Sesame Street goes Upstate

This has been around for a few months, but I just ran across it recently.  Of course I'm behind on most things: it's a problem.  But in this case I feel more or less off the hook, in that, having no children and not likely to become a parent anytime soon, I don't feel much responsibility to keep up with the details of kid's TV.  But this is significant on a few levels, so I was impressed when I found out about it.

Meet Alex, a new character on Sesame Street (or at least an online version of Sesame Street) whose father is in jail.  It says something pretty important about the World We Live In that this platform is necessary – as this Pew Research article mentions, some 2.7 million American children currently have a parent in jail or prison.  That would be 3.6% of American children with an incarcerated parent.  Incarcerated, one might add, in a correctional system that is arguably ineffective, weighed down by misguided drug laws, and inescapably, profoundly, maddeningly racist and classist.  Oh, and well nigh devoid of any noticeable corrective element.

But this piece is for the kids.  And of course Sesame Street being Sesame Street, they find a way to deal with this unbelievably tough-to-even-wrap-your-mind-around topic with not just kindness and sensitivity, but with a "did they just pull that off?" sense of humor.

“What’s ‘carcerated,’ and why was your dad in it?”

Well played, Children's Television Workshop.  Well played.

'Prison-Industrial Complex' is one of those terms that rubs me kind of wrong, being that too clever for its own good brand of inflammatory.  But America is out of balance - way out of balance - in the way we handle corrections, and the penal system is so seriously in need of reform that I'm willing to accept the provocation.

More materials and more video is on the Little Kids/Big Problems section of the Sesame Street website.

Do you still go outside?

"Just as water, gas, and electricity are brought into our houses from far off to satisfy our needs in response to a minimal effort, so we shall be supplied with visual or auditory images, which will appear and disappear at a simple movement of the hand, hardly more than a sign."
   -Paul Valery, 1931





Instant access to everything: all the music ever recorded, all the words ever written, all the pictures ever drawn, photos of every sculpture molded, carved, or cast. Footage, accounts, and descriptions of any event you care to witness or recall. The history of people and of nations. A 3-D rendering of any item that could be imagined. Economic information and mathematical formulations. Erotic fantasies, comedic interludes, pithy remarks, athletic exhibition, action and suspense, diversion without end.

And then what?

From A to Z

Well, yeah. That's pretty much it.

Got this little compare-and-contrast from Mike Daisey, via his blog. Worth a look, as Mike's work always is.

Speaking of that, if you live anywhere near New York you should make a trip to the Public to see The Agony and The Ecstasy of Steve Jobs, Daisey's current monologue, which toggles back and forth among his personal history of semi-obsessive interaction with computers (especially Apple products), Steve Jobs' biography (which includes the rise-fall-and-rise of Apple, of course), and the progression of Apple's/America's involvement with electronics manufacturing in China, as viewed through the lense of Daisey's research visit to Shenzhen. It is amazing, alive, and astonishingly powerful. And it's been extended through December 4.

Seriously, go see it.

If you want to read up on the subject beforehand, there's plenty out there on the internets about the show and about the earlier incarnations that Daisey developed over the last year or so in various locations, none of it hard to track down. To give you a boost, here's the piece he wrote for the Times in the immediate wake of Jobs' death.

Go the F*#k to Sleep

Perhaps you've heard of Go the F#*k to Sleep, the new Not-Really-a-Children's-Book by Adam Mansbach & Ricardo Cortes. It's been getting more than a little media attention these days, and its press run has already crept up toward the half-million copies mark. Why? Because it's f*^king brilliant is why:

Mansbach, according to the official version of the story, was frustrated for the umpteenth time by the time and effort involved in getting his 2-year-old to go to sleep for the night, and posted on Fbook a joke to the effect of: "Be on the lookout for my forthcoming children's book, GO THE F%&K TO SLEEP." The reaction from his friends and fans (he was already an award-winning grown-up fiction writer) was so fiercely positive that he decided to write the book for real. He got himself an illustrator and, well, here we are: smash hit children's book that is utterly inappropriate for children, but all kinds of fantastic for adults.

And now, plug in your headphones and take a look at this little slice of amazingness - Werner Herzog (yes, the Werner Herzog) reading along with America's new favorite book.



After the bizarre media events of the last couple weeks (will there come a time when people look back and ask if we really spent all that time talking about a congressman's kinks when there was a war on? Sorry - three wars?) this just about made me weep tears of joy.

Portishead Said...

On the subject of their album to be released this year, Portishead musician and producer Geoff Barrow has exuded the following:

“There will be NO free downloads There will be NO bonus tracks There will be NO remixes There will be NO hidden footage. There will be NO additional content There will be NO corporate partners There will be NO fashion lines There will be NO tabloid pictures. There will be NO £25 unit cost There will be NO streetteam There will be NO myspace There will be NO celeb producer There will be NO twitter There will be NO press/blogger gig There will be NO acoustic session There will be NO meet and greet There will be NO edited version. There will be NO iTunes only There will be NO press launch There will be NO asian version There will be NO radio friendly. Just music and us.”

Well. There that is.

Video Shoot

Remember Mel & El? From celebrations past?

Well these days, in addition to their monthly residency at Comix, they are shooting a Web Series about their ongoing musical attempts to save the world from tedium and stupidity. It's an uphill battle.

I started a full day yesterday by shooting a scene for one of their episodes. Without wanting to give away too much (these episodes are full of surprises) I'll say that I play an extremely high-powered doctor in high society. Yes, you should quake in my presence.

Well, in addition to my line (yes - line, singular. But that one line contains multitudes.) we engaged in some improvisation. Some of which went really well. But at one point we had an exchange that went something like this...

C: So what hospital do you work at?
Me: Grey's
B: (Supressing a laugh) Grey's??
C: Nice hospital...
Me: I mean Grace. Seattle Grace.
C: Oh yes, I've heard of that one.
B: You had some trouble there recently.
Me: Umm...
C: A pretty bad shoot up, I heard.
Me: Uhhhhh...
C: I guess you weren't there for that.
B: (supresses another laugh)
Me: Oh right. That. Yes. No. I wasn't there when that happened. They called me in to help with the aftermath.
C: I heard there's a fiery lady there who really stirs things up.
Me: ??
C: A black doctor, I think.
Me: Oh, yes. Chandra... something.
B: (cracks up)
C: (looks at me like I fell off the short bus for remedial
improvisers)

Ok, ok. This was a rehearsal, not a real take. So no harm, no foul. And, as I wrote, some of our other improvisation went quite well, and I think they may keep some of it.

But still... It was a little embarassing.

And I have actually watched Grey's Anatomy for the last couple seasons. I was thinking of Chandra Wilson, who is the actor who plays the doctor that C was referring to. Which is a thing I do (more real dialogue from my life - watching an episode last night: "Wait, who is Hunt?" Cory: "Owen. Head of Trauma." Me: "Right! Sandra Oh's husband.")

But the lesson here is - be ready for an improv at all times. If there's a camera around, it could be rolling. And once you've signed that release, they can use whatever you give them.

By the way, click here to check out Mel & El's Kickstarter campaign! It's a fun read, with lots of good video links, whether or not you can donate. (But of course I think you should give generously...)

Courage, Cowardice and the Great Western Butter Slide

I'm guessing most of you have seen some video version of Anthony Weiner's (D-NY) speech in the House of Representatives on the Health and Compensation Act intended for First Responders to the World Trade Center attacks and people who lived in the vicinity. But in case you haven't, here it is:



Just for kicks, the YouTube page I embedded this time is not sponsored by Huffington Post or some such; it purports to be more of a 'neutral' post, (which includes the usual range of subtle and thoughtful discussion in the comment section for your amusement should you wish to dive down that hole.)

Shockingly, the Right has been accusing Mr. Weiner of using the platform to get some limelight, and possibly jump-start his run for Mayor of New York. And they have been holding this up as evidence that we need to return to reasonable discourse, to restore dignity to the hallowed halls of Congress. Naturally. Because that's what they're all about.

[We'll take a brief pause while you digest that.]

More to the point for today's installment is this Op Ed by Representative Weiner himself, which describes the reasons why he felt compelled to go into Red-Faced Rant mode.

...what upset me most last week were comments voiced by Republicans who claimed to be supporters of the bill, yet who used their time on the House floor not to persuade skeptical Republican colleagues to vote yes but to excoriate Democrats for using the suspension calendar.

Emphasis mine.

And for what it's worth, if a little ranting from the Honorable Congressman shines some light on both parties' tendency to politicize suffering and exploit fear (some Republicans actually claimed they were holding this bill up because they want to make sure that it didn't benefit any illegal immigrants. Because they are the cause of all our problems. This week. Them and the gays.) then I'm, you know, pretty ok with it.

Happy Birthday Pete

Pete Townshend's 65th birthday today.



This event more or less speaks for itself.

However, as a treat to those who care about such things, Pete released the last installment of his 6-part "fan interview" over the weekend. (I think they might make you set up a profile to get to read that copy.) Was the timing of that release intended to coincide with the birthday? How would I know?

Anyway, the interview is LONG, and I haven't had the time to make it all the way through yet. Here's one little tidbit, in response to a question about how his Lifehouse project foreshadowed the internet phenomenon.

Lifehouse was written in 1971. The smallest music computer at that time filled a huge shed. But anything we imagine will become reality sooner or later. I’m a sucker for the online world, but what I foresaw in Lifehouse has actually turned out to be far worse in real life. There is no way to truly lose yourself on the internet, you are not really safe there, you are not protected, you are merely overlooked and exploited as a resource for banks, businesses and of course moral or political dictatorships.

What are blogs for?

I was wondering why we do these things, and for whose benefit. Typing onto some website that some few or some many, or maybe no one will ever look at. And it may or may not mean anything to any of them, even yourself. Not exactly like a journal or a diary, because there is the possibility and even the hope that others will read it (as opposed to the presumed privacy of the thoughts one puts in that notebook he totes around in a satchel along with a subway map and this week's village voice; or some cleverly and maybe cutely bound book [with a lock?] one keeps in her top desk drawer next to photos of her last five boyfriends...)

And by some random turn of the psyche, that got me thinking about william arrowsmith. He was a serious classicist, by which i don't mean he taught priviledged white kids how to read homer (although he did that too). No, the thing is that he wrote important and alive translations of euripides and seneca and many others, while also writing plays and film criticism and teaching ancient languages, poetry and drama. He also turned me on to antonioni - via a simple twist of free association: a line in a lyric in a play i was in led me to a film director, who just happened to be the subject of a course taught by one of the greatest minds of his generation the following semester. So i took his class and opened up a visual aesthetic in myself. (i knew college was good for something)

Of course i wasn't aware of any of this until it had already happened. Odd like that. Anyway, he was one of the best teachers i ever had. Hero worship? No, fuck that. He taught me a lot about film and literature, drama and art (and more about writing than almost any english professor i ever had) and we got along well. But we didn't stay in touch much, and then, well, he died (may he rest in peace).

But one thing he used to refer to came back to me today - the 'great western intellectual butter slide.' Pretty self-explanatory, and perhaps a tad alarmist; but it's true that what is considered genius, brilliant, smart, even competent has, well, slid. We're at a point where starting and finishing a book, i mean reading one - in your native tongue - can be considered a significant intellectual achievement by altogether too many people.

SO maybe these blogs are an attempt to reach out to others, and bust out of this pattern. To escape from the habit of tv, mass-produced, commercially-driven advertainment. To cease to be a passive observer/consumer and actually do something, make something, say something.

Or maybe not. Maybe it's just some shit that people do.

Cause what are they saying? I had an entry typed out reacting to an article in the eyebeam journal on open source theory as it relates to fashion design (two areas about which i know almost nothing at all) but figured that it would be boring, not to mention ridiculously uninformed. But maybe that is just what this forum is best suited for. And after all, what do i typically end up posting? Plenty of nothing about haircuts and the shows i've seen lately. Not that there's anything wrong with that...

And of course, all of this rant may just be part of the butter slide. I could go on, but instead - one last quote from arrowsmith: “an alarmingly high proportion of what is published in classics—and in other fields—is simply rubbish or trivia.”

How 'bout that?