Scrabbled State of Mind

I’m nowhere near app crazy, but I don’t know what I would do without Scrabble on my iPad. Like so many other aficionados, I have my own biases that apply to the game — adored vowels and unloved consonants, of course — as well as a kind of amazement at the incongruities that I often run across in this world of wordplay I admit consumes way too much of my time.

Since I use solo Scrabble as a way to relax, not to stress out, my opponent on the Pad is always NORM (as in “normal”), as a few encounters with his older, more artificially intelligent brother, HARD (as in “self-explanatory”), left me frazzled. (Youngest sibling, EASY, plays with the kiddies.) There are some advantages in competing against NORM: he doesn’t place seven-letter words, along with their 50-point bonuses, for example. (Fine with me!)

Lately, I’ve taken to jotting down some of those weird words that NORM often generates, so I can look up their definitions later. I don’t consider myself a slouch in the vocabulary department, but expressions like “dhow,” “mulct” and “foveae” can be stumpers. As both a lover of art and a language buff (though curiously never a big fan of crossword puzzles), I find these new discoveries little creations in themselves.

“JT” Times Two

So I really like Justin Timberlake’s new record, The 20/20 Experience. And as I listened during a daily trudge on the treadmill, I thought about the “JT” of my generation, James Taylor, above, and the marvelous way music has of providing its own circle game through the years. The first JT remains a dependable comfort zone for me, and has been since I first heard his iconic album, Sweet Baby James. For a preteen with melancholic tendencies, “Fire and Rain” was something of an anthem, along with a favorite chill song, “Carolina in My Mind” (where I still go when things get prickly). The sounds of this generation’s JT, as rendered on 20/20, are a smooth confection of ear candy — even one of the songs is called “Strawberry Bubblegum”— but also kind of perfect for the era, much in the way the introspective Baby James was in its time. (Timberlake, below, harkens back even further to a bygone period, with the Big-Bandish mood and feel of the chart-topping single “Suit & Tie.”) A new pop comfort zone is created, with two “JTs” now at the head of the class.

Out of the Box

Intelligent advertising may seem like an oxymoron these days, but a remarkable print campaign from a long time ago still impresses with its creative uniqueness as well as longevity.

With the unlikely sponsor of Container Corporation of America, which was clearly thinking outside the box (couldn’t resist), the series, called “Great Ideas of Western Man” ran over a period of almost three decades (1950-1975) and matched artwork from a number of illustrators and designers with thought-provoking quotes from an array of philosophers, writers, scientists, and other cultural icons. The goal, apart from the simply inspirational aspects, was to introduce the American public to the work of artists — such as Milton Glaser, top, and Saul Bass, below — with which it would otherwise have remained unfamiliar.

Ahead of their time in not underestimating the discernment of consumers, the ads are considered a watershed moment in marketing history, as they bore no corporate message beyond the inconspicuously placed CCA name in small type at the bottom.

It was a rare and enlightening blend of commerce and art that would be refreshing to see more of now…

Color My World

Best and worst lists were a dime a dozen at the end of 2012, but here’s one accolade that caught my eye: “Color of the Year.” It’s an annual designation that serves as a forecast decreed by Pantone, the venerable provider of color standards for the printing, design, and publishing industries, and which is well-known for its color wheel and Pantone Matching System (PMS).

Pantone’s “Color of the Year” for 2013: PMS #17-5641

For 2013, Pantone has chosen Emerald (or more specifically, PMS #17-5641) as the color to watch, for its influence on trends, tastes, and moods, and its expected impact on everything from home décor to fashion. Last year, the company tapped #17-1463, or “Tangerine Tango,” as its star, because it “provided the energy boost we needed to recharge and move forward.” (Quiz here about previous “Color of the Year” winners.)

Though not everyone is on board with this year’s selection (“For many people, it’s a flashback to your parents’ living room and big green couch,” says one interior professional), Pantone claims that Emerald is “the color of growth, renewal, and prosperity – no other color conveys regeneration more than green.”

(I decided to check out the PMS chart to identify the shade I’ve been most drawn to lately. Turns out it’s #315, which I guess is sort of a mix of teal and peacock blue. Somewhere in my subconscious, I remember it as the color of my favorite ink for the fountain pens we used in grade school. Maybe the fact that I went into the writing profession wasn’t a coincidence.)

But back to our hue du jour. Even Downton Abbey has been brought into the conversation, with some seeing the emerald color’s associations with luxury as a perfect complement to the American audience’s fascination with the opulent English miniseries. A bit of a stretch, of course, but no harm in a little (colorful) hyperbole…

Green permeates an interior from the series “Downton Abbey”

At Hitchcock’s Place

Whenever I think of the films of Alfred Hitchcock, I think of… apartments. Not out-of-control birds or psychos in showers, but apartments — in all their Hollywood-constructed artifice. I was reminded of this as I saw Vertigo again, recently voted the greatest movie of all time by the British Film Institute, supplanting Citizen Kane, which had held that slot for the last 50 years.

In Vertigo, it’s Barbara Bel Geddes’ faux bohemian pad, right, with San Francisco’s Coit Tower as a backdrop, where the easel she employs as an aspiring artist is center stage when Jimmy Stewart drops by to chat. Likewise, Stewart’s own bachelor abode, where his character likes to toss throw pillows in front of the fireplace, especially when Kim Novak comes for an unexpected visit.

Rear Window, of course, would provide a justifiable explanation for my Hitchcock apartment fixation; after all, the film revolves entirely around Stewart’s voyeuristic snooping on the strange occurrences transpiring at a building across the way. And how about Grace Kelly, right, lounging languorously on that incongruous bed in the living room as Stewart nurses a broken leg in the wheelchair?

There’s also Dial M for Murder, with its overpowering desk where the pivotal telephone resides, as well as the always-drawn drapes that signal the claustrophobia of bad things waiting to happen.

But the real reason is Rope, right, my all-time favorite Hitchcock film. It’s hard to match a setting that features a buffet arrangement atop a chest that’s really a repository for a just-committed homicide. As a panoramic Manhattan looms in the background, the ‘40s-chic dinner guests (a little blood with that champagne, please) are oblivious to the surreality of their situation as unknowing visitors at a murder scene. For the viewer, the tension in the air is almost as strangling as the actual crime. (Recalling one of the director’s mordant quotes: “Some of our most exquisite murders have been domestic, performed with tenderness in simple, homey places like the kitchen table.”) Rope is, for me, Hitchcock at his most sardonic.

I couldn’t come up with a consistent name responsible for the subtle genius behind the creation of these memorable set designs (no Bernard Herrmann-like collaborator, who scored several of the great Hitchcock films), as the director worked with so many. Which makes it obvious that most of the myriad architectural motifs were probably a result of the master’s own singular imagination. Imagination, one is reminded, that was as wonderfully creative as it applied to the mysterious as well as the mundane. Like apartments.

(Illustration / top: Stanley Chow)

Pop Culture Musing for a Thursday 9/6/12

Famed sunglass manufacturer Ray-Ban is celebrating its 75^th anniversary this year, and though the ad campaign exhorts consumers to “be part of the legend” (post your own photos and all that), I think I’ll mark the occasion with four real legends looking
gorgeously iconic in their R-Bs…

Small World (Part 2)

A while ago, I wrote about an artist whose miniaturist sculptures I found rather remarkable, and now I run across a story along similar lines that is even more amazing. (Guess I’ve been thinking small lately. And this is about as small as it gets.)

As a child, microsculptor Willard Wigan (left) found an escape in all things tiny as a refuge from the dyslexia that made him the object of derision at school because of his difficulties in learning to read and write. At age five, he began fashioning minuscule “apartments” for the forsaken little ants that he perceived as being homeless. “I got carried away and made a few more ‘houses,’ then I made tables and chairs and little beds…so this is where the obsession kicked in,” he says.

That “obsession” has led to the British-born Wigan, 55, being awarded an MBE (Prince Charles is a huge fan), and celebrities like Elton John and Simon Cowell seeking pieces for their collections. Those pieces, too small to be seen with the human eye (one-third the size of a period at the end of a sentence!) are literally viewed under high-powered microscopes when they’re exhibited, and are usually found inside the eye of a needle (pictured top and right) or sitting on the head of a pin (“The Thinker” is shown below). Even Charlie Chaplin has danced on the tip of an eyelash.

The physical and mental concentration required to execute these miniature marvels is almost superhuman; the precision necessary calls for adjustments in breathing and lowering the heart rate, as the most minute of tremors can upend the process, which Wigan likens to “trying to pass a pin through a bubble without bursting it.” He employs an array of raw materials for his craft, including various forms of fiber, grains of rice and sand — and the occasional fragment of gold — when he works, eyes glued to the microscope, late into the night.

Not a surprise that nearly 100 of Wigan’s creations were recently acquired by Ripley Entertainment and are beginning to appear at its Believe It or Not! Museums around the country. But luckily, his unique talent is also showcased at a more serious artistic venue, Washington, D.C.’s Parish Gallery, in a retrospective entitled Willard Wigan: The Half Century Collection, which runs through January 2013.

It’s not often one can see not one –  but nine — camels traversing the eye of a needle…

Brief Encounters

Most of us equate architecture with the idea of permanence; after all, it’s one of the three precepts espoused by the ancient Roman architect Vitruvius – durability, utility, and beauty – that have propelled builders since antiquity. But a new phenomenon, “pop-up” architecture (also known as “temporary” architecture, or even “urban interventions”), has shaken that idea to its very — excuse the pun — foundations.

The scale of the concept ranges from huge to small, from boutiques and grocery stores to entire neighborhoods. The current London Olympics fall full-force in the supersized category, where the imposingly impermanent includes the Basketball Arena (detail shown above), which was intended as a temporary site since inception, with almost two-thirds of its building materials destined for reuse or recycling. The facility’s textured shell and portal frame will eventually travel to Brazil for the 2016 Games.

The realities of difficult economic times have played a large role in the growth of these transformable venues, many of which are easily disassembled or refashioned for longer-term needs, and which come in all shapes and sizes, encompassing all levels of imagination. In Winnipeg, Canada, the pop-up huts (above), designed for those braving the cold as they skated along a frozen river trail, were winners in the temporary-architecture category at this year’s Azure Awards. In New York City, the LOT-EK design firm transformed shipping containers into walk-in “stores,” below, complete with shelf space, cash registers, and fitting rooms. (More amazing examples are featured in the book, Temporary Architecture Now!, by Philip Jodidio.)

An idea that’s “so retro it’s become radical,” according to New York Times writer Allison Arieff (citing, as one past example, the temporary bookshops that have sprouted up along the Seine River in Paris for centuries), Arieff also points to the flexibility inherent in impermanence as an incentive for designers and planners to experiment with new structures and services without the time-consuming bureaucratic burdens necessary for the creation of brick-and-mortar buildings.

As for this year’s Olympics, it looks like London will have served as a testing lab for what is already becoming one of the defining architectural trends of the decade. In addition to the Basketball Arena, both the Aquatic Center and the Olympic Shooting Gallery are scheduled for disassembly and recycling, and the Olympic Stadium itself will be shrunk down to a smaller community venue.

In a twist on the old saying: Now you see ‘em … and now you may see ‘em again.

(Photo/top: Bryn Lennon / Getty Images)

Next Chapters

Maybe it’s because of her recent passing, but I couldn’t help but think of Nora Ephron and her last compilation of essays, I Remember Nothing, as I read Anna Quindlen‘s new memoir, Lots of Candles, Plenty of Cake. Their similar backgrounds as successful journalists may have something to do with it; certainly the perspicacity so characteristic of these two brilliant women plays an even bigger part. Probably, though, I recalled Ephron’s wistful “The O Word” from her final book — “O” standing for “old” — and its sentiments hovered as I pondered Quindlen’s counterpart exploration of the inexorable journey towards the sunset of life.

But I should hasten to add that Lots of Candles, Plenty of Cake is anything but wistful. Quindlen, the Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist and novelist, who’s been called America’s “laureate of real life,”  infuses her recollections as a baby-boomer facing late middle age with relentless optimism — and humor. Whether she’s discussing marriage, raising children, or lessons learned as a beneficiary of the societal transformations brought about by the upheavals of the ’60s and ’70s, particularly as they pertained to the role of women, her razor-sharp perceptions harbor the wisdom of a participant who lived the changes uniquely first-hand.

Motherhood is one theme that she revisits from a post-feminism vantage point. In the chapter, “Generations,”  she talks about “my place in the succession of women who came before me,” including of course, her own mother, whom she describes as “a housewife, a rather reserved person with a sweet nature and a powerful ability to control her children through the simple exigency of spontaneous and utterly sincere tears.” In terms of her sacrifices, and in retrospective appreciation, the daughter recognizes that, among other considerations, “the closest thing my mother had to a windup baby bouncer was her arm and hip.”

Pop Culture Musings for a Monday 7/2/12

Bring on the Cute: …and the calories. July is National Ice Cream Month. Designated in 1984 by then-President Ronald Reagan, its original proclamation (and National Ice Cream Day on July 15), called for Americans to observe related events with “appropriate ceremonies and activities.” Our favorite flavors? Vanilla, chocolate, cookies ‘n’ cream, strawberry, and chocolate-chip mint, according to the International Dairy Foods Association. So go ahead and indulge (it’s practically a patriotic duty).

And the Best Actor Award Goes To: I have no idea who the actor is at far left in this commercial for Ally Bank, but I have to say I like his style. The scene is a grocery store, where he graciously allows another customer (right) to cut in front of him in the line, thereby losing out on the windfall that would have been rightfully his for being the establishment’s “one-millionth customer.” But no typical sour-grapes reaction here; it’s the subtleties of his facial expressions that are priceless. In case you’ve missed it, it’s worth a watch (link above).

Marriage Impossible: News of the Tom Cruise/Katie Holmes break-up hit the entertainment world like a tsunami on Friday, and as the gossips and show-biz pundits speculate about the possible reasons for the split, my first thought was how seriously unhappy this woman looked whenever I ran across a photo of her. And the pictures seemed to get progressively worse. Perhaps her independence from what looked to be a highly draining situation will bring the lilt back to those mournful eyes.

[Update: 8/3/12: Happy Katie! ]

Pop Culture Musing for a Thursday 6/7/12

Passage to India: Having the option of seeing either The Avengers or The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel was a no-brainer for me (and it has little to do with “demographics”). The opportunity to watch actors of the caliber of Judi Dench, Tom Wilkinson, Bill Nighy, and Maggie Smith at the top of their games shouldn’t be passed up no matter what your age. (Witness how the film has quietly made its way to the top ten in U.S. box-office receipts.)

Set in Jaipur, Marigold tells the story of a group of retirees who by choice or necessity (mostly necessity) leave England for (unbeknownst to them) misleadingly photoshopped lodgings in the center of the bustling Indian metropolis. Plot really matters not that much, as the film focuses more on the spiritual awakenings they undergo when faced with the tumult and fascination of the Hindu culture. The quality of the acting is such that one feels less an observer than a participant in the zone of emotional realism occupied by these seasoned veterans.

What more can be said about Dame Judi (shown left and reunited here with John Madden, who directed her Oscar-winning performance in Shakespeare in Love)?  Her intelligent eyes raise the bar for the IQ of actors allowed in her presence. Bill Nighy, who has probably the singular dramatic moment in the movie, as a sensitive man senselessly clinging to a loveless marriage, is typically excellent (though alas, he and Dench lack the chemistry to make their eventual attraction to each other believable.) Maggie Smith is Maggie Smith, dry and wonderfully wry as always. And then there’s the awesome Tom Wilkinson, who provides the most moving and understated performance of the whole lot. His character’s sad yet ultimately liberating reasons for returning to the country of his youth make for a memorable and haunting segment of the film. (For the younger crowd, Dev Patel, previously of Slumdog Millionaire, provides Red Bull-fueled freneticism as the novice manager of what was once his father’s hotel.)

A celebration of all the changes that can be possible no matter how late in life, Marigold is also an affirmation of human resiliency, or as the Dench character narrates at one point, “The only real failure is failure to try, and the only measure of success is how we cope with disappointment.” An uplifting message at the heart of a sweet and satisfying film.

Small World

In keeping with the street art/strange art theme I’ve been drawn to lately, I came across an English artist with the aka of Slinkachu, whose work kind of overlaps that of another British artist I previously wrote about, Ben Wilson, in its idiosyncrasy. Slinkachu (actually a blog title, as the former art director doesn’t like to reveal his real name) modifies tiny human figures taken from model-train sets and places many of them in unexpected settings, and, as with Wilson, turns your notions of the most mundane realities upside down.

Easily overlooked (and designed that way), the transient tableaus are usually destroyed by the elements (or unknowingly stomped upon), though some are absconded with by passersby…if they see them, that is. (Photographed close up, the miniaturist “installations” look like worlds unto themselves; viewed from afar, they’re as insignificant as ants on a molehill. Most of the figures are no larger than two inches.)  Imagination is definitely on display in the pieces shown here, of which I find difficult to pick a favorite. The island made out of an abandoned tennis ball? The skateboarder inside an orange peel? Rowing in spilt milk?

Unconventionally creative, Slinkachu’s mini-portrayals have dotted the landscapes of several cities in Europe, and harbor an almost existentialist sentiment, according to the artist. “The feeling of being ignored and overlooked, of feeling small, is a universal one,” he told the UK’s Observer last year. “It is as easy for us to fall through cracks in the pavement in a big city as it is for the ‘little people’.”

For now, photographs of the now-you-see-’em-now-you-don’t creations appear in an exhibition titled Material Matters at the Courtauld Institute of Art in London through July of next year.

Double Takes

In her latest public-art project, entitled “Ordinary People,” sculptor Christel Lechner has situated some 80 life-sized and life-like concrete figures at various locations in Hamm, Germany’s Maximilian Park – much to the delight of surprised passerby, many of whom have already encountered Lechner’s creations at other parks, squares, even the rooftops of buildings, throughout the region.

Her work sort of follows in the footsteps of another artist I recall, Duane Hanson (1925-1996), a celebrated sculptor associated with the “photorealist” movement, and whose pieces (like Tourists II from 1988, pictured below), apart from their startling realism, were often wry commentaries on contemporary society. Somewhat of a quiet phenomenon, Hanson’s connection with the public was loudly borne out by the Whitney Museum’s still-unsurpassed attendance record (297,000) for his solo exhibition there in 1978.

Some argue that these versions of reality art aren’t really art at all, but more like borderline kitsch; as always, it remains in the eye of the beholder…

[Interesting blog piece here about the restoration of one of Hanson's signature works, Janitor (1973), currently on view at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis.]

Color Her Barbra

Among the goals since the beginning of this blog has been to try to hit all the “marks,” so to speak, as far as creative heroes whose work has impacted me in ways I carry around to the present day. I’ve been meaning for some time to get around to one of those who multitasked in the entertainment category, Barbra Streisand; I think the occasion of her 70th birthday this month is more than perfect timing.

It’s a vivid childhood memory; everyone has one, a moment when a movie star or pop star or whatever star is etched in your mind in a way you understand is permanent. Such it was with me at the age of nine, seeing Funny Girl for the first time in a dark and cavernous 1960s movie theater, like so many that disappeared with the advent of the multiplex. I was mesmerized by what I saw (and heard) on the huge screen; so much so, I stayed for a second showing (guess I was spared the typical kid’s ADD), despite its clocking in at nearly three hours – with intermission.

As the encomiums for this real legend (not a throwaway description here) follow in April, I think of Streisand as such a constant along the road of life, with unbound admiration for her artistic courage, tenaciousness, and passion. But most of all the talent.

Faces of Andy

Today marks the 25^th anniversary of the death of Pop artist extraordinaire, Andy Warhol, who passed away in New York City, aged 58, on February 22, 1987. Four of my favorite self-portraits:

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                 The largest of the commemorative retrospectives, Andy Warhol:15 Minutes Eternal, curated by the Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh, will tour Asia over the next three years, with such classic pieces as Jackie (1964) and Marilyn (1967), while Andy Warhol: Fame and Misfortune, an eclectic collection of multimedia spanning the 1950s–1980s, is on view through May 20 at San Antonio’s McNay Art Museum. Warhol, who once quipped, “You know it’s art when the check clears,” is responsible for some of the most expensive works on record, including Eight Elvises, which sold for $100 million in 2008.

Pop Culture Musing for a Monday 2/13/12

Grammy Snapshots

Missing Whitney: Thought the attention was measured and appropriate. Jennifer Hudson — who received her first Grammy from her idol at the awards a few years ago –  delivered a next-best rendition (which is high praise) of “I Will Always Love You,” in an emotional moment.

Adele Ascendant: Back from throat surgery, relaxed, in command, and looking gorgeous, she swept the Grammys – and charmed with her down-to-earthiness.

No Reprieve: Chris Brown was all over the place and won for best R&B album, but men who hit women shouldn’t be so easily forgiven.

Taylor Off-Key: Is it just me, or is Swift always out of tune when she sings live? Even she seemed surprised at the applause at the end of “Mean.”

Full Throttle: Dave Grohl and Foo Fighters, performing outside the Staples Center, were one of the most electric displays of the night (they later garnered Best Rock Performance).

Shock and Pa

Carrie Fisher’s latest offering, the cleverly titled Shockaholic, is a markedly similar follow-up to her Wishful Drinking, which was released in 2008 and eventually parlayed into a successful one-woman show on Broadway. For those who are partial to Fisher’s sharp and acerbic take on things, her sense of the absurd clearly derived from first-hand experience, Shockaholic (if not exactly shocking) doesn’t disappoint.

In this slim and admittedly self-indulgent collection, the novelist/actress (Princess Leia in a long-ago and far-away Star Wars incarnation), reprises her riff on an often surreal life as child of Hollywood stars, ‘50s sweethearts Debbie Reynolds and singer Eddie Fisher, in an anecdotal memoir that could have been titled “Before I Forget.” (For the majority of those too young to remember, her parents’ marriage ended when her father ran off with screen siren Elizabeth Taylor, quite the scandal in those days.)

The name of the book is a play on her recent experiences with electroshock therapy, a treatment that has proven successful in her ongoing struggle with bipolar disorder (a subject covered in her novel, The Best Awful).  It comprises the opening chapter, where Fisher goes on the record about the amnesiacal after-effects of ECT, as it’s called, which results in loss of short-term memory. (She admits to “blanks” at various stages throughout the volume.)

In typical Fisher fashion, she finds humor in the madness: ”One could argue that by having regular ECT treatments, I’m paying two – that’s right, two – electric bills. One for the house and one for my head.” But on a more serious note, she adds that it “punched the dark lights” out of her depression.