Wednesday, April 30, 2008
Era Recognition in Wetlands Preserved
Wetlands Preserve was a night club in Tribeca that will likely go down in history as being as significant or as important location to music as CBGBs or the Filmores. Or perhaps it is much like the late 40s Bird-centric bebop scene on 42nd St as one of the many talking bobbing heads in a commemorative documentary called Wetlands Preserved.
Larry Bloch the originator of the club/activist center hub is a skinny intense Deadhead guy. The place was his for its first seven years. The film shows how he mushed together Grateful Dead ethos to create a kind (as in "oh oh and I want to know is are you kind?") vibe. I realized when they showed the artists who had played there regularly in the late 80s/early 90s: Blues Traveler, Phish, Widespread, Dave Matthews Spearhead, and Joan Osborne that during those years I was up here in PDXtown having my own private Wetlands.
Still, I kind of lapped up the trivia and anecdotes about the place. Such little cultural wavelets orginated and emanated from there more than hippie jam band. There was a wave of Ska started there. Roots came from Philly to host shows debuting the likes of Jill Scott. Hardcore punks and left wing writers would perform there.
Overall, I liked this film directed by Relix magazine Dean Budnick. The hagiographic and self important nostalgic tone got on my nerves on a couple occasions, but the film does what it seems to attempt to do. Get you to do a Woodstock mud people skinny dip in media related to the Wetlands. I'm not sure how many times the fact the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame is mentioned as the home of the VW bus that the sold souvenirs and gave away activist pamphlets. Yup now it lives under and in the shadow of the Phish New Year's Eve hotdog in its Cleveland shrine.
I do give Bloch credit for is running his club like a Dead show every night. Long sets. Play til dawn. Lots of guests and combinations of artists. Benefits and socially conscious exhibits and food drives. Pieces of Wetlands showed up first at the HORDE tours, resides mightly at High Sierra, Bonaroo and other fests. They also provide the form and structure of String Cheese Incident, Phish and Widespread shows. It is not a mainstream legacy, but one I am glad I was able to have some great and glowing times with as well.
The club opened in Feb 1989, changed owners in 1996 and had its final concert on September 10, 2001. It was going to be its last week anyway, but 9.11 clinched the deal and shuttered the place for good. And soon it became a Swedish furniture store (no, not that one) and a bunch of apartments. But as I said before, all that really went away was a geographical center, a new wave of improvisational rock will always be on endless tour.
posted by well-executed buffet at 6:12 PM
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Tuesday, April 29, 2008
Berlin: Symphony of a Great City
I viewed Berlin: Symphony of a Great City a 1927 silent film by Walter Ruttmann encapsulating 24 hours in the day of a city. I can enjoy the rhythms and the images, but to study the film I would want to take another look at Vertov's Man with the Movie Camera or Strand's Manhatta.
A few things were prominent for me on this viewing. It proves again that there is poetry in every day life. And that the mind likes the construction of thematic montage making those connections. Because one is locked into the structure of symphonic movements and a day in the city,so you go along for the ride. In the early acts, there is a stress on the mechanical and the industrial and later the rhythms of the machine become the rhythm of the people within the machine. One could say that the Berliners become the machine. But this is not without a kind of beauty and poetry.
And one can't be charmed by looking at these scenes with historical wonder three quarters of a century later. Berlin of the mid-twenties still had livestock next to the automobiles, streetcars and buses. Men wore hats and shop windows tried to wonder and delight. Ruttman shows a city in full throttle in a prime full of contrasts, not to stress either poverty and suffering or wealth and conspicuous consumption except in a kind of balance. It seems that rather than spend too much time considering if the film is superficial or not, let's be thankful for a document of the time, and celebrate its poetic tendencies and solid, if not revolutionary combination of imagery.
A couple of notes on the current DVD release: Timothy Brock's 1993 score serves the film well overall. It gets a bit bombastic but will bring the modern viewer further into the rhythms of this motion picture symphony. It also includes one of Ruttman's
abstract films Opus I full ofgrowing spheres and flowing paper like and other shapes of muted color which reminds me that I could seriously enjoy and explore the similar films of Oskar Fischinger someday.
posted by well-executed buffet at 10:45 PM
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Monday, April 28, 2008
The Rewards of The Lookout
Oh Lord. Another film about a mental case! My initial response in viewing of The Lookout, a 2007 directorial debut by screenwriter Scott Frank was not positive. The lead character played by Joseph Gordon-Leavitt (also excellent in a strange little high school noir entitled Brick, but best known as the nerd child alien in 3rd Rock from the Sun) is a head injury victim with memory and sequencing disabilities. I thought Memento was basically a trick film and had just viewed Guy Ritchie's bizarre and frustrating Revolverwhich featured not a protagonist trying to identify reality but the EGO of the protagonist's battle with identify reality as its core.
But The Lookout proved to be something very different. It has both an excellently crafted screenplay with strong characters and a sense of place. It takes place in Kansas City, but filmed in Manitoba's winter. The options for protagonist Chris Pratt, former high school star with a bent mental frame are limited as is his judgment when he encounters a nefarious group with designs for him which involve his job. They reel him into their web with Luvlee Lemons, a moll who comes off as a new take on the kind of role Claire Trevor used to play back in the forties.
The rewards of a well-crafted screenplay with right as rain plot and something more to say are so very rare these days. Michael Clayton was and When the Devil Knows Your Dead are recent exceptions. As to is The Lookout in which the writer who created excellent adaptations of Get Shorty and Out of Sight is able to realize his own story and vision and deliver it. And still on the level of craft to the aforementioned author of those adaptations, Elmore Leonard. There is plot to be sure, but much substance along the way in a story that begins with chasing fireflies and ends with substantial and well-earned reflection.
posted by well-executed buffet at 11:59 PM
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Sunday, April 27, 2008
Sam Yahel and the Delicate Balance: B3, Sax, & Drum
The set that opened the evening with Lee Konitz at the Ballard Jazz festival is certainly worth some discussion. Sam Yahel is a keyboard player associated with Joshua Redman's Elastic Band project and apparently is working with a wide range of top range musicians in New York. The Ballard Jazz Festival is purposes a promotional tool (but a very cool one) for Origin Records, a local independent record label owned and operated by a couple of Seattle drummers, John Bishop and Matt Jorgenson. Yahel's album Truth and Beauty is an Origin release and has been getting some buzz.
The album features Redman and Brian Blade. The set on Saturday featured Jorgenson and another Seattle resident, saxaphonist Mark Taylor. What I noticed immediately is that Yahel and his playing is not typical organ trio fare. By that I mean it isnt all about the McGriff/Jimmy Smith/Groove Holmes home cookin' or of Charles Earland, the "Mighty Burner." Instead, Yahel seems to check out a range of sounds and possibilities the B3 has to offer: the bubbling vibrato, soaring chords, even the loopy sounds that sound like they come out of the roller rink. But it was clear he wasn't afraid to give licks to the rotating Leslie speaker that could have come from a storefront church on Sunday or a juke joint on Saturday night, two important environs of the B3. I see on his web page that Yahel is going to open for Steely Dan several times this summer. I can see a connection. His music is not necessarily the neohip of a Bad Plus or a Medeski Martin and Wood, but the neighborhood isn't too far away either as the participants would ocasionally converge on a very plunkazoid groove
Saxaphone-drum-organ trios are a tough balance. And if the focus is not on burning and the blues, it gets even trickier. The trio can have division and tension, but its the unity of the three that gives them their essence and power. This music works better on the record (available on emusic, and worth the downloads) than it did during the set at the Nordic Heritage museum. This is partly due to the fact that Truth and Beauty as was the first Blade-Redmond-Yahel effort Yaya3, a truly collaborative, project. Jorgenson and Taylor were filling their shoes. And unfortunately, Jorgenson is the kind of drummer you know is on stage every minute. He loves his cymbals and tends to be prepetually busy. That isn't necessarily a bad thing especially in a bigger group, but the contrast to the range of colors Blade brings to the music on the recording is definitely noticeable.
Still there were moments when they came together like a group that had been playing for a long time together. This happened primarily during and towards the end of the sax solos by Taylor. A couple of times it almost seemed like Yahel's organ growled in approval to the sequence of events occuring on stage
posted by well-executed buffet at 6:04 PM
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Saturday, April 26, 2008
Lee Konitz at Ballard Jazz Festival 4.26.08
Some folks will understand. Sometimes it makes sense to drive 300 miles round trip to have y he opportunity, even for just an hour and a half in ideal conditions to be in the presence of a major artist, someone whose craft, art, and style stands shoulders above most others. My trip to the Ballard Jazz festival to witness Lee Konitz play with the Hal Galper Trio was certainly worth every minute and every mile.
Konitz will turn 81 in October. His voice on alto sax is direct and distinct. He may look like a great uncle or grandfather in his bush jacket. But a concert with Konitz is like watching a boxer in the gym still coming up with new moves. His sparing partners are his present and past relationships (some maybe going on 50 years strong) with standards like All the Things You Are and Body and Soul. He takes them down to their essentials and brought back together again with how he feels about them today with control with an individualistic and interpretive flair that is his alone.
And the setting for time with this master was about as good as it gets. He played to somewhere around 400 folks in what was formerly the school auditorium of the old Daniel Webster Elementary School in Ballard, Washington (now the Nordic Heritage Museum) No clinking glasses, loud drunks, and waitresses collecting tabs in this here museum opportunity. It is a room of Konitz's approximate vintage wrapped with curtains and mixed to sound very sweet. I was also impressed by his ability to create and project in this room. He spent about a third of the concert playing a distance away from the microphone often with a towel in the bell of his horn serving as a mute, especially when he would contribute to a bass or piano solo.
Those piano solos were played by Hal Galperwho is noted for his work with another great alto player, Phil Woods. Galper's solos tend to cascade, but not just for flourish, but in a full rhythmic context determined by the tune and the dynamic energy of what is happening among the four others on stage with him.
Galper's trio was matched well with Konitz. They started off with one of those breakdowns that I think of as jabbop, a jagged current distant relation of flavorful exploration he converged with back in the late forties and early fifties with revolutionary pianist Lennie Tristano. Next was All the Things...complete with the descending triplet figure made famous in so many bop era jazz recordings smoothly sailing into a very complete workout of Body and Soul. There was another standard I could not identify then Invitiation, always in her terrible beauty with its four note theme coming out like repeated jabs in a tempo that was almost a shuffle to end the formal trio section of the concert.
Galper and Konitz came out for a duet. The full set began with musicians taking their places as local jazz deejay told the story Galper had told him about a lenghty run he and Konitz had in New York back in the seventies where every set and every night was a completely different and inventive experience. So there was a built-in anticpation. That mood shifted Konitz comment when they were situating themselves that they were having a "Jew off" I'm reminded that in Andy Hamilton's exceptional biographical book of interviews with Konitz where he says "If someone asks, I tell them my heritage but I don't practice my "Jewishness"--except with the jokes!"
But what came next was a Stella By Starlight suited for closing the evening and enough for me to drive back over half of my home state. Stella is a tune that has moved me for years with its rising tide and resolution and this was a version, like the In A Sentimental Mood I saw Sonny Rollins play back in September or Joe Lovano's interpretation of Chelsea Bridge a few weeks back that I will reflect on when I hear it in the future, no matter how formidable or mundane the interpretation. It contributed to making every mile to and fro worthwhile.
posted by well-executed buffet at 11:59 PM
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Friday, April 25, 2008
Advice Fully Circled: Tribute to Bill Drevdahl
Here are some remarks I have prepared for a memorial service to a family friend and, in a way, a colleague.
The Drevdahls were family friends. My brother Steve used to hang out with a group that included Dale. They took us on their boat. I would mow their yard when they were on vacation. Mom and Joan knew each other as elementary school teachers in the same district, but never taught in the same buildings.
I was over at the Drevdahl’s house one summer evening in 1975. I think Joan extended a dinner invitation. –that’s what kind of home it was. If you happened to be there near dinner time you ended up getting fed. In fact, that happened just a few months ago…
I digress. Anyway, Bill and I were talking about my plans to go to college in the fall. It was clear he didn’t think I was totally right in my plans. Those of you who knew Bill knew he wasn’t afraid to speak his mind if he didn’t agree with you. He thought it was fine I was going to go study communications but he thought I should probably consider going to Clark College and getting a certificate in some kind of trade skill that I could fall back on. He was hoping his kids were going to do that. I wasn’t offended, and I certainly knew better than to argue with Mr. Drevdahl, but I told him respectively, that that didn’t seem like the path for me.
Flash forward years later. I went to work in the service sector for several yars after the work I had done was curtailed by arts funding no longer being a priority of the Reagan administration. I came to Clark College to take classes at the time the personal computer became a formidable tool and ended up pursuing both an AAS degree in Scientific and Technical writing and a certificate in desktop publishing. During this time, I would bump into Bill Drevdahl having his morning coffee and fresh pastry at the Clark College bakery. One day I was talking to him and told him I had returned to Clark to get that second skill that he had advised me was a good idea a dozen years earlier. Bill got that twinkle in his eye and said something to the effect of "Well, you know its never too late." He wasn’t going to say I told you so…but you could sure see he approved. It was always pretty obvious when Bill Drevdahl agreed with the situation.
I see now that Bill was ahead of the curve. I think he clearly saw the "job for life" era was over and that people would have to have other foundational skills to fall back on. Certainly the eighties and nineties showed this to be the case at Clark College with waves of professional refugees coming back for retraining, first from Tektronix, then the timber industry, then Hewlett Packard, and again pulp and manufacturing.
Now its years later. I work at Clark as the division Chair for the vocational computer related-programs. I advise dozens of students each year in their career interests and intended paths. Tuition was practically free when Bill Drevdahl started at Clark College back in the 1960s, certainly when compared to the nearly $1000 per quarter that it costs now. I have given many students close to the same advice that Bill tried to give me back in 1975, with a bit of a variation – I suggest that they earn both their AA degree and pick up a certificate in a field (maybe web design, prepress,computer networking) and get their transfer degree as well. I even find myself quoting Bill Drevdahl from that summer post dinner conversation in 1975.
One more note: Bill’s retirement from Clark College came just about the time that I started getting hired for temporary staff and faculty assignments before my full time opportunity. He was having problems with his Macintosh computer and was trying to track me down across campus. I had three separate faculty members come find me and let me know that Elmer Drevdahl was looking for me. (As it turned out, I did nave the answer this time to the technological malady he was facing) Somehow I ended up in a conversation with one of these faculty members ---It was clear that Bill was very respected among his peers at Clark College and that he was doing his part in trying to find me to help him out. That was kind a nice moment with the sort of undefinable emotion that help make life matter.
I’ve wondered since if somehow my return to Clark to take some classes to try to find something else to do with my life was somehow linked to the advice this family friend was trying to get into my head years before.
posted by well-executed buffet at 10:42 PM
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Thursday, April 24, 2008
Shot High and Missed: Lions for Lambs
For some unknown reason, given myself the task of making sure I touch bases with all the war on terror films that have been coming out of the studios lately. And there have been some nice surprises. DePalma's Redacted attemped an interesting perspective stylistically. In the Valley of the Elah was a moving experience.
Lions for Lambs has a very strange trichotomy going on. Meryl Streep is trying to be sold a new approach to Afghanistan by a Republican stick in his ass Senator played by Tom Cruise. Robert Redford is getting in a student's face about not being socially active and two others of Redford's students (an Hispanic and an African American) who made a choice about quitting studies in social policy joined Special Forces instead are caught on a murky and unrealistic soundstage getting their butts blown off by rebels trying to secure the "high ground" (double meaning slammed over our heads) while green screen survielence of the screen takes place in HQ miles away.
The bad movie set mountain top action of the two college buddies running out of blood, ammo and time is actually a relief from the heavy speechy dialog going on in Cruise's or Redford's office. Here is a full example of one of Redford's speeches to his slacker student.
"World War I, German soldiers wrote poems about the bravery of British grunts, admired them, almost as much as they laughed at the British high command who wasted thos same grunts by the hundreds of thousands. German general wrote, "Nowhere else I have seen such lions led by such lambs." Gosh, that statement is so dead on right now. These startched collars that started this war, that are running it now, nowhere near the best and the brightest, not even in the same galaxy. They're the ones when our men are blown to bits in the middle of a gun battle, say shit like, "The enemy may have bloodied our nose, but we're learning from our mistakes."
But he is just winding up for his big finish two or three intercuts later...
"Rome is burning's son. And the problem is not with the people that started this. They're past irredemable. The problem is with us. All of us. Who do nothing. Who just fiddle. Who try to maneuver around the edges of the flames. And I'll tell you something, there are people out there, day to day, all over the world who are fighting to make things better."
Earnestness is a great value. But unfortunately, when it goes unchecked in an agenda ridden 90 minute film the result can not be satisfactory. Ironically, screen writer Matthew Michael Carnahan wrote one of the best war on terror films to come out recently, The Kingdom which had the premise of a police procedural in Saudi Arabia, with lots of wonderful opportunity to investigate cultural differences and conflicts. In one of the film promotional extras, Carnahan said the motivation for this film came when he saw a crawler headline about Humvee accident in Iraq while channel surfing while watching a football game. It later became his motivation for the story -- our pursuit for entertainment while folks are fighting, a lack of involvement at the citizenry level. One can't deny that this is a noble starting point.
Ultimately, Lions for Lambs and its intentions gets derailed by all the talk intersected by an unconvincing action sequence. It came out in November and disappeared before Thanksgivng was over. I am all for serious films that aim high, but Lions shows that this can be a very difficult task to do successfully.
posted by well-executed buffet at 9:08 PM
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Wednesday, April 23, 2008
Two Lane Blacktop plus 37 years
They are less characters than cultural manifestations: The driver and the mechanic; James Taylor undeniably beautiful and one of the Beach Boys. A 55 Chevy and a 70 GTO. A weird BS artist and likely alcoholic played by a great character actor of the era. And a (probably) jailbait quasi-hippie chick with a duffle bag nearly as big as she is. (The duffle ends up on the side of the road and the girl on the back of a motocycle.)
Two Lane Blacktop is a curious product of the times. Director Richard Linklater gives his tribute to it and summarizes nicely when he says: "...it's both the last film of the '60s -- even though it came out in '71 -- but it's also the first film of the '70s. You know, that great era of "How the hell did they ever get that film made at a studio/Hollywood would never do that today" type of film." It is definitely a US road film with European sensibilities. The Wikipedia article on Two Lane Blacktop lumps it in with Easy Rider, which it resembles in many ways, and Vanishing Point as an existential road picture.
Taylor and Dennis Wilson kind of flounder around throughout Monte Hellman's film. Thank goodness for Warren Oates in the yellow GTO.Performance his great screen presence as he delivers a different backstory to all of the hitchikers he encounters and delivers such line as. "Peformance and image, that's what its all about." about the GTO. Or as raps on to the sleeping girl, "If I don't get grounded pretty soon, I'm going to go into orbit." Or in challenge to hustler/drag racer in reality rock star owners of the 55 Chevy: "If I wanted to bother, I could suck you through my tail pipe." But best is the scene where he sings to a cover of Chuck Berry's Maybeline with goofy abandon.
Two Lane Blacktop has held a kind of cult classic status for movie buffs for a very long time. I was curious and finally dropped the recent Criterion disk into my player. Ultimately it is an audacious cultural artifact. The first forty minutes seems like it is going to be a set up for a race across country with the vehicles themselves up for grabs, but near Arkansas, big meandering sets in. Warren gets drunk. Dennis Wilson sleeps, James Taylor does the drive shift seduction to Lori Bird. But hey it's the cusp of 60s cruising into 70s and the journey still seems more important than the destination.
posted by well-executed buffet at 8:30 PM
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Tuesday, April 22, 2008
Snoop in Retroland
My basement video wallpaper generally consists of VH1 Soul. There are few commercials, and none are too exceptionally annoying. And other than that nothing but soul videos by artists new and old. Hip-hop is just a flavor in this mix, mostly it consists neosoul crooning and trips down video lane for artists of the late eighties and early nineties. And then there is some special programming such as concerts like a recent one with Snoop Dogg, that was surprisingly diverse. I very much enjoyed the guest spot by Charlie Wilson of the GAP band (that man has one of the best sets of pipes in all of soul-funk-urban music) and his closer, the hit single from last December, Sensual Seduction.
Sensual Seduction is Snoop's take on Prince, Roger Troutman and Zapp and other iconographic imagery from the excess of the late seventies and early eighties disco to electrofunk era. I love the PFunk spaceship, the turban and the round bed. He sings: "If you don't know by now, Doggy Dogg is a Freak" The buffet embeds this clip to you all as a public service brought to you by WEFUNK. Life is too short not to have the funk.
posted by well-executed buffet at 2:06 AM
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Monday, April 21, 2008
A Walk in the Valley of Elah
Paul Haggis' In the Valley of Elah is well-crafted, thought provoking, topical, and engaging. It isn't perfect, but any film which endeavors and mostly succeeds to show both a human drama against the large disturbing canvas of the American scene in the Iraq war era deserves at least as much attention as any of the five Best Picture nominees this year,.
Tommy Lee Jones is given something to do besides waxing poetic and serving as the tweener for others who were seeking after Javier Bardem's evil with an air compressor as he did in No Country for Old Men. Here he is seeking answers to his son who has gone AWOL since returning from Iraq. Here he is Hank Deerfield , a former military policeman at the very base his son is stationed at,; his faith, his patriotism and his stability all get tested. He spars and later links up with a detective and single mom played by Charlize Theron, leads over his wife as one would expect a career army man to do, and tries to make sense of technically corrupted phone videos taken by his son in Iraq.
One of the things I like about this film is that the filmmaker seems very concerned about the details and the richness of the experience. Tommy Lee's character experiences aspects of the base and town, small details and episodes. Such as when he meets up with a former colleague at the base for breakfast played by character actor Barry Corbin. It doesn't move the plot in a linear fashion, but it does add some backstory details and makes him just a little bit more isolated. Additionally, is a very elaborate sequence where he goes to a strip club. It must have cost thousands. The points that are made in the scene are minor ones as far as plot is concerned, But when Jones shows the bartender hi son's picture in a room full of rowdy military and naked strippers and tells him he is looking for his boy, one gets a sense of the kind of needle in a haystack search for truth he has in front of him.
I am very careful in discussing matters of plot in a film that takes its time to reveal and is filled with layers of details. Elah is among the at least half dozen releases with an Iraq or post 9/11 related topic that have come out within the last couple years and have not found an audience. What makes this more ironic in this case is that a major theme is how our society is isolated from the war and can not relate with the men who return from it. This is underscored in the extras on the DVD which feature a strong content-related series of short documentaries that are there for extensible reference on the film experienced, not just to hype he project, as is too often the case. The deleted sequence is also worth one's time.
DVDs can give films of merit like this one a second chance at an audience. It is one of the aspects of that medium, that acts as a service to filmmakers who are serious and don't always have stars lined up for commercial success for some reasons or other. Maybe the somewhat religious allusion for a title made a difference or perhaps the masses are not quite ready for hard and sober filmmaking about this thing that is so full of paradox and feels like it will never end.
posted by well-executed buffet at 8:07 PM
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Sunday, April 20, 2008
The Last Year at Marienbad Ride
I wonder how many folks who came to see a new 35mm print of director Alain Resnais' and writer Alain Robbe-Grillet'sLast Year in Marienbad, were there because, like myself, they had never seen it and felt that if they probably should because it is one of those "classics" that gets mentioned a fair amount by film scholars. Someone had to do a Marienbad, which I see as an exercise in trying to create suspension in the art of film. Time, reality, space, and narrative are all shifted and suspended. There are even some exceptionally overexposed sequences that give the illusion of shifting black and white. Hypnosis is also a kind of suspension. From the very beginning, the narrative of X (the major speaker and protagonist, if one stretches the definition to call him that) and the tracking shots of walls and ceilings are intended to put the audience into a unique space, where after a fashion they accept jump cuts across time and place as three characters circle around each other in a way not unlike the overall presentation.
Once again - I walk on, once again, down these corridors, through these halls, these galleries, in this structure -- of another century, this enormous, luxurious, baroque, lugubrious hotel -- where corridors succeed endless corridors -- silent deserted corridors....."
In an online analysis Walter Kirschgives his impression of Robbe-Grillet's sense of time,
"In `Marienbad,' Robbe-Grillet treats time as a flat, planar element, not a linear one. Past, present and future are of equal scale occupying the same space -- a novel concept for a French writer whose native language has eight past, four future and four present tenses. With the concept of time, Robbe-Grillet is a deconstructivist smashing the temporal elements into fragments for Resnais to reconstruct into the cinematic present tense of ninety-three minutes."
This is the kind of statement that is only going to make sense at all to someone who viewed the the film. Even more so, what a German professor told Roger Ebert when he was a nineteen year old trying to make sense of it:
"`It is a working out of the anthropological archetypes of Claude Levi-Strauss. You have the lover, the loved one and the authority figure. The movie proposes that the lovers had an affair, that they didn't, that they met before, that they didn't, that the authority figure knew it, that he didn't, that he killed her, that he didn't. Any questions?''"
This is both a film and a puzzle. Ebert's professor friend and Kirsch are providing some potential keys to the work. Everyone who leaves the theatre will need to find their own frame of reference from the moving camera, jump cuts, and well dressed aristocrats who sometimes appear to be like the statues at the mansion and at other times quite full of human traits and emotion. An elder woman leading the theater told her companion. "My that's a strange one." Maybe that is where the response will end or perhaps it will lead to some extensive consideration. I sure couldn't fathom turning this loose on a bunch of college freshmen.
I'm glad I went, but I believe it stands up as a landmark film and not necessarily a classic film. If I wished to take a close look at the nature of dreams or or time or reality in film Marienbad would make an excellent choice of study. I don't think it has come off as timeless either in the way that many films like Antonioni do to me who also worked with the time/space/dream/reality/perception.
Although, admittedly, Blow Up! and Zabriskie Point are truly documents of their time.
Marienbad's return to the Cinema 21, felt less like going to a movie and more like an art movie ride of the late fifties or early sixties, enhanced also by the fact that it was presented in one of the most long standing of art movie theaters in the country.
posted by well-executed buffet at 4:40 PM
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Saturday, April 19, 2008
Trader Joe's in NW: Reflecting the Hood
One of the few things I have actually memorized are the alphabetical street names in west Portland. Some folks can pull out large excerpts of Shakespeare, scripture, or the Preamble to the US Constitution. I can tell you about Pettygrove, Savier, and Thurman. So I kind of appreciated that the 22nd and Glisan, (the street between Hoyt and Homer Simpson's neighbor) Trader Joe's decided to do a local motif for their checker lines. If they ever have to expand into he neighboring space next door, will they get all the way to Vaughn?
posted by well-executed buffet at 4:29 PM
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Friday, April 18, 2008
Lee Konitz Preview
I was purusing YouTube clips of Lee Konitz for next week's concert at the Ballard Jazz Festival. It is difficult to feel that this drawer of clips is because the career of this 80 year old saxaphonist is so broad and multifaceted Here is one I very much like, a fairly recent reading of Lazy Afternoon.
And here is My Heart Belongs to Daddy with Konitz and Joe Lovano taking on Cole Porter in a big way. Ignore the obnoxious voice over at the front and end of the clip and instead check out where Joe and Lee make some sweet chaos with each other after their solos. I kind of love YouTube, except for the Bob Saget reject videos, even when you need to try to ignore foreign voice overs babbling on about Broadway musica.
posted by well-executed buffet at 8:06 PM
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Thursday, April 17, 2008
Erykah Badu New Amerykah Part One (4th World War)
This is a truly great soul album. In recent years it would rank with efforts by Jill Scott, D'Angelo, Me'Shell Ndegeocello, and Lauryn Hill's first Album. But in actuality, it deserves a place on the best of Marvin Gaye in the seventies and There's A Riot Going On by Sly and the Family Stone. There is greatness here.
This Erykah Badu's third album, ten-eleven years after making the scene, a long and even self-publicized writer's block and an EP. And now we get this album, a first taste of what she has for us now. There are two more albums ready with part 2 coming in July.
Honey is the single and it is worth seeing the video. I can't embed it but here is a link on her official Amerykah website. Honey, the video is a full on production using self-reference and very cool digital effects making a shelf of great and historic funk and soul album covers from the age of vinyl come to life as well as a tribute to Indy record stores.
It is going to take many more listens to New Amerykah Part One (4th World War) to visualize let alone get a grip of the handlebars for this ride, just as it did with Marvin Gaye's I Want You, Sly's aforementioned There's a Riot... or one of the really good PFunk albums.
In fact, a hardass PFunk groove and a StarChild Long Haired Sucker narrator are featured on the opening groove Amerykahn Promise.
"Ladies and Gentlemen, before exiting the train, please leave your valuables--your diamonds, rubies and pearls in the cabinet adjacent to your left. Ummm. The pussycats and the jackals you can leave them with me." (sinister laugh)
We wouldn't steer you wrong."
The next workout The Healer/Hip Hop has a decidedly more ethereal quality and sing song chant. In the dreamy sonic soundscape Erykah on the danger zone of using a voice too much like a little girl affectation sings how Hip Hop is bigger than religion and the government.
"Told you we aint dead yet
we been livin' through your internet
you don't have to believe everything you think
we've been programmed wake up, we miss you."
So by now you get the idea that the grooves are indeed deep on this album. A horn chart with a jazz base as the backdrop for one tune, a smokey after hours cabaret evoked on another. So much range and loveliness. I look forward to savoring this album for the months until the next installation.
New Amerykah Part One (4th World War) is the work of an artist caught in a great stride. You get a sense that all of her 37 years including a decade's lifetime in the public eye are somehow reprsented. I say it is worth your time to take notice.
And furthermore, I am pumped: It looks as though I will be able to see Ms. Badu in concert next month. I'm sure there'll be Erykah night at the buffet after that one...in other words you'll be hearing more from me about this amazing woman's most recent art.
posted by well-executed buffet at 10:51 PM
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Wednesday, April 16, 2008
David Hajdu at Powell's
My instincts tell me that besides his optometrist, (who fetched him glasses like a roadie in a impromptu and funny moment) I believe I was one of the very few who came to Powell's on Hawthorne to see David Hadju and not so much because the content of his new book but because he is a pop historian driven by his interests. A darned nice gig to have along with music criticism for the New Republic and teaching Journalism at Columbia.
His first two books are rich well-chosen topics. Lushlife is a biography of Billy Strayhorn, and Positively Fourth Street about the folk music movement in the late fifties and sixties overall and the nexus of Bob Dylan, Richard Farina and sisters Baez. His most recent book is a history of the rise and fall of the Comics industry through its crazy industry, public and governmental backlash of the late forties and early fities, The Ten-Cent Plague: The Great Comic-Book Scare and How It Changed America.
The excerpts read and the level of detail given in his remarks clearly indicate that Hajdu knows and has done exhaustive research on his topic. The basic story line: freedom from all restrictions and huge popularity of the medium lead to hysteric societal crack-down and backlash. It was a plague for the art form and for the artists who worked in it. To help illustrate the latter, he has included an appendix of the names of more htan 800 "artists, writers and other who never worked again in comics after the purge of the 1950s." Many of the comics of the late forties, especially those from E.C. and their imitators were lurid in the extreme. Hajdu is clear that this was a war story. And in stories of war, it is not driven by simply by black and white issues.
It was fortunate to have cool encounter with Hajdu at the book signature component of the evening. He asked me if I was a fan of comics.
I said I was, but I told him I was there this evening because I liked his writing. I asked him about his past books and of course was quite intrigued to find out that his next was going to be a biography of Billy Eckstine. I told him that I thought this was going to be a great topic for one of his cultural studies because Eckstine had such an impact on style and fashion and really helped pave the way for folks like Nat King Cole. (I don't know how to make this next part sound like boasting but..) He said": "Hey, you know your stuff." And said I should be sure to come out for the reading when he comes out with that book. We started to talk about Strayhorn and ballads, but then I noticed that there was quite a line behind me. I should have found out what brewpub he and his optometrist were going to after the signing. But Pam and I had a lovely time picking out flavors at Ben and Jerry's instead. Here is a nice piece by Hajdu where he has the privilege of an encounter with Joni Mitchell.
posted by well-executed buffet at 12:05 PM
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Tuesday, April 15, 2008
Walker: Cinema Under the Trainwreck
I have a feeling I will be poking at Alex Cox's Walker with a kind of stick for the rest of my life, just like I did for the past two months. The film came out in 1987. I only know two people who saw it, both probably on really late cable before it disappeared until the recent Criterion Edition.
This film is kind of indescribable. You have to compare it to lots of other things that come out. But it wiggles like jelly. You can't really figure out what it is. Is it broad farce with lots of anachronisms? Sometimes. Does it have a David Lean, Francis Coppola epic sweep? Once in a while. Does it have the guilty pleasure of being kind of an art grindhouse film marinated in politics? Undoubtedly in some reals, especially the expatriate self-indulged fillibuster free who became President of Nicaragua in 1856. An accompanying documentary noted that Walker is now unknown in the US, but "in Nicaragua he is Osama Bin Laden."
Rudy Wurlitzer wrote the screenplay. In a way this is just a left turn in the eighties down Pat Garrett and Billy The Kid lane, established 1975 with Coburn after Kristoferson and Bob Dylan as Alias by Herr Wurlitzer. Yet his film goes further than Peckinpah and Penn. It is Alex Cox at the intersection of Jarmusch, Scorcese, Coehn and Lynch. This well before Tarrantino. Not just the poetry of violence, but the political poetry of violence. Remember this is a film that was made in the heyday of the FSLN.
"Unless a man has the idea there is something great for him to do, he can do nothing great." --- William Walker.
Ed Harris is simply awesome as Walker. The role is strange as hell, but he pulls it off looking great in that broad brimmed hat. Marlee Matlin plays Walker's girlfriend, who was indeed deaf. But most bizarre is Peter Boyle as Cornelius Vanderbilt.
Joe Strummer wrote the screenplay, serves as an extra, and appears on extras documentary with a full beard that makes him look like he could be found selling glass pipes and jewlery at a Dead Show. Int the short, Strummer is on a a docked raft doing immitations of many of the actors in the film such as Rene Auberjonois. Strummer also wrote a very interesting score that fuses Morricone, mariachi, and salsa together. I had a very sketchy cassette that I bought at Walgren's on the first night of my first MacWorld trip to San Francisco. Hearing the score again made me reminisce about that trip once again.
So I conclude my final verdict on this film as inconclusive. I can see deeper study and attention to this one, although I very much had to motivate myself to view the film on my end. I actually can think of many films I would like to see prior to Walker, but if this irrational soldier of filibuster and I should meet again, it will be interesting time to be spent, to be sure.
posted by well-executed buffet at 6:13 PM
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Monday, April 14, 2008
Serious Chill: An Evening with Quincy Jones
The life, music and career of Quincy Jones has been packaged several times during the years. There have been numerous greatest hits collections. Listen Up! was a definitive 1990 documentary connected to the Back onthe Block album that featured interviews with just about everyone in Q's life and career and lots of jiggly Hi8 (probably) camera work. Ten years later a full American Masters documentary for PBS was created about the same time his Autobiography was released. And this last year, many PBS stations broadcast An Evening with Quincy Jones. Q's life, story, and musical canvas is a far stretching one and, at least for me, there is always something of interest to take notice of each time it is reviewed or celebrated.
An Evening with Quincy Jones was a televised interview and concert event where well-heeled folks spent thousands to be a part of the audience. In 2001, we attended an interview with Quincy Jones facilitated by Elvis Mitchell at the Experience Music Project in conjunction with his book tour in an auditorium that was filled with Goretex clad fans and old musician types with Mitch Miller go-tees. Cutaways in this show revealed a much different audience. My favorite was the guy who was probably a record exec with two very "escort service" looking young blonds in the front row.
And in this show, Gwen Iflil from the PBS News Hour tries an act that comes off somewhere between Oprah and Ralph Edwards and This is Your Life that became pretty annoying after a while, especially when she feigns hot flashes when James Ingram sings. Yuck.
Still, it is hard to screw up an evening with the Q. His recollections and his stories are so rich. "Music was more than an escape. It was a mother." At 13, he was playing at juke joints in Seattle and at 14 Ray Charles became a role model. "Not one drop of my self worth depends on your acceptance of me." were words that Ray and Quincy lived by in those formidable years. The tales he tells of boppers, breaking into the film industry, and collaborating with the greatest entertainers and artists in the world never fail to entertain and enlighten.
He makes for a great audience. I remember years ago on a Bravo tribute to Count Basie where Q stood in the wings and was practically doing the pogo for joy when Stevie Wonder played Do, I do with the Basie band. In this telecast, Bebe Winans did an astounding version of Everything Must Change that made the big music man weep.
Almost every interview I have seen with Quincy Jones has him stating that everything he has done came from his development of gaining a core skill in composition and arranging. He always finds a way to give Nadia Boulanger credit and emphasizing how his studying with her in Paris changed everything for him. "Everyone has a different talent." Quincy can't drive a car and is miserable in business. But it his relationship with music has made a great impact in our world. It is great fortune that he played everything from juke joints to bar mitzvahs in Seattle in those formidable years. Having no boundaries, an exceptionally wide bandwidth and being true to ones soul will always be the major lesson I will take away when his work is retrospected and re-examined. And being fearless about it. "You can not get an A, if you are afraid to get an F" says the Q. Have Mercy.
posted by well-executed buffet at 2:49 AM
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Sunday, April 13, 2008
Chad Mitchell Trio & Tom Paxton in Salem: 4.12.08
The keys of the magic of the Chad Mitchell trio is tight harmony, melodic clarity, and cleverness in lyric and execution. They were a folk group with roots in a college glee club, hence the emphasis on harmony and clarity. Their initial group had a four year run and then a second manifestation of six that brought John Denver to the attention of the world when he replaced Chad Mitchell. (There is a parallels here to the role John Stewart played when he replaced Dave Guard of the Kingston Trio.)They are men in their near seventies now doing a select number of dates, like this one in Salem, seemingly more for joy than profit. Chad Mitchell introduces themselves by the lives they have had since the times of the trio, when they were a mainstay of variety shows, beginning with Belafonte's concerts at Carnegie Hall through years of television with Sullivan, Dinah Shore and many others. Mitchell worked as a singer, a cabaret artist, a realtor, worked as entertainment director for a cruise line. Mike Kubluck became the arts administrator for Spokane Washington. And Joe Frazier went to Yale Divinty school and became an ordained Episcopalian minister.
So what's it like with all original members circa 70 years old? Their delivery is still hearfelt and lovely, but sometimes it was more than that. Like when they delivered a rousing version of Woody Guthrie's ballad of the Ruben James that was responded by the crowd in one of the liveliest ovations of the evening. Likewise was the power in their complex arrangement of When Johnny Comes Marching Home with its direct and strong imagery and delivery which felt very topical, but perhaps not as direct and topical as their update of the George Birch Society Blues updated with venom to the George Bush Society Blues. Part of the secret of the Chad Mitchell Trio was that the messages were delivered by clean cut college men from a school out West. There is something still disarming about that except now they are three elder, one a near Anglican priest delivering these words.
I don't think there could ever be a Chad Mitchell concert without the influence of Tom Paxton. Paxton's What Did You Learn in School Today? and The Marvelous Toy were among the trio's best known tunes. So it makes it an even more significant evening when Paxton was there to open and help close out the evening. His opening How Beautiful upon the Mountain began the evening and set the tone for the evening. Almost immediately the crowd sang along with him on the chorus, essentially to a song they had never heard before. I felt like a Unitarian singing along to a folksong in public, but I have to admit, it was kind of like revisiting an old campfire. Paxton's set had some tunes about our current wartime situation ("This is just a surge for Victory" went one lyric) along with a moving tune about the firemen of 9/11. And it was kind of fun to hear him pull out Bottle of Wine (as in "fruit of the wine, when will I ever get sober")
But it was his tender songs about his daughters Jennifer and Kate and his wife of 45 years that came across best, especially with interplay with string wizard Paul Prestopino. And his Last Thing on My Mind certainly holds its own as one of the finest ramblin' on songs of the Folk era.
Are you going away with no word of farewell?
Will there be not a trace left behind?
Well, I could have loved you better,
Didn't mean to be unkind.
You know that was the last thing on my mind.
And it only seemed right for The Chad Mitchell Trio to become the Chad Mitchell Quartet with the addition of Paxton delivering his well known Ramblin' Boy and the moving plea for a peaceful world Ed McCurdy's Last Night I Had the Strangest Dream. It was a special and lovely evening and was made even better by the company of my mother and aunt. Certainly, sixty miles seemed like a short distance to travel for such rewards.
posted by well-executed buffet at 8:04 PM
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Saturday, April 12, 2008
Maria's Realization: The Rabbit is Me
The Rabbit is Me is a vibrant, French New Wav-styled film made in East Germany in 1965. It tells the story of a young woman who ends up falling in love with the judge who sentenced her brother to three years in prison for "inciting subversive activity," and these three words are fully all we ever really know about his supposed crime. There are echoes of Kafka's The Trial.
Maria's involvement with Judge Diester comes about through some coincidental circumstances, but that is barely noticed, because the heroine and the way her story is told are so engaging. Part of Maria's tale is told in voice over, filling in both the details of her young life and her spirited attitude towards the world. And then there is the direction by Kurt Maetzig. Like the best of the French New Wave, he tells his story with the language of the possibilities of cinema. The camera moves, there are sometimes jump cuts and even a dramatic use of freeze frame, but it never feels gimmicky or overly self conscious.
The film was banned shortly after it came out. It was created at a time when there was a brief support for artists to explore and when there was a brief consideration towards a bit of democratic reform in the time of Kruschev, but that quickly retreated by the time the film was ready to come out. Maetzig reviews the unfortunate circumstances in an interview on the DVD extras where he still seems a bit regretful of the situation his film found itself in. But ultimately there is a happy ending. We can see it today in crisp black and white with fabulous directing and a performance that rivals the heroines of Truffaut or Demys.
posted by well-executed buffet at 3:04 PM
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Friday, April 11, 2008
Joe Rogan's Comedy: Not For The Faint
I noticed in one of the local weeklies when I was in Philadelphia that Joe Rogan was going to be appearing at Helium, a club within walking distance of my hotel. I found out that although it was sold out, there would be a wait list. Fortunately, all stars lined up and I was able to attend his show.
Rogan has been one of the edgiest and most provocative comics working for a long time, but he is mostly defined in the eyes of the public as the host of Fear Factor or the handyman on the series Talk Radio. He even makes light of this role and identity on his latest album Shiny Happy Jihad. talking about how folks come up to him as though it is his responsibility for the stunts on Fear Factor.
What makes him interesting and relevant is that beyond the comedic bits and the slam dunks in the art of offensive humor is that Rogan observes and probes fundamental elements of the human condition. "We're on a f--ing rock flying through space." He asks do we look up into the sky and consider what's going on? Why instead do we get obsessed with attractions like the Grand Canyon (a f---in ditch?) Or there is his observation that "No girl wants a secretly gay boyfriend. Every dude wants a secretly gay girlfriend." Also, he comes back to the refrain that we are all pretty much the same, despite our genetics and experience. He doesn't suffer fools well at all and if his targets (people who save beached whales, Al Queda, terrorists, and guys who would want to to go the March of the Penguins movie) come in range with some of yours, laughter will indeed result.
The showroom in Helium is pretty basic. It could fit a a small bowling alley and fits approximately 300 people. The show I saw was the last in his three night stand. He obviously enjoys playing in Philadelphia. "It's better than Boston. Boston is like a colder, dumber Philly." His set went on for nearly 90 minutes, partly because the drunkest bachelor party ever had to be tossed out, but only after Rogan gave them several chances to stay until it was obvious that the situation was hopeless.
Part of Rogan's arsenal is that he uses the mike and sound effects like a true pro, especially when he his reenacting tigers, bears and others in the animal kingdom. He uses dynamics well. He rants, but builds up to a crescendo like with his his bug-eyed and frantic pronouncement that pyramids were built by people a were a whole lot smarter than ourselves, "but the dumb ones just out-f---ed the smart ones. That's what I think. I think we are all the bastard children of the idiot stoneworkers of Egypt." You laugh, but it is more than a joke, it is a skewed logic that makes sense in some bizarre and recognizable way.
posted by well-executed buffet at 7:50 PM
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Thursday, April 10, 2008
More Impressions of Philly
There are four blocks worth of plaques at the Philly Musician Walk of Fame on Broad Street (the Avenue of the Arts). Everyone from Eugene Ormandy to Todd Rundgren to Solomon Burke was included. I had thought about taking pictures of each one but time did not allow. Someone on the web must have this recorded, I bet.
Man, I can tell you I was ready to do some shopping here. I had visions of TSOP hats and exclusive instrumental dance mixes of OJays songs. Problem was, they were closed. I tried calling the phone number on the door to find out what gave, but only got a generic greeting that they phoned me up with a day later when I was listening to Anwar Sadat's widow talk about peace. Oh well. I guess Pam does have a point about bringing more junk into the house.
The true sound of Philadelphia? The sound of a steak grill, perhaps. Despite predictions of people who know me, I didn't really go overboard with ordering up Philly Cheese Steak Sandwiches. Frankly, some of them scared me. Cheese Whiz? No thanks, I'll have mine with Provolone, thank you very much.
I hope that lady in the window is coughing and not choking. Maybe it is from the the charming misogyny they have on their sign here
The South Philly blocks that make up the Italian Market are vibrant and colorful. I only wish I had access to a refrigerator and a kitchen to take full advantage of the wonders that can be acquired there
The Terminal Market was pretty darned impressive too. The treat above is a chocolate covered banana on an almond cookie similarly shaped with raspberry and whipped cream filling. Yes, it was wonderful.
posted by well-executed buffet at 11:07 PM
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Wednesday, April 9, 2008
The Oldest and the Newest Photo
Here is a thought. As the sign says, this is the spot almost 170 years ago where the first surviving photo in the US was taken. I took a picture of the sign at this spot. So, therefore, at a brief instance, this is where the first and the latest pictures were taken in the United States.
I considered that for a moment and then continued to look for a place to get some breakfast.
posted by well-executed buffet at 6:22 PM
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Tuesday, April 8, 2008
Just Rocky and Me
It was my last chance to document my ascent of the Rocky steps before leaving Philadelphia on Monday morning. I was on my own so had to take a bit of a subjective approach to my presentation. Gonna Fly Now!
posted by well-executed buffet at 9:34 PM
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Monday, April 7, 2008
Encounters with Four Amazing Women
I'm still in Philadelphia. I have good fortune to have encounters of sorts with four of the most amazing of women.
Lee Miller
Lee Miller. Last year I visited the Nevada Art Museum in Reno and fairly blown away on the phenomenal photojournalism of Inge Morath. Almost a year later, I visit the Philadelphia Museum of Art and similarly am overwhelmed by their presentation on the art and life of Lee Miller. (An irony and coinicidence: Morath became Mrs. Miller, as in Arthur) In both cases my response is to want to follow up with researching their lives and viewing as many of their photographs as possible.
Miller is almost a Reifenstahl like figure. She helped bring modeling to a new level, was muse and fellow colleuge of the avant garde and surrealists was an excellent and unique photographer, especially of portraits, and served as a photojournalist in late WWII, One wants to fantasize a bit that somehow maybe Miller's path did intersect with Reifenstahl's: there is a photo in the exhibit of her washing away the grit of war in Hitler's bathtub after it was secured by the allies. I could have spent a lot of time in the Miller exhibition, but was pressed by time and attention to at least give the regular collection a slight pass and the special centetary
exhibit of Frida Kahlo that is pretty much overwhelming the Philadelphia museum these days.
Frida Kahlo
Frida Kahlo, is someone whose work I was clueless to have any idea at all what it was about when I first encountered it. The show at the Philadelphia attempts to stress all of the major themes of her work and explore the impact she has had on art and culture in the twentieth century. Politics, culture, and autobiography all play exceptionally important roles in Kahlo's art. Both deep almost uncalcuable passion and cool detachment are essential aspects of her work, sometimes in the same painting. It was a great and unique opportunity to see so much Kahlo in one place because of the range she covers. This makes for a person fascinating to look
Julie Taymor's film biography of Kahlo a few years back used lots of film and media techniques to explain and expand her story. It could be looked at as a blessing and a curse to the efforts of all of the heart and energy that went into this exhibit. It brought her story to the masses and the masses to the work of Kahlo. Unfortunately, the exhibit was docented (and you have to docent Kahlo---too many biographical and cultural factors to consider for the world at large) by an audio tour that belabored the experience when there was a crowd in the galleries.
A slight solution would have been to have had a couple different tours available, but instead descriptions of the paintings were also augmented by longish explanations of symbolism and testimonies analysis and appreciations by artists as patrons would jockey for position to see experience and grasp an understanding of Kahlo's work as well as the second and third chambers of the exhibition that were filled with photos of her life and those who inhabited it.
There was one contribution to the audio tour that I think is especially worth noting. Patti Smith talks about the impact Kahlo had on her work and life, especially the relationship she had with Diego Rivera as fellow artist, that Smith saw as a model for the relationship she wanted with Robert Mappelthorpe.
Amy Tan
After encounters with Kahlo and Miller, I made a quick base down the long civic Philadelphia pathway along JFK Blvd. from Rocky steps to Convention Center to see another amazing woman artist, Amy Tan. After a very long self-congratulatory session of awards and tributes to various folks involved in honor society Phi Theta Kappa and the American Association of Community Colleges, she took the stage for her lecture in this terrific green flowing Oscar red carpet dress that seemed more like stage costume, but was truly stunning none the less.
I didn't know Tan's story, other than having overheard discussions about her books from my wife and relations who always made mention of her crazy mother. I had not heard about the year her father and brother died of brain tumors and how the mother decided to move the family to the Netherlands because Dutch cleanser convinced her that Holland would be a clean place to live.
Tan started her talk with a confession that she had cheated on her papers using Cliff Notes. (And had a great time reviewing the Cliff Notes for Joy Luck Club as well as she visited her life story for the benefit of the audience) She talked about how things happened. Her father was a Baptist minister who believed in God's will and her mother believe in the fact that things would happen and all was possible, such as the belief that she would easily find life for her family despite no contacts and not being able to speak Dutch or German, etc. And she also explored how one's fate is determined by experience, circumstance and industry. Tan became a community college student because 38 years to the week of this lecture she met the man who would become and still is her husband who chose to move to San Jose instead of continuing his studies at Linfield College where they met. At San Jose Community College she took a black literature class where a black literature class, the only class not to be filled "with dead white guys" exposed her to the work of Wright, Ellison and others and thus played a fundamental part in her own development of an artist.
Angelique Kidjo
Angelique Kidjo is one of the most powerful performers I have ever seen. She harassed the crowd early about not dancing. Her five piece band kicked out an awesome groove. She talked about living your life to the fullest and disdained any religion that had violence associated with it. Towards the end of the concert at the Zellerbach Theater at UPenn, she wandered through the crowd with her wireless microphone and indeed everyone was on their feet dancing with her. She then invited as many people to come up on stage as room allowed. It was a kind of controlled anarchy as she would cue various folks to come forward and dance like crazy.
Kidjo is 44 years old but puts out as much energy as I saw her do 16 years ago. Her cover of Gimme Shelter was absolutely riveting. It seems a shame to pigeonhole her as a World Beat artist. The whole world should know about her! She is as dynamic a diva as you will ever see,
posted by well-executed buffet at 7:59 PM
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Sunday, April 6, 2008
More Philadelphia
Playing with the digital darkroom in a lobby bar here in Philly, enjoy!
This is the Tomb of the Unkown Revolutionary soldier.
I almost PhotoShop added a tear on George like our favorite non-Indian
I think McGruff the Crime fighting Dog should kick Perry's ass on general principle of being a bad pun.
Hurry Dad, or you might be visiting a cartoon cat with a bad pun damned soon
I got the impression you might bump into just about anything in South Philly
Even the casual observer can't but be impressed by the presence of Obama support in Philadelphia,but a non-supporter might notice there are two loose screws in the lower right of this window frame
Yes, this is Julie Andrews signing books at Macy's in downtown Philadelphia. Too bad you can't see the crowd of disappointed folks who couldn't buy books and have their Julie moment or hear the annoying soundtrack mix that a deejay had going in the shoe department
That's all for now folks
posted by well-executed buffet at 12:49 PM
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A Morning of history in Philadelphia
I am very impressed with Philadelphia's City Hall. At the turn of the century it was the largest habitable building in the world.
The small picture on the left is an image of the cemetery that Ben Franklin is buried in. The picture on the right is why when you walk through there you can here a spinning sound.
More Ben Franklin stuff. The passage leads to what is now known as Franklin Square where the famous kite event took place, according to one of the docents of the park.
The folks in the post office were far from busy and the print shop was closed.
I went on the first Independence Hall tour at 9:00am. Don't you love Ranger Amy's look. I think Park Service hats are the coolest. The chair is the one that George Washington sat in when he proceeded over the Continental Congress.
Check out this guy. He has thick shoes, a thick pad and is going to catch as many rays as the Liberty Bell room will allow.
This is Tucker. He was the first one to answer all the historical questions the guide asked. He is probably on his way to becoming a history nerd. We took pictures of each other in front of the bell. His turned out a lot better than the one he took of me, so I am including it instead.
This guy slayed me. I made some crack about him having an open umbrella would make it rain and he gave me a big lecture how he was using the umbrella so his tour group could follow him. Whatever.
posted by well-executed buffet at 12:16 PM
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Saturday, April 5, 2008
Joe Lovano at Chris' Jazz Cafe Philadelphia PA 4.4.08
Among the greatest words a jazz fan can here are "I'll seat you now and you can stay for the evening, I'll only charge you for one set because we aren't too busy tonight." My colleague and a reunion of her doctoral cohorts decided not to stay and I was already drifting towards the stage where Lovano was about a third into his set.
My first impression coming in maybe 25 minutes or so into the first set is that he is as muscular a tenor player as I have ever heard. And interestingly enough that is also the adjective that the Philadelphia Free Paper used to describe his playing of which I hear all kinds of history: Sonny Rollins, Coltrane, Ben Webster, Lester Young, Coleman Hawkins, Dexter Gordon.
The waitress looked like Edward Scissorhands' sister. I really had not eaten all day except for a bit of bread product and some nuts so decided to really have a meal of it at Chris' Jazz Club. I went for a first course of French Onion Soup with pear arugala salad for my second. And during set break, my long wait for a barbecue platter complete with slaw, sweet potato fries, a rack of ribs and an exceptionally tender piece of chicken. With some sampling of regional beverages of course, most notable was a very fine amber by Stout's brewing called Scarlet Lady.
But Tastiest was Lovano's playing. I am convinced that jazz musicians who are really god do communicate with each other on a very deep level. Here comes a passage where he comes on like Sonny Rollins full of syncopated ferver. Joe steps off stage and lets his four muscicans go into various laps and phases. Was he pleased with the last solo? It seemed like it to me with the way his head bobbed at the end.
The evening, at least the first forty minutes or so had all been on tenor. But where I was sitting at that point I could not see about 40 degrees of the stage which included a piano player and surprise! another drummer. I know it seems strange to be listening to music for half an hour and not realize that there are two drummers on stage but thats what was the case was here. The key to what was going on with them was that they were handing off big pieces of the percussion to each other. The drummer with the wild hair looking like the bellman in Jarmusch's Mystery Train was sitting out and so I changed my chair to see the other fellow, whose name turned out to be Cameron Brown. Otis Brown, same last name, different hue of pigment, was the bassist.
Lovano back announced the first part of the set. The last burner was called Dawn of time, preceded by Sanctuary, Topsy Turvy, and Us Five, which which is a kind of title tune for the group he has now, The sound cut out of the announce mike and I couldn't tell what the next number was. I believe he said The Saxaphonist at Camarillo. Parker wrote a song called Relaxin' at Camarillo, but I don't believe that was it. What happened was that Joe switched over to soprano.
Now I was getting this band. Two drummers allows for added opportunities for conversation between the musicians. Good conversation should have some humor involved. And then there is a segue, Lovano is playing Ornette Coleman's Lonely Woman on clarinet. Then there is a solid double drum work out with the bass and the pianist sitting out. Again, I'm struck by the fact when you have five musicians these kinds of subgroups can take over and have a fine tim of it for an interval. What's lovely with five on stage is that subgroups can take over and have a time at it. The drum and bass evolves to just a bass solo before Joe takes the stage with tenor again full of high drama. Its Rachmaninoff meets the lonely woman. And then its ballad time. Like any good explorer's club with a tenor at the helm, he knows he has to take his audience home and does that with what I later found out was Strayhorn's Little Brown Book. After the solo on that one, Lovano clearly acknowledges the mission was met. I'm not sure if there was another bop tune after the Strayhorn, but there was certainly a monster solo.
The club is small and Joe circulated among the jazz fans who came to see him during the set break. A couple near me were acquaintances at least and he was clearly celebrating the success and energy of the last set. I heard him say, "we had segues and everything."
I also got a quick Joe Lovano moment. I told him the last time I saw him he was on stage at PDX jazz on stage at the Schnitzer introducing Ornette Coleman. He replied that this was a great honor and thrill for him. He said he had known him for a long time (wasn't clear to me if he meant Ornette or festival director, also with Philly roots. I asked him about his group with two drummers. Knowing our ages are a bit close, I took a chance. "So two drummers, are you an Allman Brothers fan?" "Well that goes back a long ways in jazz. Remember Ornette used to do with that with Billy Higgins. He talked about what a thrill it was. "This is the first time I've been able to do this. There are a lot of places we can take the music. It's like playing in two quartets." I thanked him again and told him I was looking forward to the second set.
I felt dialed in to this band for the second set. There was a great section where Joe and bassist Cameron Brown let the drummers and the piano go at it. I was also watchful of how one or another of the drummers would play take the rhythm of a tune and then both would come in when Lovano would come in strong.
During second set the vibe changed. After my barbecue was done I moved closer because some guy with a loud fraternity voice came in late and had to rant to his girlfriend about his stuff that day while these artists were listening and communicating hard with each other. It only got worse. There was a large party that came in with a guy who later tried to defend himself with one of the drummers in the men's room later. "I don't know nothin' about jazz clubs, we just came in here because we were with these girls you know what I'm saying..." The noise increased in volume, but that did not stop Lovano and company.
There was a lot of Coltrane in the second set. In a suspended animation of a segue from a bop burner, the band launched into Central Park West, one of the most contemplative of saxaphone laments. After another drum and bass workout the lament turned into a fully explorative second solo. He calls out the band and goes into another tune that features all kinds of colors, first painted with clarinet and then english horn. The drummer solos also had dual coloration. One used mallets and later brushes while the other was in full effect. Joe returns again to the stage with a calypso riff straight out of Rollins and then into his version of Giant Steps, almost a fantasia of Giant Steps in which he played as strong a definition of what Coltrane fans called "Sheets of Sound"
Then it was Eddie Harris time. Joe taking us into a Freedom Jazz Dance, or at least his Freedom Jazz Dance with the kinds of effects and power that Harris used to. I don't know if the hope was that the ever increasing volume of the crowd (do I ever feel sorry for serious musicians who play in clubs, no wonder Miles turned his back on them) From FJD he returned to Strayhorn. A most lovely full throated version of Chelsea Bridge before bringing back another hard bopper to call it a night and the end of a two night run in Philadelphia. I settled my bill and took a walk down broad street with the tower of City Hall looking down on me.
posted by well-executed buffet at 11:51 PM
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Friday, April 4, 2008
Pause and give tribute to Al Jaffee
Lots of folks are posting or raving about last week's Al Jaffee piece in the NY Times. I think it was definitely the media highlight of the week, Even better is the interactive galley of foldins. I remember spending lots of time as a formidable young lad with my Mad magazines trying to figure out how he made them work. The Times' Interactive gallery feature has a generous amount of fold-ins, the famous back page feature of MAD of which Jaffee has created over 400 and is still contributing them.
The best thing to do is click the links above and explore Jaffee for yourself. I just thought this was the coolest. If you haven't seen the article and gallery yet, it is worth your time to spend some time with a true American original still in high spirits after 87 years. You will probably have to give the Times an email address and a password, but this is the first time that I would promote taking a few minutes of that grief. Al and his fold ins are worth it.
posted by well-executed buffet at 12:31 AM
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Thursday, April 3, 2008
Clutching onto a little bit of freedom
In Kleine Freiheit or A Little Bit of Freedom, times are demanding for young Baran, a parentless Kurdish refugee who does bicycle deliveries for a Donner snack bar in the St Pauli district of Hamburg. It is a gritty realistic subculture that filmmaker Yuksel Yavus knows well. Acording to a paper by Denise Goturk, a German professor and scholar at UC Berkeley who has specialized in study of German citizenship and immigration, Yavus came to Hamburg when he was 16 speaking only Kurdish and Turkish. His father worked the shipyards and his mother remained in Turkey. The cinematic authenticity of his immigrant vision bares some resemblance to Scorsese's little Italy.
In Kleine Freiheit Young Baran connects with Chernor, an African also in Germany without papers. Chernor, petty drug dealer who is also gay, is more streetwise than Baran. He does not have the cushion, slight as it may be of a job and some extended family connections that are keeping Baran afloat. The closest Baran has to a father figure is a cousin who works the front counter and is still sometimes cursed by post traumatic stress from the Turkish/Kurdish conflict from the nineties. Over the course of the film, we encounter these characters facing old politics old wounds and old scores not yet settled.
The film is filled with lots of moving camera (sometimes from Baran's point of view or even his bicycle) and longish takes showing life in the snack bar or living quarters. Baran owns a video camera. On it is evidence of family back in Turkey as well as his rrecord of life in Hamburg that he hopes to send to his sister someday. As someday these young men hope not have to be on constant alert for Green and White autos of the Polieze because they will have their papers. At one point Baran chastises Baran for his drug dealing: "Sooner or later, they'll catch you." Please don't chastise me for a spoiler here. Even in early reels, it becomes obvious that Kleine Freiheit is about a tenuous world caving in.
This is not the first film I have seen on the Turkish immigrant experience in Hamburg. I would like to return to Faith Akin's Gegen die Wand (Head On), which impressed me greatly when I saw it nearly three years ago. I wonder if experiencing the tale of Baran will shed additional insight on a second viewing of Akin's film, another tale of a immigrant survival in harsh urban landscape of northern Germany.
posted by well-executed buffet at 12:05 AM
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Wednesday, April 2, 2008
Petulia, Fiona, and Julie
After viewing Away From Her, the acclaimed film by Sarah Polley featuring Julie Christie's Oscar nominated performance as Fiona, a Alzheimer's victim, I was struck by how the same actress has portrayed another woman in self-engulfed descent, in Richard Lester's Petulia forty years earlier.
Forty years separate these films, but both contain Christie with a power in performance where the characters are seemingly present and not present almost simultaneously. I was curious if others had made connection with Christie and these two films and roles.
Australian critic Jake Wilson made the connection and found this quote by Pauline Kael (who had a huge and noted dislike for Petulia--""I have rarely seen a more disagreeable, a more dislikable (or a bloodier) movie than Petulia,") describing Christie's role as "lewd and anxious, expressive and empty, brilliantly faceted but with something central missing, almost as if there's no woman inside".
And I was very pleased to see Andrew Sarris in his New York Observer review of Away From Her.
"I still like her best in Richard Lester’s much-underrated Petulia (1968), in which, coupled with George C. Scott in the most brilliant performance of his career, she produced a portrayal of regretfully poignant sensuality rare in that period or any other. Her only other comparable opportunity came with Robert Altman’s McCabe and Mrs. Miller (1971). In homage to Ms. Christie, Mr. Scott and Mr. Lester, I book Petulia every year in my film-history class at Columbia and try to sell it to my students, but they resist it, as did the critics of the time. I’ll just have to keep trying."
Okay, I have to say I feel quite validated by seeing the 79 year old godfather of Autuerism shout out to two of my favorite films and performances. And I also appreciate his doggedness to serve up what he knows is good and accomplished to h