We live in a world where good men are murdered and mediocre hacks thrive.

Jesus - murdered; Martin Luther King - murdered; Malcolm X - murdered; Gandhi - murdered; John Lennon - murdered; Reagan... wounded.


Thus spoke Bill Hicks (Him again? Oh alright then...) back in the 80-s. Well what about our hellish decade, in which Amy Winehouse is dead and Lady Gaga gets to perform with Brian May and be cheered by millions? How lucky is Bill not to have lived to see it, and how sad the world without him.

Too literal, Amy baby...

The Anmation Professional's Circle of Life

1. Study animation
2. Work in animation
3. Work in animation some more (applies if lucky)
4. Become unemployed
5. Get a job teaching animation to new generation
6. Celebrate 35-th birthday
7. Pick new career
8. Watch Disney classics with your children

OK, one more. This one is really cool:

"Which represents good and which represents evil --" he asked me, "the rifle or the rubbery, jiggling, giggling bag of bones we call the body?"
I said that the rifle was evil and the body was good.
"But don't you know that this rifle was designed to be used by Americans defending their homes and honor against wicked enemies?" he said.
So I said a lot depended on whose body and whose rifle we were talking about, that either one of them could be good or evil.
"And who renders the final decision on that?" he said.
"God?" I said.
"I mean here on Earth," he said.
"I don't know," I said.
"Painters -- and storytellers, including poets and playwrights and historians," he said. "They are the justices of the Supreme Court of Good and Evil, of which I am now a member, and to which you may belong someday!"
How was that for delusions of moral grandeur!
Yes, and now that I think about it: maybe the most admirable thing about the Abstract Expressionist painters, since so much senseless bloodshed had been caused by cockeyed history lessons, was their refusal to serve on such a court.

Something Positive

Stephen Fry has over two million followers on Twitter. Sarah Palin, whos every tweet is widely discussed in American media, has over three hundred thousand. To me , this means that people prefer nice and intelligent over mean and ignorant. And that helps me sleep better.

A Revelation

Youtube is the newest stage in the evolution of cats. This is its true purpose and there's no disproving it.

An interesting actress to keep an eye out for:

From Woody Allen's "You will meet a tall dark stranger", Lucy Punch.

Scott Pilgrim vs. The World

If you enjoy beauty, sophisticated wit, if you like things that are original and intense, and want to see the great actors of the future in their first role (and Michael Cera and the other Culkin kid), you need to see this film.

WALK! - - my big walk tutorial

How do I put my work after Fellini's? Let's try.

This is a tutorial I've been working on for a while, after thinking a lot about how they teach walk animation in schools and books, and how each animator discovers a very different reality when he or she go out to their first jobs. I've shown the method that works for me, and I hope it helps other people as well.

Caution, spoilers:

I never cease to be amazed at how many deep insights into the human condition can be found in the Battlestar Galactica series. I know that every time I rant about it I only get the result of looking like a total geek, because how can there be deep philosophical and social truths in a series so filled with space fights and evil (yet sexy) humanoid robots? A while ago I talked about what good art needs to be, i.e. allegorical, personal and immortal. In its highest form, for me, art deals with what it is to be human. Certainly a story about the battle between the "real" and "artificial" humans, and about the preservation of the human race in face of complete destruction, in the hands of some talented people, has the potential to be amazing. And that is exactly what the Battlestar Galactica series is. An amazing work of art. It looks at how humans relate to their political structure, their religion, their culture, in such a clear way, in such a deep and critical way, that you can see it mirrored in everyday life, and in historical events, and understand them more clearly because of it. It allows itself to be political, yes, but not in a petty, fashionable way which will lose its relevance in five to twenty years (Avatar), but in a way that will always be relevant.

Listen to this: In the end of the series' second season, the humans find themselves electing one Gaius Baltar as their president. This person is incompetent, vain, weak, untrustworthy and prone to playing into the hands of the enemy. He has been flattered into running for president by some malicious forces who aim to use his power as their own.

In 2006 the people of Israel found themselves electing as their prime minister one Ehud Olmert. He was not put in place by malicious forces as head of a puppet government. The conditions which brought him to power were stranger and more complicated, but he did share many of the qualities of the fictional Baltar.

After doing his bit of damage, Baltar is kicked out of power and replaced by the previous president, Laura Roslyn, who then spends a lot of time and energy to punish Baltar for all the mistakes he has made and all the lives he has cost. She never gives a moment's thought to the people who worked behind the scenes, or to her own mistakes, one of them huge, which brought Baltar to the presidency.

After doing his bit of damage, Olmert was also replaced, not by a beloved and able "benevolent dictator" like Roslyn (if only there was one available), but by some people who haven't exactly earned my respect either. Still, to this day, the nation's rage at this man for being a bad prime minister is tireless, and we can see him every day in the news being dragged to court for some old corruption scandal.

What has this bit of science fiction taught us about how people behave in real life? How about this: some people are weak, vain and corrupt. When we give them power, they will use it for vain and corrupt purposes. If there is danger about, their weakness will cost lives. This also: in a democracy, voters are easily fooled by demagogues, and easily made to act on impulse. And if they make a mistake, they don't like to blame themselves, and don't want to look at the people who deceived them. Suggest that the system is flawed? Never. They'd rather take it all out on the person who failed where no one in their right mind could've expected him to succeed.
And so it goes.

כתבת השבוע 6

זקפה לאומית - יש
קומיסרית מטעם עצמה - יש
הזדמנות לטמא אמנות בפוליטיקה - יש
אמנים שיסכימו לזה מתוך לאומנות - סביר להניח
אמנים שיסכימו מתוך פחד מחרם - אולי
אמנים שיסרבו - יש לקוות, בטח כן
עונשים פרוצדורליים נגד אותם אמנים - אין לי ספק

השיר הכי ישראלי

נבואת זעם: ייבחר או "עוף גוזל" או "סע לאט". מקסימום "שיר אחרי מלחמה".י

לא לקפוץ, אני לא אזהם את הבלוג שלי עם אריק איינשטיין. הנה משהו טוב:י

קינטור

אני אגיד את זה ראשונה: יהיו בעיות להשיג ויזות כניסה לארה"ב לשחקני "עג'מי".י