Today was Gabriel's first day sick from school. He's fine, believe me. He was shivering and chattery-teethed this morning, but I think it was cold tiredness. He's been his usual self since the call-in from Julia.
What a wonderful Super Bowl this weekend. Too bad the Patriots didn't win, but it was a good game. Madonna's show was outstanding, though the controversy over MIA's bird-flip seemed ridiculous; who even saw it as it happened live? The prudes and turds in this country, probably Republicans.
The first artist in our Mexican celebration is the great muralist Jose Clemente Orozco, one of the three major Mexican muralists who came to prominence in the 1920s during the Mexican revolution, Diego Rivera and David Alfaro Siqueiros being the other two. Critics and other Mexican artists contend that Orozco (1883-1949) was every bit as great, as influential, as Rivera, but less flashy, less proselytizing, less grandiose, less self-promoting, less dedicated to progress and the future. He had a rough, sickly middle-class childhood and studied in Mexico City before moving to the United States where he created his most famous murals. Common themes in his work include the human penchant for greed, destruction, violence, deceit, social protest, anti-authoritarianism. As with the other great muralists, Orozco celebrated Mexico's cultural nationalism, challenging American stereotypes of Mexico and its artistic heritage and relevance.
There are lots of Orozco masterpieces - including the "Man of Fire" mural on the dome of the Hospicios Cabanas, a beautiful, famous hospital complex in Guadalajara - but the one I chose was one of the works he did for Dartmouth College, The Epic of American Civilization.
This is panel 16, Hispano-America. Front and center is the Mexican peasant, self-sufficient in the face of imperialists and government officials. The peasant (possibly Zapata) is armed and ready to lead the rebellion. Amidst him are various modern symbols of death, greed, tyranny, subjugation, deception. It is in contrast to the panel 15 (Anglo-America) , which we can see the eastern tip of - the schoolchildren huddled around schoolmarm.
It's hard to go into too much detail about the specific panel without seeing the entire panel as a whole, in one sweep. Nevertheless, Orozco was in American for ten years before he returned to Mexico. Somewhere along the way, along with Rivera, he became a symbol of the public arts movement, his expressionism inspiring a new generation of artists, including Pollock and Jacob Lawrence.
Quick fact: Robert Mitchum, more so than Humphrey Bogart, is the definitive Philip Marlowe. Although Raymond Chandler plots still don't make a lick of sense.
Fact #2: Jeff Daniels has never been nominated for an Oscar, nor has Kevin Bacon. I'm always fascinated this time of the year by the great actors who have yet to be acknowledged by the Academy.
Finally, a random article for the day: http://blogs.smithsonianmag.com/adventure/2012/02/new-zealands-darkest-bloodiest-secret-the-sandfly/
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