Nowsreal (1968)

Nowsreal was created in the spring of 1968, shot between equinox and solstice by Peter Berg and Kelly Hart. It depicts the final months of the San Francisco Diggers/Free City Collective before they were disbanded in June of that year. The Diggers were a radical community-action group of activists and street theatre actors operating from 1966 to 1968, based in the Haight-Ashbury neighborhood of San Francisco. Their politics have been categorized as "left-wing"; more accurately, they were "community anarchists" who blended a desire for freedom with a consciousness of the community in which they lived. The Diggers' central tenet was to be "authentic," seeking to create a society free from the dictates of money and capitalism.

The Diggers were closely associated and shared a number of members with the guerrilla theater group San Francisco Mime Troupe. They were formed out of after-hours Mime Troupe discussions between Emmett Grogan, Peter Coyote, Peter Berg, and Billy Landout. They fostered and inspired later groups like the Yippies.

The Diggers were urban activists who ran free kitchens, free stores, organised culture and art events and ran free medical clinics. They used theatre techniques to promote social equality and open public space and protested against the developing market economy and the rule of capital.

In the film a poetry action at San Francisco Town Hal is documented, which was covered by the SF Chronicle :

"The Free City Collective held a press conference and presented a "Modest Proposal" contaning five requests of The City administration, including refurbishment of empty city-owned buildings for free housing, distribution of surplus food and materials through a network of ten neighborhood free stores, setting up presses and trucks for free news distribution throughout the city, providing resources for neighborhood celebrations, and the opening of the parks for free life acts "all permit authority to be rescinded." After the proposal was read, one of the Diggers began reading a poem on America while wearing an American flag shirt. The police arrested him for violating a law against defiling the flag. A second man was arrested for profanity after shouting "Fuck" (the newspaper account described it as "a four-letter word meaning to make love." Ron Thelin (not named, but captioned in a photo) was arrested for wearing a mask after Judge Albert Axelrod informed that it was a violation of the Penal Code. A fourth man was arrested while trying to prevent Ron's arrest. A woman was also arrested, but no reason indicated. Terrence Hallinan, the Diggers' lawyer, charged that talks with the Mayor's Office had produced no results except for pressure from The City on produce market vendors to discontinue supplying free fruits and vegetables to the Diggers. He also said that the police had ordered the noon poetry events off the Polk street steps of City Hall. The SF Chron article quotes "Peter" aka "William Bonney" as saying that "San Francisco can 'burn or turn into a model for the rest of the cities to follow, with radical alternatives to riots and all those corny numbers.'" The Diggers provided free apples to the crowds. Other days they had provided free oranges and strawberries.

Subsequently, all charges were dropped on all five defendants at a court hearing on May 22 at the request of the assistant district attorney who declared that "there was a lot of confusion as to what went on at that poetry bust." Those who had been arrested included: Ronald Thelin, 30, 1324 Willard St. (arrested for "intent to conceal his identity," Section 650a of the Penal Code); Thomas Baker III, 26 (arrested for wearing an American flag); Charles Perkel, 21, 1360 Fell St. (arrested for profanity); Phyllis Wilner, 19, 110 Pierce St.; Israel Jacton, 1324 Willard St. The article mentions that the Asst. D.A. (Granklin Gentes) at one point "began to fidget nervously with a sheaf of papers" and that after the end of the proceeding, he "walked hurriedly out of court.""

The Digger Free Family left behind a plethora of historical evidence—street sheets, articles, posters, oral histories, memoirs, but scant photographic evidence. NOWSREAL helps fill that gap—the film that Peter Berg and Kelly Hart created (along with the active participation of the rest of the Diggers/Free City Collective) in the spring of 1968. Judy Goldhaft explained that Peter envisioned Nowsreal as a visual tribal history in the way that Plains Indians would sometimes paint their tipis with symbols that contained an intimate narrative of significant events. In the film we see the final cycle of Digger events in San Francisco before dispersal, starting with the month-long daily "Noon Forever" events on City Hall Steps. At one of these, Freeman House announces "A Modest Proposal" that lays out the vision of Free City including refurbishment of empty city-owned buildings for free housing, distribution of surplus food and materials through a network of ten neighborhood free stores, setting up presses and trucks for free news distribution throughout the city, providing resources for neighborhood celebrations, and the opening of the parks for free life acts "all permit authority to be rescinded." On that particular day (May 8 1968), Ron Thelin was busted by the SF Police for wearing a mask in public, and Ama was busted for wearing a shirt in the design of an American flag. The film depicts their arrests among numerous other happenings in that spring of 1968 leading up to the flashback (literally) depicting the Summer Solstice celebrations.

The Great Plague

The Great Plague of 1665 killed 100,000 Londoners – one in three of the people living in the city. While kept diaries have provided terrifying testaments to the horrors of that summer, other stories have been hidden in the archives of London churches for centuries. Rare documents unearthed in some of the cities oldest places of worship now tell the story of what it was like for an ordinary person, more often than not living in poverty, as the plague swept through London. This factual drama follows the lives of those living in Cock and Key Alley, one of the dank and dismal yards squeezed between Fleet Street and the Thames – and brings to life 17th Century London at one of its most frightening moments.

Road to Kathmandu (1977)

Overland trip from London to Kathmandu, full version.

Shadows (1958)

Shadows is a 1958 American independent drama film directed by John Cassavetes about race relations during the Beat Generation years in New York City. The film stars Ben Carruthers, Lelia Goldoni and Hugh Hurd as three African-American siblings, though only one of them is dark-skinned. The film was initially shot in 1957 and shown in 1958, but a poor reception prompted Cassavetes to rework it in 1959. Promoted as a completely improvisational film, it was intensively rehearsed in 1957, and in 1959 it was fully scripted.

The film depicts two weeks in the lives of three siblings on the margins of society: two brothers who are struggling jazz musicians and their light-skinned younger sister who goes through three relationships, one with an older white writer, one with a shallow white lover and finally one with a gentle young black admirer.

Bauls of Bengal

The Baul or Bauls (Bengali: বাউল) are a group of mystic minstrels of mixed elements of Sufism and Vaishnavism from Bengal region, comprising Bangladesh and the Indian states of West Bengal, Tripura and Barak Valley. Bauls constitute both a syncretic religious sect and a musical tradition. Bauls are a very heterogeneous group, with many sects, but their membership mainly consists of Vaishnava Hindus and Sufi Muslims. They can often be identified by their distinctive clothes and musical instruments. Lalon Shah is regarded as the most celebrated Baul saint in history.

Although Bauls comprise only a small fraction of the Bengali population, their influence on the culture of Bengal is considerable. In 2005, the Baul tradition of Bangladesh was included in the list of Masterpieces of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity by UNESCO.

The Metaphysics of Panpsychism (2016)

The Metaphysics of Panpsychism. 

Alfred North Whitehead's Process Philosophy, the Mystery of Consciousness and the Mind-Body Problem (2016)

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Compilation by Michael Schramm

Background Music by Michael Schramm

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Speakers & Quotations: 

Charles Birch, Susan Blackmore, David J. Chalmers, Daniel C. Dennett, Freeman Dyson, David Ray Griffin, Charles Hartshorne, Nicholas Humphrey, Christof Koch, Colin McGinn, Thomas Nagel, Karl R. Popper, John R. Searle, Rupert Sheldrake, Galen Strawson, Alfred North Whitehead. 

Tags:

panpsychism, consciousness, mind-body problem, process philosophy, process metaphysics, materialism, (property) dualism, quantum physics, indeterminism, free will

Squatting (2009)

Squatting is a film by Larissa Matteyssen which follows anarchists and activists, who occupy different empty buildings and territories - from rooms, houses and industrial buildings to complete villages and ports. Dutch and Russian activists are telling about their experiences of squatting and reactions of authorities to self-organisation. Anti-squatters explain why they are in side of the state.

More on the subject:

 * http://video.squat.net

 * https://vimeo.com/6812727

 * https://documentaryheaven.com/the-art-of-squatting/

Aelita: Queen of Mars

Aelita (Russian: Аэли́та, pronounced [ɐɛˈlʲitə]), also known as Aelita: Queen of Mars, is a silent film directed by Soviet filmmaker Yakov Protazanov made at the Mezhrabpom-Rus film studio and released in 1924. It was based on Alexei Tolstoy's 1923 novel of the same name. Nikolai Tseretelli and Valentina Kuindzhi were cast in leading roles. It is the first science fiction film made in Russia

Though the main focus of the story is the daily lives of a small group of people during the post-war Soviet Union, the enduring importance of the film comes from its early science fiction elements. It primarily tells of a young man, Los (Russian: Лось, literally Moose), traveling to Mars in a rocket ship, where he leads a popular uprising against the ruling group of Elders, with the support of Queen Aelita who has fallen in love with him after watching him through a telescope. In its performances in the cinemas in Leningrad, Dmitri Shostakovich played on the piano the music he provided for the film.

In the United States, Aelita was edited and titled by Benjamin De Casseres for release in 1929 as Aelita: Revolt of the Robots.

What Happened to Kerouac?

Jack Kerouac is the author of On the Road and a pivotal figure of the 1950s countercultural revolution. This portrait shows what happened when fame and notoriety were thrust upon an essentially reticent man. What Happened To Kerouac? is a lively and revealing investigation into the man’s personal history and creative process. Kerouac speaks for himself most eloquently in television appearances with Steve Allen and William F. Buckley, along with a fine visual tribute featuring his poetry. The result is a touching and exhilarating film about a troubled writer whose influence is still being felt all over the world. Featuring Allen Ginsberg, Gregory Corso, William S. Burroughs, Steve Allen, William F. Buckley, Charlie Parker, Neal Cassady, Carolyn Cassady, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Michael McClure and Gary Snyder.

Charles Mingus - Triumph of The Underdog

Don McGlynn's uncompromising and soulful documentary look at the tumultuous life of musician and rebel Charles Mingus is fascinating stuff. Mingus said of himself "I am half black man, half yellow man, but I claim to be a Negro. I am Charles Mingus, the famed jazz musician--but not famed enough to make a living in America." His statement summed up the conflict that plagued this musical genius his entire life: volatility, pain, prescience, and raw rage roiled inside a complex man, composer, bass player, and trombonist who transcended labels and refused to be pigeonholed into a single musical style--and who did not achieve real fame until late in his career. The documentary is full of well-preserved footage and contains interviews with many Mingus followers like Wynton Marsalis as well as performances by icons Duke Ellington, Dizzy Gillespie, and Gerry Mulligan. The film traverses past the musical legend with insight and information into Mingus's personal life, his civil rights activism, and his final triumph in the music world--just as his body began to deteriorate from Lou Gehrig's disease--to his eventual death in 1979. Mingus left a legacy composed of genius, vulnerability, brilliance, anarchy, and, as one friend noted, "the entire range of human emotion that is reflected in his music.