Knowledge

THE NDAA & THE NEW TERRORISM: ARE YOU A SUSPECT?

Barack Obama

By Willee Roberts

Last Wednesday marked the 10th anniversary of operations at the Guantanamo Bay Detention Camp. Bush-era fear tactics rationalized the creation of the military prison despite its defiance of Geneva Convention protocol against torture. In Obama’s early days in office, he attempted to follow through on his campaign promise to close the camp and return terror suspects to US soil. Gitmo remains open, with 171 prisoners still confined to living in its inhumane conditions. Obama is not soft on terrorism.

Beware America: Osama is dead, but terror lives on. This time, it does not wear turbans or live in a cave. It wears 99% buttons and lives in a tent. But these new terrorists want the same thing as the old, to dismantle the structures that allow capitalism and “western values” to colonize and oppress.

Obama is not soft on terrorism. On the eve of the new year, 2012, our president signed into law the National Defense Authorization Act for 2012 (NDAA), a piece of legislation which, among other things, grants the federal government the authority to indefinitely detain anyone suspected of terrorism.

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January 29, 2012
| B. Williams | Life, News | Tags: , | 7 Comments

UNTIL THE LIGHT TAKES US: THE STORY OF NORWEGIAN BLACK METAL

Until the Light Takes Us

I don’t listen to Norwegian black metal. Until about two hours ago, I couldn’t have told you anything about it, and after spending the better part of that time learning about it, I can’t say I’m rushing to find a download link. But Until the Light Takes Us is just a fascinating film, and for that hour and a half I was immersed in a subculture completely foreign to me. Released to mixed reviews in 2009, the film is the product of directors Aaron Aites and Audrey Ewell’s vision, a documentary compiled through years of interviews and archival footage with some of Norwegian black metal‘s most controversial figures.

That most critiques of Until the Light center around the overly sympathetic, romanticizing tone it takes toward its subjects only makes sense. The story of black metal is, after all, primarily documented as a result of controversy– a series of church burnings, a handful of murders, and some grisly suicides, to be more specific. Beyond that though, the film explores the troubling ideology behind those actions, and behind a cultural phenomenon that captured the world’s attention at its peak in the mid-’90s. For those curious enough, it’s an experience, to say the least. Read on for the full movie.

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January 23, 2012
| B. Williams | Music, Videos | Tags: , | Add a Comment

SOPA AT A GLANCE

Surely your web browsing experience has been hindered in some way today. Whether you’ve tried to research something on Wikipedia, or search on Google, you’ve probably come across the words SOPA or censorship somewhere along the way. While Will highlighted the main issues of the bill last month, a recent video on behalf of fightforthefuture.org sheds light on the potential risks we face if the Protect IP Act passes. With language that serves to elucidate the true intentions of the bill, this short video offers valuable insight into Protect IP Act and the battle for net neutrality. You can also join the petition to stop SOPA and PIPA here.

January 18, 2012
| Max Gibson | Technology, Videos | Tags: | Add a Comment

MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR. ON ACTIVISM

Martin Luther King

“Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.”

January 16, 2012
| Max Gibson | Life | Tags: | 1 Comment

GIL SCOTT HERON’S THE LAST HOLIDAY: A MEMOIR

Gil Scott-Heron

Last year, the world lost a true revolutionary. It seemed that only in the years leading up to his death, had greater pop culture begun to realize the true impact and importance Gil Scott-Heron had had on its own landscape. Though hip-hop and jazz historicists, vinyl collectors and political minds had been singing his praises for decades, it seemed that the last few years of his life saw that well-deserved reverence reaching an unprecedented level. The release of his final album, I’m New Here, a collaborative effort with XL Recordings founder Richard Russell, and the posthumous Jamie xx remix project, We’re New Here served to further cement his place as a luminary of modern music and culture.

Today saw the release of The Last Holiday, an autobiographical memoir written in the last years of Gil’s life. The memoir tells the stories of some of the more formative moments of his extraordinary life and career, using one particular story as a sort of centerpiece through which others are told. “The Last Holiday” refers to Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday, and more specifically to Gil’s experience touring alongside Stevie Wonder as a part of 1980′s Hotter Than July Tour, during which he and Stevie helped to campaign for MLK Day’s status as an official holiday, all to the tune of Stevie’s “Happy Birthday”. In the excerpt below, Gil writes beautifully and poetically about childhood memories, about his experience with Stevie, and about the tragedy of fallen heroes. In the wake of his own death, his insight seems all the more poignant now.

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January 10, 2012
| B. Williams | Life, Music, Vintage | Tags: , , , , , | Add a Comment

THE POWER OF DOODLING

I remember there was a kid in elementary school named Alex White. I know you remember him. He used to sit in class and doodle all day. Never really thought too much of it, until Twill passed along this TED Talk today. Deconstructing the negative perceptions that doodling has maintained over the centuries, doodling enthusiast Sunni Brown offers some insight into the value of doodling and why we should all put more pen to paper.

December 13, 2011
| Max Gibson | Art, Life | Tags: | 3 Comments

CORRELATION FOUND BETWEEN HIGH CHILDHOOD IQ & ADULT DRUG USE

Blunts

I feel like the results of this study might be a lot less shocking to some folks in my generation. As an ’88 baby, I feel like I must have just barely missed soaking up a lot of the Reagan-era stigma that used to be so pervasive. The longitudinal study in question, conducted by researchers at Cardiff University’s Centre for the Development and Evaluation of Complex Interventions for Public Health Improvement tracked just over 7900 individuals, starting in 1970, and taking a broad survey of both men and women who had taken IQ tests at ages five and ten.

In addition to other questions, researchers polled the participants about adult drug use (marijuana, cocaine, ecstasy and amphetamines, among other things), and found a consistently positive correlation between high IQ scores early in life, and drug use as teens and as adults. Naturally, words like “stimulation-seeking”, “openness” or “willingness to experiment” all figured into the researchers’ discussion, given the seemingly paradoxical results. With that said, yeah, there are still plenty of stupid people doing drugs, and plenty of intelligent people staying sober. But suffice to say, conventional wisdom isn’t always that wise.

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November 22, 2011
| B. Williams | Life, News | Tags: , | 2 Comments

CONGRESS’ ONLINE PIRACY ACT & THE FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION

SOPA

Here at Wine & Bowties, as is the case with a lot of sites who offer content like ours, we’ve always been aware that we operate in a sort of legal grey area. Among other things, we see ourselves as a vehicle for promoting the creative endeavors of others, and as facilitators of a particular experience for the folks around us. Part of that is sharing music, and sharing it in the way that we, as consumers of media ourselves, like it to be made available. Naturally though, not everyone’s in favor of music being made available, without the consumer paying first. It’s understandable. It’s a debate that’s been going on since Dre and Lars Ulrich brought on the downfall of Napster a decade ago.

Now, in 2011, two pieces of legislation, The House’s Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and The Senate’s Protect IP Act, would give the government the opportunity to intervene, in the interest of protecting intellectual property. Rather than merely punishing an individual, or issuing a warning about a particular piece of content, however, the twin bills would allow the Attorney General to blacklist sites completely, who were found to be hosting “illegal” content.

The legislation, according to The New York Times, would allow the Attorney General to block traffic to any given site (from internet juggernauts to fledgling startups) from “Internet service providers, search engines, payment providers and advertising networks, all without a court hearing or a trial.” As you might expect, a sharp divide has formed regarding the proposed legislation, with the old guard (the Chamber of Commerce, the American Federation of Musicians, The Motion Picture Association of America) on on side, and the internet gods on the other (Google, Facebook, Yahoo, Twitter). Needless to say, this could have a severe impact on our ability to provide content, but more importantly, it sets what many see as a dangerous precedent in the limits it could put on freedom of speech and freedom of expression.

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November 18, 2011
| B. Williams | Music, News | Tags: , | 3 Comments

THE NEW ECONOMICS OF THE MUSIC INDUSTRY

Adele

Ever heard the Louis C.K. standup routine about how everything is amazing, and everybody’s miserable? In it, he’s talking about being on one of the first flights ever to feature wireless internet. Accessing the internet while torpedoing across the country at 500 miles an hour, he explains, is a pretty insane luxury to have, particularly when it comes as a pleasant surprise. Eventually though, the internet cuts off, prompting the guy next to Louis to freak out. “This is bullshit!” the dude announces. How in the world, Louis wondered, did this guy think the universe owed him something that he didn’t even know existed half an hour before? I guess that’s kind of how I feel about Spotify.

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November 10, 2011
| B. Williams | Music, News | Tags: | 2 Comments

THE WRITING OF STONES

The Writing of Stones

Who knows whether this tumult of triangles inscribed in stone, first brought about by nature and then by art, does not contain one of the secret cyphers of the universe? Sometimes contemplating one artifact or idea about nature can go a long way. For French literary critic and philosopher Roger Caillois, it was the “writing of stones”, the patterns inscribed into ancient stones and minerals, and revealed by polishing their surfaces, that got him going.

Strange and sometimes convoluted, Caillois’ writing still manages to be engrossing and thought-provoking, exploring what the book describes as “the impact these configurations have had upon the human imagination throughout history”. Aside from that though, the images are gorgeous, providing a close up look at the natural beauty of stones. Below are a few selections.

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October 23, 2011
| B. Williams | Nature | Tags: | 2 Comments

THE SWEET CRAZIES OF ETHIOPIA

Jan Hoek

Sometimes, I wonder what it’s really like to lose your mind. Even the phrase lose your mind is a strange one. It’s not like it’s really gone — I mean something is going on up there. Just, not exactly what’s going on in everyone else’s mind. In Ethiopia, the problem of mental illness is a widespread phenomenon, with an estimated 15% of all adults affected, or just over 12 million folks. Due to the lack of psychiatric care facilities however, most of these people live on the street. Referred to, perhaps endearingly and perhaps pejoratively, as the Sweet Crazies, Ethiopia’s mentally ill fascinated photographer Jan Hoek, so much so, that they became the focus of his latest portrait project, and a resulting gallery exhibition in Amsterdam.

Rather than simply documenting the Sweet Crazies in the streets though, Hoek decided to pose their portraits against a backdrop of thrones, pillars and colorful backgrounds — typically the scene of Ethiopian wedding portraits. Along with the portraits, Hoek includes a few anecdotes, recounting his experiences in Addis Ababa, and the colorful personalities he encountered along the way. Troubling as their broader context may be, the shots are practically iconic, approaching a difficult and strange reality in an original way.

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October 12, 2011
| B. Williams | Art, Life | Tags: , , | 2 Comments

HOW TO WRITE A STORY: THE SCIENCE OF SOUTH PARK

Surely I’m not the only one who’s fallen in love with South Park over their illustrious fifteen season run. I still remember trying to stay awake to watch Kyle drop the famous line, “Oh my god, they killed Kenny!” For many of us South Park has left an indelible mark on our transitional years, continuously killing shit while providing their one of a kind commentary on society at large. Recently, creators Matt Stone and Trey Parker surprised a freshman class of NYU film students on their first day, offering insight into the way they construct a story amongst other things. Dropping serious knowledge on how to be successful in the writing game, this one’s important for anyone who’s interested in writing or just looking to tell a good story.

October 7, 2011
| Max Gibson | Music | Tags: , | 6 Comments

STEVE JOBS: HOW TO LIVE BEFORE YOU DIE

Steve Jobs

(February 24, 1955 – October 5, 2011)

Over the last four decades or so, it’s easy to see why Steve Jobs’ name has become synonymous with innovation. In some form or another, reminders of his enduring brilliance and foresight are everywhere — on our desks, in our backpacks or quite literally in our pockets. Even if you’ve never used a single Apple product, the innovations Jobs helped to bring to the forefront of our culture have probably changed the way you lived, from the way we listen to music to the way we share ideas. Jobs took an esoteric, expert-oriented niche product and turned it into something personal, and something accessible. In all likelihood, you’re reading this off something that wouldn’t exist if it weren’t for him. It’s no wonder that today, on the day of his death, some of us feel almost as if he was someone we knew personally.

As impressive as Steve Jobs is for his ingenuity, he’s known just as much for his ability to communicate. The ideas were usually great, but the presentation was always flawless. From one masterful speech to the next, it seemed like every year brought around a press conference showcasing the latest gadget from Apple that would revolutionize some aspect of our lives, and send the competition rushing back to the drawing board. Rather than letting gimmicks speak for the brand, Jobs fostered a culture of straightforward, no-bullshit advertising. He spoke to us. He showed us what these things could do, and why they mattered. In 2006, in one of his most impressive displays of communication to date, Jobs spoke at Stanford’s commencement, reflecting on his extraordinary journey, what he’s learned from his own mortality, and the importance of following your heart. We’ve posted it before, but today, it seems more poignant than ever.

October 5, 2011
| B. Williams | Life, News, Technology, Videos | Tags: , | Add a Comment

A CONVERSATION WITH DOLORES

Dolores
Photos By Max Gibson

What’s your typical day like?

Get up, take a shower at 7:30, I dry off, I go downstairs and get coffee out of the machine, and then I come out and go to work. That’s my typical day.

Going to work is being out here?

Yes, in the street. That’s everyday.

How long have you been doing that for?

30 years.

On the street?

On the street.

What have you learned from your time on the street?

That people can be very cruel.

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September 25, 2011
| Max Gibson | Interviews, Life | Tags: , , , | 17 Comments

TAKE LEAPS

How hard is it to take that leap? To consciously venture into the unknown, unaware of where or how you might land. How hard is it for your mind to get your body to do it? Sometimes nearly impossible. It seems like we face cliffs throughout the day. Whether it be asking a girl out, or telling your boss how you really feel, a lot of times we have the chance to act without knowing how shit’s gonna turn out. It can be scary. But how often do we take those chances? Probably not enough. Some say it’s better to play it safe. But here’s the catch, every time you do take that chance you grow a little stronger, a little more confident and a little more assured, no matter what the outcome is. I’m not saying if everyone’s jumping off a cliff, for you to do it too, but simply put, take chances, especially the ones where you have more to gain than to lose.

September 17, 2011
| Max Gibson | Art, Life, Sports, Videos | Tags: | 1 Comment