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.