» Fringe Blog – Writing on Film, Culture, and Things on the Fringe

Fringecast 6

jelewis8 — Tue, 18 Apr 2006 10:27:11 +0000

Better late than on time. Or so the current theory goes. This week’s Fringecast underwent some serious editorial work, mostly because we ran over our allotted time budget on every segment by an average of two minutes. It was that good. Don’t worry though. The best parts have remained, including a marvelous movie trailer for a film called Sack Lunch. In case you were wondering, all our movie trailer titles come from “Seinfeld”, and do not exist in real life…yet. However, if some aspiring executive at Sony happens to catch the ‘cast and sees dramedy gold, he’d better do the right thing and contact us pronto. Remember, Sony, we live right next door. We know what you do in your offices late at night when you think no one is looking.
If you care to, you can catch the Fringecast on iTunes, which should update at a click of your mouse, or if you’re feeling adventurous and frisky, check out the XML feed. Otherwise, click to get the direct file. Previous episodes are on the sidebar, as usual.

Mothballs and Deep Throat

jelewis8 — Thu, 02 Jun 2005 19:39:52 +0000

So Deep Throat was not that Jerry Hardin guy from the X-Files after all, but a second in line at the FBI named Mark Felt. The press is trumpeting the glory call of old time triumphs–the takedown of an American President, whose perfidy as Commander in Chief came to define the beginning of the 1970′s and increased the public’s distrust of government. That the press uncovered such diabolical happenings, and that Deep Throat’s anonymity was kept secret for over thirty years is a badge the press places upon itself as yet another example of why the 4th Estate is so desperately needed to counter the encroachment and deceptions the government purposefully sows.
My increasing apathy and cynicism at the state of the world leads me to point out that Felt was simply annoyed at Nixon for being passed over for a promotion, and thus his contact with Woodward and Bernstein wasn’t out of some moral or patriotic duty, but rather out of spite and retribution. Some press hero.
Eh, not that it really matters to me. I have about as much affinity with the original Deep Throat as I do with the porno of the same name (hint, not a lot, in case you had to ask). I come from the generation whose mind is more on the latest iPod release than whose cover is being blown in some uranium yellowcake scandal. I suppose years down the road some of us will still remember the name Valerie Plame and know what that means; I’ll actually be one of them, oddly enough, though my knowledge of the case is, even now, somewhat fuzzy. Will my generation also remember the Iraq war as the war that, details aside, overthrew Saddam Hussein?
I suspect that history is being shaped, and has been since before the war started, to paint it in rather a more subtle light, one that doesn’t fall quite as kindly on the overthrowers. Oh sure, Saddam’s a monster and all, but what about due process? What about sovereignty? What about blood for oil? These are the questions that will resonate in text books, and teachers will give knowing glances about the room at the young, impressionable kids learning all this stuff for the first time as they talk about Bush and his controversial policies, his questionable win of two Presidential terms, the war in Iraq and Afghanistan that killed hundreds of thousands of civilians.
This is how history is remembered, and like Woodward and Bernstein and the remainder of the media whose watchful eye on events has certainly done its part in structuring viewpoints, the media will congratulate itself years from now, when democracy has indeed become firmly rooted in places like Iraq and Afghanistan. They’ll write articles remembering the good they did in exposing the truth in places like Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay. And well they should. For who among us wants to remember the bad, the horrible, the extremes of human error and waste and scandal? It’s necessary to remember it all as well as we might, for the obvious reasons that repetitive history would otherwise teach us.
Certainly it behooves us to have that record, however spotty and jaded and coloured with specific lenses. Smart people can sift through the whole chest and find faded, flattened flowers inside books, letters from home, drawings from the kids. The press sees the dust and mothballs and mouse droppings as an indication of our collective condition. When you’re pawing through your history chest, what do you see?

Seattle Blogerites

jelewis8 — Wed, 29 Dec 2004 02:35:03 +0000

The Adventures of Two East Coast Bloggers on the West Coast: A Moral Tale

Call it fate, call it karma, call it the ever-elusive whim of the blogospheric deity (if you’re into that sort of thing). Somehow, amid the bustle of post-Christmas happenings and pre-New Year celebratory city explorations, I managed to meet up with DC blogger Greg Piper, whose previous experience meeting me in person apparently didn’t sour him to future contact with me and my abrasive and annoying personality.
Pause to save and take this up later.
I’m back. I’m riding along I-5 heading back from downtown Seattle, an afternoon of the usual banter from bloggers long acquainted with each other’s websites behind me; a late lunch at Pike’s Pub, then slow meandering down past the Lusty Lady (those marquee holiday puns really heighten the erotic spirit of the season) to the Online Cafe, where the geek factor rises by at least ten points. IM’ing two to five feet away from each other is either the mark of total social ease or total social ineptness. I remain optimistic, and hope that it’s social ease, otherwise my future with women remains as foggy as Greg’s (Ouch! –Ed.). Credit for tracking down all these links goes to Greg, who is quicker on the draw than I’ll ever be.
Truly, blogging is the new paradigm in online meet-ups; Greg and I meeting in Seattle is probably a bit unusual in that we both are currently located on the East Coast, but the concept of bloggers meeting–specifically, meeting through their blogs–isn’t all that unusual. Given the availability and ease the medium offers, it’s heartening to see it, and being in the middle of the action, so to speak, is worth even more than a tantalizing evening with Seattle’s finest ladies of the night.
As I’ve stated in a previous entry, Greg Piper is a fine gentleman in person (I, on the other hand, am not), accomodating and generous (I’m expecting that PayPal donation any day now). He agreed to meet my brother Noel and I for lunch, which entailed beer and burgers and talk of resurrecting Rosie O’Donnell’s flagging fame and lax heterosexuality through a blogging campaign.
Yes, this is what some bloggers talk about when they meet in person.
As usual, I had left my camera behind, but fortunately Greg had his trusty Minolta SlimFast (or whatever it’s called). Take a look at these handsome fellas!

By the way, more photos from our adventure are up at Greg’s site. Honestly, we’re not gay (not that there’s anything wrong with that)!
Leave it to a 12 cents/minute charge at the internet cafe to draw us away from our amusing online repartee and back into the bustle of Seattle’s downtown and our separate ways.
It’s been a fine holiday for me; with added treats like meeting a fellow blogger on the streets of this Left Coast haven of commerce and capitalism, I can easily call myself a blessed man.
Okay, I’m turning off the cheese faucet now.