So, 9,236th attempt at an online blog. I’m so bad at keeping up with these things, though perhaps (I tell myself at times) it’s due to an inherent lack of sufficient narcissism in my DNA. Maybe I’m not as wrapped up as most of the Internet generation in the idea of setting my personal emotions on public display, as if behind glass in a museum exhibit, to be analyzed and clucked about. It isn’t a journal, it’s exhibitionism giving birth to voyeurism. And why? So strangers may be enraptured and enthralled with my clever wit, cutting verbose descriptions of intangible wonderment? How self-gratifying and cheap, how glad-handing and insecure. I always found that kind of compelling self-absorption a bit sophomoric, if I’m speaking true. If you consider the people in my life who’ve obsessively kept such journals, they exhibit the rule, rather than defy it. I’m told an unfortunate ex-girlfriend of mine says particularly cold things about me in her blog posts, for example. Accordingly one wonders what bitter well of undisclosed emotion she’s trying to satisfy, and well over a year later (or is it bait to try to get me to engage in some sort of recourse?). It’s entirely self-conscious, a tease, and it comes off as nothing more than petty and wearying. I’ve moved on long ago. I am nothing like the person I was in those days, in fact cringe in the purest of embarrassment looking back at that Zach of then. I put up with so much abuse, not just from her but from so many ‘friends’. I was so weak. I let people own me, envelope me, and destroy me for their own personal amusement. I was little more than a circus freak. And here I am, now oddly joining the legions of online journal-scribes instead of just writing it in Word and keeping my turbulent thoughts there. Why am I doing this? I honestly don’t even know. I often wonder at the motives of people in taking time from their day to try to harm the security of others. Maybe it’s guilt this girl feels, to be honest. And maybe it’s convenient to camouflage that in outward expressions of disdain for me. The revisionist history I’m told she tends towards is unhealthy, in any event, and it only proves she has a lot of growing up to do still (I had hoped she would‘ve begun the process by now, but alas, if wishes were horses and all that). It goes almost without saying that I am so glad daily that I freed myself from such a poisoned orbit. And I only say this in direct venting of how such bitterness has made me feel; personally, I would have observed decorum and done the adult thing and not whined about our broken relationship over the internet. I wouldn’t bait her into confrontation because I want no confrontation with her, nor communication of any kind. She’s a stranger, still a child in many ways, and utterly incomprehensible in motives and in actions. She always was. A false note, someone putting on a good balancing act but then revealing her true self as someone very scared, and very young. And too, a master manipulator, one who can never blame herself, but who never hesitates to blame others. Hopefully she’ll come to realize the childishness of broadcasting these feelings on the Internet someday. Her convenient false memories of a time when she swore she loved me may allow her to put some space between the past and blaming herself for her transgressions, but in the end she’ll have to face the mistakes she made and move on. We all do. I have, long since, and am the better for it. I’m not writing denouements of her, apropos of nothing in the middle of blog entries existing for no apparent reason other than to do so. What kind of person takes up their time with such negative emotion? Who takes away from their day just to bash someone else for their own self-congratulation, when that person has long ago fallen silent, moved on, and gotten on with forgetting? Who’s she talking to here, and why can‘t she let it go and allow us to live our separate lives? There’s nothing more to say, it’s over, so why bother? It’s so cheap. I wish her the ability to forget as I have, because her memories of our relationship aren’t real. They’re what she’s convinced herself happened to avoid a blame. If she grows up someday, she’ll realize that blaming yourself is another step in growing up, moving forward, and something we all must face. I wasn’t perfect, but neither were you, kiddo. We were kids who fucked up. But don’t shortchange what you felt. That’s the most inauthentic, insincere thing you can do. I felt something, but I felt it for the wrong person, a person who could never give me what I needed, or who maybe just wasn’t ready to truly let someone in and accept responsibility for her actions. I don’t love the wrong people now, be it friends or lovers or family. I’m stronger than that person was, vulnerable and depressed and looking for anyone to depend on for self-worth. I‘ve grown up a lot since then. So what it comes down to is she’s speaking to a ghost. That version of me is dead. I don’t even REMOTELY resemble that Zach. There’s no use stabbing someone who isn’t there, is there? And it doesn’t change the fact that she’s only interested in the side of the story, the story that paints herself the hero/victim, anyway, inaccurate as it may be. She wants a pat on the back for all she endured, and people will fall under her revisionist spell I‘m sure. No one will ever have any idea what she put me through, and that’s okay. I don’t need sympathy or vindication as she does. What I have now makes that relationship frankly look like a hand job in a dark back alley, truth be told. I have emotion of a deeper connection, on a proverbial deeper level. I have someone who truly loves me for me. There’s no fighting, no drama, just a supreme comfort in each other that only grows deeper daily. I have never had to question or wonder this love, not once. And hey, goes to show I’m not relationship toxin, I guess, or that it couldn’t have been all me before, because one of those problems have repeated themselves here. Not one. Maybe I’ve grown up a bit, true, but it isn‘t that simple. It‘s that she‘s a true adult, a truly good person, and this is who I’m going to marry. I love our home together, our lives in this house together. I’m so, so lucky. This is the rich reward I deserve for the hell of putting up with others who have failed me. This is what I’ve wanted. So what about me, you ask? The same things that tainted that relationship tainted relationships with co-workers and bandmates for far too long even after I moved here, because I refused to let things go. I won’t bemoan or rehash what’s happened with the two major bands I was a part of the past year. Suffice to say I do believe in fate, and trial by fire. I was desperate to be in a band I didn’t truly have my heart in, and it happened twice. There won’t be a third time. In the end, this Chapel Hill hipster crowd of wannabe Laurel Canyon Gram Parsons/Neil Young acolytes will hopefully realize they’re cloning each other, but I won’t be a part of it. In my heart is instrumental music, and that is all I am pursuing right now. It is pure, overwhelming emotional catharsis in audio form, and is the best use of my musical talents. So no more dichotomy between what I love and what I play. And no more caring either what the sad gossips of this region spin about me in their little middle school clique-circles. I’m above all that now, any envy. And when something ends or doesn’t pan out, it won’t crush me. I’ll pick myself up and move forward. I am meeting better people to play music with daily, even outside of the Triangle, in less pretentious climates. And I’m also growing confident enough to do things alone. My EP is in rotation at Sydney, Australia’s chief independent music station, and soon for sale at their online store. That’s something to say, eh? And other art forms have appeared, as well, unexpected ones. My love for photography has only bloomed larger over this past year (not just the hobby of a bored, poor kid in backwoods North Carolina, I guess, since I’m now in a metro area and with steady income). I’ve asked for a more professional camera for Christmas, and I will use it to try to pursue selling some photography as well in the galleries around here. The same unfortunate ex, who pretended to understand my views in photographing abandoned property but who never really got it or at least never listened to my defenses of the aesthetic (she sure claimed to agree, but of course now anything to do with something I enjoyed is subject to her mighty Internet Criticism), would hopefully be surprised at the warm reaction such photos have gotten down here (only the smallest of minds would find them ‘depressing’, my goal is not anything bleak or depressing but instead a kind of tarnished hope, and cultured folk here realize this). It isn’t a reflection of any bad relationship or inner torment. I’m happy and contended…and I still find abandoned properties beautiful, as I did before that relationship, too. It didn’t come about because of some self-absorbed, melodramatic ideal about dating, it’s always been there, thanks, and has zero to do with girls. Also, I’ve moved into Super 8, as well, a format I love for its graininess and scratchiness. I have connections to a woman who heads up a support group for parents of murdered Durham gang members. I hope to incorporate interviews with the photos, super 8, and an instrumental theme to make some kind of definitive Durham documentary of decay. I fancy a multimedia exhibit somewhere like Nightlight would really fill me with some pride. Fingers crossed on that end! As far as writing goes, I am determined to finish one of several novel attempts I’m working on in the next six months. I’m the worst for getting pumped about a new idea, writing thirty pages, then dashing off in mad pursuit of the next idea when I get bored or lazy about the concept of all the work ahead of me with the first one. But this is one of many things, along with a new devotion to losing weight (no more meat or caffeine huzzah!) and getting in shape, and being more social and outgoing, that I hope to alter in my life. My lack of social confidence is of course tied into the weight, so those two will come accordingly, tied together, in time. I’m determined to get out more, and get in shape. And I’m encouraging Denny to pursue her art as well, with the free time she temporarily has now. She’s a brilliant painter. I hope she says that much. We support each other in our artistic pursuits, and there’s something else the one-sidedness of that same sad ex’s story gets wrong: that she wanted me to give up my dream based on material obsessions with wealth, and a naïve, ignorant stereotyping ideal of what it means to have an artistic career. Well here I am. I’m not living in a box, am I? Quite the opposite. I’m happier than I could ever be in a fucking office making six figures a year, that’s for damn sure. So hopefully that will dawn on her with growing up as well, that you don‘t have to follow a few dull careers, and that joy doesn’t come from money and its hollow promises. So, we’re visiting home the day after Christmas, for an indefinite amount of time. It will be the first time I’ve seen my mother without hair, after the chemotherapy. I hope we can brighten her spirits now that the mastectomy and the attendant aftermath is mostly over. After that, visiting some of Denny’s family in Florida. The support system I have with her family is amazing. So loving, supportive, a true second family for me out here where I still after over a year know so few people. They’ve sure never judged my career aspirations. And I am so happy to have Denny’s family in my corner. I can’t wait until the time comes when I propose and can share the news with all of them. With each day of this new life, the trials I went through in Boone, the poverty, the mental struggle, drain further away behind me, and I couldn’t be happier. Here’s to 2010, and all the hope it may bring. ZC

The recordings of people around the country: their stories are saved memories for families and can be archived at the Library of Congress for generations to come.

Links:

StoryCorps: http://www.storycorps.org/

BBC World Service Documentary on StoryCorps (Part 1):
http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/worldservice/docarchive/docarchive_20091127-0844a.mp3

Back in March of this year, we told you director Stanley Nelson was in town to interview several Nashville-based individuals who were involved with The Freedom Riders in 1961, among them the host of NPT’s A Word on Words, John Seigenthaler, Dr. Bernard Lafayette, Frederick Leonard and Reverend James Lawson. The interviews were being conducted for an American Experience episode on the Freedom Riders to air on PBS stations in 2011.

Word comes now that the film will World Premiere at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival. From the official release of films in competition:

Freedom Riders (Director: Stanley Nelson)—The story behind a courageous band of civil rights activists called the Freedom Riders who in 1961 creatively challenged segregation in the American South. World Premiere.

The 2010 Sundance Film Festival takes place January 21-31 in Park City, Salt Lake City, Ogden and Sundance, Utah. Congrats to Nelson and everyone at American Experience for bringing this important story to world.

Links:
A Word on Words
NPT’s A Conversation with Reverend James Lawson
American Experience to Mark 50th Anniversary of Freedom Riders

In the latest episode of PJTV’s Poliwood, Roger L. Simon and Lionel Chetwynd, both Oscar nominees, discuss what to do about Al Gore’s Academy Award-winning “documentary,” An Inconvenient Truth, in light of the revelations of Climategate:

Momentum? Simon and Chetwynd’s suggestion has made the LA Times. There’s no chance this would ever happen, but for it to even appear in a reliably liberal MSM outlet shows Climategate is starting to grab the public’s attention.

The history of the terrorism conducted by the CIA, since the end of the World War II when countries in Asia and Latin America, were trying to make changes to improve their economical and political situation, the Unite States of North America realized that it was not good for their status as new super power; and began a new campaign, with only one rule, Anything Goes. This is the story of the terrorism of the CIA.

Related:

CIA: Secret Operations, Drug Money

A History Of CIA Coups And Atrocities

Global Warfare USA: The World is the Pentagon’s Oyster

DOCUMENTARY – The War on Democracy by John Pilger (94 mins.)

Pentagon Plans For Global Military Supremacy

An Imperial Strategy for a New World Order: The Origins of World War III

Colour-Coded Revolutions and the Origins of World War III

Destabilization 2.0

The Militarization of Latin America

The Honduran coup: another US destabilization operation

DOCUMENTARY – “Paying the Price: Killing the Children of Iraq” by John Pilger (75 min.)

The CIA’s involvement in Iran Today: A Realistic Assessment

The Responsibility of the US in Contaminating Iraq with Depleted Uranium

US Strategic Interests in Latin America: The Militarization of Colombia

HELP RUSSIAN SOCIETY !!

Other series of documentary of Russin streen children :

1.    (Part 1 of 6)
2. (part 2 of 6 )
3. (part 3 of 6)
4. (part4 of 6) 
5. (part 5 of 6)
6. (part 6 of 6) 
    

THANKS FOR VISITING !

By Aisha

I know this technically has nothing to do with the content of this blog, but I am all kinds of irrationally excited for this movie:

Seriously, it’s an anthropological study of some of our most basic human practices.  Plus, it has adorable babies!  I could watch those two Namibian kids beat on rocks and each other for hours.  And then the Mongolian baby takes a bath with a goat?  Get outta here with that!

Who knows what kind of complexes these kids will have after being filmed constantly for their first year (I’m watching you, Gosselins), but I expect this doc to be interesting and heart-warming and awesome.  Sold!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00p6tsd/Why_Beauty_Matters/

Schonfeld bashes SL, Life 2.0: I am not sure how many real movie theaters the people of SL can fill; http://j.mp/5ZXpLP

To add to the long list of Holocaust documentaries is one that is not dreary but delicate, “Inside Hana’s Suitcase” from Rhrombus Media. It is approachable for children because it is told by children – from Canada, the Czech Republic and Japan. They recount the story of Hana Brady, a Czech girl who perished at Auschwitz. Yet instead of her memory perishing, it is revived thanks to the inquisitive nature of the director of the Tokyo Holocaust Centre. Fumiko Ishioka requests artifacts from the Auschwitz museum and is sent a number of items, including a suitcase bearing the name of Hana Brady.

Determined, Fumiko searches for the suitcase’s owner and discovers that Hana Brady’s brother lived in Toronto. In this moment, three sets of people become connected to the life and memory of little Hana Brady.

The film is a hybrid documentary/drama that contains both archival and re-created elements. The re-creations are deft and appropriate for the story which becomes fully rounded out in the recountings of Hana’s brother George and most of all, the children.

This poignant journey is complemented by a clever interactive website designed with children’s inquisitiveness in mind.

I highly recommend both the film and the complementary website to introduce children between the years of around 7-12 to the sensitive story of the Holocaust.

For more, read Larry Weinstein’s article on the making of the film on the HistoryWire website here.

This film is currently screening in Vancouver, Toronto and Montreal. Check your local listings.

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Over a thousand years ago, the sun-washed land of southern Spain was was home to Jews, Christians, and Muslims, living together and flourishing. Their culture and beliefs interwined, and the knolwedge of the ancients was gathered and reborn. Here were the very seeds of the Renaissance. (http://upf.tv)

RunTime: 115 min

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[ Full Screen ]

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The Festival of South Asian Documentaries presented a wide range of the best of documentaries produced in our region of Southasia over the last two years. The festival opened on a high note with Shabana Azmi’s presence at the inaugural ceremony, and going ahead the Kathmandu audience carried the tempo with their vibrant responses and participation throughout the four days of the festival. Film South Asia festival, proved to be a space for Under Construction of interesting interaction for with people related to and interested in films. We were indeed delighted by an overwhelming interest from people and buyers. Films distributed by Under Construction ‘Out of Thin Air‘ directed by Samreen Farooqui and Shabani Hassanwalia and film by Anjali Monterio and K P Jayashankar called ‘ Our Family‘ were selected for screening and received an applauding notice from the audiences.

Posted below are some photographs of the event.

Outside Kumari Cinema, FSA

Inside Kumari Cinema, FSA

Under Construction @FSA!!!!  A varied range of films!

Interviewing 101

This video was created to give videography students a quick introduction into how to conduct interviews for documentaries, marketing videos, new packages, etc. This video came after a session I attended while at the National College Media Convention in Austin, Texas. The seminar was journalism focused but I found several correlations between the video and print side of journalism. By incorporating tips from this seminar as well as my own experiences, I was able to come up with a short introduction on how to conduct your interviews for video.

Name : Interviewing 101
Credits : Director / Producer
TRT : 00:03:22
Created : November 6, 2009

On the corner of Davis and Worth you can always expect the same thing: fast service, friendly folks, and a hot dog fixed just the way you like it.  Zack’s Hot Dogs was first opened by Greek immigrants eighty-one years ago.    A lot has changed since then, like its’ name (used to be called Alamance Hot Wienie Lunch), its menu (added breakfast), and its availability (used to be segregated).

Jerry Beckom has been going to Zack’s for over fifty years.  He would be treated to a hot dog when his father would go downtown to pay his bills.  He remembers having to walk through the “white only” door because Zack’s didn’t allow blacks to eat inside.  Back then hot dogs cost fifteen cents, and a soda just a nickel.

Zack’s is still family run.  The original Zack left it to his son, and he left it to his son, also a Zack.  He says they still grill up and serve up 1,200 hot dogs a day, six days a week.  Most customers enjoy a hot dog with a cheerwine, but for Fred Gliddon nothing beats the chili-cheeseburger.  “I always get the same thing…today I mixed it up and put tomato on it,” he said.

FoodCycles will be presenting a surprise dinner item at Terra Madre Day! What could it possibly be? If you come on Dec 10 to FoodShare you can certainly find out! Tickets are $10 at the door, kids 12 under are free or call 416.978.8849.

Get the video and full post at FoodCycles.org

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Explore the lives and beliefs of six young people whose usual places of worship are some of the most beautiful and historic mosques in the Muslim world. In this series of intimate portraits, join them as they leave their homes and families to travel to Saudi Arabia on their journeys of a lifetime the pilgrimage to Mecca, where the prophet Muhammad was born. Within decades of the death of Muhammad, Islam spread rapidly and its history can be traced through the flowering of exquisite Muslim architecture. Over the next few hundred years, fabulous mosques from Spain to Iran, Turkey to Mali, formed a focus of Muslim life, as they continue to do today.

Seven Wonders of the Muslim World starts its journey at six of these locations and culminates at the mosque towards which all practicing Muslims turn when they pray. The seven wonders include:

1. The Grand Mosque in Mecca.
2. The Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem
3. The Alhambra in Granada, Spain.
4. The Blue Mosque in Istanbul.
5. The Great Mosque of Djenne in Mali.
6. The Imam Mosque in Esfahan, Iran.
7. The Badshahi Mosque in Lahore, Pakistan

RunTime: 76 min

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Watch the Full Documentary Now

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[ Full Screen ]

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By Eric Blackstock
VCU InSight

RICHMOND, Va. — The VCU-TV/HD program at Virginia Commonwealth University will be offering courses to students beginning in the spring semester 2010.

Students will learn to use high-definition film equipment and produce documentary programming. Training obtained through these courses could allow for students to eventually be promoted to paid positions within the VCU-TV/HD program.

“We decided to switch things up a bit and start having students actually take these courses,” VCU-TV/HD senior producer Lisa Figueroa Crawford said. “Then, they would take the courses, move up to an internship and then if they’re lucky, get a producing job.”

The courses will be open to all VCU students, but applicants must submit a résumé and be interviewed beforehand.  An advanced-level course will be offered starting in the fall semester of 2010.

On June 6, 2009, VCU-TV/HD documentaries “Study Abroad: VCUQatar” and “Local Life: Chop Suey” won Emmy awards at the 51st Capital Emmy Awards.

I’m getting so into metal documentaries it’s ridiculous!

Iron Maiden – The Number Of The Beast – Classic Albums (Subtitul

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