Health Care and Guns

As I flew across the US from Vancouver to New York during the time of the US government shutdown and the hostage taking by Republicans in Congress, I was thinking about the strangeness of the US, with the obsession with guns and now the obsession with avoiding health care.  (I had lots of time to think, with my plane delayed three hours, missed connections, lost luggage, etc.)  And it suddenly occurred to me,  health care must be Un-American.   Real Americans don't go to doctors, they tough it out.  Doctors are for wimps and losers and those who can't take care of themselves.   When John Wayne was riding his horse to go out and kill Indians, did he stop to check to see if he had health insurance before he went?  No!   He had a gun, so anything that could harm him, he could deal with with a gun.   So if you have a gun, you don't need health care!

(Many years ago, I once saw a bumper sticker that said "The West wasn't won with registered guns".)

Magritte at MOMA

I saw the Magritte show at MOMA.  Magritte is one of those painters whose images are instantly familiar and recognizable as Magritte.  In fact, to me they seem so familiar that I have trouble getting beyond the fact that what I see is a Magritte.   I was hoping that a large show would give me a better insight, but it didn't really happen.   The most interesting parts were the early collages, where you see him experimenting with the same images he ended up using in a lot of his painted pictures.   Ultimately, I found that his paintings recycle the same motives over and over again; thus there are numerous variations on the "Ceci N'Est Pas une Pipe" motive.   Seeing the paintings in person didn't do much for me, they don't really look the different than the reproductions, to my eyes.
I did notice one phenomenon in the very crowded exhibit.  As I was trying to look at a large painting, I counted four people standing in front of the painting.  None of them were looking at the painting; all of them were squinting at their little gadgets, trying to start up the commentary or whatever.   Not good.

(Perhaps some future enterprising artist will come up with a show that is nothing but blank spaces on the walls, except for little numbers that tell you which which file on your gadget to access for words and images.  Putting things on walls is so outdated.)

Trying to find images at MOMA's website makes my internet browser crash...

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                             SCREENSHOT OF MAGRITTE PAINTING


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Godard in 3D

Last night we went to a showing of the film "3X 3D" at the Vancouver Film Festival.   The film was a collection of three short films, commissioned by the Portuguese city of Guimares, directed by Godard, Greenaway, and Pera (a Portuguese director).

The Godard episode was something extraordinary, in his very late style; a dense collage of spoken aphorisms, musical excerpts, sounds, excerpts from films, still images, etc. which resists any kind of interpretation that I know of.   Incomprehensible, in the best sense; I think he is pushing the limits of what we can perceive in the cinema, and forcing us to rethink how we perceive.  

A few days later, I was at the Neue Galerie in New York to see their show of early Kandinsky.   As I sat in a room surrounded by the wildly colorful canvases that Kandinsky made in his very beginning abstract period, I wondered what people made of them back then.   For a world where representational painting was the only kind of painting, they must have been both shocking and incomprehensible; people did not know how to look at the canvases.  I feel that way about the Godard; I need to look and listen to film in a different way to understand it.  So, for the moment,  I am content to let it wash over me.

(Screenshots should be in 3D, but, luckily, the internet is not in 3D yet.)

Godard's dog!

The Greenaway episode was completely different, taking full advantage of 3D technology.  It was one continuous shot moving through space and time around an old church.  People, written texts, and objects were flying around everywhere in a dense visual collage.   And, for once, the sonic collage was equally inventive; snippets of classical music from different eras moved in and out, along with a jumble of voices and other sounds.   Candy for the eye and ear!

I have no idea what these colored spheres are about, but it was fun to watch them move about it 3D space.

The other episode shall not be spoken of.