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Comedies of Fair Use: April 28-30 at NYU

I'm usually pretty skittish about plugging my conference panels but for those of you in New York, Comedies of Fair Use: A Search for Comity in the Intellectual Property Wars should be worth attending.

Panelists include Lawrence Lessig, Art Spiegelman, Siva Vaidhyanathan, Kembrew McLeod, Lawrence Weschler, Hank Shocklee, Jonathan Letham, Errol Morris, Joy Garnett, and the rest of us.

Friday, April 28 through Sunday, April 30
Hemmerdinger Hall
100 Washington Sq. East

(I'm speaking Saturday at 10am and on Sunday at 11:30am).

Free and open to the public. Come one, come all!

In LA? Come by the I AM 8 BIT art show, why not?

If you're in the greater LA area tomorrow, I'd be delighted if you came by the I AM 8 BIT show opening reception at Gallery Nineteen Eighty Eight (7020 Melrose, corner of Melrose & La Brea). It's an exhibition dedicated to 80s-vintage video game inspired art, and there's some great works there, by some excellent artists. Oh, and me. I've got a sculpture there (sketch shown; I'll get some photos up, if anyone's interested) that's taller than me and based on the robot from Berzerk, and I'd love people to come see it. And hopefully buy it, as I have no idea where I'd keep it.

It'll be a great show, with great art, music, and, I'm sure, booze. So come by!

Tax the Arts

Starving artists no more?  Preserving America's Cultural Heritage is a proposal for a new federal law adding a 1% tax on all art sales.  The funds would be set aside and "annual disbursements from this fund would be paid to eligible artists living in the US. Eligibility would be awarded to visual artists that have evidence of an exhibition history." 

The proposal and accompanied campaign is a collaborative effort by artist Jeffrey Vallance and the MA Curatorial Practice program at the California College of the Arts. Their next event will be on April 15 on Neighborhood Public Radio at Artist Television Access in San Francisco from noon to 2pm.  Neighborhood Public Radio (NPR) will be broadcasting Tax themed shows for the day.  A download of the broadcast should be available soon after.

And while we're on the subject of taxes, I don't have the stones the War Tax Resisters have, but their site is refreshing at tax time.

Coffee (TM)

The latest target of Starbucks hyperactive trademark attorneys is Tulsa, Oklahoma's DoubleShot Coffee, a small independent shop and retailer. Starbuck's is claiming the rights to the word "DoubleShot," a term that, if I am doing the math correctly, refers to two shots of espresso. I'm having a hard time believing that Starbucks came up with that recipe.

This isn't the first time Starbucks has tried to trademark a common phrase and bully smaller members of the industry out of using it. For example, Starbucks didn't invent Christmas but they attempted to stop the monks of the All-Merciful Savior Monastery from selling a Christmas blend of their Monastery Blend Coffee. I'm glad to see that the DoubleShot folks intend to fight back; I hope it doesn't cost them too much money.

Starbucks has me cowed. I had planned to launch an eponymous business selling gift cards to independent coffee shops called "Star Bucks," but you are just going to have to make do with cash at a not-Starbucks location near you.

Via Consumerist

Baby Got Pack

Philip Morris sent a cease and desist letter to the manufacturer of the Smoking Baby doll because the cigs look too much like the trademarked Marlboro design. The company felt that the toy misrepresented the company's attitude regarding children and smoking. Officially, Philip Morris recommends Marlboro Lights for smokers under the age of 5.

Toy Lounge has agreed to stop using the red "roof" design. I recommend Twista Lime Camels as a replacement.

Via The Smoking Gun

Down with slavery

Live Free or Die, the state motto of New Hampshire, is far and away the best in the country. Not that it has a lot of competition. It isn't explicitly religious, blandly democratic, or oddly phallic. Instead, it captures the American revolutionary spirit that inspires both the conservative drive to free Iraqis and the liberal drive to free Americans from the consequences of the conservatives' quixotic mission to free the Iraqis. So, of course, some people in New Hampshire want to change it.

"I think that's an in-your-face motto. It's misinterpreted. It's out of context. That's not who we are," said state Rep. Tim Robertson, a Democrat.

So you are for what, exactly, Tim? Servitude?

(Via eLynah Forum)

Oil Standard

Oil Standard, a browser plugin by artist Michael Mandiberg, will convert prices from U.S. Dollars into the equivalent value in barrels of crude oil.  "When you load a web page, the script seamlessly inserts converted prices into the page."  Hold your mouse over the price and the plugin will load a recent news headline on the oil business.

Nickels, silver dollars, gold coins - our money used to be linked with the value of precious metals.  That ended in 1971 when Nixon closed the "gold window" and one could no longer cash in their dollar bills for gold and silver in the federal reserves.  A few years later the US dollar became the exclusive currency of OPEC, tightly tying US money and the value of oil together.  Today it's common knowledge that gas prices go up and the dollar will buy you less.  The 10W40 Dollar has a ring to it, no?

Packard Jennings at Catharine Clark Gallery, SF

A project I have been working with Packard Jennings on under the auspices of the Anti-Advertising Agency will make its debut this Thursday, April 6, from 5:30-7:30pm at Catharine Clark Gallery in San Francisco.  You may know Packard from his "Fallen Rapper Protoyptes" in the Illegal Art E xhibit.

The show at Catharine Clark includes two new works. One is a pamphlet, much like his Day at the Mall pamphlet, designed to be included in postage paid return mail envelopes that come with credit card offers.  The pamphlet is in the style of an airline safety card, and shows mail processors overturning their desks and creating a new utopian society within their office complex.  Packard is collecting the business reply postage paid envelopes to send pamphlets in and would appreciate anyone who sends some his way care of the gallery.

The other project is the Anti-Advertising Agency Bus Stop Bench project.  Packard and I have been surveying neighborhoods in Oakland about what advertising tactics bother residents the most, then Packard created new content for ads on the neighborhhod bus stop benches in response to the survey results. The drawings, a sample bench, and documentation can be seen at the gallery.

The opening reception is Thursday from 5:30 to 7:30 on the second floor of 49 Geary in San Francisco.  The show will be up through May 6.

The Past Is Over

Helena Keefe recently held a speech writing contest with the following premise.

"Can you imagine a speech given by president Bush that would convince you that he has had a change of heart and could actually be the president of your dreams?  It is all too easy to criticize our president and his administration. Life changing events (often of the extremely painful variety) force us to reevaluate our values and actions. What if something like this happened to our president. What if he were humbled in some way which caused a profound change in his outlook on life and his role as the leader of our country - turning the aggressive posturing of an all-attack-all-the-time leader into a gentler, wiser soul determined to demonstrate the power of honesty and vulnerability."

The winner of the contest received a $50 prize and the speech was recorded by a Bush impersonator.  The winners were five students from a San Francisco Elementary School and the five audio recordings are brilliant.  My personal favorite is Zoe Baker, who peppered her speech with Bush asking, "are you intimidated?" as well as series of 'nicknames' I might start using.