AMERICAN "ART" FILMS

NEW YORK TIMES                                                                            by A. O. SCOTT and MANOHLA DARGIS

When Do We ‘Get It’?

LOOK past the award-season hype and the current bounty of decent, good, great movies, and one thing becomes clear: We live in interesting narrative times, cinematically. In “Cloud Atlas” characters jump across centuries, space and six separate stories into a larger tale about human interconnectedness. In “Anna Karenina” Tolstoy’s doomed heroine suffers against visibly artificial sets, a doll within an elaborate dollhouse, while in “Life of Pi” a boy and a tiger share a small boat in a very big sea amid long silences, hallucinatory visuals and no obvious story arc. In movies like these, as well as in “The Master” and “Holy Motors,” filmmakers are pushing hard against, and sometimes dispensing with, storytelling conventions, and audiences seem willing to follow them. The chief film critics of The New York Times, Manohla Dargis and A. O. Scott, consider this experimental turn.        

This is an amazing video.....

http://www.cornell.edu/video/?VideoID=2398

SELF-PORTRAIT

I understand the feeling . . . 

OBAMA

Although Obama will not / cannot follow the powerful humanistic passion of his own words and beliefs, at least he SAID them...for the first time in American Presidential Inauguration history!  Obama's speech may serve as the final brilliant burst of American ideals, as it grows dimmer and possibly flickers out…..

NEW YORK TIMES - January 21, 2013 - by Peter Baker

OBAMA OFFERS LIBERAL VISION: “WE MUST ACT”
He became the first president ever to mention the word “gay” in an Inaugural Address as he equated the drive for same-sex marriage to the quests for racial and gender equality.

ART COSTS

GOODBYE....2010, 2013

This letter was written in 2010, when I decided to resign my teaching positions and return to live in America. I had been living and working in Taiwan for 11 years then, since 1999. After I left, I returned briefly to teach in 2011, and now returned again for 6 months, September 2012 - February 28, 2013…..Re-reading the original letter, it still reflects my true deep feelings, so this time I want to share it on my new blog and Facebook page. I will leave Taiwan again on 228, and expect to always return.

A VERY PERSONAL GOODBYE, FOR NOW . . . . .

一封私密的暫別信

Dear Friends,

親愛的朋友們：

I am leaving Taiwan on 31 July 2010, and going back to America, after 11 years

of living and teaching here. This truly was the most meaningful period in my life.

Taiwan has changed me forever, in only good ways.

我在台灣定居的教學生涯已經有十一年，七月三十一號，我即將告別台灣回到美國。

這段時光絕對是我人生中最有意義的一段，台灣改變了我的一生，而且都是正面的轉變。

                                       

Teaching and living in Taiwan has re-opened my creativity, heart, intellect,

and passion, after a decade of mourning in America. Taiwan, literally, has been

a rebirth, and I have become a better, more caring (hu)man.

在美國經歷了十年的低潮後，我來到台灣定居教學，台灣重啟我的智慧和創意，

更點燃我的熱情和真心。不容諱言地，台灣是我的重生之地，讓我不只變得更好，

也更會關懷他人。

LIFE

KUANDU MUSEUM OF FINE ART

KoMoFA (on the TNUA Campus, 1, Hsueh-Yuan Rd., Guandu, Beitou) has world-class artists, often better quality shows than the more famous (and better-funded) downtown Taipei museums.  The previous show had a few of the best modern work I've seen in America, Europe, or Asia.

The current show, "Post-Loyalist of Doomsdayism," well-curated by Huang Wan-Hsuan, is equally wonderful.....

FACEBOOK ART

Things I liked on Facebook . . . . .

                                                                                   Frankie Lee Chi Yue 李祈悅

                                                                    Kengwu Lin ~ Gill Lin Chin-Hua 林君樺

RIO DE JANEIRO

In Los Angeles, Tokyo, Taipei, and most cities,           rich people live on the mountains (and in high rises), looking down on poor people....In Rio, poor people       are kept on the mountainsides, far away from the     rich beach, but they have a spectacular view.

ADDICTION TO PRAISE

GOLDEN RABBIT FOR BEST HUMAN BEING

Oscars, Golden Globes, Golden Horses, Golden Bears, Golden Palms, 10 Best, 100 Greatest. The addiction, greed, and starving spirits of those who not only need to be rich, famous and powerful, but also crave the continuing reassurance of co-workers, critics, and fans, is so human, sad, and…silly.

There IS no “Best” in any field, especially not in art or  entertainment. There is only personal taste and effective marketing. Comparisons of creators’ unique visions and styles is useless, and worthless.

BUDDHA

BUDDHA

THE WINDLESS DOMAIN – DANCES

THE WINDLESS DOMAIN – DANCES (12/1/13) was powerfully expressive, world-class, physical, emotional, spiritual art…. Complex, controlled, and elegant “No Name” flowed as smoothly as a great Jackson Pollack painting. Seven dancers courageously reached the brilliance of Yang Ming-Lung’s intricate, intimate choreography. (Leung Kim-Fung, Chen Yi-Han, Seu Tu Ming-Hsuen, Wu Jyun-Jhe, Chen Liang Fen, Lee Yi Qi, Yeh Yun)….“Awakening in a Dream,” choreographed by Mui Cheuk-Yin, visualized the elegance, pain and passion of Pai Hsien-yung. ….Superb Hong Kong dancer/choreographer Leung Kim-Fung transformed the cool brilliance of Bach into Asian passion with inspired movements and sequences….Three recent Taipei National University of the Arts (Taiwan)  student presentations in theatre (Fassbinder), performance art (creative director Lin Chin-Hua and 9 others from the Film and Theatre Departments), and The Windless Domain (from the transcendent Dance Department), prove that brilliant, unique, high professional-level work can be done in a university. Personal vision and extraordinary commitment are required.

SIZZLING PERFORMANCE ART

One of the most sensual, non-sexual performance pieces in memory, barrier-breaking in Taiwan….8 men, 1 woman, wrapped only in white towels and clear plastic. Confronting the 11-degree bitter night air for one hour, on the windy mountain overlooking Taipei. Confronting Asian cultural prohibitions against nakedness. Confronting the stares of 100 young happily horny and/or love-hungry men and women fantasizing about their (beautiful) bodies.

VICTORY OF THE HUMAN SPIRIT

Human beings worldwide desperately want to put a face to the brutalized Indian girl who was raped and killed. That is why the Facebook photo (real or not) went viral....because we all want to mourn a real person we can see and try to know....Any female photo can be the girl, because all women are equally vulnerable, in India and every country. Male lust is not the cause, abhorrent international cultural male barbarism is. It not only brutalizes women, it brutalizes children, the elderly, gays and lesbians, and those of other races, castes, religions, political views, and economic levels. Male barbarism is not animal instinct, it is human insanity.

from NY Times,  1/7/13, by Sohaila Abdulali 

I Was Wounded; My Honor Wasn’t

THIRTY-TWO years ago, when I was 17 and living in Bombay, I was gang raped and nearly killed. Three years later, outraged at the silence and misconceptions around rape, I wrote a fiery essay under my own name describing my experience  for an Indian women’s magazine. It created a stir in the women’s movement — and in my family — and then it quietly disappeared. 

Then, last week, I looked at my e-mail and there it was. As part of the outpouring of public rage after a young woman’s rape and death in Delhi, somebody posted the article online and it went viral. Since then, I have received a deluge of messages from people expressing their support.

It’s not exactly pleasant to be a symbol of rape. I’m not an expert, nor do I represent all victims of rape. All I can offer is that — unlike the young woman who died in December two weeks after being brutally gang raped, and so many others — my story didn’t end, and I can continue to tell it.

WE ARE ALL EGGS

by Dasi artist Peter Liu Taiwan

GREAT TV SERIES

*

The greatest*, and my favorite 
(good, but not always the greatest), television series:

This is mostly American TV, with some British series. 

All other countries have great art and entertainment series, (especially Korea).

Unfortunately, world popular culture is smothered by American entertainment.

Series quality after the first 2-3 seasons usually goes down, sometimes a lot....

MOVING MASTERPIECE

 New York Times - August 16, 2009

Familial Loss and Proustian Tempura    By DENNIS LIM

DEATH looms large in the films of the Japanese director Hirokazu Kore-eda. The young heroine of his feature debut, "Maborosi" (1995), is haunted by the inexplicable suicide of her seemingly happy husband. In the metaphysical fable "After Life" (1998), the newly dead are asked to pick a single earthly recollection to keep for eternity, displacing all other memories. "Distance" (2001) observes the grief and shame of the relatives of cult members who killed themselves after carrying out a bio-terrorist attack.

WE ALL CHANGE

At the extremes, there are two basic kinds of people (aren't there always): those who ravenously crave any change because their lives are terrible or boring, and those who hate and/or fear any change. 

I'm someone who usually resists change, because I feel most of it are superficial diversions that keep us from confronting and changing ourselves, as well as working to improve political and social realities. Development changes are more often than not negative, destroying the life-giving beauty of nature and artistic creation, solely for the purpose of personal profit, power, and ego gratification. Technological changes severely harms healthy human feeling and human communication, intellectual exploration, unique individual expression, and the vital critical standards painfully developed at great sacrifice over hundreds of years of movement towards a civilized planet.

This article suggests why we may not be able to see, plan for, react to, or accept change....

COMPLEX SIMPLE SUGGESTIONS

When we get 43 suggestions at one time, it is easier to ignore them, think they are too simplistic or sugary. I never read all the "self-help" books written to help us through life, because I was cynical and did not want ADVICE....No one ever follows advice. even good advice from friends. I rebelled. I followed my own path....but it has led me back here to this 90-year-old Midwestern woman's seemingly simplistic and unsophisticated, but actually complicated, life-altering, effective suggestions. it is easier to ignore these 43 ideas, than to really consider them deeply. The hardest thing to do, is to BEGIN to follow the ones we believe are right. As a social revolutionary and humanist, I believe all the wise lady's suggestions are right, and will definitely lead to a much happier, less frustrated, more fulfilled life....and Life is our goal.

by Regina Brett, 90                                                           (Cleveland Plain Dealer Newspaper)

"To celebrate growing older, I wrote 43 lessons life taught me. It is the most requested column I've ever written."

AUSTERE POWER

from "New York Times", 1/4/13 (by Simon Romero)

AFTER YEARS IN SOLITARY,         LIFE AS URUGUAY’S PRESIDENT

MONTEVIDEO, Uruguay —  Some world leaders live in palaces. Then there is José Mujica, the former guerrilla who is Uruguay’s president. He lives in a run-down house on Montevideo’s outskirts with no servants at all. His security detail: two plainclothes officers parked on a dirt road.

GOALS-DREAMS-FANTASIES-POWER-FAME-LEGACY

Hillary Clinton has been starving to be President for 20 years. Finally, she was ready for 2016. Then she had food poisoning, fainted, hit her head, got a blood clot, and could have died, or been in a coma forever.....Life and dreams are so temporary and as fragile as snowflakes. Plan for the future. if all goes as you want (which it won't), but live in the moment (because that is all we really have)....If you don't love, create, experience, and contribute something positive to society now, there may not be another chance....and if there is another chance later, you will be a different person.

IS ANYONE THERE?

Dear Readers, whomever you may be,
if there are readers,

I've experimented with the 21st Century for 12 years,
and I still don't get the point.....

NEW YEAR 2013, TAIPEI, TAIWAN

2-MILLION PEOPLE WATCHING PEACEFULLY....no crime, no drunken fights, lines waiting patiently for toilets, lots of food & drinks, free all night concert with top singing stars, subways going everywhere all night every 2-4 minutes, dozens of almost free buses direct to main train station, cheerful friends, loving couples.... Only in Taiwan, unique, imperfect heaven on Earth....Be Proud!