…the almost right word

I first fell in love with Julian Schnabel after seeing Basquiat. The film featured countless cameos (Parker Posey, Courtney Love, Christopher Walken, Dennis Hopper and more), as well as remarkable performances by Jeffrey Wright and Benicio Del Toro. I had always admired Basquiat’s work, the film only furthered my admiration. I fell in love with Schnabel all over again when I saw his artwork at a museum. He creates abstract paintings in a style reminiscent of Pollock and Picasso — “I’m the closest thing to Picasso that you’ll see in this *#@ life,” he once said. Schnabel is also the mastermind behind Before Night Falls, the story of Reinaldo Arenas, a Cuban poet who was persecuted for his homosexuality and subversive writing during the Cuban Communist Revolution. Schnabel’s films have a common thread — not only do they tell stories of great artists, but they provide the viewer with uniquely ethereal experiences.

The Diving Bell and the Butterfly is no different. It is, in my opinion, Schnabel’s most sophisticated film yet. In 1995, Jean-Dominique Bauby, the 43 year-old Editor of the French Elle Magazine, suffered a massive stroke that put him in a coma and left his entire body paralyzed. When he awoke, over twenty days later, he was diagnosed with Locked-in Syndrome — his left eye was the only muscle he could move. Bauby gradually learned to communicate with this eye. With a simple blink he would confirm a letter which would spell a word. Although Bauby engaged in speech and physical therapy, he never regained movement, or use of his tongue. In two summer months of 1996, Bauby wrote a book, with the help of a transcriber. “The book took about 200,000 blinks to write and each word took approximately two minutes. The book also chronicles everyday events and what they are like for a person with locked-in syndrome,” states Wikipedia. Schnabel’s film is based on this book. We watch as Bauby struggles to communicate. We see him visit his children. We see him cry. “The French edition of the book was published in March, 1997. It received excellent reviews and sold 150,000 copies in the first week and went on to become a number one bestseller across Europe. Ten days after the book was published, Bauby died of pneumonia” (also from Wikipedia).

Salon wrote, “The Diving Bell and the Butterfly suggests — perhaps it even proves — that our capacity for joy, and our ability to process it through whatever senses are available to us, are more durable than we think. In his book, Bauby wrote about how although his ability to hear the outside world had been somewhat impaired, the hearing inside his head had changed dramatically. He wrote of being aware of the butterflies ‘that flutter inside my head. To hear them, one must be calm and pay close attention, for their wingbeats are barely audible. Loud breathing is enough to drown them out. This is astonishing: My hearing does not improve, yet I hear them better and better. I must have butterfly hearing.’”

The Diving Bell and the Butterfly is a poetic, yet true, interpretation of Bauby’s memoir. It is artisticly mezmorizing and emotionally challenging.

Contrariwise.org was originally a website used for the owner’s high school photography assignment. Today, she maintains a series of literary tattoo photographs — “tattoos based on books, poems, lyrics, and many other things.” It appears that many tattoo fans like Kurt Vonnegut, The Little Prince, E.E. Cummings and Walt Whitman. This site is literally tattoo inspiration for the literary.

♦ On the subject of tattoos and blogs, check out The Tattooed Mama’s All Things Cupcake blog which features a page of cupcake tattoos!

Editorial Postscript: Apparently I am not the only one noticing this blog! Paper Cuts, a NYTimes book blog, just published a post about it, as did the London Telegraph and Gawker.

Unfortunately my head must have been buried in the proverbial sand when the art exhibit, The Disappeared/Los Desaparecidos, came to Santa Fe. The term references the many people who were kidnapped, tortured, or murdered during the totalitarian regimes of Latin America in the late 20th century. This chapter of history was the main motivation behind my choice to pursue a bachelor’s degree in Politics and Latin American Studies — I was, and still am, enamored by the struggle of countries like Argentina and Chile. During the 1960s and 1970s, Americans were fighting for Civil Rights and “Making Love, Not War.” Meanwhile, just south of us, people were losing their freedom and basic rights in order to secure economic progress and a “free market.” In Argentina, 30,000 people “disappeared.” When General Pinochet took control in Santiago, Chile (1973) and overthrew the democratically elected government of Salvador Allende, 40,000 people were imprisoned in a makeshift concentration camp at the National Stadium. Locker rooms and corridors became torture halls. Today, the stadium is still used to host concerts, soccer games, as well as a public gymnasium. In fact, when I spent a year living in Chile, I saw Shakira perform there. I was in awe with the knowledge that this contemporary place of celebration was once used during the ugly dictatorship.

The Disappeared/Los Desaparecidos is an art exhibit traveling across North and South America. The show features 15 Latin American artists who have all personally experienced the affects of these regimes. Work ranges from photographs to installations and includes simple yet also extravagant, emotionally charged pieces. In 2007, The New York Times reviewed the exhibit:

Whatever its practical results may be, it gives an overpowering sense of the sheer statistical enormity of loss. You think you’ve reached the end; you turn a corner and find more…This all may seem long ago and far away to us, but every Thursday in Buenos Aires, groups of women continue to hold their protests demanding a full accounting of their children’s fates.

It’s true, Las Madres de la Plaza de Mayo convene weekly to remember the disappeared. These countries are still fighting for retribution. Although General Pinochet was arrested and put on trial, he never received punishment for the atrocities his government inflicted on the Chilean public (Pinochet died in 2006).

This is what art should be — a way to remember, to question and challenge; a form of activism in a world where power is less and less in the hands of the people.

dorothea lange has always been one of my favorite photographers. she won me over with the classic “migrant mother” (shown here), which is “one of the most reproduced photographs in history.” an m.i.t. professor has chronicled lange’s work in a new book titled Daring to Look: Dorothea Lange’s Photographs and Reports from the Field. in addition to the photographs, the book includes notes and descriptions written by lange herself.

originally a portrait photographer in san francisco, she left behind her wealthy clients to delve into the depression era. in fact, she was part of the legendary group of photographers who documented the conditions of the american people during the new deal. the work of these photographers was supposed to “help build public support for government improvement programs.” the book concentrates on lange’s most prolific year — 1939. during that year, lange took thousands of photographs in addition to documenting field reports. she was hoping to re-characterize her professional identity:

She decided then to “concentrate upon people, only people. All kinds of people, people who paid me and people who didn’t.” Whether or not the conversion was really so melodramatic, Lange’s transformation from portrait photographer of the urbane wealthy to “field investigator, photographer” (the title of her first job with the federal government in 1935), was life-changing.

i am enamored with revolutionaries, artists who challenge the mainstream. dorothea lange was, indeed, one of these revolutionary artists — “We unearthed and discovered what had been… neglected, or not known.” in 1965, lange died of cancer. late in her career, she commented on her work and her process: “No country has ever closely scrutinized itself visually. … I know what we could make of it if people only thought we could dare look at ourselves.”

quotes and facts from dorothea lange: daring to look, at npr.org.

As the print media continue to be overtaken by the Internet, and pundits declare that all writers in the service of ink and paper should put down their quills and fire up their TypePad blogs, there remain some true believers who keep the flame of print-lit alive. Stoked by sheer pluck, determination and the magical properties of their wayward imaginations, many of these folks work for McSweeney’s.

you may or may not have already realized — i’m a mcsweeney’s fan. i read dave eggers‘ first couple books and continued to follow mcsweeney’s authors and publications. oh the glory of it all, written by sean wilsey, a mcsweeney’s author, is one of my favorite books of all time. mcsweeney’s is creative, original, and continually pushing the boundaries. eggers says, regarding the name of the american publishing house:

[My family] would always get letters from someone named Timothy McSweeney … He claimed to be my mother’s long-lost brother…[Letters] would always include flight plans, like he was planning on coming to visit. I don’t know if he’s real or not. My relatives deny it, but who knows?

in may, l.a. weekly published an article describing the success of mcsweeney’s. in fact, they call the american publishing house, “the most important publisher of independent fiction today.” in a world that is grappling with the onset of the e-book, mcsweeney’s forges ahead in an effort to keep the physical manifestation of literature alive. the article describes the wide range of artwork that can be found on mcsweeney’s covers, from books like what is the what?, to their monthly magazine, the believer (edited by vendela vida, eggers’ wife). the artwork is an attempt to do away with book covers and create a work of art in the book itself.

discussion of the electronic revolution is prevalent (check out a friend’s post on the topic) — we’ve seen vinyl come and go (for the most part), c.ds went with it. now, we approach a time in which books are actually under questioning. will they survive? or will they turn into mp3s, easily downloadable from the interwebs and virtually nonexistent in a physical form? will mcsweeney’s have a vital impact on the future of publishing? After all, you can’t have an embossed tri-fold jacket on a Web site, states the l.a. weekly article.

p.s. take a look at this site, which i also added to my sidebar: a blog that chronicles book cover artwork, some of which happen to be from mcsweeney’s (thanks to sean, who blogged about this site awhile back).

1. francesca lia block — this afternoon, i finished reading one of her most recent novels, quakeland. it was, by far, one of her more unusual books. her first novel, weetzie bat, was published in 1989 while she was a student at berkeley. weetzie bat rocked my world. and i’d bet money (yes, the benjamins themselves) that if i read it again today, it would still rock my world. block has a remarkable imagination, and her writing is exceptional. she creates a world in which l.a. is not the smog-filled, traffic-injected, ugly city that i remember, but a great land of dreamsicles and fairies. quakeland was a surprise. and still wonderful. if you’re new to her work, start with dangerous angels: a collection of the weetzie bat books.

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2. miranda july — this afternoon, i stumbled upon a rather entertaining link — no one belongs here more than you. the title alone attracted me. the entertaining, artistic promotional site behind the link further lured me. i love anyone who creates something new from something we hardly consider in our daily lives. miranda july has certainly done this here. and yes, perhaps i’ll check out the book as a result. i originally discovered july when i heard about ‘me and you and everyone we know,’ in which she acted, but also wrote and directed. fun fact: she’s also a banana slug, which means i have to love her (even if she never graduated).

* in honor of my quickly approaching jaunt to the city that will always be home to me; written with laura veirs’ (no, she’s not an l.a. resident) “chimney sweeping man” playing in my ears, thank you un.

robert rauschenberg, october 22, 1925 — may 12, 2008
painter, sculptor, combine-maker, abstract expressionist, trash-collector, collage and found object-er, silkscreener…
a quote: i think a painting is more like the real world if it’s made out of the real world.
i was introduced to rauschenberg many years ago, by my mother. i have followed his work, in one way or another, since. he was a great creator. the nytimes writer: “a brash, garrulous, hard-drinking, open-faced southerner, he had a charm and peculiar delphic felicity with language that masked a complex personality and an equally multilayered emotional approach to art, which evolved as his stature did.” damn, what a sentence.

this guy, austin kleon, makes poems out of newspapers by blacking out the letters
(thanks to sean who posted the link in his blog)
click on the image to view austin kleon’s website