Julie Hill ( www.80percent.com )

Julie’s rendition of “Shiny” befits the uncertainty, poignancy, and urgency of the song. You can almost picture someone peeking round that tilt-a-whirl at the teens fumbling with each other, but it is you who have caught them.

Chris Turnham ( www.christurnham.com )

Chris has this magnificent handling of digital media, namely Photoshop. He creates his own brushes and makes inspiring art. There’s a sort of characterization of each piece that befits the respective song. In this case, it’s “Eli, the Barrowboy.”

I strongly urge you to check out both artists’ sites, as they are filled with much more beautiful art inspired by The Decemberists, as well as the rest of their superior portfolios. Cheers!

However, if you’re deeply offended by references to issues such as neo conservatism, gay rights, terrorism, conspiracy theories, anarchy, pedophile priests, Tchaikovsky, or creamery butter on toast, this film might not be for you.

V for Vendetta is set in the near future, around 2045ish, in a totalitarian Britain. The reigning party (and seemingly, the only party) is Norsefire, led by High Chancellor Adam Sutler (he’s got scraggly facial hair too!). Minorities, homosexuals, and practically anyone in opposition to the government are taken to interrogation, torture, death camps.. Pretty bleak, I’d say. There’s an 11pm curfew, and if you’re spotted outside, the secret-police ‘Fingermen’ will teach you to do otherwise.

So we follow the lead female, Evey Hammond, expertly played by Natalie Portman. Through some unfortunate events, coincidences, or fate, she is associated with (and eventually assists) the sort-a mysterious man-in-the-Guy-Fawkes-mask terrorist, V (the venerable Hugo Weaving). This anti-hero blows up the old Bailey, once a symbol of justice. He hijacks the closed-circuit airwaves, even shows off his broadcast graphics skills (did you see that watermark V-tv logo?!), and announces that he will fulfill what Guy Fawkes and his comrades tried to accomplish four hundred years prior. He will blow up Parliament. And he wants your support. V for Dagger-wielding-mayor!

It’s a non-nonstop action movie. That is, there is a healthy amount of pontification, flashback, wit, and dare I say it, drama. This comes as no surprise (or perhaps a huge one) to fans of the graphic novel, written by Alan Moore and illustrated by David Lloyd in the 1980s as a response to Margaret Thatcherismness. For various reasons across the net, Moore does not approve of this film, and even requested to be left out of the credits. Lloyd fully endorses it, however. I kinda like it. Anyway, there are some departures from the original, and other parts are exactly as they were first written. I myself have not read the graphic novel, so I can’t exactly be an over-zealous fan about every detail. The film I saw was beautiful, touching, bloody, and thought-provoking.

Some argue that it may provoke the wrong kind of thought, though. It appears that the graphic novel has more references to V’s moral ambiguousness than the film, which tends to depict him as a sort of Phantom of the Government Building. Will conservatism really lead to fantastically ridiculous maniacry? There are plenty of references to the current political scene in America and abroad. A Bill O’Reilly tv personality with a mouthful of spit, color-coded alert messages, Abu-Ghraib-ish black hoods for abductees.. and the Q’uran is suddenly a forbidden relic, real butter is reserved for the rich… You get the idea. I won’t deny that there is a heavy veil of propaganda surrounding this version of the story. Another notch on the liberal Hollywood-post? Maybe. For the setting - dystopia, fascism - the progressive themes may seem necessary to balance the message. The almost-unfair ‘criticisms’ are the only reasons why I notched off half a point of my own.

But really, it’s a great film. If people can’t see that V is a real terrorist with psychotic issues, well, I’d prefer not to associate myself with them. No one in this movie is right. Everyone is either brainwashed, or severely disturbed. And that’s alright with me. Remember, remember, the fifth of November had better bring me a DVD!

p.s. Stick around for the credits. There’s a sweet remix with some Indian (I think) tracks. You might also notice some Cat Power, Julie London, and Antony and the Johnsons interspersed throughout the film… Not to mention, Dario Marianelli’s instrumental score can be right riveting.

She’s so sensationalist. It’s maddening. I couldn’t help but balk at the screen when a clip of her interview with James Frey showed up… He said that his girlfriend didn’t actually die, and she had this oh-so-disgusted look, which prompted the audience to gasp. It’s not that he lied (which is another point).. it’s that Oprah is a mind-controller, and there are so many droids it’s sickening. (Analyze that, Dr. Phil.)

Memoirs are not accurate. They’re not “nonfiction” as a historical accounts. They’re not autobiographies, which are usually chonological accounts of a person’s life. Memoirs are part of a so-called fourth genre, Creative Nonfiction, the other three being poetry, fiction, and drama. Patricia Hampl wrote an essay called “Memory and Imagination,” in which she describes how we can’t possibly remember exactly what happens to us. Different people will give different accounts of the same incident. Remembering something is completely different than experiencing it, because you’re capturing the after effects as well as what you think was what you felt. It’s a whole lot of psychology, sure. But even trying to remember what one wore the day before can be difficult. Of course, when you’re writing about something you might want to look things up, but there’s something almost magical about memoir writing, creative nonfiction. The genre itself blends all the categories. It’s essentially essay writing, but it’s much more than a technical thesis or a 3/5 concoction. Literary techniques are often used, including dialogue, intense description, plot, even insertion of poetry. The point is to engage the reader, to make him or her care about your writing, to keep him or her glued to your words until your purpose is made clear. It could be a story of redemption, of friendship, of anything. Even addiction.

In her essay, Hampl writes an account from childhood. In the paragraphs following it, she confesses that a few details were probably not accurate. This is mostly because she does not fully remember. Her impulse, as a creative mind and writer, is to create experiences with her words. Even in writing about an absolute truth, the way one describes it alters it significantly, which makes the genre difficult to classify since everyone might have a different style, and thus highly imaginative retellings. For instance, a writer might opt to merge two similar yet separate dialogues based on memory because together they enhance the tone of the passage. Technically, that is a false proposition. Really, that is a legitimate reaction to the dialogues that took place. They might as well have happened at the same time, they were so similar. And even, in the mind, they blur into each other.

This type of writing is an artform. The process of writing is a reaction to thought, since everything happens in the brain anyway. It is expressive, imaginative, gritty, descriptive, minimalist, ironic. An excellent example would be a memoir of Maxine Hong Kingston’s, The Woman Warrior. It’s a highly painted piece about parts of her life as a Chinese-American. At one point, she becomes very ill after doing something she regrets. Her writing takes us through all sorts of twirling visions, places she couldn’t possibly have gone to in her state. But that is what she writes. It describes how she felt at that time. The first chapter, entitled “No Name Woman,” is another intense and intricate narrative that chronicles her paternal aunt’s despairing quietus after bearing a child out of wedlock. It was set in a small Chinese village perhaps a hundred years ago. Kingston could not possibly have witnessed any of this, and her parents never said much of it, since her aunt’s family denyed her of her name, never speaking of her after the disgrace. Yet her book is labeled a memoir. It is placed in the nonfiction section, even though there is an entire chapter called “White Tigers” that reads more like a kung-fu film than anything else. It was named one of the top ten nonfiction books of the decade by Time in 1979.

A memoir is just that.. based on memory. Anyone can write a memoir. It does not have to encompass one’s entire life. An author may have many memoirs to his or her name. This doesn’t mean they are all worthy of Oprah’s Book Club, divine association that it is. I’m not saying James Frey’s book is any good or bad. I’ve never read it. I don’t plan to. I can’t make complete judgments about it, so I won’t. Exaggerating jail sentences by more than two months, writing about someone’s death when it never happened… that may seem pretty criminal. Frey didn’t even have to put a disclaimer in the book; just saying in interviews that it’s a highly personalized and imaginative account would have sufficed. Oprah is angry because he didn’t say that. He said it was all real. Sure, that’s wrong. But the book isn’t wrong on principle, if anything. Although Frey first categorized it as a work of fiction, it would seem that it’s a memoir, not an autobiography, not a textbook. It’s not written by scholars.

What exasperates me the most about Oprah is her pointless attachment to her hot button issue. She’s a dramatist, that’s obvious. Why does she care so much that this guy exaggerated to the extreme? Didn’t it pump her heart faster? Didn’t she spend tons of time and money in supporting it? I know she said she feels “duped” or “hoodwinked” or “punk’d,” but it seems like a truly meaningless fight. It doesn’t do much for the clarification of the creative nonfiction genre, either. As I said, I haven’t read the thing, and I know that some facts were severely altered. I’m not saying that’s not a bit odd. But I’m also not saying that it isn’t something created from memory, which entails much more. The point is that this is not the biography of John Lennon. It’s a personal book, first passed off as fiction probably because it seemed too radical for people to accept it as based on a true story. Am I saying Oprah’s acting like the Lord of the Rings fan who protests the inclusion of Arwen in the films, even though those dialogues never occured in the books? I think I am.

I’d just like to include this passage from an article found in the New York Times.

Asked yesterday by Ms. Winfrey about the dental episode, he replied, “I wrote it from memory,” a statement that elicited gasps from Ms. Winfrey’s audience. He added, “I honestly have no idea” whether or not he received Novocaine or any other painkiller.

The more Mr. Frey revealed, the more heated his confrontation with Ms. Winfrey became. “Since that time, I’ve struggled with the idea of it — ” he began to say in reference to his root canal, only to be cut off by Ms. Winfrey.

“No,” she said, “the lie of it. That’s a lie. It’s not an idea, James, that’s a lie.”

No, Oprah. It could very well be an idea. That is what essayists struggle and triumph with every day.

*I don’t really hate Oprah. That was an exaggeration. This disclaimer is intended for those in need of definitive clarification.

Also, I do believe that the exaggerations Frey made are more than a bit ridiculous, and that people should have known of its veracity, or lack thereof. The reactions are what prompt me to write so critically.

Made by me for you. Have a great weekend, everyone.

The three visual-communication design graduate students from Kent State University use rubber stamps and do-it-yourself screening techniques (borrowed from the Uni) to create the darling little masterpieces. Their posters mainly fill the Cleveland venues hosting some of the hippest, happeningest little-known acts around. They include (but are definitely not limited to) Calexico, Spoon, Ted Leo, French Kicks, LCD Soundsystem (with M.I.A.), Decemberists, Walkmen, Modest Mouse, and Animal Collective.

Merging passions – say, graphic design and music – and being successful at it is one of the greatest-sought jobs. Little Jacket are actually more multifaceted than it would seem, having done identity branding to bottle labeling. Ah, the young and fruitful. May all ye fair well, live long, prosper, eat chowder, all that jazz.

Records seen tumbling as Harry Potter goes on sale Sat Jul 16, 2005 12:32 AM BST By Michael Perry and Mike Collett-White SYDNEY/LONDON (Reuters) - Witching hour passed and Harry Potter fans poured into bookshops around the world on Saturday, snatching up copies of the latest instalment in the series that promises to be the fastest-selling book in history.

Ending months of hype, and elaborate measures to prevent details of the boy wizard’s latest adventures leaking out, “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince” hit the shelves at one minute past midnight London time. Children from around the world descended on the Scottish city of Edinburgh, where Potter author J.K. Rowling began reading from the latest book as soon as the deadline passed. In Sydney, Australia, about 300 Potter fans crammed into the city’s largest bookshop waiting for secured boxes of books marked “embargoed” to be opened. More than 1,000 followers were aboard a special train called the Gleewarts Express, which took them to a secret location outside the city where they would receive their copies. Train owner Roger Mackell refused to disclose their destination. “They are going to another land. If I told you where, I’d have to kill you,” he joked. In London, Pottermania broke out with hundreds of parents and children queuing outside bookshops. “Every book just gets bigger and bigger,” said David Roche of Waterstone’s book retailer, speaking hours before the launch. “It’s like a film premiere now but for a book, which is quite extraordinary. We had 2,000 people queuing in the West End the last time a Harry Pottter book came out; we anticipate the queue is going to be even bigger this time.” STAGGERING FOREACSTS Staggering sales forecasts may explain why so much time and effort has gone into protecting the contents of the sixth and penultimate book in the Harry Potter series. Waterstone’s predicts the book will sell over 10 million copies worldwide in the first 24 hours. Around 275 million copies of the first five books in the series have been sold to date and three Harry Potter movies have grossed $2.5 billion (1.4 billion pounds). With book sales likely to run into the tens of millions, when a handful of copies were inadvertently sold before the deadline in Canada, purchasers were ordered not to disclose its contents, and, according to media reports, even not to read it. A website offering what it claimed was an electronic version of the book was closed down, and two British men were charged last month with firearms offenses after allegedly trying to sell a stolen copy of the Harry Potter book to a tabloid newspaper. Retailers are engaged in an aggressive discount battle. “There is no sign of the sales figures waning, and booksellers have been working hard on marketing and the discounting has been even heavier,” said Caroline Horn, children’s book expert at the Bookseller magazine. “That’s what it is about this year — market share.” Rowling first thought up the Harry Potter character in 1990, and after the original book “Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone” was turned down by several publishers, Bloomsbury (BMY.L: Quote, Profile, Research) finally offered to print it. The adventures of Harry Potter and his friends at Hogwarts School of Wizardry and Witchcraft have won over a new generation of young readers and been adapted into a movie series. They also made Rowling the wealthiest woman in the United Kingdom, with a personal fortune estimated in 2004 at $1 billion.

A bewitching (and confabulous) account of a broomstick ride is to come when July 16th hits the EST.

From CTV.ca

Publisher fights leak of new Harry Potter book Harry Potter’s latest secret may have already slipped out in Vancouver, but publishers of the best-selling books hope the magical allure of author J.K. Rowling’s autograph will get it back under wraps. Rowling’s sixth novel about the young wizard is not scheduled to be released until Saturday, but a Vancouver grocery store accidentally sold 14 copies of the book last week.

Raincoast Books Ltd., which distributes the books in Canada, said a “small number” of the books were sold. Raincoast won a court injunction banning the buyers of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince from disclosing the plot. The court also ordered all copies to be returned to Raincoast. “Please contact Raincoast Books and return the copies of Harry Potter to our possession,” pleaded Jamie Broadhurst of Raincoast Books on CTV News. “At one minute past midnight on the 16th, we promise to return to them the hard cover version along with a signed autograph from J.K.Rowling and a T-shirt.” Millions of copies of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince are expected to be distributed to stores around the world and publishers have launched big security efforts to keep the wizard’s adventures a secret until the official release date. Raincoast Books, along with Bloomsbury Publishing PLC of Britain and author Rowling, were granted a so-called “John and Jane Dow'’ injunction last Saturday in B.C. Supreme Court. The injunction restrains anyone who has directly or indirectly received a copy or any other form of disclosure of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince from disclosing all or any information from the book before 12:01 a.m. on Saturday. The book’s authorized publicity machine is, of course, exempted. The court order also calls for anyone who receives unauthorized material from the book to turn it in to the publishers and delete any electronic copies. Raincoast and other Harry Potter publishers struggled to maintain their embargo on the last book, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, in June 2003. A Wal-Mart store in Quebec accidentally sold a few copies before the official release date and Raincoast staff patrolled the Internet to look for any possible leaks. A day before the book’s release, the publisher got a court injunction to keep a newspaper from printing an early review. Rowling’s chronicle of a young English sorcerer’s adventures have sold more than 200 million copies worldwide.