A Letter to America

Dear America,

I love your "service with a smile". I love your twang... most of the time. I love your artists, your bluster, your swagger, your grand buildings with the names of philanthropists on the front. Your optimism, even when your economy sucks.

I love your absurd portion sizes, your ridiculous menu creations (donut french toast? whipped cream on everything?), your retro diners, your retro grocery packaging, the way you say "uh-huh" instead of "you're welcome". I love your opinionated self. I love your free refills, and the fact that you still have dollar bills, so that holding three of them feels like money and not change.

I (have grown to) love (even though it drives me CRAZY) the perverse dedicated way that ALL the gardeners in LA absolutely refuse to dead-head their roses, leaving overblown, blousy roses outside all the buildings, like aging starlets in faded summer dresses (scheming to hide the new blooms).

I love Broadway, and paying the U.S. price on things, even though there's the exchange rate to factor in. I love that I can justify this blog entry by pretending that it's an assignment for "The List as Post-Narrative Structure". I love that your sale prices are actually a bargain and not just marked-down mark-ups.

I know we don't agree on everything, and that I could make a list just as long with negative things, but I won't, 'cause that's not what love is about.

The Hebrew Mamita

I've just been introduced to the Hebrew Mamita, Vanessa Hidary, and I'm better for it.



The other Def Poetry speakers/poets are great too. Looks like I'm going to be spending a lot of time on Youtube this week...

Bauble-head

Pretty and enamel and baubles - three words I love - all together at Graphic Bandit's post here. Go read it, if only to see what Spring looks like as a ring.

Graphic Novels

I don't profess to know anything about graphic novels.

I read the entire set of Akira in my teens, 'cause hey, my friend was cool and he read them. (I'm original like that.) Then I read Maus some time later.

In the past few months I've read both American Widow by Alissa Torres and Sungyoon Choi and Cancer Vixen by Marisa Acocella Marchetto.

American Widow is Alisa Torres' story of her life after 9/11. Her husband was on his second day of his new job at Cantor Fitzgerald and she was pregnant with their first child. Cancer Vixen also recounts joy interrupted when three weeks before her wedding, cartoonist Marisa Acocella found a lump in her breast. Both women have expressed these experiences via incredibly powerful tellings of very personal and painful stories. Torres and Choi's story uses more silence and less humour. Marchetto's tone is just as raw, but more conversational, and often funny too. Both of them transported me fully into their lives and left me better for it.

I feel like sometimes talking about "women's stories" actually does them (us?) a disservice, by segregating them rather than allowing them to be stories in the marketplace, but these two graphic novels are really women's stories, told by women from their own experiences in their own voices. The emotional intensity, honesty, and fantastic art, however, will appeal to everyone.

Now to put Marjane Satrapi's books on hold at the library.

New York Times book review on American Widow here.

Keeping Calm

So back here, I bemoaned the discovery of a print I really liked, followed quickly by my discovery that it seemed to be ubiquitous.

With so many "Keep Calm and Keep Going" posters out there, I did not expect to receive a reply from the artist currently creating some of the prints. But I did get a reply - and I got schooled! The artist informed me that he hand-lettered his reproduction (as the original was hand-done) and then cleaned things up on the computer. He also refined the art in his own unique way, so that there is something of himself in it (and so he can bust anyone who copies him - clever). Mr. Papermoth was also kind enough to send me a link to a telegraph article which provides more info on the original bookseller/poster-finder, Barter Books.

The conversation restored my "consumer confidence" (and taught me to be a little more patient), and now I can happily order myself a print, feeling satisfied that the artist selling it has integrity and approaches his work with care.

Message, Medium, Musing on Originality

I saw this print on Etsy. Someone had taken a vintage WWII poster and printed it on archival paper in modern colours. I thought it was amazing. I instantly wanted it on yellow. I even emailed the artist (who I thought must be brilliant) to ask if I could please feature a photo on my blog. (I got no reply.)Then I realized I was late to the party. The BBC had already written a story about this poster. Apparently it was printed up on the eve of WWII, but never distributed (why not?). A bookstore owner found one in a book, showed it to his wife and they framed it for their shop. They were inundated with requests for copies. They made a few. One was featured in a holiday gift guide and according to the article, "all hell broke loose". The print I find now on Etsy (from Lisbon), beside being different than the one I originally found on Etsy (from Kentucky), is not only not original, but is riding a wave that has only just reached my shore. BoingBoing blogged it in 2007! There are not only prints available, but now also keychains and pendants and t-shirts. (The t-shirt seller has a photo of a ragged allegedly original poster. You have to scroll down.)

Naturally, the abundance of copies has spawned alternate versions and parodies, like Keep Calm and Carry Guns.

If you're interested in the typeface, consensus seems to be that it was hand-lettered, possibly Johnson or Gill.

Now that I've seen so many version I can't even read it properly anymore - I'm seeing "Kelp Balm" etc. And in the fashion of an indie music snob, who must leap off the "bandwagon" once others are on, I don't want one so badly anymore. I want this this one instead:

There are other incredible posters from WWII (and WWI and others) at the Imperial War Museum in England.

Some more treasures from the IWM are Eat Greens For Health, 6 Reasons Why YOU Should Save and Bad Form in Dress. Can you tell I picked the ones that most apply to me?!

FYI - proceeds from the IWM shop go to support the museum's charitable works, so buy your kids this and teach them a thing or two. (Now, now, I know your children are very smart, keep calm).

Brownie Points Foodie Blog

"McAuliflower" is a visual artist, a foodie, and a blogger.

I'm about to add "Brownie Points" to my Cook/Eat blog links. I will probably never attempt any of her recipes, but she astounds me with this Rice-Krispie-based sweet sushi! Go look at her level of dedication!

Misc Pcs

Isaac Mizrahi has a great site worth exploring. He's got webisodes (Watch Isaac), several blogs (including a video blog), and lots of links to his collections, inspirations, etc. He's just designed a very cute collection for Liz Claiborne too.
*
Who is the young woman in the new Oasis video, Falling Down? (That's a link to the NY Mag embedded video. You can go to Myspace to see it, too.) She's fab. Looks a little like a blue-eyed Jewish Penelope Cruz at certain angles. Anyhow, I'd be surprised if her career didn't pick up after this - though she may already be famous in England, for all I know.
*
Really, it's too risky for celebs to sing live?! I find this incredibly insulting to both performers and audiences. First of all, if I had the God-given talent to sing, I'd be much more afraid to screw up the lipsynching than to actually sing. Seems like you're adding on a whole unnecessary skill-set with lipsynching, no? I just don't understand why this has become acceptable practice. If the audience is willing to listen and then applaud your performance, shouldn't you give them something to legitimately applaud? It defeats the whole point of a performance and insults every performing artist who has gone before you on their own talent. Arrrgh.

Wishlist

I want to go see this Valentina exhibit in New York for Valentine's Day!

Then I'd catch this off-Broadway play, Becky Shaw. (Off-Broadway tix half-price from Feb. 15 - March 1st!) I'd hop on over and see this Raymond Chandler discussion/exhibit too. I love pulp, I love noir, I love photography, and I couldn't get through "The Big Sleep". This way I would get to hear les smarty-pantses talk about it. I'd go even though Jonathan Lethem will be speaking. The only book of his I've read is As She Climbed Across the Table, which has prevented me from reading anything else he's written.

But before all this - and this is the biggest wish - I would jet on over to Paris and see Dita at Le Crazy Horse! Starting at only 100 euros and including a half-bottle of champagne! (Except at 100 euros, why can't they give me a full-size bottle?!)

Since I'm wishing anyway, I'll throw in some Bulgari jewels and some chocolate bars. Oh heck, and these too. But in the green suede. I couldn't find a photo or I'd make a shrine post it.

Speaking of wishes, shouldn't the tooth fairy revisit us all in our old age? Just an idea.

Slumdog Millionaire (Spoiler warning)(Long Post Warning)

I went to see Slumdog Millionaire tonight and for the duration of the film, and right after, I loved it. Will I love it forever? Does it deserve my love? I don't know.

I know one person who didn't like it. We just had an email discussion about it and he said,

"my non-complex reaction to Slumdog was that I just found it boring and badly-directed".

Mind you, he's a director and looks at films very differently than I do. I was not bored during the movie. Even though I usually hate music video-style directing, I really enjoyed the visual energy of SM. The direction - especially the use of music - kept me rapt and tense.

The last time I tried to see the film it was sold out, and I made the racist/ageist comment to my friend that all the old white folk at the condo towers above the cinema were watching it to root for a poor brown guy so they could feel good about themselves. (Yes, as I said, ageist and racist, I know.) This was my only hesitation in watching the film: would I be reinforcing my own stereotypical ideas? Would my feelings of sympathy for "the poor brown guy" protagonist mask some kind of condescension? If I'm going to condescend, I'd rather be aware of it and upfront about it.

It's hard for me to unravel all the potential angles on Slumdog. Is it cultural appropriation? I haven't read the book ("Q&A") by Vikas Swarup, but according to this review, I don't think Danny Boyle strayed very far from the original story. Also, I get really bitchy when people narrow down the ownership of a story, so I would not bash Boyle's telling of this story just 'cause he's white. (Or looks white, anyhow.)

Does this film make me feel better because it represents the avenues for a poor person to escape the slums? No. I don't think it does represent any avenue to escape the slums. It's fantasy, as evidenced by the emphasis on "destiny" in the film. The movie doesn't even preach about education (which I expected it to). It is a fantasy of justice, in a way - though all the rupees in the world won't wipe your childhood trauma nightmares away completely - but I think it is mainly a fantasy about love.

As for whether the film assuages some sort of guilt in me, again, I'd have to say no. I know nothing of the slums of India and do not feel particularly culpable about them. Because I am a bleeding-heart capitalist, my guilt is more focused on whether or not to buy blouses made in China, and how much the workers and the silkworms suffer for them. India is a democracy with a billion people and there are enough people on the ground, so to speak, to deal with the slums. I wouldn't even know how to help India's poor if that was at the forefront of my mind. (Maybe via CARE?)

Do I feel guilty being a white (or white-looking) tourist? No. Those depictions of white tourists were as awkward/potentially offensive as any other depictions in the movie, and yet, I've seen unbelievably idiotic tourist behaviour on my travels, so it's not that weird.

I think people resent having their emotions manipulated, and I think this holds for SM, but having my emotions manipulated is why I go to movies (and engage in art, theatre, music). Yes, my emotions were manipulated by the adorable child actors and by the brutality they endure and survive. Yes, I probably would feel less if they weren't as cute. Armond White, the notoriously independent critic notes,

Over-stimulation crushes feeling; Boyle only evokes sentimentality. His cast of child actors is overly cute—for easy sympathy and for automatic horror when they’re shown being mutilated by adults who run a beggar/prostitution underground.

Does director Danny Boyle evoke sentimentality? Sure. But I didn't feel emotionally swindled. Whatever you think of Jamal the "slumdog", you're not viewing him in a vacuum. India - better educated, richer, poorer, average, honest, and cruel is all around him. Just because the slums include colourful saris doesn't mean I will infer that the slums are fun. I didn't think that was Boyle's intention, anyhow.

I've also read comments online suggesting that the film romanticizes rising out of poverty, but why shouldn't it? What is the alternative? (I ask that sincerely - feel free to respond in the comments.) Is "The Shawshank Redemption" any less uplifting because its portrayal of prison is practically rustic and cozy compared to a modern prison? Should "The Princess Bride" come with a disclaimer that true love has never been verified and that death is rarely reversed?

Jamal's actual arc is to rescue a fair maiden, and he is qualified because he is pure of heart. His gifts or tokens or mentors (which I take to be the answers at the game show) all emerge from past traumas. If he had been motivated by money, he would not have continued the game to the end, and in fact, he would have been his brother (who chooses or is destined to a mobster life).

It seems to me that Jamal already overcame his past in his actual job as a chai-wallah at the call centre. I do not mean to condescend by suggesting that this is an easy job or a fun one, but it beats every other job he had in the film*. And let's face it, would I watch a film about a chai-wallah with a brutal childhood who slaved for years on a meagre salary at a soul-killing job, forever pining about the lost love of his life? Movies that are realistic and leave me worried are important too, but I can't watch The Death of Mr. Lazarescu every day. It is more fun for mainstream me to watch Jamal win the girl and live happily ever after.

It's possible that I've been primed to love this story because one of my favourite books as a young girl was "A Little Princess" by Frances Hodgson Burnett. It is a classic riches-to-rags-to-riches Edwardian melodrama. It has allowed me for years to fantasize that I too could behave with dignity in sudden poverty, that I could remember the best of humanity even while facing the worst, and that I could keep my heart soft and open if life got hard. Is it true? Probably not. But in my mind, this is what "happy ending" stories are for - little crumbs of hope*. Yes, I'll feed my future kids stories of love and justice, in case they face a day when it's all they have to put on their bread. I hope I'll be able to keep them in Nutella, though.

Other criticisms of Slumdog Millionaire are here (on story), and here (on fair compensation controversy).


*Mind you, I'm soft about work. My mother reminds me that when she started working at 15, it didn't matter what the job was, they just needed money. She always speaks of work like that - in terms of being the best you can be at anything you do, and having a good attitude - and she's been working for 55 years.
** And hope, even as an abstract concept, is nothing to sneeze at.

CinePassion!

I bought a CD for Christmas. I know you are thinking, "but you don't celebrate Christmas". True. I didn't buy it for me. I was so fascinated by the CD (by the cover design, and the theme of the disc) that I bought it with the excuse that it was a Christmas gift for someone else. Undecided as to the recipient, however, meant that no one received it, and so today, after letting my conscience off the hook, I unwrapped the CD and put it on. (The wrapping was made of biodegradable cellophane of some kind, which was a plus.) It's great. Sorry I didn't give it to you... but obviously not that sorry!

The CD is by a German quartet called Quadro Nuevo.

This particular CD is their interpretation of melodies from film soundtracks and is called CinePassion.

The themes they cover range from Lawrence of Arabia to The Sixth Sense. I haven't even finished one full play of this CD and I knew I ought to blog about it - it's that good.

Quadro Nuevo's albums are distributed in Canada by Justin Time Records.

Does buying CDs indicate I am an old geezer? I rather think it might.

RIP: Eartha Kitt

My sister just informed me that Eartha Kitt pass away. I caught her rendition of "Santa Baby" earlier today on the radio - I don't know if that was just coincidence, or if they had already announced her passing, but I thought at the time, "ah, nice to finally hear a classic sung by a legend". I have been hearing a lot of newer and more pop versions of carols this year.


She really symbolized fabulousness in ways other posers can only dream of.

Quentin Blake Speaks!

As you may or may not have noticed, I've changed up the side links a bit. I've also added "Look/See" - which is a splapdash compilation of art and illustration links.

I don't know why I never looked for Quentin Blake's official site before, but it's terrific. There is a part of his site called Fossicking. (I guess it's an original Quentin Blake word for fossils/relics?) He picks something lesser-known from his 60-year-long portfolio and shares it.

What's even better, though, is that he includes an audio track(!!!) and speaks his notes (or in today's case, reads from the book he's illustrated). I would even understand if Blake had no website - he is successful enough not to need one. However, to go ahead and create one, and then go above and beyond the call by adding audio? Audio on an illustrator's site? This is truly a surprising and delightful way to create a presence on the internet.

(Thanks to the Graphic Bandit for 1/2 the sites on the Look/See list.)

Back When Toronto Inspired Illustrations

So the other day I went to my depilatrix and as always, while she yanks out my hair, we chat. She has terrific stories and this time she told me all about her husband's dream, which was truly fantastic. I won't re-tell it here. There was nothing naughty about it, but it's not my story to tell. Anyhow, the dream-story reminded me of Robert Munsch's story, Jonathan Cleaned Up - Then He Heard a Sound or Blackberry Subway Jam.

I re-read my little Annikins version today. (Annikins are and were mini-books "small enough to fit into tiny hands and pockets".)

The story remains terrific and the illustrations by Michael Martchenko are as light and charming as ever.

What surprised me, though, is the amount of nostalgia packed into the book that has nothing to do with the story. It is a fourth edition, printed in 1982. Annick Press, the publisher, was based in Toronto. They were distributed by Firefly Press (still are) - but it was a different time when the distributor's phone number was printed on the back inside cover.

The subway on the front of the book is the old red TTC train that was just being phased out when my family moved to Canada. The streetcar outside City Hall is also an old red car and City Hall itself (in the book) is the one at Bay and Queen - now known as Old City Hall. I would link to photos of old streetcars, but I can't find any. If you're not from Toronto and don't recognize the transit system or the City Hall, it won't matter. The only thing that may date the book for you is the "big shining computer machine" that Jonathan discovers at City Hall. Martchenko's illustration of it with rows and rows of reel-to-reel tape decks is a little quaint.

None of this, however, affects the story. It's still a funny story where moms want living rooms to stay neat, and bureaucrats spend $10 million on things that don't work. The story, 27 years old, remains delightful.

I have also discovered that you can download audio files of Robert Munsch telling stories for free from his website. So you can hear the whole story right now! But you may as well order the Annikin book too. It's only $1.50, and the illustrations are well worth it. Buy a whole bunch and distribute them to children - all those Christmas toy drives are coming up soon!

Annual Pottery and Glass Sale - 2008

The Pottery and Glass Sale used to take place at the CBC building on Front Street. This year it's being held at the CNIB on Bayview.

I bought my parents a really great wall-hanging by Bruce Jones one year. It is made of tiny earthenware cups and saucers all bunched together, somewhat like the pieces that are on his website (but which look much much better in real life).

Even if you don't think you like ceramics or glass, you will undoubtedly find something beautiful and unique. The sale is also perfectly timed for the early Christmas shopper. I'm looking forward to seeing Miguel Deras Zapata's works, because I really like his textured/glazed acorn-like bowls. (Not this acorn, this kind.)

Ceramic Art

Julie Moon is a ceramic artist who make beautiful sculptures, tiles, and wearable pieces. Look!

Nuit Blanche

I don't think I'll see much of Nuit Blanche, if I go out at all. I am behind on a lot of writing and other things.

You go and tell me all about it, ok?