Promotional Image featuring Feelings (2011) and All in All (2010) by Brad Miller
I had the opportunity to visit the Edward Cella Art + Architecture gallery. The current show is called Primordial Algorithms by Brad Miller. It's an interesting exhibit. The works on display are of two categories, wood panels and ceramics. The uniting themes are their biomorphic impression and the utilization of fire in the process of creation.
Let's discuss the fire element first. In regards to the ceramics, the role of fire is obvious. However, with the wood panels, the compositional utilization of fire through the burning of patterns is interesting. The scorch marks have an organic, natural quality. Check this out:
Big Daddy (2011) by Brad Miller
The angle in which the scorches were made captures a natural sense of motion which is further enhanced by the wood grain. Additionally, the gradation of the burn marks creates a sense of depth within the panel, as if the red "cells" are emerging from the panel plane and trailing a burnt darkness that fades in the distance. It's an interesting technique.
As regards the biomorphic element, the exhibit has great complexity. First, both the ceramic works and the wood panels utilize designs that have a cellular impression, specifically evocation of the neural structures. In ceramic works such as Feelings, the impression is overt; from a neural core dendritic growths emerge.
Feelings (2011) by Brad Miller
On the other hand, the wood panels have the look of Golgi-stained neural samples, as though each panel is a slice of cerebral tissue manifested upon wood. Additionally, the use of bisymmetric design is strongly evocative of a biological subject. Observe the structure of All in All in the image at the top. It looks like an abstraction of a rostral-caudal slice of brain tissue from some alien biomorph. It even has ventricles and axonal terminals.
It's all very interesting and makes for compelling viewing. It isn't quite my taste in art, but I appreciate the distinctive aesthetic. Here's a vid showcasing Primordial Algorithms:
Here's a link to Edward Cella Art + Architecture gallery website.
1959 Cadillac Eldorado Biarritz Convertible "Elvis II" customized by John D'Agostino
I recently visited the Petersen Automotive Museum. I'm not much of a car enthusiast, but I can certainly appreciate a fine bit of design and engineering. Additionally, I enjoy looking at things from a historical perspective, and the Petersen does a good job of displaying their collection within a historic context.
Their "Streetscape" exhibit is specifically geared towards examining the development of automotive culture over the course of the 20th century. Vintage cars are displayed within dioramas representing the appropriate era. This is further enhanced with educational placards providing information on the era, auto, or display. Although designed for accessibility to a young audience, there is sufficient material to capture an adult's interest.
Here are a few photos from the "Streetscape" exhibit:
1903 Cadillac Model A Runabout; top speed: 30mph
1935 Ford Phaeton & 1939 Pontiac Station Wagon
1994 Bugatti EB110; top speed: 210mph
Of course, one of the highlights of visiting the Petersen is the "Hollywood Gallery" wherein cars from movies and television are on display. My favorite was:
Although the movie was horrible, I was still charmed to see the Mach 5.
On the other hand, when I saw Herbie, I got fairly excited but then I noticed that it was from that abominable Lindsay Lohan movie from 2005. Bummer.
I also enjoyed looking at the Hot Wheels gallery. I used to be an avid collector when I was child. Somewhere, my parents still have it packed away. Ah, the memories. . .
But the best exhibit was "Supercars: When Too Much Is Almost Enough." Merely walking into the gallery made my testosterone level increase. Normally, I don't get "car envy" but these aren't normal cars. My favorites were:
1963 Ferrarii 400 Superamerica; top speed: 164mph
1969 Lamborghini Miura 5; top speed 173mph
1992 Jaguar XJ220; top speed: 213mph
Yeah. Most excellent display of automotive greatness. I want!!! ;-)
Here's a vid from the Petersen in promotion of the Supercar exhibit:
On this date in 1986, Top Gun was released. Starring Tom Cruise, Val Kilmer, and Kelly McGillis, this movie went on to top the Box Office chart for the year, earning $176.7 million domestically. That's HUGE money in '86.
I saw this movie on opening weekend. The flight scenes were mighty cool, but I wasn't big on the movie overall. I never got the big hype over Tom Cruise. And the machismo of this film was just stupid and flat. I'd have enjoyed the movie more if it was just a sequence of awesome flight action. Oh, and Kelly McGillis was definitely a hottie. ;-)
I haven't seen Top Gun since '86. I wonder how I'd feel about it if I watched it today. Was I too young to fully appreciate the plot? Would I find the characterization more compelling twenty-five years later? I'm doubtful on both counts, but it's possible. After all, I hated this song back in the day, but I find it charming now:
I feel somewhat deficient writing this week's Wrap Up. Our post per day ratio plunged somethin' fierce, as did page views. The blame goes to the Great Blogger Fail that disabled my ability to post for a few days. After having a few posts disappear during the Fail, I was mighty reluctant to write anything of substance until a decent recovery period had passed. It's been three days since the Fail was resolved, so I think it's safe to post the Wrap Up.
So, few though they may be, here are the week's topics:
I celebrated the birthday of Anne Sofie von Otter, one of my favorite mezzo-sopranos, in Make It Interesting. We admired her vocal versatility by listening to a variety of performances, including some Schubert lieder. Exquisite music!!!
Rodin Amidst the Palms
Then I mused upon my favorite type of tree in Palmam Qui Meriut Ferat. In doing so, I touched briefly upon mythic and symbolic aspects of the Palm Tree.
In What Ails You?, we considered West End Girls by the Pet Shop Boys and the popular music context of 1986. It wasn't always good, but it certainly was interesting.
I considered the mind-reading technology of the Necomimi "cat ears" in What's New Pussycat? Yeah, cosplay can get peculiar, but the basic technology is a step towards some very interesting devices.
In Three Tequila, Floor, I vented my rage against the mind-numbingly stupid commercials for 1800 Tequila. Seriously, what type of drooling incompetent needs to have their tequila bottle measure out a shot?!! My disrespect for this ad campaign is so great that it transcends my ability to verbally express. So I linked to a Pee-wee Herman vid.
We celebrated the birth date of Dimitri Tiomkin, a composer best known for some classic cinematic Western themes and scores, in High Noon. And we included a vid with Rawhide!!! Who could ask for anything more?
The the Great Blogger Fail struck, messing up my post sequence. Curses!!! Here's the sequence in which they were intended:
Pazuzu HATES the Great Blogger Fail!!!
In Post 100, I celebrated hitting this important milestone. I assessed my development as a blogger and noted which posts were of greatest interest to my readers. As you can see, it was during the creation of this post that I decided to spice up my "meta" posts with photos and vids. ;-)
We mused over the various name changes of Istanbul in To the City. Guess what song was featured in the linked vid.
We celebrated the birth date of the composer Gabriel Faure in The Languor of the Sun. Specifically, we considered the musical structure of the Pavane and how this antique artform is made aesthetically relevant by a process of reinterpretation and thematic appropriation.
Then I wrote a brief book review of Kazuo Ishiguro's novel, Never Let Me Go, in Thinking About the Rubbish. This was my first book review for this blog. It will not be the last. However, this was the post that got mangled up during the Great Blogger Fail, so I'm unhappy with the end result. Oh well, we'll do better next time.
Blogger returned to basic functionality just in time for our weekly flower post. So we marked the Fail with a brief post, Failure Flowers For Friday. We didn't include any poetry in this post in protest of the irritations of the past few days.
Finally, we celebrated the birth date of Jazz pioneer Sidney Bechet in Playin' the "Wrong" Chord. Great music. Woo hoo!!!
Well, that's it for the Fourth Weekly Wrap Up. Hopefully, we can do better this upcoming week. I've definitely got plenty of things that I would like to discuss. I hope you all are enjoying these posts.
Sidney Bechet, one of the earliest great jazz soloists, was born on this date in 1897 and passed away on this date in 1959. Although he was recorded in 1923, he didn't gain widespread recognition until the 1940s. His erratic temperment was a major reason why he didn't achieve a level of recognition similar to that of his peer, Louis Armstrong.
The emulation of and reference to historical themes and subjects is an important element within my personal aesthetic expressions. For me, Art don't manifest ex nihilo from creative genius, but is generated through the synthesizing of diverse influences into a unique expression. Among these influences is the historical dialectic of symbols and techniques.
The birth date of Gabriel Faure (born in 1845) brought this topic to mind as I was listening to his Pavane, Op.50, composed in 1887, nearly three centuries after the heyday of this dance style.
Now, listen to an original era pavane, John Dowland's Lachrimae Antiquae from 1604. (Note that Dowland's title is implying a historical reference.)
Let's jump foward to the generation that followed Faure to Maurice Ravel's Pavane pour une Infante Defunte (1899) and, using the Dowland composition as a baseline, consider differences of how this work expresses the basic form from that of Faure's. (BTW, Ravel was a student of Faure's at the Conservatoire de Paris at the time that this composed.)
Given the title, Ravel's Pavane has been associated with various images of Spanish Princesses. Whether or not the composer intended these connotations is irrelevant. His title and use of the antique dance form lead the reviewer to them.
Las Meninas by Diego Velazquez (1656)
Finally, let's look at John Adams' "Pavane: She's So Fine" from John's Book of Alleged Dances (1994). The title of this Post-Modernist work is a direct reference to Dowland's compositions, but how direct is the interpretation of the pavane?
Anyways, the point of this post is that we have a rich history of ideas, styles, symbols, and techniques from which to draw upon for our own aesthetic expressions. Use them.
View of Constantinople by Moonlight by Ivan Aivazovsky (1846)
In the year 330, the city of Byzantium was renamed Nova Roma by the emperor Constantine. It soon became known as Constantinople, the city of Constantine. The "new Rome" became the Imperial capitol and reflected the prioritization of Roman interests, from the Latin West to the Greek East.
With Imperial resources focused eastward, the West faced an inexorable decline. Within 150 years of the new orientation, the Western Empire collapsed in 476 with the ousting of Romulus Augustulus by the Germanic chieftain Odoacer. However, the Eastern Empire survived as the Byzantine Empire until the Ottoman Turks took Constantinople in 1453. It wasn't always pretty, but the City of Constantine was made to endure.
With the founding of the Republic of Turkey in 1923, the city was officially renamed Istanbul, a name which had been informally used for centuries. Of all the names the city has had, I like the sound of Istanbul most. However, the Thracian name, Lygos, from around the 12th century BC, has a nice sound to it. ;-)
Wow! When I started this project, I didn't really expect it to work out. Especially when the technical difficulties hit in mid-March, I was marking my adventures into blogging as a certain failure. Well, when you hit One Hundred blog posts in a single quarter of activity, then you can count yourself as a "blogger".
Yeah, plenty of my early posts are glorified "link" posts: a picture, a vid, a link, and a paragraph of brief commentary. But I've gotten better. My basic template is still pic/comment/vid/link, but I think that the quality and quantity of my original content has dramatically improved. For instance, look at my posts regarding Roman History:
In Beware the Ides of March, I hardly provided more than a pic of Julius Caesar and a Wikipedia link. There really is no point to this post, except to point of the historical significance of the day. Grade = F
The situation is improved when we get to the birth date of Septimus Severus in And Scorn All Other Men. My original content is considerably better in that I provide some historical information as to why we should take note of the date. Moreover, there is a premise that I assert; Severus is an interesting historic figure who frequently gets undeservedly overlooked. However, in both cases, it's a "bare bones" argument. I could have put more "meat" into it. Grade = D
Finally, The Wellspring of Good marks the birth date of the philosopher emperor Marcus Aurelius. In this post, I put a decent amount of effort explaining why I admire this historic figure. The accompanying vid is fairly informative. My links are helpful to any reader that has interest in learning more about Marcus Aurelius. Grade = C
Caesar, Aurelius, Severus
Alright, that still averages a D Grade, but the trend is positive. And that gives me hope. This whole blogging thing doesn't come easily to me. Being able to discern such rapid improvement over a two month period makes me happy.
As regards my readership, it fairly minimal at this point. However, I don't really expect too much more than that, seeing as how I've done zero promotion. My feelings are that, before I can go out and ask people to check out my blog, I need to have reached a certain grade of quality, quantity, and regularity. This post marks my attainment of the "quantity" pre-req. Hurray!!!
Now, I need to keep working on the quality and continue maintaining regularity of content production. I'm averaging a little under three posts per day over the last month. That's a decent production rate for an amateur blog, but it can be improved. There needs to be enough new material over the course of a week to make regular visit to Paideia worthwhile. Three posts a day is the minimum average, in my estimation.
So, to celebrate Post 100, here are the Top 5 articles, according to my readership's interests:
1) Gateway: Japan at the Torrance Art Museum. This article was my third museum post. My first museum post was about the Pacific Asia Museum in To Cross the Magpie Bridge, which was light on text and average on photos. My second post was about UCLA's Fowler Museum in Places to See: Fowler Museum at UCLA, which reversed the problem: good text and no photos. Apparently, Gateway: Japan got the combo just right. ;-)
Capitoline Donkey by Nobuhito Nishigawara
2) Sweet Music Soft and Mellow is another museum post, focusing on my visit to LACMA in which a saw a performance by Denise Donatelli and the Magna Carta. Woo hoo!!!
3) Demons of the Wind is another museum post, featuring a review of an exhibit of Roberto Cuoghi's work at the Hammer Museum. The readers seem to be coming from different areas for this post. Half are art enthusiasts looking for info on Cuoghi. Half are gamers looking for stuff on the demon, Pazuzu. Interesting combo.
Here's a vid that might appeal to either crowd:
4) That They Were Fair is an art post about the works of Daniel Chester French. I give my assessment of his style and provide a few links, and an interesting vid. Kind of an odd post to have such a comparatively high readership, but that's cool.
5) Precarious Transition from Girl to Woman is another art post, featuring the photo series "Sparrow Lane" by Holly Andres. It is my third post regarding the use of tableaux. I'm guessing that the readership for this post comes from Nancy Drew enthusiasts. Hmm. . .
The Pink Chair by Holly Andres
In any case, it looks like the area that generates the greatest interest in my readership is the "Art Blog" material. That's cool. I enjoy writing those types of posts, although they generally take significant prep time. As long as I can make time for visiting museums or galleries, I'll have some art blogging for you all. :-)
In any case, thanks for reading. Here's to the next 100 blog posts!!!
I am an avid reader. Although I prefer nonfiction, I do pick up a few fictional reads. Usually, they are escapist genre pieces, fun but of little aesthetic heft. In particular, I am a fan of Science Fiction novels. The main reason is that these novels can be read for mere thrills, but the better works provide something worthy of thought in addition to the engaging plot.
Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro is technically a SF novel, but I'd classify it a mainstream fiction. Here's my review:
"What's the rhubarb patch got to do with any of this?"
This is a story about sacrifice and acceptance told through the narrative of Kathy and developed through her interactions with her peers, Ruth and Tommy. The novel is divided into three parts: school days, coming of age, and destiny. The novel's premise is a standard of Science Fiction, but I will not explicitly discuss it because that would be a bit of a spoiler. Suffice it to say that the main characters are revealed as being "special" early on in the novel, although extremely sheltered from external society. As the novel progresses, the reason for their "specialness" and the predetermined sacrifice that it entails becomes clear.
We begin the story in the mid-1990s in England, Kathy is a "carer" for "special" patients. She comes from a privileged educational background, an elite institution called Hailsham. Some of her patients enjoy hearing tales about Hailsham and this leads her into reflections about her childhood school days. In these reflections we meet Ruth, her best friend, and Tommy, an emotional boy with whom Kathy shares a special rapport.
From this introductory point, we are presented with two stands of conflict/resolution. First, there is the personal challenge; the three main characters are engaged in a triangular relationship in which Kathy is the "odd man out". How is that to be resolved? Second, from their sheltered existence at Hailsham, the main characters slowly become aware of their purpose in life and the value that society places upon them as sentient beings. Having been presented with such a destiny, what actions can the main characters take to affirm their value and/or control their fate?
Structurally, the first section lays out the basic premise and evidence, both pro and con, for the resolutions of these conflicts. The second part tackles the person challenge of the triangular relationship. The third part deals with destiny and the existential challenge. There is certainly interplay between the three sections, especially in the ongoing dialectic of "value".
What is "rubbish" and what is "quality"? These are central themes underlying the conflicts. The answers to these questions determines the resolution. For instance, as school kids, they have "collections" of art and poetry that their peers at Hailsham created. However, upon leaving Hailsham, the external society may not hold high opinion of such "collections". So, in light of this new vantage point, does one see the "collection" as "rubbish" or "quality"?
"Memories, even your most precious ones, fade surprisingly quickly. But I don’t go along with that. The memories I value most, I don’t ever see them fading."
The prose is exquisite. The characters are accessible and feel authentic. The settings are rich and evocative, especially Hailsham. The plot is well structured and compelling, which is only apparent upon contemplation afterwards. On a cursory read this novel seems to fall into the "Literature without Plot" category, but that's mistaking "action" for "conflict and resolution". Kathy makes many significant choices throughout the novel, which have lasting ramifications on her destiny.
In conclusion, I recommend this book. The quality of the writing makes for an easy read, but the quality of the concept makes for a great deal of thought. If you're looking for a light read, then this isn't for you. If you're interested in thought-stimulating fiction, you've found a winner
On this date in 1894, Dimitri Tiomkin was born. I'm not a big fan of his music. It does the job, but, among the early giants of the cinematic genre, he's not ranked highly in my book. However, there are a few pieces that masterpieces.
Perhaps the greatest of them is "Do Not Forsake Me, Oh My Darling" from High Noon. It captures the entire spirit of the film. I makes clear the human anxiety of abandonment and the inexorable pressure of duty. Yeah, it's a bit cheesy by modern standards, but that's more of a negative reflection upon modern times than upon Tiomkin's composition.
Here's a vid:
There are other noteworthy works, such as the theme to Rawhide:
Anyways, here's a link to Dimitri Tiomkin's Wikipedia page.
There is a series of commercials for 1800 Tequila that I absolutely detest. Now, I've never tasted 1800. I'm not much of a tequila enthusiast, although I do partake on occasion. But the ads are so low brow and smooth-brained that I've grown to actively dislike 1800 tequila. I don't want to taste any beverage that is promoted with such aggressive stupidity.
Observe:
Yeah, how brain-numbingly drunk do you need to be before you need a "special" cap to pour a shot of tequila? We're not talking about mixing up some fancy cocktail. We are not talking about some showy pours and presentation. We are talking about pouring a shot. A SHOT!!!!!
Who freakin' cares if the Patron bottle can't pour a shot?! If you ever find yourself incapable of doing this exceedingly easy task, then maybe you should put away the tequila and crawl off to the bathroom, where you probably will soon need to be visiting.
Man, that commercial makes me mad. They'd have done a better job of promoting their tequila if they went with this instead:
