Regardless of my own commitment, though, I did get the chance to sit down and talk to artist Mathew Borrett about his commitment, his process, and his general experience with artmaking. You can read it over at MONDOmagazine.net.

I find his work really incredible, and having the opportunity to sit with someone who you admire so much and pick apart their process, their ideas and their goals with them is a really exciting experience. If you find yourself looking to do the same thing, and needing a friendly venue to publish it in, please, drop one of the editors at MONDO a line - they'd probably be more than happy to help you out.

But first, some more details about the project. Cul-de-Sac is intended to operate as an online music magazine covering music activity in the West Midlands. Content on the site will include news stories, general features, interviews (with local bands, acts signed to local labels, and also artists due to perform live in the region), reviews of local live music events and a general slew of record reviews, as well as a host of other stuff of interest. I am launching the website as part of a project for my MA course, which explores Media Enterprise.

Now, when the site becomes fully operational I would like to cover as many forms of music as possible. However, this is also contingent on sourcing quality writing about music which exists outside of my own expertise. So, once a team of contributors is in place you can expect to find all manner of musical exploits being discussed within those very webpages. The content at present is a bit sketchy, and some of it has been taken from articles I have written for other publications of late, but you should be able to get an idea of what the site will be about.

This is the bit where you come in. The Cul-de-Sac website is still at the test stage and I'd love to hear what people think about it. If you like what you see, then that's great. But I also want to hear from you about what you would want to see on the website - what would make you want to read regularly or subscribe to feeds, what do you think could be done better, and what do you think I should be covering? In order to learn more about where to take this project, I need to hear from you and by posting your comments at the bottom of this blog post you will be helping me enormously. So please take a look around and let me know your thoughts - all constructive criticism and abuse (and, dare I say it, praise if you think it's worth it) will be gratefully received, so that I can properly evaluate the site and where to go next.

I'd like to take this opportunity to thank several people who have been instrumental in the formation of the Cul-de-Sac website, and their input has been very much appreciated. Special thanks go to Geoff Dolman, Rob Strong, Andrew Cowen, Ben Javens, Lisa Meyer and Jenny Moore, Paul Bradshaw, Gareth Main, Stephen King, Dave Allen, Susi O'Neill, Kerry Thomas, David Hendley, Vanessa Myers, Zara Parekh, Annette Naudin and any other people I've absent-mindedly neglected to mention.

So, what do you think? I'm looking forward to hearing your comments!

My mother used to refer to me as her “rebellious child.” I wasn’t rebellious at all. I was simply conforming to my own inner self. Maybe too much.

I had already constructed a self of my own. Limited by the images others had of me (“neurotic, gifted child”). What I really wanted was a place where the only limits were my own: a place where I could be completely normal, and still be me. When you’re young, you live in your own rebellious place: I thought baseball was a stupid sport; shooting animals was insane; those fleeting crushes I had on other boys were normal (in books maybe, but unspeakable in the adult world). I’m sure every kid has such a place. If he can find it. But can he live in it for any amount of time?

If this truly is rebellion, staying inside of it is an act of self-affirmation. It’s more intense and powerful than any counterfeit of rebellion, sold 24/7 by pop culture, this continuing “Age of Cool.” I didn’t want “cool.” I wanted a laser-fine heat to find its way inside me and then release itself into an erotic geography of boys. Rebellion was itself being joined heart-to-heart. Jesus Christ, possibly the world’s most exquisite fictional character embodied this: the total dismantling of that shell of rebellion in favor of a true heart-to-heart contact that on its own could make nuclear fission look “cool.”

We are desperate for this type of contact. So desperate, we come up with amazing counterfeits, like worshiping David Beckham as the Golden Calf, or Tiger Woods, or Derek Jeter; they all have something that starts as a yearning in our hearts, but is never anything more. And that is the frustration: genuine rebellion is something more than a mere model. Genuine rebellion is more than what commercialization says rebellion should be.

As painter Paul Gauguin taught us, you need to find rebellion in yourself. In 1894, he left behind in Brussels his wife, children, and his job as a stockbroker, to sail to Tahiti where he hooked up with young Polynesian girls (while not so secretly lusting after young native men). He had a seed of genius inside that he had to cultivate. Staying in Belgium, it would have died with him. The truth is, rebellion has no real choice. It’s a built irony: once you start to rebel, you begin to lose that inner place from which rebellion comes, that place we all yearn to return to before death. Without rebellion bringing you back to your own “realness,” you shrivel up, gulp Prozac, and starve from within like so many anorexics. Sadness takes over, unless something major comes along to bump the depression out.

Such a thing can be that needle-bright exaltation Sylvia Plath described in “Ariel” as:

And now I/ Foam to wheat, a/ glitter of seas./ The child’s cry/ Melts in the wall./ And I/ Am the arrow,/ The dew that flies,/ Suicidal, at one with the drive/ Into the red/ Eye, the cauldron of morning.”

That is rebellion: acetylene-welded to the powerful heart-muscle of the self. It also epitomizes what rebellion must contain: Release. Release from the confines that keep us from being at one with our own inner yearnings. From that forbidden and delicious thing inside that some of us only glimpse and then turn away from. Gauguin wrote about it in his long-censored memoir Noa Noa (1900), meaning “Very Fragrant.”

Both of us went naked, the white and blue pareo around the loins, hatchet in hand. . . And in this forest were two—he, a very young man, and I, almost an old man from whose soul many illusions had fallen and whose body was tired from countless efforts. . . He walked a few places in advance of me. . . From him, through him, there became disengaged and emanated a powerful perfume of beauty.”

A perfume that bourgeois Europeans of the period were not even supposed to imagine: of release, of freedom—of that desired and frightening thing that can speed you to your own death if it is not controlled by something. What? That is the conundrum that keeps humans awake at night. But if only to experience this release from the bondage of our lives raw and pure in some special place. . . a place Leonard Miller, the hero of my novel, The Substance of God, talks about reaching through pure S & M experience:

Once I’d been tied up by this man who shaved my balls, then put alcohol on them so that they burned slightly. He blindfolded me and whipped me in the most teasing, skillful way, then fed me his dick. I started moaning from pure pleasure. . . He beat me harder, and rubbed his cock over my face, putting tiny electrodes on my nipples and balls, then scraping, licking, and tickling the soles of my feet until I peed on myself.

I became Atman and Brahma, the universal breath that belongs to God. I became the thing that the Egyptians called the first light, that glimpse of dawn that distills Creation.”

In that moment of release, he experiences his own death, and then, safely (if this is at all safety) comes out of it. What a place! So the real rebellion is in guarding that place—God, how sad that is that you have guarded it so much.

And now I genuinely want to rebel against that.

more about Perry Brass

Watch Paris Hilton talk about US energy policy. No, really. I spotted this via BitchBuzz, which is today due to launch a new take on websites aimed at women. Best of luck with the launch BitchBuzz. i think I know who runs this, but I'm not sure they want that to be public domain. Anyone shed any light?

Visit BitchBuzz.com

My first post,  a vision of architectural research, discusses the current trends in practice based architectural research and proposees a mode in which is can break free of the more traditional 'research through design' model that we are currently experiencing.

शेष है जीवन
दस साल होने को आए, जब उत्तराखंड के रुद्रप्रयाग में भूस्खलन ने कितनों को तबाह कर दिया. जीवन की हर संभावित खुशियां रेत की तरह बिखर गईं. सब कुछ नष्ट हो जाने की तरह जब कुछ भी नहीं बचा, तब भी जीवन बचा रहा और बचा रहा मुट्ठी भर हौसला. तिनका-तिनका जोड़ कर अपने होने को सार्थक करते लोगों की कहानी, उनकी ही जुबानी. उत्तराखंड से पीयूष दईया का वार्तालेख

http://www.raviwar.com/news/30_uttarakhand-landslides-kamla-piyushdaiya.shtml

यहां दरवाजे बंद हैं
छत्तीसगढ़ से हर रोज बेहतर उम्मीद के सपने दिखाकर आदिवासी लड़कियों को महानगरों में धकेला जा रहा है, जहां यातना, शोषण और गरीबी का एक नरक उनकी प्रतीक्षा कर रहा होता है. लेकिन इस नरक से किसी तरह मुक्त हुई लड़कियों के लिए उनके गांव में भी जीवन के दरवाजे बंद मिलते हैं. छत्तीसगढ़ से लौटकर गीताश्री की रिपोर्ट

http://www.raviwar.com/news/31_chhattisgarh-human-trafficking-geetashree.shtml

इस्लाम से नहीं, आतंक से लड़ना होगा...
कई मुसलमान आज भी ये नहीं मानते कि ओसामा बिन लादेन 9/11 के हमलों के लिए जिम्मेदार है. सबसे पहले हमें साबित करना होगा कि ये लड़ाई आतंक के खिलाफ है ना कि दो सभ्यताओं के बीच टकराव है, यानि कि ये इस्लाम और पश्चिम के बीच में चल रहा युद्ध नहीं है, ये आतंक के खिलाफ एक युद्ध है. इस्लामाबाद से हामिद मीर की रिपोर्ट

http://raviwar.com/news/32_osama_bin_laden_interview_hameedmeer-5.shtml

दास्ता-ए-मानुष दो - फिर बसी दुनिया
जब नर्मदा देवी का घर बना तो उन्हें लगा कि घर का होना खुशियों का होना है लेकिन तीन दिन बाद आए भूस्खलन में घर बह गया, पति भी उसी घर के साथ बह गए, साथ ही खुशियां भी. चैता देवी के परिवार के सात लोगों को भी भूस्खलन ने निगल लिया. एक बेटा भर बचा था. दोनों ने एक दूसरे को दिलासा दिया और जिंदगी फिर से चलने लगी. उत्तराखंड के भूस्खलन प्रभावित लोगों की जुबानी पीयूष दईया की कलम से

http://raviwar.com/news/33_uttarakhand-landslides-narmada-piyushdaiya.shtml

उसका चेहरा
जिसकी अपनी ज़मीन नहीं होती वह किसी तरह भी नहीं बचता. बस बचा हुआ-सा दिखता है. पेड़ों की अपनी ज़मीन होनी चाहिए, वे अकाल मौत मर रहे हैं.रामकुमार तिवारी की कहानी

http://raviwar.com/news/34_uskachehra-story-ramkumartiwari.shtml

मेरे ना रहने पर – कविता शहरोज़
समय के तेज बदलाव में जिस तरह सब कुछ बदल रहा है, वह कहीं गहरे तक डराता है. कवि ने इसी बदलाव को महसूस किया है. शहरोज़ की कविता

http://raviwar.com/news/35_narahnepar-poem-shaharoz.shtml

जातीय पंचायत की बलि
अपने मुंहबोले भाई का अंतरजातीय विवाह कराना संगीता को भारी पड़ा और दोनों भाई-बहन जातीय पंचायत की बलि चढ़ गए भोपाल से प्रशांत दुबे की रिपोर्ट

http://raviwar.com/news/37_banjara-panchayat-prashantdubey.shtml

नदी बचाने की जंग – प्रसून लतांत – उत्तराखंड
उत्तराखंड में इन दिनों नदियां संकट में हैं. राज्य की अलग-अलग नदियों पर बांध बनाने और उन्हें सुरंग में डालने की प्रक्रिया शुरु हो गई है. हालत ये है कि गंगा नदी को भी सुरंग में डाला जा रहा है. ऊर्जा के नाम पर चल रही इस कथित विकास प्रक्रिया के खिलाफ राज्य भर में लोग एकजुट हो रहे हैं और उन्होंने नदियों को बचाने के लिए कमर कस ली है. उत्तराखंड से प्रसून लतांत की रिपोर्ट

http://raviwar.com/news/38_save-river-uttarakhand-prasunlatant.shtml

कनक तिवारी - गांधी की अहिंसा के फलितार्थ

http://www.raviwar.com/columnist/C8_gandhi-ahimsha-kanaktiwri.shtml

लोकसत्ता पर हमले का सच – राम पुनियानी

http://www.raviwar.com/columnist/C9_aatack-on-loksatta-rampuniyani.shtml

बातचीत – कानू सान्याल
यह नक्सलवाद नहीं आतंकवाद है

http://raviwar.com/Baatcheet/B7_kanu-sanyal-interview-alokputul.shtml

सरकारी योजना पर जनता की नज़र – संदीप पांडे

http://raviwar.com/columnist/C10_eye-on-nrega-sandeeppandey.shtml

एक और राम के लिए स्वयंवर

http://raviwar.com/news/36_swayamvar-durg-neeraj.shtml

चारु मजूमदार में उतावलापन था – कानू सान्याल बातचीत 2

http://raviwar.com/baatcheet/B11_kanu-sanyal-interview-2-alokputul.shtml

तेज तूं – हकू शाह

http://raviwar.com/footfive/F7_haku_shah_interview.shtml

खेतों में मौत की फसल – देविंदर शर्मा

http://raviwar.com/columnist/C11_harmful-cultivation-devindersharma.shtml

एक दर्द का नाम है हरसूद

आज से चार साल पहले 1000 मेगावाट बिजली के लिए 25000 ग्रामीणों को हरसूद से बेदखल कर दिया गया, बिना उनकी परवाह किए हुए. यह आधुनिक विकास की नई परिभाषा थी- रोशनी के लिए अंधेरे में धकेलने का नया पाठ. हरसूद के विस्थापितों के लिए उनकी यादों में बसा यह शहर एक दर्द में बदल गया है, जो हर रोज लगातार टीसता रहता है. भोपाल से दयाशंकर मिश्र की रिपोर्ट

http://raviwar.com/news/39_loktantra-harsud-fouryear-dsmishra.shtml

एक दर्द का नाम है हरसूद – दयाशंकर मिश्र

http://raviwar.com/news/40_harsud-fouryear-dsmishra.shtml

इंदौर का यह दौर

1992 में बाबरी मस्जिद विध्वंस के वक्त पूरे इंदौर में कर्फ्यू लगा था. तब से आज तक 16 सालों में इंदौर काफी कुछ बदल गया है. नये बसे इंदौर के पॉश इलाकों में बसने वाले मॉल्स और कॉरपोरेट संस्कृति के दीवाने वर्ग के लिए इस कर्फ्यू ने एक झटका भी दिया है. उन्हें भी लगा है कि इंदौर में सबकुछ ठीक नहीं चल रहा है, भले ही सरकार ग्लोबल मीट कराकर विकास के बारे में बढ़-चढ़ कर दावे करे.इंदौर से श्रीप्रकाश की डायरी

http://raviwar.com/news/41_indore-diary-shriprakash.shtml

क्रूर समाज में एक मानवीय चेहरा

विनोद जमलोकी पेशे से एक सफल डॉक्टर थे और एक हंसमुख शख्स के रूप में अपने स्वजन-परिजन के बीच सम्माननीय. लेकिन भूस्खलन के दौरान किसी और की जान बचाने में स्वयं जीवन भर के लिए अपाहिज हो गए और आज वे जरा देर तक भी चल-फिर नहीं सकते. वे अपने जीवन से इतने थक चुके हैं कि सरकार सहित सबसे वे यह प्रार्थना करते है कि उन्हें इच्छा-मृत्यु की अनुमति दे दी जाए. उत्तराखंड के भूस्खलन प्रभावित लोगों की जुबानी पीयूष दईया की कलम से

http://raviwar.com/news/43_uttarakhand-landslides-vinodjamloki-piyushdaiya.shtml

ओ मैक्लुस्कीगंज !

कलकत्ता के व्यापारी मैक्लुस्की ने 1932 के आसपास जब बिहार के एक घने जंगलों वाले पठारी इलाके में एंग्लो इंडियन समुदाय की एक नई दुनिया बसाने की शुरुवात की तो मैक्लुस्की की आंखों में भी एक सपना था. लेकिन एंग्लो इंडियन समुदाय की अपनी दुनिया बसाने का मैक्लुस्की का सपना अधुरा रह गया. जिस मैक्लुस्कीगंज में कभी 400 के आसपास एंग्लो इंडियन परिवार थे, वहां 40 परिवार भी नहीं बचे. मैक्लुस्कीगंज से रविवार संवाददाता की रिपोर्ट

http://raviwar.com/news/44_oh-Mccluskieganj-raviwar.shtml

जरूरी है गंगा को बचाना – राजेंद्र सिंह

http://raviwar.com/columnist/C14_save-ganga-rajendrasingh.shtml

क्या भाजपा मध्यमार्गी पार्टी बन सकती है – राम पुनियानी

http://raviwar.com/columnist/C13_bjp-madhyamargi-rampuniyani.shtml

किसकी सदी किसकी सहस्त्राब्दी – एजाज अहमद

http://raviwar.com/columnist/C12_aaj-ke-daur-1-aijazahmad.shtml

निशाने पर मीडिया

श्रीलंका में पत्रकारों पर लगातार बढ़ते हमले से मीडिया जगत सकते में है. चरमपंथी संगठनों और सरकार दोनों ही मीडिया को निशाना बना रहे हैं. पिछले 2 सालों में ही कम से कम 9 पत्रकार मारे गए हैं. बड़ी संख्या में पत्रकारों की प्रताड़ना, उन पर होने वाले हमले, उनके अपहरण और लापता होने की घटनाएं सामने आई हैं. एक पत्रकार तो 4 महीने से बिना अभियोग हिरासत में हैं. कोलंबो से हर्शी चितरंगी परेरा की रिपोर्ट

http://raviwar.com/news/45_attack-on-media-harshiparera.shtml

देश को ले डूबेगा परमाणु समझौता

भारत-अमरीका परमाणु समझौता लागू होने के बाद भी हमारी विद्युत क्षमता 2020 तक केवल 9 प्रतिशत बढ़ेगी. अमरीका ने पिछले तीन दशक में परमाणु ऊर्जा का एक भी नया कारखाना नहीं लगाया है और दुनिया के दूसरे देश भी इससे बच रहे हैं. असल में अमरीका इस समझौते की आड़ में भारत को अपना सैनिक अड्डा बनाना चाह रहा है और उसने अपनी संसद में ये कहा भी है . संदीप पांडेय का विश्लेषण

http://raviwar.com/news/46_india-nuclear-deal-sandeeppandey.shtml

फिर बाढ़ उत्सव !

असम एक बार फिर बाढ़ में डूबा हुआ है. लेकिन बरसात के इस मौसम में कुछ लोग हैं, जिनके लिए यह बाढ़ उत्सव की तरह है. जो इस बाढ़ में डूब नहीं रहे, उबर रहे हैं. हर साल बाढ़ के नाम पर करोड़ों रुपए का वारा-न्यारा होता है और जब तक इनका हिसाब-किताब और जांच हो तब तक फिर से बाढ़ आ जाती है. बाढ़ से बचाव किसी की प्राथमिकता में नहीं है
गुवाहाटी से दिनकर कुमार की रिपोर्ट

http://raviwar.com/news/49_assam-flood-dinkarkumar.shtml

The Indecently Modest Proposal
by Josh Livingston

Satire, according to Webster’s, is:

1 : a literary work holding up human vices and follies to ridicule or scorn

2 : trenchant wit, irony, or sarcasm used to expose and discredit vice or folly

It’s also the defense of The New Yorker and it’s apologists for the politically controversial cartoon of the Obamas on the July cover.

In the illustration, Michelle has gone from black professional to Black Panther with an afro, sash of ammo and combat boots. While an American flag burns, she offers a smug sneer and "terrorist fist-bump." Barrack looks every bit the bin Laden-loving Muslim in a head-wrap, desert attire and pseudo-Birkenstocks. He looks back at the reader with sly satisfaction as if - having already succeeded in making it to the Oval Office - he might as well reveal that he’s put one over on us.

Artist Barry Blitt has gathered nearly every ugly prejudice, stereotype, myth and rumor about the pair: they pose as articulate professionals, but she’s an Angry Black woman with big lips and an attitude, he’s a covert Muslim with anti-American, soft-on-terrorist values, they’re both black and they’re different from you! (Actually they are different, as I'm not voting for you in November.)

Satire lampooning pompous politicians has existed as long as pompous politicians have. And rightly so. The right to dissent is a keystone of democracy. Ironic political commentary is alive and well to this day; the insightful wit of Gary Trudeau’s Doonesbury and bombastic presence of Stephen Colbert come to mind.

So back to Webster’s definition of satire. Does the cover qualify?

No, and here’s why. There’s plenty of folly and vice to expose and ridicule in the matter of baseless political smear tactics and the illustrator neatly encapsulates plenty of it in his composition. But the work looks and feels more convincing as ridicule of the Obamas than the political misinformants. There’s no ironic wink, no tongue-in-cheek, no frame of reference for who these stereotypes belong to or who is being told to believe them. There’s no mechanism to expose the artist's target as the folly of prejudice and not the Obama’s vice of deceit.

If the imagery were the same, but presented, for example, as a Coney Island-style backdrop with empty cut-outs where GOP pundits would love American voters to mentally put the Obamas’ faces, it would be a lot clearer who the object of scorn was and who it wasn't.

But there is another way in which it might work as satire. When Jonathan Swift’s "A Modest Proposal" - a seminal work in the cannon of satire that argued that the Irish should eat the children of the poor - was published in 1729, it was read by some as a shocking, non-ironic essay and was highly controversial. Thanks to that attention, the essay successfully raised awareness of the issues underlying its proposition. And so, Modest Proposals - a genre of satire that straight forwardly advocates taboo positions - was born.

One thing remains: if the artist aimed to generate controversy from a seemingly deadpan embrace of offensive views, he has certainly succeeded.

more about Josh Livingston

E só para dar o primeiro passo para a primeira parte (a parte qualitativa vai ter que esperar), e mostrar que estou de bom humor, aproveito para repicar o post Tirando um Sarro, do A Vida Secreta, o webzine sobre sexo, sexualidade e sensualidade que surgiu a partir do blog Me And My Secret Life, citando o post Papo de Homem: Dicas para Conquistar o Sorriso de Uma Mulher, aqui do Post-Its, junto a uma reportagem daquele portalzinho de notícias G1, e dizer igual ao Galvão Bueno:

Tirando um Sarro.

"Agora está provado que zombar de si mesmo é a chave da sedução:"
[...]
"'Muitos estudos mostram que um senso de humor é sexualmente atraente, especialmente para as mulheres, mas nós descobrimos que o humor auto-depreciativo é o mais atraente de todos', diz Gil Greengross, do Departamento de Antropologia da Universidade do Novo México, nos Estados Unidos."

'braços

Celso Bessa

The molecules bounce off one another in curious ways. Consumerism, the DIY ethic, the commodification of the underground, punk, hip-hop, and memory get mixed into a peppery post-20th century stew.

How exactly this mysterious process happens, at a molecular level, is under the Mikeroscope today.

LAB WORK: In his essay “Culture and Subjectivity,” the French philosopher Pierre-Félix Guattari proposed that the true function of the “mighty capitalistic machine” that is mass culture is the “production of social subjectivity that can be found on all levels of production and consumption.” Against this hegemonic machine Guattari posits a “singular subjectivity” that rejects mass culture in favor of “modes of creativity… and production that produce a singular subjectivity… that coincides with a desire, a taste for living, a will to construct the world in which we find ourselves.” DIY culture and its value-transfer exists in the space between these two modes: aiming for the latter, constrained by the former.

ZOOM IN: On a whim, I bought a T-shirt from my friends out in Olympia, Washington, who run a pretty cool little indie outfit. My new T-shirt says: PUNK ROCK SAVED MY LIFE. It's not, I think, literally true that punk rock saved my life. But in my high school yearbook, there's a picture of me holding my violin: I was an accomplished classical musician at the time. I'm seventeen, and I'm wearing a LONDON CALLING T-shirt, with the iconic photo of Paul Simonon smashing his bass onstage at the Palladium. I knew it was yearbook-photo-day ahead of time, and wore that shirt on purpose.

ZOOM OUT: I recently found a photo of the same electric bass, a Fender Precision with PRESSURE emblazoned across it in crude letters. The neck is splintered, broken nearly in half at the seventh fret. The photo is on the wall of my kitchen. The bass is now in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, Ohio, admission to which costs $22.00. This physical artifact – a broken electric bass – has completed the journey from a facet of “singular subjectivity,” in Guattari’s phrase, to one of “social subjectivity.”

MEANWHILE, IN ANOTHER PART OF THE FOREST: Simonon’s bass met its demise on September 21, 1979. Sometime in the next month, according to Jeff Chang’s definitive book Can’t Stop Won’t Stop, New Jersey impresario Sylvia Robinson released a record on her Sugar Hill label of three young unknowns rhyming over the rhythm section of Chic’s “Good Times.” By the end of 1979, “Rapper’s Delight” had sold half a million copies. Hip-hop was on its way into the mainstream.

ZOOM IN: Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five, legitimate Bronx heroes whom Robinson had been trying to sign, were booed off the stage when they opened for the Clash in Times Square in 1981. (Chang notes dryly, “In 1981, the American punks clearly wanted the riot to remain exclusively their own.”) Guattari: “To base a micropolitics of molecular transformation on other foundations (than mass culture) involves a radical questioning of notions of the individual as a general reference for processes of subjectivation.”

All of these things — the two T-shirts, purchased decades apart, the smashed bass on the museum wall, the Sugar Hill Gang’s gold 12” record — are manifestations of the “micropolitcs of molecular transformation.” Meanwhile, we read in the New York Times how Flash now does corporate gigs exclusively, minimum fee $10,000.

More about Mike Lindgren

For whatever reason, growing up for me was a constant battle with my father. He was the epitome of authority, sometimes frighteningly so. He was too hard. And so I rebelled against my mother, because I thought she was too soft. In the second grade, I rebelled by staying at my desk when the fire alarm rang. I was picked up by my arm and hauled outside to stand on gravel with the rest of the baby cattle. In the seventh grade, I rebelled against my Christian teachers who I thought ludicrous for following such antiquated ideals. Who were they to rub their shit off on me? They were the mothers – too soft – who followed that unwavering, strict, suffocating, rotten template given years ago by a religion whose traditional stance was to subjugate women, justify slavery, and condone murder.

My childhood and adolescence were rife with unsettled extremes. Extremes of the secular variety, and others religious. I constantly sought balance. As I grew older, I found myself attracted to pop culture icons that blew normativity like it was some freeze-pop, using it for a fleeting moment of deliciousness before spitting its rigged wooden stick out when all sweetness was gone. I attempted to exhaust my sweetness, too. I was obsessed with bands like The Cure, Depeche Mode, and later icons like Marilyn Manson and Bjork, because they represented a queer kind of sensibility – a middle finger up for all to see, fucking patriarchy into oblivion. I wore torn shorts and jeans, big black T-shirts and converse by day; combat boots, fishnets and eyeliner by night.

And at age seventeen, my father saw my coming out of the closet as some monumental form of rebellion. To me it felt like liberation. He tore down the posters of The Cure on my wall, forced me to wear “normal” clothes, and said I couldn’t even think about getting an earring until I moved out. At age twenty-three, after finishing two undergraduate degrees, I left home. Six months later I had two diamond studs stapled into my left and right earlobes to celebrate what I thought had been a successful sedition.

Many years and relationships later, I still find myself rebelling. Not because of teenage angst or the need to find who I am. This sort of rebellion is against a mainstream that's gotten wickedly out of control. Normative to the point of persecuting those who are different, simply because they are.

To put it frankly, I’m bored. And I’m tired off all the bullshit. I’m tired of the societal need to “belong." I’m tired of Reality-TV. I’m tired of bullshit art. I’m tired of straights telling gays what they can and cannot do. I’m tired of men telling women what they can and cannot do. I’m tired of mainstream hip-hop. I’m tired of voting for the Presidential candidate I dislike the least. I’m tired of people trying to tell me what is and isn’t normal. I'm tired of exploitation. I'm tired of infomercials. I’m tired of useless death and poverty. Johnny Depp and Will Smith made $75M and $80M in 2007, respectively. I’m tired of apathy. I’m tired of celebrity. I’m tired of “style.”

I still clash with my father. I don’t think that silent battle will ever end. And neither will the bullshit. Sometimes to be a rebel is glorious. To stand up for something and make a difference is pure aphrodisia.

Dear Reader,

Beginning this Monday, July 28 through the month of September, Urban Molecule presents “Rebels, Revolutionaries and Revelations,” a look at how Hip-hop, Punk, Radical Feminism and the Queer Movement have taught us a hell of a lot about art, and ourselves. Join us as we brave the Dog Days of Summer with a look into the world of rebel art.

Sincerely,

Christopher de la Torre

More about Christopher

It's a nice way of generating publicity prior to the 'soft' launch that is scheduled to happen before the end of August, and also gives a nice promotional push for the Media Enterprise MA. I'm yet to hear whether I will get commission from the tuition fees for students who sign up for September, but I'm sure it's only a matter of time. Possibly the most amusing part is the fact that the article includes a cropped version of my Gardeners Click profile photo, standing in front of my shed. It's only rock 'n roll but I like it etc...

New media business models are tricky things to grapple with, then. At JEECamp in March, guest speaker Rick Waghorn explained - with the useful assistance of a flipchart being scribbled into submission - his view for the future of online journalism enterprises such as his My Football Writer venture. Certainly, the main options, which arose from discussions during the unconference, included the following models:

• advertising
• subscription
• syndication
• sponsorship

Each of these come with their own advantages and disadvantages. The most common model used with this kind of site is the advertising model, but this raises the issue of how to make sure the advertising slots sold on the site are relevant to users. And it's hard to think that, in a time of economic uncertainty, small music-related businesses in the West Midlands will be able to fork out for advertising space on Cul-de-Sac.

Subscription is also a tricky one, especially if you start off providing context completely free of charge. How willingly will people start to pay for something they used to get for free? I'm of the opinion that, if the service was somehow attractive enough, then people might buy into it but generally I think consumer-facing sites are unlikely to be able to survive on subscription alone, unless you really do offer people something that they can't get anywhere else - what works for B2B titles and current affairs magazines isn't necessarily going to work for an online music magazine as the audience is markedly different. Even then, you're up against a seemingly prevalent attitude/expectation that information on the Internet should be free.

Industry-facing services, like Record of the Day, are perhaps more likely to lend themselves to subscription. And there's the option of syndication too - maybe the BBC's regional services, or other local media outlets, would be prepared to "buy" information they wouldn't have otherwise been able to secure. As for sponsorship, I would personally be very picky about who I'd want the site to be associated with, and would be vehemently against any arrangement which compromised its editorial freedom.

The rather lovely Bearded magazine has recently launched Beardaid, where readers pay £2 per month in return for all manner of freebies while also helping cover the costs of advertising for small independent record labels. A noble premise, obviously, although I will wait with interest to see what the take-up of this offer is like - I have a bit of a problem with people subsidising the advertising for small independent labels, especially in these dark economic times, regardless of how much I might like the music released by the record label in question. I should commend Gareth, Bearded editor, for such a bold move though and the 'singles club' style gifts which are said to come with your subscription do indeed sound impressive. Such transparency is welcome too, although as a paying customer I would want to know a bit more about what this "whole host of additional goodies" would entail, when there are so many worthy causes vying for your money.

As an additional thought, attacking formats where people are maybe more likely to part with their hard-earned cash (mobile rather than web?) might be a way forward. A recent post contributed to Paul Bradshaw's excellent Online Journalism Blog detailed the launch of a mobile edition of Belgian women's magazine Flair. Something powered by the cost of a text message does have potential, perhaps, although it would depend on the attitude of mobile phone users towards paying for journalistic services - online, there still seems to be some resistance, but this just shows that we need to listen to our audiences, and certainly there will need to be extensive market research conducted before we can establish whether there is a future in making money from the proposed website.

The idea for Cul-de-Sac has largely come out of a desire for editorial freedom - a freedom to produce content, being liberated by the apparently limitless space afforded online. We're often presented with the notion of a 'war' between traditional, old media and new or online media, suggesting that the two can't co-exist - certainly, this is an issue which has been articulated well by Catherine Bray in a recent discussion which argued that the two formats complement each other. Indeed, the way that online formats allow journalists to tell stories and present audiences with links to sources and added information, the Internet lends itself well to the aims of Cul-de-Sac; namely, to present information about the region's music activity not only to people who live here but also to those who do not - to bring communities of people together and offer a sense of collective ownership in producing a resource which popularises the West Midlands' music activity in lieu of significant coverage in the mainstream music press.

The relationship between old and new, print and online, is something that I'll talk about in more length at a later date, including why I think the Internet offers greater opportunities than a printed magazine - aside from the obvious reasons like 1) it's more environmentally friendly, 2) it is more efficent when dealing with information which is time-sensitive, 3) there are countless ways of connecting with your audience (using audio and video, for example) and 4) production costs are significantly cheaper when you don't have to think about printing. Of course, point number 4 is maybe the most pertinent for a fledgling enterprise. Business models online, apart from securing revenue via advertising (yes, that old chestnust), are still relatively new and it's hard to tell what will work and what won't make any money for the web journalist entrepreneur. Rick Waghorn has discussed this eloquently in relation to his own hyperlocal journalism-based enterprise, and I'll attempt to gather my thoughts on it as the project progresses, as we move towards the crucial point of evaluating whether Cul-de-Sac can become a viable business venture.

For now, though, Cul-de-Sac will exist as a feasibility study, and I'll continue my freelance work alongside it until I get the results which suggest it's worth pursuing full-time and that it's possible to make some money in the process. To keep you up to date, the website has been designed by Stephen King (no, not that one) of SJK Designs, and its logo has been designed by Ben Javens. A provisional version of the website can be found here, although please note that I have not uploaded any content yet - which would explain the irrelevant pictures and stories Steve has used to show me what it would look like. I particularly like the way that it uses a very 'blog' feel, with journalism and Web 2.0 colliding to provide the perfect platform for writers - whether it's 'professional' journalists or fans with opinions and experiences who want to share their ideas with like-minded people - to congregate and discuss what's important to them. Or at least that is the idea. It's probably a bit late to be asking this, but "What's with the name?" I hear you say. It's a reference to the Roman Polanski film of the same name, and more importantly its soundtrack composed by Krzysztof Komeda. Ben's logo is marvellously inspired by the typography used in the film's artwork.

More focused and articulate points will appear here soon...

If you've stumbled across this blog and have no idea who I am (and trust me, the 'About' section won't fill in many of the blanks) - I'm a freelance journalist specialising in writing about the creative industries in the West Midlands. This consists mostly of writing about music and comedy. I'm also currently studying on the MA Media Enterprise course at Birmingham City University, and as part of a project for this course I'm going to be launching the next stage of my (foiled, thus far) plan for world domination. This venture - and a very large reason for setting up this blog - is called Cul-de-Sac, a webzine about music in the West Midlands, produced by people in the West Midlands. Well, mostly me, to start with. I'll be outlining the grand vision behind this and any other zany schemes at a later date, and will be using this here webspace to lift the lid on my decisions and give the process a transparent feel, which I think is important so that people feel they have ownership of the webzine too, and are an inherent part of its production process. Cul-de-Sac will be online later this summer, and I'll be adding some thoughts and discussion points here before, during and after its (hopefully not too hazardous) birth.

Allons-y!

Depuis maintenant près de 16 ans que je m'investis auprès des jeunes. J'ai commencé à être travailleur de rue en 1992, dans les même années que le graffiti a fait son apparition à Montréal.

Nous avons commencé à faire régulièrement les médias en 1997, lorsque nous avons ouvert un milieu de vie pour les jeunes, le Café-Graffiti. À cette époque, on pouvait lire régulièrement les médias titrer: Graffiti: art ou vandalisme?

Aujoud'hui, j'ai pris un coup de vieux. Un média électronique Hip Hop voyant les murales que nous avions réalisé pour les magasins Oakley: Is this graffiti or art? Traduction maison: Est-ce du graffiti ou de l'art?

Vous ne pouvez pas vous imaginez tout ce que j'ai vécu avec ce simple titre. D'une part, les jeunes graffiteurs que j'accompagnais sont devenu des citoyens qui prennent leur place. Journaliste, entrepreneur, importateur, producteur d'événements, infographe, agent de communication, illustrateur... Ils sont partout et on envahi la planète. Excellent. Ce ne sont plus des jeunes marginalisés. Ce sont des citoyens qui occupent leur place.

Il y a 10 ans, les médias se demandaient si nous étions du vandalisme ou si nous pouvions être considéré comme de l'art. Aujourd'hui, des médias se demandent si nous sommes encore du graffiti ou si nous sommes devenu des artistes!

Quand j'ai commencé à travailler avec les jeunes de la culture Hip Hop j'ai eu un rêve. Un jour, nous serons la norme dans les différents Conseil des arts. Le graffiti Hip Hop est un art. Ça ne s'apprend pas à l'université ou dans un cours conventionnel. C'est un style de vie, un art qui se développe. Nous donnons régulièrement des ateliers aux universitaires qui étudient l'art. Nous enseignons l'art, non pas parce que nous l'avons appris à l'école. Nous enseignons l'histoire de l'art graffiti parce que nous sommes en train de écrire cette histoire depuis plus de 10 ans.

PUBLICITÉ
Opération Graffiti. Toute l’histoire de la création du Café-Graffiti. La relation avec les jeunes. Ce qu’ils ont vécu dans le projet. Ce qu’ils ont fait vivre aux intervenants. Toutes les anecdotes d’un projet qui fait encore parler de lui. Une façon intéressante et originale de soutenir le Café-Graffiti dans sa mission d’aide et de soutien aux jeunes. 19,95$.

Disponible dans toute bonne librairie.
Par téléphone: (514) 256-9000, en région: 1-877-256-9009
Par Internet: www.refletdesociete.com
Par la poste: Reflet de Société 4233 Ste-Catherine Est Montréal, Qc. H1V 1X4