Welcome to this week's selection of Picks. We're travelling to another dimension, a dimension not only of sight and sound but of mind; a journey into a wondrous land whose boundaries are that of imagination. That's the signpost up ahead -- our next stop, the Picks Zone.
You're standing inside a dark portrait gallery. The curator, a wiry gentleman by the name of Rod Serling, steps out of the shadows. "Welcome to The Night Gallery. During the early Seventies, my cult television series (a follow-up to that other show) unveiled a hideous new portrait each week, followed by a half hour of nightmarish terror. Please feel free to wander around the paintings. Notice how the eyes follow you..."
Suddenly you find yourself sitting in a dilapidated art-house theater, waiting for the Sync Online Film Festival to begin. The festival promises to display a diverse array of animated, experimental, documentary, and narrative shorts for your viewing pleasure. Colorful films, simple films, intended to amuse and delight. But who are these stooped, shadowy figures shuffling down the aisles? Two avuncular caretakers known affectionately as Dr. Caligari and Nosferatu. You sink into your tattered seat as the house lights dim...
On the screen before you is a frog. A frog on a journey. Not just any frog, but a talking, dancing, singing, car-driving, banjo-playing, pig-loving frog. And not just any journey. You've just begun an excursion...in search of the Rainbow Connection. Is that a song you hear in the lily pads? Don't be alarmed. It's kismet. And Kermit. A word of advice as you proceed: "Rainbows are visions, but only illusions, and rainbows have nothing to hide." You sit there alone, waiting for something better to come along. Follow the path of the rainbow into the sky...
The Moon -- symbol of our desire to storm the gates of Heaven. The Apollo space program -- subject of an upcoming 12-hour HBO miniseries. From the Earth to the Moon -- a pantheon of sight...of sound...of QuickTime video. The series begins on April 5th but the site awaits your imminent perusal. Moreover, for those who snatch their broadcasts from the air, PBS presents Mysteries of Deep Space. There you will experience the tripartite wonder of the interactive timeline, the expert Q & A, the trivia challenge. Join us as we journey to Luna's perch and back...
You return to an ancient land. A dusty land. A wind-blown escarpment on the outskirts of before. What you are about to enter contains images whose complete stories remain unknown. You need a map. A gateway to the past. Elazig. Urfa. Diyarbakir. Arbil. Zakho. Dahuk. Do these names mean anything to you? Vague, familiar echoes of early history. You have returned to Kurdistan, "a place for collective memory and cultural exchange." Welcome home. The story has only begun...
And yet the journey ahead is long. Consider the Iditarod SuperSite. Behold the annual ritual of a thousand-mile dogsledding dash across the Alaskan wilderness -- a no-man's land hospitable only to dreams of escape. There, amidst the icy grip of the Arctic circle, the canine is king. Turn your eyes to the husky brutes that moil at the coxswain's call of their human mushers. Let us gaze in rapt wonder at streaming video of these noble canines as they strain for the solace of the finish line...
You cross the line and tumble into a shocking world of science gone mad. Raman Pfaff, mild-mannered scientist, has trapped, untangled, and illustrated the laws of physics. His creation: Explore Science -- a shockwave-laden experience of sights, sounds, and interaction with scientific theory. Observe harmonic motion, mouse genetics, and the physics of golf. Abandon, if you dare, the world of two-dimensional textbook illustrations, and enter Raman Pfaff's interactive world. Reality begins to swirl, dance, and coalesce...
Time: All of history. Place: Everywhere. Dramatis Personae: 30 diverse historical figures in search of a common link. A thin thread connecting Rasputin to John Wayne, Caligula to Alan Alda. Out of the dusky haze of the collective unconscious into the flickering semi-reality of your computer screen -- you are now a witness to Biobytes, original, minute-long RealVideo clip companions to A&E's Biography TV program. This week's feature: Star Trek's Gene Roddenberry, a man who made millions of dollars by pioneering pointy ears. One of the happier places -- in The Picks Zone.