A couple weeks ago, Jill and I had a wonderful idea Saturday morning. We packed the kids up and got on the bus downtown headed for the Calder and Michelangelo exhibits at the Seattle Art Museum. Going somewhere as a family on the bus provides big adventure for us. Dylan, being a 3 year old boy, loves all things that move, especially trains, planes, diggers, rockets, kites, balloons, and somewhere in that list are buses, but mainly they are a place from which to see lots of these other things. [Some trip photos]

As a parent, the bus is pretty cool too, cause you get to hang on to your child, have them on your lap. No seat belts, no separation. If something passes by on the other side of the bus and it’s not crowded, you can just go there and look at it. It’s a pretty radical change from the normal constraints of a car…

We got out on third and went into the museum. And I have to admit, somewhat abashedly, that this was my first time since the new building, expansion, and renovation (May 5, 2007) that I have been there.

What a pleasure. So big and open and clean and full of light. So much room.

We didn’t linger…not with the kids. It was straight up to the Calder exhibit which was number one for me as I’ve always loved his work.

The space and the limited number of folks there Saturday morning was great. We could all walk anywhere we pleased pretty much around the big painted circles demarcating boundaries below the mobiles. Dylan was pretty into it, Lila was asleep at this point I think, and Jill and I were daydreaming around with all the shadows and shapes moving along the walls. So many flowers everywhere and celestial bodies.

It’s so wild to see an object with multiple lives. the object itself and then the dynamic life of moving shadows. There are some amazing pieces in this exhibit.

It is supplemented with some photos of Calder working; portraits of him in his chaotic studio set in calm NY farm land. But to top it all or really to provide a glimpse of Alexander Calder himself was the movie showing in the back room. Jill fed Lila and Dylan and I plopped down right on the floor rapt with joy and wonder at this amazing movie of him performing his traveling circus.

The man’s joy for and attention to life rollicks around this film and it’s “characters” wire, cork, cloth figurines made mobile, suddenly incarnate with the pull of a string. It’s impossibly ingenious and joyfully intoxicating. I recommend going if only for this film…but of course you’d get to see the work too. Watching this, one understands that Calder is a figurative master. He evokes the movement and shape and muscles of a trotting horse or the barbell-lifting strongman with wires and wheels. Amazing.

Alexander Calder performing le cirque

I’ve included links to a very similar version to the one they are showing @ SAM, but it’s not the same at all. Much of the effect is lost and I recommend soaking in the man’s work and then seeing le cirque!

Calder Le Cirque Clip 1
Calder Le Cirque Clip 2

Movie info from YouTube: “Carlos Vilardebo’s 1961 film of Alexander Calder’s “circus,” an intricately assembled performance piece played out by handmade characters including jugglers, sword swallowers, clowns, and animals. These figures, crafted from a collection of “cork, wire, wood, yarn, paper, string, and cloth,” were each assigned a series of movements and manipulated by the artist to perform specific circus acts. With performances held at various locations in Paris and New York through the mid 1930s, Calder’s circus helped to establish him in avante-garde circles. Jean Cocteau, Joan Miró, Fernand Léger, Piet Mondrian, Le Corbusier, Thomas Wolfe, and André Kertész were among those who saw the celebrated Cirque Calder over the years.AAA “

Since we’re on the SAM theme of late…watched this movie recently, Summer of Sam. A recommendation from my workmate. How it drifted so far under the radar I’m not sure, cause it was a pretty cool period piece and a great window into largely unknown communities (this from one who grew up in suburban Philly). And somehow unusual for Spike Lee, perhaps in that it was more about the inflammatory and frightened spirit of the big apple in the summer of ‘77 and what that brought out in a specific community (racism, homophobia, violence).

Adrian Brody plays a punk rocker escaped from his tight, Italian Bronx community. He dances (and provides extras) at a gay club in Manhattan for money, but hangs on tight to who he is, what he believes, even as his homeboys rant that he’s a freak for the way he dresses and wears his hair. Eventually, even his best friend, Luigi (shown below) rats him out, but it’s all part of Luigi’s own demise which goes down in beak-fulls of blow and adultery with total strangers.

And I was foolish enough to believe that the Supreme Court was for administering justice. Well we find out today that is not so. And so the Roberts court sets a new course for plutocracy. It’s pay to play now, baby!

This video at least offered some assurance that I’m not on an island someplace using the remaining sheets of my idealism for personal hygiene…

Deregulation rules! No I’m serious….Rules me. Rules you.

What happens to a world where money and power are raised above people?

Tim alerted me to this one a couple days ago. Could go any which way…but the trailer’s amusing for sure and title makes me laugh like hearing the huge lexicon of names of street tricks. Language evolves…[or is it Intelligent Design??!]

The Paramarker
The paramarker talks about his new gear.

Mark sent around a film today…Cruise-azy! And about skiers! It’s from a site called extranormal.com: “if you can type, you can make movies.” Cool.

Hope to make Mayor McGinn’s Inaugural Music Festival @ShowboxSODO tomorrow night. I’m eager to hear Wheedle’s Groove, and this vid just got me pretty excited about it!

It’s all Dutch to me, but this video shot on the elegant 5th SS Rotterdam, “the Grande Dame” — serving as a cruise ship for 40 years! — provides rather pleasant time travel. Car on board? Sure. Check the sailor suits and life vests — right out of South Pacific!

I like the old-school exercise room model, you can almost smell the sweat…reminds me of our Alumni Gymnasium at the old school (now raised and replaced with a spanking new facility). But heck, bring back the table tennis and shuffleboard! Why relegate those superb and family-friendly games to bars?

Enjoy the in-depth look at the food prep too…keeping in mind that this served as a promotional video! Perhaps the Europeans for whom this was a promotion are less squeamish…and I refer here to the full-on abattoir view of the galley meat storage and preparation.

For further historical information, check out Michael L. Grace’s article ( January 7, 2010) from which this vid was peeled.

Some months ago I posted this vid of Danny MacAskill doing ridiculous street trials bicycling stunts. Somebody linked this vid in an email thread about bicycling. I’d never seen anything like it.

Today, the New York Times wrote an article about this incredible young cyclist and his sudden leap to fame and sponsorship via YouTube.

If you too voted with unprecedented hope and excitement for President Obama and celebrated with thousands of people ecstatic with victory and love in the streets the night of his historic victory, then perhaps you are also somewhat dismayed right now… Hope and aspiration and optimism and faith puffed up like the plumes of a mighty bird of salvation now sodden and deflated.

It’s hard to place a finger on any one thing but I can place my hand on three big issues which dish out a daily feast of disillusionment. Watered-down health care reform, public option dead in the water before it’s first swimming lesson and within this the blue dog democrats, the Joe Liebermans, the Republicans who stall in a cloud of histrionics, refusing to compromise, the giveaways to big pharma and big insurance; the wars, the warring, the military budget in our country, the military occupations, the dead soldiers, the dead innocents; financial reform, which is not reformed at all, but just the same, an inside job from the treasury straight to Wall Street with the people left holding the bill and wondering what the fuck just happened.

Who to trust? Where does one go to find hope now? I am not sure, but I keep reading and if faith in any sort of corporate media was shattered long ago, my faith in grassroots organizing and the still free internet is something. Perhaps if enough people speak out…There is no shortage of ideas…and there is a growing frustration and anger as people power continues to be co-opted by corporate power, lobbyists, those with more money. And as Darcy Burner says, these issues are too important to give up on, despite the feelings of powerlessness and disillusionment. If we give up we will be trampled like buffalo, like Indians.

Great recent articles fomented this rant:

“Joe Lieberman’s Healthcare Bill Is Worse Than Nothing. Kill It.”
by Darcy Burner

The war we can’t win
by A.J. Bacevich

Colbert conservatism and the military budget
by David Sirota

“Obama’s Big Sellout”
by Matt Taibbi

“The Status Quo’s Favorite Canard: ‘It’s About Being a Candidate As Opposed to Being President’”
by David Sirota

Neat article by Grace Smith on the history and trends of collage with lots of cool samples today in Smashing Magazine.

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