Fun Friday Resources

It is vital, if you are committed to Lichtenbergianism, to have multiple means of TASK AVOIDANCE at your disposal. I mean, sometimes you have to turn off Twitter and Facebook and get down to some serious procrastination.

So have some films and performances to watch!

First up, over at Open Culture, a list of free online animated films. If you have never seen it, start with Saul Bass’s amazing Why Man Creates.

Next, the National Film Board of Canada with its 3,000 films. When I was a yoot, PBS would regularly show animated films… from Canada. I was envious of a country that made good art a national thing.

If live performance, specifically opera, is your thing, head over to OperaVision, a cooperative of a bunch of opera houses in Europe, where you can binge on some amazing productions. This week I watched Roxy und ihr Wunderteam (Roxy and her Dream Team), a frothy little operetta from 1937, revamped and energized by the Komische Oper in Berlin.

This show was a total delight, although I found the drag performance of Roxy a little distracting—not because it was drag, but because the actor was a little too old to be playing the soubrette. (Apparently the three leads are a famous cabaret act in Berlin.)

Roxy would make a fun high school musical if someone could adapt it for the American stage. I should add that to my list of things to do.