It’s time I finally blogged about the sekret project. I’ve alluded to it a few times here but have been coy largely because I wanted to push things a bit further before bringing it to the online environment. But, time has come.
Before I begin, though, a question:
Have you seen An Inconvenient Truth yet?
Because you really should go see it.
Pearce writes:
“I saw An Inconvenient truth the other day, and not only do I recommend it, I class it as a must-see… if you don’t see the movie, you can neither recommend nor condemn it. If you already know the facts about global warming, by seeing this movie you can judge for yourself whether it is a resource you can recommend. Similarly if you doubt the facts about global warming, you cannot criticize the movie unless you explicitly know what it says.”
Jenni writes in comment to this post,
“Not many movies have actually changed the things I do, but this one did.”
And on her own blog:
“I was very moved and motivated by [An Inconvenient Truth].”
Pearce references Roger Ebert, uber-film reviewer of Chicago, writing about the film:
“In 39 years, I have never written these words in a movie review, but here they are: You owe it to yourself to see this film. If you do not, and you have grandchildren, you should explain to them why you decided not to.”
Over in Wellington’s free alterna-paper The Capital Times, Graeme Tuckett references the Ebert review and also writes:
“This is my fifth year of reviewing movies for the Cap TImes, and this is my last ever column, so I reckon I’m allowed a small indulgence… JUST GO AND SEE AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH, OK? The film is brilliant. It will, quite probably, change the way you live your life… How much do I reckon you should see it? I’ll tell you what. The first five people to email me at the address below – I’ll shout you your ticket, OK?”
Seriously, go see this film. This is something special. Even if you think you know this stuff backwards and forwards, see the film. The cultural conversation just moved forward and if you haven’t seen this film you’re missing out.
Plus, the film is massively entertaining, and you don’t walk out of the cinema depressed – you walk out of it energised. As Jenni said, motivated.
Which brings me to the sekret project.
Which, naturally, I’m not going to talk about until tomorrow.
Amazing Triple Action!
Huzzah etc.! As already posted on my LJ, today marked the launch of ‘Amazing Triple Action’, a 12-part series for superhero games, all written by me.
This has been occupying my time for quite a while. I am very pleased that it is finally out in the open!
More details here – note that this is a different link to the one on LJ and gives a bunch more info.
And the product page is here.
Sup hu dizb: part the two-th
Back in March I received a bunch of random greeting messages from Kiwi mobile phones, all in painful yoof-txt-speak. I wondered at the way my relatively new cell number received four different messages from four different numbers in one weekend – a statistical anomaly that hasn’t repeated since.
Until this weekend, when I received three, all from different 021 numbers, all content-free variations on “hey, who’s this?”. Still I wonder exactly where this is coming from – is it really, as it seems, just random kids punching numbers at random into their mobiles in the hope of finding someone to chat to? If so, why do I get four in one weekend, then one or two in six months, then three in another weekend? The odds against that distribution seem small.
But that’s not why I was prompted to make this post.
I just got via email from Telecom NZ’s mobile messaging service a notification that I had been sent a picture from a Telecom NZ mobile. I clicked through the link to xtra’s Lightsurf and get this:
—
To: [my gmail address]
From: [a telecom number]
Sent: 01/10/06
Subject: A Picture Share!
—
So, anyone know who these pouting fourteen-year-olds are and why I received a photo of them?
Are we going for the bored-teenagers-spamming-random-identities explanation or the inexplicable-moneymaking-scheme explanation this time? Or is this just a sign that I am not Up With The Play, in the same way that little old ladies are confused by Nigerian scam emails?
I am baffled. Advice welcome.
[mediawatch] Librul media
Courtesy NikChick.
Link to official Newsweek site showing this ain’t a hoax here.
What interests me is the specific process where a different cover was chosen for the U.S. edition. There must be one person (the US editor perhaps) who made the turning-point decision. What, exactly, were their reasons, one wonders?
Shit Off Safety
Just got a call from the Alligator, who has landed in Auckland and is due in Welly in a couple weeks.
He tipped me off to this account of his farewell party, written up for Seattle’s indie scene zine The Stranger. Excerpt:
Someone shotguns a High Gravity malt beverage and shouts, “Get rich or die fuckin’ tryin’!” Someone else shotguns and shouts, “Locked and loaded!” All out of catch phrases, our host does a traditional Maori war dance on top of the fridge. I get more fucked up than I’ve been in years and the party is a raging success.
That’s how they roll in Seattle, baby.
Letter Dispatched
Further to the research in the previous post, I’ve just sent this letter to the Listener.
===
Vincent Gray of Wellington writes to challenge the climate science
presented in ‘An Inconvenient Truth’ and your cover article.
Vincent Gray is a member of the NZ Climate Science Coalition. The
NZCSC website is essentially a clearing house for links to climate
change scepticism. On the day I write, 25 September, nine of the top
ten linked items are funded either by Exxon-Mobil or by the coal
industry Western Fuels Association.
(The other, somewhat embarrassingly, links to a climate change skeptic
whose book was refuted at its own launch – by the invited guest
speaker!)
NZCSC denies financial links to Exxon-Mobil, but they are actively
spreading Exxon-Mobil propaganda.
===
Post-Inconvenient Truth
Saw Gore’s opus last night. More on that to come.
For now: just read the letters page of the Listener’s most recent issue. It features a letter by Vincent Gray of Wellington, listing a set of claims which (supposedly) counter Gore’s (supposed) alarmism.
I plugged Gray’s name into google and found his writings referenced with admiration by NZ’s own climate change denial organization, http://www.climatescience.org.nz/.
The top item on Climate Science’s site is an anti-Inconvenient Truth piece from the Competitive Enterprise Institute.
Exxon has given the CEI over $2million US since 1998 for, among other things, “climate change outreach”.
—
Note, this doesn’t indicate Mr Gray is connected with either Climate Science or CEI – this was a two-minute google search.
Nevertheless, I am interested in Mr Gray’s activities – how closely tied is he to ClimateScience.org? (I could email or call him to ask, I guess.)
And is ClimateScience.org an example of an astroturf organization? How could I go about finding out? Any ideas, anyone?
Straight To Video
Well, that was nerve-wracking. I just spent an evening in the company of some fine fellas and fellesses, listening to them do a read-through of my play ‘Straight to Video’. It’s almost the first time it’s been exposed to humans; a few chosen people have seen copies of it but this was really the first time it got under major scrutiny.
I was anxious. As I was at pains to point out to the gathered bodies, it was the first time I’d written anything for performance longer than about five minutes. (It occurs to me now that this is with the exception of Cold Night, but that was Just Playing Around and not actually expected to be performed. ) (Oh, and except for a script for a film adaptation of in move, as well. But this is a minor point.)
Everyone was very kind in their willingness to indulge me nonetheless and the readthrough began. And may I say, it was a revelation. As I’d hoped, hearing my dialogue brought to life by a bunch of wonderful people taught me huge amounts very very quickly. I already knew there was big work to be done, but this made very clear the specific kinds of work to be done, and what other options I have to change and develop the piece.
(One particular revelation stands out – one character, who’s meant to be key to everything pretty much, kind of doesn’t exist nearly as much as she should. If you have an uneasy feeling in your gut that you’ve given one of your readers a dud character, listen to that feeling!)
It also convinced me that the thematic idea at the core of the piece is sound, and the idea of its execution is also sound. The base is good, I just need to make the expression of it extremely awesome.
Anyway, after the reading, which clocked in at just under an hour, people spent a while longer pitching in loads of ideas and insights and it was just marvellous. There literally was no better way for me to spend 90 minutes on this project than doing the readthrough. And no-one said it sucked, either. Result!
Thanks to the man with the organiser skillz, Leon, and to the awesome reader-folk Glenn, Dayle, Svend, Fraser and the lovely Laura.
[mediawatch] Fisk on journalism in war
This is from Robert Fisk’s ‘The Great War For Civilisation’, p767. He’s writing about the 1991 Gulf War.
But long before this war had concluided with the wholesale slaugthter of fleeing Iraqi troops – and in the disgrace of our betrayal of the hundreds of thousands of brave Iraqis who rose against Saddam at our request – journalists had become mere cyphers, mouthpieces of the generals, discreetly avoiding any moral questions, switching off their cameras – as we would later witness – when the horrors of war became too obvious. Journalists connived in the war, supported it, became part of it. Immatuirty, inexperience, upbringing: you can choose any excuse you want. But they created war without death. They lied.
I love this book.
[Mediawatch] Just hypothetically, war with Iran
This week’s Time magazine:
Summarised here
No one is talking about a ground invasion of Iran… it can be done better and more safely by air.
…A U.S. strike would have a lasting impression on Iran’s rulers. U.S. officials believe that a campaign of several days could set back Iran’s nuclear program by two to three years. Hit hard enough, some believe, Iranians might develop second thoughts about their government’s designs as a regional nuclear power.
Some U.S. foes of Iran’s regime believe that the crisis of legitimacy that the ruling clerics would face in the wake of a U.S. attack could trigger their downfall, though others are convinced it would unite the population with the government in anti-American rage.
Yeah, that’ll work. Because an air campaign has achieved how many military objectives in, um, ever?
Were the Time writers asleep during the Israel-Hizbollah conflagaration? Why isn’t the article pointing out how ridiculous this crap is? (And, assuming the summary is a fair representation of the content, why the hell is the possibility that this is all nonsense buried at the end as a modifier?)
I am beginning to suspect that the love of air campaigns despite evidence is directly driven by the fact that air campaigns are very, very expensive, and very very profitable for arms manufacturers. Follow the money.
Gah. And that’s even leaving aside the fact that this article appears at all, preparing us step by step for the notion of war with Iran.
Um, if you want regime change, why not wait for the next Iranian elections? That’s what we have to do about the villains in the White House and the broken souls in Downing Street.