fresh Air had a fascinating show today about the plastic Austrian pistol, it’s history and evolution. I’m not into guns but this was a fascinating listen for me nonetheless.

There’s a new issue of Pictory out and it’s great. Some day I’m going to submit things to this most excellent photo site (I keep saying that and not doing it for some reason).

[via Coudal Partners]

Moran tells a great story about hacking and robbing banks.

[via wimp.com]

National Geographic Photographer Jim Richardson takes a long road trip across the USA in search of examples of “light pollution.”

Next day I would be driving on with thousands of miles ahead of me. I had a trunk full of gear and my iPod loaded with music and audio books. With luck I’d have hours out of cellphone territory, where I could crank the music up loud (great territory for Mahler, moody and vast) and tell the world to get lost.

Oh yeah. Reading this excellent story definitely gets me in the mood for a road trip.

[via Steve Splonskowski]

This piece is part of StoryCorps. After discovering it a week ago I’ve listened to it numerous times and it makes me smile and laugh every time.

[via wimp.com]

The Norton Project from Jamtron on Vimeo.

This is a story about how my brother and I stole our father’s 1969 Norton Commando, had it restored and then gave it back to him for Christmas. He had no idea.

Great. Made me tear up. A full-screener for sure.

[via Coudal Partners]

Vivian Maier (February 1, 1926 – April 21, 2009) was an American street photographer born in New York City. Although born in the U.S., it was in France that Maier spent most of her youth. Maier returned to the U.S. in 1951 where she took up work as a nanny and care-giver for the rest of her life. In her leisure however, Maier had begun to venture into the art of photography. Consistently taking photos over the course of five decades, she would ultimately leave over 100,000 negatives, most of them shot in Chicago and New York City. Vivian would further indulge in her passionate devotion to documenting the world around her through homemade films, recordings and collections, assembling one of the most fascinating windows into American life in the second half of the twentieth century.

A more complete biography on Vivian Maier here.

Check out her portfolios including one of self portraits.

[via Kottke.org]

Circus is a new six-hour series that takes you on an unforgettable trip with the legendary Big Apple Circus. From the big top to the “back lot,” explore a distinctive world with its own rules, lingo and no fixed address. Follow the diverse characters who make up the Big Apple family and find out what it really means to live life in the ring.

I first posted this in 2010: This recently aired on PBS, we missed it but we can all watch it in one hour segments online. I just finished the first hour and it’s fantastic. This is great behind the scenes footage of amazing performers and producers and circus culture.

Update: We’ve now watched all six 1 hour segments of this show using Netflix and while not perfect it’s quite good. You can watch the segments on the PBS site: here or you can get DVDs or watch it streaming on Netflix here. We watched it streaming with AppleTV.

What’s great about this “docudrama” is the behind the scenes stories of performers, management, and tent riggers. What makes The Big Apple Circus great is that it’s somewhere between street performing and Cirque du Soleil, meaning, it’s well produced but it’s a one ring circus, not a Las Vegas act. The performers are real human beings and we get to see both the behind the scenes and the polished performance.

The Big Apple Circus maintains a “wikipedia-like” site called Circopedia. I found some highlight videos of Sarah Schwarz doing her tight wire act and the LaSalle Brothers doing their juggling act. There’s plenty more video up there so poke around.

Kings Park Trailer from Kings Park Documentary on Vimeo.

Our good friends Lucy Winer and Karen Eaton have been working on Kings Park for a long time. The movie documents both Lucy’s experience as a young adult in Kings Park and Kings Park the institution.

Kings Park was one of those nightmare mental institutions that scare you in movies except for those who were committed there, it was real.

A soon-to-be-released documentary feature, Kings Park offers an inside look at public mental health care in America by focusing on the story of this now abandoned institution. The journey back begins with Lucy’s sudden decision, on the cusp of her fiftieth birthday, to return to Kings Park for the first time in over thirty years. Determined to face her past and come to terms with her commitment to the state hospital, Lucy’s goals are purely personal when the film begins. She soon learns, however, that in order to fully understand her own story, she needs to somehow learn about the institutional world in which she was once locked away. To this end, Lucy seeks out other former patients, their families, and hospital staff, who share intimate accounts of life at Kings Park. Shot on the overgrown and sprawling grounds of the shuttered hospital, these firsthand accounts of a vanishing world bear witness to the many changes in treatment, policy and attitudes over the past century.