Hasta La Ideas

New York’s Grand Central Terminal is an ideal spot for a flash mob–remember when Moncler Grenoble’s stone-faced model-dancers took to the floor in Carlo Mollino-inspired skiwear? As part of the big 100th birthday bash, the insta-happening experts at Improv Everywhere recruited 135 LED-flashlight-wielding performers to light up Grand Central’s grand windows, mesmerizing passersby. The impressively choreographed affair, a project cooked up with MTA Arts for Transit, was something of a homecoming for Improv Everywhere, which in 2007 staged “Frozen Grand Central,” a flash freeze that has racked up 32 million views on YouTube. Watch both successful “missions” below.

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The Sundance Film Festival wrapped up yesterday in Park City, Utah, and our pick for a breakout is Tony Donoghue‘s Irish Folk Furniture. The charming animated documentary (watch it below) follows the fate of 16 pieces of traditional folk furniture as they are repaired and return home. “In Ireland, old hand-painted furniture is often associated with hard times, with poverty, and with a time many would rather forget,” notes Donoghue, who worked for seven years at the Trust for Urban Ecology and the Natural History Museum in London before turning his full attention to filmmaking. When Irish Folk Furniture won the jury award for animation at the Sundance short film awards ceremony, he arrived at the podium carrying a pint. “The fact that I’m Irish and have this beer is completely coincidental,” Donoghue assured the audience.

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In a recent 60 Minutes segment, Charlie Rose and producer Katherine Davis profiled IDEO co-founder David Kelley (and revealed that even Steve Jobs himself struggled in getting AT&T to activate one of the first iPhones). This part of the piece, in which Rose pays a visit to Kelley’s Ettore Sottsass-designed home near Palo Alto, ended up on the cutting room floor, but CBS has released it as an online extra. “It’s supposed to be a humble, private house, where you don’t make a big deal out of it,” Kelley tells Rose. “That’s why it’s so plain on the front.” Sottsass studded the living room with bluish green boxes, to break up the space and make it more cozy. Here, Kelley reveals what’s inside them. Plus, his teenage daughter has an entire little (Monopoly-style) house to herself. Notes Kelley, “Ettore thought that if you were a kid you should have your own house rather than your own room.”

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Say what you will about St. Barts–we think Iceland is the place to ring in the new year. According to local lore, tonight is the night that cows talk, seals take on human form, the dead rise from their graves, and elves move houses. Residents celebrate with family dinners, bonfires, and fireworks, lots of them. The pyrotechnics spectacular is made possible by the country’s lack of restrictions on fireworks, and the entire population of Reykjavik–approximately 200,000 people–gets into the act. This year, those of us in less permissive nations can watch the massive fireworks display online: click here to watch the live broadcast at 7:00 p.m. Eastern / 4:00 p.m. Pacific.

Continue the explosive Icelandic fun with a New Year’s Eve screening of Bjӧrk‘s new music video, “Mutual Core” (below), commissioned by the Museum of Contemporary Art Los Angeles. “[MOCA director] Jeffrey Deitch contacted me a while ago, and he suggested that we collaborate on this, and it sounded like a good idea,” said the Reykjavik native in a recent interview with Paper magazine. “Because I’m an old punk, I’ve never done commercials or sponsoring or anything like this–I’ve been really strict with it–but with this, [Jeffrey] seemed to be helping us to make a music video. That sort of makes sense to me. It doesn’t feel like sponsoring.”
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“Best of” lists are a dime a dozen at this time of year, but only the most discerning cultural critics dare to voyage into “worst of” territory. Conan O’Brien and Team Coco prove themselves up to the task in this roundup of the least viral videos of 2012. No “Gangnam Style” here, moving image fans, but you will find five less than scintillating and refreshingly trendproof gems such as the aptly titled “Reading.” And remember: virality is in the eye of the beholder. Andy Warhol would have taken these over PSY and “KONA 2012″ any day.

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