By Nadine Nakanishi

Chicago enjoys one of the most visually impressive art and design communities I’ve ever had the pleasure of witnessing. Maybe it’s the brutal weather that forces people to hole up inside 65% of the year, or the ingrained Midwestern work ethic, but one mere Chicago block boasts more visual design prowess than most other cities manage in their entire municipalities.

Whether you’re partial to the postpunk aesthetic of Jay Ryan’s The Bird Machine or Steve Walter’s Screwball Press, the folk-art inspired artistic anarchy of Tony Fitzpatrick or Mekon Jon Langford, or even the post-web 2.0 graphic design refinement of Coudal Partners and Gapers Block majordomo Andrew Huff, the city is awash in visual art and design that is distinctive, refined, and brilliant. Urban renewal of the highest order.

It’s fertile ground for a diverse array of talents, including the ones above and far too many others to mention without this piece turning into a line-list of fave Chicago artists and designers. All the sames, such a vibrant community has its challenges as well, particularly for new artists that are standing in the shadows of such giants. Even in the city of big shoulders, with an incredibly vibrant and supportive community, it can be difficult to stand out from the crowd.

Nadine Nakanishi and Nick Butcher of relatively young Chicago print and design studio Sonnenzimmer are experiencing many of those challenges first-hand. Both have worked for years in both the Chicago printing and arts communities. Butcher and Nakanishi’s art and design work has been shown as far afield as Switzerland and appeared in publications including Chicago Reader, Time Out, Punk Planet, and The Face. In addition, they have done countless show posters for bands that include The Weakerthans, Warhammer 48K, The Black Heart Procession, and CocoRosie.

With an art print series release party coming up featuring the work of Chris Kerr, Carrie Pollack and Anders Nilsen on February 23rd, Butcher and Nakanishi spoke with me about their work, design, running a print shop and the difficulties of striking out on ones own.

Where did the concept for Sonnenzimmer come from? What are you hoping to accomplish with the print shop?

By Nick Butcher

Nadine Nakanishi: There’s a lot we envision it to be and it’s interesting how it evolves on it’s own. Primarily first though is to establish an independent way of living, of making a livelihood outside the corporate world and therefore setting up our own rules and limitations. A very important part for me is also to be a part of the artistic landscape of an art community that fosters exchange and being in an environment that promotes it.

Nick Butcher: Nadine and I both had painting studios and we were printing out of the Bird Machine. It got to point were we wanted and needed to set something up ourselves. We figured if we combined our efforts we could maybe scrape something together–we wanted a space to share and to get some basic screen printing equipment. One thing led to another and we ended up with all this hi-end gear and a really nice space. In the meantime I had a done a couple of “visiting artists” deals in Berlin (Bongout) and Austin (Decoder Ring) . I had a such a great time doing both of them. I thought we could do something similar here. It felt like a great way to give back to the community here in Chicago and elsewhere. A good way to be more than just another print shop/artist studio.

What have been some of the challenges of starting your own print shop?

Nakanishi: Basically, stomping it out of the ground with absolutely no capital and having to wait and have patience for every little utensil we need there, from thumb tag to emulsion to automatic press. It’s like saving up and then getting something and saving up and getting something else. We’ve been lucky to have been able to trade a lot of equipment with very generous people. Demanding has also been finding a good balance between my own personal work and running a shop together with Nick. The maintainance part of having a shop is really boring and lame.

Art by Chris Kerr

Butcher: For me, the biggest challenge has been finding the balance between paid work and tinkering away on my own stuff. That doesn’t always pay, but is essential for me. 2007 was our first full year of being in business. I took on everything that came my way, the majority being poster jobs. I love making posters but I had to crank out one or two a week and I got burned out really fast. I was out of ideas, and I had no real drive to make anything. It was just too much. So yeah, its a challenge to figure out how to make a living and still have time to devote to art or goofing off or whatever. I’ve made some changes in how I’m approaching things this year. I’m in talks with several artists about making prints for them, sort of working as a master printer. At the same time I don’t want to just do this but it is a nice break. It gives me more head space to dilly dally around with music and art…which then feeds back into the more commercial work we do here. Ultimately we want this place to do a little bit of everything…make art, make posters, make community, BBQ, all under one roof. (For more info about Nick’s music projects, go here - ed.)

Can you give us a quick overview of your art and design backgrounds?

Art by Carrie Pollack

Nakanishi: For me, I come from a graphic design background. I ended up doing a graduate study in type design. In my last year of school, I was doing a poster and realized that I didn’t want any type on their and no logos and basically just was interested in making images, landscapes. However, I feel also that a lot of my design and art background comes from growing up in different cultures.

Butcher: I grew up drawing Garfield, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and wrestlers. I gave it up when I discovered music and skateboarding. I got really into 4-track recording and played in a few bands. Initially I went to school to be a recording engineer, that lasted about 6 months. Around the same time I was getting into the internet this was 97 or so. I got really into web design, this re-sparked my interest in visual things. I switched my major to Graphic Design, hated that, and eventually settled in screen printing. I finished up my design major anyways, but was developing a real interest in art. Then I finished school and just started pushing more on the art side of things.

Your styles, while very different, both seem to be quite abstract. Can you give a bit of background about how you came to develop your artistic styles? How does your design and print work differ from your distinctly artistic work, and how is it similar?

Nakanishi: A lot of it is cross pollination. The functionality of design makes you want to break away and the aloofness of art, wants you to be desperately obligated to something. I like bouncing back between the printing, design and painting. They’re different mind sets and that keeps you moving.

Nick Butcher at work at Sonnenzimmer

Butcher: What originally drew me to design was the formal elements, like, what makes something look good? What is that? What are the secrets? What makes an image powerful…color, shape…that kind of thing. With screen printing initially I don’t think I was really making art, per se, just working through some ideas that weren’t quite design yet not quite art. I was really into street art, Art Chantry, clip art, etc. I loved (and still love) random images with random text that make you think, that make no sense but force you the viewer to make connections. As I got more into “art” making, meaning painting, I began to apply these ideas on more abstract terms…shapes, colors, the occasional image, and yeah kind of just pouring things out of my brain. My first two years painting were a flood of ideas. For the first time I felt like I was sort telling my story, on a completely visual yet abstract way. I don’t think visual abstractions have a literal meaning, they exist in a level removed from that. Somewhere more primal, more intuitive than our conscious minds can always access.

I noticed the less I thought, the better the art. I became very interested in this. All the different things I do pull from this idea, art/music/design/print, its just more fully realized in the art and music. design has to serve a purpose, generally speaking. So I try to communicate on a subconsious level with the viewer, I guess. Not in a sleazy advertising kind of way, where you are scaring people into using a product, but on a level where someone looks at my image and likes it…but isn’t sure why.

Art by Nadine Nakanishi

Can you tell me a bit about the artists at the show and how you’re connected to them?

Nakanishi: Why these? All the artists don’t have regular access to printing equipment and come from diverse backgrounds and yet from a common ground–art. We wanted to see how they would approach a print. To collaborate in a different way by providing space was one way. Art making can be very solitary and self-absorbing–to a point where it’s irrelevant what you make if you can’t bring another element to it then yourself. Having people come into the studio, brings a different dynamic. It’s also a way to be an active part of the artistic landscape, fostering some kind of exchange. To answer to our world around us in our own ways. Long term goals would be to be able to bring in artists from around the world, like a Palestinian artist, an Israeli artist, some one from China, etc.

Butcher: We picked Anders, Carrie, and Chris because we loved their work, but also because we had met them and thought they were cool people. I met Anders at the WLUW record fair about 4 or 5 years ago. He was selling his comics and related stuff and I was selling my posters. We both had a somewhat similar subtle style and ended up trading stuff. I kept up with his work over the years. At some point (maybe 2 years ago) he asked Nadine and I to put some work in a show at Lula that he was curating. Nadine and I had been looking for artists to make prints with for our series. He was a perfect match. Aesthically his stuff is right up our alley.

Carrie used to live in Chicago. Her and Nadine had studios in the same building (the splat flats) We saw here work there and both really loved it. it seemed like we were all sort of doing similar things. She moved away, but I kept her in the back of my mind. She was doing things way more abstract and minimal than Nadine or I.

Chris is a friend. I would consider them all friends now, but I’ve known Chris for a little while. I always loved his stuff. Its funny. Our work can be so not funny some times, way too serious. I knew he would be fun to work with, and his stuff is great. Again, aesthetically, there are some parallels.

What are art shows you’ve hosted in the past, and what are you planning for the future?

Nakanishi: We’ve hosted a quilt show for our friend, Caitlin Martell. She was a bit frustrated not being able to show. And so, we said, we should just do it DIY. For some reason when you go through art school, they establish certain barriers for artists because everything has to cater to this gallery world. I didn’t go to art school, and it’s freeing because I never had the sense to wait around for the gallery world to open up. I’m more for, we can rally, we can have a lemonade stand, we can do it just – and that’s from my early days from just getting on board and doing it. I hope, we can maintain the mind set. Things don’t have to be complicated but at the same time you got to keep it small, then you can keep rollin’.

Butcher: We never really envisioned Sonnenzimmer as a place for shows, but I’ve got increasingly tired of gallery shows and it made since just do it ourselves. It’s not the perfect space for shows, but it works…we clean up pretty well. At the end of the day its a print shop, so there’s that. So far we’ve had one show with a local quilt maker named Caitlin Martel. She comes from a fine art background and has sort of settled into making quilts. They sit on the fence between fine art and functionality–I really like that. I have a few things in mind for the future, nothing concrete though. Gotta keep it a secret I guess!

What advice would you offer to someone who wanted to start their own shop?

Art by Nick Butcher

Nakanishi: Invest as you grow. Use your resources as much as you can. Focus. Have patience. Sometimes that means having a day job for a long time and working up to it. Frankly, I’m still at that point. Nick is at the shop full-time, I still have to make that leap of faith. But at the same time we share the understanding, that he’s being there at the shop is vital for jobs to roll in, and my working a day job gave us the capital to make some bigger investments in the shop which will help eventually make an income for both of us. Accept your size and use it to your advantage. Try pushing out the best work you can, because that’s the future you envision for yourself. It’s a long road but at the end it’s empowering to know you can pull it off without being a trust fund kid or knowing the right people.

Butcher: Use the resources you have around. Start small, look for free stuff and trades. You can build a totally decent print shop for fairly little money. You don’t have to have all the pro gear–there are plenty of plans online. maybe try printing at someone else’s shop first to build up some clients and a portfolio. Steve Walters is running a bona fide printers collaborative at this point. Thats a great place to start.

SONNENZIMMER ART PRINT SERIES RELEASE PARTY Saturday, February 23rd, 2008 from 7-11pm. Showing the art prints of Chris Kerr, Carrie Pollack, and Anders Nilsen. Artist Chris Kerr and Anders Nilson will be present to answer questions and queries. oRSo will be playing a special set for this event. For details, go here.

This sense has stuck with me for days, driving me to ask myself and others: Has there ever been a time during which adults gazed at their own navels and and tried to recapture their youth as the Internet era?

Pundits on the right and left decry the infantalization of a certain generational range. Conservatives point to a “special snowflake” syndrome, arguing that adults in their 20s and 30s have never known strife or difficulties and as a result are ill-prepared for the responsibilities of adulthood. Critics of capitalism bemoan the infantalization of the market economy, of the primacy placed on short-term wants and acquisitions over savings and planning for the future.

In many cases, I’d chalk both arguments up to stock generation-gap panic.

Still, I can’t help but wonder if our fascination with toys and childhood does suggest a maturity gap. A lack of a sense of responsibility. A refusal to come to terms with decreased possibility, a feeling that we are entitled to the world. A delusion, perhaps, that comes from middle-class upbringings, from joining the perpetually underemployed postgrad intellectual class, from social and familial safety nets. A delusion validated by our thirst for iPhones and Wii’s, Heath Ledger death gossip and Lost spoilers. An economic luxury and intellectual dilettantism whose days may be numbered if the economy continues on this path.

Yet all the same, and while I am fully aware of the absurdity of this statement, while looking at the Lego retrospectives on Monday, I was gripped by a real sense of loss, an immutable sense of something that I would never be able to hold again. A loss of possibility and wonder that seemed implicit in those worlds my friends and I would build and share as a child. This sense is nothing new–people felt the resonance all the same in 1941 when Charles Foster Kane uttered “Rosebud”.

After all, that sense of loss is what growing older is all about. Coming to terms with the fact that possibilities are not as wide open as they once might have seemed,

This is the process of maturing. Only refracted through the recursive nostalgia of Legos, presented in day-glow vibrancy by the Internet. So Lego is our Rosebud. Is that so wrong? Are we unprepared for the responsibilities of adulthood, or merely basking in a redundantly stored wash of nostalgic memories enabled by the technologies of our age?

A) The RIAA is idiotic, so therefore creative producers should not be compensated for their labor
This debate’s been raging for a decade now, and the ridiculousness of the music industry’s response to P2P has been equalled by the idiocy of the counter-arguments online. I’m not even going to dignify the typical comments with a response (ie, “I DL music of Bittorrent to try before I buy”…really? Got some receipts?) Here are some really basic points:

1) Nothing would make me happier than to see the RIAA and their lawyers practicing the rest of their working lives in a call center in Bangladore.
2) Most musicians are not Radiohead, and are scraping by on poverty-level income.
3) For most musicians, this poverty-level income is eked out by playing shows, selling CD’s and merch, and working day jobs.
4) Most musicians and artists do rely on the sales of their product to make their work sustainable.
5) In an economy that only supports the professional creative creator, then the only amateur creative creators who will succeed are the ones with trust funds or other such well-heeled, gifted amounts of money.

Still, a prevailing response to the RIAA/piracy debate–a debate that if anything else is more tedious than compelling at this point–is not only that individuals consider it to be their right to take content for free, but that the creators deserve no compensation whatsoever for their work. This comment about the commercial viability of recorded music yesterday on Metafilter is emblematic:

(Blah blah blah, gotta eat. So get a day job.)

Hey all you angry commenting coders who make far more in one year than most creative producers will make in a decade: when all the coders over at Bungie start knocking out the code for Halo 4 on their lunch hour and while their kids are sleeping, maybe that’ll be an equitable request. Until then, stop demanding $60,000 a year for your efforts while you demand all creative producers and artists to subsidize their work with clerical work.

These arguments are generally made within the music/RIAA/piracy debate, but show up increasingly in reference to many other forms of creative output–fiction and nonfiction writing, visual arts, design, handcrafts et al. People deserve to be paid for their talents and trade, especially if there is a market for their work. No amount of dismissing this fact justifies your desire to own Trent Reznor’s entire discography without paying for it, coder.

B) Vote for Ron Paul / OMG Libertarianism will save America 1!!11!
The libertarian undercurrent of the blogerati has come out in full force for Ron Paul, a anti-gay, anti-abortionist who believes that all public works will be done by a wish and a prayer. He doesn’t want us to pay taxes, you see. The Paul enthusiasm only confirms that techies like to consider themselves liberal in rhetoric but in practice care only about their own bank accounts and lower taxes. Also, that they don’t have the slightest understanding of how politics works. Here’s a tip, pretend-citizens: when the privatized fire department charges you for putting out a fire in the west wing of your Ayn Rand library, don’t expect any sympathy.

C) Citizen /Amateur Journalism is better than professional journalism
Operating a web 2.0 tip line is not the same as deputizing a generation of journalists. Journalism take s a lot of time, research and resources, and Internet User #603829172 leaking a document to the Daily Kos does not make them a journalist. It makes them a source perhaps, a tipster. Which leads to the next argument…

D) Boo! Hiss! Journalists!
The rise of blogs, the 2004 scandals of Jason Blair and Dan Rather, and continued media consolidation has enabled a lot of glib dismissal of a profession that, among many of those who practice it, still holds a lot of honor. This country would be a even more grim place after the last eight years without courageous reporting of the handful of reporters embedded in Iraq and Afghanistan, the muckraking of Seymour Hersh, the clear-eyed old-school reporting of Bill Moyers or the producers of Frontline, recently canned Chicago Reader journalist John Conroy, hundreds of unheralded beat reporters across the country. This is something that the single-zygote mouth breathers on Digg will never understand, and its not in the interests of the fat cat refugees of old media who represent the form’s worst excesses to make this point (looking at you, Jeff Jarvis.)

So please, all of you, stop it already. These arguments are ridiculous, they show far too much engagement with online discussion forums and too little engagement with reality, and they’re growing increasingly tedious–and entrenched. If nothing else, please find some new pet topics to opine upon and demonstrate your complete misunderstanding of complicated topics with glib one-line responses.

A little history on Plays For Sure via Wikipedia for the 99.9% of the world that doesn’t closely follow developments in DRM:

Microsoft Plays For Sure was a certification given by Microsoft to portable devices and content services that had been tested against several hundred compatibility and performance requirements. Plays For Sure certification was required for portable media players, network-attached digital media receivers, and media-enabled mobile phones seeking the “Designed for Windows Vista Premium” logo. “Plays For Sure” no longer exists. “It is now Certified for Windows Vista.”

The most commonly referenced requirements include the ability to play files encoded in Windows Media Audio or Windows Media Video format with Windows Media DRM digital rights management, used by Windows Media Player versions 10 and 11.

Zune is also Certified for Windows Vista, but it is important to note that former “Plays for Sure” music does not play on a Zune (even though both are “Certified for Windows Vista”).

When Microsoft introduced the Zune, they opted to create an DRM format incompatible with the DRM scheme they had launched only a year earlier, locking out Plays For Sure users and guaranteeing that the technology would no longer be a Microsoft priority. Considering that the format was rarely adopted except by also-ran hardware makers and that Microsoft is quietly putting the format to bed, it’s likely to be yet another dead-yet-locked format within a couple of years. Anyone who bought audio via Plays For Sure services were largely hosed by the introduction of the Zune, though I imagine you’d be hard-pressed to find any of those folks–though I’m sure they do exist, and have become just more victims in the recording industry’s campaign to punish any individual who still has the temerity to pay for music nowadays.

The thing that’s a shame here is that the handful of users who were drawn in by the brand endorsement implicitly made by Microsoft’s name are individuals who have likely never bought audio online and, now they have been burned, are far more likely to find other sources. A few of those folks will become new converts to file-sharing, or just say the hell to with buying audio online. (I’m becoming one of those people–though I consume tons and tons of music, if I can’t find an affordable way to purchase a particular album I want, DRM-free, online within five clicks, I don’t even bother with the file sharing sites. I just put on another episode of This American Life or RadioLab downloaded for free from NPR.)

With the move towards non-DRM distribution models among even major labels in this past year, there’s a sense that the DRM battle has been won, but we should know better than that. The Amazon mp3 thing is a power play to attempt to gain leverage against Apple’s hegemony of the market. The industry still “hearts” the subscription model Rick Rubin rhapsodized earlier in the year, which all but demands software or hardware-locked digital media content. (Bear in mind that the current progenitors of the subscription model, Rhapsody and Napster 2.0, are barely gasping for breath, though the music industry and the tech industry show an absolutely stunning lack of capacity to learn from previous failures.)

Meanwhile, instances such as Plays For Sure display once again not only why DRM is bad for music “consumers” (and musicians) but also marks yet another ignominious move by big music/big tech to punish the minority who still want to pay for audio recordings. Basic economics demands that you charge what the market will bear for a product people want. Initiatives such as Plays For Sure (and the RIAA lawsuits, and the doomed war with Apple, and countless other dunderheaded moves) demonstrates big music/big tech charging more than what the market will bear for products that nobody wants. At least the dinosaurs didn’t drive themselves to extinction.

I say this, mind you, as a second-generation atheist myself. My father was a staunch believer in science and reason and passed those values down to me, and in these frightening times of religious extremism around the globe, I share the desire to push back against reactionary religious forces, ignorance and hate, homophobia and fear, holy war and Jihad.

But responses such as this suggest that the resurgent atheist movement has gone off the rails:

The sturdy white sign in Rockville’s Central Park asking passers-by to “Imagine No Religion” has generated some calls, a few of them angry, to town hall. There have also been calls to local clergymen and discussion in businesses along Rockville’s West Main Street.

The sign

]]> http://warningsignmedia.com/wpsandbox/2007/12/you-may-be-right-but-youre-still-an-asshole/feed/ 0 http://warningsignmedia.com/wpsandbox/2007/12/how-do-you-map-your-community-or-your-life/ http://warningsignmedia.com/wpsandbox/2007/12/how-do-you-map-your-community-or-your-life/#comments Tue, 04 Dec 2007 21:12:58 +0000 Paul M Davis http://isgreaterthan.net/?p=483 .flickr-photo { border: solid 2px #000000; } .flickr-yourcomment { } .flickr-frame { text-align: left; padding: 3px; } .flickr-caption { font-size: 0.8em; margin-top: 0px; }

Pumpkins, originally uploaded by officialthisamericanlife.

I listened to a fascinating episode of This American Life this past weekend about different modes of mapping–in the show delineated by the five senses in a discussion of the many different roles that maps play and the many things they can communicate.

The most interesting speaker was Denis Wood, a cartographer who believes that maps in aggregate can create a form of narrative and has been mapping different elements of his community of Boylan Heights, NC, for decades–the city pipes, which houses have received the most coverage in the local paper, and even the map above, of the jack o’ lanterns in the neighborhood. Over time, Wood has discovered fascinating pieces of synchronicity between the maps of seemingly disparate objects and concepts. As the TAL site notes, “In short, he’s creating maps that are more like novels, trying to describe everyday life.”

It’s a fascinating thought–how do we map our communities and, indeed, our entire lives? What is revealed when you remove the streets from a map and instead map other elements? This episode, recorded a decade ago, poses a great number of questions about the nature of maps as a way of communicating not only practical information but also abstract concepts and even narratives. It seems to me, in this time of Google Maps mashups and geotagging, that there is a collective move towards expressing all sorts of disparate ideas via maps, but most examples I’ve seen are primarily ways of communicating practical information. What are some fascinating ways you can think of that maps (or map mashups) are being used to convey ideas or narratives with the current technology?

Listen to This American Life’s “Maps” Episode

]]> http://warningsignmedia.com/wpsandbox/2007/12/how-do-you-map-your-community-or-your-life/feed/ 0 http://warningsignmedia.com/wpsandbox/2007/12/songbird-so-much-potential-so-far-to-go/ http://warningsignmedia.com/wpsandbox/2007/12/songbird-so-much-potential-so-far-to-go/#comments Mon, 03 Dec 2007 18:51:38 +0000 Paul M Davis http://isgreaterthan.net/?p=318 There’s a lot to want to like in permanently-in-pre-release-beta audio playlist software Songbird, an open-source challenge to iTunes that includes all the post-iPod expected functionality and interfacing, along with a robust mp3 blog searching engine that’s built on top of Firefox. Songbird holds a ton of promise–being able to head over to Fluxblog or the Hype Machine and listen to the tracks as if they were a radio, for example, is pretty cool–and then being able to integrate those mp3′s into a playlist along with music on my hard drive. In concept it’s seamless and brilliant–in fact, the built-in Firefox functionality enables you to scroll through any website, and the mp3′s embedded on it, like you scroll through your own personal mp3 collection. Brilliant.

The bad? Like Firefox, with which I am quickly losing all patience, the software feels like you’re navigating an Abrams Tank: it’s slow, cludgy, and prone to crashes. Like Firefox, you love all the functionality, but can’t help feeling like you could be doing everything you want to be doing much quicker if the code was a ton leaner. Firefox’s unresponsiveness has been driving me increasingly to Safari (even the buggy XP version), which is quick and clean despite far less functionality (the lack of del.icio.us plugin and Gchat support has always been a big dealbreaker for me with Safari.) All the same, Firefox’s behemoth system footprint on both my PC and Mac is growing all the more frustrating, and the thought of using an audio program that somehow is built on Firefox and is even less responsive makes it a tough sell for now.

I have a lot of hope for Songbird–it’s the kick in the ass iTunes desperately needs. iTunes was innovative in its simplicity and usability in its first three or four iterations, but has only grown more maddeningly slow and weighed down by unwanted features. What Songbird needs to do is tighten its code up a ton, and focus on the two things people want: an intuitive audio database for their mp3 collection, and a way to surf audio online, within the same application. Cut out the dross, make it fast and responsive, and the developers will have an open-source iTunes killer on their hands.

Check out Songbird

]]> http://warningsignmedia.com/wpsandbox/2007/12/songbird-so-much-potential-so-far-to-go/feed/ 0 http://warningsignmedia.com/wpsandbox/2007/11/cheneys-war-against-the-constitution/ http://warningsignmedia.com/wpsandbox/2007/11/cheneys-war-against-the-constitution/#comments Thu, 29 Nov 2007 17:32:56 +0000 Paul M Davis http://isgreaterthan.net/?p=476 Nothing in it is revelatory, but “Cheney’s War“, a Frontline documentary detailing how Cheney used the weight of his special council David Addington and a number of Justice Department cronies to levy the President’s power, is absolutely gripping, and at times shocking in its narrative. A few years back I’d be loath to consider Richard Ashcroft in any positive light, but the hospital-bed showdown in which he, James Comey and one-time-head of the Office of Legal Council Jack Goldsmith shot down Bush, Cheney, Addington and Alberto Gonzales is almost inspiring in that it demonstrates that though there are no good men in DC, there are at least a handful who may still respect the rule of law.

The documentary runs through the countless instances of legal subterfuge that has marked the never-ending war on terror, and the truly terrifying, anti-democratic legal precedents that have been put in place. What is most troubling to me, however, is not merely what has passed–at this point, it’s almost redundant to continue handwringing about domestic wiretaps, for example–but the precedent that has been placed down for the future. There are scandals aplenty in this Administration, but whoever succeeds the current criminal regime will not pursue prosecution out of fear of the potential political blowback, and are unlikely to seriously undo the Constitutional damage that has been done by this Administration–once again, out of fear of political harm, in addition to that Administration’s own self-serving considerations.

The extent to which the current administration has undermined the Constitutional system of checks and balances and the authority of Congress, while transferring near-dictorial power to the Executive Branch, is nothing but a travesty. I find it terrifying to think that no matter who enters office in January 2009, there will unlikely be enough political will to refute the allegedly legal documents that have established such a distorted interpretation of executive power. And so those precedents will remain, waiting, for the next generation of Cheney acolytes to pick up on them and continue the work of this Administration come 2012, 2016, 2020.

Watch “Cheney’s War” online

]]> http://warningsignmedia.com/wpsandbox/2007/11/cheneys-war-against-the-constitution/feed/ 0 http://warningsignmedia.com/wpsandbox/2007/11/history-lesson-the-tastes-like-burning-compilation-ressurrected/ http://warningsignmedia.com/wpsandbox/2007/11/history-lesson-the-tastes-like-burning-compilation-ressurrected/#comments Mon, 19 Nov 2007 01:49:09 +0000 Paul M Davis http://isgreaterthan.net/?p=457 Ah, the heady days of 2002. A time before Bush’s re-election. A time when political engagement was still valued in some social circles. A time before independent rock bridged the gap punk rock had worked so hard to create, by allowing hippies into the tent (see: freak folk). Good days indeed. Still, at the time, my nutrition primarily came from Budweiser and vodka and day-old bagels, and I spent my hours more pissed about asshole customers than media consolidation and the increasing synergy of independent and corporate culture.

Out of personal torpor and an antsiness that defines both of our personalities, my good friend Pete Bernhard and I organized Tastes Like Burning, our first CD-R comp of indie, punk and folk bands from the Santa Cruz local scene along with a number of like-minded folks from other West Coast areas.

Few of these bands exist anymore, though a handful do. The obvious historical quirk is the inclusion of a couple demos by our friends-of-a friend in The Thermals, who have gone on to a well-deserved measure of success (including releasing one of last year’s most critically acclaimed albums). There are some great nuggets in here by musicians who’ve gone on to bigger things (such as Pete, with the Devil Makes Three) as well fantastic songwriters and bands that deserve a bit more historical re-estimation (including great Santa Cruz indie popsters Sin in Space, brilliant songwriter Boaz Vilozny who gave up music for organic chemistry, and Sweatitout, an amalgam of ’80s metal and the Cars that would have made Brooklynite hipsters swoon if they’d formed on the other coast.)

The other day, this blogger Steve, who runs the great Cover Freak blog and had ordered the other two CD-R comps I put together after Tastes Like Burning, sent me an email asking if I had any copies of this comp left. Unfortunately, I only have a couple copies kicking around the apartment anymore, both of which are slowly submitting to the decreptitude that awaits CD-R’s and home-silkscreened covers. His email inspired me to rip the tracks and archive them while I still could, scan the art, and post it all online for posterity.

So I offer to you, gentle readers, a .zip download of a small footnote in Santa Cruz (and west coast) DIY history. For people put off by the 120 MB download, please note the mp3′s are all ripped at 320 kbps VBR, or take a listen to a couple of the tracks first:

Sweatitout – “Takin’ Forever” mp3

Boaz Vilozny – “Waiting All Night” mp3

Download Tastes Like Burning .zip file (120 MB, 320 kbps VBR)

After the jump, the track listing and links to the current musical projects of the bands and musicians involved.

01> marker – road to nowhere (current projects unknown)

02> depth charge revolt – socrates diminished

03> the thermals – goddamn the light

04> sin in space – fly by night

05> pete bernhard – revenge (Pete is now in The Devil Makes Three)

06> boaz vilozny – waiting all night

07> paul m. davis – alkaline

08> the automatones – nobodys hero (current projects unknown)

09> sweat it out – takin forever (current project: The Gibbs)

10> audio crush – in love with misery (Joe Clement’s current band: Crucial Unicorn)

11> the spooks – rollin dice with jesus christ (current projects unknown)

2> the shakes – six fifty (The one document of me and Pete’s short-lived goober garage-punk outfit)

13> the thermals – it’s time to lose

14> ill lit – beating the daylights out of my nightlife

15> paul m. davis – bottom of the stack

16> zirkles unit – love inside

17> the roots of orchis – please call 874-2420

For more about Santa Cruz independent culture and DIY history, check out the awesome SCUM wiki.

Insert cover art by Koak.

]]> http://warningsignmedia.com/wpsandbox/2007/11/history-lesson-the-tastes-like-burning-compilation-ressurrected/feed/ 0 http://warningsignmedia.com/wpsandbox/2007/10/social-media-is-ephemeral-at-best-open-the-standards/ http://warningsignmedia.com/wpsandbox/2007/10/social-media-is-ephemeral-at-best-open-the-standards/#comments Fri, 05 Oct 2007 19:42:18 +0000 Paul M Davis http://isgreaterthan.net/?p=403 Steve Ballmer of Microsoft says Facebook is probably a fad, and considering the fate of Friendster and the increasingly decrepit Myspace, I suspect he’s right. The larger question, as new media advocates and old-media hangers-on jump from the newest teen fad to the next in a vain attempt to remain on the bleeding edge of the evolving social media, is whether these networks will always have such short life spans. If so, it does not bode well for a well-develop and matured social news network, as such a goal requires a aggregate of trusted users and relationships who have developed an body of individual or collaborative work. I can’t see this mass migration from one well-trafficked network to another, in which the social relationships and body of media that has been developed on the old network is abandoned, to be sustainable in the long term.

The only way I see these social networks as having any kind of lasting impact, the sort that could develop a legitimate social-networking media buffet with the credibility of a legitimized old-media powerhouse, is if the networks currently at the top (and the major ones to emerge) strive for some sort of shared standards of interoperability among platforms. Which I know sounds somewhat insane–imagine asking Digg, Myspace and Facebook to all work nice together. But the history of emergent technologies on the web suggests that some interoperability is essential for people’s long-term satisfaction with the basic functions of the site. Email is a killer app because anyone with email can email anyone else with an email account. The web works because of open standards (despite Microsoft’s best efforts otherwise.) RSS is a revolutionary because it’s compatible across platforms, web browsers and devices–in fact, most of Facebook’s value to me comes in its ability to easily integrate RSS feeds I choose, a functionality Myspace lacks–and makes it seem incredibly out of date.

In this sense, I think what a successful and sustainable social media will have to share is some sort of open standard, where people can a least share a login, or profile information, or blend feeds from one network into another seamlessly. I doubt the biggies of today would try such a thing–too convinced they can somehow transform the sharing of web ephemera into a Google-level success–but it could be a very plausible model for whatever platforms will inevitably take their place.

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