Comment Archives: Stories: Last 30 Days
Re: “Gubernatorial candidate James Protzman could rouse the Democrats”
The problem is that Protzman can come across as a complete jerk. I share almost all of his political views, but it would require some serious nose-holding to vote for him in the primaries. (The stench from the GOP would be such that in the general that wouldn't be much of an issue.) Interacting him through BlueNC and other online fora, my initial reaction is that while he's done some good work statewide, I'd be worried if he were the flag for NC progressives, because he'll make us all look uncompromising and arrogant.
I should qualify this by saying I've never met him in person, and Lord knows it's easy for one to get the wrong impression online, but while I'm not as active in the NC progressive online chatterboxes as I used to be, I was never really left with a good impression of the man.
Re: “Remembering a time when DIY was not a lifestyle choice”
Thank you for this essay, Lisa. You do an excellent job of showing both sides of the "luxury" of such choices, and the economic structures that must sustain them. There are many who might choose the new domesticity who simply cannot afford it; and others who can barely afford it, but sacrifice to do so. I will definitely find the book and read it!
Re: “This week in disappointment: rolling back the environment, reproductive rights and more”
this is what happens when believers override the will of the not so stupid. However that being said these incredibly ignorant backward fools were VOTED into office. Shame on anyone voting for anyone associating themselves with the religious right. Next time ask what would Jesus do? He would do the exact opposite of the actions of the NC Legislature. This is the textbook example of why separation of church and state is such a fantastically good idea. don't vote for religious nuts...they are insane and destructive.
Re: “Three new art spaces testify to downtown Durham's increasing vitality”
Fair point, although it depends on one's expectations. Those drawn by the words "Anne Frank" in the title might be expecting the narrative made familiar by umpteen iterations on stage and screen. They will be in for a surprise (a good and exciting one!).
From Byron Woods' INDY Week review:
"In this devised performance, sections from those texts are placed in an unlikely matrix of other sources. In one section, science writer Mary Roach (Tamara Kissane) holds forth on flatus; elsewhere, Ron Vawter (Tony Perucci), another Wooster Group co-founder, recalls an experience from his military service that was theatrical, religious, profane—and undeniably funny. These cards are shuffled in a deck including the strange affirmations of L. Ron Hubbard and 1920s calisthenics and football guru Walter Camp, along with remembrances by cast and crew members of their own adolescence. In between these scenes are deliberately awkward transitions including movement sequences, vintage cartoon footage and the unique vocal stylings of live shape-note singing, and songs by Peter Sellers and Screaming Jay Hawkins."
Re: “An intergenerational discussion about rejecting the workplace for domestic life”
Thank you, Lisa! I didn't want people to read this and get a wrong impression.
Re: “An intergenerational discussion about rejecting the workplace for domestic life”
Its a choice and as long as both parties agree I see nothing wrong with it!
Re: “An intergenerational discussion about rejecting the workplace for domestic life”
I actually totally understood your meaning from the article. I think your true meaning came through. Don't worry.
Re: “An intergenerational discussion about rejecting the workplace for domestic life”
Summer, I think it's clear that was what you meant. I understood that when you said and I when I reviewed the recording.
Re: “This week in disappointment: rolling back the environment, reproductive rights and more”
What is happening to this wonderful state I love so much? We are being overrun by small-minded theocrats and legislators that care more about their special interest patrons and less about the people they are supposed to be serving. We need to put the brakes on this.
Re: “An intergenerational discussion about rejecting the workplace for domestic life”
Hi. Summer Kinard here. I just want to clarify that this heavily edited version of the conversation does not represent well what I actually said about childcare and minorities. Or am I the only person completely appalled at the line, "those people would be impoverished and minorities"? What I actually was talking about was that the childcare I could afford would force [probably] minority women into low, non-living wage jobs, which I did not want to do as a matter of social justice. I was not fretting about having minorities around my children. Lord, have mercy! Talk about opposite meaning.
Re: “This week in disappointment: more terrible Republican bills”
If you've ever read any of the permit applications for charter schools, you'll begin to understand where SB 337 came from. One would think that people who want to make a living educating would at least have a basic grasp of written English. It was at once eye-opening and horrifying.
Re: “The week in music: May 15-22, 2013”
Heading to Durham on Friday for Solas. If you're not Irish, these guys will make you wish you were.
Re: “Three new art spaces testify to downtown Durham's increasing vitality”
Correction- the LGP show has a LOT to do with Anne Frank, nearly everything in fact. Come on Indy!
Re: “Raleigh City Manager Russell Allen is out. What's next?”
Ideology that favors dense urban development is no longer the primary issue. This is plain power politics. Forces who own and develop ITB property stand to profit mightily if that's where the newcomers go. Forces who own and develop OTB property don't want to see the City focus exclusively on downtown. Growth OTB hasn't subsided; many and perhaps most of those 12K newcomers are still landing OTB, to the consternation of ITB advocates. Sprawl isn't really the issue for Raleigh any longer because the City has very little left to annex. So, density will necessarily increase as Raleigh grows. The question is whether it's ITB density or OTB density that will increase.
Re: “Chapel Hill paves the way for more food trucks”
This will only benefit Chapel Hill. I am glad they got with the times. The food scene in Chapel Hill is so tired. You have run down crappy pub fare for the college kids. Or uninspired bougie food for all the old money in town. But Durham still has Fullsteam which means its worth the drive for the beer + food trucks, unless Chapel Hill gets a brewery in the future.
Re: “A loopy musical send-up with a heart: this Drowsy Chaperone's no sleeper”
great review - thank you for such a heart felt insight into a great performance!
Re: “The ripple effect: NAACP's Barber and civil disobedience in Raleigh”
Maybe they could just stay off the ripple...
Re: “A loopy musical send-up with a heart: this Drowsy Chaperone's no sleeper”
Thank you so much for the thoroughness of this glowing review... I so wanted to be there, but since I couldn't, it's nice that your review tells so much about the story and Clay's presentation. And the pix help so much to bring it alive for me!
Re: “Contempt, a Jean-Luc Godard masterpiece”
Jean-Luc Godard’s “Contempt/Le mepris” (1963) is the first part of his religious trilogy, followed by “Hail, Mary” (1985) and “Woe Is Me” (1993). While “Contempt” examines the psychological mechanism of relations between humans and gods of pagan “design” – the human humans (the people with psychology of god-worshippers) and the human gods (people with psychology of unconscious identification with gods), “Hail, Mary” analyzes the psychological roots of the Christian cult of Saint Mary, and “Woe is Me” – the return of pagan gods into post-Christian modernity in a form of technological constructions, tools and toys dominating people’s life in Western democracies.
In his analysis of religious psychology Godard separates people from religious (in a narrow sense) practices and metaphorizes these practices on personal and social relations between people in order to make their religious essence more articulate and vivid for the perception of the viewers. Religious psychology is not necessary creates loyalty to despotic dogmas (many atheists are very religious by psychology). In “Contempt” Godard shows how religious feelings show itself in private relations between Paul (Michel Piccoli), a modest writer of detective stories but educated and with an exceptional existentially spiritual taste person, and his wife Camille (Brigitte Bardot), a monumental beauty, and in social relations between Paul (identifying with Homer and Odyssey) and the mighty Hollywood producer Jeremiah Prokosch (the new incarnation of Poseidon/Neptune), played by Jack Polance in the only intellectually serious performance of his whole career. The both “gods” – Camille and Prokosch, are depicted with tender and subtle caricaturishness, while Paul’s destiny Godard generalizes as that of us all, the humanity. Godard deconstructs the relations between humans and gods as known in history - as metaphoric constructions of markedly sociomorphic relations between human beings as such (personified by Paul) and the human gods (personified by Camille and Prokosch). On the level of the plot the film describes the disagreements between Paul (the author of screenplay), Fritz Lang (the director) who plays himself, and Prokosch (the producer) – all trying together to make a film based on Homer’s Odyssey. But Godard’s scholarly intentions in the film are not limited to symbolizing a certain type of relations between human beings into relations between humans and gods. The second important scientific contribution of Godard in “Contempt” is his classification of the types of bonds human beings are prone to establish between themselves and our historical past, and themselves and any work of art they perceive and react on. Here Prokosch personifies the type of perception of the past which is based on our projection into the historical past of our self-aggrandizement (our megalomaniacal need). For him Ancient Greece is a kind of Olympus in comparison with today’s life. This is, essentially, a conservative position based on authoritarian/totalitarian behavioral habits including the proneness for religious or secular cult of ancestors. The second position is represented by Lang who tends to “objectively” study the human past without the need for any identification with it. This position is that of liberal scholars – it’s the accumulation of a kind of an archival knowledge about the past without any worshipful or critical emotions. The third position is represented by Paul who sees in people of the previous epochs our existential brothers. He learns from the past and from the art and understood that people who lived before us made their own attempts to resolve their problems with gods as idealized models (theologized, from Olympus, or living on the Olympus of the tops of the social hierarchy), as we today trying to with the human gods of our times. Existential identification with our ancient ancestors is simultaneously brotherly and critical. The same three positions – projection of self-aggrandizement (or its negative reflection – the dismissal: “I love-I hate” approach), “objective” position of “neutral/truthful” representation, and existential identification Godard discerns in our relations with works of art.
“Contempt” occupies not only a unique place in history of cinema and Western culture in general, but a distinguished place of an exemplary work of art.
Victor Enyutin
Please, visit: www.actingoutpolitics.com to read an essay about the film (with analysis of stills from it) – “Psychology of Human Obsession with Super-human (Human Need for Association with Gods as a Result of Problems in Relations between People)”.
Re: “Gubernatorial candidate James Protzman could rouse the Democrats”
@Michael
As the article suggests, I'd be thrilled to see a great progressive candidate join the fray and lead our party forward.
Pat McCrory spent ten years running for governor. We need someone to step forward now to challenge him at every turn. Got any suggestions?