AIFF 2011: Voices of Bristol Bay Precedes Inuk Opening Night

Opening night was sold out and packed.  Lots of people.  Lots of noise.

The opening short was a light and fun, yet very important look at people who live in Bristol Bay.  They gave 60 some people digital video recorders and asked them to video tape part of their day.  A wonderful glimpse at the people of the region.  It also got Alaska Native people into the theater to watch the Greenland film about troubled kids going out with traditional seal hunters.  I talked to one young man from Kotzebue (originally) after the film and he said he could understand a lot of it. 

Tony Sheppard introduced both films - it was strange without Rand Thornsley there - and then we saw the films.

Inuk was powerful and the story mirrored the story of many Alaskan Natives faced with the modern world impinging on their traditional way of life and with the added problems of global climate change having a huge impact on their frozen worlds.  The cast was all real people - kids at a shelter for troubled kids acted with traditional seal hunters.  One of the seal hunters - Ole Jørgen Hammeken - was there with the director Michael Magidson and writer Jean-Michel Huctin and they took questions afterward.

Even a film glitch with stopped the film and darkened the room toward the end didn't take away from the enthusiasm of the crowd. 




The video starts with Director Magidson telling the crowd how much they wanted to show this film in Alaska.  There's a brief clip of the film - after the glitch - and the Q&A.  The lighting in the Bear Tooth for Q&A has always been bad.  This year they did get a bit of light on the film makers. 




Here's a schedule for Saturday's films.  I'm late for the 1pm shorts at Out North.  Then I think I'll check out the Israeli SciFi flick at the Alaska Experience Theater at 3.  Unless I get sidetracked.

AIFF 2011: In The Shadow's Jorge Sermini and Nicole Elmore

Also at opening night I got to talk to Jorge Sermini and Nicole Elmore who between them wrote, directed, and acted in the Puerto Rican set film In The Shadow which involves an American tourist who gets involved with a local healer. But they can tell you better themselves. And since Tomás might read this, I asked Jorge to explain it again in Spanish. But don't shut it off then because Nicole talks at the end.

This one plays at the same time as Love You To Death on Sunday at 2:30, at the Alaska Experience Theater.

AIFF 2011 Yuki Ellias - Love You To Death

I caught Mumbai film maker and actress Yuki Ellias  at the Opening Gala of the Anchorage International Film Festival. Her film Love You To Death,  plays Sunday at Out North at 2:30pm. That's the only showing. 

AIFF 2011: Nayeem Mahbub, Mutant Chickens director, Interview From Kenya

Each year I seem to want to do more and more and feel like I'm doing less and less.  But I think, at least pre-festival, I'm doing more, but in a more focused area.  It seems that this year I've concentrated on the Animated Films in Competition.  There's already a post up with an overview of the seven. 

I've tried to contact the various film makers of these animated films to talk with them in advance.  I know that Gergely Wootsch [This is Not Real] is planning on being here for a week from London and that Patrick Neary [Landscape with Duck] is doing a reverse migration trip to the north in winter for the festival.

I've had some email communication with others and just had a skype chat with Nayeem Mahbub who is in Kenya for the wedding of a good friend.  The video quality was poor to begin with.  I did a video interview with Brent Scarpo before he came to Anchorage, but that was using my little camera to record the screen.  This time I have software called Call Recorder which records the skype audio and video directly.  As I say, the video quality I saw on my screen was pretty squirrely, but I'll leave it because Nayeem is still pretty expressive.

I had some questions that related to the cultural context of the film.  Nayeem is from Bangladesh. 

Q:  Is there a market for films like this in Bangladesh? 
A:  Not really 
Q;  Is there something that a Bangladeshi audience would get that an American audience might miss?
A: We follow a lot of conventions of Bangladeshi films - some dancing, a lot of sounds and uses of sound, and other conventions Bangladeshi audiences would recognize and combines them with a modern zombie style film.

I'm giving you these answers here because I still haven't figured out how I want to use what I got, given the quality of the video.  But I decided to take a three minute part of the chat to give you an idea of how much fun it was to talk to Nayeem.  I'll figure out how to use the rest later - there's too much going on with the festival starting now to do this well now.  But here's a teaser.

AIFF 2011: Anchorage International Film Festival Begins Today - What's New?

I've barely scraped the surface of things this year. I ended up being more focused on the animated films in competition. But here are a few things I've noticed about the festival that are different this year.

1.     Reduced Role of Bear Tooth
Rand Thornsley, as manager of the Bear Tooth theater, was half of the Tony Sheppard and Rand team at the heart of the festival.  He's moved to Oregon [Washington] to run his own theater there, and while I'm told he still programs the Bear Tooth he's not been involved in the festival this year. [UPDATE Dec. 5:  I ran into Rand Sunday night and Monday again.  He's in town for the festival.  He did have a small role in the festival.  He move to  Washington, not Oregon.  Camas to be exact - east of Vancouver, WA. and owns the Liberty Theater.]  Last year the Bear Tooth was non-stop film festival which included showing all the winning films again the week after the festival.  This year there are eight showings at the Bear Tooth, all features, all at 8pm.  A key festival staffer says that the manager at Bear Tooth has been very supportive. 

2.  Increased Roles of Out North and Alaska Experience Theater
These two venues will take much of the load from the Bear Tooth.


3.  Tickets and Passes
Individual tickets remain $8 - a bargain for film festivals.  (I think we paid $11 Canadian at the Vancouver Film Festival).  There is only one pass this year - all films.  The all events pass is gone.  The all films pass is $90, up from $80.

4.  All Animated Films in Competition in One Program
In the past it was a hassle to see all the animated films that were selected to be in competition (ie eligible for an award) because they were scattered over different programs. (Program meaning a grouping of films that all showed together.)  But this year there weren't that many animated films that got selected for the festival and all those in competition are in one program.

5.  Awards Ceremony moves to Organic Oasis
The awards ceremonies have been in the Bear Tooth the last two years.  This year they are out again.   I haven't been in the Organic Oasis for a while.  It will be interesting to see how they organize the awards there. 


6.  Cyrano's and Wild Berry Theater Join the Festival
There will be two showings (in HD) of the film  at Cyrano's of "A Director Prepares" on Tuesday at 7pm and 9pm.  The description says:

A DIRECTOR PREPARES is a 94 minute "hybrid" documentary/narrative-drama chronicling Alaska's foremost playwright/director, Dick Reichman, as he prepares his cast for the world premier of his play "The Big One" about the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill. Until 2010, the spill was the largest in history.

The Alaska Wild Berry Theater will show "The Movement: One Man Joins an Uprising"  at 2pm on Saturday Dec. 10.  The description for that movie is:

In 2004 Rick Finkelstein was paralyzed in a ski accident on Aspen Mountain. With a severed spine and severe internal injuries, he wasn't expected to live. Six years, nine surgeries and a lifetime of rehab later, cameras capture his dramatic return to Aspen.

7.  More Visiting Film Makers
And there's supposed to more film makers coming from around the world this year, partially due to an Academy of Motion Pictures grant to help pay for the airfare. Don't be shy about going up to them and welcoming them to Anchorage.  They mostly don't know many folks here and will appreciate it.



See you soon at the Bear Tooth tonight for the Greenland movie, Inuk, at 8pm.  For the last couple of years, the opening film has gone on to win the Best Feature.  If it happens again this year, we'll know there's a pattern.  This is the gala opening so it will be $20 ($10 with an all films pass) and includes a party.  The short A Day in Our Bay:  Views and Voices from Bristol Bay Alaska will be shown too tonight.

AIFF 2011: David Andrade on Nuts For Pizza and Making an Internet Collaboration Film

Nuts for Pizza is one of the animation films in competition for an award at the Anchorage International Film Festival that begins today, Friday, December 2.  David Andrade, the director, isn't going to make it to Anchorage - work deadlines - but we were able to connect via Skype Thursday evening.  And I got to try out Call Recorder, a software that allows you to record your Skype conversations.

In researching the animated films, I found out that Nuts for Peanuts was an internet collaboration.  32  people were involved in the film, many doing just one small part to move the film along, recruited via the internet on CG Chat.  You can see David's recruiting post from July 2010 here.

In the video David talks about the story for Nuts for Pizza, doing the film via collaboration,  and I asked him to talk a bit about the difference between hand-drawn video and computer generated video.  He also talks briefly about his current job working as video-game animator in San Diego.  Finally he tells us he wants to come to the Anchorage festival next year.



Using Skype to interview folks has lots of possibilities, but it also has its challenges. For one thing, you have more time and end up with a lot more video and thus need to do a lot more editing. Second, the audio and the video didn't come out synched and I had to extract the audio in iMovie and move it a bit. It's pretty close but not perfect.

Wednesday night I interviewed another animation film maker - Nayeem Mahbub. His film is in Bangla (the language of Bangladesh) but he was in Nairobi, Kenya for the wedding of a good friend. We had a fascinating chat about the meaning of this film in the Bangladeshi film world. But the video quality is terrible. Bad enough I don't have to worry about the audio/video synch. I can't take too much time to edit it because the festival begins tomorrow. So I'll try to get it up tomorrow.

Nuts for Pizza and Attack of the Killer Mutant Chickens both are part of the "Animation World-Wide" program (link goes to the schedule) which plays four times over the festival.

Day	Time	Venue
Sunday Dec 4	12 pm	Alaska Experience
Tuesday Dec. 6	7pm	Out North
Friday Dec. 9	7:20 pm	Alaska Experience
Saturday Dec 10	6pm	Out North

HTML Tables

Both these short animations come to the festival with previous festival awards (as do others) so this will be a highly competitive group.  For more, see my previous post on the animated films in competition.

AIFF 2011: UFAQs - Unasked Frequently Asked Questions about the Festival

[This is an updated version of similar posts from previous years.  If you only read one of my posts on the festival, this is the one to read.]

I'm not sure its cricket to have FAQs if no one has asked any questions so these are UFAQs - Unasked Frequently Asked Questions. This is information people might be or should be asking for. Below are links to posts with general information about the Anchorage International Film Festival.

Where's the official AIFF site?

Who won in each category?
2010 Winners -   No page of my picks last year  Official AIFF 2010 Winners Page 
2009 Winners -  My 2009 winners post -  Official AIFF 2009 Winners Page
2008 Winners - My 2008 winners post  -  Official AIFF 2008 Winners Page



What do all the categories mean? ("official selection;" "films in competition," etc. ) This is an updated post from 2008, but still gets the basic information across.  It also covers the process for how films get selected for the Festival and how the winners get chosen. 


What  films are the best films this year (2011)?
Films in Competition are the ones chosen  to compete for the Golden Oosiker awards.  Here are guides to each category - something about each film and when and where they will play. 

Films in Competition  - Features and Documentaries 2011 (My post)
      Link to Festival Genius Features Schedule
      Link to Festival Genius Documentaries Schedule

Films in Competition -  Animation 2011  (My post)
      Link to Festival Genius Animation Schedule
Films in Competition - Shorts  (coming soon I hope)
      Link to Festival Genius all Shorts Schedule
Films in Competition - Super Shorts   (coming soon I hope)
     Link to Festival Genius all Super Shorts Schedule
The films in competition for Snow Dance (Alaskan films) have not been announced yet as I post.  Short documentaries are included in documentaries, but none were picked to be in competition.  

What is Festival Genius?  
Festival Genius  is a national software program that AIFF began using last year.  It lets you sort films in many ways.  You can sort just to see all the films (each film is listed with a picture) in a category, for instance, or see the schedule for the films in a category.    My links sometimes do one, sometimes the other.  Also, the links only go to page 1, be sure to check for any additional pages linked at the bottom of the pages.
If you register on Festival Genius, you can use it to make your own schedule of films you want to see.  You can also make comments and reviews.
NOTE:  Once you're in Festival Genius, there doesn't seem to be a link back to the local AIFF website.  



Short films are grouped together into 'programs.'  How do I find which short films are playing together and the same of program?
Easiest place is the printed program. As of last year (2011) when they added Festival Genius software, things are easier to find.
Animation Programs - The link goes to all programs that have animation.  Some are programs that might have one animation in it.  Animation-Wrld Wide is the program with all the animated shorts. (There weren't that many this year, but the ones in competition appear to be pretty strong.)  There are also two feature animations - George the Hedgehog and Lady of Names.  George, I'm told, is definitely adults only, but Lady will be shown at the kids free showing at Loussac on Saturday, Dec. 10.

Snowdance Programs (films made in Alaska or by Alaskans)
Short Films - There's also a short documentary category.
Super Shorts
(The links only go to page one.  Check at the bottom for more pages.)

I'm not interested in the festival, but if there are any films on my favorite place, food, sport, etc.,  I'd go.  Are there any?

The Festival Genius software  allows you to look at a list of countries and then see what films are being shown from that country.  Click on the blue (where the red arrow points below) and it will open a list of countries.  Then pick a country, and wait until it loads the films from that country. (This screen shot is from 2010)

I counted 26 countries this year.

The film festival spans two calendar weeks and so you have to check for each week.  Just click on the week and it changes.  The Screenshot above is from last year, but here's a link to the same page this year:


http://anchorage.festivalgenius.com/2011/films

 Then click on the countries window to see the list of countries.  Choose the one you want and they will give you all the films from that country in the festival.

To find out about films of special topics, you need to look through the films themselves. 

How do I find your blog posts on specific films or film makers?  There's a tab below the page heading for Anchorage International Film Festival 2011.  I'll put links for specific films here as I post them  (check for the video posts there too)

Do you have videos of the Festival? - I'll add the video posts as they happen on my web with links at the Anchorage International Film Festival 2011 tab on the top of the page.



Where will the films be shown?
Locations:   Bear Tooth, was the main venue last year.  This year there are only eight showings there - all features, all at 8 pm. 

1230 West 27th Avenue (West of Spenard Road) - 907.276.4200

Out North has two rooms for screening. 
3800 DeBarr Road, (two blocks SW of Debarr and Bragraw)  907.279.8099



The Alaska Experience Theater has a large and small theater.
333 West 4th Avenue # 207  (4th and C St)  (907) 272-9076

Marston Theater (Loussac Library) will have the Family Programming on Saturday Dec. 10.

The Alaska Wild Berry Theater has one event - a ski movie - Saturday Dec. 10 at 2pm

5225 Juneau Street (Off Old Seward and International Airport Road) 907) 562-8858

Cyrano's has one film - A Director Prepares:  The Story of the Exxon Valdez.  

413 D Street (Downtown) (907) 274 2599

My understanding is the director pulled his film out of the festival last year because it wouldn't be shown in HD.  This is a special showing in HD.  

Two shows, Tuesday Dec. 6, 7pm and 9pm

There are special events at other venues.  You can check all the venues next to the window where you check the countries on Festival Genius (see screenshot above). 

What workshops are there?
There are  five workshops with film makers.  These are listed on the local site, but NOT on Festival Genius.  There's an $8 fee for most of the workshops, but they are free with Festival Passes.

What are your criteria for a good movie? When I made my picks for the 2008 best films, at the end of the post I outlined my criteria. The link takes you to that post, scroll down to second part.


Should I buy a pass or just buy tickets as I go?  

Tickets are $8 per film ($5 for kids, except at the Bear Tooth). All films passes are $100. (There's only one type of pass this year.) So, if you go to thirteen films, the pass is cheaper. But there are other benefits to the pass. You do have to get a ticket (free) for each film and only a certain number of seats are held for passholders, but you do get priority seating with your pass.
And if you have a pass, you'll go see more films because you'll think "I've paid for them. I should go and get my money's worth."
The pass gets you into Workshops free and a few extra events, though this year they give you a discount, and half price to the opening night film and the awards (which are $20 each, $10 less than last year.)

Another option is to volunteer and get a pass to a movie.

You can buy tickets at the venues.  You can also get advanced tickets at the venues.
You cannot buy tickets online this year.


What about family films? 
Saturday, December 10, 11:30am to 5pm  at Loussac Library - in the Marston Auditorium.  FREE
Here are the AIFF links for family events.
NOTE:  The link goes to page 2 of the schedule because it includes the all the movies in this category at the Loussac Library.  This event is free.  Check page 1 for week one showings of Lady of Names.

Who Are You Anyways? - who's paying you to do this? does your brother have a film in competition? What is your connection to the festival? From an earlier post here's my  
Disclosure:

Well I blogged the  2007 festival  and the AIFF people liked what I did and asked if I would be the official blogger in 2008. They promised me I could say what I wanted, but I decided it was better to blog on my own and then if I write something that upsets one of the film makers, the Festival isn't responsible.  They had a link to the blog last year.  They also thrown in a free pass for me since 2008.

I probably won't say anything terrible about a film, but I did rant about one film two years that I thought was exploiting its subject as well as boorishly demeaning a whole country. I mentioned in an earlier post that if I sound a little promotional at times, it's only because I like films and I like the kinds of quirky films that show up at festivals, so I want as many people to know about the festival as possible so the festival will continue. Will I fudge on what I write to get people out? No way. There are plenty of people in Anchorage who like films. They're my main target - to get them out of the house in the dark December chill when inertia tugs heavily if they even think about leaving the house. But if others who normally don't go out to films hear about a movie on a topic they're into, that's good too.

I did a post last year for Film Festival Skeptics who might be sitting on the fence and need to be given reasons to go and strategies to make it work.  

How do I Keep Track of What's Happening at the Festival?
  I'll be blogging the film festival every day.  The link below will be my festival posts only, starting with the most recent.

Anchorage International Film Festival (AIFF 2011)


Are there other Alaskan Film Festivals? 
There are some events called 'festival' that I know of in Anchorage, but they aren't major film events like this one.  There is another organization,  that puts Alaska in it's name and rents a postal box in Alaska, but has no other connection that we can find to Alaska.  You can read about that at  Comparing the ANCHORAGE and ALASKA International Film Festivals - Real Festival? Scam?

Anyone who knows of other legitimate film festivals in Alaska, let me know.  I've heard stuff about Sitka in 2008.  And there's also an Indigenous Film Festival Feb. 2011. [Not updated since 2010]

Meanwhile, in Pakistan . . .

If you listened to the foreign policy debate of the Republican candidates, you might want to read something with real meat.  The source article is by, according to the blurb in the Asian Times, Indian career diplomat Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar whose assignments included the Soviet Union, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Germany, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Uzbekistan, Kuwait and Turkey.

The heart of the matter is that the Pakistani citadel has pulled back the bridges leading to it from across the surrounding crocodile-infested moat. This hunkering down is going to be Obama's key problem. Pakistan is boycotting the Bonn Conference II on December 2. This hunkering down should worry the US more than any Pakistani military response to the NATO strike.

The US would know from the Iranian experience that it has no answer for the sort of strategic defiance that an unfriendly nation resolute in its will to resist can put up against an 'enemy' it genuinely considers 'satanic'.

The Pakistani military leadership is traditionally cautious and it is not going to give a military response to the US's provocation. (Indeed, the Taliban are always there to keep bleeding the US and NATO troops.)

This is an Indian talking about US-Pakistani relations. Someone in a position to know a lot more about this sort of thing than most Americans, including most members of Congress and presidential candidates. He's also someone with skin in the game.  It does provide a lot of information to use to help assess other information (or lack of information) you read on this topic.  In discussing the Pakistani response to the NATO air raid which killed 28 Pakistani forces, Bhadrakumar writes:

Exactly what happened in the fateful night of Friday - whether the NATO blundered into a mindless retaliatory (or pre-emptive) act or ventured into a calculated act of high provocation - will remain a mystery. Maybe it is no more important to know, since blood has been drawn and innocence lost, which now becomes the central point.

At any rate, the DDC [Pakistan's Defence Committee of the Cabinet] simply proceeded on the basis that this was a calculated air strike - and by no means an accidental occurrence. Again, the DDC statement implies that in the Pakistan military's estimation, the NATO attack emanated from a US decision. Pakistan lodged a strong protest at the NATO Headquarters in Brussels but that was more for purpose of 'record', while the "operative" part is directed at Washington.

The GHQ in Rawalpindi would have made the assessment within hours of the Salala incident that the US is directly culpable. The GHQ obviously advised the DDC accordingly and recommended the range of measures Pakistan should take by way of what Chief of Army Staff General Ashfaq Parvez Kiani publicly called an "effective response."

The DDC took the following decisions: a) to close NATO's transit routes through Pakistani territory with immediate effect; b) to ask the US to vacate Shamsi airbase within 15 days; c) to "revisit and undertake a complete review" of all "programs, activities and cooperative arrangements" with US, NATO and the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), including in "diplomatic, political and intelligence" areas; d) to announce shortly a whole range of further measures apropos Pakistan's future cooperation with US, NATO and ISAF.  [Read it all in the Asian Times.]

It makes me think of the advice Vaclav Havel gives in Power of the Powerless. I wrote about it earlier in the context of TSA.  Here it fits in the relation of one nation to another.  Of course, it's a form of civil disobedience as well.  Just say no.   Those who have power say everyone should fight like they do.  That's because they have all the weapons in that sort of battle.  But disobedience is the main  tool of those without power.  There is immense power in simply refusing to cooperate.  Ask the Occupiers.  Ask the Republicans in Congress. 

Thanks to my friend who alerted me to this article.

Arts and Crafts at the Museum Sunday

 We went to the museum arts and crafts fair on Sunday.  Here are a few examples of the art and the people who made it. 


KC Lowe was a neighbor when we first moved to Alaska.  She had these bars of soap dressed in wool felt. The lanolin in the wool is supposed to do good things for you and the cover makes the soap last much longer.  Is this art?  I don't recall ever seeing soap wrapped up in felt before.  And look at those colors.  And the fact that it's something you actually use,  doesn't exclude it from being art.  What she is holding is the left over felt cover after months and months of use.  I've been thinking about soap for a while now and I've been planning to do a blog post.  It's coming, think of this as a preview.

I knew Larry Kingry back when he was an administrator at ACC and then UAA.  Now he's turning wood into interesting and unique bowls.  His card says you can email him here if you're interested in a bowl. 

Another old friend, in that we've had one of his water colors up on our wall for 30 years or so, is Ken Lisbourne.  He's originally from Point Hope, but now lives in Tok. 

We had a long talk and it was interesting to hear the stories behind his paintings.  It really is a collection of Inupiaq culture and legends.  Matt Shields did a long post on Ken a few years back that gives a lot of information.

Guitta Corey's work is amazing.  I only took one photo which does a poor job of portraying the artist and her work.  But it's all I've got.  But you can see more at Alaska Home.  The work she had for sale Sunday was various sized and shaped glass trays that were 'painted' with exquisite papers.  I can't explain.  Just check the link. 







As Jacob suggested in a recent comment, if you don't keep using photoshop, you forget it.  So you'll have to bear with my experimenting.  Someday it will work more consistently for me.  There are parts of this I like and parts that I just couldn't make do what I wanted.  And parts I didn't know what I wanted. 

But Wendy Gingell's ceramics aren't ordinary.  They're strong and opinionated.  I love the shapes and designs and colors.  Her inspiration for the large plate in the background was a cyst she had in her abdomen.  The two little ones on the lower right, I was told, were a parent's eye view of kids.  And can you tell she likes yellow and black? 

 

Tacky Spam Comment with Dentist Ad Suggests Businesses Be Careful of SEO Firms

[UPDATE:  I've had a legal threat which I responded to and then a much more rational email concerning this post.  I'll post them soon. [Part 1]  I've decided that the dentist in question had some legitimate points on my stereotypes about large dental practices.  He has said that he was unaware of the SEO firm doing this sort of commenting promotion and that they have contacted the SEO firm to end such practices.  I have decided to take his word on this.  The intent of the post is to alert people to sleazy SEO companies and the specific dentist is irrelevant.  Thus I’ve removed the name of the dental group involved.   So I've removed the name of the dental practice.]


[PART 1:]  Sometimes, posts force their own way onto this blog.  It's Monday Nov. 28 and I have better things to do than this, but I can't help it.

[Note to readers: This is a blogging-behind-the-scenes post.  The stuff in brackets I added after I finished this 'investigation.' This post wrote itself as I got more information.  It started out as a snarky post about a tacky dentist.  Now I'm not sure how tacky the dentist is  or if he just got a sleazy SEO firm to jack up his google position.  Have I lost you yet?  I'll explain SEO down below.  But let's begin at the beginning now.  The parts without brackets, I wrote as it was unfolding.]

Occasionally I get comments on a post that have nothing to do with the post. I've written about 'Kevin' who posted Chinese spam from Taiwan in the comment section for a while. These are spam ads that require a bit of work because someone has to get to my blog, then write something in the comment area, and then get past the Captcha code.  So it generally takes a human being to do this.

Most such comment/ads I get are for companies in China or India, and generally for electronic or industrial products.  Today on a post about planned obsolescence and the Anchorage building code, I got this comment:
[This is a screen shot image, not text, so the links don't work.  Also, I've deleted this comment on the original post.  See Update at top of this post on not identifying the dentist.]

To me, this is pretty bizarre.  And extremely tacky.  Enough so that I called the XXXXXXX Intelligencer which the internet told me was a newspaper that covered Lititz (emphasis, I learned, was on the first syllable, not on the body parts) and talked to a reporter who agreed it was strange, but didn't know anything about the business.  He said he'd check with some dentists he knows nearby.

I also called the XXXXXXXXX Dental Arts office and left a message on their voice mail.  You have to admit it takes a little thought to explain what I wanted for a voice mail.

I did learn while I was listening to their answer recording that they are open from 8:00am to 8:00pm two days a week and shorter hours the other days.  I also learned that they have done some serious internet work - they dominate  the first five pages when you google them.

So, for now here are a couple of tentative explanations:

• They are a tacky, factory dental clinic that will do whatever it takes to get customers.
• They are a dental group that has hired an SEO company to pump up their web presence and they don't know they bought spam comment/ads. 

PART 2:  Beware of sleazy SEO companies.

So, what is SEO?  SEO stands for Search Enhancement [Engine] Optimization.  That's geek speak for doing things to get a higher google rating so that your website shows up in the first two or three pages when people search terms related to your site.

Here's what Ethical SEO says (in part)

Promote your website, getting as many quality backlinks as possible; a backlink is a link posted on somebody else’s website which leads to your website. The backlink should ideally have a good “anchor text”, a text that describes what your website is about. As an example, instead of having a link to my website that says “click here”, I would rather have a link that says ethical seo company [they had this linked in the original, but I've already given them a link above, so I took it out] if I plan to get a good rank for the “ethical seo company” search phrase.

This is called off-page SEO and is by far the most important (and time-consuming) part of the SEO process, being responsible for about 90% of its success. While finding the proper keywords to target and optimizing the web pages is a one-time operation, building backlinks to your website must be an ongoing process, especially if the industry you’re in is profitable. Most (or all) of the companies on the 1st Google page invest in SEO on a monthly basis; othewise, they wouldn’t get these good ranks and sales. [emphasis added]

So, the point is to get backlinks; ideally, links with the name of your website on other websites.  It doesn't even matter if no one uses the link, because the point is to have Google count all these back links - and they are worth more if the site they're on is rated well - so that when people google 'your name'  your site will come up on page one of google.

[I'd also note that I don't invest in SEO, but I still get on page 1 on Google.  My guess is that my frequency of posting and some backlinks have helped.] 

SEO Primer Backlinking Tips

. . . Getting inbound links (backlinks that point to our website) which contain proper anchor text (the keywords we’re interested in) is an art in itself; fortunately, there are several 100% ethical (also called white hat)  methods that allow us to get them. If you have written a good piece of content, for example an interesting article, you can submit it to thousands of article directories and format it in such a way that you will get the desired backlink with proper anchor text. Sure, many article directories will reject your submission, but if your article is really good and you are submitting it to thousands of directories, you will definitely get not only a few hundreds of backlinks to your website, but also traffic (website visitors) from the tens of millions of people that are visiting the article directories each and every day. [So that explains the people who have asked to post guest posts here.]

So I left a message at the Dental Center, but wasn't expecting much.  However, it wasn't long before I got a call back from XXXXXXX [I'm guessing at the spelling].  She said this was the second call about this in one week.  She said she needed to call the SEO person and let him know.  She even found the blog without my telling her the name.  I did leave my name, but not too many people can spell my last name just hearing it on a voice message.

OK, so giving her the benefit of the doubt, she wasn't planning to have spam comments on blogs.  And she was going to change it.

But then I got to thinking, "Not only does she know what SEO is, but that was the first thing she mentioned."  These people are serious about their marketing.  I doubt that my dentist's office manager has heard of SEO.  I wasn't sure if my dentist even had a website.  [I checked and he does, but it's pretty generic. Mine has four dentists just like the one in Pennsylvania.  But the XXXXXXXX one just gives the names and photos of the dentists.  Mine doesn't have photos, but has a lengthy background on each dentist.  And my dentist doesn't have such long hours.  But he probably charges more.  After all, this is Alaska.]

Anyway, I guess there are several lessons to be learned here.

For me:

1. Now I better understand why people are putting  links in spam comments.  It's less about getting people to link to their sites.  It's more about getting lots of links out there to goose their google search ratings.  So, if a blogger left the links because she didn't pay attention or didn't think anyone would use them, the source is still getting a benefit through bogus comments.
2. Don't jump to conclusions.  I still think there are signs of tackiness here on the dentist's part - the long hours, the heavy push on SEO, including a staff member who knows the term, and the multiple offices in the area.  But it could just be a younger dentist with more internet savvy whose SEO specialist used unethical ways to boost the google ratings.  

For businesses with websites:

1. There are lots of SEO companies out there trying to get your business.  I get regular solicitations here myself.   It's probably a good idea to ask them what their ethical standards are and what practices they use and don't use. 
2. Not being careful means, like with this Dental Center, that you can end up with ads that make you look really tacky.  But then maybe that's why the ads were put on an Alaska blog, where XXXXXXXX area patients aren't likely to see them. But the internet is beyond borders, so that doesn't matter. 

If you search "SEO Ethics" and "Finding an Ethical SEO" you can find tips on ways to identify more ethical SEO firms.  I didn't find any specifically good ones so I'm not going to link.  And one of my readers might add some additional comments.

And if you get spam comments on your website, or see such tacky ads, call up the company and let them know what you think. If it's on your website, delete it right away.

[Just in case someone is asking, "What's wrong with the ad?"

1. It's fake.  It was put on the blog, not as a legitimate part of the discussion of the post, but simply to drop a flyer for this company.  
2. It's spam.  It's like internet litter.  Like putting your ad on someone's fence.
3. It tries to game the system.  It distorts the ratings that Google (and others) use to determine who gets on page one of searches.  I'm not saying Google's system doesn't have flaws, but it's like cutting in line, or cheating on a test, in my book. There's a better way to say this.  It's like learning all the tricks of looking good without actually being good.  But when people see through it, it looks tacky, like a bald man wearing a toupee.