HCA 08 Auction

The 2008 Headlands Center for the Arts auction was Anu's second, last, and best auction for that organization. Thanks to her hard work, and that of her colleagues, it was quite a bit more successful than their best estimates had projected. Attendance was high, the food was excellent, and the atmosphere was lively.

Ed Gilbert and Anu

Having attended last year's auction as well, I can definitely say this one had better artworks on offer and a more energetic mood amongst the attendees. Even in the current economic climate, the compelling work resulted in a very high percentage of works selling compared to previous HCA auctions.

Owen Seitel introduces the live auction

A number of folks were there that I am friendly with (besides the Headlands Staff), including artists Fred Loomis and David Maisel; curators and gallerists Kimberly Johansson, Svea Vezzone, Jennifer McCabe, and Maria del Carmen Carrión; Lawrence Lohr and Emily from the excellent winery J. Lohr; and Headlands trustees Ed Gilbert and Owen Seitel.

Lawrence and Emily

Anu and Svea

Kimberly

Jennifer and Maria Del Carmen

As I did last year, I purchased some work, hoping to support Anu and her colleagues in their endeavors. She had done a great job with programming, and I was very excited to meet and continue to get to know past and future AIRs under her tenure such as pre-Headlands friends Phillip Robertson and Shahzad Ismaily, as well as David Maisel, Fred Loomis, Zak Smith, Ken Goldberg, Will Oldham, Mads Lynnerup, Ant Farm, NPR, and many others.

I managed to win three very nice works in the silent auction:

Kathy Aoki - "Right on Schedule"

Kathy Aoki's work, consisting of cutesy Japanese pop culture images in sometimes gritty, everyday scenes, is especially popular here in the San Francisco Bay Area. My nerdy love of Japanese pop culture and construction machinery made this piece quite a natural fit for me.

Lead Pencil Studio - An Intimate Momentum

Lead Pencil Studio are nationally renowned architects and artists Annie Han and Daniel Mihalyo. They are West Coast favorites, and there was a lot of twitter amongst some buyers after the closing of the silent auctions that they hadn't seen this work (hello, it's pretty hard to miss) and would have bid it up higher if they had. I found the intertwining of architectural elements with romantic figures to be oddly compelling, and enjoyed the piece on its own merits.

Seher Shah - Black Star Project (Cube 18)

I had been completely unfamiliar with Seher Shah's work prior to the auction, but Anu had seen her work at Miami Basel. Fortunately, Anu got a catalog of Shah's work at the Miami Basel show, because it is all quite excellent and I wouldn't have gotten to see it at all otherwise. Her use of either monochrome or muted color palettes, and intricate geometric detailing, often combined with interesting figurative elements, especially appeals to me. Unbeknownst to me at the time, this piece was my biggest "score" of the auction in terms of international reputation, and upon further researching her work I must say I am quite impressed with it. I'm glad to own one of her pieces.

Fred

What I didn't buy this year was a piece by my friend Fred Loomis -- I figured it was good to let someone else have a chance this time. That, and many other wonderful works that were featured this year went home with others, including a stunning piece by Matthew Cusick that I would have loved to have, but couldn't.

Matthew Cusick -- The Course of Empire (Mixmaster II)

However, this tale of a joyful, successful night ends tragically. Two business days after the most successful auction in the organization's history, Headlands Center for the Arts laid-off the artistic organizer of the event -- their Program Director, my lovely wife Anu. Her hard work, extensive connections, and great eye all contributed substantially to making this auction quite excellent (an obvious fact to anyone who had attended previous auctions, such as last year's, which happened before she had really settled-in to the job). Despite the better-than-expected returns on the auction, and an excellent (and financially net positive) programming season, financial reasons were cited for her termination. Apparently HCA is in direr financial straits than any of us had figured.

It is a shame that she will no longer be with the organization. The programming and artist roster she brought to HCA certainly piqued my interest in an institution I'd previously ignored, and I am rather difficult to please artistically. (You may think I'm biased, and to some extent I am. But Anu and I rely on each other for honest critique, so we don't cut any slack with regards to whether or not we think the other's creative efforts are engaging or not.) However, she will continue to curate, write, and otherwise engage the Bay Area (and national, and international) arts community so you'll continue to be able to attend her shows and programs -- only you'll have to do so at some other place(s).

Little Troubles In Big China

I just finished reading The Corpse Walker by Liao Yiwu. This collection of interviews with Chinese from the bottom heap of society, onto which Liao Yiwu had been flung by his government for being a dissident writer, is such a compelling read that despite coming home at eleven PM on average I barely managed to put it down each night, resulting in my getting about 4 hours of sleep a night for three nights.

The Corpse Walker by Liao Yiwu


The most compelling, and depressing, thing about The Corpse Walker is that each of these harrowing, Kafkaesque tales is true. Each interview reveals a litany of problems which may seem like small or distant problems individually (oddly, particularly to those interviewed), but which add up to a portrait of a society that badly needs real reform, not just an Olympian whitewash. Their little troubles add up to a big problem for Chinese society. Many of the interviewees have resigned themselves to matter-of-fact remembrances of various individual incidents which, to comfortable westerners such as myself, would seem crushing in their own right. Death and privation are discussed and written about in a tone that may seem disturbingly perfunctory to Westerners, but for these people who have experienced so much misery, resignation seems to be the only coping mechanism many of them have left. Most of those who ultimately succumb at all to any admission of their despair, frustration and anger only do so after recounting long stories of repeated abuse, and lives wasted by The Party on misguided ideological crusades.

Liao's status as a pariah gave him first hand access to other, usually less politically motivated pariahs in Chinese society. He has given these people their voice, and it is not always one which will find sympathetic ears in the West. It seems that his purpose in writing this book was both to give ordinary Chinese who aren't participating in the "economic miracle" a platform, and at the same time to put the lie to the global claims that China is a reformed, modern society whose leadership is worthy of praise, even coddling. The picture of China from Mr. Liao's view is quite different. Perhaps tales of The Cultural Revolution and The Great Leap Forward with their utterly devastating effects seem like relics of the past, but in this book you will hear not only of the impact those policies had at the time, but the legacies that still exist in China today. People destroyed by those policies are being forgotten all over again, and at the same time the government still detains people like Mr. Liao. The policies may be somewhat less brutal since Mao, but the underlying theories remain the same: power for the powerful, a dab of hope for those who toe the line, and little left for anyone else.

Human Rights Watch has this to say about the author's backgroud: "Liao Yiwu (China), poet, novelist, film scriptwriter, has been arrested repeatedly over the past fourteen years. He was first arrested in March 1990 while working on a movie about the government´s persecution of persons involved in the June 4th Movement. Over the next four years, he was frequently confined to detention centers and prisons where he was subjected to abusive treatment, once being handcuffed for twenty-three consecutive days causing abscesses in his armpits. He tried to commit suicide twice. In October 1995, police searched his home, confiscated his writings, and held him under house arrest for twenty days. In September 1998, he was arrested because he compiled The Underground Poems of the Seventies in China. The book´s publishers were dismissed from their posts. In January 2001, the publisher of his latest book, Voice From the Lowest Rung of the Society, was ordered to recall copies that were already in the stores. Voice From the Lowest Rung of the Society was then published in Taiwan. In December 2002, Liao Yiwu was detained again after he posted his writings on the Internet and signed a petition to the 16th Party Congress."

Given his status, Mr. Liao had insider access to prisoners (political and otherwise), beggars, and others in Chinese society that had he not fallen from grace with his government, he would probably have never even noticed. The stories he relays are of desperate people trampled by the marche of progress as their country become prosperous either without them, or worse, at their expense. China, in the eyes of Mr. Liao and many of the people he interviews, is a place where life is cheap. The survivors of The Cultural Revolution are a "wasted" generation, malnurtured and discarded. Poor and dissident Chinese of today are little better off. Liao is not always sympathetic to his interviewees, and his stating so often leads to even more revealing responses -- particularly in the cases of unrepentant abusers such as the Human Trafficker who defends the practices of kidnapping and rape, and the former Red Guard who defends torture, murder and the annihilation of China's historical treasures.

The Corpse Walker is a fascinating look at a country that has garnered a lot of attention lately. While you may not find the picture of China that Mr. Liao paints to be very appealing, it is one of the realities of his society and without people like him to remind the world of this fact, there will never be any hope of changing the reality of China to better conform to the public relations image. The only disappointing thing about the book is that there are two other volumes as yet untranslated, a deficiency I hope will be rectified in the not-too-distant future.

Busy as a Bee

I've been quite busy. In addition to my day job I was busy rewriting and sending a feature script called "Welcome To Akron" to a wide variety of contests, fellowships, agents and managers. I've also been taking an advanced cinematography class, working on a new feature script, brainstorming ideas and writing treatments for a pitches to an interested producing partner, doing some event photography (which I don't really like doing, but it was a favor), and working on two short films. One of the shorts is a "making of" documentary for another short film (this weekend I think I finally re-focused on the idea that "cracked" the making of project in terms of making it not be as boring as most other making of docs), and the other is the next installment of a Noir comedy serial that I've developed with my friends Bill Zahn and Jason Topolski (and am creating with help from a whole bunch of friends). Here are a couple production stills:

Me and Bill Zahn, my directing and writing partner, on location trying to figure out
what the heck to do about the zillion production problems that cropped-up
in that grove of trees (the smiles came after we accepted compromise).

Jason Topolski, our star, looking noir as all get-out.

However, we won't be setting-up the site and releasing the first webisode until some time later this year. The plan is to have at least 3 (I'd prefer 4) in the can before we start releasing them. Thanks to a fantastic crew, we managed to get through some really rough patches and get most of our shooting done. We will do a pick-up day, but given the ambition of some of our set-ups, that was probably to be expected.

I've also been preparing for a trip to Poland next week. To cap it all off Sim, one of our cats, got very sick with Pyothorax (a potentially fatal condition). $4000 in vet bills later he is on the road to recovery, but Anu has now been laid off by yet another non-profit arts institution going down the path to destitution and cultural irrelevance (the timing of which, coming on the heels of such a large and unexpected expense, was doubly inauspicious).

I did have a couple minutes to "write" this review of Denon's absurd $500 ethernet cable (which some of you will recognizes as a riff on the Turbo Encabulator meme, with a few changes to fit the application), so I guess the chaos is subsiding a wee bit.

Derivatives Derived

Here is my submission to John August's latest challenge, in which participants must write a scene in which someone explains (financial) derivatives. The version here fixes a subtle malapropism which, if John is on the ball, should cause him to go "that doesn't quite make sense, he meant xxx" for one of the lines. However, I'm not going to point out which word it is -- I'll let you find it. It actually makes some sense in the erroneous version -- it just makes sensible sense in the corrected version.

If some of the dialog seems familiar, but you don't get the reference -- it's an homage to an awesome scene from Sidney Lumet's Network (script by Paddy Chayefsky). I also make mention the other meaning of derivative, which is often used when doing analysis to decide what derivative positions to take. And, by being an homage, the scene itself is derivative. Perhaps John will award extra points for scoring a triple entendre.

---

JENKINS, a stuffed suit executive munching a Cuban cigar, leans forward. He bellows out a cloud of smoke from his yellow grin. It engulfs the thin, bookish MAX. Jenkins gesticulates with his cigar like an orchestra conductor, pushing Max farther back into his chair with each sweeping gesture.

JENKINS
Your pointless pontifications on pricing parameters and rates of change and rates of change of rates of change are boring me, Max. Buy low, sell high. It's simple, Max. Even a genius like you can see that, no?

MAX
But, Mr. Jenkins, we can't just --

JENKINS
Come now, Max. It's like the man once said. There is only one holistic system of systems, one vast and immane, interwoven, interacting, multi-variate, multi-national dominion of dollars. It is the international system of currency that determines the totality of life on this planet! The world is a college of corporations, inexorably determined by the by-laws of business. That is the natural order of things today! Am I getting through --

Max's chair crashes to the ground as he jumps up. He grabs Jenkins' arm in mid-swing. Plucks the cigar from his hand.

MAX
You foolish old fossil!

As Max rants he shoves the cigar an inch closer to Jenkins' nose with each outburst.

MAX
Don't you understand? There is no IBM or ITT or AT&T, no DuPont, Dow, Union Carbide or Exxon. There are only equities and commodoties, rates and trends, arbitrage and triage, speculation and hedging, OTCs and ETCs. The future is forwards, the forwards, our future! You think your cozy little world of petro-dollars and electro-dollars and multi-dollars is what George Soros talks about in his board meetings? You stand here and howl about dollars and cents. There are no dollars and cents. Dollars and cents are but a dot on a chart, a moment in time, the input to the next output, the second when the future becomes the present, before it becomes the future again! And with leverage, we always live in the future. You're reading a dysfunctional function. Look deeper. Can't you see it, Jenkins? The future? -- Is knowing the future! The almighty dollar is dead. There are only arbitrage positions and speculation markets, equity swaps and back-to-backs, forward rate agreements and interest rate caps, swaptions and options and futures and turbo warrants. Long-term positions? Profitability? And, for Heaven's sake -- dividends? Yesterday's news, Jenkins. There are no more straight bets, no more original positions. No, Jenkins. Everything is derivative now.

The cigar is almost touching Jenkins' nose. He nervously pushes it aside.

JENKINS
(uncertain)
What does it mean, Max?

MAX
Your future has no options, Jenkins. I'm shorting you.

Max stuffs the cigar into Jenkins' suit pocket. Struts out the door.

Immigrant Song

May First was the opening night for the East of the West exhibition at SomArts, which my wife Anu co-curated with Taraneh Hemami. It was a great show, and a good opening. Friends such as Ala Ebketar and Hadi Tabatabai were featured, and I made several new friends as well, including Ali Dadgar. It was a reaffirmation of something Anu and I discuss often: the ethos of immigrant and first generation Americans, and how it differs from settled populations both here and abroad.

The after parties on two different nights of the EotW run -- one large and one small -- were quite comfortable, seemingly familiar despite having met some of the people there for the first time at said parties. Eating and drinking with our new and established Iranian friends was very much like eating and drinking with our LA cadre of German and Austrian friends, for example.

As people who have taken an extreme measure to make their lives better (immigrants), or are expected to be the builders of a new legacy (the first generation), there seems to be a greater inclination towards experimentation and tolerance amongst this population. Engineering, science, and the arts draw a lot of immigrant and first generation practitioners, and I believe the predisposition towards change that comes with not being rooted is one of the key reasons. I've also found that across the many cultural backgrounds of my immigrant and first generation friends -- be they Poles, Indians, Iranians, Germans, Japanese, Brazilians, Eastern European Jews, etc. (even Canadians) -- there are certain strains of humor, non-traditional politics, and lively discussions of the edges of scientific, artistic and philosophical inquiry that resonate seemingly universally across all zeroth and first generation hyphenated-Americans.

Of course there are immigrants who cling to traditional thinking whole hog as a safety net, and also second and farther generation people who embrace change, experimentation, and non-traditional intellectual inquiry. However, there seems to be lower percentages of both these groups amongst my friends who are interested in various disciplines in the arts, engineering and science. Among those in the N>1 generation population who more easily embrace uncertainty are those who travel a lot, maintain ties to the "old world," and/or have moved between two distant U.S. states after early childhood. Certain areas of inquiry really lend themselves to people who have developed a comfort level with change, and an understanding that permanence is elusive.

The East of the West show reflected that. All the artists involved displayed a willingness to contemplate, critique, rethink, and recontextualize cultural and political norms both of their native / ancestral Middle Eastern societies and those of The West as well. Cultural trends ranging from ascetic meditation to militarism to punk and hip hop were all present in the collection of works, which ran the gamut from figurative, overt social critique to contemplative abstraction.

People who come to the the United States to make better lives for themselves, and their children, contribute a great deal to our society. As one of those, I have always chafed against the so-called nativist strain in American politics (though my Kiowa friend Mark certainly puts the lie to those claims whenever someone dares to raise them around him).

In addition to being an excellent art show co-curated by my wife, East of the West was, for me, also an opportunity to make new friends and reaffirm my belief that immigrants and first generation Americans have a lot to offer no matter which country they and their families may have originated in (even ones that are, at this time, very unpopular with the American public).

Bella Lisa: A Wine Tragedy

Yesterday I couldn't write because of some mental deficiency or other, so I reorganized our wine cellar (it's not as fancy as that phrase implies -- it's just wooden shelves with wine boxes in a dirt cellar).

It was reassuring to know I could now find all of our wine, as some of it had been in plastic bins on the dirt floor and thus mixed in with bins of other random items. However, in doing so I came across a reminder of a wine tragedy: a partial case of Bella Lisa Zinfandel from Topolos / Russian River.

It is a tragedy on par with the tales of woe portrayed in Mondovino (if you enjoy wine, see that film).

Bella Lisa was an amazing Zinfandel, unlike any other I've ever had or probably will ever have again. What made it special was a combination of very high quality grapes (if I recall correctly, old vine cuttings from a nearby vineyard, of course grafted onto the usual California UCD nematode-resistant root stock) and eucalyptus. The vinyard was next to a eucalyptus grove, and the grapes had picked up enough eucalyptus flavor to give the wine a unique, delicious herb-tinged flavor. It isn't oily or bitter, and the eucalyptus note is subdued enough that it still mostly tastes like a good Zinfandel -- but that special extra note really make it something else.

Unfortunately, the Bella Lisa vineyard is in disrepair. It was abandoned, and while other vintners have looked at taking it over (the city it's in eventually realized they had something special and aborted plans to plow it under, and they're offering it up pretty cheaply), it's so small that nobody else seems to be able to convince themselves that the yield will pay for the restoration needed to rectify the neglect. Sadly, the vineyard producing one of the most uniquely delicious grapes in all the world may just completely rot in fallow, if it hasn't already.

Topolos was a winery and a fabulous Greek restaurant. No more. It was the victim of the two brothers that owned it (the vintner and the restauranteur) deciding to go their separate ways, and then dragging out the sale of the business so long that all their stock went bad and their customers abandoned them (we hung on for over a year before giving up). We watched in angst as one of the best wineries in California simply fell apart.

This small winery had been featured at a White House dinner during the Clinton years, and had produced some of the best California wines I've had (and at modest prices): Bella Lisa Zinfandel, Bat's Flight White (an unparalleled white blend), Alicante Bouchet (often used as a filler grape, they made it sing as a varietal), several other Zinfandels (Topolos and Rosenblum made my wife and I come to appreciate Zinfandel, which we hadn't previously), a Zinfandel Port, a Late Harvest Gewurtztraminer, and a wonderful sparkling wine (which fortunately was subcontracted production, and is still available at a place called Trentadue).

The loss of Topolos was truly a tragedy for California winemaking. After the buyout, it supposedly reopened as a Pinot Noir shop, without a delicious Greek restaurant above it, hoping to cash-in (a couple years too late) on the Sideways-inspired run on Pinot. Since William, Topolos' wonderful tasting room manager left shortly thereafter, we haven't been back to see what that entails.

As I sip from my glass of Bella Lisa, I hope and wish that someone will come along to revitalize that vineyard and make that wine once more. But, California winemaking is increasingly overrun with distant, profit-obsessed corporate overlords (Rosenblum just got bought by Diageo, supposedly one of the less odious wine consolidators, but not driven by creativity and passion like the Rosenblum team). With this trend, creative, adventurous winemaking is falling by the wayside. That's a shame, because that is really what made California taste-competitive with other regions -- not the homogenizing influence of the big firms.

Sadly, this is almost certainly one of the last glasses of Bella Lisa that will ever exist.

This Car Takes Food From The Mouths Of Children

Following on from yesterday's posting, I just read a Time magazine article about the problems of ethanol production with regards to increasing food prices. From my readings on the subject it seems ethanol, corn ethanol especially, is not to be a very efficient source of fuel anyway (in terms of energy put into making it per unit of energy out -- pick your favorite units). Hemp ethanol, because hemp can be grown on "waste" land, would be a better choice.

Conservation, in particular an increased use of mass transit, a return to urban centers, reduction of packaging waste (a lot of packaging uses petroleum derivatives), and a decrease in frivolous / waste spending (fad products, overbuying, etc.) seems a more effective route while less deleterious renewable fuel sources are researched. Part of the problem is a financial system which values short-term stock price over long-term, sustainable production and income.

The environmental issues of our day are directly related to a system of finance which rewards transient and often phantom value (the Internet bubble, and the redux of the Internet bubble in the form of Facebook, YouTube, Google, etc.) over needs-based value (food, housing, etc.), and which requires constant increase -- of market share, of new markets, etc. -- in order to generate value. Rather than competing on the basis of actual long-term value to customers, companies now use various marketing and PR tricks to (sometimes fabricate and) spike short-term markets and then move on. This constant barrage of the new has created an environment in which customers aren't willing to pay for things like maintenance and service that used to provide revenue for companies with a long-term view. Constant newness leads to wastage.

I have a long-term, slow-burn project to write a book about certain issues facing our society from an economic perspective, so responding to these postings is your chance to try to convince me of your perspective on these things.

This Car Runs On Beluga Caviar

We have an awesome mechanic (Art, owner/operator of Auto Point Motors in Point Richmond, CA). He never does unnecessary work, never overcharges, and only once in six years have we had to bring a car back for the same problem twice. I just picked up our Audi today, and he explained to me, somewhat apologetically, why the bill was $600. He thought that was high, and needed to explain it. Since the Audi dealer basically charges $600 for an oil change, I wasn't overly concerned, but glad for the explanation. Essentially, he saved our engine. A prior accident (or the emergency repair shop in LA) had shorn-off all of the fan blades, warped the take-up pulley, and caused a clamp to disappear that let the a coolant hose drift into the fan area. He also fixed our A/C and flushed and replaced all the fluids in the car. About 2/3 of the bill was parts.

Then I went to get gas. At over $4/gallon, my car now basically runs on Beluga caviar and gold bullion (if I lived in LA, it would run on hookers and blow). The amazing thing is, this is still cheaper than gas in many other countries (it's much less than the price of gas in Brazil was last I went there, which was about 5 years ago). It is still cheaper for me to drive to LA than to fly (which is good, since I hate flying), and while I've heard rumors that a train does go between the two cities I've never met someone who has actually seen it.

I like my car, and I don't want to replace it. I can tell myself it's because a lot of resources go into making new cars, so I'd rather run the old one as long as possible, even if it gets half the gas mileage of a Prius. But really it's because my car is comfortable and safe. Since a gasoline powered car can't be converted to biodiesel (and I know of no non-diesel renewable gas substitute, but if you do, post), I suppose I'm stuck paying for earth-destroying, wallet-wrecking, petroleum-derived genuine gasoline. The Bay Area and LA both have pretty bad public transit systems (compared to a real city, like New York or Chicago), so that's no real option unless you just happen to only ever go the few places their trains stop.

I suppose I'm just an autocrackhead. I can't kick my car habit, even though it's killing my wallet, my air quality, and my ability to be a smug, self-congratulatory California pseudoliberal.

Maybe I'll just go club some baby seals or something and then my transition to the dark side will be complete.

Ollie Johnston: Another Great Gone

The last of Disney's legendary "Nine Old Men" of animation, Ollie Johnston, has passed away. This is another "truly, the end of an era" moment. Of course, those are inevitable (especially coming out of a century where so much amazing work in art, science, technology and politics happened in so little time), but they are always sad nonetheless.

For those of you who may not know, Johnston was one of the prime movers at Disney behind American animation. He was a master animator who was instrumental in the making of Snow White, Fantasia, Bambi, Pinnochio, Cinderella, and a whole slew of other classic Disney films. He was also the author, with long-time cohort Frank Thomas, of several books including The Illusion of Life: Disney Animation, the classic book on animation.

I promise I'll blog again about something other than obituaries and illnesses soon, but right now I'm really busy working on a script rewrite (which happens to center around death and illness) so these are the only events catching enough my attention lately to bother blogging about.

Dick Dale in Hospital

Everyone wish master surf guitarist Dick Dale the best of luck as he is currently in the hospital for cancer surgery. Dale has inspired many people with his music, from surfers to punks and many genres in-between. He helped define the surf rock sound, and his high speed, aggressive guitar work definitely helped lay the groundwork for both metal and punk (you can especially hear it in punk where, unlike metal and hardcore, there is enough treble presence that the surf influence is really up-front).

One time I saw Dale play was at a SIGGRAPH in Orlando, FL (I'm pretty sure it was in 1994, at a Bruce & Carmi party at Disney-MGM studios theme park). That concert, at which I was in the front row of a small audience, was one of the best musical experiences of my life -- I still regularly tell people about it even now, 14 years later. I was impressed that even for a small audience, he gave so much and put so much energy into the performance. Whenever I feel like slacking off on something, thinking about how seriously Dale took that small, private party concert is one thing that helps motivate me. He was also genial, pausing after the show to allow us to thank him for a great show, and to give us guitar picks and set lists.

So here's hoping that the King of Surf Guitar has an uneventful surgery and a quick, complete recovery and is back in action before too long.

Cinema vs. Movies

Q: What is the difference between "cinema" and "movies" (other than that in a cinema you can sometimes buy beer, but in a movie theater you can always buy a twelve dollar soda)?

Here is my answer:

Movies are about two giant, nuclear-powered spaceships filled with robotic alien ninjas crashing into each other over a New York City that's filled with pretty women pushing baby strollers.

Cinema is about people.

What's Wrong With This Picture?

The BBC published results of a regular survey of world opinion about other nations, which involved more than 17,000 respondents in 34 countries. The key statistic reported is views of other countries' influence, in terms of whether or not the respondent thinks that country makes a positive or negative difference in the world. Here is the chart the BBC ran:

Thanks in large part to the Bush administration's adventurism in Iraq and a generally arrogant approach to diplomacy, as well as the waning capability and influence of American propagandists, some very dubious selections bested the United States.

Germany and Japan: These choices aren't dubious today, but sixty years ago their standings would have seemed patently absurd. Apparently the American led reconstruction of these countries after WWII not only bequeathed to them our economic know how, but our moral authority as well.

India: Economic miracle aside, too much of India is still either a kleptocracy or a backwards, bride burning tribal chiefdom (India, to their credit, is trying to tackle those issues head-on). It's also a major polluter and resource sink, and refuses to sign the Nuclear nonproliferation treaty. However, it's not currently invading anyone, and the US still has India beat hands-down in terms of pollution and resource wastage -- so the 7 point win here is not really unjustified.

Russia: Emerging from its post-Communist phase of being a plutocratic ochlocracy, Russia is an increasingly despotic semidemocracy led by a strongman president who releases beefcake photos of himself to impress his subjects. Russia regularly engages in equally destructive adventurism in places like Chechnya, saber rattling against neighbors like Georgia, and economic extortion of anyone that is a purchaser of Russian natural gas. The 2 point edge over us is noise, but we shouldn't be in a statistical dead heat with a closet dictatorship.

China: A politically unreconstructed authoritarian state that is infamous for its crushing of both internal dissent and any of its neighbors that seem weak enough -- that country bests the US by 12 points? Vast numbers of the Chinese people are treated wretchedly by their own leaders (both in government and business), which should be a consideration when judging international influence (especially amongst the most populous nations). Globally, not only is China a major supporter of some of the world's worst regimes (North Korea and Burma especially), it is perpetually involved in other sketchy geopolitical situations of its own making: suppressions of uprisings in annexed Tibet, ongoing saber rattling against Taiwan, a little known ongoing effort to slowly push northward their borders with Russia by ignoring illegal settlements on the Russian side of the line -- and plenty of meddling in the affairs of other states, especially its neighbors and in Africa. China is also on the fast track to at least catch up with the United States in terms of pollution and resource wastage.

North Korea: We are in a statistical dead heat in the "mainly negative" category with a wholly unreconstructed Stalinist dictatorship that is currently playing fast and loose with nuclear arms development, and shooting missiles over neighboring Japan, all while starving its perpetually oppressed population? That is just ridiculous.

Our relative standing versus North Korea, China and Russia in particular is a testament not just to poor planning leading to a widely publicized mess in Iraq (which has been exploited for propaganda purposes by others), but to the generally sorry state of US diplomatic, outreach and propaganda efforts during the last several years. The trouncing in such polls of Israel, a US client state, also partially reflects this situation (the success of antisemitic propaganda highlights a failure on the part of the US, and Israel, to counter it successfully with propaganda -- and effective policy, diplomacy, and outreach -- of our own).

This is a most unfortunate state of affairs, one which I hope our next administration can begin to turn around -- not with empty marketing slogans (the Bush administration already tried that), but with a comprehensive package of diplomacy, outreach, and propaganda. Without policy backing, happy propaganda/marketing slogans aren't going to convince anyone.

See The Prids, Buy Their Albums

Friday night I saw the band that has now become the band I've seen more times than any other, Portland's The Prids. It was, as usual, an excellent show. If you consider yourself anything of a post punk fan, and you've never seen The Prids perform live, you should be ashamed. They are one of the best live bands around, not because of any spectacular on stage antics, but simply by virtue of musicianship, stage presence, and honest (post) punk energy.

If you've never heard The Prids, their sound is centered around the juxtaposition of angry energy (nearly hardcore drumming, punk guitar and bass lines) with slower, more emotional elements (synth pads, poppier/gothier guitar and bass lines). But I'm not talking emo, screamo, emocore or any of that sort of nonsense. No, The Prids are a real post punk band influenced by real post punk pioneers like The Smiths, Joy Division, The Cure, The Chameleons, etc. This puts them roughly in the same genre as Interpol, She Wants Revenge, The Lovemakers, The Faint, Arcade Fire, and the whole Retro Post Punk scene.

The thing is, The Prids predate the next oldest of this current wave of post post punk / newer wave bands by at least two years -- and they are at least as good as the best of their competitors (and much better than the average of them). This is no weekend garage band. David Frederickson and Mistina Kieth, the songwriting core of the band, have been at this nonstop for over a decade -- since before The Prids were formally a band. The Prids work hard, tour often, and with two albums and three EPs, put out material as fast as the small labels they've so far attracted can afford it. All this comes through in the maturity, consistency, and originality of their work. I befriended The Prids when they were first touring (in support of their Duracraft CD EP), and from an already strong start they've only gotten better.

I can think of no underappreciated band more deserving of widespread attention than The Prids. This band deserves to be big. Their sound and aesthetic meshes perfectly with both generations of post punk, they are relentless hard workers, and their live shows are awesome even on a shoestring budget. If you've never heard The Prids, I recommend checking them out immediately -- and if they're playing in your area, definitely treat yourself to seeing them rock out a smaller local venue while you still can. (Other worthy, but lesser known, bands in this genre are Green Circles, Veil Veil Vanish and Red Voice Choir, all bands that have opened for The Prids).

A Must See Film: Young@Heart

I just saw a preview screening at work of a documentary called "Young @ Heart." Titled after the chorus of the same name, this film perfectly personifies the catchphrase of "Down By Law," the one uttered over and over by Roberto: "It is a sad and beautiful world."

The Young @ Heart chorus is comprised entirely of people over 73 years of age, but focuses on singing contemporary (often quite contemporary) music. Taking a six week rehearsal period as its back drop, the film tells the story of the chorus through the lives of several chorus members and the observations of their Director, Bob Cilman. There is a bit of talk about how music performance is good for keeping people active, challenging their minds and bodies, ad so on -- but this isn't a music therapy promotional piece. This is a beautiful film about wonderful people making inspiring (and yes, amusing) music. You will immediately get drawn into the stories of these extraordinary people, and only the stone hearted can leave the theater not caring about them.




Director Stephen Walker does a great job of keeping things honest, with very little vamping for the camera by the participants, or "knowing" asides by the filmmakers. At first blush, I expected the film to be hip and ironic -- perhaps even sarcastic. After all, what about the elderly singing Sonic Youth and The Ramones isn't some kind of trendy, retro-kitsch parody ripe for a moment of cynical embrace by the legions of cool -- only to be discarded during the next moment's fad? Well, the film gives you that answer in copious quantities. This is a film about people, not pop culture, and it is quite an emotional ride. I don't want to give away too much because you absolutely must see this film. If the story of the Young @ Heart choir doesn't empower you to say, without a hint of irony: "I laughed, I cried, I danced in the aisles" -- well, then, you probably should just adjust your horn-rimmed glasses and calmly, aloofly hurry back to the oxygen bar next door so you won't miss your live-blogging gossip about Project Runway session (soulless freak).



Young @ Heart opens April 9th in limited, phased roll-out release. If it comes to your area, see it. If not, see it on DVD. And if the Young @ Heart choir comes to your area sprint, don't run, to get ticket before they nearly instantly sell out (as they are sure to do).

Something Positive to Contemplate: Philippe Petit

My friend Mark Andrews turned me on to the book To Reach the Clouds: My High Wire Walk Between the Twin Towers by Philippe Petit. It is an amazing adventure tale of a life-loving funambulist who took on the World Trade Center, preparing for years before finally performing a dazzling, illegal high wire dance between the twin towers. His book, like the project it details, is part poetry and part crime caper.

Searching for more info about Mr. Petit, I found an interview in Psychology Today which has some good quotes, including this one about the WTC site: "I think they should be rebuilt exactly the same, or maybe even a little bit higher—as a rebellion against doom." This Guardian article is also interesting, but I suggest reading his book, as it is much more detailed. His devotion to art, life, dreams, and a spirited, positive rebellion against conformity really comes through int he book. The style may rankle some readers (at first it bothered me, but I quickly found it rather charming), but even so the story is quite compelling. I found the book well worth the read, especially in a time of much sadness.

More Sad News: Anthony Minghella has also died

Too many interesting folks passing away lately, and I'm starting to suffer from tribute exhaustion. Anthony Minghella, the writer-director responsible for such fine films as "The English Patient" and "The Talented Mr. Ripley" died from surgical complications.

Minghella's work was very poetic, both textually and visually, and yet at the same time accessible to a wider audience. His films were very emotionally engaging, and he was able to coax amazing performances from his actors. I never had an opportunity to meet him, but his reputation as a nice guy is confirmed by folks at work who had. He died much too young, and he will be missed.

Arthur C. Clarke Has Died

Frankly, I'm quite depressed at having to write about the death of yet another childhood hero so soon after the death of Gary Gygax. Arthur C. Clarke, prolific sci-fi author and futurist, passed away today. At 90, this was less of a blow than Gygax's untimely departure, but it is still a tragic loss.

Clarke and Kubrick's film "2001: A Space Odyssey" was a major influence, one that inspired me both in my work in computing and artificial intelligence, and my work in filmmaking. I read a number of Clarke's books in my youth, and works like Childhood's End, Rendezvous With Rama, and The Songs Of Distant Earth influenced me greatly. His idea for geosynchronous satellites, published in a 1945 issue of Wireless World, has influenced all of global society greatly. Clarke's works were integral in helping to form my life as a philosopher, a gamer (and game developer), a writer, and an engineer. With Clarke's passing, an era of Sci-Fi comes a giant step closer to closure. Not many of his generation remain, and with them will pass a less cynical era of Sci-Fi than much of contemporary fare. Sure, I also enjoy cynical cyberpunk material as well, but writers like Clarke had takes on our future -- with an interesting mix of both positive and negative possibilities -- that are still worth contemplating.

Clarke, through 2001 in particular, was hugely influential on Sci-Fi in popular culture. Generations of filmmakers, writers, and video game designers all owe a huge debt of gratitude to Clarke (and Kubrick) for bringing cerebral Sci-Fi to a mass market. Rubber Monsters and Rayguns schlock may be fun, but Clarke and his contemporaries helped open doors for a more intelligent kind of Sci-Fi. Anyone working in AI, telecommunications, general computing, video games, and sci-fi filmmaking, comics or writing should take a moment to give thanks to Arthur C. Clarke for all he has done for the world.

Gogol Bordello World Strike

Gogol Bordello at San Francisco's Warfield last night (03/13/08) was an excellent show, despite the Warfield's bad sound (terrible mixing being a San Francisco live venue staple). My lovely wife and I both enjoyed the show immensely. Unrelenting energy burst forth from this Eugene Hutz fronted, nine piece band for nearly two hours as they played through what seemed like the entire Super Taranta album, and then some. It's not every day that a punk band is anchored by violin and accordion, but violinist Sergey Ryabtsev and accordionist Yury Lemeshev do an amazing job of bringing both punk energy and traditional sounds into the Gogol Bordello Mix (and both have great stage presence, even in the shadow of the unrelentingly frenetic Hutz).

Gogol Bordello

Gogol Bordello are one of my favorite bands, and are the leading ethnic-punk fusion band, thanks to Hutz' stardom from the film Everything Is Illuminated, and the band's subsequent "adoption" by Madonna as her latest pet project. While openers Skindred were decent enough, it would have been much more exciting had a kindred band such as World/Inferno Friendship Society (a long-running accordion-punk act who also deserve recognition), Slavic Soul Party, Leningrad, Yat-Kha, or Balkan Beat Box been along for the tour.

Gogol Bordello lifted from their seats nearly an entire Warfield crowd of punks, hipsters, hippies, goths, ren-faire acolytes, middle aged music nerds, and the occasional actual Roma. There was definitely more dancing (and less stupidity) at this show than at your average Warfield/Fillmore show. Songs like Start Wearing Purple, Supertheory of Supereverything, Zina-Marina, 60 Revolutions, Sally, Not A Crime, I Would Never Want To Be Young Again, and Harem in Tuscany got the crowd hopping. While I wish the show had been an hour longer so they could play more of their older stuff such as Immigrant Punk, Avenue B, Dogs Were Barking, Underdog World Strike, Strange Uncles From Abroad, Voi-La Intruder, Letter To Mother, and Passport, the songs they did play were all excellent and there were enough of my other favorites that I certainly didn't leave feeling disappointed. All in all a great show, and I hope to see Gogol Bordello in San Francisco again some time soon.

A Sad Day For Nerds The World Over

Gary Gygax, co-creator of Dungeons & Dragons, has died. At only 69, he died too young. It is a sad day indeed (personally, I cried).

For me, Gary's passing is much more personal than the recent passing of William F. Buckley. Though I respected Mr. Buckley's writing abilities, my own personal development has been influenced far more by D&D than by conservativism. Much of my earliest writing came in the form of writing adventures, and creating extensive histories for my characters, for D&D (and then AD&D, and then all manner of non-Gygax games like Twilight 2000, Traveller, GURPS, Cyberpunk, Shadowrun, Paranoia, etc.) Text-based role playing games were the first large computer programs I wrote, on my trusty Commodore 64 (a machine that is as nostalgic to me as a box of dusty AD&D manuals).

Back in those days a role playing campaign could span a year of weekends, all of us hunkered down in one of our parents' living rooms, and it wasn't uncommon to own the same computer for five years. We committed to our gaming for the long term, and as such we evolved rich stories and complex characters. In college, much of my first couple years were spent playtesting the homebrewed gaming system that became a college friend's undergraduate thesis project.

I not only learned a lot about creative thinking, and writing, from role playing games -- but also about data management, the psychology of rule adherence, and negotiation. D&D was full of arcane rules and tables of data (which, honestly, most players learned to ignore after trying them out a couple times). Understanding how and why rules came to be abrogated, annulled, or redefined during innumerable role playing sessions -- and taking part in many negotiations regarding these issues -- has given me a deep, functional understanding of the psychology of rules. This has been very useful both in my management roles, as well as helping me better understand the nuanced pragmatics of politics and the legal system.

Though I haven't played a AD&D (or any other non-computer RPG) in years, role playing games were a huge part of my formative years. I can honestly say I learned far more about creative thinking from playing role playing games than from any class I took in school. Like John August, I have also been unable to separate from my box of D&D books over all these years. Occasionally, in a fit of nostalgia, I buy one of the rare ones I "always wanted" on eBay. I still harbor some notion that I may play again someday, and while I doubt that will ever come to pass, there is as much nostalgia-for-my-youth comfort in knowing that I could if I wanted to as there is in eating New York Pizza, listening to Pink Floyd, or watching A Christmas Story.

Gary Gygax, and the industry he helped create, really did help foster the imaginations, and encourage the development of valuable writing and negotiating skills, of generations of nerds all around the world. I also believe D&D helped pave the way for the success of things like Harry Potter, World of Warcraft, and even the resurgence of The Lord Of The Rings.

But even that's not the whole story, as D&D and things like it have an even greater impact. Fantasy and Science Fiction stories, and games, aren't just an escape from reality but also a clarion call to try to make reality a better place. Not only writers and artists, but also astronauts, scientists, engineers, etc. frequently cite Star Trek, D&D, and similar F&SF fare as inspirations for their quests to make the world a better place.

And Gary Gygax did indeed inspire legions of nerds in their quest to make the world a better place. He will be missed.

The Unbearable Crappiness of Being Trendy

Conveniently located less than a half block from the Bowery Mission, ensuring your entrance and exit takes place on litter-strewn streets where you'll be accosted by one or more of the Bowery's colorfully authentic crazy, drunken vagrants, New York's imaginatively named New Museum is the latest in a series of art venues recently built or refurbished in a desperate attempt by the benefactors of American culture to prove that the American people can still build buildings. With the latest in trendy retro-minimalist design, sporting a "new"-themed coffee shop, and nestled between a pair of fully functional and therefore ironically chic restaurant supply stores, the New Museum is the logical conclusion of the last decade's best funded cultural memes. Somewhere in the mix, there's something about art -- or so I was told.

The New Museum

New Museum's building architecture is engaging when viewed from the outside, but one trend the venue does buck is the recent trend of museums whose interior architecture completely overwhelms the art inside. The lighting could be better, as the flood of over-bright fluorescence is more K-Mart than Guggenheim, but otherwise the interior is relatively art friendly. Inside each gallery, I found myself able to completely focus on the artwork rather than the architectural details. Unfortunately, this situation wasn't permanent.

For the inaugural show, the New Museum decided to curate a four-part extravaganza focused on contemporary object recontextualization art: sculptural collage, two-dimensional montage, sound manipulations, and digital works. This ambitious undertaking is compelling in idea and scope, and based on the crowds, is clearly achieving the goal of drawing visitors to the recently opened venue.

Though it has received accolades from a number of art critics who apparently haven't been in a university dorm room within the last twenty years, Unmonumental would in fact have been better titled Uninspiring. During my grueling two hour attempt to separate the "what?" from the crap, Unbearable is a word that also sprang to mind. As an onslaught of works ranging from the mediocre to the Double-Plus Ungood assaulted my senses, I soon found myself checking out the museum's stylishly cracked coated-concrete floors and exposed ceiling details.

A tour through Unmonumental is like a tour through a college dormitory. Far too many of the works seem taken straight from the aftermath of a marathon session of dropping acid and listening to Rage Against The Machine. Some works resemble the cut-up porno and Tiger Beat magazine collages, dripped-wax constructs, and Pop Tarts box "sculpture" such collegiate inspiration produces, while others merely resemble the floors and walls of the dorm after the participants have passed-out.



"Huffy Howler" by Rachel Harrison, coming soon to a dorm near you


Given the size of the show, it was inevitable that even with what seems like a curatorial mandate of "bore and/or irritate the patrons," a few genuinely compelling, professional grade works could be found hiding in the psychic shadows cast by the literal piles of rubbish surrounding them. Works such as Marc Andre Robinson's "Myth Monolith," John Stezaker's headshot cut-ups, and Kim Jones' ink drawings on photos all starkly set themselves apart from the bulk of the show by betraying the fact that those artists actually have skills. The stand out works in the show looked well thought out, planned, and (gasp) finished, unlike far too many of the surrounding works.


"Myth Monolith" by Marc Andre Robinson, flaunting its coherence

Found objects and imagery, even trash, are used in assemblage and collage work as a matter of course. The material is not the issue with this show. Rather, the problem with many of the pieces in the show is that they come off as not only Unmonumental, but also uninspired, unskilled, and undeserving of the laurels accompanying their inclusion in the first show of a new major museum. The actual piles of trash on the street in front of the museum were more thoughtfully and thought provokingly arranged than some of the work inside.

"Naive" work by "hip" artists is a trying proposition at best, but this show is not even the best of that dubious style, rather it's an insultingly "hipper than thou" collection of utterly hackneyed attempts. While some may revel in the "refreshingly unsophisticated" lack of cohesive thought reflected in many of these works, I found it frustrating that such predominantly thoughtless work is being held up as the pinnacle of contemporary assemblage work when there is so much better work out there.

Missing from the show are (as the NY Times also noticed) many of the usual suspects, including Bill Viola, Jeff Koons, and Matthew Barney. The bigger name draw is instead provided by lesser works from Thomas Hirschhorn and Martha Rosler, both of whose works in Unmonumental fall squarely into the "not bad, but they could do better" category. But never mind the usual suspects, if it's fresh talent the art world is hungry for there are a number of less well known artists whose superior works could have been included, such as: Winston Smith, Ala Ebtekar, Hank Willis Thomas, Chris Kuksi, Elizabeth McGrath, Jill Miller, Saira Wasim, Banker White (whose garbage sculpture at the Headlands Center for the Arts "Close Calls" show blows away any pile of trash in Unmonumental), James Gouldthorpe, and a host of others.

The audio portion of the show seemed tacked-on. Presented as ambient sound in the galleries, it reduced the contributions of the sound works to a background role at best. Like the rest of the show, most of the works were forgettable, and I have no idea who composed the ones I liked (they didn't make it very easy to find out). Noticably absent was Christian Marclay, and, less surprisingly but still ridiculous to me was the lack of any work by: The Evolution Control Committee, Masami Akita (Merzbow), G.X. Jupitter-Larsen (The Haters), Ryoji Ikeda, Zbigniew Karkowski, R/Y/B/N, Andrew McKenzie (The Hafler Trio), or any one of a number of contemporary composers working with found and manipulated sound.

There is also an Internet Art component to the show, shown on computers in the gallery and also hosted online by Rhizome. All of the digital work, except for Kenneth Tin-Kin Hung's amusing political mash-up, ran the gamut from irrelevant to annoying. Admittedly, there is very little good Internet Art to choose from, but in that case why not open it up to all digital, media, and machine art works and be able to include very good works from the likes of Jim Campbell, Gary Hill, Ken Goldberg, Mark Hansen and Ben Rubin, Alan Rath, Mark Pauline, Matt Heckert, Chico MacMurtrie, John Maeda, Paul DeMarinis, Jordan Crandall, Raqs Media Collective, Futurefarmers, eToy, Builders' Association, and so on?

Young-Hae Chang Heavy Industries, "Black on White, Gray Ascending"

On the digital art front, Young-Hae Chang Heavy Industries has a work being shown on the ground floor. This piece, called "Black on White, Gray Ascending," is not technically part of Unmonumental. But, despite being nothing but text and sound, it is a great piece, substantially better than ninety-five percent of the work in the main show -- digital or otherwise. Even if there weren't other pieces in Unmonumental that deserve to be seen, and there are, it would still be worth going down to the Bowery just to experience the Young-Hae Chang piece.

All in all, the best way to describe Unmonumental is to say it lives up to its name, and then some.