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Sunday, August 29, 2010

Ed Kuepper

It is a mystery to me why the name Ed Kuepper is not much know beyond the shores of Australia. The man is one of the most gifted songwriters of the past 50 years. Here is a small fraction of why:


It's Lunacy


Sleepyhead




Real Wild Life


Also Sprach The King Of Euro Disco


Without You Mirror

Saturday, August 28, 2010

Slavoj Zizek - First as Tragedy, Then as Farce



Slavoj Zizek, one of the worlds most influential living philosophers, visits the RSA to discuss capitalism's flawed priorities.

Wednesday, August 25, 2010

Still Life: A short film about Tony Judt


"To tell what is almost always an uncomfortable story and explain why the discomfort is part of the truth we need to live well and live properly. A well-organised society is one in which we know the truth about ourselves collectively, not one in which we tell pleasant lies about ourselves." - Tony Judt

Tony Robert Judt FBA (2 January 1948 – 6 August 2010) was a British historian, author and university professor. He specialized in European history and was the Erich Maria Remarque Professor in European Studies at New York University and Director of NYU's Erich Maria Remarque Institute. He was a frequent contributor to the New York Review of Books. In 1996 he was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and in 2007 a corresponding Fellow of the British Academy.

Starting as an impassioned left-wing Zionist, he dropped his faith in Marxism early on and became, in his words, "a universalist social democrat". After a period of admiration for the collectivism of Israeli kibbutzim, he would become critical of Israeli policy and its lack of tolerance. He displayed a profound suspicion of left wing ideologies, of identity politics, and of the American role as the world's sole superpower

Tuesday, August 24, 2010

Exit Through The Gift Shop



Exit Through the Gift Shop, the first film by renowned graffiti artist Banksy, became the hottest ticket at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival where it made its world debut. Banksy is a graffiti artist with a global reputation whose work can be seen on walls from post—hurricane New Orleans to the separation barrier on the Palestinian West Bank. Fiercely guarding his anonymity to avoid prosecution, Banksy has so far resisted all attempts to be captured on film. Exit Through the Gift Shop tells the incredible true story of how an eccentric French shop keeper turned documentary maker attempted to locate and befriend Banksy, only to have the artist turn the camera back on its owner with spectacular results. The film contains exclusive footage of Banksy, Shepard Fairey, Invader and many of the worlds most infamous graffiti artists at work, on walls and in interview. As Banksy describes it, Its basically the story of how one man set out to film the un—filmable. And failed

Sunday, August 22, 2010

Gnaoua World Music Festival @ Essaouira Morocco



The Gnaoua World Music Festival is a Gnawa music festival held annually in Essaouira, Morocco.

The festival provides a platform for exchanges and a meeting point of music and dialogue between foreign artists and the mystical Gnaoua (also Gnawa) musicians. In this melting-pot of musical fusion, the Gnaoua masters invite players of jazz, pop, rock and contemporary World music to explore new avenues.

Saturday, August 21, 2010

Pandit Nikhil Banerjee, sitar, Raag Malkauns, Part 1 and Excerpt





"My approach to music is very deep. I do not compromise. Indian music is based on spiritualism and was practiced and learned to know the Supreme Truth. A musician must lift up the souls of the listeners and take them towards Space. This is the history of Indian music."-Pt. Nikhil Banerjee

Monday, August 09, 2010

Love Story



Arthur Lee (March 7, 1945 – August 3, 2006) was the frontman, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist of the Los Angeles rock band Love, best known for the critically acclaimed 1967 album, Forever Changes.


Love: Autumn, Live in Copenhagen 1970


Love, Live at The Fillmore West 1970

Love was an American rock group of the late 1960s and early 1970s. They were led by singer, songwriter and guitarist Arthur Lee and the group's second songwriter, guitarist Bryan MacLean. One of the first racially diverse American pop bands, their music reflected different influences, combining elements of rock and roll, garage rock, folk and psychedelia. Their musical reputation largely rests on two albums issued in 1967, Da Capo and Forever Changes.


Love - My Little Red Book
Uploaded by DwightFrye. - See the latest featured music videos.



She Comes In Color from Marc Campbell on Vimeo.






Friday, August 06, 2010

Hiroshima Mon Amour



We should never forget.

Monday, August 02, 2010

Can Dialectics Break Bricks?







La Dialectique Peut-Elle Casser Des Briques?, in English, "Can Dialectics Break Bricks?", is a 1973 Situationist film produced by the French director René Viénet which explores the development of class conflict through revolutionary agitation against a backdrop of graphic kung-fu fighting.

The film uses a much older martial arts film ("The Crush" from Doo Kwang Gee) for its visuals which has been dubbed over by the filmmakers in an attempt at detournement. The concept and motivation of this film was to adapt a spectacular film into a radical critique of cultural hegemony and thus into tools of subversive revolutionary ideals.

The Narrative is based upon a conflict between the proletarian and bureaucrats within state capitalism. The proletarians enlist their dialectics and radical subjectivity to fight their oppressors whilst the bureaucrats defend themselves using a combination of co-optation and violence. The film is noted for its humorous approach to this serious subject matter.

The film also contains many praising references to revolutionaries who thought and fought for the realisation of a post-capitalist world, including Marx, Bakunin, and Wilhelm Reich, as well as scathing criticism towards the French Communist Party, trade unionism and Maoism. Also Subplots dealing with issues of gender equality, alienation, May 1968, and the Situationist themselves are riddled throughout the film.

"At the Pesaro film festival during the 60s French critic and filmmaker Luc Moullet challenged semiologist Roland Barthes by saying, "Language, monsieur, is theft." A variation on the anarcho-Marxist adage "property is theft," Moullet's aphorism implies that "language" in the public realm of cinema is a matter of expensive equipment--35-millimeter cameras and stock, sound-mixing and recording and editing machines, and so on--and therefore property. So to "have something to say" in that language you have to be rich or have wealthy patrons. And to "listen" you need to buy a film ticket or (not an option in the 60s) own a VCR--more property. In these broad Marxist terms the triumph of the proletariat becomes inextricably tied to control of production."

"By writing his own agenda on someone else's film almost a quarter of a century ago, Vienet was anticipating the kind of detournement [appropriation with critical intention] that has been happening with increasing frequency on video, though now the means are much more readily available and relatively inexpensive. I'm thinking of critical videos or films made up chiefly of found footage that have had varying degrees of exposure without permission from the original copyright holders. The most impressive work of this kind is Jean-Luc Godard's nearly four-hour, eight-part magnum opus Histoire(s) du cinema, Mark Rappaport's Rock Hudson's Home Movies and From the Journals of Jean Seberg, and Thom Andersen and Noel Burch's Red Hollywood. The first two episodes in Godard's series, each of which lasts 50 minutes, have been shown on five separate state-funded European TV channels without any permission from the copyright holders--which sets an important precedent. As Godard told me last fall, "For me there's a difference between an extract and a quotation. If it's an extract, you have to pay, because you're taking advantage of something you have not done and you are more or less making business out of it. If it's a quotation--and it's more evident in my work that it's a quotation--then you don't have to pay."

"Yet all these works have at most a marginal relation to the film business--at least as multicorporate capitalism has redefined that realm in recent years--and consequently it could be argued that it isn't worth the time or energy of any of the conglomerates to sue lowly independents for appropriating works that can't be taking much business away from them. However, Red Hollywood and both Rappaport features bring value to many works that these companies regard as essentially valueless--thereby increasing rather than decreasing future video rentals. But that doesn't mean that bureaucrats at these companies wouldn't charge ungodly sums if they were asked for the rights--it's a simple reflex." (source: http://thepiratebay.org/torrent/3469033/Can_dialectics_break_bricks_%29)

Sunday, August 01, 2010

Das Hippies

German Hippie Documentray from towersopenfire on Vimeo.



Documentary with performances by The Dead, Mothers Of Invention, Big Brother, The Airplane, Quicksilver Messenger Service and lots of hippies dancing and getting stoned. It was directed by Stefan Morawietz for German TV. It’s in German.