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October 31, 2005
The Photography of Ed Burtynsky: Beautiful?
Beauty In The Beast
By David Segal
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, October 31, 2005; Page C01
NEW YORK The photographs of Edward Burtynsky put you in an awkward spot. Take "Shipbreaking #4," an image of a couple dozen Bangladeshis dismantling a tanker. You've read the stories or heard the lore, so you know you're looking at one of the most dangerous work sites in the world, a place where men are regularly killed by falling metal, or explosions from leftover diesel and methane.
But dang, it's lovely. The colors are seductively warm, the vessel looks less like a threat than a luminous monument. The details are so crisp and the image so large -- it's 60 inches by 48 inches -- that you sense those guys would wave if you said "hello."
Ravishing, meet hazardous. Hazardous, this is ravishing. You can marvel at the beauty of "Shipbreaking #4," or you can wonder how many men in this gorgeous tableau are still among the living. Take your pick. Or switch back and forth.
Burtynsky leaves it up to you. For more than 20 years, he's been lugging his large-format camera to the mostly hidden places where the global economy and mass consumption have left their most indelible impressions: to mines, to oil refineries, to a dump where 25 million tires have created a mountain of vulcanized rubber. One of his photos depicts used oil filters in a mound large and dense enough to seem both alarming and kind of grand.
"There's a tension in his photographs between the sheer beauty of the object and the terror of the subject matter," says Sarah Kennel, a curator in the photography department of the National Gallery, which owns one of the "Shipbreaking" photos.
"He's related to people like Carleton Watkins and Timothy O'Sullivan who were doing work about the sublime in nature. Those photographers had an ideology that was propelled by a sense of manifest destiny. Burtynsky is very much in that tradition, but instead of being interested in manifest destiny he's interested in its consequences."
Well known in his native Canada, Burtynsky has registered only faintly on the fine-art seismograph in the United States until this month. That's when the Brooklyn Museum unveiled a full-on retrospective that starts in the early '80s, when Burtynsky was shooting train tracks carved into mountainsides, and ends with recent shots of factory interiors and cityscapes in China. An expanded version of the China series is also hanging on the walls of the Charles Cowles Gallery in Manhattan, a solo exhibition that also opened this month. (Speaking of piles -- you'll need one to buy a photo. Most sell for $11,000.)
Burtynsky began visiting China a few years ago, to get a close look at the building of the Three Gorges Dam, a colossal undertaking that forced the displacement of some 1.9 million people. (They lived in what is now a reservoir that stretches 350 miles upstream.) While there, he decided to shoot the country's new industrial facilities, among them the massive Deda chicken processing plant in the Jilin Province, end of the line for about 375,000 chickens a day. Burtynsky's photo of the place shows hundreds of workers in identical pink body suits and blue masks, trimming meat. Something about their formation and uniformity says "economic juggernaut."
Or maybe not. As with a lot of Burtynsky's photographs, he seems to hover above whatever argument he has provoked.
"If you are an industrialist, you might say, 'Look at my factory, isn't it beautiful?' " says Burtynsky, during a guided tour of the Brooklyn show earlier this month. "If you're an environmentalist, you might look and wonder about the pollution that is being pumped into the air."
Painstaking Methods
Burtynsky is 6 feet 2 and, aside from a graying goatee, he doesn't look particularly artsy, nor is there anything pretentious or obscure about the way he discusses his work. He could pass for upper management at some small business where it's always casual Friday, which is actually what he was, for a while. In the mid-'80s he started a photographic printing company called Toronto Image Works, which he still owns and which now has 35 employees.
"I was just frustrated with having to drive to Buffalo to get good prints," he explains. "And artists tend to be so picky that by the time a printer has it to your liking they've lost money. So they don't want you to come back."
Burtynsky works mostly with a 4-x-5 camera, the kind you mount on a tripod and stare through with a cape over your head. It's a complicated contraption and not easily portable. He generally totes about 150 pounds worth of gear to every shoot.
First, he has to hunt for sites to photograph. That can take months. He often hires assistants to scout locations and negotiate access. Getting on the premises frequently takes persistence and diplomacy. The Chinese, however, were positively eager to show off those factories. Floor managers even helped out when it came time to shoot the Deda plant. A foreman shut down the conveyer belt and at Burtynsky's signal, told all the workers to freeze.
"I had to keep the shutter open for two seconds and if people were moving the image would be slurred," he says. "I'd count to 10 and usually by the time I reached six, they had stilled themselves."
Once he's found a locale and good light, his methods are so painstaking they border on compulsive. He often will shoot an image on three or four different brands of film, then print each image on three or four different brands of paper. He winds up with a visual smorgasbord, then chooses the combination that produces the richest and most vivid look.
All of this effort and machinery seem to appeal to the equipment geek in Burtynsky. Noah Weinzweig, his translator and all-purpose aide in China, recounts the day that the two of them were detained by the cops in Shanghai, for allegedly shooting in a neighborhood where that wasn't permitted.
"They tell us to go back to the hotel and bring all our equipment to the police station," Weinzweig says. "I'm getting a little nervous. Ed doesn't speak Chinese so he's bored, and while we're waiting in the police station, he starts looking at his camera and he discovers some function on it that he never knew about. This gets him excited beyond belief. He's like, 'Look, Noah, this is fantastic!' Meanwhile, the cops are figuring out what to do with us. I said, 'Ed, can we talk about this later?' "
No Anger
The more you know about Burtynsky's life, the more surprising the apparent neutrality of his photography seems. His father, a Ukrainian immigrant, worked for years at a GM factory in the industrial town of St. Catherines, Ontario, and died of cancer at the age of 45. Years later, Burtynsky landed a job at the same place. Management had just concluded that a lubricating oil used for decades was carcinogenic. Burtynsky and other newcomers spent months cleaning up the plant, wearing protective masks and slathered in special creams, while all of the longtime employees worked day after day pretty much coated in the oil.
"I met one guy who remembered my dad," Burtynsky recalls. "He said, 'Oh yeah, they all died young.' It turned out that very few of them lived past 50."
So where is the anger? Aren't you entitled to some artistic evidence of a grudge?
"Well, my dad and I weren't getting along very well when we parted ways, so to speak," he says. "So maybe what I feel more than anger is guilt. But I've always felt like if I said 'This is bad,' there is only one question to ask about my work and that is, do you agree with me or not? I don't think my photographs are neutral but they do allow a multiplicity of meanings."
Some of his photographs could be slapped on the front of a corporate annual report, as Burtynsky himself has noted. Which gets to one possible rap against his portfolio -- that it prettifies the terrible. Burtynsky calls his images "a second look at the scale of what we call progress," and hopes that at minimum, the images acquaint viewers with the ramifications -- he avoids the word price -- of our lifestyle. But what if viewers just see, you know, some dudes and a ship?
"Another photographer might focus on the loss of life or pollution," acknowledges Kennel of the National Gallery. "He uses beauty as a way to draw attention to something. It's a very particular strategy."
He started shooting at the age of 11, after his father bought cameras and darkroom equipment from a widow selling off her husband's gear. The Burtynskys set up in the basement of their home, mixing the chemicals using a how-to guide. The next day, Edward shot some pictures of his dog playing in the snow and developed the images that night.
"For me, it was transforming," he says of that moment. When his dad declined to fund the growing expense of all the printing paper and film, Burtynsky started selling photos of people at events at a local community center. A 5-by-7-inch photo cost 75 cents. He pocketed enough to keep snapping.
He later earned a degree at one of Canada's most prestigious art schools, then began to search for an organizing theme for his photographs. A government grant or two later, he realized that few people had any notion of where their stuff -- their cars, phones, and so on -- came from, or ultimately wound up.
"Everybody in North America has talked on the copper lines that came out of this mine," Burtynsky says, pointing to "Mines #22, Kennecott Copper Mine, Bingham Valley, Utah." The mine is a mile deep and shaped like a Roman amphitheater with seating for millions, though there's a pool of glowing green liquid where the Romans would put a stage.
"We all partake of what comes from this place, but we have no idea what it looks like."
[Washington Post]
Posted by Joshua Daniels at 11:31 AM | TrackBack
October 28, 2005
My New Favorite Film
Yesterday evening I rented You And Me And Everyone We Know, the first feature length film by Miranda July. This may be one of the most viscerally moving films that I've ever seen. Tears streamed down my face throughout the film, yet I still want to watch it again and again and again. This movie tore out my heart and ripped it into shreds of confetti, and then used that confetti to weave an entirely new heart for me, a heart that still has hope. I've included the New York Times review of the film, but you can't come close to understanding this film with words because image is the vernacular of this film and it refuses to be translated. Go rent it. Or perhaps, if you ask nicely, I'll let you borrow it as I'm going to go ahead and buy the copy I rented from Blockbuster yesterday evening. YOU NEED TO SEE THIS FILM!
Official "Me And You And Everyone We Know" Website
_____________________________________________________________________________________
By A. O. SCOTT
Published: June 17, 2005
"Me and You and Everyone We Know," winner of prizes in Cannes and at Sundance, is Miranda July's first feature film, and its wide-eyed, quizzical approach to the world can seem almost naïve. But this guilelessness - which will either charm you or drive you up the wall - is more a calculated effect than the simple expression of a whimsical sensibility.
Before turning to film, Ms. July was a conceptual artist (working in video and other media), a pursuit that demands dogged self-confidence, as well as a willingness to look at even the most trivial objects and events as potential material for aesthetic transformation. Though her movie has a clear narrative line, and might even be classified as romantic comedy, it is also a meticulously constructed visual artifact, diffidently introducing the playful, rebus-like qualities of installation art to the conventions of narrative cinema.
It is a meeting as tentative, and in the end as affecting, as the wistful, start-and-stop romance pursued by a conceptual artist named Christine (Ms. July) and a shoe salesman named Richard (John Hawkes). Richard, newly separated from his wife, has occasional custody of his two sons, who regard their father with a mixture of curiosity and alarm, as if he were a new arrival from outer space or an escapee from the insane asylum. To be fair, he does seem a little unbalanced: one of his first actions in the film is to light one of his hands on fire, which he thinks the boys will understand as a ritual gesture consecrating the end of his marriage rather than as evidence of their mother's good sense in wanting him out of the house.
Meanwhile, Christine is preparing a videotape portfolio of her work and supporting herself by chauffeuring elderly citizens on their daily errands. She and Richard are nodal points in a web of odd, lost souls who slowly, by the film's end, form a sympathetic, eccentric circle. True to her movie's title, Ms. July proposes a delicate, beguiling idea of community and advances it in full awareness of the peculiar obstacles that modern life presents.
One of these is the tendency of city dwellers - the movie takes place mainly in the flat, drab inland neighborhoods of Los Angeles - to live hermetically sealed inside their own minds and habits. Individuality itself makes communication difficult, but the drive to be yourself does not dispel the longing to find (and maybe also to become) somebody else.
This longing is addressed in various ways, some of them touching, some funny, some borderline creepy. Richard's younger son, Robby (the adorable Brandon Ratcliff), who is six, wanders into an Internet romance in which his childishness is taken for a daring and sophisticated sexual kink. His older brother, Peter (Miles Thompson), a bored-looking adolescent, is first teased and then sexually initiated by two girls who hang around the neighborhood carrying on a risky flirtation with Richard's co-worker, who posts salacious notes in the window of his apartment. Peter's affections, however, seem to be stirred by his younger neighbor Sylvie (Carlie Westerman), who is determinedly - you might say obsessive-compulsively - collecting linens and household appliances for her trousseau.
Ms. July observes the odd behavior of all these people, and records her own, with a warm collector's eye. "Me, You and Everyone We Know" is resolutely small-scaled and observational, picking out odd details and savoring tiny jokes. But it also carries a surprisingly strong emotional undercurrent. Mr. Hawke's thin, crooked face and worried blue eyes register just how lost Richard has become, and Christine, who at first seems both appealingly nerdy and a little passive-aggressive, shares with Ms. July a deftly camouflaged determination to get what she wants.
In the character's case, this is love and a measure of recognition; in the filmmaker's - well, perhaps the same. Everyone we know may not respond to her flirtation, which manages to be both brazen and coy. Her provocations may strike some people as overly cute, and her self-consciousness as a tiresome form of solipsism. But "Me and You and Everyone We Know" is brave enough to risk this rejection, and generous enough not to deserve it. I like it very much, and I hope you will, too.
Posted by Joshua Daniels at 11:47 AM | TrackBack
October 27, 2005
Two Great Poets In Town Tomorrow Night
The Meacham Writers' Workshop will have its "finale" tomorrow evening with readings by Gerald Stern and James Tate, two of the hottest poets writing today. Tate came to Meacham back in 2002 and it was really a magical experience, with the exception of the dumb student who completely botched his duties as continuity announcer. I really wish they would bring Stephen Dobyns to Meacham sometime but, evidently, Rick Jackson at UTC has some sort of beef with Dobyns (he told a friend of mine: "I'm not bringing Dobyns here! He would just end up sleeping with some twenty year-old student!").
Anyway, an evening with Tate and Stern is certainly worth your time, so I hope you will consider coming tomorrow evening and checking it out. Be at the Raccoon Mountain Room of the UTC University Center tomorrow evening at 7PM if you know what's good for you. Admission is free.
If you aren't familiar with Tate or Stern here is a brief introduction:
James Tate
THE LOST PILOT by James Tate
for my father, 1922-1944
Your face did not rot
like the others--the co-pilot,
for example, I saw him
yesterday. His face is corn-
mush: his wife and daughter,
the poor ignorant people, stare
as if he will compose soon.
He was more wronged than Job.
But your face did not rot
like the others--it grew dark,
and hard like ebony;
the features progressed in their
distinction. If I could cajole
you to come back for an evening,
down from your compulsive
orbiting, I would touch you,
read your face as Dallas,
your hoodlum gunner, now,
with the blistered eyes, reads
his braille editions. I would
touch your face as a disinterested
scholar touches an original page.
However frightening, I would
discover you, and I would not
turn you in; I would not make
you face your wife, or Dallas,
or the co-pilot, Jim. You
could return to your crazy
orbiting, and I would not try
to fully understand what
it means to you. All I know
is this: when I see you,
as I have seen you at least
once every year of my life,
spin across the wilds of the sky
like a tiny, African god,
I feel dead. I feel as if I were
the residue of a stranger's life,
that I should pursue you.
My head cocked toward the sky,
I cannot get off the ground,
and, you, passing over again,
fast, perfect, and unwilling
to tell me that you are doing
well, or that it was mistake
that placed you in that world,
and me in this; or that misfortune
placed these worlds in us.
Gerald Stern
THE DOG by Gerald Stern
What I was doing with my white teeth exposed
like that on the side of the road I don't know,
and I don't know why I lay beside the sewer
so that the lover of dead things could come back
with is pencil sharpened and his piece of white paper.
I was there for a good two hours whistling
dirges, shrieking a little, terrifying
hearts with my whimpering cries before I died
by pulling the one leg up and stiffening.
There is a look we have with the hair of the chin
curled in mid-air, there is a look with the belly
stopped in the midst of its greed. The lover of dead things
stoops to feel me, his hand is shaking. I know
his mouth is open and his glasses are slipping.
I think his pencil must be jerking and the terror
of smell—and sight—is overtaking him;
I know he has that terrified faraway look
that death brings—he is contemplating. I want him
to touch my forehead once again and rub my muzzle
before he lifts me up and throws me into
that little valley. I hope he doesn't use
his shoe for fear of touching me; I know,
or used to know, the grasses down there; I think
I knew a hundred smells. I hope the dog's way
doesn't overtake him, one quick push,
barely that, and the mind freed, something else,
some other, thing to take its place. Great heart,
great human heart, keep loving me as you lift me,
give me your tears, great loving stranger, remember,
the death of dogs, forgive the yapping, forgive
the shitting, let there be pity, give me your pity.
How could there be enough? I have given
my life for this, emotion has ruined me, oh lover,
I have exchanged my wildness—little tricks
with the mouth and feet, with the tail, my tongue is a parrots's,
I am a rampant horse, I am a lion,
I wait for the cookie, I snap my teeth—
as you have taught me, oh distant and brilliant and lonely.
Posted by Joshua Daniels at 02:59 PM | TrackBack
ARRRRGGGHHHH! It's Pirate Radio Matey!
If you are in the downtown/North Chattanooga area turn your radio to 89.3 FM and check out the jams!
Posted by Joshua Daniels at 12:57 PM | TrackBack
October 26, 2005
Our Dynamic Language
New definitions added to the Urban Dictionary today:
1. Wounch
won't; why don't you; will you
Wounch you come over. Wounch you stop by and pick me up some dinner. Wounch you think about it.
2. Von Douched
1. Overly popular brand; once trendy with the underground, but now mass marketed.
2. Unknown getting their name/logo mass marketed, but no one knowing what it means or who it came from.
3. Overly marketed.
4. Once awesome/cool/acceptable but no longer.
---Also known as Von Dutched
That logo has been von douched, f*cking pop idols.
3. Going Anne Rice
1. Going from one end of the spectrum to the other because you are going to die.
2. Leaving what you're known for to get even more money for a new trendy style.
3. Going goth, cause they read a book.
4. Selling out.
He went totally Anne Rice and started writing about Christ because it's the new fad.
4. Donkeybike
A motorcycle powered by an air-cooled, pushrod actuated twin. Such examples would be BMW Oilheads, Ariheads, Buells, Harleys, Ducatis.
Q. What do you ride?
A. A Donkeybike.
5. Drink My Kids
A phrase usually blurted out during oral sex where the receptive partner encourages the active partner to swallow the male ejaculate.
Yeah! That's right. Drink my kids!
6. Sicilian Rain Forest
The massive amount of pubic hair found in the genital region around the testicals, penis and in the gooch of a Sicilian man. Often mistaken for small vicious mammals such as the wolverine. Has known to drive sane people insane, scar small children, and swallow women whole as they attempt fellacio. In order to be trimmed, the Sicilian Rain Forest must be tackled by a hedge trimmer or chain saw. Exercise extreme caution if confrontation is made.
It took Dave almost 3 months to shave his Sicilian Rain Forest. It cost him him $23,000 and 13 hired mexican migrant workers.
7. oregrant
A word describing the smell of marijuana coined by a very high man calling in to a radio station. Assumed to be a combination of fragrant and something else.
Man, this stuff is oregrant!
8. Bacon-Up That Ass
How to tell a girl her ass is too small, flat or boney.
Bacon-up that ass, Girl!
9. MySpace-a-holic
Somebody who checks their MySpace account every five minutes wishing and wanting to get a message from someone they would actually never talk to in real-life, but still thinks there is a chance for that someone to talk to them.
I'm such a myspace-a-holic i have to check it every two seconds or i might miss out on somebody messenging me.
10. The Shanza Effect
The idea that when a person says "I have to pee" the people around her develop a need to go to the bathroom as well.
11. Serial Monogamist
One who spends as little time as possible being single, moving from the end of one relationship to the beginning of a new relationship as quickly as possible.
Although the relationships in which many serial monogamists find themselves are also often short lived, the defining aspect of serial monogamy is the desire and ability to enter new relationships very quickly, thus abbreviating any period of single life during which the serial monogamist may begin to ask questions of an existential nature.
Percy: Wow, I can't believe Gwyvron is already dating someone else! I thought he just broke up with Lorelai at last week's LARP after she accidentally cut off his phonytail...
Stewart: Yeah, that's the way it's always been. When he broke up with me, he started dating that hussy Lorelai within three days. He pursued her as if he were Cerberus hunting a soul fleeing across the Euphrates. I'll tell you, that Gwyvron is quite the serial monogamist.
12. Amrak
The opposite of karma. Something is done to you that triggers you to do a similar act to someone else.
Someone took my ipod, so i stole one right back. (example of amrak)
13. Legitador
Something that is more legit than the word legit itself.
Kayvan's fixing of the doorador at beach week was legitador after J Yang haxed the door in a drunken rage.
14. Papa Stopper
Any birth control device that will prevent a pregnancy.
If you don't want any crumbsnatchers, I suggest you use
a papa stopper before you start bumping bellies!
15. Reckineckanize
To recognize and or understand thoroughly; to comprehend meticulously; to be aware of or realize.
You didn't know I was a G? You better reckineckanize, yo.
16. Poopiesue
To be a negative person. Person who does not want to partake in common social events with friends. Person who purposefully, and with intent, tries to spread their negativity.
Biff is still sleeping?
Yeah, he worked til 7am
It's 5PM! Who's going to buy us alcohol?
I dunno
Man, Biff is such a f****** poopiesue
17. Recrastinate
To continue to procrastinate after just learning a lesson about the negative effects of it.
Man, I'm so tired because I had to write that 15-page paper all last night. Good thing the next one isn't due until next Thursday. I've got until Wednesday to start. Time to recrastinate.
18. Uber-Costals
Extra-strength, super Bible-beaters, that adhere to the "no music, dancing, makeup, haircuts, smiling, etc." religious beliefs. They believe anyone that doesn't attend their church to be headed for an eternity in hell. A word-play on "Pentecostal".
Look, there are the Uber-Costals! They're frowning on us for wearing pants & makeup.
19. Trip the Light Fantastic
When someone fucks up everything they have with someone who's body (esp. the nether regions) they are obsessed with.
J.D. had the best of both worlds for a while....but he chose to trip the light fantastic -- now he needs to live with his decision.
20. Fodongo
A person who doesn't shower, change clothes, or do very much aside from waking up in the morning. You will usually find these lethargic beings wearing what they wore to sleep, hair undone, no shoes, yawning, sitting around.
Take a shower you fodongo!
Posted by Joshua Daniels at 11:28 PM | TrackBack
October 25, 2005
Krump Me Baby One More Time
The new David Lachapelle documentary "RIZE" is screening at the Bijou Theatre downtown until Thursday, October 27 as part of the Arts & Education Council's Independent Film Series. The film explores the dance movements known as "Clowning" and "Krumping" in south L.A., and is a remarkably moving and revelatory glimpse at how human creativity can triumph over adversity. Sara and I went to go see it on Friday night and we were the only people in the theatre. It was kind of depressing to see this wonderful film on opening night in an empty theatre. Go check it out while you have the chance.
Showtimes: 1:15 / 4:00 / 7:05 / 9:30
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"Rize" reveals a groundbreaking dance phenomenon that’s exploding on the streets of South Central, Los Angeles. Taking advantage of unprecedented access, this documentary film brings to first light a revolutionary form of artistic expression borne from oppression. The aggressive and visually stunning dance modernizes moves indigenous to African tribal rituals and features mind-blowing, athletic movement sped up to impossible speeds. “Rize” tracks the fascinating evolution of the dance: we meet Tommy Johnson (Tommy the Clown), who first created the style as a response to the 1992 Rodney King riots and named it “Clowning”, as well as the kids who developed the movement into what they now call Krumping. The kids use dance as an alternative to gangs and hustling: they form their own troupes and paint their faces like warriors, meeting to outperform rival gangs of dancers or just to hone their skills. For the dancers, Krumping becomes a way of life – and, because it’s authentic expression (in complete opposition to the bling-bling hip-hop culture), the dance becomes a vital part of who they are.
Like “Paris is Burning” or “Style Wars” before it, “Rize” illuminates an entire community by focusing on an artform as a movement that the disenfranchised have created. But the true stars of the film are the dancers themselves: surrounded by drug addiction, gang activity, and impoverishment, they have managed to somehow rise above. The film offers an intimate, completely fresh portrayal of kids in South Central as they reveal their spirit and creativity. These kids have created art – and often family – where before there was none. illuminates an entire community by focusing on an artform as a movement that the disenfranchised have created. But the true stars of the film are the dancers themselves: surrounded by drug addiction, gang activity, and impoverishment, they have managed to somehow rise above. The film offers an intimate, completely fresh portrayal of kids in South Central as they reveal their spirit and creativity. These kids have created art – and often family – where before there was none.
Posted by Joshua Daniels at 10:07 AM | TrackBack
Naw Pikshurs
Here are a few photos I've taken over the past few days:
These next photos are by Sara Conyers. She is a much better photographer than I am. See more of her work here.
Posted by Joshua Daniels at 09:59 AM | TrackBack
Badarse Internet Radio
True, music radio today is a sprawling wasteland for the most part, but there are some wonderful, inventive, and educational music radio stations/programs out there if you know where to look. Here is what I stream:
"Mixing It" on BBC RADIO 3
This weekly show hosted and produced by Robert Sandall and Mark Russell will undoubtedly broaden your horizons. This program was the first to introduce me to the likes of Matmos, Amon Tobin, Ghost, Fiery Furnaces, Royksopp, Fridge, any many many others. The banter between the two hosts is rather dry and intellectual, but the music...the music...the music.
WFMU Radio - Jersey City
In my estimation this is the best radio station in the United States. This is true freeform radio. One minute you'll be jammin' to the new Broadcast or Deerhoof album, and the next you're listening to field recordings from the 1930's. I love this station. I want to marry it.
KEXP Radio - Seattle
I used to listen to KCRW in L.A. quite a bit, but it's just a little too "L.A. cool" for me a lot of times. KEXP is very similar to KCRW in many ways except they have more of a rock sound compared to KCRW's smooth electronica leanings. Although the station seems to be getting more formatted there are still plenty of pleasant surprises.
"The Current" from Minnesota Public Radio
MPR started this music station in the twin cities area earlier this year and it seems to be doing very well. They focus on new "hip" music primarily, and they also play a lot of music from the twin cities area. Since they are so new the sound of the station hasn't really 'gelled' yet, and the on-air delivery can be a little stodgy, but they have exposed me to many cool artists and they almost always have some cool artist/band jamming live in the studio.
Live 365 Internet Radio
This site is a resource for both professional radio stations that webcast and internet only radio. They have a very diverse cross-section of stations so you can undoubtedly find something that tickles your fancy. Their experimental hip-hop station "The Bassment" totally crunks my krump.
Try some of these out, and please leave a comment about what internet radio program/station has inspired or rocked you lately.
Posted by Joshua Daniels at 09:58 AM | TrackBack
October 24, 2005
The Worst Halloween Song Ever
If you've never heard of The Shaggs consider yourself lucky -- they are perhaps the worst band that has ever existed in the history of the world (and no that's not hyperbole). Here is a snippet from The Shaggs' official website:
DEPENDING on whom you ask, the Shaggs were either the best band of all time or the worst. Frank Zappa is said to have proclaimed that the Shaggs were "better than the Beatles." More recently, though, a music fan who claimed to be in "the fetal position, writhing in pain," declared on the Internet that the Shaggs were "hauntingly bad," and added, "I would walk across the desert while eating charcoal briquettes soaked in Tobasco for forty days and forty nights not to ever have to listen to anything Shagg-related ever again." Such a divergence of opinion confuses the mind. Listening to the Shaggs' album "Philosophy of the World" will further confound. The music is winsome but raggedly discordant pop. Something is sort of wrong with the tempo, and the melodies are squashed and bent, nasal, deadpan. Are the Shaggs referencing the heptatonic, angular microtones of Chinese ya-yueh court music and the atonal note clusters of Ornette Coleman, or are they just a bunch of kids playing badly on cheap, out-of-tune guitars?
The latter to be sure. These kids sucked! Bad!
Stream or download the song "It's Halloween" off the album The Philosophy Of The World; I promise it will be the scariest thing you experience this halloween season. MUUUUAAAHHHAAAAHHHHHAAAHHHHHHAAAAAAA!!!!
Here are the lyrics as well:
IT'S HALLOWEEN
It's Halloween
It's Halloween
It's time for scares
It's time for screams
It's Halloween
It's Halloween
The ghosts will spook
The spooks will scare
Why, even Dracula will be there
It's time for games
It's time for fun
Not for just one
But for everyone
The jack-o-lanterns are all lit up
All the dummies are made and stuffed
By just looking you will see
It's this time of year again
It's Halloween
It's Halloween
All the kids are happy and gay
There doesn't seem to be a cloud in their way
But when it's over and they've had all their fun
They'll wish that Halloween had just begun
Oh, there are witches, goblins, ***, ***, Frankensteins and zombies
(?) And there are tramps, Cinderallas, pirates, angels and gypsies
So let's have lots of fun and give many cheers
For Halloween comes but once a year
It's time for games
It's time for fun
Not for just one
But for everyone
It's Halloween
It's Halloween
It's Halloween
It's Halloween
It's Halloween!
Disclaimer:
If you listen to this song more than three times in a given day you will, in a metaphysical way, become a Shagg -- never to return. Don't say that you weren't warned!
Posted by Joshua Daniels at 09:42 PM | TrackBack
October 21, 2005
Rise And Shine: Time To Make The Terror Alerts
TERROR ALERTS MANUFACTURED?
Thursday, October 20, 2005 - FreeMarketNews.com
Those repeated terror alerts from the Bush administration might all be part of a calculated manipulation from our own government. At least that is the speculation of Ray McGovern. A former CIA analyst under both Reagan and Bush 41, he was interviewed on an Internet radio program Monday, presenting indications that this could all be "manufactured fake terrorism," designed to deflect attention from the continuing encroachments on our civil liberties and the growth of the federal empire at home and abroad.
McGovern noted that the war in Iraq "has nothing to do with democracy or freedom or defending 'our way of life,'" but is about "enriching the pockets of those who support this administration." McGovern, whose writings also appear regularly on such "progressive" sites as Tom Paine and the American Prospect, has long been a critic of Bush foreign policy, but speaks from his own CIA experiences to note the signs as they present themselves. Commenting on the statements of Republican Texas Congressman Ron Paul, that the Administration was openly trying to set up a martial law police state in America, he readily agreed, stating that "it does seem that those who have his (Bush's) ear are hell bent on giving away or providing wider responsibilities to our military."
He cited the recent proposal by Bush himself, to put the military in direct charge during hurricanes and other domestic catastrophes. He also noted statements, like those of General Tommy Franks, indicating that the next major attack in the United States "would mean a martial law state and a breakdown in our freedoms." But he cautioned against accepting the government's word in such an event, since it very well might be our own government carrying out the terror: "We have to be careful," he is quoted as saying, "if somebody does this kind of provocation … we have to not take the word of the masters there in Washington that this was some terrorist event because it could well be a provocation allowing them, or seemingly to allow them to get what they want." He notes how the New York City terror alert has now been "outed as a fake," while it "magically boosted" Mayor Bloomberg's ratings.
Posted by Joshua Daniels at 07:09 AM | TrackBack
October 20, 2005
Overheard At Stone Cup Yesterday
Woman on cell phone: "Can you believe how mean God is to me?"
I shit you not.
Posted by Joshua Daniels at 08:36 AM | TrackBack
October 18, 2005
A Letter From "The Power" To Public Enemy
Dear Chuckdee, Flavor Flav, Professor Griffin, and everyone else,
Hey, guys! What's up? Or should I say "what up"? Is that how you hippity-hoppers and homeyboys and gangerbangers are saying it now? Never mind. I'll get right to the point.
Do we have to keep fighting like this? Or, more specifically, do you really want to keep fighting me? I don't mind indulging you if that's what you guys want. It's not hurting me, of course, since I am The Power after all. But I just wonder if you might consider giving it up. I mean, this has been going on for a while and I'm still very much here.
Do you realize that you've been fighting me since 1989? (What a crazy summer that was, huh? Whatever happened to that funky drummer?) Now, that's 16 years ago. Babies born that summer are driving cars now! So much has happened since then. Presidents have come and gone, the Soviet Union collapsed. But not The Power! Honestly, guys, I'd really like to be your friend and hang out with you at your rapping concerts. It's time to put this behind us.
And I wonder if I might offer you some constructive criticism. Among the problems, I think, has been your clarity of precisely why you were fighting me and how you intended to wage that fight. Like when you say: "As the rhythm designed to bounce / What counts is that the rhymes / Designed to fill your mind / Now that you've realized the pride's arrived / We got to pump the stuff to make us tough / from the heart / It's a start, a work of art." Pardon my frankness but what the hell are you talking about there? It rhymes, but what are people supposed to do with that information? If you're trying to fight someone, especially someone like me, you need clear action items. Maybe "Carjack The Power's limousine after an important board meeting" or "Expose The Power's malfeasance in a national publication" or maybe "Propose a better alternative to The Power and let the people decide." Those are just off the top of my head! Look, take this advice or don't, but before dismissing it just remember The Power must know what he's doing, right? Thus the name. Think about it.
Let's take a look at your other complaints. You don't care for Elvis Presley. That's fine. I would encourage you to rewatch the '68 comeback special, but whatever. And say what you want about Elvis (was he really a straight-up racist? I didn't know that!), but he's certainly not part of The Power. By the way, I agree with you on John Wayne. I've never seen the appeal. Where was the range? So we don't really have a quarrel there, do we?
And what do you have against Bobby McFerrin? Yes, "Don't Worry, Be Happy" was the No. 1 "jam," but honestly, it's a really great song—the things that man does just with his voice are amazing. It hit No. 1 because a lot of people really liked it! They found it fresh and innovative and not all Grumpy Gus like some people's music. It had nothing to do with me. I'm involved with a lot of things in this world but the charts aren't my department! I could introduce you guys to Bobby if you like. He's a super-nice fellow, and maybe you could record some music together! I'd buy a record of that!
Honestly, guys, I want to end this thing. I'd love to have you up to the country house for a weekend if you have the time. (I know you do, Flavor Flavor! With the big clock and all!) So what's it going to take? I'd be more than happy to call someone at the post office and get some more of your heroes on stamps. Who would we be talking about—Grandmaster Flashy? Eddy Murphy? M&M? I haven't been keeping up with your whole scene so just let me know.
OK, guys, I'll "rap" at you later!
Love,
The Power
Posted by Joshua Daniels at 08:37 AM | TrackBack
October 17, 2005
Not That Anyone Wants To Read My Poetry
But sometimes I need to purge myself. This one is about fifteen minutes old, so don't be too critical.
MY FRIENDS, MY FRIENDS
They spread their
papers across the lawn
like the masks of
so-called allies.
They quench themselves,
and muddy the creek
with October blood.
Posted by Joshua Daniels at 08:38 PM | TrackBack
The Battlefield Where The Moon Says I Love You
Frank Stanford’s poem The Battlefield Where The Moon Says I Love You is a 15,000 line monstrosity composed by the southern author when he was nineteen years old. It has no punctuation and is one continuous stanza. It has some junk lines now and again, but those come when someone exercises no restraint and simply pours their soul onto paper. The poem wasn’t published until after Stanford’s suicide in 1978 at the age of 29, and sadly it and most of his other work is out of print which is why I felt compelled to share this with you. Here are the first 40 lines (the first page) of The Battlefield Where The Moon Says I Love You:
tonight the gars on the trees are swords in the hands of knights
the stars are like twenty-seven dancing russians and the wind
is I am waving goodbye to the casket of my first mammy
well that black cadillac drove right up to your front door
and the chauffer was death
he knocked on the screen he said come on woman let’s take a ride
he didn’t even give you time to spit he didn’t even let you
take the iron out of your hair
you said his fingernails was made out of water moccasin bones
and his teeth was hollow he was a eggsucker
you said he reached up under your dress and got the nation sack
you said the conjure didn’t work he didn’t smell the salt in your shoes
you said he came looking for you and you hid out in the out house you waited
for him with a butcher knife you asked him why not
let the good times roll
you wasn’t studying about kicking no bucket
his tongue was a rattlesnake those sunglasses death wore
I was talking to the pew of deacons they had white gloves on
a midget collected ears on a piece of bob wire
the black dog lifted his leg on the hubcap
the wagon load of boots and banners was dumped in the bayou
the chain gang drowned together in the flood
the disguised butterfly
the quivering masts when the hero returns
one came on horseback with the enchanted sword in the hands of the father
the magician comes into the grand court and his head is lopped off by the boy
so the father comes back and knights his son with three strokes on the shoulder
this was the accolade of noblemen the investiture by the magical father
the bridge burnt up the tent and the ladder and the piano are on fire I saw them
after the funeral a drunk peckerhead pulled a pistol on daddy
mother had a double bit axe just in case but daddy kicked his teeth in
if his head was cut off it wouldn’t grow back he wasn’t a knight he was trash
the pecker had cooties
a blind fisherman used clorox jugs he use to be Mama Covoe’s man
he gets snuff on the harp I play it like when I kiss her on the lips
and she is dipping snuff she is dead
to put it out they rolled it down the bank the night crawlers
the honkytonky is burning
the piano under the water looks like a shark
O.Z. stuck a ice pick in his knee
So there are lines 1 – 40 of 15,280. If you'd like to get a published copy of this poem it might be a little difficult. The last time it was published was in fall of 2000 by Lost Roads Publishers, Stanford's own fledgling press that was kept afloat by his second wife, the painter and photographer Ginny Stanford, after his death. I think they may have put out some new copies recently so check here if you're interested. And visit The Frank Stanford Index for more poems and biographical information.
Frank Stanford
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
CONSTANT STRANGER
by Greg Bachar
"Really, I visualize the dead as well as the living. I visualize you who I will never know. We are constant strangers. I imagine you, I stare at you when I write."
Frank Stanford is a writer whose work and legacy now sit dangerously close to the edge of oblivion. Of the 11 volumes of his work that were published both during his lifetime and after his death, only two are in print today: a collection of short fiction, Conditions Uncertain & Likely to Pass Away, and a slim volume of selected poems issued in 1991, The Light the Dead See. The rest of his books are "widely unavailable," which might lead some to believe that his work is neither important nor deserving of a larger audience. Among poets and writers who have discovered Frank Stanford's work, though, just the opposite is true, as they have kept his writing alive by tracking down and sharing the rare volumes of his poetry, volumes that actually represent only a portion of the manuscripts he put together during his lifetime. For many who stumble upon Stanford's words for the first time, there is a mixture of responses--inspiration at the scope and magnitude of his work; curiosity to know more about his life; and frustration with the fact that the thousands of pages of poems, stories, essays, film scripts, and letters that make up his literary estate have, for the most part, languished in the 20 years that have passed since his death.
On June 3, 1978, Frank Stanford committed suicide by shooting himself three times in the heart with a 22-caliber pistol. He was 29 years old. His death left an indelible absence felt to this day by those who knew him, and the body of work he left behind makes his passing seem even more poignant to those of us who can only know him through his writing. The perpetuation of a Stanford "mystique," in some circles, has allowed his life and work to take on an almost mythic quality. Caused by the tendency of some critics to mistakenly point to his death as a way of understanding his writing, and by the steady disappearance of his books, this mystique has disguised the fact that, in his lifetime, Stanford was an active participant in nearly every aspect of his chosen craft (writing, publishing, speaking on his aesthetic ideas in interviews and correspondence). The Stanford mystique also does not acknowledge the fact that he did not die an unknown poet--much of what he wrote was published while he was alive by editors who recognized his talent. In addition to poetry, Stanford also wrote short fiction over the course of his life, and translated poems by Vallejo, Bertolucci, Pasolini, Follain, and Parra. If one considers the fact that there exists today, in his literary estate and the private collections of those he knew, a treasure trove of unpublished work, it becomes obvious that Frank Stanford's legacy deserves to be championed by those who would like nothing more than to see his work back in print.
Although much of the published criticism and analysis of Frank Stanford's work has been positive, some of it has wrongly suggested that his early death prevented him from finding his true writing voice and that, as a result, his work is undeveloped and immature. Nothing could be further from the truth. A close reading of his available writing--poetry, letters, fiction, and essays--reveals the presence of a confident, original voice and a personal aesthetic that was not only limited to literature, but also incorporated a deep understanding of painting, music, philosophy, and cinema. It Wasn't A Dream, It Was A Flood, a documentary made about Stanford in 1974 by him and his publisher Irv Broughton,won an award for experimental filmmaking at the Northwest Film & Video Festival. It shows a charismatic writer with a haunting voice in full control of both a flair for the dramatic and the great depth of seriousness that is at the core of much of his writing. We can only speculate as to what might have come from Stanford's imagination had he survived the demons that led him to an early exit from this world.
In an essay titled "With the Approach of the Oak the Axeman Quakes," Frank Stanford wrote: "When the poet is young he tries to satisfy himself with many poems in one night. Later the poet spends many a night trying to satisfy the one poem. My poetry is no longer on a journey, it has arrived at its place." One hopes that this statement might one day be fulfilled with a Collected Works of Frank Stanford on the shelves of bookstores and in the hands of readers who might be moved or inspired by the words he left behind.
[Raintaxi]
Posted by Joshua Daniels at 10:21 AM | TrackBack
October 15, 2005
Shopgirl Opens Next Week or Steve Martin = Badass
Steve Martin is crazy talented. As you may know, in addition to being an amazing actor with tremendous range, he is also a banjo player, screenwriter, art critic, novelist, producer, and just all-around badass. The film Shopgirl, based on the 2000 novella by Steve Martin and directed by Anand Tucker, is scheduled for an official release in New York, Los Angeles, and Toronto next week on the 21st. The cast includes Claire Danes, Jason Schwartzman, and Steve himself, and the film looks like it's going to kick butt and take names:
"It's an awkward position to walk into,” muses Jason Schwarztman during a recent interview in Toronto with FilmStew.
“You're going to hopefully be the funny person in a Steve Martin movie. That's like getting a call that Keith Moon wants you to come and play drums on his record. It's like, 'Shouldn't he do that?'" adds the actor, who provides the comic relief as Jeremy, the third spoke in the triangle at the heart of Martin's new romantic comedy Shopgirl.
Schwartzman's reservations are understandable. Not only is he usurping the silliest bits of business from the comedian whose zany, prop-filled routine made him a stand-up superstar in the '70s and who went on to launch his movie career with that masterpiece of absurdity The Jerk. Schwartzman is also aware that if he failed in his mission to be funny, the person he would be letting down the most would be Martin. And that’s not good, because the older actor is not just Schwartzman's co-star, but also Shopgirl's producer and screenwriter, adapting the story from his own novella.
The original 2000 book is slim; 130 pages offering up the deceptively simple tale of Mirabelle, the dreamy, 28-year-old girl who works behind a department store glove counter while waiting for her life to begin. She is lonely, but an attempt to jumpstart her love life with a boy her own age, Jeremy, is faltering just about the time middle-aged businessman Ray Porter begins pursuing her.
"Steve wrote a novella in which you feel every word has been cut to the bone. It's taut and terse and Mametian in its muscularity," observes Shopgirl's director, Anand Tucker.
This marks Tucker's first film since 1998's critically acclaimed Hilary and Jackie. Like Schwartzman, he admits he was initially nervous about the project and the prospect of working with Martin. "The idea of it was incredibly daunting, because you're flying on a plane from London to New York to meet STEVE MARTIN!!!! Oh my God! And he's written a book and he's written a screenplay, he's a producer, that's a tough one."
So it was something of a relief when the Londoner finally met his future collaborator. "Within one minute of meeting Steve, he's actually an incredibly generous and unprepossessing person whose main concern was that he just wanted the film to be good and to be emotionally truthful," Tucker recounts, adding. "He let me get on and own the movie in my own way, for which I'm eternally grateful."
In person at the recent Toronto International Film Festival, the snowy-haired Martin lives up to his reputation for affability, only growing slightly agitated when asked about the autobiographical nature of the work. Though the New York Times recently published an article about the ‘real’ Mirabelle, Martin bristles a bit when the subject of how close Ray Porter is to himself comes up.
"[Then] what is the autobiographical side of Mirabelle? 'Cause I wrote her, too,” bristles the Waco, Texas native. “You know, they say everything's culled from every source, my own life, other life experiences. I'm 60 and I've had sex since I was 18, there was a lot of stuff going on," he explains.
"Not every week – there were long dry spells," he laughs, relaxing. "So there's a lot of experience, whether it's my own or others or conversation, and that's where it all comes from. I wrote a book subsequently [The Pleasure of My Company] about a guy who was [neurotic] in some way. It doesn't apply to me at all, but I can imagine it."
Whatever the genesis of the story, Martin was seeking to find the universal in the specific. "It's everybody's story, whether it's one [lover], two, three, ten, twenty or Magic Johnson, and this story is about one of those episodes that, you know, gets a little out of control or gets unable to break."
He made a discovery when he revisited the book prior to a public reading and realized that he had forgotten half of it. "It says that Ray was about to enter into an addiction that he couldn't break, meaning sex with Mirabelle, because he found something in her that was beautiful to him. This is a slice of somebody's life – some of us, none of us, all of us."
At first, Martin only intended to produce the movie and write the screenplay. He originally offered the role of Ray to Tom Hanks. "I thought he was really the perfect, perfect guy to play it," Martin insists. But he is too modest. It is hard to imagine anyone other than Martin playing the character with his particular qualities.
On the one hand, Ray is charming, warm, and mature, but he also withholds part of himself and his motivations are sometimes murky. It is a tricky balancing act and Martin enjoys a rare advantage as an actor in knowing this character from the inside out.
If someone else had played Ray, Martin's wry voice, too, would be missed in the movie's voiceover. The device is used sparingly; neither Martin nor Tucker wanted to overdo it, but they were very clear on its purpose. "It creates a tone, so that's why it's there," Martin explains. "If you notice, all those voiceovers are placed, not as exposition, but as almost like musical moments. Sometimes it's like the end of a scene, it's always over silence."
Whatever misgivings Martin may have had about playing Ray, Martin's co-stars, Schwartzman and Claire Danes, Shopgirl's Mirabelle, do not share them (click here for an earlier FilmStew Shopgirl item on Schwartzman). Once they got over the intimidation factor involved in working with a comic legend, they found him a helpful collaborator. Schwartzman laughs when he says that he can now brag that he has been in a Steve Martin movie, in spite of the fact that the two do not share any scenes. But he was grateful to have the writer on set every day to talk him through the script and discuss new ideas.
"The great thing about [Steve], too, is that he's very open. It's not like, 'This is how it's going to be.' He came and said, 'Why don't you try this?' or 'Why don't you try that?' He was suggesting things to me. He's an investigator. It's a pleasure to work for an investigative writer," Schwartzman avers.
Danes is equally effusive as she confesses that she came to the project as something of a fan girl. "I read the book and I was really affected by it. I know a lot of people who were, so I'm not very special for having been moved by it. And I couldn't have been in more pleasant company," she says. "Steve has been really a hero of mine forever, so it was a total joy. And I really felt capable.”
“Sometimes I am more nervous than others about inhabiting a character,” she adds. “Because sometimes they seem a little more inaccessible, but this one was vivid, I think because she was so well-written."
"Steve is incredibly generous. Immediately, he made it very clear that if Jason and I ever needed to rework a scene, we had license to. He was great that way. So I never felt confined or pressured to do something that was not intuitive. It became our story and Steve made that possible."
Tucker, perhaps, faced the biggest potential minefield in that he worked closely with Martin while the screenplay underwent revision. The director loved the script when he first read it, revealing that he saw a bit of himself in Ray. "I have been a major commitment f*ck-phobe in my life. I have messed some girls around," he allows. "I've done that game, so I really identified with that. I think a lot of blokes have been there and identified with that."
But Tucker also determined the story's weakness and that was Jeremy, who was somewhat of a peripheral character. Tucker felt strongly that the story needed to be a "dance between the three characters." For that to happen, Jeremy needed to become a more central character.
"The Jeremy character had to become much more substantial, had to have his own journey which was much more fleshed out," Tucker contends. "So that was the work, really, on the year that we spent on the screenplay, that was what was my main concern." Martin answered Tucker's challenge with that generosity his co-stars noted, not only fattening Schwartzman's part, but also, as the young actor acknowledges, feeding him the movie's funniest bits.
As a longtime Hollywood veteran, Martin is only too well aware of what can go wrong on a romantic comedy. "It all goes back to – what do they call it? - the 'meet cute'? I always feel like there's the person with the inspiration and then there's the person who goes, 'No, no, no! This other movie had this and we've got to have this. And this other movie had this, so we've got to have this. And we've got to have this and we've got to have this,'" he asserts. "It's starts getting wrenched out of its own heart.”
Happily, he reports, the Shopgirl team felt no such interference from Disney, which produced the film under its Touchstone banner. "Our movie didn't get wrenched, because basically the book is about small moments and the movie is about small moments, which are, obviously, the biggest."
Authored by Pam Grady
[Filmstew]
Posted by Joshua Daniels at 03:52 PM | TrackBack
October 14, 2005
I Loves Me Some Gabriella Benevolenza
See why?
Posted by Joshua Daniels at 11:51 AM | TrackBack
Hearty Dumpty
LIKE A REVOLVING DOOR
Heart feels sad. He’s tired of being a heart
and wants to be a lung. A lung never lacks
a sister or a brother. He wants to be a finger.
A finger always has a family. Or a spleen
which only feels anger and is never sad.
Sometimes Heart feels joyous, beats with vigor.
But then the old stories resurface again:
hardship, cruelty, the Human Condition.
A kidney never faces these problems alone.
The eyes in unison devise a third dimension.
Not by being solo do the ears create stereo.
But Heart must turn outward for comradeship,
to seek another heart, a journey fraught
with uncertainty. Like a revolving door –
such is falling in and out of love. And
the betrayals! Heart needs only to consult
his book of broken hearts to feel pessimistic.
But soon he puts on a fresh shirt and heads out
to the highway. He hangs a red valentine heart
from a stick so people will guess his business.
No matter that the sun is sinking and storm-
clouds thicken. Approaching headlights glisten
on his newly pressed shirt and on his smile
which looks a trifle forced. Dust catches in his hair
and makes him cough. Why is heart alone in the chest?
Because hope is an aspect of the single condition
and without hope, why move our feet? To see himself
as purely a fragment: such is Heart’s obligation.
Let’s quickly depart before we learn what happens.
Sometimes a car stops. Sometimes there is nothing.
-Stephen Dobyns from Pallbearers Envying The One Who Rides
(1999 Penguin Poetry)
Posted by Joshua Daniels at 08:36 AM | TrackBack
October 13, 2005
Which iPod Should I Buy?
I've plans to purchase an iPod in the not too distant future (I've never owned one) and I need your help.
I'm torn right now between the 4GB Nano and the 30GB iPod. I, of course, like the space on the 30GB model, but I'm going to take this thing everywhere and the durability of the Nano is very attractive. Both models are about the same price. If you know your iPods would you please take a second to tell me the pros and cons of both models?
Thanks in advance!
Posted by Joshua Daniels at 06:12 AM | TrackBack
October 12, 2005
Got Ferrets?
Okay. Someone in North Carolina found my blog a few minutes ago with a Google search for:
Surprisingly enough, I was the ninth result for this search. But why would anyone think that I have ferret-maze building expertise from this abstract?
Posted by Joshua Daniels at 02:31 PM | TrackBack
BLOGS - Good for Journalism, Good for America.
Jacob Weisberg, editor of Slate, comments on one important relationship between blogs and traditional news organizations:
"It's a different model of investigation and discovering the truth. A lot of the traditional media feel very threatened by blogs. And the web, in general, and blogs, in particular, raise the price of error for journalists, both online and in print. While an individual blog may be inaccurate, unfair, or dishonest, the collective intelligence of the web and thousands of people picking apart anything they see in print makes journalists more careful. When you make a mistake now, there's almost no chance of it going unnoticed. And when it is noticed, you'll be humiliated in public. Blogs have made entities like The New York Times more accurate and forthcoming about acknowledging errors that occur."
How is this anything but good for all of us?
In my News Writing & Reporting class today we discussed Kovach and Rosenstiel's discipline of verification--an inchoate and often personal set of practices for getting at something like the truth of a news situation (and the "essence" of fulfilling the journalistic purpose of providing people with "the information they need to be free and self-governing"). And we discussed this as an example of what happens when that discipline breaks down and isn't backed up by transparency.
This line jumped out at me (I somehow failed to annotate it on my first five or six reads):
In the end, this discipline is what separates journalism from other fields and creates an economic reason for it to continue.
Blogs, as metonymy for the collective online brain, have an important role to play in helping the mainstream media--especially newspapers--achieve what has yet to be achieved: a coherent articulation of the discipline of verification followed by its consistent practice.
For that to happen, however, journalists will have to accept that the public knows more than they do and that public scrutiny and criticism of the products of journalism pay the profession a high compliment considering its importance to the exercise of free, republican government.
authored by A. Cline
[Rhetorica]
Posted by Joshua Daniels at 01:25 PM | TrackBack
October 11, 2005
Gravits Google Game
(Sorry for the abundant alliteration Mesh)
Go to google.com and type "(your name) needs" Then pick the 5 funniest ones on the first page.
Then copy and paste this into a new comment with your answers filled in.
Here's me:
1) Joshua needs remedial spelling lessons pronto
2) Joshua needs a separate special education classroom
3) Joshua needs to learn that his choices have consequences
4) Joshua needs sudden rescue from the matchmaking schemes of his aunt
5) Joshua needs to clean it up a bit
Posted by Joshua Daniels at 01:34 PM | TrackBack
October 10, 2005
It's Cold Out There
Posted by Joshua Daniels at 05:55 PM | TrackBack
The Lowdown in Motown
Things recently overheard in New York:
Guy #1: Yeah man, she's kind of a hippie. I mean, her name is Maple.
Guy #2: Maple? You should tap that shit.
--3rd Avenue & 11th Street
Sober girl: Did you know your mother has a penis?
Drunk girl: My mom's wild!
Sober girl: So did you know?
Drunk girl: It's great, man, it's great.
--1 train
Black guy #1: I got all depressed after I lost my hair.
Black guy #2: You what?
Black guy #1: My hair; I got depressed when I lost it.
Black guy #2: I didn't know you had a ferret!
Black guy #1: Shit yeah, but halfway through I decided to shave it.
Black guy #2: You shaved a fucking ferret? What the hell you do that for, nigga?
Black guy #1: I just hated losing it, so I shaved it.
Black guy #2: Man, I'm fucked up.
Black guy #1: Me too.
--Union Square Regal Cinemas men's room
Two women pass each other on the street:
Woman #1: Saline?
Woman #2: Yep!
--St. Marks Place
Girl #1: ...sitting in a tree.
Girl #2: K. I. S. S. I. N. G.
Girl #1: First comes love--
Girl #2: Then comes the baby--
--125th/Saint Nicholas station
Girl #1: How bad am I? I'm going to have sex tomorrow and then pay Shiva a call.
Girl #2: Who cares? You've got needs.
Girl #1: Yeah, I guess you're right.
Girl #2: Remember when you had a harem?
Girl #1: Yeah, but I didn't have sex with any of them. I just fooled around with them.
--Bleecker Street Bar
Hobo: You man, got a dollar?
Suit: Yeah, got change for a hundred?
--Water & Wall
Hipster dude: Do you guys carry any men's shoes?
Salesgirl: Yes, they're on the wall behind you.
Hipster dude: Do you have any straight guy shoes?
--Barney's, Madison Avenue
Girl #1: So he kept asking me to have sex last night.
Girl #2: Did you?
Girl #1: No, I told him, "Look, I will not have sex with you. If you want a blowjob I will do that, but I will not have sex with you."...I mean what is a blowjob? Nothing at all.
--Bleecker & Macdougal
White guy #1: Dude, so I was like, moving in on this girl, and she was pruding. So she was saying, "I'm not that kind of girl, find someone else to hook up with."
White guy #2: But you weren't gonna let her off that easy.
White guy #1: Course not. So I'm like, "But I wanna hook up with you." So then I'm like, "Wanna dance?" And she's like, "Okay." And then when we get on the dance floor, this girl who was like a total prude the entire time becomes a freak. She was just like rubbin' up on my pee-pee and everything.
White guy #3: So you think you're gonna hook up with her tonight?
White guy #1: Nah nah, the odds of her touching my pee-pee tonight are slim.
--Palladium, 14th Street
Woman: Nigga, where you goin'?
Boy: Mom, action figures!
Woman: Nigga, the action figures is right here!
--Toys R' Us, Times Square
Guy #1: So how was your Rosh Hashanah?
Guy #2: I got a blowjob at a movie theater. Since I was watching Flightplan does that count as mile high?
--23rd & Lexington
Tourist woman #1: This is a really quaint neighborhood!
Tourist woman #2: Yeah, but it's really expensive. A small one-bedroom apartment is like $1,000 a month!
Tourist woman #1: Oh, my! Why would someone pay that?
--Bleecker & 11th
Flyer guy: Here.
Chick: No thanks.
Flyer guy: No? What the fuck you mean, "No?"
--Union Square
The subway doors open. A hobo enters, holding a bottle of windex in one hand and a tube of toothpaste in the other.
Hobo: Which is the better time to read Dostyevsky? Winter?
He sprays the windex.
Hobo: Or Spring?
He squeezes toothpaste out of the tube.
Japanese girl: Spring!
Hobo: You are correct.
--F train
Crazy: So I had to get fillings in all of my teeth.
Passenger: Uh huh.
Crazy: But I figured, why let them do that to me after they drilled holes in my brain, ya know?
Passenger: Sure.
Crazy: But I figured, might as well! Although if they were going to fill my teeth, I'd want them to use jelly.
Passenger: Yep.
Crazy: But the guy at the counter said they were out of jelly. So I got a blueberry muffin.
--R train
Hipster on cell: You asked me how I'm doing, and I tell you--and then you bring it back to yourself. You always do that.
--Verb, Williamsburg
Girl #1: My friend Chandra thinks she's still a virgin because she's only had anal sex.
Girl #2: How do you know this girl?
Girl #1: She goes to my church.
--New York Public Library, 40th & 5th
Jewess: That's the third time you mentioned Jews. What's wrong with Jews?
Goy: They are demanding, confrontational, and have a hard time telling the truth. What religion are you, anyway?
Jewess: Uh...Baptist.
--Times Square
Customer: A hot coffee, please.
Cashier: Huh?
--Starbucks, 28th & 3rd
Woman: Do you have a non-fiction section?
Book Guy: Well, everything that's not fiction is non-fiction. [Over] there's cooking, and there's history.
Woman: No, that's not what I asked. Do you have a section for non-fiction?
Book Guy: Well, there are no non-fiction novels. Everything here that's not a novel is non-fiction.
Woman: But you don't have a non-fiction section?
Book Guy: No. Everything that isn't fiction is non-fiction.
--Barnes & Noble, Staten Island
Kid #1: Paper beats rock. BAM! Your rock is blowed up!
Kid #2: "Bam" doesn't blow up, "bam" makes it spicy. Now I got a SPICY ROCK! You can't defeat that!
--6 Train
Woman #1: It's really small, you know, but the sex is wonderful.
Woman #2: You mean he's rich?
Woman #1: Yeah. Exactly.
--Union Square
Dumb teen: Hey, look at this! It says "Train for jobs in beeyotch."
Smarter teen: Fool! That word is biotech. Why you gotta be ignorant all your life?
--1 train
Yuppie: I don't think he's working now. All he ever talks about is monkeys and robots.
--Mayrose
Perceptive woman: Anytime you overhear people, if you only hear a second of what they say, it's always completely stupid.
--Greenwich Village
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Also, is this guy completely retarded?
"See ya next year my little children now don't go to the Rock City Corn Maze without a extra pair of Change of clothes or you may be in trouble if you get lost and get scared can't find your little way out and dreamy disillulions of the Wrong Turn movie come to mind you might have a little accidrent on yourself!"
Posted by Joshua Daniels at 07:10 AM | TrackBack
October 09, 2005
DOGSTER or Mummy and Diddy Have Way Too Much Time
Dogster, to the uninitiated, is a website similar to Friendster or MySpace, except, yes, it's for dogs. A good idea, but, as with any idea, it can sometimes go too far:
SPARKY THE WONDER DOG
Nicknames:
Sparkmeister, Schmudley, Poodle Pie Pudley, Spark, Sparkle Dog, Sparkle Plenty, Sparkle Farkle,Pup-shire,Cutie Pie,Sparkadoodle,Pork Pie, Mugwamp,Slide-o-my,Mo-Nab-Nab
Quick Bio:
-purebred
Likes:
Pupperoni, playing with his many toys, car & bike rides, sitting on our laps while we're on the computer, hikes in the forests, loves watching and of course barking at other animals on TV, he loves dogs, cats, horses and most animals
Pet-Peeves:
Just two -- He hates going to the vets and taking baths! He wines the whole time he's in the bath and at the vets.
Favorite Toy:
He's got so many favorites, I can't count them! He's got names for most of his toys. Wolfie and Bunny are two of his favorites.
Favorite Food:
Roasted Chicken Strips,Pupperoni, chicken, beef, cheese
Favorite Walk:
Anywhere we go
Best Tricks:
Sparky knows how to point to the hidden dog treat in your hand, wave "hi", play dead to "bang", sit up, roll over, sneeze on command, speak
Arrival Story:
We traveled to Oregon to adopt him from a breeder. He was only 6 weeks old when we got him. We had originally come to see another dog that the breeder had told us about and we fell in love with Sparky instead. Even though he was a little too young to adopt out, the breeder let us take him home. When I took him out to see what my husband thought of him, he said "he doesn't quite live up to his name, does he?!" He was not very lively until we were on the long ride home. Somehow, he woke up along the way and he's been the life of the party ever since. He holds a special place in our hearts and always will.
Bio:
If you want to put a smile on your face, make sure you visit Sparky's own website at: (Please NOTE: I've tried several times to correct this link in my dogster editor and it won't correct it, so please make sure you take the space out between the ht and ml. The last of the URL address should be .html NOT .ht ml Here's the link--don't forget to make the correction! www.HallelujahBronze.com/sparky.ht ml You can see lots more photos of Sparky The Wonder Dog and his friends on his website. You can see by some of the photos that Sparky gets around. He travels everywhere his Mommy and Daddy go. He goes regularly to Costco (he likes buying in bulk!) and even goes to church on Sunday (he stays and guards the car with Bud Tugly). His Mommy and Daddy are artists who do portraits of horses, dogs and other critters and share them with people worldwide.
YUKI, DOG SUPER MODEL
Nicknames:
I am AMERICA'S NEXT TOP DOG MODEL, and this is my pawtfolio. Watch me shake what my mama gave me when TYRA BARKS and I return for an all-new season. (Check your local listings!)
Quick Bio:
-purebred
Likes:
Strutting my stuff on the 'catwalk,' Ruff Lauren, Dognatella Versace, vintage Roberto Capoochie, and things that smell bad.
Pet-Peeves:
The PawParazzi can be hard on me!! The flashbulbs are insane. Why can't I just be a normal dog? Please go chase Paris Hilton. And her little dog, too.
Favorite Toy:
I am a player. Toys rock. But my talking football, my stuffed boxer, a plastic water bottle, and empty paper towel rolls are great! Oh, yeah... and I am addicted to a laser beam chase like a crack whore on the 30th of the month.
Favorite Food:
As a supermodel, I naturally have an eating disorder, but since my mom's a vegetarian, I like almonds, string cheese, yogurt n 'stuff. Even seeds. PS- But I am a red-blooded carnivore through and through. Gimme jerky!
Favorite Walk:
The catwalk, of course. 50 lbs of size zero (uh huh, that's right) comin' at ya in a 1" collar and a 7' slinky, sexy leather leash.
Best Tricks:
When not looking disinterested in front of the cameras, I like origami, calligraphy, and traditional Japanese tea service. Unfortunately, without opposable thumbs most of my projects are disastrous.
Arrival Story:
My mom drove about 10 hours both ways to get me when I was 8 weeks old. I was sad to leave my brothers and sisters, but glad, too. That box was getting crowded and it was time for me to stretch my puppy legs in the world and become the true dominatrix and SUPER DIVA I was born to be.
Bio:
Beauty may be only skin deep, but I am rotten to the core! Did you ever see the movie "The Bad Seed?" Consider me the 'Rhoda'of the canine kingdom. I am also the reincarnation of an actress named Sylvia Sidney. I love cigarettes and coffee and gum. I only wish I could play poker.
CORN NUT
Nicknames:
Corny, The Nut, Unit, Little Baby CornNut, Cornish, Cornelius, Pinky the Brain,Corn-Corn
Likes:
Pop Corn, Ice Cubes, the Park,TREATS, Cuddling, wrestling with Chockie, belly rubs,the beach, My Grandparents because they spoil me, my French bulldog girlfriend Lily from Beverly Hills , My best friend Roxie, hiding treats under the couch so I get more!
Pet-Peeves:
the bath, the vaccum, and the mean dog in the mirror
Favorite Toy:
Kitty Clown, jaguars, pinkie the dinasour, little puppy, little monkey, wheels, and anything that squeaks!
Favorite Food:
treats, treats and more treats
Favorite Walk:
The beach, Chestnut street,Robertson, Farmers market, Central Park
Best Tricks:
Rolling over and shaking paws, Hi Five, Dancing, waving "Hi", shaking my little bottom, I am most famous for grabbing other dog's leashes and taking them on walks!
Arrival Story:
We saw CornNut's picture and fell in love. We just knew that mischevious little face was going to have the best personality ever!
Bio:
CornNut is a good 'ol boy from Kentucky!
SQUEE!
Nicknames:
Something Aweful, Fatty, Fatty McFatterson, Fats Domino, Terror of the High Seas, Monster McNugget, Squeebot, The Horror, The Lurking Fear, The Black Squirrel of Igsnot, Burden to Society, Terror Alert Status: Fat, Pugnacious P, Monster Patrol
Quick Bio:
-purebred
Likes:
sneezing in Mommy's soup, being a terrible burden to himself and others around him, butt-scratchin', pooping in front of peoples' front door
Pet-Peeves:
nail clippers, eye drops, baths, good behavin', mommy and daddy trying to hold each other in their sleep so i have to jump in between them and forcably wedge them apart! *I* obviously belong in the middle!! The nerve.
Favorite Toy:
any stuffed moose, llama, froggie, or beercap
Favorite Food:
pug gravy, chicken bones, and anything else off-limits!
Favorite Walk:
The Monster March!
Best Tricks:
tricking people for extra food and walks
Arrival Story:
mommy and daddy tried for months to get pregnant, and were quite horrified when That Thing popped out!
Bio:
King of The French Quarter, owns his own store right by Jackson Square! It's All about Squee!!!
STERLING
Nicknames:
Squirrel
Quick Bio:
-purebred -three legger
Likes:
lovin' and playin in water
Pet-Peeves:
her little sister, Koda-Rae, taking her bone.
Favorite Toy:
a water hose.
Favorite Food:
tater tots.
Favorite Walk:
anywhere with me - preferably riding in her own wagon!!!
Best Tricks:
she ambulates with truly one good leg.
Arrival Story:
I got her as a puppy of 5 weeks of age. She immediately won my heart over. It's been almost 3 years and I love her as much as ever.
Bio:
At 4 months of age, Sterling jumped out of the window of my car and suffered severe injury. She broke her back right leg in 3 places and ripped the brachial plexus in her front left leg. She also had major road rash and some pulmonary bleeding. Her back right leg is now about 1.5 inches shorter than the back left leg (that has beginning signs of hip dysplasia). We had to amputate her front left leg January 2004 b/c she started chewing on her paralyzed foot. She couldn't feel it - she had no idea what she was doing. Now, she is a Therapet....which means she can go to hospitals to visit patients. She gets around very well but gets tired easily and requires frequent breaks. She recently got a wagon to ride in, though so she really likes visiting now.
[Dogster]
Posted by Joshua Daniels at 05:29 PM | TrackBack
Maybe He Really Is My Other Self
How ridiculous. I sit here in my little room, I, Brigge [/Josh -- pretty interchangeable], who am twenty-eight years old and completely unknown. I sit here and am nothing.
- Rainer Maria Rilke
The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge
At least I turn twenty-nine in March?
Maybe then I'll get out of this funk.
(fingers crossed)
Posted by Joshua Daniels at 07:26 AM | TrackBack
October 08, 2005
I Hate Rejection
Josh --
There's much to admire in this sestina, but it's not quite right for the site. Sorry to pass. Thanks for sending, and for letting us read your work.
Sincerely,
Daniel Nester
Assistant Web Editor for Sestinas
http://mcsweeneys.net/links/sestinas/
In other words: "YOU SUCK"
Who am I kidding anyway? Nobody Myself.
Posted by Joshua Daniels at 12:30 PM | TrackBack
October 06, 2005
Why Is Sadness Beautiful?
Autumn Day
Lord: it is time. The summer was immense.
Let thine shadows upon the sundials fall,
and unleash the winds upon the open fields.
Command the last fruits into fullness;
give them just two more ripe, southern days,
urge them into completion and press
the last bit of sweetness into the heavy wine.
He who has no house now, will no longer build.
He who is alone now, will remain alone,
will awake in the night, read, write long letters,
and will wander restlessly along the avenues,
back and forth, as the leaves begin to blow.
- Rainer Maria Rilke
Avenue of Poplars in Autumn
Vincent Van Gogh
Posted by Joshua Daniels at 01:58 PM | TrackBack
October 05, 2005
Are You Marketable?
This Thread is Worth Re-Posting
Go to the following link and type in your name in the box provided and click the sloganize button. Then repost this bulletin with your name and slogan. No cheating!... Do it only once!
[The Surrealist's Slogan Generator]
Jason- A day without Jason is like a day without sunshine.
Bonnie- lol - Thank Bonnie It's Friday!
Kimber-this is so my slogan it's not even funny- My goodness!My Kimber! the other one is Kimber born and bred haha
Brett - How many licks does it take to get to the center of a Brett?
ZACK - A Zack A Day Helps You Work, Rest and Play
Kim - Shake the Bottle, Wake the Kim.
Vallen - There Ain't No Party Like A Vallen Party.
Alicia - Top Breeders Recommend Alicia.
Michelle - Beanz Meanz Michelle.
Todd - Don't Be Vague. Ask For Todd.
Alyssa- Every Kiss Begins With Alyssa.
Keith - It's Keith Time
myles - reach out and touch myles
matt-grab life by the matt
dan-it's not tv, it's dan
Alie- Alison - It Looks Good on You.
Genan- If Only Everything in Life was as Re