hal tweets ·11:28 AM
Ghostbuster zines from the Canzine Hollywood Piracy Zine Challenge are now online! http://t.co/RoAMEQTU
2008,
22:15 GMT
Doc Update: Hal Joins Amateur Porn Site RedClouds
Posted by: Hal
Okay so last week I met with the producers of the Peep documentary and we went through an initial sketch of the “script” which is more like a broad strokes idea of what we think will happen when I am put in certain situations and when I talk to certain people. I left feeling good about the project, it’s nice to have a road map to work on, something to follow while you’re trying to get to a destination.
That said, there was a lot of work still to be done on the sketch. Not the least of which is getting in touch with various people we’d like to be part of the doc. So today I spent a bunch of time doing research and also tracking down people we want to speak with.
Among other things I did today: joined RedClouds, a massive amateur porn compendium. It cost me $27.99 but I am now a full fledged member for the year. Do you think the producers will reimburse me? We’ll see. I joined in order to have access to their chat areas so that I could ask if any of the people who are putting their pics up might like to meet up with me and talk about why they pose nude online and how it fits into their lives. I posted in one chat area – Sexuality – and have so far gotten one response.
Naturally I’d be a pretty sad researcher if I didn’t also look around. So I randomly clicked on various pics. Most were women, many in the 40 plus range, some posing nude, some actually engaged in sex acts. A lot of them didn’t show their faces, but some did. I didn’t get all that excited if you must know. The effect was more like being at a nudist colony or nude beach. Very quickly, you stop thinking — s/he’s naked! — every time someone walks by.
At the same time, it’s clear that the million plus members of RedClouds do get excited, particularly when they post pics of themselves. A lot of the pictures come with invitations like – “first time poster, can’t wait to hear what everyone thinks.” I got the sense that it was the response that was more important than actually putting up the photos. Like if no one rates the pics or attaches a few lewd comments, it never really happened.
2008,
16:20 GMT
Peeping Your Death
Posted by: Hal
Article in Toronto’s Globe and Mail today on a blogger and BBC columnist who chronicled their own demises from illness. “Blogging the process of dying is becoming a small yet poignant fixture on the Internet landscape.” The piece doesn’t give us any sense of why people might want to blog or otherwise make public their deaths, which is too bad.
But peeping death (our own and others) is an interesting piece in the peep puzzle. If we peep ourselves and others in order to be less alone, then it makes sense: what could be lonelier than death?
Of course peep culture has always had an interest in death: the 1978 Faces of Death cult film/montage of death scenes of humans and animals (some real but most fake) has spawned something like six official spin-offs and any number of unofficial imitators.
On the artistic side, there are documentaries like Silverlake Life: the View from Here a video diary of the death by AIDS of Tom Joslin. Here’s a description of the final moments of Joslin’s life as depicted on the video and described by John McGrath in his book Loving Big Brother: “Massi [Joslin’s partner] focuses the camera on each of Joslin’s eyes in turn. One, the lid covered in lesions, is barely visible; the other is clear: ‘that eye he can see in the camera with’. Massi then asks Joslin how he feels and Joslin mutters in a breathy voice, barely intelligible, with Massi attempting to translate: ‘he feels pretty bad, but wants his friends to feel good.’ The video is showing a frame of Joslin’s face, it cuts suddenly to the face again, a slightly different angle. There is a howl then Massi’s voice: ‘This is the first of July and Tommy’s just died.’ Joslin’s clear eye still stares towards the camera.”
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2008,
16:58 GMT
Back from Florida, Bad News from Blog Home Office
Posted by: Hal
So I’m back from my Florida vacation. More on that when I get a chance to upload my pictures of gators and beaches and such. Soon, I promise. In the meantime, some bad news from Blog HQ. The first round of numbers are in and they aren’t all that good. Here are my stats:
67 Visits
148 Pageviews
2.21 Pages/Visit
53.73% Bounce Rate
00:02:08 Avg. Time on Site
71.64% % New Visits
Not only have a mere 67 people dropped by, but apparently my 10 days away killed the blog. Basically nobody came. Blog HQ has told me that if I ever want an audience for my blog I better either 1) learn to blog all the time no matter where I am or 2) store up blog posts that automatically publish while I’m away in order to create the illusion that I am always blogging all the time.
So there you go. Hopefully now that I am back and blogging everyday again you, my readers, will return and grow. And to Blog HQ I say this: I’ve learned my lesson. Silence is death. I won’t disappear again!
Also, in my defence, I haven’t really been doing much to promote the blog. It’s not even listed on my home site. I’m going to see what I can do to let more people know it’s out there. Suggestions are, of course, welcome.
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2008,
13:51 GMT
Need to Know vs. Want to Know: the Governors of New York
Posted by: Hal
Ellot Spitzer, now former Governor of New York, didn’t think anybody needed to know about his propensity for high priced call girls. He was wrong because 1) he was violating laws he’d sworn to uphold and 2) he was costing the taxpayers money while sating his desires.
The now sworn-in new Governor of New York, David A. Paterson, apparently feels like people do need to know about his extramarital affairs. On his first day of the job he held a news conference and announced that he’d had several affairs “including one”, as the New York Times reports, “with a state employee.”
The fact that Paterson felt compelled to get up in front of the world and, with his wife at his side, discuss the intimate details of their rocky relationship, indicates the extent to which a culture of Peep has taken hold of our society. Paterson had to get up there and peep himself because he was worrried, as he said at the news conference, that he would be “blackmailed” and that if the stories were to come out New Yorkers would lose faith in him.
But the real issue is that in the age of Peep media would be all over this “story”, eager to turn intimate into entertainment. As the New York Times reports: “Just after the swearing-in, while Mr. Paterson’s supporters were still celebrating, the new administration was plunged into its first crisis, as a Daily News columnist inquired about a past affair and Mr. Paterson and his mostly untested advisers debated how to handle the matter.” The Daily News wanting to know — and inevitably finding out — is what Paterson knew would happen if he didn’t circumvent the process by peeping himself. In this way, Paterson and his wife can control the flow of information and prevent people coming forward claiming to have been the new Governor’s one-time mistress or whatever. Naturally the couple declined to provide a laundry list of the people they’ve slept with and now the story is over. It would be difficult for even the most purient media outlet to justify further digging.
Spitzer can really only blame one person. But any reprecussions that come Governor Paterson’s way because of his remarkable news conference are not so much the result of his past actions but the result of a society that is all too ready to turn the need to know into the want to know.
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2008,
15:51 GMT
Let It Out
Posted by: Hal
Couldn't resist one more post before I go. There's a new Kleenex site that harnesses the energies of peep to the marketing of tissue. It's called Let It Out and it's basically videos and short posts by anonymous individuals venting about their problems. It's like Post Secret meets Hallmark. Corporations are jumping on the peep bandwagon like there's no tomorrow. Why not? People all over the world generate the content for a fraction of the price a traditional campaign would cost and they just sit back and enjoy the branding. It makes you want to cry. It makes you want to...Let It Out! I don't have time right now but when I get back from vacation I'll try posting some possibly "inappropriate" letting it out posts to the Kleenex site and let you know how long they last. You do the same and posts the links in the comments.
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The Bloggist
Hey, I’m Hal Niedzviecki. I’m a writer/thinker who lives in Toronto, Ontario, Canada with my wife and daughter. Up till now I’ve always considered myself a private person. But at the same time I’m fascinated by people who effortlessly open themselves up to the whole world. So I’ve… more...
Ghostbuster zines from the Canzine Hollywood Piracy Zine Challenge are now online! http://t.co/RoAMEQTU
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