Category Archives: film

“Save WPFW!” Ulp, Wait, Too Late :(

Posted on by toddpanther

WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON AT WPFW?!?

Lemme get this straight: the Pacifica Board is taking off Black Classical Music (a.k.a. jazz) so that it can air shows from other Pacifica stations and radio shows from NPR and PRI?!?

I am a fan of some of the shows that are replacing the jazz. But 1) as a NPR fanatic,  I was perfectly fine with WPFW being a REFUGE from that hegemonic view and 2) Black people need to access the Realm of the Ancestors in the morning.

How is a network that is heading toward bankruptcy buying PRI and NPR programs ?????

I hope the current (and now, ex-)staff will do something other than complain. I’m pretty sure I know what would happen if the National Board tried this at KPFA and KPFK.

DECEMBER 1st UPDATE: Check here and here.

My Thinking About “The Life of Pi”

Posted on by toddpanther

I did a movie marathon on Thursday. (And to the surprise of a friend of mine who joined me for Movie No. 1, I actually paid all four tickets. :)) The movies were: “Skyfall”; “Twilight: Breaking Dawn, Part II,” “Life of Pi” and “Lincoln.” I really enjoyed it! Verdicts: “Skyfall”: Best Bond ever! “Twilight”: LOVED the “Braveheart” ending! “Lincoln”: Umm…… 🙂

“Pi”: An interesting meditation on faith. (But I think “The Alchemist” knocks it out the water, frankly. :)) But I was thinking about faith and symbolism today while on youtube, and I found the below. I remember how Part 7, which I wore out on VHS, was the only—well, the main—thing that kept me going those lonely years of my freelance dreams in the late 1990s to mid-00s. (Just watching it right now, I hear every other line in my head before it is uttered.) Even though I knew the Haley story was mostly—well, practically all—myth, I didn’t care. It was the idea—the “truth” of the myth—that kept me going. Hmmm…….