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Score one for the little guys. Scrappy upstart NY Sun shows a knack for reporting, scooping the Liberal Establishment with news of the Souvenir premiere. (auteur paparazzi photo included)

You need movie ideas? Julian Dibbell writes in Wired about the physical world economies of online games like Ultima Online and Everquest.

The messy complex of characters and possessions that had been Troy Stolle’s virtual identity was broken down into parts far more valuable than the whole. The priciest items were listed on eBay within a day or two, and one by one they went off to the highest bidder.
But the most valuable of all was the last to go. Not that Kiblinger lacked for house buyers in the month that Stolle’s tower stood at auction. He sold one property to a single mom in Colorado, another to a manager for a database company in California. Yet another went to a woman in Virginia, who bought the house for her mother, an Alzheimer’s sufferer whose last link to reality was her Ultima sessions with her daughter…
At first he thought the previous owner was a character named Blossom. She handed off the deed. But Blossom turned out to be one of Kiblinger’s avatars – and not even Kiblinger at the keyboard but his cousin Eugene, who gets $10 an hour to run around Britannia doing the deliveries that used to take up most of Kiblinger’s workday.

Wired must have a news bureau in Britannia. They also report on virtual Christmas parties and spontaneous post-Sept. 11 candlelight vigils. [party on, Travelers Diagram]

Steven Johnson writes about an idea he’s had, how to do a movie about nanotechnology right. Turns out Michael Crichton had wondered the same thing, and wrote a book about it. Turns out that book, at least the good parts, are similar to ideas Johnson has been mulling over (and writing and publishing on) for a while, too.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, “how’d that be as a movie?” is a question I’m always asking myself, too. Tonight on Dublog, was this sentence which captured one idea I’ve been wrestling with lately. From Jennifer 8. Lee’s NY Times article about Google’s Live Query display:

people who shouldn’t marry
“she smoked a cigar”
mr. potatoheads in long island
pickup lines to get women
auto theft fraud how to.
Stare at Live Query long enough, and you feel that you are watching the collective consciousness of the world stream by.

You want to come up with some movie ideas, too? See how many movies you can make from this: The Weekly Standard‘s engrossing report from a Christian retailers’ convention. There’s a lot more to Church Merch than just the Prayer of Jabez brand family, after all. (You thought it was just the best-selling book of 2001? You need to repent, brother.)

The enlarge-my-territory prayer [of Jabez] also appears on wristwatches, bumper stickers, pens, candy bars, Jabez: A Novel, and much else. “It’s from the Bible, so I guess they couldn’t copyright it,” muses one CBA exhibitor. Several others tell me that editors are scouring the Bible in search of another nobody with star quality.

In The Guardian, Jonathan Jones takes a while to get to an interesting story of Mark Rothko’s masterful series of paintings, originally commissioned for the Four Seasons restaurant. It seems Rothko painted them in contempt and withdrew them in disgust after checking out the Cafeteria of Power and deciding the moguls would be insufficiently cowed by the art. Two of Rothko’s overt influences: the “bricked up windows” of Michelangelo’s Laurentian Library vestibule, and Pompeii’s Villa of the Mysteries (“strange,” “luxurious and hellish,” a Dionysian attack on Mies/Johnson’s rational order ) [12/12 update: The Times reports Vivendi Universal is preparing to sell the Seagram collection, which would have included the Rothkos in the Four Seasons.]
On another note, Laura Winters, long the NYT‘s and Washington Post‘s go-to journalist for a new generation of independent and foreign filmmakers (and Harvard alum), gives Vogue‘s celebrity coverage an upgrade with a profile of plays-a-writer-in-Adaptation Meryl Streep. Problematically, Ms Streep and the two actresses I’d pick to play Laura in the movie–Ms. Danes and Ms Foster–all went to Yale.

Doing the family thing in Hawaii for a while. greg.org implications:

I wrote a script on the plane, a new short tentatively titled Souvenir January 2003, which’ll be a one-day shoot when I’m at Sundance.

(No, that’s not an early indication of anything, but I figure it’s high time to go anyway. And besides, the snow prospects in January are already pretty good.)

The third act of the Animated Musical gets attention in the mornings, 5-7:00, thanks to jet lag. Made real progress on one of the characters, who makes his crucial appearance at the end. It’s very interesting, in a Hayao Miyazaki demon boar (Princess Mononoke)/bathhouse demon (Spirited Away) animation tour-de-force kind of way. Miyazaki portal, Nausicaa.net

Princess Mononoke, Hayao Miyazaki, image Nausicaa.net

Reading Scorsese on Scorsese collected interviews published in the wake of Last Temptation of Christ, the scandal for which sets too much of the editorial tone of the book. Also in the queue: Thucydides (as soon as I finish Gravity’s Rainbow). That reading list not pretentious-sounding enough for you? Wait till I do the animated musical version of Finnegan’s Wake.

Gauging which north shore hike to go on, my wife said, “That’s like walking from Columbia to Times Square and back,” which amused the locals.

Posting will be a little spotty for a few days.

Poetry was the reportage or weblogging medium of choice for the British in WWI. “Anthem for Doomed Youth” is an exhibit of 12 WWI poets at the Imperial War Museum in London. [Alan Riding wrote about it in today’s NY Times.]
From Siegfried Sassoon’s “Prelude: The Troops”:

DIM, gradual thinning of the shapeless gloom
Shudders to drizzling daybreak that reveals
Disconsolate men who stamp their sodden boots
And turn dulled, sunken faces to the sky
Haggard and hopeless…

BOING BOING HAS A LONG ARTICLE ABOUT “MOBLOGGING.” I DOUBT THEY WROTE IT ON A CELPHONE…

Video Still, 1997, Guy Richards Smit, Team Gallery
Just got back from a screening of Guy Richards Smit‘s video works at MoMA Gramercy. Guy’s been making funny Fassbinder-esque musical-esque shorts. He also showed a trailer from his current work in progress, an imaginary Sartres sequel, Nausea 2. Very smart, entertaining stuff. Small worlds being, well, small, Nausea 2 co-stars Rebecca Chamberlain, who stars in Souvenir November 2001. (She sings, which isn’t surprising, because she’s a performer, and she’s quite good.) And I was also surprised to see Souvenir‘s DP, Jonah Freeman turned up on a boat in one of Guy’s earlier works. Hey, sailor!
A very promising gig for those interested in the editorial and creative process: James Danziger, former 20th-century photography dealer and current editor of the cool culture zine The Mixture, is speaking December 3 at the Apple Store in Soho as part of their “Made on a Mac” series. We’re in Hawaii on the 3rd, so I hope someone will patch me in via mobile. Anyone want to burn through your Cingular minutes for me?
And apparently never coming to a theater near you, if you live in the USA, that is: 11′ 09″01, the compilation of short films related to September 11. I wrote about the Toronto screening in September. Now in Salon, Sarah Coleman writes about a recent screening of the film at Columbia. Coleman: “By not listening to what the rest of the world has to say about [Sept. 11], Americans run the risk of isolating themselves in a cocoon of self-righteousness and arrogance.”
A negative example of precisely one of my main motives for making Souvenir November 2001, which follows characters from a city that’s habitually open to the world at a time when it seemed like America could suddenly relate to a suddenly sympathetic world. When we could transcend a chronic exceptionalism and connect, realize that terrible things have happened before, and that we can learn from the horrors and tragedies that others have gone through. I’m sorry, but I refuse to believe that the only way to read and process and remember September 11th is as a sympathy-shaped cudgel a self-righteous US swings to clear a path for itself.

In June, I wrote about an extraordinary instance of reporting the morning the Worldcom fraud story broke. CNBC’s Mike Huckman ambushed Salomon analyst Jack Grubman (until then “The Most Powerful Man In The Telecom Industry”) outside his townhouse. Grubman was shaken and disoriented; you could see him struggling to respond to something other than a softball question.
But you could also see then and there Grubman’s realization that the world he imagined to be well within his control would soon start falling down, and there was nothing he could do about it. You couldn’t write this stuff. (Well, I couldn’t. Tennessee Williams, maybe…)
If Grubman’s tragedy follows the ancient structure, (and so far it does), this week features the amoibaion or lyric dialogue, what we now call “e-mail.” Slate condenses all the salient lines from this episode, where Grubman asks Sanford Weill (his boss’s boss’s boss’s boss) for help getting the Grubman twins into pre-school in exchange for, well, aye, there’s the rub. In his e-mail, Grubman gloats: “[AT&T Chairman Michael] Armstrong never knew that we both (Sandy and I) played him like a fiddle.” (Note to Jack: Your Rome’s burning, dude.)
If there are too many allusions in this posting, it’s because I can’t figure out if this is a biblical, Greek, Roman, Shakespearean or fable-like drama. But maybe it doesn’t matter; the end is likely the same. I do know how the second verse of the nursery rhyme goes: Take the keys and lock ’em up.

In a NY Times article by Tony Smith: Harley-riding “hackers” clear Sao Paulo’s roads for motorcades, score photos with the VIP’s they escort. These police escorts are officially called “outriders,” but they call themselves batadores, (hackers, after the Brazilian pioneers who cut roads through the jungle), and they apparently leave their royal, diplomatic, and rock star charges in awe. The Empress of Japan insisted on taking a picture with them; Elton John sent an emissary to one batadore’s funeral
The Pitch: It’s The Bodyguard meets Black Orpheus. International and Conveniently-Multiracial Pop Star on tour in Brazil falls in love with a swaggering bike cop in her motorcade. Get Hazelden on the phone; I need to talk to Mariah Carey…

Working on the Animated Musical, which is humming right along, thanks. There’s a whole Canada thing in the script, which keeps me on edge a bit. Some puppet-wielding treehuggers may blame South Park for depleting Canada’s natural comedy resources, but I’m sorry. When I stare into the deep comedic wells of the whole Canada Concept, I get as giddy as a moose-stepping Republican in the Arctic. Bumperstickers flash before my eyes: Faster, Fat Cat! Drill! Drill! and Fill up my SUV–with cheap laughs!. Ahem.
Twas ever thus, at least as far back as Steve Martin’s 1974 debut TV special, “The Funnier Side of Eastern Canada”:
Some guy John’s Canada parody of Apple’s “Switch” Ad? Funny.
The Molson “I AM Canadian” ad it dovetails so well with? Funny.
CBC’s Larry Sanders-like series, The Newsroom? Not just funny, but Canada Funny (think “Minnesota Nice”).
Suck’s early-and-often Canada-bashing? Very Funny.
South Park? Dude.

In case that doesn’t narrow it down enough:
Dublog, which has, among many other interesting things, this link about astronauts’ photographs or earth. Bears out what Thoreau said, which I wrote about a few weeks ago.
Purse Lip Square Jaw, a lot of interesting IA, A (architecture, that is), and culture. (thanks for the heads up, Peter)
Movie Poop Shoot, Kevin Smith’s worthy vehicle for online empire.

Baz Luhrmann’s William Shakespeare’s Romeo + Juliet is on. [Dig that vintage website. Can you imagine anyone–besides me–putting so much text on a film site?] It’s been a while since I’ve seen it; remembering how good it is. It was from more innocent days, just before Leonardo DiCaprio became Leo. It has a gang of excellent performances: John Leguizamo, Harold Perrineau, Paul Sorvino, Diane Venora, Paul Rudd, Dash Mihok, Miriam Margolyes… but it’s Luhrmann’s ecstatic vision that conquers all. One thing I didn’t anticipate, though: the degree to which audience perceptions and expectations can change over time. Romeo + Juliet‘s like freakin’ Ozu compared to Moulin Rouge.

Sometimes I get fed up with the course of human events abroad and I wonder if it isn’t better to just forget all that annoying international conflict for a while and just pay attention to what’s going on at home. You know, focus on what’s nearby. In my town. My community. My neighborhood. After all, it worked 30 years ago when my neighborhood was Sesame Street. There’s even a guy who makes short films about the people that he meets when he’s walking down the street; it’s called Neighborhood Films. New York’s not really known as a get-to-know-your-neighbor kind of town, but hey, I’ll give it a shot. I walk around the block.

The Pakistan U.N. Mission and Indian Consulate,
off Fifth Avenue, adjoining lots on the same block
Who are the people in my neighborhood? No one who’s gonna take my mind off things. Within a block there’s India and Pakistan, for example. In back-to-back Beaux-Arts townhouses. Can’t figure out which country bought first, but these two trigger-happy nuclear rivals have essentially replicated their sub-continental situation. Except they’re sharing their backyard fence peaceably, while enduring the same Upper East Side hardships we all face: dire shortages of video rental stores and cabs. (Wouldn’t you know, the Kashmiris still figure in somehow?)

Temple Emmanuel and The Palestine Observer to the UN, just down the street
Continuing around the corner of Fifth Avenue, it’s Temple Emmanuel, the “power synagogue,” as one friend put it. A nephew of a rabbi there, he also said, “it’s a great congregation if you’re looking for an apartment.” And just east of this Jewish holy site is the Permanent Observer to the United Nations for Palestine, complete with high-profile security. How’s this one working out? Well, you can see the Jersey barriers around the synagogue, and Palestine’s whole block was in lock-down for months after September 11th. No cars allowed, and residents only past the sidewalk checkpoints. Nearly drove 212, the eurotrash clubhouse/restaurant out of business. Hmm. Sounds like they’ve managed to replicate their home setup pretty closely, too. Just without the killing.
Giving up on giving up on the world’s problems for a while, I try instead to make some sense of it all. And? It’s all about location. Real estate, it all boils down to real estate. While it fuels bloody feuds around the world, the worst we have to deal with is the co-op board interview or getting the Landmarks Commission to approve your fiberglass cornice. What doesn’t differ between my neighborhood and the world: it’s all about having a good broker.

Brick Kilns,” Clay Bluffs 1900 Miles above St. Louis, George Catlin, 1832
Painter/enthnographer/showman/lawyer George Catlin saw and captured a moment in culture and time–the rapidly changing/disappearing society of over 50 American Indian tribes on the cusp of westward expansion. The largest exhibit of Catlin’s work in 100 years is currently at the Smithsonian’s Renwick Gallery. Sanford Schwartz, in the NY Review of Books, describes the paintings wonderfully, but he doesn’t quite get a handle on Catlin himself. It’s work, though, with an honesty and immediacy, a pretty relevant, contemporary feeling.

The Circus, Verne Dawson, 2001
Contemporary artist Verne Dawson‘s work is very much of this time. While apparently set in an idyllic pre-historic past (23,800 B.C. is the date in some Dawson’s titles), they sometimes include anachronistic civilization/technologies that can induce Planet Of The Apes-style post-apocalyptic pangs. Stylistically similar yet separated by over 160 years, both bodies of work feel very much of their own times.

Far From Heaven, Todd Haynes, 2002
Todd Haynes has accomplished something similar with his latest film, Far From Heaven. He didn’t simply approximate the look of Douglas Sirk’s 1950’s melodramas; he inhabited the entire aesthetic and moral structure of the genre to create a thoroughly original film. In Geoffrey O’Brien’s Artforum article, Haynes forefronts the utter intentionality of moviemaking. “Everything about film is always artificial. You can come to something far more surprisingly real by acknowledging how much of a construct it is first. It always feels so much more false to me when you set out to be real.”