From ted at tedfriedman.com Fri Aug 1 11:56:18 2003 From: ted at tedfriedman.com (Ted Friedman) Date: Fri Aug 1 10:56:20 2003 Subject: [Tedlog] FW: The Encyclopedia of Buffy Studies Message-ID: <200308011456.h71EuHF15297@mailbox.gsu.edu> To see the in-progress EBS, go to http://www.slayage.tv/EBS/ -----Original Message----- From: owner-SLAYAGE-L@mtsu.edu [mailto:owner-SLAYAGE-L@mtsu.edu] On Behalf Of DAVID LAVERY Sent: Friday, August 01, 2003 9:52 AM To: slayage-l@mtsu.edu The Encyclopedia of Buffy Studies (EBS) is intended to be a comprehensive, hyperlinked, online reference work on Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Brought to you by Slayage: The Online International Journal of Buffy Studies, the EBS will debut at the Slayage Conference on Buffy the Vampire Slayer (SCBtVS) to be held in Nashville, Tennessee, May 28-30, 2004, but it will be available online as it is being written. Edited by David Lavery and Rhonda V. Wilcox, the EBS will be written by BtVS fans and scholars worldwide. If you would like to contribute to the EBS, send an e-mail to the editors at encyclopedia@slayage.tv and let us know which entries you would like to be assigned. Please limit your list for the time being to no more than ten topics (we will assign you no more than five at a time). Each entry should (1) be written with an educated audience in mind and in a relatively detached, objective style befitting a reference work, (2) demonstrate awareness of the already published scholarship on BtVS (go here to see Derik Badman's academic Buffy bibliography), (3) assume the reader is familiar, but not necessarily expert, with the Buffyverse, (4) provide hyperlinks to relevant/related webpages, (5) include a brief biography of the author. If the editors accept your work for inclusion in the EBS, you may feel free to ask for other assignments. Each author will, of course, be credited. A completed entry should be sent--as an e-mail attachment in Microsoft Word (.doc) or Rich Text (.rtf)--to encyclopedia@slayage.tv. The editors reserve the right to reject and/or edit your submission(s) as they deem necessary. --------------------------------------- Dr. David Lavery Homepage: http://www.mtsu.edu/~dlavery/ Co-Editor of SLAYAGE: http://slayage.tv Co-Convenor, The Slayage Conference on BTVS: slayage.tv/conference From ted at tedfriedman.com Fri Aug 1 17:37:52 2003 From: ted at tedfriedman.com (Ted Friedman) Date: Fri Aug 1 16:37:54 2003 Subject: [Tedlog] FW: scope's new book and film reviews and conference reports Message-ID: <200308012037.h71KbpF21185@mailbox.gsu.edu> -----Original Message----- From: Film and TV Studies Discussion List [mailto:SCREEN-L@BAMA.UA.EDU] On Behalf Of Mark Jancovich Sent: Friday, August 01, 2003 2:27 PM To: SCREEN-L@BAMA.UA.EDU Below are Scope's new book and film reviews and conference reports. They can be accessed free via the link to the institute below. *Book Reviews* Aliens R Us: The Other in Science Fiction Cinema, Edited by Ziauddin Sardar and Sean Cubitt. A Review by Lincoln Geraghty The Art of the Ridiculous Sublime: On David Lynch's Lost Highway, By Slavoj Zizek. A Review by Suh-Young Catherine Kim Bertrand Blier, By Sue Harris. A Review by Will Higbee Canadian National Cinema: Ideology, Difference, and Representation, By Christopher E. Gittings, and Quebec National Cinema, By Bill Marshall, A Review by Catherine M. Munroe Comedy Is A Man in Trouble: Slapstick in American Movies, By Alan Dale. A Review by Hsiao-Pin Chang Conversations with Wilder, By Cameron Crowe. A Review by Richard Armstrong Culture: Reinventing the Social Sciences, By Mark J Smith, Studying Culture: A Practical Introduction, By Judy Giles and Tim Middleton, and Subject, Society and Culture, By Roy Boyne, A Review by Nick Couldry The Danish Directors: Dialogues on a Contemporary National Cinema, By Mette Hjort and Ib Bondebjerg. Trans. Mette Hjort. A Review by Andrew Nestingen Death's Showcase: The Power of Image in Contemporary Democracy, By Ariella Azoulay, Trans. Ruvik Danieli Engaging Characters: Fiction, Emotion, and the Cinema, By Murray Smith, Emotion and the Structure of Narrative Film: Film as an Emotion Machine, By Ed S. Tan and Moving Pictures: A New Theory of Film Genres, Feelings, and Cognition, By Torben Grodal, A Review by Tico Romao Film Editing: History, Theory and Practice, By Don Fairservice, Film Production Theory, Jean-Pierre Geuens, A Review by Mike Wayne Gender, Politics and Communication, Edited by Annabelle Sreberny and Liesbet Van Zoonen. A Review by Mike Chopra-Gant Global Hollywood, By Toby Miller, Nitin Govil, John McMurria and Richard Maxwell and At Full Speed: Hong Kong Cinema in a Borderless World, By Esther C. M. Yau and Sansh? Day?, By Dudley Andrew and Carole Cavanaugh, A Review by Rayna Denison Hollywood, Westerns and the 1930s: The Lost Trail, By Peter Stanfield, A Review by Ron Wilson The Language of New Media, By Lev Manovich, and Visual Digital Culture: Surface Play and Spectacle in New Media Genres, By Andrew Darley, A Review by Bob Rehak Laughing Out Loud: Writing the Comedy-Centered Screenplay, By Andrew Horton, A Review by Hsiao-Pin Chang Promised Lands: Cinema, Geography, Modernism, By Sam Rohdie, A Review by Josh Stenger Reel Knockouts: Violent Women in the Movies, Edited by Martha McCaughey and Neal King, A Review by Rebecca D. Feasey Saints and Avengers: British Adventure Series of the 1960s, By James Chapman, A Review by Lincoln Geraghty Savage Theory: Cinema as Modern Magic, By Rachel O. Moore, A Review by Jeff Power Science Fiction Film, By J. P. Telotte, A Review by Lincoln Geraghty The Seeing Century: Film, Vision, and Identity, Edited by Wendy Everett, A Review by Rebecca Amato Thelma & Louise, By Marita Sturken and The New Avengers: Feminism, Femininity, and the Rape-Revenge Cycle, By Jacinda Read, A Review by Claire Sisco King Theories of the New Media: A Historical Perspective, Edited by John Thornton Caldwell, A Review by Herman Wasserman Violence and American Cinema, Edited by J. David Slocum, and The Tarantinian Ethics, By Fred Bottling and Scott Wilson, A Review by Todd Onderdonk The Western Genre: From Lordsburg to Big Whiskey, By John Saunders, A Review by Ron Wilson *Film Reviews* 28 Days Later, A Review by Elizabeth Rosen Australian Science Fiction Film Festival, May/June 2002, A Review Essay by Polona Petek Bloody Sunday, A Review by Michael Keating The Bourne Identity, A Review by Ross Thompson Cinema du Reel: The 24th International Festival of Ethnographic and Sociologic Films, 18 March 2002, A Review by Ruth and Archie Perlmutter Eight Legged Freaks, A Review by Fergus Cooper Insomnia, A Review by Jerome De Groot Minority Report, A Review by Keith McDonald My Voyage in Italy (Il mio viaggio in Italia), A Review by David Martin-Jones The Piano Teacher (La Pianiste), A Review by Christopher R. Trogan Red Dragon, A Review by Kendall Phillips The Road to Perdition, A Review by Pamela Ezell Secret Ballot (Raye Makhfi), A Review by Lina Khatib Signs, A Review by Jonathan Cullum The Wedding Planner, A Review by Elizabeth Hale *Conference Reports* In the Frame - Fleetingly: revisiting Kracauer, Siegfried Kracauer, University of Birmingham September 13-14 2002, A Report by Janet Harbord Lucky Him!: The Importance of Being Arthur: Representations of Men and Masculinity, 1954-1963, University of Surrey, Roehampton, 13-14 July 2002, A Report by John Young Reading the News: Audience Responses to September 11th Media Coverage, After September 11: TV News and Transnational Audiences, An International Symposium, Stanhope Centre for Communications Policy Research London, England, 9-11 September 2002, A Report by Matthew Adams Trading Culture and Change for the Global Menu, Trading Culture: A Conference Exploring the "Indigenous" and the "Exportable" in Film and Television Culture, 18th-20th July 2002, Showroom Cinema, Sheffield, UK, A Report by Sarah Perks Rethinking the Cinematic World, "World Cinemas: Identity, Culture, Politics", University of Leeds, 25-27 June 2002, A Report by Rob Rix Mark -- Prof. Mark Jancovich Director, the Institute of Film Studies School of American and Canadian Studies University of Nottingham Nottingham, NG7 2RD United Kingdom Tel: 0115 951 4250 Fax: 0115 951 4270 email: m.jancovich@nottingham.ac.uk URL: http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/film ---- For past messages, visit the Screen-L Archives: http://bama.ua.edu/archives/screen-l.html From tedf at gsu.edu Mon Aug 4 16:44:50 2003 From: tedf at gsu.edu (tedf@gsu.edu) Date: Mon Aug 4 15:44:58 2003 Subject: [Tedlog] NYTimes.com Article: A Movie Theater Revival, Aided by Teenagers Message-ID: <20030804194450.AA9DE84E0@web39t.prvt.nytimes.com> This article from NYTimes.com has been sent to you by tedf@gsu.edu. /-------------------- advertisement -----------------------\ Explore more of Starbucks at Starbucks.com. http://www.starbucks.com/default.asp?ci=1015 \----------------------------------------------------------/ A Movie Theater Revival, Aided by Teenagers August 3, 2003 By ALEX MARKELS SARA FANNING, who is 14 and lives near Denver, went to the movies with a group of friends recently. Her parents dropped her off at the theater, which was great, she said, "because they're not, like, watching over you." For theaters, there may be no group of moviegoers more popular than teenagers, who buy more popcorn and candy than their parents do. Marketers also value the buying power of teenagers and are devising an array of new promotions and advertising to pitch to them before the main feature starts. "There's an old saying in the movie business that as long as parents want to get away from kids, and as long as kids want to get away from parents, the business will thrive," said Kurt C. Hall, co-chief executive of the Regal Entertainment Group, the nation's largest theater chain. Regal, which is based in Englewood, Colo., owns 6,119 theaters around the country, or about 20 percent of the industry total, including the Denver West theater chain that drew Sara and her friends. Although recent attendance numbers have retreated somewhat from last year's record-setting 1.6 billion seats filled, teenagers like Sara are still going to the movies in droves. "They're the ones supercharging the profitability of the industry," said Howard S. Marks, chairman of Oak Tree Capital Management in Los Angeles, which owns an 11 percent stake in Regal. "It's a cash cow." Regal is so flush with cash these days that last month it handed out what it called an "extraordinary" cash dividend of $5.05 a share. At the stock's recent price in the $18 range, that represents a payout of nearly 30 percent. It also represents a huge turnaround from a few years ago, when Regal, along with a dozen other movie chains, filed for bankruptcy court protection. The cause was a megaplex construction boom that increased the number of American movie screens by nearly 35 percent from 1995 to 2000, nearly three times the rise in ticket sales in the same period, according to figures from the Motion Picture Association of America. The plush stadium seating and huge screens of the megaplexes became a big hit with movie fans, who started avoiding the older theaters. Companies like Regal Cinemas, United Artists Theaters and Loews Cineplex, unable to escape long-term leases, found themselves drowning in debt as average revenue per screen plummeted at the end of the 1990's. At about that time, Oak Tree and the Denver billionaire Philip F. Anschutz began buying up bonds of the troubled companies for as little as 60 cents on the dollar. Mr. Anschutz bet more than $500 million on Regal, United Artists and Edwards Cinemas, swapping debt for equity in the three struggling companies. A year ago, Mr. Anschutz combined them into a single public entity, and he now controls more than half the shares. A spokesman for Mr. Anschutz said he declined to comment for this article. The reorganized company took advantage of federal bankruptcy protection to renegotiate leases on hundreds of theaters, closing unprofitable ones and slashing its debt in the process. Other industry players pursued similar strategies. Together they cut the number of theaters by 1,500 from 1999 to 2002, nearly a 20 percent decline, while increasing the average number of screens per site from five to six. "The industry is still overscreened, but they've come a long way in cleaning up their act," said Kavir Dhar, an analyst with Jefferies & Company in New York. He has "buy" ratings on Regal and a competitor, AMC Entertainment, the nation's third-largest chain. Regal's revenue for the second quarter ended June 26 increased to $648.1 million , a 6.7 percent rise from the period a year earlier. Earnings, meanwhile, grew to $47.1 million from $10.5 million. Investors like Mr. Marks are optimistic about Regal's prospects. The company's recent one-time dividend "sends a signal to the market that we're not going make the same mistakes that the industry did 10 years ago and use every bit of cash to expand through new buildings and overpriced acquisitions," said Mr. Marks, whose company collected more than $78 million from the payout. "The best use of the money was to return it to shareholders." That isn't to say that Regal has avoided buying opportunities. Mr. Hall, the co-chief executive, noted that the company's acquisition in March of 52 theaters from Hoyts Cinemas, in which it paid approximately $182 million in cash and stock for 60 percent of Hoyts's screens, allowed Regal to "cherry-pick the theaters we wanted."   YET he and Mike Campbell, his co-chief executive, acknowledge that such opportunities were rare these days, in part because smaller family-owned chain owners who survived the downturn are less inclined to sell at fire-sale prices. "We believe there are opportunities, but we aren't willing to stretch the multiple we're willing to pay," Mr. Campbell said in a recent conference call with analysts. And while acquisitions may help improve economies of scale and increase bargaining power with suppliers, they have yet to give theater owners leverage in negotiating distribution agreements with movie studios, which represent about 55 percent of the theaters' costs. "As big as it's become, even Regal hasn't been able to improve the terms of the split between it and the movie distributors," said Dennis B. McAlpine, founder of McAlpine Associates, a media research firm. "So there isn't much to be gained by expanding aggressively." Instead, Mr. Hall has worked to increase profit by improving revenue at existing theaters. To that end, the company's new Cinemedia division has invested $70 million to replace old-fashioned slide presentations displayed before films. New satellite-fed digital projection systems are now being installed in 5,000 Regal theaters. Cinemedia now beams everything from live rock concerts of groups like Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers to corporate "cinemeetings" for Microsoft and other companies. Such videoconferencing has become the division's fastest-growing business area. Mr. Hall sees even greater potential in using the Cinemedia system to exploit the undivided attention his screens enjoy once moviegoers take their seats. "You don't have a channel changer in your hand, and you can't push the mute button or go to the refrigerator for a beer," he said of the advantages of Regal's recently introduced 2wenty, an advertising and promotional program that began last February. The 20-minute stream of music videos, television clips and advertisements is shown in four versions, for audiences watching films rated G, PG, PG-13 and R. It precedes trailers and the feature film. When the Cinemedia installation is completed later this year, it will reach up to 250 million of Regal's patrons annually. Because the digital format can be modified and distributed to individual theaters almost instantaneously, "advertisers can target exactly who they want to reach," Mr. Hall said. "There's no other advertising medium that can do that as well." Similar movie advertising already garners about $250 million in annual revenue and is expected to grow by 30 percent annually, according to the Cinema Advertising Council, a trade group. Digital display is expected to further entice advertisers to sign up. "It's on a 40-foot screen with surround sound, so it has a fantastic impact," Matthew Kearney, president of the group, said. Some moviegoers have reacted negatively to the advertising onslaught. After sitting through a similar promotional barrage at a Loews Cineplex theater in Chicago, Miriam Fisch, a resident of nearby Evanston, became so incensed that she filed a class-action suit against the company. "Movie theaters dupe people into coming early so they can force ads on them and take advantage of their status as a captive audience," said Mark Weinberg, a Chicago attorney who represents Ms. Fisch. "They say the movie will start at 7:45 p.m., when in fact they start the commercials at 7:45 p.m. People expect previews, but this new phenomenon of showing commercials is neither accepted nor appreciated." A Loews spokeswoman declined to comment on the lawsuit, but in a statement, the company called it "frivolous and completely without merit." It believes that pre-feature advertisements "on the whole enhance" audience members' experience. For their part, the teenage girls attending "Pirates of the Caribbean" with Sara Fanning were unimpressed with Regal's 2wenty showing. "It was pretty irritating," said Nina Simons, a 14-year-old from Denver who tried not to pay attention to the ads while chatting in her seat with friends. The group was even less appreciative of the free mini-CD's, featuring the singer Rachel Farris, that were attached to soda lids. Most of the girls put the CD's in their microwaves, Nina said. "They come out kind of crackled and melty. It's pretty nifty."   http://www.nytimes.com/2003/08/03/business/yourmoney/03MOVI.html?ex=1061026290&ei=1&en=e361a7454cdcbae2 --------------------------------- Get Home Delivery of The New York Times Newspaper. Imagine reading The New York Times any time & anywhere you like! Leisurely catch up on events & expand your horizons. Enjoy now for 50% off Home Delivery! Click here: http://www.nytimes.com/ads/nytcirc/index.html HOW TO ADVERTISE --------------------------------- For information on advertising in e-mail newsletters or other creative advertising opportunities with The New York Times on the Web, please contact onlinesales@nytimes.com or visit our online media kit at http://www.nytimes.com/adinfo For general information about NYTimes.com, write to help@nytimes.com. Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company From tedf at gsu.edu Mon Aug 4 16:46:39 2003 From: tedf at gsu.edu (tedf@gsu.edu) Date: Mon Aug 4 15:46:43 2003 Subject: [Tedlog] NYTimes.com Article: Butch, Butch Bush! Message-ID: <20030804194639.86F0E35042@web38t.prvt.nytimes.com> This article from NYTimes.com has been sent to you by tedf@gsu.edu. /-------------------- advertisement -----------------------\ Explore more of Starbucks at Starbucks.com. http://www.starbucks.com/default.asp?ci=1015 \----------------------------------------------------------/ Butch, Butch Bush! August 3, 2003 By MAUREEN DOWD WASHINGTON Let's get it straight. The president and the pope aren't riding the new gay wave. "I believe a marriage is between a man and a woman," said President Bush last week. "And I think we ought to codify that one way or the other. And we've got lawyers looking at the best way to do that." Trying to add a tolerant note to an intolerant policy, he allowed that he was "mindful that we're all sinners." Last time I checked, we had separation of church and state, so I don't know why the president is talking about sin, or why he is implying that gays who want to make a permanent commitment in a world full of divorce and loneliness are sinners. If we follow Mr. Bush's logic, shouldn't we have a one-strike-and-you're-out constitutional amendment: no marriage for gays, but no second marriage for straights who prove they're not up to it? The Vatican, always eager to erase lines between church and state, warned Catholic lawmakers it would be "gravely immoral" to vote for gay marriage or gay adoption. Such preaching seems tinny coming after revelations about the scope of homosexuality in the priesthood. Until last week's denunciations, this had been a giddy Summer of Gays. First the Supreme Court blessing. Then Hollywood's raft of gay-themed projects, from J.Lo's lesbian turn in "Gigli" to the Bravo reality shows "Boy Meets Boy" and "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy." "Queer Eye," the summer makeover hit, on the cover of Entertainment Weekly, features five gay guys who swoop in to give the Cinderfella treatment to unexfoliated straight guys, while scattering catty comments about their grooming and decor, such as, "This place screams women's correctional facility." Maybe we should pity President Bush, stranded in his 50's world of hypermasculinity as his country goes gay and metrosexual (straight men with femme tastes like facials). Even the uptight Wal-Mart stores have expanded antidiscrimination policy to protect gay employees, and Bride's magazine is offering its first feature on same-sex weddings. Maybe the president and his swaggering circle should think about a "Queer Eye" makeover. I asked a gay political reporter friend if he could offer some tips: On the vice president: "I'd love to see Cheney with a pierced ear and a diamond stud. Or in a body-hugging black T-shirt, just for the pure sport of it. "He needs new eyewear. With his big face and lantern jaw, he should lose those five-pound glasses. There are some fabulous frames out there. "About his hair, all I can offer is my sincere regrets." On the defense secretary: "In his own sort of antediluvian way, Rummy is a metrosexual. He works. He may be a warmonger, he may be intemperate, but just about every third woman I know wants him." When it came to the president's possibilities, he got really excited: "Cowboy boots are fine for a certain kind of saucy backyard barbecue. But wearing them as often as he does, with those big belt buckles in the shape of Texas, it seems like he's trying too hard to prove his masculinity. "He's definitely on the right track with low-stress weight lifting, but if he really wants a physique for the ages, a little yoga would help uncoil that gunslinger hunch. "His hair is too tightly clipped. It looks painted on. And he's a huge squinter. The corner of his eyes are starting to look lined. Botox alert! "He needs to dip into the merciful world of cosmetic products and avail himself of some kind of lip balm or gloss that helps mask the fact that he misplaced his lips somewhere. "In open-collar shirts, he has a tiny little island of lost chest hair. It is too low to be a shaving oversight and too high to be a peripheral outgrowth of Alec Baldwin chest mat. It's neither fish nor fowl, so he should wax it out of there. "Everything else about him just shouts `Butch, butch, butch!' But to throw Bush a metrosexual bone, whenever you see him walking off Air Force One with that little furball Barney under his arm, that canine puff of air that most drag queens wouldn't be caught dead with, it's like he's halfway to a Chanel rabbit fur handbag. "Bush does such a good job of seeming blissfully laid back and vacantly bubbly that he might as well go blond. It might help with California's electoral votes, too."    http://www.nytimes.com/2003/08/03/opinion/03DOWD.html?ex=1061026399&ei=1&en=1e31400b469ae705 --------------------------------- Get Home Delivery of The New York Times Newspaper. Imagine reading The New York Times any time & anywhere you like! Leisurely catch up on events & expand your horizons. Enjoy now for 50% off Home Delivery! Click here: http://www.nytimes.com/ads/nytcirc/index.html HOW TO ADVERTISE --------------------------------- For information on advertising in e-mail newsletters or other creative advertising opportunities with The New York Times on the Web, please contact onlinesales@nytimes.com or visit our online media kit at http://www.nytimes.com/adinfo For general information about NYTimes.com, write to help@nytimes.com. Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company From ted at tedfriedman.com Tue Aug 5 02:51:43 2003 From: ted at tedfriedman.com (Ted Friedman) Date: Tue Aug 5 01:51:45 2003 Subject: [Tedlog] Creative Loafing on the Community-Based Media/Interactive Video Workshop Project Message-ID: <200308050551.h755pgF09939@mailbox.gsu.edu> Video vigilantes BY MATT HUTCHINSON While the democratic potential of video is not new, it has recently become more sophisticated. The latest wave of digital video technology has made it possible for John Q. Camcorder to upgrade and diversify his resources. For about two grand, anyone can now shoot, edit and globally disseminate motion-image media. But what about that two grand? The folks who can most benefit from media representation are usually not the ones cruising the Apple store for new video-editing software. About a mile down Decatur Street from the aforementioned graffito call-to-arms, a group of film students at Georgia State University is addressing this complication of the "digital divide." A new film course at GSU sets out to bring together media-literate students, the university's production equipment and the stories of some of Atlanta's non-mainstream voices. "The idea is to approach a group whose voice has been overlooked by traditional media outlets and share our media-creation resources with that group," says Niklas Vollmer, film professor at GSU. The current student project, called "The City too Busy to Hate," includes an on-the-streets account of the gentrification of Cabbagetown and Atlanta's old Fourth Ward, as well as a documentary on the formation of GSU's Department of African-American Studies. Within the competition-driven atmosphere of film school, Vollmer's project is ambitiously unselfish. It sounds like an idealistic endeavor, but the results are surprisingly on-target. The first round of visual vignettes can be found at the class-sponsored website: www.gsu.edu/~wwwwfv/city. One of the more intriguing films in the project is a video short titled "This Is Class War." The video verite camera follows a trio of bandana-clad bandits as they vandalize urban loft developments. The potty-mouthed, anti-yuppie diatribes of the trio range from poignant to pathetic, but the overall portrait is beautifully honest. For information on this community-based media project, contact professor Niklas Vollmer at www.gsu.edu/~wwwwfv/city. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailbox.gsu.edu/pipermail/tedlog/attachments/20030805/f77b6094/attachment.htm From tedf at gsu.edu Tue Aug 5 12:31:56 2003 From: tedf at gsu.edu (tedf@gsu.edu) Date: Tue Aug 5 11:31:59 2003 Subject: [Tedlog] NYTimes.com Article: NBC Hopes Short Movies Will Keep Viewers From Flipping Message-ID: <20030805153156.2E5B78517@web39t.prvt.nytimes.com> This article from NYTimes.com has been sent to you by tedf@gsu.edu. /-------------------- advertisement -----------------------\ Explore more of Starbucks at Starbucks.com. http://www.starbucks.com/default.asp?ci=1015 \----------------------------------------------------------/ NBC Hopes Short Movies Will Keep Viewers From Flipping August 4, 2003 By BILL CARTER NBC thinks it has come up with a new way to get people to sit through blocks of commercials: Break up the ads with minimovies. Starting in the fall, NBC will begin interspersing the primarily minute-long movies among the commercials accompanying its prime-time shows. The intention, NBC executives said, is to keep viewers so entertained that they do not dart away, and perhaps stay with NBC the entire night to catch the conclusion of the minimovie. "Everybody is experimenting with ways to keep viewers around," said Jeff Zucker, the president of NBC Entertainment, which is a unit of General Electric. He cited the example of a hit series expanding beyond its allotted time, like last season when Fox's "American Idol" ran three or four minutes into the start time of the next program. Driving the networks' efforts is the fear that the remote-control zapping that has led viewers to flee during commercials will soon turn to outright avoidance, as personal recording devices like TiVo become more popular. This concern has also spurred a wave of so-called product placement, in which marketers pay to display their wares on the program itself. Advertising executives who buy media time said that while the success of NBC's planned minimovies was hardly assured, the attempt to tamp down channel-flipping was welcome. "Retention throughout entire programs, start to finish, is definitely a challenge for the networks and for the advertisers who are buying time within the programs," said Tim Spengler, executive vice president and director for national broadcast at the New York office of Initiative Media North America. "Any ploy or strategy that holds the audience throughout a whole program would be of great interest to advertisers." NBC has produced 10 one-minute movies so far, and has attracted stars like Michael Richards (providing the voice of a character in Claymation) and Carmen Electra. Some minimovies are built around suspense plots, or have black-comedy denouements, not unlike some old episodes of "The Twilight Zone." There is also one longer film, called "Henry Tammer, Prodigal Bully," which will be four minutes in total. That movie, about an 8-year-old genius who also happens to be a nasty little bully, was made by Hank Perlman, a producer and director who helped create the series of absurdist promotions for ESPN called "This Is SportsCenter." The one-minute movies, which NBC calls "1MM's," will be broken into two 30-second segments, with a suitable cliff-hanging moment to end the first segment. Part one could play somewhere in a block of commercials in NBC's program at 8 p.m., with part two in the 9 p.m. or even 10 p.m. show. "Henry Tammer, Prodigal Bully" will play over four nights in eight, 30-second installments, Mr. Zucker said. The addition of the minimovies to NBC's prime-time lineup will not mean fewer commercials or network promotions. Instead, the movies will be used when a show is delivered 30 seconds short of its intended time. The idea for the minimovies came to NBC from John Wells, the longtime executive producer of "E.R.," and Paris Barclay, director of numerous television shows, including "N.Y.P.D. Blue." In addition to Mr. Richards and Ms. Electra, actors like Tom Arnold, Bill Bellamy and Paula Marshall have been recruited. The notion of a new inducement to watch commercials appealed to NBC, which has previously pushed through several innovations in prime-time formatting. In 1994, for example, NBC became the first network to squeeze the end credits all but off the screen, and create a seamless (and commercial-free) transition from one program to the next. All the other networks subsequently adopted the practice, intended to keep viewers from straying during long commercial breaks between shows. Mr. Zucker emphasized that the one-minute movies will never be used in the time in-between programs. "We're still going to be seamless," he said. Mr. Spengler, the executive at Initiative Media, part of the Interpublic Group of Companies, said that the execution would be critical. "If the content is interesting," Mr. Spengler said, "particularly in the first few months when it's novel, I would be very interested in being in and around it." "If they're not well done," he added, "they will junk up the program that they're in. It would just be fat." NBC is not the only network tinkering with the short form. ABC, which is owned by the Walt Disney Company, is planning a series of three-minute films that may run in one-minute installments. That initiative is part of ABC's talent-development program and is not specifically intended to address viewer retention. Because NBC intends to repeat the movies relatively often, the network will be satisfied, at least for now, with the 10 minimovies it has ordered. "I think that will last us through the first quarter" of 2004, Mr. Zucker said. "We're in no rush to do more." "I think we'll be happy," he said, "if we just get some people talking about them." He noted that NBC would also not be averse to one possible added benefit. "We believe we already have at least one of these we could try to turn into a series," Mr. Zucker said. http://www.nytimes.com/2003/08/04/business/media/04ADCO.html?ex=1061097516&ei=1&en=4f1baa87baa48540 --------------------------------- Get Home Delivery of The New York Times Newspaper. Imagine reading The New York Times any time & anywhere you like! Leisurely catch up on events & expand your horizons. Enjoy now for 50% off Home Delivery! Click here: http://www.nytimes.com/ads/nytcirc/index.html HOW TO ADVERTISE --------------------------------- For information on advertising in e-mail newsletters or other creative advertising opportunities with The New York Times on the Web, please contact onlinesales@nytimes.com or visit our online media kit at http://www.nytimes.com/adinfo For general information about NYTimes.com, write to help@nytimes.com. Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company From ted at tedfriedman.com Tue Aug 5 14:23:51 2003 From: ted at tedfriedman.com (Ted) Date: Tue Aug 5 13:23:54 2003 Subject: [Tedlog] Check out this Village Voice article Message-ID: <200308051723.h75HNp34049191@www.villagevoice.com> - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Village Voice - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0332/goldstein.php Richard Goldstein Get Back! by Richard Goldstein The Gathering Storm Over Gay Rights From ted at tedfriedman.com Wed Aug 6 10:21:39 2003 From: ted at tedfriedman.com (Ted Friedman) Date: Wed Aug 6 09:21:39 2003 Subject: [Tedlog] FW: Harry Potter Conference Message-ID: <200308061321.h76DLbF16026@mailbox.gsu.edu> -----Original Message----- From: Film and TV Studies Discussion List [mailto:SCREEN-L@BAMA.UA.EDU] On Behalf Of amanda.muller@FLINDERS.EDU.AU Sent: Tuesday, August 05, 2003 11:48 PM To: SCREEN-L@BAMA.UA.EDU Subject: Harry Potter Conference CONFERENCE - CALL FOR PAPERS HARRY POTTER GOES TO UNIVERSITY Thursday 15 & Friday 16 January 2004 Flinders University, Adelaide, South Australia http://ehlt.flinders.edu.au/english/potter_conf/ Harry Potter is a household name yet there is only a small amount of research done in this area. The Flinders University English Department is holding a two-day inter-disciplinary conference to discuss the Harry Potter books, movies, merchandising, and the various social reactions which have occurred among different groups. We welcome 20 minute papers dealing with any aspect of Harry Potter. Selected papers will be collected for a refereed publication. Teachers please note: attending this conference can be accredited as professional development. Anticipated areas of research are: - Screen Studies - Cultural Studies - Theology - Children's literature - Education - Scottish literature Proposals should be submitted in the form of an abstract of about 100-500 words in an electronic format (preferably Word) by Monday, 10 November. We will require a full-text of the paper one month after presentation. Please email your abstract to one of the following conference organisers: Amanda Muller amanda.muller@flinders.edu.au Brooke Thomas brooke.thomas@flinders.edu.au Jo Coward jo.coward@unisa.edu.au Regards, Amanda C.Amanda Muller English Department School of Humanities Flinders University Bedford Park, SA 5042 Australia Telephone (+61 8) 8201 2555 Mobile 0418 856 383 Email amanda.muller@flinders.edu.au ---- For past messages, visit the Screen-L Archives: http://bama.ua.edu/archives/screen-l.html From refertofriend at reply.yahoo.com Thu Aug 7 18:50:46 2003 From: refertofriend at reply.yahoo.com (Yahoo! News) Date: Thu Aug 7 20:50:50 2003 Subject: [Tedlog] Yahoo! News Story - TV Review: All the Presidents' Movies Message-ID: An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailbox.gsu.edu/pipermail/tedlog/attachments/20030807/cf8a0450/attachment.htm From ted at tedfriedman.com Sat Aug 9 03:06:51 2003 From: ted at tedfriedman.com (ted@tedfriedman.com) Date: Sat Aug 9 02:06:58 2003 Subject: [Tedlog] Check out this Village Voice article Message-ID: <200308090606.h7966p2U026861@www2.villagevoice.com> - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Village Voice - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0321/goldstein.php Richard Goldstein Bush's Basket by Richard Goldstein Why the President Had to Show His Balls From SFreeney at aol.com Sun Aug 10 14:45:15 2003 From: SFreeney at aol.com (SFreeney@aol.com) Date: Sun Aug 10 13:45:24 2003 Subject: [Tedlog] Check out Small World Project - Columbia University Message-ID: <126.2ee53241.2c67deab@aol.com> This site deals with social networks on the Internet. Fascinating stuff...six degress of separation and all that. Sabrina Click here: Small World Project - Columbia University -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailbox.gsu.edu/pipermail/tedlog/attachments/20030810/7b56415a/attachment.htm From eli at gsu.edu Mon Aug 11 15:42:11 2003 From: eli at gsu.edu (eli@gsu.edu) Date: Mon Aug 11 17:42:15 2003 Subject: [Tedlog] Slate Article Message-ID: <530001c36051$6c0cedf0$52dd300a@phx.gbl> ad report card Nissan's Game of Tag Why is the car company spraying graffiti on its own ads? By Rob Walker Posted Monday, August 11, 2003, at 12:37 PM PT Last month, in cities around the country, someone slathered graffiti all over a series of street posters advertising the Nissan Altima. The car image was partially obscured by newer-looking images of a turntable, or a microphone, and a Web address: ElectricMoyo.com. The culprit? Nissan itself. ElectricMoyo.com ?where a note offers "much respect to Nissan for allowing us to use their billboards"?is actually a promotional site for the carmaker, albeit one with a consciously "street" or "urban" design sensibility. You can see the posters at a site called Wooster Collective , which documents and comments on street art from around the world (and isn't affiliated with Nissan). Subtle, stealthy marketing is popular among some advertisers right now, on the theory that young, trendy influentials are best pitched on the sly?they tune out traditional advertising, so you have to sneak up on them. This trend feeds the ongoing backlash that inspires culture-jammers to blot out marketing messages, and now the cycle of subculture co-opting crosses a new boundary: a company pretending to deface its own advertisement, with another advertisement. Graffiti and corporate branding actually have some things in common, a theme to be explored in the forthcoming book EGO 2?Identity Standards Manual , which I hope to revisit in a future column. One precedent for Nissan's strategy mentioned at the Wooster Collective site is a beer campaign in the Netherlands involving aggressive stickering that at times covered up genuine graffiti. And New York's School of Visual Arts has used a fake-graffitied subway poster . There's more to the Nissan effort. This press release explains that the "ElectroMOYO MC" is a Sypher1, "a young, African-American woman who represents the ideals of freedom, access and respect" and who is currently traveling across the country in an elaborately tricked-out Altima, appearing at various events, and so on. A related radio campaign is built around recordings that Sypher1 is making along the way, "broadcasts" presented as though they are interrupting a real radio ad . At the site, you can sign up to receive "product news" e-mails and read all about "the kultcha of Electric Moyo." ("Not only is the new music, art and poetry we're crafting art, it's legit, it's live and it's real.") Stealthiness notwithstanding, Jon Cropper, who is Nissan's senior manager for youth and urban communications, was happy to talk about the campaign. The company "interviewed several hundred candidates for the job" before selecting Sypher1, a Los Angeles-based poet, as the voice of Electric Moyo. Electric Moyo is a moniker "we came up with," and refers to a "philosophy" meant to "inject positivity and optimism into culture." And indeed the text on the site (a "collaboration" between Sypher1 and Nissan marketers) reflects this sentiment. In Cropper's view, there's something surprising and cool in a big company like Nissan embracing an edgy subculture, and he added that this strategy specifically responds to the "gray energy" currently drabbing up American culture at a time of distrust and deceit (he mentions everything from corporate greed to Sammy Sosa's bat-corking to the Jayson Blair scandal). "Trust," he said, "has been diminished on so many levels." This seems like a fairly extraordinary thing to say: We'll fight the diminution of trust by way of ? faked car ads? For what it's worth, comments posted at the Wooster Collective site have tended to be unsupportive. "I hate these ads," one person wrote ; Nissan is "sneaking into a club they have no fucking right to join, and taking up more space with more blah blah buy buy blah blah. It's sneaky and rude." Another complained, "Nissan is cashing in this worldwide movement we call street art, they are using our aesthetics to sell us their products." A third person pointed out that Nissan is using a tactic that formed "for reasons outside/in opposition to the de-personalized consumer world that we are presented with in the city." Cropper argues that while all this is one response to the campaign, there are others who see it differently. Sure, he concedes, the effort is about selling cars. But selling cars is really just "a back door," to a deeper message of freedom and positivity and so on: This is a campaign built on poetry, not ad copy. "We just want to be a brand ? " He pauses, either to look for the words or just to measure the ones he's chosen carefully. " ? that has a soul." Thanks to Christopher Rubino for pointing out the SVA poster. Rob Walker writes the Ad Report Card for Slate. Article URL: http://slate.msn.com/id/2086789/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailbox.gsu.edu/pipermail/tedlog/attachments/20030811/9285f0a7/attachment.htm From ted at tedfriedman.com Tue Aug 19 13:17:36 2003 From: ted at tedfriedman.com (Ted Friedman) Date: Tue Aug 19 12:19:40 2003 Subject: [Tedlog] FW: UPDATE: Oprah Anthology (11/30/03; collection) Message-ID: <200308191619.h7JGJbF10465@mailbox.gsu.edu> -----Original Message----- From: owner-cfp@dept.english.upenn.edu [mailto:owner-cfp@dept.english.upenn.edu] On Behalf Of Tolley-Stokes, Rebecca Lyne Sent: Thursday, August 07, 2003 4:42 PM To: cfp@english.upenn.edu Subject: UPDATE: Oprah Anthology (11/30/03; collection) Update: deadline is Nov. 30, 2003 CFP: Oprah Anthology We are soliciting academic papers for an anthology on the phenomenon of Oprah. It is undeniable that Oprah Winfrey has transcended the iconic cult of celebrity to become a Western cultural force of the late-twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. As she show nears its much anticipated end--though its endless reproduction in syndication seems inevitable--it seem appropriate to produce an anthology that evaluate the multifaceted influences and implications of Oprah. Suggested topics include, but are not limited to: *Oprah as a cultural phenomenon *Oprah as an icon *Marketing Oprah *Oprah and Black feminisms *Oprah and spirituality *O Magazine *Oprah and autobiographical confession *Oprah and middle-class identity *Oprah and economic empowerment *Oprah and female empowerment *Racial uplift and Oprah *One of my best friends: Oprah and white viewers If interested, please send an abstract, no more than 1 1/2 types pages by November 30, 2003 to either: Elwood Watson Associate Professor/Assistant Chair Department of History East Tennessee State University P.O. Box 70672 Johnson City, Tennessee 37614-1709 (423) 439-8575 watsone@etsu.edu Jennifer Harris Assistant Professor Department of English University of Windsor 402 Sunset Windsor, Ontario N9B 3P4 (519) 253-3000, ext. 2303 jharris@uwindsor.ca =============================================== From the Literary Calls for Papers Mailing List CFP@english.upenn.edu Full Information at http://www.english.upenn.edu/CFP/ or write Erika Lin: elin@english.upenn.edu =============================================== From ted at tedfriedman.com Tue Aug 19 19:12:18 2003 From: ted at tedfriedman.com (Ted Friedman) Date: Tue Aug 19 18:14:23 2003 Subject: [Tedlog] FW: Online document search reveals secrets Message-ID: <200308192214.h7JMEKF16717@mailbox.gsu.edu> -----Original Message----- From: garfieldseth@yahoo.com [mailto:garfieldseth@yahoo.com] Sent: Tuesday, August 19, 2003 2:04 PM To: tedf@gsu.edu Subject: Online document search reveals secrets Your friend thought you should see this article on New Scientist.com today. Follow the link below for the full story: Online document search reveals secrets http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99994057 Their message: New Scientist.com is the world's leading online science and technology news service, with a global network of award-winning journalists. Visit www.newscientist.com now for constantly updated and authoritative reporting that's both fast and fascinating. From tedf at gsu.edu Wed Aug 20 00:09:26 2003 From: tedf at gsu.edu (tedf@gsu.edu) Date: Tue Aug 19 23:09:27 2003 Subject: [Tedlog] NYTimes.com Article: A Land Governed by Film Stars Message-ID: <20030820030926.37D0584BA@web39t.prvt.nytimes.com> This article from NYTimes.com has been sent to you by tedf@gsu.edu. /-------------------- advertisement -----------------------\ Explore more of Starbucks at Starbucks.com. http://www.starbucks.com/default.asp?ci=1015 \----------------------------------------------------------/ A Land Governed by Film Stars August 15, 2003 By SHASHI THAROOR Arnold Schwarzenegger has farther to go than he thinks. He may become governor of California, but he can't become God. That privilege is reserved for the Indian movie-star-turned-politician N. T. Rama Rao, who played so many mythological heroes in so many hit films that fans built a temple to him. NTR, as he was popularly known, traded his divine celebrity for the dross of office by founding his own political party in 1980 and romping to victory in state elections. That made him chief minister, the equivalent of a governor, of Andhra Pradesh, a state which then had 50 million people (California is home to a scant 34 million). While the United States has Hollywood, India has a movie industry that may be lesser known worldwide, but is much bigger, producing more than 800 films a year in 19 languages and employing 2.5 million people - Hollywood averages about 200 theatrical releases annually. Film is the principal story-telling vehicle in India, a country that's still more than 40 percent illiterate, and the cheapest tickets cost no more than a quarter, ensuring action heroes mass adulation. In politics, too, Indian actors have outstripped their American counterparts - running so frequently that questions like the ones about Mr. Schwarzenegger's lack of experience are rarely raised. On average, the actors have proved to be no worse than their nonthespian rivals, but like Mr. Schwarzenegger, they've all brought mass appeal to the ballot box. India's first major actor-politician was M. G. Ramachandran of Tamil Nadu, who was a symbol of the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam Party in the 1960's. A sort of Arnold without the muscles, he brawled and romanced his way into the hearts of millions in blockbuster after blockbuster (many of which happened to be written by a party official, M. Karunanidhi, and financed by party supporters). In 1967 the party rode into office on the votes of avid moviegoers, defeating the stately Congress party (which sought in vain to counter MGR's appeal by enlisting an aging romantic hero, Sivaji Ganesan). But when Mr. Karunanidhi became party leader and chief minister, MGR began to ask himself why he needed to play second fiddle in politics when he enjoyed top billing in the movies. The Congress party wooed him shamelessly; government interference was widely suspected in the decision to award him a national best actor award for a hokey performance as a rickshaw-puller. In short order MGR, with Congress's support, founded a splinter party that won a majority of seats in the state assembly, and thus the chief minister post from Mr. Karunanidhi, proving that movie stars trump screenwriters (even those on whom they used to depend for their best lines). So great and so enduring was MGR's popularity as chief minister that when he suffered a debilitating stroke, his party could not afford to let him relinquish office. At rallies that drew millions, the speechless and nearly immobile movie star would be propped up on a high stage in his trademark wool cap and dark glasses, while recordings of old speeches would be played to fool the distant crowds. It worked for a while, but mortality took its course in 1987 and the party split again as MGR's wife and his mistress, both former leading ladies, fought over his legacy. The wife succeeded him as chief minister, but the Other Woman, Jayalalitha, (a bigger marquee name with an impressive array of fan clubs), wrested control of the party. She is now Tamil Nadu's chief minister, although her reputation for imperiousness and corruption has twice led to her electoral defeat. Because of India's diverse languages and film industries, the appeal of stars like NTR (who spoke Telugu) and MGR (who spoke Tamil) remains largely confined to their home states. The closest India has to a nationwide film industry are the Hindi movies of Bollywood, whose actors have translated box-office appeal into seats in the national Parliament. Bollywood's biggest superstar, Amitabh Bachchan, was elected to Parliament at the peak of his career, but became rapidly disillusioned and resigned to return to the movies. Others have awaited the end of their movie careers before making the transition, and two now serve in the country's Council of Ministers - the former "hero" Vinod Khanna as a deputy minister for tourism, and the former "villain" Shatrughan Sinha as a minister for health (which puts an onscreen sexual harasser in charge of India's battle against AIDS). Perhaps Mr. Schwarzenegger should consider the sad ending of the divine NTR's career as a cautionary tale: NTR found his magic wearing thin during his first term and lost his bid for re-election. He fought back with populist calls for subsidized rice for the poor, and returned to power, but within months he faced a revolt within his own party, led by his technocratic and unglamorous son-in-law. NTR was unceremoniously ousted as chief minister in 1995, suffered a heart attack and died soon after. In his movies, he always triumphed before the closing credits, but reality allowed no resurrection for NTR. The temple dedicated to him lies in ruins. No one worships there any more. Shashi Tharoor is author of "Show Business," a novel about India's film world, and the forthcoming "Nehru: The Invention of India." http://www.nytimes.com/2003/08/15/opinion/15THAR.html?ex=1062348966&ei=1&en=3ccb2b0482bfba1d --------------------------------- Get Home Delivery of The New York Times Newspaper. Imagine reading The New York Times any time & anywhere you like! Leisurely catch up on events & expand your horizons. Enjoy now for 50% off Home Delivery! Click here: http://www.nytimes.com/ads/nytcirc/index.html HOW TO ADVERTISE --------------------------------- For information on advertising in e-mail newsletters or other creative advertising opportunities with The New York Times on the Web, please contact onlinesales@nytimes.com or visit our online media kit at http://www.nytimes.com/adinfo For general information about NYTimes.com, write to help@nytimes.com. Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company From ted at tedfriedman.com Wed Aug 20 13:57:22 2003 From: ted at tedfriedman.com (ted@tedfriedman.com) Date: Wed Aug 20 15:57:29 2003 Subject: [Tedlog] Blockbuster brains Message-ID: <200308201957.MAA17340@cobrand.salon.com> An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailbox.gsu.edu/pipermail/tedlog/attachments/20030820/89bece4a/attachment.htm From tedf at gsu.edu Wed Aug 20 16:58:21 2003 From: tedf at gsu.edu (tedf@gsu.edu) Date: Wed Aug 20 15:58:26 2003 Subject: [Tedlog] NYTimes.com Article: Everyone's a Film Geek Now Message-ID: <20030820195821.CADC335042@web38t.prvt.nytimes.com> This article from NYTimes.com has been sent to you by tedf@gsu.edu. /-------------------- advertisement -----------------------\ Explore more of Starbucks at Starbucks.com. http://www.starbucks.com/default.asp?ci=1015 \----------------------------------------------------------/ Everyone's a Film Geek Now August 17, 2003 By ELVIS MITCHELL HAS there been a single technological advance - even the advent of sound - that has changed movies as quickly and thoroughly as the DVD has? Sound changed the scope of movies, but it didn't really change the way they were made, the way they were marketed or the way they were watched. The DVD is changing all those things. For the movie industry, the DVD has become so important that the tail now appears to be wagging the dog. The studios - and the rest of us - have realized that nothing they put on screen will ever go away again. As a result, features that were created to appeal to connoisseurs, and that were once available only on large, unwieldy and expensive laser discs, are now routinely enjoyed by mass-market film fans. The esoterica of film culture, formerly consumed by a moneyed geek elite, is now aimed directly at - and snapped up by - the broader public. The most visible example is evident the moment you pop certain DVD's into your player: letterboxing, the practice of transferring films to video formats without altering their original horizontal images to make them fit a square. Before laser discs arrived in the 90's, letterboxed films were a rarity on the home screen. Movies had always been shown on television with their images squared off to fill the screen, and it was assumed that audiences wouldn't tolerate them any other way. For the most part, film buffs had to settle for the couple of minutes of letterbox that came with the opening credits on TV or wait for a special widescreen showing on one of a handful of pay-cable networks. Letterboxing was a rarity on videocassettes, too, and the presumption was that only the owners of laser disc players, collecting movie platters the size of long-playing record albums, would even care about such a thing. But these days this formatting is often used in music videos, and those who have grown up with MTV are not put off by letterboxing. Now, at Wal-Mart and Blockbuster, fans can choose between the standard pan-and-scan version of, say, "The Fast and the Furious," in which parts of the picture frame are lopped off to squeeze it into a square, or the widescreen edition, which uses black bars above and below to allow viewers to see the movie as it was projected in theaters. If letterboxing is the most obvious element of film-geek culture to be mainstreamed by DVD's, the most important is the audio commentary - the lengthy exegesis that comes, for better or worse, with almost any DVD movie that can still claim a living participant, be it director or cast member. Certainly, the idea of offering a director - who, unless his name is Spielberg or Lucas, almost never gets on "Entertainment Tonight" or the E! channel - the opportunity to reflect on his or her creation makes sense in the information age, with viewers seeking all the facts they can get about a movie. Such running narrations - once rare, now common - had their start with the laser disc. And the process of providing the best commentary was perfected by Criterion, a company that took as its mission eliciting lengthy interviews with directors and boiling them down into thoughtful, and often staggeringly intense, conversations about filmmaking. Martin Scorsese's comments on the Criterion Collection's laser disc of "Taxi Driver" isn't just an interview; it's a master class, with an intoxicating wealth of raw data and insight into his perspective. The director's explication of just a single scene - Travis Bickle (Robert De Niro) lingering in a hallway, while the camera pans from his lonely pay-phone conversation to the forlorn light bulb above - ranges from ruminations on the screenwriter's intentions to Mr. Scorsese's borrowing from the Italian B-picture maestro Mario Bava. For a time, it seemed that Criterion's output might eliminate the need for film schools altogether, since their essential components, access to films and information about them, were packaged in two-disc sets. (Films released with lots of extra features came in multi-disc sets because a laser disc can't hold as much information as a DVD can.) The Criterion Collection's laser disc presentations were so deluxe that the filmmakers themselves literally signed off on them: the cases included a somber black label with the director's signature and the legend Director Approved Special Edition. While the call from Criterion wasn't quite the Legion of Honor, filmmakers often responded to it with equivalent sobriety; Sydney Pollack's commentary on his making of "Tootsie" sometimes makes you wonder if he's aware that the film is a comedy. Still, his singling out of Bill Murray's performance is a welcome sign of the director's generosity. Mr. Murray's spectacular turn, Mr. Pollack tells us, was completely improvised, a series of throwaways that left the director awestruck even as he watched it again for the commentary. It's an appreciative encomium steeped in a thorough understanding of the medium - just the kind of education one would hope to get at school, without having to echo the professor's thoughts in a paper. Not every laser disc was quite so enlightening. There were a few obvious money-making ploys: Michael Bay's "Armageddon," was issued in a director-approved, two-disc set that aficionados (this one included) bought to hear Mr. Bay and the producer Jerry Bruckheimer justify the notoriously dreadful picture on the accompanying commentary. Although not all its laser discs have been re-issued as DVDs, Criterion has transferred this particular one. But in what looks suspiciously like a non-denial denial, "Armageddon" is left out of Criterion's classy Web listing of out-of-print laser titles. "Armageddon" notwithstanding, Criterion was the company that directors sought out, and, as a result, the company was given permission by the studios to put out special versions of their films. This is happening now less and less: studios understand that there's a market for all their catalog titles, and see no reason to let others share in the profits. They are also aware that more people own DVD players than ever owned laser-disc players. There are probably more working eight-track tape players than there are laser-disc units. But as the studios rush to market their films on DVD, Criterion's careful process of meticulously matching commentary to film is giving way to a constant stream of haphazard blather. There's a sense that the packagers are settling for enough air to fill the tires, and sometimes there just isn't enough. The DVD of Robert Zemeckis's corrosively hilarious comedy of greed, "Used Cars" (1980), is an example. Pauline Kael called it "a neglected modern comedy that's like a more restless and visually high-spirited version of the W. C. Fields pictures"; she described Kurt Russell's gleefully sociopathic hustler as "a star in the world of the mendacious." But the DVD commentary by Mr. Russell and Mr. Zemeckis has them either laughing at the movie or pausing through long sections when no one has anything to say. Of course, their reticence begins to feel like a blessing after you contend with something like the recent rerelease of "There's Something About Mary," which now has six hours of commentary and extras. It isn't the first film to get a new home-video lease on life, and it won't be the last: the continual re-releasing of DVD's with ever more special features is something the movie companies have picked up from the laser-disc people, who taught us that at the first blush of every spring, we could count on a new boxed set of James Cameron's "Terminator 2," with even more deleted scenes and fresh, fevered audio-track recollections from the director. (How big is his basement, anyway?) Even without such constant tinkering, the movie companies know that just as record owners went out and bought compact discs of the albums they owned on vinyl - ahhh, vinyl - movie lovers will rush out to purchase DVD versions of films they owned on cassette. For the studios, this is easy money. And it's also the reason the time between a movie's theatrical release and its appearance on home video has shrunk to the size of a window just large enough to accommodate a wad of dollars. But the influence of the DVD can sometimes be seen even before a movie leaves the theater. In the current theatrical release of "28 Days Later," for example, a second, more downbeat coda follows the film's ending - the first case of a movie running in movie houses with an extra that plays like a DVD feature, in a playout similar to a DVD rerelease. The format is having other effects as well: the DVD of "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly" attached several scenes from the Italian release of Sergio Leone's classic. These sequences were never dubbed into English, but audience excitement over the uncovered nuggets drove United Artists to bring Clint Eastwood and Eli Wallach back to the sound studio to add their voices to the previously unseen film, and the longer picture is now getting a limited theatrical release. Even more remarkable, if a director squabbles with a studio over content that will draw an NC-17 rating, or an R rather than the preferred PG-13, the filmmaker will be told: "Relax, you can release your version on a special director's-cut DVD." It's a cheat, since most directors - especially those working in widescreen - make their movies to be seen projected in theaters; even with more of the original film frame available, telling detail is often lost on TV, and a movie's impact is obviously diminished. Additional scenes on a DVD won't matter if a movie has never been experienced the way the director planned. And it's entirely possible that the director's version won't be seen even on DVD, since viewers can use the chapter headings to scroll past material that looks unfamiliar. Indeed, those DVD chapter stops, which allow viewers to whiz right to their favorite sequences, have changed the way people look at movies. When you take kids to the movies now, they're no longer passive viewers: they will often immediately voice an interest in seeing a scene over again. (It's the reason some directors, like David Lynch, don't want chapter stops on the DVD's of their work.) And as the DVD versions of films more and more begin to eclipse their theatrical runs, we may find not just that the tail is wagging the dog, but that it has outgrown the dog completely.   http://www.nytimes.com/2003/08/17/movies/17ELVI.html?ex=1062409501&ei=1&en=bd3860e7a2376840 --------------------------------- Get Home Delivery of The New York Times Newspaper. Imagine reading The New York Times any time & anywhere you like! Leisurely catch up on events & expand your horizons. Enjoy now for 50% off Home Delivery! 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Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company From tedf at gsu.edu Wed Aug 20 18:56:54 2003 From: tedf at gsu.edu (tedf@gsu.edu) Date: Wed Aug 20 17:56:56 2003 Subject: [Tedlog] NYTimes.com Article: David Byrne's Alternate PowerPoint Universe Message-ID: <20030820215654.683F284E0@web39t.prvt.nytimes.com> This article from NYTimes.com has been sent to you by tedf@gsu.edu. /-------------------- advertisement -----------------------\ Explore more of Starbucks at Starbucks.com. http://www.starbucks.com/default.asp?ci=1015 \----------------------------------------------------------/ David Byrne's Alternate PowerPoint Universe August 17, 2003 By VERONIQUE VIENNE POWERPOINT, the ubiquitous Microsoft business application, is not meant to be looked at too closely. People aren't supposed to notice its simplified graphics, ready-made templates, pie charts, arrows and icons; they're only supposed to notice the ideas that these features help organize. What's not hard to notice, however, is that in addition to organizing ideas, the software has a tendency to homogenize them, translating a Babel of voices into a single, droning voice of corporate culture. The experience of watching a PowerPoint presentation is meant to be the same in a San Francisco conference room as it is in a Chang Mai Internet cafe. And in either setting, PowerPoint's graphic identity might not literally be invisible, but like the buzzing fluorescent light that office workers eventually tune out, after a while you just don't see it. With his newest project, David Byrne has tried not only to see it anew, but also to use it in the least likely of all applications: a medium for creative expression. "Envisioning Emotional Epistemological Information" (Steidl and PaceMcGill Gallery, 2003) is a boxed set containing a 96-page book and a DVD featuring 20 minutes of animation. In both mediums, Mr. Byrne, who is best known as a musician but who was trained as an artist, subjects PowerPoint's characterless graphic templates to a radical metamorphosis. Arrows that curve out of their trajectory and into psychedelic rainbow-colored curlicues, surreal charts that satirize postmodern posturing, typographical compositions that present absurd abstractions with straight-faced conviction and deadpan photographs of the most humdrum of everyday objects all morph into one another with the steady pacing of a corporate sales conference. You can feel the medium resisting the invisible hand of the artist. Designed for easy digestion when projected on a screen, PowerPoint reveals its true identity when forced to perform without its well-rehearsed scripts. On the pages of the book, what you see is brute force, elemental verve, joyful savagery. Viewed on DVD, however, with the addition of music and movement, the same layouts become less threatening, less ruthless, even soothing at times. The juxtaposition of book and disc, then, produces a kind of cognitive dissonance: is the slip-cased volume just a deluxe package for a short art film, or is it the other way around? Is the book an antiquated cultural artifact? Or is the digitalized version just a trailer you can watch on your television? Also disconcerting is the project's unwieldy title. For insiders, it's a tongue-in-cheek reference to "Envisioning Information," Edward Tufte's celebrated book about the various ways that people through the ages have visually displayed quantitative data. But it's also a preview of the strange, decontextualized language that pervades the book and DVD, something between impenetrable academic discourse and self-important trade jargon, with a bit of official government study thrown in for good measure. Mr. Byrne uses it as a joke, perhaps, but also as a kind of meta-commentary on how language can alienate us from our emotions. One poignant photograph bears the legend "The Beginning of Identity," dry words that seem like the title of a graduate dissertation. Below that, two take-out soup containers are labeled, by hand, ME and YOU. The two containers sit side by side, separated by a few, seemingly unbridgeable inches. One of Mr. Tufte's more recent publications is a critical pamphlet titled "The Cognitive Style of PowerPoint." He is among the most eloquent critics of the technology, but over the 16 years in use, even some technicians have joined the chorus. "It's very reductionist," says Nancy Halpern, a PowerPoint specialist at the Strickland Group, an executive development firm in New York. "There is a crude linearity to the way the program works. Unlike a book or a Web site, you can't flip around the pages. It's more like a teleprompter." So what inspired Mr. Byrne to reroute a corporate tool into an avant-garde project? To take something designed to simplify meaning, and turn it into an elusive, playful cipher? To transform a project synonymous with bland corporatespeak into a challenging, entertaining surprise? It started as a parody. "I was doing mock sell presentations, using mock PowerPoint slides as visual aids," he says. "That's how I learned the program originally. But then it evolved into something else. It was no longer enough to make fun of the corporate stuff. I realized that PowerPoint was a limited but a valid medium." To view the medium creatively, he says, "You have to try to think like the guy in Redmond or Silicon Valley. You feel that your mind is suddenly molded by the thinking of some unknown programmer. It's a collaboration, but it's not reciprocal." Starting with parody, he adds, even incompetent imitations, is a legitimate first step. Eventually, if you persevere, the obsessive nature of the process yields unexpectedly beautiful results. For him, then, the challenge became "taking a form that's purportedly logic and rational and making it poetic." Yet one suspects that there is another agenda behind his attempt to subvert the global uniformity of PowerPoint. "Corporate culture," he says wistfully. "What if I could set it free?" "The End of Reason," a four-minute, continuous PowerPoint presentation with original music by David Byrne, will be on display at 4 Times Square from Sept. 10 through Sept. 17.   Vernique Vienne is the author of several books about design. http://www.nytimes.com/2003/08/17/arts/design/17VIEN.html?ex=1062416614&ei=1&en=0e85c5d8f84a1ac2 --------------------------------- Get Home Delivery of The New York Times Newspaper. Imagine reading The New York Times any time & anywhere you like! Leisurely catch up on events & expand your horizons. Enjoy now for 50% off Home Delivery! Click here: http://www.nytimes.com/ads/nytcirc/index.html HOW TO ADVERTISE --------------------------------- For information on advertising in e-mail newsletters or other creative advertising opportunities with The New York Times on the Web, please contact onlinesales@nytimes.com or visit our online media kit at http://www.nytimes.com/adinfo For general information about NYTimes.com, write to help@nytimes.com. Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company From ted at tedfriedman.com Wed Aug 20 15:59:26 2003 From: ted at tedfriedman.com (ted@tedfriedman.com) Date: Wed Aug 20 17:59:29 2003 Subject: [Tedlog] A love song to bastard pop Message-ID: <200308202159.OAA18712@cobrand.salon.com> An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailbox.gsu.edu/pipermail/tedlog/attachments/20030820/e1cff31a/attachment.htm From www at cobrand.salon.com Wed Aug 20 15:59:40 2003 From: www at cobrand.salon.com (WebServer) Date: Wed Aug 20 17:59:43 2003 Subject: [Tedlog] The mash-up revolution Message-ID: <200308202159.OAA18718@cobrand.salon.com> An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailbox.gsu.edu/pipermail/tedlog/attachments/20030820/68dccd73/attachment.htm From ted at tedfriedman.com Wed Aug 20 19:17:36 2003 From: ted at tedfriedman.com (Ted Friedman) Date: Wed Aug 20 18:19:47 2003 Subject: [Tedlog] Very Cool Demographic Resource Message-ID: <200308202219.h7KMJjF14041@mailbox.gsu.edu> http://www.epodunk.com -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailbox.gsu.edu/pipermail/tedlog/attachments/20030820/03a7d1e9/attachment.htm From ted at tedfriedman.com Wed Aug 20 20:01:02 2003 From: ted at tedfriedman.com (ted@tedfriedman.com) Date: Wed Aug 20 18:32:57 2003 Subject: [Tedlog] A Friend Sent You a Link from NewYorkMetro.com Message-ID: <0c2a60201231483WWW1@www1> Excellent roundtable of British and US journalists on Iraq coverage. http://www.newyorkmetro.com/nymetro/news/media/features/n_9067/index2.html New York Metrohttp://www.newyorkmetro.comRestaurants, real estate, shopping, nightlife and more ? the best of New York everyday. From dispatch at tompaine.com Wed Aug 20 20:17:39 2003 From: dispatch at tompaine.com (dispatch@tompaine.com) Date: Wed Aug 20 19:07:04 2003 Subject: [Tedlog] Message-ID: An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailbox.gsu.edu/pipermail/tedlog/attachments/20030820/a6d089fc/attachment.htm From ted at tedfriedman.com Wed Aug 20 20:11:04 2003 From: ted at tedfriedman.com (ted@tedfriedman.com) Date: Wed Aug 20 19:11:08 2003 Subject: [Tedlog] Check out this Village Voice article Message-ID: <200308202311.h7KNB4f7070688@www.villagevoice.com> - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Village Voice - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0332/press.php TV The Shootists by Joy Press Indie Film Producer Christine Vachon Analyzes 'Project Greenlight' From tedf at gsu.edu Wed Aug 20 20:51:36 2003 From: tedf at gsu.edu (tedf@gsu.edu) Date: Wed Aug 20 19:51:39 2003 Subject: [Tedlog] NYTimes.com Article: Taking Back Television, One Disc at a Time Message-ID: <20030820235136.9F3F984BA@web39t.prvt.nytimes.com> This article from NYTimes.com has been sent to you by tedf@gsu.edu. /-------------------- advertisement -----------------------\ Explore more of Starbucks at Starbucks.com. http://www.starbucks.com/default.asp?ci=1015 \----------------------------------------------------------/ Taking Back Television, One Disc at a Time August 17, 2003 By EMILY NUSSBAUM DVD's embody everything live television does not. They're collectible instead of ephemeral. They're private instead of public. They allow the viewer to own the TV schedule instead of being controlled by it. And unlike their dorky predecessor, the VHS tape, with its transparent innards and tendency to choke under pressure, they are technologically efficient, with a cavernous storage capacity. For more serious collectors, the ability to snap up several TV seasons on a whim may be as much a curse as it is a blessing. After all, if you collect 50 movies, you can expect to watch every one of them. Collect 50 television shows - full seasons, 20 hours or more! Commercial-free! - and you've got yourself a very high-maintenance entertainment commitment. Soon every evening will be spent watching episodes of "Alias" not once, not twice but five times in a row. And then watching them again, to catch all of the nuances. And then again, to imbibe the commentary track. And maybe catch a couple of the deleted scenes. And the commentary tracks on the deleted scenes. At this point, it's 5 in the morning and time to call in sick for work. At least, that's the ideal scenario. For the truth is, the platonic ideal of the television DVD - one brimming with juicy insider extras - is still pretty hard to find. While there's been plenty of ink spilled about the fabulousness of movie commentary tracks, with their bitter revelations of directorial compromise, their alternate endings shooting off like firecrackers, television collections tend to be somewhat less candid. Part of this is sheer pragmatism: once a movie is finished, it's finished. The creator can say what he will. But TV series run for many seasons, and DVD sets are increasingly being released while the show is still on the air, either in first run or in syndication. The result of this speeded-up cycle is that most creators are not quite as prone to risk alienating their colleagues with juicy rants or mea culpas. And classic television collections (your "Honeymooners," your "All in the Family") often include little extra material at all. But if the quality of television DVD's can be variable, the best ones are addictive. DVD's are perfect for fast-paced arc shows like "24," increasing the intensity of the action and introducing the sickly pleasures of binge-viewing. For fans of prematurely canceled shows like "Once and Again," "Freaks and Geeks" and "Firefly," DVD's are their savior, an opportunity to preserve the brilliance that might once have been junked in some studio's broom closet. (On Web sites like tvshowsondvd.com, viewers lobby for early release like a pack of public defenders.) Arcane titles - Japanese anime, obscure British sitcoms - are finally available without recourse to the grim reaches of 10th-hand e-Bay dubs. And for more artistically ambitious series, DVD technology can allow viewers to act like scholars instead of passive recipients, examining scenes like cineastes and taking a peek into the writerly process. Even the junkiest of shows have their DVD appeal: reality television can be surprisingly rewatchable, especially in its more soap-operatic varieties - a trend presaged by MTV's notoriously hypnotic Real World Marathons. (One caveat: a DVD of "Space 1999" may sound like fun, but in practice a bad show's flaws are grotesquely magnified when watched in a thrilling high-quality format.) Television commentary tracks come in several flavors. First, there's what might be called the Publicist Track, a puff-tinged presentation that's quasi-informative but mostly self-congratulatory. Take the executive producer Darren Star's remarks on the DVD set for the third season of "Sex and the City." Tracing Carrie Bradshaw's descent into her affair with Mr. Big, Mr. Star does illuminate some nice details, likethe frantic camera motion that precedes the lovers' first tryst. But the bulk of his audio track consists of praise for the actors ("Sarah Jessica is so wonderful here") and remarks about the show's groundbreaking qualities - all accurate but not especially illuminating. (But it is endearing how fashion-addled Mr. Star is: his harshest remark is reserved for a short-short black velvet bodysuit.) Then there's the Auteur Package: one director or writer, one serious analysis. The box sets for "The Sopranos" provide several such one-on-one commentaries, with smart, straightforward analysis of editing choices and only the occasional dash of behind-the-scenes color. On the audio extra for the second-season episode "Funhouse," the director, John Patterson, describes choices made for the episode's various dream sequences - including a debate over whether the talking fish should actually move its lips - and alludes to a bit of behind-the-scenes tension during filming of a telephone sequence. The first-season package of "The Sopranos" also includes an exceptional hour-long interview with its creator, David Chase, during which Peter Bogdanovich (the film director who plays Melfi's psychiatrist) interrogates the hawk-faced, grimly sexy and super-articulate writer/director. (One side effect of DVD commentary tracks: crushes on the creative team.) It's a discussion so in-depth, and so unlike the garden-variety DVD promotional mini-film, that it feels as if we are voyeuristically sitting in on an interview for a magazine profile, able to get the director's insights without mediation. Among other details, Mr. Chase describes his fascination with earlier gangster films like "Goodfellas" and explores his worries about viewers romanticizing his gangster characters too much. Group commentary tracks tend to provide a stranger breed of DVD commentary, with participants sliding back and forth between silly and serious. On the DVD for the first season of "Oz," a team track between its creator, Tom Fontana, and the actor Lee Turgeson is peppered with "Beavis and Butthead"-like banter too obscene to excerpt in this paper. Animated shows - "The Simpsons," "Family Guy," "Futurama" - are collaborative by nature, and their commentary tracks tends to include hilarious, competitive banter from comedy writers used to pitching jokes and getting shot down. On DVD's of "The Simpsons," each audio track includes a nice mix of antic snark and arcane bits of background. Among the tidbits a listener learns: Montgomery Burns's lawyer is based on Roy Cohn; as a prisoner, Sideshow Bob wore Jean Valjean's prison number; and the guest star Joe Frazier asked the writers to cut a scene, complaining "Joe Frazier does not get beaten up by Barney; Joe Frazier beats up Barney." Then there's the Meta Method, in which a show's creators use the audio track as a new kind of experimental theater - a technique that will surely blossom as DVD's generate their own satirizable clichés. The DVD's for "Mr. Show," the late, lamented comedy show, feature a deliberately bizarre mix of background information and inside jokes. Ensemble members wander in and out of the room. Fictional characters like Jeanette Dunwoody and the acting coach D'Uberville L'Avignon periodically chime in, as well - a technique that deserves plaudits for brashness but is somewhat funnier in theory than in practice. Finally, there is the Enthusiast Approach, my personal favorite. Such tracks are notable for commentators getting so giddily caught up watching their own show that they morph into fans. In the worst-case scenario, the over-enthusiastic commentator clams up and happily watches along. But at best, an Enthusiast track gives the listener the impression of being a silent participant in the most thrilling type of bull session. The fourth-season "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" track for the werewolf episode, "Wild at Heart," features banter from the creator, Joss Whedon, the executive producer, Marti Noxon, and the actor Seth Green. The three communicate in a kind of sarcastic Buffy-speak that's hard to transcribe but fun to listen to. "You folks don't know what it's like to do DVD commentaries!," Mr. Whedon mock-moans at one point. "We shot these episodes three years ago, we all hate each other now. We've been using a digital Alyson [Hannigan] for the last two years, nobody knows about it, she lives in France, it's a thing." On the forthcoming "Alias" first season commentary tracks, which will be released in September, the cast is affectionate, with Jennifer Garner sweetly consoling Ron Silver as he complains about the closeups on his wrinkles. ("What's that flap?" he moans at one point.) And the whole cast bursts into horrified, nervous giggles during a torture scene: "Look, they're jerking his head around like it's a pumpkin!" Also worthy of special note are the "Felicity" stars Keri Russell and Scott Speedman, who deserve some kind of award for the single sexiest team commentary, weighing in on the show's second-season episode "The List." Watching themselves kiss, the former real-life couple giggle in embarrassment, and they pepper the audio track with hilariously self-deprecating remarks. "What a dink," Mr. Speedman says, watching his character gaze at Felicity. "What a nutbag, always mistaking hungry for horny." Such tracks deliver a delicious sense of insiderness as well as the implication that the show was a labor of love. But there's something to be said for the sour and the bitter as well. If true conflict rarely enters into television DVD commentary, even the most supportive commentaries have moments of behind-the-scenes conflict, many of which force you to read between the lines. "That's the swagger of someone on a hit TV show surrounded by a whoooole lot of watchers," drawls one "'NYPD Blue" director, watching David Caruso lounge on a park bench. "Don't ever think that doesn't get into the show." Aside from commentary tracks, television DVD's provide a range of other extras, some of them pointless, others treats. Worst of the bunch: anything dependent on text, including the many lame bios - nothing duller than accounts of the actors' résumés - and doofy "quizzes." Original shooting scripts are fantastic in theory: you can read the stage directions and cut lines, and get a sense of the creator's original intent. But clicking past page after page on a TV monitor feels awkward (although for people who own laptop DVD players, the feature is more usable.) Most promotional "featurettes" amount to little more than advertisements for a television show one already owns. (And do the sets have to be sold in what amounts to child-proof packaging? King Tut wasn't this tightly wrapped.) The best extras fulfill fantasies of total access - audition tapes, scenes that have been edited out, alternate endings. The DVD for "Six Feet Under" includes a cut scene from the premiere, with Claire high on crystal meth and riffing madly to her brother David. The "Family Guy" collection includes a banned episode. A "Simpsons" mini-jukebox allows viewers to play song sequences from the show, like the stirring rescue anthem "We're Sending Our Love Down the Well." And the "Mr. Show" DVD's included material from the show's original live performances, and a few truly perverse TV spots (among them one featuring the stars in ball gags and full bondage) It's enough to whet your appetite for the impossible. In the future, one imagines, nothing will be denied the superfan: the casting sheets, every inch of the trimmed footage, leftovers from the food services cart - and the technology to do our very own edit of the show. Call it the curse of the groupie: give out backstage passes, and soon enough, everyone wants to join the band.   Emily Nussbaum writes the Rerun column for Arts & Leisure http://www.nytimes.com/2003/08/17/arts/television/17NUSS.html?ex=1062423496&ei=1&en=50c6edfaebb2092e --------------------------------- Get Home Delivery of The New York Times Newspaper. Imagine reading The New York Times any time & anywhere you like! Leisurely catch up on events & expand your horizons. Enjoy now for 50% off Home Delivery! Click here: http://www.nytimes.com/ads/nytcirc/index.html HOW TO ADVERTISE --------------------------------- For information on advertising in e-mail newsletters or other creative advertising opportunities with The New York Times on the Web, please contact onlinesales@nytimes.com or visit our online media kit at http://www.nytimes.com/adinfo For general information about NYTimes.com, write to help@nytimes.com. Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company From tedf at gsu.edu Wed Aug 20 21:11:04 2003 From: tedf at gsu.edu (tedf@gsu.edu) Date: Wed Aug 20 20:11:07 2003 Subject: [Tedlog] NYTimes.com Article: Music Videos That Show Everything but Performance Message-ID: <20030821001104.4CF3684BA@web39t.prvt.nytimes.com> This article from NYTimes.com has been sent to you by tedf@gsu.edu. /-------------------- advertisement -----------------------\ Explore more of Starbucks at Starbucks.com. http://www.starbucks.com/default.asp?ci=1015 \----------------------------------------------------------/ Music Videos That Show Everything but Performance August 17, 2003 By KELEFA SANNEH EVER since the early 1980's, music videos have existed in a kind of limbo: they often reach more people than the albums they're meant to promote, but there's no easy way to buy them or collect them. A viewer might stumble upon something great on MTV in the middle of the night, then not see it again for years. In October, three of the best (and, not coincidentally, weirdest) music-video directors are to issue DVD retrospectives through Palm Pictures. Spike Jonze has made classic videos for the Beastie Boys and Fatboy Slim, among others - that was Mr. Jonze who got Christopher Walken to dance through a hotel in Fatboy Slim's "Weapon of Choice." The French director Michel Gondry, perhaps best known for his work with Bjork, likes to turn every video into a dazzling game: once you figure out the trick, it all makes sense, sort of. And the British director (and electronic musician) Chris Cunningham uses music videos as an excuse to create self-contained worlds; his creations for Aphex Twin and Squarepusher are even grander and creepier than Michael Jackson's "Thriller." None of the three works exclusively in music videos: Mr. Jonze is now being known as the director of "Being John Malkovich" and "Adaptation"; Mr. Gondry is completing his second feature film, "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind," starring Jim Carrey and Kate Winslet, and Mr. Cunningham has made a number of short films, including "Flex," which was shown at the Royal Academy of Arts in London. On an afternoon a few months ago, the directors sat down with Kelefa Sanneh, a pop music critic of The New York Times, to discuss what they do, and why. Here are excerpts. KELEFA SANNEH How did all of you get started making music videos? SPIKE JONZE I was always interested. In high school I would make videos on my video camera - you know, really bad ones. Eventually I got this call out of the blue: Kim Gordon from Sonic Youth asked me if I wanted to shoot some skateboarding for a video they were doing. The woman who was directing it was named Tamra Davis. So I got to kind of tag along with her as she was directing it and watch how it was done. MICHEL GONDRY I was the drummer in a band, in Paris, and I was also in art school. I was interested in animation, so I went to the flea market and bought a Bolex camera, and started to do videos for my band, using stop animation, just trying out techniques. CHRIS CUNNINGHAM I used to do sculpture and drawings and stuff, and then I completely lost interest and started getting interested in film. I spent about three or four months harassing this English techno band, Autechre, to let me do a video for them. It's humiliating: the first chance you ever get to make something, and it's for a proper video. JONZE How did it turn out? CUNNINGHAM Terrible. SANNEH Did the band like it? CUNNINGHAM No, they hated it. GONDRY It's good to start with a failure! CUNNINGHAM It was pretty heartbreaking for me. I still haven't got over it. JONZE When I met Michel, maybe seven years ago, we made each other copies of all our videos, and I was amazed - his were all so good, and so original. But he said, "I didn't send you the other ones." So the next time, we made a tape of the worst ones. I wrote a note saying, "Please, don't show this to anybody." But even his bad ones had all these original things. SANNEH Is it usually pretty obvious when an artist doesn't like your video? JONZE You can tell. Even if they don't tell you, you know. GONDRY I did a video for Bjork, "Human Behavior," and she didn't talk to me for a while. I didn't know if she liked it. The record company asked me to do her next video, but they didn't ask her, and then she called me to say she didn't want to do it with me, which was kind of heartbreaking - although it was nice that she was frank about it. But then, she asked me to do a lot more videos. SANNEH Bjork is the only artist all three of you have worked with, right? Chris, you made that video for "All Is Full of Love," with two Bjork-like robots having sex. CUNNINGHAM Yeah. For a year and a half, I had been turning her down. It was only when "All Is Full of Love" came along, I loved the song so much that it gave me confidence to have a crack at it. I wanted to do a video with industrial robotics, but she had these Kama Sutra dolls - it was like two completely different angles at once. GONDRY Sometimes I compare Bjork to Duke Ellington, or somebody like that. She's a great composer, but she can also find qualities in people that they don't even know they have. I remember I was in Bjork's house in Iceland, and she told me about a video Chris had done. But I think I misunderstood what she said. I thought you had written a dialogue where all the bad words created a pattern, then replaced the bad words with beeps. I was so jealous - that was the best idea! CUNNINGHAM That was one of the things I wanted to do with "Windowlicker," by Aphex Twin [the electronic composer Richard D. James]. I told Richard he could bleep the dialogue in tempo - it would be a good way to bring the track in. He was up for it, in theory, but when it came time to actually do the work, he couldn't be bothered. So I took the beeps out, in the end. SANNEH Do all of you consciously avoid shooting videos centered around a band playing music? GONDRY Yeah, I try to avoid that. It's a way to resist the record company agenda - they just want to use videos for promotion, not as any form of art or any extension of the musicians' creativity. It's very disappointing when there is the idea of the story and then you cut away to the performance of the band, like the typical Aerosmith video. I mean, I think if you commit to do a video for a band, you have to center the video around them. And if there is somebody playing a part in the video, it should be someone in the band. CUNNINGHAM Whenever I hear rock tracks, all I can picture is the band playing instruments. So when I started working with electronic music, I didn't have that obstacle. SANNEH How important is the song to all of you? Is it possible to shoot a great video for a song you hate? GONDRY I guess so. JONZE Really? I don't think it is. GONDRY Well, no, not that you hate. But I did videos for songs I hated when I started - I had no choice. For me, it was still better than working in a grocery store. JONZE I think it's hard to make a good video for a song you don't like. It's easy to make a bad video for a song you like, and that's a bummer. But when I've tried to make a video for a band that I didn't really get, it could be a fine video but it doesn't feel satisfying. When I'm making a video, I think, if you already had the image, and you needed to find a song to go with it, and you found this song - what would that image be? GONDRY I work differently, especially because I don't understand fully the English language. I take words, key words in a song that I understand, and create bridges between them. CUNNINGHAM That's exactly what I do. You find little spots where the sound makes you think of an image. With "Come to Daddy," by Aphex Twin, when I first heard that screaming noise, I imagined an old lady being screamed at. And then there was a voice saying, "Come to Daddy," so it makes you think of like a parent and child. And then I tried to join the dots up. GONDRY Sometimes I wish there could be more back and forth - I have an idea, then the musician would create the music, and then from the music I would have more ideas, and so on. But you have to be careful. I did a video for Wyclef Jean, "Another One Bites the Dust." I really liked the song, but I found it awkward that there's this guy who is dead - Freddie Mercury - and they're looping his voice, and you don't attribute it to him, in a way. So I decided that in the video, they would steal a statue of Freddie Mercury. I wrote a story that was completely absurd. But then, in the middle of shooting the video, they replaced one of the rappers, and the new guy rewrote the lyrics. He wrote about him stealing the statue! In a way, that's cool, because the video influenced the music. But he made the concept sound very flat. JONZE Because it made it look like just a literal interpretation of the song? GONDRY Yeah. I was very proud of my concept, but because he rewrote the lyrics, it looked like I was not that smart. [He laughs.] SANNNEH That's the odd thing about music videos - the image and the sounds become joined in people's minds. CUNNINGHAM Well, you hope it won't detract from the original music or feeling that someone might get when they listen to that music. But I suppose if you're successful, you make a video that people can't separate from the music. In a way, it's a horrible thing to do to someone. Because they'll never listen to that music the same way again. GONDRY I remember I used to really like the Police. When their second album came out, the cover was blue and silver, and whenever I heard "Walking on the Moon," I would picture somebody walking on the moon, all blue and silvery. Now, in the age of videos, it's impossible - you always have the image of the video. Spike had a great project, where he asked people on the street to listen to a track and give ideas for a video. Then he selected the six best, and he shot them. JONZE Except we didn't shoot them. But the interviews will be on the DVD. This was Oasis, about six years ago, when they were the biggest thing in London. I got the song from the manager and got into a cab, and I asked the cab driver if he could play it for me. He got super excited that I had the new Oasis single, and he had this whole idea for a video. I met with Noel Gallagher, from Oasis, and I told him about the cab driver, and I told him I wanted to do a video like that, and he said, "Cool, let's do it." I shot all this stuff around London for three or four days, then I went back to meet with the whole band, and it was really intense. It was me and these five guys, and four of them hated me. It was really bad. [He laughs.] CUNNINGHAM I had a bad experience when I did "Frozen," for Madonna. I was so excited to finally have some money to do a video, then I ended up out in the desert and there was a monsoon: the equipment got rained on, the cameras broke down and I ended up having to just shoot her running around with a cloak andhope for the best in the edit room. JONZE Did you cry? CUNNINGHAM I couldn't get out of bed for about a month afterward. SANNEH As you went through old videos to put these DVD's together, were there certain things you were proud of or embarrassed about? JONZE Well, shooting the Pharcyde video, "Drop," part of the fun was how seriously they took it. We reversed the song and shot the video backward, so we transcribed this abstract gibberish, and they had to learn it. I loved that band, and we'd just spend days hanging out, rehearsing. And then there's some stuff that just looks really amateur, though I kind of like it. I did a video for MC 900 Foot Jesus where he's in a box. I really thought I was doing the Coen brothers, I thought I was like it was going to be this amazing production. But it wasn't - it was, like, super-amateur. SANNEH Are any of you working on music videos now? CUNNINGHAM I'm making a bunch of short videos for my own music. I got to the point where most of the ideas I had were so specific that I couldn't use any of them. It's quite frightening, really. I've become so intolerant that I'm almost unable to collaborate. GONDRY What if your idea is bad? CUNNINGHAM Well, more than likely I've done loads of bad ideas already. GONDRY And what's worse? Getting influenced to do something that you end up not liking? Or refusing to collaborate, and still ending up with something you don't like? I guess I'd prefer the second one, because at least you blame yourself. JONZE Me too. I'd rather blame myself for having a bad idea than blame myself for doubting my own ideas. http://www.nytimes.com/2003/08/17/arts/music/17SANN.html?ex=1062424664&ei=1&en=b722f5210fcbdcb7 --------------------------------- Get Home Delivery of The New York Times Newspaper. Imagine reading The New York Times any time & anywhere you like! Leisurely catch up on events & expand your horizons. Enjoy now for 50% off Home Delivery! Click here: http://www.nytimes.com/ads/nytcirc/index.html HOW TO ADVERTISE --------------------------------- For information on advertising in e-mail newsletters or other creative advertising opportunities with The New York Times on the Web, please contact onlinesales@nytimes.com or visit our online media kit at http://www.nytimes.com/adinfo For general information about NYTimes.com, write to help@nytimes.com. Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company From tedf at gsu.edu Wed Aug 20 21:27:06 2003 From: tedf at gsu.edu (tedf@gsu.edu) Date: Wed Aug 20 20:27:13 2003 Subject: [Tedlog] NYTimes.com Article: When Fans of Pricey Video Art Can Get It Free Message-ID: <20030821002706.0C1C384BA@web39t.prvt.nytimes.com> This article from NYTimes.com has been sent to you by tedf@gsu.edu. /-------------------- advertisement -----------------------\ Explore more of Starbucks at Starbucks.com. http://www.starbucks.com/default.asp?ci=1015 \----------------------------------------------------------/ When Fans of Pricey Video Art Can Get It Free August 17, 2003 By GREG ALLEN MATTHEW BARNEY had long since captured the attention of art world insiders, but this year he was catapulted into mainstream cultural awareness, largely by "The Cremaster Cycle," his spectacular five-film opus. At the Guggenheim Museum last spring, over 300,000 people came to see a huge exhibition of his work, including a continuous display of his videos. The final and most elaborate of his films, "Cremaster 3," screened at this year's Sundance Film Festival. Palm Pictures is currently releasing the entire seven-hour-plus cycle in movie theaters around the country. Not so long ago, the idea that video could be a medium for artistic expression was radical fringe; today, as Mr. Barney's success shows, it has become conventional cultural wisdom. And so, increasingly, is the idea that video, along with film, animation, and slide-based work, can be sold in the same exclusive manner as painting and sculpture. Through the Barbara Gladstone Gallery, Mr. Barney sold each "Cremaster" film in a limited edition of 10, numbered and encased in table-size vitrines. These pieces have since sold at auction for as much as $387,500. Other emerging stars like Pipilotti Rist, the Swiss installation artist, or Pierre Huyghe, the French recipient of the 2002 Hugo Boss Award, also now command five- and six-figure prices for their video work. But while artists and dealers are limiting the supply of videos, and placing them in the private homes of wealthy patrons, a new breed of collector has staged a quiet revolt. These aren't the people who keep auction prices afloat, or whose lavish support turns struggling newcomers into art-world celebrities. Instead, these are journalists, gallery staffers, professors and art students who trade bootleg copies of the coveted videos - just as Napster users did with MP3 files. Because digital technology makes these bootlegs so easy to duplicate and distribute, and because they are so close to the "original" editions sold in galleries, they pose an intriguing challenge to the authenticity on which art's value is traditionally based. Bootlegs might be made from promotional copies sent out by galleries to critics, curators and potential buyers, or by artists in search of a gallery. "Long before the `Cremaster Cycle,' Matthew Barney provided VHS copies of his works for `private use' to those closely involved in the productions," recalls Jade Dellinger, a curator and friend of the artist, by e-mail. "In at least one instance, a former assistant-crew member distributed some copies (of his copies), and has not worked for Matthew since." Sometimes collectors who have bought the videos at full price have even discreetly passed unauthorized copies to fellow enthusiasts. Even if it's for love and not money, though, copying and distributing work without the artist's permission is against the law. "Whether it is video or a painting, the principle is the same: artists own and control the copyright to their work," explains Dr. Theodore Feder, president of the Artists Rights Society, which manages and monitors copyrights for artists. None of these underground traders have been prosecuted - yet - but the music industry's recent legal pursuit of online file swappers prompts most traders to keep a low profile. Nevertheless, Chris Hughes, a 25-year-old artist and self-taught video art expert, has put his entire catalog online, at www.freehomepages.com/crhughes/. With 1,500 works, representing early pioneers like Vito Acconci and Yoko Ono as well as current stars like Mr. Huyghe, Douglas Gordon and Gillian Wearing, the breadth of Mr. Hughes's collection rivals those of many museums. The difference, however, is that he got almost all of it through unsanctioned trading. Mr. Hughes knows that his hobby isn't exactly prudent, but argues that it's in keeping with the spirit of video art, if not the letter of the law. "Video art specifically arose out of a desire to create an immediately accessible, infinitely reproducible art form," he explains via e-mail. "The viral quality of video is essential to the nature of its artistic use." He says he meets his sources on the annual circuit of art fairs, or they find his Web site deep in the Google results for some obscure title. Whatever their background, though, he says they have one thing in common: they request the "Cremaster" films above all others. "Hands down," he says. "I must get half a dozen requests a week for those." The fact that the Barbara Gladstone Gallery never sends out promotional copies is one reason the bootlegs are so scarce; so, presumably, is the high cost of the originals. Mr. Hughes had managed to scare up high-quality copies of the first four films, but he's not satisfied with the quality of his copy of "Cremaster 3." He has spent nearly a year patiently working his connections, so far in vain, to locate a DVD-quality copy to complete his set. In its earliest days, video art had little market value. Few people knew about it, and fewer still thought it could be collected. "Back then," notes Barbara London, associate curator of video at the Museum of Modern Art, "video was as intangible as performance art." When the art dealer Leo Castelli showed projected film works by four sculptors (Richard Serra, Bruce Nauman, Bob Morris and Robert Smithson) at his inaugural exhibit in 1971, Ms. London continues, "Leo distributed their tapes as `unlimited editions' for around $250. This was affordable to museums, public libraries, art schools and young collectors." The point was to make broader audiences aware of the emerging medium, and it worked. As dealers and collectors became interested, however, the inexpensive, unlimited tapes were transformed to very limited, valuable art objects. But some critics - even some video artists themselves - have argued that such a business model, useful in the sale of prints, cast sculptures and photography, is meaningless for video. "For videos, editions are fake," says Pierre Huyghe, in a comment seemingly designed to alarm his dealer. "When Rodin could only cast three sculptures of a nude before the mold lost its sharpness, it made sense. But all my works are on my hard drive, in ones and zeros." His dealer, Marian Goodman, has nonetheless sold certified copies of Mr. Huyghe's videos for prices estimated in the high five figures. Artists have the same right as anyone else to make a living, she points out, and limited editions represent a "logical, established tradition" which makes that possible. Most of the people who trade bootleg videos wouldn't be able to afford the real thing, so just how directly their activities diminish artists' profits is hard to calculate. But indisputably they diminish the control that artists are able to exert over how and where their work is seen. Consider Steve McQueen, for example, who values the all-encompassing sensory experience of his video installations so much, he resists all attempts to screen his work on a monitor. So far, Mr. Hughes says, that guarded approach has kept Mr. McQueen's works out of traders' hands. But it may be only a matter of time until the first bootlegs appear, and then they could even be viewed on a laptop. Loss of control can also yield fortuitous results, however, by allowing video artists to experiment with one another's work in much the same way that musicians sample and remix one another's songs. (Because the experiments are artistic projects in their own right, they may not violate copyright law.) In an editing tour de force, the Swiss artist Christian Marclay combined over 600 sound and film clips from over a hundred classic movies to create an intense, 15-minute musical composition, synchronized over four 10-foot screens. In preparing the work, which was commissioned by SFMOMA and the Grand Museum of Luxembourg, and exhibited in New York at the Paula Cooper Gallery, Mr. Marclay didn't bother to pursue the rights to any of those films. Instead he pulled freely and without permission from whatever movie tapes or DVD's he could lay his hands on. And a young Baltimore video artist, Jon Routson, whose work explores bootlegging itself, has tackled Matthew Barney's work head-on. In April at New York's Team Gallery, Mr. Routson showed his "made for TV" version of "Cremaster 4." He cut a grainy VHS bootleg of Mr. Barney's 45-minute film down to 22 minutes, dropped in actual commercials, compressed the end credits and even floated ABC's logo in the lower corner of the screen. The result: a hilarious, smart, and brazen work, which drew critical praise and which may be a sign of things to come. A few artists of the current generation have even begun to experiment, once again, with making their work available in unlimited editions. In explaining the point of "Point of View: A Contemporary DVD Anthology of the Moving Image," the New Museum of Contemporary Art, which co-produced it, says the 11-disc set "will address the growing need for accessibility to the work of some of the most important artists working in film, video and digital imagery today." Tentatively priced at $1,000, it's more expensive than "The Sopranos: Season 2" by a factor of 10 or so. Some artists are even venturing into the mass market. The Finnish artist Eija-Liisa Ahtila announced a DVD compilation that will sell in stores, not galleries. And on Aug. 26, Art House Films, a specialty distributor, will release "The Order: >From Cremaster 3," a DVD excerpt from the film, in which Mr. Barney scales the rotunda of the Guggenheim Museum. At $25, it's an inexpensive - and legal - way to watch "Cremaster" at home.   Greg Allen is director and publisher of Greg.org, a Web site about filmmaking. http://www.nytimes.com/2003/08/17/arts/design/17ALLE.html?ex=1062425625&ei=1&en=2b3659cfc8b89761 --------------------------------- Get Home Delivery of The New York Times Newspaper. Imagine reading The New York Times any time & anywhere you like! Leisurely catch up on events & expand your horizons. Enjoy now for 50% off Home Delivery! Click here: http://www.nytimes.com/ads/nytcirc/index.html HOW TO ADVERTISE --------------------------------- For information on advertising in e-mail newsletters or other creative advertising opportunities with The New York Times on the Web, please contact onlinesales@nytimes.com or visit our online media kit at http://www.nytimes.com/adinfo For general information about NYTimes.com, write to help@nytimes.com. Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company From ted at tedfriedman.com Thu Aug 21 16:54:03 2003 From: ted at tedfriedman.com (Ted Friedman) Date: Thu Aug 21 15:56:05 2003 Subject: [Tedlog] FW: BuffyFest San Diego: Discourse on Buffy the Vampire Slayer (8/30/03; 10/11/03) Message-ID: <200308211956.h7LJu3F09616@mailbox.gsu.edu> -----Original Message----- From: owner-cfp@dept.english.upenn.edu [mailto:owner-cfp@dept.english.upenn.edu] On Behalf Of seth taylor Sent: Wednesday, July 23, 2003 3:37 PM To: cfp@english.upenn.edu Subject: CFP: BuffyFest San Diego: Discourse on Buffy the Vampire Slayer (8/30/03; 10/11/03) Proposals are currently being accepted for BuffyFest 2003, San Diego's first conference devoted to a celebration of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. The conference's aim is to celebrate the social/cultural impact of BtVS and Angel in both academic and non-academic contexts through workshops, panels, discussion groups and special events. All manner of presentations are welcome: critical discourse, essays/articles, pop culture commentary, even fan fiction. This is a non-academic conference with academic leanings: range of the conference itself will be shaped by diversity of submissions received. No limit to contexts, as long as the focus is Buffy-centric: we are interested in any presentations offering critical/literary readings of Buffy as a text as well as discussions grounded in areas of study (women's studies, linguistics, ethics/religion/philosophy, psychology, sociology, media analysis, etc.). Most importantly, our goal is to celebrate an enduring piece of culture. We are looking for a well-rounded conference that both teaches and entertains. Admission will be charged for the event itself and 100% of the net proceeds will be donated to charities supporting strong-woman causes. Event scheduled for October 11, 2003. Visit our web site, www.buffyfest.com, to learn more about conference details and submission guidelines. Deadline: Aug. 30, 2003. Send synopsis, abstract or entire discourse to info@buffyfest.com. =============================================== From the Literary Calls for Papers Mailing List CFP@english.upenn.edu Full Information at http://www.english.upenn.edu/CFP/ or write Erika Lin: elin@english.upenn.edu =============================================== From ted at tedfriedman.com Thu Aug 21 20:21:53 2003 From: ted at tedfriedman.com (Ted Friedman) Date: Thu Aug 21 19:23:56 2003 Subject: [Tedlog] How to Protect Yourself from the "Sobig" Virus Message-ID: <200308212323.h7LNNqF13315@mailbox.gsu.edu> Hi Everybody - If you're like me, you've been getting dozens of virus-generated emails all day. Some of you may even think I'm the source, since the virus "spoofs" the "From:" line of the emails it sends, picking names at random out of the unsuspecting real source's address book. It then spams emails to everybody in the source's address book. (I'm pretty sure I'm not the source, at least according to my own anti-virus software.) If you have anti-virus software, be sure to run it. If you get an unsolicited email attachment, definitely don't open it. If you don't have virus software, or want to make sure your software's covering the problem, you can find out more info at: http://us.mcafee.com/virusInfo/default.asp?id=helpCenter &hcName=sobig The page includes links to a special free download, "Stinger," designed specifically to delete the virus, as well as instructions on how to manually determine if you have the virus, and how to manually delete it. -- Ted -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailbox.gsu.edu/pipermail/tedlog/attachments/20030821/9b0e6ed6/attachment.htm From ted at tedfriedman.com Thu Aug 21 20:59:16 2003 From: ted at tedfriedman.com (Ted Friedman) Date: Thu Aug 21 20:01:47 2003 Subject: [Tedlog] FW: [cultstud] August Newsletter Correction Message-ID: <200308220001.h7M01jF13978@mailbox.gsu.edu> This is the most entertaining apology I've received in a while - check out the part on Yom Kippur . . . _____ From: Your Friends At Evite [mailto:noreply@newsletter.evite.com] Sent: Thursday, August 21, 2003 7:43 PM To: cultstud@yahoogroups.com Subject: [cultstud] August Newsletter Correction Dear Evite Newsletter Subscriber, Yesterday we mailed a newsletter to our subscribers with incorrect dates for three important Holidays. Please accept our sincerest apologies for these errors and note the following corrections: Labor Day, September 1st Rosh Hashanah, September 27th Yom Kippur, October 6th In addition, we also wish to apologize for having listed Yom Kippur as one of our "Reasons To Party". We understand and respect that Yom Kippur is a Day of Atonement, a day to be taken seriously to reflect and fast, and as such, one of the most important Jewish Holidays in the year. Again we deeply apologize for the error and thank you for allowing us to make this correction. Very Best, The Evite Team Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ADVERTISEMENT click here To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: cultstud-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the Yahoo! Terms of Service . -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailbox.gsu.edu/pipermail/tedlog/attachments/20030821/07d174d0/attachment.htm From ted at tedfriedman.com Thu Aug 21 21:05:54 2003 From: ted at tedfriedman.com (Ted Friedman) Date: Thu Aug 21 20:07:55 2003 Subject: [Tedlog] FW: Post Identity: Identifying New Media (9/30/03; journal issue) Message-ID: <200308220007.h7M07rF14091@mailbox.gsu.edu> -----Original Message----- From: owner-cfp@dept.english.upenn.edu [mailto:owner-cfp@dept.english.upenn.edu] On Behalf Of Rosemary Weatherston Sent: Sunday, July 06, 2003 5:42 AM To: cfp@english.upenn.edu Subject: CFP: Post Identity: Identifying New Media (9/30/03; journal issue) Post Identity, a national, fully-refereed journal of the humanities, publishes scholarship that problematizes the narratives underlying individual, social, and cultural identity formations; that investigates the relationship between identity formations and texts; and that argues how such formations can be challenged. Increasingly we, our contributors, and our readers are finding that the most powerful of these cultural formations and their most provocative critical challenges are combining text, images, and sound: we use to watch films; we now consume DVD assemblages of multiple cuts, interviews, and games. We use to only print our work; we now are publishing web sites that embed that work in multimedia settings. In response to these cultural and disciplinary changes, Post Identity has partnered with the University of Michigan's Scholarly Publishing Office to transform itself into an audio-, graphic-, and video-enhanced web-based journal that can make available the new forms and subjects of contemporary critiques of identity, as well as more traditional text-based scholarship. The theme for our Winter 2003 special issue is "Identifying New Media." We are looking for submissions that theorize how new media forms (DVDs; e-books; Internet blogs, digital archives, interactive gaming; etc.) are changing cultural and academic understandings of identity and authorship, and/or how new media might provide models for new forms of scholarship. We especially are interested in experimental work that performs its theory, such as essays or projects that offer alternative models to the standard academic essay. We are interested in the relationship between the form and content of academic discourse, and the ways in which this discourse might evolve in light of the new media scene. We invite the immediate submission of 300-word abstracts of essays and other academic projects on this theme. We encourage submissions from a variety of theoretical perspectives and from all disciplines for which the critique of identity is of vital and central concern. Final essays/projects should fall within the range of 3,000 to 10,000 words and will be due September 30, 2003. Please submit abstracts to Professor Rosemary Weatherston at weatherr@udmercy.edu. Past print issues of Post Identity are available until September 2003 at http://liberalarts.udmercy.edu/pi/. The new web-based format of PI is under construction at http://www.hti.umich.edu/p/postid/. Editorial Board Houston A. Baker, Jr. . M. Keith Booker . Sung-sheng Yvonne Chang . Benjamin Click . Anne DeWindt . Edwin DeWindt . S. E. Gontarski . Arnold Krupat . Luis Leal . Wayne Lesser . Paul Lorenz . Lev Manovich . Carla Mulford . Judith Roof . Werner Sollors . Molly Abel Travis . James D. Wallace . Jeffrey A. Weinstock . Christina Zwarg Professor Rosemary Weatherston Department of English University of Detroit Mercy 4001 W. McNichols Road P.O. Box 19900 Detroit, MI 48219-0900 Phone: 313/993-1083 Fax: 313/993-1166 =============================================== From the Literary Calls for Papers Mailing List CFP@english.upenn.edu Full Information at http://www.english.upenn.edu/CFP/ or write Erika Lin: elin@english.upenn.edu =============================================== From ted at tedfriedman.com Fri Aug 22 00:05:08 2003 From: ted at tedfriedman.com (ted@tedfriedman.com) Date: Thu Aug 21 23:05:13 2003 Subject: [Tedlog] Chronicle article: If You Must Go to Grad School ... Message-ID: <20030822030508.1D09938517@wwwmail.chronicle.com> This article from The Chronicle of Higher Education (http://chronicle.com) was forwarded to you from: ted@tedfriedman.com _________________________________________________________________ This article is available online at this address: http://chronicle.com/weekly/v49/i45/45c00301.htm - The text of the article is below - _________________________________________________________________ Finding it hard to keep up with all that's happening in academe? The Chronicle's e-mailed Daily Report keeps you up-to-date in a matter of minutes by quickly summarizing current events in higher education while providing links to complete coverage on our subscriber-only Web site. The Daily Report and Web access come with your Chronicle subscription at no extra cost. Order your subscription now at http://chronicle.com/4free?es _________________________________________________________________ From the issue dated 7/18/2003 If You Must Go to Grad School ... By THOMAS H. BENTON In my previous column, "So You Want to Go to Grad School?" I tried to explain why I discourage students from considering graduate school in the humanities (The Chronicle, June 6). I believe that most would not choose to go if they were properly informed about the risks (the most notable of which is a strong probability of never landing a tenure-track job). Still, I have a mournful affection for students who remain confident of their ability to beat the odds. The young feel invincible and full of potential. And many universities view their naivete and energy as an exploitable resource. The majority of graduate students exist to provide cheap labor for undesirable undergraduate courses and students for high-prestige graduate programs taught by tenured professors. It seems like the undergraduates are the only ones who don't know this, and they get angry when you tell them. But any student who is discouraged by these warnings probably lacks the determination and psychological resilience to make it through the process. The best that one can do with the students who are informed and determined is to give them the advice I wish I had when I made my decision: Do not pay for graduate school. Not even if it is the best program in your field. Do not accept future promises (for example, a job) instead of fair payment in the present. Steady employment in academe after graduation is so unlikely that you should treat grad school as a job in itself rather than as career training. Given the low wages typically earned by Ph.D.'s in the humanities (even on the tenure track, starting salaries are around 40K), you should try to graduate without debts. Apply to a lot of universities. Between 10 and 15 is a manageable target if you are serious. Plan on spending around $1,000. Diversify your applications to include many different kinds of universities. Don't limit your applications to the top 20; there are some excellent departments at mediocre universities (and some mediocre departments at excellent universities). Regional institutions can have local networks that are more useful than the diffuse national networks of the famous universities. Consider the department's individual faculty members: Is there anyone with whom you would particularly like to work? Ask your academic advisers, but trust your own instincts as well. Use multiple acceptances to leverage a better package. Almost everything is negotiable for a good student who has been accepted by more than one graduate school. Call the department head first. Be sure to get everything in writing, and keep your eyes open for bait-and-switch money scenarios that can leave you stranded two years into the program with nothing to depend on but uncertain teaching fellowships. Remember that stipends go further in rural locations than in major urban centers. Imagine what it's like to live in New York or Boston on $12,000 a year. Research like your life depends on it. Do not select a graduate school solely on the basis of your financial package. Once you have a plausible offer, you have to find out whether it is worth accepting. A lot of work can be done on a computer or at the library, but the most crucial information is never written. You need to make phone calls and visit the campus to talk with the students and faculty members off the record. This may be the most important research project you will ever undertake, and there are several components that deserve (but do not always get) careful scrutiny: Background information: You should have gathered some of this before sending an application, but once you get a letter of admission, you should be motivated to gather more. The promotional literature and Web sites of universities are good places to find basic information (degree requirements, names of faculty members), but do not rely on what institutions say about themselves. Search online for information about the university, the department, and individual professors. You may be surprised to find out how much a university has to hide from its applicants: graduate-student strikes, controversial tenure decisions, gender-discrimination suits, public battles by faculty prima donnas. These are all very bad signs. Graduate-student culture: A high attrition rate is a sign of a dysfunctional department, but it is considered normal for 65 to 70 percent of grad students in English to leave before they finish their degree. Other fields in the humanities are probably not much better. You can ask about retention rates, but you are not likely to get a straight answer from anyone in authority. Obviously, you should talk with current students, but also try to speak with a few students who left the department. Take one or two to lunch; get them talking. Did they leave over money issues, a toxic departmental culture, anticipation of their poor employment prospects