At the third week of July, I had the equivalent to Willy Wonka’s gold ticket in my hands; I had a 4-day pass for the sold out 2010 Comic-Con. Sadly, I had a bout of insomnia and did not sleep very much for a week-and-a-half! Friday night thru Saturday morning, I did not make it to bed. I forced myself to drive down to San Diego on Saturday morning. I...
Read MoreBIL 2010 at the MOLAA
At the urging of a friend, I attended the BIL 2010 Conference. BIL is 3 years running and is usually situated near the TED Conference (devoted to Ideas Worth Spreading). The event is free and open to all guest presenters. Usually scientists, futurists, technologists, artists, venture capitalists speak on inspirational and oftentimes niche topics. Usually...
Read MoreLos Angeles Art Show 2010 at the Los Angeles Convention Center
Unfortunately due to low energy and lack of time, I could only attend the LA Art Show for a few hours to grab this interview and have a quick look around on one of the days that this was here. INTERVIEW: My radio interview with Kim Martingdale (click here for his bio) and others is now up: click here to listen REVIEW: My first stop was the live...
Read MoreWays to Detox from the Sins of Urban Living
All roads lead to? A Whole Foods’ vitamins and supplements aisle. For me at least. Fall of 2005, I was reading any literature I could find on Bach flower essences. For a certain audience, the lyric description on each brown vial speaks to the whole in a way that modern pharmaceuticals with their legal disclaimers and talk about neurochemistry cannot....
Read MoreFreedom of the Press Not Just for Approved “Journalists”
Robert Niles at the online journalism Review has a good article arguing that freedom of the press should not be exclusive to approved journalists. http://www.ojr.org/ojr/people/robert/200910/1787/ He writes: There ought to be no special class of citizen called a “journalist.” Anyone who does journalism, even if for just a moment in their lives,...
Read MoreOpen Veins of Latin America: Five Centuries of the Pillage of a Continent by Eduardo Galeano
Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez gave Obama this book as a gift in April 2009. It chronicles five centuries of Latin America’s exploitation by the United States of America. In the 20th century section of the book, Eduardo Galeano mentions something interesting in passing. Robert McNamara, the World Bank president who was chairman of Ford and then...
Read MoreWest Hollywood Book Fair
It’s late afternoon and my first visit to the West Hollywood Book Fair. I park at the Pacific Design Center and walk over. I catch Jordan Elgrably of the Levantine Center in conversation with Reza Aslan and Tamim Ansary on Art, Politics and the Arab Muslim World. The kernel of the hour long talk was that art and music are building bridges to the...
Read MoreRichard N. Haas, “When Should the U.S. Go to War?”
Tonight I went down to Santa Monica to the Rand Corporation, a private think tank focused on issues of national security, for a lecture given by Richard Haas on his new book War of Necessity, War of Choice: A Memoir of Two Iraq Wars. Richard Haas served under Colin Powell during the second Bush presidency. During the Q&A, he made a good point about the...
Read MoreMuseum of Jurassic Technology’s David Wilson: Lecture and Film at the Armand Hammer Museum 05/06/09
David Wilson is the founding director of the Museum of Jurassic Technology, which opened in 1988. Wilson has also produced six independent films, most recently under the auspices of MJT in conjunction with Kabinet, an arts and science-based cultural institution located in St. Petersburg, Russia. We were treated to a lecture and film...
Read MoreThe LA Times Festival of Books, 2009
The featured panel of this year’s LA Times Festival of Books was Gore Vidal interviewed by Richard Rayner. This years Festival of Books’ logo was illustrated by Eric Carle who wrote The Very Hungry...
Read MoreShakespeare’s Kitchen by Lore Segal
This was one of the finalists for the 2008 Pulitzer Prize. It would have been my choice for winner. The writing is witty and funny and nuanced. Seven of these interconnected stories first appeared in The New Yorker magazine. SYNOPSIS: Ilka Weisz has accepted a teaching position at the Concordance Institute, a think tank in Connecticut, reluctantly leaving...
Read MoreTree of Smoke by Denis Johnson
Weighing in at over 600 pages, Denis Johnson’s Tree of Smoke is beautifully crafted, but in the end I had serious issues with the plot development; it simply goes nowhere. There are several story lines to follow, which start out promisingly, but fatigue the reader with the wait for a resolution. This style worked well for Johnson’s earlier book...
Read MoreThe Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz
This novel follows several generations of a family cursed by ill-advised love choices. This book was not a pleasure to read. So much so that at a certain point I cursed Junot Diaz for making me work so hard to get through his novel. I forced myself to finish it in one sitting. The choppy narrative I blamed on his penchant for throwing around Spanish...
Read MoreOutliers: The Story of Success by Malcolm Gladwell
“No one who can rise before dawn three hundred sixty days a year fails to make his family rich” Outliers: The Story of Success Malcolm Gladwell unravels the mystery behind success. It is shaped by a confluence of factors: family and community, birthplace, birth date, class structure, genealogy, ethnicity, practical intelligence, hours of hard work,...
Read MorePawning the Rights to Artwork
Someone forwarded this to me: Allen Salkin has a fascinating story in today’s NY Times (link) about high end pawnshops like Art Capital Group. Annie Leibowitz has borrowed about $15 milllion from them and for collateral, among other things, she has put up the rights to all of her...
Read MoreMy Favorite Pieces from the 14th Annual LA Art Show at the LA Convention Center, January 25, 2009
This photorealistic painting of a pile of The Wall Street Journal newspapers on a bookcase by Steve Mills and the concave intaglio-like sculpture by Yong Deok Lee were my overall favorites from the LA Art Show. Please scroll down for comments and other photos. Steve Mills (detail) Steve Mills Wall Street Journal 2 Oil on Aluminum Panel 42″ x...
Read MorePhoto LA
These have been an emotionally rough and confusing few years for me and it’s been easy to give up and become a hermit. I’ve had some health issues. So, I challenged myself to try to make the effort to see some art, especially when I have press access to events and museums, and even when it means being smooshed inside a building with crowds on...
Read MoreBenazir Bhutto’s “Reconciliation”
Former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto completed the manuscript to this book just before her assassination in December 2007 at the age of 54. This book gives context to her recent martyrdom. It is also a plea to the West to mend our ways. Only two months earlier upon her return to Pakistan as the figurehead of the Pakistan People’s Party, terrorists...
Read MoreStephen Daldry’s “The Reader”
Tonight I went to a screening of Stephen Daldry’s “The Reader,” based on Bernhard Schlink’s international bestselling novel of the same name. David Hare wrote the screenplay. Daldry says, “This is not a Holocaust movie, it is a movie about the second generation and how you come to terms with and how you can approach living in...
Read More9/11 Memento Mori
Remember that you are mortal. Director David Lynch’s ‘Interesting Questions’ online art gallery (http://www.jonesreport.com/articles/030107_lynch_art.html). His interesting website invites visitors to walk through a virtual gallery where they can stop in front of art work hanging on the “walls” for a closer look. Choose Floor...
Read MoreDecember 18 – Today Is My Birthday – Scaling the Alps of My Mid-30s
In the entry for December 18, WIkipedia notes: 218 BC – Second Punic War: Battle of the Trebia – Hannibal‘s Carthaginian forces defeat those of the Roman Republic. In one of my five years of studying Latin, I had to translate parts of Livy’s (59 BC to AD 17) The War with Hannibal. Synopsis In The War with Hannibal, Livy (59 BC...
Read MoreGordon Matta-Clark at MOCA until January 7th
Gordon Matta-Clark is one of my top five favorite artists. I’m a big fan of his films documenting his cut buildings, as well as, the cut building performances themselves. He first captured my heart fifteen years ago at Sci-Arc and during a city-wide retrospective with lectures and screenings at MOCA and UCLA. The NY Times has background on...
Read MoreMerv Griffin’s Crosswords: Poison Cup for the Grandiose
I. In 2004, I lived with a crossword addict and caught the bug. I looked forward each Thursday for the (now gone) LA Weekly crossword. I rarely finished, but still found it relaxing to try. The person I lived with always finished. Since then I’ve attempted to do the "easy" "coffee-break" crossword books compiled by Will Shortz. I...
Read MoreMulticultural Colors: A Perfect Shade of Flesh
Crayola has "multicultural" fleshtone sets of their crayons, markers, paints, and clays. The crayon colors are: black, sepia, peach, apricot, white, tan, mahogany, and burnt sienna. How inspired! And how funny. The burnt ochre-ish crayon (second from the right in the photo above) must be for asian. Or perhaps "apricot," fourth from the...
Read More150-Foot Crane Smashes Building, Almost Falls on Yoga Students
Yesterday, I was stopped at the intersection of La Cienega and Pico Blvd. when several fire trucks sped around me towards a 150-foot hydralic crane tipped on its side just half-a-block ahead. The 150-foot boom smashed into a building and maybe damaged a car. A pedestrian said yoga students from a neighboring business scrambled to get away and that kids...
Read MoreLaughter Depicted
I came across this on Wikipedia: As expected for a common occurrence, laughter is frequently depicted in books and cartoons. Language How written Nuance German hahaha (normal) hnhnhn hmhmhm chrchrchr (giggle) muhaha ahehe uhaha (sardonic) höhöhö (ironic) Hungarian hahaha (classical; the length of it...
Read MoreFreud’s Cowardice of Amnesia: Why Drive Theory Trumped Trauma Theory
Several months ago, I reread Alice Miller’s Drama of the Gifted Child as part of some research I am doing. Last week, I had time to read more from her body of work translated into English from the German and released in the late-80s and early-90s. This includes Thou Shalt Not Be Aware: Society’s Betrayal of the Child; The Untouched Key: Tracing...
Read MoreWhy We Love The Dogs We Do
Around 1997, I adopted Tommy. Now 14, Tommy is the whelp of two of my sister’s chihuahuas. My mom raised him on a diet of steak and lamb chops and ribs. She carried him around in her arms and he slept next to her swaddled in his own blanket and she would talk to him about life. Coddled like a small human, Tommy is...
Read More“Fairest Cordelia, that art most rich, being poor…” – But I’ll Add, Sometimes One Really Is Poorer for Being Poor
Ian McKellen backed by the Royal Shakespeare Company returns to UCLA’s Royce Hall with only a weekend left, and I’m going to miss it! Some scalpers on CraigsList are asking as much as $1000 for a single ticket: • Single King Lear ticket. $1,000.00 Stage Left S5 Very Close to stage. Oct. 28 Sunday performance. Royce hall has configured...
Read MoreKXLU 50th Anniversary Alumni Party – Sunday 09/30/07
Flash Slideshow: Please click on the image. Review: Saturday night before my radio show, a good friend crucified my evening with a noisy public scene peppered with the F-word. There was also a lot of stomp-stomp-stomping back and forth. My initial response, “Huh?” could not save me from the black cloud his bad mood left behind. After my show, I was...
Read MoreNam June Paik’s Seminal “Moon is the Oldest TV”
In homage to this morning’s Full Moon Lunar Eclipse (2 to 4 AM), a revisit of Nam-june Paik’s video installation, “Moon is the Oldest TV,” feels appropriate. Moon is The Oldest Television – 1965-67 (1996) Nam-june Paik TV Moniter,projector and video I. The Moon vis-à-vis the Beholder In 1963 America put the first man on the...
Read MoreThe Meteor as Art – Maurizio Cattelan’s “Pope Struck by a Meteorite” Sells for $3 Million
Maurizio Cattelan’s La Nona Oralso (1999) Venice Biennalle Installation wax, clothing, polyester resin with metallic powder, volcanic rock, carpet, glass This critique is only for this particular art installation and not Maurizio Cattelan’s body of work which I like. I don’t normally write public negative reviews and I will reexamine what...
Read MorePerseid Meteor Shower as Culinary Masterpiece
It used to be that on an occassion like the Perseid or Leonid meteor showers, I’d be in my car in a heartbeat, headed into the desert, passing Gorman, away from the light pollution of cities. This year, I content myself by feasting on artists’ interpretations of these events. In honor of the Perseid Meteor Shower, Belly-Timber has...
Read MoreFilmmaker Ingmar Bergman Dies at 89 (July 14, 1918 to July 30, 2007)
I was an impressionable age twelve when I first saw Ingmar Bergman‘s "Fanny and Alexander." Perhaps the power of Bergman’s storytelling in this film comes from the bleak psychological landscape the two children occupy and the interior life they must create, a daydream to escape the nightmare. When we leave the theater,...
Read MoreEarthquake Preparedness – Don’t Forget Your Pet
Tommy - if he had a proper doggy emergency kit: From The American Red Cross’ website: In the event of a disaster, if you must evacuate, the most important thing you can do to protect your pets is to evacuate them, too. Leaving pets behind, even if you try to create a safe place for them, is likely to result in their being injured, lost,...
Read MoreJohnson & Johnson Sues The American Red Cross for Trademark Misuse
Reported by BBC News: Medical firm Johnson & Johnson (J&J) is suing the American Red Cross, alleging the charity has misused the famous red cross symbol for commercial purposes. J&J said a deal with the charity’s founder in 1895 gave it the “exclusive use” of the symbol as a trademark for drug, chemical and surgical...
Read MoreFull Moon over Santa Monica – July 29th
We’ve had 115 degree temperatures in the Valley, and I’m nostalgic for my apartment in Santa Monica and the cooler weather. During the California Wildfires of 2003, I lived ten short blocks from the ocean. Once seated on the beach I could fill my lungs with fresh air while the downdraft over the rest of LA County was hot and polluted with...
Read MoreI. Lewis “Scooter” Libby’s Literary Pardon
Does it pay to take a bullet for the Executive Branch? Whether I. Lewis Libby sits in jail at all, no longer matters. His recent fame is enough to revive a flatlined literary career. St. Martins Press reissued his one book, “The Apprentice: A Novel”, published in 1996 during his 2005 indictment. Demand from booksellers led to a 25,000 copy...
Read MoreField Guide to Arabs and Americans
Sharon Weinberg writes on Wired: A 2003′s "Soldier’s Guide to the Republic of Iraq," issued by the Army on the eve of the U.S. invasion, tells troops that Arabs see "little virtue in a frank exchange" and are "by American standards… reluctant to accept responsibility." Those are just a few of the surprising...
Read MoreBob Barker host of “Price Is Right” retires after 50 years
Bob Barker retires. More significant than helming the sloppy enthusiasm of Price is Right is his longtime animal rights advocacy. From Wikipedia: Bob Barker is well known for his work in animal rights. He became a vegetarian in 1979. That same year, he began promoting animal rights. Barker began ending each episode of The Price Is Right with the...
Read MoreWrite a script in 30 days! Script Frenzy!!
And we’re off! Script Frenzy! It’s a race to write a 20,000 word film or stage script in the month of June, which breaks down to roughly 700 words a day. And it’s brought to us by the same people who came up with NaNoWriMo. The wildly successful National Novel Writing Month takes place every November and draws thousands of...
Read MoreTrailers
I dug through Apple’s website where they keep QuickTime movies of trailers and found a few, in the form of either a commercial that aired, the film trailer itself, or the main title sequence, that I worked on (as a Graphics Coordinator for motion graphics and animation). 20th Century Fox: • A Good Year...
Read More“to write lyric poetry after Auschwitz is barbaric”
A few people have asked me about that Adorno quote on my About page: DILEMNA: Adorno wrote – “To write poetry after Auschwitz is barbaric.” I guess I’m looking for ways to maintain optimism in the face of the increasingly decentralized world we live in, both on a personal level and in terms of the current national politics. Which begs the...
Read MoreManfred Muller’s “Twilight and Yearning” beneath the Santa Monica Pier
I though I would repost some art writing from my Echo in the Sense website here: Much of 2004 was spent taking long walks along the Santa Monica pier and wallowing in a tide of inertia. I came upon this installation for the first time this January at a time when I very much needed a mental jog from the past. The boat sculpture/permanent installation in...
Read MoreBreakfast: Get it? I’m breaking my fast :)
I fasted 23 days this time. The hardest part of going on a long fast is that, unfortunately, you freak out friends, family and the people you work with. Flying under the radar is impossible. The first time I tried the cayenne pepper, maple syrup, lemonade fast (Master Cleanse), I was able to go two weeks before an “intervention.” Getting...
Read MoreWell, it’s putting a roof over my head…
The perks: A pleasant 30 minute commute on surface streets from where I live. I made a deal to come in at Noon and be the “swing” shift. Which should give me time to write in the mornings. The projects I’ve worked on recently include Grid Iron Gang, Open Season, The Queen, SpongeBob, the new Borat movie!!, director/star Christopher...
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