Saturday, July 12, 2003
my stomach is a shambles, my clothes are smelly and my hair is gross, but i'm about as content as you can be without getting laid.
I will narrate the story of my last two days in reverse, because I suspect that you, fair readers, about becoming bored with my ever conventional back to front chronological style of narration.
Finally got the guts up to go to one of these Mexican places that dot Roos, tried one that had "taqueria" in it's name, and "puro sabor mexicano" in the subheading. Ordered a cheese torta, and while waiting watched futbol on their big TV. Had it to go, by the time I got home it had lost most of it's heat, but was still a mighty, mighty good sandwich. What's the gooey brown stuff on the bun? It's got a taste that I'm not familiar with.
Before that I saw Aki Kausmaki's film "Shadows in Paradise" at BAM. Very nice, gentle, sweet (mostly.) For whatever reason it reminded me a little of Jon Jost's "Bell Diamond".....probably the prole-y sensibility, awkwardness and interpersonal rough and tumble. It's a slight film, had I a date, it would have been a grand thing to structure one around, but so it goes. Still trying to decide whether or not to see "Leningrad Cowboys Go America".....that seems like one that'll make the transition to tape well, and would probably be better in the comfiness of my own domicile.
I'd like to start a list of artworks about garbagemen. So far I'd put on it Bohumil Hrabal's Too Loud a Solitude and this one. Oh! Badlands. When is MoMA going to show Days of Heaven again? I keep missing it, due to being in Florida.
Sometimes I think I'd like to live in the Ft. Greene/Park Slope area, was hanging out with Chris (Lew), and I thought I'd be late to the movie, because I left his house like 15 minutes beforehand, but I ended up there 5 minutes early. We'd been hanging out all day, he gave me a ring around 2:30pm, as the initial brutality of my hangover was subsiding. It was like the worst one I've ever had, but then again, doesn't every hangover trump all those prior? It's like giving birth, were we able to remember pain, we'd swear off the activity, but because we can't, we don't. He was at PS.1 for the Summer Warmup shindig they have every week. Kinda annoyed I missed it last week, Ritchie Hawtin was DJing, and Mice Parade were playing, but it was the day after my birthday, so I suppose I have an excuse. So, I throw jeans and a T-Shirt, eat some Indian leftovers (big mistake......I could feel that shit rumbling around my stomach for hours), and pop on over. It's a cool scene, PS.1 turns their big entrance area into a stage, and they wall off spaces, so there's the big one the DJs are playing into, there's one filled with sand, one selling food, etc. They had kegs upon kegs of Brooklyn brew everywhere, so I bought a few glasses the ol' Hair of the Dog, but in this case it was the Blanche de Brooklyn, which is sooooo fucking good, and doesn't come in bottles. Good lord it's tasty. So we spend most of the afternoon there, the DJs were all spinning house, and in the right context, I like house, so it was a good time. It was getting a little draggy around 6:30, so we said we'd wait until the James Turriell room was open at 7, check that out, and then split. Turned out that they weren't going to open it till 8:00, so off to Chris' place we go. Mostly we sat around and watched cartoons, Samouri Jack is some ferocious shit, the makers (same foaks that do Dexter's Lab) cop most of their moves off of Anime, but it's pretty incredible regardless. Half hour, maybe half a page of dialogue in the entire thing, almost entirely Jack lunging/stabbing/dodging. All very nice, and made for a great day.
The hangover though, came from easily guessable roots. Amish had come down from Michigan, got in Thursday night, we spent Friday afternoon together. We buy a serious quantity of Indian food, scarf that shit down, take a walk and then start drinking around 3. At 7:30ish, I decide to head into the city for the Comets on Fire/Six Organs of Admittance/Sunburned Hand of the Man show. Seems my predictions were wrong, I was expecting Sunburned Hand of the Man to play first, and since I'm not a huge fan, I decided to go late and just see Six Organs and Comets on Fire. Turned out that Six Organs played first, so I missed them. Gil, who I met later on told me that I didn't miss much, so I wasn't heartbroken. But damn, both of the other bands played sets that couldn't have been more than like 15/20 minutes. Comets on Fire fucking rocked, hardcore MC5 woogly riffage. They were Dense, noisy YEAH. I bought a copy of Six Organs' "Dust and Chimes", have listened to it twice already, very nice the guitar work is more detailed than I expected it to be, feels like eddies in a river. CoF were playing in front of a montage of surfing footage, and so sent me into spirally reveries of Florida....reminded me of listening to Flying Saucer Attack and sweating in my room in the summer. except not dreamy. Had a few beers while watching the concert, Pianos has Brooklyn Weisse and Sierra Nevada Pale Ale on tap, which is so good and so summery. I met Gil and some of his friends outside of Pianos, which was a nice surprise. Turns out his friend Dick went to high school in Melbourne! Amazing! It seems he plays in this band Surface of Eceyon. Eventually Gil and his pals left, so I tried to get in touch with Amish (and failing), where I would join him and his cronies. While poking through my phone for numbers, I notice Trisha, from my German class name. I’d wanted to hang out with her at least once again, before the break and decided to give her a ring. I believe this was about 11:00pm. Somehow I catch her right before she’s going out for a drink with a friend in Williamsburg around the Graham stop. She tells me to come on over to this bar called Daddy’s out there, and I readily agree.
It’s probably midnight-ish by the time I get out there, and I’m already a good bit tipsy. Talking to her and her friend was exceedingly pleasant; he newish to NYU and wants to do architecture or cinema theory. Trisha and I were totally gossipy about all of the people in German class, it was very fun, turns out that her party wasn’t anything that blast that Miguel’s was. Eventually the discussion turns academic, and by now, I’d lost count of the amount of beverages I’ve consumed (upon later accounting, I suspect that the total for the day/night was around 11, maybe 12). We talked about architecture, and cinema, and how psychoanalysis has overstayed it’s welcome in film theory. It was nice talking to them about anxiety in general…..I think Trisha is dealing with some of the same things that I do. Leaving was a blur, but I left my bag in the bar and had to retrieve it, and so missed the first G train. To be honest, I’m very impressed with myself that I even made it home with all of the stuff I left the house with, and without passing out on the train and ending up in Forest Hills.
So, yeah. I guess I am a hipster. Oh well. At least I’m not moping.
I will narrate the story of my last two days in reverse, because I suspect that you, fair readers, about becoming bored with my ever conventional back to front chronological style of narration.
Finally got the guts up to go to one of these Mexican places that dot Roos, tried one that had "taqueria" in it's name, and "puro sabor mexicano" in the subheading. Ordered a cheese torta, and while waiting watched futbol on their big TV. Had it to go, by the time I got home it had lost most of it's heat, but was still a mighty, mighty good sandwich. What's the gooey brown stuff on the bun? It's got a taste that I'm not familiar with.
Before that I saw Aki Kausmaki's film "Shadows in Paradise" at BAM. Very nice, gentle, sweet (mostly.) For whatever reason it reminded me a little of Jon Jost's "Bell Diamond".....probably the prole-y sensibility, awkwardness and interpersonal rough and tumble. It's a slight film, had I a date, it would have been a grand thing to structure one around, but so it goes. Still trying to decide whether or not to see "Leningrad Cowboys Go America".....that seems like one that'll make the transition to tape well, and would probably be better in the comfiness of my own domicile.
I'd like to start a list of artworks about garbagemen. So far I'd put on it Bohumil Hrabal's Too Loud a Solitude and this one. Oh! Badlands. When is MoMA going to show Days of Heaven again? I keep missing it, due to being in Florida.
Sometimes I think I'd like to live in the Ft. Greene/Park Slope area, was hanging out with Chris (Lew), and I thought I'd be late to the movie, because I left his house like 15 minutes beforehand, but I ended up there 5 minutes early. We'd been hanging out all day, he gave me a ring around 2:30pm, as the initial brutality of my hangover was subsiding. It was like the worst one I've ever had, but then again, doesn't every hangover trump all those prior? It's like giving birth, were we able to remember pain, we'd swear off the activity, but because we can't, we don't. He was at PS.1 for the Summer Warmup shindig they have every week. Kinda annoyed I missed it last week, Ritchie Hawtin was DJing, and Mice Parade were playing, but it was the day after my birthday, so I suppose I have an excuse. So, I throw jeans and a T-Shirt, eat some Indian leftovers (big mistake......I could feel that shit rumbling around my stomach for hours), and pop on over. It's a cool scene, PS.1 turns their big entrance area into a stage, and they wall off spaces, so there's the big one the DJs are playing into, there's one filled with sand, one selling food, etc. They had kegs upon kegs of Brooklyn brew everywhere, so I bought a few glasses the ol' Hair of the Dog, but in this case it was the Blanche de Brooklyn, which is sooooo fucking good, and doesn't come in bottles. Good lord it's tasty. So we spend most of the afternoon there, the DJs were all spinning house, and in the right context, I like house, so it was a good time. It was getting a little draggy around 6:30, so we said we'd wait until the James Turriell room was open at 7, check that out, and then split. Turned out that they weren't going to open it till 8:00, so off to Chris' place we go. Mostly we sat around and watched cartoons, Samouri Jack is some ferocious shit, the makers (same foaks that do Dexter's Lab) cop most of their moves off of Anime, but it's pretty incredible regardless. Half hour, maybe half a page of dialogue in the entire thing, almost entirely Jack lunging/stabbing/dodging. All very nice, and made for a great day.
The hangover though, came from easily guessable roots. Amish had come down from Michigan, got in Thursday night, we spent Friday afternoon together. We buy a serious quantity of Indian food, scarf that shit down, take a walk and then start drinking around 3. At 7:30ish, I decide to head into the city for the Comets on Fire/Six Organs of Admittance/Sunburned Hand of the Man show. Seems my predictions were wrong, I was expecting Sunburned Hand of the Man to play first, and since I'm not a huge fan, I decided to go late and just see Six Organs and Comets on Fire. Turned out that Six Organs played first, so I missed them. Gil, who I met later on told me that I didn't miss much, so I wasn't heartbroken. But damn, both of the other bands played sets that couldn't have been more than like 15/20 minutes. Comets on Fire fucking rocked, hardcore MC5 woogly riffage. They were Dense, noisy YEAH. I bought a copy of Six Organs' "Dust and Chimes", have listened to it twice already, very nice the guitar work is more detailed than I expected it to be, feels like eddies in a river. CoF were playing in front of a montage of surfing footage, and so sent me into spirally reveries of Florida....reminded me of listening to Flying Saucer Attack and sweating in my room in the summer. except not dreamy. Had a few beers while watching the concert, Pianos has Brooklyn Weisse and Sierra Nevada Pale Ale on tap, which is so good and so summery. I met Gil and some of his friends outside of Pianos, which was a nice surprise. Turns out his friend Dick went to high school in Melbourne! Amazing! It seems he plays in this band Surface of Eceyon. Eventually Gil and his pals left, so I tried to get in touch with Amish (and failing), where I would join him and his cronies. While poking through my phone for numbers, I notice Trisha, from my German class name. I’d wanted to hang out with her at least once again, before the break and decided to give her a ring. I believe this was about 11:00pm. Somehow I catch her right before she’s going out for a drink with a friend in Williamsburg around the Graham stop. She tells me to come on over to this bar called Daddy’s out there, and I readily agree.
It’s probably midnight-ish by the time I get out there, and I’m already a good bit tipsy. Talking to her and her friend was exceedingly pleasant; he newish to NYU and wants to do architecture or cinema theory. Trisha and I were totally gossipy about all of the people in German class, it was very fun, turns out that her party wasn’t anything that blast that Miguel’s was. Eventually the discussion turns academic, and by now, I’d lost count of the amount of beverages I’ve consumed (upon later accounting, I suspect that the total for the day/night was around 11, maybe 12). We talked about architecture, and cinema, and how psychoanalysis has overstayed it’s welcome in film theory. It was nice talking to them about anxiety in general…..I think Trisha is dealing with some of the same things that I do. Leaving was a blur, but I left my bag in the bar and had to retrieve it, and so missed the first G train. To be honest, I’m very impressed with myself that I even made it home with all of the stuff I left the house with, and without passing out on the train and ending up in Forest Hills.
So, yeah. I guess I am a hipster. Oh well. At least I’m not moping.
My god man......I feel very very bad, so bad that I'm going to step back into bed.
Tuesday, July 08, 2003
my roommate just got an a/c a few hours ago. needless to say, I am jealous.
Have spent the last two days with Neel, Bholu, and two of his friends from Florida, Rob and Drew. My brother referred to Rob affectionately as a "douche bag" and Drew hasn't taken a shit in 4 days. Neel is one of my oldest friends, I've known him as long as I've known about anyone, we went to school together from Kindergarten to 10th grade, and have kept in pretty close contact, his brother Bholu I've disagreed with many times, but I've had up a fairly high level of respect for him throughout the years.
I'll say outright: the two days have been occasionally pleasant, but altogether intolerable. As we were walking through Central Park around 4:00pm, I abruptly said "Allright, I'm taking off, said my cursory goodbyes, and then split. A breakdown into the tolerable, and intolerable parts of the two days.
Tolerable/Good:
1. Sitting in Neel's uncle's massive midtown apartment, reading the Wall Street Journal, drinking a beer, occasionally stepping out to appreciate the *amazing* view and enjoying their a/c.
2. Eating at Bombay Harbour on their tab. The food was up the quality of the first time I'd went there......however, I think the chef has some particular ideas about how spicy certain dishes should be. The first time I went there, the samosa chaat was nicely hot, but everything else was totally mild. The second time I went there, I asked for one dish to be made "hot", and the waiter suggested a different dish, which I accepted, the replacement being suitably fiery. This time I asked for my dish to be "hot" and it wasn't appropriately so. Normally, I would chalk this up to the cook's greater expertise than mine in the ways of Indian food, but fuck, I've been to India many times, and I *know* that damn near anything can be both viscously spicy and nuanced. I've helped my mother pull it off many times, so you can't attribute it to some weird quality difference in the wheat in India and here. But that's ok, their food is so great that I'll accept any eccentricities as such.
3. The dinosaurs at the Natural History Museum, and the bird Dioramas.
4. The first walk through Central Park. I’d never really processed the fact that the Oval lawn in a baseball field.
Intolerable:
1. Having to watch Jerry Springer, "Surf Girls" and too much MTV with them. With few exceptions, I can't stand watching MTV, and I need to be in certain mood to watch Springer, otherwise it's just unbearable.
2. Spending an hour walking through Chinatown with them as they futily search for "fake shit." They wanted fake Oakley Sunglasses. fake Rolex watches, etc. Which is all fine and good, except that it was about 90 degrees outside, and I was getting dehydrated and whiny.
3. Having to listen to them Rob/Drew/Bholu bitch for like half an hour about paying the suggested donation to the Museum of Natural History (they didn't end up doing so, Neel and I gave them what we could afford [$11 between the two of us]).
4. After Bombay Harbour. I had to walk Drew to a Subway 15 blocks away because he doesn't eat any food that's not whitebread honky bullshit, in order to provide him with a slab of meat and two hunks of bread When I asked him whether he eats vegetables, he said, "I like potatoes." Fucking hell......I had to constantly explain why I was a vegetarian to them, and then the insisted upon talking about how "deprived" I was. "Deprived"? What the fuck? They only thing that y'all ever order when you go outside is chicken. Everywhere I go, so much chicken, my brother too! I'm going to take him to a Mexican place around here and get him some tongue and tripe Tacos. I’m deprived? I eat a much broader range of food than y’all do. There’s so much to eat when you realize that they main part of your meal doesn’t have to be a dead animal
After taking Drew to Subway, I had to convince them that it wasn't worth going out to Long Island, where the trip would take like an hour and a half, and like 4 train transfers to get to the fucking place. Assholes! Wait a week to go play golf, where you can drive to the course, and have your own clubs. Then, Rob said about my neighborhood, "Ugh. How can you live here? It's so dingy and depressing." Which is bizarre, because I grew up in the same fucking town as they all did, and I dearly love this place. I don't think he realized that when he was dissing my nabe, he was insulting me as well. For the first time in my life, I feel a genuine identification with the place in which I live, Woodside fits me so well, and I have something that approximates love for this place. And I *chose* to live here.
Their views seemed personified in the statement that Bholu made, "Man, I can't stand all of this walking. I want to be able to just hit a button, walk into the garage, get into my car, and drive up to the other person's door." This has nothing to do with their indolence (something they all have in spades), but a necessary buffer they need against their environment. What I like about NYC, is that you're actively engaged in the people you're walking with/around. If you want to ignore someone, you have to make a conscious, and often perceptible effort to do so, you don't have the bubble around you that a car does.
5. The second walk through Central Park. Watching them run around Central Park first trying to kick pigeons, then later watching them throw rocks at squirrels and an eagle/hawk in a tree. This was just too much for me, when they all started gawking at the woman laying face down with her top off I just gave them a cursory "goodbye" and left. I don't care at all how holier-than-thou I sound right now; while walking to the 6, I realized that these were the types of people I came to NYC to *avoid*. Jocks really bother me, and I admit that I'm a little anxious in seeing my brother turn into one.
However, the dinosaurs at the Museum of Natural History were a pretty intense revelation. I felt like Janos in Werkmeister Harmonies, stunned and reverent of the mass of these bones, admiring the fact that no matter what you do, when it comes to you vs. them, you are the one that will die, and they will survive, no matter how strong your will. Also, the arrangement of the bones was really amazing, when you realize how much that they’re posed, how much they’re frozen into this weird immortality, forever ready to strike, but never doing so, always hovering in what one could imagine would be the moment before their death, suspended in those brief moments before they were entering into the contests that would end their lives.
Dinosaurs rule.
I'll say outright: the two days have been occasionally pleasant, but altogether intolerable. As we were walking through Central Park around 4:00pm, I abruptly said "Allright, I'm taking off, said my cursory goodbyes, and then split. A breakdown into the tolerable, and intolerable parts of the two days.
Tolerable/Good:
1. Sitting in Neel's uncle's massive midtown apartment, reading the Wall Street Journal, drinking a beer, occasionally stepping out to appreciate the *amazing* view and enjoying their a/c.
2. Eating at Bombay Harbour on their tab. The food was up the quality of the first time I'd went there......however, I think the chef has some particular ideas about how spicy certain dishes should be. The first time I went there, the samosa chaat was nicely hot, but everything else was totally mild. The second time I went there, I asked for one dish to be made "hot", and the waiter suggested a different dish, which I accepted, the replacement being suitably fiery. This time I asked for my dish to be "hot" and it wasn't appropriately so. Normally, I would chalk this up to the cook's greater expertise than mine in the ways of Indian food, but fuck, I've been to India many times, and I *know* that damn near anything can be both viscously spicy and nuanced. I've helped my mother pull it off many times, so you can't attribute it to some weird quality difference in the wheat in India and here. But that's ok, their food is so great that I'll accept any eccentricities as such.
3. The dinosaurs at the Natural History Museum, and the bird Dioramas.
4. The first walk through Central Park. I’d never really processed the fact that the Oval lawn in a baseball field.
Intolerable:
1. Having to watch Jerry Springer, "Surf Girls" and too much MTV with them. With few exceptions, I can't stand watching MTV, and I need to be in certain mood to watch Springer, otherwise it's just unbearable.
2. Spending an hour walking through Chinatown with them as they futily search for "fake shit." They wanted fake Oakley Sunglasses. fake Rolex watches, etc. Which is all fine and good, except that it was about 90 degrees outside, and I was getting dehydrated and whiny.
3. Having to listen to them Rob/Drew/Bholu bitch for like half an hour about paying the suggested donation to the Museum of Natural History (they didn't end up doing so, Neel and I gave them what we could afford [$11 between the two of us]).
4. After Bombay Harbour. I had to walk Drew to a Subway 15 blocks away because he doesn't eat any food that's not whitebread honky bullshit, in order to provide him with a slab of meat and two hunks of bread When I asked him whether he eats vegetables, he said, "I like potatoes." Fucking hell......I had to constantly explain why I was a vegetarian to them, and then the insisted upon talking about how "deprived" I was. "Deprived"? What the fuck? They only thing that y'all ever order when you go outside is chicken. Everywhere I go, so much chicken, my brother too! I'm going to take him to a Mexican place around here and get him some tongue and tripe Tacos. I’m deprived? I eat a much broader range of food than y’all do. There’s so much to eat when you realize that they main part of your meal doesn’t have to be a dead animal
After taking Drew to Subway, I had to convince them that it wasn't worth going out to Long Island, where the trip would take like an hour and a half, and like 4 train transfers to get to the fucking place. Assholes! Wait a week to go play golf, where you can drive to the course, and have your own clubs. Then, Rob said about my neighborhood, "Ugh. How can you live here? It's so dingy and depressing." Which is bizarre, because I grew up in the same fucking town as they all did, and I dearly love this place. I don't think he realized that when he was dissing my nabe, he was insulting me as well. For the first time in my life, I feel a genuine identification with the place in which I live, Woodside fits me so well, and I have something that approximates love for this place. And I *chose* to live here.
Their views seemed personified in the statement that Bholu made, "Man, I can't stand all of this walking. I want to be able to just hit a button, walk into the garage, get into my car, and drive up to the other person's door." This has nothing to do with their indolence (something they all have in spades), but a necessary buffer they need against their environment. What I like about NYC, is that you're actively engaged in the people you're walking with/around. If you want to ignore someone, you have to make a conscious, and often perceptible effort to do so, you don't have the bubble around you that a car does.
5. The second walk through Central Park. Watching them run around Central Park first trying to kick pigeons, then later watching them throw rocks at squirrels and an eagle/hawk in a tree. This was just too much for me, when they all started gawking at the woman laying face down with her top off I just gave them a cursory "goodbye" and left. I don't care at all how holier-than-thou I sound right now; while walking to the 6, I realized that these were the types of people I came to NYC to *avoid*. Jocks really bother me, and I admit that I'm a little anxious in seeing my brother turn into one.
However, the dinosaurs at the Museum of Natural History were a pretty intense revelation. I felt like Janos in Werkmeister Harmonies, stunned and reverent of the mass of these bones, admiring the fact that no matter what you do, when it comes to you vs. them, you are the one that will die, and they will survive, no matter how strong your will. Also, the arrangement of the bones was really amazing, when you realize how much that they’re posed, how much they’re frozen into this weird immortality, forever ready to strike, but never doing so, always hovering in what one could imagine would be the moment before their death, suspended in those brief moments before they were entering into the contests that would end their lives.
Dinosaurs rule.
Sunday, July 06, 2003
oh, I see why:
http://www.floridatoday.com/news/verge/stories/2001/mar/0304a.htm
Obviously I have a monstrous ass. That's why.
http://www.floridatoday.com/news/verge/stories/2001/mar/0304a.htm
Obviously I have a monstrous ass. That's why.
did I write this?
http://www.ink19.com/issues/june2001/liveInk/tortoise.html
"This segued quickly into Russell Haswell's set. Haswell is a stalwart of the Mego label, an Austrian collective that is at the forefront of the burgeoning glitch and electronic noise genres. I didn't know that Haswell was playing here; after reading tour reports from other cities, I complained to a friend about his absence on this schedule. Imagine my surprise when I heard screeching wails of electronic noise. "YES!!!!" I screamed internally."
I must have been a cool 18 year old. I mean......walls of electronic noise made me scream internally. I had a hip car, and wrote for a hip magazine. Who wouldn't have wanted to sleep with me? Dammit.
http://www.ink19.com/issues/june2001/liveInk/tortoise.html
"This segued quickly into Russell Haswell's set. Haswell is a stalwart of the Mego label, an Austrian collective that is at the forefront of the burgeoning glitch and electronic noise genres. I didn't know that Haswell was playing here; after reading tour reports from other cities, I complained to a friend about his absence on this schedule. Imagine my surprise when I heard screeching wails of electronic noise. "YES!!!!" I screamed internally."
I must have been a cool 18 year old. I mean......walls of electronic noise made me scream internally. I had a hip car, and wrote for a hip magazine. Who wouldn't have wanted to sleep with me? Dammit.
did I write this?
http://www.ink19.com/issues/june2001/liveInk/tortoise.html
"This segued quickly into Russell Haswell's set. Haswell is a stalwart of the Mego label, an Austrian collective that is at the forefront of the burgeoning glitch and electronic noise genres. I didn't know that Haswell was playing here; after reading tour reports from other cities, I complained to a friend about his absence on this schedule. Imagine my surprise when I heard screeching wails of electronic noise. "YES!!!!" I screamed internally."
I must have been a cool 18 year old. I mean......walls of electronic noise made me scream internally. I had a hip car, and wrote for a hip magazine. Who wouldn't have wanted to sleep with me? Dammit.
http://www.ink19.com/issues/june2001/liveInk/tortoise.html
"This segued quickly into Russell Haswell's set. Haswell is a stalwart of the Mego label, an Austrian collective that is at the forefront of the burgeoning glitch and electronic noise genres. I didn't know that Haswell was playing here; after reading tour reports from other cities, I complained to a friend about his absence on this schedule. Imagine my surprise when I heard screeching wails of electronic noise. "YES!!!!" I screamed internally."
I must have been a cool 18 year old. I mean......walls of electronic noise made me scream internally. I had a hip car, and wrote for a hip magazine. Who wouldn't have wanted to sleep with me? Dammit.
Wrote all of that earlier in the day, before I listened to the first disc of the Keith Rowe and John Tilbury's "Duos for Doris" set. The only other time I've listened to the first disc in it's entirety was when I was sitting in a dark equipment cage with a friend of mine (who, I will readily admit, is way attractive and she's an art student to boot), waiting for the security guards to leave the building so we could print color photos from midnight to 6:30am. And, the character of this record is such, that I only briefly thought about putting the moves on my friend (no wonder everyone thinks I'm queer.)
Yeah, I was really behind in my printing for my color photo class. During the course of the semester, i'd lost interest in photography, it seemed like after you get the handle of printing, all it became was sophist acted techniques for keeping dust off of your negative. And, both the mimetic effect of photography, and the material properties of the negative didn't seem to have much to offer, aside from tech-worship, which sucks. So myself and my friend (she, a hell of a color printer, and a bona fide art student) decided that there wasn't enough time and space in the regular darkroom time to finish the work we needed to, and thus decided to go sneaky and print after hours (the art building closes at midnight, and opens at 8am). We ended up hiding out in the cage, waiting for the security guards to leave.
But, "Duos for Doris" (at least the first disc) is really, really special, for lack of better words. Jon thinks it's the best thing he's put out, and I agree. It's one of those things that really makes me believe in the virtue of improvised music. I wonder to myself, "could this stuff be composed?" and I have to respond, "No." Rowe and Tilbury are going somewhere that's outside of premeditation, it couldn't be composed in the same way that charcoal drawings are so different that pencil drawings. It's not that you can't make something that looks like a gesture drawing in charcoal with pencil, it's just that the charcoal itself sort of leads to different ways of working than a pencil does. So it's not that something like "Duos for Doris" could be composed, it's just likely that it wouldn't be.
Which is scary. This record is scary. How do two people get to this place? Where they can create this incredible hovering feeling that continues over the entire 70 odd minutes of the disc. Yeah, when it hits the 40 minute mark, it does get really dramatic, but the resultant is even more powerful.....it's all of these small gestures that complete each other, it's as if both instruments *weighed* the same.....regardless if Tilbury is gently tapping on the keys, and Rowe is filling the field, Tilbury's notes have such weight because they're coming from one half of the duo, that they are never dwarfed by amplitude. I think this is what separates so much of this improvised music from other sound art......the voices aren't really totally lost in the mix.....it still has something to do with collaboration, and thus with communication. I don't agree with the idea that Keith's playing is like the canvas on which another musician plays (I think Brian said this somewhere).....his fan-drones are more like the first wash on the canvas.....something for the other person to work off of. I think this is significant, because the first wash is still paint, it's still a gesture, a move made, which connects this music with other improvised music. It would be interesting to talk in depth to Greg Kelley or Axel Dorner or Franz Hautzinger about the way they got to where they are now. I'd make the guess that it isn't the leap off of the deep end into materiality like some would have it.....I suspect that they've done some serious research in the history of the instrument, and have found musicians who have really pushed the way the instrument has been played, and have in part fed off of that. I'd like this sort of music to be heard as deeply imbedded within music history, and not seen as some attempt to divorce itself from the legacy of jazz/instrumental music/western art music. Partially, because I see painting in the same way.....
god it's hot.
Yeah, I was really behind in my printing for my color photo class. During the course of the semester, i'd lost interest in photography, it seemed like after you get the handle of printing, all it became was sophist acted techniques for keeping dust off of your negative. And, both the mimetic effect of photography, and the material properties of the negative didn't seem to have much to offer, aside from tech-worship, which sucks. So myself and my friend (she, a hell of a color printer, and a bona fide art student) decided that there wasn't enough time and space in the regular darkroom time to finish the work we needed to, and thus decided to go sneaky and print after hours (the art building closes at midnight, and opens at 8am). We ended up hiding out in the cage, waiting for the security guards to leave.
But, "Duos for Doris" (at least the first disc) is really, really special, for lack of better words. Jon thinks it's the best thing he's put out, and I agree. It's one of those things that really makes me believe in the virtue of improvised music. I wonder to myself, "could this stuff be composed?" and I have to respond, "No." Rowe and Tilbury are going somewhere that's outside of premeditation, it couldn't be composed in the same way that charcoal drawings are so different that pencil drawings. It's not that you can't make something that looks like a gesture drawing in charcoal with pencil, it's just that the charcoal itself sort of leads to different ways of working than a pencil does. So it's not that something like "Duos for Doris" could be composed, it's just likely that it wouldn't be.
Which is scary. This record is scary. How do two people get to this place? Where they can create this incredible hovering feeling that continues over the entire 70 odd minutes of the disc. Yeah, when it hits the 40 minute mark, it does get really dramatic, but the resultant is even more powerful.....it's all of these small gestures that complete each other, it's as if both instruments *weighed* the same.....regardless if Tilbury is gently tapping on the keys, and Rowe is filling the field, Tilbury's notes have such weight because they're coming from one half of the duo, that they are never dwarfed by amplitude. I think this is what separates so much of this improvised music from other sound art......the voices aren't really totally lost in the mix.....it still has something to do with collaboration, and thus with communication. I don't agree with the idea that Keith's playing is like the canvas on which another musician plays (I think Brian said this somewhere).....his fan-drones are more like the first wash on the canvas.....something for the other person to work off of. I think this is significant, because the first wash is still paint, it's still a gesture, a move made, which connects this music with other improvised music. It would be interesting to talk in depth to Greg Kelley or Axel Dorner or Franz Hautzinger about the way they got to where they are now. I'd make the guess that it isn't the leap off of the deep end into materiality like some would have it.....I suspect that they've done some serious research in the history of the instrument, and have found musicians who have really pushed the way the instrument has been played, and have in part fed off of that. I'd like this sort of music to be heard as deeply imbedded within music history, and not seen as some attempt to divorce itself from the legacy of jazz/instrumental music/western art music. Partially, because I see painting in the same way.....
god it's hot.
I've been doing nothing of worth for a whole week straight, and goddamn it feels good. The heat is just an added bonus, it's like a clarion call towards lethargy. I spend the day either on my bed, on my computer or in the kitchen, usually listening to something. There's just so much good music out there; I've temporarily abandoned philosophy to really sink myself into all of these records I've been picking up.
The air conditioner in MoMA's Grammercy theater was broken yesterday, so going to the movies was not quite the escape from the heat that I expected it to be. Ah well......you could tell that I lot of people were pretty miserable, but thankfully they were able to keep their complaining subdued. They were showing Renoir movies all day, "The Lower Depths", "Bondu Saved From Drowning", "A Day in the Country", "Grand Illusion" and "Rules of the Game." I had to sit out the first three because of a post-birthday hangover, but I was there for the last two, both of which I'd seen a few times, but only at home and on video. There's a good case to be made for seeing both in the theaters, the landscape in "Grand Illusion" becomes something of an important character towards the end of the film, and it feels like for landscape to really play it's role out, it has to be on the big screen; it's like looking at a Barnett Newmann canvas, sure you can get the point when it's in a book, but to really enjoy the sexiness of the color, you've got to have your nose against the zip, with color filling your field of vision. Plus, in "Rules of the Game", the costumes are so gorgeous.....look at Nora Gregor's dress before the Masquerade, good god! It's so difficult to understand the visual opulence if you can't see the play on light on those layers of silk.
All of this senusousness is so important to the film. Not only must you comprehend the wealth, but you must sink into it as welll, really reveling in how lush the estate is. Lots of people call this a satire of bourgeois mores (http://www.moma.org/visit_moma/momafilm/summer_2003.html), but I'm not sure I entirely agree. It just doesn't *feel* like a satire.....there's no Swiftian invective, no finger pointing, and so little distance. I just can't figure out where to stand to condemn these figures.
A Pint of Plain's Your Only Man
The air conditioner in MoMA's Grammercy theater was broken yesterday, so going to the movies was not quite the escape from the heat that I expected it to be. Ah well......you could tell that I lot of people were pretty miserable, but thankfully they were able to keep their complaining subdued. They were showing Renoir movies all day, "The Lower Depths", "Bondu Saved From Drowning", "A Day in the Country", "Grand Illusion" and "Rules of the Game." I had to sit out the first three because of a post-birthday hangover, but I was there for the last two, both of which I'd seen a few times, but only at home and on video. There's a good case to be made for seeing both in the theaters, the landscape in "Grand Illusion" becomes something of an important character towards the end of the film, and it feels like for landscape to really play it's role out, it has to be on the big screen; it's like looking at a Barnett Newmann canvas, sure you can get the point when it's in a book, but to really enjoy the sexiness of the color, you've got to have your nose against the zip, with color filling your field of vision. Plus, in "Rules of the Game", the costumes are so gorgeous.....look at Nora Gregor's dress before the Masquerade, good god! It's so difficult to understand the visual opulence if you can't see the play on light on those layers of silk.
All of this senusousness is so important to the film. Not only must you comprehend the wealth, but you must sink into it as welll, really reveling in how lush the estate is. Lots of people call this a satire of bourgeois mores (http://www.moma.org/visit_moma/momafilm/summer_2003.html), but I'm not sure I entirely agree. It just doesn't *feel* like a satire.....there's no Swiftian invective, no finger pointing, and so little distance. I just can't figure out where to stand to condemn these figures.
A Pint of Plain's Your Only Man
