and you can't check your email in the middle of one.
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Thursday, January 19, 2012
Monday, January 16, 2012
Nostalgia and "The Artist"
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| Jean Dujardin and Bérénice Bejo in "The Artist" |
It strikes me as very significant that the Belgian film "The Artist" is capturing so much Hollywood attention this year.
I personally loved the film and do think it was one of the 'best pictures' of the year.... BUT I find it fascinating to think that the American film industry would be ready to concede its big prize to this small, b/w arty silent-ish Belgian film which is so completely about nostalgia for a long gone American past. Does this herald a concession by Hollywood that it's own best times are the past? Or just a new found willingness to embrace, rather than obliterate, its long past glories?
And, of course, 'The Artist" is a film about how technology can shift the balance of power and create instant winners and losers: an all too apt metaphor for our current cultural condition: where new media/the internet and computer/web technology is on top and swiftly forcing the publishing, film and broadcast industries to radically change or get blown away. I guess this is the logical followup to "The Social Network" - last year's big winner....
And, interestingly enough - dovetailing with the current obsession with "feminism" (I'm thinking about Young Jean Lee's "Untitled Feminist Show" as well as the proliferation of 70's feminism nostalgia art shows in the museums recently) -- "The Artist" is also about a newly powerful woman trying to save a man who has lost his power and his way in the new world. Lest you think this is some kind of feminist fairy tale, her female power is defined only as her appeal to the public. Her power in the world of the film is tempered by the fact that She is in love with Him and her love for her chosen man and his glamorous yet outdated past is what propels her desire to try and save him. (Her power is also carefully defined by the man at the head of the studio - lest you think that she has any power over her what we assume to be her temporary situation.) This power dynamic of the woman on top of her man and trying to make amends so that he can love her fully and restore the rightful place of the powerful man with his glamorous chosen gal is a familiar one.
Enter the dog. To save the day and upend the power struggle between male and female, and demonstrating for us that animals really are smarter and more essential than we would otherwise give them credit for.... Charming, amazing, magical -- the dog is really the man's best friend, not the well-intentioned, beautiful but meddling woman.... the dog is the one to restore man's true place. Interestingly enough, Susan Orleans' new book about Rin Tin Tin highlights the primacy of dogs as important leading characters in the silent film oeuvre.
The real story behind 'The Artist' isn't so much that the dog will save the day, but that in order to survive, the old dogs have to learn new tricks... George Valentin's problem is his stubborn refusal to change with the times. It strikes me as brilliantly, ironically apt that this 'silent' black and white film carries this all too contemporary message - a kind of ribbing at the very industry starring down the barrel at their own diminished relevancy (if not outright obsolescence).
And then there's "Hugo" which is an American film thinking about the history of French magical cinema ala Georges Melies. Of course, a kind of metaphor for the new tech wonders of 3D....
Nostalgia for a simplier, more magical, more mysterious time when film was giant, flickering apparitions and we were in the dark.
Sunday, January 15, 2012
The Joy of Quiet
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| Vivienne Flesher |
The Joy of Quiet
By PICO IYER
Published: December 29, 2011
David Steindl-Rast describes “that kind of happiness that doesn’t depend on what happens.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/01/opinion/sunday/the-joy-of-quiet.html
Thursday, December 29, 2011
Monday, November 07, 2011
Wednesday, November 02, 2011
Simone Forti at Roulette - Oct 28, 2011
SIMONE FORTI, an evening of Movement, Sound and Spoken Word
: Walking the Forest - with "molimo" horn
: Sleepwakers
: Striding Crawling - with Claire Filmon
: Reading/The Bear in the Mirror
:News Animation - with Batyah Schachter
striding pausing retreating
proclaiming gestures as a moving painting
old lady spirit falling in little ways
releasing to the dream of gravity
the political act of rolling on the floor
smushing one's nose into the ground
rolling the spiral
roulette is a new space
an open square
pregnant balcony
squaring its audience in the round
doing what one does
walking among the ribbits
crawling evolving devolving
to hands and knees
simplicity soundscore
the hippies among us = dancers
that counter culture - contact lions rough-housing among the frogs
stage as pond
all natural movement - horses, birds
literal child's play
in contrast to the freedom of abstraction
memories of escaping Italy in 1938 Jewish Italian chosen
Palestine ---> OWS, the european crisis
takes for granted the kindness of her life
"the money is making it that there's less and less stuff"
an email from a Japanese teacher who said they were told to stay in doors was the chance for him to stay home and paint and he was keeping the windows open
"it's different to read his email than articles"
dipping into the well of thoughts, imagination
in Vermont where there's not much money there is more bartering, more fresh fruits and vegetables
and when the plumbing backs up which it will if you live in VT, someone shows up in a week and you offer them tea and ask how their kids are doing and they fix your plumbing because this is the plumber.
"That's the solo." A bag of potatoes drops to the floor.
Her skin tells her a lot of things.
Where do we go from here?
And what if you just wonder about the universe on your own, without religion?
The Israeli says that's impossible. In Israel, they want to know what is your authority.
: Walking the Forest - with "molimo" horn
: Sleepwakers
: Striding Crawling - with Claire Filmon
: Reading/The Bear in the Mirror
:News Animation - with Batyah Schachter
sea shell song of plumbing pipe
an anne morrow lindbergh of dance
the elegant shaking wonder
a poem of singular tone
proclaiming gestures as a moving painting
old lady spirit falling in little ways
releasing to the dream of gravity
the political act of rolling on the floor
smushing one's nose into the ground
rolling the spiral
roulette is a new space
an open square
pregnant balcony
squaring its audience in the round
doing what one does
walking among the ribbits
to hands and knees
simplicity soundscore
the hippies among us = dancers
that counter culture - contact lions rough-housing among the frogs
stage as pond
all natural movement - horses, birds
literal child's play
in contrast to the freedom of abstraction
memories of escaping Italy in 1938 Jewish Italian chosen
Palestine ---> OWS, the european crisis
takes for granted the kindness of her life
"the money is making it that there's less and less stuff"
an email from a Japanese teacher who said they were told to stay in doors was the chance for him to stay home and paint and he was keeping the windows open
"it's different to read his email than articles"
dipping into the well of thoughts, imagination
in Vermont where there's not much money there is more bartering, more fresh fruits and vegetables
and when the plumbing backs up which it will if you live in VT, someone shows up in a week and you offer them tea and ask how their kids are doing and they fix your plumbing because this is the plumber.
"That's the solo." A bag of potatoes drops to the floor.
Her skin tells her a lot of things.
Where do we go from here?
And what if you just wonder about the universe on your own, without religion?
The Israeli says that's impossible. In Israel, they want to know what is your authority.
Monday, October 24, 2011
Wednesday, October 19, 2011
Sunday, October 16, 2011
the spirit of the times
Levis Jeans trying to horn in on the protest spirit of the times.... nice try Levis.
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| Times Square, Oct 15, 2011 - c. topiphone |
Friday, October 14, 2011
eco disaster style?
Not sure why this would make it on the Washington Post Style tumblr.... sign of the times?
Found this image on the Washington Post Style website:
Photo by Christophe Archambault / Getty
We are the 1% Tumblr website
Collection of recipients of wealth, privledge and entitlement who want to see things become more equitable and be taxed more!
We are the 1% Tumblr
We are the 1% Tumblr
Wednesday, October 12, 2011
Mike Daisey's: Steve Jobs, Enemy of Nostalgia
Mike Daisey's frank and right-on analysis of the Steve Jobs legacy and the real work that Apple should be doing.
OP-ED CONTRIBUTOR
Against Nostalgia
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| Jason Polan |
By MIKE DAISEY
Published: October 6, 2011
Published: October 6, 2011
Tuesday, October 11, 2011
Monday, October 10, 2011
Thursday, October 06, 2011
A computer is a bicycle for the mind.
"Stay hungry, stay foolish." Steve Job's beautiful Stanford University 2005 commencement address:
Monday, October 03, 2011
Paul Krugman's metaphor of choice
October 2, 2011, 8:03 PM
This is the equivalent of putting explosives into a can, before kicking it down the road.
Saturday, October 01, 2011
Thursday, September 29, 2011
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