« December 2007 | Main | February 2008 »
Jano and I went to see the Chuck Arnett exhibit at the GLBT Archives Center last week. At the time Arnett was working, in the 60's, it seemed gay culture was appearing out of the woodwork and it was undergoing a strange convergence with psychedelia and the 60's counterculture. Arnett celebrated this culture in drawn form. He even made these sort of Querelle-style giant murals of cruisy men, like this one featured in Life Magazine, 1964:
"In The Pendulum's Embrace" is really lovely music. Highly recommended! Smart use of ultra-low frequencies and subtle glitch stutter with guitar.
A squeaky train horn, obviously with a slight hole in it letting a hairline thread of air out the way a thick glass vase dropped long ago lets a tiny trail of water slowly wet the floor barely enough to even notice, tries to convince of its superiority but sounds mostly shrill and dried up. And somewhere overhead a secret experimental satellite with a full tank of satellite fuel is spiralling out of control, set to crash who knows where.
My piece made in collaboration with Deric Carner called For Freddie is being presented in Leiden.
Fragmentation of Perception, Media presentation, University of Leiden, NL: January 25th & 26th
You may have noticed a marked lack of cultural criticism directed towards San Francisco and this screwed up country in general as of late. Don't worry, it's all still there. It's just that having a boyfriend tends to temper my vitriol. Apologies.
One phrase though, tonight, reading in the New York Times, triggered that old feeling that pretty much most of the values I hold are in obvious conflict with the cultural belief systems in the United States. In an interview with Dutch designer Lucas Ossendrijver, he states, "In the Netherlands, even if a cyclist causes an accident with a car, it’s always the motorist’s fault, because the cyclist is much more vulnerable." This view is in complete opposition to that of Americans. If a bicycle gets in the way of a giant SUV, here in America, it's of course the bicyclist's fault. It's written in city law that bikes should think of themselves as equals to cars. This is absurd! A motorist can run over ten bicyclists before they even a notice a dent in their Ford. How can anyone in their right mind consider them equals?
On a nicer note, Ossendrijver namechecks one of my favorite pubs in Paris, the Pop-In.
The excitement I felt from the breeze of the MacBook Air has been replaced by the sinking feeling that I'll never be able to afford one.
I wonder if they're going to create a new paradigm like the iPod or fade away as the Cube did.
In other news, I am working on a lot of new music and preparing for a Kunsole invasion of the San Francisco Arts Commission Gallery space on Grove street for March.
And having fun with Jano.
Finally! Apple makes a thin notebook, looks I'll be upgrading my Powerbook G4!
I still use my old 12" Powerbook G4 and have stubbornly been waiting for a new thin Apple laptop for a very long time. Maybe tomorrow is the day my wait will end? I'm not going to be able to sleep tonight. Trying to follow the rumors of what Steve is going to announce is like some form of Kremlinology.
I saw Le Scaphandre Et le Papillon (The Diving Bell and the Butterfly) last week. Directed by Julian Schnabel, it's based on the French best-selling book of the same name written by someone named Jean-Dominque Bauby. Bauby was a middle-aged man, editor of Elle magazine and a total player. But then he suffered a stroke and suddenly could only communicate by blinking his left eye. And through the blinking language, he was able to write this book with the help of a nurse, who was of course cast as a ravishing blonde by the ever virile Schnabel.
I've never been a fan of Schnabel's painting, but this film was sort of amazing. I don't know if it's because movies tend to be more conservative in their visual language than other visual arts, but Schnabel's use of oversaturation and time-stretching seemed fresh and exciting. There's nothing highly experimental about his approach, but it worked.
Most films, or at least ones that get released in the United States, peddle in cheap emotion. Schnabel's latest walks that line carefully, barely avoiding maudlin sentimentality. But in the end, rather than being sentimental, it is just nostalgic and actually quite sad in a very pure way, not clouded by dramatic gesture. And the result is tender yet steely, nostalgic yet unsentimental. Like the best of the Velvet Underground.
I've often said that Americans are the most insecure people in the world. So much of the schizoid and paranoid behavior of this culture comes from fear. The culture's comedy is based on it, the way people relate, the fear of sex (watched any David Lynch recently?). This country even launched a seemingly never-ending war from one of the most paranoid readings of threat ever, Cheney's so-called One Percent Doctrine.
After all this, there's some glimmer of hope that all reason is not lost. Last night, even in über-Christian Iowa, a black man of African descent with a Muslim name, giving powerful speeches about the commonality of mankind, was able to decisively convince a majority of Democrats that he should be the next president. If America blows this chance, this place is just screwed.
I've been using my friend Rob's piece SND for my ringtone for a while now. Then I briefly used the opening chords of Rydeen, which was swell. But being a new year and all, I'm having a great time browsing through all of the ringtones posted at Tone Shared, via Marc at Disquiet. So far Achmed from Bernd Friedmann is in the top running.
How did it become 2008 already? Crazy...
I've got a good feeling about this year, lots of little omens pointing in the right direction.
Best discovery so far in 2008: audio destructionalist Lezrod.
Happy New Year!
明けましておめでとうございます!!
Feliz Año Nuevo!!
