First of all, I strongly recommend this great interview on insane films with Dierdre Straughan. (Dierdre says some very interesting things and you also get to see Madge Weinstein's new look).
http://insanefilms.com/?p=280 I ended up leaving this long comment on the post, but, on the outside chance you don't read all the comments on insane films I thought I'd repost it because Dierdre's interview brought up a couple of things that really hit home for me. First, I get the impression that the whole world tends to believe that the vast majority of Americans are nationalistic and narrow minded. My belief is that almost exactly half of Americans are this way and the split is dramatic and real. Much more so in the last 8 years or so than has ever been the case in my 48 years of life in American. I don't think the rest of the world realizes that this dramatic split exists here - the press only focuses on (the other) half of us. Second, Vlog Europe literally changed my life and opened my eyes to make me realize why people would want to travel out of the US to countries where they dont' speak your language etc. I've always been pretty much a hobbit who doesn't really like adventure and was satisfied to just stay in one place. I can't tell you how fun/great/enlightening Vlog Europe was and it was all because of the people who were from different cultures who all shared my same passion (for vlogging and, well, for having fun). Some of those with the most interesting perspectives were the ex-pats like Dierdre, Joel, and (Bicycle) Mark - but all the people I met were really really interesting and the conversations in and out of the conference had this sort of depth that surprised me and I don't thing I ever heard a person the whole time mention anything about number of down loads his/her show had (not that this is bad, just different), and even the session on making money turned i to more of a session on philosophy with respect to what is truly important in life. (And, by the way, while Madge is very entertaining, I have to tell you that Richard Bluestein is Really interesting and also added a lot to these conversations). ... You know, I haven't even posted the actual comments I made on the Insane Films post, which was the purpose of this email ... I think Michael Meiser is rubbing off on me :) (though I could never be as articulate as often as my friend Michael is :) ... So, the comments mainly say what I said above, which you can read, if you want, after you watch the excellent interview referred to above. ... Richard -- http://richardhhall.org http://richardshow.com [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
