Having picked up my VISA this morning, all is set for my trip to France. I'll be leaving this coming Sunday reaching Paris early on Monday morning, and Nancy (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nancy%2C_France) hopefully later that day where I will be giving two talks duriing the 7th Anual Free Software Conference (http://www.rmll.info/) . One talk will be on TappyTux, the other on the more general state of Free Software within the African education sphere. For the latter I will be joined by visitors from several other developing regions for a round table discussion and shared search for answers.
The entire face of what is art changed. Of course, it wouldn't be art if it was not evolving as constantly as the human condition, so that is hardly surprizing, but if there is one thing that has become blatantly obvious it's that the individual human has a very hard time keeping up with the human condition she forms part off, let alone the the art that expresses, critisizes and promotes the various aspects thereoff.To me one of the most striking moments ever in cinema (and as a former film student my collection is rather huge so that is saying something) is in Good Will Hunting. For just about the entire movie it simply yet another sausage factory film. But it is one of the few films that actually deal with the discrepency between intelectualism and intelectual snobism, and perhaps more importantly with that line between reaching one's full potential and clinging to ones roots. Will's greatest struggle isn't caused by the fact that he is smart, but by the fact that he is poor and smart, and this creates a rift between him and the bluecollar workers who are his most trusted friends- a rift which scares him more than anything else – but it is exactly that fact, a bluecollar mentally in a person destined for a white-collar life that gives the film it's only actual cutting edge.And smack in the middle is one of the greatest lines in cinema history, a line that captures the essence of celebrity, of fame an infamy with incredible rancour and eloquence. Who is Ted Sherman ? Unabomber I could not help but be reminded of this line when I read this interview (http://thechiz.co.za/archive/2006/06/26/84.aspx) with Aryan Kaganof (http://kaganof.com/) . .
Scarce is the new site up a week, before I look in this morning and find about 50 comment spams scattered about.I cleaned those out though, but obviously it proves that allowing anonymous comments is simply not feasable anymore. Sadly, these immoral, criminal bastidges have robbed us as site administrators from the freedom to offer that to our readers.So then, as of this morning, I have disabled anonymous commenting. From here on in, only users with registered accounts will be able to comment. While I am aware that this may occasionally cost me an insightfull comment, at least it means that those who click to read the comments can expect to see real opinions, not just fake viagra adds.