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LIFE: After Hiroshima: On the anniversary of the July 16, 1945 Trinity test in New Mexico that gave birth to the Atomic Age, LIFE.com presents photographs — most of them never published in LIFE — taken in Hiroshima after the Second World War ended. Here, in the landscape of a ruined city, and on the scarred skin and misshapen limbs of Japanese who survived the world’s first nuclear attack, photographer Carl Mydans discovered the legacy — part nightmare, part surprising, wishful dream — of those world-changing explosions. Hiroshima children patiently wait their turn for a examination in a temporary clinic. Here’s more of photographer Carl Mydan’s 1947 photo series [ LIFE ~ "Hiroshima: Portraits of Survivors" ]
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GameSpot gets GR Boss Robot Eric Nakamura to give him a video tour of BOOTH 1729 at Comic-Con 2012.
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Again, this year it seems every form of mainstream media has sent a reporter to Comic-Con without even realizing why. Oogle the scantily clad cosplay girls. See the freaks. That’s it for another year. Back to the studio. What media usually fails to explain, it took best-selling author-turned-comic book writer Scott Snyder to break it down for everyone: “I know there’s a perception of comics; that they’re bombastic and fun, and there are those comics, but for a lot of us, comics are also a place where I bring everything I ever brought to anything literary,” Snyder says. “The only reason I’m happy doing comics and I don’t miss literary fiction is because every kind of dark and fascinating, exciting thing that I was able to explore in that medium, I’m exploring here. ” But you knew that all along, right? Another way of defining “pop culture” is new art and the new literature. Read more at NPR ~ Comic-Con: ‘Batman’ writer Scott Snyder on why comics still matter and why NPR listeners should care SDCC runs through Sunday at the San Diego Convention Center. Visit GR’s booth #1729.
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THREE YEARS AGO, Pittsburgh-born artist Candy Chang was named a TED Senior Fellow for Urban Innovation, and since then she’s been caught up in the vortex of a whirlwind that has sent this architecture-graphic design-urban planning graduate of Columbia University and onetime New York Times graphic artist on a creative journey that has allowed her to leave a mark on communities in faraway places like Helsinki, Nairobi, New Orleans, Vancouver and Johannesburg. Chang’s now-global “Before I Die” project began when she she transformed an abandoned house in her neighborhood in New Orleans into a fill-in-the-blank chalkboard for people to reflect on their lives and share their personal aspirations in a public space. “Before I Die” proved so empowering and uplifting, it prompted The Atlantic to call it: “one of the most creative community projects ever.” And regular folk flocked to its magic ~ and it has expanded to communities in countries around the world, including Kazakhstan, South Africa, Portugal, and Argentina. Catch up with what this child of Taiwanese immigrants is thinking and doing today by reading Karen Eng’s interview-profile of Chang ~ “A Global Family for Life” ~ which was posted July 10 on the TED Fellows Posterous.
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KRAFTWERK’s rendition of their 1975 song “Radio-Activity” at NO NUKES 2012 was sung with a new set of Japanese lyrics including the line “Ima sugu yamero” (Stop it now), proved to be the climax of the Saturday night show, which attracted thousands of Japanese to Makuhari Messe events center, and a cumulative total of more than 216,000 online viewers for the live feed on Ustream. Proceeds from the event will go to the Goodbye to Nuclear Power Plants movement, spearheaded by Nobel prize-winning author Kenzaburo Oe, Academy Award-winning composer Ryuichi Sakamoto, whistleblowing journalist Satoshi Kamata and other prominent figures. The event was also aimed at increasing signatures for a large-scale antinuclear-power petition. The movement has currently gathered 7.5 million signatures. Listen to the iconic German electro-pop band show how relevant they still are in this SoundCloud audio capture Jean-Philippe Demoulin, a French expatriate musician living in Japan.
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