intellectual properties

QOTD: Jodorowsky on being creators

on the memetic/mimetic art theme, the current issue of Interview Mag (the one with a totally unrecognizable Katy Perry as the cover) has an interview with Alejandro Jodorowsky, the Chilean surrealist filmmaker who made the infamous art film “Holy Mountain” in 1973.  it’s really too bad it’s not online to share the whole thing because he is such an inspiration for right now. choice quote (emphasis added):

“I think in life there are very few creators.   There are a million imitators, but what is a person who imitates?  It’s just a superficial reproduction of things.  I am seeing today a multiplication of superficial work.  Photos, photos, photos, myself, myself, myself…. but a lack of humanity now.  You have all the communication, but what will you say?  I have Twitter, but I never say what I do or what I eat.  I am transpersonal.  I think art needs to be transpersonal. It needs to break from our individual limits.  It needs to go outside our common, collective humanity.  We are in MoMA right now, which is paradise. We are wit the spirits of art.  But outside, you have reality, which is very dangerous.  It’s in pain.  Nobody’s happy.  Not just economically, but also emotionally and creatively.  They have lost the meaning of politics, of religion, of health.  Today, medicine is an industry.  Everything’s industrial.  But I say the night makes the day.  After a night, it is the day, and not the reversal.  Not after the day is the night.  It is a positive message.  Everything that  happens in your life is for the good.  I don’t believe in political revolution.  I believe in poetical revolution.  That’s what I believe.  So where do we put the power?  In the consciousness.  Everything we do should be to open the mind of a person.”

i love this because it is the same mix of perceptions that i have, that while it contains what are superficially pessimistic realist statements (“Nobody’s happy”), this recognition of the darkness of the world feeds the belief that if we tune ourselves properly it will lead to light.

+obviously a screening of Holy Mountain is in our near future if anyone wants in.

examined life worth living/learning how to die

The unexamined life is not worth living. –Plato

as a slight follow-up to the last post in which i freaked out a little (and that’s the edited version), i also acknowledge that part of my problem right now is that i don’t have anything to focus on. or, maybe, more accurately, i’m not good at focusing on things. i am not focused.  this only makes anxiety worse. you run in circles.

anyway, i felt a little blogger-remorse this morning after publishing that last night, as i’m pretty sure some of you think i’m loopy and it’s slightly embarassing. the thing is, i am. and so are you, i’m betting.  pretty much everyone i know is.  a few people have asked me before, about this blog, “how can you share so much? don’t you feel exposed?” and the answer is yes.  i felt really exposed this morning. people don’t like to hear you talk about mortality or morality.

so tonight while hunting around to watch something good while i still recover from back pain (not going to the gym after work really makes time slow down), i started watching Examined Life, a documentary starring some of our best and most passionate modern philosophers/thinkers (Cornel West, Judith Butler, Slavoj Žižek, etc).  the minutes of Cornel West talking made me feel better about everything.

+ Avital Ronell for the phrase “emergency supplies of meaning”

and ”if we’re not anxious, if we’re ok with things, we’re not trying to explore or figure anything out. so anxiety is the mood par excellence of ethicity, i think.”

+Peter Singer talking your the moral obligation to do no harm

+Michael Hardt talking about types of revolution and democracy

while some think this film is too pop-philosophy and shallow and unbecoming to serious thinkers, including apparently some who were in the film, i loved it. modern philosophers talking might not be everyone’s cup of entertainment but it sure is mine.  i could honestly quote the whole thing. i paused it like a 100 times to look things up/take notes.

the full movie is available on youtube here (1:28:22).

back to the top: hearing philosophers talk about defining “meaning” in life and ideas of  morality/moral relativism makes me feel sane inside my personal insanity.

CICERO says “that to study philosophy is nothing but to prepare one’s self to die.” The reason of which is, because study and contemplation do in some sort withdraw from us our soul, and employ it separately from the body, which is a kind of apprenticeship and a resemblance of death; or else, because all the wisdom and reasoning in the world do in the end conclude in this point, to teach us not to fear to die. –Michel de Montaigne

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.