Girls with Guitars, July 4, 2002 (c) LB
Second Avenue and East 3rd Street, New York

Winnowing through the Archive

The 4 Express takes me to the Bronx.
Through a red door I enter a seemingly
impregnable storage fortress
which contains the archive.
A recent visit yielded this
handwritten note, perhaps a script
character note, retyped here until
OS-9 scanner gets hooked up, see?

"Hypocrisy, besides being the tribute
vice pays to virtue,is also one of the artifices by which vice renders itself
more interesting."
Aldous Huxley, "Those Barren Leaves"

On the Bowery

Wiser Than God at BLT, 270 Bowery, is a show in which all the artists were born before 1927, and are alive and thriving. Curated by Adrian Danatt and Jan Frank in response to the New Museum's Younger Than Jesus, Wiser Than God is open through August 2.

AUTHOR'S PLIGHT

On East Tenth Street in a bookstore
Frederic Tuten’s “The Green Hour”
Is the last book on the far right
Of the second shelf from the floor.

Above it a label reads, Signed Copies.

Through the door, as though on cue,
A whitehaired man in overcoat
Bursts into the store,
A marinade of indecision.

Slicing through the browsers
His long arm hooks
The last book on the far right
Of the second shelf from the floor

I pluck another copy and compare
The image of the author on the sleeve
With the face of the man at the counter
Paying for his book in the store




December 28 2003
New York

BURMA VJ: Monks In Exile Speak Out About The Saffron Revolution

New York, May 8, 2009--Three monks, leaders of the Saffron Revolution and now in exile in the US, speak out about the 2007 uprising against the Burmese military junta portrayed in Anders Østergaard's documentary BURMA VJ: Reporting from a Closed Country, made in collaboration with undercover video journalists working for the Democratic Voice of Burma. The monks form part of the All Burma Monks' alliance (ABMA) , located in Utica, which supports the many monks imprisoned in Burmese jails, where prisoners are not fed. ABMA also supports refugee monks who have escaped from incarceration and torture in Burma and works with other groups to promote human rights and democracy in Burma. See also the interview with Anders Østergaard and Khin Maung Win on this blog. BURMA VJ is currently in theatrical release and playing at the Film Forum in New York.

 

Formats available: Quicktime (.mov)

Tags: burma, monks, saffron revolution, burma vj, amba, documentary, military junta

BURMA VJ: Anders Østergaard, Khin Maung Win, Interview

BURMA VJ: Reporting from a Closed Country ,  directed by Danish filmmaker Anders Østergaard uses camcorder and cellphone footage from undercover DVB reporters risking their lives. The story of the brutal quelling of the September 2007 monks'  uprising is narrated by an unseen protagonist, Joshua, a 27-year-old reporter  exiled in Thailand. 
Background--Burma, September 2007: An increase in fuel prices sparks extensive protests by students and activists against the military junta, a repressive regime that has held the country hostage for over 40 years. For the first time, they are joined in the streets of Rangoon by thousands of Buddhist monks (the saffron revolution). As the ranks of the protestors rise to 100,000, foreign news crews are banned and the internet is shut down. The Democratic Voice of Burma, a collective of 30 underground video journalists (VJs) record these dramatic events on handycams and cellphones and  smuggle the footage out of the country, broadcasting it worldwide from Norway via satellite. Risking torture and life imprisonment, the VJs  document the brutal clashes by the military and undercover police and the violence committed on the monks  themselves also becoming the targets of the authorities.

A Sundance and Berlin  festival award winner, the film opens May 20 at the Film Forum, New York  in this its theatrical premiere.
Interview with Anders Østergaard and Khin Maung Win, deputy director of the Democratic Voice of Burma in exile was filmed by Liza Béar and originally posted on http://squaringoff.blip.tv.

Formats available: Quicktime (.mov)

Tags: burma, dvb, saffron revolution, guerrilla video, 2007 uprising, anders østergaard, khin maung win

René Ricard Reading "The Secret" at Poet Insurgency, Marble Cemetery

May 9, 2007--While Samantha the raven presides over the Marble Cemetery on Second Street, last Saturday Marble Cemetery 41 Second Avenue was host to the Poet Insurgency--none more seductive than René Ricard, here featured.

Formats available: Quicktime (.mov)

Tags: poets, marble cemetery, rene ricard, east village, poet insurgency, 10003