EzraWinton.com | Media arts and politics

Just a quick shout out to all of you who apparently are kind of regularly reading this here blog and also to the handful of you who have sent me kind words. It’s nice to know that when you are speaking to the vast and indiscernable void that is cyberspace, that there are actually some real humans at the other end listening and even communicating back. Thanks!

Some updates: I’ve finished my textbook chapter with Ira Wagman for the next edition of the undergraduate communication studies textbook Mediascapes. Our chapter is called: Canadian Cultural Policy in the Age of Media Abundance: Old Challenges, New Technologies. The collaborative writing process on this one has been a great experience - the back-and-forth between myself and someone who is my senior (in experience, as a professor and published academic) was rewarding and fun. You end up learning about your writing in different ways - adjusting to blend with the other person, responding to their writing and comments, etc. All in all, I think we wrote a pretty solid chapter and I feel fortunate to have been asked to participate.

That leaves the Challenge for Change book. I have until the end of the month to do a complete final draft on my chapter that I’ve written with Jason Garrison, plus a final edit on the seven other chapters I’m responsible for, plus assemble a comprehensive bibliography for the whole book. Yes, it’s exhausting just reading that list of to-dos. But once that’s done, I just have two 35 page papers to write by xmas and I’m done with course work baby!

In Cinema Politica news, we have a start-up local in Indonesia, which is very cool. We have some annoying person or insitution hassling us and our government partners with a Freedom to Information Request. It feels quite intrusive, having someone who we’ll never learn the identity of, go through all your emails, and other correspondence with the Canada Arts Council and the NFB. We have a hunch who this might be, but only a hunch. Also, we’re going out to BC (Svetla and myself) at the end of the month for four days to meet with Michael Goodman from the Goodman Foundation to see about a possible collaboration. Wish us luck!

Now, it’s off to the bus for my weekly funtrip to Ottawa…

I’ve been in Europe for almost two weeks and have yet to find the right time to sit (with wireless) and write a post. Here it finally is (pictured above is me in front of the church I was christened in and me with the priest, my godmother Villy and Svetla’s sister Joanna, who translated the ceremony for me).

First the good news: My SSHRC (Social Science and Humanities Research Council) Doctoral Fellowship has been upgraded to a SSHRC CGS Doctoral Award, which means an increase from $60,000 over three years to $105,000 over three years. When I read the email I could barely contain the tears of total joy. It is an incredible honour to receive this award, one of the top of its kind in Canada (or the top??) and I had no idea that this kind of news could come to me this late in the summer. Woohoo!

In other news, I was christened in a Bulgarian Orthodox church on Monday, July 14th (the news of the SSHRC Award came, divine-like, later the same day). The ceremony was quite intense, with Svetla and her family (mom, dad, sister) as well as my new godmother Villy there to see me through it. Svetla’s sis Yoanna translated the priest’s Bulgarian as I was told to renounce the devil and live a life of faith and devotion. He drew tiny crosses on my forehead hands and feet with holy oils, dipped a green plant in holy water and drenched me in it. I had to step into the holy water three times and say “da” (yes) and afterward my godmom had to dry me off and help me into new socks and a new shirt. The whole thing seemed to last about an hour and took place in the upper most chamber of a beautiful little church in the neighbourhood Svetla grew up in. It was pretty warm despite the nice cool breeze coming in through the window and in the first 15 minutes I sweat off about 15 kilos, which is a non-Orthodox conversion equation I guess. We stood in front a giant mural of jesus standing in a river with disciples around him. In many of the photos Jesus’s iconic halo is directly above my own head. What does it all mean you may ask? It means I believe in family, in customs, in ritual, and in respect. That’s why I was christened in Bulgaria five days before getting married.

Speaking of married, we will be wed in the same beautiful church (pictured above) on July 19, a few days from now. A party is planned in the mountains near Sofia, at an all-natural brewery that doubles as a restaurant lodge. Fun fun! The running around is a little intense, Bulgarian style, but I’m coping. One day we (Svetla, mom, dad, Villy, me) drove all over Sofia searching for the perfect party spot - there were restaurants in parks, an outdoor pool (swimming kind) club, hotel spaces, and more. Thank god for me that every stop along the way I was able to have a nice cold Bulgarian beer in the heat. Beer often becomes my friend over here, when everyone around me is speaking Bulgarian and I become tall mute man from Canada.

But this time I am learning the language. I bought a few books and have been getting up in the morning relatively early and trying to teach myself the basics, and of course getting in lots of practice throughout the day. Whether it’s been a Bar-b-q overnight party at Rico’s summer house on the mountain or dancing to Brooklyn Funk Essentials at a great little jazz bar in Sofia called the Social Club, I have been indulging in destroying this nation’s beautiful language, word by word. But I’ve been making progress, and I’ve discovered the Bulgarians are even more thrilled to hear a foreigner make the tiniest linguistic attempts than the Quebecois. Still, after a late night of libations involving Rakia at Ricos, the only thing I could remember the next day was “dobro kuch-ay,” which due to the presence of a friendly Pit Bull, means “good dog.” You can’t go very far in Bulgarian society with “good dog” so needless to say, I’m trying to do a little more learning without alcohol.

That’s my update for now, but before I go, I’d like to thank Democracy Now and the Guardian for keeping me tethered to anglo-interpretations of the world outside this great city Sofia.

While suffering the blow from the Canada Arts Council (for the second time, a jury didn’t rank Cinema Politica high enough to receive funding) and going to Hot Docs to discover, um, filmmakers narrowly focused on their own projects (I can’t blame them), I am delighted to report some good news.

Last Thursday, April 17th, 2008, I received word from some faculty and profs at Carleton that I had been awarded the SSHRC (apologies for the instructive graph above – I did it for Michael) Doctoral Fellowship – meaning I’ll receive $20,000 per year from SSHRC every year for the next three years. It is truly a lifesaver as I consider naming my firstborn Visa, after my best friend of the last three years (and now my worst enemy).

But wait! Good news might just travel in twos! Around the same time, we were informed that the long, arduous journey to get Svetla status in this immigrant-unfriendly land had come to a near-end. Yes, Svetla is now a proud permanent resident of Canuckland.

So all that is left is to STUDY for these bloody PhD exams on May 16-17…

Concordia prof, activist, filmmaker and friend Liz Miller recently finished her documentary on the privatization of Highland Park’s water services in Detroit, Michigan, called The Water Front. We screened the film this past February 4th at the Concordia Cinema Politica. As the 600 or so audience members filed into the H-110 Auditorium, Liz and her assistant interviewed Svetla and myself on grassroots organizing of cinema screenings. The resulting short video actually makes it seem like we know what we’re talking about, so yes, we’re proud.

Greyhound bus, 9:30 PM, somewhere between Ottawa and Montreal.

Long bus trips are trying at the best of times, so making a two and a half hour sojourn twice a week between Montreal and Ottawa seemed a natural site for some intervention in the form of distraction.

Every Wednesday evening after a long day of classes and TA discussion groups my colleague Michael and myself hurry our exhausted bodies and brains to the Greyhound bus station in Ottawa to barely make the 9PM run to Montreal. Once in our seats, relieved of the several tons of unnecessary academic literature, vital food and drink containers and emergency clothing for any condition from blizzard to drought, we wait. We sit and watch the bus fill up with other intrepid night travellers pouring themselves into worn down vintage 80s décor, the plush seats offering comfort that in precisely two and half hours will become for many, their proverbial pain in the ass. We sit watching and waiting in anticipation, not only for the trip to begin toward its end, but for our weekly ritual of television-watching on my ten inch laptop to begin.

After the bus huffs and creaks out of the station and about twenty minutes outside of the city, our round-up conversation of the gory details of eachother’s mental mishaps and moments of near genius in our respective TA sessions comes to a fatigued but reflective end. The inside of the bus is muted with darkness and the sounds of muffled sleep-breathing. Ontario blurs by outside our windows. We look at eachother and excited grins are summoned from the stifling bus air: it is time for tonight’s entertainment!

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It’s reading break, and between Svetla’s birthday, a roudy trip to Quebec City for Carnival, and some recent private screenings with friends and drinks, I am trying to clear the cobwebs before the reading begins. The film we recently previewed over a few beer was Terror’s Advocate, worth checking out, but not a great doc to wade into without a truckload of a priori knowledge. The film covers so much historical ground that I was often lost and need of rest stops with a bit more clarification. Still, a very intriguing man and a very intriguing life as a politico, lawyer and anti-colonialist.

Now that my office is cleaned up and organized, I’m about to sit down and work on some essays, book reviews, research on films on terrorism (it’s turning into a habit), and of course drafting up the many papers I’ve committed to give at upcoming conferences. I’m hoping to go to Stockholm this summer, and maybe Berlin. I got turned down for the cultural conference in Istanbul, sadly. As a final note, I had forgot to include a link to the pdf four-page spread of my article in POV magazine on RIDM’s tenth anniversary. It was a couple of months ago, but it’s never too late to self-promote (the picture at left is the first page of the spread)..

The following post was originally (as in five minutes ago) posted on one of my graduate class’s blog, called Entertainment Studies. It’s about Facebook and burning jackets.

I get it already - Facebook is great because it connects us to old friends that we might not otherwise have been connected with, it’s more subtle and informal than email or telephones, it’s a way to promote events (the film series I curate, Cinema Politica, has several Facebook groups). Many of these great qualities I have decided to miss out on, and as our dear professor suggested to me in class, that’s my problem.

I guess I spend an already inordinate amount of time on my computer, and I’d rather not have another reason to be “wired in.” But aside from the personal implications of Facebook, which seem to be decent (although I’m fine with old highschool friends never tracking me down, given the traumatizing memories I have of that epoch), I’ve been wondering what are the political implications? And is there a Facebook Garfield group?

The latter question will have to go unanswered for the moment, but as for political implications, Tom Hodgkinson, editor of The Idler, has taken a crack at what is behind the social network everyone hates to love. On Monday The Guardian published his article, “With friends like these…” and the stones he turns reveal some pretty icky muck. It may not be any great revelations to Facebook users that there is a big nasty profit-hungry machine behind the enterprise, but what might surprise some is the connections the architects and financiers have to the ultra-Conservative elite in America, as well as to the CIA.

Hodgkinson can seem old fashioned at times in the article, as when he talks about “going to the pub” and “reading books,” but it made we wonder why such suggestions seem antiquated and cheesy. Is it because we’ve moved past the idea of communication without wires and gadgets? Or is it because it sounds like things our parents or grandparents did? I was reminded of Hodgkinson’s words yesterday when I did go to the pub before the talk by W. J. T. Mitchell at Concordia. I sat down at a table with some friends who were already there. There were three of them and they were all dutifully reading text messages or sending text on their cell phones. As I pondered this image of modern communication, I smelled something burning.

“Your jacket is on fire.” The waitress said to me, and calmly lifted my faux fur-trimmed hood off the table behind me, where it had accidentally slumped into a candle. I padded out the small fire and looked inquisitively at the man sitting at the table where a jacket had just been burning, wondering of course, why he had done nothing. As he slowly lifted his head from his Blackberry, where he had been typing with a plastic pencil, we exchanged a look that communicated the absurdity of the moment: here we were, in Hodgkinson’s pub, everyone still attached to their communication devices, and not even a jacket on fire could draw us together in the “real world”.

Below is a link to Hodgkinson’s article, it’s worth a read if you’re interested in the political economy of communication. The people behind Facebook and their connections to the neoconservative movement - including thevanguard.org, were pretty startling discoveries for me. But then again, Facebook is a bit like Wal-Mart: a large, sprawling corporate entity that serves to make life easier for its patrons who for the most part aren’t concerned with what happens behind the scenes. I guess I have the same relationship with Apple.

Here is the article link.

I’m back. Ira Wagman, my new professor for “Entertainment Studies,” has advised us all to try to write for at least one hour per day. I’m going to take him up on it, and when I’m not blogging for Art Threat or writing papers and presentations and articles, I’ll use the writing time to post here.

I spent the weekend sorting out Cinema Politica stuff - the network has gone crazy, too many locals for me to handle and now people in Manchester and Berlin want to join. This is why I applied to the Canada Council for funding. We desperately need it.

Other than that, I went rollerskating with Tyrell and worked at not breaking any bones. Baked some delicious sundried tomato, thyme and walnut spelt bread. Now I’ve got to write a presentation for my class. More interesting posts are sure to follow.

Of interest: Concordia pays off former president nearly $2 million to resign. Disgusting. And the University of Ottawa reports a $67 million surplus for last year but refuses to meet the demands of deaf students by providing hearing assistance at the Friday Cinema Politica screenings there. Ah, the corporate crunch of education…

Lastly, I’m reading a great book for my PhD class, “The Philosophy of the Image” with Michael Dorland. The book (pictured above) is called No Caption Needed: Iconic Photographs, Public Culture, and Liberal Democracy, and even has it’s own blog. It’s snowing right now and that has put me in the mood to listen to Antony and the Johnsons and get my presentation done..

It’s a beautiful evening in Montreal, a light dusting of snow is muting our street and probably the city. I’ve been snowed in here for the last two weeks writing two papers to finish up my term. The first one, on cinematic representations of female suicide bombers, is done and sent to the prof. The second one, on the history of cultural industry theory, is about to envelope me. Sound exciting? At least it’s snowing…

Also, Wal-Town The Film was just broadcast twice on Canada’s third largest broadcast network, TVO (TV Ontario) and despite predictable crummy reviews from the National Post and the Globe and Mail, we’ve received some inspiring emails from people who watched the film. I’m pasting the latest one below to give an idea of the kind of support that has come in - support that keeps us going through the Canadian winter…

Dear Wal-Town:

I’ve finally seen your movie, and I was so grateful I got to see it, I even purchased a copy!

I wanted to email you and let you know that you are NOT ALONE! My family and I have not shoped at walmart for 4 years, (besides one emergency trip for a car seat, when none could be purchased elsewhere!) We get many a stares and funny looks when people find out we don’t shop there!

I want to be of some sort of active assistance. Please inform me of what I could possibly do. Because as a mother of 2 young children, working pt and a husband who works away from home, my time and money is limited. But I believe in this, and would like to be more active!

Congrats on making people think, and look at their choices! I feel supported too! Thanks for making the movie!

On this day to remember the million and one reasons not to engage in violence in order to solve conflict, Concordia University also held the Winter 2007 Convocation Ceremonies for about 400 of us. It was pretty cool to see some of my cohort (pictured at left with me: Michael Lithgow now at Carleton, and Rebecca Reeve now climbing the corporate ladder with an eye for communication in San Francisco) and some of my profs. The ceremony, awkwardly but also somehow fittingly, held on Remembrance Day, was short and sweet. Highlights included Fernando and Yassin walking off stage through the emergency exit, a muted, puppet University president with no credentials save for rabid anti-union tendencies, live bagpipes, free wine and a keynote from honorary doctrate Heather Menzies.

Menzies has been a candidate for this position for four years, and apparently profs in the Communication Studies department were getting worried there was a conspiracy brewing to keep her out. But they kept plying and so there she was this morning, standing at the podium, adding a bit of zest to an otherwise culturally “problematic” ceremony. Menzies caused some bum-shuffling and throat-clearing at a few key points in her speech, not the least of which was when she offered a nuanced criticism of Canada’s transgression from peacekeeper to war-maker in Afghanistan. Her ultimate message of slowing down, turning off our electric devices (woops!), reflecting, critically thinking and story-telling capped off a degree in the best damn department in Concordia and maybe Canada: Concordia Communication Studies, I’ll miss you!! (but Carleton isn’t so bad so far…)