==pla|\|ing lakes==
Saturday, July 26, 2008
have to agree with cory -- jack womack's random acts of senseless violence is one of the best books i've read in the last 20 years, and is criminally underappreciated
3:45 PM - [Link] - Comments ()
Friday, July 25, 2008
too bad netflix is getting out of the movie financing business
i've seen that logo on a lot of worthy films.
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steven shaviro is talking about the new grace jones video, which is quite good -- mostly for the visuals/words, the music like good massive attackI think that “Corporate Cannibal” — with its continual modulations and deformations that are no longer just on the surface of the world but inhabit and shape its depths, and with its violent Weird energy (in the sense of post-Lovecraftian “weird fiction” with its simultaneous slight hokiness and intense anxiety and dislocation) — gives the most profound expression or articulation that I have yet come across to the affect of the vertiginous “globalized network society” we live in today.nice to see grace back in action.
at 60!
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Sunday, July 13, 2008
JFK and the Unspeakable: Why He Died and Why It Matters by James W Douglass[god is not an asshole]“This book’s story of JFK and the ‘unspeakable’ is a stunning mix of political thriller and meticulous scholarship. Even as it points persuasively to rogue powers at work in the U.S. military-industrial complex, it also witnesses to the power of spirit, inspiring prophetic voices like Thomas Merton’s, turning a president like John Kennedy toward peace, thus also enabling readers to see into the current deep structure of U.S. war and empire. Douglass’s book offers a goldmine of information and is indispensable for building prophetic spirit and hope.”more reviews excerpted here, but no results showing any from publications, though they may be out there. none on the amazon site.
—Mark Lewis Taylor, Princeton Theological Seminary
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here's a film festival i'd check out: Tilda Swinton's soiree in Nairn Scotland
a nice excuse to go to Scotland, if you can.If you could imagine the opposite of Cannes, this would be it. A new film festival, which Oscar-winning actor Tilda Swinton is founding in her hometown of Nairn, north-east Scotland, is to have no red carpets, no ranks of paparazzi and no designer evening dresses. Entry to the films will cost you 3 or a tray of home-baked cakes; and the audience will sit on beanbags.
Needless to say, the festival will have its own kind of glamour. Aside from the presence of Swinton, Joel Coen, one half of the Coen brothers, will programme two evenings of films for the event. His choices are being kept a secret at the moment; but, according to co-organiser Mark Cousins, "They are as daft as a brush. If you went through 5,000 films, you would never guess them." [uk guardian]
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Wednesday, July 09, 2008
welcome to the future file
Shoppers Buy Slices of FarmsOn one of the farms, here about 35 miles west of Chicago, Steve Trisko was weeding beets the other day and cutting back a shade tree so baby tomatoes could get sunlight. Mr. Trisko is a retired computer consultant who owns shares in the four-acre Erehwon Farm.
“We decided that it’s in our interest to have a small farm succeed, and have them be able to have a sustainable farm producing good food,” Mr. Trisko said.
Part of a loose but growing network mostly mobilized on the Internet, Erehwon is participating in what is known as community-supported agriculture. About 150 people have bought shares in Erehwon — in essence, hiring personal farmers and turning the old notion of sharecropping on its head.
The concept was imported from Europe and Asia in the 1980s as an alternative marketing and financing arrangement to help combat the often prohibitive costs of small-scale farming. But until recently, it was slow to take root. There were fewer than 100 such farms in the early 1990s, but in the last several years the numbers have grown to close to 1,500, according to academic experts who have followed the trend.
“I think people are becoming more local-minded, and this fits right into that,” said Nichole D. Nazelrod, program coordinator at the Fulton Center for Sustainable Living at Wilson College in Chambersburg, Pa., a national clearinghouse for community-supported farms. “People are seeing ways to come together and work together to make this successful.”
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Tuesday, July 08, 2008
this item at undernews reminded me of Vincent Bugliosi's new book, The Prosecution of George W. Bush for Murder, a no doubt thoroughly convincing case for arresting Bush for the murder of 4000 US soldiers in Iraq
This is one of the best and most respected prosecutors who ever lived, and sad to say i'm not surprised how it's essentially being suppressed by the media, including The Dalily Show.
Fortunately the net and radio are making it a bestseller anyway, apparently.His publisher and publicist said they had expected that Mr. Bugliosi’s credentials would ensure coverage — he is, after all, fairly mainstream. His last book, a 1,612-page volume on the Kennedy assassination, “Reclaiming History,” which was published last year, sought to debunk the conspiracy theorists. It is being made into a 10-hour miniseries by HBO and the actor Tom Hanks.now i for one can't believe anyone would defend the Warren Report at this point, so it's not like i'm some big fan of Bugliosi. But why isn't he being interviewed about this new book on TV?
Mr. Bugliosi said bookers for cable television, where he has made regular appearances to promote books, have ignored his latest offering. MSNBC and Comedy Central’s “The Daily Show” were two outlets Mr. Bugliosi had thought would show interest, but neither did.
“They are not responding at all,” he said. “I think it all goes back to fear. If the liberal media would put me on national television, I think they’d fear that they would be savaged by the right wing. The left wing fears the right, but the right does not fear the left.”
A spokeswoman for Comedy Central said the staff of “The Daily Show” was on vacation and unavailable for comment. A representative for MSNBC said: “We get many pitches to interview authors and very few end up on our programs.”
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R.I.P. Bruce Conner [boing boing]Conner first attracted attention with his moody, nylon-shrouded assemblages, which were complex amalgams of such found objects as women's stockings, bicycle wheels, broken dolls, fur, fringe, costume jewelry and candles, often combined with collaged or painted surfaces. Erotically charged and tinged with echoes of both the Surrealist tradition and of San Francisco's Victorian past, these works established Conner as a leading figure within the international assemblage "movement." Conner began making short movies in the late 1950s. His innovative technique can be seen in his first film, A Movie. His subsequent films are most often fast-paced collages of found and new footage. Conner was among the first to use pop music for film sound tracks. His films have inspired generations of filmmakers, and are now considered to be the precursors of the music video genre.But don't blame him for that.
Always loved America Is Waiting. Have to seek out other work.
I think he directed that assemblage of films TCM runs all the time, a history of film. it's an amazing paean to the vitality of film.
his first movie, A Movie is here, and downloadable. more on you tube, i'm sure -- i know America Is Waiting, Mea Culpa and Valse Triste are there.
Way ahead of his time, and a huge influence on American & world culture.
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Monday, July 07, 2008
much as i loved the the original Office series, ricky gervais way outdoes david letterman in the squirmy self-loathing/celebrity obsessive niche: here's a salon profile of gervais '08 with a link to a hideously catchy segment Bowie did on Extras (clikc on Bowie's name)
can't do the american version of The Office at all. not a big carell fan, but it's just not . . . there, anyway.
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Sunday, July 06, 2008
R.I.P. Thomas M Disch
i remember reading his work, most likely short stories, back in the late 60s to early 70s, when i devoured SF of all kinds. but i don't remember titles, and none of the books which are highly respected ring a bell. i do remember reading about The Dreams Our Stuff is Made Of: How Science Fiction Conquered the World, and thinking i should check it out.
sounds like a troubled guy and not easy to be around. but his work seems worth the trouble to hunt down. [Wiki entry]
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Saturday, July 05, 2008
after wondering about Retribution, not sure if i liked it or not, i'm pleased to read Tom Mes' review of his new Tokyo Sonata, which sounds like the Kurosawa film i've been waiting for
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ah fascist NJ, i remember it well
i'd stopped going to the beach by the time the party really got started in Belmar (80s/90s), but apparently the nazis really dug in, with tickets doled out for giving the finger and beer kegs needing to be registered; now gentrification has allowed "relaxation" of some of these -- blatantly unconstitutional -- laws
I guess you can attribute the sudden tearing off of the swatikas to the encroaching demise of shrubco.
I always go back to my high school history teacher Mr Wright telling us how the Jersey State Troopers uniforms were modelled after the SS. . .
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Friday, July 04, 2008
i like some of Andrew Brandou's paintings, particularly the Jonestown series [boing boing]
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happy july 4th!
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your tax dollars at work file
remember that guy the feds were after for doing the anthrax attacks years ago? the government exonerated him and awarded him $4.6 million of your taxes“The good news is that we still live in a country where a guy who’s been horribly abused can go to a judge and say ‘I need your help,’ and maybe it takes a while, but he gets justice,” Mr. Grannis said.He's also sued the Times, Vanity Fair & Reader's Digest for libel and settled the latter two confidentially -- the Times case was dismissed.
The settlement, Mr. Grannis said, “means that Steven Hatfill is finally an ex-person of interest.”
In a written statement, Mr. Grannis and Dr. Hatfill’s other lawyers said, “We can only hope that the individuals and institutions involved are sufficiently chastened by this episode to deter similar destruction of private citizens in the future — and that we will all read anonymously sourced news reports with a great deal more skepticism.”
The lawyers will take their fee out of the settlement, which will pay out $5.8 million over 20 years. The $4.6 million figure is the cost of the annuity to the government.
The settlement called new attention to the fact that nearly seven years after the toxic letters were mailed, killing five people and sickening at least 17 others, the case has not been solved.
A Justice Department spokesman, Brian Roehrkasse, said in a statement that the government admitted no liability but decided settlement was “in the best interest of the United States.”
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"lost" scenes of Lang's Metropolis discovered
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back again
jonathan rosenbaum has retired from The Reader, and so is reprinting his work over time at his new site, with pieces like this short musing on Jia Zhang-ke, and a catalogue essay for a recent Italian festival honoring John Cassavetes
also, nice piece on William Holden by Michael AtkinsonSuch is the nature of our intimate, carking, rueful relationship with William Holden, on the surface one of the Hollywood century's typical all-purpose leading men, but beneath it the keeper of poisoned secrets, and a living embodiment of America's postwar self-doubt and idealistic failure.
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and s-integrator
@me
Rarely has reality needed so much to be imagined.
--Chris Marker