Category Archives: KMZ Features

Nook is Tim Vincent-Smith’s business of the art of being and doing as Tim Vincent-Smith does and is. Nook projects include seats made out of pianos, beds made out of driftwood trees, trousers made out of ties, and a portrait of Timothy Hornsby as The Nightwatchman painted on a piece of plyboard pulled up from under some Scot’s kitchen floor. This is what nook had to say about itself:

“Martine Bedin designs what she likes, not what the customer wants, because the customer does not know and could never explain, just as she cannot explain what she will do until she has done it. A designer, she thinks, is a sort of peaceful terrorist, who creates what nobody expects, what nobody could forsee: that is the whole point of originality.”
—An Intimate History of Humanity, Theodore Zeldin

See images at nook.org.uk or nook’s flickr

For months, nay years, we here at Kilometer Zero have been begging – yes, begging – Quinn Comendant to post to the KMZ Microblog. What finally got him up off his Zen California ass and inspired him to put fingers to keys for the Microblog? Paravion Press, the publishing venture launched by Atlantis Books in Greece. Which means it must be pretty damn sensational to make that hippy/flower/organic/tea/bicycle child get up out of his fair trade hammock and post something. So, really, you should check it out:

http://paravionpress.org/

(And, this is a screenshot of a cover. Dynamic imagery is not our trademark.)

Roger’s Pass at the Austin Film Festival.

Roger’s Pass premieres on September 25 at the Calgary International Film Festival

Get thee there, ye Calgary-based microblog followers! Alternatively, watch the youtube trailer. They’re also on facebook.

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Colin Askey, dear to all of our hearts, makes his directorial/producerorial/screenplayorial debut with Roger’s Pass. Watch the trailer and tell me you aren’t hankering to see this film …

RogersPassMovie on YouTube

Edmund Burke once observed that, “He who wrestles with us strengthens our nerves, and sharpens our skill. Our antagonist is our helper.”

Lucid words. But there’s one small problem. No matter how helpful these antagonists might be, they usually get treated like, well, antagonists. This is the paradox of dissent and Jeremy Mercer examines how a new generation of behavioral economics, neuroscientists, and business managers are attempting to extract the fruits of dissent while protecting the cherished dissenter from the claws of conventional thinkers.

Read the essay here:

http://www.odemagazine.com/doc/71/in-praise-of-dissent/

And, if you aren’t familiar with Ode Magazine, visit the site and give it a look. In an age where most magazines are dumbing down and featuring high-profile investigations on celebrity cellulite, Ode provides a progressive and in-depth look at everything from advances in green architecture to the future of ethical investment. Worth a look is Mercer’s earlier – and award-winning! – essay which examines how standard economic theory wrongly dismissed the role altruism plays in society and business.

http://www.odemagazine.com/doc/63/altruism-vs-economics

For more of Mercer’s non-Ode work, visit his website http://www.jeremymercer.net

Kilometer Zero favourite Hannah Marcus is loved for mesmerizing solo albums such as Desert Farmers and Black Hole Heaven; more recently, however, she’s been pouring her energies into a musical side project, the literate and lyrical folk group The Wingdale Community Singers. Their new CD Spirit Duplicator is good, damn good, and we highly recommend you purchase it, either by contacting Scarlet Shame Records here:

http://scarletshamerecords.com/

Or visiting the longest of Long Tail shopping sites, Amazon here:

http://www.amazon.com/Spirit-Duplicator-Wingdale-Community-Singers/dp/B002OD32B0

And, for more about The Wingdale Community Singers, you can read a bit and listen a bunch here:

http://www.myspace.com/thewingdalecommunitysingers

(Of course, it must be said, that for we fans who have been clamouring for more Hannah Marcus solo material, this is kind of like craving a nice plate of lightly steamed asparagus and getting served a decent bowl of asparagus and mushroom soup instead. And, even worse, when you look at the package of soup, there isn’t even a picture of asparagus on it! But, still, it will do, because it’s all we have of Hannah for the moment, and little Hannah Marcus is better than a lot of most other musicians … )