author: John Summers

name: Steev

average rating: 4.40

book published: 2012

rating: 5

read at: 2012/12/19

date added: 2012/12/20

shelves: politics, fun

review:
I've been reading the Baffler since the early 90s. It's quite simply one of the consistently very best periodicals for those with a tendency toward critical thinking and an intellectual but irreverent analysis of late capitalism, politics, consumerism, and the media. It's like Harper's times one hundred. It's wonderful.

That said, every time I read an issue, it angers and saddens me with almost every page, just like Harper's does but 100 times worse. There is of course the geeky enjoyment of seeing written in eloquent form the sentiments I feel every day about our screwed up system and society, but also there is a profound bitterness and despair which sometimes threaten to overwhelm me.

Early this fall, I was asked by my friend Peter Young to provide audio accompaniment to the opening of his art exhibition, "Capitalist Masterpieces", at Tucson MOCA. The original idea was that, instead of having a band or a DJ play normal music that would just get turned to mud by the cavernous, reverberant space of the museum (which used to be the city of Tucson's downtown firehouse), why not provide a soundscape performance that was more fit to that room, and also fill the other smaller galleries with abstract sound inspired by the paintings? Because of problems resulting from the museum's priorities, we weren't able to provide all of Peter's request, but I did create 3 site-specific audio art pieces for 3 of the back galleries, which I'm rather happy with and would love to have heard beyond the one-time, 2-hour event. Here you can listen to these pieces, and if you wish, purchase the tracks for yourself. Buying the whole album also gets you a map and some photos from the opening on December 14.

author: Don Steinberg

name: Steev

average rating: 3.73

book published: 2012

rating: 5

read at: 2012/12/07

date added: 2012/12/09

shelves: own-it, filmmaking

review:
This is pretty much as good a book as I could reasonably expect in the realm of step-by-step guides on how to do a Kickstarter campaign. Covers all the bases, explains things clearly and completely, and is very useful. I already knew quite a bit on the subject, from reading numerous blog posts by various people who had highly successful Kickstarter campaigns, and just from observing projects I've backed over the last couple of years. But I'd recommend this to people like me as well as people who've never really looked into it but want to learn how to crowdfund.