Artistic Ambitions

I subscribed to Artforum magazine for the past year. Artforum arrives bagged in its own plastic, about a half-inch thick and large, like 11"x11", a big thick square. Inside there are a few articles about different artists and shows, but the majority of the pages are advertisements for galleries and shows around the word.

One double-page spread could be for a gallery in London, the next double-page for Milan, the next for New York, Seoul, Krakow. That part I find very interesting.

I originally wanted the magazine to show the pictures of paintings and sculptures to Cass and Camille, to try and build their sense aesthetics, their sense of capital-A Art. I try to discuss different works with Cass, even while he seems more interested in pointing out the boobies as they come and go page by page. 

As time went on, I got nervous that Artforum might in reality be a Conde Nast-like collection of wankers and bozos, so I went to a professional artist colleague for counsel. He assured me that it does, in fact, hold a specific position as a nearly "official" account of whatever constitutes the "global mainstream fine-art scene." It was not immune to accusations that it was too white and male, and to its credit, it has been trying to address that. 

My professional artist colleague said that it's fun to thumb through to see what's happening and where, but in many circles the art mag Juxtapoz was at least an equal to Artforum, if not the superior "official account." He said that because it dealt seriously with street art as well as other amazing (otherwise fringe) work as fine art, it's considered the other side of the coin, the tails to Artforum's heads.

I used to subscribe to Juxtapoz back in the day (pre-9/11), and I still have most of those copies. And I look at them with Cass, talking about the paintings and sculptures while he points out boobies.

Full circle, baby!

Looking through so many copies of Artforum has really honed my own feelings about fine art, or I guess, Fine Art, especially as I try to hone my own craft. Some works I really dig, and many others don't speak to me. At all. It's nice that that's how that's supposed to be. 

Art for me. Art for my kids. I realized that if one of my kids came to me and said they were going to be a professional artist, for, like, a career, I'm sure that by that time I wouldn't be surprised, which I think is reasonable.

Observations of Primates Learning Languages

My son had a cutesy affectation when he spoke, or, more specifically, when he was learning to speak our American English: he tended to end words with the hard "--dee" sound. "Shark" would become "shark-dee"; truck became "truck-dee", jump-dee. 

And, maybe-not-so-strangely, the dual syllable word "waffle" became "waff-dee." 

I wanted to bring this up now because now I have another young primate in my house learning our American English, and we feed this primate in the same way we fed our other young language-learning primate: plenty of waffles.

My daughter---possibly because she's a second-born, possibly because she's a girl---is more advanced than my son was language-wise at same aged points, but she also has her own affectations. She doesn't add the suffix "--dee" to words, and for her, waffle isn't "waff-dee", it's "faffle."

Other language acquisition developments are bittersweet, like when kids stop saying things in the adorably incorrect ways that they do and resemble the rest of us. I remember when my son stopped saying "blutter-fy" for butterfly. And, very recently, my daughter had been saying "kittle-ly" for "kitty," a verbal habit that had become beloved, and is now sadly corrected.

I'm not sure whether "blutter-fy" or "kittle-ly" is more adorable, but their disappearance augers in the reality of maturation. 

And parents wistfully grip those memories...

Vacation Brain: Movies

As my own work goes into a quick winter hibernation, I put eyes on some things I'd been wanting to get to, and was happily surprised a few times.

First, we finally watched Shang Chi: Legend of the Ten Rings, the payoff on an Easter egg from Iron Man 1, over 4000 MCU minutes earlier:

Holy hell, it's great! Martial arts action? You bet! Bad-ass good guy you never doubt even for a second? Hell yes! Marvel quippery, special effects budget, and an emotionally committed cast and crew? Of course! Awkwafina doing her, eh, thing? Just a bonus!

Representation matters, of course, and here the MCU gives us a crazy-powerful dude and weapon combo, a glimpse at the mystery surrounding the age and origin of said weapon, and with the star, a central position for Chinese-born Canadian Simi Liu. Also Michelle Yeoh and Tony Leung!

Now I wanna go watch it again...

Next up, after reading about a great entry into the Western genre, I found it and we checked it out:

Holy hell, it's great! The piece I read about it said that while it was a nearly all Black cast, it was also a generally badass Western movie. I am very fond of Silverado and Tombstone, Gunsmoke, Quigley Down Under...much of Clint Eastwood's western oeuvre, even the Japanese samurai movies that were inspired by American westerns, and that were then used to make more American westerns. I'm a fan, I guess.

Anyway, this one is the Tarrantino-ing of the genre, but it's action packed and gory, and the Black cast is very cool. When they venture to Maysville, "the white town," I laughed and laughed. The dirt is white, the buildings are white...the production crew said they played with nearly 70 different shades of white for Maysville.

Some of the characters in the movie are based on historical Black cowboys even if the story is fictionalized. These dudes finally got a glamourous showcase.

Next up was Margot Robbie and Sebastian Stan beautifying the place up:

I enjoyed it, but felt like the beautiful-hot Robbie and Stan playing the in-reality trashy-hot Tonya and Jeff Gillooly was a distraction. The violence I never knew about, and how hard Tonya worked became clear. 

At the time---the early '90s---I was into American figure skating, because Kristi Yamaguchi had taken over for Katarina Witt as the top lady, but there were some new amazing chicks coming up in America. Tonya Harding among the top of that list. I realize now that it was because of her ability to land that triple axel in competition. The first I really heard of Nancy Kerrigan was after the attack. I remember Tonya's broken lace in the competition, and then watching Oksana Baiul crush it during the final and Nancy's (as Robbie's Tonya puts it) "stepping in dog-doo face" while receiving her silver medal.

Next was a documentary that was suggested by my dad:

It wasn't all about psilocybin. It did make some awesome observations: Homo sapiens isn't the only animal that eats psilocybin 'shrooms, and there's the idea that the psychedelic experience had a profound effect on the early human's ability and desire to communicate. Hello, language development.

But the movie really gets into depth about mycelium, about how it makes soil possible, can survive in space, and helps trees communicate across enormous swaths of landscape. It's the tree (and forest at large) neural network.

The movie makes the case early to WATCH IT ON SHROOMS.

Last on my Vacation Brain: Movie moment was the newest sequel from an old flame:

It's okay. I liked how they leaned into the "Matrix 4" jokes, and how the first one created the visual cliches that we all know now, but leaning into all that. You couldn't just move forward without addressing it, right? The first Matrix movie is so influential and was a touchstone of the era, to make this movie 20+ years later you'd have to lean into it at least a little, to be sincere, right?

Anyway, it's okay. It's not spectacular and it's not terrible. 

I have other Vacation Brain time-wasters in my skull, waiting to get out before I get back to work...

New Year's Day Whale Watching Adventure

For the first time in all the years we've lived this close to the ocean, this past Saturday, New Year's Day itself, was the firist time Corrie and I ever went whale watching. Or rode in a boat that wasn't headed to Catalina (or home) out of our local marina.

We generally spoke about taking one of the evening booze-cruises, or taking the water taxi across town to the brewery near the OC border, but we never really worked it out. And now with two kids...? But whale watching is perfect for the kids. Mostly.

The boat rocked up and down in the normal fashion boats do, and for the first time in many years I felt a little green. I wouldn't have guessed it, but my stomach felt less inclined to put up with the trip. Another aspect I wasn't prepared for was the constant fear that my kids would end up thrown overboard, especially out of my hands as I held them.

Such an irrational fear, but it persisted for the duration of the trip, making for a stressful journey.

As the vessel made it out of the harbor, we caught a glimpse of our skyline and the crane next door to us. We walked all along the ship, top level and bottom, inside and out. We tried to hold a table for as long as we could, and eventually left our stuff on it as we'd venture into the wind to see what there was to see.

Which was...something. The first time we spotted anything was as we were off of the RPV peninsula, the landmass that juts out into the sea and separates Santa Monica from Long Beach. I was up at the front rail holding Camille and someone said something about dolphins. I perked up and started to look all around. Eventually the dorsal fins and body-tops became more visible, and as the boast slowed to a creep, the pod came our way.

Common dolphins, with the black and white coloring swam right up to the ship, and Camille even got to see them (as I held her precariously over the railing).

Soon everyone was on deck and oohing and ahhing. 

Later, out the port window, I caught the blow of a large baleen specimen and grabbed the kids to come with me outside. We saw a few more times, over the next twenty minutes, the spouts and backs of some migrating grey whales, generally a rare sight in our area. Some baleen whales are rather common at different times of year around here, but the aquarium lady doing the announcing said the grey whales don't get seen all that often. So, treat for us!

I didn't get any pictures of any of the marine mammal action. But I did get a nice sunset:

Afterwards, we walked back to pick up dinner and then home, and got to show the kids the lights on the walkway above Shoreline Blvd, a path we take often, but in daylight:

It felt nice to try and start the year off with something different and nice.

Happy New Year!