Name this dead icon

My friend John H. enumerated something I was thinking last night. See if you can figure out who he's referring to.

Name this person:
- Child star
- Early fame makes their life very difficult
- Stars in movie version of the Oz story
- Becomes a cult figure
- Cannot seem to get out from under the yoke of crass promoters
- Suffers from two decades of bad publicity
- Dies abruptly around the age of 50 under suspicious, drug-related circumstances
... while preparing for a series of comeback concerts in London
- Leaves behind three children
- Death causes outpouring of public grief.

You were thinking Judy Garland, right?


Or how about Michael Jackson?


One and the same? HMM!

If a Digital Tree Falls, Would We Hear It?

According to an Arts Beat blog post by Roberta Smith at the New York Times, gallery exhibition cards are going extinct.

"Of all the things going the way of the Internet these days, one is the gallery exhibition announcement card. For decades this useful bit of art-world indicator has been an indispensable constant creatively deployed by artists, avidly cherished by the ephemera-obsessed and devotedly archived by museums. But lately the death knell has been sounding, each a linguistic (and attitudinal) variation on the same theme."

Trees will be saved, perhaps, but the visceral response to feeling thick paper stock in the hand and seeing a visual design that is just as easy to look at as it is to stick on the refrigerator is on its way out. This comes as no surprise, but there is some sadness in it.

On my way to the Museum of Modern Art two weeks ago, we passed by Radio City Music Hall. For the first time, I noticed that there were no posters on display--instead, promo "posters" were displayed on LCD TVs strategically integrated into the former housing for posters. This isn't it, but here's an example from Japan:



Posters are gone, never to return!

I thought of my childhood self who used to see so many posters and wished to acquire the ones for shows or movies I loved so I could hang them on my walls. Kids won't be doing much of that anymore. (Either that, or suddenly all children will have multiple LCD TVs in their bedrooms where they can change imagery at will.)

From a business perspective, I can see how it's much more cost-effective to make .jpgs, so it's no surprise we're going down this road. In terms of expediency and cost, it makes a lot of sense to go paperless.

That said, I totally feel and relate to that loss of tangible paper items. I'm hardly the first to say this, but I believe that the 20th Century will be the last great period where we will have collectible items and ephemera. Where we are now, in time, is that transitional moment--we're living on the tail end of the 20th century that still spills a bit into the 21st. We should all probably go crazy buying up more collectibles, posters and whatnot because they'll only go up in value. There aren't going to be as many items to replace them since this stuff is disappearing into a digital haze.

For those, like me, who love certain manifestations of paper, it would be easy to see the Internet as the destroyer of something much-loved. But the Internet is a kind of as an entity of its own--neither good nor bad, simply a tool we can use for good or ill purposes.

Historically, newer technology is always eclipsing the old. The written word replaced oral tradition, the printing press eliminated illuminated manuscripts, radio succumbed to TV, and so on. There's always a loss with a resulting gain that seems to tend toward an even greater ability to disseminate information to a greater number of people. That part has great potential, and is making things like the murder of Neda Agha-Soltan available for everyone to see globally-horrible footage, but publicizing a great tragedy that otherwise could have been hidden from global view by the Iranian government. Great crimes can be exposed in ways never before possible, as well as positive messages. And of course some would argue that there's also a bunch of porn and other things that are not so good.

In an objective sense, it's nearly impossible to know how to judge what is good and what is bad in terms of changing technology (and let's not forget that paper is a technology)--what seems negative to us may very well be considered normal, OK, or even good to those in another age, demographic, location, or time period. It is only those of us who are intimately familiar with posters and cards that may feel the loss. After all, who can feel the loss of something they've never experienced?

As for me, I'm a child of the 20th Century, so paper media and tangibility is meaningful and beautiful, and there is an unquestionable loss. Zeroes and ones offer nothing to connect to in a physical way. Seeing something only with our eyes on a display doesn't create the same depth of emotion as holding something in your hands, looking and feeling.

Perhaps an upside to the ephemerality of digital media is that art will become more valued--if there is less pop cultural detritus to litter our homes, maybe we'll be more willing to shell out money for one-of-a-kind works of art to beautify our existence.

But, I also know that there is still beauty to be had in other forms, some of which haven't been invented yet. And so I'll look to the past to remember what was meaningful on a personal level, and look to the future with some excitement about what technology comes next, hopeful that the benefits will outweigh the harm.

John Lennon: The NYC Years

I went with M to John Lennon: The NYC Years exhibit at the Rock N’Roll Hall of Fame Annex. Yoko Ono curated the show, which includes the photographs she took of John’s bloody glasses and his personal effects after his murder.

I did a bit of web research because I was looking for a particular quote from the show, and discovered that Yoko has been much criticized for including those items in the exhibition. I believe that those people who see exhibitionism and exploitation in such a display are running away from the truth of what happened—that murder was committed, and the loss is just as palpable now as it was 29 years ago.

This is another indication of how much of our culture seeks to avoid and dismiss great personal tragedy and violence. Looking at these artifacts brings home the personal nature of what happened to John, making him not just an icon, but a human being who was gunned down.

There is blank white canvas hanging next to these artifacts that asks people to sign their names. The canvas will be sent to President Obama along with an entreaty for stricter gun laws.

I applaud Yoko for having the courage to face all of the ugliness of John’s death and show it to other people. My takeaway was that this is a woman of great bravery.

She says:

"John, who was the king of the world and had everything any man could ever want, came back to me in a brown paper bag in the end. I want to show how many people have gone through similar tragedies."

Powerful words showing that we leave this world as we come into it and that, indeed, through that experience, we are all one.

Philip Johnson's Chapel of St. Basil

I was visiting my friend J for his graduation from Rice University with a Master of Architecture degree. It was only fitting that we toured around Houston looking at the more notable buildings. We stopped by Philip Johnson's Chapel of St. Basil at the University of St. Thomas. We only had a few minutes until his family arrived in town. We resolved to return later that night, which we did.

In the evening, the chapel is lit by three major floodlights, and much to our joy, we discovered we could create two-story high shadow puppetry with an impressive umbra and penumbra. It started out with walking like an Egyptian and acting like a zombie, arms outstretched in front of the lights. But then I decided to turn it up a notch:



I had J take photos both with my actual self in the image for scale, and just the shadow itself:



Within moments, two security guards in a golf cart came hurtling towards us. J and I exchanged a glance. Clearly, the party was about to be over and we were going to be escorted from the campus.

They pulled up next to us and stopped. One of the men said, "Wow. I've been here for years, and that's the first time I've ever seen that pose." So J said, "People never do this?" And the guard said, "Not like that!" They laughed approvingly and sped off.

I sexualized myself on the side of a church and got instantaneous results. I think there's a lesson in there somewhere.

Snopes, Twitter, Poke!

Life on the Internet brings us closer together because it’s so easy to reach out to people with quick communication.

But so many of the ways we communicate online have limited intrinsic value. It seems to me that Baby Boomers send around forwarded emails that largely contain false content like new ways for carjackers to get you (thank you, Snopes.com, for helping to clarify) and Gen X and Gen Y like to Twitter and Poke.

But this is a substitute for conversation. Sure, it’s nice to know you’re being thought of, but given the lack of personal meaning inherent in the message, these are nearly valueless and sometimes annoying taps on the virtual shoulder that cause you to turn around and face…nothing.

R2-D2 DVD Projector

It's the end of the world. Anyone who buys this needs to spend more time focusing on getting a girlfriend instead:

R2-D2 DVD Projector

The best part is the guy laying on a couch, excitedly playing video games projected onto the ceiling. He's supine for all the wrong reasons. The only way to make this more realistic would be if he were forty.

How to Survive a Riot

Stumbled across this at first hilarious and then sobering how-to guide: How to: Survive a Riot

Let's hope we never need this information, but let's keep in mind:

If you fall down, pull yourself up into a ball. Protect your face and ears and internal organs. In this position you are a smaller object that can be avoided. You will receive less damage if you are stepped on. If others trip on you they will help create a larger "pile" that rioters will avoid.

and

Try to avoid looking conspicuously wealthy, as you are likely to draw the unwanted attention of opportunistic thieves.

Now you know!

Leatherheads

And now for my latest obsession. Every morning for the past two weeks, I've passed by this poster in the subway. I quickly snapped this photo lest I be caught in the embarrassment of the act.


I can't stop staring at it. It fills my mind. I think about it constantly. Anyone else notice that these men are about as intimidating as The Little Rascals?


But back to the poster itself. This poster is my only exposure to this film. From this picture alone, I can't seem to get over this rampant display of flaccid masculinity. What's with George Clooney's fake black eye? Isn't he getting a little old for this juvenalia? How is Jim from The Office anything other than a jokester? Why am I not shocked that there's a token black man and a token fat man? What kind of a title is "Leatherheads" anyway? (I get that this is about the early years of football where men did, in fact, wear leather helmets, but that title is just Neanderthal. And these helmets make them look like they have cute floppy dog ears.) These men are tough lite.

Such a poster begs the question: does dirt maketh a man? Does sports maketh a man? I suppose the other end of the spectrum is Rambo, which is a steroid-sized caricature that also fails to do masculinity justice in its own way. Maybe what's intriguing to me is the ambiguity implied by this image. Are we supposed to find these men frightening or lame?

I find no definative indicators of how this image is to be read, or rather, my sense of what's "masculine" and what's puerile cancel each other out leaving a black hole. So, I can only bring to bear my outside understanding of these actors along with my preconceptions about gender. Since I can't figure out what we're meant to take away from this picture, I suppose it's quite a successful ad--it's definitely lodged in my not-so-leather head.

iFoam vs. iPhone

It's a rare user interface that becomes so culturally recognizable that it gets parodied. Check out this birthday card I saw at Bed, Bath and Beyond that imagines an alternate use for the iPhone:

The interior:

Note: photos of iFoam taken with iPhone.

Ugly Betty and The Other Boleyn Girl

Anyone else notice that Natalie Portman's Other Boleyn Girl happens to be wearing Ugly Betty's necklace?


I did some poking around on the web, and it turns out you can buy this Tudor-style jewelry. It's a replica of the one the real Anne Boleyn wore:

Nothing says "recession" like a Betty/Boleyn necklace. No matter what the time period, you, too, can wear something that is fucking hideous!

Spend Your Sunday in the Park with George

"Oh, that's supposed to be the painting." -- Comment made by the theater-goer to my right who didn't realize until the beginning of the second act that the show is about Georges Seurat's "Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte."

Make it a priority to get tickets to one of the most innovative productions in years: Sunday In the Park with George at Studio 54. I don't want to give too much away, particularly about the staging. In short, the show covers the following themes:

• What do we do with romantic relationships where at least one person cannot emotionally connect?
  
• Is art (or our fixations) worth more than love?
  
• What is our life's legacy? Art? Children?
  
• What does it mean to lose our parents?
  
• How can we let go of the ideas that constrain us?
  
• How can we live our lives inspired by the possibilities of a blank canvas?
  
• Oh, and parasols
  

Sondheim's music, the staging, animations and projections are beautiful and a puzzle. How did they do what they did? Sunday in the Park sincerely combines its craft to make us feel the joy of creation and a reverence for our place, our moment in time.

I think I'm finally old enough to have seen this show.

Odds 'n ends

It's about time I get myself back to writing. The Xmas break threw me off my game. I don't have a specific topic at the moment, but here are a few things on my mind of late:

Politics
I realized that following all this political stuff is kind of a head-case exercise. It's all about untestable hypotheses. One of the predictions I read: if Bloomberg decides to run as Independent in February, it will split the vote between him and Hillary and McCain will win the presidency. It's all wheel spinning until the election results are in. It sort of reminds me of my mental state when I get too intellectual and disconnect from my feelings. It's as though the culture is doing that at large with no way to ground itself. I'm coming to view it as an unhealthy cultural sickness. All of this time spent on conjecture is time all of us could be doing other, more relevant things with our life. But, what else do we really have to do with our collective time, and how else can we construct a national dialog that anyone can participate in? I guess it fills a gap in between moments when we're shopping.

Television
The L Word is a freakshow horror. It makes Cashmere Mafia look like Shakespeare. Ilene Chaiken should be ashamed of herself. She couldn't write her way out of a paper bag. I think so poorly of this show that I'm not even going to construct an argument as to why it's such an embarrassing piece of drivel. Watch it for yourself to see how trashy, lame, and boring it is. It was never particularly good, but it has gone from bad to worse. There's no "so bad it's good" factor at work. It just blows chunks. Plots and characters are constructed in a way that is illogical, choppy, and inconsistent. If this represents the most talented of the Hollywood lesbian writers, no wonder we're stuck in a cultural ghetto. And with this shit as what we have to offer to the larger world, clearly we deserve to be right where we are.

Exercise
Pilates is a joy. So much better than yoga. What was I thinking? I was spending time on yoga when it turns out I didn't have to be stuck in downward dog. Instead I can be strengthening my muscles and having a good time, too. More exercise with less pretense. Hooray!

A sucker born every minute

My two previous posts have gotten me thinking: Does the general public know a good thing when it sees it? Harry Potter. The iPhone. Both are lauded by the public, which begs the question: do the masses actually have taste?

In my opinion, the Potter books are average in terms of literary merit. The only way they've revolutionized the publishing industry is by sheer volume of sales, which is nothing to sneeze at, but the books themselves have not intrinsically changed the literary world (although some would argue they've encouraged kids to read, which I suppose is true, although I would counter-argue with the question: isn't it the parents responsibility to inculcate a love of reading from a very early age? I'm betting most of those parents out there haven't been reading to their kids since birth...). In any case, the act of publishing books has not changed because of Harry.

Conversely, the iPhone is extraordinary in terms of user interface design. It's a total paradigm shift in how a person can physically interact with a device. Suddenly, all other cell phones seem like dinosaurs, and I have no doubt that the cell phone with a push-button keypad is on its way out over the next 5 -10 years. (Obviously, comparing Harry and an iPhone is a bit unfair: Harry is content--words on the page, but the iPhone is content and functionality).

A barrier to entry of the iPhone is obviously cost. Mac products are always expensive and require disposable income. But, the plummeting price means that they'll be in even more people's hands sooner than ever.

Still, $600 (now $400) is an exorbitant and ridiculous price to pay for a device. A Harry Potter obsession would cost the reader approximately $116 if they purchased the entire hardcover boxed set on Amazon. If one had to choose their popular poison, it would be to one's economic advantage to adhere to Harry and shun the iPhone. But what about those of us who shelled out for both?

This brings us back to public opinion: Harry and the iPhone are both a success. One is largely mediocre when taken as a whole, the other is impressive despite its flaws (I really could strangle the phone for not syncing properly to iPhoto, and yet still I love it). Some people buy the books, some the phone, some both. This may suggest that it's not so much that the public is savvy or truly understands how to judge an item's merits, but that the general public likes to engage in public discourse around shared interests. Also, when critical mass is achieved, there is a sense of unity, i.e., I feel less alone in the world when I see someone reading Harry on the subway. Also, we like shiny, new things, we're easily distracted, and we are willing to spend, spend, spend to get that feeling of being a part of something larger than ourselves.

Even if the iPhone is a life-changing device, aren't we still suckers for shelling out half a grand that could be going into our retirement accounts? I can delve into snobbery and suggest that Harry stinks and the iPhone rulez, but aren't I the butt of an economic joke regardless of the intrinsic merit of the books or the phone?

There really is a sucker born every minute. To quote from Barnum the musical, "...the biggest one, excluding none, is me."

Thank God it's a tax write-off

Mr. Jobs has dropped the price of the iPhone by $200.

TWO HUNDRED DOLLARS CHEAPER!

We iPhone owners paid the price to be early adopters.

Maybe we really are just fools after all.

But then I hold it in my hands and I'm charmed. Ach, I'm a sucker!

The Problem with Harry

I've been having an email conversation with two friends, K in Chicago and Weeza in London regarding Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, the 7th and final installment in the that series you may have heard about. Our emails aren't so much debate as confirmation of how much we agree that DH is as mediocre as shopping at The Gap or eating Domino’s Pizza.

K summed it up best:
"The Harry Potter series was like rooting for a particular runner in the Olympic marathon. Books 1-6 were like my runner getting stronger through the race and surging into the lead as they enter the stadium. Book 7 was my runner tripping over her shoelaces, falling and crawling over the finish line to get the bronze. The epilogue was her copiously shitting her pants at the medal presentation."

So well said. Oh, and ugh--that epilogue--by far the most painful part of the book. A reviewer by the name of The Meteorologist “Don’t call me Weatherman” on Amazon commented:
“...The epilogue was forced and cliché. I really wonder if the publisher asked Rowling to do this because it is so unlike her. I remember reading an interview about her writing this last section in her hotel room while she cried and drank. No wonder why she cried and drank, this epilogue was terrible, I would cry too.”

How Harry Should Have Ended ***Possible spoilers below***

The three of us contemplated possible alternative endings. K in Chicago states:

“I was personally hoping that Harry would die in an act of transcendent self-sacrifice that left behind an artifact to protect the world from the inevitable emergence of the next major Dark Magician. Being a series with a lot child readers meant we were safe from the prospect of him knocking up Ginny with another Chosen One. I was thinking more along the lines of his death being the critical ingredient in a spell that combined the Deathly Hallows into powerful talisman (of course hidden at Hogwarts) that would seek out the most worthy wielder when the need arose.”

Alas, that would have accorded the book actual literary status, which just wouldn't do for the Scholastic stockholders. Perhaps the whole Potter phenomenon bespeaks the problem of success--Rowling could have wiped her ass with each page and published it to massive sales. Is it too much pressure that creates the crap that emerged, or is it resting on one's laurels--a cloud of success that obscured her vision from creating something truly remarkable?

Weeza from London responded:
“There's something preachy and condescending about DH, in the way it hammers home weird little lessons in morality while completely overlooking other (major) points. There was an article in one of the London papers not long ago (wish I could remember which) about how JK Rowling herself has changed since she began writing the series. Then, she was a nobody with little money and a kid, writing a story she loved and believed in. Now, she has Charles and Camilla round to dinner, and turns up at events in glittering gowns. She's come a long way, from working class to borderline aristocracy. Perhaps that's showing through in the book? There's always something superficial about the Nouveau Riche. Perhaps this is the literary manifestation?”

I think Weeza is right. And, I don't think I could come up with a better ending than K conjured. My ending would at least have one character turn gay, Hermione decide she's better off finding another man entirely, neither of the Weasly twins dying, and at least a frikking graduation! I would have kept the setting at Hogwarts, worked in one last quidditch match that is perhaps interrupted by Voldemort, and cut out the Deathly Hallows entirely. Finding the Horcruxes was plenty of plot action.

I’m glad I went back to the series after a 5 year hiatus and finished it off, if only so I could try to understand such a public success. I’m sorry to conclude that only something this mediocre and derivative is probably capable of achieving such public acclaim. (As for derivative, don’t even get me started on Rowling’s ham-fisted barely metaphorical use of World War II references of England versus Germany. Does “Nurmengard” sound like Nuremberg to anyone else?? Sheesh. Some creativity, PLEASE! And let’s not even get into the blatant concept thievery from Lord of the Rings.) I’ll be even more glad to get back to re-reading something much better, like Philip Pullman’s The Golden Compass.