Filming and Filmideo

Tonite I met my friend Lisa at Halsey and New Streets, where she and perhaps a dozen other people were watching the proceedings in the filming of part of the movie Cadillac Records, which has converted part of Halsey Street to simulate 1950s Chicago. On my way there, I saw that Rupert Ravens Contemporary gallery was still open, tho I didn't know for how much longer. As we watched the proceedings, one helpful young (black) man pointed out Adrien Brody (one of the stars) as he was walking quickly westward on the far side of New Street. I tried to get a picture, but the low lite level and cool temperature made the camera react slowly, and I got only his back as he was about to round the corner and disappear. I joked that it was just as well because he's so ugly he might have broken my camera. I was surprised by the reaction of some of the females assembled. "He's gorgeous!", said one teen girl. Huh? I told her she must be dazzled by the glamor of his being a movie star, because he is UG-a-LEE. "Twice as ugly as I am. Three times!"

Adrien Brody, the guy in the gray jacket at the fence, just about to round the corner of New Street onto Halsey. Yes, it is. Take my word for it.

Some of the young women nearby chastised me, including Lisa. BUT, check out the picture on Wikipedia. The guy's a troll. He can't help it, and it may not be kind to comment on a person's appearance, but he's a movie star, yet he's repulsive. I guess that gives hope to a lot of ugly people, that they too can be movie stars. Good luck to them.
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I suggested to Lisa, who had been watching what little was going on for some time by then, that if she'd like to see the Ravens gallery, which she had not yet been to, we could try to get there before it closed. So I asked the (black) guy with a headset on, who was telling people where they had to move to be out of the way, if we could cross the street (Halsey). A man with a long overcoat had just crossed, but the guy with the headset said no, we couldn't; the man who crossed was in the movie. Then he confessed he was just messing with us and it was fine for us to cross too. He couldn't believe we believed him! Funny guy.

We walked to my car on Washington Street and headed to 85 Market Street. Alas, by the time we got there, in the short interval between my passing on the way to New Street and back, the gallery had closed. There weren't even dim lites on inside that we could see things by. We looked at the works on display in the windows, and I saw someone in silhouette at the very back of the gallery, but he disappeared a moment later. I ended up merely telling Lisa a little about what there was to see on all three floors, and that the current shows would be on view until April 13th. I'm not clear whether it's THRU the 13th or thru the 12th, but I assume that when they say the shows have been extended TO April 13th, they mean INCLUDING April 13th (the Sunday on which the Cherry Blossom Festival begins in Branch Brook Park).
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So we headed back to New and Halsey, where we again chatted with spectators. People again spotted Brody, who was now walking east on the far side of New Street, but again my camera reacted very slowly, and not only did I get a blurred picture of his back going the other way, but he was also partly hidden behind a lite post. However, a pretty, young (black) woman standing nearby had gotten some good pix of the proceedings, including one she showed me on her digital camera's monitor of her with Adrien Brody up close. I asked if she'd be willing to let me use some of her best pix on my fotoblog, and gave her my card. She said she'd send me some. Let's see if she does.

We asked the guy with the headset if it would be OK to go into Newark Art Supply, because I wanted to show Lisa the new show. He said okay, and as we headed in, a few other people also headed in who had been waiting out of sight of the cameras and had apparently not been so brazen as to ask Headset Man if they could scoot around the corner. "That's what you were waiting for?", said he. (Lisa had seen Newark Art Supply's last show, of works by Senegalese artist Papa Gora Tall, on our arts Friday last month.) Chris Sedita, one of the owners, had just turned the lites off in the display area, but Ade (two syllables) (Sedita) asked him to turn them back on, which he did. They're saints. I showed pix of those works here yesterday, because that's when the show actually opened. Their MySpace page shows them with Mayor Booker. Golly. It also describes Newark Art Supply as 57, female, and a "Swinger". Hm.

The lites had to go back on anyway, it turns out. The people who came in with us were to have a brief meeting in that area. Chris wasn't sure what the meeting was for, but it may have been part of the organizing for Newark's Gay Pride parade. I said I didn't know we had one, and then mentioned that I was on the committee that organized the very first one, and that I named the week (actually weekend, then, in 1970). I always like to get that in.
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We chatted a bit about the disruption the filming caused, and it turns out that the film company did pay a stipend to affected businesses. (I didn't ask if it was adequate to compensate for losses.) In any case, it seems that a lot of the actors, extras, and some crew members had been coming in during the raw weather, and Ade and Chris let them use the lavatory, have some coffee, etc. Newark hospitality. That should leave a good impression of Newark with these people, and, who knows, some one or more of them might eventually be in position to send more film work our way.

The discussion came around to Adrien Brody, and I mentioned again how ugly he is. Lisa reproached me again. Ade seemed a little surprised, and said he's actually kind of cute. Chris, a guy, didn't exactly disagree with me but put it more diplomatically, that Brody is not your typical movie star. No, he sure is not. I likes me some pretty people to be in movies. I wants my movie stars to look like movie stars / matinee idols, not run-of-the-mill ordinary people. Or worse.
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We wondered about his ethnicity, since the name "Brody" doesn't seem Jewish, but Adrien Brody sure looks Jewish, and played a Jew in the film The Pianist. It turns out, according to Wikipedia, that Brody is 3/4 Jewish and 1/4 Catholic, from Queens. I thought "Brody" was an Irish name — but, then, I thought the guy's name was "Brophy".

Here, Lisa stands near an old Cadillac parked around the corner from the main 'set'.

Lisa and I then headed for Redsaw, and had to cross New Street to do so, as made us pass again the spectators we had been chatting with. I mentioned that we were headed to Redsaw, and asked if they were familiar with Redsaw. When they said they were not, I told them something about it and the Filmideo event. Young Ms. Knights, a (black) Rutgers student (yes, there were some white people watching too, but it just turned out that we talked more with a few black people) was thinking of going to Redsaw too.
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As we three walked to Redsaw, Ms. Knights (I can't remember her first name; I'm much better with last names) asked if there was an admission charge. I said there hadn't been on the other occasions I'd visited, inasmuch as the gallery sells artworks that are displayed there and management wouldn't want to turn away potential buyers by charging an admission fee. I hadn't thought there could be a distinction between physical artworks and films/videos, and as it turned out, as we got inside and onto the stairs on the way up, we saw a sign that announced that yes, there was a "suggested donation" of $5. I was a little embarrassed for having misled Ms. Knights. $5 is not a huge amount, of course, but for people of limited income, like retirees and students, it's not completely trivial either.
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I later checked the email announcement I got of the Filmideo event for "suggested donation" and see no mention of any such thing. Given that the gallery ordinarily does not charge an admission fee, the levying of a fee for Filmideo is an indispensable piece of information that should have been included in the email announcement.
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I had completely misconceived the Filmideo event, picturing a series of monitors in different parts of a normally-lited Gallery, on each of which monitors ran a different film/video, so visitors could watch whatever they liked, then move on to the next — and if they saw something that offended them, they need merely move away, to something more to their liking. Instead, there was a single large screen at the narrow end of a darkened room onto which all of the filmideos were projected in turn, movie-theater style.
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Once we got inside, it turned out there were no seats left! So we had to stand. Tho the admission fee is much less than that for a theater, at least in a theater you're guaranteed a seat. There was room for more chairs in the front, but some of us had to stand. Very bad. If you're going to have standees, there should be space provided for them in back of the last row of seats.

This closer foto shows not just the old Caddie but also the floodlites and mechanical equipment in reserve on New Street around from the film site.

Lisa stepped into the main room, while I checked out the Reception Gallery a short distance down the hall. A young woman was coming out and closing the door behind her, and said there was only one video running back there. I said I'd like to see it and she opened the door. She recognized me from this blog and asked about some of my nonstandard spellings, like "flite" for standard "flight". I explained that I am a spelling reformer, but she was not familiar with the spelling-reform movement. (Few people are. Everyone should be.) I think I said that English is a very important language, but its spelling makes it difficult for everyone to use, and especially difficult for people in non-English-speaking countries to learn. I told her there are two approaches to spelling reform, one of which is mere spelling simplification, in which you make little changes to the worst features, like substituting F for PH (and, by implication, -ITE for -IGHT), and I have one website that deals with that, Simpler Spelling Word of the Day. Then there is radical spelling reform, which imposes rigorous phonetics on the language, and I have a different website for that, which proposes a system by means of which everyone can spell every word in the English language unambiguously by using a single table of sound equivalents. She also said she was glad I was adding the names of artists for specific artworks, and I said that when I know them, I provide them, but I don't always know them.
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I asked her name, and if the video showing was hers. She said "Asha Ganpat", and no, that was by Michelle Mumoli. Ms. Ganpat turns out to be one of the founders of Redsaw. Intrigued by her name, I inquired into her origins, which I always find interesting. She is of Indian descent, from different parts of India, by way of Trinidad and The Village. A lot of Indians work in Newark (including my doctor), but few live here, yet. That should change. Why should we have to go to Newark Avenue, in Jersey City, to find Indian foods? Why not just create a Little India on, say, South Orange Avenue in Vailsburg? We've got a bunch of Indian businesses already, but no Indian food, one of my favorite cuisines. The nearest Indian restaurant is Neelam in South Orange, which is a tad expensive for my tastes. And not even the South Orange Pathmark has frozen Indian dinners, except for ONE that I've seen, by the brand name "Amy's". My old neighborhood in Manhattan (Hell's Kitchen) had Indian frozen dinners and samosas in the Manhattan Plaza Food Emporium (a hifalutin A&P). Every now and then there is something about Manhattan I miss. But I'm not moving back, even if I win MegaMillions. Newark is just so much better. Unless, of course, you're a snob. (I am qualified to be a snob, but am not. I'm better than that.)
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Around that time, pop artist Kevin Darmanie walked in, saw me, and said hello, as did (I think) another of the principals of Redsaw, to whom I have not been formally introduced (the tall, slender guy). I said hi, but we didn't chat.
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I told Kevin, who posed alongside his self-portrait in his Jersey City show last month, that I saw that he is to have a new show at Gallery Aferro and asked the date and whether this show would be the same as I had seen in J.C. or different works. I mentioned that the one sample I saw from Emma Wilcox's email looked different from what I'd already seen, and he said it was all new, opening April 19th.
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I wanted to clarify the pronunciation of his name ("Darmanie"; names need to be spelled clearly as much as do ordinary words), whether it was dór.ma.nè (in my system, O before a consonant, even R, is always short, as in "on" or "orange" as it is said in most of the country; semi-rhymes with "aren't") or dor.máe.ne. He apparently doesn't get upset if people say it either way, but it's supposed to be dór.ma.nè, which I had assumed. Now we know for sure. He said he tells people it's like "Armani" with a D before and an E after. (The syllabic stress is also different, but we'll let that pass.)
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I then returned to the main gallery and watched a few of the short films/videos. I particularly liked this one, On Message by Danial Nord ("A rumination on televised politics and its influences in our media-saturated lives. It[']s a systematic analysis and reconfiguration of candidates' sound bytes [s/b "bites", but that's a mistake many make in the computer age] and facial expressions from recently broadcast Republican campaign debate[s].")

The last of the short films shown before an intermission was Watch Out! by Tessa Hughes-Freeland. This was an odd — nay: bizarre and ugly — pastiche of monochrome filmic images, reddened throughout, that started out with a handsome middle-aged man, apparently from a 1950s-era audio-visual presentation for schools, speaking of the value to teenage-boy athletes' self-image of seeing themselves on film, but then wandered into, believe it or not, (heterosexual) pornography, for no apparent reason save the filmmaker's desire to shock and offend.
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Pornography is not art. I suspect that the maker of that film is young. In this country, the young always think they know better than their elders. On isolated occasions, they're right, but usually, indeed almost always, they are wrong. Trapping people into viewing pornography and thereby turning them into voyeurs against their will as part of an arts event is not just infantile and aggressively disrespectful of other people's personal autonomy over their own sex lives. It is also misplaced self-importance. Ms. Hughes-Freeland's self-expression and defiance of convention is more important to her than anyone — or everyone — else's offense, shock, disgust, or other emotional reactions to being attacked by images they did not expect and did not want to see. Because there was just one screen, one could NOT just move to the next monitor to avoid further offense, but would have to stumble out of a darkened room, making him- / herself conspicuous in objecting to that imposition, as tho the fault is in the viewer, not the filmmaker. Outrageous.

Right after that filmlet, Lowell (~ Craig, another of the principals of Redsaw) called a half-hour intermission so people might mingle and talk. I told Lisa we now had a chance to find a seat, but I didn't want to wait around for a full half hour to see the second half of the show. She didn't either, and was puzzled by why there would be so long an intermission. I suggested that many of the people attending may be mainstays of the Newark art crowd, and they may want to renew acquaintances and network, which takes some time. I mentioned the lewd turn the last filmlet had taken. She too seemed startled, and not at all happy about it. So we left Redsaw, and walked again past the corner of New and Halsey Streets, where some people were still watching the filming of a legitimate movie. It was dark out, but the building façades were lited up by the film company.
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I took some pix, and then Lisa and I returned to the car and I drove her home to Bloomfield, my way of making up for luring her into a "suggested donation" ambush. If Redsaw is to charge admission, they should post a sign ON THE DOOR downstairs, before people start up the two steep flites of steps at the top of which is a young woman who sees everyone who enters. Many people would be too embarrassed to turn around on seeing a sign partway up the stairs, and so proceed all the way up and permit Redsaw to extort from them $5 that they didn't expect to have to pay. Again, it's not the amount but the principle. Just tell people in advance that there's a fee, and give them the option of turning around and leaving without being embarrassed. Most would likely just accept the idea of paying a modest fee, without resentment. But entrap them into paying a fee and they will feel held up at gunpoint.

Many hours later, after I had processed the 20 fotos I'd taken, tended to things in my household, eaten, watched some TV, and retired for the nite, I was reviewing in my head what had transpired, what I would mention in this blog, and what fotos I would show. I had two days, Thursday and Friday, to split these things between, and I had to think about this. So I went to sleep. An hour and a quarter later, however, I was awake, disturbed by the heterosexual pornography that had been inflicted upon me against my will. I was hugely indignant and unable to return to steady sleep for over three hours. Every time I closed my eyes, those images attacked me again, and I mentally drafted indignant language with which to counterattack.
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There is no "erase" button on the human memory, so we must guard against what gets into our head, because once it's there, it's there. I was reminded of an experimental-film presentation I saw in my youth, in the East Village or some such place. One of the films (they were all silent) showed a child being born. Another showed a little boy, perhaps 4 years old, masturbating, with an erection! which I didn't think possible in a kid of that age. A couple of people got up and walked out of the theater when that scene came onscreen. Good for them. I'd have done the same if it had been a little girl masturbating. I remember this film from the mid-1960s — FORTY YEARS ago.

Public sex has been banned in every society, every era, by every race, every religion, on every continent, through the entire span of civilization, precisely because it is upsetting to unwilling onlookers. Forcing people to view sex against their active volition is a crime ("public indecency") pretty much everywhere, as well it should be. To defy universal convention on some misguided notion of personal liberty — that overrides other people's liberties — is contemptible, deviant behavior. As an article in Psychology Today a couple of decades ago said, approximate quote: "Crazy is crazy the world over."
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The arts have, for centuries, been the last refuge of degenerates. All those nudes, calculated to shock, are 'justified' by empty rationalizations such as "the human body is beautiful", even tho most human bodies nekkid are very far from beautiful indeed. The crazed, imaginary world of nudes everywhere that the arts have showed us, has misled some people into thinking that, for instance, ancient Greeks and Romans wandered around naked all day long. They did not. It would be hard to find a garment more concealing than the toga.
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Fortunately, I am not an art critic, so don't have to go anywhere or see anything I don't want to. I for one will never again attend "Filmideo". Nor will I publicize it. If people are willing to risk being unpleasantly surprised by ambush filmmakers, they can search out that event on their own. At this point, I am so embittered about the lack of judgment of Redsaw's management that I don't know how soon I will again be willing to visit that gallery for any occasion at all.