jeblog

phoku.33

I was in Atlanta, waiting for my flight out. I spent the time walking around and had a big bowl of soup at Grand Bistro, a Chinese restaurant near 5 Points.

I was in Georgia visiting Wallace, my boyfriend. I had a lovely time even though (or because of?) I couldn't get any where near an internet connection to blog!

Harold Pinter's Nobel Prize speech

In case you haven't seen or read it, here's the link to Harold Pinter's Nobel Prize acceptance speech. You can read the transcript or see the video.

In his speech, Pinter discusses his beginnings as a writer and his artistic method. But most of the speech consists of a eloquent and hard-hitting critique of U.S. foreign policy since 1945, from an artist who has been very politically engaged for most of the 60 years since that time. So be warned.

http://nobelprize.org/literature/laureates/2005/pinter-lecture.html

adventures with rental cars: part 2

The last time I rented a car, I stupidly left my iPod in the console and it was stolen by an employee at Alamo Rental Car.

This time I rented a car and thought of an entirely new stupid thing to do. But I also feel like I was scammed.

It went like this. I returned the car to Thrifty Rental Car at the Atlanta airport yesterday. Then I got my bill: $398 for a week's rental. SAY WHAT?!

The car rental itself was $150, but then the state of Georgia levied taxes that nearly equaled that amount ($90). I thought the taxes were out of control, but I had no choice. But that only brings us up to $240.

So what about the extra $150 they tacked on? It turns out I unknowingly signed up for collision damage insurance. I say "unknowingly" because I never knowingly sign up for collision damage insurance because I think it's a scam.

I have no recollection of being asked if I wanted the insurance. If I had, I would have politely but insistently said "no thank you," like I've done a dozen times before.

But there were my initials. I had signed off on a superfluous $150 that I don't have. I can only conclude that the clerk either forgot to ask me and checked the box, or did so hoping I wouldn't notice. I didn't notice, not the extra insurance, not the total. I was stupid. I should have read the freaking contract before I signed it. But if this is Thrifty's practice, it is nothing else but a scam.

After my iPod fiasco, I swore off Alamo for life. I now do the same with Thrifty. In the words of Stephen Colbert of the Colbert Report, they are both forever "dead to me."

Maybe I should just swear off rental cars altogether, since they seem to engender in me a brain freeze, which leaves me vulnerable to their nefarious practices.

But then I'd have to buy my own car, which is the biggest scam of all...

recipe 1 & 2

recipe 1: Earl Grey tea with brown sugar and soy milk

in a French press of medium size, put:

two teaspoons of Earl Grey tea, loose
two heaping teaspoons of brown sugar
a quarter cup of plain soy milk

pour in 3/4 quart of boiling water

let seep for five minutes

pour and drink!

recipe 2: roasted almonds coated with brown sugar

melt half a butter stick in a sauce pan

mix in 1/4 cup of brown sugar

drop roasted almonds in brown sugar-butter solution, mix up.

fish out with a fork

let them dry

(OK, I didn't actually do that one. But I will--tomorrow.)

brokeback mountain pre-view

It was announced this morning that Brokeback Mountain, the "gay cowboy" film, has the lead in Golden Globe nominations. Not bad for a film most folks have not seen yet.

This film is getting a lot of press, most of it good that I can see (of course, the news sources I read would like the film; the news sources I don't read probably wouldn't). Is it just because it's a great film? I doubt it. I think it's more that playing with one of our great American mythologies--the manly cowboy home on the range--is eternally provocative. For some, it raises their hackles; for others, it raises...well, I better leave it at that.

As for me: Jake Gyllenhall as a gay cowboy (Heath Ledger is no slouch either)?! I am all over him...I mean, it. But I might have to wait until I visit my boyfriend over the holidays.

In the meantime, there's Aaron McGruder's take on the Brokeback phenomenon last week in his comic strip Boondocks.

You can read the series in the archive, here (start with Dec. 6--actually the series started on Dec. 5, if you can find it somewhere online):

http://www.digisoul.com/boondocks/

marchers on guantanamo

Faith-based peace activist friends of mine are now vigiling at the gates of the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. They marched for five days across Cuba, from Santiago, to highlight the abusive prison conditions and torture at Guantanamo.

You can read more, including blogs of some of the marchers, here:

http://www.witnesstorture.org/

There's also a column by Frida Berrigan, who I've known since she was a tike, and who is now an activist, like her mom Elizabeth McAllister and her dad (now deceased) Philip Berrigan:

http://www.alternet.org/rights/29336/

graffito 9

OK, I admit I just threw this up there because I wanted a colorful visual to brighten up the page.

This little bit of graffiti is from a public square in Fayetteville, NC.

And this just in: DC graffiti artist Borf was back in court yesterday, for felony property destruction. He's still looking at jail time and will be doing community service, including cleaning up some of his graffiti, and restitution. On the bright side, he will be taking classes at Corcoran School of Art, where he can continue his creative work in a more legal mode.

Now that we have this miscreant under control, maybe we can do something about the folks doing a lot worse than graffiti in a little place called Iraq...

review of reviewing (using my blogging software)

I just spent twenty minutes reviewing my first three films rented from Netflix. Then I accidently hit "new entry" when I meant to hit "save," and so wiped out the whole entry.

The world will never see that entry because I will not rewrite it.

Kill the computers.

(OK, the three films were:

Animal Crackers--an early, funny Marx brothers movie.

Eraserhead--early, and definitively creepy, David Lynch.

Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow--brilliant design and visuals, terrible writing and mechanical acting.)

a new netflixter

I've just started using Netflix. I may never return to going to video stores (there are none near me, anyway, and when I do rent DVDs, I never get them back in time).

I go to the site online. I pick out a bunch of movies, prioritizing them in a queue, they send me two. I have as much time as I want watching them, then when I'm ready I send them back and they send me two more. For me, not having to deal with the hassle of going to the video store and returning films to the video store (and not having cable movies), it's worth $15 a month.

Just another step--along with putting most of my music on an iPod--of being able to access film, TV, and musical content when I want it, at the push of a button (OK, I also have to put the disk back in the sleeve and send it back in the sealed envelope). The next level for me, I suppose, is movies on demand, downloaded at my computer for a minimal fee. What is the service (or services) for that, I wonder? I'm sure I'll find out before too long.

I'm just fascinated with databases. I love being able to access a document, a movie, a music file, from my computer. Being able to query the database, being able to find that movie or song the moment, or moment after, it appears in my mind. That is the data-rich existence we've all come to expect in our 21st century. I still remain astonished at how computers can represent, and facilitate, cultural experience, of both "high" and "low" culture. I hope to remain astonished.

Gates of Paradise: Plate 20

Plate 20

This plate, like the previous, has little visual material. The words are important here, as they function as a set of "keys" that the 63-year-old Blake wrote referencing the book he engraved, as "For the Children," as a 36-year-old. The gap makes, I think, for some wild interpretations on Blake's part. It's like Jerusalem--its convuluted mythology and design--slowly devouring and "remediating" the early "For the Children."

I must say I don't have a lot of patience with Blake's gnomic interpretations, I prefer the designs, and will be happy to be finished with my own strange digi-reading of "For the Sexes." One more plate to go, which is one of the stranger designs (done in 1820) of the entire book.

And I mentioned the hypertextual elements of the "keys" pages in my posting on Plate 19. That inspired me to actually begin construction of an edition of "For the Sexes" that will feature Plates 19 and 20 as actual hypertextual documents, turning the plates into image maps.

I also got the idea of writing a paper on Blake's innovative technological "tweaks" of book technology in the early 1790s, focusing on Blake as printer, designer, and subverter of books. In it, I would look at "For the Children," "Marriage of Heaven and Hell," and "Urizen." Wish me luck.

re-review of Gone With the Wind

OK, maybe I was too harsh re: GWTW. My boyfriend Wallace, a black gay man born and raised in Georgia, told me he loved GWTW. He admitted it's politically incorrect (particularly coming from a black gay man from Georgia!) but admires the "fabulous" spunk of Vivien Leigh's Scarlett O'Hara, and the folk wisdom of Mammy.

And I had to admit being too harsh on Olivia de Haviland's performance. She let us see the invalid in Melanie, but also the steely will. There was some kind of Freudian frisson going on in the scene where Melanie and Scarlett make a game of how to dispose of the body of the soldier Scarlett has just gleefully shot down. Melanie shows herself to be even more ruthless, and bloodthirsty, as Scarlett, for the noble cause.

But I still think Leslie Howard's performance was stilted, stagey and just generally awful, and that Clark Gable preens too much.

phoku.32

Saw this in the street, in front of a bus shelter, on New Hampshire Avenue, at the Georgia Avenue Petworth metro station. It's a riddle to me: why an 8-year-old calendar would end up on the street that day (didn't see it before, haven't seen it since). Who would keep such a thing for 8 years only to just toss it in the street?

There are many interesting things at our feet, in the street, if we'd only look down...

drumming up support for peace and Amy Goodman

On Saturday, I performed with my drum group, the Rhythm Workers Union, at a benefit for the Washington Peace Center.

We had a blast, on our own, and giving drum support for the Guerilla Poetry Insurgency.

The highlight of the evening (non-music wise) was Amy Goodman, of the Democracy Now radio program on Pacifica. I've been a listener of her program, and an admirer, for quite a few years now. On her program, she's mostly asking questions and standing out of the way, though the topics she chooses are certainly "hard-hitting" and provocative.

But it turns out she's a very good public speaker and has many spot-on insights into independent journalism, and the role of the corporate media today.

Amy says that the media (read corporate media) is the most powerful institution on the face of the Earth. I believe it. For her (and for many of us), this is not a good thing, in that the corporate media tends to do the business of the thugs in power (whose business, of course, is to help business, particularly the oil industry).

If you believe it, and would like to take a peek at the news from a very different angle than what you see on the major networks, check out Amy Goodman's Democracy Now. It's on live every morning from 8-9am, and from 6-7pm. You can also download the streaming audio and video. They're quite good at getting the audio and video up in a timely fashion, and it's well worth the download time.

review of Gone With the Wind

Found Gone With the Wind on the floor of the living room. Thought I would watch it. Hadn't seen it in a long time, not since, I think, I saw it on a double-date at Woodstock (Illinois) Opera House in, hmmm, 1978.

I don't remember noticing how bad, or how racist, or how fascist, it was. Some people really think this is the greatest film ever? In its heft, its "pageantry," perhaps. But I see little else to celebrate.

The acting is terrible. Leslie Howard, as Ashley, is particularly wooden (still petrified from The Petrified Forest), though he had enough weird tics to make it half worth watching. Same with Clark Gable, as Rhett Butler: weird, and pretty, enough to watch, though I liked him better when he wasn't smiling (about 10% of the time). Olivia de Haviland was a saintly cipher; Hattie McDaniel, the ultimate mammy, though somehow retaining her dignity, despite a script, and a book, that demeans all of her race. Vivien Leigh, I admit, is magnificent. She was the one who kept me from turning it off. Her perfomance here makes a good book-end with A Streetcar Named Desire.

There are enough holes in the plot to drive Sherman's legions through.

A few interesting shots, some mimicking Southern paper cutting (I thought), but for the most part ho-hum.

So how is it racist? Because it extols and venerates the old slave-holding South and depicts all Northerners as crude, disgusting, exploitative monsters (some of them, of course, were, but not all). It's fascist in that all the women (and most of the men) pine after the blond Aryan ("Oh Ashley!") who is depicted as conflicted and sensitive--but unapologetic about the brutality of the old regime. Tara, of course, epitomizes the "blood and soil" fascist ethos of the story.

At the center of the story is a strong-willed heroine (Scarlett), but she can only go so far. If she gets out of hand, she gets raped by the alpha male (Rhett Butler), and wakes up the next morning all aglow, happy that she has finally found a man to tame her.

Why didn't I notice all this in 1978? Because I was only 15. And I was on my first date, a double date with my friend David. I watched the film mortified, sitting there silently with my blind date, while my friend David made out with his date. If I had my choice, I would have been making out with David.

But I'll leave all that for now. I want to do a story about it with still-shots from the film, once I find a software program that will let me do it on my computer.