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Showing posts from February, 2007

FORA

View The Holocaust & the Importance of Museums on FORA.tv

Gong Xi Fah Choi

See here the steam of hot house flowers. Welcome the New Year with mist. See here the young boy sitting. As the promise of the new is pervasive. All when relished feels fresh and the nowness is here calling. In 1883 the heating plant exploded setting the main dome on fire. Railroad tycoon Charles Crocker donated funds for repair and the dome was restored. In 1906, the great San Francisco earthquake destroyed much of the city, but didn't significantly harm this "glass house."

Right Place? Right Time?

O.K. I’m in fund development. It’s what I do, and so, since the arts & culture communities in the United States rely on the work that volunteers and fundraisers do, we all need to be realistic. And its helpful to be positive. Like Pedro says in Napolean Dynamite , "If you vote for me all of your wildest dreams will come true." I have been a little overwhelmed of recent how there are several quiet-ish, positive indicators out there that the economy might just be taking off. The NY Times reports …quietly?...(a little low-key, just on the cover of the business page) that the nation may be on the brink of a nineties-style expansion. And the San Francisco Chronicle headlines “Robust economy forecast." What’s this all about? Are these unmanned drones that are being sent out to spy upon and placate unsuspecting media readers? Then there’s an article in today’s Chron that says , “…people must take initiative and do it themselves,” adding that "Each generation mu

OMG...Celebreality

When I went to www.britneyspears.com today it was "broke." There was a pretty, pink, slowly-loading "Under Construction" equivalent -- a faux baroque frame enclosed the words, "Stay tuned! Britney's new web site is in the works..." Why?! What happened? Where all of those public letters and apologies for public indiscretions? Really, I've mainly posted this hoping that maybe, just maybe I might draw some more traffic by loading not only the most sought after two words in English typing "Britney" and "Spears," but I have here loaded pictures as well. Come to me surfers. Come to me. And dear Neva , please come to me. And amongst the "13 Sexy Men Who Are Real and Alive," Neva sayz: "I could go on about the erotic appeal of Peter Lorre or why Justin Timberlake should be served with chocolate sauce...I rest, so that you may digest." [Translator's note: Dear Britney, Please call Justin. Call J.T. Let

Adorno?

According to Horkheimer and Adorno, the source of today's calamity is a pattern of blind domination, domination in a triple sense: the domination of nature by human beings, domination of nature within human beings, and, in both of these forms of domination, the domination of some human beings by others. What motivates such triple domination is an irrational fear of the unknown: "Humans believe themselves free of fear when there is no longer anything unknown. This has determined the path of demythologization . . . . Enlightenment is mythical fear radicalized" (DE 11). In an unfree society whose culture pursues so-called progress no matter what the cost, that which is "other," whether human or nonhuman, gets shoved aside, exploited, or destroyed. - from Stanford's Plato site

THANKFUL

I have to say, "Yesterday was a great day." I was up at five. My almost-eight-month-old son Emil was craning his neck to see me. And he was going “deh, deh, deh,” with the biggest smile on his face. Work was a blast. The Museum had one of its highest weekday attendances in recent history. And we had several important donors come through. As if the day had not had enough going on, there was a threat that the electricity might go out, because the decades-old wiring on the present building was wearing out. Museum visitors were given flashlights. I saw a woman reading one of the embroidered texts by flashlight, and it all felt so important, activist, necessary. View Holocaust Survivor Esther Nisenthal Krinitz on FORA.tv Toward the end of the long day, there was a scheduled public educational program with Israeli artist David Behar speaking in the Museum’s Reutlinger gallery. At one point he played some video from his laptop presentation and you could hear the mashing chur

Where I Left My Heart

Y'know, I just had a great day "in the City." And around these parts that means San Francisco . When I first arrived I resented San Francisco being known as "the City." Having come only a few years ago -- and that number's growing to be some four years now -- from the NYC and having traveled a fair amount, I did not think SF deserved any grand moniker and certainly not "the City." I live in Oakland. And there's a whole rhetoric, even t-shirts around the "competition." One of the cooler groups DOING SOMETHING ABOUT IT is Oaklandish . Actually they just parked their sales van at the end of our block. The thing is I just fell in love with San Francisco, and maybe for the first time . I just had a fantastic day IN THE CITY. Karen, Emil and I went to a presentation by our friend Patricia Bruvry and her fellow quilters about African traditions at the Public Library. Today was my first time in the SF Public Library building. It'

MAGNES on the WEB

View Conversations on Art on FORA.tv This was a great program at the Museum that served as a forum mainly for Prof. Ken Goldberg . Ken's a brave cat who's been doing his thing for many years, formidably, seriously and with high acclaim . He is a super sweet and encouraging guy with a super talented wife . Also on the panel were Meredith Tromble , and Jim Gibson . Also, The big JK -- Jonathon Keats and Magnes Chief Curator Alla Efimova, Ph.D. I'm so jazzed that Magnes programs now live on "in perpetuity" on-line . And as to the Sounds of Silence -- check it...the big JK's got a silent ringtone . And after you load the ringtone , download the wallpaper fer just something like $1.99 .

Frances Dinkelspiel on Gavin Newsom Affair in the Media

From Ghost Word posted Friday, February 02, 2007 I really wasn’t all that excited by the news that San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom had an affair with the wife of his campaign manager. But I guess I am in the minority. The Chronicle’s website got a record number of hits Thursday, garnering 4.8 million hits. That’s 400,000 more than its last record-breaking day, which was Election Day 2006, according to Editor and Publisher . In recognition of the importance of new media over old, the Chronicle decided to break the news of the affair on its web site rather than waiting for the next day’s newspaper. SFGate posted the article at 8 pm on Wednesday. "Even two years ago, there would have been one article and there would have been a great debate about posting it on the Web the night before," Peter Negulescu, the Chronicle's vice president for digital media, told Editor and Publisher. "Today, we push it out to the Web site, it gets picked up by people like Drudge and G