Daily Archives: January 26, 2008

Cinema and Television

Mondrian’s Glasses

Leave a comment

19  74% 20%  0mph SSW  bar29.93 rises  windchill19  Winter

          Waning Gibbous Winter Moon

Another workout in the past.  Another pre-trip prep formats my workouts for outside aerobics and a few in the gym activities.

Started rewatching the Emperor and the Assassin, the first of two relatively recent films that feature Qin Shi Huang-Di, the first emperor of China.  He unified the warring states and created Qin-A, or China.  There were dynasties before him, but they had kings, not emperors.  During the Warring States Period, which immediately preceded Qin Shi Huang-Di’s feat of unification, several different philosophical systems arose in an attempt to find a way toward peace.  This was the era of Kong, the creator of Confucian thought, the legendary Lao-Tze, to whom the Tao Te Ching is attributed and the founders of the Legalist school of governance.  Many more systems arose, but these three had lasting impact.

In the Frederick Scheel photography exhibit I went to Henri Cartier-Bresson’s image of Piet Mondrian’s glasses.  Sure enough, they look like the ones I wear now, not surprising, perhaps, since mine are of German manufacture.  Michelle Yates suggested I look at it.  I also spent some time in the Islamic gallery.  The Koran pages and the miniatures that illustrated Persian books reminded me that the illustrated manuscripts of the Middle Ages also marry word and image.  They represent yet another instance in which literary analysis can abet art history.

Art and Culture, General, Travel

Security as the Museum’s Id

Leave a comment

25  66%  20%  0mph  SSW bar29.90  windchill24  Winter

             Waning Gibbous Winter Moon

At the MIA I picked up my old security badge with the grinning face and a patch of remnant frontal hair which looked like a soft, brown green at the 1st hole.  This earned me admission to the basement, the haunt of the security guards.  I went in the basement to get my picture taken because the badges are, after all, a security concern, relegated to the basement, or id level of the museum.  This is the instinctive, protective part of the museum’s body; it strikes without forethought to protect art, then vitrines, cases and stands.  In a pinch they will protect people, too, but mostly it’s about the art.   Makes sense.  After all, the guy didn’t come in and sit on a patron; no, he chose the $500,000 Ming dynasty chair. (Now worth $750,000 after renovation)

Anyhow, I went down the stairs.  On the left was the guards lounge with the artistic funky furniture and guard art on the wall.  On the right was the photo shop.  On the wall next to its door was an old museum sign in bronze, perhaps 3 feet high and 18 inches wide.  It gave the hours and days of the museum.  So, the basement is also where old signage goes to live after its working life is over.

Once inside, more guard art on the walls, there were those little light reflecting umbrellas that photographers use, plus a tilted white board at desk level in front of the stool.  Pauline? had a Canon SLR digital on a tripod.  She took three shots:  I smiled broadly, quirkily, and deadpan. 

“I’ll leave it to you to choose the most winning one,” I said and left the basement.

 Back here at home I’ve also begun my attempt to learn Chinese characters on my own, with the aid of softwared I bought a while back.  Over the  years I’ve tried to learn Welsh, Spanish, German and Greek.  I have some Latin and some French.  Languages are not my long suit, but I keep sticking my head back in the stocks every few years.   Part of me is ashamed I’ve never learned another language.  No, make that all of me.  Very ethnocentric and gauche American.

General, Politics

A Richard Nixon Dream

Leave a comment

25  70%  19%  omph SWS bar29.89 steady  Winter

           Waning Gibbous Winter Moon

“The right moment for starting on your next job is not tomorrow or next week; it is instanter, or in the American idiom, ‘right now.’ ” – Arnold Toynbee

A long time ago I read how Arnold Toynbee worked when writing his history of the world.  He did the research in the morning and early afternoon, then wrote into the evening.  You’d have to be pretty organized to have the right material handy, but it does cut down on short term memory loss.

Forgot to mention here that I had a Richard Nixon dream last night.  I spent several dream hours chasing, catching, securing and locking away old Tricky Dick.  Have no idea what that was about, but it did have a recurring theme:  I’m in a hotel, it’s check out time and I’m not gonna make it.  Have no idea what that’s about either.  It did occur to me that Nixon has entered the national bank of archetypes.  He’s the all purpose bad guy, the psychopath who made it to the Big House.  It felt good defeating him.  Maybe that was the point.

Off to the MIA today to get my photo taken for a new security badge.  I need to do this since the last time I had one was in 2001, when I still had hair.

GeekWorld, Travel, Woolly Mammoths

A Retreat, Then An Advance

Leave a comment

19  82%  21%  omph ENE bar29.90  windchill19  Winter

             Waning Gibbous Winter Moon

A DVR.  Hadn’t planned on getting one, but the hdmi connection with the TV demanded it over the HD converter box alone.  Surprise.  I like it.  Already I’ve taped two movies, Cronicas and Killer of Sheep.  When I’m watching a movie, I prefer to start at the beginning and the start times of movies often don’t conform to my schedule.  In the past I would check the replay schedules and try to find a time that worked or I’d skip it.  Now I can press the record button and the DVR records the movie and I can replay when I wish.  Kate’s also used it to tape a TPT series, Jewish Americans.  Guess you never know.

No more tours until March.  I have ten days before I go to Dwelling in the Woods, days I’ll use to finish the garden planning, edit my sermon for Groveland and produce a 1-page Transcendentalism for Brights, work on my new novel and a short story.  Also, I’ll do the various pre-trip preparations like stopping the newspaper, the mail, reserving a ride on the Airport Shuttle, packing. 

Also have to plan a one-hour presentation to the brothers, something I want to share with them, a passion or a part of my life right now.  Could be anything.  We switched to this format last year and we liked it.  The way we’d done it before involved a focus on a theme and a common thread in what we presented:  Fathers, Mothers, Death, Myth.  Last year we had a theme, Darkness, but the suggestion was to present the theme in a creative manner.  I chose a ritual of darkness which involved reading poetry excerpts (Dover Beach, The Night by Rilke, Stopping by the Woods on A Snowy Evening that sort) and, in a room lit only with candles, extinguishing a candle with each reading.   This year, don’t know yet.