tom moody

A comment I made on Paddy Johnson's blog about an earlier post here:

All of my considerations of [Lev] Manovich were meant as sardonic jokes. My conception of new media is about 180 degrees from his. The LoVid patchwork is the antithesis of numerical data-–it is made of video “noise” printed out on cloth and hand sewn–-a unique unrepeatable object. The “tree” from CPB’s blog, translated from French, reduces the priorities of the network to images, dogs, and cats. The mouse scribbles were an over-the-top literalization of the concept of “automatic writing.” Your description of Item 4 was what I intended: repeatability of an idea is not necessarily good. And item 5 is a Mac misreading a crisp animated GIF by adding undesired anti-aliasing effects.

"Swinging on the tire" is blogger code for DC media types becoming way too chummy with John McCain--just learned the exact reference last week. The in-joke originates with a Talking Points Memo reader appalled by the YouTube footage McCain's daughter posted, documenting a fun barbecue for journalists at one of the candidate's summer homes (referred to in Washington journo-speak as a "cabin" or "humble cabin"). It includes footage of a reporter swinging on a tire.

It would be hard to top the 2004 party at the Madison Ave restaurant La Goulue where reporters sang Happy Birthday to McCain. Tom Brokaw was there.

And here's Chris Bowers' description of Brokaw's debate moderation tonight:

--Brokaw keeps telling Obama to stop talking and then, when McCain interjects with a barb, Brokaw laughs again. Yeah--nice.

[...]

--The last time Obama talked, Brokaw sarcastically warned the candidates about taking too much time. Then, when McCain talked, Brokaw laughed and said "thank you, Senator."

Hulu.com offers this 1962 "I see dead people" film shot in two locations: Lawrence, Kansas and an abandoned amusement park outside Salt Lake City. Part of the eerieness stems from the disjunction between the settings. The stately but decrepit funland next to a dead lake pulls the main character, a woman who seems to be slowly going crazy, away from the structure and safety of prosperous mid '60s Middle America. At the same time it pulls the viewer, like an entropic dark star magnet. The energy is reversible--Lawrence KS comes more and more to seem like a dead, alienating place full of shuffling sleepwalkers. It is a dream film, beautifully shot, edited and scored.

IMDb on director Herk Harvey:

(after being asked if he was happy that "Carnival of Souls" was his claim to fame): "I have to say yes and no. When you work someplace for thirty-five years making educational and industrial films, and the one feature that you make is really what you're known for---a film on which you spent a total of maybe five weeks---that to me doesn't seem right. Some of the things I'm much more proud of, we did in the industrial area. We shot hour-long films in two days, musicals with people like Eddie Albert and Ed Ames and so on. Some of those with skits and original music and all that, are really kind of interesting. And I think that many of the other films that we made in the educational and industrial area really had something to say. Yet, as you say, I'm known for 'Carnival of Souls.'" (1990)

Note that Harvey's marriage of ten years ended a year before this film--and it was the only time he left the comfort and routine of his day job to make an "indie." Don't know if it it's fair to draw any conclusions from that. The human characters are notably dark, such as the protagonist's fellow boarder who spikes his morning coffee with booze and hits on her relentlessly.