Image source: Wikipedia entries Diva, She’s The Man, and Safe.

There is a music album meme circulating blogs where people cite the best album for every year they were born. I took a different tack and did movies. Some of it is an exercise is citing the obscure which bloggers love to do, but I think a big part its popularity is for pure nostalgia.

The list is pretty random, spanning high brow and low brow and just about everything in between.  The selection process combination of movies that influenced me when they came out and great movies I saw years later. One big factor is if I rewatch a movie, and more importantly, how often I reference in general conversation.  This sort of explains why Logan’s Run (1976) which I refer to all the time, beats out Taxi Driver and All the President’s Men (I’m sure to most cinemaphiles’ horror.)

In any event, this list is something you can tweak endlessly. I was really sad not to be able to include Bring It On because I really love teen competition movies. The 80s and 90s were particularly hard to narrow down. High school, college, post college are influential years in someone’s life in general. Ideas are discovered for the first time and tastes are refined. Some years were particularly loaded with great films.  1985 saw the release of the Goonies, Tampopo, and The Breakfast Club, but Brazil won out because I still reference that movie the most. The current decade is, I’ll admit, a little uneven. Honestly, I don’t see many movies these days, so it takes a while for to catch up and also to see which films maintain their relevance.

Please enjoy and write up your own. Also final note, the release date is a bit subjective, because it used to over a year for some international film to get distribution in the US. Nevertheless, I used to the domestic release date given by imdb, which continually has been one of my favorite and most used websites since I found it in 1995.

Paper Chase, The (1973)
Female Trouble (1974)
Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975)
Logan’s Run (1976)
Le Diable Probablement (1977)
Midnight Express (1978)
Warriors (1979)

Empire Strikes Back (1980)
Diva (1981)
Blade Runner (1982)
War Games (1983)
Another Country (1984)
Brazil (1985)
Parting Glances (1986)
Withnail & I (1987)
Big Top Pee-wee (1988)
Say Anything… (1989)

The Grifters (1990)
Edward II (1991)
Minbo no onna (1992)
Wedding Banquet (1993)
Vanya on 42nd Street (1994)
Safe  (1995)
Pillow Book (1996)
The River (1997)
Rushmore (1998)
Cruel Intentions (1999)

In the Mood For Love (2000)
Spirited Away (2001)
24 Hour Party People (2002)
Lost in Translation (2003)
The Incredibles (2004)
Linda Linda Linda (2005)
She’s The Man (2006)
Hot Fuzz (2007)

Image source: Dulce Pinzón

And speaking of transformations, I recently saw the show Superheros: Fashion and Fantasy show at the Met’s Costume Institute. The show, skillfully art directed by a friend Shane Valentino, was well curated and displayed– mixing the source material from the original comics with film costumes and related representation in fashion. I mean, who doesn’t want to see Linda Carter’s outfit from Wonder Woman?

However, the photography of Dulce Pinzón takes the concept of the superhero and flips it on its head. Originally from Mexico, Pinzón takes photos of immigrant workers who come to the US to work and send back remittances each week. In 2006, an estimated US$45 billion dollars from 12.6 million immigrants were sent back to Latin American from the US, revealing the magnitude and symbiotic interdependent relationship.  In this example, Sergio García works as a waiter in New York. He is able to send back US$350 a week. Other heros include Superman as delivery boy, Batman as car service driver, and yes, Wonder Woman as laundromat worker. The subjects of her work are simultaneously honest, absurd, tragic, and inspiring, while questioning our concepts of the idols, hero, fame, and equality.

It’s funny how ideas come together. I’ve been slowly making my through Grant McCracken’s book Transformation. This morning on the train, I came to his section on the post-modern transformation of man, in particular on the absorption of hip hop culture into the wider mainstream (read: non-African American.) The chapter coincided with Absolut’s viral campaign feature a KW pill that turns you into Kanye West, entitled “Be Kanye,” which I first noticed it as a guerilla ad on the subway.

Image source: bekanyenow.com

The tension between the authentic and the simulated is a major theme of his book. Here, the transformation and exchange is at its most literal, take a pill and physically turn into West. Instead of “being like Mike” (or West) the transformation is complete and actual. The amazing part is that obviousness of the gesture, instead of the usual implied subtext that Rob Walker discusses, the promise of transformation IS the text. Their only gesture to veil the promise is through the parody of an informercial, there is not real pill, just drink Absolut. I wonder how much further would a marketing campaign take the suggestion of the literal transformation.

Image source: flickr

Image source: flickr

On the way out to Provincetown from Boston, a few weeks ago, I noticed a sole windmill on the shore, largely ignored by the passengers on the ferry. However, on the other side I saw people rush over with digital cameras to snap at a lighthouse on the other side. I made a mental note to get some pictures on the way back. Sure enough on my return, the lighthouse drew out the cameras, even in misty and slightly choppy waters.

In a time of soaring energy and fuel costs, plans to build modern windmills are decried as wrecking the “natural” landscape of the Jersey Shore as well as Nantucket Sound. T Boone Pickens, the legendary Texas oil business man, is placing bets on wind, investing millions into wind farms in Texas. In an interview in Fast Company magazine, he has an interesting quote:

And you’ll do all this on your beautiful 68,000-acre ranch?

“I’m not going to have the windmills on my ranch. They’re ugly. The hub of each turbine is up 280 feet, and then you have a 120-foot radius on the blade. It’s the size of a 40-story building.”

I appreciate Picken’s overall strategy that this country needs to shift away from dependence on oil and carbon-based fuel and towards sustainable and clean energy sources. But it’s too bad that he has such a distasteful view of the aesthetics windmill.

On the other hand, the lighthouse is an interesting piece of architecture. Once a crucial aid in navigating the waters at night or in storms, they usefulness is challenged by advances in GPS, telecommunications, and mapping. However, they remain camera worthy icons of the sea and coasts. Preservation societies have been formed to assist in their upkeep and some lighthouses have been designated as history buildings. I wonder if the original construction of lighthouses were challenged for corrupting the natural landscape. Or if they were largely ignored at telephone poles are.

I do not think that there is something inherent to the lighthouse that makes it more palatable to the mainstream cultural aesthetics, because the traditional wooden windmill have the same elevated sense of historic and aesthetic value.The funny thing is that I find windmills really beautiful, especially many of them in row. Without any post-modern irony, these structures conjure allusions from Boeing to Walter de Maria to Don Quixote.

How can the modern wind farm reach the same level of good will that lighthouses and wooden windmills are afforded? Is it just that they icons of another time, having lasted long enough to achieve a romantic cultural status? Are the protests even worth arguing? New proposes are suggesting that windmills can be moved further off-shore and out of sight. This sounds more expensive to operate and build that ones closer or on the shore. I do know that a high percentage of power is lost in transport. Aesthetics have an economic and social cost.

The relationship between the windmill and the lighthouse is emblematic of a larger question that been occupying brain space for over the past year, which has to do with building an ethic of design. Many people and groups including Buckminster Fuller (more on him soon) and designers in the Bauhaus movement have approached this idea, or least defined an intention for design to improve lives. However, we are at at turning point, where the stakes seem much higher and the need for ethical design seems more relevant.

Can a framework exist for an ethical approach to design that would balance aesthetics, sustainability, equality, and empowerment? If it doesn’t yet exist, what kind of structures would it entail? What can we provide that goes beyond a suggested philosophy? Can the advancement of technological tools and computational metrics can be utilized to guide the ethical designer?

Images source: flickr.com

The objects and tools around us are losing their physicality. Our cars, watches, music, phones, adding computers, and now light sources are less analogue and mechanical, as they become more digital and quantum / nano scale. Although these new innovations perform better, faster, and more efficiently, we lose the ability to see and understand how these technology work. Everything operates in a conceptual black box, as we pray that things work when we need them, because we cannot fix them by ourselves even if we were so inclined. Although we can learn conceptually how an digital watch works, we have lost the ability to use physical cues of how things work. This loss may not be earth shattering, but it does eliminate the ability of us to fix things when they break down as well as adapt their inter-workings to conform to our own needs. We are encouraged to throw away and conform.

Light from oil-based lamps and candles once provided the standard way of seeing at night. Even if you didn’t understand the physics of combustion, you could still built a mental model of how it works through experience working with its physical cues. Fire burned fuel to make heat and light. If a lamp wasn’t working, the problem could only be a few possibilities, most likely having to do with fuel and oxygen.

The introduction of the incandescent bulb worked by sending an electric current though a filament in a bulb. Here, the electric charge flowing through the filament also created heat and light. Electricity was a much safer and convenient energy source for lighting the home, an important advance. However, it was a step away from the physicality of our source for light. Even without precise knowledge of the basic science behind the light bulb, if a light bulb wasn’t working, you could still try to figure out the problem, by checking to see if it was the bulb or the power. We know that when bulbs burn out, the filament breaks. Therefore, we shake the bulb to hear if the filament is broken, albeit gently in case it is not broken. The sound of the broken filament is still an excellent feedback mechanism for testing a bulb. The kind of natural feedback that Don Norma discusses in “The Design of Future Things.”

This simple, yet effective method of testing a working bulb is eliminated when we move to the compact fluorescent bulbs and Light Emitting Diodes. On a physics level, light from CFBs and LEDs work on a nano or quantum scale from the macro or classical physics scale. Similarly, the CFBs and LEDs also take us another step away from the physicality of light. Although we still have bulbs or diodes, respectively, the objects themselves give us less natural feedback to what is going on. How do you tell what is happening when a CFB or LED is dead? I have no idea. CFBs and LEDs are cheaper, more energy efficient and last much longer than incandescent bulbs, which makes the gains in trade off preferred to the status quo.

In the end, I’m left wondering what is the value of this physicality? How important is it for people to have physical models of how their objects work? Am I just being nostalgic for the past or is there something greater at stake?

Image source: murketing,eventbrite

I’m a little behind in the blogging, but I heard Rob Walker for a Q&A with Danielle Sacks from Fast Company, on his book on murketing called Buying In. The event was at the ADC and hosted by the fine folks at psfk. As a speaker, Walker is likable and tells a good story. The questions were designed to give a run down of a book, which was good because it seems like most of the audience hadn’t read it yet. However, there were some nice tidbits that where not in the book. I especially appreciated his condor in stating that coining and branding “murketing” had originated in semi-seriousness; however, the realities of being a writer, (even one who has a weekly column in the New York Times Magazine) means that he needs to be known for his ideas and words.

Money take-aways (which I will paraphrase) :

- Apple iPod users went for fringe pioneers to a tribe of fans. Do you know of any Zune fanatics? Please contact him if you do, because the Zune is basically the ultimate anti-iPod.

- Obama has “projectability,” not unlike Hello Kitty, which allows people to project their ideals and images upon him. Where as, Hilary Clinton was working with a predefined concept in people’s minds, which she had to pivot against.

- American Apparel dropped their sweatshop free branding in order to move from niche to mass. However, they didn’t drop their ethical labor ideals. To them, ethical business practice IS business practice.

- Marketing formulas don’t work because “most formulas ignore culture and culture changes.” What made one campaign or strategy work in a certain time and place may not translation to another implementation because “culture marches on.”

- And probably my favorite idea of the night: saying “I’m down with that,” and clicking a Save Darfur Facebook group isn’t activism.

Video Source: youtube.com

I was in Pittsburgh a few weekends ago, and finally made it to the Warhol Museum. Regardless if you like his aesthetics, Warhol’s influence on post-modern culture is unquestionable. Our current ideas of celebrity, selling out, authenticity, urbanism, mass brands, and cultural production (to name a few) can in some way be traced back to Warhol, whose life was as much of his art as the objects his produced. Many say that if he didn’t do what he did, then someone else would have. But someone didn’t and Warhol did, which makes the point moot.

His appearance on the Love Boat with the parents from Happy Days (which I remember seeing in re-run in the 80s) pretty much encapsulates this influence. From just being on the show, to interacting with middle America sit-com icons to proving the mass appeal of his art, the clip shows it all.

Image source: myspace.com

I’m feeling really nostalgic lately, maybe it’s because the Pixies have reunited, or the launch of muxtape, or that I’ve been catching up with friends from high school and college in Facebook, and then of course, was my roadtrip to Pittsburgh (where I spent my college years.)

For all the reasons above, I’ve been recently listening to my catalogue of Bob Mould and his 90s band Sugar: Workbook, Cooper Blue, and File Under Easy Listening. This prompted me to look into Mould more recent recordings. I had heard that he was went electronic (which is sort of true) and had been meaning to check him out again for a while. So, I finally got his most recent record, District Lines. (Ok, when I say “got,” I mean I bought the mp3s on amazon.com.)

Music was such a huge part of my past especially in my college and post-college years, that there is a distinct soundtrack that I can hinge to parts of my life. If bands are brands as Grant McCracken recently and brand formulates our identities as Rob Walker suggests, then we are what we listen to. However in revisiting this albums, what’s changed over the years, isn’t just what we listen to that is most striking, but *how* we listen to it.

I played it a few times from start to finish. In the age of mp3 downloading and streaming (even the legal ones on myspace or band sites,) who still gives an album three or four full listens just to see if they can get into it? More often than not, I jump from site to site, checking out singles, which often do not even get a full play. Tracks that I immediately like get frequent (sometimes even obsessive plays) for a week before I move on the next ones, most other get are quickly forgotten. The music listening experience is akin to Galactus, the devourer of planets from Marvel Comics, who descends upon a planet to suck all life from it, before it moves on to the next one.

District Lines was a return not only to a musician I’ve admired for years, but also a return to a way of listening to music. I love how Mould uses the traditional album structure, built around tracks 1 and 4. Track 1 “Stupid Now” opens on the quiet side, not unlike “Sunspot” of his solo album, Workbook. But then, the song shifts into great power pop, with melodies layered underneath the noisy guitars that fans expect from Mould. Track 4 is the *hit* track. In this case, “Old Highs, New Lows” shows the electronic influence of DJing at Blowoff, his DC-based party, and is, for me, as least, the biggest track on the album. From his involvement in the electronic scene, Mould started adding electronic elements to his records, like Modulate (which I haven’t bought, but it is now somewhere up on the list,) which confused critics and die-hard rock fans. Maybe he was getting used to the form, or his listeners needed to get used to his new direction. Many people have noted for years, that labels don’t have the patience to nature a musician to develop a sound over a few albums. However, I’m not sure audiences have the patience today either. But it is great to be able to trace the progression of a career over 20 years, plus he blogs.

Images source: latimes.com

I just saw Sex and the City movie opening weekend, arriving to the theater 30 minutes early to find 100 people in front of me. I had avoided the trailers (which basically spills most of the movie) and reviews, so most of the plot twists were still a surprise. To that idea, I am going to avoid major plot spoilers, will with bring up a few product or cultural references and minor scenes that will not ruin the movie. But if you’re a purist, you’ve been warned.

I heard that the movies was getting bad reviews (which is now leading to the inevitable backlash to the backlash.) After seeing I could guess why the critics were panning, and my gut instincts were confirmed after reading up what the critics said after my screening. The movie was made for fans, and the critics for the most part obviously were not watchers of the show. They complained about all the product placement in a movie based on a show the made “Manolo Blahnik” a household name. Furthermore, an early voiceover states that a major theme is “Labels and Love.” Note that labels come first. If you were watching for the fashion you were not disappointed (Louis Vuitton, Vera Wang, Dior, Vivienne Westwood, all make appearances along with the Manolos.) If you wanted new insight on human behavior or a stretch in cinematic achievement, you were disappointed.

The labels of SATC taps into some of my recent readings and posts. Especially relevant is the idea that we create identities from our brands that Rob Walker explores in “Buying In.” In the middle of a very good read, “Transformations,” by Grant McCracken who examines our culture of transformation. Combining these two ideas show the way people seek transformation of the self with brands and in the cast of SATC fan through fashion labels.

Years after the HBO series ended, the cultural currency of SATC is shockingly strong, even if the SATC fan has reached point of cliche. (Before, I delve too far into discussing the SATC fan and lest you think I’m taking easy cultural criticism pot shots, I’ll just admit now that I made plans to see the movie back in January.) Defying negative reviews and blowing out opening box office estimates, fans of the show arrived in droves and in dress. The most telling sign of the strength the shows influence is the film’s ability to self-reference the caricature of the SATC fan, with shots of other groups of female foursomes out for the night. Even more so, we see the on-screen characters state they stopped drinking their once prerequisite Cosmopolitans cocktails (which was the signature drink of the show,) because Cosmos become too popular. The applause which erupted at the end of my screening proved that the audience didn’t take offense. They chose affirmation over critique of the film’s self-awareness of SATC’s cultural impact.

That self-awareness is assuredly post-modern. The movie offers an urban princess roadmap. Moving from renting luxury bags from the internet to owning the real thing suggests McCracken’s idea that our society is not only transformational, but also one of *upward transformational*. The ultimate end point is the penthouse apartment on Fifth Avenue, with a closet that evoked an audible gasp from my fellow audience members. Literal references to the fairy tale are seen in the film via a young daughter’s request to have Cinderella re-read to her, which reveals the existence and the power of the SATC myth of (for the vast majority of fans to realize) the unobtainable. Therefore, the myth relies on a simulation of a lifestyle which is constructed and supported by both the creators and actors of the show, as well as, the fans.

The simulation relies on more than buying knock off LV bags on Canal Street, but the SATC creators involvement as well. Sarah Jessica Parker’s foray into producing fashion is her Bitten line, with Steve & Berry, a ultra-inexpensive clothing chain where dresses cost under $10. The relationship of the culture and myth SATC and the fashion world is complex. Vera Wang criticized the Steve & Berry line, perhaps feeling defensively of rendering the sanctity of not only the fashion designer but of luxury itself. I guess they made up because a Wang gown has a fairly prominent placement in the movie. Perhaps, Wang realizes that in this new world of simulated luxury, she is as dependent on SATC and Parker as they are to her. It is hard if not impossible today to make couture profitable, thus designers use couture for brand building and eventually go mass to make the serious money. (Teri Agris’ “End of Fashion” is still to my knowledge the best description of the evolution of fashion from top down scarcity to horizontal mass.)

This duality of the simulation, of the myth maker and believer mutual reliance on each other should ultimately not be that surprising, although it feels that it should. The relationship is a house of cards of interlocking layers, and seemingly contradictory forces.

With the current world of mass luxury and simulated luxury, the end result is that the very idea of luxury itself becomes a myth and part of the simulation. It is rendered meaningless by both the producers, buyers, and aspirers. We must keep up the illusion, but how can this balancing act last? Removing scarcity, will ultimately destroy the idea of luxury. Perhaps, it is already gone, as Cathy Horn has wisely suggested, and if that is true, what comes next?

Image source: Flickr

Lots of press and media coverage on Millennials (and the Gen Xers who loathe them) has been recently crossing various news media outlets. The back and forth on Radar Online is particularly telling. The slap down by Gen X representative Robert Lanham and the rebuttal by Alex Pareene, is highlighted by their references to a 90s Gen X Time magazine article and the movie “Reality Bites,” the so-called movie about Generation X, and the following indignation by Gen Xers. Trying to boil a generation down to a few stereotypical traits is never going to satisfy a large group of people, especially those being examined. We live in a society of individualism, which is antithetical to that kind of categorization. I recall seeing “Reality Bites,” and found the idea of it speaking for “my generation” laughable. Not that it was a terrible movie, but can you really encapsulate the complexity of people born in a twenty year span in 100 minutes?

Generation X resented being deemed by “slackers” for basically being young, by their Baby Boomer predecessors. Ten years later, the Millennials are reacting against the labels of being “A.D.D. Facebook addicts.” What is so surprising?

Why aren’t people seeing that this conflict of generations as just the way human nature and history work? Each generation is always afraid and resentful of the next one, just like a king wanting to produce heirs but being afraid of them usurping his power. In today’s youth obsessed culture, parents still strive to be cool in their middle age and beyond. In the 90s, I remember reading a quote in article on Gen X, with a quote I’ve carried with me. A Boomer being interviewed said, “We weren’t supposed to get old,” which an American interpretation  of the traditional generation gap. In one sense, yes, I can appreciate the underlying social forces which produced this continual sentiment (which goes far beyond this one person.) On the other hand, I just want to say, get over it.