Friday, August 3, 2012
Friday Rolls Around: "So You Know It's Got Nothing But Soul"
Van Morrison performs "Caravan" with The Band at "The Last Waltz" from the film of the same name by Martin Scorsese.
Wednesday, August 1, 2012
Jerry Garcia (The Man, The Legend, The Bobble Head)
Jerry Garcia Bobble Head Day at the San Franscisco Giants.
Jerry Garcia August 1, 1942-August 9, 1995
Friday, July 27, 2012
Friday Afternoon: "It's a Hard World to Get a Break In.."
The Animals on Hullabaloo!
It's a hard world to get a break in
All the good things have been taken
But girl there are ways to make certain things pay
Though I'm dressed in these rags, I'll wear sable some day
Hear what I say
I'm gonna ride the serpent
No more time spent sweatin' rent
Hear my command
It ain't no use, I'm breakin' loose,
Holdin' me down, stick around
But baby (baby)
Remember (remember)
It's my life and I'll do what I want
It's my mind and I'll think what I want
Show me I'm wrong, hurt me sometime
But some day I'll treat you real fine
There'll be women and their fortunes
Who just want to mother orphans
Are you gonna cry
When I'm squeezing them dry?
Taking all I can get
No regrets
When I ... openly lie
And live on their money
Believe me honey, that money
Can you believe, I ain't no saint
No complaints
So girl go out
Any doubt
And baby (baby)
Remember (remember)
It's my life and I'll do what I want
It's my mind and I'll think what I want
Show me I'm wrong, hurt me sometime
But some day I'll treat you real fine
(It's my life and I'll do what I want) Don't push me
(It's my mind and I'll think what I want) It's my life
(It's my life and I'll do what I want) And I can do what I want
(It's my mind and I'll think what I want) You can't tell me
(It's my life and I'll do what I want)
Everybody Knows (This is Nowhere)
"La-la-la, la-la-la-la, everybody knows, everybody knows....."
Was that Neil's dog? Further research required.
Joel Bernstein: "The photo was in fact taken somewhere in Topanga Canyon by freelance photographer Frank Bez. He [Frank Bez] remembered Neil specifically telling him that it was taken in Topanga Canyon around September 1968."
Wednesday, July 25, 2012
Golem XIV
GOLEM Teaser from GOLEM on Vimeo.
Teaser for animated short GOLEM, based on the short story GOLEM XIV by Stanislaw Lem.
Credits:
Film by Patrick Mccue, Tobias Wiesner
Voice - Cyrena Dunbar
Music - Cliff Martinez
Sound Design - Gavin Little/ echolab.tv
Title Design - Melanie Lukhaup/ luftmasche
More on Lem's story here
Sunday, July 22, 2012
N----R: The Documentary Rejected (Banned) by Facebook
The continuing economic downturn pushes further back the memory of that exciting election evening in 2008 when the U.S. -- and the world -- seemed to recognize that a major page had been turned in our history with the election of Senator Barack Hussein Obama as the first African American as President. In the ensuing months, there were many debates regarding whether the nation has reached a new "post-racial" era. Nevertheless, politics, and the challenging economic scene seem to suggest that an election does not a post-racial era make. Therefore, it is with great interest and curiosity that we accepted an invitation to attend a screening of Thea St. Omer's documentary, Nigger, which may well represent the most loaded (well, as indicated in the film, there is at least one other lulu one can think of) word in the American idiom.
The film is a series of talking head shots, of individuals of all races and ages, who are interviewed by director St. Omer about their thoughts and reactions to "the N word" as it is more commonly referred. In conversation with the director at the screening at New York University's Tisch School of the Arts, she noted how the film's title prevented it from appearing on the ubiquitous Facebook.
The film is a brief and challenging documentary that addresses the word that appears first to have been used as a weapon, part of the semiotics of control of African Americans, but which has now been re-appropriated as a badge of -- if not honor -- fellowship and identity in the younger African American community. Even appropriated --as both the film and members of the audience agreed-- by non-Black suburban kids who identify with the creativity, fellowship, and urban cool of hip-hop culture.
Although it appears that academics are among the individuals interviewed in the film, their comments are all personal and revelatory under director St. Omer's careful probing. And that's just what makes "Nigger: The documentary that Facebook Rejected" unique: it is a documentary from the heart, no academic disquisitions or distanced, philosophical critiques or analyses of the evolution or linguistics of this most loaded word. The film gives it to you straight from the gut, take it or leave it, with the only alternative remaining for the viewer to figure out where they, too, stand in the new American culture, post racial or not. The only hesitation that I had regarding the director's ambitious and admirable short-film effort, is the fact that, having been filmed in 2005 and 2006, there is an unexplored dimension here, inasmuch as one can think about the interviews in terms of "BO and "AO" - Before and After President Obama. This may be a quibble, and is not intended as a criticism, as much as it is the thought that the film may in fact have further resonance if a sequel were attempted, kind of like Michael Apted's "Up" series, but observing the meaning of the word in a post-racial, post-Obama context.
None of this is meant to take anything away from the director's worthy effort. She is continuing in her efforts to bring this documentary to a wider audience. However, as an example of the complex nature of this evolution, director St. Omer has been working hard at obtaining funding to make the film more available to audiences. It appears that it is an uphill climb. Visit the film's website for more information on the film and the Kickstarter campaign here
The film is a series of talking head shots, of individuals of all races and ages, who are interviewed by director St. Omer about their thoughts and reactions to "the N word" as it is more commonly referred. In conversation with the director at the screening at New York University's Tisch School of the Arts, she noted how the film's title prevented it from appearing on the ubiquitous Facebook.
The film is a brief and challenging documentary that addresses the word that appears first to have been used as a weapon, part of the semiotics of control of African Americans, but which has now been re-appropriated as a badge of -- if not honor -- fellowship and identity in the younger African American community. Even appropriated --as both the film and members of the audience agreed-- by non-Black suburban kids who identify with the creativity, fellowship, and urban cool of hip-hop culture.
Although it appears that academics are among the individuals interviewed in the film, their comments are all personal and revelatory under director St. Omer's careful probing. And that's just what makes "Nigger: The documentary that Facebook Rejected" unique: it is a documentary from the heart, no academic disquisitions or distanced, philosophical critiques or analyses of the evolution or linguistics of this most loaded word. The film gives it to you straight from the gut, take it or leave it, with the only alternative remaining for the viewer to figure out where they, too, stand in the new American culture, post racial or not. The only hesitation that I had regarding the director's ambitious and admirable short-film effort, is the fact that, having been filmed in 2005 and 2006, there is an unexplored dimension here, inasmuch as one can think about the interviews in terms of "BO and "AO" - Before and After President Obama. This may be a quibble, and is not intended as a criticism, as much as it is the thought that the film may in fact have further resonance if a sequel were attempted, kind of like Michael Apted's "Up" series, but observing the meaning of the word in a post-racial, post-Obama context.
None of this is meant to take anything away from the director's worthy effort. She is continuing in her efforts to bring this documentary to a wider audience. However, as an example of the complex nature of this evolution, director St. Omer has been working hard at obtaining funding to make the film more available to audiences. It appears that it is an uphill climb. Visit the film's website for more information on the film and the Kickstarter campaign here
Friday, July 20, 2012
Thursday, July 19, 2012
Future Imperfekt
What happened to the Future?
As a lad in the 1960s, I read Arthur C. Clarke's Profiles of the Future and was most impressed by the concluding chart that listed his predictions of technologies to come. Some were right on target (Lunar Landings, although he overshot slightly, predicting the 1970s), personal radio (i.e., cell phones, 1980s though not becoming truly widespread, virtually ubiquitous, until decades later), global library (e.g., the internet/wikipedia)..etc.
An interesting website reviewed the evolution of Clarke's prognostications of the future over subsequent editions of the book, but I was always fascinated with the original edition, as a youth, in the dramatically evolving years, socially and technologically, of the 1960s and 1970s... intelligent animals, robots, planetary engineering...it reminded me of Donald Fagen's I.G.Y. which offered a vision of a cool, Kennedy-esque, future, leisure "and spandex jackets for everyone."
A recent article also took our dreams of the future to task, discussing why some issues, with so much seeming potential, never came ot fruition. Sadly, does it all come down to "The Market" ? More here
As a lad in the 1960s, I read Arthur C. Clarke's Profiles of the Future and was most impressed by the concluding chart that listed his predictions of technologies to come. Some were right on target (Lunar Landings, although he overshot slightly, predicting the 1970s), personal radio (i.e., cell phones, 1980s though not becoming truly widespread, virtually ubiquitous, until decades later), global library (e.g., the internet/wikipedia)..etc.
An interesting website reviewed the evolution of Clarke's prognostications of the future over subsequent editions of the book, but I was always fascinated with the original edition, as a youth, in the dramatically evolving years, socially and technologically, of the 1960s and 1970s... intelligent animals, robots, planetary engineering...it reminded me of Donald Fagen's I.G.Y. which offered a vision of a cool, Kennedy-esque, future, leisure "and spandex jackets for everyone."
A recent article also took our dreams of the future to task, discussing why some issues, with so much seeming potential, never came ot fruition. Sadly, does it all come down to "The Market" ? More here
Tuesday, July 17, 2012
News: Bob Dylan's "Tempest" Due Out September 11
Columbia Records announced today that Bob Dylan’s new studio album, Tempest, will be released on September 11, 2012. Featuring ten new and original Bob Dylan songs, the release of Tempest coincides with the 50th Anniversary of the artist’s eponymous debut album, which was released by Columbia in 1962.
More here
Monday, July 9, 2012
Reality Bites: Das Capital Ideas
Dr. Nouriel Roubini on the arrival of the predicted "perfect storm"of stalling growth in the U.S., debt troubles in Europe, a slowdown in emerging markets, particularly China, and military conflict in Iran - would come together to create a storm for the global economy in 2013. The perfect storm is unfolding details here
Capitalism and its discontents: The more it rots the more it thrives. Slavoj Zizek here
Zizek in The Guardian: Love, Hegel and What Zizek Won't Do and Can''t Abide here
Capitalism and its discontents: The more it rots the more it thrives. Slavoj Zizek here
Zizek in The Guardian: Love, Hegel and What Zizek Won't Do and Can''t Abide here
Saturday, July 7, 2012
Friday, June 29, 2012
Oh, Atlanta
Interior: Ebenezer Baptist Church, Atlanta
Gravesite in the reflecting pool at the
Freedom Center at the Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Historic Site
Exterior: Ebenezer Baptist Church
Dr. King's childhood home in the
Auburn Avenue section of Atlanta
The wagon that carried Dr. King's casket
following his assassination in 1968.
I was in Atlanta to attend the Society of Human Resources Managers (SHRM) annual conference earlier this week. Speakers included Dr. Condoleeza Rice (inspiring), Tom Brokaw (wry and optimistic), and Jim Collins (it's all about the people, folks), multiple presentations on all apects of HR, with terrific forays into innovation, social media, capped one evening by an outrageous 1.5 hour stand-up performance by Jerry Seinfeld before an audience of thousands in the HR biz.
I was especially taken by a brilliant, poignant, and visionary presentation by journliast Malcolm Gladwell , taken from his forthcoming book, on the Millennial generation's ushering in of a new social paradigm.
As SHRM's John Scorza reported: "People born in the 1980s and ’90s are at the forefront of a new social paradigm that will profoundly influence how things are done in the workplace and in the wider world, Gladwell said. The older generation generally views social movements and organizations in the context of a hierarchy. Hierarchies generally have a strong leader, a powerful and experienced organization, and a guiding ideology and strategy. Millennials have a different view. For them, it’s all about the network.
Journalist-author Malcolm Gladwell at SHRM 2012 in Atlanta
"Gladwell compared the civil rights movement to the Occupy movements to illustrate the differences between the generations...[to bring about change] Martin Luther King wanted to bring Mahatma Gandhi’s principles of nonviolence to the United States. "That movement had the components of a hierarchy: a strong leader, a disciplined organization and a guiding ideology. Compare that to the Occupy movements of the past year, which had no leader, no clear ideology or strategy, and a loosely organized and undisciplined organization.
“This could not be more different than the civil rights movement of 40 years ago,” Gladwell said. “That difference between the way social organization is done by this generation and … the previous generation is incredibly significant,” Gladwell suggested...
"In comparing hierarchies and networks, Gladwell maintained that one form is not better than the other. “We are not superior to them because the hierarchy is better than the network and they’re not superior to us because the network is superior to the hierarchy. They are simply two different forms with very different sets of strengths and weaknesses.”
"In some situations, the hierarchy works, in others the network is best. Many kids start college intending to study science, math and engineering, but the drop-out rates are very high. Why? Because the courses are too hard. To master these topics, kids need to learn from expert instructors, practice discipline and learn on their own. “The task is ill-suited for the paradigm that many kids today are bringing to school and the workplace...”
“The differences between Occupy and civil rights are symbols of the very powerful differences in the paradigms that each of those generations carry around in their pockets. What happened over the past 10 years is that we have seen a fundamental shift in the way people of different generations have chosen to see and interpret the world.
“We have to take this notion of a new generational paradigm seriously.”
Mr. Gladwell's movingly described analysis of the differences between the Civil Rights Movement and Occupy Wall Street, coming as it did in the city of Dr. King's birth,in which the Movement was rooted, provided a very moving experience, on the critical role of HR, management and logistics in social movements as well as business enterprise.
More by Mr. Scorza on Mr. Gladwell's discussion at the SHRM conference here
Thursday, June 21, 2012
Andrew Sarris, 1928-2012
Andrew Sarris, influential film critic and writer has died. Mr. Sarris, who taught at Columbia University and was a wonderful writer about cinema with a deep knowledge of world film and insightful in his analysis and explication of the auteur in filmmaking.
More here
Mr. Sarris's writings for the NY Observer (through 2006) here
Kent Jones profile in Film Comment here
Michael Powell's profile in the NY Times here
Mr. Sarris's writings for the NY Observer (through 2006) here
Kent Jones profile in Film Comment here
Michael Powell's profile in the NY Times here
I picked up this invaluable book at the 8th Street Bookstore when I was a
student at NYU in the early 1970s and have turned to it again and again
over the years both for his insights into film and his great earlier published writing.
Wednesday, June 20, 2012
Live and Free Tonight: Philip Glass Ensemble
The River to River Festival in Lower Manhattan tonight continues the ongoing celebration of composer Philip Glass's 75th Birthday with a free concert in Rockefeller Park. The concert will open with the youth ensemble Face the Music which will perform Mr. Glass's classic "Glassworks" followed by the Philip Glass Ensemble performing a retrospective of his compositions.
More on tonight's performance here
More on Philip Glass here
 |
| Chuck Close's Phil (1969) |
More on Philip Glass here
Tuesday, June 19, 2012
NASA's VOYAGER 1 Spacecraft Poised to Leave Solar System
 |
| Voyage 1: Boldly Going Where No Earth-launched Spacecraft Has Gone Before |
The Voyager 1 probe has entered a region of space with a markedly higher flow of charged particles from beyond our solar system, researchers said. Mission scientists suspect this increased flow indicates that the spacecraft — currently 11.1 billion miles (17.8 billion kilometers) from its home planet — may be poised to cross the boundary into interstellar space.
"The laws of physics say that someday Voyager will become the first human-made object to enter interstellar space, but we still do not know exactly when that someday will be," said Ed Stone, Voyager project scientist at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, in a statement.
"The latest data indicate that we are clearly in a new region where things are changing more quickly," Stone added. "It is very exciting. We are approaching the solar system's frontier."
More here
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