The marrying of media

One of my favorite experiences in the world of art is when worlds collide. Two musicians I respect and admire come together for a project, a writer teams up with a director, and so on.

To go along with this, a favorite of mine is to keep track of what The Criterion Collection is putting out every month. Around the 15th, they unveil usually 3 to 5 new titles coming out three months from the unveiling. Almost as much I enjoy seeing what titles they have coming out, I peruse their cover art. It consistently surprises and amazes me how well the layout and design of the packaging compliments the films themselves. Other media that I enjoy does this as well, but I wanted to focus on Criterion.

The main graphic designer that I admire that works with Criterion is Eric Skillman. You can reach his blog, Cozy Lummox, here. He describes the behind the scenes design process that goes into designing the layout of Criterion's titles as well as other projects he is involved with. So without further ado, I wanted to highlight 5 titles that he designed that I particularly enjoy.

1) Divorce, Italian Style (illustrations by the famous Jamie Hernandez)



2) Yi Yi



3) Robinson Crusoe On Mars (painting by Bill Sienkiewicz)



4) Night And The City



5) Hands Over The City (illustrations by Danijel Zezelj)

Rewatching Movies

"Foreigners are just children who don't know any better..." -- Setsuko Sato on NPR

Japanese-American view of Lost in Translation

More often than not, I would prefer to watch a movie I haven't seen than one that I absolutely adore. I simply get restless with my movies, music, books, and other media. However, it seems that I am coming to a point where I am definitely interested in watching films that I have seen 5, 10 years ago.

Yesterday, Capree and I watched Lost in Translation. There were a few things that time and changing of perspective have done for me with this film:

Scarlett Johansson looks really little in this movie.

She is supposed to be playing a 20s-something who just got married, but definitely looks like a teenager. When filming this movie, she had to be 17 or 18. She's come a long way.

The movie is definitely not rascist.

When I saw this movie the first time, I wasn't sure if Sofia Coppola was portraying the Japanese very respectably. The "Lip My Stocking" scene is hilarious, but it felt like it was playing on the core stereotypes that American's think of with the Japanese. After viewing it yesterday, I realized quite the opposite. Someone so fixated with showing the Tokyo landscapes, and shooting on location shows a tremendous amount of interest, fascination, and ultimately respect for the Japanese culture. The link I posted above is a reading by a Japanese-American women who felt that it was in fact that the Japanese were frustrated and placating their American guests. See quote above.

Bill Murray is wearing eyeliner for quite a bit of the movie.

I definitely missed this one the first go around, but after I watched the behind the scenes footage, they made note of his makeup artists putting some sort of eyeliner on him. Throughout the entire movie, he had dark circles around his eyes that were more than his trademarked natural droopy eyed look.

Founding Father

Here is what the "Father of the Constitution" said:

"The means of defense against foreign danger historically have become the instruments of tyranny at home." -- James Madison

Check out more quotes here. I have to ask myself where we are now when I read comments from the people who were instrumental in forming our country, but whatever...

Concept albums

Top five concept albums that I create in the next twenty years.

1) A gangster rap album from the perspective of a persecuted Mormon travelling west. (Album title: "Mo' Ghetto")

2) A chin stroking album of field recordings from the wild Savannah of computer programmers talking to each other. (This one has to be under my musical alias "The Swami of Bits")

3) A country western album told from the view of a rogue cop in Detroit (Album title: "Bringin' Home The Red, White and Blue Bacon")

4) A musique concrete album of different animals giving birth. (Album title: "Physiological Expulsion")

5) A death metal record with the backup, harmony vocals done by the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. (Musical alias: "Fall From Grace").

Daydreaming

Today, I got a massage while down in Cedar City visiting Capree's parents. About 30 minutes in, I was finally in a place where I felt fully relaxed. Something odd happened where I was daydreaming so intensely that it seemed real and true.

I dreamed that I had a brain tumor and that I was dying soon. I went to everyone I knew and said my piece to each person that needed to be said. What was said isn't clear, but it happened in a flash. My friends, my family, my wife, and all those I've met along the way.

When I felt I was at a place of piece and complete clarity, I snapped out of it. Yet, I came back completely free from worry or stress.

That hasn't happened in a while.

The real meat

So it begins. The real meat of the presidential nomination. The entire pomp and circumstance of it all can make one nauseous, but at least we can start discussing the real differences in the nominees. Old vs. new. Experienced vs. naive. More of the same vs. change.

I hope serious discussion will occur about how these nominees will shape our future . Time to stop being bitter, and have civil discourse to help us raise ourselves out of the doom and gloom of the present day. Hopefully, neither candidate will turn personal and treat each other as enemies like the current administration. Above all, we are Americans - not conservative - not liberal.