Ice Cube & The Eames

I may be one of the few residents of San Francisco that maintains a deep fondness for Los Angeles. That's why I'm glad to see L.A. (and a small slice of its design history) shown some love from Ice Cube in this PST video. Hat tip to the LA Times on Tumblr.

Pacific Standard Time "Ice Cube - Eames" 2:15 from MassMarket on Vimeo.


Ice Cube should be the next Huell Howser. I'd love to see this turned into a series.

Stop copying me

Earlier this week, Flavorwire compiled examples of music videos that are influenced by/steal from other sources; Beyoncé-related examples are below. This discussion—where to draw the line between inspiration and theft—spans all forms of art and isn't an argument than can be easily settled. As a consumer of culture, I'm not as interested in the legal squabbles and 'gotcha' comparisons as I am in tracing influences and being led to material I might not have found otherwise.

I appreciate the case fair use advocates make (liberal copyright rules encourages a more vibrant culture), but I also sympathize with lesser-known artists who have their style/moves/riffs/words lifted by mega pop stars. The artists who give credit to their influences (and compensates them when appropriate) are due more respect in my book than those who continue to profess their originality despite evidence to the contrary. Below are a few clips that explore the topic further.

Everything is a Remix is a four-part series; three sections are finished and the final episode is due soon. Donations to the production are accepted here.


Everything is a Remix Part 1 from Kirby Ferguson on Vimeo.

Everything is a Remix parts 2 & 3.


Can I get an 'Amen'? Following the path(s) of the Amen Break, a six-second drum sample from the b-side of a chart-topping single from 1969, Nate Harrison contemplates what impact sampling is having on culture and commerce. This video was produced in 2004.




A lot of wisdom has been dropped from dudes sitting on basketball rims. You can hear some more at the beginning of this compilation of dance moves. "Aint nobody here the best b-boy... People were probably doing this shit thousands of years ago... All we're doing is manifesting shit at a different time."




Beyoncé Billboard Awards performance (2011) and Lorella Cuccarini performance (2010)



Single ladies, I believe you know Bob Fossee...





More than any other form of expression, dance seems to be the most difficult one over which to exert some sort of ownership. Beyoncé has acknowledged the influences on in her Countdown video, but that doesn't seem to satisfy everyone.





* * *
Art is either plagiarism or revolution. -Paul Gauguin

Good artists borrow. Great artists steal. -Pablo Picasso

To copy others is necessary, but to copy oneself is pathetic. -Pablo Picasso

I see my work plagiarized in gardening programmes and decorating programmes and car adverts, and I suppose I have to accept that's just the way art gets assimilated into culture. -Andy Goldsworthy

The People Speak

Historian and activist Howard Zinn died a year ago today, 1/27/10.

The People Speak is a film inspired by his essential books A People's History of the United States and Voices of a People's History of the United States.

Noam Chomsky said, "Howard Zinn's People's History molded the perceptions and conscience of a generation by bringing from the recesses of history those unknown and remarkable people who were often its most influential agents. In this new film we can hear their voices, and the messages they offer to us about the path to a better future, a most rewarding experience."

The film includes appearances by: Matt Damon, Marissa Tomei, Viggo Mortensen, Josh Brolin, Danny Glover, David Strathairn, Benjamin Bratt, Darryl "D.M.C." McDaniels, Rosario Dawson, Sean Penn, Sandra Oh, Kerry Washington and others. Music contributors include Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, Eddie Vedder and John Legend.



Here's the beginning of the Bill Moyers interview with Zinn just before the film premiered on the History Channel in 2009. The complete conversation is available here.

It's Harvey time

The brink of Pride weekend is a good time to share The Times of Harvey Milk (1982), a documentary about San Francisco’s first openly gay man elected to public office.

After several attempts, Milk was elected to the city's Board of Supervisors in 1977. He and SF mayor, George Mascone, were assassinated a little more than a year later.





This Oscar-winning documentary preceded the Gus Van Sant drama, Milk, by 26 years. For those not familiar with California politics of the late 1970s (like me), these two films can act as a primer on Proposition 6, the 1978 initiative that intended to ban gays, lesbians, and their supporters from working in California's public schools. Watching Life and Milk, I couldn't help but compare the defeat of Proposition 6 in 1978 to the passage Proposition 8 in 2008. (Prop. 8 narrowed the definition of marriage to different-sex couples.)

The public debate on Prop 6 included long-form, televised debates; the Prop 8 race lacked such discussions and was dominated by political TV ads. Further, there wasn't a readily identifiable spokesperson, such as Milk, representing the cause of same-sex couples during the Prop 8 campaign. How much these factors influenced the respective outcomes, it's hard to say, but the differences stood out to me.



From Gallop, June 18, 2008

Gallup polling chronicles important changes in public attitudes about homosexuality and gay rights over the past quarter century. Americans have shifted from frowning on homosexuality as an alternative lifestyle and being divided over whether it should be legal, to now supporting gay rights on both fronts. At the same time, the country remains highly ambivalent about the morality of homosexual relations, and as a result, support for legalizing gay marriage lags far behind the less culturally sensitive matter of gays having equal job rights.

Kathy Kozachenko's election to the Ann Arbor city council made her the first openly gay or lesbian candidate to run successfully for political office in the United States (January 1974).

Anticipating something wild

Is it too early to be excited by the film version of Where the Wild Things Are? The adaptation of the book written and illustrated by Maurice Sendak is directed by Spike Jonze and due out October 16, 2009. I've collected a few choice links below for those who want to geek-out with me.

Some are wincing at the prospect of a beloved book being warped on screen. I think any film that can pack the same speaks-to-you/stays-with-you punch as the book would be a feat. Maybe the film will fall short, or maybe it will stick the landing. Either way, I'm looking forward to it because I expect to see something daring, passionate and personal.




From an interview with Spike Jonze:

One of the things I was worried about is that the book is just so beloved to so many people. And as I started to have ideas for it I was worried that I was just making what it means to me, and what the book triggers in me from when I was a kid. And I’d be worried that other people were gonna be disappointed, because it’s like adapting a poem. It can mean so much to so many different people.

And Maurice was very insistent that that’s all I had to do... just make what it was to me, just to make something personal and make something that takes kids seriously and doesn’t pander to them. He told me that when his book came out, it was considered dangerous. It was panned by critics and child psychologists and librarians, because it wasn’t how kids were talked to. And it took like only two years after the book was out that kids started finding it in the libraries, and basically kids discovered it and made it what it is. And now it’s 40 years later and it’s a classic. So he said you just have to make something according to your own instinct.

In his acceptance speech for the Caldecott Medal, awarded for American picture books for children, Sendak said:

What is too often overlooked is the fact that from their earliest years children live on familiar terms with disrupting emotions...fear and anxiety are an intrinsic part of their everyday lives... they continually cope with frustration as best they can. And it is through fantasy that children achieve catharsis. It is the best means they have for taming Wild Things.

It is my involvement with this inescapable fact of childhood--the awful vulnerability of children and their struggle to make themselves King of all Wild Things--that gives my work whatever truth and passion it may have.

The remarks above were found in this article about Wild Things and child psychology.

If you wish to watch Sendak speak at length about his life and work, check out the interview he did with this Bill Moyers. It covers the Sendak's childhood, his fatalism, his faith in art, and the inspiration for Wild Things. Thanks to Dana Stevens from the Slate Culture Gabfest for sharing this link via facebook.

Pangea Day

Back in the day (I mean way back), all continents on Earth were physically connected; today that landmass is referred to as Pangea.

On Pangea Day, May 10, 2008, starting at 18:00 GMT (11 a.m. PST), locations in Cairo, Kigali, London, Los Angeles, Mumbai, and Rio de Janeiro will be connected for a live program of films, music, and visionary speakers. The entire program will be broadcast – in seven languages – to millions of people worldwide through the internet, television, and mobile phones.

The 24 short films to be featured were selected from an international competition that generated more than 2,500 submissions from over one hundred countries. The films were chosen based on their ability to inspire, transform, and allow us see the world through another person's eyes. Each film is somewhere between 2 to 15 minutes in length.

In the U.S., Current TV will carry the 4-hour program live. A full description of outlets carrying the program, descriptions of the films, and activities related to the day will be available soon via Pangea Day’s website, which will also stream the event live.

The event was inspired by the TED Prize wish of film-maker Jehane Noujaim. She dreamed of a day when people around the world could share the same film experience at the same time.

To find a screening near you, click here. To view Ms. Noujaim’s 2004 film on media coverage of the current war in Iraq, Control Room, click here.

No Country for Old Men

Cormac McCarthy's novel No Country for Old Men was published in 2005. The film adaptation directed by Joel and Ethan Cohen was released in 2007.

A meanness in this world
No Country for Old Men, a story of extreme violence, set in a vast and quiet landscape, told in a deliberate and unadorned manner, reminds me of the title track from Springsteen's Nebraska (1982).

Both works begin with a glimpse into the mind of a killer. The song's narrator says, "From the town of Lincoln, Nebraska / with a sawed-off .410 on my lap / through to the badlands of Wyoming / I killed everything in my path." No Country begins with Sheriff Bell's recollection of a nineteen-year-old murderer. "He told me that he had been plannin to kill somebody for about as long as he could remember. Said that if they turned him out he'd do it again."

In these cases, murder seems to be end, not a means. Both characters lack remorse, and neither have a discernible goal beyond killing. When questioned about his motives, Springsteen's character says, "I guess there's just a meanness in this world." McCarthy's killer admits his actions didn't involve any passion at all.

Both killers are minutes from execution when their stories are told. If these works ended there, one might be given the impression that 'good' can indeed conquer 'evil.' Thankfully, both the album and the novel are more complicated than that. Nebraska continues to explore morally challenging situations (see Highway Patrolman), and No Country's embodiment of evil, Anton Chigurh, is last seen, not on his way to the electric chair, but shuffling down a residential street.

Left to right: Ed Tom Bell (Tommy Lee Jones), Anton Chigurh (Javier Bardem), Llewelyn Moss (Josh Brolin), Carla Jean Moss (Kelly Macdonald)

Call it
Chigurh doesn’t behave like someone driven by greed, lust, or revenge. You can find better examples of desire-driven bad guys in the Cohen brothers' Fargo.

Carson Wells, No Country's character most familiar with Chigurh, says Chigurh is "a peculiar man. You could even say that he has principles.” Vaguely demonstrated, Chigurh’s principles, along with his motives and any hint of his origins or future plans, are opaque at best.

Chigurh employs the element of luck throughout the story, using the flip of a coin to determine fate of several characters he encounters. Chigurh seems to be part of the force alluded to in Sheriff Bell’s opening narration, including these lines that correspond to Chigurh’s first appearance on screen:

The crime you see now, it's hard even to take its measure. Not that I'm afraid of it. I always knew you had to be willing to die to even do this job. But I don't want to push my chips forward and go out and meet something I don't understand.

More than a threat to his own life, it’s what Bell can’t understand or protect others from that wears him down. As sheriff, he's obligated to ponder the deeds of Chigurh and others like him. Eventually, those details are more than he can bear; he feels overmatched, perhaps justifiably.

When evil can't be eliminated through arrest and execution it takes on an elemental quality. Chigurh acts more like a force of nature—destructive, unstoppable, and incomprehensible—than a typical screen villain. Taking in the entire story, he’s not the only destructive force at work. Violence in No Country builds and dissipates like a series of storms and we see how some men, moved by greed, voluntarily walk into a storm, fueling the tempest. Others, relatively innocent, are caught out by chance; some are swept away and some survive through luck or cunning perhaps to be done in by storms that follow (see Llewelyn's death).

Perpetual vulnerability is a primitive feeling, one that prompts Bell to retreat. The film moves quickly over the sheriff's retirement, but the novel clearly describes his state of mind. “It was defeat. It was being beaten. More bitter to him than death.”

You can’t stop what’s coming
Does an ending where evil persists make a work pessimistic? Perhaps. It’s upsetting to see such crime go unchecked even in fiction. (Can you imagine Crime and Punishment as simply Crime?) No Country is not morality tale or a story of redemption, though. It's about a man who lacks the ability to deal with contemporary evil. The title suggests Bell’s age has something to do with this. His models, the “old-timers” mentioned in the opening narration, including his father and grandfather, have become obsolete in a way. As discouraging as the idea of aging beyond ones effectiveness may be, I’m left with three not-entirely pessimistic thoughts.

First, the notion that age diminishes us is just pragmatic, especially in certain fields, and we would be wise to acknowledge it. Uncle Ellis, a former deputy who worked with Bell’s grandfather, provides this prospective from his wheelchair, “Whatcha got ain't nothin new. This country's hard on people. You can't stop what's coming. It ain't all waiting on you. That’s vanity.”

Second, resistance to evil is an ongoing struggle. Each generation must dedicate itself anew. Successful or not, younger men like Llewelyn are better equipped to fight the likes of Chigurh. The realization that older generations can’t protect us forever shouldn’t be seen as discouraging; it should be taken as a call to action.

And lastly, the professional techniques of the old-timers may be inadequate for today (“some of them never even wore a gun”), but their personal example can continue to provide comfort to the most discouraged soul long after they're gone. No Country doesn’t end with Chigurh’s escape. In the film's the final scene Sheriff Bell describes two dreams about his father. If Chigurh's actions left Bell confused and defeated, these dreams signal that hope remains. Watch this:

"And then I woke up."

Chigurh stirs in us primitive fears of being vulnerable and hunted. Bell's second dream evokes a different kind of primitive feeling--a state of mind where light and warmth are significant comforts against "all that dark and all that cold." McCarthy's story brings us back to basics. Life may be nasty, brutish and short, but that shouldn't prevent us from caring for those within reach.

* * *

Most of this post focuses on the No Country's beginning and end. What about all that action in between? It’s mostly people doing cruel and unusual things for money. It’s probably not a coincidence that Bell’s first dream about loosing some money is all-but-dismissed in the scene embedded above. In other words, the struggle for money isn't where the action is or ought to be.


* * * Charlie Rose interviews Ethan Cohen, Joel Cohen, Javier Bardem and Josh Brolin about No Country for Old Men.


* * * The title for McCarthy's novel comes from Yeats's "Sailing to Byzantium."


* * * Did you recognize Kelly Macdonald as Diane from Trainspotting? Given that role, her part in No Country, and her spot in the up-coming film-adaptation of Chuck Palahniuk's Choke, she is becoming the queen of films based on books boys like. Long live the queen.