When we first start reaching for our dreams, they can seem so far away.  But each step brings you closer and closer.  That’s how you do it: little step after little step until you jump over.

Listen to the song and follow the lyrics (they aren’t accurate, but they’ll give you a good idea).  Hopefully it moves you the same way it moved me.

You can find his full discography on Amazon here .

[UPDATE: I wrote a better description of my reaction here.]

Lyrics to “This is How We Walk on the Moon” by Arthur Russel

Arthur Russell with Cello

Each step is moving, it’s moving me up
moving, it’s moving me up
Every step is moving me up
moving me up, moving, moving me up
Every step is
moving me up
One tiny, tiny,
tiny move
It’s all I need
And I jump over
Every step is moving me up

This is how we walk on the moon

This is how we walk on the moon
Every step is moving me up
I’m so far away
One moment there
Moving me up
Every step is moving me up
One moment there
One tiny, tiny move
It’s all I need and I jump over

Just watched Kubrick’s “Full Metal Jacket” for the first time as an adult.

“What?” you say. “Aren’t you the biggest Kubrick fan this side of the Mississippi?”

Apparently not.  I mean, I own all the Kubrick films and know them all by heart–except “Full Metal Jacket.”

When I was a kid, I remember coming into the living room while my parents were watching it.  It felt so heavy–not in intelectual material, but in mood.  This time around, however, I saw the beautiful cinematography and dark, fun house mirror wit that I love in all his movies.  I shouldn’t be that surprised; I hated “A Clockwork Orange” when I first saw it at 16.  Today, it’s probably my favorite movie of all time.

Kubrick’s genius really shines in the final scene:

By choosing to have the troops sing the Mickey Mouse Club theme song as they march silhouetted by flaming destruction, Kubrick ties three themes together:

1. The journey from boy to man
   • Typical of most war movies, we see the main character grow from fresh faced recruit to hardened soldier.  This song, however, is effing intense. These guys probably sang this song along with the TV as kids.  Now they are singing it together as a shared nostalgia that not only binds them, but also serves to show the contrast between childhood and adulthood; innocent naivety and killed-a-man experienced.
   • Or maybe, it shows that these guys are still boys having to live as men. Hmmmm….
2. Camaraderie and the solidification of a group
   • They’re singing about being members of a club, holding banners high, working in harmony and the shared nostalgia/experience mentioned above.  The inviting lyrics could also be mistaken for recruiting.
3. Notion of the American ideal of bringing freedom, even if through force, to the rest of the world
   • Mickey Mouse is a symbol for America.
   • The lyrics are upbeat, inviting people around the world to join a club.  The soldiers singing this as they march across a conquered land in order to eradicate communism and forcibly bring freedom make those lyrics ironic.

When I was little, my grandfather would play an old Mickey Mouse Club record.  I remember marching around, gleefully raising my mom’s old baton up and down while singing the theme song with joy.  There isn’t that same vigor in the voices of these soldiers.  They have to make themselves joyful. By singing this particular song, they are able to grasp on to any last scrap of  humanity or any distant memory of innocence.  Brilliant.

Anyway, just same late night wanderings.  What do you think?

Here’s what his bio has to say about him:

Marc Johns creates whimsical drawings filled with dry wit and humour. Whether it’s a man with branches growing out of his head that need pruning, or a pipe that’s trying to quit smoking, his characters are simply, sparsely drawn, yet speak volumes with just a few strokes of the pen. He’s been drawing since he was tiny. He’s not tiny anymore, but he’s not exactly big either. Marc is not sure why he’s talking about himself in the third person…

via MarcJohns.com.

He’s like one part absurdist and one part Edward Gorey, and totes makes me smile. Check out some of his work, below.  I purchased a print of “Which torso.”  You can purchase prints and originals directly from his site.

To see more of his work, check out his kick-A, near-daily updated Flickr stream or read his blog.

"Which torso" by Marc Johns

"Elements Required to Cast Spell #786" by Marc Johns

"When Henry blew bubbles they became more than that" by Marc Johns

"After the Experiment" by Marc Johns

"The mustaches chased him zealously" by Marc Johns

If you know me, you know I love culture jammer and guerrilla artist Shepard Fairey.  That’s why it thrilled me to no end when I read that his iconic poster of Obama was purchased by and hung in the National Portrait Gallery this weekend.

I first fell in love with Fairey’s work when I saw the “Obey Giant” campaign in the 90′s.  I remember wondering why someone would paste up Andre the Giant’s face with “Obey” underneath it.  I had my own ideas, and so did my friends.  We were all kind of waiting for the full marketing/ad campaign to be revealed.  When we found out it was just art, it really taught me how affected we are by commercial art.  Most of all, I loved how Fairey was trying to recliam our common public spaces by putting up art that makes us think instead of try to buy something.

Fairey usually takes a discerning and negative approach to the government and those who control the media. Obama’s idealism inspired Fairey to make positive posters.  He also wanted to inspire young voters to get involved in the electoral process–and it worked:

“My desire for the image was to make something that I thought was patriotic and iconic but unique enough to capture the interest of people.”

He released the image on his Web site shortly after he created it and made thousands of posters for the street. As its visibility caught on, supporters began downloading the image and distributing it at campaign events, while blogs and other Internet sites picked it up.

“It was both the visible presence of the posters and the Internet combined that yielded an immediate viral storm,” he said.

At first, Obama’s team just gave him permission to make the image, he said. But soon after he created it, a worker involved in the campaign asked if Fairey could make an image from a photo the campaign had rights to, he said. Fairey changed the portrait’s bottom phrase to “change” for a revised illustration.

Fairey has since started working on posters against the passing of California’s Prop 8, saying: “When we become authenticity police for love, we’re on really shaky ground.”

For those not familiar with Shepard’s work, you can check out his website or his books: Obey: Supply & Demand : The Art of Shepard Fairey, a 20 year retrospective issued in 2006, or last year’s E Pluribus Venom.

Also, check out this great slide show from the LA Times of other artists’ portraits of Obama.

Do you think the inclusion of guerrilla artist Shepard Fairey in the National Gallery legitimizes culture jamming?  Will we finally stop selling out our public spaces to the highest bidder? Or will marketers use this style to try and target the young, hip set?