News on the Recylcing Front!

Big News! After much complaining and many calls to city services, we are getting curbside recycling! It actually had nothing to do with me and my loudmouth complaints, but was solely influenced by city budget cuts.
The details: until a few weeks ago, we weren't qualified to receive curbside recycling because a private company picked up our trash dumpster. If you do this, the city would give you a few bucks because they didn't have to do it. They've gotten rid of this subsidy though because of the current economic situation, you know. So our landlord is taking away the dumpster. This means we are eligible for recycling! This also means that we have to throw our trash in the street (pictured above), but finally we can stop hoarding our plastic goods!

Madison Nguyen: Mystery Revealed

Back in the days of "my apartment in Santa Cruz", Jamie and I were intrigued and befuddled about a story that was in the San Jose Mercury steadily for several months. The gist is the story is that San Jose City Councilwoman Madison Nguyen, a prominent and beloved Vietnamese politician, wanted to name a part of the city "The Saigon Business District", but residents wanted to name it "Little Saigon".

There was a huge outrage about the name, including a hunger strike and extensive front page coverage by the San Jose Mercury News. We could never figure out why this was a huge deal, but leave it to This American Life to explain the great puzzles of the news. If you were also confused in August of 2007, then click here and listen to the answer (I'm sure, blog readers, that your only dilemmas of 2007, were slightly entertaining news stories, right?)

Breaking News: Ratastrophe!

The KC Masterpeas are for the first time bringing you live breaking coverage of a real-time situation. There's a rat in the fridge!

Or at least there was until we tried to catch it in this box. It was too fast!

Unbelievable! He/she ate the rhubarb pie Julia just made! What are we going to do?

James Rabbit: In love with the Idea!

Every city needs a Tyler Martin who meets you on the sidewalk to say, "this city is yours!" But for those who dwell beyond the cooperative housing situations of mid-California, Perfect Waves will do.


Perfect Waves is the new album from Tyler's omni-valent band, James Rabbit. In 20 tracks on two sides, Tyler rallies his friends and geniuses into helpful harmonies with more zeal than a pro-tourism board.

Listen to this track and hear what I'm saying.

This City is Yours by James Rabbit.

So good! When has the lunch special at Yan Flower been this triumphant!?

This music is important as a celebration of responsibility.

It's like the feeling I get when I walk our neighborhood in Kansas City. I see a person our age and my attention turns. In a glance it's as if we ask, do you have the answer? What do we do as our parents get older? This city is ours.

If you e-mail Tyler, he'll mail you a CD with sweetness and understanding. Or you can listen to the whole album streaming.

I won't say it's a complete life-training package, but it'll get you started. And there are a ton of hits!

Here is a video that Thor and Tyler made as they crowdsourced the recording at the Crystal Palace. And keep an eye out for a special guest appearance!



Photo Credit:
The photo at the top was taken by Roselle Kingsbury.

Video Lab: Time is Long

A VHS tape loop between two VCRs make a 90-foot video delay. The live installation "Time is Long" was part of Bushwick Art Projects in Brooklyn. Is the space between VCRs cinematic?

Video Lab: Time is Long from Jamie Burkart.

Video Lab 2: Time is Long
I really enjoy traveling to install video. I did this show at the advice of our friend Shan Raoufi in Brooklyn. Shan, Julia and I met in Santa Cruz, CA. But his aunts and brother live in Kansas City! He is fond of telling me that if it wasn't Santa Cruz, it would have been KC.

On his most recent visit, Shan made a ghostly video featuring his bother, his father, Julia and me. You can watch it here.

Photo by John Acquadro.

About the recording:
I gave this walk-through to Missing Pieces in 2006 for their Coolhunting.com feature on the event. View the whole feature here.

More Blogs? You bet!

So I've been doing an internship with City Councilman Ed Ford down at 'ol city hall, and part of that internship involves me trying to increase Ed Ford's web-presence! I feel this is a must for city government and also elected officials. So I spear-headed an effort to create the Ed Ford Blog!


Its been in the making for a little bit, but I've waited to post about it here until I got a good amount of info-graphics posted on it. So take a look and offer some helpful, yet non-rude advice! (and no I cannot turn on the comments section of the Ed Ford blog, I'm sure in your heart of hearts you can understand)

Video Lab: Bicycle Driven Animation

I really like video. Even the word video sounds fun and easy to use. This is the first webisode about the videos of my life. The series is called Video Lab.

Video Lab: Bicycle Driven Animation from Jamie Burkart.

Video Lab 1:
I introduce an animation controlled by a bicycle and 1970's video equipment. I took special care not to use cameras for feedback in this real-time cyclocross through signal and code.