NY Stories Martin Scorcese

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_Storieshttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_Stories

• March 89 anthology film-theme NY C ity 3 shorts:Life Lessons, Life Without Zoe, Oedipus Wrecks
  
  

New York Stories In Life Lessons, written by Richard Price, and very loosely based on Fyodor Dostoevsky's short novel The Gambler, Nick Nolte plays Lionel Dobie, an acclaimed abstract painter who is unable to paint before a major gallery exhibition of his new work, and Rosanna Arquette is Paulette, his apprentice/assistant and former lover. Lionel is still infatuated with her, but Paulette wants only his tutelage, which makes things difficult since they live in the same studio-loft. While Lionel procrastinates, unable to complete the paintings that are scheduled for an upcoming solo exhibition of his, Paulette dates other people, including a performance artist (Steve Buscemi) and a painter (Jesse Borrego). These deliberate provocations on Paulette's part make Lionel insanely jealous — and fuel his creativity. Both Lionel and Paulette, it becomes clear, have been using each other: Lionel using her sexually, Paulette using him as a means of entry to the higher spheres of the New York social and art scene. But now that their relationship is no longer sexual, Paulette wants to leave the mess that has become her life and move back in with her parents. Lionel, however, persuades her to stay because New York is where a painter needs to be, even though it is unclear whether Paulette is even a particularly good painter. Throughout this turmoil in their relationship, Lionel pours his anxiety and repressed passion into his work. Paintings around the studio show visual metaphors from relations past: stormy skies, burning bridges, and tormented clowns. There are several Pagliacci references if one looks closely. Lionel, although a lion in the art world, becomes a clown in the eyes of the women in his life. Eventually, Paulette leaves when she has had enough, but not before Lionel is on his way to completing all the paintings he needs for his exhibit. As he is completing the final piece, Lionel suddenly realizes that he needs the emotional turmoil of his destructive relationships in order to fuel his art; without the one, he can't produce the other. In the last scene, while at the art exhibit, Lionel meets another attractive young woman, who is a struggling painter. By the end of the gallery opening, he has persuaded her to become his assistant, and potentially his lover, beginning the cycle anew.

Life Without Zoë is about Zoë (Heather McComb), a young heiress who helps return to an Arab princess a valuable piece of jewelry that she had given to Zoë's father (Giancarlo Giannini) and had been subsequently stolen and recovered. At the same time she tries to reunite her divorced mother, a photographer (Talia Shire), and father, a flute soloist. The short also includes Adrien Brody in his first film role.


edit] Oedipus Wrecks Oedipus Wrecks is about New York lawyer Sheldon (Allen), who has problems with his overly critical Jewish mother (Mae Questel). Sheldon complains constantly to his therapist about her, eventually concluding he wished she would just disappear. He takes his fiancé, Lisa (Mia Farrow), to meet his mother and she disapproves. The three of them, as well as Lisa's children from a previous marriage, try to get to know each other better by going to a magic show. At the magic show, his mother is invited to be a part of the act. She is put in a box that has swords stuck through it and she disappears like she is supposed to, but then she never reappears. This turns out to be great for Sheldon because, with her out of his life, he can finally relax. But soon his mother reappears in the sky over New York City. She annoys Sheldon and Lisa by constantly talking to strangers about embarrassing moments. This puts a strain on his relationship with Lisa and she separates from him. Sheldon is persuaded by his psychiatrist to see a psychic, Treva (Julie Kavner), to try to get his mother back to reality. Treva's experiments don't work, but Sheldon falls for her because she is very similar to his mother (see Oedipus complex). When he introduces Treva to his mother, she finally approves of his girlfriend and decides to come back to Earth. Oedipus Wrecks is the debut of Kirsten Dunst in a bit part, and features Larry David as the club owner who explains to Allen that his mother is missing. It also features both Mae Questel and Julie Kavner.
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New York Stories
Theatrical release poster
Directed by
Woody AllenFrancis Ford CoppolaMartin Scorsese
Produced by
Barbara De FinaFred FuchsRobert GreenhutCharles H. JoffeJack RollinsFred Roos
Written by
Woody AllenFrancis Ford CoppolaSofia CoppolaRichard Price
Starring
Woody AllenMae QuestelMia FarrowHeather McCombTalia ShireGiancarlo GianniniDon NovelloJulie KavnerNick NolteRosanna ArquetteSteve BuscemiJesse Borrego
Music by
Kid CreoleCarmine Coppola
Cinematography
Sven NykvistVittorio StoraroNéstor Almendros
Editing by
Susan E. MorseBarry MalkinThelma Schoonmaker
Distributed by
Touchstone PicturesAmerican Zoetrope (Life without Zoe segment)
Release date(s)
March 10, 1989
Running time
124 minutes
Country
United States
Language
English
Budget
$15,000,000
New York Stories is an anthology film which was released in the United States in March of 1989. The film consists of three shorts with the central theme being New York City. The first short is Life Lessons, directed by Martin Scorsese and written by Richard Price. The second is Life Without Zoe, directed by Francis Ford Coppola and written by Coppola and his daughter, Sofia. The last segment is Oedipus Wrecks, directed and written by Woody Allen. One actor, Paul Herman, has a bit part in each segment.
The reviews were generally positive for Life Lessons and Oedipus Wrecks, but generally negative for Life Without Zoe. [1] Hal Hinson of The Washington Post wrote that Coppola's segment was "by far the director's worst work yet." [2]
The film was screened out of competition at the 1989 Cannes Film Festival.[3] This was the film debut of actress Kirsten Dunst.
Contents[hide]
1 Plot
1.1 Life Lessons
1.2 Life Without Zoë
1.3 Oedipus Wrecks
2 References
3 External links
//
[edit] Plot
[edit] Life Lessons
In Life Lessons, written by Richard Price, and very loosely based on Fyodor Dostoevsky's short novel The Gambler, Nick Nolte plays Lionel Dobie, an acclaimed abstract painter who is unable to paint before a major gallery exhibition of his new work, and Rosanna Arquette is Paulette, his apprentice/assistant and former lover. Lionel is still infatuated with her, but Paulette wants only his tutelage, which makes things difficult since they live in the same studio-loft. While Lionel procrastinates, unable to complete the paintings that are scheduled for an upcoming solo exhibition of his, Paulette dates other people, including a performance artist (Steve Buscemi) and a painter (Jesse Borrego).
These deliberate provocations on Paulette's part make Lionel insanely jealous — and fuel his creativity. Both Lionel and Paulette, it becomes clear, have been using each other: Lionel using her sexually, Paulette using him as a means of entry to the higher spheres of the New York social and art scene. But now that their relationship is no longer sexual, Paulette wants to leave the mess that has become her life and move back in with her parents. Lionel, however, persuades her to stay because New York is where a painter needs to be, even though it is unclear whether Paulette is even a particularly good painter. Throughout this turmoil in their relationship, Lionel pours his anxiety and repressed passion into his work. Paintings around the studio show visual metaphors from relations past: stormy skies, burning bridges, and tormented clowns. There are several Pagliacci references if one looks closely. Lionel, although a lion in the art world, becomes a clown in the eyes of the women in his life. Eventually, Paulette leaves when she has had enough, but not before Lionel is on his way to completing all the paintings he needs for his exhibit.
As he is completing the final piece, Lionel suddenly realizes that he needs the emotional turmoil of his destructive relationships in order to fuel his art; without the one, he can't produce the other. In the last scene, while at the art exhibit, Lionel meets another attractive young woman, who is a struggling painter. By the end of the gallery opening, he has persuaded her to become his assistant, and potentially his lover, beginning the cycle anew.
[edit] Life Without Zoë
Life Without Zoë is about Zoë (Heather McComb), a young heiress who helps return to an Arab princess a valuable piece of jewelry that she had given to Zoë's father (Giancarlo Giannini) and had been subsequently stolen and recovered. At the same time she tries to reunite her divorced mother, a photographer (Talia Shire), and father, a flute soloist. The short also includes Adrien Brody in his first film role.
[edit] Oedipus Wrecks
Oedipus Wrecks is about New York lawyer Sheldon (Allen), who has problems with his overly critical Jewish mother (Mae Questel). Sheldon complains constantly to his therapist about her, eventually concluding he wished she would just disappear. He takes his fiancé, Lisa (Mia Farrow), to meet his mother and she disapproves. The three of them, as well as Lisa's children from a previous marriage, try to get to know each other better by going to a magic show. At the magic show, his mother is invited to be a part of the act. She is put in a box that has swords stuck through it and she disappears like she is supposed to, but then she never reappears. This turns out to be great for Sheldon because, with her out of his life, he can finally relax. But soon his mother reappears in the sky over New York City.
She annoys Sheldon and Lisa by constantly talking to strangers about embarrassing moments. This puts a strain on his relationship with Lisa and she separates from him. Sheldon is persuaded by his psychiatrist to see a psychic, Treva (Julie Kavner), to try to get his mother back to reality. Treva's experiments don't work, but Sheldon falls for her because she is very similar to his mother (see Oedipus complex). When he introduces Treva to his mother, she finally approves of his girlfriend and decides to come back to Earth.
Oedipus Wrecks is the debut of Kirsten Dunst in a bit part, and features Larry David as the club owner who explains to Allen that his mother is missing. It also features both Mae Questel and Julie Kavner.
[edit] References
^ http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/new_york_stories/
^ http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/style/longterm/movies/videos/newyorkstoriespghinson_a0a8de.htm
^ "Festival de Cannes: New York Stories". festival-cannes.com. http://www.festival-cannes.com/en/archives/ficheFilm/id/215/year/1989.html. Retrieved 2009-08-04.
[edit] External links
New York Stories at the Internet Movie Database
Vincent Canby review
[show]
v • d • eFilms directed by Woody Allen
1960s
What's Up, Tiger Lily? (1966) · Take the Money and Run (1969)
1970s
Bananas (1971) · Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex* (*But Were Afraid to Ask) (1972) · Sleeper (1973) · Love and Death (1975) · Annie Hall (1977) · Interiors (1978) · Manhattan (1979)
1980s
Stardust Memories (1980) · A Midsummer Night's Sex Comedy (1982) · Zelig (1983) · Broadway Danny Rose (1984) · The Purple Rose of Cairo (1985) · Hannah and Her Sisters (1986) · Radio Days (1987) · September (1987) · Another Woman (1988) · Crimes and Misdemeanors (1989)
1990s
Alice (1990) · Shadows and Fog (1992) · Husbands and Wives (1992) · Manhattan Murder Mystery (1993) · Bullets Over Broadway (1994) · Don't Drink the Water (1994) · Mighty Aphrodite (1995) · Everyone Says I Love You (1996) · Deconstructing Harry (1997) · Celebrity (1998) · Sweet and Lowdown (1999)
2000s
Small Time Crooks (2000) · The Curse of the Jade Scorpion (2001) · Hollywood Ending (2002) · Anything Else (2003) · Melinda and Melinda (2005) · Match Point (2005) · Scoop (2006) · Cassandra's Dream (2007) · Vicky Cristina Barcelona (2008) · Whatever Works (2009)
2010s
You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger (2010)
Shorts
Men of Crisis: The Harvey Wallinger Story (1971) · Oedipus Wrecks (1989) · Sounds from a Town I Love (2001)
[show]
v • d • eFrancis Ford Coppola
1960s
Dementia 13 (1963) · You're a Big Boy Now (1966) · Finian's Rainbow (1968) · The Rain People (1969)
1970s
The Godfather (1972) · The Conversation (1974) · The Godfather Part II (1974) · Apocalypse Now (1979)
1980s
One from the Heart (1982) · The Outsiders (1983) · Rumble Fish (1983) · The Cotton Club (1984) · Peggy Sue Got Married (1986) · Gardens of Stone (1987) · Tucker: The Man and His Dream (1988)
1990s
The Godfather Part III (1990) · Dracula (1992) · Jack (1996) · The Rainmaker (1997)
2000s
Youth Without Youth (2007) · Tetro (2009)
Shorts
Captain EO (1986) · Life Without Zoe (1989)
Credits
Patton (writer, 1970) · THX 1138 (executive producer, 1971) · American Graffiti (producer, 1973) · The Great Gatsby (writer, 1974) · The Black Stallion (executive producer, 1979) · Kagemusha (executive producer for the international version, 1980) · Hammett (producer, 1982) · Koyaanisqatsi (producer, 1982) · The Black Stallion Returns (executive producer, 1983) · Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters (producer, 1985) · Tough Guys Don't Dance (executive producer, 1987) · Lionheart (1987, executive producer) · Powaqqatsi (executive producer, 1989) · Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker's Apocalypse (appearance, 1991) · The Junky's Christmas (producer, 1993) · Frankenstein (producer, 1994) · Don Juan DeMarco (producer, 1995) · Lani Loa - The Passage (producer, 1998) · The Florentine (producer, 1999) · The Virgin Suicides (producer, 1999) · Sleepy Hollow (producer, 1999) · Jeepers Creepers (executive producer, 2001) · Lost in Translation (2003, executive producer) · Jeepers Creepers II (executive producer, 2003) · Kinsey (executive producer, 2004) · The Good Shepherd (executive producer, 2006) · Marie Antoinette (executive producer, 2006) · Somewhere (executive producer, 2010)
Enterprises
American Zoetrope · Zoetrope: All-Story · Rubicon Estate Winery · Francis Ford Coppola Presents
Family
Eleanor Coppola · Anton Coppola · Carmine Coppola · Italia Coppola · Gian-Carlo Coppola · Sofia Coppola · Thomas Mars · Roman Coppola · Talia Shire · David Shire · Jack Schwartzman · Robert Schwartzman · Jason Schwartzman · John Schwartzman · Marc Coppola · Christopher Coppola · Nicolas Cage
[show]
v • d • eFilms by Martin Scorsese
1960s
Who's That Knocking at My Door (1967)
1970s
Boxcar Bertha (1972) • Mean Streets (1973) • Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore (1974) • Taxi Driver (1976) • New York, New York (1977)
1980s
Raging Bull (1980) • The King of Comedy (1983) • After Hours (1985) • The Color of Money (1986) • The Last Temptation of Christ (1988)
1990s
Goodfellas (1990) • Cape Fear (1991) • The Age of Innocence (1993) • Casino (1995) • Kundun (1997) • Bringing Out the Dead (1999)
2000s
Gangs of New York (2002) • The Aviator (2004) • The Departed (2006)
2010s
Shutter Island (2010) • The Invention of Hugo Cabret (2011)
Shorts
What's a Nice Girl Like You Doing in a Place Like This? (1963) • It's Not Just You, Murray! (1964) • The Big Shave (1967) • Bad (1987) • Life Lessons (1989) • The Key to Reserva (2007)
Documentaries
Street Scenes (1970) • Italianamerican (1974) • American Boy: A Profile of Steven Prince (1978) • The Last Waltz (1978) • A Personal Journey with Martin Scorsese Through American Movies (1995) • My Voyage to Italy (1999) • The Blues (2003) • No Direction Home (2005) • Shine a Light (2008)
Produced
You Can Count on Me (2000) • Nyfes (2004) • The Young Victoria (2009)

THE LAST TEMPTATION OF CHRIST SCORSESE

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Last_Temptation_of_Christ

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Last_Temptation_of_Christ_(film)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crucifixion_of_Jesus







Plot
Jesus of Nazareth is a carpenter in the Roman-occupied Judea. He is torn between himself as a man and his knowledge that God has a plan for him. His conflict results in self loathing, and he collaborates to construct crosses Romans used to crucify Jewish revolutionaries, an act that brands him a traitor in the eyes of his fellow Israelites.
Judas Iscariot belongs to a nationalistic splinter faction which wishes to revolt against Roman rule (see Sicarii or Zealotry). He is sent with orders to kill Jesus for being a collaborator. Judas suspects Jesus is the Messiah, and asks Jesus to lead a revolution against the Romans. Jesus tries to tell Judas that his message is love, that love of mankind is the highest virtue that God wants. Judas joins Jesus in his ministry, but Judas tells Jesus that he will kill him if he strays from revolution.
Jesus also has an undisclosed history with Mary Magdalene, a Jewish prostitute. Mary asks Jesus to stay with her, which Jesus seriously considers before leaving for a monastic community. Jesus later saves Mary from an angry mob which has come to stone her for her prostitution and working on the sabbath. Jesus persuades the crowd to spare her life—instructing "he who is without sin [to] cast the first stone"—and instead preaches to them using many of the parables from the Sermon on the Mount.
Jesus develops a following of disciples, but throughout this time he is still uncertain of his role and his status as Messiah. He travels with his disciples to see John the Baptist, who has heard of Jesus' reputation. John baptizes Jesus, and that night the two discuss their differing theologies. John believes that one must first gain freedom from the Romans before the world of God is declared, while Jesus believes that love is more important. Jesus then goes off into the desert to see if God really speaks to him.
While in the desert Jesus is tempted three times by Satan. Jesus resists all these temptations and instead has a vision of himself with an ax chopping down an apple tree. He appears as a vision to his waiting disciples where he rips out his heart and tells them to follow him. With newfound courage as the Messiah he proceeds to perform many signs and wonders: giving vision to a blind man, turning water into wine, and raising Lazarus from the dead.
Eventually his ministry reaches Jerusalem where he is enraged by the money changers in the temple and throws them out. The angry Jesus even leads a small army to try and take the temple by force, but instead halts on the steps and begins bleeding from the hands. He realizes that violence is not the right path, and that he must die in order to bring salvation to mankind. Confiding in Judas he asks his best friend and strongest apostle to turn him in to the palace guards, something that Judas does not want to do. Nevertheless, Jesus implores that this is the only way and a crying Judas acquiesces.
Jesus joins his disciples for the Passover seder—the Last Supper. After the meal, while in the garden of Gethsemane, Judas leads the palace guards to take Jesus away. Peter cuts off the ear of Malchus and Jesus performs the miracle of reattaching it. Pontius Pilate tells Jesus that he must be put to death because he represents a threat against the status quo, the Roman Empire. Jesus is flogged and a crown of thorns is placed on his head. He is led to Golgotha, where he is crucified.
While on the cross, Jesus sees and talks to a young girl who appears to be an angel. She tells him that he is not the son of God, not the Messiah, but that God loves him, is pleased with him, and wants him to be happy. She brings him down off the cross and leads him away.
She takes him to be with Mary Magdalane, and the newly married couple make love. The couple has a child and lives an idyllic life. Mary unexpectedly dies, and the sobbing Jesus is told by his angel that all women are "Mary", and thus he is betrothed to Mary and Martha, sisters of Lazarus. He starts a family with them and lives his life in peace. When he encounters the apostle Paul preaching about the Messiah—that is, about Jesus—he tries to tell Paul that he is the man that Paul has been preaching about. Paul (who in this film has slain the resurrected Lazarus in his earlier life as Saul) rejects him, saying that even if Jesus hadn't died in the cross, his message was the truth, and nothing would stop him from proclaiming that.
Near the end of his life, Jesus' former disciples visit him on his deathbed with Jerusalem (representing the world) in ruins in the background. Judas comes last and calls Jesus a traitor. It is revealed that the angel who released him from the crucifixion is in fact Satan, who has been tempting him into this life of comfort as a mortal man. Jesus realizes that he must die to bring salvation to mankind. Crawling back through the burning city of Jerusalem during the Jewish Rebellion, he reaches the site of his crucifixion and begs God to let him fulfill his purpose and to "let [him] be [God's] son."
Jesus is instantly back on the cross -- the "fantasy" of escaping death on the cross, of being married, of having a family, and of the disaster that would have encompassed mankind was not real. It is the dream of what would have happened had Jesus truly left the cross behind.[original research?]
Jesus cries out as he dies, "It is accomplished! It is accomplished."

Rossellini's "Stromboli"

http://thesunsnotyellow.blogspot.com/

This is an excellent and very enlightening review of this film broad and raw in showing the slices of life bursting forth in this rural and nnot so peaceful setting seething beneath the not so apparent surface.Theother Rossellini productions mini reviewed and commented on give further persoective the review as a whole. His holy simplicity is the allurement of his art. The untrained performances of the non actors add to the entire setting and mood of simplicity and raw energy.

___________________________________________________________________

Though already written before I was aware of the series, I am now submitting this as an entry in the For the Love of Films: Film Preservation Blog-a-Thon of Ferdy on Films & Self-Styled Siren. A full-fledged entry will be appearing on the Dancing Image on Sunday, the last day of the blog-a-thon. Stay tuned.)Despite seeing many of his films, I've never really responded to Rossellini the way many cinephiles do. His holy simplicity has occasionally struck me as, well, just plain simple. Flowers of St. Francis (a blind buy on my part, and a satisfying one) is charming and Voyage in Italy compelling - though I wonder if Antonioni didn't eventually pick up Rossellini's ball and run further with it a few years later. Europa 51 I found embarrassing and remain rather mystified as to how its obviousness is supposed to be transcendent. Open City and Germany Year Zero are effective and absorbing but they're films I respected without being enthralled by. Neither one seemed to capture the lingering, simple, pure power of Bicycle Thieves (though both are overripe for revisiting, especially in the wake of the recent Criterion releases). Paisan was compelling in the abstract but I found its actuality too messy. Unlike Rossellini's acolytes (one recalls the zealous cineaste in Before the Revolution who admonishes the protagonist, "Remember, Rossellini is a god!") I was always unable to take the raggedness of his work in stride, to embrace it as not just a necessary evil but somehow fundamental to the work's appeal.All of which is preface to my enthusiastic viewing of Stromboli. Rossellini's first film with his new (and newly controversial) wife Ingrid Bergman, it's bursting with energy, invention, and showmanship. The film ripples with rich tensions, between its desire to simply document village life and its allegorical overtones, between frustration with Bergman's spoiled character and sympathy with her own frustrations, between the melodramatic extremes (heightened by the literally incessant music which at one point pounded consistently for about half an hour!) and documentary naturalism. Certainly between Bergman's professionalism and glamor and the untrained "performances" of the nonactors in the movie - a healthy balance is struck here, with the real people convincingly inhabiting their characters and a terrific Bergman dialing down her polish while turning up her acting chops. The provincial folks and the Hollywood goddess gel remarkably well.The centerpiece of the film perfectly demonstrates the subtle synthesis of Rossellini's artistry with his method of understated observation. A squad of fishermen are out at sea, as they are every day, but this time Bergman's character is out there with them to observe their activity. Slowly, as they pull in their nets, shapes begin to emerge beneath the watery surface, and then a chaotic explosion of whitewater and flailing fins. I had experienced this scene years ago, excerpted in Martin Scorsese's "My Voyage to Italy" and been blown away. Oddly enough, I couldn't quite remember why anymore. Now it came flooding back - these fish are gigantic! Their capture and seizure is brutal, violent, beautiful; the set piece is so strong that it overpowers everything else. Allegorical readings are possible but unnecessary - the forcefulness of the scene empowers the rest of the film rather than vice versa. The way a note will shift the "meaning" of a piece of music without our being able to articulate exactly why, so this sequence prepares the way for Bergman's journey across the volcano in the film's climax.The ending is very abrupt, but of a piece with the movie's ragged, punchy, honestly intense and intensely honest effect. This is that rare and satisfying discovery - when an auteur's appeal becomes apparent not in a mitigation of their usual approaches but in taking these approaches to their extreme and making you see, in the burning light of their purity, what they were up to all along. The film is like its titular volcano, not exactly dormant, not exactly active, but rumbling, quaking, occasionally erupting in spurts - in short, living but limned in by all the limitations which usually encumber life though they need not extinguish its flame.It occurs to me that, in speaking in abstract and vague terms about the movie's appeal, I may be doing it a disservice. Perhaps a better approach would be to tackle it in clear, precise, yet pungent language, language which mirrors the film's own aesthetic. This may be the case, yet having seen it about a month ago, I'm trying to recollect its fragments, like lava rocks in the wake of an explosion.

Credo Mutwa and African Mysticism

http://quantumlifebodyworks.typepad.com/weblog/Mystical%20Safari%20Itinerary.pdf

Credo Mutwa
Credo.V.Mutwa was born in the Natal area of South Africa on July
22
1921.His very name is a composite of his cultures origin.
“Vusamazulu” is a Zulu honorific meaning,” awakener of the Zulus”,
given
to him during his initiation as a Sangoma.The name “Credo”
from the Latin,”
I believe” and Mutwa is Zulu for “little bushman”.
True to his middle name
Vusamazulu, he is a spiritual leader
dedicated to caring for his people and
[preserving their cultural
traditions.
As an authority on the history,
lore, legends and fables of tribes
throughout the sub-continent, Credo
excels in the medium of story
telling. He believes that the tales that he
learned from his elders gave
directions for his life and motivated him to
further his knowledge of
his people’s past, and share that learning. He
earned international
recognition with his first published work in the 1960’s
“Indaba My
Children”, re-printed internationally and translated into several
languages followed by “Africa Is My Witness” and “Let Not My
Children
Die”. The multi-talented man is also an artist, a sculpture
and healer.
1996 he published “Song of the Stars” and “Isilwane The Animal”
As a
true pioneer, Credo has travelled internationally and become an
acknowledged
cultural historian on traditional healing. He has
attended and spoken at
conferences and is a guest of philosophers,
therapists and creative artists
around the world.
There is a Zulu saying that travelling creates an Induna.
This means
that one who is to become a leader must first gain wide
experience
before assuming his duties.
Credo is a perfect example of a
wise global leader. His home is open
to those who come with respect and love
and he willingly shares his
amazing and wide-ranging knowledge.
Suggested topics for discussion with Credo
• Initiation practices for
the Sangoma and Sanusi
• The nature of disease, herbalism, and healing
practices generally
• The meaning of the sacred objects, the meaning of the
sacred sites
• Sound and its role in healing
• Prophesy and the future
• Shamanic practice
• Africa's role and gifts for the world
You can
bring your suggestions to Credo as he will wait for you to
state your
purpose in coming.
Simon Green
SIMON GREEN. An initiated shaman in his
own right, Simon is a
remarkable healer teacher and facilitator. He has
travelled the world
learning from many wise people and disciplines. He is
accomplished
in Cranio-sacral therapy among other modalities, especially in
energy
work. The opportunity to take such a journey with Simon is rare and
wonderful chance.
LIZ WATTERS. Mother of five, experienced African
safari leader,
psychic, spiritual teacher and therapist, Liz brings her
guidance and
wisdom to the journey. Together they will share knowledge,
wisdom
and the desire to learn

.

DARK AGES THEY WERE A VIBRANT HUMAN CIVILIZATION

http://www.realitysandwich.com/beyond_life_inc_talking_douglas_rushkoff




It seems like the Dark Ages were not perhaps so "dark?"
Yes, I think that's disinformation. I'm not usually a conspiracy theorist about these things, but I think the reason why we celebrate the Renaissance as a high point of western culture is really a marketing campaign. It was a way for Renaissance monarchs and nation-states, and the industrial age powers that followed, to recast the end of one of the most vibrant human civilizations we've had, as a dark, plague-ridden, horrible time.
Historically, the plague arrived after the invention of the chartered corporation, and after central currency was mandated. Central currency became law, and 40 years later you get the plague. People got that poor that quickly. They were no longer allowed to use the land. It shifted from an abundance model to a scarcity model; from an economy based on annual grain production to one based on gold released by the king.
That's a totally different way of understanding money. Land was no longer a thing the peasants could grow stuff on, land became an investment, land became an asset class for the wealthy. Once it became an asset class they started Partitioning and Enclosure, which meant people weren't allowed to grow stuff on it, so subsistence farming was no longer a viable lifestyle. If you can't do subsistence farming you must find a job, so then you go into the city and volunteer to do unskilled labor in a proto-factory for some guy who wants the least-skilled, cheapest labor possible. You move your whole family to where the work is, into the squalor, where conditions are overcrowded and impoverished -- the perfect breeding ground for plague and death!

How does idea of the individual fit into these other developments?
Corporatism, with its promotion of competition between individuals over scarce resources and money, laid the ground for individualism and for a heightened concept of the self. I'm a media ecologist, I look at media and society as an ecology in which changes in one area reflect changes in another. The notion of the individual was invented, re-invented, in the Renaissance. This is part of why it was a re-naissance, a re-birth of old ideas, the rebirth of Greek ideals. The the Greek notion of the individual, which was always "the individual in relationship to the state," the citizen, was recast as "the individual."
The first individual in Renaissance literature was Dr. Faustus, who represented the extreme limits of greed. This was the new man, not a citizen of the city-state but an individual who has his own perspective on the world. We get perspective painting in the Renaissance, which meant the individual was a self-sufficient being whose point of view is important; we get reading in the Renaissance, which meant that a man can sit alone in his study and have his own relationship to the Bible, instead of gathering in the town square or the church, having the Bible read to him by a priest, as part of a congregation. So on the one hand it was this beautiful celebration of individual consciousness and perspective, but on the other it was all in the context of a new economy, one in which individuals were in competition against one another for scarce jobs, scarce resources, scarce land, and scarce money.
Everyone is going to ask, but what about the artists? So: what about the artists?
Historians say that one of the great things about the Renaissance were the patrons who could patronize a great artist. But before the Renaissance you didn't need a "patron" in order to be an artist! You could actually live in a town and do some stuff and be a great artist. The Renaissance model of commerce and arts was not a pre-existing condition of the universe. Yes, the Vatican could commission some basilica to be painted, but . . . I'd be interested to see what Leonardo da Vinci or Michelangelo would have been like had they not been part of a centralized bureaucracy, but instead been independent little homespun artist guys. They might have been better artists, you never know.

So now we have individuals and corporations as we know them.
The king's currency, centralized currency, is monopoly currency; demurrage currencies were declared illegal by the king. Why? First, centralized currency is easier to tax. Second, the king could remove gold from the currency whenever he wanted, he could basically suck the value out of it at will. And finally, because this is a currency based in scarcity, everyone has to compete for it. It's a way to help people who have money be powerful just for having money -- not because of what they can spend, but because of what they can hold.
So money becomes a resource.
It becomes a resource in itself. Actually it's a resource once-removed, literally a derivative, the first derivative. Centralizing turns money from a representation of something real into a derivative asset class. We live in this derivatives-based economy today, it has trickled down to us in the form of central banking. Now most people believe that the way to fuel an economy is for a bank to inject money, and the way to start a business is by borrowing from the bank. The way that money comes into existence is it is literally lent into existence. But for every dollar that is lent into existence, for every dollar you earn, there's a negative on the balance sheet somewhere.

The money supply has to grow as a function of interest. The rate at which we do business and make profit is actually driven and determined by the debt structure of the company rather than supply and demand. This is what Adam Smith was actually talking about. Adam Smith was NOT a free market libertarian, he was not a corporate industrialist the way the Economist or the Wall Street Journal likes to paint him. Smith said that economies only work in scale, they only work locally. He was living in a world where everyone was a farmer, and he hated corporations as much as he hated central government, because he knew that an interest-based economy does not ultimately work. And that is because debt is not actually a product! There's nothing there. Nothing. Yet that's what it was made for. The debt-based economy was invented so that people with money could get richer by having money, that's what it's FOR. I'm not saying it's evil, it was an idea. But, it doesn't actually work. If the number of people who want to make money by having money gets so big that there are more people existing that way than actually producing anything, eventually the economy will collapse.

What kind of stuff?
Sitting with a friend . . . OK, I'll sit with a friend as long as I have my Paxil or something, because it's almost like we've been acculturated to be desocialized.
We have been!
I can spend time with you because we're doing work, right?
Right, it's productive.
Productive -- and we can measure it on the tape! Is it still turning? [yes]

You're saying money is not value-neutral.
Not only is money not value-neutral, but our money is not money-neutral. Our currency is not the only money. There are other kinds of money, just like there are different kinds of media out there, and they all encourage different behaviors. Computers encourage certain kinds of behavior, television encourages certain kinds of behavior. A gold-based money encourages certain kinds of behavior, a centralized currency encourages certain kinds of behavior, and a demurrage local grain-based currency encourages certain other kinds of behavior. The kind of behavior that our money encourages, intentionally, by design, is: hoarding. This is currency that earns interest over time so you want to hoard it and not spend it. And that's OK if you need that tool.
Did the rise of PR just happen, or did they have to do that in order to prevent things from getting out of control?
They had to do that in order to prevent things from getting out of control. The significant points in the development of public relations were all at crisis moments. For example, labor movements; it's not just that labor was revolting but that people were seeing that labor was revolting. There was a need to re-fashion the stories so that people would think that labor activists were bad scary people, so that people would think they should move to the suburbs and insulate themselves from these throngs of laborers, from "the masses." Or to return to the Quaker Oats example, people used to look at long-distance-shipped factory products with distrust. Here's a plain brown box, it's being shipped from far away, why am I supposed to buy this instead of something from a person I've known all my life? A mass media is necessary to make you distrust your neighbor and transfer your trust to an abstract entity, the corporation, and believe it will usher in a better tomorrow and all that.
It got the most crafty after WWII when all the soldiers were coming home. FDR was in cahoots with the PR people. Traumatized vets were coming back from WWII, and everyone knew these guys were freaked out and fucked up. We had enough psychology and psychiatry by then to know that these guys were badly off, they knew how to use weapons, and -- this was bad! If the vets came back into the same labor movement that they left before WWII, it would have been all over. So the idea was that we should provide houses for these guys, make them feel good, and we get the creation of Levittown and other carefully planned developments designed with psychologists and social scientists. Let's put these vets in a house, let's celebrate the nuclear family.
DISCRETE FREEDOM RALLY DISCRETELY CONTROLLED
In high school when I needed to do a research project, I would go to the library to find a book. I couldn't help but see the 20 other books on the shelf nearby, I had to read 20 spines before I found mine. And in reading those 20 spines I would see stuff I wouldn't have found otherwise, and I might get ideas for my paper randomly -- not by predetermined choice! I would see them by virtue of the fact that some librarian who was alive before me made a decision, by virtue of legacies and input and real life messiness. Whereas when I'm in the digital realm and I know the book I want, I type it into Google, and it's there. And nothing else.

This discrete freedom of choice sounds like a very controlled environment. I wonder how much real freedom that is?
Right, what are my range of choices? And who's giving me that range? People are utterly unaware of that. So when I look at technology I say well great, people have the ability to write online, but they don't, most of them, have the ability to program. In other words we can enter our text into the little blog box, but we aren't thinking about the biases built into a daily blog structure, which are towards short, daily thoughts, not introspective . . .
Or look at online communities. I'm going to become friends with another person who owns a 2004 red Mini with a sunroof, like mine, rather than with my neighbor who happens to have a different car; I'm going to look for that perfect affinity. But that's not a real relationship, that's my digital relationship, which is discrete! Discrete communities end up groping towards conformity of behavior really quickly.
That's why it's a consumer paradise, because it really does celebrate the idea of increasingly granular affinity groups, increasingly granular product choices.
An over-arching theme I found in the book is how the common-sense stuff of our reality, the economy and money and shopping and working, is really science fiction; we don't live inside a "natural" economic structure -- we made it up.
It gets very much like Baudrillard in a way. We lived in a real world where we created value, and understood the value that we created as individuals and groups for one another. Then we systematically disconnected from the real world: from ourselves, from one another, and from the value we create, and reconnected to an artificial landscape of derivative value of working for corporations and false gods and all that. It is in some sense Baudrillard's three steps of life in the simulacra.
So by now, as Borges would say, we've mistaken the map for the territory. We've mistaken our jobs for work. We've mistaken our bank accounts for savings. We've mistaken our 401k investments for our future. We've mistaken our property for assets, and our assets for the world. We have these places where we live, then they become property that we own, then they become mortgages that we owe, then they become mortgage-backed loans that our pensions finance, then they become packages of debt, and so on and so on. We've been living in a world where the further up the chain of abstraction you operate, the wealthier you are.
So since this is a system we created, we can create something else?
Right, that's what open-source was supposed to be about. I believe that every realm of human experience and design is ultimately open-source if we choose for it to be. That's why I got interested in religion and money, because those seemed to be the two areas that people would not accept an open-source premise. Religion -- of course it isn't, those are sacred truths! But I would argue that Judaism was actually intended as an open-source religion. I've written a book about that, called Nothing Sacred, which was and still is controversial. Because if the Torah is open for interpretation, if it's this beautiful, myriad, hypertextual, hyperdimensional document that it is, then the whole thing is up for grabs: what happens to the real estate, the Israeli state?
Money of course is the other big area, it's still the one thing they won't let you print.

To order the book, see when Douglas Rushkoff might be speaking in your area, and access videos, podcasts, and tons of other stuff, check the Life Inc. website.

Peggy Nelson is a new media artist and writer. Her work has appeared in Litkicks, Hilobrow.com, The Brattle Theater's Film Blog, and OtherZine, a journal about experimental, avant-garde, and outsider cinema

Rescuing Detroit's public schools Robert Bobb

1-12-10 Time Magazine p48 Cleanup Artist
http://time.com/detroit_kids

• To cleanup the Detroit school system's financial crisis due to widespread corruption
• Saging enrollments due to emerging charter school and exodus to the subu
• Budget deficit,and erosion of revenuesBobb's self perception of mission-to improve miserable academic performance of the system.Detroit's graduation rate is 58%.
• abandonment of Detroit's schools. Tax base nearly gone.Poverty and unemployment pervasive.


• Bobb arrived last spring and found the following: the district could not afford new books.The district met payroll by borrowing money. Bobb had a reputation of restoring fiscal sanity to city governments and school districts.
• Denial of budget deficits though Bobb showed a deficit of 303 million. Closed 29 of the district's 194 schools and trimmed payroll of 14000 to 13000.Hired outside firms to restructure 17 schools
• Bobb's unconventional war- 1.born New Orleans and grew up on a sugarcane plantation 2.During summers he worked in the sulphur pits,3.to cover tuition to Grambling State University,he buffed floors,4. had a series of city management jobs mentioned in next bulleted post.,,,
• Kalamazoo MI Oakland CA Wash DC's mayor hired him as City Manager and deputy mayor managing a 48 billion dollar budget (annual) and 20000 employees.Three years later President of DC's board of education,


• Why save Detroit's public schools? .."I wanted to go to an urban school district,the roughest and the toughest.Why? Because I understand the dynamics ,the grit,the opportunities,that are prevalent in urban America.
• Cost shaving -High school classrooms look like lecture halls - Clashes of student from rival schools likely.Neighborhoods suddenly thrown under same roof137 guidance counselors cut and hired back. Cuts: "Is this good for the kids?" Barbara Byrd Bennett former CEO of Cleveland public schools.
• Broad academic reforms. 1. system wide standards for prerequisite classes; extension of school day; shuffling of principals; percentage of 4th and 8th graders who perform at grade level in math and reading, wants significant gains in achievement and numbers;
• By 2015 he wants 90% of all students to complete at least one Advanced Placement course before graduating. "Ambitious goals,he admits." Politics may hinder the attainment of these goals. The elected board states he is overstepping his financial portfolio.He must relinquish academic control to the acting superintendent. Ambitious project to build or renovate 18 schools approved by the voters last November. "We cannot be afraid to win or fail". "Change is painful."

Anwar al -Awlaki the double life of a terrorist

1-12-2010 Time Portrait of Anwar al -Awlaki
The Al qaeda connection-He hasw been leading a double life as a gentle Imam cleric yetFBI has ben unable to make connections of his stick to al Qaeda.

1. In 2000 he met with Khalid al-Mihdhar and Nawaf al-Hazmi two of 5 men who on 9-11 jijacked 2001 would hijack American Airlined Flight77 and fly it into the Pentagon.
2. Connections to the hijackers after5 9/11. Investigated by US intelligence agencies. Al-Awlaki's phone number found in the Hamburg residence of Ramzi Binalshibh a Yemeni and plotter of the 9/11 debacle.
3. Left the US for Yemen in March 2002. In October,made one final trip to the US. He was then briefly dwetained at JFK sirport in NYC. FBI's attemto arrest him on false information on a passport came to nothing
4. Left US and spent two years in London. In 2004,returned to Yemen where he taught at a radical University and was arrested by Yemeni authorities and imprisoned for 18 months for unknown reasons but was never charged. Al-Awlaki blamed the US for pressuring Yemeni authorities to detain him and claimed FBI inettogated him in prison.

Terrorism speaks your language
His books and CD's have become best sellers -You Tube sermons have had thousands of hits.
His target audience is what distinguishes him Young Muslims in the US and Britain. He is a rare specimen who can communicate as a jihadist cleric effortessly with audiences in the West.He has lived among Muslim immigrants with English speaking children who fear that the children will be severed from their roots.(Jarret Brachman Global Jihadism:Theory and Practice, His blog posts contain his fire and message of the conflict of Islam and the West and the duty of all Muslim to join in a holy war against the West as best they can.He has written "44 ways to support Jihad".
From Propagandist to operational player
-It is enough to have the right intention
-Now the preachings tend toward undiluted involvement as a holy warrior
-Physically fit-spiritually to prepar-pray for martyrdom
-Blog post- " I pray that Allah destroys America and all its allies.and the day that happens,and I assure you it will and sooner than you think."
-He is no longer content to preach re:counterterrorism experts and due to his association with AQAP which may be the terrorists' most ambitious franchise.
-Operational role in dispute-sitting and planning attacks? Nothing seems to suggest this role. (Ben Veneke of IntelCenter states his connections with Hasan and Abdulmutallab shows a more than passive role as literature disseminator.Yet he lacks combat experience.Pete Hoeksyta ranking Republican on House Intelligence says he influences operational issues . He plays a role in setting strategic direction fo r AQAP.He is vocally encouraging the killing of Americans.
-Since the missile attack on his house,he is in hiding with his tribe in Shabwa province in Yemen.The likely US alternative will be a drone strike which has precedent, but it is also an unpleasant reminder that al_Walaki is not the first brought up in the West and will not be the last.
-In Nov 2002, one of the frist everdrone operations took place in Yemen killing Ahmed Hijazi a suspected Al Qaeda operative.He was an American.