The Inevitable Michael Jackson Post

When I read the news on that day, at 10h30pm local time, I had the chance to follow the unfolding of events in real time on the web, as, one by one, news outlets confirmed his death. I must confess I didn´t feel much emotion – MJ is an icon, and the actual person behind the icon we will never actually know, however much we keep forgetting this – but, interested in media studies as I am, it was fascinating to follow the huge storm unfolding exponentially in sites, forums, fan communities.

Then I said to myself: “here´s a subject I will not write about, except possibly on an academic paper, referring to the media phenomenon”. Sounds terribly snobbish, but I´m being honest – I was immediatly aware that we would be endlessly bombarded with viewpoints, tributes, poems, essays, opinions. I felt like I had nothing to add about MJ, the persona.

I still think I have nothing to say. But this evening I came across the best words I´ve ever read about him. Really, it´s a short yet monumental essay.

neverenoughrhodes

The comments aren´t bad either.

oh, boy.

Spotted on an online banner advertising higher degrees at a Portuguese University:

The future looks shaky!…

.protofuturo

Here is a picture taken at sunset in Porto, Portugal, at the longest day of the year. Every year I celebrate the Summer solstice in a different manner; this year I celebrated it amongst my closest friends, wrapping up a historical Ph.D thesis. This is the view from his living room, 32 minutes after we had placed the last period on the Word document.

This is only the beginning, folks!

Obscura, obscure, obscuro…

… you get the drift, it´s only a vowel at the very end, anyway. Weird, creepy, fringe, spooky, exciting… you name it: advertising has been hunting it down for decades. So you know it must be good – before processing, that is. Eno used to run a label under this flag. Pretty run-of-the mill stuff these days, but back then it must have been the epitome of anti-establishment intellectualism. I still enjoy Eastley, Budd and Adams on occasion. And Nyman – his only work of genius was here, everything else afterwards was just too overbloated and impossible to digest.

So………… Obscura.

Someone at UTA-P tipped me to this: Atlas Obscura.

Come on, guys… you know Portugal. It is the epitome of weird – in a subtle, pseudo-conservative, not-always-fun kind of way. Let´s turn the tables then……..

Please contribute to Atlas Obscura and help acknowledge Portugal as the Official Worldwide Capital of Weird it has been all along. I mean, this is what is going on in Austin… what have we got to lose?

Yowza!

IMHO, this has to be the best piece of news coming out of the European elections:

Sweden’s Pirate Party has won a seat in the European Parliament.

Read all about it here.

I am not praising rampant piracy – I am simply hoping an actual debate concerning the deep, inevitable changes in cultural consumption can finally begin to be taken seriously. I mean, not that long ago the powers that be were arguing that piracy was ruining the lives of corn growers… Which could be translated as something like: “Have you done your good deed of the day and bought your megasize bucket of salty popcorn at your local multiplex, baby?”

On another note… why do kids insist on consuming Britney´s latest, anyway? There are huge wells of outstanding, copyright-free music and movies being made as we speak. So dig into those, will ya?

For a deeper perspective into it all, this is the one to go for. Do your homework.

coming soon to your office…

I have been one of the latest victims of a silent plague: the hard drive crash. It all happened in a second – the USB lead was tangled, and the external disk fell while hard at work. Hundreds of gigabytes suddenly evaporated into thin air – or more accurately, shut themselves inside a bolted box.

After a fairly brief moment of vertigo, where my digital life paraded in front of my eyes, I regathered myself and began working out what to do: Option one – contact the pros. I did right away, and they said they could not do a thing. Option two – rescue information from a prior partial backup I had erased. I did and the software rescued 23,000 files – unnamed and randomly organised!

So this is where I am: I recovered a significant part of what I had lost, but what are the odds of finding the time and determination to clean up and identify 23,000 files? Close to none, I´d say, given my current state of work overflow. I bravely decided to soldier on without a digital past.

A hard drive crash has an element of mourning: there is a life that is suddenly left without a memory, there are documents and matters and commitments that are simply extinguished, and one is left in a strange vacuum of sorts, faced with the need to reconstruct a narrative from scratch. Yet once the shock fades, we realise life goes on, and we actually have the opportunity to be more selective in regards to our references and priorities. I certainly would not call this a blessing in disguise, but optimism makes me see the good that comes out of the accidental.

Maybe there should be a social network dedicated to this digital tragedy, one where volunteers would help rebuild one another´s archives. Maybe there already is such a thing, I shall find out.

To all of you out there… I only have one piece of advice, one I had been given but ignored under the assumption that these are the kinds of things that happen to others:

Back up your stuff!!! Now!!!

futureplaces jingles available!

Here are the recently conceived radio jingles for Future Places 2009. Thanx to autodigest for the soundtrack, and Vicki for the sexxyvoxx. Do add them to your podcast, we love and support cc to the best of our abilities!

English version

Portuguese version (an exercise in phonetics)

Dear J.: listen and reminisce.

The path to redemption takes many shapes,
shapes one only suspected when long ago warned of dangers aplenty,
temptations precluding downfalls, all punctuated by pre-emptive lust
My God, I now understand your promise of righteousness
is the downfall mutated, a melting pot of sheer denial.

May tonight be the night of reconciliation.
May we pick up these golden shreds, spilled over countless expeditions
further fragmented beyond recognition
fueled by faceless fear and famine in the form of random desire
Until we can no longer tell what the hell has been driving us all along.

May tonight be a night for acceptance
the right seasoning of tenderness and brutality
the wholeness we have been craving ever since.

We shall raise tomorrow and face the rat race
as if a celebration unfolded before us,
as if pure joy poured from every pore
right before the sore eyes of this desolate witness.

We shall open our senses, tomorrow, as soon as tomorrow breaks,
and begin counting allies, forgiving enemies, recruiting strategists.
We shall forget the age-old adagios, whispered through centuries of avarice,
and walk the world as if for the first time.

For F., for D., for J.,

for the countless masters I have crossed paths with

A long overdue elegy

Tonight will be the coldest night on record, they announce aplenty
broadcasts, newscasts, podcasts,
Strangers in awe of a few flurries
daily routine suddenly suspended, all angst forgiven,
Landscape transfigured, if only in our minds.

Tonight there is no darkness, no regret
Just metal and glass and voluntary solitude
An exercise in nonsense, woven by desire
in airy anticipation of days to come.

May tomorrow be a gracious book, pages aplenty
pages ripped, shriveled, stained and blank
A book of forecasts and forgiveness, transparency and euphoria
A book of secrets, A work-in-progress

Free from duty, proudly bolted in warm openness.

For D.

We need your HANDS.

I am currently involved in the design of Future Places 2009, the second edition of the digital media festival exploring the subject of digital media and local cultures. We have decided that the visual component of the communication is going to be based on human hands involved in all kinds of activities: from baking bread to performing surgery, from holding a fork at dinner to praying.

So… we will be very pleased if you send us your photos of hands doing things, and will attempt to integrate them into the Festival´s communication materials. You will, of course, be credited. Needless to say, hi-res images are better, but any resolution is good, really.

Send em over to heitor.alvelos @ gmail.com.

On that note: the Festival call is currently open: submit your digital work and you may be a part of this year´s exhibition and win 3,000€ and a UTAustin-Portugal sponsorhip. Full details here.