The Digest. 01.21.09.

Peter Cooper Village, by Nina Young. (Image courtesy of the Humble Arts Foundation.)

Congrats to Pete in NYC for winning the first C-Mon Giveaway Extravaganza of the new year. He claims that he will use it to draw things “on work time.” Send us an image when you’re ready, Pete, and we’ll publish it here.

• Star Wars yoga. (Kottke.)
• The Impossible Project is trying to restart production for Polaroid cameras in 2010.
• “Giant step up for USA, giant misstep for poetry.” Agreed. That Elizabeth Alexander poem couldn’t have sucked harder. My colleague Yvonne’s commentary here. Plus: the Daily Show’s take on the poem (towards the end of a very funny segment about the Inauguration.)
• Babies in art. Or lack thereof. (Don’t forget Marlene Dumas’ freaky babies.)
• A wish list for the Vatican’s presentation at the Venice Biennale.
• Does the White House need an arts adviser?
• A sculpture made out of one year’s worth of junk mail, in Austin, Tex. Apparently the Dallas Museum has already picked up one of the pieces for its collection.
• How polarized light—as in the reflections created by all-glass buildings—screws up the way species see and behave. (Eyebeam reBlog.)
• The landscape art of Roberto Burle Marx, in Brazil. Photo essay here.
• The photographs of Tod Seelie.
• A documentary about Julius Shulman. (ackackack.)
• Video: Robert Williams talks about the birth of lowbrow. (Eyebeam reBlog.)
• Today’s Graff: The Ololo Crew in Perth.
• NPR talks to Shepard Fairey in a lengthy interview on Fresh Air.
• Feeling blue: Jean Nouvel’s new Copenhagen concert hall. “The result is a beautifully resilient emotional sanctuary: a little corner of utopia in a world where walls are collapsing,” writes Nicolai Ourossoff.
• Chicago’s influence on the architecture of the National Mall. Plus: How this public plaza was able to handle more than a million bodies at yesterday’s inauguration.
• Floating walls.
• Your moment of Mexican Superfriends.