Filed under: Uncategorized
To quote comedian Patton Oswalt, there aren’t a lot of heroes left these days. His hero happens to be Robert Evans. At least according to the bit. But I feel his sentiment. I have always made it a point to have older female icons in my life. Both known and just admired from afar. Cuz otherwise then you’re stuck with crappy Photoshop jobs of Miley Cyrus on the cover of Cosmo to aspire to and that’s no good. So here are a few awesome silver foxy ladies I ladies I love:
Jane Hudson Formerly video professor of the SMFA. Jane is totally rad and I’ve always liked the way she rocked her white hair, tats and leather jackets. Jane always gave great crits and asked very shrewd questions. She has a thing for technology and Gilles and Deleuze. Don’t we all.
Beatriz Salguero She was my bio teacher from High School. Ridiculously smart and classy. She always wore these Chanel-esque suits with awesome chunky gold jewelry, scarves and heels. Even when doing field study in sweats she still looked elegant and refined. She is the reason I have done anything science related in my life.
Roberta from the Hampshire College cafeteria. She swiped your cards for you and just generally harassed you. She never took any shit from whiny Hampshire hippies and hipsters either. If you were an early riser you often got stickers on your ID. I hope she is still there but if not I hope she is happily and crankily retired.
Rita Levi Montalcini. I just found out about this Nobel prize winning scientist and she OWNS. Look at this picture of her at her 100th birthday party. Yeah she knows it.
Annie Sprinkle Not quite silver but definitely older and wiser now. Let me just say I had my own little private public cervix announcement moment and it ruled! Thank You Annie Sprinkle!
I know I am forgetting many more but I just wanted to at least start listing my influences. So stay tuned for possible future entries on People Who Do Not Suck. I leave you with this famous clip from the now sadly departed Bea Arthur’s hit show Maude:
I’ve just discovered that my favorite Internet time and $$$ sink, Etsy, has a nice series of work in progress videos of some of their sellers. I like how some of the videos have the same relaxing qualities of the How Its Made series on the discovery channel. I also like gawking at people’s workspaces and tools.
A couple of my favorites:
One of the pet peeves I have about The Art World is its vampiric and fetishistic approach to “youth”. This ridiculous blog post, and show Younger than Jesus featured in the NYTimes is emblematic of this attitude. First let me just say, I am in the age range featured in the show “Younger than Jesus”. Lest you all think I am an old lady curmudgeon, indignantly clutching at my Eileen Fisher cardigan.
This approach is ultimately a shallow marketing ploy: the hip young things, the sort of anti-intellectual, and flippant yet not terribly provocative invoking of the lord’s name etc. As a woman I will admit that I am more sensitive about aging. Everyday I am told I am pretty much worthless past the prime of my youth. My own father frets about my marriageability and empty womb. While I embrace my early grays and fine-lines I am also acutely aware that my years as a cute sexy young artist will sooner rather than later be over. So yes I resent shows that objectify hot young artists! Am I so idealistically naïve that I truly believe that its about the art dude!?
In the real world I work with and admire artists of all ages. I like it that way. In fact crazily enough most artists are over the age of 30. You can only be under 30 for so long and then you’re really stuck with the rest of your life. At some point Younger than Jesus artist Ryan Trecartin (whose videos I truly love) is going to be stuck with his hyper-crazy florescent soapy videos well into his 30s. Will the value of his work just immediately plummet? Possibly. Its been known to happen if you come up too young and too fast.
Luckily for me I’ve always been a cranky old lady.
Filed under: Artists, Design & Visuals, creative process, fandom, movies, review
I’ve just come back from watiching a screening of Zidane at the MFA. In a nutshell: 17 cameras all lovin’ Zidane during one game from start to finish. I am too tired to write this out coherently so here are some bulleted thoughts:
· Zidane looks to be on the verge of tears pretty much the entire time. He smiles exactly twice throughout the entire film. Not to give away any spoilers or anything but he is on a winning team.
· I wish all games were shot this way. I had already pre-forgiven myself in case I fell asleep during the screening but I was pretty much riveted the entire time. The action was so vivid. I loved watching Zidane sweat copiously all over the field and pull up his knee socks. I also like that I had a better close-up of players who got injured. The drama of injured players is a minor side interest of mine.
· No silly announcers. I know certain announcers become famous in their own right but after seeing it this way with all the raw crowd and ball sounds I really prefer it. Who cares what some dude has to say. OK, granted there was also some audio by Mogwai. I still like it better!
· Occasionally the film would have some text of things Zidane has said about The Game. I really liked when he said something along the lines that at time he feels the game is scripted and he just shows up. I do not think he meant that it was rigged, so much as something a bit more spiritual perhaps. I am regretting that I did not write this down at the time. He also mentions that there has only been one time where he knew he would make a goal.
I really enjoyed watching this, and may try to catch it again. Highly recommended for sports fans and cynics alike!
