Morocco + Christmas =
This is exactly what Marrakech is like. Really. Especially, the lighting yourself on fire part. Oh, but not the red hats; those are for Fes only.
December 27, 2008
December 9, 2008
It's too bad this is happening on my birthday or else I would be hopping around on those buses!
http://www.brooklyneagle.com/categories/category.php?category_id=12&id=25020
However did they choose the colors for the different "loops", I wonder? And who really believes art is a good "investment" these days? No one is going to make the kind of financial returns David Rockefeller made on his Rothko a year and half ago. Buy because you love it and can't live without it!
Also, come to my birthday get-together. Details to be sent out soon via email. Don't be Brooklyn-resistant.
http://www.brooklyneagle.com/categories/category.php?category_id=12&id=25020
However did they choose the colors for the different "loops", I wonder? And who really believes art is a good "investment" these days? No one is going to make the kind of financial returns David Rockefeller made on his Rothko a year and half ago. Buy because you love it and can't live without it!
Also, come to my birthday get-together. Details to be sent out soon via email. Don't be Brooklyn-resistant.
December 7, 2008
Contradictions
Last winter, as I sat in a home made of dirt bricks, with a bamboo roof, ill from whatever parasites had infected me, and lacking heat or running water, I was very nearly driven mad by the contradiction of being in such a harsh environment, but still able to connect with my family and friends via wireless internet. (I am now experiencing this in reverse, as I chat online with friends that still live in Morocco. More than once have I read "My fingers are too cold to type! TTYL!) It was nearly impossible to imagine that the environment in which I sat could exist simultaneously as the one which I had left. Was I even on the same planet?
Trust art to address this issue. I just learned about the artist Filippo Minelli. Now a conceptual artist who uses graffiti and documents it photographically is not that novel, but his ongoing project Contradictions, speaks to me in such a visceral way, I barely even have the vocabulary for it. By visiting slums in the developing world and scrawling incredibly popular websites, such as Facebook, Myspace and Flickr, on tin houses, scrap heaps and run-down trains, he frames the incredible chasm between how people live in these environments and how, we in the developed world, spend a great deal of time in an alternate reality. Here's a quote from him from the Daily Dish:
What I want to do by writing the names of anything connected with the 2.0 life... [on] the slums of the third world is to point out the gap between the reality we still live in and the ephemeral world of technologies. It's a kind of reminder, for people like me..., I'm an Apple user and also have social-network accounts, that the real world is deeply far from the idealization we have of it...
What speaks to me most about is the tightrope many developing nations walk as they build technological infrastructures, which are vital to their efforts to attract foreign investment, but often neglect what we consider very basic infrastructure, such as rural electrification and water treatment plants. There simply aren't enough resources for them to do both, and foreign investment wins out because it ostensibly generates immediate revenues. A rural farmer simply isn't going to produce a larger crop because the government connected him to the power grid, but her sons can travel to the nearest large town to work for outsourced jobs from larger economies.
I doubt that Minelli's art "helps" anyone in the communities in which he works, but that's not really the point. You and I are his target audience. How we process the contradictions he highlights is the truly interesting aspect.
Trust art to address this issue. I just learned about the artist Filippo Minelli. Now a conceptual artist who uses graffiti and documents it photographically is not that novel, but his ongoing project Contradictions, speaks to me in such a visceral way, I barely even have the vocabulary for it. By visiting slums in the developing world and scrawling incredibly popular websites, such as Facebook, Myspace and Flickr, on tin houses, scrap heaps and run-down trains, he frames the incredible chasm between how people live in these environments and how, we in the developed world, spend a great deal of time in an alternate reality. Here's a quote from him from the Daily Dish:
What I want to do by writing the names of anything connected with the 2.0 life... [on] the slums of the third world is to point out the gap between the reality we still live in and the ephemeral world of technologies. It's a kind of reminder, for people like me..., I'm an Apple user and also have social-network accounts, that the real world is deeply far from the idealization we have of it...
What speaks to me most about is the tightrope many developing nations walk as they build technological infrastructures, which are vital to their efforts to attract foreign investment, but often neglect what we consider very basic infrastructure, such as rural electrification and water treatment plants. There simply aren't enough resources for them to do both, and foreign investment wins out because it ostensibly generates immediate revenues. A rural farmer simply isn't going to produce a larger crop because the government connected him to the power grid, but her sons can travel to the nearest large town to work for outsourced jobs from larger economies.
I doubt that Minelli's art "helps" anyone in the communities in which he works, but that's not really the point. You and I are his target audience. How we process the contradictions he highlights is the truly interesting aspect.
Life as a Waking Dream
Whenever I'm having a major mini quarter life crisis my grandmother always asks me: If your life were a dream, how would you interpret it? I know, it sounds a little funny, and it is, but sometimes it's a really useful way to step outside of myself and think about how to overcome any obstacles in my path. Other times, when there is no crisis, and I'm a bit bored, I pick out random themes that seem to repeat themselves. This week has been especially rich with oddities.
One of my (really awesome, friendly, funny) co-workers ordered a fox from Ebay. Not a live one, though. It's a specimen of taxidermy, on which she's writing her master's thesis. Then I met a man with the surname, Fox. And I've been thinking about the cute little kid in the movie, "You've Got Mail", that spells out his name, F-O-X, in this really adorable way. Ummm, the problem with this? Foxes apparently represent trickery and fire. And that totally connects to the fact that I burned my thumb pretty badly on some coffee and my favorite brunch place was closed last week after suffering damage from a kitchen fire. I don't think there are any consequences to all these silly observations of mine, but I will not be building any fires in my house like I did last winter.
Life has been relatively uneventful in the past week. I've made little progress on my room, which is a total mess and looks not too dissimilar to a war zone or, more accurately, my room in the third grade. I did attend a great lecture by Maira Kalman, a graphic artist and painter, who does tons of work for The New Yorker. She was personable, self-deprecating and incredibly smart. She also pursues whatever she wants, and fully admits that luck aids her talent. I like that kind of honesty.
One of my (really awesome, friendly, funny) co-workers ordered a fox from Ebay. Not a live one, though. It's a specimen of taxidermy, on which she's writing her master's thesis. Then I met a man with the surname, Fox. And I've been thinking about the cute little kid in the movie, "You've Got Mail", that spells out his name, F-O-X, in this really adorable way. Ummm, the problem with this? Foxes apparently represent trickery and fire. And that totally connects to the fact that I burned my thumb pretty badly on some coffee and my favorite brunch place was closed last week after suffering damage from a kitchen fire. I don't think there are any consequences to all these silly observations of mine, but I will not be building any fires in my house like I did last winter.
Life has been relatively uneventful in the past week. I've made little progress on my room, which is a total mess and looks not too dissimilar to a war zone or, more accurately, my room in the third grade. I did attend a great lecture by Maira Kalman, a graphic artist and painter, who does tons of work for The New Yorker. She was personable, self-deprecating and incredibly smart. She also pursues whatever she wants, and fully admits that luck aids her talent. I like that kind of honesty.
December 5, 2008
This is Fabulous News!
Congratulations to Jimmy Carter, the countless educators on the ground and the people who have made small adjustments to their behavior to nearly eradicate the affliction that is Guinea Worm!
http://kristof.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/12/05/jimmy-carter-and-george-w-bushs-future/
And to echo Kristof's thoughts: What will a former President Bush look like? Will he chop wood or help to save forests? The cynic in me says he'll probably spread the myth that zebras are vicious man-eating beasts that should never, ever be put on the endangered species list.
http://kristof.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/12/05/jimmy-carter-and-george-w-bushs-future/
And to echo Kristof's thoughts: What will a former President Bush look like? Will he chop wood or help to save forests? The cynic in me says he'll probably spread the myth that zebras are vicious man-eating beasts that should never, ever be put on the endangered species list.
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