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Month: August 2013

“SaltWorks” –Return to the Sea

  Last Sunday, August 25, the Monterey Museum of Art was filled to capacity.  See the YouTube video clips to get a feel for the community response , both here and in an older YouTube video of Charleston, North Carolina where Yamamoto teaches , if you didn’t get a chance to be there yourself! The line went out the door to see the the closing of the Motoi Yamamoto exhibit SaltWorks”  (see my earlier post dated July 3 for the review of the exhibit).  The participatory experience for those of us who had the opportunity to disassemble the artwork was popular, especially with young...

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“We Need to Talk About Kevin”–The Bad Seed

“We Need to Talk About Kevin” is an unforgettable portrait of the baby from hell, and as such this film may not be meant for a lot of viewers. Kevin comes into the world as a very difficult, “challenging” infant.  The unconditional love between mother–Eva Khatchadourian (played to perfection by Tilda Swinton, a BAFTA nominee for this role) and child (as a teenager by the talented newcomer Ezra Miller) just doesn’t happen.  In the delicate and intricate mother-child bonding requiring a mutuality of response–pick up the crying baby, baby stops crying,...

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The Backstory behind “Orange is the New Black”

With all the buzz about “Orange is the New Black”, I had fun chasing down facts about the memoir of that name by Piper Kerman after binge viewing the huge hit, “Orange is the New Black” on Netflix.  (See my last post for the review of the hit series). In two separate interviews on NPR’s “All Things Considered”, Terry Gross interviews first Piper Kerman and then Jenji Kohan. It makes for fascinating listening! To take a few examples:  In the memoir Kerman does not actually experience solitary confinement.  However, to show the desolation and dehumanizing...

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“Orange is the New Black”–Life Behind Bars

This is a caged beast financed and produced by Netflix: thirteen episodes available on Instant Queue for binge viewing if you are so inclined. “Orange is the New Black” (filmed on location in a women’s prison in Chino, California) is loosely based on the 2010 memoir by Piper Kerman (now an advocate for women prison reform.)  Piper Chapman (phenomenal newcomer Taylor Schilling) is a privileged Smith College graduate sentenced to 14 months in prison for the crime of smuggling drugs ten years earlier.  Her former lover from that time, fellow drug smuggler Alex Vaus (the pitch-perfect...

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