Championing the makers, artists, and wanderers in all of us.
After BlogHer in L.A. but before driving back to Phoenix, I fueled up with brunch at Trois Familia in Silver Lake. I loved how the purple Le Creuset coffee mug they brought me looked against the coral wall I was sitting across from.
I wonder if they chose the colors for their brightly painted walls based on what would make good backgrounds for food photos. What do you think?
You may think the 1960s television show Gilligan’s Island is simply the tale of a 3-hour tour gone terribly awry, indefinitely stranding its passengers on a deserted island where hijinks, visits from goofy guest stars, and thwarted rescue attempts ensue. But it may have actually been a metaphor for restarting after the annihilation of civilization.
I know. Mind. Blown.
The Gilligan Manifesto, a documentary debuting at LA Femme International Film Festival this weekend, takes a fresh look at the slapsticky sitcom that went into production the year after the Cuban Missile Crisis. I was able to preview the film, which places Gilligan’s Island in its Cold War context and aims to reveal the critiques of democracy and capitalism behind its farcical facade.
Originally confined to text in an article in Americana: The Journal of American Popular Culture, writer and director Cevin Soling translated his ideas to film, taking advantage of the audio-visual medium with groovy novelty songs, original animation, quick cuts of Cold War era footage, and scenes from the show itself. By the time the opening titles appear, you’ve already seen a depressing number of mushroom clouds and atomic infernos exploding in sync with disturbingly upbeat tunes like “Love That Bomb.”
There are also interviews with creator Sherwood Schwartz, cast members Dawn Wells (“Mary Ann”) and Russell Johnson (“The Professor”), and (actual) Harvard professors of history and literature.
After an animation introduces the characters and illustrates the parallel between the island castaways and survivors emerging from a fallout shelter, the film examines the society they create, positing that it more closely resembles a “true” (non-dictatorial) communist system than a democratic/capitalist one.
While a few points are belabored and others left hanging, the film does raise some interesting questions.
Do societal structures, such as class divides, persist when society itself is gone? What about titles such as “professor,” “millionaire,” or “movie star”? Can a person lead without being corrupted by power? What’s the best way to distribute resources? Is Gilligan the ultimate proletariat-hero? Do the castaways even want to be rescued?
The Gilligan Manifesto gave me a lot to mull over. And it’s definitely changed the way I look at the show and its character archetypes.
The Gilligan Manifesto is a feature documentary by Spectacle Films, Inc.
Debut: LA Femme International Film Festival
Information on additional screenings/viewing options was not available.
Photos via The Gilligan Manifesto.
Phillip has been on this much-appreciated fixing-things-with-superglue kick.
He’s currently putting back together the mug my grandma got me as a souvenir of our 2003 trip to San Diego.
She had vacation time, wanted to go to San Diego, but didn’t feel she could make the drive alone, so I got to go along.
I drove and we worked as a team to figure out how to navigate San Diego – exploring the Gaslamp Quarter, peeking in at the inner workings of the Balboa Park pipe organ, accidentally visiting the zoo on (super crowded!) free day, shopping in Seaport Village, spontaneously deciding to take a Duck tour (laughing as the amphibious vehicle splashed into the bay), and wandering through the colorful Old Town Market that’s commemorated on my mug. We would walk from our hotel to the beach or to this Italian restaurant that had a second story with a view of the ocean.
She would actually be turning 86 today if it hadn’t been for pancreatic cancer in 2007.
I wish there was a word for the opposite of regret, to describe things that, even in hindsight, you are 100% glad you did.
I’m so grateful for that trip to San Diego with Grandma.
Since we knew there’d be way more to see at The Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens than we’d have time to explore while we were in the Pasadena area, we skipped the desert and cactus gardens (they’re supposed to be very good – we just have lots of desert gardens here in Arizona) and headed straight for something different: the jungle garden.
I really being enveloped in lush the rainforest-like landscape.
Thick trees were like an entire ecosystem of their own with vines climbing their trunks and air plants nestled in their branches.
We spotted ferns and flowers and plants with leaves the size of umbrellas.
My favorite spot was right next to the waterfall.
We received complimentary press passes to Huntington Library via Pasadena Convention & Visitors Bureau.
Before Norton Simon the art museum, there was Norton Simon the entrepreneur and art collector.
He started with works from European Old Masters, Impressionists, and Post-Impressionists and then began collecting works from Asia after a trip to India. He eventually added his collections to what was then the Pasadena Museum of Modern Art, which he was director of until his passing in 1993.
Now known as Norton Simon, the museum in Pasadena houses collections of 14th century to contemporary European art, Asian art spanning two millennia, and a sculpture garden.
Even the walkway to the entrance is surrounded with works of Auguste Rodin – the anguished faces of The Burghers of Calais, The Walking Man mid-stride, Saint John the Baptist with sinewy arm outstretched, The Thinker pondering Colorado Boulevard.
Inside, the 19th century European art gallery just off the foyer immediately drew me in, and I found myself face-to-face with some of Degas’s bronze ballerinas, frozen in their moments of stretching, posing, preparing to dance.
The collection actually includes over 100 of his paintings, drawings, and sculptures, as well as work by Cézanne, Gauguin, Monet, Manet, Van Gogh, and Goya.
The 17th and 18th century galleries hold still lifes, Rembrandt portraits, scenes from history and mythology.
I took a break in the outdoor Garden Cafe. On the menu are sandwiches, salads, tea, and bottled cold brew (inexplicably imported from Austin, Texas).
It’s a lovely place to take in the view of the Sculpture Garden and to people watch. That particular sunny day, museum-goers were spilling out into the Garden in regular bursts, bounding, striding, or strolling the path around the pond. A group of giggling teens hunted for Pokémon. A man pulled his elderly mother’s wheelchair up to a table by the water, and she shakily stood up to stretch while he got them lunch.
The lower level is primarily devoted to the museum’s Asian collection with a gallery for rotating exhibits, such as Duchamp to Pop. So I stepped from amongst statues of gods into the bright, irreverent world of pop art. It was a bit jarring. But, then, pop art was meant to be jarring, wasn’t it?
Duchamp to Pop showed how the work of Marcel Duchamp influenced pop artists, such as Andy Warhol, whose Campbell’s soup cans and Brillo boxes are part of the museum’s permanent collection (but not always on display).
Much of the museum’s Asian art collection comes from the Indian subcontinent and Southeast Asia. There are also Japanese woodblock prints that belonged to Frank Lloyd Wright.
Starting at the foot of the stairs, you walk by stone, bronze, and terra cotta pillars, altarpieces, and statues depicting heroes and gods from Hindu, Buddhist, and Jain traditions, especially the Buddha. It was fascinating to see the how portrayals change in different eras and geographic locations. (More in the museum’s video on their Asian Art collection.)
Looking at these ancient figures with heads, torsos, arms, and legs posed in a moment of sitting in quiet reflection, embracing, or dancing, I was struck by their humanness, by how much we had in common.
Those ancient subjects really weren’t so different from the ballerinas that inspired Degas or the woman stretching by the pond or the teens playing Pokemon Go or me or you. We’re pretty much all the same.
We still sit and reflect, we embrace, and we dance.
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The Pasadena Convention & Visitors Bureau provided us with complimentary press passes to Norton Simon Museum.