A cat playing the piano is funny, but a sequence of cats playing an atonal composition by Arnold Schoenberg is both brilliant and absurd. One of the latest works from digital artist Cory Arcangel, Drei Klavierstucke, Op.11 is a compilation of fragments from found YouTube videos that captures a variety of cats walking on piano keys, each producing a note. Edited together, they recreate a dynamic piece of modernist music.

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To be frank, the trailer for Zac Efron’s next movie, which plops Efron into the theater scene of  Depression-era New York, has a lot going against it. One rather unavoidable problem is that it’s a Zac Efron movie. We’re convinced he chooses movies based on whether or not they will require a haircut (period drama=’30s hair=good to go). Another strike against the film is that the female lead is Claire Danes, who, our eternal love for Angela Chase notwithstanding (BTW, My So-Called Life is now on Hulu!), has been in a string of duds lately. Read More »

On Friday night the New Museum and n + 1 bring you The ’90s vs. the ’90s, a panel talk that will include Michael Azerrad, Mark Greif, Emily Gould, A.S. Hamrah, Marisa Meltzer, and Aaron Lake Smith, and will examine the legacy of the decade’s pop culture touchstones — from the “Dirty Boots” video to Kurt Cobain’s suicide note to those Tickle Me Elmo dolls — on who we are today. After the jump we talk to Aaron, whose popular fanzines Big Hands have been called “an ongoing treatise on disappointment,” about the ubiquitous obsession with Generation X, the WTO riots in Seattle, and the blue hair he rocked back in high school. Read More »