The Official Eames Office YouTube Channel

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Short films by Charles and Ray Eames.

If you spend any amount of time with children, you have likely become the convenient target for many kinds of questions. Some very basic, and some difficult. All are so earnest and innocent that any answer (at least in my attempt to answer someone so young and impressionable) seems totally insufficient. My nephew’s questions span the full range. While passing the Queens cemetery, he asked me what happens to people when they die. When riding bikes, he asked me about marriage. While making cookies, what is a boss and how do you become one?

What I should have been doing all along is pointing him to the Eames Office’s YouTube channel for some of life’s answers. It’s a treasury of videos that link a specific topic to something more universal. The videos also often answer a question in a way that will leave you with a few more. What does it mean to double something? Is more always better? Do kings always have all the power? Here you are, kiddo… In “2n,” Charles and Ray Eames answer all that, and take you to visit a star four light years away.

Need a primer on where to start? Here are a few: “Powers of Ten,” “Day of the Dead,” “Symmetry,” “Solar Do-Nothing Machine.”