THE ZENFORMATION WIRE: Culture, Arts, and Reviews From Oxford Fucking Ohio's Biggest Dork

OXFORD, Ohio (ZP) -- Bringing back a popular 2007 series because I apparently intimidate the shit out of some of the hottest college students in this here town.

Had a reader's roommate tell me that a supermodel - looking blonde is scared that she's not hip enough (my God, looked her up on Facebook and choked on my coffee...) to roll with yours truly.

Me. Seriously, I'm the least hip person, the biggest dork in town. I drive an old pickup, buy clothes at thrift stores, and spend way too much time online.

I'm a fucking librarian. I just do my thing. But I did, however, get a kick out of hearing from your BFF that you're afraid to make eye contact and think I'm some arrogant Radical Chic blogebrity motherfucker.

~ JASON

---

MUSIC: Sounds To Intimidate Chachballs

---

WASH, RINSE, REPEAT
Iller Than Theirs
Free Online EP, 2008
[ZIP FILE via Radio Belly]

A few months ago, I gave one part of this stellar New York based act, Tone Tank, a shout-out in a Quotations post for his earlier solo online release.

And, well, the duo of Tone and Kray are back with a dangerous assault on the ol' sound holes, complete with killer beats, lyrics for the working world, and flows so tight you'll pay to download the rest of their catalog.


RADIOHEAD RAINYDAYZ REMIXES
Amplive, with guests
Free Online Album, 2008
[ZIP file and Artwork here]

One of my personal faves of the last year, because it combines to almost completely foreign sounds into something perfect. Amplive brings together the likes of Too $hort and Del the Funky Homosapien to create a sonic masterpiece that redefines international artistic boundaries.


DUMB IT DOWN [MP3]
GO BACK HOME [MP3]

The Agnostic Mountain Gospel Choir
From the album Ten Thousand (S.A.P., 2008)
Available online via iTunes

One of my favorite discoveries this year, courtesy of a North Dakota reader who thought, well, since I like Tom Waits, old shitkicker tunes, Delta Blues, and Old Crow Medicine Show, why not introduce me to Calgary's best kept secret outside of Canada and the Border Badlands?

She described the band's live shows as, and I quote, the closest she's come to being seduced by an upright bass in forever.

---

ONLINE VISUAL ARTS: Controversy For Change

---

TUBESTEAK EXPOSES OBAMA
Online Series, Parts One, Two, Three, Four
The Super Rumble Mix Show,
via Boondocks Bootleg Channel
By Aaron McGruder and others, 2008

You know, if there's one thing I can't stand, well, it's my White Liberal Elite countrymen who are still running around, living in that "Yes We Can!" propaganda a month after a historic election, completely unaware that the election of the first brown-skinned president in this country means nothing more, at the end of the day, than just another career politician gaining a position of power.

Yes We Can! ... be the last country in the Americas to gain a non-white person as head of state. Even Canada beat us, people. By a decade. I mean, it's not like this day wasn't a foregone conclusion, given that the U.S. is only just now accepting that it's never really been a Nation of White People...

And, Jesus Fucking Christ, get a sense of humor. McGruder, the creator of the lightning-rod perfect Boondocks comic strip and animated series, has thrown the first real satirical punch at the President-Elect with this equally historic web series, featuring an actor calling Obama a sell-out Po-Po, dissing Bush with snarky subtlety, and mocking the Thuggin' Brother stereotype, simultaneously.

Well, ya'll wanted change you could believe in. How's that?

---

FILM: "I can Legally download that for free?"

---

Ever wish you could just sit around and watch classics like George Romero's Night of the Living Dead or the film noir classic, D.O.A., on-demand and in high quality digital video, right at your desk?

Or that you could find public domain footage of historic events to use in ad campaigns, marketing presentations, or, well, to put together a kick-ass multimedia project for a class, without having to worry about copyright issues? And you're, say, a broke-ass college student? Or unemployed?

Well, thank you, Internet Archive folks, for making life so much easier for the rest of us. I've referred more patrons to this one online source more in the last three months than I think I've ever referred anybody to a single site.

Seriously. And it's legal. Just watch those Creative Commons licenses.

---

THE KNOWLEDGE WEB:
That's a Grant-Funded Remix, Yo!

---

FOLK SONGS FOR THE FIVE POINTS
Digital Artist in Residence Program, 2008
The Lower East Side (NY) Tenement Museum


One of the most engaging and unique interactive online museum exhibits ever, the Folk Songs for the Five Points project was created in association with the Tenement Museum's Digital Artists In Residence Program (DARP).

Folk Songs for the Five Points truly is what it claims to be: a celebration of cultural diversity and change, using “folk songs” as a metaphor to explore immigration and the formation of identity in New York’s Lower East Side.

I spent a good four hours fooling around on the site and, yeah, I'm still loving the use of interactive maps and recorded sound to create a self-interpretive aura, one without any answers or definitions but with enough emotional pull to allow for a wonderful user experience.

DARP, one of the most intriguing and dynamic digital media residency programs in the world, is funded through grants from the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) and other organizations. The Five Points project represents the first phase of the The Folk Songs Project.

One of the coolest things about being a librarian, by the way, is the fact that I get paid to play with stuff like this.

- # # # -

ON THE FILMS OF THE LATE WARREN OATES *:"I Got the Motive Which is Money And the Movie Which is Cheap."

OXFORD, Ohio (ZP) -- Of all the luck!

There, right beside the 20 Items Or Less checkout line, buried in the back of a deep discount $4.88 display, sat a lonely copy of one of the finest American films ever made.

I figured it had to be some sort of mistake.

Back in the home entertainment department of this particular Big Box Store, they were selling all sorts of freshly minted garbage for upwards of 20 bucks.

Sidney Poitier and Rod Steiger, two legends of cinema in their most influential film together, one of the most electrifying movies of the Civil Rights era...

... Reduced to the bargain bin.

In The Heat of the Night, winner of the Academy Award for Best Picture, 1967. Five Oscars total that year, three Golden Globes, and scores of other, lesser known awards.

All for a whopping four dollars and change.

They no longer call you MISTER Tibbs, Mr. Poitier.

They call you an impulse buy.

* * * *

So what?

If Jessica Alba's tits (which is used as an example not to knock the actress's knockers - they are indeed some very fine breasts) sell better than your powerful, ancient performance, well, you belong in that cardboard display, next to the overstock copies of Dodgeball, Mr. Poitier.

Hell, the movie business has never been about actual actors or awards or screen-writing. No business subsists as art. And the studios? They control the ebb and flow of cinematic art, its mass production, distribution, and subsequent sale.

But so what?

Big box stores are experts at moving mass-produced, distributed things, even if it means sticking cinematic masterpieces next to the bags of potato chips, in the hope that some schmuck with a debit card will come along, recognize the DVD, and gobble it up like any other product.

Who wants to watch some old movie anyway? A 40 year-old movie?

Even at $4.88, it'll still make somebody a profit, even if it's marked down further, to ten percent of cost.

And some of that will go to the owner of the original master print, some of that will go to the distributor, and a good chunk of that will go to the Big Box Store. And then there's the manufacturing costs, the scant money paid to those Southeast Asian factory workers who actually create the disc, the plastic cover, and the cardboard inserts...

But that's Hollywood for ya. Glitzy and oh so glamorous. After all, nothing screams Show Business quite like a cardboard box full of marked down, forgotten DVDs.

* * * *

And the score goes to me, the debit card wielding schmuck of the day.

I just couldn't leave a classic piece of American cinema to rot in that cardboard display, especially for $4.88.

Some folks are suckers for fashion. Some for trends. And some, like me, are suckers for good films.

And some folks are just suckers.

- # # #-

* NOTE - Warren Oates (1928-1982) remains one of the most widely-recognized American character actors of all time, with roles in such films as In The Heat of the Night, The Wild Bunch, and, yes, even as the mean ol' Sarge in the Bill Murray vehicle, Stripes.

He guest-starred on just about every classic American television show from that period, from Gunsmoke to Rawhide to Bonanza, from The Twilight Zone to The Fugitive. I have yet to meet a single person born before 1980 who doesn't recognize the guy's face from some Western, horror flick, or TV show.

And for the record, Bring Me The Head of Alfredo Garcia, one of Oates's few leading roles, is a thousand times more badass than anything most Film Studies profs will ever show in class.