Tuesday, December 8, 2009

Study Hall

This work/study track means plowing through the Laughing Horse collection at a high rate. It's an opportunity, a window. 4D Studios, connected in my own mind to the Portland Knowledge Lab (a collection, an archive, for more studios than just mine) has only so much time to compare notes.

Today it's The Times of Harvey Milk, the documentary, not the recent movie. I've seen this before but a long time ago and I forget where. Also Crisis, by ABC TV, about the breakdown of apartheid in Alabama under pressure from Kennedy brothers.

This latter has a lot of amazingly good and candid material, a testament to the professionalism of the film makers, who obviously had the trust of the an inner circle cast of political players, including the Alabama governor George Wallace.

The two students were perfect for their roles I thought. The guy's quip that he'd like to be governor someday as in "yes, I'm your worst nightmare" was good humored and smart (what I don't know right now is how long ABC kept this film in the can).

The former is of course a landmark, award winning film. The scene where people are smashing into a building while the sound track shouts "no more violence!" was worth a rewind and review.

My local time zone has become less important given the realities of Cyberia. Sometimes I need to be awake at the same time as someone in the Middle or Far East.

Math 2.0, using Web 2.0 tools, puts emphasis on synchronous, not just asynchronous communications.