Prometheus’ Garden by Bruce Bickford



PROMETHEUS’ GARDEN (28 minutes, 1988) is the only film over which legendary stop-motion animator Bruce Bickford maintained complete creative control. Bright Eye Pictures is making PROMETHEUS’ GARDEN available to the public for the first time since its completion two decades ago. The DVD features a commentary track by Bickford, an alternate score by Shark Quest’s Laird Dixon, and the half hour documentary featurette, LUCK OF A FOGHORN: the Making of Bruce Bickford’s Prometheus’ Garden, directed by Brett Ingram.

Best known for his collaborations with rock iconoclast Frank Zappa in the 1970s (THE DUB ROOM SPECIAL, BABY SNAKES, THE AMAZING MR. BICKFORD), underground animator Bruce Bickford has influenced generations of artists with his startlingly original vision.

[MORE »]

Next Thursday (April 17th, 2008)

A film by Henry Ferrini & Ken Riaf
7:00 p.m., Thursday, April 17
Fine Arts Theatre, 38 Biltmore Ave., Downtown Asheville
Admission: $7 BMCM+AC members + students with ID-$9 non-members
Filmmaker Henry Ferrini will be in town for the screening and will answer questions afterward.

"A beautifully composed homage to one of the few truly monumental American poets of our times." Jack Hirschman, Poet Laureate of San Francisco

"The best film about an American poet ever made." Bill Corbett, The Boston Phoenix

"...an impressionistic, yet informative and moving document about the act of creation that neither shies away nor oversimplifies." Michael Kelleher, ArtVoice

Just in time for National Poetry Month in April, the Black Mountain College Museum + Arts Center, The Captain’s Bookshelf and Western Carolina University present a striking new film about Charles Olson, poet and charismatic leader of Black Mountain College during its final years, at 7:00 p.m. on Thursday, April 17th. Polis is This: Charles Olson and the Persistence of Place wrestles with the six foot eight inch 275lb colossus of poetry through an extraordinary mix of word and image. Filmmaker Henry Ferrini will be present at the April 17th screening at the Fine Arts Theatre to answer questions following the film.

Polis Is This combines interviews, archival footage, commentary and animation into a single voice full of insight and visual beauty. The film allows the audience access to the subject even as it captures the zeitgeist of a formative era in literary history. The 60-minute documentary features John Malkovich, as well as interviews with poets and scholars Robert Creeley, Ed Sanders, Diane di Prima, Gerrit Lansing, John Sinclair, Pete Seeger, Chuck Stein, Anne Waldman, Charles Boer, Susan Thackrey, Amiri Baraka, Robin Blaser, Michael Rumaker, Jonathan Williams, Ammiel Alcalay, John Stilgoe, Vincent Ferrini and the poet’s son, Charles Peter Olson.

Read More »| x-posted to Around Asheville

I'm Lijit, Baby!

I'm trying out a search widget called Lijit. It is on the right sidebar of this website (for all of you feed readers). It not only searches this website, but you can add other sites and bookmarks and favorites of yours that you also want it to search. It helps me locate something and it helps readers find something quickly.

I have it set up to search my del.icio.us bookmarks, my flickr photos, my stumbleupon page, my youtube, myspace, and any other website I write or contribute to. I've just started using it so I can't totally endorse it yet, but so far, so good.

And the best thing is that it keeps stats for you. It helps me know what the readers are looking for and what they expect to find here. **For instance, someone was searching for the Michael Moore documentary, Sicko, to see if it was playing in Asheville soon and I'm off to find that out for the reader and for myself.

My Lijit


SICKO PREMIERE IN ASHEVILLE TODAY

**The Asheville premiere of Michael Moore's SICKO is today, Friday, June 29. So far Regal Hollywood Cinemas 14 is the first place announcing that they are showing the movie.

*Syntax tells us that SiCKO is also playing @ the Fine Arts Theater downtown as well.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Regal Hollywood Cinemas 14
1640 Hendersonville Road, Asheville
828.274.9500

SICKO
Rated PG-13, 2 hr 0 min
Showtimes: (1:00), (4:00), 7:30, 10:25

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Fine Arts - CASH ONLY
16 Biltmore Avenue
Downtown Asheville
828.232.1536

SICKO (PG-13)
Showtimes: 1:00 | 4:00 | 7:00 | 9:30 (Daily)

Movie Schedules For Asheville

A scene from Eric Steel's "The Bridge." Copyright Rich Waters, courtesy of First Stripe Productions. via: indieWIRE

"One of the most moving and brutally honest films about suicide ever made... remarkably free of religious cant and of cozy New Age bromides. Eerie and indelible." Stephen Holden, New York Times

"a haunting work of unquestionable power, full of moments that are bound to linger in the memory, whether we want them to or not."****Financial Times

THE BRIDGE

THE BRIDGE offers glimpses into the darkest, and possibly most impenetrable corners of the human mind. The fates of the 24 people who died at the Golden Gate Bridge in 2004 are linked together by a 4 second fall, but their lives had been moving on parallel tracks and similar arcs all along.

Looming behind these stories is the Golden Gate Bridge itself, a monument that mirrors our highest aspirations and our lowest natures. We are uncomfortable with the grim realities suicide forces us to confront. We'd rather not see the mentally ill; we'd prefer suicides to be invisible -- or at least to take place quietly in hotel bathrooms, barns, dorm rooms and closets.

Available this week on DVD. link

Derailroaded: Inside The Mind Of Larry "Wild Man" Fischer is currently running on Sundance Channel.

Josh Rubin's strangely fascinating documentary parses the life of outsider musician Larry "Wild Man" Fischer. Growing up in the '50s, Fischer was an undiagnosed manic-depressive schizophrenic who, after attacking his mother with a knife, landed in a mental asylum.

Eventually he headed to California in the late '60s, where Frank Zappa discovered him singing his own strange compositions for a dime a song along Sunset Boulevard. In a strangulated growl somewhere between a possessed Tiny Tim and Bobcat Goldthwait, Fischer's music is something of an acquired taste. Zappa championed him and he led a convoluted career appearing on Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In and landing on the British Top 50 charts.

Derailroaded is interspersed with plenty of talking heads delivering anecdotes, as well as footage of Fischer performing, but ultimately this is a film not about music or fame, but about the ravages of mental illness. Despite many moments of levity—such as a completely bizarre re-enactment of an interview between Dr. Demento and Frank Zappa, done with puppets—it's a devastating portrait of delusion and fathomless despair.

You sure can see the Zappa influence but man, oh man, was the poor guy ever out there.

link

WE - A Documentary

'We' juxtaposes the writer Arundhati Roy's eloquent 'Come September' address, with a collage of contemporary and historical footage of our world, against a stirring soundtrack (Lush, Curve, Love & Rockets, Boards of Canada, Nine Inch Nails, Dead Can Dance, Amon Tobin, Massive Attack, Tortoise, Telepop, Placebo and Faithless).

Roy asks her audience to consider September 11 in the years prior to 2001, and what this date might mean to the citizens of the world. She says:

"This historical dredging is not offered as an accusation or a provocation. But just to share the grief of history. To thin the mist a little. To say to the citizens of America, in the gentlest, most human way: Welcome to the world."

She then refers to the September 11, 1973 CIA supported military coup in Chile headed by General Augusto Pinochet, the British government's September 11, 1922 mandate in Palestine and George Bush Sr's announcement to go to war against Iraq on September 11, 1990.

"...to dogmatically hold to only one set of ideas results in, I think, a slow, sad, and unnecessary form of brain death. Westerners need to start reading non-western press if they ever wish to understand the world better than they do at this moment."


'We' was produced by New Zealander Scott Ewing, who initially released it anonymously on the internet. It first appeared on the Australian website: resist.com.au in September 2005.

It's a powerful antidote to the mind numbing propaganda disseminated by our mainstream media. Free your mind. Go to: www.weroy.org

GAIA MEDIA NEWSLETTER

As individuals, collectives, and a species we are heir to a living library far older than the Sun, and we were born to enjoy, celebrate and preserve our personal and unitive rights and expressions of access. A few thousand years ago, there was an accident — and the road to the library disappeared. That road is open again. link

~ DEDROIDIFICATION ~ It's high time you broaden your cute little close-minded reality tunnel if you think wonder only exists in fiction -- let me tell you a fantastic story, a history -- welcome to operation mindfuck link

Ibogaine - Rite of Passage is a documentary project about the use of Ibogaine for the treatment of addiction and its spiritual background.

CoverPop - This is truly a digital archivist's dream: data displayed in a way that is both aesthetically pleasing and informative." --Annalee Newitz / Wired.com.
Lots of fun! I like the musical instruments.
**NOTE: I had to turn OFF my pop-up blocker for this site**

The Strange, Harrowing Journeys of Free Energy Activists - The human journey hangs in the balance today. Humanity is very capable of destroying modern civilization and even most of life on earth. We are also quite capable of turning earth into a heavenly place where we all live in beauty, peace and plenty. The crux of the situation relies in great measure on real economics, and energy has always been the underlying basis for all economies for all time. Wade Frazier

"I am against religion because it teaches us to be satisfied with not understanding the world." - that underpin evolution.
--Richard Dawkins
The God Delusion part 1
The Virus of Faith part 2

Hubble Deep Field - Representing a narrow "keyhole" view stretching to the visible horizon of the universe, the Hubble Deep Field image covers a speck of the sky only about the width of a dime 75 feet away.

(all links via Gaia Media News, a monthly newsletter.)

W A R/D A N C E

Across the country, Ugandan children are getting ready for the biggest event of the year: the annual Kampala Music Festival. Fifty-six schools will compete, but only one will go home the champion. No one expects it to be Patongo ? schools in the middle of refugee camps don?t win awards.

But when the music starts, expressions shift. After a lifetime of trauma, this year Patongo Primary School students have something magical to anticipate. For the first time, they have qualifed to compete in Kampala?s national festival. The capital city may as well be on another planet to these kids. Most have never left the camp, but they dream about Kampala?s towering buildings, plentiful soda and soldier-free streets. Unlike the wealthier schools from the south, Patongo?s students scrap for school uniforms and instruments. Despite the odds, the children endlessly practice their performances, filling the sweltering one room schoolhouse with dust. They are driven by heart, talent and, for some, the need to rebuild lives shattered by the L.R.A.. After months of practicing, it all builds to the big night in Kampala. If their bus can safely make it through rebel territory, they?ll take the stage and give it their all. Win or lose, these children will show what true heart can achieve. (via: World Vision)

Documentaries have richly peppered the film landscape quite generously of late and War/Dance is one beautiful and tender documentary showing at Sundance this week.

FUCK: A Documentary
Tagline: The movie that dare not speak its name

via monochrom

"Scholars and linguists will examine the long history of fuck. Comedians, actors, and writers who have charted and popularized the upward course of fuck will be heard from, often while defending the Constitutional Right of Free Speech, all the way to the Supreme Court. FUCK will visit with those who actually fuck for a living. We'll hear from advocates who oppose fuck and it's infringement into our everyday lives. We'll watch some of the most famous and infamous film and television clips that feature fuck, we'll hear some of the most famous fucks ever uttered and we'll feel the impact of fuck on our everyday lives."

"The trailer looks amazing, it features Ice T, Kevin Smith, Janeane Garofalo, Billy Connolly and fucking Hunter S. Thompson!"

FUCK: A Documentary was released in the US on November 10, 2006. Maybe we'll laugh our fucking asses off.

link

Hacking Democracy

I just finished watching the HBO documentary Hacking Democracy. This cautionary documentary exposes the vulnerability of computers - which count approximately 80% of America's votes in county, state and federal elections - suggesting that if our votes aren't safe, then our democracy isn't safe either. Premieres Thursday, November 2 at 9pm. It's fair. It's objective. And you won't soon forget it.

In 2002, Seattle grandmother and writer Bev Harris asked officials in her county why they had acquired electronic touch screen systems for their elections. Unsatisfied with their explanation, she set out to learn about electronic voting machines on her own. In the course of her research, which unearthed hundreds of reported incidents of mishandled voting information, Harris stumbled across an "online library" of the Diebold Corporation - which counted more than 40 percent of the presidential votes nationwide in 2000 - discovering a treasure trove of information about the inner-workings of the company's voting system.

Just think of how much pride we put into casting our individual votes. If you get HBO, try to catch a rerun of this documentary.

For more, see Bev Harris' Black Box Voting website.

GREY GARDENS

A paper bird sits in a rusty gilded birdcage by the window in one of the 28 rambling rooms in Grey Gardens by the shore. We watch Little Edie place a loaf of bread onto the attic floor for the raccoon that crawls out from behind the wall and heartily digs in.

With no running water and cat feces everywhere in this dilapidated house, Little Edie always managed to dress each day in one of her "revolutionary costumes". She would knot up a turban and wear makeshift skirts with a lovely brooch decorating her daily headgear, always in high heels, and red lipstick. Under the skirt were hose. Always. Color: Suntan.

After all, socialites must look presentable.

Are you a "staunch woman?" Does your "best costume for the day" involve a moth-bitten sweater wrapped around your head and pinned with a jeweled brooch? If so, you're likely a devotee of Grey Gardens, the 1975 documentary about an elderly society mother and her aging daughter living in isolated squalor in an East Hampton, NY, mansion. The film, which fixates on the day-to-day insanities of Edith Bouvier Beale and her daughter, 'Little Edie' (the now-deceased aunt and cousin, respectively, of Jackie O), has acquired an enormous cult following over the past 30 years, mainly due to the extreme eccentricity and campy joie de vivre of the women. Nowhere is this popularity more apparent than in last spring's loving adaption of the film to an off-Broadway musical, starring Christine Ebersole in the roles of both the elder and younger Edies (in separate acts). Ebersole entranced sold-out crowds during that first run, and now her powerhouse portrayal will hit the big time when Grey Gardens opens at the Walter Kerr Theatre on Broadway opening night November 2.

Related:
* Fansite
* Documentary
* Yahoo Group
* The Musical

This post brought over from http://easybakecoven2.blogspot.com; date and time adjusted.

W E B T R A I L

* Marijuana product placement on grocery shelves? link

* Visualize that the Holy beings enter your heart chakra or a Dharma wheel in the form of lights before you move anything on the altar. There really is a method to moving your altar. link

* A Pima, Arizona, couple has stepped down as leaders of a church that considers marijuana a sacrament and deity. The government contends the church is a front for drug trafficking. link

* Dr. Bronner's Magic Soapbox - A documentary. link

* I didn't know Richard Clarke had a website. link

* BBQ-ing with Bobby Seale - Yes, that Bobby Seale. link

* Help Hastert Hide the Perv and more silliness - link

* David Byrne offers up “Record Companies: Who needs Them?” and gives his opinion on the Montreal music this week. link


FULL MOON
Take some time around this Full Moon to create more balance in your life, in whatever way you feel called. Use the tools you have to stay centered. listen to your heart, and remember: "To go out of our minds at least once a day is tremendously important. By going out of your mind you come to your senses! When you come out of the conditioned, limited and unaware mind the center of gravity naturally shifts to the heart." --Alan Watts

New York Protests

SDS New York marched to the United Nations on Tuesday, September 19th, 2006 to protest the presence of George W. Bush in New York City. Bush, whom the SDSers regard as a war criminal, was in New York to "try to sell the world community a bill of goods - a handful of irrational, unbelievable, excuses for acts of barbarism in Iraq and elsewhere - committed in the name of the people of the United States", said Lauren Giaccone of Pace (University) SDS. John Cronan, also from Pace SDS, said: "we are also sending a message to the anti-war movement - it is time that the students' voice be heard as we are the group that is most directly affected by Bush's murderous policies".

link

SDS Pace was the first chapter within SDS New York to endorse the "Number The Dead" protest - held on September 17th, 2006 on Manhattan's Fifth Avenue. They were followed by MDS New York. Members of New School, Pratt and UCF SDS. The goal was to have 2700 participants stand along the east side of Fifth Avenue - in a human chain extending from 8th Street to 98th Street.

Yoko Ono donated 3000 buttons that stated: "Imagine Peace" - these were distributed to participants by the organizers. At the event, each participant held a placard that contained the name of a dead US soldier or stated "11,000 Iraqis". A documentary film crew videotaped the vigil. More photos by Fred Askew

Tuesday - September 19, 2006 - 17 Arrested at UN Rally

So exhilarating to see the students pick up the torch as they organize their SDS chapters and take it to the streets.

link

Soma: An Anarchist Therapy

With difficulty walking, and half-blinded from torture by the Brazilian military dictatorship, 79 year-old Roberto Freire continues to develop somatherapy, completing his life's work. Incorporating the ideas of Wilhelm Reich, the politics of anarchism, and the culture of capoeira angola, Soma is used by therapists organized in anarchist collectives to fight the psychological effects of authoritarianism. Nick Cooper travelled to Rio de Janeiro, Salvador, Bahia, and São Paulo to find the exercises, principles, voices, and movement of somatherapy. back story

The Soma Documentary is currently touring the country.

New Neil Young Album Is Finished
Filmmaker Jonathan Demme, who filmed the award-winning documentary 'Neil Young: Heart of Gold,' writes in an e-mail to Harp Magazine, "Neil just finished writing and recording – with no warning – a new album called 'Living With War.' It all happened in three days." How rock ‘n ‘roll is that?

Demme continues, "It is a brilliant electric assault, accompanied by a 100-voice choir, on Bush and the war in Iraq…Truly mind blowing. Will be in stores soon."

Details are pretty scarce, but the featured track, titled "Impeach the President," features a rap with Bush’s voice set to the choir chanting “flip/flop” and the like.

Link

~:|:~ ~:|:~ ~:|:~ ~:|:~ ~:|:~ ~:|:~ ~:|:~ ~:|:~ ~:|:~

UPDATE: Cyndy at Mouse Musings pointed me to these following sites. From the Living With War site, I found Down With Tyranny, written by the man who used to be the president of Reprise Record Company and has add'l Neil Young info. That's where I found Justice Through Music, who is launching a new campaign called Harmony Vids to motivate artists, bands, filmmakers and others to create a whole series of new protest videos. Watch George Bush lies by the Violent Femmes, Counting Bodies by A Perfect Circle and more.

Bukowski: Born Into This is just out on DVD. This is the definitive documentary about Charles Bukowski and features tons of footage of the late poet doing what he does best: reading, writing, drinking, fighting and talking about women. The extras alone can entertain you for hours; they include commentary by director John Dullaghan, home movie footage, extended interviews and footage of Bono and Tom Waits reading Bukowski's poetry. If you like what you see, check out the site for Factotum, a new movie starring Matt Dillon as Bukowski's alter-ego, Henry Chinaski.

One lump or two? Is it a teakettle or a dildo? Link [via]

Los Angeles Alternative is an online weekly newspaper of people, arts and ideas that rivals LAWeekly.

Surreal & Visionary Artist of the 21st Century - They are ALL here and then some. Link

All We Are Saying is a documentary about the music business directed by Rosanna Arquette. The film features her interviews with Stevie Nicks, Chrissie Hynde, Joni Mitchell, Radiohead's Thom Yorke, Patti Smith, Yoko Ono, Andre 3000, Elton John and a billion other musicians about how they balance their lives with their art. You can catch it on Showtime this month, where it's also available on demand.

OutThereRadio - topics related to the occult, government conspiracy and the paranormal.

Freezerbox - Online magazine with a wide range of topics, from arms control to political, economy to film.

Overheard: "Why do they keep remaking bad movies? You know the one that sucked but it had the beaver shot? Let's make another one where it looks like Sharon Stone's got ZZ Top in a scissor hold."

THE DEATH OF KEVIN CARTER

An Oscar nominated film with a South African connection is the short documentary "The Death of Kevin Carter", by Dan Krauss.

Carter was a member of the "Bang-Bang Club" of photojournalists who became (in?)famous in the early nineties for their work covering violence in the townships.

*In 1994 Carter won the Pulitzer Prize for Feature Photography for this image of a starving child in the Sudan.

For a more complete description of Carter's dark but fascinating life visit this link, or buy the book "Bang-Bang Club" (highly recommended).

[via: South Africa Blog]

*I guarantee that you'll never forget that photograph.

Web Trail | Impending Iran attack?, Low-Fat bOING bOING, Bare Care, Pass the PDR, Busted, Iknow Eno

Inevitable Iran Attack? The official excuse for the attack is the possible nuclear weapons program in Iran: ex-CIA agents Paul Pillar and Ellen Laipson as well as retired United Nations weapons inspector Hans Blix state that if Iran were really trying to build atom bombs, then the most effective way to stop this would be a guarantee from the US and Israel not to attack Iran. [MORE...]

The popular bOING bOING is a good website in part because they have something for everyone. But there are some topics that just don't interest me - particularly the tech stuff that's way over my head. And that's where bOING bOING LITE comes in.

McSweeney's Career Days is very funny with a Memo
To: All Employees
From: Paul Pell, President and CEO, Die Mold Industries Inc.

Bush BUSTED!

Please Call Home is the working title of a feature-length documentary about the Big House -- the Macon, Ga., residence in which the Allman Brothers Band lived during the early '70s.

About 35 UC San Diego students stripped to their underwear – and in some cases, wore nothing but poster boards – yesterday to persuade university administrators to adopt more stringent labor codes for the manufacturing of all university licensed apparel. [More...]

And goes running for the shelter... - Alcibiades Dream a clinical, but honest account of a drug user in college.

Did You Know?
Brian Eno did the Windows 95 startup sound.

You've no doubt heard the expression, "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised". It's been quoted and parodied many times. But do you know what it means or where it came from?

"The Revolution Will Not Be Televised" is a poem and song by Gil Scott-Heron which orginated about the political and social turmoil of 1970s America and is still socially relevant today. It first appeared on the 1970 album Small Talk at 125th and Lenox, on which Scott-Heron was accompanied only by congas and bongo drums.

Don Letts, a key figure in British punk's first wave, made "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised" documentary, which is still showing around the world. Letts happens to be in Canada this week for the most recent screening. (More on Letts)

Read "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised" lyrics here or Listen to the mp3.

WEBTRAIL|Music

Somewhere along the way, the drum solo became a rock-and-roll punch line of the "More cowbell!" variety. - Link

Stewart Copeland @ Sundance. Speaking of drummers, Everyone Stares is a documentary by the ex-Police drummer debuting at Sundance this week.

GEMM - Welcome to the World's largest music marketplace! Looking for that out of print album? Want to unload some of your old vinyl?

The complete track listing for David Gilmour's forthcoming solo album, On an Island, has been revealed. Crosy & Nash also add vocals to one cut.

connexion: the selector is another good mp3 collab site with a nice mix of progressive music. Where else you going to find "Mr Eden's Lysergic Africa" online?

33 1/3 - News, reviews, ideas, thoughts, announcements and more - all connected to the 33 1/3 series of books published by Continuum. I received the Led Zep one for Christmas which is written by Erik Davis. And now the next in the series is announced. 33 1/3 Next and authors below:

"If You're Feeling Sinister" by Scott Plagenhoef
"Aja" by Don Breithaupt
"Shoot Out the Lights" by Hayden Childs
"Pretty Hate Machine" by Daphne Carr
"Use Your Illusion" by Eric Weisbard
"Horses" by Phil Shaw
"Double Nickels on the Dime" by Mike Fournier
"Pink Moon" by Amanda Petrusich
"People's Instinctive Travels and the Paths of Rhythm" by Shawn Taylor
"Achtung Baby" by Stephen Catanzarite
"20 Jazz Funk Greats" by Drew Daniel
"The Dreaming" by Ann Powers
"Rid of Me" by Kate Schatz
"Another Green World" by Geeta Dayal
"Songs in the Key of Life" by Zeth Lundy
"Trout Mask Replica" by Kevin Courrier
"Let's Talk About Love" by Carl Wilson
"Lucinda Williams" by Anders Smith Lindall
"69 Love Songs" by LD Beghtol
“Marquee Moon” by Peter Blauner
“Swordfishtrombones” by David Smay

WEBTRAIL - Born, Explore!, Crispin, Cohen, King, Lovelock & Blangha

'Leonard Cohen: I'm Your Man' is a low-key and impressive music documentary that screened at Sundance on Saturday. Australian director Lian Lunson builds her film around a recent Australian concert at which musicians from Rufus Wainwright to Jarvis Cocker, Beth Orton and Nick Cave covered a set-list of Cohen numbers. We see Cohen performing for the benefit of her film, and after a minute, the camera pulls back to reveal his backing-band. It's U2. Rufus doing 'Hallelujah' is a fucking masterpiece. So good it hurts [MORE...]

Chapter One of the new book, 'Cell' by Stephen King

Born Magazine - Exquisite Art & Lit Collaboration. Link

Flickr: Explore! - Flickr labs have been hard at work creating a way to show you some of the most awesome photos on Flickr.

News on the uber imaginative Crispin Hellion Glover and his long time project, "What Is It?" which prompted one reviewer to exclaim, "Like Fellini on psychedelics-- wildly creative but completely twisted." He's been working on this project f o r e v e r. Link from the excellent insider's film news CineMadMag.

The current 'Reality' of Gaia - Thirty years ago, the scientist James Lovelock worked out that the Earth possessed a planetary-scale control system which kept the environment fit for life. He called it Gaia, and the theory has become widely accepted. Now, he believes mankind's abuse of the environment is making that mechanism work against us. His astonishing conclusion - that climate change is already insoluble, and life on Earth will never be the same again. Link

What is Blangha? Blangha is a contraction of the words "blog" and "sangha." The Blangha is an aggregator of news feeds from a community of Zen-oriented Buddhist bloggers.

This website looks best when viewed on company time.

I will NEVER tire of the song, The Way You Dream from the 1 Giant Leap documentary.

It features the singing of REM front man Michael Stipe and Asha Bhosle and slipped under my radar when it was originally made in 2000, but found it's way to me a few years ago. When I first saw the documentary I was actually haunted by this song for weeks. Do you ever hear a song or see a good film and it stays on your mind for days? Love when that happens. This particular song weaves its way throughout the doc. And there are many other good songs, too.

Imagine taking musical and spoken voices from around the world and blending them into a poetic, sonic mix. 1 Giant Leap is a Giant Loop of planetary sounds and soulful reflections on everything from Sex to the Sacred.

1 Giant Leap DVD features: Kurt Vonnegut, Dennis Hopper, Ram Dass, Tom Robbins, Anita Roddick, Brian Eno, Michael Stipe (REM), Robbie Williams, Neneh Cherry, Speech (Arrested Development), Stewart Copeland, Baaba Maal, Michael Franti, and many more.

Download this song and prepare to be enchanted. You'll thank me later. - 1 Giant Leap - The Way You Dream

This is Wal-Mart The Movie documentary premiere week. Don Hazen (Alternet) organized an impressive editorial collaboration around our film release: Harold Meyerson profiles whistleblower Jim Bill Lynn for the American Prospect, Christopher Hayes tackles Wal-Mart's union busting for In These Times, Joshua Holland investigates Wal-Mart's China Price for Alternet, Liza Featherstone sniffs out the Wal-Mart Money Trail in The Nation, and Greg LeRoy reveals the Wal-Mart Tax for Alternet.

To support Wal-Mart or to NOT support Wal-Mart? Has Wal-Mart affected your community directly? I've lived in small towns with sky rocketing unemployment that embraced Wal-Mart royally for the jobs it brought. But it later leads to the closing of many home grown stores. Then there's the ties between the Democrats and Wal-Mart. Therein lies the dichotomy.

[via Wal-Mart The Movie Blog]

No Direction Home: Bob Dylan On TV in the US tonight and tomorrow night - (PBS)

For the first time, The Bob Dylan Archives has made available rare treasures from its film, tape and stills collection, including footage from Murray Lerner's film Festival documenting performances at the 1963, 1964 and 1965 Newport Folk Festivals, previously unreleased outtakes from D.A. Pennebaker's famed 1967 documentary Don't Look Back, and interviews with Allen Ginsberg, Pete Seeger, Joan Baez, Maria Muldaur, and many others. In anticipation of the film, members of Dylan's worldwide community of fans also contributed rarities from their own collections.

With this rare footage from his archives and from fans, count me in.

Bob Dylan

Link

9/26/05-Edited To Add--DO NOT MISS
Being a Dylan fan enables me to hear one of his songs and recall the specific year it came out, what album it was on, the chords it's played in, and where you first sang it or learned to play it on the guitar.

Having watched, read, and listened to most anything Bob Dylan's ever done, Part 1 of this PBS special had much I'd never seen before. What immediately struck my husband and I first was the depth and candor in which Dylan spoke as if it were just him and you chatting one on one.

When word prophet Allen Ginsberg returned from India to hear Hard Rain for the first time, he wept. It was the time of passing the torch from one generation of poets and bohemians to the new era of songwriters and protest singers. In that context I remembered myself in teenage years discovering who I was, and seeking guidance from the poets that were prophets, and the singers who were worshipped.

In The Realms Of The Unreal is a celebration of the power of individual creativity. Henry Darger (1892-1973) is in many respects the prototypical "outsider" artist: a recluse who created a startling imaginary world in his rented room, unbeknownst to anyone but himself. In 1973, at a Catholic poor house in Chicago, an 81-year-old retired janitor quietly died. Just months earlier, he had moved from the rented room where he had lived for over 40 years. When his landlords, Nathan and Kiyoko Lerner, cleaned out the clutter room, they discovered paintings: hundreds of brilliant watercolors, some over 10 feet long. The images were disturbing and mysteriously beautiful: little girls frolicking under stormy skies, little girls fighting soldiers, little girls being rescued by fantastic winged creatures. In many images, the girls were drawn naked, with penises.

The landlords soon found the other half of Darger’s life’s work, perhaps the longest novel ever written: the more than 15,000 page, single-spaced typed In the Realms of the Unreal, an epic story of the virtuous Vivian girls and their religious war against the evil Glandelinian army. For most of his life, Henry Darger, a recluse whom others called "Crazy", had lived in this rich fantasy world. It was a world he had kept to himself.

Today, Henry Darger is considered to be one of America’s foremost outsider artists: an untaught artist working in isolation from the commercial or public eye. IN THE REALMS OF THE UNREAL, an adventurous documentary feature, explores the fantastic vision and shadowy life of this enigmatic artist. trailer; Artwork

via: true names

Thompson lights a Dunhill Blue and steadily rocks back and forth, though he’s not sitting in a rocking chair. Forget the dark legends of life at his Woody Creek compound outside of Aspen, Colorado, or the drug, booze and guns shenanigans on and off his property. Tonight he’s the Dalai Lama of fear and loathing... more »

Lollipops with loose wrappers containing 64% heroin hydrochloride were recently seized at LaGuardia by the DEA. more »

Ten years after reacquiring the trademark to Moog Music, the company that four decades ago changed the course of rock music, Moog is the subject of a documentary, "Moog," in competition at the Asheville Film Festival.. Moog has lived in Asheville since 1978. more »

Go hassle talk to A.L.I.C.E. - The Artifial Linguistic Internet Computer Entity.

Look on the bright side. And while you're doing that, I'll be over here looking through your stuff.

Ecology experts are predicting better than average fall color in the Great Smoky Mountains near Asheville, N.C. The area boasts one of the most diverse range of microclimates and tree species. Elevations range from 1,500 feet in the valleys to 6,684 feet at Mt. Mitchell, the highest peak east of the Mississippi River. There's also the famous 6,030-foot peak of "Cold Mountain," made famous in the book and movie. Experts are predicting a promising harvest of color, based on late summer weather patterns. Yellow birches, red sourwoods, red to yellow maples, yellow pin cherries yellow poplars will show first. [more »]

Welcome to Spread Firefox. You are our marketing department. Download this very small, additional browser and try it for yourself. See why many have switched.
(via - fusion anomalog)

GOP documentary, "Celsius 41.11," is a reference to the temperature at which the human brain begins to die from exposure to heat -- or, in this case, what the filmmakers regard as overheated left-wing rhetoric. 'T'would be funny if 't'weren't so sad. Potential movie-goers may find the "Undies" Link below helpful. [more »]

Undies for those afflicted with cranial-rectal-inversion, more commonly known as head-up-your-asstitis. (Link - safe for work)

Easy to make favicon from a pic you have on your hard drive or website.
(Link via: fishbucket)

{Web Trail}
solipsistic
The Zero Boss
The Daily Bleed

{Quote For Today}
Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter. ~Martin Luther King, Jr.

{Weekend Web Trail}
Unbrand America time again July 4th. Link

Grey Lodge Occult Review, Issue 11

"Dylan's Visions of Sin", new book by Christopher Ricks, the great British literary critic and newly elected Oxford Professor of Poetry, is reviewed in Sunday's NYT. Looks to be pretty academic, cerebral. Link

World Naked Bike Ride in Asheville was a big success with approximately 60 riders participating. A beautiful hot June day saw people lining the streets with cameras at the ready and the police gave the riders an univited escort in their cars and on their bikes. With the exception of two topless ladies, some clothes stayed on in the beginning, and halfway thru began peeling off. More riders joined the procession at different junctions and by the end of the ride, many were freely riding in the breeze with strategically placed foilage or body paint. Here are just a few Asheville pics; still for hoping more to show up.

Business as usual for Robert Smith and the Cure? Not at all. Link

DIG! is the feature-length documentary shot over seven years about musicians Anton Newcombe, leader of the Brian Jonestown Massacre, and Courtney Taylor, head of the Dandy Warhols. Getting great reviews and currently doing the Film Festival circuit; scheduled to go wide Oct 1.

Eddie Van Halen on upcoming tour, cancer & being a father. Link

And your fun links of the day: 9 Reasons Not To Drink and Twang The Monkey.

Too many freaks, not enough circuses.
...still editing...

» After being famously dropped by Disney, Michael Moore's award-winning documentary Fahrenheit 9/11 has finally secured US distribution and will hit American cinemas on June 25. Moore's film, which recently won the Palme d'Or at the Cannes film festival, criticises President George Bush's response to the Sept 11 2001 terrorist attacks and connects the Bush family with Osama bin Laden's. Great news. He couldn't have written a better ending to this distribution story.
more »

» He has 12 confirmed kills. One for every month he's been here. But, he says, it's not unusual for his unit, Bravo 1-36 of the 1st Armored Division, which has been deployed in Iraq longer than any other division. Journalist Kevin Sites interviews soldier.
more »

School's in. Drive carefully. School's out. Drive carefully. When do we get to be reckless out there?

Charlie Is My Darling
Shot in Belfast and Dublin over the space of three days during the Rolling Stones' 1965 Irish tour 'Charlie Is My Darling' enjoys cult status as the great missing Stones documentary and gets three rare screenings during Triptych courtesy of the Stones once upon a time svengali in chief Andrew Loog Oldham.

Among the memorable fly on the wall scenes captured on film are Mick and Keef drunkenly trying out their Elvis impersonations and Brian Jones prophetically reflecting on his lack of a future with the band he had founded while, the songs featured on the soundtrack include 'Get Off Of My Cloud', 'Heart Of Stone', 'Play With Fire' and 'Satisfaction'. Sure would love to see this documentary. [more...]

::: ::: ::: ::: ::: ::: ::: ::: ::: :::

Fresh hope for Suu Kyi's release. Burma's opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi could be freed from house arrest within a few days, according to her party chairman, Aung Shwe. Burman's first democratically elected President has been under house arrest by the military strongmen who rule Burma. They have made the country a global byword for backwardness and brutality. Absolutely phenomenal being the first democratically elected president in Burma. Outstanding that the president is a woman. Soon after elected, the ruling junta arrested her and the world waits for her release. Some think it may be soon this time. Many nations have boycotted Burma and their products.

::: ::: ::: ::: ::: ::: ::: ::: ::: :::

Happy Thursday! $1.77 a gallon for Regular gas this morning. Highest I've ever paid. And, while still in shock, I almost hit another deer this morning on the highway. He was grazing on the grass right beside the asphalt.