Ben: HBO's Witness - Juarez

Gents,

I know I’m heading to detention at the rate that I’m completing my homework first semester, but I plan on bringing the intensity for this second semester before Short Term starts. Also, in San Francisco they don’t believe in deadlines or grades because they only serve to imprison the people and their free spirits.

Before I promise to be on time for everything I wanted to please ask Professor Fox for a one day extension on Victoria because my dog ate my iPad this weekend and I had to get a new one. It is currently rented and ready to watch now.

Mallman: Loved it. Immediately after watching this episode my roommate and I were hooked on the series and it has been so cool to watch all of these artistic geniuses. I thought it was interesting how it related to Robinson’s talk about education as Mallman chose his own educational path at an early age by simply following his passion. It takes an extraordinary person to have his conviction and that conviction is what led to his following. Nearly everyone close to him spoke of how “free” he lived his life and while at times this can be selfish, he was driven by truth and authenticity. He doesn’t want to waste one second of his life on meaningless bullshit and I can’t argue with him there (Especially after working in sales for a mere three months). I think part of this comes from growing up in Patagonia where the nature surrounding him is so pure and breathtaking. His respect for nature comes into play with his food too as he “respects the meat” and isn’t into all of this “flippy-floppy” nonsense. He and his band of followers live off nature in the purest sense. They grow their vegetables, they hunt their meat, and they cook everything on the most badass outdoor stoves I’ve ever seen. Classic Patagonia shit.
One thing that I really love about the show as a whole is how it shows Chef’s as part artist, part coach/general. Mallman leads his troops through inspiration and discipline and from that they’ve created their own traveling culture and community. Another common tie is how basically everyone goes to Paris to hone their craft, which is think settles the debate of what city has the best food in the world. C’est Paris.

Robinson: Robinson made me completely think education and realize how we’ve basically been brainwashed by our current educational system to favor certain roles in society. My roommate pointed out to me – as did Robinson in his opening monologue – that the educational journeys of many of the chefs resembled Robinson’s ideal educational system.

His story about the ballerina who grew up with add before it was invented, she was looked at as dumb. Luckily, an observant teacher took a step back and pointed her in the right direction of her passion. She thrived in dance and found a role in society where she could contribute the most. The unfortunate thing is seeing how we’ve figured out what add is, but instead of going in Robinson’s route, we’ve decided to fill kids with pills to make them good at things that don’t utilize their best talents. I’d like to be optimistic and think that Americans can turn things around, but there are less and less “elective” options for students every year.

We have been so fortunate to all be exposed to amazing art and ideas that most kids aren’t exposed to and thus we are way ahead of our time and smarter than everyone else…or maybe if they hadn’t forced me to study math I could’ve become a sick trumpet player, but I digress.

Thank you Caleb and Bill for wicked entertaining and thought provoking shit. Tim, I just watched Victoria, but I can’t write anymore right now so I will have that to you by tomorrow. You may take a letter grade off. I will say it was dope!

My Mac Monday

Witness: Juarez (HBO)

If you guys don’t have an HBO account I can provide Kerry’s, which I think Will might already be using. Either way, this was a really difficult decision to make, but the reason I chose this show was because it changed my perception of photography completely. I understood why a good picture was a good picture, but I never saw or understood the process behind it. This show has four episodes and this guy is in two of them. He can be kind of a prick at times, but he’s good at what he does.

The other eye-opening part of this show was the intense contrast between Juarez and El Paso (Juarez is also examined a bit in Sicario). This show is intense and I hope everyone enjoys it!