The Design of Dissent
Nearly two years after this incredible, indispensable, 230 page book was released in paperback I have finally got my muckraking hands on it. Milton Glaser and Mirko Ilic’s The Design of Dissent is a phenomenal repository of political poster art (and more) that I’ve now realized is an essential addition to any shelf, coffee table, library, or revolutionary basement on the planet.
The book is visually stunning – a keen eye for layout, mixed with a healthy dose of breathing space and exceptional curatorial decision-making make for 200+ pages of explosive and provocative political art.
Divided into sections that range from “Ex-Yugoslavia” to “Food” to “U.S. Presidential Election” this offering from Rockport Publishers is one of the best books illustrating the collusion/confusion of politics and art that I have seen.
The images are part historical testament, part marginalized voice, and part pop culture intervention. Together they make up a book that is an essential for anyone interested in political art, dissent, democracy, and the spirit of creative visual production to pry open the closed spaces of culture and community.
The school of visual arts in NY has also created a site highlighting some 100 of the political posters curated by Glasher, you can view it here.
Raul Salinas
Long-time activist and poet Raul Salinas has died at the age of 73 in Austin, Texas.
Salinas was considered among the greats of his generation including Miguel Pinero, Oscar Acosta, John Trudell, and Hose Montoya. He was a life-long human rights and social justice activist. He worked with the American Indian Movement, the Leonard Peltier Defense Committee and held writing clinics for at-risk youth in juvenile detention facilities nationwide.
Salinas spent approximately 12 years in prison, from 1959 to 1971 on drug related charges. In the late 1960s, he became renown for his prison poetry and for his work inside prisons engaging fellow convicts in politics and literature.
At the time of his death, Salinas was an adjunct professor at St. Edwards University, Austin, Texas. In 2002, he received the Louis Reyes Rivera Lifetime Achievement Award, and in March of 2003, he was honored with the Martin Luther, Jr., César Chavez, Rosa Parks Visiting Professorship Award given by the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor.
His collections of poetry include Viaje/Trip” (chapbook), “East of the Freeway,” “Un Trip Through The Mind Jail,” “Indio Trails: A Xicano Odyssey through Indian Country” (Wings Press) as well as two spoken word CDs “Los Many Mundos of raúlrsalinas: Un Poetic Jazz Viaje con Friends” (Calaca Press/Red Salmon Press) and “Beyond the BEATen Path” (Red Salmon Press). A collection of his essays was recently published by University of Texas Press “raúlsalinas and The Jail Machine: My Weapon is My Pen”.
Salinas was born in Texas on March 17th, 1934, and was one of the few remaining poetic voices from a circle of writers that included Jose Antonio Burciaga, Ricardo Sanchez, Piñero and Pedro Pietri. In 1981, he opened La Resistencia Bookstore which he ran as a bookstore-cum-community centre until his death yesterday morning.
During his lifetime, Salinas traveled extensively sharing indigenous philosophies and revolutionary-humanist ideologies.
His personal papers were acquired by Stanford University in 1994.
For an excellent discussion of Salinas’ poetry and lifelong work in prisons, check out Louis Mendoza’s “The re-education of a Xicanindio: Raul Salinas and the poetics of Pinto transformation” published in 2003.
Arsenal Press has recently submitted Matthew Hay's new book, The View from Here: Conversations with Gay and Lesbian Filmmakers, for an Art Threat review. For our readers out there who can't wait for me to get to it in the stack, I thought I'd post about the title and let you know you can go out and grab a copy now. From Arsenal Press:
The history of gay and lesbian cinema is a storied one, and one that became much larger with the recent success of Brokeback Mountain, Capote, and Transamerica. But the history of gay and lesbian filmmakers is its own story.
In The View from Here, queer directors and screenwriters—some mainstream, others who work defiantly from the margins—speak passionately about the medium, in particular their personal experiences navigating through the often-cynical and cruel film industry. All of them offer fascinating anecdotes and opinions about cinema, and speak candidly about their attempts to combat studio apathy and demands of “the market” and still create films that are entertaining, engaging, and truthful.
Containing numerous black-and-white screen stills and production photos, The View from Here provides fascinating insight into the filmmaking process—a book for serious film fans and gay culture aficionados alike.
Filmmakers profiled include: John Waters (Pink Flamingos; Hairspray), Pedro Almodovar (Volver; Bad Education), Gus Van Sant (My Own Private Idaho; Good Will Hunting), John Cameron Mitchell (Hedwig & the Angry Inch; Shortbus), Don Roos (The Opposite of Sex; Happy Endings), Randal Kleiser (Grease), Don Mancini (the Chucky films), Kenneth Anger, Gregg Araki, Lea Pool, Wakefield Poole, Monika Treut, Rosa von Praunheim, and Canadian filmmakers such as John Greyson, Bruce LaBruce, Robert Lepage, Patricia Rozema, David Secter, Lynne Fernie, and Aerlyn Weissman.
Get your copy at fine bookstores, or visit the Arsenal Press page here.
Ishmael Beah
Yesterday I attended the Montreal book launch of Ishmael Beah’s new novel, “A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier,” which is holding strong at number one on the New York Times bestseller list. The talk at McGill University, included an introduction by Senator Romeo Dallaire, who gave a power point presentation about child soldiers all over the world (the UN estimates there are between 250,000 and 300,000) and the need to put pressure on countries like the security council five (USA, Great Britain, France, Russia, China) to stop the production and dissemination of light weight arms, the key to making children effective instruments of warfare. Beah followed with first-hand accounts of being forced into warfare in Sierra Leone at the age of 12 for two years, his time as a sleep-deprived, drug laden child killer, his rehabilitation, and his focus on activating change in his home country and around the world.
Beah also spoke of “old school hip hop” and how that art of storytelling and meaningful music helped him survive his experience. Beah told the packed room that since the war has ended, that there has been a “music explosion” in Sierra Leone. He listed off a whack of groups currently tackling issues like corruption, healing and war through music. Here are just a few groups to check out on Beah’s recommendation: Baw Waw Society, Eemmerson, Jimmy B, and the Jungle Leaders. The BBC has also produced an audio documentary, “The Beautiful Struggle” that looks at politics and music in postwar Sierra Leone…
At the end of the event during Q & A, perhaps the most interesting comments and reactions occurred. Near the very end an extremely nervous man approached the audience mic and added to the ongoing conversation of the value of human life (Dallaire had said that the UN pulled out of Rwanda as the genocide began because ten white soldiers were killed, suggesting their lives were of more value to Western nations than the 800,000 Rwandans who would later be slaughtered in a period of 100 days). This particular gentleman wondered aloud if “human value” was really about “what we’re worth” connected to material possessions and the affluence of the West. He then quietly suggested that what if people in the West were to actually try giving up some things, like their ipods, maybe the balance would shift. Much to my disgust, the crowd turned on him and a collective groan was heard from this privileged audience at the suggestion of material sacrifice. Dallaire then responded cheekily to the man by saying that we didn’t need to give things up in the West, we just needed to make sure that whatever we spent on ourselves was equally spent on helping developing nations overcome poverty, disease and war. Dallaire then blamed the media in the West for not staying more focused on these issues and rhetorically asked why the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) was being increasingly corporatized and forced to “put out the crap” the corporate media does.
What was striking about this exchange at the end of this excellent event was the West’s complete inability to deal with the connections between our over-consumption (after all Mr. Dallaire, we would need four planets if everyone lived the way the average Canadian lived) and the struggles of the so-called developing world. It is easy to blame the media, but when an affluent crowd in the West balks at the idea of “giving some things up” we are trapped in a vicious cycle of denial: as long as the West remains obsessed with material fulfillment and consumption, we will not give our media reasons to cover issues that feed into our own insular world, articulated at the extreme by reportage on celebrity culture. At least for now the media is focused on a courageous and talented young artist like Ishmael Beah and the issues he is bringing forward. If the West can pry itself away from its toys (like our iPods) for a sustained period, then maybe the balance will shift.
To watch videos, listen to Beah read, and find out about his story, the book and the foundation he is creating, visit his site.
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