Sundays In Silesia

Spending four days traveling around Poland proved to be more exciting than I could have predicted.

The first two days, in Zakopane, were relatively uneventful affairs filled with cheese, beer, lamb and rain. Sofia, the woman whose home Marcin and I stayed in, was very nice and she made sure to stuff me full of food the first opportunity she got. Zakopane is in the Tatra mountains, and close to the border with Slovakia. Having exhausted the possibilities for photographing mountains and eating cheese, Marcin decided we'd go on a beer run in Slovakia.

In Slovakia we bought beer. I got yelled at by the angry gas station man for photographing his gas station, and I got waved at by the happy farmer. The happy farmer was particularly exciting since hardly anyone in Central Europe smiles much (with the exception a few of the guys at Platige). I don't smile much, either, so it must be genetic. Unfortunately, my photo of the happy farmer is pretty bad -- as it was taken just as we were narrowly avoiding a traffic accident, jostling me and causing a blurry and oddly framed image.

Sunday we went to Oświęcim, and to the Auschwitz and Birkenau concentration camps. The museum at Auschwitz is quite extensive, and both impressive and depressing in its scope. A group of Israelis was visiting the site, which I can only imagine was a terribly emotional moment for them. My (Polish Catholic) grandparents were in labor camps in Germany during WWII, and while all Poles suffered greatly during the Nazi occupation (the museum addresses this), Jewish citizens (of all the occupied territories) suffered the worst. So what I was feeling, the Israeli visitors must have been feeling even more deeply. For many in Central and Eastern Europe, it seems that Jews are now considered mythical creatures from the past, so I felt the presence of the Israeli group was a good reminder for the other visitors that there are indeed Jewish people alive today.

We then spent the rest of our Sunday in Silesia, hitting Katowice, Bytom, Ruda Slonska, and Gliwicia. We took some nice photos of the Huta Katowice steelworks from a neighboring hillside, and of some interesting looking old factories in Bytom. My hotel in Gliwicia was near a railway siding, which was both interesting to observe and not very conducive to sleeping.

Monday we went to Częstochowa, where I saw the famous Black Madonna painting presiding above a morning Mass. The reliquary that was open to the public had other fabulous pieces of art (paintings and metalworks, mainly), and the museum had lots of interesting artifacts from the Jasna Góra monastery's political and military history -- including the repulsion of the Swedish army in 1655 during The Deluge).

In the Łódź district we stopped to take photos of the Bełchatów Power Station. This resulted in our being detained by the guards of the plant, after we stopped to take some photos near one of the coal feeder conveyor belts and Marcin asked one of the workers if it would be ok with him. During our nearly an hour spent at the guard offices, one of the guards proceeded to tell us pretty much everything a terrorist could want to know about the plant -- including telling us which photo had the sensitive municipal power feeder line that I'd inadvertently snapped a picture of (and wouldn't have known what it was without his info). So, had we been terrorists, we'd have gotten more info than we ever hoped for. Of course, as Bruce Schneier points out, terrorists don't generally take photos (and if they did, they would not likely stop and ask the workers for permission).

Police were brought in, and we were taken to the station. For the most part, the Police thought the whole situation was a waste of their time. Marcin pointed out that we were movie makers taking reference photos, and the chief of police believed him but said he was being pressured by the guards to do something. He decided he'd have one of the younger cops take a report. The police were mostly quite nice. The officer assigned to our "case" took our statement and (at the request of the head of the factory guards, who called the station) checked out Marcin's laptop to see what other photos we had. Afterwards, he gave us a map to a location where we could take photos of the power plant without any problems. Clearly he didn't think we were much of a terrorist threat. Neither the factory guards nor the police made me delete the photos that had caused such consternation, and once we were released we were thus free to take hundreds more photos of the facility.

A fine example of the absurd, time-and-money-wasting, feel-good nonsense that Bruce Schneier calls "security theater." At least in this case the police knew their time was being wasted, and were all too happy to have the affair be over and done with as quickly as possible. Maybe Polish police have a more realistic perspective on the true nature of crime and terrorism than their paranoid American counterparts, like the Rodeo Police who illegally drove me out of town (literally, with a squad car less than 10 feet off my bumper until I left the city limits) after I took photos of the refinery in town while standing on a public street.

MeTV

I find it very strange to see and hear myself speak in a video interview. Gazeta.pl was one of four that interviewed me as a Pixar employee who had worked on WALL-E, and the video piece they put together from it for their website is actually fairly long. It is linked here, from the Platige community blog. Frankly, I can barely bring myself to watch it. Talking slowly and deliberately so as to (a) make it easier on the translators, and (b) not say anything Pixar would be embarrassed by, to me I sound like a dimwit when the English audio cuts through. The Polish announcer reading the translation (or whatever it is he's saying) has a much more melodious and focused delivery. It seems I haven't taken quite enough improv classes, so I suppose I should start going back to them. I wonder if people who are interviewed regularly, such as politicians and stars, get accustomed to seeing and hearing themselves on video (or even learn to enjoy it), or if it's always more of a disturbing "weird, there's an android on TV that looks just like me" kind of feeling?

The Days of Pickles, Coldcuts And Languages

One thing about traveling in Poland -- I keep having to defend American food, particularly American meat, to my Polish friends. Indeed, you find a greater variety of coldcuts in regular supermarkets and restaurants in Poland, and most of them are quite good. Personally, I prefer contintental breakfast, with its ham, rolls, hard-boiled eggs, mueseli, yogurt, and pickles (and in Poland, pickled mushrooms). But what many casual visitors to the U.S. don't realize is that it is possible to recreate this, and many other European treats, if one knows where to look for the ingredients. Higher-end supermarkets, artisanal cheese and meat shops, and specialized ethnic grocery stores abound in places like San Francisco, New York and Los Angeles. Without a local guide who appreciates good food, one may easily wind up only going to T.G.I. Fridays and Von's and having an American food experience that fulfills all the expectations of greasy medocrity that most Europeans have of our food. However, with an American friend who likes good food, it is quite possible to find all manner of delicious items in the U.S., and not only American local items, but foods from Europe, Asia, South America and Africa as well. I don't think anyone really believes me, so I'll have to prove it when they visit the U.S.

Another thing about traveling to Poland is it gives me an opportunity to lament the fact that my mother didn't teach me Polish. It is a difficult language to learn, and it is not coming along very well for me. Believe it or not, words like "Szczecin" (a place name) and "Wyindywidualizowaliśmy" (looks like some form of a word related to "individualism") can actually be pronounced by some people. With seven noun cases and three genders, Polish is also vexing because words change out from under me at all times. As a native English speaker I'm not accustomed to, for example, grammatical variations on my own name.

But I also am reminded of how difficult English is for people who weren't born into it. While English isn't as grammatically complex as Polish, it has just as many irregularities and a vast vocabulary. Homonyms seem to be particularly distressig to non-native English speakers, but drifting phonetics also causes trouble -- such as why does through sound like threw, but trough sounds like off? My friend Marcin was also quizzing me about our various past constructions, such as "has been driving" vs. "drove." The idea that the former emphasizes the past process, where as the latter emphasizes the past accomplishment seemed to make sense to him, but if a native speaker hadn't given this explanation I am not sure it would have ever made sense.

It seems the most difficult languages are the ones that are farthest from your own. English and Polish are not very close at all, and mutual understanding is quite a laborious pursuit. Fortunately, the language of pickles, ham and beer is nearly universal.

Press The Meat

Today I had my first experience of being on a press junket. Because the Polish distributor got word that a member of the WALL-E crew would be in town, I was asked to give interviews about the film. Disney publicity liked this idea, and thus it came to pass. Fortunately, most of the questions were about what a great company Pixar is and what the job of a Technical Director entails. I knew how to answer those questions quite well.

Unfortunately, once the interviews are edited and translated, who knows what the Polish people will think I said -- but I guess that is the nature of interviews, especially for foreign-language press. You do your best in the room with the journalists, and hope that they are respectful and responsible with your words when they start editing.

It is a bit of an odd feeling knowing that in a few days millions of people will believe I said something which may or may not resemble what I actually said. The feeling is somewhat similar to when I wrote a few articles for the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, which were translated into German before publication, except that in that case I had a written record of what I had given the FAZ. In this case, I have no recourse but to trust the journalists (and they were all very nice folks) to do right by my words.

Despite being fairly exhausting, it was much more enjoyable than I had expected. Perhaps it wouldn't have been at all enjoyable if I had been discussing with fellow native English speakers anything more controversial than my experiences working on the latest film from the world's most beloved animation studio. By that measure, I suppose I couldn't have asked for a better first major press experience.

Greetings from Sunny Warsaw

While perhaps the title of this post seems like a joke to some, and it happens to be raining during the evening as I write this, Warsaw was indeed quite sunny all day today. In fact, it was almost Los Angeles hot here today.

I spent the day with Marcin, Adam and Olga tooling around Warsaw. The Warsaw Uprising Museum seems twice as large as it was when I last visited two years ago. The most interesting part of the museum is finding out about the people and their feats, but there is also military hardware to peruse (including a Liberator bomber hanging from the ceiling of a newer section). A recent purchase of letters with stamps minted during the rising itself was an especially interesting new curatorial find. During the uprising, a post office and newspaper was set up specifically to spread news during the fighting. It is an amazing testament to the drive for self-determination amongst Varsovians during that period.

We also went to a cemetery where soldiers, prominent citizens, and people who were persecuted by the Soviets in Siberia are buried, which was very interesting in its juxtapositions, such as being the home of both the Communist General Secretary Gomulka and a spy who turned over Warsaw Pact documents to the CIA named Kaminski. Many units of Armia Krajowa soldiers are buried there, as well as units from the 1920 Polish-Soviet war, and the January Uprising of 1863.
Beside them may lie victims of Soviet deportations to Siberia (those who returned to die at home, that is), as well as loyal Communists and pro-Soviet military units. Quite a lot of history is reflected in the graves in that cemetery.

Finally we went to the Praga district, pretty much the only place in Warsaw where there are pre-WWII buildings. The highlight, for me, was a disused Vodka factory that is slowly being converted into a mall for boutique shops and a cinema. Fortunately, for now, it is still mostly disused and therefore still interesting to look at.

Many of the oldest residential buildings in the district are very run-down, victims of a deliberate Soviet policy of moving the very poor into this district, and running out artists and intellectuals. Artists have begun to return, which is a good sign, but so have yuppies and now there are plenty of restaurants and boutiques in Praga that neither the desperate poor, working class, nor artists can afford to go to. Poland's economic modernization is still emergent, and the government is struggling to adapt a German model of quality social services but with a robust private sector. It is a work in progress.

(Note: I will update this post with photos when I get a chance to upload them. The connection in this hotel is very slow.)

The Lights Flickr As They Fade

I'm finally making good on a promise to myself to show my photo work outside my photo club (which I've been absent from for a long time) and circle of friends, and to try to do more with it in terms of both artistic growth and more professional exhibition venues.

I'm still not certain what I think of Flickr as a service (I don't like their un-customizable display interface, but there are some good things about them, like having an API, and the community aspect of groups), but I've decided to make use of it until I find something better or roll my own for my photo portfolio at bugaj.com website that I keep stalling on re-launching. I am, however, enjoying being able to organize and present my photos on-line.

My next step is to locate a good printer to work with, so I can create a portfolio and at least two full-scale works to present to galleries and nonprofits for show consideration. Thus far I've had no luck whatsoever finding a printer who does archival quality digital printing (preferably lightjet, but perhaps giclee) onto a vellum, frosted/translucent film, or a similar material. (If you know of a place, let me know.)

In my Flickr travels, I also found Diego Bauducco's Picto Browser, which lets you displa Flickr images in a Flash app for embedding in a blog post or other site. It's simple, yet effective. Here is my "atmospheric" images set from Flickr in Picto Browser (if you're using NoScript, you need to allow db798.com to have script access):

This set of images encompasses both some of my semi-abstract very soft focus work, as well as nice environmental atmospheric effects. Unless otherwise noted, all these effects are in-camera using one or more of: environmental atmospherics, defocus, and slow shutter + slight motion (but generally not enough to be a "motion" shot). It's more of an emotional / mood description than a technical one, anyway, but several of my favorite shots are in that group.

New Favorite Blog: Life Reboot

www.lifereboot.com/

Life Reboot is all about the how and why of starting over (in a career, mainly). It's well written, and inspiring. I just discovered it recently, and I find myself reading it almost as much as I read www.johnaugust.com. If you have ever changed careers, or are thinking of it -- especially if you're going or trying to go from a tech support job to something more interesting -- Life Reboot is a very compelling read.

Happy 4th of July

Happy Indepdendence Day, fellow Americans. Here's to some day getting our country back to our "long national nightmare of peace and prosperity," to a time where being an American abroad meant being a beacon of freedom and a symbol of self reliance rather than a harbinger of war and messenger of corruption, to those times -- mythical in proportion, and too often unequal in application, but still worth believing in if it allows us to ever live up to those national ideals -- when America was the good guy, the one willing to saunter up to Hitler and sock him in the jaw.

Every day the news is full of stories about economic crisis, a quagmire in Iraq, plans for a new quagmire in Iran, anti-American protests, corruption, political hypocracies, economic disparities, curtailing of civil rights, Chinese ascendency and American decline. Bloated, lazy spendthrifts who have followed the flock away from hard work and self-betterment and into the world of downing big gulps in front of big TVs are celebrated as the real face of proletarian America, while anorexic mental defectives parade their unclothed vaginas in the popular press and are heralded as our new elite. Jesus junkies impede our nation's scientific progress at every chance they get, and our Gini Index is one of the worst in the post-industrialized world as our rich get richer and our middle class gets scared into complacency by speculator-driven economic crises. As a nation, our history also pulls us down as much as it lifts us up. We've still never formally apologized or made reparations to the Native peoples, and the legacy of slavery still tugs at us to this day. There's a lot of work to do, and often it seems like our faddish predelictions and short attention spans are such that we'll never actually get it done.

However, beneath all that there are still people who represent the best of the American character, and perhaps someday America will live up to its own ideals. So, on this 4th of July, celebrate the best of what we can become if we put our minds to it, because we owe it to ourselves to make a go of it.

The Debate

The video I couldn't mention by name in a previous post is now able to be seen. It's called The Debate, and it was absolutely hilarious to me and the folks who helped me make it (well, at least a couple of them) when it was made. However, it's already outdated. I've therefore put it to use as the first substantial "war stories" posting over at The Indie Auteur.

Check Out My Sister's Theater Troupe

Bridging That Gap is a blog by the members of the Theater Why Not? troupe, of which my sister Katrina is the Artistic Director.

Theater Why Not?
Katharine, Troels, Katrina, Ravi

I've seen her work in-person in New York, read her writings, and discussed some of her performances with her. She's very good. I am very picky about theater performances (and known to walk out on boring ones), and simply seeing my sister isn't enough to make me like one -- so when I say her work is interesting and compelling, I mean it. So, if you happen to be in Canada, Ireland, or one of the other places they're showing up to perform (check the blog) then go check them out.

The Must-See Film of 2008

Is it WALL-E?
Well, yes, do go see that. And The Dark Knight, too. Definitely see WALL-E and The Dark Knight. And, if you haven't already seen Iron Man, that's worth a gander, also. I'm sure there will be some excellent dramas and Indie films coming down the transom as well, and perhaps a few interesting documentaries. Yes, all that is great stuff.

But what is the hidden gem must see film of the year?

The title alone is worth the admission. It is the Russian action comedy called:

Hitler Kaput!

This trailer is hilarious even if you have no idea what anyone is saying:

The mixture of stupid comedy and the offensive made ridiculous through absurdity has worked well in the past with films like Top Secret! (an obvious precedent for Hitler Kaput!) and Blazing Saddles (and, of course, The Producers), so here's hoping that Hitler Kaput! manages to be as good as the best of its predecessors.

Donate to a "Help Todd Blair" Event

Anu and I have signed up to sponsor a gear for The Wall, a sculptural installation being created to benefit our dear friend Todd Blair.

As some of you know, Todd was involved in an accident involving a large metal structure falling on him after a performance in Amsterdam last September. He suffered a traumatic brain injury (TBI) and his recovery time is going to be long and unpredictable. Todd and his wife Alex need help to survive financially through this next chapter of their recovery.

Todd was Anu's co-Associate Producer on ZeroOne 2006, and over the five months they worked together and the two years since they have developed a close friendship and a strong professional relationship. Stephan has known Todd through SRL for quite a while. Todd is a great guy, and a good friend, and we are doing everything we can to help his doctors and Alex nurse him back to health.

Alex has been tireless in her efforts to bring about his recovery, staying by his side constantly and working closely with his doctors and physical therapists to develop and implement challenging treatments over the last six months.

We believe in Todd's ability to make a full recovery, but right now he is a long, long way from that. Todd and Alex need financial support to make it through to that day, which may be a year or more away. It's a tough row to hoe and they need ongoing support.

We are reaching out to the people closest to us and asking that you contribute toward our beloved friend's recovery. Every little bit is needed -- even $10 or $20 is helpful. We have supported various folks' causes over the years, including charity marathons and cycling events, organization benefits, and similar "help a friend" type of causes. Now, we hope, you can pitch-in to help us out.

We are committed to raising $500-$1000 (or more!). Every little bit helps, and we cannot think of a person more deserving of kindness than Todd, whose own kindness and compassion is legendary here in the Bay Area and throughout his international network of friends and collaborators.

Donations can be made via PayPal through our fiscal sponsor, The Luggage Store, and are 100% tax deductible thanks to their fiscal sponsorship.

It is easy to donate. Please indicate via either method that you are contributing to the Gear sponsored by Anu Vikram & Stephan Bugaj, and email me at svbugaj@gmail.com to let me know you have done so so we can keep track.

Pay by PayPal at: http://srl.org/shows/events/toddwall/wall.html

If you need to send a check, e-mail me and I'll get info to you on how to do that.

The unveiling of The Wall will be July 20th (please save the date!)

Rhythmix Cultural Art Center
2513 Blanding Ave
Alameda CA 94501
3:00 - 9:00 pm

Details about Todd, the accident and his progress are here: http://toddblair.wordpress.com

Please feel free to contact Anu or I if you have any questions about Todd, the event or how else you might help.

Thanks so much!

Cool (I hope) New Blog, Stupid Old Hosting Company

I've just launched my new filmmaking blog.

I had always intended to have how-to and craft sort of stuff separate from this blog, and now that site is launched.

However, Yahoo! is just about the worst hosting situation I've encountered. I've submitted three help requests and received zero answers (including one request using their suggested candy-colored, headache-inducing community help system).

If you go to www.indieauteur.com you get a different version of the page than if you go to www.indieauteur.com/blog (they're supposed to be the same). At first I thought it was always older than the /blog one, but actually they alternate between which is older and which is current. There is no apparent way to fix this (I tried deleting and recreating the site -- entirely from scratch -- three times, and it persists).

Despite my utter lack of enthusiasm for system administration tasks these days, my current plan is to try to install Word Press myself on the colocated host that bugaj.com lives on. But, if you know of a better pre-installed Word Press host, feel free to mention it in the comments.

Motherfuckin' Fuck

R.I.P. George Carlin

Awesome, offensive, say-it-like-it-is comic and social commentator George Carlin, heir to the throne of Lenny Bruce, passed away today. It's a fuckin' tragedy, that's what it is.

"We're all fucked. It's important to remember that." -- George Carlin

As the reigning king of bitterly sarcastic cynics, Carlin's bullshit detector was always ferreting-out the world's idiocies and hypocracies for ridicule. Like Mark Twain before him, though, Carlin knew that he himself was one of the flawed morons we call humanity. This willingness to stand amongst the thronging crowd and observe its foibles from within are what made his acerbic wit all the more honest, biting, and incisive.

"The very existence of flame-throwers proves that some time, somewhere, someone said to themselves, You know, I want to set those people over there on fire, but I'm just not close enough to get the job done." -- George Carlin

As with Bukowski, George Carlin was an inspiration for all drunken, misanthropic atheists held back by a world overrun with the foolishly optimistic. Carlin made people laugh in order to make them think, to question assumptions, to not just take consensus reality at face value. He didn't purport to have all the answers, but he asked a lot of hilarious questions which cut to the quick many of our most foolish sacred cows. He will be missed.

"Death is caused by swallowing small amounts of saliva over a long period of time." -- George Carlin

Update: Anu pointed me at a really interesting, extensive George Carlin interview, seemingly the last one he ever did. The Onion AV Club interview is decent, Salon did two interviews with him, and a fan page has a reprint of a vintage Playboy interview that is quite interesting.

Cats: All Your Base Are Belong To Us!

When I am angry or depressed, one of the things that most helps me get back into a more productive mindset is our five cats. I've pretty much always had cats, and always will. In other words, all my base are belong to Cats.

My mother adopted (I prefer the term "swindled") my last two cats away from me, Ragnarok and Thelema, when we moved out of New York (she claimed she was going to watch them until I got settled-in back in California, then guilt tripped me into letting her keep her "grandcats"). Prior to Ragnarok and Thelema, I had cats named William Gibson Nyarlathotep Haynes (Gibby), Fuzzbass, Matey, Molly (and her eight kittens, who were born on top of me as I slept, and who all died before I could name them, tragically), and Daisy (people who don't know me very well don't realize that I'm also a huge fan of flowers).

I miss all my previous cats, deceased or living with relatives, but thankfully Anu and I now have five wonderful cats to help keep us company. Originally, when we married, I thought we wouldn't be able to have cats, because Anu was allergic. I planned to secretly keep cats, buying them a fancy home in the country like an investment banker's mistress. However, after introducing her to cats (she'd had only dogs as a kid), she decided to try to get treatment for her allergies. Fortunately, it worked.

To keep up with all the latest Internet memes of 1998, I present the latest of my traditional lame Net Nerd postings of "pictures of my cats." Like record and comic book collection lists, absolutely nobody cares about pictures of other peoples' cats -- except the Japanese, preteen girls, frumpy female clerical workers, Cat Fancy subscribers, and all manner of other people like myself who regularly visit sites like Kittenwar, Cute Overload, Cats In Sinks, Lolcats, (the sometimes mean) Stuff on my Cat, both competing Cute Cats, etc.

People who aren't familiar with cats often don't believe that our cats are capable of affection, enjoy the company of other cats, or have distinct personalities. Unfortunately, these myths about cats continue, even though cats are now the most numerous pet in the US. Cats are in fact quite capable of affection, and are not destructive or aloof if properly nurtured and cared for. Most types of cats do exhibit cooperative group behavior in the wild, though males will indeed fight over females (a behavior that is reduced by spaying and neutering, though my experience has also borne out the wisdom of the folks who say the most harmonious multi-cat households are all-male ones). Properly cared for cats are affectionate and well behaved, though they do indeed not like to be forced into a behavior, and will resist doing so. Badly behaved cats are almost always the result of bad cat owner behavior.

Here, then, are our well behaved cats and a brief description of their individual personalities:

Cthulhu

Cthulhu is technically our first cat, though Sim actually made it into the house first. We adopted him privately, from friends at work. His name comes from H.P. Lovecraft's Cthulhu mythos, as do all our black cats' names. In those mythos, Cthulhu reigns as the "great priest" of the Great Old Ones, waiting to awake and devour the universe. Our Cthulhu is nearly blind, with some kind of cataracts on both his eyes. No vet has been able to tell us why (the theories range from losing a fight with another animal to some kind of congenital defect), but it doesn't effect his ability to jump on me, climb me like a tree, and snuggle (his favorite things). Cthulhu is an utter affection hound, and will sit on a lap indefinitely so long as you're paying attention to him and petting him. He'll chase other cats away to get lap time, and often makes rounds from lap-to-lap if several people are around. At 18lbs, his proclivity for jumping on my head and shoulders can be a bit dangerous, so I try to grab him and put him on my lap before he gets a chance to leap.

Narasimha, aka Sim

Sim, he of the Pyothorax story, was the first cat in our San Pablo home. He came from Berkeley Humane Society, and is our resident chatty, cantankerous cat. His name comes from Hindu mythology, which is how we name our orange cats. Narasimha is a half-man, half-lion incarnation of Vishnu who outwits the the demon Hiranyakashipu and destroys him. Narasimha is considered a "god" of protection. Our Narasimha frequently follows us around the house, and often meows. Apparently he has a lot to tell us, if only we'd pay attention. He's also an affection hound, and especially likes to be petted on our living room bean bag chair (his chair), and in our home office (his room). Sim is the only one of our cats who is calm enough to sit on my lap while I write (I try with Cthulhu, and about once a month, he calms down enough that he'll stop climbing me and just nap while I write). Sim has staked out a cardboard box in our garage as his box. Definitely our most territorial cat, when he's healthy he still loves playing with the other cats and they often all sleep in a big pile, so he's not ornery to the point of being antisocial.

Shub Nuggurath, aka Shub

Shub came to us at the same time as Yog, both from Tri-Valley Animal Rescue. They were originally to be adopted by our friend Mattbot, but his landlord balked. Shub's name comes from a character popular with Cthulhu aficionados, despite not being described very clearly in the stories (more so in the so-called "revision tales"). Our Shub is very shy and skittish, and peculiar in that his favorite time to be petted is while he's eating (in fact, he occasionally won't eat at all unless one of us pets him). His favorite activity is hiding somewhere and watching over us, and the other cats. He doesn't like snuggling very often, and when he does, usually not for very long. But, when he does want affection, he demands it by running around us, rubbing against us, and then flopping over and showing his belly.

Yog Sothoth, aka Yog

Yog, arriving on the same day and from the same place as Shub, is our resident space cadet. His name comes from an "Outer God," said to be coterminus with all time and space, existing outside our known universe. Our Yog was probably weaned too young, and likes to try to nurse from Cthulhu, even now that he's an adult, and also follows Cthulhu everywhere. Despite our constant efforts to provide a good home, good food, and preventative medical care for our cats, Yog also almost died once from illness (a blocked urinary tract). Fortunately, he seems to be fine now. Yog is skittish and easily confused, and often freaks out and runs away when you give him the attention he's just requested by nuzzling you and then flipping over to show his belly, or by jumping on your lap. Other times, though, he will sit still long enough to be quite sweet and loving, before a bug, cat fight or Cthulhu's presence distracts him. With his short attention span, though, he'll usually be back over for another round of petting before too long.

Manashthala, aka Ash

Ash was the most recent addition to our home, and he came to us because someone at work who fosters cats for Hopalong / Second Chance Animal Rescue e-mailed out his photo. I forwarded it to Anu, with a message saying that it had been a mistake for me to open the mail in the first place as we were now doomed to a fifth cat. She resisted mightily, for about an hour. In Hindu mythology Manashthala is the lion steed of Durga who helps her destroy the demon Mahishasura. Our Manashthala is a hyperactive ball of energy who perpetually bounces around playing with other cats, his own tail, cat toys, boxes, the laser pointer, and pretty much anything else. However, he doesn't destroy stuff that's not given to him as a toy. None of our cats do (Yog used to eat fabric but has stopped, and they all scratch the couch now and then, but it's covered and we don't really care much anyway). Ash rarely sits still long enough to be petted, but sometimes he'll cuddle up on Anu's lap for the duration of a movie. Like Shub, he prefers to be petted while on the floor, especially in the hallway. He also employs the nuzzle-and-show-belly technique, and enjoys trying to wake us up in the morning with rather incessant meowing (a problem we solved by putting an old quilt behind the bedroom door to block the sound).

If you made it this far, (a) you're a total cat nerd (welcome, brethren), or (b) you're one of those reading addicts who can't stop reading a piece once they start and now you know much more about our cats than you ever wanted to.

My Week of Chaos

The last week or so has sucked.

Really, the last two weeks have sucked, but this week a dollop of feces icing on little slab of hatecake. As the two or so regular readers of this blog already know: Anu lost her job. It was known that there were financial difficulties at the organization, but Anu had been working extremely hard to help make the place viable (see the HCA 08 Auction post below for one example), and was very excited to work with the incoming roster of artists that she and her colleague Holly Blake had organized for the following year. Since it seems non-profit arts organizations are unable to thrive in the current economic and political climate (Anu got laid off previously a couple years ago as the once venerable Richmond Art Center withered into poverty and irrelevance), perhaps the best thing for those interested in the arts to do is vote for Barack Obama. He is the only candidate with a sensible arts platform that explicitly addresses contemporary art, and his desire to curtail war spending and put that money back into the domestic economy is another potential boon for both for-profit and non-profit organizations.

As also mentioned below, one of our cats (Sim) nearly died. He developed a condition called Pyothorax which led to a long and expensive vet visit. It also led to us getting very little sleep, as we nursed him back to health. Today is the last day of his medication routine, thankfully. He is doing better now, but he's still too skinny and a bit lethargic (and he has ridiculous looking shaved spots on him, from IVs and the suction tube for removing the fluids from around his lungs -- which leaves him more vulnerable to the other cats, and thus quite irritable with them). It didn't help in dealing with the shock and disappointment of Anu losing her job to pile-on lack of sleep and worry about Sim (yes, he's "just a cat" -- but he's our cat and we love him).

Narasimha, aka "Sim"

It's also been a bit stressful at work. I'm finally learning something about our effects pipeline (which I've wanted to for a while), and have been doing modeling and set dressing as well. Shading has taken a back seat for a few weeks. I thoroughly enjoy learning new things and having new challenges, but doing it on the timeline and budget of a short film rather than a feature makes it a bit tense. My lead and manager are great guys, it's me who is putting the pressure on myself since I like to get things right, not merely completed, and I also like to feel like I'm working at an equal or greater pace as my peers -- which I'm not when I'm reading manuals and exploring new systems, but that time spent learning gets lost in the noise on a feature project.

Finally, I was supposed to be in Poland right now. However, due to a mistake I made, that is now unable to happen until July. I was very excited for the trip, and anxious to see friends, give a few presentations about my work (including a preview of the SIGGRAPH talk I'm giving this year with my fabulously named friend Max Planck), and have meetings with some folks. It was going to be a great trip, and I have been beating myself up about the dumb mistake that prevented it from happening (and at the last possible minute). I can't undo the mistake, but I hope my friend Marcin who organized the trip will forgive me for screwing it up, and I also hope that the folks I'm supposed to visit still find it worthwhile when I come in July.

There was some other nonsense as well, best forgotten about. All in all, I'd just as soon this last week hadn't happened. It's a bummer that life doesn't come with "save", "redo" and "undo" options (and a "healing brush" would also be quite keen). Many years of computing has warped my expectations of the ease with which stupidity can be ameliorated, causing a lot of cognitive dissonance not just in my own life, but in dealing in the corporate and political arena as well.

HCA 08 Auction

The 2008 Headlands Center for the Arts auction was Anu's second, last, and best auction for that organization. Thanks to her hard work, and that of her colleagues, it was quite a bit more successful than their best estimates had projected. Attendance was high, the food was excellent, and the atmosphere was lively.

Ed Gilbert and Anu

Having attended last year's auction as well, I can definitely say this one had better artworks on offer and a more energetic mood amongst the attendees. Even in the current economic climate, the compelling work resulted in a very high percentage of works selling compared to previous HCA auctions.

Owen Seitel introduces the live auction

A number of folks were there that I am friendly with (besides the Headlands Staff), including artists Fred Loomis and David Maisel; curators and gallerists Kimberly Johansson, Svea Vezzone, Jennifer McCabe, and Maria del Carmen Carrión; Lawrence Lohr and Emily from the excellent winery J. Lohr; and Headlands trustees Ed Gilbert and Owen Seitel.

Lawrence and Emily

Anu and Svea

Kimberly

Jennifer and Maria Del Carmen

As I did last year, I purchased some work, hoping to support Anu and her colleagues in their endeavors. She had done a great job with programming, and I was very excited to meet and continue to get to know past and future AIRs under her tenure such as pre-Headlands friends Phillip Robertson and Shahzad Ismaily, as well as David Maisel, Fred Loomis, Zak Smith, Ken Goldberg, Will Oldham, Mads Lynnerup, Ant Farm, NPR, and many others.

I managed to win three very nice works in the silent auction:

Kathy Aoki - "Right on Schedule"

Kathy Aoki's work, consisting of cutesy Japanese pop culture images in sometimes gritty, everyday scenes, is especially popular here in the San Francisco Bay Area. My nerdy love of Japanese pop culture and construction machinery made this piece quite a natural fit for me.

Lead Pencil Studio - An Intimate Momentum

Lead Pencil Studio are nationally renowned architects and artists Annie Han and Daniel Mihalyo. They are West Coast favorites, and there was a lot of twitter amongst some buyers after the closing of the silent auctions that they hadn't seen this work (hello, it's pretty hard to miss) and would have bid it up higher if they had. I found the intertwining of architectural elements with romantic figures to be oddly compelling, and enjoyed the piece on its own merits.

Seher Shah - Black Star Project (Cube 18)

I had been completely unfamiliar with Seher Shah's work prior to the auction, but Anu had seen her work at Miami Basel. Fortunately, Anu got a catalog of Shah's work at the Miami Basel show, because it is all quite excellent and I wouldn't have gotten to see it at all otherwise. Her use of either monochrome or muted color palettes, and intricate geometric detailing, often combined with interesting figurative elements, especially appeals to me. Unbeknownst to me at the time, this piece was my biggest "score" of the auction in terms of international reputation, and upon further researching her work I must say I am quite impressed with it. I'm glad to own one of her pieces.

Fred

What I didn't buy this year was a piece by my friend Fred Loomis -- I figured it was good to let someone else have a chance this time. That, and many other wonderful works that were featured this year went home with others, including a stunning piece by Matthew Cusick that I would have loved to have, but couldn't.

Matthew Cusick -- The Course of Empire (Mixmaster II)

However, this tale of a joyful, successful night ends tragically. Two business days after the most successful auction in the organization's history, Headlands Center for the Arts laid-off the artistic organizer of the event -- their Program Director, my lovely wife Anu. Her hard work, extensive connections, and great eye all contributed substantially to making this auction quite excellent (an obvious fact to anyone who had attended previous auctions, such as last year's, which happened before she had really settled-in to the job). Despite the better-than-expected returns on the auction, and an excellent (and financially net positive) programming season, financial reasons were cited for her termination. Apparently HCA is in direr financial straits than any of us had figured.

It is a shame that she will no longer be with the organization. The programming and artist roster she brought to HCA certainly piqued my interest in an institution I'd previously ignored, and I am rather difficult to please artistically. (You may think I'm biased, and to some extent I am. But Anu and I rely on each other for honest critique, so we don't cut any slack with regards to whether or not we think the other's creative efforts are engaging or not.) However, she will continue to curate, write, and otherwise engage the Bay Area (and national, and international) arts community so you'll continue to be able to attend her shows and programs -- only you'll have to do so at some other place(s).

Little Troubles In Big China

I just finished reading The Corpse Walker by Liao Yiwu. This collection of interviews with Chinese from the bottom heap of society, onto which Liao Yiwu had been flung by his government for being a dissident writer, is such a compelling read that despite coming home at eleven PM on average I barely managed to put it down each night, resulting in my getting about 4 hours of sleep a night for three nights.

The Corpse Walker by Liao Yiwu


The most compelling, and depressing, thing about The Corpse Walker is that each of these harrowing, Kafkaesque tales is true. Each interview reveals a litany of problems which may seem like small or distant problems individually (oddly, particularly to those interviewed), but which add up to a portrait of a society that badly needs real reform, not just an Olympian whitewash. Their little troubles add up to a big problem for Chinese society. Many of the interviewees have resigned themselves to matter-of-fact remembrances of various individual incidents which, to comfortable westerners such as myself, would seem crushing in their own right. Death and privation are discussed and written about in a tone that may seem disturbingly perfunctory to Westerners, but for these people who have experienced so much misery, resignation seems to be the only coping mechanism many of them have left. Most of those who ultimately succumb at all to any admission of their despair, frustration and anger only do so after recounting long stories of repeated abuse, and lives wasted by The Party on misguided ideological crusades.

Liao's status as a pariah gave him first hand access to other, usually less politically motivated pariahs in Chinese society. He has given these people their voice, and it is not always one which will find sympathetic ears in the West. It seems that his purpose in writing this book was both to give ordinary Chinese who aren't participating in the "economic miracle" a platform, and at the same time to put the lie to the global claims that China is a reformed, modern society whose leadership is worthy of praise, even coddling. The picture of China from Mr. Liao's view is quite different. Perhaps tales of The Cultural Revolution and The Great Leap Forward with their utterly devastating effects seem like relics of the past, but in this book you will hear not only of the impact those policies had at the time, but the legacies that still exist in China today. People destroyed by those policies are being forgotten all over again, and at the same time the government still detains people like Mr. Liao. The policies may be somewhat less brutal since Mao, but the underlying theories remain the same: power for the powerful, a dab of hope for those who toe the line, and little left for anyone else.

Human Rights Watch has this to say about the author's backgroud: "Liao Yiwu (China), poet, novelist, film scriptwriter, has been arrested repeatedly over the past fourteen years. He was first arrested in March 1990 while working on a movie about the government´s persecution of persons involved in the June 4th Movement. Over the next four years, he was frequently confined to detention centers and prisons where he was subjected to abusive treatment, once being handcuffed for twenty-three consecutive days causing abscesses in his armpits. He tried to commit suicide twice. In October 1995, police searched his home, confiscated his writings, and held him under house arrest for twenty days. In September 1998, he was arrested because he compiled The Underground Poems of the Seventies in China. The book´s publishers were dismissed from their posts. In January 2001, the publisher of his latest book, Voice From the Lowest Rung of the Society, was ordered to recall copies that were already in the stores. Voice From the Lowest Rung of the Society was then published in Taiwan. In December 2002, Liao Yiwu was detained again after he posted his writings on the Internet and signed a petition to the 16th Party Congress."

Given his status, Mr. Liao had insider access to prisoners (political and otherwise), beggars, and others in Chinese society that had he not fallen from grace with his government, he would probably have never even noticed. The stories he relays are of desperate people trampled by the marche of progress as their country become prosperous either without them, or worse, at their expense. China, in the eyes of Mr. Liao and many of the people he interviews, is a place where life is cheap. The survivors of The Cultural Revolution are a "wasted" generation, malnurtured and discarded. Poor and dissident Chinese of today are little better off. Liao is not always sympathetic to his interviewees, and his stating so often leads to even more revealing responses -- particularly in the cases of unrepentant abusers such as the Human Trafficker who defends the practices of kidnapping and rape, and the former Red Guard who defends torture, murder and the annihilation of China's historical treasures.

The Corpse Walker is a fascinating look at a country that has garnered a lot of attention lately. While you may not find the picture of China that Mr. Liao paints to be very appealing, it is one of the realities of his society and without people like him to remind the world of this fact, there will never be any hope of changing the reality of China to better conform to the public relations image. The only disappointing thing about the book is that there are two other volumes as yet untranslated, a deficiency I hope will be rectified in the not-too-distant future.

Busy as a Bee

I've been quite busy. In addition to my day job I was busy rewriting and sending a feature script called "Welcome To Akron" to a wide variety of contests, fellowships, agents and managers. I've also been taking an advanced cinematography class, working on a new feature script, brainstorming ideas and writing treatments for a pitches to an interested producing partner, doing some event photography (which I don't really like doing, but it was a favor), and working on two short films. One of the shorts is a "making of" documentary for another short film (this weekend I think I finally re-focused on the idea that "cracked" the making of project in terms of making it not be as boring as most other making of docs), and the other is the next installment of a Noir comedy serial that I've developed with my friends Bill Zahn and Jason Topolski (and am creating with help from a whole bunch of friends). Here are a couple production stills:

Me and Bill Zahn, my directing and writing partner, on location trying to figure out
what the heck to do about the zillion production problems that cropped-up
in that grove of trees (the smiles came after we accepted compromise).

Jason Topolski, our star, looking noir as all get-out.

However, we won't be setting-up the site and releasing the first webisode until some time later this year. The plan is to have at least 3 (I'd prefer 4) in the can before we start releasing them. Thanks to a fantastic crew, we managed to get through some really rough patches and get most of our shooting done. We will do a pick-up day, but given the ambition of some of our set-ups, that was probably to be expected.

I've also been preparing for a trip to Poland next week. To cap it all off Sim, one of our cats, got very sick with Pyothorax (a potentially fatal condition). $4000 in vet bills later he is on the road to recovery, but Anu has now been laid off by yet another non-profit arts institution going down the path to destitution and cultural irrelevance (the timing of which, coming on the heels of such a large and unexpected expense, was doubly inauspicious).

I did have a couple minutes to "write" this review of Denon's absurd $500 ethernet cable (which some of you will recognizes as a riff on the Turbo Encabulator meme, with a few changes to fit the application), so I guess the chaos is subsiding a wee bit.

Derivatives Derived

Here is my submission to John August's latest challenge, in which participants must write a scene in which someone explains (financial) derivatives. The version here fixes a subtle malapropism which, if John is on the ball, should cause him to go "that doesn't quite make sense, he meant xxx" for one of the lines. However, I'm not going to point out which word it is -- I'll let you find it. It actually makes some sense in the erroneous version -- it just makes sensible sense in the corrected version.

If some of the dialog seems familiar, but you don't get the reference -- it's an homage to an awesome scene from Sidney Lumet's Network (script by Paddy Chayefsky). I also make mention the other meaning of derivative, which is often used when doing analysis to decide what derivative positions to take. And, by being an homage, the scene itself is derivative. Perhaps John will award extra points for scoring a triple entendre.

---

JENKINS, a stuffed suit executive munching a Cuban cigar, leans forward. He bellows out a cloud of smoke from his yellow grin. It engulfs the thin, bookish MAX. Jenkins gesticulates with his cigar like an orchestra conductor, pushing Max farther back into his chair with each sweeping gesture.

JENKINS
Your pointless pontifications on pricing parameters and rates of change and rates of change of rates of change are boring me, Max. Buy low, sell high. It's simple, Max. Even a genius like you can see that, no?

MAX
But, Mr. Jenkins, we can't just --

JENKINS
Come now, Max. It's like the man once said. There is only one holistic system of systems, one vast and immane, interwoven, interacting, multi-variate, multi-national dominion of dollars. It is the international system of currency that determines the totality of life on this planet! The world is a college of corporations, inexorably determined by the by-laws of business. That is the natural order of things today! Am I getting through --

Max's chair crashes to the ground as he jumps up. He grabs Jenkins' arm in mid-swing. Plucks the cigar from his hand.

MAX
You foolish old fossil!

As Max rants he shoves the cigar an inch closer to Jenkins' nose with each outburst.

MAX
Don't you understand? There is no IBM or ITT or AT&T, no DuPont, Dow, Union Carbide or Exxon. There are only equities and commodoties, rates and trends, arbitrage and triage, speculation and hedging, OTCs and ETCs. The future is forwards, the forwards, our future! You think your cozy little world of petro-dollars and electro-dollars and multi-dollars is what George Soros talks about in his board meetings? You stand here and howl about dollars and cents. There are no dollars and cents. Dollars and cents are but a dot on a chart, a moment in time, the input to the next output, the second when the future becomes the present, before it becomes the future again! And with leverage, we always live in the future. You're reading a dysfunctional function. Look deeper. Can't you see it, Jenkins? The future? -- Is knowing the future! The almighty dollar is dead. There are only arbitrage positions and speculation markets, equity swaps and back-to-backs, forward rate agreements and interest rate caps, swaptions and options and futures and turbo warrants. Long-term positions? Profitability? And, for Heaven's sake -- dividends? Yesterday's news, Jenkins. There are no more straight bets, no more original positions. No, Jenkins. Everything is derivative now.

The cigar is almost touching Jenkins' nose. He nervously pushes it aside.

JENKINS
(uncertain)
What does it mean, Max?

MAX
Your future has no options, Jenkins. I'm shorting you.

Max stuffs the cigar into Jenkins' suit pocket. Struts out the door.

Immigrant Song

May First was the opening night for the East of the West exhibition at SomArts, which my wife Anu co-curated with Taraneh Hemami. It was a great show, and a good opening. Friends such as Ala Ebketar and Hadi Tabatabai were featured, and I made several new friends as well, including Ali Dadgar. It was a reaffirmation of something Anu and I discuss often: the ethos of immigrant and first generation Americans, and how it differs from settled populations both here and abroad.

The after parties on two different nights of the EotW run -- one large and one small -- were quite comfortable, seemingly familiar despite having met some of the people there for the first time at said parties. Eating and drinking with our new and established Iranian friends was very much like eating and drinking with our LA cadre of German and Austrian friends, for example.

As people who have taken an extreme measure to make their lives better (immigrants), or are expected to be the builders of a new legacy (the first generation), there seems to be a greater inclination towards experimentation and tolerance amongst this population. Engineering, science, and the arts draw a lot of immigrant and first generation practitioners, and I believe the predisposition towards change that comes with not being rooted is one of the key reasons. I've also found that across the many cultural backgrounds of my immigrant and first generation friends -- be they Poles, Indians, Iranians, Germans, Japanese, Brazilians, Eastern European Jews, etc. (even Canadians) -- there are certain strains of humor, non-traditional politics, and lively discussions of the edges of scientific, artistic and philosophical inquiry that resonate seemingly universally across all zeroth and first generation hyphenated-Americans.

Of course there are immigrants who cling to traditional thinking whole hog as a safety net, and also second and farther generation people who embrace change, experimentation, and non-traditional intellectual inquiry. However, there seems to be lower percentages of both these groups amongst my friends who are interested in various disciplines in the arts, engineering and science. Among those in the N>1 generation population who more easily embrace uncertainty are those who travel a lot, maintain ties to the "old world," and/or have moved between two distant U.S. states after early childhood. Certain areas of inquiry really lend themselves to people who have developed a comfort level with change, and an understanding that permanence is elusive.

The East of the West show reflected that. All the artists involved displayed a willingness to contemplate, critique, rethink, and recontextualize cultural and political norms both of their native / ancestral Middle Eastern societies and those of The West as well. Cultural trends ranging from ascetic meditation to militarism to punk and hip hop were all present in the collection of works, which ran the gamut from figurative, overt social critique to contemplative abstraction.

People who come to the the United States to make better lives for themselves, and their children, contribute a great deal to our society. As one of those, I have always chafed against the so-called nativist strain in American politics (though my Kiowa friend Mark certainly puts the lie to those claims whenever someone dares to raise them around him).

In addition to being an excellent art show co-curated by my wife, East of the West was, for me, also an opportunity to make new friends and reaffirm my belief that immigrants and first generation Americans have a lot to offer no matter which country they and their families may have originated in (even ones that are, at this time, very unpopular with the American public).

Bella Lisa: A Wine Tragedy

Yesterday I couldn't write because of some mental deficiency or other, so I reorganized our wine cellar (it's not as fancy as that phrase implies -- it's just wooden shelves with wine boxes in a dirt cellar).

It was reassuring to know I could now find all of our wine, as some of it had been in plastic bins on the dirt floor and thus mixed in with bins of other random items. However, in doing so I came across a reminder of a wine tragedy: a partial case of Bella Lisa Zinfandel from Topolos / Russian River.

It is a tragedy on par with the tales of woe portrayed in Mondovino (if you enjoy wine, see that film).

Bella Lisa was an amazing Zinfandel, unlike any other I've ever had or probably will ever have again. What made it special was a combination of very high quality grapes (if I recall correctly, old vine cuttings from a nearby vineyard, of course grafted onto the usual California UCD nematode-resistant root stock) and eucalyptus. The vinyard was next to a eucalyptus grove, and the grapes had picked up enough eucalyptus flavor to give the wine a unique, delicious herb-tinged flavor. It isn't oily or bitter, and the eucalyptus note is subdued enough that it still mostly tastes like a good Zinfandel -- but that special extra note really make it something else.

Unfortunately, the Bella Lisa vineyard is in disrepair. It was abandoned, and while other vintners have looked at taking it over (the city it's in eventually realized they had something special and aborted plans to plow it under, and they're offering it up pretty cheaply), it's so small that nobody else seems to be able to convince themselves that the yield will pay for the restoration needed to rectify the neglect. Sadly, the vineyard producing one of the most uniquely delicious grapes in all the world may just completely rot in fallow, if it hasn't already.

Topolos was a winery and a fabulous Greek restaurant. No more. It was the victim of the two brothers that owned it (the vintner and the restauranteur) deciding to go their separate ways, and then dragging out the sale of the business so long that all their stock went bad and their customers abandoned them (we hung on for over a year before giving up). We watched in angst as one of the best wineries in California simply fell apart.

This small winery had been featured at a White House dinner during the Clinton years, and had produced some of the best California wines I've had (and at modest prices): Bella Lisa Zinfandel, Bat's Flight White (an unparalleled white blend), Alicante Bouchet (often used as a filler grape, they made it sing as a varietal), several other Zinfandels (Topolos and Rosenblum made my wife and I come to appreciate Zinfandel, which we hadn't previously), a Zinfandel Port, a Late Harvest Gewurtztraminer, and a wonderful sparkling wine (which fortunately was subcontracted production, and is still available at a place called Trentadue).

The loss of Topolos was truly a tragedy for California winemaking. After the buyout, it supposedly reopened as a Pinot Noir shop, without a delicious Greek restaurant above it, hoping to cash-in (a couple years too late) on the Sideways-inspired run on Pinot. Since William, Topolos' wonderful tasting room manager left shortly thereafter, we haven't been back to see what that entails.

As I sip from my glass of Bella Lisa, I hope and wish that someone will come along to revitalize that vineyard and make that wine once more. But, California winemaking is increasingly overrun with distant, profit-obsessed corporate overlords (Rosenblum just got bought by Diageo, supposedly one of the less odious wine consolidators, but not driven by creativity and passion like the Rosenblum team). With this trend, creative, adventurous winemaking is falling by the wayside. That's a shame, because that is really what made California taste-competitive with other regions -- not the homogenizing influence of the big firms.

Sadly, this is almost certainly one of the last glasses of Bella Lisa that will ever exist.

This Car Takes Food From The Mouths Of Children

Following on from yesterday's posting, I just read a Time magazine article about the problems of ethanol production with regards to increasing food prices. From my readings on the subject it seems ethanol, corn ethanol especially, is not to be a very efficient source of fuel anyway (in terms of energy put into making it per unit of energy out -- pick your favorite units). Hemp ethanol, because hemp can be grown on "waste" land, would be a better choice.

Conservation, in particular an increased use of mass transit, a return to urban centers, reduction of packaging waste (a lot of packaging uses petroleum derivatives), and a decrease in frivolous / waste spending (fad products, overbuying, etc.) seems a more effective route while less deleterious renewable fuel sources are researched. Part of the problem is a financial system which values short-term stock price over long-term, sustainable production and income.

The environmental issues of our day are directly related to a system of finance which rewards transient and often phantom value (the Internet bubble, and the redux of the Internet bubble in the form of Facebook, YouTube, Google, etc.) over needs-based value (food, housing, etc.), and which requires constant increase -- of market share, of new markets, etc. -- in order to generate value. Rather than competing on the basis of actual long-term value to customers, companies now use various marketing and PR tricks to (sometimes fabricate and) spike short-term markets and then move on. This constant barrage of the new has created an environment in which customers aren't willing to pay for things like maintenance and service that used to provide revenue for companies with a long-term view. Constant newness leads to wastage.

I have a long-term, slow-burn project to write a book about certain issues facing our society from an economic perspective, so responding to these postings is your chance to try to convince me of your perspective on these things.

This Car Runs On Beluga Caviar

We have an awesome mechanic (Art, owner/operator of Auto Point Motors in Point Richmond, CA). He never does unnecessary work, never overcharges, and only once in six years have we had to bring a car back for the same problem twice. I just picked up our Audi today, and he explained to me, somewhat apologetically, why the bill was $600. He thought that was high, and needed to explain it. Since the Audi dealer basically charges $600 for an oil change, I wasn't overly concerned, but glad for the explanation. Essentially, he saved our engine. A prior accident (or the emergency repair shop in LA) had shorn-off all of the fan blades, warped the take-up pulley, and caused a clamp to disappear that let the a coolant hose drift into the fan area. He also fixed our A/C and flushed and replaced all the fluids in the car. About 2/3 of the bill was parts.

Then I went to get gas. At over $4/gallon, my car now basically runs on Beluga caviar and gold bullion (if I lived in LA, it would run on hookers and blow). The amazing thing is, this is still cheaper than gas in many other countries (it's much less than the price of gas in Brazil was last I went there, which was about 5 years ago). It is still cheaper for me to drive to LA than to fly (which is good, since I hate flying), and while I've heard rumors that a train does go between the two cities I've never met someone who has actually seen it.

I like my car, and I don't want to replace it. I can tell myself it's because a lot of resources go into making new cars, so I'd rather run the old one as long as possible, even if it gets half the gas mileage of a Prius. But really it's because my car is comfortable and safe. Since a gasoline powered car can't be converted to biodiesel (and I know of no non-diesel renewable gas substitute, but if you do, post), I suppose I'm stuck paying for earth-destroying, wallet-wrecking, petroleum-derived genuine gasoline. The Bay Area and LA both have pretty bad public transit systems (compared to a real city, like New York or Chicago), so that's no real option unless you just happen to only ever go the few places their trains stop.

I suppose I'm just an autocrackhead. I can't kick my car habit, even though it's killing my wallet, my air quality, and my ability to be a smug, self-congratulatory California pseudoliberal.

Maybe I'll just go club some baby seals or something and then my transition to the dark side will be complete.

Ollie Johnston: Another Great Gone

The last of Disney's legendary "Nine Old Men" of animation, Ollie Johnston, has passed away. This is another "truly, the end of an era" moment. Of course, those are inevitable (especially coming out of a century where so much amazing work in art, science, technology and politics happened in so little time), but they are always sad nonetheless.

For those of you who may not know, Johnston was one of the prime movers at Disney behind American animation. He was a master animator who was instrumental in the making of Snow White, Fantasia, Bambi, Pinnochio, Cinderella, and a whole slew of other classic Disney films. He was also the author, with long-time cohort Frank Thomas, of several books including The Illusion of Life: Disney Animation, the classic book on animation.

I promise I'll blog again about something other than obituaries and illnesses soon, but right now I'm really busy working on a script rewrite (which happens to center around death and illness) so these are the only events catching enough my attention lately to bother blogging about.

Dick Dale in Hospital

Everyone wish master surf guitarist Dick Dale the best of luck as he is currently in the hospital for cancer surgery. Dale has inspired many people with his music, from surfers to punks and many genres in-between. He helped define the surf rock sound, and his high speed, aggressive guitar work definitely helped lay the groundwork for both metal and punk (you can especially hear it in punk where, unlike metal and hardcore, there is enough treble presence that the surf influence is really up-front).

One time I saw Dale play was at a SIGGRAPH in Orlando, FL (I'm pretty sure it was in 1994, at a Bruce & Carmi party at Disney-MGM studios theme park). That concert, at which I was in the front row of a small audience, was one of the best musical experiences of my life -- I still regularly tell people about it even now, 14 years later. I was impressed that even for a small audience, he gave so much and put so much energy into the performance. Whenever I feel like slacking off on something, thinking about how seriously Dale took that small, private party concert is one thing that helps motivate me. He was also genial, pausing after the show to allow us to thank him for a great show, and to give us guitar picks and set lists.

So here's hoping that the King of Surf Guitar has an uneventful surgery and a quick, complete recovery and is back in action before too long.

Cinema vs. Movies

Q: What is the difference between "cinema" and "movies" (other than that in a cinema you can sometimes buy beer, but in a movie theater you can always buy a twelve dollar soda)?

Here is my answer:

Movies are about two giant, nuclear-powered spaceships filled with robotic alien ninjas crashing into each other over a New York City that's filled with pretty women pushing baby strollers.

Cinema is about people.

What's Wrong With This Picture?

The BBC published results of a regular survey of world opinion about other nations, which involved more than 17,000 respondents in 34 countries. The key statistic reported is views of other countries' influence, in terms of whether or not the respondent thinks that country makes a positive or negative difference in the world. Here is the chart the BBC ran:

Thanks in large part to the Bush administration's adventurism in Iraq and a generally arrogant approach to diplomacy, as well as the waning capability and influence of American propagandists, some very dubious selections bested the United States.

Germany and Japan: These choices aren't dubious today, but sixty years ago their standings would have seemed patently absurd. Apparently the American led reconstruction of these countries after WWII not only bequeathed to them our economic know how, but our moral authority as well.

India: Economic miracle aside, too much of India is still either a kleptocracy or a backwards, bride burning tribal chiefdom (India, to their credit, is trying to tackle those issues head-on). It's also a major polluter and resource sink, and refuses to sign the Nuclear nonproliferation treaty. However, it's not currently invading anyone, and the US still has India beat hands-down in terms of pollution and resource wastage -- so the 7 point win here is not really unjustified.

Russia: Emerging from its post-Communist phase of being a plutocratic ochlocracy, Russia is an increasingly despotic semidemocracy led by a strongman president who releases beefcake photos of himself to impress his subjects. Russia regularly engages in equally destructive adventurism in places like Chechnya, saber rattling against neighbors like Georgia, and economic extortion of anyone that is a purchaser of Russian natural gas. The 2 point edge over us is noise, but we shouldn't be in a statistical dead heat with a closet dictatorship.

China: A politically unreconstructed authoritarian state that is infamous for its crushing of both internal dissent and any of its neighbors that seem weak enough -- that country bests the US by 12 points? Vast numbers of the Chinese people are treated wretchedly by their own leaders (both in government and business), which should be a consideration when judging international influence (especially amongst the most populous nations). Globally, not only is China a major supporter of some of the world's worst regimes (North Korea and Burma especially), it is perpetually involved in other sketchy geopolitical situations of its own making: suppressions of uprisings in annexed Tibet, ongoing saber rattling against Taiwan, a little known ongoing effort to slowly push northward their borders with Russia by ignoring illegal settlements on the Russian side of the line -- and plenty of meddling in the affairs of other states, especially its neighbors and in Africa. China is also on the fast track to at least catch up with the United States in terms of pollution and resource wastage.

North Korea: We are in a statistical dead heat in the "mainly negative" category with a wholly unreconstructed Stalinist dictatorship that is currently playing fast and loose with nuclear arms development, and shooting missiles over neighboring Japan, all while starving its perpetually oppressed population? That is just ridiculous.

Our relative standing versus North Korea, China and Russia in particular is a testament not just to poor planning leading to a widely publicized mess in Iraq (which has been exploited for propaganda purposes by others), but to the generally sorry state of US diplomatic, outreach and propaganda efforts during the last several years. The trouncing in such polls of Israel, a US client state, also partially reflects this situation (the success of antisemitic propaganda highlights a failure on the part of the US, and Israel, to counter it successfully with propaganda -- and effective policy, diplomacy, and outreach -- of our own).

This is a most unfortunate state of affairs, one which I hope our next administration can begin to turn around -- not with empty marketing slogans (the Bush administration already tried that), but with a comprehensive package of diplomacy, outreach, and propaganda. Without policy backing, happy propaganda/marketing slogans aren't going to convince anyone.