Monday, March 24, 2008

Conquering Bald Mountain

Haha, well, it didn't really take much conquering spirit to reach the summit of Bald Mountain (at least in terms of bravado and daring), but it did take some coaxing of our dormant leg muscles to haul ourselves up the trail! The visual reward at the top, though, was worthy of our effort. Here are some images of the hike and Sonoma/Napa...



(There's a vineyard on that hill in the middle!)
It was about 80* in the sun, but that stiff, cool ocean breeze put a chill on our sweaty skin at the top. Layers are crucial!

(click to enlarge)





We stopped at Kaz Vineyard & Winery on the way home.. good wine, good times!


We got the idea for this trip from Weekend Sherpa -- our new best friend!

Wednesday, March 19, 2008

eek.

{Consciously not using the name of the artist to avoid contributing to any media exposure that may be gained from the discussed show}

So, I am a little more than unexcited to see tonight's lecture. Judging by the accompanying show that's opening tonight at the school's gallery, it will be horrifying, enraging, and frustrating. Why?

Well, because the artist seems to be using the façade of "art" and its supporting critical language to commit violent acts and justify their value. Specifically, in the show that's opening here, there are six looped videos of a sheep, horse, ox, pig, goat, and a doe tied up to a wall, being hit over the head with a sledgehammer and falling to the ground dead. The videos are obviously not documentaries of these everyday acts -- the environment is controlled, and the brief loop of the few seconds before and after impact were consciously chosen. It's not about who is killing or why, simply that a living thing is being killed.

Maybe it's just me, but I don't understand why these moments constitute art, or even to be considered as a valid project. Besides these acts being pretty horrifying for me to watch, animals are killed every day all around the world for various reasons (food, sacrifice, illness, etc.). Other people don't seem to mind seeing them, so if the artist is aiming for shock value, this is a very narrow method that has limited value because of where, and by whom, the work is being seen. Yes, we're pansies in the city compared with all of those people "out there" who have to deal with Mother Nature and her stark realities. Is that the subject of the show? Not as far as I can tell. Even if it was the subject of the show, is this the best way to confront the matter? I don't think so. Is this the best way to confront whatever is the subject of this show? I can't tell what the subject of this show is, but I can tell that murdering things is never the best way to go about ANYTHING.

Let me take a moment here to address the choice of animals. I haven't heard or read anything that alludes to why these particular animals were chosen, why they were killed in this way, why the videos were edited as they are, or why violence is such a necessity in the expression of the artist's views in this show. So let's just look at what's plainly before us. We've got some typical domesticated, hoofed animals that are commonly found on farms around the world being raised for food and/or used for work. And a baby deer. In general, Western people are familiar with these animals -- perhaps not their corporeality, but probably their images and definitely their representations. Western people don't like to see the faces of the things we eat or employ to do hard labor to produce the things we eat, but we do enjoy charming cartoons of them encouraging us to eat them. And who ever got over the childhood scar-fest and eternal emotional red button that is Bambi? What kind of a gutless sucker-punch is that?

Anyway, the least I can gather from taking this choice of animals at face-value is that the artist is pointing toward.. well, maybe Eurasian domestication of those animals and their contribution to eventual Western cultural and political domination? Maybe Western people's removal from the reality of their food sources? (Although I did just hear a little American girl on a radio show proclaim that she eats the chickens she raises for showing and doesn't feel bad about it.. we're not all pansies.) Maybe Western people's romantic attachment to Animals and Things in Nature? Maybe pointing out that we feel angry and have a definite reaction to watching some of the most populous and most commonly abused animals being killed, when skyrocketing numbers of non-domesticated animals that we don't often see cartoons of are being killed by man-made environmental disasters? Maybe he's just poking fun at the "polar-bear huggers" again? It would be nice to know for sure. Then perhaps we could have a meaningful discussion about the relative merits of his project.

Regardless, though, of the underlying motivation(s), it is simply unnecessary to kill a living thing in order to participate in artistic practice. There are other ways to accomplish art-making and to join the ongoing conversation that is "art". And frankly, I think that it's admirable and necessary to work toward expressing our ideas without violence in everyday life, in politics, and yes, in art. Whatever kind of shelter people perceive "art" to be, it is also part of reality, and subject to scrutiny and moral imperatives, in my view. Is killing something or someone not murder if it's done in the name of "art" and if there are accompanying texts and personalities? What if the meat packing plant Westland/Hallmark employee recently sentenced to six months in jail and deportation said that his abuse of cows was part of his performance art? Would he be seen as a criminal or a provocateur?

In the pamphlet for the show, the curator claims that, "At once intimate and spectacular, [the artist's] work aims to convert the banal into the dramatic." Actually, I think that the opposite is true -- that here the dramatic is converted into the banal. What happens when a person is exposed to violence over and over again? When the same violent act in different iterations is occurring all around them constantly? When the person has no chance or hope of changing or stopping the violence? Well, one becomes desensitized. It's a coping method, and it is not a useful state for people to be in if "revolution" is the goal, as is also stated in the show's pamphlet: "[The artist's] belief in revolution, both social and individual, is manifest throughout his work..." (it goes on to brief the artist's personal background of moving from Algeria to Paris, from a violent situation to an oppressed one).

What bullshit! Seriously?! I mean, sure -- shocking people out of the everyday is useful to help them reconsider their context. But in order to decide that change is necessary, as in a revolution (social OR individual), all kinds of different people require all kinds of different things within a huge range of experiences to shock them out of their normal view. And considering that the people of the United States generally need a top-tier categorical meltdown to enact even the slightest meaningful change (and sometimes even then it's all talk and no action -- ahem, Katrina, Iraq, etc.), I don't understand how the artist could make the argument that seeing these animals being killed repeatedly is going to enact revolution.

So what he's accomplished is the unnecessary death of at least six animals (perhaps there were others edited out), and people will watch them die in a gallery on some televisions, over and over again. Not so useful. And I think that if you're going to go there, you'd better make it effing useful.

Has he not learned anything from media studies, political studies, or even history? We see death on televisions all the time. Now we see death on computers, too. Some of us in the US see death at our jobs, some of us witness violent acts or accidents resulting in death, some of us watch our friends' and relatives', and sometimes strangers', deaths. But that's not within our "cultural experience" -- most of us see muted or censored images of dead strangers in our communities, in our country, and in different parts of the world in the media. Remember how there's a ban on publishing war casualties, and a softer self-censorship on publishing gory scenes? We could debate on the relative impact of seeing images related to death according to region, but mostly I'd have to say that viewing those images don't change our lives.

In fact, the more we see them, the less we are affected by them. We've seen images and read articles, watched and heard news reports about tragic natural and man-made events in which dozens, hundreds, even thousands and millions of people die. And what has it resulted in? Not greater sensitivity and meaning, but the inability to comprehend such abstraction.

So, if I'm so inured to seeing violence removed from my own experience, why does seeing the artist's videos fire me up so much? Because of the context. He's trying to justify his violence and the deaths he caused with "art". How is that different from justifying violence and death with any political, racial, ethical or moral cause? He's doing it for his own effed-up reasons, which don't make any sense outside of his method of logic. I'm not equating his art project with terrorism, per se, but I am implicating that its justification is similarly tenuous. There are so many ways other than violence to spur change. Why do humans continue to believe that violence is the most effective way? Aren't we supposed to be working toward evolving? Is it not a common motivation for artists to question entrenched modes of being that don't work?

What the eff, "artist"?

In my opinion, there's already enough senseless violence.. Why create more just because you can? Why call it art? And to top it off, why use its shock value to benefit your art career? This project isn't even about violence or how we perceive it, or what it does to us, or what we think about it. According to the gallery pamphlet, it's about wondering whether my reaction is "now verging on irrelevance". Yeah. Pretty irrelevant to be offended by senseless violence.

It is certainly the responsibility and prerogative of art practitioners to push the boundaries of what "art" is and how "art" relates to "reality" or "life" or "the everyday" or whatever -- pretty much anything.. that's what it's always been about. That's what makes art exciting, annoying, revealing, confusing, frustrating, confounding, and so on. But it's also certainly the responsibility of, actually, anyone else to question where those boundaries lay, and to call artists out when they've gone too far. That's what societies do -- we regulate our boundaries of tolerance when it comes to violence and crime. Looking at this case and thinking of other examples where we don't regulate violence and crime (uh, can anyone think of a crime against humanity that's gone unpunished?), I'm not so sure that societies are doing a very good job at creating a just world.

This whole issue giving me that same frustrated feeling that comes with politicians... all the shoddy justifications, all the questioning whether you really belong if you're questioning what they're doing... and that makes me SO sad because now I can't even trust my own community. Maybe that's why he titled this show, "Don't Trust Me".... I guess that if it's a fight he's asking for, a fight he should expect.

And now I'm going to go home and pick up my abandoned copy of William T. Vollman's "Rising Up and Rising Down": "Vollman assumes political violence to be a human constant and thus addresses his attention to finding out when people use violence for political ends, how they justify it and on what scales they undertake it. Following 100 or so pages of expansive definitions, a nearly 300-page section titled "Justifications" culls an enormous number of texts and commentary, from nearly all recorded eras and locales, with all manner of excuses for killing. These Vollman brilliantly distills into "The Moral Calculus," a set of questions such as "When is violent military retribution justified?"—followed by concrete answers." (From an Amazon.com review by Publisher's Weekly)

Maybe then I'll be able to more clearly argue about "artistic" violence. *sighs* Way to be a Debbie Downer, dude. Really, I was really hoping for someone else to frustrate me.

Edit: The lecture was a joke. Dude was drunk and didn't utter a meaningful phrase for 90 minutes. Organizers cut it short because of "technical complications of the space", a.k.a. "dinner reservations". I hope they had more totally awesome drinks and exchanged a few more totally awesome pats on the back. I heard that "individuals and groups" are getting vocal about the show.. because they are apparently poorly informed and "take themselves to be concerned with the welfare of animals." I. Am. Frustrated. I did ask what they're offering as information to enlighten the individuals and groups, seeing as how the show's accompanying text and lecture failed to do so.

*sigh* I just feel sorry for the students who have to sit in the gallery for hours on end, listening to six animals being whacked over the head and falling on the ground, over and over and over and over and over again, all day, every day, until May. WHACK THUMP SCURR WHACK THUMP SCURR WHACK THUMP SCURR WHACK THUMP SCURR WHACK THUMP SCURR WHACK THUMP SCURR WHACK THUMP SCURR WHACK THUMP SCURR WHACK THUMP SCURR WHACK THUMP SCURR WHACK THUMP SCURR WHACK THUMP SCURR WHACK THUMP SCURR WHACK THUMP SCURR WHACK THUMP SCURR WHACK THUMP SCURR WHACK THUMP SCURR WHACK THUMP SCURR WHACK THUMP SCURR WHACK THUMP SCURR WHACK THUMP SCURR WHACK THUMP SCURR WHACK THUMP SCURR WHACK THUMP SCURRWHACK THUMP SCURR WHACK THUMP SCURR...

Friday, March 14, 2008

A Manifesto I Can Agree With!

Link

The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence
are my favorite recent discovery. Mentioned earlier in my blog in association with SF Supervisor Tom Ammiano and his permit to allow them to have an Easter parade in the Castro (homo central).. I decided to look into the Sisters a little bit more because they seemed kinda fun. Well, "kinda" turns out to be a gross understatement!


I mean, how can you possibly compare a lame easter egg hunt with a Hunky Jesus competition in Dolores Park? Or some froofy little girls' dresses with these ladies' gravity-defying technicolor costumes? I, for one, am actually looking forward to Easter this year.

Edit: I shamefully neglected to include that the Sisters aren't just fun & games for the sake of having fun! They raise money for community organizations, things like the Aids LifeCycle (which Sister Uma will be participating in!), and the St. James Infirmary, according to the latest posts on their website. They've been around for 29 years !!! spreading love and sin and fun and positivity wherever they go. There are also additional Houses of the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence across the U.S. and around the world -- so check here to see if your local chapter is up to no good.

Wednesday, March 12, 2008

Toast to the West Coast

Here's to 65-degree, sunny weather in March. March!
(Fresh carrot juice.. yes, we are dorks. And ill with colds. Love it!)


Sunday, March 9, 2008

Beautiful Bernal Heights

We've been catching alluring glimpses of Bernal Heights Park from our house, and during walks through the Mission. It flashes up between buildings, or just sits there on the horizon beckoning us to its lush green hillside. From the grimy, littered streets of the Mission, it looks rather Edenic.
We'd planned on taking an epic bike ride into Marin this weekend, but we're slogging around with nasty colds and not quite up for that kind of physical exertion. I've wanted to visit "the hill" for some time, but we've been busy or it's been rainy or too windy to go. So, our limited range and the nice weather made it the perfect day for a leisurely walk up to Bernal Heights Park.

Strolling up Folsom, we magically entered another neighborhood of quaint cottages, gigantic beautiful trees, cute cafés and great parks. I found a couple of houses I wouldn't mind living in...
some of the most mesmerizing bark we've ever seen...
... and suddenly we were in the park, which was like being miles away.
Until we turned around, that is. Bernal Heights Park has a spectacular view of the city, and it tickled the fancy I hold for maps and navigating and things of that ilk. It's great to see a place in a different context, and to see it from a giant hill reminds you that we're living with our heads in the ground every day.. there's much more to it than we generally perceive.

(click on the image to see it in full size!)
We spent a lot of time looking out at the city, identifying streets and landmarks, and catching a glimpse of the Golden Gate Bridge through the fog. On the hill itself, we enjoyed that luscious grass that's been teasing us from afar for so long, and saw cheerful orange California poppies and a large cliff of cool-looking rock at the back of the hill.
We walked around the whole thing, following various trails until we decided to try leaving.. which was a bit tricky since there are only a couple access points and STEEP, loose gravel trails. We ended up following a trail-cum-water ravine down, and scooting, carefully picking, then finally bursting off the side of the hill! The pictures don't accurately represent how steep the park is.. you look practically straight up from the bottom, and it seems like the people walking above are just going to totter off in a gust!
All in all, it was a low-key but really fabulous little trip. And it took us HOW long to walk these ten blocks from our house?! It just goes to show how amazingly dense and varied this small city is.. I don't foresee getting bored with it anytime soon!

Friday, March 7, 2008

Cheap Tickets

Southwest is having another web special on airfare for flights April 1 - June 25..... I'm booking for Chicago in June. First on the itinerary? Go to Quimby's. There's nothing quite like it here, surprisingly. Then visit Erin + Amos and OBC, now aka "Barrel".... and on to see the fam! I think it'll be a short visit, because I don't get much time off of work.

Here's another chance for you to come out here, though -- DO IT!

Tuesday, March 4, 2008

Miscellaneous Goodness

All I hear about the Midwest is that it's miserable and spring can't come soon enough.. here's a little song to help you get through!

Best Chili (Soup)
Vanessa whipped this together the other night, and it's SOOOO GOOD (and vegan!) The initial consistency is more of a soup, but you can reduce the liquids or add some brown rice like we did. Recommended to consume with a local brew and some chips 'n guacamole!


1 Tbsp. olive oil
2 onions, chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 package (or more) Soyrizo
1 Tbsp. chili powder
1 tsp. cumin
1 tsp. oregano
1/4 tsp. cinnamon
2 10-oz cans diced tomatoes (with green chilies)
4 cups vegetable broth
1 15-oz can cannelini beans, drained and rinsed
1 15-oz can red kidney beans, drained and rinsed
1 15-oz can black beans, drained and rinsed
salt & pepper to taste
Garnish:
chopped cilantro
lime cut into wedges

Heat oil over medium heat in a large pot. Add onions and garlic; cook until soft, ~5 minutes. Add spices and Soyrizo, cook another few minutes. Add beans, tomatoes, and broth; bring to a boil, reduce heat and simmer 15-20 minutes. Season with salt & pepper to taste. Serve with cilantro and lime wedges.


Vanessa got a hot new haircut!


This is somewhat baffling to admit, but I was channel-surfing earlier and was compelled to stop on the local government station.. who knows why I did, but it turned out to be pretty informative -- who knew that the SF Board of Supervisors kicks so much butt?! Supervisors are similar to aldermen in Chicago; they represent areas of the city and propose measures. Right now they're debating funding a renovation of their own chambers to accommodate disabled access. One of the supervisors is disabled, and it seems like a no-brainer, right? But we're in the throes of a nasty budget deficit, so the arguments are kind of interesting.

Supervisor Alioto-Pier is my new personal hero! She tore those fools UP! I like those ladies who know what's goin' on.

I recognized Supervisor Tom Ammiano as an older version of the guy who was in 'The Times of Harvey Milk' (which is HIGHLY RECOMMENDED to watch). It's awesome to see him in the position that Harvey was in, continuing the work that he started. Warms my heart!

And this fun bit is from Wikipedia: "In 1999, Ammiano came into conflict with some in San Francisco's Catholic community when the Board of Supervisors, at Ammiano's urging, granted the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, a charity group of drag queen nuns, a street-closure permit for Castro Street for their 20th anniversary celebration on Easter Sunday.[1][2] Said Roman Catholic Archdiocese spokesman Maurice Healy, "While we are offended by what they do, we're simply asking 'Please don't do it on Easter Sunday, the holiest day of the Christian year.'" An Archdiocese newspaper compared the Sisters' event to neo-Nazis celebrating on the Jewish holiday of Passover.[3][4][5] Some believe the controversy, which was repeatedly brought up by Ammiano's Catholic detractors, may have hurt his 1999 mayoral bid among San Francisco Catholics."