intellectual properties

stand up democracy and good use of internet

you may or may not have noticed, depending on how you read this blog, that this site was blacked out on Wednesday in protest to the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and Protect IP Act (PIPA) . there has been much debate about intellectual property rights and copyright infringement and what constitutes fair use and what is piracy. it’s a complex subject. but most people i know thought that it was the wrong tool trying to fix the wrong problem, and ill-defined at that.  and if there’s one thing americans love as much as TV it’s the Internet! and so there was a digital uprising as well as a flood of phone calls to Congress, enough to overload their systems.  and hey, look at that: it worked!

i’m not going to go on and out about it but to say YES! WIN! and that if you are angry, feel disenfranchised, don’t like the way something is going, DO SOMETHING.  a movement is only people moving.

semi-sequitur:  There is a great docu about music and the internet you should watch: PausePressPlay.

everything is its own reward

(click for full size)

–Paul Madonna. this book is unbelievably beautiful. many thx again to Vera for the gift.

bright hot morning

Later she was homeward bound at last in broad daylight, with the pigeons already breaking over Saint-Sulpice.  All of them began to laugh spontaneously because they knew it was still last night while the people in the streets had the delusion that it was bright hot morning.

–Tender is the Night

snippets

i think the second best thing that happened all weekend was that Rocket Queen –>Devil Inside segue on the iPod yesterday.  man, that was really what i needed right then.

the first best thing that happened was this.

why yes, i am wearing a black turtleneck under a black turtleneck. it’s November. i’m cold.

now that there’s the first new season of Beavis and Butthead in 14 years (and they barely changed a THING, god i love it), i keep laughing like Butthead to myself in my head. heh heh.  <—dork

and i think you might be astonished at how many dollars worth of organic fuyu persimmons i’ve eaten so far this season. as soon as they go away i’ll be saving a lot of money.

carry on.

movie recs

movie:  Melvin Goes to Dinner
http://www.melvingoestodinner.com/
if you get bored watching this movie, trust me that it’s pretty worth making it to the end. only watch if you actually LIKE “all conversation” films.

movie: Tape
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0275719/
another one-scene all-conversation film. it’s the best thing i’ve ever seen ethan hawke do, and uma thurman ain’t bad either.

movie: Humpday
http://www.humpdayfilm.com/
meanders between obvious and insightful, but i think the insightful makes it worth watching.  will definitely make your straight male friends cringe.

TV show (you can get it on Netflix):  The IT Crowd .  super fucking hilarious take on IT departments and corp life.

he who seeks beauty will find it

“Fashion is the armor to survive the reality of everyday life.”

-Bill Cunningham

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Cunningham_New_York is one of the best films i’ve seen in a while. i think it’s relevant and moving whether you are into fashion or not, because it’s about humanity’s relationship to fashion more than it is about fashion.

the scene where the reporter asks him why he goes to church every sunday is somehow heartbreaking. there is more to that answer.

watch Bill Cunningham New York on Hulu for free

“if you don’t take their money, they can’t tell you what to do…
money is the cheapest thing.  freedom is the most expensive.”

wasted, cut and dried

recent films:

Waste Land (netflix) – a documentary about art and poverty, esp recommended if you enjoyed that amazing TED talk by french artist JR on using art to “turn the world inside out” and help impoverished communities – can art change the world? or at least a small part of it? while the setting of this film is the giant landfill outside Rio in brazil, the movie doesn’t really mention or suggest anything about reducing waste or get into environmentalism. i think the movie didn’t talk much about landfills and excess because the setting speaks for itself. this movie is about using art to change people’s lives who are on the receiving end of the damages of our first world excess, and it’s pretty heartwarming and inspiring. it will likely change the way you think about the people living in these places and might also incidentally change the way you think about waste.  music by Moby.

Wristcutters: a love story (netflix) – another excellent very dark comedy, about the afterlife world of people who commit suicide. was not quite the tone that i was expecting – in a good way, and Tom Waits, as always, is an excellent character.

Get Him to the Greek (netflix): another lowbrow male comedy starring a pudgy wannabe who is going for the girl/fame/cred/whatever. if you liked Forgetting Sarah Marshall and/or Superbad, you’ll probably like this. or if you just like looking at Russell Brand, which i do. these kinds of movies are funny to me, but i don’t really LIKE them. i really, really could have done without the “performances” at the end. i have to admit though that Puff Daddy really made me laugh in this one. he was the best part.

Queen of the Sun Screenings in Berkeley

i have followed the news reports on the recent widespread disappearance of feral honey bees as much as i have followed any of the other strange/foreboding yet somehow under-discussed environmental indicators of the past decade. that is to say: i am not one of the people who has been FREAKING OUT about the bees, but i have been concerned.

i am recruiting people to see a screening of this new documentary film The Queen of the Sun, partly because i do have interest in the subject of the bees, but mostly because i so enjoyed the director’s previous film, “The Real Dirt on Farmer John” (netflix/youtube trailer), which i will once again maintain is one of the best documentaries i’ve ever seen whether you care about organic farming or not, and so i believe that this film will be interesting and engaging whether or not you have an interest about the bee situation.

the movie is playing (screening list) at the Roxie in SF March 30 and March 31 (tonight/tomorrow), and will be at the Elmwood Theatre in Berkeley April 8-14. I will be going to one of the Berkeley screenings, probably the weekend of the 8-10th. hit me up if you want to join.

body as universe

“Dr. Kathy…believed in the interpenetrating dance of spine, nervous system, spirit, and cosmos as totality—in the universe as an infinite system of neural connections that had evolved, at its highest point, an organism that could sustain consciousness of both itself and the universe at the same time, such that the human nervous system became the universe’s way of being aware of and thus “accessible [to]” itself…”

-from the brilliant short fiction piece “Backbone” by David Foster Wallace in the 12/7/2011 New Yorker.

films: on the subject of alternate and/or parallel lives

“the internet is like this new human experience.  at first, everybody’s gonna like it. but there will be a fundamental change in the human condition. one day we’re all gonna wake up and realize we’re just servants.  it’s captured us.”

We Live in Public (IMDB/netflix) – are you reading this on the internet? have you not seen this movie? do you have a facebook account?  do you use a smartphone to “check in” to places and tell the world where you’re at? do you tweet about what you eat? is your life trackable online?  you should watch this movie. especially if the above applies to you and you have also been to burning man.

a biography/documentary of josh harris.  like “The Social Network“, only the crazy slightly sociopathic internet visionary is played by himself and he goes a bit crazier than Zuckerberg with his ideas about how the internet will change humanity, including creation of an underground pod community in NYC just before Y2K where everyone is on TV/broadcast to each other 24/7.  watch trailer.

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Das Wilde Leben aka 8 miles high (IMDB/netflix/wikipedia) – hot german girl Uschi Obermaier joins counterculture community experiment Kommune 1 in west berlin in the late 60s, meets revolutionaries, becomes “it girl”/supermodel, hooks up with the rolling stones, travels the world all gypsylike.  the movie has great scenes and dialog but also sort of cheesy stereotypical 1960s “free love” moments. the actress who plays Uschi is unbelievably hot. fictional biography. in german with subtitles. also super relevant if you have ever been to burning man.

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Leaves of Grass (IMDB/netflix) – in which Edward Norton plays twin brothers who have diverged somewhat stereotypically into a redneck pot farmer and harvard philosophy professor and are reunited under contentious circumstances. i was skeptical (mostly because of a) fake southern accents are hard to take and b) it had a very Doc Hollywood “big shot gets stuck in small town” direction to the script), but i admit the dialogue and acting was above average, and while some moments were easy to see coming, others were totally not.  edward norton fans will LOVE this. as will intellectual potheads.

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i sense a theme here in the movies i’ve watched lately.