Presence

The Perfect Gift for your Little Achiever

770

Via Nextbook, a photography exhibit in San Francisco entitled 770:

This building, often referred to as "770," has been replicated worldwide with varying degrees of precision, as Chabad centers or for other purposes. Currently there are twelve 770's, including the original, in the United States, Canada, Israel, Italy, Brazil, Argentina, and Australia, and more are under construction in Cleveland, U.S.A and Santiago, Chile.

The Original, Brooklyn, NY

Milan, Italy

K'far Chabad, near Tel Aviv

More pictures at the 770 exhibit site (scroll to the right).

Protect our Cultural Treasures (and, Free Hat!)

South Park Ep. 609 Free Hat

Somehow I missed this episode of South Park. I'm glad to see Matt and Trey agree with me.

Match Point - A Modern Tragedy

Just finished watching Match Point, a Woody Allen film. The movie takes the form of a quasi-operatic tragedy with a modern twist; traditionally, the main character in a tragedy suffers a downfall which is "downfall is brought about by either a character flaw or a conflict with some higher power such as the law, the gods, fate, or society." In contrast, the film opens with the following statement from the main character;

The man who said "I'd rather be lucky than good" saw deeply into life. People are afraid to face how great a part of life is dependent on luck. It's scary to think so much is out of one's control. There are moments in a match when the ball hits the top of the net and for a split second it can either go forward or fall back. With a little luck it goes forward and you win. Or maybe it doesn't and you lose.

What follows is begins as a somewhat interesting romance, progresses into a frantic drama, and ends as a thriller with a satisfying twist at the end. There's some slow parts in the middle, but I thought the end was worth the wait. I'd wanted to see this film for a while, I'm just lucky we rented it.

Awesome Cool Video of the Day #2

This video has convinced me I am wasting my life.

[Hat tip: RDE]

Awesome Cool Video of the Day

[Hat tip: Brother Michael]

Operatic Tendencies

Nabucco (apparently Italian for Nebchadnezzar) is playing at the Baltimore Opera. I saw an ad for it somewhere online and found the teaser dialogue intriguing enough to click through:

“I am God.” --Nabucco
“I don’t think so.” --God
“Zzzzzzaaaaaaapppp!” --Lightning Bolt

Then I looked at the ticket prices, and was a little less intrigued. Culture's nice and all, but it also comes on DVD.

Dr. Suess Hates Nazis, Japanese

Via Yo Yenta, I came across this cache of Dr. Suess' political cartoons. There's a page of his anti-Nazi cartoons, as well as a set of War Bond cartoons, with a few just-a-bit stereotypical depictions of the Japanese. All's fair in love, war and cartoons, I guess.

One things for sure, I'll never read Horton Hatches the Egg the same way again.

Restriction and Creativity

The description of a new film, Drawing Restraint 9, caught my eye:

The core idea of Drawing Restraint 9 is the relationship between self-imposed resistance and creativity...

I'm not sure I've ever formulated this idea in writing, but I've long felt that there is a strong relation between restriction and creativity. The imposition of boundaries on the creative instinct acts as a catalyst for creative activity, rather than stifling it. Rather than unbridled and uncontrolled creativity that can often be destructive, the imposing framework of rules helps to channel and direct the creativity, enhancing the meaning in the process. There's any number of examples of this: Shabbos, haiku, rock and roll, Brisker hakiras; I could give hundreds of examples.

So I was quite interested to see this idea expressed in the film's description. Unfortunately, things went downhill from there. The description continues:

...a theme it symbolically tracks through the construction and transformation of a vast sculpture of liquid Vaseline, called “The Field”, which is molded, poured, bisected and reformed on the deck of the ship over the course of the film.

Ohhhh-kay...Waiter, check please! You can watch the trailer if you like, the words that came most readily to mind were "Bjorkian nightmare" (afterwards, I noticed Bjork in fact stars in the film). It's pretty wacky; perhaps we need to put a few more strictures on her creativity.

Music in The Air

I've become obsessed with Air Guitar. For those of you not following along at home, Fatima "The Rockness Monster" Hoang has been declared the new 2005 US champion. Check out his air guitar video of Old 97's In the Satellite Rides a Star (when you get addicted to that song, as I did, download this file). This is, admittedly, a bit high-brow for newcomers to Air Guitar; a sampling from the Air Guitar Hall of Fame might be a better place to start if you are new to the medium, such as this classic performance by David "C-Diddy" Jung.

It's hard for me to explain why I'm so in love with Air Guitar (or Air Drumming, for that matter; check out Tom Sawyer Air Drummer. That guy is on) without coming across as a total geek, but, suffice it to say, this is my bag, baby. I love the fact that something requiring no skill at all is taken, refined and elevated to an art form, to the point that we have a US Champion of Air Guitar. Some might bemoan the corporatization of the art form as a blatant attempt at co-opting the medium towards mass-market appeal, but I say, hey, we've been down this road before, and if it fosters artistic expression, then I'm all for it.

I think Frank Zappa said it best when he said, "Music, in performance, is a type of sculpture. The air in the performance is sculpted into something." So true, man.

Library Banner

I've gotten a few comments/questions about the semi-new banner, so I thought I'd post the details. The picture is of the Reading Room in the British Museum. That's about all I know.

Here's the tricky part about the banners; I get an image in my head, something I think would look cool, and then go about trying to find an actual photograph of what I've envisioned. In case you've never tried this, it's really, really hard.

My original idea was of a perspective shot looking down a row of stacks in a stately old library, with shelves upon shelves of books going off forever into the shadows. Nice dark wood, warm lighting, musty books. I spent days scouring the net, to no avail. I looked on Amazon for books about libraries, I went to Barnes and Noble; nothing. I even took a camera to the New York City Public Library; they were closed. In the end, I had to go with something a little different than I had originally intended. I'm still pleased with the result, I guess I'll have to try to do the stacks one another time.

The first banner, you may remember, was of me, my brother and father, with a man standing behind us. The man is my grandfather, who had passed away around then. The next picture was of a roller coaster about to go over a big drop (you can't see the drop, but you can see the faces of the riders). This one also turned out differently than I had envisioned. I wanted to show just the back seat of a coaster, empty, against a large expanse of blue sky, with a few fingers, perhaps a hand or the top of a head reaching up from the bottom of the picture. I think the cicadas are self-explanatory. As for libraries, well, I love libraries; they give me the feeling of being surrounded by massive amounts of ephermeral knowledge.

In general with these banners, I'm trying to convey the unseen presence present in the picture. It is there, although you can't see it; it's truth is revealed through being, rather than proven objectively. None of this putting nature to the rack. Think of it as a little jab at positivism. I'm not sure if that qualifies as artistic or not, but I think it's a bit better than the giant metal monstrosity outside Penn Station, or "The Nominal Three," which, I will say, is even more illuminating in real life than in photo.

Cicada Banner

New banner up today. Thanks to Seadragon for contributing one of her cicada photos, which I cropped, rotated and resized to make just right for my banner needs. I should note that not only are the cicadas pictured authentic Brook X 2004 cicadas; they are 100% born-and-bred Baltimore cicadas, hon. I believe the one on the left is eating a crab cake.

The original image is of a host of cicadas attached to a tree. When rotated 90 degrees, they look to me like a massive cicada army, marching to war against their evil cicada enemies (Question: objectively, would the cicadas' enemies be Evil? Perhaps the cicadas themselves are evil, and their enemies are really Good? Cicadas, after all, do feed on human children.). Seriously, I would not want to be wherever those guys are headed.

For those of you visiting from outside Cicada Swarm, 2004, this picture will give you a good idea of what we face each day. Keep in mind that in real life, the cicada is close to 6 feet long, and moves at speeds of up to 60 mph. You're walking to your car in the morning, and BAM!, you're bug breakfast. Certainly makes things more interesting around here.

And for those of you arriving here via a Google search for "kosher laws cicadas", all I have to say is that Kosher Bite is not that bad that you need to be looking into other options. If David Chu's closes down, however, we'll talk.

New banner

In case you haven't noticed, I put up a new banner. Perhaps later I'll explain a little more what I'm trying to convey with these.

In the mean time, I'd like to draw your attention to the blond-haired boy in the upper right hand corner, sitting alone at the back of the ride. To me, he's the most intriguing of all the people in the picture. Perhaps it's because he's sitting in the back, and hasn't yet reacted to what's ahead, as the others in the front of him have. He also looks as if he's looking right at the camera. Either way, the smile on his face is priceless.

Tragic, Beautiful, Hilarious

[via Blogdigger News]
Who needs The Lord of the Rings, The Matrix or Star Wars when you can have the Mario Land Trilogy?

Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3.

I don't know art...

[via eebmore]

This exhibit sounds interesting.

death

February 1 - March 6, 2004

Reception: February 14th, 4pm - 9pm

Hours:

Sundays 12 - 3pm,
and by appointment

This group exhibition's intent is to comment on each artist's interpretation of mortality. This exhibition deals not only with the physical cessation of life, but the socio-cultural constructs built up around it, both on an intimate level as well as a grand scale.

From video and performance to large concrete sculptural forms, the approaches are as varied as the number of artists in the show. Each artist has selected the materials and forms that best convey his or her individual response to the complex and often unpleasant nature of Death.

You'll have to admit my tastes are very sophisticated.

Abandon Hope All Ye Who Enter Here

Ain't that the Struth

Who seems more alive? The painting or the viewers?

I love this picture.

Thoughts from others who probably know what their talking about are here.

Blogging as Art

I've always been interested in how blogs can be used as a medium for artistic expression. I am sure there are a few good examples out there. The best example I know of is Unbroken Glass. Unbroken Glass is a blog that chronicled the ups and downs (mostly downs) of an Orthodox Jewish ba'alat teshuvah's dating life (the name comes from the custom at a Jewish wedding for the groom to break a glass immiedietly after the ceremony, symbolizing that our happiness can never be complete without the rebuilding of the Beit HaMikdash/Temple in Jerusalem). She (as She is known; I thought this play on words was brilliant) would post story after heart-breaking story of how she was mistreated and how she mistreated. Each story was written with a gut-wrenching honesty and candor, in a expository style that I thought heart-felt and evocative (and quite impressive for an Israeli and non-English speaker). I read the site regularly, and the sense of despair and loneliness created by the weblog-style postings, along with the cryptic ruminations from She on her personal blog, clearly conveyed the pain and angst experienced by the author.

And then, a few weeks, perhaps a month, of nothing from She. No posts, no comments, no updates. I began to suspect, I began to hope, perhaps things have changed. And sure enough, after several posts from readers, the good news was announced.

And of course, the site would not be complete without the piece d'resistance, the broken glass. With that post, we get a sense that She is no longer alone; with the breaking of the glass, She becomes complete.

I'm interested in other ways that blogs can be used to convey artistic expression. Peninah mentions my suggestion for a blog that summarizes or links to inspirational stories of those that have recently died. Something about the temporal nature of the blog post (and really all journalism), contrasted with the conclusion of a life, strikes me as meaningful and artistic. Each day another life ends, and as time moves on, that person's life moves off the home page, into the archives...

If you have any thoughts, let me know, and if you know of any other sites that use blogs as means of artistic expression, leave them in the comments.