STATIONPARK stars one of my favorite skateboarders, Kilian Martin, doing what he does best, flatland freestyle. Teaming up with longboard video director Juan Rayos (maker of the wonderful Carving the Mountains), the exceptional use of sound and lighting, exquisite editing and spectacular skating make this a standout in the world of skateboard videos.

If you enjoyed this, you should definitely watch more Kilian Martin skateboard videos, especially Altered Route.

(via Vimeo)

The art of the metaphor – Jane Hirshfield is an incredibly fun look at the magical powers of metaphors and the simpler, yet superhuman, nature of similes. Narrated by Jane Hirshfield and animated by Ben Pearce for TED-Ed, this video is spectacular both in its art style and in the completely delightful ways the animation and the narration play with each other.

If you enjoyed this, you should definitely watch more TED-Ed videos.

Prius Goes Plural introduces a quirky conundrum. What do you do when a noun doesn’t have a plural form, but suddenly needs one? Toyota faced this head scratcher with the expansion of its Prius line and, lucky for us, hired HunterGatherer to produce this excellently animated ditty about the changes one goes through when it turns into more.

In this exquisite motion graphics piece, Muhammad Ali proves in a couple sentences why he was a role model above and beyond his exceptional boxing skills. Put together by Studio Dialog for GreenLight, if you like this, you will love Dream and Word (two Louis Vuitton videos featuring Mos Def/Yasiin Bey performing Muhammad Ali’s words.)

(via Stash Media)

Back to School with Punkle Henry (Rollins) features Henry Rollins giving some incredible advice on how to navigate life and stay true to yourself. Put together by BigThink, the transcript is below:

Young person, you’ll find in your life that sometimes your great ambitions will be momentarily stymied, thwarted, marginalized by those who were perhaps luckier, come from money, where more doors opened, where college was a given–it was not a student loan; it was something that Dad paid for–to where an ease and confidence in life was almost a birthright, where for you it was a very hard climb.

You cannot let these people make you feel that you have in any way been dwarfed or out-classed. You must really go for your own and realize how short life is. You got what you got, so you have to make the most of it. You really can’t spend a whole lot of time worrying about his. You really have to go for your own. If you have an idea of what you want to do in your future, you must go at it with almost monastic obsession, be it music, the ballet or just a basic degree. You have to go at it single-mindedly and let nothing get in your way. You’re young. That’s why you can survive on no sleep, Top Ramen noodles and dental floss and still look good.

All the people you admire, from Mohamed Ali to any politician, they work and work and work. Your president right now is a man who got where he is through very hard work and scholarships, mainly hard work and application and discipline. If these people can do it, why not you?

We live in very interesting times and, as a young person going into a very turbulent and fragile economy that is going to get better–it’s going to take awhile–, it is easy to lose your moral compass, your decency, your sense of civility and your sense of community. Very easy. You known, things in traffic make you mad. People are getting a little desperate. They might not show their best elements to you. You must never lower yourself to being a person you don’t like.

There is no better time than now to have a moral and civic backbone, to have a moral and civic true north. This is a tremendous opportunity for you, a young person, to be heroic, to be morally upstanding, to be helpful, almost Boy Scout-like, presidential, to be altruistic.

Weakness is what brings ignorance, cheapness, racism, homophobia, desperation, cruelty, brutality, all these things that will keep a society chained to the ground, one foot nailed to the floor. It’s by being strong in the face of all of that, not lowering yourself to it, that’s how you lead. That’s how you liberate others and maintain freedom. You don’t have to beat your chest. You don’t have to wave a flag, but to maintain a high level of decency

And it sounds like I’m a cranky old man, like something you want to rebel against, but really think about what I’m saying. I think I’m right about this. When you look at what real desperation and ignorance looks like, when you have to run from it, like, literally run from it, you don’t want to be that. You want to be that which leads others out of that.

And now more than ever is the time to show these great qualities, to extol these great qualities and to embody these great qualities, which you have. Now it’s time to magnify them, personify them and inspire others with them. And there’s never been a time where they’re needed more than right now.

(hat tip Elizabeth)

It’s a Man’s Man’s Man’s World is one of James Brown’s seminal hits. Recorded in 1966, it reached #8 on the billboard top 100 and, in 2004, was named Rolling Stone’s 123 greatest song of all time. Put together by Shoot the Boss to celebrate the 2012 re-release of James Brown’s catalogue on iTunes, the video is a stunning look at James Brown’s life (with some exceptional highlights from the civil rights movement).

(via Vimeo)

Always A Fire | Chad Jones Documentary is an incredible comeback story about Chad Jones, an up-and-coming football superstar. He was a 3rd round draft by the New York Giants during the 2010 NFL draft, but two months after achieving his dream of becoming a professional football player, Chad’s car got stuck on streetcar tracks and crashed into a pole, nearly destroying his left leg. Directed by Nathan Caswell & Jeremiah Zagar, this is the amazing story of his recovery.

(via Vimeo)

Mark Salata: How taking a bath led to Archimedes’ principle is a quick history/science lesson about how Archimedes first stumbled upon the concepts of buoyancy and density. Narrated by Mark Salata and animated by TED-Ed, the fun side-lesson being taught here is that the famous “Eureka!” exclamation comes from a naked man having a bright idea as he spills bathwater all over his floor.

If you enjoyed this, you should definitely watch more TED-Ed videos.

Empire State of Pen is a timelapse video of UK artist Patrick Vale drawing lower Manhattan as seen from the Empire State Building. What makes this video cooler than cool is the usage of Charles Mingus’ Moanin’ for the music.

(via Colossal)

Danny MacAskill vs. San Francisco is a bike film about power, precision and control by Remington Europe. Featuring the phenomenal Danny MacAskill (who will blow your socks off in his Industrial Revolutions and Way Back Home videos), the film is a great look at both his process and his abilities in that it has him talking about what he loves about riding and doing tricks while riding and doing tricks all over San Francisco.

Note: Remington baked an ad into the beginning of the video so to save time, I set the embed to skip it (which is why it starts at 0:25).

(via Laughing Squid)