author: Luis Alberto Urrea

name: Steev

average rating: 4.02

book published: 2004

rating: 5

read at: 2005/11/10

date added: 2008/10/28

shelves: politics

review:
I read this when I first moved to Arizona and it gave me a healthy respect for the desert and a great sadness about the modern-day exodus across that desert that is happening.



Sad, shocking, inspiring, enraging book.

So I've lately been following this great blog/portal site called The Workbook Project. It's all about DIY filmmaking and actually mostly about DIY distribution and marketing of films, going around the middlemen of big distributors, festivals, etc. It's great. But today an entry came up that rubbed me the wrong way. It's about these 6 men (boys?) who are all filmmakers, made 4 films under some indie "company" or group called "New Breed" I guess, and now are on a tour around the country in a van, screening their films.

Ok, great. That's cool. But they're video-blogging the trip and the first video is kind of stupid. First of all it introduces it as "6 dudes and 4 films in a van" or something like that, and nowhere in this video does it talk about what the films are about. Instead it's full of dumb little "dude" moments where they're standing outside of the van cracking dumb jokes and making fun of each other about totally irrelevant shit. Is that supposed to make me want to go see these films? Why?

Interestingly enough, a glance at their tour schedule reveals that they were already in Tucson for a few days last week, but I never heard about the screenings nor do any of the film titles ring a bell at all. I probably saw them listed in the Loft's calendar and had no interest in them at all. Maybe they're trying to cover up the fact that these are mediocre films by surrounding them with ridiculous buzz. But c'mon, this is just the kind of buzz that would drive me screaming in the opposite direction from wherever these "dudes" are heading. If they wanted me to learn, or re-learn once again, that most males, even most indie filmmaker males, are obnoxious dorks who spend most of their time just trying to prove how cool they are, well, they've succeeded, but that's about all I've learned from their vlog so far.

It just disappoints me given the level of material usually posted on The Workbook Project.

• 09:10 trying to decide if i should go get some scones from Epic #
• 11:36 reading about how Friendship Park is getting blocked off, completely, by la migra.. www.nytimes.com/2008/10/22/us/22border.html #
• 15:10 amazed we only have 13 days left till the election. #

author: J.G. Ballard

name: Steev

average rating: 3.69

book published: 1973

rating: 3

read at: 2003/01/01

date added: 2008/10/23

shelves: novels

review:
Not one of Ballard's best, but still great.

At a McCain rally some racist wingnuts were handing out weird Obama "Change" bumper stickers that had the muslim crescent and star as the "C" in the word change, and a soviet hammer and sickle. Muslim republicans and even some (more) rational conservatives confronted them on it. Here's a pretty good video about it by the American News Project:

http://www.americannewsproject.com/videos/158

author: Eduardo Hughes Galeano

name: Steev

average rating: 4.35

book published: 1982

rating: 4

read at:

date added: 2008/10/20

shelves:

review:

author: Eduardo Hughes Galeano

name: Steev

average rating: 4.17

book published: 1998

rating: 3

read at: 2008/10/01

date added: 2008/10/20

shelves: politics

author: China Miéville

name: Steev

average rating: 4.04

book published: 1999

rating: 5

read at:

date added: 2008/10/20

shelves:

review:

author: Robert Latham Brown

name: Steev

average rating: 3.50

book published: 2006

rating: 3

read at: 2008/10/19

date added: 2008/10/19

shelves: filmmaking

• 10:49 just finishing reconfiguring the backyard for increased chicken grazing. #
• 11:34 noticing i have 82 gigs of music in my mp3 collection, and 82 days worth of listening. about a gig a day. hmm. #
• 13:57 exporting finished November Indymedia Newsreal. #