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On May 11th, Rooftop Films will kick off its 2012 Summer Series, marking the start of their 16th season of bringing underground films, well, aboveground in outdoor screenings all across New York City. More than just a film festival, they’re a thriving community — of filmmakers, audience members, venues, and neighborhoods — and this year’s line-up includes amazing films by the likes of Bart Layton (his documentary, The Imposter, took Sundance by storm), Nina Conti, and Matthew Lillard. Even more exciting? They’re our Project of the Day. (Kidding, we know that’s not anywhere near as exciting!)

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Swanky Hives! From the latest project update by urban farmers Brooklyn Grange, who are raising funds for their city apiary:

Did we mention we’re painting the hives? To help our bees find their way home and distinguish their hive from all the others, we’ve got to paint the boxes to make them distinct. And since we have to paint them anyway, why not get some super amazing local artists to do it for us?

Pretty brilliant idea, we think. (And FYI, that’s Kate Neckel, above.)

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The Brooklyn Comics and Graphics Festival is this weekend! Among the many amazing comic creators that will be on hand, there are a handful of Kickstarter project creators — get the lowdown on which ones over on our blog.

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KSR IRL: Tonight, 10/13 - 10/15 @ 6:30p, peep FiveMyles Gallery’s Crown Heights Film Festival!

Click here for a full film lineup of short films that includes former KSR proj Racing Towards Red Hook! #wherebrooklynat.

Last Call, y’all! 3 Days Left for Symphony for the Dance Floor. They’re about $1k away from success.

Composer, performer, violinist, and band leader, Daniel Bernard Roumain (aka DBR) has collaborated and performed with the likes of Philip Glass, Bill T. Jones, and Lady GaGa. His “sonic collages of classical, pop and hip-hop sounds” blend orchestra and club into divine theater. Featuring DBR’s violin playing alongside dance, DJ-ing, photography, and more from a variety of collaborators, Symphony For the Dancefloor needs yo cash.

Upcoming performances include 10/6-8 @ Miami Light Project & 10/13-15 @ BAM Next Wave Fest.

(Photo by Julieta Cervantes)

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KSR IRL: Thursday 9/29 at LaunchPad in Crown Heights, We Like It Like That: The Story of Latin Boogaloo has its Brooklyn work-in-progress premiere at 8 pm!

Mathew Ramirez Warren’s new documentary tells the story of 1960s East Harlem and South Bronx rhythms. As he explores, classic Afro-Cuban sounds combined with jazz, R&B, and rock to create a totally new New York genre of irresistible music. Mathew’s got 10 days to go on his Kickstarter campaign with about $6k more to raise, so the LaunchPad event will be part fundraiser, part screening, part boogie. He promise drinks, snacks, and “all things boogaloo.” (Sounds like you should maybe bring a towel?)

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KSR IRL/IYF (…In Real Life slash In Yo Face!) (…sweater weather —> kinda aggro.)

in NYC:

• (as aforementioned!) Eugene Mirman Comedy Festival tonight, 9/16 - 9/19 @ Union Hall and The Bell House. Click here for schedge and tix.
• Rafael Salazar’s short film Camillo screens tomorrow, 9/17 at the Urbanworld 2011 Film Festival @ AMC Theater on 34th. Click here for schedge and tix.
  
• The We Promote Knowledge & Love parade hits Harlem Sunday, 9/18 from 1-5p. Meet up at Frederick Douglass Circle located at the intersection of 110^th Street and Frederick Douglass Avenue.
  
• Sunday 9/18 @ 4p (as aforementioned!) the Brooklyn Book Festival features a Kickstarter Conversations panel discussion with KSR co-founder Yancey Strickler and authors Ted Rall, Nelson George, and Meaghan O’Connell.

in Boston:

• Sunday 9/18 @ 3p, Ruaridh Arrow’s feature documentary on Gene Sharp, How To Start a Revolution has its world premiere at the Boston Film Festival. Click here for tix.
• Monday, 9/19, fashion blogger Martini Severin’s “Look at You, Boston!” photo exhibition opens at Boston City Hall.

KSR IRL: Thu. 9/15 - Sun. 9/18, the 4th Annual Eugene Mirman Comedy Festival rolls into BK, with semi-awkward second dates and “whatever’s your cheapest beer” orders abounding at The Bell House and Union Hall. Tix are selling out fast but there’s still some great shows left.

To the 7 backers who pledged for a “pre-show meet and hug with Eugene”: please let us know if he goes pound + back tap or if it’s full on two-hand touch. We’ve got a pool going. (Aaand now you have a small window into lyfe@KSR.)

Click here for the full line-up and tix.

KSR IRL: 9/15 in Park Slope, Edible Cups’ The Way We See The World hosts a Skillshare on turning Big Ideas into Reality! 

We like to think we know a thing or two about bringing ideas into the world, which is why we’re big fans and friends of Edible Cups* KSR project creators and adorable braintrustians The Way We See The World. For their upcoming Skillshare on 9/15, bring your “product, new business, or crazy side project you’ve been dreaming up” to share, and the WWSTW gals and your fellow ideas(wo)men will help you fully realize your concept. The ladies promise analysis, mindmapping, project planing, strategy, and free brainfood.

“Golden Ideas: Get them into the world” meets 9/15 @ 6:30p @ The Tea Lounge. Click here to reserve a spot.

*Remember when Edible Cups was featured in that NYT Magazine article about us? Yeah. That was cool.

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KSR IRL: Saturday, 8/13 Kelly Anderson & Allison Lirish Dean’s My Brooklyn documentary will hold an afternoon of speakers, clips, and discussion @ the BMW Guggenheim Lab in Manhattan. There will also be Brooklyn-based artisans and vendors selling their creations at the Lab. The event is free and open to the public.

From the lab: “In My Brooklyn, director Kelly Anderson documents her personal journey as a Brooklyn gentrifier who tries to understand the forces behind the rapid reshaping of her neighborhood along lines of race and class. Anderson watches as an explosion of luxury housing and chain store development spurs bitter conflict over who has a right to live where and to determine the neighborhood’s future. While to some gentrification is about revitalizing the city, to others it is about erasing the eclectic urban fabric, economic and racial diversity, creative alternative culture, and unique local economies that drew them to Brooklyn in the first place.”

From 12-5p with a panel discussion at 7p. Click here for more info.

One of my favorite newsletters to actually read, former KSR project creators Triple Canopy offer “an online magazine, workspace, and platform for editorial and curatorial activities.” Featuring the work of writers, artists, and researchers, the non-profit organization “facilitates projects that engage the Internet’s specific characteristics as a public forum and as a medium, one with its own evolving practices of reading and viewing, economies of attention, and modes of interaction.” Their “expanded field of publication” includes fascinating literary journalism in a variety of forms.

Thanks to their last newsletter I just listened to James Hoff’s “Love Bombing” podcast, a “noncomprehensive mix of religious, cult, and armed-revolutionary songs that artist James Hoff first began compiling in 2006.” The collection includes recordings by L. Ron Hubbard, the Trees Community, Jim Jones’s Peoples Temple Choir, and more, all acquired through various trade networks, record fairs, and file-shares. In the immortal words of Dana Carvey doing Johnny Carson: That is some weird, wild stuff.

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Heads up, Brooklyn: Secret Science Club is raising funds on KSR for their 5th season of science lectures, arts, and performances. The club seeks to fuel the public understanding of science by building bridges between science and the arts, and celebrating passion for science in all its forms. Since moving to the Bell House in 2009, SSC events have been well attended by nerdz and kewl kidz alike, spreading the good science word to standing-room-only crowds of 300- 400 people! 

From SSC:  “We host live science events for the public, featuring subjects ranging from Black Holes and Dinosaurs to Human Evolution and the Human Brain. Every month, leading scientists give amazing talks on discoveries in their fields and unleash their research on an inquisitive audience.  Music and film are mixed in with the science, and 90 percent of our events are FREE or low-cost to the public.”

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KSR IRL: Sun, 7/31 from 4-8pm @ City Reliquary in Williasmburg,brain up and boogie down at Brooklyn Brainery’s Summer Explosion. Celebrating the 110th anniversary of the S.A.Ts (Yup. Get on board.), the party will feature “plenty of crawfish (naturally), cheap beer and the most intense trivia this side of the BQE.”

Click here for more info and event tix ($7).

The affordable and collaborative School of Lyfe raised funds on KSR last summer to help them find a permanent home, and they secured a great spot on Court Street in Caroll Gardens.

Next month’s classes include “The Whats and Whys of Programming Language,” “Kefir: Milk to Cheese,” and “New York City: Historic Mysteries,” to name a few. Peep the current course catalog here.

Heads! The Catechism Cataclysm Hits NYC This Saturday, 6/18

This Saturday at 8pm, Rooftop Films will screen Todd Rohal’s Kickstarter project and insta-cult classic The Catechism Cataclysm in the great outdoors. (Note: in New York City, “the great outdoors” = BAM Cinematek parking lot. #lifestylechoices.) Rohal and principle cast members Robert Longstreet (Great World of Sound) and Steve Little (Eastbound & Down) will be on hand for a Q&A after the film.

An absurdist boat trip comedy featuring Little as a priest, Longstreet as his former metalhead bandmate, and an epic tune entitled “God Will Fuck You Up,” this is the 4th Rohal movie screened by Rooftop Films, who’ve been rooting for the (arguably a wee bit batty) director and his work for over a decade. According to Rooftop, this latest effort promises “idiocy,” “repression,” “b-movie pyrotechnics,” “Japanese tourists,” and “diarrhea in a truck stop toilet.” Kind of sounds like a July 4th weekend we thought we’d forgotten, but hey: don’t mean we’re not interested.

Click here for more information and tickets.

Guitar Heroes: Saving the Acoustic Guitar

The Musicwood Documentary — by Helpman Productions

In 2008, filmmakers Maxine Trump and Josh Granger stumbled across a slightly unusual story: the over-logging of a forest in Alaska, specifically a rare 250 year-old Sitka Spruce, was endangering the future of the acoustic guitar. Coming to the instruments defense were the world’s top guitar-makers (Martin, Taylor, Gibson, Fender), who had banded together to try and convince an industrial logging company to adopt sustainable practices.

What Maxine and Josh want to know, and what they hope to shed some light on with their documentary Musicwood, is simple — “Could you imagine the world without the acoustic guitar?” To answer the question, they’ve employed a slew of notable, famously finger-pickin’ musicians, whose performances they’ve been sharing with us in a number of recent project updates. My favorite thus far easily belongs to notoriously independent, college-radio-rock-band-of-dreams, Yo La Tengo (where would legendary free-form radio station WFMU be without them). Their hushed performance inside the empty, light adorned hall of New Jersey venue Maxwell’s is a little awe-inspiring.

The acoustic guitar will not be the most devastating loss our planet experiences while under the thumb of industrial logging practices, but it is certainly one whose emotional resonance will far outweigh its modest stature. It’s hard for me to imagine heartbreak without Neil Young, you know? And, Dad, I either love you or hate you for that. Haven’t decided yet. You can watch the extended trailer for Musicwood, and support the project, here. Check out the clip featuring Yo La Tengo below.