Mitch Joel gave an interesting talk on the ’hidden’ web at Creative Morning Montreal's March 28, 2014 event.
How a new batch of apps are offering privacy and the promise of impermanence. Snapchat, cyber dust , secret ...Cloak a reaction or antidote to our over publicized Facebook lives.
The kids are of course leading the way not wanting parents to pry etc. My first thoughts went to cyber bullying, and other nastiness, but it's not like that's not already happening.
His business is marketing, and the business takeaway is that privacy and 'hiding' is booming. It was very interesting. He's an accomplished speaker, relaxed, funny. Steve Jobs in a sports jacket. He told the little anecdote that wasn't an anecdote - about seeing a guy looking at Buckingham Palace under an umbrella wearing a Guy Fawkes mask, that has nothing to do with the presentation, other than that it's a slide, and the presentation is about anonymity...and got everyone laughing.
The hidden web - (not even the dark web where the real action no doubt is) it's all around us. Not surprising that people are starting to push back - looking for alleged anonymity after Facebook got over run by parents and uncles.
I wanted to ask about Luddites. How there will be increasing numbers of people who reject technology or never had any to begin with. What will their world look like? How will they communicate? Who will market to them?
Hand delivered cards? Telegrams? Messengers waiting for the message to be destroyed? Sin eaters? People who have taken vows of silence available to hear confessions for a fee? Like 'Brick' I expect the hipsters will soon be at least publicly entirely offline....
And how will our personas evolve? How predictable will our profiles be and how good will algorithms get at guessing what's between the lines? What will the psychic costs be of maintaining uber public (Facebook etc) and private personas? Will we get confused? Hell, managing more than one Twitter account almost gave me an embollism...
He mentioned how Facebook had guessed his high school, the sophistication of what we've already shared and what it says about us.
Will there be cleaners? Hackers skilled at erasing our tracks? Or will we just stop caring? Oh yeah, that's me, when I had a thing for sheep...
So 'chapeau Monsieur' - and thanks to the organizers and everyone who came out. What will the future hold? Will the genie ever go back into the bottle? I think more people will start to turn off, but then again I saw my first glasshole ....
Showing posts with label Montreal. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Montreal. Show all posts
Friday, March 28, 2014
Thursday, November 28, 2013
Working on the Jazz Amnesty Sound System Jazz Mass Movie
The week it was...
I probably *should* be looking for work. But instead, I'm working. Working on a project I've been calling my TOHOE in my SOHO - triumph of hope over experience in my small office/home office. It's a movie about a 'Jazz Mass' put on by Jazz Amnesty Sound System. My friends Andy Williams and Lew Braden, two DJs, who hosted 'the jazz illuminati' of Montreal to come and jam in St John the Evangelist's church while they 'conducted' from their turn tables.
You can watch the teaser here…
The genesis of the project was Lew asking me to help them film a demo of the event. I asked Bruno Goulard to help me with it and he encouraged me to shoot a little higher. So he brought together a professional crew and we shot a multi-camera live event, with multi track audio. So, you know, we got something.
Now we 'just' need to turn it into a movie. Editing, more interviews, etc. It's going to require some resources.
And it won't happen overnight.
So I AM looking for work - if you know of anything in the writing/directing/editing vein please get in touch (hepworks@gmail.com).
If you know anything about financing also GET IN TOUCH!
And stay tuned...
Related Posts:
Jazz Mass Questions
Jazz Mass Backstory
What is Art?
I probably *should* be looking for work. But instead, I'm working. Working on a project I've been calling my TOHOE in my SOHO - triumph of hope over experience in my small office/home office. It's a movie about a 'Jazz Mass' put on by Jazz Amnesty Sound System. My friends Andy Williams and Lew Braden, two DJs, who hosted 'the jazz illuminati' of Montreal to come and jam in St John the Evangelist's church while they 'conducted' from their turn tables.
You can watch the teaser here…
The genesis of the project was Lew asking me to help them film a demo of the event. I asked Bruno Goulard to help me with it and he encouraged me to shoot a little higher. So he brought together a professional crew and we shot a multi-camera live event, with multi track audio. So, you know, we got something.
Now we 'just' need to turn it into a movie. Editing, more interviews, etc. It's going to require some resources.
And it won't happen overnight.
So I AM looking for work - if you know of anything in the writing/directing/editing vein please get in touch (hepworks@gmail.com).
If you know anything about financing also GET IN TOUCH!
And stay tuned...
Related Posts:
Jazz Mass Questions
Jazz Mass Backstory
What is Art?
Friday, March 22, 2013
Friday night lite
Even the mild bourgeois tit frustrations I suffer from can fill you with a powerful thirst. Booze is such a substitute for substance, the simulation of strong emotion, a relaxant, so the stresses you've been holding tight seem to melt away and the absence of pain feels a lot like pleasure.
Don't get me wrong - I love booze. There's plenty of stress we carry in a ridiculous orgy of self-indulgence, as if our lives were really SO dramatic that we run around in a whirl of make busy make believe.
Booze is good for that. Kind of dissolves away some of the pretence. Lets us relax a little. And there's no denying the placebo element - how depending on our culture booze lets us act in different ways (citation ). Some cultures get amorous, some belligerent, stripped of culture it's not actually the booze, more how we've been trained to hold it.
So after a week of petty frustrations. A week where I had to admit to myself, time and time again, that if I wanted a better job or to be self-employed, well I'd likely have to do something about it...I did SOME things. Tried to get you all to buy a Young Poodles shirt - not for the money, see, but for the moral support - worked, parented, spent too much time on FeelBad and Twatter...and then Friday approaches and there's several live music options.
Now avoiding temptation, that's the ticket...because you can feel the almond start to glow...that part of the brain that just wants to cut the tethers and head for the sun...but there's three little kids see, and keeping a smile on Saturday morning with the steady machine gun chudder of requests is hard enough well rested and regular. And there's the lack of sufficient petty worldly accomplishments to excuse any real kind of “celebrating” ...
But it's Friday night.
You pine for the “perfect” party - the booze up that has somehow been sanctioned by all the gods. But you settle for the actual party...or you don’t. Or, like I seem to love to do - you let the empty dharma kick around until every option fills you with disgust.
Not that the options themselves are bad. Just that you're not feeling worthy of facing the consequences of any of them.
And that’s where the marble stops, for awhile - no course of action seeming impeccable. A third way, a better way, would be to do something useful...but what are the odds of that?
Don't get me wrong - I love booze. There's plenty of stress we carry in a ridiculous orgy of self-indulgence, as if our lives were really SO dramatic that we run around in a whirl of make busy make believe.
Booze is good for that. Kind of dissolves away some of the pretence. Lets us relax a little. And there's no denying the placebo element - how depending on our culture booze lets us act in different ways (citation ). Some cultures get amorous, some belligerent, stripped of culture it's not actually the booze, more how we've been trained to hold it.
So after a week of petty frustrations. A week where I had to admit to myself, time and time again, that if I wanted a better job or to be self-employed, well I'd likely have to do something about it...I did SOME things. Tried to get you all to buy a Young Poodles shirt - not for the money, see, but for the moral support - worked, parented, spent too much time on FeelBad and Twatter...and then Friday approaches and there's several live music options.
Now avoiding temptation, that's the ticket...because you can feel the almond start to glow...that part of the brain that just wants to cut the tethers and head for the sun...but there's three little kids see, and keeping a smile on Saturday morning with the steady machine gun chudder of requests is hard enough well rested and regular. And there's the lack of sufficient petty worldly accomplishments to excuse any real kind of “celebrating” ...
But it's Friday night.
You pine for the “perfect” party - the booze up that has somehow been sanctioned by all the gods. But you settle for the actual party...or you don’t. Or, like I seem to love to do - you let the empty dharma kick around until every option fills you with disgust.
Not that the options themselves are bad. Just that you're not feeling worthy of facing the consequences of any of them.
And that’s where the marble stops, for awhile - no course of action seeming impeccable. A third way, a better way, would be to do something useful...but what are the odds of that?
Wednesday, February 06, 2013
The Young Poodles Movie Teaser Part III
Only 2 years 3 months and 6 days since this was "Coming Soon" here is the latest instalment of The Young Poodles Movie...
Warning: there's a lot of me in it more or less fretting. Which is unusual for me, as you all know.
Please feel free to support further installments by sending cash
or Moishes gift certificates.
Or there's some lovely shirts
Warning: there's a lot of me in it more or less fretting. Which is unusual for me, as you all know.
Please feel free to support further installments by sending cash
or Moishes gift certificates.
Or there's some lovely shirts
Monday, September 03, 2012
You cannot coerce respect
You can never coerce respect
Since moving to Québec I’ve generally always spoken French first in public situations in equal parts fully insincere obsequiousness and respect for living amongst a predominantly francophone population.
So if you tell me that not speaking French in public is “unacceptable” well you're welcome to go French seal yourself.
You cannot coerce respect. Coercion produces at best servility if not outright hostility and resistance. The prospect of a Pauline Marois majority PQ government has me thinking “I will never speak French again” which would be a shame, because I've gotten pretty good at it and enjoy being able to have some small foot in two cultures.
Here is the thing about politeness, respect, tolerance of others etc. If its not genuine, it's poison. It's just dissimulation, make believe, and for the Anglo and allophones to feel coerced or compelled to use French will drive a lot of them away, and make those that remain actively resistant to French and French culture, instead of grateful to be living in a vibrant and creative “milieu” where being exposed to different cultures and traditions is just “un affaire de tous les jours” (maybe that's an anglicism, I'll go report to the office de la langue francaise)
I'm not sure I know of any example of a language or culture being enriched by imposing legal sanctions on the use of other languages. It frankly just seems evil, like outlawing a religion or sexual orientation, and also incredibly perverse. I'm highly bilingual. My written French may suck, but I can speak and work in French and English. Is it really going to foster a francophone paradise to make me feel unwelcome?
And I'm a 6 foot 2 white male. The shit going around on YouTube makes me sick to my stomach.
The worst part about this video is that the guy is clearly drunk, and genuinely seems aggrieved that the guys were speaking English. But it’s like if you believe yourself to be some kind of culturally victimized minority, you're going to imagine sleights everywhere.
Again, my reflex is to try and be respectful towards everyone. I'd much rather start in French and then discover I was talking to a fellow anglophone than start in English with a francophone and try and bully them into continuing in English. But 99.9 times out of 100, prior to Pauline Marois’ nasty electioneering, even if I started in English with a francophone I mistook for an Anglo, and then switched to French, we'd usually fumble along with me speaking French and the francophone speaking English out of MUTUAL respect and the desire for harmony, goodwill, and understanding.
So if any PQ supporters get this far please understand this - while I do understand and respect the desire for sovereignty, though I will never personally support it, Pauline Marois’ tactics amount to a declaration of war on tolerance and respect. She is consciously stirring up evil emotions, for short term opportunistic political gains, and once you let those genies out of those bottles, you just don't know where it will lead.
So a vote for Pauline Marois is a vote for intolerance, xenophobia, and all those things most of the reasonable separatists I know proclaim up and down that they don't believe in at all. But you're going to tell me, and my kids where we can and can't speak English? On these streets and in these institutions and businesses that I've been supporting with the wages I've earned building this province for my entire working life?
And then tell me it's a matter of respect?
Since moving to Québec I’ve generally always spoken French first in public situations in equal parts fully insincere obsequiousness and respect for living amongst a predominantly francophone population.
So if you tell me that not speaking French in public is “unacceptable” well you're welcome to go French seal yourself.
You cannot coerce respect. Coercion produces at best servility if not outright hostility and resistance. The prospect of a Pauline Marois majority PQ government has me thinking “I will never speak French again” which would be a shame, because I've gotten pretty good at it and enjoy being able to have some small foot in two cultures.
Here is the thing about politeness, respect, tolerance of others etc. If its not genuine, it's poison. It's just dissimulation, make believe, and for the Anglo and allophones to feel coerced or compelled to use French will drive a lot of them away, and make those that remain actively resistant to French and French culture, instead of grateful to be living in a vibrant and creative “milieu” where being exposed to different cultures and traditions is just “un affaire de tous les jours” (maybe that's an anglicism, I'll go report to the office de la langue francaise)
I'm not sure I know of any example of a language or culture being enriched by imposing legal sanctions on the use of other languages. It frankly just seems evil, like outlawing a religion or sexual orientation, and also incredibly perverse. I'm highly bilingual. My written French may suck, but I can speak and work in French and English. Is it really going to foster a francophone paradise to make me feel unwelcome?
And I'm a 6 foot 2 white male. The shit going around on YouTube makes me sick to my stomach.
The worst part about this video is that the guy is clearly drunk, and genuinely seems aggrieved that the guys were speaking English. But it’s like if you believe yourself to be some kind of culturally victimized minority, you're going to imagine sleights everywhere.
Again, my reflex is to try and be respectful towards everyone. I'd much rather start in French and then discover I was talking to a fellow anglophone than start in English with a francophone and try and bully them into continuing in English. But 99.9 times out of 100, prior to Pauline Marois’ nasty electioneering, even if I started in English with a francophone I mistook for an Anglo, and then switched to French, we'd usually fumble along with me speaking French and the francophone speaking English out of MUTUAL respect and the desire for harmony, goodwill, and understanding.
So if any PQ supporters get this far please understand this - while I do understand and respect the desire for sovereignty, though I will never personally support it, Pauline Marois’ tactics amount to a declaration of war on tolerance and respect. She is consciously stirring up evil emotions, for short term opportunistic political gains, and once you let those genies out of those bottles, you just don't know where it will lead.
So a vote for Pauline Marois is a vote for intolerance, xenophobia, and all those things most of the reasonable separatists I know proclaim up and down that they don't believe in at all. But you're going to tell me, and my kids where we can and can't speak English? On these streets and in these institutions and businesses that I've been supporting with the wages I've earned building this province for my entire working life?
And then tell me it's a matter of respect?
Thursday, August 30, 2012
Québec solidaire
I am considering voting for Quebec solidaire based on a conversation with a school dad who suggested that in what is actually not my riding, the QS candidate has a chance of beating the Parti Québécois candidate. In my riding it's Amir Khadr by a wide margin so my vote doesn't matter. But for the other riding where Quebec solidaire is in contention, voting strategically to
Block the PQ might pertain.
So I started reading their platform
and probably shouldn't have. Separatist, supporting the enforcement of French language laws in companies of ten employees or more, a raft of vaguely positive sounding progressive actions but only a few prescriptions for actually pursuing them, nationalizing "strategic" (?) resource extraction, requiring or subsidizing the refining of primary resources locally, whether economically viable or not (which is a bit like saying we should all grow our own food even if a large farm far away can provide more calories for less energetic and financial investment because of economies of scale, and, well, because they're a professional). Which ties in with some vague prescription for subsidizing local food production which appeals to many progressives on a romantic level but which ecologically and economically is not necessarily anything more than a bourgeois conceit, more funding for the arts, etc.
I will admit I've not finished it. Maybe I will do so now....
So now, unfortunately I'm at the point of "holy fuck, who is going to pay for that?"
Nationalize...energy? We should be fostering a distributed grid of energy production where individuals and companies can COMPETE to provide energy most efficiently.
Wow does nationalize rub me the wrong way...the beauty of the market, properly regulated as lightly as possible, is that it relentlessly seeks out efficiency...the soviet union nationalized everything and they went broke which led to those nationalized industries falling into the hands of the oligarchs and a KGB thug becoming the neo tsar of Russia...
In my mind government's role is to create the rules whereby individuals can have the maximum freedom to innovate and create. Not to run industries.
Subsidize transportation by rail or water? Why? If the goal is to reduce carbon then TAX carbon and let the market figure out what's most efficient. Maybe it's rickshaws pulled by hobos, I don't know, but don't start subsidizing one sector in the hopes that somehow you've guessed the magic solution to resource allocation where millions of independent actors have failed...
Minimum wage? Will be higher for a 35 hour work week than for a 40 hour work week? What about for a four hour work week, even higher?
I'm now going to have to read the real ass hattery proposed by the Parti Québécois to convince myself that if Quebec solidaire can beat the PQ in Mercier, they should still get my vote.
I wanted to be won over but I'm not. I find the platform long on wishful thinking - a lot of promises, very few mechanisms for achieving them, incredibly statist and interventionist, while I believe the government should set the rules and then let the citizens run the show.
From reading the document I'm deeply ambivalent. I'd like to believe that I broadly agree with most of the intentions, if not the approach to achieving them, but I'm not sure I do...
There's a real philosophical disconnect for me as to what areas the government should be involved in and what things it should leave well enough alone. I don't really believe that subsidies actually create sustainable or viable industries - why should a bunch of bureaucrats or politicians have any better idea than the rest of us on how to allocate our resources?
I think greenhouse gases is a perfect example. If you decide there's too much carbon in the atmosphere, what's the least intrusive way to encourage a society to reduce their emissions? If you want to encourage non fossil fuel energy, do you set up a bureaucracy to run it, or do you open up the grid so granny can feed in the electricity she's generating capturing granddad's farts?
I will still quite possibly vote Quebec solidaire in Mercier, but it will be in the hopes of blocking Pauline Marois.
If there's any hope of Quebec solidaire becoming a real place for progressives to place their votes, there's a lot of work, and transparency and soul searching as to what kind of government they actually would form, that needs to go on.
Block the PQ might pertain.
So I started reading their platform
and probably shouldn't have. Separatist, supporting the enforcement of French language laws in companies of ten employees or more, a raft of vaguely positive sounding progressive actions but only a few prescriptions for actually pursuing them, nationalizing "strategic" (?) resource extraction, requiring or subsidizing the refining of primary resources locally, whether economically viable or not (which is a bit like saying we should all grow our own food even if a large farm far away can provide more calories for less energetic and financial investment because of economies of scale, and, well, because they're a professional). Which ties in with some vague prescription for subsidizing local food production which appeals to many progressives on a romantic level but which ecologically and economically is not necessarily anything more than a bourgeois conceit, more funding for the arts, etc.
I will admit I've not finished it. Maybe I will do so now....
So now, unfortunately I'm at the point of "holy fuck, who is going to pay for that?"
Nationalize...energy? We should be fostering a distributed grid of energy production where individuals and companies can COMPETE to provide energy most efficiently.
Wow does nationalize rub me the wrong way...the beauty of the market, properly regulated as lightly as possible, is that it relentlessly seeks out efficiency...the soviet union nationalized everything and they went broke which led to those nationalized industries falling into the hands of the oligarchs and a KGB thug becoming the neo tsar of Russia...
In my mind government's role is to create the rules whereby individuals can have the maximum freedom to innovate and create. Not to run industries.
Subsidize transportation by rail or water? Why? If the goal is to reduce carbon then TAX carbon and let the market figure out what's most efficient. Maybe it's rickshaws pulled by hobos, I don't know, but don't start subsidizing one sector in the hopes that somehow you've guessed the magic solution to resource allocation where millions of independent actors have failed...
Minimum wage? Will be higher for a 35 hour work week than for a 40 hour work week? What about for a four hour work week, even higher?
I'm now going to have to read the real ass hattery proposed by the Parti Québécois to convince myself that if Quebec solidaire can beat the PQ in Mercier, they should still get my vote.
I wanted to be won over but I'm not. I find the platform long on wishful thinking - a lot of promises, very few mechanisms for achieving them, incredibly statist and interventionist, while I believe the government should set the rules and then let the citizens run the show.
From reading the document I'm deeply ambivalent. I'd like to believe that I broadly agree with most of the intentions, if not the approach to achieving them, but I'm not sure I do...
There's a real philosophical disconnect for me as to what areas the government should be involved in and what things it should leave well enough alone. I don't really believe that subsidies actually create sustainable or viable industries - why should a bunch of bureaucrats or politicians have any better idea than the rest of us on how to allocate our resources?
I think greenhouse gases is a perfect example. If you decide there's too much carbon in the atmosphere, what's the least intrusive way to encourage a society to reduce their emissions? If you want to encourage non fossil fuel energy, do you set up a bureaucracy to run it, or do you open up the grid so granny can feed in the electricity she's generating capturing granddad's farts?
I will still quite possibly vote Quebec solidaire in Mercier, but it will be in the hopes of blocking Pauline Marois.
If there's any hope of Quebec solidaire becoming a real place for progressives to place their votes, there's a lot of work, and transparency and soul searching as to what kind of government they actually would form, that needs to go on.
Friday, August 10, 2012
Why I will be voting for Fozzy Bear
Years ago I saw Jean Charest on a Mark Labreche talk show. He rode some kind of roller coaster onto the set and then proceeded to be funny and smart for the length of the segment.
What can I say? I liked him, and, given the state of Quebec politics today, I still like him.
Is their corruption in politics? How could there not be? Wherever there are humans there's corruption, and politics, the arena of what passes for public power, naturally attracts its share of opportunists and psychopaths.
But do I for one minute think Pauline Marois would be a better premier than Jean Charest? No. Pauline Marois for me radiates a nasty smugness I find viscerally revolting.
Does it help that she's rich, yet pretends to be of the people and for the people? No. Does it help that she leads the Parti Quebecois, which, I'm sorry to say represents for me as an anglophone the party of xenophobia and cultural insecurity, which is about 10 million miles away from the francophones I know, and partly because of whom I've made Quebec my home and the home of my children?
So do I think the Liberals are blameless, or above reproach? No. But I see voting for anyone who will split the vote in favour of the PQ as way more dangerous than another Liberal government.
What can I say? I liked him, and, given the state of Quebec politics today, I still like him.
Is their corruption in politics? How could there not be? Wherever there are humans there's corruption, and politics, the arena of what passes for public power, naturally attracts its share of opportunists and psychopaths.
But do I for one minute think Pauline Marois would be a better premier than Jean Charest? No. Pauline Marois for me radiates a nasty smugness I find viscerally revolting.
Does it help that she's rich, yet pretends to be of the people and for the people? No. Does it help that she leads the Parti Quebecois, which, I'm sorry to say represents for me as an anglophone the party of xenophobia and cultural insecurity, which is about 10 million miles away from the francophones I know, and partly because of whom I've made Quebec my home and the home of my children?
So do I think the Liberals are blameless, or above reproach? No. But I see voting for anyone who will split the vote in favour of the PQ as way more dangerous than another Liberal government.
Monday, June 18, 2012
Jazz Amnesty Sound System
The Jazz Amnesty Sound System - DJ Luv (Lew Braden) and Andy Williams play Bar Waverley 5550 St Laurent, Sunday nights from 9 pm. Drawing from their scary deep jazz collections it's a very chill way to see out the weekend.
For a sample of the live night visit :
Video streaming by Ustream
Follow them on Mixcloud : http://www.mixcloud.com/J_A_S_S/
For a sample of the live night visit :
Video streaming by Ustream
Follow them on Mixcloud : http://www.mixcloud.com/J_A_S_S/
Thursday, May 31, 2012
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