this blog is a visual notebook of inspirations for a group of bandit bloggers. we post things we see and like. our lives don’t revolve around singular topics and neither does our blog. sorry! nothing is in-or-out of context here. enjoy xx
i was updating an old fela kuti clip and showing it to a good friend of mine, and he pulled out this little trailer…. an older documentary i must have missed on the great rahsaan roland kirk. kirk was politically outspoken. during his concerts, between songs he often talked about topical issues, including african-american history and the civil rights movement. his monologues were often laced with satire and absurdist humor. kirk became blind at the age of two, which he said was a result of improper medical treatment. he often played several instruments at once not as a gimmick but rather as a necessity to communicate his layered thoughts. his blindness stifled his life to some extent, but that did not stop him from becoming one of the most influential jazz musicians in history. excited to watch it and thank you my friend for the lead. by uh
now that xy is on a history lesson trip, here’s a great snippet into the past
before the world lost their mind – and when there was still some hope for peace
they try and make is sound complicated but its really not…
there is a land that 3 religions find sacred. they once all lived together on the same land. they can do so again. if you just stop the dehumanizing language of racism and hate and fucking with one another until one side goes mental. rinse repeat. you have to stop demanding the entire place for yourself, and using civilian terror tactics to win. we need a fair and just mediator as these people have been unable to make peace for 75 years and the way its going there is none in sight. finally, not that there is a god, but if there was one for all you delusional people, no one god gave this land to any one people. if you believe that i gotta a book that gives me everything you got. finally lets be fair, be nice — if you are in charge, find a way to live together and stop calling it a “religious state” for just one of the 3 faiths, or split the land 3 ways or make it a UNESCO world heritage site with no one government ruling it. i’m no politician but you guys are fucking up the entire world over this shit piece of land 90% of us don’t care about… by dd
a deeply personal documentary, dena spends a day in hebron retracing the footsteps of her father, who was born and raised in hebron. our reporter is given a tour by a kind hearted Israeli IDF ex-soldier. it is a look at life before october 7th massacres in the palestinian west bank territories which was and is not controlled by hamas
while these stories of human suffering can be heart breaking, i hope you can see there are good and righteous people everywhere including the IDF which you may believe to be harsh as they defend their country. there are also so many israeli’s who have stood up against the collateral damage that is the killing of innocent woman and children and do not support netanyahu. as long as there is hate and bigotry on either side there will be no peace and both governments are guilty of not delivering that to the good people of each side.
finally this can not be watched without a bit of history on how this country came to be and why. “how israel was created“
please educate yourselves by reading and watching multiple sides of the same story and judge for yourself. everything is biased, some are more biased than others. I find these to be factual and fair, but that is me.
if you watch this and you feel hatred in you, you are falling for the trap that is set for us all. understand your world and know that no one people can be all bad or good. there are good people and bad people in every country and culture. if this makes you hate all jews know that you have succumbed to oldest of racist means. you can condemn an act of a government or a group but to assign that guilt to their family and neighborhood and all such people is what we all must condemn. by xy
around the office it’s not uncommon to hear the phrase “great things don’t come out every [expletive] fucking year”, often followed by “if you’re lucky, once in a decade – but, i mean, it’s a [expletive] fucking miracle if a generation produces one great thing”, and then maybe an hour and a half lecture on godard or kali malone.
here below are three good movies.
killers of the flower moon, scorsese
priscilla, coppola
anatomy of a fall, triet
go see them, one might make the cut to great. who knows? by lsd
watch israeli historian and political scientist ilan pappe (jewish) debate journalist for jerusalem post melanie phillips (jewish)
and british born reporter and oxford graduate mehdi hasan (muslim) debate knesset member einat wilf (jewish)
since all middle easterners have been silenced and equated to “animals”, branded “incompetent, ignorant, uneducated and never to be believed”… it is nice to hear these words from 3 out of 4 speakers of jewish decent and one oxford graduated “muslim brown boy” that just maybe you can “half-believe”.
what is terrorism?
2014 gaza war – operation protective edge death tool – democracy now PBS
regardless of the bios, this is an interesting debate with some factual historic background to help you sort out your own thoughts. in this age of misinformation and propaganda please always research facts from several opposing sources in order to reach a best guess scenario. somethings of course, require no research – occupying, locking and controlling a people is wrong, kidnapping innocent civilians, killing the elderly and defenseless citizens is also outright wrong and all of them should be condemned. and while self defense is warranted to bring the perpetrators to justice, bombing an entire neighborhood, or schools, or a high-rises is no-way to justify getting a mass shooter inside. “collective punishment of civilians to achieve a political goal” is wrong and by definition is terrorism – no matter who partakes in that.
the troubles did not begin on oct 7th as many would like us to believe. the blood shed and oppression and resistance and terrorism has been going on for more than 75c years. our stance remains: condemn all collective punishment/terrorism no matter who partakes in them
bring the perpetrators to justice (*sometimes they are a group, sometimes they are a state)
free all hostages including wrongful detainment of political prisoners inside israel
stop the war and especially stop the killing of civilians – needless to say jewish, christian, or muslim… but especially atheists
negotiate a “just” peace with equally strengthened parties and an unbiased judge (meaning not the U.S.) to reach a two state solution or a one state with equal rights.
finally zionism is an ideology like communism, you can surely be against communism but not racist towards russians, or chineses who were communist or some of the founders of communism who where jewish. this is a mafia style gag order, routed in zero rational or reality.
…to peace and collaboration of all humans, and to everyone standing up to bullies, on the playground and on the world map – amen and dog bless america. by xy
war is peace, freedom is slavery, ignorance is strength… and also… don’t believe anything you read… not sure where that leaves us now!? – george orwell
sigmund freud (and his american nephew, edward bernays)
century of the self – adam curtis
leave it to adam curtis to set the records straight. the story of the relationship between sigmund freud and his american nephew, edward bernays. bernays invented the public relations profession in the 1920s and was the first person to take freud’s ideas to manipulate the masses. he showed american corporations how they could make people want things they didn’t need by systematically linking mass-produced goods to their unconscious desires. bernays was one of the main architects of the modern techniques of mass-consumer persuasion, using every trick in the book, from celebrity endorsement and outrageous PR stunts, to eroticising the motorcar. his most notorious coup was breaking the taboo on women smoking by persuading them that cigarettes were a symbol of independence and freedom. but bernays was convinced that this was more than just a way of selling consumer goods. it was a new political idea of how to control the masses. by satisfying the inner irrational desires that his uncle had identified, people could be made happy and thus docile. it was the start of the all-consuming self which has come to dominate today’s world. originally broadcast on 29th april 2002. by uh
we fully understand that the goal of every business is upward growth and common prosperity. however, here at tomorrow started, our business model was always intended to turn the market driven ideology on its head. today, we are proud to share with you the results of 10+ years of commitment and hard work. as you can see, this graph below is on a “straight linear trajectory”, (the envy of every CEO out there) except… our graph is totally inverted!! and exactly how we planned it.
note: graph in inverted view
note: same graph in actual view
now, you do not need to call us brilliant, nor do we want your lame old article in fast company. we’re just happy to be here, and to be of service to the few, the proud, the in-betweens. thank you everyone and dog bless. by dd
they say.. anyway. it is pierre huyghe, the french video art and performance art gem, that delves a bit deeper into what was an otherwise the closed shut case of the cultural moral evaluation regarding john wojtowicz that al pacino cementing with his portrayal of the character sonny wortzik, under sydney lumet’s ever expansive eye, sought to advocate for. and many other kinds of alike sentences could bore us further.
i love the movie, it’s a masterpiece. and huyghe’s the third memory pushes ever more sensitively into the person. an incredible feat of subtle and delicate nature.
how the piece is intended to be shown.
what remains, and is available online, is nothing of the sort.
it’ll have to do.
a process of making out what has been taken out. by lsd
despite charlie chaplin’s statement about his work, and the fact that city lights (1931) does in fact have a park, several policemen and a pretty girl, this film places the issue of class front and center in its opening scene and then plays out that theme, in different variations, for 87 minutes. it begins with some pompous dignitaries in formal dress about to dedicate a larger-than life size neoclassical statue of three figures titled peace and prosperity. the officials consist of politicians, businessmen with their wives, and the police. this is clearly a good cross representation of the ruling class in the us and chaplin beautifully uses them as one collective “straight man.” the crowd behind them – the “little people” – are there as a sounding board, amplifying and physically playing out the symbolic language of the assorted elites at the level of the street. they will presumably carry the message of peace and prosperity to those less fortunate who could not attend.
peace and prosperity is clearly an ironic title considering this was the second year of the great depression. it was also the era where war-drums from europe had found their beat. the nazis would take control of germany within two years and start the war machinery rolling; the japanese and the italians had militarized, nationalist governments ready to use force to realize their economic and colonial ambitions; spanish democracy was withering under the weight of fascist populism; and the americans after wwi were ready to impose a new world order with themselves at the head of the table. many writers, intellectuals, and analysts of the period realized it was only a matter of time before the festering aftermath of wwi exploded, bringing another world war. the thirties were in some respects similar to our era. it was a period defined by political polarization, instability, and rabid disparities of wealth and education; there was also a strong faction of nationalists spinning webs of fantasy, control, and power. this is the context in which peace and prosperity opens city lights.
the statue in the film fits the traditional neoclassical aesthetic, an art form that comes ready made for autocrats and their cronies. that is why during revolutions those statues are among the first things to come down, to be set on fire, to be urinated on, or to be thrown in the nearest river. peace and prosperity presents a tableau with a soldier holding a sword while another man with a hand up signals peace; a young woman dressed in traditional greek robes stands by ready to choose between her two suitors. the tableau espouses male heroism and reason balanced by the eternal mother/fertility goddess as provider, and arbiter, in harmonious balance – a pastiche of european sculpture from an earlier period.
the film was made four years after the advent of sound and is one of the last hybrid films that was shot as a silent with a soundtrack added later. in the early thirties sound and music were considered add-ons to the narrative and chaplin was the first film artist to use sound creatively, re-articulating one of the conventions of music hall and vaudeville – the use of musical instruments to parody human folly. he does it by turning what americans like to call the “boilerplate speech” into music. the society lady is “played” by a piccolo, the overbearing boss is “played” by a trombone, and the mayor is “played” by a kazoo – chaplin brings that technique back for one final go-around before taking a bow… read the full article at cineaction by dd