jeff mills and cat power

Saw Jeff Mills on Sat. night with Duane, shown here, we are ready, awesome techno. the three turntable master. Then I saw Cat Power last night at the Filmore. Amazing. Mills was intense, relentless. I have not heard hardcore techno like that in a while, and dancing like that I see why people resort to chemicals. It is draining and energizing.

CP was talented, quirky, cute, hot, and funny. She dances and acts out her songs in mimish and/or schizo ways. Her connection with the audience reminded me of folky patter but for people who may never go to a folk festival, at least not until they grow out of their alternativo ways. Other non-urban areas are probably more hip in that regard. Great connection. I swear she smiled at me...

I loved almost everything she did, even the snippetes of covers she didn't finish, like White Rabbit by Jefferson Airplane. Her resemblance to Grace Slick and her Mick Jagger impersonation during Satisfaction are...what they are. Cool. Yeah. I was super glad she played The Greatest and also that she played solo guitar and piano. Her band, The Memphis Rhythm Band, was ok. Without her they were not ok. Thankfully they played with her most of the time, which is their purpose on this earth. Everyone was awesome as a musician except maybe one guitarist, and the blase drummer. Awesome trumpet, backup singers, slide guitar. Gotta have that.

loudQuietloud

Aside from continuing my viewing of X-men: Evolution, the animated series, and getting ready to move, and setting up an appointment to get a new tattoo, I saw the following: new documentary about The Pixies called LoudQuietLoud. Very good, playing at the Roxie this week. All about their 2004 reuninon tour. Amazing how messed up they are, especially Kim Deal and the drummer. Joey Santiago the guitarist is oddly normal.

Also last night saw Rob Zombie and Godsmack. Two very strong bands. Highlights of Zombie were his horror film clips and preacher-like oratory. It was the last show of their summer tour. Highlights of the ultra-talented Godsmack include the singer and drummer playing dual drum kits while doing a medley of their favorite classic rock songs: at one point they conducted a singalong of Black Sabbath's War Pigs! Very appropriate indeed.

looking to move soon

due to getting a new landlord who wants to make some money by evicting us, I am now looking for an apartment or room to share in san francisco.  I would love to live with creative people and have space to work on my painting and sculpture.  Let me know if you know or hear of anything. 

Blogged with Flock

barney and tomatsu

Saw the Matthew Barney and Shomei Tomatsu shows on sunday, last day for Tomatsu so I am glad I went. Aesthetically Barney was nice but lacked solid and interesting ideas, for me, and did not live up to the hype. Tomatsu on the other hand is a master photographer and should get more attention here. The link above goes to the SFMoma site for Tomatsu and the photograph is one he took in Afghanistan. His work in Nagasaki is powerful and he reluctantly took that assignment. Barney is fine but it is ironic that he had a show investigating Japanese culture to some extent while the floor below was indeed Japanese. Barney was impressive but Tomatsu is perfect.

novels and such

After reading Seth Godin's blog linked above I am probably going to put my novel Blue, my 1st novel, up for free pdf download soon. That will be good. Was thinking about keywords: it's about drugs, insanity, and linguistics. The new novel, which I am thinking of calling "beautiful noise" is about sex, art, and language. and the environment. and music. and technology. mainly nanotechnology. this brings up comparisons to the diamond age, although mine is more about the next ice age. if kafka wrote science fiction, or paul bowles did. grim. with lots of high fidelity sex and dating neuroses.

apparently "beautiful noise" is a neil diamond song. interesting.

stay tuned.

more about squidoo

Hey, thanks to your clicks my lens has generated a little bit of money for charity...and helps this organization and their ideas:

A LITTLE ABOUT SQUIDOO:

We have built a new online platform and community that makes it easy for anyone to build a single page--called a lens--on a topic, idea, product or cause he is passionate about. These lenses in turn help finders get unique, human perspectives instead of computer-selected and often irrelevant search results. Not only can Lensmasters spread their ideas, get recognized for their knowledge, and send more traffic to their Web sites and blogs—they could also earn royalties.

Squidoo's goal as a platform is to bring the power of recommendation to search. Squidoo's goal as a co-op is to pay as much money as we can to our lensmasters and to charity. And Squidoo's goal as a community is to have fun along the way, and meet new ideas and the people behind them.

THE CAST OF CHARACTERS:

Squidoo was started by the Original Squid, Seth Godin. Nearly ten years ago, Seth founded Yoyodyne, which originated the idea of permission marketing online. After Yoyodyne was acquired by Yahoo, he served as VP Direct Marketing for Yahoo for about a year. In 2000, Godin focused full-time on his career as an acclaimed public speaker, an author and a blogger. Seven of Seth's books have been bestsellers somewhere around the world, and his blog has been picked as the best business blog by several leading publications. Seth's head is the most recognizable author icon in business. Yes, his head.

General update, music, Erase Errata

Bought some paint, canvas last Saturday, cleaned and organized my studio space a bit, enough to work in it. May be able to get a real studio sometime this year, either live/work or standalone. Close to finishing my novel, I think, and thinking of changing the title from Daydream Nation to Beautiful Noise. We'll see. Saw three bands last night that were all excellent, at Club Six for the Guardian Best of Bay Party. It was quite a shindig. I saw Extra Action Marching Band, Numbers, and Erase Errata, who I actually went to see. But for $10 what a deal.

The link is to some cool older pictures of EE. Check out more things about them esp. their music and live shows. Amazing bass!

I updated my squidoo lens

I have updated my "lens" at squidoo where I am focusing on linguistics and postmodern theory...check it out and I think if I get enough visits money can be donated to charity, in my case the Fund For Peace, just by viewing my page:

Fund For Peace

one of my favorite (action) films

It's just so damn fun.

Lynyrd Skynyrd is "Alive" and well: Pearl Jam closes Sonic Youth show

And they did a fine job of it. I like Pearl Jam and love Sonic Youth. I have not been keeping up with PJ and have not seen SY live since a lame dollopoflosers appearance. Better than nothing, but still...it was great to see them tonight at the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium and stand on its comfortable concrete while listening to drooling PJ fans dis SY and Kim Gordon: "they suck, but they rock." That take some serious evolution. My friend Paula informed the guy he was a moron and used the word "asinine". Someone said "what's that mean?". Not good.

But Eddie and the cruisers do know how to rock like good 'ol boys, and they do it pretty fucking well. After seeing guitar deities like Daniel Ash, Thurston Moore, and Lee Renaldo in the last week or day it hard to stand up to comparison. The Pearl Jam lead guitarist was a bit Sabbath-like and not nearly as annoying as Joe Satriani. Thank God. Also major points for bringing out two members of the Avengers to play American Me which had the most politically overt message of the evening. And those over-30 chicks can really rock, no?

Like Bauhaus, I want to say that Sonic Youth does Sonic Youth better than anybody. So it seems that they are almost too perfectly doing what they do. One thing I like about these bands is that they just do what they want and don't give a shit what people think...always an admirable thing. Both bands also do not suck, and they rock.

bauhaus, NIN, peaches, and all kinds of fun

the link, which is for the NIN main site, has a great shot of Peaches singing in the audience...her set was too short and in broad daylight but maybe I will see her again in a dark disco...hopefully. Obviously I am a huge Daniel Ash/Bauhaus/Love and Rockets (the band and the comic) fan and loved seeing him especially last night at the shoreline. David J is extra cool. Murphy has an amazing voice and I appreciate his theatrics. As he said "This is our last show with Trent. It's hard being mahvelous."

Fittingly, I went to Death Guild (SF dance club) for the first time last Monday, so it has been a Goth week, in many ways. Last week my friend K. and I saw Fiona Apple at the Mountain Winery which was amazing: she is the music/movie hookup that brought me out to NIN last year and this year as well.

In other news, I finished Within a Budding Grove, a huge accomplishment, made some progress on my novel, and put together a book of my photographs and other art, using flickr and Qoop, which turned out well. It's a prototype but looks almost good enough for a gallery: I just need to make a few changes before sending it out. Overall I am very happy with it. Now I need to finish putting my slides together.

I am thinking of going to burning man this year, have not even looked for a ticket really, but it could happen, depending on work, projects there.

For those of you who remember my friend Brian's fascination with the Polish singer Ewa Sonnet, here is an update: you gotta have Faith

HP Lovecraft and Family Circus, together again

Aeon Flux

A good antidote to X3 and other crap: watch a few episodes of the Aeon Flux animated series, not the shorts but the ones where she talks, then get the Charlize Theron film. Great stuff! Weird, sexy, thrills, good sci-fi.

ministry, joy division, and an alternate universe

Well I guess the highlight of this week was the Ministry show last night at the Filmore with Revco. Also on Thursday a tribute night for Ian Curtis at the Eagle Tavern: Leaders of Men and Ghost of Curtis played, two excellent Joy Division cover bands. Leaders has a frontman who looked and acted like Curtis but they did a great job of the earlier stuff and Ghost did a great job overall, playing many great songs their first set and then playing the entire album Closer on their second set.

The pit at Ministry was pretty intense, not bad but just a bit much for this old punker. Very intense show, great great great. Purefect. Kudos to Al Jourgensen for continuing to bring it home to the masses.

Saw the new "Xmen" movie tonight. As a huge X-Men fan, Jean Grey/Phoenix/Dark Phoenix fan, I can only hope that this film took place in an alternate universe I never have to visit again. Fortunately Ian McKellen was sexy and lent gravity an otherwise weightless film. Oh well. The first two are still great.

more photos from joshua tree

climbing at joshua tree

climbing at joshua tree, originally uploaded by ck23.

top of the thin wall, on sunday.

My First Trip to Joshua Tree

My friend Mario (aka Satan) is sending me fresh Joshua Tree photos but this will do for now. My first trip to Joshua Tree in Southern California, the desert, beautiful, peaceful, quiet, calming. The rock, stellar. First outdoor trip this year, first outdoor lead actually completed in at least two years, first 5.8 crack trad lead, first climb at Joshua Tree that same lead, my 2nd or 3rd trad lead ever I'd say. A really great comeback and start to the season.

Saturday: some interesting sorta highball bouldering on interesting i.e. sketchy rock. Very fun. Wandered around Barkers Dam: a lovely dark lake in the middle of the desert with water birds. My friends went to Coachella but I felt quite happy in the rocks as I see plenty of live music in San Francisco. Ok so I do want to see Sigur Ros but anyway...

Sunday: wandered around a bit trying to find the Thin Wall with the team: Mario, Tru, her boyfriend Eric, and our friend Nathan (aka Dracula). We found it eventually in Real Hidden Valley and watched a woman lead a 10a called No Calculators Allowed...it ended up being a great toprope...but the big excitement for me was A. following Tru up the backside of the wall to set up the toprope for that route which was scarier than B. my first 5.8 lead which was Butterfingers Make Me Horny. Good stances, great encouragement from my excellent belayer Tru and while I made darn sure my placements were good I was able to feel confident and move up the wall which was short, but plenty challenging. Most of my lead history has been bolts so trad is still new, fun, and exciting. And the windy walkoff was super fun, as anyone who has been to Joshua Tree can attest.

Monday:Wandered around the Barker Dam area again with Satan and Dracula and saw some cool stuff but did not really find anything we could do until we worked on Gunsmoke a 5.11 traverse at the Gunsmoke/Killer Cracks area. Nathan did super well for a beginner as he did on Saturday and Mario looked really strong on Gunsmoke. It was hot.

What a beautiful, peaceful place. More pictures soon.

Bee Season

I know it was a book first, and obviously a great one, based on the film. Thanks to a great friend I got to see this the other night and it was wonderful. Binoche plays an interesting role and the young girl is really astounding. My only backstory is that I have a friend who is Gere's double: Michael could have got me on the set and I could have met Binoche but I chickened out. Perhaps someday...

I also want to mention that the story deals with a kind of mystical connection to words or language. I certainly understand this as a writer and mystic, although I think that the spiritual connection often transcends words. I do want to say that I was exposed early as a child by my mother to mystical ideas including ESP etc. and while I have learned to be cautious around such ideas I do appreciate knowing that sometimes they are indeed valid and real and have a basis in something Other...

Rashomon

Well I just watched Kurusawa's classic film Rashomon, and before I read or listen to any commentary I'm going to put my two cents in. I have read a bit about it so I know what at least some prevailing opinions are. The essence of the story, or stories, is that there are several different versions of a rape/murder told by various people who are involved or not involved. There is also the aspect of a court or tribunal and the judgement entailed. At first I thought the film was a reaction of a director who is tired of being judged or critiqued or expected to "tell the truth" with his art. And it may be partly that. On the other hand, you just have a story told several different ways from different perspectives, which is interesting enough on its own. There is also the theme of the priest and his belief in the essential goodness of man. I don't know the direct tie in to the multiple stories but he does find a way to continue his belief in spite of the lack of absolute truth, which I guess makes sense. A fascinating and scary and beautiful film.

from england to poland and back

my friend Brian details his adventures and stops along the way. worth checking out. one of my favorite directors is polish, but I am starting to see there is more there...

brian has been my guide through finnegan's wake and a few other realms.

Editorial from NYTimes: Adventures in Testifying

from the above linked article, which reminds me also of one of Capt. Willard's lines in Apocalypse Now:

The Justice Department later tried to clarify Mr. Gonzales's comments with a statement so profoundly Orwellian that it just made us more nervous: "The attorney general's comments today should not be interpreted to suggest the existence or nonexistence of a domestic program or whether any such program would be lawful under the existing legal analysis."

the Sheen/Willard quote:

"Sir, I am unaware of any such activity or operation - nor would
I be disposed to discuss such an operation if it did in
fact exist, sir."

doubleplusgood

light installatiOn @ Exploratorium

light installatiOn @ Exploratorium, originally uploaded by (jennY).

lovely photo by jennY

interests

my interests as I have them listed on my livejournal profile:

aa, apocalypse now, beauvoir, bertolucci, black flag, bowie, bowles, eno, buddhism, climbing, conceptual art, cronenberg, dark phoenix, daydream nation, de kooning, de man, derrida, diane arbus, duchamp, fatboy slim, galway kinnell, graphic novels, greenaway, hamlet, heathers, heideggar, heroes, hinduism, husker du, infinite jest, installation art, james joyce, jean cocteau, joko beck, joy division, kafka, kali, kerouac, kristeva, kubrick, lacan, led zeppelin, light, london, magritte, mary daly, massive attack, meditation, mexico city blues, miles davis, milton, moby, mochas, monty python, new order, nine inch nails, nirvana, optic nerve, painting, paradise lost, philosophy, picasso's castle, pink floyd, plath, poetry, pollock, portishead, post-structuralism, postmodernism, primus, proust, r.e.m., radiohead, reading, recovery, river's edge, rollins, rothko, running, rush, samuel beckett, san francisco, sartre, sex, sfzc, shunryu suzuki, skateboarding, snowboarding, songs for drella, sonic youth, soto zen, soundgarden, spiderman, spirituality, sunlight, thai food, the beatles, the castle, the color yellow, the doors, the hunger artist, the mission, the nation, the ocean, the outdoors, the pixies, the sheltering sky, the silmarillion, the smiths, the sound of rain, the south of france, the the, theory, tolkien, triathlon, tuolumne, underwold, unitarian universalism, vegetarianism, velvet underground, very dark chocolate, white noise, wicked, wittgenstein, writing, x-men

most of the entries in my livejournal "blog" unlike this one, are only viewable by a small group of people. personal, journal-like stuff. I like the idea of connecting the two a bit more, as they know this blog moreso than the other way around. as it should be, I suppose. maybe something will show up on a search engine somewhere or in del.icio.us/ck23.

The Danah Boyd Factor

danah goes head to head with Bill O'R, originally uploaded by lawgeek.

Danah Boyd of Apophenia discussed Myspace with Bill O'Reilly tonight. See her blog for more info. If you have not read her work, well, there is a reason she is talking to this guy.

Sartre and music

Bought a new book, very excited, Sartre's "Critique of Dialectical Reason Vol. 1". I had a gift card for Borders so I grabbed it. It seems to deal with ideas around revolution, including the French Revolution, which I would like to write about, as well as 20th Marxist revolutions and related ideas.

Saw Teri Falini again tonight, chatted with her and her guitarist Mark Caputo who is great and had some interesting thoughts on music and some interesting stories. One of his bands opened for Roxy Music on their Avalon tour, and as a result he got to meet XTC when they were recording Skylarking in San Francisco. Is that cool or what? The other band I heard tonight was good, kindof Primus-like but in a good way: Bill Nayer Show is bass, drums, and electric autoharp. They have been around for a while. Good stuff, probably influenced Primus for all I know.

I am a bit wired, but I think Jean-Paul will help me sleep.

bright_cross

bright_cross, originally uploaded by ck23.

I have updated a number of my photographs and images of my art on flickr: I have priced many of them which will give you a general idea of where I am heading. Many of the images are unique in that the art object I depict no longer exists or has changed, documenting a certain point in time or view. Let me know if you any thoughts or questions.

Donna Dubinsky, Memory, and Numenta

This is interesting to me in terms of technology and ideas about memory (from Fastcompany):

Donna Dubinsky

Founder and CEO, Numenta Inc.
Menlo Park, California

Dubinsky, 50, was cofounder and CEO of Palm Computing, which created the Palm Pilot, and of Handspring (now Palm Inc.), creator of the Treo smartphone. Her current company is focused on developing a new kind of computer memory system.
First appeared in Fast Company: June/July 1998

"The next generation of computing is 'intelligent computing,' based on the same principles as the human neocortex. The human brain works in ways fundamentally different from the way computers do today, which is why computers have never been able to realize true intelligence. The brain uses vast amounts of memory to create a model of the world. Everything you know and have learned is stored in this model. The brain uses this memory-based model to make continuous predictions of future events. It's the ability to make predictions about the future that is the crux of intelligence. For example, when humans see a dog, they immediately know it's a dog, even though they may have never seen that specific dog before. Even a young child can identify 'dog' and be very certain, but a computer still can't. Intelligent computing will allow a computer to identify a dog the way the brain does, by building a memory model that has been exposed to many images of dogs such that it begins to actually understand what a dog is. The computer will become 'intelligent.'

This technology will offer a fundamental new building block for the next generation of computing and business, and it could create a new vector for innovation across a great number of industries. Over the next few decades, we think the capabilities of intelligent machines will evolve rapidly and in extremely interesting directions. Intelligent computing could be used in image identification, speaker identification, data mining, security, automobile safety, robotics, and ultimately natural-language processing. Our hope is that intelligent computing will help us accelerate our knowledge of the world, let us explore the universe, and make the world safer."
--Interview by Jennifer Pollock

I was walking along thinking about an ex, how I am now part of her past. I then thought, no, not really, I am part of her memory, which is categorized or tagged as part of or defining what is past. Memory defines time. Which defines memory as "something containing the past" when in fact maybe it is just all that there is, The repository.

riding the J

just a mobile post as I ride the muni. includes part of my vcard. link to sfzero.

begin:vcard
n:Keatts;Charles

end:vcard

just ridin the J
------------------
"I wish that every human life might be pure transparent freedom."
Simone de Beauvoir

vervein

Vervein has a great new album and just played a very nice set at Slims. Check them out on Myspace. They are one of my favorite bands.

http://www.myspace.com/vervein

The Ornamental Figure

Excellent art by Heather Robinson at my friend's gallery. Beautiful works on paper, collage, acrylic with some interesting techniques. The Drugstore Gallery is part of the Drugstore Vintage Decor shop. My friend Lynnore is the owner, tell her I said hey.

scar3

scar3, originally uploaded by ck23.

detail of assemblage "scarification" of found objects, mixed media. copyright 2006 charles keatts, view from below.

My Burroughs and Language Squidoo Lens

Not only is my Lens an interesting beginning but this is an interesting new site I discovered through Solsken. Check out her Lens also on Overlap.

in the mission

in the mission
Originally uploaded by ck23.

comparisons and other traps

my novel today seems like a mix of W. S. Burroughs,Alain Robbe-Grillet, and Neal Stephenson. Burroughs for the chaos, the sci-fi cut-up, and ARG for the overall postmodern sheen, the glossy hard focus on aesthetics/form over content and NS for the real interest in technology and the future it may lead us to. Thank god I have the basic narrative structure down.

Don't forget my Genet-like semifictional memoir/journaling which comprises a lot of the content. I don't think it's all that interesting but it's good enough I guess. It's all about the form.

As much as I try to tame it, move it more toward the traditional narrative I think is needed or wanted somehow, the more clear it becomes that this will not happen. This doesn't mean that someone would look at it and not see it clearly, in their own mind, as characters, story. It's just my perspective from inside the process. It's fascinating, if difficult. This is the only novel I am "inside" because it's mine. Others I only see from the outside.

technorati tags: barthes derrida

Fashion and the Super Bowl

So far this is the most interesting thing I have seen related to the SB, which isn't saying much, but it's pretty great...

technorati tags: sports fashion

Helping Bill O'Reilly by Nicholas Kristof of the NYT

[This is an op-ed from yesterday's NYT with a link above to his web page: I have copied the text because you may not be able to view it w/o a subscription.]

After Mr. O'Reilly denounced me in December as a "left-wing ideologue" (a charge that alarmed me, given his expertise on ideologues), I challenged him to defend traditional values by joining me on a trip to Darfur. I wrote: "You'll have to leave your studio, Bill. You'll encounter pure evil. If you're like me, you'll be scared ... and you'll finally be using your talents for an important cause."

A few days ago, I finally got my answer. Mr. O'Reilly declared in his column: "I do three hours of daily news analysis on TV and radio. There's no way I can go to Africa."

No need to give up so easily, Bill. With a satellite phone, you can do your show from anywhere.

But maybe Mr. O'Reilly's concern is cost, so I thought my readers might want to give him a hand. You can help sponsor a trip by Mr. O'Reilly to Darfur, where he can use his television savvy to thunder against something actually meriting his blustery rage.

If you want to help, send e-mail to sponsorbill@gmail.com or snail mail to me at The Times, and tell me how much you're willing to pay for Mr. O'Reilly's expenses in Darfur. Offers will be anonymous, except maybe to the N.S.A. Don't send money; all I'm looking for is pledges. I'll post updates at nytimes.com/ontheground.

(Note: pledges cannot be earmarked. It is not possible to underwrite only Mr. O'Reilly's outgoing ticket to Darfur without bringing him home as well.)

Sure, this is a desperate measure. But with several hundred thousand people already murdered in Darfur and two million homeless and living in shantytowns, the best hope for those still alive is a strong dose of American outrage.

Worse, all the horrors that we've already seen in Darfur may be remembered only as the prelude. Security in the region is deteriorating, African Union peacekeepers are becoming targets, and the U.N. has warned that if humanitarian agencies are forced out, the death toll may rise to 100,000 per month.

Just as dangerous, the government-supported janjaweed — the brutal militia responsible for the slaughter — is now making regular raids across the border into Chad. There is a growing risk that Chad will collapse into war as well, hugely increasing the death toll and spreading chaos across a much larger region.

Last week, the United Nations agreed to plan for an international force. It will be nice if the force materializes — but even that half-step is probably almost a year away. The solution isn't American ground forces, but a starting point would be American resolve to put genocide at the top of the international agenda. Unfortunately, Mr. Bush barely lets the word "Darfur" past his lips.

The best way for President Bush to honor Coretta Scott King isn't simply to recite platitudes at her funeral today, but to push loudly and forcefully to stop genocide. Was the essential message of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. about the need to be seen at funerals? Or about standing up to injustice, like a genocide in which infants are grabbed from their mothers' arms and tossed onto bonfires?

The reality is that the only way the White House will move on Darfur is if it is flooded with calls from the public — and that will happen only when the genocide is brought home to living rooms around America.

According to the Tyndall Report, which analyzes the content of the evening newscasts of the broadcast networks, their coverage of Darfur actually declined last year. The total for all three networks was 26 minutes in 2004. That wasn't much — but it dropped to just 18 minutes during all of 2005.

ABC's evening news program had 11 minutes about Darfur over the year, NBC's had 5 minutes, and CBS's found genocide worth only 2 minutes of airtime during the course of 2005.

In contrast, the networks gave the Michael Jackson trial in 2005 a total of 84 minutes of coverage. There aren't comparable figures for cable networks like Fox, but Mr. O'Reilly and other cable newscasters pretty much ignored the Darfur catastrophe.

Mr. O'Reilly has a big audience and a knack for stirring outrage. Lately, he (quite properly) galvanized an outcry over a ridiculously light sentence for a sexual predator in Vermont. The upshot was that the sentence was increased. Good stuff!

So imagine the furor Mr. O'Reilly could stir up if he publicized the hundreds of thousands of rapes, murders and mutilations in Darfur. He could save lives on a grand scale.

Join the pledge drive! I'm starting with my own $1,000 pledge to sponsor Mr. O'Reilly's trip. Please help.

***

For more on the exchanges with Mr. O'Reilly, see Mr. Kristof's weblog.

metacritic.com

interesting stuff. sad that Munich did so much better than Murderball.

found on http://www.plasticbag.org/ by way of http://www.zephoria.org/thoughts/

Munich and Mad Cow Girl

Saw Munich Friday night. Intense, violent, powerful, all these things. A bit heavy-handed in that Spielberg way when he wants to make a point. It was a powerful statement I thought about how violence and vengeance tear people down in spite of their best efforts, destroying their humanity, leaving them paranoid and insane. I don't know enough about the history of Munich, Black September, and the role of Golda Meier and Israeli assassins to comment on the historical angle, but it was a powerful film, not as a good film but in the context of these historical events, perhaps roughly sketched. The Wikipedia article goes into the history and controversy around the film.

The main character becomes increasingly isolated as he carries out his mission to assassinate all those involved in the kidnapping and execution of Israeli athletes at the Munich games. Janislovski's normal pretty camera work was noticeably absent here except for a few key points. Everything looked pretty normal. This was not Minority Report or Schindler's List. Better than MR and maybe in some ways a sequel to SL.

from Wikipedia: "Of those believed to have planned the Munich massacre, only Mohammed Daoud Oudeh (Abu Daoud), the man who says Munich was his idea, is known to be alive, and is in somewhere in the Middle East or Africa. He was shot thirteen times from a distance of around two meters on July 27, 1981 in a Warsaw hotel coffee shop, but survived the attack with surprising strength. It is even said he chased his would-be assassin down to the front entrance of the hotel before collapsing."

==================================

Tonight I went to the San Francisco Independent Film Festival and saw Mad Cow Girl. Fragmented, experimental, lots of blood, beef, cows, sex, sex with ministers, martial arts, various strange murders, mad cow disease, lust, etc. Interesting stuff. Walter Koenig from Star Trek played the crazy obsessed preacher. The lead was a woman who looked a bit like Sarah Silverman, did just as good a job as SS would have done, probably. She is a woman who inspects beef, packing plants, butchers, whatever. She is sexually obsessed with a minister, a televangelist. She loves meat and martial arts movies, and while we see news broadcasts about mad cow disease she is eating lots and lots of beef and being told she has some kind of brain tumor. She vomits a lot and eventually goes insane in a confessional, going on a Kill Bill type spree. Most excellent stuff. Definitely full of wonderful gags, bizarre sex, enough gross meat scenes to get you off beef for a while, etc. etc.

It's true that the audience was more or less speechless during the Q&A. I thought that even though some of the production was lower quality it really didn't matter which is problem the ultimate for a low budget film. And I don't think it will give me nightmares which is a plus.

New Work: Wangechi Mutu

I went to see Mutu tonight at the SFMoma as she talked about slides and videos of her work with the curator of her new installation there and then spoke with the audience. It was rather intense: she is really a true artist/intellectual in the sense that her art coexists with her ideas and vice versa. It is a symbiotic relationship, one mode would suffer without the other and possibly die. She may not see a difference, as the art may be expressions of her ideas. True enough, but more powerful with her explanations. She is very articulate.

The image above is interesting and powerful, not in this show but a piece she did on an old anatomy book, a series.

This photo is closer to her current installation at the SFMoma:

She gave me some ideas for a piece I have been working on. What struck me is how she is less of a "visual artist" than an intellectual, and I don't mean that as a slight but as a promotion, in the sense that intellectuals can be superior to artists. Or maybe it doesn't matter.

Dick Flick Blog

Dick Flick (Movies)

this Critic lady is pretty cool and smart as hell (something a guy in a dick flick would say I betcha). I have not seen this late round of dick flicks myself but I daresay I have seen a few and I dig the category. Check it out, she was on Live 105 this morning.