Cultural Appropriation

CULTURAL APPROPRIATION

I've heard it asked, what is cultural appropriation? Greg Gutfeld, on The Five, on the Fox News Network, once asked if taking something from someone else's culture shouldn't be taken as a compliment?

Well it might be if one doesn't acknowledge where it comes from, or worse, makes fun of the cultural source. That's why black face is forbidden.

One form of cultural appropriation that I thought of that happily hasn't happened yet, at least so far, is the appropriation of yarmulkes. Yarmulkes are Jewish skull caps, worn on the top back of one's head to show reverence to God, usually in a temple, though Orthodox Jews wear some form of them all the time. This artifact is very holy to Jews and my cultural appropriation fear is that one day, some American stylist will desecrate it by making a fancy one by putting a cross and an American flag on it and call it an "American Yarmulke".

Another form of cultural appropriation would be the constant attempts to turn Christian culture into American Culture, insisting that America is a "Christian country". I'm sorry, but as a non-Christian American, I disagree. Still, Christmas is legally an American holiday and more than one person has insisted that I should celebrate it.

That's why we have a First Amendment that forbids Christian prayers in our public schools, the Decalogue on public buildings, and many other forms of Christian appropriation.

One form of Christian appropriation the surprised and really angers me is that Cross in a public park, part of an honor for World War One veterans, which the Supreme Court allowed!

Even before and the Nazis invaded and after they left, the very Christian Catholic country of Poland was not too happy with its Jewish population. That's why many Jews, like my grandfather, left and came to America, where he was free to be a Jew or any religion he wanted. When WW! came, he served and is "honored" by this memorial with the cross on it, which is like putting a Polish flag on his headstone!

Why Haven't I Killed Myself?

A few months ago, I wrote this to my psychiatrist, Dr. Lauer, and to my then psychotherapist, Dr. Holden. I don't remember their response, but I'll pass it on as soon as I ask them again.

Dear Dr Lauer,

This is for you too, but please pass this on to Dr Holden. When will he be listed here so I don't need you as a go between? It's amazing the things you think of at 5:30 AM. I'm up this early because of back pain caused by falling off my kitchen stool and an ongoing invasion of fruit flies. For the pain, I'm taking 400 mg of Advil PM or Ibuprofen every six to twelve hours. For the fruit flies, I just cleaned my place some more and I'll have an exterminator Friday.  Being this time of night, I had one of those thoughts like, my life has been so terrible, why haven't I drowned myself in booze, pills or some other form of self-medicating? The problem, as I see it, is that I still have hope, but is that hope really rational? As I look back at my life, I graduated high school in 1975, and then it took me TEN YEARS to get a degree in ENGLISH LITERATURE!!!!I I then spent the next thirty years trying to start a career that never really happened, despite some occasional fits and starts.

One of the best things that happened to me in this time was that, in 1994, I had a nervous collapse consisting of a massive case of chronic depression, which eventually got me into something called the Skylight Center, a club house for people with mental disabilities, which got me into Special Tees, which worked, for a while.  Also, I got a great new psychotherapist, Ms. Christine Murphy, who diagnosed me as autistic. I had a great time with her for about twenty- five years. What a shame she couldn't last. I'm now sixty- two. I'm still looking to start a career when most people my age are looking to retire. I'm still as financially dependent on my mother as any child, even now, six years after her passing. So, is my hope completely irrational? Wouldn't be more sensible to dive into a bottle of booze or pills and somehow kill myself?

National Health

        I was watching Bill Maher a couple of days ago. He was talking about what we should do about health coverage. The Dems want Medicaid for all, like Europe. Should we?

        He then went into a tirade about how the whole question could be moot if we would just watch what we put into our mouths better. He came out with a picture of people watching the launch of Apollo 11, fifty years ago. Look how slim they all looked! He showed us an old picture of the circus Fat Man. “Now he’s just fat!”

True! At 250 pounds, I could have been that circus Fat Man!

And do you remember New Jersey Governor Chris Christie before his weight loss surgery? Even I was astounded!  Although he was good natured enough to have joined into the jokes, he could have been that circus Fat Man easily! 

It’s not only eating that gets to me. Smoking drives me crazy. While we’re so concerned about drug abuse and spend so much money on drug abuse and treatment, do we ever think to count tobacco as a form of drug abuse? If a person were to go into a drug abuse treatment center, could he get treatment for smoking tobacco? Yet it’s one of the world’s most popular and most addictive forms of drug abuse, perhaps more so than alcohol!

Unfortunately, it doesn’t get the headlines because it’s not as dramatic. Nobody falls over and dies from a tobacco overdose and few people steal or commit crimes for tobacco money, but, while you may have one member of your family who died from narcotics or some other drug, I bet half your family died twenty years earlier than they had to because of complications of tobacco use. Perhaps you will.

I go into a drug store, a shop designed to make you healthier, and right next to the smoking cessation products are the cigarettes! It makes me think of a cartoon I saw.

A man buys a cup of lemonade from a kid’s lemonade stand with a sign that reads, “Lemonade, 5¢”. He then crawls a block to another child’s stand with the sign, “Lemonade antidote, $1000”.

Point being, we could greatly reduce medical costs if we just did four thinks.

Quit smoking, tobacco, pot, or anything besides plain old fresh air.

Watch what you put in your mouth and try to lose weight, if you need to.

Watch what you drink, and join AA, if you must.

Get a bit more exercise, which can be as simple as walking an extra few blocks, or even feet, and, maybe, buy a bike and use it occasionally. My bike has been sitting in the closet for a while. I think I’ll use it to get over to Five Guys for lunch. Just kidding

"Irrational Hope?" or "Why Haven't I Killed Myself a Long Time Ago?"

It's amazing the things you think of at 5:30 AM. I'm up this early because of back pain and an ongoing invasion of fruit flies. For the pain, I'm taking 400 mg of Advil PM or Ibuprofen every six to twelve hours. For the fruit flies, I just cleaned my place some more and I'll have an exterminator Friday.

Being this time of night, I had one of those thoughts like, my life has been so terrible, why haven't I drowned myself in booze, pills or some other self medication? The problem, as I see it, is that I still have hope, but is that hope really rational?

As I look back at my life, I graduated high school in 1975, and then it took me TEN YEARS to get a degree in ENGLISH LITERATURE!!!!

I then spent the next thirty years trying to start a career that never really happened, despite some occasional fits and starts.

One of the best things that happened to me in this time was that, in 1994, I had a nervous break down consisting of a massive case of chronic depression, which eventually got me into something called the Skylight Center, a club house for people with mental disabilities, which got me into Special Tees, which worked, for a while.

 Also, I got a great new psychotherapist, Ms Christine Murphy, who diagnosed me as autistic. I had a great time with her for about twenty five years. What a shame she couldn't last.

I'm now sixty two. I'm still looking to start a career when most people my age are looking to retire. I'm still as financially dependent on my mother as any child, even now, six years after her passing.

So, is my hope completely irrational? Wouldn't be more sensible to dive into a bottle of booze or pills and somehow kill myself?

Print Festival Report Critique

Critique of my report,

 by my Print Making class professor Aragon

Great description of the pieces; your narrative of the essay has a natural flow but there are times when it felt a bit dry. Mainly because there were some sentences that need to be connected rather that have them on their own. When you create short sentences you define a style that mimics a more factual element of the piece; in your case, while you are using facts, I think it would’ve helped the tone of voice of the paper to be less formal so that the reader can “immerse” into the description of the events or the artworks. It seems to me you really enjoyed the Print Fair and had quite the time discovering new artists and their work. I hope this has translated into your own ideas for future pieces and makes you push yourself into creating more complicated imagery.

Keep up the good work

Met Art Museum Report

Met Art Museum Report

November 20, 2016

Rewritten December 2, 2016

These are Claude Monet’s pieces, Four Trees and Manneporte (Etretat). The Manneport surprises me because there are a lot more details than you expect from the father of Impressionism. Still, there’s a lot of shadow and motion, from the curve of the rock and the movement of the water, which you expect from Impressionism. It had a lot more detail than the Four Trees. Manneport has a lot of feeling, such as my Mask piece. My Mask piece gives you a feeling of horror. Manneport gives you a feeling of loneliness, like a leaving. I liked the fact thatthe inside of the arch in Manneport was very bright on the yellow/orange side, which contrasted with the dark blue water and light blue sky. Four Trees has very little contrast. Just a bit of yellow sky. There was also a lot of hard edges in the arch, unlike Four Trees, which has very few hard edges. It helped Manneport in that it was very close, allowing for a lot of the detail that made it so good. Four Trees is more distant and has less detail and, being an Impressionist piece, suggests a lot, like my Doll House.

I also saw Vincent Van Gogh’s Wheat Field With Cypresses. I was impressed with the way he used color, mostly blue skies and very green plants, contrasted with the very yellow wheat field. His contrasts and composition were effective like Manneport, though it was much more distant, like Four Trees.  He used a lot of bright color, the way I did with my Fruit On The Table piece, but he was a lot more organized with his complimentary colors and composition. Van Gogh's yellow in Wheat Field contrasted the blue and the green the way the yellow/orange contrasted against the blue in Manneport. Even the blue and green were interesting in the way they were separated, though they're not contrasting colors, they were contrasted in their shape. the green plants have a lot of short lines, while the sky has a lot of broad, blue space. Another point of contrast in Wheat Fields is that it is mostly vertical, except for the tree on the right going upward, not centered, giving us a surprise. Four Trees has four, evenly space trees that don't contrast with the rest of the picture.

Finally, there was Siesta, by Paul Gauguin. Frankly, I wasn’t impressed. It was a very peaceful piece, no where near as erotic as we’ve come to expect from him. I saw little else that impressed me. There was bright and dark colors in some of the shirts, which contrasted with the green glass, but it wasn't as impressive as Monet's and Van Gogh's color, contrast and composition. No really hard or soft edges. No emphasis on any space. It's just a painting of a family photo.

Print Festival Report

Print Festival Report
by David Rubin

Today I went to see Print Festival, at the International Print Center, at 524 W 26 St, Manhattan. It was an exhibit of print art by students.
There was so many good-looking prints, I didn’t know where to look first. I was also surprised at how simple some of the work was. Some of it was as simple as making a print of pressed dandelions and it looked great.
My favorite artist is Lizzy Itzkowitz, a cartoon art student at the School of Visual Arts. She’s been working at it for seven years, studying the Adobe Creative Suite. She’s worked on a variety of media, including gouache, acrylic, paper collage and digital. She does a lot of print pictures, as well as cartoon booklets. You can see her work at https://www.behance.net/lizzyitz
She screen printed a lot of designs and I love all the color, especially the cat. The

cat has three colors, neon pink, neon yellow and neon blue. All those blotches of neon curvy color make it seem quite happy, especially the large orange on yellow on his belly, which strikes me as much of a greeting as the raised left arm.
She also screen printed Cactus Terrarium, 11"X17", neon pink, neon yellow, neon blue and navy blue, and Coral Reef, same size and colors, done on a transparency, below. Like the cat, they are both beautiful because of all the bright, neon colors.
I like the looks of Coral Reef. There seems to be a lot of movement in that sky blue background.
As for Cactus Terrarium, as good as it looks, it looks out place without any background. I’d have printed  it as being on a table, or something. It is on a transparency. Perhaps the background is whatever she puts it on. If it were me, I’d have painted a table and put the transparency on it, a multimedia.
Another piece I liked, to the right, is Monday’s 2016, by Kathleen Johnson. It’s a 28" X 29" woodcut. Clearly this belongs on the cover of Fantasy & Science Fiction magazine. It’s nothing but black lines on a white sheet. Allthose lines give it a lot of horrific detail, especially the thin lines on his face and nose. All that horror is emphasized by the thin black rays around it.

what do I do that I think is "worth it"

My buddy, Richard Parsons. He comes here a couple of times a week and we order a movie on demand, or go out to a movie, or go to Barnes & Noble and buy books, DVD's, cake and coffee. It can get expensive,  but it's worth it.

Resume

David Rubin

200 Murphy Rd

Wilmington, DE 19803

(347)782-6666

daru3@aol.com

Profile

Nearly twenty years of experience from production and maintenance of factory equipment to business solicitor and publicist, getting articles written by industry journals. Received experience and accolades as author and artist. Eager to explore various fields for personal and professional development

Work Experience
Currently working as artist in Wilmington, Delaware area,
Selling my art at local fairs & festivals and online at
 davidsartforsale.blogspot.com

Worked as intern for
Gnome Sculpture Project at the College of Staten Island, July 2017

●       Helped build large wooden gnome sculpture
 on permanent display at College of Staten Island

Fine Art Photos of Staten Island Oct 2012-Mar 2013 

●       Solicited business

●       Developed spreadsheet to record contact responses.

●       Followed up with phone calls to seeming likely prospects.

 Possibili-tees custom Screen Printing of Staten Island 2009 to 2012 

●       Solicited business.

●       Developed spreadsheet to record contact responses.

●       Sought publicity for company by contacting industry publications, which resulted in descriptive articles of our company in two publications: Impressions and Apostrophe magazines

Special Tees Custom Screen printing

●       Cleaning Officer in charge of assuring that tools & screens
 are in good condition and ready for use.

Camp Counselor NY Assoc for Metro-area Autistic Children, Summers of 1991, 1992, 2001 

●       Served as reading counselor for autistic children.
 Convinced Association to use Special Tees as supplier.

Education

College of Staten Island

●        Bachelor of arts, English Literature Major, Jan 1986

●        Associate in Applied Science, Computer Science Major, June 1980

●        Associate in Sciences, Liberal Arts & Science Major, Jan 1980

●        Associate in Arts, Liberal Arts & Science Major, June 1979

Computer Skills

Internet search skills
Basic MS Word

Basic MS Excel

Hobbies
Artist;              

• Sept 2010 Started Amateur Artist Career 
• Established Art blog at daru3-davidart.blogspot.com
• March 2017 Special merit given by Light, Space & Time Art Gallery
• Apr 2013 & Oct 2019 Special Recognition given by Light, Space & Time Art Gallery
• May 4, 2017 Recognized for artistic participation in College of Staten Island               Undergrad Conference on Research, Scholarship & Performance

Author; 

●              Myriad letters to editor published in Staten Island Advance

And NY Daily News

●              Nov 2015 Article on autism published in Polychrome Literary Magazine

Limitations
No driver's licence
Arthritis makes walking & standing difficult