Following the paper trail

(incomplete so far)

In my studies of literature and film, several examples create a particular bond with the reader, closing the gap between sign -- the written word -- and syntax -- the meaning the reader carries away upon observing the sign.

Long ago I was confronted with this particular genre of linear narrative when observing not only the game of Clue, in which the players watch a dramatization of events while trying to solve the murder, but also the movie Clue and the related who-dunnit murder mysteries in film and text.

Novels and films and poems (even Web sites) that encourage more interaction than just simply comprehending the text from the reader (or audience) fascinate me. Nabokov's Pale Fire leads the reader on a chase of clues to solve the novel's mystery. Bouncing between sections one must also consider several other books by Nabokov and also particular biographies in which clues may be hidden.

Pale Fire is one such text, sending the reader on an expansive paper trail through the narrative and searching other reference materials in an effort to unlock the true meaning of Pale Fire. Word games and uncovered clues lead the reader through a labyrinthian narrative, playing (preying?) on the reader-response psychology. This brings me to my point.

Dan Brown's critically (and popularly) acclaimed novel The Da Vinci Code gained a great success through his controversial uses of Christian history intertwined with pseudo-art history and a deftly delivered iconography and symbolism. The quick pace of the book makes it easy to read (again preying on the psychology of the reader as the shorter the chapters are the more the reader feels they have accomplished. Not unlike tales of Sherlock Holmes, Brown's protagonist Robert Langdon must solve riddles and follow clues in the effort to locate history's greatest treasure, the Holy Grail.

While I may not necessarily agree with Brown's style or thematic points, I do enjoy the way he encourages readers to interact with the text via several word puzzles and written cues to begin exploring elsewhere.

Anyone that hasn't read the novel should pick up a secondary reference in art history or even the cheap Barnes & Nobel books on Da Vinci or other painters for relatively cheap. The reader can double check famous paintings and referenced landmarks with relative ease, and also better check Brown's accuracy -- because as a former literature student and writer myself, I can offer this one piece of advice: Never trust a narrator, author, printed word, your mother, etc. Granted double-checking every reference book may not provide you with the truth, but you will become better knowledgeable in a given circle.

The film version of Brown's novel is scheduled for release May 19, 2006, and as a film fanatic I can only say the film will be a large disappointment for many fans of the book. The translation from text to screen is a difficult process to follow, and few books have made a better transition. Unless the filmmakers can recreate that same intertextuality made popular within the novel, the audience will leave the theaters mostly unfulfilled.

The film's saving grace may be the release on DVD in which the viewer is heavily encouraged to interact with the film, i.e. the releases of Christopher Nolan's Memento, in which the viewer can navigate various channels of the film to unlock the mystery Leonard is trying to solve.

Such a feat will be hard to create on the big screen unless  the filmmakers are able to include extra puzzles within the film, not puzzles the characters try to solve, but additional puzzles and riddles within the subtext of the film. A mise-en-scene rebus or homophobic speeches. Otherwise the many who have read the book, will already know the outcome (in general), so why not reward the individuals who have invested so much into the book and movie anyway.

 

For the unititiated, the site below is a teaser for The Da Vinci Code: http://www.apple.com/trailers/sony_pictures/da_vinci_code/large.html

 

The absence of the apoetical Zombie/Western

My preoccupation with social context within cinema has lead me (and will generally lead other film enthusiasts) to two pivotal genres in film, which function within social roles, exhibiting characters who operate within these mandates and outside of them. Those two genres are the zombie film and the Western.

Cinematic History (A Primer)
The Western dates back to early television serials moving onto the big screen and really catching on between the 1930's (i.e. Stage Coach through the late '60's (i.e. Sergio Leone films of The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly and Once Upon a Time in the West).

Likewise, the zombie films began around the same time with films like The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari and White Zombie starring Bela Lugosi, and moving through the history of the zombie film when George Romero reignited the genre with Night of the Living Dead and subsequent new school of zombie movies 28 Days Later, Resident Evil, and the Dawn of the Dead remake. (I refuse to call these films post-modern because they still rely heavily on modern narrative and composition, but instead I prefer the term new school because the filmmakers are trying to accomplish something of their own with an established genre of film.)

Where's the zombie Western?
Well, such a genre as a defined collection of films doesn't exist, as the wealth of movies to include in the genre aren't that numerous. A few films, such as Sam Raimi's Evil Dead (Raimi would later go on to make The Quick and the Dead, a sort of Western homage with his own quirky signitures) and Dellamorte Dellamore (1994), directed by Michele Soavi -- a protege of Dario Argento, also known as Cemetery Man.

While neither of these films aren't wholly Western, their filmmakers and several references within the films, owe a great deal to the Western genre. However, each film does inititate some intertexuality with older ideologies of what a zombie film should be and creates a new string of circumstances into a new school narrative. Both deal heavily with the rise of the dead, and each has a hero who must (almost single handedly) destroy the "zombies" in the film. Here in lies a key difference with the Zombie genre:

Zombie films generly rely on a premis established by Romero in his earlier Dead films -- the inclusion of the social striations, or imitations of a class ruling system within a group. Most zombie films focus on a group of protagonists who must both run from the zombies and pursue the reanimated corpses. Within these groups, the issue of class generally surfaces, as it does in post-apocalyptic films, as particular individuals begin to assume roles within their on microcosm of society. The issue of leadership often surfaces creating internal conflict within the group as two (or more) Alpha personlities jockey for control over the subservients.

In Evil Dead and Dellamorte Dellamore the lone hero rises up to vanquish the dead. The Western protagonist often is alone and must combat not only the social order but the Other (zombies) as well. Shane and High Noon center around protagonists caught between these two worlds.


Filling the Void with the Dead
What would make a good zombie Western? A practice often used by Blade II and Hellboy director Guillermo Del Torro is to use Japanese anime to help him visualize angles and character placement. This almagation of film styles and Japanese pop culture may provide us with an easy enough solution, as we turn towards another form of sequential narrative in Japan, the manga. Manga is the Japanese equivilent to a comic book, but calling it a graphic novel may be more appropriate as manga generally includes multiple storylines and entails a greater mass of volume that American comic books.

Priest is a title in Japanese manga, which caught my eye because of it's expressionistic style and also it's dealings with the Western and zombie genre's. No where else had I found such an inclusive book in printed form than Priest. The title deals far more in the occult than Dellamorte Dellamore or Evil Dead, and it jumps timelines incredibly quick as the book actually entails over 100 years of history with parallel storylines.

The obvious problem with mixing the genres is the narrative premiss of inserting the idea of reanimated dead within the Western narrative, because the plots seem perpendicular of each other (which is mere product of social conveniences). But quickly following up on the emergence of the dead, the narrative structure would quickly unfold --

"Our lone hero, an outcast and outlaw, is the only individual able to protect a Western town that exhiled him from the undead menace" Our protagonist is caught between two seperate social conventions -- the townspeople that hate him and the zombies who want to devour him and the townspeople.

Other mandated genre symbols to include to propogate the dual-identity of the film: a cemetery (empty or full) and a freight train.

High Noon

I watched High Noon (1952) again last night, and I must say that I'm just as impressed as when I first watched it.

The opening cinematography where the single cowbow is framed in an underexposed, high contrast shot foretelling the stark reality of the towns people and inevitability of death coming to the tiny, sleepwater town.

High Noon	The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

You can tell where Sergio Leone pulls cinematic references from this movie, as shots of the eyes and series of cutbacks between characters are emminent. High Noon also utilizes the protagonist stuck between his personal moral values and the society (mob mentality). Sam Peckinpah would revamp this idea in his thriller Straw Dogs (1971) starring Dustin Hoffman.

Let's not forget the ultimate metaphore in this film, and one that resonates through Leone's Once Upon a Time in the West (1968): The train simultaneously represents capitalizim, industrialization, and the rise of civilation in the West, while also representing the death and destruction of a vastly untamed wilderness.

The train in High Noon carries a known and convicted murder named Frank Miller (but not this Frank Miller), who previously vowed to kill the hero Will Kane (Gary Cooper) five years predating the film. Once Miller exits the train, he's rejoined by three of his former cronies and begin the slow walk into town.

Death and time loom over this film like a darkening shroud of storm clouds.

The only quarrels I may have is the stiff performance by Grace Kelly, who would later go on to star as Hitchcock's blonde protagonist in films such as Dial M for Murder, Rear Window and To Catch a Thief. Granted that High Noon was Kelly's second leading role.

I didn't mind the use of the clocks throughout the film, whereas several other individuals may cry out that their use becomes redundent or monotonous. The clocks create a visual rhythm, like Darren Aronofsky's use of hip-hop visual montage, establishing tension and drama to the narrative.

Well, I'm off to to Best Buy and possibly Borders for a quick shopping spree of Lucio Fulci films, as per a recommendation (City of the Living Dead, Four of the Apocalypse and Zombie) for some references to continue my zombie/Western film research.

A Life Aquatic with Wes Anderson

(Be forewarned that the following is an incomplete review, criticism and subtext into a film. Very little editing or construction has been done to this blog. Thank you.)

The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou

Wes Anderson has struck gold yet again, with his own brand of humor and film making, on his fourth release, The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou.

The makeshift father/son relationships, which began partly in Rushmore and moved on through Royal Tenenbaums, are here as well, as a once-famous oceanographer, Steve Zissou (played by Bill Murray), who is losing his luster among the rich producers and upper-tier society that backs his frequent adventures, must go on one last adventure of self-discovery.

Life Aquatic revolves around a sort of mocku-drama, similar to the documentaries of Jacques Cousteau and other adventuresome wild life hosts, in which pretentious characters must learn to coexist.

The film takes a strange turn of Moby Dick preportions, when Zissou's friend and longtime partner gets allegedly eaten by a jaguar shark. With Zissou's first installment of his jaguar shark documentary tanking, and the bitter taste for revenge in his mouth, Zissou scrambles together cash and crew to go on the great shark hunt.

The viewers of the film, much like the Zissou's upper-class audience begins to question the sanity of the aging oceanographer and also the validity behind the alleged jaquar shark.

Throughout the films, Anderson provides us with little glimpses of animation unseen in previous films (perhaps a new endeavor, a test run before he tries his and at more animation, much like Richard Linklater's use of rotoscoping in Waking Life coming full force in A Scanner Darkly). These little glimpses build and build until Anderson floods the audience and his protagonist with a crescendo of images and finally a glimpse of the great and massive beast, the jaguar shark.

Bill Murray has done it once more, immortalizing his own performances and summoning our attention to another breakout character. Murray seems perfect for Anderson’s film because their chemistry and sense of humor mirror each other so closely. Murray and Anderson always wait to the crucial moment to allow their generally dry, quirky characters to open up, creating a pivotal relationship with the audience.

Like two of his earlier performances (Lost in Translation and Tenenbaums), Murray plays a straight, dry humor Nabokovian protagonist to his younger female foils, and despite the actresses (and characters) losing the advantage in experience, they often are able to out manuever the wily, learned man. It's like watching a live-action psychological unfolding of a Wile E. Coyote and Roadrunner cartoon.

But that seems to be the equation that facilitates Murray's humor the most. And for Anderson.

All four films explore relationships impossible to fulfill, mostly because of age differences, i.e., Rushmore, Tenenbaums, and Life Aquatic, or cultural differences in Bottle Rocket.

Burroughs, Stefani and the exterminator

OK, so the mental imagery of the above three ideas is somewhat conflicting, unless you consider Burrough's Naked Lunch and the exterminator, and then also consider Gwen Stefani as the bug to be exterminated but in the process you find some sort of addiction within yourself.

(If you're intersted in Burroughs' work, I suggest you look at David Cronenberg's 1991 film version of Naked Lunch. The plot is an amalgamation of Burroughs' life and plot from the book.)

A little convaluted? Maybe. But in my recent exposure to Stefani's latest single, "Hollaback Girl," I've realized the importance of music videos, hooks and for the most part, a good looking focal point as the face for your product.

"Hollaback Girl" is such a horrible song with little substance other than a single choice expletive repeated throughout the chorus. But there's something that catches the listener's attention, hook, line and sinker. Or just the hook in this case. Stefani's latest single delivers a catchy riff in the context of her "melody," which undoubtedly hooks the ear.

The new single surpasses her old work, with titles like "Rich Girl," but fails to ascend any further than her fame with No Doubt, a band that could have ended after the Tragic Kingdom album and had a spectacular career, but instead followed it up with forgetable titles.

Sometimes you seek some solace from these catchy beats and choruses, the little songs that get stuck in the back of your head and will stop nothing short of a labotomy. So call in the exterminator. There should be a little guy inside your brain on call that can come in and destroy little parts of your brain that retain trivial pieces of information. I'm sure there have been studies done of information saved and forgotten in that giant wet-wired gray matter, and it's interesting speculation when you ask yourself: Does the brain ever really forget information or retain it indefinately?

Maybe that's food for a short story -- but I'm sure a novel would be no problem either.

I've been getting into a lot more science fiction lately, reading anyway. I've read a short story by Philip K. Dick, author behind such adapted movies as Blade Runner, Total Recall, Minority Report, and Paycheck, and two novels -- one of which is a sort of throw away novel with little implications and the other was Man in the High Castle, which is a clever, kitchy premiss revolving around World War II. Since reading Dick, I've gotten a little more into William S. Burroughs' work. I've read Junky (or the varient spelling Junkie) and currently reading Nova Express.

The writers during the Beat generation have moderately fascinated me with their various styles of changing the way we read certain works, but Burroughs' emulates this like no other in his prose. The fragmentary thought processes from his traditional writing and also his use of the cut-up method (by which the author cuts prose into little snippets of words and phrases and then pastes them together in a fairly random order). The cut-up method isn't so much an abstract prose style, but more of a collage using a single source, rather than multiple sources -- a cut-up work of multiple sources would be intense and enormous prose, probably even more undiscernable than Burrough's own work.

My only complaint with Nova Express isn't so much that his style escapes me (I can see some method in the madness), but Burrough's tends to repeat phrases and images throughout the book -- a repetition that I believe hurts the overall conceptualization of the text, rather than helps.

Well, that's all for me. The new issue of Zygote should be up fairly soon, as it's scheduled to be up today (May 16, 2005). So be sure to check it out for a new Tripp original.

Also on a side note, Wal-Mart will be stocking their shelves with the fourth season of Seinfeld tonight when I get off of work. One of the only highlights of working late, is that I don't have to wait until the day to go purchase the new releases -- and thus avoid any appearance in public.

Death makes a house call (Fiction)

* (Editor's note: This is part of a short story, that I will continue to work on as time permits. I hope you enjoy it, and please leave some feed back if you can. This is the beginning of my attempt to write more fiction and I could use any pointers from people that actually write fiction or know about this particular process.)

Death makes a house call
Grandma Baker always seemed odd to me. More so than the typical self-communication disorders that the elderly seem to suffer the older and older they get. You know, when they start mumbling to themselves or flat out conversations with thin air.

When I ask Grandma about these episodes, she just pretends like she didn't hear me, clams up and shuffles down the hallway to my parents' spare bedroom in her slippers and knee-high pantyhose with the holes scattered about like translucent Swiss cheese.

She was always paranoid, claiming to see visions of Death taunting her or trying to scare her into a heart attack. Grandma Baker was a constant nervous wreck.

I remember when she walked in on my parents having sex, she was in a catatonic state for a week. We had to put her in the hospital because she was pissing and shitting herself, with no control over any of her bodily functions. The hospital's psychiatrist finally snapped her out of it and now she doesn't even remember the little fornicating fiasco. Mom and Dad have since been locking the bedroom door, even when no one else is home.

Grandma began mumbling something about Death one day before I was preparing my lunch for school and it caught my attention.

"What does Death look like, Grandma?" I asked, not knowing if she would even answer me.

Those big brown eyes behind wrinkled lids, crow's feet and graying brows glanced up at me, locking on to the deepest part of my soul. I felt the chill that she must feel everytime one of these visions appear to her.

"He changes appearance a lot," she said. "But mostly he looks like the archtypical death figure ... You know, the skeleton wearing a cloak."

"And he carries a scythe, right?"

"No," Grandma said. "Sometimes he's carrying a riding crop. And one day I saw him with a goldfish in a Mason jar"

My laughter at the ridiculous mental image apparently didn't amuse my elder. Her forehead furrowing with anger and her false teeth clinked as her lips and corners of her mouth turned downward.

"Listen here, Grandson," she said, pointing an authoritive frail finger in my direction. "You and your parents may think I'm a crazy old coot, but when you get to be my age, Death starts making house calls."

I looked down at my sandwich, quickly slapping together the vegetables and condiments on my enriched white bread before topping off with layers of cold cuts. The lunchs at high school were always bad, and to save the money my dad gave me to purchase my meals, I always prepared my lunch at home.

Sneaking a peak, I looked up. My grandmother was still staring at me with cold, hard eyes. The expression on her face hadn't changed.

I flung the sandwich into my lunchbox and snatched my book bag, and just as I open the front door to run out the bus, I turned back to my grandmother.

"Well, if you see Death today, tell him I said 'Hi.'" And with that little quip I dashed through the door, slamming it shut behind me to escape the inevitable scream pursing from Grandma Baker's lips.

"Sin City"

I just want to say thanks to the anonymous poster for his/her comments on my journalism post.

Now I can move on to something else. I recently caught a screen shot of the Robert Rodriguez/Frank Miller 2005 project "Sin City." It popped up in the most recent issue of Premier (I think Keanu is on the cover) and I discussed the possibilities with my friend Joe, who is a huge comic book fan and is probably the guy that got me hooked on reading the original comics in the first place. Since I've been collected the trade-paperbacks (because I generally don't have the patience to wait for each individual comic to come out and would rather read the giant story arcs as a whole). This may or may not be more expensive, but I would rather have the collection rather than multitudes of smaller comic books laying around. Besides, the TPBs are easier to shelf.

I love the Sin City books. It's that ultimate merging of noir and writing that got me into movies and books and writing. The art is phenominal -- Miller writes, illustrates (proper terminology, Joe?) and inks the entire series. The black inkyness of the page just oozes bad-ass, when Marv is standing in the middle of a giant rainstorm and the city lights glisten off his shoulders. The book is dark (both aethestically and mentally), violent -- probably a Tarantino wet-dream.

And to find out that Rodriguez is directing (or should I say co-directing) the film version of the series makes me ecstatic. The anticipation is killing me and I can almost claim right now that "Sin City" is going to be the best comic book-to-film adaptation out there. Screw Batman, Superman and even Spider-Man. No one is taking the feel and look of a comic book more seriously and allowing the series to speak for itself in the film. The monochromatic shots are in the movie with just the subtle colorations, originally established in Miller's books. The Yellow Bastard is really Yellow.

No film has ever made me this excited. And then I saw the trailer.

As Joe (and anyone that reads Joe's blog comments) knows that I LOVE the trailer. I'm a big fan of trailers, but this one is like taking the whole stack of Sin City TPBs and flipping through them getting a glimpse at the overall storyline and quick snapshots, which is a fabulous concept just proving that Rodriguez has painstakingly produced one of the most anticipated movies of 2005 and a film that's already my No. 1 pick for the year.

Cheers to Rodriguez and MIller.

ATTN: Journalistic Freedoms in Danger

this is a conversation I had with a friend concerning the board of trustees and or administration trying to gain some sort of control over the content within a student publication, which is funded through school money and internal advertising revenue. The school is Lake Land College, Mattoon, Ill., and the paper is called "Navigator." If anyone reads this, pass it along. We need a grassroots movement, high-tech style.

[quote] Jacobian says:
hey, i talked to [name withheld] at the end of the semester..he said the board o' trustees was considering some kind of policy change regarding the navigator...heard anything about that?
...
I like feeding the ducks says:
no, I haven't. That's scary
Jacobian says:
[name withheld]said he thought he'd read in the [mattoon journal-gazette] something about prohibiting 'vulgarities' or something...but that the board had tabled the issue pending legal advise
Jacobian says:
i thought that was kinda bizarre timing ... since the [Navigator] been pretty timid so far this year
I like feeding the ducks says:
yeah, no kidding

I like feeding the ducks says:
sound's like [name withheld . 2] should get an attorney the specializes in media law ... I think Eastern has one that probably works pro bono.
Jacobian says:
there's that james tidwell guy his specialty is journalism law
I like feeding the ducks says:
yeah... thats him

Jacobian says:
id like to think its just some kind of intimidation...cant imagine what would happen if the board actually formed any kind of policy regulating content in any way..
I like feeding the ducks says:
no kidding
Jacobian says:
im sure somebody would let every first amendment group know about it by the next morning
...
Jacobian says:
i mean, it'd have to be in the board book if it came up at the meeting (which it was, though not specifically)
Jacobian says:
navigator as action item would have to send off alarms to [name withheld .2] , right?
I like feeding the ducks says:
i would think
Jacobian says:
it would be logical. the only way [name withheld .2] wouldn't know about it would be if they didnt tell her...but that would have to get around..i hope its not her doing..i think more of her than that
I like feeding the ducks says:
me too
...

I like feeding the ducks says:
I think anyone that is still a student or otherwise have a vested interest in happenings on LLC campus should get involved if the issue affects them, regardless of personal bias or past experiences.
Jacobian says:
i have my doubts about anyone being able to rally the student body
Jacobian says:
unless there were free pizza
I like feeding the ducks says:
yeah... food gratis usually pulls in extra people

Jacobian says:
what do you think the whole thing is? indirect intimidation or..with the intent to do it?
I like feeding the ducks says:
probably, knowing the board they're just gonna try and do it. They wanted to do it a long time ago, when [an aquaintance of mine] and I first started. Maybe before that. But it's always been the intent of the trustees and administration to grasp some managerial control over the paper.
I like feeding the ducks says:
but the LLC big wigs have often tried dictating content
...
I like feeding the ducks says:
nothing really controversial? We may have made a few comments in general about the student body and administration, but nothing gratuitous... I'd have to go back through the older papers and look through
Jacobian says:
what kind of pressures did they put on you?
Jacobian says:
how did that totalitarian attitude manifest?
I like feeding the ducks says:
the budget i think. Since they technically have say over how the Lighthouse/Navigator could spend money, they believe they should have say over content
I like feeding the ducks says:
LLC does sign the paychecks
Jacobian says:
is that why [name withheld] was knew so well that the admis would have to lessen all student life budgets equally to get at the student publication's budget?
Jacobian says:
-was
I like feeding the ducks says:
i think so
I like feeding the ducks says:
otherwise, it would single out the paper

Jacobian says:
i haven't kept up on the governors state u. case...have you? maybe this has something to do with it.
I like feeding the ducks says:
I don't know... despite reading about the politics of Illinois almost everyday, I don't think I've read anything about it
Jacobian says:
at gsu..some mid-level admin shut down the paper and locked the editors out when she demanded prior review..cut off payments to their printing service..so a plethora of first amendment orgs sued on the editors behalf..the ill atty general sided with the university..its in some federal district that includes several states..the court ruled in favor of the students..but of course the university
Jacobian says:
has appealed..thats the last i knew..back in april i think
I like feeding the ducks says:
oh yeah... no, i haven't heard anything since then...
Jacobian says:
i intend to find out everything i can next week
Jacobian says:
i have to say.. *if* there's anything there...but it wouldn't suprise either one of us if its exactly what we don't want to be
I like feeding the ducks says:
no kidding [/quote]


are they covering their butts or are they looking for a way to slip in some control clause? The Board of Trustees is looking at inserting language into their policy that would protect them from legal liabilities incurred by possible actions by the student publications. Is it a way for them to exert some sort of pre-press control over a newspaper that's supposed to be ran by the students.

[quote]Published on Wednesday, December 15, 2004 10:04 AM CST
Lake Land board ponders changes
By HERB MEEKER, Staff Writer
MATTOON -- The Lake Land College Board of Trustees on Monday night considered student publication First Amendment Rights in comparison to legal responsibilities of the college board to ensure student journalists do not go too far with freedom of expression.
...
The board was asked to take action on a change in policy regarding the Navigator, Lake Land's student newspaper, and its staff's First Amendment rights. One change in the policy would be: The College newspaper staff must, therefore, avoid libel, obscenity, and material that legally invades a person's right to privacy. The action would delete a section of the policy banning certain actions by the Navigator staff: indecency, undocumented allegations, plagiarism, attacks on personal integrity, harassment and innuendo.

Board Trustee Doris Reynolds questioned eliminating those words, claiming that such actions should be specifically restricted.

"I just want to make sure the board is protected, and the students know what the board expects," Reynolds said before a vote was taken on the motion to approve the changes.

The board learned that the changes were recommended for ensuring student exercise of freedom of expression and press freedom as protected by both state and federal law, especially the First Amendment. College administrators contacted Mike Easton of the Student Press Law Center to make sure the policy changes conformed to legal terminology recognized by the courts in order to protect the college and the staff from lawsuits. Easton was described as an "expert in the field" of student First Amendment law.

...
[/quote]

this Mike Easton is supposed to be with the Student Press Law Center, here is the address:

Student Press Law Center
1101 Wilson Blvd., Suite 1100
Arlington, VA 22209-2211 USA




Important links
* The Navigator's Web site
* Lake Land College's Web site
* the agenda with change in board policy of Navigator on Action Item list
* a Mattoon Journal-Gazette article on the LLC Board of Trustees agenda
* Student Press Law Center

Jacob J. DeVore contributed to this blog