Archive for October, 2012

Alongside Night – Official Movie Trailer

The Alongside Night Official Movie Trailer was premiered at Libertopia this past weekend. — JNS



Alongside Night Scary Poster



Now in production: Alongside Night. Look for it in 2013!

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Two New Alongside Night Videos

The Alongside Night Official Music Video was premiered at Libertopia this past weekend during my talk in the second video. — JNS



Over a year ago when I asked Soleil O’Neal-Schulman to compose a theme song for the Alongside Night movie based on the poem I’d written back in the 70’s for the forematter of the novel I did not specify a style for the song; and a month or so ago our discussions involved how her more recent music was more alternative and less likely to satisfy what I was looking for. I simply told her, “I trust your judgment; I trust your taste” — and left it at that.

When Soleil delivered a one-verse demo, here’s what I wrote her:

“The novel Alongside Night is dedicated to Samuel Edward Konkin III, whose vision of black-market traders developing a libertarian revolutionary code first inspired me to organize two conferences held off-season at my father’s brother and sister-in-law’s Camp Mohawk in the Berkshires in fall 1974 and spring 1975; and to begin writing Alongside Night in 1974. Sam was one of my closest friends when I was your age, living in New York City, and we not only had libertarian ideas in common but we also shared a lot of the same esthetics in books, movies, and music.

“Sam and I made it a practice always to go together on opening day to see the latest James Bond movie, and we both loved the John Barry underscores and the opening song which set the tone for the movie, often sung by female artists like Shirley Bassey (“Goldfinger,” “Diamonds are Forever,” “Moonraker”), Gladys Knight (“License to Kill”), Nancy Sinatra (“You Only Live Twice”), Lulu (“The Man With the Golden Gun”), Carly Simon (“Nobody Does It Better,” from The Spy Who Loved Me, and Sheena Easton (“For Your Eyes Only”).

“You have just given Alongside Night a James Bond theme song. It’s exactly what Sam would have wanted. It’s perfect.”

I wrote two more verses with Soleil’s close guidance so in a way this song is a three way collaboration between myself at around age 24, myself at age 59, and Soleil at age 21.

Soleil provided a first-draft full production of the song to Alongside Night‘s composer, Daniel May, and the final production is their collaboration.

Music by Soleil O’Neal-Schulman
Lyrics by J. Neil Schulman
Performed by Soleil O’Neal-Schulman
Produced by Daniel May

–J. Neil Schulman, October 11, 2012

Here are the song lyrics:

Alongside Night
Parallel Day
By Fearful Flight
In Garish Gray
Will Dawn Alight
And Not Decay
Alongside Night?

Alongside Night
Invisible Day
We hide our light
Out of the way
They bring the fight
We won’t obey
Alongside Night

Alongside Night
Agorist Day
To wake our fight
To make our way
We seize the right
So come what may
Alongside Night

Copyright © 2012 Alongside Night, LLC. All rights reserved.

Alongside Night Scary Poster

At Libertopia on October 13, 2012, writer/director J. Neil Schulman talks about the evolution of Alongside Night from a novel published in 1979 to a feature film currently in production. This presentation includes some exclusive surprise content.





Now in production: Alongside Night. Look for it in 2013!

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A/U: The Agorist Two-Tiered Strategy

I came up with this during a discussion at Libertopia this past weekend. — JNS

Creating, expanding, and securing Agorist markets has a fundamental problem built in: how do you promote to a customer base products and services which by their nature require anonymity, stealth, and secrecy, all the while providing the reputations for honest dealing that businesses require to acquire customer accounts?

I think I’ve come up with a robust solution to that problem: divide Agorists into two categories, each at arm’s length from the other.

AU is the chemical symbol for gold, so I played with those letters in Alongside Night to create the concept of Agorist Undergrounds — AU‘s.

I’m going to use those two letters again, but this time with a slash between them, to define a new strategic Agorist vision.

A = Aboveground
U = Underground

Agorism
Agorism Poster by thorsmitersaw

The “A” Agorists will live openly visible to the current political-economic system, and will be as compliant to laws and regulations as is possible given that many of these laws and regulations are virtually impossible to comply with — they’re too complex, confusing, and burdensome. But the “A” Agorists will protest only by word, not by deed. We will use the remnants of free expression to educate the public on Agorist theory and practice while not practicing it ourselves. We will be known by our real names and reputations and not anonymous. We will be writers, speakers, and entertainers. We will be the visible face of Agorism while being openly clear that looking to us for illegal activities is a dry well.

The “U” Agorists will be building and expanding the underground markets. They will be anonymous, masked, hidden, encrypted, and stealthy. They will not comply with laws and regulations that violate liberty as defined in the Declaration of Independence, the Bill of Rights, and other documents that have been the foundation for post-Enlightenment individual freedom. The “U” Agorists will practice what the “A” Agorists can only preach.

The “A” Agorists will have no contact with the “U” Agorists so authorities seeking to use the “A”‘s to trace the “U”‘s will find that a dead end.

We will live in different worlds until that day when the “U”‘s are successful enough to open the marketplaces to a visible aboveground free economy.

I am an “A” Agorist.

J. Neil Schulman
October 16, 2012


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The Silence of the Sheep

“I can’t remember ever listening to a presidential debate where I never heard a single cough from the audience.”
–Brad Linaweaver

In the half hour before Wednesday’s presidential debate between President Barack Obama and challenger Governor Mitt Romney, representatives of the Commission on Presidential Debates and moderator Jim Lehrer threatened the University of Denver audience with everything short of waterboarding if they uttered a single squeak during the debates.

Denver Presidential Debate, October 3, 2012
Denver Presidential Debate, October 3, 2012

It’s obvious this policy is intended to suppress stocking the audience with partisans for each of the candidates who would turn this into just another campaign rally; but the problem is that this demand for absolute silence would have denatured the best moments of prior debates, particularly the 1980 debate when Ronald Reagan told Jimmy Carter, “Well, there you go again!” and in 1988 when Vice Presidential candidate Lloyd Bentsen told Dan Quayle, “I knew Jack Kennedy and, Senator, you’re no Jack Kennedy.”

It foils the whole purpose of the debates if the wit of the candidate lays eggs because the audience has been forbidden to laugh.

This process is made worse by audio technology that with highly directional mikes for the candidates and moderator, combined with background noise threshold suppressors, effectively censors audience reaction for the listening TV and radio audiences.

The result as applied to this past Wednesday’s debate — despite the usual tropes from Fox News pundits that the debate format favored President Obama — is that Obama delivered two to three times as many laugh lines as Romney … and it worked to the advantage of Romney that the rules silenced not only the audience but censored one of the two candidates’ superior debate tools.



Now in production: Alongside Night. Look for it in 2013!

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