Feed

  • Twitter

    I logged in the first time soon after it started in 2007. I did my ten years and then mostly logged off by 2017. I’m not likely to start using it again regularly although I still use it occasionally as a people bookmarking service of sorts. I logged in last week to get an ‘archive’ of all of my data and publish it elsewhere1,2.  I tweeted 828 times and based on the IDs in the data, I’m guessing that I was the 950,535th person to ever tweet. The process felt achingly familiar3. I’ve had some discussions with others about it recently and it reminds me to think about how I use the web. Per the course… I like to flush it out, write it down, and publish it so I can send a link instead of hashing it out in an email or text thread.

    Twitter was built as a MicroBlogging service. Microblogging as a type of broadcast medium was the forerunner to social networking platforms. Social networking existed from the moment the first network computer connections were made. Twitter had a good name and was the best breed of something not unique amongst the landscape at the time. The fundamentals of Twitter already existed elsewhere. The Twitter idea originated from Odeo4,5, a podcasting company. It was just a means of having an SMS group chat.  Evan Williams created Blogger which was sold to Google and was the basis of the ideas behind both podcasting and blogging. Before Twitter, social media meant connecting with others online primarily through email and RSS, both of which could be read from the same client and in a browser. Some folks worked out unique ways to notify others via email for pingbacks and trackbacks6. I was a fan of Friendfeed because it supported pulling feeds from various sources. Facebook acquired it for $15 million and shut it down7.  Similarly, Pump.io, StatusNet, and identi.ca were using the open-source Activity Streams format which was a precursor to the ‘Fediverse’ or federated social network terms tossed around today. 

    Inter-Net-work….the web was inherently social long before the media part. In Silicon Valley’s race to capitalize, proprietary methodologies were created because open standards hinder income potential. Even the data archive I got from Twitter last week isn’t exactly portable. The WC3, who sets the standards has recommended Web Mentions, Activity Streams, and Activity Pub9 standards which is the protocol that makes Mastodon federated. I migrated most of my Twitter follows over to Mastadon while I was at it last week. Watching the other platforms pivot to gain new users is amusing. Substack has added ‘mentions’, ’cross-posts’, and ‘best seller’ badges10. Tumblr rolled out a $7 badge and the owner insisted they would be implementing the activitypub specification which I noted appropriately11. I’m sure folks will figure out a way to spam those protocols too as long as there is a way to profit from them. Twitter turned to bots after it gained popularity and the account APIs were introduced. The bot, spam, link farms, etc were online long before Twitter too.

    Elon Musk recently tweeted “Vox Populi, Vox Dei” likely in reference to his surveys on reinstating previously banned accounts. It translates to the “Voice of the People is the Voice of God”,  but the full context of the most cited reference to that term is:

    Nec audiendi qui solent dicere, Vox populi, vox Dei, quum tumultuositas vulgi semper insaniae proxima sit.  “ And those people should not be listened to who keep saying the voice of the people is the voice of God since the riotousness of the crowd is always very close to madness. 

    ~ Alcuin in his letters to Charlamagne Epistle 127 in 760AD12.

    The riotousness of the crowd is Twitter. And Twitter is just a bellwether for the internet as a whole as we adapt to new communications mediums. Those first couple of years were just techie types tweeting because those were most of the same folks with websites.  Then came the journalists, media, celebrities, publishers, and internet celebrities. Then everyone’s uncle had it installed on their phone.  When those other folks started rambling on about their other interests, I lost interest. And then they started to monetize it all with adverts, tracking users across the web, and rewriting shared URLs so they could track those too.  The most retweeted thing ever was a pyramid scheme offering a reward for retweets. The web was already decentralized and will likely always be outside some platforms’ walled gardens. I just hope that the efforts to improve the open standards aren’t sabotaged by private interests.

    I’m sure in the coming year we’ll end up hearing a lot more on free speech and social media. I have a very simple minded approach to it which I wrote about pretty extensively in my article on Section 23013. I think that you’re welcome to espouse your opinions, ideas, or theories however you’d like but not entirely without consequence if they are damanging to others. I think that the main product of social media platforms, aside from usability, is sorting and moderating that information so that it’s vaulable to it’s end users. A platform like Twitter is a private company and can make itself reponsible for moderation however it best see’s fit to it’s own business model. And likewise, I can excersize my own liberty to not pay it any attention.

    I’d use social media again if I had something to promote and I suppose I’m lucky not to have the need. Former Twitter CEO Evan Williams apologized saying he was “wrong to think that an open platform where people could speak freely would make the world a better place”.  I wouldn’t completely agree with him on that because I believe there have been some good things gained through social networking platforms.  I read an essay recently fed to me, not via social media but my handy dandy good ole’ fashion hosted RSS reader…  entitled A Tweet Before Dying that said “What then? We’ll all move over to some Twitter replacement like Mastodon, hundreds of millions of us, and ruin that too? Sigh.”13. Other than echoing my sentiments here, whatever happens with Twitter means very little to me because I choose to rely not on the platform itself but on the interoperable standards of the internet which were social from the get go. 

    2022/12/03 Update:

    Right on Cue… Matt Taibbi, the investigative journalist published a series of tweets he’s calling the Twitter Files15 yesterday afternoon looking into the content moderation efforts of Twitter during the last election. Main takeaway for me was the fact that, imagine this… people are sending emails around requesting removals and questioning various policies. Sometimes just having an audience has it’s own consequences.

    2025/11/15 Update:

    The thing is… all this new reporting on foreign spam accounts seems so obvious to me, I can’t even really understand how it’s news other than the fact that they added the ‘about this account’ features showing country of origin16. The new reporting did kinda touch on something I hinted at here and that America’s Polarization Has Become the World’s Side Hustle17. Perhaps I’ll log in again and leave this as my only ‘tweet’ since I previously deleted all of the others… na, ole Space Karen isn’t getting any eyeballs from me.

    1. @windhamdavid tweets – https://davidwindham.com/til/lists/tweets 
    2. @windhamdavid follows – https://davidwindham.com/til/lists/people#i-follow-on-twitter
    3. Windham, D. 2020. Dirty Algorithm – https://davidwindham.com/dirty-algorithm/
    4. Odeo – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Odeo
    5. Twitter History – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twitter#History 
    6. Pingback https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pingback
    7. FriendFeed – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FriendFeed 
    8. Silicon Valley – S3E10 – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silicon_Valley_(TV_series)
    9. W3C Social Web Protocols- https://www.w3.org/TR/social-web-protocols/ 
    10. Substack – https://on.substack.com/p/introducing-mentions-and-cross-posts
    11. Tumblr –https://windhamdavid.tumblr.com/
    12. Alcuin – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcuin
    13. Windham, D. 2021. Section 230 – https://davidwindham.com/section-230/
    14. Ford, P. 2022. A Tweet Before Dying – https://www.wired.com/story/tweet-dying-revolutionary-internet/
    15. Taibbi, M. 2022. The Twitter Files – https://twitter.com/mtaibbi/status/1598822959866683394
    16. Elon Musk’s Worthless, Poisoned Hall of Mirrors – https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/2025/11/x-about-this-account/685042/
    17. America’s Polarization Has Become the World’s Side Hustle – https://www.404media.co/americas-polarization-has-become-the-worlds-side-hustle

  • David Byrne

    I went to see David Byrne in Asheville a couple weeks ago. We were in the first rows and the audience started following the performers dance moves. It was like being in some sorta intimate line dance with the band. It was stellar. Watching him perform is more akin to watching a preacher than a rock musician. I’ve had a long held fascination with David Byrne and I think it began in August of 1981 when MTV first went on the air and I saw this video.

    I would have been just under 10 years old the first time I saw the video, but I remember quite vividly the debut of MTV on our console television in the living room. MTV aired a bunch of the same videos1 over and over, but none of them grabbed my attention the way Once In A Lifetime by the Talking Heads2 did. In retrospect, I believe the innovative use of film editing was just the product of the art school background of the Talking Heads band members. At that age, I didn’t really understand the meaning of the lyrics and it was only the motion that intrigued me. Regardless, the song reappeared in a 1989 film entitled Down and Out In Beverly Hills3, which gave me a bit of insight into the meaning of it. The theme of the film kinda nailed the existential crisis of the song lyrics. About that same time (1989) I owned exactly two concert films on VHS: The Song Remains the Same by Led Zepplin and Stop Making Sense by the Talking Heads4. Both of which are two of my all time favorite concert films. I bought up about every Talking Heads and David Byrne CDs I could get my hands on. And I played them non-stop. I had a couple friends who also enjoyed them, but they were few and far between.

    Skip ahead fifteen years or so, when I met my wife in college. Two things really stood out about our first date from my other gal pals. The first is that she had a really good sense of humor, not just the giggle type, but the dark and cynical gut rolling humor I like. The second thing is that she really liked the David Byrne and Talking Heads. It wasn’t just the ‘oh yeah, they’re cool’ type of like. She knew all of the lyrics to most of the songs and understood them. The first birthday gift I ever bought her was a talking heads CD box set. We played that thing out on every trip we took. I’ve since read How Music Works6 and followed about every recording project, film, or book he’s been involved with. I’m also particularly fond of his internet radio station7 because of the way he curates the playlists. I can’t say there is anything he’s created that I don’t like. I am particularly fond of a couple though… the film True Stories, Look Into the Eyeball, and Uh-Oh. I also really like the soundtrack to The Last Emperor and it was nice seeing him play himself on the Simpsons Dude, Where’s My Ranch? and in This Must Be the Place.

    Neither of us have ever seen David Byrne in concert. I bought the tickets as soon as they went on sale and put us in the second row. As with what has been noted the style of that original video in that he studied archive footage of “preachers, evangelists, people in trances, African tribes, Japanese religious sects” to see how he could incorporate them into his performance… the live performance we watched wasn’t too far off. The way he engaged the audience wasn’t that of a rock star, but of an evangelist. Because the set design was so simple and the accompanying band members engaged in a rehearsed synchronized dance routine, the first ten rows of the auditorium were completely engaged in the performance. Him and his crew were working hard breaking a sweat, and had obviously spent countless hours rehearsing the material and choreography. Like I said… it was top notch. We already knew the lyrics to the new album so we listened to the Imelda Marcos inspired musical Here Lies Love5 written by Byrne on the way up, while Ginny researched the Marcos’ real life. On the way back we listened to Brian Eno. I’d give the American Utopia concert a 10/10. And I give David a 10/10 on being an artist and a decent human being.

    Here’s the setlist for the show (Asheville, NC – May 8th, 2018):
    Here – Lazy- I Zimbra (Talking Heads) – Slippery People (Talking Heads) – I Should Watch TV (David Byrne & St. Vincent) – Dog’s Mind – Everybody’s Coming to My House – This Must Be the Place (Naive Melody) (Talking Heads) – Once In a Lifetime (Talking Heads) – Doing the Right Thing – Toe Jam (Brighton Port Authority) – Born Under Punches (The Heat Goes On)(Talking Heads) – I Dance Like This – Bullet – Every Day Is a Miracle – Like Humans Do – Blind (Talking Heads) – Burning Down the House (Talking Heads) – Encore: Dancing Together – The Great Curve (Talking Heads) – Hell You Talmbout (Janelle Monáe)

    25/12/04 Update: We saw David again last night in Atlanta for the Who Is the Sky? tour8. The thing is I’ve seen a lot of concerts in my lifetime and it’s definitely different. David takes a bunch of highly trained dancers, musicians, and vocalists and puts em through their paces in a thematic visually stunning choreographed set. He gave em what they wanted on this tour, yet the set list of songs somehow still felt like a tightly planned concept album. It’s really about him as an artist. It’s kinda hard to explain, but it’s like he’s floating up above it to steal a line from his song. He’s not rooted in any physical place or timeline even though several of the songs have very physical references. The lyricism is timeless and abstract – he blended a setlist that spans almost fifty years. Here’s the setlist:

    • Heaven ( Fear of Music )
    • Everybody Laughs ( Who Is the Sky? )
    • And She Was ( Little Creatures )
    • Strange Overtones (Brian Eno – Everything That Happens Will Happen Today )
    • Houses in Motion ( Remain in Light )
    • T Shirt ( Who Is the Sky? )
    • (Nothing but) Flowers ( Naked )
    • This Must Be the Place (Naive Melody) ( Speaking in Tongues )
    • What Is the Reason for It? ( Who Is the Sky? )
    • Like Humans Do ( Look into the Eyeball )
    • Don’t Be Like That ( Who Is the Sky? )
    • Independence Day ( Rei Momo )
    • Slippery People ( Speaking in Tongues )
    • I Met the Buddha at a Downtown Party ( Who Is the Sky? )
    • My Apartment Is My Friend ( Who Is the Sky? )
    • Hard Times ( Paramore cover )
    • Psycho Killer ( Talking Heads: 77 )
    • Life During Wartime ( Fear of Music )
    • Once in a Lifetime ( Remain in Light )
    • Everybody’s Coming to My House ( American Utopia )
    • Burning Down the House ( Speaking in Tongues )

    Anyway, you can go find the tour show reviews out there so I’m not going to sum it up. The Fox in Atlanta is wild with its mosque design. All I’ll say is if you haven’t seen a performance – it’s good – definitely worth the effort. Seeing the show is just a reminder of possibilities.

    1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_first_music_videos_aired_on_MTV
    2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Once_in_a_Lifetime_(Talking_Heads_song)
    3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Down_and_Out_in_Beverly_Hills
    4. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stop_Making_Sense
    5. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Here_Lies_Love
    6. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_Music_Works
    7. http://davidbyrne.com/radio
    8. Who Is the Sky? – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Who_Is_the_Sky%3F

  • Man from Plains

    All this talk of politics has affected my netflix lineup. Last night we watched the documentary “Man from Plains“2 about Jimmy Carter3 and his most recent book. I’ve got to say that Jonathan Demme4 is one of the better filmmakers of our time. Ever since Stop Making Sense5, a video concert of the Talking Heads was released I’ve been a fan. What I like about Demme is the unbiased and personal approach. I’ve always said of good photographers and painters whom work with portraiture that the best approach is to be as transparent as possible so as to not influence the subject in any manner. This film does just that as it documents Carter’s travels to promote his most recent and controversial book entitled Palestine Peace Not Apartheid6.

    The film gives an honest perspective on the man and his principles as Demme was obviously given good access the former president during the filming and what impressed me most was exactly how candid and emotional Carter was during the filming. He is obviously a very intelligent man in the way he handles conversation and which may also explain why he is a physicist by trade. What is controversial about the book is that Carter is trying to explain that perhaps the Palastinians have been wronged which is very bold and politically incorrect these days. But Carter does it with eloquence and good rhetoric in the face of staunch adversaries.

    After the film, I followed up with some research on Carter and his policies. What amazed me is how strong his opinions about peace and energy conservation. He actually reduced the dependence on foreign oil by half during tenure as president. He installed solar panels (which were later removed) on the white house! It’s amazing how we continue to repeat ourselves in history as I think my third grade teacher began the first history lesson i remember with that exact phrase. President Carter had some interesting approaches to energy policy that may hold in todays atmosphere.

    Don’t get me wrong…I’m not a political or economic expert, but I can tell you a good deal about the Laffer Curve7 and supply side, trickle down Reaganomics including the fact that Author Laffer and Wanninski, credited with coining the term did so over a meeting in 1974 with Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld present…so I’ll let you do your own research8. But I am a good with the study of human character and I can tell you that I am compelled to believe that Jimmy Carter is a good man with honest motives or at least the film did an excellent job of concealing anything otherwise.

    April 20, 1979, White House photo of Carter and rabbit from the Carter Library
    April 20, 1979, White House photo of Carter and rabbit from the Carter Library [1]

    I can whole heartedly recommend that you see the film for yourself. The photo above is of Carter fishing when a swimming rabbit “attacked” his boat.. lucky the secret service was there to capture it on film.

    23/12/06 – The rabbit incident came up in a conversation likely due to conflict in Gaza9. I replaced the missing photo and added the references. I didn’t replace any of the original links, correct any of the grammatical, or fix the spelling errors.

    25/01/09 – I referenced this essay in a recent conversation with friends since he passed away at age 100. He was the longest-lived president in U.S. history. I read quite a bit about him recently and I watched the service on C-Span 10 this morning. The Carter Center published a tribute site 11 that’s worth your time. I left a condolence message. The more I learn… the more I like.

    Jimmy Carter is an inspiration for a life well lived. I told my friends I’m gonna pick up some tools in his honor and to handle some carpentry work for myself and I might even go so far as start working on the solar thing. I’ve referenced the Crisis of Confidence speech12 a number of times recently and I suggest a revisit. I first picked up on it in the film 20th Century Women and rewatching it had profound affect. I sympathize with Jimmy Carter’s tough mind, soft heart mentality and I hope that his work to advance human rights and alleviate human suffering is an inspiration for generations to come14.

    1. Jimmy Carter rabbit incident – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jimmy_Carter_rabbit_incident
    2. Man From Plains – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man_from_Plains
    3. Jimmy Carter – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jimmy_Carter
    4. Jonathan Demme – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonathan_Demme
    5. Stop Making Sense – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stop_Making_Sense
    6. Palestine Peace Not Apartheid – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestine:_Peace_Not_Apartheid
    7. Laffer Curve – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laffer_curve
    8. Reaganomics – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reaganomics
    9. Israel – Hamas War – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Israel–Hamas_war
    10. President Jimmy Carter Funeral Service at National Cathedral – https://www.c-span.org/event/public-affairs-event/president-jimmy-carter-funeral-service-at-national-cathedral/429876
    11. Jimmy Carter Tribute – https://www.jimmycartertribute.org
    12. President Carter Address on Crisis of Confidence – https://www.c-span.org/program/american-history-tv/president-carter-address-on-crisis-of-confidence/154404
    13. 20th Century Women – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/20th_Century_Women
    14. Carter Center – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carter_Center

  • Gene Wilder


    I’m not exactly sure what it is that I like about Gene Wilder so much. I made a note to myself after he died last year to follow up on trying to explain it. Perhaps it started with his role as Willy Wonka. It really is just that sorta of personality… someone willing to take risks to be absurd. I liked every film role he ever played. He starred in my father’s favorite movie: Blazing Saddles. I liked all of the roles with Richard Pryor at his side, but my absolute favorite was Young Frankenstein.

    One of the most interesting things I’ve ever found out about him is why he preferred comedy. When he was about seven or eight, his mother had a heart attack and the doctor spoke with him and said “don’t ever make your mom mad because she could die. You can make her laugh though”. 1 I think that simple attitude is what carried him forward. Gene was an accomplished actor, but most importantly to me, he was a master of the comedic pause. The faces and timing he made were spot on.

    I know that he died of complications from Alzheimers, but personally I think the death of his wife Gilda Radner in 1989 is when he stopped participating in film.

    “I don’t like show business, I realized,” he explained. “I like show, but I don’t like the business.” – 2008 Turner Classic Movies special, Role Model: Gene Wilder2

    He did so few roles in the 90’s, but he wrote and painted watercolors. I’ve never read any of his books, but I think I’ll order one today. Goodbye Gene. RIP [ Jerome Silberman (June 11, 1933 – August 29, 2016) ]


    1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5B3v7OKNvp4 – 1984 Terry Wogan Interview
    2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gene_Wilder

  • My Nieces

    My nieces like to surf and skate and they sent me this video over the holidays.

  • The Simpsons

     

    I shot this video of the rain yesterday morning. It’s been raining for a couple days now. We really needed the rain. We’ve been in a drought and wild fires have been burning in the southern Appalachian mountains. Rain seems to slow everything down and I took a post-holiday break these last couple days to wind down. The reason I shot the video is that I had my tablet in my hand because I’ve recently found myself playing The Simpsons: Tapped Out quite a bit.

    tapped-out

    I’ve also been meaning to write something about The Simpsons for a long time. The game and a Thanksgiving promotion of all the episodes back to back reminded me. I’m an avid fan of The Simpsons. Always have been, ever since I watched the first episode. It started in 1987. Yup, that’s pre-Simpsons. I was 14 and at the mall with my brother and mom when I spotted School Is Hell at the book store. I guess the title piqued my interest and I bought it. The book was part of a comic strip that Matt Groening self published entitled Life is Hell. He described the comic series as “every ex-campus protester’s, every Boomer idealist’s, conception of what adult existence in the ’80s had turned out to be.”2 I read and loved that comic book. The sarcasm, wit, and dry sense of humor made it feel like something really unique to me.

    I watched the first episode of The Simpsons in 1989. I got a t-shirt with Bart on the front imprinted with the words “Underachiever. And Proud of It Man!”. It’s from season 2, episode 1 – “Bart Gets and F”. The school psychologist says “of what laymen refer to as “fear of failure.” As a result, Bart is an underachiever, and yet he seems to be proud of it.”3 It was an effort to catch all of the early shows, mind you these were pre-Tivo days and the episodes ran directly opposite of The Cosby Show, which my father had on in the living room. I actually watched the shows on this tiny black and white television I had in my bedroom. I remember trying to get my father to switch over the living room TV and him replying that he ‘just couldn’t get into animation’. I watched them all regardless and I’ve seen every episode since then for the last twenty-six years.

    Which is why I like playing this little game. They’ve taken the time to story-line every little bit of dialogue between characters. The voice track is spot on and the game cites episodes for each property. The game play is slow and could be described as city building, but It’s almost like reading a book. Every new character unlock is fun. It’s almost like playing a ‘Choose Your Own Adventure – Life is Hell‘ comic.

    simpsons_conform

    Although my classmates didn’t exactly share my enthusiasm after seeing my t-shirt in 1989, I think anyone can agree now that there is some substantive value to the show. The writing and character development are brilliant observational social commentary written and performed by a tremendous group of talented folks. The guest list is phenomenal5, and the accolades are extensive. To me, It is unquestionably one of the greatest pieces of American art and popular culture.

    You might say that The Simpsons are postmodernism, being skeptical of ideologies, acknowledging that truth is a product of a social, political, and historical systems. Here’s a screen shot I took of a recent episode Trust but Clarify which seems to indicate just that.

    simpsons3


    1) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Simpsons
    2) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_in_Hell#cite_note-Ortved-2
    3) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bart_Gets_an_%22F%22
    4) https://frinkiac.com/caption/S02E01/574247
    5) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_The_Simpsons_guest_stars

  • Make America Great Again

    (1)

    This election cycle really was a doozie this year. I had a bluff going on where I said that I bet $50,000 with 3/7 odd in Vegas on Trump. I walked with $175,000. I had my dad and some friends believing me for a couple days until I confessed I did no such thing. I generally try to steer clear of politics because I find it so divisive, but I try to be a bit civic minded on occasion and I vote. Needless to say, I’m not particularly fond of Donald Trump, but I’ll give him some time in office. My guess is that the markets will take a joy ride on ideals of deregulation, but social and global issues will be agitated by him.

    The one thing that I was a bit taken aback with the slogan he grabbed from Ronald Reagan. “The line of ‘Make America great again,’ the phrase, that was mine, I came up with it about a year ago, and I kept using it, and everybody’s now using it, they are all loving it,” Trump said in a 2015 interview. ”I don’t know, I guess I should copyright it, maybe I have copyrighted it.” As I see it, the events and things that have made this country great have nothing to do with Donald Trump. If anything he’s making a mockery out of our democracy even though we do that to ourselves because half of the US citizens didn’t even vote and the other half were perfectly split along party lines.

    I spent some time abroad and I certainly do believe in the ideals embodied by the United States of America. It truly is a great country and I believe that the ideals we need to focus on moving forward are those to accommodate our population growth, health, and economic sustainability. Even if I assume that the non voting half was split in equal portions, I’m still hopeful because the only power in our political system is human capital and each of us own that with our own behavior and our vote.

    I could go on, but here’s a video that I think appropriately expresses my feelings on the subject. It’s entitled “B Movie” and, in my opinion, perfectly reflects the sort of reality star populism we’re seeing. It’s from the Robert Mugge film Black Wax and features Gil Scott-Heron performing his song “B Movie”.

    Gil Scott-Heron performs “B Movie” from the Robert Mugge film BLACK WAX (2,3)

    2022.06.10 – I just wanted to update this post just because I watched Front Line Police on Trial4 followed by the January 6th commission5. last night. What a mess. Aside from making me sleep at little less easy, it reminded me of a couple of my previous posts6.

    1. Demagogue ( Trump ), 2016 – Shepard Fairey – https://www.artsy.net/artwork/shepard-fairey-demagogue-trump
    2. Gil Scott-Heron performs “B Movie” from the Robert Mugge film BLACK WAX – https://vimeo.com/67538277
    3. Robert Mugge – Black WAX – https://robertmugge.com/black-wax/index.html
    4. Front Line – Police on Trial – https://www.pbs.org/video/police-on-trial-bhhadi/
    5. U.S. House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_House_Select_Committee_on_the_January_6_Attack
    6. David Windham – People of Trump – https://davidwindham.com/people-of-trump/

  • Autumn

    We’ve had a relatively warm autumn this year, but the leaves are finally starting to change color and drop.
    Autumn front yard
    Autumn back yard
    Orang

  • E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial

    I have this folder I keep on my computers that I drop random notes and files in. This video was from a documentary show I was watching some time back. I don’t even remember the name of the show now. Looks like Independent Lens… anyway, I noticed this t-shirt in the background of a shot. I did a double take and rewound the show to see it again. It’s odd … take a look:

     

    This shirt is a curiosity to me. I went looking for it online without success. Regardless, the juxtaposition of The extra-terrestrial peering out behind the woods and a big buck makes me wonder exactly who would design such a shirt and for what reason. Although I seem to remember a lot of E.T. shirts from the early eighties, I’m pretty sure this one wasn’t licensed promotional material made at a later date. I find the relationship to the big buck odd and the fact that E.T. has such an influence on popular culture.

    I rewatched E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial not too long ago and I caught the second half again this week likely because of the Halloween holiday. It had been twenty some years since I’ve seen it and what I’ve noticed that I often interpret films much differently than I did watching them as a child. I’ve often run across contemporary reviews of films that I’ve seen in the past and I like the serious minded type of reviews that dig deep into the script and symbolism. Sometimes now I like to do a bit of reading before or after I watch an old film.

    E.T. and Elliot

    As things so often happen, E.T started as an personal experience. It became a film somewhat by coincidence. Melissa Mathison co-wrote the screenplay with Steven Spielberg. Mathison dropped out of Berkeley because Francis Ford Coppola, whom she babysat his children, offered her a job1.. Spielberg told her a personal story of an imaginary alien friend during the filming of Raiders of the Lost Ark. After his parents’ divorce in 1960, Spielberg filled the void with an imaginary alien companion. He had originally scripted the child as autistic and he said that the imaginary alien was “a friend who could be the brother I never had and a father that I didn’t feel I had anymore.”2. Watching it in 1982 seemed like another fictional fantastic adventure to me. I hadn’t really noticed any of the subtle themes in the film and had absolutely no idea of the personal connection with the film maker. As I watched it recently, I noticed. Elliot and E.T. are both alienated and I felt a bit more attached to the reality of the film. It is personal experience that makes compelling art. I often stumble upon contemporary media reviews that I find fascinating and nowadays I like to look for the sublime in works I had previously overlooked.

    E.T. Adam

    Reviews have pointing out the spiritual symbolism and compared the film to other works of mystical imagination such as Peter Pan and The Wizard of Oz. E.T. cannot survive physically on Earth, as Pan could not survive emotionally in Neverland; government scientists take the place of Neverland’s pirates. Or how about E.T.’s story as religious symbolism with crucifixion by military science and resurrection by faith. Even the movie poster is a take on Michelangelo’s The Creation of Adam. Spielberg received the Peace Medal from the United Nations for the films message of tolerance. There is certainly a reason that it’s one of the acclaimed films of all time.

    After seeing it again with a broader perspective, I’d certainly give it two thumbs up. More importantly, films like these have become a slight part of who I am. The film has become part of my pop mythology and I would cast Spielberg as the perfect suburban wizard. I’d surmise that it’s become part of the collective conscience and further emphasized the impact of personal experience in doing so. Perhaps that’s why I made the effort to keep that little video clip on my computer. The t-shirt in the video has E.T. lurking in the woods. Was the subtle intent was to portray this extra terrestrial as another creature of the forest to be hunted? Was the t-shirt artist just fascinated, like me, of the various themes involved in the film or just the idea of extra-terrestrials? Or maybe the fella just picked up the shirt because, not unlike myself, he felt fascinated by and connected to the personal message of decency in E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial.

     

     

     

    1. Wikipedia contributors. “Melissa Mathison.” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. 30 Oct. 2016. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melissa_Mathison
    2. Wikipedia contributors. “E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial.” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. 30 Oct. 2016. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E.T._the_Extra-Terrestrial

  • Politics

     

    The video above is a bit from Charlie Rose interviewing Louis C.K.. I really enjoyed the entire conversation and the clip really resonated with me this morning. You can watch the original show at https://charlierose.com/videos/27296

    I flipped on the television last night. I fast-forwarded through the debate just looking at the facial expressions. It looked as bad as I had anticipated. I think the last time I commented on politics was in 2010, when I posted a video I had seen years ago and found again online. It’s a video of John Cleese discussing moderates and extremism taken from a political promo done in 1987. I’m finding that I have very little to say about politics these days, so I’ll just leave it at that.

  • Juryd

    Over the last couple of weeks I’ve been investigating online juried art competitions and I’ve got an idea. I’ll be working on it over at Juryd.com

  • Huey

    huey

    Huey (https://github.com/windhamdavid/huey) is my hubot. It uses an api from last-fm ( https://github.com/windhamdavid/hubot-last-fm )to identify what songs I’m listening to.  

  • Bullshit

    Sometime ago when I was a teen I remember riding in the boat late one evening while camping on an island with friends and toasting the start of my own secret society. We called it the ‘No Bullshit Club’. I think the title pretty much summarized the motive behind the club. Maybe we called the group to order twice. I might start it back up sometime soon though to address our current political climate. I thought about it recently though and wondered about the origin of the term. So the first cited etymology reference is to T. S. Eliot, who between 1910 and 1916 wrote a poem entitled “The Triumph of Bullshit”. Although it likely had been in the vernacular before then. Pound, Eliot and Joyce all lexicographically implicated in the origins of bullshit.2 This video was based on the essay written by Harry G. Frankfurt.3

     

    It struck a chord with me. The notion that “you can’t bullshit and bullshit artist” seems to cross my mind, implicating my expertise when it comes to bullshit. I’d certainly consider it a tool in my belt and I might have inherited it honestly as it seems my family has it’s fair share of excrement artists. I used to use the word raconteur to describe myself because it seemed to fit a skill that others always seem to mention that I’m particularly good at. Owning up to said artistry, I certainly agree with Harry Frankfurt on the subject and I’ll be sending out invitations to the original club members sometime soon.

    Notes:
    1.) Bullshit – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bullshit
    2.) Language Log – University of Pennsylvania Language Log
    3.) On Bullshit – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_Bullshit
    4.) Harry Frankfurt – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Frankfurt