Friends are my art form

Cameron Bailey's TIFF words of wisdom

2011-08-30T15:10:00.001-04:00

LOVE this from Cameron Bailey's TIFF indiewire preview:

“When I started this gig four years ago I used to work 20-hour days in July,” he said. “Now I work 15-hour days in July. Everything else is pretty much the same: You work your ass off trying to get the best new movies you can, you fight with people who you thought were friends, you make friends with people you thought were enemies and then you climb up on stage and raise the curtain.”

iPOP 'Tiny Furniture''s Big Dance Party! - indieWIRE

2010-11-15T01:36:00.002-05:00

So proud of Lena Dunham and TINY FURNITURE! A thrill to be able to stop by the NYC premiere.

iPOP 'Tiny Furniture''s Big Dance Party! - indieWIRE

Captured: America in Color from 1939-1943 – Plog Photo Blog

2010-08-05T14:38:00.001-04:00

Captured: America in Color from 1939-1943 – Plog Photo Blog

Gorgeous.

Wee little Comic-con heroine

2010-07-26T17:28:00.005-04:00

Photo by Sandy Huffaker, Getty Images
A young comic fan poses during Comic-Con International: San Diego 2010 at the San Diego Convention Center on July 22, 2010 in San Diego, California.

courtesy of: http://movies.yahoo.com/photos/collections/gallery/2766/2010-comiccon--costumes#photo24

More very cool art from Shih-Chieh Huang

2010-06-30T19:07:00.004-04:00

ATX backyard view

2010-05-17T21:44:00.003-04:00

How's this for a backyard? And who would have guessed in ATX, TX?

Me and Wendell

2010-05-17T21:39:00.003-04:00

I don't know many actors, nor do I usually ask to have my photo taken with the famous - friends, associates or otherwise. But I couldn't resist when I ran into Wendell Pierce at the MD Film Festival. What a great actor. What a gorgeous voice! Just loved getting to meet him for a minute and talk in person. He took the photo :)

I miss mine too

2010-05-10T03:17:00.003-04:00

Filofaxes, Mundis, days of dreaming, notes and tasks. My systems, my lists. It was the address book that pushed me over to the Palm - that and the heaviness of the little looseleaf planners themselves. But how I loved the visual record. I have years in my closet. Sad, sad, sad.

Magazine
The Demise of Datebooks
By VIRGINIA HEFFERNAN
Published: May 3, 2010
Shelving analog calendars for digital ones.

White guys with pads - nice talk by Andy Revkin

2010-05-10T02:17:00.001-04:00

Telling the Story of Science in a Post-Media World

Carry On Packing Tips courtesy of NYT

2010-05-10T01:57:00.002-04:00

I can't stand checking bags! And as I've been traveling more, I've been losing more (like my raincoat and new cosmetics last year enroute to Cannes, and my Bose headphones just last week somewhere along the Toronto/Maryland axis. I brought two bags because of a friend's comment, and regret it. Having two bags makes it almost harder to keep track.) I'm pretty good at keeping it lean but will try this to see if it helps.

Business Day
10 Days In a Carry-On
null
Published: May 6, 2010
A flight attendant reveals her secrets on how to pack efficiently and wrinkle-free.

Visual Note-Taking 101 from SXSW 2010

2010-05-08T19:26:00.001-04:00

This is what I really wish I could have attended at SXSW. WOuld love to be able to do this. I've watched Austin in realtime, and it's very very cool. Check out this SlideShare Presentation:

Visual Note-Taking 101 from SXSW 2010

View more webinars from Austin Kleon.

Sascha's very cute babies

2010-04-29T00:46:00.008-04:00

I was a huge fan of Sascha Paladino's doc THROW DOWN YOUR HEART which premiered at SXSW in 2008. Since then he's had a couple of twins. Very cool to see this film he made in connection with Focus' new doc Babies.

Watch the Video

YouTube Treats: Blow Something Up! | SXSW.com

2010-04-13T01:03:00.001-04:00

YouTube Treats: Blow Something Up! | SXSW.com

ELLE Film Critic Karen Durbin's Postcard From Austin

2010-04-12T01:48:00.008-04:00

Not that I'm going to post all my work clippings here, but it is a convenient scrapebook and filing system of sorts for some favorites. Loved this

ELLE Film Critic Karen Durbin's Postcard From Austin:

I've done jury duty at lots of film festivals but I’ve never been to one as buoyant and exhilarating as SXSW.

(full blog)

Delighted to be drawn in Austin Kleon's SXSW 2010 wrap

2010-04-01T23:20:00.004-04:00

Included in a drawing from Austin Kleon's great SXSW 2010 wrap-up. Really delighted!!

Plastic Bag By Ramin Bahrani

2010-03-24T17:24:00.003-04:00

I'll totally post this too. Love this film - directed by the extremely talented Ramin Bahrani, voiced by the great Werner Herzog. We were delighted to screen Plastic Bag at SXSW 2010.

Tiny Furniture in the NYT- just one of SXSW 2010 highlights

2010-03-21T23:30:00.003-04:00

I don't keep this blog anymore, well, certainly not like I used to too. It was a little space for writing practice and personal musings. Now I'm in a job with a public component, and lots of eager eyes with their own agendas. But occasionally, it's still a worthy parking space. So I'm happy to note this here: Young Filmmaker's Search for Her Work is Rewarded, by David Carr.

It's a terrific piece, about a terrific film, by a wonderful new filmmaker, that on top of everything, exposes one of the best components of SXSW Film - the creative crossroads where filmmakers really do get to meet and mix it up with one another and return or even evolve elsewhere, that much the stronger.

Barbie parts jewelry

2010-03-07T02:26:00.003-05:00

Found this via a tweet from Roger Ebert @ebertchicago strangely enough. Fantastic! Really illustrates how so much of art is just a different way of organizing in the world. Talk about seeing with fresh eyes! Love these images.

From kottke.org on How Genetics Works

2010-02-26T02:36:00.004-05:00

Rare snow in ATX

2009-12-06T02:32:00.005-05:00

Exciting rare snow at the SXSW compound in Austin, TX on Fri Dec. 4th. The flakes started, we all ran outside. The Texans delirious w delight. Sorry for the really crappy video - which can be seen more full frame at YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kQAxHYUR8JU

The Wire - 100 Greatest Quotes

2009-11-18T01:44:00.001-05:00

Love this!!

A selection of the top 100 quotes from The Wire, the greatest TV show ever made. First featured on Pajiba.com. Contains spoilers from all 5 seasons! Featuring Omar, Bubbles, Bunk, McNulty, Rawls, ...

Where the Wild Things Are, sons and mother love

2009-11-08T17:20:00.005-05:00

As I enter the tunnel (as Sundance's John Cooper and Trevor Groth so aptly put it), I took off a few hours to catch WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE before it slipped out of town. I'd wanted to go opening night and couldn't. The next day, on my way to meetings in NYC, I detoured to pay a visit to my 19-year-old son, now in his second year of college. Not a big movie fan (Transformers is his fav!), he'd gone to Where the Wild Things Are the night before.

"I loved Where The Wild Things Are. But it was so sad!! It's a film for sons and mothers. You know, as boys, we get really frustrated and we break things. But what's really sad, is that we break our own things!

Remember when I got the $5 bill and ripped it into a hundred pieces?"

In that second, I did...
"Yes I do. I'm sorry I wasn't a better mother. I know you were frustrated a lot."

"No, it's ok mom. When I think of you, I think of you always trying to help me. Like you helped me tape it all back together."

Ah my son. And ahhh this film - which had me smiling and sobbing within minutes. Really a modern masterpiece, carving so close to the heart of something so delicate and primal. A real rarity in this day and age. I'm very grateful.

Photos of Old Japan

2009-11-05T01:48:00.004-05:00

Wow - just found these fabulous animated stereostopic images via Justin Barber via http://pinktentacle.com. I don't exactly have a hardcore collector temperament, but for many years, I was on the hunt for Japanese handcolored postcards, just like these. Actually some of these! Still love them! Cool as hell.

Whoa..., checking another link, here's even more! These are amazing! I own some of these images myself. I had no idea of the history, or that so many were available. Not to be missed.

(Sorry, not sure how to grab the images here, but do check further!)

T. ENAMI PHOTOS OF OLD JAPAN

HAPPY 150TH, T. ENAMI ! FEBRUARY 17, 2009. SESQUICENTENIAL BIRTHDAY ANNIVESARY.

This SPECIAL COLLECTION contains well over 600 old Meiji and Taisho-era ENAMI-RELATED images.

As far as is known, this flickr archive forms the largest 19th and early 20th Century portfolio of any Japanese studio currently on line.

SEE SPECIAL WORLD COLLECTION LINKS to other T. ENAMI images DOWN BELOW !

************************************

Okinawa_Soba takes pleasure in posting a large selection of Enami's old images of long-gone JAPAN—found amongst my boxes of junk that are otherwise wasting away in a dark corner of my room.

T. Enami (T probably stood for Toshi), whose real name was NOBUKUNI ENAMI (or, in Japanese name order, ENAMI NOBUKUNI) was a “photographers photographer” who in his youthful 20s was a student and assistant to K. OGAWA , and then a Professional until he died at age 70 in 1929.

His own studio, established in Yokohama in 1892 when he was 33 years old, then passed to his son, Tamotsu (not a photographer), who carried on as a commercial DPE photo processor and printer for locals and tourists, as well as a publisher of his father’s photographs.

It is important to remember that on all photographic mounts, the imprint T. Enami never stood for Tamotsu Enami. However, the coincidence --- whether or not intentionally set up by the Elder with the thought that Tamotsu might eventually inherit the studio --- was no doubt helpful to the younger, as the studio name and all stationary connected with it could remain the same.

When the studio was “closed forever” by the fire-bombings of WW2, it had been in continual existence for 53 years—one of the longest running studios to come out of Japan’s old Meiji era.

It's amazing to me that a man born in 1859 during the old Edo-Bakumatsu period of Japan -- and who probably wore the classic "top-knot" as a youngster -- would go on to become a credited, contributing photographer to National Geographic Magazine during his lifetime....and a whole lot more than that as well.

A better look at Enami and his photographic accomplishments are found at this Web page on the site dedicated to him :

www.t-enami.org/services

Enjoy the sets....photographer T. ENAMI'S personal vision of his own world of old Japan.

NOTE : Photo Historian and Curator types please read the bottom portion of the caption block here : www.flickr.com/photos/24443965@N08/2347140248/

sizzling summer

2009-09-20T16:53:00.003-04:00

Say Farewell to a Scorching Summer

I know the image is a bit hard to read...but not that it's not the top horizontal line that's 100 degrees, it's the next one down!!!

5 minutes ago on Chris Hyam's porch in scorching, Austin, TX

2009-08-27T00:15:00.002-04:00

Hilarious that Chris @Hyams captured this while sitting on his porch. Although, hmmm, does it mean he's always filming? Or just had the good sense that the storm was approaching? It was pretty wild at my house too. Flashes of light....then boom, then a crack so loud, I ducked....

Ah Texas, in this summer of Heat and Death as @AustinKleon called it earlier today. Even funnier, I've acclimated. As long as it's dry heat? I'm kinda digging it.

A unique and very lovely John Hughes interaction and memory

2009-08-07T16:54:00.003-04:00

What a really lovely story! Read all the way through. (thx Rebfef for the tip)

Beeswax opening in NYC. Go.

2009-08-07T00:34:00.003-04:00

So delighted at all the excellent reviews for BEESWAX. Opening Friday, August 7 at NYC's Film Forum. Go.

Miranda July's The Hallway

2009-07-04T03:25:00.002-04:00

Courtesy of Jesse Trussell's I Prefer Your Earlier Work, Miranda July's Hallway:

The Hallway from The Hallway on Vimeo.

Tiny taste of Passing Strange

2009-06-28T03:07:00.003-04:00

Thinking about musicians discovered at Sundance this year; for me, seeing Spike Lee's Passing Strange was a revelation!! I was completely unfamiliar with the Broadway show, Stew and Heidi, or their band, the Negro Problem. Hearing the music for the first time, and experiencing the show through Spike's masterful lens was transcendant. Don't miss it when it becomes available later this summer via IFC and eventually PBS. In the meantime, here's a tiny sample from the show itself, via an awards show:

Out of Our Minds and Melissa Auf Der Maur

2009-06-27T23:18:00.003-04:00

Interesting recent discovery. Watched Out Of Our Minds at Sundance 09, almost by mistake. And even with a bit of a bad attitude, "ohhhh, two long shorts, and experimental...man what am I doing here? I know I should be doing something else...." But then totally immersed, totally dug it. I even pulled out a notebook to scribble down the epitaph: "out of our minds straight into our hearts standing right by"

OOOM Trailer from MAdM OOOM on Vimeo.

I wasn't familiar with Melissa Auf Der Maur, though was a fan of Hole and Smashing Pumpkins. So just now getting caught up with her solo work. Like this:

Fever Ray - When I Grow Up

2009-06-09T03:07:00.002-04:00

Came across this on Matt's blog. Really like it. Feels very Let the Right One In inspired...

Fever Ray - When I Grow Up
Uploaded by MuteRecords - Music videos, artist interviews, concerts and more.

Me in Bob's glasses

2009-05-09T12:45:00.005-04:00

I don't know why but I just really love this picture. Taken at Andrew Bujalski's & Karen Olsson's wedding - it started as a joke with Bob Byington. They're his glasses. But now it's become one of my favorite pictures ever. There's something about it that's intensely familiar...and I don't know why. Anyway, saving here for fun.

.

HIlarious - Slate on Obama's first 100 days Facebook style

2009-04-30T17:56:00.000-04:00

(continued)

The Hudson Riverkeepers on Snag for earth day

2009-04-22T16:04:00.002-04:00

A nostalgic trip for Earth Day 2009. This film was shot in and around the old neighborhood.

Austin Kleon on John's Master Class with Tom Perrotta

2009-04-21T18:24:00.006-04:00

original image/larger

Nice full circle. I first became aware of Austin Kleon through his cartoon notes of Tom Perrotta during his previous Austin visit during the 2007 Texas Book Festival. Nice for this reconnect all the way around.

music scrapbook

2009-04-16T22:21:00.000-04:00

Old school but totally satisfying:

Raphael Saadiq from Artists Den on Vimeo.

Can't stop listening to White Denim

2009-04-05T02:30:00.002-04:00

Probably a little late to the party (as often) but love these guys! First new music I'm diggin in quite awhile. Thanks Austin Kleon for the tweet push.

Voynaristic on this "Hilary" Moment

2009-03-24T00:59:00.003-04:00

I tend to be press shy, very much not confident with how I'm represented via someone else through print. But I'm very happy with this interview by Kim Voynar during SXSW 2009. I think she very clearly got me, and how this all feels right now.

An excerpt:

"This job ... I earned it by a life of being generous and engaged and caring about something deeply, and being lucky enough to pursue those interests. And when I got this job, there was this immediate sense of, instead of having to worry about how I was defined by the world, I had this immediate answer: I run this festival. And it just kind of shut down all this distracting noise that had been nagging at me for twenty years. And it was like, okay, now this is what I do, and I get to actually care about the stuff that I care about, rather than where my place is in the world. And it's been really, really fun."

(more)

amongst friends TFHOF pre-party pic

2009-03-22T11:55:00.003-04:00

Funny, until this year, there are about 20 pics of me in existence. No joke - there just are almost none. Partly I grew up before everyone had cameras for everything, but partly I was the one shooting or just maybe camera shy or maybe ... I don't know....

There was a small flurry in 2005 with the doc, but this new job begat an avalanche. I was expecting a cringefest but actually, with the glasses upgrade voted on by the gals in my office...it's been pretty ok. And I love this one with good friends Sarah Green and Rick (and John) at the AFS Texas Film Hall of Fame sponsor pre-party.

1987 Janet & John in Telluride old photo

2009-03-22T02:29:00.003-04:00

Mark Lipsky posted this on Facebook. What a treat. 1987. 6 week old baby Georgia in my arms. Telluride. I remember posing with Patricia Rozema and Sheila McCarthy. I don't remember ever looking that young.

SXSW Animated Venue and Shuttle Guide

2009-03-04T18:29:00.002-05:00

I just love this! Can't embed, but very worth clicking on. It's an adorable animated guide to SXSW Venues and new 2009 Shuttles.

Daddy Wakes Baby funny youtube clip

2009-02-22T15:00:00.003-05:00

John turned me on to this. Pretty hilarious, and particularly, for us, a snoring family.

Peggy and Steven, looking fine on Oscar night

2009-02-20T00:24:00.004-05:00

Love seeing this photo with Peggy's newest piece on NPR "Who are you Wearing to the Oscars? Who Cares?" Steven's 4th Oscar nomination! I'll certainly be cheering him on.

David Lowery on films festivals and relationships

2009-02-19T01:32:00.004-05:00

I found David Lowery's answer to this question from Karina Longworth re: her sxsw preview interview on Spoutblog.com amazing. Just beautiful and so apt. Cool series - Karina, thanks. And David - thank you for a great perspective....

Karina: There’s been some criticism that the only way to get into SXSW is by being a part of an “incestuous scene where everybody knows everybody.” So who did *you* have to sleep with to get in? Metaphorically or literally: are there any SXSW filmmaker(s) past or present that you’re close with personally and/or professionally, and how have those relationships helped or hurt the process of producing your film and getting it seen?

David: Why apply a pejorative? I like to think that film festivals both foster relationships with individual filmmakers, and engender a sense of community amongst those filmmakers. It’s a beautiful thing, and it’s only natural that, within a given festival lineup, there will be a few works by people who have screened there in the past, and works by their friends, and perhaps even a bit of cross–pollination in the credits. This doesn’t by any means create a veil of exclusivity. I have five friends with feature films in the festival this year whose work has screened here in years past. That is five films out of 108, meaning there are 103 other features I’ll be walking into blindly, and 103 filmmakers I’m looking forward to making friends with.

Ah Austin K on John's Master Class again

2009-02-10T01:51:00.003-05:00

David Hudson on Beeswax in Berlin

2009-02-10T01:11:00.001-05:00

continued

wyatt's suggestion for super bowl sunday

2009-02-01T01:30:00.004-05:00

I know this blog is crazy dormant. I just work all the time now, and haven't figured out how this blog fits in with that. But my son just sent me a hilarious email and this seemed the best place to mark it. He's funny in person, but he's really funny in email. A relevant fragment:

.... Superbowl is tomorrow though which is exciting. If you happened to be going to a superbowl party and wanted to get SXSW out of your mind, I suggest spending your time making this http://www.holytaco.com/ultimate-super-bowl-snack-stadium.

Tuxedomoon 1978, 2008, and......

2008-12-31T22:11:00.005-05:00

What a surprise. Taking a little New Year's Eve break from my wall-to-wall fest programming screening. I enjoy some home made soup and texas caviar and catch up with the year end Austin Chronicle. I come across the music Top 10s and don't expect any ahas. Just reading for a quick familiarity and name recognition. Audra Schroeder's Best National Live Show: tuxedomoon. TUXEDOMOON!! They're still around? I saw them regularly in San Francisco @ 1978. I loved them then. Quick internet check and damn, yes, there they are, same song, and it still sounds good. 30 years.

Happy New Year!

Milk - Highly Recommended

2008-12-04T23:38:00.003-05:00

What a movie! I cried my way through this beautiful, sad, uplifting, and important work. As I expected it was almost overwhelming in terms of personal history and resonance, but of course, it's so much greater than that. Just a great piece - great acting, great directing, vitality, sensitivity but also, of course, its politics. Go see it. Amen.

Young Rob in 1978

2008-11-30T19:02:00.005-05:00

I just need to copy this photo here (snagged from Indiewire...no pun intended :)) because I love it so much. Young Rob Epstein!!! This is 1978. We met in 1973, our very first day of college. We were inseparable for months, then life shifted. But our paths kept crossing, and have still been crossing all these years later. I couldn't be more proud of Rob's career - he's made some incredible, deeply affecting films.

How I wish I had at least one picture of us young together!!

Thrilled to see the renewed attention Rob is getting for his superb The Times of Harvey Milk. And chomping at the bit to immerse in Gus Van Sant's Milk. I've missed several advanced screenings. A great subject, a great director. And I lived in SF 1975-1980. I remember that moment very well. I was spending all my time outside of my day job (distributing experimental films) up off Castro at a small lesbian run theatre company. I'm pre-disposed to go crazy for this film on so many, many levels. Really looking forward to it.

2008 Pre-Thanksgiving Mull

2008-11-27T00:36:00.002-05:00

Just back from a late night trip to the 24 hour grocery. Not that I needed to. Not really. I just like going to the supermarket on a high traffic, pre-holiday moment. Somehow it gets me into the mood. I like the random human interaction. I like the smiles between strangers, and the little courtesies. It grounds me, amuses and delights. Lost in the anonymity, I just feel very very human. Didn't Oprah say that's what she most misses in her life? Shopping by herself in the supermarket?

I started the day early (early enough to still get a parking space) at the Central Market, the upscale sister to the more mainstream 24 hour HEB. It's a different picture tonight. The shelves are rummaged, bare, and disheveled, though employees are hard at work guiding and unpacking stacked carts full of fresh goods for the post-Thanksgiving rush. In the aisles wander young couples and Hispanics of all ages. I like the contrast. I feel at home in both environments. Satisfying bookends. Indulging in my own economic stimulus package, and human recharge.

On Cassie's daily visit to the office (yesterday when we kidded her boyfriend of 5 years, once apparently an active bachelor, now seemingly incapable of spending more than 45 minutes away from her, he smiled, "45 minutes is a LONG time." But I digress....) Cassie and I find ourselves talking about giving thanks. I realize I've blogged about what I'm talking about previously and go back to send her the easy link. Funny enough, the sentiments are exactly what I wrote about on this day last year. The pre-Thanksgiving mull.

But I also find myself lingering on a couple of different recent conversations with some younger women friends. Ages 28, 24, 21. In each case, they're wondering about their life, and how good or down they feel, and what seems to be missing. The common refrain is, "I need some new friends...some better friends for who I am now." And it makes me wonder...in this day of incessant social networks, is it still so hard to find people that feed and inspire you? Has it always been this hard? Is that the journey? As you mine for important connections, is that how you discover who you are? Have the social networks made it easier or harder? Interesting questions as I peer from my generation to the younger.

austin kleon's big move and the sweetness of perspective

2008-11-02T21:29:00.004-05:00

Sadly I've been too busy to keep up as much as I like with Austin Kleon's blog and tumblelog but had a chance this weekend on the 7 hour drive to and back from Lubbock for that amazing UT/Texas Tech football game Friday night -- and came across this. What a lovely sentiment -- and so true..... Here's wishing them continued closeness and intriguing perspective along with larger pacing territory.

From austinkleon.com:

SKETCHBOOK

THE NEW HOUSE

Friday, October 31st, 2008

In the midst of the mortgage crisis, Meg and I went out and bought a house. We closed today, we move in this weekend. In the five years that we’ve known each other, we’ve never lived in anything bigger than a one-bedroom apartment. Now we both have offices, a washer/dryer, a two-car garage…it’s very surreal.

When you live with someone in a tiny apartment, you’re always in close proximity. You never see that person more than 10 or 20 feet away, because there isn’t 10 or 20 feet to gain between you. You get used to seeing them from a particular distance.

Meg and I often meet each other for lunch on campus. When I see her from far away, walking towards me, often she looks like a different person—she looks like a stranger, or someone I just met. It’s like a visual refresh. (I wonder if this visual element isn’t part of the hidden magic of what self-help couples books tell you to do: meet for dinner, but take separate cars…)

I’m reminded of this passage from Dylan Horrocks’ Hicksville:

Maps are of two kinds. Some seek to represent the location of things in space. That is the first kind - the geography of space. But others represent the location of things in time - or perhaps their progression through time. These maps tell stories, which is to say they are the geography of time. [...] But these days I have begun to feel that stories, too, are basically concerned with spatial relationships. The proximity of bodies. Time is simply what interferes with that, yes?

I wonder about this proximity of bodies. I wonder how we will grow in a bigger space, with an upstairs and downstairs. How our changing spatial relationships might alter our story…

Above is a sketch of the house, superimposed over a page from William Maxwell’s wonderful short novel, So Long, See You Tomorrow.

awwww

2008-10-31T13:07:00.002-05:00

my work associate jarod's kid is just too cute!!!!

Go: See Zack and Miri with a fullhouse

2008-10-31T00:28:00.001-05:00

Go!!

And do yourself a favor - see Zack and Miri in a crowded movie theatre, with lot of others laughing their heads off. It's a group experience you won't want to miss.

Newspapers, the primal love along with radio and movies

2008-10-29T10:05:00.007-05:00

We get the NYT delivered to our home here in Texas. $58/month. That's a lot, but we love it. But we're old school newspaper lovers. I probably started reading the Times when I was 12. It's what being a grown up was all about. And later, the career media I aspired to. I went another direction, but still love the New York Times. Though i don't quite read it everyday anymore, and haven't for awhile. I skim. But relish in the moments when we can sit together and the smart world comes to me to interact with. I love the online edition too - it's particularly great for easy sharing like I'm about to do here: But it's not the paper itself. You don't get the same easy happenstance. I hate to be an old codger mourning, but I love newspapers and magazines, and really don't want to see them disappear. I feel the same way about smart movies in movie theatres and radio programmed by real individuals in my community. But newspapers, primal.

The Media Equation

Mourning Old Media’s Decline

By DAVID CARR

Published: October 28, 2008

The news that Google settled two longstanding suits with book authors and publishers over its plans to digitize the world’s great libraries suggests that some level of détente could be reached between old media and new.

Skip to next paragraph

Enlarge This Image

Melanie Stetson Freeman/The Christian Science Monitor

Employees of The Monitor looking through a prototype of a weekly newsmagazine that will supplement the Web site.

If true, it can’t come soon enough for the news business.
It’s been an especially rotten few days for people who type on deadline. On Tuesday, The Christian Science Monitor announced that, after a century, it would cease publishing a weekday paper. Time Inc., the Olympian home of Time magazine, Fortune, People and Sports Illustrated, announced that it was cutting 600 jobs and reorganizing its staff. And Gannett, the largest newspaper publisher in the country, compounded the grimness by announcing it was laying off 10 percent of its work force — up to 3,000 people.
Clearly, the sky is falling. The question now is how many people will be left to cover it.
(continued)

Michael Barnes on Paul Woodruff's "The Necessity of Theater: The Art of Watching and Being Watched."

2008-10-28T23:59:00.003-05:00

I really enjoyed this Michael Barnes Out and About column in the Statesman today about Paul Woodruff's book, “The Necessity of Theater: The Art of Watching and Being Watched,” which will be discussed at the Texas Book Festival on Sunday.

The Statesman page isn't linking properly, but I found this particularly interesting:

“People need theater,” Woodruff writes. “They need it the way they need each other — the way they need to gather, to talk things over, to have stories in common, to share friends and enemies. They need to watch, together, something human.”

Woodruff ranks theater alongside religion and language as essential distinguishing human characteristics. I’d add socializing to the list, for many of the same reasons.

Both kinds of watching and being watched, social and theatrical, start early in life. “We hardly take ourselves very seriously unless we can get others’ attention,” the slender, hesitant Woodruff says at rain-splashed Mozart’s Coffee Roasters on Lake Austin Boulevard. “The first thing we know as an infant, after finding a mother’s breast, is how to get her attention. And newborns are excellent at that.”

Yet the process doesn’t stop there.

“Learning how to give attention is a little harder,” he says. “We are naturally wired for getting it more than giving it.”

Thriller in Austin syncronized worldwide

2008-10-26T14:39:00.003-05:00

Ok, I wasn't there. And the Thriller video isn't even a personal touchstone for me. But still totally cracks me up, and makes me proud of my Austin buds. Go Alamo Drafthouse.

SYNECDOCHE, NEW YORK Highly Recommended!!

2008-10-22T00:59:00.003-04:00

I first saw Synecdoche, New York at the Toronto Film Festival this year. I found it breathtaking, heartbreaking, funny, moving, romantic -- completely engaging on every level. The acting is sublime! I saw it again tonight and loved every single minute again.

In this time of decreasing art house audiences, megawatt blockbusters, and fractured niche comfort zones, I wonder how much room there is for a movie like this. This is a movie that I find so utterly satisfying. This is a movie that I know is not for everyone. But this is a movie that totally speaks to me. Go see it.

Order of Myths w Margaret Brown in person. Highly Recommended

2008-10-19T17:07:00.005-04:00

I really love this film! Come see Margaret Brown in person for this special AFS presentation in advance of her Alamo South premiere on Friday. Or go when it opens. Just don't miss it.

THE ORDER OF MYTHS
With Director Margaret Brown In Attendance
Monday, 20 October 6:30 PM | The Alamo South Lamar (1120 S Lamar)
Tickets are $4 for AFS Members and $6 for Non-members. Buy Tickets>>

The first Mardi Gras in America was celebrated in Mobile, Alabama in 1703. In 2007, it is still racially segregated. Filmmaker Margaret Brown (“Be Here to Love Me: A Film About Townes Van Zandt”), herself a daughter of Mobile, escorts us into the parallel hearts of the city’s two carnivals. With unprecedented access, she traces the exotic world of secret mystic societies and centuries-old traditions and pageantry; diamond-encrusted crowns, voluminous, hand-sewn gowns, surreal masks and enormous paper mache floats. Against this opulent backdrop, she uncovers a tangled web of historical violence and power dynamics, elusive forces that keep this hallowed tradition organized along enduring color lines.

Watch the trailer for THE ORDER OF MYTHS>>

Buy Tickets>>

Official Film website: http://www.theorderofmyths.com/

THE ORDER OF MYTHS opens theatrically at The Alamo South Lamar on October 24. Tickets are available at http://www.originalalamo.com
The first Mardi Gras in America was celebrated in Mobile, Alabama in 1703. In 2007, it is still racially segregated. Filmmaker Margaret Brown (Be Here to Love Me: A Film About Townes Van Zandt), herself a daughter of Mobile, escorts us into the parallel hearts of the city's two carnivals. With unprecedented access, she traces the exotic world of secret mystic societies and centuries-old traditions and pageantry; diamond-encrusted crowns, voluminous, hand-sewn gowns, surreal masks and enormous papier-mache floats. Against this opulent backdrop, she uncovers a tangled web of historical violence and power dynamics, elusive forces that keep this hallowed tradition organized along enduring color lines. Prize winner at Silverdocs, and official selection at Sundance, SXSW, Full Frame, Edinburgh and LA Film Festivals.

http://www.cinemaguild.com/orderofmyths/

FILM FESTIVAL LIST:
World Premiere, Sundance Film Festival, 2008
Winner, Cinematic Vision Award, Silverdocs, 2008
Official Selection, Full Frame Documentary Film Festival, 2008
Official Selection, Edinburgh International Film Festival, 2008
Official Selection, Los Angeles International Film Festival, 2008

The film’s running time is 80 minutes; it is not rated.

CRITIC'S PICK! "A WISE AND SOBERLY AFFECTING DOCUMENTARY.”
– Manohla Dargis, The New York Times

“BRILLIANT. HEARTBREAKING. A WINNER!”
– David Edelstein, New York Magazine

“BRILLIANTLY CAPTIVATING. AN INVALUABLE PORTRAIT OF US-AND-THEM AMERICA, A SMART, GENEROUS, POIGNANT, QUIETLY DISTURBING MOVIE.”
– Robert Abele, LA Times

“THE KIND OF ILLUMINATING WORK THAT SENDS AUDIENCES STUMBLING HOME IN A WIDE-EYED STATE OF ASTONISHMENT. A HAUNTING AND IMPORTANT DOCUMENTARY.
– S. James Snyder, The New York Sun

“THE ORDER OF MYTHS IS THE BEST DOCUMENTARY IN AGES, AND ONE OF THE BEST FILMS OF THE YEAR.”
– Jeff Reichert, Reverse Shot

“HIGHLY SOPHISTICATED NONFICTION FILMMAKING. WONDERFULLY VIVID.”
– Michael Koresky, Indiewire

“AN INTIMATE EXCAVATION OF THE HISTORY OF AMERICAN RACISM.” CRITIC’S PICK
– Logan Hill, New York Magazine

“QUIETLY SHOCKING. DEFT, ENGROSSING.
– Vadim Rizov, The Village Voice

“REMARKABLY ASSURED. A LEVEL OF CRAFT THAT STUNS.”
– A. J. Schnack, Indiewire

“SMARTLY EDITED, UTTERLY ENGROSSING AND AS INTELLIGENT AN EXAMINATION OF AMERICAN RACE RELATIONS AS I’VE SEEN.”
– Pete VonderHaar, Film Threat

“A MOVING AND SURPRISING DOCUMENTARY.”
– Andrew O’Hehir, Salon.com

“A RICH PORTRAIT… BROWN PRESENTS A COMPLEX, PROVOCATIVE VIEW; AND SHE ENDS WITH ONE OF THE MOST MYSTERIOUS AND CHILLING TAG LINES EVER.”
– Andy Klein, LA City Beat

“A GREAT REMINDER THAT, EVEN IN THE YEAR OF OBAMA, WE REMAIN A NATION DIVIDED BETWEEN BLACK AND WHITE.” CRITICS’ PICK
– David Fear, Time Out New York

Late Bloomers. NYer piece by Malcolm Gladwell.

2008-10-18T17:04:00.002-04:00

I love how John goes out of his way to share particular articles or pieces of information that he knows I'll like, and he knew I'd love this:

--------------------------------------------------------------------

Annals of Culture

Late Bloomers

Why do we equate genius with precocity?

by Malcolm Gladwell

Happy Go Lucky widget

2008-10-05T23:59:00.001-04:00

It's a question of engagement

2008-10-05T23:12:00.007-04:00

Had a blast in NYC last week for our annual trip in for the New York Film Festival opening night and weekend. Saw: Voy A Explotar, The Class, Happy Go Lucky, Wendy and Lucy, Hunger and Che. The highlights for me were definitely Happy-Go-Lucky and Hunger. Happy-Go-Lucky is deceptively simple, lingering, resonating soundly. Hunger, less than two minutes in screams the arrival of a major new filmmaking talent. No joke. It's a major achievement. Very, very powerful.

Very much enjoyed the experience of seeing Che at the NYFF press screening at the Ziegfield. Soderbergh said:

It's a question of engagement. Participate or observe? We have to make this decision everyday.

Chris Smith's The Pool. Highly Recommended

2008-09-17T01:51:00.004-04:00

Have I not been raving about Chris Smith's The Pool? It's a brilliant film. A rare jewel by one of our most gifted filmmakers working today.

You'll have to seek it out. It's in limited theatrical release. But very worthwhile. Check the website for screenings and more info.

Rodcorp's How We Work site

2008-09-17T00:26:00.007-04:00

I know I haven't written anything original in ages - but I'm afraid that's probably the way it's going to be for awhile. In the meantime, this is a handy place to note other things of interest. Like tonight, from one of Ted Hope's blogs - this reference to "How We Work." Ted writes:

MetaFilter lead me to Rodcorp's How We Work site, and although it is not the kind of thing we usually point out here at TATT, but although it's not about specific work, it's about the process to get us there, and it's kind of glorious itself.

From J.G. Ballard, to the Coen Brothers, to Malcolm Gladwell, to Walter Benjamin, the site has catalogued the methods of what people do to create. Although it is definitely a white male centered list, it is fun place to browse through, and may very well lead to some new habits. They have posted a list here.

We're interested in the habits, rituals and small (and occasionally big) methods people and teams use to get their work done. And in the specific anecdotes and the way people describe their own relationship to their own work.

It's a brilliant concept!

NYT on Gut instincts Suprising role in mathematics

2008-09-16T11:30:00.003-04:00

This NYT article by Natalie Angier, "Gut Instinct's Surprising Role in Mathmematics" is kind of interesting to me - as I live in a family of natural math brains. They have the natural circuitry. I don't. (Although I did 100% on 12 passes of that dot quiz. Didn't have time to run the suggested 25.) I'm always fascinated the the natural inclination of our minds. Like I struggle so much with my memory these days yet there's still tons of information that I retain much better than those around me. It's just that I don't have control of what I'm remembering. My brain makes it's own priorities.

One research team has found that how readily people rally their approximate number sense is linked over time to success in even the most advanced and abstruse mathematics courses. Other scientists have shown that preschool children are remarkably good at approximating the impact of adding to or subtracting from large groups of items but are poor at translating the approximate into the specific. Taken together, the new research suggests that math teachers might do well to emphasize the power of the ballpark figure, to focus less on arithmetic precision and more on general reckoning.

“When mathematicians and physicists are left alone in a room, one of the games they’ll play is called a Fermi problem, in which they try to figure out the approximate answer to an arbitrary problem,” said Rebecca Saxe, a cognitive neuroscientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who is married to a physicist. “They’ll ask, how many piano tuners are there in Chicago, or what contribution to the ocean’s temperature do fish make, and they’ll try to come up with a plausible answer.”

The Art of the Floating Head Poster

2008-09-14T16:13:00.003-04:00

Another good lead from Cinevegas blog. This "The Art of the Floating Head Poster" from Funny or Die.

See more funny videos at Funny or Die

50 Incredible Film Posters from Poland

2008-09-14T00:13:00.006-04:00

Thanks to Cinevegas Blog and WellMedicated for this excellent round-up of Polish Film Posters. I saw a great exhibit of Richard Linklater's personal collection at the Harry Ransom Center a few years back. These posters rock!

(more)

Hamet 2 - Funny, enjoyable. Recommended

2008-09-03T00:42:00.003-04:00

On Labor Day, John and I checked out Hamlet 2. And totally enjoyed it! I cannot understand why people aren't going.... the title? It's funny. Not the best film I've ever seen, but sweet, funny, entertaining. Better than plenty of other films. Check it out. Steve Coogan, Catherine Keener, great comic timing all around.

Update from Choose Responsibility

2008-08-25T00:08:00.002-04:00

I blogged about this group last June. I think their points are really interesting - and am excited to see the effort gaining ground.

Hello [CR] supporters, new and old,

As this amazing week draws to a close, we are glad to have a chance to check in, and to welcome over 700 new subscribers and volunteers to our ranks. This week has been a formative one for the drinking age debate and we hope to continue this positive momentum into the coming months.

In July, John McCardell began working with several college and university presidents on a statement calling for an informed and unimpeded debate on the 21 year-old drinking age. The statement became known as the Amethyst Initiative, so called because the purple stone was considered a symbol of moderation in ancient Greece. Over the next several weeks 104 college and university presidents signed onto the Initiative. Efforts were underway to expand the list when the Associated Press caught wind of our efforts.

Late Monday afternoon the Associated Press released a story about the Initiative. The resulting media firestorm was nothing short of astounding, and unlike anything we could have anticipated when we wrote to you on Monday evening to announce the Amethyst Initiative. The story was covered by all network and cable news channels, national and local radio, and in thousands of print stories and editorials. We have done our best to keep a running tally of some of the best coverage, which you can read here.

Here are some other highlights from the week:
• 24 additional presidents and chancellors added their names to the Amethyst Initiative
• Over 70,000 people visited the Amethyst Initiative website
• Over 8,000 people visited the Choose Responsibility website
• 1,200 email messages and a lively dialogue in the comments to our blog.

Needless to say, the resources in our small office are stretched thin. (Do you live in Vermont? If so, we are looking for temporary help this week and next in our Middlebury office. Reply to this newsletter if you would like to lend a hand). We need your help to keep the momentum going and to ensure that MADD and others do not succeed in stifling public debate. Two easy things you can do:

1. Write a letter to the editor in response to local coverage. See “Arguments Against 21” and materials in the [CR] Download Center for supportive facts and statistics. If your letter is published, please be sure to send us a copy!

2. Write to the president of your (or your children’s) alma mater, and to local colleges and universities who have not already signed on to the Amethyst Initiative to encourage them to join (see here for a fll list of presidents who have already signed on). Since the news broke on the issue before we had anticipated, many presidents are still actively discussing the issue and might benefit from your encouragement. If you do write, here are some points to emphasize:
• The Amethyst Initiative is a group of college and university presidents and chancellors who support open debate on the 21 year-old drinking age. They do not support a lower drinking age, or any particular policy outcome, but call on the public and our elected officials to consider the intended and unintended consequences of the law.
• The 21 year-old drinking age has contributed to a culture of dangerous, clandestine binge-drinking.
• Alcohol education that mandates abstinence as the only legal option has not resulted in significant constructive behavioral change among students.
• Adults under 21 are deemed capable of voting, signing contracts, serving on juries and enlisting in the military, but are told they are not mature enough to have a beer.

Thank you for your enthusiasm and commitment to this issue. We have made great strides this week and are happy to have you on our team.

Here’s to another busy week,

The [CR] Team
John, Mike and, Grace

Choose Responsibility
PO BOX 507 Middlebury, VT 05753 802.398.2024 info@chooseresponsibility.org

As we say goodbye...for now

2008-08-23T16:06:00.001-04:00

Proud Mom and Son

NYT article on Burning Man prep

2008-08-23T16:03:00.004-04:00

Here I am again - always interested in Burning Man though I've never been. I mean, gosh, just look at the beauty of these flames....

From the NYT today:

Priming for Burning Man, Flames in Hand

Michael Nagle for The New York Times

Fire dancers rehearse for the Burning Man festival. More Photos >

By APRIL DEMBOSKY

Published: August 13, 2008

On the back patio of an East Village apartment, Natasha Kouri sat on a bench surrounded by plastic bottles and bags. She picked up a bottle from the woman on her left, who chopped its bottom off at the Poland Spring label. Ms. Kouri wove a handful of bags through the opening and handed the work in progress to her right. A bearded man taped the bags to the bottle, fluffed the bags into petals and tossed the results into the growing pile of plastic petunias: 775 down, only 1,225 to go.

Skip to next paragraph

Multimedia

Slide Show
Art Bound for the Black Rock Desert

Related

Times Topics: Burning Man Festival

Enlarge This Image

David Goldman for The New York Times

Max Darby, right, and Stefan Pildes finish a sign for the Kostume Kult campsite. More Photos »

“We’re the art minions,” Ms. Kouri, 21, said with a smile last week. “What the directors tell us to do, we do.”
With reggae-trance music as a soundtrack, this six-person assembly line cut, stuffed, fluffed. In the building’s central courtyard another team built funhouse mirrors out of mylar, and Max Darby, a product designer and one of the masterminds behind this group artwork, put together vinyl street signs to be attached to an 18-foot-high, 60-foot-long mural that was still in pieces in the courtyard’s nooks.
“We had no money,” Ms. Darby, 41, explained, “so we’re basically making art from garbage.”
Four hours a night, three nights a week, for the last three months, about 80 people have rotated through this basement apartment for craft sessions. None will see the final presentation of their work until it is assembled in the Black Rock Desert in Nevada, where the annual Burning Man art festival-rave-love-in takes place the week before Labor Day. About 48,000 people are expected to haul everything they need to survive — tents, water, fake-fur costumes — for this experiment in commerce-free, creatively wild community. Thousands of them will come from New York and set up camps with names like Smoochdome, Disorient and Rubber Chicken.
Ms. Darby and her craft workers are part of Kostume Kult, a camp known for giving away 2,000 pounds of sparkling, sequined, saucy costumes to attendees. This year the camp wanted to make a more artistic contribution as well, so members —friends, friends of friends, and others who found the group through its Web site, kostumekult.com, or through the event itself — came up with a New York interpretation of the festival’s 2008 American Dream theme.
“It’s a Coney Island theme,” Ms. Darby said, pointing to a sketch of the mural with roller coasters, balloons and skyscrapers. “The left is all candy floss, childlike colors. Then it turns into grimy Gotham City, all gray and dark.”
The mural will serve as a giant doorway to the camp, which they’ve dubbed KKoney Island. Visitors who wander through the middle of the boardwalk-downtown split will arrive in Central Park, a chill space with carpets, cushions and a canopy of plastic flowers. A critical element of the project, Ms. Darby said, was having everyone contribute to its creation.
(continued)

Go see Humboldt County Sept 26! Highly recommended.

2008-08-18T21:32:00.007-04:00

Stumbled across this promotional trailer first on Matt Dentler's blog before finding it again on Humboldt County's blog.

Humboldt County was one of my favorite films at SXSW 2008. Something about its created world was totally sure. I still don't know how to articulate why even though I wrote the SXSW catalogue copy. I didn't feel I did it justice. It was just about a place filled with people I came to really care about, where I immersed fully for a couple of hours. And longer. It's stayed with me in a surprising fashion.

While amusing on its own terms, this trailer is goofier than the film itself -- and doesn't really give you an accurate taste. Definitely check the feature out when it comes to your town! September 26: Humboldt. San Francisco, Berkeley, Portland, Seattle and Austin, TX!!

Countdown to Empty Nest

2008-08-17T23:53:00.004-04:00

Yes, it's all been amazing. And yes, hard to believe how it evolves. From here (@1991) you just can't imagine the march forward. Everyday precious. Feeling the clock ticking... Exciting. Achingly sad. The definition (again) of bittersweet.

The things we come back to

2008-08-16T18:03:00.003-04:00

I went swimming today. And no, not because of Michael Phelps. I went swimming today because I've wanted to for months, years even. I think about it all the time, but today I made it in. And in a moment, I was reminded of all the other times swimming has been my grounding force. Visiting my Dad in LA. In the early days at Canyon Cinema in SF, depressed, in transition. The early days in NYC, again, depressed and in transition. I hadn't put together the pattern til an hour ago. It's the transitional moments. I'm certainly not depressed, but working again fulltime for an outside organization - something I haven't done for decades. So not depressed, but yes, in transition. And as I ponder taking my youngest child to start college next week, I remember too, that I spent my first pregnancy swimming. It was my transition from working fulltime to the unknown of parenting. Swimming was my salve. I'd forgotten. But smile too now remembering and realizing what a little fish my first born turned out to be. Water is her salve too.

The ritual is familiar. Gym swimming, not outdoors even though Barton Springs is the lifeblood of the town I now live in. I need anonymity and cover. I looked good in a bathing suit I think one day in my life @ when I was 13. It's going to the gym - in SF it was in the tenderloin. A crumby Y with a friendly front door staff. In NYC the first go-round it was the Apple gym on Thompson Street. I used to run into Pam Yates there keeping up her arm strength while briefly back in the U.S. between shooting documentaries in war zones. Pregnant with Georgia, I subwayed up to the 24hour gym on 58th, which unfortunately went bankrupt right after I gave birth, right after I renewed my year membership, saving money by paying it all in advance.

Now in Austin. At the popular 24 hour fitness center near my house, near my job. The same gym I've paid money to every month for years, waiting for this day. I hit the water and the feeling is the same. I love the water. I love swimming. I can't breathe. I panic immediately as I finish one lane of the crawl. I just can't exhale. So as I've done years and years before, I switch to back stroke up, breast stroke down. I used to feel like a wuss for that, but BFF Susan told me not to. "It's all good." Back stroke up. Breast stroke down. It's bliss. The rhythm kicks in. The breathing stabilizes. It's just what my 50+ year old hips need. Then it's the sauna. Quiet. Hot. Dark. The contractions lessen. Those deep contractions the massage guy was talking about the other day. That Wendy always talks about. The unconscious holding and gripping.

It's what I need now. What I've needed before. What I keep coming back to.

Contraception is essential

2008-08-14T00:26:00.004-04:00

I've been pregnant exactly twice. I'm the mother of a 21 and 18 year old, both of whom I cherish! This couldn't have happened without safe, legal, relatively inexpensive contraception. Contraception is essential if you care about healthy families (and I don't just mean healthy babies...I mean a healthy, functioning, loving unit) and a woman's right not be a kind of indentured servant and victim. Why don't you join me? See the sample letter below.

Dear friend,

Subject: Contraception is abortion?

Hi,

I had to share something with you. Can you imagine living in a place where birth control is considered an "abortion" and health insurers won't cover it? Where even rape victims are denied emergency contraception?

It seems unbelievable, but the Bush Administration is quietly trying to redefine "abortion" to include birth control. The Houston Chronicle says this could wipe out dozens of state laws that protect women's reproductive freedom and protect rape victims. And this proposed "rule change" doesn't need congressional approval.

I just signed a message to Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt, whose department is considering this rule change, telling him: "Contraception is NOT abortion." Can you add your voice to this cause? Click here to sign the message:

Thanks!

The extreme relief possible

2008-08-13T23:28:00.002-04:00

I've added another practitioner. Not a new practice, just a new practitioner. And he's amazing. A massage therapist with a brilliant touch. With savvy wisdom. He was the first to point out that my current limping had everything to do with my compulsive Barbie foot stance while sitting. You know, the toe pointed, rather than foot flat on the floor.

My pilates trainer has been talking about the importance of feet for years. Really using the whole foot, stretching the foot, engaging the arches, relaxing into gravity rather than clenching. But it was the new guy who immediately grasped how weirdly I was sitting all day in the new gig. Unconsciously. So I started paying more attention, started becoming more conscious. But it's still been a problem. And tonight he took it farther. "You know contracting is often the way the body tries to avoid feeling something." Yeah, ok, new age stuff. I know there's a mind/body connection! I have no doubt about that. I've experienced too much that's interesting in that area.

As I relaxed into the deepest relaxation I felt the most profound relief. The body tenses unconsciously and that causes ill effects. I always love massage but the relief from this deep strong massage combined with my own very deep breathing was true bliss. "You know," he said, "what you're feeling is what you're feeling. It's helped by what I'm doing but really, it's what you're capable of feeling." Kind of a mind fuck -but what a great goal! To get as blissed out through my own means? An idea very worth pursuing.

Finally, an American Teen review I can relate to

2008-08-12T23:50:00.004-04:00

Finally, a smart, intelligent American Teen review I can relate to. Thanks to Marjorie Baumgarten at the Austin Chronicle.

American Teen

Year Released: 2008
Directed By: Nanette Burstein
(PG-13, 95 min.)

In our modern Information Age, it is no longer possible to believe in documentaries as conveyors of unfiltered, unvarnished truths. Everything is transmitted through the eyes of the beholders, from the lens of the filmmaker to the perceptions of the viewers. Burstein’s American Teen, however, causes us to become aware of the power the subjects have to control their ultimate image and message. We used to fret over the extent to which a filmmaker’s presence altered the very nature of that which was under observation. American Teen shows us that we really need to pay more attention to the ways in which the media-savvy of the subjects can shape the outcome of the observation. The teens of Warsaw, Ind., the town in which Burstein’s documentary is set, were born into the era of reality TV, in which a spot on The Real World or American Idol means a ticket to instant celebrity, and the confidences once shared in diaries and incessant phone chatter are now unveiled on Facebook and MySpace for all the world to consume. They may not have known it, but these kids were ready for their shot at fame long before Burstein entered their midst and wired them up with portable microphone packs. What her cameras capture shouldn’t be construed as truth but rather as scenarios that were cast in stone long before she came on the scene. The five high school seniors she chooses as her main subjects could have come straight from Central Casting – or The Breakfast Club: They are the princess, jock, rebel, heartthrob, and geek. It’s senior year, so the film gains some dramatic strength from the kids’ uncertainty about their futures, but apart from that, the film records the usual teenage obsessions with social insecurities, who’s dating whom, and the hierarchies of cool. From the outset, it’s necessary to ask if these students are a truly representative lot or whether they’re stereotypes that fit Burstein’s preconceptions. Burstein’s judgment also becomes an issue, as we watch the occasionally despicable behavior of the teens (as during the plastering of hate graffiti on an opponent’s window or the merciless mocking of a defenseless newcomer whose naked torso has been IM’d throughout the town), while her unyielding camera practically spurs further action with its rapt attention. The artsy rebel Hannah Bailey (who is now studying filmmaking in college) experiences a depression so intense that it precludes her being able to attend school, yet she gladly allows Burstein’s camera into her bedroom and inner thoughts. Burstein (who previously co-directed The Kid Stays in the Picture and On the Ropes) ultimately tells us nothing about senior year in the heartland of America that we didn’t already know. However, the film’s revelations about our media-soaked society are revelatory. At times it’s almost like Lord of the Flies, with the camera serving as the flypaper dipped in the honey of the promised land of celebrity.

Marjorie Baumgarten [2008-08-08]

driving in wyatt's car...texas

2008-08-11T03:07:00.002-04:00

The incredible Olympics opening ceremony and Wendy

2008-08-08T20:13:00.006-04:00

The other day John asked, "Are you going to watch any of the Olympics? Do you have any interest at all?" At the time I said, "No." But that was before I found out that my beloved pilates trainer Wendy LeBlanc-Arbuckle was taking part as a member of 400 meter gold medalist Sanya Richard's team. !!!! That's my weekly pilates trainer - part of Richard's close team! So now all of a sudden I have a routing interest. Of course wishing them the best!!

Without paying attention to the schedule, finally wandering home from a busy work week, 7pm on a summer Friday night, I walk in just in time to catch the Opening ceremonies on TV. (John is already quite entrenched. He loves the Olympics. He loves almost all sports!)

What an amazing spectacle!!! Gorgeous. Awe-inspiring. Beyond my words.

Ahhhh.....Paul Newman

2008-08-07T01:12:00.001-04:00

Ah, Paul Newman......the ultimate! Read more (and gaze upon the beautiful, beautiful photos) in this month's Vanity Fair.

Hollywood

Whether Paul Newman was playing the villain or the hero, Americans were smitten with his rugged good looks, his wry wit, and those blue, blue eyes. By Nate Cutler/Globe Photos.

The Newman Chronicles

Paul Newman saw his movie-stardom as a trap and worked to find his way around it—to keep fame from corroding his life. He succeeded beyond measure, as a distinguished actor, award-winning director, dedicated philanthropist, entrepreneur, political activist, racecar driver, and loving husband and father. As rumors swirl about the 83-year-old icon’s health, the author replays critical moments—some witnessed firsthand, others from Newman’s friends and colleagues—in a five-decade trajectory, gauging the unique impact of this remarkably private, deeply honorable man.

by Patricia Bosworth September 2008

(article)

Matt spreading the Gnarls love

2008-08-04T17:41:00.003-04:00

Matt Dentler was right. This is a really terrific music video.

Gnarls Barkley - "Who's Gonna Save My Soul?"
Uploaded by DowntownMusic

Road Trip Nation paid a visit

2008-08-04T00:29:00.003-04:00

Had a lovely visit today from these kids from RoadTripNation.
Totally fun to talk to recent college kids about the road so far, as they embark on their own. Great concept for an adventure and show. I would have loved to do the same at their age. Check out the show. And thanks to Mike Akel for sending them my way.

General Roadtrip FAQ

What is Roadtrip Nation?

Roadtrip Nation is a movement that encourages young people to get out there and explore their options in life by talking with successful people who are passionate about their careers.

When did it happen?

The original roadtrip, as documented in "The Open Road," took place with Mike, Brian, and Nathan in the summer of 2001.

How did they do it?

Mike, Brian, and Nathan bought an old clunky RV, painted it bright green, cold called a ton of inspirational people, booked as many interviews as they could, and then took off across the country.

How did they pay for it?

Credit card debt.

Who are Mike, Brian, and Nathan?

These are the guys that started it all. They graduated college without a clue about what they wanted to do. Unwilling to simply go down the traditional career paths, they decided to seek advice from people who had defined their own roads in life. So, they bought an old RV, painted it bright green, and the rest is history.

Who are the "100 college partners"?

These are the 100 college whose career centers are committed raising awareness of Roadtrip Nation on their campuses. These college career centers communicate with us directly and provide students with valuable info on RTN roadtrips, indie roadtrip grants, and the Roadtrip Nation curriculum.

Where can I view past roadtrips? PBS? DVD? Online streaming video?

Right here on our website! We've got archives of all our PBS episodes, videos of our interviews...all you have to do is explore.

What is Roadtrip Nation today?

At the core, Roadtrip Nation is a movement made by students for students. As a result, Roadtrip Nation has created an annual PBS documentary series, an interactive online community of roadtrippers, a book collection, an indie roadtrip grant program, an educational curriculum, and more!

Is it a production company?

Yes. We film, edit, and produce all of our own content.

Who works there?

Check out our about us section to meet the people behind the green RVs!

What are Mike, Brian, and Nate doing now?

At this second? They're probably out surfing. But when they aren't catching waves, Mike, Nate, and Brian are busy (veeeerry busy) heading up their respective departments: Mike in marketing, Nate in production, and Brian in campus outreach.

What are past roadtrippers doing now?

Some are anchoring news programs, some are in bands on tour with the Eagles of Death Metal... Want to find out more about Roadtrip alumni? Check out our explore section.

Where is the original RV?

The original RV, which we like to call "The Legend," is parked right inside our office, where members of our production team may admire it on a daily basis, gazing at it in awe from the comfort of their editing stationsÑand occasionally using it for an afternoon nap.

Will RTN come to my school?

We definitely want to! Our campus teams tour the nation every Spring and Fall, bringing the RTN movement to a number of college campuses across the nation. Check out our campus tour page for more info on our tour route and the campuses we'll be visiting. Let us know if you'd like to see us at your school!

Austin K musing on the Neuroscience of Not-Knowing

2008-08-04T00:18:00.005-04:00

It's my almost weekly reference to something Austin Kleon has posted. Could there be anyone reading this blog who now doesn't read his? Thanks as always Austin! Make sure to tell him where you get your best ideas.

NOTES ON WRITING AND DRAWING
THE NEUROSCIENCE OF NOT-KNOWING
Sunday, August 3rd, 2008

Trying hard to solve that impossible problem? Hit the topless bar, take a warm shower, and sleep on it.

Three tips I gathered from Jonah Lehrer’s great article in the July 28th New Yorker called “The Eureka Hunt,” all about “insight,” where our good ideas come from, when they come to us, and why.

The formula:

total immersion → relaxing distraction = moment of insight

The insight process…is a delicate mental balancing act. At first, the brain lavishes the scarce resource of attention on a single problem. But, once the brain is sufficiently focussed, the cortex needs to relax in order to seek out the more remote association in the right hemisphere, which will provide the insight. “The relaxation phase is crucial,” Jung-Beeman said. “That’s why so many insights happen during warm showers.” Another ideal moment for insights, according to the scientists, is the early morning, right after we wake up. The drowsy brain is unwound and disorganized, open to all sorts of unconventional ideas. The right hemisphere is also unusually active. Jung-Beeman said, “The problem with the morning, though, is that we’re always so rushed. We’ve got to get the kids ready for school, so we leap out of bed and never give ourselves a chance to think.” He recommends that if we’re stuck on a difficult problem, it’s better to set the alarm clock a few minutes early so that we have time to lie in bed and ruminate. We do some of our best thinking while we’re still half asleep.

The mathematician Henri Poincaré had his “seminal insight into non-Euclidean geometry…while he was boarding a bus.”

Poincaré insisted that the best way to think about complex problems is to immerse yourself in the problem until you hit an impasse. Then, when it seems that “nothing good has been accomplished,” you should find a way to distract yourself, preferably by going on a “walk or a journey”. The answer will arrive when you least expect it.

And let’s not forget Richard Feynman:

the Nobel Prize winning physicist, preferred the relaxed atmosphere of a topless bar, where he would sip 7UP, “watch the entertainment,” and, if inspiration struck, scribble equations on cocktail napkins.

The good stuff comes along when you’re not forcing it—what Lynda Barry and Donald Barthelme call “not-knowing.”

My “Eureka!” moments always come to me in the shower, which is why I keep a dry-erase marker in the bathroom.

When do y’all get your best ideas?

Before The Rain - Criterion DVD Highly Recommended

2008-08-02T00:22:00.007-04:00

Perusing the Criterion website, I came across one of my favorite films from the last decade --

Before The Rain

I haven't seen it since it's New York premiere in the 90s, but it remains a haunting presence. A stand out favorite along with Naked and Breaking the Waves.

Janet Maslin's New York Times review jogged me on two counts.
1) I hadn't remembered that it opened the same day as the very great Once Were Warriors.
2) it starred Katrin Cartlidge.

I loved her for her many great roles in Mike Leigh films. She died suddenly while we were living in Fiji. The news hit me surprisingly hard living all that way away. And hit me even harder when her sudden death was echoed by my son's best friend's mom's similar tragic unexpected passing, just a few weeks later. Trivial I know, and just very personal to me. But interesting too - it's only as I'm writing this, and doing a quick IMDB check to see what Mike Leigh films I was even thinking about, that I realize she appeared in the three movies I just tied together. Before the Rain, Naked, and Breaking the Waves. I know I loved them all. I know I associate them all from the same time. That she was the thread tying them together? That's the surprise.

Highly recommended.

Tell No One - Highly Recommended

2008-08-01T23:53:00.006-04:00

I finally got a chance to see Tell No One tonight, it's first night in Austin. (And great to see the strong crowd at the Arbor.) Advance word was terrific. And right on. The film is wonderful. Beautifully made, suspenseful, highly entertaining, well done. Highly recommended.

update: excellent interview from Green Cine:

Tell No One: Guillaume Canet and Harlan Coben

June 29, 2008 - 1:10pm — dwhudson

By James Van Maanen

Newsweek quips: My Shrink Says...Blog!

2008-07-31T00:04:00.001-04:00

Found this buried on my desk:

THERAPY

My Shrink Says ... Blog!

By Jessica Bennett | NEWSWEEK

From the magazine issue dated Jun 30, 2008

Why do people write confessional blogs? It's a creative outlet. It's a forum to vent. It's an exercise in exhibitionism. To mental-health experts, though, it's more than that: a blog is medicine. Psychiatrists are starting to tout the therapeutic power of blogging, and many have begun incorporating it into patient treatment. A forthcoming study in the journal CyberPsychology & Behavior even suggests that bloggers might be happier than nonbloggers.

Mental-health experts say blogs are a step up from plain old diaries, chiefly because of the built-in audience. As kids, we learn that if we air our problems, we get help. We associate communication with consolation, particularly when the going gets tough. Blogging fulfills that primal need for sympathy. "Writing is an effort of the brain to communicate for comfort," says Harvard neurologist Alice Flaherty. "Diaries are a form of that communication, but removed. Blogging gets you closer to that sympathetic audience, and that's what makes it therapeutic." According to psychologist John Suler, the anonymity of blogging provides another therapeutic boost: it's high intimacy with low vulnerability. But blogger beware. "Revealing too much," says Suler, "can cause shame or guilt." So blog to your heart's content, but leave some things to the imagination.

More about David Carr's memoir and the genre of truth telling

2008-07-30T12:31:00.003-04:00

John sent me this link this morning as I was heading out the door. It's an excellent NY Observer piece on David Carr's new book and what memoir really means. How knowable are our lives? To us? To others? Qualities of truth? I can't wait to read Carr's book - but I also found this piece excellent:

David Carr's Crash: Drug Rehab Memoir Remakes the Genre

His Own Heart of Darkness With a Reporter's Notebook

by Leon Neyfakh | July 29, 2008

(From the juicy middle:)

The truth is out there, in other words, but it’s in pieces. And if we want to understand ourselves, our world, what happened, and what might, every effort must be taken to reconstruct it. This is the guiding principle of Mr. Carr’s book, and at a time when the idea that facts actually matter seems to have disappeared into the vortex of the Bush Administration, James Frey and Margaret Jones, it is, unmistakably, a rallying cry.

To quote a recent Pub Crawl interview with the documentarian Errol Morris, whose life’s work reflects a sustained preoccupation with problems of fiction and reality, “Saying the truth is subjective and unknowable—that everyone sees the world in a different way and hence there is no world—is radically different from saying there are endless impediments and obstacles to uncovering what the world is really like and what really happened.

“There are facts of the matter,” Mr. Morris says, “and one needs to actually pursue them.”

My salsa pals place 3rd in World Salsa Open in Puerto Rico

2008-07-28T19:25:00.003-04:00

How unbelievably excited I am for my salsa pals (and teachers) Azucena & Carlos and their Jazzy Dance Company!! They remain a true inspiration - and it's been a glorious treat for me to become involved in their world first as a student, then strategic media advisor, and now friend.

Jazzy Dance Co places 3rd at the World Salsa Open in Puerto Rico | Print | Email

Jazzy Dance Company wins 3rd place at the Puerto Rico World Salsa Open in the team division.
Out of 8 teams from different countries that qualified for the finals, Jazzy was the only one from the USA. We are happy to have represented Texas and the USA at this World renown Salsa Open!
Stay tuned for videos of all competition routines...

Dear Friends and Salseros of Austin,

I am beyond excited to share with you this past weekend's events. After 9 days of beach and sunny days, we arrived yesterday from San Juan with tired bodies but a very happy spirit ! As a dance team, we hadn't really considered competing in the World Salsa Open in Puerto Rico. But destiny had something else in store for us.

At the beginning of June, we got invited by Jayson Molina to compete in the team division after he had seen our Zip zap routine on video. And in spite of the fact that we hadn't really planned to make that expensive trip, we decide purely on faith that it'd be worth a try.

(full story)

Great time at BritDocs

2008-07-28T10:58:00.004-04:00

I had an utterly wonderful, highly energizing time at BritDocs in Oxford UK. Look to the indefatigable Matt Dentler, both in his Indiewire write up, and blogs 1, 2, & 3 for the pictorials and overview.

Go to the website for more info and Masterclass downloads.

David Carr and Facebook, something I've been mulling about

2008-07-24T04:21:00.005-04:00

Funny, this amusing and all too familiar David Carr NYT piece showed up the day after my last post on him. It's a fine example of what I so admire - funny and smart and to the point. I've been having my own struggles with Facebook. Originally it was lots of fun - excellent re-connection with some key friends from over the years. But now it's getting crowded with requests from strangers, or acquaintances, and I'm torn. I don't want to amass a crowd. I currently have 16 potential new friends that I'm hovering about. Some I just don't want to be connected with that way! And some I don't even know them enough to have an opinion. I feel a responsibility to be available with the new gig but not indiscriminate. I would like a separation between my real personal life and my work - though they overlap more than most, they still have their distinctions. Oiy.

The Media Equation

Hey, Friend, Do I Know You?

By DAVID CARR

Published: July 21, 2008

Not that long ago, I needed some advice on the book business and thought to ask my friend Buzz Bissinger, the author of “Friday Night Lights” and “A Prayer for the City.” The only sticking point was, we’d never met.

Although he used to be a reporter, we are not what I would call peers. He wrote one of the greatest sports books ever, and oh, one of the best books about city government ever. “Friday Night Lights” became a movie and then a television series and apart from me being a hopeless fanboy of the show, we have nothing in common.

Other than Facebook, of course, where we are “friends,” after he was referred by our mutual friend Vernon Loeb of The Philadelphia Inquirer. Taking that supplied noun as a permission, I sent Mr. Bissinger a message on Facebook and asked for advice. We got on the phone and I found out exactly, precisely what I wanted to know from, as they say in the Web world, a highly trusted source.

Isn’t “friendship” wonderful? (continued)

David Carr and his very surprising new book. Wow!

2008-07-21T03:51:00.004-04:00

David Carr has been one of my favorite journalists for awhile. I love his NYT Monday Media Business stories, as I also love the blogger that emerged (aka Carpetbagger) following the annual Oscar race. (Although, if I can digress for a moment, I hate all the time, space and attention that that oscar race takes up! The same thing over and over. Pundits pontification..um, yeah guessing and sounding off. Page after page of precious media dedicated to this one competition. Deafening noise sucking up all the air in the room. It's really a shame.)

But back to David Carr - so yeah, he's one of my favorite journalists. One of the few I follow these days. So boy, what a big surprise to read his new book excerpt in the NYT Magazine today. Yowza!!! Who knew he used to be a crackhead!??!!

Terrific read. Highly recommended.

Me and My Girls

By DAVID CARR

Published: July 20, 2008

Where does a junkie’s time go? Mostly in 15-minute increments, like a bug-eyed Tarzan, swinging from hit to hit. For months on end in 1988, I sat inside a house in north Minneapolis, doing coke and listening to Tracy Chapman’s “Fast Car” and finding my own pathetic resonance in the lyrics. “Any place is better,” she sang. “Starting from zero, got nothing to lose.”

After shooting or smoking a large dose, there would be the tweaking and a vigil at the front window, pulling up the corner of the blinds to look for the squads I was always convinced were on their way. All day. All night. A frantic kind of boring. End-stage addiction is mostly about waiting for the police, or someone, to come and bury you in your shame.

After a while I noticed that the blinds on the upper duplex kitty-corner from the house were doing the same thing. The light would leak through a corner and disappear. I began to think of the rise and fall of their blinds and mine as a kind of Morse code, sent back and forth across the street in winking increments that said the same thing over and over.
W-e a-r-e g-e-t-t-i-n-g h-i-g-h t-o-o.
They rarely came out, and neither did I, so we never discussed our shared hobby.
(continue)

The Official Night of the Gun Website (From Simon & Schuster)

Surprise on my Bookmark Bar

2008-07-18T18:38:00.002-04:00

Wow - the most amazing thing just happened on my work computer - and I've no idea how! But it's incredible. I imported my laptop Apple Address Book into the work Apple Address Book. And all of a sudden on my Safari Bookmark Bar, is a category called "Address Book" When I looked to see what it was, it unfolded a list of official urls for everyone in my address book! Kind of shockingly cool. I hadn't even heard of that before.

More on Austin Kleon and mindmapping

2008-07-16T23:54:00.003-04:00

This is the kind of thing that attracted me to Austin Kleon in the first place! His mind mapping!!! He's so great at it - and it's a remarkable kind of process/document. I first just saw a drawing from an event via email. Then I sat next to him when David Simon was at John's UT Master Class -- and I marveled even more. I couldn't believe how he could get to the essence in real time sketching those words and pictures. Cool stuff! I'm itching to try ...but I don't have the skill or artistry he does. I haven't read this post close enough to assess whether he thinks it's in the reach of everyone. Or not. It could be an amazing discipline. I really like the idea of it as a sharpening tool. Another add to my to-do list.

Great New Instructional Salsa DVD from Everyone Can Salsa

2008-07-14T02:34:00.005-04:00

I'm so proud of Azucena and Carlos! My kick ass incredible salsa instructors just created their first instructional DVD in the series: Everyone Can Salsa. And it's fantastic! Check it out here!

Brian Newman with some interesting updates on the Long Tail

2008-07-14T02:02:00.005-04:00

We talk a lot about the Long Tail in this house. If you can call it talking. It's a lot of debate and discourse, and wondering where the reality is. So I was glad to read this interesting update from the always smart and interesting Brian Newman.

Long tail not so debunked after-all

There’s been much ado about Anita Elberse’s article in the Harvard Business Review lately – where she seriously questions the validity of the long-tail theory. The press (and that includes bloggers, and me) love anything that runs contrary to a popular opinion in business and culture, and Chris Anderson’s The Long Tail, has certainly been influential. Within days of the issue hitting the stands, I started receiving emails from people making sure I had read it – mainly because they know my organization has launched a project working somewhat off the long-tail theory. I nuance this with the “somewhat;” however, as I’ve never agreed with most of what the adherents of the long-tail seem to believe. Pretty much everyone in the film world who has read it, and I meet someone everyday who hasn’t, seems to think that it says that obscure, niche content can now make more sales. These people believe that by building a better web system, doing more niche marketing or whatever, that their small movies can now become much bigger. This is false, of course, but became a popular belief because, hell, every filmmaker is in need of some golden business rule that can help them sway investors that their little movie can someday be big. A few people have even accused me of thinking this in relation to Reframe. (Which has never been true.)

But what they all miss, and what Elberse’s article doesn’t really address, is that the real truth of the long-tail is simply that in a business environment that allows for more long-tail content and transactions, more value will accrue to those companies that exploit an aggregate of long-tail content. Not more than hit-makers, but more than they made before the web. No single niche title (yes, there are a few exceptions) will become much more popular, but if you aggregate many of them, you can add up those small sales to something approaching profitability. This isn’t refuted by Elberse, and I’m still pretty bullish on the aggregate model; in fact, even more so in relation to this new study. (more)

A perfect Saturday night going to see Hud at the Paramount

2008-07-13T01:34:00.002-04:00

Hud. Man I love that movie! I've always loved the movie. It's just perfect. Watching it tonight, again, in awe, again. Saturday night at the glorious Paramount Theater in Austin watching a great movie that takes your breath away.

A couple of weeks ago it was Harold and Maude. Another movie I loved in its time that holds up amazingly well. So many astounding movies...

Very sad Taveuni story, boy dies when coconut falls on his head and the power's out at the hospital

2008-07-12T21:05:00.004-04:00

This is a terrible story. It illustrates so much of the current Fiji reality. When we lived there, we used to joke about getting hit on the head by a coconut - (an event much more serious than it sounds) but it was still funny to think about, and there was electricity most of the time in the newly built hospital. The last coup resulted in an interim government back by the military. Now the economy, which was never strong to begin with, is falling, has totally fallen apart. Services are at an all time low. Tourism is down. Local newspaper publishers have been ushered out of the country. It's not business as usual, and it's heartbreaking for a country we grew to love, who even at its best, had little material wealth. The whole situation has grown much more dire.

What's interesting too about this article, it displays the exact kind of daily difficulty experienced everyday in Fiji: no electricity so the Rotary Club willing to donate a generator, but the Works Department needing to use their own electrician for the hook-up, and not doing so. Ah....

Student dies: Coconut falls on boy's head at school

Sunday, July 13, 2008

A STUDENT felled by a coconut on the head on a school playground on Friday died after being sent home because there was no electricity in an island hospital.

The Class Seven student of Somosomo District School, on Taveuni, was rushed to hospital but relatives were told to take him home.

Sources on Taveuni say the dead boy comes from the chiefly tribes in Somosomo Village. His name could not be divulged.

"They were playing when a coconut hit his head and he fell down a steep hill close to the school," the source said.

Police spokeswoman Ema Mua confirmed that, saying police could not reveal the identity of the 12-year-old student.

On Friday our Northern bureau reported that a State policy had left the Taveuni Hospital without any electricity.

That prompted medical officials there to close the mortuary. Sub-divisional medical officer Taveuni Doctor Hlathein Thein said because of continuous electricity supply problems experienced since the beginning of this year, they decided it was best to use a generator donated by the Rotary Club of Taveuni.

"But before we can change to using our own generator, the Works Department needs to do all the clearance. They need their own electrician to do this," he said.

"For the past week we have been without electricity. Emergency cases have been referred to the Colonial War Memorial Hospital in Suva," Dr Thein said.

However, Ministry of Works spokesperson Sainiana Waqainabete denied such a policy, saying the hospital had every right to change generators if the PWD generator was damaged.

"There is no such policy ... hospitals anywhere in Fiji can use their own generator if they wish when it comes to such a situation. We don't need to clear anything or have our own electrician to do clearance work," she said. (continued)

Where the Hell is Matt? Yeah, now, finally me too watching.

2008-07-12T14:30:00.004-04:00

Ok, to again expose how out of it I can be. I just finally saw Where The Hell is Matt? Wikipedia filled in the details of what a huge internet star he is, and for how long. But hey, we discover things when we do, yes? I clicked on the link (courtesy of my friend Tommy's Myspace blog which I almost never remember to visit anymore...not Tommy's blog, Myspace in general!) with a bad attitude. I expected to be annoyed. And was for a second. Before I broke into a huge grin appreciating the beautiful simplicity of this dramatic gesture. A simple dance, all over the world, sometimes alone, sometimes all the different locals joining in. Really humanity at its essence. Really a beautiful thing.

Where the Hell is Matt? (2008) from Matthew Harding on Vimeo.

Ah, genetics...

2008-07-11T15:45:00.003-04:00

Love this! Particularly since I'm the mother of an 18 and almost 21 year old. Love these ages.

Thanks to Thompson on Hollywood

Hilarious Ze Frank 2007 SXSW Web Awards

2008-07-10T00:04:00.004-04:00

OK, so I'm a little slow.... I just stumbled onto this video and awards patter by Ze Frank for the SXSW 2007 web awards. Which is hilarious. Even though it's been around for awhile. Made me laugh - and each time I replayed it, I laughed more.

This YouTube version of the initial video cuts in a little late -for the full version, in better res, go here.

Friends are my art form

Cameron Bailey's TIFF words of wisdom

iPOP 'Tiny Furniture''s Big Dance Party! - indieWIRE

Captured: America in Color from 1939-1943 – Plog Photo Blog

Wee little Comic-con heroine

More very cool art from Shih-Chieh Huang

ATX backyard view

Me and Wendell

I miss mine too

White guys with pads - nice talk by Andy Revkin

Carry On Packing Tips courtesy of NYT

Visual Note-Taking 101 from SXSW 2010

Sascha's very cute babies

YouTube Treats: Blow Something Up! | SXSW.com

ELLE Film Critic Karen Durbin's Postcard From Austin

Delighted to be drawn in Austin Kleon's SXSW 2010 wrap

Plastic Bag By Ramin Bahrani

Tiny Furniture in the NYT- just one of SXSW 2010 highlights

Barbie parts jewelry

From kottke.org on How Genetics Works

Rare snow in ATX

The Wire - 100 Greatest Quotes

Where the Wild Things Are, sons and mother love

Photos of Old Japan

sizzling summer

5 minutes ago on Chris Hyam's porch in scorching, Austin, TX

A unique and very lovely John Hughes interaction and memory

Beeswax opening in NYC. Go.

Miranda July's The Hallway

Tiny taste of Passing Strange

Out of Our Minds and Melissa Auf Der Maur

Fever Ray - When I Grow Up

Me in Bob's glasses

HIlarious - Slate on Obama's first 100 days Facebook style

The Hudson Riverkeepers on Snag for earth day

Austin Kleon on John's Master Class with Tom Perrotta

music scrapbook

Can't stop listening to White Denim

Voynaristic on this "Hilary" Moment

amongst friends TFHOF pre-party pic

1987 Janet & John in Telluride old photo

SXSW Animated Venue and Shuttle Guide

Daddy Wakes Baby funny youtube clip

Peggy and Steven, looking fine on Oscar night

David Lowery on films festivals and relationships

Ah Austin K on John's Master Class again

David Hudson on Beeswax in Berlin

wyatt's suggestion for super bowl sunday

Tuxedomoon 1978, 2008, and......

Milk - Highly Recommended

Young Rob in 1978

2008 Pre-Thanksgiving Mull

austin kleon's big move and the sweetness of perspective

awwww

Go: See Zack and Miri with a fullhouse

Newspapers, the primal love along with radio and movies

Mourning Old Media’s Decline

Michael Barnes on Paul Woodruff's "The Necessity of Theater: The Art of Watching and Being Watched."

Thriller in Austin syncronized worldwide

SYNECDOCHE, NEW YORK Highly Recommended!!

Order of Myths w Margaret Brown in person. Highly Recommended

Late Bloomers. NYer piece by Malcolm Gladwell.

Annals of Culture

Why do we equate genius with precocity?

by Malcolm Gladwell

Happy Go Lucky widget

Happy-Go-Lucky Widget

It's a question of engagement

Chris Smith's The Pool. Highly Recommended

Rodcorp's How We Work site

NYT on Gut instincts Suprising role in mathematics

The Art of the Floating Head Poster

50 Incredible Film Posters from Poland

Hamet 2 - Funny, enjoyable. Recommended

Update from Choose Responsibility

As we say goodbye...for now

NYT article on Burning Man prep

Here I am again - always interested in Burning Man though I've never been. I mean, gosh, just look at the beauty of these flames....

Priming for Burning Man, Flames in Hand

Multimedia