There's an interview with George Lucas that really made me think about the way he made Star Wars. For him, each film was the maximum expression of the movie technology available at the time. That he had plotted out this six-part story but somehow had the foresight to first make the latter part is pretty amazing. It seems he intuited that the money and tech available in the late 70s would be totally insufficient to create the late-Renaissance Old Republic he envisioned in the first three films. Meanwhile, Episode IV is literally in the middle of a dark age where culture seems to have stagnated, demonstrated by the militaristic, industrial, beat-up feeling of all the craft and ships. In Episode I, everything is more colorful, with more rounded edges and aesthetic flourishes. But as the war progresses, you see a shift in Episode II towards more militaristic craft and then by Episode III you basically have the alpha versions of TIE Fighters and Stormtroopers. They're still more varied and color-coded at this point, but it's only a few steps away from the total uniformity of the Imperial regalia.

And whether it was an accident of moviemaking or not, I really liked the shift from total alien multiculturalism to a completely British Whiteman Empire. Even the Rebellion is mostly human and mostly white in Episodes IV and V, but there's a pleasing swing back towards alien-human cooperation in Return of the Jedi, with Ewoks, Lando's co-pilot (who is apparently speaking Swahili), and Captain Calamari (don't even start, my mom nearly named me Akbar when I was born).

There are so many amazing, subtle little detail bridges between the two trilogies. The way Obi-Wan reacts when he meets R2-D2 is really curious. You can't quite tell if he's lost his mind and can't remember Anakin's droid, or if he's putting on a show of being a funky old hermit like Yoda does when we 'first' meet him in Episode V. Chewbacca is also a little more interesting, since we know that Chewbacca fought in the Clone Wars and is likely in a kind of exile, as was Yoda. The parallels between Luke and Anakin are interesting too, as Luke is not so adept with the Force as his father, having not been trained in it, and not having the same immaculate affinity for it. But he does trust in his friends, which Anakin couldn't, in the lonely egotism of being very powerful. That said, like father like son: Skywalker men are pretty whiny.

All that's left to watch is Return of the Jedi. I'm kinda sad this playthrough is drawing to a close. There's few other long-running movie series that are quite so visually compelling or so layered in their mythmaking.

Pittsburgh, PA solo artist, excellent album. If Andy from Paper Route would do a solo album, this is what it would sound like.

http://rapidshare.com/files/307362838/Jeremy_K_Sessa.rar

http://postsecret.blogspot.com/2009/11/sunday-secrets_15.html

PostSecret is an ongoing community art project where people
mail in their secrets anonymously on one side of a postcard.





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I worked for Reuters my entire life and was one of their most senior, valued employees. I was laid off last year when Thomson bought them over. Thank you so much for sending this in. If you can't join 'em, beat 'em.


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A designer friend told me that the secret inspiration for the new Pepsi logo was the Simpson's Comic Book Guy.
























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More things to make you happy: http://1000awesomethings.com







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I wish it was okay for women to talk about poop the way men do. . . Because sometimes I'm proud when I have a particularly big or interesting one and I really want to tell someone about it!





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She was texting when she hit us from behind and pushed us into the pickup 3 feet in front of us. Thank God for Airbags.





















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the key to happy living is banana

Grad school apps are coming into the back nine. Final schools list: Davis, Notre Dame, Brown, Cornell, Syracuse, Columbia. Wish me luck doods.

Vic Chesnutt is a pretty remarkable musician. His distinctive voice and folk guitar styling is par none, and he is often accompanied by the most notable of artists no matter what the genre. Chesnutt recently released just such an album called At The Cut which featured Guy Picciotto (Fugazi) and members of Godspeed You! Black Emperor. While that record may have garnered him a bit of press, he slipped in a sleeper for the die-hard folk fans. Yes, he also released Skitter To Take-Off.

Produced by Jonathan Richman and Tommy Larkin, Skitter To Take-Off is Chesnutt as his most soul-bearing. You can hear it in his voice on high points “Feast In The Time Of Plague”, “Rips In The Fabric” and “Society Sue”. The only accompaniment here is Richman (guitar, harmonium) and Larkin (drums), and their presence, too, is scarce. These somewhat minimal tunes were recorded as such, with no overdubs – yet the power behind them remains. If you thought Chesnutt was good with full accompaniment, just wait ’til you hear him on his own. It takes a true musician to captivate the listener in such an instance, and on Skitter On Take-Off Chesnutt more than succeeds at that.
http://rapidshare.com/files/304839904/vic_nutt.rar

between thoughts, mixed media on canvas, 150 x 120cm

Detail shots at website, click image to go there. And one behind the cut.

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My grad school applications are half done already.

The unofficial school count:
California: 1
Indiana: 1
Rhode Island: 1
New York: 6

I guess it's kinda obvious where I am trying to end up for the forthcoming 2 school years.

Artist: Viya
Title: Greetings From The Land of Toys!
#ca329
Date: 2009-11-08
Keywords: folk; fusion; experimental; rock; other
(320 kbps)

Viya, the live performance band which frequently takes to the stage in clubs across Taksim / Istanbul and a lot of festivals in Turkey. Viya means 'body surfing' in the Laz language. Formed in june 2008 with Zeynep Türkmen on Violin; Özgür Çakır on Guitar and Sound effects; Barış Demirel on Bass Guitars, melodicas, vocals; Aydın Türkoğlu on Drums. The group is best known for its keenness for improvisation and utilizations with folk, jazz, rock sounds.
Contact:
http://wwww.myspace.com/viyaband

DL:
http://www.archive.org/details/ca329_v
http://www.clinicalarchives.spyw.com

http://postsecret.blogspot.com/2009/11/sunday-secrets_07.html

PostSecret is an ongoing community art project where people
mail in their secrets anonymously on one side of a postcard.

















See More Secrets. Follow PostSecret on Twitter.




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I met someone who felt the same way, but I remember him more for being strong enough to change. From him I learned that people are more than their mistakes.


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Many years ago, an older man that I trusted had inappropriate sexual contact with me. Twelve years of therapy and a suicide attempt later, and I still live with it every day.

A big part of me will forever be defined by the worst thing that ever happened to me.

























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I am a prisoner of my own indecision.




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Show is up @ Zayed University in Abu Dhabi. It's going really well. Will post the paintings.


horizon watch, mixed media on canvas, 120 x 150 cm (approx. 47 x 59")

Click image to go to site for detail shots. I'll put one behind the cut as well.

( Read more... )

I really enjoyed Episode III. I actually got really into it, to the point where the few truly ridonkulous moments ("NOOOOOO") didn't interrupt the overall fabric too much. Quite diggable, and now I'm very excited to get started on 4-6.

My "playthrough" of the entire Star Wars film series started today. I just finished Episode I and am watching the opening scenes of Episode II. I have to say that these prequels are pretty good, which is very much the opposite of my initial reaction to them. Anyway, I'm taking some notes, might write up something longer when this is done. In any case, I'm seriously enjoying this shit!

I'm leaving for England in about seven hours. But in case the wings fall off the plane in mid-air I thought I'd say it's really been a pleasure knowing you Livejournal folk, and making an account on here is genuinely one of the best things I've ever done. And when my plane explodes into the ocean and darkness falls over the earth from the loss of my awesome presence you can celebrate my memory with a giant Gera effigy and yearly bonfire, and your women can hurl themselves into the ocean as a sacrifice for my vast and unending hunger for blood.

Oh, Bibio.

This is an icon for when I want to shoot somebody in the face.

I have been much happier in the past few days since M. was taken off of the respirator and moved out of the ICU. In short, he has a way to go, but he'll make it. Now, I'm back to frantically trying to finish my degree (now with 2 weeks left and 35 pages to write).

I'm currently reading a fascinating article for my course on the Philosophical Foundations of Human Rights called "Redeeming the Human through Human Rights" by Talat Asad. The article is about "the way international law creates a situation in which the suffering that the individual sustains as a citizen - as the national of a particular state - is distinguished from the suffering he undergoes as a human being."

For example, "Financial pressures can have effects that are more far-reaching than many military adventures. But the devastation these pressures can cause to social life, and they punishments they deliver to citizens of an economically weakened state, cannot be addressed as human rights violations." Surprise! We get around our international failures in human rights by treating people as abstractions rather than human beings.

Thus, "Sacredness in the modern secular state is attributed not to real living persons but precisely to 'the human' conceptualized abstractly, or imagined in a state of nature. Every real person who belongs to a particular nation state is always subject to its institutional violence --including the violence of its law, and liable to military conscription that can result in his death."

Rhetoric is so amazing.