6/25/2022 #69
Here and Now, Art, Aborisade and Renece, "Mummy Brown" (h/t Leslie Laurence), Egyptomania, Internet Archive films, Kiwanuka, Hiromi, Styles, & Def Tech.
HERE AND NOW
I don’t have much to say right now. So, I’ll give you images, instead:
ART
I started scanning my black and white images, rather than using the lousy phone camera I always use. I’m also using a new photo editor (Pixlr), so I think the images are looking better. In the first two drawings, below, I was thinking about simplifying human form to just a circle with dots for eyes and combining them with more abstract elements. They turned into mythical beings, somehow. The third image was an experiment with circles, wavy lines, and straight lines.
Check out this section next Saturday (July 2) when experimental poet and novelist Eileen Tabios answers the SIX QUESTIONS.
LINKS
Adalia Aborisade (Picky Girl Travels the World) talks with Alecia Renece chat about the work ethic that Black women have been raised with, and its dangers. As a Filipino American woman, the work culture I’ve been raised around is of course different from what Black people have experienced historically; it can’t be easily categorized as “Asian American” experience, either, which is incredibly diverse in itself. Yet, because of the global culture of service work that all Filipinos know about and are connected to—I can somewhat relate to what Aborisade and Renece are saying. The discussion still leaves some questions—about survival in this economic system—unanswered for me, though.
Leslie Laurence, aka @sleepyfrog on Mastodon.art posted a brief article on “Mummy Brown” paint, which sent me down a rabbit hole looking to learn more. Here’s another article I found in Husheduphistory.com, “The Most Tragic Hue.”
Relatedly, an article on the “Egyptomania” of the 19th c. and the consumption (sometimes literally) of a culture.
The Internet Archive has (among other things) a huge, free “Moving Picture Archive” where you can find old films—like Texas, Brooklyn and Heaven, old television shows, mysteries, “educational” films, documentaries, cartoons, nudie flicks, old anime, musicals, WWII propaganda, and more. It’s fun to explore. Be careful, though—some of the material is disturbing and uncensored. I stumbled onto an uncensored documentary about what was found in the Nazi concentration camps—truly horrifying. You can also find Sebastian Junger’s award-winning war documentary, Restrepo, about a platoon of American soldiers who go to fight in the most dangerous areas of eastern Afghanistan.
SOUNDINGS
I love the way this song takes it’s time to build up its emotional core—Michael Kiwanuka performing “Love & Hate”:
Hiromi performing 11:49 pm with the Piano Quintet at the Blue Note in Tokyo:
I recently discovered the “First Take” videos, all revolving around the idea that the artists have one take to do this song in, so they’d better get it right. So, I suppose part of the fun is: are they gonna get it right? Two acoustic first takes:
Harry Styles singing “Boyfriends” in the first take:
Def Tech – My Way / THE FIRST TAKE:
Good night . . .