==pla|\|ing lakes==

Thursday, May 29, 2008

when fascists have high approval ratings, the government doesn't need to control the press in amerika [undernews]

"The press corps was under enormous pressure from corporate executives, frankly, to make sure that this was a war presented in a way that was consistent with the patriotic fever in the nation and the president's high approval ratings," Yellin said.

"And my own experience at the White House was that the higher the president's approval ratings, the more pressure I had from news executives — and I was not at this network at the time — but the more pressure I had from news executives to put on positive stories about the president, I think over time...." - andrea yellin

10:48 PM - [Link] - Comments ()

Tuesday, May 27, 2008

a lot's going on now i know, but this item about the mass murder of over (probably well over) 100,000 "leftists" in south korea in 1950 needs to be noted

The mass executions — intended to keep possible southern leftists from reinforcing the northerners — were carried out over mere weeks and were largely hidden from history for a half-century. They were "the most tragic and brutal chapter of the Korean War," said historian Kim Dong-choon, a member of a 2-year-old government commission investigating the killings.

Hundreds of sets of remains have been uncovered so far, but researchers say they are only a tiny fraction of the deaths. The commission estimates at least 100,000 people were executed, in a South Korean population of 20 million.

That estimate is based on projections from local surveys and is "very conservative," said Kim. The true toll may be twice that or more, he told The Associated Press.

US soldiers were present for at least some of the slaughter, and no doubt truman et al approved.

having just watched the post-war stray bullet, a korean movie banned for decades after its release in 1960 because of its honesty about soldiers' and civilians' trauma and want after the war, the deeply despairing mood is given new and illuminating context after reading this story.

10:45 PM - [Link] - Comments ()

"religion knows, but religion ruins it"

interview with joan cusack

AVC: Do you think there's any particular reason why stability and normalcy and family are so vitally important to you personally?

JC: Well, I think it's important to being a healthy person. So while you're here on the earth, you might as well enjoy it. And it's hard to enjoy things when you're crazy.

AVC: But it obviously isn't a drive for a whole lot of people in your industry. Even John, it seems. Which might have helped his career, if you compare his involvement in the film business at this point to yours.

JC: But I think we need to help these people, we need to help everyone understand that fame and money—it's just all the same things that everyone knows, religion knows, but religion ruins it. Not John, I think John is—I wasn't targeting him. Because I think he does know the importance of stability. I think people just get distracted, and you get very distracted when there's lots of fancy things around, and people have money. It's hard. Life's hard. Relationships are hard. If you can get distracted, you will.

10:17 PM - [Link] - Comments ()

Monday, May 26, 2008

R.I.P. Sydney Pollack

i liked a few of his movies a lot, wasn't crazy about the rest.

if you haven't seen three days of the condor or jeremiah johnson, they're both quite good.

he also exec-produced or produced the fabulous baker boys, leaving normal, searching for bobby fischer, the talented mr ripley, & michael clayton.

thanks sydney.

7:57 PM - [Link] - Comments ()

Sunday, May 25, 2008

phillip toledano's hauntingphotos of bankrupt offices [boing boing]

11:42 AM - [Link] - Comments ()

canadian teen science project may prove revolutionary method for recycling plastic [undernews]

11:39 AM - [Link] - Comments ()

Saturday, May 24, 2008

paranoia's dead file

are you on the list?

Few Americans—professional journalists included—know anything about so-called Continuity of Government (COG) programs, so it's no surprise that the president's passing reference received almost no attention. COG resides in a nebulous legal realm, encompassing national emergency plans that would trigger the takeover of the country by extra-constitutional forces—and effectively suspend the republic. In short, it's a road map for martial law.

While Comey, who left the Department of Justice in 2005, has steadfastly refused to comment further on the matter, a number of former government employees and intelligence sources with independent knowledge of domestic surveillance operations claim the program that caused the flap between Comey and the White House was related to a database of Americans who might be considered potential threats in the event of a national emergency. Sources familiar with the program say that the government's data gathering has been overzealous and probably conducted in violation of federal law and the protection from unreasonable search and seizure guaranteed by the Fourth Amendment.

12:48 AM - [Link] - Comments ()

mary queen of scots -- elizabeth's nemesis and alter ego -- had interesting taste in accessories

btw, if you haven't seen simon schama's history of britain, the episode on the 2 of them is a highlight, and as spooky as any horror movie.

12:44 AM - [Link] - Comments ()

"I’m singing about governments and stupid people who cannot see the truth, to show them a vision"

fun interviews: lee perry (who's fucking 73!) & tom waits

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

the barbie tarot [everlasting blort]

12:31 AM - [Link] - Comments ()

canadian police not getting off on the right feet

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

Tuesday, May 20, 2008

good piece by leo goldsmith on david lynch at reverse shot

Visually, structurally, and thematically, Inland Empire and The Straight Story represent polar opposites in Lynch's body of work. But curiously, for all the obvious differences between the two films, there is at least one interesting correlation between them: the sound of a train whistle. In the earlier film, this is represented musically in Angelo Badalamenti's guitar and violin score, and in the latter film it is still more ghostly and subliminal, present only as a distant, disembodied (but seemingly diegetic) sound effect. Trains, with their inexorable forward momentum and direction, would seem an obvious symbol of linearity itself for the former film, but we never see the train in Inland Empire. It calls out at decisive moments—heard in the background as rabbits converse obliquely, sounding at the moment in which Laura Dern decisively trades her movie-star mansion for a blue-collar bungalow, or eulogized by the chorus of whores as "The Loco-motion." But this train never pulls into view, and whether it is literal or figurative, it is no doubt menacing, commanding the synchronized movements of the whores, seemingly representing something at once sexual and coercive, a path (to destitution? to prostitution?) from which one cannot divert, a prescribed set of actions (as in a screenplay), or a compulsion. In Inland Empire, both Dern's character and the spectator try to follow this train of thought, but ultimately lose the plotline. For Lynch, this atemporal narrative existence can be frightening or even messy, but it can also be euphoric or even silly. On the one hand, Dern's frantic wandering through time and space suggests total chaos, but it ultimately seems to free her from a master narrative of spousal abuse and control, sexual and professional exploitation, and social immobility. And ultimately, for Lynch, Inland Empire also liberates his cinema from a constrictive and circumscribed filmmaking model.

11:06 PM - [Link] - Comments ()

rising fuel costs end flights to more and more cities, cut flights everywhere

soon only the rich will be flying.

10:46 PM - [Link] - Comments ()

Saturday, May 17, 2008

have to agree with cory -- sterling's distraction hasn't aged a day, and it's my favorite of his novels too

i bought a used copy last year and loved it again.

9:02 PM - [Link] - Comments ()

Friday, May 16, 2008

david byrne reminisces about rauschenberg

Bob was extraordinarily generous. I don’t mean he gave away art — though he did that, too — but he was generous with his time and with his ideas and spirit. He started Change Inc., a foundation that awards grants to emerging artists who can’t pay their rent, utility or medical bills. No questions asked.

He was, of course, famous for making art out of everyday junk he found on the street. One summer I went down to Captiva Island, Fla., where Bob had his main studio. I stayed across the road in one of the houses he had “saved,” and I spent a week or so writing a few songs. When I returned to New York, I left behind a pair of worn-out tennis shoes. A ghostly image of them showed up in a painting not long after.

11:53 PM - [Link] - Comments ()

Tuesday, May 13, 2008

R.I.P. Robert Rauschenberg

6:13 PM - [Link] - Comments ()

Saturday, May 10, 2008

jeph's got a piece up on con-v for download

11:06 PM - [Link] - Comments ()

Tuesday, May 06, 2008

in case you haven't heard, isabella rossellini -- former paramour of david lynch -- has directed a series of videos featuring rossellini acting out insect behavior [boing boing]

9:01 PM - [Link] - Comments ()

R.I.P. Bebe Barron

co-composer with her husband Louis of the proto sound-designed soundtrack to ForBidden Planet.

. . . in 1955, the Barrons crashed an art party in Manhattan for the wife of Dore Schary, the president of MGM. They told him about their unusual recordings. Ten days later they were driving to Hollywood, where Mr. Schary signed them for Forbidden Planet.

The score drew critical praise, but a dispute with the American Federation of Musicians prevented the Barrons from receiving credit for it; their work was referred to as "electronic tonalities." That slight was soothed in 1997, when Mrs. Barron was given the Seamus Award of the Society for Electro-Acoustic Music in the United States.

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

Saturday, May 03, 2008

as much as i cringe at the sugar-shock inducing disney world of animation, i'm not sure i'd have wanted to grow up in these neighborhoods, in the former soviet union [boing boing]

2:35 PM - [Link] - Comments ()

Friday, May 02, 2008

michael koresky rhapsodizes over hou hsiao hsien's flight of the red balloon

A remarkably rich, rewarding, and restful experience, Hou’s latest is a film like no other—in the simplicity of its lines, colors, and framing, and in the complexity of how those elements compound and contextualize its emotional subject matter, Flight of the Red Balloon can, in my mind, be compared to the works of Matisse. Despite this elevation, the film, miraculously, doesn’t feel like an artist’s grand summation, but rather just another in a long line of purely wrought canvases; it never calls attention to its own technique or turns its endless flow of lovely, complicated compositions into recognizable set pieces, and instead allows its three principal characters to navigate its spaces with ease. The very elements that many feared might have tripped Hou Hsaio-hsien up (being out of his country and native language) here become strengths: a trust in his actors to inhabit their own, distinct daily lives without strict authorial pressure, and a view of Paris that’s just outsider-ish enough to be slightly awed but aestheticized enough to not become travelogue. Also, Hou’s feelings for the original Lamorisse film feel more like the warm regards of a distant admirer than the impassioned homage to a hallowed national treasure.

that's a painting by the way, but i liked it better than the stills i found.

9:41 PM - [Link] - Comments ()

plum industries has a podcast of tracks curated by my friend jeph [thanks, julie]

9:15 PM - [Link] - Comments ()

Thursday, May 01, 2008

undernews on the palfrey "suicide"

8:15 PM - [Link] - Comments ()

do YOU believe deborah palfrey killed herself?

oh sure and wellstone's plane crash was just bad weather too.

6:17 PM - [Link] - Comments ()