Archive for January, 2008
40 items.
Lotus Flower Dance, Atlanta History Center, Chinese New Year Celebration
January 2008
Took a few pics at the Chinese New Year Celebration, but not many. I knew mine wouldn’t come out very well as I’m not an aggressive photographer. As in, though others were using their flash, I didn’t because I was concerned about all those flashes going off in the faces of the performers. And so I didn’t use my flash even though others were. And I sat with H.o.p. and my niece on the ground midway back from the performance, not wanting to leave them and not wanting to push to the front in order to get shots. Which all makes for not being a good photographer.
Still, I wanted to work on at least one shot of the Lotus Dance by which to remember the occasion.
On the table is a pair of lotus lamps that I picked up at a Chinese store in anticipation of the first Chinese New Year we ever celebrated, which was a couple months after H.o.p. was born. We even purchased an ox statuette as he was born in the year of the ox. And we started the practice of the little red money envelopes and cleaning the house for the New Year. I don’t remember why we began celebrating the Chinese New Year then, but we did. At least in our own American fashion.
Actually, I do remember. We began celebrating because of H.o.p.’s birth. I don’t know why we chose to begin celebrating the Chinese New Year, but we did.
I love those cheap little lotus lights with the pink bulb in the heart of the lotus flower.
At some point during the Lotus Dance performance the dancers began reminding me of my lotus lamps. Then something rather magical occurred and, despite the fact the performance was thoroughly human and had its share of hesitations, it was as if a veil had fallen around the dancers that was indeed the lotus blossom and I had, for the first time, a real feeling for what those little plastic lamps symbolize. I’m sentimental enough that it seemed that whatever hopeful spirit was attached in those lamps, by intention, came alive and unfurled on the floor over the dancers. And it was more than lovely. I thought, “It’s about Spring.” Which I’d not realized before. Today, as H.o.p. and I took a stroll around the internet looking up material on the Chinese New Year and its symbols, I wasn’t at all surprised to finally learn that it is indeed a celebration of Spring.
Eventually we settled on learning about the Lion Dance, its origins, why lions when there are no lions in China, and that the dance we saw Sunday was a Southern style Lion dance.
We went through a number of Youtube videos of Lion Dances. The below was a favorite of us both.
For those unfamiliar with the dance, if you watch, note how the lion is progressing across the poles to the greenery hanging on the third pole from the end. This “lettuce” traditionally accompanies a monetary reward. At about 2:20 the lion attains the lettuce, consumes it, and then there is a roar of delight as it spits out the lettuce sans that monetary reward. The lion then consumes a banner that is unfurled in the second part of the video.
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When whichever fan it was that’s been sounding like a dizzily sick Disney World tea cup ride started whining this morning, it was time to pull off the side of the computer and try to locate the source. My brother was wondering if it was the chipset fan. Instead it SEEMS to be the fan on my Radeon X800GT videocard (driver version 8.201.0.0).
There it goes again. Whine, whine, whine, whine. Nerve wracking.
I read on a forum someone talking about taking apart the fan and oiling it and how it would work good as new. If it was making grating, crackling sounds.
Someone else on the forum said this was not a good idea.
I can see me taking apart my X800GT fan.
Not.
So, maybe this is what I need instead of buying a new videocard?
This month my Wacom mouse scroller started slipping so badly I can get nowhere with it. I found a web page that described how you could take apart your Wacom mouse and get it working right again. So I pulled the felt off the back of it and there were no screws on this Wacom mouse. Forget that. I don’t use the mouse at all in Photoshop so won’t bother me any there but I do use it for all other computer work and was heavily reliant on the scroller. Since the scroller’s stopped working, I’ve gotten kind of used to not using it but I’d still like to fix it somehow. HOW? How do you get inside a Wacom mouse with no screws without employing a hammer?
And the fan goes whine, whine, whine, whine, whine.
After Hours at the Imperal Palace Cinema – Love Story
20 by 11.5 inches
Digital painting 2008
Thanks to Yellow Stock at Deviantart for reference model.
Seemed a fun follow-up to my Love Story post.
A little earlier I was reading Touching the River which is all about electrified art. H.o.p. was drawing elsewhere. Then I was done and reading something else and H.o.p. gets up from the table and starts dancing around telling me about a new character he’s just come up with.
THE ELECTRIC KNIGHT!
He’s all electric. Even his sword is electric.
His opponent?
THE DARK SIDE OF ELECTRICITY.
Yes, that’s the opponent’s name. It’s a bit of a mouthful, but there you go.
* * * * * * *
Have been having hours long conversations with my brother on what to do about my piecemeal computer, which needs more memory and has one of its fans going. I’m hoping to make this one last a little longer. Trying to figure out how we can upgrade it just enough to do its job without getting too pricey, and then if it is still not up to speed I’ll have to bite the bullet and get a new one but I can pass this one along to H.o.p. in decent working order.
My brother referred to my computer as “a special case”.
I said I knew what that meant.
He said he was trying to be polite.
Surfacing
Digital painting, 2008
20 by 20 inches
The woman is based on a Deviantart model but I can’t find the pic to credit her. She looks entirely different here. The reference pic had her in Japanese style make-up, highly made up black eyes, dots under them, black slash over lips, in some sort of perhaps black lingerie, against a brown background with I think a framed picture to the side. Her eyes were brown and downcast and she had a more severe look on her face. If I remember correctly she didn’t have any rules about pic use. If anyone recognizes her then I can credit her.
Atlanta History Center, Chinese New Year Celebration, with my niece (on the right).
She had a great time with my camera, for which reason I took very few pictures.
The Chinese New Year is February 7th, but the Atlanta History Center held a celebration Sunday.
Knowing that people wear red for the Chinese New Year, it was H.o.p.’s idea to wear a red dragon shirt he’d picked up in New York’s China Town.
Atlanta History Center, Chinese New Year Celebration. H.o.p. gathers pine cones with his cousin.
H.o.p., Marty and I attended with a brother of mine and his daughter, enjoying several hours of dancing and music. We missed my brother’s wife and their other daughter, but the reason they weren’t with us gives much cause to celebrate. They are currently in China and were finally united this weekend with the newest member of their family who traveled two long years from Hanzhong to meet them.
My brother and his wife have a new son, their two daughters have a new sibling, I have a new nephew and H.o.p. has a new cousin.
Welcome! Welcome!
White on White
MoMA 2007
Passing Equations
MoMA 2007
MoMA Staircase
2007
Just finished watching “Love Story” for the first time since I was thirteen.
When I was thirteen, it’s not that I didn’t have taste…well, no, that’s not true. But I at least already suspected this was so, and I remember being torn over the fact I liked “Love Story”. I remember, just a mere thirty minutes after seeing the film, my face by now dried of tears, getting home and walking into the dining room, and as I faced my mother’s parlor grand piano, in the dull yellow light of that suburban dining room, standing between the faux walnut Formica dining table and the piano, gazing at the piano, a deep suspicion rose that, not only had I betrayed years of training in classical music by loving the musical score of “Love Story” but that there were many good reasons why I should not have liked the movie. And I was determined that very, very soon I should really really understand why.
I remember being puzzled, even then, over how weirdly squeaky clean it was. Even bland in its devotion to middle class reluctance to face anything remotely real world. I remember feeling cheated by this, that it didn’t even give a nod to the Vietnam War, to the struggle for Civil Rights, to hippies, to ANYTHING. And Ali McGraw didn’t dress like any college student I’d ever seen.
Since I was about fourteen I have really really understood how “Love Story” is a bad movie, but I never tested this understanding with a second viewing. For all I knew, despite it being a bad movie, I might choke up anyway and break down in tears.
Tonight, I watched the movie for the first time since I was thirteen.
As Ali and Ryan cavorted in the snow (there is much cavorting in the snow) I mused that Snow should have been given credit in a supporting role.
When Ryan said to Ray Milland, “Father, you don’t know the time of day!” I thought Ray Milland’s expression appropriately displayed confusion over what exactly that is supposed to mean.
When Ali saw the apartment in which they would be living while the disinherited Ryan went through law school, and she said that she hadn’t realized it would be THAT bad, I thought, “WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU? THAT’S A GREAT PLACE!”
When the disinherited Ryan tried to get a scholarship to go to school and spoke of himself as being impoverished, I yawned.
As the disinherited Ryan struggled through law school, selling Christmas trees, disappointed by quarter tips, and Ali struggled to support him with a $3000 a year teaching gig, and they still drove around in the antique convertible Bentley (or whatever it was) and they managed to dress straight out of the pages of 70s Vogue throughout, I didn’t laugh, I just thought, “Oh, seriously,” and, “She had great legs. That’s what made this movie so popular. Those legs in those black stockings going up and down all those steps over and over again.”
When Ali said to Ryan, “Love means never having to say you’re sorry,” I thought even Ali didn’t look quite convinced.
The doctor told Ryan that Ali was dying and I was dry-eyed.
Then, as Ali in her white coat and ostentatious fur hat stumbled through the snow, supported by Ryan O’Neal, after asking if they had enough money for a taxi and he said yes, where did she want to go, and she replied, “To the hospital”, after her having watched him do his hockey weaves and bobs on the ice one last time, I laughed out loud. They kept walking on through the snow and I kept laughing at them and the hat. That hat.
There were tears in my eyes, but they were because I was laughing at the hat.
Then came the scenes with Ali in the hospital, straight out of day time soap operas.
Worse than bad.
It was all so soooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo worse than just plain bad.
Yes, I know a lot of money was made on that movie and all involved would feel no regrets because a lot of money was made on it. Still, if I had been the director, the rest of my life I would have spent hiding in the shadows from that scene of Ali in THAT BIG FUZZY CREATURE OF A FUR HAT supported by Ryan as they walk through the snow to the taxi and she jokingly (I think) asking if they have enough money for a taxi, now that they have some lawyer money after years of supposed student poverty, DURING WHICH THEY DROVE AROUND IN A BENTLEY! Or, I think it was a Bentley.
And if Ali had been asking, in all seriousness, if they had the money for a taxi?
Rerun.
Ali (in pristine white innocent white expensive white clothes and big huge fur hat): “Do we have enough money for a taxi?”
There, instant depth to the film. Had she been serious.
Surely, Arthur Hiller is haunted by that hat.
P.S. C’mon. What’s your gut emotional reaction to a man whining about needing a scholarship, driving around in a big old antique convertible Bentley, and selling Christmas trees for cash? Wasn’t this released as a comedy and somehow America got it all wrong and thought it was tragedy and cried? What does it say about us as a people that hordes of Americans sobbed piteously instead of getting the joke?
