In the new year I'm going to finally start blogging about my daughter, who is now 8 months old. I will call her S here when a name is necessary.

Anyway, here's something that is interesting and disturbing (to me, at least):  I've spent most of my adult life focused on making things that people use/consume via screens (websites, films, videos), but now I'm trying with all my might to not expose my infant to screens. 

Screen time is known to be terrible for young kids and is linked to attention-deficit disorders. Screens of all kinds, be they movie screens, TVs, computers, phones or tablets.  It's been found, according to some studies, that even time spent in the same room where someone else is using a screen turned away from the child is harmful.

I suppose this is just one of many things we as adults do that we're not proud of that we suddenly have to either fix or hide from our kids - whether it's "bad words," or perhaps ways that we treat our partners that are less than ideal.  We all, or most of us, do "bad" things we don't get around to working on improving, for years, until our hand is forced by having a little, new, perfect being around that we don't want to pass on that stuff to.  They're info-sponges, and mirrors, and we don't want to see our shadows soaked up and reflected by them. 

Ultimately most things can't be hidden forever.  They must either be fixed, removed, or passed on in a more sane, balanced, moderated way.  The latter is the eventual strategy with screen-time, because obviously we can't, and don't wish to, keep S from all screens forever, in this modern world of digital tools and toys.  But we can try to bequeath to her an ethic of moderation and limits where she can benefit from the positive effects but hopefully avoid the most negative ones. And while most of the web sites I've built in my career will be long gone by the time she is old enough to navigate a web browser, perhaps some day we'll let her see some of my scary documentaries or wacky video art - with some explanations and helpful context, to be sure.

Looks like my blog is broken as far as Goodreads book reviews are concerned. the text of my reviews aren't showing up, as you can see for the last few entries. Probably Goodreads changed something about their RSS feed.  I don't really  know when I'll have time to fix it. Bleh.

 The entropy of the universe extends into the digital world. Things constantly falling apart and needing repair. Sigh.

This is a list of many books i've listed on my Goodreads "wishlist" shelf.

I already have so many books waiting to be read. I think I need to start speed-reading, or skimming. or something. Read more>>>

This is a short video I worked on a few months ago with Creatista, funded by Primavera Foundation.

I was one of 2 cameramen on the project, shooting with my Panasonic AF100. The other camera was a Red Scarlet. (Can you tell which shots are which?)
It's great to see it all come together when I only work on the production end and am not involved with post-production. It almost feels like magic. Anyway, it was a fun thing to be involved with and I'm glad I was part of it.

Via facebook I recently became aware of another dumb controversy regarding another "misbehaving" celebrity. Apparently Miley Cyrus mentioned Sinead O'Connor as an inspiration, and Sinead blew up with an open letter on her blog lecturing Cyrus about nakedness and women allowing themselves to be exploited, and then 2nd-tier pop star and media gadfly Amanda Palmer got in the act and posted an open letter back to Sinead.

Here's what I think. First of all, I've seen Cyrus's "Wrecking Ball" video that started the whole debate and it seems a really sad, tragic, vulnerable song. Cyrus is either super messed up and struggling, or really really good at pretending to be.. and then to muddle that up further with the bizarre mixed (sex/violence) visual messages of the video is just a trainwreck.

But second of all, should we really care about this Catfight of the Famous? It seems to be the epitome of the Society of the Spectacle that we're all sitting around avidly reading the patronizing letters these rich pop stars are writing to each other about how wide or how level their playing fields are. The basic feminist and anti-consumerist message is great, but i'll already be passing that worldview to my children and i don't need any millionaire musicians to teach me how.(btw I'm purposely not linking to anything I'm talking about above, because that would just feed the click-hungry spectacle machine that I'm talking about.) Read more>>>