Autism: The Musical

by Drew Martin

A couple of nights ago I watched Autism: The Musical (2007) directed by Tricia Regan. The documentary follows Elaine Hall, her adopted autistic son and a true cast of characters through the rehearsing and staging of a musical with autistic tweens. They are tweens because they are between being kids and young adults and are also somewhere between being brilliant and challenged.

All the people in the movie are impressive, especially Hall who tirelessly navigates her son's world and, if that was not enough to exhaust most single parents, takes on a dozen more autistic kids and interacts with their loving but worried parents to put on a show.

The kids are unique. Henry Stills, the son of Kristen Stills, one of the movie's producers, and Stephen Stills (of Crosby, Stills & Nash) and is an Asperger keen on paleontology. One of the most touching scenes is when his super-articulate friend Wyatt tells him that he is very smart. Henry sincerely responds that he had always wanted someone to say that to him. Such moments make the film special because they catch you off guard. You see the kids doing things that simply are not normal. They run around wildly or have a tantrum or contort themselves and you assume these actions are the manifestations of what is happening inside them but then they pause for a moment say something incredibly lucid that makes you to realize there is a very calm and intelligent person inside.

At a therapist, Neal (Hall's son) seems uncomfortable and fidgets. He is nonverbal so they are trying out a texting machine he can use to express himself with written words. His first stunning sentence is that he wishes his mother would be a better listener.

Wyatt speaks like a person twice his age, asking himself why he and others go into their own worlds. He yearns to be around people and to interact with them but explains that sometimes he is alone and therefore retreats to a closed-off place. He also has an issue with bullies and clearly sees his dilemma of being placed in a school program with others like him. He complains his class is "100% retarded."

The parents' concerns are also expressed. The father of the only girl the documentary focuses on, Lexi, says the one thing he has nightmares about is what will happen to her when he and his wife are gone, suggesting she is the perfect potential victim for sexual abuse because she does not have the capacity to report such a violation.

He and the father of a musically inclined boy named Adam independently discuss the friction there is with their respective wives. Lexi's father walks out on her mother during the film, Adam's father had an affair prior to the filming. From the outside, the transgressions would appear to be escapism due to the inability to accept their lot but they are both very clear what happens: the mother becomes so obsessed and consumed with her child's autism that there is nothing left for anyone else. If the apple does not fall far from the tree, the parents have to face and overcome their own quirks and limitations to do the best they can. Stephen Stills is the first to admit that he was very much like Henry when he was a boy.

One of the most interesting comments by the parents is from Lexi's father. He keeps trying to solve the impossible riddle of parenting a disadvantaged child and how to plan for her future. He thinks it over and over but the solution is never right. His wife, by contrast, in an earlier part of the film blurts out that she could take her own life.

The film shows troubled moments and starts with the alarming fact that in 1980, autism was a relatively rare disorder, diagnosed in one in 10,000 children in the United States. Now it is one in 150.

What you discover by the end of film, however, is that there is so much joy in the lives you witness and that you could love each of these kids as much as the parents if they were in your own home.

Pictured below: Adam, Neal and Elaine Hall, Lexi, Henry & Wyatt.

Passion and Purpose

by Drew Martin

I recently watched Philippe Séclier's documentary An American Journey in Robert Frank's Footsteps (2009). What I found most interesting was the discussion of how the actual title of Frank's photography book The Americans (1958) caused a stir.

Photo historian, Stuart Alexander explains how many of the same images appeared in US Camera 1958 and were accepted as Frank's personal experience but by using the title The Americans, his capturing of uncomfortable truths seemed judgemental.

I wish the idea/motif that it takes an outsider to show an American what the country is about could have been better balanced or expanded. This is true of every place, not just America, is it not? It is also inherently false, which is why the French filmmaker's retracing of this expatriated German-Jewish-Swiss' footsteps first comes off as presumptuous and as annoying as an American abroad digging deep for genealogical records. What saves the film from estrangement for a US audience are the candid and quirky Americans who are interviewed and guilelessly come across as good natured and nonjudgmental.

In the film, photographer and acquaintance Wayne Miller recounts a talk Frank gave at the Museum of Modern Art in 1956, where he discussed how good photography can only come from a combined sense of passion and purpose; one without the other does not work. Miller explains that part of Frank's purpose was anger. The most interesting thing he noted about Frank was that he would edit his negatives. This means that instead of cropping the exposure of an image in the darkroom, Frank would cut the actual negative before making prints and throw away the rest. Miller was in awe of this method, which he said took courage and conviction. He added that he was envious of his servitude and insurance.

His printer, Sid Kaplan, speaks of the challenging prints, which "took a lot of time and paper." In his creative relationship with Frank, he likens him to the architect and himself to the engineer. This relationship sounds hand-in-glove but he is also saying "he could not have done it without me." He shows a famous picture by Frank of people on a trolley car and he explains the under- and over-exposing that was necessary to make it work. Hearing him and seeing the final print is not validated until the same photo is shown at another part of the film on a contact sheet. It is a completely different image; flatter and washed out.

Peter Galassi, a curator at the Museum of Modern, explains that during Frank's time New York, the magazine aesthetic completely dominated photography; photography had a strong tradition as independent art, but was buried under weight of magazine world, in which Frank worked to make a living. He goes on to say that the photographers had to create their own place in the art world, which included the idea that a photographer could be an artist. It seems hard to believe, but according to the film there were no galleries in New York City at that time that showed photographs.

The Americans is hailed as a landmark book and a landmark view of the United States. Ed Ruscha said Frank brought together the American dream and American nightmare. Art critic Vicky Goldberg said Frank created a rent in the fabric that the nation had constructed.

Fellow photographer, John Cohen said Frank created the biographical photograph and photography teacher Jno Cook said that Frank made serial images that are cinematically related, which refer back to previous frames and make you wonder what is going to come next.

Frank's publisher, Barney Rosset lumped him together with Kerouac and Ginsberg because like them, Frank was able to connect with ruffians and "come away alive." Rosset explains that although it may not have been obvious in that period, "things come out in different arts but it takes a long time to make the connection."

The first appearance of The Americans was as Les Américains. It was published in Paris by Robert Delpire. Curiously, instead of using one of Frank's images for the cover, Delpire chose a drawing by that other great visual genius in exile, Saul Steinberg. Frank asked Delpire if it was too weird, to which he replied that is was complementary.

The film ends with Séclier's reflective narration offering that before Frank settled down in his adoptive home, he made this visual tour of America, covering 15,000 miles: He saw the land as it is, passed all the tests and felt the real pain of loneliness. He must have thought "I like it" and America responded "Ok you can be one of us."

Making Sense: A Library for the Blind

by Drew Martin

Although most artists are "visual" artists, art is not made with eyes. Most artists are guided with their eyes but the process is usually performed with their hands; a tactile process. Oddly, the experience of the art by the audience is typically visual, sometimes audio, but rarely involving touch.

What a shame. We would experience so much more by running our hands over great sculptures and brushing our fingers across some canvases. The art world would be quite different if this were the case. It would probably be much more authentic and the untouchable prestige would vanish with human touch. Of course, there are preservation shortcomings to fondling art, but what a tease that is.

I was in Philadelphia yesterday for a photoshoot and was fortunate to start the day off in the same building as the Library for the Blind and Physically Handicapped. Part of the Free Library of Philadelphia, this library provides services for people with visual impairments and physical disabilities that would prevent someone from holding a book or turning pages. Available to check out in person or to receive in postage-free containers are audio books and magazines; braille books and magazines; described videos; and, large print books. The audio book stacks are pictured here.

Pennsylvania's two Regional Libraries have over 75,000 titles for circulation. The library includes a public Talking Book Center with audio navigated computers that can convert printed word in braille, large print, or synthesized speech. With the cooperation of authors and publishers, books and magazines are recorded on cassette and produced in braille.

The idea of the audio book actually came from Thomas Edison who recommended that his invention of the record be used for the blind to hear their books.

The interior, opposing walls of the entrance to the library are flanked by relief sculptures with braille titles and were designed to be touched as much as looked at. One of these is pictured above. A plaque next to them reads: Main Line Center for the Arts, Sculpture Classes for the Blind and Sighted.

The Middle of Somewhere

by Drew Martin

A couple of weeks ago I took a midday train home. The typical evening rush-hour professionals were absent. In their place were random suburban day trippers. Two elderly, platinum blondes boarded with a small boy, who I did not see before he was slipped into a high-backed three-seater.

The train left Hoboken, passed through a long, dark, old tunnel in a rocky hill and emerged into an overgrown slice of northern New Jersey.

The boy chirped in a tiny, high-pitched and concerned voice, "Are we in the middle of nowhere?"

He must have been only four or five years old and he sounded so sad and lost. The train continued on to the marshy and wide-open Meadowlands. He asked even more desperately, "Are we in the middle of nowhere?" He was so anxious that he might as well have been abandoned in the wilderness.

He repeated the troubled question, over and over. Each time, my heart sank. Finally, our train pulled into Rutherford, which has a town center and signs of life. The boy's voice did not change its tone but this time he asked with a glimmer of hope "Are we in the middle of somewhere?"

Illustration by Michael Dumontier and Neil Farber

Pow Wow

by Drew Martin

Before the wayward and speculating Europeans arrived in North America, art on this continent was decorative and ceremonial craft, which was very much a part of everyday life. Aspects such as tribal identity and preparation for various occasions had visually aesthetic details but more abstract ideas such as opposition to enemy oppression and the questioning of bloody sacrifices were not expressed in art.

The Spanish occupation of Mexico and the English settling of the East Coast of the United States created and fueled a new kind of inhumanity, which over the years has been responded to with emotive works in literature, music and the visual arts.

The difference between the histories of Mexico and the United States is enormous. The Spanish were conquistadores and from the beginning mixed with the natives. The situation up north was more complicated. The English "adventurers" did not want to be so roguish; they naively thought they would win over the natives and yet the end result was much more devastating to the indigenous population.

The profound divide was that the English not only oppressed the natives but also imported and dominated a completely different culture at the same time, the enslaved Africans. I am not sure if such an international human disaster with so many atrocious consequences has ever occurred in this tight a timeframe on one scrap of land: the establishment of Jamestown in 1607 obliterated "Indian" culture, slavery in the US started there with the arrival of the first Africans in 1619 and between those years tobacco was introduced to Western civilization, which stoked the plantation system and launched the most addictive and deadly habit of all time, smoking.

The dominant tribe of Tidewater Virginia, the Algonquins, were surprised by how submissive the first Africans were but could not comprehend their state; having been swiped from their own continent then packed on slave ships for the harsh transatlantic journey. The Africans had already lost everything and were all but dead on arrival.

The Algonquins skirmished with the English but also tolerated them to some degree, especially after the marriage of Pocahontas to John Rolfe, (ironically) the father of the tobacco industry. Shown to the right is a portrait of Pocahontas and their son Thomas Rolfe, painted during their trip to England, shortly before she died in 1617.

Following her extremely premature death, which contributed to increasing tensions with the English, the natives staged a massacre in 1622, which resulted in the wholsale slaughter of hundreds of colonists in a matter of minutes. England responded by sending over troops to comb through the woods of Virginia and kill every native in sight. Those who fled, moved west while the African slaves were left alone to bear the brunt of the English and their stifling labor system.

What followed was the worst of slavery and yet not only did the spirit of the slaves endure, it flourished like no other. The contributions to the arts by the descendants of the slaves is immeasurable and priceless. Much of the music, literature and artwork has a continued theme of struggle and opposition to established America, and rightly so. What might be felt as threatening is still the backlash of having been threatened. Likewise, Mexican artists have had a lot to say about the Western invasion. The first works that personally come to mind are the murals of Jose Clemente Orozco.

But what about native Americans? When I try to think about art that expresses their struggle I completely draw a blank. The images I connect to the "new world" atrocities are European, such as this hand colored engraving by the Swiss artist Matthäus Merian, from 1628, depicting the 1622 Massacre. For lack of anything else, I even gravitate back to the most obvious stereotypes of their art...beads, totem poles, headdresses, etc.

Why is this? Is it because so many of those tribes that would produce protest art were simply wiped out? Are there a lot of native artists that are dismissed by a trendy art world? Or is it something much more philosophical...that these cultures without written languages at the time or art beyond patterns and symbolic forms were not culturally positioned to express their woes in art. Or, even now, by doing so...by putting on a show for the art world, would mean the kind of submission and compromise they have so ardently fought against for the past 400 years? Perhaps it is also because unlike the one-way fate of the Africans, the native tribes were already fragmented and locked in power struggles (which is why many of the lesser tribes aided the English because they feared the Algonquins) and much of the demise was due to their own immune systems, unable to cope with the diseases brought over by the Europeans.

Before the 1622 Massacre, the natives for the most part lived independently of the newcomers but would "show up for work" on the colonial one hundreds (precursors to plantations). They had breakfast with the English and then went to the fields...this is why the first attack was so successful, it was orchestrated to happen at the start of breakfast on Good Friday of 1622, at point blank.

Although the natives were fascinated by the phenomenon of writing they had no use for it with generations of codes and communicative nuances in place. On the other hand, the African slaves lived closer to the English/Americans. The English language was under their noses and their being denied its power made literature an explosive medium for telling their story in slave narratives and all the great novels that evolved from them...mainly because it entered the quiet reading rooms of the early Americans with a bang.

Language played a big part in slavery. The multitude of African dialects meant that there was no unified African language, so any hope of solidarity required a lingua franca, which had to be English...but first and alternatively it was song; invisible, free and undeniable. The visual arts took the longest to develop. The slaves' tools were just for labor. Art is obvious and hard to conceal. Additionally, art at that time was a leisurely pastime and reserved for the privileged documentation of pedigree.

Writing has a visual identity but you need to be close to fine print to understand the message and it takes time to decipher a passage. The message of a graphic radiates from its source and is immediate. This is where Kara Walker comes in, and is why she had such an impact with her early work. It was all thought, sung and written before but never so visual. It was an expression in hiding that did not come out until it was safe. Now it is applauded but if it were made in the time which she references it would have had fatal consequences.

I know there must be many native Americans who have written, sung and created art about their own injustices but where are those with the status and recognition of Orozco and the Walker? A disadvantage the native American artists face is that people really love the stereotypes. The image of the native warrior holds a special place in the world's mind. It is romanticized even when adulterated by European influences, such as with horses...pre-Columbian native Americans had never seen horses and did not know what to make of them at first sight; sometimes mistaking a mounted rider and his steed as one monstrous creature.

Most people around the world think the natives all wore headdresses and lived in tee-pees and ran around with tomahawks in their hands. Not only do they think this, but they believe they know it so when something disrupts that image, they do not want to accept it. Such images are popularized by the movie industry as well as staged photographs from the beginning of the 20th Century and are quite different from the original concepts of native Americans. At first, the imaginations of the old world were fed by the images of Jacques le Moyne de Morgues (1533–1588) a French artist who traveled to Florida, mapped the region and made a series of botanical illustrations and depictions of the Amerindians. Le Moyne eventually returned to Europe after relationships with the natives soured and he escaped a Spanish invasion. The torch was then carried by other European artists such as the Belgium artist Theodorus de Bry (1528 – 1598) and his sons who never visited the Americas and whose works were often adjusted to please buyers.

Shape Shifting

by Drew Martin

In the Star Trek series Deep Space Nine, René Auberjonois plays the character Odo who is a shape shifter/changeling. The natural state of this metamorphic species is a shimmering, goopy liquid. Amusingly, his kind refers to humanoids as "solids."

In the Star Trek tradition, Odo is the in-need-of-a-hug show outcast, as was Spock in the original series, as was Data in Next Generation. Unlike these predecessors, ornery Odo is not a logical counterweight or friendly android; he is cantankerous and dismissive.

Not only is Odo the least human of these pivotal characters but he knows nothing about his origin. He serves as the constable on the station and transforms himself in order to spy on suspects and to access areas undetected. He can be a mouse, a bag...even a framed painting.

In the episode The Search, Odo finds his home on a rogue planet and meets others like him. After a brief introduction, he is left alone in an arboretum. When he is rejoined by a maternal figure, she asks him if he has made good use of his time in that garden. He is confused and asks her what she means. She comments that he has been among the "solids" too long and that he should take the shape of the various plants around him in order to understand them better; to assume the form of something is to know it.

This idea has a wonderful extrapolation to art, especially sculpture. I imagine Odo wandering around museums emulating Rodin, Canova, Oldenburg, Calder, Moore and Kapoor.

Michelangelo said he was freeing the human forms that already existed in the blocks of marble. If this sounds a bit too romantic now, it was a conceptual leap at the time.

With Odo in mind, perhaps a great sculpture could be viewed as the transformation of the artist himself or herself into a three dimensional object for our benefit. Additionally, it would be an interesting way to interact with a sculpture. Put aside the analysis, art history and any attempt to figure out what it is trying to "say" and just imagine yourself taking on its properties.

Shattering Boundaries: Grace Hartigan

by Drew Martin

I just watched Grace Hartigan: Shattering Boundaries. It is a documentary about Hartigan, who was one of the first artists to recognize the quality and vitality of abstract expressionism and was part of a community of poets and painters in New York City that went beyond collaboration. Her own work merged figuration and the methodology from abstract expression.

Hartigan (March 28, 1922 — November 15, 2008) claims in the film, that the large scale of American abstract expressionist paintings came from movies...seeing the large heads on the silverscreen, which she recalls as early as 5, had a profound effect on visual artists.

Hartigan posed nude for 95 cents an hour at the Art Student League to make ends meet but stopped because she said it was difficult to discuss and defend her work while naked.

Hartigan contacted and visited Jackson Pollock after his first drip show and commented...

There was then that tremendous feeling that there wasn't just that activity, and you weren't just making an object. That whatever it is in the unknown in the self is deeply involved with the work.

Hartigan was very much a part of that tight knit artist community in New York City. It was said that there was a struggle of ego and insecurity. Ego, because these artists had stolen the art world fire from Paris and felt as if they were changing the world. Insecurity, because they wondered if it really mattered.

When asked in the more commercial era of Warhol how she would like to be called the mother of Pop Art she replied...

I would rather be the precursor of a movement that I hate than a second generation of a movement that I love.

Form & Light, Inform & Delight

by Drew Martin

The film Helvetica is a must-see for any graphic designer. A movie about a font may sound painful to sit through but it is captivating. This weekend I saw another film, which I think is even more important for young designers to watch: Milton Glaser, To Inform & Delight.

The title of the film comes from the 1st Century Roman Poet Horace's statement that the purpose of art is to inform and delight. The opening credits introduce the words form and light before changing into the Horatian title: the play on words is perfect for what follows.

If you are not familiar with Milton Glaser, you just do not know it. He is the artist who came up with the logo for the I Love New York slogan.

As Glaser explains, the project was conceived during a time in the mid 1970s when New York City was going downhill, fast. The new, upbeat saying contributed to the reverse of the decline of morale. The success of the logo, he offers, is because it is a visual puzzle, which makes the person viewing it remember it better than being told directly. Simple as it is, the combination of text and the symbol has to be figured out.

Glaser was one of the first designers to part with the Swiss-informed commercial art world. His post-modern sensibilities embraced previous styles and made them relevant again. He helped found New York magazine and was also behind Gloria Steinem's Ms. magazine. His approach to the press was that of service journalism.

As a designer, his first love is drawing, which he explains, is a way of understanding the world and of thinking. He speaks about the balance between solitary creation and collaborative work, the latter preferable...like having a dancing partner. I especially liked one moment when he was talking about a poster he did for the School of Visual Arts. He tossed together a bunch of stickers he did for the school. The edges curled and because he liked the effect, he had them photographed this way. He explained that he could have reached a similar effect on the computer but he would not have stumbled upon it as a physical act.

It is a comment that seems appropriate for other interests he enjoys as much as creating graphic art. He loves music and feels that his visual nods to music and musicians can evoke the response that music does. Likewise, he loves food and compares preparing meals to having the same kind of joy as drawing.

A well known graphic artist referred to him as the total artist. A friend explained that Glaser's hands have no resistance and his drawing is automatic, immediate, complete, unmediated and instantaneous. Glaser is just as well known and admired for his articulation. He speaks about the role of artists and design as a way to interact with people just as certain cultures participated in gift giving in order to pacify each other. Similarly, as with the presents, the absence of the gifts of art results in conflict and "people killing each other."

It makes sense that Glaser created the I Heart New York logo because he is perhaps one of the greatest and most authentic New Yorkers. He was educated at the Fiorello H. La Guardia High School of Music & Art and Performing Arts as well as Cooper Union. While he reminisces about what a great education he received he is also quick to point out that New York City is one of the best places to be educated simply as a citizen because of all the free events and lectures and the wealth of the museums.

A Beautiful Mind

by Drew Martin

A picture in a magazine caught my eye a couple months ago. It was of a boy lying on the grass with a vacuum cleaner hose arced over his head. He holds one end at his mouth and the other end at his ear. It is an intriguing picture because of his tranquility and the soft, echoing sounds it creates in your mind when you look at it, but it also a little unsettling.

This picture accompanied an article about autism and is part of a New York Times article with a slideshow that focuses on the boy's condition. The pictures were taken by the father, a professional commercial photographer, of his son. The father approached the project as a way to understand his son's quirks and the young boy contributed to the planning and executing of the shots.

The Aspergers and Autism community blog, thautcast.com, shares my thoughts on the Times' piece that it...

"... is a little more "autistic children are trapped in a cruel world of darkness" than I would like to see in this century..."

The inherent stillness and isolation of the photography has a lot to do with this and the formality of the shoot reinforces a clinical label. Unfortunately, most media representations of unique minds tend to either exaggerate, caricaturize or elevate them to a genius/savant level.

While it is true some autistic kids are cognitively years ahead of their peers and make brilliant musical and artistic connections, I would hesitate to join the camp that proposes autism is a sign of human evolution. I believe that people who display autistic tendencies have greatly contributed to the advancement of civilization and culture with their insights on humanity, arts, sciences and engineering but we are not witnessing the birth of a new species.

The idea of autism as a kind of mental superiority has been criticized as neurelitism, that is, the view that autistics are somehow superior to neurotypicals. This discussion focuses on the individual character blazing new neural paths. If there is progress with our species it is perhaps more about the social aspects that require more parenting and schooling and better parenting and schooling. An autistic child who is diagnosed early should receive much more attention and more of an education than the average kid. This would seem to be consistent with the progress our mammalian bonding and childcare. After all, we do not lay eggs in the sand and then scurry back into the sea. The emotional ties of our kind are forged through long gestation and rearing periods.

So what does autism creatively look like? While Stephen Wiltshire is well known for his detailed cityscapes, I think it should be emphasized that these sophisticated works are the final product of someone with a great visual memory but they do not shed much light on his thought process.

I find autistic sensibilities more accessible in the work of an artist such as Piet Mondrian. The artists most commonly assumed to have been autistic include Leonardo da Vinci, Vincent van Gogh and Andy Warhol but I do not think it would be too far a stretch to say that every famous artist, as well as noted scientist, inventor, writer and musician is somewhere on the spectrum.

Autistic and artistic seem at times to be interchangeable.

If you listen to an autistic person explain the singularity and focus of the moment, it sounds familiar to not only how you feel when you are absorbed with the inner world of creation but also when you are immersed in someone else's work and your connection to real-time is severed.

The most common state of art is the finished product but we also can talk about art as a process, an experience, a concept and a performance. All of these are intentional. Even the per-chance dada-ists and their successive action painters were intentional. So are the l'Art Brut creators: they all set out to create.

To understand autism and art, it is important to consider the unintentional: associations made simply to establish relationships and order, which, to an observer may be received as a higher function.

In my long, narrow closet is a stretch of colorful banded carpet made by my aunt-in-law in the Tatra mountains of Poland. I came home the other day to find my three year old's cars lined up by color along the stripes. It was a subtle, beautiful gesture and yet it had nothing to do with an idea of art or decoration. It simply seemed like the right thing to do. I think this example is a nice play on being "on the spectrum" because it is indeed a colorful experience.

Intoxicated with Telling the Truth

by Drew Martin

I saw an interesting movie this weekend called Far From Poland. It was made in 1984 by Jill Godmilow, an American documentary filmmaker. What was special about it was that after being denied a visa to go to Poland to witness Solidarity firsthand and document the movement, she decided to go ahead and make the movie in New York City. She had texts and recordings of famous interviews translated and reenacted by actors. These include Anna Walentynowicz, the crane operator whose firing in 1980 sparked the strike in the Gdansk shipyard, a ex-censor and a coal miner. The film closes with a fictional set of letters from General Jaruzelski to his daughter. The reenactment shows him under house arrest, which was part of his punishment for having imposed martial law on Poland while he was Prime Minister during communism.

The four acts are pasted together by the filmmaker's comments and discussions with her boyfriend while she was making this film. Interstitial Polish jokes and recounted dream conversations with Fidel Castro help glue it all together.

A review quote on the DVD jacket reads,

"...like the best of Goddard, it is film criticism and social criticism at the same time."

One question put to Walentynowicz was if she thought people are essentially bad because of how she was treated. She replied that people aren't evil, just terribly afraid. It was that fear that made all of the atrocities of communism possible and why it lasted for four decades. Walentynowicz went on to say that when the tables were turned, the Poles became "intoxicated with telling the truth."

The DVD comes with a 16-page booklet, which leads with this piece by Godmilow...

I've been thinking for a long time that what is commonly understood as the progressive or liberal documentary is an inadequate form - a relatively useless cultural product, especially for political change. Its basic strategy is description and it makes its argument by organizing visual evidence, expressive local testimony and sometimes expert technical testimony into a satisfying emotional form...Though the liberal documentary takes the stance of a sober, nonfiction vehicle for edification about the real world, it is trapped in the same matrix of obligations as the fiction film: to entertain its audience; to satisfy, to assure the audience of informed and moral citizenship; to achieve closure. My question is: Is that of any political use?

The booklet contains a timeline of Solidarity and the End of the Communist Government of Poland, which reaches back to workers' strikes in June 1976 and continues until August 2005, when, at 82, Jaruzelski apologized for sending Polish troops to crush the pro-democracy Prague spring during the Soviet-led invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968.

The booklet also contains a manifesto of sorts...

KILL THE DOCUMENTARY, AS WE KNOW IT: DOGMA 2001

1. Don't produce "real" time and space: your audience is in a movie theatre, in comfortable chairs.

2. Don't produce the surface of things: have a real subject and a real analysis -- or at least an intelligent proposition – that is larger than the subject of the film. If you forget to think about this before starting to shoot, find it in the editing room, and then put it in the film, somehow.

3. Don’t produce freak shows of the oppressed, the different, the criminal, the primitive. Please don't use your compassion as an excuse for social pornography. Leave the poor freaks alone.

4. Don’t produce awe for the rich, the famous, the talented, the highly successful: they are always everywhere and we feel bad enough about ourselves already. The chance to envy, or hate them, in the cinema doesn't help anybody.

5. Don’t make films that celebrate "the old ways" and mourn their loss. Haven’t you yourself enjoyed change? How are the "old ways" people different from you?

6. Keep an eye on your own middle-class bias, and on your audience's: don’t make a film that feeds it. Remember that you are producing human consciousness in people who are very susceptible to suggestion... and alone in the dark.

7. Don't address an audience of "rational animals": we have not yet evolved beyond the primitive urges of hatred, violence, and exploitation of the poor and the weak.

8. Try not to exploit your social actors: just being seen in your film is not enough compensation for the use of their bodies, voices and experience.

9. Whatever you do, don't make "history". If you can't help yourself, try to remember that you’re just telling a story -- and at the very least, find a way to acknowledge your authorship.

10. Watch that music: what's it doing? who is it conning?

11. Leave your parents out of this.

The Essence of Essence

by Drew Martin

I thumb through a lot of magazines. One of my favorite is Essence because it has a really specific readership and not published for a middle-aged Caucasian male (me) to read. The pull-quote from the Letter from the Editor, Constance C. R. White, sums up the directive,

"We are committed to reflecting the truth of Black women's lives."

So it would seem that there would not be a lot for me to relate to, but other than very precise leads, such as the title of (CNN Anchor) Don Lemon's article, To My Beautiful Black Sisters, the topics are universal and interesting for everyone to read.

Perhaps topics are more poignant when they are meant for a limited audience but, unbeknownst to the writer/editor, have a much broader reach, as with issues of relationships and parenting. What might be perceived as weaknesses, and not something one might not share outside of a group, are really important to broadcast loud and clear.

White rallies against "one-note depictions of Black women" in the media so it is key for her and all the contributors and readers to understand that although Essence has a niche market it is also a wonderful magazine for everyone.

Lemon's article in the July 2011 issue is brilliant. He starts off with the tragedy of Tyler Clementi, a young man from my town who jumped off the GW Bridge because his intimacy with another young man was secretly recorded by jeering students. Lemon explains his own mother's support when he came out after his boyfriend dumped him. He then turns to the readers and offers how they should react to a son or daughter in a similar situation and to reject bigotry and discrimination.

Lemon mentions his book Transparent (an interesting title reference to Invisible Man), which I would think he wrote for a very general audience, not focused on African American women. Writing this post has made me realize there is a perceived audience a writer is catering to. I think it is obvious that the writer has some idea who he or she is addressing. If there is a career behind the person then the publisher is quite concerned about such details because it represents a market. What I think is missed is the perceived audience a reader may think is being addressed.

I do not know who reads this blog. It is for anyone interested in the arts and media (any age, race or religion) and I want it to be a casual, serendipitous encounter. I don't think of it as a blog that someone would persistently follow. But now I realize someone might read this and think I am writing for a determined audience. In the back of my mind I am writing this post specifically for Constance C. R. White, Don Lemon and the readers of Essence who would not assume someone like me would find it interesting...and in the same moment, I am writing it for everyone.

Find Your Strong

by Drew Martin

I typically do not write about advertisements and I know better than to succumb to commercial forces but I am sold on the new Saucony Find Your Strong campaign, especially the picture above. Unbound freedom is a small price from them (compared to a car commercial): a pair of shorts, their shoes on my feet and that gorgeous rolling landscape. I love this caveman-like runner...modern man drumming up his wild side, which in turn is a primordial man running into his future. This picture is the antithesis of the button-down office worker, tamed and domesticated, scurrying to work through a labyrinth of city blocks.

I admit...I have been thoroughly brainwashed/programmed by the ad and will buy a pair of Saucony for my next running shoe purchase just to recall the sensation I get from looking at it. According to solecollector.com, the company started in the Victorian era and yet this is their first national campaign and television spot.

"The new campaign continues to amplify our brand mission to inspire runners every day," Chris Lidner, Saucony's chief marketing officer, said in a statement.

That is so corporate-speak but at the same time inspiration can indeed come from calculated marketing lingo. Not as punchy and commanding as Nike's Just Do It campaign from 1988, Find Your Strong is less of that no excuses drill sergeant bark and more of an internal supportive voice. Additionally, this campaign is directed solely at runners, confirmed by the tagline We Know Because We Run.

The Just Do It campaign was a huge success but I think that catchy phrase is also limiting. Do what? Find Your Strong has a lot of meaning for me as a runner because there is the first read that you are to summon your internal strength but it also says to me to find what events you are good at and enjoy them.

I just read that their first factory was built 1898 on the banks of Saucony Creek in Kutztown, Pennsylvania. The "swoosh" (for lack of a better term) of their logo/design on the side of their shoes represents the constant flow of Saucony Creek, while the circles represent the boulders lining its creek bed.

Anything But Biutiful

by Drew Martin

On Saturday I ironed my dress shirts to Biutiful, the latest film by Alejandro González Iñárritu, I liked it...I like gritty realist films, such as his Amores Perros.

Biutiful stars Javier Bardem, who is one of my favorite actors, not so much for his mellow performances but because he has such an interesting, sculptural face to watch. It is rarely contorted with expressions and has a stillness, which allows you to really look at it instead of a projection of an overconfident Hollywood mask.

Part of the film samples the lives of immigrants in the sketchy parts of Barcelona, where Africans and the Chinese elbow their way through their personal Hell on Earth. These scenes did not make me feel like I was sharing their experiences, which is what movies typically try to do. I had quite the opposite feeling, like I never could understand that life.

I have lived abroad and worked odd jobs including construction in foreign lands. I have shacked up with Ukrainian workers in cheap laborer digs and waited on long bureaucratic lines for documents with too often ignored Vietnamese street vendors but I was always had an advantage. I had a US passport, an education, spoke English and I was a white guy in northern Europe. More important was the psychological state. When you put yourself in certain situations, it becomes an adventure and you have some kind of forcefield around you.

Closer to home, no matter how integrated I am with immigrant diasporas in America, I can truly never share their experiences. What I like about about Bardem's character is his confrontation with this barrier. He tries to get close and be helpful but there is clear division between him and the others. It is that advantage that puts him in a place to try to help them, even when he is in it for profit.

If there was ever a film about the road to Hell being paved with good intentions, this is it. The African immigrants he deals with are arrested and deported, 25 Chinese people are asphyxiated in the evening because of defective gas heaters he purchased to warm them at night...although he did buy the cheapest kind so he could pocket some money.

This is the one of the most important aspects of the film, his character's character flaw, which is simply that there really is no right answer. He yo-yo's his children from their bipolar, wreckless mother who abuses the son and sleeps with their uncle. When he feeds them, the meal is some kind of cereal biscuit, like a huge Shredded Wheat, which he loads with spoonfuls of sugar, while he and the child he is serving imagine it is something else. This is the sugar coating of their life but there is nothing sweet about it.

Despite the disconnect to those he cannot really help, Bardem's character is affected; he internalizes the plight of the others, which is symbolically represented by his physical demise. He is dying of prostrate cancer, which has spread like wildfire. He pisses blood.

The world that Iñárritu shows us is rotten, through and through: moldy and grimy on the outside, rancid and toxic on the inside. There is no peace; the dead are restless, still trying to escape this world. The Chinese corpses are dumped like trash in the sea and even the father of Bardem's character is exhumed in order to sell his place in the cemetery.

Hell freezes over in the afterlife, a snowy forest in the Pyreness where Bardem's character meets his father, who died before he was born. In this scene, which appears in the beginning and the end, you breathe the fresh, clean, crisp air and feel purified.

Ish

By Drew Martin

When I was a much younger man, a student, I reasoned that my pursuits of biology and art would be best fulfilled by raising children. What else could be closer to the "study of life" and creation? The truth is, whatever your calling, having children and watching them grow gives you insight to every little detail in life.

I became interested in languages and linguistics when I lived in Europe for several years so I always like to listen to my kids speak and express themselves.

My 12-year-daughter is fond of ending thoughts with "...and yeah."

According to an online slang dictionary, "...and yeah" finishes a sentence making it complete. It is used when the rest of a sentence would be either redundant in repeating what they already said or they forget what they were going to say, or they just felt like ending the sentence then and there.

The contributor from that source did not know the origin, but noted its use at least a decade ago.

"And yeah" used to drive me nuts but now I like it. There is something upbeat about it.

My 11-year-old son is the master of avoidance. He likes to get out of things, such as chores and other obligations...especially answering me. So recently he distilled the perfect answer and in doing so has created a new usage of the word "ish."

As a suffix and and adverb ish indicates approximation and can mean about, almost, around, close to, loosely, near, nearly and roughly.

Let's meet around noon-ish.''

She's already a mother of two. How old do you think she is, ish?

This creature, pictured right, looks fish-ish.

How was the show?" "It was good, ish"

I had, however, never heard anyone simply use "ish" as stand-alone response until two weeks ago when my son started using it as the all encompassing answer. It is actually the ultimate usage of ish because now it spans nouns and adjectives.

So if you ask, "What time will you be home?" Instead of being answered "Seven or eight-ish," you simply get "Ish."

This could seem very frustrating but for one thing it is generally a positive response, and at worse, a diplomatic "Yes and no." So while it sometimes leads to a circuitous discussion as a parent, I actually love this usage and open-ended meaning.

Have you been following the news?

Ish.