"What it means to be Human"

Overheard on WNYC-FM today:

"What it means to be human is to walk down the street and worry about whether a crane will fall on your head or not."


So what does it mean to you to be "human?"

Ebb & Flow

I'm always amazed of the tangential aspects of Googling things. While searching for "Ebb and Flow," I came upon a site dedicated to the chronicles of the United States military activities in the Korean war—complete with relevant maps and charts.

If anyone is interesting here's the link info:
http://www.history.army.mil/books/korea/ebb/fm.htm

Today's Word of the Day, as told by M-W

opine • \oh-PYNE\ • verb

: to state as an opinion

Example Sentence:

In his review, Malcolm opined that it was good to see the band returning to the formula that had worked so well for their first album.

Did you know?

"Opine" has been around since the 15th century, and while it certainly is not a rare word today, not everyone is inclined to take it seriously. Commentators have described it as a stilted word, appropriate only in facetious use -- and it does have an undeniable tendency to turn up in humorous writing. Recent evidence, however, suggests that it is being used in perfectly respectable contexts more often. It typically serves to emphasize that the opinion being reported is just that -- an opinion. The etymology of "opine" is perfectly respectable, too. The term derives from the Middle French "opiner" ("to express one's opinion") and the Latin "opinari," meaning "to have an opinion" or "to think."

Get it together people

It is (and has been since the 1st) BIKE MONTH.

www.bikemonthnyc.org

In the beginning, no introduction

While searching for an address in my former home state of Texas via Google maps, I clicked the "satellite view" for a better perspective. I zoom as a close as possible to the address. It looks like a typical hot summer day in the south—with the splotchy sections of dead and alive grass. There's an occasional car here and there. I start to think about the people that might be in the cars, the time of day, the date, and so on. And then I realize to my satisfaction, I can follow the roads to my old house, my family member's homes, my old schools, and my grandfather's business. Judging by the cars parked in the lots, most of the employees must be out to lunch. Perhaps it's possible I could follow all the roads to the usual lunch spots and find my grandfather's car. Ah! Sure enough, there it is in the cafeteria parking lot. I travel to my uncle's home, where I find the green work truck and the Passat. Which it occurs to me that this mapped image must have been captured more than a year ago, when he was alive. So I travel—what is it, west?—to find the cemetery, but can't zoom close enough. Is it possible this was captured even further back, to when my grandmother was alive, 3 years ago? I get consumed with trying to find her truck, but something tells me it isn't quite that old. I then travel to another relative's home location, to realize it wasn't even built yet. Now this I found particularly curious. My friend articulated it well "A map is merely a diagrammatic representation of a place, and is therefore merely a concept of how a place can be rendered. But with satellite imaging, you're no longer dealing with concepts but with concrete reality." How interesting that a tool with purely objective intentions would inadvertently become so subjective.
I'm certain that I'm not the first to think of Google Maps as some sort of Visual History, nor am I the first to map out all of the places I've known. And surely someone else has considered the idea of the Google Map satellite view as a record of development and progress frozen in time. I immediately took a screen shot of each of my searches to save in my personal photo archives, along with my other random photos for 2008.

The Great Wave off Kanagawa

It has recently come to my attention that contrary to previous belief, knowledge of Hokusai and one of his most famous woodblock prints (see title of entry), is NOT common. It came to me while in discussion with a well-rounded fellow artist. The friend was describing some of the inspiration for a tattoo sleeve in the works, and mentioned that the tattoo artist had essentially introduced him to Hokusai's prints. I was then asked if I knew who that was. I responded with a "Yes" pronounced similarly to "Duh". "You mean you seriously didn't know who that was? Don't you know The Great Wave?" Since that day, I have started conducting small surveys of the topic while conversing with friends and family. One friend seemed agitated that I would ask and that I suggest that it should be known to them as well (I admit: I do have a tendency to have a "tone"). I commented that the print was nearly as important to Art History as the Mona Lisa. That returned a few crazy looks. In response, it was said that this particular work simply belonged to a genre, as to explain why it would be new to this artist and the newly tattooed friend. But then I began to think more on it. What does genre really mean to describe? According to Merriam-Webster, it is:

1 : a category of artistic, musical, or literary composition characterized by a particular style, form, or content
2 : kind, sort
3 : painting that depicts scenes or events from everyday life usually realistically
Essentially, genre can apply to any work of art created in history (or now for that matter)—which doesn't seem to make a case for not knowing Hokusai, his work, or influence on painting and art making as a whole. The point here though, isn't to fault my two friends as artists (though I find a little offense for the neglect of Japanese art collectively), nor their failed Art History instructors. Well, at least not directly. The point is that it was a departure to another thought: Hokusai, and furthermore much of the Japanese scroll painters (also giving a nod to their Chinese and Korean influences), were important in a large way to Art History, not just in the Japanese world. And they deserve to be acknowledged as such, and not a chapter half-read from Gardner's Art Through the Ages. After having visited a recent Freer Gallery show of Japanese art from the Edo period, I have began to consider just how modern these artists were for their time, with their use of clean line, abstraction, patterning, and simple brush stroke.
One could say so boldly that they knew and practiced modern art, minimalism, and abstract expressionism before we even conceived of it (consider the image at top: detail of a landscape on a scroll inked in Japan, 1495). I imagine the influence to have functioned much like African masks did for Picasso and his Les Demoiselles d'Avignon.
For myself and my two friends, we couldn't make the work we do without—to be direct—Modern art having happened, and Modern art couldn't have occurred without both the ideas that produced Mona Lisa, nor those that produced The Great Wave off Kanagawa.