Quality Or Quantity

Quality Or Quantity

March 3, 2016

Respect the masterpiece. It is true reverence to man. There is no quality so great, none so much needed now. —Frank Lloyd Wright

How many masterpieces should one have? Quality that is so high cannot be so frequently repeated.

There are 16 images to the set from which these pictures are taken. I had difficulty choosing two. While the whole set is creative, the quality isn’t there and I know why: I rushed. These images come from a point in 2010 when I was doing nothing but shooting during the week, saving all the editing until Saturday, and publishing everything on Sunday morning. Looking back, the whole schedule was a bit insane. I would hit Saturday afternoon having anywhere from six to twelve sets of pictures waiting to be processed and struggling to find both the creativity and the time to get them done. I was pounding energy drinks and coffee and making poor judgement calls in the interest of time.

If we are going to improve the state of creativity, we have to simultaneously improve the quality of what we produce. One of the mistakes we made when everything first started going digital was assuming that we could now mass-produce art of any medium. Because the production seemed easier and appeared to take less time, we mistakenly assumed that meant we could and should produce more. For photographers, that meant shooting 200-300 frames per set and then processing up to 100 of those. I remember looking at the back of a camera and thinking, “Wow, that’s not going to need any processing at all. This is great!” In hindsight, the level of our stupidity seems obvious. Unfortunately, we are still paying for those errors. Too many clients think we can turn out new material overnight, if not sooner, and do so in large volume. Doing so, however, means sacrificing quality.

More is not better. A certain rapper released a new, heavily anticipated album online last month. He allowed the album to be sold for 24 hours, then took it down. Now, he’s saying he has another new album coming out. What does that say about the quality and content of either album? Granted, I’m a bit biased in that I’m not a fan of this particular artist, which is why I’m not using his name, but I don’t know any artists who could turn around two new albums in less than a year, let alone two weeks. Quality inevitably suffers.

Fashion is making a similar mistake, constantly churning out new, cheap, inexpensive clothing so that stores can, in theory, completely turn over their inventory in eight weeks. This is the disease known as fast fashion and it has done a very good job of killing off mid-level retailers, undercutting their prices with cheaply made material. Quality is non-existent with these brands and, ultimately, one ends up spending more on their clothes than if they had purchased high-quality luxury brands once.

Are we killing off the masterpiece? Not everything an artist does, even the most creative of artist, is a masterpiece. To count as a masterpiece, a work has to achieve not only in terms of creativity but in matters of quality as well. Imagine what would have happened had Frank Lloyd Wright built houses that fell down; it wouldn’t matter how many of them were built nor how incredibly creative they were, without quality they would be worthless. The same holds true for every genre and every medium. We do better to take our time, be diligent, and perfect the one rather than trying to take the Wal-Mart approach of profiting from volume.

By over-creating works of poor quality, we reduce the overall value of all our work. When the world is flooded with readily available photography from every possible source, then it stops valuing photography. When YouTube can deliver chains of “experts” on every conceivable topic, we stop valuing experts. When iTunes makes it possible for anyone to release a new album, we stop valuing new music. When it comes to matters of artistic content, the volume approach simply does not work.

Our culture needs a creative revolution to be sure, but we must be careful that in doing so we do not overpopulate the earth with that which is too hastily produced and manufactured in such volume that we sacrifice quality. Creativity and quality must go hand in hand. Anything less is just landfill fodder.

Art / Fashion / Music / Photography / PotD

Creative Risks And Sacrifices

March 2, 2016

To raise new questions, new possibilities, to regard old problems from a new angle, requires creative imagination and marks real advance in science. —Albert Einstein

charles i.letbetter - creative risks and sacrifice

Being genuinely creative means upping our risk factor and being willing to sacrifice our standing in the status quo

Once upon a time, I was very open to taking risks while out shooting. I’ve stood on the most narrow of ledges. I’ve allowed myself to be dangled from the tops of high walls and cliffs. I’ve shot in situations where the threads of a safety harness were all that stood between me and certain death. Each of those shoots was thrilling and exhilarating at levels that are difficult to describe. The adrenaline rush one gets from such an experience is almost more exciting than the photograph itself.

Those days, unfortunately, are gone. Taking physical risks takes a toll on one’s body and mine has decided that it no longer wants to participate in that game. If I want thrill and excitement, I’m going to have to find it elsewhere. My risks are going to have to be more creative if I’m going to take them.

Creative risk taking may seem rather benign. After all, mixing disparate media is hardly life-threatening and misusing Photoshop tools to create a different effect is not likely to land one in the hospital unless one gets so excited by the outcome that they spill hot coffee onto bare skin. Yet, to generate the real, new, view-altering creativity that our culture needs to get it kicked off high center, artists of every genre need to take on a level of risk that is going to be uncomfortable.

Being creative, in of itself, is not especially difficult, but rather a matter of changing how one chooses to view their art. There is a quote from the late Steve Jobs that I think fits this situation quite well:

Creativity is just connecting things. When you ask creative people how they did something, they feel a little guilty because they didn’t really do it, they just saw something. It seemed obvious to them after a while. That’s because they were able to connect experiences they’ve had and synthesize new things.

People who are creative, regardless of medium or genre, are naturally inclined to see things differently, to put together pieces that no one had put together before. We see it perhaps most often in fashion where, just in the past two days, two different designers have put dresses on the outside of other garments. One worked better than the other, but the fact remains that both saw something put together in a way that no one had attempted before, and both were willing to take the risk of putting those looks on the runway.

What is it we’re risking? More than anything, creative people have to be willing to put their reputation on the line. When we do something different, something unexpected, there is always a very high chance that no one else is going to like it. For that matter, we may not like it ourselves once we’ve had a few days to sleep with our work. The risk has grown in this digital culture when we are pushed to put something new and different online several times a day. If one wants to be an Instagram star, one has to actually put material on Instagram. What happens when you put something out there you later regret?

When one is creating something in which one believes, though, it is worth potentially sacrificing one’s reputation in one area in order to build it in another. Consider that 40 years ago the whole of my reputation was in music. After several years of struggling, trying to go back and forth, I finally had to make the difficult decision that if I was going to be committed to photography that I needed to sacrifice what I was doing in music; not that I’ve abandoned music entirely, but I had to let go of my reputation there so that I could more firmly establish one where I am known as a photographer.

Any risk we take, anything we sacrifice for the sake of creativity, is likely a temporary matter. In many cases, a respected artist can creatively shift their work and any hit to their reputation be temporary. For example. Steven Tyler’s latest album is full of country music, not rock. He’s taking a substantial risk both creatively and may yet end up sacrificing a bit of his reputation if the album doesn’t sell well. His risks are mitigated, though, by the depth of his experience and the presence of a fan base that pretty much doesn’t care what he does. Not every artist enjoys having that kind of creative capital to throw around.

The older we get, the more risk-averse we naturally are. We have struggled for what we have and the thought of possibly losing it doesn’t set well because we know we may not have the luxury of time to rebuild what we might potentially lose. Yet, if we are to continue to be creative, if we are going to genuinely do something that makes a lasting difference in our culture, we have to take those risks and be willing to make those sacrifices. Anything less is a creative copout.

Art / Music / Photography / PotD

Perfection Fails Creativity

March 1, 2016

Have no fear of perfection – you’ll never reach it. —Salvador Dali

By pursuing perfection, we cut ourselves off from creative options we might otherwise explore

Please pardon me for name dropping, but this story loses significance without it.

Standing next to the late Helmut Newton one day, he reached into his bag and pulled out his old 35mm camera, sans lens cap, checked his film, and started shooting. After having taken about a dozen shots, he turns the camera around and looks at the lens; it was covered in dust. The whole camera, for that matter, was somewhat less tidy than one might expect. Worn, obviously well-used, there were smudges and dirt on the body as well as the lens. Helmut sighed, took out his shirttail, and quickly rubbed it over the face of the lens.

One of his long-time assistants ran over with a different lens and said, “Here, this one’s clean.”

Helmut replied, “But this is the one I want; it’ll do.” He then proceeded to finish the set, creating wonderful images with an interesting touch of texture in the shadows.

Some have called Newton’s photography perfection, but I was there; it wasn’t. While there were things he would fuss about, especially regarding composition relative to light, there were plenty of other issues he let slide. He was always more concerned with the creative aspect than he was perfection.

By contrast, anyone who has worked around photographers in general, especially younger photographers, has met that one who is never quite satisfied. They’ll mess with lights for hours, fuss over the slightest wrinkle in a backdrop, scream about whether there is enough white showing in a model’s eyes, and complain that everything on the set is not perfect. They produce technically accurate photos, but their images lack any passion or creativity.

I’m not saying one shouldn’t strive for a certain amount of excellence in their work. By all means, whether one is taking a picture or writing a song or painting a landscape there is a given standard of excellence below which a work is not considered viable. To be so consumed with the ultimate perfection in one’s work, though, achieves only technical excellence and results in work that is ultimately boring.

Perfection is not just a creative problem, but a psychological issue. A 2008 article in Psychology Today states that, “… perfectionism is a crime against humanity.” Our society requires flexibility, adaptation, and accepting ambiguity if we are to survive. Being a perfectionist makes one a slave in addition to creative a level of psychological stress. Perfectionists equate mistakes with complete failure and who can stand up to that kind of pressure?

Diana C. Pitaru, M.S., L.P.C. has written a three-part article on the perils of perfection wherein she states:

At the core, perfectionism is about fears of failure and rejection and trying to keep ourselves protected. Perfectionism is a defense that tricks us into believing that it protects us. If we perceive the possibility of an attack, we get back into our shell to protect ourselves. When we engage in this never ending cycle, we self-sabotage and set ourselves for failure.

Creativity defies perfection. Being creative means taking risks, breaking rules, stretching outside one’s comfort zone and taking sometimes severe risks. Perhaps one of the biggest risks is that other people may not like your work. Again, that’s not to say that there aren’t standards, but when we’re being our most creative we are also most susceptible to criticism. We are always targets of criticism for those who just don’t “get it,” but we should never let that keep us from trying something different, something new.

I look back through my archives at various attempts to do something different. Some I absolutely abhor and shudder to think that I ever shared them publicly; they no longer meet my standards for which is acceptable. I look at others, though, and wish that I could maintain that same level of creativity in everything I do. Yet, one of the challenges of being creativity is that it is not a constant. As new ideas pass through our mind some are inevitably more viable than others. Sometimes we don’t have the resources, in other instances we don’t have the time. With such fluctuating variables, attempting to impose perfection on top of it all simply opens the door to what we perceive as failure.

I wrote yesterday how frustrated I am with the boring state of the arts and how popular culture has imploded. Our drive toward perfection has led to a sameness that is void of passion. There is a lack of experimentation and no one is ready to take risks. Too often, even when one does take risks and tries to buck “the system,” they get shut down, de-funded, or otherwise ignored.

The solution requires more than just changing our personal attitudes toward perfection but simultaneously rejecting it from the media we consume. Avoid the boring. Stay away from the movies that are just like all the other drivel you’ve seen. Avoid the music that sounds exactly like all the other drivel you hear. Don’t accept digitally driven perfection that compromises true creativity.

Perfection is the enemy because it cannot, ever, be achieved and our drive toward that unattainable goal blocks our ability to be creative. Let your creativity run free, let mistakes happen. We’ll all be happier for it.

PotD / Social Commentary

Partial Truths, Whole Lies

February 28, 2016

Political language… is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind. —George Orwell

When all we see is a sliver of the truth, do we assume that everything else is a lie?

I’ve spent the better part of two hours this morning looking through headlines and newspapers and magazine articles. Through all of it, the lyrics to Don Henley’s 1989 hit, Heart of the Matter, keep running through my mind:

The more I know, the less I understand
All the things I thought I knew, I’m learning again
I’ve been tryin’ to get down to the Heart of the Matter
But my will gets weak
And my thoughts seem to scatter
But I think it’s about forgiveness

Bonus points if you just sang that in your head as you read it.

For all the bulk of information available, I can’t help but have the feeling that I’m not getting the whole truth about anything. I know some articles, especially those shared on social media, are outright lies. Snopes helps weed out some of the most blantant attempts at deception, but their focus tends to lean toward simply outing the lies; they don’t necessarily bring us that much closer to the truth.

So, there’s a story this morning where the headline reads: Police: Virginia Officer Fataly Shot Day After Swearing In. My heart wants to break; the female officer had left the force for a few years, one would presume perhaps to start a family, and then returned. The story is tragic. Oh, but buried in the article is the fact that a “civilian,” also a woman, lost her life in the event as well. She may have been dead before police even arrived. Her name is not mentioned. The condition of the two other officers shot during the same altercation is not mentioned. A partial story, woefully incomplete. Tragedies on both counts, to be sure, but we don’t have the truth, which makes us susceptible to lies.

Anywhere there is a shadow of doubt, where there are questions not adequately answered, where the truth is not plainly evident, we are open to lies. People, and media, can tell us anything when there is an absence of known truth and even if the pieces to the story don’t fit well, there are always those inclined to believe, no matter how obvious the lie might be to those who stop and think a moment. This is why we have conspiracy theories, because in the absence of complete truth, our minds can imagine anything they want.

We can blame the Internet only in part. Granted, the fact that, once something happens, anywhere in the world, there is a rush to get information online, seems to inevitably lead to stories like the one above. When there is pressure to say something so that a media source does not appear out of the loop, even incomplete information seems to suffice. Yet, long before the Internet, there were shadows in the information we receive.

Don’t believe me? Tell me, who shot John F. Kennedy? The depths of the shadows surrounding that case cause us to question whether Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone. Sure, that is the official account, but even in Congressional testimonies there were enough lies and attempts to obsfucate the facts that we have reason to doubt official sources. Minus a sense of the truth, we make up our own: the FBI was behind it, the CIA did it, there was a monkey with a pea shooter on the grassy knowel. Anything might be the truth when we don’t know what the truth is.

Partial truths are foundational in advertising. Would you still buy a product if you know that doing so directly contributed to the deforestation of the rain forests, or that the product had blown up in 57 of 58 lab tests? The only place where “truth in advertising” really starts to have any meaning is with prescription medicines. I know everyone has seen the ad where 20 of the 30 seconds is spent telling you all the possible, horrible, death-inducing side effects. Yet, somehow, for some reason, those ads still work. If the truth that a medicine may cause “premature anal leakage” doesn’t keep us from wanting the product, why doesn’t the truth work elsewhere?

Because sometimes we would rather just believe the lies. When the truth runs in opposition to what we want, we’re willing to compromise. If we want to see a conspiracy, we’ll find one, even if it is totally fictional. A perfect example of this is the anti-GMO crowd. Guess what: GMOs are not only not killing you, they’re probably saving your life. Without GMOs, global food prices would sky rocket, making everything unaffordable, even the most basic of grains. Hunger, which is already a significant issue, would more than triple. Some foods would simply cease to exist. Yet, because we thrive on drama and enjoy believing that “they” are out to get us, millions of people choose to believe the lies about genetically modified organisms, totally ignoring the truth.

I won’t even start on how politicians contribute to and thrive upon partial truths and whole lies. No matter what I say, no matter what anyone says, we make up our minds based on emotion, not fact. We vote for the candidate that makes us feel better, not the one who might actually help the country the most. For that matter, we dont’ really have a clue what would help the country the most. All we have are partial truths and whole lies.

And conspiracy theories.

Watch, the next tme you see someone post a statement on Facebook in hopes that, by doing so, Mark Zuckerberg or Bill Gates or Warren Buffect might give them money, see how many people buy into the lie, “just in case.” We know those stupid games are not true, but yet they spread like wildfire. We don’t want to believe the whole truth. We know the billionaires are rich and have a history of charitable giving, so we’re willing to take just that tiny sliver of partial truth as a basis for believing a wholesale lie.

The more I know, the less I understand.

Editorial / Experimental

Editorial Experimentation

February 25, 2016

Photography has always been about documentary, the depiction of the instant, a moment, sometimes a place. Each project is somehow an experimentation of a specific context or a character. —Hedi Slimane

The world of editorial fashion relies on entire teams of creative professionals. Hair stylists, makeup artists, wardrobe stylists, art directors, lighting engineers, and a host of other people all do their thing before a photographer ever picks up their camera. No matter how good a photographer might be, it is the strength of the team that ultimately makes a good editorial picture. Many of the same people work to keep runways sharp and attractive during this Fashion Week season. One is less likely to see what styles are worn on the runway if the hair and makeup don’t match that intensity.

Keeping a good team together is challenging. Creative and talented people are always looking to expand their skills and broaden their horizons, something that is difficult to achieve if one feels boxed in by the team with which they work. Experimentation is key, and that means taking risks that not everyone on a team may not want to embrace. While there are myriad beauty schools always turning out new stylists and makeup artists, only a small precentage understand or even care about editorial work. When we come across one who does, we celebrate and try to help that person grow their skills.

So it is with our friend Owen Tate. Owen is a 19-year-old student at Aveda Fredricks Institute in Indianapolis. Though he won’t graduate for a few months yet, Owen has already demonstrated a willingness to engage in a higher level of experimentation and shows a particular talent for creative problem solving even when plans a, b, and c don’t necessarily work as expected. Owen pushes himself by entering various competions. A recent editorial contest gave us the opportunity to work together with a set of models who really didn’t know what was going to happen. Our time frame was short, which created its own challenges, but Owen proved himself dedicated to the task, working late into the night even after having spent 12 hours at school.

What you see below are some of the results of that editorial work. Owen worked from a concept of art coming alive, a premise where he felt the models would not arrive neatly coiffed and made up, but rather messy and disheveled from having escaped their canvas-bound prison. We found Owen’s interpretation quite creative and well developed for one still learning. There’s no telling where Owen might land once he graduates and gets a bit more experience under his belt. I feel confident that he has the ability to become one of the best in the industry.

Please join me in celebrating the editorial experimentation of Owen Tate and thank you for supporting Owen and other cosmotology students like him.

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Photography / PotD

Too Early For Intelligent Thought

February 20, 2016

The early bird gets the worm. The early worm… gets eaten.—Norman Ralph Augustine

Technology has improved a lot since this picture was taken. Early mornings, however, are still the same

Even by London standards, I am up way too early. You see, it’s not enough that we cover all the important fashion shows, I still have to keep up with my standard shooting schedule and this morning that includes doing some long exposure photography downtown. In order to pull off the look required, we need to be standing in the middle of the street by 5:00 AM. In order to be standing in the middle of the street by 5, I had to wake everyone up at 2. Being able to make coffee with my eyes still half shut is a very good thing.

Getting up early isn’t all that difficult for me on most mornings. I rather like London time, sort of. Our British friends tend to get things started around 9:00, which equates to 4:00 in Indianapolis. So, that’s typically the time I’m up and running. But we’re even beating that schedule today. As I type, Kat is doing hair and makeup on a lovely young model who is trying her best to be awake. My composition time is slow as I type a few words then have to reach for more coffee. More coffee. Always, more coffee.

Of course, you won’t be reading this until much later, will you? No, you have better sense than to be getting up this early. You’re almost certainly still lying in bed, totally oblivious to the fact that in order for your world to be ready for you at whatever time you decide to put your feet on the floor, someone else had to get up before you and prepare that Starbucks that you grab every morning, or the muffin that you eat while driving to work. You’re smart, letting someone else do the work like that.

I think of those poor chaps at the BBC who have to prepare the morning report, or the writers for Business Insider who have to not only write, but do research to be able to concatenate the most important news into a list of things I need to know before I start shooting off my big mouth. Of course, this is a Saturday, so there are no such lists. Not quite as many people are up at this unholy hour, which is why it is the perfect time for us to be taking pictures in the middle of the street.

The biggest danger in getting up so damned early is that the brain hasn’t had enough rest and recuperation time. I’m running on all of two hours sleep today. Yesterday, I splurged and had three hours. Some days I’m lucky and get a nap during the afternoon, but that won’t likely happen today as, being Saturday, there are children at home. All day. They don’t stop unless you’re throwing food at them, and even then it seems as though they just barely slow down. How can I be expected to exercise the level of intelligence of which I am capable if my brain is still half asleep?

Speaking of children, they seem to do early better than anyone. They hit the floor running the moment their little eyes pop open, especially on Saturdays when we would dearly like them to sleep a little later than 5:30. I’m convinced that they are able to get up so quickly and easily because their little brains are not yet full of enough information slowing their boot up every morning. They don’t care too much about the Chinese stock exchange, couldn’t care less what the price of oil is, and neither of the slackers are planning on voting, given they’re only 5 and 7. They care a little about the weather since that determines whether they can play outside. They care about what’s for breakfast and whether they can stream some mind-numbing drivel via Netflix. Their little brains boot up in .002 seconds because their operating system isn’t yet weighted down with garbage.

I remember my own father getting up this early, much to my mother’s frustration. He always said he enjoyed the peace and quiet and I can certainly appreciate that. The difference between he and I is that I can get up without disturbing anyone else in the house. Poppa had some difficulty with that quiet thing. Mother accused him of being too much like a bull in a china shop. By the time he finished making coffee, the rest of us had at least stirred.

If we are all very lucky, and it will take no small amount of good fortune, I will be able to share the results of today’s adventures with you. I expect you to feign appreciation if we do. After all, we’ve gone to all the trouble of getting up way too damn early in the morning; too early to be doing hair & makeup, too early to be having intelligent conversation, and too early to be taking pictures.

But here we are, the early birds. Those worms better be tasty.

Photography / PotD

I Can’t Show You That

February 17, 2016

charles i. letbetter - I can't show you taht

You have to show violence the way it is. If you don’t show it realistically, then that’s immoral and harmful. If you don’t upset people, then that’s obscenity.—Roman Polanski

charles i. letbetter - I can't show you that

The biggest problem with censorship of any kind is that it gives someone else the power to determine your morality

In a small town about 40 miles East of Indianapolis resides a woman who is convinced that everything I do is pornography. I don’t know this person at all. We’ve never met. Yet, because she doesn’t like what I do, she is of the opinion that no one else should, either, and has made lives miserable for people who disagree with her. I’ve actually not heard anything from her in a while, but I’m sure she’s still there.

Why do I care? What she’s doing doesn’t hurt me, personally. I’m okay with what I do, obviously. My friends are okay with what I do. Most importantly, the people who care about me the most, and whom I care about, consider my work quite fantastic and wonderful. Okay, so they’re a bit biased. Still, if there are people who like my work, why be bothered with those who don’t?

Because those who are like this woman enjoy imposing their morality on everyone else. We’ve seen it in every issue: women’s rights, welfare, voting rights, abortion, gay rights, healthcare, and marriage rights. There are always those people who not only are sure they know better than the rest of us, they insist they should have the power to stop us.

Now would be the point at which my closest friends ask what has me on my censorship soapbox so early this morning. The answer is an article in Business Insider about a UK initiative to force websites hosting pornography to verify user’s ages. I know, it doesn’t sound like such a harmful idea at all. In fact, pornography’s most popular website, PornHub, actually supports the measure, which I found, at the very least, interesting (in reality, I think they’re hoping it will filter out some of the competition). Protect the dear children and all that bunk, right?

I have two significant problems with what the UK is proposing.

First is the matter of who gets to decide what is pornography? No one has yet created a definition that stands up to legal scrutiny, for there are always artistic exceptions that would be deemed protected means of expression. Exactly what constitutes pornography? If sites that show belly buttons is pornography, then swimwear and fitness websites are pornographers. If sites that show nipples are pornography, then practically every major fashion magazine is guilty and one would have to be 18 to view the stream of a fashion show. If sites that detail reproductive processes are pornography, then medical and healthcare sites need to be taken down.

The article also raises the fact that elements of porn can be found just about everywhere, despite user guidelines prohibiting such. Porn can be found on Twitter. So, does everyone need to verify their age when they log onto the social media site? Porn can easily be found on Tumblr. Some of the things they show there even frighten me. But if one doesn’t follow those accounts, one doesn’t see that material, do Tumblr users need to show proof of age?

Underlying all those questions is the central fact that censorship allows someone else to determine your moral code. You may not agree with their moral code, but they insist that you abide by it. This philosophy is the kind embraced by narcissists and despots alike. They insist that they are always right and you are always wrong, therefore, they must tell you what to do. They would tell you what to eat (consider the GMO vs. non-GMO debates), what clothes to wear (school uniforms, anyone?), what church or synagogue to attend (everyone’s religion is wrong except mine), and even what vehicle to drive (those using fossil fuels are bad). People in power who embrace such a philosophy would soon enslave everyone in order to enforce compliance to their way of thinking. Most all the terrorist activity we see today is the result of exactly this type of thinking.

Second, to censor sexual acts, most of which are natural, beautiful, and necessary for the species to prosper, while not censoring violence, which is not natural, not beautiful, and would bring an end to the species, is the height of hypocrisy. If one is so terribly concerned about what children are watching, then why can any child turn on Netflix and watch Kill Bill, or Pulp Fiction, or any of hundreds of grotesquely violent films. Are you really going to try and convince me, with absolutely no scientific evidence in support of your insanity, that allowing a child to watch realistic violence is less harmful than seeing a nipple like the one that gave him/her sustenance when they were infants?

I’m not going to take the time to show all the studies that detail the dangers of viewing violence in media. I just don’t have the time and you’d grow bored at the length of the list. We have known for decades that violence, not sex, is the greatest threat to children, but we refuse to do anything to stop movies, or television shows, or anything else that feels it is somehow more truthful to show violence than censor it.

I would agree that there are some things children shouldn’t see. However, the way to handle that is through responsible parenting, not censorship. Filtering software is available for every Internet-connected device made. If you have children and allow them to use such a device, the responsibility is that of their parents, and only their parents, to lock down that content, and not only control what they see at any given age, but also how much time they spend on those devices. Studies now show connections between the amount of time a child spends online and an increase in attention deficit disorders. Even the most sanguine of programming can be dangerous in high quantities. Parents, not the government, not the UN, and certainly not any other organization, should control what their child sees and to which media and messages they are exposed.

Even well-intended censorship is still an imposition of one’s moral code over another, it is an indirect attempt to control behavior, which ultimately leads to tyranny and slavery. I don’t think we really want to go down that road. At least, I don’t. You make your own choice.

PotD

Opening Old Bottles Of Wine

February 13, 2016

Age is just a number. It’s totally irrelevant unless, of course, you happen to be a bottle of wine.—Joan Collins

charles i. letbetter - opening old bottles of wine

Relationships and conversations, like an open bottle of wine, have a point at which they are of no use to anyone

I was not raised in a house that understood wine. Sure, there was an academic knowledge of how it is made but beyond that, there was a fierce denial that wine could have any positive qualities at all. Our family not only didn’t drink, but we were raised to avoid anyone who did for fear they might be a “bad influence” on us, or drag down our reputation.

Then, I had my first glass of the real thing. Sweet. Red. Low alcohol content. I discovered that I could enjoy the glass presented with my desert and, contrary to all my mother’s warnings, not instantly become a gutter-hugging drunk. A few days later, I tried a glass of merlot with a meal and fell in love. I suddenly wanted to know everything about wine. I read. I talked to sommeliers. I went to tastings. We even bought a wine rack that was shaped like a cluster of grapes.

Normally, a bottle of wine never lasted more than 24 hours once it was opened. We enjoyed the wine too much to let any dregs sit in a bottle. One day, however, I was going through the wine rack looking for a specific vintage and came across a bottle that had been opened and then returned. When it had been opened, I didn’t know. Who had opened it was a mystery. The bottle was still almost full, less than half a glass had been removed. So, I took the bottle, removed the cork, and promptly took three steps back. The wine had turned to vinegar, and not a pleasant vinegar at that. Down the sink went the remains.

I bring up that subject because this weekend is one of those times when we can be tempted to re-open the old bottles of wine in our lives. With Valentine’s Day, we can be tempted to re-open past conversations, re-visit past relationships, things that we have left behind for good reason, but still wonder if they might yet be salvaged. The answer in most cases is no, they can’t. Like wine that has been opened, those things from the past have only soured.

One of the worst mistakes I made when I was younger was to re-open conversations that had been set aside. These would be tense words where no solution had been found, where walking away and not mentioning the matter had been the best solution. Conversations involving matters of human rights, religion, or constructs of government were topics that I frequently, and incorrectly, thought I had under command. I always thought I was right. Why else would I revisit a topic if I wasn’t sure that I needed to correct a gross misunderstanding?

I can be a slow learner sometimes and didn’t realize that there are moments where being right or wrong on a topic is irrelevant. Acquaintances who were once friendly became distant and found reasons to avoid contact when they feared I might yet, again, bring up a conversation that had been uncomfortable or contentious. I was sadly oblivious to the social vinegar I was asking, forcing, others to drink.

Even worse can be when we return to past relationships. When I’m looking through old pictures, such as the two used here that are over ten years old, I often think to myself, “I wonder what they are doing now?” For better or worse, social media makes it easier than ever to answer that question. I’ll find someone on Facebook, or, far too frequently, LinkedIn will insist that I need to connect with someone I had willfully forgotten. Many times I am tempted to click that button, to make a new friend request, but I’ve learned to leave those old relationships alone and just enjoy the memories. If we have not spoken for years, there is quite likely a very good reason.

As I get older, I sometimes regret letting relationships grow sour, especially when a simple apology might have negated ill feelings in the first place. One sits and looks at that old bottle of wine wondering if it might yet be salvaged. Is it too late to apologize? If an apology is offered, will it be accepted?

Occasionally, I’ll come across an article (like this one) that claims to have a solution for “fixing” wine that has gone bad; it’s a nice dream, but I’ve not found one yet that actually works. Sure, we all like the fairy tale of lost souls finding each other again after all the years and falling in love, or becoming close friends. Sometimes the risk pays off and if that old bottle of wine represents a relationship with a family member, then perhaps taking the risk is justified.

Still, more often than not, it’s best to just not re-open those old bottles at all. Enjoy the memories of the wine when it was good. Keep the bottle as a token of a special time if you wish. But should you open that bottle, be prepared for the reality that all you’re likely to get is vinegar.

PotD / Social Commentary

Some Days Just Suck

February 12, 2016

Tonight I’ll dust myself off, tonight I’ll suck my gut in, I’ll face the night and I’ll pretend I got something to believe in.—Jon Bon Jovi

Just as every day has the potential to be great, they have to potential to suck, and it’s not always your choice

I would very much like to meet the person who came up with the concept that every day is supposed to be bright, cheery, and wonderful. I would very much like to meet this person and come upside their head with a two-by-four. Why? Every day is not good. There is not always a reason to smile. Not every bad situation has a silver lining. Everything does not work out for the best. Some days just suck and to deny that censors feelings we legitimately need, such as anger, disappointment, and grief, if we are to ever improve our world. Remember: there are no bad emotions. Even the non-happy ones have their place.

So, here it is another Friday, the end of the work week, allegedly, and you have at least two, possibly three days off if you work for someone who observes President’s Day. Maybe you have big plans, have already spent a lot of money on deposits and such, and have everything arranged perfectly. You’ve done all you can and you’ve put your best effort into the whole weekend. Then, something happens, something you cannot control. Your father-in-law has a heart attack. Your car engine inexplicably blows a gasket in the middle of an intersection. That lovely person who was supposed to join you this weekend becomes ill and can’t stop puking. One of the children falls and breaks a limb. Suddenly, this Friday stops being happy and now, immediately, sucks. Your plans are ruined, your deposits are non-refundable, and all those perfect arrangements are irrelevant. There’s no recovery.

Sure, the day may suck. What’s important at this point is that you not deny how you feel. Don’t let someone tell you to suck it up. You can’t deal with those emotions until you admit that you have them. Be disappointed, there’s nothing wrong with that. Be angry, not in the sense that you fly off the handle and hurt someone else, but step away and punch the living hell out of a pillow or something. Go outside and scream. Let it out. Deal with those negative emotions.

No matter what we do, no matter how we try to live our lives as joyfully and righteously as possible, there are going to be days that suck, and they’re going to happen when it is least convenient to put up with the sucking. Part of what makes a day suck is that it upsets what we were expecting from the day. Convenience isn’t in the cards when life suddenly turns sour. Even when you have some clue that a day is going to be difficult and you try to prepare yourself for the inevitable, it still can be worse than you ever expected.

My father died 14 years ago. We knew it was coming. If anything, we had hoped the end would come sooner because seeing him suffer through the deterioration caused by cancer was heart-wrenching. When I flew into Tulsa that morning, I knew what I was facing, that the inevitable had finally come. This was not going to be a good day. Yet, for all the mental and emotional preparation I had done, the moment he finally took his last breath, when the grip he had on my hand relaxed for the last time, when the hospice nurse looked at us and shook her head, the wave of grief that swept over me in that moment was unlike anything I had ever felt. This was more than just a bad day.

I didn’t think I would ever feel pain like that again, but I did. Six months and four days later I was called home from the office. Mother had fallen during the night and died quite unexpectedly. Not only was their grief, there was anger. I had just spoken to her the night before. What went wrong? To say that day sucked would be the most severe of understatements.

You’ve had days like that as well, maybe worse. I think of people who lose entire families in one fell swoop. People full of hope and opportunity are suddenly, for any number of reasons, paralyzed or struck with some seemingly random disease that dashes their hopes like glass on a concrete floor. A baby dies. A house catches fire. A dear pet is hit by a car. Those are all days that suck.

People are always trying to take a bad situation and make it better. Stop it. Let us deal appropriately with the bad, recognize tragedy for what it is, and then give people the space to move on in their own time, in their own way. Not every day gets to have a smile. Some days have tears, and that’s okay. Offer a tissue if you want to help, but never tell someone to not cry, to not feel whatever they’re feeling.

Some days just suck. Be a friend and accept that.

pop culture / PotD

Trolls And How To Be Them

February 9, 2016

Jesus tells us to turn the other cheek, which is an ancient way of saying ‘Don’t feed the trolls.’—Anonymous

The Internet is full of disgusting, disagreeable creatures that lurk in dark shadows and say stupid things. These are Trolls. We all flirt with them.

Somewhere, well back into the mid-1960s, my parents gave me a paperback book with a yellow cover. I still remember the event clearly. We were on our way to visit one of my aunts and, presumably, they gave me the book to keep me quiet and out of the way. The trick worked. I can only assume now that we were visiting my aunt for rather serious reasons. She was the single mother of five, her husband having abandoned her when the youngest was but a few months old. Single moms were rare back then, and the challenges she faced were significant. We visited often, and I would assume now that those visits were not necessarily social, but more to help with various issues. Therefore, keeping me quiet and out of the way was beneficial.

The short title of the book is Goops and How To Be Them by Gelett Burgess. The complete title, though, is: Goops and How To Be Them: A Manual of Manners for Polite Infants Inculcating Many Juvenile Virtues Both By Precept and Example, With Ninety Drawings. Yes, the title is almost as long as the book itself. First published in 1900, there can be an occasional challenge in how some words are defined. For example, when he uses the term “infants,” he’s referring to any child not yet in school. The book is meant to be humorous, to be sure. After all, this is the same person who gave us that poem about a purple cow. Yet, the manners he prescribes are timeless. The book starts like this:

Let me introduce a Race
Void of Beauty and of Grace,
Extraordinary Creatures
With a Paucity of Features.
Though their Forms are fashioned ill,
They have Manners stranger still;
For in Rudeness they’re Precocious,
They’re Atrocious, they’re Ferocious
Yet you’ll learn, if you are Bright
Politeness from the Impolite.
When you’ve finished with the Book,
At your Conduct take a Look;
Ask yourself, upon the Spot,
Are you Goopy or are you Not?
For, although it’s Fun to See them
It is Terrible to Be them!

The book was out of print for several years, so I was not able to give a copy to my own boys. Thankfully, a 2014 reprint is now for sale and I’m thinking of a certain seven-year-old who might well benefit from having a personal copy of this particular volume. The lessons truly are well worth the effort.

Yet, as I look back over the title now, considering where and what we are as a society so deeply embedded in digital content and social media, I wonder if Burgess, were he alive today, might re-work the title as Trolls and How To Be Them. After all, or so it would seem, Internet trolls and Goops would have a great deal in common. In fact, it may well be that the infantile Goops grow up to be the adolescent trolls and, no matter their age, never seem to grow beyond that stage of development. While their adult-sized bodies may be large and misshaped, trolls never really grow up. They never assume responsibility, they don’t take care of their own business because they’re too concerned about everyone else’s, and they never socialize with friends because even trolls don’t like being around other trolls. They’re Goops, to be sure, just in larger bodies.

I apologize for not writing this next section in verse, something at which Burgess was especially talented, but let’s consider for a moment some of the ways Goops and trolls are alike.

They are aggressive and rude. Goops pull on little girls curls, and trolls enjoy making fun of women’s features in general, body shaming every aspect bust especially focusing on faces, breasts, and hips.
Goops and trolls go out of their way to create trouble. Goops might trip someone walking or push them in the mud. Trolls hurl verbal mud at the nicest of people and then berate them for being “dirty.”
Both Goops and trolls enjoy their ignorance. Goops tear up books and pay no attention to teachers. Trolls delight in spreading rumor and innuendo without bothering to check their facts and are consistently unable to provide a reliable source to back up their comments.
Neither are respectful of authority. Goops are disobedient and don’t listen to their parents. Trolls don’t care about community standards and challenge administrators and managers charged with moderating comments. Trolls also enjoy attacking anyone in a position of authority, from the President or Prime Minister to the manager of the local burger joint.
They think only of themselves and the things that bring them pleasure. Goops are lazy, never helpful, and want everything done for them. Trolls provide no benefit and tear people down rather than build them up. Trolls never have anything positive to say.

Trolls are nasty creatures and I am constantly astonished at how they are tolerated in places they don’t belong. You may or may not have noticed that I don’t provide for commenting on any of my articles. Goops and trolls are a large part of why that feature is not present here. I struggle to understand why it is present on things such as news stories or magazine articles. Why are comments necessary at all? If one has a legitimate disagreement, then make appropriate contact through appropriate channels. Trolling comments serve no beneficial purpose at all.

Burgess created Goops as an object lesson. He featured them in a comic strip for about a year and I do desperately wish that those would make a renewed appearance. I think we might learn a lot about how we should behave. Perhaps, just maybe, they might teach us how to not be trolls.

Current Issues / PotD

Dance With Your Own Shadow

February 2, 2016

Everything that we see is a shadow cast by that which we do not see.—Martin Luther King, Jr.

Our challenge today is that we expect too much of others while expecting too little of ourselves

It is still dark as I’m writing this, but already hundreds of reporters and photographers are gathered in Pennsylvania for the weather prognostications of Punxsutawney Phil. The 130-year-old tradition, much like last night’s Iowa caucuses, has little to do with the actual outcome, but the tradition is one we can’t seem to break and, for a day, we are distracted by a myth that something might actually change. In our minds, we know both events are heavy on hype and short on substance. There’s a blizzard moving into the Northern sections of the Midwest, and powerful thunderstorms, some possibly with tornadic activity, will hit the opposite side of that system and move Eastward. Being in Pennsylvania, Phil could actually see his shadow, supposedly indicating six more weeks of winter but that won’t stop the storms from coming. We expect too much from a groundhog.

We are the same way with our politicians. None of last night’s results produced a clear winner. On the very crowded Republican side, no one achieved even a third of the overall vote. As I’m writing, most news outlets are saying the Democrat side is still too close to call, so again, no clear winner, no one standing above all the others. We know the system is broken. We know little, if anything, said on the campaign trail will ever evolve into reality. Yet, we buy into the rhetoric and hyperbole of a presidential campaign just as surely as we do the shadow of a chubby little groundhog.

I firmly believe that the measure of a person is not in the size of their stature nor the poetry of their speech but in the length of the shadow they cast. There is an overabundance of people who stand tall and talk big but whose actions fall quite short at their feet. Interestingly enough, a great number of those people are politicians. Talk is cheap on the campaign trail and it is easy to be boisterous and make promises that are popular with the electorate. What one discovers after being elected, however, is that moving a nation is as complex and slow and difficult as trying to move the Rocky Mountains from Colorado to Florida. To pin all our hopes and dreams on one personality is about as foolish as making picnic plans based on the predictions of a Pennsylvania rodent.

Change comes from those who cast a long shadow. To know who casts the longer shadow, pay attention to where they stand in relation to the light. Have you ever noticed what happens to a shadow at high noon? It’s almost non-existent. Those standing directly under the spotlight, those who seem to glow with the radiance of illumination, cast very little shadow and affect very little change. They are too concerned with keeping the light on themselves and do so by saying what pleases the ears of those listening. Those who stand at an angle from the light, those who buck the system, those who claw their way through red tape, those who spend more time doing rather than talking, those are the people who cast the long shadows, those are the people who get results.

To that end, who best to rely upon to create change, to get work done, to clean up the mess and change the system than ourselves. We are not powerless, and we certainly are not brainless (with a few questionable exceptions). There is much one can do through invention, creativity, and more often than not, good ol’ hard work. If the banking system is no longer meeting the needs of the people, let’s create a new system of money management that better addresses contemporary realities. If global corporations truly cannot be trusted to act in the best interest of their customers (and they can’t) then you have the ability to work around them, create a local cooperative if necessary to achieve the same service in a more responsible manner. If you don’t like how a coffee shop brews their coffee, do as I do: buy a french press, buy and grind your own beans, heat your own water to 150°, and make your own coffee (it really is much better this way). Dance with your own shadow.

You are the one who has the power. You have two incredibly strong weapons: your wallet and your vote. Don’t let anyone tell you that your voice doesn’t matter; people who say that are cowards who would rather complain about the system than contribute to its overhaul. You can do great things. So can the person next to you. Working together, we are invincible.

Yes, we need a strong, central government and we need strong people who can cast a long shadow running that government. Make no mistake, though, when it comes to real progress and creating genuine change, the shadow that makes the most difference is your own.

Advertising / Music / PotD

When Nipples Offend

January 30, 2016

The secret to success is to offend the greatest number of people.—George Bernard Shaw

charles i. letbetter when nipples offend

Policies suggesting that women’s nipples are offensive and men’s do not suggest God and/or evolution made a mistake

I’m rather surprised that I would have cause to visit this topic more than once in a week. Just a couple of days ago, we posted a video from the New York Times and talked about whether efforts by #FreeTheNipple and HeForShe were doing any good. While both are doing a wonderful job of raising awareness, which is a good start, the pace of change in painfully slow in the face of antiquated, hypocritical, and misogynistic moralities.

Just how heavy-handed some entities are become very apparent yesterday when Russian model Irina Shayk shared a collection of images from her recent Givenchy campaign. She appears in the ads with male model Chris Moore. Ms. Shayk is nude, Mr. Moore is topless, but their torsos are pressed together seductively so that nothing is actually showing. At least, that was the intention. Apparently, the fascists at Instagram get their jollies pulling out their magnifying glass and inspecting every little detail of a photo, because they managed to find just the hint of Irina’s nipple in the shadows and took down the photo.

Now, everyone who has half a brain is well aware that the censors at Instagram base their policies on a 13th-century morality that equates female nudity with the very devil him/herself while totally excusing men who do the same. This particular instance, however, is especially egregious as someone has to really get up close and wayyyyy to personal to even notice the hint of areola that can be found in the shadow of this photo. Here, look for yourself:

Givenchy

At this point, I fail to understand why anyone uses Instagram for anything more than photos of their cat and what was regurgitated from dinner. Sure, I have an account, but there are more pictures of cats and food there than people. I especially fail to understand why Tommy Hilfiger is putting in a separate Instagram pit at his Fall/Winter runway show and Burberry has chosen 16-year-old Brooklyn Beckham to shoot its new fragrance campaign, live on Instagram. Not only do both acts offend legitimate photographers everywhere, but they further endorse the sort of idiotic policies that Instagram uses to continue their inequality toward women!

Meanwhile, someone shoved pop artist Rita Ora in front of the lens of Terry Richardson, who has had more accusations of sexual misbehavior than Bill Cosby, but yet someone keeps letting him take pictures of naked women. Why, I fail to understand. Bill Cosby has been shamed into perpetual hiding, but not only does Richardson roam free, publishers keep hiring the creep! Exactly how this all is supposed to make sense, I don’t know. Richardson’s name alone has the power to offend, and perhaps that’s his schtick.

Of course, the photos themselves are, true to Richardson’s form, quite horrid. Again, don’t take my word for it. Look for yourself:

Pardon me while I yawn

Not surprisingly, there was pushback yesterday when these pictures became public. Some of the criticism was to be expected, given that the music industry as a whole seems to be in this rut of one artist disparaging another. However, I found it interesting that the Telegraph‘s left-leaning Rebecca Reid, who has supported nudes in the past, totally went off on Ora, calling her topless photos, “A slap in the face of women everywhere.” The points she makes, essentially claiming that Ora’s stunt objectifies women rather than celebrating and supporting them, are valid though the examples she uses are a little shaky. Rita’s appearance in the mag is only to promote her new album, not to express some greater sentiment or value.

And Terry Richardson’s bad photography just makes the whole thing trashy.

Let’s face it: our whole attitude toward nipples and breasts and body parts, in general, is skewed. We can’t have one standard for men and a totally opposite one for women. If you don’t think that approach is wrong, then you might be a degenerate misogynist in need of an attitude adjustment.

And through all this one thing seems frightfully obvious: I need to be shooting more nudes and offend more people. Apparently that’s all anyone notices any more.

Music / science

Don’t Diss The Astrophysicist

January 27, 2016

Without physics there’d be no Fashion Channel — there’d be no TV. But w/o fashion, physicists might just be naked. Not good.— Neil deGrasse Tyson

charles i. letbetter - Don't Piss Off The Astrophysicist

All music is appreciated equally in space because there is no sound in a vacuum

“Stupid is as stupid does.” My mother said that long before the movie Forrest Gump made it popular. Typically, she would say that when a particularly troublesome child was behaving exactly like its particularly troubled parents. Mother also said that it is, “difficult to teach children who are willing to believe everything without a second thought.” She encountered plenty of both over the years, like the little girl who was afraid to sit in her chair in the classroom because someone told here there were bugs in the wood waiting to eat her butt. Had the child been three or four, she would have been excused of her naiveté, but by fifth grade such nonsense, on both sides of that situation—the girl and the brat who was being mean—could hardly be tolerated.

Why science denial has been so strongly embraced the past eight years, after decades of great American achievement across all the science fields, has been disconcerting. I fail to understand why people who seem otherwise intelligent can just randomly choose to replace that which is reasonably proven through scientific process with some myth that doesn’t even hold together as it passes from one person to the next. Such willful and blind ignorance leaves me quite concerned not only for the future of our country but for the survival of our species.

I had seen noted in some obscure reference that anti-science groups such as the Flat Earth Society were enjoying a resurgence of interest along with those denying climate change, but I had always assumed that their members were limited to those who ingested a severe amount of paint chips as children. Then, over the weekend, this guy, who allegedly is a rapper and calls himself B.o.B. makes an incredible post about the earth being flat. The Internet proceeded to perform its version of a brain explosion.

Not being the world’s greatest rap fan, I had to Google B.o.B. and see who he really is. Bobby Ray Simmons, Jr. from Decatur, GA, a suburban town a few miles South of Atlanta. My first thought was, “Aww shit, I bet this is one of the dudes who tried pushing his CD on me in the parking lot outside Whiskey Peach,” but it couldn’t have been. I was here in Indy by the time someone decided ol’ Bobby knew how to rhyme. Still, I had to roll my eyes. Rappers coming out of Decatur or anywhere on the South side of ATL has become about as cliché as peaches and sweet tea, and not nearly as good. I was all set to just ignore the whole situation, assuming it would go away the next time I refreshed my browser. Such stupidity tends to have an especially short shelf life on the Internet.

But then, something rather wonderful happened. For reasons that are his own, Astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson decided to reply to B.o.B.’s tweet about the NYC skyline’s visibility over the horizon:

@bobatl Earth’s curve indeed blocks 150 (not 170) ft of Manhattan. But most buildings in midtown are waaay taller than that.

— Neil deGrasse Tyson (@neiltyson) January 25, 2016

The astrophysicist also attempts to educate the rapper on the way stars move. Bobby got offended, apparently, and one of the things I appreciate about Dr. Tyson is that he goes out of his way to make sure people understand that being bad at science doesn’t make someone a bad person. He posted to Twitter:

@bobatl Duude — to be clear: Being five centuries regressed in your reasoning doesn’t mean we all can’t still like your music

— Neil deGrasse Tyson (@neiltyson) January 25, 2016

The astrophysicist is much more magnanimous than I fear I would be in such a situation. In fact, more than a few people were ready to go to the mat for Dr. Tyson, one of those being his nephew, Steve, who is a “hip-hop MC” and DJ in Philadelphia. Steve didn’t take to kindly to Bobby dissing his uncle, so he put together some music of his own with a track called Flat to Fact. Here, go ahead and take a listen (warning, if your ears are not accustomed to the speed of contemporary rap, you may need to listen multiple times before you actually catch what ol’ Steve is layin’ down):

At least Bobby seems to have the good sense to know when to quit, as he’s gone on to other somewhat less offensive methods of hyping his new album. He seems to have dropped the subject of the earth’s shape for now.

What I think this shows, however, is that the Internet doesn’t take kindly to those who display their science ignorance in ridiculous ways and, even more important, one should never, ever diss the astrophysicist. Ever.

Fashion

Searching For New Designer Labels

January 26, 2016

charles i. letbetter - new designer labels

A designer is like a doctor for a woman. He has a specific job, and if he is doing it well, he will have the gratitude of the woman for the rest of his life.—Oleg Cassini

Big fashion houses of the past have grown boring and the fashion world is screaming for something different

While styles may change a bit from season to season, many of the great Maisons of fashion are quite old. Pringle of Scotland began selling knitwear in 1815. Jeanne Lanvin opened her shop in 1889. Thomas Burberry opened a store in Hampshire, England in 1856. Thierry Hermès first opened his leather shop in 1837. Guccio Gucci came along in 1906, Mario Prada in 1913, and, quite famously, Coco Chanel in 1910. After World War II, there was a flurry of activity in the fashion world that brought us names like Armani, Dior, and Givenchy, among many, many others. Fashion is full of rich and interesting histories and more than a few houses have catalogs that made fashion for decades. Houses may go through one designer after another, but labels stay forever.

So, here we sit in the cusp of another women’s ready-to-wear season and two of the best living designers, Raf Simons, formerly of Dior, and Alber Elbaz, most recently at Lanvin, are free agents. They both left major, storied, and old houses without any other label immediately picking them up. Despite their popularity and brilliant creativity, neither have demonstrated any urgency in signing on with anyone, and that vacuum is more than a little disconcerting.

Vanessa Friedman at the New York Times makes the claim, and a reasonable argument that fashion wants Alber Elbaz to start his own line. As delightful as that idea sounds, though, there are some serious obstacles to a designer, even one with the experience and reputation of Elbaz, starting their own label. The world is a much different place than it was even ten years ago and the entire fashion industry has seen a significant dip in revenue.

One of the reasons older fashion houses don’t go away is because they have the capital, both financially and creatively, to weather the periodic storms within the industry. As global economies change, large labels have the ability to hunker down and scale back production if necessary until the retail landscape is more friendly. Smaller, designer-owned labels rarely have that luxury and if the downturn continues we may see more labels close their doors. Already this week, Giles Deacon has announced he is closing his ready-to-wear business and focusing on couture wear, which allows him to downscale and limit his expenditures. Fashion is definitely not a business for the risk averse.

As Friedman’s article mentions, there are some investors willing to take a chance on new designer-driven fashion labels. Renzo Rosso is probably most prominent among those, with his OTB Group parenting Maison Martin Margiela, Marni, Viktor & Rolf, Diesel, Staff International, and Brave Kid in addition to him personally chairing Diesel. Rosso is said to be encouraging Elbaz to strike out on his own and one has to wonder if OTB Group might back such a venture. Fashion’s largest conglomerate, LVMH, also has a history of picking up struggling designer-owned labels. The problem with a strictly financial-based in

The problem with a strictly financial-based investment is the desire to keep a label going, even after the originating designer departs. While that approach has worked historically, we are now at a point where that attitude results in only one thing: very boring fashion. It has been well over ten years since I saw a fashion season that I felt was as full of originality and creativity as one has a right to expect from fashion. Finance-driven businesses aren’t interested in creative experimentation because one off season can send profits plummeting; they much prefer the safety of the tried and true, resulting in far too many seasons where all we see are recapitulations of the house catalog.

I’m going to make some people hate me, I’m sure, but would it really be all that horrible to start a practice of just letting houses die with their designer? I reeled in horror last season when an aging Roberto Cavalli turned the reigns of his legacy over to Peter Dundas, who absolutely massacred the collection. As much as I love Roberto Cavalli, I would much rather see the doors to the house close rather than become trashed with Dundas’ seasonal disappointment trying to fit his creativity into someone else’s vision. Dundas, too, deserves a chance at his own label, not trying to fit into Cavalli.

We were all shocked when Alexander McQueen committed suicide in 2010, and that act demonstrates just how impossible stressful it is to be a designer. I can understand, given the suddenness of his death, why it was necessary to allow Sarah Burton to continue his work. But should she decide to leave the house, and perhaps go to Dior as was rumored this morning, what would be wrong in allowing McQueen to close? Why not honor him as the creative genius he was, rather than risking having that reputation besmirched by a designer who just doesn’t fit with McQueen’s vision?

At the same time, we need to propel younger designers such as Public School’s Maxwell Osborne and Dao-Yi Chow. Why should they have to pull double-duty trying to shore up a dying DKNY brand? Why not just put that investment directly into Public School and let DKNY rest in peace? No one is going to bring back khaki jumpers any time soon (I hope).

Fashion is gasping and desperately needs some fresh air. That creative spark is not likely to come from within the creative shackles of a century-old fashion house. We need new designer labels to bring the freshness back into fashion. Elbaz, Simmons, or whomever else is fine with me. Just please, for the love of style, stop re-hashing old catalogs!

PotD

The Virtue of Silence

January 26, 2016

charles i. letbetter - virtue of silence

I have learned silence from the talkative, toleration from the intolerant, and kindness from the unkind; yet, strange, I am ungrateful to those teachers.—Khalil Gibran

In silence we hear the whispers of wisdom

Among the list of people whom I can no longer find, and may well be deceased, is an associate professor of music by the name of Robert Woods. Dr. Woods was a rather unassuming individual from my student perspective, but in January of 1982, while teaching a course in electronic music, he taught us a very valuable lesson about the importance of silence. His assignment sounded simple enough: find a place with absolute silence, and see how long you can stand it. Being cocky college students, we laughed. It was J-term and the campus was more than half empty. Finding a quiet spot would be easy.

But Dr. Woods didn’t say find a quiet spot. His instructions were to find a place absolutely void of sound and when class convened the next day we shared our stories of just how difficult it had been to complete the assignment. So difficult, in fact, that I was the only one who had actually found a place of complete silence: the morgue.

I worked part time in a funeral home. After everyone else had left for the evening, I went into the empty embalming room, which was totally sealed, and shut the door. The experience might have been eery had I not been accustomed to being in the room. There was nothing in there that would make a sound without human intervention, or so I thought. As I settled in on a stool, I soon realized that the fluorescent bulbs were humming. One wouldn’t have noticed under normal conditions, but when all other distractions were removed, there it was: a low but distinct hum. There was only one thing to do: turn off the lights.

Yes, sitting along in a sealed embalming room in the dark is eery. Worse than the dark, though, was the complete silence. Not a sound. I not only could hear my own breathing, but my heart beat sounded louder the longer I sat there. I’d shift my weight on the stool and the shuffle of my slacks against the metal was loud. I cracked my knuckles and it sounded like fireworks. With its ceramic tile floor and walls, the acoustics of the room amplified any sound, but the only sound was that of me, being alive. I stayed for what felt like an eternity then felt my way along the wall back to the door. I had been in the room a mere four minutes.

Dr. Woods’ point had been that silence is a necessary part of music and he wanted us to experience silence so we would appreciate the presence of rests amidst a flurry of sound. Music, he explained, finds its life not in the cacophony of notes and sounds as we might layer them together, but in those brief moments of silence, the rests, especially when unexpected, that allow us to catch our breath.

I can’t say I learned a great deal from the remainder of that class. Electronic music was still finding its roots and our resources, which had been borrowed, were painfully limited. Dr. Woods soon left for a teaching position at a university that appreciated his forward thinking and we went on to do other things that had no relationship to our degrees. What stuck, though, was that very important lesson in the virtue of silence.

Life since that moment in 1982 has only gotten increasingly louder. The reason I get up at 4:00 AM every morning to write these articles is because, in relative silence I can think, put words in order, consider what phrasing best communicates an idea, and pull together stories that are, hopefully, worth reading. Outside this morning, the wind is literally howling and the heater is struggling to keep our house warm, but in the absence of children laughing, music playing, or the whole world trying to talk at the same time, there is a peacefulness that gives life amidst the cacophony.

One of the reasons I so dislike presidential election years is the amount of overwhelming noise they generate. Every candidate, especially at this point of the approaching primaries, is shouting as loud as they can, trying to shove their message through the eye of the needle that is our attention span. Add to that all the sports, not just the impending Super Bowl, but all the cricket and the soccer and the basketball going on around the world. There are ads, and movies, and trailers, and … I think someone has a field trip today but I don’t remember which child. Then, there’s laundry and dishes and I suppose I should plan something for dinner because people do need to eat every once in a while. Pictures to schedule and take and edit. Conversations about books and an upcoming deadline and no I’ve not even started that outline. Did I remember to order underwear? I hope so, because I don’t have time to go out and buy more. Rumors that Sarah Burton is leaving Alexander McQueen and going to Dior, are they true? Men’s fashion in Paris, then couture, then, SHOWTIME, a month of ready-to-wear. And …

So. Much. Noise.

Learning the virtuosity of silence doesn’t happen by accident. Too many people ignore the rest signs. We need those quiet places; in our lives, in our thoughts, in our schedules, in our creativity. We need space to take a breath so that we don’t choke on our own lifelong diatribes.

May you find that moment, if not now, soon, where you can experience the virtue of silence. May you find Peace. And thank you, Dr. Woods, wherever you are.

Art / PotD

A Clean Start To The Day

January 20, 2016

I love the big fresh starts, the clean slates like birthdays and new years, but I also really like the idea that we can get up every morning and start over.—Kristin Armstrong

Just as we might start the day with a clean body, our minds and our agendas could use a good scrubbing as well

I like a nice, hot shower first thing in the morning. There is something wonderful about having a few minutes while the coffee is brewing to wash away all the cobwebs, clear my head from whatever nonsense was left by bad dreams, think through the day’s schedule, and set a proper attitude for getting things done. Unfortunately, that’s not typically the way my day starts.

Most mornings, I stumble into the living room in the dark, trying not to wake anyone else while simultaneously doing my best to not step on one of the three cats at my feet. I look at any headlines from overnight, check email and web stats, then start coffee. Coffee takes 20 minutes, but since we do french press it’s not something you can just leave and come back when it’s done. You have to watch the water to make sure it doesn’t boil; 140 degrees is perfect. The beans have to be ground. The press has to be emptied and cleaned. Cups have to be prepared. Twenty minutes later, I can sit down and start working.

Kat will have joined me by this point, which is lovely. She’s not a morning person, but the Marine Corp conditioned her well. She sits with her coffee, looking through Facebook and other correspondence. She shares when she thinks it appropriate, but is careful to not disturb when I’m writing, or especially when I’m not writing because the words just aren’t coming.

We won’t have been up long before one of the children will poke a head out. “Mommy, can I get dressed?” I’m waiting. One of these days I’m sure Kat is going to slip and say, “No! No clothes for you! We’re sending you to school naked.” I’m going to laugh when that happens because the children are still young enough to believe the majority of what Mom tells them. That interaction is my cue to hurry and get to a stopping place because once there are children in the room there’s no peace and quiet until they’re on the bus.

With all that commotion and routine, I rarely get my shower until after Kat leaves. I still enjoy the shower no matter when I get it, but the day doesn’t feel as clean as it does when the shower comes first. Sure, that’s totally a mental wall, but there’s no getting past it. If I want the day to really start clean, I have to put a shower at the very front.

Starting the day clean with a physical shower is one thing, but we have a need to start clean in other ways as well. With all the information overload we get, our minds and our thought patterns too quickly become cluttered with details and news and trivia we just don’t need. Sure, all those cat memes are cute, but they can get in our way. The more clutter, the more time we waste, the less productive we are, and ultimately, the less fulfilled and satisfied we feel.

How one choses to clean their mind of leftover clutter is a highly personal thing. Yoga and meditation is a preference for several friends. Friends more aligned with traditional religions spend time praying. I even know some people who rely on morning sex to get their mind clean and ready for the day.

For me, it’s music. Exactly what changes from day to day. Mozart happens frequently, but then so does my blues playlist. If everything has me a bit down, then old-school gospel does the trick. If I’m pissed at the world, classic rock at full volume is just the cleansing tonic I need. There’s been a lot of classic rock lately.

Everyone’s pattern, routine, and methodology is going to be unique. There is no one-size-fits-all solution for getting your day scrubbed and clean. I know plenty of people for whom clean is a literal thing and everything around them must be spotless. I’m not one of those people. I like my clutter organized, mind you, and I get anxious if the stacks start getting too tall. Still others can step over mounds of trash in the floor and not be bothered. I don’t understand either extreme, but I don’t need to understand anything beyond what works for me.

What’s important is recognizing that starting our day clean isn’t just a soap and water thing. Our minds and our spirits must be just as refreshed and rejuvinated as our bodies. If we overlook this simple matter, we eventually become overshelmed, depressed, and disturbed. We become ineffective, destructive, and unproductive. I firmly believe that much of our attitude toward other people come from the amount of garbage we hold from day to day. The nonsense and the clutter alters our perspective of people and situations, leading us down paths of thought we might not touch if we were thinking with clearer heads.

So, take some time, my dear friends, and clean up. Maybe take a shower. Go for a run. Have a quiet cup of coffee. Whatever works for you, do it now. Don’t let the day continue with yesterday’s grime. You deserve better. Start the day clean and enjoy it.

Current Issues / Published

Google Me, If You Dare

January 17, 2016

Why bother with Google when I have a wife who knows everything about everything!—Akshay Kumar

We don’t control the information visible when someone searches for our name

I don’t pay a whole lot of attention to the nonsense surrounding presidential politics because I’ve already decided for whom I will vote and, beyond that, the rest is little more than a poorly-put-together entertainment spectacle. No one could write television as bad as the debates and keep their job. Yet, those debates keep happening and the amount of bovine excrement from them continues to mount.

There was one brief moment of hilarity this past week, though, when a certain former senator from Pennsylvania suggested that people, “Google me.” I’m not going to mention the candidate by name, because I want nothing to do with furthering his infamy. However, those who have watched the former senator’s nonsense for a while immediately burst out laughing, then picked up their smartphones and started tweeting. Google him? Unfortunately, we already had.

The candidate, you see, has a Google problem. He made some enemies back in 2003 due to an anti-gay statement he made. Since then, those offended by the statement have made sure the former senator’s name is associated with, “The frothy mixture of lube and fecal matter that is sometimes the byproduct of anal sex.” Multiple websites were purchased containing the candidate’s last name and before long the entire Internet associated that name with this definition. The former senator, or more likely his staff, has gone to great lengths to make sure that searches on his full name bring up the more desirable response of his campaign website. However, if one looks only for his last name, the results are not suitable for viewing with children in the room. Google is clearly not this candidate’s friend.

While, in this case, the punishment would seem appropriate to the crime, it’s not so funny when the rest of us do a search on our name, or worse—your parents do a search on your name, and the results come back less than flattering. This happens often and frequently there is absolutely nothing you can do to prevent those results from coming up time and time again.

Without getting too terribly technical, there are a number of reasons for why you can’t control this problem.

There’s no controlling the Internet, no matter what you’ve heard.
There are almost certainly people other than you with the same name, or one similar which can be just as bad.
You can’t prevent other people from using your name in online conversation.
The Internet never forgets, even if you do. That dating file you had before you met your spouse? It’s still out there.

All of this can amount to some very embarrassing moments. I’ve had a few of my own. Probably the most disturbing was when someone purchased a domain similar to mine. The contents of that hastily constructed site were false and unflattering. Had it stayed up, it might have severely damaged my reputation. Fortunately, there are laws and rules against such things and it only took one letter to the correct people for the site to be taken down. Still, that result continued for come up in search results for several months.

We can try to control our names as much as possible, but even when one has one as relatively unique as mine, there are still other people in the universe with the same name and, in my case, one poor soul with the same name and the same occupation. I go to a lot of trouble to make sure this website comes up at or near the top of most search engine results, but before getting to the bottom of the first page, one might be directed to a page or article that has absolutely nothing to do with me.

Even more confusing is the fact that different search engines have different formulas for displaying information. If one Googles my name, without the middle initial, the results, in order, are:

this website
my tumblr
my Twitter
my Facebook
my About.Me profile
a sample of photographs
my LinkedIn
my rarely-used Saatchi Art profile
a spam-filled white pages search

Nothing I can do about the white pages nonsense; that’s going to show up everywhere. Do the same search on Bing, though, and in addition to the same information, you get a link to the top 25 LinkedIn profiles for Charles Ledbetter. Note the difference in the spelling of the last name. None of those results are going to be me. Search Yahoo! and the first result is an ad for Charles Schwab, which is definitely not me. If you use Ask.com, the first result is my Model Mayhem profile. Fortunately, all the top results actually do link to pages I control in some form or fashion, so any content is of my own doing. Still, the speed with which the results point to someone else is rather unsettling.

On the other end of the spectrum, if one searches for Kat, one gets — nothing. Sure, it displays some results, but either they’re not her, or they’re spam phishing information off public records. In one case, the link is to a social media account abandoned by someone in Canada with the same name. Kat has been diligent about keeping her social media accounts locked down for security reasons, and those efforts have paid off. The one link that does actually contain information about her is the link to this website, and that is always more than half-way down the page.

Now, we could cause some major embarrassment for other people. I have taken pictures of a lot of people in various stages of undress, or sometimes worse, badly dressed. Over the past few years, we’ve stopped mentioning those people’s names in conjunction with their photos not merely to prevent embarrassment (which wouldn’t bother most), but also to prevent stalking, which is another serious online issue. Not only do we not credit nude models on the website, we do not share their names with anyone unless they have specifically asked us to do so. We appreciate the people who pose for us and do not want to place them in any danger.

Since you’re not doing anything today (don’t lie), you might take a moment to Google yourself, then check the other search engines as well. You might be surprised by what you find.

Advertising / Art

Art Models As Ad Gimmicks

January 12, 2016

charles i. letbetter - art models as ad fodder

There are so many beautiful girls who aren’t photogenic. In real life, half the models you see look really hideous.—Lisanne Falk

Two models posing for public art drawing class, Atlanta, GA (2005)

Please, take everything I say from this point forward with a bit of tongue-in-cheek humor.

Being an art model is a lot more difficult than it looks. Surrounded by people you don’t know, sometimes people you wouldn’t want to know, one is asked to remove their clothing and stand, or sit, or lie, in poses specifically designed to provide an example of how the human body looks in that position, often highlighting a specific muscle group. This is how artists learn. Missing these classes leaves a huge chunk missing in one’s art education. The job is thankless. The poses are rarely comfortable and have to be held for several minutes at a time. Many times, the model doesn’t get to see, and probably doesn’t want to see the end result because, again these are art students, just learning their craft. Not all of them have a clue what they’re doing.

Most of the art models I know are wonderful people with typical, average day jobs that wouldn’t begin to give away the nature of their extra-curricular activities. Most are intelligent people who genuinely care about the arts and arts education. However, as with any profession, there are some who are just on the dangerous side of dull, even on a good day. Art instructors continue using these “dull” people because they tend to be passionate about their employment (sometimes their only employment) and have few, if any, qualms about the poses. Again, decent enough people, you just probably don’t want to try and engage them in conversation. Ever. It’s painful.

Our friends at BBDO are responsible for the current Snickers® campaign; you know, the ones about being hungry causing you to not be yourself. Those have been particularly entertaining ads over the past year, and their non-traditional outdoor ads have been especially on point. So, when we came across the new ads, shown for the first time this past Sunday, for a new product called Snickers® Crispers, I was anxious to see what the creative minds at that table had devised. At this moment, my feelings are rather mixed.

What they’ve done is slightly morph the Snickers ads where the unfortunate subject’s hunger leads them to behave in rather foolish ways. There’s certainly plenty of potential behind the concept, but of the two ads shown this past Sunday, only one was at least mildly amusing, which was the one with an art model. The second, featuring a young man blowing a job interview, was groan worthy. Parent company Mars Candies has paid for Super Bowl spots for both Snickers and Snickers Crispers and I’m really hoping they pull some new material for those overly-expensive displays.

Still, knowing art models as I do, and having met some, especially male models, who are on the far side of clueless no matter what they’ve eaten, I did find this one ad amusing and the camera work entertaining. Take a look for yourself:

https://youtu.be/IWsOAieBz40

What’s interesting about the ad is the premise that the model would get this far into his posing before anyone in the class said anything. Don’t you think someone might have asked a question or two when the model removed his clothes? Oh, but that would spoil the joke, so we’re just supposed to overlook that detail. The ad has some problems.

Nonetheless, it’s not every day that we find ads featuring art models so I felt rather obligated to highlight this one. Who knows, maybe someone could build a whole campaign around art models showing up in uncomfortable situations—such as lunch with your grandmother. Naked people and grandmothers sounds like a sure win to me. Go for it, BBDO!

Advertising

Dead Men, Orgies, and Flashdance. Oh My.

January 9, 2016

charles i. letbetter - dead men, orgies and flashdance

Technology is wonderful at resurrecting dead actors and old movies, but sometimes advertisers just have very, very good timing.

January is an extremely busy time for advertisers and we have been inundated this week with both print and video campaigns fighting to be the most creative in an attempt to grab your attention. Of course, we realize that, in all honesty, you’re not likely to see the majority of those ads at all. Online viewing of programming and content has severely reduced the number of eyeballs that ever cross even the most popular of ads. Occasionally one goes viral, but those are very rare. More often than not, brands are happy with what ten years ago would have been considered a mediocre response. Because we actually like ads, though, and enjoy applauding those done well and express great creativity, we go through the hoards and each week will share our five favorites from among the best.

This week, it would seem that timing played a large part in our favorite ad, and all three of the commercials we chose for this week brought back to life a favorite memory. Granted, modern technology allows us to splice together old film footage and sound engineers can make anyone say just about anything. Finnish dairy producer Valio didn’t have to go to those lengths, though. They had taped a commercial with Mötorhead frontman Ian “Lemmy” Kilmister barely a month ago before a concert in Maunula, Finland. Of course, they had no way of knowing at the time that Lemmy would pass away last week. So, rather than just shelving the material, they revised the ad to create a tribute to Lemmy. The ad is a riff off an older Valio milk ad, but, true to form, Lemmy ad-libbed and made it truly his. We enjoyed seeing him one more time.

Fashion is known for playing fast and loose with sexual topics and the idea of multiple sex partners is one that’s been explored before. But the ad below isn’t for a fashion label. Granted, it’s shot by a fashion photographer, which explains the red and blue cross processing, but this is not a fashion campaign at all. In case you didn’t know, Equinox is a gym, or fitness center if you want. Considered one of the best gyms in America, they hired the New York agency Wieden + Kennedy to build on the concept of commitment. W+K came back with a series of images that, at least in certain audiences, might be a bit startling.

There are no gyms, no weights, no yoga mats in any of the pictures. Instead, the campaign focuses on things such as breastfeeding twins, protesting for women’s rights, and, most notably, multiple sex partners. While the ads have certainly gotten a lot of attention this week, there’s no word yet as to whether they will be effective in keeping new members in the gym past the end of February. Should the campaign prove successful, though, it will be interesting to see what W+K comes up with next.

I am often a little dismayed that so many of the truly creative ad work I see comes from agencies outside the United States, even if they use genuinely American icons, such as the movie Flashdance. Again, resurrecting the dead, or at least 30 years past first run, works for this French spray cleaner. Now, do we really believe that the product, or any product can clean a grimy mechanic’s garage so spotlessly overnight? No, not a chance. But, the dancing, by professional dancer Dennis Cloud Campos, is every bit as impressive as that of Jennifer Beals’ body double. And when he hits the button to turn on the fire extinguisher, uhm, we’ll just assume that the ladies appreciate that moment. The ad is a lot of fun, largely because we all still have fond memories about the movie and not because we harbor any fantasy about cleaning being that much fun.

https://youtu.be/LHizW4PLw2Q

We’ve already talked this week about the Louis Vuitton campaign featuring Jaden Smith in women’s wear, so I won’t bother repeating here what I’ve already said. Let it stand that not only is this a well composed and strongly imagined campaign, but it is socially important in its embrace of gender fluid individuals. While this isn’t the first time gender fluid or transgendered models have been included in a campaign, it’s certainly the most visible. We hope this is the beginning of a trend. Who knows, maybe we’ll even see it on runways next month, which would be incredible.

One final “dead” reference [everyone say it together: “I’m not dead yet!”]. 35 years have passed since John Cleese last played Basil Fawlty, and getting him to re-create the role is almost impossible. British optical company Specsavers found a way, though, with clever writing and a riff of one of the most popular scenes from the BBC sitcom. Those who have never seen the antics of the hotel proprietor will find the ad amusing. Those who actually remember the show, or just fans of Cleese’s wonderfully physical humor, will find this hilarious and delight in the reference. I’ll admit that I’ve enjoyed watching the ad several times now and have laughed out loud each time. Playing off old references like this can be a bit dangerous; there’s always the chance that the original material is more obscure than creatives think and no one gets the joke. There are also some that are just overdone. Cleese’s stubborn refusal to re-create Basil at the drop of a hat makes this a very welcome gem, though, even if we don’t need new glasses.

I’ll admit that I’ve enjoyed watching the ad several times now and have laughed out loud each time. Playing off old references like this can be a bit dangerous; there’s always the chance that the original material is more obscure than creatives think and no one gets the joke. There are also some that are just overdone. Cleese’s stubborn refusal to re-create Basil at the drop of a hat makes this a very welcome gem, though, even if we don’t need new glasses.

While this week has given us a strong creative start to the year, keep in mind that Super Bowl ads are already starting to pop up. While I’ve not been overly impressed with what I’ve seen so far, I’m quite sure they’ll get better, and they’ll have plenty of competition. Keep watching and we’ll continue to bring you the best. We’re not dead yet!

Music / PotD / Social Commentary

Primal Scream Friday

January 8, 2016

All the war-propaganda, all the screaming and lies and hatred, comes invariably from people who are not fighting.—George Orwell

Go ahead, just let it all out

Just to be very clear, we’re not talking this morning about Primal Scream the movie, nor Primal Scream the Scottish band. I will reference the album of the same name by the late trumpeter and bandleader Maynard Ferguson, but central to my premise this cold, wet, weary Friday morning is the psychotherapy method developed by Dr. Arthur Janov. Dr. Janov’s theory is that, from the very moment we are born, we begin repressing traumatic events in our lives, sealing them away from memory. Who remembers the actual birth experience, for example? None of us, of course. Neither do we experience the trauma of thinking that our parents have left us when actually they’ve only gone into the other room. Janov’s practice is to help us deal with those traumas, which he is sure is responsible for all our depression and anxiety, by bringing back those painful memories and then quite literally screaming at them.

I’m guessing Dr. Janov has trouble keeping neighbors.

While I’m not going to vouch for the efficacy of Dr. Janov’s methods, I do think it is valuable for us to occasionally list the things that are upsetting us, write them down perhaps, and then give them, collectively, a giant middle finger. With social media having become so prevalent in most our lives, we are now inundated with more information than ever, and a lot of that information is something less than positive. Our response tends to fall in the direction of two extremes: we either bitch and gripe about everything, constantly, trolling comments and insulting people we don’t know; or attempting to ignore everything in the hopes it will all go away. Neither of those approaches are exactly healthy.

So, what we’re going to do this morning is list the five things from this week that have pissed me off the most and then turn on the title track from Maynard Ferguson’s 1976 album and scream at them, letting the music provide a counter-weight to our bellowing. One big primal scream. Once we are done, we set those issues aside and try to not mess with them again. Feel free to join me. Create your own list. Let’s move into the weekend emotionally free of the frustrations that beset us. Ready? Here we go:

Gun reform. I fail to understand why anyone with a sound mind objects to background checks for deadly weapons and I certainly don’t see where anyone gets off claiming that such precautions somehow interfere with their right to keep and bear arms. Remember, the Constitution only gives that right in order to maintain “a well-regulated militia,” and part of being well-regulated almost certainly means taking steps to ensure that the wrong people aren’t getting their hands on guns. What’s even more infuriating is the degree to which the GOP has completely acquiesced to the National Rifle Association on the topic, despite the fact that the United States continues to have more handgun related deaths, by far, than any other industrialized nation in the world. The argument is ridiculous to the point of insanity and really makes me want to scream.
Protests in Burns, Oregon. A week ago, a group of gun-toting cry babies led by the seriously delirious Ammon Bundy took over a federal wildlife refuge to protest something that didn’t deserve to be protested in the first place. This has to be one of the worst-planned sieges ever. While the group claims they are planning to occupy the little building just outside Burns for several years, they failed to bring enough food. By Monday, they were asking for people to send them snacks. That they’ve not been set upon by angry birders or scalped by native Paiute, who actually have a legitimate claim to their ancestral land, is actually disappointing. Were these idiots not a bunch of white guys, they would have been on the receiving end of a massive military operation already. The government has cut off power and water to the facility and is waiting them out. Meanwhile, the world laughs.
The global economy. Uhm, hello? Haven’t we been here before? The fact that stock trading in China had to be halted twice this week and is, once again today, taking another roller coaster ride sets off similar sell-offs in both the European and US markets that should have everyone worried. In fact, if you’re not at least a little bit scared you’re crazy. Super-investor George Soros says the situation resembles the 2008 crisis, and this time around we don’t have a Congress that’s willing to do anything about the situation. This could end up very, very bad for the entire world, and it could happen before Spring gets here.
Worsening immigration situation. There hasn’t been a worse time to be an immigrant since World War II. The influx of refugees across Europe continues to grow and as more arrive in the United States, where they should be welcome and where we have plenty of resources to help, our response continues to be about as wrong as possible. Compounding matters, there is yet another article in this morning’s New York Times regarding the plight of families fleeing escalating violence in Central America. I wonder if an uprising of native tribes would be sufficient to remind Americans that this entire country is founded upon immigration, taking in those who were not wanted nor welcome elsewhere. We need to get over our selfishness and put an end to this problem.
Earthquakes in Oklahoma. 70. That is how many earthquakes have hit the state of Oklahoma in the past week. Fortunately, none of them have been terribly large. The largest this week registered 4.8 on the Richter scale, which typically is enough to rattle windows and upset cattle in the area, but seldom causes any substantial damage. The problem is that these earthquakes appear to be the result of fracking across the state and Oklahoma Governor Mary Fallin, who is in line to be one of the worst governors in the country and certainly Oklahoma’s worst since David Hall in the 1970s, refuses to do anything to reign in the controversial activity pending further study. The unanswerable question is at what point these quakes stop being a nuisance and turn into something critical. We’ve seen the strength of the quakes grow from the 2.6 to 3.8 range to frequently over 4.0 in the past year. This week’s 4.8 quake comes frightening close to the point at which significant property damage begins to occur. Gov. Fallin needs to halt all fracking activity in the state immediately, but she’s far too stubborn and closed-minded to bother.

There’s my list. How’s yours? Once we get these out of our system, the deal is that we don’t keep revisiting them over and over. We let them go in one long, loud, guttural primal scream that comes up from out gut and frightens all animals into hiding. To prevent alarming the neighbors, I strongly suggest clicking the link below and turning up the volume on your computer or mobile device as loud as possible before you begin your primal scream. That way, people will just think you’re trying to sing along to a song that has no words and leave you alone the rest of the day.

Now, go and enjoy your weekend.

PotD

Word From A Higher Power

January 7, 2016

How you correct your mistakes will define your character and commitment to a higher power. — Shannon L. Alder

I’m noticing recently that there seems to be a surge in the number of people who claim to have a word from a higher power justifying what they do. Daesh claims their higher power orders them to rid the world of infidels. A group of silly old white men in Oregon claim their higher power told them to take over a bird sanctuary. A handful of televangelists are quite certain god told each of them to buy a private jet. What’s especially interesting is that at least two of the current candidates running for the office of President claim that their higher power told them to run, which might seem to be a conflict of interest on the part of the deity they share.

My late father, the preacher, was always wary when someone claimed to have a word from god, and in his line of work he encountered such statements rather often. People have, for ages, used the alleged command of their deity to justify their own action. After all, who has the authority to challenge the word of a god? There would seem to be no higher power. The fact that, in the greater majority of cases, that word was used as an excuse to exterminate, enslave, or otherwise harm large groups of people never seemed to bother anyone other than those who were being exterminated, enslaved, or harmed.

Poppa’s response was always to ask them how their “word” lined up with scripture because god wouldn’t contradict himself. More often than not, the conversation ended right there. The same applies across any religion. When one claims to have a word from a higher power, the first thing everyone else should do is compare that “word” with the teachings of that deity. Deities don’t have a great track record for changing their mind, and in the latter three cases mentioned above, one has to wonder exactly how the deity would be interested in the first place. I really wonder for whom god plans to vote in the primaries.

I make no claims toward being a theological scholar. While my religious training was rather extensive, there remain volumes that I don’t know, don’t really care to know, and have no need to know. Nonetheless, I can say with relative certainty that, regardless of what one’s spiritual leanings might be, none of the established deities across any of the world’s major religions are going to require someone to do any of the following:

Kill someone in cold blood
Start or participate in an unjustified war (and at this point they’re all unjustified)
Take something that is not yours
Any action that might put innocent lives in danger
Any action that makes the deity look stupid

Inversely, should a higher power decide that they simply have no other choice in all the universe than to speak privately, without the benefit of independent witnesses, to one select individual or group at the exclusion of that deity’s other followers, one can largely expect that such a declaration is going to fall somewhere within the following guidelines:

Love one another
Help people; ALL people
Give without expecting anything in return, even from the deity
Make peace with those who disagree with you
Hate no one

Across every major religion in the world, and most the minor ones, those tenets are universal. Every higher power has them, and considering how diverse some of the other teachings are, the commonality of those five things probably means that, more than anything else, those are the things we should be doing!

Of course, there are plenty of people who don’t believe any higher power exists and I can respect that point of view. What I find interesting, though, is that among the most devout atheist I have encountered, every last one of them lived according to those same five principles. They didn’t need a deity to tell them what was the right thing to do. Imagine that.

Every time I hear the words, “God told me …” I cannot help but roll my eyes and immediately discount anything that comes after. Believe what you want, but I am fairly certain that when one uses a higher power as a justification for their own actions and/or desires, they’re almost always making shit up. Religion isn’t a blank card for getting what you want.

And no, none of this has anything to do with today’s picture. I was gently reminded yesterday that I had yet to post a nude this year. We have now rectified that issue. Be sure, though, it was no deity that instructed me to do so.

Music

New Artists Watch

January 3, 2016

I hate to see artists who are real safe. I love to see artists swing for the fences sometimes.—Lee Ann Womack

Latex Liberace. Model: Carrie Pennington. Body art by Jennifer Baxter.

Listening to new music and new artists can be very fulfilling. At the same time, it can be extremely frustrating, especially when an artist who sounds really good on one song doesn’t follow with an equally impressive tone on their subsequent material. I’m not a huge fan of one-hit wonders or mentioning an artist’s name and finding no one else has a clue who I’m talking about.

By adding music to our discussion and photos here, we are treading into somewhat dangerous territory. People tend to be very adamant about who they like and who they don’t. From the very outset, I want to be clear that just because we like an artist’s music doesn’t mean we endorse them as people or the opinions they might later express that prove to be offensive. If there’s anything we have learned the past couple of years it is that the bigger the hero the more people want to see them fall. I don’t understand that mentality, but I can’t keep it from happening. We’re not doing deep background checks here.

Instead, what we’re offering are some gentle suggestions, artists whose music causes me to stop what I’m doing and listen. Yes, we are cheating a bit. I rely on what new artists Spotify throws at me. I understand the limitations of using that single source, but no one is sending me demos and I don’t have time to troll YouTube. A good song is a good song, though, and a good artist transcends the media source. We’ll offer a few that we like and let you take it from there.

To start off the year, let’s talk about a few artists who caught our attention last year and we’re hoping continue to impress.

Saint Raymond

Saint Raymond, aka Callum Burrows, represents yet another instance where what’s big in the UK or Europe has difficulty “jumping the pond” to the US market. For British listeners, Saint Raymond is hardly a new name, having been showing up on charts in the UK for a couple of years now. American radio has yet to catch on, though, and US listeners are being cheated out of Burrows’ smooth voice. The pop rock sound isn’t too heavy and not over-produced. Give it a try.

Conrad Sewell

I’m a sucker for a good, bare piano accompaniment because of the way it lets a vocalist shine. That is why I’m sharing Australian artist Conrad Sewell’s second single and not his first. Granted, the first one, Hold Me Up, did extremely well and is a great song, but Start Again really lets his voice shine through. What is it with all these young guys and really high voice ranges, though? Adam Levine might want to be careful. Guys like Sewell could end up replacing him.

Andra Day

My ears can spot a church-trained voice a mile away and I was smitten with Ms. Day’s sound before she made it to the second word of the song. She has a classic jazz/soul sound that takes one from a smokey Saturday night right on into the emotional confession of Sunday morning as effortlessly as a well-aged brandy. I can’t wait to hear a lot more from this voice. I’m linking you to Rise Up, but you’ll want to listen to Forever Mine as well. She’s touring this year and will be in Indianapolis in June.

Jr Jr

The guys in Jr Jr aren’t exactly new. Joshua Epstein and Daniel Zott have been making music together since 2009. If you heard of them, though, it was under the name Dale Earnhardt, Jr., borrowed with permission and blessing from the NASCAR driver of the same name. One can see where that might have confused a few people. I’ve heard the driver try to sing; it wasn’t pretty. So, they’ve re-branded as Jr Jr and hopefully that will be the boost they need to push heavily into the mainstream. If you liked the Beach Boys, you’ll love these guys. Their harmonies are tight. Take a listen.

Jess Glynne

Don’t tell me the folks at Atlantic Records weren’t thinking about Adele and Sam Smith when they signed Jess Glynne. The comparisons are inevitable. The British singer’s voice is strong, soulful, and full of emotion. With a Grammy already in her pocket for last year’s Best Dance Song, her new single, Hold My Hand, is driving, fun, and as they used to say on American Bandstand, “very easy to dance to.” The biggest challenge she faces is that Adele is dominating the market so strongly that Glynne’s similar sounding tone may not stand out well enough for people to notice. Listen, though. You’ll be impressed.

Will any of these artists list 2016 as their big breakout year? We’ll see. I definitely look forward to hearing more from all of them.

Art / PotD

Nothing But Paper

November 1, 2015

The Super Hero (2013)

There is nothing more difficult for a truly creative painter than to paint a rose, because before he can do so he has first to forget all the roses that were ever painted.—Henri Matisse

[one_half padding=”4px 10px 0 4px”]I really thought I had done a week of these torn paper designs before, but upon a thorough examination we discovered that no, I hadn’t. So, I think it is time to do so and, as it turns out, it has been exactly two years this week since we last engaged this concept. I’ve been playing with it off and on for over 14 years now and the methods have changed dramatically since we first started. Unfortunately, I no longer have copies of those first attempts.

The concept is based loosely on the late-stage work of French painter Henri Matisse. By the time he was diagnosed with cancer in 1941, Matisse had all but stopped painting. After treatment and a couple of surgeries, his creative sense came back with a surge. The problem was that the effects of cancer left him in bed for sometimes days at a time, not a position exactly given to using a paint and brush. So, he began working with scissors, saying:

“Only what I created after the illness constitutes my real self: free, liberated.”

Ultimately, these works would be the ones that define Matisse’s career. The special paper he used would be prepared in large sheets by his assistants so they would be ready for him to cut whenever he felt like doing so. From this period come his most prestigious works, such as the stained glass at Chapelle du Rosaire in Vence, Negress, The Fall of Icarus, the Blue Nude set, and his 1947 book, Jazz.[/one_half]

[one_half_last padding=”4px 4px 0 10px”]Trying to adapt Matisse’s concept for what I wanted to do in applying it to the human body was far from simple. For starters, the paper Matisse used was far too heavy and stiff to conform to the contours of the human form. We tried lighter weights of construction paper with no success. Finally, after many failed experiments and more than one outburst of complete frustration, I settled on color tissue paper as the medium for our work.

Even the tissue paper wasn’t easy, though. There were three significant problems we had to overcome. The first was that tissue paper, being extremely light and thin, tears easily, especially when wet. We needed the paper to be wet to adhere to the body. Second was the fact that some colored tissue paper bleeds. When it bleeds, the skin is stained and it doesn’t just wash off. After some searching, we were able to find no-bleed paper. Our final problem came with how to get the paper to stick. Again, several failed experiments occurred before we finally created a diluted gelatin solution that works.

What we will present this week are newly processed versions, different from the originals. I pulled three photos, including today’s, from the shoot two years ago. The other four are older but among my favorites. Along the way, we’ll talk about a variety of things, such as illness, that impacts an artist’s, work. We hope you’ll enjoy the week.[/one_half_last]

Art / PotD

Trippin’ Like Warhol

August 23, 2015

charles i. letbetter - trippin on warhol

Strawberries For Dessert (2004)

Don’t think about making art, just get it done. Let everyone else decide if it’s good or bad, whether they love it or hate it. While they are deciding, make even more art. ― Andy Warhol

[one_half padding=”4px 10px 0 4px”]This is going to be an interesting week. Trippin’ is the only way I know to describe the seven pieces we’ve chosen without launching into multiple paragraphs that don’t fit well in the banner at the top of the page. And while the colors have a pop art similarity that might, to some, be reminiscent of the late artist Andy Warhol, I can’t claim any direct influence was present when we did these. They are unlike anything else in my catalog and certainly aren’t part of my normal portfolio. I no longer can find the originals, so we had to jump through some serious technological hoops just to get them in a condition suitable for presentation.

Pictures hold memories of specific moments, so I’m almost always able to recall at least the situation surrounding a shoot, if not necessarily people’s names and specific places. These pictures are among the fuzziest of memories. I remember shooting them in late 2004-early 2005, but I don’t remember model’s names and, with one exception, I don’t remember much of the circumstances. I certainly don’t remember processing any of them, so I can’t tell you how we achieved the effects you’ll see. I could possibly claim another Warhol reference and say I was literally trippin’ during this period, but that would be disingenuous.

Stress is probably more responsible for my lousy recollection of these pictures. Taken during a period of tremendous personal change and upheaval, photography was as much of an escape from, perhaps even a denial of reality more than it was an occupation. Most of the pictures from that period have been lost entirely. Of those that do remain, I only have small, 72 dpi copies taken from an old website backup. Theoretically, there might be better copies on an old Flickr account somewhere, but if that does still exist I’ve no clue how to find it. [/one_half]

[one_half_last padding=”4px 4px 0 10px”]Just looking at these images sends me trippin’ a little bit. They’re disorienting on a very personal basis, so I’ve absolutely no idea how other people see them. If no one else likes them, this could end up being a very boring week. I don’t necessarily have a good feel for what anyone else wants to see, other than the fact that nude images cause our hit count to go up. There is some sense of sexual provocation to these images, if one is bound and determined to find such. Models we worked with from this period tended to be more open and willing to experiment with what was then a relatively new digital media. There were no social media sites to provide potential embarrassment. There was less fear of backlash.

Comparatively, the cameras we worked with back then, which costs more than a medium-format film camera, were toys. Your phone can probably do as well. These were a mere 3.5 megapixels, something we wouldn’t even consider marketable now. Again, we have improved technology to thank for being able to bump up the quality a little bit, though I still wouldn’t want to try and actually print one. Only a handful of publishers would risk working with digital images, though there was no question that this was the direction photography would go. Ten years have seen a lot of change.

I may be trippin’ just to put these on display. You may not be interested and walk completely away. Warhol’s advice about not caring about opinions, just make art, is one I’m trying to embrace this. After all, I remember well the public reaction to his work; a lot of people thought it was stupid, pointless, and definitely not art. Today, those works are worth millions. I should be so lucky. Just know that you’ll likely not see us produce another set of images like the ones you’ll see this week.[/one_half_last]

Art / PotD

Anonymously Naked

August 22, 2015

Hold That Pose

There is something very freeing about being anonymous because nothing is expected of you; nothing is getting back to anyone, and no one cares. —Dolly Wells

[one_half padding=”4px 10px 0 4px”]I’ve never actually done an official survey, but I’m relatively sure that the majority of nudes in my archives were done anonymously. It’s a thing. People want to participate in art, or want to remember their bodies before children, or how they looked when they were young adults, but they are very much afraid of the backlash of criticism that comes with taking nude pictures, especially if they’re going to be posted on the Internet. Comments, not just from Internet trolls but from family and alleged friends can be hurtful, cruel, and disheartening.

Artistically, there is also the reasonable argument that nudes done anonymously are open to greater personal interpretation. Without the identity that comes with a face, one is free to extend their imagination beyond a single personality, possibly even imagining themselves in place of the model. Where there’s a face there is someone else’s identity, a personhood inherently attached to the body. For a great number of people, that identity prevents them from being able to fairly and artistically respond to the rest of the body. All they see is “that person” nude. When “that person” happens to be a celebrity or someone of note, the work becomes all about the person and any artistic valuation flies out the window.

Shooting nudes anonymously has its purpose. When nudes are anonymous, one doesn’t have to worry that one’s children might accidentally find them in Internet search results one day. Anonymous nudes don’t require any effort toward hairstyles or makeup; one can literally crawl out of bed and straight in front of the camera. Working anonymously gives one more freedom to be expressive with their bodies than they might otherwise. Without identity issues, one can usurp the norms of a given society and use their body to make any number of statements they might not otherwise make.[/one_half]

[one_half_last padding=”4px 4px 0 10px”]At the same time, however, working anonymously in art has many of the same drawbacks as other forms of anonymity. At the top of that list is taking responsibility for the statements that one makes. Being nude in front of a camera or for a painter makes a statement which one should, in ideal circumstances, own. Anonymously, one might poke at society, or a segment of people within a given group, without having to deal with any actual harm that may result from making the statement. We enjoy the freedom of being expressive, but fail to realize that, at times, being anonymous in exercising that freedom holds the potential for being abusive.

There is also the argument that working anonymously does nothing to help change public attitudes about nude art and being nude. If anything, anonymous works might reinforce the argument that being nude is somehow wrong. After all, if there’s nothing wrong with it, why wouldn’t one want to own the work? If we want to make nude work more accessible and publicly palatable, hiding the identity of those who participate does not necessarily help to achieve those goals. Progress comes in standing up, proudly, for the work that we do and not allowing anyone to shame us for it.

Still, reality forces us often into a position where anonymity is required. You’ll notice that we no longer list the names of models who pose for nudes. We made that decision because of the frequent stalking and other safety issues that come with a society whose attitude toward nudity remain warped and at time dangerous. For all the progress we’ve made the past thirty years in terms of accepting ourselves and our bodies as they are, our society still is too often incapable of handling nude photographs responsibly. Until those matters improve, some pictures will remain anonymously nude.[/one_half_last]

artistic

Respect the masterpiece. It is true reverence to man. There is no quality so great, none so much needed now. —Frank Lloyd Wright

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To raise new questions, new possibilities, to regard old problems from a new angle, requires creative imagination and marks real advance in science. —Albert Einstein

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Have no fear of perfection – you’ll never reach it. —Salvador Dali

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Political language… is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind. —George Orwell

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Photography has always been about documentary, the depiction of the instant, a moment, sometimes a place. Each project is somehow an experimentation of a specific context or a character. —Hedi Slimane

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The early bird gets the worm. The early worm… gets eaten.—Norman Ralph Augustine

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You have to show violence the way it is. If you don’t show it realistically, then that’s immoral and harmful. If you don’t upset people, then that’s obscenity.—Roman Polanski

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Age is just a number. It’s totally irrelevant unless, of course, you happen to be a bottle of wine.—Joan Collins

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Tonight I’ll dust myself off, tonight I’ll suck my gut in, I’ll face the night and I’ll pretend I got something to believe in.—Jon Bon Jovi

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Jesus tells us to turn the other cheek, which is an ancient way of saying ‘Don’t feed the trolls.’—Anonymous

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Everything that we see is a shadow cast by that which we do not see.—Martin Luther King, Jr.

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The secret to success is to offend the greatest number of people.—George Bernard Shaw

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Without physics there’d be no Fashion Channel — there’d be no TV. But w/o fashion, physicists might just be naked. Not good.— Neil deGrasse Tyson

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A designer is like a doctor for a woman. He has a specific job, and if he is doing it well, he will have the gratitude of the woman for the rest of his life.—Oleg Cassini

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I have learned silence from the talkative, toleration from the intolerant, and kindness from the unkind; yet, strange, I am ungrateful to those teachers.—Khalil Gibran

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I love the big fresh starts, the clean slates like birthdays and new years, but I also really like the idea that we can get up every morning and start over.—Kristin Armstrong

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Why bother with Google when I have a wife who knows everything about everything!—Akshay Kumar

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There are so many beautiful girls who aren’t photogenic. In real life, half the models you see look really hideous.—Lisanne Falk

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Technology is wonderful at resurrecting dead actors and old movies, but sometimes advertisers just have very, very good timing.

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All the war-propaganda, all the screaming and lies and hatred, comes invariably from people who are not fighting.—George Orwell

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How you correct your mistakes will define your character and commitment to a higher power. — Shannon L. Alder

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I hate to see artists who are real safe. I love to see artists swing for the fences sometimes.—Lee Ann Womack

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There is nothing more difficult for a truly creative painter than to paint a rose, because before he can do so he has first to forget all the roses that were ever painted.—Henri Matisse

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Don’t think about making art, just get it done. Let everyone else decide if it’s good or bad, whether they love it or hate it. While they are deciding, make even more art. ― Andy Warhol

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There is something very freeing about being anonymous because nothing is expected of you; nothing is getting back to anyone, and no one cares. —Dolly Wells

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