Art
I just read Seven Days in the Art World by Sarah Thornton, a nonfiction about the various organizations and structures in the art world; her explorations range from a night at a big Sothebys art auction to a visit to the studio of Takashi Murakami.
Takashi Murakami – Oval Buddha
Admittedly, visual art is baffling to me. I have absolutely no idea how it works. What is the narrative? How do people make money? I lack the knowledge infrastructure to determine whether a piece of art is good or not. Sure, I know what I like, but I can’t possibly tell what any of it really means. It’s like visiting a foreign country.
Don’t get me wrong — I think it’s a fascinating country. There are some objects covered by the book that are undeniably art — Murakami’s Oval Buddha for instance. Its sheer scale and sense of creativity speaks to me. But other things like IKB and Fountain (Urinal) and such are questionable.
The entire thing seems so subjective. The tools I work with — words and language — at least have a sort of precision about them. A word like “bulbous” has different connotations to different people, but the basic meaning of the word is the same to everyone. If I have a blue cube on a canvas, it could be made to mean anything. There’s something simultaneously great and alien about that to me.
Even peoples’ bodies can be art. But as that linked article seems to imply, visual interaction is the only appropriate type of interaction. With visual art, any type of touch is a bad touch.
So this brings me to the ultimate question in this post: Can video games be art?
Your Mike Golamco’s answer: Hell fucking yes. Composing visuals = Art. Transmitting said visuals electronically = Art. Creating music and sound = Art. Voice acting = Art. Storytelling = Art. Doing all of these things together to create a video game != Art? Sorry Ebert, but no. Video games are art. They are a multidisciplinary creative endeavor and that, to me, equals art. The presence of interactivity (i.e. “touching”) does not negate the artistic merit of the medium of video games.
Is every video game a piece of art? No. Like some books, paintings, movies, etc., some video games are garbage. But then there’s Fallout 3. That thing is a piece of goddamn art.
The art world: What a wild, wooly, insane and hierarchical world that is. And I’m saying this as someone that lives in LA.
Theater Review: The Language Archive at South Coast Rep
As writers we are always searching for metaphors. A good metaphor allows us to give solid form to a thought or a feeling and transmit it to an audience. It’s like shopping for someone’s birthday — you want to get them a gift that perfectly expresses your thoughts in physical form. And like a good gift, a good metaphor is full of facets and complexities, and in its own way keeps on giving.
So now our good friend Julia Cho has discovered a truly great metaphor — the idea of language and how it relates to love. And she’s used it to craft an outstanding play that is both cerebral and emotional… And hilarious too.
The Language Archive is a play about the language of love and a love for language. It begins with a married couple who have no idea how to communicate with each other. They literally lack the words to express themselves: She can’t describe her sadness and he is unable to comprehend how she feels. The death of their marriage is likened to the death of a spoken language — the play sweetly says that when the last two speakers of a language stop speaking it, a language dies; and when two people fall out of love, their love dies.
But this is not a sad play. It contains an old married couple that lovingly bicker in a hilarious manner. She inexplicably wears Nikes, he wears two hats simultaneously. It has chance meetings on trains, letters that drop from the sky, and people pulling each other back from the brink. There are a lot of parallel characters and moments; the physical and emotional distances between people are made visible. Bread making is involved.
But above all this is a play about how language connects us and binds us; it takes that metaphor of language and love and explores it from every possible angle in markedly beautiful and touching ways. In exploring this metaphor, Julia finds every facet and complexity with dexterity and confidence.
Plus this is one heck of a production: Quickly paced and quick witted, lovely to watch, and it utilizes the “wide screen format” of the stage to excellent effect.
A good play is something that you think about afterwards and discuss with others that saw it; a great play is one that, after you’ve seen it, comes home to live with you permanently. The Language Archive is one of those.
My friends, go see it. And also, will someone please take out the garbage?
THE LANGUAGE ARCHIVE is now playing at South Coast Rep until April 25th and is coming soon to New York City’s Roundabout Theatre.
Yes, I Give Advice Now
Dear Michael Golamco,
I’m in a 12-team standard head-to-head fantasy baseball league, and have Ian Stewart and Chris Davis on my roster. Which of them is a stronger play at third base? Are there any potential sleeper prospects that I should keep my eye on in hopes of a mid-season pick-up, that could be more valuable come playoff time?
Sincerely,
Who’s On Third
Dear Third,
This is a good and noble question. As we all know, Ian Stewart has more hit points than Chris Davis. This is a good attribute for a third baseman since marauding orcs have a tendency to rush the diamond from left field — so you want someone with good damage resistance there in order to defend it. On the other hand, Chris Davis is a Level 10 Cleric, so his healing spells would be useful for taking care of any baserunners that happen to arrive wounded. Plus Davis can turn the undead, which is great for when your team is attacked by zombies.
Personally I’d recommend putting Stewart at third and placing a sturdy long-distance attacker in left field to help defend that territory — someone like Clayton Kershaw, for instance. You can just have Kershaw keep casting Magic Missile and rack up your team’s XP until Stewart levels up enough to build his Great Weapon Fighter feats so he can do more damage. The only thing to keep in mind about such a configuration is that you need to keep Kershaw well rested because he is a spell caster; also you need to keep him away from water because dwarves dislike the sea.
I hope that helps! Yours, Mike Golamco
Got a question? Need some advice? Feel free to drop me a line.
A Glossy Veneer
NYC: You are good at being real. A little too real at times, like when there are unidentifiable puddles of goo in your subway seats, or when the soles of my shoes are noticeably stickier after I’ve walked on your pavements.
Since I am from LA, your realness is sometimes difficult for me to process. I am used to things being not-real. Specifically, I’m used to having my environment and the people that dwell within it covered in a glossy veneer that hides their true natures.
New York, you are old and sometimes ugly and proud of being both — and that’s why I love you. But my home city is like The Magnificent Oz: An embellished, illusory giant mask operated by a tiny, recent immigrant from behind a curtain.
Therefore I can’t really take too much of you at one time, NYC. I’m too used to LA. And the way LA is experienced is through a car window. You are, by nature, separate from whatever you see outside. Plus you can get the fuck out of there right quick if you don’t like what’s going on.
When I am in New York City, there is no escape. This is nice and at the same time not so nice. But what is nice is that when I’m with you I can have a beer in a midtown dive bar and then get a couple of Gray’s Dogs and a Coconut Champagne next door. That makes up for a lot of things.
Required Viewing: Speaking of glossy veneers, RedLetterMedia has finally come out with its Star Wars II: Attack of the Clones review.
This is a 90 minute review of a 142 minute movie. But it’s more than that — it’s the most damning criticism made yet of George Lucas and the prequel trilogy. It also has a lot of astute observations about filmmaking and storytelling, and is serving us a heaping warning about blue screen, humanity-free movie making. Specifically that there’s a tremendous danger in stuffing every frame full of computer animated crap and making action sequences so overwhelming that the audience just gets BORED.
The review also makes a very strong case for the idea that Lucas should’ve just stuck with originating the stories and leaving the actual directing and writing to others. A second opinion never hurts — especially when that opinion is coming from Lawrence Kasdan.
Imagine it: Right now in another dimension parallel to our own, the prequel trilogy was written and directed by someone other than Lucas and told an epic story that was human, grave, and powerful — and a perfect companion to the dark times in which we live. It was an even bigger box office smash and captured the imaginations of generations.
But alas, what we got was a massive disappointment and a wasted opportunity for greatness.
Thanks for the reminder of what makes good storytelling, RedLetterMedia. I will wait with eager anticipation for your Star Wars III review.
Technology Review: The Apple iPad
For two thousand years we speculated on the form Jesus would take once He returned to earth; little did we know that the J Man would arrive with a 9.7″ LED screen in configurations from 16 to 64gb with WiFi and optional 3G.
Yes, it’s here — the iPad. In fact, I’m writing this review on it. So is it just a big iPhone? Will it save the world?
I’ve spent twenty four hours with this thing and I can tell you now: It’s a fun piece of hardware. However, it is clearly a starting point as opposed to an end to a means. We (and the world around us) are going to have to figure out where it fits into life and which devices it will replace and augment. But first, let’s look at initial impressions:
Positioning is the thing: Think of the iPad as an aluminum slab that you’ve got to position while you’re sitting/lying on the couch so that you can use it with one or more hands while staring down at it… Because that’s what it is. It’s a screen that is both a display and an input device. As a result you’re going to have to prop it up in your lap or hold it up so that you can type on it with two hands or swipe across it with one hand.
I haven’t figured out how to do this yet in a comfortable manner. I prop it up on a pillow on my lap and the viewing angle ends up changing as it slips down; plus I tend to have to hunch over to be able to look down at the screen. I have a feeling that there’s going to be a cottage industry for iPad “easels” and other physical devices that hold the iPad at an appropriate angle.
iPad is freakin fast: Holy shit this thing is fast. It switches apps very quickly, loads them fast, displays web pages in a wink, and feels snappy to use. The fast app switching makes up for the lack of third party app-multitasking (which is said to becoming down the pipe soon); however, it does support PUSH notifications, which means that if I were to get an instant message or some other update it would give me an alert and tell me to go to IM or whatever.
So far my favorite apps are Netflix, Air Sharing, GoodReader, and iBooks: The Netflix app streams video to your iPad. This by itself is worth the purchase price of the machine. Air Sharing is an app that allows you to access the contents of your desktop computer through your local network (over Wifi or VPN) and transfer files onto your iPad — also very useful. GoodReader is a PDF viewer — you can drop files onto it from your desktop and view them, and I’ve been using it as a script reader.
Finally, iBooks is the thing that will crush Amazon’s Kindle if they don’t update their device ASAP. Why? Speed. Have you tried using a Kindle? It turns pages slowly, it loads slowly, and it’s so pokey that you often can’t tell if the device has registered your button presses. In comparison the iPad running iBooks is a zippy, real world-usable book reader. You may say that the e-ink screen makes it easier to read off of the Kindle, but honestly, most of us already spend hours reading off of LED screens everyday, so we’re already used to it.
I’ve been telling people for a while now that our goal in entertainment is to put a screen in front of every human being on earth, and then control what goes on that screen. This may sound ominous, but I think it’s actually pretty great — it represents the apex of consumer technology.
The idea of “the screen” and “the input device” that controls/creates what goes onto that screen has been with us for a little over a hundred years now. Screens used to be huge (and owned by movie theaters and studios) and the technology to create content for them was expensive and required vast technical knowledge. Then screens slowly evolved to get smaller and smaller (TV, then computers, laptops), and the technology to create content got more and more democratized.
Now we have a small, portable screen that is also an input device. You can create on it (although keep in mind that creating on a desktop will, right now, be easier because it’s a much more evolved platform) and you can view content on it. You can view any visual media on it, manipulate it, share it with friends. The iPad and other devices like it will change how we view that media and how it’s created in the future.
I think what I want to say here is that the iPad and devices like it aren’t about the hardware. I feel like they’ve gotten that part right. What these devices are going to be about is software. What apps will be created? What web-based tools (i.e. Facebook, etc.) will be built around it that we won’t be able to live without in the future?
For now this is a great beginning. And when Gen 2 appears down the road I’ll buy that one too. But for now the iPad is like a really nice kit car — something to build, tool around with, and play with so you can understand how the next one will work.
Theater Review: RESCUE ME at Ma-Yi
Ma-Yi Theater Company is the foremost incubator of Asian American theater work in the country, and from its cauldron has sprung RESCUE ME, an awesome piece of theatrical joy that recognizes the power of FUN and comes complete with snacks.
Written by Michi Barall and directed by Loy Arcenas, RESCUE ME is an adaptation of Euripides’ Iphigenia In Tauris, something that may sound dry to the casual reader. “Ancient Greek play” is a phrase that is often synonymous with snoring. But man, this is Iphigenia through a lens of action, humor and motion — the King of Tauris is a pink-suited Elvis dude, there are funky, moving musical sequences, and there are free snacks passed out by Professional Virgins at the intermission. Yes, this is the only play I’ve ever seen that comes with snacks.
In Barall’s rendition, Iphigenia (Jennifer Ikeda) is a spunky, lost heroine — she says that she’s “thirty four years old, single, and she hates her job”, which is to serve as the priestess of Tauris and throw human sacrifices to their deaths. Through the manipulations of the gods she rediscovers her long lost brother Orestes just as she realizes that she must sacrifice him to Artemis. For brother and sister this will not do, so they work together to escape back to their Greek homeland.
There are many notable things about this production, but the moments I enjoyed the most were the play’s musical movement/dance sequences. Usually when things like these occur in theater I start checking my email on my iPhone, but these sequences were extremely well done and hit me pretty hard in the heart. “Emotion” and “dance” rarely intersect in me, so this by itself is a pretty great feat. Also the characters are incredibly well-realized — one of them is a very cute sheep puppet — and the whole show is really FUN. Never underestimate the power of fun. Plus the entire show is deconstructed as it’s being told, and the fourth wall is blown away repeatedly. There are snacks, also.
I really like shows that set about doing things that the medium of theater can accomplish but no other medium can: Be a forum for live, colorful, participatory storytelling that pulls you in because it’s occurring right in front of you. Plus movies, TV, books, etc., can’t give you snacks. RESCUE ME gives you snacks.
My friends, go see it.
March 23rd – April 18th, 2010 – Tue-Sat 7:30pm; Sat-Sun 2:30pm
Ohio Theater | 66 Wooster Street, NYC
Ma-Yi Theater Company
We’re Glad You’re Here But We Don’t Shake Hands
I spent the last week in NYC casting Year Zero, and what I said about auditions still stands. But I also learned a few new things from this process that I’d like to share here on this web site:
The no-handshaking thing is real: There’s a well-known rule that when you come in to audition, you shouldn’t touch anyone in the room. Don’t try to shake peoples’ hands, don’t touch the reader, etc.. The casting people said that there is a very practical reason behind this: They see hundreds of people every week and if they shook hands with everyone they’d turn into germ stars. In turn they would infect everyone else they touched, so… No handshaking. Of course, there’s no polite way to tell people not to touch them other than to hope that they know the no-handshake rule.
But some people still try to shake your hand anyway, and this can deduct a couple of points from an actor’s audition. So if you’re an actor, remember: Don’t touch anybody. The casting folks told me that at Law and Order auditions they actually put up a sign that reads “We’re glad you’re here but we don’t shake hands” to make the point clear.
What’s fun is that different people have different methods to avoid being touched by actors that are absolutely intent on shaking their hands. Some people already feign sickness (“I have a cold… sniffle”), other people hide in the corner as the actors come in. Personally, I use a fist bump which theoretically minimizes exposure.
The best gig is to be a reader: We had an excellent reader in the room with us all three days to work the sides in audition. He was consistent, did great readings of the material, and really helped each actor come alive in their auditions.
I’m convinced that if I were an actor, becoming a reader would be the best training gig I could get for my off time. It gets you in the room to work with a casting director, you get to see TONS of your fellow actors audition (and you hear the usually top-secret feedback from the casting people/directors/producers/writers after they’ve left the room), and you do hours and hours of readings — a great way to hone your own audition skills. It must be a really tough job but if you’re good, all I see are plusses.
If your audition goes by quickly it doesn’t mean it went badly: Sometimes a person will walk in and read just one or two sides and we’ll know right away that they’re great — maybe even the best we’ve seen — and they don’t need to continue. So even if you’re in and out of there in a hurry, it might not necessarily be a terrible thing… Or it could be that you’re totally wrong for the part and the casting folks don’t want to waste anybody’s time. One of those two things.
Again, this really makes me want to try my hand at acting. And again, I feel pretty comfortable about it because I have nothing to risk by doing it. As a writer working on the other side of the table I’ve seen a lot of other dimensions that can help me as an actor — how to break down a scene, how to discern intention, etc..
In fact if you’re an actor and you’d like me to help disseminate your audition sides, I might be willing to do that.
Because when it comes down to it if I ever truly got into acting I could probably only play a very specific type of character: Large foreheaded scientists.
My Work in Print
Year Zero
Available from Samuel French and Amazon.com
Cowboy Versus Samurai
Available from Samuel French and Amazon.comFor a complete list of books containing my work, please click here.
