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Apple Rant
Have you tried to update your Quicktime player lately? Used to be you clicked once and could view a QT movie right away. Not anymore. You can't get version 7 without accepting a bundled, mandatory download onto your computer of the dreaded iTunes. Which immediately links back to the Apple Store and starts sending you information about stupid pop songs you don't want, and tries to get you to sign up for their proprietary scheme.
Recently a musician sent me a link to iTunes with a complimentary download of his CD (thanks, mon). I clicked the link and was directed to the Apple Store, which insisted I provide an email address and phone number. C'mon, why do they need that from a gift recipient? I balked, and the musician was kind enough to send me a CD in the mail.
I'm using Windows, the people's OS, and play .mp3s on Winamp, which is a very mellow and non-invasive program. I briefly tried out the iTunes player, and found that while it accepted my Winamp playlists, it wouldn't play the songs from their original folders. I had to copy them to an iTunes folder. I play .wav files of my own tunes in Winamp, because not everything gets ripped and besides, they sound nice. To copy them to the iTunes folder meant doubling about 10 gigs of material. I suppose I could have just moved the songs and then played them in Winamp from the Apple folder, but I really resent the use of my computer as contested territory in some brand turf war, so I threw up my hands and uninstalled iTunes.
Update: Jim B. found a page where I could download QT 7. I was trying to do it by upgrading my Firefox plug-in from 6.5, and I swear to you the link took me to a page where I couldn't get QT without accepting iTunes.
An image made with the CebraText teletext editor for eventual transmission on the Boob Tube. As mentioned below, Emma Davidson (Lektrolab) and Paul B. Davis (Lektrolab/BEIGE) are doing a Teletext project that will run on Dutch TV later this month as part of ambientTV.net. Their Teletext TV station is called Microtel, and they are calling for submissions to create simple text and graphics messages. You can download the CebraText program (Windows only) to create the Teletext files and then email the files to Davis and Davidson for TV reformatting. The above artwork, by Davis, is an example; the tutorials on the Microtel site make the process seem pretty painless. I say that because I haven't tried it yet. The interest in near-obsolete media and the reincarnation of old programs in an open source environment I find pretty fascinating; the aesthetics of it are what drew me to the BEIGE project back in the day ('02).
This is from Atrios. Howard Dean stood up to Bush supporter, I mean CNN host Wolf Blitzer. Makes it pretty obvious where Blitzer stands, reading this--that he favors continued war in Iraq and GOP corruption at home. As Atrios notes, the transcript fails to note Blitzer's exasperated sigh as he thanked Dean for his "bluntness and candor." He and his fellow media toadies are trying to make Dean out to be crazy, but we know who's telling the truth here. My only gripe is Dean spews the usual talking point about inadequate body armor--Kerry did that, too. The best way to increase troop longevity is to pull them out of Iraq, which we never should have invaded. As for Blitzer, he's a warmonger who made little whoops of delight when Bush dropped those bombs you and I paid for on Baghdad:
BLITZER: Let's talk a little bit about Iraq. The president sought to reach out to some of his critics earlier in the week, bringing in some former secretaries of state, including Madeleine Albright, among others -- William Cohen, the former defense secretary during the Clinton administration.
Are you satisfied right now that the president's getting enough information from a variety of sources to better move forward as far as the situation in Iraq is concerned?
DEAN: Well, most of the reports that came out of that meeting, Wolf, were that the president engaged in a filibuster of his own in there. He talked at them for some time and then went in for a photo op and really didn't bother to ask most of them for their advice at all.
So, I think these photo op ideas that he's going to get advice and they're really nothing more than photo ops -- I think we're in a big pickle in Iraq.
The president, frankly -- I was disgusted when I read in the New York Times yesterday that 80 percent of the torso injuries and fatalities in the Marine Corps could have been prevented if the Pentagon, the secretary of defense and the president had supplied them with armor that they already had.
They requested that from the field; the Pentagon refused. You know, I, two years ago, thought Secretary Rumsfeld ought to resign. He ought to resign.
These people are not qualified. They haven't served themselves; they don't know what it takes. They ought to protect our troops. Our troops are doing a hell of a job and they deserve better leadership in Washington than what they're getting.
I was incensed when I saw that story, 80 percent of the torso- based wounds that led to fatalities in the Marine Corps -- surely our Marines are worth something more than that.
BLITZER: About a month ago, Senator Joe Lieberman, the former Democratic vice presidential nominee spoke out, urging his fellow Democrats, including yourself, to restrain themselves in criticizing the president's position on Iraq. Listen to what Lieberman said.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. JOSEPH LIEBERMAN (D), CONNECTICUT: It's time for Democrats who distrust President Bush to acknowledge that he will be the commander-in-chief for three more critical years, and that, in matters of war, we undermine presidential credibility at our nation's peril.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BLITZER: What do you think? Is that advice good advice from Senator Lieberman?
DEAN: No. This president has lacked credibility almost from the day he took office because of the way he took office.
He's not reached out to other people. He's shown he's willing to abuse his power. He's not consulted others. And he's not interested in consulting any others.
And I think, frankly, that Joe is absolutely wrong, that it is incumbent on every American who is patriotic and cares about their country to stand up for what's right and not go along with the president, who is leading us in a wrong direction.
We're going in the wrong direction, economically, at home; we're going in the wrong direction abroad.
...
BLITZER: Should Democrats who took money from Jack Abramoff, who has now pleaded guilty to bribery charges, among other charges, a Republican lobbyist in Washington, should the Democrat who took money from him give that money to charity or give it back?
DEAN: There are no Democrats who took money from Jack Abramoff, not one, not one single Democrat. Every person named in this scandal is a Republican. Every person under investigation is a Republican. Every person indicted is a Republican. This is a Republican finance scandal. There is no evidence that Jack Abramoff ever gave any Democrat any money. And we've looked through all of those FEC reports to make sure that's true.
BLITZER: But through various Abramoff-related organizations and outfits, a bunch of Democrats did take money that presumably originated with Jack Abramoff.
DEAN: That's not true either. There's no evidence for that either. There is no evidence...
BLITZER: What about Senator Byron Dorgan?
DEAN: Senator Byron Dorgan and some others took money from Indian tribes. They're not agents of Jack Abramoff. There's no evidence that I've seen that Jack Abramoff directed any contributions to Democrats. I know the Republican National Committee would like to get the Democrats involved in this. They're scared. They should be scared. They haven't told the truth. They have misled the American people. And now it appears they're stealing from Indian tribes. The Democrats are not involved in this.
BLITZER: Unfortunately Mr. Chairman, we got to leave it right there.
Howard Dean, the chairman of the Democratic Party, always speaking out bluntly, candidly.
"Goin' Vertical" [4.1 MB .mp3]. Straight up drum and bass, but maybe a little dreamy for the club floor--a dense mesh of interlocking rhythm parts. I may vary the atmospheric pads more and add some kind of drop out or break. Still thinking about it. The melodic material is spare, but this may be the most voices and effects I've ever put in a single piece.
Detail from a work on paper by Erika Somogyi at Monya Rowe Gallery in New York. Somogyi's drawings depict people in ambiguous rural or exurban spaces having Carlos Castaneda-like transcendent moments, merging into the landscape and etherscape, as denoted by vivid whorls and slashes of DayGlo paint. I'm sure they are not using drugs. I've mused before on the perennial return of a hippie aesthetic and the differences between the ultra-ironic use of DayGlo by Peter Halley and Kenny Scharf in the '80s and its rather more committed use by Somogyi and others. Her work is driven, without the complete obliviousness to history usually marked by this kind of project. Further pondering will have to be done on how it escapes self-consciousness but also avoids the better-known outsider cliches.
Went to see
, aka the O Show, curated by MatCh-Art, during the last week of the show's run at SICA, Long Branch, NJ. More on the exhibit here. The top photo is my DVD of OptiDisc, pulsing away to the amusement of a room of empty seats. The bottom one is Nami Yamamoto's installation of foam, vinyl and pins, bubbling up through the solid matter of the gallery's concrete floor.
Above is a proposal page for a project I did around 1990 for Dallas Public Access Cable. Messages 2-6 above were translated into "teletext" (block capitals on blue screens) and aired individually at random times of the day. I made this crude prototype using MacPaint. Clearly, as text-based art the piece owes more to Harvey Kurtzman of Mad than Lawrence Weiner of Dia. Never saw these live because I didn't have cable but remember one anecdote from their run: Due to a technical glitch the "WE COMMAND. YOU OBEY..." screen accidentally ran on an African American affairs channel and the station got a lot of angry complaints. What, black people don't want authoritarian messages coming from their TVs? Seriously, sorry that happened but it was kind of an anti-authoritarian (or a-authoritarian) message.
I was reminded of this because Emma Davidson (Lektrolab) and Paul B. Davis (Lektrolab/BEIGE) are doing a Teletext project that will run on Dutch TV later this month as part of ambientTV.net. Their Teletext TV station is called Microtel, and they are calling for submissions to create simple text and graphics messages. If you saw the Bodenstandig 2000 show at Deitch you saw some of drx's girlie/sex ads done in this format and they looked great--very low res and cheesy. You have to download a program (Windows only) to create the Teletext files and then email the files to Paul and Emma for reformatting.
Michael Bell-Smith and Cory Arcangel present The Year in the Internet '05. More linkz than U can shake a joystiq at. My selection has a blog focus. Eventually I'll repost it here, but for the time being go to their page [Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]