My new short, Pre-Apocalypse, is screening next week along with the other projects from my fiction film class. These films are pretty rough technically– each filmed in one day on 16mm, edited by hand on the Steenbeck, single track audio, no sound mix, no titles, some camera problems– but represent a lot of talent and hard work. I’ll be posting a d.i.y. digital transfer of my film up here soon, but I want to encourage everyone to come out and see it on the big screen because the film projection looks so much better. Hope to see you there!
Audition for 6 films at once! My film class, VES150, is holding a class-wide audition for our spring films. Slots are almost full so don’t wait to sign up.
This weeks begins for me a much anticipated break from the internet. My laptop is sitting at home in NJ, I am many miles away (soon to be many more miles), and we shall not rendezvous again until September.
When public computers are available, I may log on to check email and such, if I feel like it. But for much of the summer I will not have any access. So please do not expect replies to any electronic correspondence. Letters are most welcome. Privacy concerns prohibit my posting my contact info on this site. Check facebook or call my parents.
It’s not a trip back home without a visit to Maxwell’s. Tonight I took my sister to her first rock show (and my first in some time– its been far too long since I’ve seen “live” music that consisted of more than a dude in front of a laptop or a coop jam session). It did not disappoint. I first discovered Los Campesinos! because of their animated music videos, but it turns out that they are one attractive band (their other videos attest to this). So I got to introduce lil’ sis to my favorite Maxwell’s ritual: its cozy enough that even if the music is lame, you can always content yourself ogling the cute boys and girls with guitars. Luckily in this case, the performance was fantastic, and the crowd great. I love shows in Jersey cuz people aren’t afraid to be enthusiastic. There was much dancing and cheering, and in a unsuccessful but valiant effort for an encore, even something of a sing-along.
I’m seriously all crushed out. Campesinos! are adorable; they sound like what when I was 15 I had hoped college would feel like. Sort of obnoxiously indie but so sweet that you have to smile. Anyway, tonight was the beginning of Campesinos! US tour. They’ve got shows in most of the cities that I have friends in, so if you dig indie-pop (think Apples in Stereo), definitely check em out.
The Orion Experience – The Cult of Dionysus
[audio:http://www.rrrojer.net/share/music/TheCultofDionysus.mp3]
The Orion Experience – Obsessed With You
[audio:http://www.rrrojer.net/share/music/ObsessedWithYou.mp3]
Los Campesinos! – My Year in Lists
[audio:http://www.rrrojer.net/share/music/MyYearInLists.mp3]
Today is ZDay, a day of “awareness and activism” about the issues addressed in the delicious agitprop conspiracy doc Zeitgeist: The Movie.
I don’t have the patience to be a true conspiracy theorist, but I do believe the following: that the government is not to be trusted; that the elite are sketchy, secretive and often psychotic bastards; and that humanity has much to gain by ditching theistic religions, nationalism, and corporatism. But above all, I enjoy a good story. And for that reason alone I recommend taking two hours to watch Zeitgeist, preferably with a couple friends and your preferred paranoia-inducing substance.
WFMU is free culture in action: an obscene amount of music, including tons and tons of live stuff recorded in the studio, broadcast on the air and online for FREE. Not digging what’s on the air right now? Check out the endless archives. No cost to your wallet and no cost to your soul: no bullshit ads, government subsidies, or corporate underwriting. Plus WFMU is spearheading the fight to save net radio.
But they can’t keep doing it without donations, and this year in particular they really need the money. By pledging you not only get to feel warm and fuzzy about supporting one of the nation’s most important artistic communities, you also get super hip swag and hand-crafted DJ premiums.
Please, send these guys some love and some money, or else we’ll be left with exactly what we deserve.
Also, tune in tomorrow (Sunday) for Yo La Tengo’s annual live marathon set from 5-8pm EST.
[audio:http://blogfiles.wfmu.org/DG/Yo_La_Tengo_-_Sweet_Dreams.mp3]
Preview: Yo La Tengo covers Sweet Dreams
To all my family & friends,
I am so insanely lucky to have you in my life. A blog post feels massively inadequate for expressing my gratitude, appreciation, and love for all of you, but to not use this space to say something seems wrong. Because of you, I think it is fair to say that I have had the most exciting, educational, and life-affirming year of my life. I hope that your 2007 was wonderful too, but more importantly, that your 2008 is even better. May the new year bring you peace, health, love, growth, and happiness.
To Marjane Satrapi and Vikram Seth,
Thank you for making art. Marjane, thank you for reminding me how powerful and beautiful animation can be. Vikram, thank you for writing a novel about San Francisco in verse. To both of you, thank you for demonstrating the importance of not compromising as an artist, for giving me a reason to look forward to tomorrow’s cross-country flight with a 2 hour layover, and for helping me view life with some reverence (the good kind). May the new year bring you success and inspiration, and may your work influence our culture.
To the weather,
Thank you so much for snowing today in Cambridge. I really needed that. May the new year keep you safe from global warming.
Tim, Christina & co are up to some craziness back in Cambridge. On April 25-27, they will attempt to open the hellmouth:
This is the ongoing record of an effort to assemble every famous internet meme or celebrity to come to Harvard in the spring of 2008 to attend a conference.
Presumably, they’re going to talk about fame online.
Congressman Kucinich, I believe you’re the only person on this stage who had a chance to vote on the Patriot Act right after 9/11, who voted against it, right away.
That’s because I read it.
I’ve yet to decide who to support for the primary, and political blogging is a slippery slope. But fuck it.
Hearing Kucinich say that in the debate felt incredible. Maybe he’s unelectable, another classic victim of a self-fulfilling big media lie. But thats not gonna stop me from giving mad props to the candidate who doesn’t compromise on things that should be uncompromisable, like the Constitution. The candidate who is sensible and passionate and calls the game out on what it is. Who doesn’t base his policy on what’s gonna get him elected, but instead gets out there on national television/youtube to honestly articulate how broken everything is, and how we could start to fix it. Who recognizes not just how bad the US government is for its citizens, but for the entire world.
Who is almost single-handedly trying to impeach Dick Cheney.
There’s a campaign “to get 100,000 people to commit to donate $100 each to Dennis Kucinich on December 15, 2007, for a total one-day contribution of $10 million.” Even if you don’t think Kucinich would make a good president, $100 is worth it just so that he can keep speaking out at these debates. Worth it just to say suck it to big media.
Now, at the moment I don’t have $100 to spare. Maybe I will by December 15. But I do have a blog, and I think some people read it. So perhaps I can encourage you to throw some cash behind the candidate who is small but mighty. And peaceful! Or maybe 10 of us broke-ass students can get together and pledge $10/each.
We now return to our regularly scheduled programing of drug-induced animation and things that you haven’t already seen on reddit.
Its been a while since my last post, but not for lack of things to say. Instead, my bandwidth for online activity has been consumed by two other endeavors. First, I gave the Harvard Lampoon website a complete redesign using Drupal. Its still very much a work in progress, and considering my attention span, it may stay as such for a while. But check it out, as we plan to update the content quite frequently (including comics illustrated by yours truly).
However, despite what my recent contributions to the Lampoon may seem, I am not back in Cambridge. My love affair with California is still going strong and I’ve decided to stay in Berkeley for the semester. Peace out, Puritans. Hello, beautiful hippie people.
And what have I been doing out here? Besides making lots of friends, art, and sourdough, I’m pleased to announce that I’ve been hired as a Business Development Assistant for Creative Commons, the awesome organization I interned with over the summer. I blog for them a couple times a week, so that’s definitely been eating into the energy I have for this site. More to come on what else I’ve been working on there, but for now I should mention that we just launched our Annual Fall Fundraising Campaign, and along with it, a slick site redesign. Those of you already familiar with the great work CC is doing, consider making a donation!
For the uninitiated, this video is a pretty good introduction to what Creative Commons is all about:
