"Crazy Rich Asians;" The Return of the Romantic Fairy Tale

I went to see "Crazy Rich Asians" today. With all the hoopla about this film, the fact all the characters were Asian, the first time since 1993, is merely a romantic story of the mega rich who just happen to be Asian. Go to Hong Kong sometime. Great, almost staggering wealth co-exists beside grinding poverty. Tesla Model S's are like Chevrolet's here ... and right hand drive to boot! This is in fact, I sheepishly admit, a kind of Hallmark romantic movie (you KNOW it will have a happy ending), from  what I saw, it is and does.

     Having just watched the old Black and White classics "Bringing Up Baby" and "The Philadelphia Story" and recently Hallmark's romantic movies on the weekend, and "Baby Steps" about a Gay Chinese and white American who attempt to get married and have a child, I couldn't help but make comparisons.

Ice Queen Momma!

     It's a classic story ... boy meets girl, girl loves boy, the boy has a family problem of some sort accepting his girlfriend, usually an uncompromising mother, especially an Asian Ice Queen, like in "Crazy" and "Baby Steps" and finally at the end there is a happy ending. Just like in a fairy tale. Of course there is the day after and .... 

The rich ARE different! Here in the late 1930's.

     The fact that "Crazy" has essentially a totally Asian cast is quickly forgotten. You are quickly transported to a world most of us will never know.  No matter who you are, we all 

have friends such as these, maybe not so wealthy but certainly as zany. In fact, I felt that the wealth often got in the way. A side story is one of the sisters was married to a commoner who couldn't accept his place in this rarified atmosphere. He had a loving, doting wife but felt marginalized and in the end the marriage dissolves. The New York Chinese-American girlfriend had no inkling her boyfriend was not only rich but ultra rich. This is a story as old as time. However, in some ways, the wealth got in the way of the story. There is no doubt though that it did add the tension needed to proceed.

I don't know about you but I have never, ever lived
in a house like this. The closest? An historical tour.

     There is no doubt that the rich don't live and  don't behave like the hoi polloi. The girlfriend was considered a commoner not fit for marriage to the heir of the family fortune any more than the groom in "The Philadelphia Story" could accept what he felt was unproper, upper class morals. The telling scene in "Story" was when the groom to be saw and thought the James Stewart character not only swam drunk with his fiancée but bedded her as well. When she reads his letter aloud to all her friends where he states he is ending the ceremony because of her behavior it was instantly apparent the middle class and rich live in two different worlds, not unlike the spectacle we see everyday now in Washington, DC.

Bride and groom Batchelor party with fast cars,
helicopters and fast yachts.

     The rich are different. Americans hope and yes, pray, that they can move ever upward into this stratospheric atmosphere because, well, isn't that the American dream? Samples of it surround us daily and in our history. That this wealth was accumulated often under shady circumstances is the elephant in the room we don't talk about.

    What makes "Crazy" so interesting is that the ice cold, scheming mother was herself a commoner and points out it took decades to be accepted. "You," she points out to the girlfriend," don't have it." There is more to this plot but you get the jest.

     My college sociology professor pointed out that the morals of each class are quite different. Oddly, though, the poorest and the wealthiest morals are often the same. Why? The rich don't raise their children, nannies do. Where do nannies come from? The poorest class. Every Sunday in Hong Kong is the maid or the nanny's day off. The parks and byways are filled with throngs of mostly women from the Philippines. They are everywhere. Hidden during the week working, they have a day free and escape their six-day-a-week prisons to meet, rest and relax before yet another week begins.

     So while all the secrets of the ultra rich are not shown here but they are in "Baby Steps" where the Gay couple cannot find a suitable surrogate mother to carry their fertilized egg and enlist the help of the Taiwanese mother's maid to carry the baby.
     What does get lost in all the glitter and vapid spending is that all the wealth in the world cannot buy happiness, self worth, self-esteem. The wonderful sister can't keep her husband who feels that he is a mere boy toy. His wife doesn't give him the "care" he needs as she helps others and buy expensive items she feels compelled to hide. When confronted with his affair she seems to have no emotion, and he wants her to care, to feel something. So, money can't buy you love.

     I love a happy ending. There are too few of them in life. Possibly in these tense and stressful times this is exactly what we need. However, along with the happy ending there needs to be something more. An emotion, love that comes from inside, love that cares. An exotic location, a love story and after despair a happy ending that means something. Tell me, can we ask for anymore?

Thank you for reading my blog. I invite you to take the time to read earlier blogs where my emphasis is to explore the ways art and design affects our daily lives ... and always has. I share with you what inspires me with the hope that it will inspire you as well. Comments are always welcomed! 

Be sure to check my ETSY store ... KrugsStudio.etsy.com. I am adding many new and exciting, collectible birdhouses and craft items. Many of the items talked about here will be for sale there!

The Past Returns Again

One of my favorite movies is BRINGING UP BABY. I first remember renting it as a VHS Beta movie when my kids were small. We didn't have much money and for long winter evenings and weekends we would prowl the $1 a night Video-store for the latest fare. Kids today have no idea of what I am talking about.

     After it appeared that we had seen all the movies I thought fit for my 6 and 2 year old to see, we had to start going back in time. Always a Cary Grant and Katherine Hepburn fan, I checked out, among others, BABY!

     You can imagine the shock of the kids having to watch a black and white film but soon they settled down. It started with a chuckle, then a laugh and soon we were literally rolling on the floor with laughter. It was silly of course but had not a dirty word, with only slight sexual innuendos an adult would understand. Probably PG today. We laughed at screamingly funny scenes as they wrestled with first "Baby" and finally a wild "Baby" who escaped from the circus. After it was done we were so weak with laughter they begged to see it again. And in truth we had missed dialogue through the gales of laughter. It became a family favorite.

As you can see "Baby" is no baby!

      Now, many years later I again have been drawn to movies from the 30's and 40's. It just seems to be such a simpler time. After watching the nightly news you are weak from incredulity. When you meet up with friends and even hint at talking about the daily debacle they hold up their hands and change the subject. 

     Anyway, after months of looking I finally found BABY in a collection of romantic comedies. Sitting in my lounge chair, popcorn and lemonade in hand, I prepared to "see" if BABY was as funny, as compelling 40 years later. It was.

     It started with a chuckle, then a laugh and soon I was gasping for air as I laughed. It IS silly and maybe predictable only when it isn't. They made a great team and again, I fell in love with it all over again.

     However, I would be remiss if I also didn't note that besides the silliness of the film, the fantasy of their lives. Few people had a home like her aunts or lived in an apartment like hers. That wouldn't happen until the Golden 50's. It was a vision of what was to be but that most might never see.

     Doing some fact finding I found out the facts of what life was like during the last 1930's:

                                YEAR                      UNEMPLOYMENT                            GDP

                                  1937                              14.3%                                    5.1%
                                  1938                              19.0%                                   -3.3%
                                  1939                              17.2%                                    8.0%
                                  1940                              14.6%                                    8.8%

     Not a pretty picture, or, at least as pretty as this film. I guess we have to remember films in that era were trying to take people's minds off the economy and tickets were 25¢ or so and you could smoke! There were even prizes to lure patrons in. Cheap carnival glass was collected by all.

     On the other side of the DVD was THE PHILADELPHIA STORY that was even more illuminating. Again it chronicles the rich and "their ways." It begins with a scene of a husband and wife battling each other. She gives him his golf clubs taking one and dropping the bag before he can grab it. Then she takes the club and breaks it in half over her knee. He in turn puts his hand over her entire face and pushes her back through the front doorway. Definitely not PC but it got laughs in its day.

     You soon learn they are now divorced, something rare in that era but seemingly normal with the rich. Also, the father has a mistress in town and everyone knows and not much is said. There are many shenanigans and soon a reporter played by James Stewart (who won an Oscar for this role) and a photographer played by Ruth Hussey appear to "cover" the upcoming wedding. There is a house less than 1% of the American people could afford let alone visit at the time and you learn the Hussey's role also had been divorced, something Stewart didn't know.

     There is a pre-bridal party the night before the wedding and the bride has several dressing downs about her attitude from her father and ex. She drowns her sorrows by getting too drunk. Stewart brings her home, they swim and as they go to bed the groom and ex-husband spot them.

After the swim and off to bed.

      Late the next morning the bride wakes up, most of the cast is there as she reads a note from her groom. In reading that aloud and then in the grooms presence, he is shocked she would read it to them and yet in the wording you realize the differences of the values of the rich and middle class. The groom was convinced Stewart had seduced his bride but nothing happened. I paused it as I remembered a lecture of my sociology professor in college. He told us the values of the very rich and very poor are quite similar, primarily because the rich spent little time with their children and their children were raised by poor maids, nannies and such. Societies norms are created and upheld by the middle classes. The groom raised poor had worked hard to move up in the world but his family values were still in place and middle class.

The letter!

     Cultures and societies are designed one way or another. There have always been a servant, plebeian class strikingly shown in Ancient Rome. The kings and queens of Europe, Emperors in Asia and the Emirs of the Middle East all had classes. The America's were not immune either. England's may have been the most rigid though I also learned that class was alive and well in Germany today.

     Today we face great turmoil between the haves and have-nots. Much of our economy, not only here but in Europe and Asia is controlled by a very few, the very few you will see in these films and a new one not yet seen but clearly understood, CRAZY RICH ASIANS.

     If there is anything I've taken from these films, besides some laughter, is that the grim cycle of the 30's is being repeated again in our era. The only thing we don't know, though maybe we do, is what happens next. I repeat Edmund Burkes 1795 statement, "For evil to persist, good men need do nothing." The disparity between the classes around the world is growing and the only question is for how much longer?

Thank you for reading my blog. I invite you to take the time to read earlier blogs where my emphasis is to explore the ways art and design affects our daily lives ... and always has. I share with you what inspires me with the hope that it will inspire you as well. Comments are always welcomed! 

Be sure to check my ETSY store ... KrugsStudio.etsy.com. I am adding many new and exciting, collectible birdhouses and craft items. Many of the items talked about here will be for sale there!

Check out some new painted quilt designs and pieces embracing some natural items found in nature.

What Is Old Is New Again

The original MAGNUM, p.i.

The other day, watching reruns for some of the shows I missed during the season, I was startled to see that "Magnum, P.I." was getting a reboot. The Tom Selleck character was being replaced by a new, to me, Hispanic actor but with all the drama of the original. You know, babes and fast cars. 

2018 reboot of MAGNUM, p.i.

     I have to admit that I pondered that for awhile. It was never a great show but launched the career of Tom Selleck and countless other babes in tiny bikini's shows, notably "Baywatch" a show that was shown and known throughout the world. I remember our AFS student couldn't wait to go to the beach and "see" Baywatch. He saw it in Austria.

Murphy Brown 20 years ago

     Then they announced the return of "Murphy Brown," another show with the same old characters, like me, about 20 years older. Again most if not all of the original cast would be returning. If they are anything like me, they are now seniors and probably have all the aches and pains anyone in their 60's, 70's and 80's has. I am not sure it makes for humor but then look at how many years the "Golden Girls" played. I guess we will have to see. I would be remiss though to ignore the fact that they are all, ugh, getting a little long in the tooth.

2018 Murphy Brown

     

I think that the biggest shock of this season was how fast the reboot of "Roseanne" rose to the top and then crashed and burned after Barr's rant about things that really she had no business discussing. She and many of her fellow actors need to learn the lesson that they are, well, actors. They are portraying someone that they are not, and probably will never be.

   

    I think that the now overtly Gay flavor of "Will & Grace," may have lost the original crowd that made it a favorite. While it clearly is aimed at the LGBT community, few that I know in that community like this show. I began to wonder, is that all Hollywood can come up with? Reruns, reboots, never-ending  shows like a "Rocky 2, 3, 4, ....23."

     Will we see a return of "Father Knows Best" now called "Mother Knows Best" (she did back then too), or some form of "The Mary Tyler Moore Show" set in an assisted living home or even "Gunsmoke" set in the woods with everyone using a cane? 

New Roseanne

   Will "Cheers" return and deal with the opioid

epidemic catching a few laughs along the way and, shudder, will we see "All In The Family" again? It certainly was questionable then and possibly even more divisive now! However, on a recent TV show, Rob Reiner was asked about a reboot of "Family" and laughing he said, "A reboot? We don't need a reboot, Archie is in the White House."

     It seems that today, there is a dearth of new ideas in an entire range of the arts. Hollywood with its endless 2, 3, 4, et reboots of all shows. Really, how many original movies can withstand a second try? Lucas did manage to create three rather good space operas with "Star Wars 4, 5, 6 but going back to 1, 2, 3, the stories were less successful unless, you, like the cast on the "Big Bang Theory, are Comi-con junkies and wouldn't brook any criticism.

The networks new Will & Grace seems to be 

working on the theory if you haven't seen it before, 

it's new to you, right? 

     Revisiting the past is not new. Hollywood is, well, lazy. Better to know the money you know than the one you don't. After the first "Frankenstein" movie in the 1930's think of all the spinoffs that came from that. Mel Brooks finally put the nail in that creature's coffin when he made "Young Frankenstein." How can you be scared after you've realized the monster has a huge "swanstücker" and after bedding the ladies they sing ... "ah sweet mystery of life I've found you ...." How many versions of "Dracula" and "Ben Hur" do we need?

     We are entering the age of the Baby Boomers, a 75 million class of babies born starting on January 1, 1946 until 1964. As we age we find that the world has gotten more complex and confusing on so many fronts. We have started to long for the simpler times of the past. There are signs everywhere. TV, music, books, tours visiting the past (think Route 66), even food.

     One item that I find amusing is how just about every restaurant menu now includes macaroni and cheese. Remember those blue Kraft boxes that cost about 5¢ each back in the 50's? When my mother didn't want to cook for our family of 4, out would come several boxes, some frozen peas and some kind of dessert. That was our dinner. I don't know about you, but macaroni and cheese doesn't cut it anymore with this 72 year old.

    I stumbled on a new Netflix original series "Black Mirror" that is quite original. The initial story about a programmer who by capturing co-workers DNA creates a game with the people he works with who, unlike his real life, do his bidding in his digital life. It is a mirror of what lay people think of silicon valley. The tale of a mother who via an implant in her child loses that child after seeing everything her child does literally through the child's eyes. Is this the future we want? Planned, watched over, monitored? Are we already in 1984 and don't know it? Many fear that we are losing our humanity where the digital present is the digital drug of our future!

     Yet, the past is everywhere. The endless viewing of "I Love Lucy," the increasing popularity of 50's homes, food and furniture. Modernism Week here in Palm Springs gets bigger every year attracting people from around the world. Desert winter cabins built in the 50's for $10,000 are now sold for over $1 million. When West Elm opened their new store here in Palm Springs I entered and stopped cold. The sales lady cheerfully greeted me and asked what I thought of the store. "I think I just walked into the living room we had growing up!" She laughed and said, "You're the fifth person to say that today."

     It isn't that the past is bad. But as Peggy Lee sang, "Is That All There Is?" In my lifetime we have made breathtaking advances on so many fronts: computer technology, automobiles that may soon drive themselves, the Internet, medicines and treatments not even dreamed of before, feeding the world, instant news and not just "fake news" either. We can literally be in touch with anyone anywhere in the world. The dream of the video phone was eclipsed when your cell phone could connect you and no one seemed to worry if their hair was done or not.

     For all these advances there is one question that no one seems to ask. Are we any happier? Do we need the endless feed of news. Do we need to know in real time about some event thousands of miles away shown as if it's next door? We live through our cell phones often connecting with each other through a digital feed. Yet  true human loneliness is growing as we become increasingly disconnected from the real world entering into a digital one. Traveling on the subway in Hong Kong or Beijing the cars are silent as virtually everyone is staring at a cell phone. You see this on the street, shopping even eating. One restaurant here posted a sign that stated, "We don't have wi-fi. Talk to each other."

     The past is where we've been. Today and tomorrow is where we will go. I guess the question is, how will we go there?

  

Thank you for reading my blog. I invite you to take the time to read earlier blogs where my emphasis is to explore the ways art and design affects our daily lives ... and always has. I share with you what inspires me with the hope that it will inspire you as well. Comments are always welcomed! 

Be sure to check my ETSY store ... KrugsStudio.etsy.com. I am adding many new and exciting, collectible birdhouses and craft items. Many of the items talked about here will be for sale there!

   

It Started With Some Pods

The pods that I finally saw

     One of the great things about being an artist (and often disconcerting to those that aren't) is that you see the world in a different way. Not different as in strange, just different. You can go all day and while you note the things around you, suddenly, something will catch your eye! A door, a mailbox, the light against a building or the way the sun reflects off beach sand. Today, more than ever you can capture that moment, as many do, with their cell phones. To the tune of about one billion a year.

     For my latest painting frenzy that trigger was tree pods.

     Now you have to understand we have one tree in our condo common area that has a dark cluster of pods that will start falling around this time of year. About two weeks ago, I noted that they were falling again and looking a bunch that fell together in one cluster suddenly had a kind of artistic epiphany. Now you have to understand I have walked past this tree for 365 days, give or take a few, two and a half years, about 3 to 5 times a day as I walked my dog on what I call our WPP (walk, pee and poop) run. But

Pods in tree

on that day, I look at them, picked them up, cleaned them and grabbing a birdhouse began to consider how I could use them. It was that simple and that hard. You can see them, or any scene and walk right past ignoring them. The hardest part is coming up with a way to use their almost sexy, sensuous form.

     When I was in college I can remember a photography class project. We were not to leave town, we could only go a few miles away from the campus and we had to find things to photograph. So many artists and photographers think only foreign or exotic places are worthy of a photograph. Ansel Adams was one of photographers we discussed. Ignoring the majestic views and mechanizations of Adams, he wanted us to see the beauty, complexity in our own "hood."

     Oklahoma State University had a lovely campus. Most buildings, after the initial few, were designed in the gracious red brick English Georgian style so that even new classrooms and dorms used the red brick and simple lines of that period. The gardens and pond were used for many wedding shots taken by students getting married during and even after graduation. We even had our own 19,000 acre lake! They were off limits. However, it was this exercise that made me very aware that there are many good "shots" around us if we would stop and take the time to look. I got an A for a dramatic cemetery statue shot against the sun.

The project that started it all -
a tree pod birdhouse

     Grabbing a birdhouse I played with my cluster deciding where I could glue pods on. I had four sides and decided that each side of the roof would get some as well. I used one here, two there and finally settling on what went where laid them out and using them as a kind of template drew around each one. Then I added more and more lines until I reached each side's edge. That was the easy part.

     Then noting that deep brown of the shell and the golden seeds that remained in some of them, painted the inside outline gold, that was where the pods would be glued. Radiating from the gold I added a deep brown layer to match the pods, some burnt sienna, pottery red, a very thin line of turquoise, a harvest gold and finally a buttermilk edge to give it depth. Each pod was designed this way and I added painted pods as well.

     It might be a bit too busy though. I added feet to the free standing birdhouse, and bronze colored shiny beads to empty pods to give it a bit of color and bling. It goes against all my previous birdhouses yet I am very proud of it. I feel that I have combined the ordinary products of man with the creations of nature creating, if nothing else, a decorative item that can provoke any number of discussions. I must admit Gaudi and his fantastic, Art Deco, naturalist designs were also an inspiration. I realized in the hours it took to paint this the TV show I had recently seen about his cathedral in Barcalona was an inspiration. Nature rarely uses straight lines so I tried to soften mine.

The next victim - the chest.
Round feet added later
give it a finished look

     Gathering more pods I happened to look at a small two drawer chest sitting on a shelf in my studio gathering dust. Again I could see another design using more pods. This time however, I wanted there to be exposed wood, the light natural look of pine against the dark pods and the colors surrounding them.

     Grabbing the chest I again laid out what pods I had (a friend taller than me grabbed some more off the tree for me) deciding that only the top, front and both sides would be graced with pods. I outlined and numbered each group and decided to use a metallic bronze color this time. I also used only five colors radiating out from the background bronze paint, where the pods wold be glued, allowing plenty of the natural wood to be exposed.

The painted back. Here you can see
the real pods and the painted ones.
It can now fit flush against a well.

     One of the hallmarks of my items, including just about everything I paint, is to finish all sides whether it might be seen or not. My mother-in-law made a comment about this when I first started out. She explained that seen or not, completing, painting all sides of something I did made it seem finished, considered. It showed that I didn't take the easy way out. She was right of course even though it adds much time to each project. Many items may never show the back but I realized maybe if they were they would be used and displayed in such a way that they were "finished."

     So it was in this vein I decided to paint the back of the chest but used only painted pods in case someone wanted it against a wall and didn't want to fuss with pods in the back.

The finished chest

     Again, I used five colors radiating out from the bronze back where the pods would be glued starting with deep brown, a sliver of Vermillion, then burnt umber, clay red, and harvest gold.

     Once you determine what you are going to do, its easy to do but it IS tedious and time consuming. I have listened to one audio book and started another with this project. However, to me, at least, it is a lovely chest and certainly one that nobody else would ever have. I realized that even if I were to do five, despite the use of the pods, the colors of paint, each one would have it's own feel, its own look. Combining the straight lines of man, with the variety of curves in nature is rewarding in itself.

     I hope that showing you my process, gathering things that might be around us, you too will find and use found items in such an artistic way, creating something unique and indisputably your own!

     

Thank you for reading my blog. I invite you to take the time to read earlier blogs where my emphasis is to explore the ways art and design affects our daily lives ... and always has. I share with you what inspires me with the hope that it will inspire you as well. Comments are always welcomed! 

Be sure to check my ETSY store ... KrugsStudio.etsy.com. I am adding many new and exciting, collectible birdhouses and craft items. Many of the items talked about here will be for sale there!