Jakarta (Jakarta_6)

 

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Jakara_6

 

The Jakarta_6 video posted above was produced from photos and video clips taken in Jakarta in February, 2008. All photos and videos are from The Jakarta Urban Blog, some of which have been published here previously.  I want to note additional credits: two photos from The Jakarta Post (the boy swimming in the garbage and ‘Merdeka’, I have no author attribution), IndCoup (b&w kampung), and Hermanus Prihatna (soldier).

The original video was created from a slide show produced on my MacBook with iPhoto software. This slide show was exported to Quicktime and saved as  .mov file where the video clips and sound track were then added. The video posted above is a .mp4 file which allowed for a faster download time in WordPress.  The resolution is not as good at the Quicktime file, there is some pixilation in the photo transitions, but is adequate for the posting here.  The sound track quality is very good.

The sound track is music from Paul Winter, Siti Nurhaliza, Dewa, Parkdrive, Sharina Munaf, and Bruce Cockburn.  

I love Jakarta.

My heart is there. My people are there. I dearly miss that city. So, Jakarta_6 is a tribute, a love note, a documentary.  I hope you enjoy it. 

The title “Jakarta_6″ comes through default of naming the file. It took me six times before I got what I wanted. The video still needs some editing. The running time for the video is just over 39 minutes. 

A high resolution DVD is available from The Jakarta Urban Blog. The cost is $12.00 US per copy and includes shipping to anywhere in the world where there is a mailing address. You can purchase a copy through the PayPal donation button posted at the left bottom column (be sure to email me about your purchase and include your name and mailing address) or by visiting my SUPPORT page. My contact information is posted there.

Turn down the lights. Turn on the sound. Turn up the volume.

School has started again. Posting my be sporadic for the next ten days or so.

Comments are encouraged and welcomed.

Thanks.  

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Jakarta (the slow motion apocalypse)

 
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WHO IS NEXT
 

I would like to recommend the following web site to my readers called dropping knowledge. These folks usually have a very interesting opening page and the recent one is fantastic; a short video titled WHO IS NEXT. The slow motion apocalypse speeded up.  Have a look. …>here

or watch it above… turn on the sound and turn up the volume!

From their header:

“dropping knowledge invites you to ask and answer questions covering social themes of global significance. When you ask in order to understand, when you answer in order to share, this is what we mean by dropping knowledge”

 

From Asia Times

August 22, 2008

“It’s the year 2016 and a professional futurologist looks back at some unfortunate predictions made in 2008. He explains how the Chicken Littles were just as far from the mark about dramatic change as the Panglossian utopians, and that a different kind of apocalypse, the slow-motion kind, is what really happened to the world. – John Feffer (Aug 21, ‘08)”

That’s the lead-in for a most interesting article by John Feffer  (co-director of Foreign Policy in Focus at the Institute for Policy Studies)  titled Apocalypse Later…> go to article

What was of interest to me in the lead-in was the idea of a “slow motion apocalypse”.  The idea that sometime things don’t just jump up and smack us on the head in an all-of-sudden manner. No great clap of thunder proceeds a sudden catastrophic destruction.

Instead, the terror comes in a slow drip, drip, drip… like the melting of the ice on the polar caps.

It’s slow. We don’t notice it.  

Somethings we can’t notice.

Some we don’t want to notice.

Great changes are wrought in this manner.

Feffer’s article ends with this bit of wisdom and warning, it’s the “Goldilocks Apocalypse”:

“…we seek out the comfortable middle at our own peril. Not too hot and not too cold, not too hard and not too soft, it’s a strategy guaranteed to lull anyone into a dangerous complacency. After all, once you’ve made your bed, however comfortable it may be, you have to lie in it. And it’s then, after a few brief moments of self-satisfied sleep, that you’re bound to hear the scratching at the door.

The bears are home. And they’re hungry.”

 

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Jakarta (video)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Jakarta

 

There are now posted on YouTube 15 videos from my recent stay in Jakarta. You can access them here:

Jakarta Urban Blog YouTube

 
 

 

There is also a link to these videos at the bottom of my Multimedia page.