Bauerntheater: Screening, Discussion and Book launch



06/05/08



7pm



Consulate General of the Federal Republic of Germany

871 United Nations Plaza

New York, NY 10017

English



Free Admission.



212-439-8700



For Show/Tell 09 the Goethe-Institut New York presents a film screening, book launch and talk between experimental theater director David Levine and art critic Gregory Volk.



Levine's "Bauerntheater" ("Farmer's Theater"), combines elements of durational performance, land art, and theater. In March, 2007, Levine trained an American method actor to play a GDR Farmer in Heiner Mueller's "Die Umsiedlerin" ("The Resettler"). After a month's rehearsal, the actor was flown to Germany, given two acres of land and a ton of potatoes, and asked to be "in character" for 10 hours a day for a month. In asking "how completely can an actor become his character?", Levine’s project raised questions concerning the performance of cultural tradition, the representation of labor, representation as labor, and the relationship of endurance and land art to questions of authenticity. The project, funded by the German Federal Cultural Foundation, was featured in the New York Times, Theater Heute, Die Zeit, BOMB, and other publications.



For the Show/Tell event, Levine will screen a documentary video of the project, featuring both rehearsal and performance footage.



The Bauerntheater catalogue is a guide to major threads of the project. It includes essays by German theater critic Thomas Irmer, American curator and art historian Maika Pollack, performance scholar Christel Weiler, and social scientist Lars Fischer, as well as an introduction by Daniel Wetzel of the performance-label Rimini Protokoll.

Earlier in the week on my own podcast I reported that Motley Crue's New Single has been bought more by Rock Band users than iTunes 5 to 1. With over 15 million song Downloads on Guitar Hero, and Rock Band not too far behind with 10 million songs, it's easy to see the potential here. But will it ever replace iTunes?

Guitar Hero is getting ready to put out their fourth revision of the software, called "World Tour". It will truely rival Rock Band, for the game will also feature Vocals and Drums. The advantage is that not only will you be able to play popular songs from bands like the Eagles and Van Halen, but you will also be able to get songs by local artists as well as the ability to put together your own song tracks. The system is expected to release in October for $189.99 (for guitar, mic and drums), a "Guitar only" version and (if you don't want the controllers) the game for $59.99

Rock Band, in the meantime, has not been slouching. It hasn't been out as long as Guitar Hero, but it's sales have been even more impressive since it decided to split up the package. I guess not everyone wants the drums...

Rock Band is also planning for a release of "Rock Band 2: Electric Boogaloo" this holiday season (I improvised on the "Electric Boogaloo" part - it's the cheezy 80's movie themes in me). From what I have seen, it too will have an option to put together songs and also will have instrument improvements. After all, how else are you going to buy the $200 version?

By the way - don't expect the controllers to be cross-compatible or even backwards compatible for that matter. You'll have to buy 2 of everything. The new Guitar Hero guitar will have more buttons on it, and the Guitar Hero drums will sport 3 pads, Bass drum pedal and 2 cymbals. Rock band only has 4 pads and Bass drum pedal.

Together, these two will feature downloads from PS3 and XBox360 sites at most likely hefty prices. I was suprised to hear that the Motley Crue Single was only 99 cents. In looking at the over 100 song libary, you could get music for either .99 or 1.99 and Track Packs for 6 dollars.

Other games and venues are also cashing in on this crossover opportunity. Grand Theft Auto IV has an option for you to buy the music you hear on Amazon. There are other "Guitar player" type games including a free game called "Frets on Fire" and Konami has gotten into the game with "Rock Revolution", due out in October.

Ultimately, this is definitely showing the impact gaming has. Right now Motley Crue's single is topping the Gamers' charts. It's also sending a message to iTunes, but I wouldn't expect it to stay that way for long once the CD hits the mainstream media in June.It was a good marketing ploy on Crue's part. They got a lot of press for a CD that hasn't come out yet and will most likely be referenced for this feat in years to come.

As of today, there is a new category at GamersGlobal.com called User-Reviews. This feature has evolved from what I dubbed "Co-op" articles (a term originally coined by Jan, who has also coded the User-Reviews) in this feedback post. To be honest, we think it is not yet the time for co-op articles, because we would need a much bigger user base to make it really work. For now, only users of the rank "Staff" can write User-Reviews, but it is also possible to promote long, informative, review-like news (like the mini-reviews which we now used to fill the empty new department) to the user-review category, so on practical terms, the User-Reviews are open for everyone. Also, we might change the user roles in the future to make the User-Reviews accessible for other user ranks. Apart from the more prominent place a User-Review gets, its main difference is that it can have more than one screenshot.

Speaking of Staff users: Kyle Ackerman, who has contributed an awful lot of news and input and insight to us in the first half-year since the beta launch, is no longer writing for us (he's a professional journalist who needs to earn money for what he does). Thank you very much indeed, Kyle, and hopefully we will work together at some time in the future, again!

This night, four "Reporter" rank users will be promoted to the special "Staff" role Kyle had, thereby taking on much more responsibility for making gamersglobal.com work. They will not only write news, but promote good ones to Top-News-Status. They can add photos to existing news. They can write User-Reviews, and do some things more. The four reporters are:

1. Kurrunkulus (864 EXP) -- profile
2. Bolle (781 EXP) -- profile
3. Starkiller (676 EXP) -- profile
4. Leonard McCoy (386 EXP) -- profile

Congratulations, and welcome to the team!

The presentation was 30 to 40 minutes long and was handled by two Muslim women from CAIR's Houston office. CAIR is a spinoff of the defunct Islamic Association for Palestine, launched by Hamas leader Mousa Abu Marzook and former university professor Sami al-Arian, who pleaded guilty to conspiracy to provide services to Palestinian Islamic Jihad.

More ...

The presentation was 30 to 40 minutes long and was handled by two Muslim women from CAIR's Houston office. CAIR is a spinoff of the defunct Islamic Association for Palestine, launched by Hamas leader Mousa Abu Marzook and former university professor Sami al-Arian, who pleaded guilty to conspiracy to provide services to Palestinian Islamic Jihad.

More ...

Twitter has made a big mistake in blaming its power users for its recent uptime problems. Specifically power users who follow a lot of people. This is like me blaming listeners because they are getting slow down loads of my show. Is it their fault? No It’s my fault for not having enough bandwidth in place.

Twitter just blew it big time. They essentially said hey your using the service so much your breaking it. Well guess what tough… They never put limits on how much you can use the service. They never limited how many people you could follow. How stupid to blame the people that are helping to evangelize the service. [Venture Beat]

Quentin Peel in the Financial Times has been doing a nice job with occasional look-ins at the referendum campaign and prospects.  Today he goes through the options that none of the EU governments or the EU institutions want to talk about: what happens if the treaty is rejected?  He sets out 4: an added Ireland-only protocol with a revote, renegotiation, fait accompli (where the 26 would act as if it was ratified and leave Ireland to find its own solution), or dumping the entire treaty.  He also looks at the very specific headaches it would create for Gordon Brown, where parliamentary ratification will be contentious.   Particularly interesting is his view that Lisbon is an unloved project among the large member states, who might not shed too many tears with a walk-away.   Note also the latest noises about another referendum (after the brief prospect of one in Poland): now Italy might have one.

reblogged via GoldwaterLibrary.org:

Rare uncontacted tribe photographed in Amazon

via BBC News, May 30, 2008:

Isolated tribe spotted in Brazil

One of South America's few remaining uncontacted indigenous tribes has been spotted and photographed on the border between Brazil and Peru.

The Brazilian government says it took the images to prove the tribe exists and help protect its land.

The pictures, taken from an aeroplane, show red-painted tribe members brandishing bows and arrows.

More than half the world's 100 uncontacted tribes live in Brazil or Peru, Survival International says.

Stephen Corry, the director of the group - which supports tribal people around the world - said such tribes would "soon be made extinct" if their land was not protected.

'Monumental crime'

Survival International says that although this particular group is increasing in number, others in the area are at risk from illegal logging.

The photos were taken during several flights over one of the most remote parts of the Amazon rainforest in Brazil's Acre region.

They show tribe members outside thatched huts, surrounded by the dense jungle, pointing bows and arrows up at the camera.

"We did the overflight to show their houses, to show they are there, to show they exist," the group quoted Jose Carlos dos Reis Meirelles Junior, an official in the Brazilian government's Indian affairs department, as saying.

"This is very important because there are some who doubt their existence."

He described the threats to such tribes and their land as "a monumental crime against the natural world" and "further testimony to the complete irrationality with which we, the 'civilised' ones, treat the world".

Disease is also a risk, as members of tribal groups that have been contacted in the past have died of illnesses that they have no defence against, ranging from chicken pox to the common cold.

more via Reuters, May 29, 2008:

Rare uncontacted tribe photographed in Amazon

[...] One of the pictures, which can be seen on Survival International's Web site (http://www.survival-international.org), shows two Indian men covered in bright red pigment poised to fire arrows at the aircraft while another Indian looks on.

Another photo shows about 15 Indians near thatched huts, some of them also preparing to fire arrows at the aircraft.

"The world needs to wake up to this, and ensure that their territory is protected in accordance with international law. Otherwise, they will soon be made extinct," said Stephen Corry, the director of Survival International, which supports tribal people around the world.

Of more than 100 uncontacted tribes worldwide, more than half live in either Brazil or Peru, Survival International says. It says all are in grave danger of being forced off their land, killed and ravaged by new diseases.

(Reporting by Stuart Grudgings; editing by Sandra Maler)

What a line up of crackpot, leftist, hate-spouting characters! And all close friends and "spiritual advisors" of B. Hussein Obamamessiah.

Don't miss watching Michelle Malkin's handy little video guide to Barack Obama's various men of bad faith-a quick blog cheat sheet with all the poison preachers in one place, each accompanied by a trademark demagogic YouTube clip, for easy reference and ranked in order of unhingedness.

Related: Obama 'Deeply Disappointed,' Had No Idea, Shocked (... but there's that telling earmark)

What a line up of crackpot, leftist, hate-spouting characters! And all close friends and "spiritual advisors" of B. Hussein Obamamessiah.

Don't miss watching Michelle Malkin's handy little video guide to Barack Obama's various men of bad faith-a quick blog cheat sheet with all the poison preachers in one place, each accompanied by a trademark demagogic YouTube clip, for easy reference and ranked in order of unhingedness.