29 September 2006

Maurice Denis, "Easter Mystery", 1891


I don't know my Bible very well, it seems, since I leapt from Easter to Easter egg hunt, as if that's really what Easter is: an excuse to hide eggs from children.

So of course Maurice Denis painted a disembodied hand taunting white-robed egg seekers with the missing egg. Of course he did.

Except that apparently that's the hand of God, and he's presenting the Eucharist, and I don't think we're supposed to think he's taunting anyone with it.

This is what happens when dopey unbelievers interpret religious art. The mystery and wonder of the Resurrection morphs into a bitter suburban American nightmare of fed-up soccer parents dressing their children in robes, hiding in trees, and wagging eggs in the air. April is the cruelest month in middle class mainstream America, after all.

Of course, my picture cuts off the tomb and the women on their knees at its door; hey, I thought they were searching the grass for their eggs.

But the Easter/egg connection is quite old, it seems, old enough that Mary Magdalene is said to have presented the Emperor of Rome with a red egg to inform him of the Resurrection and the bloodshed of Christ, etc. So for real, Denis might've painted an egg here, and I might be more informed than I thought.

I quite love Denis and his gently gothic-mystery forest scenes, with their robed women fleeing or striding or moseying around. He is Emily Bronte crossed with M. Night Shyamalan.

But this truly is the Worst. Hand of God. Ever. Michaelangelo, he ain't.

27 September 2006

Sunday Afternoon on the Island of...holy crap, that's a lot of dots


I was in Chicago this past weekend, so I got took a good long gander at Georges Seurat's masterpiece. There sure are a lot of dots on that thing. It's so carefully built -- imagine if we really were characters in this painting, and we had to stand at right angles at all times. Unless we were a dog or a monkey.

I don't know about you, but I too like to take my monkey out for walks in the park, especially when I'm wearing my enormous bustle.

You never really know a painting until you see it in person (well, that's not true. For some, like Lichtensteins, I don't think it matters that much. But let's pretend this is true), and this one has a fabulous surprise in its painted purply border. The museum placard says Seurat added the border to help the eye make the transition to his custom-designed white frame, which they've replicated. (They being the Art Institute of Chicago.)

You almost never see that border in reproductions of the painting, which seems like a refutation of Seurat's intentions. I would imagine he'd like it there to lead the eye out to the white of the page of an art book, as well.

And so our eyes go unled, dazzled by orderly dots and skittering out to a chaotic 360 degree world.

I took a painting class once where we were forced to complete a pointillist painting, and boy did everyone hate doing it. It is profoundly unsatisfying. It feels like an obsessive compulsive exercise designed to force you to exert control over your own animal impulses and desires.

No wonder Seurat dropped dead at 31; he must've been exhausted.

26 September 2006

"Hiny Hiders"


I swear that I'm not obsessed with public restrooms. I never intended to post even one toilet-related entry, let alone two.

But while I was charmed and delighted by Rest Assured, I just can't get behind (ha!) this one. This is a shot from the bathrooms at O'Hare airport of the latch on the stall, which reads "Hiny Hiders", by a Scanton, PA company called Santana Products. As a native Pennsylvanian, I say No. (Imagine that said in a Philadelphia accent. How about, "No, and get me a glass of wudder.")

No to this name. The product -- toilet partitions for public restrooms, is fine; nay, necessary and desireable. But Hiny Hiders is not cute or appropriate; it's just gross. It's trying too hard to be adorable, and I don't want my scatalogically-associated partitions to be adorable. Rest Assured is a practical name that happens to be funny. Hiny Hiders is a joke that falls flat.

And it's spelled wrong. We each have a hiney, not a hiny.

Are cutsie-poo (ha!) names a weird byproduct (ha!) of the professional toiletries business? If so, that's crap. (HA HA!)

I don't even want to know what the cleaning lady thought as she heard me taking a picture from inside my stall.

Also, O'Hare toilet seats are covered with an automated plastic wrap that changes itself between uses. It's like the toilet makes you wear a diaper. It is unaccountably disgusting.

Also, I've noticed that the new restrooms on the beach at Playa Del Rey have NO STALL DOORS. NOT A SINGLE COMPLETE HINY HIDER. What the hell is a no-door multi-stall bathroom about? Who are the sick voyeurs who designed that mess?

20 September 2006

"Punch-Drunk Love", written and directed by Paul Thomas Anderson (2002)

You can't look at a 2x3 inch photo of a Mark Rothko painting and understand what it's all about; you have to stand right up next to it so that its color blocks surround you and seep into you. You can't analyze it, you can only feel it. You have to let it trigger your emotions. In a quiet gallery with no one else around, caught it the right mood, it can be overwhelming and even frightening.

That's what this movie is like. It sounds irritatingly quirky down on paper -- a guy with an anger management/punching problem runs a business from a warehouse, buys a harmonium, obsessively saves pudding UPC codes in a scheme to win a vacation, and falls in love with a mysterious woman. And he has seven nasty sisters. And he's Adam Sandler. I hate it already.

But wait -- the woman is played by the luminous Emily Watson, a uniquely powerful actress who looks like she could eat you whole, delicately pick you bones, and smile about it afterwards. Adam Sandler's channels his blatent discomfort in his own skin into this repressed and unhappy character so perfectly that his propensity for infantilizing his other characters suddenly makes sense. He'd be too vulnerable and heartbreaking otherwise. And there's a phone sex call that goes horribly wrong, thank God, because we know or at least suspect that the world is full of lonely people and/or people who are out to get you.

I was bawling by the end of this film. Life is very, very difficult and those who rise to the challenge of living it embody a courage so banal as to be invisible most of the time. This movie reminds us of that and of the balm of kindness and love that redeems even the most fucked up of us.

I don't think this movie did very well at the box office -- I'm sure PTA fans were thinking, Where are the boobies? Where are the frog storms? Where's Tom Cruise acting crazy before we even knew he was crazy? But Anderson did something remarkable with this movie -- he put naked emotion on screen, and at the same time, he acknowledged how ridiculous it is, and how we are victims of our own tragic humanness.

I can't wait to see what he does next.

11 September 2006

Rest Assured Toilet Seat Covers


I noticed something wonderful today.

I didn't have my camera with me, but -- oh, joy! -- I found plenty of images on the internet. Say hello to Rest Assured Toilet Seat Covers. I was in a bathroom today with a patented RA dispenser on the wall right in front of my nose. Since it was on the wall facing the toilet instead of above the toilet, I got a good gander at these handy little gems for the first time in my life and finally noticed the eerily perfect brand name.

Whoever named the produce "Rest Assured" must sleep soundly at night, secure in the knowledge that they had that one stroke of genius most of us spend a lifetime searching for.

Well played, Rochester Midland.

(The only alternative I could even think of was Butt Gown.)

08 September 2006

Santa Monica Public Library (main branch)

The new main branch of the Santa Monica Public Library is both beautiful and functional, perfectly tuned to the needs of its patrons.

The two-story building feels more like an academic library than your standard LA County public library, many of which are mere waystations for rotating material, with open waiting areas for loitering newspaper readers and sleepers. This building has not only large tables in open areas, but smaller carrels (though without dividers) tucked away along the windows upstairs. All tables feature plugs conveniently located just underneath the top edge; no more crawling under the table and hunting for hidden electrical outlets in the carpet in order to plug in your laptop. Plus, free wi-fi and private, glass-enclosed Study Rooms that can be reserved in two hour intervals for you or your group of collaborators. They intended this library to be a place of work, and it shows.

The lovely enclosed courtyard on the first floor shields you from the mean streets of Santa Monica while letting you stuff you face at the excellent little Bookmark Cafe. The courtyard has an oasis theme, with a border of desert plants and a clever and calming moat crossed by a striated bridge (just don't step in it. The water, with its glittering grey sand base, can look solid in the right light, and I did see a kid stumble into it once). Cute round patio tables with comfortable chairs and lovely sand-colored umbrellas invite people to pull up a chair, sit with their kids or friends, and chat away.

There's also a nice, surprisingly bright and large underground parking lot, 50 cents an hour and no meter hassles.

This library is a triumph, designed with the community firmly in mind, welcoming and serious.

And I've only encountered one mumbling freak so far! A guy sat at a table at me, plugged in his laptop, put on his headphones, and started head-bopping away. Which is okay, I can deal with that. But when he started singing along, I was out of there. One freak in three months is a good ratio for Santa Monica.