It takes time in the morning for me to become George

I often get mixed up between A Serious Man (Coen brothers’ essential Yiddish comedy) with A Single Man (Tom Ford’s directorial debut). Both got a lot of nominations during last award season. Both take place in the 1960s – an era with a very specific sentiment: fear. Both pivot around a male protagonist – a college professor – with his daily struggle with incredibly profound matter: what makes life worth while. Although both character take different approach in find the answer to this question (and one can argue that A Serious Man takes this question into greater depth) but I feel a very similar subtext that the film makers are trying to posit to the viewers.

Since I saw A Single Man is still fresher in my memory, I’ll just write about it now. A Serious Man needs a re-run and more mulling over.

Confession of a Book Hoarder

Being the post-modern consumer that I am expected to be, I’ve always counted on retail therapy as the quintessential method of avoiding mental glitches*

*: inexplicable sentimentality that involves listening to Joni Mitchell’s Cloud album from beginning to end, OR inexplicable rage that involves considering to join a Fight Club for the prospect of beating up a bleached Jared Letto).

I've only read ONE of the books in this pile. Ay Carumba! (illustration via http://www.iliketodrawthings.com/)

For richer..or poorer? – part 1

I’ve been reading Brideshead Revisited (Evelyn Waugh) these last couple of days. The overarching theme of the book, I guess is about social classes. The main protagonist, Charles Ryder is a middle-class student in Oxford University in the 1920s. He befriended Sebastian Flyte, a captivating L’Enfant terrible from privileged pedigree. As their friendship blossomed, Charles learned more about the decadent and outrageous life of the old-money. As an outsider, first he approaches the subject with wild-eyed bewilderment. I suspect he will be disenchanted by it as well (haven’t finished the book yet).

One passage in the book strikes me immensely. It’s a conversation between Charles and Lady Marchmain – Sebastian’s mother:

I remember [Lady Marchmain] saying “When I was a girl we were comparatively poor, but still much richer than most of the world, and when I married I became very rich. It used to worry me, and I thought it wrong to have so many beautiful things when others had nothing. Now I realize that it is possible for the rich to sin by coveting the privileges of the poor. The poor have always been the favorites of God and his saints but I believe that it is one of the special achievements of Grace to sanctify the whole of life, riches included.

WHOA.

Cheap laugh out of fancy stuffs

Last Friday, I did a presentation in front of the whole office. Basically my boss asked me to share my favorite advertisings (us being advertising workers and all)

Tthe first things that comes to mind is the campaign from Italy for the Comic Museum (another reason to move to Italy!). It is from last year – won Bronze at Cannes – and this year.

To get the full effect of awesomeness of this campaign, please allow me to take you through some legendary paintings:

Portrait of the Infanta Margarita

Diego Velasquez, 1653

Le Déjeuner sur l’Herbe (The Picnic)

Edouard Manet, 1863

The Death of Marat (La Mort de Marat )

Jacques-Louis David , 1793

AND NOW, BEHOLD:

(it’s not too readable. In the middle panel, text on that piece of paper reads: Room Service Bill)

Campaign line: Comics are art. Just funnier.

(Audio: laughing tracks of studio audience on sitcoms + applause)

Love this campaign for several reason:

1. It includes a work of fine art (Manet no less! woot woot). So basically, that alone is enough to make me excited..

2. It juxtaposes, or even ‘clashes’ high brow form of art with low brow sense of humor (comic strip), thus leading us to a interesting idea: is the concept of polarizing extremes still relevant in this day and age, where synthesis/fusion has become the way our life and our world operates (pure “creation” no longer exist, everything is derivative)?*

3. It shows great understanding about the target audience and create relevance. I’ve seen some other advertising that also use visual of fine artwork but there isn’t any coherence in the idea and the execution, so the use of fine artwork become kind of gimmicky.

4. It’s just simply FUNNY AS HELL. DISCUSS.

*Yeah, this is related to Contra.

Bonus:

Facebook Photo: Are You Warhol or Rembrandt?

It’s quite fascinating how much information we can gather about someone, even simply by looking at their Facebook profile photos.

Here’s a guide I’ve developed to help you interpret what your Facebook profile photo says about you. It’s based on a rather intricate analysis and deep understanding on the work from various well known artists.

If your Facebook photos are: Close-ups of your face, always from the same angle, always with the same expression.

Then you are:

Which means: You know what works for you, you know what makes you look good and you’re workin it, girl! (or guy!)

If your Facebook photos are: close-ups of your face with various angle and various expression, but always frowning never smiling

Then you are:

Which means: You’re kind of an emo and might be interested to get multiple piercings on your ear

If your Facebook photos are: Close-ups of your face, modified creatively using  color filters and you have many many MANY of those photos.

Then you are:

Which means: You’re a fan of Lady Gaga and might consider a career in advertising

If your Facebook photos are: photos of you experimenting with various make-up, hair-do and costumes. In some of the photos (if not all), you are barely recognizable.

Then you are:

Which means: You challenge the concept of selff, identity and manifestation of individuality (WHOA DEEP), or you just like dressing up.

If your Facebook photos are: the same photos as that on your ID, Driving License or Passport

Then you are:

Which means: You have a no-nonsense take on life and are very confident, since those photos  can often make you look kind of awful because you’ve been waiting frustratingly for hours before the photo was taken and the government officers who took it didn’t actually care whether you look good in it as long as you don’t blink.

If your Facebook photos are: photos of you doing various weird crap with your best friend/boyf/girlf.

Then you are:

Which means: You don’t really care whether people think you’re weird – as long as you got each other.

If your Facebook photos are: photos of you but blurry

Then you are:

Which means: You’re a bit shy about your looks, or you don’t really know what the focus button is for.

If your Facebook photos are: various photos of you but seem to be of different people

Then you are:

Which means: You’re a freaking genius.

If your Facebook photos are: shadows of yourself

Then you are:

Which means: Your face is 4 but your body is a 10

If your Facebook photos are: doodles of yourself and they look like you.

Then you are:

Which means: You’re a sensitive artist, and you want people to know that.

If your Facebook photos are: doodles of yourself and they DON’T look like you.

Then you are:

Which means: You’re extremely talented. Or not at all. It’s rather controversial.

If your Facebook photos are: photos of you with fresh-from-the-salon perm

Then you are:

Which means: I cannot relate to you, like, at all.

Heeheehee, don’t take this too seriously.

Criticism in art – why it is a waste of time.

Wes Anderson and Vampire Weekend are the reason why I’m writing this. Both are my favorite artists in their respective field. As geeks would, I’d like to be informed about things that I like – and also things that I don’t like, sometimes (So I know how to make an informed insult about them. HAHA)

Anyway: the internet is the best easiest channel to be informed about stuff, so I’ve been reading a lot of articles about both of them.

Besides of finding out gazillions of facts and mind-reeling anecdotes about them (Wes Anderson’s middle name is Mortimer Wales, and Ezra Koenig’s favorite food is hummus), I also find out one other thing: BOY, DO THE CRITICS HATE THEM.

Both Anderson and VW have become subjected to a lot of hatred and ridicule for one overarching reason: critics find them ostentatious with their own brand of quirks, capital Q. What bothers me greatly is not this reason or the criticism, but it’s the act of criticism itself.

How relevant is criticism in art, really?

The matter has been cooking in my head for some days and I have come to the conclusion:

Criticism may be the antithesis of art.

WHOA.

Here we go.

Sic transit gloria. Glory fades. I’m Max Fischer.

Rushmore is one of my desert island movies.

(Yeah, if your plane/ship is wrecked above the sea and you’re washed ashore to a deserted island, there’s gonna be a DVD Player, a TV set and an electric plug in that island. So you have to pick 5 films that you’re going to watch for the rest of your life. Play along with this premise, please, regardless of its many logical fallacy. Let’s move along).

My other desert island movies Singin’ in the Rain, Annie Hall, High Fidelity, and a tie between The Big Lebowski and a Pixar movie (and I’m still undecided between A Bug’s Life or Finding Nemo.)

“Well, I would say that I’m just drifting. Here in the pool.”

Before I’ve seen the movie, I’ve always thought that The Graduate is a drama about steamy forbidden relationship between a young, naive college graduate and an older, sultry woman. I think it would revolve around the young man’s internal battle of conscience and lust. And after many twist and turns (disapproving parents, judgmental society, male’s ego to constantly domineer, etc), he will finally make up his mind and decide what’s right for him. Eventually the odd couple beat the odds and maybe reunite in a rainy afternoon in an artistically drenched cobble-stone street – a.k.a Movie Ending Script type 4B.

Turns out – like most of the time – I was wrong.

Vintage Family Christmas Photos (cue to: “awwwww” with tilted head)

Christmas 1985..i remember that pink dress!

Christmas 1986

Christmas 1987

Frames – vintage wallpaper – kids