Taxi driver

eugene

First impressions count for something. My first encounter in Mexico City is with my taxi driver. I have a funny taxi driver. He is friendly, upbeat, a real stud. On our way out of the airport taxi queue, he honks twice at two young women walking on the sidewalk. I figure he honks once for each woman. He's got aviator sunglasses resting on the instrument panel. He drives with one hand. His other hand nurses a mobile phone. He's involved in a raucous chatty conversation. He's not talking business. He's gabbing with a friend. He laughs. "Ellos no te sabe nada." They don't know you at all. How funny is that!

We navigate traffic that seems completely unimpressive for a major city. I thought it would be more crowded, insane, rivaling India. But no. It's relaxed. I think it's cultural. Latin culture is fast and reactive, but it's relaxed, too. This is reflected even in the commute. It's fun to see so many old Volkswagen beetles on the street, not relics, but vibrantly part of the everyday. I am struck how the public parks remind me of the public parks in Ho Chi Minh City, how the elegant tree-lined boulevards with their high median curbs create the same green flicker at the edges of your peripheral vision, just like in Kolkata, how blocks and blocks of towering old building make the streets feel narrower and the public religious squares that much more spacious, just like in Sao Paolo. Traveling the world helps me understand what makes this city truly cosmopolitan.

I think this impression is probably lost on my taxi driver. In looking out upon his city every day, he must render certain details invisible as he chooses to hone in on specific particulars, like the occasional bombshell woman, marking his sighting with a quick honk. He reminds me that two people can be in the exact same experience and looking at the same thing, and what each person makes of it all can be completely different.

Central district is full of energy, style, and even hipness. Lots of people move about, giving real meaning to public space. Clearly seen in movement and gesture, there is individuality here, a sense of ambition, freedom, perhaps why not happiness as well? We drive past the second largest public plaza in the world, and the largest cathedral on the continent. I am struck by the idea that in history, even in an oppressive history, people can search for the feelings of how they might belong. There are young couples in love holding hands, professionals in outfits you would never wear unless you had to, groups of working class gathering in circles holding some kind of public information meeting, tourists, street vendors, cops, performers.

In general it's more crowded here in the heart of the Centro Historico. In crawling traffic, the taxi driver drops the phone in his lap and fastens his seat belt. We are approaching one of the many traficos, traffic cops, who wears a fluorescent yellow vest and stands in the middle of an minor intersection. I ask the taxi driver if I should buckle up as well. He says, no, no problem, he just does it because of the trafico, he is right there and this is to respect him, once we pass, everything is back to normal, OK? And on cue, once we pass, the belt comes off and the phone is reunited with the taxi driver's head.

At the front of the hotel, the taxi driver hands off my luggage to the hotel porter. The taxi driver insists, almost ceremoniously and definitely with quite a bit of theater, on giving the porter a lecture on how important it is to handle my smaller case carefully. It is filled with very important, delicate equipment. Don't bump it or jar it, you might mess everything up. How does he know this? He is certainly making it all up so that he can put on a show for me, or for himself. I tip him N$20 (pesos) for his bravado. I don't know if that is a good tip or not. It is less than USD$2, but it is about 20% of the fare. I imagine he is quite satisfied with his job. He gets to spend all day driving around the city talking to his friends on the phone. He gets to imagine the contents of sealed containers, and then honor his imagination by performing important soliloquies to semi-private audiences, who then shower him with tips.

Posted Friday, June 26, 2009 at 9:21PM | Leave a comment

Kombucha on tap

eugene

Continuing evidence of the mainstreaming of kombucha: Synergy brand is now being served on tap at the Whole Foods in Venice. I'm here at the upscale grocery store after today's class (third visit of the day) and they're hyping mushroom water on tap with free samples served from cardboard cups.

The drink is served in a clear plastic cup. Psychologically, the experience of drinking kombucha from plastic instead of glass is interesting. It makes the drink seem less like a health elixir, and more like fizzy Kool-Aid gone bad.

Posted Saturday, October 10, 2009 at 6:46PM | Leave a comment

Bread

eugene

The ornate clay oven at Persian restaurant Shahrezad in Westwood is located in view of the main dining area. If you're at a nearby table, watching the breadmaker is a treat. Last night he was on his feet the entire time I was there. Whenever guests arrive, he gets to work. It appears his job entails cooking up a fresh basket of bread for each newly seated table. He works expertly and casually, first lifting frisbee-sized doughballs from a tray to prepare them for baking. He takes each doughball and rolls it flat, then scores it with a special knife to leave tracks like the dotted-line borders found on coupons. Then he throws the flat against the sides of the bulbous clay oven, its round opening facing upward like the gaping mouth of a mythic creature. He knows exactly when to take the bread out of the clay oven. The piping-hot bread arrives at the table chewy, crusty, light, and dense all at the same time.

Posted Thursday, September 17, 2009 at 12:55PM | Leave a comment

Polaroid/Poladroid

Genevieve

For the past few months, i've seen the new internet application Poladroid appear on facebook and in the mouths (computers) of a number of my friends. Last week, Deanna brought it up to me and asked for commentary on this new phenomenon(?), i don't even know if it can be called that. Poladroid is free computer application and can be downloaded so that everyone can "create easily high resolution Polaroid - like pictures from your digital photos". I have this distinct non-film polaroid look-a-likes pop upon in facebook albums, blogs, flickr, and in my mom's iphone.

I've been using the Venice Arts day lab and converting my slide images into polaroids along with traditional instance photography for some time now. I really like the aspect of flaw and surprise that comes from these images. The color is usually a bit off, there is no possibility for burning, the image is often somewhat out of focus and thus a perfect image is impossible.

When I first saw the new artificial version i found it troubling to hear that with the extinction of polaroid, we needed a new way to replicate the style. Not for its flaw, but for its aesthetic. The poladroid application backs the image with the polaroid holder, slightly alters the color, and fades the edges. The image however remains flawless, and i don't know if there is anything wrong with that. Recently however, I've become more open to this silly image manipulator. I do wonder however. Is this the new way of making vintage popular culture last forever in our electronic lifestyle? Are real polaroids now vintage even though they still exist in limited quantity?

When I was in middle school, this instant medium became very popular among my middle school piers to take "artsy" photos to show on myspace. Is poladroid just a continuation of that attitude towards instant photos? or will it become to "mainstream" and kill the hip aspect?

Will more photographic be imitated with website downloads? probably, but will these click and drag apps wipe out the original art form? I can only hope not. It is scary however to think how with polaroid cameras, each generation became simplified and it has now evolved into this.

Posted Monday, December 21, 2009 at 4:16PM | Leave a comment

Desert Sun: Program helps kids bring community into focus

Venice Arts

Palm Springs' newspaper, the Desert Sun, published this web video story about the Coachella photography project being led by Venice Arts.

Excerpts from the article, which was published today:

“If you want to make a community better, then first you have to understand the things that need to be improved in a community, and they're learning this first-hand via taking pictures,” said Quinton Egson, chief professional officer for the Boys & Girls Club of Coachella Valley.

The eastern Coachella Valley is just one of eight communities chosen to participate in the statewide project, which is part of the California Endowment Build a Healthy Community Initiative, Egson said.

For 16-year-old Thania Espinoza of Coachella, the project is her opportunity to share her heritage with other people.

On Thursday, she was one of three students led by professional photographer/project instructor Doug McCulloh who photographed date farming.

“It's really important for people to know that this is still a big part of how Coachella works,” Thania said, referring to the leading crop in the valley's agricultural industry.

Photographing her grandfather, 61-year-old Joaquin Espinoza, harvesting dates at Sunwest Farms in Thermal, Thania hopes others will understand the labor involved in bringing fresh produce to the table.

“We should let people know that this isn't just something easy you could do. It takes hard work and dedication,” she said. “This is how we were brought up and it's important that everyone knows that this is what Coachella is about.”

Click here to see the full article.

Posted Friday, April 09, 2010 at 9:45PM | Leave a comment

What's your story?

eugene

Anyone ever ask you this question?

Ever ask yourself this question?

We all have a story. It might something that has been given to us, that we are chasing after, that we are secretly hiding from the rest of the world. We might be holding onto our story, trying to let it go, reaching for it to get a good handle on it for the very first time. Whatever its nature, we all have a story. At least one. Some of us have two.

I stopped by the Venice Arts Gallery earlier this afternoon to attend a meeting for a project that we'll be doing this coming year. It's a special class devoted to stories, to storytelling, and to the really big question that everyone poses, to others and to themselves: What's your story?

Lynn was at the meeting. She's the brains behind Venice Arts. If you've spent any time at this organization and you don't know who she is, you've been asleep. Cathy was at the meeting. She's the program's lead filmmaker, and she's in charge of the class. Liz was at the meeting. Most people don't know this, but she does a lot of work, behind the scenes, telling Venice Arts' story to the community.

I'll be one of the people working on the project. As an artist mentor, I'll be guiding the students through a unique approach to working with media. We're not focusing on photography, or film, or color, or black-and-white, or digital, or traditional, or microphones, or Photoshop, or interviewing, or editing, or any of the techniques or forms that generally define a mediamaking experience. Instead, we're going to be paying attention to storytelling, that "thing" that some people call the "magic" in any message. It's that thing that exists underneath, behind, and inside all of these tools and techniques. That means, as storytellers, we're going to master and use every tool imaginable in pursuit of story. Every tool. Everything that I just mentioned, and then some. Isn't that amazing!?!? These students are going to not only know how to use the tools, but when to use them and why to use them. That's the important stuff. That's the space where creativity thrives.

I'm also working on a special website where the students will be compiling their stories to share with the world. It's a bit like this website, but different. This website is set up as an online studio space, where artists gather to develop their work. The project's website is set up more like an online magazine, where stories get published and anyone out there in the world can stop by to check them out. It's very exciting.

The class is going to be small. At this point we're talking six students. So it's a bit like the Dirty Half-Dozen. That's meant to be a witty joke for you movie buffs. I've been told these students are being hand-picked from a teeming sea of candidates, all bloodthirsty for the opportunity to sink their fangs into this storytelling challenge. I've worked with a few of them before, so I know we're going to have some fun and we're going to produce some great stories.

More to come. Until then, what's your story?

Posted Friday, September 11, 2009 at 11:23PM | Leave a comment

blurg

Genevieve

So last week, other than Thanksgiving, I worked on a spotlight music center awards scholarship contest. Deanna and Cathy helped with the application, which included a photo and 3 very very short responses. I think the length was the hardest part along with choosing which image to use. I was really indecisive about, so Deanna and Wynn had a say in that. All (almost) of Deanna's students have submitted an application, so hopefully someone from Venice Arts will get the grand prize!

Currently the Gallery is working on putting up an archive show of students work which sounds pretty nice.

Last class in my class with YMC we saw the R. Crumb Genesis exhibit which was really tight, i love comics. Oh an Eugene if your reading this: I have all the film from Scotty's house processed and contact sheets will be made.

I will be driving in a week (HOPEFULLY) so that is exciting! Along with that the school year is really speeding by. Its almost winter break.

So recently the news concerning war and healthcare and whatnot has been somewhat depressing so I figured I post a few silly reports from AOL's Weird News

- Colorado's Governor's Mansion got TPed.
- An Arizona Teacher got fired for using the district's computer system to search for Space alien students
- There is a rock-paper-scissors tournament held in Toronto.
- Someone found Jesus on their iron (see photo attached

Can you believe it is already December?

Posted Wednesday, December 02, 2009 at 4:35PM | Leave a comment

All the Babble

Sam

Well from all of the stories, which I was able to read for me the one that stood out the most was the story of the tower of Babel. In this story the citizens of Babel become so powerful as a civilization that they begin building a tower that they hope will reach heaven. God realizing that they probably will succeed will have none of that so he decides to make it so the people of Babel speak in many different languages. (I guess that’s where we get the word babble from.) Now that they all speak different languages they can no longer work together to achieve their monumental task. This is the Bible's way of explaining not only the phenomenon of different languages across the world's people, but also why humans will never be able to unite and achieve something amazing as one human race. For me in this story, God was the antagonist and the people of Babel were the protagonists. I feel like God was beginning to feel jealous of his creations and had to somehow hinder their progress to maintain his superiority. This story is relatable in many people's lives because it is true that higher authorities tend to get jealous and try to screw with the progress of those that they deem inferior to themselves. In the end though this story is could just be looked at as a well told fable explaining why humans will never be able unite and work together to solve a problem or achieve something amazing. Though we are probably closer than ever in our day in age with things like the UN or the International Space Station, there will always be dissenters, North Korea, religious fundamentalists, and even the US in a lot of cases, to ruin everyone else's fun, because that is only human.

Posted Thursday, December 03, 2009 at 6:56PM | Leave a comment

Exploring fascination

eugene

Youth Media Crew went to Hollywood this morning to take in a screening of the documentary Beetle Queen Conquers Tokyo. The film was screened as part of the AFI FEST 2009. The documentary explores Japan's cultural fascination with insects. I was impressed by the film's inventive blend of slice-of-life narrative, cultural myth, and experimental image sequences. The music is engaging and the images are at times arresting, and having the presence of both in a documentary is quite an accomplishment. After the screening, the film's writer shared some interesting comments with the audience. She said she spent a year researching the story, and then went to Japan for six weeks to shoot the film. She said no one had ever made a film about the nation's cultural interest in insects, because in Japan, the subject is seen as utterly mundane. Culturally, the subject is invisible. This tells me that the writer is an observant storyteller. She can see what has become invisible to all other eyes. She can follow and capture her subject to create an interesting story that makes the invisible visible. Like the bug hunters in the movie, she knows how to spot and catch the tiny details hiding in the forest.

For lunch, we walked across Hollywood Boulevard and, from Greco's, ordered the biggest pizza I have ever seen or eaten. Sam and Itzel ate the most slices. Feeding the crew was very necessary because our day had only just begun. Cathy manhandled the van all the way to our next stop in Culver City, where we checked out another phenomenon born in Japan: The global obsession of Hello Kitty. Hello Kitty's birthday is tomorrow. She turns 35 -- not bad for a cat with no mouth. The art gallery we visited is hosting an exhibition featuring lots of Hello Kitty memorabilia. It's amazing how just about anything can be given a Hello Kitty spin: bicycles, jackets, surfboards, beds, pillows, tableware, clothing. The Youth Media Crew busted out its camera equipment to document the range of artifacts and collect some interesting stories.

Tons of people were there, creating lines running out the door and down the sidewalk, dressing up in catwear, and ready to talk about their Hello Kitty obsessions. There was a woman who came to the show directly from the airport, still tugging her carry-on luggage behind her. She was flying from Mexico back to Hong Kong, and she had arranged for a taxi ride over during her Los Angeles layover. She explained that she grew up with Hello Kitty, and that it represents something important to her even now. She carries a little Hello Kitty doll when she travels, for good luck. Whenever she carries it, she explains, her seat assignment gets bumped up to the next higher class. Another woman has been a member of the Hello Kitty Fan Club since the 1980s. Her enthusiasm for Hello Kitty was amazing. She shares almost the same birthday as Hello Kitty. She said if no one else was around the art exhibit, she would take off all her clothes and run through all the memorabilia naked. It excites her that much. Hello Kitty captures the imagination of both children and former children. The Youth Media Crew reported that everyone interviewed seemed to agree that Hello Kitty in one way or another is a keeper of the idea of childhood.

All in all, it was a day filled with adventure, culture, and stories for the Youth Media Crew.

Posted Saturday, October 31, 2009 at 6:14PM | Leave a comment

The real thing

eugene

I'm at the midtown Whole Foods. At the checkout counter, two clerks tell me Coca-Cola recently bought my kombucha maker for $4 bilion. Is this possible? Do they know what they're saying? That means Pepsi must be soon to follow with the purchase of a kombucha competitor. It may not be long before we see kombucha offered at Coke's fast-food partner, McDonald's. Or TV commercials with celebrity athletes like Kobe promoting kombucha. I won't be surprised if a football team that wins a future Superbowl celebrates by pouring a bucket of kombucha over its coach. Live coverage can capture the phlegm-like kombucha culture sliding off the coach's elated face, young fans at home watching and thinking: I can aspire to be like that, someday.

Posted Friday, October 02, 2009 at 11:23AM | Leave a comment

Whatever Makes One happy

Captain Joss Sparrow

Salut! Today is thursday, once again, which means P.E day. Fun, as usual. I think I sprained my wrist this time after I challenged this gut to an arm wrestling match. I beat him in the end, Twice. Ha! And he wasn't scrawny either. So I was surfing without a surfboard on the Internet the other day, when I saw a very interesting video that wasn't aired in the news, but seemed to have been popularly watched. I clicked on it, and it turned out that in Japan there was a very interesting wedding. Between a man and a video game character. For the first time ever. Wow, I thought at first. It turns out that in Japan there is this game called Love Plus, a dating game for the Nintendo DS console, and people can have a virtual girlfriend/boyfriend. Well, it turns out there was This young guy who had had 3 girlfriends in the game, but got really attached to one, that he decided to marry her. The guy (Who I don't remember his name) organized a wedding, and many people were invited. His siblings were very supportive and gave speeches on how happy they were for their brother

Posted Thursday, December 03, 2009 at 5:41PM | Leave a comment

Hammer Museum visit

eugene

I roam through the exhibits. The work is bold, loud, and empty in the cultureless context of blank white walls. At times, the curatorial notes that accompany the pieces strike me as more culturally interesting than the work itself because they reveal patterns of reaching argumentative rhetoric, wordy pitches that seek to justify why we should not be touching what we are looking at.

The conditions that the contemporary artist must work under remind me of a comment a companion made last week when we were visiting a different museum, one downtown. She said Robert Frank's images of Americans depict a culture that makes its members appear to be "unmoored."

Truly so. And as I realize tonight, this effect exists today in the contemporary work that has stopped looking outward to people. Art can reach the very same conclusion it was making fifty years ago, but now more efficiently through obsessive self-exploration, controlling introspection, and working with the inanimate. Is withdrawal from the world a sign of progress?

I walk from the special exhibition to the permanent collection. I overhear a visitor talking to her companion. "I didn't appreciate this exhibit." The works are by younger "emerging" artists. I notice they are all about my age. Apparently "emerging" is a code word for middle-aged, somewhat known, but not titan in any sense. It must also be a patronizing euphemism. These are people who are maintaining a seemingly focused practice and managing some kind of funding pipeline. If they can stick with it, they may end up in art history's velvet coffin.

The work itself is, again, bold, loud, and empty. It is activity. It doesn't seem to mean or represent anything very significant in the larger scheme of things. Perhaps that is the other dimension of being mid-career. The work is still searching. When the work finds its meaning, its place, then the arrival home has been achieved, and the journey may end.

I discover the most interesting work at the end of this exhibit. It is not hanging on the walls or residing within the self-important slapdash installations. I find it in one of the museum attendants, a young athletic man who conveys a veneered sense of orderliness and respect which is not even skin deep, just merely clung to in the creases of his dark, ill-fitting suit. He seems to be following me, but he is not. He seems to be getting in my way, but he is not. He seems to be looking at the work with me, but he is not. At one point, out of the corner of my eye, I catch him dancing, working his moves; talking to himself, rehearsing what it sounds like to be cool. Like the art on the walls, he is in his own world. But unlike the art on the walls, his self-involvement fascinates me. Why?

This museum attendant is the reincarnation of Michael Jackson. He has an audience: me. But I am invisible to him. He performs for himself. He has an audience, the three ceiling-mounted security cameras which must be capturing his every salacious gesture. But he is oblivious to what may be his supervisor's watchful eye. Do they care, anyway? I think he deserves a raise for lifting up the entire exhibit. How amazing it would be to obtain museum security camera footage to source a video installation on the unwitting human performance art that goes on in the midst of rarefied artistic pretension. It might be difficult. I could stage this as a fictional piece. Some of the authentic impact would certainly be lost.

This is his work, on several levels. Making the money by wearing the suit. But also, finding ways, fueled by his iPod, to never slow the gears of his internal dancing machine. He one of those people who probably parties all night. This mortuary of art supports his quest for living. For now.

Posted Thursday, July 30, 2009 at 11:23PM | Leave a comment