You can call me self-involved, too, because I was googling myself, which I do sometimes to make sure nothing weird comes up, and I found that an article in El Pais (a spanish newspaper) from December quotes one of my Pomona newspaper articles from a few years ago. I’d written about the Hollywood trend of remaking very recent foreign films, and this article is about remakes in general.

Here’s the paragaph: Para críticos como Anne Shulock lo malo no es sólo que los grandes estudios dejen de buscar historias sino que “oculten el origen de las que están adaptando”. Como ejemplo cita el caso del director español Alejandro Amenábar y su película Abre los ojos. “Roger Ebert, probablemente el crítico de cine más célebre de los Estados Unidos, no citó ni una sola vez al original español en su pieza sobre Vanilla Sky”, se quejaba Shulock.



Which means (roughly): For critics like Anne Shulock, the problem is not only that the big studios have stopped looking for new stories, but also that “they hide the origin of the movies that they are adapting.” As an example she cites the case of Spanish director Alejandro Amenábar and his movie Abre los ojos. “Roger Ebert, probably the most famous movie critic in the United States, doesn’t mention the original Spanish version even once in his review of Vanilla Sky,” complains Shulock.



Funny.

So, I finished my 50 paintings based on book covers (see post below) and the show opened yesterday! The opening reception is Saturday from 6pm-9pm, and you all (i.e. my several readers, none of whom live in Sacramento, but oh well) are invited. 20th Street Art Gallery in Sacramento, on 20th St. between I and J. 

In celebration, here are pictures of a few more of my favorites (the sequence number is in parentheses). On the post below and the various links within it you can see others.

Lolita (1)

The Fortress of Solitude (14)

Dangerous Liaisons (21)

The Bell Jar (28)

The Great Gatsby (31)

The Corrections (43)

The Giver (49)

Ok. So clearly I fell off the face of the earth for awhile. But I’ve been busy! With work and painting, which is the reason for this back-from-the-dead post.

Since January 30, I’ve been participating in the 50-50 show for 20th Street Art Gallery. The conceit: 0ver 70 artists each do one painting a day (on a 6″x6″ panel) for 50 days. My original thought–that each painting would take about 2 hours–underestimated my perfectionism, drying time, and all that jazz, and turns out that it’s really time consuming to do a painting every single day. (Friend on a Friday night: “You’re leaving the bar at 9:30?” Me: “Sorry, I have to go paint!”)

But it is also really fun, and as I ever-so-eloquently said to my mom the other day, “I’ve done a shit-ton of paintings!” (41, to be exact.) Each artist has to have a theme, and my paintings are all inspired by the covers of my favorite books.

Other people have written about the show/my paintings, so instead of being repetitive, I’ll send you over to the blog of my lovely co-worker Jon: click here.

And to a local online newspaper: click here.

And to the art gallery’s website about the show: click here.

So, anyone in the Sacramento (or Bay) area, you’re cordially invited to see the show. It will be up from April 8-May 30 (though in May it will just be what hasn’t sold from April), with the opening reception on April 11 from 6-9pm.

p.s. the paintings above are for One Hundred Years of Solitude, Bel Canto, and Killer Cronicas, respectively.

Though I haven’t played in more than a year, I love ping pong. (I also have two shirts from my high school days in ping pong club, two other items of clothing with ping pong references, and the nickname of “net whore,” thanks to my lovely sister and my skill at coaxing the ball to catch the net and drop right over.)

So, I would be remiss if I didn’t share this new ad for a limited edition Bruce Lee Nokia phone that has been viral video-ing itself all over the internet. General consensus seems to be that it’s an actor, not really old footage of Bruce Lee, and that it’s all digital and CGI and not really someone playing ping pong with nunchucks blah blah blah. Whatever. It’s awesome, so check it out.

Here is a picture of me with Shaq when I interviewed him at a fundraiser for Kevin Johnson’s St. Hope organization. Shaq was the keynote speaker, and came out in a Afro and lipsyncing to a Jackson 5 song before getting down to business. 

Rachael Yamagata is one of my favorite musicians, if that status can be earned with a single album (2004’s Happenstance ), and I’ve been waiting ages for a follow-up. Now, Elephants… Teeth Sinking Into Heart (a two-disc CD) comes out on October 7!

Here is the video for her first single, “Elephants”. It seems like a bit of an odd choice to kick off the new album–it’s super mellow, and not really infectious. But it is pretty, and I’m jazzed to hear the other 14 tracks. 

In my freshman year sculpture class, we had one assignment that was to build something out of repeated units of a single material. One girl built a snowboard out of plastic knives; I built a violin out of caramel corn and Bazooka bubble gum (okay, I cheated and used two materials).

As a far, far better example of an artist who transforms everyday materials, check out Tara Donovan. She just won a MacArthur award (genius grant–DFW, RIP, won one years ago). She works with media like styrofoam cups, plastic cups, plastic straws, scotch tape, buttons and pencils, and I think the results are stunning.

This is Styrofoam cups.

This is buttons.

I’m dying to see her work in person…

A few days ago the New York Times book blog wrote this post, “Pain and Ink,” about people who get literary-themed tattoos. You can see some of the tattoos here (Most of them are from books, but some are from songs, too, and I’m digging the ellipses tattoo. There’s also a fair bit of Elvish).

So, this of course made me ask myself, what would I get tattooed, were I to get a literary tattoo? I did paintings based on two of my favorite sentences last semester, but I don’t think either would be fantastic on my body:

The beds of mums and begonias and liriope all around him were like bikinied extras in a music video, planted in full blush of perfection and fated to be yanked again before they had a chance to lose petals, acquire brown spots, drop leaves. -The Corrections, Jonathan Franzen

“I love that picture of you,” she says.

“What picture?” I ask.

“That one,” she says, pointing to a picture of the Alcoholic. She picks it up, presses her finger on a blur in the background. The oil on her finger marks the glass over the unfocused girl, over me. I squint, press the glass to my face and examine. I see then that it is me. A foggy gray wind. My face is faint underneath, like panty lines. -The Long Haul, Amanda Stern

(The bolded sentence is my actual favorite, I just think it needs the context.)

Anyway, fair readers (all three of you–Liz, Julie and Cliff, I’m expecting responses), what are your picks? What quote would you get tattooed?

No, I haven’t joined a gang. Nor have I died–long absence is due to deadline (new mag out by August 1st!).

But I have been excited by news of a bilingual West Side Story to be revived on Broadway by Arthur Laurents, who did Gypsy last year. I’ve never seen the stage show, and I do like the movie, but it’s not exactly culturally authentic (or convincing). It will be interesting to see how a non-bilingual audience responds to it. There will be supertitles, but having to look away from the stage would be distracting (although I guess operas have dealt with that for years)…

On non-related news, I’m totally excited about the olympics, and plan to watch as much of the 3,600 hours of online and tv coverage as possible with a full-time job and the Sacramento Film and Music Festival taking place at the same time–but I get upset when scandals like this one arise. Two of the gymnasts on the Chinese women’s team (which is expected to go head-to-head with the USA for the team gold) may be lying about their age (they’re maybe 14, and the minimum age is 16), but there’s no good way to tell prove it because their official Chinese documents say 16. (yay for authoritarian countries.) With this, the new steroids doc Bigger, Stronger, Faster, the current Tour de France doping problems…I hate that I can’t just be in awe of athletes and the amazing things they do, because there’s so much rule-bending going on. (The argument is that younger gymnasts are lighter and less fearful, so they’re better than when they’re older. Those poor girls peak so soon!)

It was just couture week in Paris. Here are some of my favorite looks.

Armani Prive

Dior

First two Elie Saab, third Christian Lacroix