November 2006 | Art & Soul
Reviews
Books, Multimedia, Music, Film/Video
BOOKS
Green Design
Edited by Buzz Poole (Mark Batty Publisher)
For Buzz Poole and his team of contributors, sustainability isn’t only found in “super-froufie hemp-based lampshades and biodegradable lawn chairs,” but in objects as diverse as self-powered radios, handbags made from recycled sailcloth and urine-activated batteries. Part high-style show-and-tell, part environmentalist manifesto, Green Design spotlights the eco-innovators making products that are truly sustainable. Whether profiling a Brooklyn artist who turns old cassette tape into sound emitting dresses or exploring the role of American Apparel’s sexed-up aesthetic in hawking organic cotton t-shirts, Green Design showcases sustainability-minded pioneers adhering to the notion that “so-called waste is actually nutrients that feed other biological or technical life cycles.”
In more than a few sections of this large-print, image-heavy piece of eye candy, the pages (upon-pages) of snappy-captioned product spreads start to feel indistinguishable from some eco-chic fashion catalog. But at its more brilliant moments—including a chapter on companies revolutionizing the toy industry, which author Dominic Muren identifies as “among the most unsustainable in the world”—Green Design serves as an invaluable source of inspiration for designers seeking to save the planet, one recycled-t-shirt-based-faux Speedo at a time. — Elizabeth Barker
MULTIMEDIA
Walking Meditation 
By Nguyen Anh-Huong and Thich Nhat Hanh (Sounds True)
Can you walk your way to a calmer mind, more resilient heart and kinder soul? In Walking Meditation, a book/CD/DVD set featuring Zen master Thich Nhat Hanh, dharma teacher and principle author Anh-Huong ushers readers into becoming “fully present and alive with every step, filling each moment with peace and joy.” That may seem quite an accomplishment to achieve simply by placing one foot in front of the other, but Anh-Huong gently empowers us by breaking the practice down into exercises to explore on our own.
With its chapter-long illuminations on topics like “walking meditation in nature” and “conscious breathing,” the slim, how-to guide is accompanied by a CD of meditations lead by Anh-Huong and a DVD offering glimpses of Hanh’s lectures on walking meditation practice. But Walking Meditation’s most exquisite feature is Anh-Huong’s lovely ability to inspire us into taking on the practice: When she promises that “[you] will feel nurtured every time your foot kisses the floor of the earth,” it’s impossible not to believe. — EB
MUSIC
Down Temple Dub: Waves 
Desert Dwellers (White Swan)
“Yoga Dub” is earthy electronica that blurs the boundaries of rhythmic ambience while incorporating voice and traditional instruments like subahar, tabla, udu, erhu and cello. On their first full-length release, Desert Dwellers explore this new realm of fusion on Down Temple Dub: Waves. With chill-out beats galore and long, cohesive passages that flow one into the next, this CD comprises an amazing audio journey to revisit over and over. Amani Friend, the Santa Fe-based producer who leads the project, co-wrote the music with Rara Avis while holed up for two months in New Mexico. The two were joined by Craig Kohland of Shaman’s Dream Ensemble, who served as producer.
Down Temple Dub: Waves is a breakthrough release from a group that has been heard on some very cool compilations recently, and lands squarely inside the perfect blend of current musical styles. Pulsing with lush rhythms and serene harmonies, Down Temple Dub: Waves is a sonic odyssey into the soul of the global heartbeat. This could easily be your late-night Burning Man soundtrack. Following right behind this debut will be two more in the series: Down Temple Dub: Flames and Down Temple Dub: Shaman’s Eye. — Lloyd Barde
Visit whiteswanrecords.com for a copy.
Ys 
Joanna Newsom (Drag City)
The CD booklet for San Francisco-based singer/harpist Joanna Newsom’s sophomore effort looks something like a centuries-old fairy tale storybook, right down to the grainy black-and-white illustrations, delicately serif-ed typefaces and pencil-scrawled dedication on the opening page. And with their minimalist orchestral arrangements (courtesy of legendary composer Van Dyke Parks) and dreamy, folkloric storytelling, Ys’ five sprawling pieces majestically unfold like a musical rendering of the Brothers Grimm’s most tender reveries.
Mixed by avant-garde composer Jim O’Rourke and partially recorded by iconic punk/indie-rock producer Steve Albini, the sweetly meandering album features a 32-person orchestra, but most prominently showcases its violas and violins, along with Newsom’s masterfully plucked harp. The record’s most striking instrument, though, is the 24-year-old’s undeniably odd voice, a creaky lilt that—depending on your tastes—will most likely come off as either irresistibly elfin or maddeningly chipmunk-like. On Ys, Newsom twists those sometimes-shrill vocals into strange and beautiful lyrics populated by every manner of animal: the frolicsome, heart-melting “Monkey & Bear” tells of its title characters’ troubled love affair, while the melancholy “Sawdust and Diamonds” promises its equine inhabitants, “I will swallow your sadness and eat your cold clay/ Just to lift your long face.” But Ys reaches its climax at “Only Skin.” An epic love song woven with eerie vocal harmonies and gentle banjo rhythms, the 17-minute track serves as a timeless paean to risking so much danger for love, with Newsom urging: “Scrape your knee, it is only skin/ Makes the sound of violins.” — EB
FILM/DVD
Nobelity 
Directed by Turk Pipkin
Nobelity is a charming documentary featuring Nobel Prize winners tackling the biggest issues we face. But while Nobelity is serious, touching and well…“nobel,” it’s also entertaining, open-hearted and humorous. Like a lot of people, you might picture Nobel Prize winners as a bunch of brainiacs lacking in social skills, so be prepared to see a string of articulate, engaging and even optimistic people who are a million miles away from the think tank-bred ideologues who are now running America. Filmmaker Turk Pipkin (he’s done everything from stand-up comedy to co-writing the book The Tao of Willie with Willie Nelson) is a big, friendly Texan whose easygoing manner relaxes both us and the internationally recognized geniuses he rubs elbows with. Just as important, Pipkin knows that beautifully photographed images mean even more than words.
Pipkin starts his film by wondering about the fate of his two children as he tries to piece together his view of the world. During the course of the movie, his views widen and his grasp quickly extends to all of the world’s children.
No matter how much you already know about the state of the world we live in, Nobelity offers up illuminations. In the hands of another director, this cinematic tour of our gravest problems would be a hard slog. But Pipkin makes this film also about practical solutions and personal discovery. It turns out to be a trip you’ll recommend to everyone. — Nick Dedina
Order the DVD at nobelitythemovie.com
Jonestown: The Life and Death of Peoples Temple 
Directed by Stanley Nelson
On a day that shocked America—November 18, 1978—900 followers of a San Francisco “church” led by the mesmerizing Rev. Jim Jones died in a socialist-utopian compound carved out of the South American rainforest. When Jones commanded them to give the children Kool-Aid laced with arsenic, they watched their own die, mouths frothing, and then drank it themselves under the watch of armed lieutenants.
Including unprecedented interviews with survivors who managed to escape into the jungle, Jonestown out-intimates any previous effort to depict not only what happened, but also what it was like to be in Jones’ flock. The result is a film that humanizes the victims—who have been so readily dismissed in the media through the years as mere brainwashed sheep—as seekers, civil rights activists and political revolutionaries.
Director Stanley Nelson is also a master storyteller. The MacArthur grant winner and director of 2003’s The Murder of Emmet Till follows the story chronologically from its beginning in a rural town in Indiana, where an elementary school-age Jones was said to have killed a cat with a knife just so he could hold a funeral for it. From his humble and odd beginnings, the film then documents his move into the Pentecostal preacher circuit, how he established a groundbreaking racially integrated Christian church in Indianapolis in the early ‘60s, its moves to Ukiah, California, San Francisco and Guyana, and its slow, steady demise into psychological slavery and ultimate tragedy.
With the interviews of ex-members, Nelson depicts the microcosm of group think and totalitarianism, and how leaders and peers can so easily normalize culturally otherwise unthinkable actions. It was fear of losing his power, the thing he came to care most deeply about, that drove the sunglass-wearing Reverend. And his congregation was already in too deep, too emotionally and financially dependent on Peoples Temple the day he threw a Bible angrily across the chapel and told them, “Call me Father.” — Todd Spencer
Jonestown opens November 3 at the Smith Rafael Film Center in San Rafael, the Lumiere in San Francisco and Landmark Shattuck in Berkeley. To see trailer, go to firelightmedia.org
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