smoky/glass

Tim Burton: good director. Johnny Depp: good actor. Good combination? Here’s the trailer for their next project, Sweeney Todd:

The Saw franchise has been a great success so far and there is no end in sight. Liongate’s SAW IV led the weekend box office with $32.1 million: frightening!

LOUISVILLE, KY - Yum! Brands (NYSE:YUM), parent of KFC, Pizza Hut and Taco Bell, today launched the world’s largest hunger relief effort in an attempt to help stop world hunger. Called “World Hunger Relief Week,” the program supports the United Nations World Food Programme, the frontline agency in the fight against global hunger. During October 14-20, 35,000 company and franchised restaurants located in 112 countries will be participating in some way, including KFC, Pizza Hut, Taco Bell, Long John Silver’s and A&W All-American Food.

More than 850 million people know what it is like to go to bed hungry in all corners of the globe. More people die from hunger each year than from war, tuberculosis and AIDS combined. In fact, every five seconds, a child somewhere dies from hunger.

The company partnered with the U.N. World Food Programme, the world’s leading humanitarian agency feeding 90 million poor people, including 58 million hungry children, in 80 of the world’s poorest communities.

Yum! hopes to raise awareness of the hunger problem, mobilize nearly 1,000,000 employees across its company and franchise system to volunteer their efforts, and raise funds from the more than 125 million customers that visit its restaurants each week. Yum! Brands Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, David C. Novak, will lead a massive volunteerism movement by dedicating volunteer service at a food bank in Louisville, Kentucky. All other above restaurant leaders are being given a day of community service during the week to volunteer their time, and restaurant employees are encouraged to hold fund raising drives and food collections as well.

The Yum! Foundation also will be donating to the cause by covering the WFP’s low administrative fee so that all funds collected from customers and employees will go directly toward purchasing a nutritious school meal or food for the world’s hungry. It costs the WFP just $.19 per day on average to feed a hungry child a nutritious school lunch meal. With funds raised, the company hopes to save hundreds of thousands of people from starvation.

During World Hunger Relief Week, Yum! plans to generate the equivalent of nearly $50 million worth of awareness through television and print advertising, public service announcements, public relations, web-based communications and in-restaurant posters and signage. The integrated marketing materials will be available in English and translated into nine different languages, including English, Spanish, French, Arabic, Chinese, German, Japanese, Korean and Portuguese.

“World hunger is a problem of epic proportions, and unfortunately it is increasing each day. As the world’s largest restaurant company, we believe it is our privilege and responsibility to use our clout and make a difference in the lives of others less fortunate who are starving around the globe,” said David C. Novak, Yum! Brands Chairman and Chief Executive Officer. “Our World Hunger Relief efforts will continue year after year. Our goal is to create a global movement to help stop the dying, and start the living. We believe we can truly make a difference in the lives of others by helping them move from hunger to hope.”

Yum! and its brands have been committed to fighting hunger for more than a decade by donating $50 million of prepared food annually to the underprivileged in the United States. The company also has been the primary sponsor of the Dare To Care Food Bank based in Louisville, Kentucky for seven years. Its employees donate thousands of hours each year to the food bank. The company is now expanding these efforts on a global scale through the creation of World Hunger Relief Week. The initiative coincides with the company’s 10th anniversary as a publicly traded company on the New York Stock Exchange. It was spun-off from PepsiCo in October, 1997.

World Hunger Relief Week addresses the harsh reality that there are 850 million people suffering from hunger every day. The situation has become worse than ever due to the convergence of: rising commodities and higher global food prices; increased competition for products that produce energy; severe droughts and flood due to climate change; a surge in conflict and wars as well as a growing population. At the rate things are going, food prices are expected to jump 35% over the next two years, thereby decreasing the number of people fed.

“This campaign will raise awareness among tens of millions of people around the world,” said Josette Sheeran, executive director of the World Food Programme, who added that the world’s largest humanitarian organization will use any funds raised to fund its greatest needs. “With demographic trends, climate change and soaring commodity prices — the challenges of feeding the hungry are increasing,” she said, adding that innovative approaches to public awareness and fundraising are critical.

The efforts of Yum! and its five brands are making it possible for funds to go directly to feeding people in WFP’s areas of greatest need - such as expanding school feeding programs to serve more children and families; providing essential food assistance to new mothers and their infants and increasing school attendance among girls by providing take-home food rations.

The company is leveraging the power of the internet to reach millions of people through the www.fromhungertohope.com website and other on-line activity. The interactive web site includes information about hunger, the WFP, how to donate to World Hunger Relief Week, updates on WFP outreach activities, Google mashup map highlighting volunteer updates from around the world and much more.

“I’m incredibly proud of the passion that our global team has for this critical initiative,” said Novak who has visited poverty-stricken areas in Guatemala and seen the needs firsthand. Novak is donating all proceeds from his newly released book, The Education of an Accidental CEO - Lessons Learned from the Trailer Park to the Corner Office (Crown Publishing) to the World Food Programme.

PRESS RELEASE

#39 Fight Club (1999)

Director: David Fincher
Actors: Edward Norton, Brad Pitt, Helena Bonham Carter, Meat Loaf

Fantastic movie that blurs the borders between reality and illusion, between reason and total anarchy. Fincher’s directing is very good, as always, and he creates a dark atmosphere that just hypnotizes and terrifies you. The screenwriting is great, too; there are so many classic lines in this movie, it’s always again fun to watch Fight Club. Especially Edward Norton is giving an outstanding performance, maybe only topped by his acting in American History X.

The story of an incredible obsession.

„Ich will etwas malen… Etwas, das die Welt noch nicht gesehen hat!“

DER PINSLER (PDF, ~85kb)

First of all, Frank Laufenberg’s website got a new design. That’s great news! But success attracts enviers. So also in the case of Germany’s most popular radio host Frank Laufenberg. The German music legend received an email from an angry listener on October 25, 2007, saying i.a.:

ich kenn dich aus deiner zeit vom swf, also ewig. ich finde du solltest jetzt aufhören, da die hörer auf deine dienste jetzt verzichten können.

One can only imagine Laufenberg’s facial reaction to that scandalous email! And you could never imagine the reaction of me reading that email! Well, to be honest, I fell off my chair. Twice. First, I fell off the chair because of the intense hatred of the email, which hit me totally unexpected. Then I fell off it again when I looked at the email a second time, as it hadn’t lost any of its destructive power. By the way, it almost threw me off a third time, because I lost hold of the armrest when climbing back up, but luckily I could keep my balance and continue reading:

Mr. Laufenberg, being the kind guy he is, sent a reply to the villain. Extract follows:

… auf wen soll ich jetzt hören: auf Sie oder die? Sagen Sie ‘Ihrem Umfeld’, dass mich ihre ‘Meinung’ wirklich nicht interessiert - und so lange ich noch Lust an Sendungen habe, mache ich sie auch. Wenn nicht für Sie, dann für die vielen Anderen, die schreiben. Und allen kann ich es ganz sicher nie Recht machen. Der Rat, aufzuhören, wurde mir auch schon mal 1970 gegeben - von irgend einem anderen ‘Umfeld’. …

Wow, nice counterstrike. Unfortunately, it left the angry listener unimpressed:

… Wir sind so im Schnitt zwischen 45 und 55 Jahre alt. Also die typische Zielgruppe des Senders. Gemeint ist natürlich die Radioarbeit, sonst hätte ich wohl kaum das Forum der SWR1 im Internet genutzt. Gewundert hat mich ihre Aussage, das sie sich für die Meinung nicht interessieren. (…) Die Art und der Stil ihrer Antwort entsprechen übrigens genau dem Grund meiner Bitte um Aufhören. Sie haben aufgrund ihrer langjährigen Arbeit etwas den Realitätsbezug verloren, das zeigt sich im von ihnen praktizierten Stil der Überheblichkeit nahe der Arroganz. …

Forget about MTV’s Celebrity Deathmatch. THIS verbal infight is the mother of all cockfights! And it’s only getting better. Watch out for Laufenberg’s final blow:

… was hatten Sie denn erwartet? Ich lese die Mail von Michael Neubert aus was-weiß-ich-wo und sage: jetzt höre ich auf, Radiosendungen zu machen? Natürlich dürfen Sie Ihre Meinung äußern - aber muss ich mich danach richten und darf ich das nicht anders sehen und empfinden?
Schauen Sie sich doch noch mal Ihre Mail von gestern und dann die von heute an: ich kann mich nicht erinnern, mit Ihnen jemals in Kontakt gekommen zu sein - trotzdem duzten Sie mich gestern - wie eine alten Kumpel aus Ihrem ‘Umfeld’. (…) Ich werde also in Zukunft auf Sie verzichten müssen - bedauerlich, aber nicht zu ändern. (…) Gruß - Frank Laufenberg

I’m sure this email correspondence, which will go down as The Frank Laufenberg Scandal, left its marks on Frank Laufenberg. He might have won this fight, but only at the expense of a great deal of the strength and energy he’ll need to continue making his popular radio show “Kopfhörer” on SWR1. Many great historian figures never recovered from the wounds of their biggest victories. May the force be with you, Frank Laufenberg.

(To read the eloquent correspondence in its entirety, go to Laufenberg’s website at http://www.franklaufenberg.de/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=16&Itemid=30.)

The Wise Guys are a German a capella band I first discovered few months ago. I’m actually going to go to one of their concerts in the near future. Here are a few of the songs they performed at the 3sat Kleinkunst Festival:

Dumbledore is gay… “I knew it!”

#40 Wall Street (1987)

Director: Oliver Stone
Actors: Michael Douglas, Charlie Sheen, Martin Sheen, Daryl Hannah, James Spader, John C. McGinley

Oliver Stone’s all-time classic about capitalism and the fascinating power of money. Excellent writing, directing and actors.

This is a *very short* excerpt from my work “Der Pinsler”, which I’m planning to post on smoky/glass this week. Enjoy:

Eine Lösung und damit eine Befreiung von diesem Problem fand Güterich erst als ihm klar wurde, dass Namen nichts sind als Schall und Rauch, und ebenso Zeiteinheiten. Wenn er um siebzehn Uhr eine Verabredung mit dem Kurator einer Ausstellung hatte, der Interesse an einem seiner Bilder bekundete, kam er einfach zwei Stunden später.