Today is James Baldwin's birthday

He was born in Harlem in 1924, became an accomplished writer in his twenties, moved to France and got involved in the cultural radicalism of the Left Bank, achieved massive success in his thirties with Go Tell It on the Mountain and Giovanni's Room, returned to the United States and became a social and political activist. Aside from novels, Baldwin wrote tons of essays, plays, and poetry during his lifetime. He died from Esophageal cancer in 1987 in Saint-Paul-de-Vence and was buried in New York.

To commemorate Baldwin's birthday, here's I Heard It Through the Grapevine, a free-form, feature-length documentary produced in 1982. The film, made by Dick Fontaine and Pat Hartley, follows the writer as he revisits the settings of civil rights struggles of the 1960s in the Deep South and reexamines the movement's ideals twenty years later.

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Print out and fold your own paper cameras

Totally want to make some of these Olympus mirrorless cameras with my daughter this weekend. They don't take pictures, but they sure would make my little girl very happy. The Japanese company has a webpage for kids , and you can easily create three-dimensional paper models of the OM-D or the PEN Lite by printing and folding those PDF templates in the papercraft section . Enjoy! [h/t: Pop Photo ]

Simon Beck creates giant 'Game of Thrones' snow mural

It's been a few months since I last checked in on Simon Beck (previously here ), who specializes in making ornate snow murals with just his snowshoes. Recently the British artist was commissioned by Sky Atlantic to create a promotional art for Game of Thrones : a massive direwolf symbol the size of two and a half football pitches. According to Digital Spy , it took Simon 13 hours, 64,800 steps, and 32.5 kilometers to complete the artwork, which is the sigil of the House Stark of Winterfell. The result is mind blowing.

Stone horsemen invade River Thames

It's not uncommon to see huge art installations on River Thames: a giant fiberglass sperm whale , a floating house , a massive wooden hippo . If you happen to be in London, head down to Nine Elms, on the south bank of the waterway, any day this month, and — if it's a low tide — you'll see a group of stone horsemen by world-renowned underwater sculptor Jason deCaires Taylor , rising above the riverside beach. The artwork, titled The Rising Tide , is part of the Totally Thames arts festival and is the first of its kind to be installed in the famed river. Four three-meter tall working horses with riders are shown — two of the riders are businessmen and two are children — though horse heads have been replaced with oil pumps. The sculptures are on display until the end of September.

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