Hello People of the World;
Welp, here we are in the second month of 2014. I
have had sooo many people comment to me about how looooooong this winter is
suddenly. But, it is still winter. Weird. In any case, the snows have stayed
and at times we have had warmer days and rain even. But hey, it stays cold
during the winter and you know what else? It snows too. Try not to be so
surprised at that.
It has taken me some time to get this written, as I
have been busy with my work as a Media Mentor and trying to get the film
festival ready for its spring run. Also, revving up HAMLET again. So, without
further ado;
Let’s get this edition started, shall we?
1:[ First
Item of the Month: Breaking the Vase
So, some news was made when Dominican-born artist
Maximo Caminero walked into an exhibit by Ai Weiwei picked up one of the
displayed Han Dynasty vases and dropped and shattered it. Now, the collective
art world and art world fakers are losing their collective shit about it. To
quote this article: “Ai's collection of Han
Dynasty vases dipped in industrial paint is supposed to provoke discussions
about the value and meaning of art, as is an accompanying series of photos
showing him dropping, and breaking, a similar vase.”
I love the hypocrisy of art patron phonies calling
Caminero an “idiot” for smashing the $1 million vase. I loved it. Apparently,
Caminero was inspired by Weiwie’s own art piece of himself smashing a priceless
Ming vase and did so in protest to the gallery housing this installation for
not promoting local ethnic artists. The art patron phonies now are ignoring the
broken system that failed local artists and care more about how much the piece
was worth. This is why art should never be attached to commerce, because you
lose your message in the run to won the latest piece. If you really believe
that you should make money off your art and the message to promote, then you
are doing nothing but making a commercial. In the end it’s all collectable
coffee mugs….
2:[ My Truthfulness Stuffs:
My Useless Self: Ego &
MARRIAGE
I must admit that I am done with marriage. Meaning,
I am never going to get married again. For one, it is this outdated economic
contract that has no bearing on the world. Two, if you want lawyers and the
state to weigh in on your romantic relationship: incorporate. Who you love and
want to be with should be an individual choice and not for some state or
religion to sanction. That is stupid.
The other reason is that I feel that I will never
have natural children of my own with someone I choose to love and be with. Now,
I have children with someone I love and want to be with and I am content with
that. Besides, I do not feel that I am marriage material. My time for that has
passed….
Updates from my other Truthfulness Projects:
+ NAMELESS: The Authentic and Magical Ledger Art of EW3
A Treatise on
American Indian Art
“All you care
about is money. This city deserves a better class of artist. And I’m going to
give it to them.”
Just restarted this project again, filling the rest
of my book with thumbnail sketches of the images I want to sketch. Looking
forward to working on them. I recently sent some samples to a Native arts
magazine editor I know for simple perusal, just to be looked at and to get an
opinion. So far: nada.
But I got a great idea for an exhibition for
NAMELESS. I am going to write up an exhibit proposal soon. I think I might have
to write for a grant because it is pretty involved. It entails printing up
dozens of reproductions of me ledger art and having folks just take them off
the walls. Yep, just giving it all away. Because the message that Native
American art is still stuck on the new reservation system of commercialized
pay-for-play ideologies is more important than me “making a living doing what I
love.”
To quote the great man, ‘It’s not about money. It’s about sending a message…’.
+ The Five Six SEVEN Hypocrisies of Native America:
(Because Seven is a sacred
number):
There is this thing out there about the so-called
“Four D’s” of Native Media Coverage. How Native Americans are never covered in
the media without conforming to the “4 D’s”:Natives have to be either Dancing, Drumming,
Drunk or Dead to gain any kind of media coverage in the news or otherwise.
However, Native Media and Art puts these four things in their works as well.
The more the non-Native world sees us doing it, the more they think it is okay they do. The trick is to start current and work your way back. So, I find it hypocritical that we cry around about it when we wear the beads and feathers too. “You can’t use the ‘4
D’s’ in your media! ONLY WE can use the ‘4 D’s!!” Hypocrites….
NEXT MONTH’S TRUTHFULNESS:
Ego and _____?
Let me know what I should
cover next in my series on Truthfulness.
3:[ More MOVIE TIME ADVENTURES:
+ Library Reviews: Being out
of cash all the time I have found that the local library has some great
selections of DVDs that I can get for free. So, here are quick reviews of the
many films I have seen, thanks to the library:
Late Spring: Lately, I have been
re-acquainting myself with the works of Ozu. This is a simple story of a father
and daughter and the rest of the family deciding it is time for the daughter to
be married. You can see the distinct influence of post-WWII Japan’s US
Occupation. The clash of cultures and the severing of the father-daughter ties.
The daughter is headstrong and does not want to marry but is worn down by the
constant plotting of the father and aunt. At the end, you feel that something
is broken in the daughter and when the father realizes what has happened. Great
film. Recommended.
Branded to
Kill: “Ghost
Dog” owes a lot to this as well as “Le Samourai”, a rugged crime story of a hitman
working to become the number one killer by offing his opponents. But when a hit
goes wrong, he becomes a target. It is very sexy, violent and sort of goofy. I
had been looking for this for some time and it was well worth the wait.
Recommend.
Paris, Texas: Wim Wenders is one of my
favorite directors, beginning with “Wings of Desire”. I enjoyed this story of
an amnesiac looking to unite his son and his wife. Beautifully shot, immensely
poetic and sad. Recommended.
Following: Christopher Nolan’s first
feature length film is about a writer who follows strangers to feed his writing
but falls in with a man who breaks into people’s homes. What follows is a
twisty and turning tale of betrayal and crime. Shot in black and white 35mm and
on a shoestring budget with stolen shots and location, it is a true inspiration
for my own HAMLET. Here you see Nolan’s first use of the non-linear style that
would define his oeuvre for years to come. Recommended.
An Autumn
Afternoon:
Ozu’s final film, which is basically a color remake of “Late Spring” that has
the same actor Chishu Ryu once again playing the father to a headstrong
daughter set against getting married, this time, playing his actual age. This
is stuffed full of many side characters that detracted from the father-daughter
relationship but served as a perfect snapshot of 1960’s Japan and how the
cultures still clash. Recommend.
+The Marvel Movie Curse of Weak-Ass Second Halves:
Recent news of how much the new Captain America movie “ties in” to the next
“The Avengers” movie make me realize that MARVEL has not overcome its primary
weakness when it comes to their movie properties. The Weak-ass Second Half.
You see? “Captain America” suffered mightily from
the But, The Avengers Syndrome. In
addition to a very rushed second half, because we HAVE to get our boy frozen in the ice, which after repeated
viewings he could have easily escaped the flying wing, but no, got to freeze
him to get him into The Avengers, the
drama and pathos of the second half seemed neutered, it was a simply road map
to him getting frozen in the ice. The romance was rushed and garnered no
sympathy from me. Suddenly, she loved him at the end. It felt like that.
Nothing in their relationship prior read that they were madly in love, so her
acting like she was came from left field and it made his sacrifice and
reawakening all the more shallow.
It would have been better to do a trilogy with part
one as his origin. In fact, the perfect climax would have been the rescue of
the POWs and him getting a medal.
Part two would be him brought to his lowest levels
fighting Hydra. Can he keep being the symbol of the USA if he is being forced
to go on Kill Missions, and how does this affect his standing with his new
love? The climax could be the kidnapping of that new love and the reveal of Red
Skull as the big bad and could include the loss of Bucky. It would close with
Captain America disobeying orders in order to recue his woman and get revenge
for Bucky.
Part three can be the climactic battle to rescue
his love and stop the Red Skull from launching a super rocket that Washington
DC, Cap defeats the Red Skull, destroys Hydra factory and leaps onto the rocket
against the protests of his love and re-routes it into the ocean getting frozen
but presumed dead. See? I just wrote a Captain America Trilogy. “The Avengers”
should have opened with him waking up in modern day New York. It would have
given his character some pathos that all went to Iron Man.
It is the same with the Iron Man and Thor movies.
You could have expanded both of those film’s first halves, fleshed out the
characters. Then, the first half of “The Avengers” would have opened with how
each of them is approached to join the team. But the idea of a “Connected
Cinematic Universe” is not new but Geeks think they have leverage in the making
of these movies. That is why most movies have had sequels almost from the
beginning of the form.
So, all I see in the Marvel Movies is the rush to
get to the next “The Avengers” movie and in that rush, the price paid is a solid
story and characters. Don’t come here with that “They are supposed to be fun”,
trying to justify those Weak-ass second halves. It is hypocritical that that
rule applies to DC movies but not Marvel’s. Plus the fact that they are always
fighting Loki makes them all look incompetent, like they can never catch him….
4:[ U2 finally put out a new
single entitled “Invisible”. It took me a while to warm up to this song but
now, I thoroughly enjoy it. In fact, at one of my schools, my class adopted
“There is no ‘Them’. There’s only ‘Us’” as our mantra for our video about how
music unites. On the fli side of the coin, don’t you think that U2 lost
something once they put Larry Mullen Jr. on a click track to play electronica
music? I mean, before Achtung, Baby!,
Mullen was a completely self-taught drummer who lent the band some great drum
lines and signature beats. Now, he sounds almost subdued against the heavy
influence the Edge seems to weld in the creation of their music, whereas it
used to be their rhythm section of drums and bass that ground the music. Their
next album is set to be released in June. I am still greatly looking forward to
it….
5:[ Ah yes, settle in Dear
Readers for more of:
Adventures in
the Coffee Shop and/or on the CTA!
+ Why do people pack onto the Purple Line and still
think they will have room?
+ The Pretty Girl Syndrome: I have noticed this a
lot at the coffee shops I frequent. Where one of the lady baristas feels
threatened by the pretty newcomer and they avoid interacting with her and
over-laughing at the all the dude baristas’ buffoonery. Sad, really…
+ So, the other morning a Very Loud Beggar gets on
the Purple Line and asks everyone for 30-cents. She is loud and abrasive
because she tells people that it is not like she is asking for $500 just some
change so she can get something to eat. At one point someone decided to argue
with her. Eventually, the driver stopped the train and had to ask her to get
off. I mean, it wasn’t like anyone was paying attention to her to begin with. Everyone
ignored her. Which is why she decided to be loud. We all went back to thinking
we were better than her. IT struck me as sad, because what circumstance forced
her to beg for change on the Purple Line and to be loud about it. She was
right, she wasn’t asking for $500, just spare change….
6:[ Another thing I am getting
pretty tired of is this “Only Positive” Bullshit on Facebook. I always say,
finding a balanced life includes confronting the negative and dark aspects of
our lives and learning to live with it. Instead, we post only lovey-dovey
bullshit like that is the key to balance. We all have darkness and sadness and
hate inside us as much a fear, happiness, and love. Ignoring all aspect is not
a balanced life. Only focusing on the “positive” is simply putting blinders on
to reality.
From this I see has led to this sort of
Debate-Stifling Cowardice. Where people are not allowed to express anger in
something posted publically. What cowardice, that, you cannot take on the hate
of another person in a comment stream. Every person is not what their emotions
dictate. We need to have the ability to just be. We all have these emotions
inside us. If you cannot stand how much hate a person spews and you hide behind
“Everything is Lovely” Blinders, you, are coward that is afraid of life’s
reality….
7:[ And now Wisdom of the
Sages presents:
“An Ever-growing List of Things That MUST Stop!”
+ People who demand a “Balanced Life” and yet are
scared to confront the negative aspects or hateful reactions. See #6 above.
That bullshit needs to stop….
+ The other day I saw a pair of women walking in
the streets making sure they walked around d the huge puddles. What is it with
ladies that wear rubber rain boots and yet they are so adamant about not getting
them wet. They gingering step around the puddles. Et, I see kids in brand new
rain boots sloshing through the deep waters. Kids are pretty straightforward in
the uses of clothing. Fashion over function needs to stop….
+ Seriously, when has honking ever gotten you your
way…?
8:[ Wait, wait, wait… the
Winter Olympics happened?
9:[ From the “This Just In” Department: So there is
now a woman who plays in a Men’s Pro Arena Football League. Looking at the
comments, I see all the big tough guys getting mad that “why can’t men have man
stuff?” Look, if a woman can keep up with the guys, I see no reason for her to
keep going. But I know some guys will purposely try to injure her to prove that
she doesn’t belong. Watch for that….
10:[ Last Item of the Month: You know? I keep hearing people moan and
lament that their kids are “getting so big, so fast” as if the whole thing is
happening only to them. How dare you. Growing Up is happening to your kids too.
Not only to you selfish parents.
That will do it for this month and this year.
My HAMLET Project is really starting to pick up. My
friend offered to write up a blurb for an open casting call WHICH YOU CAN READ HERE and it was picked up by a Native news website and the note was shared
across Facebook and since then I have had around 20 inquiries from Native
actors. We are planning for a spring break shoot on one or two scenes but may
have to plan for additional summer shooting. Fantastic!
Please feel free to comment, correct, or contradict
anything you read here on Wisdom of the Sages. I have had all kinds of comments
and feel that is presenting an opposing view to my own. Many people seem to be
afraid of being contradicted, well, as long as you are sane about it. Just, do
not drag the dead into a conversation just so you can bitch about the weather,
okay?
Until Next Time, “I try to show the schemers how
pathetic their attempts to control everything really are.”
2014 Ernest M. Whiteman III
