Feb12

Masters of Venice Art Exhibit

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Masters of Venice Art Exhibit

I loved the Masters of Venice exhibit at the DeYoung of Renaissance paintings visiting from Vienna featuring Titian, Giorgione, Tintoretto and Veronese. There was almost no overlap with the Titian exhibit Peg and I saw in London. One of the most striking was Tintoretto’s Susanna and the Elders (1555 – 1556). It is a huge canvas that filled an entire wall. The museum sign was hilarious. It recounted the bible story that the lecherous Elders spied on Susanna in her bath, then demanded that she lie with them or else they would tell her husband that she was adulterous. The painting shows Susanna’s beauty and purity, and the icky manipulative greed of the peeping old men who seek to debase the young wife. I flashed on Saddam Hussein’s private murals when I read the museum notes that Venetian art of the period was often erotic scenes for private viewing by the purchaser. This is one of the most copied works in history, and the museum said it was hung in bedrooms “to remind young wives of the value of purity.” Hmmm. I don’t think that was why it was hung in bedrooms.
Tintoretto Susanna Elders

Another favorite was Titian’s Danáe (1560s) which he painted for Pope Pius III. According to the museum, DANAE was a Greek princess, a daughter of King Akrisios. When her father learned a prophecy that he was destined to be killed by a son of his daughter, he locked Danae away in a tower. Her prison, however, was easily infiltrated by the god Zeus who impregnated her in the guise of a golden shower. She conceived and bore him a son named Perseus. In the painting, you can see the gold coins. My question, why does a Pope commission a painting like this?
Titian Danae

Two more artists were featured whose work was new to me. First is the very tender portrait of a Youth With an Arrow by Giorgione whose life was cut short by the black plague.



The paintings of Veronese were spectacular, including beautiful and noble Greek historical heroine Lucretia poised to take her own life rather than accept dishonor, and the biblical heroine Judith who saved her people by beheading the invading general Holofernes as he dozed after she had seduced him. I am really grateful tot he DeYoung to bring these works to SF because I don’t think I will ever go to impressive Vienna museum.
Veronese Judith Holofernes

Dec8

Knife Fight Between Political Consultants

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Knife Fight Between Political Consultants

The dateline NICASIO caught my eye in the NYTimes, on the National page. Chris Lehane, a former political operator for Bill Clinton, was interviewed as he edited “Knife Fight” the movie he wrote and produced at Skywalker ranch for release in a few months.

The article compared “Knife Fight” to “The Ides of March” which is currently in release and starts Ryan Goslin as a political operator for a candidate who has sexual relations with an intern. Ryan Gosling’s role is based on Jay Carson who used to work for Bill Clinton.

Interestingly, there is a cameo performance by Paul Giamatti of a rival political operator in The Ides of March, someone a lot like Chris Lehane. “Jay is earnest and great,” Chris told the NYTimes. “I like sticking the knife in people.”

Eli Attie, himself a former Democratic consultant in Washington who came to Los Angeles to write for “The West Wing” and who knows both men, said: “Jay is the kind of politics we hope for,” he said. “And Chris is the politics we have to have.”

 

Rob Lowe will be playing the Chris Lehane-type operative in Knife Fight. “From what I hear, Rob Lowe is considered better looking than Ryan Gosling,” Mr. Lehane said (or “jokingly noted,” as he said by way of an e-mail clarification to Adam Nagourney, the NYTimes writer). I enjoyed the Ides of March and am looking forward to seeing Knife Fight.

Dec8

Grrr Mercury Retrograde

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Grrr Mercury Retrograde

Mercury goes retrograde Thanksgiving Day 11/24 and stays there through 12/14. Not so good for signing contracts or initiating new plans, but great for reviewing and learning from your past. Just take extra care.

Yesterday I drove to San Francisco to attend the Bay Area Bloggers Society meeting, skipping a jQuery class, because the BABS topic was “Focused Creativity for Compelling Content.” Doyle Drive has been revised but the sign has not. It says “right lane must exit to 19th Ave.” but actually TWO right lanes must exit with the recent roadway changes. Well, I was forced down 19th Ave when I wanted to go to Lombard St. But it got worse.

I found a parking spot, but it was one cliff below where the meeting was, so I got back in my car at 5:45 p.m. to find the 6 p.m. meeting. No headlights, and it was almost dark. Checked the fuses, they looked good. Called Howard, he drove from Santa Rosa with more fuses. Not the problem. I locked up the car and left it in San Francisco because I could not drive home in the dark with no lights. At 5 a.m. today, Howard drove me back to SF. I waited for the streetlights to go off indicating that it was safe to drive without lights. Got back to Santa Rosa by 8 a.m., just as the auto repair shop opened.

The problem? A loose relay. The repair shop guy pushed it back into place and sent me on my way, no charge. Howard smashed his side view mirror on a pillar a few hours later.

Mercury. Bah!

Dec7

Doctorow – How to Change Future

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Doctorow – How to Change Future

I guess the way you change the future is to change people’s narrative.  Change the story people have imagined the future will be.  Change that and you change the future.  Everything else is far too complicated and out of a single person’s control — but just change the story we tell ourselves about the future and you change the future itself.

The Tomorrow Project Anthology

Nov13

If We’re So Smart, How Come the Boomerang Came Back To Whack the Stock Market?

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If We’re So Smart, How Come the Boomerang Came Back To Whack the Stock Market?
If We’re So Smart, How Come the Boomerang Came Back To Whack the Stock Market?

Interesting watching the stock market gyrate as I read Boomerang by Michael Lewis, the guy who wrote Moneyball and The Blind Side. The EU did not know, when they accepted Greece in 1981, that Goldman Sachs would later teach the Greeks even more sophisticated ways of acquiring and hiding national debt, eventually bringing the Euro to the brink, says Jim Hoaglandin his editorial in The Washington Post.  He agrees with Michael Lewis that historicaly, the Greeks refined milking their government into an art, and they were certainly not going to treat the distant, generous European treasury in Brussels differently.  Hoagland quotes a Friench friend who was in the government that championed Greece’s entry to the EU.  “Bringing Greece in and expecting the budget figures to add up was a romantic policy.”

Michael Lewis is a “disaster tourist,” visiting countries that are on the brink of economic collapse due to spending more than they earned. It is fascinating to see how each country behaves differently when “in a dark room with a pile of money.” I laughed out loud when I finished the chapter on Ireland. The Irish are not like other people!

This frequently-updated graphic from the NYTimes that tracks the European debt crisis clarifies the shifting sands of exposure to crisis that the Euro faces. I had to look up the statistics for the US (missing from the chart). We have about 100% debt-to-GDP and about 10% unemployment as I read the statistics. So much seems to hinge on the credit rating, which we know from reading Michael Lewis’s “The Big Short” is sometimesfanciful, almost magical, and not in a good way. Like magical thinking.

Do you think the Euro will stabilize promptly or deteriorate further?

Oct30

Margin Call Absorbing

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Margin Call Absorbing

First-Time director J.C. Chandoor, who also wrote “Margin Call”, somehow gets us to see the human side of the bankers that brought the world economy to its knees. If you understand that things are only worth what you can sell them for, and that the investment banks held certain “tranches” on the synthetics they were selling, you will quickly grasp how the math model projections stumbled upon by the junior risk manager portend the end of the financial markets as we know them.

How could we ever care about the fates of these greedy men, much less sympathize with them. They wiped out our retirements funds, and yet, at the end, we see what drove them. Some were venal, some were greedy, some were desperate and some were just resigned to their fate. What is stunning is that the caliber of acting draws us in and makes us care about these men.

Demi Moore, whose real name is Demetria, looks more Russian than ever. Deep fear flickers in her eyes behind the hostility of a wolverine defending her economic projections. When she faces off against Jeremy Irons, it is like watching smooth poison being spread before her.

The movie belongs to Kevin Spacey, however. Chandor’s savvy direction gives him a chance to show the conflicting emotions playing out as he tries to prevent the implosion of the company where he has spent his career. He wants to protect the young brokers working for him, he wants to protect the clients of the firm, but most of all, he wants to protect himself. Do we care? Yes, because of a brilliant performance by Spacey, which barely stands out in a stellar cast including smooth, charming, brilliant and ruthless Jeremy Irons as the guy who has to make the decision on when to pull the trigger and where to aim the gun.

It is playing in Santa Rosa at the Summerfield Theater and I hear it is available on streaming TV. Worth a watch.Simon Baker in Margin Call

Margin Call Movie

Margin Call is Absorbing

Oct11

Learn JavaScript Not Dreamweaver

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Learn JavaScript Not Dreamweaver

HTML5 CSS3
A self-taught web developer with an engineering degree posted a question on list-serv. "What certficates or degrees should I get to become a web developer?" Here is the feedback from Estelle Weyl, the Bay Area luminary who wrote the book on CSS3.

You don’t need certifications to be a web developer.  In fact, unless you are considering .Net roles, certifications are kind of frowned upon since there is no single respected source that provides them.

You also don’t need a masters degree. You have an engineering degree, so you have the “technical” background they are looking for. Not sure what type of engineering you did, but if it’s not CS related, a course in programming logic and OO fundamentals is REALLY helpful.

It takes about a month to learn to be a web developer, and a lifetime to master it. So, take a month and learn the basics of HTML, CSS and JavaScript, or if you want to be a mid tier, focus less on the CSS and more on the PHP, MySQL and Ruby.

My recommendation is to deep dive into Javascript. JS is required for so many roles, and there are very few people who are good at it. But, it is really what YOU want to do. What part of building the site did you like the most.

Do NOT learn Dreamweaver, jQuery or any other programming software until you have attained a certain level of expertise in markup and code, as having a crutch that does the work for you can be debilitating to your learning curve.

Oct4

First Rain

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First Rain

Yesterday was the first substantial rain of the season. The paths along the creek had absorbed the moisture, transforming from the hard and dry of summer to soft, springy and organic. The raindrops had battered the bay leaves so that this morning at sunrise the fragrance of bay leaves burst through every 100 yards or so. The creek was running fast enough to be audible. Sonoma County is so beautiful in October.

Sep14

Logout, go outside! – Alison Chaiken

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Logout, go outside! – Alison Chaiken

I went to a linux meeting last night and the speaker was a GIRL! MIT graduate, Lawrence Livermore Lab and Stanford Linear Accelerator Center physicist, but she was FIT! Skinny, muscled, Jane-Fonda-in-the-70s arms, trim tight body under a relaxed polo shirt tucked into herringbone slacks. God, is she smart.

The linux guys were more animated than usual (I was the only other female in the room) and her talk was on linux in CARS. Cars! The guys loved it. And she was funny. At one point she grumbled, “I’m too old and bitter to think they will fix that…” The audience laughed.

Then I realized she was bike lady. http://www.exerciseforthereader.org/ I had found her page months ago from her postings on the devchix listserv.

My take away is how she manages stress. Her website is simple and full of info. It says “Logout, go outside!” This woman has fun. She apologized to the guys for her attire. “I had to go to Intel today for a developers conference and I knew I had to dress up to cope with the scary grownups.” She got a laugh. She likes Chrissie Hynde’s advice to women:

Chrissie Hynde's Advice

I think Christianne Northrup is right, your body is a barometer of how you are doing in your life — in the largest, spiritual sense. I think I am going to change my attitude about work being more important than exercise. I can exercise more and accept a lower work output. I don’t want to be forced into taking care of myself due to a bad diagnosis. I want to choose it.

I choose it now.