Sometimes genius is simply perseverance.  The willingness to dedicate yourself to an endeavor that 99.9% of people out there would never attempt only because it requires too much time.  Too much conviction.  Too much effort to, say, document your life by taking one polaroid photo a day for 18 years.

But that is exactly what Jamie Livingston did.  Beginning on March 31, 1979 until the day he died on October 25, 1997.  One a day.  It takes about one minute of your time once you actually decide what to shoot, but the startling realization (among several) that hits you when browsing through the 6,700+ images is how you could never conceive of pulling it off yourself.  Just one minute a day is how much you or I could never spare.

Marinate on that.  Jamie Livingston’s life can be seen here.

Image: Flickr

“People believe that they live in a kind of neutral public space.  What they don’t realize is that what is neutral to them, what’s a neutral, comfortable public space to them may actually be excluding a lot of people.”  — Susan A. Phillip,  author of “Wallbangin”

“This is me.  Hello world.  I’m fuckin here.”  –  Skuf, bomber

*****

There is a war being waged.  Bombers are coasting through the night, leaving the areas that they touch turned completely upside-down.  Unrecognizable.  The war has been raging for over 40 years across multiple continents and you probably didn’t even realize it was happening.

The battleground is not Basra, or Kabul, or Kosovo.  It is set against the urban backdrop of any city you live in, and probably any city you have ever been to.

The bombers are not planes.  They are graffiti artists and taggers, throwing up pieces on any space that will hold marker ink or spay paint.  “Bombers,” of course, being the name they called themselves before everyone else started calling them “graffiti artists.”

“The city was in such ugly condition and they’re not doing nothing…I’ll give you something to do.  Write write write, get up get up get up, bomb bomb bomb.  That’s why they say bomb the system.”   — Stay High 149 / Brooklyn

“Bombing is just all out destruction.”  — Pose II / San Diego

“There was an explosion of graffiti in Paris to the point where the people didn’t understand what was happening.  We all came from the outskirts to tear up Paris.”   — Shuck 2 / Paris

“I bomb because I want to, because I am sick of Germany, because the current social system is fucked up.”  — CBK Crew / Berlin

“We use the written word - typographic terrorism.”  — Wagi / Sao Paolo

“Japan is controlled, but that doesn’t mean there’s no resistance.”  — Very One / Tokyo

One thing (among many) the new documentary Bomb It accomplishes magnificently is lending a human element to the faceless graffiti anyone walking down the street has seen in any of the cities on the five continents visited by filmmaker Jon Reiss (Better Living Through Circuitry) and his crew.

What the film reveals is that graffiti is a form of expression for the voices that feel they cannot be heard otherwise.  Whether it’s the residents of dilapidated Brooklyn in the 1970’s, mixed race teenagers in South Africa struggling to find identity during Apartheid in the late 1980’s, or any number of youths existing on the fringes of society today, feeling shunned by what is considered “normal” civilization, Bomb It managed to uncover it all.

For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.  As people are marginalized, they find new ways to attack the institution that sent them to the outskirts of society, regardless of whether the root is poverty, neglect, fear, or the sterile cityscape of gentrification.

As the film gives a brief history of graffiti and gradually lays bare each of the underpinnings for the movement in America, France, England, Spain, Holland, Germany, South Africa, Brazil, and Japan, it works its way toward a final discussion of public space.

“Well you can’t have a democracy without public space,” said billboard subverter Ron English.  “There’s no point in having a voice or a concept or an idea if you can’t disseminate it.”

Areas not privately owned and paid for, at least in part, by tax dollars are designated public spaces.  Should these be forums for artists when gaining pleasure from viewing art is just as subjective as finding peace in a neutral blank space?

“Are we supposed to only go to art school and only hang our artwork in these designated spots,” asks artist Pink. “If there was no rebellion in our society, we would be stagnant.”

The film balances the opinions of the artists with community members and activists, with one citing ties between urban decay, gang activity and graffiti.  Another calls it “anarchy” when taggers and bombers think they can throw up anywhere they please.

But as many of the artists point out in the film, is their work really more offensive than a giant, 10-story picture of some guy in his underwear, “visually raping you,” as they say, while hawking a product?  The capitalistic favoritism seems to disturb them.  The city cracks down mightily on graffiti artists, but allows Clear Channel to buy up all the billboard and building facade space it wants.

It is not a struggle exclusive to graffiti artists either.  Islands of LA is an organization increasingly at odds with the city for turning traffic islands — deemed public space — into “territories of art.”  The group Coalition to Ban Billboard Blight was formed to combat the city of LA’s leniency on billboard advertisers violating size guidelines (around 4,000 currently in violation).  An LA public high school blogged about a “Graffiti 101” assignment for students “to record the ways you are confronted by messages as you travel to and from school on a daily basis,” including billboard art and city signage.

And these are just Los Angeles based issues concerning public space.  Where graffiti is concerned, city officials have been trying to slow it down for over 30 years now.  Coincidentally, the aesthetic has permeated many of the mainstream marketing campaigns that are then defaced by bombers who are still holding it down on the streets.

And no matter what you take away from those who simply get juiced from getting out there and dangling from an overpass to get their artwork seen, there will always be a blank space somewhere, tucked away in the urban jungle, waiting to get bombed.

*****

Bomb It is premiering in Los Angeles on Friday, June 6, 2008 at the Sunset Laemmle 5.

When I breach the subject with many of my friends- even the tech-savvy ones- RSS seems like just another imposing internet acronym that requires admitting you’re a dummy and buying a yellow book at Border’s to master.

RSS, or Really Simple Syndication, is actually everything it claims to be. Instead of having to visit your 10 favorite websites every single morning, wouldn’t it be nice to have all of that content laid out on one page just for you?

Like most things on the web, it’s just a matter of finding the right tool to take full advantage of all the technology has to offer. Google Reader was a favorite of early adopters, and is still a pretty decent tool.

I, however, am fully on board with Netvibes, a slick RSS feed aggregator from those lovers of romance, red wine, and butter: the French. For anyone who has used MyYahoo before, you have an idea of what a feed aggregator is. Take content from all over the web and display it on one page. Like your own personal newspaper. RSS is the delivery mechanism to your aggregator of choice.

I like Netvibes because it’s simple. First off, you don’t need to go hunting for the specific RSS address for content from a certain website (like this page at the LA Times). You can just type in the basic web address of a blog, newspaper site, or forum that you like and it will give you a list of all available feeds from that main address.

Next, organization of all your content is as easy as dragging and dropping. And they also have their own list of recommended feeds and “widgets” - or applications that they have come up with. One allows you to search all of the major web-based video sites at once. They have a similar one for photos and for blog content.

Lastly, and probably best of all in terms of separating Netvibes from other aggregators, you can view the actual webpage. One of the frustrations with RSS feeds, especially for big newspaper sites, is that they’ll only give you the first bit of the article to encourage you clicking to their site for the rest and generating a hit. Netvibes allows you to see the original content, in all of it’s organizational and image-laden glory, as the creators wanted you to see it.

Once you’re setup, you just need to look for the RSS logo on a page.

Wherever you see it, there’s a feed. Just click it and you will be redirected to Netvibes and asked to confirm adding the feed to your page. You can also create multiple pages to segregate content types.

But sometimes, you don’t want to read the entire newspaper. You just want something like the little ticker on CNN, delivering headlines only, but with the ability to choose any story at will and read the entire piece.

Enter Snackr. A feed aggregator of a different sort, it was designed using Adobe AIR, which  can basically be used to create slick-looking applications that run on your desktop (regardless of your operating system) and pull content dynamically from the web.

Snackr is a ticker for your desktop that you customize with whatever RSS feeds you want. For bloggers, it’s a dream as you can let it run all day on the side of your desktop and anytime you see something you like, you can drill right to it. It’s easy to use, looks great, and is customizable enough in terms of appearance and placement that it doesn’t get annoying.

So what are you waiting for? Go forth and aggregate.

For many people, securing their wireless network simply means assigning a password and calling it a day. In reality, this still leaves you exposed to attacks from all but the most amateur of hackers.

Über tech site Ars Technica does an extensive update of their “ABC’s of Securing Your Wireless Network” and covers ALL the bases. It’s a bit heavy on the technobabble, but it’s well-worth the read if you already know the basics and want to take your wifi security to the next level, instead of just safeguarding it from the 13 year old next door.

Actually, the 13 year old might be the most dangerous of the lot. It’s probably the broke-ass journalism student downstairs you’ll be frustrating with a simple password…

Disclaimer: this post was not done using a pirated wireless signal

The above is a clip of an exhibit that was installed at the New York City Museum of Modern Art on Valentine’s Day of this year.  From the description in the video upload:

The interactive installation “I Want You To Want Me”, by Jonathan Harris and Sep Kamvar, commissioned by the Museum of Modern Art, for their “Design and the Elastic Mind” exhibition.

I Want You To Want Me explores the search for love and self in the world of online dating. It chronicles the world’s long-term relationship with romance, across all ages, genders, and sexualities, using real data collected from Internet dating sites every few hours.

The piece is presented on a 56″ high-resolution touch-screen, hanging vertically on the wall, and was installed at MoMA on February 14, 2008, Valentine’s Day.

It’s no longer on display, but for those who didn’t manage to see it, the video is pretty powerful.

Of the many possible reasons why Britain’s Glastonbury Festival has suffered less-than-stellar ticket sales this year, Oasis vocalist/master shit-talker Noel Gallagher thinks he has the answer. No it’s not the declining economy, wealth of competitor fests or rising gas prices preventing people from traveling from afar — Nope, it’s all Jay-Z’s fault.

“I’m sorry, but Jay-Z? … No chance,” said Gallagher in an interview posted to BBC’s Web site this week. “I’m not having hip-hop at Glastonbury. No way. No. It’s wrong.”

Though this is just a snippet of what Gallagher said, the gist of his argument is all too clear: That hip-hop acts like Jay-Z don’t belong in the traditionally guitar-centric Glastonbury fest.

Readers of Guardian blogger Zoe Williams’ post on the issue respond by saying the problem isn’t with hip-hop, but with Jay-Z, because of his blatant commercialism. Hmmm. I seem to remember seeing Kylie Minogue on the bill in a previous year. She doesn’t play the guitar and she is a U.S. and U.K chart-topping pop singer. Hip-hop acts like Cypress Hill, De La Soul and The Roots have played the fest in the past, but they are at best a notable minority.

In an article published Tuesday in The Independent, festival co-organizer Emily Eavis made a revealing statement about the perceived underlying racism and classicism behind the uproar.

“There is also an interesting undercurrent in the suggestion that a black, U.S. hip-hop artist shouldn’t be playing in front of what many perceive to be a white, middle-class audience,” she said. “I’m not sure what to call it, at least not in public, but this is something that causes me some disquiet.”

Without hanging on every ignorant and subjective word Gallagher spewed, his rant does uncover an interesting truth about the lack of hip-hop at large music festivals in general.

Of course it is impossible to equally represent every single genre of music in the world at a festival like Glastonbury or the upcoming Indio-based Coachella. However, to lack a significant number of hip-hop or traditionally black music is to alienate a large number of people and deny those who aren’t yet fans from discovering new acts.

It just doesn’t make sense, financially or logistically. It is the Glastonbury Festival of Contemporary Performing Arts, a seemingly all-inclusive title with no mention of anything “rock” that would preclude all other genres.

I would actually argue that there is no popular genre more contemporary than rap or hip-hop. It reached mainstream popularity and acceptance in the 1980s, nearly a decade after electronica. Both Glastonbury and Coachella don’t seem to have a problem with electronic acts: At Coachella, there is an entire tent devoted to the genre. Financially, hip-hop and rap groups are insanely successful worldwide and boast millions of fans. It seems backwards that festival organizers haven’t made more of an effort to embrace the genre.

I usually take pride in that fact that Coachella, Southern California’s biggest music and arts fest, is so inclusive in its lineup. In past years there have been an impressive mix of acts from experimental Icelanders like Sigur Ros to commercial rappers like Kanye West. But this year’s line up is an unfortunate exception. Of the more than 100 bands at Coachella this year, a mere handful could be considered hip-hop or rap. Of those, not one is close to being a headliner. Murs and Aesop Rock receive the highest billing of any hip-hop act. Not exactly Billboard Top 40 regulars.

So, what’s the reason for this trend? In Britain, a lingering racial undercurrent against the U.S.’s most significant cultural export of the past two decades may be to blame, as suggested above. As far as domestically, where the degree to which hip-hop has been embraced across class and race lines is unquestioned, it’s a bit harder to even suggest a reason. Perhaps it is a scheduling issue, or maybe, where Coachella is concerned, they just aren’t interested in performing in the sweltering Palm Desert heat. Even in the hip-hop heavy years, almost all acts were relegated to daytime slots.

Either way I sure would like to know. Sadly, I imagine close-mindedness and a fear of the evolving cultural and musical landscapes are the true culprits.

  No more of these, please.

Gary Dauphin’s all over this crap at The Root. Thank you for that, Gary.

Fact: I would probably have remained a religious person if in my teens any of the people on the pulpit spoke like this! It’s happened already: “ridin’ dirty” is the new “wide stance!”

Are you a fan of hip-hop? Of jungle? Breakbeat? Broken beat? Drum n’ bass, trip-hop, dubstep?

If you answered yes to any of the above, then you have definitely heard some sampled, spliced-up, sped-up, looped or otherwise manipulated variation of a six-second drum solo from the 1960’s called the “Amen Break.”

Performed by a funk and soul outfit named The Winstons, this highly-pirated version is actually a sped-up rendition of an earlier gospel classic, proving that the recycling did not start exclusively with the birth of the sampler.

However, with appearances ranging from N.W.A. to Shy-FX, the emergence of sampler-based music allowed this simple loop to pollinate and permeate the landscapes of several burgeoning music cultures simultaneously.

The below twenty-minute video does an admirable job of not only tracing the origins across genres, but also discussing the impact of lax copyright enforcement on overall creativity and musical evolution.

Ch-ch-ch-ch-check it out.

Alain Robbe-Grillet died this past week.

Who the hell is Alain Robbe-Grillet? He was a novelist and a screenwriter and on the very cutting edge back in the 1950s when there was still a discernible edge and everyone could agree the thing was being cut. He was also French, an obviousness of the scarf and the obsession with form in his writing.

Not a lot of people loved his novels. Oprah would hate them. But other writers learned a lot from them. In fact, he was the architect of the so-called nouveau roman, or the new novel, because he was looking to update narrative writing the way painting had been updated in the twentieth century. Reading now, he said, should be about the thing itself instead of about mere description of the outside world. Do away with copying and analyzing, making symbols out of coffee mugs and windows, for chrissake. Stop making metaphors! Put down instead the awarenesses of your characters, make a world, and let the reader experience the words just as he or she experiences life, creating meaning as they go. To that end, he often wrote mysteries, partly I think because the genre suited his instinctual view of art and the human condition (it’s all a fog, find your own way) and partly because mysteries have a natural velocity, which is key when the author has a major something else he’s working on with the book in addition to keeping you reading.

Below, two pages from 1955’s The Voyeur. See what you think.