From Art to Impact: Architecture for Humanity

A recent episode of Iconoclasts on the Sundance Channel paired Cameron Diaz with Cameron Sinclair. The latter name sounded familiar, but I quickly realized that I knew very little about his man. Cameron Sinclair is a talented architect from England. While receiving his education in architecture, he developed an interest in how his art could impact communities around him. Many describe Sinclair as an eternal optimist. Much of this comes from his project Architecture for Humanity. Sinclair co-founded Architecture for Humanity in 1999. Architecture for Humanity is a charitable organization that seeks innovative, architectural solutions for humanitarian crises. The organization relies on professional volunteers around the world. In a nutshell, it is a large organization whose members use their artistic skills in architecture to create sustainable housing and shelter for communities. The organization has worked in Kosovo, Sierra Leone, Rwanda, Southern Asian after the tsunami, and the Mississippi and Louisiana, following Hurricane Katrina.

Sinclair is a fascinating individual to listen to. He is a man with a passion and is committed to building sustainable communities by putting his artistic skills towards a good cause.

Here is how Architecture for Humanity describes itself at its website:

"Architecture for Humanity is a nonprofit design services firm founded in 1999. We are building a more sustainable future through the power of professional design.

By tapping a network of more than 40,000 professionals willing to lend time and expertise to help those who would not otherwise be able to afford their services, we bring design, construction and development services where they are most critically needed.

Each year 10,000 people directly benefit from structures designed by Architecture for Humanity. Our advocacy, training and outreach programs impact an additional 50,000 people annually. We channel the resources of the global funding community to meaningful projects that make a difference locally. From conception to completion, we manage all aspects of the design and construction process. Our clients include community groups, aid organizations, housing developers, government agencies, corporate divisions, and foundations.

Design is important to every aspect of our lives. It informs the places in which we live, work, learn, heal and gather. We engage all stakeholders in the design process. We believe our clients are designers in their own right.

Thoughtful, inclusive design creates lasting change in communities by:
• Alleviating poverty and providing access to water, sanitation, power and essential services
• Bringing safe shelter to communities prone to disaster and displaced populations
• Rebuilding community and creating neutral spaces for dialogue in post-conflict areas
• Mitigating the effects of rapid urbanization in unplanned settlements
• Creating spaces to meet the needs of those with disabilities and other at-risk populations
• Reducing the footprint of the built environment and addressing climate change

Architecture for Humanity is a catalyst for innovation. We learn by doing. We know the value of sharing success stories and lessons learned—our own as well as those of others. To foster knowledge sharing and promote best practices, we developed the Open Architecture Network (www.openarchitecturenetwork.org). This groundbreaking on-line network empowers architects, designers, builders and their clients to share architectural plans and drawings—including CAD files. All plans are shared through an open-source model and can be freely downloaded by all.

Design is the ultimate renewable resource. Join us in building safer, more sustainable and more innovative structures—structures that are assets to their communities and an ongoing testament to the ability of people to come together to envision a better future.""

Phish On The Road

This is a repost that I decided to put up since Phish is now in the midst of a summer tour. Having just returned from two shows at the Gorge in George, Washington, I encourage anyone who can to check out a show.

Phish is both extraordinarily well-known and not well-known at all. It really comes down to the person you ask. I started listening to Phish in the fall of 1996 and have been to 17 live shows since. For someone who has not heard of Phish, this sounds ridiculous. But, in reality, it makes me an amateur Phish fan. There are many, many fans that have seen them thirty, forty, even ninety times. The reason is that Phish never plays the same set-list. With a repertoire consisting of hundreds of originals and covers, a concert-goer can go several shows in a row without ever hearing the same song played twice. This makes Phish interesting. Their concerts are about the experience. It is virtually impossible to know what will happen next at a Phish concert. You never know what songs they will play or what new, interesting covers they will break out. This is definitely not a band for someone who likes hit singles, since the chances are high that you would go to the concert and not hear your song.

Phish is often compared to the Grateful Dead. This is primarily due to their loyal following of hippie fans. While they have a few songs that are comparable to the Dead, their music overall is not like that of the Dead. Personally, I think Phish has a much fuller sound. The sound these four guys produce is quite amazing. Often, it is impressive because you would expect there to be more band members. The key is that there are four extraordinarily talented musicians that know how to play solos that double as the rhythm. At the end of the day, however, the sound is probably best associated with the tone of Trey's guitar.

Finally, Phish does not take its fan-base for granted. They openly encourage fans to tape their shows and give it out on the internet for free. The band has traditionally kept ticket prices low. They have built a strong following without having ever relied upon commercial radio or television play. After several complaints about ticket sales to their first three reunion shows in March, the band released the soundboard recordings of the show for free at the website the morning after each show.

A listener can find just about every genre of music in Phish's songs, which always have the added level of quirkiness that the band likes to throw in there. And of course, they are a jamband. Often their songs go on for ten or twenty minutes at their show. What I like about their performances though is the way they build their songs and take them in different places. It reminds me quite a bit of the good old days of jazz. A jam will be "out there," slowly build and rise like the tide, and finally crash into an all-out groove that gives a musical soul to even a white guy like me who has no sense of rhythm whatsoever.

Phish has returned to the road in 2009 from a five-year hiatus and has written some new songs along the way. Back in 2002, when Phish reunited from a prior hiatus, it was not one of their finer moments. The band did not practice much before going on the road, produced a sub-par album, and dealt with internal problems, such as Trey's drug addiction. But this time, things seem to be different. The band is sharp. They seem well-rehearsed. Their new songs are pretty good, to say the least. "Stealing Time From the Faulty Plan" is one of my favorites. "Time Turns Elastic" shows the band getting back to their compositional numbers. Soundboard recordings from their shows over the past week can be purchased at www.livephish.com. Check www.phish.com to see if they are coming through your town.

One More Film Recommendation: A Clever Workplace Comedy

I realize that this makes the third film-related post in a row for the Arts section. In the interest of maintaining diversity, I promise to vary it up in future posts. However, I recently watched a film that I feel I have to recommend.

The Rage in Placid Lake is a funny and clever work-place comedy. It is about a young man (Placid Lake) who grows up in an alternative life-style, anti-establishment family. As he learns that this worldview only seems to get him in trouble, he makes the decision to live a "normal life." To accomplish this goal, he takes a job at an insurance company, invests in a number of plain-looking suits, and engages in the standard, boring, self-important water-cooler talk that many of us have become too familiar with.

This film is fantastic. It reminds me quite a bit of Office Space, but has a unique approach to the story line and much more clever lines that nail the workplace environment on the head. I recommend this film to anyone who dreams of quitting their office jobs and leaving the daily doldrums of office life.

Here's the Amazon summary of the film:

"Placid Lake (Ben Lee) has always been different. His crayon eating scientific genius of a best friend, Gemma (Rose Byrne), also has a few issues with "blending in." As an odd fish in a sea of mediocrity, Placid's brilliant ideas are bound to get him into more trouble than success. When he finds himself flying off the school roof and breaking every bone in his body on graduation night, Placid decides to make a bid for the elusive normal life. To his parents' horror, he gets a normal job. Soon he's embracing conformity on the fast track to corporate success and making every effort to get Gemma into bed. Can Placid finally retire his rage in the pursuit of normalcy, or will his plan backfire? Winner, Melbourne Film Festival. Official Selection for Edinburgh Intl Film Festival, Brisbane Intl Film Festival and American Film Institute Film Festival. This film was also was an Australian Writers Guild AWGIE Award Winner for Best Adapted Screenplay and the Major AWGIE for Best Script. Australia, in English."

Going Indie: Film Movement Shines with Recommendations

I stumbled across Film Movement when I found the movie (Grocer's Son) that inspired the previous post in the Arts section. This is an absolutely fantastic site. The goal behind the organization is to promote critically acclaimed, independent films frrom around the world, the type that win awards at the various film festival, but never receive much recognition in the mainstream media.

Film Movement offers memberships with great benefits. However, if the wallet is tight or you would rather not have another membership to worry about, the website is a fantastic resource for movie recommendations. Without committing to a membership, anyone is free to browse the site, read about movies by category and watch trailors. I have recently started checking this site for recommendations before going to the movie rental store and it has not failed me yet. Every movie that I have rented based upon recommendations from this site has been nothing short of fantastic.

You can check out Film Movement at it website at www.filmmovement.com.

This is how Film Movement describes itself at its website:

"Film Movement is a full-service North American distributor of critically acclaimed award-winning independent and foreign films. Film Movement has released films from 25 countries and six continents, including top prize winners from Sundance, Cannes, Venice, Toronto, Berlin, Tribeca and many other prestigious film festivals. Through partnerships with theaters, TV networks, wholesalers, retailers, institutions, and a first of its kind subscription service, Film Movement is able to get the films it distributes the audience they deserve.

Why did we launch Film Movement? As fans of independent and foreign cinema, we had become increasingly frustrated by the lack of access to the year's most critically acclaimed films. We kept reading about films from the major film festivals, such as Cannes and Sundance that A.O. Scott or Roger Ebert raved about, that would not be coming to a theater near you.
Film choices are dictated to us by a smaller and smaller group of major studios, which decide to release films based mostly on their star quotient and “marketability”. Many of the films that we want to see get squeezed out of theaters by Hollywood blockbusters and face skyrocketing marketing costs that make it daunting -- if not impossible -- to reach appreciative audiences.

We created Film Movement because the system of releasing independent, foreign and documentary films needed to be changed. We believed that the only way to change the system was to reach out to film fans directly.

At its heart, Film Movement is a grassroots direct-to-consumer company with a dedication to getting great films seen by as many people as possible, and providing intelligent, beautiful and compelling art to an ever-growing community of consumers who want more than the standard Hollywood fare.

By supporting Film Movement, you are directly supporting independent and foreign film. This is our mission. We hope that you will join us."

Spend an Evening in the French Countryside: The Grocer's Son

I rented this film on a whim. It was one of those odd instances where it just happened to jump out at me for no particular reason whatsoever. Now I'm thankful that I followed my intuition and rented it.

I'll start by recognizing that there are some people who love independent films and there are many who hate them. This film is not for you if you do not enjoy independent films. It is also not for you if you do not like to watch films with subtitles.

What this film does have is brilliant photography, writing that captures real human relationships, and an overall pleasant mood. It is a "feel good" movie and is ideal for anyone looking for a mellow evening on the couch. A bottle of red wine makes for a good companion as you watch it.

After watching the film, I googled the soundtrack. It turns out many folks have done the same thing, but it can be difficult to find it as there is little information about the soundtrack actually available online. The main artist on the soundtrack (who you will most likely be searching for is Without Gravity, who performs the song in the closing credits called "Waterfall."

Here is the preview:



The following review was written by Stephen Holden of the New York Times:

"The rolling countryside of Provence may be a dream vacation spot, but it is the last place in the world that Antoine (Nicolas Cazalé), the sullen 30-year-old protagonist of The Grocer's Son, would like to be. In this French variation of the fable of the prodigal son, Antoine reluctantly returns to his rural hometown after 10 years in the big city when his father (Daniel Duval) has a heart attack. Someone has to run the family s grocery store while his father recovers, and Antoine s unhappily married older brother, François (Stéphan Guérin-Tillié), who stayed by their parents when Antoine fled, insists the time has come for Antoine to shoulder some responsibility. While their mother (Jeanne Goupil) has minded the store, their father has operated a van selling produce and staples to the area s mostly elderly inhabitants. This small gem of a film, a surprise hit in France, is the second feature directed by Éric Guirado, who prepared for it by filming portraits of traveling tradesmen in southern and central France. For 18 months he focused on mobile grocers in Corsica, the Pyrenees and the Alps. As the movie affectionately observes the gruff, self-reliant customers, some of whom hobble to the van on canes, it has a documentarylike realism. You grow to respect these hardy, weather-beaten people who lived their whole lives close to the land. Antoine brings to his customers the same surly, put-upon attitude with which he confronted his superiors in urban restaurants where he held and lost a succession of waiter s jobs. Brusque and detached, he repeatedly offends old folks whom his father had befriended on his rounds. Even when they voice their disgruntlement, Antoine doesn t seem to notice. It is only when he is joined by Claire (Clotilde Hesme), a free-spirited friend visiting from the city, that his attitude begins to soften. Although Claire is spending most of her time taking a correspondence course in hopes of being accepted into college in Spain, she enjoys riding around the countryside. After she suggests painting the white van in circus colors and calling it the Flying Grocery, the drudgery becomes more of a lark. As Claire and Antoine spend time together, their simmering, barely acknowledged attraction comes to a sudden boil, complicating both their lives. The Grocer s Son, which Mr. Guirado wrote with Florence Vignon, captures family dynamics with an acuteness that reveals decades of stored grievances. Antoine can hardly stand to be in the presence of a father who conveys contempt and disappointment in every suspicious gaze. The movie signals that temperamentally father and son are two of a kind. Relations between Antoine and François, who is deeply depressed and can t bring himself to tell his parents that his wife has left him, are equally tense. The mother, who loves her family, tries to keep the peace without rankling anyone. Slowly Antoine warms to the rural environment he turned his back on and, almost despite himself, begins to feel a tentative happiness and community spirit. Mr. Cazalé s subtle performance makes his transformation entirely believable and prevents this cautiously upbeat movie from curdling into a sentimental advertisement for the simple life. His performance is matched by Paul Crauchet s and Liliane Rovère s sharp thumbnail portraits of two regular customers. Mr. Crauchet s Clément, an increasingly frail widowed farmer who trades fresh eggs for staples but begins to forget exactly where the eggs are stored, is an endearing old codger who has accepted that the end is near. Ms. Rovère s Lucienne, a haughty, self-sufficient woman with a past, is softhearted under a prickly exterior and has a wicked, deadpan sense of humor."

Fantastic World: The Traveling Jim Henson Exhibition

Today, I visited Jim Henson's Fantastic World, a traveling exhibit that gives people a first-hand look at the work of Jim Henson. This is, unquestionably, a fantastic exhibit. Jim Henson is a man that I wish I knew more about. I love to learn about artists who acted on their inspirations and chose a unique route instead of bowing to the doldrums of life in a cubicle. From this perspective, Jim Henson is the token story.

We are all (hopefully) familiar with the Muppets. The Muppets have been a pillar of children's culture over the last fifty years, so much so, that we sometimes take for granted the story of of the man who created them. The Fantastic World exhibit focuses on Henson's early years and the events that led to the creation of his most famous characters.

On display are many of the original drawings by Henson that led to the development of the new puppet characters. For example, one page shows multiple drawings of Bert, which gives viewers insights into Henson's mind, showing the process that led to the final character we have come to know today.

Another great aspect of the exhibit has to do with how it tells the story of how cutting edge Henson was for his time. It walks viewers through the challenges Henson faced at the time and the risks he took in exploring the possibilities of his art, which changed the way the art was done.

The exhibit has numerous original drawings and also breaks away from Henson's most famous work by showing many of his early 60's projects. Overall, this exhibit is truly inspiring and reminds us that there are other paths out there for people who are passionate about their creative sides.

Here is what the Smithsonian Institute, sponsor of the traveling exhibit has to say about Fantastic World:

"The incredibly prolific mind of Jim Henson (1936-90) was a veritable celebration of ideas for wondrous creatures and characters, stories, songs, and imagery. From the earliest age, Henson drew pictures, wrote jokes, built mobiles, and planned whole worlds. He thought in three dimensions and experimented in a huge variety of media, both with still and moving images. He was fascinated with how ideas are formed, how they interconnect in the mind, and how they can be shared through the visual and performing arts.

Organized with The Jim Henson Legacy, Jim Henson's Fantastic World offers audiences a rare peek into the imagination of this brilliant innovator and creator of Kermit, Big Bird, and other beloved characters. The exhibition documents Henson’s process of “visual thinking” through works of art, photographs, documents, puppets and other 3-D objects, and film and video clips. Museums may create a separate activity center with the educational and interactive resources provided."

Read more about the exhibit and the history of it in an interview with Karen Falk.

The tour itinerary can be found here.

This Is Water

A good friend of mine has been slowly reading "Infinite Jest" for the last few months -- taking it piece by piece when he wants a belly laugh, or needs a break from the beat down. He tells me about the characters, the original humor, the solid writing. But I never think hard about picking it up, mostly because it is over 1000 pages and I fail to see that haul as a way out of being beat down myself. My cabinets get empty. I have to stop at the grocery store. I hate the people in line, in traffic, in my way. I get caught up. Maybe sometimes you do, too.

But then about two weeks ago the same friend sent me something I could not avoid reading (it landed in my lap) and I continue to think about it because it's pretty damn good.

"If you're automatically sure that you know what reality is, and you are operating on your default setting, then you, like me, probably won't consider possibilities that aren't annoying and miserable. But if you really learn how to pay attention, then you will know there are other options. It will actually be within your power to experience a crowded, hot, slow, consumer-hell type situation as not only meaningful, but sacred, on fire with the same force that made the stars: love, fellowship, the mystical oneness of all things deep down.

Not that that mystical stuff is necessarily true. The only thing that's capital-T True is that you get to decide how you're gonna try to see it."

David Foster Wallace hanged himself on September 12, 2008 -- the day before my last birthday. Three years before that, he gave the Kenyon College commencement speech. There is a lot to say about it (it uses typical "bullshitty" cliche while genuinely going well beyond it), a whole lot more that happens in reaction to reading it, but perhaps most important is what must have happened in Wallace's mind as he talked simply about the values of awareness, conscious thinking, and choice -- and simultaneously about the difficulty of “making it to 30, or maybe even 50, without wanting to shoot yourself in the head."

"The capital-T Truth is about life BEFORE death. It is about the real value of a real education, which has almost nothing to do with knowledge, and everything to do with simple awareness; awareness of what is so real and essential, so hidden in plain sight all around us, all the time, that we have to keep reminding ourselves over and over:
This is water.
This is water."

The commencement speech is not funny like "Infinite Jest" (Sorry if this post is a downer). But it is smart, it is simple, and it resonates -- at least with me. Reading it is well worth the time it takes. Reading it is the easy part.

You can buy the text of the speech on amazon or find a version of the ardently copyright-protected speech here: http://www.moreintelligentlife.com/story/david-foster-wallace-in-his-own-words

See what the NYT said about it here: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/26/books/review/Bissell-t.html