Monday, November 30, 2009

How to use a Betrayal, rather than let it consume you...


Betrayal is the breaking or violation of a presumptive social contract, trust, or confidence that produces moral and psychological conflict within a relationship amongst individuals, between organizations or between individuals and organizations. Often betrayal is the act of supporting a rival group, or it is a complete break from previously decided upon or presumed norms by one party from the others. Someone who betrays others is commonly called a traitor or betrayer. Betrayal usually comes as a shock, creating visceral responses, with roots in the classic “fight or flight” reactions typical in crisis.
Betrayal is also a commonly used literary element and is often associated with or used as a plot twist

Saturday, November 28, 2009

What created Dorothea Lange?


At the height of the DEPRESSION, when economic statistics were untrustworthy, pictures provided the best description of American suffering (and the ONLY one available to the illiterate). Comminsioned by the NEW DEAL, teams of cameramen roamed the country documenting the nation's woe, and when their work appeared in magazines and newspapers, it shocked viewers into an outpouring of sympathy (and, in turn, helped garner support for FDR's relief programs). One photographer in particular, showing a female migrant worker with her young children, so moved viewers it became the nationally recognized symbol of the era's misery.
Among the places of NEW DEAL pictures appeared was a fresh new photo magazine called, LIFE. Started in 1936 by Henry Luce, the founder of TIME.
People like LIFE because it showed them pictures not only of major news events but of everyday moments as well (an early issue featured a photo essay called "Birth of a Baby"). The magazine had the quality of a community journal as readers opened it each week to find stories about people as ordinary as themselves.
In order to support and defend its aids programs, the Farm Security Administration (FSA) sent photographers like Lange and Marion Post Wolcott into rural America to document life in the 1930's.
Dorothea Lange inspires me to keep moving foward and doing.
CLICK ON THESE LINKS FOR MORE IMAGES OF HER EXTRAORDINARY WORK... http://www.historyplace.com/unitedstates/lange/index.html


love,
me
xo

Thursday, November 26, 2009

What is a Journalist?


If it quacks like a journalist, walks like a journalist…

So what defines a “journalist”? That’s an important question
because there are some instances where journalists get preferential
treatment over citizens: waived fees for FOIA requests, shield law
protection in most states, access to crime scenes and press boxes, etc.
I’m not sure I personally feel good about that, but that’s the
reality. This week the Reporter Committee’s The News Media & The Law
dedicated its issue to defining a journalist.

The old definition of “journalist” in many cases was basically
anyone who was paid to report news for a mainstream newspaper or TV
station. That’s changing now as more people are doing journalism for
free online (perhaps because they are no longer paid to report for a
newspaper or TV station). That means we are moving toward a
“function-based” definition of journalism. It isn’t WHO you
work for, but WHAT you do. If you commit acts of journalism, then
you’re a journalist.

Sunday, November 22, 2009

A History of TRUTH and LIES.


SOCRATES made his mark by standing around a rock, questioning people. His obsession was the nature of truth, of wisdom, of the good and virtuous life. It was a focus unsullied and undeflected by any desire for money, fame, or material reward. The truth was found by the questioning, the constant questioning of every observation, every premise. To Socrates, knowledge was not something you would merely sit back and absorb, like some mental sponge, but was to be continually tested and questioned. Not as efficient, but more stimulating, and it was the question that provided the motive and measure of truth.


"SOCRATES is a very difficult subject for the historian. There are many men concerning whom it is certain that very little is known, and other men concerning whom it is certain that a great deal is known; but in the case of Socrates the uncertainty is as to whether we know very little or a great deal. He was undoubtedly an Athenian citizen of moderate means, who spent his time in disputation, and taught philosophy to the young, but not for money, like the Sophists. He was certainly tried, condemned to death, and executed in 399 B. C., at about the age of seventy. He was unquestionably a well-known figure in Athens, since Aristophanes caricatured him in The Clouds. But beyond this point we become involved in controversy. Two of his pupils, Xenophon and Plato.
Where they disagree, some believe the the one, some the other, some neither. In such a dangerous dispute, I shall not venture to take sides, but I will set out briefly the various points of view.
Let us begin with Xenophon, a military man, not very liberally endowed with brains, and on the whole conventional in his outlook. Xenophon is painted that Socrates should have been accused of impiety and of corrupting the youth; he contends that, on the contrary, Socrates was eminently pious and had a thoroughly wholesome effect upon those who came under his influence. His ideas, it appears, so far from being subversive, where rather dull and commonplace. This defence goes too far, since it leaves the hostility to Socrates unexplained. As Burnet says (Thales to Plato, p. 149): "Xenophon's defence of Socrates is too successful. He would never have been put to death if he had been like that. "

There has been a tendency to think that everything Xenophon says must be true, because he had not the wits to think of anything untrue. This is very invalid line of argument. A stupid man's report of what a clever man says is never accurate, because he unconsciously translates what he hears into something that he understands. I would rather be reported by my bitterest enemy among philosophers than by a friend innocent of philosophy. We cannot therefore accept what Xenophon says if it either involves any difficult point in philosophy or is part of an argument to prove that Socrates was unjustly condemned."

Hardball Politics (The Unfortunate Meaning of Life).


-Did you think YOU were all alone?
-Did U think noone but YOU dealt with Republican-style mudslinging tactics?
-Did U think that when you grew up it would all just "go away"?
-THINK AGAIN. EVEN AT age 63, people still do get nasty.
- (and still give joey a stomach-ache).
Maybe this is not the "true" meaning of life, but dealing with human "meaness" IS part of the true human experience. Since joey grew up as an altar boy in a candle decorated church, he (i.e. I) had NO F&*%$# idea.
whoa is me.
Lord have Mercy on us all.

CLICK ON THIS LINK below and STRAP ON TIGHT -

Saturday, November 21, 2009

Frontline Guts. and Terrible Consequences.


It is not easy to take risks.
Like breathing, some of us idiots just keep on a doin' it.
Well, the name of the game is HONEST delivery.
and with that, some of our brothers and sisters get "pinched".

Click on this link for more info:

http://www.rorypecktrust.org/page/3088/News/60

Inspiring week, despite the rain.




This week I saw the documentary, DISTURBING THE UNIVERSE, WILLIAM KUNSTLER. It was SO moving!, and was made by his two surviving activist daughters (I cried quietly in the theatre when it ended, yes. but maybe the music manipulated me, toppled by his 2 girls heartfelt Daddy movie).

Then, to top things off this week, I treated myself to the MoMA museum and absorbed some of the featured and enormous WATERLILLIES Monet panels. BLEW ME AWAY. and i mean seriously BLEW ME to the point of questioning my own artistry. I just stared at those canvasses. and stared. and stared. and when noone could hear me talk to myself, i said to myself, "joey, why bother. THAT IS WHAT IS ART. Point Blank dummy. and THAT is what the dictionary calls, PURE PERFECTION".

ok, before I fall into a deep depression. enjoy the pics. click on em' to enlarge. and Most of all Goodbye.
for now.
me.xo

Wednesday, November 18, 2009

Filmmaking with STILL CAMERAS!!!!!! OMG


Well, i only stay interested in filmmaking because of newfound challenges i always look for in technology as a means for creative storytelling.

anything that allows me the ability to make mistakes, and be creative within the components of my errors i salivate over.

Well, i am just learning that the new thing that Still DSL Digital Cameras do is shoot 24fps High Definition films!!! I LUV THAT! SO RAW (no pun intended bout the RAW file).

Well, i am almost certain that my tax return will encompass a DSL D7 camera and my next film will use this!! I'm so excited to plug a crazy microphone set-up to it. hopefully a hearing-aid for some real umph creativity:)


click on this link for a sample of how this filmmaker set-up his camera to shoot a movie...

Jean Genet production yawn.




Question: So what happens when me (i.e. I) go to see a JEAN GENET play called THE BALCONY and it turns out to be total crap?
Answer: I take a self-portrait of myself and go home early.
love, ME xo
p.s. GOOD NEWS was I went to Art School there and saved $20 on the ticket as ALUMNI status. Wahoo. God Bless ingenuity. and Film School????? hummmmmm


Monday, November 16, 2009

Quote of the day -

“Every person’s life has a moment when you are thinking of doing something that will jeopardize yourself. ... I hope many of you will dare when the time comes.”
William Kunstler

Currently reading (and LOVING)

It was the spring of 1970. A young woman named Cathy Wilkerson survived a bomb blast at a townhouse in Manhattan. Three other people were killed. It was, in fact, a bomb being built in the basement of that house by her colleagues with the Weather Underground, the radical leftist student group. For the next ten years Wilkerson was a fugitive, before turning herself in. She pleaded guilty to unlawful possession of dynamite, and served a brief prison sentence. Now she tells her story, and the story of the Weathermen, in a book called "Flying Close to the Sun."

p.s. ironically I ran into Kathy Boudin at the Palisaides Mall in Rockland County last year. In the elevator, she KNEW I KNEW her. With her daughter, and about 4 feet tall, she remembered me. I almost worked at her prison.
p.s.s. I named the dancer in "NICE PEOPLE" after her, CATHLYN.

Saturday, November 14, 2009

Sad death for soccer, BUT awakening for awareness.



A dusty college professor review...


CLICK ON THIS ABOVE TO ENLARGE &READ (i found it in my closet from my film school days, fun to read & remember AND i actually hated this teacher)...

Sunday, November 1, 2009

More Viola images (26th street show)











Latte Coffee moment.


Ater a visit at a gallery, i wanted to relax with a latte in a coffee garden in the West Village.
Well, i DID relax until i saw a painting, quietly trying behind a plant.
There was something about the woman portrayed that made me want to photograph this expression. I can't put a finger on it, but i did feel a need to take a picture of her.

SO that i could "experience" her again. At some other point in time.




BillViola's "moving" narrative






Yesterday I viewed Bill Viola's new works. Many interesting pieces regarding BODY studies framed on the wall (his usual video portraiture with variant edges to them).
There was one wall that affected me immediately. A woman crying in the middle. A burning home. A contemplative man (maybe her husband?). What i experienced was a bizarre and emotionally coherent "narrative via 3 screen storytelling. It was really really moving.

Above are some images i snapped from my afternoon gallery visit...