Offerings
curated by Holly Crawford, ongoing, released here January 2007
Offerings is a dynamic and ever-growing project curated by Holly Crawford that presents art at its most basic: a form of communication, a social exercise, "owned" by no one. It is constantly updated on Holly Crawford's web site and embedded here, and will continue to expand over time.
Missing
by Martha L. Deed, January 2007
"I've been working on the aftermath of a 1998 murder in western New York that has affected an unusually large number of people and tested the criminal justice system to its limits. Originally, I thought I would write a book, but as I worked my way through the materials made available to me, I realized that I had something quite special, quite powerful, and that 'the story' cried out for multimedia web presentation.
I STALKED MARTHA STEWART!
a novella by Vernon Frazer, January 2007
"Inside the covers of each of the books comprising our display of Martha Stewart's new bestseller, Own the World Through Good Taste, public relations coordinator Norexia Pruinn found a poem riddled with obscene, pornographic and other objectionable material that violates our Family Values policy written by the disturbed and disgruntled Avery Blank, a failed poet known for his outspoken rudeness."
Cross-Media
by Michael Harold, January 2007
"To write a poem, you usually start with a word, any word, and soon find that you have written a whole string of them. After placing your words in a string, left to right or right to left, depending on your cultural habits and artistic inclinations, you put the strings one on top of the other in rows, or side by side in columns. That is how we make a poem or any other page of words."
Bin Badder
by Pete Hindle, January 2007
"Bin Badder takes the form of one of those annoying you-must-click-through programs, and is a political statement regarding the resurgence of terrorist activities in the west. I make no excuses for using a stupid scripting language for a minority platform - here, the political message directly mirrors the method of distribution. Because such a outré political message is unlikely to be received without knee-jerk response, and only a minority would ever consider the proposed link seriously."
Memory Tables
by Gil McElroy, January 2007
"Two hundred years ago, two European powers intent on colonial expansion and hungry for the resources this continent offered clashed there, and as a consequence it has a history of heartbreak, great tragedy, and violence. In the mid-eighteenth century this place was home to French settlers who set about trying to agriculturally tame the wetlands."
I Don't Want to Go to Nashville
by Rupert Owen and Snuffbox Films, January 2007
Don't worry, son. We Texans aren't very fond of the place, neither.
War Stories
by Norman Ball, December 2006
"Given a sprawling gap of time, all manner of earnest truth-tellers are drawn to the microphone: retired generals with axes to grind, arm-chair media quarterbacks, inevitable second-guessers, officious micro-managers, conflicted soul-searchers, disgruntled former officials, grieving survivors, emboldened journalists and on-the-ground bloggers."
America Has Left the Building
by Phil Rockstroh, December 2006
"We must begin to grasp the unsettling knowledge that the things we, as a nation, inflict upon the world — we will eventually inflict upon ourselves. It is imperative that we start to ask ourselves this question: When so many external and internal forces work to thwart, degrade, and destroy our essential selves — hence the world — what can help to restore us?"
The Offspring of Aeolus: On the Incest Taboo
by Sam Vaknin, December 2006
"Worldly goods are passed on from one generation to the next through succession, inheritance and residence. Genetic material is handed down through the sexual act. It is the mandate of the family to increase both, either by accumulating property or by exogamy (marrying outside the family). Clearly, incest prevents both."
Philomel
by Jeff Crouch, December 2006
"The promise of the Enlightenment was the Rational, and the vehicle of the rational was to be Science, but science was only good as long as it was honest, and well, Honesty and Top Secret are on good terms only when there's Silence. Mostly, though, there's Noise."
Selling Satan: Iraqi War Dead and the Collateral Damage to America's Soul
by Phil Rockstroh, November 2006
"Dante posited Limbo (that quiet suburban community ringing Hell) was a place reserved for those who evinced indifference to the world around them. It would seem our corporate/consumer version of Damnation (which now includes Casual Fridays in Hell itself) requires prescriptions for anti-depressants, urine tests, and Reality Television competitions to enter its inner most circles."
Swans in Myth and Literature
by Tala Bar, November 2006
"It seems that, in the Hindu-European tradition, there are a number of Swan goddesses. Some of these goddesses were connected with death, and others with some qualities of the Underworld (where dead people go), like wisdom and prophecy. Robert Graves has defined the swan as a bird of Death, and the three Greek figures of Graeae, or Gray Ones, clearly demonstrate this idea..."
The Narcissist as Eternal Child
by Sam Vaknin, November 2006
"The narcissist is a partial adult. He seeks to avoid adulthood. Infantilisation - the discrepancy between one's advanced chronological age and one's retarded behaviour, cognition, and emotional development - is the narcissist's preferred art form. Some narcissists even use a childish tone of voice occasionally and adopt a toddler's body language."
Architectural Activism: A Response to the Poetics, Philosophy & Politics of Space
by Mary Jo Malo, November 2006
"Gaston Bachelard, in his The Poetics of Space, introduced the concept of the oneiric house, filled with special spaces for recalling pleasant images and memories, to connect them with language and creativity. In Of Other Spaces-Heterotopias, Michel Foucault expands upon Bachelard's unique phenomenology of inhabited geometry..."
The Fate of the State of Israel
by Sam Vaknin, October 2006
'The "Status Quo" promulgated by Israel's first Prime Minister, David Ben-Gurion, confined institutionalized religion to matters of civil law and to communal issues. All affairs of state became the exclusive domain of the secular-leftist nomenclature and its attendant bureaucratic apparatus.'
Elections are a Scam
by Joe Licentia, October 2006
'According to the official version ordinary citizens control the state by voting for candidates in elections. The President and other politicians are supposedly servants of "the people" and the government an instrument of the general populace. This version is a myth. It does not matter who is elected because the way the system is set up all elected representatives must do what big business and the state bureaucracy want, not what "the people" want.'
Mr. Rove's Opus of Deception: 9/11 and the Lonesome Ballad of Blind Willie McMansion
by Phil Rockstroh, October 2006
"At present, 46 percent of the American people hold the delusion that Saddam Hussein was involved in the planning and execution of the terrorist attacks of 9/11/2001. This statistic comes to light as ABC/Disney aired a drama based on 9/11 that contains the corresponding degree of historical accuracy regarding the circumstances that led up to the tragic events of that day as an average episode of The Flintstones in depicting daily life during the Stone Age."
A Sweet-Voiced Flower Is My Drum
by Leigh Herrick, September 2006
"...the more compelling the evidence becomes against an argument of strict un-consciousness in favor of one supportive of an historically directed consciousness reflective of traditions that have evolved within separate areas, states, countries, and over time, but whose origins seem clearly linked over thousands of years to those first traditions coming out of the areas we now call Africa, Asia, Europe and the Middle East."
The Transmigration of Place
by Jeff Crouch, September 2006
"This place, but the other side as this place is the back of the current 6th Floor Museum, stands as the greatest of all camera battles. Am I making this story up. The paparazzi's dream. The average citizen on the scene. Who got the photograph? What was in the picture? Where was Oswald—busted in a movie theater? Who wrote this script? Zapruder. Does a picture constitute evidence?"
The Semi-Failed State
by Sam Vaknin, September 2006
"The semi-failed state - while going through the motions - is dead on its feet. It is a political and societal zombie. It functions due mainly to inertia and lack of better or clear alternatives. Its population is disgruntled, hostile, and suspicious. Other countries regard it with derision, fear, and abhorrence. It is rotting from the inside and doomed to implode."
Katrina as I Saw It and Live It
by Tara Guillot, September 2006
"I watched, sobbing, as fires flared in the midst of the flood waters from broken gas lines. I watched parents separated from children being hoisted above blade-driven flood waters. I watched people beg for water and shade. I watched people die. And I felt guilty that I wasn't among them."
Thought Sparks
a photo/text essay by Jeff Crouch, July 2006
"Zeno of Elea, famous for his paradoxes, assumed that at any instant, an instant being of zero duration, all motion stopped. Hence, Zeno showed the fast cannot overtake the slow, and yet the fast overtake the slow."
Noise, an Ode
by Benjamin Buchholz, July 2006
" As if I had flicked a switch, as if in mentioning your name beyond the blue screen some witching hour welled up into the realm of the physical, real, capital, combustible now. Those generators, ever-present licorice of my dreams, drowned long ago since the always, always around me, those generators die."
The Great American Toilet Seat Flap
by Dick Bakken, July 2006
"The Fourth of July—as we stand up to salute or sit down to ponder the flag that symbolizes our country—is an apropos time to discuss ongoing national controversy. And we Americans do hold some views too gut-level-passionately to be polite about them."
Denying the Irrational: Affirming the Subordinate
by Iftekhar Sayeed, July 2006
'To be economically and militarily weak was to be uncivilised, irrational. "We used to be a nation of artists," a Japanese diplomat once remarked, "but now...we have learned to kill, you say that we are civilised." When, on 30th January 1902, the Anglo-Japanese Alliance was signed, Japan, it was said, had joined Europe: Japan was now free to attack Russia, as she had attacked China in 1895.'
The Erosion of Privacy
by Susan Lago, June 2006
'Several months later I stopped into Radio Shack to purchase a $50 gift certificate. "Driver's license, please," the clerk said. I told him I didn't see why this was necessary as I was, after all, paying cash. I asked to speak to the manager. A perspiring man with smudged glasses, the manager explained that they needed the information for verification purposes. He assured me my privacy would be protected. And furthermore, they wouldn't sell me the gift card otherwise.'
Masks: Meanings and Ideas
by Tala Bar, June 2006
"Human purposes in using masks are more subtle, because they do not depend on genetic makeup but on a purposeful, thought out, deceiving; their uses are many times psychological, their purposes are not only to hide but also to reveal a person's true nature."
from Road Dog: Tales from the Honkey-Tonk Highway
by Bob Malone, May 2006
"After the whiskey found it's way to my brain and blessed my overtaxed central nervous system with sweet relief, I was able to discern that the establishment I was in was a French Quarter legend called Tujague's ("Best Brisket In New Orleans"). This seemed as good a place as any to begin a well-deserved bender."
Psychological Ecology: Walking the Rice Paper
by Andrew P., May 2006
"This is what might be called psychological ecology; we have respected our being by not trying to make our mark on it. And psychological ecology leads to real ecology, otherwise, it makes no sense to expect a society to have less impact on this planet when each member of that society is positively encouraged to have maximum impact in that society."
Why the Beatles Made More Money than Einstein
by Sam Vaknin, May 2006
"Music and football and films are more accessible to laymen than physics. Very little effort is required in order to master the rules of sports, for instance. Hence the mass appeal of entertainment - and its disproportionate revenues. Mass appeal translates to media exposure and the creation of marketable personal brands (think Beckham, or Tiger Woods)."
They're All Insane and Do Nothing for Your Films:
A Conversation on Low-Budget Film with Matt Hoos, Mark A. Lewis, and Gabriel Ricard, May 2006
"GR: Yeah. But sometimes... you can be so in the thick of your idea that your perception of what can work and what won't can get a little screwed up. It's very easy to get petty.
ML: If you have a smart director who facilitated your vision... making it better... in a perfect world.
MH: It's such a tough balance between a director being able to put his vision on a film, while respecting the writer's original intent."
The Rucksack Letters: July 12, 2001—Tampa, Florida
by Steve McAllister, April 2006
"To truly understand why I'm doing what I'm doing is going to take awhile. Basically, I'm starting at the bottom again. I'm starting from the beginning. I want to learn everything again for the first time."
The Freedom Industry and the Dead Students of Bangladesh
by Iftekhar Sayeed, April 2006
"For years, a notorious gang of 20-30, allegedly with links to the Chatra Shibir and Chatra Dal [ruling coalition student and youth wings], has unleashed a reign of terror in the area. On the day of the incident the criminals raped three women, collected illegal tolls from about 50 traders and also tortured some."
Just War and the Construct of the West
by Sam Vaknin, April 2006
"Rights and corresponding duties are ill-defined or mismatched. What is legal is not always moral and what is legitimate is not invariably legal. Political realism and quasi-religious idealism sit uncomfortably within the same conceptual framework. Norms are vague and debatable while customary law is only partially subsumed in the tradition (i.e., in treaties, conventions and other instruments, as well in the actual conduct of states)."
The Thin Wet Line
by T. S. Ross and Jonathan Penton, April 2006
"In southwestern Texas, a section of the Rio Grande runs through a lush forest. On the US side of this area, you'll find the Big Bend National Park, an area of great pride to Texans. By day, tourists can enjoy a unique mixture of flora, fauna, culture and architecture. By night, Texans and tourists have occasionally been able to quietly sit inside their rooms and watch, through their windows, Mexican soldiers crossing the Rio with crates, and loading those crates into trucks."
Join the Resistance: Fall in Love
by CrimethInc., April 2006
"In this sense love is subversive, because it poses a threat to the established order of our modern lives. The boring rituals of workday productivity and socialized etiquette will no longer mean anything to a man who has fallen in love, for there are more important forces guiding him than mere inertia and deference to tradition. Marketing strategies that depend upon apathy or insecurity to sell the products that keep the economy running as it does will have no effect upon him."
Flogging Frey
by P. L. George, March 2006
"And now we arrive at Oprah, who's fast approaching canonization. She should be the last person leading the crucifixation of Frey. She misrepresents herself everyday, manipulating bored, ignorant, lonely housewives into believing that she is their friend, just one of the girls. And through that belief, she gets them to buy merchandise and contribute to charities that she gets a kick back from."
The Kids Are Alright
by Andrea Gregg and Pat Vert, March 2006
"She told tales of systemic racism, sexism, and abject poverty, the bulk of it stemming from three professors in particular. In return, the Assistant Dean tried relentlessly to force a confession from Andrea or some kind of sexual grudge she must have had against a professor."
