FundamentallySound Blog

OK, this is going to sound a little corny, but Tilda Swinton, through her recounting of working with Derek Jarman, tonight, reminded me of why I make music. I came away with these ideas:

-Be more than a dilettante but be less than a professional

-Only laugh when you mean it (are you listening America?)

And I realized that I need to sample Hank Williams Sr. more in my music.

Posted by at 9:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I wonder what Momus's song The Age of Information would be titled if it were written today instead of in 1997?

Do all those old axioms still hold true? Like "Axiom 2, in this world that is new, paranoia is simply a word for seeing things as they are. Act as you wish to be seen to act or leave for some other star." Is it more or less complex now, nearly ten years later?

I, for one, would like to know.

Posted by at 3:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Harry Smith, described by Kenneth Anger as the, "greatest living magician," was most critically well known as a filmmaker. I have to confess that I didn't know his work at all before Thursday night, when Deerhoof played live to a few of his films at the Castro Theater.

I had my press badge (thanks New Music Box!), it didn't really seem to help us get in quickly though, the line wrapped around the corner of Castro street and out on to Market. For a screening of an obscure experimental filmmaker with music provided by an obscure experimental band, this crowd was totally unexpected. The theater was completely packed, I wasn't even sure we could get in. It's moments like that which make me happy to live in this city. As I keep telling my friends, there is a big audience in this city! We just have to figure out how to present work. This city does circus-like events well, hastily thrown together weirdness with no clarity. But people are sick of it, I know I am. If somebody could pull together polished shows/events with quality and style... Build it and they will come.

Deerhoof was so restrained, their music never intruded on the film, letting it speak for itself. And their timing was impeccable, I actually think they spent a lot of time working that out, it was so refreshing to see a group play and get their entrances and exits right, the timing sycned with the film to a T.

Posted by at 10:21 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

DAY 2

-I just arrived at the courthouse, I'm going to try to get out of jury duty today by citing my travel plans at the end of next week. Hopefully this will work.

-In a comment yesterday my friend Rémi asked if jury duty in the US is just something that suddenly falls on your head without warning. Yes, it is. You get a notice a couple of weeks in advance and then you're expected to be there. That's when the selection really begins, the defense attorney and prosecutor interview everyone until they find who they want on the jury. I'd say there were about 30 potential jurors in the process yesterday.

-While waiting in the courtroom yesterday, I noticed how much time the attorneys spent looking at people, un-selfconciously. I wondered what they had been trained to look for. How does race profiling factor into it? Are there certain sizes of people that tend to be more or less sympathetic?

Do my new eyeglasses help or hinder my chances at being chosen?

update: I just got home from jury duty today. After the judge and attorney questioned me as a potential juror, the judge let me go because of my travel plans, now I'm free for at least another year. Yay!

Posted by at 4:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

DAY 1

-I'm sitting in a too-small room full of American citizens who don't want to be here, many of whom are having cell phone conversations about large sums of money. These people seem to enjoy discussing big money in public. I find it tasteless and vulgar. I like cultural snobbery but financial snobbery just makes my stomach turn.

-The pay for a day of jury service in this country is $15. That's about enough to buy a burrito and a beer at a taqueria here in San Franicsco.

-I'm having strange fantasies of being the lead juror on a celebrity murder trial. I don't know of any celebrities that have been murdered in San Francisco recently but I haven't been following the news so much either. Who knows?

-I had to pay $6.95 to use the "Court Connection" wi-fi service. Paying this sum caused severe feelings of self-loathing as I normally absolutely refuse to pay to use public wi-fi. But today I felt driven to it as I couldn't fathom surviving for another hour without something to divert my attention.

-I'm sitting across from a guy who looks to be far too young to be on a jury, he must barely be 18. He's sketching people in a big notebook. And as he flips through his notebook I can see that he must have been here a long time, as it's full of sketches of various people scattered around the room. Am I in there?

-I'm impressed by the randomness of the selection process. They really got a pretty accurate cross-section of the city, I think:
20% Hipster
20% Chinese
20% Obnoxious Rich White Collar Financial Worker
20% Serious Grad Student
20% Homeless

-It's about 3:00 now, I've been here for an hour and a half. I wonder if I'll be called today. And if so, will I actually be chosen to serve on a jury? It's strangely exciting and full of philosophical pitfalls. I mean, I am not qualified at all to determine the guilt or innocence of another human being. I can see how radical the idea of a random jury of fellow citizens is.

update: We left off, at the end of the day, with the judge offering forms to be filled out for deferment of jury duty. Stupidly, I didn't fill one out. Tomorrow I'm going to ask the judge if I can be excused, citing the fact that I'll be traveling to Mississippi for a few days at the end of next week to visit family.

Posted by at 3:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Heather and I have been working on a new duo project, all with the aim of live theater performance. It's a big project, starting from nothing, with big big ideas. It's music, leaning towards theater.

Heather has lovely ideas of opening a grand piano lid to a spotlight on a dark stage with the sound of fluttering electronic quail in the distance, leading to sparse Satie-like melody lines, slightly processed, distressed. It's about air, space, clean-lines, breathing, little sounds, and cubes. Video projections start, little pulses of imagery that bounce off of our white Heidi Slimane designed costumes (hey, we can dream). Images and sounds that suggest, point, but never overwhelm.

It's so much fun, and we're not rushing, we're working a lot, but only keeping the things that feel right and have the texture of cold water.

Posted by at 2:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

My latest missive on the musical goings on about town here in San Francisco is up at New Music Box, with the wonderful and guffaw-inspiring headline "Are We Not Men? We Are Po-Min" (thanks Randy). And a review of the recent Paul Taylor performance at Yerba Buena Center is due to go up on their site next week.

Also, I've got some reviews, and a feature on John Bischoff in the new e/i Magazine (in paper), due out next month. The CD's I got to hear for this edition of e/i were actually all pretty amazing, especially new works by Berlin-based rm74 and Washington's Doublends Vert. rm74 just screams Berlin, with its "messy mud-wrestling ring of sound." And Doublends Vert's CD Cistern is a serious exercise in site-specific recording, the music, by an acoustic ensemble, was all recorded in a two million gallon underground reservoir in Fort Worden, a de-commissioned military base overlooking the entrance to the Puget Sound. Whoever thinks contemporary music is a bore just isn't listening to the right stuff.

Posted by at 11:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

I can't finish reading Europe Central, it's just too dark and claustrophobic. It's an amazing book, I just can't chew on it any longer. So, to lighten things up a bit, I've started several other books, collections of short stories. Quick, easy to digest, and fun: that is what I crave.

James Purdy - Moe's Villa and Other Stories
This is the second book I've read by Purdy, the first was Narrow Rooms, a completely haunting and beautiful novel about the tragic lives of men in love in the rural south, in the 1960s. Moe's Villa feels a lot less heavy but is totally absorbing.

Robert Glück - Denny Smith and Other Stories. This is a beautiful little book, literally, it's about 4" x 4". So far the prose is completely experimental and abstract, but at the same time very corporeal, ie, it seems to have a non-narrative form that jumps around in completely unexpected ways, but the contents are about sex and eating and so on.

update: When researching sites about James Purdy, I kept coming upon descriptions of his work as being surreal. I don't think it's surreal unless you take it literally. It's all metaphor and fantastically descriptive, but very very real. Surrealism always seem to have something of a dream-like quality to it, but Purdy seems to be completely lucid and sober.

Posted by at 2:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I do think Swissnex is one of the more interesting venues in this city. It doesn't look like it belongs in San Francisco, it's capable of surprise. Today and tomorrow they're hosting symposia on

«« Affective Sciences Emerging : The Interdisciplinary Study of Emotions »»

Tonight at 7:00 they're holding a particularly interesting discussion on interactive art & science -- emotion, bodily and facilal expression. I'm going to be there.

Posted by at 12:18 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Today I was thinking about Laurie Anderson's song O Superman. Again. And I reconfirmed, at least to myself, that it is one of the best songs ever written. André Hermann Düne reminded me of this in his cover, strumming an acoustic guitar, delicately squeaking out, "hold me mom, in your petrochemical arms," flatly acknowledging the Cronenberg-esque grotesqueness of the line.

O Superman summarizes so neatly the duality in the American fetishization of armed technological superiority (its love of a big ol' bulging military buildup!) and the culture's trust in the motherly warmth of technology as a protective force (now we will always have enough food with genetically modified crops).

"When force is gone, there's always Mom." In Europe Central, William Vollmann hits on some of these themes, of playing out childish needs and desires in large scale techno-military action, specifically in the Soviet Union and Germany mid-20th century. I think there is something fundamentally irrational in such a strong cultural belief in the powers of technology. The Germans had this, in their secret work on weapons technology that would allow them, well, to control the world I guess. You can see this in the American Project for a New Century with its focus on military superiority and complete domination of the electromagnetic spectrum. The parallels are so numerous it almost goes without saying. I just wonder, after the next presidential elections, are things going to get better? Who knows...

Posted by at 10:57 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)