The Great Ultraman

To Beeman:

Ultra-man is a live action Science Fiction Show from the late sixties. Somehow it traveled across the ocean to Mexico City where a young Maricela de Santiago watched attentively during her formative years. I never knew about any of this and I am sure that you are confused as to why I am saying all of this but go with me for a second here.

When I was a young boy growing with my cousins there was nothing cooler to watch than wither Dragon Ball Z or Power Rangers. I know that both of these shows are different.

Power Rangers was my first real exposure to special effects, what I like to think of as movie magic, this too helped to inform my modern aesthetic discisions. I guess I enjoyed a lot of action oriented superhero ensembles for some reason? A five year old Jorge Soto spent a lot of days with my cousins making cardboard and crayon armor. We would also make fake swords to fight off the older more jaded villans, usually played by the older of the bunch.

Ultraman is a sciencefiction live action television show very much like Power Rangers. Power rangers is oriented around an ensemble cast with defined team leaders and other basic archetypes. Ultraman places its focus on the main character who is bestowed with a whimsical gift, the gift is literally a button he pushes to become a Godzilla sized alien that usually does battle with Godzilla like creatures. The show is a hoot and a half as an adult and as a child growing up this series would truly be a prolific work of science fiction full of special effects and theoretical science.

It was good times, but this long winded letter is about the connection that I made recently about my life. My mother watched Ultra-man Growing up her disicions as to what I watched later in life were probably informed by her own experiance growing up. I was influenced by a sixties live action show that influenced my mother. My mothers sorts of inside jokes that she has with my uncles and aunts is kinda awesome.

I guess one of the most resigning questions that stuck with the last open discussion was why do I have this aesthetic that Im always trying to replicate or I guess that the word Im looking for is encapsulate. I see work and media as letters from the past. "Momento Morie as photography" as Susan Sontag would say. I agree with this thought. I think maybe my work has been a longing to be come a part of this glorified dialogue that started in the sixties.

I guess this letter looks like a long ramble about some obscure facts in my life. I suppose you cannot master your present and future until you study or at the very least acknowledge the past. Not too much tech evaluation either, Ill save that for some film critique posts, This is going under conceptual development I suppose. Looking for characters that I have buried deep inside of me. In the most non Bi-polar way possible, or so they say.

-jslm