tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-39278915423700317412024-02-15T20:34:43.020-08:00Dada RobotnikDaveyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07390590043766401258noreply@blogger.comBlogger327125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3927891542370031741.post-5071966701308821972016-11-09T04:55:00.000-08:002016-11-09T05:05:10.174-08:00What do we do about President Trump?<br />
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The unthinkable happened. The American people voted for Donald Trump as the next president. The reasons for this are obvious: America is sick of what status quo Washington leadership has delivered. Depending on what happens next, how we react to a Trump presidency could define this generation and change the world. </div>
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Three or four things can happen now: </div>
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1. Trump effectively delivers on his promises: Reducing immigration, making America safer by relying on law and order (intensifying police spending and border security), domesticating labor and manufacturing by somehow simultaneously reducing barriers to corporations but also heavily penalizing those who off-shore or who wish to import goods, reducing the tax burden, and replacing the Affordable Care Act with 'something really fantastic.' He wins against ISIS and creates jobs. He makes America Great Again. </div>
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Oh, and he builds that wall. </div>
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2. Trump flails around like a wounded shark and shatters the American political status quo by being impulsive, vengeful, insubstantial, petty, and inept. It's a weird and economically bereft time, and has vast political repercussions, but we all more or less make it through. The underlying motivation that got Trump elected: dissatisfaction with the state of America, is addressed in coming generations. </div>
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3. Trump continues to feed on hateful rhetoric and the scapegoating of the most marginalized populations in the nation and builds a powerful movement that can only be described as fascist. People who perpetuate this perspective will be supported by authority, passively or actively. </div>
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4. Some kind of combination/spectrum of the above. </div>
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I'm not predicting we end up toward #3 on the spectrum, but if that is what occurs, here are some ways we can prepare and counteract it. In the face of unprecedented (unPresidented?) hostility and oppression, we have to act. These are empowering reactions regardless of what happens next. </div>
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<b>It is of utmost importance that we constantly seek the truth.</b> </div>
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Discontentment is <i><b>why</b></i> Trump won, but <b><i>how</i></b> Trump won is by tapping into that discontentment by lying. Anyone identifying Trump's lies is disregarded by his supporters as a product of a biased media, but the words that come out of his mouth are a matter of public record, and they're not often factual by anyone's measure. Rigorously pursuing facts did not win in the face of Trump's presidential bid, but staying factual will be the only way we can preserver in the face of oppression in an informed, effective way and be on the right side of history when the dust settles. With the erosion of the 4th estate, this has never been harder, which is why clarity and investigation need to champion over propaganda on the left and the right. But truth is demonstrable with evidence and lies are not,<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"> even in complex matters of politics</span>. As change occurs, demand proof before siding with oppression and publicize truth that counters the claims of the oppressive party. </div>
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<b>Reach out and connect with communities that are vulnerable and let them know you will fight for their liberty. </b></div>
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Go to mosques and commiserate with Muslims. Talk to the people you are acquainted with but who are outside your community and let them know you're there. Go to community events being organized right now to resist the outcomes of hateful rhetoric and action. Talk to people who are different from you and at risk. Depending on who you are and what you do, offer them your support and an open door in the event that they need you. And be ready to sacrifice your comfort, freedom, future and stability to prevent something atrocious from happening in your time. </div>
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<b>Use the tools that you have. </b></div>
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You're an artist? Spread truth. You're a programmer? Create tools that allow people to effectively communicate. You're a nurse? Train others to take care of themselves. We all have roles to play, the skills we have professionally or in terms of interests can be applied to making the world a better and safer place in a thousand creative ways. </div>
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<b>Connect with your local power structure and try to ascertain where their line in the sand is. </b></div>
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Will your local city council and mayor's office reject an order to profile citizens based on religion? Will your business licensor quit over a request to shut a business because its owners are immigrants? Find out, introduce yourself, and put pressure where you can on those in power to do the right thing. If you're within a power structure that can turned for the worse if American democracy falls apart, consider how to most effectively leverage that position. The men and women of our armed forces and police more than likely want to do the right thing, but will need allies and support to do so in the face of a changing political normal. </div>
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We don't know how bad things can get, and hopefully scenario #3 is a nightmare that we over-prepared for. If that's the case, the last step is still the most important:</div>
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<b>Organize. </b></div>
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Organize for what you believe in and what you want to preserve. Organize to put pressure on leaders who will be watching the same changes you are. Organize to provide for those at risk. Organize to educate and prepare everyone to challenge what's to come and the problems we've been saddled with all along. Organize to connect with other people and initiatives talking the same goals. </div>
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<b>Whatever you do, do not be a spectator in your own moment. </b></div>
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This is a wild time to be an American, but it is our time, and whether it's prosperous or apocalyptic we won't be a people who did nothing but watch youtube clips of a changing world. </div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Choose truth and love over hate and division. </span></div>
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See you out there. </div>
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Daveyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07390590043766401258noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3927891542370031741.post-84461120034298148022016-10-05T21:32:00.000-07:002016-10-05T21:32:27.300-07:00Get Out: The movie we all needA trailer's been popping up in my feed recently, Jordan Peele's <a href="https://www.facebook.com/GetOutMovie/">Get Out</a>. Without sound, I assumed it was some FunnyOrDie send-up short about race relations. Like 'omg my white girlfriend doesn't use a washcloth in the shower, what terror' ala Dave Chapelle.
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Turns out it's like a thousand times cooler than that.
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<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/sRfnevzM9kQ" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
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This movie looks like the perfect cultural response to the racist madness we're grappling with today. It brings the banal terrors of racism that we're inundated with and makes them <i>horrific</i>, to apparently amazing effect.
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By the look of the trailer, everything that is understated, insinuated, or denied in mainstream white culture is manifested in its final form here. White people are actually deleting black people from this community through some kind of hypnotic assimilation, and the fall-out is staged against cringe-worthy moments of white ineptitude performed by upper-class parental figures meeting their daughter's black boyfriend. Amazing.
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I feel emotionally invested in this crazy movie to a degree that no horror about zombies or possessed children could ever achieve. As a white person, I'm excited to watch this movie for the moments that bring Daniel Kaluuya's character to life in the face of larger-than-life caricatures of white oppression. I want him to triumph over the stupidity as an avatar for every person of color who has to deal with the real-life equivalents of this madness every moment.
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The true measure of how impactful this film is going to be is playing out right before our eyes <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sRfnevzM9kQ">in the comments section</a> of the trailer on youtube. People who are excited about the movie because it reflects their experience or because they find it really clever like I do are waging full on battle with the racist trolls coming out of the woodwork. The fragile white fight is going on full steam! I hope it converts to box office sales.
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+10,000xp to Jordan Peele for having this idea.
Daveyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07390590043766401258noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3927891542370031741.post-56903794318497796342016-10-04T09:46:00.000-07:002016-10-04T10:21:46.719-07:00Behind the scenes: Producing/Shooting at LAX<iframe src="https://www.facebook.com/plugins/video.php?href=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2Fdelta%2Fvideos%2F1316728041679708%2F&show_text=0&width=560" width="560" height="315" style="border:none;overflow:hidden" scrolling="no" frameborder="0" allowTransparency="true" allowFullScreen="true"></iframe>
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This commercial was a challenge to produce! I decided I'd jot down some notes for anyone shooting at a big airport in the future:
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Filming at LAX: Airport security requires background checks for the entire crew, which means you have to be crewed up a week in advance. All gear has to pass through TSA, so we opted to go with Alexa Amiras. Shooting on tarmac comes with a $10m insurance requirement that has to be prepared 7 days in advance in order to obtain the FilmLA permit in time. LAX parking+security+traffic meant no production runs, so everything had to be on hand for the first shot. Background was uncontrolled (it's an airport) so we had to have a number of releases on hand. All in all this 60 second job required 31 insurance documents, permit requests, or applications.
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We only had the marching band for a total of 4 hours between the two locations, UCLA and LAX, which required two units and a total of 6 cameras. 3 to cover the constant action in the airport, 1 to capture the marching band on the UCLA field, a timelapse camera, and a background shooter for media. The client wanted one set of footage that was basically a press-release on the event, and another set that was more cinematic, this cut.
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Filming at UCLA: Drones aren't allowed on campus, so an overhead shot of a football field is a tricky one. UCLA was more than happy to allow us to use their 40' scissor lift, which was a huge boon.
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Though all of our airport/campus contacts were very professional and helpful, I cannot imagine doing an airport shoot if it wasn't for an airport client like Delta (and UCLA on campus). With Delta we got: Access to special rooms to create a DIT base camp, entrance through Delta One, and the ability to coordinate plane arrivals with our crew, which made the whole approach shot possible.
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All in all, a bunch of work for 60 seconds! Daveyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07390590043766401258noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3927891542370031741.post-91604202731628829452016-09-24T13:19:00.002-07:002016-09-25T12:21:48.338-07:00Above their pay gradeThe garbage bags were piling up in the forsaken part of downtown. It was really a shame. There were too many people lined up on the sidewalks at all hours to get in there and pick it all up, and you couldn’t drive a street sweeper over a pile of rags and boxes. Someone might be passed out in there. Or lying in wait, ready to ambush invisible assailants. The sanitation department’s official line was that their employees didn’t feel safe, what with all the drug dealing and general craziness down there. You could understand. Tile and concrete were smeared with all manner of bitter liquids and sticky mystery materials, the kind of thing you’d want to hurry by, not clean up.
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It’s likely <a name='more'></a>that the sanitation workers were simply tired. Tired of being defeated by the garbage build-up, municipal standards of cleanliness losing ground to the organic rate of decay. Every hamburger bag and plastic energy drink bottle has to go somewhere. The workers were tired of being treated like servants by the city’s homeless, their walls, sidewalks, and gutters bearing the brunt of someone else’s rage, taken for granted.
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There was another thing. It wasn’t as easily said or as official as citing safety hazards, but interactions down around the shelter just wore everyone out. The little jokes and stories were innocuous enough, but behind every side comment, every crazy outburst, every complicated excuse, there was a yearning: <i>Notice me.</i> When the last thing anyone wanted to do was look the broken people in the eye. But they were still people, with people needs, and they talked, and joked, and begged, and shouted, and shot up, and hit one another with fists and pipes and grabbing hands and those same garbage bags, swung as last-resort weapons. Useless, degrading, spraying yellow-brown muck.
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It was a sequence of streetlamp-lit miniseries, driving by. Here a man in a wheelchair with no legs is impossibly active, zipping from group to group with a bawl and a growl. Here a toothless buzzard chuckles while jostling a younger girl with a butterfly tattoo on her shoulder, a boyfriend-type behind her bristling at the old guy's touch. Mostly men, but women too, and children. But the children’s stories are so beautiful and sad that we can’t do them justice yet, so stand by.
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If it weren’t for the action, one would be able to hear the hiss of spray paint, a mere ladder-height above. On the dirty brick rooftop overhead, Lilla’s fingers moved deftly, stained with red and brown spray paint. Her surgically-gloved hands connected wires to a small circuit board. She tied the wires in knots, cheery little loops of red and green. She popped open a breaker box, flipped a fuse. Cut power, then re-connected it to the little device. Testing. All good. Her cell phone appeared, illuminating her brown eyes and lips, dark curls now a glowing halo frizzing out from under her hood.
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<i>Activate/Deactivate.</i>
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Her gloved hand toggled the button, and a red spotlight flickered briefly on the blank wall above. She pocketed the phone, decisively spackled the cable into hiding along the brickline, tucked the circuitboard into a damaged section, and covered it all up with mortar.
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She swung her bag to shoulder, spray cans clattering in their distinct metallic way, and leapt into darkness.
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The human drama continued below, for anyone who stuck around long enough to see it.
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3927891542370031741.post-33774022191033913262016-04-08T17:40:00.000-07:002016-04-08T18:42:14.642-07:00Remembering Paul Splett<center>
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February 2016 marked the passing of Paul M. Splett. He is remembered by those who love him as the person who taught them to go after their dreams. He was a loving husband, father, son, brother, mentor and friend. He was both a heavy metal musician and a lawyer. A philosopher and a football fan. A lover and a sufferer. He refused to be limited by the hardships life threw at him, loving all things, pondering the questions of meaning, religion, and existence. After his second kidney transplant, Paul got out of bed and taught himself how to build a house, which became the beautiful home for him and the love of his life, Ronette Meyer. Paul's time on earth contained multitudes, but he left us too soon.
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Paul was born May 23rd, 1961 to Gilbert and Carolyn Splett in Chewelah, Washington. He was the middle child between Kathryn and Tim. As children of a Lutheran pastor, they were often under the community’s microscope. So naturally, Paul got into metal music.
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<a name='more'></a>He grew his curly brown hair long, framing an intense unibrow and intelligent blue eyes. He promised his parents that he’d meet their expectation and graduate college. But only after he gave being a musician a serious go.<br />
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<span id="fullpost">Over ten years, Paul played bass in The Edge, Traxx, Passion, Hammerhead, and Sgt. Friday. He and bandmates Scott ‘Ralph’ Alberts, Pete Kneser, and Chris McLernon would pack the bars they’d play. On Sgt. Friday, McLernon would later write:
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<span id="fullpost"><i>Our set list was an eclectic mix of everything from the Monkees to W.A.S.P. to ZZ TOP to Bryan Adams… We played what we liked, and simply acted like chattering morons in between songs. It came naturally, it worked, and we drew big crowds quickly.
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<span id="fullpost"><i>Oh, and we were <b>loud</b>.
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McLernon went on to a long career in heavy metal and credits Paul with convincing him to become a serious musician. Sgt. Friday garnered a big enough following to move to LA. They’d play at the it venues, where everyone wanted to play: Gizarri’s, the Rainbow, FM Station, White Trash. He lived for music, and would relish hosting his visiting friends, introducing them to other musicians and showing them the local scene.
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Throughout this era, a young Paul was struggling with chronic health issues stemming from an autoimmune disorder. He lost use of his kidneys in 1986, requiring a transplant from his father. Subsequent medicines wreaked havoc on his bone system, leading to a hip replacement at 26.
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Paul met Ronette Meyer through his brother’s friend Shelley Bredeson. When Ronette heard that the gentle, patient man was recovering from hip surgery, she checked in on him. They soon moved in together, and married in the spring of 1988.
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Everyone loved when he found Ronette. They were such a match for one another. He was energetic and curious and funny and kind. She was snarky and interesting and had really great energy, like he did. She made him happy.
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Their wedding took place on an LA estate Houdini built for his mistress. The house and grounds were beautiful, and to save money their friends all cleaned, catered, and provided the entertainment. A mansion wedding starring the metal scene of LA.
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As Paul’s health deteriorated, the band had to break up and move on. Ronette and Paul’s daughter Athena was born November 11th, 1988, and their son Gilbert a year later on December 13th. Kids, health, and Paul’s promise to get an education all conspired in the family moving back to Madison.
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Ronette studied to become a high school English teacher, and Paul pitched his own major, putting together philosophy and religion courses. Paul was a deeply spiritual person. He believed in forces of nature more than a deity. He wrestled with who he was religiously all his life, turning every single rock over in pursuit of the truth. His introspection lead to an attitude of inclusiveness. He was dissatisfied with organized religion and loved the overriding truths that many religions shared. Like his favorite philosopher, Spinoza, he was God-intoxicated, if ‘god’ meant the unity of all substance.
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His passion for philosophy and religion touched his friends and family. He could bring philosophy to life, discussing old texts with his sister as if they were in a room riffing with Kant over a few beers. Paul was responsible for his parents becoming inclusive in their faith, too. His father, Gilbert, was a theologian as well as a pastor. The two would talk endlessly on the phone, two hours would be nothing. Paul was a master at getting these kind of conversations going, with anyone in his life. Discussions that would happen over the course of years, spiraling back, as challenges arrived and the things that gave life meaning changed.
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He graduated Phi Beta Kappa, and was accepted in the philosophy master's program at the University of New Mexico. He moved to Albuquerque, wanting to focus on Native American religion and philosophy, but Paul was frustrated by his advisor’s misguided claim that Native American philosophy was non-canonical, or even non-existent. He discovered the next best thing: Native American law, and pursued a career in Mediation. Law school connected him with fellow students Rob Sutphin, Marcus Rael, Paul Spruhan and Bidtah Becker, who became his lifelong friends. Rob and Marcus would bicker and argue about who was Paul’s best friend, a goofy rivalry that continued as they both established prominent law practices. Paul was a rock to many in his life, he was an attentive friend with whom no subject was off-limits.
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Throughout the late nineties, Paul’s health was deteriorating. Paul’s first kidney failed, after 17 years, followed by years of daily dialysis. The man who defied limitations and inspired those around him to live fully was ready to give up, his talk was of finality.
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Though his brother, Tim, was willing to donate a second kidney, local hospitals were unwilling to perform the transplant. Paul’s mother, Carolyn, kept searching for somewhere to perform the operation, and landed on the University of Madison’s School of Medicine. They would consider a transplant, if Paul wanted to live.
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Even though he was in constant pain, he chose life. Paul was still the same man who refused to categorized by his suffering. The kidney transplant happened in August of 2005. He used this to re-focus his life on his dreams. He lived in an earth ship in Taos, working on a book delving into quantum physics through the lens of atheism. He wanted to build a house. He wasn’t a carpenter, but that was hardly an obstacle. He found a little piece of property. Ronette was less than enthused at first glance. There was nothing there but an empty lot on a weird little dead end street in Los Ranchos.
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They rented an apartment nearby, and got to work. Paul designed a small adobe house and built it super efficiently, with solar electric, passive heating and cooling, and a roof catch-water system. The floor plan was Ronette’s, together they drafted up the kitchen cabinet layout. Paul hired two professionals, Mexican nationals who provided expertise throughout the project and saved him from rookie mistakes. Everyone leant a hand, from Gilbert Sr. raising the beams to Marcus financing the finish stucco. But every detail, from the ironwork to roof beams to the Alligator Juniper trim, has a piece of Paul’s mind and heart in it.
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In the final 10 years of his life, Paul became what he really wanted to be. He built the home for himself and Ronette with his own two hands. He became an Assistant Attorney General of New Mexico. He never stopped thinking about the universe and our place in it. Athena and Gilbert recall a wonderful father, a humble, funny, loving man who was at equally at ease discussing gnostic gospels or the Green Bay Packers. He was a passionate motorcyclist, and would meet with his buddies at local dives to swap stories before kicking off rides in the Jemez Mountains.
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Through it all, he was unfailingly kind. He knew that he was not perfect. He knew none of us were. That allowed for an incredible empathy, compassion for all people and all ways of finding meaning in life.
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Paul passed away peacefully early in the morning on February 10th, 2016. Ronette made him as comfortable as possible in his final struggles.
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His life was cut short when it was at its best, and Paul would not have denied the cosmic unfairness in that. But holding his memory are many who were inspired by his love and enthusiasm for the mystery of life, gifts which will ripple through the rest of their lives. Paul loved to hurl questions out into the void. He now knows the answers to the mysteries about which we have only been able to guess, argue, and ponder.
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<a data-flickr-embed="true" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/59079355@N00/25713651193/in/dateposted-public/" title="Paul Splett"><img alt="Paul Splett" height="500" src="https://farm2.staticflickr.com/1622/25713651193_d0dd18eb71.jpg" width="500" /></a><script async="" charset="utf-8" src="//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js"></script>
<a data-flickr-embed="true" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/59079355@N00/26224003192/in/dateposted-public/" title="Paul Splett"><img alt="Paul Splett" height="640" src="https://farm2.staticflickr.com/1494/26224003192_1a9ae18e17_z.jpg" width="480" /></a><script async="" charset="utf-8" src="//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js"></script>
<a data-flickr-embed="true" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/59079355@N00/26250176391/in/dateposted-public/" title="Paul Splett"><img alt="Paul Splett" height="640" src="https://farm2.staticflickr.com/1590/26250176391_cc943800b7_z.jpg" width="480" /></a><script async="" charset="utf-8" src="//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js"></script>
<a data-flickr-embed="true" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/59079355@N00/26224003102/in/dateposted-public/" title="Paul Splett"><img alt="Paul Splett" height="481" src="https://farm2.staticflickr.com/1595/26224003102_836723b08d_z.jpg" width="640" /></a><script async="" charset="utf-8" src="//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js"></script>
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<a data-flickr-embed="true" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/59079355@N00/25713651423/in/dateposted-public/" title="Paul Splett"><img alt="Paul Splett" height="434" src="https://farm2.staticflickr.com/1618/25713651423_5ef5756c88_z.jpg" width="640" /></a><script async="" charset="utf-8" src="//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js"></script>
<a data-flickr-embed="true" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/59079355@N00/26250176431/in/dateposted-public/" title="Paul Splett"><img alt="Paul Splett" height="486" src="https://farm2.staticflickr.com/1473/26250176431_2ff1fd718d_z.jpg" width="640" /></a><script async="" charset="utf-8" src="//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js"></script>
<a data-flickr-embed="true" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/59079355@N00/26290460556/in/dateposted-public/" title="Paul Splett"><img alt="Paul Splett" height="480" src="https://farm2.staticflickr.com/1502/26290460556_c0a8671780_z.jpg" width="640" /></a><script async="" charset="utf-8" src="//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js"></script>
<a data-flickr-embed="true" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/59079355@N00/25711553704/in/dateposted-public/" title="Paul Splett"><img alt="Paul Splett" height="383" src="https://farm2.staticflickr.com/1610/25711553704_2348cec4dc_z.jpg" width="640" /></a><script async="" charset="utf-8" src="//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js"></script>
<a data-flickr-embed="true" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/59079355@N00/26043545670/in/dateposted-public/" title="Paul Splett"><img alt="Paul Splett" height="640" src="https://farm2.staticflickr.com/1497/26043545670_7f7f744d46_z.jpg" width="480" /></a><script async="" charset="utf-8" src="//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js"></script>
<a data-flickr-embed="true" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/59079355@N00/26316410725/in/dateposted-public/" title="Paul Splett"><img alt="Paul Splett" height="640" src="https://farm2.staticflickr.com/1466/26316410725_46b24a34c9_z.jpg" width="360" /></a><script async="" charset="utf-8" src="//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js"></script>
<a data-flickr-embed="true" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/59079355@N00/26224003552/in/dateposted-public/" title="Paul Splett"><img alt="Paul Splett" height="480" src="https://farm2.staticflickr.com/1441/26224003552_71622b7570_z.jpg" width="640" /></a><script async="" charset="utf-8" src="//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js"></script>
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<a data-flickr-embed="true" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/59079355@N00/26044388400/in/dateposted-public/" title="Paul Spletts House"><img src="https://farm2.staticflickr.com/1654/26044388400_c7ea0bdcfa_z.jpg" width="480" height="640" alt="Paul Spletts House"></a><script async src="//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
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</span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3927891542370031741.post-14126147048946482052016-02-13T18:54:00.001-08:002016-02-13T18:54:42.899-08:00This site has been in hibernation as I've focused the Bicycle Collectives of Utah. The <a href="http://www.bicyclecollective.org/">Bicycle Collective</a> has always been a huge part of my life, and it has been a pleasure to lead the organization as it grows. If you want to learn more about what we do, I was invited to give a TEDx talk that is a pretty solid introduction:<br />
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Please keep in touch through the website above, or by checking out our daily posts on Instagram in <a href="https://www.instagram.com/bicyclecollective/">Salt Lake</a>, <a href="https://www.instagram.com/ogdenbicyclecollective/">Ogden</a>, and <a href="https://www.instagram.com/provobicyclecollective/">Provo</a>.
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3927891542370031741.post-17273054918232742742014-12-11T19:19:00.002-08:002014-12-11T19:19:51.951-08:00What does it mean to live fully, to you?That is the lifelong question. I want to know your answer, because it will speak volumes about who you are. I think it changes every day, and every year, depending on what we know, and what is lacking in our lives. <Br>
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In this particular context I was thinking about the struggle of the writer: do you spend your time observing and fashioning descriptions of life, or are you fully in the moment, present, living it? Do I throw myself into love; consequences, time constraints, and emotional vulnerabilities be damned? Or do I keep myself withdrawn and give myself the discipline and structure it takes to be a better artist? Can I do both?<br>
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But living fully for me in general means a few things right now: <br>
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Being loved, and loving. Improving the world using my skills, thoughts, and energy. Exploring the world in its multifaceted and dangerous splendor. Eating great food. Pushing myself, and getting stronger. Illuminating the darkness for those more fragile. Bearing witness to the end of days. Going down all roads in search of truths. Being uncompromising about truth, when I can see it, and thoughtful about it when I can't. <br>
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I am typically of one of two minds. For entertainment purposes, let's paint them in their extremes. <br>
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I either wake up in action, uncoiling like a spring, with a gasp, and I move. I want to boldly and uncompromisingly assess challenges and take them on, honing my mind into acuity in response to the twists and turns life throws me. I am strong, and virile, and laughing the triumphant laugh of a joyful and wrathful god, many headed. I want to dance and sing with the glory of living. I do not want to crush my enemies because I have no enemies, I only have challenges that make me stronger. Everything improves in my presence because I love everything and I am alive. <br>
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In this mindset, my purpose on this planet is to use my mind, my body, my charisma, and my determination to improve the world. This is the version of myself that wants to run the Bicycle Collective, that wants to write a best-selling young adult novel that shows kids to confront their fears and insecurities with joy and love for their allies. The version of me that smiles when talking to a homeless person because I have the capacity to love them and in that love is salvation for both of us. <br>
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Or I wake up slow. I want nothing better than to find refuge from the world, in someone's arms, in food, in distraction. By running away. I acknowledge the frailty of the world and my own frailty within it. At these times I feel things like thunderbolts, and the calamity of the human condition leaves me a cold vessel. My eyes no longer crackle, they become repositories of dread and sadness. <br>
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Here, I am meant to be a measure of what is real. I am meant to feel what can be felt, and decipher it into poetry. The hurt can hurt me, but I am protected from it in my role as a recorder. I loathe the damage that the teenager receives just by being surrounded by other broken people. The homeless person terrifies me because I might soon become them. And the sky's darkness is the harbinger of the future. <br>
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The compassion of the quiet me and the radiance of the bold me can serve two purposes. <br>
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They can be poured into another person, who absorbs them, learns from them, nurtures them, is emboldened by them, or maybe even is broken by them. <br>
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Or they can be poured into text like charged ions into batteries. Wrapped up into complicated emotional talismans to tell the human story, and hopefully, save the world. <br>
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Ideally they serve a combination of the two. Which is where I figure my shit out. <br>
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For you?<br>
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</span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3927891542370031741.post-20172984606248855452014-11-30T23:34:00.001-08:002014-11-30T23:41:41.867-08:00Letter to a friend: Embrace constant changeI love seeing this message. It's so hard to feel what you feel, to feel in the wrong place, in the wrong time, and I don't really have any answers for you. But I do have some thoughts.
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One of the hardest and most rarified moments that I return to in my life occurred shortly after I was a freshman in college. I had just had a big goodbye dinner, spontaneously organized with about 15 of my freshmen friends from University. C_ was there, A_ was there, 3 dancer girls that I'd become crazy close, R_ and M_ and a few other people that made me happy but weren't terribly important. We broke into the Post theater and danced up on the stage after making a great pot-luck, I think I cooked for people a bit.
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I was recalling this night, and the culmination of new relationships that it signified, as I boarded a plane to Cairo. I was planning on leaving everything I knew for a year, and up until that moment I felt fine about that. But as I looked at the neutral grey surreality that you always see at through airport windows, I felt my life was finite for the first time. I realized that the three dancer girls, who'd become incredibly important to me over the past year, would probably drift away. Not only was that shocking, but I realized that I'd probably never meet people just like them again, realizing in theory the difference between college friendships forged on exploration and the cooler networkings we create down the road. I stopped short in the terminal, looking out the window, almost crying. "Why am I running from that?" I wondered. "Why am I throwing that away?"<br />
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<span id="fullpost">I don't have a good answer to those two questions. The older we get, the more true the metaphor of a life with many doors becomes: Each opening reveals a thousand new portals and simultaneously closes off a thousand others. Those closed doors will always haunt you. But I do have a counter-story.<br />
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Later, on the same trip, I was in Siwa, a desert oasis on the Libyan border, a town made of sand built in 900AD, since which time it had rained precisely twice. The first rainstorm had cracked a foundation here and there, but life went on until the late 1800's when a second rainstorm rendered the impossibly ancient structures uninhabitable. At this point, two months into my trip, I'd seen and done a thousand things that I couldn't begin to articulate to myself. I could only feel that I had finally seen firsthand many of the huge nameless truths of the world that can only be experienced in the open-eyed passage between 1st and 3rd world, seeing the beauty and terror of both. I sat atop of the crumbling sandscape, alone, and bawled my eyes out.<br />
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My point, I think, is that I couldn't have learned that without letting go of my friends. Some of them, like A_ and C_, are still huge presences in my life, and I'm thankful for it. Some of them are not. The question you have to ask yourself is: When you look back on your life, and your decisions, are you glad you're not still the person you were in C_ with S_ and M_ and J_? Has the cumulative You, with those experiences and your later ones, grown to be enriching and satisfying in a variety of ways? There will always be loss, and always gain. Sometimes what we want most excludes what we also want.<br />
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I think you're right in being worried about your current place in life, and yearning for more. You can up and switch to living in a Cob-house, and I think you'd have an amazing time. But you'd lose things to do that. Maybe it makes sense to leave Seattle and move to Rio Mesa, but I'll remind you that none of the people you miss in this email are in Rio Mesa. You'd start from scratch there too, and maybe it's worth it. Leaving now would be different than leaving in 2 years, because a good life is never still, wherever it is. But it'd be worth it, either way.<br />
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The other thing about those people you love (and D_'s devotion to his friends reminds me of this): They won't hang around for you, either. As the things in their lives come up they'll move where they need to be, and you should too, rejoicing in the times that you have back together, and the chance occurrences that bring you to the same places.<br />
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I'm reminded of another platitude: "Change the things I cannot abide, abide the things I cannot change."<br />
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We're so lucky. So impossibly goddamn lucking it's impossible to overstate. Do you realize how much we can change? You and I live in a society (with —so— many other problems, lest we forget) where we can live in New York or a farm and kiss many people or one and be one gender or another and espouse any outlook and follow it to it's logical conclusion, and we live with the resources and lack of restraints that make any one of those options possible. Other people, in this place, in other places, have far fewer things at their option to change, and thus must abide. But they may be happier, because the choice is forced, and they don't have as large of a graveyard of closed doors behind them. They were never there to begin with.<br />
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So go on through, changing the things you can't abide and abiding the things you can't change. It's hard, and the things we exclude will hurt, but it's worth it.<br />
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Love you.
</span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3927891542370031741.post-33889397556195853152013-06-07T15:55:00.001-07:002013-06-07T15:57:22.181-07:00Writing Excerpt: The consequence of caringFrom a letter to a friend:<br>
<p>
I've always noticed your lack of attachment to things. It seemed, while you were younger, that you would bounce from identity to identity, skill set to skill set, person to person, place to place, exploring, and then moving on. It's a normal part of youth, but it worried me, somewhat. I don't know why. Maybe it was because I've always been too attached, to monogamous, too sensitive.<br>
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Anyway, I think part of the grief and terror that you were expressing this morning comes out of the change that happens as you get attached. Feeling something is an investment, and investments can mean a weight and an urgency and a shackle. But I contend that in order to truly feel, in order to truly love, in order for life to have meaning, you have to have that investment. It's a worthwhile trade, even if means that when things don't go according to plan, you hurt.<br>
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It makes me proud of you, even as getting older tries us both.
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3927891542370031741.post-59941659516750290622013-03-07T08:02:00.000-08:002013-03-07T13:12:51.946-08:00The Square is funded! And campaign photochop recapI spent most of the last month staring at TweetDeck. As part of the outreach campaign for <a href="http://thesquarefilm.com/">The Square</a>, I tried my best to stay abreast of news from Cairo and keep the cheerleading and pandering that is a necessary part of any Kickstarter campaign tempered with meaningful updates from the revolutionaries on the ground. <a href="http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/noujaimfilms/the-square-a-film-about-the-egyptian-revolution">I'm so happy this campaign has succeeded</a>, and moving forward I'll continue in my goal to bridge promoting a story with the causes that it depicts. I particularly like this paragraph, from one of our outreach drafts:
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>"More than money, we feel we've been introduced or reconnected with a global community of people who want to fight for a better world. We're so grateful that you're with us. We want to use this time, while we're connected, to fill the air with inspiring stories, stories that push your movements forward, stories that bring our movements together."
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Now I wanted to share with you some of the more fun images that I created in this digital blitzkrieg. I'm no designer, so these assignments were even more fun of a challenge as a result.
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My favorite image has to be this Egyptian nationalist remix of Delacroix:
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<img src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8529/8534173511_800381444d_z.jpg" /></center>
We busted this out really quick for the french Facebook page, it probably got the least exposure of any image, which is probably why I love it. It doesn't <span id="fullpost"> make any damn sense.
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<img src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8518/8534173147_bd5a9eccee_z.jpg" /></center>
Khalid Abdalla's quoteplate was another favorite, filled with excerpts from his "Testimony," a long and wise letter about the revolution. You can read the <a href="http://tahrirsquared.com/node/2412">full, passionate, brilliant text here. </a>
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<center><img src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8110/8535281238_2bfbb1fa09_z.jpg" /></center>
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There were whimsical images that underline the international and technological spirit of this project. Here Producer Avram Ludwig holds a computer Skyping in our Egyptian Director and Producer to a New York loft with a random Murikami painting in the background.
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<center><img src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8096/8535281302_e1ca950656_z.jpg" /></center>
I used to hate facebook's cover photos option, but have embraced it as a interesting visual tool to change campaign headlines and keep things visually up to date.
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Finally, the Stencil. Based on the street art of Keizer in Cairo, I mocked it up in 10 minutes before a flight, for better or for worse, and sent it to our printer. It's become the sticker, t-shirt logo, and viral stencil we circulated to spread solidarity for the egyptian revolution. Who knew!
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<img src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8527/8536152417_5e0eec5482_o.png" /></center>
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</span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3927891542370031741.post-91057549061859220782013-02-05T10:02:00.000-08:002013-02-10T13:10:45.450-08:00Operation Anti Sexual Harassment/Assault and the murky way of the massesThis chilling video has been blowing up on youtube the last few days. If you don't speak Arabic, to experience it properly you'll need to turn on the English subtitles, and watch it in full quality.
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A calm, aerial camera follows an atrocity in the midst of a chaotic crowd, a nighttime riot in Cairo. We are informed that one woman, in a knot of dozens of men, is being sexually assaulted. It is impossible to ascertain this from the video alone*, but the reactions of the men around her certainly support this conclusion. The chilling thing is that while the many of the dozens of men around her don't support this violence, the violence still takes place. In public. With thousands of people around. Gang-raping a woman has nothing to do with the goals of a people's struggle, yet it happened.
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In times where rule of law breaks down, traditional power dynamics are scrapped. This moment has great revolutionary potential. The unfortunate reality is that other power inequalities emerge. If the people protesting, collectively, are not able to protect the people who are made vulnerable by those power inequalities, then they lose valuable support of those disenfranchised, and the atrocity itself stands to undermine their movement.
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In Egypt, groups like <a href="https://www.facebook.com/opantish">OpAntiSH</a>, and individuals like Aida El Kashef (featured in <a href="http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/noujaimfilms/the-square-a-film-about-the-egyptian-revolution">The Square!</a>) are fighting against this violence, both because it is unacceptable and because it undermines the people's struggle. Support them, and if you're elsewhere, emulate them.
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">*It can be assumed that OpAntiSH did their homework and followed up with this woman and closer witnesses after the video was shot. If that is not the case, I apologize for misinformation. </span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3927891542370031741.post-17778795673235019432013-02-04T15:00:00.000-08:002013-03-21T14:38:22.039-07:00<center><iframe src="http://player.vimeo.com/video/56213585?color=ff9933" width="700" height="393" frameborder="0" webkitAllowFullScreen mozallowfullscreen allowFullScreen></iframe> <p><a href="http://vimeo.com/56213585">Methods & Madness x Caroll Taveras</a> from <a href="http://vimeo.com/thedadafactory">Dada Factory</a> on <a href="http://vimeo.com">Vimeo</a>.</p></center>
Before heading to Sundance last month I wrapped up a neat little video with Tessa Liebman and Caroll Taveras. Tessa's a versatile chef who collaborates with various artists to make events celebrating and expanding upon their work. Dark was the night, pretty were the guests, indulgent was the menu. Fun stuff!Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3927891542370031741.post-5158367941611895952013-01-16T16:38:00.000-08:002013-01-16T16:38:37.867-08:00The Square (El Midan) Sundance 2013<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhghJWAcEdiTtZ9KoY34Fq5msXO5qVXyr5eVYVWKoGQFa3TYeDu5TTq25OHmmqbFwkVOSjl8ZgSk3EvY3ZPFRGLsVtc5ab9H3HAmsDsDRAISEatcmSyOcWmXJKKmd3MtQZMvMTdKeehe-E/s1600/Screen+Shot+2013-01-16+at+7.26.02+PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left:1em; margin-right:1em"><img border="0" height="198" width="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhghJWAcEdiTtZ9KoY34Fq5msXO5qVXyr5eVYVWKoGQFa3TYeDu5TTq25OHmmqbFwkVOSjl8ZgSk3EvY3ZPFRGLsVtc5ab9H3HAmsDsDRAISEatcmSyOcWmXJKKmd3MtQZMvMTdKeehe-E/s400/Screen+Shot+2013-01-16+at+7.26.02+PM.png" /></a></div>
The film I'm assisting at the Sundance Film Festival this year is Jehane Noujaim's The Square. I was in Palestine through the Egyptian Revolution, which distracted me enough that this film is a welcome education of what was happening on the ground in Tahrir. It looks incredible, and I'm grateful to work on the project. <a href="http://goodfilm.org/film/d/255/The+Square">Catch the trailer here</a>. Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3927891542370031741.post-66570563865497616782013-01-09T13:52:00.000-08:002013-01-09T13:55:00.649-08:00Objective lines of colorThese <a href="http://projects.nytimes.com/census/2010/explorer?">New York Times Interactive Census Maps</a> are an excellent example of interactive visualization of data.
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They show both the stark realities of segregation, and the interesting realtime progression of gentrification. Looking at this map superimposed with a property value map would be <span id="fullpost">grimy instructive, as well.
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Salt Lake City, where I'm from, is largely white, no surprises there, but interesting to see how the freeway I-15, which cuts through the city, demarcates the hispanic communities to the northwest of downtown. Otherwise it is fairly unsegregated, for its lack of diversity.
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3927891542370031741.post-85791557269474243372012-12-27T11:23:00.000-08:002012-12-27T11:33:27.630-08:00Making a runaway doc hit, and other things to do after college<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgraHzq1VzndYzWYLIzMhyqGTzw-9_J2lCN6Chf6p5OSnKU8hb4o5LXrprVI1jocWWTghe1vtVPdE1bMaD-HQkQQQWh0NqKLSMZp7AG-4_UaibOwYcIwdduK2TO_f-m11uSoxfrO_yNDwY/s1600/WMOTW+Banner.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="172" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgraHzq1VzndYzWYLIzMhyqGTzw-9_J2lCN6Chf6p5OSnKU8hb4o5LXrprVI1jocWWTghe1vtVPdE1bMaD-HQkQQQWh0NqKLSMZp7AG-4_UaibOwYcIwdduK2TO_f-m11uSoxfrO_yNDwY/s400/WMOTW+Banner.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<b>Jacob Seigel-Boettner’s</b> first film project out of college, <i>With My Own Two Wheels</i> (WMOTW), took him to four continents in pursuit of a simple story: how the bicycle is used around the world to solve problems. With no formal distribution plan, the 45-minute film has become incredibly successful, screening continuously since its creation in 2010, bringing international attention to the five bike initiatives that it features. Jacob chatted with us about the challenges of international film work, documentary filmmaking in education, and his current projects.<br />
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<b>DD: </b>Where did you film and how did those spots come about?<br />
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<b>Seigel-Boettner: </b>We filmed one story in Zambia, one in Ghana, one in India, one in Guatemala and one in Southern California. I worked with Project Rwanda and I'd gone to the Interbike trade show a couple of times to represent them. That's where I found out about<span id="fullpost"> World Bicycle Relief (WBR), the project that we filmed in Zambia that's now all over sub-Saharan Africa, probably the biggest bike development project out there. I knew that there were probably other projects like them around the world, to find them I literally spent a month during my senior year Googling "bike project —pick a country—." I sent an introductory letter to project directors, the ones that responded narrowed down the spreadsheet a little bit more, and then sat down and looked at themes. We knew we wanted a story related to education, one related to healthcare, hopefully several relating to women's empowerment.
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DD: </b> Could you talk about any standout experiences with the different organizations? <br />
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<b>Seigel-Boettner: </b>The two extremes of how we found our characters —and this is not a knock against any of the organizations we filmed with, it was a demonstration of different size NGOs. With WBR, we told them what we wanted and they literally sent us page long biographies of four different characters. They set us up with a driver and a translator and all the logistics were totally in line, and we were able to shoot all of Fred's story in like three and a half days… which was awesome for us and for them because it minimized the cost and confusion and everything just clicked really well. On the other end of the spectrum was the project we worked with in India, Ashta No Kai, another awesome project, but they are much smaller, they haven't worked with film crews before… So we were told we were going to have two to three girls to interview and we could pick which one we wanted to have be in the film. We went into their women's center and 40 girls from the local high school piled in behind us, and sat in rows in their little pink saris and uniforms, and it ended up being a mass interview with 40 giggling high-school age girls who didn't speak our language (laughs). It was one of the weirdest casting calls I've ever done as a director. Bharati, the girl who ended up making the film, she was sitting off to the side in the front row, she was making eye-contact with us the whole time, wasn't giggling or talking to her friends, and when we asked what do you want to be when you grow up, she was like 'I want to be district supervisor' and we were like 'ok I think we're good.' She's probably the most composed and articulate 14 year old I've ever met anywhere, period. </div>
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<b>DD: </b>I was struck by how intimate you were able to get with your subjects, both in shot choices and into their stories. How did you get them at ease, how did you communicate cross-culturally? </div>
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<b>Seigel-Boettner: </b> A lot of it, again, came down to the project. We were very clear that we wanted to have good translators whenever we could, a lot of times the translator would be someone who worked with the project before. Like our translators for Zambia, one was one of WBR’s drivers, he drives the trucks to ship all the bikes around to different distribution points and serves as a driver when they have people come to visit the project, big Zambian guy named Giff, who's hilarious. He and our other translator Preston, a local filmmaker, they both kind of acted as production assistants and were able to communicate the vision of what we wanted to Fred, and that was a really amazing opportunity because we didn't have to script out or explain what type of shots we wanted to get and he understood the story that we wanted to tell because they were able to communicate the film/storytelling medium we were trying to accomplish. We were able to skip that really awkward 'getting to know you' phase because our translators already knew the people who we were talking to pretty intimately, and that definitely allowed us to shortcut things. </div>
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<b>DD: </b> I think that's easier said than done, you bridged the gap from large international institution to local fixer to film-able subject. You're stressing the fixer/local tie-in as the strongest link?
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<b>Seigel-Boettner: </b> Yeah, all the projects we were working with place a very strong emphasis on being run by locals. WBR was the biggest organization that we worked with, right now there's something like 70+ staff all over Africa, I think two or three of them are expats. The rest are all locals. The same thing with the other projects. We never worked with an American or European other than our initial contact and helping us figure out our logistics. Those were the kinds of projects that we wanted to highlight, too. Those are the ones that are the most successful, the ones that aren't run by foreigners. There're plenty of smart people in those countries that need to be given the opportunity. I think that the best way that we can help with our skill sets is by helping them with storytelling. That's something that a lot of non-profits unfortunately lack: a good way to tell their stories. When it comes to reaching out and telling people what you do, there's not a better way to do it then to have a short video piece that has a person talking about how it impacted them.</div>
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DD: </b> I wanted to talk with you about the deployment of the film: Could you talk about the length and your intended distribution of it? </div>
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<b>Seigel-Boettner: </b>There’re a lot of really good stories being told out there through documentary film that are about 45 minutes too long. I've seen a lot of 90-minute social justice documentaries that I thought were spot-on, there's one about skateboarding in Afghanistan called <i>Skateistan</i> that's amazing. But a lot of times you can condense your story and make it consumable by a wider audience, and if you're trying to tell a story that needs to get out there and be told, I think you need to consider what's going to get the most people to see it. We knew that we really wanted kids to be able to see our film, for teachers to be able to use it in the classroom. When I was growing up, the way that movies were used was as a rainy-day thing or a substitute teacher thing, they'd put in the movie and leave the classroom, then the bell rings halfway through the movie and everybody leaves. As a filmmaker that's really frustrating, because we put all this time and effort into it, and especially with documentaries it's something that can be an incredible educational tool. When it's all said and done and we're no longer traveling with the film I want it to be something where a teacher can send me an email, get a copy of the film, get a copy of the classroom companion, put it in their school library, and hopefully continue to use it over the years as part of their curriculum. </div>
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<b>DD:</b> It looks like you're thinking about how to get around the issue of a film getting a lot of effort put into it and it sort of has its initial run and then disappears. In that vein, are you satisfied with how the film rolled out? </div>
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<b>Seigel-Boettner:</b> Yeah! I mean (laughs) we thought we were going to do about ten screenings, it was going to be kind of cute, and then we'd all go to grad school and that would be it. Instead I spent pretty much all of last year except for two months on the road with the film. I stopped counting at like 75 screenings. It was insane. I think we're still going to be doing screenings two or three years down the road. Maybe that's just because it's a story that was at the right time and people wanted to hear it, I don't know. So we're blown away. It's really awesome but at the same time it's kind of frustrating, because I go to all these film festivals and I see all these other amazing films that for whatever reason the spark never takes off. </div>
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<b>DD: </b> I hear that. I think deployment especially for docs is a huge conundrum. A segue from that question: you can answer this in a film industry context or academic context or international humanitarian perspective: What are you up to, right now? </div>
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<b>Seigel-Boettner:</b> Our big project right now is our second film, which we're getting really close to finishing our rough-cut on. It's called <i>Singletrack High</i>, it follows six student athletes through the 2012 season in the Nor-Cal High School Mountain Bike League, looking at kids who are life-long cyclists, kids who have never ridden a mountain bike before, and looking at the benefits of keeping kids on bikes through an institutionalized program at an age when most kids get car keys and stop riding bikes. WMOTW was great in that it encouraged people to look at other uses of the bike around the world, but at a certain point a lot of the countries that we filmed in have a potential to go the way of China, where they look at us as what "developed" means, and that means switching to a car culture/car economy, and the bike gets left behind. We wanted our next movie to be something that encouraged people to practice what WMOTW was preaching. The first race of the Nor-Cal season this year had I think 550 kids racing and over 2000 people at the venue, and their pit zone was the size of a football field, it's almost becoming an institutionalized high school sport in Northern California. So that's our next project, hoping to be released in January, we're working with Specialized and the National Interscholastic Bicycling Association, we're going to do a similar but slightly more established screening tour in the spring. </div>
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<i>Jacob has a knack for telling stories about projects that are simple, effective, and that encourage diverse action. Expect his work in his home territory to be equally motivating. With My Own Two Wheels is available to stream for free at <a href="http://withmyowntwowheels.com/">withmyowntwowheels.com</a>. Keep up with Jacob and his brother Isaac’s newest project at <a href="http://pedalbornpictures.com/">pedalbornpictures.com</a>. </i></div>
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INTERVIEW HAS BEEN CONDENSED AND EDITED. </div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3927891542370031741.post-31763837131726885432012-12-21T12:29:00.001-08:002013-02-10T13:10:57.265-08:00Remembering David Fetzer<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: xx-small;">photo credit Lillie Wolff</span></div>
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David Fetzer passed away this week at age 30.
David was one of those fellows that made formative years in Salt Lake City so lovely and inspiring for people like me. He was luminous. He was lovable and deep, funny and appreciative, supportive and kind. I worked with David on many projects, both mine and his. He was so similar to me, and many of the people that I appreciate and identify with, that I took his soul for granted. I realize this now, with a tired heart, and I miss him dearly.<br />
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I do think fondly of the time he spent on this planet; I value the imprint he left on me, and will use his constellation to aspire to do my best. I hope those he loved feel the same.<br />
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http://www.cityweekly.net/utah/article-53-12719-david-fetzers-theater-revolution.html<br />
http://planbtheatre.org/wp/?p=625<br />
http://vimeo.com/34113309Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3927891542370031741.post-38627346168673336252012-12-19T20:24:00.000-08:002012-12-19T20:44:55.824-08:00Alex Gazerro- The Strongest Santa of Santacon
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This is Alex Garzerro on his rolly-scooter, decked out for Santacon and barreling home to Brooklyn over the Williamsburg bridge. He shattered his ankle a few years back and checked in for some reconstructive surgery on the pins a week ago.
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Not to be deterred, he strapped his leg to his rolly scooter and headed out to Santacon, where he reports being a hit. More impressive was his trek home. "I feel pretty awesome right now," he said, "it doesn't really hurt at all." At this point he's been pushing since Union Square. "I didn't want to hail a taxi or take the G train. Hopping down the stairs seemed like a drag. Also I haven't ridden my bike for a week... This is my favorite bridge, I kinda wanted to get back rolling."
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Alex then took off up the pedestrian path at a good clip.
<center><img src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8491/8290369620_0c84101956_z.jpg"></center>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3927891542370031741.post-67501931958636449282012-12-14T12:45:00.001-08:002012-12-14T13:02:06.827-08:00Following a shooting, Radio Silence — Newtown, ConnecticutDozens of children were killed in a safe corner of average America today. We were fortunate to be listening to NPR. The station soothed us and left us with our thoughts as the newscasters groped for information, our arteries spared the shrill menace of broadcasters tones or their AM mirrors. <br />
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The president's speech concerning the shooting was short and apolitical —a strong man filled with sorrow at the thought of murdered daughters. He stopped a little too long between lines, and the dead air was filled by a flurry of shutters: perhaps cameras catching a tear, or a choked expression of grief. It could have been nothing, for all we knew; we radio listeners could only imagine. The emotional moment was laden with mystery, but if Obama felt how we felt, then he was very close to crying. <br />
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We were proud of our leader for showing this weakness, and felt we should carry the burden of resolving this horror. The resolution that we reach, as a nation, will certainly be a challenging one, but however we reach it we must remember these moments, moments of responsibility and sorrow, moments of empathy for unknown parents. We choke back our own tears, harmonious with the radio, and move forward. <br />
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We remind ourselves: try to remember this specter of death when it is visited in staggering quantities upon unknown places. Remember all life ended unjustly is tragic. Remember all life is sacred. Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3927891542370031741.post-40781225204745747612012-11-30T08:43:00.000-08:002013-02-10T13:11:07.944-08:00A short clear video explaining the Israel-Palestine StrugglePalestine has just received an upgrade in its international status at the UN, which could allow the disenfranchised state to bring legal grievances against Israel in an unprecedented way.
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Like the majority of people, you probably have a hard time getting your head around the ongoing struggle between Israel and Palestine. I've spent 7 months there, have studied mid-east politics, and dialog with Palestinians, Israelis, Muslims, Jews, and internationals about it often, and I still find it very unclear at times. I find this video both instructive and clear-minded. It is fair, without compromising any core truths by equating the two peoples' situations. I'd suggest it to anyone interested in a clearer understanding of the struggle.
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I should say, as well, that I appreciate any feedback on this perspective, including disagreements, especially feedback that isn't inflammatory, dogmatic, intentionally misleading, or reductive. Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3927891542370031741.post-2314791295499718842012-11-27T09:03:00.000-08:002012-11-27T09:10:16.939-08:00Bicycle Times Review: With My Own Two WheelsAs I'm putting together an interview with Jacob Seigel-Boettner, the main man behind last year's excellent film With My Own Two Wheels, I thought I should resurrect an old review I published in <a href="http://www.bicycletimesmag.com/issue11">Bicycle Times</a> last year. <a href="http://www.withmyowntwowheels.com/">Be sure to watch Jacob's film</a>, and stay posted for the full interview.
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We know bikes. We are with them every day, know their weight after long hours around town or races in the mud, and can take them apart blindfolded. Some of us can even weld them together from quiet tubes, or have ridden them across continents and countries. But once in a while, something comes along that causes us to simultaneously re-evaluate the basics of the bicycle and fall in love with it all over again. Filmmakers Jacob and Isaac Seigel-Boettner and Ian Wexler have done exactly that in their film With My Own Two Wheels, an easy yet ambitious documentary that spans four continents and five stories about the empowering nature of the humble bicycle.
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A feeling of hope pervades the film, though it showcases very serious problems. The filmmakers introduce such diverse issues as physical disability, women’s empowerment, and the AIDS epidemic, and in each case highlight a person who is enabled through their bicycle to do more in the world.
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We meet Carlos of Maya Pedal, in Guatemala, who builds Frankenstein human-powered machines that make agricultural work easier. Soon after, we roll down a dirt road with Bharati and a bunch of other sari-clad Indian girls given a chance at a future in a patriarchal society because someone gave them a bike to get to school. Shot after shot is beautiful, and though the film is short, you get a sense of intimacy with each subject. The camera lingers and treats us to their routines, their ambitions, exploring rich ways of life across the globe. Pedal power links them all, as do cunning little connecting sequences of each person gathering water, early morning tooth brushing, and, luckily for us, exquisitely lit gardens and healthy blue skies.
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It is a pleasure to watch, but With My Own Two Wheels is still all about informing the viewer. Now and again statistics are subtly worked into the landscape, following the characters as they ride across it. It advocates in a realistic, healthy way that is not a die-hard guilt trip. Thus a film about hard things in hard parts of the world escapes the death trap of the world-awareness genre: devolving into a condescending sob story that leaves the viewer with little plan of action or recourse.
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In fact, most of the characters, far from being objects of pity, are quite enviable. Mirriam is a Ghanaian woman with a paralyzed leg who works as a mechanic. Able-bodied men come into her shop and are blown away by the fact that she’s competent. There is pure joy in the functionality of her story, the shop, the conservation of the bike resources there. It highlights her ability rather than her inability.
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Of course we, the enamored wheelmen (and women), already know about the joy of two wheels. But in the context of resource scarcity and inequality, the simple power of a bike is much more evident. Access to a bike can help someone overcome disadvantage, or increase their aspirations in general, along with their quality of life.
Further, the bicycle reminds viewers in the developed world that solving problems can happen on a sustainable, human scale. The simplicity, versatility and ubiquity of the machine makes applying oneself in a positive way even easier, because you need just reach out within your community and find the way to do good work that suits you. The possibilities are infinite, and With My Own Two Wheels shows us some excellent places to start.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3927891542370031741.post-41865260685351543362012-11-03T19:20:00.002-07:002012-11-03T19:21:25.467-07:00Hurricane Sandy: Interviews and Photos<center>
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Flooded cars in a Goldman Sachs garage, Financial District. </center>
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The BBC got ahold of me for a total of 4 interviews the day after Hurricane Sandy hit New York. At that point it was mostly remarkable to me how isolated little-affected areas were from the devastation the storm visited upon their neighbors.
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More photos after the jump...
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The Williamsburg bridge the morning after the storm, empty.
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</center> Tossed cars in Chinatown
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<img src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7264/8152424056_2acaf87ab1_z.jpg" />
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Chemicals and smells rise from underground.
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<img src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7112/8152422812_b9ff68c555_z.jpg" /><br />
</center>A blacked-out downtown became a playground for some, a quagmire for others.
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<img src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8068/8152397247_ebcbc1f911_z.jpg" />
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Reflecting now, it is quite frustrating to think of all the able-bodied people who were idle while those in neighboring communities of Breezy Point, the Rockaways, and the Jersey shore were in full emergency response mode. Granted, many people volunteered, and the recovery effort is continuing, but the ongoing examples of selfishness are disappointing. Equally disappointing are your average people who are unable to care for themselves in this trying time, people unwilling to walk or bike across a bridge to get back to their job, unwilling to carpool with strangers. To me it's a disheartening foreshadowing of the way the first world will react when environmental and economic situations become more severe in the future.
</span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3927891542370031741.post-67859835663292890442012-11-03T16:51:00.001-07:002012-11-03T16:51:29.042-07:00Audio Archives from the Dada yearsUnearthed a 2 year old recording of Luke Williams singing 'Bullets', by Tunng, in a room full of a bunch of us making noise at the Dada Factory. good times. <div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3927891542370031741.post-88761881750771151062012-10-08T21:26:00.001-07:002012-12-07T11:08:09.303-08:00New <a href="http://reckoningwithtorture.org/">Reckoning With Torture</a> video up by Ayo Walters
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This was a fun one to film, Ayo's quite professional as she's a thespian.
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3927891542370031741.post-81370391611381020412012-09-15T21:01:00.000-07:002012-09-15T21:10:36.480-07:00Pangenic: Adaptive storytelling and the stiff upper lip<center><a href="http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/dada/pangenic"><img src="http://s3.amazonaws.com/ksr/assets/000/156/542/2d90cebed1adcdfff47412b86677df5c_large.jpg?1347425076"></a><br></center>
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Good writing, good storytelling, and infectious characters are excellent vehicles to deliver knowledge. Thus I justify having spent a good half of my youth obsessively playing story-based videogames like Heroes of Might and Magic. How else, I ask you, would I know what a troglodyte looks like? Seriously though, video games are scary immersive and getting better every day, despite the fact that they're bogglingly hard to make. On this note I'm happy to announce that <span id="fullpost">Alex Haworth, the other half of the Dada Factory, is <a href="http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/dada/pangenic">kickstarting Pangenic</a>, an Indy game of his own based in a steampunk world of virulent mayhem.
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This is good news. Al has had his hands full since the beginning of time. Before even finishing his master's degree in video game design he was snatched away to be the Program Director of the Leonardo Center. Whatever dynamic thing Al is doing, it always seems to involve taking a cutting-edge technology and bending it to his will in order to make novel and poetic worlds. Backing this game, for me, is to encourage a young artist to spread further into the possibilities of his oeuvre.
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The game looks to be intimately rendered in an artist's hand, which is fun to see, and the makers strive to craft that authored whimsy into the dialogue and story as well. It's victorian conceit and ominous otherworldly threat should lead to plenty of opportunities for that kind of creation, in the vien of highly authored games like BioShock.
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Video games are immersive worlds, and there are plenty of great ones out there, but they often lack the storytelling and depth that an interactive medium can accomodate. They need writing to follow the players through the various wends of the plot and reward them when they change a course of events with dynamic stories to reflect the alterations.
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This is a daunting task, of course, because the team needs to essentially write exponential numbers of stories, but the reward is a living experience. I doubt this early indy game, being created on a shoestring budget without the thousands of programmers and designers that larger games have, will be so broad in scope as to be comprehensively intuitive and responsive to the player's inputs. But it's a very exciting step, and I relish seeing what they come up with. <a href="http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/dada/pangenic">Throw a buck or two their way</a>, or spread their proposal around to help make it happen.
</span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0