Marines Wear Face Masks. WHY CAN'T YOU?

I don't understand how wearing a mask to protect other people has become a political issue. I doubt this poster I made will have any influence.

Lisa Benson and the California Drought

Lisa Benson’ s cartoon about California’s drought and water shortage is typical of a good political cartoon. A complex and controversial theme is conveyed in a simple drawing. There also is plenty of sarcasm. 

The lifeguard is a donkey, the symbol of the Democratic Party. A Democratic Governor, State Legislature, and Assembly controlled California, during the years of the latest drought. Lisa Benson, a popular syndicated political cartoonist, is a Republican from California.

 

The Democratic wildlife lifeguard sits in his chair and doesn’t appear concerned about the human prostrate with dehydration. The fish in their own little bowl are in danger from the water evaporating and overheating while the Democratic lifeguard is content to let them “have fun in the warm California sun.”

 

Benson cleverly plays on the words “Calif. Wildlife Guard.“ Is the guard himself wildlife? Or does the guard protect wildlife? Perhaps, the guard is something out of “Baywatch” and is a California wild lifeguard.

 

Most of California’s agriculture is in the Central Valley where the ranchers and farmers are Republicans. Their signs along the 5 Freeway read, “Is growing food for you a waste of water?” or “Your food needs water. Build more dams.”  It’s the word “you” that gives the billboards a confrontational undertone. Sometimes I take the 101 so I don’t have to read their signs. 

 

Droughts cause a shortage of water. Democrats prefer to conserve the commodity and ration. Republicans, ignoring the ecological impact, want to build more dams and increase the supply. 

Texas Billboards

I needed an image of a billboard in Amarillo for a video project I was making. A Google search took me on an interesting adventure.

The billboard went up in June 2018, just outside of Vega TX, near the NM state line.

Then this sign appeared on I-40 in Amarillo.

A barrage of trash talk appeared on social media. Someone posted to tell them to come to Albuquerque where we have intelligence. 

 

Texas Monthly weighed in with:

 

Telling people to get out of the state, though, isn’t the finest expression of traditional Texas values. Regardless of where you stand politically, we can all recognize that friendliness is a key Texas trait. “The Friendly State” has been our official slogan since 1930! (If one insists on a message with some political shade, might we recommend “Bless your heart”?)

 

The billboard controversy ended when Burkett Media (based in Austin) convinced and reimbursed the client to take down the sign. Almost every year I go to Amarillo and then west to Albuquerque. I never got to see either sign.

Oh, here is the image that I used.

 

Here's the composite text graphic on a starry background.

And here is the placement of my graphic.

It was just what I wanted – a nighttime image of a well lit sign. It is on the north  side of I-40, just before the Courtyard by Marriott and the Kabuki Romanza Japanese restaurant. An accurate image adds versimilitude to the video.  

The Cluttered Mess VS. Order And Minimalism

When I'm on the road, sometimes there is a bumper sticker car at a rest stop.

 

The stickers usually include a Peace Symbol, a Rainbow and 

a Coexist sicker.

My dog KT seems to attract them and they want to play with her and talk. I can't talk to them because they often rant incessantly. They often abruptly change the subject and go off on a tangent. KT who has been certified as a therapy dog, seems to like them. The inside of their vehicle is usually a cluttered mess. One day on a walk with KT we passed a house with a bumper sticker car in the driveway. The yard was an accumulation of junk. I think they were hoarders.

Bumper sticker cars in the Saint Louis area often have this combination:

KSHE and Vintage Vinyl sometime are seen as isolated stickers on a car. NRA and NATIVE TEXAN bumper stickers are almost never seen in a hodgepodge cluster. Right wing Republicans want order. 

I have been taking KT to Pupazzo Dog Grooming in Long Beach for 10 years. No other groomer seems to be able to make as nice a Mohawk. KT loves the groomer there. After a few years I saw their van in front of the store.

It is a cluttered mess of images. Each time I see this graphic disaster I think about going someplace else. But the dog loves the entire staff and they do a great job grooming.

Below is a great example of a strong graphic that is definitely minimalist.

Last year I saw this graphic on a construction site in Long Beach.

it was on Pacific Coast Highway about a half mile from where I stay and about a half mile before Pupazzo dog grooming. It was a daily contrast for me. The McCarthy construction graphic wasn't a new idea. The style, called Plakatstil, developed in Germany in the first decade of the 20th century. In the history of graphic communication class that I took two years ago we had to identify 6 or 7 Plakatstil designers and be able to list 4 components that go with the style:

1.   flat colors. 

2.   simplified shapes  

3.   bold fonts. 

4.   narrow focus rather than the busy hodgepodge of Art Nouveau.

Taking well organized survey class where the objectives are clearly outlined has been very helpful.

Here's an example of a 1911 Plakastihl that is similar to the McCarthy poster.

Over the past 12 years, I have taken at the Community College, graphic design, history, art, political science and film study classes. They definitely have changed how I see the world.

Developing Photo Editing Skills

I started using Photoshop in 2008. Color correction of images was one of the first skills I tried to learn. What I thought was good color correction a few years ago makes me sick to look at today. The Lynda.com on line courses on video color correction and creating a look to a movie were very helpful.

Here is scan of an image from a scrapbook that Eberly sent me for a 2015 Christmas video I made for her Dad and Stepmother.

Here is the correction I made.

It's a big improvement. But 5 years ago, I couldn't see that there was too much magenta.

Here is the correction I made today:

Religious Freedom in America – Thank Roger Williams not the Puritans

Statue of Anne Hutchinson at the 

Massachusetts State House

Anne Hutchinson was a Puritan, who held discussions in her home critiquing the Bible and Puritan laws. These sessions were in opposition to her society’s religious codes, where  Puritan   communication with God were conducted  and interpreted by officials of the church. Questioning these spiritual relationships was considered heretical.

She was banished from Massachusetts and eventually settled where the Bronx borders Westchester County. She was killed in an Indian uprising probably in August 1643. Puritans in Massachusetts said it was God's will that she was killed. They also had invoked the will of God thesis, when after her trial she delivered what her doctor described as "clear grapes." The condition today is known as gestational trophoblastic disease.

In 1987, she was officially pardoned by Michael Dukakis, the governor of Massachusetts. Governor Winthrop's order of banishment was revoked

In Downstate New York, the Hutchinson River,  the Hutchinson River Parkway. and numerous elementary schools are named for her.
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                               

Ann Hutchison has a place at Judy Chicago's The Dinner Party,  an installation at the Brooklyn Museum of Art. 39 mythical and historical women are the symbolic guests. Completed in 1979, it is arguably the first epic feminist artwork.

To the left of Hutchison's name is a lamenting woman, a traditional mourning figure. On the plate, is a shawl worn by a grieving woman. On the back runner of the table cloth (not seen in this image), two women are kneeling at a mortuary urn. The urn not only contains the remains of the dead, but also is a container of the female spirit.

Another matyr for religious freedom, who has a statue on the lawn of the Massachusetts State House is Mary Dyer. She had sided with Ann Hutchison and left Massachusetts to live in Rhode Island. She later went to England, became a Quaker, and returned to Massachusetts to protest the new law banishing quakers. She was put in jail  and banished. She continued to preach Quakerism and after a short trial she and two other Quakers were sentenced to death. The two men were hanged. Ann's husband, who was not a Quaker, was a friend of Governor Winthrop, and was able to secure a reprieve. She went to Rhode Island and Long Island but later returned to Massachusetts and was hanged. Mary Dyer also had been a victim of Puritan wrath of God theology. 23 years before before her death, she gave birth to a 7 month deformed stillborn.

Dissenters believed that their insights from personal conversion gave them authority. The Puritan belief was that  only the Bible was the legitimate authority.

Roger Williams was a Puritan minister who left England about 9 months after the first wave of Puritans led by John Winthrop. Puritans were Dissenters or Separatists. They felt that the Church of England was theologically corrupt and that they would separate, form their own church and be an example for those back in England to purify their church. The Pilgrims who settled at Plymouth 10 years earlier were a more radical group of Dissenters. They felt that the Church of England was so corrupt it was beyond saving.

Williams ran afoul with Winthrop and the Bay Colony religious leaders when he refused a job at a church that he considered was not separatist enough. The Boston religious authorities prevented him from getting a job in Salem. Williams moved to the more radical Plymouth Bay Colony, where he was temporarily well received. He went back to Massachusetts Bay and later was in deep trouble when he said that religious authorities had no right to punish people for violating the First Tablet (the first five Commandments). He also had denounced the Citizen's Oath that required anyone living in the Massachusetts Bay colony to pledge their loyalty to the colonial authorities in all matters "civic and religious." He continued to preach his ideas and was summoned to court multiple times. In 1635 the court accused him of spreading "new and dangerous opinions." He did not deny the charges and in court stated that the "state should give free and absolute permission of conscience to all men in what is spiritual alone."

Williams was banished from the Massachusetts Bay Colony and settled in what is now Rhode Island. He and 11 other adults signed a pact that stated that they would obey all orders made for the public good only "in civil things." In 1640 they signed a new pact that they would uphold "liberty of conscience." In 1643 Williams went to England to get a Charter. Religious freedom was officially recognized in the Charter. In 1663 he returned again to England to obtain the charter for the Rhode Island and the Providence Plantations. This Charter had a clause that state that nobody will be "in any ways molested, or called into question for differences in opinion for matters of religion."

In 1664 New Jersey received a charter that had  almost the identical  words of Roger Williams. Nobody would be "molested, punished, disquieted or called into question for any matter of religion." The next year Carolina received a charter with similar provisions. In 1681 William Penn established a colony for persecuted Quakers. The Pennsylvania charter also had guarantees of religious freedom.

Roger Williams ideas not only spread among the colonies but also back to England and to John Locke, the philosopher who had a  tremendous influence on the founding fathers. Locke's  A Letter Concerning Toleration, published in 1689, is replete with Roger Williams phrases and ideas.

    I esteem it above all things necessary to distinguish exactly the business of
    civil government from that of religion and to settle the just bounds that lie
    between the one and the other.

    I affirm that the magistrate's power extends not to the establishing of any
    articles of faith, or forms of worship, by the force of his laws.

   The care of the salvation of men's souls cannot belong to the magistrate.

   No man by nature is bound unto any particular church or sect, but everyone
   joins himself voluntarily to that society in which he believes he has found
   that profession and worship which is truly acceptable to God.

   The only business of the Church is the salvation of souls, and it no way
   concerns the commonwealth, or any member of it.

The Founding Fathers wrote a Constitution that states that "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof." However, Massachusetts in 1833, was the last State to end state supported religion.

   The Puritan or Pilgrim hat is used as the logo for The Massachusetts Turnpike.

Yes, that hat was also worn by the Dutch and by other people in addition to Puritans and Pilgrims. However, in Massachusetts the hat was associated with such a horrendous past that it should be eliminated as a logo for State owned enterprises.

A Retro Prairie House

Home Savings Bank

3762 E Washington Ave, Madison, WI 

2005-2006

I am always excited when I find a modern version of a Prairie style house, especially if I can see what Frank Lloyd Wright buildings are in the retro version.

The Home Savings Bank has a lot of features of the Robie House (1909) in Chicago. It was one of his last Prairie houses and has features from several of his earlier houses.

Robie House, Chicago, 1909.

The Home Savings Bank building also looks a lot like the Taleisin Preservation's reductive line drawing of Taliesin in Spring Green, Wisconsin.

Elmhurst Memorial Hospital in Elmhurst, Illinois is arguably the largest complex of retro prairie style architecture.

Fixing some photos

I wanted to see if some cropping and contrast changes could add new life to some of my photos that I thought were hopeless.

A major cropping could get rid of the debris on the beach washed down by the Santa Ana River. Cropping could also bring the waves into the foreground.

Darkening the parking lot and cropping to the left of the fan palm along the wall would add emphasis to the white building.

It has taken me a while, but I am now starting to visualize, before I take the picture, what the scene will look like cropped. 

The Round Building at Mid Century

The modern resurgence of the round building probably started at the 1958 World's Fair in Brussels Belgium– Expo 58. Edward Durell Stone designed the United States Pavillon.

A few years later, in 1964 Stone also did the Beckman Auditorium at Caltech in Pasadena, California.

During the Mid 60s the round building became more common.

    LA Forum,Los Angeles, California, Charles Luckman, 1967.

      Famous Barr (now Macy's), Northwest Plaza, St. Ann, 
      Missouri, c.1965.

   Phoenix Financial Center, Phoenix, Arizona, 
   Wenceslao Sarmiento, 1964.

    Bank of Commerce, Seattle Washington, 1968.

   Western Savings at Metrocenter(now Souper Salad), 

   Phoenix, Arizona, 1974.

Busch Memorial Stadium was built from 1964-66 and then demolished in 2005. Edward Durell Stone designed the 96-arch "Crown of Arches." The stadium was a good example of the ubiquitous multi sport donut hole.

                                         

Millennium Hotel Tower I (Stouffer's 

Riverfront Inn, Regal Riverfront Hotel),

1968 St. Louis, Missouri.

  

The restaurants at the top of large round buildings revolved very slowly. You barely noticed any difference in the view. For a significant rotation between the first and second course of your over priced meal, a tower with a smaller circumference was the place to go. The revolving restaurant became the rage after the Seattle Space Needle opened 1962 for the Seattle Worlds Fair.

In the Space Needle, a complete rotation takes only 47 minutes. It is the oldest operating revolving restaurant in the world.

The slanted widows in towers gave a much better panorama to enhance the dining experience.

The Heinrich Hertz Tower, Hamburg, Germany. 1968.


Modern technology has decreased the size of the metal panels for a less obstructed view.

Eye of the Needle Restaurant (now Sky City) at the Seattle Space Needle.

Probably the most iconic mid-century round building is the Capitol Records Building (Capitol Records Tower), 1956, 

               Capitol Records Tower,Vine Street, Los Angeles 
               California, 1956.  


Several round buildings were originally Holiday Inns.

Angeleno Hotel, Los Angeles CA, 1970. Originally a Holiday Inn. The 405 Freeway is in the foreground and the Getty Museum is on the hill.

         
Raleigh NC, 1969. Originally a Holiday Inn, then a Clarion Hotel, and now it is the Holiday Inn Raleigh Downtown. 

                  
                      Syracuse, New York

                      
                      Tallahassee, Florida, c.1968

                       Holiday Inn, Long Beach CA, 1969.


Sometimes the round building had  large projecting curved forms.

 Radisson Riverfront, Covington, Kentucky, 1970. 

                    Carillon Tower, San Francisco CA, 1964

              Marina City, Chicago, Illinois, 

              Bertrand Goldberg, 1967.

Detail of round balconies at Marina City.


Probably the isolated single round building has had its day for a while. It seems to have been replaced with buildings with complex curves, unusual shapes, or attached to more conventional rectangular structures.

   IAC Building, 555 West 18th Street NYC, Frank Gehry 2007.

   Jean Nouvel's 100 Eleventh Avenue (behind and to the left), 2010.

Galaxy SOHO,  Beijing, China, Zaha Hadid 2009 – 2012.

                              

                                    

   Oracle Corporation, Redwood Shores CA c.? 2001.

The round building has a long track record. The yurt on the steppes of Central Asia has been used for over 3.000 years. 

A yurt in Mongolia.