Some provocative pictorial context for the swine flu, via InformationIsBeautiful (click here for a larger, more illuminating image). Given that far higher spike on the left for cardiovascular disease, rather than line up for a flu shot, looks like you’ll ultimately fare far better by putting aside the Chunky Monkey. Possibly even more revealing? Death-by-swine flu these last 300 days ran neck and neck with death-by-leprosy.
Check out this (full-length, linked below) BBC Four documentary about Krautrock. The BBC says:
Documentary which looks at how a radical generation of musicians created a new German musical identity out of the cultural ruins of war. Between 1968 and 1977 bands like Neu!, Can, Faust and Kraftwerk would look beyond western rock and roll to create some of the most original and uncompromising music ever heard. They shared one common goal - a forward-looking desire to transcend Germany’s gruesome past - but that didn’t stop the music press in war-obsessed Britain from calling them Krautrock.
Note the first: You are not into Krautrock unless you have heard Deluxe
Note the second: You are not into Krautrock unless you have read Krautrocksampler
Note the third: You are not into Krautrock unless you ARE Julian Cope.
The San Francisco Chronicle reports on the passing of poet Lenore Kandel, a SF beat and anarchist who provoked censorship furor with her graphic poetry compilation The Love Book
Lenore Kandel hung out with Beat poets and was immortalized by Jack Kerouac, wrote a book of love poetry banned as obscene and seized by police, and believed in communal living, anarchic street theater, belly dancing, and all things beautiful.
Ms. Kandel, a lyric poet and one of the shining lights of San Francisco’s famous counterculture of the ‘60s, died on Oct. 18 in San Francisco. She was 77 and had been diagnosed with lung cancer two weeks earlier.
“I met Lenore in 1965 at a citywide meeting of artists opposed to the war in Vietnam,” said actor Peter Coyote. “Lenore was physically beautiful and physically commanding. She had this voluptuous plumpness about her and an absolute serenity.”
Via Copyranter:
Pretty scary Ad Creepage currently up in Rio de Janeiro for the Mayan calendar Apocalypse flick, (I hope Woody Harrelson bites it hard) opening here in the States on Friday the 13th, of course. First off, when the Evil Doers next blow up and flood an underground tunnel somewhere in the world, my bet is, that ‘somewhere’ will be ‘here.’ Secondly, our tunnels already leak just fine, thx.
Last night I almost hit a bus crossing in front of me with a giant 2012 sign on the side. Doesn’t get much funnier than that.
Aaaaand OK, I might as well throw in my 2 cents about this one since it’s a hot topic: 2012 is a transition and demarcation point past which our culture will hit a certain no-return-point in shifting towards spirit and away from matter (read, on one level, as: life becoming almost completely Internet-mediated, while economy and physical infrastructure continues to fall apart by dint of being less exciting than Twitter). It is NOT the end of the world and one of the more productive things to think about around the whole issue is why, exactly, people are so addicted to apocalyptic thinking (as Alan Moore pointed out somewhere?
Pastor Eddie D. Smith Sr. explains the use of the Hindu term Namaste to his congregation. Right on!
Reverend Billy, an anti-capitalist activist turned anti-capitalist preacher, is a pillar of the New York (and American) activist community. A Coney Island resident, Reverend Billy leads a one-man crusade against consumerism. He even officially wedded a couple I know. Check out this excellent, in-depth interview with the Rev. Billy at Coilhouse:
Q: Where, when and why did you first become politically active?
A: We were always political, the Church of Stop Shopping, which became the Church of Life After Shopping during the recession. I was complaining to the choir that I was screaming ?
Sheldon Dorf, the co-founder of the San Diego Comic Convention, has died. NPR reports:
As The San Diego Union-Tribune says, “Dick Tracy, Charlie Brown and the entire comic strip pantheon lost a friend” this week.
Sheldon Dorf, who founded the hugely successful Comic-Con International comic book convention, died Tuesday at the age of 76. A friend, Greg Koudoulian, tells the Associated Press that Dorf succumbed to kidney failure. The wire service adds that Dorf “had diabetes and had been hospitalized for about a year.”
NPR’s Ina Jaffe reminds us that Dorf founded the convention in 1970. The four-day event, which pulls in about 125,000 people, is held in San Diego each year. The next is scheduled for July 22-25, 2010.
Dorf ran Comic-Con for 15 years. He told the Union-Tribune that over time, “it’s just become an ordeal. ... It’s become too much of a success.”
Having attended the San Diego Comic Con
Today’s NYT shines some light on a new print campaign created for the Boulder-based Hapa Sushi chain. Hoping to lure customers to Hapa, a map was created which shows the area’s 59 medical marijuana dispensaries (blue dots) and their close proximity to the 4 Hapa outlets (red dots).
As Hapa owner Mark Van Grack told the Times, ?
“I could seduce the President of the United States…but I have no political ambition.” For you LA connoisseurs of obscure ‘70s gems, get thee tonight to the Egyptian Theatre! For the first time in 38-plus years, Nelson Lyon’s The Telephone Book will be playing its first big screen engagement.
Much like ‘69’s Midnight Cowboy, The Telephone Book was branded in ‘71 with an “X,” but now probably plays as no more risque than an episode of Sex Rehab With Dr. Drew. What a cast, though: everyone from Warhol superstar Ultra Violet, to character actor’s character actor, the great William Hickey.
The film presumably involves a woman (Sarah Kennedy) who falls in love with the world’s greatest obscene telephone operator. Here’s what the excellent resource VideoUpdates has to say about it:
The opening quickly establishes a style and mood somewhere between Soviet Montage and a 16mm student film. While its (literally) X-rated nudity and frank discussion of sexuality are hardly shocking in the 21st century, the offbeat humor and profound strangeness seem amplified by the decades. Beyond that, there seems to be a very intelligent undercurrent to the madcap randomness.
Regarding writer-director Lyon, not much comes up on him beyond a brief, early writing stint on SNL, but he was also one of the people doing coke with John Belushi on his last night on earth. He’ll be in attendance tonight (Lyon, not Belushi), so maybe not bring that up during the Q & A? A trailer and clip from The Telephone Book follow below.
Feature Shoot says:
Francesco Giusti lives and works in Rome, Italy. He recently won 1st Prize in the Viewbook Photostory competition for his documentary series, SAPE. Of this series, he says, ?