| THE MONASTERY OF GYANGZE IN THE MONASTERY IN GYANGZE THE PILGRIMS CRAWL UNDER THE TABLES HOLDING THE SACRED BUDDHIST SCRIPTURES, THINKING THAT THEY WILL ABSORB THEIR WISDOM WITHOUT THE LABOR OF READING THEM. WHAT NEXT PILGRIMS ABSORBING RICE WITHOUT EVER ONCE EATING A BITE? (TH) |
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Shibuya District, Tokyo: I work at one of the 2 art film theaters in Dallas (the other is closing at the end of the year and 2 new complexes will open next year). Our audiences are growing but it's still a small group compared to those who visit Hollywood blockbusters. That's why I was so interested in reading about the Shibuya district in Japan
It turns out that this Tokyo youth center, is the place to go for art house films. Japan is the world's 2nd largest movie market behind the US, and they, like us, mostly see the Hollywood films. But in Shibuya many of the students, teens, and young office workers want to see art films. So much so that 25 to almost 100% of the international box office receipts for all art house films come from mini-theaters in Shibuya!
The mini theaters have names like Cinema Rise, Cine Amuse or Cine Quint and seat 100 - 200 patrons. The price for tickets (like all tickets in Japan) is very high at 1,800 yen or about $16.50. And the theatres hold specific films for long runs, thus allowing word of mouth to spread about a good film. All this adds up to high revenue for good art films.
Some of the recent favorites are the Indian song and dance film Muthu, the British Trainspotting, the Swedish movie Lotta and Her Red Bicycle, the Spanish movie All About My Mother, the Cuban film Buena Vista Social Club,etc. It all sounds like heaven for film lovers. (Facts from Reuters story by Jon Herskovitz)
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I'm beginning to wonder if I like computers toooooo much. If you get this joke, you may know more about computers than is all that healthy! "The box said, 'requires windows 95 NT or better', so I installed Linux!
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| WITH HIS ARMY OF BIRDS SINGING BEHIND HIM THE POET COMMANDER CONQUERS THE WORLD. (Th) |
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"To the great Variety of Readers, ... you were abused with diverse stolen and surreptitious copies, maimed and deformed by the frauds and stealths of injurious impostors that exposed them, even those are now offered to your view cured and perfect of their limbs; and all the rest, absolute in their numbers, as he conceived them"
This quote is from the preface to the famous First Folio of Shakespeare's plays. It was assembled after his death by two of his old colleagues from his acting group, John Heminges and Henry Condell. They printed 36 of his 37 plays (Pericles was missing), 18 of them for the first time. The title of the collection was Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories & Tragedies. Published according to the True Originall Copies, London, Printed by Isaac Iaggard and Ed. Blount. It was printed in 1623. And though a valuable book today it is not rare with 238 copies still around. It probably had an edition of 1,000 to 1250 copies and was believed to have sold for 1 pound which in today's money is about $40-50 - not cheap by any means.
If it were me he was asking, I'd stare at him as if he were an Alien from another world. My point is that we know more about the First Folio's printing history, than we know about zines made 400 years later. Zinester don't have those kind of printing records. No one kept them. I probably have some of the most thorough ones myself, but I couldn't answer those questions accurately or completely.
In the end history books are going to have a hard time of it when it comes to zine printing facts!
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Capital Idea! I want to make Musea the coolest underground site on the net. I'm doing a lot of things but in order for it to really grow it needs some money behind it. I'm not opposed to making money on my art, I recommend it for all artists. What I'm against is ads, and bad art, and art monopoly, and Dawson's Creek. That's intolerable. But I firmly believe that Musea on the website can be quite a moneymaker AND retain it's indie flavor and without commercials that pretty much ruin every site that uses them. There certainly is no advantage to another website with a catalogue of junk to buy.
BUT there is a lot of advantage to a site that has aspirations of promoting all the arts, art revolution, maybe somewhere down the line Musea radio, and a truly indie TV station on the net (TV is coming quickly to the net) + a no-ad newspaper.
Musea already has Musea zines, zine reviews, the Zine Hall Of Fame, a first guide to the net, MP3's, and a good movie guide, Cogitology - the art of thinking, 10 Best Poets of All Time, plus with capitol I'd like to expand and have that Musea Gallery that I've talked about before, plus a million more ideas too lengthy to mention.
The point of all this is this: If you know someone interested in developing Musea,and helping it grow, and have the capitol to support that growth, please let me know. As Bender says on Futurama, "It's time to take it up a notch!"
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I predict that within a few decades there will be a travelling exhibit of COPIES of all Rembrandts 600+ paintings on canvas and at the exact same size as the originals. And these will NOT be shown in climate controlled stuffy museums but in school auditoriums, empty warehouses, civic buildings, even hung from trees in a forest. And finally the art that was hidden from all but a few, will be seen by all. - Art S Revolutionary
Here's a new word for many of you, "GICLEE" (ghee-clay). It's the french term for 'to spray ink'. Developed in 1989, it is the best reproductive system of art now available. Canvas or acid free paper is put on a drum that rotates during printing. Ink pours from four nozzles that produce a combination of 512 chromatic changes with over 3 million colors possible of water - based ink. The prints have a higher resolution than lithographs and the color range is greater than serigraphy. They can last for 100 years, and the artist can print one or 100's so it's on demand printing with never a need to store copies (also for original art works, the artist can have them printed in any size he wishes - with one company saying they can print up to 3500 sq. inches).
Many great works of art have already been reproduced and are available for sale. Others hang in museums like The Met, The Guggenheim, The Fine Arts in Boston, The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, The Philadelphia Museum, The Corcoran, etc.
But the cost, that these companies are charging now, is way too high. One company said "the retail price varies on many factors, such as the artist's reputation, the size of the edition of the print, and even the state of the economy. Small format from a large edition can sell for as little as $100-300. At the other extreme, Giclees by David Hockney can run in the tens of thousands of dollars." If you look at the pricing reasons you see that there is no real reason they couldn't come down considerably and that at some point paintings could be reproduced (and even sold like recordings or videos) for much less. I would guess as low as $20 if say Musea owned the machine!
It's the future folks, and once again - IF there are new artists who 1. believe technique counts, 2. are bored with abstraction, and 3. think conceptual art is bad sculpture - THEN painting may once again become a relevant art form -and very likely it'll have a Renaissance equal to any that came before it. And all sparked by millions of people having access to the worlds great paintings.
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| W w w w w w w w e e e e e e e e e e e e eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! |  |
From an art revolutionary's viewpoint, neither presidential candidate looks very good. Republicans are for big business (which includes Corporate Art), and democrats are for the biggest single business - the government. (And the rest of us are out of power! - reminds me of the 3 powers in 1984 ... but I digress)
It is true that the government is the only power big enough in the US to stand up to Big Business - Corporate Art; BUT financial records show that Hollywood (Corp. Art Again) supports democrats with contribution in about a 2 to 1 rate over the Republicans. So it is doubtful that a democratic president would stand up to his campaign contributors.
Now that's a lose-lose situation.... Let's ramble on
Do you notice that the media covers the presidential election for almost 2 years before the election? And excluding a primary vote or 2,the 2 conventions, and election day, there is hardly a hard news story anywhere in those 2 years
What we're left with is strategies, day to day gossip, polls, rumors, etc. AND do you notice what they don't cover in those 2 years? All the news about the Legislative, Executive, and Judicial branches of the Federal, State, County, and City governments. The presidential race seems to be a get out of reporting on the government - card, free - for the 2 years the race lasts. I think that is shoddy journalism. And if/when Musea starts a no-ad newspaper, all that would change.
Let's ramble further: The government we have now is as bloated as a Microsoft operating system. And there is real danger that it has started doing more harm than good for its citizens, the reverse of what it ideally should do. NOW nothing is ideal. Here are some possible changes that would get us a government more user friendly (note: the ultimate nightmare scenario if everything continues as it's going, is that one day the government will control a majority of the jobs in the land. Then to protect those jobs, all its workers have to vote the same way - the government way! For now that's a great plot for a Sci-Fi novel. For the future it is a real threat!) Changes:
1.Before government STARTS any law, rule, regulation, etc. it MUST set up a way to STOP it, if it doesn't work as planned. There are countless laws, rules, and in Texas - amendments to the Constitution, that are badly outdated. Without a system of stopping this mess it just grows like the BLOB
2. Make the government responsive to citizens not rules. Make it possible to FIRE government workers who don't work. Design the government so it HELPS citizens not confuse them. Ex. gov. helpers that meet you at the door at City Hall, listen to your problem, and walk you through all the processes you need to fix it.(Now that's Science fiction!)
3. End the bloating with incentives. Any government worker that can cut costs, gets a percentage of the first years savings. Example - a worker from sector 7-G saves the gov. 1 billion dollars - now 5% of a billion is worth looking into. Also any worker who can eliminate his job should get a year's salary for free. THEN there would be an incentive to save.
4. Dump voter registration. You can vote if you have a social security card and proof of age - period!
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Reader and poet, James Nordlund sent these to me:
HOME IS WHERE YOU HANG YOUR @
VIRTUAL REALITY IS ITS OWN REWARD
OH WHAT A TANGLED WEBSITE WE WEAVE WHEN FIRST WE PRACTICE
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This one for all the working writers out there:
In the news and article pack that Scott Crow sent me, is a roundup of the latest news from each of the countries of Europe, called Capitals, an overview of current affairs in Europe's Capitals (from the magazine Europe).
The one from Paris concerned a bestseller novel called If Only It Were True from Marc Levy. It's his first book. It got the attention of an editor named Susanna Lea, who thought it jumped off the page as having fantastic film potential. She took a 2 page synopsis of the book (try doing that with Moby Dick, War And Peace, Brothers Karamazov) to the Frankfort International Book Fair last October. It's the biggest book fair period. The article says editors were lining up, "But she held out for a film deal and soon had Fox 2000 with Julia Roberts as producer, Universal, and Steven Speilberg"s Dreamworks competing for the rights. Speilberg clinched it with $2 million, and a promise he'd make the film within a year.
Here's what If Only It Were True is about. It's a love story between Lauren, a young doctor in San Francisco (Dr. to the zinesters?) and Arthur an architect. Lauren is in a severe car accident, which has left her in a deep coma from which there is no hope of recovery.. One day, in his bathroom, Arthur meets her spirit which only he can see and he falls in love. "(the coma) is just a pretext to put the man in a situation where he falls in love with a girl and he can't get any advice from anyone. He can't even decide if he might commit himself."
If you're a writer, reading this is probably a lot like a real musician watching the ABC show 'Making The Band" (which Hunkasaurus says is his favorite sit-com). But here comes the best part (and I really think the behind-the-scene story of the making of If Only It Were True may be the better movie project),
Author Levy says, "Steven Spielberg paid a huge amount of money for the story of my book based on a two-page synopsis. So why should he, or anyone else, want to make a different story out of it."
All I can say is Mr. Levy, FIRST TIME IN AMERICA? OH YEAH YOU LIVE IN FRANCE. Or how can I best express my anxiety at the ability of Hollywood to respect writers and their craft ... uh ...... 'IF ONLY IT WERE TRUE!'
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"...deadly conflicts being waged in obscurity, only rarely getting a brief mention in the daily newspaper or on the nightly TV newscast." FromThe Dallas Morning News on "Hidden Wars", wars not covered.
I have to work on Sundays so I don't get to see the Sunday version of 60 Minutes TV Show much if at all. But when I do see it there is often an Arab Israeli conflict story (and it's always the conflict between the 2, never the good aspects of either side). Sometimes as much as 2 per month. Matter of fact there is a LOT of coverage of the Arab Israeli conflict, and not much coverage of any other conflict. Remember that past issue when Musea wrote 10 or so mainstream media outlets and asked them why the excess coverage of this one conflict (none responded).
Anyway here is the point. Here is a test for the journalistic integrity of the mainstream media. You know it is being fair if it covers all major foreign conflicts with the same amount of coverage. That means each of the following should get as much, if not more coverage than the Arab Israeli conflict:
Civil War in: Colombia, Peru, Guinea-Bissau, Sierra Leone, Algeria, Angola, Turkey, Sudan, Rwanda (I've talked about this one extensively and still no media source has reported this story with enough depth to make any sense of it), Afghanistan, Chechnya, Sri Lanka, Myanmar, Philippines, Indonesia, And
2 or more Country, Wars in: Congo (6 countries involved), UN versus Kosovo, UN versus Iraq, North Korea versus itself? the world?, Ethiopia versus Eritrea, and Kashmir - Pakistan versus India
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I am counting the stars And the abacus beads Are flicking and snapping Like the song of a cricket.
I am counting the reasons |
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Answer to our literary math puzzle:
Take the temp. at which books burn Farenheit 451 divide by that Catch 22 and multiply by the sum of the digits of that Big Brother Year "1+9+8+4" = 22
451 divided by 22 times 22 = 451 . A nightmare of a puzzle!
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And decided to be a big star So I learned how to sing, and I wrote me some songs And I learned piano and guitar... |
Those are lyrics from one of my songs. I grew up in Tyler Texas. From teenage on most people knew me as a musician who spent most of his time in his room playing my guitar and composing songs. It wasn't until I left college that I began to seriously write and do art work.
You, who are reading this, know of my writings: over 2,000 poems, short stories, plays, a short novel, essays and miscellaneous writings in Musea.
And you also have a taste of my art work published in Musea or some photocopy of a small painting or collage that I've mailed to you along with my letters, or even one of my handmade envelopes that I send out. I have about 1700 paintings (mostly acrylic) and drawings, plus assorted collages etc.
But you probably haven't heard a note of my music. Hardly anyone has! Of the over 1,000 songs I've written probably only 100 have been heard by ANYONE whether from recordings or my every-Tuesday and Wednesday Night concerts in the BOX OFFICE of the Inwood Theater, or on one of the 100 or so performances I've given over the years (In and out of different bands etc). Well that is going to change.
A Musea reader, Kevin Gage, contacted me and said he could help me put MP3's on the Musea website. I searched through my closet and got a bag full of tapes and a CD of lots of my recordings plus even a few from my short-lived record co. 12 By 12 and gave them to him and said 'see what you can do'. He turned them into MP3 files and in a marathon uploading of 7-8 hours put them within touch of my Webmaster Donna who added them to the Musea website. I then added a revolutionary intro and voila! (Big thanks to Kevin Gage, and Donna Turman.)
If you can play MP3's I encourage you to listen to my music, or maybe you have a friend that can play MP3's.
Either way I hope you'll listen. There's no format at all, classical piano and guitar, to my full band recordings, jazz (Kat Keys) to Hunkasaurus and His Pet Dog Guitar. And I really feel this is great quality stuff, 36 years of practice! And remember it's not every day that a fellow zinester puts out a DOUBLE ALBUM!
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| BLUEBIRD DISAPPEARS INTO SKY | 
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