Penny Arcade

The 400 Blows

2010-08-21T18:08:00.000-07:00

According to a multiplicity of sources the title is an expression in French for raising hell. I find “raising hell” a weird choice for a film that borders upon sentimentality but ends up becoming archetypal. Doniel who has been often ignored or misunderstood is stuck in the awkward phase of adolescence with no one to guide him. He does not respect his teachers or parents and ends up spending most of his time hanging about the city of Paris with his best friend, watching movies, going to the carnival, smoking and walking around aimlessly. Sick of school and his home life he ends up being quasi-vagrant. It becomes a logical choice to steal a typewriter from his fathers work so that he can continue his lifestyle of bumming around by going on a trip. He is caught returning the machine after he is unsuccessful in selling it for the cash he needs to go to the sea. He is incarcerated because his mother tells the authorities she doesn’t want to deal with him and his “Father” isn’t even his Father just a step-parent so “can you please put him in a camp by the sea”.
The lynch pin of the movie in terms of the showing of the characters transformation is the scene where he is watching a “Punch and Judy” type show with his friend before going to steal the machine to fund his continuing vagrancy. He is in a room with a bunch of young Parisians who are enjoying the show in a childlike awe and restlessness. He is in the back watching but simultaneously planning to steal. His attempt to fund his escapism is mixed up with his innocence and fragility. He is in between being a delinquent youth and a young child who is confused and innocent in his desires. As he makes the transition and steals the typewriter and is eventually caught and incarcerated the cage of misunderstanding and lack of maternal love has become a much more real cage of prison bars and state control. As he is leaving the city he roamed in the back of a police transport wagon he begins to cry and the moment of frustration is transformed into one of cinematic beauty. That is matched by his mothers desire that he would be put in a juvenile detention camp near the sea. By the end of the film Doniel finds what he has been looking for but the viewer is left with the impression that it won’t be idyllic as we see vast empty beaches and realize that our anti-hero is very much alone and very much shipwrecked.

On The Waterfront

2010-06-27T14:00:00.000-07:00

A landmark movie. For my money Brando gives one of the best performances of the 20th century. The movie is full of the things that made me fall in love with the cinema: a man whose back is up against the wall must make a decision of conscience and love despite the odds he overcomes.

Brando plays the perfect unsuspecting hero with all the history and flaws of a washed up boxer who has taken one too many dives and eroded his own confidence and sense of worth and is fighting against a system of corruption and family ties. You feel the weight of the characters history in Brando’s looks and the pathos with which he delivers dialogue with an a chagrin and clear honesty The supporting cast matches him all along. There isn’t a bad performance in the movie.

The way pigeons and pigeon cages are used throughout the movie is a very clever visualization of the psychological state of the characters. In the opening shot Brando catches a pigeon and releases it before a fellow longshoreman that he unknowingly set up gets pushed off a roof; the inciting incident of the whole plot. Later he is seen feeding the pigeons of the departed man whose coop is next to his own. The pigeon serve as a reminder of his death and also as a symbol of desire and loss. Later Brando shows the sister of the departed who has fallen in love with him his own would be prize winning birds and introduces him to his kid assistant. Towards the end of the movie his birds are killed due to him not playing along with the deaf and dumb policy of the kickbacks and corruption of the longshoreman. “a pigeon for a pigeon” is yelled at him by his kid assistant who throws one of the dead birds at Brando. Before the final showdown between him and the boss he is in the pigeon coop holding his prized pigeon which is reminiscent of the conversation he had with his brother in a cab, who is the right hand man to the corrupted leader of the longshoremen, when he makes his famous speech about how he could have been a contender and how his own brother didn’t look out for him. The wood work of the pigeon cages and the birds landing and dying on them also reminded me of the final scene where he has to ascend a gang plank to take over the union and oust the crooked boss and defeat the traitor within himself that took dives and was a rat. This speaks powerfully to our day in age where corruption and fear are so easily taken on. We can no longer afford to be rats we must stand up and be counted as contenders.

Bukowski and Poetry.

2009-02-27T10:57:00.000-08:00

I have been reading poetry again. Not for anything but for me. It is good for the soul. We trust our poets to make life more bearable by illuminating our secret thoughts, hopes and desires. Or at least giving them better language. I have been reading Bukowski's "The Flash of Lightning behind the mountain" Check it out. Also Ranier Maria Rilke's "letters to a young poet" and "Possibility of Being". Here is a Bukowski.

be cool, fool

You have to accept this
reality
wether you
sit at a punch press all day or
wether you
work in a coal mine or
wether you come home
exhausted from a cardboard box factory
to find
3 kids bouncing dirty tennis balls
against the walls of a
2 room flat as
your fat wife sleeps while
the dinner burns
away.

you have to accept this
reality
which includes enough nations with
enough nuclear stockpiles to
blow away the very center of the
earth
and to finally liberate
the Devil
Himself
with his
spewing red fire of liquid
doom

you have to accept this reality
as the madhouse walls
bulge
break
and the terrified insane
flood our
ugly streets

you have to accept terrible
reality.

Wendell Berry

2008-10-18T17:56:00.000-07:00

I love poetry. It has a way of getting to the heart of a matter. This is a great one by Wendell Berry. Read his others which are very good too.

Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front by Wendell Berry

Love the quick profit, the annual raise,
vacation with pay. Want more
of everything ready-made. Be afraid
to know your neighbors and to die.

And you will have a window in your head.
Not even your future will be a mystery
any more. Your mind will be punched in a card
and shut away in a little drawer.

When they want you to buy something
they will call you. When they want you
to die for profit they will let you know.
So, friends, every day do something
that won't compute. Love the Lord.
Love the world. Work for nothing.
Take all that you have and be poor.
Love someone who does not deserve it.

Denounce the government and embrace
the flag. Hope to live in that free
republic for which it stands.
Give your approval to all you cannot
understand. Praise ignorance, for what man
has not encountered he has not destroyed.

Ask the questions that have no answers.
Invest in the millenium. Plant sequoias.
Say that your main crop is the forest
that you did not plant,
that you will not live to harvest.

Say that the leaves are harvested
when they have rotted into the mold.
Call that profit. Prophesy such returns.
Put your faith in the two inches of humus
that will build under the trees
every thousand years.

Listen to carrion -- put your ear
close, and hear the faint chattering
of the songs that are to come.
Expect the end of the world. Laugh.
Laughter is immeasurable. Be joyful
though you have considered all the facts.
So long as women do not go cheap
for power, please women more than men.

Ask yourself: Will this satisfy
a woman satisfied to bear a child?
Will this disturb the sleep
of a woman near to giving birth?

Go with your love to the fields.
Lie down in the shade. Rest your head
in her lap. Swear allegiance
to what is nighest your thoughts.

As soon as the generals and the politicos
can predict the motions of your mind,
lose it. Leave it as a sign
to mark the false trail, the way
you didn't go.

Be like the fox
who makes more tracks than necessary,
some in the wrong direction.
Practice resurrection.

Why?

2008-08-31T21:08:00.001-07:00

I went to a church tonight and someone asked me "Why I moved to Long Beach?"

I gave them the usual spiel and then on my way home I realize there was another reason that I hadn't mentioned.

It was a song, a hope and a experiences all rolled into one.

I thought of the song and the first time I heard it. It was on the M6 motorway in the U.K on the way to Brighton with a mixed CD made for us by Becky Wilberham with my friend Jamie on my side making a pilgrimage before I left the country for my next step in the journey and he went on the road before him. The song is by Baz Lurhmann and is titled "wear sunscreen"

Ladies and Gentlemen of the class of ’99
If I could offer you only one tip for the future, sunscreen would be it. The long term benefits of sunscreen have been proved by
scientists whereas the rest of my advice has no basis more reliable than my own meandering experience

I will dispense this advice now.
Enjoy the power and beauty of your youth
oh never mind; you will not understand the power and beauty of your youth until they have faded.
But trust me, in 20 years you’ll look back at photos of yourself and recall in a way you can’t grasp now how much possibility lay before you and how fabulous you really looked

You’re not as fat as you imagine.

Don’t worry about the future; or worry, but know that worrying is as effective as trying to solve an algebra equation by chewing
bubblegum. The real troubles in your life are apt to be things that never crossed your worried mind; the kind that blindside you at 4pm on some idle Tuesday.

Do one thing everyday that scares you

Sing

Don’t be reckless with other people’s hearts, don’t put up with people who are reckless with yours.

Floss

Don’t waste your time on jealousy; sometimes you’re ahead, sometimes you’re behind…the race is long, and in the end, it’s only with yourself.

Remember the compliments you receive, forget the insults; if you succeed in doing this, tell me how.

Keep your old love letters; throw away your old bank statements.

Stretch

Don’t feel guilty if you don’t know what you want to do with your life…the most interesting people I know didn’t know at 22 what they wanted to do with their lives, some of the most interesting 40 year olds I know still don’t know.

Get plenty of calcium.

Be kind to your knees, you’ll miss them when they’re gone.

Maybe you’ll marry, maybe you won’t, maybe you’ll have children,maybe you won’t, maybe you’ll divorce at 40, maybe you’ll dance the funky chicken on your 75th wedding anniversary…what ever you do, don’t congratulate yourself too much or berate yourself either – your choices are half chance, so are everybody else’s.

Enjoy your body, use it every way you can…don’t be afraid of it, or what other people think of it, it’s the greatest instrument you’ll ever own

Dance even if you have nowhere to do it but in your own living room.

Read the directions, even if you don’t follow them.

Do NOT read beauty magazines, they will only make you feel ugly.

Get to know your parents, you never know when they’ll be gone for good.

Be nice to your siblings; they are the best link to your past and the people most likely to stick with you in the future.

Understand that friends come and go,but for the precious few you should hold on. Work hard to bridge the gaps in geography and lifestyle because the older you get, the more you need the people you knew when you were young.

Live in New York City once, but leave before it makes you hard; live in Northern California once, but leave before it makes you soft.

Travel.

Accept certain inalienable truths, prices will rise, politicians will philander, you too will get old, and when you do you’ll fantasize that when you were young prices were reasonable, politicians were noble and children respected their elders. Respect your elders.

Don’t expect anyone else to support you. Maybe you have a trust fund, maybe you have a wealthy spouse; but you never know when either one might run out.

Don’t mess too much with your hair, or by the time you're 40, it will look 85.

Be careful whose advice you buy, but, be patient with those who supply it. Advice is a form of nostalgia, dispensing it is a way of fishing the past from the disposal, wiping it off, painting over the ugly parts and recycling it for more than
it’s worth.

But trust me on the sunscreen…

The song especially struck me because for a number of reasons. I was a surrogate of the class of '99. I took my proficiency test that year to leave high school early. I am from N. California and know that you can become soft there and this struck me as I wanted to have the experience of living in a big city eventually. This is one of the reasons that I started looking at Long Beach as a option for school. As for the experiences that night me and Jamie got to the beach late at night and I got a chance to see the brighton pavilion lit up at night I had never seen it in the day light so I saw it for the first time in all its romanticism. Exotic and glowing. We spent the night in the car and woke to the waves crashing walked on the beach and read the bible and prayed together for our individual journeys. This had been a symbol of that life journey we each were taking next and we wanted to enact that by journeying together with God in a moment of time.

That was the beginning of my next step towards school and art. Although I did not know where the road would lead I saw the way and that song has been a sign post along the way. I have been learning to not live with regrets, not to worry and to trust God and move forward.

Rob Bell talks about truth in the book velvet Elvis and our ability as christians to affirm truth wherever we find it. Meaning that we should not be afraid of science and other religions and learning but should delve into the fullness of life. I find that often we hold back afraid to be ourselves looking around to see if we are doing it right. Go for it live life. Don't worry; If you get broadsided by a semi on an idle tuesday at 4pm you will be okay and life will go on trust me I know. Go the whole wide world.

Jeff Koons

2008-05-12T11:27:00.000-07:00

I was recently required to critique an artists work for a ceramics class. I choose to look at the art of Jeff Koons. I find pop art to be repulsive, interesting, inspiring and challenging.

Jeff Koons: A Critique Of His Banality Series

I find the work of Jeff Koons repulsive in a way that makes me want to look at it again and again. It is obvious that he is a part of the group of artists that work in the tawdry and overdone. In his banality series (as seen on his website www.jeffkoons.com) he undertook a number of pieces in porcelain and also in wood. I will be focusing on a few of his porcelain pieces. All the porcelain pieces are done in editions of three plus the artist proof. A device used to make more money from his work.
He reminds me of the rest of the pseudo-pop/funk artists that use shocking and kitsch images to make a point about the disconnect of images and meaning in our society and to spit in the face of fine art by making absurd images and calling them high art.
His piece “St. John the Baptist” depicts an image of John the Baptist pointing to the cross behind him whilst cradling a pig and a type of bird in his arms. It is done in the style of an Icon in that it is idealized and colorful. John the Baptist is seen with a sort of Mona Lisa like half smile on his face and a blank sort of stare. Pigs are used as a sign of banality in this series as seen in the sculptor of children guiding a pig forward titled “ushering banality” I find this particularly striking in juxtaposition to the kitsch symbolism of the church as it parodies the historic iconography of the church with all its pomp and circumstance of former days. The fact that John is holding a pig is significant in that he is a Jewish man and it is not kosher for them to eat pork. He points to a gold gilded and idyllic cross that is depicted as a dainty piece of jewelry rather than a death instrument thus poking at the way in which religious iconography has become vulgar statuary and encrusted jewelry in our day in age.
The work Pink Panther depicts a bare-chested woman cupping the pink panther to her chest with one hand and her breast with her other hand. She has her head thrown back to the side and is seen with a plastic smile, bright red lipstick and diamond earrings. She also has a pink bow in her hair and a gold gilded bracelet on her wrist. She is a blonde woman who has the stereotypical California blonde-bombshell look.
The Pink Panther is an icon that originated with the pink panther movies about a bumbling detective originally used in the opening credits of the movie and then made into its own cartoon. The only meaning I get from this piece is the stereotyping of the typical blonde bimbo holding a ridiculous Hollywood icon. Therefore pointing out the fakeness and banality of an overdone and over-popular stereotypical Hollywood aesthetic where the people and the movies are fake and glitzy.
As seen in some of his other pieces such as “Woman in the Tub” and “Fait d’hiver” he is prone to showing idealized depictions of femininity that are erotic and somewhat negative. These can be interpreted in a number of different ways. He is showing them as sex symbols: all the women in this series are partially nude and have the perfect body type. In “Woman in the Tub” we get a depiction of a subject that pays homage to art history in the depiction of women bathing. His rendition is very erotic. The woman’s head is not depicted making her any woman but not the typical body type of day to day women that you meet. What he shows is her wet hair plastered against her torso. She is also depicted in his typical kitsch manner with the use of bright colors. What appears to be a party hat is floating in the bubbles next to her in the tub which gives me the impression of bathing after a party.
These images could be seen to be condemning the idealization of the women and their bodies by overdoing that which is predominant in culture and thus pointing out the ridiculousness of our society but they are more likely to be read not as moralizing about what should be but exaggerating for good or bad what our world is like. It could be that the artist does idealize feminine beauty and thus is desirous of making representations of it this is probably the case when considered in conjunction with the rest of his work if this is the case additionally he could be desiring the make public what has often been hidden and shamed in our society sex and lust.
Although I do not like all the images I find them fascinating in that he is speaking to the tacky element of a society that sells porcelain figurines of stuffed animals, flowers and precious moments. His use of hyperbole reminds me that the glitzy-idealized is not the world that exists in reality but one of our own making.

Reading and a sketchbook

2008-04-14T09:42:00.000-07:00

First off anyone who is artistic or has the inclination to be should read "Letters to a Young Poet" a compilation of letters from Rainer Maria Rilke to a young would be poet. They are full of the type of wisdom needed on the journey of self discovery all artists must go through; so that the can learn to trust themselves.

I had a strange experience today. It was almost allegorical. I stopped in at a coffee shop on my way to school to get a cup and decided to sketch outside whilst waking up. I got in my car and on the way to school heard and saw something like my sketchbook fly off of the roof of my car. I left it up there. After turning around I was able to see a spray of white papers floating away as cars dodged my artistic journey. Something about watching the record of my last months ideas and thoughts about art spraying about HWY 299 was both beautiful and melancholy.

I was reading a collective about the life and work Jasper Johns and he destroyed all of the work he had in his possession when he was about the same age as I am now. I had been contemplating doing the same thing even before I read this about him. When I saw my sketchbook on the freeway I realized that I didn't want to destroy my work any more. I also realized I am sick of letting my talents go to the wind (literally this time) by letting fear control me.

Improv Everywhere

2008-03-12T16:29:00.000-07:00

A site that I thought was very interesting on a sort of performance art. www.improveverywhere.com I especially liked the freeze subway.

Secret Garden

2008-01-16T10:37:00.000-08:00

There is a children's story that is by Frances Hodgson Burnett that I imagine a number of you have either read or at least seen the movie. In which a young girl goes to live with her uncle because of circumstances in her life. She wants to have a bit of earth she can call her own to tend to on the vast estate. She is given permission from her uncle to pick anything she likes. She finds a walled and hidden garden on the estate that has been left untended although it was once a place of obvious beauty. she goes about quietly restoring it with help from a few friends.

I think that this is a great metaphor for the creative life we all need to have our "bit of earth" that we tend to even if people don't know about it. Whether of not we make our livings in creative professions it is important either way to have a secret garden of sorts in our lives. What is your secret Garden and have you been tending it? Read the book or watch the movie and think about what you would like your "bit of earth " to be.

World Cafe and Pandora

2007-12-28T15:21:00.000-08:00

I am a music fan. I think in the truest sense of the word as I do really like music in its entirety. Of couse there are songs I prefer but I have to go far and wide to find a genre that I don't like. That is really an aside; as we tumble down this rabbit hole called life I would like to highlight a few web music sites that I especially apprecitate:

one is called Pandora a online radio station that plays what you want it is at www.pandora.com it works by you starting with a seed song and voting on what they mix based on the analysis of that "type" of music.

The other is found at www.npr.com and is a radio program called "World Cafe" you can listen to the old shows where they interview new and old artists and we get to hear them perform live. You can listen to the archives. They are great!!!

Check it out if you know of any other great ones let me know!

Trains travel through snowy hills.

2007-12-24T16:14:00.000-08:00

It has been almost four years since I have been on a train journey and I have never been on an American train trip I have only used trains in Europe so I was a bit apprehensive about the trip but nonetheless very excited. Something about travel has always captivated me. There is a quote in a apt, for the Christmas season movie called It’s a wonderful life where George asks his uncle “You know what the three greatest sounds in the world are?” His eventual answer is “Anchor chains, airplane engines and train whistles”

I thought about making a mix of songs for the occasion but ran out of time as finals were nearing to a close. I do however recommend listening to Eva Cassidy and David Gray whilst on a train. Both of them have that sort of soulful longing in their music/voices that speaks to me much like travel does. Anyway I arrived at the station sometime around 3:30 am dropped off by my roommate. The train was late once on I tried to go to sleep but couldn’t as I was in the aisle and kept being knocked into. A few hours later I awoke from my half sleep in Dunsmuir when a couple of ladies got on at 6am and started talking incessantly. Time to go get coffee and a muffin so I perused the lower level of the train until I found the café and went back up to the viewing car with my treats in tow. The view was breathtaking.

Some cool people a little way down had a guitar and were singing first we got “Folsom Prison” The line I hear a train-a-coming it’s just around the bend” was very fitting (a shot of them below). I later had a conversation with a girl from UC Davis about public transport (one of her passions and studies) and eventually about Europe and where we were headed and the like.

Then the guitar family got to singing Christmas Carols and everyone joined in it was great. I sang for a while and then went back to my seat to talk to the person sitting next to me and try and sleep with earphones in for a hour or so. I eventually got up around lunch and met some high school kids who were from the Mojave desert and had been on the train from LA headed to Seattle a crazy 32 hour ride or so. I later played cards with them. All in all great experience although by the end I felt like I needed a Bloody Mary or some type of sleeping pill or else I would go crazy.
Who is up for a cross country train experience? I think it would be cool if we brought some bicycles along we could go to Chicago, head to small town America and then maybe wind up in NY City. Who knows after that maybe we could sell our bikes and head to Europe to teach English for 6 mos. The wild road beckons and you never know where it will take you.

I never did finish my book so I guess I will have to try on the way back.

Random Fun Stuff

2007-12-14T11:35:00.000-08:00

About every three weeks or so I get a strange level of glee from going to a locally owned coffee shop in the city I live in and asking a particular Barista who shall remain nameless to protect their anonymity. To make me a "special" drink and to call it out under the name Amadeus. I give this person, who also seems to get an inordinate amount of joy from the experience, a few guidelines such as don't make it with eggnog or I would like it such and such a size and hot. But the rest is up to their magic hands. I enjoy this so much it is like a drug to me.
Another very strange thing that I find to be completely enjoyable is to write a small piece of poetry or a message of some sort whilst walking along the sundial bridge, a wonderful Calatrava masterpiece, to put it into a water bottle and then sending it out as a message to the world. I don't know if anyone ever finds them but I hope they do. I think of this in the same way as the Where Is George project. If you don't know what that is check out http://www.wheresgeorge.com/ it is pretty interesting and I have only ever seen one of them before. I would like to do this with something. It is kind of like back in the day when everyone had their names written in a library book they checked out, I used to look down the list of people who read it before me and wonder what they thought about when reading it and why they picked the same book as me. Something about studying patterns like this is extremely interesting to me.

Another project that I haven't been a part of yet but would like to be is called Post Secret. It started with a guy who had an idea the idea of people anonymously sending secrets on a post card to a P.O. Box. He ended up getting a flood of crazy response, some of which were very artfully illustrated or conveyed. The outpouring led to a show of them traveling around and a book of them being published. Check out their website: http://postsecret.blogspot.com/ This sort of public airing of secrets reminds me of a dashboard confessional song. We as a society are often reticent. One of my psychology teachers once said that the profession would take a huge hit if more people talked to their friends. Apparently some people need a P.O. Box as well.
Try them out and let me know what you think!!!