Neon Bender
December 2011
47 posts
“The problem facing modern man now is compounded by the increasing power of technology and its misuse by those in power who wish only to control. The mentality of people who are motivated by profits at the expense of human needs is perfect for the computer. Computers are completely rational. They save time and money. They can keep records of every transaction. Money is the opposite of magic. Art is magic. The worlds of art and money are constantly intermingling. To survive this mixture the magic in art has to be applied in new ways. Magic must always triumph.”
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Keith Haring on Technology and Control (via dinosaurparty
)
“Let me break off a moment from quoting Weschler quoting me to say that I probably said exactly that, including the “Ah, yes” at the start, as well as the bits that sounds like S. Z. “Cuddles” Sakall as a “Mitteleuropa” schoolmaster.”
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Light in Los Angeles | Where We Are | SoCal Focus | KCET
JUST ONE MORE EXAMPLE OF WHY IT’S GOOD TO HAVE WATCHED LOTS OF OLD MOVIES. How else would I know what he’s talking about? Also, FYI, Cuddles is one of my favorite character actors of all time!
November 2011
46 posts
“Residents south of Venice Boulevard had been assured that redevelopment of a former Sears site would not have negative effects on their small neighborhood. But those assurances weren’t backed by an Environmental Impact Report (EIR), which identifies environmental losses in detail and imposes specific measures to reduce them. Instead, the city council adopted a Mitigated Negative Declaration, a much looser document that acknowledges environmental impacts but regards them as easily resolved or too minor to address.”
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More ‘Bait and Switch’ in a Mid-City Neighborhood | Where We Are | SoCal Focus | KCET
Even the name, “Mitigated Negative Declaration,” is immediately worrisome.
“If there is a hard, high wall and an egg that breaks against it, no matter how right the wall or how wrong the egg, I will stand on the side of the egg. Why? Because each of us is an egg, a unique soul enclosed in a fragile egg. Each of us is confronting a high wall. The high wall is the system which forces us to do the things we would not ordinarily see fit to do as individuals … We are all human beings, individuals, fragile eggs. We have no hope against the wall: it’s too high, too dark, too cold. To fight the wall, we must join our souls together for warmth, strength. We must not let the system control us — create who we are. It is we who created the system.”
—Haruki Murakami (Jerusalem Prize acceptance speech, Jerusalem Post, Feb. 15, 2009)
Music + Moxie Review: LA Font at Silverlake Lounge →
musicandmoxie.com
“Put together, their energetic live set makes LA Font the frontrunner to beat for LA’s 2012 break-out artist. The show was my first LA Font live gig and it won’t be my last.”
Rawktumblr: Black Friday and Consumerism as Hegemony →
rawkblog.tumblr.com
Another quick note, this one on the calendrical co-existence of Black Friday, the psychotic celebration of irresponsible capitalism on the day after Thanksgiving, and Occupy Wall Street, the two-month old social movement in which those tired of the vast imbalances of…
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“The world’s longest paved waterway, the Los Angeles River Flood Control Channel was conceived as a “water freeway”; during storms, its currents can reach 45 mph.”
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Life of the L.A. River - Features - Los Angeles magazine
Too many freeways in Los Angeles!
“And gay non-Jews use more Yiddish than straight non-Jews, though gay Jews and straight Jews use about the same amount.”
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Slips of the Tongue - by Marissa Brostoff - Tablet Magazine – A New Read on Jewish Life
random fact.
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