this sunday morning news is brought to you by the letters T, E and D

_posted in film | photography | sunday morning news catch up | the world | web | 22 July 2007

today on sunday morning news catchup, ive spent a lot of time watching presentations from TED, which by the way is one of my most favorite things ever. i've missed a few great presentations and decided to go back and check them out.

James Nachtwey

james nachtwey has been one of my favorite photographers since forever. his images bring a serious reality and tell stories to those of us who are disconnected by time and location. It's great to hear him talk in detail about some of his photographs. if you haven't seen war photographer, a documentary on nachtwey, its worth netflixing.

TED Prize Wish: Share a vital story with the world

supplemental film

war photographer

Majora Carter

"Economic degradation begets environmental degradation begets social degradation."
Majora Carter is at the same time; incredibly passionate, extremely knowledgeable and lovely in a way only a person whose beliefs runs her life can be.

TED Talk: Greening the Ghetto

sustainable south bronx website

_soundcheck: femi kuti: shoki shoki

sunday morning news catch up and thus africa... and TED.

_posted in film | sunday morning news catch up | the world | web | 22 July 2007

on friday night, femi kuti fed my soul and made me long for africa even more.

lately i've been talking to a variety of people about africa in general and about specific issues. i find that the majority of the people know only about HIV/AIDS, starving ethiopia babies with balloon stomachs, rebels and civil wars. some are aware of darfur and blood diamonds; let's be honest, because hollywood has started making movies about it.

african babies are the new bling in hollywood. as well as lending your star power to a cause, which is all well and good, but how about using your starpower and your own money to help build up industry in these countries you so want to help? why doesn't bono hold an economic/investment conference since he wants to save all the africans? the only aid most african countries need, is the aid of economic stability and those willing to invest in not only the economic situation, but the people. something about teaching a man to fish comes to mind.

most people still think that africa is just those living in huts, dancing for white missionaries, child soldiers, as well as corrupt governments. all these things do exist, but there is a part of africa that is not seen by most people. okonjo-iweala says it better than i ever did, "nobody knows but a few smart people."

my belief is once african countries are allowed (and why should it be others allowing them) to trade and create economies around THEIR own natural resources and goods, the other problems will decline and permanently so.

it's safe to say that the united states and other western countries' policies are based on economics. we willing overlook human rights violations to allow for economic consideration. look to china as a great example. who cares about their human rights violations when we have such a strong economic relationship with them? who cares about their african investments that also raise an eyebrow when they give us cheap goods? talk about accepting your inner capitalist.

anyway, check out ngozi okonjo-iweala, first female finance minister of nigeria. and a few other pieces i thought were worth mentioning

Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala

i liked a great deal of what okonjo-iweala says, but i did find her history (20 years) with the world bank unsettling. if there ever where an evil empire, i truly believe the world bank and the imf (international monetary fund) answer to that name.

TED Talk: How to help Africa? Do business there

supplemental films

Dead in the Water

Africa Open for Business

Jacqueline Novogratz

TED Talk: Investing in Africa's own solutions

Novogratz's opening story reminded me of the t-shirt travels which is an insightful look into the reality of charity and commerce.

Emily Oster

TED Talk: What do we really know about the spread of AIDS?

Bill Clinton

TED Prize wish: Let's build a health care system in Rwanda

_soundcheck: femi kuti: shoki shoki

the internet is god's way of saying he loves me

_posted in web | 09 July 2007

this is mad sick! mad amazing! just plain fucking mad crazy! i love it! walk it out, ladies.
daye: omg
daye: i love it
chris: this song is bad ass too
daye: yea it is
daye: no doubt
daye: anything with dre is hot though
chris: yeah, its pretty much all it takes to make shit hot
daye: heheheh
daye: amazing
chris: its fucking sick how much this sync's up
chris: I'm watching it over and over
daye: i know. i love it. ive watched it a couple of times now
daye: hehehe
chris: he says on my wrist
chris: and there hands fly up and they flip their wrist
daye: i know!
chris: its like they're meant to be together
daye: fate, destiny, dare i say kismet
chris: woah
chris: you went so far as kismet
daye: hell to the yes
daye: and i just said "hell to the yes"

if i were paid to surf the net i'd be a billionare by now...

_posted in art | design | film | photography | web | 24 June 2007

david cho helps to prove that facebook is way cooler than myspace.

_update: fixed the link and check out the comments on this work...

should be required for viewing for all the myspacers under 18.

im a huge fan of phil borges work... so its nice to see how he goes about connecting with people for those amazing images.

really cool photoshop brushes.

really interesting pictures and documentary about manufactured landscapes.

whoa! selfkiss is at the same time amazing, lovely and freakish. there's something about the idea of one's self being more attracted to it's physical than those around it.

little dolls does exactly what it sets out to do; freak you the fuck out.

flashy goodness

_posted in web | 16 June 2006

just some flashy goodness to move us into the weekend...

first there's the victim, who turns the tables on the creator...

and what's more summer than half naked girls you can control with a click of the mouse...

_soundcheck: groundation, each one teach one

a house of cosbys AND the black eye peas are shit!

_posted in music | web | 27 December 2005

it's been a minute since i checked out waxy.org and damn if he didnt make today just fucking awesome!

one.
a cover of the worst fucking song ever by probably one of the worst groups ever! and i am convinced that fergie is a dude... in drag... she's horrible...

two.
anyone who makes a whole cartoon series around cloning bill cosby, and then calls it house of cosbys is a god... a god i tell you, as in he is omnipresent and necessary... the theme song alone makes me happy in my secret place...

_soundcheck: deltron 3030, the instrumentals

change me

_posted in interactive narratives | photography | web | 27 December 2005

change me: the power of imagery to create a change, is a very nice interactive piece (designed by asterik) ... and's its also a good way for getty images to put there catalog to good use...

they've partnered up with ONE to...

_quote

fight the global emergency of AIDS and extreme poverty, Getty Images is launching an online community to further those efforts as well as raise awareness on the state of the world by leveraging the power of imagery. Whether it¡¦s a call to end poverty or generate greater collective regard for the environment, this is a chance to express your ideas, challenge assumptions or simply make someone smile. In addition to creating this community, Getty Images will donate $10 to ONE for each submission made.

_soundcheck: meshell ndegeocello, comfort woman

google zeitgeist

_posted in web | 23 December 2005

google's 2005 year-end google zeitgeist, as in "the general intellectual, moral, and cultural climate of an era" is a really nice breakdown of data on various issues... i may have picked a few other items as examples but you more or less get the idea of how people think... it would have been really cool if you were able to choose your own examples and get graphical representations of those...

_soundcheck: damian marley, welcome to jamrock

"little by little fills the cup"

_posted in africa | interactive narratives | photography | web | 11 December 2005

another lovely interactive piece, little by little outside of being lovely its content is awesome and well worth your time...

produced by 49th parallel productions and the oakland tribune... the accompanying article is rather short, but you get all the info from the interactive piece...

_quote

He saw them walk miles to learn in dirt-floor school houses, sharing books with other students crammed onto wood benches.

They had so little and yet were so determined to learn and so quick to laugh.

_soundcheck: richard pryor, is it something i said

"everyone always wants to go to the other side"

_posted in interactive narratives | photography | web | 01 December 2005

i've been trying to figure out how documentary filmmakers and photographers have the staying power needed to work on a project for years... it's obvious that it's all small steps that make for giant strides... but it still baffles me...

simon wheatly does an amazing job at photographing inner-city youth in london, a four year effort. it's amazing... magnum in motion is an awesome idea, but the audio aspect of their projects are for shite at times... there are a number of slides, where the audio seems to prematuraly stop, pissing me off, cause everything wheatly says is so interesting and the images are so strong you want to hear the details... listen to what he has to say in slide number 23... ive rarely heard the bastardization of culture stated more eloquently...

alex webb shares photos from a 26-year period at the mexican-u.s. border...

_soundcheck: sufjan stevens, live @ kcrw 2005

"it's worth getting on a plane"

_posted in film | interactive narratives | photography | web | 27 November 2005

been extremely busy and then took some time to enjoy the turkey holiday... hope it rocked hardcore for everyone... tons of links from the digital storytelling side of the web...

came across this organization called bridges...

_quote

Bridges to Understanding gives voice directly to youth around the world. Our interactive online program connects middle school students in the developed world with their contemporaries in indigenous communities. Central to the program is digital storytelling mentored by professionals and created by students. We provide the tools and training that enable them to tell stories from their own lives and communities.

check out two pieces that really made me smile, maji: water shapes culture in takaungu and dwight's adventure, away from the "res"


from brooklyn to pristina was a p.o.v docu that aired in july... and the from brooklyn to pristina interactive piece about how a gun can be purchased legally in the us and then end up in kosovo, in a guerilla war.

the pineros: men of the pines is a wonderful piece about the "ghost workforce" of latinos doing some serious hard, manual labor.

_quote

They are pineros, the men who work in the pines. They are the major source of manual labor in America's forest industry, the muscle behind the Healthy Forest Initiative - often paid in tax dollars to work on public lands. And they are being misused and abused under the noses of government officials.

_magnum in motion

found this awesome little treat... magnum in motion is exactly that... digital storytelling from the horses mouth, as they say... magnum photographers giving you some insight into their process, their politics and their experiences.

i found the two larry towell pieces very interesting.

backstage with larry towell is filled with little nuggets of wisdom. I love the fact that he takes a DAT with him when he photographs, to record ambient noise... viewing photography is sometimes a very isolated event, to have the sound that was at one time attached to an image, takes me a lot closer to these people with no names and somber expressions.

looking at towell's pictures of el salvador in his land and identity interactive essay, reminded me of a movie i saw some months ago, innocent voices. i can't even get into how that movie affected me. i can't recall ever seeing another movie that had me weeping and gnashing my teeth in fear and disgust... thinking about it almost brings me to tears... it was honest and brutal, about war's affect on children. if you get a chance to see innocent voices you should...

paul fusco's the bitter fruit annoyed me a great deal, in terms of how the design and the audio just didnt work well together...it made the short comments seem rather choppy and caused things to seem non-cohesive. this picture above is one of my favorite from this essay, this woman is angry and you can see it... you can check out the the bitter fruit website to see more pictures, sans audio... if you get a chance make sure you read the comments... some touching and pointed messages...

thomas dworzak's piece on new orleans and hurricane katrina, ghost town, was definitely on point... it's really interesting to see how a foreign photographer views an american tragedy...

magnum in motion's 42 seconds on 42nd street

_quote

From New Year�s Day 2005 to the end of February, Magnum Photos altered the behavior of Times Square pedestrians. Using a digital billboard on the corner of 42nd and 8th, Magnum presented a series of photo essays that caused New York�s frantic crowds to slow down and look up.

style is the easy part of culture... jesse kornbluth offers up a personal view of the sixties, with lots of quotables... take 3: the '60s kids

_soundcheck: john lee hooker, serves you right to suffer

i'm back home in los angeles

_posted in art | dayedayerocks | film | interactive narratives | music | news | photography | the temple | web | 15 November 2005

well, on a bed of california stars is back, since ive been told several times i need to start it back up and i am tired of sending out emails, so here it goes...

two week vacations are freakin' long! i feel like i was in georgia for a whole month. re:birth, my first exhibit, was a blast! pictures are up… hoping to add more once i can track them down.

finally finished reading, on photography by susan sontag, while sitting in airports on saturday (as in the whole day saturday). previous to sontag's passing in 2004, i had only read one of her writings, notes on "camp," which i found to be very entertaining.

there are tons of passages from on photography that do it for me, but i think these are the most interesting...

_first quote

Nobody ever discovered ugliness through photographs. But many, through photographs, have discovered beauty. Except for those situations in which the camera is used to document, or to mark social rites, what moves people to take photographs is finding something beautiful. (The name under which Fox Talbot patented the photograph in 1841 was the calotype: from kalos, beautiful.) Nobody exclaims, "Isn't that ugly! I must take a photograph of it." Even if someone did say that, all it would mean is: "I found that ugly thing. . . beautiful."

if any photographer made the ugly beautiful, it was diane arbus.

_second quote

A photograph that brings news of some unsuspected zone of misery cannot make a dent in public opinion unless there is an appropriate context of feeling and attitude. The photographs of Mathew Brady and his colleagues took on the horrors of the battlefields did not make people any less keen to go on with the Civil War. The photographs of ill-clad, skeletal prisoners held at Andersonville inflamed Northern public opinion-against the South. (The effect of the Andersonville photographs must have been partly due to the very novelty, at the time, of seeing photographs.) ... Photographs cannot create a moral position, but they cnn reinforce one -- and can help build a nascent one.

regardless of one's views on the war in iraq, final salute is a very touching piece, and most definitely an "unsuspected zone of misery." there is a great deal of "appropriate context of feelings and attitude" on both sides of the debate on iraq.

_another quote

Photographs may be more memorable than moving images, because they are a neat slice of time, not a flow. Television is a stream of underselected images, each of which cancels its predecessor. Each still photograph is a privileged moment, turned into a slim object that one can keep and look at again. Photographs like the one that made the front page of most newspapers in the world in 1972 -- a naked South Vietnamese child just sprayed by American napalm, running down a highway toward the camera, her opens open, screaming with pain--probably did more to increase the public revulsion against the war than a hundred hours of televised barbarities.

(nick) ut cong huynh's image of a "a naked South Vietnamese child just sprayed by American napalm, running down a highway toward the camera, her opens open, screaming with pain." Winner of the World Press Photo, 1972. a portion of the "hundred hours of televised barbarities."

_in other news

the uc system's investment committee voted to divest from sudan! the recommendation goes to the board of regents in january for an up or down vote.

well it's started... i have no idea where this damn thing is suppose to go or exactly what it's suppose to be... but hey... who doesn’t want lay their “heavy head tonight on a bed of california stars”

_soundcheck: cat power, the covers record