It's all in the details.

This Christmas, one of my favorite gifts was a Close Up art card game from my mom. Yeah, we like to shop at museum stores. How did you know? The game takes famous works of art and puts them in sets of two, one being the full work and the other a magnified "close up" from it. With several activities possible, ranging from Old Maid to Memory, countless hours of fun can be had with this simple, genius card game.

After playing this so much, and even just staring at the cards, it made sense that the perspective used in the game would spread to how I looked at art in my everyday life. This became particularly apparent in my art history class. Now when I study certain pieces, my attention is drawn to small details no one else notices (much like Audrey Tautou's movie watching in Amelie). Since I am such a loving, caring person, I thought I'd share with everyone this joy of details and give a small glimpse into my brain with a new series I am introducing: Close Up with Cat, Vol. I. Lets begin, shall we?

Our first piece we'll be examining is Francisco Goya's The Third of May, 1808


It's a strong piece, offering overt Christ-symbolism, the horror of war, and shock at the tyranny that sometimes occurred in Napoleonic France. We look in pity at the helpless Spaniards being slaughtered. But a whole new meaning comes into the mix when we look at this:


A little fuzzy, but you get the general idea. These two prisoners seem very far away from willing surrender. Instead, intense hatred and subtle plotting are written all over the left figures face. The right man leans in, as if confirming some uprise that will occur at any moment. Definitely not what the viewer sees on first observation.

Next is Theodore Gericault's Raft of the Medusa


Such drama. With broiling seas and figures writhing in Death's grip, it's hard to really know where to look first.

I really liked this guy. He kind of sums up the attitude I would have if I was in the same shipwrecked, starving situation he was. "Who cares, we are all going to die anyway, just give up now. You'll waste way less energy that way. You think that boat's going to see your pathetic little shirt-flag? Yeah. Right. We're doomed. Call me when the fat one dies."

This one was actually kind of cool. I present a landscape for you, and an American work (USA! All the way!), Thomas Cole's The Oxbow

Beautiful. Can't beat that Hudson River School. They do landscapes right. But wait, what is that at the bottom of the picture?

OK. You might have to grab a microscope for that one. But if you look really carefully, you can see a little top hat. and underneath that, a person. Who could it be, in the midst of that untamed wilderness? None other than the artist himself, Thomas Cole, arm outstretched, presenting in all its glory NATURE.

Finally, Jacques- Louis David's The Oath of the Horatii


Ah, Neoclassicism. Look at how honorable and patriotic they are. Giving their all for the glory that is Rome. True heroes. Hold on just a second. What are they doing!?!


Sorry, I couldn't resist.

So I hoped you enjoyed this little visual adventure, and join us next time for a foray into Revivalist Architecture!

NERD ALERT

This post has taken a ridiculously long amount of time to be posted. To my few, loyal followers I apologize (sorry Kelsey and Ashley!). What with ridiculous amounts of school, and maybe even the deeply personal nature of this entry, it's been written in small intervals every now and then. Anyway, here goes.

For those of you who honestly don't know me and randomly stumbled across this blog looking for one that outlines moodily attractive movie characters, I have to say something: I am addicted to Batman. This is common knowledge to those near to me. And for the last time, no, I do not just love Batman because the incredibly talented and attractive Christian Bale (Call me! Anytime! I LOVE YOU CHRISTIAN!!!) took on the role of the Caped Crusader in the 2005 blockbuster "Batman Begins". My love began from a younger age, when I would watch the futuristic "Batman Beyond" and think it was insane that someone with absolutely no real superpowers would take on sadistic badguys who possessed supernatural abilities born of acid accidents or exposure to radiation. Yet the more I watched, the more heroic Terry McGinnis and his aging mentor, Bruce Wayne, became to me. True, they had no "special" gifts, just athletic bodies and loads of cash, but they dedicated what they had to making the world, or at least Gotham, a better place. Batman appealed to my idealistic side, the part of me that wants to believe that we are capable as mere human beings of being a force for good in the world, of helping others.

So I embraced Batman, to a certain extent. I watched the cartoons on Saturday mornings, staying through the transition from "Batman Beyond" to more routine revival "The Batman". I watched Michael Keaton's film versions by Tim Burton, and even the later ones starring Val Kilmer and George Clooney (a viewing experience I can't block, no matter how hard I try). I had a Batman blanket, and envied and sometimes stole my nephews action figures. But I drew a line. No matter how much I loved Batman, I would not fall into the comic book abyss. That was going too far. There were exceptions to this rule, however. My friend Jon, a comic book nerd in his own right, made a habit of giving me a Batman comic book, or graphic novel, whatever you want to call them, for my birthdays and Christmas. Thus began my fall down the slippery slope.

I enjoyed the books, as can only be expected. As an English major, I found myself drawn to the intricate plot lines and the massive symbolism that is involved in the average Batman tale. The common themes of the tortured soul, whether revenge can be a tool for good or if it always breeds evil, and the seeds of corruption enthralled me as much as any Orwellian tome. And as an Art History minor, the picture panels were no less intriguing. The dramatic lights and darks, the sometimes brusque pen lines and at other times smooth brush marks, all conveying a proper mood and setting, these laid claim to the lofty title of art as much as the next post-modernist phenomenon. Reading them was a delight. However, I still resisted. I could not bring myself to purchase these of my own accord. So, for about one to two years, my semi-annual supply from Jon had to suffice. But all that changed. One day, after reading the latest installment in my meager collection, April could not come fast enough. I had time, desire, and a Barnes and Noble gift card. I was going to buy a comic book, and nobody could stop me.

When my roommates, a.k.a. the ones with cars, announced an excursion to Barnes and Noble one weekend, I knew the time had come. My quest was commencing. I walked into the bookstore bursting with confidence and excitement. Unfortunately, I had no clue where the comic books would be. After a quick walk through the entire store, I knew this was serious. Wandering around the massive cookbook section (only in Utah) and glancing through the Mediterranean guide books, I finally had a breakthrough. "If I was a nerd, where would I be?..." I thought to myself. Then, without further ado, I starting making my way to the science fiction area.

It wasn't difficult to find, tucked in a shadowy corner behind the in-store Starbucks. Once I passed the rows of manga and Robert Jordan novels, I found them. Books upon books dedicated to the glory that is the Dark Knight. The few I was considering were near the bottom, so I knelt to investigate which one was worthy of my purchase. That's when I stepped into ... the Twilight Zone.


As I was searching the bottom shelves, I felt a presence to my right. Looking up, there was the quintessential teen geek. Tall, thin, and pimply, he stared at me briefly, as if wondering what sort of alien had encroached upon his territory, before resuming his perusal of Alan Moore comics. Then, behind me came the boys future. He was easily in his mid thirties, a chubby, glasses-wearing man in a commemorative Star Wars tee. You could tell he too had no clue what I was doing there, and eyed me warily as he drifted to the Marvel section.

I sat between these two uber-nerds, in the middle of a living stereotype, before the situation got a little uncomfortable. I grabbed The Dark Knight Returns and briskly walked away. I was too embarrassed to have that as my lone purchase, so on my way to the cash register I picked up Silence by Shusaku Endo. The girl at check-out didn't comment on either selection.

On the ride home, all I could think of was how all the rumors and myths about comics were true. I had witnessed it with my own two eyes. And yet, I survived. I got through that experience unscathed. Maybe these social misfits were just as human as the average person...

By the way, The Dark Knight Returns rocked. I can't wait to buy the next book on my list.

"Poets aren't quite like other people..."

Today BYU managed to get former Poet Laureate (and one of my favorite modern day poets. The other top one is Taylor Mali, but he is not the topic of this post, now is he?) Billy Collins to come and read poetry. I can die happy.

It was spectacular to sit in an auditorium, not too far back, and listen to a man whose works have been on AP tests. Think about that for a while. What was wonderful was the atmosphere in the room. As he spoke, I could feel myself (along with the hundred or so other people there) falling for his laid-back charm, being mesmerized by this unassuming man in a blue sweater.

When he stood up, he got straight to the point: poetry. He read and explained things he wrote in a soft voice. Thanks to a cold he apologized for, it was a little nasally but no less enthralling. True, at times it reminded me of Ben Stein's monotone, but the closer I listened the more I began to appreciate the subtleties of his recital. This droll little man with the droopy eyes was a mass of gentle humor. As he got further along the program, I saw his spirit. Here was a man who lived his life in a constant state of bored amusement. That sounds like a paradox, but that's what it was. You could tell he spent his life looking outwards, looking out his window as his poem "Monday" implies, but not judging what he saw. He liked the world, he wrote about it, and it brought him joy.

What was really beautiful was observing what happened when his "poem" voice, the voice that added a gentle emphasis and halting rhythm to his words, extended to his everyday voice, the one he used to talk about where the inspiration for such and such came from. When that happened, the most idle of comments became poetry, and so beautiful that you would have given anything at that moment to see life as he saw it.

After he had closed with the recitation of "On Turning Ten", preceded by the statement "If you are majoring in English, you are majoring in Death. So death is our thing" (poking fun of the abundance of mortality poems in the literary canon), I ran to get him to sign his newest book for me. I waited in a line that was more like a crowded corral, but it was worth it just to have something I can hold to remember the way I felt, sitting in an uncomfortable seat and wanting to be able to write like that when I grow up.

Anyway, here is a sample of his poetry, and one of my favorites, though it is really too hard to choose. It's the title poem from his latest book, The Trouble With Poetry.

The Trouble With Poetry

The trouble with poetry, I realized
as I walked along the beach one night-
cold Florida sand under my bare feet,
a show of stars in the sky-

the trouble with poetry is
that it encourages the writing of more poetry,
more guppies crowding the fish tank,
more baby rabbits
hopping out of their mothers into the dewy grass.

And how will it ever end?
unless the day finally arrives
when we have compared everything in the world
to everything else in the world,

and there is nothing left to do
but quietly close our notebooks
and sit with our hands folded on our desks.

Poetry fills me with joy
and I rise like a feather in the wind.
Poetry fills me with sorrow
and I sink like a chain flung from a bridge.

But mostly poetry fills me
with the urge to write poetry,
to sit in the dark and wait for a little flame
to appear at the tip of my pencil.

And along with that, the longing to steal,
to break into the poems of others
with a flashlight and a ski mask.

And what an unmerry band of thieves we are,
cut-purses, common shoplifters,
I thought to myself
as a cold wave swirled around my feet
and the lighthouse moved its megaphone over the sea,
which is an image I stole directly
from Lawrence Ferlinghetti-
to be perfectly honest for a moment-

the bicycling poet of San Francisco
whose little amusement park of a book
i carried in a side pocket of my uniform
up and down the treacherous halls of high school.

I have no response to that.

Joe vs. the Volcano: A Timeless Classic, Which, Much Like Transformers, Has More Than Meets the Eye

I watched this amazing Hanks-Ryan vehicle last week, and it blows me away every time. If you haven't seen it ... go now. Fast. Run to watch this highly underrated cinematic masterpiece. Yes I went there. Masterpiece.

Here's the thing. Not only is it wickedly funny, (Tom Hanks playing a depressed hypochondriac on a fatal mission. Meg Ryan playing three equally hilarious and diverse roles. Can you get any better? Come on.) but it really is thought-provoking.

A main theme of this work is the state of the soul, and in conjunction, the course your life takes due to the well-being of your soul. Wow, that sounded intelligent. Go me. But moving on.

The references to the soul start from the beginning, veiled as they might be. Joe, miserable and stuck in a dead end job, breaks his shoe walking in the oppressive building that houses his cave-like workspace. When asked what happened, he replies "I'm losing my sole". Sole!! Soul!! Get it? Genius. Later on, in a rant to his boss, he is "too afraid to live my life, so I sold it to you for THREE HUNDRED DOLLARS A WEEK!". Meg Ryan's third character, Patricia, has been bought out by her father and is soul sick. The chief of Waponi-Wu (Little Island with Big Volcano), carries around what is not a teddy bear, but his soul, and Joe tells him he "better not lose it".

That should give you just a taste of the deeper meaning one can find in this movie. I could go on, but then I'd get all preachy and make lists and give away the plot and no one wants any of those things to happen, am I right? But it just made me think about what I am doing with my life and what condition my soul is in. I love movies like that. Things that entertain and enrich at the same time. That kind of stuff is golden, baby. Pure gold.

A Change We Can Believe In

2008. Election year. The excitement in the air is palpable. A victory for Obama is the hope in everyone's heart. Well, every sane person's. And here I sit, watching CNN (a first for me), listening to Obama's dulcet tones and believing in change, when I realize how much life really does change. Ready? Here comes the philosophical retrospective.

I was raised to love art, more than most people do (should?). But when I was little, I couldn't STAND modern art. It was trash. Filth. Rubbish. I could draw that stuff, and trust me, that's saying something. I thought art had to have a sense of realism to be considered classic. Grace. Beauty. What can I say, I was a romantic. Don't get me wrong. I still dig that stuff. It's great. But then I discovered the Wonder that is Andy Warhol.

Here he is. In all his disheveled, crazy, genius glory.


Warhol used to be the lowest of the low for me. But then, one day, it just clicked. Maybe I became more cynical. Maybe I became more crazy, and was thus able to understand his art. I think I just grew up. Warhol offers such wry observances on the state of America. It's very disillusioned. I connect with that, but just had to wait until I had experiences that made the art clear. Warhol's stuff is FULL of social commentary, the kind you only get in late twentieth century America. And you know what? It rocks. Now Dada-ism is the scum of the earth to me. Don't know about Dada? Look up Duchamp's Fountain. You'll get what I am saying.
So basically, things change. You know, there is always a chance that in twelve years I won't like Warhol (may that day never come). Or that Obama won't be president (I'll move. Run away to Mexico or something). But like the saying goes, it's the journey, right?