The challenging thing about getting home delivery of the Sunday NY Times is having the “time” to read it. Because there are items worthy of more mindshare, the Times seems to hang out on the coffee table for an extraordinary amount of… you guessed it — time.
The 28 August issue had so many items that triggered the curious mind that we decided to focus our QuickTake5 (#quicktake5) on our discoveries.
1 >> SundayBusiness: G.E., the 124-year old Software Start-Up…
Steve Lohr had a piece above the fold in the business section that talked about the “sea change” going on at General Electric as the company tries to translate some of the nimble habits and digital wizardry of Silicon Valley to heavy industry (think jet engines and power generators). For example their engineers in the design stages are encouraged to move faster in smaller steps, conduct more experiments, and be willing to fail and try again. Engineering manager Bill Byrne said:
As an engineer, not getting it right the first time, I find painful. It’s uncomfortable. But it’s been incredibly liberating.
Per John Lammas, the 56-year-old vice president for power generation engineering,The old ways had merit. Each step and rule was logical on its own. But the emphasis on flawless execution and perfection fostered a fear of failure. “Overcoming that culture was probably the biggest challenge,” he said.
It’s an interesting piece.
2 >> Travel: A Scenario With Scenery…
In another “above the fold” item, the Travel section had a piece by Chris Colin that seemed to be discussing a PokemonGo-like adventure. Think of it as a Bay Area weekend getaway with a purpose — locating a stolen thoroughbred. That was the scenario that First Person Travel, the creation of game designer and maker of “mixed-reality entertainment, Gabe Smedresman, a game designer and maker of “mixed-reality entertainment,” put forth.
“Instead of watching a movie, you’re living one. We deliver a heightened reality, where you connect more deeply with your travel partners and the place itself.”
Said the writer of this piece:
Our getaway was a play, written for us and starring us, too.
A quick hop over to the link provided for First Person Travel and ended up at The Headlands Gamble website to learn that pricing for this type of “narrative adventure” starts at $562 per person. The NYT article definitely fits the TL;DR category, but is well worth the read.
3 >> Arts & Leisure: The Race to Save the Films We Love…
This time, the piece we were drawn to appeared below the fold, but above an ad for The Front Page, which interestingly enough is referenced (the 1931 film) in the opening paragraphs.
If you have ever seen the 1931 film of “The Front Page,” based on the jauntily cynical play, you might have been startled by the moment when a wisecracking newspaperman silences his machine-gun-fast patter to raise his middle finger at the mayor and sheriff. Is this what the New York Times reviewer Mordaunt Hall was thinking of when he wrote that the film’s humor is “frequently harsh”?
He got us. We read on. Very interesting piece about the efforts of film preservationists.
By the way, according to Steven Gong of the AFI’s National Center for Film and Video Preservation, Frankie’s “Lost Horizon” was made “accessible through the efforts of the AFI’s National Center for Film and Video Preservation. They spent 13 years restoring Frank Capra’s 1937 classic. Annie first saw it on the big screen at the Stanford Theatre in Palo Alto, Calif.
4 >> Lifestyle: Taking on Hollywood? Frogs and a former NFL defensive end…
This one appeared deeper in the Lifestyles section — page 8. The sub-head stated: “A former athlete finds that persistence pays off in entertainment, too.” We read on to learn about Trevor Pryce, a retired as a pro football player (14 years as a defensive end for the Denver Broncos, Baltimore Ravens and New York Jets), who was now doing what we call around here — pursuing his bliss:
He was going to be “the next George Lucas.
Brooks Barnes wrote about how an animated series that Mr. Pryce created, produced and co-financed is slated to appear on Netflix starting 2 September. “Kulipari: An Army of Frogs” consists of thirteen 28-minute episodes which follow a young croaker named Darel who goes to war against frog-eating scorpions.
You can check out the trailer here:
The series, based on a trilogy of books, takes place in a fantasy version of the Australian outback and is a story of bravery and heroism as an unlikely hero will suddenly have the chance to become the warrior of his dreams.
Another Hero’s Journey! We plan on watching and will probably write more about this.
5 >> New York section: : Grandmaster Flash Beats Back Time…
Hopping back to above the fold, we came upon this piece — part of the “Lions of New York” series appearing in the Sunday Times.
A common denominator with the previous story is Netflix. The new Baz Lurhman series “The Get Down,” is a mythic saga of how New York at the brink of bankruptcy gave birth to a new art form. Set in New York in 1977, this music-driven drama series chronicles the rise of hip-hop and the last days of disco -_ told through the lives, music, art and dance of the South Bronx kids who would change the world forever.
There are some videos embedded in John Leland’s Times piece worth checking out. And we are totally enjoying what we’ve seen so far of the series. It’s “must-see” streaming TV.
By the way, this ad appeared on the back page of the Arts & Leisure section. Definitely an attention-getter IF you take the “time” to flip through / read “The Times.”
We found this particular edition of the Times especially enlightening, inspiring and a catalyst — making us want to explore and learn more.
That’s a wrap!
#SCMF!
—The Gang
Bonus Content
The Enchanted Jukebox says check out Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five in this piece.
Speak Your Mind