Quitcher Bitchin'!

You know why we don't blog much any more?

THIS is why. We spend all our time reading about films and film-making and hiking and reading (Indian history & culture this year; last year was SoutheastAsian history and culture); next year we go BACK to reading Chinese/Japanese/Korean history and culture in honour of the several hundred new acquisitions in that field).

This year's book list had 160 books on it. Still haven't posted my reviews, but, akan datang as we sometimes say in (parts of) SoutheastAsia. I know this.

We've watched a fucking shitload of films from, basically, 1895 (the very first Edison & Melies & Gaumont, etc.) to around 1930/1950. Last night we finally got to Elia Kazan's film, "Gentleman's Agreement."

This film won FOUR Oscars out of seven nominations. Including one for Best Director to Elia Kazan. It got rave reviews from everybody. What I want to know is, WHY? If you haven't seen it already, be warned. This is a terrible film. It was probably a great book, and I'd like to read that, but the whole thing was filmed in a way that completely ignores the magic & power of film. It was plotted and blocked and shot like a play in a theater. The camera is almost always static and views everything from about eye-level. There are no interesting angles, no especial or notable beauty or power in the scenes. They're competent. There are no major flaws in the film, although it could have been SO much better.

I had great expectations of this film. Gregory Peck has always done a great job on the screen, which loved his handsome face and class and style. But the dialog poor Peck had to declaim in this film was so thunderingly wooden, I almost up and died out of sympathy for the poor guy. He did a marvelous job, but really. The writer gave nearly every other character witty, dazzling, clever dialogue. WTF happened when he got to Greg's lines? Did he just hate the handsome hero, or what? Because watching the poor man sweat through some of those clunkers was pretty goddamn sad.

I'm not knocking the subject matter. In fact, I wish it had been far MORE searing, exposing the fate of the poor Jews in the tenements of New York, rather than the elegant country estates of the supposed supporters of anti-discrimination measures. And the film was certainly honest enough to expose the hidden anti-Semitism of the very people most affected by it, the Jewish employee of the liberal rag who fears that the "wrong type" will be hired if discrimination ends. It was a socially important film, just as Gone With The Wind was. But I don't have to like a film just for being socially important, if it's bereft of the art, quality, grace, style, and imagination of other films.

I blame the director for my disappointment, but admit that there might be some ambiguity in that blame. I'm well aware of Kazan's testimony before HUAC that landed so many of his colleagues and competitors on the blacklists. I despise the man for the suffering he caused. Is that colouring my critique of him? I thought so initially, and wrestled with committing my thoughts to the InterToobz (which, as we all know, are a series of large pipes, not trucks, filled with pictures of cats). But then I found, on IMDB, several people who seem to echo my sentiment.

In all fairness, it was Kazan's first film and he trained as a stage director (the same could be said of Hitchcock, though, who understood almost instinctively the great power of the camera and worked some two decades earlier). I shall watch the rest of Kazan's ouevre before further comment. I do want to comment on a few things, though, and I welcome feedback.

1. The camera is almost always a passive observer of staged scenes in which two or more people converse This slows the pace so that it is almost always glacial.
2. All the action is limited to the frame of that stage. Hardly anyone looks offstage or walks out of camera range or moves across the observing lens, or towards, or away from, it.
3. The director seemed unsure whether to focus on the anti-Semitism that was the focal point of the story, or the romance.
4. The camera lingered on many scenes for far too long.
5. All technical aspects of the film were pretty good. Good lighting, good script (except for Peck's lines), witty dialogue, fine actors giving their best.
6. Lots of unfinished business and hanging ends. WTF ever happened to Anne's proposal to Phil? Did he take advantage of it? Turn her down? WHAT? Did he take back his resignation? Decide to stay in NY? He certainly couldn't move up to Connecticut with the lovely Dorothy McGuire. She was supposedly moving to CT to ensure that his buddy David could live in her cottage without problems.
7. Whoever did the sound for the movie should be shot as an example to similar sinners. The sudden sweep of wailing violins every time the hero approaches the heroine gets to be a bit much after the 47th instance, jesusfuckingchrist.

So yeah. Do Not Want.

The Last Of The Mississippi Bluesmen

David "Honeyboy" Edwards died today.

He was the last of the great old Mississippi bluesmen, and you haven't heard the Delta blues played like this, ever. Here he is, in his 90s, still giving it his all:



This is the kind of blues that sits in your belly like a hungry wolfcub, taking bites straight out of your heart. Blues like showers of rain.

Thank you, Mr. Edwards. May your memory and your music live forever.

John Waters' Art Exhibit: RUSH

I went to see John Waters’ art exhibition today at the Rena Bransten Gallery on Geary Street in San Francisco. It's called RUSH. The exhibit closes on July 10. Try to go see it. It's worth your while.

I’ll talk about my favorite pieces in a minute. Right now I want to focus on several of his pieces which were collages of photos taken from images on TV. I really liked many of them. The show is smallish so there aren’t that many of any one style. But you do get a sense of how he's using these -- and he definitely inspired me.

You walk into the gallery and there’s a beautiful collage of TV photos of Johnny Mathis. I loved that one very much.

I was drawn to these because I have taken photos from the TV for years. And they're really difficult to do because you get all kinds of distortions. One of my earliest ones was a photo of Elsa Lancaster as the Bride of Frankenstein -- she has just waken up from death and is all twitchy. I took the photo before she sees her lover-to-be and lets out a blood-curdling scream. Lancaster is in profile with dark lipstick, slightly bulging eyes, and that wavy hair -- she looks gorgeous!

[got this from the internet ... unknown photographer]

I took a silk screening class -- oh, this must be 1981 or 1982 -- and made a silk screen of this image. If you want to see a clip of the Bride coming to life on You Tube -- it's very trippy: Click here.

Tonight I made a crude version of my simulation of what John Waters did with his TV photos. It’s a photo of Arnold Schwarzenegger as The Ice Man in Batman and Robin. I took these photos a couple of years ago.


Originally, I created a post card with one of Arnie's faces and text next to it that is a quote from Arnie: “I think that gay marriage should be between a man and a woman.” Actual quote, by the way.


Back to Waters ... John Waters also puts words very effectively between photos in the collage. I’m not sure if the words are photos taken from TV images or not.

And, of course, his humor is a big presence in many of the pieces. Maybe I should rephrase that ... his SICK humor is a big presence. For example, he has a collage of 12 or more photos of Audrey Hepburn ... in her elegant outfits and hats -- with hickeys all over her prominent neck. And, you guessed it, the last two photos are from The Nun’s Story.

Okay, here were the other ones that I really liked:

• TV photos, about 6 of them - each photo shows the progression of someone opening a folded piece of paper ... about photo #3 you can read what the paper says: Lezzie ... so the last three photos the word Lezzie is completely visible. So simple. But it says so much. To me anyway.
• Close up of a dog whose eyes are blazing with fury.
• “Undertaker” - Collage of photos of various celebrities in movies where they are lying in a casket. The word “Undertaker” is in the collage several times.
• A photo of a painting of John Waters -- at least I think it's a painting -- John Waters at about 11 years old ... the photo includes the frame. And the same wood is used to frame this photo of the painting! (He is so nutty-funny.) But the funny part is that he must have retouched the photo because this little young Johnny Waters has a pencil-thin mustache. (Love that mustache!)
• A parody of those SMILE Foundation ads where you see photos of a lot of kids with cleft palates -- his version is a collage of photos of celebrities (retouched) so that all of them have cleft palates.
• A collage of bums (booties) -- most of the photos are of TV photos being projected onto bare bums. Quite good. And erotic.

See my earlier post about attending the City Arts & Lectures event: John Waters in conversation with Kevin Berger.

Oakland Museum of California Opens After Major Renovation

all photographs (c) 2010 K. Smokey Cormier

Last night I went to the grand opening of the Oakland Museum of California. It was exciting and the museum, which has undergone major renovation, is gorgeous. A delicious orange color pulls the museum’s ensemble together beautifully. It starts with the exterior signs -- beautiful against the sky.

The art gallery is so much bigger. It feels good walking through. I realize now how pinched I felt in the old, much smaller gallery.

Don't lick the paintings

The California History exhibit spreads out now too and the museum can show off their collection. The gardens are open and have tables so you can sit out there. (It was a bit too cool to sit there last night but I look forward to those warm Oakland days.)

The museum's store has been enlarged too and it dazzles. Make sure to stop by and say hello to all the friendly and helpful clerks.

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Disclosure: A dear friend works there. But I loved the Oakland Museum before he started working there so I feel perfectly comfortable singing its praises. And another thing, I love Oakland and will always point out something wonderful here.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

I love bringing my daughters to this museum. It makes us all feel good -- there's something about the architecture here and the natural light as you travel through the levels. I love the way the walk-through is a series of broad steps up and then a series of steps down. However, don’t fear -- the museum is wheel chair accessible too.

You can read more about the design and read more information about the museum here.

Why is this museum and its renovation important for the residents of Oakland? We are inundated with depressing stories about Oakland too often. To me, the museum is like the Oakland Rose Garden (also called Morcom Park) -- it is a treasure, someplace to visit that makes you feel good. And I love art. I find the Oakland Museum so accessible. It’s so easy to go there. Since I’ve lived here in Oakland, I have always wanted to support the institutions that uplift our spirits. Plus, did you know that lots of community events happen at the Oakland Museum? Yep. They’ve got lots of spaces.

I love all the nooks and crannies at the museum. I can sit and relax for a moment before I go on to the next activity.

I took lots of photos ... so keep scrolling and you’ll get a little taste of the museum’s new look. And, if you have time tomorrow or Sunday (1 May 2010 and 2 May 2010), go and visit. The Oakland Museum of California will be open from 11:00 am Saturday until 6:00 pm Sunday. Yes, that’s right -- it will be open all through the night! It's free to get in during that entire period.

I’m sorry I didn’t get the names of the pieces or the artist ... I had limited time there last night. I’m going back tomorrow night.

This is one of the gardens. You can see the Alameda Country Superior Court just beyond.

Tortilla Art - this guy was doing silk screens on tortillas -- and they were edible!

Note: The new cafe won't be ready until July.

Art: American Prayer Flags

Copyright April McDonald

Oakland artist April McDonald has kindly allowed this blog to post a virtual exhibit of her found art. It's not everybody who can turn out something so beautiful, political, powerful, and communicative with bits and pieces rescued from those who don't possess the wherewithal to see art in everyday things.

Copyright April McDonald

So much for Gertrude Stein's message about Oakland. There is a there there.

Copyright April McDonald

Armed with the everyday household implements of glue, stamps, scissors, thread, needle, and a few other materials, including rolls of felt of different colours, Ms. McDonald has found a way to create powerful images with a message:

Copyright April McDonald

Is there a gallery out there that will host these prayer flags?

Copyright April McDonald

Some of the messages are downright subversive:

Copyright April McDonald

If you know of a gallery that is looking for local artists' exhibits of their work, please let us know.



We will be posting more from this artist soon:

Copyright April McDonald

All images in this post are the property of April and Ian McDonald. Please respect their copyright, and do not reproduce these images without the express permission of the artists. Photos by Ian McDonald. Copyright April and Ian McDonald.

Art Imitates Life

Noor Abed's public art installation, Rotten, in the making at Ramallah's Manarah Square. Courtesy Noor Abed

From Ramallah in Occupied Palestine comes the interesting story of 21-year-old artist Noor Abed, who got tired of comments and catcalls from men on the street and decided to see if she could do a little consciousness-raising with art. FTA in the UAE paper, The National:

Ms Abed decided to place a mannequin in a long white dress in Manara Square in central Ramallah. Then, with two male colleagues, she urged passersby to write comments on the dress. She asked them to write what they might have thought had they seen a woman walking down the street in similar attire.

The comments veered between corny and outright filthy. But almost all had as a common thread: sex, or the desire for it.

Sex is universal. The desire for it is universal. But the expression of that desire varies from culture to culture, and has historically been oppressive to women and those whose sexuality differs from the norm.

Sex advice columnist Dan Savage, an icon of our queer community, talks to the parent of a gay adolescent and advises him to treat his gay son like a daughter:

You should also regard your son, at least through his adolescence, as more of a daughter to you than a son. We tend to be more protective of our daughters — our straight daughters —than we are of our sons. Why? A sexist desire to keep our daughters “pure”? That’s a part of it, sure, but there’s also this: Men are pigs, and people on the receiving end of male sexual desire and attention are in more danger than people on the receiving end of female sexual desire and attention. (In general — individual results may vary.) Testosterone is the crystal meth of hormones, a badass drug, and men are more likely to be abusive and violent. The prevalence of HIV among gay men makes the stakes higher for your son. So don’t allow him to date anyone you don’t get to meet and approve of, and don’t confuse “being supportive” with “letting him do whatever/whomever he wants.” Be active, be engaged, and never stop being his meddling, interfering, hypersuspicious dad.

Kudos to Danny for voicing those sentiments, and kudos to Ms. Abed also for her courageous art!

Poem of the Day

Ms. Manitoba is off having a life (that kinda happens when you have hooman kids - ours are furrybrats, so we just kick their overfed butts outdoors when the weather is good, and we never have to worry about them calling CPS [Cat Protection Services] or future therapists' bills).

So today, we have to hold down La Casa de Los Buitres (did we say that right? We have little Spanish and less Japanese, to paraphrase some famous dead person).

At any rate, Ms. M sent us this poem which is still causing small explosions and ripples through our midsection. Great poetry does that.

Poem: "Vasectomy" by Philip Appleman, from New and Selected Poems, 1956-1996. © University of Arkansas Press, 1996.

Vasectomy

After the steaming bodies swept
through the hungry streets of swollen cities;
after the vast pink spawning of family
poisoned the rivers and ravaged the prairies;
after the gamble of latex and
diaphragms and pills;
I invoked the white robes, gleaming blades
ready for blood, and, feeling the scourge
of Increase and Multiply, made
affirmation: Yes, deliver us from
complicity.
And after the precision of scalpels,
I woke to a landscape of sunshine where
the catbird mates for life and
maps trace out no alibis &mdash stepped
into a morning of naked truth,
where acts mean what they really are:
the purity of loving
for the sake of love.

This poem especially affects us today, as we were planning to post about that little girl who was murdered by her mother and stepfather &mdash Nixzmary Brown. But that's a rant about overpopulation and child abuse for another time.

For today, let us contemplate the power and beauty of poetry instead, that with a few well-chosen words someone we don't even know can bring to mind all these different thoughts and images and feelings that swirl through us and leave us wrung out, shattered, rearranged, changed.

Films We Saw This Week

Casa de Los Gatos had a relatively uneventful week of reading, cat-harrassing, and watching films. We'll admit to a terrible weakness for BAD movies - MST3K bad - but we try to keep our hand in, so to speak (in what, we won't say) by occasionally putting a few good ones on our Netflix queue.

So it was that over the past week we saw two that really really impressed. (OK, we saw Invasion of the Giant Spiders too, and that was so bad it sucked black holes in the galaxy.)


Cache (Hidden; 2005; Winner, best director, Cannes Film Festival)

We put this one on the queue because we recently watched The Battle of Algiers, which was brilliant and deeply disturbing but also encouraging: the triumph of the human spirit over small-minded bureaucratic cruelty and the banality of evil. Cache, directed by Michael Haneke, stars Daniel Auteuil and Juliette Binoche, two of my favourite French film stars. Binoche reveals through her luminous portrayal of a middle-aged woman whose husband is hiding some very disturbing secrets her great talent as an actress; while Auteuil is painfully convincing as a man with something ugly in his past that he has successfully ignored for most of his life.

The French colonization of Algeria and the subsequent ill-treatment of the Algerians, both in their native country and as refugees in France, set the stage for a disturbing expose of racism. Maurice Benichou plays Majid, the victim of Auteuil's racism, and France's; and the stunningly gorgeous Walid Afkir plays Majid's son. The ending leaves one hanging, deliberately in order to be more disturbing. We're not going to spoil it for you. Suffice it to say that if you don't watch this one, you've missed out on some incredible filmmaking.


Daibosatsu-toge (Sword of Doom; 1966)

Starring Nakadai Tatsuya as Tetsue Ryonosuke. Special guest star Mifune Toshiro. Those who remember Nakadai as the aged King in Kurosawa's Ran know what a tremendous actor he is.

He does not disappoint. This is one of the best samurai movies ever made. It's a study of a psychopathic personality who edges closer to breakdown with every minute. He sets up the circumstances of his doom, and it finds and devours him. Nakadai is powerful as a man who has abandoned himself to his own internal chaos. Mifune gives his usual scene-stealing performance as a teacher of swordfighting to young samurai.

If you like Japanese film, samurai movies, martial arts, psychological drama, great camera work, this is a film to see. There is a definite Kurosawa feel to the camera work. B/W, beautiful, and disturbing.

Casa de Los Gatos returns to its regular viewing of truly stupid and pathetic movies today. We might just review a good one or two next week. Stay tuned.

Is legal sex anal?

Tracey Emin: Is Legal Sex Anal? 1998,
Pink neon and dimmer switch.
Photograph: Stephen White/Tate, London 2007

I was listening to NPR the other day and they had a piece about an art exhibition in London that I'd really like to go to. Here's a summary about the radio piece from the NPR website:

A major art exhibition in London at one of the UK's top galleries is not open to anyone younger than 18.

"Seduced," at the Barbican Gallery, is billed as the most sexually explicit fine-art exhibition ever staged. It attempts to show 2,500 years of sexuality in world art, and to explore how attitudes about what is erotic art and what is pornography have changed through the ages.

When are scientists going to finally invent that Beam-me-up-Scotty contraption? Also, while I'm wishing ... I want the service or device to be reasonably priced.

Sidra Stitch and her art-site travel books

Just read an article in the Oct. 13, 2007 issue of the San Francisco Chronicle about a woman who writes books that are part art book, part travel guide. The art-site books "identify and evaluate contemporary art, architecture and design."

Sidra Stitch will visit a region and then write about interesting art to see in that region.

Here's an excerpt in the article about the San Francisco edition of her book:

For example, she wonders, just how many of us have admired the sailboats moored at San Francisco's St. Francis Yacht Club in the Marina district and missed conceptual artist Peter Richards' installation "The Wave Organ" at the end of the jetty that extends from Yacht Road? "This wave-activated acoustic sculpture is a superb example of site-specific environmental art. It is one of the best-kept secrets in the city and ought not to be missed," Stitch writes as part of a longer description in the 2007 edition of her "art-SITES San Francisco" guide.

So far she's written books about the following regions:

• London
  
• Northern Italy
  
• San Francisco
  
• Paris
  
• Britain and Ireland
  
• Spain
  
• France
  

To read the entire article which also talks about her background and how she got going on these projects, click here.

To go to Sidra Stitch's web site, click here.

Note: I have no association with Sidra Stitch, her publisher ... but I do have a passionate relationship with the city of San Francisco.

Peace for John Lennon

Reuters photo

On Tuesday this week, Yoko Ono unveiled a monument to honor her beloved, John Lennon. And urged the world once again to give peace a chance.

A few years ago she had an exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in San Francisco and I went to it. I loved it. I love her sense of humor and intelligence. I loved watching the fly movie ... a fly walks all over a nude woman's body to the soundtrack of Yoko making her weird screechy noises. I was the only one who watched it all the way through. You can catch it here. The film really is bizarre but for some reason it caught me. It's this strange mixture of sensual and humorous. I have a refrigerator magnet that is a still from this movie ... the fly exploring the woman's nipple. My kids' reactions to the magnet: "Eeeewwww!!"

I also have a magnet:

WAR IS OVER


If you want it

This slogan was on many billboards all over the world ... a project in the 70's of Yoko and John's.

Anyway the monument is this tower of light constructed on Videy island near Reykjavik's harbor (the Icelandic capital). They lit it yesterday because it would have been ... get this ... John's 67th birthday.

Pause while I catch me breath. I'm feeling old. 67 for Christ's sake.

It will stay lit until Dec 8 ... which is the anniversary of John's death.

Sean was there as was Ringo and George Harrison's widow Olivia.

"We're all here for Johnny's birthday and the big light," Starr said. "I love the light."

The tower is a beam of light, radiating from a wishing well bearing the words "imagine peace" in 24 languages. The plan is for it to be lit each year between his birthday, Oct. 9, and the anniversary of his death on Dec. 8.

Yoko chose Iceland because it was a very eco-friendly country that relied on geothermal energy. So, the light too will be lit by geothermal energy. Cool, eh? The woman's always thinkin'.

Screw you, you "she-broke-up-the-Beatles" assholes. Get a life.

This is our new Culture blog

Ms. Manitoba, FoTPC, and I have decided to create a new space to host some of our interests. ThePoliticalCat (http://www.kalimao.blogspot.com) will remain devoted to our political interests, and will include regular posts on environmental news, the war in Iraq, the war in Afghanistan, human rights, workers' rights, women's rights, labor issues, and the like. This blog will be the home to posts on books, film, music, and art. Watch this space!