Rick Marianetti, National Culture and Events writer for Examiner.com, begins his second year offering a place for music, movies, media, society, art and science to metaphorically convene like the stateroom scene A Night at the Opera:

Here's a sample of some of the best Culture and Events articles from the past 365 days. Enjoy what you see? Find more articles here:

Art
Christo and Jeanne-Claude return to 'Running Fence' site for anniversary celebration
Christo and Jeanne-Claude, creators of the last half-century's most poetic works of public art, returned Saturday to the site of one of their greatest installations, The Running Fence...
     >Read the rest of the article here.

Golden Gate Bridge 101: Deco dreams at Land's End
When it opened on May 17, 1937, the Golden Gate Bridge spanned the synaptic gap between San Francisco and Marin County. Suddenly, cars, bicycles and pedestrians flowed across the bay like nerve impulses roused by adrenalin...
     >Read the rest of the article here.

Picasso’s 'Guernica' brought to life in 3D (video)
Applying three-dimensional video technology to one of the great masterpieces of 20th century art, computer graphic artist Lena Gieseke has brought new perspective to Pablo Picasso's Guernica...
     >Read the rest of the article here.

From the ground up: art exhibit by the Pacific Ocean
Terroir is designed to reveal connections between our collective behavior and the enveloping environment; the cumulative effect of this wildly diverse collection achieves that goal stunningly...
     >Read the rest of the article here.

Where rivers and oceans collide: Top 10 things to learn about the Bay Model Center
The artists met ten years ago and for their first date, went for a walk on the beach. Neither knew the other had a jones for collecting landfill-chic plastic and transforming it into unexpectedly compelling art. Instead of fighting over plastic cigar holders…
     >Read the rest of the article here.

Music
Dave Brubeck talks about Songs of Praise, an upcoming documentary, and all that jazz
Last December, the Guardian ran a story about a Spanish jazz fan who called the police to insist they raid the Sigüenza Jazz Festival because Larry Ochs wasn’t playing “real jazz.” The cops actually showed up and agreed -- who knew music appreciation was part of the European police-academy curriculum?

Marsalis’ assistant, Jono Gasparro, contacted the Guardian to request help finding the disgruntled gentleman: "(Wynton) would like to send this 'fan' a letter of gratitude and a package including most of his catalogue. Can I track him down?"

Your thoughts, Mr. Brubeck?...
     >Read the rest of the article here.

How to create the best music playlist for any event
You’re having people over and want to play music that satisfies everyone’s musical taste…
     >Read the rest of the article here.

The autumn equinox means it's time for the Monterey Jazz Festival
Like the autumn equinox’s poetry of light and shadow, the music at the MJF is all about balance -- ranging from be-bop to hip-hop to post hard bop avant-garde; from Afro-Cuban to fusion to blues and beyond. For two days and three nights, music wafts through the barbeque-scented air from voices, horns, strings, synthesizers…
     >Read the rest of the article here.

Jazz Mafia performs astounding 'Hip-Hop Symphony' -- and they're taking the show on the road
You can hear many influences in BB&B (listen here), especially Charles Mingus and Gil Evans, but recontextualized into a 21st century Hip-Hop milieu…
     >Read the rest of the article here.

Treasure Island Music Festival: Day 1 (slideshow)
As a sextet of pelicans flew in formation overhead like the Blue Angels unplugged, Day 2 of the Treasure Island Music Festival quieted down but burned just as intensely…
>Read the rest of the article here.

Motion Pictures
Top 10 favorite surrealist movies (videos)
No other medium captures the nonlinear, fragmented artifacts of the unconscious better than film. What cinema is to time-and-place dream sculptures, windmills are to rainbows...
     >Read the rest of the article here.

Top 10 offbeat movies about extraterrestrials (videos)
Don’t look for close encounters with E.T. -- the Force will not be with you. Today’s focus is on aliens of the independent film kind...
>Read the rest of the article here.

10 best Valentine’s Day movies about unrequited love (video)
After exchanging Valentine’s Day roses drenched in dangerous pesticides and saccharine confections spiked with mercury-laden corn syrup, it’s time to get cozy and enjoy a movie...
     >Read the rest of the article here.

7 scariest Halloween movies you've never seen (poster slideshow)
Couple steals load of crystal meth from gang, hide out in a dilapidated farmhouse in the middle of nowhere. When the chef starts cooking-up the drugs, their world starts getting spooky…
     >Read the rest of the article here.

Quaaludes, cocaine, adultery, hot tubs, orgies, Moonie mind control: Marin County film revisited
Serial, like the 1978 NBC documentary, "I Want It All Now" -- which not only depicted unabashed hot-tubing and peacock-feather stroking, but also pegged Mill Valley as the “cocaine capital of America” -- are part of a long line of media imagery that persist in influencing perceptions of Marin…
     >Read the rest of the article here.

Media
Walter Cronkite and why the '60s' became 'The Sixties'
When Walter Cronkite became the CBS Evening News anchor on April 16, 1962, most television markets had less than a half-dozen TV stations; the Internet and the FM radio band as we know it didn't exist. By the time he signed off on March 6, 1981, he was not only "the most trusted man in America," but a journalistic icon informed by the Age of Enlightenment…
     >Read the rest of the article here.

Add ‘Chicago 119’ to ‘Carlin 7’ list of forbidden words (video)
George Carlin’s infamous list now boasts an additional 119 words, including awkward, redundant, or worn out phrases like “behind closed doors,” “bare naked,” and “you folks.” Surprisingly, “whopping” did not make the final cut...
     >Read the rest of the article here.

5 reasons to listen to Michael Savage -- and 5 reasons to turn the dial
Savage is the endearingly crazy-uncle prototype: think Alan Arkin's portrayal of Grandpa Edwin Hoover in Little Miss Sunshine. He claims his listeners hear in him "a bit of Plato, Henry Miller, Jack Kerouac, Moses, Jesus, and Frankenstein." Savage didn't specify whether he was referring to Dr. Frankenstein or the Doctor's creation…
     >Read the rest of the article here.

Rick Astley: dead or alive -- do celebrity deaths happen in 3's?
According to Urbandictionary.com, "Rickrolling" is an internet bait and switch meme based on Astley's most famous song: "When you're looking for something interesting on youtube, and someone sends you a link, it's usually the video to Rick Astley's "Never Gonna Give You Up…"
     >Read the rest of the article here.

‘Weather Channel’ changes music format: ‘Weather Report’ in the forecast?
Although a CD of "Weather Channel Smooth Jazz" stormed to the No. 1 on Billboard's Current Contemporary Jazz Album Chart, viewer focus groups revealed that programming (and commercials) receded into the background like the olfactory bouquet of cleansers, soaps, detergents, and air-freshening aerosols engulfing Weather Channel viewers in their hotel rooms…
     >Read the rest of the article here.

Society and Culture
Beverly Hills 'Surgeons to the Stars' tout Frankenstein-style body-parts list (video)
Extreme Cosmetologists Drs. Richard Fleming and Toby Mayer have released their annual “Desired-Features” list. Whether their Beverly Hills institute of Aesthetic and Reconstructive Surgery employs anyone named "Igor" working the graveyard shift has yet to be determined...
      >Read the rest of the article here.

Dave Chappelle’s surprise Oakland shows
The late Richard Pryor’s favorite comedian, Dave Chappelle, continues his six-day residency at Oakland’s New Parish, or as Chappelle refers to it, “The old Sweet Jimmy’s -- you can feel the ghosts of pimps past...”
     >Read the rest of the article here.

The suitcase: from Pandora’s Box to the Atomic Football (video)
Criminal operatives transport money, guns, and drugs in them; murderers stuff their victims into them; and according to GlobalSecurity.org, the President is infernally accompanied by one…
     >Read the rest of the article here.

The greatest Olympic hockey game of all time? (video)
Imagine a college all-star team playing the New York Yankees in Game 7 of the World Series – and the college kids somehow managed to win. Throw in the subtext of Cold War politics, and you have an idea what it was like to experience that hockey game…
      >Read the rest of the article here.

Disc vs. traditional golf
Traditional golf requires the hand-to-eye coordination of a watchmaker crossed with Barry Bonds. I knew at an early age neither golf nor dismantling dangerous explosives for the local bomb squad would make for a wise career choice…
     >Read the rest of the article here.

Science and Technology
Has 21st century technology replaced James Bond spy tactics? (video)
Sean Connery first portrayed James Bond in Dr. No (1962), fighting off tarantulas, femme fatales, and flame-throwing mechanical dragons. Spy tech has come a long way since…
     >Read the rest of the article here.

Flying-pixel technology: new art form or surveillance nightmare? (video)
What if post-impressionist painters like Paul Signac and Georges Seurat had "painted" with swarms of full-spectrum-color fireflies? Shattering the two-dimensional constraints of canvas, they might have created fluid sculptures that jumped right out into 3-D space...
     >Read the rest of the article here.

In search of ET on planet Earth
Scientists searching for new life forms are finding increasing evidence that earthbound species can thrive in conditions once thought suitable only for extraterrestrials...
     >Read the rest of the article here.

From the 'Tactile Dome' to the 'Tactile Hologram'
Holograms, the three-dimensional images of laser-generated light fields that float in the air like a ghost, are about to become a lot more real due to a new technology invented by a University of Tokyo research team headed by Dr. Hiroyuki Shinoda...
     >Read the rest of the article here.

Top 10 toys imprinting children: Walmart or the ParticleZoo?
A look at the top-10 selling items at Walmart vs. a small, one-woman (almost) company selling unique, cuddly particle products (more on that later) make a striking contrast...
     >Read the rest of the article here.

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