Saturday, January 01, 2005

Chekov says your life is bad and dreary!!!

REAL ART (and politics and culture):
"'All I wanted was to say honestly to people: 'Have a look at yourselves and see how bad and dreary your lives are!' The important thing is that people should realize that, for when they do, they will most certainly create another and better life for themselves. I will not live to see it, but I know that it will be quite different, quite unlike our present life. And so long as this different life does not exist, I shall go on saying to people again and again: 'Please, understand that your life is bad and dreary!'' "

Ahhh...
a truly fine and noble goal for art...
hold up the mirror in hopes that the folks will see the ugly.
I like it.

Friday, December 31, 2004

blog | Reviews index

blog | Reviews index

Grrr....
just the other day I was thinking about working on a musical multi-media adaptation of "The Trial".
Damn damn damn...
always a day late and a dollar short...

Thursday, December 30, 2004

Suburban Guerrilla

Suburban Guerrilla:
"Many consumers have developed any number of tricks for reaching a sentient being. Mr. Weinstein and others have discovered a number of techniques for outwitting the automation to reach a human, especially when confronted with the labyrinthine menus that accompany most phone-based systems. "

I always try to tell HL&P that I've just made a payment of over $1,000,000. That gets me to a live person pretty quick.

First Draft

First Draft:
"There's a way to please us both, and that's to make abortion nonexistent. That's the one thing outlawing it will never do. It's the one thing a comprehensive plan to attack the causes of abortion can do. Honest to god sex education. Day care and housing subsidies. Available and effective contraception. Parenting classes and hotlines and resources for struggling newlyweds and single moms and dads and everybody who needs it."

When I interviewed at planned parenthood a while back of course they asked what I thought of abortion...
I said we live in a world where sometimes it's necessary, but I wish it didn't have to be...
when the interviewer asked me to clarify I explained that in a perfect world there would be no unwanted pregnancies.
people who did not want children would not get pregnant,
but we don't live in that world yet...
There are so many viable means of birth control now...
but the anti-abortion folks are the same ones preaching abstinence...which is great, as long as you don't like having sex...

Wednesday, December 29, 2004

Fw: About Saudi Arabia


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Does every nation have it's own propaganda list?
I can't wait to hear about issues that affect Saudi Arabia and its
relationship with the United States.
Man, the French oughta get themselves one of these internet things.
They'd be a lot more popular.

Burnt Orange Report

Burnt Orange Report:
"The bill by Democratic Rep. Harold Dutton would make possession of an ounce or less of marijuana a Class C misdemeanor, punishable by a maximum $500 fine. That's the equivalent of a traffic ticket. "

bout damn time...
fight the real criminals thanks...
like the guys who stole my car
or maybe the guys who broke into my house...
if we can't outright STOP the war on drugs maybe we can dismantle it a little at a time...

NEWSARAMA - NEW JHONEN VASQUEZ IN MARCH FROM SLG

NEWSARAMA - NEW JHONEN VASQUEZ IN MARCH FROM SLG: " Critically-reviled master something-or-another Jhonen Vasquez has returned from his trip around the solar system and is once again plotting his evil little designs on the world of comics. And how better to set his nefarious plans in motion than with Fillerbunny, a suffering creature originally created to fill a single page and whose existence was mercilessly extended to fill two sixteen-page comics, each one drawn over the course of one day? That'll work, right? Oh, you doubt, but this time, my sweetlings, this time, it is Fillerbunny in My Worst Book Yet!, 24 pages of torment and horrible excretions, two of them in mind-blowing FULL COLOR. And Jhonen took more than one day to finish it! You will see Fillerbunny as you've never seen him before, quite possibly consistently drawn and with fine details that make him seem so real and make his pain all the more pitiful. 'Why?' you will ask. 'Sweet lord of corn, WHY?!'"


WHOOHOO! now that I'm employed again I'm looking forward to hitting bedrock a little more regularly...
definitely adding this to my list...
if yr not familiar with Vasquez check out "Johnny the Homicidal Maniac" or watch a few eps of "Invader Zim"...
demented twisted fun!

Tuesday, December 28, 2004

Motime Like the Present

Motime Like the Present:
"The 'superhero' stories that I'm interested in proceed from the exact opposite assumption--i.e. that there isn't any order except that which we impose upon the world. Moreover, our awareness of our own subjective role in this production of meaning short-circuits our ability to believe in anything as 'absolutely real'. "

I always knew there was a reason for NOT digging Campbell, Star Wars, etc...and I knew it wasn't just elitism...but this, well this really explains it...
We don't discover our place in the world.
We make it.
We struggle with right/wrong, good/evil, etc but we never really know where we stand. There is always room for doubt.

just another example of why you should be reading Motime...
bringing the big thoughts to the little books...
whoohoo!

Guardian Unlimited | Special reports | What good friends left behind

Guardian Unlimited | Special reports | What good friends left behind: "Today, Samar lives in constant fear for her life. She has two fearsome bodyguards with automatic weapons. One is at her office door, the other at her gate. She travels in a blacked-out van. 'For the past 23 years, I was not safe,' she told me, 'but I was never in hiding or travelling with gunmen, which I must do now... There is no more official law to stop women from going to school and work; there is no law about dress code. But the reality is that even under the Taliban there was not the pressure on women in the rural areas there is now.' "

so, there are a lot of things I could bring up that would point to our massive failure in Afghanistan...but this is the one I ran across today. We've really screwed up.
It's obvious to anyone who's paying attention. Afghanistan is not a "free" country. It is not a "democracy". It is hell, and maybe it was hell before, but now it's hell and our responsibility...

Monday, December 27, 2004

This Modern World

This Modern World: "Now I believe the Founding Fathers wanted religion in the public marketplace as a behavior deterrent because they knew they couldn't control the population, and they felt that a faith-based population would be more likely to behave. Very practical. "

Wow. So, Bill is saying the founding fathers didn't believe in religion themselves, but thought it would be good for social control and engineering...
well, duh! that's why us thinking folks are less than enamored with it...
If you want to make the "right" argument regarding the FF's and religion you SHOULD say that they believed in Christ the King and wanted a Christian nation because Jesus is the way the truth the light, etc...
saying, in effect, the elites push religion cause it makes you schlubs easier to control doesn't exactly make me wanna say, "Merry Christmas!"