When Cultures Collide and Conquer

(Come on Shore and We Will Kill and Eat You All: A New Zealand Story by Christina Thompson and published by Bloomsbury)

Browsing in a library or bookstore, I am often enticed to read something by its title and cover. Certainly when I saw the title, "Come on Shore and We Will Kill and Eat You All," it attracted my attention. Then when I saw that it was a story about New Zealand, I became even more interested. You see, a few years ago I found out, by also reading a book, that I had relatives who live in New Zealand. Ever since then, I've had an increasing interest in finding out more about a country I know very little about.

What starts out with a brawl in a bar between a white and a Maori islander that is witnessed by the author, Christina Thompson, turns into a love story and family history. As it turns out, Christina's family on her mother's side happened to arrive in Massachusetts in 1642, the very year that Dutch explorers came upon New Zealand. In both cases they met the native peoples; Maori in the case of New Zealand and Agawam, Pennacook and Pawtucket Native Americans in the case of Massachusetts.

Told as a personal memoir, the book endeavors to weave the history of what colonization did to the Moari culture. Although Thompson spent lots of time researching the history of New Zealand and the Polynesians who settled the vast islands of the Pacific, there are lots of times in the book that it seems as if she is apologizing for what she perceives were the injustices done. At the same time, she has a hard time documenting the motives behind much of the warring tribes of New Zealand or their interactions with Europeans.

I enjoyed reading about Thompson's observations and stories about life with her Maori husband and her marriage's effect on her own family. I also learned a bit more about the European explorers and their interactions and dealings with the local people as they endeavored to settle and Christianize the islanders. Whether it is due to the lack of a tradition of a written language or the quick annihilation of the Maori due to war or disease, the story from their point of view often seems a bit weak.

In the end, the story Thompson tells is personal. In many ways it does tell us more about Maori culture and folklore. Yet it also is a story about class, privilege, education and how two very different individuals melded a life together. And that is probably all one can hope for, a melding of lives one at a time as our world increasingly gets smaller culturally and demographically.

Amelia: Looking for Bravery, We Only Get a Smile

(Amelia Earhart looks out at us with her strong eyes and wisp of a smile, and in the film Amelia, directed by Mira Nair, we don't get much else.)

I was hoping for so much more. Who was Amelia Earhart, this icon of female pilots, this famous woman who vanishes into thin air? But in Amelia, the recently released film by Mira Nair, her husband and maybe even her love-affair with Gene Vidal, are more interesting than the flat dimensional character that we are presented with.

I don't know if it was the period, the roaring 20s that crashing into the depression, but Amelia, as portrayed by Hilary Swank, seems little more than a prop used by her publicity hungry husband, George Putnam. The movie is beautifully photographed with scenes over Africa and parts of Ireland and Wales, but the passion, drive and risk taking that Amelia's endeavors must have taken just don't come through.

What is she thinking? Why is she doing this? The answers seem to lie in her journals and letters to her husband, but even those seem a bit stilted in today's vernacular.

While watching the film, I kept thinking back to my first two flights. The excitement, fright and thrill I got in that first flight in a Cessna Cub when I was a kid, and then to my next flight in an American Airlines 747 from Boston to Los Angles when I was in college with its immense size and luxury just didn't come through. Hilary Swank and Richard Gere as George Putnam did their best with what material they were given, but in the end I thought I was supposed to hate Putnam for using Amelia for her publicity's sake and be upset that she vanished. I did neither. It is hard to have too much emotion for cardboard characters.

Woodstock and the Class of 69

(Elliot Tiber's story (with Tom Monte) of a riot, concert and life, gives us a much deeper insight into his life than Ang Lee's movie version.)

There are lots 40th anniversaries this year. A lot happened in 1969. It was no ordinary year, but of course for those of us living through it, we didn't know that then.

Steve & I graduated from high school, there were Peace Marches against the Vietnam War, the Stonewall Riots took place in New York, Neil Armstrong walked on the moon, Richard Nixon was elected President, Edward Kennedy drove off the Chappaquiddick bridge, and the Woodstock generation was born.

I remember a lot of those things, participated in some, while others just seemed to be a bit out of my realm, especially as a young man still trying to find my way and please my parents. Of course that meant I graduated from my conservative Seventh-day Adventist high school, South Lancaster Academy. (I didn't attend my 40th reunion.) But that didn't mean I was totally oblivious to what was going on around me. I participated in the largest peace demonstration on the Boston Common in October of 1969, after having to register for the draft on my 18th birthday in July just a few days after we had landed on the moon.

(When I graduated from high school I never saw the sexual innuendos that were squarely in front of me, even on my yearbook cover.)

I don't recall hearing much about the gay Stonewall riots in New York that June that set off the gay liberation movement, but I certainly heard about the large gathering of kids who had set off for upstate New York for the Woodstock concerts. Of course I didn't go. I didn't have a car, didn't know anyone who would have gone, and wasn't all that caught up in many of the singers or bands who played. Certainly not until after the event had happened.

So after 40 years, this year we were treated to reminiscences of one of those huge defining moments: Taking Woodstock, both the book by Elliot Tiber with Tom Monte and the movie version by Ang Lee based on the book.

There is often a difference between a movie adaptation of a book. And, in Ang Lee's version of Taking Woodstock, Tiber's gay life and exploitations in New York City are left out. True there are a few scenes in both the book and movie where young Tiber experiments with his sexuality at the festival and his parents motel. And, in the interest of being fair, the movie version really only concentrates on Tiber's relationship with his parents in running their derelict motel, the weeks proceeding the concert, its happening from Tiber's perspective four miles away, and a few scenes following its close. Thus the movie in a wonderfully dreamy, almost documentary kind of way, is really about Woodstock, whereas the book is really about Tiber's life and how Woodstock transformed him.

The movie was funny, moving, a real head trip back in time; but I really loved reading about Tiber's struggles to find his sexual identity amidst his two lives in Manhattan and upstate New York. And, like many from little towns across America, once he saw the greater world about him, he had to leave the country behind.

Balloon Boys

(I wonder if Falcon Heene, the Colorado "balloon boy" saw Russell, the cute energetic cub scout in the movie Up, and too wanted to fly away?)

All of a sudden balloon boys were in my conscience. Not that one could have actually avoided the story of Falcon Heene, the six-year-old boy who was thought to have flown away in his family's silver space-like balloon this past week. But then, on kind of a lark, Steve and I went to see the Pixar film, UP, at one of the cheapest movie places around, Cinemark 10 in Cathedral City.

We'd never been to this movie theater, but everyone always commented about how cheap the tickets were. However it always seemed that they showed stuff we just weren't interested in; that is, until the "balloon boy" reminded us about UP. Now I know that this movie was also released in 3-D, but even though we didn't see it with those funny glasses on, we really enjoyed the joy and adventure that this movie is all about.

Poor old Carl Frederikson (voiced by Ed Asner) misses his adventurous wife, Ellie, of many years and their little house is now surrounded by high rise construction on all sides. Now a bit cantankerous, he gets a knock on his door from a cute little cub scout looking to earn his "assisting the elderly" badge. Not amused he sends him away and after reminiscing about his life by flipping through Ellie's scrapbook, he wishes he could just fly away to that lost land they dreamed of discovering so many years ago.

Things get a bit chaotic when the construction crew continues to encrouch on his property and he decides to blow up a huge bunch of balloons that go up his chimney. Whoops without thinking about it, the house gives way and off it goes. However not only does he have his pet dog with him but also a stow away; Russell. Up, up and away they go, and soon they find that they are on adventure to that secret land Carl and Ellie had dreamed about.

Of course there are protagonists (a mad scientist in a helium blimp), mad dogs, a rare and elusive bird, and enough magical moments to make even the youngest child to the oldest curmudgeon laugh and cry.

Kids have been dreaming of flying with balloons or by jumping off tree stumps and roofs for ages, and I am sure that little Falcon was too. Fantasy is fun and UP makes it even more so.

Object of Desire is a True Love Story

(Object of Desire: A Novel by William J. Mann, published by Kensington Books 2009)

I think we all, at some point in our lives, want to be "objects of desire", yet in William Mann's latest novel, Object of Desire, there is really only one I'd care to be.

Unlike Mann's previous novels, this book is set in East Hartford, Connecticut (not so pretty), West Hollywood, California, and Palm Springs, California, (where I now live). And although the life of Danny, the main character of the book, is somewhat reflective of those settings, (East Hartford - depressing / West Hollywood - sexy sleaze / Palm Springs - laid back & beautiful), Mann brings enough twists and turns to the story to keep you wanting more.

There are plenty of characters in this 400 plus page novel who become "objects of desire", many to the point of obsession. Becky, Danny's teenage sister who vanishes into thin air and becomes his mother's obsession. Chipper, Becky's boyfriend, who ends up being one of many of Danny's obsessions. Frank, glanced briefly by Danny in a stripper joint, who becomes he longtime partner. Kelly, the coke obsessed bartender that Danny sees as his younger self, and that he can't shake off. And these are just the few that Danny goes nuts for; let alone the characters his mother follows around in search of her lost daughter or the rich double living society whores Danny meets in Hollywood and Palm Springs.

Mann has done a great job of character building, but the greatest strength in this book is its twists and turns. The way the story of Danny's crazy early life in East Hartford is turned upside down by his mother's manic obsession in trying to find his sister and that comes to haunt him too. Does Danny find his way, his true happiness, the object of his desire? He certainly tries. There are lots of detours and questions along the way, but that's what makes life interesting and this book a real page turner.

I'm not going to give away the fascinating twist that lies toward the end, but will only say that this book was a perfect anniversary present from my spouse & partner of 21 years. It made me cry and happy to know true love, even if there are many "objects of desire" along the way. Oh, and the fact that I too live in Palm Springs, where like Danny I also look at the glorious San Jacinto Mountains that rise majestically "like papier-mâché, folded in various and intricate patterns."

My Review of the Backstreet Art District

What began as a dream several years ago has now blossomed into a full-fledged art district in Palm Springs...

Art and Culture: Backstreet Art District

Glass as Inspiration

(The work of glass artist Lino Tagliapietra was the inspiration for an afternoon at the Palm Springs Art Museum.)

It never ceases to amaze me how incredibly lucky we are to have the Palm Springs Art Museum so close by. Not only has it undergone a complete renovation over the last three years, but it collections and shows have gotten even better. Recently Steve and I also participated in a focus group to see what more the museum might do to attract those who aren't coming.

Today marked another new beginning, "Free 2nd Sundays at the Art Museum." For several years the museum has been open for free on Thursday evenings, the same night as Palm Springs Village Fest. But now, thanks to a large grant from the H.N. and Frances C. Berger Foundation, the museum will be free the second Sunday of each month for the next three years. Of course Sundays are probably easier times for families with children to attend, so programming for them, as well as special events will be planned each month.

(Patrick Blythe applying a plaster cast over the silicone mask that he has painted onto Glenn Ostergaard's face to make a mold for his cast glass face mask piece.)

Today's focus was inspired by the recently opened show, Lino Tagliapietra in Retrospect: A Modern Renaissance in Italian Glass. Although there were a number of events during the day, we only took in two; the Artist Demonstration and Reflections of Lino: A contemporary performing art piece. Local glass artist Patrick Blythe did a demonstration on his life casting that he then produces in glass. The interesting thing besides his use of silicone, plaster and some of his finished pieces, was that he was using as subjects David Kaplan and Glenn Ostergaard major donors to the museum in whose names the contemporary glass gallery at the museum is named for.

Following that demonstration we quickly zoomed through the exhibition of Lino Taglipietra's work, but will return when the Glass Center gallery reopens this week with some new works from the museum's permanent collection, as well as pieces on loan from other collectors.

However the real highlight of the afternoon was a contemporary performing art piece based on the life and work of Tagliapietra, Reflections of Lino. Presented by the Coachella Valley Repertory theater in the Annenberg Theatre, the work showcased dancers from the L. A. Contemporary Dance Company and music by Nathan Wang, narrative by Jonathan Dorf and backdrop sets by four members of the museum's Artist's Council (Gideon Cohn, Peter Demopoulos, Gary Paterson & Patrick Sheehan).

Made up of six scenes, the narrative of Taglipietra's life was actually more interesting to me than the documentary that I saw on his life that is part of the exhibition's catalog. The lighting, photography and narrative that accompanied each section of the piece that highlighted Taglipietra's life, interest in glass and eventual movement from a craftsman to artistic genius were well told and illustrated. The three dances movements that accompanied the piece, Renaissance, The Elements and New Currents, actually got better as they moved on.

The four dancers were fluid and expressive, and the costumes, especially in the elements and currents gave the appearance of molten glass and light. The accompanying music was also very captivating with its movements, sounds and rhythm; all indicative of glass being blown, cooling and heating up.

If this is the type of programming that we will get on the 2nd Sundays, I'm looking forward to many more. And, if you're in the Palm Springs area, this performance will be repeated on Saturday, November 14, at 2 pm as part of the Mobile Hot Shop.