Shameless Plug #11: Gallery installs Eunice Kennedy Shriver portrait

Gallery installs Eunice Kennedy Shriver portrait – BostonHerald.com

It’s a good painting – meticulousiy rendered but not overwrought. I love the fact that this is a portrait of a woman who doesn’t need to be flattered. Her face shows all the pain and joy of living 87 years. It’s wonderful to see a portrait reveal something about a person’s interests and achievements instead of just their appearance.

It’s now on view at the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, DC (hence the shameless plug).

Tags: life, portrait, museum, NationalPortrait Gallery, painting, portraiture, culture, Washington

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How Now, Wench? Talking Like Shakespeare : NPR

How Now, Wench? Talking Like Shakespeare : NPR

Chicago Mayor Richard Daley declared Thursday “Talk Like Shakespeare” day in honor of the 445th anniversary of William Shakespeare’s birth.

And folks in the Windy City, from fans at Wrigley Field to the aldermen on the City Council, are picking up the Shakespearean lingo.

Great idea! Listen to the podcast to hear Chicagoans brave the bard’s style.

At Wrigley Field, home of the storied baseball team the Chicago Cubs — and to many a Shakespearean-like tragedy, too — beer vender Vince Pavalonis tried a Shakespearean sales pitch.

“To drink or not to drink: That is the question,” yelled Pavalonis, as he sold the local favorite, Ye Olde Style beer.

Tags: culture, life, Shakespeare, fun

 

D.C. Radio’s Last Rock Overturned – washingtonpost.com

Legendary Classic Rock DJ Cerphe Signs Off as WTGB Switches Formats – washingtonpost.com

No more Zeppelin. No more Skynyrd or Tom Petty or Rolling Stones. And not a whole lot more Don Cerphe Colwell, either.

Classic rock and the DJ who brought that music to local radio audiences long before the rock was considered “classic” are both fading from the airwaves. Beginning Monday, Colwell’s station, WTGB (94.7 FM, “The Globe”), will switch to playing contemporary pop tunes. With the demise of the region’s only classic rock outlet, the music that helped transform FM radio into a cultural force in the 1970s will become just another baby boomer memory.

Just 2 years ago I blogged about the new format for 94.7 to “The Globe” featuring classic rock. Lots of goals for a greener more community based station. As I suspected, it didn’t last.

Radio in DC sucks.

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Tags: music, radio, Washington DC, rock, pop, culture, life

 

BBC NEWS | Entertainment | Child star Grimes’ Wonderful Life

BBC NEWS | Entertainment | Child star Grimes’ Wonderful Life

Click the above link to a very interesting interview with Karolyn Grimes. She played Zuzu in the holiday classic film It’s a Wonderful Life.

Here’s a quote from the intro:

Grimes was Bailey’s six-year-old daughter Zuzu and uttered the now immortal closing line: “Teacher says every time a bell rings an angel gets his wings.”

Her Hollywood career was brought to an end in her early teens with the death of her parents, which led to her being sent away to live with her “mean” aunt.

She became a medical technician but experienced more tragedy with the death of several close family members, including the suicide of her son.

But since being “rediscovered” by a journalist in the 1980s, she has travelled the world as an unofficial ambassador for It’s A Wonderful Life – a film, she has since discovered, that has brought comfort to many a person, including herself.

I love this film and never tire of it. It’s one of the finest Christmas films but not because it takes place at Christmas. It’s about the good in everyone and the potential of every human life. However, it didn’t shy away from showing the meanness in people, too.

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Tags: Christmas, film, Capra, holidays, movies, It’sa Wonderful Life, interview, BBC

 

Laura Marling – Another great musician on the rise

Mercury Music Prize nominee Laura Marling is learning to swim – Times Online

I downloaded Laura Marling’s EP My Manic and I last April and got the CD Alas I Cannot Swim earlier this month. She’s a singer/songwriter of incredible talent. She has a seemingly simple folk style and her lyrics are complex – especially for an 18-year-old. Her talent has not gone unnoticed. She’s been nominated for this year’s Mercury Music Prize in the UK.

Check out the video below and her music on iTunes or at her official site.

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Tags: LauraMarling, music, singer/songwriter, folk, culture

 

Waterfalls Display Opens on Harbor – City Room – Metro – New York Times Blog

Waterfalls Display Opens on Harbor – City Room – Metro – New York Times Blog

So, I missed The Gates in 2005. I will probably miss this one, too. Can I really justify a trip to NYC to see these waterfalls?
They look so cool. Only in New York City – right? DC never has cool stuff. Sure we have the Smithsonian and lots of formal buildings and pretty gardens but we never get stuff like this. DC is covered in tourist and yet we are boring.

Check out the official site to see photos of all the installations and their construction.

Tags: Waterfalls, NewYork City, art, culture,

 

Robert Rauschenberg, Titan of American Art, Is Dead at 82 – New York Times

Robert Rauschenberg, Titan of American Art, Is Dead at 82 – New York Times

I know, why do I keep blogging obituaries? I only pick people I think are interesting or important to me. Rauschenberg is important — to me. His work has always fascinated and intrigued me and sometimes repelled me. Painter, printmaker, sculptor, and photographer – he did it all and combined it all. He broke rules right and left and I loved him for it. Break the boundries, blur the lines and accept accidents and inspirations.

“I usually work in a direction until I know how to do it, then I stop,” he said in an interview in the giant studio on Captiva in 2000. “At the time that I am bored or understand — I use those words interchangeably — another appetite has formed. A lot of people try to think up ideas. I’m not one. I’d rather accept the irresistible possibilities of what I can’t ignore.”

He added: “Anything you do will be an abuse of somebody else’s aesthetics. I think you’re born an artist or not. I couldn’t have learned it. And I hope I never do because knowing more only encourages your limitations.

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Tags: Rauschenberg, art, artist, culture, life, death

 

NPR: Artists Lament Polaroid’s Latest Development

NPR: Artists Lament Polaroid’s Latest Development

Chuck Close is an American painter who derives his works from photographs. He creates towering — sometimes 10-foot-tall — portraits. Some of those are in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.

Close says he has Polaroids of every painting he has done.

“It’s very discouraging,” Close says.

He says he has probably 2,000 Polaroids.

“I don’t know what the hell I’m going to do.”

Close likes the incredible detail you get from the large-format film. What’s more, there’s instant gratification: You see that final large image just minutes after you take the shot.

I blogged about the demise of the Polaroid camera a few weeks ago. I had forgotten about Chuck Close and his love affair with Polaroid. There are so many artists like him, too. I hope that some company (like Fujifilm) will take up the film production end so that the existing cameras (like my slide printer) can still be used.

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Tags: camera, technology, Polaroid, rt, culture, photography, NPR, podcast

 

Happy Birthday, Macintosh!

Jan. 24, 1984: Birth of the Cool (Computer, That Is)

I can hardly believe that the Mac is 24 years old! I missed seeing the groundbreaking ad during the Super Bowl but I already knew it was coming. I was one of the few who were already working with the pre-Mac Lisa computer that Apple tentatively introduced the year before. Little did I know then that the Mac would change my career and my life.

I am a graphic designer today because of the Mac. The computer was not the green screened machine that used DOS. It did not intimidate me – it welcomed play and work. I remember using the first release of Pagemaker on my Mac SE with it’s dual disc drives and 20MB hard drive. I was constantly popping out the discs to save or use other features. I also remember playing the first version of SimCity on the 9-inch grey screen – often going on until 3am!

I know the iPod has done wonders for Apple – it really brought Apple products to a different audience – but it’s the computer that is the staple of my world. From my G5 at home to my G5 at work (dual displays on both), the Mac will always be a part of my life.

Thanks, Apple!

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Tags: Apple, Mac, computers, design, revolution, life, culture, 1984

 

NPR : Bugs Bunny: The Trickster, American Style

NPR : Bugs Bunny: The Trickster, American Style

Bugs Bunny derived pleasure from driving people crazy. And that, Sutherland concludes, may be why he lasts. He doesn’t seem like a character of the ’40s, but rather a character of today. His wisecracking, gender-bending, anti-authority antics broke ground long before punk rock, or David Bowie, or Jerry Seinfeld. He’s impossible to pin down in any specific sense.

Sutherland believes the only way to truly describe Bugs Bunny is to simply show one of the cartoons, point at the rascally rabbit and say, “Him, in toto, not in parts. From high opera to bullfights, Shakespeare to Brooklyn, from man to woman … he is all of those, and none.”

Bugs is the best!

Click on the link to read the hold article and hear the podcast – complete with audio. There is also a link to a bit of video called “Long Haired Hare” (1949) when Bugs impersonates Leopold Stokowski.

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Tags: humor, funny, Bugs Bunny, cartoon, culture, NPR, podcast