Mountain Views News          Saturday, May 7, 2011

10

ARTS & ENTERTAIMENT

 Mountain Views News Saturday, May 7, 2011 

SEAN’S SHAMELESS 

REVIEWS: 

Wild Palms

PASADENA ARTWALK CALL TO ARTISTS

The 6th Annual Pasadena ARTWalk is accepting artists submissions.

 The Pasadena Playhouse District Association is inviting artists to submit artwork for the 6th Annual 
Pasadena ARTWalk. This year’s Pasadena ARTWalk will take place on Saturday, October 15, 2011 
from 11 am until 5 pm at El Molino Ave. between Colorado and Green St.

All artists are welcome to apply to exhibit in the Pasadena ARTWalk. Artists submitting work must 
fall in one of the following categories: 

• Drawing 

• Mixed media 

• New media 

• Painting 

• Photography 

• Sculpture 

Application fees*:

- $100 - early submittal fee for applications received before June 30, 2011

- $150 - application fee submitted from July 1 – 29, 2011 

*Artists work will be juried. If not selected, application fee will be returned

 

Deadline for submission: July 29, 2011

Notification date: August 23, 2011

The Pasadena ARTWalk is a free multi-faceted celebration of the arts in the Playhouse District. The 
festival offers an eclectic selection of art ranging from visual, written and spoken word, to performance, 
and culinary art. The Pasadena ARTWalk is presented by the Pasadena Playhouse District 
Association. 

For more information on how to participate in this year’s Pasadena ARTWalk, visit www.playhousedistrict.
org/artwalk or call 626.744.0340. 

 
In 2009, 
WILD PALMS’ 
first single, 
“Over Time” 
was a grungy, 
post-punk, 
sharp-edged 
tune with an 
indescribable 
aura of thrill, pizzazz, and restlessness. After the 
release of a couple of singles over the past two 
years, the London quartet has finally graced us 
with their debut album, “Until Spring”. They 
traded their too-cool-for-school attitude for U2-
inspired arena rock anthems. It’s somewhat of an 
uneven record that suffers from being influenced 
by too many bands before them. However, as you 
journey through the peaks and valleys of “Until 
Spring”, you’ll discover that familiarity isn’t always 
a bad thing. Fans of recent indie groups, We Were 
Promised Jetpacks, Bombay Bicycle Club, and 
Wild Beasts will hear the resemblances in sound 
arrangements. Other generations will discover 
lead singer Lou Hill’s vocals to share similarities 
to 80s groups like Tears For Fears and New Order. 
It’s not entirely clear what Wild Palms were seeking 
out to accomplish with their debut album. 
I’m not completely sold with every track on the 
record, but even in uncertainty I’m still bizarrely 
mesmerized by a few of their more potent songs. 
Some may call Wild Palms’ earnest effort a complete 
misfire. However, whatever their intentions 
may have been, “Until Spring” is a pleasing, amiable, 
if not conventional, gloomy pop record. 
While the execution may have been slightly off, 
Wild Palms’ shortcomings still prove that their 
artistry and future endeavors are just some things 
to take into deep consideration.

Many first time listeners of Wild Palms from 
2009 will be somewhat bewildered by their new 
undertaking of an entirely different and expansive 
soundscape. Expectations will get the best of you 
because Wild Palms circa 2009 is not the band 
you may have wanted to embrace in this year. Personally, 
if I had heard their original song that provided 
drone-like sounding vocals two years ago, 
they wouldn’t have even been on my radar. Since 
they’ve conformed to a more distinctive and recognizable 
style, I was more willing to seek them 
out. Now there really isn’t anything to be annoyed 
or irritated by with “Until Spring” unless you 
loathe the idea of a band implementing their influential 
roots into their debut presentation rather 
than determining their own personal, defining 
signature. Despite all that, you’re still left with an 
album with superior production values, an utterly 
infectious sound and better-than-average vocals. 
At the same token, lyrically you may not become 
enthralled and your emotions might never be 
put on the line. The album itself feels a bit of a 
contradiction. Wonderfully flawed best describes 
this rapture. In the end, Wild Palms is the kind 
of band you first discover at a music festival and 
tell all your friends about how an obscure band 
that sounds like better-known bands changed 
your life. Eventually you’ll realize the same feeling 
you had with thousands of people by your side in 
the moment you hailed the best time of your life 
doesn’t even come to close to being recaptured in 
the privacy of your bedroom while listening to 
the same band’s recorded album. 

Sean Kayden

HUNTINGTON ACQUIRES MONUMENTAL DEPRESSION-
ERA SCULPTURE AND IMPORTANT EARLY 20TH-CENTURY 
AMERICAN PAINTING


SAN MARINO, Calif.—The Huntington 
Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens 
added to its holdings two significant works of 
American art on Saturday. At the annual meeting 
of its Art Collectors’ Council, the institution 
acquired a 22-foot-long sculpture carved as a 
screen for a pipe organ by the prominent African 
American artist Sargent Claude Johnson (1888–
1967) in 1937 as well as “Harlem Flats (Back Lot 
Laundry),” an important early painting made in 
1907 by Ernest Lawson (1873–
1939), one of a 
group of Ashcan school artists called The Eight.

“Harlem Flats” was purchased for The 
Huntington by Overseer Kelvin Davis, who is also 
a member of the council; he offered to acquire it 
outrightbefore the group began voting on new 
acquisitions. The field thus narrowed, the council 
decided to purchase the organ screen—seizing a 
rare opportunity to purchase a significant piece 
commissioned by the Federal Arts Project.

“We were faced with a very impressive slate of 
works to consider this year,” said John Murdoch, 
Hannah and Russel Kully Director of Art 
Collections at The Huntington. “It was clearly 
imperative that we add the striking, architecturally 
significant Johnson relief, which will be a focal 
point of our American art installation. But 
Lawson’s painting will add meaningful context 
to one of The Huntington’s greatest strengths—
artists of the Ashcan school. We are delighted 
beyond words to be able to present both of these 
impressive works to our visitors.” More...

Pipe Organ Screen for the California School for 
the Blind

Best known for his imagery of animals and people, 
particularly African and Native Americans rendered in 
Abstract Figurative and Early Modern styles, Sargent 
Johnson was one of the first African American artists 
in California to achieve a national reputation. More...

Combining the Ashcan School with Impressionism

“Harlem Flats” attests to Ernest Lawson’s roots in 
the Ashcan aesthetic. The Ashcan school is defined as a 
Realist artistic movement that came into prominence in 
the United States during the early 20th century. More...

The Art Collectors’ Council

The Huntington’s Art Collectors’ Council is a group of 
major donors who support the growth of the collections 
through active involvement in the acquisition process. 
They meet every spring to select works for acquisition.

About The Huntington

The Huntington Library, Art Collections, and 
Botanical Gardens is a collections-based research and 
educational institution serving scholars and the general 
public. More information about The Huntington can be 
found online at huntington.org.

Visitor information

The Huntington is located at 1151 Oxford Rd., San 
Marino, Calif., 12 miles from downtown Los Angeles. 
It is open to the public Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, 
and Friday from noon to 4:30 p.m.; and Saturday, 
Sunday, and Monday holidays from 10:30 a.m. to 4:30 
p.m. Summer hours (Memorial Day through Labor Day) 
are 10:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Closed Tuesdays and major 
holidays. Admission on weekdays: $15 adults, $12 seniors 
(65+), $10 students (ages 12–18 or with full-time student 
I.D.), $6 youth (ages 5–11), free for children under 5. 
Group rate $11 per person for groups of 15 or more. 
Members are admitted free. Admission on weekends and 
Monday holidays: $20 adults, $15 seniors, $10 students, 
$6 youth, free for children under 5. Group rate $14 per 
person for groups of 15 or more. Members are admitted 
free. Admission is free to all visitors on the first Thursday 
of each month with advance tickets. Information: 626-
405-2100 or huntington.org.


Ernest Lawson,”Harlem Flats (Back Lot 
Laundry),” ca. 1907, oil on canvas, 18 1/2 • 
24 in. Huntington Library, Art Collections, and 
Botanical Gardens.

The Book Report


Brothers, Rivals, Victors: Eisenhower, Patton, Bradley 
and the Partnership that Drove the Allied Conquest in 
Europe by Jonathan W. Jordan

The true story of the friendship and rivalry among the greatest 
American generals of World War II. Supreme Allied 
Commander Dwight D. Eisenhower, General George S. Patton, 
and General Omar Bradley engineered Allied victory 
in Europe. But they also shared an intricate web of relationships 
going back decades, complicated by shifting allegiances, 
jealousy, insecurity, and ambition. For the first time in 
such detail, the relationships between these three legendary 
fighting men are explored, showcasing the personal side of 
life at the summit of raw, violent power during World War 
II. Jordan spent almost two years researching personal correspondence, 
diaries, and unpublished interviews to tell the 
fascinating story of the men who engineered the destruction 
of Hitler’s mighty “Fortress Europe.” Jordan describes the evolution of friendship that dated 
back from their time at West Point to battlefields of World War II. Behind the D-day landings, 
the Battle of the Bulge, and the conquest of two continents lay an intricate web of personal 
relationships going back decades complicated by shifting allegiances, jealousy, insecurity and 
ambition. Jordan is the author of the award winning book Lone Star Navy: Texas, the Fight 
for the Gulf of Mexico. His writing has appeared in World War II magazine, Armchair General, 
Military History, World War II History, and MHQ: The Quarterly Journal of Military 
History. 

Presence-Awareness: Just This and Nothing else 

by Sailor Bob Adamson & John Wheeler 

A respected figure in the field of non-duality, ‘Sailor’ Bob shares his 
understanding of our real nature, presence-awareness, with seekers 
who attend the weekly meetings at his home in Melbourne, 
Australia. Presence-Awareness consists of 44 short dialogues on 
this direct approach to spiritual understanding transcribed and 
edited by John Wheeler. If you are seeking truth, reality, God or 
whatever you like to call it, I suggest that you start with the only 
reality you are absolutely certain of, which is the fact of your own 
being. There is no one sitting here who can say, ‘I am not’. Each 
one of us knows ‘I am’. But that thought ‘I am’ is not the reality. It is 
the closest you will ever get to it with the mind. That ‘I am’ is just a 
translation by the mind of that sense of presence, the awareness of 
presence or the presence of that awareness. That is the only reality 
we are absolutely certain of. Nobody under any circumstances can 
say ‘I am not’. That knowing is constantly and ever with us. And 
that is why we say that what you are seeking, you already are.


Acting classes for REAL people, at the...
Join the “FOR THE LOVE OF ACTING” class.
Saturdays 2:00 to 5:00pm on our STAGE. No experience necessary! 
NEW BEGINNERS class starts APRIL 02. 
For reservations and class info, call June Chandler (626) 355-4572