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Creative, Intellectual Lives are Not Self-Indulgent
10.04.2010
12:30 pm
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Wonderful and thought-provoking essay at The Chronicle of Higher Eduction website from Nation/New Republic contributor, William Deresiewicz about not boxing yourself and your life into what others think you should do with your short time on this planet. You will only ever get one life, so live it wisely, but of course, that’s easier said than done and Deresiewicz counsels constantly questioning the choices you’ve made and not being afraid to face up to what your heart desires.

This was adapted from a talk delivered to a freshman class at Stanford University in May, 2010 and comes near the end. Absolutely worth reading, no matter if you are a student or a senior citizen. A straight life and a job or career is not for everyone and Deresiewicz, while not exactly saying “fly your freak flag high,” offers much to ponder here for iconoclastic and creative personalities who might be pressured to conform:

In A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, James Joyce has Stephen Dedalus famously say, about growing up in Ireland in the late 19th century, “When the soul of a man is born in this country there are nets flung at it to hold it back from flight. You talk to me of nationality, language, religion. I shall try to fly by those nets.”

Today there are other nets. One of those nets is a term that I’ve heard again and again as I’ve talked with students about these things. That term is “self-indulgent.” “Isn’t it self-indulgent to try to live the life of the mind when there are so many other things I could be doing with my degree?” “Wouldn’t it be self-indulgent to pursue painting after I graduate instead of getting a real job?”

These are the kinds of questions that young people find themselves being asked today if they even think about doing something a little bit different. Even worse, the kinds of questions they are made to feel compelled to ask themselves. Many students have spoken to me, as they navigated their senior years, about the pressure they felt from their peers—from their peers—to justify a creative or intellectual life. You’re made to feel like you’re crazy: crazy to forsake the sure thing, crazy to think it could work, crazy to imagine that you even have a right to try.

Think of what we’ve come to. It is one of the great testaments to the intellectual—and moral, and spiritual—poverty of American society that it makes its most intelligent young people feel like they’re being self-indulgent if they pursue their curiosity. You are all told that you’re supposed to go to college, but you’re also told that you’re being “self-indulgent” if you actually want to get an education. Or even worse, give yourself one. As opposed to what? Going into consulting isn’t self-indulgent? Going into finance isn’t self-indulgent? Going into law, like most of the people who do, in order to make yourself rich, isn’t self-indulgent? It’s not OK to play music, or write essays, because what good does that really do anyone, but it is OK to work for a hedge fund. It’s selfish to pursue your passion, unless it’s also going to make you a lot of money, in which case it’s not selfish at all.

Do you see how absurd this is? But these are the nets that are flung at you, and this is what I mean by the need for courage. And it’s a never-ending proc ess. At that Harvard event two years ago, one person said, about my assertion that college students needed to keep rethinking the decisions they’ve made about their lives, “We already made our decisions, back in middle school, when we decided to be the kind of high achievers who get into Harvard.” And I thought, who wants to live with the decisions that they made when they were 12? Let me put that another way. Who wants to let a 12-year-old decide what they’re going to do for the rest of their lives? Or a 19-year-old, for that matter?

 
Read the entire essay: What Are You Going to Do With That? (The Chronicle of Higher Education)

Posted by Richard Metzger
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10.04.2010
12:30 pm
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Yoko Ono’s amazing memorial to John Lennon lights up’again this weekend
10.04.2010
11:18 am
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This morning, on Yoko Ono’s Twitter feed, I learned of this very cool art project she did in memory of John Lennon in Iceland in 2007. I’m surprised this one slipped past me before, because, admittedly, I am a Yoko freak. I own some of her art (including a “Box of Smile” from 1971), and I’ve… just always loved her and admired what she has stood for in her life and in her various artforms (and I am not alone here among the Dangerous Minds crew, either. Mr. Laner feels pretty strongly about Yoko, too). Take a look at this for a moment—it’s really spectacular—and consider sending your own prayers and wishes into the universe this coming Friday—which is the day John Lennon was born, 70 years ago—when the project “lights up” again this weekend.

Send your wish to the Tower by email: wish@IMAGINEPEACE.com or by Twitter: @IPTower

IMAGINE PEACE TOWER is an outdoor work of art conceived by Yoko Ono in memory of John Lennon. It is situated on Viðey Island in Reykjavík, Iceland. The artwork was dedicated to John by Yoko at its unveiling on October 9th 2007, John Lennons 67th birthday.

IMAGINE PEACE TOWER symbolizes Lennons and Onos continuing campaign for world peace - which began in the sixties, was sealed by their marriage in 1969 and will continue forever.

The words IMAGINE PEACE are inscribed on the Well in 24 different languages.

IMAGINE PEACE TOWER is composed of a tall shimmering tower of light that will appear every year and be visible from October 9th (Johns birthday) until December 8th (the anniversary of his passing).

In addition, the Tower will illuminate from Winter Solstice (December 21st 28th), on New Years Eve (December 31st) and the first week of spring (March 21st -28th). It is lit from 2 hours after sunset until midnight, and until dawn on New Years Day.

On 9th October, John Lennons birthday, Yoko Ono asks the people of Iceland to join her and many others across the rest of the world in praying for peace and stability.

At 8pm, as IMAGINE PEACE TOWER is illuminated on the island of Viðey, in Reykjavik, Iceland, she asks everyone to join together and let the power of light and prayer become a collective expression of the desire for peace and harmony on our planet.


Dear Friends,

Please join me not only in remembering John on October 9th but also in spreading the message of peace. This is something that was so important to John - the fact that we could all work together for the positive good of our planet. He would have loved how we are all mobilizing ourselves in thought and in action.

It’s time for Action and the Action is PEACE!

with love,

Yoko Ono

 

Posted by Richard Metzger
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10.04.2010
11:18 am
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Big Tits Zombie 3-D: J-sploitation comin’ at cha’
10.04.2010
10:59 am
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Big Tits Zombie 3-D (AKA Kyonyu Dragon), where strippers meet Night of the Living Dead, all refracted through a distinctly J-sploitation vibe. This whole 3-D might be a fad, so enjoy it while you can…
 

Posted by Richard Metzger
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10.04.2010
10:59 am
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‘Andrew Shirvell’ on Twitter
10.03.2010
11:10 pm
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Not the real Andrew Shirvell, that twit’s not on Twitter, but as you can tell from the parody tweets here, it’s probably just about the same…

Posted by Richard Metzger
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10.03.2010
11:10 pm
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Nina Hagen’s cover version of ‘Ziggy Stardust’
10.03.2010
10:40 pm
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A young Nina Hagen doing a punky—some might call it demonic—live cover version of “Ziggy Stadust” around the time of her Unbehagen album in 1980. I like the Bauhaus cover, too, but I like her version even better. It’s great to see how NIna Hagen has managed to retain such a devoted cult following for all these years. She works hard at it, that’s for sure. She deserves it.
 

Posted by Richard Metzger
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10.03.2010
10:40 pm
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The true story behind classic gangster movie ‘Get Carter’
10.03.2010
07:20 pm
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“You’re a big man, but you’re in bad shape. With me it’s a full time job. Now behave yourself.”

It’s Michael Caine as Jack Carter, intimidating a small-town gangster, Cliff Brumby, in the 1971 film, Get Carter. Within seconds Carter has shown Brumby, played by future TV soap star Bryan Mosley, who’s boss - a quick karate chop and Brumby’s on his knees. That’s what Carter does. He’s a hardened criminal, a killer, and now he’s back home to find out who murdered his brother.

Taken from the novel Jack’s Return Home by Ted Lewis, Get Carter changed modern crime fiction. Firstly, it created a new genre British Noir; secondly, it kicked in the French windows at St. Mary Mead, and replaced the anaemic Miss Marple with the harsh reality of professional criminals, and the brutality of their lives, from which every succeeding British crime writer has taken their cue.

Lewis was born in Manchester in 1940, and raised on Humberside. He showed skill as an artist and as a writer, and attended Hull Art School. In 1965, his first novel All The Way Home, and All Through The Night was published. Lewis then worked as animator on The Beatles’ Yellow Submarine, before writing Jack’s Return Home. He wrote a further seven books, including two more Jack Carter novels, and the classics Plender, Billy Rags and GBH. He died too soon, too young, almost forgotten in 1982. What a fickle fucking world we live in.

Jack’s Return Home was in part inspired by a real-life killing that took place during the height of the swinging sixties.

In August 1967, criminal Angus Sibbett bullet-riddled body was found in his Mark Ten Jaguar under Pesspool Bridge, County Durham. Sibbett was a bag man involved in extortion and collecting slot machine money.

Sibbett was employed by notorious, North-East gangster Vincent Landa, a man considered “more important than the Prime Minister”. Sibbett worked with London criminal Dennis Stafford and Landa’s brother, Michael Luvaglio.  Luvaglio had no previous convictions but Stafford, who went under an alias, had served a seven year sentence for possession of a firearm and had notoriously escaped from Dartmoor and Wandsworth prisons eventually fleeing to Newcastle, where he set up a company which was a front for fraudulent activities.

When Sibbett was discovered creaming off Landa’s takings - pocketing £1,000 a week - he was killed.

It seemed an open-and-shut case.  The police came after the gang. Landa fled the country, while Stafford and Luvaglio were arrested for Sibbett’s murder. But both men claimed their innocence, however, they were tried, found guilty and sentenced to gaol.

Stafford believed he was charged because of his previous activities whilst on the run in Newcastle, and has since stated, “If it had not been for me, Michael would never have been charged.”

While Luvaglio has said: “When I was arrested, the police told me that I only had to say that Stafford had left me for a while that night and I would go free.”

In hindsight, the whole case seemed like a fit-up as the evidence against both men was flimsy to non-existent. Importantly eye-witness statements and forensic evidence, which could have cleared both men, was ignored.

On that fateful night, Sibbett was to meet Stafford and Luvaglio in The Birdcage nightclub in Newcastle. Eyewitnesses vouched for both men, apart from a period of 45-minutes around midnight - the time Sibbett was murdered.  This 45-minute window proved crucial, as the police claimed Stafford and Luvaglio had left the nightclub, driven 16 miles, pushed Sibbett’s vehicle off the road, then pumped 3 bullets into him, before returning to the club.

In 1967, even in a souped-up cop car, traveling at full-speed, lights flashing, it wasn’t possible to do what was claimed. But it didn’t matter. Luvaglio and Stafford were set for punishment. It was a warning to any other London criminals (most notably London’s notorious Kray twins) against moving their operations north.

Stafford served 12 years but always insisted his innocence, claiming a Scottish shooter committed the crime. This was confirmed in a TV documentary by John Tumblety, who said on camera that he in fact had driven the real murderer back from Pesspool Bridge to the Birdcage club and that man was neither Luvaglio nor Stafford.

In May 2002 Sibbett’s slaying (now renamed The Get Carter Murder) made news when the European Court of Human Rights ruled that the British Home Secretary had kept Dennis Stafford in jail longer than was necessary and ordered £28,000 compensation to be paid.

To this day, both men continue to campaign to clear their names of the crime they didn’t commit

In Get Carter the film’s slot machine king was played by playwright, John Osborne, whose character Cyril Kinnear, lives in Dryerdale Hall, Durham, the very building Landa used as his gangland HQ.

In 2002 Landa said :

“The two (Stafford & Luvaglio) men were wrongly convicted and the evidence was incorrect. If they were tried today they would never have been found guilty. It was a political trial. The Home Office had suffered at the hands of gangs like the Krays and the Richardsons and they stepped in to smash what they thought was an organised crime ring.”

These aren’t the only characters Lewis adapted for his novel, and later the film. Property developer Cliff Brumby was a hybrid of Newcastle City councillor, T. Dan Smith and architect John Poulson. Both men were notorious in the sixties, and were later found guilty of bribery, corruption and giving backhanders to MPs and councillors in order to have shoddy building plans passed.

The pair destroyed most of Newcastle and built cheap concrete housing and offices. At the trial, the judge said that the scandal “now couples corruption with the north east.” So far reaching were their underhand activities that Conservative Home Secretary, Reginald Maudling resigned over the scandal.

Smith was accused of infiltrating councils across the North of England and corruptly forcing them to give business to architect John Poulson. Smith used £500,000 of Poulson’s money as bribes. Smith ruled with an iron hand and was described as a “demagogue”. He ended his life championing pensioners’ rights from the 14th floor council flat in a block he had built.

Incredibly Get Carter was not a box office hit on its first release. This was in large part down to the stupidity of the critics who described the movie as “soulless and nastily erotic…virtuoso viciousness”, a “sado-masochistic fantasy”, that “one would rather wash one’s mouth out with soap than recommend it.” Of course, since then Get Carter has been rightly reappraised by a younger generation who have hailed Michael Caine’s chilling and utterly compelling performance as Carter, which has led to the movie being described as a classic of modern cinema and arguably the greatest British crime film ever made.   
   

Posted by Paul Gallagher
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10.03.2010
07:20 pm
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Killdozer!!!!
10.03.2010
05:46 pm
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Killdozer was an awful mid-70s ABC Movie of the Week about some tough guy constriction workers doing battle with an alien-possessed bulldozer on a desert island or in Africa or something. How dangerous can a demonic bulldozer really be? When you get right down to it, they can still only go about 5 miles an hour,

It was co-written by sci-fi Theodore Sturgeon, based on his novella of the same name (there was also a Killdozer Marvel comic). Clint Walker and a young, pre-S.W.A.T. and Spenser for Hire, Robert Urich starred.

As crap as Killdozer is, it’s still probably the best alien-possessed bulldozer film ever made…
 

Posted by Richard Metzger
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10.03.2010
05:46 pm
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Assume Power Focus: Throbbing Gristle European tour dates
10.03.2010
04:31 pm
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Throbbing Gristle’s European tour dates have been announced. Speaking as a LONGTIME TG fanboy—and one who got to actually stand on the stage with them in Los Angeles last year (I was behind the speakers just a few feet behind Cosey and Gen) feeling the insane sonic power of the legendary group—I say to our readers in London, Prague, Bologna and Portugal, do not miss these shows!

TG will also be headlining one night of the All Tomorrow’s Parties festival, this year curated by Godspeed You! Black Emperor.

23rd Oct - LONDON VILLAGE UNDERGROUND, UK
30th Oct - PRAGUE ARCHA THEATRE, Czech Republic
2nd Nov - BOLOGNA, ITALY
5th Nov - PORTO CASA MUSICA, Portugal
4th Dec - ATP, MINEHEAD, UK

For more information see www.throbbing-gristle.com
 

Posted by Richard Metzger
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10.03.2010
04:31 pm
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New fresh low for Fox News: Did the Bible Predict the Global Economic Meltdown?

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“For Christians who really kind of read the Scriptures, and believe in them and believe in these prophecies, this is really wonderful stuff. But for people outside the Christian church, what you’re talking is really crazy stuff.”

NO SHIT!

It would be really, really difficult to come up with the definitive dumbest Fox News segment ever—anything with Steve Doocey would have to be a frontrunner, no matter what the topic might be—but I would nominate the above clip to be, at the very least, amongst the lowest depths of anti-intellectual foolishness that Fox has ever sunk.

Want proof positive that Rupert Murdoch is laughing in your face as he banks billions? Then watch in horror as Christian pinhead Dr. David Jeremiah—who obviously did his research looking through Chick Tracts and Left Behind novels—discusses how the current state of the economy indicates we’re in the “Endtimes” as foretold in the (batshit crazy, epically nonsensical) “Book of Revelations.” and that Obama, natch, is the Antichrist. Line up the rubes, Rupe!

Now consider the notion, just for a moment, it’s too painful, of Sarah Palin, Mike Huckabee, Mike Pence or ___________,  (fill in the blank for the next Republican theocrat shit-for-brains who’ll throw their hat into the 2012 Presidential race) with their finger on the nuclear button. Laugh all you want, these clowns are going to kill us all. But that’s okay because Jesus will come back and take all the believers and Fox News viewers and teabaggers to Heaven to be with the invisible father figure in in the sky.

A sampling of the YouTube comments:

“That man is insane. The last 15 seconds are chilling, this asshole wants the world to end and sees it as the “ultimate solution”. If this clown is right and his Jesus comes back, billions will suffer and die and he calls it a message of “hope and joy.”

“You people who constantly bash people like David Jeremiah will be on the other side of the Rapture wishing you’d listened to him. Your fate in is your own hands.”

“The solution to Armageddon: Tell them to believe in a magic and big men in the sky instead of taking real action and trying to avoid it. Christians are so hell-bent on seeing the world end.”

Take one loony, give him a suit and tie, give him a hair cut, airbrush his face and VOILA a respectable looking loony.  How could we have been fooled by this?”

“Wait. His example for the evils of ‘consolidation’ is the use of the word ‘czar’ to describe administration positions? A word, a nickname, that has been used for years by both Republican and Democratic presidents? THAT’S your consolidation that’s a harbinger of Armageddon? Not corporate consolidation. Not the increasing merging of corporate and political interests, like, I dunno, say… FOX NEWS? Well for fuck’s sake. Looking for the hand of Satan in the world, it’s this guy.”

This is fucked up. Watching this clip, I felt violence welling up inside me.
 

 
Via Charles Johnson at Little Green Footballs

Posted by Richard Metzger
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10.03.2010
11:14 am
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‘No Pressure’: Banned 10:10 Climate Film
10.02.2010
04:28 pm
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There’s been considerable backlash against Richard Curtis’ short film No Pressure, which was made for the 10:10 campaign, an organization set up to encourage people to reduce their carbon use by 10% in 2010, reports the UK’s Observer newspaper.

The film, which stars Gillian Anderson and has music from Radiohead, was released on the 10:10 website on Friday, only to be pulled hours later amid protest over the 4-minute film’s content.  No Pressure shows environmental campaigners blowing-up “recalcitrant members of the public”, including 2 schoolchildren and ex-soccer star, David Ginola, in the style of Monty Python or South Park.

It’s a WTF moment; and yet, the film’s removal reveals that some people may consider the vague possibility of causing offense as far more important than saving the planet.
 

 

Posted by Paul Gallagher
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10.02.2010
04:28 pm
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