The Tallest Man on Earth gets to play with some wonderful instruments at the Music Inn World Instruments in West Village Manhattan

Amy and I watched Žižek! last night. Director Astra Taylor and crew really knew how to make a documentary that didn't leave Slavoj Žižek sitting there as a talking head. Plus the soundtrack was by A Hawk And A Hacksaw's Jeremy Barnes, and the suicide sequence at the end is fantastic. I'm looking forward to seeing Examined Life.

Here is the full movie in 10 minute chunks: Removed from you tube

By Frida Berrigan | March 25, 2009
Foreign Policy in Focus

The main producers of cluster munitions — Russia, China, and the United States — have not signed the treaty. According to the Pentagon, the United States maintains a stockpile of 5.5 million cluster munitions containing about 728.5 million submunitions. Factoring in War Reserve Stocks for Allies (WRSA), Human Rights Watch calculates that the figure is closer to one billion submunitions.

On March 11, Obama signed into law the 2009 budget, which included a provision stating that the United States can only export cluster munitions that leave behind less than 1% of their submunitions as duds. The importing country must also agree not to use cluster munitions where civilians are known to be present. Only a very small number of cluster munitions in the U.S. arsenal meet the 1% dud-rate standard, and so the provision effectively bans export of these weapons. The specific language of the measure requires that "no U.S. military funds will be used for the sale or transfer or cluster bombs, unless: the cluster bombs have a failure rate of 1 percent or less; and the sale or transfer agreement specifies that the cluster bombs will be used only against clearly defined military targets and not where civilians are known to be present."

Read the complete report

You can also Tell the Senate to Give Cluster Bombs the Boot! Join the National Call-In Day March 30th


Photo by Farah Mokhtareizadeh - On a main road in the village of Soultanieh south of Sur. The canister with a long white parachute attached in the center of the photo is unexploded ordinance. Many of these bombs were dropped over Southern Lebanon in 2006. Nearly 10% of these sorts of bombs are designed not to explode on impact leaving mine fields for miles.

On May 25th, 2009 Mike Wallace interviewed Erich Fromm. Dr. Fromm is a psychoanalyst and social critic. The interview touches on happiness and materialism, relationships and love, salesmen and religion, and personality packages. Oh wait, that was May 25th, 1958.

Here's a full and captioned version.

Chicago's music really is this fun!

If I ever finish the droplits.com website it will mean that I have a lull in work. Hey, maybe I don't even need a good website for the business.
Thanks to Amy for providing the super bird painting. There was going to be a snail too, but that might give the wrong impression to potential clients.

     

Click here to download:

A_peak_sneak.zip (464 KB)

I first came across Phosphorescent a few years ago when I went to see some local Chicago band at Schubas. I had no expectations for the headliners. That is always the best time to be floored by a musical performance. What happened was these bedraggled skinny guys came out one by one and started beating out some horrible percussion in some weird non-tempo. I thought great some noise stuff, just what I didn't want to hear. Then something happened, the beats started to make sense and the tapping on the beer bottle was actually starting to work...then some horns started blaring and this guitar started sweeping in. It resulted in one of my fondest shows to date. Near the end of the set they passed out small hand percussion instruments to the audience. We were all best friends, drinking beer and loving the company. Matthew Houck, centers the band with his easy living singing like "we can curl in the waters, naked swirling like otters, you know how they are." Yeah, I think we do know how they are. I was telling Amy about them and dragged her out to see them play last year. She was fairly nonplussed. She just wanted to knit. But then it happened all over again; Phosphorescent laid down some big time sonic bliss, loudly, perfectly. Amy knitted in the dark in a rapturous lifted state. A few days later my band laid down a cover of Wolves being excited by live music again, we played in our underwear. And now Phosphorescent has put together To Willie, a collection of 11 non-hits by, yeah, that Willie. It is sweet. But don't let their lulling sleepy tempos fool you, their shows are huge and uncapturable.

So, here we go again off to see them again at the Empty Bottle this Friday. You should be there too.

         

Click here to download:

Phosphorescent.zip (554 KB)

This wheelbarrow is dedicated to Danny Muller. If you need a wheelbarrow, and lordy knows we all do, you should talk to Danny.

This dude loves crackers and tortillas!

   

Click here to download:

Simn_Bolvar_the_Squirrel.zip (242 KB)