Gopher Staffer and licenced biologist Angie Nicolás has some sleep issues. From her wonderful, sleep deprived but still scientific mind, we were able to convince her to write about a topic that had been personally bothering her: birds that go chirp in the night. While Ms. Nicolás might annihilate us for writing an intro to her piece (we’re sneaky like that!) we feel proper introduction is warranted, because we too are plagued with that admirable bug, curiosity. [...]]]>

Gopher Staffer and licenced biologist Angie Nicolás has some sleep issues. From her wonderful, sleep deprived but still scientific mind, we were able to convince her to write about a topic that had been personally bothering her: birds that go chirp in the night. While Ms. Nicolás might annihilate us for writing an intro to her piece (we’re sneaky like that!) we feel proper introduction is warranted, because we too are plagued with that admirable bug, curiosity. Uncharitable, irritated and semi-academic: that’s just the way we like it!

On Altruism

Big questions. What motivates creatures to help others in need? Is it possible to help just for the sake of helping?

A few days ago, I woke up to some high-pitched chirping. I got up and walked to my window to find the culprit in fraganti: a chick yelling for food [I know nothing about birds and even less at 5 am on a Saturday, but it looked like some kind of greenish thrush]-. I cursed the moment we decided to put a bird feeder on our window. I put a few pieces of banana on the plate and staggered back to bed. But  the annoying chirping returned only ten minutes later. A second bird had arrived (perhaps some kind of rufous collared sparrow), this time an adult, but much smaller than the crying chick. It was quietly eating the fruit and the chick watched him while it kept crying. Anyone would have had the same thought I did, throw something at it to make it stop (no worries, just a thought, no animals were harmed during the writing of this article). But then I saw something I wasn’t expecting. At all. The little sparrow grabed a piece of banana and stuffed it into the thrush’s beak.The sparrow fed a non-relative chick, almost twice it’s size, right in front of me. Why would it do that? What does the bird have to gain-other that to stop listening to such an annoying noise?
Back in the eighties Jambo, an almost legendary gorilla from Jersey Zoo, unleashed the idea of animal compassion on the collective consciousness when he refrained from attacking a kid that fell defenseless and intrusively into his cage. More recently, when we- again-thought we had seen it all, Lakadema, the leopard from this video, left us with even bigger questions.

Altruism? Cute Overload? Call it what you will, but it got me ruminating about that most ancient of questions: why would a creature help another willingly incurring harm upon itself? Saints, and heroes we hear about constantly, but what about those dolphins who have helped humans in danger? I find these cases bewildering (Flipper, anyone?!) So I started wondering where does the debate about altruism currently stands. This is the first of a two-part series of articles on altruism, for now, we’ll start with animals and then move on to humans.
Altruistic individuals are those who will incur personal costs to increase the benefit of another. Any biologist or nature show-lover would begin serenading you with the birds and the bees: examples of acts of altruistic appearance towards fellow members of a same species go from Thomson’s gazelles’s famous stotting, through crazy lemmings committing collective suicide  – Jonestown style – and Meerkats taking turns to watch for predators to the golden unbeatable classic: the kamikaze sting of the honey bee. But I don’t quite feel like singing, and having this problem of altruism fresh in my mind, I figured I’d do a little research.

The issue of altruism is highly debated among people who study animal behavior (aka ethologists). Altruistic acts are usually explained from one of the four following points of view: first, help is given for personal benefit, that is, selfishness in disguise. Perhaps the wise little sparrow was only protetcing itself from nearby predators that would be attracted to the call of the loud chick, and stuffed the chick with banana to shut it up? People like George C Williams suspect helping behaviors evolve as long as the helper himself benefits from it.

The second big hypothesis, led by Dr. Robert Trivers is that altruism in animals is an expression of simple reciprocity, – some sort of tit for tat. I’ll help you today if you help me tomorrow. This one doesn’t sound too convincing in the case of my shouting thrush but it seems like a reasonable explanation in cases like Wilkinson’s vampire bats. Vampire bats die if they spend more than 60 hours without feeding on blood, so when a vampire comes out from a long hunting night empty handed, its life might literally depend on how generous its fellow neighbours are (original paper here). This is observed in species with traits like individual recognition, good memory, spatial contiguity. Seriously, if you’re going to be hanging wing to wing everynight, perhaps it’s not such a bad idea to live in good terms, right?

The thrid theory postulated that altruistic acts are individual sacrifices for the good of the species. Group selectionists, like V.C Wynne Edwards, claim that a group, such as a species or population, whose individual members are willing to sacrifice themselves for the welfare of the group may be less likely to go extinct than a rival group whose members place their own selfish interests first. This hypothesis seemed appropriate for school teachers, confident that nature was setting an example of good behaviour, some sort of moral path to follow that could inspire us to help anyone in need even if it meant risking one’s neck. Oh, and don’t even get me started on the clerics using this to argue for the existence of a pie in the sky…!

The fourth and last of our hypotheses comes from the school of W.D. Hamilton who pooped on that noble intentions party with his ill-manered theory. He argued that although group selection sounds great, there is really no such thing as acting for the perpetuation of the species and that instead, what we’re looking at is kin selection in action. That is, by helping my relatives, I’m indirectly helpíng my own genes. So much for the comforting idea of kind, altruistic animals. According to Hamilton’s rule,  a living being’s “willingness” to help someone else is proportional to  their degree of relatedness. Translation: stop expecting second cousins to help out in emergencies, after all sharing 1/32 of your genes isn’t that strong of an incentive to take chances for you.

In nature then, we shouldn’t really expect a creature, social or not, to expose itself to predators, starve or even consider extra energy expenditure, without some benefit for the survival of its genes or genes related to it.  However, and to dismay of ethologists everywhere, nature’s survival race seems to have a few minimal and discrete pauses. Altruism, or at least acts that can be interpreted as such, do exist in the natural world but are difficult to explain from a Darwinian point of view, in spite of the attempts still proposed by group selectionists . At the very least one has to admit that we still don’t have a plausible explanation for what Jambo, Lakadema and the dolphins did with strangers. They might have acted in response to an odd reflex, but where did that reflex come from?

There is experimental evidence showing that chimpanzees act altruistically toward other genetically unrelated chimpanzees and even (scandal!) towards humans. It is already hard enough for us to understand the act of helping between organisms of the same species. Imagine now having to explain why -and I mean an evolutionary why- does an animal help a fellow member of different species, someone not even remotely similar to itself or its acquaintances and whose benefit or success is very unlikely to have an effect on their own. Acting in a controlled setting, chimpanzees performed basic helping tasks in the absence of rewards spontaneously and repeatedly. The mechanisms by which these kinds of helping behaviors in chimpanzees can be maintained as evolutionarily stable strategies remain unknown. But they, as the dolphins we mentioned, and as Jambo and Lakadema, bring nothing if not anecdotal evidence supporting an altruistic argument. The question, however, remains: why?

-Opening eagle image was borrowed from friendly Ross Lewallen. You can enjoy more of his nice paintings  here.

It was a rainy summer afternoon when I discovered her in the attic above my mother’s bedroom, hidden beneath a thick layer of dust and surrounded by a fortress of boxes and spider webs. She was an old Minolta, and with her I started practicing the very basic skills that I could teach myself from the library’s old-fashioned manuals or by imitating the photographers with big cameras on the main boulevard. Before long I found myself snapping all sorts of things around me: the zigzagging [...]]]>

It was a rainy summer afternoon when I discovered her in the attic above my mother’s bedroom, hidden beneath a thick layer of dust and surrounded by a fortress of boxes and spider webs. She was an old Minolta, and with her I started practicing the very basic skills that I could teach myself from the library’s old-fashioned manuals or by imitating the photographers with big cameras on the main boulevard. Before long I found myself snapping all sorts of things around me: the zigzagging ant lines in the backyard grass, our bathroom’s toilet roll, the talking parrot at the supermarket and the never-ending traffic jams of Caracas. Soon, photography was more than just a hobby to me, and even though I enjoyed seeing a big part of my life through the lens of the camera I felt that I wanted to capture much more than just my immediate surroundings. I wanted to see beyond the 18mm of my macro lens, and get to know all those places I had heard of and read about in movies and books.

As a curious teenager I was lucky enough to be awarded a scholarship to study for two years at the Li Po Chun United Wolrd College of Hong Kong, and this is how I started the journey from my beloved Venezuela to the faraway lands of Asia, where those breathtaking National Geographic cover photographs finally came to life in front of me.

It was also a rainy summer afternoon when I landed in Pyongyang. Stepping out of the plane I could hardly believe that I was in the capital of one of the most reclusive countries in the world: the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. I blinked several times to make sure it was real. As part of one of my school’s projects, we had gone there to forge links with the aim of including North Korea in the list of countries that send young teenagers from all over the world to study at the United World Colleges, which were founded precisely to promote peace and cultural understanding among young people.

Zoom in. Focus. No click. Something stopped me. “Photography is not allowed without authorization,” said one of the guides that had been assigned to our group. It took me a minute or two to put the lens cover back on but I kept holding up the camera, somehow wanting her to see past that black plastic blindfold. As I would notice later on, in that land she was object of furtive glares, she was feared and frowned upon. I felt frustration and impotence. It surprised me how much I was affected by this, especially because I had been warned about the strict regulations in the country. Anywhere else, it would have been so easy for me to carry her around and capture an expression, a moment or a landscape by simply pressing a button. Not in there.

To me, North Korea was beautiful like the Kimilsungia, unique like the Korean people and bittersweet like a plate of fermented Kimchi. The country had the colors of a black and white movie filmed in 1953, and the roar of military choirs that overlap the sound of high-pitched voices of gifted choir children. During my time there I learnt and realized many things: I heard facts about the country’s rich history and sociopolitical dynamic; I experienced the limitless idolization of Kim Il-Sung; I struggled with the language barrier while talking to An Kwan-Uk, a student my age with similar expressions of hope but such different life experiences, and I felt goosebumps while watching more than 100,000 people perform simultaneously at the Arirang Mass Games. I had the chance to go on a trip to a nation that is very little known and I felt honored to be there, although confused at times. Unexpectedly, in a foreign land the concept of freedom also stopped being foreign to me. I went into North Korea thinking that they did not have a notion of what freedom was, but there I realized that I did not even have it myself. Studying in a place where being free and independent is encouraged, I realized that I had gone there promoting those ideals without really knowing what it meant not to have them.

I look at photography as a link to my other passions, and not just as a filter through which I see my surroundings. I went into a country with a very different reality than the one I am used to, and I looked at it not only through the lens of that old Minolta, but with my own eyes. I used to understand freedom as the possibility to load a camera and take photographs without limitations, but it was not until after North Korea when its true meaning became more real and less abstract to me. I discovered the importance of something that up till then had been a tacit component of my life, and only by understanding what it meant not to have it, could I realize what I did have and what I loved about it: the ability to speak my mind, raise my voice and press click with my camera.

You don’t get your passport stamped when you first land into the country, after getting off the only weekly flight from Beijing. The sole proof there is from my visit to the DPRK are my pictures; the only personal witnesses, my camera and me. I’m not claiming absolute truth, as there are always two sides of the coin, but these pictures are my little glimpse into the Hermit Kingdom of Asia.

North Korean farmers are devoted to follow the 150 Days Plan –of intensified labor– established by the government from April to September every year. In the picture, a female farmer distributes fertilizer in one of the Cooperative Farms established throughout the country.

The concrete bricks of the Workers Party Monument stand firmly against the blue skies of Pyongyang.

During the Great Leader’s birthday celebrations, more than 100,000 North Korean performers take part in the breathtaking Arirang Mass Games, which narrate the national history and show political messages through amazingly choreographed movements.

Pictures of the Dear Leaders overlook the baby cribs at a North Korean orphanage.

Streetlights are nonexistent in North Korea. Instead, traffic ladies wearing impeccable white uniforms direct the not-too-busy streets of the capital city. The reality is that only a small percent of the population is financially able to afford a car, and gasoline supply is extremely limited.

Pyongyang is unique and sweet-and-sour. North Korea is its own world within our world – complex, different, particular and ambitious as no other nation.

North Korean countryside differs very much with what is seen in the capital. In the picture, two farmers glare at a passing bus while they enjoy a midday rest under the shade of an improvised hut.

A talented North Korean girl flawlessly performs her accordion musical piece at the Schoolchildren’s Palace in Pyongyang.

Two North Korean girls run away from the camera at the Fountain Park in Pyongyang.

Two soldiers at guard near the negotiation huts where the 1953 Armistice was signed between the two Koreas. The ‘Demilitarized Zone’ of the 38th parallel that now divides them is the most heavily guarded border on Earth.

Pins featuring the portrait of Kim Il Sung are a common wearing for all North Koreans, as it is seen as a way through which they can pay their respects to the Great Leader. He died in 1994, but continues to be the President and the 20th century’s longest-serving head of state.

North Korea’s future generation still holds high hopes for the reunification between the northern and southern parts of the Korean peninsula. Each year the desired reunification looks less likely.

[ Note on first photo: The Reunification Arch stands over the (closed) highway that connects Pyongyang and Seoul, the capital cities of the two Koreas.]

Brooklyn-born global dweller Romeo Alaeff is an artist. Any sort of definition beyond that may be fuzzy or inaccurate, and his work itself blurs the boundaries between icon and art, funny and serious, traditional and experimental, and public and private. His explorations have taken some wild turns: Alaeff studied biomedical engineering before graduating as a photographer, going to graduate school for Fine Arts, detouring somewhere along the line to work as an animation editor and  writer for children’s shows like [...]]]>

Brooklyn-born global dweller Romeo Alaeff is an artist. Any sort of definition beyond that may be fuzzy or inaccurate, and his work itself blurs the boundaries between icon and art, funny and serious, traditional and experimental, and public and private. His explorations have taken some wild turns: Alaeff studied biomedical engineering before graduating as a photographer, going to graduate school for Fine Arts, detouring somewhere along the line to work as an animation editor and  writer for children’s shows like “Dora the Explorer” and Playhouse Disney’s “Go Baby!” We interviewed Romeo and learned about his views on the purpose of art, his documentary project featuring his family life and why New York is an awesome place to live.

When did you begin officially begin making art? For what reason?

Officially? Hopefully soon!  No, I dunno, always? But at first it’s not really about making Art with a capital A, or things that look like Art.  It’s really just a way of being, in my opinion, and for most I’d guess it’s not really a choice. It’d be like cutting off a hand not to do it, worse if it was the hand you drew with.  For me I suppose it skews more towards an obsession with what I see as an amazing and bizarre world.  I can’t help but cock my head like a confused dog when I think about it.  So I try in vain to make sense of it, I ask too many questions that can’t be answered, try to connect it to other things rattling about in my head, and somewhere in there an idea develops. And then if that same confused dog also had a giant tapeworm eating out its insides, it becomes imperative to get it out.  So that’s reason, that is, no official reason, and that’s also the problem—you don’t always know exactly how to get it out.  Every medium falls short, but you try anyway, try to approximate the idea you had, tell the story, find a way recreate the experience for others.  And if you’re doing it right and taking risks—easier said than done–you fall on your face a lot. That’s most of it. Then you go ‘round again. Normally you’d learn to gain the strength and skill needed to wield a sword like a Spartan, and then you go to battle.  But in the case of art, trying to express the intangibles and paradoxes of the world, it’s like Xerxes troops are advancing and you’ve only got a butter knife.  But you keep swinging anyway until you hit something. In any event, win or lose, at least at first, I didn’t think it was Art.

What were your first attempts to express the “bizarre world” around you?
Writing was really the first way I tried to get that tapeworm out.  Along with other learning difficulties, I used to draw upside-down–that is if you sat across from me the drawing would look right to you. But those cute kindergarten Crayola drawings of houses and flowers and mummy and daddy and your dog and a smiling sun are ok for a while, but then your high school art teacher says, “Dude, why don’t you draw something else for God’s sake?”  Jokes aside, I was good at drawing but I wrote much more than I drew. Writing was more fulfilling because reading was more fulfilling and I could better express what I was observing in my fucked up life than I could with drawing back then. Having a drug dealer father, a borderline personality mother, changing religions a few times, moving from town to town, etc. I had a lot to think about.

Do you consider yourself an artist now?
I’d say grad school was the start of my real exploration of what it meant to be an artist, which is strange because MFA’s are a relatively modern institution that theoretically validates you to yourself and to the world.  Nowadays going to grad school somehow means you must be serious about being an artist because who in their right mind decides to take out huge loans for a “vocation” that most will never get a return on in their lifetime?  You’ve got to be really rich or really bad at economics to go.  But it was a great school even though I got a daily beat down. With the workload, the tearful critiques, the doubt, the technical hurdles, and the mammoth critical theory reading requirements, it was way more challenging than engineering, and I also didn’t feel like I belonged amongst the ranks of all the other uber-talented students there. That said, I wouldn’t trade my experience at RISD for the world. Well maybe the world. I don’t think I would have even understood what art could be for me or realize how many awesome weirdoes there were out there.  Still, with an MFA and all the rest, I feel a little uncomfortable using that proverbial word “Artist”—it has too many laden connotations and I get tired of the question, “So what do you do, landscapes or portraits?” I’m also tired of the questions, “Is that your real name?” or “Where’s Juliet?”

You employ a lot of different mediums. How do you decide which to use for any given project?

In general I’d rather people-watch than go to a gallery.  I’m more influenced by people, writers, philosophers, theorists, movies, advertisements, the Simpsons, etc. than art.  Among the philosophers, and maybe it’s a critical studies cliché, I was influenced by Lacan and Wittgenstein and I half-bastardized Wittgenstein’s idea of using the right tool for the right job—that is, I felt that writing could express things that drawing just couldn’t, drawing and painting could express things that film couldn’t, and so on, but none could express them fully—for me anyway. Some artists stick with a particular medium that through its mastery expresses some literal or abstract idea that has meaning for them. You can tell these artists by the subject of their work but as much, if not more, for their visual vocabulary–you know an Andy Warhol when you see one.  And that’s totally legit, but many artists I know, including myself work in reverse.  I start with an idea, really a question born of something I saw or read, and then I dunno, it’s not a conscious thing at first, it starts turning.  I make a lot of nonsensical lateral leaps, make jokes about it–I tend to think most things in life are kind of funny, often inappropriately. I draw in my journal, look at other artists’ work, read books on the subject, write, poke around on the internet. I try a few things visually, develop that, simplify it, and then I drop it for a while… Eventually it boomerangs back and I can never remember where it all started.

The downside is that you don’t get to master a medium and its subtleties over a lifetime. The upside is that you’re not locked into a way of doing things visually or otherwise.  It’s a trade-off.  You do still have to know your medium, but it’s not King. The visual to me is just bait, the fish is an elusive monster, it’s life–I make futile attempts to reel it in constantly as if it was even possible to do so.  The hardest part is running into the village like a crazy person trying your best to explain your experience to people who might not care or understand your gibberish if they did.  That’s the Art part for me–if art is communication of some observation about the human condition, then the medium used should be the best one that helps point to it—it’s super critical–but it’s a just means to an end.  It’s like Bruce Lee in “Enter the Dragon” when he points to the moon and his student looks at his finger and gets smacked as a result.  And to quote Bruce Lee in that movie, “Never take your eyes off your opponent.”  I guess I make what I consider to be more interactive experiments than “Art.”  I care most how the viewer engages with the work (or not) and why.  That’s how I learn. That’s what keeps me going.  I’m happiest when after someone looks at my work the conversation segues into a discussion about life and not the art itself, especially not the technical aspects of the medium.

Tell us about your series “The Evolution of Despair”

The “Evolution of Despair” project was one of those things that just happened.  I often listen to people’s conversations as well as things I catch myself saying to myself.  I started writing these sentiments down because they were often negative, tragic even, and I wondered why. It was sad, but there was also something absurd and funny about it.  I mean if evolution is supposed to make us more adaptable, then why would we have such destructive thoughts that seem to go against our very own well-being?  I’m attracted to animals in general–but for the record, not enough to have sex with one. Animals are strange creatures that I hardly believe exist when I see one, but I’m also interested in the way they’ve served mankind, aside from us eating them.  Fascination with animals and anthropomorphism is as old as Lascaux and as new as Toy Story 3—Gods, monsters, comics, movies, and pets—there seems to be no end to our need to project ourselves onto them.  Animals have always been the “scapegoat” for humans’ hopes and fears about the unknown world and the often-tortuous human condition.

Working in pre-school TV for so long it was kind of a no brainer to put the sayings and the animals together—a zillion cartoonists have already done this but I played around with it anyway.  In pre-school TV there is always a cognitive behavioral psychologist on board whose job it is to test episodes in children’s focus groups.  The idea is to ensure that the human problems solved by talking animals will help guide a child educationally and/or emotionally and not traumatize them—a lost baby animal not returning to its mother for instance can result a group of crying children, or maybe serial killers for all I know.  We watched these focus groups all the time and made adjustments to the shows based on feedback.  But what about adults?  Where’s our team of experts who will ensure that we keep growing up happy and healthy?  Well actually we do have them—tons of them: Religion, television, music, PR firms, consumer products, Hallmark, and pharmaceuticals are just a few of the things that are cashing in by telling us how to feel—yet we still feel crappy.  Just look at any self-help section of a bookstore—if that’s not a testament to how troubled our evolved selves are, I don’t know what is. So much so that publishers literally bank on it.

So these little creatures came about with the idea that though we laugh at or feel sympathy for the animals, we’re really pitying or laughing at ourselves, hopefully lightening the burden of our own baggage which no longer fits into the overhead compartment.  The fact that people have really taken to this project is interesting for me–which person identifies to which animal and why especially. On that note, the original drawings, started way back in 2004, were made into a sticker campaign–basically people were tagging the stickers around the world. Those stickers made it into a book being published by Rizzoli coming out September 2010 by DB Burkeman called “Stickers: From Punk Rock to Contemporary Art.”  It chronicles the history of sticker art and includes people like Shepard Fairey—the guy who did the “Andre the Giant has a Posse/Obey” campaign and the Obama “Hope” poster, Banksy, Jenny Holzer, etc.  Then I recently landed a book deal for the original art—not the sticker versions–with Plume, an imprint of Penguin Books slated for December 2011.  So for a project that wasn’t even a project to begin with, just sketching out a bitter-sweet and somewhat obvious observation I had, it has resonated for people and actually sold more than a lot of my more “serious” projects which have gotten a lot less, if any, traction—especially commercially.

Your film series “There’s No Place Like You” exposes very personal facets of your family, can you tell us more about it?

That’s tough one as it’s my oldest ongoing project and it’s hard to explain. Probably you’d have to see it for any of this to make sense.  It started in 1995 when I was in grad school at RISD, so about 15 plus years now.  Actually I changed the series name from its original name, “Still Life with You,” but I’m still torn between the two.

I guess the series was a product of having a family life full of tragedy, drama, contradictions, lies, uncertainties—you know, every family.  Sort of.  My dad–“Big Time Sam” they called him–was a mafioso/drug dealer/drug addict, which came with a lot of interesting things from mafia ties, to hustling diamonds in New York’s diamond district in the 70s, to the introduction of cocaine for fun and profit, women, armed robberies, freebasing, crack, prison… Well you get the picture.  He’s now a fugitive from the law which makes filming him a bit harder. My mom was arguably as crazy in her own way and she probably affected me, my sister and brother the most as she was stuck with the responsibility of raising us.  But all that’s not to say that there wasn’t a huge amount of love in the family as well—misplaced and warped maybe, but the point of the project was absolutely not to simply air our dirty laundry.  The microcosm of chaos that is my family raised so many larger questions about life, love and the pursuit of unhappiness that I had to show on it on film–writing or photos definitely didn’t do it justice—it sounded like fiction. And though everyone in the film is unapologetically forthright, it’s been frustratingly impossible to capture everything—you have to always have your camera at the ready and I always felt like I was missing critical moments. It was tiring.

What was the idea behind this series?

At the very beginning I was just looking for answers, but then I realized that via the pandemonium I could explore bigger questions that kept coming up about belief, identity and the notion of truth, which, despite violent claims to the contrary, was always in flux.  Since very few people could identify specifically with my story, I felt I had to make the subtext about something that was more commonly experienced, something a lot of people could identify with.  The first film was called “Believe” and it wasn’t only as it seems to be about finding the “truth.” It was really about accepting the fact that most contradictions in life will never be sorted and that empirical evidence often is nowhere to be found.  How, especially in your formative years, do you construct an identity and belief system if everyone is telling you something different?  You can’t.  You have to give that up and get comfortable being uncomfortable–over time your values solidify based on your own experience. It’d be nice to have a parent, a mentor, or some stable truth to lean on, but not everyone gets that and you have to just learn to roll with it. If you treat the fucked up-ness as a given and not the subject, then it’s really about how one navigates that terrain, the family dynamics, the tragedies, and the flip side of tragedy, which is usually my take on things, the humor… But very dark humor.  I’m mean you’re either gonna laugh or cry… Or both.

Tell us about your “Bibliography” Project

That’s a long story too, and I’ve been waxing on, but in short, I’m interviewing iconic cultural figures from actors to musicians to politicians, authors, artists, dancers, scientists, etc.  I’m asking them to pick out the books that have been the most influential in shaping their worldviews.  I’m then stacking those books in 6-10 foot towers and drawing them with an archaic process using silver, gold and copper-point as an alternative to the typical photographic or painted “portrait.”  The metals in the drawing will tarnish and patina over time, so I like that they are living breathing objects. One’s bookshelf, especially in this case, is a way to present one’s ideal self, so there’s a lot of reading between the lines.  There are also video interviews that allow people to expound on the books they’ve chosen.  I’m using my own variation on the “Proust Questionnaire” that James Lipton from “Inside the Actors Studio” and “Variety” magazine use to interview celebrities.  Some of the questions are not just about the books or the person’s career.  Some are very personal because I want to get at how one thinks about the world.  I ask questions like, “Who is your favorite fictional hero?” and “Who is your favorite real-life hero?”  “What do you look for most in a friend or lover?”  That kind of thing. The whole project is a non-profit and the art will be donated back to relevant institutions.  Especially when I get a large enough sample size, a huge part of it will be an interactive website where one can see trends—for instance who all has the Bible in their stack?  Or Machiavelli’s “The Prince?” Do people from a certain generation, class, or sub-culture all read the same books and does that have any correlation to their way of thinking?  One could also put their own books in and see who else has read them-I think there will be a lot of surprises.  There’s a lot more functionality that I won’t go into now, but it’s kind of like a literary genome project.  A literary Pandora or like Amazon recommendations—you could find yourself exploring people that you might not have cared or known about otherwise. Based on that, there’s an educational component too.  Oprah for instance recommends books, but many don’t care so much about her picks because as much reach as she has, it’s a commercial endeavor and a lot of people don’t identify with her.  I’d like to see her most influential books, but not her best-seller picks. But a budding journalist might be inspired by an unexpected book cited by Bob Woodruff. Or an activist looking at Laura Dawn, the Creative and Cultural Director of MoveOn.org, might pick up a book that helped shape her politics. Or one might be interested in the literary influences of iconic writers like Erica Jong. Or musicians like Moby or David Bowie–not that Bowie is on board yet, but I’ve got my wish list! Or Gretchen Rubin’s “Happiness Project.” And so on.  I hope that this kind of hero-worship, for lack of a better word, will encourage reading and an interest in history.  There are institutions that will be able to dovetail into this part of the project and I’m working on that. I have a long list of people who are already participating or waiting in line–it’s coming along nicely, but I definitely need a lot more help with many aspects of this one, from structuring a non-profit, to coordination, to waivers, to technical support.  It’s an ongoing archive project that will hopefully continue past my involvement in it. If anyone wants to lend a hand, I could sure use one, or ten.

[all videos and images courtesy of Romeo Alaeff at http://romeoart.com]

Dear friends,

As many of you know by now, this Friday at 8:35am the first print edition of the Gopher Illustrated was born! we promise a much lengthier feature in the near future, but for the moment, witness in all its 90’s-style glory this animated gif which documents the first minutes of our very first encounter with our very first issue!

It weighed 0.98 pounds and smelled of pure ink and paper glory! Congratulations to all those mothers and fathers who made this possible! [...]]]>

Dear friends,

As many of you know by now, this Friday at 8:35am the first print edition of the Gopher Illustrated was born! we promise a much lengthier feature in the near future, but for the moment, witness in all its 90’s-style glory this animated gif which documents the first minutes of our very first encounter with our very first issue!

It weighed 0.98 pounds and smelled of pure ink and paper glory! Congratulations to all those mothers and fathers who made this possible! If you can’t wait to have one of these bad-ass tomes in your hands, drop by our shop!

More information, lots of pictures and more in an upcoming feature.

Much lovin’ and cariños,

Michu & Lope

Posting about climate change and a green conscience may strike some as preachy, and we at the Gopher have to confess a great deal of pickiness when it comes to reading up on it. Ruining the environment is bad, and being a composting expert will earn you friends in certain circles (be our friend! come oooonnnn). We, too, watched the Al Gore film and felt that gagging sensation through Food Inc, ok?! And as much as we enjoy some people’s hysterics, sandwich boards and [...]]]>

Posting about climate change and a green conscience may strike some as preachy, and we at the Gopher have to confess a great deal of pickiness when it comes to reading up on it. Ruining the environment is bad, and being a composting expert will earn you friends in certain circles (be our friend! come oooonnnn). We, too, watched the Al Gore film and felt that gagging sensation through Food Inc, ok?! And as much as we enjoy some people’s hysterics, sandwich boards and end-is-nigh yelling strikes us as slightly cult-y. Franke James is the opposite of preachy. She is the fairy godmother of green conscience, a concerned citizen and a terrifically talented storyteller. Today Franke lets us post some of her work (scroll down to read “No one will know, except you“) and answers some of our questions.

Why do you work on the theme of climate change?
Because climate change is the big elephant in the room for the 21st century. We need to wake people up to it! I want to grab people’s attention — and move them to action because I think future generations will be furious that we did not take action when we had a chance.
When I first started writing about global warming in 2006, I wrote some very long blog posts. I spent months researching them and interviewing people. In fact, my first article was over 5,000 words! It’s not surprising that I got almost zero response. Most people are busy and they don’t want to read long articles. I saw that my approach wasn’t working. People were not paying attention – and that was frustrating for me. So, I went back to the drawing board (literally). I started creating illustrated personal stories about green lifestyle changes I was making. I decided to tackle the hardest thing first. For me, that was selling our SUV. I documented that green act in my visual essay “My SUV and Me Say Goodbye.”
The SUV is such a potent symbol of our gas-guzzling, oil dependent culture that the sacrilege of giving it up struck a chord. It certainly shocked my friends and family. Their reactions were very funny and provided great fodder for my story. My brother-in-law called me a “granola-crunching, tree-hugging, whack job.” I’ve since gone on to create many more true-life stories about environmental activism.
The online essays attracted a publisher, and led to me publishing them as a book called “Bothered By My Green Conscience”. But, in a weird twist of fate, the printer made a mistake in printing the book. “No One Will Know, Except You” tells that story.
Amazingly that accident actually opened the door to a whole new opportunity. It inspired me to reach out and ask others, “What’s bothering your green conscience?” Now, I give Green Conscience presentations and art workshops at Universities and schools in Canada and the USA. I shoot video of students talking about what’s bothering their green conscience.
Recently, a Grade Six class sent me a wonderful thank you book filled with their drawings about their Green Consciences! So, that’s very, very neat. Through my art and storytelling, I’m helping people tune into their green conscience, and see that they can do more than just change light bulbs to fight global warming. They can make a difference by doing something green – and then documenting it through words, pictures, stories, dance, songs, etc….

Tell us a bit about the process of creating your visual essays.
I’ve been doing visual storytelling for about 12 years now. It’s evolved from telling client’s stories (software, educational and non-profits), to now where I’m telling my own stories.
I start with a blank canvas. I make the rules and know that I can do whatever I think is best.
My visual essays may look effortless – but they’re actually a challenging puzzle to put together. I start with a “burning” idea – something I can’t get out of my head and I want to express. I create a story structure by asking myself a series of questions:
What do I really want to say?
What’s my personal connection to this topic?
What’s the best way to tell this story?
What visuals will communicate my message quickly?
How can I make my message stick?
How can I move a reader to action?
I do a ton of research before I start. For example, when I was writing The Beehive and the Hairball, I got bottles of hair dye from a local salon and then Googled the chemical ingredients to understand what impact they have on human health and the environment. Mind maps help me make connections and generate the images to tell the story. I storyboard it all by hand in a journal before I go near my computer. Using those rough hand drawings I create the illustrations – or I go and take the photos. I use a Wacom tablet so that I can draw directly into my computer. Over the years, I’ve used both PC and Mac, but currently I’m on Macintosh.
The No One Will Know, Except You essay was very challenging to write. After all — I realized most people would read it and think, “Ok, Franke got her book published, so why is she complaining?” How can I write about this design disappointment (no red pages) and gain greater meaning so that it’s worthwhile and people will benefit from reading about my dilemma? How it all ended up was a fun discovery.

What inspires your aesthetic?
Staying tuned into what’s going on. I keep up to date on current news and books, especially on the environment and politics. I read a lot – we have a coffee table that is stacked full of books we’re reading. Twitter is also an inspiration. It helps me to connect with people who share international news, scientific research reports – and their reactions to it all — on a daily basis. I hardly ever watch TV. I go out to movies and plays with friends. I also draw inspiration from art history, which I studied for my MFA at university.

Describe a typical day for you.
In 2009, I published two books. Since then I’ve been doing a lot of traveling for speeches and workshops. So, my favorite ‘typical’ day in Toronto is when I can work on creative projects, like my visual essays. I get up around 6:45, do yoga and eat breakfast.
I read the news on my laptop, and twitter about the articles that catch my attention. Before I open my email, I do some goal setting. I think about what the “big rocks” are that I want to accomplish. Right now I’m at the planning stage on a new visual essay. I’m still storyboarding and figuring out the storyline. The next phase will be image creation and writing. Usually in the afternoon I go for a 5-mile walk. It helps to clear my head, give me perspective and generate new creative ideas.
My husband and I eat dinner late, around 8pm, so we can get our creative work done. (He’s a designer and programmer.) We cook dinner together – I’m trying to add more vegetarian meals to our diet since watching Food Inc. We light candles, listen to music and talk about our creative projects, books we’re reading and what’s going on in the world!
I feel extremely fortunate to be at this point where I can be a creative artist and author talking about what I think is important.

No one will know, except you

Writer and filmmaker Julio Ramirez is not just a friend but also an inspiration, genuinely. I first had the pleasure of meeting Julio in the summer of ’07, during an intense three-week screenwriting program (or soul searching session) at TheFilmSchool in Seattle. We were among only five students in the class under the age of 35, and Julio and I instantly bonded and developed a respect for each other’s worldview. A Colombian native, Julio has traversed the US and basically [...]]]>

Writer and filmmaker Julio Ramirez is not just a friend but also an inspiration, genuinely. I first had the pleasure of meeting Julio in the summer of ’07, during an intense three-week screenwriting program (or soul searching session) at TheFilmSchool in Seattle. We were among only five students in the class under the age of 35, and Julio and I instantly bonded and developed a respect for each other’s worldview. A Colombian native, Julio has traversed the US and basically done it all; from producing a music album to working as a human rights advocate.  He’s now a fulltime filmmaker. It came as no surprise when I heard about his first full-length project, Nothing Against Life, a film about suicide. Like Julio, the subject matter is deep, but it’s also deeply relevant. I decided that the best way to pay it forward was to write a piece about the project, so I sat down with Julio to discuss his film and find out more about the movement that he’s set into motion. Also check out clips from the movie as well as a short film Julio created (all the way at the bottom. No peeking!)

Pilot Trailer from Nothing Against Life Movie LLC on Vimeo.

This is your first feature. What made you choose such a dark subject?

In a way I really feel like it was the subject that decided to choose me. I was intrigued by the kind of motivations that people might have when they attempt suicide. In high school a friend of mine committed suicide and no one ever talked about it. It was completely inexplicable to all of us; we just didn’t know what to make of it. Then in 2001, while recovering from a painful hospitalization, I saw in the news this highly publicized suicide attempt in Seattle. A woman wanted to jump from the freeway to Lake Union. For some reason the event got stuck in my head; particularly the horrible response from some of the viewers. I couldn’t believe that they were mainly upset by the fact that the traffic had been interrupted. That really made me question the way we view other people’s struggles, especially since I was going through such a painful period of time. A few months later I was hanging out with two friends who also work in creative fields, and we ended up reflecting on the subject for several hours. That night I left my friend’s place determined to research suicide. But it wasn’t until I found myself ready to undergo a major surgery in order to survive that I realized I had to write this story. I guess one of the main reasons was the fact that at some point I didn’t want to wake up from the surgery. At the time that seemed better and easier than continuing to live in pain and with major health problems. But I woke up, overcame the obstacles, and ever since I’ve been determined to produce Nothing Against Life.

Has wearing the hats of the writer, producer, director, and actor all at once made the process more difficult or streamlined?

Well, I wore all those hats while producing the pilot videos including a thirty-minute short that became an independent piece, but I won’t be acting in the feature. I didn’t play all those roles by choice but because we had very limited resources. We couldn’t afford to pay anyone. It was very hard, but I wasn’t the only one playing more than one role. The few crew members, and in some cases even the actors, were constantly switching hats. It was a true labor of love on everyone’s end. For the feature next summer we are already building a team of young filmmakers who are willing to be a part of a collaborative creative process. Our intention is to make this a rewarding production for everyone. I feel a great deal of responsibility because many of them are getting a pay cut in order to be a part of our film. Some of us will only get paid if the film gets distribution. I guess a more clear answer to your question is that it has been very difficult to wear many hats while working under financial constrictions. But there are three things that I have very clear at this point: First, this is hardly my film any longer. This is the film of every crew member, actor, consultant, donor, collaborator and friend, who has become essential to this project. Second, between producing a film under very difficult circumstances due to the lack of financial resources, and not producing the film, the choice for us is clear: we are producing Nothing Against Life next summer. And third, we have a great deal of human resources and that’s the best asset that any project can have. These people are not infatuated with the glamour of filmmaking but with the actual process of filmmaking. I know that we will succeed no matter what.

What’s been the hardest aspect of making an indie so far?

I guess it’s got to be fundraising. It is a very distracting part of the process but is also essential for any project. It is very hard to focus on creativity when you have to worry about finances. The whole concept of asking people for money is already intimidating and exhausting. Some people make it easier for you either because they’re familiar with how the arts have been funded throughout history, or because they have been part of a similar concept. But for most people the idea of supporting the arts is as foreign as Camus’ character Meursault in The Stranger. Maybe they have heard of it, and maybe they even applaud the concept, but they simply can’t see themselves as an active force in that world. The other day I heard an independent filmmaker saying that he had to give the same speech at least five hundred times in order to find his ten investors. We remain positive and believe that within the next few months we will be able to find more people who will either make a donation or decide to invest in our film.

In the film, one of your main characters is asked, “What is a South American doing in Seattle writing about suicide?” Which elements of the main character are autobiographical, and what’s the real answer to that question?

Since the very beginning, I decided that one of the four stories had to be about an immigrant. A foreigner among foreigners, as I like to say. Seattle is a very diverse city and you often hear that it is difficult to find people who were actually born and raised here. I’m lucky to have many friends who are Seattle natives, but I went through a period of time where most of the people that I knew were from somewhere else. As an immigrant you can often feel like an outsider, so in a way it’s comforting when you feel that you’re not alone. While I don’t feel like an outsider any longer, I decided to start from that concept. That’s how Felipe slowly began taking on a life of his own. He was the most difficult character for me to write. I think that because Felipe is an immigrant, it was hard not to feel inclined to recreate his life with my own experiences and struggles. But creating those kinds of limits is not necessarily healthy for the creative process. I believe you must give yourself freedom in order to be true to your writing, so I decided to unleash the flow of ideas and was finally able to find the character. And while Felipe might have some similar struggles to the ones I’ve had in life, he is by all means an independent character with an independent set of experiences. I should also mention that his story started to be clearer as I begun working with the South American actor who will be playing that character in the feature film. As I said before, this production will be truly a collaborative creative process.

Nothing Against Life is not just a film. You’re also attempting to create a space for people to openly discuss issues surrounding depression and suicide with the blog. How do the two parts of the project add to one another?

When I first decided to research suicide, I was mainly intrigued by the kind of motivations that people might have when wanting to die. I think understanding mental illness is very difficult, and pretending to be an expert on the subject is rather inappropriate and irresponsible, but I have definitely learned a lot about the way suicide occurs in our culture. I conducted many interviews with suicide survivors and people who are either Bipolar or highly depressed. They were all unique stories but had many common elements. I found that for many people it’s hard to be open about this subject, mainly because they don’t want to be judged or misunderstood. If mental illness is understood, then we will be giving freedom to people who are at risk. They might feel that it’s okay to ask for help instead of hiding behind their struggles. While conducting the interviews I kept remembering how I was taught in journalism school that those who own the media have the power to affect the world. Then I quickly knew that in addition to producing Nothing Against Life I wanted to do something else in order to help. As you know, the media as a concept and in practical terms has changed drastically since the Internet was born. Also the way that film and music are presented to an audience has been shaped in the process. So I decided that I wanted to write a story that respects the creative process and doesn’t have a particular agenda, but that at the same time welcomes an open dialogue about suicide. And let me tell you, for some people, the short film and the concept of the feature have already been a good excuse to start that dialogue. We have received letters from people telling us their stories and thanking us for trying to create this space for dialogue. But I want to be emphatic about the fact that the side campaign has not affected the truthfulness of the storytelling process. On the contrary, it has giving us momentum and energy to produce the film.

Nothing Against Life: Artistic and Social Objective from Nothing Against Life Movie LLC on Vimeo.

Why did you decide to do the project in two languages?

When we produced the pilot and got ready to present the project we wanted to reach a wide audience. Presenting the project in both English and Spanish felt right not just because Spanish is my native language, but also because one of the characters, who in a way plays the role of a narrator, is an immigrant from a Spanish speaking country. We wanted to present it in a few other languages. I even started creating the Italian version and wrote some broken French, but the lack of financial resources didn’t allow us much time. I’m glad that we decided to present the project in two languages. The Spanish and Latin American media have been generous to us and that has given us a great deal of energy to keep working hard.

Have you found a more receptive audience or media attention in the US or abroad?

People have been great everywhere, and for that we feel extremely blessed. As I said earlier, some people have written us letters saying, “I love what you’re trying to do for this and that reason”, and “you must produce this film”, etc. But the media has definitely been more receptive abroad. I must say that I’m not surprised, because I have always found that while most people here in the United States are open, some can be rather skeptical at first. We are very grateful that we have gotten coverage from several newspapers and radio stations in Europe and Latin America, even though we don’t have big names attached to our project. They’re simply interested in the storyline and in the way we’re approaching the subject. They also like our idea of trying to create a space for dialogue about suicide. And it’s not like they’re saying that we have already succeeded, because we haven’t produced the feature yet, but they have seen the short and the documentary about the feature and become intrigued. They like what we’re trying to do, and they are curious about the final outcome of the project.

Actress Hillary Pickles as Wave

Why do you think people from Spanish speaking countries have been so supportive of the project?

Spanish speakers are very supportive of each other. People find it interesting that the story is in English but it has a Latin American character as the narrator. Suicide is a universal subject so why not tell the story from the perspective of someone who lives in a foreign country? Globalization has changed the way people live in many communities around the world. People from the United States have gone to live in many other countries and have contributed to different communities in many ways. Spanish speakers have done the same all over the world-, and for many decades now- but we are often overlooked. Spanish speakers from my generation love to travel and immerse themselves in other cultures. So I think that Felipe’s story-, which is one of the four stories that intertwine in the film- has in a way resonated with many of them. And again, we are very supportive and celebratory of each other.

What made you choose to shoot the film in Seattle?

Seattle has all of the elements that we need in order to tell our story. Not only is it a city with one of the highest suicide rates in the United States, but it’s also a city with a great deal of diversity. I have met each one of my characters here. Not once or twice, but many times. I am fascinated by the fact that I can truly meet a completely different person every day in this city. And I know that sounds very generic because we are all supposed to be different, right? But I have traveled a lot and have lived in different cities, and I still think Seattle is right up there when it comes to diversity. And something beautiful about it is the fact that people here are generally respectful of each other even if they completely disagree when it comes to important issues or lifestyle. I think this gives the city an air of sophistication that combined with the beautiful landscape, and the remarkable art and music scene, makes the city perfect to produce this kind of film.

With independent films, there’s a wide range of possibilities for where they can go. What would you like to do with the completed film, and how will you measure success?

Success is always a subjective concept, and even more in this context. We will be successful if people around the world, regardless of the number, think that we produced a beautiful film that made them feel something, or made them reflect about a particular aspect of their lives. We’re often changed by film, music, art and literature. If we have that effect on someone then we’re already successful. It might not happen right away but we’re committed to get the film to many places. Of course an important way of looking at this is getting theatrical release or any kind of distribution, and we will be definitely open to alternative choices. Also, we will be successful if Nothing Against Life helps to create the much-needed dialogue about the difficult subject of suicide. We will continue to use different tools to facilitate an open dialogue. We have even been asked if we would consider creating an educational piece once we finish the film, and we are very open to explore that possibility, but at the moment we need to be fully committed to respecting the process of telling the story. But there is room to do many things with our film. Again, times have changed, and I think that the film industry is reinventing itself. And independent filmmakers are playing a very important role in that process.

Any ideas for your next project?

I would like to look deeper into some ideas that I have been exploring with our cinematographer Carl Adelson. It would involve producing a film in a different country and potentially in a different language. But it’s too early to talk about that. One thing at a time. At this point we’re 100% focused on finding all the resources that we need in order to produce Nothing Against Life next August.

Nothing Against Life: The Short from Nothing Against Life Movie LLC on Vimeo.

[Gopher-friend and contributor Ashley Ellis is a freelance writer and filmmaker, and a founder of ALIVE and EmeraldCityArts. Images and videos courtesy of Julio Ramírez at Nothing Against Life ]

La Roue Sans Fin (2009)

Simon Bernheim is a French artist whose work “constantly evolves around the perception of words, signs and language. His project is to change the meaning of words and language away from its sense and towards its form.” (more here) We got in touch with him through the much beloved Estelle Hanania, and could not resist putting some of his work up. Bernheim has taken part in exhibitions and wall paintings in South Korea, [...]]]>

La Roue Sans Fin (2009)

Simon Bernheim is a French artist whose work “constantly evolves around the perception of words, signs and language. His project is to change the meaning of words and language away from its sense and towards its form.” (more here) We got in touch with him through the much beloved Estelle Hanania, and could not resist putting some of his work up. Bernheim has taken part in exhibitions and wall paintings in South Korea, Nigeria, Japan and Venezuela – where apparently, Gopher editor Lope had the opportunity to meet him.

His work on and around religious objects has captured some attention. These works accumulate and arrange religious objects into new pieces of art. Most of these trinkets are apparently collected by Bernheim himself during his worldwide trips. Form or totem, we like what we see.

Check back later and read about Simon, by the man himself!

Moodoom (2005)

Tell us about a typical day in your life
I don’t really have a typical day because I rarely work on the same projects. Maybe that’s why my pieces are so varied and my work can been confusing… If I wanted to have a typical day I would do anything but what I do. That freedom is not easy to take on everyday but that’s what keeps me going. Right now I working on sculptures, writings and playing bass with my band 10LEC6.

Awry (2007)

You completed wall projects in several cities around the world. What were these about? Why did you choose the cities you did?
In fact it’s not one project, but differents ones. Regarding my travels to Seoul, Busan, Caracas, it was thanks to a project called “WA”. It is a project of wall paintings all over the world with many artists. I have very good memories of Caracas! I wanted to paint a “Sign” on six differents places in Caracas.  So I divided the sign into six parts and painted it on differents walls. There were demonstrations , it was electoral time, rojo vs azul… a very special mood! The work I developped around “Sign” is very instinctive. I started this a very long time ago. It’s often described as a particular, cryptic language, but it is more a gesture, a sensation. I reproduce this gesture in many different ways, on many different objects, places, walls… The streets are the place where my  where my “Sign” belongs, certainly because this is where they were born. Right now I’m working on a project with a big brand to print “Sign” on the most famous object the brand makes, this project will be launched in 2011.

Wig

King's Hand (2005)

How would you describe your work to someone unable to see it?
In all my work and pieces, language, writing and symbols occupy an important place. I have a confused relationship wich language, which is not a problem for me, I see it more like a positive thing, like i’m lucky. I enjoy manipulating words, letters, sounds. This is the best way for me to discover why I love and hate – at the same time – to read, to write, to talk.

Do you have any advice for young aspiring artists that you would like to share?
I have no advice to give! except never answer any interview!

The Never Ending Cross (2008)

Paint Mixer (2004)

Wall Painting - Busan KTX Station (2007)

Lido Pimienta is a mother, an artist, a singer-songwriter, a screamer, a banana-sandwich eater, a student, a Colombian in Canada, a Canadian with dreams of Colombia.  She also has one of the best names we can think of. So we did what we do best, emailed her all starry-eyed and asked her questions about her life, her music and her plans and her views. This one is a real mixed media portrait, all images songs and text are of the artist’s [...]]]>

Lido Pimienta is a mother, an artist, a singer-songwriter, a screamer, a banana-sandwich eater, a student, a Colombian in Canada, a Canadian with dreams of Colombia.  She also has one of the best names we can think of. So we did what we do best, emailed her all starry-eyed and asked her questions about her life, her music and her plans and her views. This one is a real mixed media portrait, all images songs and text are of the artist’s creation.

Lido Pimienta – Progreso

Where do you live? What is your favorite thing about that place?
I live in London, Ontario, Canada and what I like the most about it is that there is revival of culture, independent media, and D.I.Y movements that are making it more exciting to live in and feel at home. I also live in Toronto, I go to school there and what I like the most about it is the subway late at night, the acoustics are great for singing when no-one is around!

Lido Pimienta – Humano (Sonora remix)

What influences your musical style? What do you aim to create when making music?
My most major influence is my deep(desperate) desire to return to Colombia. I kind of choke up just typing about it right now….I am musically influenced by a big list of people, I guess what I try to project and channel on stage is Las Cantaoras from the north coast of my country, especially the great Etelvina Maldonado. When creating the songs I start with the bass, the bass is the core of it all, the heart. Everything else falls into place afterwards. I write about love, about defending one’s freedom, about being a mother, about being poor and wanting to get ahead in life, about being gay and how ridiculous that it is still an issue to many…I talk about my personal struggle which many others can relate to, I sing in spanish, sometimes in english but the language is not really an obstacle, because the songs are intense, soul and heart full, I put all those ingredients together and bake a song that tastes like love. Something like that…

What is a typical day like for you?
I take my laptop from under the bed, check on my baby, make sure he is comfortable, sneak out of the bedroom, get a big glass of milk, make myself a peanut butter and banana sandwich (all very quietly so I don’t wake my son up) go to my desk which is usually filled with ridiculous amounts of paper, paint, fabric..ect, I put the laptop on top of it all and religiously check my email, I read and reply one by one. It takes exactly from 7am to 12 noon which is when my son wakes up and I am back to being a mom. Me and my husband take turns to clean the house, do everything that needs to get done, like bills and other fun stuff, its snowing so he usually shovels snow, we also take turns with the baby to be with him (our child is 2 years old) while one of us goes in the studio and records music. My album is just about ready, but finishing touches take a while. I also record for many people around the world, so while my son and husband run out to get the groceries I stay at home singing and mixing songs down to send out to the world…That is what I do every day pretty much, Oh yeah, school days are usually just me frantically running late, dressing up out in the cold snowy weather so I can catch the bus on time, have breakfast in the bus and do my homework in the subway/train. Get to class, and pretend I am just another 18 year old hoping to one day be an artist. I am 23 but look like a 14 year old, so I can pull it off. Ha ha!

Lido Pimienta – Aqui Conmigo

Whose music would you recommend?
In no particular order Erkin Koray, the Khmer folk music volumes especially the Cambodian Cassettes, Dadalu,Fakuta, Juan Manuel Torreblanca, Maria y Jose, all of ZZK records, Vic Alta Joya, Ceci Bastida,Deeder Zaman, Pernett, Julieta Venegas is always good but her new stuff sounds AMAZING, I also recommend for great music selections, sites like SoundAmerica, Generation Bass, Cooliado, Hipi Duki Music Bootlegunmachine, El Parlante Amarillo and Club Fonograma, there is lots more but that is what I listen to pretty much everyday, of course also from my country, Las Alegres ambulancias, and El Sexteto Tabala, I love Hector Buitrago and Cero39. Lots of great music out there basically!! I love it all!!

Tell us a bit about your name, did you choose the name, or is it your birth name?
Because my father’s name was Ademar Pimienta and he wanted me to be rich and famous, he named me after this rich and famous man who owned luxury car franchises. So my name is Lido Pimienta. My middle name is Maria and my mother’s name is Paz, so in english my name would be, Lido Mary Peppermint Peace, isn’t that rad?!!

Lido Pimienta – Mueve

[ With thanks to Ulises Hadjis. All songs from Lido Pimienta's Color EP. Music and images courtesy of the artist. ]

Freddie Stevenson, the English-born singer-songwriter is a self-taught musical genius. Freddie gives his listeners the kind of musical and lyrical experience usually reserved for the likes of Leonard Cohen, Paul Simon and Bob Dylan. When he told us he loved The Gopher we, quite understandably, nearly fainted from jubilation. Following our celebration [which may or may not have included unstoppable underwear-dancing], and several e-mail exchanges analysing Creed’s “My Own Prison” later, we bring you a story written especially for Gopher-fanatics where he gives us [...]]]>

Freddie Stevenson, the English-born singer-songwriter is a self-taught musical genius. Freddie gives his listeners the kind of musical and lyrical experience usually reserved for the likes of Leonard Cohen, Paul Simon and Bob Dylan. When he told us he loved The Gopher we, quite understandably, nearly fainted from jubilation. Following our celebration [which may or may not have included unstoppable underwear-dancing], and several e-mail exchanges analysing Creed’s “My Own Prison” later, we bring you a story written especially for Gopher-fanatics where he gives us Packing-tips, props, and a mysterious term dubbed “duende.” And music. Lots of music.

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I’ll tell you a story, and softly blow my own trumpet. I’ve only played one gig in Spain, on a rooftop in Barcelona. Okay, I’ll blow a little louder. Penelope Cruz was there. And her sister, too. Anyway, singing and playing an acoustic guitar, I bellowed and stomped my way through a set, un-amplified in the open air. Afterwards I was milling around trying to think up a witty opener for a potential conversation with Penelope, when a different but equally beautiful Spanish lady came up to me, grabbed my hand, and leaning close into my face and staring deep into my eyes whispered, “Thank you. You have duende.” “What’s duende?” I asked. “Duende, ” she said, letting go of my hand, “is…” and she flung her arms in the air, puffed out her chest, and grimacing like a sad clown, stamped her foot on the ground. “And that’s a compliment,” she said, before walking away.

In his lecture ‘The Secret Life Of The Love Song,’ the great Australian songwriter Nick Cave discusses his lifelong obsession with writing love songs, and mentions the Portuguese term ‘Suadade,’ the universal sense of inexplicable longing, a deep and sorrowful yearning for something lost which was never owned and can never be found. He then goes on to mention duende and quotes Frederico Garcia Lorca: “All that has dark sound has duende, that mysterious power that everyone can feel but no philosopher can explain.” But, Cave goes on: “All in all it would appear that duende is too fragile to survive the brutality of technology and the ever increasing acceleration of the music industry. Perhaps there is just no money in sadness, no dollars in duende.” Nick Cave spoke those words in 1999, and since then the music industry has crashed and burned, largely thanks to the internet. All that remains amongst the rubble is the latest winner of Pop Idol, some impossibly pure teenage ‘country’ singers who were probably built by robots in a top-secret bunker at Disney HQ, and duende.

Duende is by its very nature undefinable, and Garcia Lorca, that great definer of the un-definable, puts it this way in his (pardon the paradox) definitive ‘Theory and Play of The Duende’: “The duende wounds, and in trying to heal that wound that never heals, lies the strangeness, the inventiveness of a man’s work.”

Since I first started making music, the most common observations people have offered me are, “I like your records but you’re better live,” and “I like the version of that song on the record, but I prefer the demo you made alone.” It seems that duende is extremely difficult to capture on record. Of course it’s been done. Listen to Van Morrison’s magical ‘Astral Weeks’ and duende leaps out of the speakers from the first note. But I was beginning to feel, around the time I met that beautiful Spanish woman on the rooftop in Barcelona, that something was missing. While I was, and still am, extremely proud of my own two studio albums, ‘Body On The Line’ and ‘All My Strange Companions,’ something was missing. This feeling coincided with, and I’m sure in the most part contributed to, an intense period of change in my life, both professionally and personally. Important relationships disintegrated, and I left London where I had lived for the last ten years. Now before you break out the violins, I’ll quote Nick Cave again: “How beautiful the notion that we create our own personal catastrophes and that it is the creative forces within us that are instrumental in doing this.” I found myself entering a period of emotional and actual homelessness, but I only had myself to blame. As I noted to myself at the time somewhere in a song I never wrote, “I have arranged the furniture of my life to lie in nothingness and now I am lonely.” Lonely or not, it was where I was, and I alone had put myself there.

Freddie Stevenson – The City is King

Ever since I started writing songs around the age of fourteen, I’ve been recording them myself, first on a Tascam 4 track tape machine, then a Roland digital 8 track, and eventually on a laptop computer, using the Logic recording software, one of the greatest inventions known to man. Every room I have ever occupied for more than a few days has been turned into a recording studio. I travel light: a guitar, a couple of books, change of underwear, two AKG condenser microphones and an orchestra. For me, recording is the natural culmination of the writing process, and I’m always writing. I’m not a brilliant engineer – I do everything on headphones, and my Mac’s been at death’s door for the last two years, but you make do with what’s available to you. At the beginning of 2009, I gathered up all the recordings I had been working on since completing ‘All My Strange Companions’ – thirty songs in all – and offered them online as free downloads, spreading the word to friends and fans via Myspace and Facebook. Then I went to New York, with my change of underwear and my orchestra, a city I had been visiting and playing in on and off for a while. Broke, I started a busking band with the saxophonist David Luther and the bassist Bennett Miller. We called ourselves The Dirty Urchins (and still do), first playing for tips on the subway platforms and eventually, when the weather improved, making an album, ‘Late As Usual,’ and selling it in Central Park. All the while I continued writing and recording, but now every time I finished a song, I would immediately put it online and offer it for download. Soon this became as much a part of the writing process as recording – a way of clearing the desk and making room for the next song to come along. It also became a lifeline. Things move fast in New York City. The metabolism of the place fuses with your own, and I drenched myself in it, my every waking moment filled with movement and music. As I wrote and recorded and uploaded, I felt as if I were walking along a beach. The immensity and silence of the internet was as comforting as the ocean, and I needed its supreme indifference; its teeming emptiness acted as a salve to the extremes of life in New York, the rollercoaster of joy, fear, desire and boredom. Here’s Garcia Lorca again, speaking of how duende can pierce you like an arrow and want to kill you ‘for having stolen his ultimate secret, the subtle link that joins the five senses to what is core to the living flesh, the living cloud, the living ocean of love liberated from time.’

Summer turned to winter and the busking season ended and I made my way, still with my portable orchestra but missing a few pairs of underpants, back to Scotland where my father is renovating an old house a few miles outside Edinburgh. The uncertain future I had so willingly dived into when I went to New York at the beginning of 2009 was still there in front of me, but being a little older and a little uglier now, I was able to see it as the natural way of things. You endure a period of transition in life only to come out the other side knowing that life itself is a period of transition. Where I live in Scotland, time moves at nature’s pace, There is genuinely nothing going on at 3am that doesn’t involve owls and foxes, and there I have the luxury of time and space; I plant an orchard, watch it grow, and pick the fruit.

By now I had gained a modest following online, and I kept writing, recording and uploading, all the while waiting for that one really juicy piece of fruit to ripen, that one song that would tip me over the edge, when the stars align and I’m wearing the right hat and it’s a sure fire hit, and wondering where the opportunity to make another record would come from.

Freddie Stevenson – Happy Hour

Back in New York I had concocted a plan with my friend, guitarist with the band The Mercury Seed and general music biz impresario John Jackson, to put together a collection of fifty of the downloads I had made packaged with a booklet of the lyrics. With this in mind, I began reviewing everything I had recorded, listening to many of the songs for the first time since I had uploaded them, and I realised that I had in fact been making a record all along, under my own nose – and what’s more, it might even contain a touch of duende! It has no beginning and no end; it’s messy and it’s sad; in the background you can hear telephones ring, trucks beep beeping as they reverse on the street, birds chirping, thunder crashing; but listening back, as if I were listening to someone else, I felt duende. I heard the songs being born, unbidden and covered in blood. I heard myself as I was when I wrote and recorded them, sometimes half numb with despair, at other times struggling to contain my joy, entirely unselfconscious and utterly alone, singing into the internet.

It has no structure, it is un-finishable, but I noticed, by just putting the fifty songs in alphabetical order, the arc of a love story. The first song ‘All The Way Home’ begins with the lines “I suppose it’s a tale you’ve often heard / Against all the odds, boy meets girl,” and the last song is called ‘Wyoming,’ a song about needing to go back to the beginning, to where love began, and the place I went on holiday aged eleven and first fell in love with the guitar. In between is all confusion and contradictions, the heart of any love story.

Freddie Stevenson – All The Way Home

Which brings me to now. When I first came across the Gopher Illustrated, I was immediately struck by how their philosophy of creating a magazine that is a ‘collectible in motion’ that ‘lives on the shelf’ resonated with my ideas about how to describe to people this record I had been making. At a time when the internet has devoured the recording industry and is now turning its hungry eyes on print media (the new Apple iPad surely has the potential of becoming to magazines and books what the iPod was to CDs), how do we survive and harness these new opportunities? How do we not allow ourselves to be swept away in the torrent of information? How can we be heard? Looked at one way, the internet is a dark ocean where a lone voice can so easily be lost. It was the need to confront this void that started me off on these recordings, because it so perfectly mirrored the void I felt in myself, the breeding ground of duende. On the other hand, never before has it been possible to connect with so many people so quickly and so intimately. In that sense, the internet could be seen as Lorca’s ‘living ocean of love, liberated from time.’

Perhaps duende is not, after all, too fragile to survive the brutality of technology like Nick Cave worried back in 1999. Perhaps duende is what lies at the root of our urge to keep developing new ways of communicating with each other to share our experience of living. I can’t put it better than Lorca: “The duende….Where is the duende? Through the empty archway a wind of the spirit enters, blowing insistently over the heads of the dead, in search of new landscapes and unknown accents: a wind with the odour of a child’s saliva, crushed grass, and medusa’s veil, announcing the endless baptism of freshly created things.” What a wonderful metaphor for the rise of technology, the internet, and the opportunities they offer us – ‘the endless baptism of freshly created things.’ I hope you’ll accept my songs with an open heart, in the spirit in which they were created, carved from our shared heritage of duende, tumbling through a strange new world in the midst of change.

Freddie Stevenson – To a Woman in Winter

Freddie Stevenson – Blind Architect

Freddie Stevenson – Love & Hunger

Freddie Stevenson – I Cried When I Was Born

[ With many thanks to Freddie Stevenson. These songs and many more are available for download free of charge HERE ]