More Re- Nature Theater of OK

Just came across an "Excellent" interview in Bomb by Young Jean Lee of Kelly Copper and Pavol Liška, who direct Nature Theater of Oklahoma (see my previous post here).

Another Great Chart Re- Healthcare

You'll have to click on the image to get a legible version; but basically, the turquoise lines represent countries that have universal coverage provided by public and private insurers, and the orange lines – the U.S. and Mexico – represent the countries that do NOT have universal coverage.

The US line is super-high on the left because that's how much more we spend compared to the other nations. And the US line is much lower on the right because, even though we spend so much more, our life expectancies are actually below the mean average of that in the others.

U.S. insurers have already had decades to show they could deliver better results doing it their way, and it hasn't worked.

In contrast, in many other countries, universal coverage with a public option has been working well for decades; it's a proven solution.

UPDATE: Here's a calculator to help you figure out how you'd fare under the new law as of this writing. I'd check the results under the "Senate Leadership Bill," since it seems whatever passes will more closely resemble that version. In my own case, it says I wouldn't be eligible for any subsidy, I should expect to pay nearly 13% of my before-tax income for insurance – and that doesn't count whatever I'll have to pay in deductibles, co-pays, etc. – AND there would be no cap on premium increases.

Temporary Services: "ART WORK"

The Chicago-based artists' collective, Temporary Services, has published a one-off newspaper issue on how depressed economies affect artistic process, compensation, and property, including artists' initiatives to organize in their own and others' behalf.

You can download a complete copy of the issue here or here (please share these links!) A limited number of hard copies are also being distributed at select locations across the U.S.

Contributors to the newspaper include artists, critics, writers, and educators "seeking to articulate the ways in which artists and culture-makers both respond to and deal with the economic depressions of the world," including Holland Cotter, New York Times art critic and 2009 Pulitzer Prize winner for criticism; writer/artist Gregory Shollette, contributor to Artforum and co-editor of The Interventionists: Users' Manual for the Creative Disruption of Everyday Life; Julia Bryan-Wilson, author of Art Workers: Radical Practice in the Vietnam Era (2009) and Work Ethic (2003); Christina Ulke, Marc Herbst, and Robby Herbst, editors for The Journal of Aesthetics and Protest; Harrell Fletcher, visual artist; Futurefarmers, a collective design studio that supports art projects, artists in residencies and research interests; Nicolas Lampert, interdisciplinary artist; Lize Mogel, interdisciplinary artist; Linda Frye Burnham, writer and founder of High Performance magazine; Scott Berzofsky and John Duda, organizers of City from Below; Cooley Windsor, author of Visit Me in California; and many more.

TS has been described as "working out of a Situationist tradition"; their projects or publications have been featured at Mass MoCA, The Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts, the Smart Museum of Art, the Creative Time Summit, and elsewhere.

UPDATE: Additional hard copies of the issue are available for the cost of shipping, through Half Letter Press; but due to the limited supply, orders of additional copies are being limited to 10 each; so get yours soon. Also, Temporary Services' Art Work website has the issue in the now-traditional interactive format, plus additional materials that could not be included in the hard copy because of monetary or time constraints.

Political Art Month

You can now see artists' and art professionals' responses to Political Art Month so far here. They're interesting, inspiring, and funny.

Founder Gene Elder writes, "Our goal [among others] is to alert galleries across America to devote some thought and time to either political, social or religious subject matter for July." For more on P.A.M., see my previous post.

What are you planning for P.A.M.? Let Elder and the world know; send him the details at elder4tomato at yahoo dot com.

Holiday Poem

Visiting family is x-cremental
at x-mas, 'cuz that's when they're x-tra mental.

My relationship with my own parents has been enhanced by my surviving them, and I mean that in the best of all possible ways. Happy Holidays!

Hoop

Came across this while looking for material for experiments. More heartbursts at sugarmagnolia72 and Bambi.

Re- Healthcare Reform

As I understand, the current Senate bill would force us to pay up to 8% of our incomes to insurance cos. while leaving us on the hook for up to $11,900 a year in out-of-pocket medical expenses, fail to end discrimination for most people based on preexisting conditions until 2014, and fail to limit increases in insurance premiums.

Most of the vaunted 30 million additional insureds will be those who need it least – young people likely to generate more profits than costs.

Let's repeat just part of that: 30 million new MANDATED payers of insurance premiums, and NO meaningful caps on what insurers can charge us.

We're being required to pay an awful lot for very little actual benefit to most of the people most in need.

It reminds me of when conservatives argued we had to keep funding the Iraq war or we wouldn't be able to afford to bring the troops home safely.

Our troops then were, and the few sick children who might actually be benefitted by this bill are now, being held for ransom by people who can't be trusted to fulfill any promises once we've paid up.

It also looks like another instance of the conservative strategy of causing us to spend way too much on the wrong things and later screaming to high heavens that we've got nothing left to spend on the right things.

Welcome to "Pleasant" Grove

Yesterday, at the request of the Southeast Dallas Chamber of Commerce, Town East Mall security seized a tenant's entire inventory of t-shirts reading "Welcome to Pleasant Grove" under an image of a body being thrown into a car trunk – a little reminder that enclosed malls are part of the "Constitution-Free Zone," to which, one surmises, the Southeast Dallas Chamber of Commerce would like Pleasant Grove to be added.

I want one of those shirts!

More at The Dallas Morning News.

UPDATE: I got one of those shirts (thanks, Danny!) At MoeWampum.

If you live in N. TX, Don't Miss "Performance/Art" at the DMA,

through March 21, 2010.

I esp. LOVED Eija-Liisa Ahtila's Talo (The House), 3-channel video installation, 14 min. loop (2002), and Yinka Shonibare's Un Ballo in Maschera (A Masked Ball), video, 32 min. (2004).

More on Talo at The Art Institute of Chicago.

Shonibare discusses Un Ballo and his next film, a production of Swan Lake created in collaboration with the Royal Opera House, in an interview at Bombsite.

Inflatable Street Art

by Joshua Allen Harris.

"Radio-Active" Car

More photos and info here (thanks, Ben!)

Artist Beaten by London Police

Story here (don't forget to go rate it up on YouTube; and thanks, Ben!)

. . . so apparently, among other things, we all need official artist's i.d.; get yours here.

If you're happy with non-healthcare reform, non-bankster regulation, non-withdrawal from perpetual wars, etc., don't watch this.

You might want to turn up the volume.

Guthrie Lonergan

I've been experimenting, and wondering how many wheels (or whatever) I might be reinventing; so checked around.

Haven't yet found an exact match; but it always pays to revisit the masters; e.g.

See also and/or gallery.

Facebook's New Privacy Options

Electronic Frontier Foundation has a helpful article analyzing the changes, which FB is promoting as giving users more control over who has access to their data. While it's true that the new privacy settings interface is more convenient with respect to some kinds of information, FB is in fact eliminating many privacy options that used to be available. B.t.w., EFF recs that you NOT accept the privacy settings that FB recs.

More here.

(Pretty much all I post on FB is warnings about FB.)

UPDATE: Great NYT article here walks you through the settings to do what little you can to try to protect your privacy under the new FB regime.

Cindy Sheehan: Camp OUT NOW

Sheehan has announced that on March 13 (which I'm told is the anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Iraq), she will found a new camp across the street from the White House, on the lawn of the Washington Monument. The camp will have two purposes: to protest the U.S. wars in Iraq and A-stan, and to serve as a community for those who have lost jobs and homes during what she terms "the Goldman Sachs Depression." More at PeaceoftheAction.

New Arcade Experience: "Whack-A-Banker"

Little bankers pop up out of the holes. The game has proved so popular that the owner keeps having to replace worn-out mallets. More at the BBC.

Star Trek Overdub by Dayjoborchestra

DJO bills her/himself as "makers of the world's finest styrofoam nuns for over 68 thousand years."

W5RAn,

"broadcasting collaborative content, every hour on the hour", as I understand lets anyone upload anything in the following categories: art and design, decor, life sciences, photography, things, wear, words. At right, a sample of the current results under words (click on the image for a more legible version, or seek the original material here). (Thanks, Danny!)

Google Now Tracking Logged Out Users

I understand that, until recently, it's been at least theoretically possible to use Google yet prevent the company from tracking all your online activities by logging out of your Google account.

Not any more.

As of last Friday, even searchers who aren’t logged into Google in any way have their data tracked in the name of providing a ‘better service’.

* * * * *

The company explained: “What we’re doing today is expanding Personalized Search so that we can provide it to signed-out users as well. This addition enables us to customise search results for you based upon 180 days of search activity linked to an anonymous cookie in your browser.”

However, if you’ve previously been a fan of the log-out method to avoid being tracked, there’s still the option to disable the cookie by clicking a link at the top right of a search results page.

Don't forget to do that. Via Tech Radar (thanks, Ben!)

Models of Project Runway, Look Out

. . . for the kittenz!

IMHO, much of DU has been more or less hopelessly compromised by trolls,

but there are still a few worthy threads. E.g.:

44. and if we could have had Medicare for all.....
Look at all the real jobs that could come from THAT trickle down effect.

32. any jobs caulking foreclosed houses?

33. Chains You Can Believe In

36. Funds don't seem limited for war or Wall Street bailouts. Do they?
"You said that we did it for a show."

39. Hilarious. DU is a riot.
Where's all that Obama love that was flowing before the election? People didn't really believe he was on the side of the working men/women, did they?
This is rich. I'll have to start visiting DU more often now.

42. I'll clue you in: Expect some posters to agree with Obama & that unemployment is a handout.

46. Wow.....that almost sounds like someone's channelling Reagan nt

48. When you have been mocked at DU for a peace sign avatar, anything can happen

55. Some people were so caught up in those pretty speechsermons he preached
that nothing on earth would convince them that he wasn't a progressive dream, not his appointment of the likes of Goolsbee to his economic team, not his duplicity on NAFTA, not the blatant catering to haters in the McClurkin Fiasco, nothing.
So here we are.

43. I love how he's the decider when it comes to shipping dollars overseas
but when it comes to jobs, we're supposed to host little meetings in our living rooms and solve those problems ourselves.
Of course the real solution is obvious, but we're not supposed to notice.

Zeger Reyers: "Rotating Kitchen"

More on YouTube. I understand it will continue to rotate for the duration of the exhibition, until Feb. 28, 2010, at the Kunsthalle Düsseldorf.

Cf. Dropping Furniture by Paul Horn and Harald Hund, screened at the last Dallas VideoFest.

Still Not Clear Why We're Escalating in A-Stan?

"It turns out that, in April, Turkmenistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and India (acronymically TAPI) signed a Gas Pipeline Framework Agreement to build a U.S.-backed $7.6 billion pipeline. It would, of course, bypass Iran and new energy giant Russia, carrying Turkmeni natural gas and oil to Pakistan and India. Construction would, theoretically, begin in 2010. Put the emphasis on 'theoretically,' because the pipeline is, once again, to run straight through Kandahar and so directly into the heartland of the Taliban insurgency. "

More at The Nation, HuffPo, Undernews, CTV, Asset Protection Index, The Nation again, U.S. National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski's The Grand Chessboard, the Project for a New American Century, Wikipedia, and Drillbits & Tailings.

Another Multi-Tube Experiment:

Pass (click on the foregoing link for the video).

Must-See: Les Ballets Jackson Fiesta Hippy 2é Partie,

here, to the tune of "The Beat Goes On" (thanks, Julie!) The pink wigs make it.

(Value add: per Wikipedia, the phrase, "The Beat Goes On" appears on Sonny Bono's tombstone.)

More scopitones here.

Eric White

At right, The One, oil on canvas (2008). The 'puted pop surrealist is represented by Sloan Fine Art.

Lina Scheynius's Photos

More here.

Hajj

The Hajj (Arabic: حج‎ Ḥaǧǧ) is a pilgrimage to Mecca. It is currently the largest annual pilgrimage in the world, and is the fifth pillar of Islam, a moral obligation that must be carried out at least once in their lifetime by every able-bodied Muslim who can afford to do so. . . . [I]n 2009 [the Hajj takes place] . . . from November 25–29." Click on the image for a larger, crisper version; more at Wikipedia.

Falls

New multi-Tube video experiment up here.

Fray #3: "Sex and Death,"

. . . here, includes a piece excerpted from a longer work-in-progress, Diary of the Dead,* by yours truly. Illustration by Mal Jones (see more by Mal in his Flickerstream).

As contributor Jarrett Liotta put it, "I'm happy to get my Fray copies, which have a retail value of $60. (That's a lot of money in the Sudan.)"

Contributors other than me have written for The New York Times, Wired, Salon, Rolling Stone, Vanity Fair, Esquire, Bust, et al. The quarterly zine is edited by JPG co-founder Derek Powazek.

____________
* I picked that title long ago and wasn't going to give it up just because a cr&ppy movie came along and used it later.

Happy T.G.

Tiny Tim Performing Song Mentioned in Thomas Pynchon's "Inherent Vice"

Via boingboing (thanks, Ben!)

Paris Photo

Find some fabulous photos on flavorwire; article here.

The Maxxi Roma

Inside the new Italian museum of 21st century art, designed by architect Zaha Hadid. More at The New York Times.

Art Gurus Discuss Some of the Challenges We Face

and what artists and/or activists might do about them, here. From Spring, 2005; but many points have only become sharper.

MoMATube: Swoon

Anti-Anti-Immigrant Hijacks Tea-Rally

On Nov. 14, "'Robert Erickson' was introduced to the Minnesota Tea Party Against Amnesty as a Minneapolis resident concerned about illegal immigration."

"[He] riled the crowd into a frenzy about the theft, murder and disease inflicted by illegal immigrants . . . from Europe, upon indigenous populations. In a 'Yes Men' moment, the anti-immigrant crowd sat in silence, trying to figure out what just happened."



More at Twin Cities Indymedia; don't forget to rate the vidi up on YouTube.

The Food Shark Acquires The Cool Bus

"The acquisition combines one of the largest and fastest growing entertainment communities with expertise in organizing and creating new models for delivery. The combined companies will focus on providing a better, more comprehensive experience . . . and will offer new opportunities for distribution to a vast new audience." Oh wait, that was Google.

Jim Schutz on the Fiscal Impossibility of the Trinity "Park"

(in Dallas), here.

Maybe it comes down to a simple typo: they meant "pork," not "park."

UPDATE: What becomes clear from KERA-TV's new documentary, Living with the Trinity, is that regardless of whether any Trinity projects are completed, there's plenty of money to be made half-building them.

General Idea, "Shut the Fuck Up (Part III)," 1984

"The props: three poodles, General Ideas's signature device. . . . We climbed up the ladders, with soggy, dripping poodles." " . . . . [O]n the borderline between content and context. . . . The pieces of the puzzle don't add up. Are you listening? Do you know what to say?"

Ninja Kitten

Re- Stupak et Al.:

Suppose it were possible for a foetus to be implanted in a man's body and develop there until ready to be delivered.

Suppose, for example, a couple had had sex, and they weren't married, and they certainly didn't want children, so the man had used protection, but the protection had failed.

Suppose the recently-impregnated mother is killed in a car accident but the foetus survives, and the authorities are able to identify the father, and the foetus can be implanted in his body.

Does anyone believe it would be right for the state to FORCE the father to allow the foetus to be implanted in his body, to carry it within his body for nine months, and endure the hardships and hazards of pregnancy and delivery?

Does anyone believe it would be right for the state to force the father to subject himself to such procedures, hardships, and hazards – OR to pay extra in order to avoid subjecting himself to them, in effect ensuring that only poor fathers will be forced to endure them?

Even if we were to grant to a foetus with the I.Q. of a carrot the rights of a fully-formed human, are we so sure its rights should relegate its mother (but not its father) to the most abject slavery?

How is state-enforced pregnancy not the worst kind of involuntary servitude?

Stupak is aptly named.

(And while we're at it, why is a weeks-old foetus with the I.Q. of a carrot more deserving of protection than a chimpanzee capable of sign language?)

Best Thing I Saw Today:

This video was subjected to one of Rebecca Baron and Douglas Goodwin's Lossless experiments.

U.S., Still Richest, Only 42nd in Life Expectancy, & Lags in Quality of Life

A few facts per the most recent American Human Development Report, which compares health, education and income in different nations:

• Despite having the second-highest average income per capita in the world, the U.S. has slipped to 12th place – from 2nd in 1990 – in terms of our basic quality of life.
• The richest fifth of Americans now earn nearly 15 times the average of the lowest fifth.
• We're ranked 42nd in overall life expectancy and 34th in terms of infants' surviving to age one. Citizens of Israel, Greece, Singapore, Costa Rica, South Korea and every western European and Nordic country save one live longer than Americans. Infant mortality in the U.S. is on par with that in Croatia, Cuba, and Estonia. If we could match Sweden's rate, some 20,000 more babies per year would live to their first birthday.
• We have a higher percentage of children living in poverty than any of the world's other richest countries. 15% of American children live in families with incomes of less than $1,500 per month.
• The U.S. lags far behind many other countries in the support given to working families, particularly in terms of family leave, sick leave and childcare.
• 14% of the population lack the literacy skills to perform simple, everyday tasks such as understanding newspaper articles and instruction manuals.
• Among the 30 rich countries of the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development, the U.S. has the greatest number of people in prison, both in absolute terms and as a percentage of the total population.

More at The Guardian.

Bird Song

Nicely done; from Jarbas Agnelli (thanks, Julie!)

"How the New Museum Committed Suicide"

per graphic talking heads (legible version here), by William Powhida; brought to you by the Brooklyn Rail.

Wrap-Up Re- the 22nd Annual Dallas VideoFest

As always, although I was there most of the time, it was impossible to see everything I'd have liked.

But of the things I saw, I loved American Casino by Leslie Cockburn, Space Ghost by Laurie Jo Reynolds, Dropping Furniture by Harald Hund and Paul Horn, In Transit by Lisa Abdul, Gogol Bordello – Non-Stop by Margarita Jimeno, Beaches of Agnes by Agnès Varda (opening soon at the Angelika Dallas), The Art Guys Retrospective by The Art Guys (get the anthologie DVD here), Chickenshit by Ricky Gluski, the Nicolas Provost videos, Gravity and The Divers, the Lossless videos by Rebecca Baron and Douglas Goodwin, 14 Americans by Michael Blackwood and Nancy Rosen, Blank City by Celine Danhier, Chase by Liz Magic Laser, a selection of YouTube videos entitled, Click Play: One Billion Times a Day curated by 2 UTD grad students whose names I don't find listed (I think they're going to make a list of URL's availabe through the VideoFest's website), The Glass House by Hamid Rahmanian (which will soon air on the Sundance Channel), Body Trail by Willi Dorner and Michael Palm (the performance on which the video is based, Bodies in Urban Spaces, played at the Fusebox Festival in Austin earlier this year), Burma VJ by Anders Østergaard (I believe this will air soon on HBO), Burning Palace by Mara Mattuschka and Chris Haring, Evening's Civil Twilight in Empires of Tin by Jem Cohen (available on DVD here), and Western Brothers' Adventure Story by Andrew Xanthopoulos.

And I missed a bunch of others I'd probably also have mentioned.

Totally Awesome Mars Pics

Click on the image to enlarge; and see more here.

VideoFest (f.k.a. Dallas Video Festival) '09 Is

so far (like the others past) great.

The Art Guys were actually in town for their retrospective tonite, among other cool (in the highest sense) people.

Michael Steele's Prediction

More hilarious than you might expect:



Thanks, DailyKos!

basic_sounds

Cool site, here, "welcomes submissions from musicians, djs, artists, photographers, and other talented people from around the world who are pushing the boundaries of digital and electronic media." (Thanks, Ben!)

Congrats to Glasstire

. . . for First Prize in the voting for projects entered in the National Summit on Arts Journalism organized by the USC Annenberg School for Communication & Journalism and the National Arts Journalism Program. Presentations on the ten finalists can be seen at najp.org/summit, and a slightly larger version of Glasstire's presentation can be seen on YouTube.

Bloodwork

Last time I checked online for blood cell animations, pickings were slim. Now one need look no further than YouTube. I rec. you get as many onscreen as possible (these are formatted so that, if you have the option of making this window big enough, you can get a nice, tight 3 x 3 array of embeds), play them all simultaneously, here or otherwise, then click replay as needed to keep them all going for a bit (audio desirable). (Happy Halloween.)

UPDATE: I made a vidi of my own results here.

Gene Elder Declares July, 2010 "Political Art Month"

Elder describes himself an "artist, businessman, Texan, American, Defender of the Faith, and Homoiousian." He is also Director of the HAPPY Foundation archives and the suspected founder of the MUD Underground, which he bills as "Artists hell bent on taking over the world" and "Where the demarcation lines between politics, religion, espionage, high finance, art, and nudity begin to dissolve," and which I believe should be credited for the Alamo Cam (below); and he's also founder of the Wedding Cake Liberation Front.

When Elder organized a peace demonstration to take place in front of the Alamo Cam, he claimed to have sent the police a letter:

Dear Chief McManus and Officer Birney,
I am letting you know that there will be a gathering of people on Alamo Plaza . . . to send a message to Congress about our dissatisfaction over Bush's War.

* * * * *
. . . . we would appreciate the presence of police . . . so if anything such as the throwing of water balloons at us or yelling obscene remarks you will be there ready to catch their sorry asses and hog tie them and drag them to jail where they will be held as terrorists under the new and improved Neo-Con Patriot Act where they can not see a lawyer and can be kept in jail indefinitely.

In Peace and Love

Gene Elder

Re- Political Art Month, he writes, "Our goal [among others] is to alert all galleries across America to devote some thought and time to either political, social or religious subject matter for July. . . . Join us now and add your name to the national list and start planning what [your city] will be exhibiting."

[If you'd like to be listed, please let me know in a comment and I'll get your info to Elder.]



Note: The image above usually refreshes every 30 seconds, but you may need to reload this page to get newer images. You're likely to see glare at dawn and dusk and little detail after dark.

UPDATE: Gene reports The Yes Men have said "yes" to PAM!

And b.t.w., if you haven't already, check out Glasstire's Top Ten List: Art Activism.

Amazon Patent$ Method to $ystematically Maim Text$

Per Slashdot, Amazon's method calls for "'programmatically substituting synonyms into . . . books, short stories, . . . reviews, news articles, editorial articles, technical papers, scholastic papers, and so on' in an effort to uniquely identify customers who redistribute material. In its description . . . Amazon also touts the use of 'alternative misspellings for selected words' as a way to provide 'evidence of copyright infringement in a legal action.'"

PAC-WE Performance/Action in Dallas

Dallas arts professionals and supporters gathered yesterday to participate in a performance action organized by Greg Metz in support of health insurance reform.

Participants included Noah Simblist, Dean Terry, Claude Albritton, Sarah Jane Semrad, Nancy Whitenack, Danette Dufilho, Charissa Terranova, Anne Lawrence, Bart Weiss, John Pomara, Raphael Parry, and many more.

Find more visuals here, PAC-WE's website here, and Dean Terry's interview of Metz here.

UPDATE: Here's a series of aerial photos by Harrison Evans showing the formation of the "Pac-We."

Not an Alternative

Not an Alternative Product from Not an Alternative on Vimeo.

More great stuff at The Change You Want to See.

How quickly the search results for the same query change . . .

Last time I checked the internets, "educated populace prerequisite democracy" (w/o quotation marks) turned up Jefferson. (If you can confirm an original source for a succinct statement of this concept, please let me know!)

Jefferson thought we must provide good, public education as a support to democracy.

Tonite, the same search yields a host of hits contending that most voters shouldn't vote. See, e.g., americanthinker, newswithviews, the rationalargumentator ("argumentator"?).

Here's some of what Jefferson wrote:

"I have indeed two great measures at heart, without which no republic can maintain itself in strength: 1. That of general education, to enable every man to judge for himself what will secure or endanger his freedom. 2. To divide every county into hundreds, of such size that all the children of each will be within reach of a central school in it." --Thomas Jefferson to John Tyler, 1810. ME 12:393

"The less wealthy people,... by the bill for a general education, would be qualified to understand their rights, to maintain them, and to exercise with intelligence their parts in self-government; and all this would be effected without the violation of a single natural right of any one individual citizen." --Thomas Jefferson: Autobiography, 1821. ME 1:73

"I think by far the most important bill in our whole code, is that for the diffusion of knowledge among the people. No other sure foundation can be devised for the preservation of freedom and happiness... The tax which will be paid for this purpose is not more than the thousandth part of what will be paid to kings, priests and nobles who will rise up among us if we leave the people in ignorance."

"The present consideration of a national establishment for education, particularly, is rendered proper by this circumstance also, that if Congress, approving the proposition, shall yet think it more eligible to found it on a donation of lands, they have it now in their power to endow it with those which will be among the earliest to produce the necessary income. The foundation would have the advantage of being independent on war, which may suspend other improvements by requiring for its own purposes the resources destined for them." --Thomas Jefferson: 6th Annual Message, 1806. ME 3:424

"The reading in the first stage, where [the people] will receive their whole education, is proposed... to be chiefly historical. History by apprising them of the past will enable them to judge of the future; it will avail them of the experience of other times and other nations; it will qualify them as judges of the actions and designs of men; it will enable them to know ambition under every disguise it may assume; and knowing it, to defeat its views." --Thomas Jefferson: Notes on Virginia Q.XIV, 1782. ME 2:106

"Education is here placed among the articles of public care, not that it would be proposed to take its ordinary branches out of the hands of private enterprise, which manages so much better all the concerns to which it is equal; but a public institution can alone supply those sciences which, though rarely called for, are yet necessary to complete the circle, all the parts of which contribute to the improvement of the country, and some of them to its preservation." --Thomas Jefferson: 6th Annual Message, 1806. ME 3:423

(Emphasis supplied.) Quotations assembled by Eyler Robert Coates, Sr. at the U. of VA.

Plutocracy Reborn: Re-Creating the Gap that Gave Us the Great Depression

The title sums it up pretty well, but The Nation's got lovely charts, plus other details.

The gap's less extreme in Germany; nonetheless, per the BBC, "[a] group of rich Germans has launched a petition calling for the government to make wealthy people pay higher taxes."

Patti Smith: Tribute to Jim Carroll

Thanks to ArtLyst:

Beneath the Southern Cross

Oh
to be
not anyone
gone
this maze of being
skin
oh
to cry
not any cry
so mournful that
the dove just laughs
the steadfast gasps

oh
to owe
not anyone
nothing
to be
not here
but here
forsaking
equatorial bliss
who walked through
the callow mist
dressed in scraps
who walked
the curve of the world
whose bone scraped
whose flesh unfurled
who grieves not
anyone gone
to greet lame
the inspired sky
amazed to stumble
where gods get lost
beneath
the southern cross

Dallas VideoFest 2009 Chronological Schedule

You can download a PDF of the chron schedule below here. You can also "build your own" or download the complete programme at the VideoFest's site. I just find the chron format easiest to deal with.

I have not filled in the descriptions of all the individual videos in compilations, but sometimes randomly picked up one or two to get a feel for what they might be like. Yellow-highlighted items are rec'd because either I've seen them and liked them, I've seen and liked the artist's other work, or the piece happens to sound interesting to me, given my peculiar interests (so yeah, the yellow's pretty random).

Need I say, video's now fully, forcefully, shaping our lives; but opportunities to see the best of it remain scarce.

All programs are at the Angelika Dallas – hope to see you there!

THURSDAY, NOV. 5

7:00 PM
American Casino
Leslie Cockburn
Documentary | 89 min.
It was a subprime mortgage gamble and the working-class were unwitting chips on the table. This debut feature gets to the guts of the matter by explaining how $8 trillion vanished into the American Casino. We hear from a teacher, a banker who sold us out, a mortgage salesman who inflated incomes to justify loans, and a billionaire who won a $500 million bet that people would lose their homes. We see the casinos endgame: Riverside, California a foreclosure wasteland of rats and meth labs, where mosquitoes breed in stagnant swimming pools of yesterday’s dreams.
Angelika - Screen 1

7:00 PM
Dangerous Places Compilation
Video Art | 52 min.
plays with...
* Space Ghost | Laurie Jo Reynolds
* Nashi | Daya Cahen
Angelika - Video Café

7:00 PM
* The Tale of Nicolai and the Law of Return | David Ofek
Documentary | 54 min.
After the collapse of communism, Nicolai (who plays himself in this true story) leaves his tiny, remote village in Romania to seek his fortune overseas. For three years he worked and was exploited as a guest laborer in Israel. When Nicolai fled his employer and became an 'illegal' he was sent to prison, but suddenly his life took an abrupt turn. If he can find the proof he's Jewish, he can become an israeli citizen.
. . . playing with
* A Dallas Jewish Journey | Cynthia Salzman Mondell, Allen Mondell
Step back in time to experience the rich history of our Dallas Jewish
Community! A Dallas Jewish Journey takes you from the first Jew in Dallas,
Alex Simon, to Soviet Jewry’s flight for freedom—and beyond.
* 4 Questions For A Rabbi | Jay Rosenblatt, Stacy Ross 2008
Angelika - Screen 2

8:00 PM
Getting Oriented Compilation
Video Art | 22 min.
plays with...
* Home Movie | Reinhilde Condin, Martin Bruch
* Dropping Furniture | Paul Horn, Harald Hund
* In Transit | Lida Abdul
* Orientation Video | Gregory Gutenko 2008
Angelika - Video Café

8:30 PM
Gogol Bordello - Non Stop
Margarita Jimeno | Documentary | 90 min.
Gogol Bordello is a multi-ethnic Gypsy punk band from the Lower East Side of New York City known for its theatrical stage shows. Much of the band's sound is inspired by Gypsy music, as its core members are immigrants from Eastern Europe. The documentary film follows the band's rise from underground legends to international fame from 2001 to 2007.
Angelika - Screen 2

9:00 PM
Orgasm Inc.
Liz Canner | Documentary | 80 min.
In this documentary Liz Canner takes a job editing erotic videos for a pharmaceutical company that is developing a drug to treat Female Sexual Dysfunction. But Liz begins to suspect that her employer, along with a cadre of other medical companies, might be trying to take advantage of women, potentially endangering their health, in pursuit of billion dollar profits. The race for the Female Viagra is on!
Angelika - Screen 1

9:00 PM
Vistas Compilation
Experimental Video | 65 min.
plays with...
* Set In Solitude | Malak Quota
* Chicago Corner | Bill Brown
* Postcard to Owen Sound | Jen Di Cresce
* Scenes from a rooftop | Paul johannessen
* Sitting | Leighton Pierce
* Stone Moss | Leighton Pierce
* The Nightgardener | Jennifer Hardacker
* Wax And Wane | Cassandra C Jones
* West Texas | Colby Allen
Angelika - Video Café

10:00 PM
There is Never a Reference Point
Thomas Riccio | Documentary | 66 min.
A performance installation inspired by the journal writings and watercolors of Jamie Dakis, a woman diagnosed with Dissociative Identity Disorder, commonly known as multiple personality disorder. The performance will take the form of an immersive, interactive “walk-through” presentation where “visitors” explore and experience each of Jamie’s personalities.
Angelika - Screen 2

10:30 PM
Elektra And The Vampire
Edward Rankus | Experimental | 31 min.
Chicago video artist Edward Rankus's work is masterfully edited and deeply ironic, and he is able to wring drama from mundane subjects. The play of symbols is very important in his work, which in some ways approaches still-life painting in its juxtapositioning of essential elements to create moods and meanings.
Angelika - Video Café

FRIDAY, NOV. 6

7:00 PM
Legend Of The Dot Race - Chuck Morgan
Talk | 90 min.
Chuck Morgan is the Auteur of Stadium Entertainment. Anyone who has been to a Texas Rangers game knows that the music, video and everything about the presentation is great night after night and perhaps has more consistency than any baseball team. We are happy to pay tribute to a man who brings the art of video to the people every night . Presented by Ben and Skin.
Angelika - Screen 1

7:00 PM
Guts & Glory
Live Show
[I think this is the results of the film version of the 24-hour Video Race.]
Angelika - Screen 2

7:00 PM
BQE
Sufjan Stevens | Experimental | 50 min.
Singer, songwriter Sufjan Stevens presents a symphonic and cinematic exploration of New York City’s infamous Brooklyn-Queens Expressway. The critically applauded performance features 36 performers including a band, a wind and brass ensemble, string players, a horn section, projected film footage of the expressway and five hula hoopers.
Angelika - Video Café

8:00 PM
Beaches Of Agnes
Agnes Varda | Documentary | 110 min.
Beaches have always struck a chord for Agnès Varda. She visits coastlines that correspond to chapters in her life, from the Mediterranean port of Sète, of her first film, La Pointe-courte, to Venice Beach, representing the years she spent in California with her husband, the late Jacques Demy. This film can be enjoyed simply for its touching, eloquent reflections on life.
Angelika - Screen 2

8:00 PM
The Toe Tactic
Emily Hubley | Animation | 86 min.
In this hybrid of live-action and animation, a young woman grieves for her father while unaware of the magical world around her.
Angelika - Video Café

8:30 PM
The Art Guys Retrospective: 1984-2008
The Art Guys | Video Art | 90 min.
Best known for their numerous staged performances and public spectacles, The Art Guys have presented their work in grocery stores, movie theaters, airports, restaurants, sports arenas, and other non-traditional venues for experiencing art while also exploiting mass media and entertainment to explore contemporary society and issues. Both artists will be in attendance. So who knows what could happen.
Angelika - Screen 1

9:30 PM
Neveneffecten
Luc Lemaitre | Narrative Fiction | 97 min.
A huge comet is heading for earth threatening global destruction. In a secret hide-out the governments of the world decide not to inform the general public. Meanwhile, in Belgium, Desire, 40 years old and still living with his parents, is unaware that the comet is heading straight for his head.
Angelika - Video Café

10:00 PM
R.E.M : This is not a show
Vincent Moon | Documentary | 60 min.
Ventures back to July 2007 when R.E.M. set up in Dublin, Ireland for five nights and tested new material before fired-up crowds. Documenting a self-described "experiment in terror" for the band, French filmmakers Vincent Moon and Jeremiah provide a fascinating up-close look at these ambitious live rehearsals.
Angelika - Screen 1

10:00 PM
Odd Stories Worth Staying Up For Compilation
Narrative Fiction | 58 min.
plays with...
* Killer | Adam Leon, Jack Pettibone Riccobono
A 17-year-old is consumed by an intense, dangerous game called KILLER (based on a real game). The film provides a glimpse into an urban rite of passage as it follows him and his group of friends in their hunt for their opponents across the five boroughs of 1989 New York.
* ChickenShit | Ricky Gluski 2009
* The Sheep And The Ranch Hand | Loretta Hintz 2009
* The Spam Job | Padraic Culham
Paddy was class clown, Casanova, and attention-hound. In the summer of 1997, his friends hatched a plan to feed Paddy a taste of his own eclectic medicine. What follows is an epic mystery that starts with the theft of Paddy's most prized treasure, spanned years of clandestine taunting from across the globe, and finally culminates in the fate of America's most honored and ridiculous canned food.
* Too Bare or Too Bush | Shannon Silva
Angelika - Screen 2

SATURDAY, NOV. 7

12:00 PM
Surface Of The Pixel Compilation
Video Art | 75 min.
plays with...
* Oscilator Color | Sabine Gruffat
* Before Departure | Jason Klorfein
* Gravity | Nicolas Provost
* Lossless 2 | Douglas Goodwin, Rebecca Baron
* Lossless 5 | Rebecca Baron, Douglas Goodwin
* Nanosporin AI | Stephen Hal Fishman
* R+B+G | Gregory Gutenko 2008
* The Divers | Nicolas Provost
* The Sky Socialist Stratified | Ken Jacobs
* Untitled (2 axes) | Timothy McConville
Angelika - Video Café

12:00 PM
The Name of God
Jon Racinskas | Narrative Fiction | 103 min.
The son of a prominent evangelist in the midst of searching for a personal identity, ventures into a mosque to pray. He is met with wariness by the Muslim community and hostility from his own congregation. When his mother is diagnosed with terminal cancer, she tries to communicate that God goes by many different names, but the most important one is "Love."
Angelika - Screen 2

12:00 PM
Siggraph 2009
Multiple | Animation | 123 min.
Angelika - Screen 1

1:00 PM
Student Animation Showcase
Animation | 45 min.
Angelika - Screen 1

1:15 PM
Chinese Ghost Story
Documentary | 29 min.
The 17th century Chinese ghost tale placed alongside a retelling of the Chinese participation in the construction of the Transcontinental Railroad establishes two parallel tracks, intersecting at the horizon of one immigrant’s story of his sixty-year separation from his family in the mainland. Chinese Ghost Story is a poetic essay in which history and landscape converge along the undisturbed railroad grade.
Angelika - Video Café

1:45 PM
Stephen Vitiello: Soundtracks
Video Art | 57 min.
plays with...
* Balance Inquiry | Andrew Deutsch
* Buoy Remix | Seoungho Cho
* Cinema | Eder Santos, Stephen Vitiello
* Green Tunnel | Kevin Gallagher
* Trifornix. (Take Two) | Nic DeSantis
* Imago Dei | Matt Flowers
Angelika - Video Café

1:45 PM
Lover or Logo
DeeDee Halleck | Documentary, Satire | 28 min.
“Lover or Logo” features the Church of Stop Shopping Gospel Choir and Reverend Billy. It was produced by Big Noise Films in collaboration with FSTV and the Church.
Angelika - Screen 2

1:45 PM
London International Awards
Advertising | 143 min.
Angelika - Screen 1

2:15 PM
Tales from Pakistan Compilation
International
plays with...
* Color of the Sand | Amar Mahboob
* Emergency PLUS | Gulab & Afifa
* Essential Rag
* In the Name of Honor | M. Waseem
* Let Them Meet | Beena Sarwar
* Mitt da Bawa
* Music and the Message | Umbreen Butt
* Putting the Police in Order | Maheen Aiz
* Small Camera: A Heart in Exile
* The Miseducation of Pakistan | Syed ali Nasir
Angelika - Screen 2

2:45 PM
The Gruen Transfer
Mark Fitzgerald | TV Entertainment Show | 30 min.
The Gruen Transfer deconstructs advertising. A panel of industry experts analyses commercials - what works and what doesn't, and what techniques the advertisers are using to make us, the consumers, buy their product. Its light hearted and interesting and at times is reveals something about human nature.
Angelika - Screen 1

3:15 PM
Landeplage: Take On Me
Nick Ingman | Documentary | 30 min.
[No description yet.]
Angelika - Screen 1

3:15 PM
24hr Film Race Winners
24hr race | 90 min.
plays with...
* Pixelvision 1: Landdolphins
* Pixelvision 2: Digital Death
* Pixelvision 3: Team Swine
* Futurevision 1: Shoot or Die
* Futurevision 2: Siloencer Films
* Futurevision 3: View Finder Productions
* Auteur 1: Elephant & Castle Productions
* Auteur 2: Blocknaw Productions
* Auteur 3: Original Dub Master
* Guerilla 1: Monochromatic Productions
* Guerilla 2: Curtis Needs a Ride
* Guerilla 3: GuD Films | director
* Hollywood 1: Brownian Motion (tie)
* Hollywood 1: Whispering Eye (tie)
* Hollywood 2: Palatia Motion Picture Group
Angelika - Screen 2

3:15 PM
Texas Filmmakers Showcase Compilation
Shorts | 90 min.
plays with...
* Color By Number | Marshall Rimmer
* Fury | Van Blumreich
* Skip and Lester: Here's The Stapler If You Need It | Lance Myers
* It's For Her | Travis Johns
* My Mom Smokes Weed | Clay Liford
* Quarter To Noon | Kat Candler
* Smokey | Scott Thurman, Billy Loftin 2008
Angelika - Video Café

3:45 PM
A Sea Change
Barbara Ettinger | Documentary | 83 min.
In this documentary about climate change we see the long-term effects of ocean acidification. Excess carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is dissolving into seawater and changing the pH, making seawater more acidic. This water is dissolving the shells of certain shellfish and coral reefs. The effects are working their way up the food chain and into your home.
Angelika - Screen 1

4:45 PM
14 Americans
Michael Blackwood, Nancy Rosen | Documentary | 91 min.
Making art after the end of illusionism led 14 artists in the 1970’s including Laurie Andersen, Alice Aycock, and Chuck Close to create performances, sculptures, earthworks, tableaux, furniture, shaped canvases, and more using unusual materials. They explore the process of making forms and giving meanings to those forms. In this idea art, their focus is as often social and psychological as artistic.
Angelika - Screen 2

5:30 PM
Heckler
Michael Addis | Documentary | 79 min.
When Jamie Kennedy moved from stand-up comic to actor, he encountered a new breed of heckler -- the on-line film critic. Heckler features interviews with a number of comics and musicians discussing their experiences with loud-mouthed spectators (including Bill Maher, Rob Zombie and David Allen Grier), but Kennedy goes a step further, confronting writers who've bad-mouthed his work.
Angelika - Screen 1

6:00 PM
Lost Faces
Massimo Monacelli| Narrative Fiction | 27 min.
A story of a person who, during a dream, has visions of his previous and past lives.
Angelika - Video Café

6:15 PM
Animated Shorts Compilation
Animation | 38 min.
plays with...
* Set Set Spike | Emily Hubley
* I am so proud of you | Don Hertzfeldt
* Lezzieflick | Nana Swiczinsky
* Missed Aches | Joanna Priestley
Angelika - Screen 2

6:30 PM
Wednesday Morning 2 AM
Lewis Klahr | Video Art/ Animation | 30 min.
Wednesday Morning Two A.M. is a film of a new series entitled “Couplets”. These generally, but not exclusively, organize themselves around the pairing of various pop songs and just as in these songs lyrics, the theme of love.
Angelika - Video Café

7:00 PM
Life Stories Compilation
Narrative Fiction | 32 min.
plays with...
* Umbrella | Ryan Kline 2008
* Hot Route | Casey Gooden
* Words Unspoken | Renee O Conner
Angelika - Screen 2

7:00 PM
Writing with Pictures: The Emerging Art of The Video Essay
Matt Zoller Seitz, Kevin B. Lee and Steven Boone | 90 min.
A discussion about film criticism changing from something you read in a scholarly book to something you download on your computer. Matt Zollar Seitz will show and speak about his video essays and the work of Kevin B. Lee and Steven Boone. It’s a new world where the critic of a medium uses the tools of that medium as a response.
Angelika - Screen 1

7:15 PM
Blank City
Celine Danhier | Documentary | 106 min.
A tribute to unique individuals during the mid 70s No Wave movement of retreating art away from the establishment. Filmmakers Amos Poe, Nick Zedd and Jim Jarmusch describe how someone in the Village came into a bunch of cameras and sold them to locals inspiring many to take up filmmaking. The films are raw and the cameras hand held. Look for a young Vincent Gallo, Julian Schnabel and Steve Buscemi, also Fab Five Freddy, Warhol, and Basquiat whose success killed the movement.
Angelika - Video Café

7:30 PM
Life Cycle Compilation
Experimental Video | 102 min.
plays with...
* Overlays | Justin Lincoln
* Remember | Jane Terry
* She Used To See Him Most Weekends | Penny Lane
* Young | David Lawrence
* For Memories' Sake | Ashley Maynor 2009
* Annie Lloyd | Cecelia Condit
* False Aging | Lewis Klahr
* Forget My Name | Julia Kots 2008
* Frankie | Darren Thornton
Angelika - Screen 2

8:30 PM
Albert Maysles Presents:
Albert Maysles | Documentary | 105 min.
plays with...
* Muhammad and Larry | Albert Maysles
* Get Your Ya-Ya's Out | Albert Maysles
Angelika - Screen 1

9:00 PM
Chase
Liz Laser | Installation | 20 min.
Nine professional actors perform their assigned roles in branch locations of their respective banks. The play’s cycle extended over the course of a month as she collaborated on a daily basis with the actors. Their videotaped activities attempt to rearticulate a physical and verbal relationship with these bank spaces and their inhabitants.
Angelika - Video Café

9:15 PM
Died Young Stayed Pretty
Eileen Yaghoobian | Documentary | 95 min.
A movie about Rock Posters that are both vulgar and intensely visceral onto the gnarled surfaces of the urban landscape. The film gives us intimate look at some of the giants of this modern subculture. These indie graphic artists have created their own visual language for describing the underbelly of western civilization. Along the way, they create posters that are obscene, blasphemous and often quite beautiful.
Angelika - Screen 2

9:30 PM
72 Musicians
Robert Moczydlowsky | Documentary | 72 min.
Sometimes success and failure is the same thing especially with independent bands. Tour schedules, unemployment, day care, divorce; drinking... it’s the 23 hours you’re not on stage that’s the hard part. Shot on one stage, in one club, during four days, this documentary empowers every almost-made-it musician to speak with a single, honest, anonymous, resonant voice. And it’s funny.
Angelika - Video Café

10:15 PM
Psychoville
BBC | TV Show | 45 min.
When a group of seemingly unrelated strangers all receive a note stating, "I know what you did," it sends their lives into a downward spiral. They include a birthing coach nurse who believes her practice doll is a real baby; an alcoholic, one-handed clown; a telekinetic dwarf; and a miserly old man with the world's biggest Beanie Baby collection.
Angelika - Screen 1

SUNDAY, NOV. 8

12:00 PM
To My Great Chagrin
Jeff Sumerel | Documentary | 67 min.
Sumerel along with collaborator Jeter Rhodes, have completed a 3 year journey to create a most compelling and exhilarating account of the remarkable history and career of a man known as “Brother Theodore”. Theodore’s television appearances spanned from Jack Paar to Johnny Carson to Merv Griffin to David Letterman. His diverse movie experiences joined him with Alfred Hitchcock, Orson Welles, and Tom Hanks.
Angelika - Video Café

12:00 PM
A Reason To Live
Allen Mondel, Cynthia Salzman Mondell | Documentary | 52 min.
This poignant documentary adds a personal perspective to a major public health crisis, highlighting that while there is a need for suicide prevention and intervention, current treatments for depression are promising and offer hope.
Angelika - Screen 1

12:00 PM
Click Play: One Billion Times a Day
[I believe this is a curated selection of YouTube videos.]
Event | 60 min.
Angelika - Screen 2

1:00 PM
Birds And Other Creatures Compilation
Musical Comedy | 40 min.
plays with...
* Gillface | David Mcginnis 2008
A true fish-out-of-water story, this musical follows Gil, a lakeman (or "Aquatic-American"), as he encounters prejudice and bigotry at his desk job in the city, where he falls for the new girl in the office.
* The Three Ravens | Bobby Abate
* Silent Among Us | Dana Levy
* The Commoners | Penny Lane
A short story about growing up, a certain love song, and the apocryphal memories of childhood. Simple animations create a picture book whose story is scrambled by time and loss. Penny Lane creates an imaginative look at childhood memories and how what we remember can be completely subjective. Simple animation is used to create a black and white storybook.
Angelika - Screen 2

1:15 PM
Radical Disciple: The Story of Father Pfleger
Bob Hercules | Documentary | 58 min.
Mike Pfleger is a white priest in a nearly all-black parish, an outspoken maverick in a rigidly conservative arch-diocese, a preacher whose sermons are more akin in style and tone to Black Baptist traditions than White Catholic. Pfleger has transformed a dying parish into one of Chicago's most vibrant.
Angelika - Video Café

1:15 PM
How I Am
Ingrid Demetz | Documentary | 49 min.
Set in a small, Italian mountain town, and using only Patrick's words, this beautifully filmed documentary reveals how painfully lonely life can be for a teen with autism. At school and at home, his inability to communicate and lack of social skills make it nearly impossible for Patrick to build relationships, yet he remains optimistic for the future.
Angelika - Screen 1

2:00 PM
Eggshelland
Christopher Noice | Documentary | 60 min.
The film chronicles a year in the life of Cleveland couple Ron and Betty Manolio as they prepare their annual Eggshelland display--a unique, inspiring, and downright quirky suburban celebration of Easter, Spring, and life. It's a beautiful, funny, strange and poignant story of the never-ending joy of childhood and the inspiring legacy of one man's dream.
Angelika - Screen 2

2:15 PM
Open House
Diane Nerwen | Documentary | 31 min.
Documents the brutal nature of the development spree that has occurred in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. With images of a neighborhood being literally torn apart by developers capitalizing on a frenzied housing market, and property owners desperate to cash in before the market collapsed, 'Open House' chronicles the re-branding of Williamsburg from working class/warehouse/artist into 'cutting edge' cosmopolitan.
Angelika - Video Café

2:15 PM
The Glass House
Hamid Rahmanian | Documentary | 92 min.
With a virtually invisible camera, The Glass House takes us on a never-before-seen tour of the underclass of Iran. This groundbreaking documentary reflects a side of Iran few have access to. It introduces us to a group of courageous women working to instill a sense of empowerment and hope into the lives of otherwise discarded teenage girls.
Angelika - Screen 1

2:45 PM
Urban Dance Compilation
Shorts | 20 min.
plays with...
* Proverbial Wisdom | Jan Roberts Breslin
* Body Trail | Michael Palm, Willi Dorner [documents Bodies in Urban Spaces]
* Hero | Skip Blumberg
* Waterfront Access? | Floanne Ankah
Angelika - Video Café

3:15 PM
Migration: A Bi-Cultural Experience Compilation
Shorts | 60 min.
plays with...
* Es Como Morirse | Jan Suter 2008
* Return to Stolowicze | Marek Dojs 2008
* Pak'aal: An Orange About to Fall | Roberto Kameta 2008
* Skateborder | Ernesto Rosas 2008
* No Ward | Terence Nance 2008
Angelika - Video Café

3:30 PM
Outsider's Stories Compilation
Narrative Fiction | 86 min.
plays with...
* Igbo Kwenu! | Chinonye Chukwu
A comedic drama about what means to be a part of a second generation in America. At her cousin's wedding 18-year-old Ngozi stumbles through her journey within both worlds. But when she and her childhood acquaintance realize they have feelings for each other, Ngozi's family has other plans that interrupt the tender moment.
* Crescendo | Pierre Terrade 2009
Steph, a young mother, lives in precarious conditions with JB, her abusive boyfriend. How will she get out of this nightmare drifting her towards violence?
* Hide | Robert Shelby
* In the Land of Opportunity | Joey Sylvester 2009
* Start A band | Daniel Laabs
Angelika - Screen 2

3:45 PM
Nollywood Lady
Dorothee Wenner | Documentary | 52 min.
Peace Anyiam-Fibresima of Lagos, Nigeria is an impresario of showbiz and an impassioned spokeswoman for the thriving and innovative African film industry. She is “Nollywood Lady,” an ex-lawyer, producer, filmmaker, and the founder and CEO of the influential African Academy of Motion Pictures. And she is reshaping the way Africans see themselves—and how the world sees Africans.
Angelika - Screen 1

4:15 PM
Bubblegum Music Is The Naked Truth
Kier-La Janisse | Documentary
[No description]
Angelika - Video Café

4:45 PM
Burma VJ
Anders Østergaard | Documentary | 85 min.
Armed with video cameras, Burmese reporters expose the repressive regime controlling their country. In 2007, after decades of silence, Burma became headline news when peaceful Buddhist monks led a massive rebellion. Foreign news crews were banned, the Internet was shut down, and Burma was closed to the outside world. So how did we witness these events? Enter the Democratic Voice of Burma (DVB), aka the Burma VJs.
Angelika - Screen 1

5:00 PM
Speaking In Code
Amy Lee Grill | Documentary | 89 min.
Speaking in Code is an intimate account of people who are completely lost in music. A heartbreaking and lighthearted documentary, it's a glimpse into the world of techno. Captivating and entertaining, the film takes you around the world, following the people who make electronic music, their lives.
Angelika - Screen 2

6:00 PM
Performance Compilation
Experimental | 127 min.
plays with...
* Burning Palace | Mara Mattuschka, Chris Haring
* City of Noise | Mitch Barany
* The Weird Turn Pro | Chip Lord
* Tijuana Hercules - 'Down in the Bottom Lines' | Shawn Brennan
* White Piano | Timothy McConville
Angelika - Video Café

6:15 PM
Reporter
Eric Metzgar | Documentary | 90 min.
The documentary chronicles New York Times journalist Nick Kristof's 2007 trip to cover the genocidal war raging in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo. The film includes interviews with Congolese rebel leader Laurent Nkunda and other key players in a brutal clash of militias. It highlights the importance of real news gathering in illuminating a world in chaos.
Angelika - Screen 1

6:45 PM
Evening's Civil Twilight in Empires Of Tin
Jem Cohen | Music | 100 min.
The video document of a live orchestral performance written by Jem Cohen played for projected films.
Angelika - Screen 2

8:00 PM
Texas Show [Compilation]
Shorts | 64 min.
[An independently juried selection of the videos that have a Texas connection.]
plays with...
* Love Bug | Kat Candler
* Change | Ya'ke smith
* Cold calls | Jack Daniel Stanley
* Dig Deep | Mark Birnbaum
* Jimmy Kuehnle's Big Red and Walking Fish | Mark Walley, Angela Guerra 2009
* Lambs | Stephen Huff 2009
* Sleet/Snow | Daniel Laabs
* Western Brothers’ Adventure Story
* Weight of the World | Jenny Goddard
* Trash Day | Sam Lerma
* Unbelievable 4 | Sukwon Shin
* Uprush | Kim Hall