Dinner party in honor of the Elizabeth A. Sackler Center
for Feminist Art, Brooklyn Museum, March 22, 2007
Friday, March 23, 2007
Friday, March 16, 2007
Tuesday, March 13, 2007
Wednesday, March 07, 2007
Superheroine, where are you?
“Javits Center!” the M34 bus driver shouted into the microphone just before 4PM, on February 23rd, a Friday afternoon. “Join the line and enjoy yourself,” he said and his tone was unmistakably sarcastic.
The line of ticket holders, most of whom bought there tickets online in advance to forgo long lines like this one, was stretching around the block. In the cold wind, some of them were shivering in a single T-shirt, always black with some super hero printed on the front.
Inside, on three floors, the Comic Con Show, only the second of its kind in New York City, welcomed the first few hundreds of visitors on the first half day of the weekend- long program.
On Level 3, the exhibit floor, where 140 vendors offered their merchandise, a small being with green head and long green hands chased a boy about seven years old. The boy fought back with a laser sword. When another green headed being appeared, the boy ran to his father screaming “Damn, there are more of them!”
In what seemed like a paradise of commerce and consumerism, a few vendors and visitors stood out.
In the back, near the food stands, Stephanie Pui-Mun Law, a Californian in her later thirties, exhibited her watercolors called Fantasy Art. The prints varied from Tarot cards to fairies, all gentle and subtle in details. She already sold out several $10 and $15 pieces, like the Empress card. “There is a lot of cross-over between comics and what I do,” she said. “I do a lot of comic conventions all over the country, and I have family in New York, so this way, I can combine business with pleasure.”
At the Atomic Comics booth, people in bright yellow overalls with symbols of radioactivity on their chests talked to visitors in such a nice and sincere way that it was clear – they were not from New York. “We are a bit sleep deprived,” Lou Louis, said noting that her parents had fun giving her her first name. “We drove out here in three days from Phoenix, Arizona in our mobile comic van. It’s the first of its kind!”
Lou had a great time on Thursday being a tourist in New York, riding the subway, visiting China Town, Ground Zero, The Empire State Building, and of course, Midtown Comics. “It was my dream to go to that store. It’s like the biggest comic store ever!” she said.
Atomic Comics was established 20 years ago by Mike Malve who is proud to be present with his booth at every comic convention in the country and with his new mobile comic van all over Phoenix. (He also likes to mention that he knows Steven Colbert.)
Robert Wilman, an Atomic Comic employee of five years answered countless questions in front of the van. “The van can get comics to people who otherwise would not be interested,” he said. “We go to air force bases, mall parking lots and schools,” he said. “Over the summer, we go to classrooms to tell the kids about the history of gaming and comics. People love the van!”
To the left, past countless commercial booths, the Vampire Cowboys Theatre Company presented one of its shows, Living Dead in Denmark, on a flat screen TV. The play was a parody of comic characters with Asian martial arts incorporated in the scenes. This small, five years old, Manhattan based non-profit alternative theatre company was able to afford the $1800, six-foot long stand only due to a generous donor.
“It’s a great opportunity for us to be here, to get out name out here, get people know who we are” Abby Markus, the young and vibrant managing director, said. “This is our target audience and if five more people come to see our show as a result of this booth, we had a successful weekend.”
Michael Timko, an overweight forty-something bald man stoped at the booth. “This is the coolest name I’ve seen here,” he said with enthusiasm. “I just saw a similar show a few weeks ago. Let me get your card, I love this stuff!” he said to Markus who talked him into filling out a form to win free tickets.
Near the level entrance, across from a few people playing card games, Claire Nelson, of California, sat on the floor, resting.
“This is my first time in New York; my friend talked me into coming,” she said. “I got a bit tired because we’ve been running around the city all day before coming here. But to be honest, the San Diego show is much better. It’s bigger and there are more previews of movies and shows with actors and artists talking to the audience.”
In the middle of the floor, Wendy Kelman, the executive director of Geppi’s Entertainment Museum, dressed in a dark business suit, was not tired at all. Everyone, who stopped by the Museum’s showcase – and many did – received from her a poster, a brochure and even a map of Baltimore, where the museum is, with its location clearly marked. “It’s only four hours by car from here,” she said energetically.
“The older you are, the more you get out of it,” said of the museum that opened last September, Patricia Moore, sales and marketing representative. “We’ve got things that go back to the middle 1700s. You can follow the history of pop culture with us.”
Around 7 PM, at the $2 coat check, Frank Giella, waited for his coat with son James, 9. He was happy with his visit. “It’s bigger than last year and there is more comic related stuff, not just mass media. I like that,” he said. His son James liked his bag full of free give-aways. “They are trying to get kids back to collecting habits.”
Carlos Santofimia and his son Bastian, 8, from Florida, waited for the bus outside the Center. “I must tell you I was very disappointed in the organizers,” he said with a tick Spanish accent. “I bought the tickets online for both days for both of us and then I come here, wait in the line for an hour in the cold and learn that my son didn’t even need a ticket.”
A native of Madrid, Spain, this single dad did not really mind the inconvenience. “I think he has talent. He is eight now. I want him to be exposed to the best and here he can meet the artists and get some collectibles.”
“I hope it was worth it, Bastian!” Santofimia said looking at his son with a loving smile.
“Javits Center!” the M34 bus driver shouted into the microphone just before 4PM, on February 23rd, a Friday afternoon. “Join the line and enjoy yourself,” he said and his tone was unmistakably sarcastic.
The line of ticket holders, most of whom bought there tickets online in advance to forgo long lines like this one, was stretching around the block. In the cold wind, some of them were shivering in a single T-shirt, always black with some super hero printed on the front.
Inside, on three floors, the Comic Con Show, only the second of its kind in New York City, welcomed the first few hundreds of visitors on the first half day of the weekend- long program.
On Level 3, the exhibit floor, where 140 vendors offered their merchandise, a small being with green head and long green hands chased a boy about seven years old. The boy fought back with a laser sword. When another green headed being appeared, the boy ran to his father screaming “Damn, there are more of them!”
In what seemed like a paradise of commerce and consumerism, a few vendors and visitors stood out.
In the back, near the food stands, Stephanie Pui-Mun Law, a Californian in her later thirties, exhibited her watercolors called Fantasy Art. The prints varied from Tarot cards to fairies, all gentle and subtle in details. She already sold out several $10 and $15 pieces, like the Empress card. “There is a lot of cross-over between comics and what I do,” she said. “I do a lot of comic conventions all over the country, and I have family in New York, so this way, I can combine business with pleasure.”
At the Atomic Comics booth, people in bright yellow overalls with symbols of radioactivity on their chests talked to visitors in such a nice and sincere way that it was clear – they were not from New York. “We are a bit sleep deprived,” Lou Louis, said noting that her parents had fun giving her her first name. “We drove out here in three days from Phoenix, Arizona in our mobile comic van. It’s the first of its kind!”
Lou had a great time on Thursday being a tourist in New York, riding the subway, visiting China Town, Ground Zero, The Empire State Building, and of course, Midtown Comics. “It was my dream to go to that store. It’s like the biggest comic store ever!” she said.
Atomic Comics was established 20 years ago by Mike Malve who is proud to be present with his booth at every comic convention in the country and with his new mobile comic van all over Phoenix. (He also likes to mention that he knows Steven Colbert.)
Robert Wilman, an Atomic Comic employee of five years answered countless questions in front of the van. “The van can get comics to people who otherwise would not be interested,” he said. “We go to air force bases, mall parking lots and schools,” he said. “Over the summer, we go to classrooms to tell the kids about the history of gaming and comics. People love the van!”
To the left, past countless commercial booths, the Vampire Cowboys Theatre Company presented one of its shows, Living Dead in Denmark, on a flat screen TV. The play was a parody of comic characters with Asian martial arts incorporated in the scenes. This small, five years old, Manhattan based non-profit alternative theatre company was able to afford the $1800, six-foot long stand only due to a generous donor.
“It’s a great opportunity for us to be here, to get out name out here, get people know who we are” Abby Markus, the young and vibrant managing director, said. “This is our target audience and if five more people come to see our show as a result of this booth, we had a successful weekend.”
Michael Timko, an overweight forty-something bald man stoped at the booth. “This is the coolest name I’ve seen here,” he said with enthusiasm. “I just saw a similar show a few weeks ago. Let me get your card, I love this stuff!” he said to Markus who talked him into filling out a form to win free tickets.
Near the level entrance, across from a few people playing card games, Claire Nelson, of California, sat on the floor, resting.
“This is my first time in New York; my friend talked me into coming,” she said. “I got a bit tired because we’ve been running around the city all day before coming here. But to be honest, the San Diego show is much better. It’s bigger and there are more previews of movies and shows with actors and artists talking to the audience.”
In the middle of the floor, Wendy Kelman, the executive director of Geppi’s Entertainment Museum, dressed in a dark business suit, was not tired at all. Everyone, who stopped by the Museum’s showcase – and many did – received from her a poster, a brochure and even a map of Baltimore, where the museum is, with its location clearly marked. “It’s only four hours by car from here,” she said energetically.
“The older you are, the more you get out of it,” said of the museum that opened last September, Patricia Moore, sales and marketing representative. “We’ve got things that go back to the middle 1700s. You can follow the history of pop culture with us.”
Around 7 PM, at the $2 coat check, Frank Giella, waited for his coat with son James, 9. He was happy with his visit. “It’s bigger than last year and there is more comic related stuff, not just mass media. I like that,” he said. His son James liked his bag full of free give-aways. “They are trying to get kids back to collecting habits.”
Carlos Santofimia and his son Bastian, 8, from Florida, waited for the bus outside the Center. “I must tell you I was very disappointed in the organizers,” he said with a tick Spanish accent. “I bought the tickets online for both days for both of us and then I come here, wait in the line for an hour in the cold and learn that my son didn’t even need a ticket.”
A native of Madrid, Spain, this single dad did not really mind the inconvenience. “I think he has talent. He is eight now. I want him to be exposed to the best and here he can meet the artists and get some collectibles.”
“I hope it was worth it, Bastian!” Santofimia said looking at his son with a loving smile.
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Tuesday, March 06, 2007
Notes on a Scandal
Obsession is sweet, especially when surrounded by secrecy. A secret object of desire makes a lonely life more interesting, fills it with action, drama and emotions.
When the young, beautiful, insecure and somewhat confused Sheba (Cate Blanchett) arrives as a new art teacher at a high school in a London suburb, the veteran teacher Barbara (Judi Dench) senses a chance. This woman could be the new object of her desire.
As their friendship carefully evolves, Sheba learns to trust Barbara, who buys flowers, gets a new haircut, and puts makeup and fancy clothes on, when she accepts an invitation for a Sunday dinner at Sheba’s.
Not surprisingly, she is bitterly disappointed when Sheba’s husband opens the door. Barbara did not expect a husband, and even less a difficult teenage daughter and a son with Down’s Syndrome.
They are so very different, these two women. Barbara is old, grumpy, lonely, poor and secretive. Sheba is young, elegant, sexy, wealthy and puts her emotions out even when it is to her disadvantage.
Whereas Barbara is closeted even to herself, Sheba is clearly straight and has no problem having sex with a 15-year-old student. He is young, handsome and pushy – a perfect antidote to her older, gentle husband. With this, the ‘scandal’ in Notes on a Scandal begins.
Barbara, like a good stalker, soon finds out about the affair and after her initial shock and anger, she recognizes this as her chance to chain Sheba to herself. Barbara offers empathy, an advice of a mature woman and Sheba promises to end the affair. But the affair does not end and Barbara is not getting what she wants.
She tries to blackmail Sheba into physical and emotional closeness, but Sheba resists. She doesn’t like Barbara’s touch and she put her family first when Barbara comes to her crying after her cat died.
When a colleague, the math teacher Brian, asks Barbara out for lunch only to enquire about Sheba, Barbara cannot contain herself anymore and tells him ‘the secret’: “Sheba likes younger men, you know. Much younger men. You are aware of her unusually close relationship with one of the Year Eleven boys?”
Brian tells the principal, the scandal gets into the tabloids, Sheba is suspended from school, thrown out of her house and lands at Barbara’s, where she finds Barbara’s notebooks. These notebooks contain everything that happened since Sheba entered the school – Barbara’s emotions, her judgmental opinions of colleagues, Sheba’s children, Sheba herself and her betrayal.
At the end of the movie, the principal, who is aware of Barbara’s previous stalking which ended in a restraining order, forces Barbara into early retirement.
Judi Dench does a superb job playing a neglected, narcissistic school teacher, who hates herself more than she hates everybody else in the world. Dench’s posture, her clothes and hair and especially her voice, which narrates throughout the movie in the form of her journal entries, reveal all that we can know about such a pitiful human being.
In an especially telling scene, Dench lies in the bathtub, thinking about the desperation that overcomes a person who hasn’t been touched by another human being for years.
Barbara’s conscious manipulations comes from an unconscious desire to have a companion, to have someone to love who would persuade her that she is desirable and lovable. It is impossible for Barbara to face her own sexuality, to get out of the comfortable and familiar lonely world of notebook entries to the world of real humans.
Blanchett’s Sheba is pitiful in a different way. After years of unfulfilled marriage and burdensome motherhood, she is ready to act on impulse and quickly falls apart under pressure. She trusts the wrong people and instead of getting out, falls deeper into a self-made trap.
Adapted from a novel by Zoe Heller, this movie has the best acting I have seen on screen last year.
Obsession is sweet, especially when surrounded by secrecy. A secret object of desire makes a lonely life more interesting, fills it with action, drama and emotions.
When the young, beautiful, insecure and somewhat confused Sheba (Cate Blanchett) arrives as a new art teacher at a high school in a London suburb, the veteran teacher Barbara (Judi Dench) senses a chance. This woman could be the new object of her desire.
As their friendship carefully evolves, Sheba learns to trust Barbara, who buys flowers, gets a new haircut, and puts makeup and fancy clothes on, when she accepts an invitation for a Sunday dinner at Sheba’s.
Not surprisingly, she is bitterly disappointed when Sheba’s husband opens the door. Barbara did not expect a husband, and even less a difficult teenage daughter and a son with Down’s Syndrome.
They are so very different, these two women. Barbara is old, grumpy, lonely, poor and secretive. Sheba is young, elegant, sexy, wealthy and puts her emotions out even when it is to her disadvantage.
Whereas Barbara is closeted even to herself, Sheba is clearly straight and has no problem having sex with a 15-year-old student. He is young, handsome and pushy – a perfect antidote to her older, gentle husband. With this, the ‘scandal’ in Notes on a Scandal begins.
Barbara, like a good stalker, soon finds out about the affair and after her initial shock and anger, she recognizes this as her chance to chain Sheba to herself. Barbara offers empathy, an advice of a mature woman and Sheba promises to end the affair. But the affair does not end and Barbara is not getting what she wants.
She tries to blackmail Sheba into physical and emotional closeness, but Sheba resists. She doesn’t like Barbara’s touch and she put her family first when Barbara comes to her crying after her cat died.
When a colleague, the math teacher Brian, asks Barbara out for lunch only to enquire about Sheba, Barbara cannot contain herself anymore and tells him ‘the secret’: “Sheba likes younger men, you know. Much younger men. You are aware of her unusually close relationship with one of the Year Eleven boys?”
Brian tells the principal, the scandal gets into the tabloids, Sheba is suspended from school, thrown out of her house and lands at Barbara’s, where she finds Barbara’s notebooks. These notebooks contain everything that happened since Sheba entered the school – Barbara’s emotions, her judgmental opinions of colleagues, Sheba’s children, Sheba herself and her betrayal.
At the end of the movie, the principal, who is aware of Barbara’s previous stalking which ended in a restraining order, forces Barbara into early retirement.
Judi Dench does a superb job playing a neglected, narcissistic school teacher, who hates herself more than she hates everybody else in the world. Dench’s posture, her clothes and hair and especially her voice, which narrates throughout the movie in the form of her journal entries, reveal all that we can know about such a pitiful human being.
In an especially telling scene, Dench lies in the bathtub, thinking about the desperation that overcomes a person who hasn’t been touched by another human being for years.
Barbara’s conscious manipulations comes from an unconscious desire to have a companion, to have someone to love who would persuade her that she is desirable and lovable. It is impossible for Barbara to face her own sexuality, to get out of the comfortable and familiar lonely world of notebook entries to the world of real humans.
Blanchett’s Sheba is pitiful in a different way. After years of unfulfilled marriage and burdensome motherhood, she is ready to act on impulse and quickly falls apart under pressure. She trusts the wrong people and instead of getting out, falls deeper into a self-made trap.
Adapted from a novel by Zoe Heller, this movie has the best acting I have seen on screen last year.
Thursday, March 01, 2007
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