Fard is a 2009 French animated short by Luis Briceno and David Alapont. The story is quite visual, but my limited French tells me that the main character is part of a colorless corporate world and he’s just done a good presentation at work. However, he gets a package that contains something which allows him for a brief time to see what really lies underneath the surface of things.
Via SF Signal
It’s National Poetry Month and here is my favorite poet of the month. Azeem. We see a lot of writing about cute poets with education credentials and then someone like this brilliant Azeem fellow comes along and says a few things into a camera and reminds everybody that poets can shoot word bullets. I watch this video and my heart starts pumping and I get fidgety and I want to leave my chair and get to know words as well as this guy knows them. I noticed Azeem because he is one of the few subscribers to my YouTube film channel and so I checked him out. I’m extremely impressed. You want people to be interested in poetry? Show them this guy and they’ll be interested in about 5 seconds flat. I think what makes most poets uninteresting to the American reading public is that they all secretly have an image of a bookshelf in mind. Bookshelves are fine if you are browsing for a book, but they are death for anyone who’s making something. Azeem is also working with some hugely talented filmmakers who make fantastic imagery and do it with ease. If he comes to Los Angeles, I want to know about it and go see him play.
Set a Blaze:
I’ve got lots of grumps against Apple’s iPad, like the lack of support for Flash, one of the greatest web technologies in existence. But this Alice in Wonderland eBook looks fantastic. I’d love to make all the pictures move around and I think kids will too. This must be right because when I was a kid I fervently wished for every illustration to wake up and start moving.
Someone at YouTube named Chrspck went into the Museum of Modern Art in New York City on April 10 and shot a photograph of every painting. Museums and galleries have no business forbidding photography as long as it doesn’t use a flash or get in the way of visitors. I love seeing all the paintings go by. It makes me want to go to the museum.
Piping down the valleys wild,
Piping songs of pleasant glee,
On a cloud I saw a child,
And he laughing said to me:
‘Pipe a song about a Lamb!’
So I piped with merry cheer.
‘Piper, pipe that song again.’
So I piped: he wept to hear.
‘Drop thy pipe, thy happy pipe;
Sing thy songs of happy cheer!’
So I sung the same again,
While he wept with joy to hear.
‘Piper, sit thee down and write
In a book, that all may read.’
So he vanished from my sight;
And I plucked a hollow reed,
And I made a rural pen,
And I stained the water clear,
And I wrote my happy songs
Every child may joy to hear.
Songs of Innocence and of Experience was written and illustrated by English poet, painter and printmaker, William Blake in 1794. This poem is the introduction to the book. Seems pretty simple when you read it. But if you stare at it long enough, it gets really interesting.
Is it ethical to steal an eBook if you’ve purchased the hardback version? Sure. Stealing the hardbacks themselves is much more fun though. Is it ethical for a publisher to charge what they charge for hardbacks? No way at all. Sorry publishers, your pricing sucks and you know it. So, certainly it’s ethical to steal an eBook if I’ve been robbed by the hardback price already.
Now of course all the minimum wage proof readers in New York City will pounce on me and call me terrible names because they dread being turned into temp workers.
But stealing books is a real talent. You need a big army jacket that has lots of giant pockets inside and out. It’s best to steal them from large grocery and discount stores. eBooks are too easy to steal and you never really know what’s waiting for you on the other end of a download link anyway. The photo is of me demonstrating my own book-stealing technique. I have amassed quite the respectable library this way. But I never lend books out because they seldom make their way back home.
Here is an effort by a New York Times writer to answer the question of whether stealing ebooks is ethical or not if you’ve already bought the hardback.
But here’s a better piece at The Millions about an eBook pirate who’s pretty clear about what he likes.
Also, if you want to see how stealing books actually improves the world and culture, read The Savage Detectives by Roberto Bolaño.
