Tag Archives: John Steinbeck

frank images

Loneliness and despair. Its part of the human condition. But not all of it. In its significance, and near pervasiveness, Robert Frank has been one of the best to capture, articulating all its nuances through mainly photography, but also film … Continue reading

Posted in Cinema/Visual/Audio, Feature Article, Ideas/Opinion, Modern Arts/Craft | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

revolution on the cutting room floor

Definitely a precursor to today’s political re-mix videos. Passionate agit-pop that incarnated all the hopes and dreams that the socialist project promised. Alvarez’s videos are intense projections that sear the conservative canons of capitalist ideology; the whole market system and … Continue reading

Posted in Cinema/Visual/Audio, Feature Article, Ideas/Opinion | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

sour grapes

There is a tendency to romanticize the past; to look back to an earlier epoch in America and the elusive “kindler, gentler America” that is referred to in such reverential tones. Truth is, the past was not so idyllic though … Continue reading

Posted in Cinema/Visual/Audio, Feature Article, Ideas/Opinion, Literature/poetry/spoken word | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

there’s plenty of room at the bottom

From the previous post that brought up Harry Saltzman, one of the originators of developing the social realism genre of film. Of course, Saltzman did not operate in a vacuum, but he had an intuitive sense that connected the north … Continue reading

Posted in Cinema/Visual/Audio, Feature Article, Ideas/Opinion | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

wild boys: remnants of middle class decency

Social realism unvarnished, unplugged, with America as a near gulag in gritty depression era society on the edge between starvation and death. Poverty, hypocrisy, opportunism are all explored in pre-code Hollywood where hand to mouth representations of living and ambiguous … Continue reading

Posted in Cinema/Visual/Audio, Feature Article, Ideas/Opinion | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

signs and signifiers: the snapper

He is made out to be an original traveling troubador, but the reality is more varied and complex in the case of Woody Guthrie than being a mere singer of Cantos in the transplanted Spanish heartland of dust bowl America. … Continue reading

Posted in Feature Article, Ideas/Opinion, Modern Arts/Craft | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

spilling the magic beans

Double dip or double down? A double double? The question is whether we are simply procrastinating on realizing that technology is essentially deflationary and we are accumulating a waiting list of unemployment. President Obama’s dinner with Silicon Valley high tech … Continue reading

Posted in Feature Article, Ideas/Opinion, Marketing/Advertising/Media | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

mural mural on the wall…

Can street art murals be simply too hot to handle for the public to view? Are the public funds and corporate subsidies often used to produce it any more disreputable than the same norms that permit corporations to peddle much … Continue reading

Posted in Feature Article, Ideas/Opinion, Modern Arts/Craft | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

FEAR OF A BLACK PLANET: Sail Away to Victimhood

Huckleberry Finn as everyman. Chronic suffering of brain cramps, broken by occasional lapses of sanity. The decision by a publishing house, NewSouth Books, from Alabama,  to exchange the nigger word in Mark Twain’s “Huckleberry Finn”, , for “slave” , or … Continue reading

Posted in Art History/Antiquity/Anthropology, Feature Article, Ideas/Opinion, Literature/poetry/spoken word, Marketing/Advertising/Media, Miscellaneous | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

DARK DREAMS: WRITING ON THE EDGE OF FOREVER

The search for myth, for universal patterns is necessarily a search for the meaning of modern life. Or, it can be viewed as an attempt to escape from it. At this point Harlan Ellison’s quest becomes perilous and paradoxical in … Continue reading

Posted in Cinema/Visual/Audio, Feature Article, Ideas/Opinion, Literature/poetry/spoken word, Miscellaneous, Modern Arts/Craft | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment