Observations from the Gallery 10.13 Randomness

Some days I just get all kinds of things in my mail, for instance today I got an invitation to the 12th Istanbul Biennial which runs through November 13th. Now I'd go in a heartbeat because I would love to see the Hagia Sophia and museums but it seems the folks at the Istanbul Foundation for Culture and Arts forgot to send along the airfare. I suppose I need to pass on Istanbul this year. I also received an invitation to a Halloween party at a major gallery in the Village, now that could be fun and far cheaper than Istanbul, but it seems a $100 donation is necessary to attend this event. I guess I pass on that one too or maybe we'll just have our own Halloween party that night. I spend far too much time on my multiple tumblr blogs but I like looking at photos so I would probably be looking anyway.

One thing I have discovered is I'm far from the only person alive who loves quotes. I rarely get photos reblogged, well rare for the number I post, but the quotes always seem to get a couple likes or reblogs or likes. Two of the most popular are Hunter S. Thompson quotes, "life has become immeasurably better since I have been forced to stop taking it seriously," with 98 reblogs and "who is the happier man, he who has braved the storm of life and lived or he who has stayed securely on shore and merely existed," with 52. Seems there are a lot of Thompson fans out there.

Another thing I've been spending some time on is trying to keep up with the Occupy Wall Street protests and others around the country. There is a video on YouTube of the Boston Police breaking up a demonstration and tearing a flag out of a man's hands. I wont bother sharing because it isn't of the best quality. What I want to share is a comment to the video that just shows how damn myopic some people are in this country. The comment said, “Boston Police officers are doing an outstanding job. These so-called "protesters" are the most ignorant and arrogant misfits around. They were repeatedly told to leave the area. The fault clearly lies with these ignorant misfits. It is a shame that the Boston Police officers are forced to put up with these arrogant crapheads. Keep up the good work, Boston Police!!!!” The group protesting was the Veterans for Peace, a non-profit humanitarian organization of vets dedicated to increasing public awareness of the costs of war.

Finally today was one of those days where one topic of conversation seemed to linger all day in the gallery. That would be thanks to Ash who, when I got the party invitation, commented that before she dies she would just like to get a little respect from those, well, people. I shan't elaborate on the exact language she used but I will say she has a point because the bigger galleries do tend to look down on the smaller ones. Respect is a tricky thing in that it's earned, given, and sometimes taken for granted, sometimes until it is gone. But should a large gallery have our respect simply because it is large or should there be more to it than that? I suppose more art world bridges have been burned over that one simple word than almost any other reason. Damn arrogant artists.

My only fear is that any hits taken out during Ash's campaign for recognition will have to be handled by me.

Michelle Branch - Loud Music

Observations from the Edge 10.13

This short film is a little overboard in its fervor but it does contain some awesome clips and it is rather well made. I especially like the scene at 5:30 where the protester thanks the police for "participating in our media publicity campaign." The comment I added below the video was posted on YouTube by the person who posted the video. It gives a better explanation of the vid. Also the powers that be have deemed it should be age restricted so I have no idea how that effects the embed, there is a link below.

“Hypocrisy has its own elegant symmetry.”
 Julie Metz

Link

"I appreciate your thoughts, just wanna be sure all is clear with the video. It is NOT a comparison, rather a WARNING that if the police keep repressing people's rights, America COULD turn into Egypt. If the police arrest the War Vets who risked their lives to protect the police, how long can you Americans stand for this?! It is their blood that makes USA possible. All americans should agree and demand a? stop to arrests now. The First amendment trumps local ordinances."

Observations on Art 10.9

As you may or may not know for the past week or so I have been wandering around the Occupy Wall Street protests. I've been taking photos, taking it all in, honestly trying to understand what it means and I want to write about it some but that isn't what this post is for. You can ask ten people what makes a good photo and get ten different answers most of which have to do with composition or lighting. Depth, lines, perception, all have their place in a good photo but I have my own opinion. I really don't worry about any of it much when I'm taking shots, I just shoot what I see, and I don't think my work is any better than average.

I took this photo yesterday near the OWS protest in Zuccotti Park. To me a good photo needs no title and I posted this on Flickr (l) without one. A good photo tells the viewer everything he or she needs to know, it pulls at your heart and kicks you in the gut at the same time. It makes you think. You may not think this is a good photo, you probably don't think this is even the best I have ever taken, but it fills all my criteria.

I look at her and I just hurt.

Observations from the Edge 10.8

I was sitting in the bar watching the Penn State game as a crowd reported to be in the thousands was forming in Washington Square Park, just blocks away from our apartment. After the game I'm going to go and see what is happening there because I heard most of the protesters were planning on moving back to Zuccotti Park in a march they don't have a permit for. There is also a large NYPD presence around the Square and they are saying they will not allow anybody to remain in the park after the midnight curfew. The curfew thing was rather surprising to me because in my almost two years here I never knew there was one. I figure they can't arrest me anyway because I live there but I'm hoping it doesn't turn into a repeat of last weekend's Brooklyn Bridge fiasco and its 700 arrests.

This video has some totally awesome photos in it but I'm not so sure about the choice of music. I would have gone for a Muse tune or something like that because one can be an anarchist but one doesn't have to be a bore.

Occupy Wall Street from Vas on Vimeo.

sunday update - Penn State beat Iowa 13-3 and now have an overall record of 4-1 and are 2-0 in the Big Ten. Far from the best State team ever, no settled quarterback and the wins are sloppy, they have an awesome defense and they do seem to win. JoePa continued his trend of leading the team onto the field and coaching the first half from the sideline and the second half from the box. Attendance was announced as over 100,000 compared to 46,000 at Friday night's Phillies game.

As for Washington Square Park, until I got there everybody had left except some NYPD officers and a man with green skin. I honestly didn't want to know about green skin man so I just wandered through and kept going. As far as I know no arrests were made at the WSP protest and the crowd was supposedly around 3,000.

Observations from the Window 10.8

This blog has evolved into something part vent, part, thought, and part directionless rambling. Sometimes I just want to share something without sending out emails and that is what you have here. I ran into this blog post following one link or another and the problem is the actual links for the blog don't seem to work. It was written by Rosemarie Urquico and I hope she doesn't mind my using it here, it's doubtful she will ever know anyway. What caught my attention is the title of the post, "CarrollBlog 9.30," you gotta like somebody that thinks like me. It's not anything I would have written but I really like it and wish I had.*

"Date a girl who reads. Date a girl who spends her money on books instead of clothes. She has problems with closet space because she has too many books. Date a girl who has a list of books she wants to read, who has had a library card since she was twelve.

Find a girl who reads. You’ll know that she does because she will always have an unread book in her bag.She’s the one lovingly looking over the shelves in the bookstore, the one who quietly cries out when she finds the book she wants. You see the weird chick sniffing the pages of an old book in a second hand book shop? That’s the reader. They can never resist smelling the pages, especially when they are yellow. She’s the girl reading while waiting in that coffee shop down the street. If you take a peek at her mug, the non-dairy creamer is floating on top because she’s kind of engrossed already. Lost in a world of the author’s making. Sit down. She might give you a glare, as most girls who read do not like to be interrupted. Ask her if she likes the book. Buy her another cup of coffee.

Let her know what you really think of Murakami. See if she got through the first chapter of Fellowship. Understand that if she says she understood James Joyce’s Ulysses she’s just saying that to sound intelligent. Ask her if she loves Alice or she would like to be Alice.

It’s easy to date a girl who reads. Give her books for her birthday, for Christmas and for anniversaries. Give her the gift of words, in poetry, in song. Give her Neruda, Pound, Sexton, Cummings. Let her know that you understand that words are love. Understand that she knows the difference between books and reality but by god, she’s going to try to make her life a little like her favorite book. It will never be your fault if she does. She has to give it a shot somehow. Lie to her. If she understands syntax, she will understand your need to lie. Behind words are other things: motivation, value, nuance, dialogue. It will not be the end of the world.

Fail her. Because a girl who reads knows that failure always leads up to the climax. Because girls who understand that all things will come to end. That you can always write a sequel. That you can begin again and again and still be the hero. That life is meant to have a villain or two. Why be frightened of everything that you are not? Girls who read understand that people, like characters, develop. Except in the Twilightseries.

If you find a girl who reads, keep her close. When you find her up at 2 AM clutching a book to her chest and weeping, make her a cup of tea and hold her. You may lose her for a couple of hours but she will always come back to you. She’ll talk as if the characters in the book are real, because for a while, they always are. You will propose on a hot air balloon. Or during a rock concert. Or very casually next time she’s sick. Over Skype. You will smile so hard you will wonder why your heart hasn’t burst and bled out all over your chest yet. You will write the story of your lives, have kids with strange names and even stranger tastes. She will introduce your children to the Cat in the Hat and Aslan, maybe in the same day. You will walk the winters of your old age together and she will recite Keats under her breath while you shake the snow off your boots.

Date a girl who reads because you deserve it. You deserve a girl who can give you the most colorful life imaginable. If you can only give her monotony, and stale hours and half-baked proposals, then you’re better off alone. If you want the world and the worlds beyond it, date a girl who reads.

Or better yet, date a girl who writes."

*a little update - With some help I managed to track down the blog where the post originated. The line at the top of it is simply brilliant, why don't I think of these things? "A friend asked yesterday if this blog is addressed to anyone in particular? I said yes– it’s a love letter to someone I haven’t met yet." Jonathan Carroll

Observations from the Coffee Shop 10.7

At times I 'm just so disgusted with the conservative holier than thou tea party politics in this country that I sometimes wonder if any of them care about anything other than money. Than something comes along that snaps me back from the edge and makes me realize that it's not them all, it's just that far right lunatic fringe that somehow has come to dominate politics in this country, that applauds executions, and cheers allowing a cancer patient to die because he doesn't have health insurance. They don't all want to do away with Social Security and cut first responder funding to pay for hurricane relief.

While I probably don't believe some of what I just wrote it was good to think it for a moment and it is nice to see that some of the right do have a mind of their own and didn't drink the tea. New Jersey Governor Chris Christie is far from my favorite politician but it was nice to see him decide not run for the GOP nomination for President not because he thinks it isn't his time, it probably is, but because he doesn't want to drink the tea. Even he is too moderate for the current version of the Republican Party.

Than there is this which prompted this post. David Frum is a former economic speechwriter for George W. Bush and in his column for the National Post yesterday he wrote that the Republican Party is seriously flawed in its plans for recovering from our current mess.

"It is wrong in its call for monetary tightening.

It is wrong to demand immediate debt reduction rather than wait until after the economy recovers.

It is wrong to deny that “we have a revenue problem.”

It is wrong in worrying too much about (non-existent) inflation and disregarding the (very real) threat of a second slump into recession and deflation.

It is wrong to blame government regulation and (as yet unimposed) tax increases for the severity of the recession.

It is wrong to oppose job-creating infrastructure programs.

It is wrong to hesitate to provide unemployment insurance, food stamps, and other forms of income maintenance to the unemployed.

It is wrong to fetishize the exchange value of the dollar against other currencies.

It is wrong to believe that cuts in marginal tax rates will suffice to generate job growth in today’s circumstance.

It is wrong to blame minor and marginal government policies like the Community Reinvestment Act for the financial crisis while ignoring the much more important role of government inaction to police overall levels of leverage within the financial system.

It is wrong to dismiss the Euro crisis as something remote from American concerns.

It is wrong to resist US cooperation with European authorities in organizing a work-out of the debt problems of the Eurozone countries.

It is wrong above all in its dangerous combination of apocalyptic pessimism about the long-term future of the country with aloof indifference to unemployment."

That about covers it.

Observations on Art, The Muse

The muses of the ancients were divinities. In Greek mythology Apollonis, Cephisso, and Borysthenis were known as the three muses, the goddesses who were said to inspire works of art and literature. The word museum finds its root in the Greek word mouseion which was a place where these daughters of Apollo were worshiped. The mythological muses met their end in Dante's Devine Comedy which was inspired by his very earthly muse Beatrice Portinari who he claimed to have met when they were both 9 years old. From than on the muse has come to be known as an artist's source of inspiration, whether real or imaginary, and generally refers to a person who inspires an artist.

During the Renaissance the model for two of Raphael's most famous Madonnas was a Sienese baker's daughter named Margharita di Luti, who was probably Raphael's lover. In one of my favorite stories the painter Fra Filippo Lippi went in for a riskier muse relationship when he seduced a young nun named Lucrezia Buti and went on to live with her, using her as the model for several portraits including one of the Holy Mother. Renaissance muses were subordinate to their artists, bound to their sexual needs while the artists were free to do as they pleased.

Modern muses seem to be powerful and creative women in their own right like Georgia O'Keeffe who didn't just inspire photographer Alfred Stieglitz, but influenced the direction of his art as well. I could write all day about Patti Smith and Robert Mapplethorpe, mutual muses and collaborators. They were in and out of each others lives and art for over two decades until Mapplethorpe's death from AIDS in 1989. People will debate till the end of time on whether Yoko Ono was good for John Lennon's music but nobody will ever debate the effect she had on him.

Than again artists and muses seem to traditionally take a toll on each other. Salvador Dalí's wife Gala shrewdly tortured her sex-averse and masochistic husband with her affairs and the dancer Suzanne Farrell, George Balanchine's astonishingly beautiful muse, married another dancer the day his divorce was finalized. Pablo Picasso met Marie-Thérèse Walter in Paris when she was 17 and immediately made her his mistress, sometimes having his chauffeur wait outside her school to pick her up and take her to the artist's studio where she modeled for countless paintings. Walter later bore him a daughter though he refused to marry her, and killed herself in 1977, four years after Picasso died.

So what do I think a muse is? Somewhere in the past or present is a person that comes back to you again and again in your thoughts and dreams. You may have barely known them or you may know them well but either way they left an indelible impression on you. I had a professor who used Carl Jung's animus when she described her muse and the idea works for me too. Jung described the animus as the unconscious male dominated part of the female psyche. In my professors description this core part of your being, part of your very soul, is projected to the other person and when you look at them you see its reflection. You want desperately to speak to it but find it impossible and so turn to the only language that works, your art.

In an LA Times article on the death of the muse UCLA sociology professor David Halle wrote, "The concept of the muse is part of the Romantic tradition and this is just not a romantic age.” I don't agree at all and I'll finish with the words that best sum it up for me.

Everything I did I did for you.

Observations

With all the things going on right now this seems a strange post for a Monday morning but I was paging through an old book, saw this, and it made me smile. Too long for twitter and not right for tumblr I'll just post it here and hope it makes somebody else smile too.

“If I knew that today would be the last time I’d see you, I would hug you tight and pray the Lord be the keeper of your soul. If I knew that this would be the last time you pass through this door, I’d embrace you, kiss you, and call you back for one more. If I knew that this would be the last time I would hear your voice, I’d take hold of each word to be able to hear it over and over again. If I knew this is the last time I see you, I’d tell you I love you, and would not just assume foolishly you know it already.”

Gabriel García Márquez, Love in the Time of Cholera

Observations from the Edge 10.2

This is a segment of The Last Word with Lawrence O'Donnell from last week that shows, rather graphically, the pepper spray incident I mentioned in my last post. The video speaks for itself so I won't say much but I am a little amazed how little attention it has received in mainstream media. Keep in mind the officers wearing the white shirts are actually senior commanders and don't miss the part about the video camera.

Below the video I added a link to the blog post that he mentions in the clip. I like the first comment found below the blog post. Charles wrote, "Soon some of these "heroes" will be explaining to their children why Daddy lost his job."
     
Link
Rewriting Police vs Protesters

Observations from the Edge 10.1

After being warned by Ash not to 'get maced and bring back the smell' I wandered over to Zuccotti Park to see what was going on and and take some photos. Ash was referring to the unprovoked macing of four protesters by a senior NYPD commander. It was a move that made it look as if New York's Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly is a closet supporter of the protests because they seemed to be heading nowhere and getting no national media attention until that incident. It now seems that shouting and annoying bankers is grounds enough for getting maced.

People were beating drums, blowing whistles, carrying signs, and chanting “Banks got bailed out, you got sold out!” and “We are the 99 percent!” Many of the protesters carried computers as they marched and I found out that this was for tweeting and live streaming what was going on. I heard no mention of plurking so I guess that's left to me.

At one point I listened to a never ending lecture by an unemployed professor looking type about how corporate CEOs and Wall Street chieftains had staged a silent coup in America. I also learned what a human microphone is, it's when one person shouts something and everybody else repeats it in unison. They use a human microphone because the protesters are forbidden from using amplified sound. After all one doesn't want to disturb the executives on the 20th floor does one.

Next week New York labor and community groups including The United Federation of Teachers plan on joining the protest and MoveOn.org will help promote it. "We're getting involved because the crisis was caused by the excesses of Wall Street and the consequences have fallen hardest on workers," a spokesman for Transport Workers Union Local 100 said. A solidarity march scheduled for Wednesday that is expected to start at City Hall and finish a few blocks south at Zuccotti Park. By the end of the week there could over two dozen 'solidarity occupations' across the country.

My two trips to the park have me thinking and I'm sure I'll stop back from time to time. I just won't tell Ash about it ahead of time.

Rage Against The Machine - Testify

Observations from the Edge

“None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free.” Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. Quote seen on a sign seen in Zuccotti Park

We Are The 99% from socially_awkwrd on Vimeo.

"On September 27th, 2011, we marched on the Financial District's Luxury Night Out, where couples wore outfits that cost more than we will ever make in a month and looked at cars that cost more than we will ever make in a year, afterward, they went back to one of their many houses that cost more than we will make in our lifetime."

OccupyWallStreet

Observations on Sports 9.28

With the frightening 8 game losing streak behind them the Phillies regular season comes to a close tonight. Hopefully it will end with a win and a series sweep of the Atlanta Braves. With a win the Phillies will finish the 2011 season with 102 wins and break the record for most wins in a season currently held by the 1976 and 1977 Phillies. A win will also move Charlie Manuel ahead of Gene Mauch as the winningest manager in club history with 646 wins. If they win I can get back to arguing with my dad about which Phils team truly is the best ever.


link
September is almost over.

9.29 update - The Phillies won in 14 innings last night and with the win became the winningest Phils team in history and Charlie Manuel has now won more games than any other Phillies manager. "This has been exciting, this has been good," Charlie said after the game. "It has been a good trip, but at the same time we haven't finished the journey. We have a little ways to go yet. That's the way I look at it." As a bonus the Boston Red Sox lost to finish the greatest September swoon in MLB history wiping away the 1961 Phils collapse in the process.

Today I learned something that I honestly didn't believe at first, since 1969 no NL team has been in more World Series than the Phillies. How is that possible?

The Phillies win over the Braves, combined with a St. Louis win over Houston, eleminated Atlanta from the playoffs and clinched a spot for St' Louis. The Phillies will face the St. Louis Cardinals in the Divisional Round beginning Saturday at 5PM.

Observations on Sports 9.24

The Phillies lost to the Mets tonight in the second game of a doubleheader, they lost the first game too, and the six before that. Eight losses in a row. The Phillies haven't lost 8 in a row since September of 2000. according to Elias Sports the losing streak is the longest in major-league history by a team that had already won 98 games. It is also the longest losing streak by a team that has clinched a playoff spot.

After his awesome game was wasted earlier today Cole Hamels said “I know the pitchers and we're ready to go. We're gonna go out there and t try to throw nine-inning shutouts. I know it's not possible, but that's our plan, so everybody just needs to get on board."

Today the Phillies played 18 innings and scored only three earned runs. They have scored three or less runs in 14 of their last 16 games.

If they lose to the Mets Sunday with Roy Halladay on the mound all bets are off. Than again the Mets have already beaten Cole Hamels this weekend so in all honesty I won't be surprised if they lose again. They now need to win all their remaining games to set a new Phillies record for wins, something they could have done a week ago.

The baseball gods do indeed taunt me now.

Observations from the Window 9.23

For my own reasons I did something rather extraordinary yesterday. To clear my head and do some thinking I completely shutdown the 'empire' for the day. For the most part I stayed away from flickr, tumblr, twitter, and everything else. I left my comp at home, ignored most of my email, and let the lights flash on my Droid until they gave up and stopped. A very introspective day that probably cleared up nothing at all but solidified a description. An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in mystery. As of now it seems the world has done just fine without me.

I woke up to this horoscope today and realized I may have just possibly picked the wrong day for reflection.

“The melodramatic Leo Moon joins feisty Mars in your 1st House of Personality, encouraging you to let others know exactly how you feel. But you could come on too strong if you forget to consider their opinions, too. Slow down and think about what you're going to do instead of just doing it. Adding a short time delay to your responses will improve your chances of making the best decision the first time around.”

Damnit.

A Phillies update from the dubious record at best category. The Phillies became the first team to lose six in a row after winning their 98th game since the 1904 Giants. My dad will be laughing like hell when he hears that one.

The gods of baseball taunt me now.

Red Hot Chili Peppers - The Adventures of Rain Dance Maggie
(tune!)