Monday, January 28, 2008

Scher and Scher alike.

The sameness of much of what we see on the screens that surround us is oppressive. The candidates are the same, their signage, their false promises and shrill imprecations. Movies all pick from the same pool of special effects to the exclusion of character, plot and moral. The pervasive use of stock images and words, even when "originally" shot deadens our senses. All communication becomes little more than a stringing together of cliched words, images and emotions. You go girl! The existential "APPLAUSE" sign lights and we clap like Rhesus in a lab. Give me my banana already.

Jeff Scher is an animator who sees the world differently. His work has been featured in The New York Times for about a year now--about once every two months or so. So every 60 days, in other words, I get to see, hear and maybe feel something that hasn't been folded, spindled and mutilated like cheese in a can or Americans in a Dumbmocracy.

Three minutes and twelve seconds of originality. Brother, can you spare a hundred and ninety-two seconds? Nah. Why bother? The expected, the routine is so much easier. Unfortunately, we live in the neo-dark-ages equivalent of WWI trench warfare. No movement forward. No movement backward. The threat of death if you lift your head up. O tempore, o mores.
http://scher.blogs.nytimes.com/?WT.mc_id=OP-D-I-NYT-MOD-MOD-M012-ROS-0108-PH&WT.mc_ev=click&mkt=OP-D-I-NYT-MOD-MOD-M012-ROS-0108-PH

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