Today is Rosa Parks 100th birthday.
Systemic Threshold
The 2013 Screen Actors Guild Awards evidently put Argo in front-running position to take home The Oscar’s coveted Best Picture. After being Oscar snubbed as a director, Affleck and his film have since cleaned up on awards culminating in SAG’s top-honor ensemble award. Daniel Day Lewis’ Oscar chances went from 95% to 99% with a SAG win, while Jennifer Lawrence and Anne Hathaway are also now a “shoe-in” as well or so they say.
Disney purchased 3 TV spots for tonight’s BIG GAME (Superbowl XLVII) at about 4 mill a pop while Warner Bros. opted to sit out for it’s third year in a row. Industry insider info indicates that Warner Bros. is strongly hinging on the commercial success of Man of Steel, before “moving forward” with it’s top-priority project: Justice League. The studio has every right to be nervous, banking it’s flag-ship character hopes on a director like Zack Snyder. Snyder had early success with 300 (60%), and arguably Watchmen (64%), but his most recent film Sucker Punch (23%), was literally god awful. Which explains why WB execs are hesitant.
AND SO while Warner Bros’ ensemble team-up film remains in limbo, Disney’s ensemble team-up film is well into it’s phase two, with Iron Man 3 and Thor: The Dark World coming this year. Marvel head honcho Kevin Feige says that the studio is going to “keep taking risks” creatively in phase two and beyond. One of such risks was casting Robert Downey Jr. as billionaire inventor Tony Stark. But that seemed to work out for everybody:
Intergalactic Synergy
Awards and Flu Seasons have commenced as the 2013 Golden Globes gave Bostonian Ben Affleck a pretty phatty sack including Best Director and Best Picture. Daniel Day Lewis got best actor which let’s be honest isn’t very surprising to anyone. So wash your hands and eat oranges as Oscar night approaches on February 24th. Speaking of Oscar potential Star Wars Episode VII has officially hired director J.J. Abrams to helm the film. The young director just finished his second Star Trek film and took the job reportedly after months of being courted by new Lucasfilm CEO Kathleen Kennedy. Abrams even publicly announced that he would NOT direct the film, which evidently he was just flat out lying about. What a SILLY GOOSE! Some would say. Abrams’ credits include Star Trek and Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol, having also written and produced big name stuff like Lost and Alias. Regardless, Disney’s newest branch seems pretty pumped to have him;
It’s very exciting to have J.J. aboard leading the charge as we set off to make a new Star Wars movie,” said Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy in a press release Jan. 25. “J.J. is the perfect director to helm this. Beyond having such great instincts as a filmmaker, he has an intuitive understanding of this franchise. He understands the essence of the Star Wars experience, and will bring that talent to create an unforgettable motion picture.”
Star Wars creator George Lucas also gave his blessing to the selection of Abrams. “I’ve consistently been impressed with J.J. as a filmmaker and storyteller,” said Lucas. “He’s an ideal choice to direct the new Star Wars film and the legacy couldn’t be in better hands.
Having just landed the biggest directing gig in Hollywood, let’s take a look at Abrams’ most recent project:
Queen of People’s Hearts
“I do things differently, because I don’t go by a rule book, because I lead from the heart, not the head, and albeit that’s got me into trouble in my work, I understand that. But someone’s got to go out there, love people and show it.
I am a free spirit – unfortunately for some.”
“This is me, this is me!” exclaimed Princess Diana when she was read Dr. David Keirsey‘s portrait of an Healer Idealist, (INFP).
Oh, Come On
She would have been 70 years old today, January 19th, 2013.
Janis Lyn Joplin, Performer Artisan, (January 19, 1943 – October 4, 1970) was an American singer-songwriter. Joplin first rose to prominence in the late 1960s as the lead singer of the psychedelic-acid rock band Big Brother and the Holding Company, and later as a solo artist with her more soulful and bluesy backing groups, The Kozmic Blues Band and The Full Tilt Boogie Band. She was one of the more popular acts at the Monterey Pop Festival and later became one of the major attractions to the Woodstock festival and the Festival Express train tour. Janis Joplin charted five singles, and other popular songs from her four-year career include “Down on Me”, “Summertime”, “Piece of My Heart“, “Ball ‘n’ Chain”, “Maybe”, “To Love Somebody”, “Kozmic Blues”, “Work Me, Lord”, “Cry Baby”, “Mercedes Benz”, and her only number one hit, “Me and Bobby McGee”. Joplin was well known for her performing abilities, and her fans referred to her stage presence as “electric”. At the height of her career, she was known as “The Queen of Rock and Roll” as well as “The Queen of Psychedelic Soul,” and became known as Pearl amongst her friends. She was also a painter, dancer and music arranger. Rolling Stone magazine ranked Joplin number 46 on its list of the 100 Greatest Artists of All Time in 2004, and number 28 on its 2008 list of 100 Greatest Singers of All Time. She was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1995. [Wikipedia, revised]
Like A Candle in the Wind, but burning at both ends, Janis Joplin died at the age of 27, from a drug overdose.
Performers also like to live in the fast lane, and seem up on the latest fashions of dress, food, drink, and music. Lively and uninhibited, Performers are the life of the party, always trying to create in those around them a mood of eat, drink, and be merry.
The Performers’ talent for enjoying life is healthy for the most part, though it also makes them more subject to temptations than the other types. Pleasure seems to be an end in itself for them, and variety is the spice of life. And so Performers are open to trying almost anything that promises them a good time, not always giving enough thought to the consequences. [Please Understand Me II]
She died young — to be forever young.
“I’m a victim of my own insides. There was a time when I wanted to know everything. I read a lot. I guess you’d say I was pretty intellectual. It’s odd, I can’t remember when it changed. It used to make me very unhappy, all that feeling. I just didn’t know what to do with it. But now I’ve learned how to make feeling work for me. I’m full of emotion and I want a release, and if you’re on stage and if it’s really working and you’ve got the audience with you, it’s a oneness you feel. I’m into me, plus they’re into me, and everything comes together. You’re full of it. I don’t know, I just want to feel as much as I can, it’s what ‘soul’ is all about.”
“Don’t compromise yourself. It’s all you’ve got.”
Freedom just another word for nothing left to lose.
— Janis Joplin (Me and Bobby Magee)
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Different Drummer
If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer.
Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away.
— Henry David Thoreau
Hope can be very foolish. Parents can have hopes for their children, often these aren’t what the children can meet.
Gene Krupa, Performer Artisan, was born in Chicago, the youngest of Anna (Oslowski) and Bartłomiej Krupa’s nine children. Krupa’s father, Bartłomiej, was an immigrant from Poland, and his mother, Anna, was born in Shamokin, Pennsylvania, of Polish descent. His parents were very religious and had groomed Gene for the priesthood. He spent his grammar school days at various parochial schools and upon graduation, attended St Joseph’s College for a year, but later decided it was not his vocation. [Wikipedia, revised]
No, his parents had great plans for him, but Gene had a different drum to drum.
IT WAS THE DRUMS.
Performers have the special ability, even among the Artisans, to delight those around them with their warmth, their good humor, and with their often extraordinary skills in music, comedy, and drama. Whether on the job, with friends, or with their families, Performers are exciting and full of fun, and their great social interest lies in stimulating those around them to take a break from work and worry, to lighten up and enjoy life. [Please Understand Me II]
When I speak of natural drummers I’m talking about guys that are playing with the talent God gave ’em. — Gene Krupa
Other Performer Artisans: Louis Armstrong, Alex Karras, Kim Jong-un, Phyllis Diller, Jim Cramer, Josephine Baker, Whitney Houston, Marilyn Monroe
With Thought thru New Regions
“You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view – until you climb into his skin and walk around in it.” spoken by Atticus Finch, in To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee.
How do you “truly” climb into another’s skin and walk around? It is a hard thing to do, well. For that person may be a different kind of person from you, from a different time, and from a different place.
My avocation since I was a child was as a Viking bystander. My vocation lately has been as a Viking reader of books and people.
One can try to “climb into another’s skin” through watching a movie or play, or reading a book. This is something we can do as humans. We can visit different lands and different tribes – the modern words for “lands” and “tribes” is countries and cultures. We can also visit some different “ages” – through movies and living in cultures that are different than your “culture” – although there are limitations and there is a possibility to not really get the “gestalt” of that age and place. Are you just a tourist or just an anthropologist?
Please Understand Me. Mostly, we don’t understand “truly” – the Temperament, the Tribe, the Age that is not like us.
But we can try.
Here are some autobiographies of the various Temperaments, many from a different time and different place. Climb into the person’s skin, and walk around in it – at least for awhile.
Rationals [Strategic]
Engineers [Reactive Rationals]
Ben Franklin (Inventor) [Expressive Engineer]
Mark Twain (Inventor) [Expressive Engineer]
Paul Allen (Inventor) [Expressive Engineer]
Charles Darwin (Architect) [Attentive Engineer]
Linus Torvalds (Architect) [Attentive Engineer]
Coordinators [Proactive Rationals]
Margaret Thatcher (Fieldmarshal) [Expressive Coordinator]
Ulysses S. Grant (Mastermind) [Attentive Coordinator]
Peter Drucker (Mastermind) [Attentive Coordinator]
Idealists [Diplomatic]
Mentors [Proactive Idealists]
Jane Goodall (Counselor) [Attentive Mentor]
Mohandas Gandhi (Counselor) [Attentive Mentor]
Jane Fonda (Teacher) [Expressive Mentor]
Advocates [Reactive Idealists]
Albert Schweitzer (Healer) [Attentive Advocate]
Karen Armstrong (Healer) [Attentive Advocate]
Joan Baez (Champion) [Expressive Advocate]
Artisans [Tactical]
Operators [Proactive Artisans]
Katherine Hepburn (Crafter) [Attentive Operator]
Lance Armstrong (Crafter) [Attentive Operator]
Donald Trump (Promoter) [Expressive Operator]
Theodore Roosevelt (Promoter) [Expressive Operator]
Entertainers [Reactive Artisans]
Neil Simon (Composer) [Attentive Entertainer]
Jim Cramer (Performer) [Expressive Entertainer]
Bill Clinton (Performer) [Expressive Entertainer]
Guardians [Logistical]
Conservators [Reactive Guardians]
Barbara Walters (Provider) [Expressive Conservator]
Sam Walton (Provider) [Expressive Conservator]
George H. W. Bush (Protector) [Attentive Conservator]
Administrators [Proactive Guardians]
Lilly Ledbetter (Inspector) [Attentive Administrator]
Andrea Mitchell (Inspector) [Attentive Administrator]
Mike Wallace (Supervisor) [Expressive Administrator]
Judith Sheindlin (Supervisor) [Expressive Administrator]
Sonia Sotomayor (Supervisor) [Expressive Administrator]
Making A Difference
She knew something was incorrect.
She knew something was not right.
She was very observant. That was her natural talent.
She had to be observant. Some of the guys could be really nasty. She might get run over, figuratively, the tires were big, but more importantly the company was big, and it paid the highest wages around — well, at least it appeared so on the surface. With a closer inspection …
She was doing her job, and as she saw it, her duty. And she worked hard at her job, was super dependable, and did a good job. It was a hard job. But, she figured, at least, it wasn’t picking cotton — she had done enough of that when she was young. She had been working hard ever since she could remember. Her production numbers were good, and her waste numbers were low.
She was thankful for that. She loved her work. She was proud of it. She was loyal. She stayed, stood her ground, and made a difference… despite the pot shots sent her way.
Continue reading Making A Difference
Tactician’s Allure
The new year is upon us my dear friends and with it comes the 2013 awards season, and a whole new year in cinema. And somehow all the stupid crap I pulled last year is dead and gone now and I have a whole year to pull an entirely new set of crap. Iron Man 3, Thor 2, Oz the Great and Powerful, Man of Steel, The Wolverine, Sin City 2, jOBS, and The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug are among those to look forward to in 2013.
Les Misérables and Argo are Golden Globe favorites alongside Lincoln and Zero Dark Thirty. Baz Luhrmann‘s The Great Gatsby might give hip hip mogul Jay-Z his first Oscar, as he was recently hired to score the film. Luhrmann is known for Moulin Rouge and Romeo & Juliet, two films in which he also used contemporary music in a period film.
Based on the classic novel by F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby takes us back to the roaring twenties, focusing on titular character Jay Gatsby (Leonardo Dicaprio): a legendary charming, confident, ambitious and lavish hero of the post World War I era. Nobody is perfect as it turns out, as main character Nick Carraway (Tobey Maguire) starts to unravel Gatsby’s true nature. Carraway’s obsession with Gatsby is representative of humanity’s attraction to fame, glamour, and the spectacle of the Artisan: Let’s take a look
A Safe Place
A Hero for Children
A Hero for the World
Pushpa Basnet
“There is no greater insight into the future than recognizing…when we save our children, we save ourselves”― Margaret Mead
Pushpa Basnet, Protector Guardian, started her career at the age of 21, while she was still an undergraduate in Social Work. As part of her college assignment, she visited the women prison in Kathmandu. She was dismayed at seeing the conditions of children living with their parents behind the bars. She raised 70,000 rupees (roughly $885) from her close friends and sister, and started a non-profit organization — The Early Childhood Development Center (ECDC) to provide a day care program to the children, in 2005.
In 2007, she opened a residential home for kids to live outside of prison year round while still visiting their mothers on holidays. Today, she has assisted more than 100 children of incarcerated parents. She runs a day care center for the prison children and a residential home for older ones. She has also helped to provide alternative residence, school enrollment, free meals and medical care to them. [Wikipedia, revised]
A kind of Mother Teresa of Nepal, Pushpa Basnet is providing a safe place for children to grow up.
Wanting to be of service to others, Protectors find great satisfaction in assisting the downtrodden, and can deal with disability and neediness in others better than any other type. We are lucky that Protectors make up as much as ten percent the population, because their primary interest is in the safety and security of those they care about – their family, their circle of friends, their students, their patients, their boss, their fellow-workers, or their employees. Protectors have an extraordinary sense of loyalty and responsibility in their makeup, and seem fulfilled in the degree they can shield others from the dirt and dangers of the world. [Please Understand Me II]
She won the 2012 CNN Hero of the Year Award and but represents the numerous unsung Protector Guardians that serve their fellow man without any recognition.