Wednesday, June 3, 2009

This blog continues at Tobinrussell.com

This blog has been consolidated and now lives at www.Tobinrussell.com. Thanks for reading!
Tobin

Monday, February 2, 2009

Why producing culture in the 60s was a fucking breeze

Cultural Politics: The White Negro: The New Yorker: "The golden era of American film, from the late '60s to the late '70s, Beatty says, was 'a wonderful period in movies and politics. It was a period when you didn't know that you would lose, in the box office and in the voting booth, if you did the right thing....'"

Thursday, January 29, 2009

1474 Mega Pixel Image of Obama's Inaugural

David Berman stiched together a giant panorama using NASA technology of Obama's address. The Flash player let's you zoom in on individual faces in a way you would not expect.


How I Made a 1,474-Megapixel Photo During President Obama’s Inaugural Address | David Bergman

Thursday, January 15, 2009

AAWWW SHEEEET I GOT BAMA'D
























J-dilla found it.

RUN DMC INDUCTED TO ROCK N ROLL HALL OF FAME

KINGS OF ROCK INDUCTED TO HALL OF FAME
"Hey, this is a Rock and Roll museum - you guys don't belong in here." - intro to Kings of Rock (video)

My favorite local music blog, Sound Verite, reports Run DMC have been inducted in Cleveland. How great is that?

and don't forget the Beatnuts are on the Scion tour for free at Varsity on January 26 - tix are on the house, but you have to RSVP online.

BBC NEWS | Europe | Czechs apologise for hoax EU art

So this guy puts on a spoof exhibit of art from every country in the EU - David Cerny. He did not include original viral marketer Banksy from England. Why not? Because David Cerny produced every work himself and admitted to misleading officials because he "wanted to find out if Europe was able to laugh at itself."

BBC News says "Czech Deputy Prime Minister Alexandr Vondra apologised directly to Bulgaria, which has formally complained over its depiction as a toilet in the art work."

This tops off a good run of Czech humor over the past four years or so. The Mayor of Prague dressing incognito to bust cab drivers for crazy overcharges of Western foriegners? Amazing 2006 action if I remember.

The Czech national archive winner being a giant green blob with purple spots? These people have a sense of humor a mile wide if this is to be the repository for every seminal text in their singular and very complex language.

And as recent as last year if I remember, a CZech artist spicing apocalyptic nuclear footage into a TV broadcast. Incredibly irresponsible? Yes. Don't believe everything you see on TV? Priceless.

BBC NEWS | Europe | Czechs apologise for hoax EU art

Czechs apologise for hoax EU art

So this guy puts on a spoof exhibit of art from every country in the EU - David Cerny. He did not include original viral marketer Banksy from England. Why not? Because David Cerny produced every work himself and admitted to misleading officials because he "wanted to find out if Europe was able to laugh at itself."

BBC News says "Czech Deputy Prime Minister Alexandr Vondra apologised directly to Bulgaria, which has formally complained over its depiction as a toilet in the art work."

This tops off a good run of Czech humor over the past four years or so. The Mayor of Prague dressing incognito to bust cab drivers for crazy overcharges of Western foriegners? Amazing 2006 action if I remember.

The Czech national archive winner being a giant green blob with purple spots? These people have a sense of humor a mile wide if this is to be the repository for every seminal text in their singular and very complex language.

And as recent as last year if I remember, a CZech artist spicing apocalyptic nuclear footage into a TV broadcast. Incredibly irresponsible? Yes. Don't believe everything you see on TV? Priceless.

BBC NEWS | Europe | Czechs apologise for hoax EU art

Wednesday, January 14, 2009

POPULAR ARTICLES ARE LIKE POPULAR PEOPLE

I am tired of 'Most Popular Articles' and 'Most Emailed Articles' and most recently on Obama's WEbsite requesting 'Citizen Briefings' - 'Recent Ideas' and 'Popular Ideas'

The problem with 'Popular' tagging is that it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy, much like all the giants of online media dominate the net with page view presence, once an idea or article or item is launched into the arena of 'Popular'ity it becomes a snowball of popularity and undemocratizes the process.

I know there's no perfect sol'n and that this is a reflection of the will of the herd, but it's also a reflection of the old school media echo chamber. It's not a whole lot unlike how news sources read each other's crap and report it. It's another version of insularity and myopia.

OLD SCHOOL MINNEAPOLIS RADIO

RADIOTAPES.COM / Home

I love online archives and I'm especially getting into audio archives as my Chicago friend Raoul shows me photographs of the guy writing the book that Creditland aspires to be. Of course I'm talking about Division Street: America by Studs Terkel....Mark Wojahn is Studs' second biggest fan from the Midwest's second major city.

So Studs roamed the streets making audio files, much like I roamed the streets of Brooklyn making photo file of Artists, Bands, Musicians, Freaks and Friends, the Broken Valley of Brooklyn, Sunday Best, Trains, Bridges, Man Wary, District Profiles, Hairshows, Fashion Shows at JFK School in Coney Island, and god knows what else from back in the day.

Now Creditland is going deep into audio. There's a man in Danforth, Maine burning his walls for heat. I have a young boy to interview him. Audio archives are coming. The Division-Street.org domain is purchase. Creditland is moving towards Money Masters and Richard Kotlarz and Julius of Clubhouse Jager - the true Abolitionist my friend dames claimed I was - calling ou tthe Federal Reserve and the commercial banks.

It turns out giving private banks the right to issue national currency is a recipe for government enslavement to private banks. Who knew?

Hey Obama loves Lincoln. Maybe he'll bring back Lincoln's nationally soveriegn currency. Lincoln's greenbacks.

It wasn't particularly dangerous or sacred territory for Thomas Jefferson or the post-Civil War press of the United States - I guess it's good enough for Creditland to call out this sacred cow for what it is: Fractional reserve banking is what got us where we are today: Pulled by the strings of the federal reserve and banks which have taken it to the extreme - holding almost no currency or value for loans leveraged hundre

Thursday, January 8, 2009

WHITE HOUSE PHOTOGRAPHER NAMED

In another sign of what I am beginning to feel is overly cautious social conservatism on the part of President-elect Obama, he has named Ronald Reagan's White House photographer as his own. I thought Obama had the message: That generation already has the recognition and work they need in the culture industry.

I'm becoming a bit concerned Obama is not seriously considering the debt he owes to the media which has kept the US from becoming the single state Cheney, Rove, Rumsfeld and, when making the effort or taking a moment away from the mirror, Bush really really wanted to create.

My generation has been living long enough with these people clogging the jobs we need - Barack, get real. Covering the everything of Barack Obama should be a young man's job, so why hire the fogey? I hope you can respect his hours: You hired the elderly.

Pete Souza: Accomplished, great photographer, heroic imagery, flattering book, hyper conservative pick.

RNC IS BEGGING: THANK BUSH


This hilarious email appeared in my inbox - have no idea how they missed my ideology or if I signed up just to monitor this kind of bull - but after reading Frank Rich describe how Bush is incapable of even being a failure of consequence, this email comes as a hilarious icing on the PR cake they're backing for the Narcissist President

Tuesday, December 23, 2008

IMAGINE CONEY and THE HIGH LINE

http://imagineconey.com/

The Municipal Art Society of NY has launched a website where it is soliciting people's vision for Coney Island. Given that Coney is under threat from development - it will be important for people to look at this and use it to fight the developers that be.

I recently learned yesterday that Herzog and de Meuron will be doing the High Line in NYC - the organization which my friend Juliet help develop right from the beginning - sometime around the beginning of the century.