Spittin' Change » Popular Culture

For Love of Do-Good Vampires on NPR

Keeling — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 15:50:42 +0000

This is a fun listen. It offers a brief history of vampire stories in the English language in order to contextualize the current popularity of vampires, and assess some of the differences between today’s vampires and previous ones. Though this story doesn’t talk about it, it seems that vampire stories today offer a fascinating entry into conversations about global capitalism, sexuality, and how to incorporate difference into our sense of identity without feeling that we are losing something fundamental.

Here’s a link to the story on NPR.

Mississippi Damned

Keeling — Sun, 20 Sep 2009 16:43:19 +0000

Mississippi Damned showed at Outfest to a sold out audience and took home the 2009 Jury Award for Outstanding US Feature. The emotionally difficult and narratively complex feature film is a compelling contribution to American filmmaking in general and African-American filmmaking and queer filmmaking in particular. Although Mississippi Damned can be characterized as an African-American film, its interest is in framing a version of African America that has not been circulated onscreen, except as stereotypes working in the service of white supremacy. Perhaps Mississippi Damned, like the film Precious (which I have not yet seen but anxiously its November release), marks a recalibration of mainstream African American cinema that allows it to pursue avenues and social issues previously foreclosed by the pressure to produce and promote “positive” images of racial uplift.

I do not understand this recalibration as “post-black” because “black” consistently has marked a dynamic, contested category that indexes nothing but the spatio-temporal aporia it works to dissimulate by pummeling it into something recognizable. Mississippi Damned does point, however, to the increasing inadequacy of “representation” as an operative logic of cinema, as “film” itself is transforming under a variety of different pressures and changes.

Sleep Dealer

Keeling — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 23:08:08 +0000

I’ve heard the buzz about Sleep Dealer, which is now out on video. I’m looking forward to seeing it sometime in the not too distant future.

Check out the other information about this film on the film’s web site.

John Greyson’s experimental documentary Fig Trees

Keeling — Sat, 11 Jul 2009 18:28:13 +0000

John Greyson’s opera documentary entitled Fig Trees screened at Outfest yesterday. Through experimentation with form, the documentary highlights the irrationality of profit-motive-as-rationale driving pharmaceutical companies’ approach to HIV/AIDS, and the complicated relationship between culture, capitalism, and movements for social and economic justice. A complex, and at times self indulgent film, Fig Trees sparks creative connections between queer culture, life/death, international race relations, new media, and capitalism. It is an innovative and exciting contribution to documentary filmmaking, and, in particular, to a body of filmmaking that seems ready to take an interest once again in experimenting with form in order to push the envelope on what constitutes queer filmmaking in terms of both form and content.

Here is an excerpt from Greyson’s Fig Trees:

4 Throats (from John Greyson’s Fig Trees) from Jared Raab on Vimeo.

City of Borders documentary

Keeling — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 14:49:42 +0000

I took the opportunity to screen the recently released documentary City of Borders at this year’s Los Angeles film Festival. Korean-American filmmaker Yun Suh delivers a compelling and provocative film. Though at times it privileges a narrative about queer people that presents lgbt people as somehow more capable of overcoming hatred and inequality, a stance that reifies a particular version of queer identity and thereby obscures the ways that queer people participate in oppressive and exploitative ideologies and situations, the documentary offers welcome insights into the complexity of the current socio- political situation in Jerusalem.

FESPACO

Keeling — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 20:47:48 +0000

IMAGINE FESPACO NEWSREEL 1
Uploaded by IMAGINEINSTITUTE

This is a video made by Gaston Kabore’s Imagine Institute about FESPACO. This is the first newsreel. There is a second one on the site to which this entry links.

Los Angeles Pan African Film Festival

Keeling — Sun, 08 Feb 2009 18:04:31 +0000

The Pan African Film Festival is going on in LA this week. It looks like an exciting line-up!

Studio 360 Segment on Afro-futurism

Keeling — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 22:18:17 +0000

I enjoyed listening to this week’s episode of Studio 360. The whole show is pretty good, but I was interested especially in two segments, the one about Afro futurism and the one about Native Americans’ relationship to stories about alien invasions. Both segments are included here. There also is a pretty cool audio clip on the Studio 360 web site that did not air with the rest of the show. I don’t know more about than is listed on the studio 360 web site, but I have many questions about it. It is the last one below.

The White Flyer to Heaven (1927)

Gabriel Karagianis and Starline Gallery

Keeling — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 22:54:26 +0000

Gabriel Karagianis is an energetic and talented creative force behind an exciting art studio and gallery in the unlikely town of Harvard, IL. In the interest of full disclosure, I must admit that Gabe also is my cousin. Yet, were it not for this happy accident of familial affiliation, I probably would be unaware of the exciting art scene emerging in Harvard, a small mid-western town about an hour outside of Chicago.

A series of paintings by Gabriel Karagianis, originally on display at a local coffee shop.

Over the 4th of July weekend, I had the opportunity to visit the gallery. It is described on gabrielshorn.org:

The Starline Gallery is a work in progress. The Starline building is over 100 years old and located at the end of the Metra Northwest passenger train line(out of Chicago). It is in a very unique phase of renovation, where art spaces are available for rent, and premium exhibition space is available to resident artists. The building itself covers about three city blocks. Tours of the gallery space or studios are available by appointment. For information about upcoming events, send a message to the contact page.

I am excited about the energy and enthusiasm that is palpable in the studio and gallery, which is housed in an as yet to be fully converted factory. Starline Gallery certainly is a place to keep an eye on! And, if I dare say so myself, so is Gabe Karagianis.

These are just some of the pictures I took on the tour Gabriel gave me. There are many other pictures of his artwork on his website.

Border Radio on NPR

Keeling — Sat, 12 Jul 2008 17:21:01 +0000

I heard this segment on NPR about Border Radio recently. It conveys a fascinating piece of media history: