April 2012
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CapitolHillSeattle.com: Hyperlocal news for the...
This article was originally published by CJR.
Densely populated and filled with restaurants, nightspots, and shops, Seattle’s Capitol Hill neighborhood is one of the city’s hubs of cool. Even those who don’t live in the area keep tabs on the neighborhood’s comings and goings to see what hot spot will arrive next.
Not a bad home for a news website. EnterCapitolHillSeattle.com, a hyperlocal...
January 2012
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Portland drops at the South Pole
This article was originally published by the Willamette Week.
In late October, Mikey Kampmann left Southeast Portland’s Clinton Street neighborhood for a summer vacation of sorts. Kampmann, a 25-year-old comic and occasional Portlandia cast member, is spending four months working as a cook at the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station. An American scientific research center that focuses on...
October 2011
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Cecile Richards: Planned Parenthood’s president on...
This article was originally published by the Willamette Week.
When WW compares Oregon and Texas, Cecile Richards gets a little defensive. “Why does everybody always pick on Texas? I’m from Texas,” she declares with a slight drawl.
Richards isn’t just from Texas, she’s the daughter of late Texas Gov. Ann Richards, giving her just the political pedigree she needs in her position as national...
August 2011
2 posts
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The Taj to the Tuk-Tuk. Language in the Indian...
This article was originally published by the Wikimedia Foundation.
Lets just cut to the chase. Yes, the Taj Mahal is every bit as amazing as it’s supposed to be. It’s huge, it changes colors with the rays of the sun and its intricate carvings truly are breathtaking. It is worth putting up with the hassle of Agra’s touts and what may be the worst weather on the entire planet. Really, even in...
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Dispatch from a far flung corner of India
This article was originally published by the Wikimedia Foundation.
A towel, as any Douglas Adams fan will tell you, is a necessity for galactic travel. One would likely be helpful in India as well, but more useful is a copy of The New York Review of Books. Surprisingly, this publication, which was passed onto me as a hand-me-down of a hand-me-down has proven the most vital instrument in a...
February 2011
2 posts
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The Far End of the Maghreb
This article was originally published by Current Intelligence.
A boarded up movie theatre in Marrakech’s Gueliz neighborhood tellingly demonstrates the city’s struggle with both poverty and modernity. It sits abandoned, barbed wire preventing access to windows and doors, a block from a bustling street filled with European-style bars and restaurants, many beckoning visitors with 1950s-era neon...
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All Jazzed for Al-Jazeera
This article was originally published by Current Intelligence.
When little girls and boys dream of becoming journalists they imagine something similar (though perhaps with a bit less time detained) to what Al Jazeera’s reporters have been through in the last two weeks. Journalism, in its most idealized state, includes not only reporting on the exciting events of the world, but participating...
January 2011
4 posts
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Protests in Pretty Places
This article was originally published by Current Intelligence.
According to a 2010 report (pdf) by the U.S.-based watchdog organization Freedom House, nearly 1/4 of the planet’s 194 countries are “Not Free”, freedom in this sense based on the political rights and civil liberties of the country’s population. Not surprisingly, the stretch of North Africa (running from...
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The Panda With the Dragon Tattoo
This article was originally published by Current Intelligence.
According to the World Wildlife Fund, an organisation so fond of the Giant Panda that it employed the West’s only one as its logo in the 1960s, there are only approximately 2,500 of them left in the wild, anywhere. China’s rapidly growing economy hasn’t exactly helped the bears thrive but conservation efforts have...
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SUNFLOWER SEEDS — The Changes of Ai Weiwei
This article was originally published by The End of Being.
It was inevitable, but that doesn’t make it any less unfortunate.
When Ai Weiwei’s Sunflower Seeds opened at Britain’s Tate Modern in October, art-lovers were treated to a unique gallery experience. Not only was the massive hall filled with millions of tiny, hand-made, porcelain sunflower seeds — unique in its own right — but you could...
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Whither Democratic Pakistan?
This article was originally published by Current Intelligence.
A near collapse of the government, a high profile assassination, and approximately 25 dead in aerial attacks. And that’s just what’s happened so far in 2011. In Pakistan.
Rather than rehash all the happenings I’m going to assume that if you’re here, you’re already moderately informed about what’s...
December 2010
3 posts
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See Ya: The Top Job Losses of 2010
This article was originally published by Current Intelligence.
Every year the movers and shakers of the world shift roles and power changes hands. This year was no different. Some people got sacked. Others left for greener pastures. Lets take a look at some of the big ones and relive the broken promises, gaffs and controversies that led to an interesting year in job-loss.
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John Magee...
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Antihero VS Enemy
This article was originally published by Current Intelligence.
Web users’ contradictory feelings about the internet came to a head a few days ago with the announcement of Time magazine’s “Person of the Year.” Very few people, it seems, agree that Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg should have beat out WikiLeaks’ Julian Assange. The former is seen as a mostly...
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Kettle Cop-Out
This article was originally published by Current Intelligence.
I’m able to write this in the immediate aftermath of a 323 for, 302 against (majority of 21) vote in favor of raising UK tuition fees, because I caved in and came home. Fearing being kettled into the protest for the entirety of a cold London night, I marched from Russell Square to Parliament with tens of thousands of students at...
November 2010
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Hell No, We Won't Read
This article was originally published by Current Intelligence
Today is a special day for British students. It’s National Student Strike day, a day student organizers around the country are gathering to protest the tuition hikes that will be the result of current government cuts. This comes two weeks after a demonstration that made news worldwide, after protesters entered a building housing the...
October 2010
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LADY WARRIORS OF AFGHANISTAN
This article was originally published by The End of Being.
In journalism there’s a little thing called burying a lede, which means you’ve told a nice story but the real heart of what you’re covering is somewhere near the bottom, where not everyone who starts the story is sure to find it. A great example of this comes from a Sunday, October 3 New York Timesabout the female Marines working in...
September 2010
2 posts
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Sound and Vision: The Albuquerque Museum’s unusual...
This article was originally published by the Weekly Alibi.
As far as cognitive peculiarities go, synesthesia seems pretty sweet. Instead of just hearing sounds, the brain translates the aural with another sense function, say vision or taste. What is for one person an F sharp can, for the synesthete, be a green- or raspberry-hued note.
Scientists have a hard time putting numbers on how many...
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Deliquesce: SITE Santa Fe tries to extend its...
This article was originally published by the Weekly Alibi.
I remember the exact moment I fell in love with moving image arts. It was September of 2002, somewhere on the upper spiral of New York City’s Guggenheim Museum. I entered a little room and there, projected on the wall, was Shirin Neshat’s “Passage,” an approximately 12-minute film depicting the funeral processions of Iranian men and...
August 2010
4 posts
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The Only Thing to Fear is Islam Itself
This article was originally published by The End of Being.
In the early 700s, approximately 100 years after Muhammad first heard the voice of God as he meditated in the Arabian Peninsula, Islam came to Spain. Since that time much of Europe has spent untold amount of money fighting Islamic rulers and the residual fear of all things Muslim has spread to the United States.
That fear revolves...
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Rainbow Warrior: The Alibi speaks with...
This article was originally published by the Weekly Alibi.
Every time I get on the Rail Runner in Downtown Albuquerque, I look across the platform at a rainbowdripping down the side of a building just across Broadway. Occasionally, I hear people point it out to their friends, but it largely goes unnoticed by my fellow commuters. About a month ago, a similar rainbow appeared on theAnasazi...
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Micro art space gets touchy-feely with a...
This article was originally published by the Weekly Alibi.
Imagine a tiny building in a parking lot. Inside its one small, concrete room, there are dark, military green walls on three sides. A lighter, more industrial green wall sits opposite a glass door and a large window. There is no electricity, despite wires hanging from the ceiling, and no water, though there is a pipe coming up from the...
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Sid and Nancy and Albert
This article was originally published by the Weekly Alibi.
In high school, during repeated watchings of Alex Cox’s Sid and Nancy, my friend Jesse and I always stopped the movie at the song “My Way.” We felt this was the scene that marked Sid Vicious’ point of no return, and we didn’t want to him spiral down any farther than he already had.
In Benjamin Britten’s opera Albert Herring, which was...
July 2010
2 posts
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To Kill a Misconception: Alex Heard goes back in...
This article was originally published by the Weekly Alibi.
In his just-released book The Eyes of Willie McGee: A Tragedy of Race, Sex, and Secrets in the Jim Crow South, New Mexico-based journalist and Outside Magazineeditorial director, Alex Heard takes a hard look at the court cases thought to have inspired To Kill a Mockingbird. The story is simple: In 1945 a black man named Willie McGee was...
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Om My Guru: Two authors trace the roots of yoga in...
This article was originally published by the Weekly Alibi.
It “turned husbands into adulterers, it turned scholars into swindlers, it turned women into lunatics or shut-ins,” writes author Stefanie Syman. It sounds dangerous. It sounds exciting. It certainly doesn’t sound like something you can do at home on your Wii.
That thing is yoga, and Syman’s new book, The Subtle Body: The Story of Yoga...
June 2010
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On a Bicycle Built for Cuba
This article was originally published by the Weekly Alibi.
From late 1999 to early 2000, Lynette Chiang traveled by folding bicyclethrough Cuba. An Australian, Chiang wasn’t subject to the restrictions on visiting Cuba that Americans are, giving readers a detailed look at the forbidden land. Her memoir, The Handsomest Man in Cuba, published in 2007, details her solo travels around the island...
May 2010
2 posts
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HYPERBOLIC CROCHET CORAL REEF
This article was originally published by The End of Being.
There’s supposedly nothing in nature more beautiful than a coral reef. The delicate underwater structures provide the planet with some of its most diverse ecosystems. Because of their importance there are dozens of groups out there working hard to protect these amazing valuable resources.
The beauty of the coral reef has inspired...
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MUSIC FOR DOGS — Laurie Anderson and Lou Reed
This article was originally published by The End of Being.
True story: In college I was studying for a music appreciation class, listening to an organ piece by Bach. As soon as the piece (I with I could remember which one it was) came on my mom’s cat ran down the stairs and began to rub his body on the speakers of the boombox. I quickly jumped the CD to the next track and the cat peeled his...
April 2010
5 posts
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THE SPIDER THREAD — by Akutagawa Ryunosuke
This article was originally published by The End of Being.
I was reminded of the simple elegance of language a few nights ago. While discussing 20th century Japanese literature with a class of college students, I re-read Akutagawa Ryunosuke’s short story “The Spider Thread.”
The story itself is a combination of traditional Buddhist proverb and anecdote from The Brothers Karamazov, and it is not...
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Santa Fe cyclists don helmets and prep for battle
This article was originally published by The New Mexico Independent.
U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood caused a stir last month when he announced that he and his office were thinking of giving bicyclists and pedestrians a bigger voice in order to “treat walking and bicycling as equals with other transportation modes.”
A new Santa Fe advocacy and education group, Bike Santa Fe, is taking...
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516 gussies itself up in Unraveling Tradition and...
This article was originally published by the Weekly Alibi.
Yelizaveta Nersesova and I sit on the floor in front of her installation “A Rare Perfection of Form” for 516 ARTS’ upcoming show, Unraveling Tradition. The work is a hot-pink painted log balanced precariously on the ground. Green and yellow and blue thread encases a hook in the wood, connecting it to the wall, where the thread wraps...
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Santa Fe tea party event draws its own protesters
This article was originally published in The New Mexico Independent.
Several hundred people filled the state capital’s historic Plaza for a Tea Party rally on Tax day.
But the event in liberal-leaning Santa Fe (the county voted 76.8 percent for Obama in 2008), found supporters and opponents side by side.
While speaking about health care, J.R. Damron pointed out a group of teenagers and...
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FINDERS KEEPERS? — Maybe Not for Europe
This article was originally published by The End of Being.
The media, the British media at least, is atwitter as Egyptian officials are asking for the return of hundreds of artifacts to their original home. Both the BBC and Telegraph (in a story that desperately needs a copyedit) are reporting that Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA) is calling out European museums for the return of...
March 2010
2 posts
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THE WHITE RIBBON — By Michael Haneke
This article was originally published by The End of Being.
Dying to see just the kind of movie that makes people hate foreign film? Then The White Ribbon is the flick you’ve been hoping for. It’s long (more than 2 and a half hours), it’s filmed in black-and-white, it’s about nothing and, if that’s not enough, it’s in German.
Supposedly this lengthy story will explain why World War I happened....
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ON THE DOLE — An Open Letter to Lawmakers
This article was originally published by The End of Being.
Hardly a day goes by in which I don’t read about one of you lawmakers somewhere who opposes unemployment benefit extensions. While I understand that these benefits are expensive, I want to address you, the legislators across America personally, because until one experiences unemployment, it’s easy to point the finger at us, the...
February 2010
2 posts
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Will New Mexico move its money during the special...
This article was originally published by The New Mexico Independent.
Despite a unanimous vote on the House floor, Rep. Brian Egolf’s bill to move New Mexico’s money to local banks, HB 66, didn’t make it to the Senate in time for a vote during the regular session. Now Egolf says he hopes the bill will get a second chance.
On Monday The Independent caught up with Rep. Egolf to talk about his bill,...
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Guns in restaurants that serve beer, wine are...
This article was originally published by The New Mexico Independent.
Annie got one step closer to being able to carry her concealed gun into a restaurant on Friday.
Senators voted 27-15 to approve Sen. George Muñoz‘ SB 40 that would allow those with concealed weapon permits to bring their guns into restaurants that serve beer and wine, unless a restaurant opts out of the program.
Legislators...
January 2010
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KALKI – and the End of the World
This article was originally published by The End of Being.
Despite what Christopher Hitchens may think about Gore Vidal these days, for years Vidal has been the brightest, most outspoken and infuriatingly witty American to, maybe ever, take up the pen. For this reason, rather than cringe when discovering a copy of his 1978 book Kalki, I jumped at it. Normally a white guy writing a book about a...
December 2009
2 posts
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Vive la Revolución!
This article was originally published by The End of Being.
Several years ago I was gifted a 400+, six volume set of books called “Thought Control in U.S.A.” Put out by the Hollywood A. S. P. Council after a 1947 conference in reaction to what would, in the 1950s, become the infamous blacklisting of Hollywood during McCarthyism. The text includes lectures, papers and testimony at the conference...
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NOISEFOLD – Sound and Image
This article was originally published by The End of Being.
For thousands of years human beings have sought out shamans, witch doctors, priestesses and other holy men and women in search of cathartic connections with the divine. In hopes of finding that infinite, for even just a moment, the Amazonians took ayahuasca, the Indians soma and the beatniks LSD.
But none of this is necessary; for art...
May 2009
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Get in touch with your inner flower child
This article was originally published by The Santa Fe Reporter.
If involuntary plantslaughter—the horticultural equivalent to the misdemeanor crime—were a punishable offense, I’d surely have violated the terms of my probation many times over. Yet, despite my inability to nurture nature, I wander among it time and time again. As long as none of these photosynthesizing creatures are left in my...
April 2009
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I Feel Pretty: Art as dominatrix takes over SITE
This article was originally published by The Santa Fe Reporter.
A thread of razor wire femininity runs through the group exhibition Pretty is as Pretty Does. The works are beautiful to behold but also frightening to encounter. Each one, when seen from a distance, expresses a softness that attacks the viewers’ desire, draws them closer and, like Wanda von Dunajew in Leopold von Sacher-Masoch’s...
December 2008
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Can the underground go mainstream? Maybe so
This article was originally published by The Santa Fe Reporter.
Before the news hit that WilLee’s Blues Club and the Green Onion were shuttering their doors, the indie music scene had already closed out its tab. In 2008, local artists looked toward their friends and gathered together to form a network of underground venues that used collaboration rather than capital to get art out there. Though...
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Welcome to the Terrordrone Dreary tunes cure...
This article was originally published by The Santa Fe Reporter.
Maybe it was the crisp fall air, or the family emergency that took me out of my everyday and threw me into Denver suburbs and hospital waiting rooms, or the pre-election fear that seemed to seep into my soul. Whatever it was, I got hooked. I rediscovered drone and have been freebasing it ever since. The quest for more started on a...
October 2008
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Shy Guy: Mount Eerie’s Phil Elverum opens up...
The article was originally published by The Santa Fe Reporter.
Phil Elverum is a unique kind of shy. The artist, who began his musical project as The Microphones and has since switched to the moniker Mount Eerie, lets his emotions fly when he writes and performs songs, yet keeps his distance from the audience by closing his eyes through most of the set and singing as if he were in the room...
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Ayaan Hirsi Ali speaks for women who can’t speak...
The article was originally published by The Santa Fe Reporter.
In her 2007 memoir Infidel, Ayaan Hirsi Ali writes, “I needed to ask: Did the 9.11 attacks stem from true belief in true Islam? And if so, what did I think about Islam?” What Hirsi Ali came to think was that she could not believe in a God whom others used to justify the kind of violence she saw within her religion. Since 9.11, Hirsi...
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Post-Folk: Pillars and Tongues provides a peaceful...
This article was originally published by The Santa Fe Reporter.
Sometimes live music is as intense for its audience to listen to as for its performers to play. Such is the case with the cacophonic, orchestral folk-infused jazz of Chicago’s Pillars and Tongues. The band mixes the down-home sounds of a country porch band with an emotional and psychedelic vibe that commands its listeners’...
September 2008
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Sculptural Sounds: Static, seen and heard
Atmospheric Diver - Live @ High Mayhem II from atmosphericdiver on Vimeo.
This article was originally published by The Santa Fe Reporter.
For its installation, Metropolis 3, at the College of Santa Fe’s Mov-iN Gallery, Atmospheric Diver uses TV monitors, projectors and a stationary bicycle that engages viewers and allows them to become participants who change the atmosphere—both the video and...
June 2008
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WU WEI The spaces between three columns sing
The article was originally published in The Santa Fe Reporter.
In its most revered form, carbon becomes the hardest mineral on earth: a diamond. This jewel has become a symbol of love, conflict and eternity (thanks to one of the most aggressive marketing campaigns on earth). In its softest form, carbon becomes graphite, the stuff of pencils, math class and art supply stores. There is no...
