Event #4/5 Mando Basso

I went to It’s a Grind Coffee Shop in Carlsbad on Friday Novemeber 19. I went to see Mando Basso perform and I loved them! I had Bill Bradbury for a music class over the summer and would love when he would play his instruments for our class. I really liked the Jazz music that they played, the other music that they played were not really my taste but were still good never the less. My friend had just studied abroad in England and would tell me stories about how she would go to this coffee shop daily and there would be guys playing their music there and how fun it was. I felt like that when I was here, like I was in another country far away not just little Carlsbad. This was one of my favorite events that I have attended because it was just so relaxing and I got to go with this event with my friends as well as my friends from class, not to mention my delicious coffee that I got to drink! Mando Basso’s band did not have the normal instruments that I usually see in most Jazz bands these days and I really liked that, it was a nice change. I especially liked how they improvised and got the audience involved by having us clap our hand to the beat of the drums.Defiantly an exciting experience!

The Year of Living Dangerously

I did not mind watching this movie at all. I think that Guy Hamilton is a great character and easy on the eyes as well! In the beginning of the movie it didn’t really make since, I got that he was a reporter in Indonesia where no one liked him because he was an America. I thought it was funny the comment one guy made about guy stating, “Oooo American, where did you go to college”. Good well at least they know the Americans are educated. Then the creepy little person , Billy Kwan that is always with him was very strange and his voice really freaked me out. The more I watched it however the more I warmed up to Billy. I like how he states, “ the good thing about being this little is I see things others don’t”. Then he shows Guy his photographs and puppets, he really is a quirky guy. You can sense that there is an imitate attraction between Guy and Jill Bryant from the first time they meet at the pool. I love how Guy and Billy go through the crazy mob of protesters just for that “perfect shot,” that shows true courage and love of your work. When Jill and Hunt are looking through Billy’s house, Guy expresses his concerns to Jill that he thinks Billy is an agent and I agree. Why else would he have a folder with all of Guys information in it? As the movie progressed it was more about the romance between Jill and Guy then anything else. I like when one of Guy’s friends makes an inappropriate comment about Jill and Guy just punches him in the face and the guy who got hit calls him crazy and the other guy says, “no, he is just in love”. Of course he is! Guy discovers that the Chinese are arming the PKI, through Jill and he wants to stop it before the arms shipment reaches and all terror breaks out. The saddest part of the movie is when Billy hangs a sign up stating his dissatisfaction with the non help of his Indonesian people and is thrown from the window only to have Guy catch him in his arms. So so sad. Overall not my type of movie, was very confusing and didn’t make much sense.

Whale rider

This movie started out so sad with the mother giving birth to twins and having the baby boy die along with the mother, leaving only the baby girl, Pai The father is heartbroken and meanwhile all the grandpa, Koro wanted was to have a grandson, so he could become the tribes leader. Koro can not understand his sons grief of just losing his wife and baby son. The Koro tells the grandmother to take the baby girl away and as quoted in the movie, “you would almost think he never wanted her to be born.” It flash forwards to a few years later when Pai and Koro seem attached at the hip riding a bicycle through the countryside just as happy as can be. The father seems out of the picture and visits every now and then and on his latest visit he decides to take Pai with him. This movie has terrible acting and the title seemed to have nothing to do with the movie until the father is taking Pai home with him and she sees a whale in the ocean. These random outburst of singing between the Pai and grandmother make no sense what so ever. It is a very confusing movie. When Koro decides not to go with her father and returns to her grandparents they want nothing to do with them. Instead they start a school for boys in order to prepare them to become a chief. Pai will spy on all the classes and learn the chants and how to fight. When Koro finds out he is furious and Pai just doesn’t understand why she can not join. Pai asked her uncle to teach her how to fight, its really funny because of how out of shape he is to see him do all these fighting moves with a stick. Koro takes his students of young boys out with him to the middle of the ocean and throws his necklace in the water and says whoever brings it back to him will become the leader. None of the boys can but a few days later Pai’s uncle takes her out and she is able to retrieve it. The whole things with the whales in the water and Koro trying so hard to get them back into the water I didn’t get at all. Then Pai gets onto of one of the whales and rides it into the ocean, it’s so weird. You think she is dead but somehow survives it and ends up in the hospital. Then the movie just kid of ends with a celebration into the water and the men row away in this beautiful boat. 

Manufactured landscapes

The beginning of the movie killed me, how many rows can you show of people doing the same exact thing over and over and over again! They march all their employees out every day and they all look like clones, all dressed the same, in a pattern of 5 rows, four people deep. The get talked down to like little school children of everything they did bad the day before. This movie gave me a headache with doing the same thing over and over again inside the factory. I get that this artist was inside the factories to see where all these manufactured materials start but he didn’t have to show every little action in so much detail. It was sad to hear some of these peoples stories. Such as the one where at one village where it was also a site for recycled products such as TV monitors and when they compacted them down to size lead would leak out and when it rained the lead would pour into the lakes and streams. It got so bad that they now needed to send away for their water. This movie makes me think how lucky I am to be in America, the land of opportunities and the privilege to go to college and get a great job not sit at a desk all day doing one action repeatedly. Like the girl who had worked at the factory for 6 years and said she can do over 400 breakers a day! That looked like very tedious work! I like the comment that the guy said about ships being able to connect us and their part of the reason globalization has been able to take on the proportion that it has. Another story that was disheartening was the little boys who worked neck deep in oil mills, hauling buckets of oil. It is very dangerous and cheap work, my heart went out to them. As the movie progressed I start to like it a bit more, I like how it goes to a place of manufactured landscapes, gives a little story about it then shows the artist, Canadian photographer- Edward Burtynsky pictures of that place. People pointed out through out the film that his photos make this manufactured landscape look beautiful, I have to disagree on that, natural is better. It was stated in the film that, these people look at work “for their country”. The worlds largest damn took 17 years to complete but kept out floods, helped with transportation and electricity. 1,100,000 had to relocate to work on the damn, that is shocking to me! 13 cities had to be moved to be flattened out to make way for this damn. The people living there were the ones being paid to tear down their own communities. The urbanization in China is like no where else in the world, what used to be 70% agriculture and 30% urban is now 70% urban and only 30% agriculture. “We are changing the nature of this planet” was quoted and I strongly believe in this, we are taking a beautiful atmosphere and turning into ugly sky rises.  

War Photographer

From the very first scene in this movie I could tell it was going to be great! It shows a man holding a camera up close with smoke burning in the background and a quote appears that reads, “If your picture isn’t good enough, you weren’t close enough. The only negative I got from this movie was that some parts were not in English so as they were discussing the photographs I was reading what they were saying instead of looking at the actual photographs. They say a photographer portrays people in a way that no one else can and I believe Jim does this. He has so much courage to go straight up to people when they are in so much despair and take pictures. Such as when the mother was crying over her sons coffin, he caught her emotion in a way no one else could. It was quoted in the movie that in war, civilized behavior is suspended, this masquerade and war photographs showed this awful behavior. The story about the family living in Indonesia really touched me. The father was ran over by a train several years earlier and lost an arm and a leg and now lives in the gravel in between the train tracks. How scary for him but it is all that his wife and children can afford. This story about this man, James (Jim) is about a man that is always pushing his limits to get the perfect picture. I agree with him when he said at the end of the day people really do want to know about tragedy and what they can do to help. Such as the man who read an article about the family in Indonesia and how he is very poor but will send $20 a month to the family for as long as he can. Jim inspires people to do good. 

Shall We Dance

What I got from this movie was that a man Named John Clark who seemed to have everything and wanted nothing finally found something that he needed which was happiness. He was a very happily married man with two children but wasn’t completely satisfied with his life. He would take the train to and from work every single day and would always pass a dance studio and see this women looking sadly out the window. One day he decided to stop in and sign up for lessons, little did he know this would change his life for the better. However with him being gone all the time his wife suspects he is cheating only to discover he has been dancing all along. In the movie you don’t realize if he starts taking the dance lessons because he has a crush on the dance teacher Paulina or because he really just wants to dance. One scene where he meets his son at the bar and sees him and his new girlfriend dancing this feeling takes over him and you see all he wants to do is dance. One of the lady that takes dance lesson there named Bobby enters a dance competition and John is her partner. For weeks they practice and you can see he doesn’t mind because he just loves dancing that much. One the day of the competition Bobby and John are so great but john get distracted when he hears a, “go dad” and looks into the audience to see his wife and daughter. He and Bobby stumble and half of Bobby’s dress rips running them out of the competition. Once he sees how angry his wife is for hiding this from him he quits dancing for a while. When Paulina is having a going away party his wife leaves him a note saying to go to the party and she finally found something to put in the box for, “the man that has everything”. A new pair of dancing shoes!! He is debating on whether or not to go and on the train on the way home is a sign hanging over the dance station that reads, “Shall we dance Mr. Clark?” The next scene you see him tying up his shoes and you see him coming up the escalator all dressed up, rose in hand and he goes up to his wife, his partner and asks her to dance. Such a romantic moment! John and his wife show up to Paulina’s party and John dances with Paulina to her going away dance. I love how the movie wraps up with everyone dancing in their own atmosphere. 

Billy Elliot

I absolutely love this movie, I saw it when it came out in 2000 and have not seen it sense. This is one of those movies that never gets old. I love how Billy stayed true to himself throughout the entire movie and didn’t let anything stop him from achieving his dreams, not even his father or brother who greatly disapproved of his decision to dance. It seemed his father strived for him to be a man’s man and to be in boxing but Billy’s heart just wasn’t in it. When the man caught Billy dancing and told him he looked like a “wanker” that was very disappointing, just let the boy dance! I feel like his father and brother did a complete 180, in the beginning of the movie they were totally against Billy dancing even just for fun in the ballet studio. Later when Billy’s ballet teacher comes to the house and tells the family about the audition at the Royal Ballet School in London they start to shift their opinions. Once part of the miners strike his father decides to go back to work to save up $2000 for Billy to attend the school if he gets in, however his eldest son stops him from entering into it again. With the help of the community they end up pooling enough money for Billy to attend and also the strike ends right when Billy gets accepted. My favorite part of the movie was on Christmas when Billy and his friend go into the gym late at night and are dancing and Billy’s dad spots him and instead of just leaving or apologizing to his father Billy dances his heart out in front of his father. At this moment Billy’s dad runs to his ballet teacher’s house and has a change of heart, he wants what his son loves. Also in the end of the movie when his father, brother and childhood friend attend his performance and you see only a glimpse of him dancing but it is in that moment that you see his joy, his love, and his passion! 

Viva La Revolucion exhibition

Wow what a treat this was, I am so pleased that I got to go to something such as this. There were so many things to see explore and read about, I greatly enjoyed all of it. I really liked how some were in a museum then you had to go drive around to find the graffiti that were on buildings and that you could listen to the details of them all from your phone. When I first walked in I was very pleased that you didn’t have to pay if you were under the age of 25, I like museums and all but not when I have to pay a ton of money to go visit them. I walked into one of the rooms and to my left their was a trash can that was moving and had musical beats coming from it, it scared me at first! This piece of artwork was created by David Ellis and his representation of the trash can to me had a very urban feel to it. Next was my favorite piece that I had seen all day, it was titled, Swimming Sisters of Switchback Sea by, Hermanas Nadadoras Del Mat Tornatras. This piece was astonishing! It had so much incorporated into it, including ladders, furniture, and many elements. She has people in cardboard and refers to them as the “forgotten people”. As stated in the definition of the piece, “the presence of nature is seen throughout this piece which she calls, the rebirth of nature. With the mixture of urban wreckage they spiral together to form what is the world and to those who are forgotten.” Truly an inspiring and beautiful piece. Next was my second favorite piece, this one called, Scratching the Surface by Rasgando La Superficie. When I was walking towards it I could clearly see that it was a women’s face with some shadowing but as I approached it more it didn’t look like anything, just some brick that had holes in it. How this artist made this piece was by removing layers of history by cutting into the brick with a chisel and a rotary hammer. What provided the contrast was plaster paint and the brick background. As I walked into the education space their was a piece of art work set on the side wall that was made out of what looked to be plastic and resembled many flowers squished together and you could see all the way through it. Light from the outside shined through it and just added to it’s brilliance. I also greatly enjoyed going into the Dzine room and looking at all the fabulous paintings and tricked out bicycle and carriage, the carriage truly was made for a prince. I also liked that you got a map and could go all around downtown San Diego to look at the different types of graffiti, how people manage to put such masterpieces on scratched and broken down walls is beyond me but never the less amazing. 

Maya Lin: A Strong Clear Vision

This was my favorite movie we have watched so far. This 21 year old college student named Maya Lin had entered an architectural contest and was not expecting to win at all and ended up wining the entire competition. Her design would be chosen for the Vietnam memorial. She also was not expecting how much backlash she would get for the memorial, one Veteran even called it a "black scare". Many put her down for winning stating that she wasn't a veteran, was Asian and was a female but she never let any of that stop her. People who were trying to stop the memorial were very mean people and would do anything to stop it. Her memorial would list the people who have died serving this country during the Vietnam War and would be listed in the order they died instead of by their last names, no one wants to walk up to the wall and see 30 Dan Smiths. It is better as Maya said to take the extra three minutes to look up when they died and find that specific persons name on the wall. When I was 12 my mother, brother and I went to this wall and my mom was able to find her ex boyfriend who died in this war, I always wondering how she was able to find his name so quickly through all these thousands of names. It was fascinating to see how much this young woman achieved in her life at such a young age, she was the second youngest person ever to graduate from Yale with a doctorate. Veterans who attended her graduation thanked her for her memorial and mentioned that numbers are just numbers but by her putting the actual names of people that died really made you remember. When Maya was asked to do a Civil War Movement memorial she really wanted to strip the movement to the bare and get the spirit of it out and what came to her was a Martin Luther King Jr quote that she would use on the memorial. Along with that she would she would intertwine people's deaths with political movements and involved water. She involved the water so people could feel it and get a sense that they are part of it. My favorite piece that she did was the one composed of all glass; it was stunning and so different from anything I have ever seen. As the man at the end of the movie stated what Maya Lin has is "courage" and I couldn't agree more! 

The Buena Vista Social Club:

This Movie was very inspiring the fact that these musician's used to be known as Cuban's best, only to be all but forgotten several years later. This is not my type of movie, I really did not like that it was all spoken in spanish except a little english at the end, and how I had to watch it and read the subtitles, this made it very hard to follow. Also Cuban music is not my taste in music so even after they interviewed each musician and then they played a song I just was not into it. I felt myself loosing interest in the movie pretty fast and it was hard for me to watch the entire thing, I did but it was a very long movie. The one story that I liked the most was the young man who taught himself how to play the piano from a very young age and later meet up with a neighbor of his who was blind and they ended up making beautiful music together, I thought that was very inspiring. Overall I did not think it was a good movie but no the less very inspiring how almost all these musicians taught themselves how to play their own instruments at a very young age.

Stomp Live

When I first started watching this movie and saw that it was a full on performance, I thought great a musical, the type of thing I’m not too found of. Then the more I watched the movie I thought; okay no words, great I have to write a paper on instruments that consist of buckets and brooms how will I do this. As I watched further I came to see that there is a story line here and it does have music, it does not need words to get the story. I found It very interesting how in almost every scene would start out with one character playing a simple instrument, trying to find out its sound then another character would intervene then many would and they all together would take this one instrument, whether it be a broom, pipe or bucket and make beautiful music out of it. I had many favorite scenes, some were where humor was involved such as the four guys who were washing dishes and came out with full on sinks around their neck complete with dishes and water and made the most unique music together. Then when they let all the water out at the end into their buckets that was very humorous. The funny guy was my favorite, he was always getting into trouble and trying to fit in with everyone else. Who knew that tossing water jugs up and down could produce such a pretty sound. The scene where they are bouncing the basketballs reminds me of the movie, “high School Musical” but I think I performance the one in HSM because there was added music and words. In the beginning of the film I was not found of this at all but by the end I greatly enjoyed the beautiful music that was made!

            

Event #3

On September 18 I attend my friend Paz’s polka band, called Z band at Oktoberfest in Point Loma. This day was like a big concert filled with lots of people, music and good times. This was my first time every seeing a Polka Band perform and I actually really enjoyed it. My favorite thing about this particular Polka band was their lavish attire of all these different colors, topped off with this great hats! The mix of different instruments that usually wouldn’t go together in the type of music I would generally listen to was different. The Z band consisted of two trumpet players, a piano, bass guitar, drummer, trombone, saxophone, and tuba. You could tell that this band had been together for a while because their music just flowed so well. I liked how they took a break in between their sets to mingle with the crowd; you could tell people in the crowd liked it as well. This really gave their performance a more personal experience when they took the time to meet their fans. Also they sang one of their songs and a guy from the band came down into the audience and got everyone involved and dancing. It was another great way of how they involved the crowd. Along with the beer that they had their they also had some of the best food I have ever eaten, I’m glad that it was the perfect mix of good people, food and drinks. I will defiantly go back and see them next year!

EVENT 1 and 2

I greatly enjoyed the basket weaving lecture that I attended on September 21^st at noon. I loved the overall presentation of all the beautiful baskets and how they were positioned on the table, all different shapes, sizes and colors. Two women by the name of Lydia and Rose were sitting behind the table and were weaving baskets, it was so interesting to see the technique that went into making such detailed works of art. Lydia’s cousin Rose who is a storyteller told us a story by the name of, “The Gift Basket.” This story was about a girl who looked up to her grandmother, who was the best basket weaver in their community. One day the girl decided to make her grandmother a surprise basket, she snuck out early one morning into the fields to gather materials, to her surprise they were all gone. With determination overwhelming her anger she heard a voice that said, “follow me,” she looked down to see a rabbit. She followed it through the brush to a clearing where there was a lake. There was an island in the middle of the lake with all the materials she needed for the basket. She had heard of this island from her grandmothers stories. It was said that only those with a kind heart could see this island during low tide. She thanked the rabbit who introduced her to a duck, she followed the duck into the water. Although the water appeared to be very deep it never went past her knees. The duck told her to only gather enough materials for one basket and she did so. Once she finished she followed the duck back to the shore and then realized she didn’t know how to get home then appeared a raccoon that lead her home. When she walked into the village she heard a scream and everyone swarmed around her asking where she had been. Her grandmother broke up the communication and just looked at her like she knew. That girl became one of the best basket weavers in her community, just like her grandmother. Lydia then began showing us some of the baskets and told us how she teacher second graders how to make baskets. These baskets were good too! She went down the line off all the baskets and showed us one made to carry the Jungas plants, it looked like a backpack. Rose showed us some sandals made out of the plants that people wear in the desert to keep rocks and cactus’s out. Everything was made with such great detail and I greatly enjoyed this lecture. 

Songcatcher

A doctor of music, a musicologist by the name of Dr. Lily Penleric gets passed up on a job at the school she is working at so she moves into the mountains with her sister, Eleanor who is a teacher at a school. In her spare time she starts creating musical ballads of the people in the small community who either sing or play an instrument. She has a machine which looks to be an old fashion recorder and the people can sing into it and she will play it back to them so they can hear how they sound. Meanwhile she will write the music down, she put so much time and effort into her work. I overall thought this was a fantastic movie. A few moments that really stuck out for me was when everyone was at the dance and just having a great time and Earl Giddens came in drunk and causing a scene and starts dancing with Lily, Tom Bledsoe gets up and punches him. What surprised me the most was everyone just kept on playing their instruments like nothing happened. This is the moment when you realized that Tom has true feelings for Lily, not just a love/ hate, it was love. It also came out when Lily was running through the woods and runs into Tom and they finally kiss, I had a feeling that they would end up together, it was building throughout the entire movie. A few other moments were Eleanor and her assistant teacher and their lesbian relationship. First when Lily sees them then when Fate, the young boy who works from  Eleanor finds her and her assistant kissing in the woods. This  causes him and another boy to retaliate and burn her school house down, along with Lily's musical ballads, my heart sunk, she worked SO hard on these. After this accident Lily decides to head back to the city with Tom and decides to make cylinders out of music and to not publish her work. Truly an inspiring movie. 

Mi Familia

Mi Familia was a very powerful movie that I enjoyed very much. It was a story from a man's perspective on all the love and hardships his family had to endure. From his mother getting taken away from him when he was young because people in the Los Angles community thought the Mexicans caused the Great Depression. She was taken and sent back to Mexico only to make her way back a few years later with his younger brother, Chucho. Some moments that really stood out for me was when the mother and baby were trying to cross the river and the boat tipped over and the mother lost ahold of baby Chucho, I thought for sure the baby was not going to make it, just as the father said, I guess he was an "angel". Another moment was when Chucho was in his early twenties and he gets into the knife fight with the rival gangs leader. It seemed up to this point Chucho was seen as such a nice, great guy, this made me think differently of him. This leads up to the point when the cops are looking for Chucho and when they finally find him is when Chucho sees his younger brother, Jimmy only to be shot in the head right in front of him. I was in shock! As Chuchos mom stated, "He was meant to die at the river and was just living on borrowed time." Jimmy turns into a rebel after that but through a set up marriage of him trying to help his sister out he meats his soulmate and has a kid with her. His wife sadly dies during giving birth to their son and Jimmy strives to be the best father possible for his young son.

Rabbit- Proof Fence

In watching the movie Rabbit-Proof Fence I found myself having great emotion towards the three little Girls, Molly, Gracie and Daisy. A few moments for me really stood out in the movie. The first was when the Mother and Grandmother were talking to Constable Riggs and there were saying that if the Devil-man wanted a "half-caste" child that he should marry a girl and have his own. The next scene is the policemen taking away the three girl, my heart ached for the mother and grandmother trying so hard to hold onto the girls only to be taken away in the car and driven away. The other scene that touched me was when they come across a lady named Mavis who I presume is to be a slave and she wants to help the girls and she gives them a place to sleep for the night. Only to have a man walk into the room where the girls are sleeping and he sees them and Mavis comes in and begs them to stay and says the man will not tell and he does so the girls have to run away in the middle of the night. My heart was pounding thinking that they were going to get caught. Also when Gracie decides to leave for the train station because a man they met along they way told the girls thats where her mother is and Molly and Daisy go a separate way. When they go back for Gracie and see her being taken away I was just think, how much more can these girls take! The final scenes when they see their mother and grandmother is just so heart warming, I am so glad that they did not walk those thousands of miles for nothing. When it was stated at the end of the movie that the search was over due to the lack of funds it just showed how bad they wanted these girls to pour so much time and effort into this search. Also when Chief Protector stated, "It is the bush native people who have to be protected against themselves. If only they understood what we were trying to do for them." What they were trying to do is extinct their generation, making it the "Lost Generation". I feel so bad for these small children who were abruptly taken from their loving homes and forced to live in a place where their identity was stripped so that they could become more American.