Whoo Hoo for Judeo-Christianity
Apr. 21st, 2003 12:19 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
itsallovernowI love me a three day weekend. Even if it did involve car repair. I am the proud possessor of lovely new shoes - all high heel, 1940's, they kill my feet, but look damned good new shoes, and glittery eyeliner from MAC. I am such a makeup whore. MAC has new products? Oh, please, slather them all over my face. Because I need glitter eyeliner like a hole in the head. Actually, I highly recommend the glitter eyeliner! It's easily applied, non-messy, and fairly unobtrusive as far as glitter goes.
I bought new pointe shoes, and sewed the ribbons on, although I didn't have any pink thread, so it looks like little blue ants marching aross my new canvas Sanshas. My teacher hates it. She can bite me. I'm not 13, I'm clearly not going to be a prima ballerina, and I'm wearing the damned things.
I also indulged in much cultural entertainment. I actually went to the movies, and went to the Getty Museum. And unsurprisingly, have much to say about them both.
Folk singers, fogeys and flights of fancy
Friday night, we indulged my friend T.'s passion for the book Counter Intelligence by Jonathon Gold which is a discussion of eating in L.A. It's fun and insightful and avoids the trendy in favor of the uniqe. It resulted in Hungarian food, which was meat o'plenty, but still good. I managed to pretend I didn't see the sausage in the cream cheesy scallopped potatoes. Anyway, we saw A Mighty Wind, which made me laugh my ass off. I love Harry Shearer beyond belif. Le Show, his radio program, is one of the greatest stream of consciousness, satirical, great music playing, what the hell is he doing, programs on the air. Also, The Simpsons. No more needs to be said. A Mighty Wind is as clever and funny as This Is Spinal Tap. Christopher Guest and Eugene Levy obviously have a soft spot in their satire-driven hearts for the 1960's folk scene. The characters are goofy, eccentric, but painfully sincere. As a huge fan of Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, Donovan, Richard Farina, Sandy Denny, Fairport Convention - whoa I need to stop - I really appreciated the barbs and the graciousness. And it's really funny.
Bill Viola's Passions
I've never seen Viola's work in person. I'd heard about it, but nothing really prepared me for the impact. He filmed actors going through expressions of grief, sorrow, rage, pain, joy, awareness, and slowed the film down so that you can see the infintisemal movements of their features as they transition from one to the other. The images are broadcast on plasma screens and it's like watching the essence of humanity unfold. Many of the images are receations of mediaval iconography, with the emotional resonance of the painting being transferred into Viola's modern imagery. One piece, entitled Emergence, is a Pieta. The prayer for the dying Christ, held in Mary's arms. In Viola's version, the pale, chalky body of a young man emerges in slow motion from a marble sarcophogus filled with water. He is lifted out by the two women on the side of the box. It's slowed down so that you can see every stroke of flesh against flesh, every moment of touch and grip and as the water continues to pour over the sides of the bath, the women touch the body in reverance and cover him. It's weirdly erotic, and hypnotic, and ties religion, faith, sex, death and humanity into one looping set of images that are impossible to look away from. It's at the Getty until April 27th and highly worth seeing.
I bought new pointe shoes, and sewed the ribbons on, although I didn't have any pink thread, so it looks like little blue ants marching aross my new canvas Sanshas. My teacher hates it. She can bite me. I'm not 13, I'm clearly not going to be a prima ballerina, and I'm wearing the damned things.
I also indulged in much cultural entertainment. I actually went to the movies, and went to the Getty Museum. And unsurprisingly, have much to say about them both.
Folk singers, fogeys and flights of fancy
Friday night, we indulged my friend T.'s passion for the book Counter Intelligence by Jonathon Gold which is a discussion of eating in L.A. It's fun and insightful and avoids the trendy in favor of the uniqe. It resulted in Hungarian food, which was meat o'plenty, but still good. I managed to pretend I didn't see the sausage in the cream cheesy scallopped potatoes. Anyway, we saw A Mighty Wind, which made me laugh my ass off. I love Harry Shearer beyond belif. Le Show, his radio program, is one of the greatest stream of consciousness, satirical, great music playing, what the hell is he doing, programs on the air. Also, The Simpsons. No more needs to be said. A Mighty Wind is as clever and funny as This Is Spinal Tap. Christopher Guest and Eugene Levy obviously have a soft spot in their satire-driven hearts for the 1960's folk scene. The characters are goofy, eccentric, but painfully sincere. As a huge fan of Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, Donovan, Richard Farina, Sandy Denny, Fairport Convention - whoa I need to stop - I really appreciated the barbs and the graciousness. And it's really funny.
Bill Viola's Passions
I've never seen Viola's work in person. I'd heard about it, but nothing really prepared me for the impact. He filmed actors going through expressions of grief, sorrow, rage, pain, joy, awareness, and slowed the film down so that you can see the infintisemal movements of their features as they transition from one to the other. The images are broadcast on plasma screens and it's like watching the essence of humanity unfold. Many of the images are receations of mediaval iconography, with the emotional resonance of the painting being transferred into Viola's modern imagery. One piece, entitled Emergence, is a Pieta. The prayer for the dying Christ, held in Mary's arms. In Viola's version, the pale, chalky body of a young man emerges in slow motion from a marble sarcophogus filled with water. He is lifted out by the two women on the side of the box. It's slowed down so that you can see every stroke of flesh against flesh, every moment of touch and grip and as the water continues to pour over the sides of the bath, the women touch the body in reverance and cover him. It's weirdly erotic, and hypnotic, and ties religion, faith, sex, death and humanity into one looping set of images that are impossible to look away from. It's at the Getty until April 27th and highly worth seeing.
