Photo Fraud in Lebanon

From Aish HaTorah - a non-profit, apolitical network of Jewish educational centers- comes a piece about photo fraud in Lebanon.

PhotoFraud

Considering what is being said and who is saying it, I'm not sure this is an unbiased piece.

Hitchcock's Rope

Being a huge fan of mis-interpretation or re-interpretation, I am a fan of Hitchcock's Rope in which two fictional young men - inspired by the true Leopold and Loeb case - kill one of their aquantinces and hide his body in a truck. One things lead to another, and they're discovered by the very man who they thought would most agree with their motives, as they justified their actions with his philosophies.

Sadly, for them, this man (Rupert), does not agree with their logic and the following discussion ensues; which just goes to show it always pays to clarify second and third party intents.


Brandon: Rupert, remember the discussion we had before with Mr. Kently?
Rupert: Yes
Brandon: Remember we said, "the lives of inferior beings are unimportant"? Remember we said - we've always said, you and I - that moral concepts of good and evil and right and wrong ... don't hold for the intellecturally superior. Remember, Rupert?
Rupert: Yes, I remember.
Brandon: That's all we've done. That's all Phillip and I have done. He and I have lived what you and I have talked. I knew you'd understand because you have to, don't you see? You have to.
Rupert: Brandon - Brandon, till this very moment, this world and the people in it ... have always been dark and incomprehensible to me, and I've tried to clear my way with logic ... and superior intellect. And you've thrown my own words right back in my face, Brandon. You were right to. If nothing else, a man should stand by his words. But you've given my words a meaning that I never dreamed of! And you've tried to twist them ... into a cold, logical excuse for your ugly murder! Well, they never were that, Brandon, and you can't make them that. There must have been something deep inside you from the very start ... that let you do this thing, but there's always been something deep inside me that would never let me do it ... and would never let me be a part to it now.

The Onion riffs on symbiotic relationships

The Onion details the loveless symbiotic relationship between an anthropomorphic rhino and a tickbird; clarifying the meaning of symbiosis in the process.

rhino

WT(C/F)

Being that my classmates and I have some, presumed, shared experiences - language, location, academics, etc - I suspect that many will be moved by a certain composed image amongst the Baltimore Partnership's attempt to beautify Howard Street (and god knows where else) with a series of enlarged photographs of the city. Most provoked no response in this blogger, but this one, this one does.

Midnight Mavericks and gathering items together for review

I've been gathering together a slew of documentaries and non-fiction writing for observation. Perhap's Barbet Schroeder's General Idi Amin Dada [A Self Portrait], Preston Sturges: The Rise and Fall of an American Dreamer, The Art of Film: Vintage Hitchcock and the various supplementary documentaries thrown on every other major film's DVD release will prove ample fodder for future comments, but for now, I will focus on a book I've been reading; Midnight Mavericks: Reports From the Underground by Gene Gregorits. Of the many celebrities interviews - including John Waters, Stuart Gordon, The Kills - I mentioned to the writer that I enjoyed his interview with director Abel Ferrara (Ms. 45, Bad Lieutenant, King of New York). He commented that he wished that his editor didn't cut down the original piece, so I found the original piece online and here is the link:

WARNING NOT POLITICALLY CORRECT.

Interview


I'm going to try and scan the article from the book as a comparison, but for an idea of the differences the book starts with an intro about Ferrara and then the following interview bit:

Gene Gregorits: What kind of jobs did you have, before you went to film school, and made your first film?

Abel Ferrara: I worked for my father, worked for my uncles. Driving garbage trucks... I don't know, typical shit. Worked in a factory. My uncles and my father owned scrap metal yards. That was their business. Driving trucks. Washing dishes in a fuckin' old age home, anything I could get. Any job at that age is good.

More interview follows

Already a good chunk is taken out and the casual banter between the author and the subject is removed almost entirely. A certain immediacy of the original text of the interview is, in my opinion, removed. It is now an editor framing the remaining text into an new relationship for whatever reasons - space, politics, conspiracy - that shapes the book reader's interpretation.

BTW Gene is a writer who lives in the local area (this being Baltimore as of Sept 2007) and everybody should buy a copy of his book:

Buy, BUY NOW!

But don't listen to me, listen to John Waters:

Listen to Johnny!


Coming soon posts on Studs Terkel, documentary films and bio-pics! Yum-o.

First Post

Hello, welcome to the first post.

Goodbye, thanks for looking.