Mundane…

Shirley Temple, who apparently turns 80 tomorrow (who knew she was still around!), broke her arm today.

And now for a song

Sustainable cinema

Happy Earth Day! How about celebrating by “watching local“? Seattle boasts several cinemas that are completely independent, show Northwest work, and support local businesses with their concession choices and other purchases. If you are off to a movie tonight, consider taking a chance on something playing at NWFF, The Grand Illusion, the Central Cinema, SIFF Cinema, or one of the many other options, instead of one of the theater chains.

STRANGE CULTURE’s Steve Kurtz cleared of charges

In Fall of 2007 (and as part of SIFF’s Alternate Cinema program) NWFF showed Lynn Hershman’s STRANGE CULTURE, about conceptual artist Steve Kurtz. From our description:

Everything changed for conceptual artist Steve Kurtz on the morning of May 11, 2004, when he awoke to discover that his 45-year-old wife, Hope, had died in her sleep. A domestic tragedy turned into a Kafkaesque nightmare. The paramedics he summoned, alarmed by the Petri dishes, scientific equipment and books in his house, reported him to the FBI as a suspected bio-terrorist. The founders of the Critical Art Ensemble, Kurtz and his wife had been working on an installation about the emergence of biotechnology for the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art. The live cultures they were using were as harmless as yogurt, but a Hazmat team from Quantico descended on their home, arrested Kurtz, carried away his equipment, computers and papers, and seized his wife’s body from the coroner.

Lynn Hershman Leeson’s unconventional documentary, features Kurtz himself and actors Tilda Swinton, Peter Coyote, Thomas Jay Ryan and Josh Kornbluth. It combines reenactments and interviews to tell a tale of government overreaction that would be comic if it weren’t appalling and still unresolved nearly three years later. Though cleared of bio-terrorism, Kurtz still faces federal indictments that could result in a long prison term. Strange Culture is a story not only of post-9/11 paranoia but also of the clash between the “strange culture”of art and dissent and a Justice Department unwilling to admit it has made a mistake.

Well, today the NY Times reports that at last Kurtz has been cleared of the residual charges of “improperly obtaining biological materials.” It is unclear whether that’s the last of his charges, but at least Steve can rest easy with yet another absurd allegation declared ‘insufficient on its face” by the judge.