The Last Winter

After the eco-fashion show sponsored in part by Living Green, I quickly hopped on over to the Nuart where the last show of 'The Last Winter' was showing. They had a special showing of 'Metropolis' with a dj spinning tunes to accompany the movie afterwards, but unfortunately I wasn't able to stick around for that. Maybe next time.


'The Last Winter' is dubbed as an ecological horror flick. Think global warming, oil drilling, lots of ice and permafrost, toxic gas, naked men, crows, and sex and you will have the basic gist of the movie. I'm not one to be freaked out or scared when I watch horror films. This one is probably the scariest movie this year to date that I've seen, not because of the grotesque imagery or the sawing of body parts, but because it sticks so close to and echoes alot of our deepest fears. You see men with various intents, thrown together, and while some can see the writing on the wall, most choose to ignore it, thus dooming everyone. I also liked it when they likened oil drillers to 'grave-robbers' where all the ancient fossils of dead organisms were being excavated for pure profit and gain, without any regard to the environment.

Now I have a new fave genre: the ecological thriller. This Sunday the 30th @ 5pm and 7:30pm the Aero Theatre in Santa Monica they're showing a couple of movies which I hope to see. The 5pm show is 'Winners and Losers', a documentary about globalization and the effects on some individuals. The 7:30pm show is another eco-thriller, 'The Cloud', based on an award-winning novel written by Gudrun Pausewang, which illustrates the affects of a breakdown of a nuclear power plant. Both films are German.


Check out more of the American Cinemateque/Aero theatre offerings here.


Aero Theatre
1328 Montana Ave
Santa Monica, CA

What the World Eats

The Skirball Cultural Center hosts a wide variety of events, readings, and lectures, and art exhibitions. I've been seeing some posters around town, particularly on Wilshire Boulevard, on the new 'Noah's Ark' exhibition cum playground-esque sort of thing, where families and kids can play in and around, participate in activities, and look at the many different representations of animals, all made from recycled materials and everyday objects, I might add.

The other talk on October 9th @ 7:30pm, which sounded interesting, is titled 'Hungry Planet: What the world eats with Peter Menzel and Faith D'Aluisio'.

Photographers Peter Menzel and Faith D'Aluisio visited 30 families in 24
countries on a quest to explore the personal and political nature of food and
nutrition. In this slide-illustrated talk, view their spectacular photographs of
each family with a week's worth of food purchases. These portraits offer telling
commentary on the concept of nourishment and the effects of conflict, poverty
and globalization.

It would be interesting to find out what people in other countries eat...I'm expecting to find alot of home prepared foods and not alot of processed stuff, unlike, uh, us Americanos. But maybe our influence and habits have proliferated in far countries we'd least likely expect...hm..

Admission to 'Noah's Ark' is $10 for general admission, and seniors & full time students get a discount. It's only $5 for kids. The Hungry Planet show is $10 general admission. Buy tickets online.

Skirball Cultural Center

2701 North Sepulveda Blvd.,

Los Angeles, CA 90049

Phone: (310) 440-4500

Alot of trash

[check out the collage at Orion Magazine]

For 365 days, Tim Gaudreau took meticulous photographs of everything he threw away, after which, he ended up becoming more aware of what he was throwing away, thus limiting his consumption quite a bit. One can either opt to call the cat obsessive-compulsive or a shrewd documentarian; its clear that at the very end, when one is confronted with an entire chronicle of waste they have generated, it serves to make one look hard at one's own pattern of consumption.

I'm sure that if I took similar pictures of my trash, I would be equally astounded at my own behavior. I already am somewhat disgusted but I don't have the pics to prove it. It's strange, to say the least, when I see treats or toys touted as 'eco-friendly', but they're in a 24-pack and individually packaged and wrapped in plastic. To 'preserve freshness' I suppose. I find it interesting how the cups and/or cup sleeves of the Starbucks say that they're made of '10% post consumer waste' and how this exemplifies their commitment to be a part of the solution of saving the environment. Why they aren't made of more than a mere 10% I don't know. It may also lead people to get the wrong idea about ways to go more eco and give some a false sense of eco security, a certain 'smug' which an entire South Park episode was based on-why not bring your own mug to the coffee shop?

Enemies!

Some random quotes about enemies. I think it's definitely healthy to have at least one enemy, or two, or a whole grip of them. If you don't, go forth and foster them, not for the sake of course of merely having one, but for reasons linked to being human and having a brain. Beside it being character building, it really is a blessing in disguise, and in some respect, a measure of one's success, given your enemies are so not because of some moral reprehensibilities.

Forgive your enemies, but never forget their names. -JFK

You have enemies? Good. That means you've stood up for something, sometime in your life.-Winston Churchill

Observe your enemies, for they first find out your faults.-Antisthenes

A wise man gets more use from his enemies than a fool from his friends-Baltazar Gracian

You can observe what your enemy fears most by observing the means he uses to frighten you- Eric Hoffer

A man cannot be too careful in his choice of enemies-Oscar Wilde

I have never made but one prayer to God, a very short one: 'O Lord, make my enemies ridiculous'. And God granted it.-Voltaire

Courtesy of the Quotations Page.

Use and be used

My current home desk or office situation leaves me with the vague impression of something more to be desired, as in a new desk, with like, drawers and stuff. I currently have just a table from Ikea, with a rinky-dink drawer set stuffed underneath, practically bursting from all the schtuff I've managed to fill it with, very little of which, I might add, I've managed to need or use within the last year or so.

Buy new? Ha! Since I live in an apartment, if I ever decided to move I figure it's best to be able to not buy an entirely new desk, but maybe find someone giving away an old one. Figured it was worth a shot. That way, I can find a used desk, condition not important, with the qualification that it has some drawers, and in the event I ever decided to move, can then give it away to someone else who then is also in dire need of a desk, granted that I haven't developed by then an unhealthy attachment to that particular desk.

You can look on Craigslist in their free section. Among some of the items people are giving away? Free toilet anyone? I can see that being incorporated in some sort of art project. As well as being used for other stuff. Eww. I didn't find anyone giving away any desks there, although I'll prolly check back occasionally. As long as you're patient and don't NEED anything right away, there are a plethora of sites and people willing to give away stuff.

There's also FreeCycle, a social network with local chapters, where you can both look for and give away stuff you don't want. I've posted that I wanted a desk with drawers. Let's see if/when/how soon I can get one. Another issue is when I find one, how to bring it home. I think I'll try to fig that one when and if I actually DO find something.

Malibu Organic & Eco Fest

On Saturday, October 6th, the Malibu Chamber of Commerce is hosting their first annual 'Wallflower: Organic & Eco Fest', highlighting green businesses, an eco-fashion show, and in general focusing on a community-centered approach to educate/enlighten/entertain various festival goers on what I hope to be a sunny, breezy afternoon.

View J-Punk's map

Taken in (See more photos here)

Some of the highlights include: green speakers on green living (Ed Begley Jr. amongst them), green building, entertainment and music powered in part by solar, and over 200+ eco vendors. The music line-up is both eclectic and interesting, for example, the Stephani Valadez ensemble which is an interesting mish-mash of N.African, Middle Eastern, and Spanish songs, and DJ Jah Z, which on the website says that it is 'eclectic listening music for the eco-mindset'. I'm not sure what sort of music this will be tho but...

Zero Impact Malibu will donate 10% of proceeds from booth sales to the Malibu Park Legacy Project, which actively tries to reduce pollution impacts, among other things.

Wallflower Organic & Eco Festival
October 6th, Saturday
10am-6pm
at the Malibu Legacy Park
Freeee!

Fun with Scholarly Conjectures

If you have a bit o' free time, or if you know what you will be doing on October 14th @4pm, check out the Getty Museum's scholarly series on various subtopics under the umbrella topic of Change. Change will be the overall motif of the 2007-8 Getty Institute Scholar Year Program. Whether it will help YOU to decide if change is good or otherwise is indeterminable; whether it will get your ass out of work early for some extra-curricular activities on hump day is up to you.



[photo courtesy of the Getty, La terre n'est pas précisément ronde, photomechanical print in L'Illustration, vol. 133, no. 3439 (January 23, 1909), p. 67]

Kicking off the whole shindig is 'Identity Theft in the Ancient Mediterranean World' on October 4th @ 8pm in the Getty Villa. Then next is Angus Fletcher on 'Aristotle Contemplating the Bust of Homer: Reflections on Change' on October 14th. Since everything that IS is concievably not immune to change, I can certainly imagine that a wide variety o' topics can and will certainly be covered at the Getty during this 'scholarly year'. Work? Bah!

Here's a blurby bit on the October 14th talk:

In this lecture, Angus Fletcher highlights the relationship between philosopher and artist as a prelude to considering various fundamental ideas of change in three domains: the natural world, the world of the arts, and the world of thought. These forms of life are always changing their apparent shapes and dimensions, as time passes in nature and in human affairs. Fletcher advances a theory of change that focuses any and all understandings of cultural development. He suggests major conceptual issues for theories of change, illuminating scenes from the drama of Western intellectual life.

Amen. I know what I'll be doing then. And yes I'm a nerd. Make sure to make reservations, either by enrolling online on their website here, or calling their hotline at (310) 440-7300. Beats fighting traffic!

Getty Center
1200 Getty Center Drive
Los Angeles, Ca

Parking is $8. The lectures are free, as they should be.

Poo-Poo Paper

Paper from elephant poo? Yea, that's right. Mr. Ellie Pooh, a company who derives its sources from sustainable, 100% recycled poo, makes things like notebooks, stationary, greeting cards, and frames. I guess you can send a card to that special someone to let them know what you really think of them.



[photo courtesy of Mr. Ellie Pooh]

Without getting into too much of the nasty details, the wild elephant dung in Sri Lanka is collected, sun-dried, disinfected with a certain naturally-occuring plant, and then made into paper. Since the elephants eat all sorts of woodsy, shrubbery items, the wood pulp is converted inside the elephant to paper quality stuff.

How they found out they could make paper out of this is anyone's guess. Some things though I'd rather leave a mystery...and appreciate the end prod.

The good thing is? They ship and they have a wide variety of, uh, products to choose from. I looked for something to order but it didn't say what sort of ink they used and what they used to tint their paper with...although I'm somewhat sure its ok...

Fun. Here's the website.

Mr. Ellie Pooh

*update-- I emailed them about how they color their paper. All their paper is colored with 'natural salt dyes' and made without harsh chemicals, i.e., bleaches, that sort of thing.