Federico Fellini came up twice during my attendance of the Berkeley World Music Festival. I'd just arrived at Amoeba to interview some of the staff the first time Fellini trundled, unwelcome, into my mental periphery. The second time, Federico's appearance was a bit more explicit, popping up right after a professional musician recommended "Rockers," a Jamaican film made in 1978. In homage to late period Fellini's rejection of linear plot development, I'm going to talk about the second encounter first.

Allow me to explain. I normally walk down Telegraph next to some pretty interesting people, but only once in a great while is the guy at the crosswalk wearing a blazer and carrying an instrument case. This is how I started talking with David Ralicke, who has toured with Beck and happens to be the brass player for Los Angeles-based Cambodian pop group Dengue Fever. Calling it "pop" is really kind of a misnomer, though; their work is based on what came out of Cambodia in the late Sixties, a sound influenced by psychedelic, surf and Latin music.

Mr. Ralicke and I had completed the official portion of our interview when we started talking about film. He mentioned that a lot of characters in "Rockers" break the fourth wall, and I ridiculously replied that Farmer Ted does the same thing towars the end of "Sixteen Candles." To redeem myself, I had to add (quickly) that it also happens in "Amarcord." Like a vampire accidentally invited to a house party, Fellini was allowed to cross the threshold back into my life. Again.

Federico had already been there, of course. We had our first re-meeting when I heard DJ Larry Kelp spin "Patricia" at Amoeba an hour earlier. "Patricia" is a song played more than once in "La Dolce Vita" (and over and over again in the viewer's head for hours thereafter), but it's much less grating when not accompanied by a fortysomething stripping at her annulment party.

I had asked Mr. Kelp a few questions, but because he was busy deejaying, he directed me to Felix Elieff, who works in both Amoeba Music and Musical Offering. Elieff graduated from Berkeley in 1982 with a degree in Art History, is an avid collector of jazz music and happens to be one of the kindest people I've ever interviewed. He says that the international section moves a lot of records, mostly because deejays use them in remixes. He then explains that making innovative compositions is easier than it's ever been, especially because the internet has made a wide variety of influences and art pieces more readily available.

"There are no set rules," he says. "It's very free. It's very healthy."

Free and healthy. Screengrabs of Fellini's oeuvre cascade through my mind, stills of Marcello Mastroianni playing the same lost man every time. In those few seconds, I thought about the conditions for freedom, for healthiness, and I realized that we're going through a time not unlike the sixties and seventies, the era of Dengue Fever's inspiration, the Vietnam War, most of Fellini's important films and, incidentally, "Rockers." It's all about exchange. Artistic freedom is, at base, about the freedom of cultural permeability–and the places where it's allowed to happen.

"I'm going to ask you a question," I tell Mr. Elieff. "And the answer is probably self-evident."

"Okay," he says, leaning against one of the shelves.

"Why would Berkeley host an event like this?"

"Oh, come on," he replies, smiling. And then he shakes his head with good-natured disbelief, because "self-evident" was really kind of an understatement, one that even Fellini, a master of stylistic excess, might appreciate.

Tags: THINGS OF IMPORT