Saturday, May 31, 2008

Someone to be in his movie with


Jeff Garlin's film I Want Someone to Eat Cheese With is a filmed manifestation of his comedy in much the same way that Roseanne or Everyone Loves Raymond or Albert Brooks comedies reflect the comedy of their creators. I mentioned those folks because they don't really work for me and neither does this film of Mr. Garlin's.

He plays a 40 year old comedian living in Chicago and appearing in Second City. He lives with his mother and eats junk food while laying on the hood of his car with Wrigley Field in the background with poignant music playing. This is territory of produced by, written by and starring in. Woody Allen at least has the eye and technique of a master filmmaker to prop up or obscure his most indulgent moments.

Afer a while, the real highlight of the film tends to be the familiar names and faces that roll by Garlin, almost as if they were on one of those walking sidewalk deals in an airport. Dan Castellaneta, the voice of Homer Simpson plays a grocery clerk who busts Garlin's chops about his junk food habits, but gives him out of date snacks. Paul Mazursky plays a low rent Alan Funt. Amy Sedaris is a grade school psychologist in one of the film's most bizarre scenes warning of teacher Bonnie Hunt's penchant as a chubby chaser.

And then there is Sarah Silverman who Garlin was most fortunate to have in this film. There are a lot of folks (like me!) who saw this film because of her prescence in it. It was billed as a romantic comedy on the cable pay per view ads that made it seem that Silverman was a co-star. In reality, she only has about four scenes, and, of course she steals them all. Sarah's walk even makes me smile. But ultimately her role in this film is like watching John Belushi in Goin' South: a short bit that can't save the movie at large.

Richard Roeper said something quasi-profound on his movie review show a few week back when he mentioned that taste in comedy is a very personal thing. Rotten Tomatoes reveals that Roeper and a lot of other folks found Garlin's vehicle amusing and touching. However, I know it didn't work for me.
posted by well-executed buffet at 11:07 PM
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Friday, May 30, 2008

Bernard Linnette: Hard Drumming in Atlanta


There is a zone between being dumbfounded and amazed when one stumbles on an artist they are previously unfamiliar with that is one of the great rewards of being human. A series of YouTube clips featurning Bernard Linnette that feature his playing against the conga work of Ramadan Mu Min evoke these kinds of emotions for me.

His website points out that his band Bernard Linnette Interactive is much in the Art Blakey tradition. This was the frame of reference that folks would give Mel Brown, here in Portland, Oregon. But this is ATL jazz, not PDX. Although Mr Linnette's Interactive sax player is Dennis Springer, a player from Pleasure, Portland's great contribution to the R&B-funk-soul bands of the Tower of Power/Earth, Wind, & Fire era.

This clip of Milestones features Dennis Springer and Russell Gunn, a monster trumpet player with an interesting body of work that merge jazz and hip hop sensibilities and forms.


This version of Luis Bonfa's main theme from Black Orpheus features two trumpet players, Melvin Jones and Danny Harper. What keeps it burning, however is the awesome cross rhythms of Linette and the Ramadan Mu Min's conga.



Someday My Prince Will Come with Springer and yet another trumpet player, Lester Walker (what's going on in ATL?) Springer's solo is a nice weave through the tune. His playing here reminds me of Wayne Shorter.

posted by well-executed buffet at 11:14 PM
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Thursday, May 29, 2008

Bob Florence: composer, arranger, pianist, (1932-2006)


My awareness of Bob Florence began two years ago when I saw the Mike Vax big band of mostly Stan Kenton alumni at a concert that seemed to be filled with old guys with grey go-tees. Florence was the pianist for this concert, a formidable task indeed since that was Stan's bench he was filling. And this was most significant with the band's reading of Appearing in Cleveland. a fifteen minute suite of Kenton motifs magnificently arranged by Florence. It was the last tune of the second of two very full sets and the band was giving it their all. The YouTube clips are from an audience video of another tour of the Vax band, but the emotion and level of performance definitely remind me of that night.

After that show, I investigated more of Florence's music. He never lost sight of composing and arranging for big band. His Limited Edition albums have some nice swing numbers, but certainly can't be in full described as easy or occasional listening. He investigates a full range of emotions when he composes including some pretty dark territory with tunes like Running with Scissors. I talked with a band director I know after seeing Florence and got a sense of how well respected he was in the music community and also would not be surprised if the number of college big bands who don't own Florence charts was a minority to be sure.

His piano playing had a sense of regality but also heart and experience. It is a sad thing when a master's passing is what motivates one to take a closer examination to their art, but a sadder planet yet without them leaving that art for us to appreciate and enjoy.

Florence at a clinic, demonstrating and playing Invitation and Green Dolphin Street




Florence performing the Kenton tribute Appearing in Cleveland with the Mike Vax Orchestra -- two parts




posted by well-executed buffet at 11:31 PM
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Wednesday, May 28, 2008

Sketches of Pollack


Sydney Pollack had the ability to make big movies with stars that connected with people and became components of our pop culture. And ultimately, in the public eye, he will be known as the director of The Way We Were, Out of Africa and Tootsie. My personal favorites of his big Hollywood work are Absence of Malice, Three Days of the Condor, The Firm, and The Interpreter. But there are two other aspects of Pollack that have me filling this space with my impressions.

One is his curiosity and enthusiasm. Sketches of Gehry has a wonderful hand made quality to it. The genius of Frank Gehry is enough to carry a documentary study. But the personal perspective from Pollack as ebullient interlocutor using the film to find out about the great artist/architect's motivations and vision gives it a life that sets it a part from other nonfiction films about biographical subjects. It has been almost two years but the image of Pollock holding on to his Sony DV cam following Gehry through his studio is the one I most recall.

And I remember his presentation in 1998 at the MacWorld Expo as one of the Apple Masters, a program where Apple supplied technology to leaders in the arts and sciences and brought them on stage to talk about the role of technology in their lives. Pollock was most enthusiastic about his Powerbook. Being able to watch DVDs on a computer was pretty nascent stuff ten years ago and he was very excited about the possibilities of doing this as a study tool. I believe he gave acknowledgement to Final Cut Pro as well, but it was being able to watch a movie on a plane that most excited him. I remember feeling a bit envious that I didn' t have a Powerbook to be able to engage in that activity. I think this was maybe the first time that I was really impressed by Pollack's personality, not his work.

And it is his personality as a kind of uncle or friend in the family that impressed me with another highly visible aspect of Pollack in recent years--the naturalistic almost non-acting actor. Part of me silently applauded when he came on the screen in Michael Clayton or as the murdering oncologist/hospital prison orderly in an episode of the Sopranos. When and if there would be a time to view Eyes Wide Shut Again, it would be as much for Pollack's performance as it would be for Kubrick's vision.

Pollack studied acting in 1950s New York and went on to do some television acting and more notably TV directing learning his craft. His passage marks another who came from those eras and traditions. From a fifties actor studio school to episode television to blockbuster movies with major marquee stars like Redford and Cruise to becoming a recognizable icon on his own as an actor and cameo personality to becoming a enthusiast of laptop and digital video, his story is one of 20th century media, arts, and culture. And that is certainly worth recognition at the time of his passing.
posted by well-executed buffet at 11:21 PM
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Tuesday, May 27, 2008

Hip Hop is Bigger than the Government


In the spirit of representing every day, here is Erykah Badu with an awesome performance of one of my favorite tunes from the Amerykah Pt One album. I don't know what the deal is with the overdubbing of the N-words.
posted by well-executed buffet at 9:08 PM
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Monday, May 26, 2008

Mapleton Images









posted by well-executed buffet at 10:31 PM
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Sunday, May 25, 2008

Charlie Wilson's Wild Ride


Mike Nichols and Aaron Sorkin justly matched the form and content to tell the story of Texas Congressman Charlie Wilson and how he was at the center of the CIA covert operations for the mujahideen in Afghanistan against Russia in the eighties. In Charlie Wilson's War, three fine actors (Tom Hanks, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Julia Roberts) movethis unlikely but true tale in the form of a zesty and high energy entertainment stressing the comedic elements.

The ten years that Wilson, CIA operative Gust Avrakotos, and Texas right wing activist and Texas society matron Joanne Herring designed, arranged for the funding of the mujahideen's resistance against the Russians were quite wild ride and this is the tone that Nichols and Sorkin maintain consistently for an hour forty. They also fill the story with some fun wallpaper such as the beautiful and smart staff of Wilson's and the depiction of his excesses.

In one of the DVD extras, Nichols talks about this story basically being one of transformation and making a difference. Towards the end of the film, Wilson, continued to be schooled by his partner Avrakotos, sees that it isn't over after the Russians leave. There is a painful scene where Wilson tries to get his fellow congresmen to rebuild a school. Wikipedia points out that the George Crile in the book the film is based on "wrote that the mujahideen's victory in Afghanistan ultimately opened a power vacuum for bin Laden: "By the end of 1993, in Afghanistan itself there were no roads, no schools, just a destroyed country -- and the United States was washing its hands of any responsibility. It was in this vacuum that the Taliban and Osama bin Laden would emerge as the dominant players." This is of course not the major plot component of Charlie Wilson's War,
but we can't help but look through the lens of "what ifs?" in our current time sculpted and transformed greatly by the events on a Tuesday morning almost seven years ago, once this film of Charlie's war rolls to an end.
posted by well-executed buffet at 10:20 PM
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Saturday, May 24, 2008

Jerry Rig at BC's: 5.24.08



Here we are on our way to see Jerry Rig at a SE Portland neighborhood bar. The sky is dramatic here for a reason. Moments later a major lightning+thunder+downpour exhibition was in effect. We pulled in just as the weather started to turn.




The Rig up in lights! This was more than an evening out to see music. It was a reunion of sorts with folks we have connected with during concert festival season for well over a half a decade now. During their set up some kind of power surge breaker incident occurred, but it all seemed well after the Oregon lotto machine rebooted.






A bit of an experiment and demonstration here. The result being that if you keep your flash off even the most prosaic of bars will look like something from a Wim Wenders/Robby Muller/Sam Shepard film. The results are not nearly as romantic with the harshness of Auto Flash.




The gnomes here are with the band. The main gnome graces the latest Jerry Rig CD and is the official host at many of the High Sierra Music Festival happy hour celebrations put on by this posse over the years.




It seems Dave Fink knows just about every tune in the Grateful Dead/Jerry Garcia songbook. They also season their shows with originals and some other classics.


posted by well-executed buffet at 1:21 PM
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Friday, May 23, 2008

Horsemen of the B


The Four Horseman, a sincere low budget coming home from Iraq drama directed by veteran filmmaker Sidney J Furie, prove that B movies (not "indys" or "indies") are still made in this millenium. And maybe it takes a veteran director to prove that fact.

Four high school fellow football stars go off to war as Marines in Iraq together and return home one of the group who was killed. The remaining trio consists of the haunted hispanic, the noble double quad, and the black guy with the hot redhead girlfriend who plans to go AWOL. B movies can't take much time for character development. They have 90 minutes max to take you in and out of the situation, in this case intercutting sepia toned combat footage away from the struggles at home.

Sidney J. Furie is a 75 year old Canadian director with over 50 screen directorial credits. He did the original Ipcress File, a Superman sequel, the Iron Eagle films, and has also revisited men and war prior with The Boys in Company C and Purple Hearts. He has made many B movies and I appreciate his efforts with this low budget coming home story. Is it very good? Probably not. But you can't doubt the sincerity of the effort. In particular, there is Mark O'Brien, a non-actor and double quad Marine veteran who plays a character based on himself sixty years after veteran Harold Russell won an Academy Award for a character similar to his own fate in another coming home melodrama, The Best Years of Our Lives, sixty years prior.

I believe there is a difference between a low rent independent film and a full on B movie. There is likely a fine line between them, but in the case of Four Horsemen, a veteran director takes us from plot point to plot point with the limited acting, budget and other resources, and what results is a completed effort, topical and within the classic tradition of movie making. No long takes or excessive camera moves here! The result is not greatness, or maybe not even that good in the eyes of most, but is still worth giving an acknowledgement. May there always be B movies.
posted by well-executed buffet at 9:04 PM
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Thursday, May 22, 2008

My Damn Channel: A Step towards TV-Web Co-mergence


The David McMurray post from yesterday had me poking around the web to find out more about My Damn Channel the logo in the lower left of the YouTube deliverable. Did I spot Don Was in the video? Yes, it was him and I could tell because we had a close personal moment last week. It consisted of "Thanks for Coming." It turns out that Don Was is one of the key contributors to this web broadcast presence.

I describe MyDamnChannel as a place for a handful of to some degree recognizable creatives get to produce content web stylee. And their defintion, or rather contribution to that evolution consists of the likes of Coolio doing a cooking show, Harry Shearer being chameleon like as left as he feels it. Then there is You Suck at Photoshop which is like a Lynda Weinmen video intersected with sarcasm and slam comedy, and a bunch of other stuff. And the Don Was Channel is loaded with lots of high quality music offerings in stylish black and white.

Let's face it, entertainment often needs direction, craft, some capital and a good editor. YouTube is a trough. MyDamn Channel is a fountain with a few select choices. The folks behind these efforts understand web aesthetics. No piece seems to be more than eight minutes and most clock in between three and six. There are podcast services, some annoying google ads, but also cool sponsorship moves like having Lincoln pay for rights and distribution fees for the Don Was videos. Almost as if they are saying "Please download and be protable with these suckers, we're proud of them ane we know that's what you want to do with them."


But there is a MyDamnChannel vlog hostess as well. Grace Helbig who was featured reading a bunch of adult bedtime stories is irrepressible in Daily Grace, her two minute blogs that feature a lot of word play and a hip sensibility. She always seems to wear a new outfit as she either plugs the new uploads on the DamnChannel or has some sort of cute wide-eyed provocation or observation that reminds me of my memories of the cookie lady on the Smothers Brothers. (Cookie lady's grand daughter or great niece perhaps?)

This thing didn't come from nowhere. Here is an excerpt from a webpost on tvmama.com last August

MyDamnChannel is backed by Okapi Venture Capital. It’s a small Orange County, California, firm that raised $30 million for investment in 2006 and said nothing at the time about was looking for Hollywood bling to put in its portfolio. It must have been hard to resist.

Beyond the bling, what’s the pull? Big-name advertisers seeking elusive demographics (young, male, hip, trendsetters, heck even my 81-year-old father-in-law) that are abandoning “real” TV for the Internet. There is big money in this - if it draws people.

Even though the amount of Okapi’s investment has not been disclosed, you can be sure the Hollywood crowd - slightly edgy outsiders notwithstanding - doesn’t come cheap. This isn’t some garage-based, grassroots venture, folks. This group is talented, and smart enough to know how to play corporate ball without seeming to - subtle product placements anyone?


It is worth checking out folks, especially if you wonder where broadcasting and webcasting might be headed. There is a sense of adventure and it will be interesting to see if they can survive well into their second year and beyond.
posted by well-executed buffet at 11:25 PM
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Wednesday, May 21, 2008

A Flipping Beautiful Performance: David McMurray Impressions Plus


A music blogger put this up. Believe me it is worth the time. You can open it in another window, but you won't be able to ignore it



posted by well-executed buffet at 8:13 PM
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Tuesday, May 20, 2008

Tuesday with Tom


Tom Waits: Under Review 1984-2006 includes clips of Tom Waits videos and performances. But mainly it consists of shots of guys talking about his transition as an artist during the eighties and nineties in almost the same way that guys talk about professional sports figures. The film intercuts American critics Robert Cristgau and Anthony DeCurtis, four very solid English and Australian music writers, and a very brief interview with Bones Howe, Waits' producer of the time that just proceeds the era covered in the film.

Bones talks about Tom was into junkyard sounds in the early eighties. He didn't really love what Tom was doing, so it was time to have professsional separation. Howe's sound was a great LA session sound. The early albums are full of skid row romanticism with lots of instrumentation. I confess to bowing out after Foreign Affair. After that my contact happened during very late night videos like Neighborhood from Swordfish Trombones. Later I caught up with Big Time and to some extent Bone Machine. We saw him in Eugene on his 1999 tour.

In the video much time is spent talking about the "trilogy" of Swordfish Trombones, Rain Dogs and Frank's Wild Years. What I love about the critics and comentators in this video is that they spend some time all with varying degrees of passion or agreement about album quality but also Tom's influences. This period of Tom Waits is filled with the impact of Harry Partch, Howlin' Wolf, Captain Beefheart, Kurt Weil, and in Frank's Wild Years Frank Sinatra. They talk about the spoken word stuff, but didn't mention about Ken Nordeen's obvious influence. Maybe that will be on a bonus disk someday.

The Island trilogy and Big Time, the highly theatrical concert film was followed by a period of theatrical collaboration and more sonic and rhythmic experimentation with the likes of Primus on Bone Machine. This also was the era of the Jarmusch "I Don't Wanna Grow Up" video where he is crouched in a curtained room playing the world's smallest unkele. Of the theater pieces, Anthony DeCurtis says that critics don't want to talk about it but that "Even experimentation can become predictable." Our Waits experts offer multiple opinions about the merits of Mule Variations or the album I am now most interested in checking out now Real Gone. Real Gone is Waits' scathing response to George W and the Iraq mess.

My uneven path through Waits and his work these past 22 years is what made Tom Waits: Under Review 1984-2006 an interesting experience for me. If someone knew all the albums well this could be quite tedious. Not enough exposure to Waits would result in just plumb feeling overwhelmed by the level of commentary. Instead, this 80 minute mostly talking head video of musical admiration was in the Goldilocks zone for me. The result of viewing it was quick determination to rebuild my IPod's Tom Waits playlist immediately.
posted by well-executed buffet at 7:35 PM
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Monday, May 19, 2008

A Sad & Colossal Mess from Coppola


I believe in the underdog and personal projects by artists who might get maligned by the press and can't find and audience. To be a champion for such a work when justified gives me great joy as a film lover.

But sometimes the work in question is so flawed, so greatly messed up that one can't justify the campaign to try to find something to really like about it, let alone recommend it to others. I remember years ago reading Hemmingway's Across the River and into the Trees a post WWII babble where the characters would riff endlessly about age and existence.

Francis Ford Coppola's film Youth Without Youth somehow brought me back to the experience of reading that tedium many many years later. I had believed this would be a kind of modest film experience in the mode of the quiet meditative Gardens of Stone, made after his son's death twenty years ago. Instead, this film is a kind of epic: the first third speculative fiction morphing into a bizarre Nazi espionage thriller and then into a turgid third act with a tongue speaking (or rather ancient language speaking) muse. This was a very long two hour movie which took me more than a couple of days to plod through via DVD.

I was pleased to see that Bruno Ganz was in it, but his performance seemed wooden and his English was distracting. He played a t doctor who protects his lightning struck patient who didn't die, but became younger. That patient was played by Tim Roth. This is an actor I have never been able to connect with and I'm not sure why except that he comes off as being very mannered to me. I'm wondering with another lead, I may have had more success with this film. But then I'm thinking that is probably unlikely. Much of Youth Without Youth has this professor character talking to himself in mirrors, in bed, and sometimes in the heat of the action. A mannered actor in a most mannered conventions thus buried this thing further for me.

Yet the film is gorgeous as one would expect from a Coppola production and it definitely takes some chances. For instance the dream and fantasy sequences would frequently be shot as sideways verticals or 90 degree flips. And there was an exterior sunset or two that one truly wanted to believe was not too great a product of digital enhancement. But visionary tricks don't connect if there is no story.

Walter Murch edited this film as he did with Coppola's Apocalypse Now and contributed the sound editing to the Conversation. If I was ever to return to Youth Without Youth, I would like to do that as one studying Murch's editing and sound techniques in the film. Much of the good stuff I could identify and notice in the film seemed to be associated with Murch's contributions. Then again, a study of Murch might be best spent with the earlier Coppola efforts or better yet the films of Anthony Minghella. I see on IMDB that Coppola his currently filming a new effort called Tetro and Murch is connected to it. Let us hope that will deliver something significant in his 70th year. It would be great to see this lion roar again.
posted by well-executed buffet at 11:55 PM
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Sunday, May 18, 2008

Obama and 70k Others at PDX Waterfront Park 5.18.08


Okay. I did it. Left the house at 1:30 for Oregon Primary Lovefest and Real time history. I parked near Produce Row, but probably would have parked closer to the Morrison or Hawthorne if I had known in advance they no longer have Sunday hours. The Shame! An hour after departure, after facing two detours and walking through two seas of bootleg Obama T Shirt guys that seemed a little too slick, I was standing in the front off of two sectored areas which I now know each carried an estimate of 30,000 people deep.



Only Portland. This picture doesn't do it justice. The rails along the Willammette were completely covered with bicycles. For Several blocks. In fact any kind of mountable like pole metal surface. Either fence or signpost, it didn't matter. There would be a cluster of bicycles.





I wanted to show up today because I'm impressed and supportive. I also was hoping it was going to provide insight to see his It factor. I hoped it was going to kind of be the difference between Magic Johnson or Jesse. I knew it was going to be stump speech with some topicality. But if nothing more the pacing, the intersecting of ideas and a man a work was going to be a strong and interesting experience. He ackowledged Hillary and how hard and historic it has been with her. He made Bush and McCain morph into one. I believe that image is a major key to Democratic success.




They had listed all of the members of the Decemberists as going to appear also.
I guess they came on before 2:15 or didn't play at all. They could have used something during the twenty minutes of canned music that came on after Earl Blumenhauer. But the exit music was pretty cool. Stevie Wonder's Signed Sealed and Delivered followed by Curtis Mayfield's Move on Up. After Obama, those tunes confirmed that I feel life is having some interesting possibilities lately and it is about time to let the good guys win so the good times can roll a little bit easier.




The motorcade passed me and a few bicyclists on the Morrison Bridge. Obama in a green van. That is so refreshing compared to black Lincolns. The Secret Service car I saw earlier was also green.




Seeing this was a profound way to end the day. This sticker was on a old Harvester International truck. Even the casual political historical junky's mind goes racing when considering the election of 48 years ago and what's happening with the man on the stage today.

posted by well-executed buffet at 8:51 PM
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Saturday, May 17, 2008

Was (Not Was) at Wonder Ballroom 5.17.08


Second hot consecutive spring night--thank goodness it felt closer to warm. It was wonderful sit outside and have a drink at 9pm. Music season is here. After dinner and a logistic pause, I urged Pam to sit out on a patio and have a drink outside The Wonder Cafe, the supplementary hangout of the Wonder Ballroom where we were able to see a tour by Was (Not Was) which basically a first opportunity after many many years, especially in a tour setting. And what a happy dancing soul review from the quirkier side of Detroit it Was (ha ha)

The Was Brothers were kind of in this project and producer zone that was reflective of the more interesting kinds of things going on in music, or at least my record collection during the eighties. Hal Wilner's multi-guested tributes to Nino Rota, Mingus, Disney etc. and his early bookings Saturday Night Live to a degree, and syndicated music show Night Music were pure smorgasboards of joy for the avid cross-genre but jazz-based listener. Bill Laswell was another, but his kind of robot funk didn't really ever appeal to me.

Probably most among the new creative visioned producer presense to my ears was the guy from Was (Not Was), Don Was. He was the hero and celebrity-level producer of Bonnie Raitt's Nick of Time and a bunch of other records where he had the formidable talents doing their thing with a great deal of authenticity and care. The role of recording producer has basically been his livelihood for the past 20 years, but one gets the sense that the return of Don and is also the chance for them to live their soul R&B dream on stage and in records. Don Was has one of the most consistently unique presences with his heavy dreads, dark glasses and (at least on Saturday night) cowboy hat. He was very cool and thankful of anyone who made eye (I mean dark glasses contact) Pam was really nervous I was going to start talking to him. She need not worry Was is a music nerd guy who knows how to quickly spot and deal with music nerd guys. "Thanks for coming out." was a good standard way to deal with our kind.


And among the most notable aspects of Was (Not Was) is the three man line of "Sweet Pea" Atkinson, Harry Bowens and Donald Ray Mitchell. These guys are something else. They do a mix of choreographed moves but the cool thing about their dancing is that it isn't entirely an act. I am convinced this music forces you to move with a certain style. Pam remarked at how three guys at that age were able to keep up the pace, especially at the end.

Was (Not Was) got one of those novelty videos on during the eighties about walking a dinosaur. It was only the most public of their strange little world content and to some degree music-wise. They are clever gentleman these brothers Was. They don't mind being a bit bratty or audacious. One of my favorite moments was the live Mos Sunshine Superman and Superfly. I would describe their humor and attitude as somewhere between They Might Be Giants and Frank Zappa.

Tahoe Jackson & the Love Bullies were the opening act. We caught about a song and a half. It was darned difficult coming inside when the weather was as impressive as the evening had been. The full song we caught was atmospheric open jam funk with Tahoe up full and front improvising mostly calling the shots to her lover. The crowd kicked into high dancing gear and gave a big stop the show applause at the end of the first natural break after the opener, Papa Was A Rolling Stone and a song about bombing the government that merged into aforementioned Sunshine Supermanfly.
posted by well-executed buffet at 11:59 PM
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Friday, May 16, 2008

Of Truth and Pain: The Unknown Soldier


The past few years have underscored the fact that in times of war, horrid awful things will occur. Abu Gahrib first comes to mind. It seems obvious that you can't be in the most horrid of circumstances without getting some on you. This will be particularly true of times and racist fueled militarism motivated and clouded the actions of an army at war. Michael Verhoeven's The Unknown Soldier challenges the viewer and forces them to come away with a perspective of WWII not contained to the story of Auschwitz and other similar concentration camps.

In the film, Historian Dirk Ruponow discusses how the holocaust has been focused along the lines of atrocities at Auschwitz but that there was so much more that occurred by less systematic means such as mass firing squad executions of civilians. A point that is then underscored by images, footage and testimonies of survivors in the Ukrainian city of Dubno and the ravine of Babi Yar in Kiev. These are crimes on a scale that could not be carried out on their own by the SS. And this is a point that Verhoeven's historical experts and holocaust experts bring forward several times during the film.

The Unknown Soldier is also the story of an entire nation trying to come to terms with atrocity and their past. Much of Germany commonly held the belief that the the regular army or Wehrmacht were involved in war crimes and genocidal atrocity. This belief was challenged by two German exhibitions in the late nineties and turn of the century. There are images of abuse executions of both citizens and soldier prisoners on the Eastern front. The exhibit shows how thousands of Russian prisoners were killed in the POW camps to systematically deplete their numbers. Verhoevn's film shows neo-nazis, former soldiers and their families denying the charges and alleging the validity of the documentation including the claim that photographs were doctored.

This is not an easy film to digest. It covers a huge amount of ground both in the areas of cultural conflict and historical fact. It also attempts to spend some time dealing with how soldiers coped with this environment and their actions. Unknown Soldier shows how their actions could be better defused with the motivations against a partisan threat than one motivated by direct anti-semitic belief. The film implies that this was the reality they hung onto to justify their actions. There are not scores of former soldiers talking about their experiences into the camera like, say, the WWII vets of Ken Burn's The War. But Verhoeven does conclude his film with one veteran who feels and expresses remorse: Rudolf Mossner, a former soldier now in his eighties concludes the film by saying "I am ashamed of how the German soldier behaved towards the enemy. That makes me ashamed of myself."
posted by well-executed buffet at 8:02 PM
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Thursday, May 15, 2008

An Amazing Man Portrayed by a Master



Tracy Kidder's book Mountains Beyond Mountains is an upclose look at Dr. Paul Farmer: physician, anthropologist, public health expert, and friend of Haiti and the rest of the developing world. Kidder has the skill of bringing the reader into his subject's world with the power, skill, and many of the tools of the novelist. There is a recent interview in the Huffington Post about Mountains Beyond Mountains (several years after its publication. This is a book that will continue to have a very long tail, I believe) where Mark Klempner quotes Kidder: "A priest friend of mine who once said to me, "When you cross the path of a certain kind of person, you ought to really pay attention."" And this also summarizes the way I felt about the experience of reading Mountains. It was a a moving experience where the reader gets close to a singular vision to healing, doctoring, that has resulted with his organization Partners in Health making an impact on the world.


Mountains explores both the stories of Farmer and Partners in Health. PIH was able to create the method and find the means of treating multi-drug resistant TB and pioneered efforts to give drug treatment to AIDS patients in Haiti when such an approach was unpopular and deemed a waste of time. The small efforts of Partners In Health have led to acceptance of their methods by the world health community at large.

I was surprised how riveted I was with a book that is basically about eliminating infectious disease and poverty. I give a lot of the credit to Kidder and his way of getting into his subject. But the credit has to also be given to this extraordinary person. In the four years since the book has come out, Partners in Health has expanded their work, partly due to the exposure Kidder has given them. According to the May 4 CBS 60 Minutes profile on Paul Farmer, PIH's budget is now $50 million (but how many movies are made with more than that?) with more workers and more countries being served. PIH's model of community health workers doing follow-up has begun in the United States.

What makes Farmer run? Partly it is his dedication to what sounds like a basic and fundamental premise for. He told 60 Minutes "Everybody should have access to medical care. And it shouldn't be such a big deal."
posted by well-executed buffet at 8:51 PM
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Wednesday, May 14, 2008

Berlin Alexanderplatz on Film: 1931 Style


One of the bonuses of note in the Criterion Collection's remastered set of Werner Rainer Fassbinder's 15 hour Berlin Alexanderplatz, was an earlier film of this story of standard feature length produced in 1931. It was directed by Phil Jutzi from a screenplay co-written by the source novel's author, Alfred Doblin.

This Alexanderplatz works on the basic level of being a swell little melodrama from the early days of sound film, but has virtues that go well beyond that. It has a livelieness that reminds me of the early New York of Cassavetes and Scorsese in the vibrancy and in the way that Jutzi paints his characters within the city. Bieberkopf's bar isn't that far from the Mean Streets dive occupied by De Niro and Keitel.

This is especially notable in the early scenes when protagonist Franz Bieberkopf, played by Heinrich George leaves prison and attempts to make sense of the changed world around him: A swirling, lively Berlin, much like that of Ruttman's Berlin Symphony of a Great City. George is a large presence whose long career is silent films is evident in the way he uses his face and body to elicit emotion surrounded in sadness, fate, and the inevitable path to catastrophe or tragedy.

It is inevitable that Bieberkopf will fall into the local underworld despite his good intentions to go straight as a street peddler and the tenderness (or perhaps due to this vulnerability, in part) in his character. It is one of literature and films great themes--will our hero/protagonist go back or go over to the darkside or get hooked (think Algren's Man with the Golden Arm) again.

In 1931, sound engineering still garnered results which were somewhat technically inconsistent. The contrast in quality with natural exteriors with the studio were pretty evident. Optical printing during a dream sequence when Bieberkopf is in the hospital also might seem a bit quaint. Yet you have a sense that there is a mission and a passion to get this story on film. And the victory of being able to do so is somewhat like the victory at the story's end when Bieberkoph returns to peddling on the Alexanderplatz street corner, not to be defeated by his tragedies.
posted by well-executed buffet at 12:27 AM
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Tuesday, May 13, 2008

Love, Cholera, & the Search for the Cinematic Silver Lining


I noticed a few years ago how credits at the end of the film seemed to have swelled over the years. One day I realized every name meant a family and mortgage and a full life for everyone on that list. They all had W4s and bank accounts. Someone brokered or hired them to do some kind of job on this little piece of universe I just watched that some big bank cut a check for with the hope that there would be what James Brown called "The Big Payoff."

So, okay if that last statement seems a little cynical, but in today's nexus crossroads switchyard of art and commerce, the payoff gets all the attention: Oscar nominees, Sunday night headlines of how well Rocket or Spider or Sequel Man did and all of that. But what about all of those well intended efforts that basically turn into commercial dissappearing acts after the first weekend? There is a special place in my Netflix queue for them. I bring them to my home kind of like how one wishes they could adopt pets at the humane society. "Oh (insert name here, latest being Love in the Time of Cholera)" can you possibly be only worth stray dog status? Here, let me spend my two hours with you and see if all of these efforts by all of these fine folks resulted in something that will only be recycled by cable channels after midnight less than a year after big ads in the NY Times posited your presence."

Hence, my motivation to see lots of films I reflect up on here in the Buffet. And now, Love in the Time of Cholera. I have never taken to Mr. Gabriel-Marquez's fiction so can't give any book/author comparative remarks here. What I saw was a big canvased movie with lots of missteps (John Leguizamo in costume dress--please help) but it had a great reel at the end. But only if you could last through the female protagonist's whining and ranting, the infidelities and bland short comings of of her fairly spineless doctor husband, and the deep three digit stickman superficial stud adventures of the well-meaning schmo who obsessed about her for five decades.

Latin actors must of lined up big time for this one. There is a lot of care and detail and a sense that folks wanted to try to do justice well to this material. It strives to be a Dr Zhivago, but all of those names at the end of the film, headed up by director Mike Newell (A 65 year old English director with a Harry Potter movie, a few critical successes, and a lot of TV in his list of credits--what would this film have been like if directed by Alfonso Cuarón or one of the other new Mexican Cinema or another up and coming latin director?) did not create efforts of big payoff either artistically or in bottom line. But here is a viewer who believes in the noble well-intentioned effort. And if a few smiles or pauses in the heart or striking images resulted in spending a twelfth of a day that resulted in the hundreds of hours of their efforts, then does it truly deserve to be in the cinematic pound of late night scheduling and extra copies soon to be on the 3 DVDs for $12 table at Blockbuster or Hollywood Video?
posted by well-executed buffet at 11:37 PM
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Monday, May 12, 2008

Germany, Pale Mother: A film from 1980


Germany, Pale Mother is a 1980 film directed by Helma Sanders-Brahms. I have heard it referred to in listings of films of the German New Wave of the seventies and eighties, but had no idea what kind of a work of stark beauty awaited. It is possible that it got overwhelmed in the long shadows cast by Fassbinder, Wenders, Schlondorff. Unfortunately, its subject matter will always put it in some kind of comparable zone with Fassbinder's Marriage of Maria Braun.

But Maria is a manipulative and for most not likeable heroine elevated by Fassbinder's overwrought (I still like it though) melodramatic style and festishes. The story of Lena is the story of ordinary folks told in a manner that reveals. For instance, after an air raid we see a wide shot with Lena's toddler is in the foreground and Lena is vomitting on a pile of rubble from the night's allied bombing attack. She refuses the aid of an older man. It is only then we realize that this was her home. The response is to pick up the child and go find the rich relations in Berlin after finding as much silverware she can.

This is a film with beautiful well controlled mise en scene styled long takes that reveal and take the viewer so often to another place or perspective. This style was probably due, in part, because of budget, but for this intimate story of a German citizen's challenges and transformations from the late thirties to the early fifties, it fits quite well.

Germany, Pale Mother deals with post traumatic stress of the experience both from direct battle and by citizenry surviving of World War II. It is also the story of the filmmaker's childhood. The images of Lena and daughter Anna (played by Sanders-Brahm's daughter in the story of her Grossmutter und Mutti) are what I will carry with me: through the snow to find the relations who have moved from Berlin to country sanctuary, through the rubble of buildings. But the most profound moment for me came when, after being attacked by American soldiers, Lena explains in measured tones of a seasoned survivor that in war the women and riches belong to the victor.

The film is titled for and begins with Brecht's poem, which I believe in the film is credited as being written in 1931. There are levels to this film that could be studied for years, and many of those doors for meaning could be tapped through the Brecht poem which concludes with:

O Germany, pale mother!
How have your sons arrayed you
That you sit among the peoples
A thing of scorn and fear!
posted by well-executed buffet at 9:19 AM
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Sunday, May 11, 2008

An Evening Reveals Three Cool Enterprises



We went out on Saturday night for a bit of adventure. Pam has recently connected with a writer who had previously been a part of the Clarion workshops and was going to participate collaborative reading. We timed our dinner accordingly andwent for it. Hence the discovery of three cool enterprises:

posted by well-executed buffet at 9:59 PM
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Saturday, May 10, 2008

A Few More Sights from Toronto & ICRS





I regret not capturing this gentleman's name. He is credited by International Computer Refurbisher Conference co-chair Jim Lynch as being the father of the Computer In Schools Canada program, a highly successful project that has put nearly 900,000 computers from government and industry into the schools.




I met up with Fresh White and Stephen Brown of Tech Soup, the non-profit that helps administer the Microsoft Authorized Refurbisher or MAR program. They do good work. I've talked to Stephen on the phone and received e-mails from Fresh. It is a cool thing to connect with folks in person you have only spoken or connected with on the wire.




There was a whole lot of energy on this second floor studio on Yonge Street. Great location. They don't have to worry much about advertising. Everyone in town probably knows who they are and where they are located.




Do we have something like this in the States? I don't know. Every cab in Toronto seemed to have one of these yellow lights on their trunk.




I dont' get it. The only difference I see is that the square is tilted on its side. Maybe a billboard is not the best way to understand the differences in the new Shreddie.




I know some naysayers out there won't believe I ate vegetables on the road. Here was the result of a tasty vegetarian buffet restaurant I found in Toronto.




The Delta Chelsea was home for three nights when I attended ICRS. It looks like a big slab of a hotel, but had some nice touches. I missed out on Toronto's biggest indoor water slide, which was advertised as being one of the Chelsea's most impressive features. Maybe next time.


posted by well-executed buffet at 8:47 PM
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Friday, May 9, 2008

Reuse is Better than a Landfill


The reason I was in Toronto recently was to attend the 5th Annual International Computer Refurbisher's Summit. It was an event that was somewhere between a professional meeting and a full-fledged conference with about 250 attendees. The conference was very broad-based covering the economic, environmental, and social benefits of computer re-use and refurbishing.

There were lots of compelling stories told by dedicated and inspired individuals such as Dr. Gillian Marcelle who has found thousands of computers to a vast variety of developing countries many of them in Africa. She can find good homes for Pentium 2 machines even. Or Mark Surman, whose project Techcentre has equally been important for many communities in South America and elsewhere.

Everyone seemed to have a story to tell. There were refurbishing programs involving convicts, housing projects, schools and universities, and at-risk youth. There were small businessmen who saw an opportunity for recycling and refurbishing electronics in communities underserved or without a recycling plan.

But most impressive to me is the Computers for Schools programs in Canada where almost 900,000 computers from governments federal and provincial as well as corporations have been refurbished and placed in schools across the country. I was able to share a table with the folks from Yellow Knife, NW Territories and was very impressed with their passion. One of them challenged me and said "how come this isn't being done in the states, it all should be state owned property. It should belong to the schools" If there was a window of opportunity for that mindset, it has long passed us by.

Back at home, the CREAM project seems modest to some of these fine and altruistic efforts. But concerted efforts to find new homes and capabilities for electronic devices, even minor ones, all add up. And the options and opportunities out there for those who care about common sense economically, socially and environmentally are vast indeed.
posted by well-executed buffet at 8:01 PM
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Thursday, May 8, 2008

Toronto Again






posted by well-executed buffet at 11:29 PM
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Wednesday, May 7, 2008

Erykah et Melisande: Two Nights in Toronto


The ICRS featured long hours in a hotel ballroom. It was a very interesting affair that I will be considering for some time. But that will be the subject of another post. My job here is to talk about how I had two very fine and complementary musical experiences just blocks away from my hotel.

On the first night I went from a 50th floor bar social of my fellow members of the refurbishing community to Massey Hall to see Erykah Badu on the only Canadian date of her current tour. Massey Hall is an impressive rock of a structure with an impressive history. It is one of the coolest of classic auditoriums I have been in. The walls in the bar downstairs document the first 100 years of its 114 year history. I'm kind of thinking its accurate to say that the Massey saw most of the great stars of last century from Caruso to top pop artists of every decade.

And I'm also told you can order drinks before the first set to be ready for you at intermission. That's very cool.

Tonight was going to be lovely history too. Badu's latest album is the best new album I have heard in months and months. It is her right punch to adjust the career. I love this record. Surprisingly, she did only four numbers (maybe five) from Amerykah Pt 1. They were really strong, but Erykah is smart not to put too much of any one brand out for too long.

The band took a while to get organized. The back singers are all women who look like hip hop Raelettes. They have tight cream envelope slip dresses with orange scarves on them grabbing to outside or inside hip and beyond. They are paramilitary in their deliberation in V formation outside to into the central Erykah zone with her monopod keyboard on one side and table with her shakers, Mac notebook for loud sample cues mainly, and clear liquid that she drank from the cup lid of her red thermos that had some kind of Erykah logo on it.

As I said Amerykah povided the framework for her to go off and do her diva sequence as stylish as Josephine Baker or Lena Horne. She did this number with beach balls and streamers that I've been thinking about long after the performance. Her last note of the evening was this high perfect intense one feeling almost like the whole evening was designed to that moment. This show was a treasure.


I love Tristan and Isolde. And Fellini and Bergman films. This combination can all be found in Debussy's Peleas et Melisande. I love the half gurgle themes bubbling off and becoming something unexpected bumping off of some more big notes or spaces. I appreciate taking overwrought Romantic stuff with a capital R to far extremes here. I first heard this opera on a Met broadcast 24 years ago. Reading libretto to the opera revealed how truly goofy the symbolism was but how mysterious and special it was too.

I had the most remarkable $20 seat in the world purchased three hours before curtain. They claimed it had obscure view but that only meant that part of the first well scene was cut off. Big Deal.

The soprano, whose name escapes me, is credited as doing the vocals at the end of the second Lord of the Rings movies. She was impressive, but so too was the entire production which had some diverse things happening on stage. Gounod the cuckhold paranoid wandered around in an outfit that looked just like the pajamas Henri Matisse was wearing in the Cartier Bresson portraits except this dude was about twice as big. These folks portrayed the family and kingdom in this film as beyond decline mentally. They are losing their souls and emotions in front of you on a bleak landscape and a dwelling that is only portrayed as a kind of dock with most of the main action happening on the same level practically as the row of boxes I was sitting at.

The Canadian Opera Company is a class operation. The Four Seasons Hall a beautiful modern acoustically sensitive room. I got to watch the pit from my vantage point as well and was amazed how young the orchestra was. Everyone in there from my perspective seemed 35 or younger. They sounded great executing Debussy's musical statements with brilliance and mysterious. Strings and winds are given quite a workout. Brass doesn't figure a lot in this score except for a few key moments. Even dreams of weirdness need a little brightening sometimes.
posted by well-executed buffet at 9:02 PM
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Tuesday, May 6, 2008

Canadian Curiosities





Yonge St in Toronto is touted as the longest street in the world. It supposedly spans across the entire province, or maybe beyond that...I'll have to check Wikipedia, to be sure. Regardless I rather appreciated Yonge St. It is a long and lively avenue reminiscent of Market St. in SF, University Ave, in Seattle, and many great streets in Europe.




I don't know who Ava is, but her knock off cover of Marvin
Gaye's Trouble Man is inspired. I'd buy a copy from her if she had a card table set up somewhere.




They say it is the biggest bookstore in the world, but Mrs. Wyden with her Strand and Mr. Powell with his well, you know, have them beat, I am sure.






Canadian Tire? I know there is a backstory here somewhere. What I saw was through the windows was a combination households and home improvement store. It was strange to see such a large store in a downtown urban setting which ostensibly sells tires.




I had to stop and see what kind of passengers from this very long limo would come in to use the services of the Evergreen Yonge Street Mission. Instead of that, it turned out the driver was parked there to get a sandwich at the doner restaurant near by. I figured if it was good for parking such a large car on a busy street, it was worth checking out. dI had a good doner there with lovely and zesty spices,




Check out Zanzibar's amazing neon display.




A large scale bill board extravaganza overlooking Dunda Square. The guy on top even moves, presumably eating his square of chocolate.


posted by well-executed buffet at 7:58 AM
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Monday, May 5, 2008

Toronto Travels I







Salish Coastal artist Susan Point's work came to our attention when visited a gallery on our honeymoon in Victoria BC. We did not purchase one of her works, but rather the work of another contemporary Frances Dick. I believe the gallery owner told us about the pieces that were in the Vancouver BC International Airport lobbies. I kept my eyes peeled for them when I was on my way to Ontario.





What a strange image. It looks like a duplo village, partly due to the inflatable hockey player, It was taken from the window of the hotel shuttle bus on the way to downtown Toronto.





Morning walk in Toronto. The CN Tower seems to be present just about anywhere you go in this city.









Just a couple of adverts that caught my eyes.





Toronto's Dundas Square is kind of like a combination the commercialism environment of Times Square without huge crowds fused with the city living room qualities of Portland's Pioneer square or San Francisco's Union Square. Regardless, it is decidedly sleepy place at 7am.


posted by well-executed buffet at 7:54 AM
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Sunday, May 4, 2008

Persepolis and Joy Division at cruising altitude



Air Canada Rocks! They not only give you an o screen in front of your seat on the headrest of the seat in front of you, they give you access to dozens of movies, some of which have not been released to DVD yet.

Now, I know this is not perhaps the most optimal way to watch a movie, I think of David Lynch and his "You can't watch a movie on a f-ing phone."
But somehow, watching Marjane Satrapi's Persepolis for the first, of which I predict will be several screenings, worked for me partly because of the setting, on a domestic Canadian plane filled passengers of many nationalities, many heading to make connecting flights from Toronto to European countries or elsewhere, A major theme in Persepolis is being between cultures and experiences.

Could this graphic memoir be transferred more successfully to the screen, even one smaller than a loaf of bread? I could do some nitpicking, but I really don't see how it could be much better. Satrapi's voice and vision are there because the work belongs to her. She and the team of filmmakers have retained her visual style, but also found ways in the script to illustrate and explain the explosive series of changes that were Iranian politics and government in the seventies and eighties through voice over and sillouheted figures. I hope for lots of behind the scene extras when the DVD is issued.

The other film I watched in the air was Control, the recent biography of Joy Division's Ian Scott. Surprisingly, the film was a reprise of the kind of kitchen soup films (Billy Liar, The Sporting Life, etc,) from the early sixties. Scott is revealed as primarily a well-intended bloke who works for Employment office, marries and fathers young. It doesn't glorify or romanticize his internal demons. His band gets very large in a hurry and his epilepsy and success leads to temptation and challenge. It probably should have been shortened, but I'm not sure if that response is not entirely unrelated to having it cut off with a reel to go as the plane was readied for descent.
posted by well-executed buffet at 9:42 PM
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Saturday, May 3, 2008

Walking Hard with Dewey Cox


Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story is a parallel universe of music biopics that was crafted by Jake Kasden and Judd Apatow. John C. Reily plays Dewey Cox, but by doing so he is also Buddy Holly, Roy Orbison, Bob Dylan, George Jones, Brian Wilson, and, of course, Johnny Cash. We see the rise and fall and rise again of Dewey Cox, who is plagued by childhood tragedy and never giving a daddy's love.

There are comedies and then there are "ignorant" comedies. Those that are off the meter and push the boundaries of taste. One's connection with this is personal. I have seen folks enjoy Monty Python and the Holy Grail until the blood and body parts start flying. There are moments in Walk Tall very early on where the user will know if the bandwidth of this entertainment.

PAm had a couple comments that I thought interesting after and while we were watching this DVD the other evening. First, she said that the script felt like something that Will Ferrell could star in. True, it features the kind of goofy world that Ferrell thrives in but Reiley gives it a different level and an almost tangible character. Is that because he looks like a regular guy (Thank you Paul Thomas Anderson for bringing Philip Seymour Thomas and Reiley to the public eye)

This leads me to Pam's second comment, the fact she noted a sense of heart and sweetness to an otherwise stoopid comedy, I give a lot of the credit to Reiley.
posted by well-executed buffet at 11:40 PM
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Friday, May 2, 2008

CT Is it Jazz?


Gil Scott Heron had a song out years ago called "Is It Jazz?" When he would do it in person he would talk about how he would always find his records in Miscellaneous.

It could be hard to classify the improvisational based music and work by many musicians who previously created straight jazz in the seventies and eighties. Miles Davis was electricity uncorked through the Jimi filter, Roy Ayers brought jazz to soul. Les McCann, Herbie Hancock, and even Bill Evans moved from Steinway to Fender Rhodes.

Then there were folks like Freddie Hubbard, George Benson into large productions by Creed Taylor who expanded from his work at Verve and A&M. I dispute that CTI was the birth of inoccuous "smooth jazz." Early seventies CTI albums that were not hard to listen to, but not necessarily "easy listening." he music was often produced big (but like Hubbard's Red Clay) this could be by creating a dynamic large quintet sound, no strings or large orchestrations, although CTI in that era could easily include both of those elements.

My favorite moments on these albums often include star musicians who play supporting roles on the projects of others. Chet Baker is at about his most lyrical on Jim Hall's Concierto. There's Joe Henderson and is very memorable in his solos on Red Clay, And Ron Carter seems to be the time keeper and a unstoppable force on just about all of the albums, it seemed.

Kyoto Jazz Massive is as hard to classify as the CTI early seventies halcyon days. There music is big, positive, but is as influenced as much by the soul and funk of the seventies as the musical form that is part of their name. And interestingly enough, they released an album of CTI and Kudo (related funk jazz level --think Grover Washington Jr.) My favorite track is Freddie Hubbard and Milt Jackson making a lovely turn through the Stylistics' People Make the World Go Round." If you need to ask "Is it jazz?" I would have to answer, "Does it matter?"
posted by well-executed buffet at 9:38 PM
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Thursday, May 1, 2008

The Daily Buffet at Half a Year


I had been mucking around with blogging a bit prior to November 2008. In late October my lovely wife had told me she was going to particpate in the exercise of blogging daily in the NaBloPoMo National Blogging Posting Month community. I told her that sounded like a fun thing to do and I thought I would try it for month as well.

Well-executed buffet's definition of daily is not necessarily 24 contiguous hours, but every day is indeed represented. In fact, I am writing this post with a bit of satellite delay.

If you are reading this, I appreciate it. But for the most part the creation is the end destination. I remember 21 years ago deciding to return to college because my jobhad become a burden and life seemed to tightening up. Similarly, why the blog. It is that space where I can..

And if this daily sharing of signposts along the buffet lead to folks checkin' it out so much the better. But basically I like being here and doing this. When I returned to school, that was my motivation...it lead to a nice career. If there are rewards here that would be great to, but for now, it is what it is for which it is intended: a digital sandbox to play in.
posted by well-executed buffet at 8:10 PM
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