Pixar at the Oakland Museum

Photography, Psychological Musings, ,

Tepui_landing
 

Michele and I went to the Oakland Museum for our anniversary. What I like about the Oakland Museum is that the design – by Kevin Roche – is sixties superb and what I like even better is that it is about California art. Most museums – at least most US museums – aren't local or regional, they are aspiring to be national or international. So, when I go to a museum in a strange city, I don't see great local art, I see a second rate Jasper Johns or or third rate Amedeo Modigliani. 

But, at the Oakland Museum of California, I see first rate California art. The museum has recently been remodeled and it was pretty busy when we were there. Maybe because of the remod but probably because of an excellent show – put together by René de Guzman – on Pixar. 

For me, the Pixar show was especially interesting because I feel there is a similarity between Pixar's art and my photography. Not a similarity in quality so much as a similarity in style. Looking at the Pixar individual pictures, none seems like what I would call great stand alone art. It is story telling art. It is art because of it's context.

Standing alone, the Pixar pictures are fun but in a That would be great in a kids room. That would be great in the kitchen.  sort of way.  The pictures work best when they push the story.

When I look at photographs of a place that I have been or am going to and then look at my photographs of the same place; mine usually don't have that calendar punch. For a couple of reasons:  most published photographers shoot at the golden hour which makes anything look good – including traffic – and photographers tend to shoot the same shots and use the same tricks, over and over again because they work. Like Pixar, my photographs usually work best when they are pushing a story.

  20090413-20090413-IMG_0023

I like to think that I have lots of photographs that stand by themselves, but I have always been a better slide show photographer than a calendar photographer. I think that is why this blog works best when it is telling a story – especially about a trip.

Black people vs. black culture

Uncategorized

JesseJacksonAlSharptonRaceCards

A post by Ta-Nehisi Coates – by far one of my favorite bloggers – on the culture of poverty got me thinking about people being charged as racists and their taking offense at that. It seems as if they truly don't consider themselves racists.

The problem is, I think, that even racists – OK, most of them anyway – don't dislike black people. They dislike black culture. They don't dislike a black guy who acts white, they dislike a black guy who acts black.

The racist dislikes Al Sharpton or Jesse Jackson or Cornell West not because they are dark, but because they act different from how the racist would act. The difference in color is not a problem, the difference in culture is.

That is pretty easy to say, now. To even see, now. But, for a long time I couldn't see it. I am sorry to admit that there was a time that I didn't like Al Sharpton or Jesse Jackson or Cornell West. They just didn't see like my kind of people. Sure, they said the right things, but, somehow, it seemed off. All I could see was their culture, and I mistook that for who they were.

But, behind that veneer of a different culture, they are my kind of people.

In the 60's, every black person I came in contact with, acted white. Or, more accurately, they had a white persona that they wore when the interacted with me and – presumably – other white people. I remember several times when – watching a black person walking from a white group to a black group – I could actually see their body language change. It was like the son of an immigrant who speaks English at school and the marketplace and speaks Polish at home.

Somewhere between then and now, that changed. Cornell West, for example, acts culturally black everywhere and all the time. He is saying, This is who I am and I am proud of it. Michele Obama tells the world she is black with a fist bump to her husband on national television.*

For me it has gone from why do they have tp prove they are different to being fun. To hearing what Al Sharpton is saying rather than how he is saying it.

 

* and the racists went apoplectic.

 

 

Red Rock Wilderness Act

Americana, Camping, Current Affairs, Politics

Cottonwoods_in_Coyote

I love Utah. Especially southern Utah. The hiking around Escalante is other-worldly beautiful.  In Coyote Gulch, there are places you can wander down the stream barefoot. There are natural arches, wildflowers in the spring, Native American ruins, cottonwoods turning yellow in the fall. It is a paradise.

But I don’t live there. I live in California – for a lot of reasons. Today, I got an email from the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance (AUWA) promoting the Red Rock Wilderness Act. While looking at the map of proposed wilderness lands,

Utah Map
I was shocked at how much area the new Wilderness Act will put aside. I am sure it is all ravishing country – at least every place on the map, marked for wilderness, that I have been to is ravishing – and that is part of Utah’s problem. Everyplace in southern Utah – east of, say, Beaver – is stop the car knockout. Really, everyplace. Even places that are no place.

Arch Cyn 2

Hyway 24 senset

In looking to insure my Congress persons had co-signed the bill – Eshoo did, Boxer did, Fienstien did not – I noticed that not one Utah Congress person had. I didn’t expect Orin Hatch or Bob Bennett to have signed, but not one Utah representative has signed. Not the Demo from downtown Salt, Lake City, not one. It got me thinking; Just how much National open space do we jam down a states throat.

I love this area. I love hiking in it. I love camping in it. Just not enought to live there. And that is the rub.

 

 

 

One reason we are a throw away society

Uncategorized

   Landfill-garbage-machinery

When I got my new computer, I opted not to get the speakers. I had a set of Sony speakers including a big base unit that sits on the floor -  that worked great. But then – then being too late -I discovered the Sony speakers had a special plug that wouldn't fit in the new HP.

I cut the wires on the speakers and, also, on a compatible plug we had. But the wires are too thin for my wire strippers to work and stripping them with a knife just made a mess. So I went to Fry's to get an replacement power cord that would work. While Fry's didn't have a cord that would work, they did have a power cord kit with a variety of ends, one of which would work with the Sony. Maybe.

The kit was for low wattage and I didn't know for sure if it would work with the speakers which were still at home. And, it cost 44 bucks. Three aisles over, new sets of speakers started at $28.95. Of course I had no idea if the speakers would be any good. I bought the third "upgrade" for $35.95 figuring they would be OK if not spectatular. They are.

It just became more work than I wanted to do to do the right thing.

 

I so agree with this:

Weblogs

I am sort of a comma maniac. I love commas and dropping one can often change the meaning of a sentense. I lifted this, in it's entireity, from Jeff Weintraub.  

 

Why it is vitally necessary to prevent the extinction of the final serial comma

Merle Haggard

From Bruce Baugh via Patrick Nielson Hayden via Brad DeLong, here is a photo caption from a story about Merle Haggard:

The documentary was filmed over three years. Among those interviewed were his two ex-wives, Kris Kristofferson and Robert Duvall.

Were Merle & Kris & Robert ever actually married? Somehow, I doubt it. My guess is that the passage in question should have read:

Among those interviewed were his two ex-wives, Kris Kristofferson, and Robert Duvall.

Can anyone think of a good reason to leave out that last comma in a series? I can't. In fact, the practice has always irritated me. It belongs in the historical dustbin of English usage.

Yours for logical punctuation,
Jeff Weintraub