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Obama Art
Aloysius J. Gleek:
Alo posted in the 'Current Events' thread: http://bettermost.net/forum/index.php/topic,35551.0.html
http://www.slate.com/id/2216632/
The White House Canon
Photographs from the rotating collection at the White House.
By John Dickerson
Posted Wednesday, April 22, 2009, at 11:57 AM ET
President Obama can't walk very far from his office without being confronted by a picture of himself. One hundred and forty-seven frames hang throughout the White House, displaying images of the daily life of his presidency. Known as "jumbos," the 20-by-30-inch prints are a long-standing presidential tradition that goes back to the Nixon administration. These pictures don't hang in the grand spaces of the White House. They line the hallways and staircases of the cramped quarters where the work gets done. There are grand offices in the White House, but much of the work area is dim, with low ceilings and such crowded work spaces that it almost seems as if the staff sit two to a chair.
Most of the jumbos are not formal photographs but candid views into the daily business of the presidency. "We want to show the president, not just photo-op situations," says White House photographer Pete Souza.
It would be hard, with so many of these photos hanging around, not to let the pictures go to your head. Obama, who photographs well, is usually captured in the most commanding way. It also helps that Souza, who also worked in the Reagan White House, has been photographing Obama for some time. He's also got perhaps the best material since the Kennedy administration. "I'm envious of Souza," says former White House photographer David Hume Kennerly. "You couldn't cast a situation better: an attractive couple, the first black president, two kids, the dog."
But the photographs aren't just for the president. They're for the staffers who don't get to see him much. Those who are captured in a photograph with Obama—from White House stewards to speechwriters to journalists—get the thrill of being on public display. And when the photographs are rotated out, as they are every few days, the subjects can hang the picture in their own offices.
When President Obama walked downstairs to his office on his first day of work, he encountered a wall full of pictures from his inauguration the day before.
His staff of photographers stayed up through the night printing pictures so that Obama wouldn't face empty walls and lonely hooks in his new office.
The president examines the door in his desk through which John F. Kennedy Jr. peeked in the famous Stanley Tretick photograph.
Caroline Kennedy, once a White House resident, wears a blue badge with an "A," signifying she is a visitor.
The iconic photograph of her brother is the kind of shot a photographer lives for: a glimmer of the personal and private in the most public life in America.
This is the iconic photograph so far of the Obama administration.
You've almost certainly seen it. Still, it's one of White House photographer Pete Souza's favorites and hangs in his office.
"You can see he's taken his coat off and put it on her shoulders because it's a little chilly in the elevator, and then there's the little touching of the forehead.
You see the guys in the background trying not to look. It's a private moment in a semipublic moment."
The president fixes Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood's tie.
Aides look on at the president in a familiar composition: He is the center of their attention.
Obama speaks with adviser David Axelrod in the staff workroom while in Strasbourg, France.
"Twenty years ago I would have been zooming in here," says Souza, pointing to the president and his aide.
"But what's interesting is all the other stuff going on while he's talking to Axelrod."
In this picture we also see a glimpse of the president in a private posture.
In public, he'd probably stand a little straighter, while Axelrod, a longtime and trusted adviser, might not poke him with his finger.
This is the kind of picture an administration aide lives for.
Here Obama talks to Denis McDonough, director of strategic communications at the National Security Council.
As a composition, the photo includes none of the pomp or fancy trappings of the presidency.
Even the most powerful man in the world holds meetings in rooms with garish carpets and cinderblock walls.
"Arne missed that shot, didn't he?" asked the president
when he saw this picture of his attempt to put pressure on Education Secretary Arne Duncan.
This meeting of wingtips will now be called to order: Even when the president is not in the shot, he's the center of things.
Here, the shoes of his advisers (but not of the president) encircle the Oval Office rug.
Once again, President Obama is nowhere in the picture, but he is the center of the convesation.
Aboard Air Force One as it travels to Baghdad in April are Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel (pointing his finger);
National Security Adviser Gen. James Jones (on the phone to Emanuel's right);
adviser David Axelrod (standing behind Emanuel); Presidential Scheduler Alyssa Mastromonaco (next to Axelrod);
Jim Messina, deputy chief of staff (seated to Emanuel's left); Secret Service Special Agent in Charge Joe Clancy (pointing back at Emanuel);
Press Secretary Robert Gibbs (standing behind Messina); and National Security Council Chief of Staff Mark Lippert, background-right.
Find the president: As a reporter takes shorthand in a crush of press in the Oval Office,
a blurry Obama can be seen just to the left of another reporter's glasses.
Michelle Obama waits as the president, background,
signs the guest book upon their arrival to Prague Castle, April 5, 2009, in the Czech Republic.
Ham: Obama uses a photographer's camera to take a picture of
Treasury Department Communications Director Stephanie Cutter backstage in Mesa, Ariz., on Feb. 18, 2009.
Aloysius J. Gleek:
Salon composite/AP Photo
http://www.salon.com/ent/feature/2009/05/07/obama_spock/
Obama is Spock: It's quite logical
Our president bears a striking resemblance to the rational "Star Trek" Vulcan whose mixed race made him cultural translator to the universe.
By Jeff Greenwald
Aloysius J. Gleek:
Also posted in Current Events, Obama = Spock: http://bettermost.net/forum/index.php/topic,35813.msg510041.html#msg510041
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/10/opinion/10dowd.html
Op-Ed Columnist
Put Aside Logic
By MAUREEN DOWD
Published: May 9, 2009
Aloysius J. Gleek:
Paint the White House Black (Obama Tribute)
An audio/video tribute to the 44th President of the United States of America,
Barack Obama featuring the 1993 smash hit "Paint the White House Black"
by funk singer George Clinton.
[youtube=425,350]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_kEaKCCGPWc&feature=related[/youtube]
Artiste:
Interesting!
Merci!
Hugs!
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