A Disney artist uses a mattress to save a falling baby. When will Spotify, Pandora, and the rest start profiting songwriters? Female impressionists!
New YouTube series 'The Impression Guys' includes a rare breed: female impressionists
"The Impression Guys" is a new series on YouTube about two world-class impressionists -- Jim Meskimen and Ross Marquand -- who are trying to be taken seriously.
Episode 1 of "The Impression Guys" on YouTube
The episodes chart the success of Jim's and Ross's 12-step program to get serious acting jobs and fight off the temptation of the good money they make doing trailer voiceovers and video games.
But there's something more. Until now, since it's a male-dominated field, it was all Jimmy Stewart, George Clooney, and George Bush. The only female celebs to be impersonated have been Dame Edna, Bea Arthur, and Julia Child. But "The Impression Guys" also features Angela Hoover and Dana Delorezo.
I talked with the group at Corky's diner in Sherman Oaks, where "The Impression Guys" was first sketched out many months ago. Warning, you may also hear Miley Cyrus, Gregory Peck, Ariana Huffington, Celene, and Dana Delorenzo's high school teacher.
A story with bounce: Disney artist catches baby falling from window
It was something out of a cartoon, and it even has a Disney ending.
A Disney animation worker named Konrad Lightner was moving a few things out of his Burbank apartment Sunday, including a box spring. That box spring is key because Lightner and his wife Jenny then noticed a three-year-old boy trying to retrieve some toys thrown out of a third story window.
"We were on the way to the U-Haul," Konrad told us. "We were carrying our box spring from our bed, and when we saw that his leg was coming out and he was about to come down, I threw the box spring down."
The toddler followed soon after.
"He was pretty high so I didn't want to have my body against his and straight-up catch him, so I kinda grabbed him and kinda fell with him a little bit and went into the box spring. When he landed he cried a little bit."
But probably not as hard as the baby's father did when he came down and hugged Lightner, who had just given every parent's nightmare a Hollywood ending.
Lightner, 30, says this experience hasn't scared him and his wife from wanting to have kids in the future.
The baby is fine, and a firefighter who arrived on the scene gave Lightner a medal.
When he's not catching babies falling out of windows, Lightner is a look development artist for Disney. He worked on "Frozen," the hit animated feature, on which he helped make the ice look real. He knows ice ... he studied art at the University of Minnesota-Duluth.
Eureka! Huntington opens Archimedes exhibit with old text and new puzzle
“Lost and Found: The Secrets of Archimedes” is at The Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens' MaryLou and George Boone Gallery through June 21.
He’s the man who ran naked through the streets yelling “Eureka,” who died at 75 defending his Sicilian homeland, the greatest thinker of ancient times. And now Archimedes, just 2,200 years old, is at the Huntington, with a flaunt of ancient wisdom and a mind-bending new puzzle.
We know the stories, but we don’t really know the man. Was Archimedes of Syracuse married? Did he have children? Was he a member of the local royalty? Did he really have a beard? About half of his work is lost in time, and so is his biography.
The most complete surviving collection of his work long lay hidden in the prayerbook of a medieval Greek monk, who tried to erase all of Archimedes’ works so he could write devotions on the same pages.
(The Archimedes Palimpsest photographed by John Dean. © owner of the Archimedes Palimpsest, Creative Commons)
But the original — termed the Palimpsest — peeped through. After many adventures, the script came into the hands of a team of 80 scientists and scholars. With the results we see at the Huntington.
Scholars Reviel Netz and William Noel, in their book on the palimpsest, say Archimedes was the most important scientist who ever lived, because we are still building on his foundations in the 21st Century. Netz and Noel credit him with two basic, vital ideas — first, infinity and all that implies. The second is his concept that mathematics could be applied to the real world. This makes Archimedes the patron saint of all modern physics and engineering. As well as applied mathematics itself. Including calculus.
The show gives a detailed and fascinating view of the years-long restoration process, including some wild-hair scientific techniques that seem to have come right out of Dr. Who — like using a Stanford University cyclotron to peep under some bogus medieval illustrations. Other complex forms of radiation were used to light up the washed-away main texts.
(Archimedes Palimpsest, showing text and diagram of “Floating Bodies.” © owner of Archimedes Palimpsest, Creative Commons)
One ultimate result will be the first accurate English translation of Archimedes’ works. But beyond that, the palimpsest, in its new version, discloses two of his treatises never previously understood. First, there is “The Method,” in which Archimedes applies the laws of physical balance to geometry, ultimately in relation to the infinite. Scholars find in the Method the roots of the modern calculus.
The second new finding may not be as important, but it’s a lot of fun. It’s a simple looking puzzle, like one you might pick up at a novelty store: a square containing 14 pieces in six colors, mostly triangles, with a few irregular polygons. Now here’s the deal: You take apart the pieces and try to fit them together in the same square — in a different pattern. Suddenly, it’s time for dinner.
It’s the baffling little joke from Archimedes to the ages. He called it his “Stomachion.” That means bellyache. The nerd word for its science is “combinatorics.” And it is key to modern computer tech. For a reasonable price, you can buy a stomachion at the Huntington Gift Shop. And bust your own gut trying to solve it. There are 17,152 possible solutions.
Beverly Hills Centennial: 5 things you probably didn't know about the history of 90210
This year, Beverly Hills celebrates 100 years of cityhood. It's one of the most iconic cities in the United States. We all know Rodeo Drive. We all know its zip code, its palatial houses. But how did Beverly Hills get to be the upscale paradise it is today? Here are five things you probably didn't know about the history of the hills.
1. It used to be a field of lima beans
Before it had a name, the now lavish, comfortable town used to be home to one of the largest lima bean fields in California. After several failed attempts to find oil underneath, developer Burton Green bought the land and named it Beverly Hills, after the town of Beverly Farms, Massachusetts.
Why Beverly Farms? "President Taft liked to vacation in Beverly Farms, and Burton Green liked President Taft," says KPCC's Patt Morrison.
2. The entire city was planned
Landscape architect Wilbur Cook designed the city's look and layout to look almost garden-like, with parks and trees. "It was planned in every sense. From the streets being laid out, from the trees that were designated on each street," says Gail Stein, archivist for the Beverly Hills Public Library. "The type of trees, the size of the lot..."
Green sold the land to developers in lots. Stein says his goal was to make the city look uniformly beautiful, but not too rigidly similar. The now world-famous Rodeo Drive was built in 1907.
3. Beverly Hills has almost always been wealthy...
In 1912, the Beverly Hills Hotel opened its doors. Still open today, its fun, upscale atmosphere attracted movie stars and East Coast moneymakers right off the bat. When developers began constructing houses nearby, what moneyed Angeleno could resist?
RELATED: The Beverly Hills Hotel gets landmark status on its 100th birthday
4. ...but it wasn't a town for old money at first
"In the '20s, the celebrities started coming," said archivist Gail Stein. "Primarily [it was] started by Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks, and they encouraged other celebrities to come. It snowballed." Pickford and Fairbanks founded the famous Pickford estate, where, as KPCC's Patt Morrison puts it:
Fairbanks had a new brand of tires delivered via the Goodyear blimp. “Just unload them right here,” said the matinee idol, as the blimp landed on the lawn of Pickfair, the world-famous house he shared with his bride and fellow star, Mary Pickford. The new tires were destined for Fairbanks’ new car – a little number called a National Sextet.
5. During the Great Depression, Beverly Hills prospered
In fact, the city expanded: it built a new Civic Center, three new movie theaters. "They had nonstop promotional advertisements," says Stein. "Stressing the image of a first rate city. So a lot of it was propaganda. And specialty shops came about; Saks Fifth Avenue was constructed during this time."
Want to help celebrate the city's centennial? The City of Beverly Hills has events going on all this year, including a panel discussion about the city's future on April 8. Check the city's website for more information.
How will songwriters fare in a world of Spotify and Pandora?
Los Angeles' music industry is made up of more than just multi-platinum-selling singers and veneered rock bands: Behind the scenes, songwriters are just as involved in creating hit albums as the bands themselves.
But in the 15 years since online music debuted, the marketplace has changed completely: services like iTunes, Pandora and Spotify have begun to dominate music, and songwriters may be struggling more than most as the industry tries to keep up.
Darrell Brown has been a songwriter for over 30 years. Whether you've streamed it online, spun it on vinyl or popped it into a tape deck, you've likely heard Darrell Brown's music. He's worked with names like Dolly Parton, Wilson Phillips and Neil Young.
The Sherman Oaks resident remembers the good old days of the music industry: the time of beanies, of LA Gear, of flannel shirts tied around the waist — the '90s. Back then, he says, a songwriter could make a living pretty easily. You didn't even need to write a hit single. If the album did well, you were set.
"There's $60,000 just from one record that was a big record," says Brown. "And no one besides the fans might've heard that song."
In 1999, the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry reported that consumers around the world spent nearly $30 billion on music. Last year, it was half that. To make ends meet, bands and singers can opt to play more shows or sell more merchandise.
But songwriters don't tour. Their income comes exclusively from album sales, downloads, radio play and other royalties — and after the performers, record labels and other middlemen get their cut, songwriters are left with just a fraction of the money earned.
Brown says he's cut down on writing gigs to do more producing and arranging — he gets paid up front for that.
DA Wallach is a singer, songwriter and the artist in residence for the music streaming service Spotify — you might've heard his work in a video directed by Odd Future's Tyler the Creator:
Wallach acknowledges that the Internet's created a problem for the music industry, but he thinks it also holds the solution. Wallach says Spotify subscribers pay $120 a year for music, which is more than twice that of the average music consumer.
"My fundamental belief, and the belief that brought me into Spotify in the first place, was that the only way out of this predicament would be to convince consumers that they should pay for music again," says Wallach. "And that the only way to do that would be by offering them a compelling music experience that was legal and paid."
With streaming services like Spotify and Pandora, people can listen to as much ad-supported music as they want or pay a small amount a month to go ad-free.
Spotify pays artists based on how much a song is played. The more a fan listens, the more money artists make. But for songwriters, that amounts to just a fraction of a penny per play.
The new industry shift has made the process of marketing and recording albums very different. Glen Ballard is a songwriter and producer who's worked with Michael Jackson and Paula Abdul. He also co-wrote "Jagged Little Pill," the hit album that launched Alanis Morissette's music career.
Ballard says that in the digital world, there might not be a lot of incentive for writers and labels to take risks on untested artists like Morissette.
"It completely destroyed a kind of art form," says Ballard, "in which people like myself would spend an inordinate amount of time making sort of these sonic portraits of deeply personal records."
If a songwriter doesn't want to deal with streaming services, too bad: most don't hold the rights to their music. Publishing companies like ASCAP and BMI don't like this model much either, and they're pushing legislation in Congress to reform how copyright negotiations work.
DA Wallach with Spotify says fighting with streaming services won't help, and it's not in artists' interests anyway. He adds that if his company reaches its goal of 40 million paid subscribers —more than six times what they have now — Spotify can pay out as much as 4 cents per play.
"Streaming in general is gonna come to constitute the majority of music consumption in the world," said Wallach. "The only way that happens is if we succeed at convincing consumers to spend much more on music than they currently do. If we can do that, the industry is restored to something approaching what it used to be."
It can be the good old days again, just without the beanies and plaid this time. But it has to happen, first.