07w39:3 Matador Posted September 27th, 2007 by timothy. 0 Comments Goodreads | 2007 week 39 number 3 (Matador) Rogue city agency trying to lay waste to Dovercourt streetscape | Shawn Micallef http://spacing.ca/wire/?p=2332 [quoting Christopher Hume:] “‘Truly, Toronto has lost its way. Truly, whatever our aspirations may be as a civic entity, they are fast being undone by a bureaucracy so out of touch with reality it’s frightening. And where are the councillors in all this? Does their silence signal agreement? Creeping suburbanization is one thing, but this is neanderthal.’ Then, the answer to Hume’s question – where are the councillor- was on Global News at six tonight when Adam Giambrone was asked about this and shrugged, saying a there is a need for parking in the area and he would support a motion to expropriate. He was repeating the position of Toronto Parking Authority president Gwyn Thomas who said as much to The Star earlier this week. […] But its legendary status and history (Leonard Cohen, Neko Case, etc.) are beside the point here and almost irrelevant because the city – our city – wants to expropriate and tear down a fine and sturdy piece of the urban fabric, located in one of the most desirable and valued neighbourhoods in North America, and turn it into twenty (20!) parking spots, spending $800,000 in the process (insulting to the owner, offensive to the rest of us who are enduring the current budget crunch and trying – so very hard – to believe and support the Giambrone side of things). This is madness’. From the Facebook Group Save the Matador discussion: Sara O’Reilly wrote at 3:23pm on September 26th, 2007 By the way – Adam Giambrone is Chair of the TTC – figure that one out. The chair of the TTC wants to making parking spots instead of encourage people to take public transit. Brilliant. [emp mine] Filmed at The Matador in 1992:
07w39:2 Speechless Posted September 25th, 2007 by timothy. 0 Comments Goodreads | 2007 week 39 number 2 (Speechless) For those of you who only heard about the Jena Six last week, here’s a back-grounder from way back in July, proving that Democracy Now! is the only news source that matters. For those of you who are concerned that the USA will attack Iran, consider that Sarkozy is playing the role of Blair this time, and that the MSM US media is displaying the same lack of skepticism all over again. It seems like it’s only a matter of time before we hear ‘we don’t want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud’ soundbite on the Sunday morning shows. Ahmadinejad Speaks at Columbia Amid Protests, Univ. President Excoriates Iran Leader from Podium http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=07/09/25/142240 The Secret Dealings of Israel, Iran, and the United States http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=07/09/25/142247 ‘ERVAND ABRAHAMIAN: He is right on target, yes. I think Juan Cole sums it up. And the question is, then, why is basically in American politics so much focused on Ahmadinejad? I think he serves the function that Saddam Hussein played. He’s an easy person to demonize. And yesterday’s Bollinger’s introduction, when he described him as a dictator, I think, shows how little people like Bollinger really know about the Iranian political system. One can call Ahmadinejad many things, but a dictator he is by no means. He can’t even — he doesn’t even have the power to appoint his own cabinet ministers. It’s a presidency with very limited power. And to claim that he is in a position to threaten the United States or Israel is just bizarre, frankly. I think someone like Bollinger should know more about Iran before they sling around smears like terms such as ‘dictator.’ Don’t Taser me, I’m a writer | Heather Mallick http://www.cbc.ca/news/viewpoint/vp_mallick/20070924.html The sight and sound of someone screaming in pain as a cop shoots 50,000 volts into him, well, it Tasers my soul. Now I have a new trauma: the sight and silence of hundreds of students at the University of Florida sitting quietly and obediently last week as a young man was wrestled to the floor by a gang of cops, handcuffed and then repeatedly given agonizing zaps that made eerie clicking sounds. The student had no gun, only a loud voice. For this, he was tortured with a hand-held cattle prod? […] Two years ago, Britain’s New Labour Party manhandled one of their own delegates, an 82-year-old Holocaust survivor, out of a meeting for heckling. In the U.S., people are barred from political meetings for printing the wrong message on their T-shirt, or having the wrong bumper sticker on their car. In Canada, your fellow demonstrators with rocks in their hands may well be undercover cops who didn’t think to change their damning jackboots when they went into disguise. Surely it is time to remember that free speech is free speech; that people are allowed to behave badly, even grotesquely, in public as long as they obey the law. [emph mine] The former president’s pool boy | Chris Colin Link Razsa cleans former President George H.W. Bush’s pool, in Kennebunkport, Maine. […] Maybe his education about “the ignorant rich” is worth a few additional pennies: “I didn’t know places like this existed in Maine. Half an hour from the trailer where I live, there are places with multiple Ferraris, and guest houses five times larger than my trailer,” he says. Granted, the stakes are high at that level. Razsa recalls one day when former first lady Barbara Bush was on her way over, and it looked like there wouldn’t be time to bring the pool’s temperature up to her desired 82 degrees in time. The family’s caretaker was in a panic, he says. “He kept shouting, ‘Barbara will go crazy! Barbara will go crazy!'” Razsa recalls. “This is the same woman who after Hurricane Katrina said (of the Houston Astrodome refugees), ‘You know, they’re underprivileged anyway, so this — this is working very well for them.'” […] For Razsa, his job — the only one he could find — put him directly in touch with the very sort of power he holds partly responsible for his, and other people’s, hard times. “I look at the biggest middle finger in the world all day,” is his more succinct explanation.
07w38:1 Police State Posted September 18th, 2007 by timothy. 1 Comment Goodreads | 2007 week 38 number1 (Police State) Arrested for asking the wrong question in the land of the free. And the home of the brave. Why did the other students just watch? What ever happened to that good old ‘my fellow Americans, let’s roll’? Why did John Kerry let it happen? ———————–‘I was grabbed and thrown in U.S. jail for crossing road’ A distinguished British historian claims he was knocked to the ground by an American policeman before being arrested and spending eight hours in jail – all because he crossed the road in the wrong place. Link ———————–From Boing Boing 29 August 2007: Moment of TSA surrealist zen @ LAX: Xeni I flew from JFK to LAX today, and something really weird happened when I arrived (at about 230PM local time).I walked from the arrival gate towards baggage claim, and when I was about halfway there, all of a sudden about a dozen or more TSA personnel and private security staff appeared, shouting STOP WHERE YOU ARE. FREEZE. DO NOT MOVE. Not just at me, but all of the travelers who happened to be wandering through the hallway at that moment. Link ———————– From Boing Boing 1 September 2007: Papers Please: Arrested at Circuit City for refusing to show ID, receipt Boing Boing reader Michael Amor Righi says, “Today I was arrested by the Brooklyn, Ohio police department. It all started when I refused to show my receipt to the loss prevention employee at Circuit City, and it ended when a police officer arrested me for refusing to provide my driver’s license.” Link
07w37:3 The President of 9/11 and the 9/11 of Britney Posted September 11th, 2007 by timothy. 0 Comments Goodreads | 2007 week 37 number 3 (The President of 9/11 and the 9/11 of Britney) President of 9/11 | The Onion Link ———————————-Martin Amis on 9/11The summary: ‘Our correspondent contends that our response to September 11 has been deficient. Radical Islam, he argues, must be recognized as a fanatical death cult, such as Nazism or Bolshevism’ Blah blah blah, haven’t heard that before. I didn’t read far enough to get to that, I only read over the ruminations on the naming of the event.Meanwhile, Matt Drudge at the Drudgereport had this headline: ‘KID’S BBC SITE OFFERS CURIOUS 9/11 EXPLANATION…’. This curious explanation reads: Why did they do it? The way America has got involved in conflicts in regions like the Middle East has made some people very angry, including a group called al-Qaeda – who are widely thought to have been behind the attacks. In the past, al-Qaeda leaders have declared a holy war – called a jihad – against the US. As part of this jihad, al-Qaeda members believe attacking US targets is something they should do. When the attacks happened in 2001, there were a number of US troops in a country called Saudi Arabia, and the leader of al-Qaeda, Osama Bin Laden, said he wanted them to leave. But who cares right? That shit was six years ago. This is much more important:
07w37:2 Brown Clark Nonfiction Search Engine Posted September 10th, 2007 by timothy. 2 Comments Goodreads | 2007 week 37 number 2 (Brown Clark Nonfiction Search Engine) I first learned about Joe Clark through a Google Alert which let me know that he liked something I wrote enough to tag it with my name and ask rhetorically: Who is this Tim Comeau and why is he not an esteemed colleague already? I came back to Mr. Clark’s blog through a recent William Gibson interview (impending Gibson roundup on GR btw) which contained a link to Clark’s annotated Pattern Recognition site. A recent posting goes off on Jess Brown, the new CBC Radio 1 show Search Engine and the ‘journalist’s Trampoline Hall‘ called Nonfiction, which began in June. Facebook has the event listing for the next Nonfiction meeting to be held on September 19th: Nonfiction is a place for journalists of all kinds to tell stories that never made it to the public: stories killed by editors, blocked by producers, or self-censored by journalists themselves. These are the stories usually told privately, between journalists, and over drinks. Featured speakers: Ian Brown (and friends) on going long ” Ouimet” on clandestine corporate blogging Paul Terefenko on why he recorded the last Nonfiction Michael Adler on the one thousand indignities of writing for a community newspaper Jason Anderson on film junket junkies Kathryn Borel on why her therapist refuses to prescribe her antipsychotics despite her looming book deadline hosted by Jesse Brown Produced by Nonfiction: Kathryn Borel, Jesse Brown, Ian Daffern, Jeremy Gans, Sheila Heti, Geoff Siskind, Dave Wells Mr. Clark’s first report from June 21st made three good bullet-points, of which I’m quoting the third: The show came to a halt halfway through. On arrival, one had been presented with a “program†(actually just a postcard) declaring ALL STORIES TOLD AT NON-FICTION – suddenly it’s hyphenated – ARE CONSIDERED OFF THE RECORD AND MAY NOT BE REPRODUCED IN PRINT, BROADCAST OR CONVERSATION. Yes, these junior fascists want you not to even talk about what happened. (Then why was there a cash bar? What are we supposed to talk about, the weather?) Exactly. Why sell tickets to something you can’t talk about? Clark goes on to report: It all came to a head when our host, tall, handsome, affable Jesse Brown, acted like an RIAA lawyer or a security goon with binoculars at a Rush concert and accused somebody of recording the event. Would that person like to come onstage? Well, of fucking course they wouldn’t. But, a moment later, up trotted Paul from Now, who plausibly and apparently honestly explained he’d just gotten there, hadn’t been warned, and had asked people if it was all right to record. (The answer he got was, in essence, ‘meh.’) But as we can see in the event listing, this outrageous act has only earned Mr. Terefenko’s a place on the stage at the next show. What’s really alarming about this kind of thing is the explicitness of there being two streams of public dialogue. What exists in print (and thus the historical record) and what can exist spoken between people. I know what Antonia Zerbisias spoke about because it was told to me over a meal and drinks, where I also shared unprintable facts about things. Am I corrupted by the knowledge? Am I a danger to myself and society for knowing these things? Do we need more evidence that our ideas that we live in a democracy are false? I mean, sure, we have enough freedom of speech to sell tickets to the airing of secrets, but freedom of the press has apparently vanished beneath the concerns of advertisers and the censorious pen of editors. What I’d like to critique about Nonfiction is the use of the image from Suicide Food, a blog which assembles the understandably morally outrageous and disgusting depiction of animals attempting to enjoy their fate as human meals. Links below are to Clark’s somewhat amusing grumpiness about Nonfiction, Jesse Brown, and Search Engine. (Search Engine‘s site, btw, is linking to its eponymous Google Alert roundup, and saying this about Clark’s words: Joe Clark of Toronto has some scathing words for us on his personal weblog (WARNING: some profanity). http://blog.fawny.org/2007/06/21/nonfiction-name/ http://blog.fawny.org/2007/07/19/nonrenewable/ http://blog.fawny.org/2007/08/04/nonclueful/ http://blog.fawny.org/2007/09/07/creative-renewal/
07w36:2 Rich Bitch Posted September 2nd, 2007 by timothy. 0 Comments Good Reads | 2007 week 36 number 2 (Rich Bitch) (Via Metafiler) ~ Helmsley’s Dog Gets $12 Million in Will The Associated Press Wednesday, August 29, 2007; 8:37 PM NEW YORK — Leona Helmsley’s dog will continue to live an opulent life, and then be buried alongside her in a mausoleum. But two of Helmsley’s grandchildren got nothing from the late luxury hotelier and real estate billionaire’s estate.
07w36:1 Gore Vidal Posted September 2nd, 2007 by timothy. 0 Comments Good Reads Mailing List | 2007 week 36 number 1 (Gore Vidal) Things change. Goodreads as a website will be updated more frequently. I won’t be sending out an email for everything that goes up on the site – the email list might continue as a weekly or monthly digest of updates or I may stop using it entirely, we’ll see. It’s just I’m coming across stuff worthy of posting on a more frequent basis right now and it would be easier for me to post them right away – like any other blogger – than continue on something that began in the pre-RSS days, and when Goodreads was only meant to be an index of article links and not a blog. Also, for the first time ever I exceeded my allowable bandwidth, resulting in an extra charge to the account. This is entirely the fault of offering downloadable audio. Now more than ever I’d appreciate a donation if you’d like to offer one. TRUTH NOW: Interview of Gore Vidal | Linda Sutton http://www.atlanticfreepress.com/content/view/2258/81/ Gore Vidal (1993) | Late Night Live, ABC Radio http://www.abc.net.au/rn/latenightlive/stories/2007/2000408.htm
07w26:1 A Variety of Links Lunk and Thoughts Thunk Posted June 26th, 2007 by timothy. 2 Comments Good Reads Mailing List | 2007 week 26 number 1 (a variety of links lunk and thoughts thunk) An overview: Since the last Goodreads arrived in your inbox, Rob Labossiere was kind enough to review the first of my Timereading Series, Outdoor Air Conditioning on Sally McKay’s blog (but I had nothing to do with the gun-cock-cop) I felt the need to comment on the recent Luminato festival over at my blog. Commentator LM asked last week (at Jennifer MacMakon’s Simpleposie) why I wasn’t included in the recently opened MOCCA show featuring disagreeable artists, since I (along with Eldon Garnet and Thrush Holmes) piss off and irritate lots of people. I also found time to contribute to the discussion on Sally McKay’s thoughts on the Toronto art-scene here (but I wish she could have deleted my accidental dupe). In blog news, after surviving cancer, Cedric Caspesyan has apparantly realized life is too short for the art-world’s mean people, Chris Hand’s Zeke’s Gallery blog has been apparently sued out of existance (and yet, the ads remains) and Franklin Einspruch doesn’t plan to update his blog until the Fall. I did manage to develop a Goodreads podcast link, to provide an alternate and direct way to access whatever mp3 links I find (and have found): http://goodreads.timothycomeau.com/rss/podcast.php Supporting the Troops Meanwhile, three Canadian soldiers died last week prompting the City of Toronto to reverse the decision to remove the stupid ‘support our troops’ decals on firetrucks and ambulances in favor of leaving them on indefinitely since pacifists are still considered more loathsome in our society than the people who actually volunteer to kill. And if you think I’m exaggerating, consider that Afghani President Hamid Karzai was shown on the CBC news last Saturday night complaining about NATO’s heavy-handed tactics of ‘shelling a village from thirty-some kilometres away’ and killing civilians in the process (ref video clip here; CBC related here and here). The report went on to say that as of Saturday, (23 June) 90 Afghan civilians had been killed in the previous ten days. Notice that this report was buried on the Saturday 11 o’clock news, and that when things like this are reported, suddenly it’s the problem of the ‘NATO coalition’ and Canada’s pride at the fact that the Cdn forces are the ones doing most of the heavy-lifting in the region is obfuscated. But we have to support the troops, or keep our mouths shut otherwise, and ignore the ratio that 3 Canadian lives are worth more to our conscience than the 90 or so people who were alive at the beginning of the month, whose names and faces we will never know, and who ‘we’ are not supposed to be there to accidentally kill but rather to accidentally help, through what could be called ‘aggressive peacekeeping’ in the bullshit lingo of the military. I also write this in light of seeing last April the Frontline World report (video available on July 9th) on the Canadians in Afghansistan, which prompted commentator Alex March from Edmonton to say: ‘I am afraid the Canadians are treating the Afghanistan people with a combination of traditional Department of Indian Affairs false promises and CISIS paranoia. Sad it will cost many lives unnecessarily,’ with a rebuttal by one of the soldiers Mr. Annoymous, who tells us the reporters did what they typically do, which is to obfuscate and simplify, which of course prompted a response by the filmmakers … and… on and on, the cycles of animosity never do end to they? Andrew Cash wrote about the decals in Now Magazine during the first week of May, notable to me for including this facile sentence indicative of the whole problem of the ‘support the troops’ sloganeering (people choosing stock phrases rather than a conscious awareness of what they’re saying): ‘Who among us isn’t deeply saddened by the news of ever increasing numbers of uniformed Canadians killed or seriously injured in the war.’ I stand up to say I am not deeply saddened because I don’t pretend to be an idiot out of social convention. Out of a population of heroin users I understand some will turn up as corpses with needles hanging from their tourniquet arms. Similarly, I understand that some soldiers going to war zones will come home in body bags. Why should I feel upset about either when it’s continually presented to me as a fact of the world that no one seems to have any intention of changing? If we do want to change it, how about we start by stopping the rhetoric and unquestioning support of militarism? Therefore, I don’t support the troops. The Human Union I found this when I was researching the Human Network links below, although I have to ask, why do progressive websites often display such poor design? From ‘The Human Union Declaration’ found on the site: To force me to act in compliance with a political system that goes to war against my fellow humans is a denial of my humanity and I will resist such efforts to the best of my abilities. To force me to act in compliance with a political system which discriminates politically against my fellow humans is a denial of my humanity and I will resist such efforts to the best of my abilities. Human Union http://humanunion.info/ The Human Network The recent anniversary of the Tienanmen Square Massacre prompted PBS’ Frontline to rebroadcast their April 2006 documentary The Tank Man, which is available online at the Frontline website, in four parts. In the fourth and last part, Yahoo!’s complicity in facilitating Chinese censorship led into a report that Cisco Systems has sold the latest technology to China to enable such control of information. I laughed when I heard this, given how Cisco’s latest advert campaign, launched last autumn, announces itself as facilitators of ‘the human network’. Interestingly, their commercial features Toronto, leading to one of those WTF? moments – is it because we have the world’s largest communications tower? Is it because relational aesthetics is hot here? Nevertheless, the scene illustrating ‘welcome to a world where people subscribe to people and not magazines’ in which girls meet up in front of City Hall through coordinating on their phones inspired me somewhat. I like the idea of living in a city where people subscribe to people and not magazines. But I also have this sense that Goodreads has managed to blur the two – a subscription to a webzine/Mr. Timothy person. If only more people bought me diner…. The Tank Man | PBS Frontline http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/tankman/view/ Welcome to the Human Network on YouTube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x60pWzJvb9Q http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NEfPxnbWr8U Welcome to the Human Network| Cisco Systems http://www.cisco.com/web/thehumannetwork/index.html Facebook Welcome to the world where people are subscribing to people via Facebook. I joined Facebook at the end of April. Let’s face it, Facebook is here to stay | Michael Geist http://www.thestar.com/Business/article/211078 Facebook banned for Ontario staffers | Robert Benzie http://www.thestar.com/News/article/210014 // it’s great how this story is illustrated with a picture of an old man Art The Art World by its nature is nepotistic. Jerry Saltz had a problem with that a few months ago: Not Buying It | Jerry Saltz http://www.artnet.com/magazineus/features/saltz/saltz4-30-07.asp Some Links I found myself forwarding to friends On Shakespeare Shakespeare: the Biography (Paperback) | Peter Ackroyd http://goodreads.ca/shorty/amazon/shakespearebio/ // I’m currently reading this biography of Shakespeare and it’s so so good. Yes, that’s two so’s for emphasis, not a typo. In Search of Shakespeare | Michael Wood http://goodreads.ca/shorty/amazon/shakespeardvd/ // I saw this when it was first broadcast on PBS in 2004. It was so good I actually found it haunting. Especially the bit with the photographs. When I found the accompanying book later that year in a remaindered store, I of course bought it. On Teenagers Trashing Teens | Hara Estroff Marano http://goodreads.ca/shorty/psychologytoday/teenagers/ Chomsky on Pomo On Postmodernism | Noam Chomsky http://cscs.umich.edu/~crshalizi/chomsky-on-postmodernism.html “Now Derrida, Lacan, Lyotard, Kristeva, etc. — even Foucault, whom I knew and liked, and who was somewhat different from the rest — write things that I also don’t understand, but (1) and (2) don’t hold: no one who says they do understand can explain it to me and I haven’t a clue as to how to proceed to overcome my failures. That leaves one of two possibilities: (a) some new advance in intellectual life has been made, perhaps some sudden genetic mutation, which has created a form of “theory” that is beyond quantum theory, topology, etc., in depth and profundity; or (b) … I won’t spell it out.” // Haven’t I sent this out before? If I haven’t, I always meant to. The Norman Finkelstein Case Dear Canadian Universities: you should hire this guy and prove that you’ve got more going on than the so-called superior American schools. The Commonplace Cowardice of Responsible Professors; What the Finkelstein Tenure Fight Tells Us About the State of Academia | Robert Jensen http://www.counterpunch.com/jensen05252007.html Noam Chomsky Accuses Alan Dershowitz of Launching a “Jihad” to Block Norman Finkelstein From Getting Tenure at Depaul University | Democracy Now! http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=07/04/17/1327203 “It Takes an Enormous Amount of Courage to Speak the Truth When No One Else is Out There” — World-Renowned Holocaust, Israel Scholars Defend DePaul Professor Norman Finkelstein as He Fights for Tenure http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=07/05/09/1514221 Norman Finkelstein | Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norman_Finkelstein NormanFinkelstein.com http://www.normanfinkelstein.com/ Good riddence Blair British Author Tariq Ali on the Resignation of Tony Blair: ‘The Fact That He’s Leaving is Because He’s So Hated’ http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=07/05/11/1531215 2007-05-11 Selections from Democracy Now! Salt Lake City Mayor Rocky Anderson Slams His Friend Mitt Romney for Flip-Flopping on Abortion, Stem Cell Research, Torture in Attempt to Win GOP Presidential Nomination http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=07/06/25/1421228 2007-06-25 John Perkins on “The Secret History of the American Empire: Economic Hit Men, Jackals, and the Truth about Global Corruption http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=07/06/05/149254 2007-06-05 The Task Force Report Should Be Annulled – Member of 2005 APA Task Force on Psychologist Participation in Military Interrogations Speaks Out http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=07/06/01/1457247 2007-06-01 100th Anniversary of Rachel Carson: Remembering the Woman Who Helped Launch the Environmental Movement http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=07/05/31/1412219 2007-05-31 In Debt We Trust: America Before the Bubble Burst http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=07/04/04/1343218 2007-04-04 In Rare Joint Interview, Noam Chomsky and Howard Zinn on Iraq, Vietnam, Activism and History http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=07/04/16/1338223 2007-04-16 From SDS to Life After Capitalism: Z Mag Founder Michael Albert on Activism, “Parecon” and a Model for a Participatory Society http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=07/04/17/1327211 2007-04-17 Howard Zinn Urges U.S. Soldiers to Heed Thoreau’s Advice and ‘Resist Authority’ http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=07/04/17/1851213 2007-04-17 Legendary Broadcaster Bill Moyers Returns to Airwaves With Critical Look at How U.S. News Media Helped Bush Admin Sell the Case for War http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=07/04/25/1414222 2007-04-25 Fighting Fascism: The Americans – Women and Men – Who Fought In the Spanish Civil War http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=07/04/30/1321243 2007-04-30 Abraham Lincoln Brigade ‘Represents an Important Part of the American Soul’ – Harry Belafonte Pays Tribute to U.S. Vets Who Fought Fascism in Spain http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=07/04/30/1321250 2007-04-30 Banned by Army: Folk Singer Joan Baez Can’t Sing to Wounded Soldiers at Walter Reed http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=07/05/04/1419207 2007-05-04 // Of course I feel the need to point out here that maybe the reason Joan Baez was uninvited to sing for wounded soldiers was not because of politics but because young hurt boys would probably prefer a Britany Spears tits-and-ass show than an ethereally voiced sixty-something ex-hippy. Mother’s Day for Peace: A Dramatic Reading of Julia Ward Howe’s Mother’s Day Proclamation http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=07/05/11/1531255 2007-05-11 Studs Terkel At 95: ‘Ordinary People Are Capable of Doing Extraordinary Things, and That’s What It’s All About. They Must Count!’ http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=07/05/16/140218 2007-05-16 George Monbiot: If We Don’t Deal with Climate Change We Condemn Hundreds of Millions of People to Death http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=07/05/18/1429219 2007-05-18 Author Paul Hawken on ‘Blessed Unrest: How the Largest Movement in the World Came into Being and Why No One Saw It Coming’ http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=07/05/23/1430208 2007-05-23 War Made Easy: How Presidents & Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=07/05/29/1322235 2007-05-29 Charles Taylor Roundup A roundup of the Charles Taylor content I’m aware of, and which flourished after he won the Templeton Prize. The Enright Files – A Celebration of Charles Taylor | CBC Ideas http://goodreads.timothycomeau.com/audio/taylor2007-05.mp3 [Goodreads Mirror] Michael Enright, host of The Sunday Edition, in conversation with the Canadian philosopher, thinker and winner of the 2007 Templeton Prize, Charles Taylor. Modern Social Imaginaries | Charles Taylor & David Cayley http://goodreads.timothycomeau.com/audio/taylor2005-12.mp3 [Goodreads Mirror] What makes modernity different from all previous ways of life? Canadian philosopher Charles Taylor talks to IDEAS producer David Cayley about what makes us modern. Charles Taylor’s Modern Social Imaginaries and Cultural Transmission Theory | Mark E. Madsen http://www.mmadsen.org/2006/01/kens_comment_to.html Charles Taylor and the Hegelian Eden Tree: Canadian Philosophy and Compradorism | Ron Dart http://www.vivelecanada.ca/article.php/20070430235045487 Canadian philosopher strikes paydirt | Michael McGann http://www.mercatornet.com/articles/canadian_philosopher_strikes_paydirt/ Charles Taylor ‘Religion and Violence’ | Charles Taylor http://www.tvo.org/podcasts/bi/audio/BICharlesTaylor042207.mp3 // I was at that lecture (standing-room only!) and posted my lecture notes for Goodreads 05w08.3 Religion and Violence | Charles Taylor http://goodreads.timothycomeau.com/lectures/taylor/rel_violence04.html Religion and Violence explores the complex relationship among modernity, religion, and categorical violence – namely, violence directed against people on the basis of their belonging to a certain category or group. Professor Charles Taylor will discuss the rising tide of genocide, ethnic cleansing, and terrorism, and ask what connection this phenomenon has to modernity. Charles Taylor on Religion and Violence | The Sunday Edition with Michael Enright http://www.cbc.ca/thesundayedition/media/taylor_se041128.ram Real Audio file on the above lecture, recorded a week later (48.53min) Philosophy, spirituality and the self – Part 1 | The Philosopher’s Zone ABC Radio http://goodreads.timothycomeau.com/audio/taylor2007-04_p1.mp3 [Goodreads Mirror] Charles Taylor, the distinguished Canadian philosopher, has just been awarded the Templeton Prize, the world’s most highly endowed award for intellectual achievement. This week on The Philosopher’s Zone, he talks to ABC Radio National’s Tom Morton, about how we are intellectually and how we got to where we are. Philosophy, spirituality and the self – Part 2 | | The Philosopher’s Zone ABC Radio http://goodreads.timothycomeau.com/audio/taylor2007-04_p2.mp3 [Goodreads Mirror] Charles Taylor, the distinguished Canadian philosopher, has just been awarded the Templeton Prize, the world’s most highly endowed award for intellectual achievement. This week, we hear the second part of his conversation with ABC Radio National’s Tom Morton, about how a moral view of the human self might be possible in an age of scepticism and neo-Darwinism. And Danny Postel, senior editor of opendemocracy.net returns to the program with news of Iranian dissident journalist, Akbar Ganji, who is touring the West talking to eminent philosophers and political thinkers. Manuel Delanda Roundup Since Darren sent me the link which I included in the last Goodreads (reproduced below) I found more Delanda stuff, which I quite enjoyed listening to at work, and which lead me to get his books, A Thousand Years of Non-Linear History and A New Philosophy of Soceity. Manuel DeLanda on Deleuze | Manuel DeLanda http://goodreads.timothycomeau.com/manueldelanda wrote Darren: “here’s an interesting video of manuel delanda taking a trip through deleuze and it’s not all that confusing” From Manuel DeLanda Annotated Bibliography: Manuel DeLanda, ‘Deleuze and the Use of the Genetic Algorithm in Art’ presented at the Art & Technology Lectures, Columbia University, New York, 08.04.04 http://ccnmtl.columbia.edu/itc/visualarts/dmc/ramfiles/delanda_04_08_04.ram // (Real Video, 84 mins) Manuel DeLanda, Democracy, Economics and the MilitaryÕ presented at Democracy Unrealized, Vienna, 20.04.01 rtsp://81.3.51.68/platform1_vienna/de_landa.rm (Real Video, 62 mins) Deleuze Day 3 | Tate http://www.tate.org.uk/onlineevents/archive/deleuze/deleuze_day2_3.ram (Real Video, 50 mins) Manuel DeLanda, ‘Nature Space Society’ presented as the first Nature Space Society lecture at the Tate Modern, London, 05.03.04 http://www.tate.org.uk/onlineevents/archive/naturespacesociety/delanda.ram DeLanda argues for a Deleuzian philosophy of nature. In the first half he rejects a sharp distinction between culture and nature. He demonstrates instead the direct interaction between the biological and social, citing examples from William McNeill’s Plagues and Peoples, and Alfred Crosby’s Ecological Imperialism. We must dismiss social-constructivism’s obsession with language and cultural representation. In the second half, DeLanda argues that, in order to avoid this provincial anthropocentrism, we must be realists, but not essentialists. We must historicize nature, and replace ideas about ‘laws of nature’ with Deleuze’s singularities (special, topological points) and affects (the capacity to affect and be affected).(Real Video, 3 hours) —————————————- Long links made short by using Shorty (http://get-shorty.com) To remove or add yourself to this list, go here http://goodreads.timothycomeau.com
07w17:1 Roundup Posted April 24th, 2007 by timothy. 1 Comment Good Reads Mailing List | 2007 week 17 number 1 (roundup) Hello. This is a roundup of some things I gathered in the weeks since I sent the last Goodreads. What else happened? I spoke at March’s Trampoline Hall on ‘Morality as a Form of Idealism’; I was a filler, since the first person scheduled got into an accident. This follows on me being on a panel discussion at the end of February when I was also made to feel like a filler, and so, it occurred to me last month that my career as a second-rate speaker appeared to be well under way. I hope to get up to first rate by the end of the year. If not, I’ll need to get a better agent. There was also a big ceremony marking the 90th anniversary of Vimy Ridge. They couldn’t wait another ten years for a ceremony apparently, but they will obviously be jumping through those hoops again in a decade’s time. Now, a century marker, I could understand, by the 90th was just more propaganda to remind me that the Canada I knew and loved is being lost to patriarchal militarism and unquestioned loyalty to George Bush’s incompetent, ignorant, and colonial vision of global affairs. There was also Easter and stuff … and well, I’m drawing blanks. This wasn’t meant to be too long. A bit of second-rate fill to the real text that belongs here which is: Breaking News The announcements of kryptonite, and the discovery of an Earth-like planet, both occurred today. Just in time for the Globe & Mail’s redesign to make it look as it would have looked in a 1980s science-fiction movie set in the 21st Century, featuring headlines ‘Earth Like Planet Found’ or ‘Kryponite Discovered’ or ‘Alberta building rocketship to rape new resource’ etc. – Timothy ———————————————- Goodreads YouTube / GoogleVideo Compilations: Why We Fight http://goodreads.timothycomeau.com/whywefight/ Fredric Jameson lecture, speaking in 2002 http://goodreads.timothycomeau.com/jameson/ Adam Curtis’ The Trap http://goodreads.timothycomeau.com/adamcurtis/ // Adam Curtis’ latest documentary was broadcast on the BBC in March and has since been posted on Google Video. I added these to the Adam Curtis compilation page already present on Goodreads, with links back to the Google Video source, where they can be watched larger and downloaded. I loved this series – since 2001 I’ve thought the rise of a interest in religion had a lot more to do with American propaganda for a war against believers, non-believers and evildoers and all that, but this makes me think the real reason is a backlash toward the simple-minded view of human beings as self-interested economic agents, which is how we were supposed to think of ourselves throughout the 1980s and especially 1990s. People understand they are more complex than that, and so far, religion has provided a framework to encompass an idea of ‘humanity’ denied by trendy theories. I would also argue that art and literature also provides a complicated vision of human beings, but since the Humanities have been turned into a linguistic mush of critical discourse and over-heated arguments of resentment, people are defaulting to religion for their models and answers and attempts at understanding. But here, I don’t want to say one is better than the other. From my own experience, I feel the worst of religion is balanced by the best of Humanities, and the worst of the Humanities is balanced by the best of religion creating a complimentary relationship with one another, and any attempt at understanding the complexity of humanity should take into consideration what the best of both traditions of the imagination have to offer. —————————– Recommended by Darren O’Donnell A Grammar of the Multitude | Paul Virno http://www.generation-online.org/c/fcmultitude3.htm Manuel DeLanda on Deleuze | Manuel DeLanda http://goodreads.timothycomeau.com/manueldelanda writes Darren: “here’s an interesting video of manuel delanda taking a trip through deleuze and it’s not all that confusing.” —————————– Slow News Cycle Obscure Story Recycling: Parasite ‘turns women into sex kittens’ | Jane Bunce http://goodreads.ca/shorty/com/sexkittens/ // article date: December 26, 2006 compare with this article, posted in Goodreads 04w06:2 Dangerrrr: cats could alter your personality | Jonathan Leake http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/health/article1161725.ece “They may look like lovable pets but Britain’s estimated 9m domestic cats are being blamed by scientists for infecting up to half the population with a parasite that can alter people’s personalities […] Infected men, suggests one new study, tend to become more aggressive, scruffy, antisocial and are less attractive. Women, on the other hand, appear to exhibit the ‘sex kitten’ effect, becoming less trustworthy, more desirable, fun-loving and possibly more promiscuous.” A cosmic hall of mirrors http://physicsweb.org/articles/world/18/9/3 the one above interviews one of the fellows who co-authored the below article, from the April 1999 Scientific American: Is Space Finite? | Luminet, Starkman, Weeks http://goodreads.ca/shorty/sciam/mirrorball/ and likely to show up again in the future: The universe is a string-net liquid | Zeeya Merali http://goodreads.ca/shorty/newscientist/net-string/ —————————– Week in Review April 16-22 2007 Nations’s Papers React to Getting Everything About … Backwards http://goodreads.ca/shorty/gawker/asshole/ Goodbye, Sanjaya, I Will Miss You! | Maureen52 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=swCndDgiokE // One of the funniest things I’ve seen all week, and once again, a reminder of the obsolescence of video art and galleries in the age of iMovie and and YouTube. Sanjaya: Something To Talk About 4-17-07 Top 7 | American Idol http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=swCndDgiokE McCain ‘sings bomb iran’ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hAzBxFaio1I // If this counts as singing…what did he say after the edit? It seemed to be a way of re-phrasing the question, ‘when do we send an airmail message to Tehran?’ asked by a hawk in the audience. This past week the lastest version of Ubuntu was released, a Linux operating system gaining popularity. It was named Ubuntu after the African philosophy: Ubuntu | Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ubuntu_(ideology) —————————– If you can carry it to the counter, you don’t need a bag to take it from the store, unless it’s like raining and you don’t want it to get wet Drop that plastic bag – go natural | Zou Hanru http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/opinion/2007-04/06/content_844737.htm San Francisco to ban plastic grocery bags | CNN http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/03/27/environment.baggs.reut/index.html —————————– Do we agree? Pirates versus Ninjas | Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pirates_versus_Ninjas Convinceme.net http://www.convinceme.net/index.php —————————– Art-like stuff Andy’s Early Comics Archive – A History of Picture Stories | Andy Bleck http://andybleck.com/eca/earlycomics.html Restoring the home of Nicephore Niepce http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WAcTHpuqQIs “It was in this house … that Niepce invented photography” // This ten minute documentary includes reattempts at the first photographs and I was fascinated to see the way archaeology was used to determine the exact position of the first camera to create the first images. How Art Can Be Good | Paul Graham http://paulgraham.com/goodart.html ‘They Don’t Know’ http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2210845148378198004&pr=goog-sl&hl=en // what have you done with your hands lately? Black Tambourine | Beck http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HfUZCo-oLtM //Bad experiences with Beck fans has biased me against him for years, although I do have his first two albums. When I saw this video while channel surfing (which, is like, a miracle considering music-video stations never play music videos anymore) I thought maybe I was over my bias. Befriend an artist? Are you kidding? | Jonathan Jones http://arts.guardian.co.uk/critic/feature/0,,1991391,00.html Today’s critics have got too cosy with the artists they write about, says Jonathan Jones, kicking off a series of debates on the Guardian arts blog ‘My Generation’ | The Zimmers http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zqfFrCUrEbY China Provokes Debate in Africa | Walden Bello http://www.futurenet.org/article.asp?ID=1700 Ten Lashes Against Humanism | Jorge Majfud http://www.politicalaffairs.net/article/articleview/5033/1/249/ “Not long ago, Doug Hagin, in the image of the famous television program Dave’s Top Ten, concocted his own list of The Top Ten List of Stupid Leftist Ideals. If we attempt to de-simplify the problem by removing the political label, we will see that each accusation against the so-called US leftists is, in reality, an assault on various humanist principles. ” Confucius topples Harry | Steven Ribet http://living.scotsman.com/books.cfm?id=455372007 “It took Yu Dan only six weeks to topple JK Rowling and become the most successful author in Chinese history.But it wasn’t tales of wizards and magic that sparked hysteria in the world’s most populous country. The Beijing academic has managed to make the 2500-year-old words of Confucius, China’s most famous thinker, relevant in the 21st century. ” Dead Plagiarists Society | Paul Collins http://www.slate.com/id/2153313/ Bad Lingo: Blog-Media Cliches http://www.gawker.com/news/blogs/bad-lingo-blogmedia-clichs-222162.php President or King? | Frederick A.O. Schwarz, Jr., and Aziz Huq http://goodreads.ca/shorty/law/kingpresident/ “Not even a seventeenth-century monarch was allowed to ignore checks on power the way President Bush has.” Plastic clogs disrupt machinery in Swedish hospital | The Guardian http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,,2061288,00.html?gusrc=rss&feed=1 10 Most Bizarre People on Earth http://www.oddweek.com/item_65612.aspx —————————– CBC Ideas Podcasts In Other Words | CBC Ideas Podcast Have you ever read Don Quixote? There are several English translations of it. Which Don Quixote was it? Or how about Anna Karenina? Unless you are fluent in the original languages in which these works were published, you’ve read them through the prism and sensibilities of that most underestimated of literary artists – the translator. Barbara Nichol discusses literary translation with some of its most gifted practitioners. Part 1 http://podcast.cbc.ca/mp3/ideas_20070402_1888.mp3 Part 2 http://podcast.cbc.ca/mp3/ideas_20070409_1889.mp3 Part 3 http://podcast.cbc.ca/mp3/ideas_20070416_1890.mp3 Flesh and Stone: The Sociology of Richard Sennett The American sociologist Richard Sennett has had two great themes: the history and design of cities, and the organization of work. As a lover of cities, he has celebrated the expanded sympathy that urban life makes possible; as a student of work, he has criticized the fragmentation of time in the new capitalism; and as a writer, he has elevated sociology to a literary art. He talks with IDEAS producer, David Cayley. Part 1 http://podcast.cbc.ca/mp3/ideas_20070219_1677.mp3 Part 2 http://podcast.cbc.ca/mp3/ideas_20070226_1686.mp3 The Ideas of Jerome Kagan Harvard’s Jerome Kagan is a pioneer in developmental psychology. His specialty is studying children. He’s also a philosopher of his science. In a conversation with Paul Kennedy, Jerome Kagan reflects on nature vs. nurture, emotion and the quest for meaning. http://podcast.cbc.ca/mp3/ideas_20070212_1652.mp3 // I especially liked Kagan’s breakdown of the rise of Freudianism in the first half of the 20th Century: Jerome Kagan: Freud made some very strong statements, for example: all children pass through three phases; an oral phase in infancy, an anal phase during the second year, a phallic phase, a genital phase … that all are neuroses, all are neurotic symptoms: insomnia, depression, fearfulness, they’re all a function of repression of our conflicted urges, primarily sexual. Now, none of that is true. So here’s the puzzle: why did so many (leave me out of it) why did so many brilliant, erudite, educated people not just in the sciences but in the humanities believe that? That’s the puzzle.And the only approach to an answer I can come to is that he spoke to the intuitions of Americans. I should point out that in the early part of the 20th Century, Europe was not very friendly to Freud, it was America and England. America and England were Protestant countries with a much more prudish attitude toward sexuality. And so here is my attempt at some sort of an explanation. The availability of cheap contraceptives toward the end of the 19th Century meant that young men and women could begin to think about sexual activity outside of marriage, otherwise you couldn’t, especially if you were middle class. So now you’re allowing these thoughts to bubble up, but there’s a lot of tension and shame and uncertainty about it. So it’s sitting right on the cusp of consciousness and creating a sort of tension and what I think happened was the tensions that are due to a sick child, losing your job, your parent having cancer, frustration with your boss … that all those tensions, which have nothing to do with sexuality were interpreted as due to the conflict over sexuality. That’s the only why I can understand why this idea – coincidentally, which I believed when I was 21 years old, I thought Freud was absolutely dead right …. dead right. Paul Kennedy: It would be hard to believe anything else because that was the orthodoxy as you say. Jerome Kagan: Yeah, but there was a minority of scholars who rejected it. I mean not everyone thought it was a good idea, but many people did. I’m sure the explanation I just gave can’t be all of it. There have to be other factors, but someone smarter than I will have to come up with it. But at least the explanation I just offered I think makes some small contribution. But it is amazing. —————————– Subsection on Cultural Memory Why do geeks have lust for ZFS? | Paulius http://tech.zamwi.com/2007/01/16/why-do-geeks-have-lust-for-zfs/ Scientists: Data-storing bacteria could last thousands of years http://goodreads.ca/shorty/computerworld/bacterialstorage/ Sparta? No. This is madness | Ephraim Lytle http://www.thestar.com/article/190493 ‘300’: Fact or fiction? | Victor Davis Hanson http://goodreads.ca/shorty/washingtontimes/300/ Das Google Problem: is the invisible mouse benevolent? | Tony Curzon Price http://www.opendemocracy.net/globalization-vision_reflections/google_problem_4546.jsp We’re all ’80s kids now | Raju Mudhar http://www.thestar.com/artsentertainment/article/198191 —————————– The Disappearing Bees Why are Niagara’s bees dying? | Dana Flavelle http://www.thestar.com/Business/article/203818 Cellular phone uses linked to bee deaths | Dana Flavelle http://www.thestar.com/Business/article/204247 Are mobile phones wiping out our bees? | Geoffrey Lean http://news.independent.co.uk/environment/wildlife/article2449968.ece —————————– Paleo-Futurism Paleo-Futurism: A Look into the Future that Never Was | Matt http://paleo-future.blogspot.com ‘You Will’ Ads | AT&T (1993) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TZb0avfQme8 // concept videos for the present life which wasn’t brought to us by AT&T Knowledge Navigator | Apple Inc (1987) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3WdS4TscWH8 // a concept video produced by Apple in 1987 for an interface. —————————– France vote! France: The Precarious Generation: Au revoir job security | Charlotte Buchen and Singeli Agnew http://goodreads.ca/shorty/pbs/precarite/ France’s intellectual election | Patrice de Beer http://goodreads.ca/shorty/opendemocracy/france2007/ France’s Female Presidential Candidate Is Building a Political Machine I Stefan Simons http://www.spiegel.de/international/spiegel/0,1518,451566,00.html France, Land of Inequality | Der Speigel http://www.spiegel.de/international/0,1518,456999,00.html —————————– WTF? Swiss man jailed for Thai insult http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/6505237.stm Follow up: Man Pardoned for Insulting Thai King | Sutin Wannabovorn http://goodreads.ca/shorty/washingtonpost/forgiven/ also in the wtf? department: Complaints filed against Richard Gere http://goodreads.ca/shorty/com/gerekissykissy/ —————————————- Long links made short by using Shorty (http://get-shorty.com) To remove or add yourself to this list, go here http://goodreads.timothycomeau.com
07w11:1 The Fantastics Posted March 11th, 2007 by timothy. 11 Comments Good Reads Mailing List | 2007 week 11 number 1 (The Fantastics) The Fantastics of Ignorance This Goodreads is in part of confession of ignorance, and how wonderful things can be when you don’t have the full picture. Which is to say, they’re fantastic when not dulled by the acquired cynicism of ‘an inside story’. And perhaps it is by coming to the experience initially ignorant, having that wonderful first impression, that the further nuance associated with it doesn’t diminish its glow. Two of the items discussed here refer to art exhibitions on in Toronto presently, which is to encourage any of you for whom it is possible to visit them. These four fantastics are presented in the order in which I experienced them. I. Fantastic One | Darren O’Donnell at CCL1 Darren O’Donnell’s work over the past couple of years has been fantastic. His Suicide Site Guide to the City wowed me when I saw it in 2005, and apparently this was because of the ignorance mentioned above, as Kamal Al-Solaylee wrote in his review at the time ‘…only audiences who haven’t been to the theatre in say, a few decades, are expected to be dazzled by the presentation’. I admitted in my review that I was one of such an audience. Yet, how could we not appreciate Haircuts by Children or Ballroom Dancing for Nuit Blanche? In an arts scene riven by competition and jealousies, Darren’s work is something that we all seem to appreciate without such pettiness. I recently attended the latest production from his theatre company, Diplomatic Immunities: THE END and was genuinely touched: Ulysses Castellanos singing Queen’s `We are the Champions` at the end of the show almost made me cry. This was the song voted on by children at a local school to be that which they wanted to hear at the End of the World. (My vote at the present time is either The Beatles’ `Tomorrow Never Knows` or `Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band (Reprise)` and as I listen to them nowadays I imagine it playing over the footage of this video.) But what is it about Darren’s work along these lines that is so generally fantastic? For me it highlights what is perhaps a greater shift in our culture, which is a movement toward an interest in ‘real life’ (and to that end, reality-tv represents this transition, by using non-actors but still tying them to some sort of narrative structure). The work of Darren’s theatre troupe, Mammalian Diving Reflex, forgoes an explicit narrative structure and seemingly let’s that emerge on it’s own. Here, I’m most inspired by a snippet of dialogue from a Star Trek show. In the Enterprise episode ‘Dear Doctor’ which first aired in January 2002, there’s a scene depicting movie-night on the starship; while watching ‘For Whom the Bell Tolls’ a 1943 film being shown in that time-frame of 209 years from its creation, the character Ensign Cutler asks the alien Doctor Phlox, ‘They don’t have movies where you come from do they?’ He replied, ‘We had something similar a few hundred years ago, but they lost their appeal when people discovered their real lives were more interesting’. Now, imagine living on Phlox’s planet during that time of transition, when people were discovering their own lives were more interesting. Wouldn’t that time resemble our own, with diminishing box office returns, reality-tv programing undermining celebrity culture, a global communications network allowing for unedited dialogue within varying degrees of privacy, and the rise of the documentary genre in popularity? This statement was typed out initially by a scriptwriter in Los Angeles at the beginning of this decade and perhaps was meant both as an inside joke to Star Trek‘s fanbase (Shatner’s ‘Get a Life‘ skit from his 1986 appearance on Saturday Night Live) and reflecting the concern of Hollywood that they would lose their market. Three years later, Enterprise was cancelled, the only franchise since its resurrection twenty years ago to not last through seven seasons. Leaving DI: The End four weeks ago I was convinced that our own lives were definitely more interesting. The performance incorporated an element of chance in its selection of two audience members during the course of the evening for interviews by the cast and attendees; on the night I was there, I was stunned by the answers given by the second girl chosen, who told us of saving the life of one of her friends during a climbing accident years before. Also, when asked a question along the lines of ‘why are we here’ she gave such an unexpectedly Buddhist/Eastern Tradition answer that I found myself saying ‘wow’. The point made for me was that this girl, who had simply been someone sitting in the aisle in front of me, had a much more dramatic world inside her than anything I’m ever offered by fictional constructions, and I took this knowledge onto the street, walking with my companion who was someone new in my life and hence still full of mystery, and saw everyone around me with a new appreciation for our variety, our potential, and of the unknown masterpieces of real life. This past Thursday, I attended Darren’s opening at The Centre of Leisure and Culture No. 1, Video Show for the People of Pakistan and India which consists of an approximately twenty-minute video and chapbooks of the blog Darren kept while on tour in Pakistan and India late last year. I’ve prompted Darren to place this video online eventually, and if and when that happens I’ll follow through with the link. At the time of Darren’s trip, I was moved to contact CBC’s The Current because I’d recently heard an interview (begins at 7:45min) with the 24 year old Afghani woman Mehria Azizi who was doing a tour through Canada showing a documentary she’d made about women’s lives in her homeland. This had been one of the more insightful things I’d been exposed to with regard to this part of the world. I imagined Anna Maria Tremonti asking Darren about his conversation with Mike the soldier on the plane, or asking for stories from Darren’s experience with the humanity of these people. I figured it would have fit into The Current’s mandate as I understood it: to educate, to inform, to bring us perspective. Darren’s work deserved this national audience. There was a bit of a followup from someone who was going to forward the info to a producer but in the end nothing came of it. Meanwhile, due to the unreliableness of the CBC’s internet stream, and what I see as too much focus on Canada’s military presence in Afghanistan, I’ve avoided listening to The Current at work for the past couple of months, preferring instead France Culture or the BBC. I did catch the broadcast the other day of their self-flagellation on under and mis-reporting the story of Global Warming. Anna Maria was somewhat bothered by a statement of one of the scientists: ‘never underestimate the illiteracy of reporters’. The following morning, (that of March 9th) the CBC included in its news roundup the visit by Canada’s Governor General to the troops in Afghanistan, and there was something said about ‘putting a human face’ on the story (mov and realmedia). What’s unfortunate is that Michaëlle Jean, who in the past has seemed an intelligent, well informed woman, was responsible for the stupidest statements in the report. ‘There’s no future without women …’. No shit. But perhaps the real fault lies with the editors of the video, or the fact that she used to be a reporter. The evening before I’d been to Darren’s show to see the Pakistan video, the talk of putting a human face struck me as more this meaningless political rhetoric. Why are all these human faces those from Canada? Where do we ever see the human faces of the people we’re supposedly helping? How is their humanity ever brought to our attention? The fact that Darren could undermine the agenda of Canada’s national broadcaster with a 20 minute video perhaps suggests just how under-served we are by photo-ops, predictable rhetoric, focus on soldiers, and all the other regular bullshit. My understanding of the situation and of the people involved has been greatly enhanced by Darren’s first-person and personal reporting and the fact that the CBC found him fit only for their hipster-oriented Definitely Not the Opera kind of suggests how little they take his work seriously … something silly for the kids right? II. Fantastic Two | Monks in the lab I watched/listened to this video on Friday at work, and it was fantastic. I especially liked the idea that the effect of mediation was to practice (and thus grow new neurons) paying attention to autonomic processes, which allows us to have greater awareness of our emotions and perceptions, so that we do not need to find ourselves ‘out of control’ or ‘swept away’ by strong impulses. In my dream of the future, I want children to be taught meditation in kindergarten, as an essential life skill, just as much as doing your physical exercises and learning your maths. Monks in the Lab | Buddhist Media.com ( Real Player Broadband Link) ( Real Player Narrowband Link) ( Windows Media Player) III. Fantastic Three | Zin Taylor at YYZ As I’ve noted about Darren’s work, that it seems to miraculously inspire more admiration than jealousy, the work of Zin Taylor could be accused of inspiring more jealousy than admiration. Consider the facts as they appear: part of the Guelph university educated elite clique, he gets to be in show after show in prestigious galleries with work that is sometimes weak (the piece at The Power Plant in 2005 for example) and Taylor’s continual presence in the Toronto art scene PR seems to be attempting to break the record established by Derek Sullivan. Both artists appear to have been elevated to that collection of what seems like the less than ten artists who are overexposed in Toronto and who are continually asked to ‘represent’ this city of millions to others and to itself. And so it was with ambivalence that I went down to the YYZ opening on Friday night; a chance to drink beer, be social, see some people I like to talk to and consider friends, and be ignored by those who used to say hi to me but now just think I’m an asshole or something. I wasn’t at all expecting Taylor’s video to win me over as it did, and it is now on my highly recommended list. And yet, my appreciation for this work was based on my ignorance of its subject matter. I recall seeing years ago the call for submissions from the Yukon asking for artists to come on up and be inspired. I also recall hearing that Allyson and Zin, two artists I’d recently met through a friend, had been chosen to go. And so I knew over the past few years that Allyson and Zin had a connection to the Yukon and that they were making work about it. With Put your eye in your mouth (which a friend suggested meant ‘digest what you see’) Zin has made a sort of fake documentary on a fake thing: Martin Kippenberger’s metro-net station in Dawson City. Now, my ignorance here was based on being familiar with Kippenberger’s name but not his work, so when watching the video, I thought Zin had seen this structure and made up an elaborate history for it, tying it to some art-star’s name in order to get in the trendy props to the masters. Turns out the Metro-Net was legit (also here), and yet this only diminishes by a bit the overall video, which is still fantastic. It is this type of elaborated imagination that I want to experience with art, and in as much that conceptual art usually goes for obscure one-liner cleverness, I hate it for its denial of the imagination. Now, considering Taylor’s background from Canada’s new conceptual It-School, I suppose I can say he’s showing that you can be both conceptual and imaginative, and the product is better for it. IV. Fantastic Four | Kuchma’s Thrush Holmes reviews The suspicions I had of Zin Taylor’s elaborate imagining of what could have been ‘the mine-shaft entrance’ follows on January’s suspicions that the opening of Thrush Holmes Empire was part of an elaborate joke. There’s been talk in the scene of it being some kind of hoax, and personally I thought this was the case. I was trying to keep my mouth shut about it all, not wanting to ruin it, but now that I’ve been assured that this is not a masterpiece-parody on the art world constructed by Jade Rude and Andrew Harwood (the co-directors of the Empire space) (‘they’re not that clever’ I was told), I guess I share my disappointment that this really is the work of a presumptuous and pretentious young man who makes terrible work. As I said at the opening in January, ‘if this work is a parody, it’s a masterpiece, but if it’s legit I feel sorry for the guy’. In other words, in my ignorance, I imagined a fantastic scenario in which Jade and Andrew had collaborated on making quick, easy, and lazy work to fill up wall space in time for the opening, and hired an actor to play Thrush Holmes (which plays too close to the great 90’s indie-rock band Thrush Hermit). No mother names their son Thrush, so whoever this guy is, his wallet certainly doesn’t contain ID linking him closely with Joel Plaskett’s 90s project. (A Thrush Hermit Aside Seeing Ian McGettigan cover The Wire’s ‘I am the Fly’ in 1999 was part of the reason I gave up watching live music once I moved to Toronto – nothing would ever top that, and I prefer to have my indie-music memories packaged around my experience in Halifax rather than have continued on with the ringing ears of today’s stuff. Even though that meant I missed out on seeing the shit like this live). The only person who seems to be addressing this Thrush Holmes issue is Michael Kuchma. As I mentioned in the last Goodreads, I was part of a panel discussion at Toronto’s Gallery 1313 on art criticism. I had a good time and it was well attended despite being both a Monday and the weather being less than conducive to a social gathering. (The event was recorded and will potentially be made available as a podcast, and if/when that happens I’ll send out a link). During the Q&A, I was asked a question from a fellow in the audience who later identified himself via a comment on the BlogTo blurb writen by fellow panelist Carrie Young the day after. Michael Kuchma is trying to write some thoughtful criticism about the Toronto scene and I glad that I was able to learn about it through these circumstances. I appreciate his take not only on the Thrush Holmes stuff but also on the Toronto scene in general, and I also appreciate seeing the influence of the panel talk in his writing: I guess it was worth something in in the end. In the second link (‘why we Should…’) make note of point number 3: Perhaps some fear that Holmes is orchestrating a brilliant art-stunt, and that passing judgment right now puts one in the vulnerable position of looking stoooopid and hasty on the day when Holmes comes clean with his Machiavellian master plan. This is pretty much why I’ve kept quiet for this long, not wanting to ruin for everybody, and wanting to see Garry Michael Dault embarrassed for ‘falling for it’ as he had a positive review in the Globe & Mail on the day after the opening. (Why would I like to see Dault with egg on his face? Because Dault’s work as a critic is worthless – his reviews are almost always positive, unless he dares insinuate that someone has skills, at which point they are dismissed as being ‘illustrative’). A hoax or not, Kuchma’s thoughts on the whole matter are the most substantial I’ve come across and I’m glad he’s putting them out there. Seenster | Michael Kuchma http://t-dawt-seenster.blogspot.com/ Thrush Homes Walks a Razor Thin Line | Michael Kuchma (Feb 28 2007) http://goodreads.timothycomeau.com/shorty/blogspot/seenster1/ Why we SHOULD talk about Thrust Holmes | Michael Kuchma (March 7 2007) http://goodreads.timothycomeau.com/shorty/blogspot/seenster2/ —————————————- Long links made short by using Shorty (http://get-shorty.com) To remove or add yourself to this list, go here http://goodreads.timothycomeau.com
