What does a book mean in Cuba? A cell phone in Iran? What do the millions of miles of fibreoptic cable wound round the earth mean to you, to me? How are those meanings changing? How are our changing tools changing our world? Changing us? These questions concern artists in every corner of the world,... Continue Reading →
Thanks Max. Thanks Phil. Max is Max Middle, poetic curator, and Phil is Phil Minton, veteran vocal confabulator from the land beyond the sea and maestro of Ottawa's briefly resplendent Feral Choir, which I was part of, one of 25 growling, howling vocalists in sensible shoes. (Nikes in my case. Phil wore Chinese slippers.) We... Continue Reading →
Hi. This post lists and links to my first 50 posts on this blog, indexing 50 brief critical essays on contemporary media culture. Topics include The Leveson Inquiry, Occupy Wall Street, Privacy, Music, Food, Economics and more. Try one. 1. Happy Birth Day! my blog is born 2. Gifts and Books, Books and Gifts books as... Continue Reading →
It occurs to me that if the result of climate change was 'global freezing' rather than 'global warming' we'd be paying a LOT more attention to it. If instead of recent years being the hottest on record they were the coldest, people would be sitting up and taking notice. People don't like the cold. A... Continue Reading →
A few weeks ago I gave a talk at the Toronto Reference Library as part of an excellent series called Treehouse Talks. It was a lovely event, attended by about 100 people and held in the spectacular 5-story atrium of the library. I gave an updated version of the talk that I call Know Your... Continue Reading →
A few months ago I did a music and poetry gig at Casa el Popolo in Montreal, a club I have previously written about in another post, as part of Ian Ferrier's Words and Music series. Fortunately Zoe Toupin happened to be there videotaping, and as a result I have now got a few new... Continue Reading →
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... Continue Reading →
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... Continue Reading →
Until we understand that stories are beginnings and not ends we will be ruled by Terminal Thinking. (When a story is seen as an end and not a beginning, that is Terminal Thinking.) Until media is made to be transmitted through the many to many, and to be changed in transmission from each to each,... Continue Reading →
I have been talking about the need for leadership from the digital sphere to offer new models and strategies for the Occupy movement, strategies that are not reactive and not based on 'fixing' the existing financial system. But we also need leadership from oral elders who can reorient the Occupy movement away from self-defeating aims... Continue Reading →
YOU ARE YOUR MEDIA 