Animation: Skhizein

Jérémy Clapin made Skhizein, a CG animation in which a man finds himself standing about a foot to the side of his actual position in the world. My question is: if he’s standing off to the side of himself, wouldn’t he be seeing everything from the point of view of his actual self since he touches things from that point of view?

Obama Signs Healthcare Bill – Big Fu*king Deal

I’m for health care reform because I’m about as liberal as one can get. I would never in a million elections consider voting for a Republican candidate for any office whatsoever.  But I also have a nasty habit of biting off the political hand that feeds me and then spitting it back.  I’ve seen the rock-bottom brutal racism and stupidity of the healthcare reform opponents and the Tea Party protesters who look to me exactly like Ku Klux Klan members.  I think they need white hoods to go along with all their racial epithets and homophobic remarks.  The fact is that the United States desperately needs some kind of health reform to reign in the murderous insurance companies and protect all people, not just those who make lots of money and can afford absurdly priced, flimsy medical coverage.  Now that I’ve said that, I will also say that this country also needs a vice president who does not say ‘it’s a big fu*king deal’ on television in front of the world with his arms around the President.  His remark is shameful and not in slightest bit funny.  It put his president in an uncomfortable position during an important and historical moment.  Obama should have asked him to kindly leave the room.  Biden is a liability and needs to be dropped from the ticket in 2012.  He will be.  Watch.  All Republican campaign commercials will now feature Joe Biden saying ‘Big Fu*king Deal.’

As for the health reform law, I think it is obviously unconstitutional.  There.  I’ve said it.  I will be rejected by most of my friends now, but it’s the simple unavoidable truth.  The law’s central requirement that all Americans buy health insurance from private companies is ludicrous and will be quickly rejected by the United States Supreme Court.  Already, fourteen states have filed a lawsuit declaring the law an infringement of states’ rights.  They are correct.  Taxing Americans in order to cover them through a public policy is one thing.  But forcing them to give money to insurance companies that routinely murder people by withdrawing medicine from them is an entirely different matter.  I think Democrats are in a frenzy of forced celebration over a victory they know is somewhat temporary.  A conservative Supreme Court is going to dismantle this thing in a hurry.  The federal government’s power to regulate interstate commerce does not give it the power to force people to engage in that commerce in the first place.  If I don’t want to buy something, I don’t have to buy it.  Certainly, we are all obligated to buy car insurance if we drive.  But we choose to drive.  We are free to not drive and not buy car insurance.  But the health reform law forces Americans to pay corporations… for being alive at all.

Obama did not have the courage to push a public insurance option through.  He made a deal with Murder Incorporated and he is going to pay a very steep price for this mistake.  A reform bill without public insurance coverage should have simply forced the insurance companies into strict codes of behavior.  It should not have forced every single U.S. citizen to hand cash over to these horrendous people.  No way.  It’s actually pretty shocking to see this happening during a Democratic administration.  The plan is actually this: to have Internal Revenue Service agents investigate people who don’t buy insurance and to levy penalties upon them.  That’s like a government penalty for not buying your tires at Sears.

It is not necessary to argue about the reform bill anymore.  It is law now.  But I can predict that no law requiring private medical insurance coverage is going to be on the books in two years’ time.

Audio Podcast Novel: Robinson Crusoe (Part 8)

DOWNLOAD ROBINSON CRUSOE – PART 8

Robinson Crusoe struggles to harvest his corn, make bread, build a boat and sew some clothes. The efforts he makes are constantly set back by mistakes and errors in judgment. He deals with his lack of expertise in the various arts that he must call upon with a certain amount of humor. Pay attention to how Crusoe constantly monitors his state of mind and is ever willing to discuss his mistakes and to poke fun at himself.

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Read by Alessandro Cima

All audio stories are Copyright © Candlelight Stories, Inc., All Rights Reserved. Do not distribute copies of our MP3 audio or video stories. They are for your personal use. If you choose to burn our MP3 stories onto a personal CD, do not make copies of the CD or distribute them to other people. Also, do not sell CDs containing our audio stories. All audio stories are copyrighted by Candlelight Stories, Inc.

Film: 21-87

Another film by Arthur Lipsett, the filmmaker who is the subject of an upcoming animation by Theodore Ushev. This one is called 21-87 and it’s a masterpiece.  It seems to have something to do with trying to see how people are deadened somehow by the modern world.  The filmmaker uses documentary clips in a mix-up with collage audio that unsettles the viewer.  What is this life force behind us?  And why do we keep trying to behave like machines?

Film: Very Nice, Very Nice

Here is a well-known film by Arthur Lipsett, the filmmaker who is the subject of an upcoming animation by Theodore Ushev. It’s called Very Nice, Very Nice. It features a layered collage soundtrack with still photos and film clips. It conveys a general sense of unease and remoteness in urban people of 1961. I like it with the possible reservation that it relies too heavily on photographs. I think it’s very tricky to use still photos in a film and pull it off and I’m not sure that Lipsett is entirely successful.  It’s good, but has a static quality, a reserve that I don’t fully admire.  The filmmaker is too well-behaved and does not pull the trigger.

Trailer for Theodore Ushev Film – Lipsett Diaries

Theodore Ushev, the animator who made the ‘Help Haiti’s Children’ poster that we use on this blog, has a new short film coming. It’s called Lipsett Diaries and is about a Canadian experimental filmmaker Arthur Lipsett who struggled with mental problems and died very young.  I think Ushev takes animation very seriously as art and film.  I always want to draw something right after watching anything he’s made.

Audio Podcast Novel: Robinson Crusoe (Part 7)

DOWNLOAD ROBINSON CRUSOE – PART 7

Crusoe details how he learns to grow crops that will help sustain him when his ammunition runs out. He journeys to the far side of the island, finding better land and more plentiful game there. He describes the difficulties overcome in learning to weave baskets and cut lumber from a tree. He also writes about his religious thinking and how he begins to come to terms with his solitary condition.

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Read by Alessandro Cima

All audio stories are Copyright © Candlelight Stories, Inc., All Rights Reserved. Do not distribute copies of our MP3 audio or video stories. They are for your personal use. If you choose to burn our MP3 stories onto a personal CD, do not make copies of the CD or distribute them to other people. Also, do not sell CDs containing our audio stories. All audio stories are copyrighted by Candlelight Stories, Inc.

Reality Hunger: A Manifesto

I haven’t finished it yet.  But Reality Hunger: A Manifesto by David Shields is making me forget to eat my food. That’s how good it is. I’m sitting there in my local restaurants trying my best to finish my Pasta Siciliana, but I’m staring at my Kindle screen and almost jumping out of my chair with ideas. That’s what this book is for. It was written to light a fire underneath the bottom of an artist.

Don’t be afraid of stealing.  Just do it.

David Shields is a thief and he’s the happiest most energetic thief you’ll ever meet between to covers.  All art is theft.  We build all our original creations on top of other creations.  We consume and then we spit the pieces back out in exploding new arrangements.  We appropriate all the time when we incorporate bits of newsprint into paintings, or street sounds into symphonies, or quotes into novels.

Novels.  What are they and what do they really do?  Do we need or want novels anymore?  Fiction?  Or do we want the more real?  Are we craving more and more reality?  It’s on TV everywhere.  Can the old form of the novel that describes scenes so well and gets into the characters’ heads really compete with all the new forms coming to life that are built primarily upon reality?

What is reality?  Whose reality?  Isn’t one’s perception of a simple street scene actually fiction once it passes through the subjective filter?  Isn’t everything ultimately fiction?

Shields’s book is composed of many fragments mostly snatched from other people throughout history.  Shields leaves his own remarks unannounced until the back of the book where he finally credits his sources.  The point is to connect thoughts from all over the world through many ages to gradually build up a central argument or ‘manifesto’ for a modern art or literature that eliminates the guilt from borrowing or ‘stealing.’  The ideas are obviously not all new, otherwise there would be no fragments to put in the book.  But the expression of the ideas in this way is new.  Reality Hunger is a jolt and it will offend as many or more people than it inspires.

Several years ago Bob Dylan got into hot water for using a phrase from a relatively unknown novel.  Sure enough, Dylan’s phrase did match the novelist’s.  Outrage ensued.  When the novelist was asked about his feelings he stated that if Bob Dylan wanted to use one of his phrases he was simply honored.

This book is very timely in a world where people are getting into lawsuits because some artist’s sculpture appears in a street photo.  We’ve been waiting for this book.  Fortunately, Mr. Shields is as excited about this book as his readers are – those who aren’t outraged anyway.  He comes off as a very energetic and enthusiastic partner to the artist.  I admire this book a great deal and will most likely be referring to bits and pieces of it for many years – and stealing them.

Audio Podcast Novel: Pinocchio (Chapter 4)


DOWNLOAD PINOCCHIO – CHAPTER 4

Per l’Italia! For playing in the living room!

This is one of the great gifts from Italy to the children of the world. Carlo Collodi’s 1883 masterpiece, The Adventures of Pinocchio, is the story of the wooden marionette who desperately wants to be a real boy. His adventures are full of mischief, wonder, sadness, joy, treachery, danger and all the exuberant life of a real Italian boy. This is the English translation by Carol Della Chiesa. The first seventeen chapters of this wonderful novel were recorded intermittently between 1999 and 2006, specifically for children to enjoy on the web. But I was unable to finish it. It is a very long story indeed and the demands of this particular recording were very great. I have decided that it would be a good thing for Italy and its most beautiful living rooms if I were to finally finish the book. I am cleaning up the sound a little bit and will start recording the eighteenth chapter soon. So here we begin the long story and in a few months we will reach the finish!

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Reading and illustration by Alessandro Cima

All audio stories are Copyright © Candlelight Stories, Inc., All Rights Reserved. Do not distribute copies of our MP3 audio or video stories. They are for your personal use. If you choose to burn our MP3 stories onto a personal CD, do not make copies of the CD or distribute them to other people. Also, do not sell CDs containing our audio stories. All audio stories are copyrighted by Candlelight Stories, Inc.

Podcast Novel: Pirate Jack (Chapter 16)

DOWNLOAD MP3 AUDIO

This book contains pirate battles, violence and death. Please use your judgment before playing for very young children.

Here’s a free podcast of our fantastic pirate adventure novel written for young readers. It’s got hidden scrolls, time travel, ships, battles, navigation, gold, islands, jungles and helicopters in it.

You can purchase the high-quality paperback from Amazon for $11.95 or just $1.99 for a Kindle e-book version.

You can purchase the paperback from Barnes & Noble (Price: $11.95)

You can also get it on Scribd.com as a download for just $1.99

Description:
Young Jack Spencer sees his father’s boat-building business destroyed by a powerful land developer. Then Jack unearths three ancient scrolls that propel him on a dangerous adventure through time in search of a pirate treasure.

When Jack finds himself aboard the pirate ship Revenge with Captain Jameson’s crew, he enters a life or death world of ship battles, jungle islands, prison escapes, gold, and treachery.

Set during the golden age of Caribbean piracy, Pirate Jack combines rollicking adventure with the moving story of a boy’s love for his father and a courageous effort to save a way of life.

Get all the chapters of the book podcast here.

You’ll find regular podcasts of all the chapters over the next couple of months. Subscribe to our feed.

This book is read by the author.

All audio stories are Copyright © Candlelight Stories, Inc., All Rights Reserved.

Podcast Novel: Pirate Jack (Chapter 15)

DOWNLOAD MP3 AUDIO

This book contains pirate battles, violence and death. Please use your judgment before playing for very young children.

Here’s a free podcast of our fantastic pirate adventure novel written for young readers. It’s got hidden scrolls, time travel, ships, battles, navigation, gold, islands, jungles and helicopters in it.

You can purchase the high-quality paperback from Amazon for $11.95 or just $1.99 for a Kindle e-book version.

You can purchase the paperback from Barnes & Noble (Price: $11.95)

You can also get it on Scribd.com as a download for just $1.99

Description:
Young Jack Spencer sees his father’s boat-building business destroyed by a powerful land developer. Then Jack unearths three ancient scrolls that propel him on a dangerous adventure through time in search of a pirate treasure.

When Jack finds himself aboard the pirate ship Revenge with Captain Jameson’s crew, he enters a life or death world of ship battles, jungle islands, prison escapes, gold, and treachery.

Set during the golden age of Caribbean piracy, Pirate Jack combines rollicking adventure with the moving story of a boy’s love for his father and a courageous effort to save a way of life.

Get all the chapters of the book podcast here.

You’ll find regular podcasts of all the chapters over the next couple of months. Subscribe to our feed.

This book is read by the author.

All audio stories are Copyright © Candlelight Stories, Inc., All Rights Reserved.