Tag Archives: TV

Eyecatchers: Claire Brewster’s Birds

Posted on
5

Back in March 2011, I blogged about the stop-motion animation work of Anderson M Studio, having been blown away by the painstaking paper art involved, and today I discovered some more beautiful paper art, this time from British artist Claire Brewster.

Brewster’s work, cut out of old maps, is a wonderful salute to the bird’s ability to fly freely above the topography that we ground-bound creatures must work so hard to navigate. The maps themselves add color, texture, and a 3-D quality to the birds that I find very appealing.

Via Colossal, here’s a sampling, though I highly recommending checking out Claire’s blog to see more of her work:

Oh, and I must say, I couldn’t help it, but Claire Brewster’s work made me think of this:

Portlandia Redux

Posted on
3

Just about a year ago, I wrote about my mixed reactions to the then-new IFC comedy series Portlandia, written by and starring Fred Armisen and Carrie Brownstein.

Well, thanks to Netflix, I’ve since watched all six episodes from the first season, I’ve overcome my initial knee-jerk defensiveness, and I can’t wait to see season two.

Just yesterday, I read a great interview with Armisen and Brownstein in Salon, as well as a long feature article on Brownstein in the current New Yorker, and I’m incredibly impressed by how smart and talented they are.

As I wrote last year, the defensiveness I felt initially was rooted in my feelings that many if not most of the progressive causes and lifestyle choices being lampooned in Portlandia are actually critically important movements for the long-term survival of human beings. I’d already lived through the tragic death of the counterculture of the late 1960s, and I felt really uncomfortable with the stereotyping and making fun of progressive people, which could serve to marginalize them, creating a real barrier to the growth of important movements like organic farming, local living economies, alternative transportation, sustainability, etc.

But watching past the first episode, it became clear to me that there is a gentleness to the fun being poked at alternative culture in Portlandia, rather than some vicious attack, and there’s a key part of the Salon interview that speaks to this:

There’s this gentle mocking of these groups, but we all consider ourselves part of them at the same time. Do you ever feel pushback? The well-meaning and the earnest are used to being applauded; they’re not necessarily used to being made fun of by their heroes from indie-rock and comedy…

CB: Right. You know, I think it is hard, because I think there’s an inherent sensitivity that I know that I possess, and I think Portland and cities and communities of its ilk also possess this kind of hyper-sensitivity. I think that’s part of what makes us tick — this constant self-reflectiveness, and self-awareness. And so yeah, to have it come back at you on television, I think might be weird. But I also think that I am so much from this world, and I think it seems more like part of a conversation. We’re not talking at people; I feel like we’re sort of engaged in this conversation that people are having anyway. So I haven’t felt a lot of backlash, even though I’m sure there’s….

A Tumblr blog about how “Portlandia” is hurting the world…

CB: I’m sure it exists. And if I want to cry for the next hour, I can probably go online and find some anonymous commenter somewhere and make myself feel really shitty. But yeah, I think for the most part, the show is earnest — or, I should say, it’s not cynical — which I think helps people relate to it. It’s not a cynical show. We’re trying to be specific; we’re not trying to be realistic. I think there’s a difference. And I think you just can’t worry about insulting people with what you create. If you start at a place where you’re considering your audience’s feelings, you’re already stuck. You’ve already lost. So I think the idea is just to put something out there that hopefully people can relate to, and not worry about whether they’re going to be angry, or not get it. And hopefully, not everyone will get it. I’ve never liked things that are benign — or banal. So, I’m OK with it. Haters, hate on.

FA: I get confused, too. You know, we shot this one thing, in season one, where I was in this “technology loop,” where I had my iPad and everything else out. We wrote it as this sketch, but I straight-up do that all the time. I’ll sit on my couch, and I have every device out, and it’ll make perfect sense to me. That’s where it gets blurry, because it’s like, are we making fun of anything? Or are we just — it’s just ourselves, really.

It’s kind of refreshing when you think about it. Two big stars who see the humor in their own idiosyncrasies and the culture they call home, a kind of defense against hubris, really.

Count me in as a fan!

Reckless Rogue Sperm Donor or Altruist?

Posted on
Reply

Just when I thought I’d heard and seen it all…

A man from the San Francisco Bay area has fathered 14 children in the last five years through free sperm donations to women he meets through his website — and is now in trouble with the federal government.

The case of Trent Arsenault of Fremont has drawn attention to the practice of informal sperm donation, which physicians and bioethicists call unsafe but some people say is a civil liberties issue…

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration sent Arsenault a cease-and-desist letter late last year telling him he must stop because he does not follow the agency’s requirements for getting tested for sexually transmitted diseases within seven days before giving sperm. The FDA did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Violators of FDA regulations on human cells and tissues face up to a year in prison and a $100,000 fine, according to guidelines published on the agency’s website.

Now, Arsenault states that he does get tested regularly, but even more compelling…

Arsenault says he donates sperm out of a sense of service to help people who want to have children but can’t afford conventional sperm banks. The 36-year-old minister’s son has four more children on the way.

“I always had known through people praying at church that there’s fertility issues,” Arsenault told The Associated Press on Monday. “I thought it would just be a neat way of service to help the community.”

Sounds incredibly reasonable, doesn’t it?

I mean, how many Don Juan types are out there right now, impregnating women left and right the old-fashioned way, and here’s a guy who simply wants to help people, and he’s facing a year in prison and a hefty fine?

His website is loaded with information about himself — his medical records, his lifestyle and diet, even a criminal background check — so it’s hard to argue that he’s being reckless. What emerges is a picture of a pretty extraordinary guy. He’s the son of a pastor and states he’s a churchgoer himself, and yet…

He says he believes his case comes down to constitutional issues of a right to privacy and reproductive choice.

On his website, he includes this quote from the Guttmacher Institute, and he emphatically added the underlining:

…women, in consultation with their physician, have a constitutionally protected right to have an abortion in the early stages of pregnancy—that is, before viability—free from government interference.

Now, it’s entirely possible that Trent will sell out and end up with his own reality TV show, but for now I’m inclined to admire him for his desire to do good.

The Maturation of Jimmy Fallon

Posted on
Reply

Until relatively recently, whenever I thought of this guy here, Jimmy Fallon, I thought of the weakest link I’d ever seen in a Saturday Night Live cast.

Having been a fan of the show since the beginning, when it breathed irreverent, raw, experimental, hilarious new life into American television, introducing comedy legends like Chevy Chase, John Belushi, Dan Aykroyd, and Bill Murray, I admit that I have high standards.

But Fallon? It seemed that every time I watched the show he was in at least one if not several skits that he could barely get through, cracking up like a high school kid stumbling through his first theater production. Granted, he had to share the stage with some incredibly funny people, people I’d imagine it would be very difficult keep a straight face around, difficult if not impossible for me for sure, but I’m not getting paid the big bucks to be on a prestigious franchise series like SNL.

And so, when Jimmy Fallon took over as the new Late Night host in 2009, filling shoes once filled by David Letterman and Conan O’Brien, I actually couldn’t believe it, much less envision him as a success. How could this weak link in an ensemble cast actually helm his own show?

But then, because Late Night continues to attract guests that I’m interested in seeing, I started watching clips every now and then, and…

…slowly but surely, it became clear to me that Jimmy Fallon had grown up, he’d become a mature television personality. As a talk show host, he proved a surprisingly good conversationalist. Many of his guests are people he obviously admires tremendously, and yet he avoids getting star struck or slipping into cheesy hero worship.

By the time I saw his stunning Neil Young impersonation, singing the The Fresh Prince of Bel Air theme song, all of my doubts about his talent were swept away, and when yesterday I watched him as Jim Morrison, singing the theme to the PBS children’s series Reading Rainbow, I realized that Jimmy’s greatest strength is how much of a product of pop culture he is.

While he’s actually 10 years my junior, his references to TV shows like The Fresh Prince of Bel Air and Reading Rainbow register immediately with me, and his juxtaposition of those shows with classic rock icons is just brilliant comedy.

You can keep your HD & 3D! Give me my 2D, please.

Posted on
2

This post has been a long time coming.

Short Version
Though many, if not most, technophiles will react with shock and disapproval when I say this: I really prefer old school 2D TV and movies over high-definition (HD) and 3-D.

Less-short Version
Ever since I saw my first 3D movie, some IMAX thing or another, I thought it was an OK novelty. But, the earth didn’t move, I didn’t care for having to wear uncomfortable, supposedly but not really one-size-fits-all eyewear, and I didn’t leave thinking that it would be a boring step backwards to go home and watch my old analog TV or see my next normal movie wherever and whenever that might be. Years later, watching James Cameron’s 2009 film Avatar, despite admittedly more comfortable eyewear and the latest, greatest 3D technology, I had largely the same experience.

Impressive and fun, but nothing I couldn’t live without.

On the TV side of things, the experience wasn’t that different.

After 40 years of watching analog, low-definition television, of course the giant flat panel TVs that are now all the rage looked at first like a huge improvement in viewing pleasure.

And yet, when I finally pulled the trigger, brought home my first HDTV, and watched my first HD movie, I was really disappointed. It and other movies I watched later — from action flicks with tons of special effects to romantic comedies — looked too real to me.

Why is that a problem?

Well, I don’t know about you, but most of the time I turn to movies for a break from reality, and throughout my life I’ve been able to do so watching old school, low-definition 2D. The real art of filmmaking, it always seemed to me, was the ability to transport the viewer to another time or place, no matter how outlandish, using skill more so than technology, the latter a simple tool that, without its operator, could not make the magic happen.

For me, the two-dimensionality of the big screen, or even the not-so-big screen, is a big part of what differentiates the movie experience from my day-to-day reality. The fact that I can’t just walk up and step into the movie means that this alternate reality is enticingly out of reach.

In addition, to my eyes, the subtlety of the cinematographer’s art — the composition of a scene, the lighting, camera angles, motions, and exposures, those elements that create ambiance and mood — is sabotaged by HD, diminished by it. And the inherent graininess in the picture quality of the old technologies is part of the overall illusion.

I suppose none of this will be a surprise to anyone who has read my occasional paeans to low-fi vinyl records — e.g. Nostalgia: Vinyl Records Edition, Vinyl Update. Along with my grainy low-def, 2D movies, give me the hiss and the pops of a gently used vinyl record spinning on a record player any day.

Please.