R.I.P. Uncle Forry - Thanks For Everything

It is no exaggeration to say that Forrest J Ackerman made my life better. He also made it possible for so many science fiction, horror and fantasy stories and movies and television to be created, and for today's online world of fans of all those genres exist thanks to him.

Ackerman passed away Thursday at the age of 92 and there will be many remembrances and salutes and some sadness for weeks to come. He was the First Fan, the man who created the very worlds of Fandom. The Uber Fan Boy. His life's work, his home, his influence stretches across decades. There was simply no one like him - he was more than just a fan, he knew everyone from Lon Chaney and Bela Lugosi to Stephen King and Steven Spielberg, from Ed Wood and Ray Harryhausen to Rick Baker and George Lucas.

He made a welcome and hearty home for the odd folks like me who are fascinated with tales of the fantastic and the mysteries of monsters. He wasn't just a name - he was Uncle Forry to me (and many others around the world.)

Says Stephen King:

"When you think of the size of the business, the dollar amount, that has sprung up out of fantasy, the people who made everything from ‘Star Wars’ to ‘Jaws,’ ” Mr. King said, “well, Forry was a part of their growing up. The first time I met Steven Spielberg, we didn’t talk about movies. We talked about monsters and Forry Ackerman."

I was about 9 or 10 years old the first time I saw a copy of Ackerman's magazine "Famous Monsters of Filmland", and I bought every issue thereafter I could find. The magazine didn't print Fan Mail, it printed Fang Mail. Living in Los Angeles, he called it Horrorwood, Karloffornia. His humor and his deep admiration for all things fantastic made him an astonishing collector and curator and turned his home, the Ackermansion, into the biggest and most celebrated museum of the fantasy and horror genres ever.

He housed items from the silent film "Metropolis" to Spock's pointy ears, and tens of thousands of books and magazines long since out of print.


He earned the prestigious Hugo Award for Number One Fan in 1953, long before he began to publish Famous Monsters of Filmland in 1958. The magazine celebrated the movies of Dracula and Frankenstein, and anything science fiction (he is credited with coining the abbreviation "sci-fi"). Not only was his magazine the only guide to fantastic films, it showed me how to create the make-up and effects used.

As I was growing up in a small town in middle Tennessee, there was no one who liked this stuff as much as I did - except for Uncle Forry. He let me know my curiosity and fascination was part of a huge world. My room soon became a place for Aurora models of The Creature From the Black Lagoon, life-sized posters of Karloff's Frankenstein, models of rocketships and creatures from the stars, and even today I proudly own movie posters and action figures of all kinds.

He also was literary agent for hundreds of now-famous writers, selling the first Ray Bradbury story in 1938, and was, as he called it, "illiterary agent" for director Ed Wood. He was a prolific writer of the fantastic as well and has appeared in over 200 movies.

And his home, which sadly he was forced to sell, along with over many hundreds of thousands of items he had collected from the movies in order to pay escalating medical bills earlier in this decade, that home was always open to visitors. For years and years, he would open his doors on Saturdays and give any and all comers a personal tour. Here is Forry being interviewed in his home:




And here is one fellow fan's video of a trip to the Ackermansion:




Another interview with Uncle Forry includes another comment from Stephen King which I love: "Forry was the first; he was best and he is the best. He stood up for a generation of kids who realised that if it was junk, it was magic junk."

Thanks Unc, for all you did and for your endless enthusiasm. You will always be the best that ever was.

SEE ALSO:
Remembrances from fans and celebrities at
Ain't It Cool News.
A Flickr photo set.
His movie credits.

Camera Obscura: Jazz Movies and Other Ultra-Cool Picks

I continue to emphasize a wee corner of cable TV called TCM Underground and tonight (well, it starts at 2 a.m.) they provide another great selection, starting with the seldom seen "All Night Long", an early 1960s ultra-cool jazz version of Shakespeare's Othello.

Charles Mingus, Dave Brubeck and other jazz legends are captured in performance in this film, which stars a pre-"Prisoner" Patrick McGoohan as a drummer who schemes to break up one of the couples attending an all night swinging and groovy party of hep-cats and dope heads. And all thru the night, incredible performances get laid down, like this one from Brubeck:



God bless Turner Classic Movies for airing films like this.

The second half of their Underground double feature is "The Knack and How To Get It," a Richard Lester film from the mid-1960s which was rather scandalous in it's day with all the talk of how to have sex with as many women as possible. Today, it seems rather tame, but has many of the stylistic touches Lester was soon famous for - jump cuts and camera tricks and more. But there is more nostalgia than scandal here. All in all, it makes the swinging 60s sort of boring and boorish.

But do not miss "All Night Long" - it's a fascinating peek at a time when folks at a 'wild party' wore suits and tuxedos and drank martinis without fru-fru additions of apple or chocolate flavor. They would smack you just for asking for such a thing.

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I also continue to be impressed with all things found at Cinebeats. This week she offers a Vampire Film Alphabet. Here's just a sample:

M. Martin (George Romero; 1977)
N. Nosferatu: Phantom der Nacht (Werner Herzog; 1979)
O. Omega Man, The (Boris Sagal; 1971)
P. Planet of the Vampires (Mario Bava; 1965)

And her collection of movie posters on Flickr is a true thing of beauty and it makes me burn with envy. There is no better blog of 60s and 70s cinema.

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REMAKES, AND MORE REMAKES

News this week that efforts are underway for more remakes, from the old Errol Flynn action movie "Captain Blood", a prequel to "Planet of the Apes" called "Caesar", but will not include any talking apes .... whaaa?

And the creator of the Babylon 5 TV series says producers are ready to bankroll his "re-imagining" of "Forbidden Planet":

"To that end, he's researching astrophysics, A.I., and planetary geology to create a scientifically accurate Krell backstory -- none of which will be stylishly retro. "At the time it was made it was cutting edge ...People that went to see that film saw things they had never seen before. What we have to do now is have this one be as innovative now as the original was then."


Newscoma pointed me to another remake on the way, this one of John Carpenter's sci-fi satire of alien invasion called "They Live". The original is a perfect little movie -- made during the waning days of the Reagan era, Roddy Piper plays an out-of-work fellow who finds himself struggling for survival among a group of homeless folks and stumbles onto efforts to unmask a vast conspiracy of aliens who have taken over the planet.

This group, he learns, is devising ways to short-circuit the mind-numbing technology the aliens are employing and Piper soon sees the world as it really is, as this clip shows:



And it has one of my favorite movie lines, when Piper confronts the aliens with a shotgun and says "I'm here to chew bubblegum and kick ass and I'm all out of bubblegum."

Conflicting Claims In Cherries Internet Cafe Collapse

There are many conflicting claims in a mini-flurry of press reports yesterday regarding the collapse of the Cherries Internet Cafe, and sadly the press reports aren't digging into those conflicts or into the simple fact that employees have not been paid for work done months ago. Meanwhile, CIC's owner/operator has darted away to start another business leaving those workers and other contractors empty handed.

It may just be me, but if my company collapsed, I think I would like to think I'd have the decency to be accountable for it, and not blame those who gave financial support to the business. Now it looks like a long round of court battles are ahead, which does not help out those who are owed for work long since completed and will instead cost them earnings. (A DISCLAIMER: I know several folks who worked with CIC in a wide range of capacities, but we have seldom talked about the problems. I am really perplexed by these press clippings and the conflicts they include.)

Also, while those folks and others are locked into legal battles and are advised by attorneys not to speak publicly about the issues involved, the owner of Cherries decides to head to the press and lay out some blame and dodge the problems of not paying employees or vendors.

The Metro Pulse had a report in which it is claimed Cherries For Life's Ingrid Gee has started a new business called Blue Dress TV, but in reports in the Knoxville News Sentinel she says she was hired by them to run the business. Which is it?

And the thought of starting up another biz while former employees go empty-handed ... well, that's just lousy treatment, in my opinion.

Also, the KNS report originally stated that Ingrid started BlueDress and was updated to reflect that an "undisclosed management group" has hired her to run the company. But no such change has been noted with Metro Pulse.

More conflicts in that KNS report:

" ... Gee said she agreed to walk away from the company with about $155,000 worth of debt."
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"She said at least $70,000 is owed to creditors and that part of the agreement she signed required the management group to pay all creditors."

KNS reporter Carly Harrington, in a third report yesterday, presents more oddities from Gee. Emails Harrington received from Gee were offered to prove how other investors in the business failed to do their jobs, but they just make no sense. These aren't documents which detail the specifics of the business operation.

This email (which noted concerns on how accounts are or are not being handled) has the last few lines blocked out by a note from Gee. That line includes the telling question "Who is setting up the books?"

In this email (again, offered as proof of the 'business structure') Gee asks "Do we have any investors" and that funds are already depleted for the business (dated September 6th).

This email is a copy of a Code of Ethics for the best way to do business ... but again, no documents which detail the actual responsibilities of investors or Gee. Odd. What are these meant to actually prove? Why did the reports not dig into these issues?

Seems to me if I had investors or co-owners who failed to deliver on their responsibilities, then I would provide the press with more that some emails of me asking some folks for more money. Why not provide the documents which detail the structure or documents of refusals/failures to do said jobs? If I were offered what I considered a forced buyout, then I again would provide some documents to back up the claims.

So now the public is watching a "he said-she said" battle. And contractors and employees are forced into court to obtain earnings for work already supplied.

I hope the press digs deeper, and offer some hard facts on what has really been happening.

One reason I'm posting this today is to get your feedback -- what do you make of these reports? Do the claims make sense? Doesn't the press need to double-check claims made prior to printing/publishing stories?

One more item of note - a November 12th post from Harrington on the closing of Cherries from Gee:

"Ingrid Gee, who founded the cafe that opened in September, said she decided to sell in order to "put it into the hands of somebody who could develop its full potential."

"I like to be in the development of new ideas and concepts. It was a pleasure to start and found the cafe. Now, I'm off to bigger and better things. It was nice to work with all the people who helped make it happen," Gee said."

Nice? Is being "nice" a substitute for paying employees? So many conflicting comments - which ones are true?

SEE ALSO: KnoxViews

Pop Culture Victim Number 3,042

Let's move the Topic-Meter waaay over here for a moment, into the twilight land where worldwide fame intersects with the ordinary. There is a person here, somewhat dazed looking - or worse - someone wounded to a point where longevity is a real question.

The someone in this weird land is Britney Spears - who turned 27 today. I'm no fan of her music. It's catchy pop stuff, over-produced manufacturing via the Music Industry, which needs such acts as hers for basic bread-and-butter earnings. Still, I can observe - and you can too - how her 'career' and her private life have taken on that quality of a ticking time bomb which usually plays out on the E! network in specials about how some celebrity went from fame and fortune to despair and death on a rocket ride of thrills and chills.

I tried to watch the 'documentary' which aired on MTV Sunday, "Britney: For The Record", but it became very clear in just a few minutes that the poor woman is the Mayor of that twilight land, that she hates it, that the 1000-yard stare on her face bodes ill omens.

Is she zonked out on something which used to get her high and now keeps her unhappy? Other than her own life and career, that is. No one in the media or the MTV special is asking that question, even though the media hovers about her every move and has since she was a child. Few if any can survive living in such glaring darkness.

TV writer for the L.A. Times Mary McNamara cites some of the sad qualities of her distorted days and nights:

"Far more revealing than her "for the record" words is the glimpse the film provides into the strange, insular world of the pop star. The hours spent in makeup, in wardrobe, in meetings, in weird places that aren't really places -- hotel rooms, greenrooms, sound stages. There are several scenes shot from the interior of a black SUV (Memo to celebrities: The paparazzi are on to the whole black SUV thing), including a harrowing incident in which she literally cannot safely get out of the car. But that space, in which about six people can fit comfortably, is an unnervingly accurate symbol for how confined she is, or at least how confined she believes she is.

"I wish I wasn't famous," she says at one point with a wistfulness that seems sincere, "so I could feel part of people."
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"The trap Spears finds herself in may have more to do with a lack of imagination than the paparazzi -- at one point, she laments that the cameras have taken away her cool-girl cred, that she can't be a party girl anymore, which makes her kind of boring. "There's no excitement, there's no passion, there's no nothing. It's just like 'Groundhog Day' every day, you know? So I'm really bored," she says. During another moment of high emotion, she drives herself practically to tears arguing with her entourage that not only doesn't she always get to do what she wants, she never gets to do what she wants.

Here is Britney Spears, apparently on the road to a tremendous comeback, young and pretty, talented and rich, who can not only get a documentary made just so she can make herself seem less crazy to her audience but can also provide the commercial sponsorship herself ("Britney: For the Record" is brought to you by Spears' fragrances Curiosity and Fantasy, which means even the commercials are vehicles for her career).

And yet she has to make an effort to "stay positive every day" because life can "be so cruel."

But for me, there is a clear picture in that documentary of a person who is so close to the edge, you can see the abyss reflected in her eyes. She stares at the camera and tells the crew there are too many cameras in her life. Is it all part of the act, or is it that despair never recognizes itself?

I hope I'm very wrong, that she endures for many, many years.

But given the Music Industry's constant need for acts to feed on and then discard like plastic wrap around a Twinkie, their long history of pouring gasoline on performers who are in full burn out mode in hopes of earning a few more dollars, the best future for Spears is to take her earnings and flee from those who want to live in her wake.

Maybe she should read those reports issued annually about how some performer who has died is still earning millions and billions for others who have turned tragedy into profit.

If you happen to see the MTV documentary, I think you'll have to agree I'm right - that they have not just filmed a train wreck, but are keeping the camera focused on someone the wreck has just about killed and is watching them gasp for air.

Conservatives Target Imaginary Foes

I've heard claims for many weeks now on Conservative media outlets that they are facing extinction from Democrats in Congress and the Obama administration. But that's just not true. It has been voters who have turned them out and told them "thanks but no thanks" for their bridges to nowhere.

Following their defeats in congressional races in 2006 and the presidency in 2008, they have decided to dodge the facts of their failures and now are pointing to imaginary foes as they whip up a sound and fury over nothing at all.

"Rush Limbaugh, Fox News, and other friends have spent the past year screaming about the horrors of Barack Obama. And, while it's true that they talked ad nauseam about socialism and the Weathermen and Jeremiah Wright, careful listeners would have noticed a recurring theme of anxiety: that Obama was going to use the newly acquired levers of government to destroy them. Specifically, conservative paranoia over the possible reinstatement of the "fairness doctrine," a defunct policy requiring that broadcasters allow opposing points of view to be heard over the airwaves, has reached a fevered pitch. In September, George Will was warning his readers that, "[u]nless McCain is president, the government will reinstate the ... 'fairness doctrine.'" In October, The Wall Street Journal's editorial page chimed in, predicting that under the spooky-sounding "liberal supermajority," the fairness doctrine was "likely to be reimposed," with the goal being "to shut down talk radio and other voices of political opposition." And, two weeks before the election, the New York Post blasted: "Dems Get Set to Muzzle the Right."

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"Responses from the offices of most of the Democrats who have been pegged as fairness-doctrine proponents--Schumer, Dick Durbin, Dianne Feinstein, and others--have ranged from a firm denial that the issue is a priority at all to disbelief at finding themselves at the center of a manufactured controversy. "Somebody plucked this out of the clear blue sky," says the press secretary for New Mexico Senator Jeff Bingaman, a Democrat who was questioned about the issue by a conservative radio-show host a few weeks ago. "This is a completely made- up issue." Senator Durbin's press secretary says that Durbin has "no plans, no language, no nothing. He was asked in a hallway last year, he gave his personal view"--that the American people were served well under the doctrine--"and it's all been blown out of proportion." In fact, as recently as last year, the House voted by an overwhelming three-to-one margin to temporarily prohibit the FCC from imposing the dead policy; 113 Democrats voted to support the move.

Meanwhile, the president-elect himself has said in no uncertain terms that he does "not support reimposing the fairness doctrine on broadcasters." Republican paranoia is nothing more than that.

"Democrats may scratch their heads over why this has lately become a right-wing obsession, but the paranoia is not without precedent. The prospect of being in the opposition often brings out the worst in conservatives--paranoia and self-pity. Plus, when the conservative coalition seems threatened, there's no better way to unify the party than scaring up liberal bogeymen."

In a constant and predictable way, the politics of Conservatives depend on identifying Evil Conspiracies, and they ignore the daily realities of actual problems the nation faces.

And they wonder why voters have rejected them??

Shopocalypse Now!

Economic turmoil whirls about the planet these days, and the best part of such dire times is that it offers a chance, for those who seek better days, to examine and hopefully improve the way we live.

So in the wake of news about how you did or did not shop on Black Friday and the rising and falling world economy, here's some information I've found which can, at least, challenge your way of thinking. That's the first step in identifying the habits and ideas which may lead to problems with worldwide impact of both positive and negative results.

A bonus can be found here too - since we are into the Christmas season, perhaps the info provided will lead you to experience a holiday that has meaning beyond the moment. Some readers will repulsed by the following, some may be inspired. My goal is simple - to encourage you to consider that now is the best time to Think about the way we live and work.

Your first video, then, is a short take on Consumerism:



The second video is from Reverend Billy and The Church of Stop Shopping, who uses satire and public performance to jolt you from assumption and into thought. A new documentary about the Reverend and his Crusade, "What Would Jesus Buy?", is now in theaters. The trailer for the movie is here.

Amy Goodman talked this weekend with the good Reverend -



Part 2 is here and Part 3 here.

I have many friends who work for big corporations and who work very hard to provide for themselves and their family. And they are surely not bad people. Providing for our needs has never been simple, but too often we pay dearly for our choices. Here's a Q and A with Reverend Billy which you'll want to read. As he says:

"The key fundamentalist church in this country is not the church of Jimmy Swaggart, the key fundamentalist church is the church of spacey consumption, the fundamentalist church of transnational chain stores, transnational product life, the media and the rest of it. That's what really leaves us with a very set kind of set of behaviors and set of gestures and set of language -- meaning, language meaning -- and it's all done in the name of freedom and democracy, but that's just an advertising campaign."

Finally for your consideration, an artist named Chris Jordan created a project with some astonishing imagery as he photographs what we waste and what we use, from plastic bottles to paper to cell phones. Check out the results here.

Camera Obscura: Batman Dead?; Swedish Vampire Children; 4th Futurama Movie News

I do take much pleasure in writing about movies -- as this holiday-shortened week offers numerous Camera Obscura posts on this humble and lovable blog. Let's get rolling.

Batman is dead. Well, really Bruce Wayne is dead.

Or is he? Killed off in the comic book format this month by writer Grant Morrison, the fanboys all wonder if Bruce is indeed gone or just hiding out after he has learned his father is not dead after all.

Speaking of comic books, the upcoming movie version of the 80's cult hit "The Watchmen" truly looks promising. Also just released, heaps of action figures based on the characters from the comic (which are really characters based on old comic book characters) are ready for you. Dr. Manhattan is impressive, but discriminating fans all want the one for Rorschach.


Best Action Figure of 2008, however, goes to the brand new Barbie version of Tippi Hedren in "The Birds". Yes, all children love their Hitchcock action figures ... and if no one is making an all-Hitchcock-action-figure collection then they really should - Norman Bates is sort of obvious here, but me, I'd like the two action sets for "North By Northwest", which should be the Crop Duster and Field Playset and the Mount Rushmore Action Scene. (HT to Cinebeats for the news.)

A close second place Best Action Figure of '08 must go to the one of li'l backwards-spider-walking-down-the-stairs Regan from "The Exorcist".

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Last weekend movie audiences were all in a frenzy for "Twilight", but a new vampire movie which has been raking in awards at festivals around the world is the upcoming Swedish-made vampire film called "Let The Right One In". The movie is getting amazingly strong reviews.

Like "Twilight", this tale is based on a best-selling novel and is a sort of love story, but mostly a rather poetic look at kids who are trapped in a world where safety seems to be a luxury. The lead character is 12-year-old Oskar, a frequent victim of bullies young and old. But one day a little girl named Eli moves into his neighborhood, and they become fast friends. She too is a 12-year-old ... except she has been 12 for some 200 years and she is a vampire. And she really, really gets angry if you try to hurt Oskar.



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And since it is the gift-giving time of year and I've mentioned the dolls -- whoops!! action figures -- above, here is one more for the movie fan in your life -- a cookie jar design from the "Alien" movie series. Details here.



And finally, the 4th and final "Futurama" movie gets a release date and a title.

Camera Obscura: Beyonce as Etta James In 'Cadillac Records'

Just a quick mention here on the movie-filled Friday post (more movie news throughout the day because like you I am sorta busy today).

Recently hailed as one of the richest entertainers working today, singer Beyonce Knowles takes a big leap to play the legendary Etta James in the upcoming December release "Cadillac Records", which charts the real story of Chess Records in Chicago in the late 1950s and through the 1960s. The movie also has Mos Def as Chuck Berry, Jeffrey Wright as Muddy Waters and Adrien Brody as Leonard Chess.

Here's the trailer for the movie:



An extended clip from the movie with Etta/Beyonce in the recording studio. Chess had many of the great musicians of the day - from Benny Goodman to Chuck Berry. The movie is sure to be a somewhat formula Hollywood take on music and fame and corrupt business and morally dubious artists. Longtime TV director Darnell Martin wrote and directed this feature.

And let's be honest -- the blues-rich voice of Etta is not the silky style of Beyonce, but who else would bring in the crowds to the movie theaters?

Come back thru the day, I've got some more movie news you do not want to miss.

Thanksgiving In Space and On Earth

Times are a bit lean here at the Compound this fall, but not so lean to not be thankful as required by the upcoming National Holiday. I do my best to comply with such National policy.

If you live in the United States, you have much to be thankful for which the rest of the human folk on this planet still yearn to grasp for even a moment. Not to say that folks inside this nation live on unicorns and rainbows on the Eternal Happy Good Time Happy Show. Real suffering, real pain, is never as distant as we might imagine. But for the most part, just being an American puts us in a luxuriant lifestyle.

I do try and remind myself daily of how well off I am -- a tasty, hot cup of coffee in the morning, or at any time I wish to have it, is a fine and wonderful thing. An oddity of life is that sometimes not having that good cup of coffee can make me thankful for the times when I do have it. And really, I'm hardly into the massive list of good things in my life - I'm talking a beverage here. Still, for centuries past, humans had to travel half the world and back just to get one. So I try and remember that. Makes that coffee taste mighty fine.

It is easy indeed to consider our lives to be mired in hellish discontent. The trappings of our world bellow at each of us to Be or Do or Change or Act or Buy or Sell or Own or Dispose of thousands upon thousands of Somethings. And all those urges to fiddle around with our Life's Personal Settings are actually a good sign, something which shows us that we can perceive we are Here and we might do better if we were There.

Here is a small but significant item for which I am thankful on this pre-holiday day: I am glad I am not waiting for the Urine Recycler Machine to start working properly. It's the folks floating above the planet on the International Space Station waiting for that.

While I marvel still at the ISS and the efforts of human space travel, I would hate to have to be told things like:

"An attempt by astronauts to repair a new water recycler designed to convert urine into drinkable water met with mixed results Sunday aboard the International Space Station.

"A separate sweat and wastewater processor has been working more or less as expected."

When it comes to my urine and waste processing turning into drinking water, "working more or less as expected" is really not so good. Even if I heard "Hey! It works great!" I would still eye that serving of drinking water with some concern.

They also have to maintain and ensure the operations of a $250 million dollar life support system. I have to maintain my own (as do you) but it does not cost that much. (Costs may rise quickly as the current recession continues into 2009.)

Here is my hope and plan for this Thanksgiving Day 2008 - to travel safely so I can share a good meal with some of my family and friends. I truly wish each of you could experience some of that shared goodness too.

Scandal as Media Growth Industry

"Scandal is our growth industry. ... scandals metastasize, ramify, self-replicate, clogging the cable news shows and the blogosphere and the bookstores. The titillating story that never ends, the pundit gabfest that never ceases, the gift that never stops giving ..."

That's from Mark Danner's Sunday essay in the NY Review of Books. He rips the tattered mythology of the Relentless, Idealistic Journalist and the Political Idealist as he tries to instead stitch together the various parts and players which make up (in his mind) The Monster among us.

"However tenaciously the mythmakers of our society—and especially journalists, who are after all the stars of this idealized drama—cling to this happy scenario, recent history has not been kind to it. For it rests on an image of journalists and journalism that has become, to put it charitably, outdated. Journalists as the self-abnegating seekers after truth, defenders of society's conscience: had this happy description ever been true, even during Watergate, it now bears little resemblance to the scandal-mongering world of cable news shows and gabfests, for which scandal, the gaudier the better, provides the vast and complicated narratives that are the lifeblood of the twenty-four-hour news cycles. As the first Persian Gulf War begot CNN so did Monica Lewinsky's pouty lips beget Fox News."

Full essay here.

I don't think I can buy into the idea that Scandal has devolved into Commercial Product due to failures in reporting or news, or their need to earn money, or loss of some guiding abilities. The public domain has always held Scandal in high regard - as both diverting entertainment and morality play. Bread and circuses have often kept Power safe. So said the 2nd century writer Juvenal in his "Satire X":

"Already long ago, from when we sold our vote to no man, the People have abdicated our duties; or the People who once upon a time handed out military command, high civil office, legions -- everything, now restrains itself and anxiously hopes for just two things: bread and circuses."

Perhaps the 'growth industry' arises most from the Jabbering Fear Fest on talk radio, from ex-felon G. Gordon Liddy to Rush Limbaugh to Michell Malkin. Manufacturing "outrage" is far more valuable than scandal, since outrage can exist with no evidence or cause other than a simple visceral dislike.

Camera Obscura: "Twilight" Heat and Other Hot Vampire Tales

There are several great things about the movie "Twilight" opening to massive, adoring crowds this weekend. It's making vamp tales hot again and I love vamp tales; it is based on already best-selling books which kids are snarfing down like Hot-Pockets and anything that gets someone hot for reading is a fine thing; and it also is bringing more attention to HBO's excellent vamp series, "True Blood", also based on a series of novels, and which has it's series finale on Sunday night.

Naturally, as East Tennessee's Finest Film Critic, I told you back this summer how hot and fantastically popular both "Twilight" and "True Blood" would become after the huge frenzy for both were unveiled at the San Diego Comic Con. Trust me to always be On Point and Always Right. Especially when it comes to horror movies.

Now where was I?

If you wish to be hip, call the fans of "Twilight" Twihards. 'Cause that's what they are calling themselves (though I am fond of the term Twerds myself). I told Newscoma I was not going to see the movie this weekend, as being an old man in a theatre full of squeally girls could likely get me arrested or something. I'll wait a bit. What strikes me a bit odd about the movie plot is that the tempestuous love story between high school gal Bella (is her last name Lugosi?) and her new 107-year-old vamp teen boyfriend Edward is -- they don't give in to their carnal temptations. Abstinence is a kind of foreplay, and Abstinence is more easily sold if it's hot and once you give in to temptation, well, the heat... dissipates ... and then gets all hot again.

Let's face it America: Teens is tempted in today's modern now-a-go-go-world. But nothing, not even Capital S Sex, teases them like the chance to spend money - on books, t-shirts, movies, hand-held devices (!!), or anything they desire and angst about. Been that was for a while, actually. And it's good for the Economy.

Angst about Sex, Aging, Adulthood, Childhood, Love, Death and What It All Means can make any Teen say, like, OMG!


And such concerns have always been at the heart of the Vampire Lore. From the pre-Dracula days to the Movie-Age Vampire and the Anne Rice Vampire Romantics to the Buffy The Vamp Slayer days - the Big Issue is whether or not anyone can contain or control the raging storms of Life and Death. And is it more fun to finally give in to the steaming heat of passion or to enter a stage of Eternal Teasing, forever on the edge of Gratification?

(That's also a sort of Economic question, too ... or am I the only one who finds words like "Lay-Away" and "Interest Payment" slightly erotic? I am? Then never mind.)

Let's explore the Giving Into vs Holding Off Gratification a bit here. For instance, "True Blood", running now on HBO (and they are working on season 2 already, yay!!). Once I got hooked on the story in the first episode, I encountered many folks who said they would wait until the series comes out on DVD and watch them all in one, guilty, heady rush. But for me, I love a TV show which hooks me and then I have to wait before I get the next fix.

I start yearning for the next episode in the waning minutes of the one I'm watching, and I start pondering on what will happen next, what turns and events await. I know there is a massive trend to grab a couple of seasons of some TV show on DVD and watch them all at once, but what makes me happy is a show I have to wait for, which arrives is brief packages and is gone and I am back to waiting again. I have not read any of the 7 "True Blood" books, and I won't as long as the series is on. I don't want to know it all in one go, I like waiting for it. (Oh my that sounds kinky. And "True Blood" is pretty kinky, so just roll with the metaphors people, we are talking fiction here.)

While you can have much fun getting that TV show in one gulp, it is not the same as being part of the audience who has been captivated slowly over time and then all arriving together at that shared moment of the Series Finale.

If you are worried about all this Twihard Heat and the Teen Frenzy, relax. The young lovers don't give into temptation in the first movie, or book .... that may arrive later, so maybe they'll be older when It Happens.

Next up on the Vampire Hot Movie will be "Jennifer's Body", from "Juno" writer Diablo Cody. She says her teen girl tale, starring the "Transformers" hotty Megan Fox, is a sort of horror/vampire/sci-fi/comedy/cultural metaphor:

"I am directly influenced by girls I have known.Girls who treated life as a race, and if there was someone or something they wanted, they would stab you in the back. It's a movie about hunger. A lot of teenage girls are starving themselves and a lot of them are psychologically hungry, because they are so misunderstood."


Postscript: Any talk about Hot Vampires has to include the ever-popular Vampirella, so a link and a picture of this 1960s-era sex symbol.

Evil Doll Reported In East TN

A Mattel-made doll "praises Islam" and even hails Satan - according to some parents in East Tennessee.

The "Little Mommy Cuddle & Coo" doll is shown in a video from the Greeneville Sun uttering gibberish, which, to some ears, sounds like it is saying "Islam is the light." Creepy video link with a cameraman roaming the aisles of a Wal-Mart and making the dolls "talk" is right here. NOTE: My good friend Sande noted this morning the Sun had taken down their video and I wonder if they were threatened with a loss of Wal-Mart advertising? Maybe Satan stole the video!!! Anyway, there are about 20 videos, more every day, of the evil doll on YouTube - link here.

The story in the newspaper adds other parental fears and Mattel's response that the only scripted word on the doll's sound file is "mama" and that all else is just nonsensical syllables.

Maybe Mattel just recorded some audio from playing an old Led Zeppelin album backwards and loaded it into the doll. Or maybe they have a nefarious plot to destroy the world.

Tuition Increase Up 24% or More

A follow-up to yesterday's post on the ripoff hitting Tennessee colleges from the RIAA -- costing taxpayers millions in college funds and making the multi-billion dollar earnings of the RIAA go ever-higher.

Higher education costs, which have seen increases every year for most of the last ten years, is set to go even higher. Two scenarios are being offered:

"When the Tennessee Higher Education Commission meets today in anticipation of next week's budget hearing with Gov. Phil Bredesen, administrators will see models of university tuition increases for 2009-10 ranging from 10 percent with no state funding change to 24 percent with a 15 percent cut.

Community college tuition increases would range between 10 percent and 29 percent.

Those increases would bring schools level with the current year's budget, taking into account inflation and enrollment changes. They would not reflect any other cuts made by schools to offset state funding decreases.

The clue phone is ringing for the state legislature and the governor and no one is bothering to answer.

RIAA's Ripoff Of Tennessee

The state's colleges and universities just got burned, forced by a new state law to shell out millions of dollars to police computer networks to make sure someone isn't downloading a song illegally. The state estimates the cost of this sweetheart deal for the RIAA at nearly $13 million initially and then another $1.9 million each year thereafter.

Gov. Bredesen, signing the law, on the eve of the CMA Awards says:

"The illegal downloading of music has a profoundly negative effect on the music industry. As home to so many record companies, music publishers, writers and artists, I am proud that Tennessee is taking action to prevent it."

But the truth is not one penny of this massive payout will go to any artists or record labels the RIAA represents.

Wired Threat Level notes that some 21 people, earning some $75,000 a year, will work this new software and hardware to monitor schools -- and the state says tough luck to those schools in need of teachers and students who face ever increasing tuition costs.

"The students may have more time to pilfer copyrighted works because their classes might be canceled for lack of funding. Using conservative estimates, the piracy measure is equal to the price of about 100 Tennessee professors' wages and benefits."

In the current fiscal year, the higher education system has had to cope with $100 million in budget cuts and more cuts are expected in the next budget.

But the RIAA got what it wanted - your money.

RIAA's CEO Mitch Bainwol makes it sound like this law will lend some benefit to musicians and store owners. But that is a load of crap.

"It's fitting that on the day the world focuses on Nashville and country music that Tennessee would take the lead in protecting the creativity that this state so uniquely inspires,” said Bainwol. “We have all seen the effects illegal downloading has had on Music Row – too many record stores have been shuttered and too many songwriters are out of the business of writing songs. This bill, the first of its kind in the nation, addresses the issue of campus music theft in a state where the impact is felt more harshly than most.”

It's sickening to hear Bainwol blame illegal file-sharing for the shuttering or record stores when it was in fact record labels that hastened their demise by cutting deals with big-box retailers like Wal-Mart that allowed them to undercut competitors with lower "loss leader" prices.

He also doesn't acknowledge that music has gone digital and that you don't need a Tower Records store for distribution. [Nashville's Tower Records closed two years ago.]

"We commend Governor Bredesen, Senator Tim Burchett, Rep. Rinks and all the cosponsors of the legislation for their leadership on this important issue, which will not only benefit those who care about music but American creativity and jobs," said Bainwol.

I highly doubt that singling out poor 18-22yo college students will do much to protect "American creativity or jobs." If anything, the only American creativity will see is from these individuals devising new means of sharing content with family and friends. The only jobs it will protect are those of the empty suits running the RIAA's legal offensive.

Your New GOP-Run Legislature Running From Disaster

The newly elected Republican majority in the Tennessee legislature is far more interested in playing Moral Guidance Counselor than in actually addressing critical issues which will affect the state's economic crisis.

As unemployment numbers soar in the state (and across the entire Southern U.S.), as funds for offering unemployment insurance earnings bottoms out, with job losses climbing - the top priority for the GOP is a push to create a state constitutional amendment opposing abortion.

As former state senator now Family Action Council of Tennessee lobbyist David Fowler says - we can always deal with our real problems, like the economy, education and the budget deficit later. Such problems are minor:

"And lastly, those who say the Republicans need to concentrate on the budget, education, and jobs correctly note that these need to be priorities…. too. But to assume that the legislature is only limited to dealing with two or three issues is nonsense. Values voters just won’t buy that should the Republicans ignore their issues and concerns. In fact, Republicans should move SJR 127 and some of the other issues early in the next session in order to be able to concentrate fully on economic issues once the revenue numbers come out in late April."

Joining his efforts are GOP leader Ramsey and speaker-in-waiting Mumpower, who both want the abortion debate to be the top priority. Hamblen County's senator Steve Southerland landed a front page story in the local paper, saying:

" ... one of the legislative initiatives that Republicans plan to push is a constitutional amendment further defining abortion rights in Tennessee, a move that would ultimately require a referendum during a gubernatorial race."

The state's Republicans are hoping to get such a vote on their constitutional amendment on the ballot for the next governor's race, one in which they hope to draw more GOP voters to the poll - in other words, using the hot-button issue of abortion to help them elect a GOP governor. It's a deeply cynical ploy which they plan to use for their own political gain. How sad to view voters as emotional pawns in their push for power.

Time for a reality check for Republicans - we've got priorities you have not been able to see yet as you celebrate a political moment:

- Currently 19 states have between 3 and 11 months worth of funds for Unemployment Insurance. In Tennessee, the solvency is in dire straits and could run out within less than a year, something that happened back in 1983 when the state had to borrow money from the federal government forcing business owners to pay a 5% surcharge for the loan. Anyone think 2009 will see the fed more eager to loan money or less eager?

- State unemployment is at a 20-year high and projections are for it to grow in 2009.

- While some job sectors have had growth over the last year, the state's Dept. of Labor and Workforce Development says the past year has been one of losses overall: "From September 2007 to September 2008, educational and health services added 6,100 jobs. Local government educational services employment increased by 1,900. From 2007 manufacturing was down by 10,000. Professional and business services lost 6,800 jobs; leisure and hospitality lost 5,700"

- With state tax revenues on the decline, how much funding will be cut for education? How much higher will college tuition continue to increase?

- Living costs - thanks to massive increases in fuel over the year, rising food costs, mortgage woes - have meant more state residents are seeking assistance to fight off hunger. A Knoxville News Sentinel story reports that "This September more people got food stamps in each of Tennessee's 95 counties compared with last year.


Here's a graph from that same KNS story which paints a picture of how widespread the struggle to stay above the poverty line has become:

ET Blogger Oatney Says Obama is 'Greatest Evil'

According to one East Tennessee blogger, God will call us all to judgement and tops on his list will be whether or not you voted for Obama for president.

At least, that's about all I can discern from his most recent post:

"There is little doubt that Mr. Obama's election is the greatest singular evil that has ever befallen this country-but the die is cast."

He must have missed out that whole terrorist attack on 9/11. Who knew that American History began sometime around November 2008?

There's more to his post, as he talks about The End Times and his Catholic faith, and the Rapture and various other of his religious thoughts.

Another blog, by writer David Waters, tells of a Catholic priest in South Carolina, Rev. Jay Scott Newman, who refuses to offer communion to anyone who voted for Obama - and notes the odd hypocrisy:

"Newman is denying communion not to those who have conducted or received an abortion, and not to those who enact laws that allow for abortion, but to those who cast a vote for a candidate who supports abortion rights. In effect, he's saying that thinking is now mortal sin. He's saying that having an opinion is a mortal sin. He's saying that freedom of speech and thought is a mortal sin."

Is it now a church-goers duty to report on who they voted for or against in order to qualify for membership?

(HT:KnoxViews)

The LOLcat Bible

And lo, first there came forth the cute Cat picture, asking Can I Has Cheezeburger?, and it ruled the Internets with billions of page views. And now it comes to pass that the Internet has finally collapsed underneath LOLcat control.

See the LOLcat Bible Translation.

Sample, Genesis 1:1 --

"Oh hai. In teh beginnin Ceiling Cat maded teh skiez An da Urfs, but he did not eated dem."

image to underscore the above statement:

FCC & NASCAR Promo Crashes, Again

I wonder if other federal agencies will follow the lead of FCC's Kevin Martin.

Martin (apparently in a decision he hid from his own agency) decided to plop down $350,000 to plaster a car driven by David Gilliland with stickers to promote the 2009 switchover to Digital TV.

The result: not one, but two crashes during NASCAR races, the second causing a 9-car pile-up. Talk about a political plan gone up in smoke.

FCC's Martin, asked about the problems says, winning the races are not the issue:

" ... the cars that are in wrecks get a lot of attention, I think they get a lot of attention during the race itself."

He's set to race again with the FCC logo, though no word yet if he plans to plaster a FEMA Mobile Homes Are Safe sticker, or maybe a Palin In 2012 sticker.

Ricky Bobby: This sticker is dangerous and inconvenient, but I do love Fig Newtons.

Talk Radio Needs You To Be A Victim

Talk radio is bad for you, makes you feel bad about yourself, and success depends on a show's ability to make you angry and miserable.

So says this report, written by a radio insider:

"To succeed, a talk show host must perpetuate the notion that his or her listeners are victims, and the host is the vehicle by which they can become empowered. The host frames virtually every issue in us-versus-them terms. There has to be a bad guy against whom the host will emphatically defend those loyal listeners."
---
"This is a common talk show tactic: If you lack compelling arguments in favor of your candidate or point of view, attack the other side. These attacks often rely on two key rhetorical devices, which I call You Know What Would Happen If and The Preemptive Strike.

Using the first strategy, a host will describe something a liberal has said or done that conservatives disagree with, but for which the liberal has not been widely criticized, and then say, “You know what would happen if a conservative had said (or done) that? He (or she) would have been filleted by the ‘liberal media.’ ” This is particularly effective because it’s a two-fer, simultaneously reinforcing the notion that conservatives are victims and that “liberals” are the enemy.

The second strategy, The Preemptive Strike, is used when a host knows that news reflecting poorly on conservative dogma is about to break or become more widespread."
---
"This brings us to perhaps the most ironic thing about most talk show hosts. Though they may savage politicians and others they oppose, they fear criticism or critiques of any kind. They can dish it out, but they can’t take it."

Take the above as a sort of follow-up to yesterday's post.

The TN Republican Majority - Now What?

With typical disconnected and racially-charged perspectives - a normal tactic from Tennessee GOP Spokesmodel Bill Hobbs - there appears now an odd claim that state voters appeared in droves during last week's election to soundly reject crazy liberal Democrats in the state legislature, yet another example of ignoring reality and fabricating political upheaval.

Time for a reality check.

Facts like the one that the number of Republicans and Democrats were tied (16-16) in the State Senate since 2004 (with one Independent). As for the 2008 races:

-- The Senate battle between Faulk (R) and Williams (I) was a nasty one, loaded with bizarre mudslinging efforts regarding Faulk's dalliance with a staff worker and that Gov. Bredesen and Republican Tony Shipley stumped for Williams - and the finally vote tally showed Faulk with a win of just a few hundred votes, even though Williams won the day in 4 of six counties. Not really a mandate there ... is there?

-- State Senate Republicans running without opposition (or just Independent options) -- 3

Result - Senate has a 19-14 majority. Is this some Brand New Mandate of "Democrats Is Evil"? Perhaps the real story is (as noted for some days by TN bloggers) the state Dem party is lacking any central plan or message, a recipe for failure in a state that has of late gone solidly Republican in Presidential races.)

The State House Republicans picked up a one member majority, with 50 Republicans versus 49 Democrats. It is a limited change in terms of a majority, as Dems fell from a 53-46 lead. One race which helped was the victory of Tony Shipley over incumbent Nathan Vaughn by just over 300 votes. Tricks and games were common in the race, and only just this week we learn a GOP operative had been placed under a judicial restraint order after he had been running bogus websites, alleged to create bogus sites operated by Vaughn and loaded with bizarre claims against him. (News which was unreported until this week.)

The web sites were headed by Scott Glimmer, who is an aide to TN House Republican Chairman Glen Casada. So far, no actions taken against Casada and he may instead get a celebratory dinner from the GOP.

Here's some simple truths - the state's Democrats had been hard hit with charges stemming from corruption claims via a FBI investigation in recent years; incumbent Democrat Governor Phil Bredesen is on the way out, offering little support for the Obama campaign, and doing very little to throw support to statewide races, and the general disorganization from state party leaders. Oh, and just about every political observer was hoping that at long last Democrat House Speaker Jimmy Naifeh would finally get the boot, something I have been in favor of for many years.

However, here in Hamblen County, McCain won by a huge margin - yet incumbent Democrat State Rep. John Litz won with almost as many votes as McCain earned. Lots of split-ticket voting shows that in even in such a staunch Republican stronghold, Democrats can obviously do well.

The new Republican majority in the Legislature says they are eying legislation to change laws regarding "cultural issues". Wait, isn't that some of that Evil Democrat Social Engineering?? Tops on the GOP agenda for new legislation - restricting abortion, funding education about pregnancy prevention, and expanding gun ownership laws. How will any of that aid the plummeting economic problems and falling educational achievement and funding or the constant decline in the state's revenues?

I get the feeling the first months or so in the state legislature will be more about taking down Democrats a few pegs. (See the wacky wingnuttery from Republican poster-boy for nonsense Stacey Campfield:)

"I think it is safe to say that not much that will cost much money is going to move that far. I expect that leaves 140 years of lost freedom and lack of personal responsibility issues to sort out.

Will it be all that conservative?? I would like to think we will be as conservative as the other side has been liberal or allowed liberalism take control of our state.

I have no idea what the heck he is even talking about -- what is the "140 years" of hellish disarray he is talking about? Didn't Dems take the Speaker's post back in 1971?

We would be far better served if the state tackles economic issues, health care funding, education funding, and, as Aunt B. writes:

" ... my point is, now is the time for the Republicans to put their butts on the line for “Life.” Banning abortion doesn’t cost you anything. It’s a feel-good measure that makes it look like you’ve accomplished something, but it doesn’t require you to sacrifice or make any tough decisions.

I challenge you, Republicans: If you’re really pro-life and about protecting the babies, bring down the infant mortality rates in this state."

Save those babies, too.

Do You Want The News Without Viewpoint?

Everyone seems to be super-paranoid about something called media bias, a nagging fear that somehow all the information we get via newspapers and television media has turned into a cesspool of sneering and sly distortion with some nefarious agenda meant to push us into heinous beliefs.

Is this a new concept?

Reason magazine has a story about these media worries, citing a 2007 Pew Research report which says that 67% of Americans "prefer to get news that has no particular point of view". The language here is so deceptive - the fact is that 67% of people who took the survey responded as reported, and that really isn't 67% of Americans. And how can news even have "no particular point of view"?

Anyway, the Reason piece points out the obvious problems with such a survey:

"[This] is a revelation that must have come as a surprise to Rush Limbaugh, Michael Moore, Bill O’Reilly, Keith Olbermann, Matt Drudge, and all the other industry innovators who’ve enjoyed such great success delivering exactly the opposite."

Taking a cue from the online world, the vast majority of news and media websites now include a comments section for every story, and from reading those it is certain the readers proudly herald their biases and views on the story, how it was written, what was or wasn't included, spelling, each other and much more. And other online companies now offer numerous ways to rate, qualify and quantify news stories and make some cash along the way:

"At the nonprofit NewsTrust.net, users collectively evaluate stories based on fairness, context, and other core journalistic principles; the highest-rated stories receive the most prominent positioning on the NewsTrust.net home page. At Skewz.com, users simply judge each story in terms of bias: Does it have a conservative slant or a liberal slant? Over time, Skewz.com uses the feedback from its users to determine a media outlet’s general position on various issues. For example, according to Skewz.com users, the English version of the Al Jazeera website skews “slight right” in its 2008 election coverage.

Then there’s SpinSpotter. The brainchild of Todd Herman, a Seattle entrepreneur with a background in Internet radio and streaming media, the SpinSpotter browser plug-in lets you visit virtually any website and hack it up like Tina Brown channeling Freddy Krueger. Find a specific phrase or sentence that fails to pass your spin sniff test, then create a SpinSpotter “marker” for it. When other SpinSpotter users visit the page, a crimson slash of warning highlights the passage. A click on it yields your explanation for why it qualifies as spin and your version of how the text ought to read.

To keep users on track, SpinSpotter has designated “seven deadly spins” that are fair game for media bloodhounds.

I've been noticing - and have been totally repulsed by - some recent choices on the CNN network to make news a sort of free-wheeling, Jerry Springer-type opinion brawl on news reports which seem to have little purpose beyond stirring up intense conversation based on a bare minimum of information.

Some examples on CNN are the new "Campbell Brown: No Bias, No Bull" show, but some of the worst offenders on the network are the Headline News shows "Prime News" and "Nancy Grace". The "Prime News" website says host Mike Galanos:

" ... uses the day's most powerful headlines as a starting point for diverse perspectives and spirited debate. In each show, Galanos challenges newsmakers and experts to help viewers gain a clearer understanding of the "right vs. wrong" conflict playing out across the country every day."

Yeah, right. That's one way to put it. But the actual show is mostly a circus of half-truths and maybes which offer no context of any kind and merely trot out events to be torn apart like slaves in a Roman coliseum full of starving tigers.

Nancy Grace is also just a skeezy game for armchair prosecutors hurling crap on a wall and waiting to see what sticks (and what generates viewer frenzies). Shows like these are the lowest end of the low end. It all seems geared to one end: gaining popularity in order to make more advertising dollars.

I honestly don't mind that a persistent viewpoint is given in news reports or on those talk shows. While readers and viewers are passive receivers (at first) then follows (hopefully) some actual thought -- opinion is offered but it's actual value has to be determined by those who receive it. A news report or talk show is not some Holy Form handed down from the Perfection of Heaven.

Truth these days is perceived in the most ludicrous of emails ("Microsoft will pay you to send email" or "Obama is the Antichrist!") -- which makes me think of the old traveling snake oil sales shows. A crowd usually gathers around such spectacles, although in the past, that same crowd might just decided to tar and feather the salesman and run them out of town. Some crowds, however, gulp down dubious elixirs and cheer the salesman as saint.

Snarky Responses To Headlines

Pelosi Calls For US Auto Bailout
-- alternate report: Final Days of Bush Presidency and Everything Must Go Sale!!

Saudi Arabia Sues Cigarette Importers for $34 Billion
- next up: Medically Obese Population to Sue Makers of Couches, Corn Syrup

Another Celebrity Goes Home on Dancing With The Stars
- come on, times are really tough, so why not turn this into a Depression-era-style Dance Marathon, where the celebs must dance around the clock until they all drop from exhaustion, then the winner is able to qualify for a federal bailout plan.

McCain: Palin Will 'Play Big Role In The Future Of Our Country'
- It's Alive! It's Aliiiiiive!!

Roger Moore Dislikes New James Bond
- one word: 'Moonraker'

SEE ALSO: Great Headline Writing - Not!

Wally Goes To The Louvre; Eggleston Goes To The Whitney

The sculpture you see here is by Tony Dow, who is known worldwide for playing Wally, brother to The Beaver, on the old "Leave It To Beaver" TV show. Tony's work has also just been selected for a show at the Louvre in Paris. No, I'm not "giving you the business" about that. Here's the news. The image shown is of the sculpture which will greet the Paris art world, called "Unnamed Warrior".

From his statement about his work at the Karen Lynne Gallery:

"My sculpture derives from whatever has passed through or by me; a culmination of my experiences; what I’ve seen, what I’m drawn to. The figures are abstract and not meant to represent reality but rather the truth of the interactions as I see and feel them. I find the wood in he hills of Topanga Canyon and each piece evolves from my subconscious."

I like his view about creativity and art - all of us construct our lives from all the bits and pieces we experience and generate through just living life. And there's something kind of cool about Wally - sorry, I mean Tony - getting a showing in Paris.

Another artist, photographer William Eggleston, who has called Memphis, Tennessee home for many many years has just opened a massive retrospective show, titled "Democratic Camera", at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York. For the last 40 years he has created a prolific collection of photos which truly changed the art world and the way the art of photography is defined.

The Memphis Commerical Appeal did a story recently about Eggleston which is a great read. Eggleston is rather humble about his work, but for me the way he uses color and composition, line and form, captured in some very ordinary but extraordinary images of the everyday world is so simple and so profound all at once. One major change he gave to the art world was the notion that it was OK to use color in photography. And he captures images of the world without really arranging items or posing them, taking them as they are instead. You will seldom see people in his photos, but every image is something made or abandoned or used by people, as if it were taken in just that moment when someone left or just before they arrived.

His influence is huge - just go browse through the tens of thousands of images people have created and uploaded to the Flickr website.

I've always liked this photo by Eggleston:



Eudora Welty, in her introduction to his collection "The Democratic Forest" says:

"He has photographed every tell-tale thing we leave behind us, from leaking oil to spilled Coca-Cola. He has looked up and caught the emanations of the Great Smoky Mountains, and a mist very like a ghost that appears to be drifting over a graveyard and near Oxford, Mississippi. In photographing ivy crowding over a wall, in commotion as lively as a townful of Breughel peasants, he has got a picture of a country breeze. He moves his camera close upon a great worldly peony; our glimpse into that is as good as a visit: a bloom so full-open and spacious that we could all but enter it, sit down inside and be served tea. It was photographed, according to the caption, on the Boston Common across from the Ritz Hotel--which is the next thing to photographing an analogy."

Explore his work at his website, EgglestonTrust.Com.

That Rug Really Tied The Room Together

While the chattering cable news folk jabber about the fact that a meeting is taking place today between the current and the next president, one fact stands out -- the advice Obama is likely to get first and foremost from President Bush is "pick your rug carefully".

"Bush has told this story hundreds of times, on the stump, to foreign dignitaries, and in media interviews in the White House. He insists the rug says "optimistic person." Former White House communications director Nicolle Wallace noted the president's carpet fixation, telling the Washington Post a while back, 'He loves his rug.'

"I'd bet just about anything that it's the first thing Bush talks about when Obama enters the room."

As for what's taking the priority in Obama's mind - rolling back not just the rug, but the policies of the last 8 years.

Teens Hold Vigil Against Violence at Knox Mall

In the last few months, shocking and sudden shooting attacks have taken place in a church and a mall in Knoxville. On Sunday, as reported in this Knoxville News Sentinel article, a group of teens and adults held a vigil at the Knoxville Center Mall to raise awareness about gun violence and to mourn and memorialize the victims. An organizer and speaker at Sunday's event was a 14 year old girl named Sumaiya Hussain, and for me she stands as a pretty courageous and articulate person.

Taking a very public position such as they did is no easy task - they open themselves to all manner of reactions. But I certainly respect their desire to counter violent episodes with expressions of peace and a call for greater harmony.

On Friday, a couple of fellows took to the streets of Knoxville wearing KKK outfits, strolling about for a few hours. While they held no signs (as far as I could tell from reports like this one from Katie), I don't think they were there to call for peace and harmony. (More reaction here at KnoxViews.)

And yes, you can say both events were exercises in "freedom of speech", the mall vigil was far more valuable to the community. The sidewalk display offered little of value, other than offering folks a chance to eyeball some people with dubious character.

It would serve Knoxville and the state much better if more focus were placed on events like the one at the mall. Kudos to the KNS for making the vigil a page one story.