Free the FedFlix

Reading Boing Boing earlier in the week, or weeks ago maybe, I came across a brief article about the National Archives. All of those government commissioned movies from bygone eras, Why We Fight, CIA reports on China’s development, documentaries on Patton, are languishing in some musty closet. You can watch previews from them on the National Archive site but the feds suggest you purchase the films on DVD from Amazon.

These are citizen funded movies and the government, not wanting to deal with it, sent them over to be produced and distributed by a private company. In practical terms this makes obvious sense– the market is so small for this sort of nostalgia you may as well let private enterprise take the risk on repackaging and selling the flicks. But we don’t care about what’s practical, right? We care about what’s right. So does Carl Malamud, who bought the DVD set and then posted them all on the Internet Archives. Not all, as many as he’s been able to. He’s encouraging people to watch them so he can use the number of viewers in testimony before Congress to convince people that these films should be widely available to the public.

As I’m isolated from culture that I understand I’ve been digging through them. Tonight I learned about mosquitoes and malaria courtesy of Disney and seven dwarves. Did you know you could run around pouring oil into ponds, drain them, and bury cans? Spray toxins everywhere? That was official government education back in the days before color.

Okay, they’re also on youtube but I prefer the Internet Archives for no particular reason.

 

More on the What I Do Front

My most recent posting on Wired’s Underwire was in regards to a concert movie showing in 3D. Dave Matthews, Ben Harper and Gogol Bordello are the focus of this first release by new venture inconcert3d, a company founded by several larger businesses. My efforts to get more technical details regarding who designed the systems and how the post-production is handled was met with silence, which may explain why the piece was altered by my editor to sound like a press release. Or maybe Underwire just wanted to make a press release, or I’m a talentless hack, or many other possible reasons.

Meanwhile on the Vingt front I did a show preview of Emir Kusturica & The No Smoking Orchestra. Kusturica is obviously better known as a film director but he lends his guitar and name to this band. It’s a high energy outfit of old Serb guys who mix theatre, comedy and rocked out Balkan/Gypsy tunes for a pretty entertaining show. Or I imagine so as I’ve never seen them, and by the looks of ticket prices I wont. This is pretty heartbreaking to me as seeing the poster for this show was one more instance of, “my God, things I want to check out are happening in Paris”. Do yourself a favor and click the second link– goes to a video that has some amazing violin action. I know it’s long but do it at work or something.

Feeling like I needed to come up with something else I was prowling the internet and came across this group from Kinshasa, Staff Benda Bilili. They lay down a compelling blend of afro-funk and American influences, riding a rollercoaster from deeply emotional reflections to high-energy dance numbers. The big media draw is that the core of the group are all disabled, mainly from polio, and until recently have only existed as street musicians. A Belgian label decided to release an album and this is their first European tour. I’m going to see this courtesy of Vingt’s press power and am really looking forward to it. I would recommend you also check these guys out, videos or whatever you can find. Hell, I’ll start you out.

 

Santé and the Sans-Papier

Indescribable pain racked my body, shooting white-bolts of blistering agony from the low of my back down through my legs and up to the top of my skull. Each spasm caused by body to convulse, twisting like a burning scrap of paper, compounding the torment. I slowly shifted to my other side to lay panting, sweating, terrified of the next attack.

The possibility of rising from my inflatable mat was remote. Muscle contractions had left me spent, near vomiting and pissing. While there was little I could do about the former I groped behind me in the dark for my water bottle. We stared at one another in this sudden calm. I drained the last of its contents. We stared some more. I experimented with pulling myself up using the bed next to me but this sent me perilously close to another seizure. The two sleeping girls shifted under their covers.

 

Vingt Triple Threat

A preview I wrote for LA based holy water drunk, Brothers Grimm acolyte, backstreet cabaret rocker Dorian Wood. Never heard of him before either but then I checked out his music and would encourage you to do the same. Unfortunately I think I’m gonna miss his show here.

 

Selling Out, Moving On Up

At the beginning of summer I clicked through to a forum debating the development of DSLRs beginning to include HD video recording. A group of Oregonians had utilized a Nikon D90 to shoot a feature length movie and I mentioned this to my editor who encouraged me to dig around and build a story. Sent out some e-mails to the filmmakers, a camera reviewer/photographer and a favorite indie director of mine. My editor liked the facts and color commentary I had collected when he finally got around to reading the draft, just not how I had written it.

He proposed a redirection and focus but I was well in the midst of getting ready to move. One evening I brought my notes up to a cafe by my parents’ (where I lived for a month before disembarking) to try and make sense of it all and failed miserably. Flew across the world and got my bearings before making another stab at it, which essentially meant rewriting the fucker, double-checking for new developments in the field and seeing if anything new was going on with the film.

The second copy went ignored for a while until my editor had the time to go over it. Together we worked out some clarifications and then he posted it, telling me I was holding the top slot of the front page overnight. Why? That answer remains a mystery, but any and all zombies awake at indecent hours had the opportunity to see me in all my glory underneath and Apple ad.

 

Where the Hell Are You?

I’ve moved to Paris. There’s none of the traditional reasons behind this– there was no girl, no job, no school. I basically hit a point in my life where I was sick and tired of feeling miserable and trapped in the perpetuation of existence that I’d started when I got my first shit job at the age of fifteen. There are amazing, inspiring people out in the world who find what’s important to them and pursue it, make it work, and cling to it with their very lives. I had a couple failed bands, a couple failed relationships and struggled to find the time and energy just to write little things here. My health was in decline and although I can’t say I was unhappy, really, I knew complacency was killing me.

My trip here last spring caught me at the right moment. Paris is amazing, and as inspiring as the people who I’ve been fortunate enough to know who demand the right to chase their dreams. I knew before returning home that I wanted to live here, and so I started figuring out ways to make it work. This is why I started writing articles for Wired– I asked my editor friend for advice about getting into freelance writing and he suggested I start working with him; he’s been there every step of the way so far, teaching me how to self-edit, teaching me how to develop pitches, teaching me how to become a desirable commodity. The fact that the industry is choking right now didn’t bother me any more than the fact that I can’t speak French does.

And so I’m here, a month in, trying to figure out my life. It’s been tough for the obvious reasons and thrilling for the not so obvious. Trying to get into a steady work rhythm to churn out articles for my two Wired connections and build up a good set of clipping to expand my subject field. I also started a new blog:

Je Suis Le Grand Zombie (after the Mekons)

 

Where The Hell Have You Been?

Shit, I’ve been busy. I’ll explain, but first part of my excuse is:

Got assigned to profile a New York photographer who mashes up prints and exposures. Didn’t really know how to deal with the obtuse, approach but I tried to represent the guy as fairly as possible– my editor really likes to trim quotes down. I’ve never seen anyone get savaged by Wired readers like this guy and I do feel bad for him.

 

Prefabricated Dream Homes

How do you provide housing for an onslaught of urban refugees? According to figures cited by a recent article in The Economist, India’s cities require 25 million homes to accommodate massive growth. A number of firms have begun to construct massive low-cost townships in the suburbs to replace the slums of cinematic infamy.

Real estate savings aside prices are kept stable by cheap construction. Bricks have given way to concrete blocks manufactured from recycled waste material. The structures are restricted to a couple of stories to prevent the need for massive projects or elevators. Lodgings are small, some designed as single rooms with a sink and toilet. Plans for these low-income planned communities offer an assortment of designs to appeal both to individuals and families.

The great white flight of suburban migration which drained America’s cities in the 70’s and 80’s seems to have contracted. Looking at San Francisco and New York you can see long-term residents priced out by a monied invasion reversing the trend of inner-city decay and expelling lower income citizens to cheaper places outside the metropolises. I’ve been waiting and watching for a Parisian effect, wealth surrounded by run-down banlieues.

The thought of constructing high density communities of lower income residents causes pause. Have council estates in the UK really proven to be a good solution for affordable housing? Have the American projects provided people with the opportunity to join the fabled middle class? I’ve never been to England and I haven’t spent much time in projects but by all appearances concentrating poverty into spaces away from the jobs, amenities and opportunities promised by civic centers sounds like a disaster in the making.

A theory of ghettoes is that ownership inspires a pride and stewardship that prevents decay and crime from erupting. Public housing is a cesspool because no one owns their home and there’s no incentive for them to care for anything. While I’ve known many renters of many backgrounds who don’t mind a mess, but I’ve never met anyone who revels in crumbling walls, turf wars, broken elevators and no heat.

According to the Economist these recent building projects are the result of two nationalized banks funding finance companies to administer mortgages. Hordes of people can soon descend on their prefabricated dream homes only a short car-ride, moderate transit trip or impossibly distant bike ride from their jobs, the city shops and everything urbanites can expect simply by walking out their front doors. And if the economy has another reality adjustment and people begin to lose work, default on loans, have to make decisions between feeding the baby and repairing the cheap concrete wall behind the sink, well then what? Fenced off townships surrounding Mumbai? A slightly nicer slum pushed a little further outside the city?

Top image courtesy of Tata Housing and is from their Shubh Griha project. Bottom image is by Flickr user AK Foto who will probably get pissed about my not asking first. Defeating Global Poverty hipped me to it.

 

Hearts and Minds and Tweets

Propaganda has long been a staple for states in time of duress or war. Trying to convince people that they need to sacrifice their daily comforts or even their lives takes a lot of cunning manipulation that cannot be exposed as cunning manipulation. It should hardly be surprising that as communication has changed so has the nature of propaganda.

Israel probably has one of the worst international reputations due to the unresolved situation of Palestine. To cope with the growth of anti-Israeli sentiment permeating the annals of the internet the Foreign Ministry has begun to collect teams of students and demobilized soldiers to troll the chat forums, blogs, twitter accounts and comment threads of articles in search of criticism and to respond with positive Israeli sentiments.

According to an article published in Calcalist and translated into English on Occupation Magazine, recruits will be directed to hot topics and fed interesting arguing points. However it is pointed out that members of the “internet fighting team” will write in their own voices but will be employed by the ministry and will be towing the company line. They will not identify themselves as employed mouthpieces for any agency.

 

Sell Out and Wait

One of the more difficult things about trying to write articles for people other than myself is the amount of time it takes. Working with an editor is a challenge but one that I think has helped me figure out what exactly I’m doing and how it can translate into a real world piece which other people might care to read and find interesting or worthwhile. It helps that my editor Keith is talented, patient, understanding and a close friend.

The time it takes to think up a solid idea and have this validated by an editor is already double my usual approach to writing. Actually the thinking up an idea is already pushing the boundaries of my usual writing style. Anyways, add onto getting validation and ideas for clarity the process of collecting information and verifying that with additional sources. Time consuming in the best of circumstances and horrific when part of the research is learning everything you can about what you’re trying to write. Then throw in needing to solicit additional information from sources, taking that information and integrating it into your narrative, convincing your editor it’s necessary to include such source material, and then going back and cleaning up the mess you made.

That’s how far I got with this article on an interesting court hearing in San Francisco. Obviously you should read it on Wired so computers can tally my worth, but to summarize a photojournalism student lost his subject in a shooting, refused to cooperate with police on the grounds he was a journalist, then had his apartment searched under warrant and property seized. The city defended its actions by saying a student does not a journalist make. The student’s lawyers called bullshit.