Noir and German Expressionism
Originally appearing on the (now defunct) Apex Publications blog, March 2013 Ahhhh film noir: black and white and gritty, low-budget never looked so good. But one of the most striking things about film noir is its roots in German Expressionism. German Expressionism is a twentieth century art movement focused in Germany (natch) from the pre-WWI era through WW2. So while the rest of Europe and America was doing Art Deco, Germans were experimenting with…well, everything. Art, sculpture, theatre, film…if there was media the Germans expressed it. Expressionism was supposed to be the answer to, the reaction to Impressionism. Whereas Impressionism was meant to capture a moment in time, a memory, an impression, if you will, the purpose of Expressionism was to...
An Ode to Art History
This post is going to contain a lot of navel-gazing, fairly warned be ye says I… So, today was the last class of my current art History class. When I first got the opportunity to teach this two-class series, I was thrilled. I had to fight for it, but it was worth the fight. Over the past few years, the class was taught on and off, but as the school is closing they are getting everyone through so I have had several terms in a row where I have been able to teach it. The very best part about teaching art history, aside from the subject matter, is the wide variety of students I get to teach. Prettymuch all the majors need to take it, so I have my fashion students, graphic designers, interior designers, and digital media and animation students. The latter are one...
This whole feminism thing…
So, I’ve been doing a fair bit of thinking, both in conjunction with my last post and in general. As the mother of a little girl, I am inundated with advice on how to raise her as a “feminist,” and frankly, most of it sucks. See, I’m a gal who likes to split the difference. I have really long hair, easily own my weight in jewelry, cannot easily give you the number of shoes I own, the folks at my local Bath & Body Works know me by name, as do the good people at Starbucks, one of my favorite outings is to the mall, I love to cook, and I like to show off my cleavage. I also drive a pick-up truck, drink beer, drink whiskey, know an awful lot about both of those alcohols, love hockey, swear a lot, hate make-up, hate the color pink,...
Feminisim, Genre, and the Apex Publications
I grew up in a matriarchal household in the San Francisco Bay Area, so my understanding of feminism is really skewed since my whole life the women of my family have always been the breadwinners, the independent types, and a grandmother who never learned to drive but always told me it was because she didn’t want to- it wasn’t ladylike. Fast forward to my writing career. (And let’s forget my unfortunate first book contract for the duration of this post, shall we?) I ended up gravitating towards Apex. Back in the day (2005) they were a small press before small presses were a Thing, they published sci-fi and horror, ran an annual Halloween short story contest, and they were known for publishing two friends-of-friends (who are both now my own friends)...
The Infamous Irish Butter Post of 2010
So, I have seen KerryGold Irish butter in the stores before and scoffed. I mean what makes Irish butter so special I’d want to pay three times the cost of regular butter? Then I went to Ireland. As I have mentioned, their cows are grass fed on small-medium family farms and a “large” factory in Ireland, like the Guiness or Jameson facilities, are still tiny compared to the juggernauts of US and Chinese industrial centers. So when I tasted their butter, I tasted cool days and fresh rain and the joys of locally produced everything. The best meal we had in Ireland was smoked salmon from the Irish sea sliced thin and laid on freshly baked brown bread which had been generously slathered with Irish butter. Costco is carrying KerryGold right now and Matt...
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