music film art culture los angeles

New Filmmakers LA

2009-08-25T14:55:00.000-07:00

http://www.newfilmmakersla.com/pages/program.html

Mewseum @ Zune LA

2009-08-25T14:46:00.000-07:00

http://mewsite.com/mewseum/

Bicycle Film Fest

2009-08-25T14:43:00.000-07:00

Pay homage to our two wheeled friends...

http://bicyclefilmfestival.com/?p=la

Shepard Fairey: Clean Energy For America

2009-08-11T23:02:00.000-07:00

Shepard Fairey never fails to bring powerful messages to the public through beautifully simple images. I admire his intelligence, his talent, and his unrelenting approach to art and politics.

http://obeygiant.com/prints/power-up-windmill

Mandrake to Super 8

2009-08-11T20:40:00.000-07:00

I love Los Angeles in the Summer time...

This Saturday one of my favorite bars, The Mandrake, is hosting an opening for artist Scott Benzel which starts at 7.00PM. Since the Mandrake knows that you need to lube yourself up for the occasion, they offer a pretty radical happy hour: $2 off cocktails, $5 PBRs w/ a shot of whiskey to wash it down, or a $5 Tecate w/ a shot of Tequila if you're feeling So Cal.

http://www.mandrakebar.com/

But it doesn't end there...

Less than two miles down the road Flux is hosting Super 8 which also begins at 7.00PM ending at 10.00PM

'The Flux Super 8 is the first annual showcase that celebrates eight of the most exciting and emerging filmmakers, video artists, and design collectives from around the world. The inaugural Flux Super 8 will launch with a show at the Scion Installation Gallery in Culver City. The artists will develop site-specific installations created exclusively for or premiering for the first time in Los Angeles for the exhibition.

The Flux Super 8 are: The Blackheart Gang (Cape Town, South Africa); Max Erdenberger (Portland, USA); Saam Farahmand (London, UK); Sophie Gateau (Paris, France); Miwa Matreyek (Los Angeles, USA); Terri Timely (San Francisco, USA); United Visual Artists (UVA) (London, UK); YesYesNo (Amsterdam, NL + New York, NY).'

http://flux.net/flux-super-8-culver-city

I know what I'm doing this Saturday

Maleen Neel Rings

2009-08-11T15:57:00.000-07:00

The street ring designed by Maleen Neel allows you to mix and match a variety of candy colored stones to your hearts desire...I'm way into it as life really is all about having choices. The band itself comes in two designs that look great side by side.

http://www.maleenneel.com/shop/frontpage.html

Project H Design

2009-08-10T21:09:00.000-07:00

We champion industrial design as a tool to address social issues, a vehicle for global life improvement, and a catalyst for individual and community empowerment. Using a scalable local-to global model for all projects, design fellows and volunteers in 6 US and 3 international chapters work to create systems and solutions for the developing world, homelessness, education, foster care, health care, and more.

We are a global coalition of hundreds of designers worldwide. We work with, not for, organizations, enterprises, communities, and individuals. We provide enabling, sustainable, meaningful, and efficient design solutions.
http://www.projecthdesign.org/

Death & Taxes

2009-08-10T14:09:00.000-07:00

http://fc00.deviantart.com/fs29/f/2008/140/5/7/Death_and_Taxes__2009_by_mibi.jpg

Touchable Hologram Becomes Reality

2009-08-10T13:53:00.000-07:00

http://www.physorg.com/news168797748.html

Los Angeles Arboretum

2009-08-10T13:07:00.000-07:00

http://www.arboretum.org/

Flux Super 8, Culver City

2009-08-10T12:59:00.000-07:00

http://flux.net/flux-super-8-culver-city

Support Health Care Reform in Los Angeles

2009-08-10T12:54:00.000-07:00

http://my.barackobama.com/page/content/officevisit?office=2585&source=20090809

Help Put Prop 8 on the Ballot in 2010

2009-08-10T12:41:00.000-07:00

https://secure.couragecampaign.org/page/contribute/2010

MIA: Jimmy (Adja)

2009-06-10T23:49:00.000-07:00

This MIA song 'Jimmy' is great especially because it's originally a part of the soundtrack to an old Bollywood film called Disco Dancer, a film that I really enjoyed. Makes MIA's version that much more fun...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VLPUe9Xn9ZE

And the original from Disco Dancer!!! I Love It! Death by Electric Guitar!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zLPbrSjiJI8

The GTOs (Girls Together Outrageously)

2009-06-10T18:40:00.000-07:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KCC0lihHBwQ

Following the Money: Billboard Company Lobbyists Speak Out Against New Sign Ordinance, Deliver for L.A. City Election Campaigns

2009-06-10T10:27:00.000-07:00

According to... http://banbillboardblight.org/?p=2457

A predictable sight at the seven public meetings held to date on the new city sign ordinance has been billboard company lobbyists at the speakers’ podium, all arguing that the proposed ban on digital signs and the limitations on the height and size of billboards and other signs will impede business activity and cost jobs. While they have offered scant evidence to support these predictions, one thing is clear. The process of revising the sign ordinance has provided plenty of employment for lobbying firms that have also raised significant amounts of money for the campaign coffers of city politicians.

For example, the four largest billboard companies in the city-Clear Channel Outdoor, CBS Outdoor, Van Wagner, and Lamar Advertising, paid $217,000 to lobbying firms in 2008 and the first quarter of 2009, according to reports filed with the City Ethics Commission. The biggest spender was Van Wagner, a New York City based company that has supergraphic signs in L.A. in addition to conventional billboards. Van Wagner, one of a number of companies that have sued the city to block enforcement of a ban on those supergraphics, paid lobbying firm Cerrell & Associates $90,124 in 2008 and the first quarter of 2009.

Other lobbying payments made during that time period were: CBS Outdoor to Afriat Consulting Group, $71,127; Clear Channel Outdoor to Urban Solutions, $36,281; and Lamar Advertising to Ken Spiker & Associates, $20,000. In addition, the California Sign Association, whose membership includes those companies, paid $18,000 to the lobbying firm, Arnie Berghoff & Associates.

Those same lobbying firms also helped bankroll 2009 election campaigns through fundraising for candidates for city attorney, city controller, and the city council.

According to Ethics Commission reports, a total of $173,900 was raised for candidates, although it should be noted that the above lobbying firms have a variety of clients in addition to the sign companies. The most favored recipient of this largesse was City Councilman Ed Reyes, who was given $26,450 for his re-election campaign against token opposition. Reyes is chairman of the council’s Planning and Land Use Management Committee, which conducted hearings on the new sign ordinance...

Curious Oddysees @ C.A.V.E. Gallery

2009-06-09T19:21:00.000-07:00

June 12 2009 Opening Reception

http://cavegallery.net/

Afro Funke 6 Year Anniversary

2009-06-09T19:15:00.000-07:00

Ok folks....so this is it...our Afro Funke' 6 Year Anniversary is THIS Thursday. We have spared no expense to put together an amazing line up. Please come out early (doors @ 8pm!) and pre-sale is recommended for the no-wait list (and $5 discount.) Jeremy, Cary, Rocky, Glenn, Tatiana, and Jordan can't wait to celebrate with you.

Thank YOU for 6 beautiful years.....here is to many more!!

$15 / $10 advance
Thursday June 11 (9pm–2am)
Zanzibar (1301 5th St)
310.451.2221

Nosaj Thing 'Drift' Record Release Party

2009-06-09T17:36:00.000-07:00

http://www.myspace.com/nosajthing

$10
Wednesday June 10 @ 10pm
The Airliner: 2419 N Broadway
323.221.0771

Thu Tran's Food Party on IFC

2009-06-09T11:54:00.000-07:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p5uO_Uz4LaU

You or Someone Like You by Chandler Burr

2009-06-09T11:40:00.000-07:00

With this academia-obsessed novel, New York Times perfume critic Burr branches out from his nonfiction scent-based books. Howard Rosenbaum is a Jewish powerhouse in Hollywood with an Anglo-Saxon wife, Anne, whom he met at Columbia University, where they both earned Ph.D.s in literature. Now they live among "pathologically narcissistic" people with an "utter disdain for the written word." But when narrator Anne is solicited to compile a book list for Dreamworks CEO Stacey Snider (Burr weaves actual Hollywood bigwigs into the tale), the list becomes a small book club, then morphs into a huge gathering with Anne the literary guru to virtually all of Hollywood. Anne and Howard's only child, Sam, travels to Israel, and Howard's initial delight sours when Sam is rejected by a rabbi in Jerusalem for an intensive study "program" because he is not officially Jewish and therefore "unclean." A true celebration of intellect, Burr's tale does, occasionally, misstep into a pedantic bog, but ultimately examines the personal decision each of us must make to run from, or embrace, our identity. (Publishers Weekly June)

http://www.booksoup.com/Details.asp?ProductID=1101

FREE
Monday June 22 (7pm)
Book Soup (8818 W Sunset Blvd)
310.659.3110

Pasadena at Vroman's on Tuesday, June 23, at 7pm

Sarah Sophie Flicker of Citizen's Band

2009-06-08T22:08:00.000-07:00

Comrade Couture: Revisiting Communist Germany's Fashion Scene

2009-06-08T19:33:00.000-07:00

I really hope that this documentary makes it out for a screening in Los Angeles...

According to Spiegel Online International...

Most think of East Germany as having been drab, gray and boring. But an underground fashion scene did its best to spice things up. A new documentary takes a look at the perils of creating avant-garde couture in a communist country.

Marco Wilms clearly remembers an early lesson from his days as an elementary school pupil in communist East Germany. One day, the director drew a crooked tree on a chalkboard. She then explained to the class that her job, and that of the socialist collective, was to bend that tree and make it grow straight.

"It was obvious that she was referring to me," said Wilms, laughing.

Under a regime that demanded conformity, Wilms preferred individualism, and wasn't afraid of speaking his mind. He paid the price. As a teenager, he was labeled a "potential enemy of the state" and barred from finishing high school, despite top grades. Instead of applying to art academies as planned, he spent the next three years waking up at 6 a.m. to work at a factory making fish hooks.

But when a scout spotted Wilms at a disco and recruited him to join East Germany's elite cadre of state-sanctioned models, Wilms finally found his niche: Pulsating on the fringes of East Germany's highly regulated mainstream fashion world was a brazen alternative scene that reveled in self-expression, subverting precepts of how a citizen of the German Democratic Republic (GDR) was to dress and act.

Twenty years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, Wilms -- now a fairly ordinary-looking, if sleekly dressed, 43-year-old filmmaker -- has documented this thrilling movement. His touchingly personal "Comrade Couture," which hit German cinemas earlier this spring, combines film footage and photos from the 1980s and revisits four of the scene's most vivid personalities in an attempt to summon the thrill of freedom and economically unencumbered creativity that lent East Germany's fashion underground its potency.

Opposition Cloaked in the Guise of Aesthetics:

One of those is Frank Schäfer. Once one of the GDR's most sought after stylists (who recently drew attention for advertising pubic hair styling at his Berlin salon), Schäfer has a maxim that underscores the intensity that marked Communist Germany's fashion netherworld. "A tiger that lives in a cage is much wilder than a tiger that is free to roam," he says.

The scene's illicit shows, staged everywhere from living rooms to abandoned chapels and bath houses, were ebulliently theatrical, heavily influenced by punk, Goth and New Wave aesthetics and peppered with undertones of morbid and aggressive sexuality. The models' dark makeup and exquisitely freakish get-ups contradicted East Germany's wholesome state-approved fashion. For many, the stage was not just an opportunity to strut on catwalks and perform, it was a rare venue to express an element of their true selves under a repressive regime.

Over the years, the performances, hosted by two main groups -- Allerleirauh (All Kinds of Fur) and Chic, Charmant und Dauerhaft (Stylish, Charming and Enduring), known simply as CCD -- grew increasingly elaborate, eventually featuring original music scores and over 100 designs created purely for a handful of packed performances attended by a small network of fashionistas and rebels.

The fact that the scene blossomed primarily in the 1980s, a time in East Germany when the state took a slightly more tolerant view of non-conformism, may explain the survival of the groups in a communist dictatorship. Still, a constant fear of arrest fueled the intimacy and excitement at the shows. Those lucky enough to be clued in say they were unforgettable.

"I got goose bumps watching them. It was clear that they might be taken to jail at any moment," recalled Grit Seymour, who worked as a model and designer in East Germany -- even tailoring a dress for Erich Honecker's wife -- and later parlayed her experience into work for Donna Karan, Max Mara and Hugo Boss. "They pushed things very close to the edge and it felt very moving, very illuminating and freeing to be there. It was an act of strong opposition cloaked in the guise of aesthetics and beauty."

Making Due With Shortages

The German title for Wilms' documentary, "Ein Traum in Erdbeerfolie," translates as "A Dream in Strawberry Foil." It refers to the durable plastic that farmers use to cover strawberries -- a material that served the underground designers well, as the GDR offered little in the way of quality fabric, most having been reserved for export.

"We also used black and white striped shower curtains...and hospital bags meant to hold organs and intestines," remembers Sabine von Otteginen, the dynamo behind the group CCD and another of Wilms' protagonists.

Once a police officer threatened to ban the group for tempting East Germans with fashions that could not be bought. In response, von Oettingen cried, "But they can make it themselves!" and offered to have patterns thrown into the crowds from the catwalk.

The reality, however, was that even the garb in official magazines wasn't usually for sale. Aside from in pricy, under-stocked government boutiques, there wasn't much worth buying.

Dorothea Melis, a former editor of the GDR magazine Sibylle, writes that fashion spreads were cobbled together from found and individually manufactured items, which caused many a reader to write angry letters, complaining that the patterns were impossible to follow. "Our helpless answer was always 'improvise, sew things yourself, dig through old drawers and closets,'" Melis recalls in her book about Sibylle. Instead of clothing, then, magazines sold ideas and patterns.

In fact, creativity and individual style flourished in the context of East Germany's tight economy. A handful of independent designers profited from selling one-off items to a population with mostly hand-me-downs and ill-fitting, mass-produced government garb at its disposal. Improvisation was also common.

"My mother sewed me an outfit from bed sheets, and I decorated it with graffiti because Beat Street was playing in the theaters at the time and I was a huge break-dance fan," said Wilms, who also remembers having been wearing a half-finished, homemade faux-leather jacket with enormous shoulder pads when the model scout approached him.

Socialist Models With An Elite Touch

East German fashion photography was an art unto itself. Although magazine images were government monitored, Wilms says they "offered an aesthetic world that didn't need to be commercial but just had to appeal to a kind of longing."

For Full Article please see: http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,628632,00.html

Dirty Projectors

2009-06-08T14:27:00.000-07:00

The Dirty Projectors are playing at the Troubadour in Los Angeles on July 8 2009...

http://www.myspace.com/dirtyprojectors

Kenny Scharf @ Celebrity Vault

2009-06-08T13:00:00.000-07:00

Old-school New York scene chronicler Kenny Scharf, art historian Richard Marshall and writer Ann Magnuson present and sign copies of Scharf's new monograph book, "Kenny Scharf."

When:
05:00 PM to 08:00 PM Thursday Jun 11
Price: Free
Celebrity Vault
345 N. Canon Dr., Beverly Hills, CA 90210

Radiohead's Pay-What-You-Like Model

2009-06-08T12:42:00.000-07:00

According to Time Magazine...

Sure, Radiohead is on a sustained run as the most interesting and innovative band in rock, but what makes In Rainbows important — easily the most important release in the recent history of the music business — are its record label and its retail price: there is none, and there is none.

In Rainbows will be released as a digital download available only via the band's web site, Radiohead.com. There's no label or distribution partner to cut into the band's profits — but then there may not be any profits. Drop In Rainbows' 15 songs into the online checkout basket and a question mark pops up where the price would normally be. Click it, and the prompt "It's Up To You" appears. Click again and it refreshes with the words "It's Really Up To You" — and really, it is. It's the first major album whose price is determined by what individual consumers want to pay for it. And it's perfectly acceptable to pay nothing at all.

http://www.time.com/time/arts/article/0,8599,1666973,00.html

Sex Galaxy - The First 'Green' Film?

2009-06-08T12:23:00.000-07:00

According to Wired Magazine...

Sex Galaxy, which its makers call the world’s first “green” film, is also a blue movie. A feature-length mashup of copyright-free stock footage, the campy sci-fi comedy splices together strippers, Martians, rocket ships and robots into a semi-coherent romp.

Sex Galaxy director/producer Mike Davis, who collects old movies, said his film is 100 percent recycled. “The cheesy B-movies I love to cannibalize were never properly copyrighted,” he told Wired.com in an e-mail interview.

The burlesque queens and ’50s sci-fi straight-arrows in the semi-NSFW Sex Galaxy trailer (embedded above) are a hoot, though watching the entire 78-minute opus — a crazy-quilt mashup of bouncing boobs, herky-jerky robots and hygiene films culled from the public domain, overlaid with a nonstop string of dirty jokes — would probably be more entertaining if you sneaked a flask of Saurian brandy into the theater. (Not that Wired.com advocates that type of misbehavior.)

As sloppily dubbed as any Japanese sci-fi import from the ’50s, Sex Galaxy’s pinball dialogue comes off like a cross between Mystery Science Theater 3000 and an R-rated Futurama. It’s an amusing trip down memory lane, complete with a robotic pimp and cheesy kaleidoscopic freak-out scenes.

Davis’ movie screens Sunday during Another Hole in the Head, a sci-fi/horror film fest that runs June 5 through 18 at the indie Roxie Theater in San Francisco. The festival’s slate of blood-gushing zombie flicks, sexed-up sci-fi, Japanese imports and grindhouse treasures includes shorts and a couple of live performances (Brain Dead Alive! and Conanator) as well as feature films.

http://www.wired.com/underwire/2009/06/sex-galaxy/

Space is the Place 8th Annual Roller Disco Party @ World on Wheels

2009-05-27T15:53:00.000-07:00

Various prices
Saturday May 30 (10:15pm–2am)
World on Wheels (4645 1/2 Venice Blvd)
323.933.5170

Danger Mouse, Sparklehorse, David Lynch Present Dark Night of the Soul

2009-05-27T15:47:00.000-07:00

Saturday May 30 More times»
Michael Kohn Gallery (8071 Beverly Blvd, 323.658.8088) map
FREE
http://www.kohngallery.com/upcoming.html

Memphis & the Delta Blues Trail: A Complete Guide Signing, Reading, and Party

2009-05-27T15:38:00.000-07:00

reading/ signing / release party for justin gage and melissa gage’s guide book - “Memphis & the Delta Blues Trail” plus LE SWITCH playing the blues. Free lemonade! Ice cream sandwiches from Cool Haus

“MEMPHIS & the MISSISSIPPI DELTA: A COMPLETE GUIDE” party, signing, reading with authors Justin Gage and Melissa Gage. Plus 12-bar blues deconstructed by LE SWITCH* From Beale Street’s barbecue, blues, and rock ’n’ roll to the city’s five-star dining and lodging, Memphis is a monster mecca of American music and more. The A-side is world-famous attractions and the flip side has funky shops, historic sites, and gold record legacies. Step back in time to the Mississippi Delta with endless cotton fields and rural shacks. There is no better place to experience hopping juke joints and the stomping grounds of blues greats like Muddy Waters.As Citysearch’s travel editor, Melissa Gage wrote about destinations from Sun Valley to San Juan, Puerto Rico. She is currently a freelance writer and screenwriter. Justin Gage is the founder of Autumn Tone Records and the blog creator of Aquarium Drunkard. He is also a music writer, concert promoter, and radio DJ. They live in Los Angeles, CA.

FREE
Thursday May 28 (7:30pm)
Stories Books (1716 Sunset Blvd)
213.413.3733

Nine Lives: Visionary Artists From LA @ The Hammer

2009-05-27T15:30:00.000-07:00

Nine Lives: Visionary Artists from L.A. is the fifth in the Hammer’s biannual invitational exhibition series highlighting work created in greater Los Angeles. Nine Lives features over 125 works, much of it new, by nine artists spanning four generations —Lisa Anne Auerbach, Julie Becker, Llyn Foulkes, Charles Irvin, Hirsch Perlman, Victoria Reynolds, Kaari Upson, Jeffrey Vallance, and Charlie White. The works include video, paintings, drawings, photography, textiles, and two new sculptural installations. As all of the artists live and work in L.A., Nine Lives embodies many of the psychic complexities and paradoxes of the city – it is at once beautiful and frightening, refined and unruly. The reinvention of oneself is central to several of these artists’ practices. These mesmerizing artists create characters and tell stories of fantasy and science fiction, building alternate worlds grounded on their obsessions. Popular culture and mythology are common themes, as are alternative lifestyles, and subcultures. The luxury of space and privacy that Los Angeles affords allows them the freedom to tinker, research, and explore their obsessions which often parallel Hollywood’s dream factory.

HAMMER BASH! May 29 7-11PM

Concert by Nine Live's artist Llyn Foulkes with his one-man band called the Machine. Created by Foulkes, the Machine is comprised of dozens of found and invented instruments such as car horns, organ pipes, drums, xylophone and bass. Foulkes will be accompanied by performance painter Norton Wisdom who creates magnificent visual interpretations of live music using brushes, sticks, his fingers and a squeegee upon translucent fiberglass. Wisdom has collaborated with Badal Roy, Angelique Kidjo, Daniel Lanois, and Dave Navarro, among many others.

ALL HAMMER PUBLIC PROGRAMS ARE FREE. Tickets are required, and are available at the Billy Wilder Theater Box Office one hour prior to start time. Limit one ticket per person on a first come, first served basis. Hammer members receive priority seating, subject to availability. Reservations not accepted, RSVPs not required.

http://hammer.ucla.edu/programs/detail/program_id/213

St Vincent @ El Rey Theatre May 28 2009

2009-05-27T15:15:00.000-07:00

5/28/2009 8:00 PM @ El Rey Theatre
5515 Wilshire Boulevard
Los Angeles, California 90036
Cost: http://www.theelrey.com/

DUBLAB & FolkYEAH present: Tonalism On the Redwoods Stage

2009-05-27T12:23:00.000-07:00

Love the Henry Miller Library...

http://sonicliving.com/event/1289816

Alice Neel

2009-05-26T20:28:00.000-07:00

http://www.aliceneelfilm.com/

Community Solutions

2009-05-21T17:51:00.000-07:00

FOOD: It's not just what we eat, but how we grow it, ship it, process it and store it. To reduce our dependence on fossil fuels, and to slow climate change, we need to grow, shop and eat local! More

HOUSING: In spite of improvements in efficiency, our homes today use more energy than they did 40 years ago. Why? They are bigger and use many more appliances than ever before. Just what is sustainable housing? More

TRANSPORTATION: The freedom of the road will soon be a thing of the past unless we can get over our love affair with the car, and reduce our society's reliance on cheap, polluting transportation. More

http://www.communitysolution.org/

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-1721584909067928384

Erin O'Connor

2009-05-21T14:53:00.001-07:00

Beautiful Ones by Scotty Coats

2009-05-21T14:12:00.000-07:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qwXVzPyXYrA

War Paint, EXITMUSIC, VOICEsVOICEs, Alexandra Hope @ The Smell

2009-05-05T16:53:00.000-07:00

Wed May 6 2009

247 S. Main St
Downtown Los Angeles

http://www.thesmell.org/

Chad and Sudan Agree to End Feud

2009-05-04T17:57:00.000-07:00

According to Al Jazeera...

http://english.aljazeera.net/news/africa/2009/05/200954124019927666.html

Chad and Sudan have agreed to end hostilities against each other and normalise relations after reconciliation talks in the Qatari capital, Doha.

Officials from the two African nations signed the agreement on Sunday at the end of the talks that Qatar helped to mediate.

"The agreement stipulates the halting of hostilities, and everyone is now looking to the future, especially as both countries and people have big interests," Ahmad Abdullah al-Mahmud, Qatar's minister of state for foreign affairs, said on Sunday.

He said better relations between Sudan and Chad could make it easier to reach a solution to the conflict in Darfur in western Sudan.

"Both countries have a desire to solve the problem," al-Mahmud said.

'Proxy war'

Al Jazeera's Mohamed Vall, reporting from Khartoum, the Sudanese capital, on Monday, said the agreement "stresses the acceptance on both sides to adhere to a cessation of hostilities".

"It has not been a direct clash between the two armies, it has been a proxy war in which rebel groups from both sides are being used by these two countries," he said.

"But if they stop arming those groups and aiding and abetting those rebellions ... then that will be a good step ahead."

Both nations have long traded accusations that each is supporting rebel attacks inside the other's territory.

Vall said there is a general feeling of relief in Sudan in reaction to the agreement, even though people know many such agreements have been signed before.

"The agreement is a step towards a much [more] comprehensive agreement on the level of the presidents that is going to be signed in Libya next month," Vall said.

"The hope here is this will be a final one, and everybody will stick to the commitments that are going to be signed in this agreement."

'Border troubles'

Al-Tijani Saleh Fidail, Sudan's minister for international co-operation, said the two African countries were not at war, but had border troubles, the Qatar News Agency reported.

Past agreements collapsed because officials did not have a way of implementing them on the ground, he said.

Moussa Faki Mahmat, Chad's foreign affairs minister, said the only solution for the ongoing conflict is to find a mechanism to monitor the situation in both countries, the agency reported.

Qatar and Libya, which co-sponsored the talks, have been leading reconciliation efforts between Chad and Sudan since the two nations restored diplomatic ties in November.

A final deal is expected to be signed next month in Libya.

Drunk History: Jen Kirkman

2009-05-02T17:33:00.000-07:00

Very funny. And educational?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bqzUI1ihfpk

Dublab Labrat Matinee VI: Selections From An Astral Projectionist

2009-04-29T17:22:00.000-07:00

5/1 @ 8:00pm

This matinee has transcended the afternoon and traveled to nighttime. Leave your body behind and join us for rarely seen music videos (Animal Collective, Daedelus, Flying Lotus, Lucky Dragons, Nite Jewel, Rainbow Arabia...), new dublab VisionVersion films (Adventure, Busdriver, Rio en Medio, Erlend Oye...), comedy clips (Bob Odenkirk, Tim & Eric, Zach Galifianakis...), out-there animation and other eye melting magic. After the films, stick around for a Friday night party featuring a live performance from one of dublab's favorite bands, plus Labrat DJs playing soundtrack selections on the Cinefamily Spanish patio. Oh yeah, there will be some free beer too! Don't miss these visions burning bright!!!

Tickets - $14

http://www.silentmovietheatre.com/calendar/events.html#dub

Orphans West Symposium

2009-04-29T17:18:00.000-07:00

throughout 5/2 & 5/3

This early May, The Cinefamily is the proud host of a best-of presentation of orphaned films, co-curated by L.A.'s own Filmforum! “Orphan” works are those which are outside of the mainstream and often have no known origin or copyright, or were at one point considered “lost” and without a formal repository to preserve it. These include home movies, amateur and educational films, industrial and sponsored films, experimental films, and newsreels. The Orphan Film Symposium has had six incarnations since its start in 1999 at the University of South Carolina, and founder Dan Streible has since developed it into a favorite of AMIA members, filmmakers, and historians. The event is now held at NYU as a project of their Moving Image Archiving and Preservation program, and draws sold out crowds from around the world (18 nations were represented at the last symposium). Our Cinefamily presentation will consist of films hand-picked from all six symposiums!

Tickets - $13, Symposium festival pass - $65

http://www.silentmovietheatre.com/calendar/events.html#dub

Lowside of the Road: A Life of Tom Waits

2009-04-29T17:13:00.000-07:00

Barney Hoskyns/Tom Waits

Booksigning: May 15, 7 - 10 pm.

On Friday, May 15th Barny Hoskyns will be flying in from London to sign copies of his new book "Lowside of the Road: A Life of Tom Waits". On display will be 12 images by 6 different photographers chronicling Tom Waits' carreer. Exhibit runs through May 31st.

http://mrmusichead.com/exhibitions.html

Trippin' The Art Fantastic: Alan Aldridge

2009-04-29T17:09:00.000-07:00

Alan Aldridge

Trippin' The Art Fantastic

April 29th - May 13th

Join us April 29th to celebrate legendary psychedelic illustrator Alan Aldridge's newly released autobiography. Mr Aldridge will sign copies of his book in the gallery, where we will be hosting his US Premiere Exhibit of original and printed works.

http://mrmusichead.com/exhibitions.html

The Ojai Krishnamurti Film Festival

2009-04-27T19:00:00.000-07:00

May 22 - 24

Krishnamurti Education Center, 1098 McAndrew Road, Ojai, California

The Krishnamurti Foundation of America is opening its archives to show rare and historic films about the philosopher Jiddu Krishnamurti. The Festival, to be held at the Krishnamurti Education Center in Ojai, California, features a program of eight feature-length showings during Memorial Day weekend (May 22-24, 2009), and includes films by George Lucas/Deepa Mehta, the noted Indian filmmaker G. Aravindan (with cinematographer Shaji Karun), Evelyne Blau, and Michael Mendizza. The program also features showings of Krishnamurti’s dialogues with the Nobel prize-winning biologist Jonas Salk, and the British theoretical physicist David Bohm.

Jiddu Krishnamurti (1895-1986), known for coining the phrase “Truth is a pathless land,” spent his life living equally between Ojai, California; Saanen, Switzerland; and India. Originally a part of Mme. Annie Besant’s theosophists, he broke with organized religion and was counted as one of the 20th century’s great philosophers/spiritual teachers. His independent voice and clear original thought attracted a following of thinkers, artists, scientists, and leaders that included John Barrymore, Kahlil Gibran, Van Morrison, Aldous Huxley, Federico Fellini and Cecile B. De Mille. He counted Greta Garbo, Charles Lindbergh, Mary Zimbalist and the Dalai Lama among his friends. The FBI (which briefly held him in house arrest during the Second World War, calling him an “Undesirable Alien”) was among those alienated by his iconoclastic but very sensible ideas. The films, some of which have never been seen before, are thus a ringside seat to the history of art, philosophy and spirituality in the 20th century.

The Film Festival dates are May 22nd through May 24th, Memorial Day weekend. The Festival is a ticketed event (Day Pass: $35, Season Pass $75). Tickets are limited. Space is limited. Please reserve online or call (805) 646-2390. Accommodations at the Oak Grove Retreat may also be available.

Schedule

Friday, May 22nd
With A Silent Mind: Michael Mendizza/Evelyne Blau 10:00 AM - 12:00 Noon
J. Krishnamurti/Jonas Salk: Dialog 3:00 - 4:30 PM
BBC: Bernard Levin Interviews J. Krishnamurti 4:30 - 6:00 PM
G. Aravindan: The Seer Who Walks Alone 7:00 - 9:00 PM
Saturday, May 23rd
Iris Murdoch/J. Krishnamurti 10:00 - 11:30 AM
G. Aravindan: The Seer Who Walks Alone 11:30 AM - 1:30 PM
George Lucas/Deepa Mehta “Young Indiana Jones” 3:00 - 4:30 PM
David Bohm/J. Krishnamurti 4:30 - 6:00 PM
J. Krishnamurti: The Challenge of Change 7:00 - 9:00 PM
Sunday, May 24th
David Bohm/J. Krishnamurti 10:00 - 11:30 AM
George Lucas “ Young Indiana Jones” 11:30 AM - 1:00 PM
Original Archival Footage 3:00 - 5:30 PM

Day Pass: $35, Season Pass $75

http://www.kfa.org/dialogue-details.php?id=34

FLOW: For Love of Water

2009-04-22T22:04:00.000-07:00

http://www.flowthefilm.com/

Irena Salina's award-winning documentary investigation into what experts label the most important political and environmental issue of the 21st Century - The World Water Crisis.

Salina builds a case against the growing privatization of the world's dwindling fresh water supply with an unflinching focus on politics, pollution, human rights, and the emergence of a domineering world water cartel.

Interviews with scientists and activists intelligently reveal the rapidly building crisis, at both the global and human scale, and the film introduces many of the governmental and corporate culprits behind the water grab, while begging the question "CAN ANYONE REALLY OWN WATER?"

Beyond identifying the problem, FLOW also gives viewers a look at the people and institutions providing practical solutions to the water crisis and those developing new technologies, which are fast becoming blueprints for a successful global and economic turnaround.

Tessa Laird: On the Revolutionary Power of Color

2009-04-22T21:25:00.000-07:00

Tessa Laird is all about the smart art...

According to The Big Idea: http://www.thebigidea.co.nz/node/31599

Artist Tessa Laird is so intrigued by colour she is doing a doctoral study at Elam next year looking at the "revolutionary power of colour".

This year she has curated The Rainbow Reels, an installation of films from the New Zealand Film Archive themed in the colours of the rainbow, from a Mao Tse Tung wearing a Maori korowai to a violet squid in coastal waters.Although the method of finding images was random, certain patterns emerge. Above all, footage of flowers and gardens reflect New Zealand as a self-styled agrarian paradise, through official show reels and home movies by proud amateurs.

The Rainbow Reels is at the Film Archive in Wellington and Auckland until February.

During what hours of the day do you feel most inspired?
I'm neither an early bird nor a night owl, so I'd have to say that the half hour before sunset is my favourite time of day. Sometimes you get that magical rosy glow over everything, and anything seems possible!

How would a good friend describe your aesthetic or style?
A good friend would call me a hippie and know that I wouldn't be offended. A shameless orientalist, a diehard greenie, interested in just about anything with "ethnic" or "environmental" overtones.

What aspect of your creative practice gives you the biggest thrill?
Making things, after years of just writing about other people making things, is an enormous thrill, particularly messing around with clay.

How does your environment affect your work?
I find the biggest problem is also the biggest pleasure - the fact that the art world is so damn social! There are openings, talks and events on every night of the week (and attendant compulsory imbibing of alcohol, dinners, etc...). How anyone is actually supposed to make artwork under these conditions I'll never know!

Do you like to look at the big picture or focus on the details?
Definitely the details - I'm a real ground-looker. In gardens or on bushwalks 'm always curious to know what's going on in the undergrowth, and at beaches I'll inevitably get sidetracked by rockpools, shells, crabs and seaweed, and forget to pay attention to the waves and the horizon.

Your exhibition at the Film Archive in Wellington and Auckland deals with some very interesting footage. How did you tackle the giant task of wading through the collection?
I used the seven colours of the rainbow as a system to structure my searches. I used the Archive's on-line catalogue and simply entered the key terms "red", "orange", "yellow", "green", "blue", "indigo", and "violet". Some colours yielded huge numbers of results and I had to be selective. Others were scant and so I had to enter other colour terms, like mauve, purple, lilac, and so on. In the end, I came up with seven separate reels of footage which responds - rather loosely, to these coloured categories.

What was your favourite find?
That is a tough one! But I think it would have to be the footage taken by Hare Krishnas at Sweetwaters in 1982. On the one hand, it's a great blast from the past, but on the other hand, the crowd isn't much different from, say, the crowd at SPLORE today. The Hare Krishnas are generally very well received, and there's a real sense of sweet naivety and optimism that pervades the tape, particularly in the interviews with recent converts.

Would you encourage others to use the Film Archive?
I only know what it's like at the Auckland office, and it can be quiet sometimes, but at other times, it's a real hotbed of activity. I see a lot of people engaging in independent research, and a lot of people simply enjoying the entertainment value of being able to watch classic New Zealand footage. A lot of young artists I talked to, though, have expressed that they still haven't gotten around to fully exploring the potential of the Archive. Hopefully more shows like mine will inspire artists to use the Archive as a research tool. It's amazing what you can find - there really is something for everyone.

What's your number one business tip for surviving (and thriving) in the creative industries?
Personally I've always found that working on the things that interest you is the best way to attract attention and opportunities. I constantly see people trying to "package" or "taylor" themselves for a success which remains elusive. I think if you're true to yourself, you're more likely to be rewarded.

Which of your projects to date has given you the most satisfaction?
Probably my Masters show at the end of 2006, which was a museumy installation in the display cases of Auckland University's Anthropology Department. It featured paintings and ceramics, mostly on the theme of bats as they are presented by various cultures. I managed to combine almost all of my obsessions: ethnography, botany, ceramics, small furry animals, in one fell swoop. Talk about satisfying!

Who or what has inspired you recently?
Susi Newborn, the activist writer, one of the founders of the Rainbow Warrior, who lives on Waiheke, has just started a blog which I love: . It combines art, activism and spirituality and is written with such an honest, down-to-earth voice. I also just bought the recently released collected essays of Denys Trussell called "The Expressive Forest". The essays date from 1977 to 2008, and they are all written around themes of art and ecology.

Though the artists he's interested in are of a different generation to my personal favourites, Trussell's ideas and scholarship are just bang on and incredibly applicable to contemporary practice.

If you could go back and choose a completely different career path to the one you've chosen, what would it be?
An international aid worker. But who am I kidding? I like comfort, and
I'm a coward.

What place is always with you, wherever you go?
The Auckland War Memorial Museum, Wintergardens, and Domain. I truly do see it as a cultural heartland for Aucklanders. I had a dream that it was the end of the world and I was meeting my Grandma at the museum - it was the natural place to head when Armageddon hit. I think that says something about its centrality to the Tamaki Makaurau imaginary.

What's the best way to listen to music, and why?
While dancing, and with eyes closed. Because otherwise I get self-conscious and side tracked by people watching! It is best to open them periodically, however, to make sure you're not about to crash into anyone or anything.

You are given a piece of string, a stick and some fabric. What do you make?
A chopper flag for my bicycle.

What's the best stress relief advice you've ever been given?
Breathe, breathe and breathe. It's good general advice, as well.

What's great about today?
Working with the wonderful gals at Film Archive Auckland, who have indulged my whim to have sparkling feijoa and sparkling boysenberry wine at the opening, a rainbow of fruit juices, and popsicles!

What's your big idea for 2009?
I'm going to commence doctoral study at Elam, looking at the "revolutionary power of colour". It will be 50-50 writing and making artwork. I can't wait!

Plagiarism and Free Information

2009-04-14T16:56:00.001-07:00

This is my last word on the issue of plagiarism and 'Free' Information...

Free information and plagiarism are two separate issues...Here's why:

I rarely purchase books based on reviews or recommendations from people I know. For the most part, I buy books or research articles based on the sources of reference provided within the pages of the books that are sitting on my shelves. Plagiarism robs me of the right to reference. If one doesn't know that what one is reading has been plagiarized then one is left without options. How is that 'Free' information? I can't count how many times I have been introduced to a new author based on a current or past read. What's worse is a fragment of information that has been 'borrowed' without proper attribution usually comes from a source that is very interesting on its own and deserves attention or, at the very least, an opportunity for attention. So you know...Don't steal ideas or words, it's just bad form.

Michelle Obama's Organic Garden: A Fresh Beginning

2009-04-14T16:47:00.000-07:00

Alright, Michelle Obama is droppin' the right kind of bombs on me right now. Organic Gardens! I knew there was a reason I voted for her husband...What's his name?

Please sing this petition if you appreciate chemical-free foods...

http://act.credoaction.com/campaign/wh_garden/?rc=homepage

The Mid America CropLife Association (MACA) has a bone to pick with Michelle Obama.

MACA represents chemical companies that produce pesticides, and they are angry that - wait for it - Michelle Obama isn't using chemicals in her organic garden at the White House.

We are not making this up.

In an email they forwarded to their supporters, a MACA spokesman wrote, "While a garden is a great idea, the thought of it being organic made [us] shudder." MACA went on to publish a letter it had sent to the First Lady asking her to consider using chemicals -- or what they call "crop protection products" -- in her garden.

Michelle Obama has done America a great service by publicizing the importance of nutritious food for kids (she's growing the garden in partnership with a local elementary school class) as well as locally grown produce as an important, environmentally sustainable food source.

MACA's letter is part of a larger propaganda effort to convince people that chemicals are a necessary part of produce growth - when we know that's not true.

Sign this petition today to tell the board members of MACA (virtually all of them big chemical executives) that we don't appreciate their telling Michelle Obama (or any of us) to use pesticides in our gardens. We support Michelle Obama's organic garden, and we'll thank them to keep their propaganda out of it.

G20 Pledges $1 Trillion in Funds

2009-04-02T12:00:00.000-07:00

According to Al Jazeera...

http://english.aljazeera.net/news/europe/2009/04/200942143554840312.html
World leaders at the G20 summit in London have announced they are to triple the finances of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to help fight the worst economic crisis since the 1930s and will impose new curbs on financial markets.

In a closing speech at the meeting, Gordon Brown, Britain's prime minister, also pledged enhanced supervision for large hedge funds and a crackdown on tax havens.

"The old Washington consensus is over, today we have reached a new consensus that we will do what is necessary to restore growth and jobs and prevent a crisis such as this from happening again," Brown said.

"We have... agreed additional resources of $1 trillion that are available to the world economy to the IMF and other institutions."

'Tough sanctions'

Barack Obama, the US president, said that the G20 members had rejected the protectionism that could have deepened the economic crisis and that the summit had agreed "unprecedented steps to restore growth" and to prevent future crises.

Brown said the G20 would publish a list of tax havens that were non compliant with current regulations and would bring in "tough sanctions" for those who do not comply with any new changes.

In depth

"The banking secrecy of the past must come to an end," he said.

Nicolas Sarkozy, the French president, said that the conclusions of the summit were "more than we could have hoped for".

Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, called the agreement an "almost historic" compromise.

Shares in Europe and the United States rose following the announcement on hopes that the agreement would add to some signs that the downturn may begin to bottom out.

Samah El-Shahat, Al Jazeera's economic analyst, said: "To hear that the Washington consensus, which places all decisions in the hands of the market, is over is incredible.

"The Washington consensus has hurt so many people in developing countries. But what will replace it?"

'Impressive figures'

G20 agreements, $1 trillion for international bodies, including $750bn for International Monetary Fund $250bn for trade finance Blacklisted tax havens will be named and shamed New rules on pay and bonuses for corporate bosses IMF to sell billions of dollars of gold reserves Urgent actions of Doha trade talks Another G20 summit to be held later this year. Brown said that the summit's final communique provided for a $500bn boost to the IMF's resources, raising to $750bn the funds it can make available to countries worst hit by the global crisis.

Mark Malloch-Brown, a UK minister, described the amounts as "pretty impressive figures".

The G20 also agreed a trade finance package worth $250bn to support global trade flows and agreed to kick start stalled Doha trade liberalisation talks at the next G8 meeting in Italy in July.

Brown had opened the summit, renewing calls for a common global strategy to fight the economic crisis.

The meetings, which were seen as make-or-break, were held behind closed doors and included leaders from the US, China, Russia, Britain and Saudi Arabia, among others.

Differing approaches

There had been indications before the summit that G20 members were divided on how best to pull the global economy out of recession.

The US and Britain were in favour of pumping more money into the financial system, seeing the strategy as a way to encourage banks to lend to consumers and thus entice them to spend money on goods and services.

The US has so far spent, lent or guaranteed $12.8 trillion - almost as much as the value of everything produced in the country in 2008.

But France and Germany had signalled their opposition to further fiscal stimulus packages, calling instead for an emphasis to be placed on increasing regulation of the international financial system.

Protesters are holding demonstrations to coincide with the summit, a day after thousands of people filled central London to speak out against governments' management of the financial crisis.

Liela Moss

2009-04-01T18:30:00.000-07:00

Okay, way into Liela Moss...

http://viewmorepics.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=viewImage&friendID=11086104&albumID=150661&imageID=58258279#a=150661&i=24049403

Victory!

2009-04-01T18:20:00.000-07:00

Dear ONE Member,

Incredible news: at 4:12 this afternoon, the Kerry-Lugar Amendment to restore the $4 billion previously cut from the International Affairs Budget—the source of almost all U.S. international anti-poverty funding—passed the Senate in a unanimous voice vote.

Thousands of ONE members called their senators over the past 48 hours, helping convince the entire U.S. Senate to back President Obama’s record-breaking request for funding to fight global poverty. Here at ONE, we particularly want to thank poverty-fighting champions Senators John Kerry and Richard Lugar, who leaped into action with this critical amendment as soon as the part of the budget funding global anti-poverty programs came under fire.

Join other ONE members on the ONE Blog to celebrate this big win, and find out what else is going on in anti-poverty activism:

http://www.one.org/blog/2009/04/01/victory/?id=892-2718592-6_DKQZx&t=2

This isn’t just a victory for us; it’s a victory for the millions of people who will lead healthier, more productive lives because of U.S.-supported AIDS medicine, schools, infrastructure projects, clinics, and other smart, efficient development projects funded by the International Affairs Budget.

Fifteen other senators joined Senators Kerry and Lugar as co-sponsors, building momentum for this life-saving amendment: Bernie Sanders, Ted Kennedy, Joe Lieberman, Jeff Bingaman, Barbara Boxer, Sherrod Brown, Bob Casey, Bob Corker, Chris Dodd, Dick Durbin, Dianne Feinstein, Ted Kaufman, Patrick Leahy, Robert Menendez, and George Voinovich.
Their leadership, combined with your voices, was a formula for victory in our ongoing partnership with the developing world to end poverty and disease.

Thank you for your voice,
Josh Peck, ONE.org

What the Budget Means for California...

2009-04-01T15:03:00.000-07:00

Dear MoveOn member,

In the next 48 hours, both the House and Senate are set to take a crucial vote on President Obama's budget. It's a boldly progressive plan that closes tax loopholes for oil companies and banks while cutting taxes for 95% of working Americans.

In California, that means 12 million families will get tax cuts if the budget passes.1 (I know it's April Fools' Day, but that number's no joke—12 million families!)

And closing those loopholes will save California taxpayers $4.3 billion that would otherwise go into the oil companies' pockets—money that can be used on investments in health care and energy.2

Republicans will probably oppose the budget en masse, so we need every last Democrat—like Sens. Feinstein and Boxer—to stand tall and make sure it passes. Even Democrats who've pledged support need to hear that this is a top priority—and that voters want them to oppose any and all efforts to water it down.

Can you call Sens. Feinstein and Boxer right now and ask them to pass Obama's budget without any last-minute amendments that weaken it?

Here's where to call:

Senator Dianne Feinstein
Phone: 202-224-3841

Senator Barbara Boxer
Phone: 202-224-3553

Then, please report your call by clicking here:

http://pol.moveon.org/call?tg=FSCA_1.FSCA_2&cp_id=874&id=15856-8941608-QHXLc0x&t=4

Thanks for all you do.

–-Daniel, Carrie, Ilyse, Patrick S. and the rest of the team

Sources:

1. "Obama's Tax Cuts for American Families," Center for American Progress Action Fund

http://www.moveon.org/r?r=51274&id=15856-8941608-QHXLc0x&t=5

2. "President Obama's Budget Eliminates Federal Giveaways to Big Oil and Gas," Center for American Progress Action Fund, March 12, 2009

http://www.moveon.org/r?r=51275&id=15856-8941608-QHXLc0x&t=6

Sacred Geometry

2009-04-01T14:01:00.001-07:00

Netanyahu sworn in as Israeli PM

2009-03-31T14:36:00.000-07:00

According to Al Jazeera...

http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2009/03/2009331203050922203.html

Binyamin Netanyahu has been sworn in as Israel's new prime minister after parliament approved the broad coalition he had assembled during weeks of wrangling.

The Knesset voted 69-45 for the new government includes Likud, the ultra-nationalist Yisrael Beitenu, left-leaning Labor, ultra-Orthodox Shas, and the Jewish Home party.

Netanyahu returns to the prime minister's post he held between 1996 and 1999.

Addressing the Knesset before a six-hour debate on the new government, he said that his government would be open to peace negotiations with the Palestinians.

"I say to the Palestinian leadership, if you truly want peace, peace can be obtained. With the Palestinian Authority, we will seek peace along three tracks - economic, security and political," Netanyahu said.

Palestinian statehood

Netanyahu made no specific mention, however, of Palestinian statehood, an important Palestinian demand that is supported by the US and other parties involved in mediating between the two sides.

"Under the final accord, the Palestinians will have all the rights to govern themselves except those that can put in danger the security and existence of the state of Israel," he said.

Netanyahu also said that he wanted "full peace" with all Arab nations, praising Islam as a rich religion, but he attacked Iran and "radical Islam" as threats to Israel's security.

"Extremist Islam does not only threaten us, but it threatens us first and foremost ... Its goal is to erase the state of Israel from the face of the earth," he said.

The Palestinian Authority described Netanyahu's remarks as "not encouraging".

"The American administration should pressure the Netanyahu government to stick to the fundamentals of the peace process, in other words land for peace," said Nabil Abu Rudeina, spokesman for Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president.

Stability fears

The vote in the Knesset exposed the fragility of Israel's 32nd cabinet, which with 30 ministers is one of its largest ever, as five members of Labor, which has joined the coalition, refused to take part.

Likud is known for its hard line on security issues and conservative economic philosophy, while Labor's approach is relatively moderate and left-leaning.

Yisrael Beiteinu's policies are regarded as far to the right of even Likud and the appointment of Avigdor Lieberman, its leader, has proved particularly controversial.

"Its a right-wing government, its a very controversial government, but it can make decisions," Alon Liel, a former Israeli diplomat, told Al Jazeera.

Netanyahu officially replaces Ehud Olmert, who stepped down amid multiple corruption investigations, on Wednesday.

Speaking on Tuesday, Olmert ended his term with an emotional defence of his premiership, acknowledging that he had mistakes but saying that there had also been successes.

"I accept with love the criticism of the government. I am proud of the government's achievements, which are many, and I am sorry for my mistakes and they are not few," he said.

Bail Out the People - Not the Banks

2009-03-31T14:29:00.000-07:00

http://www.bailoutpeople.org/

Dirty Pretty

2009-03-26T13:20:00.000-07:00

http://dirtyprettyshow.blogspot.com/

Dirty | Pretty, an exhibition of photography by thirteen Los Angeles photographers opens at the Julia Dean Gallery on March 21st and runs through May 22nd. The photographers were challenged to explore the idea of beauty and filth in a city obsessed with those concepts.

As observers of culture, these Los Angeles photographers interpret a society that has become infatuated with pretty (artifice and plastic surgery encouraged) and the various types of dirt (scandals, sex, and plain old dirt). Each photographer - and viewer - brings their own subjective perception to those themes and their junction, dichotomy or conflict.

Dirty | Pretty includes a variety of photographic media – Chromogenic prints, traditional silver prints and Giclée prints. The artists in the show have had solo and group shows. Their works have been published by SilverShotz, Shots Magazine, Ag Magazine, Light Leaks, CMYK Magazine, Lens Culture, F-Stop, File Magazine and JPG Magazine.

Artists: Eric Bickford, Maura Brennan, Phil Condit, Marian Crostic, Sylvia Denlinger, Erich Hoeber, Robby Larson, Pieter Lessing, Liv Naesheim, Angela Palmieri, Shelby Ring, Aline Smithson, and Lee Tonks.

Bukowski Fest @ Elephant Space Theater

2009-03-26T13:14:00.000-07:00

“Some people never go crazy, What truly horrible lives they must live” -Charles Bukowski

Saturday Mar 28
08:00 PM
Price: $10
Elephant Space Theater
6322 Santa Monica Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90038

This celebration of Charles Bukowski's work and life features a screening of Taylor Hackford's 1973 documentary, "Bukowski," followed by readings from people who personally knew Bukowski, including former paramour Linda King. Following that, other artists will read their poetry and display art inspired by Bukowski.

Mike Stilkey has been selected as one of five artists for the exhibition side of this occasion...Very cool. I will be there, hope you can make it...

Transcendent Man: A Documentary On the Life and Times of Ray Kurzweil

2009-03-19T16:33:00.001-07:00

Director Barry Ptolemy traveled to five countries and followed Ray Kurzweil for two years, documenting Kurzweil's journey to bring the ideas from his best-selling book The Singularity is Near to a world audience. Ptolemy expertly explores the social and philosophical implications of the transformative changes that Kurzweil predicts and their intertwined promise and peril, in dialogues with world leaders such as Colin Powell; technologists Hugo de Garis, Peter Diamandis, Kevin Warwick, and Dean Kamen; journalists Kevin Kelly and Tom Abate; and luminary Stevie Wonder. Award-winning American composer Philip Glass composed the original theme music, which mirrors the depth and intensity of the film.

The movie trailer can be seen at http://www.transcendentman.com/

Tribeca is one of the four leading film festivals in the world. Only 24 movies (12 documentaries and 12 narrative movies) are selected to premiere and compete at Tribeca, out of more than 2,200 movies submitted for consideration. Transcendent Man was one of only two documentaries discussed by the New York Times in its coverage of the upcoming Tribeca festival.

The world premiere will be on Saturday evening, April 25 at 8 pm. The Tuesday, April 28 screening will be followed by a unique Tribeca event: a panel discussion with Director Barry Ptolemy and Ray Kurzweil, moderated by NPR and ABC correspondent Robert Krulwich.

If you would like to be informed when and where tickets are available, please sign up at http://transcendentman.com/moreinfo.php

TRIBECA FILM FESTIVAL SCREENING TIMES:
WORLD PREMIERE

Saturday, April 25, 8:00 pm: School of Visual Arts, 333 West 23rd Street , New York , NY 10011
Sunday, April 26, 4:45 pm: AMC Village VII, 66 Third Avenue , New York , NY 10003

Tuesday, April 28, 7:00 pm: School of Visual Arts, 333 West 23rd Street , New York , NY 10011

Friday, May 1, 5:00 pm: AMC Village VII, 66 Third Avenue , New York , NY 10003

Currently, Tribeca is selling tickets to the full festival. Tickets for individual movies such as Transcendent Man will be on sale April 20. Here are the details:

2009 On Sale Dates
Monday, March 9. 2009

369

2009-03-06T23:32:00.000-08:00

3: The Divided, Triangle, Multiples, The Holy Trinity, Faith, Hope and Charity, Expression, Speech, Wit, Society, Art, Culture, Sensuality, Sorrow, Immaturity, Passion, Air, Surprise, Spontaneity, Change, Sex

6: The Protector, Provider, Healer, Nurturing, Children, Empathy, Intuition, Sympathy, Quality, Sustenance, Love of Community, Unconditional love, Circulation, Economy, Agriculture, Charity, Balance, Grace, Evolution, Simplicity, Sorcery.

9: The Humanitarian, Religious, Charitable, Philanthropic, Duty, Calling, Mission, Obligations, Hardship, The Higher Self, Spirit Guides, Mysticism, Faith, Angel on Earth, Faith in Mankind, Optimist, Suffering, Self-sacrifice, Karma, Enlightenment, Divine Wisdom.

369

3, 6, 9 the goose drank wine the monkey chewd the tabacco on the street car line and the line broke and the monkey got chocked and they all went to heaven in a lil row boat clap clap

Lady and gentlemen am about to make you feel alright I've got the beat to move your feet plus I know just what you like, your hotter then a pepper
1, 2 stepper baby that is a shame you gota keep it moving gotta keep it movin cause baby your off the chain

[Bridge:]
Now let me see you like a hanky panky am a turn around girl gonna do let me lay you down there are a couple of games I like to play by the time I do this is what ya'll day

[Chorus:]
3, 6, 9 the goose drank wine the monkey chewd the tabacco on the street car line and the line broke and the monkey got chocked and they all went to heaven in a lil roow boat clap clap [x2]

If you got a problem I don't wanna hear it just let it go all my lady's on the beat let me see you drop it to the floor

Fella's tkae a look around lady's are soo finee is goin down so get on up now act like your second on line

[Bridge]

[Chorus x2]

Actn like a rattle the way she movin faster then go slow like a dolla so maybe me n her can get to chewn like taboacco this old fashion talk but my thing is rather dather and plus I got my swagga like a pistol seen me everywhere but because I be on my gizzle that mean am on my grind all the time no matter how little her name is call me up meet you in a lil bit
So am tryn to see if she can clap clap

Independent women let me see you clap clap
Playa's in the building let me see you clap clap
Came to get it started let me see you clap clap
Came to have a party let me see you clap clap

369 by Buzzcocks

I guess it's not my lucky day today oh well
You've been good to me
You make me feel so happy
Can't believe that I deserve it though

Love's more than the silly games you play oh no
Play it casually
No need to get a sweat on
At least not at the moment so

369 all the time
What's the meaning in the number
Somebody tell me
369 through my mind
All I'm getting is a number
Somebody help me please

Take this bitter cup away from me oh oh
It takes two you know
So if you're feeling lonely
Why not start a conversation no no

Another bitter twist of irony ho ho
Not that easily
My heart is on the warpath
I don't need a reservation

369 all the time
What's the meaning in the number
Somebody tell me
369 through my mind
All I'm getting is a number
Somebody help me

369 so sublime
All I'm getting is a number
Somebody tell me
369 for the sixth time
What's this with that number
Somebody help me

Now that you know you have no one
But yourself to blame
No matter which way you look at it
It still looks the same

[Solo]

I guess it's not my lucky day today oh well
You've been good to me
You make me feel so happy
Can't believe that I deserve it though

The Life You Can Save: Acting Now To End World Poverty by Peter Singer

2009-03-06T23:12:00.000-08:00

http://www.amazon.com/Life-You-Can-Save-Poverty/dp/1400067103

“Part plea, part manifesto, part handbook, this short and surprisingly compelling book sets out to answer two difficult questions: why people in affluent countries should donate money to fight global poverty and how much each should give. . . . Singer doesn’t ask readers to choose between asceticism and self-indulgence; his solution can be found in the middle, and it is reasonable and rewarding for all.”
–Publishers Weekly (starred review)

“If you think you can’t afford to give money to the needy, I urge you to read this book. If you think you’re already giving enough, and to the right places, still I urge you to read this book. In The Life You Can Save, Peter Singer makes a strong case–logical and factual, but also emotional–for why each of us should be doing more for the world’s impoverished. This book will challenge you to be a better person.”
–Holden Karnofsky, co-founder, GiveWell

“In The Life You Can Save, Peter Singer challenges each of us to ask: Am I willing to make poverty history? Skillfully weaving together parable, philosophy, and hard statistics, he tackles the most familiar moral, ethical, and ideological obstacles to building a global culture of philanthropy, and sets the bar for how we as citizens might do our part to empower the world’s poor.”

The Count and the Comrade

2009-03-01T18:09:00.000-08:00

Film
Monday, March 9th 2009, 7:00pm
Goethe-Institut Los Angeles, 5750 Wilshire Blvd. Suite 100, Los Angeles, CA 90036
German with english subtitles
Info: +1 323 5253388

Documentary by Ilona Ziok, 72 min., D 2009, Music: Manuel Göttsching, Workers’ songs: Hans Eisler, Bertold Brecht, Paul Dessau...
United in their resistance to Hitler, two seemingly incompatible men illuminate a turbulent era of German history: Count Carl-Hans von Hardenberg, one of the rebellious officers behind “Operation Valkyrie”, and the fervent communist Fritz Perlitz.

With the release of “Valkyrie”, a worldwide audience is learning more about the failed July 20, 1944 plot to assassinate Adolf Hitler. But the German army officers around Stauffenberg were not the only group of Germans to offer up resistance.

“The Count and the Comrade” portrays two men from two opposed groups: The Prussian monarchist Count Carl-Hans von Hardenberg and the anti-fascist Fritz Perlitz.
Two men separated by class and wealth but united in their stance against the evil of Nazism, the aristocratic landowner and the proletarian worker are both fighting for a better Germany, albeit with contrary visions of its future.
When both find themselves imprisoned in the Sachsenhausen concentration camp, they encounter each other as human beings, two minds from diametrically opposed ends of the social spectrum meet, resulting in an extraordinary dialogue and an unlikely friendship.

Liberated in 1945, Perlitz and Hardenberg re-emerge on opposite sides of the new political divide.
Whereas Perlitz is appointed a First Secretary of the Socialist Unity Party (SED), with the mandate to build a socialist system in his district of the GDR—which happens to include the Hardenberg estate—, and is involved in the (spectacular) renaming of Neuhardenberg into Marxwalde, Hardenberg is expropriated and forced to emigrate to West Germany.
While Hardenberg is in the West, dreaming of his home, it seems as though Perlitz is the winner in this ideological altercation. In 1989, the tables turn once again.

The filmmaker Ilona Ziok will be present and available for a Q&A after the screening.

Thomas Hirschhorn, Andrew Lord, Lari Pittman @ Regen Projects

2009-02-28T15:06:00.000-08:00

Regen Projects
633 North Almont Drive
Los Angeles, CA 90069
Tel. (310) 276-5424Fax. (310) 276-7430
http://www.regenprojects.com/

Thomas Hirschhorn
Andrew Lord
Lari Pittman
March 7 - April 16, 2009
Gallery Hours: Tuesday-Saturday, 10:00 am - 6:00 pm

Regen Projects is pleased to announce a group exhibition of works by Thomas Hirschhorn, Andrew Lord, and Lari Pittman. This exhibition will feature collages from Thomas Hirschhorn's "Tattoo" series, sculptures from Andrew Lord's "Senses" series, and recent paintings by Lari Pittman.

Thomas Hirschhorn's "Tattoo" series explores the themes of violence, sex, consumerism, and global politics. Photos of airbrushed breasts, tattooed limbs, and blown-up body parts of Iraqi citizens are buried among printed matter cut-outs, cryptic messages, signage, and obsessive blue and red scribbling. Hirschhorn's work summons references to philosophy, popular culture, mass media, economics, and poetry. Layering information and imagery, Hirschhorn wants to express the complexity and contradiction of our fragmented world through work that voices his discontent with contemporary politics and public discourse.

Andrew Lord's "Senses" series utilizes the medium of clay to capture sensation as a physical form. The action of the senses (listening, tasting, smelling, and seeing) are transformed into tactile objects through repeated applications of the artist's ears, teeth, nose, and eyes. Lord has always played with scale, form, and surface to create hand made objects imbued with his own physical being. In bringing together the abstract and the visceral his work has opened up new realms in sculptural possibilities.

Lari Pittman's paintings draw upon personal references, politics, philosophy, and society to create intricate, multi-layered works that synthesize figurate and abstraction. In this recent body of work Pittman explores the tradition of vanitas painting, a still-life painting popular with Northern European painters in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The notion of vanitas corresponds to the transience of life and the inevitable passage of time. The saturated and layered use of color alongside bold patterns and forms in these operatic works depict both a celebration of life's impermanence and its infinite possibilities.

For further information please contact Jennifer Loh, Stacy Bengtson, or Heather Harmon at 310-276-5424.

Also on view at Regen Projects II:
(9016 Santa Monica Blvd at North Almont Drive)

Elliott Hundley: Hekabe
March 7 - April 4, 2009
Opening Reception: Saturday, March 7, 6:00 - 8:00 pm

Upcoming Exhibitions at Regen Projects II:

Manfred Pernice
April 11 - May 16, 2009

Scott McFarland
May 23 - July 3, 2009

REGEN PROJECTS
633 North Almont Drive
Los Angeles, CA 90069
t: 310 276 5424
f: 310 276 7430

Music Film Art Culture Los Angeles The Zine Issue 1: Beautiful Americans

2009-02-27T21:26:00.000-08:00

Well, I finally finished up the first issue of the Music Film Art Culture Los Angeles Zine which I will distribute anywhere and everywhere for free.

This issue is titled Beautiful Americans as I am feeling very optimistic these days despite growing financial pressures, wars, corruptions of just about everything. I had been going through my collection of books and decided that it would be a great time to create an assemblage of excerpts from a few of my favorites. The one theme that has always remained constant is birth/ creation through death/adversity. Too often, the best music, art, literature, cultural growth springs from the depths of human suffering; I think it would do us all a bit of good to remember that.

Here's a list of those movements and individuals who are included in this issue:

Allen Ginsberg

Aldo Leopold

Robert Thurman

Langston Hughes

American Blues

Arrica Rose

DJ Christine Renee

Gill Scott-Heron

Kenneth Anger

JJ Stratford

Harry Smith

Zora Neale-Hurston

Emma Goldman

Noam Chomsky

Winona LaDuke

Hip Hop

Mexican Americans

Punk Rock

ARP

Disco

If you happen to pick one of these zines up please feel free to leave a comment about it right here.

GOOP: Gwyneth Paltrow's Positively Practical Web Page

2009-02-27T20:44:00.000-08:00

I was perusing The Huffington Post this evening where I spotted an article regarding Gwyneth Paltrow's defense of her Web Page GOOP:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/02/26/gwyneth-paltrow-defends-g_n_170241.html

So of course I had to check GOOP out as I was beginning to think that perhaps she had lost her marbles or something. I was expecting to see frontal nudity or worse!

The first question that came to mind after checking out some good tips on healthy cleansing options, which included easy to make recipes for meals and things like smoothies, was: Why is the media picking on a woman who is taking the time out of her busy schedule to kick down some very practical and positive advice to whomever might be interested? As I perused on I read about things to do internationally, current art exhibitions, good books, advice on clothes, tips on parenting, and my favorite, she asked a group of philosophers from varying religious/philosphical backgrounds this fantastic question:

I have a friend who sees the world in a pessimistic light. This person is highly suspicious of people and situations, and sees, as well as experiences negativity at most turns. Why is this and what does it mean? What can be done to help someone of this nature?

To which, the likes of Deepak Chopra, replied!

And if none of the above shocked the shit out of you...check this out:

You can sign up for the weekly newsletter http://goop.com/

Gwyneth Paltrow is an intelligent woman who seems to pull from various spiritual/philosophical belief systems most of which includes ideas of connectedness, kindness, sharing, being grateful for what one has, and realizing that there are many individuals who may not be as fortunate; she is sharing some of the information that she has amassed over the years and she is doing it with kindness and honesty. So haters need to step off!

Mike Stilkey

2009-02-24T15:45:00.000-08:00

Fecal Face has a really great Mike Stilkey interview which includes a lot of photos of Mike's work and his new studio:

http://www.fecalface.com/SF/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1428

For information on upcoming exhibitions:

http://www.mikestilkey.com/

Flux Screening Series @ UCLA Hammer Museum

2009-02-18T12:27:00.000-08:00

The first Flux Screening Series event of the new year is filled with exciting new films including the World Premiere of the collaborative film project PSST! 3, never-before-seen NASA videos from Logan and Three Legged Legs and the just completed Become a Microscope - 90 Statements on Sister Corita. DJ Josh Marcy (Mophonics) will be rocking the Hammer courtyard.

Program highlights include: World Premiere: PSST! 3, a collaborative new film project featuring shorts by a worldwide network of designers, directors, animators, and composers. PSST! founder and curator Bran Dougherty-Johnson will be in attendance to present the films. PSST! 3 is a brand-new series of 17 original collaborative short films made over the last year by over 175 participants in cities worldwide, including: New York, Los Angeles, Portland, Seattle, Atlanta, Nashville, London, Glasgow, Paris, Vilnius, Amsterdam, Berlin, Dublin, and Copenhagen. World Premiere: NASA music video A Volta directed by Logan in collaboration with The Date Farmers. World Premiere: NASA music video Gifted featuring Kayne West, Santogold and Lykke Li, directed by Three Legged Legs. special screening of Become a Microscope - 90 Statements on Sister Corita: an innovative new short film from Beautiful Losers director Aaron Rose with music by Money Mark. The 22 minute film tells the story of Sister Mary Corita, the California nun who captured the national imagination in the turbulent 60s by making art that influenced a generation of Americans. Flux Screening Series Wednesday February 25th 7PM - Box Office opens and Pre-screening Reception. Hammer Cafe and Bar will be open. 8PM - Screening and Filmmaker Presentations 9:30PM-11PM - After-party with guest DJs. Hammer Cafe and Bar will be open. Free Admission, RSVP Suggested (flux.net/rsvp) Hammer Museum Billy Wilder Theater 10899 Wilshire Blvd. Los Angeles, CA 90024 *Seating is first come, first served. RSVPs do not guarantee seating. Box office opens at 7PM. The new HAMMER CAFE will be selling food and drinks all night.

Memo to Obama Transition Team: Home-Run Policies for Small Business

2009-02-18T12:04:00.000-08:00

Now that the street cleaners have finally swept up the signs, flags, confetti and other debris left by the millions who came for the inaugural last week, we can finally return to the critical issues of policy. I'm pleased to report that the Obama Transition Team asked us to join their teams working on sustainable business and socially responsible investment. What will become of our recommendations, I don't know, but the fact we were invited to share our view – and that key policymakers in the administration were listening – represented a huge sea-change.

Below is the memo we submitted, incorporating many of the points you've seen on this blog over the past six months. We welcome your input. Let us know what you think, and what else you would add to this wish list.

***
A credible "jolt" for the U.S. economy requires, first and foremost, boosting small businesses. Small businesses make up roughly half the private economy and create 60-80 percent of all new jobs.

Moreover, the locally owned character of nearly all small businesses makes them better contributors to community and economic development than most large businesses are. Because locally owned businesses spend substantially more money locally, they typically generate two to four times the economic multiplier benefit for their communities as do nonlocal businesses. A growing literature shows that local businesses are also more reliable promoters of tourism, social equality, entrepreneurship, carbon-dioxide reductions, political participation, and "creative economy" benefits.

Given this, we recommend that the Obama Administration appoint a blue ribbon commission charged with identifying public policy obstacles to the expansion of local and small business, and laying out new, low-cost opportunities for the federal government to expand local business. Here are some of the low-hanging-fruit possibilities we believe such a commission would highlight.

* Balance Federal Support for Small Business – We believe there is a need to overhaul a wide range of programs giving grants, loans, loan guarantees, tax breaks, and other special benefits to business, since nearly all these programs are tilted toward larger business, and thereby place small business at a competitive disadvantage. It should be a high priority of the Obama Administration to end federal subsidies that favor centralized electrical generation stations over micropower and efficiency, centralized fossil fuels over decentralized renewables, factory over family farms, large-scale manufacturing over microbusiness. The tilt of the current and proposed stimulus programs, including those labeled "Green," ought to be reset accordingly. For example, at least half of all funds given to troubled financial institutions should go to small community banks and credit unions.

* Revise Subsidy Procedures – For business subsidies that remain, uniform procedures should be developed to make these programs more accountable and ensure local businesses have a fair shot at competing for them. These rules should also include: a) uniform, web-based public disclosure requirements that indicate how much beneficiary companies received, how many jobs were produced for how many years, and b) clawback provisions for companies that fail to fulfill their promises. (A full elaboration of these ideas is at the Good Jobs First website.)

* Enact Securities Reform – While there is a clear need for greater regulatory oversight of large-scale financial institutions, there is actually a need for less oversight of smaller ones. For these smaller institutions, the existing regulatory regime has essentially wiped out small-business stock issues. We recommend the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) consider excluding from regulation all small securities (<$100) that link unaccredited investors with microbusinesses and all intrastate stock exchanges that trade such securities. This would enormously boost the availability of local capital to start and expand local businesses with the greatest economic development potential. It will also free up SEC resources to focus on bigger institutions like hedge funds that have been under regulated. Additional reforms should make it easier for cooperatives, mutual funds, and retirement funds to invest in microbusiness. To speed these reforms, one home-run policy to implement is a tax credit for any individual investment in microbusiness. Your campaign policy papers argued for a 20 percent credit for investments up to $50,000 in rural microbusinesses, and we encourage you to extend this credit to all microbusinesses, rural and urban...

http://www.small-mart.org/obama-policy-recommendations

Conservatives Have a Point: Michael Shuman Reacts to Economic Stimulus Bill

2009-02-18T11:55:00.000-08:00

I'm afraid I agree with Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, and nearly all the congressional Republicans that the pork in the approved "stimulus bill" is nauseating. It takes the worst ideas in economic development – massive payouts to government white elephant projects and gigantic incentives to attract, retain or otherwise bribe global corporations – and puts them on steroids. I'm not condemning every line in the package, but the careless and thoughtless way this bill was assembled, packaged, and shoved through Congress ought to give small-mart advocates pause about the priorities of the new administration.

I'm not against a stimulus, per se, and here I do part company with many conservatives. I agree with John Maynard Keynes, perhaps the greatest economist of the 20th century, that when private purchasing peters out, the public sector ought to step in, borrow, and spend. It's like a defibrillating shock to a heart that stopped beating – necessary emergency treatment.

But whatever stimulus this legislation induces will be accidental, not intentional. Ultimately, stimulus in any state or community requires a strong economic multiplier. Core to the local economy movement is an understanding that economic development works best when it maximizes the local circulation of spending. One reason we "Think Local First" is that locally owned businesses spend more of their money locally. Nonlocal businesses re-spend money willy-nilly across the planet, not targeted within a community, and therefore have weaker multipliers. And white elephant projects, like highways, are usually characterized by big contracts with nonlocal contractors, plus they are frequently tainted by the inefficiency and corruption.

Let me be clear: There are important and long-neglected priorities in the country that government spending should address. I would like to see, for example, more spending on repairing infrastructure and on energy efficiency. But the stimulus impact of such spending requires local entrepreneurs.

Where Are Local Businesses?
There is nothing in the stimulus package to assure that federal funds will be spent on small, locally owned businesses. The more likely prospect is that "green jobs" initiatives will be led by Monsanto, General Electric, and Bechtel. Indeed, the Chicago Tribune just editorialized that stimulus ought to include the spread of Wal-Mart stores throughout the city.

If the stimulus package is implemented like economic development usually is, the last beneficiaries will be local business. We're about to release the results of a two-year research project, funded by the Kellogg Foundation, on the local business priorities of the top three economic development programs in 15 rural states. In all, we studied 84 program-years. In only eight of those program-years – about ten percent – was a simple majority of funds spent on locally owned business. Ninety percent of the programs spent most of their funds on nonlocal business, in many cases well over ninety percent of the funds.

Economic development today invests in big businesses least likely to stimulate local economies. And it does this, despite the fact that local businesses account for roughly half of local economies, in terms of jobs and output (an even greater percentage of the rural economies that we studied).

More reasonable conservatives, who appreciate that government can sometimes play a positive role in fixing a broken economy, lobbied for the current package to have more tax cuts and less spending. They argued that cuts in personal taxes – like payroll taxes, placed primarily on working Americans – would put more money in the economy more quickly than the megaprojects put forward by the Democrats. Frankly, they have a point...

http://www.small-mart.org/stimulus-bill

Good Hair

2009-02-17T22:31:00.000-08:00

When Chris Rock’s daughter, Lola, came up to him crying and asked, “Daddy, how come I don’t have good hair?” the bewildered comic committed himself to search the ends of the earth and the depths of black culture to find out who had put that question into his little girl's head! Director Jeff Stilson’s camera followed the funnyman, and the result is Good Hair, a wonderfully insightful and entertaining, yet remarkably serious, documentary about African American hair culture.An exposé of comic proportions that only Chris Rock could pull off, Good Hair visits hair salons and styling battles, scientific laboratories, and Indian temples to explore the way black hairstyles impact the activities, pocketbooks, sexual relationships, and self-esteem of black people. Celebrities such as Ice-T, Kerry Washington, Nia Long, Paul Mooney, Raven Symoné, Maya Angelou, and Reverend Al Sharpton all candidly offer their stories and observations to Rock while he struggles with the task of figuring out how to respond to his daughter’s question. What he discovers is that black hair is a big business that doesn’t always benefit the black community and little Lola’s question might well be bigger than his ability to convince her that the stuff on top of her head is nowhere near as important as what is inside.

http://festival.sundance.org/2009/film_events/films/good_hair

Right America: Feeling Wronged

2009-02-17T22:19:00.000-08:00

On the day Barack Obama was elected the 44th President, more than 58 million voters cast their ballots for John McCain. In the months leading up to this historic election, filmmaker Alexandra Pelosi (HBO's Emmy®-winning "Journeys with George") took a road trip to meet some of the conservative Americans who waited in line for hours to support the GOP ticket, and saw their hopes and dreams evaporate in the wake of that Democratic victory. These voters share their feelings about the changing America in which they live.

http://www.hbo.com/docs/programs/rightamerica/index.html

The Bordello Bar: The Fold in Bordello

2009-02-12T18:32:00.001-08:00

The Mirror Portrait

Whispertown

Lady Bordello

Orenda Fink via mirror reflection

The Lovely Stephanie Drootin leading Tin Kite

Stephanie Drootin of Tin Kite

Arrica Rose & The ...'s

2009-02-12T17:16:00.000-08:00

I went to the Bordello Bar last night where I ran into an acquaintance who I hadn't seen in years...Arrica Rose is a song writer, musician, artist who is also co-founder and executive director of the Indie-Rock Outreach, I Heart, a non-profit organization that brings together musicians and artists for the purpose of:

I Heart is an incorporated 501(c)(3) non-profit organization. Our ultimate aim is to empower local artists and their communities by encouraging the artists to use the resources at their disposal (their creativity and their fanbase) to help raise money for local charitable organizations. In the process of raising awareness and much needed funds we also intend to expose the participating artists to new fans as well as fellow artists who are utilizing their creativity to inspire change locally and globally.

http://www.iheartinc.com/ourmission.cfm

To hear Arrica & the ...'s who happen to be playing tomorrow evening at Zoey's in Ventura 8.00PM

http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewProfile&friendID=5251797

Invisible Tree House by Tham & Videgard Hansson

2009-02-10T22:14:00.000-08:00

http://www.treehugger.com/files/2009/02/swedish-mirrored-treehouse.php

It is an old architectural trick used since the invention of mirrored glass: covering buildings with the reflective material and declaring that they blend in with the surroundings. Most architects use it to convince wary citizens that it is OK if their building is tall because it will reflect the sky and nature. The rendering always makes the building disappear, and the reality is always a big clunky mirrored box.

But a mirrored box can be elegant, too, such as this treehouse by Swedish firm Tham & Videgard Hansson Arkitekter. TreeHugger loves treehouses (see our roundup of them here) when they are designed to minimize impact on the surrounding landscape. And in this case, it looks like the architects have pulled it off successfully.

Orenda Fink & Stephanie Drootin @ The Fold in Bordello

2009-02-10T21:48:00.000-08:00

ORENDA FINK & Stephanie Drootin

Orenda Fink also known as one half of Georgia\'s Azure Ray, Orenda emerges on her first solo release as a new musical treasure. She\'s inspired, bold, perceptive and real, and Invisible Ones soars with unassuming brilliance. Engineered by Andy LeMaster (Now It\'s Overhead) and co-produced by Andy LeMaster and Orenda Fink. Featuring appearances by Todd Fink (The Faint), Scott Amendola, Dave Sitek (TV On The Radio), Martin Perna (Antibalas), Dan McCarthy (Mayday and McCarthy Trenching), Nate Walcott (Bright Eyes, The Faint, Rilo Kiley), Patterson Hood (Drive-By Truckers), and Rozna Zila and Sandy M. Saint-Cyr (Troupe Macandal).

The Fold in Bordello (MAP)
901 E. 1st Street
Los Angeles, CA
US 90012

Wed February 11,2009
$10
Doors 8.00PM
Show 9.00PM

Titicut Follies

2009-02-10T21:20:00.000-08:00

Time certainly changes the viewing experience of any film, but especially so in the case of Frederick Wiseman's first documentary, which editorially chronicles the facilities and the patients at a state-run treatment center. In the mid-1960s, MCI-Bridgewater held a wide range of detainees and patients, some deemed “criminally insane” and others “sexually dangerous”. Despite the sensitive treatment these inmates required, the center was nevertheless run – at the time – by the Department of Corrections, not the Department of Mental Health. (1)

The film's initial production in 1967 quickly brought controversy: consent procedures were called into question, as were the ethics of both the first-time filmmaker and his political cronies, and finally, legal definitions of terms like 'privacy' and 'obscenity' (the State tried to restrict the film's exhibition based partially on the grounds that the film showed male frontal nudity). Titicut Follies became at once a hot topic for newspapers, a useful document for rights activists (as well as for students of documentary), and a deeply sensitive issue for the families personally involved.

But now, in 2002, Wiseman has made over 30 films and is generally regarded to be one of the most unique and stylistically uncompromising documentary filmmakers. Unaffiliated with any school of filming (or indeed with any film school), Wiseman has steadfastly pursued a completely individualized style of production, ranking him with the great auteurs and filmic innovators in cinema history. Discussions of Titicut Follies used to be more about the patients – should their rights of privacy be protected, did Wiseman violate those rights, how the issue of consent is complicated when competency can't be established, and so on. Now, with the most pressing legal suits in the film's past, and with many of the patients pictured now deceased, the film becomes more our chance to see the seeds of Wiseman's style at their rawest roots.

Wiseman's camera is deceptively passive, deceptively silent. An understandable but inappropriate impression is that it merely sits back and watches. In Titicut Follies, patients are stripped and humiliated by boorish guards operating under questionable government policy, and Wiseman's camera keeps rolling. It enters a session between a doctor interviewing an inmate, who admits to molesting his own daughter. It takes us inside the morgue as Bridgewater's embalmer prepares a body for burial. To what degree is Wiseman's camera brave for recording and presenting events we'll otherwise never see? And to what degree is it cold, or voyeuristic? Which events does it passively record, and which does it catalyze?

For instance, a patient named Jim is taunted relentlessly by a guard abusing his authority. Naked and being led through the halls – followed by Wiseman's camera – Jim is put further in a position of inferiority when placed in a barber's chair, loomed over by multiple officers, shaved roughly (perhaps even being cut purposefully), and taunted all the way back to his empty cell, bleeding and covering his genitals. But when the guards finally give out, appearing to leave Jim alone, Wiseman keeps going. His camera stands in the doorway of Jim's cell, rolling on, watching, giving Jim no respite, effectively continuing his harassment while simultaneously exposing it. The viewer is put in an extremely uncomfortable position, forced to react multiply to varying stimuli – Jim's disgustingly inappropriate cell, off-camera guards restarting their psychological torment, Jim's tantrum in response. Wiseman's camera (by implication, the viewer), stands at the doorway and watches.

http://archive.sensesofcinema.com/contents/cteq/01/19/titicut.html

LUST 4 LACE: MY BLOODY VALENTINE

2009-02-10T20:57:00.000-08:00

LACE celebrates another Valentine's Day with its notorious annual fundraising event, Lust 4 LACE! Join us on Friday the 13th at 8PM for an appropriately ghoulish bash among friends and lovers in Lust 4 LACE: My Bloody Valentine.

Shoghig Halajian, Franco Castilla, and Robert Crouch of the LACE team have organized an evening to celebrate the grand tradition of years past. Let loose with a performance and participatory “Dance Class” by Sir Heffington, a video screening curated by Darin Klein, curator of the current exhibition Christopher Russell at the Hammer Museum, videos by Kelly Sears, Trulee Grace Hall, Nathan Budde, Cindy Rehm, Dino Dinco, Weston Currie, Cathy Begien, Zachary Drucker, Rhys Ernst, Adrian Cruz, Kanako Wynkoop, Anjali Prasertong, Paul Mpagi Sepuya and Mores McWreath, DJ sets by Alejandro Cohen (Dublab), Total Freedom (Wildness) and Maki (KXLU), a zine table, and more! Costumes are highly encouraged.

Schedule of Events
8pm- Video screening curated by Darin Klein
9pm- DJ set by Alejandro Cohen (of Dublab)
9:45pm- Performance and "Dance Class" by Sir Heffington.
10:30pm- DJ set by Total Freedom (of Wildness)
11:15pm - DJ set by Maki (of KXLU)
* KOGI BBQ will be parked out front and serving food all night.
Find out more about KOGI BBQ on LAWeekly and CBS.

Past years’ events have featured Jordan Biren, Dino Dinco, Zachary Drucker, Martin Durazo, Micol Hebron, Tyler Hubby, Bryan Jackson, Kadet Kuhne, Lauren Lavitt, Eva Posey, Dustin Robertson, Margie Schnibbe, Mark Cosmo Segurson, Vena Virago, Austin Young, Carlos Zamora, and more.

All proceeds benefit LACE programs.

$10

Friday Feb 13 (8pm)

Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions (6522 Hollywood Blvd)
323.957.1777

http://www.artleak.org/current.html#Lust4Lace

Hothouse Flowers: New works by Ian O'phelan

2009-02-10T20:50:00.000-08:00

Ian O’Phelan (b. 1982, a Pisces) hails from Toledo, OH. He graduated from the University of Cincinnati, where he pursued a Frankenstein curriculum of fine art and graphic design classes. Mr. O’Phelan currently lives and works in Los Angeles, CA.

“I think of my artwork as a meandering study and description of natural objects. My portfolio, an ever growing Wunderkammer, is a collection of the ironic and the sentimental. It provides a means of reconciling a bubbling unconscious spiritualism with the mundanities of daily life.”

Hothouse Flowers

This upcoming exhibition is a collection of drawings and collage which capture the outgrowth of the transcendental in a world of banalities. Stills from cartoons and commercials burst forth with bouquets of fresh cut flowers. Parking tickets and porn provide the rich compost for new growth. Featuring O'Phelan's unique linework this show revels in human mark making in an era of computer rendering. In eager anticipation for spring, Hothouse Flowers opens...

FREE

Opens Thursday Feb 12 (7pm–midnight)
Feb 12 – Mar 2
Mondays–Fridays (9am–6pm)
Saturdays–Sundays (1–6pm)

Ghettogloss (2380 Glendale Blvd)
323.912.0008

http://www.ghettogloss.com/events/

BMW Art Cars @ LACMA

2009-02-10T20:32:00.000-08:00

The Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) presents an installation of BMW Art Cars designed by Andy Warhol, Frank Stella, Roy Lichtenstein, and Robert Rauschenberg from February 12-24, 2009. The cars will be on view in the BP Grand Entrance, an admission-free area of the museum's campus. LACMA is the first U.S. venue in a major worldwide tour of the cars; they next appear in New York City's historic Grand Central Terminal, March 25-April 7, before heading to a three-city museum tour in Mexico.

"We are pleased that the BMW Art Cars have returned to LACMA. The David Hockney car was on exhibition as part of David Hockney: A Drawing Retrospective in 1996 and we are eager to welcome this wider selection by some of the world's most celebrated artists to the museum," said Michael Govan, LACMA CEO and Wallis Annenberg Director.

Never-before-seen footage of the four cars will also be on display, complementing the presentation. The videos reveal a young Warhol constructing his car, Frank Stella and Robert Rauschenberg discussing their inspirations and influences in creating their respective pieces, and various experts including Hervé Poulain, the race car driver and initiator of the Art Car Project, discussing the resulting impact of these works.

"Art, architecture, and design are very important to our daily business," said Chris Bangle, BMW Chief Designer. "We are proud that some of the most respected artists in the world have interpreted their thoughts and their points of view through our cars. It is an interesting and inspiring process and we always look forward to the moment an artist draws the curtain."

FREE
Feb 12–24
Los Angeles County Museum of Art (5905 Wilshire Blvd)
323.857.6000

The Garden Party @ Edgar Varela Fine Arts

2009-02-10T20:25:00.000-08:00

Nice way to end LA's downtown art walk this Thursday. Music, Art, Fashion, Fun.

$5

Thursday Feb 12 (9:30pm–2am)

Edgar Varela Fine Arts (542 S Alameda St, 2nd Floor)
213.494.7608

http://www.edgarvarelafinearts.com/

HOMOtracker: I'm With Cupid

2009-02-10T20:14:00.000-08:00

It's so lame, but I love Valentine's Day. I prefer not going all Hallmark, but it's fun to use the day as an excuse to show extra, extra love and appreciation! Oh yeah! I almost forgot about the amazing sex that you're supposed to have with your significant other or a complete stranger depending on your situation...

http://www.homotracker.org/

Sign It

2009-02-05T23:20:00.000-08:00

Dear MoveOn member,

Last Friday, Sen. Claire McCaskill took to the Senate floor and said what I imagine a lot of us have been thinking about Wall Street lately:
"They don't get it. These people are idiots. You can't use taxpayer money to pay out $18 billion in bonuses...What planet are these people on?"1 Sen. McCaskill was reacting to the $18.4 billion in bonuses that Wall Street bankers took home in 2008. $18.4 billion going to the people who crippled our economy with their recklessness and greed and then took $700 billion of our money.2

Yesterday, President Obama took an important first step, limiting pay at companies taking bailouts going forward.3 But Congress is considering going even further, applying the limits retroactively and even taking back some of the most extravagant bonuses at firms that took taxpayer money.4

A huge public outcry will give them momentum and push them to real action. Can you sign this petition to Congress, urging them to act now to rein in Wall Street greed? Clicking here will add your name:
http://pol.moveon.org/bonus/o.pl?id=15503-8941608-7DJiRPx&t=3

The petition says: "Congress must place enforceable, common-sense limits on salaries at all the banks that have taken taxpayer dollars."

Wall Street's defenders make all kinds of excuses about why the bonuses were justified. They say that bonuses are an accepted part of compensation packages on Wall Street, that those receiving bonuses weren't the ones who lost their firms billions of dollars, and that they need to pay bonuses to retain top talent.5

Those arguments are outrageous.If automatic bonuses are a part of Wall Street culture, that culture has to change—a firm that's still afloat only because of huge taxpayer bailouts shouldn't be paying bonuses. And while tens of thousands of Wall Street employees are losing their jobs, it's hard to believe that those still employed will go looking for new positions because they didn't get a bonus.

Sen. McCaskill showed courage standing up to the status quo. We've got to show the rest of Congress that this is the kind of leadership we need to get us out of this crisis and make the economy work for all Americans. Limiting pay at companies taking bailouts won't fix our financial system—that will take a lot more hard work—but it's an important first step.
Can you tell Congress to rein in Wall Street's excesses now and then pass this petition on to your friends? Clicking here will add your name:
http://pol.moveon.org/bonus/o.pl?id=15503-8941608-7DJiRPx&t=4
Thanks for all you do.

Contact

2009-02-05T23:07:00.000-08:00

"Remember Karma"

Karma is the law of moral causation. The theory of Karma is a fundamental doctrine in Buddhism. This belief was prevalent in India before the advent of the Buddha. Nevertheless, it was the Buddha who explained and formulated this doctrine in the complete form in which we have it today.

In this world nothing happens to a person that he does not for some reason or other deserve. Usually, men of ordinary intellect cannot comprehend the actual reason or reasons. The definite invisible cause or causes of the visible effect is not necessarily confined to the present life, they may be traced to a proximate or remote past birth.

According to Buddhism, this inequality is due not only to heredity, environment, "nature and nurture", but also to Karma. In other words, it is the result of our own past actions and our own present doings. We ourselves are responsible for our own happiness and misery. We create our own Heaven. We create our own Hell. We are the architects of our own fate.

http://209.85.173.132/search?q=cache:GYDm7_LdvycJ:www.buddhanet.net/e-learning/karma.htm+karma&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=2&gl=us

One Bad Cat

2009-02-05T22:46:00.000-08:00

http://www.documentary.org/content/video/2031

Bruce Conner @ The Redcat (Film)

2009-02-03T19:37:00.000-08:00

Bruce Conner's Explosive Cinema: A Tribute, Part 2

"Bruce Conner's ecstatic films... are a blast--witty, exuberant, despairing, engaged, apocalyptic." The New York Times

Influential maestro of found footage Bruce Conner (1933-2008) was often described as the father of MTV-style editing. His reply: "Don't blame me!" An artist of explosive intensity and enigmatic allure, Conner displayed a legendary mastery of assemblage, drawing, collage and film. At once voluptuous and razor-edged, Conner's compact, cinematic bombs are an inspired mix of heartfelt meditation and tragicomic political satire. Surveying the filmmaker's work over a 50-year span, the program includes A Movie (1958, 12 min.), Marilyn Times Five (1973, 14 min.), Permian Strata (1969, 4 min.), Mea Culpa (1981, 4 min.), Looking for Mushrooms (1967, 3 min.), Looking for Mushrooms (1996 version, 15 min.), Report (1967, 13 min.), Television Assassination (1995, 14 min.), Take the 5:10 to Dreamland (1977, 5 min.), Valse Triste (1977, 5 min.) and Easter Morning (2008, 10 min., DV).

In person: Dennis Hopper, longtime Conner friend and co-conspirator, and guest of honor Jean Conner

Mon 3.02.09 8:30 pm $9 $7 $5

http://redcat.org/season/0809/fv/conner.php

Klaus Schulze

2009-02-03T19:35:00.001-08:00

http://www.klaus-schulze.com/welcome.htm

Pearl Fryar

2009-02-02T21:46:00.000-08:00

Pearl Fryar began work on the 3 acre garden in 1984 in an effort to win "Yard of the Month" for his home on the outskirts of Bishopville, SC. The well-manicured, sculptural plant forms that comprise Fryar's living vision of peace, love and goodwill often times began as salvaged seedlings from a local nursery. Recognized by art and botanical enthusiasts, the visually whimsical garden is maintained year-round by Fryar for visitors from around the world. The Friends of Pearl Fryar's Topiary Garden has been organized to help care for and preserve the garden and assist Pearl as he educates and inspires others to achieve their creative potential.

Please click the links on the side to learn more about the artist - Pearl Fryar

http://www.fryarstopiaries.com/subtemp.asp?cat=1&id=1

Teaism is Taoism in Disguise

2009-01-27T22:17:00.000-08:00

The following is an excerpt from the book Liquid Jade: The Story of Tea from East to West by Beatrice Hohenegger:

The concept of the immortal soul was a natural extension of Taoist views. Finding anything that could help reach immortality was a central pursuit of Taoist alchemy. And because Taoists believed that it was impossible for a soul to reach immortality if the body was not healthy, physical well-being became an essential element of spirituality. The ancient Taoist notion of integrating mind, body, and spirit for good health is one of the main foundations of Chinese medicine to this day. When the first healers discovered tea they marveled at the multitude of benefits this magical plant appeared to offer. It kept them alert, it healed their wounds, it was an invaluable food complement, and it was a beverage safer than water. Tea was so universally good, for the body’s energy and vitality and also for the spirit, that Taoist alchemists believed they had found the answer to their search. Tea became their ingredient for eternal life…

…According to an old Taoist story, even Lao-tzu, the father of Taoism and alleged author of the widely read Tao-te ching, is seen with a cup if tea in his hand before departing this world. When Lao-tzu was a very old man, he saw that his wisdom was ignored by the people and started walking away toward the West. When he arrived at the Han Pass, he found one of his disciples, Yin Hsi, waiting for him. Yin Hsi told Lao-tzu that he had been waiting for a long time. He offered his master a cup of tea and persuaded him to stop for awhile and write down his teachings, which became the Tao-te ching.

In addition to the profound insight imparted by this sacred book, the meeting at the Han Pass is also credited as the origin of one of the friendliest and most common gestures in Chinese households: the offering of a cup of tea to a guest as a sign of hospitality. This is a Taoist act, complete in its simplicity.

http://www.amazon.com/Liquid-Jade-Story-East-West/dp/0312333285

David Denby: Snark @ Vroman's Bookstore

2009-01-27T15:02:00.000-08:00

Vroman's Bookstore (695 E Colorado Blvd)
626.449.5320
Thursday Feb 5 (7pm)
Free

New York Times bestselling author and The New Yorker writer David Denby takes on the snarkers. He traces snark’s history all the way to ancient Athens, identifies the nine principles of snark, and presents his argument against it and the way it's used (really overused) today.

http://www.vromansbookstore.com/event/david-denby

Porno & I'll Be There With You (Film)

2009-01-27T14:50:00.000-08:00

Downtown Independent Theatre (251 S Main St)

$5 / $8 double feature

Jan 23–29
Daily (schedule)

I’LL BE THERE WITH YOU

It’s a standard B-movie horror setup: A group of young, attractive friends take a road trip to an isolated setting for a vacation filled with sex and booze. Toss in a demented groundskeeper and a trio of escaped convicts, and let the fun begin. Writer-director Akihiro Kitamura stirs the formula with hard-turn plot twists, animated demons that haunt characters’ dreams (but also make blink-of-an-eye appearances during waking hours), a stylish burlesque show, and — most importantly — off-kilter humor that’s at once frat-boy silly and David Lynch–absurd. At the center of the madness are Aki (Kitamura) and his girlfriend, Annie (Adarsha Benjamin), whose relationship flux is fueled by Aki’s commitment phobia. Along for the ride is Aki’s best friend, Yabu (Daisuke Yabuci), a guy of dubious sexuality whose subtitled Japanese conversations with Aki prove to be a major plot device. As the film unfolds along genre tropes, intermingling sex and violence, repeating but then upending the obligatory depiction of female victimization, it becomes darker and knowingly sillier. Low-budget but slickly crafted, and decently acted by its multiracial ensemble, I’ll Be There with You hums with wittily orchestrated ideas, including its own contribution to the reams of academic sociopolitical readings of horror flicks: the radical positioning of the Asian male as a vibrantly sexual being. (Downtown Independent) (Ernest Hardy)

http://www.laweekly.com/2009-01-22/film-tv/movie-reviews-growing-out-the-lodger-underworld-rise-of-the-lycans/

The Integratron

2009-01-26T21:28:00.000-08:00

George Van Tassel, creator of the Integratron, was a legendary figure, an aeronautical engineer and test pilot who worked for Lockheed, Douglas Aircraft and alongside Howard Hughes at Hughes Aviation . He was also one of the leaders in the UFO movement who held annual "Spacecraft Conventions" at Giant Rock for 25 years. Van Tassel said UFO channelings and ideas from scientists such as Nikola Tesla led to the unique architecture of the Integratron. He spent 18 years constructing the building.

In 1947, after an exemplary career in aviation, Van Tassel moved his family to Giant Rock in the Mojave Desert near Landers, California and opened Giant Rock Airport and a cafe called The Come On Inn. He leased four square miles of land from the government, including Giant Rock, a 7-story high, freestanding boulder formerly sacred to the Native Americans who lived in the area.

Van Tassel learned of Giant Rock from Frank Critzer, a prospector and desert dweller, who had excavated under the massive boulder to construct a dwelling of several small rooms protected from the fierce sun. Critzer had been killed in a explosion of the dynamite he kept stored in his rooms, the circumstances of which are still a mystery. The gutted rooms became storage for the Van Tassel family, but they slept outside the Rock and during the day tended the airport and their small cafe.

George Van Tassel began conducting weekly meditation sessions in 1953 in the rooms underneath Giant Rock which, he claimed, led to UFO contacts and finally to an actual encounter with extra-terrestrials when, in August of that year, a saucer landed from the plant Venus, woke Van Tassel up and invited him onto the ship. There the aliens gave him the technique for rejuvenating living cell tissues. In 1954 he and his family began building a structure they called The Integratron to perform the rejuvenation. George described his creation this way, "The Integratron is a machine, a high-voltage electrostatic generator that would supply a broad range of frequencies to recharge the cell structure."

His annual Spacecraft Conventions were attended by tens of thousands across two decades, featuring speakers that included high profile UFO contactees and pioneers in the fields of antigravity, primary energy research and electromagnetics. Van Tassel led weekly meditations in the rooms under the rock from the 1950's to the 1970's, which he claimed led to UFO contacts.

The family hosted their UFO conventions at Giant Rock for almost 20 years to raise money for the Integratron project and asked supporters for donations. In 1959, 11,000 people attended the spacecraft convention, and Van Tassel continued to work on the Integratron while writing a number of books on time travel and rejuvenation. Van Tassel died suddenly in 1978, after which the buildings at Giant Rock were vacated and gradually vandalized until the Bureau of Land Management found it necesary to bulldoze the remains.

Today, the Integratron, with its amazing architecture, sound chamber and high energy, still stands and is maintained by a group that offers public tours, special events, "Sound Baths," and rentals of the property to a variety of groups spanning many interests. Many visitors experience the Integratron as a very powerful vortex for physical and spiritual healing. Scientists who study the building call it "a mass battery" and a "magnetic room."

http://integratron.com/Welcome.html

Paul Shambroom: Picturing Power

2009-01-26T20:04:00.000-08:00

January 22 – April 5, 2009 [closed March 17-24 for private event]

Jan 29 Members Preview 5-6 PM: Gallery talk with Paul Shambroom and curators Christopher Scoates + Diane Mullin, Associate Curator, Weisman Art Museum, University of Minnesota

Public Reception 6-8 PM

Feb 10 UAM@noon 12:15 - 1 PM
Gallery talk with Christopher Scoates

Paul Shambroom: Picturing Power is the first exhibition to bring together selections from all five of Shambroom’s most important–and highly acclaimed–series to date: Factories (1986-1988), Offices (1989-1990), Nuclear Weapons (1992-2001), Meetings (1999-2003), and Security (2004-current). Shambroom, who lives and works in Minneapolis, has made an indelible mark on the landscapes of photography and political discourse. His series-based color photographs reveal both local and global manifestations of power, depicting scenes in industrial, business, community, and military environments. The exhibition is accompanied by a publication produced by the Weisman Art Museum, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis; with essays by Stuart Horodner, Diane Mullin, Christopher Scoates, Helena Reckitt, and Dick Hebdige.

MUSEUM HOURS
Tuesday - Sunday 12-5 PM, Thursday 12-8 PM. Closed Monday.
Paul Shambroom Picturing Power will be closed March 17-24, 2009 for a private event in the museum.
UAM is closed for all University holidays - please check the web site for updated information.
Entrance fee $4.00; Free to UAM members and CSULB students, faculty and staff.

University Art Museum, College of the Arts California State University Long Beach
1250 Bellflower Boulevard
Long Beach, CA 90840
Telephone: 562.985.5761

http://www.csulb.edu/org/uam/curr_exhib.html

Lou

2009-01-22T22:57:00.000-08:00

Some women make me wish that I had a penis and their phone number, Lou Doillon is one of them. And not just when she's naked.

Christian Jankowski @ Regen Projects (Art)

2009-01-19T20:01:00.000-08:00

Regen Projects
633 N. Almont Drive
Los Angeles, CA 90069
Tel. (310) 276-5424
Fax. (310) 276-7430
www.regenprojects.com

CHRISTIAN JANKOWSKI
Above All I'm an Art Lover
January 31, 2009 - February 28, 2009

Regen Projects II
9016 Santa Monica Boulevard (at Almont Drive)
Gallery Hours: Tuesday-Saturday, 10 am - 6 pm
Opening Reception: Saturday, January 31, 6 - 8 pm

Regen Projects is pleased to present Above All I'm an Art Lover, an exhibition of work by German artist Christian Jankowski. Conceptually based, his projects blur the boundaries between fiction and reality, often involving a dialogue with a specific social environment. Defying conventional notions of media and performance, Jankowski's past collaborators include magicians, fortunetellers and Customs guards. Exploring the position of the artist, he welcomes what is often a spontaneous or unexpected development as a result of his collaborations. Consequently, participants take on an active role in the work becoming contributors as opposed to subjects, and their association ultimately dictates the development of the work. Combining fictional situations with social interactions, Jankowski is able to create surprising and humorous intersections between popular culture, theatricality and the question of authorship. Employing the media of film and television, he is able to explore the art world and its discourse.

Jankowski's earnest engagement of his medium enables him to recapture art's mystery. His use of a circular mode of production presents a critique of the contemporary relationship between artist and viewer and attempts to break down the speeded-up forms of communication which have worsened our contemporary alienation. In addition, he embeds a strong sense of a human presence in his work through a transformative use of collaboration, humor, the subjective voice and the somewhat naïve manner in which he approaches technology.

An opening reception will take place at the gallery on Saturday, January 31, from 6-8pm. For further information please contact Jennifer Loh, Heather Harmon or Stacy Bengtson at 310-276-5424

Martin Luther King Jr

2009-01-19T15:14:00.000-08:00

We have known humiliation, we have known abusive language, we have been plunged into the abyss of oppression. And we decided to raise up only with the weapon of protest. It is one of the greatest glories of America that we have the right to protest.

If we are arrested every day, if we are exploited every day, don't ever let anyone pull you so low as to hate them. We must use the weapon of love. We must have compassion and understanding for those who hate us. We must realize so many people are taught to hate us that they are not totally responsible for their hate. But we stand in life at midnight, we are always on the threshold of a new dawn.

http://www.amazon.com/Peoples-History-United-States-Present/dp/0060838655/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1232407256&sr=1-1

Mimosa Pale: Giant Vagina on Wheels (Art)

2009-01-17T16:19:00.000-08:00

Artist Mimosa Pale's protest against the innate chauvinism of vehicles...

http://mimosapale.com/index.php

Shinichi Osawa (Music)

2009-01-17T15:00:00.000-08:00

http://www.myspace.com/shinichiosawa

William F. Gibbs (Music)

2009-01-17T14:56:00.000-08:00

http://www.myspace.com/wfgibbs

TerraCycle

2009-01-17T14:12:00.000-08:00

The TerraCycle Story...

...is a tale of ultimate Eco-Capitalism. The company's flagship product, TerraCycle Plant Food™, is an all-natural, all-organic, 'goof-proof' liquid plant food made from waste (worm poop) and packaged in waste (reused soda bottles)!

It all started in 2001 when two Princeton University students set out to change the way people do business. Inspired by a box of worms, these students had a dream: a company could be financially successful while being ecologically and socially responsible.

Co-founders Tom Szaky and Jon Beyer were determined to turn the worm box concept into a real-life, commercially viable process. That summer, they developed prototype equipment and proved their concept was feasible by reprocessing solid waste from dining halls at Princeton University.

[the] story is a reminder about following your dreams. The pot of gold may require dealing with a ton of crap." -- CBS Evening News

http://www.terracycle.net/story.htm

Madre: Demanding Rights, Resources & Results for Women World Wide

2009-01-16T13:23:00.000-08:00

January 2009

Join MADRE's live-bloggers on Inauguration Day, Tuesday, January 20th!

We'll be hosting a lively discussion about our expectations and demands for the future of women's human rights in the Obama administration. Visit our blog during the ceremony, and let us know what you think. What do you want to see from President Obama? How can we work together to advance women's human rights under the new & improved US administration?

Drop by our blog on Tuesday between 11am to 2pm EST and join the discussion!

www.madre.org/mymadre