Tonight, experimental filmmaker Ernie Gehr will be giving the seventh annual Experimental Film Lecture, jointly presented by the departments of Cinema Studies and Undergraduate Film & Television at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts. The pre-lecture screening is of his films in 16mm. You might want to see those while you can, lest they burn up in the projector.
For nearly fifty years, artist Ernie Gehr has transformed his deep knowledge of the moving image into a distinct vision of cinema’s potential for interpreting and fragmenting reality. With an astute, often humorous, appreciation for the limits and possibilities of the frame, Gehr has, since the mid-1960s, created a large, radical body of work that continues to challenge and surprise audiences. He uses his camera as a tool for creating new modes of perception. With few words, no characters, and no plots, his films, video work, and installations push us to re-imagine our own relationships to time and space.
There are a multiplicity of adjectives that fit Ernie Gehr’s experimental film and digital work: abstract, beautiful, mysterious, invigorating, utopian.
In Gehr’s hands, the camera seems to take on magical properties, able to transform the most quotidian object or environment—the pattern of sunlight on a wall, a busy street—into marvelous and unexpected phenomena.
Join us for screenings at 5:30 and Gehr’s Experimental Lecture at 7:00.
5:30
Pre-lecture 16mm screening of Serene Velocity (1970), Shift (1972-74) and Rear Window (1986/1991)
6:30
Artist reception
7:00
Experimental Lecture with screenings of Lisa and Suzanne (1968-69), Untitled: Part 1 (l981), Coney Island Boardwalk (2013)
In Kubrick’s Eyes Wide Shut, which I screened earlier today in my Ways of Seeing class at Pratt in support of teaching mise-en-scène, I observed a use of lighting that I didn’t get to cover in class.
In the scene where Bill and Alice are in the bedroom and begin the conversation about the sexual appetites of men and women, the are shown in a single shot, embracing each other.
The lighting cast on both Bill and Alice in this shot is the same. However, the background has two distinct colors to it:
a warm light cast by an incandescent light in the bedroom, presumably from the lamp on the bedside table, and
a very cold, blue light cast from outside, visible behind Alice, that washes over the bathroom in the background.
At this point in the scene, the two begin their debate which escalates to the point that Alice leaps up from the bed, away from Bill. The two continue their disagreement but now are framed in separate shots, stitched together through editing.
Bill is still on the bed and primarily lit by the warm incandescent light from the lamp. The entire shot glows like that light.
However, Alice is now opposite Bill, over by the bathroom, and though she is still illuminated by the lighting cast from the bedside lamp, the shot glows in a much colder, blue color.
The visual differences between warm and cool lighting illustrates the split that Bill and Alice have encountered in their relationship. This split will activate the crisis throughout the rest of the film and will only get resolved when they are both cast in similarly cool light after both sharing traumatic experiences.
Update: Kilo Bravo is celebrating its two-year anniversary on Wednesday so we’ll be postponing trivia to next week, October 12.
I’ll be back to hosting Wednesday Night Trivia at Kilo Bravo on Wednesday, October 12, beginning at 8:30 PM. It’s been a lot of fun, and if you’re around, please do stop by and play along.
Whet your appetite for our quiz questions—and the bar’s half-price chicken wings—with questions from this past week’s Current Events round. The answers are after the jump.
Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump met in the first of three debates this Monday, setting a record number of television viewers. Photo NBC News.
Current Events
Last week, Bloomberg revealed that hackers gained access to data of about 500 million users of which email service?
Earlier this week, who declared his plans to colonize Mars within the next 40-100 years?
Which recent, but defeated, Republican presidential candidate announced his support for the “Republican nominee” in the general election?
The first debate between presidential candidates Clinton and Trump was watched by about 84 million television viewers, setting a new record. Which debate previously held the record?
Nixon-Kennedy 1960
Reagan-Carter 1980
Bush-Dukakis 1988
Bush-Gore 2000
Obama-Romney 2012
As arguably the greatest left-hander in Dodger history, who had his last game this Sunday at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles?
Because of another case of partisan gridlock in Congress, what really bad thing might happen on Saturday, October 1?
Officials have learned that the 58-story Millennium Tower has a “pronounced lean” in which earthquake-prone city?
Last week, we learned that Michael Bay’s upcoming Transformers 5 movie will feature King Arthur and which historical figure from the 20th century?
I’ll be hosting again next week. Bring some friends, gather a team, and win some prizes, including a bar tab that you can use on-the-spot.
Although I missed last week’s trivia night due to a really bad cold, I heard that the quizzing festivities went undeterred. Mike Q stepped from behind the bar to play quiz master. I heard it was a blast.
But now my cold has passed, and I’ll be back to hosting again on Wednesday night. Again, there will be prizes…
Update: I won’t be able to host trivia tonight because I came down with a bad cold. I’ll be there next week, though.
Tomorrow night, I’ll be hosting Wednesday Night Trivia at Kilo Bravo, located at 180 N. 10th St in Williamsburg, on Wednesday nights starting at 8:30 PM.
My friend Mike Q works the bar during the night and contributes a bunch of questions, usually with decadal themes such as 1990s fashion, 1990s music, 1980s movies, and 1970s sports.
My own contributions include current events of the past week and a picture round to identify something I put on the TV screens at the bar. You can see last week’s questions, below!
Come out with a team, join one, or play solo. It is half-price chicken wings until 10:00, and there are prizes:
When I first started working at CUNY in 2008, I signed up for the Commuter Benefits Program offered to its employees. The program, now administered by WageWorks, allows you to set aside an amount of your choosing to be deposited onto a Commuter Card. The amount you set aside, up to $255 per month, will be deducted from your paycheck, pre-tax, meaning that those contributions won’t be taxed and you pocket the savings. 1
For New York City employees using WageWorks, the Commuter Card can be used to buy rides on the following systems:
Another way you can use your Commuter Card is to pay for uberPOOL rides. But before you start booking rides on POOL instead of riding the train or bus, be aware of a few nuances that might make using your Commuter Card a little onerous.
You will only be connected to drivers in full-size vehicles that can carry six or more passengers.
Your ETA may be longer when requesting uberPOOL or $5 POOL with your commuter benefits prepaid cards.
While I appreciate the creative thinking that made possible using transit funds for a certain Uber rides, I would love to be able to use my Commuter Card for bike share expenses. It’s something that other New Yorkers have desired, but alas, that is not yet the case.
Starting this year, New York City requires all employers with twenty or more full-time employees to offer this program for their full-time staff. ↩
Yes, I’m still alive! No, I haven’t abandoned this website.
With only three posts since Memorial Day weekend, I know it looks bad, but I will be posting again soon. The summer months, while certainly not boring or uneventful, did not find me with much to share with the world.
But summer is over, and I will be back to sharing again, including a few backdated posts.
It took three years, but we did it! We reclaimed the Lower Manhattan Softball League’s Heckscher championship cup.
The team looks a lot different than the previous championship teams in 2012 and in 2013, and not only because we sport pink livery.
Johnny, our longtime manager and spiritual leader, moved to Miami last fall and bequeathed the team to another player. With Johnny leaving, a lot of our veterans left, too. Some moved away while others felt it was time to move on.
As the team changed around me, I found myself playing a diminished role. Instead of pitching one or both games of the weekly double header, as I had done since joining the team in 2010, I returned to the outfield and batting as an extra-hitter in the bottom of the lineup.
I didn’t complain about my role, however, because the team dominated throughout the regular season, finishing 21-3. But by the start of the playoffs, we were losing players left and right. Some opted to play in other tournaments. A few key players were hurt. But we held on and rolled through the first two rounds of the playoffs. The finals, on the other hand, were much more challenging. Largely because our regular pitcher, who dominated throughout the year, missed the finals because he was taking his family on a weeklong vacation.[^ family first]
Below is a game-by-game recap of the finals.
Game 1
After a lengthy rain delay, we played a very stressful first game against the Big Red Machine, the finals opponent we vanquished in 2012. It was back and forth until the sixth inning, when we broke through with four runs. We held on in the seventh to win 13-9.
Game 2
In the second game, we scored a run early in the game but fell behind shortly thereafter. We played a pretty sloppy game, letting in a bunch of runs, but the shoddy defense did not factor in the game as we never scored more than one run in the game, losing 7-1.
Game 3
By the start of the deciding game, Hermes, our pitcher, was gassed. Our coaches asked me to pitch the third and deciding game of the finals. The rest of the team seemed concerned because they hadn’t seen me pitch the whole year. I too shared some of their trepidation because I hadn’t thrown a pitch in Central Park all summer, but after a few minutes warming up, I found my groove.
We scored a run in the first inning and two more in the second, and our bats fell silent after that. But our paltry offense didn’t matter because our defense was impeccable. I gave up one run—a solo home run—on five hits and no walks. At just over thirty minutes, I’m pretty sure this was the fastest game I ever played in, largely accelerated to avoid the impending rain. We won the deciding game, 3-1, and were crowned champions shortly thereafter.
The One Club, a non-profit organization devoted to developing creative talent in the advertising industry is hosting its annual multicultural creative career fair, Here Are All the Black People, taking place on Friday, September 30th at The Times Center in New York City.
Although I’m a little confused about The One’s choice in using Cornel West waxing rhapsodically about love in the video above, I am pleased to see the culture industries finally acknowledging their failings in fostering multiculturalism on television, in movies, and in advertising. After all, organized and public protests, such as “Oscars so White,” brought attention to these issues and the industries have little choice but to respond.
I hope this event, and others like it, encourage underrepresented and marginalized peoples to enter these creative fields and effect change in these industries.
Interested students should sign up and attend this event and apply for a stipend to offset any expenses in attending.
Earlier this week, I attended a group session about Microsoft’s Office 365, the productivity software and services subscription. Of the four colleges where I have taught, the suite has been offered at only one: CUNY Queens College. However, as far as I know, Office 365 is only available to currently enrolled students and, strangely, not available to faculty or staff.
In today’s session, the session coordinator and a number of participants, including many who also teach at CUNY, insisted that faculty and staff have access to Office 365. I was a little embarrassed to have been corrected in a semi-public setting like that.
After searching various help documents on the Queens College website, it appears that I was right and everyone else was wrong. Office 365 is not available to faculty or staff at CUNY Queens College, only currently enrolled students.
A response from the IT Help Desk at Queens College also confirms this as much:
The Office 365 is for attending students only. Faulty and staff do however have the Office suite on their campus computers. They can also download a copy of Office 2016 through the CUNYPortal e-mall for home use. https://cunyportal.cuny.edu/cuny_eMall/
This I knew. I have a local version of Office 2016 for Home and Business on my Mac, but I am most interested in the Office 365 cloud functions and its apps for mobile devices.
I suspect that the participants in today’s session can’t distinguish between Office 365 as a subscription service and Office 2016 as the downloadable software that comes with Office 365. However, because the participants seem very clear on what Adobe Creative Cloud is, I suspect that it’s partly Microsoft’s problem with explaining the Office 365 product and distinguishing it from the venerable desktop apps, like Word, Excel, and Powerpoint.
But I am still puzzled as to why faculty can’t get Office 365 like the students. My sense it that has to do with students use one email system while faculty/staff are another. Students use Office 365 accounts with qmail.cuny.edu addresses, while faculty and staff use Outlook and are “grandfathered” with the older qc.cuny.edu addresses. Authorizing the site license might only allow a single domain associated with each organization.
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