The best advice I can give you going into Sherlock Holmes is to leave all preconceived notions of the iconic sleuth at the theater door. Director Guy Ritchie and crew have revamped the character, and for better or worse, have given us one helluva ride to close out 2009.

Our new Sherlock is a specimen. He’s rough, he physical and he’s mesmerizing. Downey’s take on the character is a breath of fresh air into a man we all thought we knew. Sherlock Holmes has been thought of as composed, thoughtful and diligent – essentially everything Downey’s incarnation is not.

The film opens with Holmes (Downey) and his assistant Dr. Watson (Jude Law) catching the killer Lord Blackwood, who’s murdered five women, thus closing the book on their final case together. But when Blackwood rises from the grave after being hanged, Holmes and Watson are drawn into the case once more.

As the duo weave their way through the shadows of secret societies and dark magic, they soon realize that Blackwood’s miraculous resurrection might not be what it seems. Along the way, they must deal with Irene Adler (Rachel McAdams), a mysterious damsel from Holmes’ past and her connection with the matters at hand. They also must sift through an ever growing trail of dead bodies that Blackwood leaves in his wake and piece together the clues each leaves behind to create a jagged images of what Blackwood is planning.

What Holmes and Watson come to find out is that Blackwood’s lust for power and domination literally knows no bounds and they must race to stop the devilish specter before he carries out his most sinister plan to date. That leads them to the doors of Parliament.

Holmes is one of the most fun movies to hit the big screen this year. It definitely has its flaws, but what it lacks in some areas, it more than makes up for it elsewhere. The biggest complaint I had with the film was that it lagged pretty hard for about seven minutes in the middle. Other than that, it was wonderful to see this new creation of Holmes Richie and Downey constructed.

This is by far Richie’s best outing in years. For the first time in his feature film career, he left the screenwriting duties to someone else and focused solely on directing and it served him well. Ritchie has matured as a filmmaker, yet held tight to the style that had him famous. In Holmes, he’s able to harness Downey’s charm, Law’s loyalty and McAdams’ sultriness and deliver a very entertaining flick.

Downey delivers yet another great performance as Holmes. He deviates from what was expected out from the icon and creates something that’s completely his own. It’s nice to see a character who is almost debilitated by his keen sense of observation and the difficulties it causes in his life, such as dinner out with friends.

What made this film work was the chemistry between Downey and Law. You had to believe these gentlemen had been together for years, standing true at each other’s sides and it’s simple to do. They’re able to bounce lightning quick dialogue off each another and are as comfortable together other as a well-worn deerstalker.

Holmes is much like a scorned lover as Watson attempts to move on with his life with his fiancée and it’s Holmes attempts to keep his assistant by his side that bring some of the heartiest chuckles in the film.

The movie doesn’t end with a hint of a sequel; it blatantly smacks you in the forehead and screams “see ya a year from now.” But after an interesting two hours, it’s welcomed. Even the credits are more entertaining that most films this year.

Ritchie, Downey and Law have given new life to an icon that has long been thought of as stiff and overly intellectual. Downey mixes brains and brawn and delivers a character who is interesting and one we would love to continue being a fly on the wall for his adventures. While the film lags slightly midway through, it fits a lot of story in two hours. A definite must see.

4.5 stars out of 5

Thursday December 24, 2009 By Kevin A. Morrow

Lately I’ve been feeling like reality is changing for the better. Meaning that anything that is potentially holding me back, including limiting beliefs that something is holding me back, are being removed. They’re crumbling like a dry mud ball. It’s quite interesting to observe. I’ve taken extra initiative in my reality that I otherwise would’ve passed off to someone else. My energy is actually raising. I feel more energetic, and now I see things with clarity.

Here is how to see through a stone cold critic. Negative critics make judgments about people. So basically a critic is someone who makes negative judgments or predictions about someone else. Apparently I’ve been my own worst critic.

There is a big difference between a mentor and a critic. A mentor focuses on how to help others improve themselves. A critic cuts them down. A negative critic seems to get a rush from watching people fail. The same rush you may get when you get a correct answer on wheel of fortune .

It’s almost like there’s a satisfaction gained from cutting someone down and watching them fail. It took me a while to understand this. It’s actually simple. It comes from he mind and it’s need to  protect itself. By protecting itself it ensures its way of life.

Here’s what I say to my INNER CRITIC, my negative self defeating thoughts can kiss my $$$.

A critic will say your ideas will never work instead of offering suggestions. Offering suggestions seems more productive to me, but that’s just me . Critics actually play a huge role in creating powerful people and leaders.

How?

By weeding out people who don’t have the courage to be themselves. So when I hear someone saying that they’re worried about me making money, I don’t see it as a negative thing. I see it as them motivating me the way they know how. I have two options when presented with negative criticism.

I can use it as fuel, or I can ignore it. Either way I still have to be courageous enough to stand on my own as who I am. Believing negative criticism from myself and others has kept me in one place. But this is no longer true.

Back to the “You are your worst critic thing.”

Why believe something that doesn’t serve you a positive purpose?

Why believe yourself to be inferior, or incapable of achieving something?

What’s the point?

What’s the purpose?

Now when I hear negative criticism I either use it as fuel or ignore it. Time to be like Neo and stop bullets with my mind.

“It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself for a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat.”

“Citizenship in a Republic,”
Speech at the Sorbonne, Paris, April 23, 1910

I decided to post a couple of very low res pictures of some of the new work I’ve been doing over the past few months.  None of these works are finished, but they’re far enough along that the content should be identifiable.  I tend to work on new drawings and paintings over months to years at a time, so there is no expected time of completion.  Sometimes I don’t even feel like working on a project any further either, so what you see here might be all that will happen.  I hope to continue on these, however.

New Organic Geometrics (2009)

First, this is a return to my organic-geometrics.  I still can make a pretty nice pile o’ floating blocks.  It’s been about six years or so since I really did one of these and it’s nice to see I still have it. Now, if only people cared enough for these to buy them, I’d make a mint.  As one of my old art teachers once said (and I paraphrase), “the shapes, textures, compositions, colors, and techniques are all fantastic, but there is no energy.  If anything, these blocks are an attack on energy.”  He was very correct.  I hope to one day figure out the energy aspect of the work and make these floating shapes exciting and meaningful to the viewer.  At the moment, I think of them more lately as if Rothko made forms.  These are for contemplation, not for shock.  Are they about anything? No – as Francis Bacon once said, painting shouldn’t be “about” anything.  Not that I entirely agree with that, but I think I know what he meant… (there’s a painting joke there somewhere).

You may notice the faded color around the edges – this is only because the final layers of color have not yet been added.  The final step in this process is more color and a bit more water.  I’m waiting to do it though, I don’t quite know why.  Oh, incidentally, this is a soft pastel drawing on arches watercolor paper.  I add some white charcoal for a blending mechanism and spray with water.  Delightful.

Portraint (underpainting)

Second, is a new portrait.  This is intended as an underpainting of the final portrait, thus the blues and reds, but I’ve stopped painting on it at the moment.  I may re-start it.  This is oil paint on hardboard but I was experimenting with oil mediums and the surface is a bit uneven.  This does not show up in the photo, but if you were to touch the surface, you would feel it.  I let it dry a bit so I could work adequately back on top of it, but I waited too long and it pretty much dried completely.  So, this one is pretty much done as is.  If anything, I might hit it with some other material like soft pastel, but that rarely works.  This portrait was also painted from a photo of a model which I hate doing, but once you’ve painted real models, you can usually work from the photos later.  You must always remember, however, that you’re painting a painting, not painting a photo.  The photo should only help remind you of small details your mind may have missed.

"Come, Join the Dance" (2009)

Lastly is this monster of a painting.  I won’t even bother explaining this, but it should be obvious that it is very much incomplete at the moment.  I just wanted to give a small example of where I’m heading with work now.  I started working on this back in October, and have taken a small hiatus from it.  I used walnut and poppy oils on it and some of it is actually still wet after about 1.2 months of a break from it.  I ran out of steam working on it and hope to be renewed in the coming year to finish this thing.  It’s a large separation from what I usually do (see above), and it came out (so far) rather successfully, I think.  Comments from viewers are always appreciated, whether pro or con.

And that’s a few new things for a new year to come.

By CAINE GARDNER, Film Critic

A seemingly dynamite cast headlined by John Travolta, left, and Robin Williams, cannot overcome a wildly uneven script in Walt Becker’s Old Dogs, in theaters now.

Walt Becker’s Old Dogs is a fluffy flick that has some laughs throughout, but suffers greatly from sluggish and very predictable storytelling. It’s a story with peaks and valleys and unfortunately, the valleys win out.
Fresh off his divorce, Dan (Robin Williams) is whisked away to Miami by best bud and business partner Charlie (John Travolta). The duo swim in a sea of liquor, make a stop at the tattoo parlor and meet up with two women.

Dan’s newly tasted freedom is short-lived as he quickly marries Vicki (Kelly Preston) in a booze-fueled fiasco. Coming to his senses, the marriage is annulled and Dan is free to go on with his life as before.

Cut to seven years later and Dan stands on the brink of the biggest business deal of his career when he receives a call from Vicki. As they meet for dinner and Dan believes they might start a new life together — enter his seven-year old fraternal twins Zach (Conner Rayburn) and Emily (Ella Bleu Travolta).

When he learns Vicki must go away for two weeks and the babysitter she had falls through, Dan enlists the help of Charlie and takes on the biggest challenge of his life — caring for his two kids for two weeks. It’s easier said than done.

As the days tick away until Vicki’s return, Dan continues to attempt to be the father they need, but things go wrong at every turn, including a failed camping excursion. Dan finally has a breakthrough with Emily when he’s able to drop his inhibitions and tells her that he’ll always be there for her.

Unfortunately, Dan and Charlie’s Japanese business deal goes south when the liaison they send goes missing and the head of the company wants the duo to finish the project themselves — in Japan. Now Charlie has to make the decision on what is most important — the business deal he’s waited a lifetime for or the two children he just met.

I was surprised at how forced the comedy was in this movie. The times where it flows, the movie is really funny, but for the most part it’s stiff and doesn’t translate to the audience well. Seth Green has some silly moments, but you can only take so much.

While the lead actors have some fine moments, it’s Justin Long as a slightly off-center camper who steals the show. That seems to be Long’s job in Hollywood. The guy slides in, makes those around him look like chumps, and giggles straight to the bank. Don’t be surprised if more people catch on to this and we see Long in around 75 movies next year.

Another choice I think Walt Becker shouldn’t have went with was in a dinner scene, he placed Travolta and his daughter facing each other. Although we know their relationship is in real life, it really hurt the story progression because they look so much alike. It’s hard to accept her as Williams’ daughter after something like that.

In interviews, Travolta, Preston (his wife) and Ella Bleu have spoken about the joy they had being in a movie together and that is the most important thing. A lot of times people, myself included, forget the films are all about fun. Sometimes there’s a message to be taken, but for the most part it’s explosions, hilarious hijinks and super cheesy dialog. Even with that in mind, this movie is a tough sell.

There will be moments in Old Dogs where you will find yourself doubled over with laughter, but those moments are few and far between. The film has cuteness to it, but I think a lot of that credit goes to Ella Bleu. While she isn’t afforded the chance to show much in Dogs, she’s able to show she can kill with her eyes and in acting — that’s half the battle.

2 out of 5 stars

Photographs of people are

often frozen motion -

the moment made eternal.

In nature photography,

the opposite applies …

eternity is frozen and made

into a moment. We are

granted a glimpse of eternity itself.

Gudmundur Andri Thorsson
(1957 -    )

Icelandic author, editor and critic

this book is the result of a group work with a classmate in my MA studies. the brief was to find the elements of postmodernism in graphic artwork (or, or, to give me an ulcer! :P )

Really I don’t think you need an imaginary friend!

Every person goes through good times and bad times. Generally during good times people are less faithful to their respective God’s, but it is when they go through bad times that they need a shoulder to cry on and that is God!

People need reassurance during their bad times that there is some light at the end of the tunnel even if there is none, religion and the imaginary friends provide ample assurance of this non-existent light. I am not saying believing in it is bad but if you can believe in yourself and expect something good will come if you do good is a better thing than false promises!

Let’s take one example, if a farmer has a good harvest he thanks God for it but if there are natural calamities and his farm is destroyed by floods, storms; he for some reason does not blame God. If what I have heard is true then God controls or has the ability to control everything so if a faithful religious, practicing, God fearing, earnest, hardworking, and honest farmer has not done anything bad and his farm is destroyed by floods or storms which are the creation of God then why does he not blame God? Not only that he does not blame God but he prays for everything to be fixed in anyway what so ever to the same person/God that destroyed it in the first place.

Example two: They say if you commit a sin and really ask for forgiveness/repent for the sin you have committed God can forgive you. Lets see now, if a person kills another and then repents for it then God should be able to save him right or pardon him but the judicial system in any country would sentence him to prison or even the gallows depending on the severity of the case. So why was not God able to save him, yeah some are going to say his soul will go to heaven or hell based on how God judged him but do you have proof, do you know what it feels like to be hanged or be behind bars for 10, 50, 100 years; no right? So I would assume that the all powerful God as some say is not so powerful or not even existent!

Example three: When a criminal or person with a bad rapport with community gets in some accident and gets hospitalized everyone will say it is an act of God. He gets out of hospital and is paralyzed waist down, which is the result for non-belief and for being a non-God fearing person. He gets all religious and becomes a faithful follower of God and everyone says God will forgive him and that he will go to heaven. All these are unacceptable points of views but for the sake of argument I will accept them. But what sin has a child done, when he/she is born with Down syndrome or is paralyzed waist down? What is God punishing them for?

I will stop with these for now.. but the list for not having an imaginary friend seems endless!

The Christmas special!

The end of the year is here and with it Christmas, so we’ve put together a bumper WebGun!

Summary: It’s our Christmas 2009 special featuring guests Dave and Nam where we find a bunch of sites that tenuously relate to presents and the festive season: the race for Christmas no.1 with Tune Checker; Photoshop for all with Pixlr; old men’s clothes at Peter Christian; and the web takes on Tiger Woods in the Real LOL. Plus tab-ophobia and cracker jokes!

Subscribe/Download: if you want a copy of this you can keep and to be automatically updated when we release a new show, go find WebGun at the lovely iTunes store. Please rate it too!

Look what can be achieved with the wonders of the PIXLR editor

Safiye Mine, (seni bundan sonra böyle anmak lazım, çok hoş yaşamak için çalışmak yerine çalışmak için yaşamayı tercih etmiş bir sanatçı. Bakış açınız böyle olunca, sanatçı olarak izleyici ile didişmek yerine, konuyla didişmeyi ve ürettiğinizi paylaşmayı başarıyorsunuz. Safiye Mine’yi her hangi bir kulvara yerleştirmek son derece zor, zira anlatım tarzı zamana, ışığa, gündelik deneyimlerine ve rüyalarına göre sürekli olarak değişiyor, yenileniyor. Ancak değişmeyen samimi bir anlatım ve ilk bakış da gizemli olduğunu sandığınız ama son derece yalın bir ifade gücü.Bu ifade gücü izleyiciyi resmin  içine çekmeyi başarıyor, kendinizi sorgulamaya başlıyorsunuz. Aslında kökeni şamanik bir geçmişe kadar uzandığı için ortak belleğimiz de varolan, şu kafamızı çok karıştıran mistik dünyamıza bir kapı açılıyor. Girmek için arzu duyuyorsunuz, öte yandan bilinmezin korkusu içinde gözleriniz başka yere kaçırıyorsunuz. Benim için Safiye Mine’nin son çalışmaları lise son sınıfta ki karnem gibi, büyüklerime göstermekten korktuğum, yaşıtlarıma gururla gösterdiğim ama gerçeğin ta kendisi olduğu için kabullenmek de zorlandığım halimin düz bir alana muzipçe, hınzırca indirgenmiş hali.

Ayhan Uçmaklı

Note from the Author

This is a song I wrote about seeing a lot of things wrong with the world, with myself, and with others.  I want to see change in people’s hearts, mine included.  To see some things change that aren’t necessarily radical behavior shifts, but rather a realistic change of heart: like seeing the moon during the day time.

- Dalton Greiner

Listen to ‘Pale White Moon’

_______________

Pale White Moon

Take a look around; what do you see?
A crowd of distant faces, similar looks of pain
It all looks the same, it all looks the same
We are breathing but we’re not alive

I’d like to see a pale white moon painted
On a bright blue backdrop
To see something out of the ordinary

I can point the finger all I want
But nothing’s going to change
Unless I turn it around and point
It back at me.  Point it back at me.

Change us!
Change me!
Break down this barrier that suffocates
Remove all that hinders, let us run the race marked out for us

I’d like to see a blazing fire light up
The dark black night sky
To see shadows fade, and Light prevail

_

Music & Lyrics by Dalton Greiner

Now that the initial ‘write until you get everything onto the page’ phase is over, my inner editor is clapping gleefully and bouncing on the balls of her feet, waiting to be let out of the closet. I locked her in the closet with some Hallowe’en chocolate and a DVD player when I began my NaNoWriMo adventure all those weeks ago.

At first she resisted. She fought, throwing herself bodily against the door, screaming that I needed her, that I was nothing without her. There were times when I almost listened to her. I even recall approaching the door with trembling fingers, ready to let her whip out her red pen and rip my heart and soul to shreds. Fortunately, I was able to restrain myself and I left her to her Mars Bars and reruns of House.

Now, however, she’s chuckling and tapping gleefully on the door, and I am ready to let her pounce. She has forgiven me for her incarceration, and is willing to collaborate with me in the destruction (I mean editing) of my manuscript. The one thing she’s not too thrilled about is I am going to make her wait. I am going to take a week and ignore my novel. I will come back to it next weekend (perhaps Friday if she asks nicely).

Never fear, dear readers, I will not be sitting idly in front of the TV watching reruns – I will be amusing myself with some short stories and fun, fluffy pieces that will keep me entertained but will never see the light of day.

From beyond the keyboard,

Cheryl.

cherylangst@gmail.com

I like Gladwell because he writes about subjects i find interesting and he is a talented story teller. By now, I enjoyed reading  Blink and Outliers and some of the articles published in What The Dog Saw (Kottke: Links to What the Dog Saw).

A popular author (Mitch Joel calls him a rock star), his work covers subjects like the phenomena of word of mouth (The Tipping Point), intuition (Blink), success (Outliers), quarterbacks and dog whispers (What the dog saw) .

I believe that the debate about his work and its accuracy makes is valuable. It highlights the importance of critical thinking and some of the limits that journalism has versus pure science work. (Watts, Pinsker, Pinsker 2, Fake Gladwell on Christmas).

Did you like what I did there?  I’m using a postmodern style of titling to set up a discourse on postmodernism in the contemporary arts.  I even used the word “discourse” in the previous sentence – very postmodern.  In fact, this manner of writing, whereby I talk directly to you, the reader, is exactly one of the many problems with the postmodern movement: a lack of consistency and structure, and a shift in attachment to works from a universal general detachment to a directly personal, seemingly identity-building attachment between artist and reader with the work forming only a momentary adhesive.  Some readers, you perhaps, will find the way I am writing right now to be invasive, irritating, and downright insulting.  Other readers, you perhaps (which you?), will find the way I am writing right now to be caring, direct, connecting, and unpretentious – a place where you too can speak with me, not against or under me.  Writers, painters, choreographers, dancers, actors, sculptors, and so on, work in this direct style now for a number of reasons, one of which we’ll highlight here:  Fear in a consumerist production society.

Tori Amos performed a live Facebook concert Friday afternoon.  It was amazing.  I am only going to discuss the postmodernisms within her work though, not the concert itself.  I was alerted to the finite differences between Tori’s older music, newer music, and newest music by a colleague of mine who is a much bigger fan of Tori’s ensemble than I.  But I agree – Tori’s music has always been exactly what postmodernism is supposed to be: a break from tradition (such as modernism), with a firm base of tradition (structure), with an attempt to create new things for a mass audience but at a personal level for individual audience members (postmodernism).  Postmodernism, then, is not simply a movement, but a dialogue still continuing from what the modernists were doing.  The postmodernist ought to struggle to discover new ways of doing old things in a way which is meaningful and not simply done to do it, or not in an anti-meaning sort of way (cf Beatniks).  In a contemporary, globalizing, mass-media, consumerist sort of world, we strive to find things which have lasting meaning to us, but we ought to find those things which could have meaning to others as well.  My grandmother’s freezer has been working fantastically since the 1940s.  It’s not really an antique, but people today would classify it as old or antique anyway.  Instead of taking the freezer one day, most of my family will probably just want to throw it out and get a new one or sell it.  This is unfortunate as the freezer is huge and works like a charm.  There’s no need to replace the thing and lots of people in my family have memories attached to it.  In fact, I would claim that if any family had a freezer like this (a huge trunk-type freezer you could fit a small cow in whole), you would also have memories and meaning instantly created.  This need to replace with the new is a salient cultural feature of suburban Americans, but where does this behavior lead?  An inability to ascribe meaning to things due to the fleeting feelings attached to purchased consumer goods.  Essentially, if the thing does not strike a personal chord with me, there’s no point in the thing’s existence.  We’ve reversed meaning!  We are our own Emperors and Empresses needing our decrees to be followed by the rest; self-made monarchies of absolutism.  It’s no wonder personal prosperity theologies are so dangerously dominant here…

I’ve been watching OVAT lately again.  This past week and all next week they’re doing a “Battle of the Nutcrackers” fan-choice contest.  The whole idea that contests allow fans to vote is ridiculous anyway.  Fans vote on what they’re given, and what they’re given dictates what the fans will enjoy, so having a fan-choice is simply a reaffirmation for the creators of the pop-culture non-sense.  Always remember, they care nothing for you, only your money.  Anyway, the week started off well with the Bolshoi Ballet classical production of the Nutcracker.  Critically speaking, there were some small faults that I blame on postmodern dancers, but all in all it was fantastic.  Last night was the Bejart Nutcracker.  I was excited for another rendition of the ballet, so I sat patiently and waited.  I was instantly punched in the nuts.  Apparently, Bejart used the Nutcracker (or selected aspects of it) to tell his own life story consisting of an estranged pseudo-sexual relationship with his mother, his own sex and gender identity problems, and his genius-ness of dance choreography.  Directly, this is utter bullshit.  This is what we tend to find as postmodernism today: entirely self-interested diarrhea of word and art, self-aggrandizing – making our personal monarchy public.  Bejart himself even appears in the ballet on a giant black and white monitor over the stage, narrating his life as the dancers dance parts of the Nutcracker.  Bejart has taken a classical work – which works quite well still, see the Bolshoi – and turned it into a tool and medium to talk about himself in a grandiose way.  What an asshole!  My criticism: Had this nutjob simply used some of his contemporary symbolism to add a modern depth or alteration to the ballet, it could be tolerated, possibly enjoyed.  Less is more!  Who was the audience for this? I can only guess 1,500 community college students believing that this is somehow fine art.  Did we forget what that “fine” part of fine art is for?  Refinement!  After a few millennia of dance, you would think this wouldn’t be a problem, but there it is.  When did we, as a world-wide culture, begin to care one bit about one person’s struggle of life?  That statement might make me sound heartless, but as an artist, I can say nothing else.  Mr. Bejart, art isn’t about you, no one cares.  You need to produce art that is about my experience, his experience, her experience – something which folks can relate to.  Having dance-sex with your mother, supported by two drag-queen Faustian angel-fairies on a public stage is art only as a criticism attacking other post-modern art which tries to do the same thing but less well.  If the point of Bejart’s work is to criticize postmodernism, then it is brilliant although needs to be more clear that this is the intent.  Thus, I believe the guy is serious and therefore fails.  I was ashamed for the dancers while watching this mess.  I can’t blame the dancers, they need jobs, but I’d like to know how many went home later and cried.

Due to my crap training in writing, I can’t help but to write also in a rant-style postmodern method.  Although I do know it when I see it.  Luckily, this blog was never designed as a completely professional publication so I can break my structure a bit and rant.  At least I know when I can and can not.  Tori, do a Nutcracker.

As heard in on Clear Channel Stations in the Chicagoland area  – The Reel Critic, Reggie Ponder is back with this week’s reviews.

Up next – Disney’s The Princess and The Frog

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Bias nature can negatively impact contemporary criticism and stunt the intellectual experimentation and exploration. To understand this first I would like to define an underlying truth of art known as subjectivism. Merriam-Webster’s Online Dictionary defines subjectivism as “a theory that limits knowledge to subjective experience.” This limitation draws the idea that reality is variable and dependent on the viewer. Likewise a viewer’s interpretation of reality is variably different form the next person. Everyone experiences events differently. Professor Alan Dean states, in Chaos and Intoxication: Complexity and adaption in the structure of human nature, “Despite the fact that the structures of the brain which give rise to conceptual abilities and self-consciousness arise at the level of species, there is no uniformity between individuals. [...] In consequence it can be asserted with confidence that no two individuals will experience the external world in exactly the same way.” Gallery patrons greatly display this natural occurrence. For a moment, imagine a painting of a bottle of alcohol on a table opened with a glass that is nearly emptied as well as obviously been drank out of. One may perceive the work to be about alcoholism, where the next may see it as a celebratory metaphor and another may see it as a religious iconography. Many artists count on this nature while others attempt to clarify their intention. Regardless our pasts are all individually unique and affect our interpretations. Thus reactions to any given piece will never be identitical even though they may seem quite close. Many artists have come across this concept and many may also be contemplating its affect. Typically subjectivism is simply understood as natural in the art world yet isn’t really explored. Contemporary artists find themselves concerned with innovative ideas, individuality, and uniqueness while still trying to convey an idea or emotional expression.
However, this is where the fault comes. Artists and critics all have their own perspective and bias appreciations. What one sees as value or greatness in a piece may seem like rubbish to another. When in an academic setting the professors have their own biases. This is human nature. Unfortunately students are affected just as artists are with critics. An artist may choose to disregard suggestive criticisms but at what cost? The acceptance in a show or the good grade towards graduation becomes all to tempting. This is one of the greatest problems I see in Contemporary Art today. To be a successful artist one must generally adhere to the standards of current art appreciation. There is no real rulebook to this or even a general understanding of what makes god art. This is of course because subjectivism establishes are unique interests. Yet we try anyway for the sake of acceptance. There is a threshold then that an artist will cross that diverts their own thought process to that of one influenced and manipulated by others. For example: An artist begins exploring works based on social behavior of migratory birds. When critically analyzed by a professor or critic suggestions are made. Hypothetically a common critique is given about color usage and physical body of paint. The artist then seeks a greater appreciation of their work so further investigation of the color and body takes place. This draws focus away from the primary research the artist was exploring. I am not saying the advice may have been useful yet it does disrupt the thought process. To often I see artists distracted by the process and fail to see the fruits or their own research. If we all continue to take bias influence we end up with variations of similar ideas and begin to practice art rather than explore it. It may sound cliché but would Leonardo Da’Vinci, Jackson Pollock, Pablo Picasso, or many of our great predecessors be very interesting or praised if they had yielded so strongly to the contemporary movement of the time? We can clearly see bias nature as greatly influential and potentially harmful. Next time I will discuss contemporary art concepts and the definition of current interests.

To Whom It May Concern,

Who do you think you are?

My voice is that of Dr. Dita.  My posts will be the Disgruntled Rantings of a Director In The Audience of the theatre.  To be more precise: the audience of American theatre in New York City.

There is a reason I have started this blog:  I am pained by attending the theatre (yet though not the point, I love making theatre).   Also, after recently attained my MFA in Directing theatre, I am vaguely aware of the issues and neglects begun in theatre education and nurtured in the inherently cautious professional world of theatre.  Theatre is an art which can only be accomplished with the help of other people.  Therefore professionals (myself included) have to be careful what they say and who they say it to.  This leads to a complacency in the art form, neglecting to verbally acknowledge flaws both in process and in performance.

Sadly this need for discretion has forced me to create this blog in anonymity.  I’m sure at some point my identity will be discovered but I hope by then this blog will have inspired practitioners to not be afraid of being vocal and not settle for mediocre.  If in the end this has had some positive impact on the art I love, I’ll accept what comes.

What gives you the right?

I am not a theatre critic.  I do not intend — though it may happen on occasion — to directly review the shows that I find myself sitting before.  I will rather use the issues I see wrong with shows to spur commentary entries about the problems with amateur and more importantly, professional theatre practitioners.

While not necessarily imbibing me with the right nor authority, my compulsion to create this blog has been born out of a distain for the general point of view expressed by American professional theatre critics.  To me they are those who recognize their job is not to critique theatre to make it better but rather to guide potential audience members to shows “worth” the ticket price.  But I believe this is only encouraging the mediocre.

What’s the point?

Broadway shows for whom the director has phoned in the staging and after opening night the actors are phoning in their performances get thumbs up from the critics because there’s a Hollywood star in the lead role or the lighting design is particularly novel or the sets do some new physics defying thing.  Certainly there is a need for audiences to know whether or not $100 of their own money is worth spending 2+ hours in a show they may well sleep through if it weren’t for the pyrotechnics.  But isn’t there also a need for someone to let lazy directors, performers, playwrights, and/or designers know that they can’t get away with continuing to be so, regardless of who they are or who they know?  Wouldn’t theatre be able to bounce back from dwindling audience attendance if someone was endlessly begging it and guiding it to be better than it is?

I don’t believe I’m the only one who can spot when a playwright has written an unfocused, overwritten, dissertation on something only pertinent to themselves and a select few audience members who all can therefore get passed the lazy dialogue and cliched characters.  I can’t be the only one who is bothered by a director whose staging doesn’t clarify any concept within the text or the director who manages to obscure the text and the story by imposing their own “theatricality” onto it to make sure the audience leaves the theatre talking about “the direction.”  Surely we can all spot an actor who hasn’t a clue as to what he/she is saying nor why, or that actor who reveals no further truth about the human condition than what is contained in a well provided text.  And lest we forget those set, lighting, costume, and prop designers who seem to have all worked on different productions and only come together at the last minute before the audience arrives — do you think they notice none of it works together?

And what conscious audience member can leave the theatre having enjoyed the evening after watching the playwright, director, actors, designers all battling it out to be the “star” of the production having forgotten this simple fact: the best night of theatre comes from all involved working together to create something bigger and more poignant than themselves.

As an effort to remind (or sadly awaken in some cases) theatre artists to their greatest goal, I have started this blog… for better or worse.

-Dr. Dita

Perry Noble, lead vocalist pastor of NewSpring Church, says that the Christian who wants to go deeper into God’s Word is a “jackass.” He also quotes John Maxwell telling us the following pietistic foolishness that supposedly “most Christians are educated way beyond their level of obedience anyway.”source

Click PERRY NOBLE SAYS YOU’RE A JACKASS to be read the whole article by Pastor Ken Silva

The lovely Kama over at the queer behind the mirror tagged me in his blog post about his recent food indulgences, asking me to reveal my own guilty pleasure. A few years ago, I’d have easily been able to point a finger to my chocolate-covered-almond habit, which saw me eating crazy amounts of these candies almost everyday. But I haven’t done that in ages, nor even eaten to the point of overfullness in recent memory. Even though I wasn’t consciously struggling with it, I still consider this an achievement, because I have a history of filling myself with food when feeling out of sorts.

Anyway.

What are my current guilty pleasures?

Well, I indulge in a love for Beyonce, despite (or because of) her pop sound. But then, a passion for dancing to this music has boomeranged around my social circle from ironic affection to admitted fandom, eliminating any guilt since most of my friends feel the same way.

How about sex? There’s nothing juicy to reveal about carnal interactions in my relationship, because though there is much pleasure, I feel no guilt. Oh, aside from the guilt over occasional loudness that no doubt can be heard by the neighbours: I honestly feel bad about that, but it’s less an indulgence and more an accident. Since they read this blog, let’s make this is my very public apology.

What else could I offer up? Television. After deciding that I was too punk for teevee as a teenager, I stopped watching it. This self-imposed ban began crumbling a couple years ago, when after the third week in my new house, I realized that we had cable (I don’t know what I’d thought my roommates had been watching… A lot of CBC?). That winter I made up for lost time, consuming a million episodes of CSI and discovering my love for What Not To Wear.

Yes, that’s pretty much the height of my guilty pleasures: I adore a horrible show in which people’s wardrobes are made over in an attempt to provide them with a new lease on life. Even as it makes me angry because there’s no gender diversity, little racial diversity, and nothing said about how appearance and class privilege are intertwined, I could watch this television show for hours.

And I have. In fact, I’m already a little sad, because there’s always a WNTW marathon around the winter holidays, and I don’t know anyone with cable. I will no doubt spend at least some of my upcoming free time searching the streaming and bit-torrent downloads websites, looking for a fix. It’s not so much entertainment as it is therapy, mindless and easy and comforting. I don’t like shopping, I’m not particularly fashionable or interested in clothing, but I do like style. More than anything, I like the reassurance that even at my most boring jeans-and-black-tshirts for days on end, I’m not a candidate for a WNTW intervention.

Now I want to hear about the guilty pleasures of Miz Moffatt, Peaball, and airbeans…. Consider yourselves tagged!

It’s hard to imagine how all those amazing Disney films, not to mention the theme parks, were the brainchild of a single man. How could a single person be responsible for all of that? Well the truth is there wasn’t just one Walt Disney. There were three.

“there were actually three different Walts: the dreamer, the realist, and the spoiler. You never knew which one was coming into your meeting”
Disney Animator

Walt Disney’s simple, yet incredibly successful, strategy for creative development, was founded on an ability to assume three different roles – dreamer, realist, and critic – each of which involved a particular type of thinking and action.

Disney the Dreamer could visualise extraordinary scenarios, for new business projects, as well as animated films. In Dreamer mode, Disney had the ability to immerse himself in his imagination, to the exclusion of everything else.

“What I see way off is too nebulous to describe. But it looks big and glittering. That’s what I like about this business, the certainty that there is always something bigger and more exciting just around the bend; and the uncertainty of everything else”
Walt Disney

Disney wasn’t just a creative thinker. He made things happen. Disney the Realist had a phenomenal ability to motivate and co-ordinate teams of diverse workers to bring his dreams to life. He brought the necessary perspiration to the Dreamer’s imagination.

“Our success was built by hard work and enthusiasm, integrity of purpose, a devotion to our medium, confidence in its future, and, above all, by a steady day-by-day growth in which we all simply studied our trade and learned”
Walt Disney

Disney the Critic subjected every piece of work to rigorous scrutiny.

“every foot of rough animation was projected on the screen for analysis, and every foot was drawn and redrawn until we could say, ‘This is the best we can do.’ We had become perfectionists…”
Walt Disney

The key point here for anyone in the creative business, is that it’s not just about the roles themselves, it’s when to play them, or more importantly not to play them. Many a great creative (dreamer) have had their ideas shot down before they had a chance to fly by allowing the critic to enter the room/mind too early. Equally as frustrating is the dreamer, who doesn’t know when to call in the realist, and ends up with a lot of unrealized ideas. As Robert B. Dilts describes in Strategies of Genius: Volume 1, creativity as a total process involves the coordination of these three subprocesses. Striking the right balance between dreamer, realist and critic was Disney’s real skill.

Dilts goes onto to recommend anyone wanting to adopt Disney’s creative strategy, set up three physically separate areas or rooms, one for each role, and firstly spend so time in each room, getting the feel for that particular role. That is, spend time in the Dreamer Room and recall how it feels dream up creative ideas, so as to retain that feeling each time one was in that room or playing that role, in effect strengthening the character and integrity of that role – and so on for the Realist and Critic Room. In reality it is not necessary to have three real rooms, just be able to isolate the type of thinking associated with that role. Lastly remember it’s not a linear process, rather iterative, and cyclical, continually consulting each role independently, ever enhancing the idea till the critic finally becomes silent and you have the perfect idea.

Review – Peter Ricci – FlixCritic writer

If you love Ninja’s, karate, and the ancient art of the mystical and mysterious life behind the life of a ninja then this movie is it, well patricianly. What we really mean to say is the film is straight up action, blood, guts and gore with a minimal storyline. The film drenched with repetitive action sequences, CGI blood splatters and a sexy ninja then this movie is it. Assassins is geared for the dudes, the guys who are still in high school, into karate, numb-chucks, flying daggers, knives on chains and warrior combat.

I haven’t seen this much blood since last years, “My Bloody Valentine.” It’s your basic splatter film, but I don’t think the movie would have sold well as that. It’s gritty, raw and extremely graphic when it comes to the multiple killing scenes. Continue reading review