Category: Uncategorized
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Empathy and Technology – Damned Journalists
This is the first in a series of posts about Empathy and Technology. The next installment will be on Surveillance — As you may know, I have been following the Leveson inquiry into media ethics in the UK and it continues to yield amazing entertainment and insights. Among other things it demonstrates how very little…
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Bradley Manning’s Day In Court
Today, after almost 18 months in solitary confinement, having been denied access to lawyers, to family, to the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture, and even having been denied clothes, Bradley Manning will for the first time face a judge. At his pre-trial hearing he will be formally charged with – among other things – “Aiding…
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Improvising Poetry and Our Digital Future
A couple days ago I posted a recording called Where The Bears Go by my duo The John Waynes (so named because it consists of John Sobol (me) and Wayne Kelso). Today I posted a second recording by The John Waynes called The Evil I. For those keeping score, Where The Bears Go is a…
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The Evil I by The John Waynes
The Evil I by The John Waynes John Sobol (vocals) & Wayne Kelso (piano) All words and music in this piece are 100% improvised. No plans, no paper, no second takes. From the unreleased CD TRUCE. Image by Kiyotei Hear Where the Bears Go by The John Waynes Read about Improvised Poetry and Our Digital…
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Where The Bears Go – The John Waynes
Back in 2004, when I was running Digifest, I met an amazing musician and digital artist named Wayne Kelso. One day I went to his studio in the woods and we spent an afternoon improvising music and poetry. Wayne recorded our two 45-minute jam sessions. From those and a few other extended collaborations we extracted…
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Jazz: An Unfinished Conversation (Race and Language in the Digital Age)
Jazz was – among other things – a century-long political conversation between Black Americans and White Americans. It was a musical, intellectual and spiritual conversation within a highly politicized social context whose axes were language, race and power. Jazz was also a conversation about technology, and about techno-cultures. To be specific, in jazz the conflict…
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Franky Rousseau Large Band – Terrific Jazz By Any Other Name
Last week a friend sent me a link to this provocative blog post by famed jazz trumpet player, Nicholas Payton, who argues that jazz is dead. To me this isn’t news, since I wrote the same thing in a lengthy piece in Toronto’s eyeweekly back in 1992. And like Payton, who is being berated by…
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Phone Hackers vs Facebook – the Future of Privacy Part 2
Yesterday I wrote about the Future of Privacy in light of the ongoing Leveson Inquiry into phone hacking by journalists in England. But in another courtoom on the other side of the Atlantic yesterday, Facebook was being held accountable for its massive invasions of privacy. Specifically, the American Federal Trade Commission concluded that Facebook deceived…
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Phone Hacking and the Future of Privacy
I have been keeping tabs on the Leveson Inquiry in the UK, which continues to deliver the most astonishing insights into contemporary media culture and its effect on the lives of British citizens. Today’s testimony was perhaps the most remarkable yet, although its hard to measure degrees of amazement when almost every witness offers mind-boggling…
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When Bad Things Happen to Good Bassists
Anyone who has gotten out to hear good music in Montreal over the last half-dozen years or so has likely spent a fair amount of time in Casa del Popolo and Sala Rossa, the two cozy and creative music venues founded by Godspeed You Black Emperor bassist Mauro Pezzente. Mauro also programs the amazing and…
SOBOLTALK 