Strangers Like Me

Collins, Phil. Strangers like Me. Perf
Phil Collins Mark Mancia. 1999


This song was written for Disney’s Tarzan, a story based on humans discovering an island where a family of gorillas has adopted/raised up human amongst them. As one reads the lyrics they are challenged, to get excited about meeting someone new; to explore life in someone else’s shoes. All the characters discussed previously have been “familiar strangers” so to speak. Both the old winged man resembled a human, but was believed to be much more...Also the starving artist was very human, however he was most definably unique with a rare talent that many people couldn’t or wouldn’t attempt.




Whatever you do, I'll do it too
Show me everything and tell me how
It all means something
And yet nothing to me
I can see there's so much to learn
It's all so close and yet so far
I see myself as people see me
Oh, I just know there's something bigger out there
I wanna know, can you show me
I wanna know about these
strangers like me
Tell me more, please show me
Something's familiar about these strangers like me
Every gesture, every move that she makes
Makes me feel like never before
Why do I have
This growing need to be beside her
Ooo, these emotions I never knew
Of some other world far beyond this place
Beyond the trees, above the clouds
I see before me a new horizon
I wanna know, can you show me
I wanna know about these strangers like me
Tell me more, please show me
Something's familiar about these strangers like me
Come with me now to see my world
Where there's beauty beyond your dreams
Can you feel the things I feel
Right now, with you
Take my hand
There's a world I need to know
I wanna know, can you show me
I wanna know about these strangers like me
Tell me more, please show me
Something's familiar about these strangers like me
...I wanna know

Balloon Animals

Deyber, Robert. Balloon Animals. 2010. Lithograph.


This lithograph portrays a funny play on words, balloon animals are actually balloons shaped to look like animals, but the English language can let someone like Robert interpret it this way; balloon animals in this light, are animals who fly using balloons.

This lithograph is one 44 pieces Robert has made this year 2010. All of them are perfect models of wit, and punish humor. Each picture brings an old phrase, in a new funny and literal definition. In each painting is different, but they all equally challenge the viewer to think out of their normal pattern of thought.

The Starving Artist

Kafka, Franz. “The Starving Artist” Berlin: Verlag Die Schmiede
1924. Print

Kafka’s The Starving Artist is a story about the art of fasting. The artist is determined, in his passion. He starves himself for 40 days at a time, since the impresario believes that the crowd loses interest in the fast after 40 days, so that is the limit the artist can fast. The Impresario is his ring master so to speak, always bringing in a crowd, and doing promotions during the daytime; while during the nights they have 3 guards watch over him, so they can make sure he doesn’t eat anything. However some of these guards just ignore him, and they taunt him with specks of food. The Artist despises these kinds of men, and on such nights he musters enough energy, so that he can sing a song against these disrespectful men. All over the world people are losing interest but the artist ultimately grows more concerned with his pursuing his self determination, by breaking his own record. He leaves his partnership with the Impresario, and he sells himself to the circus. They set him up in a cage, where everyone in the crowd, can see him as they walk by on their way to the animal cages. His fast surpasses the 40 days and goes for so long, they’ve lost track of his day count and he continues the fast until the one day he dies in the cage. He then is nonchalantly replaced by a young lively black panther.

The world’s perception of reality (where food is concerned) is opposite of the artists. He knows that he needs very little food, to survive for long periods of time. However the common practice is to eat everyday. When audience members is in wonder at how thin the artist is he in turn claims its easy, however the artist’s industry is a dying breed, not many people won’t desire to enter that new world, too comfortable with their more average and widely accepted lifestyle.

A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings

Garcia Marquez, Gabriel. A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings.
1968. Print


A man named Pelayo finds a very old man with enormous wings stuck face down in the mud in his backyard. Pelayo’s neighbor, who knows everything, says it’s an angel who was after their little boy, but was struck down in the storm. In turn Pelayo caged the old man, who soon after became a sideshow attraction, which Pelayo earned a lot of money from people who were paying simply to see the angel. Strange miracles did happen while he was there, but eventually the crowd did lose interest in the angel. Time passed by and the cage collapsed, leaving the old man with wings to wander aimlessly until his new feathers grew in; then he began to attempt to fly again, once airborne he was never seen again.

The old man with wings resembles a sacred being, with his strange language he spoke, and the wings so naturally attached to his back. However the religious leader of the community was doubtful, for it did not address him in Latin. Also many people were not impressed, and consistently taunted him in different ways, due to his lack of interactivity with them. Many people like to think of themselves as open minded but this lack of disrespect and doubt portrays the cold reality of the closed minded attitude of the common man.

Where the Wild Things Are

Where the Where the Wild Things Are. Dir. Spike Jonze. Warner Bros.
Legendary Pictures. Village Roadshow Pictures. Film. 2009.


In this movie a young boy named Max is bullied, by his sister’s friends, and dislikes his mom’s new boyfriend. As a child his emotions are rapidly changing, one minute he loves his mom for being his refuge, and the next he is screaming and biting her, because he is upset with her boyfriend. In a fit of fear and rage, Max runs away from his house goes into the woods by the lake and takes a boat to a far away island, where he discovers a tribe of monsters. He becomes their King, and they play for days, and build forts. However when the monsters find out Max was lying about being a king, they turn on him and he realizes he needs to go back to his house.

In this movie the director challenges the audience to see the inner workings of a child’s brain. The whole concept of the movie is that Max’s travels to island where the wild things are, is essentially his brain, and is where he can think and work out the problems in his own crazy way. He runs with his emotions like ocean, different tides different ebbs and flows of feelings and thoughts. But he the monsters each have a version of him. Working, playing, roaring, stomping with them is the path that leads to him discovering that he needs to be there for his family, no matter what, and he should be nicer to his mom. In the end of the movie he sails away from the island and returns to his true home.
The challenge is to try to understand a child’s mind, and give children more tolerance and respect when they are attempting to work a problem out.