Do you remember a blog post about a photography and interview initiative called the Humans of New York? I wrote about it here.
It seems that a frustrated parent of a high school student who had no Spanish teacher decided to let it all out when asked what she was feeling, and the Humans of New York entry about her went viral. Now the school district must save face and choose among many offers of help.
Brandon Stanton saw Annette Renaud on the subway and asked to interview her. As Soni Sangha writes for the NY Times, Renaud was upset.
” ‘We’ve got a new mayor and a new chancellor … So we aren’t blaming them. But they need to know how impossible they’ve made it to help our kids. Trying to get something fixed in these schools is like praying to some false God. You call and email hoping that God is listening, and nothing happens.’
“Someone was listening,” says Sangha. “The post immediately went viral, with 150,000 likes on the Humans of New York Facebook page, it was shared more than 16,000 times, and it had strangers from across the city and the country pledging to call the school in protest on behalf of the students. Someone in Michigan started a change.org petition calling on the school to hire a foreign language instructor; another Connecticut petition asked the Department of Education to help the students — it has more than 1,000 supporters. …
“ ‘We continue to work closely with the school community to ensure students have access to the courses they need,’ said Marcus Liem, deputy press secretary of the New York City Education Department. Mr. Liem said that officials from the department were planning to meet with the school’s administration about this and other issues even before the posting, but that those meetings have now been moved up.” Read it all here.
Photo: Nicole Bengiveno/The New York Times
Alejandra Figueroa, a senior at the Secondary School for Journalism, believes the loss of her Spanish teacher jeopardizes her chances for an Advanced Regents diploma.
Recently, documentary filmmaker and journalist Erin Kron collaborated with designer-printmaker-photographer Nathan Biehl on a Narratively feature about a very unusual house in rural Spring Green, Wisconsin.
The eccentric house is “the brainchild of self-trained architect Alex Jordan, who purchased land on the Deer Shelter Rock formation in 1956,” writes Kron.
“Jordan incorporated the rock’s contour into the base of the large house he constructed near the edge of the cliff, adding asymmetrical rows of canted windows looking out over the valley. He proceeded to fill the place with his extensive collections of kitsch …
“He took a ‘more is more’ approach, tallying up tarnished collectible penny banks, reproductions of gothic and samurai armor, stained glass salvaged from churches, ornate replicas of the crown jewels, while slowly adding on wings to the building so he could pack it all in. …
“The Organ Room is perhaps the strangest of all. In it seems to be just a gigantic pile of metal machinery. It includes, as its name suggests, a few organs (and a lot of organ pipes). But mostly, it contains a nightmare-like assortment of large wagon wheels, stage coaches, church bells, typewriters, copper kettle drums stacked up to the ceiling, and a giant engine with a huge propeller.”
Matt Schneider, the House on the Rock’s marketing manager, admits that he doesn’t understand the Organ Room. “He’s quick to add: ‘I mean, it’s a really, really neat… I like the room! It’s not that I don’t—it’s just that I understand it the least.’ ” More here.
I wonder. Maybe, like the so-called Music Room in my house, it started life as a room with an organ, and they just kept calling it that after its function changed.
Photo: Nathan Biehl
House on the Rock in Spring Green, Wisconsin.
Did you read Jack Kerouac’s On the Road? I was really into Kerouac for a while after being startled that Dharma Bums, read by Allen Ginsberg on an audiotape, sounded so jolly. I thought Kerouac was supposed to be gloomy. After hearing that tape, I went straight to the wonderful 1994 Kerouac biography by Gerald Nicosia, Memory Babe.
Andy Cush, of Animal New York, recently posted driving directions for On the Road using Google Maps.
“In case you want to replicate everyone’s favorite overrated Beat Generation novel,” he says, “this is On the Road for 17,527 Miles, an ebook that catalogs every twist and turn in Sal Paradise’s epic cross-country journey as a set of Google Maps directions. The exact and approximate spots Kerouac traveled and described are taken from the book and parsed by Google Direction Service API. The chapters match those of the original book,’ writes the creator, [German college student] Gregor Weichbrodt.
“It’s 45 pages long of pure, unadulterated driving directions — ‘Passing through District of Columbia. Entering Maryland. Take the 2nd left onto US-1Alt N/Bladensburg Rd,’ goes one particularly stirring passage — and if you’re interested, you can get a paperback edition here.” More.
I am not sure I agree that the book is overrated, but I must say I loved the Nicosia description even more.
Another good one from This Is Colossal: Janet Echelman’s suspended net creations.
According to This Is Colossal, “In the late 1990s artist Janet Echelman traveled to India as a Fulbright Scholar with the intention of giving painting exhibitions around the country.
“She shipped her painting supplies ahead of time and landed in the fishing village of Mahabalipuram to begin her exhibitions with one major hitch: the painting supplies never arrived.
“While walking through the village Echelman was struck by the quality and variety of nets used by the local fisherman and questioned what it might look like if such nets were hung and illuminated in the air. Could it be a new approach to sculpture? …
“Echelman is currently embarking on her largest piece ever, a 700-foot-long sculpture that will be suspended over Vancouver … In collaboration with the Burrard Arts Foundation, she’s seeking funding via Kickstarter to make it happen. There’s all kinds of great prints, postcards, and shirts available so check it out.”
More here, at This Is Colossal, where you can see lots more nets. They will make you feel happy.
With snow and ice outside every window, and more expected tomorrow, we decided to take a little excursion to Tower Hill Botanical Garden, near Worcester.
The camellia show was the original impetus, but the warm, warm orangerie was an added treat, as was the Lemon House and the piano music of Joe Blanchard.
I made a point of memorizing the names of several plants that keep turning up on MisterSmartyPlants, where I go there to help John identify flowers that people post. It’s a bit of a challenge as the plants come from all over the world and are often not familiar to me. (I hope you’ll consider identifying some, here.)
Curator Scott Stulen pays attention to what attracts people. At the avant garde Walker Museum in Minneapolis, he actually tapped the popularity of cat videos — and created a mini sensation.
Now at the Indianapolis Museum of Art, Stulen is curator of the visitor experience.
Writes David Lindquist at the Indy Star, “Newly hired as the first-ever curator of audience experiences and performance at the Indianapolis Museum of Art, Stulen’s assignment is to attract people to the museum’s galleries as well as 100 Acres art and nature park, Tobias Theater, outdoor amphitheater and Lilly House and gardens.
“He comes from the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, where his track record includes the surprise success of the Internet Cat Video Festival, which brought 10,000 people together in a field in 2012 and then 11,000 paying customers at the 2013 Minnesota State Fair. …
“The cat video festival debuted at Open Field, a space adjacent to the Walker where Stulen co-developed projects with the museum, independent artists and the public.
“ ‘We had the ability to do more experimental programs that didn’t make as much sense inside the museum, and had a lot more creative freedom,’ he said.” More here.
2013 Internet Cat Video Festival at the Minnesota State Fair.
Well, if you aren’t into musicals, it might not be hilarious to you, but I just love that a famous songwriter wrote this number for Great American Soup back in 1970, and a famous Broadway star performed it. Terry Teachout posted it, here, on his theater blog. His blog is called “About Last Night,” and I connect to it through ArtsJournal.
Back when I was reading the Wall Street Journal, I used to enjoy Teachout’s theater reviews. But according to his blog, reviews are just the tip of the iceberg for this Renaissance Man.
“Terry’s first play, Satchmo at the Waldorf, opens off Broadway at the Westside Theatre on Mar. 4. Previews start Feb. 15. The production is directed by Gordon Edelstein, with John Douglas Thompson appearing in the triple role of Louis Armstrong, Joe Glaser, and Miles Davis. It was seen in 2012 at Shakespeare & Company of Lenox, Mass., Long Wharf Theatre of New Haven, Conn., and Philadelphia’s Wilma Theater. For more information, go here.
“To see John Douglas Thompson on stage in Satchmo at the Waldorf, go here. To watch a Wall Street Journal-produced video interview with Terry, go here.”
Teachout also writes opera libretti. I always thought it would be fun to do that.
Below: “Great American Soup” commercial, written by Stan Freberg and starring Ann Miller.
Mario Aguilar writes at Gizmodo, “Riding a bike is a musical experience in more than a metaphorical way: Brakes squeal, spokes click, derailleurs clang. Composer Johnnyrandom sampled himself ‘playing’ his bicycle and the results are positively gorgeous. …
“It’s hard to believe that all of [the] sounds are made by a bicycle. Some of them are strictly the byproduct of the bike’s mechanical operation, like the sound it makes when you release a brake lever. Others are created when you play different parts of the bike with a musical accessory.
“For example, Johnnyrandom records the low-pitched flutter of a pick scratching on a spinning wheel, and tunes the bicycle’s spokes so he could play them with a bow like a string instrument. After capturing the sounds with a portable recorder, the different sounds were arranged and sequenced using software. This two-minute mix gives you a feel for the wide sonic that he was able to create.”
In typical bloggy fashion, I got this from Andrew Sullivan, who got it from Gizmodo (which also has a kinoscope of Frank Zappa, on the old Steve Allen tv show playing a bicycle, and a video of how Johnny Random works), who got it from This Is Colossal. Where will this message in a bottle land next?
(Be sure to check my post on composer Kenneth Kirschner, here, for more contemporary music using unusual instruments.)
My husband likes to watch Link TV, which brings random news programs from around the world into our living room.
That is where he learned about Rojak Site, a funny website that collects offbeat stories. We loved this one about swapping clothes between generations.
“Artist photographer, Qozop, asked Asian youths to swap clothes with their relatives who are generations apart. It’s interesting to see how the older generations can still be found dressed in traditional clothing while the youths have opted for more modern Westernised fashion.
“Speaking about his work, Qozop said: ‘Basically, this idea for Spring-Autumn came about from a notion that though Asia has become westernised to a large degree, it is still possible to witness its traditions and cultures. And as an Asian society, our cultural beliefs are often reflected in our dressing. Fashion (other than wrinkles) is one of the best telltales of how old a person is.’ ” (Rojak’s source, here, was the Daily Mail in the UK. Click to see more photos.)
Our grandchildren will have to grow up a bit before we can discuss swapping clothes. The oldest is not yet four. (When Suzanne was four, she asked if she could have all my clothes when she grew up. One thing worried her, however: “You don’t have much shorts,” she said. She is more than welcome to my old clothes now that she is grown up, but for some reason, she never asks for them.)
Here’s something fun from the UK paper the Telegraph: Irish farmers taking pictures of themselves on mobile phones. The farm animals add that certain je ne sais quoi.
Emily Gosden has the story.
“Photos of Irish farmers taking ‘selfie’ photos with their livestock have gone viral,” writes Gosden, “being republished on dozens of news sites around the world. …
“The snapshots were originally submitted to the Irish Farmers Journalfor its ‘selfie on the farm’ competition. Ten finalists picked by the journal include a photo by Patricia Farrelly from Ballyjamesduff, posing with a goose and an axe, and a shot entitled ‘two fine beards’ by Peter Desmond from Ballinhassig, sporting a beard and posing alongside a bearded goat.”
Photo: Irish Farmers Journal/Facebook Farmer P.J. Ryan from Newport, County Tipperary, in his prize-winning selfie. The picture was submitted by his daughter Aisling.
Cynthia-Marie Marmo O’Brien has a nice story at Narratively on a close-knit Latino subculture in the Bronx.
“Generations of Nuyoricans — Puerto Rican New Yorkers — have found familia in a little house on an overgrown patch of the South Bronx,” O’Brien writes. The place is known as La Casita.
She continues, “Today I am relaxing with some of the regulars under the hanging branches of trees separating us from the busy life on the street; they have picked grapes from overhead and are making wine.
“I came here with César Colón-Montijo to experience plena, a musical genre indigenous to Puerto Rico. In his scholarship, Colón-Montijo, an ethnomusicologist who the regulars consider part of la familia, describes plena as a way through the South Bronx’s difficulties. Plena has always been a call-and-response form of song; its origins are usually attributed to striking workers. …
“La casita is the classic liminal space: neither Puerto Rico nor New York; neither a secular sanctuary for all nor a performance place for legends. It is all four. Puerto Rican flags fly and an original album cover of John F. Kennedy’s 1960s speeches is displayed along with other memorabilia. No topic is too big or small for plena’s repertoire; there’s even a plena about JFK. After the city’s Puerto Rican Day Parade every June, the music royalty of the island flock here.”
Read more here and see how people use music to transport themselves to Puerto Rico while still in the Bronx.
Photos: Emon Hassan Jose Rivera (left) during a jam session at the Casita. On the right, demonstrating how an out-of-tune piano can still make music.
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.
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.
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”!
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.
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