saw an amazing film at dry river tonite. it's ecuadorian, called 'Cronicas'. it's about a tv news crew from miami covering a serial killer in ecuador, and they fuck everything up trying to get the story. it's an amazing look at journalistic ethics and integrity. and the person i want to be, professionally at least, is one of the characters. the cameraman/editor. i want to travel the world with a powerbook and a camera phoning in investigative news videos via satellite, sweating my ass off editing footage in a jungle hotel and smoking and drinking quetzalteco or chicha or pisco or cachaca or whatever the local rotgut is. and get paid for it. Of course I'd prefer to work for a show that was less cheesy than the one depicted in the film, which was called "Una Hora Con La Verdad" (One Hour With The Truth)

Interesting piece about participatory, serialized and multiple-media narratives, from the Obama campaign to Battlestar Galactica, and the opportunity through them for social good, or not... in Pitchfork of all places.

Does new media mean more to us than sharing clips of people mixing Mentos with Coca-Cola? Are we just duped rats chasing each other through ever-greater mazes? Or can we seize this chance to revitalize democracy?

(via Philoblog)

It is cold and overcast here in the desert today. That's my random public remark for this midmorning blog post.

A friend recently started a blog of which I'm the only reader, at least so far. She hasn't told anyone else about it, as far as I know. I envy her, in a way. To have a semiprivate space like that. To post blog entries of open mystery, entries with the word "you" in them a lot. To think about how people possibly could (a thrill of risk!), but almost certainly won't (whew), see and read. But many many people read this here and I've burned and been burned at this URL too many times to assume that sort of space here.

Suspira.

How to make this somehow interesting to those readers not interested, or perhaps even repelled, by thoughts of more episodes of "As The Steev Turns"? Well, think of this: isn't it just freaking bizarre to think about this sort of thing in the context of 20 years ago - imagine someone in 1987 reading this. It wouldn't make any sense at all. Diaries that might also be amateur journalism, research, rants, instruction manuals, available to strangers all over the globe with a 'click' of a... what? you call that a 'link'? WTF? oh and what does WTF stand for in your crazy future world? AFAIK, it doesn't mean "'Ware The Future", but it might as well.

I will say that I just sat for an hour at Cafe Passé eating a bowl of yogurt, granola, and fruit and writing a LOT in my journal. Life is extremely interesting and really quite good. What an amazing January it was.