i found a posting of man in van on freewilliamsburg yesterday. man in van is a short doc directed by sean dunne about a man who truly lives in a van down by the hudson river. this lead me to his vimeo page where i discovered two more short docs that are quite good. i particularly like ed david's photography in the archive. the archive was an official selection at sundance this year and is a fantastic short about the largest record collection in the world and the record collector who can no longer afford to maintain it. buckles is an interview with the last surviving veteran of world war i. check'em out:
this remix/mashup is sick! tor, an artist based out of montreal, has created this badass mashup. he used sufjan steven's come on! feel the illinoise! to create beats and then borrowed vocals from various hip-hop well knowns(Big Daddy Kane, Outkast, Aesop Rock, Pete Rock & C L Smooth, Grand Puba, Brother Ali, etc.) the outkast track is especially fantastic. it's a mashup of sufjan's "dumb i sound" and one of my absolute favorite tracks of all time, outkast's "ATLiens." i've posted it below. you can listen to all the tracks on his youtube account, which is linked above. you can also download the full mashup for free right here.
if you haven't noticed, i'm a pretty active member of the vimeo community. i watch, friend, heart and comment on videos pretty frequently. i see a lot of professional work and i see a lot of excellent amatuer work. and then, i find something incredible like this:
this is charlie steadman. he's a very active vimeo member. he's a software engineer in massachusetts that is married with kids. he and his family started making videos a few years ago to share on vimeo. this is the first one. this is what vimeo is all about. i'm pretty sure he only had kids so that he might have an acting troupe that can't say no to his vision.
A Muslim man adjusts his cap in a mirror at a mosque on the first day of the holy month of Ramadan, in Jammu, Jammu and Kashmir, Indian-administered Kashmir on August 23, 2009. (REUTERS/Mukesh Gupta) #
but none of that is forcing me through the motions of the above three frames today. oh no. it was an election day yesterday. an important election. one to wipe the city council slate clean, if we so chose. there was a decent amount of press coverage in the lead-up to this election, since, it was a contended race for almost every seat this year. but no one received more press than "dr" antwon womack. what's strange about that is he was running for the district 6 seat on the board of education, not city council. the reason he received so much press is that "dr" antwon womack lied about his credentials. he didn't happen to actually possess a doctorate and he didn't actually graduate from Alabama A&M, or from high school for that matter. that lie was stupid. he also lied about his age. he claimed to be 23 on his facebook page, the home base for his campaign, but, he was actually 21. also stupid. he then held the following press conference where he admitted to running for the mayor of tarrant, more than likely, on the same resume: (at least watch until he uses the word "strutinized" but the end is really the best)
he also released this statement: "Today I am re-assuring the voters of my district that has expressed their continuing support in my campaign in spite of my false statements about my pass. I will not comment publicly about my allegations anymore, however now is time for me to express my thoughts on why I am in this race. Early part of the year I questioned about running for the school board and which district to run for, and also talked with my friends and now supporters that encouraged me to enter the race. I think the public should know who encourage me to enter the race and who is supporting my campaign like LaShunda Scales a candidate for District 1 City Council and Carole Smitherman both encouraged me to enter the race and is continuing to support my campaign. And I thank them for their support."
damn, dawg. just not smart.
he lied, but at this point i started to feel bad for him. i DID. he waivered for a bit trying to decide whether to shut down his campaign or go with the ol' saying "there's no such thing as bad publicity." i think he got a bad publicist's advise. he kept his campaign alive and went to the polls.
i've always said,"never underestimate a birmingham city voter." or, i'd like to say that i've always said that. but really, never underestimate a birmingham city voter. the polls closed and the votes were counted and published this morning. "dr" antwon womack received 117 votes. now THAT was stupid. i'm just hoping he has a shitload of family members.
it's hard to comprehend how he received more than 17 votes. it makes me feel crazy. but i think that this points to a larger birmingham problem. it's really a black hole, not a problem(if this were on al.com, every racist asshole that posts comments on that site would turn that into a racial statement. by racist asshole, i mean everyone who posts on that site. anyway, that's another story). "dr" antwon womack is a product of the city school system. a city school system which failed him. he's the product of a city that failed him. we all sit around laughing and poking fun at his fabricated words and syntax. but he really isn't as stupid as he seems. underneath the exterior of his paltry education, a mind is plotting. you can hear it in the press conference, little bits of rhetoric culled from the mouths of local, sly politicians before him. i hear bits of our last three mayors in his defense and over all tone. if he'd been only a little slicker, if he'd been able to cover his past a little better, who knows...perhaps he could have made the board of education? perhaps he could have then run for city council, county commission, or even mayor? this is how we come to receive the birmingham we have now. our political infra-structure is failing us and will continue to fail unless we do something about the status of education in this city - shit, in this state. antwon womacks affect our crime rate, our political system, our education system, and our own lives - but more importantly, we affect their's. we need a change. as a great man once said, "let's do something." we have five runoffs for city council after yesterday's election and four, or so, for the board of education. i hope everyone gets out to vote in the many, many runoffs that take place on oct. 6.
*edit - so in trying to find hyperlinks for all my hilarious references, i found this article by john archibald that basically says exactly what i've said. for the record, i wrote this early this morning before finding his article and didn't feel like deleting all that work. i don't want our one reader to think this wasn't my idea.
i first saw this short when the small change screening series was on tour. they set up shop in my friend burke's living room and screened films for a room of 20 people. it's a great idea. they still tour and you can check out their touring dates and locations at the link above. this film, out of several beautiful and intriguing pieces really struck me. it is so simple and such an interesting piece comes from a tiny concept. the filmmaker is david dunn and he won the first disposable film festival with this short. here's what he has to say about it: A short video made using a CVS brand "disposable" video camera. Made for a group show at Publico Gallery in Cincinnati, OH. Also screened at the ICA in Philadelphia and first prize winner at the first annual Disposable Film Festival.
i love the SHIT out of tobias stretch's work! it's strange, i've loved his stuff for some time, check his website frequently and follow his blog, which he never updates, and i've never thought of posting some of his work here. another thing i love the shit out of is radiohead. here are the two together at last:
i love the vast landscapes and ethereal nature of his work. his finely textured characters seem to parade and maneuver through infinity. his work evokes this distant, or perhaps dying, youthful imaginative sensation that i haven't experienced since i saw the henson films labrynth and dark crystal, or even the last unicorn, or books like a wrinkle in time. that is called synesthesia. it's god damn beautiful, damnit! how's that for eloquence. it's complex as well. his animated moves coupled with the extensive character animation and sometimes time lapsed environment are intense. as for the flight scenes, i'm not quite sure how he accomplishes them, but they're incredible.
i don't know much about him, other than he's an artist and lives in pennsylvania. but that doesn't really matter as long as he keeps making what he makes.
Justin Gaar spawned from his father's forehead. He went on to study and, later, teach experimental jazz dancing at Juilliard in the 80's. Justin was the original drummer for Steely Dan. He also invented science.
