October 2008
1 post
August 2008
4 posts
Batman ... a model for young fascists everywhere →
ok, i’m not usually a huge fan of L magazine, but sometimes you just need to check the event listings. and dude, someone needed to say this:
“There seems to me no question that the Batman film “The Dark Knight,” currently breaking every box office record in history, is at some level a paean of praise to the fortitude and moral courage that has been shown by George W. Bush...
“My feminism, in case anyone still cares, is based in a larger humanism. It’s...”
– Sara Robinson
Orcinus
(via sexartandpolitics)
July 2008
11 posts
Do shit.
a kick in the ass that i, as usual, needed:
sexartandpolitics:
alohanico:
bradofarrell:
I don’t understand why people decline to do things, or put off doing things, when they have no real reason not to. Or sometimes they’ll just make up a reason not to, which usually revolves around things like “I need to get some sleep” or “I don’t want to pay for gas” or some shit like that.
I don’t...
what my dancers are into
olga sorokina is rad ass bad ass lady who organizes THE BODY WORD festival in saint petersburg, along with drinking a lot of black tea with sugar, detailing the entire plot of pixar films in accented english, laughing heartily, and refusing to tell me what she plans to perform at the dance showcase at the Baryshinikov Center next week that I’ve spent months planning for her & the crew:
...
Kaliningrad →
Just because Vitaly Glukhov deserves a shout out…
…and to elucidate my comment, below, on Kaliningrad.
hanging with the russians at American Dance... →
Yeah…
Latest assignment:
Cover four Russians as they navigate the insanity of a festival on the Duke campus that hosts like 600 contemporary dancers from all over the US/World.
It’s really quite a genius scheme on the part of the US gov’t: pay for artists from Russia to come here on the pretext of professional development; I show them how rad america(ns) can be; they get a...
June 2008
9 posts
New York Students' Test Scores Improve in Reading... →
Relatedly, critical thinking ablities, sense of individuality, passion for learning decline.
Today my boss said she'd hate to think that MObama... →
I search the blogosphere for reassurance that there are sane, welll-informed, even-minded people out there.
And not without salvation: this link kept my spirits bouyant long enough to complete three or four more mundane tasks.
Thanks again, world wide web!!!
DIY Political Advertising →
Worth noting:
“The standard tricks of political ads are no secret: Black-and-white imagery conveys negative associations, as does slow-motion video that makes people look like sloth-y monsters. Numbers, whether percentages or dollar amounts, included in mostly unqualified statements, convey the idea that something is factual, whether positive or negative. Smiling people surrounding a candidate...
i need a little interpretation pleeease
katherinemarie:
i had a dream that we were driving a car with all flat tires
then we were on a cruiseliner around alaska
then i bought an iphone!!!! (it was sad to wake up and know that wasn’t true)
what does it all mean?
Weird. I don’t even know katherinemarie and I don’t actually remember why I’m following her, so this is weird and stalker-y . But I woke up this...
Clintonism IS an ISM →
thank you, David Sirota. Can’t wait to read the new book <a href=”http://www.davidsirota.com/uprising/”>”The Uprising”</a>. Yeah, that’s what I’m talking about.
Japan: URL's Are Totally Out →
danciti:
“Within minutes of riding on the first trains in Japan, I notice a significant change in advertising, from train to television. The trend? No more printed URL’s. The replacement? Search boxes, with recommended search terms!”
“It makes sense, right? All the good domain names are gone. Getting people to a specific page in a big site is difficult (who’s going to write down anything after...
“Great cities attract ambitious people. You can sense it when you walk around...”
– -Paul Graham in “Cities and Ambition” (via danciti)
First of all- great quote; oh, how I have bemoaned the inherent pressure to earn, earn, earn in this city… not to mention the insanity of attempting to earn for your art, which is where danciti ultimately carries this quote.
Which brings...
“It still amazes me that someone who has
-United States Senator
-Illinois...”
– <a href=”http://letters.salon.com/opinion/keillor/2008/06/11/keillor/permalink/05280742161c4a0abfec7fd397a49498.html”>A comment that gets right to the undercuts in Garrison Keillor’s psuedo-endorsement of Obama</a>
May 2008
11 posts
i want a pet polar bear!
i say, pet polar bears + minnesota= awesome katherinemarie: several years ago my good friend chris polley and i were taking the city bus from the univ of mn campus to our house. it was cold and maybe snowy (maybe it was just rain?) any way due to public transportation problems we were stranded many blocks from our house. on the cold and snowy (or maybe it was just wet) walk home we discussed...
“But what would be the purpose of a blog for our organization?”
– Says my colleague today when I try to explain for the umpteenth time that an edited blog of solicited writing would make CEC ArtsLink’s website more dynamic and interesting. I even employed the example of the Words Without Borders blog. “Who would read it?” [It would be an...
Let's be good amerikans and use demographic terms... →
Again, must we make elections a polarizing process?
Somehow I don’t think that’s the message of Obama’s campaign…
Nescafe - любимый кофе миллионов россиян... THE... →
alexuss: Морозным зимним утром кофе NESCAFE® CLASSIC разбудит Вас и зарядит оптимизмом на целый день! ”On a frozen winter morning NesCafe Classic will rouse you from your bed and bestow a sense of optimism for your entire day!” I’m sorry, I know it’s not longer winter in the northern hemisphere, but I just had to comment: “NesCafe” really is synonymous with...
“Maybe the 9-5, Monday to Friday workday evolved so people wouldn’t have enough...”
– Jakob Lodwick
(I know this quote is just one half of a chat that he posted, but it reminded me of something I studied a bit in college. It was interesting to me, so I thought I’d share.)
Working only 8 hours a day is actually a right that people fought to recieve.
”As early as 1817 he [a founder...
Game with map of North Africa and the Middle East →
onemoretimewithfeeling: I got them all, but it was pretty difficult.
on the word "aesthetic"... →
Soo, I’ve been spending a lot of time over the past week translating personal statements and resumes of four contemporary dance choreographers from Russia. Contemporary dance, as a genre, is one that has a lot of room for applying complex philosophies to superficially simplistic actions. And people do this, both in Russia and elsewhere (one particularly fabulous quote: ...
glue (don't act too free)
so… somebody glued our locks. apparently i’m of the naieve breed of little white girls that is unfamiliar with this tactic, but, as the locksmith the landlord sent over informed me, it’s a great way to get back at someone you’re not so happy with: drop some glue in the locks of their door & they arrive home to find their keys don’t work. which is exactly what...
and then i got real
so, i’m pretty much going to abandon my aspirations to unite the american and russian blogospheres. i apply myself enough as it is. stay tuned.
April 2008
12 posts
Hillary Clinton Required to Testify in November to... →
onemoretimewithfeeling: “…Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Aurelio Munoz ruled on Friday, April 25 that Hillary Clinton would not be required to testify in a sworn deposition as a material witness in the case until AFTER the November election!”
the gossip mill: Putin's got a celeb crush? →
As all Russians know, don’t believe what you read in the media. And, as Michael Idov noted when Gawker started hurling ape-shit at Emily Gould (who writes for the magazine MI edits, RUSSIA!) and Keith Gessen, any Russian loves a little “black PR”. As in, bloggers all over Russia are rushing to speculate how this little tidbit was really generated. Example: Putin was thinking...
“I also think that my party can be smug, detached, and dogmatic at times. I...”
– Barack Obama (via azspot) (via marco) (via jakoblodwick)
Dear democratic party
The oldest trick in the military playbook: DIVIDE AND CONQUER And the New York Times writes (innanely): “The results in Pennsylvania suggest that problems exist. A poll of Democratic voters conducted by Edison/Mitofsky for the television networks and The Associated Press found that Mrs. Clinton drew 63 percent of the white vote while Mr. Obama drew 90 percent of the black vote, mirroring...
“How great of an interest does the American literary community have in Russian...”
– Dmitri Danilov, Moscow author, journalist & literary critic
Filibuster, the *my little pony*
Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay!!!! I won! I won! I won something!!!!!!!!!! So, I guess flavorpill.com has this thing where you can enter to win a pair of tickets to one of their listed events— all you have to do is submit an answer to a question. Yesterday, offering Foals tickets, they asked: If you were a My Little Pony, what would be your name, and what superpower would you have? My Little Ponies...
and on another front...
“Words Without Borders reports the confiscation of Magdy El Shafee’s new graphic novel, The Metro. El Shafee reports that police raided the offices of the Malameh publishing house located in Cairo, confiscated all copies of the book, and forbade the publisher to print further copies. The police also ordered booksellers to deny all knowledge of the book and delete any relevant data...
“МИР — n. the world, all of humanity, peace. Also, the name of the MIR...”
– Say: mir [as in the first syllable of the English word mirror] It’s probably always good to know how to say “peace”, or for that matter, “Peace on Earth” in a foreign language. Of note, the phrase mir - miru (Peace to the World), which, while a delightful trick of...
On Vasily Chepelev and Grapefruit...
a large Russian who drinks a glass of grapefruit juice with his meals doesn’t do much else. mostly, smokes with viogr; wears a zip-up orange sweater; has a vitality to his walk; a wavy, brown ponytail; wears distinctive eye glasses; goes by Vasya. at lunches, dinners, breakfasts, calls for a glass of grapefruit juice, and in doing so, inspores others to order the same. he asks for it with...
“ШПИОН, ШПИОНКА—n. Spy”
– Say: shpion (if referring to a man), shpionka (if referring to a woman) [uhh, more on gender & pronounciation later]
Friends, comrades, bloggers--
A few weeks ago, I was at a poetry reading— Evgeny Bunimovich, Elena Fanailova, and Yuli Gugolev— all contributors to a new Anthology of Contemporary Russian Poetry, available through Dalkey Archive Press, had a round table discussion up at Columbia. Present was Mischa Gutkin, a New York-based reporter for Voice of America (an agency, based in DC, that I think most Americans probably...