Inspiring process (despite the inner conflict)

CLICK ON THIS LINK TO SEE...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UfvS_fgbuDI

p.script.

Brittany Murphy RIP.

She MADE "Girl Interrupted" worthwhile. I will miss her and her incredible work.
Link:http://omg.yahoo.com/news/brittany-murphy-dead-at-32/32963?nc

tore this outta an old magazine !

click on the paper above and make it BIG, then read the paper, and then ask yourself, "ummmm, do i REALLY wanna be a social worker" ..."ummmmm, do i have ANY tylenol left in da house?"

Carol Browner.

But why joey? (i.e. ME). why a BLOG on this lady???

ummmm, because i love hearing her public speaking abilities.

and leadership qualities.

THATS WHY ! now shut up and read ! -

Carol Martha Browner (born December 16, 1955) is an American lawyer, environmentalist, and businesswoman, who is Director of the White House Office of Energy and Climate Change Policy in the Obama Administration. Browner previously served as Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency during the Clinton Administration.

Browner grew up in Florida and graduated from the University of Florida and the University of Florida College of Law. After working for the Florida House of Representatives, she was employed by Citizen Action in Washington, D.C. She became a legislative assistant for Senators Lawton Chiles and Al Gore. Browner then headed the Florida Department of Environmental Protection from 1991 to 1993.

She was the longest-serving administrator in the history of the EPA, staying through both terms of the Clinton presidency. Following that, she became a founding member of the Albright Group and Albright Capital Management during the 2000s. She also served on a number of boards of directors and committees dealing with environmental issues. She assumed her new post in the Obama administration in January 2009.

THE END.

Documentation for assessment purposes.
This, too, is one of the tasks of the activist.
To record in Sketches, in Photographs, and on Film.

And to write, yes, to write, believing that what is engraved with a pen cannot be uprooted with a bulldozer (like an olive tree in the Palestine).
-Dorothy L. Hodgson

My lovely new book:)

True to being the troublemaker that i am.

p.s. i got this from a SMITH COLLEGE professor who wrote it so don't blame me for my transgressions. Blame Tiger Woods.

love,

me,xo

Emily Dickinson: The Poet in Her Bedroom

The film documentary was average.
The Q and A was great (because i blabbed and incited a semi-riot about her possible mental health secrets).
The Amherst Theatre ruled.
Mount Holyoke College is the best of the 5 sisters.

p.s. I was told via a txt message today that i am doing the "Mentrual Ivy" thing. Whateva. These sister schools make me wish i was a "Mean Girl"!

Great minds talk about ideas, average minds talk about events, and small minds talk about people – Eleanor Roosevelt

To The Lighthouse.

I do not think anything could have inspired me more than the writing of Virginia Woolf's TO THE LIGHTHOUSE. It is so strange listening to the art of the written word. It reminds me so much of the making of films in the editing room- strips of "moments" hanging besides the editor, calling to be used and praised.

In moments of terrible strife, it is art. It is this kind of work. it is the inspiration to MAKE this kind of thing, that is the true power others can not take away from you. They can try, and YES they will. But their sheer envy will betray them. And it is your confidence that will enjoy everlasting victory. I'm sorry if it sounds sad, but it is true.

Large parts of Woolf's novel do not concern themselves with the objects of vision, but rather investigate the means of perception, attempting to understand people in the act of looking. In order to be able to understand thought, Woolf's diaries reveal, the author would spend considerable time listening to herself think, observing how and which words and emotions arose in her own mind in response to what she saw.

Old Toys, New Toys.

Well, the Board Camera was my "TOY" of choice for many years, and many successful films. They afforded me (not just cheap-wise$$$$) so much to work with. The pinhole lens allowed for incredible Fisheye compositions. The black and white visual married with 9 volt battery static problems afforded me natural errors and "grain" type textures. I instantly fell in love with how easily i could carry them around and use. For sound, i synched up Hearing Aids. and got EXTREMELY sensitive recordings (thumping footsteps, actors breathing or weezing, outdoor ambient sounds while dialogue captured clearly).
All that said, NICE PEOPLE was my final goodbye to this aesthetic. I am now interested in the SLR Digital Cameras and what i may do with them. I need something new to play with, to re-vitalize my desire to make different types of films and tell different types of stories.

1969 at PS1 MoMA

Just got back from PS1 MoMA's exhibition of "1969".
Blew me away, WORTH the drive out there.
You walk in seeing and THINKING "black & white" SOCIAL REVOLUTION.
crazy. crazy. crazy. A MUST see. SO well curated. Films, Newspaper articles. Photography.
Rich, thick, mudd deep into that point in time. and point in ART...

click on this link for more...
http://post.thing.net/node/2904

p.s. i got a great Jennifer Reeves DVD film also for her last work "Light Work Mood Disorder" at their bookstore ! Wahoo!

ZOE and IMOGEN HEAP !!!

Last nite i treated myself to an amazing show in Brooklyn. Zoe Keating and Imogen Heap. I was so inspired by Zoe. Her passion for her instrument (cello).

Here r 3 video clips i took from the show.

CLICK PLAY TO SEE !...

Aimee Mann. Love her. She is ageless.

CLICK ON THIS LINK TO SEE AN IN-STORE SHOW SHE SENT ME:

http://www.amoeba.com/live-shows/videos/aimee-mann.html

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

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

http://www.loc.gov/rr/print/list/128_migm.html

love,
me
xo

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.

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 -

http://insidetv.aol.com/2009/11/18/are-abc-news-charles-gibson-and-diane-sawyer-at-war/?icid=mainhp-laptopdl2link2http%3A%2F%2Finsidetv.aol.com%2F2009%2F11%2F18%2Fare-abc-news-charles-gibson-and-diane-sawyer-at-war%2F

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

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...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XCZWz5utPHo

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

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.

Sad death for soccer, BUT awakening for awareness.

CLICK ON THIS LINK...

http://www.ireport.com/ir-topic-stories.jspa?topicId=356365

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)...

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...

Great Author. Brave Woman.

JUNG CHANG was born in Yibin, Sichuan Province, China, in 1952. She left China for Britain in 1978 and obtained a Ph.D. in linguistics from York University in 1982, the first person from the People??s Republic of China to receive a doctorate from a British university. She lives in London and has recently completed a biography of Mao.

IPFF 2009

calls it: Emotional Survival.

Yoani Sanchez is an international blogger and digital journalist.

Yoani Sanchez, 34, won the Maria Moors Cabot Prize for Generacion Y, a blog critical of Cuba's one-party Communist government. The prize is the oldest international award in journalism. It is given by Columbia University to journalists who have furthered inter-American understanding. Her blog was hosted on an internet domain in Germany, and built “by hand” by Yoani. Almost 2 years after blogging, Yoani returns even more strongly to the role blogging as her means for “EMOTIONAL SURVIVAL”. She continues faced with the daily reality of life in a totalitatian state.

Yoani wrote:

Many of those who know me, think that in me ‘the elevator doesn’t go to the last floor” or that I “have some screws loose” or that I’m “nuts”. Everything I have done in this little life, (get in trouble, write a thesis about literature in the dictatorship in latin America, join my life with a disgraced journalist, return to my country and post in this blog), could well be seen by a specialist as manifestations of a mental disorder. Everything is possible…”

“Without the personal exorcism of writing my posts, reality would overwhelm me in a crushing and paralyzing way.”

Footnotes: Yoani requested permission to travel to Spain to receive the Ortega y Gasset Journalism Award but permission was denied by Cuban government.

She was invited to attend a literary event in Italy, an invitation arranged by her Italian Translator, Gordiano Lupi, but permission to travel was denied.

In March 2009 she requested permission to travel to an International Documentary Film Festival in Prague, of which she was a member of the Jury, but permission was denied.