Blog by Sumana Harihareswara, Changeset founder
Taste Of The Arts
Hi, reader. I wrote this in 2006 and it's now more than five years old. So it may be very out of date; the world, and I, have changed a lot since I wrote it! I'm keeping this up for historical archive purposes, but the me of today may 100% disagree with what I said then. I rarely edit posts after publishing them, but if I do, I usually leave a note in italics to mark the edit and the reason. If this post is particularly offensive or breaches someone's privacy, please contact me.
Every day I give thanks that the strength of the prejudice that led to Gentleman's Agreement (1947) has let down. Yeah, almost everyone's prejudiced in various ways, but it's not as bad as it was. My father came to this country and made a pretty good living as a knowledge worker, a civil engineer. He wasn't the same color or religion as most of his coworkers, but he got jobs and supported his family all the same. How far we've come!
Gentleman's Agreement surprised me with its plot and dialogue. There's a scene where a hotel clerk quietly shuns Peck. I thought it would just be a bunch of those scenes together. Quietly shunned at a restaurant, quietly shunned at an employment office, etc., etc. But it's not, and it's more an attack on cowardice than on out-and-out villains.
I took a couple of acquaintances to see Mike Daisey's show "The Ugly American" (for the second time). I recommend it, and it's closing this week. Warning: very, very dark. And very funny.
Flux Factory, "a not for profit arts organization supporting innovation in things," has a very neat show right now involving beautiful semimechanized musical machines. Walking around in the installation is like playing with the innards of a jukebox. I highly recommend it. It'll be there for the next five weeks.
