==pla|\|ing lakes==

Friday, June 30, 2006

Way overdue file

Also from twitch, welcome news that Alejandro Jodorowsky may be back on the film scene with King Shot, a "metaphysical spaghetti gangster film" with Nick Nolte and Marilyn Manson supposedly to begin filming soon in Mexico (of course)

And apparently Allen Klein will soon be releasing re-mastered cuts of Fando & Lis, El Topo, and The Holy Mountain on disc.

Can't wait. Guy's a genius.

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

Trailer for the new Michel Gondry, The Science of Sleep [twitch]

7:37 PM - [Link] - Comments ()

Wednesday, June 28, 2006

Salam Pax on life in Iraq now for Iraqis

I have newly found out that I should avoid getting out of Baghdad through a certain road to the south because the Iraqi Army battalion situated there really hates my family name. People driving through that route towards the city of Hilla have been arrested just because they have that name.

The reasons people are killed for are absurd to the point of being funny. On the top of my list is wearing shorts. Teenagers in my neighbourhood have been killed for that unforgettable crime and probably it is the reason why two sportsmen who play for the Iraqi Tennis team and their trainer have been murdered.

7:03 AM - [Link] - Comments ()

Tuesday, June 27, 2006

If you are anywhere near L.A. between now and August 26, make sure you check out the James Turrell exhibit at the Griffin Gallery

In his Tall Glass series, Turrell adds a temporal element to his perception-altering oeuvre. Each piece consists of a core of LEDs individually programmed by Turrell to carry out a subtle shift in color over time, similar to the deliberate but beautiful fashion in which the sky changes from late afternoon to night. However, these works’ careful construction insures that the viewer will see only a large floating, subtly changing field of light – a revelatory experience of photons as tangible entities and physical presence.

Also on exhibition will be End Around, one of Turrell’s Ganzfeld works. Upon entering the chamber housing the artwork, viewers instinctively approach what appears to be a faint wall of light in the distance. But upon reaching the light source, one’s entire visual field is consumed by an apparently limitless field of blue light. Turrell engineers the Ganzfeld works to eliminate all visual cues that the human brain uses to process depth. As a result, one is unable to tell whether the ethereal blue field he sees from the platform extends for inches, feet, or into infinity. The loaded act of “moving toward the light” and the subsequent experience of limitlessness reopen the spiritual dialectic that has perpetually surrounded Turrell’s light works.

He's one of my favorite artists, since I discovered him at the Whitney in '80.

When the Roden Crater project finally opens to the public (I've been waiting for 10 years now and hope it happens before I leave AZ, whenever that transpires), you'll kick yourself for not checking out anything by this visionary.

If you visit the Phoenix area, there's also the permanent Knight Rise skyspace room at the Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art.

6:39 PM - [Link] - Comments ()

New Residents project combines a radio serial and blank CD-Rs to burn encrypted files

Soooo . . . not only do you have to cough up the $14.99 price of a regular CD, you have to download and burn your own CD.

Somehow I don't see this catching on.

6:22 PM - [Link] - Comments ()

Sunday, June 25, 2006

"Can't think of a better way to spend a day."

Also from the Onion AV Club, a charming interview with Richard Linklater

You make a film and you can't really pick the way it's put to the public. You control the content, but the way it's marketed, or the poster, or what they're telling the public about the film, it's beyond you. Some people don't even see them, because they think they already know it. That can be frustrating, when something you've done is marketed in a way you think is antithetical to what it is.

Or testing… You know, whenever we test-screen one of my movies for an audience, we get a response that night, right after the screening. They fill out cards and all that crap. I've often said that we should talk to these people tomorrow morning, after they wake up and have some time to think about our ending. Right now they don't like it, because it's a tragedy and they're not supposed to like it. But I wonder if tomorrow, they'd appreciate it more.

[...]

There's so many films that we all love so much, like Bonnie And Clyde and 2001, that if they were released the way films are released now, they'd have been theatrical failures. Because they didn't open big. The studios would've cut advertising money and they would've gone down in history as huge disappointments. They just got lucky and got to catch their second wind. Even critics would go back again and write a new review.

12:16 PM - [Link] - Comments ()

If you're a fan of DVD extras like me, you'll enjoy The Onion's "Inventory: The 15 People You Meet Listening To DVD Audio Commentaries"

A longtime staple of Criterion Collection DVDs, Irritating Academics typically introduce themselves, then read whole passages from their books on the semiotics of slapstick (or whatever), while only occasionally noting what's happening onscreen.

12:01 PM - [Link] - Comments ()

Thursday, June 22, 2006

Opera 9 is available for download, including BitTorrent support, content blocking and widgets

6:35 AM - [Link] - Comments ()

Tuesday, June 20, 2006

Canada's PM Sees Diversity as Best Weapon against Terrorism

Harper told the opening of the Third World Urban Forum in Vancouver that there have been misguided suggestions that Canada was a more vulnerable target for terrorists because of its culturally diverse society.

"I believe that exactly the opposite is true," Harper said in his keynote speech to applause from many of the 5,500 participants at the conference. "Canada's diversity, properly nurtured, is our great strength."

5:57 PM - [Link] - Comments ()

Global Seed Bank Launched in Norway

5:53 PM - [Link] - Comments ()

Lowdown on protecting yourself from overexposure to the sun

-- use sunscreens of at least 30SPF with zinc oxide, titanium dioxide or avobenzone

-- reapply every 2 hours

-- wait 30 minutes after applying before sun exposure

-- even with suncreen, limit the time you're in the sun between the hours of 10AM & 4PM, because sunscreen DOESN'T protect you from all the sun's harmful rays, despite the hype

5:49 PM - [Link] - Comments ()

Sunday, June 18, 2006

Susan & I have been watching the Brins Fire near and in Oak Creek Canyon from outside our apt in Cottonwood about 25 miles southwest of the fire

The fire's are very tiny through binocs, but you can see how big it is (3000 acres so far).

Forest Service update on evacuations etc.



UPDATE: All of Oak Creek Canyon (one of the most beautiful canyons in the world) has been evacuated now. The fire is growing, and they probably won't even mention containment til tomorrow PM at the very earliest. It's very rough ground for firefighters.

9:08 PM - [Link] - Comments ()

BlogStudio was down for most of the weekend, host space issues or something -- sorry about that

8:56 PM - [Link] - Comments ()

Thursday, June 15, 2006

Nice Imamura obit by Michael T Toole at TCM

11:00 PM - [Link] - Comments ()

Tuesday, June 13, 2006

"I am an enemy of ideologies in the arts. Totalitarian regimes do not like dissonances."

R.I.P. Gyorgy Ligeti

I never listened that actively to his work, but I know I listen to artists influenced by it, and those passages in 2001: A Space Odyssey are a part of my DNA, like most people who've seen it.

Gyorgy Ligeti travelled a long road: from Romanian folk music and the tonal language of his fellow countryman Bela Bartok to his own cosmos of sounds. The mentor of a whole generation of composers, he wanted to 'fuse the fear of death with laughter'.

9:21 PM - [Link] - Comments ()

Monday, June 12, 2006

Mike Gravel for President in 2008 & The National Initiative for Democracy

We have a great country. We can do better. We must embrace our Founders’ intentions that we evolve our democracy to remain true to its founding principles. Lincoln, 140 years ago, defined our government: “of the People, by the People, and for the People.” It falls to us to now give full meaning to a Government “by the People” so our common wisdom is reflected in our national policies. Today’s advances in information and communications technology provide us unprecedented ability to communicate as citizens, and all that is lacking is a political process, a mechanism, that permits the citizens to play a direct role in the operations of government.

Our country needs a renewal — a renewal not just of particular policies, or of particular people, but of democracy itself. I believe that the remedy for the state of our political alienation is the civic renewal embodied in the “National Initiative for Democracy.” The National Initiative is proposed legislation that colleagues and I have developed over the last 15 years. The National Initiative — when enacted into law — will bring all American citizens into the operations of government as lawmakers.

11:04 PM - [Link] - Comments ()

Sunday, June 11, 2006

Giornale Nuovo has a post on the history of grotesque decoration

4:38 PM - [Link] - Comments ()

My friend Jeph Jerman is going on tour with Greg Davis Down Under this month, if you're in the vicinity it'll be well worth your while; on the NZ dates Lawrence English will make it a trio

Here's the itinerary:

6/30 brisbane - liquid architecture 7 festival, visy powerhouse, with dean roberts, ben byrne & others

7/6 sydney - liquid architecture 7 festival

7/7 dunedin - dunedin public art gallery

7/8 christchurch - physics room [this link also has some info on the artists]

7/9 wellington - happy

7/10 new plymouth - tbc

7/11 auckland - artspace

7/13 cairns - coca (liquid 7 festival)

7/14 townsville - perc tucker regional gallery (liquid 7 festival)

7/15 melbourne (liquid 7 festival)

7/16 wagga - tbc

7/18 wollongong - 1/4 inch, with klip av & aaron hull and terumi narushima

Greg & Jeph will also be at the erstquake festival in New York City on Sept 28 - Oct 1.

4:27 PM - [Link] - Comments ()

"The boys learn life on Earth is an alien reality show about to be canceled"

I'm not a South Park fan at all, but I love this concept.

1:07 AM - [Link] - Comments ()

Saturday, June 10, 2006

Climate Change Modifying Animal Genes

The researchers provided a number of examples of these changes:Canadian red squirrels reproducing earlier in the year; German blackcaps are migrating and arriving earlier to their nesting grounds; and North American mosquitoes living in the water-filled leaves of carnivorous plants are using shorter day lengths to cue the initiation of larval dormancy.

No studies have found genetic changes in animal populations dueto the generally expected direct effects of increasing temperature,said the researchers, but over evolutionary time such changes should appear, following the genetic shifts in the timing of seasonal events, the researchers added.

Small animals with short life cycles and large population sizeswill probably adapt to longer growing seasons and be able to persist, they predicted. But many large animals with longer life cycles and smaller population sizes will decline in population or be replaced by more southern species.

10:12 PM - [Link] - Comments ()

1 in 4

A new tattoo ink is not permanent, which no doubt will swell the already large number of Americans sporting them

6:44 PM - [Link] - Comments ()

Inspired by Pan and Scan's post about local favorites on netflix, I checked out mine [Hacking NetFlix

First off, they're for a town 20 miles away (Sedona) which presumably has enough subscribers to harvest favorites to begin with, unlike Cottonwood and vicinity -- though it's hard to believe there aren't enough here -- it IS a "metro" area of around 15,000.

Second, since a large percentage of residents are seniors, that apparently skewed the results:

Walk the Line
Mrs. Henderson Presents
The 4400: Season 2
Ladies in Lavender
The Ice Harvest

Though on the linked page there are numbers by the titles, which may mean that the following are the top 5:

Winged Migration
Love's Enduring Promise
The Thing Called Love
Off the Map
I, Robot

Followed by

Ladies in Lavender
The Gift
Their Eyes Were Watching God
The Ice Harvest
The New World
Ice Age
Boston Legal: Season 1
Prime
Hitch
Mrs. Henderson Presents
Dreamer: Inspired by a True Story
Garden State
Taking Lives
Memoirs of a Geisha
Ron White: You Can't Fix Stupid
Proof
Walk the Line
Brokeback Mountain
The 4400: Season 2
Greenfingers

Think: new age, cowboys, country music -- no less than 2 Will Smith movies, which I guess means he's on TV a lot -- couldn't tell ya.

To compare, my last 10 rentals I've watched (or tried to) from netflix were:

States of Control
Noi the Albino
The Boondock Saints
Decision Before Dawn
Kinamand
Gemini
Repulsion
Hukkle
My Mother's Smile
The New World

To be fair, the last 10 I actually finished were:

Decision Before Dawn
Kinamand
Gemini
My Mother's Smile
Tony Takitani
The Tunnel (2001)
The Chess Players
Whisky
The Intruder
Elevator to the Gallows

So as you might imagine, there aren't many people hereabouts I talk movies with. . .

2:37 PM - [Link] - Comments ()

"Music is in the person, not the instrument. The instruments can be replaced"

Classic Sedonan's take on recent La Barranca fire's destruction of his home

Note how through the smoke the rocks in the background make it seem like the house is some kind of ancient temple.

1:37 AM - [Link] - Comments ()

Dylan's "Desolation Row"

They're selling postcards of the hanging
They're painting the passports brown
The beauty parlor is filled with sailors
The circus is in town
Here comes the blind commissioner
They've got him in a trance
One hand is tied to the tight-rope walker
The other is in his pants
And the riot squad they're restless
They need somewhere to go
As Lady and I look out tonight
From Desolation Row

Cinderella, she seems so easy
"It takes one to know one," she smiles
And puts her hands in her back pockets
Bette Davis style
And in comes Romeo, he's moaning
"You Belong to Me I Believe"
And someone says," You're in the wrong place, my friend
You better leave"
And the only sound that's left
After the ambulances go
Is Cinderella sweeping up
On Desolation Row

Now the moon is almost hidden
The stars are beginning to hide
The fortunetelling lady
Has even taken all her things inside
All except for Cain and Abel
And the hunchback of Notre Dame
Everybody is making love
Or else expecting rain
And the Good Samaritan, he's dressing
He's getting ready for the show
He's going to the carnival tonight
On Desolation Row

Now Ophelia, she's 'neath the window
For her I feel so afraid
On her twenty-second birthday
She already is an old maid

To her, death is quite romantic
She wears an iron vest
Her profession's her religion
Her sin is her lifelessness
And though her eyes are fixed upon
Noah's great rainbow
She spends her time peeking
Into Desolation Row

Einstein, disguised as Robin Hood
With his memories in a trunk
Passed this way an hour ago
With his friend, a jealous monk
He looked so immaculately frightful
As he bummed a cigarette
Then he went off sniffing drainpipes
And reciting the alphabet
Now you would not think to look at him
But he was famous long ago
For playing the electric violin
On Desolation Row

Dr. Filth, he keeps his world
Inside of a leather cup
But all his sexless patients
They're trying to blow it up
Now his nurse, some local loser
She's in charge of the cyanide hole
And she also keeps the cards that read
"Have Mercy on His Soul"
They all play on penny whistles
You can hear them blow
If you lean your head out far enough
From Desolation Row

Across the street they've nailed the curtains
They're getting ready for the feast
The Phantom of the Opera
A perfect image of a priest
They're spoonfeeding Casanova
To get him to feel more assured
Then they'll kill him with self-confidence
After poisoning him with words

And the Phantom's shouting to skinny girls
"Get Outa Here If You Don't Know
Casanova is just being punished for going
To Desolation Row"

Now at midnight all the agents
And the superhuman crew
Come out and round up everyone
That knows more than they do
Then they bring them to the factory
Where the heart-attack machine
Is strapped across their shoulders
And then the kerosene
Is brought down from the castles
By insurance men who go
Check to see that nobody is escaping
To Desolation Row

Praise be to Nero's Neptune
The Titanic sails at dawn
And everybody's shouting
"Which Side Are You On?"
And Ezra Pound and T. S. Eliot
Fighting in the captain's tower
While calypso singers laugh at them
And fishermen hold flowers
Between the windows of the sea
Where lovely mermaids flow
And nobody has to think too much
About Desolation Row

Yes, I received your letter yesterday
(About the time the door knob broke)
When you asked how I was doing
Was that some kind of joke?
All these people that you mention
Yes, I know them, they're quite lame
I had to rearrange their faces
And give them all another name
Right now I can't read too good
Don't send me no more letters no
Not unless you mail them
From Desolation Row

-- 1965

1:21 AM - [Link] - Comments ()

Wednesday, June 07, 2006

First I want to mention that I got the Maria Braun image below off google and it's similar to the cover of the Arrow release of that film, but not identical; second, I see Arrow will be releasing Bunuel's Exterminating Angel in August, and that may be a worth a buy, deending on reviews of the DVD transfer and extras included

I like TEA better than Viridiana or even Belle de jour, and figure it will eventually be released by Criterion or someone over here. But at least it will be out somewhere on disc.

I also rented El Bruto from Blockbuster a while back and it was better than I expected. Definitely worth seeing for Bunuel fans.

I hope El gets a release soon too (it's apparently available from machiaveldvd.com in a two-fer with Archibaldo de la Cruz, but the site is "on vacation" til Monday so I can't confirm it's still around -- I also doubt it's a great transfer)

8:29 PM - [Link] - Comments ()

Tuesday, June 06, 2006

LAPD to experiment with drone surveillance

10:22 PM - [Link] - Comments ()

"The recommendation to exclude Wal-Mart cites serious/systematic violations of human rights and labour rights"

Norway dumps Wal-Mart from $240 billion investment fund

The ministry said the council had found "an extensive body of material" that indicated Wal-Mart had broken norms, including employing minors against international rules, allowing hazardous working conditions at many of its suppliers and blocking workers' efforts to form unions.

It also listed other alleged Wal-Mart abuses including pressuring workers to work overtime without compensation, discriminating against women in pay and blocking "all attempts to unionise".

It said Wal-Mart employees were "in a number of cases unreasonably punished and locked in".

The council's report encompassed Wal-Mart's operations in the United States and Canada and its suppliers in Nicaragua, El Salvador, Honduras, Lesotho, Kenya, Uganda, Namibia, Malawi, Madagascar, Swaziland, Bangladesh, China and Indonesia.

9:22 PM - [Link] - Comments ()

Out today: the Criterion edition of Dazed and Confused

Also Dead Broke, which might be worth a look, & The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada, Tommy Lee Jones' well-received directorial debut.

9:11 PM - [Link] - Comments ()

Arrow Films in the UK will release 17 of Rainer Fassbinder's films in 2 box sets & individually with new extras over the next year -- though your have to have a PAL compatible or convertible player to see them

I haven't watched any of the Fassbinder films available in North America on disc yet, so I don't know if this is as big a deal here. I liked The Marriage of Maria Braun, but I didn't vibe with his work that much. I was more of a Herzog man then, and now, as German directors go.

I just checked netflix and they carry 29 films Fassbinder directed (or acted?) in, including all of the ones listed by Arrow (IMDB lists 43 directed by him).

But I don't know how the disc quality is on these.

Certainly diehard RWF fans will want the sets anyway.

8:55 PM - [Link] - Comments ()

Monday, June 05, 2006

The Da Vinci Code has grossed $172mil in North America, but $410mil overseas in 3 weeks

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

World eBook Fair to provide free access to 300,000 books usually available only through their subscription service from July 4 through August 4 [Arts Journal

9:09 PM - [Link] - Comments ()

Sunday, June 04, 2006

Sensible start file

Consumers should be told exactly what they can and cannot do with songs and films they buy online, says an influential group of MPs in the UK.

The All Party Parliamentary Internet Group looked at how copy protection systems restrict the way digital movies and music can be enjoyed.

Labels on digital content should spell out how easy it is to move from gadget to gadget, said the report.

It also called for an inquiry into the pricing schemes of online music stores.

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

R.I.P. Arthur Widmer, inventor of the "blue screen" technique used in films and on TV, back in the 50s

1:17 PM - [Link] - Comments ()

Interesting article on how the Clearstream scandal in France reflects a tradition of anonymous, poisonous and ill-intentioned informants going back hundreds of years there -- and how Clouzot's excellent film about the phenomenon Le Corbeau (raven or crow) portrayed it so iconically that informants are now referred to as "crows"

Clouzot was of course reviled at the time (1943) because of the obvious analogy to Nazi collaborators during the Occupation (though the film struck such a deeply disturbing chord that even the Resistance press attacked it and it was banned after the war). And indeed this aspect of the French character offers some insight into why the French so smoothly slotted a fascist reality so dependent on informants into their own.

No resonance in post-911 America of course. . .

10:57 AM - [Link] - Comments ()

Local article on heat safety [LocAlerts

It'll be 102 here tomorrow.

The salt tablet idea was news to me (re cramps anyway), have to try it.

12:38 AM - [Link] - Comments ()

zatz not funny has posted a code for a discount on the MovieBeam box, dropping the price from $200 to $49 [Hacking Netflix]

Make sure you're within their coverage area and have a land line.

Still not for me though. I have too much to watch already.

12:25 AM - [Link] - Comments ()

Saturday, June 03, 2006

Bird flu dance craze in Abidjan

7:09 PM - [Link] - Comments ()

Friday, June 02, 2006

Some closure at least for Wen Ho Lee

The government and five news organizations agreed Friday to pay former nuclear scientist Wen Ho Lee $1.6 million to settle his lawsuit that accused officials of wrongly identifying him as a suspected spy for China.

Lee sued the Justice Department and the Energy Department claiming officials violated his privacy rights when they leaked damaging information about him to the press during a 1999 investigation into files allegedly missing from the nuclear research facility at Los Alamos, New Mexico.

Government officials, including then-Energy Secretary Bill Richardson, publicly named Lee as a target of the probe, and investigators suspected the Taiwan-born U.S. citizen was spying for China.

Lee, 66, was indicted on 59 counts of stealing nuclear weapons data from the Los Alamos facility. He was fired from his job, labeled a national security threat and spent nine months in solitary confinement. He was released in 2000 and all but one count was dismissed.

He pleaded guilty to mishandling classified computer files, a felony. A federal judge sharply criticized the prosecution's case and President Clinton apologized to Lee for his treatment. Lee now lives near Sacramento, California.

Aside from Lee's own book, there's what appears to be the most even-handed account of the sorry case, Stober & Hoffman's A Convenient Spy: Wen Ho Lee and the Politics of Nuclear Espionage, but amazon's page for that book claims 90% of the people who viewed it ended up buying Notra Trulock's Code Name Kindred Spirit: Inside the Chinese Nuclear Espionage Scandal (published by Encounter Books, which clearly has a conservative bias) which no doubt appeals to people eager to believe anything incriminating about a Chinese national, guilty or not.

I always felt he was a patsy, and surely if there'd been any truth to the accusations, more than one of the 59 counts against him would've stuck. Yet according to A Convenient Spy his wife was working for US Intel, reporting on meetings and correspondence between US & Chinese scientists. So who knows?

I'm sure most people have forgotten about this case and don't want to be reminded anyway.

I can't help feeling some justice was done today though.

Here's a review of the Lee and Stober books form The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.

7:25 PM - [Link] - Comments ()

Thursday, June 01, 2006

New movies-at-home player MovieBeam [Hacking NetFlix]

It's a slim, silver, good-looking $200 set-top box called MovieBeam.

You connect the MovieBeam player directly to your TV set. Then, whenever you're in the mood for a movie, you choose from the list of 100 movies on the player's hard drive. Preposterous as this may sound, there's no monthly fee and no minimum; you're billed only for the movies you watch ($4 for a new release, $2 for an old one). You can rewind, pause, fast-forward and replay a movie you've bought — for 24 hours from your first glimpse of the opening credits.

Each week, seven or eight new movies magically show up in the player's list, pushing an equal number of old ones off to movie heaven.

This wireless movie-delivery feature gives MovieBeam its name. The company doesn't require an Internet connection or even a computer.

Wouldn't work for me, but I can see the market for it -- for now.

Biggest drawbacks are the 2C layout for the box and weak HD quality.

6:08 PM - [Link] - Comments ()