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PICK YOUR BONES CLEAN

Sawney Bean invites you to a warm, home-cooked meal. Dinner conversation is encouraged. Say what you will - at your own risk. Horror, History, Media, Scotland - and much, much more.

PICK YOUR BONES CLEAN
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Economic Censorship! Don't think it doesn't exist.

Terry Gilliam was the first artist to say it - or at least most recently. Economic censorship - meaning simply that people with opinions, ideas, works of art (of whatever degree) are lost in the shuffle more and more and more as giants gobble up the earth. Be it in publishing, film distribution, art galleries, coffee houses, or any other "public" enterprise.




The fantasy of hope that the internet provided is pretty much gone - certainly down for the count. While some modern technology provides a certain kind of platform for artists, it is mostly an illusion. The power remains where it has always remained - and is getting further squeezed into fewer hands - like freeze-dried coffee. Compact, tasteless, but endlessly available. Starbucks is pushing out the small corner coffee houses. Democracy? Or the power of the almighty rupee over a good idea and a basic hope for survival?




Digital cameras and cheap prices mean WHAT exactly? You can make a movie outside the vise of Hollywood? Yeah, well, people have been doing that for ages - on their own - and on the cheap. But do you think these things are getting seen by anybody? Think again...and even if 10,000 people turn to see your shaky flick on the internet, think that there is any money coming in? No matter how good, or how "commercial" it may be? Forget it...the only hope is the hope that one day the "industry" will see what you have done, and pick you up for a quick spin and rinse - before they put you out to dry on that clothes line.




Don't be fooled. No digital film will change your economic life - no e-book rejected BEFORE it was read - no piece of art hanging on a trendy gallery wall. No acidic cup of joe passing your lips as you perch on uncomfortable chairs at Starbucks, engineered to get you out as quickly as possible.




You can fight, but can you win? Think about the lip service given by you and everyone. And then go to the local coffee house and buy a cup of coffee - and spread the word. Buy that book INSTEAD of sending compliments. Encourage the artist by buying some art. Seek out and promote and PAY somebody for making a film you really want to see. It won't change the power structure...it won't. But at least the artist or establishment that has given you some pleasure in your life, for memory's sake, will be able to buy a loaf of bread. A bag of rice. Without that art dies - hope dies - and then we all die.