Love

1. How do you show love?

Hhhmmm, I never really thought about this before.  I’m already a very nurturing person by nature, but I think I go above and beyond what I normally do when I show love.  I want all of my actions to show that I love that person.

2. What lets you know you are loved?

For me, its the small things.  Its letting me know that I am appreciated and cared for.  I don’t need to be showered with tons of gifts or any of those things, yes its nice, but that doesn’t let me know that I’m loved.  Its when a person shares everything with me, the good, the bad, and the ugly and I know that they do it because they want me involved in all aspects of their lives.

3. What are the thoughts that come to mind when you hear the word “love”?

Happiness, desire, yearning, commitment,

4. What is your definition of love?

My definition of love is to accept a person for not jsut the good, but also their flaws and still care and want to be around them.  To only desire the best for that person.  I think that you have to constantly fall in love with a person, as they grow and change, you have to love that “new” person.

5. Have you ever experienced love?  What was it like?

Yes I have experienced love.  At the time, it felt fulfiling and marvelous and as if everything was right in the world.

6. How do you know when you are in love?

I have only actually been in love at one time in my life.  At the time, I didn’t know I was in love until it just all of a sudden hit me.  It was almost like I woke up one day and realized that I was in love.

Thank you to the brilliant minds at The Onion.

I’m not sure why I feel like posting this article; it is an op-ed in The Detroit News by some dude who works for one of Big Food’s lobby groups, the “Center for Consumer Freedom.” I guess I just find it funny. This is a person whose job entails protecting the status quo of the American industrial food system, and his editorial reads like a C high-schooler’s essay on why vegetarians are stupid. Read it if you want. You won’t get much out of it except maybe a chuckle and a reinforced sense of how weak the arguments against our lifestyle are. Don’t say I never look at the other side of things…

Mark Whitacre (Matt Damon)

The Informant! opens with a distinctively retro feel: the font used in the titles; the soft focus, slightly over lit and orange toned cinematography; the overblown spy film music by legendary film and stage composer Marvin Hamlisch and the close-ups on old-school recording devices all evoke Francis Ford Coppola’s 1974 surveillance classic The Conversation. It then comes as somewhat of a surprise to learn that The Informant! is set during the early to mid 1990s. Not only does this retro style remind us of how much has changed since the still fairly recent digital revolution but it also creates a slightly over-the-top paranoid mood, which was a characteristic of Cold War themed 1970s cinema. This mood then contrasts beautifully with the very droll, borderline ridiculous, based-on-a-true-story narrative about a corporate whistle blower who worked with the FBI to expose his company’s price-fixing practices.

The whistle-blower is Mark Whitacre and he is played brilliantly by Matt Damon. Whitacre is a truly bizarre character who on the surface seems like an endearingly simple and naive company man but is also somebody with very ambiguous motives. Damon’s voiceovers throughout the film cue the audience into Whitacre’s thought process and very quickly it becomes clear that he has an incredibly active mind that is always going off on strange tangents. Whitacre may be nodding his head in agreement during an important meeting but in his mind he is musing over the way polar bears try to hide themselves. The results are frequently funny but there is a sense throughout The Informant! that something is just not right with Whitacre. Indeed, later in the film it becomes apparent that he is a completely unreliable narrator who not only constantly deceives the audience and the other characters, but also himself.

After presumably finishing up with the Ocean’s Eleven films in 2007, Steven Soderbergh made the two-part Che film in 2008 and now The Girlfriend Experience and The Informant! in 2009. The price of being so prolific is that inevitably the quality of the films does suffer. While The Informant! is an improvement on the single-idea experimental film The Girlfriend Experience it doesn’t feel as polished and tight as it could have been. It’s still an inventive film with an excellent performance by Damon and Hamlisch’s glorious over-the-top score is a real treat. Nevertheless, this strange and off-kilter corporate espionage satire never quite feels as fulfilling as it could have been.

© Thomas Caldwell, 2009

Read more reviews at MRQE

I don’t want to make a long post about this, but a friend of mine sent this to me the other day (sort of as a joke).

The single biggest problem I have with Kirk Cameron and many of his Apologetics compatriots is the relentless assertions of misinformation.

While TMZ is being snarky, I think it’s important to propagate these videos and encourage people to think about the things that he says and how intellectually thin and transparently refutable they are.

Video 1: http://www.tmz.com/2009/11/24/kirk-cameron-mauled-by-a-bruin-in-darwin-fight/

Video 2: http://www.tmz.com/2009/09/22/kirk-cameron-plays-the-hitler-card/

Anyone else? Just me? Does anyone actually think that kids can’t pray in public? Does anyone think the Gideons should be allowed to hand out bibles in schools (Read: PUBLIC schools)?

Also, Darwin NEVER claims, scientifically or unscientifically, that “nothing created everything” (the image there seems to allude to the Big Bang Theory, which is NOT Darwin’s). Darwin was also COMPLETELY IGNORANT OF DNA—and genes, for that matter. Those discoveries come later.

Also [also], I’d like to know where he gets that Albert Einstein supports Creationism?

I’m just sayin’.

Tetro | Francis Ford Coppola, 2009

The word Tetro, in Francis Ford Coppola’s non-native Italian, means dark, bleak, sombre. Words that are reflected, perhaps somewhat unintentionally, in the director’s new titular character: the long-faced Angelo “Tetro” Tetrocini, played by Vincent Gallo. Both as an original script – Coppola’s first since 1974’s celebrated The Conversation – and as a character, Tetro’s reputation precedes itself. For the director, this must only exist as a reminder of tougher times, but times when the film world held its breath whenever he entered the room. Things have gotten easier in recent decades for the portly Detroit native, who has carved out quite a comfortable position for himself  producing  movies under his own American Zoetrope banner, and without the oppressive studio involvement that so plagued some of his more famous titles. The difference being that these days there seem to be fewer people left in the room who are willing to give him the time of day. For Vincent Gallo, on the other hand, Tetro’s towering reputation conjured up by Coppola’s writing seems only to work as a stimulant, inspiring him to the kind of glint-in-the-eye performance we’ve seen before in Buffalo ‘66. Indeed, Tetro is one cagey and confused individual, though less feral than Gallo’s memorable Billy Brown character, despite producing the same trademark New York whine. His whine here helps give the impression of a lost rich kid, or alternatively, as his long-suffering partner Miranda (Maribel Verdú) puts it: “like a genius, but without enough accomplishments…” The highlight of Tetro, however, comes not in its titular character, nor in the aged pen that brought him to the screen, but in a newcomer called Alden Ehrenreich whose infectious performance as Bennie, Tetro’s younger brother and the film’s protagonist, is quite wonderful. He is an actor who was apparently discovered by Steven Spielberg, and  one who I expect to see a lot more of in the future.

Tetro is a story of two estranged brothers who know little of one another but who share a certain common hatred towards their family – more importantly their father – and perhaps, on top of that, some kind of common artistic gift. This main premise helps evoke strong memories of Coppola’s Rumble Fish, which not only centered on a story between two brothers but also helped unearth no small amount of young acting talent in the likes of Matt Dillon, Diane Lane, and Nicolas Cage. As with Rumble Fish, Tetro is shot in sumptuous black and white with a dash of consciously placed colour, in this case to signify those scenes in the film that depict the past – just as we view our own memories in colour, whether they be in the form of photographs or home videos. The other colour comes in the form of a handful of over-exuberant fringe characters, who manage, along with the film’s theatrical encounters, heightened emotional drama, and underlying humour, to give Tetro the sense of a stage play or theatre piece. That is without mentioning the abundance of spot-lights in the film, a motif of sorts: those that Tetro runs every week at the local theatre club,  and those that eventually come to symbolise the car headlights of his pained past. While a neater effort than Coppola’s last film, Tetro suffers once again from the director trying to do too much. Not only does he not know when to stop, but Coppola also manages to take a warm, humble idea – a gentle stroll through downtown Buenos Aires – and turns it into a work of grand scale that lacks all kinds of foundation. An epic family drama that almost immediately spins out of the director’s control, resulting in a deeply flawed third act that does nothing but drag. While it’s easy enough to appreciate Coppola’s ambition here, I don’t imagine Tetro will receive much fanfare when it’s released stateside in the near future, and is more likely simply to be remembered as the film that introduced us to a fresh-faced future star.

Our Rating:

RELATIONSHIPS

1. What kind of people have you dated and why?

I’ve dated a few married men, quite a few much much older men, and a few that really just needed to mature.  I’m not quite sure why I dated some of these men other then I was looking for love in all the wrong places.  I thought that I needed to be completed and that I was missing something and that those men would be the missing piece.  The guy that I’m dating now, so far he fits into none of those categories.  He is older, by 10 years, but for once I’m not looking for someone to complete me.

2. How do you feel about your relationship history?  What have you learned from these experiences?

Actually, if I could go back in time, most of hte guys that I dated I would never give them a chance the second go around.  So, not very proud of it.  When I look back, I don’t really see any healthy relationships.  I’ve learned a lot about myself and how I handle different situations.

3. What are ideal qualities and physical attributes you want in a partner?  List them.

Sense of humor, charming, intelligence, good hygiene, tall,

4. What are your thoughts on the idea of a soul mate?

I used to think that soul mates were something that people just made up.  But then I met H and honestly I believe that he is the one that God wants me to be with.  Everything just feels so right with H.  So I do believe that there is a soul mate out there for every person, you just have to be patient on it and lean on God.

5. What example do you hope to leave on others of your own relationship?

Hhhmmm, not sure.  I will need to come back to this one later on.

6. What does a healthy relationship look like to you?

Communication.  Two people who are willing to talk about everything and anything.  They don’t have to agree on everything, but they are okay with that.  Plus, when you look at that couple, you can tell that it is strong and that they both have each other’s interest at heart.

7. What do you think is the answer to achieving a healthy relationship?  What personal advice would you give?  Do you follow your own advice?

Once again, communication.  Whenever I give any personal advice about relationships it always seems to fall back on communication.  I haven’t always followed this advice in every relationship that I’ve been in.

8. What are your relationship fears?

My relationship fears are being cheated on or someone staying with me because they feel obligated and not because they want to.  I fear that I’m just being used or that at any minute the ball is going to drop.

9. What gets on your nerves when you are dating or in a serious relationship?

A person can get on my nerves because they will tell me the same story over and over or because they find a way to disrespect me, but I’m not sure I have just a general answer to this question.

10. Why do you think African American men and women are struggling to have succesful relationships?  What can you do to beat the odds?

I think it has everything to do with fact that there aren’t many positive role models out there for black men and women.  I think about my own familiy and almost all of the relationships that I see are struggling for one reason or another.  I know the common problem in most of the relationships is fidelity, but I think a lot of it is just the fact that we don’t respect one another.  I think in order for me to beat the odds I need to respect my partner no matter what and to have realistic expectations of the relationship.  I think communication and honest communication is what’s most important.

11. What are your thoughts about platonic friendships between men and women?  How can these friendships affect relationships?

I think that they can be very tricky.  Not that its impossible to have platonic friendships, just that you have to be considerate of your significant others feelings on the platonic relationships.  It is easy for jealousy to show up, especially if the other person doesn’t feel included in the friendship or that you’re sneaking around/being more intimate with the other person.

12. Why do you think that some men can commit to one women and not another?

I think it all depends on whether or not that man sees themself in a long-term commited relationship with that person.  I know that this is not always the case, some men just don’t want to commit but have trouble voicing or saying that.  But honestly, I think it just has everything to do with whether or not they see a future with a particular women.

13. What impact do you think entertainment media and technology have on relationships?

I think in many ways it has a negative impact on relationships.  However, we can’t put the blame on those medias because at the end of the day we still have free will and personal choice.  But in the black community, it is hard to find positive examples of relationships.  The pimp and the playa lifestyle is immortalized.  Many individuals find it cooler to try to be like the rap songs that they listen to, instead of trying to have the relationship that they see best suits them.

Χτες το βράδυ στην ταβέρνα ήμουν σκεφτικός (ώπα, αυτό είναι από άλλο τραγούδι).

Χτες το βραδυ λοιπόν, γύρω στη μία γύρισα σπίτι απ’ τη δουλειά παρέα με τον Τασούλη για να χαζολογήσουμε λίγο…(δεν κοιμάμαι τώρα πια τα βράδια…νωρίς τουλάχιστον).

Άναψα το θερμοσίφουνα, του βαλα ένα νερό(του Τασούλη, όχι του θερμοσίφουνα), τον κέρασα πιτσίνια(τον Τασούλη πάντα), του ‘δειξα και κάτι φωτογραφίες και…έξω από την πόρτα.Βλέπετε, ξαφνικά, με έκοψε ένα πίασιμο…

Τελος πάντων, να μην τα πολυλογώ, αφού οργανώθηκα και έκανα και το μπανάκι μου, άνοιξα (το ήδη ανοικτό) laptop, έβαλα λίγη πέρδικα και τρία παγάκια (περισσότερα αλλοιώνουν τη γεύση του πιοτού) σε ένα ποτήρι(σβήνω στο whisky τα δικά σου τα σημάδια…) και στρογγυλοκάθισα στην πολυθρόνα….Έβαλα μουσική, άνοιξα το facebook, το πρώην msn…Τσέκαρα τη λίστα με τα DVD μου και αποφάσισα να δω για άλλη μια φορά τη Συνομιλία( The Conversation-1974, Francis Ford Coppola, Gene Hackman, Harrison Ford, Robert Duvall-8,1/10), μήπως καταλάβω μετά από πέντε θεάσεις γιατί η ταινία αυτή είναι τόσο καλή.

Είδα την ταινία, μιλώντας ταυτόχρονα με την Έφη (με αποτέλεσμα να ξεχειλώσει η ταινία και να πάρει κανα τρίωρο αντι για τα εκατό λεπτά που διαρκεί αν παιχτεί χωρίς διακοπές και επιστροφές…).

Στις τέσσερις περίπου αποφάσισα ότι …ήρτεν η ώρα μου. Τα έκλεισα όλα,υπολογιστές φώτα,μάτια, και βούτηξα κάτω από το πάπλωμα…

Ξαφνικά, μέσα στη σιγαλιά της νύχτας(άγρια χαράματα ήταν, εδώ που τα λέμε), ήρθαν οι τέσσερις ιππότες της Αποκάλυψης με τα τσέλα τους…Πετάγομαι ιδρωμένος, σε βλέπω και γελάς. σ’ ακούω σα χαμένος το ρεφρέν να τραγουδάς…

Και εκεί που αναρωτιέμαι:For whom the bell tolls, συνειδητοποιώ ότι έχω μήνυμα. Ανοίγω με δυσκολία το ένα μάτι, το αριστερό και αυτό μισό, ενώ παράλληλα το μυαλό μου έχει ανεβάσει στροφές και αναρωτιέται ποια(…) με θυμήθηκε τέτοια ώρα (05.42). Πιάνω το κινητό στα χέρια μου γεμάτος χαρά γιατί…βρήκα το φως μου. Αφού καταλαβαίνω ότι είχα ξεχάσει να βγάλω τους φακούς επαφής διαβάζω το μήνυμα που διέκοψε τον ύπνο μου:

ΤΗΝ ΚΥΡΙΑΚΗ 29/11 ΟΛΟΙ ΨΗΦΙΖΟΥΜΕ ΑΝΤΩΝΗ ΣΑΜΑΡΑ ΓΙΑ ΝΑ ΚΑΝΟΥΜΕ  ΞΑΝΑ ΤΗ ΝΕΑ ΔΗΜΟΚΡΑΤΙΑ, ΤΗΝ ΕΛΠΙΔΑ ΤΗΣ ΕΛΛΑΔΑΣ ΚΑΙ ΜΑΖΙ ΝΑ ΧΤΙΣΟΥΜΕ ΤΗΝ ΕΛΛΑΔΑ ΤΗΣ ΕΛΠΙΔΑΣ!

Ε, άντε ….και εσύ και ο γρύλος σου!

Web surfing has become such a common term. Maybe less so now, because people are more intentional in their web use.
Back to the surfing story, it seems that surfing implies a ride, a graceful balance that takes skill and practice, not to mention intense focus. This is so not what is intended by the term ‘web surfing’ the way it is commonly used.  It’s more generally considered a random exploration, a sort of ‘poking around ‘ in the attics, back rooms, and parlors that just come up when we start pushing buttons.

So what?

It’s not called the web for no reason. Picture a spider web, a large interwoven configuration of strands that all lead to one place, and then somehow, to each other. The spiders make them to catch bees and other insects who fly in, and ‘get caught’ in the sinuous web woven for just that purpose.

We weave our webs with just the reverse intentions. We certainly want to attract and bring people into our piece of the web – our site – but we want them to be there for their own reasons, not ours. Really. We may want visitors to come to our sites to do business, buy our stuff, take our advice, etc. But they won’t be interested in forming a professional relationship at all unless they have their own reasons, interests and motivations at heart.

Create a sticky web -  that just attracts the beautiful butterflies you want to surround yourself with!

So, it all comes down to this:

This is the web and all the rules are different. (new rules)

Yet,

People are people and we react the way we always have.

So, before you start weaving your web thinking you’re going to ensnare your prey, stop, re-think and remember, you are building relationships, the way you always have.

The web is cool. It’s mysterious, and all of that, and customer/client relationships are the core of  your business.
The web is just a new medium. And the medium is the message – or is it?

This is a link to some letters written to the New York Times editor in response to Gary Steiner’s November 22 op-ed in the NYT. I found it interesting to see what the Times found fit to print. It has ethical vegans writing in their support of Steiner’s views, as well as the opposing side’s arguments. What I noticed in the latter was a lot of the defensive, uninformed flawed logic that we vegans encounter a lot; justification based on human evolution, the theory that you hurt animals no matter your diet, and the supposed hypocrisy of a vegan with a pet. All of these omnivore excuses are still incredibly weak to me, even if  they are written by supposedly ethical intellectuals. I am so glad to see the ethical eating conversation in a big national venue. I know I am biased, but it is great to see those arguments fail yet again.

Tonight I created a new piece at the Southbank Centre for Hide&Seek.

People came one at a time. They were blindfolded and I held their hand and took them on a brief walk around the outside of the Southbank Centre, passing along the river by the Royal Festival Hall. They were told that as they walked they would hear a conversation, drifting in and out of earshot, sinking into the hubbub of the city only to bob to the surface again in unlikely places. They were told to try and follow this conversation as they walked.

At the end they were asked what they heard.

These were the responses.

Poh-Choo

It was a conversation between two people: a male and the other female. At the beginning they were discussing something about movie(s) and the actor(s). They mentioned a movie called Crimson Tide and were discussing about who was the main actor. The guy mentioned it was Denzel Washington, but the girl mentioned another actor (whose name I cannot remember – sorry…). Then there was a gap during the walk where I couldn’t hear the conversations properly. They were then discussing something about some buildings, probably about the SouthBank Centre. I am not very sure about this because I couldn’t hear properly. They discussed about their amazement of the (probably) the effort of building the place. Then they mentioned something about something in the National Portrait Gallery. The guy said something to the girl that she (should) know what he meant. That’s all about the conversation that I could remember from what I have heard.

Julia

Celine

First of all I heard footsteps echoing, a door closing and shutting, someone saying something like “peep, peep, peep”, a snippet of Russian……echoes under the bridge, someone running, fast footsteps, someone talking about happiness, “are you happy”…some mumbling, they don’t sound sad, just a companionable conversation…..fading out, something about surveillance in French Connection….about East Germany, finding it hard to concentrate on words because I’m enjoying looking at the floor, and hearing/seeing it mix with the sounds around me.  A conversation about magic, the need for more magic – why can’t we have magical powers..but again, I’m almost hypnotised by the sounds, washing around, sweeping in and out….the conversation sounds just a little bit staged, and I like that, because it reminds me of school plays, about knowing what one is doing, about something meant to come after something else…about emotional detachment, and being led through a situation, not having to find the way…which is how I feel too, it feels like sitting in a hairdresser, with someone moulding how you look, and feeling as if you are safe, that someone else is briefly in control of your destiny…then there’s another conversation, a couple chatting in Russian, more conversation that I really can’t hear, and I want to follow it because I feel like it is disappearing and when it goes away, then the music will stop too, and I feel as if I know how the music goes now, it is almost familiar, the conversation fades, there are the echoes under the bridge, more footsteps and then it is finished.

Alex

Beautiful beautiful all is beautiful. What was that film with the black man in it? What Denzel Washington? No Gene Hackman. Yeah it was wicked. What about French Connection? It’s a bit of an old film but still it’s about spying. Oh yeah and the Lives of Others in East Germany…well it’s set in east Germany. Yeah that was good. I used to have sleepovers as a kid and we used to spy on people. Well what did you hear? Well nothing, I was only 10 years old or something.

I really like it hear. Concrete is just so…egalitarian I love it. What are you doing just standing there you fucking dickhead? What? What?…

So I figured I’d break my little hiatus to talk about something that was on my mind. A couple Saturdays ago, a friend of mine hosted a gathering in the community room at her complex to ostensibly talk about Hill Harper’s book, the conversation. Since most of us had only gotten halfway through the book, the actual conversation kind of went off on its own accord. But it was a really good conversation as these things go People were honest, candid, and upfront. People disagreed and cosigned, and did both respectfully for the most part.

And while there was a lot of singleness in the room, I think there was also a lot of opportunity for people to create connections in that environment because of that word: RESPECT. People listened to each other, heard each other, and got to appreciate each other’s point of views as people, not just as cute faces, good resumes, or sweet, sweet pieces of ass candy.

The homie April mentioned the other day that she has started to notice more men seeking what she calls the “Michelle Obama” type. I don’t know that it’s that more men seeing that so much as many of us are starting to get to that age range where we are seriously considering people as partners. It’s just the natural shift in priorities that happens as people move through different stages in their lives. I think, if anything, Michelle Obama gave a face and a name brand to something most of us were lookign for in the first place. Someone we can respect as a person and a partner.

To some degree, we as men haven’t really seen a partner to someone that we idolize that’s really an awesome woman in her own right since Claire Huxtable. And Claire was, well, fictional. I  mean all respect to Juanita Jordan, but she wasn’t that compelling. Neither is, say, Denzel’s wife. You could argue for Jay and Bey, but they were both superstars before they got together. There was no real sense of building there. Probably the closest we really see to the Obamas as far as a respectful loving relationship is Will and Jada.

The thing is, this may seem somewhat novel because many of us have been raised or lived in situations for a long time that were devoid of respect. Both respect for others and respect for ourselves. To a large degree, society teaches us to be disrespectful of others and ourselves. Think about the last rap album you heard. I’ll bet 70% of the songs contained a reference to belittling someone, or making someone feel inferior, or labeling someone less than the rapper.

Cashmere sweats,They come out next year, but they my last year sweats
And my hoe’s so sick,
Your new chick can’t fuck with my old bitch
And you know this shit,
I’m professional, they novices

-Jay-Z, Off That-

You see my point? We’re so used to treating other people as our inferiors that it’s difficult to just go ahead and treat people as equals. And this carries over into our relationships. What is dishonesty? Disrespect. Lying to someone is probably the greatest form of disrespect out there. Because not only does it steal someone else’s ability to make informed decisions, it implies that you’re too weak or stupid to handle the truth. and this is easy enough to attribute in obvious situations. Infidelity, lying about how much money you make or whether you’re really still talking to your ex-girlfriend on IM every night, these are easy things to peg as lack of respect because they’re so obvious.

But there’s an undercurrent of not respecting people that also runs through the rest of many of our dating interactions which we have to stop if we want these things to work. Think about all the little games we play where we kind of toe the line between being up front and respectful and not.

When you’re fucking a girl who you have no intentions of wifing but you know that’s what she wants. Now, you never tell her you’re going to, so I mean, it’s not like you’re lying to her. But are you really respecting her? And is she really demanding the respect that she wants. She knows there’s all this ambiguity in the relationship, and yet she continues to follow through with it. Because respect is difficult. It means doing things which may be painful. Or telling people truths which they’ll get mad a you for. Or take the case of the woman who accepts drinks at the bar from some guy she has no intention of giving her phone number to. I mean, she doesn’t owe him anything for that drink. so her taking it shouldn’t be a signal to him that she likes him, right?

From a technical standpoint, sure. You can justify a lot of shit that you wouldn’t want someone to do to you because it gives you some advantage. But you’re also not giving yourself full credit. You fucking that girl or taking that drink or necklace or whatever, that’s just you selling your moral standing as a person. And for what, a piece of ass or a $9 Apple Martini? Can’t we do better? Don’t we have to do better? I know what you’re saying. Well, you can’t trust anyone else to do the right thing, so why should I? Well, sure, I’ll admit, it is a battlefield out there. And a lot of people aren’t playing fair. But it’s up to you to decide whether you’re going to play at their level or not. And I’ve failed at this probably more often than not. I’ve done things not because they were the right things to do or the things that would lead to  greater outcome, but because they were the easy thing to do. they were the non-confrontational things, the things that kept shit smooth, the things that didn’t force me to explain myself. But as someone who’s experienced the flip side of that coin, I try to not put other people in that situation, because, personally, I don’t really like the feeling

Give you an example, someone once not so long ago showed a huge lack of respect for my time, and by extension, for me. And had they just told me what was going on, shit could have very well been cool. Whatever it was, I can accept and respect someone being honest and forthright with me even if they think it’ll hurt my feelings. You’re just not that into me, I can respect that. Your old flame is in town and you’d rather stay in and  have sex with them, I can dig it. You’d rather watch paint dry than spend time with me, hey, it is what it is. Having that info, I could have gone off and done what I was originally planning to do anyway. There would have been no hard feelings. But when someone doesn’t tell me the truth, it tells me that in their eyes, I’m not worthy of being honest with. I’m someone to be lied to or dismissed casually. And that’s not really a feeling I enjoy. I imagine some of the women that have dealt with me in the past may have had to deal with similar slights. But I should do better. So I think I will.

This quote comes from Elizabeth Kolbert’s thoughtful review of Jonathan Safran Foer’s Eating Animals in The New Yorker. Foer’s book is getting a ton of publicity, it seems, and it is a very exciting time for vegans like me. By virtue of his hipster-approved novels and his combination of intellect and youth, Foer has shown that he has the power that many vegan freaks wish they had: the power to get more people to pay attention. I could blog about modern food problems until I was blue in the fingertips, and so could the rest of the vegan blogorazzi, and none of us would have the influence that he has. I am very happy to see it happening, but book tours and press junkets end after a while. We will have to see if interviews on Ellen Degeneres’ show and reviews in The Onion and New Yorker will merely start the conversation, or actually create a new movement towards veganism and vegetarianism. I hope Foer’s book is coming at the right time.

I want to believe that there are a lot of people out there who have thought a bit about the source of their meat. The sad thing is that most people choose to believe that if a burger can legally be sold to them for a dollar, everything with the system must be fine. These people do not choose to think about the power of corporate influence, the economics of how meat is created so cheaply, or maybe even the fact that a cow had to live a short horrible life so they could get a little salt-induced dopamine spurt. Like Kolbert said: “What we know about eating animals is that we don’t want to know.” Those who don’t want to know probably will not be part of the conversation. They are often the same people who say that eating meat is a god-given right and pleasure, or reduce the whole argument to “I have canine teeth, therefore I am supposed to eat meat.” Argh, it bugs me to think about the ignorance, so lets move on. Ignore the ignorant.

So, what about the people who do want to know? This is where we can get some hope from Foer’s book. There are potentially millions of new vegan converts out there, right? I mean, there has to be. Modern grocery shoppers increasingly care about organics, food-born illness, fair-trade, etc… So why not animal rights and corporate justice? For me, the biggest reason to go vegan was, and probably always will be, the satisfaction of removing myself from a system that repeatedly deceives us and corrupts everything it touches. To me, the food/agriculture industry is more evil than any of the bailed-out bankers, Big Tobacco, or Big Oil. I imagine there are a lot of people that hate being lied to as much as I do. Hopefully this book will make more veggie-leaning thinkers out there take the next step and do the right thing, just like Natalie Portman did (she became vegan after reading it).

I am simultaneously excited and frustrated by the transparency provided to us by the information age. The internet and investigative journalism should be giving us the truth that all the evil corporations are trying to hide. Unfortunately, that promise of transparency isn’t living up to its potential. Until our society at large decides that it is important to know where our food comes from, we cannot expect a high enough level of snooping around by do-gooders to make a difference. This is why I believe it is important to read (and buy) newspapers and magazines that do a good job. Those passionate journalists can’t find the dirt if they don’t get paid for it; at least not as effectively. This is also why I plan to read Eating Animals as soon as I manage to scrounge up the money.

This is the second time I heard about The Conversation by Hill Harper. Now, my aunt is telling me it is a good read. I might pick it up. I welcome any information about black relationships and making them stronger because lord knows I have issues understanding my relationship-self and men once they’re relationship-men.

Now, I felt like I was a girl who really understood men. I love them. From their anatomy – inside, out -  to their voices, their opinions, and their love. I just find them outstandingly interesting. I grew up with mostly boys because I was closest in age to my male older cousin. We hung out together our entire lives. We were raised more like siblings than cousins because our moms were close. Once he started making friends, they hung out at the house. So they became close to me like my big brothers also. The conversations I sat in on with them growing up were incredible and it really gave me true incite into the male mind. People have often told me that I am more male in my opinions than female but that is probably because I didn’t have many female friends or cousins growing up. I had them and we were honest about our feelings. None of the BS I find with women. I was able to find what boys liked, what they wanted, what they hated, and so on. This was helpful to me once I started dating and I could always come to them with my questions and they sought advise from me about women also. I might have a male gene. I don’t know. I think I am the best of both worlds. Maybe that is why I make men and women so happy.

So anyway, I really thought I knew men but even my male friends today never cease to amaze me. I know them fairly well and I talk to them about everything. They all are different and have their creative thoughts on everything. So all men are not the same. That is just not true but they can be similar in some ways. I am finding though that they tend to repeat the same mistakes in relationships. I don’t see women doing this as often as men. Men know what not to do and as soon as they get a good girl, they do it again! WHY? I ask them all the time, WHY DID YOU DO THAT? You know better. They always say, I don’t know. or F— her! or She can’t control me. or some other foolishness. I’ve heard it all. I just don’t get it. So, I am reading this book. I might get a couple answers.

In the previous Conversation, a point was brought up that religion and science is not an either/or but a both/and. While I find this kind of thinking optimistic. I can’t help but disagree. Religion asks us to believe in several things that don’t meld with the natural world and directly contradict what science has proven is possible. Seven day creation, spontaneous human/animal creation, whole world flood, parting sea, walking on water, just to name a few.

Religion, like philosophy, is a good way for people to explain certain things to themselves, why you feel bad, why you feel love, but science can ask these questions too. With science though we are able to test, replicate and delve deeper into reasons of why. To me as an atheist, this line of evidence is more convincing than “god did it.” Many Christians I find are firm believers in the non-overlapping magisteria, saying that science can’t say anything about religion and vice-versa. But when religion make claims on the physical world, like those of the bible, or that intercessory prayer works as a healer, science should be able to test that.

This isn’t my saying but one I’ve adopted, I try to believe as many true things and as little false things as possible. Science is the most reliable way to find truth, and believing false things can be dangerous. Like when parents refuse medical attention for their children, replacing it with prayer, or costing valuable time in stem-cell research. It’s like the discussion of love we had (see comments on The Conversation: In The Beginning). There may be more to love than science can explain, but there is no evidence of something more, and I’m not sure what the reasons are to need anything more.

-Jesse Oates

RESPONSE

I would like to address the initial comment that religion, (I will use faith) asks us to believe things that contradict what science has proven possible. To be clear, the claim is that faith asks us to believe things that science has proven as impossible. I would argue that this is not the case. Although many people feel many ways about the creation story in Genesis, or the parting of the Red Sea in Exodus, and miraculous healing found throughout the New Testament, none of these ask us to disregard what science has proven.

Science has been able to explain an extraordinary amount to us about the state of our species, world and universe. The premise of scientific research is an attempt to find a natural answers and explanations to various occurrences. I tend to argue for the sake of a supernatural explanation, and science does not accept, in most cases, the existence of the supernatural. While science has proven and provided insight into many natural cause/effect relationships, science has not disproved the existence of the supernatural. So to say that science has disproved seven day creation, spontaneous human/animal creation, whole world flood, parting sea, walking on water, is to assume the existence of only natural forces.

Science shows us what we can understand naturally. Faith shows us what we can understand about the supernatural, a Creator God, a spirit that reveals the power of divinity, etc. The life of Jesus was all about God becoming flesh and blood, walking around in our world, to reveal the nature of our Creator. Perhaps this is why so many miracles were recorded in the Gospels; because there was no natural explanation for what was going on with this guy named Jesus from Nazareth.

I love science, and I love what science can explain about our natural world. I also believe we must turn to the one who created the natural world in order to understand our existence.

-Sam

Alright Creating Culture friends, there you have it. Continue the conversation – we would love your thoughts.

I just found out that I can’t actually post on pages.  Pages are stagnant, which means you can’t keep updating them, which stinks.  But I think that I might have found a way around it.  For now, I’ll just link them all under the same category and when I have time, maybe update it a little bit better.  Anyways, on to the first set of questions….

The questions all fall into categories, so here is the first category

A LOOK IN THE MIRROR

1. If someone was watching you right now, what might his or her first impression of you be? (Are you smiling, frowning, how are you dressed, what are you doing, what type of energy are you giving off?…)

Right now, I am dressed in my pajamas, wrapped in a blanket and on my computer typing this post.  I’m not feeling very well so honestly I know that I’m not looking the best.  I’m not smiling, but I’m also not frowning.  Just trying to be.  I’m not sure what energy that I’m giving off, but probably fairly negative because like I said, I’m not feeling well.

2. When you are among your peers, are there generally more positive comments made about Black men (or women) or more negative comments?

This is actually a hard question for me to answer because I have a mixed group of friends/peers.  Not everyone that I hang out with is black.  But when I am socializing with my black peers, I think overall the comments are more positive about black men.  Sure there are stabs at both sexes, but it is not a continuous habit.

3. What is your personal temperament?  How do you handle conflicts?

When first meeting someone and when I’m not quite sure about them, I am usually quiet, sometimes shy, but laid back.  After getting to know a person, I’m sure some of them would wish that I would shut up.  But even then, I am still very much of an introvert.  I also have nervous energy.  It is hard for me to keep still for long periods of time and my feet or hands or something is always tapping.  Usually I try to avoid conflicts.  I don’t mind arguing, but I have to feel as if its worth my time.  Through the years, I have learned that sometimes, it is best to face your conflicts and/or problems head on.  So it really just all depends on the situation.

4. What is the best way for you to be approached when you are upset?  The worst way?

The best way is to make me laugh.  Even if its just a small chuckle.  When I’ m really mad, I’ve learned that tickling is the best way to at least help get the anger under control.  When I’m upset, the worese possible thing that you can do is coddle me.  I don’t mind if you want to talk it out or even just hold me, sometimes holding is a good thing.  But don’t baby me and don’t make me feel as if what I’m going through is just something small.

5. Do you prefer to be single or to be in a relationship?  What are the pros and cons of each?

The first part is a tricky question.  I would prefer to be single then to ever again be in a bad relationship.  Been there, done that and I know that it is not healthy for me.  However, all of that aside, I would much whether prefer to be in a relationship.

The pros and cons of being single.  Pro – you can do what you want when you want, you answer to no one but yourself and God, you’re able to play the field and see who all is out there.  Cons – The closeness and companionship of the opposite sex you don’t have, a jealous feeling of your friends/family who are in a relationship.

The pros and cons of being in a relationship.  Pro – Hopefully dating someone who is like a best friend or becoming one, a person you can tell your fears and desires eto without fear of judgement, the love and companionship.  Cons – you have to take the other person in the relationship into consideration, its no longer just about you, there is no longer that sense of singledom.

6. Single people: why are you single?

Well technically, I am currently not single.  But at the same time I wouldn’t say that I am officially in a relationship either.  But I am single because a part of me enjoys the alone time.  I’m also single because like I said before, I’d much whether be single then in a bad relationship.

7. Do you believe in gender roles?  Explain.

Yes and no.  There are a lot of typical “male” roles that I actually enjoy doing.  Like cutting the grass.  But that is usually something that you osee being left to the men to complete.  At the same time, if my husband/boyfriend loves to cook, then I’m not going to stop them.  I’m not exactly the biggest fan of cooking, I’m an okay cook, not the greatest and not the worse.  But if someone else wants to cook for me, then go right ahead.

8. What is the longest time you have gone without being involved with someone in a way that was not stricly platonic?  How was that time for you?

It would have to be 7 – 8 months.  That time period was very good for me.  It gave me a chance to reflect on past relationships and past hurts.  After breaking up with my ex almost two years ago, I never really gave myself the chance to get over him.  Within a month, I found someone who the relationship was strictly about sex and he wasn’t the only one where I was looking for love in sex.  But the 7 or 8 months of this year when I wasn’t involved with any guy truly gave me time to think about what I want and where I want to be and to begin the healing process.

9. What additional experiences do you hope to have before this life is complete?

Honestly, I want to know what it is like to be loved unconditionally by a man.  Despite all of my faults and habits or weird quirks.  Besides that, I want to experience pregnancy and the love that comes from that.  The unconditional love for a child, my child.

The Conversation (Coppola 1974) tells the story of a reputable surveillance technician in San Francisco whose paranoia and obsession for secrecy leave him isolated in a battle for his moral conscience. While hiding within his world of observation, Harry Caul (played by Gene Hackman) is stuck performing a job that he believes will result in the murder of a young couple. This modernist classic from Coppola employs a mise-en-scene that fractures the spatio-temporal unity within the film combined with a fragmented narrative to tell the story of a troubled introspective protagonist, making it a landmark film in New American Cinema.

Harry Caul is a hard character to figure out. Coppola’s genius and artistry is clearly shown by this fact. The viewer is taken along the ride inside Caul’s head as he heads toward a psychological collapse. Coppola also uses moments of dramatic irony to show the audience scenes where Caul can only hear what’s going on. However it is very unclear whether or not you are viewing objective reality or an elaborate re-imagined series of events drawn from Caul’s conflicting inner struggle. He is a man who deeply values his solitude and privacy. He sits at home and plays his saxophone along to his favorite jazz records and is entangled in obscure love affairs (where he offers up very little information about himself and even spies on his girlfriend). In fact his withdrawal from committing to any sort of relationship results in the loss of his girlfriend and work colleague. We learn through a dream sequence about his moral dilemma in turning in his most recent project as well as his childhood paralysis. He fears that the evidence he has obtained will result in the death of a young couple. This fear haunts him throughout the film and is supported by the outcome of one of his previous jobs which resulted in a triple murder. Caul also holds an admired position within the surveillance business which becomes threatened when he is duped by a seductress who was probably hired by one of his competitors. Caul’s ego is also at stake, which only complicates his inner struggle.

The narrative strategies used in the film mimic the fragmented perception of reality presented to us by Caul. The story begins as the protagonist and his crew set out to record the conversation. However, very little information is given about the nature of the conversation and its relative importance. Only later throughout the film in the form of flashbacks (as Caul edits the sound quality in his workshop) do we find out what is going on. And even so, it is unclear to exactly what is going on. In Caul’s eyes he is putting a poor couple in danger. He comes to this conclusion after uncovering a piece of dialogue from the conversation in which the man from the couple says, “He’d kill us if he had the chance”. This phrase is repeated throughout the film in Caul’s head while he struggles to come to terms with his conscience. However after the climax of the film in which Caul imagines the death of the couple, we see the two alive and well. It turns out the director, who initially hired Caul is found dead in a car wreck. After processing this information Caul imagines another scenario in which the couple is responsible for murder. Photographs that mimic the aesthetic of a crime scene investigation are flashed on the screen depicting a scene in which the director has been strangled. There is no textual evidence that proves the cause of the director’s death. In this story Coppola blurs the line between reality and the subjective nature of Caul’s imagination creating a dichotomy that is left resolved by the viewer.

The camera work and editing style of Coppola’s film also correlate to the feelings of disconnectedness experienced by Caul. The soundtrack of the film consists of slow jazz and eerie amplified sound effects. In one scene the only sound you can hear is the squeaky wheels of Caul’s sound recording machine. I found this noise to make me feel a bit uncomfortable, which was probably Coppola’s intention. The most memorable scene of the film for me was when Caul goes to the hotel room to try and witness what he thinks we’ll be a murder. After hearing what sounds like a skirmish from next door, he goes to the balcony to look over. The scene then cuts to Caul’s point of view in which he sees a bloody figure pushed up against the glass barrier. A shot you might find in a Hitchcock film. The camera moves back to Caul’s room as he frantically tries to get a hold of himself as a piercing scream circulates in his head. Later he breaks in next door to investigate what has happened. This shot plays with spatio-temporal unity. Caul appears on screen from the left coming inside. In a continuous shot, the camera slowly pans around the room and ends up back on Caul on the right side of the frame as he looks around in the apartment. After an inventory of the room, there is no blood to be found anywhere. Was there a murder? Or did we just witness a delusion from within Caul’s subjective mind? Overall I feel Coppola did a great job making this film. The tone he was able to achieve in the filming and his method of telling the story paint a lasting image of one of America’s greatest film characters.

Ryan Smith

I’ll begin with a question: why are religion and science so often grouped together in single categories? Do you think science would have religion fail under scientific scrutiny? Do you think religion would have science denied outright by being compared one-for-one with revealed truth? Or is it some extraneous, societal factor?

For instance, there’s not a “Religion” section of the newspaper, and it is very common for articles with religious themes to be categorized in the Science/Technology section (as is the case with the article which inspired this post). Or, as is pointed out in the article, there are books on religion sometimes found in the science section of the bookstore, even though the “science” content is questionable.

This conflation becomes conflagratory when religion starts cherry-picking scientific genres—and subdivides even finer topics within those—and then disseminates the information matter-of-factly: “Physics is OK, but Biology is blasphemy.” “Evolution is a workable theory so long as it excludes humanity from the equation.” “That fossil can be a million years old, but humans can’t have evolved from a less complex life-form, even though other fossils would support that theory.”

According to the article, Creationism is largely a Western concept, and it’s only recently beginning to pick up in the Middle East. I was surprised to learn this. “For many Muslims, even evolution and the notion that life flourished without the intervening hand of Allah is largely compatible with their religion.” The Koran specifically states that the six days in which Allah created the Earth are not literal, 24-hour days (which seems to be more highly disputed in the Christian world).

The problem arises when humans are implicated in the theory of Evolution. “‘Everything is O.K. until the apes stand up,’ Dr. Hoodbhoy [a prominent atomic physicist at Quaid-e-Azam University in Pakistan] said.” The problem is again that religion stakes a claim on truth, even if that truth only conflicts with a single, scientific concept. Everything else can have evolved from lesser species, but humans were necessarily created in the form were are now. “Biology education, even in places like Pakistan that otherwise teach evolution, largely omits the question of where humans came from.” Say what?

The history of scientific discovery is not like the Old Testament: it’s laws can’t be interpreted as either literal or metaphorical, picked like a wisdomfruit from the Tree of Knowledge; you can’t respect gravity but choose to ignore inertia. It’s not No Meat On Fridays vs. Thou Shalt Not Kill. Ecclesiastes vs. Ephesians. As science advances, we learn new things: old theories are augmented or disproved, new ones are developed; new discoveries are made and once-mysteries become banal taken-for-granteds (see: what causes a solar eclipse).

But the processes remain scientific, even if that process itself evolves. If you believe one particular science (or theory or law) is false, and believe this based on non-scientific factors, then how to you justify believing the rest of science to be true?

I’d be interested to know what other think on this subject…

I’ll end with a funny, topical clip from the Daily Show.

I recently attended a lecture by Adam Tinworth, Head of Blogging at Reed Business Information (RBI), Britain’s largest B2B publisher. Being trendy journalism students, we at Cardiff have been bombarded recently by lectures on the importance of social media, of tweeting and blogging and linking and so on and,  if I am perfectly honest, a lot of it was beginning to sound the same. So it’s just as well I found Adders lecture  most illuminating.

One thing that particularly struck was his explanation of the three social tiers of the internet.

The three social tiers of the internet, according to RBI's Adam Tinworth

For RBI to best penetrate the web, it pays to spread across distributed space (sites with free traffic like blogs and microblogs), public space (open forums, sites with comment) and closed space (firewalled content and privately accessed sites).

In this way, users can be enticed from their comfort zones in private forums and the like into the wider web world and towards the specialised, and monetised, content that RBI offer on their own websites.  Surely an implication of this is that, despite what Messrs Murdoch might think, it is in fact possible to make free content profitable, even if in this case it is only indirectly.

But for all the online jargon, it’s important to remember that journalism is journalism, and the essential skills are the same.  Enthusiasm and dedication online are essential. Regular posting and commenting (and general activity online) make bloggers visible, trustworthy and reliable sources of information/opinion/ideas.

Journalists need to be inquisitive, communicative and above all social. People bang on about the internet being ’social’, but this is only true because we made it that way because we are social. The web is just another (albeit insanely massive and powerful) platform for conversation. And journalism is all about having conversations.

So here’s the question. Do you have the time and/or skills to keep up with everything about your fields of interest discussed in numerous blog posts, social networks and other social media all at the same time? To keep up with what you need to know, and, more importantly, what you don’t know that you need to know?

If not, you’re going to need a personal reporter, journalist or monitor – people who can “sort-and-report” on what’s relevant to you in this 60/60 online environment; an environment that no longer runs 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, but 60 seconds a minute, 60 minutes an hour.

They will have different backgrounds: personal reporters and journalists may come from traditional media, monitors from new media or have a technology background. They will work for individuals and businesses.

Software solutions will come along, starting with something like the Cloud Monitoring software at RightNow.

If you want to do-it-yourself, there are teachers now who can show you the tools you need and keep you up to date on new tools and upgrades. See any number of social media consultants.

Let’s use a library analogy to explain this in a slightly different way.

It used to be that you had access to a library (the static web) jam-packed full of books (web-sites) – yeah, I know there are other things in libraries but let’s just stick with books – which you searched with enhanced card catalogs (Google and other search engines) and that was all.

But now there’s more.

On your latest visit to the (metaphorical) library, you notice, outside, people on soapboxes talking about your fields of interest – some expert, some not. You walk through crowds of people listening to the experts, talking among themselves, referring each other to books in the library and other people and other speakers on other soapboxes. And talking about Other Things which you suddenly realize you should have known about all along. In other words, having conversations.

Suddenly you have a realization. Although the library is fundamentally important, the action is now taking place in the conversations outside, or, to be more formal about it; in “The Conversation.”

How to keep track of it all?

Well, if you can’t do it yourself you find yourself back at the top of this post. And then you’re going to call companies like The Conversation Group (no, it doesn’t exist yet) who will help you answer that question by providing one-stop shopping for all the possible solutions – the personal reporters, journalists and monitors, the software and the teachers of tools.

A great post about filtering by Howard Greenstein at Supernova: Clay Shirky, Andrew Keen and the Real Time Web, (7/22/09) and a post on the “personal journalist” by Julian Matthews at trinetizen: The dawn of the “personal journalist” (01/09/09).

Relevant posts on this blog: the expert-centric universe (3/30/09), Subscriptions to Individuals (STI) (4/15/09) and analysts and the e-cu (05/05/09).

I’m constantly convinced in the power of social media…

In the past year bystanders have seen Social Media rise to mainstream success. Twitter accounts are now featured on company commercials, Facebook has become a household name, ( post your idea type) websites are springing up all over the place but more importantly whenever a relevant STORY comes up the Conversation is started and sustained in the Social Media Universe.

Let me point out that we are still at the early stages of Social Media, I believe someday (next 5 years or so) Social Media will overtake all other channels (bought & owned) both in marketing spending dollars but also in relevance.

I made a statement on Twitter yesterday saying that someday analytics will be a thing of the past. At the time I thought it was pretty bold. 99% of organizations care more about analytic measurement when it comes to online initiatives. Why? Basically because analytics allow them to measure traffic and response and inturn tie those measurements back to the cost of these initiatives. Trust me when I say, there will be a day coming when this doesn’t matter.

Why? Someday, traffic and flow of traffic will be unmeasurable because there will be too much flow.

The conversation will be more important.

That’s correct the conversation.

Think about Twitter. Money – revenue doesn’t seem that important to them as a company. When you really stop to think about it, this is because they already control a massive (very massive) portion of traffic.

Here’s better analogy for thinking about this:

During the course of my day I have a tons of interactions with different people, my taxi driver, the newspaper sales guy, the people at a meeting, my wife, my kids, on the phone with customer service – you get the picture. What is more important: the small portions of these conversations or the sum of all of them?

I’ll put my money on the sum.

Twitter does as well.

And Organizations starting with Social Media projects should too. This is why I go back to the Social Media Ecosystem. The sum of conversations is the Ecosystem. More on this one soon.

Excellent blog post from Nieman Reports on how Social Media is changing the newspaper industry.

Thoughts on this…?

I was trying to read The Brother’s Karamazov (which, I recommend to you all; there’s a lot of religious discussion in it) on my way into the City yesterday, when a man started preaching the Good Word to anyone on the car who would listen. I am normally nonplussed by such mass transit missionaries, however, I decided on this occasion to lend an ear.

The takeaway from his spiel was this: Jesus Christ is your lord and Savior; accept him and be saved or don’t and be damned… He quoted some verses and brought up a few topical references to examples of the mighty power of god, etc. Overall his message was uplifting and not too harsh on the sinners.

But for some reason, for the rest of the night and even today, I am left with the burning, simple, perennial question: why? Why? Why Jesus. Why God? Why can’t you just be a good person? Why can’t you care about mankind and the world, read the newspaper, read books, participate in life, exercise, love your parents, make mistakes, experiment with drugs and unreasonable behavior, learn your lessons, travel, eat, test your limits… why can’t you donate your time and money when you feel moved, help people carry stuff up subway steps, get into a fist fight with someone over something stupid, help old ladies with their groceries, bake, be relentlessly yourself and not care… why can’t you be thankful for the life you have and the opportunities you’re given and your achievements and your struggles… why can’t you do all of these godlessly? Or with your own god? Yahweh. Allah. Zues. John From. Is the creator of the universe so caught up in semantics? I can’t believe it.

The below video comparisons and text contain massive spoilers. Do not read or watch if you have not seen either cut of “The Plague”.

As anyone who knows me or has read my blog knows, I wrote and directed a film called THE PLAGUE which was taken away from me in post-production and re-cut by the various producers involved into a film that barely resembled the film we had actually made. It was structurally, tonally, and artistically altered beyond recognition. And unlike most studio cuts of films which are merely shorter versions of the director’s vision, THE PLAGUE was re-cut from first frame to last. Not a single edit was used from my cut of the film. The producers decided they knew best and had the artistic sensibility to put the film together on their own without the participation of the writers, director or veteran cinematographer (Bill Butler of JAWS and THE CONVERSATION fame). “We own this now and see no reason for the writers and director to be involved.” That’s verbatim. The result was a characterless mess devoid of tone, style or meaning. It was not, in any way, shape or form, the film we had made. And yet, our names remain as the film’s creators and visionaries. For good or ill.

In discussing this with folks, I discovered that it was quite challenging for some to grasp just how different two cuts of the same film could be. As a filmmaker and editor, I was used to the inner workings of post-production and understood intimately just how powerful the art of editing was to a film’s success. And I’m not talking commercial success, but its success as a story, to dictate what type of an experience the filmmaker hopes to impart on his/her audience.

And in this age of fast moving films with high-tech budgets, audiences have grown accustomed to a certain pace. Gone are the slow-moving films of the past; particularly in the horror genre which has been relegated to gore effects targeted at teenagers and young adults. For example, it would be impossible for a studio to make a film like ALIEN today. They can make another sequel, sure, but it would have very little in common with the tone and pace of the original. Ridley Scott’s long tracking shots of the ship, the eerie, unsettling tone of the entire opening sequence, the static shots of people searching for the creature would be all but removed and Scott would be told with misguided certainty that “Nothing is happening in this shot. Get rid of it” If I had a nickel for every time producer Jorge Saralegui said that to me, I’d have enough money to buy the rights to my film back.

Because I’ve been asked on numerous occasions to give folks an example of some of the differences in tone and style between my cut of the film known as THE PLAGUE: WRITERS & DIRECTOR’S CUT (openly backed by the cast and crew) and the producers’ cut known as CLIVE BARKER’S THE PLAGUE, I’ve decided to offer side-by-side comparisons of a few choice scenes. Now, while this will show you how editing can make a huge difference in storytelling, pacing, tone, tension, etc., it will not show you how proper editing can suck you in and involve you in the characters’ stories and allow you to invest and care. For that, you would have to watch both films in their entireties. Something I hope to one day be able to offer you with an official release of my cut of the film.

As for the image quality of the two cuts you are about to see, the producers’ cut was taken directly from the 35mm negative and has gone through the full and expensive post-production process to make it look “professional.” My cut of the film is from my workprint. It was assembled from DVD dailies and not the original 35mm elements. It has not gone through ANY professional post-production processes and therefore looks like a work in progress. In other words, the image is not as sharp and clean. The music is a temporary score that mirrors my desires. The music in the producers’ cut is, like the editing itself, not at all what I would have gone for or intended.

So, while the producers’ cut is more “polished”, I ask that you take into consideration that THE WRITERS & DIRECTOR’S CUT will, when officially released, be even sharper, cleaner and richer than CLIVE BARKER’S cut of the film as it will not only be from the original film elements, but it will adhere to the specifications laid out by Bill Butler and myself as to quality and color-timing, which was done incorrectly in the producers’ cut.

One of the main things consistently altered from the Writers & Director’s Cut was cross-cutting between story lines. It was my intention, both visually and thematically, that we would cut back and forth between events and characters to connect those events and to build tension. The producers chose to show each sequence in its entirety before moving on to the next. For me, that not only dramatically reduced tension, but it avoided making necessary connections between characters and themes. The style of editing therefore also changed as the producers put these sequences together in an order they were never intended to go in. The earlier scenes in the movie move back and forth between the world of our main characters, and the world of the kids. And both worlds were meant to have unique and different styles. Much like two cars heading on a collision course, one car moving quietly and straight forward, the other swerving and careening. The two different styles were intended to create an inevitable tension and dread of what would happen when these two elements collided.

The following examples are from an early scene when the catatonic kids are strapped into their hospital beds and go into a twice-daily seizure. This was meant to be intercut with David’s son, Eric, who was going through the same seizure back home. The scenes were designed to be visually and thematically intercut as you will see here in THE WRITERS & DIRECTOR’S CUT:

Now take a look at the producers’ version of these scenes. You will notice that in removing the inter-cutting story lines and adding digital “zooms” that were not meant to be there, both the mood and tone of this sequence is very different:

Next we have a scene of the kids turning and looking toward an unsuspecting nurse. We’ll start this time with the producers cut. Notice the transitions at both the beginning and end of this sequence. They are different from what you will see later in the Writers & Director’s Cut. The intended connections between earlier and later scenes have been completely removed. You will also notice the placement of shots within the scene is completely different. For example, the long push-in shot on the nurse is placed in a completely different part of the scene, thus greatly reducing the tension and altering the pacing of the scene:

Now for the Writers & Director’s Cut. Notice the transition out of the previous scene between Tom and Sam. We pan away from Sam and the image seamlessly dissolves on the same movement into the nurse. It should also be stated here that the shot of Sam that starts this sequence was a pivotal one for me as it gave us a silent moment to see Sam’s inner workings and vulnerability. It is one of those great shots and performance moments that many producers never see or understand. How much is told through expression and body language. And since one of the reigning themes of this film is silent communication, it is more than a little appropriate. Unfortunately, producer Jorge Saralegui’s goal as he stated it to me was, “We’re going to cut out the characters and turn this into a killer-kid film.” And that is essentially what he and the other producers systematically did. Remember, the kids’ scenes were meant to move and feel differently from the character scenes. And this scene was intended to move directly into a scene revealing Kip and Claire and not a shot of Tom at home watching TV. While the TV news report does connect these two scenes in the producers’ cut, it does not connect the characters in any way. Nor does it work toward the eerie feeling or slow build inherent in the Writers & Director’s Cut. And while the producers chose to put a scene on the TV that tells you about how the world is reacting to the kids, my intention was to show a scene of familiar violence that I felt was current and an example of how we unintentionally show kids that violence is a means to an end. Even when we think they’re not paying attention!

The visual transition at the end of the scene with the kids turning was meant to tie Kip and Claire directly to the kids in the school, kids whom they feel emotionally connected to, and to allow us to –at first glance– believe Kip and Claire to be just two more catatonic kids. Until someone speaks. We disappear behind the head of one kid, and come out from behind Kip’s head. Here’s how the entire scene was intended to play and feel. You’ll notice the editing choices throughout are completely different:

Here is how the intro of Kip and Claire was presented in the producers’ cut. It not only makes no attempt to connect the characters to anything else in the film, but they also changed the Sheriff’s dialogue to something simpler and more “direct” for those audience members clearly incapable of thinking for themselves:

One of the most crucial moments in the film is when the kids awaken. It is the moment the entire first act has been building up to. As a result, it should work on many different levels. Here is the scene as the producers put it together. It is almost completely devoid of mood, tone or purpose:

In the Writers & Director’s Cut, this scene is introduced through a montage of all the main characters engaged in very ordinary human moments, but moments that tell us about each and every individual and relationship. These wordless snippets are the calm before the storm. This montage is accompanied by David reading a passage from the Grapes Of Wrath with Tom’s voice-over. What is said here is essential to not only what is happening in the film, but to Tom’s attachment to the book. Many answers to many of the film’s mysteries lie in this passage. It brings us closer to the characters, gives us crucial tools for the story, and builds the film to this very important moment.

The intention of the above montage was that the camera would dolly left to right across our main characters. That is a comforting direction for the camera to move. But, when we fade up on the kids in their beds, the camera is now moving right to left, a much less comforting direction and in opposition to what we’ve just seen. It is a contrast and it works to make us uncomfortable.

Next up is another prime example of building tension through cross-cutting. I structured the script and film to cut back and forth between Tom’s journey in the air ducts and Sam’s journey in the laundry chute. Unfortunately, the producers once again chose to re-edit these sequences into individual scenes that play out in their entirety before moving on to the next. For me, this greatly reduces tension and, as stated earlier, no longer makes connections between the characters and what they are experiencing. Here is how the producers chose to cut these scenes together, greatly reducing the intended visual style of the film:

And here’s how those scenes were intended to play out and still do in the Writers & Director’s Cut:

If you noticed in the above scene, when the nurse looks down the laundry chute into the darkness, we expect to see a kid. But it is Tom that emerges as we seamlessly inter-cut with the next scene. For a moment, we are afraid of Tom, until we realize it’s him. The line between the kids –the monsters– and Tom is blurred for a moment. They are us. We are them. This connection is absent both visually and thematically throughout the producers’ cut. This is unfortunate since this is what the film is about. Without these elements, it’s just a “killer-kid film”.

One of the “biggest” sequences in the movie was the escape from the school. My intention here was not only to create a rousing and scary action scene, but to connect our main characters to the kids. The idea of the story is that the kids are, essentially, us. They are doing what they are doing because of us. The violence they learned is directly linked to the violence we teach and set by example. Notice in this next scene how Jean’s violent action is visually linked to the kid banging on the doors. Jean’s hands are bloodied and so are the kids’. As Jean punches and loses control, so do the kids. This builds to the kids eventually breaking down the doors and attacking. Connecting these elements visually is critical to both the story itself and the ultimate impact of this scene. Here is the Writers & Director’s Cut version:

Notice here in the producers’ cut that, instead of cutting to the kids’ hands pounding on the door, the producers chose to insert out of focus shots of the bloody face of the girl Jean is punching. This was not a shot I was involved in shooting. It is a gratuitous moment and works only to make us perhaps sympathize more with the kids than with Jean, the antithesis of what I would want the audience to feel at this juncture in the story. I chose to give us a quick glimpse of that with Deputy Nathan shooting the boy in the shoulder and the boy’s reaction to it, but any more actively works against the story, as you will see here. You will also notice that the producers had actor Josh Close ADR a line of unscripted dialogue as he calls, “Claire…” while watching the kids behind the doors. Another example of the producers assuming the audience is stupid. Overstating the obvious. Also notice how different the rhythm and tone of the entire sequence is from what was initially envisioned. It is sloppily put together, awkward, and not nearly as tension-filled:

Notice how the producers felt the need to add in unscripted dialogue of the characters saying at the end of the scene, “Go, go, go! They’re coming!” when it is pretty obvious to anyone watching that the kids are coming! Once again, the producers don’t trust the basic intelligence of the audience.

Here’s another scene that was meant to be shown without a word of dialogue and was, again, an example of story and character cross-cutting. The moment between Jean and her brother Sam as she gives him the morphine was scripted and shot wordless. In the producers’ cut, it contains dialogue added in post. The producers’ mantra: “if they’re not saying anything out loud, then nothing’s being said”. The most basic understanding of character and theme are lost with such a notion. If you repeat it throughout a film, then the film itself is lost.

The kids in THE PLAGUE communicate silently. We, as a people, communicate with one another beyond the words we use. How do the kids learn to be violent? Through us. How is that done? Did we tell them directly to be violent? No. We showed them through examples we set: hate crimes, police brutality, domestic violence, capital punishment, war… Quite often we relay this message in silence; in actions without words. And therein lies the importance of Jean and Sam communicating silently. The following scenes were designed to cross-cut back and forth between Sam/Jean/the Sheriff, and Tom/Alexis. Once again, that was not the approach taken by the producers. Here is their version:

And here is the Writers & Director’s Cut version as it was written and shot:

Dee Wallace is an extraordinary actress who was all but completely removed from the producers’ cut. Here is a scene that adds tremendous character to both Dee’s Nora and the horror and anger she feels. This moment, however, not only serves her character, but Kip’s character as well as he is the focal point of her anger and hatred here. It is a sample of what Kip (and Claire, for that matter) have been living with all their lives. It draws us closer to those characters; makes them human. We then see the impact this has on Tom and Jean in what is also a crucial moment in the growth of their relationship AND more silent communication through looks and glances that tell us more than words ever could:

And here is the truncated, characterless interpretation by our beloved, clueless producers:

Sometimes even the smallest alteration in cutting can have a profound effect. In this scene when Jean finds her brother Sam dead, it was important that we, as the audience, lose Jean here. By that I mean she goes to a place we cannot follow. It is through Tom that we witness Jean’s actions. He must be our eyes here. So when Jean enters the room, notice that we don’t cut to what she sees (or know yet if Sam’s alive or dead), until Tom enters and we push in on him and THEN we see what’s happened. Through HIS eyes! It’s a crucial delineation and essential once again to the flow of the film and the perspective the filmmaker wants us to have. It is NOT something that can be changed effectively in post. The film would need to be designed and structured differently from that point on. We are also witnessing Jean’s emotions and reactions, not through her face or words, but through the sudden rigidity in her shoulders and all around body language. Here is that scene from the Writers & Director’s Cut:

Now the producers’ cut. Notice how the producers cut to Sam and Nathan on the floor off of Jean’s entrance and don’t wait for Tom. Also notice how anti-climactic that moment is without the restraint and patience that was meant to be on display here. You may also notice that the producers added Jean whispering “Sammy” as she kneels down beside him. Once again, as if the audience didn’t know who it was lying on the floor there!

And finally, the end of the film. An ending that clearly makes little sense in the producers’ cut. Here is the “let’s get this over with” version the producers threw together:

Now you will notice in the Writers & Director’s version of this scene how important the kids’ faces are. How important it is to connect the boy in the red sweater with Jean and THEN introduce the other kids and finally see them as KIDS and not monsters, which is the whole point of the film. In the producers’ cut, the connection between Jean and the boy seems directionless, empty. In the Writers & Director’s Cut, more time is given to connect these two in a profound and necessary way. And, once again, in utter silence. What they’re feeling, how they react, is there for all to see and interpret. Nature works its way into this closing scene, a peacefulness, an understanding, an open door to things to come. And our boy in the red sweater may very well be Tom or, we feel, some part of Tom. And we feel that Jean senses this as well:

Well, there are hundreds of other examples throughout both versions of these films that are as important as the ones I’ve shown here. Like I said earlier, they are truly two completely different films. It’s obvious which one I prefer and, hopefully, it’s obvious why.

Editing can make or break a film. And poor editing and a lack of creative insight destroyed the story of THE PLAGUE that we worked so hard to bring to an audience. What was delivered via DVD was intended for a lowest-common denominator audience. The notion that the audience is dumb seems to be rampant in Hollywood today. And usually from folks who are none-too-bright themselves and, sadly, have little understanding of the craft of filmmaking. Were it otherwise, examples like this would not need to be made. But as it stands, the story behind THE PLAGUE is one of many just like it. So next time you see a film that had potential it didn’t live up to, know that there may be a version out there that does. It’s just being kept from you.

To learn more about THE PLAGUE and to help get the WRITERS & DIRECTOR’S CUT released, visit our site spreadingtheplague.com, sign our petition, and join our Facebook group.

Going through the different articles on the recent subway ad campaign I’ve been perusing through a great deal of comments. While I can’t decide yet if this is a wonderful thing or the worst thing ever, the comments at least make for invigorating, if sometimes frustrating and mildly illiterate, reading.

As I saw there, and has once in a while happened on this site, the conversation goes to a nasty and highly predictable place:

1. Violence: which side has perpetrated more violence?
2. Morality: who has the moral high ground? How is such a thing defined and by what/whose standards? God? If not by god than who/what? What are morals without god?
3. Faith/Reason: Atheism isn’t a religion (etc.); Religion has no evidentiary support; faith is believing without seeing; atheists ‘believe’ in the absence of god based on ‘faith’; etc. etc.
4. Evolution/creation: was the world/universe created or not; see also the Faith/Reason category.

I’m not sure this post has a conclusion, but I think the problem is largely that we’re not speaking similar languages. Is there a shared vernacular between believers and nonbelievers? Are those the best distinctions, believer/nonbeliever? Atheist/Theist? Secular/Religious? How do you speak about the cosmos, or anything, on the same level when one person believes in a supernatural and omnipotent being and one does not?

This past Monday was the first day of a month-long ad campaign in the NYC Subway system featuring Atheist ads. “A Million New Yorkers are good without god. Are you?” as the slogan goes. The $25,000 ads were coordinated by the Big Apple Coalition of Reason, “a collection of local organizations working together to increase awareness of secular-minded groups throughout New York City.” The money came from an anonymous donor.

The campaign has been reported on by the NYTimes, CNN, and CBS 5 news (please feel free to get all the facts), however I first read about it in an issue of AM New York last week, which, unfortunately, I no longer have and does not seem to be posted online.

In addition to reporting the same details of the campaign as the other articles, the AMNY article was unique in that it quoted quite a few people (presumably, everyday New Yorkers). A few paraphrased examples: One student spoke out against the ads stating, simply, “…you have to believe in God.” Another woman said that she was against the ads because her children might see them and think she was lying. Another spoke out against the MTA for letting such an inappropriate campaign advertise.

#1: Why do we need to believe in god?
#2: If you believe you’re not lying, why are you worried about your children thinking you are?
#3: Why exactly are these ads offensive?

The coalition puts forward that rather than promoting any specific agenda, they are merely trying to raise awareness that there are many, many people out there (and in NYC specifically) who are agnostic or atheist. These people, who do not claim to have God (or any god) as the defining moral compass in their lives, are still leading good, happy, and productive lives. Even seen in an evangelizing light, I think these ads are great: they are bringing into light, the mainstream, something that is still largely misrepresented and misunderstood.

One commentor on the NY Times post asked if the MTA would give them same space to a religious organization. Yes. Yes they would and do.

Another commentor asked “I’d be curious to know just exactly whose standard atheists use to declare themselves good.”

The latter comment calls back to our rather lengthy discussion on subjective morality, (on which I’ll not dive into here, however, feel free to comment) but I think he or she is missing the point. In the US, there are very clear definitions of what makes a good citizen good: stays informed, votes, pays taxes, obeys street signs, contributes to the local economy, recycles, helps a person struggling by him/herself to carry a baby carriage up the subway steps, etc.

More broadly, I think the ads state that a nonbelief in god (and, by extension, even a belief in a different god) does not make a person bad. And not only not bad, they are/can be good. And whether good means simply not killing and/or raping anyone, or something more, it’s not important. Your standards of good don’t apply.