==pla|\|ing lakes==

Sunday, January 30, 2005

Couple movies Jeff Bridges stars in this year (or so) sound good: The Moguls & Tideland, the next Terry Gilliam project after The Brothers Grimm, I suppose [Jeff Bridges' website]

8:16 PM - [Link] - Comments ()

Traditional Chinese musicians -- their work overshadowed by Westernized pop forms in thier own country -- seek an audience in the subway stations and parks and community centers of New York [NYT registration info at left]

11:23 AM - [Link] - Comments ()

The road to a new Constitutional Convention

An article I noted when I couldn't post last summer: Alan Wolfe on bloggers as the new pamphleteers [NYT registration info in left column, down a bit]

Whether or not you can tell a book by its cover, you can generally tell a country by its books. If most political books are any indication, the way we argue now has been shaped by cable news and Weblogs; it's all "gotcha" commentary and attributions of bad faith. No emotion can be too angry and no exaggeration too incredible.

Yet if the technologies used by bloggers and hardballers are new, the form is older than the Republic. While they appear as books -- and are staples of the best-seller lists -- today's give-no-quarter attacks, as George Packer noted recently of bloggers, have their origins in the pamphlets of the colonial era. "Whatever the gravity of their themes or the spaciousness of their contents," Bernard Bailyn has written of these 18th-century op-ed articles, "they were always essentially polemical." Long before deconstruction, we were fond of a hermeneutics of suspicion. We had partisanship even before we had parties. Our framers warned against the dangers of faction because we so rarely stood together. If you prefer your invective unseasoned by decorum, check out what the anti-Federalists had to say about the Constitution or how the Whigs treated "King Andrew" Jackson.

Judge our contemporary culture warriors by the standards of books, and they disappoint: logic, evidence and reason are conspicuously absent. Judge them by the standards of pamphleteering, and they may be doing democracy a favor, reminding our apathetic public why politics matters. Let me, then, apply the pamphlet standard to a slew of recently published volumes in which liberals and conservatives have at each other. Pamphleteering flourishes because in both publishing and politics, established elites and institutions are no longer able to ensure consensus and insist on moderation.

11:17 AM - [Link] - Comments ()

The whole Hollywood vs Foreign Films debate is causing a cultrual identity crisis in France

It's three years since Jean-Pierre Jeunet overturned our idea of what a French film could - or should - be with Amélie. A Parisian fairy tale starring uber-waif Audrey Tautou, it took £40m in America. Only the French critics were unimpressed, declaring Amélie 'sugary' and 'unrealistic' (there were no black faces on the streets, for example).

Libération called it a 'commercial' for the far right. A little unfair, perhaps. In many ways Jeunet is the French Richard Curtis. Where Curtis sells us a fantasy England of red buses and comedy toffs, Jeunet offers us young women cracking crème brûlée and comic postmen. The success of The Chorus and Amélie represents a nostalgia for a vanished France of supposedly simpler values, according to Paul Ryan of London's Ciné Lumière: 'We're living in a world dominated by terror, fictitious and otherwise, and people want to cheer themselves up. They don't want too much reality in their cinema.' Ryan thinks we are seeing a revolt against the miserabilist tradition dubbed filles perdues, cheveux gras ('lost girls with greasy hair'): 'Over the past 15 years, France has been giving a platform to the minorities in its culture, the third-wave of immigration that came in from the former colonies, so you get Algerian, Tunisian and Moroccan cinema. A lot of the films are set on housing projects; some are downbeat because the life they're reflecting is downbeat; others are very optimistic and rich. So there's a renaissance of social realism in the mould of Ken Loach. And directors like Jeunet, who are of the imaginative, entertainment school, are turning away from this overly realistic strand.'

Although Jeunet's films are the antithesis of grungy arthouse, they embody 'Frenchness' in a very different way from the idyllic rural portraits of Jean de Florette and Manon des Sources. He combines fantastical storytelling with state-of-the-art CGI. 'Cinema since the New Wave always seems to be about a couple fighting in the kitchen,' he says. 'I prefer to write positive stories.' His new film, A Very Long Engagement, the second highest-grossing French film of 2004, nominated for two Oscars, is part First World War love story, part detective story, part quirky MTV video. It has opened to mostly glowing reviews, but Jeunet is facing accusations that he hasn't made a French film. Although it was filmed in French and on location in France, the bulk of its £32m budget was provided by Warners's French subsidiary. So it was ruled ineligible for state subsidy or French film festivals.

1:05 AM - [Link] - Comments ()

Friday, January 28, 2005

A review of new Mac Mini

I like how you can plug it into any keyboard/mouse/monitor with a $20 device.

And it's really all many people need.

Kind of expensive to add a portable monitor for wi-fi-ing around, though.

11:36 PM - [Link] - Comments ()

Area 51 mainstay Chuck Clark is now a free man after a year of "pretrial diversion" (probation essentially) after stealing a motion sensor from the perimeter, just in time for the 50th anniversary cookout [The Anomalist]

11:15 PM - [Link] - Comments ()

Can't sleep, clowns will eat me

A few months ago Susan & I agreed on a bumper sticker for our used van, to cover an old "honor student" sticker I couldn't get off, which featured this phrase we found amusing and edgy and enigmatic; since then I've found out it's a line from a Simpsons episode, and that a surprising number of people young and old suffer from coulrophobia -- including someone I work with

11:03 PM - [Link] - Comments ()

Thai Tourism officials tell media to stop reporting on ghost appearances in tsunami areas [The Anomalist]

10:56 PM - [Link] - Comments ()

Tim from the English online art gallery Urban Art emailed me for a mention, and there it is; there's an art fair in July too

Looks like the site serves as a node for collectors to interface with artists directly, which I like.

Worth a look, esp. if you're an English artist looking for a place to send people to online to see your work.

Thanks for the head's up, Tim.

9:59 AM - [Link] - Comments ()

Wednesday, January 26, 2005

A group of international artists have restored/recovered a spy satellite dish in Latvia for use in multi-media projects

The pilot project - Acoustic Space Lab symposium took place from August 4 - 12, 2001 in the forests of western Latvia in Irbene at the site of Soviet-era d=32 meter dish antenna. Formerly used to spy on satellite transmissions between Europe and North-America by the KGB, the antenna was abandoned and nearly destroyed when the Russian Army departed in 1994. The dish was successfully repaired by VIRAC (Ventspils International Radio Astronomy Center) radio astronomers.

Over the days of the symposium international team of 30 sound artists, net and community radio activists and radio amateurs in co-operation with VIRAC scientists were exploring the possibilities of antenna. The participants made recordings of the sounds and data from planets' observations, communication satellites and surrounding environment.

It was a great chance for artists to access and work with this big antenna. But most important was that this "old and heavy" technology - big dish - because of its' secret past, specific location in so far remote place, and its' never unexploited potential for civilian use, succeeded to facilitate new context for collaborative exploring, experimenting and data processing.

I heard about this through Douglas Benford's SPRAWL newsletter, which mentioned he had a track on a DVD/CD associated with the project. But I couldn't find any info on the site about it. I emailed one of the coordinators and will post what I hear.

If anyone reading this knows anything about it, please comment below or email me at the address at the top of this page.

10:59 PM - [Link] - Comments ()

Tuesday, January 25, 2005

You can get a copy of scanner's 6 track Europa 25 CD -- some whatnot to do with the EU -- for free by emailing here

I didn't think they'd ship to the US, but they do. I haven't heard it but what the hell. You can dowload it too, but they're wmas, which don't work for me.

More news, mp3s etc. at his site.

9:12 AM - [Link] - Comments ()

Monday, January 24, 2005

The Strange Death of American Democracy: Endgame in Ohio: a detailed analysis of how Bush couldn't have won Ohio [xymphora]

So who ever thought the 2004 U.S. presidential election had the remotest chance of being honest and democratic?

Not, one might guess, the electronic voting security experts like Ken Thompson, Roy Saltman, Rebecca Mercuri, Bruce Schneier, Doug Jones, Victoria Collier, Aviel Rubin, Lynn Landes, and Bev Harris, who have for years been warning that the new voting technology coming into use in the United States offers unprecedented opportunities for electoral fraud...

And certainly not Republican Congressional Representative Peter King, who made [a] notable video statement on the afternoon of November 2nd, long before the polls closed, in the course of a White House function that seemed to have put him into a celebratory mood. "It's already over," he told the interviewer. "The election's over. We won." Asked how he knew at that early hour, King replied: "It's all over but the counting. And we'll take care of the counting."

[...]

For now at least, the forms of a democratic republic remain in place--as, in a parallel way, the residual forms of the Roman Republic remained in place well after its devolution into a militarized imperial autocracy.

One of the early emperors, Tiberius, got sadistic pleasure out of writing deferential letters to the Roman Senate, humbly requesting the terrorized senators' direction and advice. (It is not recorded, though others of his missives had a similarly noxious effect, that he ever went so far as to have the envelopes dusted--did the Romans use envelopes?--with weaponized anthrax.)

Tiberius's successor, known to history by the fond nickname, Caligula, given him by the Roman legionaries, likewise held the Senate in high esteem: he is said to have planned to have his horse--or was it his donkey?--elected to that august body.

10:34 PM - [Link] - Comments ()

Friday, January 21, 2005

If anyone out there has a copy (or mp3s) of this comp of covers of tracks from the Bowie/Eno album Low by folks like Tom Recchion and William Fowler Collins, I'd love to trade with or hear from you etc.

8:46 AM - [Link] - Comments ()

Your tax dollars at work file

Old news blogwise, but I like this story of the Pentagon trying to develop a chemical weapons that would "make enemy troops sexually irresistible to each other" or just give them bad breath [Metafilter]

They could have just jammed the local TV station with reruns of Teletubbies and Spongebob...

8:38 AM - [Link] - Comments ()

Ibogaine, the hallucinogen which had brief vogue in the 60s and I know mostly from Hunter Thompson's prank story on Ed Muskie in the '72 campaign is being mentioned as a cure for alcoholism

8:32 AM - [Link] - Comments ()

Thursday, January 20, 2005

The Great Tinky Winky Scandal II

Another kids' show deemed "too gay" for American children

Nile Rodgers, who wrote the song and is founder of the We Are Family Foundation (WAFF) which released the new video, says it is intended to help teach children the values of co-operation and unity.

"We believe that this is the essential first step to loving thy neighbour," he said. "And the fun and exciting format makes it a lesson that's easy for children to learn."

But conservatives say it sees the video as a cunning attempt to promote homosexuality.

They point to the fact that the WAFF is linked to a pledge being promoted by some liberal groups which includes a recognition of tolerance of sexual identity.

"We see the video as an insidious means by which the organisation is manipulating and potentially brainwashing kids," Paul Batura, a spokesman for Focus on the Family, told the New York Times.

9:16 AM - [Link] - Comments ()

Tuesday, January 18, 2005

If you can still stand the very idea of American politics...

For relief from the brightly-colored sludge that spews from your TV newsfeed, try James Wolcott's blog for a witty refresher [the now sabbaticaled Big, Left, Outside]

And check out his book Attack Poodles and Other Media Mutants : The Looting of the News in a Time of Terror.

7:40 AM - [Link] - Comments ()

Sunday, January 16, 2005

Net kills car

From William Draves & Julie Coates, founders of lifelong learning non-profit LERN, a prediction that the net will make people drive far less and choose to live closer together

Their blog and their book, Nine Shift: Work, Life and Education in the 21st Century.

4:37 PM - [Link] - Comments ()

Saturday, January 15, 2005

New tracks -- this time by asher -- on Taylor Deupree's .term site

8:50 PM - [Link] - Comments ()

Exhaustive essay (available as a .pdf file) on Joan Vollmer Burroughs' death by William Burroughs' amanuensis and close friend, James Grauerholz, who's apparently working on an epic bio

With some good Burroughs links.

8:40 PM - [Link] - Comments ()

"The very fact that they're using the word 'taxidermists' is offensive..."

Rogue taxidermy

Indeed, the absurdly gory, sometimes campy nature of the work is aggressively weird. But the three are earnest about their art and the ideas they are trying to highlight through taxidermy. All are animal lovers, with a number of pet dogs, cats, birds and fish among them; they use only roadkill, donations from veterinarians and unused animal remains from museums. A strict waste-not-want-not policy accounts for Ms. Brewer's mummified squirrel heads and pickled internal organs, what she calls "carcass art," which is not technically taxidermy.

To be sure, the Rogue Taxidermists do not claim to be the first to suspend animal remains in formaldehyde and call it art. But they hope that through their exhibitions they can inspire people to recognize the natural world around them and to reconsider their position in it - whether, as Mr. Marbury said, the reaction is "revulsion or love or distrust."

In Mr. Marbury's estimation, taxidermy has a unique capacity to evoke the mystery of death. "When you deal with a dead object and then you are imbuing it with life and giving it characteristics," he said, "people become uncomfortable."

8:31 PM - [Link] - Comments ()

DVD Savant review of the new Deceivers disc

A favorite of mine, it has basically no extras and it doesn't sound like they did a great job on the transfer. And as the footnote says, not really accurate about the thuggees.

But a great story well filmed.

8:24 PM - [Link] - Comments ()

This Tuesday, TCM is running a great line-up of noirs, if you haven't seen these classics: Murder, My Sweet (5AM), Born to Kill (11AM), Out of the Past (3PM), Double Indemnity (5PM), The Postman Always Rings Twice (7PM), The Lady from Shanghai (9PM), Detour (1030PM), The Maltese Falcon (12AM), and Act of Violence (145AM)(all PT)

I haven't seen Born to Kill yet, but it sounds great, and Maltese Falcon & Postman Always Rings Twice are overrated at this point, but if you haven't seen 'em, you should.

3:27 PM - [Link] - Comments ()

Wednesday, January 12, 2005

Finally got around to watching the first couple hours of the new season of 24, and it's well-done as usual (though it's less compelling each season); my main problem is the script could be written by Karl Rove

The series started before 9/11 and they did a passable job of not obviously capitalizing on or pandering to the New Fear Paradigm. But this season -- which supposedly takes place years from now, it looks like they've been fed plot points by Richard Perle et al.

"Secretary of Defense" William Devane even looks like a creepy cross between shrub and Ian Holm.

11:22 PM - [Link] - Comments ()

Saturday, January 08, 2005

Nice (maybe too nice) obit of recently suicided reporter Gary Webb, whose character and credibility with the general public was assassinated years ago, after he did a series in the San Jose Mercury News which he later detailed in his book Dark Alliance: The CIA, the Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion

Color me unconvinced that his death was really a suicide too.

2:45 AM - [Link] - Comments ()

Here's a second parsing of my movie/TV program list, the ones I recommend seeing after the top 25

Dirty Pretty Things
Shattered Glass
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy
32 Short Films About Glenn Gould
The Source (1999, Chuck Workman doc on Beats)
The Last of Sheila
Calendar
The Weather Underground
Dollar (1938)
Prime Suspect (series)
For All Mankind
Eye Like a Strange Balloon
Stray Dog (1949)
Let It Come Down: The Life of Paul Bowles
In the Mirror of Maya Deren
Goodbye, Lenin!
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
Rivers and Tides: Andy Goldsworthy - Working With Time
The Scent of Green Papaya
Secret Honor
The Return (Vozvrashcheniye)
California Split
Croupier
A Home at the End of the World
How to Draw a Bunny (doc on artist Ray Johnson)
Code 46

2:13 AM - [Link] - Comments ()

Panda Software has a free scan for viruses that disables them as well -- unlike any other program I've found

That's why I've added 3 of their ads for a while at least; also since I just availed myself of their services and knocked out a couple Trojans that I think were messing with my PC.

You have to check the box for "disinfect" for the program to disable what it finds. Otherwise you have to re-scan the folders in the report you get after the scan.

Let me know if you try it if it works for you.

I don't get any money back if you buy their stuff, BTW.

I do for the netflix ad though.

ADDENDUM: The scan takes a little less than an hour on a PC like mine (PIII 20GB harddrive). Also, you need to do all this with Explorer, I'm afraid...

1:40 AM - [Link] - Comments ()

Thursday, January 06, 2005

Playing around with adding findory headlines, as you can see at left

Switiched from news to blog posts just now, which I think I like better.

Any preferences out there?

9:17 AM - [Link] - Comments ()

Sunday, January 02, 2005

25 films I saw that really top the list

Films I enjoyed the most and are just very good films, if not classics:

Thirteen
Quai des Orfevres
The Return of the King
A Story of Floating Weeds
La jetée
The Puppetmaster (1993)
Waking Life
Talk to Her
La Dolce Vita
Girl With a Pearl Earring
Baran
A Decade Under the Influence
Tokyo Story
Onibaba
Early Summer
Facing Windows
Yi Yi
Jandek on Corwood
How to Draw a Bunny
Black Narcissus
Cure (1997)
Capturing the Friedmans
Hiroshima Mon Amour
American Splendor
Ordet (1955)

Obviously when the films were released has little to do with this list. I don't think any of them were released in theatres this year, though several were released on disc for the first time.

Also, this list excludes films I'd seen before which otherwise would have made the list:

Gosford Park
Insomnia (1997)
The River (1951)
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
Heart of Glass
The Killing (1956)
3 Women
Exotica
Dead Ringers
The Animal Kingdom
Stalker
The Parallax View
The Asphalt Jungle
Atlantic City
The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie
The Horse's Mouth
A Mighty Wind
After Hours (1985)
Lone Star (1996)
Fight Club
Donnie Darko
Arlington Road
Wonder Boys
L'Age D'Or
The Shop Around the Corner
Go

More lists to come, til you're sick to death of them.

1:42 PM - [Link] - Comments ()

Saturday, January 01, 2005

disquiet's favorite discs of 2004

In 2004, new records by many old favorites, like Squarepusher (Ultravisitor), Beastie Boys (To the 5 Boroughs), John Adams (On the Transmigration of Souls) and DJ Krush (Jaku), albeit very fine in their own right, didn't demand concerted, continued, curious listening. Admittedly, no single netlabel release seemed to hold its own against these, though two on the Stasisfield label, John Kannenberg's Four Painters and Raemus' Stream Studies, certainly came close; the gap is narrowing quickly. Still, there was a bounty of good work.

I can recommend the Stasisfield titles, and most of what Marc mentions is worth a listen at least.

I'll list what I liked best this year soon.

10:41 AM - [Link] - Comments ()

The New Ugly

Texas to be paved over completely

1:14 AM - [Link] - Comments ()

HNY!!!

Welcome 2005!

1:03 AM - [Link] - Comments ()

California sets fines for spyware

12:51 AM - [Link] - Comments ()