Author Archives | Tamara Coombs
Tamara Coombs moved back to Albuquerque three years ago, after more than 20 years in New York City. During those years she worked for nonprofits and occasionally wrote about architecture, design and local history. These days she is writing about whatever interests her.
The Home of the Brave: Americans and Torture
According to the latest Washington Post/ABC poll, 59% of Americans believe that our use of “enhanced interrogation techniques” was justified after September 11. Perhaps CIA Director Michael Hayden was farsighted when he said in 2007, “This is not CIA’s Program. This is not the President’s Program. This is America’s Program.”
But I have to wonder how many of those who offered their opinions have actually read the executive summary of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. It’s a quick read. The findings and conclusions cover only 18 pages; it is the documentation of the findings that takes over 500...
Continue reading...The Queen of Junk
12. August 2014
Vivid memories of paths crossed and "junking" in this ode to friendship.
Continue reading...Leaving China: An Artist’s Visual Memoir
15. July 2014
Leaving China: An Artist Paints His World War II Childhood is a memoir by designer and illustrator James McMullan, who has long been the principal poster artist for Lincoln Center Theater. I saw a few of the plays his works advertised when I lived in New York, but remember many of his posters. Like his posters, his illustrated memoir is clearly contemporary as well as vital and emotional.
Leaving China is categorized as a Young Adult book, targeted at teenagers. It would be a fine gift for any adolescent (especially young misfits), but it deserves a wider audience...
Continue reading...The Wind Rises: Miyazaki’s Most Personal Film
07. March 2014
In The Wind Rises, anime master Hayao Miyazaki adds his own memories and obsessions to the real life of Jiro Horikoshi and the writings of Tatsuo Hori. The result is a complex film of great beauty, one that has angered the right wing in Japan for its attitude toward 1930s militarism, and disappointed others worldwide for its failure to show the consequences of the hero’s quest.
Jiro Horikoshi designed the innovative Zero, a long-range and highly maneuverable fighter used in the attack on Pearl Harbor. Once the United States had caught up in fighter design, the Zero became a manned missile...
Continue reading...“Nebraska:” The Changed Face of the Land
21. January 2014
The movie “Nebraska” is described as a character-driven road movie. It strikes me as that and something more, a meditation on the decline of the part of America alternatively dismissed as “flyover country” or valorized as “the heartland.” In 50 years, the film may be a favorite of college professors, to be screened alongside Orson Welles’ adaptation of Booth Tarkington’s The Magnificent Ambersons. Both films explore the transformation of America as fueled by the gasoline-powered engine...
Continue reading...160 Years Later: 12 Years a Slave
12. November 2013
If you were to judge the movie by its trailer, you would expect 12 Years a Slave to be a Spielbergian epic—pretty in the wrong places and sentimental at its core. You would be mistaken. Director Steve McQueen’s film is an unsparing look at the dark heart of slavery and its devastating effects on all touched by the institution.
The physical suffering of slaves is graphically depicted, but this movie illustrates that the greater injury is psychological and emotional. It is not simply bodies that are being damaged; it is souls...
Continue reading...
17. December 2014
0 Comment