Seaweed Giants

Hi everyone,

I’ve begun a new blog again. I tend to do this every time a new major chapter of my life begins, and seeing as how I have just moved across the country to Orlando, Florida, that is certainly the case at this time. I am attempting to make the new blog something I can use as a professional reference, to be able to direct potential employers there as a place to see samples of my writing. Plus, I feel like I need a new forum for my adventures with the arts here in sunny Florida. I may still occasionally use this blog, but for the most part, you can expect to see me over at Seaweed Giants and Dazzling Landscapes. (The title is explained in my first new post for the new blog. Thanks for stopping by.

A Serious Man

Last week, I went to see the latest Coen brother’s film, A Serious Man. This movie is a dark comedy loosely based on the Biblical story of Job. In the story of Job, Job inexplicably and suddenly looses everything of any meaning to him. The chain of events causes him to call his faith, life, values, and the very existence of god into question. In the end, God restores his faith and his possessions to him seven-fold. In A Serious Man,   Larry Gopnik, a Jewish professor of physics at a University, experiences a similar chain of events. His wife decides she is divorcing him for their long-time friend Sy Ableman. He gets kicked out of his own house and has to go live with his dysfunctional, gambling addicted brother at the Jolly Roger motel. A student tries to bribe him to change his physics score, and when he will not agree, his father threatens Larry with a lawsuit. Larry’s children are getting into trouble, with his daughter’s main activity being “washing her hair,” and his son smoking weed and getting into trouble at his Jewish school behind his back. Larry is almost up for tenure, only to find out that someone has been writing malicious letter to the board urging against him gaining tenure.

There is never any resolution to the movie. Life throws blow after blow at Larry, and we watch him struggling to deal with them. He visits three rabbis, none of which are helpful. He calls his faith into question and cannot understand why any of these things are happening to him. The only insight we have into what may be the root of Larry’s problems is at the very beginning of the film.

The opening Yiddish scene shows a man and his wife on a dark, cold, snowy day. The wife welcomes her husband home to their tiny wooden cabin only to become appalled by the story he tells her. He met a man on the way home who helped him fix his wagon wheel when it broke. When the husband tells his wife the man’s name, the wife almost faints. She informs her husband that this man died several years ago. The man then knocks on the door, as the husband had invited him in for soup to warm up. The wife is less than hospitable, questioning the man and eventually throwing an ice pick into him. He does not bleed. Everyone looks shocked. As the husband and wife order the man out of their home, blood starts flowing from him. As he leaves, the wife exclaims “We are cursed by God.” After this, Jefferson Airplane’s Somebody to Love starts playing, and the beginning credits roll as the movie switches to Larry and his family in Minnesota in 1957. We can concur that the people in the opening scene were Larry’s ancestors, and, as the movie progresses, we can only deduce that they have passed their “curse from God” onto Larry.

While A Serious Man may be very dark and perhaps to some, even depressing, the Coen brothers really did do a fantastic job of exploring the questions of faith, family, religion, and god within the framework of the movie. All of these are heavy and serious topics, and can often become either boring or overly biased and religious when they are explored on film. However, the Coen brother do not have that problem with this film. Their perspective is not biased, and because Larry’s questions are never answered in the movie, the Coen brothers do not espouse any particular viewpoint. They simply present the questions in an entertaining forum and leave you to think about them and answer them for yourself, which is, really, what good filmmaking is supposed to do.

For anyone interested, the film had a very limited release and may be difficult to find. In Pittsburgh, you can see it at Cinemagic Manor in Squirrel Hill.

Pittsburgh Film Festival 2009

For the past three weeks, I’ve been occupying my spare time with the Pittsburgh Film Festival. Each year, this festival brings a variety of foreign and independent films to Pittsburgh, as well as showcasing a variety of local talent. Unfortunately, I’ve only had the time to see three of these movies. However, each of them added up to a really great experience.

The first film I went to see was Araya. This film was directed by Margot Benacerraf, considered to be a giant in Latin American filmmaking. One may be tempted, as I was, to describe this film as a documentary. However, according to the director herself, this film was carefully planned as a tone poem.

It truly is a beautiful piece of cinema. The scenes are striking, the characters beautiful, the setting dramatic, and the narration poetic. Araya is about the place of the same name- Araya is a vast salt marsh situated on a peninsula off the northeast coast of Venezuela, jutting out into the Caribbean Sea. This salt marsh was discovered by the Spanish, and at one time, was a place of great wealth and splendor. The Spanish hired hundreds of workers to farm the salt through grueling manual labor. Five centuries after it was first discovered, the riches have faded, but the work and the workers remain the same. Industrial mechanization was slated to take over the very year that Benacerraf arrived. The filmmaker hoped to capture the salt workers’ lives and their long-ago working methods — just before these changes took place. (The film was made in 1959)

The people in the film are not actors; they are all the real inhabitants of Araya. Their lives have been governed by the sea for as long as they can remember. Araya has one of the harshest climates in all of the world. Nothing can grow there. The sun is always hot and it never rains. The land is arid and desolate. All life comes from the sea. Everyone works with the sea in some way. Some are fisherman. The fisherman’s wives sell the fish that they catch. Small children collect shells and stray fish left along the beach. The whole family cleans out and preserves the fish that are caught. Others are salt miners. They make their livelihood from the salt that they mine from the sea. As is repeated throughout the film, all life comes from the sea.

Some of the most beautiful poetry in the film come from the narration about the cycles of life and, specifically, of the sea. The film chronicles 24 hours in the lives of several residents of Araya. It explains that each day is exactly as the last; life for those who live there never changes. It is an endless cycle which is broken only by death.

 

The second movie I saw was Died Young, Stayed Pretty, a film by Iranian-born Canadian Eileen Yaghoobian. This was a film about the underground poster culture in North America. Eileen became fascinated with rock posters after a friend sent her the link to a website, gigposters.com, when she was struggling with grief over her brother’s death. The website did more than cheer Eileen up. It captivated her attention and gave her the idea for her next film. She spent 4 years filming this movie and financed it out of her pocket. Eileen perused gigposters.com, picking out ones that spoke to her and that she enjoyed looking at. She then found out about the artist’s who created them, contacted them, and arranged to visit them in their cities. They had to agree to give her a place to sleep; their spare room or perhaps the couch of a friend, in order for her to go. She filmed hours upon hours of footage over the course of a few years, and then set down to the arduous task of editing it all and compiling the footage she liked best into a film. The end result is an awesome and intimate look into the lives of the artists, their dedication to their craft, their thoughts on life, and their process of designing and creating. The film is composed in such a way that it mimics the feel of a rock poster; scattered, intelligent, humorous, layered, pasted together, and collage-like.

The movie was screened at the Melwood Theatre at the Pittsburgh Filmmakers. Afterwards, there was a question and answer session with Eileen Yaghoobian. She was fun, bubbly, and intelligent, responding with pleasure to all of the audience’s questions. All of the information I shared in the former paragraph came from the responses she gave after her film was shown. After this question and answer time, there was a reception out in the lobby with free wine, Great Lakes Brewing Co. beer, cookies, cheeses, fruits, and an assortment of other finger foods. Eileen was mingling with the patrons, usually sticking close to the table of her promotional posters she was selling. They had been created for her by poster-creating friends. I was lucky enough to purchase one, of which only five had been made. I bought the last one. The previous one had been sold in Barcelona, and the others at various locations her film had been screened at. I also had the opportunity to stand around and talk to Eileen for about half an hour along with two other young women who had attended the screening. Eileen was genuine and clearly excited about asking us questions about our interests in art and sharing details with us about her own. Our conversation ended with me giving her directions to a Citizen’s Bank branch she would be able to make it to before having to catch her flight out to Philadelphia in the morning.

 

The final movie I was able to see as part of the Pittsburgh Film Festival was a Greek drama called Dog Tooth. (It won this year at Cannes.) If I had to describe this movie in only two words, I would call it bizarre and thought provoking. Dog Tooth is about a severely dysfunctional family with the parents keeping their children in complete and total isolation from the outside world. The family lives in a house surrounded by a tall gate, devoid of any close-by neighbors. The father is the only one who ever leaves this housing complex. He opens the gate and drives to work each morning. He and his wife teach the children (who are actually not children at all, but adults) that the world outside the fence is completely unsafe and they will die if they venture out. They cannot go out into the world until they loose their “dog tooth” (One of the four pointed conical teeth -two in each jaw- located between the incisors and the premolars). Of course, adults do not loose these teeth, so the parents hope to be able to shelter their children for their entire lives. The movie plays out slowly and most things are not explained; they are left for you to figure out. The film can be darkly comedic, with the entire audience chuckling in the theatre at several points. For example, their parents often teach them odd definitions for words in an effort to “protect” them. They call the salt shaker a “telephone” (their mom keeps the real telephone carefully hidden in her room). After one daughter accidently sees the title on the spine of one of her parent’s porn movies, she asks what a pussy is. The mother tells her it is “a big light.” They call small yellow flowers “zombies.” The children have an incredibly naive view of life, as presented to them by their parents. They think that airplanes are tiny and fall from the sky (their parents sometimes drop plastic toy planes from trees when a real one flies over, saying that it “fell and is theirs to keep.” They think that cats are the most vile of creatures and rip small children apart with their claws.

This is all, indeed, very bizarre. However, it really does make you think. Our perception of life is highly influenced by what we are taught and what we are exposed to, especially at an earlier age. Many parents do have the desire to shelter their children, and to some degree, that may be a good thing. This movie, though, shows us what happens when this concept is taken to the extreme. One can imagine that these parents may have had good intentions from the beginning, but they ended up ruining the lives of their children. Reflecting on this should make us thankful for the freedom of information that we have. In America, we have access to all sorts of information and have the ability to take it all in, process it, and form our own opinion and perception of life. We should all take caution to never restrict other’s access to information and to realize the consequences that can result from such actions. Some countries, such as China, would do well to view this film as a cautionary tale and realize the level on which they are damaging their citizen’s lives by restricting their free access to information.

A Look at British Film Noir

Romance. Desire. Lies. Secrets. Murder. Eroticism.

Trying to produce an adequate description of film noir is a bit like trying to define a descriptive adjective. It’s very difficult. Film noir has spanned an impressive span of time and encompassed a broad range of subject matter and style that changes over time. The classic Hollywood film noir era is generally seen as the period from the early 1940’s to the late 1950’s. While this was classic American film noir, it was not the end of this versatile genre. Film noir continued after it’s original classic period, taking on new styling and subjects as it evolved. Film noir is still very much alive, with neo-noir films such as Pulp Fiction or Fight Club becoming very popular and successful.

 Also, film noir didn’t stop with America. The genre went over seas, with a vast number of British films produced which fit into the category equally well.

The Regent Square Theatre, located in the Squirrel Hill neighborhood of Pittsburgh Pa, has been screening a number of these British noir films each Sunday evening in October.

As soon as I heard about this, I promised myself that I would go every Sunday evening. I’ve stuck to my promise, with the exception of the first film, which was shown while I was out of town on vacation. It has become my favorite part of the week and the thing which I most look forward to. It’s a bit of a guilty pleasure, getting to go out and do something by myself that’s just for me. Even after this series is over, I think I still want to continue my habit of going to the movies on Sunday evening. It just feels very classic and is certainly a great way to unwind and get ready for the upcoming week.

As much as I have enjoyed the act of going to the movies itself, the films have also been wonderful and equally enjoyable. I did not know much about film noir prior to this, so this has also been a great learning experience.

Here is the description of this series as offered by the Pittsburgh Filmmakers Society:“Or October Sunday Nights series: Menace Behind Manners: Brit Noir. Most people think of film noir as uniquely American, but in fact post-war British films offered an equally pessimistic take on human behavior. Filled with greed, betrayal and desire, here are four deliciously dark English noirs – Sherlock Holmes and Miss Marple are nowhere to be found. All films begin at 8:00pm.”

The first of these films I went to see was It Always Rains on Sunday (1947)

In this film, a convict, Tommy Swann, has escaped from prison. This makes headlines everywhere and the front page of every paper. The police are out in full force, intent on bringing him to justice. We watch him run and hide through bustling London. He finally seeks shelter at the home of his ex-lover, who had been engaged to be married long ago. Rose is taken aback by his arrival and does her best to hide him in her home, perilous because of her husband and house full of children. It seems that their love for each other had never faded away, and the two share a passionate kiss towards the end of the movie before Tommy again takes out on the run. In the end, Tommy is captured and Rose tries to kill herself.

The high-tension chase scenes that comprise a good deal of this movie are a characteristic of classic film noir, as well as the themes of secrecy and illegitimate or troublesome love.

The second film of the series was Brighton Rock (1947). This is considered to be one of the most successful British films noir. This movie centers around a gang of no-good criminals out to cause trouble, led by the vicious Pinkie. The gang slips up in one of their signature criminal moves, which involves cards showing up in the hands of innocent civilians who are subsequently killed. A young waitress knows that the last man to die was different than the man who actually received the card. Her knowledge causes Pinkie to seduce the young girl, marry her, and then try to get her to commit suicide in order to keep her from talking. Though this movie is very dark, it has some very comedic elements as well.

For example, Pinkie made the girl a recording of his voice inside a sound box. On it, he says that he knows she wants him to say “I love you”, but, he says, he really hates her and thinks that she is a dirty little slut. In the end, after Pinkie has died, the girl goes off to become a nun. She is still, and has always been, convinced that Pinkie was in love with her. She has the nun let her play the recording. The record, though, gets stuck, and all she hears is Pinkie saying “I love you” over and over again. This got the whole audience laughing, and is also a great example of a classic film noir element: dark comedy.

The third film in the series, The Fallen Idol (1948) has been my favorite so far. This film is seen through the eyes of a young boy, Phillipe, the son of a diplomat. The film takes place in the Embassy. The young boy greatly looks up to the house butler, Baines. This man is like a father to Phillipe, and is also his idol and best friend. Baines has a terrible relationship with his unpleasant and controlling wife. We soon find out, through Phillipe, that Baines is having an affair with the typist, Julie. Things take a turn for the worse when Mrs. Baines finds out about the affair and, in a fit of anger, falls of the ledge of a window on an upper floor and tumbles down an enormous flight of marble steps. Phillipe, terrified, runs away and is found by the police several streets away from his house. He will not talk at all, but perks up when he hears the police talking about the Baines report. The police take the child home, and everyone tries to lie to cover up the affair. This lying ends up incriminating Baines and the authorities think that Baines murdered his wife.

In the end, just as Baines is in the basement contemplating suicide to save his name, the police finds evidence that proves that this was in fact an accident and not a murder. Baines is off the hook, and he and Julie embrace, now able to make their affair legitimate and be open with their affection.

The main theme of this movie is lying vs the truth, a thread that runs all throughout the film. This, along with the affair, are both very iconic film noir themes. I would highly recommend seeing this movie.

The final movie of the series will be showing next Sunday, November 1. The film is So Evil My Love, and I would advise any one in the Pittsburgh area to go out and see it. I’ll be there.

A Clockwork Orange

The latest book I have finished reading is Anthony Burgess’ A Clockwork Orange. As anyone who has read the book’s introduction would know, Burgess did not like this book. He did not think that other people should like it. However, with Stanley Kubrick’s adaptation of this book for the big screen, people were captivated and the book became increasingly popular. The movie, though, left out a very important part of the story… the 21st chapter. The book, as originally printed in the United States, had only 20 chapters. Burgess’ original version, as well as the one distributed overseas, had 21 chapters. After the movie version was made and became a huge success, Burgess decided that since the book was popular and he could not very well simply disown it, he could at least make sure people were reading the proper version. So, the full 21 chapter version of the novel began circulating in the United States. This version also includes the introduction where Burgess shares his thoughts about the book, the last chapter, and so forth.

The first thing a reader of the book notices is the bizarre dialect. Alex, the main character and narrator of the story, is a teenager growing up in a futuristic and corrupted England. The dialect he uses is a made up one which, he says, is how all the teenagers spoke at that time. One will probably spend a long while on the first chapter, as it is necessary to infer from context what each of the odd words means. To give an example, the first sentence of the novel: “What’s it going to be then, eh? There was me, that is Alex, and my three droogs, Pete, Georgie, and Dim, Dim being really dim, and we sat in the Korova Milkbar making up our rassoodocks about what to do with the evening, a flip dark chill winter bastard though dry.” This interesting syntax, grammar, and language continues all throughout the book, getting harder or easier to understand at certain points, and gives the novel a good part of its interest and charm. Dialect always helps to immerse you in the setting of a novel, and this is certainly a wonderful example.

I don’t want to fully explain the novel in this post as not to give to much away. (I really think everyone should read this book.) I want instead to focus on the central concept which really does explain the book: the necessity of human choice between good and evil.

In the first part of the book, Alex seems to be evil through and through. He enjoys the crimes he and his friends commit at night. He takes pleasure from these things. In short, he consistently chooses evil because that is what he wants.

Alex’s reign of evil is brought to an end shortly before the second part of the book when he is caught by the police and taken to jail. Eventually, he learns that his sentence in jail is going to be shortened because he has been chosen to take part in a new program the state has developed to “reform” criminals, called Reclamation Treatment. Alex readily agrees to this, as it will be over in a fortnight and he can be permitted to go home again.

However, this Reclamation Treatment is more horrifying than anything Alex ever could have expected. This method of educational associations consists of forcing Alex to watch films of bloody violence, killing, and crimes. He is forced to view these films as he is strapped into a chair with even his eyelids forcefully propped open and an IV needle in his arm. Alex is appalled that such films would be made, much less that he should be forced to watch them. These films make him sick and he cannot stand them.

Soon, the very thought of violence makes him ill. He once decides to escape, but gets sick when he tries to overthrow the guard blocking his way. In order to prevent the feelings of sickness from coming, he tries to turn his thought process around and do something nice for the person he originally intended to hurt.

This is displayed when the officers in charge of the treatment center bring in an audience of high government officials and basically make a spectacle of Alex. They have an actor go to Alex and punch and kick him; instead of fighting back, Alex tries to tie his attackers shoes or bow at his feet or offer him gifts.

The option of choice has been removed from Alex. He is now programmed to do good and cannot defend himself even if it is necessary.

When Alex is released from treatment, he tries to go home. His family has forgotten about him, though, and he is an outcast. He is beat up by some old men at the public library, then caught again by the police and brutally beaten until he is nearly dead. He then stumbles to a house in the country asking for help. He is let in by a man, who, as it turns out, Alex tried to rob back in his days of crime. The man thinks Alex’s situation truly a pity and promises to help him out as much as possible and to use him as a case to show the government that they are dead wrong in their treatment of criminals through the Reclamation method.

Eventually, Alex tries to kill himself by jumping out a window. He is taken to the hospital and given treatment. When Alex wakes up, he finds that he is cured of that which the government did to him. (We are never really told how this takes place.)

When Alex leaves the hospital, he finds some new friends to start a gang with. He is once again able to chose good or evil of his own free will, and he chooses evil. However, this does not last for very long. One evening, Alex and his friends are sitting around having a drink. Alex is not being himself, and suddenly decides to leave. He hands control of the evening’s crimes over to one of his companions and walks out into the cold winter night. (This is the controversial 21st chapter.) He walks into a shop to grab a drink and meets up with an old comrade… and his wife. Alex is amazed that one of his friend’s is married and it makes him start thinking about his age. He concludes that maybe he is getting to old for a life of crime.

As Alex walks and thinks, he decides that what he really wants is to find a wife and to settle down with her and raise a family. The book ends on this note.

Alex had freedom of choice, and voluntarily chose to pick a path of good and reject the path of evil. Through this, Burgess illustrates why the human will and freedom of choice are the utmost important things. If a man can only do good or can only do evil, he is like a clockwork orange. He is useless, programmed, unable to think and make decisions for himself. It is essential that man be able to choose between good and evil, even if he does choose evil for a very long time. If he does eventually decide to turn to good, he will do so fully and out of his own free will. Therefore, his life and good actions will be complete, having good motives behind them. Man is not a clockwork orange and is never meant to be. Choice between good and evil is what makes us human.

Challenging Our Perception of what we see as Art

Today, I spent the afternoon at The Mattress Factory. For anyone unfamiliar with Pittsburgh, this is an art museum in the downtown area. It’s unique for many reasons, perhaps the most outstanding being that it gives artists a place to live and a space that is uniquely theirs in which to create their art. Because of this unique creative freedom, the art exhibitions that show at The Mattress Factory are often much more than the simple painting or drawing. They go beyond that and fill a space with art, creating an environment in which the art is all around you and presents itself to all your senses. You do not go to The Mattress Factory just to see art; you go to be immersed in it.

This experience at the museum raised, in my mind, at least two items to contemplate. First, the notion of how we define art. Second, the notion of how art defines us.

We’ll begin by examining how we define art. Often, no matter what the subject in question is, we tend to put abstract concepts or intangible ideas into a box so that they become easier for our minds to understand. For example, the concept of god, or the notion of time. These are broad concepts which we cannot fully define, so we define them by putting them in a certain space and applying the broadest definition to them. To an extent, I think many do this with art. If someone asked you to define art, you might tell them a paining, drawing, or photograph. However, art can be so many more things. The examples of art at The Mattress Factory certainly attest to that. These examples challenge our conventional perceptions of art.

Many exhibitions at The Mattress Factory involve all of the senses. The cause you to not only experience the art with your eyes, but also to feel it, hear it, and have it surround you. One of my favorite current exhibitions is Vampire Battle by Tony Oursler (this is on the lower level of the main building for those interested). In this, there is a damp basement room filled with huge styrofoam oval shapes. Each shape is painted with various patterns and colors. They are staggered in a way which allows you to see them all from the entrance of the room, but they are more fully experienced by walking through them. Each one has a projector in front of it projecting an image of a face onto it. These faces talk, move, and change. They fade in and out, come and go. A speaker accompanies each projector. There are different voices to go with each face, and you can distinguish what each is saying as you walk through the room. It all creates a very eerie effect. He means to say something about humanity, beauty, and vanity through this exhibition, and this is rather clearly discerned with a careful observation. This is a prime example of unconventional art. The use of sounds, visual effects, and changing images creates a highly unique piece of art which speaks to us much more deeply than a more conventional exhibit ever could have. All the senses are engaged and the mind is open to be imprinted with the message the artist is trying to get across.

Vampire Battles is part of the current temporary exhibition at the museum called Likeness. This grouping of exhibits explores the way portrayals of people have transformed since the days of Warhol. The art of portraits has been around for a very long time, thus modern artists are always searching for ways to redefine it. The portrait offers a unique glimpse into humanity and even a window into our hearts and souls. This brings me to the second point….how art defines us. As much as we may try to put art into a box and assign a definition to it, art does a much better job of defining us. Through art, the artist can provide us with glimpses into his own life, the life of the subject he is portraying, and into the human condition itself. If we look at art closely enough, we will see something of ourselves in it. For example, Oursler meant for everyone to see something of themselves in one of the many faces in Vampire Battles; imperfect, yet beautiful despite their flaws.

Art can also challenge how we see beauty. Modern society’s culture will often dictate a singular definition of beauty; blonde, or tall, or skinny, for examples. But through art, we see beauty defined in a whole new way. Beauty can be found in the tears, the pain, the imperfections. Art redefines beauty and thus gives us a more accurate definition of ourselves: beautiful, not in spite of, but because of our flaws and imperfections. Thus art defines us and allows us to see in ourselves that which society may not, that is, beauty.

Spring Has Sprung!

I love everything about the time of year when the weather starts to warm up. I love how everything gets green and how flowers bloom. I love how the days get longer and the sun shines brighter and warmer. And I love flowers. They’re such perfect subjects to photograph. While it might not look much like Spring outside in Pittsburgh yet, the Spring flower show at Phipp’s Conservatory and Botanical Gardens is in full bloom. All these pictures were taken there by me on Easter weekend. Enjoy, and happy spring. 

 

New Blog

The new blog I mentioned in my last post is finally up and running. It’s all about politics, so if you’re not interested in issues of a political nature, just keep reading this one and don’t bother with the new one; it will bore you. I’m welcoming comments and feedback, so let me know what you think. There’s plenty more to come. Check it out here.

A Definition of Me

Home from college for the weekend and being the broke college student that I currently am, I asked my dad earlier this evening if I could borrow $1.50 to pick up a copy of the New York Times at Barnes and Nobel before they closed for the night. He looked at me with a strange look and said “You don’t read the New York Times.” That statement is blatantly false. In fact, I love the New York Times and look forward to reading it in the bookstore when I come home on the weekends. At first, I was angry that my dad was denying a fact of my life and personality. As I thought about it later, though, I realized that my dad doesn’t know me at all, and that is entirely my fault. I tend to tell my best friend, Otis, everything about my life and tell nothing to anyone else. This upset me a bit, because I really do love my parents and are thankful for everything they have done and are doing to support me and make me the person who I am. However, they don’t really know who I am, which I can imagine might hurt or upset them. 

 

In sociology a few weeks ago, we were discussing social status and class. We talked about ascribed and attained statuses, which define who we are. We discussed our salacious status, or the one which primarily (at least on the surface) defines who we are. Currently, my salacious status is that of a student. However, our professor encouraged us to think about ourselves not just in terms of our salacious status but in terms of all the little quirks and personality features that really make us who we are. 

 

I think that getting to know yourself is very integral to your life. If you don’t know who you are, what you like and dislike, and what you are capable of doing, how can you market yourself to a potential employer, attract a future mate, or chose a valid career path? The process of “finding ourselves” is an ongoing process, lasting through our entire lives. It is often only in the last blink of an eye of our lives in which we come full circle in our process of self-discovery and find out who we really are. But finding yourself isn’t a burden. It’s a natural part of every day living, just like breathing or sleeping. Every day you learn something new about the world and about yourself. Sometimes, it is only necessary to sit down and think and write about who you are to figure it out and discover yourself. It’s all there. It’s just waiting to be found, brought to life, and embraced. 

 

For me, the process of finding myself and growing into my own skin seemed to have, in my memory, come suddenly and abruptly. Growing up in small Christian schools, conformity was taught and not only encouraged, but mandated. Being a unique individual with your own beliefs and values was not really seen as a valid option. There was one set of morals, one political stance, one religious belief, etc. At least that was how it seemed in my mind. However, I finally broke out of that and “found myself”, or at least began to find, my senior year of high school. I was 18 for the majority of that year, and my newfound adulthood caused me to think “Humm. Maybe I don’t have to believe all the lines I’m being fed. Maybe it’s okay for me to think for myself.” And so I did. I began forming my own interests, beliefs, and habits, most of which were inconsistent with those deemed “appropriate” by the school. And so in my rebellion from the conformity I was being taught, I began to discover who I really was. 

 

I spent the majority of my senior year and the time thereafter discovering who I was. Then, maybe half a year later, I fell in love. I lost part of who I was in this love, lost it to that other person. I imagine that typically happens; when you fall in love, you give part of yourself up for that other person. But in that other person, I found another part of me I never knew existed. I discovered strengths, interests, and weaknesses I never would have know otherwise. That love has lasted for a while now, and I am continuously finding parts of myself both inside that love and outside of it. Self-discovery is a beautiful thing. 

 

In this post, I do not wish to tell you my age or my occupation or my educational level and goals. I do not wish to share the most salacious of my statues. Rather, I wish to define myself as I see me. I want to tell you about the things that make me tick, my likes and dislikes, the things which make up the framework of my personality and my attitudes. I would like to dedicate this post to my Dad. Thanks for not knowing that I read the New York Times and spawning the idea for this blog post in my head. Hopefully my dad, and others who care, can get to know and understand me a bit more fully through the words and stories that follow this lengthy introduction. 

 

I.  ART.

I love art in all its myriad forms. I love writing, poetry, theatre, film, sculpturing, painting, drawing, animation, mime and pantomime, fashion, graphic design, singing, dancing, musicals, music, and any other form of art you can think of. I appreciate good art. I like things that are creative and subliminal, that do not directly shout their message at you, but subtly present it to you. I am fascinated by artists and deeply admire their work. My love and admiration for art is perhaps the largest component of my personality. Within this category come many of the things I love and feel define me. 

A. Literature  

1. Chuck Klosterman: a brilliant satirist of modern culture, Klosterman writes entertaining, witty, and highly personal pieces on everything from artists such as Madonna and U2 to fictitious accounts of men giving away zoot suits on street corners. Klosterman will undoubtably make you laugh, but will also make you step back and scratch your chin in thought as you reflect on what he has to say about our culture. Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs may be his most well read and beloved book, but everything he has written is well worth a thoughtful read. 

2. Ernest Hemingway: Papa Hemingway will forever remain my most beloved author and my primary idol and influence. I love his clear, simplistic narrative style. When I read his books, I am actually there. I am there with him on his African safari or by the bull rings with him in Cuba or Mexico. I stand by the ocean with him somedays and help him hunt down U-Boats on another. I am enthralled by his lifestyle and enchanted by his descriptions of it. I am moved by his insights into love and death. I am drawn in by his short and simple dialogue. I am fascinated with the never ending correlation between Hemingway the man and Hemingway the author. In short, I love him and would replicate his life exactly for myself if I could. I aspire to be just like him. 

A list of other favorite books includes, but is not limited to: 

1. Snow Crash. Neal Stephenson. 

2. The Stranger. Albert Camus. 

3. Things Fall Apart. Chinua Achebe. 

4. Gone with the Wind. Margaret Mitchell. 

5. Jude the Obscure. Thomas Hardy. 

6. Music for Chameleons. Truman Capote. 

7. The Kite Runner. Khaled Hosseini. 

8. Atonement. Ian McEwan. 

9. To Kill a Mockingbird. Harper Lee. 

 

B. Film 

1. Wes Anderson: Wes is an incredible storyteller through his medium of choice, film. His attention to detail is outstanding and unprecedented. Each tiny prop or set piece in his films are carefully planned, drawn, and brought to life. These microscopic details make his films into feasts for the eyes, true spectacles to observe. He excels in both screen writing and directing. His films portray life as it really is, in all its brokenness and imperfection. They are hauntingly beautiful and often tragically heartbreaking. Life is not a fairy tale, and Wes’ films show us this in a visually astounding and an emotionally moving way. 

2. Quentin Tarantino: Quentin is a genius of a film maker who often comes under criticism for the graphic violence and especially strong language of his films. Again, however, I love Quentin’s work because it is real. It is life, in its most raw and uncut form. Even with the violence, plot lines and characters are well developed and moral lessons arise from the blood and destruction. Characters learn about themselves and in turn teach us about ourselves. 

3. Charlie Kaufman: Some might call Kaufman crazy. His films warp reality and distort your sense of time. However, Kaufman isn’t crazy. He’s simply artistic. Again, his attention to detail is painstakingly beautiful. His story lines are very complex, so complex that they become difficult to follow at times. There are plots within plots and then plots within those plots. Kaufman has  a lot to say about life and can’t fit it all into one traditional plot line. Therefore, he layers them and plays with the concept of time to fit more in to each and every film he produces. He is, quite simply, a genius. 

4. Alfred Hitchcock: I appreciate old films, and Hitchcock is by far my favorite director of classic movies. His sense of good and bad, his blonde bombshell heroines, his use of cinematography and special effects, his style of filming, his intense chase scenes, and his terror elements all amount to great film making. No one can deny the longevity and cultural ubiquity of his great films such as Vertigo, Psycho, The Birds, and North by Northwest. Hitchcock made films that span generations and set a foundation in great film making that has lasted and been built upon throughout the ages. 

 

Other films I love: 

1. Magnolia. P.T. Anderson. 

2. Gran Torino. Clint Eastwood. 

3. Letters from Iwo Jima. Clint Eastwood. 

4. Big Fish. Tim Burton. 

5. Everything is Illuminated. Liev Schreiber. 

6. The Godfather series. Francis Ford Coppola. 

7. The Untouchables. Brian De Palma. 

8. Thank You for Smoking. Jason Reitman. 

9. Casablanca. Michael Curtiz. 

 

II. POLITICS.

 Perhaps the second defining aspect of my personality and life is my love for and interest in politics. Up until this point, my political views have been under construction. However, at this time, I feel that my feet are solidly planted in my political beliefs and that I am educated enough to share those beliefs with others. I did not, though, want to turn this blog into a place for my political convictions. Therefore, I have set up a new blog, Athena On Politics, at athenaonpolitics.wordpress.com.   As of right now, I have nothing posted there yet, but within the next few days expect to see a steady flow of blog posts describing my political views on major current issues. Yes, this interest is what drives me to enjoy reading the New York Times. 

1. I support President Obama because I feel like he was the best choice on election day to get our country out of the mess it is in. 

2. If I had to give my political views a name, they would most closely resemble those of a Libertarian. 

3. In practice, though, I tend to support democratic decisions because I am generally more liberal than conservative. 

4. The only major beef I have with the Democratic party is this: I believe in a very small, limited government. Democrats are, of course, notorious for their big government and big budget plans. 

 

III. TRAVEL. 

1. Travel is certainly another of my defining passions. I love traveling and exploring new places. I have a special love for the beach and clear ocean water. When someone asks what I want to do with my life, my answer is typically “I want to travel.” It is the one concrete thing I know I will always want to do, no matter what the circumstance, and will never tire of. 

IV. Food and Drink. 

1. A few other things  I will never cease to enjoy are eating, drinking, and cooking. I enjoy cooking myself for just me or for my friends and family, but I also very much enjoy dining out and trying new places and cuisines. I also love wine and beer. I am trying to learn more about wine and food pairings so that I can chose wine to go with main dishes on my own, instead of always having Otis do it. I prefer white or rose wines, though I occasionally drink red wine as well. As for beers, I generally prefer imports to domestics. America isn’t that great at producing quality alcohol. Corona (Mexico), Guinness (Ireland), and Heineken ( Holland) are a few of my favorites. Italian is my favorite cuisine. I also love seafood and fish of all types. 

 

V. Bookstores and Coffee Shops 

1. No definition of me would be complete without mentioning my love for coffee, bookstores, and the “coffee shop atmosphere”.  I spend most of my free time in coffee shops and bookstores and could literally spend all day there. Sure, going to bars is fun, but on many Friday and Saturday nights, I prefer to curl up at Barnes and Nobel with a cup of coffee and a stack of good books, newspapers, and magazines. I like to have my laptop or a notebook nearby so that I can jot down ideas and interesting facts or begin writing if the inspiration strikes. Most every good idea I have ever had has been the brainchild of excessive amounts of time spent in a bookstore or coffee shop. They are my thinking spots and my havens. I also enjoy patronizing small, locally owned coffee shops and appreciate the people who put their time and efforts into running them. A favorite local Pittsburgh chain of coffee shops is Crazy Mocha, with my favorite location being the one on the end of East Carson. It’s great for people watching, another of my favorite past times. If I know Otis is busy on a Friday or Saturday night and that I will be spending it alone, I generally drive down to the South Side. I park at the beginning of East Carson sometime in the evening, maybe around 7. My first stop is Dave’s Music Mine, my favorite place to buy new CD’s and hear about upcoming local concerts. After that, I walk down Carson, window shopping and people watching. When I reach the opposite end of East Carson, I do some actual shopping, checking out Urban Outfitters, Forever 21, etc. Then I head to Crazy Mocha to grab some coffee and a snack and write for a while. Usually around 10, I walk to the movie theatre and use my student ID to get a discounted ticket. After the movie, it’s about 12:30, prime time for Carson on a weekend night. The walk back to my car is fun and entertaining as I watch all the happy people bar hopping, laughing, and talking. Sometimes, if it’s early enough, I stop in Charlie Murdoch’s, the dueling piano bar and one of my favorite spots for entertainment. My car is usually parked by it anyways, so its just a few steps away. That’s my recipe for a perfect night spent by myself. Of course, I’m generally with Otis, which is more entertaining, but sometimes it is nice to have one of those nights to myself. It’s one thing I will miss whenever I don’t live in Pittsburgh anymore. 

 

Well, folks, that’s me in a nutshell. I like the arts, politics, travel, food and drink, and coffee and bookstores. These things all help to define my personality and who I am and I hope they give you, the reader, a better understanding of me.

A Taste of LA

Delicious (and Colorful) Mexican food on Rodeo Drive 

 

The outside of a yummy and hugely popular Smoothie/ Juice company. This one’s at the beginning of Rodeo. 

Amazing, spicy Pineapple Chicken Curry and brown rice at a Thai food joint in Pasadena. (Above) Teapot holding tasty green tea. (Below) 

 

The facade of the ever-entertaining Bubba Gump Shrimp Co., this one famous because of its location on Santa Monica pier, the spot where Forrest supposedly turned around when he ran across the country. 

One of the many fun details of Bubba Gump: these signs on each table allowing you to let your waiter know about your needs by telling him to “Run, Forrest, Run” or “Stop, Forrest, Stop”