Pina

Posted on February 18, 2012

Wim Wenders’s “Pina” is a tribute to Pina Bausch, the German dancer and choreographer who died unexpectedly in 2009. Along with fellow German doc jock Werner Herzog’s “Cave of Forgotten Dreams”, “Pina” is nominated for this year’s feature length documentary Oscar. Also like Herzog’s movie, Wenders’s was filmed in 3D.

Rekindling our movie dating past, Friday night being date night, I took Anne out to the movies. Back in high school, almost every Friday night was date night. Date night meaning a movie. Way back then, in the small, but cosmopolitan, Midwestern town of Ann Arbor, the number of movies being shown was somewhat limited. Most of the movie theaters only had one screen back then . Only the mall, Briarwood, had multiple screens. With fewer screens per capita, Hollywood made fewer movies. So in the slow seasons of the movie industry, we would easily run through all of the good movies and occasionally see some really bad ones. Tonight’s movie, does not fall in that category.

This movie was suggested to me by my former walking buddy, Barbara. I lost her to noon time walks of the tarmac, when she raptured, I mean retired, last year. I pray that I too may be so-called one day.

I mainly found the 3D aspect of the film annoying. I found the 3D images about as realistic as those of the old toy View-Master stereoscope images. The dancers in each scene appeared as moving 2D cutouts, between background and foreground scenery. And yes, after a while, I got that ache between the eyes. The retrofitting of past movies to 3D, like “Titanic” that were promoted in the coming attractions, was even more cartoonish. Speaking of “Titanic”, what white star decided that the movie should reopen on April 6th, when the great ship went down on the 15th? One redeeming quality of the 3D effect, was that even with my strong eye, weak eye vision, I could easily read the title credits. Usually after the end of a long day, I am too blurry eyed to see them.

Finally now, on to the dance, the movie deployed four main tent poles of Bausch’s work. “Rite of Spring”, based upon Stravinsky’s music, “Café Müller”, what I took to be her signature piece, “Meeting Hall” and “Full Moon”. Anyone of these pieces, danced end-to-end, could have made the centerpiece of the movie, but heavy editing, chopped them all to pieces and then fit them into the movie’s 104 minute timeline. It was the vignettes, the gap fillers that really made this movie for me. The strength segment of the trailer, gives you a hint of some of her humor. I liked what she did with water, but I loved what she did with dirt.

Her best last testament comes not from her dances, but from her dancers. Using voiceovers, subtitles or just being mute, her dancers appear as thinking heads, instead of talking heads. The love and respect that they display is evident throughout the movie. Pina’s love for her dancers seemed most apparent by their longevity. Broadway dancers can measure their careers on one hand, most others, maybe two, her troupe counted participants with twenty to thirty years with the company. That’s not just love, that’s family.

Trinity

Posted on February 7, 2012

This sign is on 380, but we got a little closer to Trinity Site. I didn’t see it, but I hear that the only thing left to see is Jumbo, the metal casing that held the bomb. I was surprised to hear that it even still existed. The site is open to the public twice a year. It is not suppose to be very radioactive anymore, but I could just see me trying to explain myself to the TSA about it.

Three Rivers Petroglyphs

Posted on February 6, 2012

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The days and the nights have blurred together, but a couple of days ago, or at least it seems, we went to go visit the Three Rivers Petroglyph site. We arrived near sundown and toured the site until dark. It was a magical place. The following text is from the Three Rivers website.

This is one of the few locations in the Southwest set aside solely because of its rock art. It is also one of the few sites giving visitors such direct access to petroglyphs. The number and concentration of petroglyphs here make it one of the largest and most interesting petroglyphs sites in the Southwest. More than 21,000 glyphs of humans, animals and plants, as well as numerous geometric and abstract designs are scattered over New Mexico’s northern Chihuahuan Desert. The petroglyphs at Three Rivers, dating back to between about 900 and 1400 AD, were created by Jornada Mogollon people who used stone tools to remove the dark patina on the exterior of the rock.

As I have said, working nights have caused my days and nights to blur together. Sleep deprivation has caused, what I can only characterize, as a state of psychosis. Into this state a dream came to me, nay a vision. This vision was of the great Indian warrior and artist, Cheech Montezuma. Montezuma, or Cheech, as his friends and family called him, loved one pursuit above all others. He loved to make pictures. This vision of mine begins with Cheech announcing to his wife, Little Deer that he would once again climb the sacred hill and make pictures on the rocks. Little Deer though complained, “Cheech, you always run off to make pictures and think nothing of your family. I am reduced to digging in the earth for grubs and roots. Meanwhile, Greg Running Bear has hunted a Great Horned Sheep. He and his work wife, Little Deer, will have much meat to eat and a warm hide to wear. Why don’t you forsake your art and go hunting? I would love more than grubs to eat and a warm hide to wear.” Cheech though was not dissuaded and walked up the hill. Little Deer ran crying to her friend Little Mole and asked her to ask Greg Running Bear to speak with Cheech. Little Mole and Deer both entreated Running Bear to go after Cheech, which he did.

I must halt this tale at this time now, because it is time to go to work. What will happen to the great Cheech Montezuma, Greg Running Bear and little Mole and Deer? Stay tuned until tomorrow, for the possible exciting conclusion.

Sunday in the Park With George

Posted on January 27, 2012

Seurat's A Sunday on La Grande Jatte - Photo by UGArdener, Flickr Creative Commons

Date night! Dinner and a show with my Honey, dinner at CJ Muggs and a show at The Rep, Stephen Sondheim’s “Sunday in the Park With George”. The point of departure for this Sondheim musical is Georges Seurat’s most famous painting, “A Sunday Afternoon the Island of La Grande Jatte”, pictured above.

A 19th century, French painter, Seurat, pioneered the painting technique called Pointillism. He created his paintings by dabbing just the tip of his paintbrush onto the canvas. You might call this a quiet, but absorbing painting technique. Up close Seurat’s painting looks abstract, atomized color into thousands of dots. Step back though and the painting resolves itself into a picture of the artist’s vision. The engineer in me likens this technique to an early analog version of digitization. Unfortunately, Seurat never sold a painting in his lifetime and died at the age of 31.

Seurat, a modernist artist, is the perfect inspiration for this contemplative modernist musical. George, like his play, which thinks as much about itself as the rest of the world is too self-absorbed to even see his female lead, the aptly named Dot. His art is more important and if she cannot realize this, well then. The first act ends with a tour-de-theater on-stage recreation of Seurat’s famous painting.

Flash forward a hundred years and through intermission to the second act. George is now Seurat’s great-grandson. His grandmother, Seurat’s and Dot’s daughter is still on hand. George is still wrestling with the complexities of art and love, but this time around his art is just all sound and fury, signifying nothing.

This play about an artist that failed in love, in life, struck close to home. Our son, Dan is an artist and we worry about him. Art is a tough profession, as Seurat’s life testifies.

Pointillism is art composed of a thousand dots, nay a million, anyway quiet and absorbing work. So is making a thousand squirrels. Is making a thousand squirrels as lucky as making a thousand origami cranes? Only time will tell. No one, save Seurat, realized the greatness of his work, at the time. Dot realized the greatness of Seurat, the man, but her love was unrequited. His love of art, love of self, overshadowed her love, but, at least in the play, they both endured. I wonder it there will be any black squirrels?

Anne Almighty

Posted on January 26, 2012

Anne Models Amanda's Gloves

Three at last! Three at last! Thank God, it is three at last!

Apologies to Dr. Martin Luther King, but this was Anne’s mantra on a couple of the days this week. There is no school tomorrow, so today is her Friday. No apologies are really necessary for blaspheming with this post’s title, because it is never blasphemy for a husband to praise his wife. Right Dear? What do you think, Mark? Um, um, um, yes, Dear!

Anne had a field trip last night. She rode the school bus across the river to see a play that fellow teacher, Ms. Dwyer was directing. The play was called “Curtains”, a murder-mystery comedy. Anne tried to get me to come along, but last night was too dark and stormy for me to venture out.

The picture with this post, shows Anne modeling her latest creation, fingerless gloves for Amanda. The background of this photo is pretty busy. It has two of Anne’s quilts in it. Anne is also modeling one of her new Christmas sweaters.

Anne left some blog fodder out for me, a cough drop wrapper. This cough drop wrapper has inspirational sayings on it. These include the likes of: “Don’t wait to get started”; “Hi-five yourself”; and my personal favorite “Turn can do into can did”. I guess if you have a cold, or at least a cough, one needs some extra encouragement, but I can’t help but wonder whose job it was to come up with these sayings. Once coined, were they then focus grouped too?

Horrible Stompy Beasties!!!

Posted on January 10, 2012

Dan's Gift Certificate

This sketch, along with other flotsam and jetsam was left behind in the wake of the boys’ twin departures. I especially love the artistry in this gift certificate from Dan to Dave. It is a nice drawing combined with witty, well-printed text. For the uninitiated, this certificate deals with the miniatures game of Warhammer and not the derivative video game. Dave eventually received a model very similar looking to the graphic, but without the Christmas element.

I also admire Dan’s artistry, because I also gave a hand-written gift certificate this last Christmas. I bought Anne (and me) a new coffee grinder for Christmas. The old one inexplicably was broken, when we returned from summer vacation. Would anyone know anything about that? Buying your spouse a kitchen appliance is seldom a romantic gift. To make it more poignant, I included the gift certificate. I promised to make Anne coffee this year. I would become her so-called latte boy. In retrospect, getting Dan to draw me a gift certificate could have made things easier, at least for me and likely with just as personal a touch. Anyway, this way I get the coffee made the way I like it.

I still have my cold, but I felt better today than I did yesterday. I went to work (again) today, but Anne had the day off. She took advantage of her day off and the pleasant weather, to get in a bicycle ride. She got 24 miles and managed to tie my mile mark. Oh, did I forget to mention that I had taken the lead in this little horse race, of ours? Or, were you just not paying attention? Anyway, it’s a tie again. Anne was gracious not to take the lead by a mile or so, but then she probably figured (correctly) that I would go out tonight to get that mileage back, besides as of writing, she has tomorrow off too.

Would You Like Fries With That?

Posted on December 21, 2011

I know that Zoe would

I called my Dad today and when I finally got him on the telephone, he asked me a question, ”What happens when you immerse the human body into water?” This puzzled me at first, but then he answered his own question. The answer of course was, “The phone rings.”

I use to walk at lunchtime with Barbara, but then she up and retired on me. Now I walk alone, but not without my iPhone. I listen to various podcasts while I stroll the parking lots. My favorite one is Slate’s Cultural Gabfest. This week’s three course offering serves up a review of the new “Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy” movie, a remembrance of writer and Slate contributor, Christopher Hitchens and best of all, a discussion of the phenomenon called vocal fry.

Marissa Fessenden’s article, “‘Vocal Fry’ Creeping into U.S. Speech”, in Science Now, has touched off a fire storm in the blogosphere. The above audio clip, also from Science Now, explains what vocal fry is. The controversy erupted because the article suggested that vocal fry was either a female epidemic of speech pathology or an affectation akin to valley girl up speak. Pushback was quick and forceful. Another great podcast steer, the Language Log does it best. True, Brittany Spears affects this speech pattern, but so did Mae West. When did Lauren Bacall’s raspy voice, full of sultry sophistication become less preferrable than the high screech of bubbly ditziness?

You know how to whistle, don’t you, Steve? You just put your lips together and blow.

Five artists walk into a bar, no this is not a joke, but it is a good story. Last night, Dan and some of his Webster art friends went to the Crows Nest, a cabaret bar in Maplewood. The show featured a couple of scantily clad young ladies, the belly dancer and Santa girl. Stoking the fires of audience participation, a contest was held for the best picture of each. It boiled down to a contest between the sketch artists versus the photographers. Dan’s table won all the free drinks. Who says art is dead? Photography as an art form was not helped by the creepers who practiced it. Interestingly, both of the graduate school artists were bested by their undergraduate brethren. What does this say about the burgeoning field of cabaret bar art? Hey, it worked for Toulouse-Lautrec.

Dan is graduating from graduate school at CalArts next semester. He has already begun work on his thesis project. Unfortunately, I have been sworn to secrecy. Hey, isn’t that prior restraint? I can say this; his work will occupy the largest space on campus. His piece will make the most use of the biggest gallery. He checked his grades for this semester and they were all Harry Potters (High Pass), which is better than Potters (Pass) or Lousy Potters (Low Pass).

PS – Anne biked 19 miles today. Whoo Hoo!

PPS – Today was the shortest day of the year and tonight is the darkest night of the month, with tonight’s dark of the moon.

RegenAxe