Jack Kerouac - King of the Beats

Documentary about the life of On the Road author Jack Kerouac.
Jack Kerouac (pronounced /ˈkɛɹuæk, ˈkɛɹəwæk/; March 12, 1922 – October 21, 1969) was an American author, poet and painter. Alongside William S. Burroughs and Allen Ginsberg, he is considered a pioneer of the Beat Generation.

Kerouac's work was very popular, but received little critical acclaim during his lifetime. Today, he is considered an important and influential writer who inspired others, including Hunter S. Thompson, Tom Robbins, Lester Bangs, Richard Brautigan, Ken Kesey, Haruki Murakami, and writers of the New Journalism. Kerouac also influenced musicians such as the Grateful Dead, The Beatles, Bob Dylan, Jim Morrison, Tom Waits, Simon & Garfunkel, The Smiths, Death Cab For Cutie, and Ulf Lundell.[1] Kerouac's best-known books are On the Road, The Dharma Bums, Big Sur, The Subterraneans, and Visions of Cody.

Examined Life: Philosophy in the Streets (2009)

From the director of ZIZEK! comes EXAMINED LIFE, a film by Astra Taylor coming to theaters this February. For more information visit http://www.zeitgeistfilms.com/examinedlife/

Popeye is Public Domain

Popeye the Sailor, the first episode (1933)


Public Domain popeye content

Popeye the sailorman is in theo public domain in Britain from January 1, 2009. Elzie Segar’s copyright on the character expired on that date.

His copyright on the character finished with the New Year’s beginning, as a European Union law restricts the rights of authors to 70 years after their death.

So, from that date anyone can sell Popeye books, toys and action figures to computer games, Popeye posters, T-shirts and even make new comic strips.

But this bonanza is not for US citizens! The character will remain protected in the U.S. until 2024, as the country’s law protects a work for 95 years after its initial copyright.

Occupation 101

Since the invasion began on the Strip I have been feeling ill
Carrying the thought with me all the time
The images in my head of children in dark cellars waiting
For ambush and booby traps for tanks and cylindrical death
Falling from the skies or opening up the earth
Beneath the feet of the fleeing fighting fearing mass

At night the blood stays behind my eyelids closed
Full as I am with the fragments sent out to a world
Indifferent to the fire which raises these messages
To a wind that is sour and poisonous for all
Dreams of mad death in a broken stone prison
Take me into a world of pain than is a circle

The Nazis: A Warning from History

Arguably one of the most important documentary series ever made, The Nazis: A Warning from History sets out to show that, far from being a uniquely German aberration, Nazism fed upon and was fostered by the prejudices and lemming-like inclinations of ordinary people. Although culminating with the atrocities of the Holocaust, these programmes are equally good on the motives of otherwise perfectly normal people, who needed only the tacit encouragement of the regime to perpetrate horrors against their enemies, their neighbours, or their own family. When confronted with evidence of their Nazi past, elderly former party members are often unable to find any other justification for their actions than simply that they could get away with it. Far from being a monolithic dictatorship which compelled the citizenry to act in rigidly prescribed ways, the Nazi state just allowed people to give their worst inclinations free reign. Hitler, it turns out, was a profoundly lazy man who rarely got out of bed before midday, and preferred to leave affairs of state to sort themselves out. He subscribed fervently to the doctrine of survival of the fittest as applied to all social and political matters, and actively encouraged in-fighting among his subordinates. The result was an organisational vacuum at the centre of state, which super-ambitious acolytes were only too eager to fill, often acting on nothing more than the Fuhrer's off-the-cuff remarks. One small example is revealing: after reading a letter from the father of a disabled child, Hitler agreed that it would be best for the boy to die. From this single statement arose a nationwide policy of euthanasia for all disabled children, carried out willingly and without compulsion by the doctors and "carers" themselves. It needed nothing more than the Fuhrer's nod. The message is clear and shocking: it happened in Germany, it could happen anywhere

Some Recent Tunes Noticed

Son House, Death Letter (1967)


Redd Kross, "Somebody Wants To Love You" LIVE @ Santa Monica Pier 1982

The Weekly Žižek Fear Thy Neighbor as Thyself

Fear Thy Neighbor as Thyself: Antinomies of Tolerant Reason, begins by asking, "What can philosophy do today? What can it tell the general public haunted by the problems of ecology, racism, religious conflict, and so on?" The role of philosophy, Žižek says, is not to provide answers, but to analyze how we view questions. "How we perceive a problem can itself become part of the problem," he says. To illustrate his various points, he uses such examples as Martin Luther King, Jr. (GRS'55, HON.'59), the doomed passengers on September 11's United Flight 93, and former U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, among others. The lecture takes the audience on an enlightening journey through the perceptions of identity and tolerance. A question-and-answer session follows the lecture.

The Big Snooze (1946) Bugs Bunny

Looney Tunes
Public Domain
October 5, 1946
Director: Robert Clampett
Producer: Edward Eddie Selzer
Production Company: Warner Bros.
Audio/Visual: mono, color

The Coconut Revolution (2001)

Bougainville, with a populations of only 160,000 has managed to close and keep closed one of the biggest mines in the world. They have held their ground for a decade with antique weapons and homemade guns. These people have taken on the biggest mining company in the world and won. Ripped from the DVD "Indigenous Resistance in New Guinea" made by Solidarity South Pacific: www.eco-action.org/ssp - respect!

This is an incredible modern-day story of a native people’s victory over Western globalization. Sick of seeing their environment ruined and their people exploited by the Panguna Mine, the Pacific island of Bougainville rose up against the giant mining corporation, Rio Tinto Zinc. The newly formed Bougainville Revolutionary Army (BRA) began fighting with bows and arrows and sticks and stones against a heavily armed adversary. In an attempt to put down the rebellion the Papua New Guinean Army swiftly established a gunboat blockade around the island, backed by Australian Military personnel and equipment. With no shipments allowed in or out of the island, the People of Bougainville learned to become self-dependent and self-sustained.

terracid @ the booknook 29.11.08

Part one


Part Two

Welcome to 2009...its going to be great!