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Weekend Arts

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on February 23, 2014| 2 Comments »

Maser-Flanagan-quilt-Concord-Library

This was a weekend for looking at art. The quilts on the left are by Valerie Maser-Flanagan and are on display at the Concord Library. My favorite was the one with the vertical stripes.

My husband and I also visited Brandeis University’s Rose Art Museum, back in action after being threatened with extinction by a president who lost his job over the ensuing uproar. I must say, the Rose presents some pretty inaccessible stuff, but the weird films by Mika Rottenberg were the highlight of the visit for me today. Mesmerizing.

The films carried me back to Kenneth Anger’s and Andy Warhol’s experimental movies in the ’60s. I didn’t understand those films either, but I was fascinated. Rottenberg’s kooky stories also was reminded me (my husband, too) of an offbeat video Asakiyume lent us recently called Cold Fever, which we loved. (Saying it was about a young Japanese businessman getting lost in Iceland in winter — on a quest to honor his dead parents with ceremonies he doesn’t believe in — hardly does it justice.)

Sebastian Smee at the Boston Sunday Globe has more on Rottenberg’s videos, and he covers the other exhibits, too.

Also this weekend, I stopped in at a gallery I like in Lincoln. They were featuring several interesting artists, including the photographer Leonard Freed, below. And they have other great work coming up March 4 — take a taste here.

Photo: Leonard Freed
From “Black and White in America” exhibit at the Clark Gallery in Lincoln. See review by Mark Feeney in the Boston Globe, here.

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The Israeli Singer Asaf Avidan Is in Town

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , on February 22, 2014| Leave a Comment »

The Israeli who was once a successful animator but turned to singing, Asaf Avidan, is playing at the Somerville Theatre tonight. James Reed wrote about him at the Boston Globe, and I was intrigued enough to check out his latest video. See the two little boys, below. Avidan is the one who gives them a large crystal when they are busking on toy instruments.

Reed writes,  “To fall in love merely with Asaf Avidan’s voice, which is easy to do, would be missing the bigger picture. … It’s the voice of resignation and resilience, beautiful but often brutal, and it just so happens that Avidan’s high timbre gives his performances an androgynous allure that leaves you hanging on every word.

“That much is true. But also at play is the fact that Avidan, a 32-year-old singer-songwriter with a substantial following in Europe and his native Israel, is particularly adept at deconstructing heartache in the most poetic of terms. That’s evident on ‘Different Pulses,’ his soulful latest album.”

The singer says, “The way I sing came from the reason I started singing. I was a successful animator up until about 2006, and because this reason to sing the blues [after a breakup] was so sudden in my life and so painful, I really needed for it to be physically difficult. I would find myself going higher on the scales, making it more difficult and screamy. I think that level of emotion brought me to these high scales, and that’s what people hear now. They hear the emotion.” More at the Globe.

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Creativity and Happiness

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , on February 21, 2014| 6 Comments »

Prov-RI-Children-Museum

Here’s research showing that creativity can make people feel good.

Tom Jacobs writes at Pacific Standard, “In a study of college students, ‘people who reported feeling happy and active were more likely to be doing something creative at the time,’ a research team led by Paul Silvia of the University of North Carolina-Greensboro writes in the journal Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts.

“What’s more, the researchers add, you don’t have to be a master poet or painter to reap the emotional rewards. Even if the results of one’s creative activity are ‘frivolous, amateurish or weird,’ this research suggests ”the creative process that yielded them appears important to positive psychological development.’ ”

After taking a survey about themselves and their creative activities, participants were “called on their cell phones eight times a day for the next seven days. They replied to each call by answering the question ‘Are you doing something creative?’ and describing their emotional state at that moment. …

“ ‘We found that the frequency of doing something creative was quite high — around 22 percent,’ Silvia and his colleagues report. What’s more, when participants were caught in the act of being creative, ‘they reported feeling significantly happier and more active’ than at other reports.” More here.

OK, I admit it sounds like a pretty slim study, but I’ll take it. I especially like the idea that it still counts if the creative activity is “frivolous, amateurish or weird”!

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Robots Just for Fun

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , on February 20, 2014| Leave a Comment »

Do you ever check the website This Is Colossal? They have the best stuff.

Here is a cute bit about giant, playful robots in Argentina.

In a “clip from Fernando Livschitz of Black Sheep Films,” says the website, “we watch as tin windup toys overtake the streets of Buenos Aires, living amongst its inhabitants as if it was an everyday occurrence. Livschitz is known for his short films that blend live action footage with aspects of absurdity, most notably his New York and Buenos Aires theme parks. Music by the very fine Canned Heat circa 1972.” More.

We hear so much these days about robots in advanced manufacturing and medicine, but I like the idea of robots as toys. You could really warm up to some of these guys, as Frank Langella did with his robot in the futuristic movie Robot & Frank.

Photo: Fernando Livschitz at This Is Colossal

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Hanksy Spoofs Banksy

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on February 19, 2014| 4 Comments »

Kai the World Traveler and Titan of Industry knows the kind of story that catches my eye. He sent me this one from the New York Times about a street artist who spoofs Banksy, Tom Hanks, and a lot else.

John Leland writes, “This is a story about art in the age of social media …

“In April 2011, a law school dropout in Bushwick, Brooklyn, newly arrived from the Midwest, had an idea that he thought might make a splash. He admired the street artist Banksy; he grew up on the movies of Tom Hanks. Why not mash up the two?

“Using simple computer software, he downloaded a Banksy painting of a rat holding a paint roller, then added an image of Mr. Hanks’s face. The whole thing took 10 or 15 minutes to create. He printed a cutout and pasted it on a wall at Mulberry and Kenmare Streets in Little Italy, signing it Hanksy. …

“He photographed the wall for his Instagram and Twitter accounts, and emailed it to the Wooster Collective, a popular street art website. Then he went to sleep.

“ ‘And then it just went viral,’ Hanksy said the other day …

“RJ Rushmore, who runs the street art blog Vandalog, said he was among many who initially dismissed Hanksy as an opportunist. ‘I thought it was not art, not brilliant, just taking the stupidest ideas and presenting them in ways that were very friendly for Tumblr and Instagram,’ Mr. Rushmore said. ‘It’s not art in the sense of a graffiti writer who spent 15 years developing his style.’

“Mr. Rushmore has since warmed to Hanksy, for comic relief in a scene that sometimes gets too serious. ‘He makes the best cat videos,’ he said. ‘That’s still something to be applauded.’

“Ellen Lupton, senior curator of contemporary design at the Smithsonian’s Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum, said more was at stake in Hanksy’s visual gags.

“ ‘It’s more than a pun,’ she said. ‘Banksy’s work is hypermasculine and serious about its underground, tough, outlaw image. And Tom Hanks is just not that guy. So the humor is putting that identity on this hyper-butch material. It’s the revenge of the nerd.’ ” More.

Photo: Nicole Bengiveno/The New York Times
Street artist Hanksy merged Banksy’s famous rat with Tom Hanks.

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National Happiness in Bhutan

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , on February 18, 2014| 2 Comments »

A few years ago, Suzanne visited Bhutan, drawn to a country that talks more about Gross National Happiness, GNH, than Gross Domestic Product, GDP.

Magda Fahsi at Mint Press News recently interviewed Bhutan’s former Prime Minister Lyonchen Jigmi Y Thinley and asked whether Bhutan ran into difficulties talking with other countries about development, given that its index is GNH and theirs is GDP.

He answered, “We have had no difficulties at all. We know our development partner countries in particular are interested in Bhutan’s growth process as measured through the yardstick of GDP; and we have not rejected GDP.

“GNH does not exclude GDP, but confines it to the role that it is supposed to play as originally conceived by Simon Kuznets, the person who established the measure after the Great Depression. Kuznets said that it was nothing but a measure of the goods and services produced by a particular place, at a particular time and exchanged in the market. He made it very clear to Congress that it was not a measure of development, not a measure of societal well-being. And in fact, he was very sad to see that his GDP was being misused, because, as you know, many countries now associate GDP with well-being. And this is where the mistake is.

“So Bhutan uses GDP as well, but only to indicate our material or economic progress; we give equal importance to other things like environmental conservation, sustainable socio-economic development, cultural preservation and good governance; these are further separated into nine dimensions that enable true societal well-being. …

“Happiness is a state of being that one achieves when one is able to balance the needs of the body with the needs of the mind, when the material and the emotional, psychological needs are being met, within a stable, peaceful and secure environment.”

More here.

Photo: AP /Mustafa Quraishi
Bhutan’s former Prime Minister Lyonchen Jigmi Y Thinley, puts on his shoes after paying tribute at Mahatma Gandhi memorial in New Delhi, India, Wednesday, July 16, 2008.

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A Surprise at the DeCordova Biennial

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on February 17, 2014| Leave a Comment »

2014-DeCordova-in-winter

On Sunday, my husband and I decided to see what’s new at the DeCordova Museum in Lincoln.

A favorite in the biennial show of New England artists was Laura Braciale of Manchester, NH. It took me a minute, but when I realized she had displayed everyday objects along with what they looked like once she had turned them into art, I thought, Yes, art really is in everything if you look.

The blurb about her says, “close observation reveals subtle differences between the three-dimensional structures and their two-dimensional renderings. …  Her works engage a question concerning representation—which image is more ‘real’? As both her items and her illustrations occupy the same physical reality, however, Braciale’s work suggests that neither is more real than the other.” (Sigh. I’m not really fond of the way museums write.)

In a different DeCordova exhibit we saw three tintype photo portraits by the late David Prifti, Suzanne’s high school photography teacher. (A solo show in Winchester, Mass., goes through March 2, here.)

The biggest surprise was a documentary about Laos, a country we are interested in largely because of the the mystery books of Colin Cotterill. (Read one of my posts about him, here.)

The film, Route 3, shows a small mountain town that, having been leased to China for 75 years, was utterly destroyed to make way for casinos, hotels, entertainments, and jobs for Chinese people alone. Hard to imagine selling a part of your country like that, but Laos is desperately poor.

The documentary was by Patty Chang and David Kelley, who live and work in Boston and Brooklyn.

The DeCordova says on its website, “Blending the genres of documentary and road trip films with surrealist cinematic passages, Patty Chang and David Kelley present a compelling trip through the physical and psychological landscape of a community in transition. … Enlisting the help of tour guides and local entrepreneurs in this tightly controlled area, the artists immersed themselves in this community to create a unique portrait of a changing society.” More information on the artists here and here.

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Getting Outdoors Again

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , on February 16, 2014| 10 Comments »

It felt great to get outdoors for my walk today. I’ve been going round and round inside the house instead because it’s just too hard to see the icy spots in the early morning dark. The barista at Main Streets Café, who always waves at me, must think I have wimped out for good.

My husband went skiing (what a good winter it’s been for cross country!), but I went around town to see what I’ve been missing. I especially liked the Valentine tree that a new neighbor put up for the 14th. An idea to keep in mind.

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021414-Valentine-tree

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Artist Shows Her Work in Lowell

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on February 15, 2014| 2 Comments »

Artist Susan Jaworski-Stranc is having a show she’s calling Water Blues at Centro Restaurant and Bar in Lowell. The exhibit, which includes oil paintings and linoleum prints, runs to March 17 at 24 Market St.

If you can get to Lowell on Sunday, Feb 23, there’s a reception where you can meet the artist, 1 pm to 3 pm.

My husband and I have been to a number of art shows in Lowell, which is quite a creative community. Our favorite Lowell artist is a former boss of mine, Meredith Fyfe Day, who held down a newspaper job while she was artist in residence at the Whistler House. I worked for her at the Harte-Hanks community newspaper chain in the early 1990s.

Here’s the intriguing artist statement from Jaworski-Stranc: “I am a printmaker, specializing in the creation of linoleum block prints. After each successive printing of a color, the surface of the block is reduced while at the same time the printing surface is built up with multi-layered colors. Born from one block of linoleum, my relief prints have the nuance and rich textural surfaces of an oil painting.

“Although Picasso coined this method of working, a ‘suicide print,’ I rather think of this printmaking process as emulating the journey of life. While creating my prints, I am never able to re-visit past stages. I can only proceed forward with the acceptance of all good and not so good choices which were mediated and acted upon with the hope and joy of completion.”

When Asakiyume and I met in December at the Worcester Art Museum, there was an exhibit on printmaking that showed what prints looked like at each of the layering stages. Challenging work. I love that Jaworski-Stranc sees the printmaker’s role as accepting each previous stage and working with it. As she says, “The journey of life.” Another good topic for a poem.

Find out more about Susan Jaworski-Stranc here. And thank you, Vyü magazine, for the lead.

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From Kids Playing to Making Poetry

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , on February 14, 2014| Leave a Comment »

Today KM added three short poems to my recent blog post “Do you feel a poem coming on?”

Because of KM and the fact that everyone on twitter seems to be writing Valentine rhymes today, I thought I would point out an Andrew Sullivan post on the connection between poetry and childhood games.

Andrew quoted poet Sandra Simonds, who writes in the Boston Review, “The first thing is that sound itself intoxicates and that we connect sound, rhythm, and rhyme to form very early on, probably from infancy.

“The music of language forms our understanding of the world and that is why it seems so fundamental, in poems, to follow the music and sounds over sense, and to trust that your ear will take you where you want to go.

“We also learn that language is deeply connected to play — riddles, jokes, nonsense, and, for lack of a better word, fun. But it is also wedded to tragic losses, lost time, lost childhood, the loss of the child itself and the body of the child. … As poets, we take [a feeling of childhood] smallness with us into adulthood and turn it into poetry.” More here.

I need to think about that.

And while I’m thinking, I’ll share a rhyme that goes with jumping rope — and also perhaps with Valentine’s Day.

“Cinderella dressed in yella
“Went downtown to see her fella.
“How many kisses did she get?
“One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight …”

You are limited only by your jumping ability.

Photo: Luna & Stella, the birthstone jewelry company

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Enter Your City-Improvement Idea

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on February 13, 2014| Leave a Comment »

congress st nook

The City of Boston has a nice opportunity for folks with ideas about making cities more livable.

The City says, “In Boston, a third of the land is open to the public. We invite you to reimagine that space. How can our streets, plazas, sidewalks, street furniture, and public buildings better serve people?

“The Mayor’s Office of New Urban Mechanics Streetscape Lab is sourcing ideas from designers, makers, artists, and engineers to improve Boston. We are asking members of our vibrant creative community to submit project ideas to make our public spaces simple, intuitive, and literally awesome. Project ideas can be entirely new creations or a new way of using an existing product. The City will review the submissions and may select up to six ideas total to implement in the following categories:

“The Streetscape: sidewalks, streets, medians, plazas, and our other civic front porches. What improvements would you make to space? What is the next iteration of our classic street furniture? Look at the sample locations to get you thinking.

“Boston City Hall: rethinking the indoor and outdoor space, signage, improving service delivery and the user experience. These designs may help inform future improvements to the building.

“Random Awesome Designs: great ideas that defy classification or location.” Guidelines here.

I see no reason you have to be an artist or an engineer. What’s to stop you from sending in a good idea? Go for it.

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providence author lovecraft

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Couch Race

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , on February 12, 2014| 2 Comments »

The FortPointer passed along another great lead by way of twitter. He recommends a blog called We Love Beantown. (Beantown is a Boston moniker that comes from Boston Baked Beans.)

I really liked the post about people racing their couches in the middle of the city. Blog cofounder Jarret Izzo writes, “I laughed out loud when I first received word of the Great Boston Couch Race, an outdoor obstacle course completed via pedicabs/couches/rickshaws, for the awareness and benefit of House of Tsang sauces. …

“It turns out Tsang puts on quite a show and they deserve a thumbs up for a legitimately fun event. The race’s obstacles were so ridiculous that they circled back on the cool-o-meter, from a DVD hunt reminiscent of Supermarket Sweep to tossing vegetables at a teammate with the help of a wok.

“I felt like I was a contestant on Family Double Dare, if it were filmed on a frozen tundra. Multiple flatscreens displayed twitter feeds and a nearby tent cooked up stir-fry on demand. This is apart from the sauce itself, which I know as a staple for confused guys who want add flavor to meat, but for whom the advanced ways of five spice marinade remain a mystery. …

“The crowd was dominated by high schoolers in formal wear: there was a jazz band competition in the Hynes. … But I can only wonder, who chose to come to Boston in February and spend more time inside at a mall? How bad does it have to be where you came from?

“In the Couch Race, those high schoolers would be my downfall. I raced against two girls in town from Cape Cod — a pianist and a singer. We had a huge lead, entering the final stretch under 100 seconds. But  pedal mishaps necessitated pushing the bike-couch-rickshaw with our feet, a la Fred Flintstone, costing valuable time.” More here.

Reminds me of a couple silly things from years past. The outhouse races in Minnesota. And the time a 20-something John and his Life is good buddies put a couch on a corner of Newbury Street and sold lemonade from it like little kids. (I think there was a charity involved. I hope it got the money.)

Photo: We Love Beantown

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Do You Feel a Poem Coming On?

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , on February 11, 2014| 2 Comments »

What could be more likely to generate Deep Thoughts than finding 800,000-year-old footprints on the beach? The footprint Robinson Crusoe found may have had more immediate application to his daily life, but this could also stir the imagination.

In case you missed the story, here is  Sudeshna Chowdhury’s version at the Christian Science Monitor.

“The earliest known humans in northern Europe have left evidence of their existence on an English beach, in the form of footprints.

“A team of scientists from the British Museum, Britain’s Natural History Museum, and Queen Mary University of London have discovered a series of 800,000-year-old footprints left by early humans in the ancient estuary muds at the Happisburgh site, an excavation site known for preservation of sediments containing ancient flora and fauna, in Britain’s Norfolk Coast.

“Scientists spotted at least 12 clear footprints, Nick Ashton, a curator at the British Museum, told the Monitor.

” ‘At first we weren’t sure what we were seeing,’ says Dr. Ashton, ‘but as we removed any remaining beach sand and sponged off the seawater, it was clear that the hollows resembled prints, perhaps human footprints, and that we needed to record the surface as quickly as possible before the sea eroded it away.’ ” More here.

I think these footprints call for a poem. Send me one? Even a haiku would be lovely.

Update 2/12/14
We who still know fear,
Thousands of years on, would keep
Your print from the tide.

Photo:  Martin Bates
Area A at Happisburgh with detail of footprint surface. Scientists discovered a series of 800,000-year-old footprints left by early humans in Norfolk Coast, UK

 

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The Fine Art of Taking Naps

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on February 10, 2014| 4 Comments »

I took one look at the photo and I knew. This story is for me.

Michael B. Farrell writes at the Boston Globe, “Leave it to the tech set to tinker with something so perfect as the nap. Not a group to leave well enough alone, they are coming up with new gadgets — from high-tech masks to wearable pillows to portable pods — to improve on the daytime snooze, bring it from the couch at home to a quiet place in the office, and encourage more people to steal a few winks every afternoon.

“These new gadgets are coming out as the nap itself is enjoying a new appreciation by professionals and amateurs alike. Scientists who study sleep habits say napping makes people more alert and productive  …

“There is nap fashion, too. A British design firm sells a wearable, portable Ostrich Pillow — a space-age fashion accessory that lets users ‘take a comfortable power nap in the office, traveling, or wherever you want.’

“One of the newest entrants to the nap marketplace is Cambridge’s Napwell, which recently raised $51,000 on the crowdfunding site Kickstarter to begin making high-tech sleeping masks. Inside the mask is a timer that triggers a built-in sunrise light, which gradually brightens to gently rouse someone from sleep so they do not wake up feeling so groggy.

“ ‘If you happen to wake up in dead sleep, you are going to feel really bad,’ said Napwell’s inventor, Justin Lee, a PhD student studying health technology at a joint MIT-Harvard program. ‘Napwell came out of that. It was the simplest thing to build that would solve that problem.’ ”

More here.

As a person who can sleep for 20 minutes and feel really refreshed, I really regret the loss our the office nap room to an expanded conference center. I would consider the Ostrich solution below but that my office has a a glass wall. Besides, it looks like it would hurt my neck.

Photo: Studio Banana Things

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Getting Bikes to More People

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on February 9, 2014| 4 Comments »

Got this from SmallerCitiesUnite! on twitter.

Rachel Walker writes at PeopleForBikes.org, “How do you get more people on bikes? Go to where they are, open up a ‘shop,’ teach them to build and maintain a bike. Help them earn a bike. Repeat.

“This is the philosophy behind the myriad of community bike shops sprouting up in inner-city neighborhoods throughout the country. Non-profit organizations that cater to the underserved aim to destigmatize and popularize cycling among communities that have probably not heard of Strava or clipless pedals. In these neighborhoods, bicycle lanes, racks, and, most importantly, riders, are noticeably absent.

“And that, according to the forces behind community bike shops, must change—for multiple reasons.

“ ‘For our core constituents, getting a bike and learning how to maintain it is about economic mobility,’ says Ryan Schutz, executive director of Denver’s Bike Depot. ‘Owning a bike lets them travel farther to find work and spend their money on food, instead of on gas or bus fares.’

“Like the majority of community bike shops, Bike Depot puts bikes into the hands of people who otherwise couldn’t afford them or may not choose to buy them. The organization accomplishes this through earn-a-bike programs and by selling low-cost refurbished bikes. They also teach members bike safety and maintenance skills.” More here.

Sounds like a variation on Bike Not Bombs, which started in the Greater Boston area several decades ago, refurbishing donated bicycles and sending them to poor countries.

Here’s what Bikes Not Bombs says on the website: “Bikes Not Bombs uses the bicycle as a vehicle for social change. We reclaim thousands of bicycles each year. We create local and global programs that provide skill development, jobs, and sustainable transportation. Our programs mobilize youth and adults to be leaders in community transformation.”

All good stuff.

Photo: People For Bikes
The Community Cycling Center in Portland, Oregon, offers bike camps to local kids.

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