my birthday, children of men and international childrens day

Hmmmm....what could possibly be the common thread here??? Five minutes ago I finished watching Children of Men, a fantastic yet horribly depressing film and being dissappointed in the DVDs lack of any special features worthy of my viewing time, decided to go to wikipedia and imdb to see what they had on the film based on the P.D. James novel. On my way there, I noticed that in some time zones it is May 27th, my birthday, my 41st to be exact. I was born in the afternoon- interrupting everyones lunch hour on a Friday in 1966. Dad was 51. Mom was 43. I was number 6. So anyway, in Nigeria, it is childrens day, which is part of an ICD- international childrens day celebration which mostly happens on June 1st. International yet guess which country does not participate? The United States of America. Wikipedia has 26 different countries listed in its heading "Childrens day over the world".....but no USA??? Why???

http://hrw.org/doc/?t=children

Support the Child Soldier Prevention Act of 2007
Of 10 governments worldwide implicated in the recruitment or use of children as soldiers, nine receive US military assistance.
"recruitment" of children as soldiers is happening or just recently happened in: Nepal, Congo, Sri Lanka, Burundi, Burma, Cote d'Ivoire, and Liberia, but whos to say that these are the nine that receive military assistance???
For more details go to: http://web.amnesty.org/pages/childsoldiers-background-eng

Anyway back to the film Children of Men. Alfonso Cuaron director screenwriter for y tu mama tambien and director for harry potters prisoner of azakabadan ra kahn mana mana. Interesting things in this film julian and jasper both names of main characters and are the 2 names of my son, Julian Jasper. The use of "The Court of The Crimson King" by King Crimson, and A shot which looked exactly like the cover of Pink Floyds Animals a Pig Zepplin and a Tall factory silo or whathaveya. According to Cuarón, the title of P.D. James' book (The Children of Men) is a Catholic allegory derived from a passage of scripture in the Bible.[32] (Psalm 90(89):3 of the KJV: "Thou turnest man to destruction; and sayest, Return, ye children of men." The British terrorists The Fishes and the loaves and fishes of the Bible??? hmmm....

So, yes happy birthday to me, and honour all children for they will be the future for better or for worse, possibly directly influenced by how we treat them!!! Like a co-worker once stated: treat them well for they will be the ones who will take care of you(or not) when you are old. how true!

1 a.m. 5/27/2007.

whats all this Spanish American War stuff???

Too late to know or say very much other than it involved Spain the US and the Phillapines and Cuba and Puerto Rico, amoung others.

In Cuba:

Tomás Estrada Palma was an important Cuban general in the Ten Years' War(1868-1878).
Estrada Palma was captured by Spanish troops and sent into exile. While in exile, he traveled to New York where he worked with José Martí.

Marti:
http://www.spanamwar.com/Marti.htm
http://www.fiu.edu/~fcf/marti.pensamientos.10797.html

his thoughts on freedom:
We are free, but not to be evil, not to be indifferent to human suffering, not to profit from the people, from the work created and sustained through their spirit of political association, while refusing to contribute to the political state that we profit from. We must say no once more. Man is not free to watch impassively the enslavement and dishonor of men, nor their struggles for liberty and honor.

We light the oven so that everyone may bake bread in it. If I survive, I will spend my whole life at the oven door seeing that no one is denied bread and, so as to give a lesson of charity, especially those who did not bring flour.
-José Julián Martí y Pérez (January 28, 1853- May 19, 1895)

here is an interesting rumor: Some believe that Martí and Carmen (Carmita) Miyares de Mantilla had a child in 1880 when he was separated from his wife. The child, María Mantilla, in turn had children, one of whom was the actor Cesar Romero.

After Martí's death, Estrada Palma became the new leader of the Cuban Revolutionary Party.
When the revolutionaries established a Government in arms, Estrada Palma was sent to Washington as its diplomat. With the help of an American banker, he tried offering Spain $150 million to give up the island, a plan that failed.
He was, however, successful in getting the US Congress to pass the Joint Resolution. This bill was one of the factors that led the United States to declare war on Spain, demanding that Cuba be freed from Spanish colonial rule.

first term
On December 31, 1901, Estrada Palma was elected President. His politics have been likened to those of U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt.
American troops left after the Cuban government signed a bill lowering tariffs on American products and incorporated the Platt Amendment into their constitution. Many American companies came to do business in Cuba.
On February 16, 1903, Estrada Palma signed the Cuban-American Treaty, agreeing to lease the Guantanamo Bay area to the United States, in perpetuity, for use as a naval base and coaling station.His presidency ended in 1906. (source: wikipedia.org)

the collective unconnedscious

lets briefly break apart my blog title to see if it makes any sense

Collective consciousness or collective conscience are the shared beliefs and moral attitudes which operate as a unifying force within society.[1] The terms were used by the French social theorist Émile Durkheim (1858-1917). He used the terms in his books The Division of Labour (1893), The Rules of Sociological Method (1895), Suicide (1897), and The Elementary Forms of Religious Life (1912). (source: wikipedia.org)

for Carl Jung:
The collective unconscious refers to that part of a person's unconscious which is common to all human beings. It contains archetypes, which are forms or symbols that are manifested by all people in all cultures.

Thats where the pick-up line "Whats your sign?" comes from....I knew it! Yeah, thats a groner!

now for the con part, or confidence trick:

The grade of one's "intelligence" is totally unrelated to one's grade of vulnerability to getting deceived by experienced con men. Confidence tricks exploit human weaknesses like greed, dishonesty, vanity, but also virtues like honesty, compassion, or the "naïveté" of believing in the existence of something called "good faith".

Now that I have prefaced this post, I will leave the rest alone.


In the 1,512 days of madness which have followed for the numerous hundreds of thousands of military and civilian
people in Iraq (Iraqis and non-Iraqis) And the claims that were made to justify the invasion, or "liberation" as it was phrased by many a "patriot" in the past 3 years, and nearing 2 months, all seem like bad, transparent propaganda. Bernays would be turning in his grave to hear such nonsense uttered....seriously!!!!

Of course I list all of this info on the assumption that it is all correct, up to date, etc.
Iraqi civilian dead(reproted number(31,617)
Iraqi military/police dead(6,763)
Total U.S. military dead (3,384) total coalition dead(3,657) or 2.42 a day.
50,512 U.S. non mortal casualties(wounded and medical air transport required).
121 journalists killed of all nationalities (it may not be a complete list)
398 contractors killed (it says it is a partial list)
source: http://icasualties.org/oif/default.aspx
Anyway, this is only being pointed out at this time because of the absolutely ridiculous reasons the MPAA gave a filmmaker for giving his film, a documentary told by the soldiers who serve in Iraq a NC-17 rating. Gunner Palace is the name of the film http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0424129/

It says in the trivia page that:

The word "fuck" is used 42 times, the most ever used in a PG-13 rated film

Under normal circumstances more than one use of the word "fuck" would get a film an R-rating. In this instance, the MPAA reasoned that a person old enough to be recruited by the army should be allowed to view a documentary on actual army life. However the rating also carried the notice that it was awarded on appeal to provide a better cautionary warning to parents concerned about what their children are viewing.

You cannot say the slang word referring to coitus more than once, but you can have the perversity displayed in the Abu Ghraib prison , which as far as anyone can tell, really happened, shown on the news, yet has anyone seen one U.S. soldier out of the possible 3,384 soldiers arrive home to their parents in a coffin???
You can depict the violence of shooting multiple people without showing the resulting outcome of such an act and just barely get an R rating but show some realism (blood, guts, death)connected to that act of violence and then if its a current event it will be uncensored but if its a film which shows this having an overall tone of criticism of our government, or show some female crotch hair or a penis and or a pelvic thrust or 2, and oh boy......NC-17!!!!!
What kind of absolute censorship nonsence is this?
"This film has not yet been rated" was great at uncovering the media control which 6 conglomerates and a former aid to Lyndon johnson(Valenti) had over each and every film, not to mention the added "morality" of two churches and the Pentagon. What an eye-opener this film was!!! Oh, and I just noticed that poor old Jack Valenti up and died. Oh well. Sad.
With the power and influence that the film as an artform and as an industry has on our culture it puts Valenti up there with the big boys like Edward Louis Bernays (November 22, 1891 – March 9, 1995) nephew of psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud, was considered the father of the field of public relations. Bernays was one of the first to attempt to manipulate public opinion using the psychology of the subconscious. He felt this manipulation was necessary in society, which he felt was irrational and dangerous. Bernays served as the first spin doctor under Woodrow Wilson. His book Propaganda, published in 1928( a good read too, and still available through ILL while supplies last, cause I am sure some untrusting folk would love to collect and burn all the remaining copies of- when Bernays was 37, he was more than happy to teach anyone willing to listen the building blocks of this new tool he had fashioned. Now no one is saying that history repeats itself or that it is cyclical a)Hitler, or b)Nero hadn't already blamed the burning of the a)government building or b)Rome on "terrorists" or c)some other guy in currnt events saying it was terrorists who did the World trade center twin towers on September 11, 2001, which was exactly 28 years after September 11, 1973 where Kissanger, or maybe someone just looking and sounding like Kissenger, "supposedly" carried out "someones" orders to stage a Coup, overthrowing Allendes government in Chile. What??? no one remembers this? Yeah, either do I; but thanks to libraries and intellectual freedom, now I know at least the outline of things. Or maybe that was all just a bad dream. Yes, the sun will come out tomarrow, bet your bottom dollar(which in my case, I would have to borrow)come what may, oh yeah it is May....right!

Julians first post- what I did on my 3rd birthday.

Yeah, thats me on my birthday getting drunk on ice cream with some lady I met in the bar....I call her mommy, mama for short....no really shes my main squeeze...my bread and butter......sometimes I whine alot and she rolls her eyes....I find I get my way by just giving her my cute look...freezes chicks right in their tracks!


Speaking of chicks, heres a dame thats the real cats meeow we held hands ran ate ice cream....I call her 'bellie so I can remember. she has a cool binky and a little ghostie blankie that she calls froggie....never leaves home without it.


what can I say? when in Rome... so here I am partaking in the cultural ritual that is also my birthright....iced cream....hell yeah!


dont ask me who the bleep this guy is but if he doesnt get his mits off my crayolas hes gonna know why they call me
the big hurt. what??? never heard me referred to as that, you say??? well.....okay, yeah , hes my dad, and that first grown up actually IS my mother, sheesh!!!! now my cover is blown!!! why do they embarass me like that!!!


huh....whats that?!!? sure we were going to consult you before entering the intersection....silly adults!!! uh, no, we DO NOT need directions to home, by the way, what made you think we need to get home??? huh....what did you say??? a nap?!!? change whos diaper??? well, folks, I guess thats to be expected when you are a couple of 3 year olds living in the big city, its hard for the grown ups to let go......who can blame them ???? we ARE too cute for our own good!!!!

how my sons play-dough reminded me of Svankmajer

When I first started working for Multnomah County Library at Central in Stack Service under Gerald Upsahl back just before MCL was officially "made" county the first year or two my fellow co-workers included amoung others one Chris Sluserenko, who owns and operates Clinton Street Video. At the time he was a student at Marylhurst like myself- unlike myself, he happened to be someone else. I believe he had a double major: music AND film, the film portion he did at NWFVC. Anyway, it was apparent to me( his parent was the art department chair, so actually it was a chair to me) he absolutely loved the full spectrum of film it seemed, and the 2 things that I will never forget which he introduced me to: 1) The Residents, which I will cover in more detail in future posts; 2) Jan Svankmajer; Russ Meyer and Ed Wood score honoreable mention as far as what impact they had on my creative world view. Svanky-baby, as I affectionately refer to him, is one sharp cat, and be careful for he will scratch you and if you are making a marinara sauce and using alot of garlic like I am, it will surely sting. I can only say that no matter what I mention, you could make a connection between Svankmajer and the other thing, we will call it x, for sake of argument, because his deftly edited live action normal speed film with stop-motion animation of real objects puppets, material, collage, made to look like material and/or the original collage source images and the collage of images and made to appear as other things and clay as both wet tactle earth and as representative of images and things specific to his experience and to each of our experiences, in a surrealist constructivist/deconstructivist approach....kinda like a magician, he pushes the limits of illusion and perceived reality, the perceived reality being film. We often just accept the clear film with a series of transparent images printed on it shown through a lens projected with light onto a flat surface as reality. So maybe you now see how you can connect most things to a Svankmajer film.
However, there are very few filmmakers from the past and even fewer in the present which I would consider in the same neighborhood(and what a ghastly, grisely, viscous and vicous neighborhood this is- Mister Rogers land of make believe turned literally and figureatively inside out!!!!!) Michael Gondry, Guillermo Del Toro, David Lynch, Terry Gilliam, Darrel Aronofsky, Jean-Pierre Geunet, and the Brothers Quay would be the ones who could handle the task of carrying on his work if say he would pass away before a job were done. Well along with those names add the director of "Babel" Alejandro González Iñárritu and Christopher Nolan as the most fascinating and original filmakers working today.



So...I usually just do simple shapes when I work with playdough sitting at the table with Julian but once a couple of weeks ago, I remember making a face. And then it happened again today. And then, sitting down with clay a 2nd time in the day, Julian asked me, "papa, are you going to make a face?" and I thought to myself "why yes.....yes I am." It is flat because I had rolled out the playdough first, not thinking at that time that it was going to be anything, just pushing the material around on the table....and soon on a subconscious level I was thinking of the Svankmajer short animated classic "Dimensions of dialogue and I started making that head- creepy yet modeled as one would a natural, realist profile of a man around my age.
Soon, julian was trying to get my attention, but to no avail - I was sucked into the process!!! Yay!!!

A mug from the past:

Guess my son turns 3 in less than a week, I turn 41 in a month, they found a planet which could possibly sustain life which has not yet been seen and is trillions of miles away, Rostapovich dies a month after his 80th birthday, April 26 (Bloomberg) -- The Senate approved a war spending measure calling for the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq, sending it to President George W. Bush who says he'll veto it.

A day after the House passed the legislation, the Senate voted 51-46 to approve it. Bush has promised to reject the $124.2 billion bill, which would require lawmakers to then draft new legislation to fund the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan that doesn't include any troop withdrawals.

``This legislation is dead before arrival.'' Mississippi Republican Trent Lott said. ``Next week can we get together and do the right thing.'' Wow, didnt know that Trent Lott was such a big fan of Spike Lee??? I guess I can see it, having been friends with Strom Thurmond who is now dead.....isnt he??? Thats assuming he was once alive, of course! Democratic presidental candidates have their first debate called "Who are we??? Why are we here???" debate in South Carolina. The contestants: Senator Joe Biden of Delaware, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York, Senator Christopher Dodd of Connecticut, Former Senator John Edwards of North Carolina, Former Senator Mike Gravel of Alaska, Representative Dennis Kucinich of Ohio, Senator Barack Obama of Illinois, with Bill Richardson from New Mexico exploring the possibility of running and Westly Clark thinking about it and who knows about Ralph Nader, but I think maybe not. Then theres the Republicans: Senator Sam Brownback of Kansas John H. Cox of Illinois, Former Governor Jim Gilmore of Virginia ,Former Mayor and 9/11 star, Rudy Giuliani of New York City, New York, Representative Duncan Hunter of California, Senator John McCain of Arizona, Representative Ron Paul of Texas, Former Governor Mitt Romney of Massachusetts, Representative Tom Tancredo of Colorado, Former Governor Tommy Thompson of Wisconsin, then the one exploring and seriously considering: Former Governor Mike Huckabee of Arkansas (Exploratory Committee), Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich of Georgia, Osama Bin Laden, the unknown comic, Senator Chuck Hagel of Nebraska, Former Senator and actor Fred Thompson of Tennessee. Then you have libertarians greens constitution party, independants, but so far no silly o,r farce(well, obvious farce) candidates like maybe Chuck Norris or a power ranger or britany spears or chuck woolery or moe larry or curly, groucho, harpo, chico, zeppo, scrooge mcduck, yosemite sam, foghorn leghorn, tasmanian devil(oh, hes vice president, currently, whoops!) dr. jeckyll, mr. hyde, randolph hearst, rosebud, mr. smith, dr. jones, as in indiana jones, rocky balboa, rambo, kermit the frog(green party, the terminator( governor of california), jessie the mind ventura, bobby the brain hennan, mr. wonderful, brutus beefcake, bluto, popeye, the jeep, some smelly Yak, and the rest of the cast from the sgt. peppers lonely hearts club band record album collage!!!! Luckily Simon is still with American Idol, he will be able to weed this motley crew down to at least a dozen by say, November of '08???

BFA Marylhurst class of '93

What can I say? You have a good afternoon on a quiet friday all alone on the beautiful campus of marylhurst doing monoprinting
playing around with viscosity and collage and mirrored ghost images and reversed collage pieces until on the 4th or 5th or 6th print you come up with something potientally exciting you clean up and pack it for the day go back home bring the prints home where they sit in a box for some 13-14 years get a scanner pull it out of the basement and are only able to fit a piece of the print on the screen scan it and accept it and post it and say wow this is pretty damned good!!!



Ditto goes for this one - It is also just a portion of the entire print, but it looks better that way- friday afternoons had almost no classes at all on campus and because I did not work at the library those days I would just go down and have open studio time to play with monoprinting time in the darkroom time in the thesis studio for other things, have almost the entire library free.....walk the grounds feeling like I owned the campus it was so empty!!!! those days will never, never, never, return!!! free time free space mostly free resources......ahhh, the creative soul really thrives in those conditions!!!! I went to Marylhurst from fall of 1990 through spring of 1992....taking 1 math class at pcc to get the science credit during the winter 1993 term and getting the bachelors just 8-9 short years after starting this whole school thing in fall of 1984. Went back to Portland State University for a short stint fall 1996 to spring 1998 had more fun took some more classes with Mel- which turned out to be the right thing since he would retire just a little while after that- but what did I acheive out of all this time spent???
What does all of this effort amount to, besides a big fat unpaid student loan??? Its hard to fathom at 6 feet under the surface Its hard to measure, really, since I do not have a way of measuring it - it could measure up maybe it is still 4th down but is it 4th and inches or 4th and long? should I punt? do I use the hurry up offense? do I go into shotgun formation? do I hand it off, or fake a hand off fake pump and throw a Hail Mary being that its Marylhurst the Sisters would approve? I have faith but will still say the roserie or say Rosie Greer or Pam Grier or Grear Garson or Gary Larson and hope that if it is the far side things are much closer than they appear...or is it all done with mirrors and smoke and screens.