That's Capital

A friend of mine called last week. He hadn’t been in touch for a bit. Apparently, he had fallen in love with a woman he only sees on weekends. He's in New York. She's in Chicago. When he's not with her, all he does is think about her. “It’s amazing how powerful a hold she has,” he told me. “I’m out having beer with friends and all I can do is wonder what she’s doing when I’m not around. I catch a scent of a perfume that reminds me of her and I’m completely undone.” A magazine sales guy whose... Read more →

Last night was the first episode of this season’s The Sopranos. Lacking cable, I ended up watching it at a nearby pub, finding the spot through a search on Craigslist.org. Along with 20-30 other strangers, we gathered for pizza and beer and enjoyed the show. A few things about the event stood out. First, how so much of the dramatic tension within The Sopranos involves juggling resource scarcity, and the collective search for clear lines of authority around who gets to manage those resources. Just take the following highlights... Tony’s only pleasure - indulging a love of high priced sushi.... Read more →

If you can, catch PBS's recently broadcast July '64. It's a terrific documentary that starts with the reading of Langston Hugh's poem, "A Dream Deferred," a pungent portrait of the connection between value and identity, and the violence that can erupt when such ties are ignored. A film about the 1964 Rochester race riots that sparked the first National Guard intervention in a northern city, the documentary's elegant simplicity inspires thought about race, class, cultural assimilation (or its opposite), and even film making or media. But ultimately it had me mulling over the powerful human relationship to money that is... Read more →

Link: It's Like Lending to a Friend, Except You'll Get Interest - New York Times. As described in today's Bob Tedeschi New York Times' column, Prosper.com takes elements of web-based social networks and banks to lend people money. It does this by acting as a middle-man between those who need money and the funding source, in this case individuals who want a place to put their money that gets a better return than offered by traditional banks... and don't like the risk of the stock market. Blending eBay, Friendster, and also a bit of Paypal, it lets people looking to... Read more →

Guest: Bill Maurer Jonathan Field and Titus Levi talk with UC, Irvine anthropologist Bill Maurer about curating an exhibit about alternative currencies in Southern California, his studies about the way currencies function in different communities, and his latest book, Mutual Life, Limited : Islamic Banking, Alternative Currencies, Lateral Reason Stream (click here to listen on your computer) Podcast (click here to download to an iPod or another MP3 player) My Odeo Channel Read more →

That's Capital

Jonathan Field and Titus Levi continue the conversation with Mark C. Taylor, author of Confidence Games. Stream (click here to play on your computer) Podcast (click here to download to an iPod or an MP3 device) Read more →