AIFF2024: Cigarette Surfboards; Alaska Native Masks Out In the World

Two more days of festival.  Well only one more for us.  Not that long ago, the Festival website said the festival was Dec. 6-14 and we made our plane reservations for December 15.  Then the more recent edition of the website moved it to December 15.  

This festival has been filled with crazy good documentaries - Champions of the Golden Valley, Ultimate Citizens, Porcelain War, 76 Days Adrift, The Empathizer, Diving Into the Darkness - and I heard Unearth was also great.  And I thought Queen of the Ring was also quite good, but not quite at the level of those others.  

Today we saw two more:  So Surreal:  Behind the Masks and The Cigaret Surfboard.  The basic 'discovery' in Surreal, was how Yupik Alaskan Native masks along with Native Masks from British Columbia had a huge influence on the surrealist artists early in the 20th Century.  This was something I'd learned some time ago.  But the film combined a number of themes - the spiritual meaning and use of Alaska Native masks, the history of how the churches and white government banned the ceremonies in which masks were used and confiscated them, how the Surrealists discovered these masks and were inspired by them, and a detective tale of where some of the masks were today and how to get them repatriated.  The magic of the film is how seamlessly all these themes were intertwined.

Perry Eaton (center) and Drew Michael, both Alaska Native mask makers featured in the film, talk afterward about masks and the film.  

But I also was very pleasantly surprised by how good Cigarette Surfboard was.  I'm biased.  I grew up near Venice Beach, and while I was too lazy to lug a surfboard around (they were big heavy monsters back in those days, and none of my friends were surfers) I was an avid body surfer growing up.  
 

This film starts out with Taylor talking about how cigarette butts are the most numerous item when people are cleaning trash off the beach.  (I had encountered this once long ago when I helped pick up trash with a Covenant House mentee in downtown Anchorage.  So many cigarette butts.)

Not only is the tobacco full of chemicals, but the filters are not biodegradable.  So Taylor decides to make a surfboard using cigarette butts to draw attention to the pollution they cause.  The first one - in the photo - was two heavy.  But he got it down in weight and then got professional surfers to use the boards as a way to get the environmental message across.  The basic question people seemed to ask when they saw these boards was "It must take forever to collect all the butts."  They get told, "Not really, they're everywhere."

So this is an environmental movie and a surfing movie.  We see lots of people riding the waves on their cigarette surfboards.  

Taylor also visits surfers in different parts of the world.  In Ireland one former surfer decided flying around the world to go surfing, while fun, was not environmentally defensible, and he switched to sustainable farming that won't harm the ocean.  In southwest England, a group of surfers had successfully lobbied - with surfboards at Parliament - to end the practice of dumping raw sewage into the ocean.  

A fun film with a message.  

Anchorage Stuff - Garry Kaulitz Art, Highway Proposed Over Chester Creek, Film Festival Coming Soon

from Fog 24 Gallery

Garry Kaulitz was a long time University of Alaska Anchorage artist and professor.  His works are still alive and available online.  Here's the link.   Worth a look.  

A letter from the Rogers Park Community Council alerts neighbors of a Department of Transportation proposal to put a highway above Chester Creek.  There's a meeting at the Senior Center - which would, if I read the map right, be under the viaduct.  

Meeting to discuss is  

TUESDAY, DECEMBER 10, 2024 

FROM 4:30PM TO 6:30     

SENIOR CENTER

And I'd be remiss if I didn't remind folks that the Anchorage International Film Festival begins Friday, Dec 6, 2024 and runs through Dec.15.  

This image is from the page labeled 'FILMS'.  It keeps going well below this screenshot.  

There are always great films as well as some that are not so great.  But everyone has different tastes so there will be something for everyone.  Films will mostly be at the Bear Tooth and the Museum.  

There is also a change in the festival organizers this year.  I described that a little bit back in September and you can see that post here.

I'll cover more about individual films soon.  

There's a new tab up on top under the orange banner for AIFF2024.  That will be an overview of the Festival and an index of my posts about the festival.  

Seattle Outing - Food And Art

Our grand parenting duties shrink back as our granddaughter gets older and has more autonomy and more activities to fill up her time.  That's not a bad thing.  We still get to spend lots of time with our daughter and granddaughter, but I also have plenty of time to read, think, write, and delete emails  that never seem to slow down.  Even as I unsubscribe to emailers I never subscribed to, new ones seem to find me.  

But we had an anniversary yesterday and we decided to take the ferry and wander around downtown Seattle.  

It's been pretty rainy, but the sun made itself known as we approached the ferry terminal.  

We tried the post office on 1st Street, but it was closed for lunch.  

So we made our way to Pike Place Market for some clam chowder.  The seats weren't that comfy, but the chowder was hot and the guy with the red sleeves kept up a constant entertaining chatter.  

We wandered a bit through the market.  Then across the street to a kitchen ware shop where we found a gift for our granddaughter and her dad.  We stopped in at H-Market for a look around.  Then made it to another post office where I was able to send my package.  I had the book in an envelope I'd received a different book in, but the clerk immediately told me I should buy a new envelope which would be cheaper than buying a roll of tape for the envelope.  While we waited, another customer asked another clerk if he could tape the address label on and was told to buy a roll of tape ($3.99).  This is new.  Post office personnel used to be helpful.  I guess Trump's postmaster who's apparently still in charge, thinks saving pennies is better than making customers feel like coming back.  

Then to the Seattle Art Museum.  I'm always taken aback by how much it costs to enter major museums these days.  I know it costs money to run things, but art is a major expression of a culture and museums are a serious part of public education.  If we can pay to be the most armed country in the world, we ought to pay even a percent of that for public art museums.  But I quickly got over that as we interacted with what was on the walls, the floors, and even the ceiling in places.  

There's clearly a change in how museums display items.  There's a lot of obviously intentional diversity.  There's mixing up of pieces of different eras and cultures to find (or at least claim to find) commonalities.  

And I was particularly struck by the universality of human art - both geographically and in terms of time.  We tend to think that we are smarter and more skilled than people who lived hundreds or thousands of years ago.  Certainly a fair chunk of today's US population (like those who believe their cult leader is going to improve their lives) aren't nearly as wise as the brightest people in past generations.  

On the left is Charles d'Amboise.  The painting was done about 1505 (just over 500 years ago) by Bernardine de'Conti who lived in Milan about 1470 -1522.  

The description says:

"The French nobleman Charles d'Amboise became the governor of the Duchy of Milan after it was conquered by France.  The collar of scallop shells and knots denotes the Order of SaintMichael, granted to him about 1505, perhaps the occasion for commissioning this portrait. 

D'Amboise was a friend and patron of Leonardo da Vinci, but he hired a more conservative artist for his portrait and chose to be portrayed in a classic profile view, which records his features but provides no psychological insight.  He most likely wanted to link his image with the great rulers of the ancient past, depicted in side views on coins and medals like those shown in the case nearby  D'Ambroise himself was an avid coin collector as he proudly demonstrates here."

I'm going to assume the curator knows a lot more than I do about art and this painting.  But I'm not sure why a side view can't provide psychological insight, or that a full face portrait can.  But what little we learn tells us a great deal.  With a different haircut, or maybe just a baseball cap, he could fit in walking down the street today.  There was a hierarchy of which he was in an upper level, and he collected coins.  And the painter could easily get work in today's world.  Both could probably fit into 2024 fairly easily with a little bit of coaching on the advances of science.  

The one on the right is not as old (about 1699), painted by French artist  Nicolas Colombel who lived from 1644-1717.  He died fifteen years before George Washington was born.  He was a year younger than Isaac Newton, but died ten years before Newton.  Nevertheless, the story of Cupid (Eros) and Psyche is much older.  Wikipedia tells us:

"Eros and Psyche appear in Greek art as early as the 4th century BC"

The curator wrote the following to accompany this painting:

"The jealous goddess Venus sent her son Cupid to make Psyche fall in love with a horrible monster.  Instead, Cupid became enamored himself and installed Psyche in a palace where he visited her at night so that she couldn't learn his identity.  One night she stole a peek at his beautiful face.  Startled awake, Cupid left immediately, and his palace vanished.  Psyche wandered the earth search for her lover, performing impossible tasks set by Venus in hopes of winning him back.  Finally, Jupiter intervened:  he made Psyche a goddess and reunited her with Cupid, giving their story a happy ending.  Here Cupid has just abandoned Psyche, who chases him as he hovers out of reach.  This moment allows Colombel, a French artist who was trained in Rome, to show the Roman countryside - the appropriate setting for this classical myth." 

So this story goes back 2500 years, yet we have the same human emotions and conflicts: a woman possibly falling in love with a monster (how many battered wives are there today?);  a forbidden young love;  a jealous and vengeful mother-in-law (no they aren't married, but Venus was Cupid's mother).  I'm not sure why the curator thinks the Roman woods to be the appropriate background, perhaps because the Romans appropriated much of Greek culture including their myths.  

I knew from the beginning this post was going to be much too long, so let me jump to another exhibit - this of Ausralian aboriginal artists.  

These large detailed paintings speak to me in a language I can't identify.  They tell stories of people and worlds I do not know.  Yet they move me a great deal.  This is a beauty and a visual language that still exists, outside of Western culture.   

Here's detail of a painting called Kalipinypa Rockhole (2003) painted by Elizabeth Marks Nakamara.  The curator writes:

"Lightning bolts that ignite the sky are the source for this striking white maze.  Kalipinypa is an important site where ancestral forces swept in with a huge storm that caused lightning to flash and water to rush across the country.  They left behind a rock hole surrounded with sandhills that are seen here as vibrant patterns created by dotting that fuses into lines that wiggle ever so slightly.  Elizabeth Marks Nakamara was married to the renowned artist Mick Namarari.  She watched his painting for years but did not begin to paint herself until after his death in 1998."

One more from that collection.  There's no story with the description - just the facts: 

" Marapinti, 2016

Acrylic on canvas

Nanyuma Napangati

Australian Aboriginal, Pintupi people,

Papunya, Western Desert, Northern Territory,

born 1940"

Most of what I know about Australian Aboriginal culture comes from Bruce Chatwin's book Songlines, which I wrote about here.  And songlines (check the link, really!) are clearly part of this art.  Truly a book worth reading.  

Another descriptor at this exhibit read:

"'Dreaming is an all-embracing concept that provides rules for living, a moral code, as well as rules for interacting withthenatural environment' - Jeannie Herbert Nungwarrayi(Walpiri speaker) 2000

Dreaming is known by Pintupi speakers as Tjukurrpa.  Tjukurrpa is called a template for a dynamic duty or way of observing laws passed down by ancestors - the powerful shape-shifting creators who formulated the earth's features, people, and culture.  Dreamings stimulate intellectual and emotional life, as people recall extensive genealogies and ceremonial song cycles that describe the ancestors' adventures.  No country - the lands, waters, flora, and fauna of an area - is without a trail of their presence, which offers a living continuum of wisdom for all to learn from.

Dotting was a biodegradable at for for centuries - on ceremonial objects, in sand paintings, and on painted and adorned bodies.  Dots of ochres, down, feathers, and leaves could at times totally overcome a human form, enabling dancers to enter a mythic envelope as they enacted ceremonies. Dots began appearing in painting as a echo of this sacred significance.  Some contend they help conceal sacred knowledge, and others suggest they express the flash of ancestral power.'

Surely, there's nothing here more supernatural than believers of Western religions embrace.  

There was so much more reshaping edges of my brain and heart.  The ways of human beings haven't really changed all that much since homo sapiens appeared.  When politicians call for STEM education that leaves out art and music and humanities, we leave students with a huge hole.  Science has given us a way to tinker with nature, but without a study of the human spirit and behavior and morality, we leave out the part that helps us make decisions about what technology is worth pursuing and what is likely to give us more pain than joy.  

We are reminded about this daily - from the movie Oppenheimer, to politicians' inability to pass gun reform that would significantly reduce the loss of life, to the onset of AI as a profit making venture that has the possibility of eliminating people's ability to discern truth.  

A Long And Amazing Life Ended Today

I just learned that Gerda Bernstein passed away peacefully today.  If I've got my dates right, she was just shy of her 101st birthday.  

She was my mother's first cousin and was able to get out of Germany before World War II started.  She was always a presence in my life, though I'd say she knew me longer than I knew her.  My family moved to LA from Chicago when I was still under three. While I see pictures in the photo albums of her in Los Angeles, I don't really remember her from then much.  

My first vivid memory was when I traveled back home from my junior year studying in Germany and stopped for a day in Chicago.  She was a bigger than life person - warm, beautiful, welcoming.  Here's a picture of her wedding I found during this stay in LA .  

Below is from a post I wrote in 2016 when we visited her huge art studio in a warehouse in Chicago.  She was a significant artist.  Much of her work was large installations.  Her website says:

"Gerda Meyer Bernstein is an internationally known Chicago-based artist who addresses thorny global issues. Her previous exhibitions include "Witness & Legacy," a traveling museum exhibition; The Alternative Museum in New York City, The Spertus Museum and Cultural Center in Chicago; "Passages" at the Ellis Island Immigration Museum; and at the New Berliner Kunstverein, Berlin, Germany."

  I have some video from that trip which I thought I'd put up.  I'll try to add it later.  

Then we went to visit a first cousin of my mom's, who is also an artist of some stature - Gerda Bernstein.  We, fortunately, met her at her studio.  My mom's had a lithograph of hers hanging in her house forever and I've seen catalogues of her work.  But since most of her works are large installation pieces, there's nothing like seeing things as they were meant to be seen.  The studio is a small gallery.  Some of the installations are up, but most are represented by photographs.  I want to do more on Gerda, but were busy every day visiting folks so this is just a brief post. 

On the left is view from near the entrance to the studio. 

This piece is called Gaza Tunnel.  It's a reconstruction of the tunnels used to smuggle things into Gaza.  But this tunnel is reimagined to be lined with books and the idea of the transformational power of books. 

Most of her works raise issues of people's suffering in the world.  As I understand it - though I'm not positive - many early works were holocaust related and the focus has taken in other oppressed peoples. 

I'm afraid I was overpowered by the art in the studio.  My initial interest in Gerda is that she's the only person I know of who is still alive who knew my mother when she was a young girl in Germany.  We talked about that a little bit, but the art was too strong to resist. 

AIFF2022: Dealing With Dad and Bering Family Reunion

 Watching movies from noon until 8pm leaves me a little spacey.  The wifi was working today in the auditorium at the museum, but there just wasn't much time between events.  There were lots of short films during the day. Please excuse mistakes, it's late but I want to get this up already.

I'm finding I am mentally resurrecting an old evaluation standard for films:  

1. There are films that are technically well made 
2. There are films that have something important to say or to contribute
3. Films that do both 1 and 2 well
4. Films that do neither
5. And most films fall somewhere in the continuum of both those factors

Dealing With Dad did both 1 and 2 well.  The film is technically good enough to easily fit in on Netflix or another streaming channel.  The acting and pacing are all high quality. Yet it's much more than a slick formula film. It's a poignant story told with love and humor. 

What does it contribute? The director Tom Huang said after the film that the story is adapted from his own family experience with a domineering immigrant father who works hard so his kids can have a better life.   After Dad gets laid off and goes into a deep depression, the two older kids fly home to try to deal with this only to find that Mom and the 30 year old younger brother still living at home find life much easier now that Dad just stays in bed all day watching television.  The family reunion reveals old tensions among the siblings.  The younger brothers accuse the older sister of being a lot like Dad.  The younger brother has a long time crush on a high school friend who just returned from the Peace Corps, but is afraid to ask her out until the older sister older sisters him into asking her out. (That was the one part that didn't ring true to me - she had been in three or four different countries.  And while a volunteer can sign up for a second tour of duty after completing one, it's not common, and the way it was described in the film, she seemed to move around from country to country as part of her assignment.) The mother has already set up the middle son, who's having marital problems, with a date.  While there are dynamics that may be more common in a Chinese American family, the story is really a universal one.  It moved along quickly moving from heavy drama to humor and back seamlessly.  The humor wasn't added on, it was just part of the relationship.  Often it was funny to the audience, but often not to the characters themselves.  I think it was easier to watch than The Last Birds of Passage, but Birds, probably had a much weightier story to tell.  

The other full length film was the documentary Bering, Family Reunion.  Bering followed Etta Tall, an Inupiaq woman from Little Diomede as she searched for her relatives from Big Diomede.  These are two islands a few miles apart, Little D in Alaska and Big D in Russia.  Before WWII people from the two islands visited each other frequently and there were many family relations across the two islands.  The Soviet Union, at the beginning of WW II removed the islanders to the mainland and maid Bid D into a military base.  When Gorbachev and Reagan opened the border between Alaska and the Soviet Union, some of the first to travel across the border were Inupiats going to visit their relatives they hadn't seen in many years.  We see how the plans were made, how a family company that arranges arctic travel got asked to look for relatives when in Russia, and slowly how the reunion eventually comes to be.  This film involves families who were cut off from each other by war and geopolitics.  It considers culture, language, and people's undying compulsion to find their families.  A little slow at points, the film nevertheless has very high significance, documenting this story, a story that has been repeated around the world as national governments ignore indigenous and minority people's needs.  

The first question in my mind was "How did a Mexican film maker come to make this story?"  It just seemed odd.  And it was the first question asked of the woman who'd carried a list of names to Russia with her when she went to the Russian far-east, who answered questions after the film. She was a friend of the film director Lourdes Grobet (who passed away in July 2022) who wanted to make this film.  You can learn more about her at the Festival Internacional de Cine de Morelia site where the film was show in October.

There were lots of shorts.  Some were well made.  Some told important stories. Some did both.  Some left me scratching my head.  I'll note a few that I reacted to most.

Queen Moorea had to be the most compelling, and one of the longest.  It told the story of a high school homecoming queen who was born with a genetic condition that made her different.  It wasn't clear to me exactly what her disability was (it was mentioned briefly I didn't catch it.)  The film was another with the theme of people who don't fit in.  Another audience member after the film said that people tend to categorize people with disabilities by the disability and that often keeps them from reaching their full potential.  This film portrayed Moorea was living up to her potential.  

Never Again Para Nadia - shows how the Jewish community in a Rhode Island prison town team up with the local Latino community to protest against immigrants being housed in a local prison.  To be clear, they are protesting that the prison is nearby, but that immigrants are being put into this private prisons for the financial gain of the prison owners and their shareholders.  The film documents the protest, a car driving through some protestors whose driver eventually gets acquitted.  It's an important record as far as it goes, but more statistics on the private prison and its profits and the numbers of immigrants housed in the prison.  

I liked Sunday With Monica - an interesting short story of a movie that left this viewer wanting to know more about.  I'm guessing this could be an early version of a future feature film.  The divorced father picks up his daughters from his ultra-orthodox Jewish ex-wife and takes them to meet his non-Jewish girlfriend who has horses and a riding rink.  One daughter is drawn to the horses and the other is thinking how Mom wouldn't approve.  

Gina is a brief portrait of a homeless woman in LA. We get to know this woman a little beyond what we might imagine of her if we just saw her on the street.  The Pastor who befriended Gina while handing out food to the homeless and eventually is impressed with Gina again reminds us not to judge people through our stereotypes, but to get to know them as people.  

Rain was a beautiful chocolate of a film - lots of beautiful animated images of rain and a little girl who plows through the puddles.  

And then there was Snowflakes another light animated film made for the Make A Wish Foundation, about a little girl with cancer just admitted into the hospital.  Another girl invites her to play but she's not in the mood, but does eventually get enticed.  It was all pretty innocuous, but I couldn't help being struck by the perfect faces - pretty lips, big eyes, and what appeared to me as lots of make-up. Someone connected to the film was there and answered questions.  My wife discouraged me from asking whether these perfect, make-upped images of very young little girls didn't perhaps send the wrong message.  So I didn't.  But someone else asked less directly about how the images of the little girls came about and we were told the animator determined that.  To be clear, their heads were shaved, but they were still model quality.  

Cancelled Wiz Leads To Seattle's Pacific Science Center

 The Wiz was not high on my todo list.  It wasn't even on my todo list.  But when invited to accompany my daughter and granddaughter to see the Wiz, I, of course, said yes!

The ferry into Seattle was jammed with Seahawks fans.

We made our way to the Art Museum restaurant for lunch and while eating my daughter got a voice mail saying that the afternoon performance of The wiz wasn't.  An hour before the show we learn it was cancelled? That's even more bewildering because looking on line today I find this at the 5th Avenue Theater site:

"Masks will be encouraged but optional for audience members at The 5th for performances of The Wiz. We strongly recommend and encourage the wearing of highly effective masks such as N95, KN95, or KF94.  Please CLICK HERE for further details.

Please note, the performances of The Wiz on November 19, 20 and 27 matinee have been canceled."   

If the matinee was cancelled last weekend, why didn't they notify us sooner?  (I suggested to my daughter that they hadn't sold enough tickets and she responded that they'd been sold out.)

Oh well.  Flexibility.   

The Pacific Science Center at the site of the 1962 Seattle World's Fair was my granddaughter's immediate alternative destination.  That meant a short rail ride to the monorail, then the monorail to the Space Needle.  

A walk over to the Science Center and to the laser show.  

I was underwhelmed.  I  expected a laser show in 2022 to be more than lots of moving squiggles and primitive cartoons backed with lame electronic music.  (Note:  I like good electronic music.)

A bathroom break.  This was probably the best surprise of the Science Center.  Most surfaces had great sciencish cartoons.  Though this one leaves a sexist conclusion that lacks some key context.  Did they have this same example in the women's room?  (I think you can click on this to enlarge and focus it, but I won't know until it's actually up.)

Then we engaged in various science activities while waiting for a 4pm planetarium show.  Some time in my favorite spot - the butterfly garden.  

Parts do look like they were built 60 years ago for the World's Fair.  

A four o'clock planetarium show was going to get us to a late ferry back to Bainbridge. And we found out that planetarium had an open house, so to speak, where people could drop in and ask questions.  So we got to visit various planets and moons.  It's been a while since I've considered how amazing and humbling the universe is.  All those stars and planets out there that we only have a tiny inkling about.  

From there, we wandered over to the Space Needle.  It seems the women decided that this was a good opportunity for my  granddaughter to go to the top of the Space Needle since both her parents have separate reasons for not taking an elevator 60 stories up in order to look 60 stories down and Grandpa was a perfect escort.  

It's been 60 years since I went to the top of the Space Shuttle, when three friends and I drove up to the World's Fair in 1962 in a '32 Model A Ford.  My memory of being up there is rather hazy.  

But I remember yesterday pretty clearly still.  There are three public floors.  In the top one you can wander around inside with glass walls, drinks, snacks, photo opportunities, or wander around semi-outside, with large glass walls and benches.  The picture above was from that level.  

I'd point out that if you find the green ferris wheel you can see one of the ferries to Bainbridge and Bremerton right behind it.

Here's another view of that outside top area of the Space Needle.

Then there is a middle level that didn't seem to have windows, but did have bathrooms.  

Finally, the lower level also had windows all around.  And it had a ring of floor, sort of like a ring around Saturn, that was glass and slowly rotated.  That took some instinct erasing to step on.

Then back on the monorail to the light rail and a walk back to the ferry where we encountered the Seahawks fans once again.  You couldn't tell their team had lost.  They were loud and chanting - one person shouting "Sea" and the crowd answering "Hawks."  There also seemed to be some testosterone at work.  Though a women managed to push one of the excited ones back until a security officer took him off somewhere. 

And finally, as the ferry left the terminal in downtown Seattle, we could look back up to the Space Needle - that tall tower just left of the center.  

A long and busy day with two of my favorite people.  

The Woman In Gold Has Special Meaning For Me

Bear with me as I wander a bit.  In the end I will recommend you watch Woman in Gold on Netflix.  

My mother used to send me clippings about a woman, Maria Altman,  in LA who was suing the Austrian government to win back paintings by Gustav Klimt, stolen by the Nazis from her family, with the main attention on the portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer, who was the beloved aunt of Maria Altman.

It turned out that Maria Altman was someone my mother knew.  My mom would shop at her small dress shop.  They became acquaintances, if not friends, because they had both fled the Nazis as young women and they both worked most of their lives. Sometimes my mom just related things Maria Altman told her about the progress (or lack of progress) in the proceedings to get back the paintings the Nazis stole from her wealthy family's Vienna house.  The problem was, the main painting was valued at an estimated $100 million and was considered the prize painting by an Austrian artist in the eyes of the Austrian government.

One of the ironies of the story is that this great Austrian painting so valued by the Austrians, is of a Jewish woman.  But her name was removed and the painting was called  Woman in Gold.

Because I'd been hearing about the lawsuit, when the movie was released in 2015, we immediately went to see it in Anchorage.  At that time, we were flying monthly to visit my mom who was then 93 and pretty much bedridden.  I really wanted her to see the film, but taking her to a theater would have been a real production.  

I'd been hearing about how good Netflix was and googled "Netflix, Woman in Gold" and got a page which suggested we could watch it there.  So that was when I signed up for Netflix.  But then when I searched for Woman in Gold, they didn't actually have it.  My initial experience with Netflix wasn't a good one.

However, there are other modern German language films which my mother and I did enjoy watching together on Netflix.  She died that July never having gotten to see this major film about someone who knew and whose story she had followed for years.  

I'd note another connection in the film.  The attorney Maria Altman engaged for this battle was  the grandson of Arnold Schoenberg the giant of 20th Century classical music..  Arnold Schoenberg had been a guest in Altman's family home in Vienna before he too fled to the United States and California.  My mother also knew this family, though she ever met Arnold.  My understanding is that they were either relatives or close friends of Melanie Swinburg who had been a stage actress in Vienna.  I knew her well because she became the baby nurse of my younger brother and remained a close family friend until her death.  Her crypt is with my family's in LA, next to my brother's, who died in an accident at the age of 23.  

So this film has lots of family connections as well as parallel family experiences, though Altman's family was fabulously wealthy in Vienna and my mother's father owned a modest men's clothing store in Dortmund, Germany.  

So when I saw that Woman in Gold was finally playing on Netflix this week, we watched it.  It was a very emotional experience for me for all the reasons mentioned above.  Plus Helen Mirren who plays Maria Altman looks and sounds like lots of women I knew growing up. And I'm a sucker for stories of great injustice being righted.  And, of course, I was sad again that my mother couldn't watch this film with us.  

One final example of how the film spoke to me - a more tangible one.  As a child, my parents would read to me, and translate from,  Struwwelpeter, a book with tales of very 'bōse' (something between naughty, wicked, and evil) little boys.  

The cover story is one I remember well - the boy who never cut his hair or fingernails.  The consequences for these behaviors was grim and perhaps tells us something about the German psyche.  For instance, the boy who sucks his thumb and is forbidden to suck it again, of course sucks it as soon as he is alone.  And it gets cut off with giant shears and blood dripping.  

I had a strange affection for this book.  If the intent was to scare little children into obeying their parents, it didn't work on me.  

At one point in the movie, when Mrs. Altman, at her  small home,  is trying to persuade Randy Schoenberg to take her case, he sees a copy of Struwwelpeter and picks it and tells her that he too was read the stories as a child.  

I'd brought the family copy of the book back from my mom's house last time we were there.

So, I'd recommend folks watch Woman In Gold if they have Netflix.  (Or if they find it elsewhere.)  

The scenes of the Nazis publicly  humiliating and beating Jews, breaking into their houses and stealing all their valuables, is a reminder  of what could happen here if Republicans don't let go of their obeisance to Trump and his calls for attacking those they disagree with. And if voters don't come out in droves to overcome the GOP gerrymandering and voter suppression.  The mob that broke into the Capitol and tried to overthrow the election doesn't look that different from the Austrian citizens we see.  Well, actually the Austrians look rather reserved in comparison.  

Great Anchorage Student Art At Museum

 This was the 50th year of the Anchorage Student Art Exhibit in the Anchorage Museum.  These exhibits are always a delight.  So much talent and originality.  I snapped pictures here and there that called out to me - but there was so much more than this.  Enjoy.  Go see these and more in person at the museum.   These are in no particular order.  They are higher resolution than normal so you should be able to click on them to enlarge.  

Anna McIllece "Peggy"  Grade 12

Anna Skaggs "Jeffery Heath" Grade 8

Brooke Harkleroad Grade 10  (Photo)

Collin Keith "Camouflaged" Grade 6

Jennie Becker  "Dog Collage"  Grade 8

Madison Griffin "Dragon" Grade 12

Majo Hernandez Zamora "Grasshopper"  Grade 4

Samantha Farren  (Acrylic) Grade 10

Sophia Fenoseff  "My Most Important People"
Grade 10

Claire O'Leary "Skyscraper with a Can" Grade 11

Gabriella Garcia "Sad Bubbles"  Grade 11

Gracelynn McCotter "Soul Seeker"  Grade 6

Kiana Reed "Girl at Midnight" Grade 6

Lauren Gaskill  "Wallflowers" (ceramic) Grade 11

Melody Lankford "Self Portrait"  (oil) Grade 10

Mercedi Lee "Nature's Rain" Grade 10

Michelle Harris "The Honey Gears" Grade 12

Naly Yang "Shiny" (oil pastel) Grade 12

Noelle Larsen "Covid" Grade 6

Sawyer Brock  "Dragon" (Collage) Grade 4

Sophia James "Wonderland Bus"  Grade 7

Thanks to all the students who shared their imaginations with everyone and to the Museum for giving them a place to do it.  If anyone does NOT want their picture up, email me (address upper right column).