My Post-Anthracite Life

"Where's That Guggenheim?" or "A Churro Is Like a Pretzel with Sugar on It"

2010-08-08T23:25:00.061-04:00

Another Saturday bus trip to New York. Same bus driver as the last time and, for all I know, the same bus as well. If I didn't mention it before, you don't know what speeding is until you've done it on a bus. Whoosh! There are some things a bus shouldn't do, obviously, and this guy manages to do just about all of them in each and every trip. It's scary, certainly, but also somewhat impressive. This time, by resigned, but apparently popular, demand, a movie was shown on the way back (and played at ear-splitting volume, I might add)—an awful thing I vaguely recall hearing of before entitled The Wedding Planner, starring great American thespian Matthew McConaughey and a woman who the Internet informs me was Jennifer Lopez. Yes, I actually had to rely on the Internet to identify J.Lo for me (at least with some certainty). Your popular culture, I know nothing of it. Of course, I tried my best not to pay attention, but it's hard to completely ignore something that's being forced upon you at such a shrill and piercing decibel level—like you're held captive in a small containment area with some kind of dying animal or something. At some point, I believe a character said "fuck," but I'm not too sure. And who says Hollywood doesn't take risks?

I really need to stop taking these bus trips, I suppose, and find some other way to access the city that doesn't require my driving into or through it. Possibly by moving there. Does anyone have tens of thousands of dollars lying around that they're willing to donate to the cause? You won't get it back, so it's not a loan, and there's no guarantee of any indirect or inherent value or benefit (other than what the knowledge of funding yet another art dork's flight to Brooklyn might personally bring to you), so it's not an investment, either. It's a gift. Despite whatever impression reading this blog might give you, I'm a fairly nice person. I am both very polite and deeply sensitive. I like plants, animals, and, occasionally, even people. More details and a full-color photo of the nerdy pseudo-bohemian you could be sponsoring are available upon request. Don't let this opportunity of my lifetime pass you by.

The main focus of this trip was to see the Brion Gysin: Dream Machine exhibit at the New Museum, as well as its two other current shows A Day Like Any Other by Rivane Neuenschwander (which I enjoyed much more than I thought I would) and Light 3 Ways by Amy Granat (which probably shouldn't be counted as a full exhibit, since it basically doesn't exist at most times of the day or for anyone who isn't making a concentrated effort to find it, consisting as it does of only one indoor 16mm film installation hidden away on a neglected stairway landing on one side of the building and an outdoor projection that is, of course, only displayed after dark on select nights of the week during hours when the museum is generally not open). I decided to skip the Museum as Hub: The Bidoun Library Project thing on the fifth floor "education center," however, that presents, according to the website, "a highly partial account of five decades of printed matter in, near, about, and around the Middle East...on subjects ranging from the oil boom to the Dubai bust, the Cold War to the hot pant, Pan-Arabs to Black Muslims, revolutionaries to royals, and Orientalism to its opposites." Sounds thorough, right? Well, not really, as "the shape of the collection was dictated primarily by search terms on the World Wide Web rather than any intrinsic notion of aptness or excellence." Couldn't we just watch Fox News or any other outlet of the mainstream media for that? After all, intrinsic notions of "aptness or excellence" have been missing from the mission statements and ethics codes of most American professional journalists for some time now. But, remember, "exercise caution when investigating the Bidoun Library" as "many of the books, magazines, and pamphlets on display are in delicate condition." "Gloves are provided for you to wear, to preserve the integrity of the materials on view." Yes, by all means, let's preserve the integrity of such materials as The Official Iranian Joke Book by Steve Leininger. Sample joke: "Why do Iranian farm boys get up at 5 a.m.? Somebody has to milk the rats." Har har! I wonder how many Iranians it takes to screw in a light bulb. Anyway, looking at covers of books without being able to read or even look at them any further—even if one would want to—isn't very exciting to me, but I imagine it would appeal to the same people who buy records and don't listen to them or comic books and don't read or touch them. Or curators who still think that doing a Google search is cute and intellectually novel.

A permutation of permutations: this row of paintings is hung in a different order each day, as per the artist's instructions.
(Photo courtesy of the New Museum)

Where was I? Oh, yeah, Brion Gysin and so on. Well, first of all, I should mention that, since I was expressly forbidden to take pictures by an unusually attentive security guard/gallery attendant, I have no photos of anything that was actually in the museum (other than whatever I might pull from the Internet). Instead, I decided to only take pictures of the "art" visible from the outside terrace on the seventh floor. As you can see, there's some pretty interesting installations and text pieces on display over the Bowery these days:

Although the Brion Gysin show takes its name from the art device/psychedelic artifact he's most famous for creating (and features one of the original machines in its own darkened room surrounded by small cushions piled up on the floor for your viewing or, should I say, non-viewing pleasure), the real focus of the experience for me was everything but the actual Dreamachine itself (which, I confess, didn't really work for me). The show does a very good job of presenting Gysin as not just a sixties-era socialite cum artistic experimenter, but as an artist who actually achieved results of continued and contemporary relevance—not that relevance is or should be an all-important goal in either art creation or presentation, but it is for some people. Or, rather, it's the game of debating or defining relevance that is important for some people—a game that, oddly enough, is usually never very relevant in and of itself. While only a sampling of those results is on display, I can't say that that's necessarily a bad thing, as the exhibit seems driven by a sort of necessity to serve the dual roles of a retrospective and an introduction for the uninitiated. This makes sense, as Gysin himself straddled the roles of the ultimate art world insider, connected both socially and artistically to some of the most prominent names in art and literature of his time, and a peripheral outsider, the creator of an extensive body of work that, despite his connections and apparent influence, has generally remained unsurveyed as a whole and has somehow avoided full admittance into the late 20th century artistic canon. What makes his work, particularly his paintings and collages, so fascinating is the way in which he was able to blur the lines between the verbal and visual worlds. He didn't make word art, he made art that used words. He was interested in the textual, but clearly committed to the visual—an artistic position that's often forgotten or disregarded now. Through his cut-ups and permutations, he made lines of text and prose melt into pure sound and made words and letters fit into aesthetic forms and into arrays of Japanese and Arabic-style calligraphy that dissolved into symbols of no recognizable language in particular. Abstract, yet systematic. I would also say that, with his penchant for visual and verbal permutation, he was among the early innovators in the field of what is now known as generative art, albeit in a way that was decidedly low-tech and much less rigidly controlled and, as a result, more open to surrealist impulse. Here are some images of a few noteworthy pieces, not all which are actually on display at the New Museum show. All of these were taken from the official website of the Brion Gysin estate that's linked to earlier in this post:

The Rivane Neuenschwander exhibit is also worthwhile if you like art that is simple and almost Zen-like in its unassuming (at least by modern multimedia art installation standards) tranquility, in addition to being subtly, though definitively, thought-provoking. As has been pointed out by many art critics (one of which I sincerely hope I am not becoming) throughout the Web-o-sphere and elsewhere, one of the highlights is certainly the Chove chuva installation (the title translates, somewhat clumsily, from the Portuguese as Rain Rains)—an arrangement of aluminum buckets hung from the ceiling that drip water into other buckets directly beneath them, with the rate and overall sound and volume of the dripping being dictated by the size of the holes drilled into the bottom of the hanging buckets and the height at which they're hung. Again, simple and it doesn't sound like much when it's described, but it's actually very beautiful. I also enjoyed the One Thousand and One Possible Nights collages, a series of imaginary constellations made from paper "stars" cut out with a hole puncher from a book collecting the Arabian Nights stories, and The Tenant, a video based on a Roman Polanski film of the same name that depicts the wistful and somewhat mysterious journey of a solitary bubble floating through an empty house. In addition, I Wish Your Wish, one of the show's more participatory installations, might appear to be deceptively slight and trivial at first glance, with its rainbow-like offering of festively-colored ribbons bearing hopeful statements on various topics that range from the desire for a certain pet to matters of global and social importance or idealism (the ribbon I chose, for example, says, "I wish democracy was real"), but manages instead to be engaging in a gentle and not overbearing or didactic way—a balance the artist seems particularly adept at pulling off throughout much of her work. Some more images from the Internets:

(Source for the last two images)

Later, in Chinatown, I stopped in at the Ajisen Ramen restaurant—a small, pleasant place that doesn't feel like it's part of a global chain or a large noodle-based business empire, but it actually is—for what I felt was a very satisfying late lunch/dinner. Many random people on the Internet would not agree with me, though, as the place gets a lot of bad reviews on various restaurant and destination review websites. However, New York Magazine seems to like it well enough, even designating it as a "critic's pick." I'd certainly recommend it, but, then again, who am I? And who are you? Who are any of us, really, in this great circle of digital life? Just a bunch of smartphones wandering around, lost in the mist, waiting for someone to track us down using our GPS coordinates and sell us something—or rob our houses while we're away. If we're lucky, they'll leave us with our noodles.

Then again, maybe it was the undeniable appeal of their logo/occasional mascot that did it for me, seeing as it is full of wholesome Asian cartoon cuteness (and, in this particular photo's case—taken in Shanghai, not in New York—glowing cartoon cuteness).
(Source)

Another sample from The Official Iranian Joke Book: "Then there was the Iranian photographer who took 500 color slides of his vacation and threw them all away. They were upside down." Yow! I certainly hope the author didn't make enough money on this to write a whole series of these books. Oh, crap, he did.

Summertime Fun

2010-07-23T11:07:00.035-04:00

This year we are having an actual Northeast U.S.-style summer here in the Northeast of PA, with temperatures regularly in the 80's and, occasionally, in the 90's. This is in atmospheric atonement, I suppose, for the past few summers where we traded climates with the Pacific Northwest (although it's unclear what they got in return). It's a little on the dry side, with the exception of the generous daily amounts of humidity, but that's okay—especially if you're not a big fan of grass cutting and yard maintenance. Indeed, for the most part, everybody's lawns browned out before the 4th of July around here. But, not to worry, the weeds are still green and apparently thriving. This is a particularly good year for the hogweed—the majority of which is probably of the relatively sedate common variety but could just as well be the noxious giant variety. Either way, I'm not going near it. I'm not really a big prog-rock fan, but I've heard the old Genesis song. I know better.*

Yesterday, the big headline on the front page of The Scranton Times-Tribune announced that meteorological indications pointed to Saturday being the hottest day of the year so far, with a high of 93 degrees, possibly approaching the record of 95, and a humidity factor that would make it feel like it was 105 degrees. A big deal for this area, especially when you consider that a majority of the population probably still has their heat on and keeps their money stuffed in mattresses (therefore, beware the three H's: hypothermia, hogweed, and Herbert Hoover). The forecast has since been downgraded to a high of 90 degrees, a slight chance of isolated thunderstorms, and no word on what role the humidity might play. Whatever. Let's just say it's going to be warm tomorrow. So, in celebration of this season of crunchy grass, phototoxic weeds, and steaming asphalt, here's some pictures representative of old-time summers from a bygone era that I dug up on the international netweb. Most of these are shots by professional photographers and photo studios from the good old days of Coney Island, courtesy of the Brooklyn Museum's Flickr photostream. The rest are snapshots from the one-time amusement area of Scranton's own Nay Aug Park from the University of Scranton's Weinberg Memorial Library and its photostream.

I'm always interested in whatever images I can find of Coney Island from the early 20th century, specifically those that depict features of either Luna Park or Dreamland. Why? It's something like an urban fantasy that actually happened or The Great Gatsby in 3-D, a Vaudevillean-style, Jazz Age forgotten realm or a "lost city" of amusement. Fantasy literature genre metaphors aside, it gives me the impression—and, yes, I'm aware that this isn't exactly an original concept—that, despite all our technological and scientific advancements and the superior amount of knowledge we have at our disposal about a vast array of topics (most of it willfully ignored, of course), society really hasn't become any more sophisticated since the time depicted in these old photographs. Perhaps, in fact, it was more sophisticated then. The fact that something as whimsical as the entrance to Luna Park—a place that, architecturally speaking, merged Victorian and various European, Mediterranean Revival, Venetian Gothic, and otherwise "exotic" influences with conventional carnival or fairground aesthetics (which were probably of a much higher standard back then to begin with) into an eccentric blend that manages to look like an indistinct, but colorful, somewhere and nowhere else on Earth at the same time—could just stand among the average buildings on your average city street and look like it actually belonged there must say something about that time. And it's something we've lost. The entrance to Dreamland, too (or at least one of them, it had several), as seen in the eighth picture down, is much grander than the entrance to an amusement park has any normal right to be. Doubling as the portal to an attraction themed to the biblical creation narrative, you might even expect to see some version of God Him/Her/Itself waiting for you beyond that heavy-handed Greco-Roman archway.** Granted, it might be a version of God wearing a straw boater hat, dancing the Charleston and singing "Keep Your Sunny Side Up" à la Robert Crumb's Mr. Natural, but what's wrong with that? And look at how everybody is dressed in these pictures—all pretty formal for a day at an amusement park. Of course, that was the fashion of the day, but perhaps it also speaks to the respect they had for these places or even for themselves. They may all look the same and appear rather comically solemn and stiff, but they don't look like the frumpy blobs who populate our modern-day amusement parks and semi-public places, either. They certainly don't look like tourists.

Then again, it could just be the peculiar power of the camera lens to elevate and enshrine its subject matter that's at work here, transforming these quaint scenes into something more ideal with the passage of time. Maybe the place was dirty and tacky in reality. What looks like a graceful urban oasis of recreation in a vintage black and white photograph could just as easily have been loud and garish, a seedy and derelict atmosphere that smelled bad and was filled with uneducated oafs who liked to watch elephants be electrocuted for fun. You can put a man in a suit, but you can't necessarily give him dignity, I guess. As far as I'm concerned, however, any place that's home to an establishment called "Wormwood's Monkey Theatre" is pure class all the way.

As for the Nay Aug Park pictures, there's obviously no comparison in terms of scale or grandeur, but the photos are fun in their own way. They're not dated, but they all look like they were taken during the 1950's or sometime in the early '60's at the latest. Years earlier, Nay Aug Park was adjacent to Scranton's own version of Luna Park (part of a chain of amusement parks—the world's first, actually—that took their name from and were inspired by the one at Coney Island, but had no organized or operational connection to it otherwise). One of my favorite Scranton history stories, which may very well be apocryphal, since I've never been able to track down the original online source I remember reading it from and have also never found another source that mentions it, but I would really like to believe is true, involves this Luna Park. After suffering a major, near-fatal fire late in its decade-long run, the park was partially rebuilt and a grand re-opening ceremony was announced, with free admission being advertised that magically became an admission fee somehow once you got there. The angry crowd, upset by the apparent deception and fueled on by the adult beverages that were provided, began to riot and seriously trashed the place, basically ensuring the end of a park that was already financially insolvent to begin with. So much for the more civilized society I was talking about—or at least in Scranton, anyway.

* Update: It has since come to my attention that much of what I've been seeing is actually Queen Anne's Lace, a harmless and even beneficial weed that is not related to either the giant or common hogweed, though it is similar in appearance. It also resembles the deadly, neurotoxic Poison Hemlock, however, so there. I am not a botanist.

**: According to this 1906 article from The New York Times, the more ostentatious the attraction the better, as people apparently expected, along with all the pomp and fairly heavy circumstance, the promise of actual fire and brimstone from their sideshows in those days. In other words, they were probably looking for an experience as close to the eternal damnation that they may have felt inevitably awaited them in the afterlife, being sinful city dwellers and such, conveniently located along the Brooklyn boardwalk.

Blisters Over Broadway (and Theme Park Science)

2010-06-07T19:46:00.070-04:00

On Saturday, I took a bus trip into New York City for the day. You know, one of those Shopper's Special jobs, complete with your typical surly driver with a blatant disregard for speed limits, an overdressed old couple, and a largely underdressed remainder with shaved heads, backwards baseball caps, and Facebook-surfing cell phones. Among the more positive aspects of this bus trip is that no movies were shown. As much as I love movies, I hate the kind of movies they generally show on buses—it's always bound to be some kind of made-for-TV, direct-to-video, or cheap theatrical flop with C or D-list stars that you've never heard of and, even if you had, would never have had any desire to see under normal, non-captive circumstances. If Steve Guttenberg or Jim Belushi have a new movie out, a bus company is sure to find it. Not everyone was quite as happy about the lack of a movie as I was, however. The people behind me, for example, were audibly displeased. Hopefully, they made Facebook posts about it on their phones.

Originally, I was going to go to the Guggenheim to see their current major exhibition Haunted: Contemporary Photography/Video/Performance, but the website (and especially the sleepy-time, curator-dominated video on the exhibit's web page) didn't make it seem particularly interesting or, at least, certainly not like very much fun. Yes, I know that art exhibits shouldn't necessarily be measured in terms of the amount of fun they may or may not provide, but it probably wouldn't hurt if they sometimes were. So, I decided to go, like a true tourist, to the American Museum of Natural History instead, which, believe it or not, I had never been to before and just seemed like a place I should go to at some point. Dinosaurs! Fossils!! Dioramas!!! A Space Show!!!! Try topping that, art museums!

And, indeed, it is hard for an art video or installation to top the razzle-dazzle of the museum space show, which is currently a movie called Journey to the Stars here (brought to you, in part, by one of everyone's favorite major defense contractors Lockheed Martin, as well as by Accenture, one of everyone's favorite offshore consulting and outsourcing government and defense contractors). The visuals—computer-generated representations based on images of the planets, stars, and nebulas of the Milky Way Galaxy taken from telescopes, both on the ground and in space—were predictably captivating and impressive. Plenty of "ooh" and "ah" fodder here, even though the theater was not quite as dark as it probably could have been due to a certain amount of daylight seeping in from the outside. The narration, provided by Whoopi Goldberg, was less ineresting (a little too much "Hey, man, check out these crazy stars" than the dramatic "Voice of God" that the subject matter, not to mention the requisite booming orchestral score, would seem to call for). Was Morgan Freeman too busy? But, then again, I realize that I'm not exactly the target audience for this sort of thing. What struck me about this presentation, as well as others I've seen of its kind, is how much museums and other public and semi-public institutions like them—no longer being mere educational or research facilities, but full-fledged, family-oriented tourist destinations in their own right—seem to have embraced, either consciously or unconsciously, a "theme park" or Disney-style model as their guide (which, in turn, was often inspired by and a departure from things already done by museums and other public attractions). This model includes not only the idea of "theming" and creating an "experience," but also...ahem...maximizing the profit potential of the space at hand (being that theming is a form of marketing—selling you an idea through elements of design, as it were—shopping opportunities and corporate sponsorships are, conveniently, an extension of the experience). Though not on as grand a scale as something you might find at a Disney theme park, the Journey to the Stars experience follows all the steps of the classic Disney attraction progression: a miniature version of the ubiquitous winding queue (without, of course, the overall footprint and scenic or thematic diversions placed along the way that attempt, in the case of Disney, to distract you from the fact that you've been standing in line for well over an hour for something that may not actually be worth it), a holding area-type room that provides you with some sort of "pre-show" (something shown on video screens here), the actual show or attraction itself (reinforced thematically as your journey to the stars, with the whole thing being reminiscent of the overall setup of the old Disney attraction Rocket to the Moon/Flight to the Moon or, its equally extinct follow-up, Mission to Mars, minus the low-grade simulation effects), and a gift shop at the exit (although you had to walk down a hallway a bit to actually get to it). Even the idea of having someone like Whoopi Goldberg as a narrator is a distinctly Disney-like touch. On a related note, it might be worth mentioning that in its five floors (counting the unnumbered Lower Level), the museum hosts a total of 8 gift shops (4 permanent locations, with one having three levels in and of itself, and 4 divided among each of the current special exhibitions) and 4 dining locations (3 cafes and a food court, plus a space available by reservation for catered events and receptions that accommodates up to 600 people, lunchrooms available by reservation for visiting school groups, and a Dippin' Dots ice cream cart—reservation-free and liquid nitrogen-fresh from the future—stationed seasonally on the outdoor Ross Terrace). Granted, the museum is a huge building (or series of buildings, rather), but that's still a fairly notable amount of capital-generating floorspace. A permanent and overgrown World's Fair it may have been, but EPCOT Center (and, in this case, perhaps even the "one giant leap" behind the times that has always been Disney's Tomorrowland) must have made an impression on someone. Their attractions may not always have been blockbusters, but they did what they needed to do and sold what they needed to sell, as long as you share the prevailing American view that selling stuff is the ultimate goal of education.

But it's not all souvenirs and snack bars, of course—this is still one of the largest and most prominent museums of its kind in the world. Some quick and decidedly random snapshots:

After the museum, I headed over to the Kinokuniya Bookstore at Bryant Park, the largest Japanese bookstore in the United States, so they claim—and at three floors of various printed matter and other merchandise, I imagine that it is. I had been to its old location in Rockefeller Center a number of times in the past, which was much smaller with its one densely-crammed floor, but was still one of my favorite shopping-oriented destinations in New York (from a very short list, admittedly). This was my first time visiting the store in its much grander incarnation, although it may not have been the best day to do so. The store was literally swarming with participants in an event they called "Lolita Fashion Day," which had nothing to do with the famous Vladimir Nabokov novel or the Stanley Kubrick film based upon it, thus dashing any hopes I may or may not have had of rooms filled with James Mason and Shelley Winters impersonators. Instead, it was a generic sort of cosplay thing involving some kind of fusion of Japanese schoolgirl kitsch with cutesified variations on traditional maid outfits—basically, a lot of girls with bright wigs and clown-like pancake makeup wearing frilly costume dresses in odd colors with aprons. As with most of this stuff, there's some assumed general connection to anime and manga and perhaps even video games. To be honest, though, I'm pretty much out of my depth in trying to describe these kinds of things, being neither a fan of anime, manga, or even dressing up in costumes. For that I defer to the press release for this event, posted on the Comic Book Resources website:

...Taking place Saturday, June 7 in celebration of International Lolita Day, Kinokuniya Bookstore located at 1073 Avenue of the Americas in Manhattan will present a day-long series of events showcasing the diverse world of cute, cool, elegant, and hip fashion in modern Japan, namely Japanese Lolita and Maid fashions.
"We're proud to help create Lolita and Maid Fashion Day at Kinokuniya," New York Anime Festival Show Manager Lance Fensterman said. "Lolita and Maid fashion have quickly become two of the most prolific ambassadors of anime, manga, and Japanese culture in America, and the New York Anime Festival couldn't be happier bringing these fashions to New York City—the fashion capital of the world..."

10 AM: Kinokuniya Bookstore opens. The first 50 customers dressed in Lolita or Maid dresses or anime, manga, or video game cosplay will receive a Lolita and Maid Fashion Day Gift Bag including presents from Del Rey Manga, the New York Anime Festival, and VIZ Pictures.
10 AM to 3 PM: Lolita and Maid Fashion Day Tea Party. All customers who order a cup of tea from Kinokuniya's Cafe Zaiya between 10 AM and 3 PM will receive a complimentary assortment of Japanese treats along with their drink.
3 PM to 4 PM: An Introduction to Lolita and Maid Fashion. An overview of the diverse world of fashion in modern Japan. Lolitas and Maids are just the beginning.
4 PM to 4:30 PM: Akiba-Kei Music Scene. Maid fashion began in Tokyo's Akihabara. Samurai Beat Radio presents a look into Akihabara's music scene today, how it influenced Maid fashion, and how Maid fashion now influences Akihabara's music.
4:30 PM to 5 PM: A Reading from "Maid Machinegun." "Maid Machinegun," a new light novel from Del Rey Manga, follows the misadventures of Aaliyah, a recent recruit at one of Akihabara's busiest Maid Cafes. Del Rey Manga presents an overview of the world of "Maid Machinegun," including a special greeting from the author written just for today and selected readings from the book.
5 PM to 7 PM: Screening of "Kamikaze Girls." Momoko is a super-sweet Lolita. Ichigo is a tough-talking thug. They couldn't have come from more different worlds, but somehow the two become the closest of friends and embark on the most incredible of adventures. Screened with permission from VIZ Pictures.
7 PM: Raffle Drawing. 100 books from Del Rey Manga and free tickets to the New York Anime Festival are just two of the prizes up for grabs in the Lolita and Maid Fashion Day Giveaway. Customers can enter all day long, and to win, they'll have to be present at 7 PM for the giveaway's drawing.

Wow. International Lolita Day! Sounds like fun (or at least somewhat interesting or amusing to watch), right? Well, maybe it was, for somebody. To me, it just looked like a bunch of folks, most of whom were not Japanese, wearing Halloween costumes—something pretty far from what I would assume "cool, elegant, and hip fashion in modern Japan" might look like, but, apparently, I may be wrong here. At this point, I should probably mention that I was in a fair amount of pain by the time I hit the bookstore, due to a blister on the pinky toe of my right foot that I had earned a week earlier from walking around Lake Scranton in sneakers that were too new and not properly broken in. Suffering for fashion (or lack thereof), you might say. Therefore, I was anticipating a relatively quiet trip to the bookstore to look at photography books from Japan and maybe pick up a quick Japanese food lunch at their cafe, both of which I did, but without the low-key level of quietness I was hoping for. The store may be much larger now than its quaint predecessor, but fill it up with enough post-teenage, twenty-something Lolitas (including one who, in fact, looked to be post-thirty, if not post-forty, bringing a refreshing "Lolita meets Baby Jane Hudson" element into the mix) and it manages to become far more chaotic and claustrophobic than it ever was when it was just a bookstore that wouldn't have had room for too many special events. But, again, consider that I was in pain and a bit grumpier than I normally would have been.

She's written a haiku to Daddy...

On the positive side, the breadth of offerings in the art and photography book section has expanded greatly (though, in some cases—particularly on the non-imported and domestically published books, oddly enough—so has the price, I think). More of the books in this section, which has always concentrated on Japanese or other Asian artists, though not exclusively, are now direct imports of books actually published in Japan. Not that I'm able to read any of the text that may be inside these books, mind you, as I don't speak Japanese, but in the case of art books, I have to admit that I find this somewhat liberating. The area was also blissfully free of Lolitas, who were mainly concentrated in and around the cafe for the most part. Very few of them seemed to be buying anything from there, however, focusing instead on cavorting around the food and display cases and taking pictures of themselves with their digital SLR's, which they all seemed to have (no camera phones or compact point-and-shoots for these girls, apparently). Luckily, I missed most of this by taking my pre-packaged Japanese lunch variety (not very well labeled or descriptive concerning its contents and certainly not haute cuisine by any means, but tasty and a generous amount of food for the surprisingly decent price) across the street and limping my way into the park outside.

This is a book that I bought while I was there.

Not long before I left the store, a girl employee came over to the isle where I had been looking at books and enjoying a pretty lengthy run of semi-peopleless solitude to put some books back on a shelf or something and let out a very loud burp. I looked at her and smiled and she excused herself, but I told her it was okay and that she could burp as much as she wanted. She was cute. If I lived in New York, I might have considered making some attempt to talk to her more. Yet another drawback to being stuck in this moribund old coal town? Or does it say something about my dead coal town-lowered standards that a belching girl who works in an out-of-town bookstore approaches my idea of a potential dating prospect? If a girl burped at me in a bookstore in Scranton, would it be the same? Did I mention that I thought she was cute?

Dennis Hopper, Photographer

2010-05-30T09:42:00.028-04:00

Dennis Hopper has just passed away. In addition to his memorable acting performances, directing, and other film work, he was also a painter and sculptor and an overall patron of the arts, amassing a considerable collection of modern and contemporary art from the 1960's onward. According to Wikipedia, he even engaged in a performance art-style public "suicide attempt" during an "art happening" at Rice University in Texas that consisted of a coffin and 17 sticks of dynamite at the height of his crazy, "extravagant bender"-filled, drug-abusing days (for which, of course, he was also well-known and which dominated a significant portion of his career). He was also a photographer -- and a pretty good one at that -- working in a slightly surreal documentary vein in classic black and white, beginning in the 1960's. A fair amount of his images are portraits, capturing many of the artists, musicians, and fellow actors of the era that he would have come in contact with. These are candid, but vital images of people like Robert Rauschenberg, Andy Warhol, Ed Ruscha, Jasper Johns, Roy Lichtenstein, The Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane, James Brown, Brian Jones of The Rolling Stones, a young Bill Cosby, and a Cool Hand Luke-era Paul Newman, among many others. But it's not all portraits of recognizable names and faces, he also turned his camera on elements of the West Coast/American social landscape in a style that will seem familiar to anyone acquainted with the work of Lee Friedlander and other similarly-minded street photographers of the time. I first encountered some of these images online a few years ago and was generally impressed by them. Many of the best ones display a dark, filmic sensibility that's quite effective. They've since been the focus of a number of exhibitions (and, I suspect, a number more to come in the future) and were collected in a deluxe limited edition book by Taschen in 2009 (with an asking price of $1,000, so we can safely say that it's unlikely to appear on my bookshelf any time soon or, indeed, ever). I thought it would be nice to post a few samples here and they're included below. If you want to see more, there's a pretty good set of them here at the Facebook page of the American Suburb X blog, some other ones here, and some more here at the website of the Tony Shafrazi Gallery, which represents his work in New York and includes glimpses of more recent color work. Enjoy.

In the immortal words of his Frank Booth character from Blue Velvet, "Now it's dark."

iKids

2010-05-20T19:35:00.045-04:00

While I was cutting my Grandfather's grass today or, rather, hacking my way through the tall weeds and scrubby crabgrass brush that has served as his lawn for the last few years, I overheard two kids, one on a bike and the other on a skateboard and both probably about 10 or 11 years old, discussing, of all things, Apple's new piece of wonderstuff, the iPad:

Bicycle Kid: I think I'm going to get an iPad for my birthday.
Skateboard Kid: Yeah, right, you're going to ask for a $500 or $600 iPod for your birthday?

Yay! Go, kid! And it's true. Hype aside, what is the iPad other than a $600 iPod (with a dash of iPhone and Kindle thrown in for extra-redundant flavor)? Or, in order to get our pricing more exact here -- and these prices are directly from the Apple Store website -- a $499 to $699 iPod with regular Wi-Fi capability or a $629 to $829 iPod with Wi-Fi and 3G mobile network capability. The 3G data plans are sold separately, of course, but, hey, there's free shipping! And who wouldn't want the 64 GB Wi-Fi and 3G model with the unlimited 3G data download plan (just a mere $29.99 per month)? Some kind of mayonnaise-swilling loser who obviously doesn't appreciate the finer things in life, that's who.

Have you felt the warmth of aesthetically sculpted plastic today?

(Source)

But surely they are good for something, right? Well, certain famous artists seem to think so. According to this article, Pop Art painter (and Polaroid collage artist) David Hockney has been using the iPad (as well as the iPhone) to make electronic doodles and paintings and send them out as e-mails. An example:

Cute, but couldn't you have basically done this on a PC with MS Paint at least a decade or more ago? You wouldn't have had the pseudo-tactile experience that a touchscreen provides, obviously, but the results would have been, aesthetically speaking, awfully similar.

Anyway, getting back to the kids, before they pedaled and propelled themselves off, the topic of some kind of local folklore of the delightfully morbid variety that pre-adolescents always seem to be able come up with arose (things like "There's a pile of dead bodies and skulls under that bridge where the Satan worshippers live" and "If you say the name 'Little Joe' three times in front of a mirror, the image of a former mayor of Scranton in blackface will appear, singing songs from Cabin in the Sky"). One of the kids then referred to their hometown, being full of dead bodies, body parts, and singing mayors (okay, the last one is not something kids are likely to talk about), as "Ghettosville, PA." Ah, it's good to see this level of cynicism amongst the young. Keep that brain drain flowing, kids!

By the way, speaking of Apple products, either Safari doesn't like Blogger or Blogger doesn't like Safari (while I've been using a Mac for some time now, I've only recently decided to switch over from Firefox to Safari as my main web browser). Given my experience so far, I'm pretty sure it's the latter, but you never know. This could be Steve Jobs' way of telling me that I should be using iLife or iWeb or whatever it is that I'm supposed to be using to do this. It wouldn't be the first time, just ask our good friends at Adobe...

Unrequited love?
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Convergences, Part 1

2010-03-24T11:44:00.086-04:00

To start things off, here are some pictures I found online of this year's CP+ camera and photo imaging trade show in Yokohama, Japan. Unlike technology trade shows in this country, where you basically just get a bunch of bald guys in suits or business casual giving Keynote presentations and cradling demonstration models, Japanese trade shows apparently consist of cute girl models wearing even cuter colorful outfits doing their thing on cute whimsical sets. Every now and then, they might give them a camera to hold or something, but, other than that, the proceedings look like they have very little to do with photography, which is probably as it should be:

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I, for one, am sold. I'm still not sure what it is they're selling exactly, but I'll buy it. Sign me up for the e-mail newsletter. It's better than Ashton Kutcher, after all -- it's not any more relevant, but it's still better. So what if it looks like a fashion show that couldn't get booked for someplace at Tokyo Disneyland that weekend? It's not like this has any effect on the art form. Or does it?

If this relic of an article from Popular Photography magazine is any evidence, the face of photography in the public sphere was considerably less cute in 1944. Take a look at this mug shot gallery:

This somewhat motley-looking crew (with some heavy-hitting names for photographic aesthetics in those days, like Laszlo Moholy-Nagy and Berenice Abbott) was assembled to give their ideas on the future of the medium, both in terms of technology and creative potential -- or at least as much of a conception as one could have about those things in the era before the end of World War II. A key element here is that the panel is made up of professionals or "outstanding personalities in the field." Evidently, nobody bothered to ask Mickey Rooney what his thoughts were on the future of photography back then, although they did ask a sergeant in the army, which I suppose could be considered a "trendy" thing to do for the time. The predictable anachronisms aside (everyone in this survey expected technical developments to come in the form of improvements in films and papers, for example), it's interesting to see how well some of these prognostications actually held up, generally speaking. Here's what Willard D. Morgan, then-curator of photography at the M0MA, known to art history as...well, basically the guy who came before Edward Steichen and John Szarkowski, had to say about the potential rise of the amateur:

The amateur will ride through the postwar years with a free spirit of adventure. Every new film, developer, and piece of camera equipment will be eagerly seized upon and used. These postwar amateurs will form many new camera clubs, eagerly buy all the new photographic books, and become the initial participants in a great proving ground of new equipment and methods which may later become standards for the professional as well.

I feel that the great changes in postwar photography will come from the creative amateur, who is not bound by commercial conventions. To be specific, this creative amateur photographer will learn to give a fuller interpretation to the people and places about him. Changes will come from within the photographer himself. I would like to see the discussions of the future center around the interpretation of the photographic idea and not on endless techniques which will be fairly easy to acquire anyway. In this way we will enter a new century of photography which will be challenging and exciting.

Not bad for a guy who doesn't even have a Wikipedia page devoted to him (deeper web research reveals that he was the MoMA's first photography curator -- again, the guy before Steichen and Szarkowski -- and was married to Barbara Morgan, a photographer who was one of the original co-founders of Aperture). Here he is horsing around with Ansel Adams and Beaumont Newhall in his wife's studio:

(Source)

Obviously, what Mr. Willard forecast here has come true to a great extent -- amateurs do indeed dominate the realm of photo imagery, if not by innovation or experimentation, then at least by sheer volume. Ever since the family photo album and private snapshot archive has merged with and become part of the virtual life blood of the online image sharing and data/information stream, we are awash with images in a culture that was already well-saturated to begin with. Pictorially speaking, just about anything you want to see is available to be seen from various viewpoints and angles and, as should be expected, at varying levels of quality. Pick a topic or subject, do a search on Flickr, Panoramio, Picasa, or whatever else there is and you'll probably find something that represents it in some way. Want to see a 360-degree view of yourself pulling out of your driveway two summers ago? You might be able to see that through Google Maps (as I can). Of course, not all of these pictures are great. Some of them are technically pretty good, but that's not as hard to achieve or, at the very least, simulate these days -- most people don't even need a digital SLR or much (if any) knowledge of Photoshop to do it, either. There are even less of these photos that you could or would want to call art. Forget the "snapshot aesthetic," these are actual snapshots. Not that that's a bad thing, but it doesn't bode well for the "free spirit of adventure" that people like Mr. Willard (yes, I know, I should probably stop calling him that) might have hoped for if they could have witnessed something like online photo sharing. Not that there isn't good amateur imagery on sites like Flickr, mind you. And the line between the amateur and the fine artistic professional is becoming blurrier and less distinct all the time -- thanks, in part, to technology, but also to the widened sense of aesthetic understanding and appreciation that must have resulted from having photographic images as part of our modern and visual world for almost 200 years. I have somewhat mixed emotions about admitting that there are thousands of semi-anonymous people, without degrees in or any special knowledge of art and design, who can, either through intent or by accident, capture as technically proficient-looking an image as I can with whatever camera they have at their disposal, but we have to face up to it. Photography is no longer unique. Art as a whole, in fact, is no longer unique. But photographs and individual works of art can still be unique, singular, and, as a result, stimulating. Notice, however, that I didn't say original. That's largely an art world marketing myth, which, like most art world myths is only useful to the people who are engaged in marketing (and, perhaps, making purchases based upon) those myths.

Penelope Umbrico, "Suns from Flickr," 2006-2007
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The key to photography as art or even as anything worth looking at as more than a curious souvenir of a memory moment, either in the present or in the future (or the future-present, which is where I would say we live now, but more on that later), is and will be "the interpretation of the photographic idea," as Morgan suggests. But since that sounds like something you might hear in an MFA program -- and we certainly don't want that -- I'll just simplify that to say photography and art in general is about ideas. Maybe visual ideas, maybe not-so-visual ideas, but ideas. Most photos, whether on the web or in albums stuffed away in your grandmother's closet, are about what they happen to be a picture of and if that thing, place, or person is clear and recognizable. In other photos that either are or aspire to be art, the precise identification of the subject may not be as important. The subject here is in service to the image, which, hopefully, is in the service of trying to communicate something -- an idea. If one thinks about it in a purely aesthetic and creative sense, in terms of the "new century of photography which will be challenging and exciting" that Willard D. forecasts, the ever-expanding frontier of online photo sharing is pretty much a disappointment. For the most part, sites like Flickr are about the social aspect of sharing photos and experiences, not about the photographs themselves, which are, more often than not, of conventional snapshot subject matter treated in conventional snapshot ways -- kids, flowers, sunsets, puppy dogs, trips to Disney World, whatever. That's not all that's out there, however. Also, despite the fact that photo technique has indeed become "fairly easy to acquire," there's still a fair amount of people defining images by their "oooh" and "ahh" factor and drooling over their equipment and the process. The tackiest of this bunch, in my opinion, has to be the High Dynamic Range imaging folks. I like to think that these are the same kind of people who, in years and decades past, would have given us black velvet oil paintings and non-photographic pastoral images with Bible quotes on them, only they figured out that it's easier and faster to merge two or more bracketed exposures together in a computer program instead of actually trying to paint their woozily colored cheese-craft. In fact, quite a few display their images online with a black border trim and "sign" them with a simulated calligraphy font. A velvet painting of Jesus, John Wayne, and Elvis walking together in heaven couldn't do it chintzier. Just wait until these people move out of pure landscapes and start incorporating elements that can't merely be captured in one shot by their cameras. Then, they can apply a painting or brushstroke filter in Photoshop (this is already done by some, but has it ever been combined with HDR?). Watch out, Thomas Kincade!

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On the other hand, enthusiasm for art photography, both new and old, has, perhaps, never been higher or more concentrated than in the current online/digital era (this still doesn't make it a reliable or financially rewarding career path, unfortunately, but I guess we shouldn't ask for too much). At a time when most of the publishing industry is losing ground and failing, photography and art books are becoming more popular (just like Mr. Willard said they would). Mission accomplished, right? Well, maybe not.

More to come in the future.

Historically Disappointing

2010-03-20T20:53:00.010-04:00

Sunday, they say, is the day. The day of the big vote on the Senate version of the much-ado-about-so-much-of-nearly-nothing health care reform bill here in the United States of Americaland. The media froths, the public yawns. The people who are against any kind of reform just want this thing to go away (and, preferably, down in flames) and the people who actually wanted reform...well, they also want it to go away (in the hopes that its failure will "inspire" our fine elected leaders to come up with something better). Here's a frightening picture of Nancy Pelosi from last Friday that, I'm convinced, says everything you need to know about the health care bill in its final incarnation:

"'It won't be long,' before lawmakers vote, predicted Speaker Nancy Pelosi. She said neither liberals' disappointment over the lack of a government health care option nor a traditional mistrust of the Senate would prevent passage in the House." She then, we can only assume, cackled maniacally and presented a poisoned apple that she intended to give to Dennis Kucinich (who now, it turns out, has decided to vote for the bill). Whoops.
(AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)

So as not to be misunderstood (especially due to the titanic proportions of bullshit the conservative sludge machine and scare squads have been serving up for months on this issue), I happen to be one of those disappointed liberals. I'm not surprised that things have turned out this way -- the Democrats have been coasting on the fumes of vague recollections of past achievements and reluctant liberal goodwill for far too long -- but I still feel a slight tinge of dismay that health care reform is basically going to boil down to forcing people (probably like, um, me) to buy shitty health insurance plans from the private insurance companies, which are the root of the whole problem in the first place. That was Hillary Clinton's plan. It wasn't supposedly Barack Obama's, or so he claimed on parts of the campaign trail and in debates with Hillary Clinton. It is now.

Here's another concise little photo. The more conservative portions of the Interweb seem to be having a lot of fun with this one:

No caption necessary. By the way, isn't it nice to see that the word "liberal" is now being used as a dismissive and disparaging epithet even by the Democrats, the party that supposedly represents us? Apparently, we're just in their way now. Actually, we usually have been, if you look at history. But that's another story -- and one that was better told by the late Howard Zinn in A People's History of the United States. Speaking of history, I've noticed that the headline of every news article I've seen about this upcoming vote makes sure to keep the word "historic" in quotation marks. This, too, says a lot. I mean, when even the BBC calls out your political leaders for a lack of enthusiasm and "oomph," you know you've got trouble. I read this column and I can almost see Graham Chapman's uptight British General character from Monty Python breaking into an Obama rally or Congressional press conference saying "Right! Stop that, it's boring!" And it is boring. And predictable. That's the sad thing about all of this. Despite the mainstream media and the Republican party's extreme around-the-clock attempts to portray this bill as wildly controversial -- or, in the case of the Republicans, Fox News, and their friends, "dangerous" and an instant portal to total socialist facism -- it isn't. It's just another piece of corporate and industrial appeasement masquerading as social benefit, the kind of stuff the Democrats have been passing for years and the kind of stuff the Republicans would be happy to endorse if they were the ones to come up with it (minus the social benefit pretense, of course). It makes me wonder, if you're going to be accused of masterminding a complete government takeover of health care anyway, no matter what you do, why these people didn't just do that. Push through that public option instead of this sketchy piece of crap. What could it hurt? But, enough of this.

Next time I think I might actually talk about photography. That's what I am, after all, a photographer. Punditry only makes sense if you get paid for it (then again, so does photography, probably, but I challenge that notion).

Know Your Audience

2010-03-07T16:33:00.044-05:00

On Friday night, I went to see Ray Davies at the Masonic Temple...er, Scranton Cultural Center (no matter how many years go by, I'm still tempted to call this place by its original name because that's what it looks like—it's a big, imposing, slightly creepy, visually and historically interesting piece of architecture, designed by the same guy who designed, among other things, the New York Daily News Building and was also a senior architect on the construction of Rockefeller Center). The audience was predominantly made up of upper-middle-aged and older people, which wasn't that much of a surprise, but the way they acted kind of was. Without a doubt, this was probably the strangest crowd I've ever found myself sitting or standing amongst at a concert. Not the rudest, although there was a little bit of that on display as well, but very rowdy in a bizarre sort of way, especially considering the source (or at least the age of it). A large proportion were certainly drunk, either on the $5-plus (I didn't bother to investigate the actual price, but can safely assume it was easily that much) plastic cups of beer and wine the venue was selling or on the potent contents of the flasks and wineskins many were carrying. Dude, seriously, they had wineskins! Freaky, huh? I know that it feels like I'm perilously close to engaging in some kind of rampant ageism in this post so far, and I don't really mean to, but I had honestly never seen one of these before, outside of maybe The Treasure of the Sierra Madre or some old western or biblical-era movie. And they are, indeed, very biblical. I probably never figured I would actually see one in public, unless I time-traveled back to the late 1960's or something, but, lo and behold, you can still buy them. For those readers who are similarly generationally-challenged and still don't know what this object looks like, here is a picture:

(Source)

I got the sense that the crowd was reacting to something (beyond whatever was in their wineskins). It was almost like they hadn't been out for a while, whether it was out of the house or out of the "Home" (sorry, it's back to the ageism again), I don't know, but here they all were—back in circulation and ready for something to happen. In their younger days, The Kinks had a well-earned reputation for their cheeky attitude, wild antics and unpredictable behavior, and occasionally sloppy performances—getting into fights, forgetting the words to songs, and drunkenly sloshing around the stage were all part of the act, so to speak. Of course, this was all many years ago, when dinosaurs roamed the earth and drove Volkswagen buses and all that, but did it have something to do with this crowd's expectations? If so, they didn't get it (although some of them may not have noticed). One doesn't expect this type of behavior from balding old hippies with ponytails wearing oversized sweatshirts with large pictures of sad-eyed basset hounds on them, but I guess that's who you should look up if you really want to party in a way that's awkward and embarrassing. Luckily, Ray Davies himself has held up better than a large portion of his audience has. He's aged, sure—he's a bit wrinkly and doesn't have that much hair left, but he still looks trim and both his voice and sense of humor have preserved quite well. And he's still pretty spry, proving that he can move and, as demonstrated at one point, even jump around the stage better than what you might expect from a 65-year old man who was shot in the leg a few years ago. On the other hand, he doesn't seem like he's trying to convince anyone that he's some kind of wild rock and roll animal suspended in time, made out of animated petroleum wax or third-generation hair follicles transplanted from space like Mick Jagger or somebody like that. Or at least he didn't here. True, elsewhere in his career, he's been flogging the back catalog in variously sketchy ways—most recently unleashing a novelty-like set of Kinks classics arranged for a choir and, coming soon, another serving of the old chestnuts repurposed as a series of duets with more current or recognizably mainstream rock and pop names (some of whom are particularly moldy chestnuts left dangling from diseased, rotting tree husks in and of themselves—like, say, Metallica). And, of course, he's been pushing hard for a Kinks reunion tour for some time now. But here he played the role of the genteel elder songwriter and performer—and he played it rather well. Most of the show was acoustic, with just him and a guitarist from Ireland named Bill Shanley, except when the band who opened joined in for a few electric songs at the end. The beauty of this kind of show, where you're dealing with someone with this caliber of song material who can charm and entertain an audience with what seems like effortless grace, is that you can get swept up in it pretty easily. And it feels good when it works. Everybody knows the songs and everyone knows the words, even after they've cracked open their wineskins.

The audience wasn't entirely made up of oldsters, I should note. There were some twenty-somethings sprinkled throughout, many around my age and some maybe a little younger. A few came on their own and there was at least one unattached, fresh-faced group of what looked like teenagers to me, but most of the younger folks that I saw were accompanied by an older parent-type person like myself (I went with my Mom). Again, not totally surprising, but where were the rest of them? Last time I checked, The Kinks had a moderately high profile among the indie rock and pop-initiated, thanks, in no small part, to the regular placement of some of their more obscure songs on the soundtracks of a few Wes Anderson movies, among others (something Ray D. made reference to by doing a whole set of these very songs). Perhaps that recognition doesn't extend to the guy who actually wrote them? Or were they all at the First Friday art openings? I don't think so, judging by the lack of traffic and people walking the streets, which seemed eerily dead (even by Friday-night-in-Scranton standards). Was it just the geezer factor? Perceived relevance is indeed a cruel and fickle mistress.

At the end of the show, as we were getting up to leave, a guy hands me an open wineskin. Unlike the one in the photo above, this one looked as if it had been around and had possibly seen some action in the trenches of Woodstock or some other music-fest of a more flowery age. At first, it was unclear whether it was his or if it was left behind by somebody else, or if he thought it was mine or if he wanted me to drink from it or take it with me, as no instruction was given. "This isn't mine," I said twice, without seeming to get through to him. Eventually, I think he just said "take it." Not really wanting to do this, I hung it up on the arm of one the seats next to him in his row and left the theater a little weirded out. Either way, he didn't seem to care. He also had a flask.

Emergency Room

Right now, I'm sitting in the Emergency Room of a local hospital. Not for myself, I feel fine (or, at least, normal), but for someone else. Outside, it's sunny, fairly warm, and a nice afternoon. Inside, it smells like piss. Do hospitals ever actually smell clean? Well, they don't seem to in this area, but I get the feeling that they don't anywhere else in the country, either. Maybe that's a little unfair—it's not like I frequent these places, thankfully, but I can't remember ever being in one that didn't smell like urine or shit or, most often, both at the same time.

We sit down in a far corner of the room, but I notice there are a few signs posted designating this group of seats as being for people with "flu or cold-like symptoms." No one else is sitting here at the moment, but we move anyway. Naturally, near the area where we move to, there is a guy with definite flu or cold-like symptoms. Very phlegmy. Another sign declares that this waiting area has been brought to us by a "generous gift" from Gertrude Hawk Chocolates. Yes, even waiting rooms have sponsors now. Nothing against the folks at Gertrude Hawk, as I can personally attest to the fact that they make good chocolates, but I can't help wondering what kind of message this sends in a hospital. I mean, it's not exactly health food, but I'm probably expecting too much. Would it be better if they made tofu instead? Then again, the three vending machines in the room—a coffee machine, a Pepsi machine, and the snack machine that only has various bags of chips and candy bars—don't provide any health food options, either. Of course, it's "not for patients" expressly, but there's still a kind of irony in it all. So much for lifestyle and prevention. And the food that they do serve patients in hospitals here in the U.S. is pretty much notoriously bad and typically not the healthiest fare—burgers, chicken patties, stuff like that. And Jello. There's always room for Jello, after all. Adding to the ambiance are two small flat-screen TV's, one showing CNN and the other the Disney Channel. Hannah Montana is on and, from what I can overhear, Gilbert Gottfried appears to be a guest star. Do they lab-test these shows to ensure their annoyance potential or what? Gilbert eventually goes, but Hannah and company will stay on the entire time I end up sitting in this room—it's apparently the only thing the Disney Channel bothers to show anymore.

Ah, memories...

There aren't that many people here, but that doesn't mean you don't have to sit and wait for a while, of course. Intake and registration, for example, is a three or four-part process with significant waiting periods between each individual round. Get up, sit down—lather, rinse, repeat. The guy with the flu and cold-like symptoms complains that he's sat through two or three consecutive shifts of receptionists. With all the waiting involved, however, people come and go at a fairly rapid pace. Oddly enough, a number of the people here don't even look like they're very sick or in that much pain. In fact, some people seem to drift in off the street just to use the bathroom. I remember when George W. Bush, in denying that the millions of people without health insurance in this country don't have access to regular and reliable health care, said that going to the emergency room was tantamount to having a full health plan and was, in essence, America's answer to a comprehensive universal health care system. If the poor and uninsured get sick, they can just go there and all their problems will be solved. Never mind that the medical staff in these places, unaware of a patient's particular medical history, is usually not equipped and most certainly reluctant or unwilling to deal with someone's ongoing and recurring health issues. But, if it's broke, why fix it? That's the American way. The joke is that even if you have health insurance (and I don't, since I can't afford it, but the person I'm with does), you're likely to wind up here anyway after shuttling around between the various ineffectual doctors who reside within your insurance's "network," waiting for referrals to see said doctors, and dealing with the contradictory advice they give and the sparingly applied treatments they perform in order to keep you coming back, if not to cure. The emergency room's job, then, is to either toss you back into this insurance network or, if such a network is not available, to toss you out into the street. This is also the American way.

A lady walks in, seemingly addressing the whole room, and asks "Okay, where did he go?" Sorry, lady, I don't know. He went that way. Follow that car. Something like that.

Koyaasnowqatsi

2010-02-25T07:52:00.045-05:00

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Dismal days in Scranton. It's less cold than it was (feel those balmy 30-plus degrees), but it's very gray. And, today, a much-hyped snowstorm is taking place. At the moment, it's pretty light and minor, but a glance at a prominent weather website informs me that "a significant winter storm or hazardous winter weather is occurring, imminent, or likely, and is a threat to life and property." So, beware or be careful or be safe or be sorry. Or, as the website advises, "stay vigilant." Or not. We don't want things to get too definitive here. Maybe.

I'm told that yesterday morning one of the local TV stations referred to this storm as a "snowicane." Before you congratulate them for their cleverness, however (and considering that this very same station employs a weatherman who uses a frozen sock monkey as a meteorological measuring device, you probably shouldn't), a quick Google search reveals that news outlets throughout the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic region have unanimously adopted this cunning play on weather to describe this imminent, likely, or kind-of-sort-of-going-to-happen somewhere, somehow, at some point type of storm. Of course, considering that parts of this same area have already experienced "snowmageddon" and the "snowpocalypse," a mere snowicane hardly seems like that big of a deal. One could also ask whatever happened to those old-fashioned and descriptive, yet less hysterical, weather terms used to describe these storms in the past, such as "blizzard" and "large snowstorm," but that would be pointless in this post-journalism, post-news era. The bigger question is how does one stay ahead in the fast-paced whirlwind that is the hype-fueled weather wit machine? If your answer is to just keep combining the word "snow" with the names of other non-snow-related weather emergencies and natural disasters, then a series of more quick Google searches reveals that you're too late, as they've all been taken. Here is a list of those that have been used, many during this year (and some of them as alternate names for this already-established snowicane):

Snownado
Snownami
Snowphoon
Snowquake
Snowcano

And, yes, they've already used Snowzilla, both as the name of a large snowman built in Anchorage, Alaska and as a snowstorm that hit Washington, D.C. earlier this month. Also taken:

Snowgasm
Snowlocaust
Snowtastrophe
snOMG
Snownihilation
Snowvastation
Snowsaster
Snowpocalypse 2: Electric Boogaloo
Spongebob Snowpants

Snowlocaust? Spongebob Snowpants? Damn, they're really scraping the bottom with these. Well, surely there have to be some more out there. For example, if websites like Pitchfork (link does not imply endorsement of content) or other music blogs were to get into weather forecasting, a steady stream of indie rock-related wintry nomenclature would be required. A free sample, using the title of a popular 2007/2008-ish album, complete with hastily assembled Photoshop magic:

Snowacular Spectacular -- it's pop, psychedelic, and flakeadelic! Parliament Flakeadelic, even. You're welcome.

Of course, I'm aware that the recording referenced above was on a major label, so the blog hipsters (Blipsters, I hear you say? No, apparently not.) might be reluctant to touch it. They would probably rather go for Animal Collective or somebody, but Merriweather Snow Pavilion just doesn't have the same ring to it. Also, the Photoshop required to do that one would take me longer than a few minutes and smooshing together three cheesy JPEGs. And I have better things to do, such as, most likely, shoveling snow.

If the Internet has done anything for us (and, obviously, we all know it has), it has also done wonders for the fine art of naming and the categorization of people, things, and events, making it all the more twee and ingratiating.

So, that brings us around to the title of this post. It's a jokey reference to Koyaanisqatsi, a 1982 documentary/visual tone poem/art film/long-form Philip Glass music video -- its title being a Hopi Indian word that translates to either "life out of balance" or a few other variations to that effect. Why? Well, I rented the movie recently, for one reason, so it's fresh in my mind. But the title also seemed to fit, in addition to being cute and somewhat obscure. I'm not saying that big snowstorms are out of balance -- quite the opposite, in fact. They happen. What we seem to have lately, however, is snow out of context. The goofy names are fun, but do we really need so many of them? Sure, they're harmless examples of cheap, easy wordplay, but do they become something else when taken out of the adorable world of blogs and Twitter feeds and endowed with all the hysteria-generating power of the mainstream media and its professional demagogues for the morning commute (and the evening waste)? Snowpocalypse is just a stupid name, but it takes on a whole new level of meaning when used by someone like Rush Limbaugh or even the supposedly "neutral" ciphers who pass for journalists and reporters on the "news." On that note, do we really need every large, but otherwise run of the mill snowstorm to be an automatic, knee-jerk political reaction to climate change and climate science in general? Yes, it's snowing, but it's also winter. No one ever said that there wouldn't be winter -- not even Al Gore. Now, if it snowed in August or something, that would be freaky. But not unheard of. Take, for example, the year 1816, recorded by sources worldwide as "The Year Without a Summer." According to the Wikipedia article:

In May 1816 ... frost killed off most of the crops that had been planted, and in June two large snowstorms in eastern Canada and New England resulted in many human deaths. Nearly a foot (30 cm) of snow was observed in Quebec City in early June, with consequent additional loss of crops -- most summer-growing plants have cell walls which rupture in a mild frost, let alone a snowstorm coating the soils. The result was regional malnutrition, starvation, epidemic, and increased mortality -- in short, famine.
In July and August, lake and river ice were observed as far south as Pennsylvania. Rapid, dramatic temperature swings were common, with temperatures sometimes reverting from normal or above-normal summer temperatures as high as 95 °F (35 °C) to near-freezing within hours.

By comparison, parts of New England are only going to receive rain from the snowicane. And, most certainly, almost nowhere will the storm be accompanied by an ominous Philip Glass musical score. Except, naturally, in my head.