Long absence

As I am sure it is apparent, I have not posted to this blog in a LONG time. I apologize to anyone who has visited for my lack of posts. I will no longer be posting to this blog and, instead, will soon be creating a new blog. More details to come...

In the meantime, I will be leaving my posts up on this blog up since my traffic reports indicate that several of them are still receiving multiple hits a day.

You can also read my tweets until I re-format my blog: http://twitter.com/susiehume

Thanks for reading!

Urban Dictionary

Here's a short article I wrote for City newspaper on internet oddity, UrbanDictionary.com:
Read here, or below:

Think you're hip? Can you understand the mock conversation below?
Bob: Man, I have such a food baby! Djeetyat?
Jill: No. The cinemuck really turned my scrangina.
Bob: Shaw, it was skody! Let's globnick.
Jill: Sounds like a larf.
If you have no idea what Bob and Jill are discussing, then you obviously haven't been introduced to UrbanDictionary.com, an online community-edited slang dictionary. Started by Aaron Peckham in 2001, the website boasts more than 1 million entries, and almost 2,000 new ones are added each day. New entries are frequently repeats, and the site allows users to vote on entries (thumbs up or thumbs down) so that entries with higher ratings take prominence on the page.
Many of the words and phrases featured on UrbanDictionary.com are common sayings (like "cool"), some were derived from television, movies, or other pop-culture venues (and Urban Dictionary does its best to note the origins). Some entries are instances of offbeat vernacular, and at times, they are simply words made up by the site's users.
Most Gen-X and Gen-Y'ers will recognize terms like "drunk-dialing," defined by Urban Dictionary as making a phone call while inebriated to former flings, ex-boyfriends or girlfriends, or guys or girls that you want to hook up with; "shoulder surfing," looking over the shoulder(s) of a person with whom you are currently engaged in conversation to see if you can find someone better to talk to; or "rock star parking," the rare occurrence of obtaining a parking space directly outside the door of a bar, club, or restaurant.
But other words and expressions, like the ones used in the mock conversation above, are so new that they haven't yet made our everyday vocabulary. This is why Urban Dictionary's cultural role is twofold. It serves as a reference for individuals (and often businesses trying to market to younger, hip audiences). And as a continually updated database, it actually works to create new cultural expressions instead of being a mere reference for existing urban slang.
In the fall of 2005, Urban Dictionary expanded from just a website to a printed reference guide. The 352-page book contains only about 2,000 definitions from the website's massive collection. With online updates taking place daily, the book was outdated before it is even released. In other words, it is so five minutes ago.
Check it out at www.urbandictionary.com. It's da bomb.

Review of Carrie Mae Weems exhibit in Rochester

Read the review written for City newspaper in Rochester here, or below:

Many modern women are hesitant to admit that they are feminists. The term typically requires clarification via a string of qualifiers, given the myriad negative cultural connotations and a history defined by divided opinion. Identifying as a feminist is even trickier for the feminist artist, who is already positioned outside a world often reserved for the male genius, resulting in further categorization and placement in a marginalized position. Carrie Mae Weems, an internationally renowned female, African-American photographer who often bitingly confronts issues of gender and race in her artwork, is no stranger to this concept. In fact, Weems uses the complications inherent in being a female artist as fuel for her work, flipping stereotypes and playing on viewers' assumptions in order to usurp them.
Currently on display at the University of Rochester's Hartnett Gallery, All About Eve is a cross-section of Weems' work from 1990 to 2006 that directly confronts gender issues. The exhibition's title evokes a dual meaning: the 1950 film of the same name and the biblical Eve. The artwork in the exhibition mirrors the title's multifaceted meaning as well, containing pieces that force viewers to explore several different female identity constructs --- the virgin and the whore, the mother and the daughter, the seducer and the seduced, the passive object and the aggressive subject.
Working with Hartnett Gallery director Derek Rushton, Weems selected 19 works from six distinct series and arranged them in a way that utilizes the gallery's idiosyncratic shape. Situated within Wilson Commons --- an oddly shaped building designed by architect I.M. Pei --- the triangular gallery provides a challenge to both artists and curators, but Weems and Rushton successfully use the space so that it actually enhances the work's strengths.
The left wall of the gallery, covered in a Weems-designed black-and-white wallpaper featuring a recurring female figure, contains a triptych from the series The Shape of Things (1993), and six photographs from the series Not Manet's Type (1997). The right wall is filled with five images from Weems' Kitchen Table (1990) series and three photographs from the series Framed by Modernism (1999).
The cleverest use of the gallery's space is where Weems has situated the piece The Apple of Adam's Eye (1995), a fabric folding screen that cuts across the acute corner connecting the gallery's left and right walls. The crimson partition employs a silk-screened image of a woman, shrouded in a royal blue sheet, and gold embroidered text to retell the biblical story of Adam and Eve. The front side of the panel reads "She'd always been the apple of Adam's Eye," but it is on the reverse side, which requires viewers to "trespass" into a tight corner, where Weems has left the rest of her humorous retelling: "Temptation my ass, desire has its place, and besides, they were both doomed from the start."
In the piece itself, Weems merges her talent as a visual artist and her acerbic humor. By selecting its unconventional gallery positioning, the poignancy is actually augmented. Forcing viewers to squeeze between the wall and the partition to view the back part of the screen is risky --- some patrons may be too timid to navigate the tight area and others will feel awkward as they work their way into the confined corner --- but it's necessary, as it heightens the themes of trespass and negotiation of space that are so common in Weems' artwork.

These themes are more prevalent in Weems' newest work, a short video titled Italian Dreams (2006), which plays on a loop on the gallery's back wall. Weems' eye for evocative visuals is readily apparent in this new video; it's an admirable addition to her already remarkable body of work. In the video, Weems (often the subject in her artwork) walks, with her back to the camera, through the hallways and gardens of Cinecittà, the studio in Rome made famous by Federico Fellini. Weems has admitted a love/hate relationship with Fellini's work due to his overt denigration of women, and here she consciously carves out a place for herself --- and women --- in that history.

This premise is apparent in several of the works on display. In the series Not Manet's Type, a woman (Weems again) shifts around a room in front of a mirror, the subject of both her own gaze and the viewer's. The text accompanying one panel states, "It was clear I was not Manet's type. Picasso --- who had a way with women --- only used me and Duchamp never even considered me."
All About Eve is a modest, but worthy exhibition of Weems' work. The skillfully nuanced pieces, seemingly disparate at first, are linked together by recurring themes, and their careful placement within the space-conscious gallery serves to reinforce their subtext. In her award-winning career, Weems has not only reclaimed historical settings for herself and women, but she has also proven herself a significant artist --- no qualifiers necessary.
All About Eve through March 9 Hartnett Gallery, Room 201, Wilson Commons, University of Rochester's River Campus Gallery hours: Monday-Friday, 11 a.m.-8 p.m.; Saturday-Sunday, noon-6 p.m.

Hollywood puts the fat in "fat suit"

Read my article here or below:

When Hollywood runs out of sequels and remakes --- which should happen any day now --- it has at least one comic leg to fall back on: movie folks seem to find nothing funnier than a man in a fat suit and a dress. With the February 9 release of Eddie Murphy's new film, Norbit, it's time to ask: what is with Hollywood's strange fascination with men dressed up as obese women? And maybe more importantly, who is paying to see these films?
The fat suit can be found on film as early as Monty Python's Meaning of Life in 1983, and has increased in its realism and frequency ever since. Even with our growing tendency toward political correctness, it seems that obesity is still fair game for laughs. And men in drag are a Hollywood humor staple (Some Like It Hot, Tootsie, Mrs. Doubtfire, et al.) Stripping a man of his masculinity may never lose its hilarity. But the growing trend seems to be not just men playing big, fat women, but specifically African-American men playing big, fat women.
Martin Lawrence did it for Big Momma's House, which was popular enough to spawn a similar be-fat-suited sequel. Tyler Perry has done it several times, from Madea's Family Reunion to Diary of a Mad Black Woman. Even Eddie Murphy has dabbled with latex and lycra before, in The Nutty Professor movies. Dave Chappelle spoke out against the trend on Oprah last year and stated his outward refusal to wear a dress. "Why do they put every black man in a dress eventually?" he asked. Good question.
So here we go again with the stereotypical domineering fat woman, and the desexualized black male. In Norbit, Murphy plays the titular character, a shy, good guy who is engaged to a controlling, gi-normous woman named Rasputia (whom Murphy also plays). The previews show the same old fat jokes (honestly, how many 400-pound women wear bikinis and run amuck like Godzilla, breaking everything in their paths?) and Murphy, as Norbit, looks embarrassed by the whole thing. As well he should be, frankly.

Night of the Living Deadenbacher

An article I wrote for City, Rochester's alt-weekly newspaper. You can read it here or look below:
If you're one of the 20 million people who tuned into the Golden Globes on January 15, then you may have witnessed the new spokesman for Orville Redenbacher popcorn --- Orville Redenbacher himself. Well, not quite, since Redenbacher died almost 12 years ago. Instead, the new ad features a "composite" Redenbacher employing three actors (one each for the body, the face, and the voice) and the efforts of Digital Domain (the CG team behind The Lord of the Rings and Titanic) to digitally graft Redenbacher's mannerisms and facial features onto the actors frame by frame.
The effect is a creepy, bobble-headed Redenbacher replete with an oversized bowtie that seems to be keeping his head from teetering off his neck. If you saw the commercial, you probably did a double take. (If you haven't seen it, it's available on the Orville Redenbacher website, http://www.orville.com/.) And you realized that something's not quite right --- beyond the creep factor of having a dead guy schilling snack foods.
Sure, dead celebs have been used to pitch products in the past. The trend started in 1991 with a Diet Coke ad featuring Elton John performing before a crowd of gone-but-not-forgotten celebs, including Humphrey Bogart, James Cagney, and Louis Armstrong. And most people remember more recent efforts like Mustang's invocation of Steve McQueen, Fred Astaire being sold to the (Dirt) Devil and Audrey Hepburn dancing for The Gap. But this is the first time a company has digitally recreated a walking, talking, zombie-spokesman that it can use to do and say as it pleases. It's a chilling concept that is only augmented by the awkwardness and eeriness of the ad itself.
As if the whole thing couldn't get any stranger, the "Deadenbacher" commercial was also directed by David Fincher --- yes, that David Fincher, director of Fight Club, Seven, and Panic Room. Just what is it that draws a big-name Hollywood director to a popcorn commercial? ConAgra Foods, the company that owns the Orville Redenbacher brand, won't disclose how much it paid to raise the dead, but it has declared it the most expensive ad it has ever made for the brand. And as the technology gets easier and cheaper (as technology does), we're apt to see zombie-stars popping up faster than the light-and-fluffy treat itself.

Review of Edgar Martins exhibit from NYC trip

The woman stands alone on the beach, her head obscured by a cluster of balloons. She peers into the ocean, now a deep black infinity masked by night’s darkness. Ten steps further and she may fall off the edge into obscurity, but she remains motionless, trapped somewhere between fantasy and reality by photographer Edgar Martins.
The photograph, untitled, is part of the series “The Accidental Theorist,” currently on display at the Betty Cuningham Gallery in Chelsea through Jan. 13. The exhibition, also including prints from his series “Dystopia,” is Martins first in the U.S. — and what a grand entrance he makes.
The gallery’s first room contains five framed prints from Martins’ series “Dystopia:” Photographs taken immediately following the forest fires that engulfed Portugal in 2005. Martins, born in Portugal, used long-exposures so that the smoke from the fire’s aftermath fills the frame. At first glance, it appears to be fog, but upon closer inspection a subtle, unnatural pattern emerges— the smoke is opaque in areas, and transparent in others. Martins is playing with viewers’ assumptions; the disruption of the natural landscape by the unnatural appearance of the smoke creates tension and heightens the emotion.
The gallery’s second room contains the series “The Accidental Theorist.” Fourteen prints, mounted on aluminum and affixed to 3-inch thick wood substrate, jut out from the stark white walls. The beach photographs are 60-second exposures using only ambient light. The subjects vary: Beach umbrellas, a volleyball net, cabanas and in some, just the sand. Moonlight renders the landscapes delicate and artifical and the viewer wanders into a surreal world. Where the black horizon and the stark landscape meet, it is as if space and time are about to collapse into one.
The 30-something artist is a rarity amongst his contemporaries, most of whom are entrenched in the digital age. Employing a large format camera and no digital manipulation, Martins achieves remarkably surreal images that force the viewer to question how they are accomplished with traditional means. If you go see this exhibit (and you should), the eerily beautiful images will likely haunt your memory for days.

Review of "The Drowsy Chaperone" from NYC trip

The Broadway production of “The Drowsy Chaperone” is best analogized to cotton candy; the high-energy song and dance numbers, lavish sets and 20s costumes send the audience into an intense, smile-laden sugar high, but also like the fast-dissolving circus treat, the show, touted as “a musical within a comedy,” only titillates the taste buds for its 105 minute runtime and the songs are ultimately forgettable.

Currently showing at the New York Marriott Marquis Theatre, “The Drowsy Chaperone”, based on the book by Bob Martin and Don McKellar, is a play within a play narrated by a nameless character referred to simply as “Man in Chair” (a role typically filled by Mr. Martin himself, but played by swing actor Jay Douglas at the Jan. 2 performance). Man in Chair is the perfect postmodern creation — he makes abundant self-referential quips about theater and beats would-be detractors to the punch by criticizing the play’s flaws before they occur.

The narrative of the play within the play is an intentionally cookie-cutter plot akin to a Shakespearean comedy, replete with “mix-ups, mayhem” and of course a finale that involves several “gay weddings” (which Man in Chair clarifies “meant something different back then.”)
First-time director Casey Nicholaw does a fine job organizing the large ensemble cast and the audience is never left confused. Douglas plays Man in Chair with the appropriate amount of sarcasm and near perfect comic-timing that keeps the audience with him until the very end. But it is Sutton Foster, as bride-to-be Janet Van De Graaff, who is the obvious standout performer in the ensemble.

Foster’s rendition of “Show Off,” a song with a fairly formulaic tune and rather unremarkable lyrics, is surprisingly enjoyable; her impressive voice, immense stage presence and irresistible charisma elevate the otherwise bland song into an entertaining romp. While the audience is likely to forget exactly how the song goes, they’re sure to remember Foster’s performance, basking in the glow of camera flashes.

In the end, “The Drowsy Chaperone” is pure, unabashed escapism. And frankly, sometimes the sugary sweet simplicity and pleasure of cotton candy is the only thing that truly hits the spot.