Today is the day that j-lo's film "Bordertown," based on the real murdered women of Juarez situation, was supposed to be released, according to information from this summer that MGM and the production company put out. But it's obviously not in theaters. I did some research and found out some important information.
I just sent this information to the mailing list i have for informing people with news about that film and my film.

I'm still about 2 weeks behind on uploading photos. Here's some shots from the semi-big, semi-useless border march and rally down in Nogales on October 7.
(there were some less useless things that happened, like when our little border-radical group painted some new messages on the wall - sadly only on the Mexican side, but it was right where the march ended)

I was shooting video most of the time so i don't have a lot of really great stills.
By the way, Jason Aragon of Pan Left has already edited a little piece. Unfortunately it's on myspace, but whatever.

An interesting review in the Austin Chronicle of my film:

Just across the border from El Paso, Ju

This is the nice review of On The Edge that will appear in the forthcoming issue of Resonance magazine:

ON THE EDGE: THE FEMICIDE IN CIUDAD JUAREZ (ILLEGAL ART / DIR: STEEV HISE)
It sounds more like a folk legend than a news story. In the Mexican border town of Ciudad Juarez, more than 400 women have been murdered since 1993, with each case shrugged off by authorities more interested in narco graft than justice. This isn

Stop Smiling Magazine recently published a review of my film. It's nice, except that it's the first review to complain about the soundtrack. Perhaps the most edgy thing about the film, the soundtrack is quite 'experimental' to some people's ears, so i'm not surprised that it would irritate a few. oh well.

It turns out that my film will have its Juarez premiere screening at the Border Social Forum, this Saturday at 11:15 AM. It will be at the Autonomous University of Ciudad Juarez, Building K, Audiovisual room. A complete schedule of the Forum is not even posted yet on the forum's site, which isn't even a real website but just a blogspot blog. And it's less than a week away. I only found out because someone posted the schedule to Houston Indymedia.

It's been extrememly frustrating dealing with the "organizers" of this Forum. They have not been very communicative at all. I was all ready to buy a little projector and go anyway even if my film wasn't being shown, and do some guerilla screenings around the campus. But I'm happy that it will have an official place in the forum. It really only makes sense. I wonder if any of the other filmmakers who have done recent films on the subject, like the 3 I met in Las Cruces in April, will be there?

Anyway, if you're going to the forum, I hope you make it to the film and say hi.

My father now has a blog. I seem to remember just a year ago him sort of poo-pooing the idea of him ever doing a blog. So many friends have blogs now I sometimes catch myself thinking of friends that don't have them and wondering why they havent posted to theirs in so long.

There are definitely some people I really wish had blogs, really wish I could have a more regular and detailed connection with their lives and thoughts. When will the direct neural RSS-feed get invented?
uugggh. just kidding [shiver].

In other, somewhat related, news, I finally saw Science of Sleep yesterday. It was pretty great, though not quite as great as I was expecting. It's all about dreams, and a guy that's always confusing dreams with reality, which makes it unsurprising that i was left with a feeling of "and it was all a dream" walking out of the theater. But I can't help thinking I wanted a little less dreaminess and more "reality" - the quotes mean that i thought the reality of the film would be a little more fantastic, less "normal world" - I guess I thought the story was going to be a little more science fiction, maybe sort of like Wim Wenders' "Until the End of the World" (which also had a lot to do with dreams), and that Stephane would be a little more of a hero-inventor, and a little less pathetic loser-inventor.

But, I still highly recommend the flim. Best Hollywood fare I've seen all year, I'd say.

Weekend before last I went to the No More Deaths desert camp in Arivaca to help break it down for the year. I took several photos.

I've been thinking about something for weeks. In the meditation class I've been taking, which i mentioned a couple posts back, Will, the teacher, has mentioned a few times a really compelling metaphor for behaviors or activities in our lives that we think are good for us, that we think are giving us pleasure, but in the long run are really bad for us. The metaphor is licking honey off of a razor blade. I like this idea and that image so much, I will probably name a film or an album or something after it. It's very true, that we have things in our lives that at the time seem so good, and then later we realize we were doing ourselves harm, that we've given ourselves a painful cut that we could not feel at the time.

I've been wondering, trying to decide if a certain major feature of my life for the last 6 months, one addiction, if that qualifies as honey on a razor blade. The honey has been so sweet, but the time it takes for the cut to start hurting after each lick has started to decrease. I've been starting to wonder if the whole thing needs to stop, if the net pleasure, when accounting for the pain, the extreme pain, is not really large enough to make it a wise thing to be still doing.

Meditation is supposed to bring much greater clarity to our awareness of this hidden blade in the honey; it brings closer together the realization of true reality, makes us see, without even using willpower or the intellect or moral rationalizing, that something is bad for us. Whereas before, one might say, oh, yeah, I know sugar isn't healthy, but i'll just have one more brownie, after a certain level of meditation, we just see the sugary foods for what they really are and are just not interested. No willpower required any more.

Despite being in this class, I've found it difficult to meditate lately. My mind is so agitated. But i think I need to start doing it with more dedication, just to maintain a grip on sanity, and to get myself to stop licking that sweet, sweet, razor blade - or, perhaps, to realize that in fact it isn't a razor blade, but is just part of life, part of the hard work of being a human being that is around other human beings. Or maybe there's a totally different truth i haven't even thought of yet.

Time will tell which conclusion is correct.

my friend joel has been making amazing timelapse photography videos. They're really beautiful.