goddesscafe

Thursday, June 06, 2002 :::

i still need to catch up on laurent's links (i will, l.c.), but in the meantime: 69-year-old man drops his camera into a pond, and the camera becomes a magic camera. ha.

the latest from our pal morgan stern, who emigrated to brazil a few months ago: he's so hip that his image is included on nightclub flyers without his permission (he's the top left, the guy with glasses).

::: posted by kevin seal at 7:01 AM

Wednesday, June 05, 2002 :::

Totally lame pix. Ugh. But here's the tropical feather. And a picture of two mousy girls (a Seal and a mermaid) with flippy hair.

I remember Appalshop from our class! I was actually telling a classmate about it the other night, Harlan County totally reminded me of them. Haven't seen hardly any documentaries in my life. That's one of my summer projects, to head to Reel and get caught up. Send advice my way, definitely.

Laurent: the Buchanan piece was surprisingly cogent. (Except for the end part where his bio talks about his recent book on how immigrants are destroying America...back to form...but I guess even this article does fit in with his general isolationist views, no?) I wonder what WOULD happen if we took our toys and came home. That's what this woman told me some Europeans had told her a few months ago, that they had learned their lesson in WWII, to just quit with the imperialism and stay home and take care of your own citizens, build up from the inside. And that story about the child prodigy and the athletes....yeesh. Compelling reading, esp. with the sports scores scattered throughout. Read like a Rolling Stone piece. As for Angier's piece on cooking, I like her, her book Woman was a nice indictment of the evo-psychos, as she calls evolutionary psychologists. No footnoting or citing, though...bad journalism. She wanted to appeal to the mainstream, despite her science writing background. As for what made us human, Terrence McKenna thought it was the shrooms.

::: posted by alura allumeuse at 11:10 PM

response to "is protest music dead?": hip-hop performers arrested for performing at a protest rally in NYC.

response to Harlan County: Appalshop, the hippest documentary shop this side of the Mississippi. oh, and have you ever seen John Sayles' Matewan? best film about coalminers ever made, in my opinion.

::: posted by kevin seal at 2:31 PM

Links for Guy: how the music industry is like the book biz, music everywhere hits Chicago, and is protest music dead? And, for myself, my man Cheb has come out with a new album. Now that I'm about to be broke, do I fork over the cash and go to the CD release party?

Was just talking with the imminently-unemployed Rodrigo, and suddenly started thinking that this really could be a socially awesome summer, if we don't all have nervous breakdowns. Peeps like me and him and Jennifer and Tim (and the questionably employed, such as Joel & Erica) could have picnics in Golden Gate Park! Go to the beach! Free museum days! Ha ha...I think I want to have an unemployment party to celebrate. But how would we pay for it?

IM from Tad (who most recently wrote me from his G4 laptop in Manhattan. insert envy here), re: my lagoon blue tropical feather:
Watch out, a multicolor-headed friend of mine was once attacked by a peacock. You could be at risk. She was sunbathing and it tried to peck her eyes out. Nasty fucker.

::: posted by alura allumeuse at 12:50 PM

My friend Tim (an ASP programmer) called and woke me up last night to tell me he'd been laid off, to his great surprise. Elissa tells me that the unemployment in Chicago is making all her friends "cranky." I looked at the BAVC job board yesterday to find things like "Final Cut Pro editor: $8/hr." What...the...hell?!? What are we supposed to be doing right now? Where can we go and a) have a job that doesn't slowly kill us and b) not feel poor?

Meanwhile, WashPost employees are striking in an unusual way...withholding bylines. Why would that be effective? Last night in class we watched the first 20 min of the 1976 Oscar-winning documentary Harlan County, USA, about KY mine workers on strike. It was pretty upsetting. My favorite part was when they went to NYC for the coal company's shareholders meeting, and a miner talked to a cop – it was sympathy among the working class, with thick regional accents. Our teacher wouldn't tell us the outcome, so I had to read that site. He did tell us about this site, though...public domain movie clips to use, among other things.

Tuesday, June 04, 2002 :::

Just had to jump in with a comment about The Player. In addition to that insanely long tracking shot opening, there is the simple brilliance of Fred Ward's conversation throughout. The fact that he does nothing but pitch that no one in movies does extended tracking shots anymore, which is consistently refuted by the guy he's talking to (and Ward's character hasn't seen any of those films) all while being in one of the longest tracking shots done in modern film history is just hilarious.

::: posted by Laurent Castellucci at 10:30 AM

Monday, June 03, 2002 :::

But only a feather is lagoon blue, not the whole thing. Pictures likely coming on Wed, to placate the one who complained that I mentioned MY hair, yet linked to a picture of Guy's Parisian skull.

I want Wildean letters too! *hops up and down, blue feather flying about* Speaking of flying about, imagine us in class tonight, practicing dolly shots. Meaning, we had a wobbly equipment dolly (picture, um, a grocery cart), into which Jacquie wedged herself, leaning back and filming up with the PD150, while I pushed her up and down the hall and people walked towards us. We watched the opening scene of The Player (one of my all-time faves) to see that it was all one prolonged cherry-picker dolly shot with no zooms.

Here, have some dessert before you head off to bed...

::: posted by alura allumeuse at 10:31 PM

Your hair is lagoon blue! The unfortunate thing about my shorn scalp is that I have now lost the chance to dabble in exotic colours.

One day I will ask you about electricity. As the failed boy that I am, I never learned the whole fuse box thing. (Or any of the car stuff, either.)

Love the right wing speechmaker, but I am horrified to find out I agree with Pat Buchanan!? -the hell?!
Luckily, here's Molly Ivins to reassure me I am ok.

Cool! I saw a new issue of Bust on the stands, so it looks they will go with the "every 3 months" thing they promised in December.

I'm not sure what to make of this. I'm not sure if it's an indictment of athelete privilege or of home schooling. It reads as tragedy but I find it interesting that the writer has somehow found a way to make me uncertain of what blame (if any) to lay.

In happier news, went out for dinner and Attack of the Clones with the Freelancer. But my Romanian seems to have vanished. I think Fate is teasing me again.

Oh, and Rogue, if you're going to go all Wildean with the letters, I'll send you my address and write back. I haven't had a vicious Oscar-like correspondance since Angela and I ended up back in the same city.

::: posted by Laurent Castellucci at 10:03 PM

A word of warning to anyone with a mailbox... in some of my free time, I have been reading the Collected Letters of Oscar Wilde. As a direct result, have been getting the urge to send mass quantities of witty, sarcasm laced correspondence to all those who have been unlucky enough to give me their mailing addy.

So, if you get a random letter (that might seem to refer to a previous, nonexistent letter) including new nicknames, the odd smattering of basterdized greek, and accounts of fictitious happenings, don't worry. It's only me.

-- was also struck by the idea of autographing the 30 or so remaining business cards from my last place of employ and selling them on ebay as a limited edition... thoughts? Or do I need to just start taking my ritalin again, and get a new job.

::: posted by Rogue Designer at 9:13 PM

Last night I bleached and dyed a patch of my hair lagoon blue. I feel like a tropical bird, with a funny feather. While it was taking, I talked to Emma C (whose new moniker is Charlie Makeup, btw), who is having another crisis about school. I'm hoping to get her to live with me this summer, thereby taking care of my rent problem and her creative block at the same time. ;)

Friday night in class we learned about electricity. I had no concept of fuse boxes and household amps and things like that. Totally fascinating. And we learned that our other teacher (who was hiding in the woods last week) was part of a team years ago that burned down an historical SF house. Someone put a penny in the fusebox while they were filming, to suck more energy for lights and all, and left it there. (I'm a little confused as to how that works...it bypasses a filament that normally limits the amps, I think) They got home that night to see on the news that the house had burned down, from the inside out. The wires, which had too much juice going through them, burned through their casing...and then the insulation...and then the frame of the house.

Guy, how's THIS for a band website?!? Looks like some of the equipment in Zarbet's apartment. I swear, I should start studying site navigation.

This weekend at a party I drunkenly sat in a tiny dark room with a video of the 2000 World Cup playing (don't ask, I'm still unclear as to why it was there), taped in Paris, with French commentary. I consequently broke down weeping about my career, and wanting to be in Europe, having such things in my ears. I either need to stop drinking, or stop watching TV.

::: posted by alura allumeuse at 9:29 AM

Mainly for the Boot, but fun for all: the Onion interviews Tom Waits.

Speaking of World Cup viewership... Kurt, where have you been watching the games? At home or at a local drinking establishment?

::: posted by kevin seal at 7:32 AM