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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Where Bad Space and Good Music Collided

My first apartment was in Malate, and calling it “small” would be generous. I lived there with two girls and one guy, and to this day, I genuinely don’t know how we all fit. It felt like a magic trick. Or a health hazard. We were a musical mess. One roommate lived and breathed ’70s classics. Another was permanently blasting Korn and Slipknot. One survived solely on cheesy love songs. And me? I was floating somewhere between new wave and folk rock, pretending that made sense. Somehow, despite the noise and the chaos, we all lived together in this weird, mismatched harmony. No murders. No lawsuits. A win, honestly. My music taste now is nothing like it was in my twenties. Not even close. But I’ll always be grateful to Jacqueline for introducing me to this song in particular. It was playing when I woke up from a very memorable sleep in 2002. I was 21, half-awake, probably confused about life, and that song stuck. It still hasn’t let go.

The Art of Richey Beckett

Richey Beckett is an illustrator who works and lives in South Wales, United Kingdom. Working in record covers, movie posters, and screen printed artwork, Rickey has proven himself as a prolific artist trusted by a number of clients.  Metallica, Grateful Dead, Mastodon, New Republic Magazine, and The British Film Institute are just some of the groups who have utilized his talent. On his bio, it reads: "Beckett uses traditional pen and ink methods to create lavishly detailed pieces of black and white illustration. Taking influence from historic biblical, literary and natural history illustrators and engravers such as Doré, Durer, Audubon and Bewick, along with the decorative flair of Art Nouveau, he creates his own organic world which expands with each new piece." Be sure to check out more of Richey's work here .

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 ]

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