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8319. wonkers2 - 1/5/2007 12:08:37 AM I envy your ability to speak several languages. I used to be fairly fluent in Spanish, but I don't get the opportunity to use it very often, and the words don't come to me as well as they used to. 8320. alistairConnor - 1/5/2007 12:39:31 AM Germans speak High German, Italians speak Tuscan, Norwegians speak some damn dialect invented by academics with whiskers, France speaks Francian, a dialect of the Loire valley. All were imposed through their use as official language, and in the education system, to the exclusion of all others. This was an essential component of nation-building, consolidating or even creating out of whole cloth "national" characteristics that the inhabitants shared, and which differentiated them from their neighbours across the borders, often in a completely artificial way.
And it worked. Whether it was a good thing is another question, but it's what they are trying to do in Malaysia.
And, from my limited personal experience, it seems to be working. 8321. alistairConnor - 1/5/2007 12:48:47 AM Dubai : I will start believing that English will be the only world language, when I see signs of it becoming the only language in the USA... funnily enough, things seem to be going in the opposite direction.
Sure, on paper at least, it would be in the economic self-interest of everyone in the world to drop their own language and communicate in English. But guess what, people don't always act according to their best economic interests. Cultural elements intervene. To put it mildly.
And if you re-examine the question in a couple of decades, you might well still think that there will be only one surviving language... but the writing on the wall will be Chinese. I think it's all bullshit, the number of languages spoken on earth will gradually diminish, they might eventually merge but that will take millenia of globalised culture and communication, rather than centuries.
And we will be much the poorer for it. 8322. Ms. No - 1/6/2007 1:55:41 AM Irving Norman
Just got back from the Dark Metropolis exhibit at the Crocker. If you live in or within easy travel distance of D.C. you really should check it out. The tour won't reach D.C. until November so there's time to plan. I'm a little overwhelmed at the moment and don't know what to say. The website has a lot of images but they're greatly diminished by the format. These works are huge and to be fully appreciated you really need to see them live.
I'm bummed because the exhibit leaves Sacramento on Sunday and I don't know that I'll have a chance to get back and see it again before it's gone. It's a lot to take in all at one go, but I'm very glad I got to see it. I'd never even heard of Norman before but the billboard ad they had up for the exhibit caught my eye. Stunning work. 8323. Ms. No - 1/6/2007 7:44:41 PM Turns out almost no one had heard of him before because he was Black Listed back in the day due to his Communism. I called an artist friend of mine from the gallery when I got done to tell her she had to come down and see the exhibit sometime this weekend before it left. She made the 40 minute drive the minute we hung up the phone.
I can't tell you how nervous I was to have gotten her that excited -- what if she thought it was crap and I was nuts for calling in such a lather?
No worries. She called me when she and her husband got home from the exhibit and we chatted for about an hour. She was amazed she'd never heard of the guy. Norman's works are unique and powerful and amazing to look at and the fact that he's been essentially eliminated from the canon of modern art due to McCarthyism is shameful.
Even now, the exhibit is going strange places. Sacramento (rather than San Francisco), Pasadena, Utah?? and D.C.
And that's it.
I have a feeling there'll be much bigger tours later on. I just hope that at least the artist's widow gets a chance to bask in the appreciation Norman should've had himself. 8324. judithathome - 1/6/2007 11:22:50 PM Where and when in Utah? We might be able to go see it in combination with seeing Keoni's daughter... 8325. Ms. No - 1/7/2007 3:47:04 AM Nora Eccles Harrison Museum of Art in Logan, Utah from June 5 through October 13, 2007.
I have no idea where Logan, Utah is, but I just went back to the site and was looking at the paintings again and discovered that you can mouse over a little bar at the bottom of many of them and it will bring up detail windows of different parts of the larger paintings. I'm bowled over again by the minute detail. There is no "resting" in the works that appear on this tour --- nearly every square inch is a miniature picture in and of itself. A different composition for each face and body, a sea of individuals that make up a mass of anonymous humanity sort of like snow -- each snowflake is unique but seen altogether one is simply aware of the drifts. There are multiple "comments" in each of the works. Little by-plays and individual scenes that stand alone but are piled one upon the other to make a frenzied urban landscape.
There is plenty of despair, but it is clear that he loves his little people --- that he has great love for humanity in general and what he rages against are industry and the war machine and those institutions which promise to raise us up but succeed mainly in undercutting our humanity. Not hard to see his politics at all, but the works are so endlessly fascinating to me that I don't find them didactic. 8326. judithathome - 1/7/2007 4:21:24 AM Thanks, MsNo...Logan is north of Ogden, where Keoni's daughter lives...can't tell exactly how far but probably not too far to drive there and back in a day. 8327. wonkers2 - 1/7/2007 7:09:57 PM I enjoyed an hour yesterday viewing the Annie Liebotwitz exhibit of a couple hundred big prints of her pictures of musicians at the Detroit Institute of Arts. The exhibit was broken into several musical categories--blues, country, rock, pop contemporary, rap and, finally a room with Detroit musicians which included pics of John Lee Hooker, Aretha Franklin, Eminem, White Stripes and several others. Her pictures of Missippi Delta blues singers were outstanding--Othar Turner, Willie Foster Johnnie Billington, R.L. Burnsides, Eddie Cotton?,BB King and others. She also had great shots of Willie Nelson, Johnny Cash, June Carter Cash, Lyle Lovett, Nora Jones, Max Roach, Bruce Springsteen, Dr. John, Dan Van Zant, Lucinda Williams, Po Monkey's Lounge, Cedell Davis and many others. Her pictures were both color and black and white. Liebowitz narrated the exhibit herself on the hand held audio players. If the exhibit comes to your area it's well worth a look. 8328. wonkers2 - 1/7/2007 7:16:41 PM In her brief narration on each photograph Liebowitz described how she went about approaching her subject and taking the picture. She explained that when she couldn't get it right she often canceled and rescheduled on another day and perhaps at another location. Sometimes she had to go to great lengths to get the subject to cooperate. She described one case of a reluctant musician whom she tracked down to a town on the Florida coast. Someone told her he liked to fish so she arranged a charter boat for him and his wife, and got him to pose for some pictures when they returned to the dock later on in the day. A few of her pictures she described as quick snap shots. But many resulted from shooting a couple of rolls of film. Her accomplishment appears to have resulted both from talent and great persistence. 8329. wonkers2 - 1/7/2007 7:17:43 PM Seeing Liebowitz's exhibit was a humbling experience for this aspiring photographer. 8330. CharlieL - 1/9/2007 11:37:15 PM Hi, everyone. Been away from here for a long while. Hope to be here more in the future. 8331. TheWizardOfWhimsy - 1/9/2007 11:54:19 PM Hey Chuckster-nice wallpaper & welcome back! 8332. wabbit - 1/10/2007 1:17:23 AM CharlieL, what is your band's website?
wonkers2, there is a PBS "American Masters" episode on Liebowitz, it's worth seeing, though a bit biased (made by her sister). 8333. wonkers2 - 1/10/2007 5:56:30 PM Thanks, I saw nearly all of it a couple of nights ago. Quite good. She has talent, single-minded persistence and a willingness to learn from others. She came across as a nice person in her narrations for the DIA show. Someone who cares about her subjects and analyzes them and is able to capture what they are all about in her pictures. 8334. alistairconnor - 1/10/2007 7:52:07 PM Hey Charl! Welcome back, it's been a long time...
Please pay no attention to the philistines dissing Irish music in the café... 8335. arkymalarky - 2/3/2007 10:47:17 PM Charlie, if you're still around what is the festival you play at near Estes Park? I think Bro's band may be there this summer, and I wondered if you were going to be there.
8336. arkymalarky - 2/3/2007 10:51:36 PM On another subject, though I can't yet get anything much out of YouTube, I hope Viacom's decision comes back to bite Viacom bigtime. They pulled some crap with Dish Network a few years ago, Dish stuck to their guns and explained why to their customers, and Viacom had to eat it and back down. People evidently didn't want their MTV badly enough to drop Dish for it, which I found very funny. 8337. wonkers2 - 2/11/2007 1:43:45 AM "Move it On Over" by Hank Williams For Jex. Before your time, but part of your heritage. 8338. wonkers2 - 2/11/2007 1:46:13 AM Honky Tonk Blues for Jex
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