it for just 30 seconds before I said, ‘I have to come find her.’ ”

Benny Zaken, 56, owner of the Frozenberry Cafe, welcomed Ms. Stein’s table outside his shop with yogurt and a Facebook post announcing her arrival.

“It is wonderful, absolutely wonderful,” he said of the project. “You never know what talent you will find, what sort of creative spirit is out there if you don’t give people a platform, and that is what she is doing.”

Throughout the afternoon, children and adults were in awe at the typewriter itself, its sound stirring memories for some.

“My mom used to chew gum and type at the same time,” Susie Homola, 52, of Garrison, said. “Bang, bang, bang, chick, chick, chick. It was like an orchestra.”

Besides the dozen who typed, more still stopped to talk — about children who loved to write, about typewriters their grandparents kept, about their sentences.

For Ms. Stein, those stories are as much birthday gift as the written words.

“There are moments you cannot capture on paper,” she said.

By Cornell Wedge

With Contributions from New York Times

Photo, New York Times

Video, Martin Breinschmid

EDUKATE URSELF 

Maya Stein’s Website 

Why Typewriters Beat Computers

Kickstarter

USA Cycling 

Typewriter Band Facebook Group

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haustenstreet:

Coming Soon: Doin’ It In The Park: Pick-Up Basketball, NYC (Trailer)

DOIN’ IT IN THE PARK: PICK-UP BASKETBALL, NYC is an independent documentary directed by Bobbito Garcia and Kevin Couliau. The film explores the definition, history, culture, and social impact of New York’s outdoor summer b-ball scene, the worldwide “Mecca” of the sport.

In New York City, pick-up basketball is not just a sport. It is a way of life. There are 700+ outdoor courts, and an estimated 500,000 players, the most loyal of which approach the game as a religion, and the playground as their church.

“You can play high school or college for four years. You can play Pro for a decade. You can play pick-up … for life.”

DOIN’ IT IN THE PARK: PICK-UP BASKETBALL, NYC lovingly uncovers this movement through the voices of playground legends, NBA athletes, and most importantly the common ballplayer who all day looks forward to calling “next” game at their local schoolyard.

Co-directors Bobbito Garcia and Kevin Couliau visited 180 courts throughout NYC’s five boroughs to create their debut documentary. They traveled to a majority of the locations by bicycle, carrying camera equipment and a basketball in their backpacks. The film’s title refers as much to the subject matter as it does to the method of filmmaking, providing an unprecedented perspective on urban America’s most popular, and accessible, free recreation.

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themoviedoc:

Making of Universal Studios’ new logo.