Fall 2024 Newsletter

 page 1 & 2

BOOK 

The Shards

By Bret Easton Ellis 

Like the protagonists in Ellis’ Less Than Zero (as I remember them, it has been awhile!) teens drape themselves poolside in opulent neighborhoods of L.A. But, unlike those numb sacks of flesh made heavy with pop-culture and drugs, the protagonists in The Shards are more animated, navigating the minefield of raging lust, first loves, homecoming and their senior year of high school. They have a proximity to one another but the spaces between them — and between their own brains, hearts, and minds— are vast. 

The lead protagonist, Bret, a stand-in for the author who teases with references to his “real” off-the-page life, is a storyteller. Some night-stalker-esque serial killer is slowly taking out young people in the area, an event the young protagonist seizes with obsessive fervor. The gross details of the ritualistic killings feel like they must mean something but, I think, maybe they don’t? Maybe these are details that make for a good story? Details  that show the sick underpinnings of an imaginative mind struggling in his formative years? Someone trying to suppress the sweat and blood (and other bodily fluids) aching to be set free, but forced to act a civilized part, setting it loose on the page. This is a journey through the intense moments of youth where one is trying to define themselves. Where one sees adulthood on the horizon with no roadmap to get there beyond the facades of grown ups and half truths of Hollywood. It is a nasty book about a nasty world and the nasty mind of a teen  struggling to be a grown up, however ugly and lonely  that might be. 

Apart from the grotesque mind of Bret & abundant conflicts, the most intoxicating part of this novel was the structure. It was constantly hinting at the conclusion, pushing me to want to know more. It was complete and utter manipulation that once I was sucked into, I couldn’t  recover from. Like a drug. Ellis feeds his reader his stories of madness, power, culture and the fights between them, and the reader snorts them up, escaping the blurry real world and laying bare why there is even a need to escape it in the first place. 

OPERA 

Innocence

by Kaija Saariaho, Sofi Oksanen and Aleksi Barrière

So I know nothing. Zero. Zilch. About opera other than the fact that I love it. As a kid, my New Jersey public school would trek us to Lincoln Center for free dress rehearsals at the Metropolitan Opera and it totally shook me to the core. I have such a strong memory of the red-carpeted floor of the lobby blanketed in rowdy kids, all completely oblivious to the Swarovski crystals hanging above or the luscious curves of the staircase. It was like the movies, but live! And with endless singing poetry! And an orchestra! What is this sorcery?! I dunno if this was some indoctrination attempt to trap poor kids in this magical realm but it definitely worked and I remain charmed, curious, and intrigued by its power. I’m so grateful some opera houses have turned to live streaming as an accessible way to get there, which is how I was able to see the San Francisco Opera’s recent staging of Innocence, an opera that reflects the “now” but also speaks to a much longer legacy.

A pall is cast over a wedding party as some hidden history threatens the happy day. This storyline is paralleled by that history: a school shooting at an international high school. The story moves between these two events tracing the aftermath and eking out little revelations of turning points leading up to the tragedy— a beautiful and disturbing structure. The setting of the international school gives the opera a globalized voice. Instead of being washed away in operatic gesture, many characters have their own distinct vocal identities, their own self expression and language. The set is its own character, a microcosm of masterful stagecraft. A monolithic, self-contained building that churns to reveal many sides: a classroom, a banquet hall, a school cafeteria. It has a sense of claustrophobia, like everyone is trapped and connected in their own world, a world that is cut open for the audience to see. The staging and storytelling erase makeshift borders between people, time, and space, confronting the viewer with their own role in this gruesome tragedy. What makes someone become a school shooter the opera asks? The answer is everyone. 

MUSIC

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/4nfwHiETuh0WSP42twVPsV?si=10a380a528f64774 

NATURE

Tree/leaf identifier

https://gardentrip.co.uk/2019/10/10/free-plant-identification-apps/  

POEMS

By Yosa Buson

Someone goes by wearing a hood

in his own darkness

not seeing the harvest moon

Mushroom gathering —

the heads are full

as the peak of the moon

ART

WHAT: Ice Cold: An Exhibition of Hip-Hop Jewelry

WHERE: American Museum of Natural History

WHEN: May 9, 2024 through January 5, 2025

WHY: “Building on New York City’s celebration of the 50th anniversary of hip-hop as a global phenomenon, Ice Cold will highlight the evolution of jewelry in hip-hop over the past five decades, starting with oversized gold chains embraced by rap’s pioneers in the 1980s and moving through the 1990s, when emcees turned business moguls sported record label pendants sparkling with diamonds and platinum.” 

https://www.amnh.org/exhibitions/ice-cold-hip-hop-jewelry 

ART

Crayola Crayon bracelet

https://hypebeast.com/2024/6/nadine-ghosn-crayola-color-full-bracelet-collaboration-announcement-interview-announcement-lil-yachty 

https://www.instagram.com/p/C6uND4VI4n7/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link&igsh=MzRlODBiNWFlZA== 

Gucci Links

https://www.teenvogue.com/story/gucci-link-jewelry-virgin-islands-heirloom-tribute 

Van Cleef and Arpels

https://www.harpersbazaar.com/uk/fashion/jewellery-watches/a41546164/van-cleef-and-arpels-alhambra/ 

BOOK

33 ⅓ Cat Power’s Moon Pix

By Donna K. 

Sale ends Oct. 6th

https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/cat-powers-moon-pix-9781501377938/

Summer 2024 Newsletter

pg 1

pg 2

[txt only version]

PLAYLIST

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/0SLslxb53Wn9qvcryXSJ90?si=7f337413473441f3 

FILM

Good One 

(dir. India Donaldson, Aug. 2024)

bear or man the meme, the movie

A father, daughter (Sam), and father’s friend go on a hiking/camping trip. A bold yet quiet film filled with more gesture than dialogue whose glances and little actions say so much, perfectly spoken nuance from Sam, played by Lily Collias and her watchful eyes. As the lone girl and young person in the trio, Sam becomes a symbol for societal and generational acculturation that one constantly reflects & deflects. Even in the barren wilderness one can’t easily escape the eerie reminder of how they are perceived. Alongside the verdant greenery and babbling streams, tension builds, aided by camera angles spying through the trees. When watched with the attention it commands, this seemingly nice camping trip has an itchy, gnawing haze of fear that can’t be ignored, an edgy concern that is hard to pinpoint but all-consuming. Sam isn’t just one girl contending with typical angsty teen coming-of-age drama, she is placed in a wider forest, uncovering new ways to be dissatisfied and disappointed with the adults— and world— she is growing into. I don’t want to give away some of the film’s turns as the subtly needs to be experienced first-hand but I will say that if Sam ever seems childish, it is because she is a child. A child that is disappointed in her revelation that there are selfish, childish adults who have forged a rocky, uncertain path for her that she will have to contend with and, hopefully, forge with a new blaze. 

I Saw the TV Glow 

(dir. Jane Schoenbrun, May 2024)

all hail the newest flesh

‘90s teens Owen & Maddy bond over a cult “young adult” supernatural horror show airing late night on tv, watched from their carpeted suburban dens. As time progresses, the lines between real life, tv life, and life imagined blur on their quest to find themselves (or one self…?). At least, that’s the shell of the film! Beyond this simple-ish story is so much more; a complex layering of gender dysphoria, loss of human connection, abuse, depression, nostalgia—- the list is endless and probably adaptable for each person that encounters it. First off: This is a demanding film! For a brief moment I wasn’t sure if the flat, strained monologue-dialogue was going to work for me. I can see how it might be difficult for an audience expecting that surface storyline or the promise of “horror.” This isn’t a story, or way of telling a story, that can be passively ignored. But the challenging style is part of the journey. It is that ache for the familiar or clean resolution that is the source of so much conflict and fear, on and off screen. By encountering the discomfort I found something new and beautiful: something I loved. I don’t want to be the nerd I am and point out every childhood (and adulthood!) cultural reference in the film that is a part of me (Was that Pete & Pete?!) because I think that might be a big part of the film: What is art but a place to find and define one’s self? Or, at its worst: a place to fill the void. Which makes the streaming content creep of media the scariest horror movie of them all. Another plus: a hallucinatory ‘90s soundtrack smashing together decades to become a cloud of time (like the internet!), an atmosphere for this movie’s visionary planet to live within.  

Challengers [not in NL]

(dir. Luca Guadagnino, April 2024)

Serve

From the nasty polyester bedspread to the precise courtside Loewe shirtdress, Guadagnino makes his own little worlds, touching on the real one but with an exaggerated impression of emotions and outfits. Whether it be the accessories someone wears, or the people they surround themselves with, the way people project themselves is never a clean process in his filmic worlds. The cinematography in the film took some shots with transparent tennis-courts, angles just beyond reason, or POV from a tennis ball mid-game. These visuals, like a leap over a dividing court net, remind one that these rules— all rules— are fictions, and maybe one’s true self lies in the strange shots, the dips, the transgressions, and the ultra rich anti-aging cream smeared over a body. The thing I ultimately liked about the movie was the way it pokes at all forms of desire revealing the greedy, hungry animal behind personhood. Even the rampant product placement in the film felt like an expression of this as the film gorged itself on Appl*b**’s and D*nkin Don*ts to meet its luxurious needs! But I’m not mad at it, it is the kind of sensuous cinematic candy that allows ids, egos, and superegos a space of recognition and volley. Like an alt Summer blockbuster, multiplex does arthouse, it is a slow sugary rush of innuendo, short shorts, and lust from the pleasure-seeking protagonists & audience. 

ART

Nina Chanel Abney

https://ninachanel.com/

Exhibit

https://jackshainman.com/exhibitions/nina_chanel_abney_lie_doggo

WHAT: LIE DOGGO, art exhibit by Nina Chanel Abney 

WHERE: Jack Shainman Gallery, The School

25 Broad St. Kinderhook, NY

WHEN: May 18-Oct. 5, 2024

WHY: “My work continues to evolve, but it maintains a 

core commitment to exploring social narratives through

a lens that is both critical and playful.” - the artist, Cultured Mag 

IF YOU LIKE: Faith Ringgold/Stuart Davis/Matisse 

NINA CHANEL ABNEY X AIR JORDAN 3

SHOE DROP: June 20, 2024

POEM

I WILL take an egg out of the robin's nest in the orchard,

I will take a branch of gooseberries from the old bush in the garden,

and go and preach to the world;

You shall see I will not meet a single heretic or scorner,

You shall see how I stump clergymen, and confound them,

You shall see me showing a scarlet tomato, and a white pebble from

the beach. 

Walt Whitman  (b. 1819 d. 1892)

SWIM

https://www.swimmingholes.org/

https://www.beaches.app/

BIRDS

Great Blue Heron

https://explorer.audubon.org/explore/species/1387/great-blue-heron/migration?sidebar=collapse&zoom=2&x=0&y=0&range=0.3879%2C0.4079

Lesser Yellowlegs

https://explorer.audubon.org/explore/species/1607/lesser-yellowlegs/migration?sidebar=collapse&zoom=2&x=-216491.38209999911&y=-216849.7155000004&range=0.3839%2C0.4039 

White-faced Ibis

https://explorer.audubon.org/explore/species/1382/white-faced-ibis/migration?sidebar=collapse&zoom=5&x=364114.60836641124&y=2495649.8270831094&range=0.0310%2C0.0510

FOOD  [not in NL]

Summer Squash (veggie sandwich- substitutes: reg brocc, zuke)

https://www.thekitchn.com/veggie-sandwich-recipe-23395408 

Tomatoes (slow roasted tom salad-substitutes: almonds, parsley) 

https://smittenkitchen.com/2015/05/pasta-salad-with-roasted-tomatoes/ 

Mango Salsa

diced mango + diced red onion + chopped cilantro + orange juice, olive oil, s+p (optional: diced jalapeno, black beans)

2021’s Ten Best Films: 2 & 1 (tie)

[Guess I never hit publish on this one...!]

Oddly, I think these last few films encapsulate the year of 2021 nicely as they center on gruesome and gorgeous moments in ways that are painful, memorable, visually epic and weighted with uncertainty. 

All three also prod at the form a bit too, pushing cinema into a slightly new shape to hold the stories in need of being told and challenging visual language. These films also drew me in so deeply with bold, complex characters and quick yet heavy jabs of story. 

The best films change my perception of time and space and what it means to be human today and each of these did that in strikingly different ways. 

2. All About My Sisters (dir. Qiong Wang)

Stretching the span between documentary and home movie, this film wades through the personal emotional turmoil China’s one-child policy had on the filmmaker’s family. One of the director’s sisters, Jin, returns home as a teen after being raised by a rural extension of the family; the complicated circumstances of her departure are revealed throughout the film’s nearly three hour runtime. The volatile Jin has shattering but fleeting outbursts, one can feel her radiate anger and perplexity through her sister’s camera. Images allow for glimpses into different perspectives. Each scene is like a soft but permanent impression, the camera dropped into some mundane everyday moment or interaction that happens to be burdened with heaps of generational trauma. The camera also watches and participates in these moments without condescending empathy or pausing too long to become exploitative. Masterful. 

1. (tie) Beginning (dir. Dea Kulumbegashvili) and We’re All Going to the World’s Fair (Jane Schoenbrun)

Beginning (dir. Dea Kulumbegashvili)

TW: Sexaul assault. The only two words that can describe this film are beautiful and brutal. When someone sets fire to Yana’s husband’s church, her contained life starts to smolder as a mysterious outsider enters her sphere. Shocking, graphic scenes of sexual assault made me have to pause the film (an upside of virtual viewing, perhaps) and take a break as the evil portrayed onscreen was so deeply disturbing that it just felt wrong not to act. The film’s rawness was balanced by the camera and stunning direction, allowing images and characters to cohabit a single idea, a synergy of composition and acting. In an uncomfortably long shot, Yana lays on the ground outside with the sun casting shadows and a light wind vibrating the whole atmosphere, like a camera whose flickering light moves the moments forward looking to capture the intangibility of being. The spiritual realm, the natural world, and the filmic world swayed together in slow drifts as societal and material dynamics quietly roared in confusion below their surfaces.

We’re All Going to the World’s Fair (dir. Jane Schoenbrun)

“I want to go to the World’s Fair, I want to go to the World’s Fair, I Want to go to the World’s Fair,” goes the incantation of the the title fictional creepypasta (think internet horror urban legend like Slenderman or that terrifying face I don’t want to google to find the name of because I want to sleep tonight). Casey (Anna Cobb), a teen broadcasting her life online from her bedroom (complete with glow-in-the-dark stars stuck to the ceiling and a dream catcher thumbtacked to the wall), immerses herself in this internet rabbit hole, fully convinced of the power of this unknown, spiritual, digital force. The most unsettling part of the film is the uncertainty. An uncertainty about Casey’s grasp of reality. An uncertainty about who Casey is, who she wants to be, and how that is being shaped by entirely new spaces of existence. An uncertainty about the internet’s voices and intentions. It’s a coming of age story with a dose of body, psychological, and digi-horror that expresses the awkward realities of youth with purpose, conviction and heart told through a lovingly handmade voice. A sublime film that kept me on edge with its unsettling, scratchy simplicity and understated— yet absolutely powerful— lead performance. 

2021’s Ten Best Films: 4 & 3

Things I've been thinking about:

-how digital spaces are changing the formation of identity

-the ways that the digital self is being translated visually in documentaries (Does anyone know the first film to graphically represent a text conversation onscreen...?)

-how digital & VR spaces (waves at Meta) are going to change visual storytelling audiences (I spoke at a Feminist Tech Conference at some point during the pandemic about this one)

...by the way I moved the blog back to its OG formatting because the template I was using was messed up. There are some glitches still but a little bit better!

4. Users (dir. Natalia Almada)

A machine hums and oscillates, gently rocking a baby, tricking the newborn into thinking they haven’t left the calming womb, soothing them into their parallel digital existence from birth. Even though there is anxiety around technology, climate change, parenting— every anxiety facing humankind— humming throughout Users, the film doesn’t result in tension; it ends up feeling like a lullaby. The slow, luscious images and measured voice over, enhanced through state of the art sound recording, high definition cameras & incomparable drone shots, show a positive interaction between artists and technology; there is a future full of thinking, expression and wonder that can be extended through technology not in spite of it. Frontiers can be cold and dangerous but maybe they're also full of possibility. 

3. Ascension (dir. Jessica Kingdon)

A camera views a scene below, men move in tangled masses searching for a job in a frantic marketplace. A misty white cloud waves past a river of swimmers, seen from a camera perched at a distance—  something seems wrong. Throughout Ascension, the camera sits and observes scenes of daily Chinese life with unfettered access, looking upon them with a sense of surveillance that feigns objectivity, giving way to some sort of concern or judgment, at times even emanating from within the scenes themselves. The composition of each frame is intriguing and succinct while editing doesn’t linger too long. The film shows a restraint that presents scenes of China bluntly, coolly and with an access that at times seems impossible. The film’s very ending is where the clarity lies, reminding that there is more to Chinese culture than purely goods, services and social climbing, the film itself a testament to that fact.