author: Michael Caine

name: Steev

average rating: 4.42

book published: 2000

rating: 4

read at: 2008/12/01

date added: 2014/12/31

shelves: filmmaking, own-it

review:

author: Ariel Dorfman

name: Steev

average rating: 3.88

book published: 1971

rating: 5

read at: 2000/01/01

date added: 2014/12/31

shelves: politics

review:

author: John Summers

name: Steev

average rating: 4.25

book published: 2014

rating: 5

read at: 2014/12/15

date added: 2014/12/31

shelves: own-it, politics

review:
Excellent, as usual. the "Dads of Tech" and piece by Astra Taylor is a highlight, as well as the one about disability.

author: Neal Pollack

name: Steev

average rating: 3.41

book published: 2000

rating: 5

read at: 2014/11/15

date added: 2014/12/31

shelves: children, fun, gentrification, own-it, homesteading, memoir

review:
Just what I needed.
It was surprising how much of the book is about not just "alternative" parenting but about gentrification. The story is the story of a dude growing up and starting to value a way of life (domestic, family-based, child-centered) different than he used to, and trying to reconcile that with his values about class and urbanity and growth and re-development, etc.

I don't usually do the year-end retrospective thing. But I've been meaning for a couple of months to write about my recent past as a freelance videographer

The end of this calendar year prods me into actually doing it.

Since getting back full-time into other ways of making a living, I'm spending much less time out in the world with my camera, and I sometimes feel wistful about that.  However, the fact is that if I can get myself to look at the bright side, I can look back and feel a sense of real satisfaction and pride in the number and variety of film/video projects I've been involved in over the last 18 months or so (I choose that period for 2 reasons: 1) just to buck the trend of looking back at the arbitrary unit of one year that is the habit for this season, and 2) because when I open the Raw Footage directory on my newest hard drive, the shoots I've been on stretch back about that far).

It's especially heartwarming to see, as I look back, how much of this work has been for non-profits and other good causes.

Here's a list of highlight clients and/or projects:

• promotional film for Coaltion for Sonoran Desert Protection
• documentation of Chico MacMurtrie's show at MOCA Tucson of Amorphic Robot Works' "Chrysalis" piece, a giant semi-intelligent kinetic sculpture.
• documenting events for Living Streets Alliance, most notably Cyclovia Tucson
  
• A promotional film about South Tucson made with Creatista for Primavera Foundation
• A documentary about homelessness.
• footage for some short videos about coffee, kefir, and other food things for  Edible Baja Arizona magazine.
• Two lectures from the Institute for Applied Meditation
• An educational video series about immigration called "Radical Hospitality" for the Mennonite USA church. 
• documenting the SAAF Moda Provacateur fashion show
• a wedding.
• some bands that wanted me to film them playing live
•  PSAs for Child and Family Resources
•  helping a friend with a documentary about Diamond Mountain's 3-year meditation retreat.
• Documenting the Toward a Science of Consciousness Conference at the U of Arizona 
• instructional videos on meditation at a retreat center in Cochise Stronghold
• fundraising videos with Creatistia for  Literacy Connects 
• documenting the Mayor's Council on Poverty 
• various promotional footage for the Downtown Tucson Partnership (with Creatista)
• and finally, one of the last projects that I'm still involved with is videography for a documentary film in progress by Eva Lewis called No Man's Land, about the organizing against the Arivaca Border Patrol checkpoint. 

I was just down in Arivaca yesterday shooting stuff for the last item, so I guess I can also celebrate that I'm still doing some of this stuff. Just not trying to pay all of the bills with it.

author: Bret Easton Ellis

name: Steev

average rating: 3.80

book published: 1991

rating: 4

read at: 2014/11/16

date added: 2014/11/18

shelves: novels, own-it, fun

review:
This is an odd novel. It's a light-hearted, absurdist satire about rich people and New York and trendiness and fashion. But it's also a violent, misogynist horror story full of ultra-graphic, impossibly extreme gore and brutality. Oh and super graphic, porn-style sex scenes.

It's one of those books where I wondered often why I was still reading, and yet couldn't put it down.

Some things I really enjoyed about it:
1. One running gag is that the narrator is always mistaking people for other people, and in turn he's always being mistaken for others. Co-workers or acquaintances come up and greet him by other names, etc. It happens so often as to be this hilarious and biting commentary on modern alienation.

2. The anachronism of the time the book is set in. It's so clearly late-80s, it almost hurts, to read about the cordless phones, video rentals, answering machines and INXS playing at the clubs.

3. The porn-style sex scenes. Really just because they, along with the killing scenes, are such a stark contrast with the rest of the book, which is mostly vapid recountings of evenings spent dining at trendy eateries and the designer brands everyone is wearing.

Anyway. I hate to admit I've never read any other Bret Easton Ellis, but this makes me want to.

"Plausibly Live" was a project I began back in the early 'oughts, attempting to represent a sort of simulation of the last few years of my live musical performances. I carefully edited and condensed recordings of the best moments from the improvisational electronic gigs I'd done in 1998 through 2002, but then life got in the way and the results never saw the light of day, til now. There are plenty more details in the capacious liner notes on the Bandcamp page. I hope you enjoy them, and the sounds.

author: John Summers

name: Steev

average rating: 4.67

book published: 2014

rating: 5

read at: 2014/10/01

date added: 2014/10/01

shelves: fun, politics, own-it

review: