Blogowitz

Counterfeit Food Detector

2011-03-24T07:44:00.000-07:00

I'm a docent at our local zoo, The Living Desert. Visitors easily understand how animals have native diets and how predator moms don't raise their offspring to hunt, thereby making their offspring "non-releasable" in the wild.

What no one realizes is that 1) homo sapiens also have a native diet, and 2) Americans are non-releasable in our supermarkets. Here's why. Just as captive moms fail to teach their offspring, so too with our culture. Thousands of years of food wisdom has disappeared. We not only lost the ability to hunt, we can't teach our offspring about food so long as the conversation is dominated by big industry. And even if we know what to shop for, our supermarkets fail to address the needs of a homo sapien diet.

In the food industry, we call textured soy protein a meat "analog," which is basically counterfeit meat. Our food supply is largely a food analog, that is, a counterfeit of the real nutrition that our bodies need. For example, meat isn't really meat; if it were, men would expend thousands of calories hunting for lean, grass and berry-fed venison with no antibiotics, no growth hormones, and no bio-accumulation of feed chemicals.

I can't change anyone's self-destructive behavior, all I ask is that when you feel smugly superior to hunter-gatherers, remember this: they are releasable, you are not.

Food Economics

2011-03-22T08:53:00.001-07:00

Letter to a think-tank economist... first paragraph.

The relationship between food economics (the most adulterated products garner the highest profit margins) and health economics (the least adulterated foods promote the lowest health care costs). The “health lobby” is almost helpless against big food manufacturers’ high budget brain-washing of the public. The resulting health care costs, or externalities, are borne by the public, not these corporations. Large manufacturers, due to their cost structure, are incapable of making truly healthy, real food products. Ever see a coupon for an apple?

Kiddie Matinee

2010-01-04T10:34:00.000-08:00

[This was written as an assignment for a family audience writing class in UCR's MFA program]

Bridge on the River Kwai

What parents would bring their four-year-old son to a 161 minute war movie? Mine. We were in Atlantic City for Passover… long boring meals in dusty, circa 1920 hotels frequented by circa 1880 Jews. So, visiting the local cinema to see 1958’s hit movie (it won seven 1957 Academy Awards) seemed like a good idea.

The Japanese operated a POW camp in the jungle, maybe Burma or Thailand. The prisoners were all British, save one American, a bon vivant playboy who later escapes. The Japanese coerce the Brits into building a military railway bridge over the river, but the British officers, led by Colonel Nicholson (Alec Guinness), refuse manual labor. The Japanese commander, Colonel Saito, unsuccessfully tries to crush the stubborn Nicholson into submission. Saito finally relents, but explains to Nicholson that he will have to kill himself if he fails to deliver the bridge on time.

Nicholson decides that his men need better discipline and what better way to create esprit de corps than to build a first-rate bridge that will last for hundreds of years? He also wants to demonstrate his superior English ingenuity and know-how to the Japanese. In his single-minded, myopic quest, it never occurs to him that he’s aiding the enemy. In the meantime, the escaped American is drafted back into service; his personal knowledge of the bridge and POW camp are invaluable to launching a commando raid.

In the end, everyone dies, but not before the bridge is blown up and Nicholson has his Aristotelian tragedy “discovery scene” (“What have I done?”). He then intentionally falls dead on the plunger/detonator which blows up the bridge. Not so tragic after all; he doesn’t die in vain.

There are numerous conflicts, internal and external. The obvious stakes are high. But Nicholson’s internal conflict is the true drama. He must choose between pragmatism and his sense of honor and superiority. He’s the British Empire incarnate--rules and honor trump all things practical. Wasn’t it a Brit who was rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic? Of course, it was this very unrelenting, steadfast ethic that made the Brits a world power, but Nicholson’s inability to compromise undermined his cause. Another theme is anti-war. War brings out the best and worst in us, but at what cost? War also forces upon us explosive inner conflict. No wonder good war movies are great grist for the drama mill.

My favorite character was the British medical officer, a humanitarian whose moral keel never wavers. I’ve only re-watched this movie a couple of times and I watched the first half of it last week—Netflix inexplicably removed it from “watch now” status before I could finish it.

Back in 1958 I think movie toys were limited to books (I had Tales of Uncle Remus from the movie, Song of the South) and Disney stuff, including my ceramic Pluto. I’m still looking for a TNT detonator and a bridge to blow up.

I never exposed my child to this movie as she’s a girl (sorry I’m not PC here, but young girls usually don’t care for war movies, especially my girl). Now that she’s an adult, I think she would appreciate it.

I vividly remember two things. How large and high adult heads are in movie theaters and also the bridge blowing up and crashing the train.

The Bar Mitzirconium

2009-11-27T16:27:00.000-08:00

I fidget sitting next to the bimah or podium as Rabbi Washer officiates services. He effortlessly completes a prayer, acknowledges his congregation, faces me and nods for my a-li-yah or summoning to the bimah. I’m nauseated; sweaty, suffocating in thick tweed.

My Bar Mitzvah was in February 1967, at the Jewish Community Center in Teaneck, New Jersey (pronounced JOY-z). The ceremony should have been in my family’s native Bronx, but our 1958 “white flight” landed us in Teaneck with its other migratory Jews and supposedly good schools. This Bar Mitzvah was a miracle that almost never happened.

By the time I started Hebrew school at age 10 in 1964, my educational career was five-year jinxed. The first day of kindergarten was inauspicious; Mom shepherded me onto the wrong school bus. Upon arrival at Hawthorne School instead of Eugene Field, I tried to explain the mistake, but “Nothing doing, young man!” Several hours later I finally convinced the principal beyond a reasonable doubt, the burden of proof required of children in 1959. Mom finally picked me up. “Imbeciles! Nothing but imbeciles,” she ranted. I understood her meaning and enthusiastically agreed, sealing a half-century mother-child bond cemented by mutual disdain of self-important adults.

Hebrew school was a bust because I just couldn’t concentrate. The nearby New Jersey swamps beckoned, especially as they metamorphosed into Interstate 80 which starts its 3000-mile journey to San Francisco just a mile from home. Each night, I’d lie in bed listening to metronomic pile drivers thump, thump, thump. In 1964 when I was ten, my worried parents took me to a psychiatrist, Dr. Friend, to cure my “nervousness” and lack of concentration. Friend reeked of smoke. He owned two bizarre ashtrays: one with opposite-facing silver storks, each of which could hold a cigarette in its open bill, and one stand-mounted device with a spinning mechanism that forced the butt into a hidden chamber. He preferred board games to actual therapy, relishing his weekly chessboard triumphs. Stymied as Lewis Carroll’s “Alice-the-pawn,” he ridiculed his ten-year old patient for being an angry, ungracious loser. Instead of addressing his own issues—maybe he suffered audio hallucinations and heard the white knight talking backward—the smug fraudmeister prescribed a tranquilizer/antipsychotic, Thorazine, so I could “calm down,” behave, and succeed at school. Not likely.

If Friend wasn’t in such a hurry to die from lung cancer, he would have later learned about Ritalin and a new DSM diagnosis, attention deficit disorder, or ADD. Our last chess game was terminal; Dr. Friend taught me well. 1) Bullies don’t deserve a fair fight, and 2) Their victims could fight dirty while maintaining the moral high ground. I used a unique “castling” maneuver. Instead of rearranging king and rook, I stunned the chess board with a Rod Laver backhand. Pieces flew across Friend’s rigged battlefield, peppering the room. A solitary bishop landed on top of his swirling-ashtray stand, flushing both bishop and Friend from my life.

I stand up and tentatively plod across the bimah to the lectern. Rabbi Washer holds the Torah’s mahogany cylinder handles and gently rolls open the kosher goatskin scroll; it mocks me, my guts flayed, stretched, and etched with fear. He removes a white, note-sized piece of paper from his jacket pocket and surreptitiously tucks it into the scroll. He smiles, nods, and leaves. I’m alone. The paper “cheat sheet” looks new, freshly typed, all in hyphenated C-A-P-S. My transliterated “savior.”

Bar Mitzvah requires mastery of ancient Hebrew, impossible without intense concentration. One must read several paragraphs from an actual Torah sans vowels. Just imagine reading in vowel-less English. In those days you couldn’t even buy a vowel, Wheel of Fortune’s Vanna White was barely eleven at the time. Drug-addled, I would zone out after reading only a few English sentences. How then, could I defy the odds, reach Hebraic zenith, and “become a man?”

Enter the enigmatic Rabbi Julius Washer. A conservative pillar of Teaneck’s Jewish community, his stoic countenance and sonorous voice demanded respect, even fear. But concocting the “cheat sheet” belied that image. In a compassionate moment he ignored his rabbinical training, Jewish tradition and even God, extending great kindness to a troubled boy. It wasn’t until years later that I realized Rabbi Washer’s humanity. He graduated from Yeshiva University (rabbinical college) in 1932 and had 35 years of experience by 1967. At the time of his death in 2004 at age 94, he had been a rabbi for 72 years! In the thousands of Bar Mitzvahs he officiated, I wonder how many were like mine. Was I the first?

I take a deep breath and peer at the congregation. My parents, grandparents and baby brother sit in the first two rows. Both yarmulke-crowned grandfathers don silk tallises or prayer shawls. Hebrew might as well have been Chinese or Greek, the intricate calligraphy a mind-numbing blur. Part of the secreted paper, my ersatz Torah, is obstructed, its left side wedged into the scroll. I gingerly tug, not wanting the mahogany cylinder to roll off the lectern, unwinding the Five Books of Moses like toilet paper rolling down the stairs. The Torah cylinder rocks slightly, but I extricate the paper without uncoiling a Talmudic faux pas of biblical proportions.

Like Rabbi Washer, my father’s parents were a contradiction. He was Jewish Orthodox and a Republican; she, an atheist and a socialist Democrat. They had moved from the Bronx to Brighton Beach in 1962, just after their 50th anniversary. The new beachfront high-rise served as a platform from which my cousins and I launched missiles off the 21st-story balcony and watched them go splat, like chopped liver on Ritz crackers, then spritz a “two-cents-plain” soda water directly from the old-fashioned tinted bottle. Ocean winds often propelled these edible treats to other balconies; free food and beverage par avion. Sometimes, wind gusts atomized the soda water into a drenching sea spray. We’d re-enter Apartment 21-D and Grandma would say, “Oy, vat is it? Rain-ink?”

The Grandparents owned an early-60’s invention called color TV and an even cooler contraption, an analog remote control. Working this thing was like crank-starting a Model T. You had to click hard – like a key on Mom’s Royal typewriter when making nine carbon copies – and the green channel dial physically rotated. No jumping from two to nine; seven clicks required. My brother Ben was only three at the time. I’d frighten him with magically moving channels, then accuse him of messing with the TV. I enjoyed being an illusionist, the man behind the curtain, whether parroting Rabbi Washer’s cheat sheet or creating a fantasy world of moving channels. Several years later, I created urinary “wiz-ardry” with impunity. When my brother got his first puppy, I went downstairs, relieved myself, and then complained to Mom about Ben’s new dog pissing up the basement.

Grandma Fuchs was the woman behind the curtain; a beguiling Machiavellian who kept mental note of shit-listed relatives. She hid behind a linguistic “curtain” when venting her un-grandmotherly, XXX-rated spleen. “That shtick drek shmo!” (piece of shit fool!). I wondered if Yiddish was evolution’s way of censoring adult language from children. I’d ask Dad to translate, but he would just blush. I was determined to learn more about this language, so rich in condescension, scatological reference and sex. I wondered about those XXX-rated movies along 42nd Street. Did some old Jew transliterate the script into Yiddish for gentile actors? Did the movies have English subtitles?

Grandma prepared chocolate milk with “U-Bet” kosher chocolate syrup calling these kiddie cocktails “hoyshki-boyshkis.” But hers was not a life of kosher piety. She, the trickster atheist, duped Grandpa, the Jewish orthodox, into believing that his food was kosher; that his meat and dairy were served on their respective, exclusive plates; and that the plates were washed with their respective, exclusive soap. Who thinks up these things? She rejected biblical law in favor of “cheat sheet” pragmatism.In her hoyshki-boyshki mélange of manipulative rascality, razor wit, ironic sarcasm, and uppity atheism, I saw myself.

I especially loved Grandma’s dark, twisted sense of humor. As a stand-up comedian-in-training, I aspired to wow the Catskill Mountain resorts, or “Borscht Belt,” with Fuchs-isms. But if comedy bombed, Bar Mitzvah taught me that there’s always money – I netted over $1000 in 1967 dollars that day – in sleight-of-hand exhibitionism: magician and divorce lawyer came to mind. I loved being a performance artist, a clever boy.

The mahogany cylinders rest quietly. The comforting English phonetic transliteration of my assigned section of the Torah is clearly visible. An eerie silence smothers the sanctuary. Both grandfathers clear their throats. My underarms radiate moist heat like a vaporizer inside the tweed canopy.

I read while chanting in flagrante delicto:

“B-O-A-R-U-C-H A-T-A-H A-D-O-N-A-I

E-L-O-H-E-I-U M-E-L C-H-H-A O-L-A-M....”

Like a barking dog, I can’t hear myself. Is my voice too high, too girl-like? I don’t want to chant in flagrante castrato! Am I intelligible? Suddenly I lose all fear and float dreamily, lip-synching words; a marionette on transliterative strings.

Dead silence. No applause. Did I fool them? Rabbi Washer walks to the lectern, and addresses the congregation. “Now Steven would like to say a few words.” He steps aside, but I can’t remember a word other than “today I am a fountain pen,” a one-liner from the 1930’s when engraved pens were the de rigueur Bar Mitzvah gift. I fumble for my 3x5 cards, galvanizing my guts with visualizations of stand-up comedian Henny Youngman delivering one-liners. Will God cop my comedic cherry?

“Good shabbos.” Show the crowd how I can throw around colloquial Hebrew. “Today I am a man. My five years of hard study made this possible.” Rabbi Washer frowns, perjury compounding our conspiracy. The grandparents kvel and why shouldn’t they be overjoyed, I’m performing for them. “I’m so happy that all my grandparents could be here today. We learned from the Torah it’s all about family, that blood is thicker than water, and there’s plenty of blood in the Bible.” I comically pat the scroll as the glib sacrilege blushes my face.” Henny would shout, “I love this crowd!” to liven things up or divert attention from an awkward moment. But this crowd grows subdued; I need to turn my beet red face into rhetorical gold….

“My Torah reading was from Exodus where God gave unto the Jews the Ten Commandments. When Moses returned from Mt. Sinai after talking with God, his face was bright red, almost burnt, forcing him to wear a veil before his people. I feel like Moses today, reading God’s law from the Torah, my face flush like his.” Maybe Moses and I both blushed for the same reason, because of our bold-faced bubbameisters. They’re buying this shit. I’m in overdrive and it feels good….

“In conclusion, shalom and God bless.” I’m done! My speech moved the crowd. Rabbi “Alibi” and I pulled it off. He shakes my clammy hand. I can’t wait to pee.

Later that day, we all went to see Fiddler on the Roof at the Imperial Theatre. Only my parents and I knew the truth about how I “became a man.” I think Grandma would have appreciated my performance even more if she were privy to the fraud. I knew she was strange, but a child’s wisdom is visceral, right-brained. It lacks articulation. Dr. Ben, my “Brother-the-Shrink” who was Mom’s unwitting therapist and ghoulish keeper of closeted skeletons, later told me Grandma’s story. Orphaned in 1894 at age six, she slept in Polish barns, suckled Polish goats, and was adopted by Polish Jews by age eight. At eighteen Celia Buchbinder was married off to the first man who would have her. As “loving” mother to her first born, she forced Uncle Dave to eat his own excrement as punishment for soiling his underwear. He was three. Oh, Celia! You’re no longer my role model.

The Bar Mitzvah was my metaphorically life-defining event. Clergy ordained in-authenticity, minting a counterfeit man destined to a lifetime of benign frauds. After repeating seventh grade, I decided on a career in law. What better way to become my very own “Rabbi Washer?” I skipped high school, received a GED and headed to college and law school. Like the Egyptian architect Imhotep, I built pyramids; mine of sturdy, durable cubic zirconium; his of authentic stone. I've become the lovechild of two strangers: Rabbi Washer and Celia Buchbinder.

H-O-Y-S-H-K-I – B-O-Y-S-H-I-K-I-S anyone?

U - B-E-T!

Reject war...

2009-09-28T08:19:00.000-07:00

Resort to Piece

It's good to ask "why?"

2009-09-28T08:12:00.000-07:00

Better to ask "why not?"
Best to know why, and why not.
That's "wisdom."

She's a twentieth century fox...

2009-09-16T09:57:00.000-07:00

Oh, yeah,

She's a twentieth century fox ...

Just watch the way she walks...

She's a twentieth century fox ...

Crisis of Faith

2009-09-16T09:36:00.000-07:00

A “crisis of faith” should replace infantile credulity with logical skepticism.

10 Top Scariest Creatures of the Desert Southwest

2008-12-20T17:41:00.000-08:00

INTRODUCTION

The Palms Springs Desert Museum recently took a survey identifying those creatures most feared by the public. In order of scariness from ten to one (one being the scariest), the Museum found:

10) black widows
9) scorpions
8) mountain lions
7) coyotes
6) tarantulas
5) wood rats and mice
4) Gila monsters
3) bats
2) bees
1) rattlesnakes

Some fears are misdirected; rattlesnakes kill only 12 or so people a year while others are dead-on. Bees kill more people (53 annually) than the remaining nine animals combined. Think fear of wood rats or mice is irrational? Think again. The deadly Coccididmyosis Hantavirus pulmonary syndrome (HPS) is spread to humans through rodent urine and droppings. Of the 30 cases diagnosed annually, the fatality rate is 40%. And just because snakes kill infrequently, do not step on a Mojave rattlesnake; their hypodermic fangs inject both neuro and hemo toxins.

As a master desert naturalist, interpretive guide and docent at the Living Desert Zoo and Gardens, I live and work in the hottest, driest place in North America outside of Death Valley. I’m around most of these creatures on a regular basis, sometimes up close and personal. Let’s explore some of their scariest behaviors and see why people shouldn’t provoke wildlife. Come, join my world.

POSTSCRIPT (after you have read the profiles)

I hike over 1,000 miles annually in the California desert, never missing an opportunity to explore nature’s wonders. If you want to enjoy nature and stay safe – actually, none of us gets out of this alive, but your end won’t likely come from wild animals – simply arm yourself with a healthy respect for these amazing creatures. And never utter the famous last words, “Give me another beer and watch this.”

Alcohol

2008-12-18T17:20:00.000-08:00

The Immortality Placebo

Safe Senate Seat

2008-12-14T18:25:00.001-08:00

Distress Sale: BUY IT NOW Price $1.5 million
This is a limited time offer: Auction ends soon (removal from office) so act now.
NO RESERVE

One (1) United States Senate Seat for the State of Illinois

Be part of history, buy the seat held by such famous Americans as Abraham Lincoln.

Attain all the rank and privilege of the senate without having to campaign; just let you money do the talking. Avoid having to lie, cheat, and steal. And avoid those awkward fund-raising moments and bending over for special interests.

One complete set of Lincoln Logs thrown in as an added bonus.

MUST BE AN ILLINOIS RESIDENT TO QUALIFY

Whose Last Supper? An Interview with Maus von Trapp, Ph.D.

2008-09-22T11:29:00.000-07:00

[this is an MFA writing assignment asking for 500 words on how something works]

Zoophobia is the deathly fear of spiders, insects and dare I say it… rodents! I’ve conquered my zoophobia with confrontation therapy using, or trying to use, mousetraps. However, after sustaining numerous, albeit non-life-threatening, mousetrap-induced injuries caused by my klutzy “peanut-butterfingers,” I developed machinaphobia, Greek for fear of machines.

Phobia confrontation worked for me in the past, so to cure myself of machinaphobia, I tracked down and interviewed the man who invented the dreaded modern mousetrap, Professor Maus von Trapp. He’s of the famous von Trapps featured in the movie, Sound of Music.

The Interview (over veinerschnitzel supper at Bridgett’s German Restaurant, Yucca Valley, California)

Fuchs: Herr Doctor, what prompted you to invent the modern mousetrap?

von Trapp: Cats! Back in olden days, everyone used cats to eradicate mice and believe me, we had plenty of cats. You might as well have renamed Deutschland “Katzland.”

Fuchs: I don’t understand. What’s wrong with using cats?

von Trapp: I’m allergic to cats!

Fuchs: I see. So you kind of had to invent a “better mousetrap,” so to speak?

von Trapp: Scheisse! I hate that expression! How would you like it if everyone tried to improve your invention? You don’t hear millions of people trying to improve the wheel, do you? In fact, only a fool would reinvent the wheel.

Fuchs: Indeed. Well, we have only 294 words left, so could you please describe the parts of a mousetrap?

von Trapp: Yes, my invention consists of a:

1) platform/wooden base plate
2) holding/locking bar
3) bow/hammer (spring loaded)
4) spring (attached to the bow/hammer), and
5) bait plate with top-mounted clasp/latch

Fuchs: How do you set the trap?

von Trapp: Apply peanut butter (the “last supper”) to the bait plate. Move aside the holding/locking bar. Carefully pull back the spring-loaded bow/hammer until it touches the platform/wooden base. Hold it in place with your thumb. Pull the holding/locking bar over the bow/hammer until it reaches the bait plate. Then ever so gingerly engage the end of the holding/locking bar to the bait plate via the clasp/latch (located on top of the bait plate).

Fuchs: Oh my God, that sounds very, very scary.

von Trapp: The mouse isn’t scared at all, the trap doesn’t appear predatory to a mouse.

Fuchs: I meant to me.

von Trapp: Check please!

Fuchs: I was, uh, only kidding. Do continue. We have 105 words remaining.

von Trapp: The mouse nibbles at the peanut butter on the bait plate. Its movement disengages the holding/locking bar from the clasp/latch atop the bait plate, thus releasing the spring-loaded bow/hammer. Traveling at nearly 500 miles per hour, it slams shut in 1/18000th of a second; even the fastest mouse hasn’t a chance. To put it in human terms, say a missile followed your car. By the time you glanced at your rear view mirror, you’d be dead.

Fuchs: That’s reassuring. Well doctor, Dankeschön.

Von Trap: Auf Wiedersehen! And young man, get some help.

Driving home from Yucca Valley

That seemed to work; I’m now machinaphobia-free and enjoyed a wonderful supper... What? What’s that? A flash of light in my rear view mirr....

Fuchswörterbuch

2008-07-16T04:09:00.000-07:00

The Fuchswörterbuch defines "Aerlingus" as:
Oral sex between two airplanes.

Gucci "Hysteria"

2008-07-15T10:12:00.000-07:00

Gucci HYSTERIA COLLECTION, hysteria bag in python (actual snake) $4,590

I noticed the price, $4,590 for something to hold money. Personally, I'd spend $90 and stuff the bag with my $4,500 savings. But there's no explaining i) the female brain (buying a product named after "hystera," Greek for uterus) or ii) people with more money than brains.

Based on the following definition of "hysteria," the name makes perfect sense:

1. Behavior exhibiting excessive or
uncontrollable emotion, such as fear or panic.

2. A mental disorder characterized by
emotional excitability and sometimes by amnesia
or a physical deficit, such as paralysis,
or a sensory deficit, without an organic cause.

I'm introducing my own line of handbags, the "Dementia Collection," a cheap plastic or paper knockoff with prices starting at $10,000. Customers will most likely forget their purchase, thus necessitating additional purchases.

The only question is: paper or plastic?

The Walnuts

2008-07-15T09:42:00.000-07:00

A good friend of mine, Ron Zastre, asked me to review his new novel, The Walnuts. Ron is the Rube Goldberg of bizarre situations, creating for his characters a series of non-stop escapades.

The novel begins when an alien spaceship dumps its cargo, a human-appearing "man." He befriends a group of earthlings who behave in a singularly human manner; they are a bunch of screw ups. In a subtle shift in POV, human hijinx is seen through alien eyes. We travel from inside to outside the human "fishbowl," then settle inside the fishbowl's glass where human and alien perception intertwine and become one.

The non-stop hilarity would make the worst misanthrope laugh out loud!

Ron would be disappointed if I didn't add the following:
Available at Amazon.com

The Nutcracker – Mouse Queen’s Revenge

2008-07-13T13:25:00.001-07:00

SYNOPSIS

St. Petersburg, Russia, December 18, 1892
(Action takes place on this one day and in real time with the events of that evening).

ACT I
Ivan, age 15, studies violin at conservatory. He seeks camaraderie with his care-free friends, but his overbearing father, concertmaster at the Maryinski Ballet, thinks Ivan should be more disciplined. Ivan spies from afar the lovely ballerina Catherina, also 15. Father, however, drags Ivan to the final dress rehearsal before opening night. Ivan sits in the musicians' pit next to father, turning his pages. Father wants Ivan to become a professional violinist. Tchaikovsky conducts.

We meet the strange Drosselmeier and his balletic pet mice. To the opening night ballet audience he is a cast member, an old man with a black eye patch and mystical powers. In reality, he possesses supernatural powers, but is easily manipulated. His only love is not for Natasha, his evil, wanna-be ballerina grand daughter, but for his pet mice.

Love-smitten Ivan watches Catherine outclass Natasha at the final audition. But Natasha is not finished; she will stop at nothing, including murder, to secure the role of “Clara,” the girl whose dream is the Nutcracker ballet. Ivan inadvertently manages to lock horns with macho-Boris, the arrogant 18 year old bully who plays the Nutcracker.

Natasha plots to kill Catherina on-stage, opening night. As originally choreographed, the mouse king almost "kills" Clara, but she is saved by the Nutcracker who "kills" the mouse king. According to Natasha's plan, and at her behest, Drosselmeier will grow his two favorite mice into 8 foot monsters, the “king” mouse will don the seven-headed mouse king costume and he will actually try to kill Catherina/Clara, but there is one complication. . .

Backstage, Ivan figures it out, but none of the adults believes him, nor does Catherine who thinks he's nuts. So Ivan must save his beloved Catherine against her will. He overpowers Boris, steals his costume, finds a real sword, and goes on stage to battle the rodential beast. The ballet audience is unaware of the drama unfolding on stage. Ivan appears to kill the monster mouse per original choreography, but in saving Catherina, he creates another mortal enemy, the 8-foot Mouse Queen. Catherina still thinks Ivan is crazy, she's unaware that he saved her life.

INTERMISSION AND ACT II
On and off stage during intermission and Act II, the vengeful Mouse Queen pursues Ivan and Catherina. Again, the ballet audience is unaware of the on-stage drama. The pursuit is choreographed to a popular version of the Nutcracker. It’s not until the very end, when the young couple is lifted on a sled above the stage, that Catherine realizes that Ivan was right, but it’s almost too late. The Mouse Queen and a wounded, but still alive Mouse King, are in hot pursuit. The Queen jumps into the sled to kill them both, but the Queen falls to her “death.” Catherina kisses Ivan, they are safe and in love. The ballet audience never knew what happened.

FINALE
Catherine and Ivan take their bows to thunderous applause. Along the footlights, the two "dead" monster mice have been transformed back to cute normal sized mice; they kiss and take their bows. In the musician's pit Ivan's dad gives Ivan a standing ovation.

COMPLETE SCREENPLAY

I’m not Skinny, You’re Fat! The Politically Incorrect Diet Book

2008-07-12T02:04:00.000-07:00

................................. Man Pointing by Alberto Giacometti

[This an excerpt from a draft of a book I wrote in 1998]

Introduction

Call me Ectomorph. My Popu used to say that I was “Tin. Tin like a tootpick.” He serenaded me at meals, “Eat totala, eat!” The other three grandparents weren’t much better. Each engaged in the same battle cry of their ancestors, “EAT!” These 19h Century Europeans knew the value of fat. They were intolerant of me, a skinny kid who, transported to the Russia of their youth, might not survive the winter. “If only he were chubbier, he’d be alive today.” Of course the Bronx of the 1950’s was a harbinger of the 1960’s urban strife and poverty, but famine was never a real issue. So I grew up with guilt imposed by ancestral fears. Sounds more like Catholicism than my native Judaism.

Now at age 44 I’m still a mutant, at least by our cultural norms. Traveling through America, I sometimes feel like Gulliver in the land of giants. Last summer my daughter (she’s skinny too) and I visited Augusta, Maine. The local population is, well, how should I say it? Obese. The back of a pick up truck is a perfect fit for the average woman, 4x4. Now unlike us skinny people, these folks aren’t malevolent or misanthropic. So I know they meant no harm when they lifted their faces out of bacon cheeseburgers to think, “Two Jews out of the concentration camps.” But this was genuine concern, not anti-Semitism. I’m sure they honestly believe that a six-foot man weighing 145 pounds needs hospitalization. In fact, it’s a frequently held belief that being overweight is healthy because if you go to the hospital and lose weight, you’ll survive. Of course, being overweight guarantees your trip to the hospital, if you’re lucky.

The self-help industry focuses attention on making fat people feel good about them selves. Where does that leave me? Well, the Surgeon General’s height and weight charts now offer some solace, some justification for my existence. Back in the 1960’s I was off the charts. But since then, the charts have been adjusted several times so I now have the government’s blessing of normalcy. Paradoxically, while everyone grew fatter, the charts grew slender so more of the population is now off the charts. Continued at blogowitz-unabridged

Buying the rope to hang us with

2008-07-09T05:36:00.000-07:00

Karl (not Groucho)Marx famously said that the capitalist will "sell the rope that hangs him." I think Karl didn't fully plumb the depths of the capitalist heart.

He didn't really understand American consumer capitalism where the capitalist will BUY the rope that hangs him.

Manifest Destiny

2008-07-09T05:32:00.000-07:00

The manifest destiny of the white man is to rape the earth and leave it for dead.

American Airlines Announces Pay Toilets

2008-07-08T11:27:00.000-07:00

Dallas/Ft. Worth. American Airlines announced today that it will install pay toilets on all domestic flights in an effort to recapture the costs associated with flying shit. Tokens will be available at $1.50 each, one can be used for number one and two for number two. Asked about the impact on the traveling public, American's spokeman for defecatory initiatives, John Commodious, said "it's perfectly fair as full bladders and intestines of 300 pound Americans often weigh over 30 pounds per person." Adding that "With 160 passengers, that's a lot of shit!"

The Gift of the Goddess (Why Hunters Never Leave Their Mamas)

2008-07-07T11:21:00.000-07:00

Summary
Man is both gift and goddess, both life and matter. (“Men” and “man” are used here to denote the male gender and not “mankind” generally). Birth, weaning, ritualizing the hunt, questing for father, and finally dying, men are part of the womb, the genderless Upanishads goddess incarnate. No matter the journey, men can’t stray far from the source, the goddess. “Myth,” according to Campbell, is the “sublimation of mother nature” (205). Does this mean goddess myths are archetypal of all myth? Full text at blogowitz-unabridged

The Hero’s Adventure (Journey into the Soul)

2008-07-07T11:03:00.000-07:00

Summary

Just how far down the rabbit hole do you want to go? The mythic self explorer must recognize the rabbit hole, leave behind Adriande’s thread, and sojourn deeply. However, the rabbit hole is obscured by a thicket of modernity, theology, and even primitive culture. Worse still, the rabbit hole masquerades as something else. Scythe the thicket, unmask religion’s holy disguise, and mine the holey depths. Full text at blogowitz-unabridged

The Journey Inward

2008-07-07T10:51:00.000-07:00

Summary
The “mystery” is the internalization of the exterior – the self actualization of the world and its myths – but Western religion, says Campbell, corrupts the “journey inward” by destroying metaphor with “facts,” and creating an artificial dualism that “un-deifies” humanity and vilifies nature. God looses transcendence; man, his innocence. Full text at blogowitz-unabridged

Sacrifice and Bliss

2008-07-07T07:00:00.000-07:00

Summary

Throughout The Power of Myth the stuff of myth is cross-cultural, universal, and archetypical (biologically based), but in “Sacrifice and Bliss” Campbell first introduces “environmental determinism,” the notion that local “landscape” sculpts that “stuff.” Underlying the landscape imagery is a far deeper scientific truth – we are a living fresco inseparable from our plaster landscape. However, biblical dualism wrenches life from its own gut destroying both fresco and wall. Full text at blogowitz-unabridged

Loggerhead Shrike (Lanius ludovicianus)

2008-07-06T09:45:00.000-07:00

Fun Facts--Unusual Behavior: The only song bird that is also a bird of prey, “Vlad the impaler” will shish kabob prey on sharp objects or wedge it between tree branches. Unlike the human female wooed by ostentations displays of wealth and waste, the female shrike is more like “Clara” (“where’s the beef!”) in the old Burger King commercial. [Full article at blogowitz-unabridged]

Datura wrightii (Western Jimson-weed)

2008-07-05T12:54:00.000-07:00

Datura is a member of the Northern Mexico hallucinogenic triumvirate: mescalito (mescaline/cactus), yerba del Diablo (Datura/Jimson weed), and humito (Psilocybe/mushroom) described in The Teachings of Don Juan. Of the three, Don Juan felt Datura was the most dangerous and “[he] realized she was not for me....” Nevertheless, this first-hand “cookbook” gives detailed instructions for DIY gathering, preparation, ingestion, tripping, and “cool down.” [Full article at blogowitz-unabridged]

Form, Function and Symbolism—Exposing the False Tricodomy and Exploring Universal Progression

2008-07-05T08:22:00.000-07:00

[Written for an architectural history class in 2007; click on sections for full text]

Form, function and symbolism are as inextricable as mind and body, Cartesian dualism, notwithstanding. This paper explores the phenomenological aspects of how these superficially disparate elements are experientially identical, and how, throughout history, they inevitably progress from simplicity, to mastery and ultimately to decadence.

PART I: A UNIFIED FIELD OR “TRINITY” THEORY

Exploring form, function, and especially symbolism from the observer’s POV rather than the architect’s, unlocks myriad existential possibilities; the architect just one existence in billions caught in freeze-frame infinite time. Serious criticism requires observer-facing analysis as people “...can never…experience form without deriving meaning from it” (Scully 123).

PART II: PROGRESSION THROUGH UNIVERSAL SYMBOLS

Civilizations’ timelines are captured in the architecture of universal progression: embryonic simplicity, inchoate mastery, “high” mastery, sometimes a Mannerist revolt against cliché, and inevitably “late” Rococo decadence which, given sufficient time, suffers a backlash, e.g., the modernist backlash against Rococo articulated in Adolf Loos’ article, Ornamentation and Crime. Part II of this paper demonstrates cross-cultural examples of universal progression and even proposes a genetic framework for their understanding.

PART III: SUMMARY, CONCLUSION, BIBLIOGRAPHY

Where Do We Come From? Who Are We? Where Are We Going? (Paul Gauguin)

The unity of form, function and symbolism appears self evident as does the progression theory. But how will modernity’s “progression” appear in hindsight: early, middle, high, or most likely, late? History may record the “New American Century” as our last. However, such characterization is generally unsupported by architectural indicia of earlier progressions. Nevertheless, we can learn from the Romans whose experience most closely parallels our own. With its numerous massive constructions made possible by the invention of concrete and standardization, Roman decadence, like ours, flaunts Greek notions of natural balance and proportion with sheer volume and numbers.

The Bible as Warrior-Herder Mythology: Impact of “Edible Landscape”

2008-07-03T16:46:00.000-07:00

[My spin on the origins of the Hebrew Bible, written in June, 2007 for the class "Myths and Legends"]

Summary

Herding was a novel concept that forged its own unique mythology, the Bible. This paper investigates how prehistoric hunting myth co-evolved, first with plant, then with animal domestication resulting in two great mythologies: agrarian goddess and Hebrew God. Biblical dualism is symbolic of the dualism suffered by a nomadic herding people caught between their hunter-gatherer ancestors and their agrarian neighbors. A new mythology, the Bible, served to make sense of their place in the world.

Historical Background

Tens of thousands of years before Abraham, the sub-Saharan ancestors of the Semites were early hunter-gatherers who hunted gazelle and presumably celebrated hunter mythologies. Things changed. Jared Diamond estimates that plants were first domesticated in the Fertile Crescent by 8500 B.C. and animals by 8000 B.C. (362). The hunter mythology lost relevance as new agrarian societies (e.g. 4000 B.C. Egypt) slowly developed earth-goddess based mythology. Eventually, the remaining hunters became herders, outside agrarian mythology. There was simply no established mythology for herders, just as there’s no established mythology for modern man; these things take time.

Let’s view the Hebrews through their pre-Egypt herder “landscape.” Imagine a tribe of mythic hunters who overexploited gazelle, (Diamond 142) forced to make a career choice: herding or farming. Farming was already established, widespread and required legal land ownership or lease, concepts foreign to hunter-gatherers. However, hunters knew animals, so they became the domesticators, raising animals for meat, diary, and wool.

Hebrews lorded over, and were mired in, an ever-moving mammalian mass of sheep and goats that were noisy, aggressive, wandering, cud-chewing, regurgitating, ruminating, festering, flatulating, burping, baaing, bleating, copulating, menstruating, gestating, birthing, lactating, dying, defecating, urinating, and perhaps most significantly, insatiably consuming strangers’ grass and farmland. Cont'd at unabridged-blogowitz

Roadrunner

2008-07-03T16:27:00.001-07:00

GREATER ROADRUNNER (Geococcyx californianus)

Fun Facts--Mating: Male courts female with cooing and serves her dinner sans wine. He conducts a loud, boisterous mating dance with foot stomping, tail-wagging, and deep bowing. They mate upon completion of his “dervish.” They also mate for life; during their 4-5 year lifespan divorce is not an option. Perhaps instructive for human fidelity: food may be exchanged during copulation.

Cont'd
[Link to unabridged-blogowitz]

Happiness is a Warm Gun

2008-06-30T17:22:00.000-07:00

As a former member of the NRA and the ACLU (I resigned from the NRA when they endorsed cop-killer bullets, over-the-counter machine guns, and guns without child safety locks when children were present, and I resigned from the ACLU when they represented too many Nazis while ignoring more meritorious causes), I was glad to see the Supreme Court put meat on Second Amendment bones. The opinion itself was as intellectually dishonest as many watershed decisions, e.g., Roe v. Wade, but no matter, individual rights were expanded. Shocked I would drag Roe through the mud? Just because I'm a progressive doesn't mean I have to be a hypocrite! Liberals take notice, examine your own hypocrisies:

Political and social conservatives have railed against unelected judges legislating from the bench, substituting their judgment for the legislative process. While conservatives would narrowly construe the First, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth and Eighth Amendments, somehow their "pet" Second Amendment escapes strict constructionist scrutiny. Their silence is no less deafening than the indoor report of a 44 magnum.

"Talking" Money is Protected Speech

2008-06-29T12:29:00.000-07:00

The Supreme Court recently overturned the so-called millionaire campaign finance law which placed dollar limits on candidates' contribution to their own campaigns. While Bill O'Reilly and conservative pundits don't seem to object to this decision, Mr. Bill (Desert Sun, June 29)thinks it unfair that Obama, who has millions of $10 donors, will have more campaign cash than McCain.

It seems the First Amendment protects, as "speech," anti-social, undemocratic spending; fat cat cash is speech. The court must have 1) eaten some kind of mushroom, 2) asked Alice when she's ten feet tall, 3) shared the same audio hallucination, and 4) heard money talk. Does money talk backwards like the white knight?

Bottom line for Bill and his fellow conservatives: big money is protected speech, fair and square, but grass roots, $10 donors somehow cheat the system. Oh! I've got to run, George Washington's miffed that he's worth $99 less than Ben Franklin.

Democracy Fetish Strips Constitutional Rights

2008-06-26T03:41:00.000-07:00

California social conservatives unleashed their new weapon against same-sex relationships, democracy. They take issue with "undemocratic" judges who afford constitutional protections to same-sex relationships, and want to democratically amend the constitution to outlaw same-sex marriage; basically, democratic usurpation.

Should the constitution, designed to protect liberty, now be used to limit individual rights in the name of democracy? A short history lesson: the later-repealed Eighteenth Amendment which subverted the federal constitution into a criminal statute outlawing alcohol, exemplifies democratic excess. Interestingly, the only other amendment used to restrict the body politic relates to election law; the Twenty Second Amendment creates a two-term limit on the presidency.

Furthermore, an independent judiciary is inherently undemocratic; federal judges are appointed for life and California Supreme Court judges are first appointed by an independent commission then elected to 12-year terms. Freedom is not a popularity contest.

"Democratic" social conservatives embrace both undemocratic, autocratic leadership in Washington, and the very "undemocratic" judges who protect their gun rights and private property from an overzealous body politic. They should rejoice in any undemocratic expansion of freedom. Lynch mob "justice" is singularly democratic, but manifestly unjust.

Here is a gay Iranian couple at democracy's "alter."

Obesity "Peaks" (at the Invisible Hand)

2008-05-28T18:10:00.000-07:00

Obesity rates have recently plateaued according to today's newspaper. Let's take a closer peek at this peak. As I've pointed out, the last decade brought us both unprecedentedly cheap eats and related obesity, but the correlation is widely unnoticed or ignored. Everyone in a capitalist economy knows the relationship between price and consumption, oil being a good example.

Health officials are taking credit for this rontundos reversalus, believing their nutrition labeling, public educational programs, and removing junk food from public schools are the reason. But that's like conservationists crediting themselves for motivating the public to buy more fuel efficient vehicles when gas reaches $4.00 per gallon.

Consumption is limited only by the ability to pay, the cheaper (thus more plentiful) a commodity, the more likely it will be over-consumed as with the "all your can eat" buffet vs. the al a carte menu. So all you public health professionals, don't give yourself too much credit. The invisible hand that once overfed us, now moderates our consumption.

Published in the Desert Sun, 6 June, 2008

Did you hear about....

2008-05-08T13:51:00.000-07:00

the lawyer who was a failed novelist?

He refused to put anything in writing!

Panderer or War Monger

2008-05-03T07:06:00.000-07:00

We all know that Clinton and Obama both believe the Iraqi War is over oil. Now John McCann joined the fray saying that under his energy policy we would never again have to fight a war over oil. He later said he was referring to Iraq I, not the current war, but with his advanced senility, I suspect he said what he meant... he's getting too old to lie effectively.

Great! They are all on the same page. But Clinton and McCann both want to temporarily repeal the federal gas tax during the summer months when prices and demand peak. They literally want to add fuel to the fire encouraging overconsumption of a blood-soaked commodity. Shame on them for pandering to an American public. We need to change our ways; any delay will cost more lives and further degrade the planet.

Outdoor Smoking Ban

2008-04-29T05:47:00.000-07:00

I applaud the City of Palm Desert for moving toward an outdoor smoking ban (April 29). But secondhand smoke from cigarettes is dwarfed by the volume of exhaust emitted by parked vehicles. Don't believe me? Try parking your car in the garage with your engine running for say 30 seconds. If you live to tell about it, compare that amount of pollution with thirty seconds worth of second hand cigarette smoke.

Palm Desert has several outdoor and curbside eateries. Inevitably, someone parks a running car just close enough so I'd prefer second hand smoke over car exhaust. I'm not sure why we are congenitally incapable of shutting off our engines; gas is nearly $4.00 a gallon, we say we don't want to depend on foreign oil and inevitable conflicts, and we all know air pollution hurts children and adults alike.

Wake up Palm Desert and the rest of California, the real ban should be on idling cars and SUVs.
[Note that this piece was published in the Desert Sun, May 4, 2008

Past Performance

2008-04-27T10:26:00.001-07:00

How are mutual funds like relationships?
Past performance is no guaranty of future results.

Religious Nature

2008-04-25T19:28:00.000-07:00

Man studies animals to learn about himself, then creates religion to deny the obvious.

Jewish Oedipus Complex

2008-04-17T17:46:00.000-07:00

Mother kills the father and marries the son.

Penis to Body Mass Index

2008-04-14T18:38:00.001-07:00

PBMI, that's right PBMI (Penis to Body Mass Index). This is the ratio of body weight divided by penile weight. American men seem to come up short. While I haven't made a scientific study of locker rooms, gay baths and nudist resorts, it just seems logical. As Americans pack on the pounds, American penises don't grow commensurately; in fact, there's evidence of shrinkage, especially relating to the testicles.

Let's take a look at what men drive based on their PBMI.
(Oops, this little fella obviously doesn't need to drive anything).

Let's say a 150 pound man has a four ounce penis (my approximation), about the average weight of a 5 to 6 inch member. The ratio is 600, or his body weighs 600 times the weight of his penis and is likely to drive something that looks like this:

A 300 pound man, even without a deduction for shrinkage, has a ratio of 1200 and drives any one of these babies.

Cheap Food Obesity

2008-04-14T16:39:00.000-07:00

The media continues its coverage of both rising food prices and obesity in America. Clearly, we can't have both simultaneously. I'd like to point out that as of a couple of years ago American food prices were the cheapest in the HISTORY OF THE WORLD! And obesity rates were and continue to be the highest in the HISTORY OF THE WORLD.

For the ten years ending in 2006, the federal minimum wage was $5.15 (many states have higher rates). It's fair to assume that folks earning this wage are at the bottom end of our economic strata. During this time a Denny's "Grand Slam" was $1.99 (that's 1000 calories of food cooked and served) and that's just the tip of the iceberg (not including other fast food deals and supermarket bargains). Bottom line: Americans on the lowest rung of the employment ladder earn enough money in one hour to sustain their obesity.

As of last year, the rate went to $5.85, or a 14% increase. Clearly, food is up more than 14%. It now may take a low earner 1.5 hours for their daily caloric intake, still cheap when you consider people used to work most of the day just to put food on the table.

Poe “The Raven” by David Eppelheimer

2008-04-11T19:15:00.000-07:00

Walter N. Marks Center for the Arts

Student Exhibition: April 9, 2008

1. Description

This vertical framed portrait of Edgar Allen Poe (22.5” X 30.5” oil/acrylic) includes a taxidermied black bird perched on the frame. Two life-sized modeled and clothed arms extend from the portrait; one arm is vertical, hand up toward the chin, index finger extended just under the mouth, and the other arm extends horizontally, hand extended holding a book.

The work is mostly black and white with some grey tones. The paint was applied thickly, almost sculpting the image in places.

2. Analysis

In the original poem, the protagonist reads a book to overcome the loss of his beloved Lenore. A raven alights on a statue; it quaffs “Nevermore.” Poe’s imagination runs wild. The painting reflects Poe(etic) macabre iconology with its “Raven” (actually, this specimen is an artistically licensed crow) and dark colors. Poe appears to “shush” the Raven, or perhaps he self consciously doesn’t want the observer to reveal his “secret.” It’s not clear why Poe holds a book of his own writings, perhaps he’s acting out his poem. And the painting’s asking price of $763 defies my analysis, except that Poe wrote about madness in The Tell Tale Heart containing 763 words. Other possibilities: 1) Minnesota area code, 2) number of acts in the South by Southwest Music Festival, and 3) the Boeing 763.

3. Interpretation

Clever and self-referential, this conceptual work teases lingua arte with arte lingua; both share the same title and themes. Art imitating art. It captures mood, motion, and artistic juxtaposition. But the mystery remains: where does Poe end and Eppelheimer begin and where does Eppelheimer end and Poe begin?

Global Warming Hoax?

2008-04-10T07:07:00.000-07:00

I've advocated environmental causes for years with little impact.
My advice to other environmentalists: don't waste your time discussing global warming, it will undermine your cause. First, let's follow the "logical" syllogism of non-believers:

1) global warming doesn't exist (most radical right wingers now disavow this),
2) if it exists, 6.7 billion humans don't contribute (a common US Christian belief, although non-US Christians think otherwise),
3) if it is man's fault, God wants it--our manifest destiny (God encouraging good Christians to rape North America) or perhaps to encourage the second coming.

Within this astute "scientific" community, global warming and evolution are hoaxes, virgin births and physical resurrections are scientific fact. But these folks experience the same sights and smells as environmentalists; they have inhaled vehicular exhaust, seen polluted cities, and noticed fouled waters. They might even be aware of the connection between pollution and human illness.

Therefore, I propose a temporary moratorium on trying to convince anyone about global warming and refocus efforts on what people see and smell. Let's show them a picture of a pretty white girl with blonde hair and blue eyes, suffering from pollution.

Tit for Tat Prayer

2008-04-09T07:36:00.000-07:00

Last year Pope Benedict sought to reinstate a prayer for Jewish souls. It reads, in part:

Let us also pray for the Jews that God our Lord should illuminate their hearts, so that they will recognize Jesus Christ, the Savior of all men.

How kind of the new Pope to care about Jew’s unilluminated “heart,” but the recipients of this papal largess were outraged. Several rabbinical ingrates protested to Benedict who eventually rescinded his infallible order.

The rabbis should have created a Hebrew prayer reflecting Jewish concern for Catholic hearts. I last spoke Hebrew the morning of February 18, 1967 at my Bar Mitzvah, but can still recall the gruesome yarn about God randomly killing 3,000 Hebrews because a mere handful worshiped a golden calf (a prohibited, but nevertheless common practice at the time). Wasn’t it Stalin who said “better to kill a thousand innocent men than allow one guilty man to go free?”

Let us pray:

Blessed are You, LORD, our God, King of the universe,

Let us also pray for the Christians that God our Lord should illuminate their hearts, so that they will recognize false idolatry, the Fall of all men.

El Paseo Gallery Crawl, First Thursday of November, 2007

2008-04-08T22:59:00.000-07:00

I visited several galleries, three of which are worthy of mention.

Edenhurst Gallery defines hospitality and defies the imagination: did you know a full sized harp (all 47 strings) could fit in a hatchback? With angelic music, dark walls accentuating the vibrant 20^th Century Impressionist-style pastorals (including obligatory lilly pads),contrasting blond wood floors, ample Broke Back Mountain western motif, and full bar (the mid-range merlot tolerably serviceable), this venue leads the pack for festive ambiance. Two works are standouts: The Timber Line (1918) with its heavy pallet-knife strokes (it’s still sitting on the floor despite the whopping $600,000 price tag and my parents wouldn’t allow a 10 cent toy left out… go figure), and Poppy Field with its amazing yellows.

Desert Art Gallery, the epitome of desert architecture, wins the best-real estate in-show award. The sculpture collection stands out, both the outside (Steve Reitman, etc.) and the African work inside. When I smugly commented that some of the African stuff seemed derivative of Picasso, it was pointed out that these sculptors were keeping a long tradition and as such, Picasso was derivative of them. My daddy always said to keep my mouth shut so people will think I’m stupid. If I open it, he said, they’ll know it!

Eleonore Austerer Gallery, sublime! [Your former student] For “show and tell” I’ve selected the following work. Note that the questions relating to the formal analysis were taken from the internet as described below (yes, I wrote the answers). Afterwards I answer the non-formal questions in the assignment.

“Spiral and Circles” ca. 1970

Original color lithograph

25 5/8 x 37 ¾ inches

FORMAL ANALYSIS

Original Color Lithograph: 25 5/8 x 37 ¾ inches [remainder of analysis removed to save space]

COMMENTARY:

What appeals is the color and symmetry, two pieces of eye candy divided between the two eyes. Also, I like the humorous story (see above). The forms seem to have evolved from an obvious progression: 1) Symbolists (Gauguin in particular) who filled volume with somewhat monolithic unmodeled representational volume with fully abstracted colorful, unmodeled, but un-monolithic volume. The next step was Calder’s: abstracted, unmodeled, colorful monolithic volumes. Of course Mondrian did the same thing years before, but in an even more abstracted, non-allegorical manner. color, 2) Fauvists (Matisse in particular) who filled monolithic color, and finally 3) The Blue Rider (actually, only Kandinsky) who abstracted colorful, unmodeled, but un-monolithic volume. The next step was Calder’s: abstracted, unmodeled, colorful monolithic volumes. Of course Mondrian did the same thing years before, but in an even more abstracted, non-allegorical manner.

Manet's Olympia

2008-04-08T22:31:00.000-07:00

Let’s listen to Manet’s interior monologue while he presents Olympia along side the Academy’s “catwalk.”

Olympia dons her resplendent birthday suit together with de rigueur footwear, a must-have for every working girl…available only at Maison Geppetto. Smartly accessorized with jaunty ribbon and risqué chat noir this stunning ensemble is accented by a ravishing bouquet.

Olympia…

more than just a flattened hooker.

Only 2,000 Francs,

Haddie McDaniel, extra.

Social Security: A Bipartisan “Voluntary Giving” Safety Net

2008-04-08T08:34:00.000-07:00

Social Security:

A Bipartisan “Voluntary Giving” Safety Net

Our social security fund will start paying out more than it receives by 2018 and by 2041 (when I’ll have my 87 year old snout at the trough) it will be unable to meet its obligations. Since we designated this sinking ship the USS Sacred Cow, logical overhauls are politically impractical. Personally, I would make social security more “needs-based” and less contribution/entitlement-based, so wealthy retirees receive less and little old ladies can upgrade from cat food to tuna. Obviously, the “I paid into the system and expect every penny back” crowd would never allow this to happen, but what if these folks were afforded the privilege of altruism? It may not save the system, but it will lessen the pain of its decline.

Recently, I had chance to make a charitable contribution through a site called Donorschoose.org. Public school teachers in underprivileged areas post their specific needs, e.g., we funded a “white board” and markers for around $60. All of the funds were used as proposed, the teacher and the students thanked us, and they keep us informed of their progress. It really is better to give than receive!

I propose that the Social Security Administration create a “Donorschoose” website where the less fortunate (those with inadequate SSI) can post their picture, story, circumstances, etc. SSI recipients who want to experience the joy of giving can log onto the site, identify one or more “worthies,” and have an amount of their choice deducted from their next scheduled distribution. An “autopay” feature could help regularly support the recipient(s). Politically, this should appease both AARP and conservatives who believe that 1) people shouldn’t get more than they deserve, and 2) charity should be a private, not government function. Liberals might prefer a more comprehensive government response, but that will never happen (except in crisis). I see a chance for the bi-partisanism sorely missed over the past few years.

This proposal won’t fix social security, but it will help those in need and, perhaps in the long run, create a culture of giving where enough donors will forgo their entitlements altogether. In the meantime, young people should start viewing their payments as a tax and not an entitlement, and Congress should codify this new paradigm so future generations don’t face the same problem.

Riverside Art Museums

2008-04-07T16:19:00.001-07:00

The Riverside Art Museum

My “ex” was an art history major at Emory; my interest was primarily in architecture. During our many museum visits, her focus was on fine art, mine was on design and construction. While I’m still passionate about architecture, my current interest is art. That brings us to our docent. Years ago I would have relished his guessing game at the old YWCA: “what do you suppose this room was used for?” Yes, those fine hardwood floors were dribbled on by basketballs, not paint. And bad acoustics screams “indoor pool.”

Nevertheless, I enjoyed hearing about the building’s architect, Julia Morgan. Imagine, a woman designing our machismo Americanus, Hearst Castle. I don’t know what she learned at The Beaux-Arts Institute, but she must have been very in touch with her inner male.

Milford Zornes choreographs watercolors in ways I didn’t know possible. Best in show: Grand Canyon, 2005. Could he capture California light or what?

Gallery #2. I enjoyed most of the six artists, but I fell into the trap of thinking too much like an art historian… long on left brain, short on “guts.” Janet Rosener’s smooth surfaces and soft edges were reminiscent of Helen Frankenthaler (that’s a good thing, I love her work). Leestermaker’s bold colors with central black themes are worthy of my living room while Thibeaut’s abstracted “cityscape” amazed me; the impression of the Superdome appeared as a roofed city, perhaps Roman. But his Leroy Neiman style turned me off. Here is a quote from the movie Airplane, the scene where the bad guys are frustrated by the protagonist’s ability to resist traditional torture:

        Do you want me to bring out the LeRoy Neiman paintings?

        No. We cannot risk violating the Geneva Convention.

Finally, Werfel’s “all over” paintings were too busy for my taste; they go too far all over the place.

Sweeny Art Gallery

Pedro Alvarez undoubtedly digs deeply into the Cuban soul, but his political/social satire loses some of it poignancy on Americans. Of greater interest to me was Andrew Jackson (catalyzer of American Indian diaspora) juxtaposed against the noble dispossessed “savage” in the Romantic Dollarscape Series. The Disney series suggests a Dalian dream (surreal juxtaposition of melting “cheese” and cheesy American entertainment), within an uncanny de Chirico tableau (13.6), plus Eros (see the uncircumcised phallic candles on the right of Cecilia Valdes in Wonderland).

Incognegro: New Work by Mark Steven Greenfield. Enough already, we get it! But inventive, nevertheless, for an old symbolic warhorse of racial cliché. Yes, we are all racists, but most of us are working on it. And that’s good.

UCR/CMP Digital Studio Gallery

More people have had cameras inside of them (read “colonoscopy” or “arthroscopic surgery”) than have been inside a camera. Now I can proudly say I’ve been both inside a camera obscura and have had an obscure camera inside of me.

"Artality"

2008-04-07T16:16:00.000-07:00

“Artality”

I scanned the front page of today’s New York Times and spotted an “Abstract Expressionist” work. However, I didn’t notice a clue to its provenance; my thumb covered the lower left (see black rectangle). Studying art history heightens awareness. Out of habit I analyzed its style and meaning—obviously the New York School—perhaps impressionist-inspired water lilies with lightly colored brush strokes creating a reflection of the darker mid-section. Then I removed my thumb. [Scroll down to the bottom].

Artality: (är- tl-t). Artistic monism; specifically, the phenomenological unification of art and reality (courtesy of Fuchswörterbuch).

Art criticism? Am I the hammer that sees everything as nails, the newbie art critic blinded by the obvious in search of the obscure? Or maybe it’s not me at all; in Abstract Expressionism do we lose our common sense? Should I feel guilty for my politically incorrect faux pas? Was that the photographer’s intent, to mess with the cognoscenti?

So let’s just call it “Process Art” or art with inevitable unintended consequences. Or let’s just admit that all things are one, artality.

The small caption reads:
A woman and child wait for food in Mogadishu, where the government is teetering.

El Paseo Gallery Walk, March, 2008

2008-04-07T16:11:00.000-07:00

Artwalk Gallery Writing Assignment

I missed the gallery “crawl,” so this paper reflects my sojourn into Saturday morning sobriety.

Melissa Morgan Fine Art. What a delightful find, a Clem Greenberg nirvana with an entire room devoted to his beloved “Post Painterly Color Field” painting. Perhaps taking a page out of the Arnason “playbook,” the Frankenthaler/Louis-inspired collection adjoins an Ellsworth Kelly-inspired “Hard-Edge” work which is also informed by Barrett Newman’s reductiveness.

UPDATE: March 23, 2011. J. Willcot is under new, tasteful management, but I'm leaving the post to demonstrate how bad things can get. J. Willcot. Schlock-decorative division. These works are purposefully designed for the culturally-vacuous wealthy. If you examine local demographics it becomes evident why Philistines trump Bohemians. Take Indian Wells, for example, http://zipskinny.com/index.php?zip=92210 boasting a nearly $100,000 (per the 2000 census, it’s much higher now) median household income while a whopping 60% of adults (age 25+) fail to complete a four year college program. Compare against Cambridge, MA (02142) with only 11% of the population failing to complete college and a paltry $57,000 in income. If one compared all US cities by creating an income/education ratio chart, Indian Wells would stand out for having more money than brains while Cambridge would similarly stand out as having more brains than money.

Imago Galleries. This free-standing postmodern structure contains monumental art too large for in-line stores. While definitely more sophisticated than “Casa Schlocko,” supra, I managed to overhear a couple chatting with a salesperson. Apparently, they had earnestly contemplated “art” and arrived armed with a “sophisticated” pallet including specific requirements. What artistic requirements? It had to fit on their Philistinian wall.

Despite the more-money-than-brains crowd, the collection is noteworthy. One piece leaped in my face.

Jun Kaneko

“Untitled Head” 2007

Cast Bronze

69 x 59 x 47 inches

[see attached]

This large, semi-smooth, head-shaped sculpture is devoid of facial features: no eyes, nose, mouth or even ears. An Archimedean/arithmetic (evenly spaced) patina spiral envelops the entire volume. This Op-Art spiral (is the swirl dark bordered by light or visa versa?) forces the observer’s gaze to its terminus, the centrally located “snakehead.”

* * *

Untitled Head denies evolutionary psychology, our primordial and universal expectation of two-eyed creatures. We anticipate hemispherical symmetry; eyes reflect and incarnate humanity. Whether love or hate, deception or joy, it’s all in the eyes… both of them. Eyelessness, cyclopsism and all manner of ocular abnormality unsettles us. Just think of the discomfort one may experience while conversing with strabismustics (people with crossed or wandering eyes). Also, eyes portray life and death. See Picasso’s near-death Self Portrait, 1972) (20.5).

Untitled Head evokes emotional disturbance. It obliterates visage with vertiginous spiral creating a retina-visceral reaction. I doubt other abstract designs, e.g., a mandala, or a nature-inspired spiral, e.g., the Greek “golden mean”/nautilus would provoke a similar response. As we search vainly for missing eyes, a vortex actuates our “extra-ocular” muscles jerking us cross-eyed. We become what we fear: the strabismustic. Vertigo may follow, head and guts reel.

Swirls generally activate primal fears, e.g., drowning in a maelstrom, falling down from vertiginous dervishing, and falling down from, or being killed by, cyclonic winds. Swirls can create a reality unsettling to the observer. See Munch, The Scream (5.18), and van Gogh’s ostensibly pleasing, but nevertheless disturbing Starry Night.

Several additional factors may contribute to a visceral response. 1) The central “snakehead” unleashes our primatial fear of snakes, 2) The mask-like qualities of the spiral serves to both obscure a “hidden enemy” while simultaneously eliciting an empathic response as the spiral “mask” “muzzles” the mouthless and suffocating person within, and 3) The “snakehead” is located at the intuitively powerful point of Ajna, the “third-eye” located on the forehead between the brows.