I have a crush on Mikhail Baryshnikov, and I don't care who knows it

Mikhail Baryshnikov is an f'ing legend. There have been many dance superstars--your Gelseys, Rudy's, and Dame Margot's. My generation knows Suzanne Farrell because she was on Sesame Street. But Baryshnikov is that rare dancer who is also a household name. As a teenager, I used to rewind his Don Q and Le Corsaire scenes from The Turning Point over and over and over. And, okay, I'll admit it. Also the love scene with Leslie Browne.

He's still dancing at the ripe old age of 59. He'll be 60 next month. But since his body won't do everything it used to, he's branching out into acting. I am a huge fan of this career choice. His short stint on Sex and the City was, dare I say it, hot. And now, he's starring in a compilation of Samuel Beckett shorts with the New York Theater Workshop. He's getting pretty good reviews. What's interesting to note is that in three of the four short plays, Baryshnikov doesn't say a word. It's all physical acting, set to original music by Philip Glass.

Not having seen the performances, I really can't say much by way of review, but I do have two problems with this general concept. Number one, Baryshnikov is the most accomplished person in the world at movement. Sure, he's going to be modest and say it's challenging to move and act in different ways on a different type of stage; but let's be honest, this has got to be child's play for him. Physical acting has been his life since the mid-1950s. Give the guy a challenge! Second, how can one put him on a stage and not take advantage of that sexy Russian accent? It's a shame, I say. A damn shame.

Crooked Houses and Cocktail Napkin Architecture

This one's specifically for Zach. Consider it your welcome to blogging.

The word "starchitect" is loaded with a lot of controversy these days. Often starchitect status is earned when an architect produces an influential body of work; just as often, it's the result of relentless self-promotion à la Frank Lloyd Wright. It's both a good and bad thing, in that it raises the profile of architectural designs, but it also gives egotistical architects the impression that they have a "free pass" to design whatever the hell they want, budget and clients be damned. The latest person to take on the modern starchitect system is John Silber, Boston University's anointed messiah. (Check out the shrine dedicated to him in Mugar Library if you think I'm kidding).

I don't quite know what to think about John Silber. Most of me wants to dismiss him as a curmudgeon who somehow gets paid to complain about modern culture, kind of like Andy Rooney but without the eyebrows. You know, that old guy who yells, "you kids get off my lawn!" while he shakes his cane at you. My general opinion of Silber is that he's a conservative homophobe who offers unresearched opinions (and often inaccurate information) in order to cause a ruckus. He's a demagogue who likes to hear himself talk. So you can imagine how much it pisses me off me when he actually has a point.

His new book, Architecture of the Absurd: How "Genius" Disfigured a Practical Art, takes on star architects like Frank Gehry, Daniel Libeskind, and Jose Lluis Sert. He claims their buildings are "absurd" because the legend of the architect's genius overshadows the fact that their designs aren't really appropriate for the clients who are paying the commission. Rightly so, he insists that clients of "absurd" architecture share the blame for allowing architects create buildings that don't fit their intended function, or that come in way over budget. I absolutely agree with Silber on these points. For example, Libeskind probably could have come up with something better for the Royal Ontario Museum than the quick-and-dirty design he sketched on a cocktail napkin, pictured above. And some of Gehry's creations, like the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles, have caused some pretty weird problems, like reflecting unbearable heat onto neighboring apartments.

But should MIT sue Gehry for his leaky Stata Center? Given his track record, they surely ought to have have known what they were getting into when they hired him in the first place. Also, I think the building looks wicked cool on the outside, and ultimately MIT will benefit from commissioning such an inventive structure, as will the ROM with Libeskind. Could MIT have hired a different architect who would have offered a more practical design? Absolutely. But it's their prerogative. They wanted a Frank Gehry building, and they got what they paid for.

The problem I have with Silber's book (besides that it could use an editor to weed out all the inaccuracies) is how inconsistent he is in his definitions of what is "absurd" and what is not. From what I can tell, "absurdity" serves as code for anything that isn't derivative. He dislikes anything that looks too modern or arty and wants us to go back to nineteenth century practicality. Now, I have no problem with the nineteenth century. I just don't think it belongs in the twenty-first century. It's time to stop copying our ancestors. What he's really calling for is a return to "safe" architecture, Neoclassical boxes that are constructed from traditional materials like brick and don't look weird. He doesn't like buildings that challenge his standards of beauty. He likes Mies van der Rohe's buildings because of their clean simplicity. He neglects to mention that Dr. Edith Farnsworth, who commissioned the famous Farnsworth House in Plano, Illinois, sued Mies for going over budget and for building her a house that had structural problems and didn't fit her needs. She couldn't see out the glass windows of her country home because they were always steamed up. How is that different from MIT's problem with the leaky Stata Center? The Farnsworth House would seem to fit into the category of the absurd, would it not?

I would agree that buildings with structural problems, leaky roofs, and the like are not deserving of the label "genius," though often that's as much the contractor's fault as the architect's. But Silber's problem with the Stata Center is not just that its roof leaks. It's that it looks weird. (He has the same opinion of Boston's City Hall. It's an inverted pyramid! Oh, the horror!) The book's final insult places the Stata Center alongside the nursery rhyme, "There was a crooked man and he walked a crooked mile, He found a crooked sixpence upon a crooked stile. He bought a crooked cat, which caught a crooked mouse. And they all lived together in a little crooked house." Silber doesn't offer an intelligent critique of Gehry's design; he just wants to make fun of it.

So, why can't architecture be playful and funny? Why can't it look weird, or at least different from what we're used to? Does it all have to look like his own pride and joy, Boston University's School of Management? Now there's an absurd building if I've ever seen one. Absurd because it's a monument to opulence and greed. The bronze planet sculpture in the central atrium just screams, "Globalization! Yippee!" The west end on the first floor has gold-plated elevators, fabric-covered walls, and tapestries. Tapestries! This is an academic building, not a castle, folks. And it's all sheathed in a conservative, rectangular brick facade. Apparently, the top three floors are so richly decorated, they've been nicknamed the "Taj Mahal." Zach and I recently tried to infiltrate them, but they're sealed off tighter than a...I won't say what.

My conclusion is that John Silber was on the right track when he started thinking about the subject of "genius" architects, but he's just such a douche that he couldn't resist resorting to petty name-calling. Now watch as the BU secret police comes to take me away...oh no!

Another Joss Whedon-Themed Post

Just one more gushy Joss post, and then I'll get back to writing about art for real, promise.

Last Friday, December 14th, I attended the Boston TV Party, a.k.a. the rally on behalf of the Writer's Guild of America as they continue their strike. Organized by Jaime Paglia (Eureka), Rob Kutner (The Daily Show), and Mr. Joss Himself, the rally drew an unexpectedly large crowd for the day after an official "Boston Snow Emergency." (Seriously, Boston, an emergency? Surely not. Eight inches isn't even enough for this Mainer to bust out her snow pants.) We met at the First Parish Church in Harvard Square. Speechifying ensued. Instead of summarizing them badly, I'll just post the YouTube clips so you can see for yourself. Rob's speech was especially awesome. I nearly peed myself laughing. Then we picketed. We yelled. We sang. We carried signs with witty slogans on them. We got our feet wet. We froze our asses off.

There is a lot of confusion as to what the writers are striking for, due to some badly written propaganda pieces by the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers and some equally grinchy major media outlets. (The New York Times described the first pickets as having "all the trappings of a union protest," except the writers wore "arty glasses and fancy scarves." Way to miss the point.) The writers and the producers are mainly fighting over residuals. Residuals are a small compensation that a writer receives when their work is rebroadcast, whether it be on DVD or in reruns on TV. Like actors (who also receive residuals), writers rely on creative bursts and don't always have regular work. Residuals get them through those times when they aren't working, or when they're writing on spec. It's a safety net.

So when their contract came up, the writers asked for 8 cents per DVD sale. Currently they receive 3 cents. Apparently that was a dealbreaker for the AMPTP, so the WGA dropped that demand. Now they're asking for 2.5% of the profits from all Internet broadcasts. That's it. To put it in understandable terms: when you watch The Office on broadcast TV, the writers get paid. When you watch The Office on the NBC website, they don't get paid. When you buy an episode of The Office on iTunes, they don't get paid. What is the AMPTP's rationale for not paying writers for their work? They've basically said, "What is this newfangled Internet thing, anyway? Are you sure we can actually make money from it? Sounds kind of weird! Give us a few years to research its possibilities, and then we'll decide if we can pay you for your work." Never mind that the studios have already sold millions of dollars worth of web advertising based on these writers' products. Never mind last time I took a Math class, 2.5% of nothing is nothing. Never mind that the Internet is the future of TV. In summary, they're just asking for their fair share.

After the rally, we trudged through the slush to Pandemonium Books & Games in Central Square (possibly the most deliciously geeky store in Boston) for a meet-and-greet. On my way down Mass. Ave., I got a chance to talk to Joss a bit about social issues in television writing. Anyone who knows me well will know that I was trying my damndest not to freak out and yell, holy crap, you're Joss Whedon! And I'm talking to you! And you're saying things back! This man is truly my hero. Not just because he writes cool TV shows and movies that I love, but for all the work he's done on behalf of feminist causes and social justice. As an unofficial spokesperson for the organization Equality Now, his support has helped raise a lot of money and awareness about human rights issues for women around the world. He creates strong female heroes who have meaningful life problems, whom audiences can relate to, and who use their powers in ways that make the world a better place. Buffy Summers, Willow Rosenberg, Fred Burkle, Faith Lehane, Melaka Fray, Zoey Washburn, River Tam (and, coming soon, Echo). The short-lived show Firefly and its film incarnation, Serenity, dealt with government corruption and the evils of large corporations. I truly was very grateful for the chance to tell Joss how much I respect the way he addresses social issues in his writing and in his life. Here's hoping we can get a pencil in his hands again sometime soon.

Also, Joss claims that a lot of the striking writers on the West Coast wear Red Sox hats to the picket lines. I said I think it's because the Sox are the team of romantics, those people who (until recently) had no hope. He agreed. Though I was not as star-struck, I had a nice conversation with Rob Kutner as well. It felt like I was talking to Jon Stewart, which makes sense because this guy literally puts words into Jon Stewart's mouth. I really hope Rob is able to get back to work before the State of the Union, but it's not looking good.

Here are a couple of clips of speeches from the rally. I won't post them all, but these ones are especially worth watching.

Mom! She's doing it again!

Back home for the holidays and suddenly faced with nothing to do, I'm blogging with renewed vigor. I've been stockpiling ideas for so long, I'll never get to most of them. But for once, I've decided to write about something timely: The Nutcracker.

Any dancer, current or former, will tell you that their own hometown Nutcracker is the best. I am no exception. I danced in the Robinson Ballet's annual Nutcracker for eight years and worked backstage for nearly as long. At various points, I have danced the parts of Clara, the maid, a harlequin doll, a soldier, a snowflake, a China doll, and many, many other roles. When I hear the music, I can feel the steps. Muscle memory is a grand thing. I've seen a lot of other Nutcracker performances before--some world-caliber; some less so--but none will ever measure up to the "real" one, the one that I first saw at the age of six when my dance teacher, Miss Maureen, was the Sugar Plum Fairy and I was wide-eyed with wonder.

Jennifer Fischer, a dance scholar and a former snowflake herself, examines this phenomenon in Nutcracker Nation: How an Old World Ballet Became a Christmas Tradition in the New World. The first Nutcracker in nineteenth century St. Petersburg was a spectacular failure. When it came to the United States, its popularity exploded. The New York City Ballet has undisputed possession of the most popular American version, which reached its 2000th performance just this week. But there are so many others, there is no definitive. There's the Pacific Northwest Ballet version with creepy sets by Maurice Sendak (who wrote Where the Wild Things Are). There's Mark Morris's Hard Nut, which takes place in the Swinging '60s, meaning the party guests are all stoned and dressed like Cher. In my own city, there's the Boston Ballet (traditional and flashy, with shimmering set pieces that move around without the aid of techies wearing rat masks), the José Mateo version out in Waltham (less flashy, but nevertheless very well danced), and the Urban Nutcracker (a fusion of ballet, swing, hip-hop, and tap, set to Duke Ellington's Nutcracker score). My hometown version up in Maine has a cast drawn from local dance schools, costumes sewn by parents, and set pieces built by, well, people like me.

Unable to head home this year for my own Nutcracker, I splurged for a $30 upper balcony ticket for the Boston Ballet. I was duly impressed with the pyrotechnics and the flying hot air balloon. And those techies sure know how to make good use of a scrim. The costumes glittered accordingly. But the subject I'd like to write about here is the role of the Sugar Plum Fairy. Boston Ballet's grand pas de deux has almost exactly the same choreography as the one I learned in partnering class in high school (likely derived from the traditional Petipa and Ivanov 1892 version from Russia). It felt like home. But I've never seen it danced with that level of technical expertise. I attended a Saturday matinée, which always means seeing the 3rd or 4th cast, so I can't imagine what I might have seen had it been a first cast. One expects nothing less than perfection from the Boston Ballet, and that afternoon's Sugar Plum Fairy, Misa Kuranaga, didn't disappoint. Having attempted these steps myself, I appreciate the skill involved in the pas de deux more than most.

But you know what, technique is only so much. Don't get me wrong; anyone worthy of wearing the pink tutu on one of those big stages works harder than anyone and has definitely earned their stripes. But the best lead performances I've ever seen have been by teenagers who have maybe half the skills of Ms. Kuranaga and and have no other option than to pour their hearts and souls into the dancing. They're good dancers, and they've worked all year for this moment. They're inexperienced, scared shitless, and energetic beyond our world. They're in love with the stage, and it shows in the joy on their faces. The Boston Ballet dancers smile appropriately, but after so many Nutcrackers over so many years, it looks like they're on autopilot. They're delicate and beautiful, but they forgot their passion back in the rehearsal studio. They can jump, but they don't fly.

The above photo (By Gary Soucy, lifted from his website) is from a Robinson Ballet performance at the Maine Center for the Arts a few years back. The dancer suspended mid-leap is 17 years old. Doesn't it look like she's having the absolute time of her life? So if you're thinking about going to see The Nutcracker this year or in the future, I recommend something that's not the Boston Ballet or the New York City Ballet or the like. Go to a performance where the audience members include the dancers' moms. Something genuine. Happy Holidays.

Joss Whedon alert! Kinda, sorta.

Okay, so I'm about a week late with this, but whatever.

Joss Whedon, a.k.a. my feminist hero, is writing a new show. (Well, he's not writing it at the moment. There's a writer's strike. Which we should all support, by the way, regardless of how much TV we miss as a result. Greedy frickin' producers. See Joss's sign, above.) The show is called Dollhouse, and it sounds muy awesome. The gist is this: Eliza Dushku (a.k.a. badass slayer Faith) plays a woman named Echo who can be downloaded with new personalities/talents at whim. When her Alias-esque mission is over, her downloaded personality/talents disappear, and she's left with almost nothing: she reverts to childhood. Problem is, she starts to figure out that she's being used, and she starts to fight back.

Despite the fact that I've only read the vaguest details about the premise, I already love the show for the following reasons:

1. Dude, it's Joss Whedon.
2. Eliza Dushku is not only the star actress; she's a producer as well. She's from Boston. Bostonians make good TV shows/movies. Check out Gone Baby Gone, among others.
3. Like the best Joss shows, it's about resisting corrupt authority. Fight the Power!
4. It sounds like it has a serial storyline, à la Buffy, but it also has infinite possibilities for stand-alone episodes. Echo can take on any personality or situation. I'm expecting lots of action, but also some great opportunities for romantic plots and such.
5. Dude, it's Joss Whedon.

Props to both Joss and Eliza for throwing in a Red Sox reference in their interviews.

The Lives of Others

Holy Fuck.

I don't say that a lot. I try to to swear excessively. Not out of any sense of personal responsibility; I'm just a firm believer that overusing expletives will cause them to become less effective when they are truly necessary to make a point. So believe me when I plead for you to watch The Lives of Others immediately, if not sooner.

I'm a bit late to the party, I know. The movie was released in the U.S. almost a year ago; the Coolidge Corner Theater, which I mostly swear by for movie recommendations, played it for several months. It won the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film in 2006. It should have won the Oscar for Best Film Ever Made, Ever, In the History of the Universe.

It's a drama/thriller about a couple in East Germany in the mid-1980s and the secret police agent who has been assigned to spy on them. In the process of listening to their conversations, arguments, and intimate moments, the agent becomes unintentionally intertwined in their lives without their knowledge. Although he is a patriotic man who believes wholeheartedly in the Communist values of the German Democratic Republic, he must also grapple with the reality of a government that fails to live up to its own ideals.

As the best movies are, this film is about human relationships, especially the nature of compassion and betrayal when a person's most unguarded moments are placed in another's trust. The story--at times suspenseful, funny, and tragic--could have been treated in a very sappy and melodramatic way. But restraint is what makes the movie great. The actors are masters of understated emotion; the script is minimal and relies on meaningful silences, visual storytelling, and a haunting original score that is actually central to the story. The artistry of the movie is achieved by a delicate layering of plot elements until they come to a shattering climax. The final twist is unexpected, yet it fits so perfectly you will find yourself wondering why you were unable to predict it.

Aside from the awesomeness of the acting, screenplay, and direction, this movie also provoked some thought on a personal level. It's a historical drama, yet it's set in my lifetime, and I know almost nothing about the reality of the Stasi in East Germany. The facts of political oppression of Communist regimes in Europe never really permeated my generation's consciousness. I remember when the Berlin wall came down, it was a cause for celebration for adults, but it didn't mean that much to me. All I knew was that we had to change the maps, and they sold pieces of the wall in little cardboard boxes in K-Mart. Yet the subject is so fresh in German minds that the film was quite controversial when it was produced in Germany. I hate to harp on the sad state of historical and political awareness on the part of Americans, but I'm glad when a story like this calls attention to aspects of our own history that have been forgotten, ignored, or just plain avoided.

Sorry 'bout that.

Well, that was quite a long time to be away from my blog. Long enough that I almost considered leaving it alone for another year. Alas, procrastination beckons. Amusingly enough, I convinced myself re-enter the blogosphere [I hate that word] after musing about about Dunkin' Donuts Pumpkin Spice Coffee on my friend Julie's blog We Are Lumberjacks.

Here's a brief update on the things I intended to write lengthy posts about, and never got around to:

-Frank Gehry wants to sell, not donate, his archives. Whichever museum buys them will end up on my unofficial academic research no-no list. Museums shouldn't have to pay for these things, must less from egotistical architects, no matter how historically significant they think they are.

-There was an avant-garde performance in Stonington, Maine (a town you won't know about unless you're from Maine, and maybe not even in that rare case) in which some awesome dancers hung from backhoes by ropes and cables in some old granite quarries. Unfortunately, the article from the Bangor Daily News has now disappeared into the archives and is virtually inaccessible unless you wish to pay them for the privilege. My own fault for not writing about it sooner, when it was actually going on. I wish I could've seen the show, but almost nobody lives in or near Stonington. Not to deprive Stonington of cultural capital; but if someone were to stage this show in Boston or NYC, it would be an instant hit.

-Bob Neuman is having a retrospective, 1954-2007, at the Beard Gallery at Wheaton College. That's Robert S. Neuman to those of you who are Googling him right now. The retrospective is being shown through Dec. 8th. Sadly, I missed the opening on September 9th--mostly due to my own tragic lethargy, but also the fact that I knew nobody there would recognize me, despite the fact that I've worked down the street from where they lived for the past two summers and sold them expensive photographs on a regular basis. Such is life in Northeast Harbor, but I won't complain. It certainly paid the bills this year.

I recently sat down and talked with Boston-based abstract painter Bob Neuman. Don't be fooled into thinking this was intentional. He's good friends with my boss, a landscape photographer in Northeast Harbor (see June 6, 2007 post), and he was bored enough to talk to me for a while at our gallery opening back in early August. Unfortunately, I didn't get to talk to him about his art. Hopefully that will happen sometime in the future. The conversation mostly concerned his assertion that the Charles River is soon to be filled in (like the Back Bay was in the nineteenth century) and taken over by Harvard University. I don't know about that. But I do know that you should not be deceived by his plaid suit. In the art, world, this guy matters, and for a reason. I'll have to write about his art sometime.

-For their birthdays in March and April, I got my parents tickets for the sold-out live national broadcast of Prairie Home Companion at the Bangor Auditorium on May 3rd. Please don't tell them; it's a surprise. How did I score the tickets? I know people who know people. Unsurprisingly, I also bought a ticket for myself. And now I have to wait six months to finally see and hear Garrison Keillor in person. I can't stand it!

-Sabra Johnson won So You Think You Can Dance, Season 3. This was way back in mid-August. But the thing is, nobody thought she was the best dancer on the show. Everyone knew that honor belonged to Danny Tidwell, who was unmatched in technique and artistry; Sabra was simply the most likeable option for the uninformed SYTYCD audience, due to the fact that Shane Sparks sabotaged Danny from the get-go by branding him as an egotistical know-it-all. (Not accurate, people! He's just shy and modest!) But I'm proud of Danny for showing compassion and class concerning Sabra's victory; especially considering he's the second dancer in his immediate family to be judged the runner-up of the show. Here's to a successful career in whatever you choose to do next, Danny.

-I finally purchased Ani DiFranco's Knuckle Down (2005) from the new Amazon music download service. I have two things to say about this:

1. I wish I had done this sooner. This may be the best Ani album yet, and I consider myself an early-'90s Ani loyalist, so that's saying a lot. I wasn't a huge fan of Educated Guess, so I gave up on Ani for a while. I'm glad I came back. It feels like home.
2. The Amazon music download service is actually pretty awesome. Abandon iTunes; nobody needs closed proprietary formats anyway.

-The Red Sox won the World Series again. It's not art news, but it deserves a mention. Particular emphasis on the word "again." Do I smell a dynasty brewing? I may just need to follow my brother's example and get a Red Sox tattoo. Okay, now I've brought this part of the post back into the realm of art.

-S

Stay posted...

Here are some things I'm planning to write about when I find the time:

-Frank Gehry's potential archives sale to the highest bidding museum
-"Quarryography" in Stonington, Maine by a Pilobolus founder
-Meeting Bob Neuman
-Prairie Home Companion at the Bangor Auditorium!

Until that day,
S

Mr. Manners at the Ballet

Julie of We Are Lumberjacks recently sent me something awesome that turned me on to the Best of Craig's List series. Here's one I found that offers some very important etiquette tips for attending the ballet. It should serve as a cheat sheet for those of you who don't attend regularly, or who don't feel like you know how to act during a performance. I especially like the way the offending gentleman, apparently a master of irony, manages to both identify himself as a "polite person" and then scream "ya assholes!" in the same sentence. I wish I could match your awesomeness, Mr. Ballet Enthusiast Man.

--------

http://www.craigslist.org/about/best/sfo/326175577.html

To: Guy Who Screamed Obscenities at the Ballet the Other Night:
Date: 2007-05-07, 11:59AM PDT

It was Don Quixote, a rather fun full-length ballet, nobody dies like in the dreary Giselle or Swan Lake.

Another fantastic performance by the SF Ballet. I know you enjoyed it. Our whole section knows you enjoyed it. Every time a dancer would perform a particularly impressive jump, or a series of 3+ pirouettes, you would say, "Whoa!" or "Jaysus!"

This, I didn't mind. As a former dancer and now a season-ticket holder of our City's fine company, I get a kick out of hearing others' excitement for an art form I hold dear. Much better than the guy next to me whose head started to fall like a kid in an 8th grade math class.

So, the curtain falls. The end. Applause.

Curtain comes up and the dancers begin to take their bows. You notice a few people standing up. Was it an ovation? NO! They were LEAVING! These people could not WAIT to get to their cars (they were obviously not MUNI riders, walkers or cab-hailers like most of us in the City)! They had no time for CLAPPING! They had to get out now!

It was then you yelled, in your beautiful gray-haired old crotchety man voice, "WILL YOU PEOPLE SIT DOWN AND LET THE *POLITE* PEOPLE SHOW THEIR APPRECIATION?!," slight pause, "YA ASSHOLES!"

Now, I have seen dozens of ballets in my relatively short lifetime of 25 years. Never, not once, have I encountered a fan of ballet quite like you. At the ballgame, sure, that kind of yelling is par for the course. At the ballgame we eat peanuts and leave the shells in piles at our feet.

Sir, this was THE BALLET.

And for your outburst directed at the people who think somewhere in their tiny brains that it is even remotely acceptable to get up and leave during the curtain call, remotely acceptable to not even clap for the world class artists who just performed a most difficult and worthwhile ballet for our enjoyment (artists whose salary is about that of a standard office receptionist), remotely acceptable to WALK OUT while the house lights are up and we can all (including the dancers) see...

Kind sir, for your outburst, screaming at these "assholes", I thank you from the bottom of my art-loving heart.

I've been wanting to say that for a long time.

And WOW! They sat their asses down, didn't they?! A few were even clapping.

You are the BEST.

Cordially,
Fellow Supporter of the Fine Arts in San Francisco

Translation required

My computer and iTunes don't typically get along. They tend to crash each other. Normally, this is not an issue because I hate iTunes and have been able to find everything I want through open formats.

However, I was reading B.J. Novak's MySpace blog the other day, and I came across something that I really want to listen to. So of course, it's only available for download through iTunes. When B.J. (a.k.a. Ryan the Temp on The Office) was in high school in Newton, MA, he, his brother, and a friend pulled a prank on the unassuming visitors of the Museum of Fine Arts. They recorded a fake audio tour of a Chinese art exhibit, then replaced the real tapes with the bogus ones. Please, if anyone has the ability to download this tour on iTunes and then send it to me in a non-iTunes format, I'd be so happy I'd do jumping jacks.

Vote for Danny?

I just get the feeling that he belongs on a better stage than this. Perhaps he's trying to get more exposure for his magazine, movmnt, as a result of his minor reality show celebrity. But if this is what he wants--to win a national television dance competition--then by golly, we should give it to him.

The Smithsonian insults our intelligence

This Art Is Your Art, This Art Is My Art

The New York Times finally says what I've been saying for years now: the Smithsonian kind of sucks. It took a scandal for anyone influential to realize this, but I'm glad it's finally being acknowledged. At best, its museums and exhibits are uncontroversial diversions. At worst, they are propaganda. They tend to glaze over the most interesting (read: unflattering) parts of American history and instead reduce it to theatrical performance and unnecessary patriotic cheerleading. Don't get me wrong, I think patriotism is good, just not when it's based on half-truths. Exhibits like the West As America in 1991 at the National Museum of American Art and the Enola Gay in 1994 at the Air & Space Museum were not well received, but at least visitors were passionate about what they saw, one way or another. One of the most cliched, yet true aspects of history is that it helps us to identify mistakes we've made so that we don't repeat them in the present. This is especially important in the current political climate. I don't really expect the Smithsonian to emerge as a leading social critic, but they need to do something soon to avoid becoming irrelevant. Our nation's history means more than a pair of ruby slippers or a First Lady ball gown behind a glass case. The American History museum is especially guilty of this.

I must except one museum from this diatribe: the National Portrait Gallery. I think the Times is right that it sort of gets lost in the American art collection (and vise versa), but I'm glad the portrait gallery is moving away from the stuffy oil paintings of yore and branching out into cool things like installation art (yes, it's true, you can do an installation portrait!). If you haven't seen the portrait gallery yet, you should go there immediately. It will rock your socks off.

I want to put this on my wall

http://www.charitywines.com/

It isn't really fair to call this art, but I want to frame it and put it on my wall because it makes me smile. (Though I suppose I could be Dadaist about it and decide it's art because I say it is.) I'm not really a wine person, but this ad makes me want to drink wine. I especially love Manny's expression. He's like a little kid saying, "look, Mom! Grapes!" Plus he's basically wearing a zoot suit. If there were speech bubbles, I think this is what they'd all be saying:

Wake: "Dear Sears Catalog: My knuckler is not fluttering as of late, and my team gives me no run support. Please accept this photo along with my application for a position as a men's wear model pending my imminent retirement."

Schill: "I feel out of place here. Booze is evil. I'm a Christian and an upstanding citizen, and yet I'm standing in between these two smartasses pitching $12 bottles of wine instead of 90-mph splitters. This is so painful it feels like I'm having my tendon sewn to my ankle."

Manny: "Buy my wine, man. It's great, man. People jus' love me so much, man, they wanna drink my wine, man. Manny Being Manny and all that, good times, man. Yeah."

In other news, my space bar is sticking, so posts may be fewer and shorter for a while.

In love with landscape

This isn't going to seem like it's about art at first, but I'll get around to it by the end.

I was pretty tired when I got home tonight. It was actually kind of a hard day at work, made worse by the slow-moving line of tourist traffic I got stuck behind on the way home. So when the sun set and a brisk breeze started blowing down the cove and whisked away the humidity, it seemed like a perfect evening to spend on the hammock next to the water.

It was. I can't express how lucky I am to call Beech Hill Pond my home. Can't express it. There's no better place, no better feeling, than watching dusk from the hammock with my dog at my feet and fireflies darting around me. For just a little while, I forgot about work, forgot about my dissertation, and forgot about the raging disaster that is my love life. I didn't watch TV, check my e-mail, listen to music, or even talk. I just looked at the sky and thought, this is one of those great moments in my life. The loons warbled, the frogs belched, and the crickets played tiny violins. The fading pink light gave way to Venus on the western horizon, hazy, yet still bright enough for its reflection to dance in the waves. The two maples trees framed the scene like the proscenium of a stage. What amazes me is that I've seen this particular performance thousands of times, for twenty years in a row, and yet it's still so beautiful it can move me to tears. The sun always sets in the same place, the waves always make the same sound when they hit the rocks, and the loons always nest in the same cove opposite our camp. The big rock, the one we always took our family pictures on, casts the same silhouette as it has forever. But it only gets better with time. I've been in love before, but this lake is my soul mate. My love for this landscape is not more or less than for any other element of my life--my family, my friends, or my career. It is intertwined with them. The beauty makes my heart fill to bursting with happiness every day I am lucky enough to spend here. I fear its destruction even more than I fear my own death.

This personal landscape of mine has inspired me to create art so many times. When I was little, I drew crayon pictures of it. My mediocre pictures from college photography class hang on the wall above the door out to the porch. I can't paint, but once I asked a friend of a friend to paint a scene of our camp for my parents' 25th anniversary (unfortunately, she never finished it). I even tried, with truly craptacular results, to paint the sunset over the dock on a ceramic crock at the paint-your-own-pottery place in downtown Bangor. However, I've always sucked at all art forms other than dance (much as I yearn to be creative, I'm more of an armchair advocate), and none of my attempts at capturing the scenery have ever been remotely successful.

But all of this made me realize why Frederic Church is my favorite painter. I think I recognize this same love that I feel for Beech Hill Pond in his paintings of Mount Katahdin. He traveled all around the United States and around the world--New York, New England, the South, Maritime Canada, Mexico, Jamaica, South America, Europe, the Middle East, and the Arctic--but he returned to Mount Katahdin almost every summer for over 40 years and painted dozens of canvases of it. My very favorite painting, Mount Katahdin from Millinocket Camp (the one permanently in the upper right corner of this blog--you can see it in person at the Portland Museum of Art), must have been his greatest labor of love. It's an intensely personal vision. At the time, in 1895, he was almost 70 years old, weak, sickly, and so arthritic he could hardly hold a paintbrush. It took him at least five years to complete it. It was his last major painting (he died five years later), and instead of selling it to a wealthy patron, he gave it to his wife for her birthday. In a sweet little note he wrote to her, he says that the figure in the canoe is himself, pausing in the shade to admire the sublime mountain and to contemplate the afterlife. He's not known to have included a self portrait in any other painting, and this tells me that Katahdin was probably his favorite landscape of all. He had painted it many more times before, but never like this. The luminous pink wash of the cloudless sky, the hint of gold at the mountain's base, the ethereal peak of Katahdin reflected in the still water--this is his version of heaven.

My version of heaven is the hammock by the lake at dusk in mid-summer, just as the stars are beginning to show. Oh, how I wish I could paint it.

What do you do when a building is historical, but impractical?

New Focus on a Forlorn Cleveland Tower

I don't know the answer to this one. Marcel Breuer's 1971 Cleveland Trust Tower may be ugly. It may be poorly maintained. But that doesn't mean it should be torn down. Why do we prize 19th century architecture (and earlier) above all else? Well, that's obvious. Older architecture is simply prettier. There's nothing pretty about this building. But it is an important example of modern architecture. So do we just leave it there in all its impracticality? Do we try to adapt it to modern needs? Or do we just build something better? While I believe historic architecture should be preserved, I also think that buildings have a natural lifespan, and when a building's lifespan is coming to an end, it's better that it goes out in a blaze of explosive implosion and wrecking balls than falls into disrepair and crumbles slowly. Architecture needs to evolve constantly. New buildings have to be built somewhere, and it's better that they replace old buildings rather than encroach upon the natural environment. Think of it as a physician-assisted suicide plan for architecture. I'm just not convinced the Cleveland Trust Tower is a terminal patient yet.

I can't help but think this whole situation is somewhat ironic, though. In the 1950s to the '70s, many of the 19th century buildings we would now call architectural treasures were torn down in "urban renewal" programs and replaced with blocky, concrete creations like the one we see above. Now it's those very buildings that are danger. We finally realized our mistake from the first time around; will we be too late to realize it this time, too? Or is it simply time for us to switch off the life support machine on modern architecture?

Maine art goes to the dogs

Renowned Photographer Unveils Mural at Rest Stop

My first thought when I heard about this was: leave it to Maine to take a $100,000 art appropriation and spend it on pictures of funny-looking dogs. But I've mulled over it for a while, and I've decided that this isn't entirely bad.

First of all, the art is appropriate to the venue. At least the Maine Arts Commission has a sense of irony, and it knows you can't really slap a bunch of Winslow Homers on a rest stop wall. They would be out of place. Nor did they choose any of the voraciously overused symbols of Maine culture: lighthouses, clipper ships, moose, lobster, loons, black bears, blueberries, or pine trees. They chose something accessible that people will enjoy looking at. And you know what, dogs are funny.

I'm still a little bit skeptical, though, because of this quote offered by Donna McNeil of the Maine Arts Commission:

"It was about creating an icon. ... New York has the Statue of Liberty. Paris has the Eiffel Tower. This was about creating a visual icon that speaks about Maine as a place of culture."

...So, Maine's culture should be represented by Weimaraners? I'm not sure this is right.

Yeah, that's what I thought

News from Basra: Sunni Mosque Is Destroyed in Retaliation

Yankee Stadium is about to get a lot less rowdy (and even more bourgeois)

Climbing to the Upper Decks (Before They're Torn Down)

I'm never happy when historic architecture gets destroyed, even when it belongs to the Yankees. Both Yankee Stadium and Shea Stadium are set to be torn down once their replacements are completed, and both new ballparks will feature more luxury seating and less room for bleacher bums. Even the Times' Ben Sisaro, a Yankees fan, appropriately dubbed the Yankees' new $800 million park an "unfinished Death Star." Leave it to New Yorkers to take a traditionally working-class sport and turn it into a sterile, unaffordable theater performance. Fenway Park may be small, and it may be next to impossible to find tickets for face value (unless, like me, you happen to have lived next door and know all the secrets). It may have right field grandstands that don't face home plate and seats located behind posts. But at least it still has soul.

Everybody Hates Richard Serra

…Except, it seems, the Museum of Modern Art. Much of its new Yoshio Taniguchi-designed building was conceived specifically with his work in mind. MOMA is showing “Richard Serra Sculpture: Forty Years” through September 10^th.

This is a bad idea for a couple of reasons. First of all, Richard Serra's art is oversized compared to everything else, and the gargantuan space MOMA created on the second floor to show off his sculptures will not work well for other artists. What are they going to do with the space once the Serra exhibit is over in September? As New York Magazine puts it, even his smallest pieces are roughly the size of a car. The largest pieces are like twisty buildings that you can walk through and experience from the inside. It’s art that envelops and consumes its viewer. And secondly, in my opinion, most of Serra’s works belong out of doors. It’s horribly confining to plunk them in a big room and expect viewers to relate with them the same way as they can with his public sculptures.

Unlike a lot of people, I actually do like Richard Serra’s art a lot. I agree that sheet metal can be ugly when it oxidizes and turns that ruddy, rusty color, and Tilted Arc in NYC’s Federal Plaza in the ‘80s was generally a bad idea because of where it was placed. I’m convinced he put it where he did just to piss people off—and, well, it worked, and now it’s scrap metal. But his sculptures are more than just big pieces of oddly shaped metal. They’re cool because they’re both minimalist and maximalist, if you will. They’re so simplistic in shape, but the experience of viewing one is so huge and complex that the sculptures are almost too large to comprehend. My personal favorite is Sequence (2006), which is on the exhibition catalogue and poster (shown above). The curves and tilts are so sensual.

There’s also a neat video of Torqued Ellipse IV (1998) and Intersection II (1992) being installed in the sculpture garden:

A bad day for architecture in Iraq

Two stories on the NBC Nightly News this evening caught my attention—first, the destruction of two minarets on a sacred Shiite mosque in Samarra, and second, the construction of the massive new U.S. Embassy in Baghdad.

The destruction of the famous minarets on the sacred Al-Askari mosque (the "Golden Mosque") follows a prior attack that destroyed its massive golden dome in February 2006. (Note: the picture on the top was taken prior to the 2006 attack, and the minarets are still in place.) The bombing, likely by Al-Qaeda, led to (what else?) lots and lots of sectarian violence, and Shiites have retaliated by destroying Sunni mosques. I haven’t studied Islamic architecture a whole lot, but apparently the Al-Askari mosque is one of Iraq's treasures from the turn of the century. Obviously all of these buildings are very important to the people of Iraq and are imbued with special meaning in Islamic consciousness. If the violence continues (and it looks like it will for a long time), there’s a strong possibility that an entire culture’s architectural treasures will be wiped out completely. In this sense, I suppose Iraq has something in common with New Orleans: both are experiencing a crisis in historic architecture. Of course, architecture receives somewhat scant attention in the news in comparison to the tragedy of human lives, and rightly so. But it’s still very sad. From the pictures I've seen, the mosque before its destruction was absolutely glitteringly beautiful.

The new U.S. Embassy in Baghdad…I’m sorry, but this thing is doomed. It's been doomed since it was just a zygote of a building in its architect’s head. (Well, more likely an engineer’s head. Because the U.S. government is trying to keep its budget down, you know, so it can't afford an architect. It only had $592 million to spend on this project.) NBC described it as a “white elephant,” and indeed, the place is likely to be targeted by everyone and their mother. It’s made up of 27 separate buildings behind “bomb-proof” walls. I assume they mean "bomb-proof" in the same way people claimed the Titanic was "unsinkable." The embassy also includes a 16,000 square foot home with a pool and a gym for the ambassador. (Hell, you gotta give the guy a few perks. He’s the ambassador to Iraq.) The funniest thing is that they’re worried it won’t be large enough to house all of the diplomats and military leaders who need secure housing. The compound is 104 acres, roughly the size of Vatican City. I’ve been to Vatican City, and let me tell you, the Vatican is a lot prettier than this monstrosity. Memo to the government: your embassy is the size of a small country. How about before we build a small country inside Iraq, we try rebuilding Iraq itself. For example, maybe we could rebuild one of these mosques that's causing all the commotion. Not to mention the embassy is fugly (and I reserve that word for only the fugliest of buildings). Now, I’m about as big a fan of modern architecture as you’ll find, concrete and all, but this is too humongous to even be comprehensible. It’s a glorified fallout shelter. I suppose form follows function, though.

The opposite of landscape photography?

She Calls It 'Phenomena.' Everyone Else Calls It Art.

What an awesome job Felice Frankel has. It's too bad nobody buys her stuff (though I'll bet she'll get a few interested people after being featured in the NY Times). Probably people think her work makes better desktop wallpaper than wall art. I'd love to be appointed the artist in residence for something random, like a science department, though I think the closest I'll ever get is artist in residence of my parents' basement.

Finale

The Dance of the Final Bow

Four of the world's best ballerinas a retiring at the end of this season. I used to idolize these women when I was a kid, and it's sort of sad (though I suppose a natural fact of a dancer's life) that they're retiring. I've seen one of them dance in person (I'm pretty sure Alessandra Ferri came to the MCA on tour sometime in the early '90s) and one on video (Kyra Nichols as the Dew Drop Fairy in the unfortunately horrendous movie version of The Nutcracker, with Macauley Culkin as the Nutcracker, barf). It's disappointing that they're done performing. I hope they find successful and fulfilling careers post-dance.

Which reminds me of another interesting dance world happening--word is, Damien Woetzel is set to retire from NYCB sometime in the near future as well, but in between seasons he's getting his Master's degree in Public Policy at Harvard and guesting at the Boston Ballet. Double props to this guy for getting and education past high school (rare in ballet dancers) and for dancing in my city.

Maine is pretty.

Figured I'd put in a pitch for my boss, who photographs the Maine landscape. This one's called Mistake Island, Moose Peak Light Panorama.

http://www.jackledbetterphotography.com

These are not your typical tourist images. Jack's photos of Mount Desert Island and the surrounding area are large, full-color, highly detailed Cibachrome and Fuji Flex prints. He photographs like Ansel Adams used to, with an antique large-format view camera on 8x10 negatives or larger. Also, he's a wicked cool guy and has been nice enough to give me a job for the past couple of summers. Drop by the gallery and see us sometime if you're around MDI.

Martin Firrell and Nathan Fillion's Super Secret Thingy

http://www.martinfirrell.com/supersecretthingy.html

I heard about this project some time ago, but the details were just released a few days ago. The actual title of the work is Hero: the future of gods, icons and heroes, and what's on the web site is just a preview of a larger public art project to be shown sometime later, likely in London. (Martin Firrell works exclusively in London. I'm not sure exactly why.)

Firrell proposes a "new model for male behaviour" in an audiovisual presentation, an ideal that eschews violence in favor of gentleness and compassion. He shows Fillion in slow motion from the neck up and projects light patterns onto his face. The piece is accompanied by a cappella female voices and the phrases "Thought before action," "Strength without force," and "Clear light in the sky." The last phrase is kind of cryptic, but the gist is that in order for modern society to survive, men must take it upon themselves to create peace. In a time of war, terrorism, and continued violence among men (and especially against women), it's more important than ever to empower men to become part of the solution, rather than just viewing them as a problem.

At risk of gushing about Nathan Fillion--I've been in love with him since Firefly, and even more so after his portrayal of the sweet Dr. Pomatter in Waitress--I'm so glad Firrell chose him to play the new hero. It's especially meaningful because Fillion has primarily been known as an action star in the past. Ironically, I think it's his background as the violent hero in Firefly, Serenity, and SLiTHER that gives him the masculine credibility to portray a new kind of ideal man without being perceived as too effeminate. I wonder if the Firrell piece will change the public perception of him as an actor, as by all accounts he's an incredibly kind and warmhearted person off screen.

Edward Hopper show at the MFA

The Museum of Fine Arts in Boston is exhibiting a collection of Edward Hopper paintings and prints until August 19th. However, it costs upwards of $20 for a single ticket (even with the student discount).

I'm going to be a bad art historian for a moment. Personally, I'm not one of those people who insists you need to see a work of art in person in order to understand it. Certainly it's helpful to see the colors, texture, and technique up close, especially if you plan to study it in depth. And originals just have a powerful quality to them that reproductions don't. But I'm more interested in the social and political context of art anyhow, so the formal properties often take a backseat. My recommendation is to forgo spending the money on the Hopper exhibit unless you're a big Hopper fan, or if you're one of those people who appreciates subtleties.

It is a very good exhibit, however. It covers a lot of ground over the course of Hopper's career. All the greatest hits are there, including Automat (1929), Chop Suey (1929), New York Movie (1939), Office at Night (1940), and of course, Nighthawks (1942). Several lighthouse paintings from Maine are also included, though they barely take up half a room. Disappointingly, most of the famous paintings (including Nighthawks) are glazed, and not very well. The MFA needs to invest in some better glare-free glass.


One of my very favorite paintings of all time hangs near the entrance: Summer Interior (1909). I've seen it twice, once at its permanent home at the Whitney and once in this exhibit. Because of its content, this is not the sort of picture that will end up on the postcards or T-shirts sold in the museum gift shop. The MFA skips over it on their website. It was one of Hopper's early works, and you can see him starting to play with light in interesting ways, like in the solid block of sun and the yellow light filtering through the blinds on the wall on the right. What I really love about this painting is the way it makes me feel. Yeah, I know that's vague. So many of Hopper's works deal with loneliness, and of all of them, I think this is the best. He didn't want his paintings to tell stories, but you just can't help creating a narrative to go along with this one. I'm imagining that her lover has just left her, perhaps for good. It's quiet ("almost too quiet"), and probably the only sounds are the ticking clock on the mantle and the street noise filtering through the window. The bedsheets are still rumpled, she's barely half dressed, and her head is turned down to hide her face. Her hand is shoved between her thighs so her arm looks like it's cut off at the wrist. The act of sitting on the floor in that contorted pose with the sheets dragged down, instead of sitting on the bed, is what makes the scene disturbing. It tells us she's not just relaxing on a hot morning. Something is clearly wrong. The painting is provocative, but her pose is not meant to be sexy. She's exhausted.

So in summary, go see this exhibition if you can bear to part with $21. But if you think you're going to race through it in a half an hour and just look at the highlights, you can afford to skip it.

This is my new blog.

Hi there! I'm bored this summer, and I like to read and write about art, so I figured I'd share. I'll cover old art, new art, architecture, landscapes, performance art, art news, and anything else I feel like writing about. Your contributions and thoughts are always welcome!