Where I've been

Why was I in Cambodia? It was one of several locations around the globe for this video I just co-directed with Shawn Kim for Death Cab for Cutie's new album Narrow Stairs. Shawn is for my money the best working cinematographer in music videos and has been for the past few years. I mean he's worked with all the greats, but most people instantly know his work when you say that he shot the Maps video for the Yeah Yeah Yeahs or Feist's 1234. When I wrote this treatment I saw in my head that the band were photographed the way Shawn Kim would, so it made sense to have him do it, not just as a photographer but a director.

My crew of 2, an actress, and myself covered some 27977 miles in 13 days shooting this. The defining statement was "let's wrap cause I want to get the next snowmobile out of here". The experience was the best I've had in my life, though incredibly challenging. I've always felt that travel is a defining human experience that changes you forever, and hope that this depiction of wanderlust, obsessiveness, repetition, and loneliness conveys some of that.

here kitty kitty, her.... MY GOD IM DYING

Picture this: you're a terrorist guarding your warehouse like building full of blind alleys and crates and danger barrels. You've gotten word that a Jack Bauer style guy is coming to take you all out and defuse the bomb which you have put a LED timer ticking down on the front of just so you know it's going to be done soon. The next thing you know, a cute little kitty cat rounds the corner. As a terrorist, what do you do?

cambodia

That's myself and Arrun. He is a hotel worker, translator, student, tour guide, and hoping to save enough money to get a tuk tuk. It's hard to tell but I think only a week and a half ago or so I was in Cambodia working on a project, my first visit to the country. My feelings about what I saw and experienced have yet to resolve themselves into total coherence and objectivity - it came in the middle of a whirlwind global trip. I do recall the number of young people we met who were tireless, firecely intelligent, self educated working as cooks, drivers, hotel receptionists. Working to get a leg up in the harsh realities of the new Cambodian economy, where first world luxury plays out for the tourists and those who work for the government in the dissolution of memory and history, secret history kept forever intangible.

Eric's already written about Dith Pran's death, but here's the New York Times obituary in which they recount his work with Schanberg for the paper. Read it here. Reading about him reminds me of the great people I met in Cambodia. I have to get back there.

Anyone under 20 in the US has only ever...

lived during the presidency of either a Bush or a Clinton. I can genuinely say in my lifetime I have never seen someone running for President who has such command of inspiration in others. Nor oratory skills and delivery like this. I sometimes feel that the best leaders are not those who do the best; they're the ones that inspire the best in everyone else. I think this is the first absolute must see speech of the election; but do make your mind up. All I urge, as ever, is to not be apathetic. I did volunteer work for a presidential campaign that amounted to working a phone bank but it was absolutely worth it in every way. More on that story as my health improves.

Hot tickets and trigeminally yours

Hello everyone. I'm still alive. I was directing an ad and then a new music video, which will be out in a few days. But the shoot for the video happened over the holidays so I spent the period around Christmas traveling between three cities and shooting which didn't leave me with much time for anything or any of the woolgathering that leads me to blog.

If you live in New York though, you still have time to buy tickets to a second Joanna Newsom show in which she'll be performing with the Brooklyn Philharmonic.

In the meantime I have to go on a little sabbatical as I have an illness to contend with; nothing threatening or permanent. I have to give myself a shot every day which is pretty horrible for someone who is afraid of needles. I've been through it before and it will pass. But it is very difficult at the moment to focus on much, even books or computer screens, so I'm bad Internet company. You don't need me anyway, you've got Tom Cruise and Primaries and Bird Flu in India and coming recession fears; all things that don't need my commentary or blog pleasing snark to go along with.

On that note of things that are in the news, I do want to say earnestly that Heath Ledger's death was immeasurably sad. I can only recall the deaths of Kurt Cobain or River Phoenix as having the same sort of heavy sadness. It's weird, the moment it became news it was something that everyone needed to remark to their friends about. But it obviously wasn't a national tragedy. I think it's just sad to realize that there was so much more promise and work to come from the guy. It's also sad to note the rapidity with which it all moves now. There was live streaming web of the removal of his body, for the sake of fuck. One thing I do want to say from the haze of non narcotic medication... And as it's looking like his death was merely accidental.. My trip to the pharmacist today was nightmarish. Getting accurate information about my medications was nightmarish - I had to correct the pharmacist on a dosage issue. The last time I was in hospital it was nightmarish. The one and only time I took Ambien it was nightmarish. Being ill can put you in a frame of mind that may not be capable of seeing the throwaway ease with which medications are thrown at people. No one knows what happened to the guy yet but if it was an accidental death - as it's looking like now - then it's an even greater tragedy. Take care.

This is a good music video

It's been a really bad year for music videos, in general. This year the bottom of the floor on budgets finally dissolved and plunged everyone into less work with less resources. So when you see something really good and low budget these days you know the filmmakers gave it their all. Anyway, this video for LA's The Little Ones is the best marriage of film and song I've seen in awhile for the low fi indie world from the Bay Area's filmmakers Terri Timely. They're a duo who are criminally underrated, working on the smallest budgets imaginable but there's a hint of aspiration to perfection within that. It made me smile a lot.

Watch the beautiful Quicktime here.

Murakami and Kanye, Good Morning video

This probably won't be up long, so see it while you can - from the MOCA show this is an animated video for a track off Graduation, and for my money one of the best Kanye videos ever. Embedded video after the break. Anyone have more info on this, like who the animation studio and animation director was? Have heard the MOCA show is amazing, but the Murakami show at the Gagosian was way underwhelming.