Philadelphia Museum of Art: Paint the Revolution II

Philadelphia Museum of Art: admission ticket. Paint the Revolution: Mexican Modernism, 1910-1950. November 27, 2016.

Philadelphia Museum of Art: art on a wall. Paint the Revolution: Mexican Modernism, 1910-1950. November 27, 2016. Frida Kahlo, Autorretrato con Traje de Terciopelo / Self Portrait in a Velvet Dress (1926). Wherever you go, she's watching you.

Philadelphia Museum of Art: art on a wall. Paint the Revolution: Mexican Modernism, 1910-1950. November 27, 2016. Frida Kahlo, Autorretrato con Traje de Terciopelo / Self Portrait in a Velvet Dress (1926). Still keeping an eye on you. Are you being naughty or nice?

Philadelphia Museum of Art: art on a wall. Paint the Revolution: Mexican Modernism, 1910-1950. November 27, 2016. Frida Kahlo, Autorretrato en la frontera entre México y los Estados Unidos / Self Portrait on the Borderline between Mexico and the United States (1932). With frame. Hard to believe it's so little: 31 x 35 cm. 

Frida Kahlo, Autorretrato en la frontera entre México y los Estados Unidos / Self Portrait on the Borderline between Mexico and the United States (1932). Without frame, a clearer look. 

Handy map of Center City Philadelphia. The Philadelphia Museum of Art is in the upper left pocket. A wonderful walking city, with plenty of mass transit options included. I lived in the Washington Square area for a year, back in the 1990s. Loved it!

Today's Rune: Joy. 

Philadelphia Museum of Art: Paint the Revolution

Philadelphia Museum of Art: the approach. Paint the Revolution: Mexican Modernism, 1910-1950. November 27, 2016.

Philadelphia Museum of Art: the steps. Paint the Revolution: Mexican Modernism, 1910-1950. November 27, 2016. 

Philadelphia Museum of Art: the interior. Paint the Revolution: Mexican Modernism, 1910-1950. November 27, 2016. Information here.

A beautiful exhibition, nicely designed.  It'll be interesting to compare with the new exhibition at the Dallas Museum of Art: México 1900–1950: Diego Rivera, Frida Kahlo, José Clemente Orozco, and the Avant-Garde. Information here.

Today's Rune: Partnership. 

Café retrouvé: Patti Smith's 'M Train' (2015)

Patti Smith, M Train. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2015.

A writer's life: Patti Smith's 

Peregrine

Pilgrimage 

Coffee

Dreams

Memory

Air 

Movement 

Stillness

Ink

Rain

Artifact

Time Regained/Le Temps retrouvé

El café veracruzano fue pionero para tener una denominación de origen en México

Inamorato, mother, son. "I made my coffee in her pot and sat and wrote at a card table in the kitchen by the screen door. A photograph of Albert Camus hung next to the light switch . . . My son, seeing him every day, got the idea that Camus was an uncle who lived far away . . . "(pages [71-72]). 

A quarter-mile from the canal house, coffee at the 7-11. The one at 25000 Jefferson Avenue, or the one at 23019 near the Kroger at Nine Mile, both in St. Clair Shores, Michigan? 

Confusingly, Patti Smith mentions the St. Clair River, but I think of it more as Lake St. Clair.  

I remember early morning runs, when it was cold outside, to pick up coffee at both of these 7-11 stores. And, when it was warmer out, an abandoned fish-and-tackle shop just off Jefferson.

"To me it looked like Tangier, though I had never been there. I sat on the ground in the corner surrounded by low white walls, shelving real time, free to rove the smooth bridge connecting past and present. My Morocco. I followed whatever train I wanted" (page [72]).

I remember all the people I met or knew around there. And social spaces. Steve's Back Room. Fishbones. Golden Chopsticks. Andiamo's. Pat O'Brien's. The public library and to the north, the Blue Goose. To the west, Shores Inn. Cedar Garden. The US Post Office. Hallmark's. El Charro. Grecian Table. The Bowling Alley and Linda's attached. Tim Horton. A connection with Van Morrison's father. Ice on the lake.

Snap! Ding the bell. You don't need to go home, but you can't stay here forever. 

My favorite coffee for some time, Peet's out of San Francisco, celebrates fifty years, or fifty-one this year, of making coffee. There's something about their blend and roasting process that makes me love the taste of their French, House and Major Dickason's Blend in particular.  

The best single coffee I ever tasted was in Italy -- espresso. The worst and weakest, in Pan Handle Texas and in Oklahoma. 

When I was growing up, my parents made coffee often, let's not forget.  On special occasions, a big percolator was set up to keep it flowing. 

Haven't missed a cup of coffee for more than a day since I was seventeen. Something to look forward to every morning, sort of like a little daily miracle of life, resumed. 

Today's Rune: Defense. Veracruz coffee: see El Universal Veracruz (9/9/2011), link here.

Mary: Icon

Mary: Icon. I love Marian art, the stranger the better. This would be the case even if I wasn't Catholic -- in fact, one of the powerful mysteries that drew me to Catholicism in the first place was Marian art and iconography.

I stumbled upon this little painting in a shop in Texas. It's an old style Russian icon painting, only about 4" x 4.5".  I'm supposing it's Eastern Orthodox, but the overlap with Spanish colonial Marian art is remarkable. The color scheme is different, as is the architecture, but I thought immediately of the following paintings when I saw it.   

Nuestra Señora del Pilar / Our Lady of the Pillar with a Franciscan and Dominican Monk (Peru/Lima, 17th century). Thoma Foundation. Link here. It's as if Mary and the Christ Child are emerging from a lampshade, to the astonishment of the monks. 

Our Lady of the Rosary of Pomata (Cuzco, Peru, late 17th or 18th century). The Marilynn and Carl Thoma Collection. Saw this at the Blanton Museum of Art in Austin, Texas. The winged faces looking up seem like angelic versions of harpies. 

Our Lady of Cocharcas (Peru, 1751). Blanton Museum of Art in Austin, Texas. A touch of Jonathan Swift's 1726/1735 work Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World. In Four Parts. By Lemuel Gulliver, First a Surgeon, and then a Captain of Several Ships? The Colossus of Rhodes? It's also like a more ordered vision of Hieronymus Bosch and Pieter Bruegel dreamscapes. Thoughts?  

Today's Rune: The Mystery Rune. 

Wim Wenders and Juliano Ribeiro Salgado: 'The Salt of the Earth' (2014)

Wim Wenders and Juliano Ribeiro Salgado's documentary The Salt of the Earth (2014) focuses on the life and lens of Brazilian Sebastião Salgado, a total immersion photographer, including major projects, such as the awe-inspiring Instituto Terra reforestation effort, with Lélia Wanick Salgado. 

To deepen and widen the scope of his (or their) major photography projects, Salgado (and companions, from time to time) has traveled to the Ends of the Earth, the Far Corners of the World, from vast areas with no human habitation to locales filled with refugees of famine and war, or workers laboring as if from the dawn of time in mines (as above), from ancient peoples living half-hidden from modern economic systems, to migrants and nomads on the Edge of Tomorrow. 

The Salt of the Earth delivers a stunning blend of documentary film and photography in both color and black and white. Images range from disturbing atrocities (people dead from starvation or massacre) to mystic beauty, from social panorama to natural vista.

Whereas most photographers tend to focus on either natural or social settings, Sebastião Salgado does both, without privileging one kind over the other: to me, this is an optimal way of looking at the world, with very impressive results.

Today's Rune: Fertility.  

France and Spain in New Orleans: Part II

La Nouvelle-Orléans, founded in 1718, formally remained part of the Empire of France until near the end of the Seven Years War, in 1762; from 1762 until 1803, it became Nueva Orleans of the Empire of Spain. New Orleans was briefly ceded back to France under Napoleon I, at which point it was sold to the USA.

Whether under French, Spanish or American control, New Orleans never fell to the British Empire. 

Cathédrale Saint-Louis, Roi-de-France / Cathedral-Basilica of Saint Louis, King of France / Basílica de San Luis. Pictured here circa 1838 in the Spanish Colonial style (flanked by turrets). Since the beginning, there has been a Catholic Church on this site.

Same cathedral in October 2015, with accentuated spires, significantly modified. (Photo courtesy of SAB).  

In the Cabildo: portrait of Antoine Jacques Philippe de Marigny de Mandeville.

Butterscotch house in the Quarter.

Portrait of Napoleon I (1769-1821) at the New Orleans Museum of Art (NOMA).

Mosaic in front of the Napoleon House, 500 Chartres Street -- in the Quarter.

To me, after traveling between Madrid, San Francisco and New Orleans, the Spanish, French and Catholic flourishes became very evident and interconnected. All of these cities are tributes to architecture and design, and all (in their centers) are quite walkable.

Today's Rune: Fertility.  

France and Spain in New Orleans: Part I

Joan of Arc: A Gift of the People of France. Present location: by the French Market, Peters and Decatur. Joan of Arc served with the victorious French forces defending "Old" Orléans (in 1428–1429) against English attackers during the Hundred Years War, which France ultimately won as well.

Fleurs-de-lis can be seen all over the Vieux Carré, the "old square" or French and Spanish Quarter.

A little map of the Quarter put out by the US National Park Service.

Barefoot bride in a wedding procession in the Quarter, close to the Place d'Armes, / Plaza de Armas / Jackson Square, October 2015. (Photo courtesy of SAB).

The jaunty primary colors of another house in the Quarter.

Today's Rune: Harvest. 

Pictures of Mary: Signs and Wonders Out of South America

While in Austin, checked out a series of very cool paintings of Mary, part of a special exhibition:  Re-envisioning the Virgin Mary: Colonial Painting from South America, organized by the Blanton Museum of Art. 

The patterns in this one jump out in an almost ghostly manner: both on Mary's garment and cascading over and around her from above. Tiny Jesus gleams with a happy elfin expression.  

Cherubs pull back the curtain as Mary and Jesus ride by, sideways, on an ass. 

Here, Mary hovers in the air, flanked by symbols and icons.

"Created in the modern-day countries of Peru and Bolivia, the 'sculpture paintings' now on view mark the shift in representations of the Virgin from Europe to the Americas. Created by indigenous artists, the paintings reflect and were inspired by local miracles attributed to sculptures of Mary, which could be found in churches and holy places throughout the region. The works attest to the propagation of images of the Virgin in South America, as well as her rise in popularity during the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries." From the Blanton's overview, which can be found in full here. 

Mary and Jesus emerge from an object that looks like a lamp shade while priests look on with wonder.

Today's Rune: Wholeness. 

'Orpheu Revista Trimestral de Literatura' / 'Orpheus Quarterly Review of Literature:' 1915-2015

Picked this up in Lisboa / Lisbon: a colorful Portuguese postal remembrance of little journals such as the original Orpheu that came and went during the period of the Great War of 1914-1918 and thereafter, then as now. A salute to them all, beyond the odds of normal artistic endurance, hither, thither, and yon. 

Orpheu Revista Trimestral de Literatura / Orpheus Quarterly Review of Literature -- one hundred years on. 

Today's Rune: Joy. 

Carlos Cuarón: 'Rudo y Cursi' (2008)

In Carlos Cuarón's Rudo y Cursi (2008), two dingbat brothers yearn for a more exciting life. One is married and both are stuck working on a banana plantation on the Pacific side of Mexico. Lucky for them, they're both good football (soccer) players, and both are recruited and wooed (one at a time, divide and conquer) to the big city -- Mexico City. Highs and lows follow. 

It's a primal storyline that goes back thousands of years, no doubt. In this case, there are touches of fraternal comedy and, girding the whole shebang, social satire. Want to know who (and what) really runs nearly everyone and everything? Follow the money trail.  

Fun performances by: Diego Luna as Beto el Rudo (who has a gambling addiction); Gael García Berna as Tato el Cursi (who desires above all to be a pop musician, even though he's terrible at it); Guillermo Francella as Batuta (their free-wheeling agent and all-around ladies' man); Adriana Paz as Toña (who hopes to hit the big time selling "homeopathic" health products); Jessica Mass as Maya (who wants always to be with the top dog of the day); and additional ensemble players as other family members, friends and enemies. 

In Rudo y Cursi, everybody wants more money, either through the sports racket, the loan racket, the gambling racket or the drug-selling racket -- take your pick. 

Today's Rune: Harvest. 

Diego Luna: Cesar Chavez (2014)

Diego Luna's Cesar Chavez (2014), set mostly in California in the 1960s, focuses on Chavez (aka César Chávez) and his compadres in their efforts to improve working and living conditions for migrant farm workers. Michael Peña takes the lead role -- a seemingly low-key yet tenacious and intense one -- with Rosario Dawson as Dolores Huerta.  Using a Catholic variation on the non-violent strategies and tactics of Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr., the farm workers movement slowly gains traction.  

In Cesar Chavez, the "villains" come in the form of owners and their allies -- the latter including California Governor Ronald Reagan and President Richard M. Nixon. Allies of the farm workers include Senator Bobby Kennedy and various religious and union supporters. John Malkovich, weird as always, plays an owner who helps manage the immediate opposition to reform. Some Anglos continue to treat migrant workers as sub-human -- hence one of the driving demands for change.   

Today's Rune: Partnership.

Time Tunnel: Museo de América

"More, please." Museo de América, Madrid. I didn't write down the origin of this contemporary-looking artifact, but it (she?) dates back centuries through the mists of time. 

I did note that beyond the big three of most-repeated names (Inca, Maya, Aztec), many other (sometimes related or connected) cultures and peoples are represented, too. The Moche and Chimú, for example (Peru, 100-1470 A.D. between the two) and the Colima and Mixtex (México).

Museo de América as Time Tunnel. There might be ancient or future cosmonauts down that way, encased in suspended animation. More will be revealed.

I think this little cavy or guinea pig figurine is Chimú (circa 1100-1470 A.D.), possibly an early reconnaissance drone, candle holder or hookah-type device. 

Vaulted brick ceiling ~ Museo de América.

Detail of the Madrid Codex, Museo de América. Cosmonaut-Dude-King appears to be counting gold or handling dice like Boss Hogg on Dukes of Hazzard while another Dude shakes a stick at him, or pays his dues, I'm guessing. Only the Shadow knows for sure.  

Textile and gold objects in a darkened interior, Museo de América.

Shiny helmets, Museo de América (detail from previous interior). You may not be an archaeologist, but surely you can dig this scene. 

Today's Rune: Warrior.