Before You Don't Vote…

“They say that politicians should never talk down to the American people. People, it's time to face the music: we are not the sharpest knives in the drawer.” So says one of the 50-plus interviewees in media artist Larry Litt's timely Before You Don't Vote…, commissioned by the Palm Beach Institute of Contemporary Art for The Blame Show series. Literally a compilation of sound bites intercut in such a way as to create a running monologue, the program is straight talking head (against a white background), but the talk (“advice to the angry, apathetic, and alienated”) is fairly invigorating as the interviewees (of all ages, races, and cree--well, decidedly liberal) urge viewers to exercise their hard-won (for all but white male landowners) right to vote in a democracy that may be imperfect but is still far superior to the alternatives (ranging from anarchy to totalitarianism). As the infamous 2000 election confirmed, votes count (“who had ever heard the word ‘chad'?”), and as the November election rolls into view, liberals are hoping that heretofore complacent and lazy Democrats are going to rise up off of their behinds, go to the polls, and say we're mad as hell, and we're not going to take it anymore (or as one interviewee puts it: “vote in an administration that's less far to the right…these guys are nuts!”). Sure to spark discussion (and possibly spur some folks to vote), this is recommended. Aud: H, C, P. (R. Pitman)