Resources for December 30, 2014

Caccone, Gisella, et al. "Galapagos." Radiolab 12.9 (July 17, 2014) ["Today, the strange story of a small group of islands that raise a big question: is it inevitable that even our most sacred natural landscapes will eventually get swallowed up by humans? And just how far are we willing to go to stop that from happening? ... the Galapagos archipelago, the place that inspired Darwin’s theory of evolution and natural selection. 179 years later, the Galapagos are undergoing rapid changes that continue to pose -- and possibly answer -- critical questions about the fragility and resilience of life on Earth."]

2 or 3 Things I know About Her (France: Jean-Luc Godard, 1967) Dialogic Cinephilia (Ongoing Archive)








Duff, Joe, Clarice Gibbs and Jon Mooallem. "For the Birds." Radiolab (July 24, 2014) ["When the conservationists showed up at Clarice Gibbs’ door and asked her to take down her bird feeders down for the sake of an endangered bird, she said no. Everybody just figured she was a crazy bird lady. But writer Jon Mooallem went to see her and discovered there was much more to this story. Mrs. Gibbs tells us her surprising side of the tale, and together with Joe Duff, we struggle with the realization that keeping things wild in today's world will be harder than we ever would've thought."]

Lee, Kevin B. "Turning Point: The Year in Video Essays." Keyframe (December 31, 2013)

LeGuin, Ursula K. "We Will Need Writers Who Can Remember Freedom." TruthOut (December 29, 2014)

From Ursula K. LeGuin's acceptance speech:

I think hard times are coming, when we will be wanting the voices of writers who can see alternatives to how we live now, and can see through our fear-stricken society and its obsessive technologies, to other ways of being. And even imagine some real grounds for hope. We will need writers who can remember freedom: poets, visionaries—the realists of a larger reality. Right now, I think we need writers who know the difference between production of a market commodity and the practice of an art. The profit motive is often in conflict with the aims of art. We live in capitalism. Its power seems inescapable; so did the divine right of kings. … Power can be resisted and changed by human beings; resistance and change often begin in art, and very often in our art—the art of words. I’ve had a long career and a good one, in good company, and here, at the end of it, I really don’t want to watch American literature get sold down the river. … The name of our beautiful reward is not profit. Its name is freedom.

Phelps, David. "Film Socialisme Annotated: A guided tour through Jean-Luc Godard's most allusive film." Moving Image Source (June 7, 2011)

Kotlikoff, Laurence, Jeff Madrick and Ralph Nader. "The Question of Capitalism." Radio Open Source (October 16, 2014)