As an update to this post, I thought you’d like to see what Mei Mei & Sammi girl ( otherwise known as Lil Mouse & The Yapper and also Spinner & Scooter; and most affectionately, Thing 1 & Thing 2) are up to this Christmas. They’ve been modeling their matching family pajamas, as well as working on their smoldering looks for their upcoming calendar.
Meanwhile, so many of you really enjoyed our Saturday art walk in person at Pepsico Sculpture Gardens at the end of October and you have reached out to let me know how you’re looking forward to the art walk. Don’t worry – you are heard!
I am already working on our next in-person art walk happening in Katonah. And, as per usual, we are back in our virtual meeting room for weekly art history.
Now, let’s take a peek at this incredible documentary on dogs, their humans , and how lucky we are to have them in our lives.
Mei takes it all very seriously…
Originally I was working on teaching a class on the film Dog Years, but switched to the incredible documentary, Why We Don’t Deserve Dogs, for a variety of reasons. This film from 2020 is a remarkable look at the relationship between human beings and dogs.
It spans the globe from Chile to Scotland to Uganda and various countries in between. It is a quiet, contemplative look at the way dogs affect people, whether it be truffle hunters, former child soldiers, or shepherds. With their patience, constancy and unquestioning devotion, its no wonder dogs are loved and revered in so many parts of the world.
They have the power to redeem us, rescue us, entertain us, and most importantly, love us unconditionally.
Almost every morning before I start my day I do a little exploration on line…it’s a few minutes spent following random connections between subjects & it tickles & enlightens me much more than reading violent or cranky threads on Facebook, so I find it an enjoyable almost addicting, pursuit. I’ve gone from strings of royalty to Greek philosophers, into screamo while passing through Dadaism, so I thought I should share the morning routes my mind virtually explores…
Today, a trailer on the film Northfork ( I thought it would be a pleasant doc on Long Island wineries, but it’s actually a film on the coercion and shenanigans involved in imminent domain relocation of hold-out families during the construction of a massive dam project in 1955 nNrthfork, Montana.
Courtesy Paramount Pictures
In actuality, the Glacier View Dam, which was initially proposed at the North Fork site of the Flathead River along the Western border of Montana’s Glacier National Park, faced fierce opposition from various conservation groups and as well as the National Park Service. The massive 416-foot tall dam, would have flooded in over 10,000 acres of parkland, and was never built.
Proposed Dam, Courtesy U.S.Army Corps of Engineers
It stands ( symbolically, not literally…) as an example of the importance of environment conservancy, and is an interesting contrast to China’s completed Three Gorges dam. The largest hydroelectric dam in the world, it was officially built to stall the periodic flooding of the Yangtze River, but it’s main raison d’etre is to fuel China’s massive need for electric power. It has wreaked incredible havoc with the lives of millions of displaced people as well as destroying incredible natural environments and habitats.
China’s Three Gorges Dam on the Yangtze River, image courtesy of France24
For an in-depth look at this 21st Century industrial megalith and the destruction of traditional farming life in rural areas of China that it has caused, consider watching Chinese-Canadian director Yung Chang’s wonderful, gut-wrenching documentary, Up the Yangtze.
From Up the Yangtze, courtesy EyeSteelFilm 2007
After the trailer for Northfork, a doc on the incomparable Josephine Baker jumped on. Josephine Baker: The First Black Superstar, a BBC Wales/ForgetAboutIt Films co-production, explores the incredible life of this maverick at a time of suppression in the U.S. of both women and African-Americans. (Note to self: learn more about Josephine Baker, and explore why there hasn’t been a biopic on her life since the 1991 Josephine Baker Story, starring Lynn Whitfield…)
Josephine Baker, courtesy BBC
After researching a bit into the socio-political climate in the States and Europe when Baker made her move across the Atlantic, I had to jump into the Jazz Age and then jump back into Dada…which led to a deeper exploration of Magritte’s eponymous painting, The Treachery of Images … ( art is always at the root of everything, somehow…)
Rene Magritte, 1928-29, La Trahison des Images, courtesy of LACMA
The whole concept of representation versus reality ( this is nota pipe…) led to canadian Robert Gentleman’s development of the free software R, as well as being one of the brilliant brains behind the free software Bioconductor that analyzes data on genomes that results from specific kinds of molecular biology experiments.
Courtesy Bioconductor.org
R, by the way, is a free, open source language and environment ( or system) that is rooted in GNU/Linux ( Linux is the original free open source software ) and is used for graphics and statistical computing.
And you have to love an entity/organization/concept that leads off in its Help section with this advice: “Before asking others for help, it’s generally a good idea for you to try to help yourself”
Wow! Talk about encouraging true independence! I’m at once extremely intimidated, and utterly enamored with R and the concepts behind Gnu/Linux and free, open-source computing.
Courtesy r-project.org, 2016 c
So far, my morning’s mental wandering made my wish that I had paid more attention back in the day to my required undergrad class on introductory computer programming. Dr. Hsu very patiently tried to guide us through binary basics, zeros and ones, and I still feel that had I paid more attention to really understanding the concepts of preliminary coding, my life today would be very different.
Note to self: add “learn basic coding” to my bucket list.
profvalfranco 