(storyboard image for filing cabinet scene not included in the film)
I saw Terry Gilliam’s “Brazil” in a movie theatre when it first came out, almost twenty years ago. I remember thinking it was exciting and pretty funny. B and I saw it again tonight at home. This time I thought it was terrifying. In 2004 it’s no longer “retro future.”
Another big surprise: Jonathan Pryce is really cute as Sam Lowry. I didn’t remember that.
[image at the top from Trond Frittz lower image from MovieGoods]
political trial, political prisoners
serious street theatre: Rachel Corrie remembered on 5th Avenue, March 26, 2003
Barry and I slipped into Manhattan Criminal Court on Monday to show support for our friends and their friends, sixteen defendents caught up in the trial from mayhem (maybe the word “hell” should be reserved for even more horrendous judicial outrages likely still to come).
Thirteen months ago the group had been arrested for a totally peaceful street protest against the war in Iraq, against the continuing war on the Palestinians, and against the death of U.S. human rights activist Rachel Corrie. Ok, some traffic was disrupted on 5th Avenue. Now those arrested that day may be subject to restraint of their liberties during years of probation and, in the words of hanging judge Robert M. Stolz on Monday, they are “facing a possible sentence of up to a year in jail.” A year in jail? For blocking cars? For trying to shake their country awake?
Stolz’s mention of the serious stakes involved for the defendents followed immediately a thinly-veiled warning to their friends and familiy in the benches: “[This trial] is not for the benefit of Spectators.” No, it certainly isn’t, but can we know for whose benefit it is being staged?
This trial is an appalling abuse of the courts. We used to think that Giuliani’s regime* was outrageous, but to experience an even more serious assault New Yorkers really had to wait until after the reactionary ascendancy which followed the 2000 election, after the misreading of September 11, after the terrorists won the war on terror the day it was announced, and after the totally political decision that New York City would be the site of the Republican Convention celebrating the arrival of the fundamentalists’ brave new world.
Normally political protest which involves a police determination that the protestor
is somehow out of order results in a simple violation and the dismissal of all charges, assuming the person arrested does not run into the police again within a designated relatively short period of time, usually a few months.
I can’t begin to go into the particulars here of how this judge and this district attorney (Morgenthau’s lieutenant, Barry Glasser) have been mishandling the case of the “5th Avenue 16,” but let me say that neither party is disinterested, and that the people’s justice appears to be just about the last concern of both. Not incidently, aside from carrying an axe which will apparently never be ground enough, Judge Stolz has to be faulted for incredibly slovenly, unprofessional conduct. But then, these are also times which somehow accomodate a George W. Bush presiding over 300 million [or actually 6 billion] of his fellows.
Yesterday morning, for what was expected to be only the pronouncement of sentences, there were at all times a minimum of eight police officers in the courtroom on Monday (one for every ten people in the public seating area) and four of them wore bulletproof vests. I have been a defendent in civil rights cases, I have sat in courtrooms while others were tried for similar “offenses” and I have sat on the jury in one capital case. Never before have I have seen more than two officers in a courtroom, and none were ever wearing vests.
Clearly the City authorities and their directors in Washington are trying very hard to frighten us all into submission and to minimize the potential for the demonstrations and protest which are the only refuge for a people given no effective electoral choices. We can’t let our self-appointed governors get away with this. The stakes are just too high. If we fail to stop these police state tactics now, we all will be paying for it for years, if not forever.
Clyde Haberman has written one of the very few media stories on this trial. He doesn’t tell us enough, he provides no real context, and he may be trying to be too entertaining, but you’ll at least learn that sentencing has been delayed contemplating the impact of new evidence. True justice’s hope is that the defendents’ lawyer will be successful in his motion for an appeal, but with this judge it must be a distant hope at best.
For more press and other information, including pictures, go to M26.org
*
Surprise! A former federal prosecutor, Stolz was originally appointed Judge by Giuliani, to the Civil Court in 1995. He was appointed to the Criminal Court by Bloomberg in 2003.
[image from Fred Askew]
Brooklyn Museum looks up without talking down
19th-century terra cotta fragment newly mounted inside the Museum subway station
The Brooklyn Museum celebrated its $63 million shiny new front door and merry greensward with a wonderful party this weekend. The elaborate entrance shed and its landscape approach added no square footage to the exhibition space of the grand Beaux Arts pile and its architectural merits will be debated for years, but it definitely appears to be a hit with the its city.
The Museum inaugurated a new commitment to its community with “Open House,” a wonderful show of work by living artists working in Brooklyn and a sadly postumous retrospective of the truly fabulous art of Patrick Kelly. I highly recommend both shows, but while we had come for the energy of the celebration and the honoring of Brooklyn artists, we were both bowled over by what Thelma Golden’s curating has done with Kelly’s legacy. It’s about much more than dresses. The designer would have been delighted with both the style and heterogeneity of the people filing through all his gorgeous stuff on Sunday.
For many young visitors however the weekend will be remembered first for participatory art, music, funny paper hats and a spectacular new fountain with a sense of humor. The people we saw on Sunday both inside and outside the building were definitely not all of the sort usually attracted to sober museum precincts. It’s clear that from now on neither this Museum nor its visitors, its true patrons, will be satisfied thinking of the institution as just a warehouse of dead culture.
Brooklyn crowd exhausted by art – or just waiting for the next fountain
Spring-ing
This is a view of the magnificent ornamental plum tree on 11th Avenue, surviving in the midst of the Chelsea gallery geography, captured late this afternoon.
April 15, the steps of the Post Office
“TAXES ARE NOT FOR EVERYONE”
“TALK LOUDLY AND CARRY A BIG DICK”
“WE’VE PAID OUR TAXES, NOW LET US GET MARRIED”
By 6:30 this evening, on the last day for mailing income tax returns, the steps of the Main Post Office on 8th Avenue were getting pretty lively. In addition to an ungoodly [sic] number of police, there were at least three distinct groups demonstrating, including Billionaires For Bush, the Missile Dick Chicks, and Marriage Equality New York.
Even if it’s not really surprising these days, it’s still depressing for a queer with a sense of history and occasion to have to report that the last group was the least entertaining, and certainly the least theatrical of the bunch. It’s true that there are certainly more important criteria for judging the merits of a cause, but what’s become of our creative standards? Don’t we owe something to the rich imaginations of the millions of unmarrieds who have gone before us?
but there is joy for me
Barry
of mythical homelands and homelands blessed by god
For their replacement homeland it now looks like the Palestinians will just have to be content with a small rock somewhere south of the mythical Blessed Isles.
I don’t know how to deal with such idiocy as this. [the original headline was more to the point: “Bush recognises Israel West Bank claims”]
I suppose we shouldn’t be surprised to see this agreement between two governments which routinely defy international law, each recklessly asserting its absolute right to do whatever it pleases regardless of the impact on others. But actually there is something far more frightening about this agreement between two rogue states – its scary biblical element.
There is absolutely no way to defend the Sharon settlement policy, but hearing that the White House legitimized it today is very frightening news. Not only is this strange Washington crew’s domestic policy about their god cult, but so also is its foreign policy where it’s really fundamentally about crusading [see Bushie’s fake news event last night]. The armageddon it’s already inciting seems to be its real purpose, since there is obviously no logic to it.
Look around. These people have removed all joy from lives all over the planet since they seized power little over three years ago, but since there was obviously no pleasure in their dried-up Republican hearts anyway, they are oblivious to the cloud now hanging over the planet. In fact, for those little superstitious minds the next life just can’t come soon enough; they’re apparently willing to help their god-thing hurry it along.
NOTE: For a proper précis of the Bush thing last night see criticalviewer’s “A Busy Person’s Guide to the Bush Press Conference”
David Humphrey comes off the walls
David Humphrey Wave Watcher (2003) acrylic on canvas 96 x 84 inches
I used to think he was a brilliant, mysteriously compelling eccentric. Still brilliant and mysteriously compelling, David Humphrey is looking less eccentric today. But it’s not that Humphrey is getting more conventional. Rather, it’s that in the contemporary art world convention is just not convention any more.
While originally known as a painter, Humphrey has lately also been working with sculpture, and it shows. In the exhibition which opened at Brent Sikkema April 3 it shows in the intelligence of the sculpture – a carnival of enigmatic figures in weird combinations of clay, plastic, marble, bronze, found porcelain figures and fabric – and it shows in the paintings.
Ed Winkleman said that he thought the wonderful sculptures have really impacted the painting. If the sculpture has informed the painting, I think it actually gives a new form to it. Humphrey’s imagery was often more ghostly and semi-abstracted, and today there are some hard edges. At least one central figure or group in each painting has a real, if more or less cartoon-like, shape. While these paintings may be shy one dimension, they have a very strong sculptural presence.
It’s a great show and it should attract serious critical attention. The size of the opening crowd would have been respectable in a large group show of young artists who had brought all of their friends. Humphrey’s admiring peers were there that night, but I’m sure they won’t be the only ones talking about these works.
David Humphrey Twin Pups detail (2003) acrylic on canvas 44 x 54 inches
[upper image from Brent Sikkema]
taken from us too soon
untitled (pavement gummibear)
two
untitled (legs)