Perfection...

Ani Difranco on...

"That whole culture of perfection, I have no patience for that. Making music is so immediate, and the fact that there’s no audience in the studio is a hurdle for me to begin with. I just can’t sit around and try and make the perfect vocal and the perfect guitar track. I lose artistic inspiration for that kind of obsessiveness. So what I’ve learned to do these days, starting with the Up Up Up record, is to record a bunch of different times, because the song as you play it on any given day is just that day’s interpretation."

http://www.acousticguitar.com/issues/ag93/coverstory.shtml

a reflection of kitsch

From a work published in 1991 as ‘The Transparency of Kitsch: A Conversation between Jean Baudrillard and Enrico Baj:

JB: Conventional art has to look clean. There’s such a demand from museums and from the public at large for sanctifying anything and everything. And it’s precisely this cultural demand that’s kitsch (145).

JB: I’d say that the masses are the supreme kitsch product. At the same time the masses are a mirror of power that has itself become kitsch (146).

JB: People consume art, they devour it. But we will never know whether they really needed it or whether they really wanted it (151).

In a recent outing to the ‘mass cinema’ I was struck as I noted the three above quotes reflected so keenly while attempting to ‘turn off’ and ‘take in’ a movie. I was struck by the way that readings from days previous had permeated deep enough to expose themselves in an everyday life situation when I wasn’t even trying to get some writing/thinking done. Instead, like the poets say, carry a notebook wherever you may go for the best ideas are always caught floating in the wind. And thus like an unorganized grad student who thinks that they are quite organized I scribbled and jotted with a black felt pen found in my bag – a note book, not quite but rather the in-flight magazine served the purpose of papyrus. I say in-flight because it seems that the purposes of both flight mags and cinema belching advertisement coupled with ‘an inside look’ at the ‘new movies’ are equally consumed as are the products on the page.

Thus we come to Baudrillard and the cinema, that is, the large scale VIEWING/ CONSUMING room located in the middle, between two formerly independent towns. The SILVER CITY looms and casts a shadow not unlike the massive grain towers that occupy the waterfront of this northwestern Ontario hub. And like the grain towers, the cimenaplex is tall enough and large enough to draw the attention of a large area. I shudder to imagine or rather admit that Mount McKay which stands guard on the south side of town, the largest land mass in the near area, has been relegated for a long time now, as simply background – i.e., a First Nations population backgrounded’ like an artists underpainting. It is with machinic precision that we have refocused the gaze of the populous away from a previous primacy of the mountain and erected in it’s stead, a cinema house bearing the sameness that poisons much of North America.

In this sense, the cinema is not a reflective place of art, rather it is evidence of the distillation and synthesis of refined cleanliness and modernist calculation. A place which hosts an impossibly burdensome cleanliness, managed by teams of employable youth, welcomes with dull passivity the masses of movie goers in a voracious production of consumption. But it is the mirror, the one that reflects kitsch, that is hardly seen. The reflection may only be caught when there is a divergence from the status quo featuring passively sedated movie goers.

It was precisely at such a moment, at a break from patronage and societal norms that a lone voice reacting to a display of for lack of a better word, cinematic performance art in the form of nude painted bodies crashing into a pool of water below only to resurface as elated faces and masks – that the audience sat still, the discomfort was thick as the light reflected onscreen caused a moment of discontent that spread like a rabid infection over the faces aghast. A tri-syllabic utterance of the most monotone expression, lips barely pursed (to be sure) spouted “what the fuck’? and with that a silenced audience was once again free, free from any sense of captive space that the film had managed to create. My immediate instinct was a shattering, a broken spirit, like a cell phone ring at a funeral. I felt cheated and angry that a singe voice had managed to create a fracture and dissonance that would for the rest of the film render the voices in the crowd louder than the screens.

It was this point, the moment that ‘wtf’ was uttered that I felt a chill run down my back as I realized that within the ever clean space of the cinema there is no possibility for anything but kitsch. For the space which hosts the sanctification of display must equally champion condemnation as well as painful ignorance. The question of whether ‘they needed it or not’ had been haplessly answered in a moment of ‘truth.’

And now for the film:

A romanticized romp through an elated 1960’s fantasy tinged with anti-war sentiments and bohemian artists caught in the ‘helter skelter’ of Vietnam era contestation. Dr. Roberts guides the bus as a transcendence of the bullshit is made coupled with the groans of stereophonic mindfuck artillery. At times the film reflects the ebb and flow of great seas reflecting calm and storm in constant flux. The spectacle touches on and anchors itself amidst a caucus of recently released ‘musical’ films such as ‘walk the line,’ ‘ray’ and ‘a prairie home companion’ – however the cleanliness of these films is outdone by the psychedelia of this musical voyage through some 40 Beatles songs. At times, it’s a ‘flying circus’ at others it’s reminiscent of ‘clockwork’ and occasionally the starch just needs to be drained from the screen. Fluxes of engagement and disengagement might be a proper use of words to describe the film. The power comes from the ability to actively propel scenes forward through the clever use of names, dates and places in the Beatles songs. This is no review, this was dialogue, conversation, or perhaps literary masturbation.

http://www.acrosstheuniverse.com/

a facial apparatus

Holding out: a way out of facebook?

The words below are clips from a longer article that attempts to analyze online social/antisocial networks like facebook and myspace in the context of cultural capital.

I for one, have held out of facebook, but feel the increasing pressure to join...
I found this article while skulking around like a gangly gollum looking for a way out,
is there a productive way to be engage whilst disengaging/ holding out/ not participating in the unpaid work being done by 'users'?

http://www.firstmonday.org/issues/issue11_12/bigge/index.html

From: The Cost of (anti-)social networks; Identity, agency and neo-luddites.
Author: Ryan Bigge.


"Related to front-end formatting decisions, Galloway describes how intelligent networks “produce an apparatus to hide the apparatus.” [8]

Is Theodora Stites’s information calisthenics work or play? Andrejevic (2004), concludes that:

“Instead of promoting power sharing, the contemporary deployment of interactivity exploits participation as a form of labor. Consumers generate marketable commodities by submitting to comprehensive monitoring. They are not so much participating, in the progressive sense of collective self-determination, as they are working by submitting to interactive monitoring.”

Hughes describes a false choice, a sociotechnical scenario devoid of agency. In his article, Cassidy (2006) underscores this narrative of inevitability: “‘It was viewed as an addictive guilty pleasure — lots of students using language like ‘resisting’ and ‘holding out’ when describing their hesitation to join,’ recalled a Harvard graduate who joined Facebook as a senior, in February, 2004.”

Is there any difference between those excluded from creating a robust social network and those who chose not to participate? How would a neo-Luddite (that is, a conscientious MySpace objector) differ from someone with social network failure? Or, to put it another way, is it possible to communicate intent through a lack of participation?"

Empire of Persians - 1

Empire of Persians – Document #1

Thunder Bay’s paradoxical doughnut without a hole, the Persian, is inspiration for this series of artistic interpretations (Documents). Vehicle of civic pride and regional culinary identity, the venerable, yet ephemeral, Persian carries the weight of an unlikely history. Like the Hungarian Bismarck – a favorite of Manitobans – with its solid German lineage, and the coffee and doughnut-bearing Sallies of the Salvation Army delivering messages of material comfort to the troops during WWI, the Persian is linked, however tenuously, with American four-star General John Joseph Pershing. Pershing or Persian? The exploits of the General during WWI have been likened to an exercise in empire building – perhaps an empire of Persians. There have been naval sloops named Persian since the 19th century. They have been notable for sinking. And at least one Canadian doughnut chain insists it fuels Canadian troops overseas. Alas, the Pershing-Persian connection is not likely apocryphal, if we are to believe the critics, but no less compelling for that reason. Like it or not, the Persian of northwestern Ontario has a military bearing. The Persian’s military history mixes uneasily with regionalism and commercial history. All of this seems too much for a doughnut to bear. It is one thing for a great work of art, a noble deed, or a stunning accomplishment to attract and sustain artistic and historical scrutiny. Usually, delightful confections do not engage the critical imaginations. But the Persian has a rich cultural significance that will be evident in the Documents created by local artists for this project. Betty Carpick’s Persian Bra evokes the signature colors of cinnamon and pink, capturing in fabric the delicate waves of icing applied by hand; yet, in the manner of Madonna and the slip dress, she turns under into outerwear. The Bra is part of Carpick’s line of garments created under the label of Miss Persian of Thunder Bay.

What Ontario Parties are Saying about Poverty

With the upcoming election, parties poverty reducation strategies are at the obvious front of questions being posed by anti-poverty advocates.

The Income Secuirty and Advocacy Centre has created an information sheet laying out each parties stance regarding poverty.

Here's a brief, non-detailed overview. A more detailed response can be found here.

Liberals:

The Liberals will build a comprehensive Poverty Reduction Strategy around the Ontario Child Benefit, and will work with partners to develop indicators and targets to mesure and address child poverty. Firm targets will be introduced within one year.

Progressive Conservatives:

The PCs have not made a commitment to a Poverty Reduction Strategy. But, an all-party debate on poverty and disability in Toronto on Sept. 18, the PC representative cmomitted her party to institution a poverty reduction strategy.

NDP:

The NDP has not made a committment to a Poverty Reduction Strategy. But the federal NDP - via Social Policy critic Tony Martin - has called on the federal government to enact a national Poverty Reduction Strategy.

Green Party:

The Green Party has said that it believes Ontario needs a Poverty Reduction Strategy. But it has not explicitly committed to instituting one.

Elect to End Poverty

Elect to End Poverty!

You are invited to attend a press conference organized by the Thunder Bay Economic Justice Committee. (It will also be the offical media release of a report writen by your's truly)

October 4th, 10 am, Kinna Aweya Legal Clinic (86 S. Cumberland St.)

Poverty continues to be a serious and central concern for many people in Thunder Bay. At the press conference, we will present the newest edition of our Thunder Bay Poverty Report: Rich Conversations with the Poor. We will also present our summary of the TBEJC survey of provincial political candidates, outlining their positions on issues for low income people in Thunder Bay. This election, the TBEJC is focusing on three areas:

Energy Poverty:
People with low income are spending a disproportionate amount of their income on housing and utilities, especially in colder areas like Northwestern Ontario. This is due to the rising cost of energy and the low efficiency of many rent-geared-to-income units. This trend is negating any social benefit from geared to income housing, and causing people to literally be unable to afford to live in subsidized units.

Adequate Welfare and Minimum Wage Rates:
The cuts in social assistance rates in 1995 have not been restored by the McGuinty government. The last increase of 3% and the 2% increase in November are nowhere near the amounts required to bring rates to their pre-1995 amounts, not to mention the proposed $15,000.00 minimum annual income suggested by MISWAA. Additionally, the proposed increase to the minimum wage will not be fully implemented until 2010. By that time the cost of living will have increased substantially, thereby reversing any gains a moderate wage increase would provide.
A comprehensive government strategy to address poverty and welfare reform:
The current income security system for adults in Ontario is inadequate. Every aspect of the labour market has changed dramatically in the last 40 years. Yet, there has been no corresponding reforms or modernization of our income security system to keep pace. A proposal for reform, Time for a Fair Deal: Modernizing Income Security for Working Age Adults, has been endorsed by many municipalities including the Thunder Bay District Social Service Board. In addition to proposing an increase to welfare rates and the minimum wage, MISWAA recommends uploading social assistance benefits costs for Ontario Works and Ontario Disability Support Programs, from municipalities to the province. Meaningful reforms must involve real experts: low income people and advocates. Substantive change requires government to appoint an expert panel and develop a clear strategy.

For more information, contact George Drazenovich at 345-0091.

Al Gore's Travelin' Global Warming Show