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I open my eyes to a courtyard of tan brick walls and a tan brick floor, and there are Spanish words being tossed around and to my surprise I catch a few of them – mostly names – “Gala” … “el Mar Mediterráneo” … “veinte metros” … “Abraham Lincoln?” There are three arches at the far end of the brickfield and the center one frames a face I recognize and it really is Honest Abe – a gaunt silhouette up from broad shoulders, straight unmistakable nose and hard cheekbone confirm this feeling but something is off and what’s Abe doing in Spain and this is over my head. I approach him and he begins to shift, his features flatten out, there are divisions all over and his face is made of pixels. Larger square versions of the yard bricks, ochre bricks, warm and cool, clouded fleshy greys and umber, shadowy blues and it’s a painting. A very large one at that, about six by eight feet with a strip of red around the edges and he’s calling to me in a deep, rumbling and perfect Spanish.

I am within twenty meters now and it is apparent that Abe’s face is really a hundred and twenty-ish cubic paintings in one frame, a hundred Rothko color fields talking politics and they are each in perspective. The blocks stack and build and turn and seem to move but don’t, and there is anticipation in their stillness. Even closer and the curves of a woman’s body replace Abe’s nose and she’s naked. She faces away from me and looks longingly out a window that is the shape of a stout cross and it’s filled with light and frames her dramatically. It becomes apparent that the window is the source of this dynamic tension in the blocks and the atmosphere and Abe’s head is full of dancing billowing flames and a white-yellow sun and a sliver of the sea; the water is absolutely calm and it is the stillest part of the painting and the center of the composition. Little dashes of sky blue pepper the fiery flowing sky all twisting and blowing in spirals, little moments of quiet, and there is a particular blue patch right next to the bursting sun and it, too frames something like a limb.

Closer still, close enough to where the woman is about life size but floating in the perspective of Abe’s shoulders which have become the ground. There is definitely a body in the sun and the crucifix is on my mind already from the window shape and it almost looks like Christ but not how I am used to seeing him. I look down at the top of his head as he does the same to Gala who is about twenty times his size and he’s obviously quite far away and looking through the depths of space and time. And all I know is that Abe is gone and there is a whole metaphysical scene taking place before my eyes.

One of the luxuries of living in an Internet-driven era, where information can be transferred from one home to the next within seconds, is the fact that we have front-row seats to some of the greatest art in the world.

I happened upon Golish’s work through an art website. Lots of artists on the rise have allowed their work to circulate the web in hopes of getting it seen and critiqued by the general public. Golish is a visual artist from Toronto, Canada who specializes in figurative and portrait drawing and painting. I was drawn to her work because of its mystique and its subjects: ethnic people with interesting facial features, jewelry, clothing, hair, and overall aspects of untraditional beauty.

“Oyin” drawing by Sarah Golish

“Oyin,” with its deep browns swirling together, and its detail to shading and fading, appealed to me. Charcoal and conte was used for this image on toned paper, and it has already been sold.

“Celestial Rhythms” Moondust series by Sarah Golish

This piece is a part of Golish’s recent Moondust series, a series that captures “an ode to Afrofuturism.” The images entail a lot of simulated symmetry with a mix of tradition and new-age styles. “Celestial Rhythms” has an almost perfect symmetrical placement, and the woman in the image could be an archetype for any woman with features that are striking and relatable at the same time.

“Mandela” by Sarah Golish

“Mandela” is a rendition of a widely known image of Nelson Mandela. Her utilization of acrylic, oil, and gold leaf on the canvas, enhances the great detail put into the image, every part of Mandela’s figure appearing home-made but in the good way.

“With a song in my heart” painting by Sarah Golish

This image outlines the toned body of a woman cloaked with a white sheet across her back. The strength, the tiny detailing of the gold bangles and gold-feather earrings, the way the sun shines intricately upon the white sheet and through the back of the woman, all make this image extraordinary.

If you are interested in any more of Sarah Golish’s work, check out her website www.sarahgolish.com

Paolo Sorrentino’s new film, ‘La Grande Belleza (The Great Beauty),’ follows the long faced Jep Gambardella (Toni Servillo), an aging Italian writer and languidly energetic socialite.

Four decades ago, Jep wrote a highly acclaimed novel called ‘The Human Apparatus,’ but has not written a book since, instead working occasionally as a journalism while spending his nights submersed an elite socialite lifestyle of decadent parties, dinners, drinks and drugs. His voiceovers are self-aware, lonely. When he first arrived on Rome’s social scene, he says he wanted to be “the king of the high life,” with the power not only to attend parties but also the power to “make them a failure.” Now, four decades later, Jep owns Roman social life, but still finds himself deeply unfulfilled. He bounces back and forth between the sorrow prompted by memories of an old love that has just died, and his new, not quite fulfilling, romance with a stripper named Ramona.

We meet Gambardella in the midst of his 65^th birthday party, at a debaucherous rooftop celebration in Rome where electronic music pulses, a lecherous old man hisses at spray-tanned and spandex clad young women, an aging moviestar bursts out of a cake, and a midget woman slowly drinks herself to sleep in the corner. In a series of immersive visuals, the crowd parts for a line dance, and through a tunnel of outstretched, flexing hands and arms, we see Jep standing alone in the middle, a cigarette clenched in his teeth. Servillo emotes heavily – he dances, but with his eyes closed to an inner world that we can tell is painfully self-aware. When he opens them, his eyebrows slouch parenthetically upwards and his mouth sets into a look of almost casual dismay. Jep may drift in the present, vibrant moments of his social scene, but Servillo’s sad eyes and long, lined face emit a pathos that is almost wise, almost ancient. Jep, we come to understand, is vitally aware of his own tender insecurities, his disillusionment, and his disorientation in time and space. He bemoans his sleep schedule and lifestyle to his grounded housekeeper, but shrugs his shoulders to the external refrain from his friends and acquaintances – “Why didn’t you ever write another book?”

Although he spends his time with young actresses, aging poets, and the generally rich and famous, Jep consistently cuts down or dismisses any pretentions that the participants in his shallow lifestyle may make to youth, sincerity, or legitimacy. When one of his friends speaks with pride about her writing, political work and family, Jep criticizes her brutally, pitilessly exposing the tender insecurities at the center of her arrogance – implying that to lie to one’s self may be necessary, but to make such pretenses loudly is just embarrassing. Yet in his dismissal of his friends’ claims, Jep betrays his awareness of his own decline, and his lack of fulfillment and his fears.

Jep seems desensitized to the spaces he occupies, even as Sorrentino follows him around a city full of buildings, monuments and statues with deep artistic and religious significance. In one of the film’s most ethereal sequences, Jep speaks to a mysterious man at an outdoor, nighttime party – an old acquaintance, we assume – who produces a hefty metal box of keys that open the doors to ‘the most beautiful buildings in Rome.’ Jep and his girlfriend Ramona embark on a nighttime odyssey (detached, as far as I could tell, from spatial logic) through these buildings, and peruse famous statues, paintings and monuments by the light of their guide’s candles.

When on this midnight journey they encounter a trio of princesses playing poker around a table, it’s only characteristic of the surreal imagery that interspersed in Sorrentino’s style. Jep works for a midget woman with blue hair, a CGI giraffe makes a brief appearance, and the movie’s last act involves an aging, saintly nun with two crooked teeth. Also surreal, and sometimes even perverse, are the entertainers that Jep encounters – a knifethrower marks the outline of his shivering assistant; a young girl forced by her parents to ‘perform’ at a gathering screams as she hurls buckets of paint towards an enormous canvas; Jep meets and romances an aging stripper who still performs in her father’s strip club. Here, the comparisons to Fellini are inevitable and mostly accurate, but Sorrentino retains a unique voice and a distinct, modern vision.

Sorrentino’s use of Rome’s religious imagery is particularly immersive, and pointed. That the people, statues and buildings that surround Jep are all imbued with a deep religious significance, stands in stark contrast to his inability to find meaning in his life – he is looking for a ‘great beauty’ to appear, unable to turn around or start over for anything lesser. When he says early on that tourists are the only good people in the city, he seems to cut towards that truth – the tourists see what the native Romans are numbed to. The great beauty, Jep monologues, exists somewhere beneath and within humanity’s miserable smallness, somewhere not above or behind but within the great “embarrassment of being in the world.” Sorrentino’s extravagant, entrancing odyssey finally illustrates that what Jep has been waiting for can’t be waited for. Great beauty has been there all along.

What makes a great photograph? Well, to be honest, I don’t know. However, I’ve decided to dedicate some serious time to figuring it out. I don’t have the painter’s touch, but I do know that the eye can be trained to see and capture beauty in ways that will astound the viewer. Something I learned recently is that photography is not a documented fact. One scene contains infinite possibilities from behind the lens and beauty comes in many different angles, apertures, subject matters, and visions.

As I walked this morning from the Engineering Campus to the Music School, the snow was falling so thickly that I could barely see the people slipping and sliding five feet in front of me. One hour later, the thundersnow had subsided, but was replaced with sleet wetting the pathways preparing to freeze overnight. Yesterday, the sun was shining, it was a heavenly 40 degrees and I didn’t feel compelled to zip up my coat as I walked to my car.

Anyone who has lived in Michigan longer than a few years has become accustomed to the volatile weather, and immune to the emotional whiplash which it can bring upon out-of-staters whose previous winters consisted of lows of 58 degrees. In the turbulence of this weather, I have found a sense of calm and normalcy.

On January 23 I wrote a blog post titled: Undeniably a Type A. After I had posted the blog I received a message asking me two questions which up until this point I have neglected to answer because I wanted to write a thoughtful response. The questions were as follows:

“1) When is it appropriate to draw the line: Not in the sense of when to call off the maneuver when handed an exceptionally challenging task (I think that one is obvious), but rather when does one accept ‘I am truly successful.’ I don’t think it is a trivial thing to simply be proud of your accomplishments without desire for more.

2) Are type A personalities born or grown?”

I will not pretend to have the answers to either question but will do my best to answer them in regard to my personal experience as best as I am able.

On the wall above my bed I have posters of famous opera singers, old ticket stubs and a few quotes which I have collected over the years. One of these quotes is from Martha Graham, an American modern dancer and choreographer who defined the genre. She said “No artist is pleased. There is no satisfaction whatever at any time. There is only a queer, divine dissatisfaction; a blessed unrest that keeps us marching and makes us more alive than the others”. In a rather serious conversation which I had in December, I was told by a friend that he feared that I will never be happy because the intense drive to success which I harbor will never allow me to be content. I partially agree with his concern, I agree that I will never be content instead I will to strive to accomplish more success than realistically is possible. This is primarily because I derive pleasure and happiness from the fight for success, and have found with contentment comes complacency. So to answer the first question, I personally will never accept “I am truly successful” because for me, the level of success which I seek is not humanly possible and I enjoy working toward this impossible goal.

I am a firm believer in nurture over nature, and so believe that Type As are grown rather than born. I believe that the Type A-ness which my siblings and I display comes from not the genes which we all share but the fact that in our household a new normal was set.

Just as I have become accustomed to Michigan weather changing every 10 minutes, I became accustomed to a standard of “normal” which is different from society’s collective normal. My brother played piano so naturally I played piano. My brother got good grades while playing football so I got good grades while playing softball. In high school I danced professionally, sang in the school musical, and played in the band so my sister did as well. In order to get everything done, we became type As because it was normal to be incredibly busy and expected that we succeed in all activities which we pursued.

In no way am I arguing that by being a Type A I will be happier or more successful than anyone else. For me, it is and always will be my normal. Just as 40 degree temperature swings are Michigan’s normal. Perhaps one day I will find a new normal, but until then I will continue in my Type A ways.