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Here’s a sampling of what’s inside.  Check out our Index to find more….

• Navigating “The Golden Age of Dutch Seascapes” — Kimberlee Cloutier-Blazzard reviews the exciting new show at the Peabody Essex Museum.
• I Don’t Like to Watch: A New Season for TLC’s “Jon and Kate Plus 8″ — Our TV writer’s thoughts on America’s voyeuristic fascination with the reality series.
• Farewell, Yugo. We’d miss you if we hadn’t thought you’d already gone — Bread and Circus reflects on the long goodbye to a once famous brand.
• The Simplicity of Ferris Bueller – Erin Dionne reflects on an iconic movie from the 1980s.
• The Return of the Equal Rights Amendment – Sarah Katherine Mergel on the long struggle for political equality.
• Taking It to the Streets –- A Tale of One Parking Spot, a Few Tomatoes, and a Revolution — Colleen Michaels writes about the importance of community.
• Cindy Sherman: Her “History Portrait” Series as Post-Modern Parody — Kimberlee Cloutier-Blazzard assesses one of our most fascinating contemporary artists.

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Navigating “The Golden Age of Dutch Seascapes”

THE ARTS

Navigating “The Golden Age of Dutch Seascapes”

On view at the Peabody Essex Museum, Salem, MA from June 13 to September 7, 2009

By Kimberlee A. Cloutier-Blazzard

The Golden Age of Dutch Seascapes show at the PEM is a captivating tour through the Seventeenth Century through the lens of the Dutch self-image as a sea-faring people.

As with Dutch genre paintings, it has been known for decades that seascape paintings are not just records of daily life, nor purely aesthetic objects, but that they are nuanced vehicles for deeper meanings.  Walking through the five well-lit and well-ordered galleries of this exhibition gives the viewer a developing sense of the Dutch as explorers, merchants, divinely sanctioned pilgrims, travelers and heroes.

The first three galleries (The Sea-A New Subject; Vistas of the Netherlands; and A Sea of Symbols) are painted in calming blue tones, calling to mind the panoramic vista of sea and sky so innately interwoven with the Dutch consciousness.  Most of the early paintings are highly detailed, sometimes capturing individualized ships in small cabinet pieces for discerning collectors, but also in larger pieces that depict nationalistic scenes for grand public venues.

Walking through these rooms, the styles in the pieces range over time from honey-rich, tonalist pieces of the first decades of the century by artists like Jan Porcellis to more brightly colored, spot lit works by artists like Jan van Goyen.  In the Vistas of the Netherlands gallery, a singular printed map of the world by Justus Danckers is particularly eye-catching: a reminder of the grand aspirations of this tiny, but enterprising nation.

In the Sea of Symbols gallery, it is a Flemish, rather than a Dutch picture, which seduces the eye.  The unattributed work, The Wreck of the Amsterdam, ca. 1630, is ambitious in its size, as well as its subject.  Indicative of its Flemish origin (and perhaps its facture by the elusive Andries van Eertvelt?), the piece is made up of strong local colors and has telltale rhetorical flair, including stylized swirling eddies.  Its Baroque theatricality plays out in the drama of six ships, three foundering in the foreground in dramatic, diagonal thrusts.  The slanting shafts of divine light that break through ominous cloud formations echo the position of these vessels, highlighting the prayerful survivors on the left-hand promontory.  These apocalyptic and redemptive qualities, in conjunction with paired end panels of the Virgin Mary and the seal of the City of Amsterdam on the two foreground ships may portend religious discord, begging the interpretation of the viewer.

The fourth gallery [Far Horizons] switches tone with its ambient Dijon yellow walls; intimating to the viewer that we’ve changed time, place and atmosphere.  This room is dedicated to the Dutch as travelers, and—on the buttery backdrop—the largely cerulean image of The Darsna delle Galere and Castello Nuovo at Naples by Caspar van Wittel, steals the limelight. Upon closer inspection, its clear Mediterranean light and lack of atmospheric envelope indicate a radical shift in locale, taste and artistic sensibility.  Indeed, the painting dates to the waning of the Dutch Golden Age during the Eighteenth Century.  This was a time when the Dutch Seaborne Empire was fading fast in the midst of competition from France and England: and, not just on the seas and trading lanes, but also on the cultural front.  The elite classes among the Dutch bourgeoisie of this period fell under the siren sway of the Grand Tour and followed the Rococo trend towards gentrification and classicism in both subject and tone.

The final gallery [Patronage, Battles and the Exotic] is a cinnabar color, again drawing our attention to a thematic sea change.  This gallery is dominated by nationalist odes—great ocean victories and colonial ports—including a few monochromatic ink-paintings that jump off the dark wall in their ivory-color and scrimshaw-sensibility. Holding court at one end of the room, Ferdinand Bol’s portrait of Admiral Michiel de Ruyter demands our attention.  Posed in a formulaic, if perfectly-pitched pose, the Admiral wears a modish uniform, framed by an enveloping crimson curtain which connects the open harbor view to his left with the globe under his right elbow.  His commanding persona is mostly due to his girth and his tremendously moustachioed visage; Bol understandably falls short of his master, Rembrandt’s, gift for deftly transcribing personality into paint-strokes.

Though the show of seventy compelling works is admirable in its scope and its masterful dedication to the subject of seascape, one might be left wondering about a couple of issues: Why the curators did not intersperse vitrines containing examples of the material culture of mercantile trade and colonial expansion raised by the show (two obvious strengths of the Peabody Essex’s collection); and why more depictions of non-European distant shores and wall text explicating the colonialist drive behind the Dutch East- and West India Companies are missing from the show.  Perhaps this is a function of the available loans from the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, UK, and/or a conscious choice by the curators to focus on the paintings’ iconographic rather than cultural context.

That said, in its intense focus on one multifaceted genre and (virtually) one medium of Dutch art, this show is at once illuminating and enthralling for the connoisseur and amateur art enthusiast alike.

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Kimberlee A. Cloutier-Blazzard, Ph.D., is a senior contributing writer & contributing editor of Bread and Circus and an Independent Scholar of Art History, Specializing in Northern Renaissance and Baroque. Click here to send her email.

Image (above): The Wreck of the Amsterdam, c.1630, Anonymous, Oil on canvas, 1257 x 1778mm, © National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, UK.

I Don’t Like to Watch: A New Season for TLC’s “Jon and Kate Plus 8″

SCREEN & CULTURE

I Don’t Like to Watch: TLC’s “Jon and Kate Plus 8″

By G. Arnold

[originally published May 27, 2009]

In the 1984 movie “Irreconcilable Differences,” a young girl (played by Drew Barrymore) sues her selfish and completely self-absorbed parents for divorce. Though a pleasant enough film for its era, it’s hardly a movie that springs to mind very often. Yet, as we’ve been inundated with news surrounding the depressing spectacle that is TLC’s series “Jon & Kate Plus 8,” I’ve been thinking about that old film.

“Jon & Kate Plus 8” purports to follow the struggles of Kate and Jon Gosselin as they raise their energetic children. The series has developed a big following over the past several years. Until this season, viewers were treated mostly to scenes featuring lots of cute kids and often showing parents struggling to manage a busy life of child-rearing. It all seemed quite quaint, even if somewhat staged.

The new season, however, finds the focus shifting away from the still-adorable children and more in the direction of their parents. Sadly, the Gosselin marriage appears to be on the rocks. A string of sensational charges has made the rounds throughout the media. This is not a happy development for anybody, except, perhaps, for the accounting department at TLC.

Indeed, the Gosselins’ relationship troubles are adding up to big numbers for the network. Over 9 million viewers tuned in Sunday night for the season premiere. This should not surprise us. As television executives have long known, American television viewers love a sordid family spectacle, especially if it has a moralistic subtext. It was not so long ago, after all, that the airwaves were abuzz with stories about Nadya Suleman, a woman who became known as “Octo-Mom.”

The new wrinkle to “Jon & Kate Plus 8” may be good business, but it is a much more dubious commentary on the state of our culture. Jon and Kate Gosselin are adults, of course, and regardless of whatever else we may think about their situation, they chose to make their lives available for public consumption in return for money and notoriety.

But the justification for filming the daily lives of the children has never been as clear. And with their parents’ onscreen meltdown taking center stage, it’s hard to see how further intrusion into the lives of these children is warranted. Wouldn’t it be better to give the children privacy? Shouldn’t we let them come to terms with the changing state of their family life away from the spotlight? It seems the decent thing to do.

So far, the adult Gosselins don’t seem ready to pull the plug on their series or to abandon the lifestyle that the series made possible. And TLC, which is one of the Discovery network’s properties, is not a public charity. It operates to make a profit. It’s hard to imagine that the company will just walk away from a show that has attracted so much attention.

In “Irreconcilable Differences,” the child at the center of the story resorts to hiring an attorney to look out for her interests. As for the Gosselin children, it remains to be seen what will become of them, or who will advocate for their interests and privacy.

In the meantime, I, for one, do not care to watch the implosion of a family or to encourage television executives to use family crises for entertainment purposes.

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G. Arnold is an editor of Bread and Circus.

Art and Ecumenicity

By Kimberlee A. Cloutier-Blazzard

Yesterday I participated in “Faith in Art”: An Ecumenical Art Retreat.  The retreat was envisioned with the express purpose of bringing together people of diverse faith backgrounds to explore how art channels spirituality in all its forms.

We had four speakers with various professions and backgrounds speak on a range of topics: a female icon-painting Lutheran minister, a “spiritually open” female gallery curator/art historian and two male artists-one a Muslim from Cairo and the other an agnostic college professor.  They spoke on subjects varying from traditional icon making to contemporary secular spiritualism to personal visions of God as found in beauty and inner truth to the importance of comedy in spirituality as a means of transcending human hubris and dogmatism from the ancient Greeks forward.

While the topics ranged from East to West and back East and West again, from the sacred image to the outwardly secular installation, from the sacred written word to the satyr play, all the interstitial spaces between seemed to fill with the same aching for knowledge of the inner-self and its foundation in something larger and selfless.

Each speaker vocalized how art formed a means to connect with the transcendent, either as prayer, as a means of emptying the ego, a way to find wonder and mystery in the seemingly well-mapped world or to question the tragic as the sole purveyor of divinity.

The group that gathered was not large-fewer than twenty-but the ambience was intimate, the talks provocative and the energy overwhelmingly positive and radiant.  There were folks of all ages, walks of life, and levels of artistic proficiency.

After a lunch break, our afternoon was consumed by art making, trying desperately to channel some of the positive focus and lessons learned from intellectual exercises into a physical form-a record for others to see and imbibe.

The works will hang collectively at the nearby Montserrat Gallery in short stead. Those  visitors who walk the hall and see them hanging side by side will see just how diverse the participants were, and just how singular the beautiful light that shone through our facture.

I think we all left thinking to ourselves that it’s amazing what the human mind and spirit can accomplish in an atmosphere of open exploration, fellowship and tolerance.

Every global movement starts somewhere, and I hope the spark of ecumenical spirituality kindled today spreads outward in an ever-widening circle of embrace.  The aching world is ready and waiting.

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This item originally appeared in the blog Percyflage.

Kimberlee A. Cloutier-Blazzard, Ph.D., is a senior contributing writer & contributing editor of Bread and Circus Magazine and an Independent Scholar of Art History, Specializing in Northern Renaissance and Baroque. Click here to send her email.

An Interview with Erin Dionne

AUTHOR ERIN DIONNE TALKS ABOUT HER NEW BOOK

By G. Arnold, Co-Editor

The arrival of 2009 brings a new book for young adults from writer Erin Dionne. Her debut novel, MODELS DON’T EAT CHOCOLATE COOKIES, was inspired by two unlikely events that occurred in seventh grade: when she wore what she calls a “scary” peach bridesmaid dress in her cousin’s wedding; and another time, when she threw up on her gym teacher’s shoes.

If you’re a parent , librarian, or educator, you already know that teens and tweens are an important audience for writers. The reading interests of young adults are shaped, in part, by their unique experiences. They recognize authenticity and they demand to be taken seriously by the writers they decide to embrace.

Despite popular misconceptions to the contrary, writing for this audience is immensely challenging. Many writers think they can do it, but few make the grade.

Erin Dionne takes this challenge seriously, and her new book is already generating buzz. Recently, she took some time from her very busy schedule to tell us about the book and the process of writing.

Bread & Circus: Tell us a bit about your new book, MODELS DON’T EAT CHOCOLATE COOKIES.

Erin Dionne: MODELS is the story of overweight eighth grader Celeste Harris, who-thanks to her meddling Aunt Doreen-gets entered into the Miss HuskyPeach pageant against her will. While dealing with the chaos and hilarity of becoming a fat model, she also must cope with the fact that her best friend is being stolen by school bully Lively Carson.

B&C: The main character is a teenager named Celeste. What can you say about her?

Celeste is a smart, witty girl who hangs on the periphery of basically everything-her family, the school social scene, and her life. At the beginning of the novel, she’s comfortable with who she is-or, she thinks she’s comfortable. She believes that blending in is better than standing out, especially because her weight makes hiding hard. She’s teased mercilessly by Lively, and doesn’t have the self-confidence to stand up for herself.

B&C: In terms of the writing process, did you envision Celeste’s life and personality before you started writing, or did Celeste evolve and reveal new things about herself as you were writing?

Erin Dionne: MODELS originated as a short story entitled “On BBQ Day, No One Brings a Lunch,” and I was encouraged to turn that piece into a novel. But when I began the story, I envisioned an overweight girl, sitting alone in the cafeteria, eating a spinach salad. I wanted to know who she was, why she was dieting, and why she was by herself. Trying to answer those questions lead to the short story. So when I sat down to write the novel, I had a pretty good idea of the character I was dealing with. MODELS is told in first person, from Celeste’s point of view, and “BBQ Day” is in third, so that was a major switch. But Celeste’s voice came right away, and I learned more in-depth details about her as I wrote.

The continuing controversy about the JFK assassination

HISTORY & CULTURE

The continuing controversy about John F. Kennedy’s assassination

By G. Arnold

On a sunny day forty-five years ago,  John F. Kennedy was assassinated as he rode in an open air limousine through the streets of Dallas, Texas. From that day until the horrific events of September 11, 2001, the president’s assassination stood unrivaled as the nation’s most widely shared and deeply felt national tragedy. If you were old enough to remember anything in 1963, you remember that. And you probably remember the exact circumstances in which you heard the shocking news.

The assassination was arguably the “crime of the century.” The alleged killer, a troubled man named Lee Harvey Oswald, was captured within hours of the shooting. But soon after, while he was in custody awaiting trial and as the police investigation went forward, Oswald was murdered.

Without a trial, there were many open questions. To address them, the federal government launched an official investigation under the auspices of the Warren Commission. In its final report, the Commission concluded that Oswald was the lone killer.

But not long after the Warren Commission issued its report, some people started questioning its judgment. Some people were especially skeptical of the Commission’s claim that Oswald had acted alone. They figured there must be more to the story, that there must have been a conspiracy to pull off such a shocking event.

Over the years, many official and unofficial investigations attempted to clear up the mystery. Many studies did not agree with the Warren Report. But conclusive evidence of a conspiracy — evidence about which all parties could agree — was not forthcoming. All these years later, despite Herculean efforts and massive investigations, people still disagree about whether Oswald acted alone or whether there was a conspiracy.

The possibility of a JFK conspiracy has prompted an avalanche of publications, films, and Internet sites. The multitude of theories presented includes a long list of potential conspirators, ranging from the mob, anti-Castro Cubans, pro-Castro Cubans, the Soviets, and officials in American government and industry. In the many theories that have been presented, the cast of possible conspirators sometimes appear in surprising combinations, with a wide range of possible motivations. Some of the theories seem much more plausible than others. Perhaps the most famous of all such theories appears in Oliver Stone’s 1991 movie JFK, which struck a cord with many viewers.

Public opinion polls show that a sizable number of  Americans  believe the Warren Commission’s findings were wrong and that there was probably a conspiracy involved. For those people seeking to refute such beliefs, it’s hard going. Skepticism about the original finding that Oswald was the lone killer runs high.

Last year, famed attorney Vincent Bugliosi entered the fray, issuing a massive tome with no less than 1,648 pages and so many citations that they are contained in an accompanying CD-ROM. The book, Reclaiming History (W.W. Norton, 2007) is a truly monumental work, in which Bugliosi tries to debunk as many of the conspiracy theories as possible.

Still, it is hard to disprove the theoretical possibility of a conspiracy. And it does not appear that he has persuaded many conspiracy theorists so far.

Whatever you think about the assassination — whether you think it was the work of one man or of a cabal — the shock of the president’s assassination and its murky circumstances still reverberate in our society. It’s an unsettled part of our national story that probably won’t go away anytime soon.

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G. Arnold is an editor of Bread and Circus and the author of Conspiracy Theory in Film, Television, and Politics (Praeger, 2008). You can read more about this topic in a recent article in the Providence Journal.

Farewell, Yugo. We’d miss you if we hadn’t thought you’d already gone

NEWS FROM ALL OVER

FAREWELL, YUGO
Production of iconic automobile terminated

Although it hasn’t yet been big news in the American media, the BBC and other sources are rightfully noting the passing of that strangely iconic automobile, the workaday Yugo. It has finally been announced that the car will no longer be manufactured. This may come as news  to American car buyers, who can be forgiven for mistakenly thinking that this had happened a long time ago.

The Yugo mostly disappeared from the American automotive landscape in the early 1990s, only a few years after it was initially imported. During the few years it was sold in the U.S., however, it was very well known. It was certainly one of the least expensive cars on the market. That provided some appeal to American consumers in the mid-1980s when it first showed up in showrooms in the United States.

But shortly after its introduction, stories began to mount suggesting that the Yugo was a “cheap” car in more ways than one. It quickly gained an ignoble reputation. Indeed, it is hard to think of another automobile that has been the object of so many derisive jokes.  (Example heard on the BBC World Service — Question: “What do you call a Yugo on the top of a hill?” Answer: “A miracle.” And that is one of the kinder ones.)

Yet, despite its decidedly meager reputation in terms of quality, the Yugo persisted in the international marketplace for a very long time. Admittedly, American car buyers lost interest some time ago, but it continued to be sold elsewhere.

The Yugo began production during the Yugoslavia years, and it was one of that country’s best known exports. Later, after the that country broke apart with the fall of communism, it continued to be manufactured in Serbia. But that location proved problematic due to the troubled state of relations between Serbia and other nations — especially with NATO nations, with which Serbia engaged in major conflict. When that international situation cooled, it seems to have been too late for the Yugo. The company never seemed to regain whatever momentum it had achieved in prior years.

American automobile producers may have become accustomed to laughing at the Yugo during its heyday.  Yet, it’s ironic that the Yugo’s demise is coming at the same time that the so-called “Big 3″ American car makers — General Motors, Ford, and Chysler — are literally begging for $25 billion from Congress in order to stay afloat. The Big 3 may have manufactured superior products, but it turns out that they have not had much more business sense than the often ridiculed manufacturer of the lowly Yugo. For now, however, the American car industry has outlasted its tiny former rival.

But who knows. The Yugo may soon have plenty of unexpected company in the automotive hereafter.

–G.A.

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Image (above): Public domain photograph, Wikipedia