At SMV we often cultivate what we call "emotional texture" meaning things that intentionally produce multiple conflicting emotional experiences at once. Here is a tribute to the great pioneers of this form of affect, the great BBC, 'The Office' (single quotes used in tribute to the Queen's English). We're not sure that the American version ever got as edgy as the British one.  So if you haven't see the BBC version be prepared for the best/worst.

113-second preview of the soon-to-open Kenton Library at your fingertips.

Dump trucks, tractors, and shovels aren’t the only things shaking at North Denver Avenue and McClellan Street. 

Traffic director Traci Olson has stylishly eased traffic through the intersection over the past several months as the Kenton streetscape project has been digging deep into the heart of the business community.

But calling it traffic directing doesn’t do justice to the infectious grooves and smiles Olson adds to the job.

Its new year's eve everyone. Happy New Year from Saturday Morning Video.  We hope you look forward to an exciting and joyous New Year/Decade 2010. Holy Cow!

We can't believe, we're actually living in a time that was once throughly considered THE FUUUUTURE!!!

"We'll all have flying cars, by 2010, we would say around the middle school parkinglot/playground at recess." Ah we dreamed big in 6th grade.

Ah..back when Saturday Morning Video was just a wee little media producer (cough..in the 80s..ahem), we distinctly remembered that every new years eve the local TV station would play 2001: A Space Odyssey right after they showed ball dropped in Times Square.  Why? We don't know.  Why show the trailer now? We won't tell. Lots of people have tripped out the meaning behind this 1968 sci-fi epic. 
But let's just say, as we crest the new year and new decade, here still in the springtime of the century, let us take a moment to look back, and see how they in the PAST once looked forward to the future, so that as we NOW look also to the future, we know how they saw us in the PRESENT then.
Happy New Year
~ SMV

Merry Christmas to all (whether you go in for that sort of thing or not)

Gus Van Sant took advantage of the Veterans Day holiday and shot scenes for his new feature, Restless, in the school yard of North Portland’s Holy Redeemer.  http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1498569/

There has been much talk about the film Restless being shot in town. But today brought the film crew to North Portland's Catholic School on North Rosa Parks Way.  The set was closed and it was stated that Van Sant in particular does not allow press or even extraneous crew on set while working. The filming was being conducted in the school parking lot. The parking lot was, oddly enough, recently featured in a KATU report about a greening project being conducted by Holy Redmeer and Depave. In other sustainable-non-Hollywood-but-still-noble features, the school also claims to have recently completed the first "green" Catholic school building in the country. The John Paul II tech, science and media library features a living roof.

Details are scant, but the film is to star Mia Wasikowska, the rising Australian starlet, from HBO’s The Treatment. The actress is also set to star in Tim Burton’s upcoming Alice In Wonderland.

Photo teaster by Dan Hackencrow

This video of the latest Urban Renewal public meeting about the expansion of tax increment financing (aka Urban Renewal) in North/Northeast and the North Portland Peninsula. The video was produced by Portland Community Media and the Portland Development Commission. Surprisingly, if you actually live in these neighborhoods (which you should), this video is interesting and informative, in regards to explaining how we got into the current urban renewal mess we are in. Points to PDC for being fairly honest, and showing some integrity with objectively presenting the facts and policy decisions that led to the current questions: who's going to get the few dollars in public money that are left for the neighborhood.

Video produced by Portland Community Media in cooperation with the Portland Development Commission [10 minutes]

The second meeting of the PDC's N/NE advisory committee.  The group is suppose to make recommendations on whether or not to merge the Oregon Convention Center and Interstate Corridor Urban Renewal Areas and/or extend them to St Johns and into the Alberta Arts district.
 

Well looks like the weather is clearing up as expected. It's time to get out and see some of the many events and festivities going on around the neighborhood (see above posting).  A youtube search of "Alberta Street Fair" ironically pulls up our own contributing video blogger Dave Hunter's coverage of last year's event.  This one has a bit from former Cirque Du Soliel performer Masonius Max, who dislocates his shoulder for the benefit of the crowd.  Ah..keeping it weird Portland...

By Alex Peterson

Stage frightened video artist/collector Melody Owen has the best collection of short experimental work that I’ve seen at a Portland film festival all year. That may seem like a lot of qualifying, but this city has a helluva lot of film festivals (despite, or because of, the fact that it’s much better known for its music scene.) Just this year I saw each of the PDX Film Fest’s shorts programs at the Clinton Street, I got to view the screener but did not attend the 35th Northwest Film and Video Fest and I could even throw in the incredibly awesome TrailerWars presentation that Dan Halstead hosted at the Hollywood a few months back. Each lovingly curated one had interesting stuff, but Melody Owen’s eighty-minute program seems a personal mix-tape of video art: it flows, peaks, crests and shocks the best.

Neal Medlyn's ...Her's a Queen from Portland Sentinel on Vimeo.

~Video Blog by Becca Bartleson
From the PICA web site:

"…HER’S A QUEEN is Neal Medlyn’s fifth pop-star opus and the first installment in a two-part Britney Spears/Hannah Montana extravaganza, built around the idea and music of Britney Spears, purity, and nonsexual touch.

~Cornelius Swart

Over a year ago, The Sentinel reported on a proposed development along N. Interstate at N. Prescott which would someday fill an entire  city block. The development has not emerged. But an entire block of boarded up houses has been a feature of the neighborhood since the development was announced. That is, until last week.  Last Thursday the Oregonian posted this handy report and nice lil' video about the houses being used to train firefighters.  The economy has obviously halted the development, but according to the O, developer Prescott Partners plan to put a park on the block until the development can restart. Aaaaw..that's nice of them...

Review and video by Alex Peterson

     Full disclosure: I’ve  known a fair amount of the people in this group for a few years now, which nobody would’ve ever found out, but in case I start to say anything that’s too hyperbolic here, I want it known that the Oregon Painting Society is a double-edged sword for me: too much praise, I’m just kow-towing to some friends; too much negative and they may not speak to me. That said, they’re probably a double-edged sword to performance art in general, and all BS aside, I breathed a sigh of relief when they put on a good show.

An amazing 90 degree September afternoon ahead of us.  It still feels like summer, which is awesome since we didn't get much of this kind of weather in June or July.  Hope you are all out there enjoying the day and not watching this stupid video. But if you do, this will remind you to get out there while the getting is still good. So grab your dune buggy and live like you're in a Juicy Fruit commercial!

Thursday night's performance at The Works.  Somewhere between performance, audience participation and gym class for 1st graders...a moving picture is worth a thousand words....

Video by Cornelius Swart [3:43 minutes]

Well, we're halfway through the festival now (it ends on the 13th). I thought I'd mark the mid-way point with a look back..way back.. to those heady times we once called last thursday, Sept 3rd. This video, shot at The Works, features a bubbly 3D art..uh..thing, those old rascals Gang Gang Dance...again, and a guy who honestly just wants  a beer.

Video by Rebecca Robinson [non-sync video]

If you haven't seen TBA, then it's hard to get a sense of what experimental performance arts and installations are really like. The Sentinel is composing more videos as we speak. But here is a video sample from Sunday day's Kinski/C.L.U.E. music, video and movement performance.

FROM T:BA
"C.L.U.E. Live is a psychedelic dance/rock/video/installation experience. An original score is performed live by Seattle-based band Kinski, with dual-screen projected video made in collaboration with A.L. Steiner, and set installation created with AJ Blandford. Amidst an explosive sonic journey, performance duo robbinschilds, utilize their inventive, quirky movement style to traverse through inanimate, human, and extra-pedestrian states."

Snark by Cornelius Swart
Well, it's Labor Day: the day that gives Oregonians at least one day of justification for not having a job. KGW reported mid-month that Portland has slipped from being the 3rd to 5th least employed city in America.  But let's be honest, even when we actually have jobs here in Portland we don't try very hard...or as we might say, the creative types remain ‘mentally unemployed’ even while at work. ?But Labor Day is about more than a day of not working out of respect for those with jobs. We should also celebrate the semi-employed, those who aspire to be employed, those with employed parents and friends and those who are unemployed because the government gives them money and they refuse to 'man up' and stand in line for work with ‘day laborers'. ?

Lastly, Labor Day is about the end of summer! It’s back to school [at least symbolically] for the kiddies. So, with signature Sentinel iconic interpolation, here is the first 10 minutes of Endless Summer: the classic surf movie about the kids who circled the globe seeking out the perfect wave, and fleeing winter, school and gainful employment.

SMV has a shameful secret to confess.  We’ve been watching reality television!  Ever since one of the members of SMV not-so-collective/collective moved into a new place with a working television (no cable) we’ve been catching up on 5 years of missed boob tube. While it has been over 15 years since we’ve had even basic cable, having 8 whole digital channels, not including four or five 24 hour Christian broadcasting networks, has opened up a whole new, non-alcohol driven, avenue for kill brain cells, wasting time, avoiding emotional awareness and eat Cheetos. It’s wonderful. While our favorite shows are Big Brother and Hell's Kitchen. However, this show looks pretty good at showing people at their worst, especially when they are children.