MUTO a wall-painted animation by BLU from blu on Vimeo.

Back in February I was sent this short film. The short was up for an Oscar and, the creator Josh Raskin, was a friend of a friend (of a friend, I believe.  there was a postal courier in there somewhere).  Point being, in a matter of moments, I was drooling over the incredible amount of creativity, the simplicity and complexity, the hand-drawn and motion graphics (note the great pen illustrations by James Braithwaite).  Mostly, however, I was consumed with the beautiful way in which it integrates the possibilities of what can be done when animation strikes a chord with a social/political message.  Much the same way I saw Knife-Party achieve this with What Barry Says, I Met the Walrus does this but with something more: character.  There’s something about this short that separates it, allows it to be nearer, to be warmer and palatable in a way that I find both charming and inspiring.  Likewise, it has of way of using a moment from the past that hearkens to a sentiment of our own current awareness.

In any case, I am big fans of Raskin and all his crew.  I wish them the best and I look forward to see what they come up with next.

“Our strategy should be not only to confront empire, but to lay siege to it. To deprive it of oxygen. To shame it. To mock it. With our art, our music, our literature, our stubbornness, our joy, our brilliance, our sheer relentlessness – and our ability to tell our own stories. Stories that are different from the ones we’re being brainwashed to believe. The corporate revolution will collapse if we refuse to buy what they are selling – their ideas, their version of history, their wars, their weapons, their notion of inevitability. Remember this: We be many and they be few. They need us more than  we need them.” – Arundhati Roy

“….We are the ones we’ve been waiting for.“ -Barack Obama

As some of you can attest, there is nothing more awkward that having political arguments with family. On one hand, there are issues of respect, love and admiration for those that have been there in your formative years. Then on the other hand, one must juxtapose that [almost to a point of an integration of value/belief] with what you have have learned, what you have found; the knowledge you have picked up along the way.

In any case, lest this post detract from something it isn’t (though perhaps it is), recently in my own searching I have found an amazingly intelligent woman I put on par with the likes of Susan Sontag and Arundhati Roy: Naomi Klein.

If you’ve been finding yourself walking past this book -Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism- because the cover appears questionably like all of the other partisan books out there, stop and pick it up. The arguments laid out by Klein are well-formed, thought out and incredibly thick with research; in short Naomi has done her homework (for 4 years) writing this book.

In fact, and perhaps unlike other partisan diatribes sold on bookshelves, Klein has posted her documents -her research- online. This includes everything from U.S. senate reports investigating the US Government and the relation of the ITT corporate influences intervening in Chilean politics (eventually leading to the U.S. backed institution of the tyrannical, Gen. Augusto Pinochet), to letters of economist Andre Gunder Frank decidedly breaking ties with the “Chicago Boys” school of economics. These Chicago Boys being students studying a theory -developed by Milton Friedman- based on free open-markets (“wide-open!”) which eliminates all state-funded programs and privatizes everything from schools *(as we’ve just recently seen in the wake of Katrina) to utilities like power, water and infrastructure.

Based on this book, Alfonso Cuarón (Great Expectations, Y tu Mama Tambien, Children of Men) made this short with his brother Jonás Cuarón. Cuarón adds the visuals (from found footage, CIA manuals, etc) where Klein’s book gives the research compounded in 677 pages.

Whatever your stance, it’s worth picking up a book as well-developed as Klein has accomplished.

I’m still rooting for her Pulizter.