One quote the struck me from Michelle Citron's work is when she states "We film Christmas dinner with family and friends, not the meal eaten alone; birthday parties, not the emergency room visits; baby's first step, not fighting with the adolescent; Vacation, not work; wedding parties, not divorce proceedings; births, not funerals. Through our selective filming, the 'sunny side of life' is preserved and the dark side of life is cast out. We record the noteworthy, the celebrated, the remarkable, and the extraordinary." (Page 19) All I could think about while reading this passage was the Friedman home movies. There were home movies shown in the beginning of the documentary that were typical home movies, birthdays and other happy times, the family clowning in front of the camera, the husband and wife happily posing together for posterity. These are the sorts of things people expect to see depicted in home movies, because why preserve the bad times? its the good times you want to remember. Thats why its so shocking when later in the documentary that familiar grainy film shows up and we see hysterical fighting, hatred, and sadness preserved for history. Instead of seeing a happy film of a family enjoying some good times as we expect, we see a family being torn apart at the seams
my first question upon seeing those Friedman films was, why would anyone film this? It seems like that year would be the one that the family would most like to forget. Its just the coincidence of a brothers fascination with recording video and a family tragedy coinciding. It creates a strange experience for the viewer. Already watching a home video of another family is strange, it almost feels intrusive, since home videos are usually made for the viewing of that particular family only, and they have a very specific meaning for that family, one that would not translate for a outside viewer. Also, an outsider watching these home videos, I think, changes the nature of the films from something personal and private to public. So on top of watching a medium that was never meant for your eyes, you are seeing an incredibly intimate family moment. Michelle Citron talks about capturing happy moments, moments that people want to remember, birthdays, weddings, christmas, and here we have arguments, crying, agony. This provides a more intimate view of The Friedmans than if an outsider was filming them, or they were filmed with the intention of making them public. But since these home videos were films of family, by family, for their viewing we get a more intimate and open view of the family than we would otherwise.
The film really touched me, and I have to say i got a little emotional. When the more typical, innocent home movies were shown at the beginning of the film, they were incredibly similar to super 8 films of my own family. The Friedmans were a middle class Jewish family starting up during the 50s, and the father was a performer in The Catskills, playing in all the bungalow colonies and hotels in the area. My mothers jewish parents grew up in New York City, moving to Yonkers when they were first married, and then to Ellenville in the Catskills during the 50s. My mother was best friends with a girl who's father was a popular comedian in the area and she had different friends in the winter and in the summer due to the families who would stay in the bungalow colonies every summer. So seeing these family films that look so similar to my old family films, of a family with a similar background to my family, I felt like we could be related, or old family friends, or acquaintances that we would see at all the Bar Mitzvahs.
This is the trick of home films. All home films capture the same events, the same family antics, and so they all seem so RELATABLE. And that is why the later home films had such a strong effect, you already feel connected to the family and because of that, watching the family be torn apart in such a brutal way just feels like a punch in the gut.
For my final project Im doing a study in the virtual world of Second Life (SL) on how people define themselves, represent themselves, and act compaired to their Real Lives (RL, or 1st Life). Ill also be looking a little bit at how people communicate in SL, what they communicate, and why. I have a few shots from SL that I probably wont use in my project but that I like so I thought I would put them on here. Let me introduce my SL avatar, the medium through which I represent myself to the rest of the virtual community. My name is 00Syd Kidd.
Thats a photo that I took of myself that I included with a job application. Thats right, I am currently looking for a job on SL. I am running out of money from my last job and I feel compelled to get some more. There are different ways to get money on SL. Lots of people buy money (Linden Dollars, or $L) with real world money causing a very real SL economy. I dont know what the exchange rate is between US$ and $L right now, but there are people who create things on SL, sell them for $L, and then turn that into very real money. I dont buy or sell any money, keeping all my in-world money in world. So, Im trying to find a job. My last job was as a hostess, welcoming people to the Swing Club where I worked, making friends, introducing people, etc. Thats the same sort of job that Im applying for now. Here is another photo that I am using for job applications:
I took that in a photo booth. Most job applications require you to include at least one photo, often specifying whether or not they want a close up of the face, or the whole body. The reason for this is that if you are going to be holding a position representing a company, or a store, or a club your employers are going to want you to look good, but not only good, they want you to look experienced, like you know what your doing. Because of this, another common requierment for jobs is that you must have been in world for at least 30 days. Appearence plays a huge role in SL, with everyone striving to look more experienced, more polished, less like a newbie. No one takes anyone seriously who is still walking around in a stock newbie body or newbie clothes. The desire to look less new is one of the main reasons people desire in-world money.
The huge economy in SL, the buying and selling of virtual objects, often seems absurd to outside viewers. Its not like you actually NEED anything in SL. you dont need to eat, or sleep, you dont need shelter because you'll never be affected by the elements, if there are any. But yet people are constantly buying. The biggest industries in SL are the clothing industry, the skin industry (you must either create your own "skin" or buy one, it is the outside appearence that covers your body shape), the shape industry (Like with skin industry, you can create your own but most people just buy one, it is that shape of your body, your form), and the hair inudstry (you can buy many different hairstyles, which can be worn and taken off at whim, mush like RL wigs).
Most new avatars main goal is to gain enough money ro buy good quality (experienced, polished looking, and often expensive) clothing, skin, shape. and hair. This is what they will be judged on. In effect, "quality" of appearence is a status symbol. The more polished your avatar looks, wearing a good quality shape, skin, hair, and clothing, shows that you have been on SL for some amount of time, put effort into it, that you take SL seriously (very important), and that you have money. Many avatars that have been on SL for a significant amount of time have more than one skin, more than one shape, More than one hair style, and many, many clothes. Appearences matter just as much in SL as they do in RL.
In both the photos of myself that I have shown you I have been wearing different outfits. Here is a photo of me with my good friend Dahral and his in-world neighbor. Here I am wearing a different outfit and different hair.
In SL it is possible to change your appearence in an instant, with a click of the mouse. A few people who I've talked to enjoy this impermanence because it allows them to remain a mystery to those who dont know them, while at the same time representing different facits of their personality to close friends. One woman who I interviewed drastically changes her appearence often and has looked completely different every time I've seen her. She enjoys the power provided to her to change how she looks, and how that in turn provides some amount of power over the people that she meets.
SL makes it possible for individuals to control the way people view them, down to the last detail. In RL, of course, you can control how you look, but in SL you can control not only how you look, but how you look to different people. You could appear one way with friends and then change your appearence for when you go out in public, so that strangers (potential new friends) view you a different way.
Anyway, I ended up getting a little more in depth with this post than I originally planned. The idea of appearnece in sl and its impermanence, and the way people use that, is one of the ideas Im looking into for my project. I'll just leave you with one last thought. A lot of newbies show up in SL thinking that its a game, asking how to play, wondering what they are supposed to be doing. There is no goal to SL, it is exactly what it says it is, a second life. A lot of people go to SL as an escape from RL, but all too soon they gain friends and responsabilities and when that happens it is no longer an escape, but a life onto itself. Many SL residents describe SL as "addicting" but I dont think thats true. Games can be "addicting" because of their ability to serve as an escape from life. People are not addicted to SL, but I think that they are attatched to it because it is life. They are compelled to go onto SL by their various in-world responsabilities.
So, if you were thinking about joining SL, do yourself a favor and think about it a little longer.
Conversations With Ogotemmeli is the telling of a white, European anthropologist's journey into Dogon culture of Africa. Written in the 40s, this text does little to appear scholarly, instead seeming like a meandering tale of some wild adventure. The beginning of the writing, written like a story, tells of the European's daily lives living amongst the Dogon people. We read of them waking up, taking care of sick natives, and doing research. It goes on to tell of how one of the Europeans received a cryptic invitation from a respected local philosopher and wise man. The European goes to the man's house with his African assistant, and there they meet Ogotemmeli. Ogotemmeli was once a great hunter but after an accident became blind, and spent the remainder of his years on pursuits of the mind, becoming renowned thinker. Ogotemmeli knew of the Europeans, and wanted to tell them of his culture himself.
The European is used to hearing the Dogon's lying to them of their customs and culture, and is eager to hear from such a well known Dogon about such things. The European never offers any more explanation for Ogotemmeli's actions except for saying that he had been waiting for fifteen years to impart his knowledge of his people on to a European. The European throughout makes assumptions of what Ogotemmeli is thinking and feeling, at times making it seem as if he is baffled as to how he could approach the European.
Ogotemmeli goes on to explain the Dogon origin story. The story is one of sex, disorder, and the restoration of order. The story is deeply concerned with gender, balance, numbers, language, order and disorder. the story connects the origin of life and humans with the order of the universe brought about by language.
There was also a lot said about the balance of the sexes, and that how originally men and women had the essence of both sexes in them, but how one would often take over and grow stronger than the other. This I thought was speaking about how balance is ideal, and can never be perfectly acheived, and that it will never last. This I thought was saying that humans almost represented disorder in the universe. But I could just be looking too far into it.
All of the talk of gender and balance, however, made me think of the documentry Southern Comfort that we watched in class about transgender people living in the south of the United States. The people featured in that documentry were people who were born one gender, but feel that they are actually the other. Throughout the film we see these people doing all they can to embody the gender that they feel they actually are. Instead of embracing both genders as the people in the Dogon myth may have, they disregard one and embrace the other. In the Dogon myth those first people born with the spirits of both genders were circumsised in order to remove the less dominant gender, as it created a conflict within them.
I found a video with a few other Lesley clips. The first clip looks like its from Hullabaloo, which was a national television station that showcased hit musicians of the day, sort of like TRL. Hullabaloo's main competitor was Shindig! which is my personal favorite. Hullabaloo mainly had the bands and artists lip sync to their records and often had them sit in front of strange sets. The Hullabaloo dancers were much more choreographed than the Shindig! dancers, as you can see from their little dance in the middle of Lesley's song. Shindig! dancers were more like regular go-go dancers that someone might have seen at a dance club. The second clip is an extension of the "You Dont Own Me" clip that I have at the end of the Lesley Gore article. The clip is from the TAMI Show which I briefly talk about in the Lesley Gore article. At the end when she's singing "Its Judy's Turn to Cry" You can see a whole bunch of the other performers from the TAMI Show: Chuck Berry, Smokey Robinson, and Marvin Gaye, to name a few. I dont recognize the last show, but It looks like it is probably a local, regional television show based on Shindig! P.S. when there are about 45 seconds left on the video the back up dancers do the most adoreable dance move where they do the Mashed Potato but with their hands they make a little crying motion. love it! I'll have to try that move the next time I'm dancing to Lesley Gore at the Go-Go dance clubs I frequent so often. Enjoy Lesley and her fabulous hair!
Also: This is an early music video of Lesley Gore singing one of my favorites, Wonderboy. I wanted to put this in my original Lesley Gore article but couldn't find it at the time.
I watched Lawrence of Arabia (1962) looking for indications of orientalism and imperialism and came away confused. At the beginning of the movie, it seemed as though the film was belittling the Arabs, as I expected. As the film progressed however, I could not tell whether or not Lawrence was belittling the Arabs or tirelessly defending them. Was the film showing the world the harm that orientalism can do, or was it just another example of it? The film is based on British war hero T. E. Lawrence’s autobiographical account of his part in the Middle Eastern campaign during World War One. The film begins with Lawrence’s (Peter O’Toole’s) death from a motorcycle accident, segueing to Lawrence towards the beginning of his military career in Cairo. The first thing that indicated to me that this movie would be yet another example of western imperialism and orientalism was a quick shot of a window, from the cellar where Lawrence is with a few other soldiers, of camel legs and dark feet surrounded in billowing robes followed by Lawrence’s remark that he was in a “nasty, dark, little” place. Similar instances followed, affirming my assumptions. Lawrence’s guide asked with wonder, “Truly, you are a British officer?” The guide asks naïve questions about Briton, and Lawrence answers him as he would a child, looking at his guide with humour. One scene in particular began to make me question my assumptions about the film. When Lawrence finally meets Prince Feisal, whom he was ordered to find, they have a discussion of each other’s intentions. Prince Feisal says, “The English have a great hunger for desolate places, I fear they hunger for Arabia…but maybe you are one of these Englishman who loves the dessert, no Arab loves the dessert?” I took his saying this to be a swipe at those westerners who claim to be sympathetic towards a different culture, and who profess a love of it without understanding it. He then goes on to say, “Or is it that you think we are something you can play with? A little people, a silly people? Greedy, barbarous and cruel.” By having Prince Feisal say this, the film is notifying the audience that it is conscious of the orientalism and imperialist views that many westerners have of the Arab people. The fact that Feisal comes right out with it and accuses Lawrence of imperialist intentions, as well as maybe questioning whether he may have similar intentions to an anthropologist (claiming to love the Arab culture, and claiming to want to preserve it), made me believe that orientalism could not be at work in the film. After all, how could a film that is conscious of orientalism be guilty of it?
A scene later in the film further confirmed my newfound belief that this film was attempting to make the movie-going public conscious of orietalism in film when Lawrence returns to the British Military headquarters in Cairo. Lawerence, dressed in native Arab robes with a head scarf, dirty, unshaven, walks into the clean halls of the British headquarters and the officers try to stop him, not recognizing him as a fellow Englishman. Lawrence, with one of his companions, walks into the officers lounge and is surrounded by identical looking men in clean uniforms with polished boots, clean shaven with neat hair. All the men turned to stare at Lawrence as he made his way through them and attempted to order lemonade for him and his companion. The bartender refuses to serve him and a officer tries to kick him out, with the rest of the officers yelling for him to leave, before he is summoned to talk with a General. It struck me that Lawrence, at the beginning of his adventure, was an outsider and intruder amongst the Arab people, and upon returning to his people is again an outsider. Despite Lawrence being in the British military, he still represents the native outsider, the other, to the rest of the officers at head quarters. By immersing himself amongst the Arabs Lawrence loses his identity and can no longer identify with his people. The films messages fluctuated for me, at times clearly showing orientalism and at others being an example of it. At the end of the film I was at the conclusion that while the film attempted to expose orientalism in film, it was undoubtedly unconsciously an example of it as well. I would have to view the film more than once though, to get a really good idea.
Anne Friedberg’s The Virtual Window is a look at what windows have come to mean to humanity over time. Originally windows were a means of bringing light and ventilation into a dwelling but then with the development of glass, windows became more of a status symbol. Glass was expensive and made it possible to bring in light and a view of the world outside without also bringing in the weather. Glass windows to the wealthy became like paintings or photos, growing in size and quantity, and offering a panoramic view of the world to the viewer. And just like art, not everyone was lucky enough, or wealthy enough, to possess one.
Film created a new sort of window, a window that showed a different view of the world. Film had the ability to show not only “reality” as the filmmaker sees it, but film could also show fiction, an aspect of human life that had not yet been viewed in such a “realistic” sense. And then after film there was television, a window that brought the entire world as well as entire worlds of thought right into everyone’s living room. Television was so pervasive and so adept at bringing the world home, it was hard to imagine another device that could bring more “real life” inside. The computer screen, though, is a window that has a much greater ability then the television to bring “reality” home. You can view films and television shows through your computer, any image or piece of art, and just about any piece of information or misinformation. But the computer has also created a major shift in our view of reality through the onset of “virtual worlds” and “virtual reality.” Anne Friedberg comments on how the window, or the virtual window, seems to be growing increasingly transparent. The distance between the viewing public and the reality shown to them is becoming increasingly short. As Anne Friedberg says, “Virtual images radically transformed the twentieth-century understanding of reality, and yet most virtual images were seen in frames and through frames. Which technologies will break through the frame and have us climb through the metaphoric window?” (Friedberg, page 348) This passage seems to ask the key question. When will windows come full circle? Windows began without glass and it seems that soon we will be able to go through them again. Windows are close to coming full circle, from something to let the world in (glassless widows), to something though which we see the world (glass windows), to something through which we view an individual’s idea of the world (film, TV), to something through which we see a virtual reality (computer screen). All of these types of windows have frames, but only one of them allows you to go through it into the world it shows. But when will this virtual reality we see through our computers become yet another “real” world that we can walk around in. Already there are people who seem to completely live in these virtual worlds as they often seem more real that the world outside our glass windows. When will the frame be taken away? Its only a matter of time before we will be able to step through this virtual window and into the new reality. “Is the ‘age of windows’ – and by extension, the age of screens – reaching…its end?” (Friedberg, 349)
This blog posting originally appeared on dumbangelmag.blogspot.com last year in August of '06. Its still a piece of writing that Im proud of and thought I would throw it on here.
As most of us know, 1964 was a pretty big year for music. The English youth scene was just taking off and the British Invasion had just begun to take over America, even as American pop music was coming into its own. The Beach Boys were rocking out, having huge hits all across the country, spreading their sun-bleached love to teenage girls everywhere. James Brown & his Famous Flames were creating a stir, and Motown was starting to make it big with the Supremes, Marvin Gaye and the Tempations all happening at the same time. Lesley Gore, who was born in Brooklyn, New York had her first pop hit, "It's My Party" in April 1963 and her star kept rising throughout the next few years.
In October 1964, The TAMI Show was shot in front of a live audience of screaming teenagers at The Santa Monica Civic Auditorium in Southern California. The biggest names in music of the day were there, Chuck Berry, the Beach Boys, James Brown, Marvin Gaye, the Supremes, the Miracles, Gerry & the Pacemakers, Billy J. Kramer & the Dakotas, the Rolling Stones (the latter three representing for the Brits), Provincetown, Massachusetts' own garage godz the Barbarians and then, Lesley Gore, with hosts Jan & Dean. The TAMI Show was a huge concert that captured the excitement over everything that was happening in music at the time, and everything was new.
The theme from The TAMI Show, sung by Jan & Dean, written by P.F. Sloan and Steve Barri, told of all the amazing acts that were going to be performing ("here they come, from all over the world") and wrote in "the representative from New York City is Lesley Gore, now, she sure looks pretty." And Lesley did look pretty, with her gorgeous smile and her signature flipped hair. It's quite possible that because she was so young and so pretty, she left a strong impression on the Beach Boys, who she hung out with at the taping of The TAMI Show.
The next summer, the Beach Boys came out with their great album Summer Days (and Summer Nights!!!) that featured the song "The Girl From New York City". Connection? Probably. Lesley Gore wasn't someone who was easy to forget. She had a very distinctive voice, deeper than was usually normal for pop stars, and almost raspy in some songs like "Hey Now." She was very pretty, and very energetic, two things which probably helped her become a star.
While Lesley did sing many songs like "If That's The Way You Want It" (Tell me that you aren't ready to settle down with one / Want to keep me on a string while your having fun / If that's the way you want it / So be it, my love) she also went out on a limb with songs like "You Don't Own Me" ("You don't own me / I'm not just one of your many toys / You don't own me / Don't say I can't go with other boys / And don't tell me what to do / and don't tell me what to say / and please when I go out with you, don't put me on display"), which she recorded in '63, and she was rewarded with a number 2 hit.
While Lesley is known and remembered for her voice and her catchy pop hits, I am a fan of hers for an entirely different reason. I love her hair. Lesley Gore is my undisputed hair idol.
I have the greatest hits collection, It's My Party; The Mercury Anthology and the photo that was used on the cover really is something else. I would have to imagine that it's one of the first publicity photos of Lesley Gore because she looks very young, and her hair is done up into this magnificently tall, gravity-defying bouffant with these saucy bangs.
I remember seeing this picture of Lesley Gore amongst my mother's extensive CD collection when I was growing up, before I ever listened to it, and was always amazed by the pretty girl's hair. Lesley's hair almost seems like it's so tall that it continues outside of the frame for at least another foot.
Lesley Gore seems to have managed to have the perfect hair for every era of hair fashion during the '60s, if her publicity photos are anything to go by. She had a short, bobbed flip for most of her early career, but she also had a long flip kept in place with headband, and various bouffant hairstyles (some better than others); I have even seen an amazing photo of her that was probably taken in the late '60s with this large bouffant compiled of large soft waves with white beads strung throughout.
I have been trying to imitate Lesley Gore's different '60s hairstyles for a while now, but can only pull off a half hearted flip. I probably just need to use more AquaNet hairspray, lots more.
Late this last winter my mother found out that Lesley Gore was going to be speaking live in front of an audience at the 92nd St. "Y" and immediately bought tickets. I was thrilled, I couldn't wait to see her, have her sign my much listened to Mercury Anthology, and inspect her hair. When Lesley walked out on stage I couldn't help but feel a little overwhelmed, just knowing that the woman standing in front of me was Lesley Gore, my hair idol. But after a few minutes of a boring interview, the shock wore off, and I looked, really looked at Lesley's hair.
While I suppose her current style is a good, modern choice for someone her age, I couldn't help but be a little disappointed. Her hair was bleached blond, straight, and cut into a choppy, short look. Compared to her hair from her youth, it was pretty boring. I kept picturing her stylized hair that curled up around her cheeks, drawing your eyes to her smile, bouncing as she walked, and her current hair that just fell flat around her face couldn't compare.
In the middle of her interview Lesley broke into song, getting a roaring ovation from the crowd who was thrilled to be hearing the songs they love her for, but again, she disappointed. Instead of giving the crowd what they wanted she sang a short medley of her hits and then sang a song off of her new album to scattered applause.
After the interview, Lesley sat in front of the auditorium to sign her albums, old and new. I approached her with my old CD and tentatively said, "I'm a big fan of yours." Lesley didn't look up, but silently signed my CD and pushed it back to me.
I mustered up all the courage I had and said, "Lesley you're my hair idol." She didn't look up; she was busy signing another CD. I'm sure she just didn't hear me.
