why are virgos so weird?
I was wondering how long it would take the world to catch onto our conspiracy: Anti Virgo.
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September 29, 2004
hi there
observer drift
an anniversary of some sort (and a rant)
I've been back in San Francisco for two months now, today. Since returning to Fortress America, I feel like I've been undergoing some sort of re-education process, a kind of brainwashing from the media in this country. I watch TV "news" programs where guests are gently and consistently reminded to not say anything too negative about the president. There is so little diversity in dialogue here, even among those from other countries: they too seem to speak only in the language of the American monoculture. I have memories of meeting people in the Netherlands, a country where 5.7% of the population is Muslim, and hearing opinions that are not allowed to even be secretly whispered aloud within the US. Has everyone in America simply stopped questioning why large numbers of people in the world want to blow up US cities? Does anyone care? Not that I can tell.
Right after September 11, I remember a friend saying that he thought this might be the opportunity for America to fundamentally change, his hope was that it would serve as a kind of cultural reset. But in retrospect that seems like such a naive wish, when in fact the worst of all possible outcomes seems to be happening: America has closed itself off, locked the doors, and is dropping more bombs than ever. Shocking and unbelievable stupidity.
Robert McNamara pointed out, in Fog of War, that empathy with the enemy was required for victory. But in the current political climate of America, empathy seems to be akin to treason. The mainstream media does not touch questions of American foreign policy of the last 50 years. If the mainstream media is a kind of collective mind of the country, representing its interests, desires, debates, fears, neuroses, and dialogues, then the American mind has no memory and no curiosity. Its fitting that these qualities should be embodied in Bush, after all, they say every country gets the leader it deserves.
sf 10
9 Adjectives Describing San Francisco:
1. Isolated
2. Silly
3. Smart
4. Resigned
5. Inclined
6. Malcontent
7. Creative
8. Classist
9. Cliquish
September 28, 2004
recent reading/watching/listening
I finished reading I, Pierre Seel, Deported Homosexual the other day. It's a stunning book, written in simple and direct language with an immediacy and understatement that is haunting. The man survived concentration camps, the sight of his lover killed, he was forced to fight on the Russian front. After reading the last page, I wondered what life means to him today after seeing the things he did.
Sunday, I watched the documentary Fog of War by Errol Morris, about Robert McNamara the former US defense secretary. Totally astonishing, the self-described "sensitive man" showed no signs of difficulty in reducing the value of human life to cold numbers. He admits that if the United States had lost World War II he would have been tried as a war criminal. I have no doubt of that.
September 27, 2004
glam nerd
Someone called me a Glam Nerd today. I thought it was the funniest thing I had heard in a while. Or as my friend Seamus says, "Are you a geek or are you a play'a"? How about both. Yeah, maybe it's time to come to terms with my inner geek.
processing
I'm excited about the potential of Processing, I'm going to spend the next month or so trying to learn it, even though I really don't have enough time. I've been reading about it for a while, and it seems like it's gotten to a point of real usability now. I'm interested in using it to make interfaces that work with SuperCollider.
September 26, 2004
sunday sunday sunday
Just what is it about Sundays?
new track from seamus cater in amsterdam
Seamus Cater posted a new track, Shaffy, on our Sound Swap sight. It's completely live, he explains more on the site.
new track from midori
September 25, 2004
memory 1
A few months ago, I was in Aquarius Records in San Francisco browsing the magazines, and I happened upon a very very underground music magazine, so underground I can't even remember the name, covering bands that have audiences smaller than the maximum number of people you could fit in a MINI. So it made sense that they had a review of the debut CD by my group, now more or less defunct, Tog (formerly known as Tricky Old Lady), a computer duo that was based in Tokyo, with Robert Duckworth. They hated the CD so much. But they did say that my name was the perfect name for a solo electronic experimental music artist. I'm not sure what that meant, but I remember feeling sort of flattered by it.
September 17, 2004
projects + sugardaddy
I was invited by the Lab to do a performance there with an exhibit opening on December 9. I have so many ideas, and I realize that many of them are in conjunction with people playing acoustic instruments. I look forward to working with sounds made from people working: pushing keys, hitting metal, breathing into wooden tubes, all of those types of very physical things.
In the meantime, I need more time to work on this project, and the only way I can figure that out right now is if I can find myself a Sugar Daddy. Know of one? Have 'em send me an email ASAP! =;->
September 12, 2004
san francisco sounds
There are some amazingly creative people in San Francisco, I am convinced of that. Here are a couple, both members of a band called The Pleased.
Joanna Newsom, making gorgeous and dreamy harp songs, great music for cool autumn days. See a quicktime movie of her latest video here.
I heard my friend Noah Georgeson play solo the other night, just him and a classical guitar, and it was some of the most haunting and lyrically intricate music I've heard in quite a long time. I prefer his solo work over his band's, but that's to be expected as I always want to hear work from singular, edgy, and slightly obscure voices much more than the polished sound from a group that is aiming for a mass market.
September 11, 2004
villette numérique 2004
Very nice festival in Paris coming up later this month
September 10, 2004
in the shadow of no towers
"The feelings of dislocation reflected in these No Towers pages," Spiegelman writes, "arose in part from the lack of outcry against the outrages [of the Bush administration] while they were being committed".
September 7, 2004
nice show coming up in amsterdam
more zizek
a conversation with christian fennesz in amsterdam
I finally posted an interview I had with Christian Fennesz last year. I was waiting to see if I could find a magazine to publish it, but to no avail. Thanks to Christian for so generously sparing the time to meet with me, it was a really big moment to get to talk to someone whose music I admire so much.
it's a sky blue sky
Here are some pictures from San Francisco on a sunny and hot day, downtown near Yerba Buena Gardens.
September 4, 2004
groups
Somewhere on the path, I made a turn. I think it was about the time I moved to Tokyo in 1999: I joined the Beautiful Losers, that loose-knit team of creative and sort of needlessly over-educated ones who could have had, if they were a bit more of the team-player and a bit less idealistic, an uninterrupted career and a clear role in society. I think I was heading in that direction, might be too late to retrace my steps now though. And that's fine, I wouldn't have it any other way. After all, the Beautiful Losers are much prettier and have a better sense of humor. And the view of the outsider, the thing that allows art to happen, that ability to catch the edge of two perspectives right there where they rub up against each other, well, the Beautiful Losers have that in spades.
brown bunny 2
Brown Bunny, the newest film by Vincent Gallo, was more than I expected. Wonderfully self-obsessed and self-loathing, it was surprisingly modest in its experimentalism. It was actually sort of formulaic with a tried-and-tested dramatic ending, and was surprisingly very very funny at some points.
It was emotionally touching and oh-so-American: Gallo seems to have a fetish for small mid-western towns and lingering well-framed shots of tiny family homes with flags on the porch, I noticed this in Buffalo 66 also.
I loved the fact that I really could never quite tell if he were being disingenuous about his intentions in the film, I was nearly convinced that the melodrama of some of the scenes was earnestly heartfelt, which I found to be very endearing, not a put-off at all. I'm not sure if this says more about me or the film.
September 1, 2004
asphodel in bloom
Was Asphodel always releasing such interesting work? I guess so, but recently they seemed to have upped the ante, or maybe I am just now noticing, either way I'm especially interested in the Philip Jeck + Janek Schaefer collaboration. I'm really looking forward to hearing that.
And, I must admit, I am not a big fan of Tujiko Noriko, I find her style to be a little precious and overly stylized, granted she does have a fascinating voice. Or maybe I have just gotten turned off to her work from all the talk of her sex-appeal from my straight friends: they all seem to get a hard-on just to hear that she may have walked in the general vicinity at some point in the past. But I digress... I am actually very curious and looking forward to hear her recent collaboration with Peter Rehberg.
new books
I've been reading a lot recently. Maybe I've just had more time on my hands these days. Or I might be refueling my need for written words that are in a familiar language after living abroad last year. Either way, I've found some really good fiction recently. A few of them:
Number9Dream by David Mitchell
Gunter Grass' Danzig Trilogy
This Is Not a Novel by David Markson
My Name is Red by Orhan Pamuk, which came highly recommended from my friend Mitch, a writer whose judgment I trust.
And the book Where Europe Begins is just what I've been looking for. It's written by Yoko Tawada, a native of Japan who has been living in Hamburg for years, and now writes primarily in German, but occasionally still in Japanese. This book resonates deeply with me. It's a poetic study of the veils of culture and language that we all wear, and the way language begins to fall apart a bit when living in a place where your old language doesn't function anymore, not only in the practical sense that no one else speaks it, but also with a visceral impact in the way current ideas, memes, to be discussed are of a different breed in this other culture.
I think she sees language as being a murky swamp that doesn't get enough sunshine. Her frustration with it is summed up in the line, "Often it sickened me to hear people speak their native tongues fluently. It was as if they were unable to think and feel anything but what their language so readily served up for them." I've never been so aware of that frustration before this most recent return to the United States, and am reminded of it every time I turn on the television.