September 18, 2008
Deitch Day: Journeys
This past Saturday, I decided to visit all three Deitch Projects locations to make up for staying away from them all summer. Deitch Projects is by far my favorite gallery (galleries?) in the city because of their funky, uninhibited spirit. Founded by Jeffrey Deitch, near-legendary art dealer (a Harvard MBA man himself), the gallery’s launched a lot of brilliant careers, but has avoided the stodginess of other famous, personality-driven galleries (i.e. Barbara Gladstone?). I also love the way Jeffrey Deitch looks – serious but funny, with round spectacles. There was a lovely article profiling him in the New Yorker back in 2007, of which only the abstract is now available online (very sad).
Anyway, so Jeffrey Deitch had two locations in Soho – 18 Wooster and 76 Grand, for paintings, sculptures, and installations. Recently, he opened up another one on the waterfront in Long Island City – a MASSIVE space for installations he said wouldn’t fit in his Soho galleries. I visited once before to see Bjork’s new music video in 3D (Wanderlust), and it’s got the most beautiful location on the river, city skyline in the distance and all.
This past Saturday, we saw the installation and paintings at the Soho Deitch’s, then decided on a whim to make it over to Long Island City to see the last of the Deitchs. Somewhat coincidentally, this happened to be a rather particular Saturday for Deitch LIC. On top of their normal exhibition at the time, they were also hosting Swoon’s Swimming Cities of Switchback Sea as an installation. Swoon, being the performance/installation artist, and Swimming Cities being a flotilla of 7 wonderfully crafted river-worthy vessels.
The Switchback flotilla (photo from NYT)
Here’s what it says on their website:
Swimming cities of Switchback Sea is a flotilla of seven intricately hand crafted vessels that will navigate the stretch of the Hudson River between Troy and the New York harbor this August 15th – September 7th. Imagined as a hybrid between boats and bits of land mass broken off and headed out to sea, the Switchback vessels will make stops in towns along the river bringing performances and music. Over the course of three weeks they will make their way toward their home port – an invented landscape tucked into a niche along the East River in Long Island City, Queens.
Switchback vessel: the Alice (photo from the NYT)
They made anchor right outside Deitch LIC on the river. Each vessel had such character, and such life. And altogether, the flotilla really looked like a place true vagabonds could call home, permanent and transitory. I suppose all ships are, to a certain extent, but hope wasn’t nestled in the next harbor or rest stop; life aboard was complete in and of itself, with its own sociology, its own mythologies.
We caught the very last performance of the Swimming Cities, which turned out to be a play written by Lisa d’Amour: a series of monologues by characters on board. A few of the “crew” stood at the podium on the main vessel and spoke to the audience, while the rest of the crew went about their daily lives – eating, joking with each other, welcoming new members. There were conflicting stories about the origin of things – the origin of the voyage, the origin of the ships, the origin of the people who found it – though all ended with the promise of truth. Underground rivers spewing into real rivers, people who were alive but ghosts, the voyage itself – various themes were passed on, story by story, in the monologues. While I watched the performance, moonlit, the haunting sounds of the band Dark Dark Dark behind us, I thought this was about the evolution of stories, and the lives they represent. Bits and pieces, flotsam and jetsam, junk and valuable, land, boat, and river, all turn up here, then there, then once more later, in unexpected form. But once all the monologues are finished, when all have spoken, what you have left is something close to a truth. A story.
Switchback performance (photo from the NYT)
We listened under a full moon, sweating a little from the unexpected humidity in the air, which lingered though it had been raining earlier. Beautifully written and lovingly performed, the play came alive on the Switchback vessels. It took you there. And when I came back from the journey, I was a maybe a little changed. Maybe I had more wanderlust in me. Maybe I had more stories. Maybe I realized that the intersection between dreams and reality could be made more tangible. Who knows?
September 17, 2008
Movado Hour (2008 Sep 14)
ec and danchilada went to the Movado Hour last Sunday for an amazing performance-
| John Cage | In a Landscape for Piano |
| Steve Reich | Clapping Music for Two Performers |
| George Crumb | Music for a Summer Evening (Marokosmos III) for Two Pianos and Percussion (Two Players) I. Nocturnal Sounds (The Awakening) II. Wanderer – Fantasy III. The Advent IV. Myth V. Music of the Starry Night |
My favorites were In a Landscape and Music of the Starry Night – since they made me forget I was in a small candlelit room in NYC – but it would’ve been hard for anyone not to be captivated by the entire concert. Seriously, I’ve almost dozed off at all previous Movado Hours, but last Sunday’s bucked the trend. Clapping Music was basically two guys clapping for 5 minutes with no other accompaniment. But this wasn’t just any clapping. After the 5 minutes are over, you’re unsure of how to applause for fear that your clapping sucks in comparison. For anyone interested in more Steve Reich, check out his 1976 album Music for 18 Musicians – if you didn’t know minimalist music existed, this is it.
Then there’s the matter of the hieroglyphs they would have us believe are scores for these pieces.. Despite my extensive schooling in guitar, I had never been certain how to notate music for Tibetan prayer stones, slide-whistles, or the jawbone of ass. Yes, apparently it’s a percussion instrument utilized by George Crumb.
Our favorite parts of Myth, in order:
1. Aanngghh..
2. (whispered) kai ko ko kee kah
3. AaaAAanngghhhhhhhh…. aaaAAnnnggghhhhhhh
4. HEY! HEY!
5. kai ko ko kee kah kai ko ko kee kah kah ko
May 13, 2008
Joy!
The IMSLP will be back online on 1 July 2008!!!! Congratulations IMSLP, you made it through!
[IMSLP – International Music Score Library Project was a virtual library of out-of-copyright music scores/sheet music. Its growth was literally exponential; from week to week it would double or triple itself in size and variety, and due to the multiple (often historic) editions of pieces that were posted, it had enormous historical value. Universal Edition, an Austria-based music publishing company, threatened IMSLP with relatively unreasonable lawsuits which it couldn’t afford to defend itself against, so it shuttered on October 19, 2007, much to the chagrin and sadness of its devotees, including myself. IMSLP was run out of Canada, where copyright expires a couple of decades before they do in Austria. However, Project Gutenberg, public access/wiki people, etc. banded together to support the IMSLP project, and have somehow been able to revive it. Down with the old world. Onwards, people!]
For more information on IMSLP and the story of their demise and rebirth, please go here, it’s actually a really fascinating one: http://imslp.wikidot.com/start
March 2, 2008
Yobi, the Five Tailed Fox
When I got down to East 8th Street and University Place this morning, there was already a line of about 40 people outside the Cantor Film Center. A mother held her son’s hand firmly asking him to wait patiently. A group of elementary school girls were circled giggling about whatever elementary school girls giggle about. Families were huddling together to stay warm while in line. Could a guy in his mid-20’s stand out any more? Parents, children , and I were gathered for one purpose, the beginning of day 2 of the New York International Children’s Film Festival.
While everyone else was waiting to gain entrance to see the short films showing in the morning, I was actually in line to get on the wait list for Yobi, the Five Tailed Fox (2007) which was showing later in the day. When I arrived about 30 minutes beforehand, the line outside was still there, except the younger children were replaced by teenagers. I felt just as out of place as I did in the morning, as I certainly did not belong at a film event for kids.
Fortunately, I have no shame and I was able to get tickets because the film was really good. Yobi is Lee Seong-gang’s second full-length animated feature after My Beautiful Girl, Mari (2002). I thought the animation itself was gorgeous and the direction was fantastic. I think I just like how the characters are drawn relatively simply and plain, at least for an anime (if I may use the term for a non-Japanese animation). Also, I love the way he captures emotion and expression in their faces.
A music video trailer for Yobi, the Five Tailed Fox
As for the actual story, I enjoyed it despite the seeming randomness of linking furry aliens with kumiho. There were a few things that I wish he had done differently and thought were unnecessary. First and foremost, consider this your spoiler alert. Now that that’s out of the way, I wish the ending was slightly different. I suppose Lee wanted to leave the ending open and focus more on the idea of Yobi returning as a human, but the romantic in me would’ve been happier to have a moment where Geum-ie, the love interest, would enter the final scene to at least provide the possibility that the two would-be lovers could end up together at last.
My second complaint is some of the character development or lack thereof. For a handful of characters Lee created back stories that I thought had potential, but he didn’t flesh them out as much as I would’ve liked. For example, instead of making her “rival” for Geum-ie, the pretty girl at the school, strong enough or at least interesting enough to actually be considered a rival, she comes across as a snivelly snob. For a few characters I almost felt teased where I ended up wanting more, but he didn’t deliver. The film might have been better served by either adding an extra 20-30 min. to develop and tie-in those back stories, or by not mentioning them at all. Ultimately, they came out with a half-finished feel that was disappointing.
Yobi meets Detective Shadow
Finally, I was confused by his use of antagonists in the film. Lee spent a majority of the film creating an antagonist out of the guy that hunted down kumiho, but then in the end pulled a bait-and-switch only to turn Detective Shadow, who you originally think is an ally, into a diabolical foe. Though I didn’t mind the bait-and-switch idea of turning a friend into an enemy, but again, it was a matter of character development for me. The hunter was in the film for a much more significant amount of time only to get left out during the climax of the film. Meanwhile, Detective Shadow was hardly expanded at all outside of the fact that he would help Yobi every now and then. His betrayal could’ve been so much more poignant if only he was more established.
All that being said, I delighted in what he did for both Yobi and Geum-ie. They were great characters and I fell in love with them as they fell in love with each other. Geum-ie plays the misunderstood trouble-maker but gains an extra dimension as he seeks approval from the adults which leads him to betray Yobi, while at the same time you can clearly see that he genuinely loves her.
Geum-ie in the forest on the mountain
As for Yobi herself, I’m a sucker for the heroine coming of age story that is so persistent in Miyazaki films, and is very apparent in Lee’s film. What made this even more interesting was her internal conflict between needing a soul in order for her to become human and sacrificing her own in order to save the soul of the person she loves. Also, kumiho are regarded as being evil creatures in Korea. How interesting then that such an “evil” creature would fall in love with a human and even make the ultimate sacrifice for him.
Yobi and the aliens
Despite the aspects of the film that I didn’t care for, Geum-ie and Yobi really made the movie for me. Perhaps I’m too easy to win over and really am a stooge for a love story, but in the end it was a good film and certainly worth seeing. And if nothing else, has whet my appetite for the rest of the NYICFF. Bring on day 3!
February 28, 2008
Classical hallucinations
I’m not sure if it was the alligators pirouetting while doing an overhead lift with a hippo or a drunken Bacchus riding a pygmy uni-donkey, but when I first saw Disney’s Fantasia, it enthralled me as a child and is one of my favorite films to this day. I don’t have enough fingers and toes to count the hours I have spent watching the film and it certainly fostered my enjoyment of classical music. As crazy as this may seem, one of the vestigial side effects of repeated exposure to Fantasia has been my spontaneous visualizations while listening to classical.
My most recent imagining came on Monday, when I experienced Carnegie Hall for the first time. The Chicago Symphony Orchestra opened the evening with Matthias Pintscher’s Osiris which, like the few other modern classical works I’ve heard, produces suspense and fear. The piece began, and in my mind I saw a crate sitting in a dark, empty space bathed in a spotlight. After only a few minutes, I was drawn closer to the crate, but not of my own free will, rather more out of compulsion. The soft tension of the sounds told me something was wrong; something just didn’t feel right, but no matter how much I wanted to turn away the crate was inescapable.
Along with the progression of the piece, details slowly developed. I saw that it sat on the stage of an enormous Victorian theater and only then did I realize that the crate was actually gigantic and that I was originally viewing it from a great distance and lacking any visual references. The size was beyond intimidating. The orchestra became more violent and I was close enough to notice that the crate was in fact shaking. What started as gentle nudges grew into a tremor.
At this point I was close enough to see that what I had thought was a solid, well-built crate was actually more of a makeshift, wooden box. As I came nearer, the gaps between the planks grew larger to where I could actually see into the darkness that was inside. Initially, I only saw the white of a blood-shot eye staring at me and the ivory of bared teeth. I could tell that the climax was drawing near; upon looking through the cracks, I made out the shape of a monstrous ape convulsing ferociously. The box was now quaking.
The climax came suddenly, and with it the box splintered into shards of wood. All that remained was the ape and his rage. The theater trembled as dust fell from the rafters and the old structure creaked and moaned. His vengeance was furious and destructive. Piece by piece he reduced the theater to rubble to reveal a surrounding jungle. Then just as quickly as the climax came, the music died away and his frenzy was over. He slipped quietly into the bush and vanished from sight.
Now, I must confess that I know very little about classical music, and nothing about modern classical. The piece was inspired by the Osiris myth, and I’m sure someone well-versed in both Egyptian mythology and modern classical music could give you more insight as to the merits of the work. Unfortunately, I can only leave you with two conclusions: sometimes I let my imagination get the better of me, and the music was frightening. If anything, it probably means I should cut back on the Hitchcock.
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