What Is It About Art?

Agent. Of. Change.  I've always gravitated towards strong women in my life. My mother, my grandmother, my tennis captain, my female classmates, and strong characters depicted in TV and film. They include Bionic Woman , Wonder Woman , and oh of course, Hilary Clinton .  Photo Credit: AbeBooks But one that has stood out the most in my life is Billie Jean King . As a preteen I really did not have any dream or life direction. When I saw this woman compete against a guy who is twice her age in a tennis match, it really helped me view and solidify the idea that women are just as good and should be respected as such. Even though I'm a guy, this imagery and motivation was a positive aspect.  This is one of the reasons why I picked up tennis, I wanted to be part of a group or have some sense of belonging and accomplishment. As a youth, you constantly struggle to develop an identity , or begin to find one. BJK was a motivator. Based on her platform and abilities in her career sport...

I'm one of many thousands of San Francisco residents who are paying way more than the national monthly rent for an apartment. I understand the idea of supply and demand , but when an individual who is trying to make a living and trying to live in a world class City shouldn't be giving up close to in my opinion 50% of their monthly pay.  In the book, one housing law was listed. The state of California has "a law called the Costa-Hawkins Rental Housing Act that limited the scope of what sorts of rent control to single-family houses and condominiums and any apartment built after 1995 (or whatever year the city passed its rent control ordinance, which in San Francisco was 1979). It also freed landlords from rent regulation whenever a tenant moved out, allowing them to raise the rent back to the market price." page. 204-205 In light of the current Coronavirus epidemic , the impact on housing and how to maintain, and pay for it, is a huge stress on renters. This book ...

This book is one of America's classics used in countless high schools as a literature standard. In light of this recent Coronavirus pandemic , I searched through some books I've been dying to revisit and appreciate. The Catcher in the Rye is one of them.  Set in the 1950's Pennsylvania ,  this book delves in a young man's life of borderline teenage years to leap into inevitable adulthood. It's simply a story of a boy's age of becoming. In his efforts to get through this threshold of life, he encounters individual, social, and personal challenges.  One quote, that says it all.  " . . . I’m standing on the edge of some crazy cliff. What I have to do, I have to catch everybody if they start to go over the cliff—I mean if they’re running and they don’t look where they’re going I have to come out from somewhere and catch them. That’s all I’d do all day. I’d just be the catcher in the rye and all." It's a reminder, that we all struggle in one way or ...

Call Me by Your Name by André Aciman My rating: 4 of 5 stars "Se l'amore, If this is love, then... love found, departs, returns. View all my reviews

Go Set a Watchman by Harper Lee My rating: 4 of 5 stars "Prejudice, a dirty word, and faith, a clean one, have something in common: they both begin where reason ends." Harper Lee , author of the acclaimed To Kill a Mockingbird , writes a landmark new novel set two decades after her beloved Pulitzer Prize-winning masterpiece. Go Set a Watchmen perfectly captures a young woman, and a world, in painful yet necessary transition out of the illusions of the past - a journey that can only be guided by one's own conscience. I picked up this book to delve in the 1950s period and realize how telling in 2020, that much has not really changed in social and political climates. To me, it only surfaced with the "elephant in the room (country)" divide. The quote above taken from the novel seemed to encapsulate the struggle of the protagonist that she must deal with the reality of being away from home to be more "enlighten" with the rest of the country, only to re...