DESTROYER Kaputt

 Dan Bejar from Canada for fifteen years fighting to create   his personal  sonic space . In the ninth album, " Kaputt "decides that an auspicious soft rock style with hanging  gentle  wide  orchestrations and maturity is what makes more sense for today's listener.Somehow he is right. " Kaputt "is a beautiful album. Rolls round, fragrant with the best hours of the afternoon hearing. It sounds happy and cheerful, has  romantic endings, has "space" to move and  the listener is left with such bravery in the American tradition and how strangely Scottish dash. Moreover, Dan Bejar does not skimp on the openings to electronica of our  days. Keyboards and synths stroll throughout its duration, like to enjoy a  strolling in the gardens of oblivion and peace . His compositions are "small" in ideas but big in performance.  " Kaputt "has every reason to claim the hand: it  has trouble in its effort, a positive effect (the female vocals highlight the elegance), a transcendent style and several moments that make the half-open eyes to shine here and there with joy. And further, in general   " Kaputt "  has a fair and a respectable ambition to soothe the listener without  making him  being bored . I appreciate it very much. An intersection between Al Stewart 's " Year Of The Cat "and Prefab Sprout 's " Andromeda Heights "never hurt anyone.

Debtocracy A Greek Documentary about the financial crisis

   There is the traditional way to make movies (find producer, get money, shot the film, released), and there's crowdsourcing. In the world of crowdsourcing users from every corner of the Earth or financially support any project or exchange information and contribute to completion, depending on their skills, as a peculiar puzzle of the electronic era. The film world, and particularly the independent scene, it soon adopted the habit - at this year's festival Sundance even premiered the documentary «Life in a day», a collage of short videos users YouTube. In most cases, however, the contribution of public money is (so called and provided crowdfunding), and cases such as the documentary «Corporation» and «The Age of Stupid», have already managed to secure distribution through donations.

   Successful attempts crowdfunded longer one and the "Chreokratia" documentary journalists Mars Hadjistefanou and Katerina Kitidi on the economic crisis and debt of Greece. The two journalists, along with the production team they framed, decided to avoid the traditional mintiakes platforms and released their work initially only on the Internet through websites such as YouTube, Dailymotion and through torrents .

   The profile of the documentary, which presents an alternative view from those discussed in the dominant media, may dictate the choice, which helped them to avoid any interference in the content of parties, agencies or other donors. " If it was given information, we did not want to put a great deal to teach people a different view. We wanted to spread as much as possible, mainly to stimulate discussion. For these purposes, just the production should be free and without rights [use or reproduction] , "he said in an interview with one of two directors, Katerina Kitidi.

   Once shown a small sample of their work and invited the public to fund the effort, the response has surpassed expectations of: € 8,000 for the basic costs of production were collected within 14 days from 300 individuals, clubs and associations that have may appear as co-producers in the end credits. Your account has been closed since gathered twice in total amount, which includes the cost of distribution. A detailed list of fees and charges are posted on the official website , which, as he and Mrs Kitidi is vital for such a project. " What I think it helped that there were all the items available on the Internet. If you follow this model in the future should take care of the financial part "Under this policy, even Mrs Kitidi stresses that the extra money, which so far are heading for a future documentary team returned unless announced plans over the next six months.

    After the online premiere of the evening Wednesday, April 6 , which was promoted through social networking sites and blogs, the documentary has been featured in academic schools, clubs, and local channels in the province, while the players have already agreed to distribute the film in Athens and individual views on the rest of Greece. Prepare also has completed the subtitling in English, French and Portuguese, to distribute the film abroad , primarily through organizations such as CADTM, the Committee for the debt of Third World countries, and then possibly and festivals. Even in the face of these developments, however, the production team is prepared to withdraw from cyberspace because " especially when we turned to the public, we would just have to give back to the public. This project does not belong to us but the world was paid , "said Mrs Kitidi.

    Apart from the way they have chosen to cover their investment, notable is the web presence of "Chreokratia." factors have made ​​dynamic use of modern information and networking and the resulting numbers are impressive : the film has seen a total of over than 680,000 times the references to Google exceed 1,000,000, the official website has 320,000 unique users visit, and the film's page on Facebook has 12,780 friends and Twitter 1.500 members.

The authors continue to participate actively, not only to promote the film, but the debate that has arisen from it. The research team collected the most important questions raised by viewers, the replies and posted on the website, unity, according to Mr. Kitidi will continue to be renewed. In their plans, too, is to enrich the content of the website with additional material that could not fit in the final result, which will be integrated into a mini theme documentaries, in addition to the main work. At the same time have already posted " a new version of the script, which will link to specific words that refer to our inquiry: what sources were consulted, or what other material you find on the specific word of the script. So, not only the content but the search will be available to the public . "

   But this kind of journalism is a long term viable proposal in front of the undeniable crisis, economically and effectively, the mainstream media? Mrs Kitidi believes that " the situation has now reached the media, what is needed is to find a way be able to have independent information without commitments or political institutions or from commercial companies, because a greater commitment in our times is towards the operator or entity, which is opposite to the advertising department. To be able to have independent information, perhaps the best way is to finance the public. "

JOHN KENNEDY TOOLE'S NEON BIBLE

John Kennedy Toole, who won a posthumous Pulitzer Prize for his best-selling comic masterpiece A Confederacy of Dunces, wrote The Neon Bible for a literary contest at the age of sixteen. The manuscript languished in a drawer and became the subject of a legal battle among Toole's heirs. It was only in 1989, thirty-five years after it was written and twenty years after Toole's suicide at thirty-one, that this amazingly accomplished and evocative novel was freed for publication. The Neon Bible tells the story of David, a young boy growing up in a small Southern town in the 1940s. David's voice is perfectly calibrated, disarmingly funny, sad, shrewd, gathering force from page to page with an emotional directness that never lapses into sentimentality. Through it we share his awkward, painful, universally recognizable encounter with first love, we participate in boy evangelist Bobbie Lee Taylor's revival, we meet the pious, bigoted townspeople. From the opening lines of The Neon Bible, David is fully alive, naive yet sharply observant, drawing us into his world through the sure artistry of John Kennedy Toole

The Cannes Film festival 2011

Jude Law, Uma Thurman and French helmer Olivier Assayas will serve on the Cannes Film Festival competition jury, which will be headed by Robert De Niro, the fest announced Tuesday. They will be joined by Argentine producer-turned-actress Martina Gusman, Chinese producer Nansun Shi, Norwegian critic Linn Ullmann, Chad helmer Mahamat-Saleh Haroun and Chinese filmmaker Johnny To. Co-founder of China's Film Workshop Co., Shi has production credits that include "Infernal Affairs," which Martin Scorsese remade as "The Departed." Gusman co-founded Pablo Trapero's production label Matanza Cine in 2002 and produced his "El bonaerense" before earning acclaim for her lead role in Trapero's Cannes 2008 competition player "Lion's Den." The jury's other Cannes alumni are Haroun, whose "A Screaming Man" won a Cannes jury prize last year, and To, whose "Vengeance" competed in 2009. Assayas was at Cannes last year with "Carlos." Assayas will start lensing his next film, the 1960s-set coming-of-age drama "Something in the Air," in the summer. The jury will award seven prizes during the closing ceremony of the fest, which runs May 11-22.

New American Poets Anna Moschovakis

Anna Moschovakis

My writing begins most often in the experience of discomfort, lack of mastery, or failure, and the decision to interrogate it in language. This extends to form and approach as much as to content. My poems tend to be long and fall somewhere between poem and essay, challenging the expectations of both but also doubly exposing themselves. And I will let myself inhabit—and attempt to challenge from within—modes I find problematic but too easy to dismiss wholesale: a kind of philosophical introspection in my first book; in my second, both appropriated and invented didacticism; and in my incipient current work, optimism. Like travel to a country whose language I only partially know, these trips are educational—writing becomes a test, an experiment, complete with risks of misprision, embarrassment, trouble.I wrote that artist's statement recently, and it still seems true enough.And then I had the ridiculous good fortune to spend a month in a country whose language I knew not at all—Ethiopia—as a resident artist, with the assignment to compare notes with working writers and artists based there. I felt unexpectedly at home in Addis Ababa and by my last night, also the evening of my one public presentation—a poetry reading at which I was to share the bill with two well-known Ethiopian poets—I had developed such a connection to and respect for the people I'd come to know, I was apprehensive to the point of panic. I am ashamed to admit it: I was nervous that, removed from the context of American poetry, or New American poetry, or (by extension and sometimes directly) the European avant-garde tradition—not to mention a potential language barrier, though I knew most of the audience would have very good English—my poetry wouldn't do its work, wouldn't "work." Based on the discussions I had been having with writers, I was in fact fairly certain that it wouldn't be understood as poetry at all. So in a wrongheaded attempt to mitigate disaster, I did something I never do: I prefaced my reading with some comments, on form (it was a serial poem I had written in a blue examination book, with the constraints being that each line had to be a statement, and each poem had to fill a page, and the series had to fill the book); on influence (the poem stole its title and the cadence of its syntax from Wittgenstein, an important figure for me); and on subject matter (the poem sublimates logic with sex and vice versa in a vain attempt to kill the love poem once and for all, as Wittgenstein tried to topple philosophy with a single slim volume). Then I read the whole series. Before and after my reading, the Ethiopian poets presented poems in Amharic, of which I understand maybe 10 words; but they clearly had the audience riveted. Afterwards, we discussed. One of the other poets, who is a professor of literature by day, asked me this: You have all of these references to philosophy and private constraints and poetics in your work; what about the reader or listener who doesn't share these references? (Poetry in Ethiopia has a spectrum of readers, listeners.)The discussion period was lively and unlike any I've experienced elsewhere; it included the spontaneous recitation of poetry from audience members; questions that cut straight to the bone; and a rare frankness and desire to get to the bottom of what we call cultural difference—and of poetry. But I remain haunted by that first question, because I have no desire to write poetry only for people who have read the books I have read and thought the thoughts I've thought. Or, more accurately, I have discovered other, stronger desires.So, to begin again (a phrase borrowed from Ann Lauterbach, another important figure for me): My writing begins in the experience of discomfort, lack of mastery, or failure, and the decision to interrogate it in language.

Untitled

I can't remember what it is I'm supposed to be doing.
I can't think of anything but lists I've made, lists I've broken
the spirit of. It's always a fine time for breaking
things, like plastic forks and poetic trends.
It's a damn good morning to imitate the world.
But I can't remember what imitation is
or the difference between it and flattery
or an adage and an aphorism.
I'd better go back to school
he said, performing a gesture to alterity.
I can't remember if alterity
has negative connotations
or is just another way of kicking
myself out the door. I'd like to try being
a man for once. I'd like to wear chaps and have it
be obscene instead of pornographi. I can never remember
what I think of pornography when it isn't in my
face. I wish I could be inanimate,
banged-up and appreciated
for all my surface qualities
without ethics getting in the way. I seem to remember
being ethical. I seem to act along some kind of line
albeit a kinky one. I wonder when kinky became
pornographic and whether that aspect is
subtractable. I don't remember my grammar
rules. I don't think English is very good
for a certain kind of inventioning. I gather
some readers don't like being
confronted with the language in every word.
I want to be a word. I would be abstract
with an inscrutable ending.

* * *

Poem from I Have Not Been Able to Get Through to Everyone (Turtle Point Press,  2006).