Mark Weaver, Writer
Mark Weaver (mrkdwvr@yahoo.com) grew up in Fairborn, Ohio and then embarked on a life journey that has taken him across the U.S. and around the world. He has spent the last ten years teaching linguistics and English as a second language at colleges and universities in Texas, Minnesota, and California. Before that, he worked with a linguistics organization in Ethiopia. He is currently a freelance writer living in Minneapolis. Besides writing articles for the Daily Planet, he contributes to the Arts Orbit blog.
Manga and anime at MCAD: Taking cartoons seriously
The influences of manga and anime are everywhere, even if they’re not always identifiable. Japanese artists often go unnoticed in the US because people often dismiss manga and anime as mere comics and cartoons. Despite this prevailing attitude, manga and anime are making significant and transforming inroads into the cultures and economies of the world. The Schoolgirls and Mobilesuits (SGMS) sessions that ran at MCAD from September 26 to 28 not only responded to the popular aspects of this phenomenon, but also provided a forum for a deeper and more profound look at the influence manga and anime are having over a variety of cultural forms and in various arenas around the world. MORE »
Japanophilia at MCAD
Speed Racer ran Sunday afternoons. My brother and I never missed an episode. As far as I know, this was the only Japanese animation I watched as a kid, and I was enthralled. In the early 1980s, as I was leaving the nest to begin my adult life, a tsunami of Japanese artwork and culture headed for the US and flooded the hearts and minds of the emerging generation. Since that time, anime and manga, two forms of Japanese pop culture, have become a formidable industry with an annual gross of nearly $1 billion. MORE »
Book note: New tome on Minnesota's historic bridges
Over one year has passed since the collapse of the I-35W Bridge over the Mississippi River in downtown Minneapolis. Before that, I didn’t think much about bridges. Sure, I might have noticed the body of water, a charging locomotive, or a gridlocked freeway as I passed over, but the bridge itself rarely captured my attention. Bridges are a part of our infrastructure that I took for granted. MORE »
(10 seconds x 100 films) + beer
In recent years, the possibility of recording anything, anytime, cheaply, and conveniently has led to the capturing of countless everyday moments. Chris Pennington—high school teacher by day, artist and rogue filmmaker by night—amassed a sizable collection of ten-second snippets using the video feature on a new digital camera and began wondering if others had similar gems to share. “We built a crappy little Web site,” Pennington wrote in an e-mail, “and signed up for a Ten-Second Film Fest Gmail account, and then begged and pleaded with the masses to send their little movies to us!” That was in 2004. 150 films were submitted, and 100 were shown that year. Thus was born the tradition of the Ten-Second Film Festival, the fourth annual iteration of which will take place this July 4 at the Soap Factory. MORE »
Bending circuits, subverting consumer culture
Squeaks, squeals, blips, and borps emerged from every corner. Techno music was the soundtrack. Computerized voices, farm animal sounds, and well-known childhood melodies rang out. Conversations reflecting the complexity of a schematic prevailed. The word “nerd,” a self-imposed moniker, flew frequently and freely about as “circuit benders” from all over the world came together to talk about their passion: reorienting the circuitry of electronic toys to make them generate tones and sounds that can be used in the creation of music. MORE »
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