Oh well, we gotta do this outer space job. Hey, what’s that signal? Something’s stuck on this dude’s face! Oh, now it’s not. Let’s have dinner. Punch through sternum. Scuttle across floor. Ruin mealtime. Everyone mills around looking mad nervous for what feels like a million years. Here kitty kitty kitty – HOLY CRAP! Who’s left? Now let’s mill around with a flame thrower for another million years. He dies. She dies. Everybody except Sigourney dies. Sigourney catches the stupid cat, they get on the pod (did anyone notice that a goodly portion of this film involves stuffing that cat into one or another tiny cage-like space? If I was that cat I would not volunteer for any more space missions) and AHHHHH Drooly Soggy Lizard Creature is napping over the console! Sigourney gets kinda nekkid. Then she puts on a space suit making THE MOST POSSIBLE NOISE EVER yet the alien is totally cool with this. She sucks him out the side of the escape pod, he snags a grappling hook and she revs up the engines and sautees him. The end.

Now, please realize I went about this all wrong. I’m old, this movie is old, I’ve seen a ton of movies that ripped this movie off therefore nothing in it is unique. All these things are errors on me. I like to think of this as the Elvis Situation. Elvis was the first of his kind to make his music and I think that’s great, but I don’t love his stuff. I respect how he was the first honky singing blues. And that’s how I feel about Alien. I respect its original awesomeness and all the doors it broke down, but it didn’t change my life in any integral way.

I’m psyched to see Prometheus, though.

I love going every year because there’s all this art there, the kind of art you see in modern art museums all over the world, and if you have piles and piles of money you can own some. It feels more alive than a museum because the art isn’t just sitting there – it’s changing hands. You can meet the gallery owners, the artists, the buyers, everyone. It’s exciting. There were two artists that were of particular interest to me. One was Jan Huling. I saw her work at the first SOFA I went to, I think it was 2006. She finds bits of what some people consider trash and she covers them with intricate seed bead patterns. I’ve always loved that idea, the idea of taking a variety of items that have little or no worth in themselves and through your hard work and skill, convert them into things of beauty and value. I am still a little sad that I didn’t buy one of her pieces at that first SOFA. It was a bird sculpture (she was really into birds then) on top of an ostrich egg with a happy little cricket waving a little paper hat. I adored it but it was around $4,000 and I simply don’t have that kind of money. Probably the most expensive art I have in my house was around $600 and I struggled with that, so four grand wasn’t going to happen. Every time I see her work, though, I get a little pang for my bird-with-ostrich-egg piece. Sigh. I found some pieces that are similar so you get an idea.

She, as with all good artists, has expanded her horizon and now she’s moved on from birds and smaller pieces to larger pieces. Jan has also now incorporated medallions and leaves more negative space. I was super-excited to see that she had three pieces for sale at SOFA and two of them had red dots on their name plaques (meaning they were sold). The two sold pieces was this really big monkey:

And this awesome cobra that I totally would have loved to have in my house.

I’ve said it before, but I’ll say it again: I love it when artists I love are successful. It warms the cockles of my heart. And I’ve been watching Jan’s work for a while now, so it’s wonderful to see her pieces getting appreciated more and more each year.

The other artist that really caught my eye was a woman called Shayna Leib. I’m a sucker for glass, so it’s no surprise I fell in love with her work. They look like swirly ocean grasses expanding out of boxes. Here’s one to give you an idea.

On her website she explains her process. Apparently she makes cane, usually opaque color inside, transparent color on the outside. She does it with an assistant because they stretch the glass over fifty feet. Thirty feet of it is usable, not to thick, not too thin. Shayna then cuts in into a variety of lengths, but the pieces are all stick-straight, so she warms them up (really warm, glass needs to be hot), so they bend over metal curved shapes, and when they’re cool, she very slowly assembles them from one corner to another inside the frames so they flow and wave. They really don’t work very well in photographs. In person, they take your breath away. I found some closeups to help illustrate the incredible-ness.

There was a piece like the one above that I would have loved to own but it was 1) sold, and 2) $53,000. FIFTY-THREE THOUSAND DOLLARS. I do not have fifty-three thousand dollars, but if I owned an office building I would put one of her pieces in the entrance hall to greet everyone every day because they are magical. I would feel bad if it was in my house and only me and my familiars got to enjoy it. You see something new every time.

Lately I’ve been digging into the treasure trove of Netflix streaming movies. I think Netflix thinks I’m an arty pervert, because it recommended two films that I have a lot of problems with: Sleeping Beauty and Dogtooth. Sleeping Beauty came out about a year ago and it is about an Australian young woman who needs money so she does some medical tests, and waitresses, and possibly prostitutes herself a little bit. Then she gets a job doing table service in her underpanties with other women, also in very exposing scanty garb. I found a picture and put modesty hearts over all the nipple-age. The lead’s the one in white.

They serve these old people dinner and then two of the women get naked and pretend to be andirons at the fireplace, it’s so very weird and S&M-y and not very sexy at all. Then she signs up to drink this tea that makes her fall asleep and old men can lay naked with her, no penetration, but they can snuggle and she won’t remember any of it. What the…? Seriously, that’s the film. A bunch of other stuff happens and it ends, but nothing is resolved and it doesn’t really matter. I cannot fathom how this film got made. It’s so art-house-y and pointless. You know a film is bleh when it’s got sex-n-nudity in it and you’re not even slightly titillated. Which leads me into my second film recommended by Netflix called Dogtooth. I’m not even going to try and explain it. Watch the preview.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QFtDzK64-pk

What a fat hairy pile of WTF that movie was. Oh, did I mention there’s a super-creepy and depressing sex scene in it? It’s a bonus! That’s probably how it got that “No one 18 and under admitted.” If it was me, I’d insist people 18 and under go see it. It would certainly cut down on teenage pregnancy. I hate you, Netflix. From now on, I’m only watching movies made by Michael Bay, with big shiny explosions.

And two, the expression Pee-Wee makes when he is forced to carry snakes out of a burning pet store:

The second thing I’ve been watching is Battlestar Galactica (the new one from 2005, not the older one from the late 70s). I normally don’t care for science fiction, but this isn’t really a show about science fiction. It’s more a show about struggling to survive all alone while something you barely understand tries to annihilate you, which makes it an inherently interesting premise. I have a couple of thoughts about the show.

1. If everyone is wearing the same uniform, maybe you should not hire four handsome strong-jawed chestnut-haired men to play four different roles. I keep getting them confused. If you know the show, it’s Chief  Tyrol, Helo, Hot Dog and sometimes Apollo if the camera is zippin’ around enough. What, are there no Aryan Nazi-looking guys in the future? No Anthony Michael Hall-lookin’ folks? That is unfortunate.

2. Does anyone else find the theme song unbearable? I think it reminds me of that damn Sarah McLachlan song they use in all the ASPCA commercials, and I have been trained Pavlov’s-dog-style to hear that “Angel” song and immediately get sad about all the doggies and kitties with their woeful eyes. Gotta say I love all the drumming and didgeridoo-ing in the background of the battle scenes, very tension-filled and exciting.

3. It’s hard to take the mechanical-looking Cylons seriously when they have Knight Rider woosh-woosh red lights on their faces. I always hear Kit saying “Michael” over and over when I see them. That being said, their fingers that just pop out all blade-like are super-rad and I want them. If I was a Cylon who looked like a human (spoiler but not really because that is the premise of the show and is revealed in the first episode) I would insist on keeping the long stabby magic metal fingers.

4. Lieutenant Starbuck is BAD-ASS. That is all I have to say about that.

5. I say “fracking this” and “fracking that” all the time now. It really is brilliant, substituting “frack” for the other f-word. It sounds similar enough that gets the point across beautifully and no one at the FCC can nail you for cursing because technically, you’re not. Between me saying “frack” from Battlestar Galactica and “gorram” from Firefly, I am getting too nerdy for words.

Everyone says that it gets really crappy halfway through Season Three, so I’m bracing myself for that. However, I’m presently in the middle of Season Two and everything’s great, so I prefer to not think about the lameness to come.

*You will know it has happened by the “shluuuurrrrrp” sound, followed everyone putting their heads down on the table and falling asleep.

Addendum on 2/15/12: Now at the middle of Season 3. It did get kinda dumb. But now I have to watch until the end because that’s what I have to do. Ehhh.

And then I read about this commercial for the movie The Immortals. From what I understand, this is a real commercial and not a fan dub. If this is true, then that’s perfect. I was on the fence about this, but I’m going to see this film now.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8kGCCJQGj94&

This one:

And my personal favorite:

I’m surprised Michele Bachmann and Rick Santorum haven’t outlawed Mallard ducks. If I were them, I would.

By the way, the funniest thing I saw there was a security guard who was clearly hired from some big agency and was profoundly displeased about working at MoSex (as the kids call it) with a black and shiny gold tie that read “I LOVE JESUS” over and over and over. It was his tiny little protest. Cricket and I were like, oooh honey, you need to find another line of work.

In somewhat keeping with the sensual theme, I went with Neenernator to the Metropolitan Museum of Art to see the Alexander McQueen exhibition. Alexander McQueen was a brilliant fashion designer who recently died, and this was a big retrospective of his work. I was vaguely familiar with this clothing and accessories, but now I think he might be my favorite designer. He was extremely concerned with taking the normal lines of the body and reshaping it – making different parts look longer or shorter or thinner or fatter, putting things in the incorrect place. Artists like Lady Gaga and Bjork really liked his work. McQueen stated that some of his influences were Tim Burton, The Brothers Grimm and Edgar Allen Poe. You’ll notice there’s a lot of references to death in his work, as well as S&M. At best, his clothes were uncomfortable to wear, and at worst they were probably a bit painful. I’m going to show you some of the more impacting pieces.

At the end of most fashion shows, they finish with the wedding dress. I love the fact that McQueen used antlers in one of his. I was told by my mother that under no circumstances was I allowed to ever get married with antlers on. She never lets me do anything.

One of the things McQueen was most well-known for was the lobster shoe. It is a ballet-shoe with a crazy-tall heel and the front bit protrudes out, making it look like a lobster claw.

Here’s a tattoo someone got of the lobster shoe. Hardcore, dude, hardcore.

My favorite dress that changed the perceived silhouette of the body was a dress I called the Christina Hendricks dress, because, well, it puts padding where one would have it if one was Christina Hendricks. Here two pictures of Christina Hendricks:

And here’s the Christina Hendricks dress:

My favorite dress was the horse dress. It’s molded to look like a nude woman on top, and then the bottom flares out and has horsehair hanging below. What makes this dress so great is the bottom flounces like the ponytail of the snottiest cheerleader in your high school.

And if you watch this video from 2:59 to 3:09, you can see the skirt-flouncing in action.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M5gY5DXrb48&

My second-favorite item was the jacket made from the skin of a Thompson’s Gazelle with gazelle horns coming out of the shoulders. You don’t need to wear makeup or earrings or anything with that, the horns do all the work for you.

There were also some stellar accessories on display. Like the face disc:

And the metal jaw:

And let’s not forget the external metal skeleton corset or the feathered ear things:

But, not surprisingly, I was drawn, once again, to wearing dead things as ornament. Specifically McQueen’s dead bird phase. At one point I turned to Neenernator and said, “IMMA GO KILL A DUCK.”

So, today I went on the internet and looked up dead birds I could purchase. It turns out that whole dead bird skins are kind of expensive. I wanted to buy this Grey Peacock Pheasant skin, but it was $300.

And since I have less than no idea what I’m doing, I decided to go with some starling skins that are a mere $7.00 each.

We’ll see what I make of this. I have been inspired. I may very well go and see the exhibit again. I recommend you see it too. It closes August 7th.

Next I intend to watch Battlestar Galactica (also based on a recommendation). If anyone has any other TV shows, preferably on the instant queue of Netflix, for me to watch, I would love to hear it.

I saw the Oscar-nominated film Winter’s Bone last week. I used to try to see all the Oscar films that are nominated for Best Picture the week before the Oscars took place so I would be able to make intelligent choices as I yell at the television, but I don’t now for two reasons: one, there are ten of them now, and that’s too much film-watching for me, and two, apparently one of the qualifications for being a Best Picture nominee is being a soul-crushingly, depressingly sad film. Like chug-a-fifth-of-gin-to-forget depressing. So I space them out over a large period of time to soften the pain. Winter’s Bone was anywhere near as sad as, say, The Reader or Slumdog Millionaire, but it sure wasn’t happy. It’s about life in the Meth Belt. (Remember the Bread Belt? We now have a Meth Belt. Progress!) Quick plot summary: poor white teen girl supporting her whole family goes looking for her missing father all over the Ozarks, meeting many grim-faced white people along the way. There are no leaves on the trees. There are no plants in the ground. There are no pleasantries exchanged. No one smiles, ever. It’s a chipper film. That being said, I liked it. I was interested the whole time. It’s so incredibly foreign to me, the way they live and co-exist, it was like watching a foreign film in English. I recommend it, but don’t watch it waiting for explosions or nothing. It’s a quiet film.

1. THE MOST WOODEN DELIVERY OF LINES EVER DELIVERED, EVER. I know Bill Murray and Dan Ackroyd can act, I’ve seen them do it. Not in this film, though. I’ve seen pornos with better acting than this.

2. So. Much. Smoking. I won’t lie, I loved it. I had a big ole nostalgic moment to films where you could smoke and drink and not worry about, “The children, oh God, who will think of the children!!!!” I don’t smoke, but if your characters are down-and-out social outcasts, bring on the ciggies.

3. I want the Ghostbusters car/ambulance/hearse/whatever. Also, I want to live in an abandoned fire station in New York. Someone needs to get on that.

4. What the hell is with the dogs and the gatekeeper and the keymaster and that stupid David Bowie deity? It’s confusing and dumb and no ancient religion would be so sloppy.

5. The apocalypse being brought about by Mr. Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man is kinda rad.

6. Exactly what was the point of the fourth man coming in in the middle of the movie and joining the band? He doesn’t add anything. He doesn’t bring anything that hasn’t already been broughtened. Was it to appeal to a broader audience? I don’t understand the point of his character. If anyone can help me with this, I’d appreciate it.

6. Oh. stop-motion animation, how I both love and hate you. Sigh. Could you not have gotten Jim Henson to make you some terrifying puppets instead of those choppy-movement puppets a la Clash of the Titans? I bet if you’d given him a ring he would’ve helped you out.

I’ve been told repeatedly that I have to see the Indiana Jones trilogy, and I don’t think I ever will. Every time I see a recent classic I’m disappointed. I’ve seen the scene with the golden idol and the bag of sand, I’ve seen the sword vs. gun scene, I’ve seen the rolling rock-ball scene, and I’ve seen the Nazis going from solids to liquids. I think I’m good.

There are street artists. No one has ever documented their actions. There is a crazy French vintage-clothing-store-owner named Thierry (Terry) living in Los Angeles who is obsessed with videotaping everything. His cousin is Space Invader, a well-known street artist. Thierry films his actions and is introduced to other street artists, including Shepherd Fairey. Shepherd introduces Thierry to Bansky, the most famous street artist ever. Other stuff happens. In order to edit Thierry’s heaps of footage of both Banksy and other street artists into a film without Thierry being involved, Bansky tells Thierry to make some art and have a small show, basically to get him out of Bansky’s hair. Here’s where I start to fill with rage. Thierry, who has no artistic training or skill or experience, rents a gigantic building in L.A. and hires a massive staff to make his “art”. He is clearly crazy, his artwork is utter pointless crap, but he understands hype, so he hypes the hell out of his show. When his show opens, tons of people show up, people who are desperate to be “cool”, Thierry sells all his crap art and rakes in a million dollars. Jessica bursts into flames. The end.

Here’s the deal, people. Artists aren’t the people who come up with the ideas, okay? We all come up with ideas, all the time. Good ones, dumb ones, weird ones, etc. “What if blah blah was a blah blah blah?” The artists are the people who pluck ideas, theirs or others, out of the ether and make them into something we can see and touch and feel. They are inspired by something and the make something in the hopes that you will feel the same way they do about that thing. I’ll give you an example from my own life. I worked with a guy named Jd at BBDO, and he mentioned to me that every time he went to a new job, shortly after he started everyone else was fired, a whole new staff was hired and everything started anew. Apparently this seemed to happen every time he switched jobs. It was a joke with him and his friends that he was like Kali, the Hindu God of Destruction and Rebirth. I thought that was a funny idea, so I made a ink drawing of him as Kali.

I did not have the idea. I heard it, I liked it, I executed it. Who’s the artist in this situation, Jd or me? So when you (and when I say “you”, I mean you, Jeff Koons and Damien Hirst) hire a big ole staff and you wander in and say, “Wouldn’t it be cool to cover a skull with diamonds?” or “I think a giant sculpture of a balloon animal would be neat,” and then you leave the building while your staff actually makes the thing and you touch nothing, but then you go and take credit for all the work, that doesn’t make you an artist. That makes you a hype machine. Your staff is the artist. And I hate you.

By the way, I love the skull covered with diamonds and the giant balloon dog. That’s not the point.

Pret A Manger (or Pret, as it’s often referred to) is from England, and I found this window cling very pleasing for two reasons. One, I like alliteration, and two, I happen to know (don’t ask me how or why) that the tool used to stir porridge, the one you see in the bowl there, is called a spurtle.

I mentioned earlier when I was talking about the play Warhorse how creepy I thought it was to have war stories for children. Apparently Warhorse wasn’t enough, oh no! Let’s have a whole freakin’ exhibition of traumatic tales for tots! Nightmares for everyone!

Did everyone read the book The Witches by Roald Dahl? If it’s been a while, let me refresh some points for you. The witches don’t blend into normal society. They have long claws, so they have to wear gloves. They are bald, so they have to wear wigs. They have blue spit, which makes their teeth have a bluish tinge. And finally, they have no toes and their feet end in blunt stumps, making wearing modern pointy shoes extremely painful for them. I used to love that book and read it over and over, and to this day everytime I see super-pointy shoes, I think about how uncomfortable those must be for witches to wear. Imagine my glee when I saw these shoes in a shop in Greenwich, in the land that the book The Witches takes place in.

This proves it! The story is true! Witch shoes!

This is a poster from the subway for a drug exhibition. I didn’t go, but I loved the words chosen for the poster.

Now, the V&A Museum. The Victoria and Albert Museum of Art and Design is my most favorite museum in the whole wide world. If I lived in London, I would be there once a month. You simply can’t see everything, even after many visits. It’s a beautiful building in itself:

Which still has shrapnel scars all over from the bombings of WWII.

And inside is rooms and rooms and rooms of every kind of design you can imagine – architecture, garments, jewelry, housewares, armor, etc. Check it out.

You want a room full of Greek stuff? You got it.

How about Early Christian? Not a problem.

Medieval, perhaps? We have a room for that.

How about a long hallway completely filled with every kind of ironwork? Okeedoke.

Seriously, it’s intense. Here’s a picture of a giant super-snazzy Baroque wall of a house. You can’t appreciate it in the picture, But the red parts of the wall is transparent red glass over mirror shards, giving it that extra tackiness. Sparkly!

I decided to focus on the Japanese items on this visit (last time I focused on the art glass section). It was really dark in the Japanese wing, but I still tried to get some decent shots.

The Japanese traditional clothing did not have pockets, so the Japanese originally used little hanging boxes called inro, like little wooden purses. The toggle bead holding the cords of the inro together was called a netsuke. The inro and the netsuke were often exquisitely carved small sculptures made from ivory or hardwoods, accented by metals.

Often natural elements are used in the pieces, like wee beasties or plants. Here is a tiny curled-up rat netsuke.

And here is a snail on a leaf netsuke.

But my favorite, without a doubt, was this one.

A badger wrapped in a lotus leaf?! With a little rain hat? How effin’ cute is that? I totally squee-ed.

Interestingly enough, the thing that blew my mind the most in the museum wasn’t anything I expected. I was walking up to the fourth floor when I passed this enormous wall drawing. It had to be 10 feet by 14 feet. It was huge.

It was an isometric drawing of St. Paul’s Cathedral. Here’s the deal, though: Every single detail is in there. Drawn with pen. Probably a pen with a nib that you have to dunk in an inkwell. It might be one of the most humbling things I’ve ever seen. Since it’s so tall, I could only take pictures of the lower half, but you get the idea.

Woooooow. Here’s the info card next to the drawing.

I might have stood in front of that drawing for fifteen minutes. If you go to the V&A, make sure you check this out. It’s at the top of the stairs to the fourth floor as you enter the architectural section.

(And here’s a nice photo Cricket took of the Millennium Bridge with St. Paul’s Cathedral in the background.)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0gEDUDmZkyc

See? I wasn’t lying. I actually live-blogged it to my friend Börkke, who had seen it recently. I figured rather than reviewing it, I would just copy and paste my comments about it here. I thoroughly ruin the ending, so if you want to see Black Sheep and would like the ending to remain a mystery (and oh, it’s magical, I tell ya), don’t read any further.

19 minutes in

I’m up to the evil baby sheep that was in the jar biting the sheep on the snoot.  And now…oh dear, she’s standing in front of the car.

I am concerned.

Oh look, little fluffy bunny. A really scared little fluffy bunny.
Earless Guy is talking to little fluffy bunny. AHHHHHHHH! Not okay. Dead bunny.

25 minutes in

EVIL SHEEP IN THE HOUSE!!!!

BAAAAAAaaaaAAAAAH!!!

OH NO! SHEEP IN THE YARD!!!
Wait, they’re just regular sheep.

30 minutes in

Sheep fart. Tee hee.

37 minutes in

OH NO!! SHEEP RUNNING OVER THE HILL!!!

Also, Farmer Boy’s foot is a hoof. This does not bode well for our cast of characters.

44 minutes in

Well, I hope you’re happy. The sheep are grazing on human corpses.
Aaaaaand there’s an oozy hand wound. Delightful.

100 minutes in

Everything’s gone to hell. The sheep are killin’ errbody up in here. Entrails are being munched. Limbs are being ripped off. A dude is reading the bible (it isn’t helping). There’s a were-sheep is in the kitchen and he sounds like Chewbacca. This is all so very weird and bad, and even more weird.

One hour, 13 minutes in

What the frick is going on? I hate this movie. I now also hate farmers and sheep. This movie is seventy-five types of wrong.

1:21 in

Ahaha! He blew up the sheep using their farts!

Awww, now he’s a farmer and he’s not neurotic no more. How lovely. Please don’t make me watch this again.