Whoa… so this is not a painting.  It is a photograph of a model covered in body paint, posing against a painted set to make herself seem like she is part of a painting.  Isn’t this crazy?  I wonder if this type of thing was possible in the past.  The concept of trompe-l’oeil has existed for quite awhile, but have people previously thought to cover themselves in body paint in the goal of mimicking perfectly a painting?  Do mimes kind of count?

It makes me wonder, though– how much of what we see can actually be the truth?  How much of it is actually the truth and how much of it is the truth covered by layers of paint so that it is barely discernible?  Art, in a lot of ways, has that tendency– to portray truth in ways that make it seem so false and so empty.  From the prostitutes depicted in Picasso’s Mademoiselle d’Avignon to the photographs seen in National Geographic– this is all art depicting the “truth”, yet in such contrived ways that the truth becomes distorted, decontextualized, until we ourselves must struggle with grasping this notion of truth that the artist wants to convey.

Photography may seem like a strange example due to its explicit nature– it is what it is, no?  Photography, right after its inception, became a means of documentation; thus, of course it is truthful.  Yet, there are so many ways a photograph can be manipulated, especially in this day with all this technology, to reflect things that are not actually there, to eliminate elements that are unwanted.  And if this is true– if all the messages and information we deem to be “true” becomes so unrecognizable under all the layers of paint and manipulation, what do we do to make it more noticeable?  How do we train our eyes to catch all the falsities, to scrape away the various colors and forms to display it for what it truly is?  How do we get at the truth lying beneath all of the words and the art?

*shrugs*  Maybe we just have to be more meticulous, more searching.  We can’t just glance at a photograph, a painting, or an article and take it as it is.  It’s like with this photograph.  It looks like a shot of a painting.  But in fact it’s a photograph of an event that occurred in which a real person painted and placed herself into a set in order to give the illusion that the entire performance is a painting.  And because this photograph becomes decontextualized in the mere essence of it being a photograph, we the viewer see it to be a painting.  It’s only when we look more closely, when we read the caption that we realize it for what it is.  And it’s only then that we see the truth.

—–

Gabby Park is a triple concentrator in Communications, French, and History of Art.

These are my shoes. Today, perhaps after the fact of writing a Shakespeare paper into the dawn of the early morning, to the point that the chemical balance in my brain had fallen out of equilibrium, I got eerily close to deciding to wash my sneakers. Keds commandments tell me no, my Mom tells me yes, and my mind is ambivalent. Cleanliness isn’t my concern; I recall feeling irrationally yet utterly self conscious the first month — having them blaringly untarnished and the whites of them leering at me. Once immaculately and uniformly black, replete with a sense of emptiness, their eclectic earthly smears are now landing it somewhere between dinge and dank. It’d be washing away everything. The shoes have lifted and carried me everywhere in the past eleven months; the past eleven months when life has been jolted with a resemblance of a life well lived.

I never even meant to buy them; the kind sir I contacted about the job let me know I had been hired and I was to report to work the following morning. I needed black shoes. It was ten o’clock in the evening. I went to the virtually non-existent clothing department in the 24-hour grocery store.

My Keds were laced up pretty tightly the first weeks; it saw ten-hour shifts of a dozen happy unions – wedding cake being the first foreign contaminant it was acquainted with. The precariously tipped over wine glass in the bride’s hand as she danced with her betrothed dribbled champagne into the litter of petals on the wood floor and on to my shoes. These sneakers greeted my first room-mate, saw me through late nights of academic pursuits, escorted me to the nearest coffee vendor, ushered me to house parties, and waded me through streams of cheap beer leaked from kegs. They sat beneath me against the dewy grass during sunrise and while I read string theory on the hill; they forgave me when, during a lapse of poor judgment, I had opted for trying a new short-cut and had sunk them in an alarmingly viscous and inconspicuous pool of mud. They’ve run through rain puddles dashing water in cinematic glory; the only emission of sound save for the rainfall was the splashing of these sneakers against the concrete, each decibel cutting into the late-night as thunderous as each vein of lightning that shredded the sky. We stood at very front of the concerts we’d go to and they’d support the tips of my toes while deafening music pulsed through its fibers, sweat waxed to the floor. They’ve ran with me through the subway system in New York City, hopping over incompliant gates in disgusting weather. They kept their modest dignity when met with the loafers of urban bourgeois. We strode around cities. We spun the sky. On summer days, they flirted with the pavement but settled on the grass; even in times of mundanity, they’d comply with my desultory, absentminded ankle-flexing under tables. There’s something satisfying seeing their soles worn thin, knowing it’s partly due to getting lost in the most enriched and fascinating realms of ideas and potential enlightenment — glorious libraries and science museums. They’ve walked my head into a place I didn’t mind being and they’ve helped me wander my mind to living on my own in Ann Arbor.

We’ve stomped out potential forest fires and we’ve discovered glorious fields through muddy passageways. Each splatter of mud means something; every moment is a spot of dirt, collectively creating an idiosyncratic batch of eccentricities. I remember how they maneuvered me around the puddles and I remember emerging from a narrow path to the field and letting them rest on the table, to get off the ground for a bit.

We’ll be together, sockless and laces loose, to sit through exams next week. And we’ll be together finding our way back to couches inlaid in forests. We’ll be together until we can’t be together anymore.

The shoes seem mistakenly too emphasized for a single size eight Keds, but they’re hauntingly not. I ended up hand washing them tonight, and with each layer removed, I made room for another one.

Sue majors in Neuroscience & English and tends to lurk in bookstores.

Is graffiti an art or a nuance?

For this discourse, I’d like to focus on the illegal aspect of graffiti on public property.  Commissioned work is equally as beautiful, but I’m interested in opinions towards individual expressionism.

Graffiti entails a personal freedom separate from other artwork, due to its illegal rush.  Not speaking from personal experience, but being a participant in illegal activities such as jay-walking, riding your bike on the wrong side of the road, or driving barefoot (clearly my motor skills are limited by the law), I can empathize with the rush one gets from participation in illegal activities.

So what is the general consensus towards graffiti?

Is it a public indecency or a contribution to society?

Frankly, I’d side with the criminals out there, and say that the majority of their markings are beautiful.  Walking around the Ann Arbor area, you can see a wide array of graffiti on walls, signs, and electrical boxes.  Graffiti liberates the individual and the city.  Plain concrete was meant to be painted.  They scream for the attention.  It only seems natural to paint the world and make it as colorful as possible.

Have a great weekend!!

Sara majors in Art History and enjoys long walks.

There are many, vastly different opinions of what a person should be. How a respectable student should behave. What a responsible man must do. This recent writing exercise seemed fitting in lieu of my recent, emergency appendectomy, as well as, for fellow Lost fans, John Locke’s “Don’t tell me what I can’t do!”

Don’t be A Tomboy 

Or do anything daring at all—you’ll just get hurt. After all, you’re prone to it, to getting hurt. What with your condition and all. No, nothing even remotely daring. So before you do anything, and I mean anything: picture me. Would I approve? If you have even the slightest doubt, don’t do it. Don’t think twice. The answer is firm. The answer is “No.” No climbing of trees. No climbing of mountains. No shoes without proper arches (and they must always be clean). Take better care of your shoes. I don’t even know why I buy them for you. They’re always ruined. Don’t walk in the rain, stop walking in the rain. Your shoes will ruin and you’re really better off staying indoors, anyway. If you walk in the rain you’re likely to catch a cold. Or pneumonia. And don’t think you’re going dancing in those shoes, either. I don’t want you out dancing and drinking. You’ll get too tired; you’ll stay up too late. Your friends will forget about you and leave you behind. And worst of all—your shoes, they’ll scuff. A proper lady keeps her shoes clean. Don’t listen to music loudly. Eat your food slowly. Order a salad. At home, clear the table. Don’t tell your boyfriend, “I love you.” I know you don’t. When you break up, wait a while before finding another boyfriend. Not long enough and you’re trash. Too long, you’re a lesbian. Don’t tell me you’re a lesbian. Your reputation is only as clean as your shoes. You have too many male friends, which makes me suspect you’re a lesbian. You spend too much time with them. You sweat with them. You’re going to get hurt if you carry on like this, with your hiking, your camping. You can’t live out of a backpack. You can’t just gallivant about the wilderness. You can’t fight the elements. Listen: You’re going to get very hurt, or maybe you’re going to die. The mosquitoes are terrible out there. I’ll bet you contract West Nile. Your asthma’s getting worse, too. And for God’s sake: remember your blood condition. I know you’re not drinking enough water. I know you’re picking your scabs. That’s why you have so many scars—don’t you listen to your dermatologist at all? If you weren’t gallivanting about the wilderness all summer, wearing your hair short in that bandana like the lesbian you’re becoming, you wouldn’t have these hideous scars. Or this sunburn. Don’t you wear sunscreen? And how many times do I have to tell you to reapply it? You reapply sunscreen every hour. That’s every single hour, reapplying your sunscreen. That’s the appropriate amount. But you, you’re red. Don’t you know that this family has a history of skin cancer? And would you please just stop and think a minute, about your condition? Jesus Christ, your condition! Well, once you’ve gotten another boyfriend I’ll continue questioning your sexuality on a semi regular basis, but you better not be having sexual intercourse. Slow down. Don’t blow all of your money on train fare. And especially not on airfare. There’s a lot of risk involved with air travel. Don’t go where I can’t follow. Don’t walk so fast in those shoes. They’ll scuff.

Peace,
Molly

Molly Ann Blakowski majors in English and jumps in puddles.

The answer is supposedly three minutes. One hundred eighty seconds of salutations and small talk leads up to that final moment.  Are they the one?  You eye your partner, searching for a clue of sorts. Clutching onto your pencil and card you are eventually a forced to make a decision. Is number 21 a friend or something more? The three minutes are up and you are on to the next one.

This past Friday, my friends and I decided to participate in a charity speed dating event. To be honest, I wasn’t exactly expecting much. Wearing a pair of old jeans and a simple t-shirt, I looked more prepared to down a box of Dibs than I was to meet my soul mate. But, according to my roommate’s previous experiences with speed dating, I didn’t see any reason to dress up for the occasion. “There were hardly any boys. You’ll probably end up eating food and making Valentine’s Day cards. That’s what happened to me,” she had said. So, one can imagine my (as well as my friends) horror when we walked into the dating dungeon that was the YK lounge. There were boys everywhere and nothing to eat! Immediately I cursed my roommate, and proceeded to apologize profusely to my friends who, like me, were in less than glamorous outfits. Though the evening had started off in panic,  I slowly started having fun and had a decent time. No, I didn’t find my person or anything like that, but I did run into quite an array of people, both nice and interesting (one guy told my friend that he wanted to get a tattoo of his penis…. ON HIS PENIS!!!!).

Besides the people, I think the whole speed dating experience was definitely an intriguing look at what romance has become in today’s society. Unfortunately, gone are the days where feelings are organically fostered and nurtured. Our lives have seemingly transformed from a Jane Austen novel (at least that’s how I imagine my life in the 1800s) into a technologically charged and “instant gratification” filled existence. It’s a little sad that we don’t have more than three minutes (or the seconds it takes for eHarmony’s web page to load) to devout to our love lives. In the spirit of JT and the BEP, where is the romance?

Friday night millions of people witnessed an event that only happens every four years, the Opening Ceremony of the Winter Olympics.  This year the world wide sport event is being held in Vancouver, Canada and was kicked off by a 3.5 hour performance.  And despite the falling snow seen on the television screen, it all took place indoors.  This is the first time the an opening ceremony has done so.  I’m betting cuz of local weather.  Events on the first day of competing were actually postponed due to bad conditions.

The ceremony started with Canadian snowboarder Johnny Lyal flying through constructions of the Olympic rings that exploded outward with snow and ice.  This was then followed by the tamer display of the Canadian national anthem.  In both English and French, as much of the portion of the program was.

Following this was a large collection of Native Americans on the stage, well the Canadian version anyway, acting as the First Nations of Canada.  Together a large amount of tribesmen as well large statues,  officially welcomed the athletes and spectators to the area.

Next came the second most boring part, the parade of nations.  Led by Greece with Canada bringing up the rear all the competing nations walked across the stage grounds.  It would make things go a lot quicker if just flag bearers were down on the ground and it would be a nice equalizing agent.  Some countries have less than ten athletes competing, and that just looks awkward against the beastlyness of the United States.

The rest of the ceremony was essentially a giant tribute to the host country, but it was very entertaining to watch.  Except for the opening remarks which were so long I was actually able to watch a Simpsons and The Red Green Show episode without missing anything important.

Come the time to light the Olympic touch, the previously unflawed performance had a little hiccup. Of the four supports for the cauldron, only three were able to emerge.  It must have been tough for the torch bearers, having to just stand there and smile, all the while thinking Dang! This thing is heavy.  Hurry up!

But to be honest, I wasn’t that impressed with the entire thing, even with the snowboarders and skiers doing tricks from the ceiling.  Beijing was better.

Your Olympic watching blogger,

Jenny

PS.  Did you guys know we actually have two UofM students in the Olympics?  They’re figure skaters.