Cartoonist and PH resident Nina Paley is slowly turning the narrative of Ramayana (a Hindu Sanskrit epic) into a series of remarkable animations set to a soundtrack of scratchy old 78s. The result is Sita Sings the Blues, a “self-animated, unfunded, destined-to- drive-me-to- the-poorhouse feature-in-progress.”

Nina describes the latest chapter, Hanuman Finds Sita: “Gags, gimmicks, AND narrative - hundreds of pages of text crammed into 3 minutes. Plus it contains all 4 main characters: Sita, Rama, Hanuman and Ravana, with extra added bonus demons … People already familiar with the Ramayana will probably enjoy these musical bits more, but I’m trying to make the story understandable to anyone.”

You can view the entire video (~25MB) here: “The compression knocked out significant detail of this web version, especially in the night scenes. But overall I think it’s a good’un.”

Dueling ideologies on Dean Street, Brooklyn.

Allah: Excoriated
Jesus: Weathered

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Lucas writes: “One of the things that I thought would be (mildly) amusing would be to occasionally post a photo from the neighborhood and see if people can tell where it’s from. Since Prospect Heights is such a small area, chances are even some obscure shots will be recognizable to some people. Here are a couple examples…” [Click the thumbnails for a larger view]