I was a founding member of YIPPIE I knew Abbie and Jerry as well as the 50 so people at the core of YIPPIE. David Brooks does not get who we were back them culturally or politically. Fine, i suppose. But to drag TRUMP and CLINTON into the same frame shows his real ignorance of who we were and our intentions. We believed in creative imagination, having fun while trying to wake up the public to how they had been hypnotized and fooled.Marshall McCluan, Che, Grouch Marx and for me, Madame Binh, were our role modes in how to disrupt public conception of revolution. The media's fixation on Abbie and Jerry obscured the people who actually did most of the work. Similar to the how the mainstream media covered the Black Panthers. Too bad Brooks has not talked to Nancy Kurshan (Jerry's partner) or me the out Yippie when homophobia was alive and viral in the New Left as it was in the old left
jim fouratt
The Abbie Hoffman of hte Right: Donald Trump
a version of this comment appeared in the NY Times
there are two books I would recommend if you want to know about Abbie Hoffman :
American Rebel by Marty Jeezer
Steal This Dream: Abbie Hoffman and the Countercultural Revolution in America by Larry "Ratso" Sloman
in,
I am anticipating reading DID IT by Pat Thomas about Jerry Rubin ,
Showing posts with label jim foruatt. Show all posts
Showing posts with label jim foruatt. Show all posts
Wednesday, September 27, 2017
Monday, August 11, 2014
Jim Fouratt's Reel Deal REVIEW: the Aggressives dir: Daniel peddle
Jim Fouratt's Reel Deal: Movies that Matter review
The Aggressives dir: Daniel peddle
Now available free on hulu vod.
Daniel Peddle’s The Aggressives is a deep look at bodies born female who choose to express their gender in a very masculine representation.
It is the only film picked up at the SXSW, a mini Sundance of sorts, in Austin, Texas. It turned away crowds at queer venues everywhere, including SRO at New York’s New Fest, San Francisco International Lesbian and Gay film festival and Outfest in L.A. Programmers apparently misjudged the potential audience for this provocative peek inside the black, lesbian, butch-identified culture invisible to most of the white world.
The intense interest in gender expression, particularly in the academic world where there has been a shift from a focus on gay and lesbian identity to one on queer and trans-identity, makes the film particularly timely.
The Aggressives documents the lives of six very different women, each of whom identifies herself with the concept of aggressives. The street word “Ag” is a term popular among women of color to describe females very much in touch with their masculinity. Historically, the words used to describe such women have been butch, passing woman, bulldagger, bull dyke, and stud. “Ag” has joined this corner of the language of gender expression as a positive word that these women use to communicate both empowerment and community.
The portraits presented in this film break down the media stereotypes about the women these words are used to describe. The world they inhabit received a fair amount of above-ground coverage in the wake of the media reporting of the murder of 15 year old Sakia Gunn in Newark, New Jersey in May 2003. Gunn, who friends described as an “AG" ,” was murdered after she went to the defense of her girlfriend who was being hassled by two black men cruising the city’s downtown streets in the early morning hours.
Gunn and her girlfriend had just returned from a night of socializing on the Hudson River waterfront in the West Village, a gathering place frequented at night predominantly by black gay, lesbian, and trans-teens. The turnout of more than a thousand black teenage lesbians in butch/ femme pairings, sporting rainbow doo-rags, necklaces, and hair braids, at Gunn’s funeral in Newark was an eloquent testimony to these women’s willingness to be out and visible.
Daniel Peddle is an NYU film graduate and also holds a degree in anthropology in addition to being a children’s book author. Since he came upon the late night scene at the end of Christopher Street while scouting for talent (Peddle has also been much sought after as a casting director for “real people” models by a fashion industry fascinated by the culture he discovered) he knew he had stumbled upon a world he did not know. A slim, fashionable street-attired, white man, raised in the south, Peddle spent five years gaining the trust and confidence of the multi-racial community he found at the river.
The film’s representation is principally black, though he sensitively includes Asian and Latina aggressives and their femme girlfriends. Audiences everywhere can see a world of gender expression that is almost Genet-like, with heightened femme and butch identities. Significantly, the “Ags” identify as female despite their amazing expression of masculine gender in hair, clothes, names, and role-playing.
Peddle takes his camera inside a Newark contest hall where the best “Ag” is to be chosen. The gender presentation would confuse even those most sensitive to varieties of masculine and feminine expression. These “men” are stunning in their strutting of female masculinity, with the swagger and self-confidence of seductive Olympians. The film offers a clear perspective on butch women who express their female masculinity gender while remaining identified as lesbians, rather than living a male identity in presentation or through medical intervention.
Men, in particular, will also learn much from how these aggressives treat the women they love. Peddle realistically shows expression of male braggadocio, but there is none of the dismissive and sometimes violent behavior some men express towards women they desire. It is important for these images to be seen on the screen, and not only by those who identify with femme/butch gender expression. It would be a loss if this film were simply placed in a niche.
The film does not exploit its subjects. Instead, like Jennie Livingston’s 1991 Paris is Burning, and David LaChapelle’s more recent Rize, it humanizes people who are either invisible or stigmatized and marginalized in the media. Not only is Peddle’s film provocative with its revelations about gender expression, it is also full of humor and warmth with which any sensitive individual can identify.
Sunday, July 27, 2014
RADIOSEXBEAT’s Internet Juke Box ... august 2014 Listen up!
RADIOSEXBEAT’s Internet Juke Box ... august 2014
Listen up!
jim fouratt
I remember when long before computers, the internet, myspace, Itunes and Facebook there were record stores with rows and rows of vinyl records and little booths you could could take a 12 inch vinyl record into and sample the music before buying. You could also meet all kinds of different people fingering the covers and have all kinds of adventures with your new record store friends. Well those days are mostly gone for good...except for the new large Rough Trade store in Williamsburg full of vinyl, turntables, listen kiosks and a stage for live performance (oh my) and a bar ! But sampling music has taken a new digital turn that hopefully will stop the stealing of music that rips off the creator of the music. These new “listening booths” allow you to listen on the internet to most music being released now and in the past. While you do not get the true sonics of the music you play ...this only happens when you buy the digital or vinyl version (highly recommended when you ears demand more!)
The most popular is Spotify that despite the miniscule amount does compensate artists for play and hopefully reminding your ears that someone labored to make what you are listening to. There are other internet music listening sites popping up all the time . Rdio, GogglePlay, Beats, etc.,but Spotify is the biggest and very simple to use. .. and has both a free (ads) and paid (no ads ) software. So if you have a computer you can begin sampling music. Each month I will provide a small eclectic playlist to pleasure ears and get you started. Remember this is sampling not a full sonic experience so go to digital stores like Itunes to download. I recommend locally two stores to support : Rebel Rebel on Bleecker Street and Rough Trade in Williamsburg. Communal spaces that aural and actual physical interaction can make more human the listening experience . The best place to find out about live prformaces online is http://nyc-shows.brooklynvegan.com/ .
Radiosexbeat is a name I have used for the last ten years when talking/writing online about music. It was inspired by a song the GUN CLUB”S Jeffrey Lee Pierce’ wrote an indelible indie anthem “Sexbeat”.
LISTEN UP Radiosexbeat Playlist (all of these unless noted are available to sample on SPOTIFY) :
1: Morrissey: WORLD PEACE IS NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS Morrissey – World Peace Is None Of Your Business (Deluxe) Morrissey takes that velvet voice and goes radical . No if ,ands or butts about his world view .. dangerous ideas beautifully sung.
2: Etta James: STORMY WEATHER Etta James - Stormy Weather Etta James the Black jazz singer with the platinum blond hair has always held her own with Carmen McRae, Dinah Washington, Billie Holiday and Ella Fitzgerald. On Stormy Weather a 15 song collection she interprets the songs of people like Ray Charles, Little Milton , Erroll Garner, Sidney Bechet, Dorothy Fields ..
3: Big Freeda JUST BE FREE Big Freedia – Just Be Free better than a double espresso in the AM , Big Freeda , the Queen of New Orleans Bounce and Fuse’s TV 's most popular personality
finally has a first class production to get your butt in gear ,,practicing the BOUNCE at home is not only a pleasurable exercise but does but one in a mood for..
4 Lewis: L’AMOUR Lewis: L’AMOUR One album released in l982 and Lewis disappeared. 2013, a record collector upoads L’AMOUR and it becomes an internet sensation . With it’s Rod McKuen sensitivity and Bryan Ferry vocal styling everyone and their sister was trying to find out who Lewis was and what happened to him .So far only wild stories ... but the music is late night, all by yourself, glass of wine soundscape .reverie.
5: Common : NOBODY’S SMILING :Common – Nobody's Smiling Rap Elder looks hard at his home town, Chicago the murder capital of the US and speaks a truth that transcends the genre. Smart and direct with a respect for beats as well as message Common has and does stand out above the noise.
6: Justin Townes Earle WHITE GARDENIAS Justin Townes Earle – White Gardenias - Single has a new album (Single Mothers) being released in September, This is a peek,.lovely as usual.No longer just his father’s son (Steve Earle) but now fast becoming his equal.
7: Sharon Van Etten ARE WE THERE Sharon Van Etten ARE WE THERE YET Folk rock album of the year some are saying. What I do know is who ever put Etten together with The National’s Aaron Dessner as producer is genius. Her song Every Time the Sun Comes Up has taken residency in my head and is welcome . Think lucinda williams as her inspiration
8: Timothy A. Hesek COGNISANCE: the piano music of Adams, Part, Cage and Heisek Cognisance: The Piano Music of Glass, Adams, Pärt, Cage & Helisek All in one place ...ah
9: Marilyn Monroe Marilyn Monroe 50th Anniversary Album Yes she sang too ...sultry, sexy and naughty
Monday, June 16, 2014
Thursday, December 13, 2012
HITLER's CHILDREN &THE FLAT
Two recent documentaries focus on erased or repressed memory on different generations of Germans and Jews who lived through or were born after World War II.
THE FLAT directed Arnon Goldfinger
First seen at Sundance 2012
Arnon Goldfinger's Grandmother dies and her apartment in Israel is being cleaned out by her daughter and her grandson. The mother wants to throw everything away. She loved her parents but has no desire to be reminded of this sophisticated, educated couple and their history.
Her grandson (Armon) on the other hand is very curious to know more about the lives of his Grandfather who was a Judge in Germany and his wife.
Both were Zionist in the '30's and had emigrated to what was Palestine to begin the building of a Jewish State . Neither ever lost their identification with Germany as their homeland.
At the death of the grandmother her daughter and her son go to empty her flat in downtown Tel Avie The mother throws out and the stuff and the son retrieves. It is a generational story, One wants not to know what went on during the holocaust the other is curious about his family history, a template of human coping skills with pain and emotional devastation. He discovers pictures and a news story of his grandparents in taking a high Nazi Party official on a tour of what would become Israel .
Two couples with a common goal: The Germans wanted the Jews to leave voluntarily and the Jews wanted then to come to Israel.
What unfolds is that this friendship is renewed after the war. The Israeli couple visits with the Nazi couple and the grandson is profoundly disturbed because he can not understand why, The mother does not want to know any of this.
The son goes to Germany and is welcomed by the daughter of the Nazi couple. She believes her father, who after the war and vetted by DER SPEIGEL had became an executive for Coke Cola, had left the Nazi party in 1937 and spoke fondly of her father and mother's friendship for the Israeli couple and remembers their visiting after the war. Continuing to not understand how his grand parents could have maintained this friendly relationship, the Jewish grandson uncovers with the fall of the Berlin wall and access to East German archives newly made available documents that reveal not only did their German friend not leave the Party but he hired Eichmann and worked as a high ranked officer in Goering's office. When confronted with this fact the German daughter can not believe it.
The Jewish mother wants her son to stop asking questions. That;s the sequence of events in the documentary .But the feelings it raises and the way humans cope when confronted with truth as well as what is the meaning of friendship boundaries of loyalty are but some of the deeply moving and disruptive questions raised .
The Flat trailer
HITLER’S CHILDREN director Chanoch Ze'evi
Hitler's Children is not based on the best selling book about the Bader-Meinhof Red Brigade. Rather despite Hitler himself having no children Hitler’s Children is a film about the descendants of the most powerful figures in the Nazi regime including Himmler, Frank, Goering and Hoess. They had families. Israeli first time director Chanoch Ze'evi bravely has made a nuanced documentary that brings alive both the guilt and shame of the descendants and the mixed emotions of Jews confronting them.
To his credit he neither sensationalizes nor does he manipulate the audience into an easy reaction. Complicated as the emotions may be Ze'evi through direct shooting , little editing inside an interview and direct focus on the subjects on screen allows the viewer to see and hear the adult children talk.
A difficult movie to watch but searing in its humanity, The critical scene is when a teenage Israeli girl on an educational trip to a death camp in Germany stands up and confronts one of the relative of the Nazi leader. Heightening the encounter is the presence and participation of holocaust survivors of the very camp the sequence is shot in. Hitler's Children raised issues of genetics and historical truth as It role models how a documentary film can facilitate the speaking out of bitter truths.
Hitlers Children trailer
Two recent documentaries focus on erased or repressed memory on different generations of Germans and Jews who lived through or were born after World War II.
THE FLAT directed Arnon Goldfinger
First seen at Sundance 2012
Arnon Goldfinger's Grandmother dies and her apartment in Israel is being cleaned out by her daughter and her grandson. The mother wants to throw everything away. She loved her parents but has no desire to be reminded of this sophisticated, educated couple and their history.
Her grandson (Armon) on the other hand is very curious to know more about the lives of his Grandfather who was a Judge in Germany and his wife.
Both were Zionist in the '30's and had emigrated to what was Palestine to begin the building of a Jewish State . Neither ever lost their identification with Germany as their homeland.
At the death of the grandmother her daughter and her son go to empty her flat in downtown Tel Avie The mother throws out and the stuff and the son retrieves. It is a generational story, One wants not to know what went on during the holocaust the other is curious about his family history, a template of human coping skills with pain and emotional devastation. He discovers pictures and a news story of his grandparents in taking a high Nazi Party official on a tour of what would become Israel .
Two couples with a common goal: The Germans wanted the Jews to leave voluntarily and the Jews wanted then to come to Israel.
What unfolds is that this friendship is renewed after the war. The Israeli couple visits with the Nazi couple and the grandson is profoundly disturbed because he can not understand why, The mother does not want to know any of this.
The son goes to Germany and is welcomed by the daughter of the Nazi couple. She believes her father, who after the war and vetted by DER SPEIGEL had became an executive for Coke Cola, had left the Nazi party in 1937 and spoke fondly of her father and mother's friendship for the Israeli couple and remembers their visiting after the war. Continuing to not understand how his grand parents could have maintained this friendly relationship, the Jewish grandson uncovers with the fall of the Berlin wall and access to East German archives newly made available documents that reveal not only did their German friend not leave the Party but he hired Eichmann and worked as a high ranked officer in Goering's office. When confronted with this fact the German daughter can not believe it.
The Jewish mother wants her son to stop asking questions. That;s the sequence of events in the documentary .But the feelings it raises and the way humans cope when confronted with truth as well as what is the meaning of friendship boundaries of loyalty are but some of the deeply moving and disruptive questions raised .
The Flat trailer
HITLER’S CHILDREN director Chanoch Ze'evi
Hitler's Children is not based on the best selling book about the Bader-Meinhof Red Brigade. Rather despite Hitler himself having no children Hitler’s Children is a film about the descendants of the most powerful figures in the Nazi regime including Himmler, Frank, Goering and Hoess. They had families. Israeli first time director Chanoch Ze'evi bravely has made a nuanced documentary that brings alive both the guilt and shame of the descendants and the mixed emotions of Jews confronting them.
To his credit he neither sensationalizes nor does he manipulate the audience into an easy reaction. Complicated as the emotions may be Ze'evi through direct shooting , little editing inside an interview and direct focus on the subjects on screen allows the viewer to see and hear the adult children talk.
A difficult movie to watch but searing in its humanity, The critical scene is when a teenage Israeli girl on an educational trip to a death camp in Germany stands up and confronts one of the relative of the Nazi leader. Heightening the encounter is the presence and participation of holocaust survivors of the very camp the sequence is shot in. Hitler's Children raised issues of genetics and historical truth as It role models how a documentary film can facilitate the speaking out of bitter truths.
Hitlers Children trailer
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