Truth: Jasper Johns Wins the Medal of Freedom Tonight

Jasper Johns, of recent AS first semester final exam prompt celebrity, received the Medal of Freedom tonight from President Obama. There have only been 5 visual artists who have received the honor- Rockwell, O’Keefe, Wyeth, de Kooning and Calder.  Johns said, “My work is largely concerned with relations between seeing and knowing, seeing and saying, and seeing and believing.” It was a good day for the arts.

The Granddaddy Independent Film Festival- Sundance

I love movies. I come from a huge family that is obsessed with films! My grandfather has had us watching movies since we had the attention span to sit still. Come to think of it, that probably helped develop our ability to sit still as we have passed many hours at his house rediscovering the classics he thought were essential to our being (with at definite World War II bias)!

Anyway, last week was my birthday and my parents surprised me by throwing a bag over my head on Friday morning before school. The three of us were headed somewhere and it was their surprise to me. When the bag came off we were in Salt Lake City (?) and it was not obvious to me what was going on since I really am not a skier. It didn't take long to find out from our shuttle partners we were headed 30 minutes east to Park City and the oldest independent film festival in the United States---SUNDANCE. I guess my mom and dad had won tickets to 4 movies and two nights in someone's ski condo at a party benefiting the ADLER Planetarium.  You would have to say......I was over the moon!

We had to dump our bags fast and rush to the first show which was "Higher Ground" at the Holliday Village Theater.....(read on for the trailer and my review........)