M.I.A. - "Born Free"

Here is the new video for M.I.A.'s latest single "Born Free" by director Romain Gavras.  The video is probably NSFW unless you happen to work for some sort of revolutionary establishment, yet I would say the video is important enough to risk a lunch break viewing. 

In nine minutes the video gives a graphic example of the lunacy and perils of military sponsored violence towards civilians in a society.  You may not identify specifically with any of the people in the video, but you should be able to understand how violence similar to that in the video has been acted out on countless numbers of groups with equal force and reasoning.  This video should make you think, and if it does not you need to think again.

M.I.A, Born Free from ROMAIN-GAVRAS on Vimeo.

Scarface School Play

"I got a fudging junky for a wife"

     -- Little Tony Montana

My sister showed me this video earlier today with the belief that this was an actual school play.  Turns out this video was made by director Marc Klasfeld and all the children are professional actors.  Despite the Scarface School Play not being as real as many thought it is still an entertaining video worth viewing multiple times.

To find out more about Marc Klasfeld and the Scarface School Play check out this interview and visit the website for his production company Rockhard Films.

The Quixotic Cathedral

Don Justo

“It was his great good fortune to live a madman, and die sane.”

       The epitaph of Don Quixote in Miguel de Cervantes' Don Quixote

For the past 50 years Justo Gallego, 85 and affectionately known as Don Justo, has been building a cathedral on the outskirts of Madrid, Spain.  The first question may center around why it has taken him so long to build a cathedral.  Did he run out of money?  Did an investor pull out of the project?  Does he not have enough workers?  Was a part of the cathedral destroyed, and has the rebuilding taken longer than envisioned?  Europe is no longer in the Dark Ages, so a cathedral should easily be able to be constructed in ones lifetime.  The American in me at first wanted to know why it has taken so long for Don Justo to build his cathedral, and then I found out that the cathedral was not finished, but simply nearly finished.  This project of Don Justo's appears to not make any sense, but that is where the beauty resides.

Don Justo for the past 50 years has been building The Cathedral for Our Lady of the Pillar by hand and on his own.  He mixes his own cement.  He erects his own dangerously below construction code regulations scaffolding to reach the top of the cathedral's 200ft dome.  He constructs the cathedral from his own imagination, and has never drawn up any blueprints.  For years he would wander the streets of his tiny Madrid suburb and gather bricks for his cathedral.  He has done this for 50 years and for most of the time he was regarded as "El Loco" and received no support.  Now the world is catching up with Don Justo and although he may still be insane he may also be a genius.

In response all Don Justo can say is,

“I am a simple man. But I hope people will come to worship here, and I think they will realize this is a splendid and unique place.”

The only aspect missing from this great story is a finished cathedral.  Don Justo is 85 years old now, and it is getting harder and harder for him to get out of bed in the morning.  It takes him longer to climb the scaffolding.  His body is wearing down, but the cathedral needs to be completed.  He needs some help, and luckily for him a trusty assistant arrived a couple of years ago in Angel Lopez Sanchez, 43.  Angel saw the ruins of a cathedral from his balcony and decided to investigate the ruins.  Upon arriving Don Justo asked him what he thought of the cathedral and Angel thought "What cathedral?".  However, from that point on Angel decided "I'm going to help you." and he has been Don Justo's assistant much like Don Quixote has Sancho Panza.

Don Justo and Angel are now on a race against time and age to complete one man's crazy dream, a dream that everyone thought was impossible, but one that will undoubtedly be appreciated upon its completion.  I enjoy stores where people work to achieve their dreams and disregard the naysayers.  Sometimes people succeed in their dreams and sometimes they fail, but in all situations they learn something valuable from the journey.  When Don Justo finishes The Cathedral for Our Lady of the Pillar he intends to give it to the Church.  Upon its completion I hope believers and non-believers alike are inspired to follow their dreams.

The Cathedral for Our Lady of the Pillar

For more info on Don Justo vist The Times

A Ton of Floating Steel

A ton of steel floating over your head.

Junya Ishigami’s “balloon” from the Space for Your Future exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Tokyo (2007-2008), is a massive reflecting object that floats suspended in the atrium of the museum. Weighing just under a ton, the sculpture, built from light gauge steel trusses and reflective aluminum panels, is filled with an equilibrium of helium that allows it to hover precariously over visitors heads below, and is free from any connections to its surroundings.

Here is a video.

Despite its weight it is light enough to move.

History in the Present

Lewis LaphamLewis Lapham the journalist and former editor of Harper's Magazine recently sat down with TomDispatch to discuss the influences behind his latest endeavor Lapham's Quarterly .  To provide a little bit of background information, one should know that Lapham's Quarterly is now into its thrid year of publication and that each issue delves into the past to aid us in the travails of modern time.  Each of the four annual issues selects a topic such as war, love, money, religion and more and then digs through the annals of time to discover the perspectives of celebrated individuals including Sun Szu, Vincent van Gogh, George Orwell, Kurt Vonnegut, Mark Twain, Voltaire, and countless others.  Each issues allows you to enhance the present by becoming aware of the past.  In America we constantly hear the phrase "history in the making", so I felt it only fitting to highlight a publication that specializes in bringing history to the present.

 Listen to Lewis Lapham's interview with TomDispatch below.

Capturing the Struggle for Civil Rights

A young African American male turns to face his attackers after being sprayed by a hose in 1963 Birmingham

Civil Rights photographer Charles Moore died on March 11th, 2010 at the age of 79, but his images live on.

Charles Moore's photographs brought the mostly regional issue of segregation to the forefront of American thought.  The image of Dr. Martin Luther King being arrested in a Birmingham cafe for loitering, and being treated as a common thug awoke the national consciousness to the evils of segregation.  Charles Moore's additionally photographed Blacks in the South being attacked by dogs and water hoses with the cocky police commissioner Bull Connor proud of the actions he has condoned. 

Charles Moore brought to light an issue, and issues, that are too easily ignored, yet should never be.  We thank him for widening the perspectives of many people, and facilitating changes that America desperately needed.

Charles Moore

For more info on Charles Moore go to the BBC, and Powerful Days

A Day in the Life of a Miniature New York City

This is just remarkable.

The Sandpit from Sam O'Hare on Vimeo.

Made of Staples

This wall mural by Baptiste Debombourg is made completely out of staples.

Click to read more ...

The Morning Benders "Excuses"

Yours Truly Presents: The Morning Benders "Excuses" from Yours Truly on Vimeo.

This is a great video for a great song by a band that I just heard of.  "Excuses" is the first single off of The Morning Benders new album Big Echo.  Big Echo was produced by Chris Taylor of Grizzly Bear.  In addition to the greatness of this video, The Morning Benders are giving away a free download of "Exuses" on their website.   

Big Echo is out on March 9th.

The Black Steve McQueen

Steve McQueen

Steve McQueen may have been an actor from a previous generation, and he may no longer be the definition of cool, but that should in no way ignore the fact that he was and still is cool.  From The Thomas Crown Affair to The Great Escape he made a lasting impression on American cinema, but sometimes actors are lucky enough to be more than actors.  People do not what to be their characters, but instead want to emulate the person.  Steve McQueen had this quality.

I remember wanting to be the Black Steve McQueen because I thought that would be cool, yet strangely that title has officially been taken.  Considering the President’s high level of coolness from attending college basketball games courtside and being photographed by Terry Richardson in addition to being the first Black President, one would think that he may be the new definition of cool, but he cannot be the Black Steve McQueen.  (Being President should be better than being cool.)  Jay-Z can also not be the Black Steve McQueen.  The new Black Steve McQueen is actually Steve McQueen and he is very cool.

He is a British film director and artist and he is quite good at both.  His latest film Hunger, which will be released by the Criterion Collection on February 16^th, depicts Bobby Sands’ hunger strike while in Northern Ireland’s Maze prison.  Sands went on strike because his fellow IRA members, himself included, were not being treated as political prisoners.  Additionally, he also has two exhibits on display at the Marian Goodman Gallery in New York through March 6^th.   His current project Queen and Country is a series of commemorative stamps for the British Postal Service that depict each of the British soldiers that were killed in the War in Iraq.  He has also won the coveted Turner Prize and the Camera d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival for Hunger.

Steve McQueen may no longer be a movie star, but he is still pretty cool.

Steve McQueen

I don't walk around with a label saying: "Oh, I'm an artist." I don't have a studio, and I don't know many artists. I just do what I do.

              Steve McQueen

That's cool.

Me and the Devil

"Me and the Devil" is the video for the first single from Gil Scott-Heron's latest album I'm New Here.

Gil Scott-Heron is most famously know for his poem "The Revolution will not be Televised".

Click to read more ...

Lucian Freud gets punched in the face

“I used to have a lot of fights. It wasn’t because I liked fighting, it was really just that people said things to me to which I felt the only reply was to hit them.” 

       Lucian Freud

“Before that, I never really thought about my ‘behaviour’, as such — I just thought about what I wanted to do and did it. And quite often I wanted to hit people.”

       Lucian Freud

Today Sotheby's will be auctioning of a self-portrait of Lucian Freud that shows him with a freshly received black eye.  At the ripe old age of 60, Lucian got into an argument with his taxi driver while he was on the way to his art gallery in Holland Park, and the taxi driver punched him in the eye.  Upon entering his gallery he opted not to put ice on his eye, but instead capture it through a portrait.  This black eye was a moment to savor, and remember.  Sotheby's seems to agree and they have placed an estimated price of between £3 million and £4 million.

I saw this painting today and it made me think of the Democratic Party.  At least something great can come out of getting your face beaten in.  Most people with an embarrassing black eye would hid, and cover it with ice, but the great ones decide to turn it into something amazing and create art.  The Democrats need to not forget this lesson.

Click to read more ...

The Decade in Pictures

As the decade draws to a close I am still astonished to realize that to many this is the only decade that they truly remember.  This is the decade that they matured in.  This has been a decade where even some of the most beautiful and well intended events have an under current of violence. Even the above picture has violence all around it, since the Iranian government actively pursues suppressing her freedoms.  What she is doing is now illegal and can prevent her from getting any form of an education in Iran because she would now be a 'star student'.

That is not a place people should want to grow up in.

I have included a series of pictures from the decade below, but to get more I recommend visiting The Big Picture.

Click to read more ...

Sculptural Photography & "Fair Trade"

Sculptural Photography"Fair Trade"

Polish artists Szymon Roginski and Kasia Korzeniecka have collaborated to make two very compelling and distinct pieces.  The first one Sculptural Photography consists of hand made shapes formed out of individual photographs organized together to make a 3 dimensional image.  Pretty cool.

The second one "Fair Trade" is a series of collages that all reference child labor exploitation from around the world, and each collage is comprised of materials targeting specific manufacturing sectors involved in child labor.  "Fair Trade" is not only cool but it is important.

Click to read more ...

Something to Think About - The Proletariat

As I look at present day America, and many other places, I cannot help but see the significance of this poster.  This poster was used during Europe's Industrial Revolution and highlighted how Capitalism can eventually serve to benefit the people at the top of the pyramid instead of those at the bottom.  Back then the people at the bottom were referred to as the Proletariat.  Today it may simply be the poor or the lower class, and although the names may change the reality can very much be the same.

In American we have a Congress that requires a 60% majority vote to pass basic legislation, due to the threat of a filibuster, and we have national unemployment reaching double digits while the counties that surround Washington, D.C. have the highest incomes of any in the nation.  If this is not the proletariat propping up the elites I do not know what is.  Democracies function on the simple principle that a majority of 50% plus 1 is enough to govern, yet the Congress now requires 60% to allow health care for the masses.  They are concerned that health care for the masses will harm big businesses, which are supported by the proletariat.  Additionally, those deciding and influencing the decision makers live in a society that has not negatively been affected by the economic downturn to the same degree as the rest of the country.  This does not seem right.

Capitalism is not bad, but if the simple principle of 50% plus 1 majority no longer has any influence, then we all need to realize that our nation and government foundation has just suffered a coup d'etat.  The few controlling the many is not what we dream about when we dream about America, yet that appears to be what America has become today.  (Sen. Joe Lieberman currently is acting as a one man barrier for health care reform, and this could not occur if a simple majority was all that was required to pass legislation.)  This poster from nearly a century ago should have a whole new meaning now.  We need to ensure that we gets our votes back.  (Sen. Tom Harkin is considering introducing legislation that would do away with the filibuster or 60% majority rule requirement, and we should all hope that is passes.)