I love Bob Dylan’s recent album, Christmas in the Heart. Listened to it many times on Christmas day. This is his video for Little Drummer Boy. The people do seem awfully pink but maybe it’s just my eyes playing tricks on me.
Author Archives: Editor
Scarlett Johansson Has Made a Magnificent Short Film: These Vagabond Shoes
I spend a lot of my very limited brain capacity wondering why Hollywood directors don’t run around with small cameras making their own little movies for YouTube. Scarlett Johansson has made an excellent short film called These Vagabond Shoes which puts on display her obvious interest in and love for true cinema. The person who has uploaded it to YouTube has somehow squeezed the image from widescreen to standard, but the film shines nevertheless. I’m not sure why there’s a Russian overdub either, but just ignore it. I think Ms. Johansson should upload the film herself properly and if she does, I’ll change the video link. She has made a film that I’m certain is exactly what she wanted to make. It’s her personal expression of a fleeting and elusive subject. The film’s about being alone and damn well liking it. Kevin Bacon plays the film’s main character who gets dressed at just past 4:00 pm to leave his apartment and take a trip to a nearly empty Coney Island. The film contains only small incidental sounds and very minimal dialog. Its beauty lies in the attention to tiny details of behavior. The multiple clocks in Mr. Bacon’s tiny apartment, all precisely set. His careful re-tying of his shoe. His placement of a hat upon his head and his hesitation when locking his door behind him. These are the details of the lone person who sets out upon a small but important voyage through the terrifying public space. Mr. Bacon’s character puts on the armor of his attire with a resolute dread that I can remember from my own time alone. Ms. Johansson knows exactly what she’s doing. Her character’s trip to Coney Island where he will purchase a hot dog and sit on a bench by the sea is a seeking out of the pleasure of being alone with one’s very own self and the not knowing what will come of that. The uncertainty and the wide open strangeness of possibility when one is all alone in a very busy and enormous world is too much for most people to face.
Animation: E.T.A.
E.T.A. was directed by Henrik Bjerregaard Clausen, with character modeling and animation by Søren Andersen and Michael la-Cour. The production company is called Junk. The film gets the whole thing with the orbiting spaceship and the cockpit just perfectly. It’s short and sweet and funny. I love sci-fi with grungy control rooms and crap lying around. And of course I bet GM built the poor guy’s ship. Definitely. It’s a junker.
Transportation Security Agents Want Nude Photos of Children at Airports
Many airports in the United States and the United Kingdom have installed new full body scanners. They are easy to spot. You walk in and a security guard tells you to raise your arms out to the side. Then what happens is they take a naked photograph of you. Naked. Nude. Bare-assed. Birthday suit. Free as the wind blows. Exposed. Porno.
Why porno? Because they take naked pictures and look at them. They want to do it to children too. And guess what? In the U.K. it has suddenly been noticed that taking naked pictures of children in airports violates anti-child porn laws. You bet. Think about it. Your kid in the machine. Arms up in the air. Being photographed naked through his or her clothes. The TSA claims that a single operator in a booth will view the naked photos of boarding passengers and children. Fine. So think about that. A little fat guy sitting in there with his sandwich and his can of Coke watching you and your kids naked. Enjoy that image? Still want to fly? Or would you rather just drive now?
No one anywhere has the right to look at our naked bodies just because we are getting on an airplane. No one. I certainly will not enter one of these invasive machines under any circumstances. I think that airline passengers wherever they might be should absolutely refuse to walk into these things. That will create chaos and slow things down until these hysterical security people back off with the nude photos. Causing an uproar about this is probably the one thing that will stop the roll-out of these machines. President Obama may in fact expedite the increased use of these things. Well, he’s the bright bulb who’s hiding photos of U.S. military torture practices and now he wants nude photos of us and our kids. Cool guy, huh?
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) calls these things the ‘naked machines.’
In many airports the machines are voluntary and offered as an option to avoid a pat-down. Not for long. The TSA wants these naked photos and they want them really bad. Have you met some of these TSA agents by any chance? My god! They are as dumb as posts. I met one a year ago at Los Angeles International Airport in the parking lot. She said she was lost. Lost! She couldn’t find the terminal building. I had to literally walk her through the airport to find her work station. I was just a passenger on my way somewhere. She was totally lost and completely at my mercy. I could have led her anywhere and stolen her badge. Trust me, if you can’t find the terminal at LAX, there’s something seriously wrong with you. That is the level of training these people are receiving. Another time, just months ago, I gave the finger to a TSA agent who tried to jump in front of me while boarding a crowded shuttle bus. He got on his phone and called airport police, saying that he had a dangerous passenger who had given him and his officers the finger. Four police cars showed up. Guess what happened when the officer in charge listened to the irate TSA guy. He smiled at him, then turned to me and said, “Sir, would you be interested in pressing any charges against the TSA?” I said, “No thanks, but it’s nice to know that a cop understands I’m allowed to give the finger to the TSA.” He said, “If you change your mind call me at this number.” Then he handed me a card! He said there were lots of complaints about the TSA people and that his officers were sick and tired of dealing with them because they didn’t understand any of the laws. And now we are asked to trust these TSA nitwits with naked photographs of ourselves and our children? Are you kidding? Seriously?
Animation: Shaman’s Quest
Courtesy of Cold Hard Flash comes yet another wonderful cartoon from Russia’s Toonbox Animation Studio. It’s part of a new web animation series called Shaman’s Quest.
Freedom of Expression? Really? When Was the Last Time You Heard a Slave Speak Freely?
I found this Amnesty International video over at Silliman’s Blog today. It’s about the power of words to help defend freedom of expression around the world. I’m all for that. But can you take me seriously as a wealthy member of the Western world’s corporate structure? The Amnesty video mentions a journalist jailed for ten years in China simply for sending an email. So let’s stop and think for a bit about this ‘freedom of expression.’ Take China as an example. The Chinese are essentially slave labor for the entire Western world. They make our shirts, pants, toys, radios, shoes, dinnerware, jackets, telephones, etc. They produce almost every single solid object you will touch during your day. Everything. They take their instructions from our corporations and they build these things for pennies a day. They are slaves. No doubt about it. Their government is simply middle-management working for us. So, while we may pretend to be interested in freedom of expression, we most certainly do not want our slaves talking freely. Slaves who can speak their minds will gain their freedom and their hourly wages will increase. They will no longer be our cheap labor – our slaves. They will become expensive free thinkers just like us. Our corporations and our politicians do not want freedom of expression for China under any circumstances whatsoever. Morgan Freeman’s blazer was quite possibly made by a Chinese slave making 30 cents an hour. When the Chinese decide that they want to fight for their freedom, they will be fighting us. The world will change when the Chinese people shoot their leaders and lift their wages. You think you’ve seen a global economic crash? Just wait until our corporations can’t pay for their slaves in China anymore. The bottom line has not changed for at least three hundred years: the world economy cannot function without slavery.
So the Amnesty video asks us for our words to help in the cause of freedom. I’ve just written some.