tagged w/ Slideshow
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Triiibe is a performance collective that originated in 2006 when performance artists and identical triplets, Alicia, Kelly and Sara Casilio joined creative forces with noted documentary photographer, Cary Wolinsky. Together, Triiibe creates political and social commentary through art using performance, video and photography. They explore diverse ideas together and their collective voice allows them to reach a broad audience. The images their exhibitions are carefully constructed observations on identity and the politics of identity. The works ask questions such as: How are we the same? How are we different? What is feminine? What is masculine? What role goes gender play in politics?
This piece includes a number of high-resolution color photographs, a slide show and two documentary short films by Triiibe.
http://disembedded.wordpress.com/2011/02/06/tripling-playing-dress-up-to-disrupt-identity-politics/Triiibe is a performance collective that originated in 2006 when performance artists... more
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From January 28th through May 15th, The Albertina in Vienna is showcasing some rare works by the celebrated artist Roy Lichtenstein. Roy Lichtenstein: Black and White 1961-1968 features pieces from one of the most prolific periods in the artist’s career, illustrating a shift in style that would influence his later works.
Inspired by advertising and the media, Lichtenstein began creating his famous comic-strip pop-art in the 1960s. The artist created about seventy impressive black-and-white drawings and paintings between 1961 and 1968, which were completely new in terms of subject and style. The Albertina is presenting the black-and-white drawings in conjunction with selected black-and-white paintings for the first time in this special exhibition.
This piece includes a number of high-resolution illustrations, a slide show and two documentary short films about the exhibition.
http://disembedded.wordpress.com/2011/02/04/roy-lichtenstein-the-finished-black-and-white-drawings-of-a-pop-master/From January 28th through May 15th, The Albertina in Vienna is showcasing some rare... more
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Chicago is a city that prides itself on its ability to conquer any snowstorm that comes its way, but it woke up on Wednesday to discover that hundreds of people had been trapped by a massive blizzard for hours along a prominent roadway that runs smack through the heart of the city. Among the scenes described by those who spent most or all of the harrowing night on Lake Shore Drive: Frustrated drivers trying to unclog the roads by pushing stuck and abandoned cars through snow-filled exit ramps; a band of passengers crowded inside one Chicago Transit Authority bus, deciding after five hours to make a run for it (many were forced to turn back); people who ventured out, perhaps from their homes along Lake Shore Drive, to deliver cereal bars, water and Gatorade to those who had been stranded.
Cold winds were part two of the brutal storm system that stranded motorists, caused power outages, forced the cancelation of thousands of flights and closed down schools across the region, including Chicago schools for the first time since 1999. On Wednesday, winds of up to 70 mph had whipped up around about 20.2 inches of snow, creating high drifts and some whiteout conditions that made driving hazardous. Thursday’s sub-zero temperatures were expected to add a different layer of misery for commuters.
At 7 a.m. on Thursday, the temperature at O’Hare International Airport was zero with a wind chill of 11 below. Wind chills were expected to plumet to 20 below by early afternoon, according to the National Weather Service. Under such conditions, frostbite can develop within 30 minutes, officials said. Emergency personnel worked overnight to clear Lake Shore Drive of the large number of abandoned vehicles and huge mounds of snow, according a spokesman for Chicago’s Office of Emergency Management and Communications.
This piece presents a number of high-resolution color photographs, a slide show and two videos, including a music video.
http://disembedded.wordpress.com/2011/02/03/massive-snowstorm-batters-chicago-the-chicago-blizzard-of-2011/Chicago is a city that prides itself on its ability to conquer any snowstorm that... more
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George Condo is a prolific painter whose career spans almost three decades, creating characters who inhabit a grotesque, comic, baroque and sinister world. His work presents surrealist-style figure paintings, where humor abates tragedy and our inner demons are realized on a canvas. Condo’s work has been described as the visual embodiment of our mental states, and the first major American survey of his work has just opened at New York City’s New Museum, aptly entitled “George Condo: Mental States.”
This piece includes a number of high-resolution color photographs, a slide show and the documentary short film, “Condo Painting.”
http://disembedded.wordpress.com/2011/01/29/george-condo-a-mind-where-picasso-meets-grotesque-looney-tunes/George Condo is a prolific painter whose career spans almost three decades, creating... more
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“Luminous Cities” is a fascinating collection of photographs, which have been selected from a delightful exhibition of photographs of the built environment presently on display at the National Gallery of Victoria in Melbourne, Australia. The world’s great cities have always been vibrant centers of creativity, in which the built environment is often as inspirational as the activities of its citizens, and since the nineteenth century photographers have creatively explored the idea of the city.
The exhibition enables the viewer to examine the various ways photographers have viewed cities as historical sites, bustling modern hubs and architectural utopias since the nineteenth century. Through the work of a range of photographers, “Luminous Cities” leads viewers on a fascinating journey around the world, into the streets, buildings and former lives of some of our greatest international cities. The many fine photographs presented here, and in the remarkable slide show, include works by renowned photographers Eugene Atget, Edward Steichen, Paul Strand, Berenice Abbott, Bill Brandt, Lee Freidlander and Grant Mudford amongst many others.
This piece includes a number of outstanding high-resolution vintage photographs, a wonderful slide show of additional architectural images and a documentary short film.
http://disembedded.wordpress.com/2011/01/21/luminous-cities-creative-explorations-of-architectural-structures-in-urban-landscapes/“Luminous Cities” is a fascinating collection of photographs, which have... more
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“In Focus: Still Life” is a selection of remarkable photographs from an installation of wonderful still life photographs presently on view at The J. Paul Getty Museum Center for Photographs. The collection presents a survey of some of the innovative ways photographers have explored and refreshed this traditional genre. During the 19th century, still life photographs tended to resemble still life paintings, with similar subjects and arrangements. Beginning in the 20th century, still life photographs have mirrored the subjects and styles that have more broadly concerned photographers in their time.
In addition to early experiments of pioneers of the photographic medium, some of the works that have been newly acquired by the Getty Center are presented here: “Still Life with Triangle and Red Eraser” (1985) by American Irving Penn, “Lorikeet with Green Cloth” (2006) by Australian Marian Drew, and “Blow Up: Untitled 15” (2007) by Israeli Ori Gersht. Gersht loosely based his “Blow Up” series on traditional floral still life paintings. His arrangements of flowers are frozen and then detonated; the explosion is captured using synchronized digital cameras, with the fragmentary detritus caught in remarkable detail. This contemporary approach to still photography belies the notion of still life as something motionless, as it explores the relationships among painting and photography, art and science, and creation and destruction.
This piece also presents the acclaimed experimental video “Still Life” (2001) created by the English artist Sam Taylor-Wood, a three-minute short film that focuses on a classically composed bowl of fruit as it decays. Also, there’s a pen. “Still Life” has been said to be one of the most classical works in contemporary art, carving a permanent record for itself in art history with hardly any commentary. This is not just a Still Life; it is based upon a particular type of still life painting that developed during the 16th and 17th centuries in Flanders and the Netherlands, part of a classical genre that contains symbols of change or death as a reminder of their inevitability. Its focus was upon confronting the vanity of worldly things through often subtle signs of elapsing time and decay.
Sam Taylor-Wood’s film represents yet another step in that direction: the image, beautiful as ever in Taylor-Wood’s universe, decomposes itself. By the end of the short film, nothing is left but a grey amorphous mass. But upon closer inspection, one detail distinguishes this picture from its predecessors. The plastic ballpoint pen, a cheap contemporary object. One that doesn’t seem to decay and doesn’t seem to be a part of the universal process of self-disappearing life. Is this what is really left here to stay after we are gone, this nothingness, this ridiculous attribute of ourselves?
This piece includes a number of stunning high-resolution color photographs, a slide show and the short film.
http://disembedded.wordpress.com/2011/01/19/still-life-photography-courting-surprise-and-allegorical-meanings/“In Focus: Still Life” is a selection of remarkable photographs from an... more
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“Sun City Picture House” is a very engaging documentary short film by David Darg and Bryn Mooser. After the devastating earthquake rocked Haiti last year, food and medical aid poured into the island country, but in the months that followed a pair of Hollywood actresses and their friends had another idea. They wanted to build a movie theater. Maria Bello, who starred in the Adam Sandler comedy “Grown Ups,” and “Tron” actress Olivia Wilde, have documented the efforts of the group of people that brought the theater to life in this new, documentary short.
The documentary focuses on Haitian aid worker Raphael Louigene, whose dream was to build a movie theater, and the two American aid workers who helped him realize that dream by constructing it in just four days: Bryn Mooser from Artists for Peace and Justice, and Dave Darg, who works for Operation Blessing. Mario Bello stated, “The thing that’s needed most in Haiti right now, besides the immediate relief efforts, is joy. And that’s what this movie is about.” This article also presents a photo-gallery of stunning photographs of life in Haiti’s tent cities by New York photographer Wyatt Gallery.
This piece includes a number of high-resolution color photographs, a memorable slide show and the documentary short film.
http://disembedded.wordpress.com/2011/01/14/the-sun-city-picture-house-hollywood-comes-to-haiti/“Sun City Picture House” is a very engaging documentary short film by... more
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January 12, 2011, will mark one year to the day that the devastating 7.9 magnitude earthquake hit Haiti, resulting in what is arguably the worst natural disaster in modern history. Of the 1.5 million Haitian people who lost their homes in the earthquake, the majority are still living in makeshift tent cities, and the promised billions of dollars in foreign aid have yet to materialize. While financial donors and peacekeepers have resources that vastly overshadow those of the Haitian government, a lack of coordination in their endeavors has hampered the country’s efforts to recover.
“Tent Life: Haiti” is a very timely collection of stunning portraits of dignity, hope and joy by New York photographer Wyatt Gallery, inspirational photographs that show the reality of Haitian lives a year after the earthquake’s destruction and its aftermath. Gallery’s photographs present an artful and unselfconscious study of the resilience of an irrepressible people. They are beautiful narrative illustrations of the lives of a people experiencing a painfully arduous process of recovery, but they don’t romanticize the tent cities or the desperate living conditions of the Haitians who were rendered homeless by the earthquake.
Rather than using the medium of photography mainly as an attempt to understand what has happened in Haiti, Gallery’s portraits reveal a sense of intimacy and closeness with the Haitian survivors, as well as a genuine wish to be helpful. His work stands as a tender expression of the unexpected and unlikely sense of hope that he discovered in the residents of the Haitian tent cities.
This piece presents a number of inspiring, deeply engaging high-resolution color photographs, a memorable photo-gallery of additional images, a documentary short film and an HD-version of the official music video, “We Are The World 25 For Haiti.”
http://disembedded.wordpress.com/2011/01/11/tent-life-in-haiti-portraits-of-profound-dignity-in-the-wake-of-devastation/January 12, 2011, will mark one year to the day that the devastating 7.9 magnitude... more
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At 11:00 a.m. eastern standard time on Monday, Americans are called upon to observe a moment of silence to honor the innocent victims of the senseless acts of violence in Tucson, Arizona, including those still fighting for their lives. It will be a time to come together as a nation in prayer or thoughtful reflection, keeping the victims and their families closely at heart.
Further, as a mark of respect for the victims of the tragic violence perpetrated on Saturday, January 8, 2011, in Tucson, Arizona, President Obama has ordered that the flag of the United States shall be flown at half-staff at the White House and upon all public buildings and grounds, at all military posts and naval stations, and on all naval vessels of the Federal Government in the District of Columbia and throughout the United States and its Territories and possessions until sunset, January 14, 2011.
This piece includes a number of high-resolution color photographs, a memorable photo-gallery and a video.
http://disembedded.wordpress.com/2011/01/10/honoring-the-victims-of-the-tragedy-in-tuscon-arizona-a-moment-of-silence/At 11:00 a.m. eastern standard time on Monday, Americans are called upon to observe a... more
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“The Empty Restaurants of New York” is an emotionally moving collection of photographs by the Dutch photographer Wijnanda Deroo. Deroo’s work depicts the hushed melancholy of vacant interiors found in the cafes and restaurants from four of New York City’s five boroughs. Instead of actual people, there is the presence of people who have been there before and who might be there again. Despite the lack of people present in Deroo’s work, there exists a tangible presence of human experience and activity, manifested in the subtle clues left behind from a once vibrant history. Her alluring use of color and composition invites the viewer into these hauntingly empty spaces with emotive power, reinforcing the perspective that beauty can be found in the least likely of places.
This piece includes a number of stunning high-resolution color photographs, a memorable slide show and the hauntingly beautiful music video, “Alone in New York.”
http://disembedded.wordpress.com/2011/01/08/the-hushed-melancholy-of-new-yorks-empty-restaurants/“The Empty Restaurants of New York” is an emotionally moving collection of... more
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“The Ruins of Detroit” is a powerful and disturbing collection of photographs, which are the result of a five-year collaboration by the French photographers Yves Marchand and Romain Meffre. “The Ruins of Detroit” tells the city’s story in one starkly beautiful photograph after another, adding up to nothing less than an end-of-empire narrative. The abandoned factories, the eerily vacant schools, the rotting houses and gutted skyscrapers chronicled by Marchand and Meffre are the artefacts of Detroit’s astonishing rise as a global capital of capitalism and its even more extraordinary descent into ruin, a place where the boundaries between the American dream and the American nightmare, between prosperity and poverty, between the permanent and the ephemeral are powerfully and painfully visible. No place exemplifies both the creative and destructive forces of modernity more than Detroit, past and present.
In addition to these remarkable photographs, this piece presents a memorable slide show of additional images from the collection and a documentary short film. “Pure Detroit” is a short film by Ivan George with gorgeous cinematography, but it’s also one that confronts the viewer with dramatic images of the collapse and decay that rapid economic and social change can have upon urban life. The impact of the film has been described as somewhere between heaven, hell and quiet meditation. While “Pure Detroit” is a beautiful visual mood piece, it’s also incredibly sad. The film reveals so much about the rapid changes we’re encountering in our world right now, how the old things gets broken much faster than new things are put in their place. “Pure Detroit” serves as a powerful reminder of what the old things breaking down can be like for so many of us.
Again, this piece includes a number of striking high-resolution photographs, a memorable slide show and a documentary short film.
http://disembedded.wordpress.com/2011/01/02/the-ruins-of-detroit-a-sad-narrative-of-urban-life-in-america/“The Ruins of Detroit” is a powerful and disturbing collection of... more
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When John Maloof bid on a box of old photographic negatives at a 2007 estate auction, little did he know that he was stepping deep into the dark mystery of Vivian Maier. Maloof was searching for images to use in a book about the history of Chicago’s Portage Park neighborhood. Instead, what he found were 30,000 images by Maier, who spent much of her time wandering Chicago and the world as a street photographer with a keen eye for capturing compelling images.
Since then, Maloof has amassed an archive of Maier’s life and work. Now, Maier’s photographs and life story are gaining attention, including at the Chicago Cultural Center, where the exhibit “Finding Vivian Maier: Chicago Street Photographer” opens on Friday. “There weren’t many women doing street photography in the ’50s and ’60s,” said Lanny Silverman, chief curator at the Cultural Center. “So this is very interesting and noteworthy. Beyond just the story of her life, she’s quite a good photographer.”
The details of Vivian Maier’s life are slowly coming to light. Maier was born in 1926 in New York City and spent much of her childhood in France. In 1951, she returned to New York and then in 1956 came to Chicago to work as a nanny for a North Shore family. Maier, who was a very a private person and a bit of a character, always had a Rolleiflex camera around her neck. Maier was a theater and movie buff; she was also a hoarder and a bit of a recluse, but she wasn’t afraid to walk the street with her camera and engage people. Maier seems to have been somewhat obsessed with using photography to document the world around her.
Vivian Maier’s work is the purest form of art; none of it was done for any commercial reason. Her images often focus upon women, children, the old and the poor. The influences in her pictures appear to range from the works of Harry Callahan, Aaron Siskind, Diane Arbus and Helen Levitt.
This piece presents a number of high-resolution photographs, a memorable slide show and two documentary short films.
http://disembedded.wordpress.com/2011/01/02/vivian-maier-discovering-chicagos-reclusive-street-photographer/When John Maloof bid on a box of old photographic negatives at a 2007 estate auction,... more
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“The Sad Ghosts of Christmas Just Past” is a collection of photographs of our Christmas just past by the photographer J. Geoffrey Badner. The tinsel, twinkling lights and Santas have come and gone in the city, but still we are haunted by Christmas: the tossed-out trees that just never seem to go away.
This piece includes a number of high-resolution color photographs and a slide show of some of those sad, abandoned coniferous Christmas trees.
http://disembedded.wordpress.com/2010/12/29/photos-of-the-day-the-sad-ghosts-of-christmas-just-past/“The Sad Ghosts of Christmas Just Past” is a collection of photographs of... more
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“Michelangelo: The Drawings of a Genius” presents a selection of pictures from a major exhibition of around one hundred of the most beautiful drawings by Michelangelo currently at the Albertina in Vienna, Austria. This is the first major Michelangelo exhibition in more than twenty years, with a focus on the figural drawings by Michelangelo, who is introduced here as the genius of a period of change.
This piece includes a number of high-resolution pictures, a slide show of additional images from the exhibition and a documentary short film.
http://disembedded.wordpress.com/2010/12/27/michelangelo-the-drawings-of-a-genius/“Michelangelo: The Drawings of a Genius” presents a selection of pictures... more
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In a major victory for gay rights advocates as well as President Obama, the Senate on Saturday repealed the ban on gay men and lesbians serving openly in the military. The repeal of DADT closed a 17-year struggle over a policy that forced thousands of Americans to leave the ranks of the military and caused others to keep secret their sexual orientation.
By a vote of 65 to 31, the Senate approved and sent to President Obama a repeal of the Clinton-era law, known as “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” a policy that critics said amounted to government-sanctioned discrimination, which treated gay and lesbian troops as second-class citizens. The President is expected to sign the measure into law next week, delivering Pres. Obama a victory on one of his chief campaign promises.
This piece includes a number of high-resolution photographs, a memorable slide show and two videos, including a music video.
http://disembedded.wordpress.com/2010/12/18/senate-strikes-down-dont-ask-dont-tell-policy/In a major victory for gay rights advocates as well as President Obama, the Senate on... more
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Some people feel that The Pogues’ “Fairytale of New York” is the best Christmas song ever, and not just one of the best, but a gorgeous song no matter why or how you observe Christmas. “Fairytale of New York” isn’t exactly the epitome of restraint, with Shane MacGowan and the sadly departed Kirsty MacColl singing all over each other, slurring words and tossing all kinds of insults at each other.
The song starts out tenderly, with MacGowan recounting Christmas Eve spent in a Bowery drunk tank, but also his recent gambling win and dreams for the future. MacColl lets us know, as the tempo picks up, that they met on a Christmas Eve, and after some light banter they really get into it, blaming each other for anything they can get their hands on, MacColl ending with “Happy Christmas your arse / I pray God it’s our last.”
But then they sing the chorus again, and a string section that actually sounds like it belongs in a Christmas song begins to take over. And it all feels, in spite of itself, grand and sweeping and even a little touching. They squabble a little more, the same as every Christmas, but they’re losing steam; finally MacColl accuses MacGowan of stealing her dreams when they met. This is a terribly poetic way to depict the deadening of expectations in terrible lives. But MacGowan’s voice turns gentle, even though it’s still rough, and he responds: “I kept them with me babe, I put them with my own, Can’t make it all alone, I’ve built my dreams around you.”
It’s a tough old life, and “Fairytale of New York” practically oozes with the gritty spirit of urban decay, poverty, alcoholism and general dysfunction. But as the sounds of those strings float off and out of sight, it doesn’t seem to matter. Not to them and not to us, because it’s the day to sigh and give in to our better inclinations and hold each other and admit there’s still something there. Christmas is the arbitrary day of the year that purely through willpower and tradition we’ve turned into the day where we all try just a little bit harder at being better than we thought we could be.
This piece includes high-resolution vintage photographs, a slide show and an HD version of the very touching music video.
http://disembedded.wordpress.com/2010/12/10/on-the-bowery-a-fairytale-of-new-york/Some people feel that The Pogues’ “Fairytale of New York” is the... more
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“Nude Visions: 150 Years of Nude Photography” is a collection of photographs representing the unclothed human body, images that have exuded a great fascination ever since time began. The series of photographs presented here were selected from the exhibition Nude Visions held earlier this year at Museum Fur Kunst und Gewerbe (MKG), in Hamburg, Germany. The exhibition invited visitors to embark on a journey through a collection of images of the human body that spanned 150 years.
Nude photography is always a process of negotiation between revealing and concealing, unveiling the ambivalence about what is visible and what is unseen, between shame and curiosity, of legitimation and provocativeness. How the naked body is treated is closely bound up with the specific social context in which it occurs, the ideas of morality and the aesthetic ideal of an era. The subject of the nude or nudity is always influenced by both the historical artistic tradition and by the reactions to contemporary impulses, which in turn are interpreted by the photographer. Images which were still regarded as being scandalous at the beginning of the 20th century, triggering moral misgivings and controversy about a subject perceived as being delicate, hardly bring a blush to the face of anyone living today. It is not only the motifs which have evolved over the years, but also the reproducibility of the images, as well as the extent and manner in which media coverage of them has impacted the awareness and significance of nakedness in society.
This piece includes a number of high-resolution photographs, a slide show and a documentary video about the exhibition in Germany.
http://disembedded.wordpress.com/2010/12/01/nude-visions-150-years-of-nude-photography/“Nude Visions: 150 Years of Nude Photography” is a collection of... more
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Long before strippers started twirling on shiny brass poles in G-strings, men would get goofy watching women twirl their pasties at the old-timey burlesque shows. America’s big cities often had dozens of burlesque theaters that featured bodacious babes in barely-there costumes, at least until prudish city officials started banning the shows. But with the neo-burlesque movement coming back into vogue, and with Christina Aguilera and Cher co-starring in the new movie, “Burlesque”, here’s a fond look back at the heyday of burlesque.
This piece includes a number of high resolution vintage black-and-white photographs, a slide show and two musical documentary short films.
http://disembedded.wordpress.com/2010/11/29/classic-bump-n-grind-the-old-time-burlesque/Long before strippers started twirling on shiny brass poles in G-strings, men would... more
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“WAR IS OVER! (If You Want It)” is a documentary short film created by John Lennon and Yoko Ono. As 1969 came to a close, Lennon and Ono’s ideas about their protests against the Vietnam War grew beyond printing a few posters. As Ono notes in the documentary, Lennon was the one who dreamed big. “I said let’s have T-shirts,” Ono remembers, “and John said, ‘Let’s buy billboards.’” The posters were displayed as billboards in twelve major cities across the world. And the message appeared not only in mass-produced posters and postcards, but also in large newspaper ads, as well as on the radio and television. It was the first major multimedia campaign for peace.
In 1971, Lennon and Ono, with the Harlem Community Choir, recorded their message as a peace anthem, a song that has also become a Christmas standard: “Happy Xmas (War Is Over).” According to the John Lennon Museum, Lennon wrote the song as an attempt to get people to see war at a grassroots level and for them to take responsibility for the world around them.
So this is now the beginning of the Christmas season. And what have you done? The opening lines of the song, sung so nonchalantly by Lennon, serve as a call-to-action for us all. The holidays become critical moments in the year for personal assessment, to review our choices. And to make things better. If you want it.
This piece includes a number of high-resolution vintage photographs, a memorable slide show and the documentary short film. In addition, access is provided to the full version of the new feature-length documentary film, “LENNONYC.”
http://disembedded.wordpress.com/2010/11/27/happy-christmas-war-is-over-if-you-want-it/“WAR IS OVER! (If You Want It)” is a documentary short film created by... more
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