Shantaram - Gregory David Roberts

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Part 2.

Part 3.

Part 4.

Part 5.


Gregory David Roberts, the author of Shantaram, provides an overview of his experience living in a slum in Bombay!

H.G. Wells, Things to Come (1936)

Things to Come (1 hour 32 mins) is a 1936 British science fiction film, produced by Alexander Korda and directed by William Cameron Menzies. The screenplay was written by H. G. Wells and is a loose adaptation of his own 1933 novel The Shape of Things to Come. The film stars Raymond Massey.

Plot: On the Christmas Eve of 1940, war begins as the city of Everytown is bombed. The war lasts 66 years, during which time civilization falls into anarchy. Eventually the warlord who calls himself The Boss emerges to establish brutish control over the chaos. But then a scientific group called Wings Over the World emerges and is able to quash the regime of The Boss using a peace gas. The scientists then set about building a shining white new scientific Utopia on the ruins of the old civilization. In the year 2036, the culmination of the new society's scientific vision is the launching of the first Moon shot. «

François Truffaut's Fahernhiet 451 (1966)

Fahernhiet 451
Fahrenheit 451 is a dystopian soft science fiction novella by Ray Bradbury that was published in 1953.

The novel presents a future in which all books are banned and critical thought is suppressed. The central character, Guy Montag, is employed as a "fireman" (which, in this case, means "book burner"). 451 degrees Fahrenheit is stated as "the temperature at which book-paper catches fire, and burns …". (451 °F equals 233 °C) It was originally published as a shorter novella, The Fireman, in the February 1951 issue of Galaxy Science Fiction. A film adaptation, by François Truffaut, was released in 1966, and another is anticipated to begin filming in 2008. In addition to the movie, there have been at least two BBC Radio 4 dramatizations, both of which follow the book very closely.

Over the years, the novel has been subject to various interpretations, primarily focusing on the historical role of book burning in suppressing dissenting ideas. However, Bradbury has stated that the novel is not about censorship, but is a story about how television destroys interest in reading literature, which ultimately leads to ignorance of total facts.[1]

Bradbury has stated that the entirety of his novel was written in the basement of UCLA's Powell library on a pay typewriter. His original intention in writing Fahrenheit 451 was to show his great love for books and libraries. He has often referred to Montag as an allusion to himself.

Kerobokan Prison in Bali

kerobokan prison
Uploaded by nakalos

This is a video about conditions inside Kerobokan Prison in Bali, Indonesia. This is not a place you would want to find yourself in. Indonesia has over 450 reported prisons. It will come as no surprise to anyone that Indonesia has imprisoned large amounts of Papuans during its occupation of and genocide in West Papua. Kept in terrible conditions, prisoners are often tortured and many ‘disappear’ or are poisoned. As well there are over 30 Australians in jail in Bali of which 6 are facing the death penalty. For information and assistance regarding jail in Indonesia of non-residents see the Foreign Prisoner Support Service - Indonesia.

Scratch 2001

Scratch (92 mins) is a 2001 documentary film, directed by Doug Pray, that examines cultural and historical perspectives on the birth and evolution of hip-hop disc jockeys (DJs), scratching and turntablism and includes interviews with some of hip-hop's most famous and respected DJs.

Interviewees include: Grand Wizard Theodore (the inventor of the scratch), Grand Mixer Q-bert (Title given by Grand Mixer DXT to Q Bert in the movie), Grand Mixer DXT, Z-Trip, Mix Master Mike, Rob Swift, DJ Premier, Afrika Bambaataa, Jazzy Jay, Cut Chemist, NuMark, DJ Craze, DJ Shadow, DJ Babu and DJ Krush. Madlib and Peanut Butter Wolf also make uncredited appearances at a scrathching jam session.

Kinski, Hezog and Re(s)training the Eye

Fitzcarraldo Dir. Werner Herzog (1982) - Click on the image for full film

Yesterday I saw My Best Fiend (German: Mein liebster Feind - Klaus Kinski, literally My Dearest Enemy - Klaus Kinski) the 1999 documentary about the professional and personal relationship between German film maker Werner Hezog and actor Klaus Kinski.

It was a fascinating portrait of two manic and dedicated artists. Dedicated to the point were life seemed secondary to the vision of creation. I have seen (a long time ago) two of the five films Hezog and Kinski made together, Fitzcarraldo (above) and Aguirre, The Wrath of God (1972):

 

These films are like hallucinations which seep through a rip in the fabric of time. Ghosts emerging from the mist swirling round the river head of consciousness. After I watched My Best Fiend at a friends place we emerged from the apartment to an oncoming rain storm. As the large drops began to fall I cycled fast through the forest to get home, everywhere my eye fell upon seemed wonderous. Green leaves holding water as they slowly bowed beneath the crystal weight. A plastic toy tractor left in a parking space in a full carpark. The playground deserted outside our home. Ín the documentary Herzog said he had trouble directing Kinski when the latter came to realize he was just a speck on the landscape and not the focus of the film image. The jungle, river, mountain were the stars of these films. The Kinski figures which gesticulate (á la Artaud) in the landscape, attempting to escape or master it are actually in a death struggle and are unaware of it. I think these films are important documents which witness the emergence of a new subjective state in the western ideal; I suppose one could say postmodernist but I think the term is fast becoming redundant. Perhaps posthuman is better:

N. Katherine Hayles, whose book How We Became Posthuman grounds much of the critical posthuman discourse, asserts that liberal humanism - which separates the mind from the body and thus portrays the body as a "shell" or vehicle for the mind - becomes increasingly complicated in the late twentieth and twenty-first centuries because information technology put the human body in question. Hayles maintains that we must be conscious of information technological advancements while understanding information as "disembodied," that is, something which cannot fundamentally replace the human body but can only be incorporated into it and human life practices. [4]

The posthuman is a being that relies on context rather than relativity, on situated objectivity rather than universal objectivity, and on the creation of meaning through 'play' between constructions of informational pattern and reductions to the randomness of on/off switches, which are the foundation of digital binary systems

J. Krishnamurti, Ojai, California 1980 Talk 1 of 6

“Society can only be changed if human beings who have created it ... all change themselves. That is the real problem, the real core of the problem.… Unless humanity, of which we are, changes fundamentally you cannot bring about a society which is healthy, sane, rational. The materialists won't accept this. They say, change the environment then man changes. That is the totalitarian attitude.” J. Krishnamurti

Mu-Mesons

This is the Mu-Mesons a group which centered around the younger of the two singers in this film, Jaimie Leonarder. I saw the Mesons play maybe 10 times in the early 1990s including at a wedding at the old Journalists Club near Central Station (like no other wedding I have ever been to, Liz and Nick where are you now??) In 1994 I accompanied the Mesons and Phlegm, Lucas Abela and various other Sydney noise identities on a tour of Melbourne. A week away it was a turning point in my life, as I wrote an article about it for the fanzine I would work on the following year, Gar Gah Gag. We published some of Dr Bill's poetry (he is the pirate looking member of the Mesons). The genius of the Mu-Mesons was the freedom one experienced at their gigs; nobody was ever sure what would happen. Elvis numbers could follow a 40 minute noise wave and then space age bachelor pad music until the band removed their clothes and sang nursery rhymes. True joy. Here is a trailer for a film about jamie.

Tony Wilson is Dead

Tony Wilson has met God. They are working on opening a new club soon. R.I.P. Tony.

Velvets on Film

Full documentary movie abouth work and colaboration of Velvet Underground and Nico. Amazing.