I heard the news and stared blankly at my computer. People asked me if I was ok, I told them he died.  When they didn’t know who he was I could do little with my vision.  Suddenly the figures asking me questions evaporated like funny smells in the winter cold.  I closed my eyes and tasted salt for a second and continued working.

I kept typing and those figures walked off.  I kept typing and wondered if the figures would appear again.  I kept typing.

Dear he, Thank you.

I decided to take a classic photography class this September. I’m now faced with a dilemma. I need a manual film camera. Being the person that I am, I began researching cameras. I’m really interested in a Zorki 4, which is this Russian Leica knock off. It has an interesting history but I’m a little leery of buying one from ebay since they all seem to come from the Ukraine.

I’ll post photos to flickr throughout the term.

What Orwell feared were those who would ban books. What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one. Orwell feared those who would deprive us of information. Huxley feared those who would give us so much that we would be reduced to passivity and egoism. Orwell feared that the truth would be concealed from us. Huxley feared the truth would be drowned in a sea of irrelevance. Orwell feared we would become a captive culture. Huxley feared we would become a trivial culture, preoccupied with some equivalent of the feelies, the orgy porgy, and the centrifugal bumblepuppy. As Huxley remarked in Brave New World Revisited, the civil libertarians and rationalists who are ever on the alert to oppose tyranny “failed to take into account man’s almost infinite appetite for distractions.” In 1984, Orwell added, people are controlled by inflicting pain. In Brave New World, they are controlled by inflicting pleasure. In short, Orwell feared that what we fear will ruin us. Huxley feared that what we desire will ruin us.

- Neil Postman

I must become a collector…An avid collector. A collector of information, ideas and associations. Here is where I begin. This is a challenge to myself, to my ultimate sense of creation. Do these thoughts have more value than the pretty echoes they create as they bounce around.

More soon on this endeavour.

So I’ve decided to make a podcast of short stories and other writings from the past few years. I thought it would b a good exercise in diction if nothing else. I’ve uploaded an introduction and the first episode. I’ve included a little player below and the rss feed and iTunes link should you want to subscribe.

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iTunes

I’ve just returned from seeing Synecdoche, the latest Charlie Kaufman movie, and I enjoyed the movie quite a bit, some parts are truely hilarious. However I doubt many will. As a matter of fact several comments from neighboring patrons included “I’m glad it’s over” and “What the hell was that all about?” Two people behind us decided to leave near the end, oddly about 15 minutes till the end. Why not stay till the punctuation mark?

Anyway, why they left: The movie is a classic example of postmodernism, throwing the sequence of time out the window as well as being rather self referential. Someone not accustomed to the genre or Kaufman films in general would find the movie hard to follow. Ironically I enjoyed the film for the very reasons that some left. I found it interesting and well layered but about the beginning of the second act I noticed a surprising similarity to Six Characters in Search of an Author. Which gave me a basis for understanding the movie without much explanation. So I spent the movie admiring the details as I no longer had to pay attention to the road signs. I think that is the key to Kaufman movies.

It was enjoyable and interesting, my only wish was that it didn’t hand it to you on a silver platter at the end. He decided to simply beat you over the head with the message at the end like so many art films I wanted to enjoy. Children of Men is a good example of this. Small spoiler: I wanted the movie to end when Hoffman gets the role of Ellen near the end, just after he enters the door.

Watch the trailer and if you are into a slightly tougher read, then give it a go.

I stumbled across this short film on the internets and I liked its premise. This idea of finding a common ground between intellectual and social classes.

I’ve been having small conversations about how the labor worker is endangered in this country for a while now. Moreover thanks to technology and necessity there will be a need for more and more knowledge workers. Which we are currently at a deficit, I believe. Mainly because we’ve made it terribly difficult to become a creative knowledge worker. First, its expensive and second, we tend to pinhole a specific discipline and beat them over the head with it. So much so that it begins to dominate their lives. Architects that believe everything is Architecture, because of the very nature of the metaphor. We build relationships and design the very boundaries of our existence, etc… In every discipline as the focus becomes narrower I think a persons entire scope also becomes narrow and they believe that all life subsists of their discipline. Which is an easy correlation to make but we make it at the sacrifice of the myriad of possibilities from every other discipline. Artists love to believe that what they do and what a mathematician does is hugely different. When we know for a fact that both are interrelated. The golden ratio is a prime example as it relates to aesthetics. More over plenty of mathematicians can submit to the idea that a proof can be elegant or even beautiful. Using terms of aesthetics to describe mathematics. Sometimes science becomes more about creativity, rather than logic. Take string theory for example which states that all possibilities exists and are collapsed to a reality by an observer. Granted that being a rather simplistic statement of a particular part of string theory, nonetheless it almost sounds like philosophy rather than physics. These field experts are knowledge workers but they work at a deficit of interdisciplinary knowledge. Which is why collaboration is so important. But what if we were able to collaborate in our own heads as well as with other people. What if an Artist could put down the paint brush and discuss metallurgy or the kazimir effect. Or a chemist having a conversation on color theory or Calvino’s Lightness. What if we found a common ground in our own heads, would it be easier to talk to each other? Would the conversation be good?

So, utterly bored one day, me and my buddy Rollie decided to revive a podcast we did together called september29th named after his blog. This time however, we decided to make it video. Below is the end result. If you dig it you can subscribe via iTunes or RSS, as I’m sure this won’t be the last of them.

There is a true art to saying nothing and having people think it’s profound. Some are excellent at it and some fall short and let their cohorts do most of the talking. Nevertheless, I’m astounded at the amount of wealth and power can come from saying absolutely nothing. I should probably start rehearsing my versions of elaborate nothing.

When Tony Wilson opened The Hacienda in 1982, I doubt he and his cohorts would have known the kind of change they made on music culture beyond the creation of Factory Records. Some might say it was just a night club but it was much more than that. It was the birth place for Rave culture. Hundreds of kids doing drugs, dancing and enjoying the music they moved to. I could speak on the importance of all those involved and the music of Manchester for Proustian lengths but I will make my point quickly. Rave culture made the DJ just as important as the artists on the records they were spinning. In some cases more so. From that point in time forward, a DJ was as much of a star as the artists. They were applauded and cheered just as if they had written the very songs they hit play on. There is still some debate as to the validity of the DJ as an artist but I concede to it being an art form. I’m actually a fan of certain DJ’s myself.

What does this have to do with the internet? The internet has resurged the idea that the medium is just as important as the author. Lets begin with a simple youtube example. Here is a video with about 800 thousand views of Liam Lynch’s song the United States of Whatever.

Liam is nothing short of a creative genius and does a lot of work in the TV and Music industry. Lets move on to another video by Brookers. A youtube starlett, her “cover” of the song in great youtube fashion has a little over 1.5 Million views.

Granted Liam’s work has been seen in other venues and he is probably more “famous” than Brookers, she did have a brush with fame signing a development deal with Carson Daly but little came of that. Nonetheless in the venue of youtube, Brookers seems to be just as important as Liam if not more so. Moreover the idea of authorship begins to blur as the internet allows for you to find one thing but maybe not the other. Some people may never know of Liam or his work despite having watched and enjoyed the Brookers Video.

Lets move on to social news giant Digg.com. Every day people submit content to the site but in this strange place sometimes the submitter becomes as famous as some of the things they submit. It wasn’t that long ago that Jason Calacanas wanted to pay Top Digg submitters to work for Netscape in their Digg ripoff. Are the people who scour the internet to find good content the new DJ. These people are essentially “pushing play” on other authors work. The internet has created a new place for people to congregate and someone who can keep a crowd pleased earns them similar respect of a DJ. It may take a decade before this becomes mainstream but I think the concept is there.

The internet has provided the frame work for a new type of rave culture, and social networking sites have created the venue for content submitters to be just as important as the content itself.