My neighborhood hosted it’s 3rd annual arts festival this weekend. I’ve been saying this is my favorite day of the year in Fishtown, a day when I’m extra proud to live here and be part of such a vibrant and wild-spirited community. What promised to be a rainy affair turned out to break free of the showers and even give me a sunburn. It was lovely, as always.

A big part of the festival, for those of you who don’t know yet, is the ‘Kensington Kinetic Sculpture Derby’. I took lots of photos of the derby and here’s a video of some of the best sculptures in action:

Unsurprisingly, my fourth (and Audrey’s third) True/False Film Festival lived up to its growing reputation as one of the best documentary festivals in the country by delivering great films, new friends, engaged conversations and rousing parties. We had a blast. As always, you can see all my photos in a Flickr set here.

Some highlights:

My favorite film was Big River Man, a film I didn’t even know was in production when I blogged about it’s subject, extreme distance swimmer Martin Strel last year. I wish the trailer was up online, but alas. You’ll have to do with my over-used one word description for things I love: amazing!

A closer runner-up for me was We Live in Public the new film from Dig! director Ondi Timoner that follows the media experimentation of early Internet entrepreneur and Pesudo.com founder Josh Harris.

It was really cool to meet both Josh and Ondi at the fest and get to talk about film and the future of online video – a subject clearly close to my heart.

Other excellent films we saw and loved: Pressure Cooker (about a Philadelphia high school’s culinary class and it’s extraordinary teacher), No Impact Man (about a NYC family who famously choose to go as no-impact as possible for one year), Over the Hills and Far Away (about a Texas family who’s quest for healing of their Autistic child takes them on a spiritual quest to Mongolia).

Last but not least, how could I not mention how cool it was to get treated to a short set from avant-garde legends Pelt before just about every screening! Nothing like a little Buddha Machine and gong quartet to pep you up for a great film experience.

the summer camp hanging out by the lake vibe…

the fun new friends we made…

the amazing music performances…

But I can’t. I’m too exhausted. But I know if I don’t post something now, I might never get to it. I’ll let me mediocre photos tell the story for me.

I will say this: ATP was hands-down one of the best, most fun festivals of any kind that I have ever attended. Yes.

[UPDATE: Pitchfork actually has a fantastic review of the weekend - and I agree with pretty much every point, for those of you music nerds interested in the finer points of the performances.]

Just returned from another fantastic festival. I met several great people, as usual, as this festival is one of the best ones for meeting filmmakers. Though I shook his hand, I didn’t actually get to speak with Jeff Goldblum other than the few seconds before taking this gratuitous photo for my blog. Yeah, I’m a fan boy. I admit it.

One of my favorite conversations was the 45-minute long chat I had in front of the coffee shop on Sunday morning with Godfrey Reggio, the director of one of my favorite films of all time, Koyaanisquatsi. I had the chance to really pick his brain about his films, his hometown New Orleans, the direction of digital media and the implications of the ubiquity of digital cameras on privacy and society. Fun!

I’m happy that I finally got to meet Karina Longworth, the blogger for Spout.com, after being Internet buddies for a couple years. And though usually a chore, my trips into and out of town were both great. On the way in, I met and had a fantastic conversation with Lee Kline of the Criterion Collection, who subsequently invited me to project video at their cinema at All Tomorrow’s Party (more on that later). And then, on my way out of town I spoke with the talented animator Matthew Talbot-Kelly about blogging, animation, business and family. Great stuff. If you have the chance, I also highly recommend his short, Blind Man’s Eye.

You might notice that I haven’t yet written about the films I saw. Honestly, there weren’t any that totally blew me away. Maybe I’m getting jaded. Or media-saturated. Or filmed-out. Not sure. But in any case, my favorite feature-length films I caught were:

• Waltz with Bashir – an animated documentary about a soldier trying to piece together traumatic events during his experience in war
• Happy-Go-Lucky – Mike Leigh’s humorous look at a girl who thinks the can save everyone around her through sheer will and humor
• O’Horten – a quiet but cute film about a Norwegian train conductor who doesn’t know what to do with himself after retiring
• Pirosmani – a 1969 film I was lucky enough to project about one of the most famous painters from the Republic of Georgia. It only ran once because the print didn’t come until the last possible minute and wasn’t included in the program. Unfortunately, not many people came to the screening.

Lastly, allow me to speak about one of the best things that happened during the festival: gondola karaoke. Whilst riding a fully loaded gondola with my friends up to the end-of-fest staff party at the Chuck Jones theater in Mountain Village, Beth says, “Say, what are your favorite songs? Let’s sing them!” which we proceeded to do with reckless, tipsy abandon at top ear-splitting volume. I think there were moments of Queen to Elvis Costello to Madonna. And then we did it again on the way down. Even drunker. Oh yeah.

[Vampire Weekend]

We got to enjoy a very relaxing, sunny summer day listening to music outside at Drexel’s campus this past weekend (see all the photos here). The Popped! Music Festival got a lot bigger this year. Last spring we were cramming into small local venues watching great up and coming area bands. This year, it was a full-on festival complete with international musical acts.

My friend Alexis did a great job pulling this thing together over the past year. I helped her out planning a bit early on, so Audrey and I scored some VIP passes and had a good time watching the (ahem) mild debauchery going on back stage.

If you’d like to see some live music clips from the event, check out my music vlog yvynyl live.