At the Maryhill Museum of Art in Washington, near the Oregon border, you can see this wonderful chess set among nearly 100 other chess sets from around the world. I didn’t quite catch it immediately, but if you played this particular set you would need to choose if you were going to be the communists or the capitalists. I don’t remember which country this set was from but it’s obvious that they favored communism; the capitalist pawns are bound in chains.*

Thankfully communism and capitalism, and even socialism, aren’t the only options we have in life. While it may seem that the overarching governmental and economic structures surround us at all times, there are thousands and thousands of examples of people like you and me who are making small but conscious efforts to implement new types of ideals into their world. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, here are a few examples of things that I have seen around my neighborhood that emobody an economy of generosity. Below are images of three free boxes. Someone has taken old real-estate magazine stands and transformed them into boxes and houses that are meant to bring small bits of enjoyment to you as you walk by. On a given day, you might find free clothes, bottled water, street zines, pens, pencils, cigarettes, or anything else that people decide to leave in them. The one directly below is complete with a garden. These serve to be positive social interventions and they subtly motivate us to think slightly differently about the way the world works (or could work).

I’ve always been curious to know if these free boxes are set up and then left alone, or if someone comes by and cleans them up occasionally. I would hope that the latter is the case. I know that the one directly above is updated and taken care of often. It used to be an entirely different color and one day it disappeared and was soon returned in this new state. This one is actually different than a normal free box. There is usually a pad of paper, and pens and you can draw images and submit them into the slot at the top. Every now and then a zine will appear and all the submissions are published inside. I’ve actually written about this one before here.

A while back this free box had a number of small plastic astronaut toys and I couldn’t resist taking one. Since then I have left a packet of lemon ginger tea for some other lucky person. I like the idea of giving and receiving and thinking about reciprocation. Below is an image of the astronaut; I keep the space cadet in my kitchen on the door frame.

***update***
I originally posted info about the chess set as the capitalists vs. the socialists. I was incorrect. Here is information from Colleen at the Maryhill Museum:
The set Maryhill has is a propaganda set, “Capitalists versus Communists.”
Designed by the sisters Natalia and Yelena Danko for the Lomonosov State
Porcelain Factory in Leningrad in the 1920s, the set has often been
reproduced since. Ours may be a later edition.

One side does represent Soviets — the pieces carry obvious symbols of the
Soviet Regime and are portrayed as upstanding Soviet peasants — virtuous
etc. The other side does represent capitalists — the King is death holding
a human thigh bone; the Queen wonton, etc.

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The following was written by a friend of mine, Ariana Jacob, and was entered into the publication I produced for Utopia - A Science Fiction Marathon. Thank you Ariana.

__________

Utopia literally means no place. Knowing that reminds me that it is not somewhere where I want to live. I want to live in a place where I belong and feel at home, and that means being very much in relationship with the actual place where I live.(1)

The motivation for utopian projects is the wonderful and enlivening stance that we are an active part of creating the world, that our actions can shape our life according to our most precious beliefs. But somehow following the path of creating utopia doesn’t work out the way people envision. Why have people’s attempts to make the world over in the image of their ideals not produced ideal places to live?

The outline of the utopian story is a group of people trying to make a better world by breaking away from the ordinary world where they grew up. That story has been lived out over and over again. The classic American utopian experiments are the original puritan settlements and the Back-to-the-Land movement of the 1960s and ’70s. I was born into my parent’s Back-to the Land project.

Utopian projects begin with rejecting where you actually are and trying to start over to make a better place. But the ideals people want their new better world to embody come out of the same culture that those people want to leave.

Everything about who we are is a product of the culture we come from - how we see and feel and understand. Our vision of how the world could be different and better is actually a part of the world we see as faulted and want to separate ourselves from. The good and the bad parts of our culture are intricately linked with each other. Our ideals grew out of humanity’s complicated messy history and they cannot be pulled free of that history. They drag the whole dirty tangle along with them. We cannot peel off the parts of our culture and our history that we want and leave the rest.

Utopian projects don’t turn out the way they were planned because we can’t start a totally new way of life since we carry within us the structures of the old way. But we also cannot start over because there is no place in the world that is free of history. Designs for a new place have to include the reality of what has come before them or they will be forced to change when faced with a real place. An idea always has to change when it comes into contact with physical reality. Utopias are first perfectly built from ideas and then people try to recreate them somewhere in the real world by imposing them on an actual place that already has other stuff going on. Utopian projects run into trouble by not acknowledging what was there before them.

The long history of utopian world reinvention shows us that we can not leave the old world behind, so we should pay a lot of attention to how we are related to it, even the parts we know are wrong. We are more than our intentions. We are implicated in and accountable to the whole history that came before us and created us as who we are, not just who we wish to be.

We want so strongly to live lives that embody our ideals. We want to make the world a good place for us and for others to live. Utopias as ideas of place that don’t really exist anywhere can help us to reflect on how we live in our real lives. But the work of making the world a good place to live involves less designed perfection and more getting in deep with what is already here, around us and in us.

Ariana Jacob
Portland, Oregon

____________

(1) In order to belong somewhere there has to be a relationship between two real things, a person and a specific place. I am implying that through acts of relating to a place it becomes somewhere good to live, instead of a place having to be “Good” by design.

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“A HISTORY OF ART over the last hundred years, not as the history of the product, the piece, but as the history of decision making within our industry, is the history of investors acquiring greater control over the distribution, definition, and making of art products - and thus over who we are. It is the history of power slipping further from the people who make the piece to the people who profit from the piece. Yes, there are individual art stars aplenty. But as workers in an industry, we are being ground into dust.

“I would argue that our responsibility as artists is to help invent institutions that protect and expand the opportunity for autonomous creative work. Our responsibility, in light of our current situation, is to help build an economy sympathetic to the notion that art, as access to a creative life, is the province of every human being.
[...]
“Unless we make building socially just institutions part of our understanding of what it means to be an artist, all the verbiage about “content” and all the pieces of art dedicated to peace, equality, and a better way of life will, in the end, serve only as evidence that we got it wrong, that we fundamentally misunderstood what it is we do. All that stuff will serve as evidence that when we needed to and when we were called upon to build better ways of being creative as a people, we thought that art was simply about things.”

What you just read was the introduction to A Call to Artists: Support Parecon by Jerry Fresia, an article in the book Real Utopia: Participatory Society for the 21st Century, edited by Chris Spannos. I’ve only read a couple essays from this book but I’m becoming quite fond of it. The book seems to contain lot about determining and participating in the building of our own present and future, and in a very tangible way. The articles I’ve read so far talk a lot about parecon, or participatory economics, as a viable political model. There is also a text from Michael Albert who wrote Parecon: Life After Capitalism, what seems to be an initial text for this participatory economics. I am positive that some of thoughts in this blog will be influenced by this book, so I will continue to update you.

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I just feel that this beer coaster belongs in this blog. Isn’t it perfect?

The coaster was designed by the artist Jason de Haan. Thank you Jen Delos Reyes for bringing this back from Canada.

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I did something very fun on Thursday. I went to the Bipartisan Cafe and watched the vice-presidential debates alongside about 60 other people. The cafe’s walls are filled with all sorts of US paraphanelia, flags, and a couple big Norman Rockwell posters. The television that showed the debates was surrounded on either side by cardboard cutouts of Barack Obama and John McCain. I’ve always thought the Bipartisan was an interesting place but this event made the place even more attractive.

What I thought was great was that regardless of one’s religious affiliation (or lack thereof) to their political party they could come together and watch the debates together. It was nice that everyone was coming together just to watch something on tv and this simple act was a social action that brought together a local community. I know I know, we’re in Portland and the likeliness of there being a Republican in the cafe that day was slim-to-none. So the event was probably not the most “bi”partisan. Also, a bipartisan system is not really the most democratic system but that isn’t the cafe’s problem…they were trying to create a public space where people with different ideals could come together and do something together…”without precondition.”

Watching football games with friends at a local bar might be a similar action. Yes? No?

Oh hey, if you wanted coffee you had to get yourself either the Biden blend or the Palin blend. I thought that was a fun addition. Hopefully this is my last election post, but I also hope that you see that this wasn’t really an “election post” as much as it was about the construction of a community space.

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Deschutes Brewery (Bend, Oregon) - Jubelale 2008 (Winter Seasonal)
One of my all time favorite beers, the Jubelale is back for the fall and winter season. Yes! This strong ale is a dark mahogany color with a beautiful dark fruits (apple resin) and spices (cinnamon, coffee) aroma. It avoids the burst of evergreen pine that many IPA’s have, it is subtler and yet more stable and even more mature tasting (An IPA tastes experimental compared). The taste is very full but not overly complex and it actually does taste like the holiday season; I don’t know how they do it, but I immediately think of Thanksgiving, Christmas, and the snow. This beer gives you the comfort of a porter or stout but without the heaviness, and with some extra hoppy kick that is classic for the Pacific Northwest. Don’t pass this one by. My rating: 9.5/10

Hale’s Ales (Seattle, Washington) - Kölsch
I should have reviewed this one earlier in the year because I just found out that this Kölsch is only supposed to run through August. I can still find it at Whole Foods, and probably New Seasons, Belmont Station, etc (In Portland. If you live outside Portland, you need to call your best beer store. The bottle says “German Style Ale” and I don’t know what makes it that. Some reviews I’ve read say that it is not a “real” Kölsch. Whatever it is, or isn’t, it IS a really great tasting beer. I enjoy the simplicity of it, and it’s earthy quality. It has a roasted nut and toasted bread taste to it while remaining a bit thin. The warmer, toastier, taste sort of swells a little after you swallow and then it rounds out. There are some hops added that give it just a tad more kick than I would expect from a German beer. Try to pick this one up before it disappears, it may come back every year too, but I don’t know that for sure… My rating: 10/10

Bridgeport Brewery (Portland, Oregon) - Hop Czar
Another beer that may be leaving stores soon. Pick it up ASAP at Belmont Station, Whole Foods, or New Seasons…maybe call them first. Brideport’s has an IPA that I consider to be the classic beer for the Pacific NW (the Deschutes Mirror Pond Pale is another classic). IPA’s have since become testing grounds for ultra hoppy and bitter qualities that you would find in say a Ninkasi Tricerahops Double IPA or Double Mountains Hop Lava. The Hop Czar from Bridgeport could be considered, by some, to have the same classic feeling as the normal IPA, but an instant classic for all these new Imperial and Double IPA’s. I don’t know if I would go that far; it’s good, but it’s new and one of the characteristics of the newer imperials/doubles is their wild quality. Bridgeport is usually more reserved. The Hop Czar is an Imperial IPA, with 8% alcohol. It has an extremely potent and noticeably sharp hop smell, like the hops were just put in the bottle or something. Consistent with Bridgeport, the drink is nicely balanced, not pulling you one way or another, and leaving you feeling great about what you just drank. Lots of citrus flavor that reminds me of lime, grapefruit, or others and has a nice lasting aftertaste. A 22oz was a bit much so I split it with friends. That’s always a good way to taste beer. My rating: 8.5/10

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I’m presenting you with an email I received today that basically lists all the “other” party candidates running for president. I don’t really want to post a lot about the presidential race or general politics because I feel some major disconnect from top tier politics. But, this is a response from someone who was advising someone else on whether or not they should vote for Ralph Nader because they believe in democracy and that a bipartisan system is not actually democratic.

Here is the email response:

Well, why Nader than.  There are several other political parties which you can vote for if your reason is only democracy.  If you ask me, Nader is the best choice of these third party candidates, but there are others who are out there.  Voting for any of them would show your steadfast belief in democracy.  Here are the main third party candidates (meaning they are on the ballots in enough states to possibly win enough votes in the Electoral College):

Chuck Baldwin of the Constitution party: http://www.baldwin08.com/
Bob Barr of the Libertarian Party: http://www.bobbarr2008.com/splash/?s0820
Cynthia McKinney of the Green Party: http://www.votetruth08.com/
Ralph Nader Independent or Peace Party: http://www.votenader.org/

But if you really want to prove a point you may want to vote for one of these candidates:

Gene Amondson of the Prohibition Party (yeah that prohibition): http://www.geneamondson.com/prohibition-party-2004.html

Roger Calero of the Socialist Workers Party: http://www.themilitant.com/2008/ElectionCampaign/platform.html

Charles Jay of the Boston Tea Party: http://www.cj08.com/

Alan Keyes an Independent (who ran for Republican and Constitution Party, but failed):http://www.alankeyes.com/

Gloria La Riva of the Socialism & Liberation Party: http://www.pslweb.org/site/PageServer?pagename=votepsl_home

Brian Moore of the Socialist Party: http://votesocialist2008.org/

Thomas Stevens of the Objectivist Party: http://objectivistparty.us/

Ted Weill of the Reform Party: http://www.reformpartyusa.org/

So there you go. I know this is a lot if you want a summary of this stuff you can go to:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_third_party_presidential_candidates

But I would recommend taking a little bit of time to immerse yourself in these websites.

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I just heard about this book, Nowtopia by Chris Carlsson. I think I will read it soon. No, I’m not being paid to tell you this.

Nowtopia is a book about a new politics of work. It profiles tinkerers, inventors, and improvisational spirits who bring an artistic approach to important tasks that are ignored or undervalued by market society. Rooted in practices that have been emerging over the past few decades, Nowtopia’s exploration of work locates an important thread of self-emancipatory class politics beyond the traditional arena of wage-labor.

Outlaw bicycling, urban permaculture, biofuels, free software, even the Burning Man festival, are windows into a scarcely visible social transformation that challenges politics as we know it….

Nowtopia uncovers resistance and rebellion amidst fractions of a slowly recomposing working class in America. Rarely self-identifying as mere ‘workers,’ people from all walks of life are doing incredible amounts of work in their “free” “non-work” time. This unpaid work is creating immediate practical improvements in daily life. More interesting still, these myriad initiatives constitute a more thorough-going refusal of politics and economics as usual. In Nowtopia, Marx’s concept of the General Intellect is freshly applied to the disparate initiatives that are percolating largely out of public sight. Building on the investigative methodology developed by autonomist Marxists in Europe and the U.S.A., Carlsson recontextualizes the so-called “middle class” as an example of working class recomposition. The practical rebellions outlined in this book embody a deeper challenge to the basic epistemological underpinnings of modern life, as a new ecologically-driven politics emerges from below to reshape our assumptions about science, technology and human behavior.

The semi-conscious war between these life-affirming, self-emancipating behaviors and the coercive domination of money, property, and survival amidst contrived scarcity is the core investigation of this book.

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Here’s what I’ve been up to this summer (just kidding, it’s not really everything I’ve done!). Click the image below to see it bigger. Last week I enjoyed a nice holiday but I will be posting more about science fiction, utopia, and beer soon. Well, since I’m on the subject of taking a holiday and utopia, I guess I will just bring up something that I’ve been reading. I bring it up because I’ve recently done some thinking about creating ideal schedules (read about the schedules here and in my other blog here). Read more below:

Excerpts from Henri Lefebvre’s “Work and Leisure in Everyday Life” (1958):

In our era, one of the most recent forms which criticism of everyday life has taken is criticism of the real by the surreal. By abandoning the everyday in order to find the marvellous and the surprising (at one and the same time immanent in the real and transcending it), Surrealism rendered triviality unbearable. This was a good thing, but it had a negative side: transcendental contempt for the real…
[...]
The relation between leisure and the everyday is not a simple one: the two words are at one and the same time united and contradictory (therefore their relation is dialectical). It cannot be reduced to the simple relation in time between ‘Sunday’ and ‘weekdays’, represented as external and merely different. Leisure - to accept the concept uncritically for the moment - cannot be separated from work. After his work is over, when resting ore relaxing or occupying himself in his own particular way, a man is still the same man. Every day, at the same time, the worker leaves the factory, the office worker leaves the office. Every week Saturdays and Sundays are given over to leisure as regularly as day-to-day work. We must therefore imagine a ‘work-leisure’ unity, for this unity exists, and everyone tries to programme the amount of time at his disposal according to what his work is - and what it is not.
[...]
The first obvious thing that the so-called ‘modern’ man around us expects of leisure is that it should stop him from being tired and tense, from being anxious, worried and preoccupied. To use a term which is now very widely used by the public at large, he craves relaxation….Thus the so-called ‘modern’ man expects to find something in leisure which his work and his family or ‘private’ life do not provide. Where is his happiness to be found? He hardly knows, and does not even ask himself. In this way a ‘world of leisure’ tends to come into being entirely outside of the everyday realm, and so purely artificial that it borders on the ideal. But how can this pure artificiality be created without permanent reference to ordinary life, without the constantly renewed contrast that will embody this reference?

That’s all for now. I think I may create a double feature recommendation based off of this text, look for that soon. These topics of labor, work, family, leisure, relaxation, are all fascinating to me.

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Recently I made a trip out to The Dalles, Oregon which is up through the Columbia Gorge. The drive is up one of the most beautiful highways I’ve been on. The Dalles is situated right where the gorge turns from lush waterfalls and mountains to a desert. While we were there, it was recommended that we have a bite and some drinks at the Baldwin Saloon, which is in downtown and has large windows that open to traintracks with trains that rock the building every 20-30 minutes.

The saloon began in 1876 but I’m not sure if anything in the building is still that old. There is a fantastic mahogany bar that is from the early 1900’s with original mirrors and stained glass that you can sit at. They’ve also kept some of the old furniture, including a gigantic old cash register, pendulum clocks, and some old landscape paintings.

The bar had a small selection of beer, but a good selection at that. They had your classic Oregon beers like Deschutes Mirror Pond, Bridgeport IPA, and then a few smaller breweries that are located in the gorge. They were carrying the Double Mountain IRA (India Red Ale!) and a beer from Walking Man in Stevenson, Washington that I probably would have tried if it weren’t for the Double Mountain beer. With a small but quality selection like that I am assuming that they will always have some good beers on tap, so it might be worth stopping in if you are going through town. The food was okay, but the appetizer was great. It was a bacon-wrapped dates with cheese, grapes, and apple.

Here is a picture of the trains that were rolling by our window as well as a picture of the building next door.

There were a lot of landscape paintings hanging all over the walls of the gallery including this one by Joseph J. Englehart. I can’t say if this is true for this Englehart painting, but landscape paintings were sometimes used as propaganda to help the United States fulfill manifest destiny. Many travellers following the Oregon Trail would have waded their supplies down the Columbia Gorge if they hadn’t gone through the passes around Mt. Hood. The landscape paintings offered settlers a view of how the new world and the west looked, inviting the viewer into the picture through multiple eye-guiding techniques. Ironically the painters didn’t always paint the land they saw; they added and subtracted and exagerrated as they felt necessary.

So, if you are heading up the Columbia Gorge and have some time, stop in at the Baldwin Saloon in The Dalles. But as you pass through Hood River, one of the best places for windsurfing in the world, you definitely won’t want to miss out on Full Sail Brewery or Double Mountain Brewery for that matter (Double Mountain is about 2 blocks from Full Sail and was started by a few ex-employees). Full Sail offers some alright dining overlooking the Columbia River. They also have free tours of their facilities every day (I think) and at the end of my tour I got a free Full Sail pint glass. Full Sail, being one of the largest microbreweries ever, is worth going to for a tour.

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A few times now I have alluded to an event that happened earlier this year called Utopia - A Science Fiction Marathon. I’ll tell you about it now and maybe it will tie together some of what I’ve been posting on this blog.

There were 3 parts to the event. There was a movie session that consisted of six sci fi movies about utopia and dystopia. The second part was presentations about utopia and the third part was a supplemental reader for the event. The idea behind the event was to have a great time watching sci fi movies, and without being too formal, to discuss the application of utopian and ideal visions into our own realities.

The event started at 8:00pm with the movie The Lathe of Heaven. This is one of my favorite sci fi movies because, even though it may be a little cheesy, it has a lot of application for today. It was written by a Portland writer, Ursula K. Le Guin she wanted it filmed in Portland (only small parts of it were), and it is about trying to create a universal utopia for all people.  In the movie, George Orr’s dreams change reality. When his doctor finds out about this, he attempts to use George for his own prideful purposes and can’t seem to realize that the world was better before he tried fixing it. In my opinion, this is a lesson we can keep in mind - not that I don’t think we should attempt to turn our world into a better place, but that we must be sensitive because we aren’t the only ones on the planet.

After the first movie there were five presentations: My friend, Ezra, talked about what “utopia is found between the cracks” could mean (Between the Cracks is the name I gave the supplemental reader that accompanied the event). Ezra said that many people dream up utopias because they think of their current world or situation as messed up (he used the words “like dirt”). He encouraged us to find utopia in the present because looking to the future to solve our problems will not help. I think he meant this in a way that meant if you are always hoping for a better future, but never do anything about it in the present, nothing will change. Three of the M.O.S.T. members gave a news broadcast informing us about how their world is doing. I have talked about the M.O.S.T. before here and here, and I think that they do a wonderful job at building and providing community. Gary Wiseman presented some found videos, including one where this guy is performing lines over and over for a science fiction movie until he gets them right. Harrell Fletcher was a last minute replacement for a German friend who was going to talk about Basic Income, something he had been studying. I included information about Basic Income in my zine instead. Harrell talked about John Holt’s book “Escape From Childhood” and its relation to alternative education and children’s rights. He also led a discussion to see what other people thought about children’s rights, asking questions such as “What is an appropriate voting age?”

Finally, I gave a presentation as well. Mine was about how I created my ideal schedule and in so doing I became more fully aware of my priorities. And even though I could never fulfill my ideal schedule completely, I was able to see where and why I had high anxiety. I was then able to make some changes to my current schedule as I felt necessary. I talked about what sorts of questions one might ask when creating their own schedule. In the zine I provided further information.

The content of the zine was a juxtaposition of utopian texts and pictures of people drinking beer. More and more I am seeing beer and pubs as great catalysts for thought expansion and social dialog. I have found that my best art has been produced either under major pressure and deadlines, or while hanging out with friends at pubs while scribbling notes on napkins.

Before we knew it, it was 8:00am. I served pancakes to the guests who stuck it out until the early morning hours. All in all, we watched The Lathe of Heaven, Logan’s Run, Soylent Green, H.G. Wells Time Machine (1960), Gattaca, and just for fun we watched Plan 9 from Outer Space. We were also going to watch Alphaville, but we ran out of time somehow.

The event was a lot of fun and intellectually stimulating. Thank you to all who came. Please feel free to contact me for any additional information, movie recommendations (although here’s a great list of recommendations that I have compiled), questions or suggestions, or proposals for making this event happen in other settings.

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I’ve been having a great time with my project for Portland’s 2008 Time Based Arts Festival. The project is called “Drinking Beer With Friends And Working” which is exactly what it sounds like. It’s not a performance though so you don’t need to watch, it’s a social piece so you can come talk with me, or just sit down and have some beer. Just go to the pubs listed below at the right times and look for the TBA sign and the orange brochures. It’s really been fun so far and there has been some wonderful conversations about: what is critique?, design, religion, traveling out of the country, the TBA fest, beer, and food challenges among many other things. Here’s some pictures so far.

These images are from Horse Brass, McMenamins Kennedy School, and Laurelwood Brew Pub.

Here is a list of the remaining times:
Sept 8 – Mon – Amnesia Brew Pub (832 N Beech St.) 3:00pm
Sept 9 – Tues - Lompoc Hedge House (3412 SE Division) 3:00pm
Sept 10 – Wed – Lucky Lab (915 SE Hawthorne Blvd.) 3:00pm
Sept 11 – Laurelhurst Theater (2735 E Burnside) Movie - The Fall at 9:35pm
Sept 12 – Fri - Hopworks Brew Pub (2944 SE Powell Blvd.) 9:30pm
Sept 13 – Sat - Green Dragon (928 SE 9th) 9:30pm
Sept 14 – Sun - McMenamins Barley Mill Pub (1629 SE Hawthorne Blvd.) 9:30pm

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If you live in Portland, Oregon you have until September 14th to see Khris Soden’s project for the Time Based Arts Festival. He is giving a tour of the town of Tilburg, Holland as you walk through the streets of Portland. I am giving it high recommendations.

I’ve written more about it below, but first here is the information if you want to go on the tour. The tour starts from inside the Wieden and Kenedy/PICA building at 224 NW 13th. More information here. Here’s a list of the remaining tour times:

Sun . Sept 7 . 6:30-7:30 pm
Mon . Sept 8 . 6:30-7:30 pm
Tues . Sept 9 . 6:30-7:30 pm
Wed . Sept 10 . 6:30-7:30 pm
Thurs . Sept 11 . 6:30-7:30 pm
Fri . Sept 12 . 6:30-7:30 pm
Sat . Sept 13 . 12:30-1:30 pm
Sat . Sept 13 . 2:30-3:30 pm
Sat . Sept 13 . 4:30-5:30 pm
Sun . Sept 14 . 2:30-3:30 pm
Sun . Sept 14 . 4:30-5:30 pm

My wife and I went on the tour yesterday after we received strong recommendations from friends. We were very impressed and had a lot of fun. Khris walked through Portland as if it were actually Tilburg, explaining historical landmarks, pointing out special buildings, and talking about the people. He took us to one of the great Tilburg churches and explained how Protestantism, Catholicism, Liberalism, and Socialism were all foundations of the social structure of the city however in “reality” we were actually in front of the Hilton. There were many wonderful juxtapositions such as that. It was also funny to see reactions of people who were not on the tour, who were just walking by, as Khris spoke about old buildings and monuments that weren’t really there.

I put quotations around the word “reality” because clearly we are in Portland, Oregon during the tour, however, we begin to mentally get a sense of what this city might be like and we begin to replace our reality with what we think could be the reality of this other place. We also get a sense that Tilburg and  Holland have a couple social structures in place that are admirable, beneficial, and something that we might aspire to implement here in Portland. The tour was prefaced with a short conversation about how Portland and Tilburg are similar in many respects, and in both places people seem to have utopian ideas that they work toward. Utopia is not a perfect place, but one in which the community works together to achieve a better social good. So, there are some things we can learn from Tilburg. This may not have been the point or purpose of the tour, but this is something I was able to take away from it. I won’t spoil the tour for you. I highly recommend it; it was a lot of fun.

Khris was a part of the M.O.S.T., an arts group that I have written about on beerandscifi.com here. This group believed in a parallel reality, called Mostlandia, that operated in friendship and love and promoted fun and community among other things. They were able to inspire a sense of community with the people who attended their functions. Like Khris’ tour, the M.O.S.T. was able to confuse reality with this sense of “I am here” and “I am not here.” Even though the four founding members of Mostlandia have disbanded, Khris is carrying the torch of presenting “non-place-places” to the general public in ways that help us see the world in a new light.

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It seems as though the people in charge of the artwork on DVD covers are only interested in the shelf-value of movies. What else would they be interested in? It is reasonable to say that making movies is a money making business and movie-houses should do what they can to make as much money as they can. Most movies that we see nowadays simply plaster a celebrity image on the front cover and call it good. The tactic works, as far as rentals are concerned…if I see an image of Brad Pitt or Uma Thurman, I am likely to pick up the DVD. But in my opinion, it is a disservice to the movie and the actors to not give it a well designed cover and booklet to supplement the DVD.

Sometimes I am surprised to see the original posters for movies because they often have elements of creativity but then when the DVD comes out, it’s back to mediocrity. Check out the difference between the August Rush poster on the left and the DVD cover on the right:

I think the poster, on the left, has movement, wonder, and mystery to it. Those three elements were essential ingredients in the film too. The DVD cover has forfeited all those things and dumbed it down so that we can see the three main actors. If I were at a video store, I would be much more inclined to pick up the DVD if it had the image on the left.

Check out the movie Breach! This is one of the worst! We’ve lost all the suspicion, mystery, and fright. We’ve also lost balance. The DVD cover is hideous and leaves you to rely on your knowledge of who the actors are. It tells you nothing of the story. I bet no one will be interested in this movie 20 years from now because why would they ever want to pick up a DVD that looks like this.

One of the most upsetting poster to DVD changes is the movie Sideways. I think it’s still very well designed in the DVD form, but the poster was just so perfect. The designer must have been so upset when her/his boss told them to stick images of the actors in there. While this one might pull it off with some sense of creativity, I believe it still dumbs down the artwork. The poster is spacious and the image tells you a lot; the DVD cover is quite cramped and busy with the images.

And the old sci fi movies are getting face lifts as well. One of my favorites, Logan’s Run originally had beautiful artwork, much like most old sci fi movies, but as new versions come out, the creativity disappears. The older version even has the actors on the front, but they are used in a way that makes them feel as if they are running from something, which they are. The new one is flat, fragmented, and very ugly.

Here’s the 2005 War of the Worlds. While the poster is actually kind of cheesy, all hope is lost with the DVD:

This phenomenon has happened to most movies. Movie covers are ugly. Just go to your nearest rental store and look. You’ll see little intelligent design and a lot of hasty celebrity cut and paste. Have you ever listened to a cd of a band that put a lot of energy and effort into making their booklet a real piece of art? Have you spent a long time looking at the images, art, or reading the lyrics and doesn’t that give you a sentimental attachment not only to the cd, but to the music itself? I guess a DVD isn’t supposed to be special. Sure, there are “special edditions” but don’t you think that it would be worthwhile to invest a bit more in creativty and less into the mere consumption of icons?

I’d like to end with a smorgasbord of Tom Cruise movies since 2000. These are just the one’s he’s starred in, not the ones with special appearances. His DVD cover history before 2000 is quite similar to these, with a few redemptive exceptions, like Magnolia, which was a story about connections between lots of people, none of whom were the “main” actor.

update*
Hey, I found another site that has also compared/contrasted movie posters to dvd covers. It’s a good post at More Than Fine.

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In other news. The Time Based Arts Festival is finally here and I’ve finished all the prep work for my project so I will be able to put more time into the blog again. Thanks for your patience. OH, ALSO don’t forget to keep checking back to my list of utopian/dystopian films…I continually update it and change it.

Here’s are some links I’ve been into lately:
Obeerma - Barack Obama defends his beer drinking credentials.
Get Rich Slowly - blog about smart sensible and everyday personal finance. quite down to earth.
Hoax Slayer - Exposing internet scheme and email hoaxes since 2003.
Favorite Sci Fi Book Covers - not mine, this is a community post on Library Thing.
Bar/Pub Inside of a Tree - no joke, some good pictures here.
The Church of Stop Shopping - and Rev. Billy. what are you doing for Christmas? stopping shopping?
The House That Herman Built - after 36 years in solitary confinement, Herman has a dream house in mind.
Poppa Neutrino - Built a raft from NY junk and sailed across the Atlantic.
Fuelly - a social site that lets you track, share, and compare your gas mileage.

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