KAZZIECHAMELEON

Saul Bass and Taelim Oh, Animators

2011-02-23T13:53:00.005-05:00

As I'm sorting through all these reels of present day animators for projects I need collaborators on, with all their super high tech bells and whistles, was having a Saul Bass appreciation moment. He was such the shit! Even this piece, but especially all the work he did with Hitchcock... and yeah it was the era, the music, the movies themselves... but in this piece, wonderfully efficient, simple and kinda sick and comic. Saul Bass.

Also found this great piece by a recent SVA grad. The end credits are what triggered my thoughts of Saul. But love the messaging. The story is poignantly visualized and conveys the dangers of narratives we repeat through the generations. The thinking of the masses. Fantastic.

Marvin Gaye, The Greatest

2010-12-08T14:11:00.003-05:00

Marvin in a track suit, reclined on a sofa, doing a warm up for "I Want You"?!!! Absolutely gorgeous, I don't know what to do with myself. Thank you Marvin for making this life so beautiful. So so gifted. Makes my heart melt and hurt to see him perform.

Sofia Ajram, photographer

2010-11-18T19:11:00.007-05:00

Gina Czarnecki

2010-07-20T20:54:00.006-04:00

Videos I saw at Sundance this year as part of the New Frontiers exhibit that still haunt me, from artist Gina Czarnecki... Cell Mass N2, Infected, and Nascent. Wish the videos existed online. These stills, as mesmerizing as they are, are pale in comparison to the moving sculptural experience of the videos projected wall-size, of figures layered, coming into being, disintegrating and moving through space and darkness, the expression of the dancer's bodies, the computer manipulation of them, the flow of bodies from one unknown starting point, disappearing off frame, into another unknown realm. Reminiscent of Bosch's hell, Francis Bacon's figures, but also of something sublime, an energy force, without singular form.

Helen Levitt

2010-07-20T19:44:00.009-04:00

Our city's summertime experience is marked by the laughter and playful shrieks of so many kids playing out on the streets often with open hydrants bringing cool concrete-transcending relief, reminiscent of Helen Levitt's photographs of New York City through several decades.

Lee Tamahori's "Once Were Warriors" and Mathieu Kassovitz' "La Haine"

2010-06-30T15:45:00.005-04:00

Two of my favorite films from the 90's from directors who after these breakout films, had bigger budgets but never created work of such quality.

David Alfaro Siqueiros "Echo of a Scream"

2010-06-30T15:42:00.003-04:00

Time and time again, reading about world situations, or thinking about mankind, my mind always conjures this image up.

Wangechi Mutu

2010-06-23T21:56:00.007-04:00

I can't even begin to discuss what her work does for me. First, there's the classicism of form, composition, that draws you to the work from across a museum floor; the strength of her use and unique quality of color and paint, sometimes reminiscent of surrealism; the redefining and recontextualizing of the female form and symbols, new perspectives and stories; then up close the discovery of the collages, and the layers of meaning they add to the form at large; the violence and gut-wrenching truths, the grotesque, the majesty. There's one of her works hanging at the Museum of Modern Art right now in the "The Modern Myth: Drawing Mythologies in Modern Times" show. One must experience her work in person to appreciate its full capacity. It's a moving experience, one that you can't take your eyes off of. I look forward to when New York City hosts a large retrospective of her work.

Arvo Pärt "Cantus in Memory of Benjamin Britten"

2010-06-23T21:47:00.002-04:00

Aurel Schmidt's "Master of the Universe/Flexmaster 3000"; The Whitney Biennial 2010

2010-06-23T21:24:00.003-04:00

Aurel Schmidt's "Master of the Universe/Flexmaster 3000" (above) is my favorite, distorting mythology and form, among just a tiny handful from this year's Whitney Biennial, which was otherwise crap. A lifeless display of what happens when MFA-wielding artists are safely selected among those in the insider's institutional name game club. Themes were so out of touch with the times we're living in, and so conceptual, that the works required more background reading than anything else... we could've easily have just read an essay about what the work wanted to achieve, without experiencing the work itself. In fact that would've been preferable instead of the distraction of going through the vast spaces of the museum, and seeing the work merely as wasted real estate, imagining the money that it took to support the work's space in the museum. And although sometimes conceptual and abstract art can be interesting because of meticulous production value...here...what production value? Art that exists only within its own community has developed a language for insiders only, stripped of the experiential aspect of art. Not that it has to appeal to the masses on the other end of the spectrum, but there needs to be a serious re-evaluation of where the art world is going. Because right now? Boring. Pointless.

Urban Blooz and the Colonization of Public Spaces

2010-03-31T12:43:00.006-04:00

Contemporary art has become so institutional, and absolutely boring and irrelevant. The most exciting stuff I've seen lately all come from "street artists." I love this project by the artist that goes by the name Urban Blooz. "It is a reaction to the colonization of public spaces by advertisement. The content of the billboards is getting erased and replaced by a poster showing the frame of the environment, that is covered by the billboard itself." Simple, yet poignant. I hark back to my time in Cuba. Public wall mural paintings state/reflect the social ideals of the society and community. They made you think. Connected back to the country's history. There weren't constructed billboards, thus the landscape was unobstructed. After spending a month there, making my way back to the states felt oppressive. The weight of all the noise in advertisements, of ads appearing in every direction you turn, a glance here, in your peripheral, pounding as video and audio in elevators, of all the junk screaming, "Consume! And thus be happy!" You don't realize how much signage for shit we have in every far-reaching corner of American Capitalism and Imperialism, until you're able to experience a society that doesn't sell and privatize every imaginable piece of space, real or abstract. And how we become numb to its presence. I remember when H&M sales ads showed up on subway turnstiles! It pissed me the fuck off, but was also impressed with the idea of its placement. Some of the most brilliant minds and artists I've ever met, work in advertising. They come up with this stuff, placement and content, sometimes ingenious (although often squashed with the dumbing down and industry shift into client/accounts/marketing-based creativity...an oxymoron...net result is garbage). But what if we were to replace the needs of industry with something that reflected a different value system. Does advertising have to sell the idea that a product fills a void? Can it just provide engaging public art or does it have to literally sell something.

For more, check out "The Art of Rebellion 2: World of Urban Art Activism" published by Publikat, a great anthology of "street art." Also look out for the new Banksy film "Exit Through the Gift Shop." It made it's debut at Sundance this year and should hit the theaters in May. Really phenomenal film. And Banksy's work, just incredible.

Jacques Audiard's "Un Prophète" and David Michôd's "Animal Kingdom"

2010-03-20T09:34:00.005-04:00

Casting casting casting.
But more to come on these films...

Wu-Tang Appreciation Day

2010-02-11T19:59:00.009-05:00

Wu-Tang Lego: Da Mystery of Chessboxin' from davo on Vimeo.

In anticipation for the new Rae-Meth-Ghostface album, highlighting some tributes here from over the years... The video on top is shot-for-shot identical to the original, except of course, in all Lego. El Michels Affair does all these Stax-like dusty sounding instrumental Wu-Tang covers. I think they travel with Raekwon for live shows. Check out youtube for an entire selection of tracks. Then there's graphic design/brand artist Logan Walters' Wu-Tang covers (top still image) in the old Blue-Note record cover style (click here to see all). As much as they look like copies of yore, layout is still skillful and the artwork, still very satisfying.

Documentaries "The Shock Doctrine" and "Life and Debt," and Haiti

2010-02-09T12:38:00.014-05:00

Two documentaries on my mind in the wake of Haiti's earthquakes are Stephanie Black's 2001 documentary on Jamaica, "Life and Debt," and "The Shock Doctrine" that just premiered at the Sundance Film Festival this year. "Life and Debt" gives a step by step view of how and why Jamaica's post-colonial economy is laden with debt, and how as a resource-rich nation, it is rife with extreme poverty in this era of "free market" multi-national corporate globalism. It'll make you sick to your stomach, how small post-colonial nations are carved up and attacked so insidiously on all sides by these multi-nationals, with international political policies and military might they are able to buy to support their insatiable greed. The film is specific to Jamaica but the trends are seen over and over and over again in post-colonial nations that span the Carribean, Asia, Africa and Latin America. Pretty much most of the globe.

"The Shock Doctrine" takes a step back to look at trends that involve a relationship between "shocks" to a society and a "free market" economy. The idea behind the film and Naomi Klein's theory in the book by the same name for which the film is based on, is that after a "shock," whether as a result of military activity or environmental catastrophe, radical changes of some form of authoritarianism is often implemented, leading to the selling of ones nation to privatization. "Disaster Capitalism" is the term for this relationship. A nation is open and vulnerable to foreign interests and/or the interests of private companies are able to manipulate public support. Nations are also literally held at gun point to force the opening of their doors for economic rape and pillage and authoritarianism under the guise of "free markets" led by the doctrines of University of Chicago economist Milton Friedman, who ultimately won a Nobel Prize. Nixon, Reagan, Bush, Pinochet, Thatcher all brought this radical economic philosophy to the fore, and the resulting inequities of societies that were forced to implement it, and extent of environmental destruction, are unprecedented. The role of shock, or disorientation, where a person or society is disconnected from history and sound judgement, is utilized by corporate and imperialist agendas, and is at the heart of Klein's "Disaster Capitalism." An article providing an alternatively nuanced take on disaster and rebuilding via Voltaire's philosophies came out in the Wall Street Journal days after Haiti's earthquake, "Rising from the Ruins" examining a historical view of catastrophe and "progress," and even how trends are vastly different from the past in the wake of Katrina and Haiti.

Within a week of Hurricane Katrina, communities that were dismantled and in a state of flux, were carved up for privatization, from education to real estate. The process of foreign companies coming in to "divvy up the loot" happened within 24 hours of the earthquake in Haiti. A good article that ties in the "Shock Doctrine" and many of the issues addressed in "Life and Debt" specific to Haiti in the aftermath of the earthquake can be found here, "The Shock Doctrine for Haiti," in the Socialist Worker.

It's all happening with tsunami-like speed and might. When is this all going to become transparent to the public? Will the public even care enough to organize for change? When is the true disaster of capitalism going to end? Global warming?

"La Jetée" by Chris Marker; Last Year at Marienbad" by Alain Resnais

2010-01-16T10:46:00.004-05:00

Time and memory

Dope-ass Movie Posters

2010-01-14T13:27:00.013-05:00

I love not only the image components, but also the visual quality of text/alphabets from the other languages. Films from top down: More, Last Year at Marienbad, Downhill Racer, The Girl on a Motorcycle, Boom.

PJ Harvey "This is Love" by Sophie Muller

2010-01-10T17:04:00.003-05:00

Sometimes all it takes is a one camera, one take performance, one white fringe-sleeved tuxedo, accessories, a good haircut, and PJ HARVEY!!! Of course, just discovered this video was created by my all-time favorite music video director, Sophie Muller. Still kicking ass.

"I can't believe life's so complex, when i just wanna sit here and watch you undress..."

yes

Scriabin Etude Op.8 No.11 performed by Horowitz

2010-01-04T14:08:00.005-05:00

This Scriabin piece performed by Horowitz is what I have to get me through today. Thanks to them both for their genius and sensitivity. I love that this video piece is a page by page read of the music. Absolutely beautiful. There is something about reading the music while hearing it played, by a prodigy no less, that is so moving. I love seeing Scriabin's rhythms, the change ups, in visual form. We can hear, relative to what we are seeing, Horowitz's touch--there is no one who has his touch and sensitivity and interpretation and ability to communicate his interpretations with transcending nuance. Makes him my all time favorite pianist, especially when he plays Chopin. And we can also see in the sheet music, as in any piece I love by Chopin or Scriabin, a full load of flats and black keys. That one bar rest one line from the end of the piece, so bad ass.

Doing "Dark" in Music Videos; Jay-Z feat. Swizz Beatz "On To The Next One" Directed by Sam Brown

2010-01-04T13:35:00.014-05:00

Above, Jay-Z feat. Swizz Beatz "On To The Next One" Directed by Sam Brown; The Cardigan's "Losing My Favorite Game" Directed by Jonas Akerlund; Director Chris Cunningham Montage...

American pop videos can make "dark" look cartoony or pretty pop commercial clean as in Jay-Z's new video. That trancy chant in the song though is dope (for the vid). And I looove for some weird reason, the image of the speaker chords. I mean love it. Also like the "Rorschach test" images. Some interesting imagery speckled throughout, but meaningless because of the lack of visual story and build, just random intercutting. A few changes during the breaks, but otherwise no climax. Drones on. The attempts at darkness makes me reminiscent of Jonas Akerlund's gothic or "sick" sensibility in pop form in his videos (see recent entry/post of Prodigy's "Smack My Bitch Up"), and Chris Cunningham's twisted vision. Those Swedes and Brits do dark well. Though Sam Brown may be British, it's definitely not his sensibility, in addition to the collaborating artist being Jay. There were several versions of this Akerlund/Cardigan piece. One where she's decapitated. One where she brushes herself off and walk away unscathed (guess which market that one was for). Chris' work sometimes is unbearable to watch, too gross. But images always compelling, so I posted a trailer, the "best of's".

What I do love about the Jay-Z video is the immediacy of sound quality relative to image movement/action... of each shot, object, setup. Things drip, things fall, camera moves towards, pulls back, tracks sideways, wind blows, cloudshapes gush, etc. And the simplicity of shapes relative to stark black and white. There is a sense of drama within each setup. Too bad they don't build to anything. But the visuals definitely enhance the song. The edit is fantastic. Solely listening to the song, with the persistent chant, is a little crazy making.

Ravens, Personal Mythologies and the New Year

2010-01-01T03:25:00.028-05:00

The other night, I learned of a friend's unexpected death, and I found myself baffled more than anything else. If 2009 had taught me anything, is the weariness of death. I was weary. Sadness developed a callus and I was becoming desensitized. I couldn't commit to the sadness anymore. But it had transformed into an anxiety, of the unexpectedness, the out-of-your-control surprise of death. Any second could be the last. And I had a mind-boggling image of every living being on this earth, on that long line to shed this mortal coil, to decay into the earth... I will show you fear in a handful of dust.

The year started with a beloved aunt committing suicide leaving behind 2 beautiful teenage sons. And then more death. And more. Old friends, teachers, acquaintances, even public figures that loomed large in my imagination. I couldn't catch my breath.

"I had not thought death had undone so many.
Sighs, short and infrequent, were exhaled,
And each man fixed his eyes before his feet."

I couldn't believe they were all gone. In the earth. Eaten by maggots. While I could still see their faces. Hear their voices. I mean, I can't believe T.S. Eliot, who wrote and spoke such profound poetry, no longer walks the earth. I mean, I can't believe Donny Hathaway, with that voice that is so embedded in my breathing life, no longer breathes. I can't believe Marlon Brando, so alive onscreen, no longer has a heart that beats. I can't believe all those bodies mangled in war, from images of the Vietnam War to those who die daily and senselessly in the Middle East, were someone's children, someone's mother, a life that inspired another, that struggled to eat and be loved, came to being to be tossed like butcher's trash. I can't believe war had assassinated my grandparents so long ago and that my mom had experienced such loss at so young an age, loss that I had feared as a child (and still do). I know my grandparents are dead - I've never met them. But still I rack my brains, how is that possible? They walked the earth. They taught my mom things in her short 6 years of knowing them. How are they gone? And why am I baffled when I've never met them? Death baffles me. What is the mechanism of this disbelief?

Today is the birthday of my auntie, our matriarch, who passed away last September. New Year's Day is and will always be associated with her. I think of her whenever I see or hear crows. When she was alive and crows were in our midst, she would chase them away and yell at them with urgency. If we heard them "caww" in the distance, she'd raise her hand to god and speak in tongue with a fury. She taught me their association with death. When she passed away, I thought, she was wrong. There was no crow omen to foretell her passing, that was until we were at the cemetery and lowered her coffin into the ground... high above, the voice of one crow squawked, once, loud and clear, a single voice which filled the skies and echoed melodiously. The sound swept the air, washed the skies. I looked up, didn't see the bird, but its voice rang loud. I looked around - no one else noticed. Everyone's eyes were fixated on the hole in the ground. I looked up again at the clear blue sunny sky, looked at the tall trees, and took flight.

Unlike my aunt, who chased crows away, I embraced them. Birds and their feathers, have always come to me in incredible ways, in my time of need, and given me signs. They are my messengers. They tell me to trust. To have faith. That I am taken care of. That all is ok. They remind me that I am more than my body's identification. And when I heard that beautiful voice on the day of my aunt's burial, I laughed at the cosmic significance of it all. She was right. They are messengers of death, but not in the way she thought, and one must have the courage to fly with them.

So back to a few days ago, a few days shy of the new year, the morning after I heard about the death of a friend I hadn't seen in about a year, my last death in a string of many for 2009... it was a brilliantly sunny winter morning, my father excitedly rushed into my room. Look at the front lawn! What is it, I ask perturbed at the intrusion to my melancholic state. Pull open your shades! I pulled the string, the blinds went up, and I couldn't believe my eyes! My dad gaped with boyish wonder and uncontrollable gleeful laughter. It was unlike anything I'd ever seen. It was miraculous, biblical. The entire ground before my eyes, our deep front lawn all the way across the street to our neighbor's front lawn, was covered with small black birds. On closer examination, they were pear-shaped ravens. Black feathers shimmering blue. Then a dark frenzied cloud would sweep through, depositing more of these jet black birds on the ground, pushing forward the ones before them into the air. Frenetic waves kept sweeping through. The air and ground, filled with black wings reflecting brilliant sunshine. The ravens energetically pecked away at the ground (what were they pecking at?), beat their determined wings in the air (where were they rushing to?). My dad and I couldn't make sense of what we had never seen before and watched in awe. The birds kept sweeping through, dumping more birds, sweeping through. They moved with great speeds and great numbers filling the space before my eyes. I thought of Hitchcock's "The Birds". I thought of the locusts in the bible. And within a minute, they were all gone. The cloud lifted and dissipated. Not a single bird before me. What could this mean?

It freaked me out. My first thought was, is this the omen for the new year? 2009 had taken so many... how would I stomach 2010 if this was the case? I took a few days. I meditated last night as time shifted to the new year, soon after, running into a good friend where I spent New Year's eve. And I heard the words come out of my mouth as I told her about the birds to her amazement, as I discovered for myself their significance, as I heard myself define them... it was a great cloud that lifted. As that one great bird that took flight from my aunt's graveside funeral did, an army swept through. The ravens washed away all the souls of the last year in one collective sweep, carrying them off, the way a violent summer storm will clear away the hot and sticky, the muddled heavy air, and provide comfort, new air, clean and light, to breathe. A purification. A Kali yuga. She was witness to my realization and waves of chills ran through me. The magnitude of the realization is not something I can put into words, but it was a moment of connection, of complete faith. How had I forgotten the compassionate messengers of my life? My winged friends. My fear of death had blinded me to what I had always known. I had forgotten to trust. Even the miracle of this raven's event in the moment couldn't shake that fear that freezes. It took the stillness and introspection of the last few days to pry open that space of remembering.

In my brief read about these black birds at the wee hours of this morning, I discovered that what I had seen were all young ravens, and that ravens hold a prominent place in the mythologies of different traditions. Of course. They are highly intelligent, having the highest aviary IQ, and capable of manipulating and communicating with other animals for their purpose. All in addition to what we already know about these birds, as consumers of carrion, vehicles for transformation. In mythology, they are often equated to the trickster god, holding a prominent position in the hierarchy of deities, as god of the crossroads, among them, Ganesha (Hindu), Elegua (Santeria).

Bridging life and art, I think about the importance of props to an actor, per Uta Hagen. And the satisfaction of having symbolic images, or objects, patterns that we rely on as anchors in dramatic storytelling on stage and on film. It's something we can follow, a baton, something grounding, so that we can see changes relative to that anchor. It can be a phrase, spoken, or in music, "themes." Then "variations on theme" are track-able, and thus, clear and moving. It's so clear in art, and I am thinking a lot about the unconscious palate of symbols we can create in our lives, that myths have done consciously for collectives/societies over time (a diminishing and disconnected practice in modern society). I think it is important to think about what the symbolic components are, and the function of our own personal mythologies, make it a conscious function, to create conscious rituals around them to celebrate and acknowledge them. Images, memories, objects that we find, create, connections to. Religious icons. Mantras. Elements in nature. Anchors. A system-ology we link up to, that we create, a language, a filter through which we interpret the vastness of the universe. It is a conscious practice of something small, local, with the understanding that it is a key or microcosm, for the greater cosmic model. Through these "symbols," we can tell the story of a life. Today provides the opportunity to acknowledge one of my personal symbols, my winged messengers, and a conscious acknowledgment to the function of symbols in storytelling. Personal symbols are something I know so well through my parent's stories of their lives, but this past year, it has lived in the forefront of my imagination, connecting its importance in my life and as dramatic device in storytelling.

Last night, after I broke meditation, I was able to hear the teachings of my most cherished beloved guru, David Life, co-founder of Jivamukti Yoga. He said, make death a small thing, of no importance, no big deal. Have the courage to make yourself die, and fold that into life, so it's one and the same. I think about the cartoon-like images from Mexico's Day of the Dead celebration, colorful dancing skeletons. The dressing up and party that is Halloween. Martin McDonagh's uproarious graveyard comedies. Kali's skull-beaded necklace. I hope through the practice of my art and storytelling, that through my personal mythologies, I can practice this... making death small, a celebration of life.... so that they are little birds that fly in and sit on my front lawn for a moment, then fly away, that eat and shit and soar through wind. Small, banal and miraculous.

Bruno Aveillan

2009-12-31T20:10:00.004-05:00

Love the wispy-ness of light and texture, the impressionistic washes, shallow/varied/distorted fields of focus, and sensitivity of Aveillan's stills and moving images. Nice collection of them in this Louis Vuitton advert.

Al Green Altar

2009-12-31T19:59:00.003-05:00

Does it get any better than Al Green's live performances in the early 70's?
NO.

"The French Connection" by William Friedkin; "The Hurt Locker" by Kathryn Bigelow

2009-12-31T16:41:00.034-05:00

In terms of a script, I can't imagine it was exciting on first read, but as a film that emerged from it, a director that knew how to "use" New York City, and as a result of its on-the-ground research with participation from those the film was about, "The French Connection" is a film that has what most films after the 70's lacked, character. Perhaps filmmaking has mirrored the changes in New York City's landscape, textured to corporate plastic, a wild west to gentrification.

Learning from Friedkin's commentary on the film's DVD, the film was mostly "stolen," meaning, no setups, no extras, available light, no permissions, using the city itself and the folks on the streets - to create the scenes. It was an "induced" documentary, so to say, and borrowed from Friedkin's experience as a documentary director prior to this film. He kept the shooting pace brisk, one or two takes. He had friends with cars block the roads to cause a traffic jam on the Brooklyn Bridge for 15 minutes!!!! He shot handheld using wheelchair dollies on subway platforms without permits. In our post 9/11 New York, these things would be impossible. He also "orchestrated" high-speed driving scenes on New York City streets, in the famous car-subway chase scene, with pedestrians and civilian cars on the road! I wouldn't recommend this last one at all. He's lucky no one was killed. But I celebrate this film in the tradition of rogue filmmaking, that is, after all the research and prep work had been done. An ode to rogue filmmaking.

I also miss what now feels like an era of onscreen giants of textured small characters, the anti-heroes, Hackman, Schneider, Hoffman, Pacino, Deniro. The films oozed with character. The city, oozed with character. Perhaps the city and the films' production process required that touch of danger, instability, unpredictability, for that "character," the "edge," so to say.

The color scheme is beautiful and perfectly captures winter in New York, how the quality of light moves through the cold air and reflects off brick and steel, all the angled shapes of the city, the cold blue environmental hues, the sunset colored yellow of the sun at all hours of the day, the hard angled light. And any film with elevated subways in it, is an instant for me, as I grew up on it, next to it, under it...love everything about them for life. They make me feel warm and fuzzy.

For me, an interesting dramatic question that the film raises: what happens if the main character remains unchanged? In strict dramatic principle, there has to be a change. But it seems like in this film, from beginning to end, Gene Hackman's character remains unchanged. It is just increasingly revealed to the audience, the extreme extent of the character's blind obsession. Perhaps though, the point of the film is that nothing changes. It didn't bother me in this film. The ride and the cat-n-mouse plot is riveting enough. But it's a question that seems to comes up a lot. When character doesn't change, but they are put through a plot wringer for the duration of the film, is that, for lack of a better word, ok? Is it satisfying?

Another example, this year's "The Hurt Locker" by Kathryn Bigelow, was that. The bomb defuser played by Jeremy Renner, is a bit crazy, obsessive, one-note. Each bomb he defuses is more and more dangerous, but he remains unscathed, unshaken, a bad-ass to a point of cool, except when he cracks for a dangerous moment and leaves the protected military compound. I was on the edge of my seat because of the increasingly nerve-wracking complications of each bomb scenario; but also the fact I believe, that this world was wildly out of my realm. Is that what made it interesting? Because it was a new world, a new language of warfare that I previously wasn't fluent in? It kept me busy while distracting me from the fact that there was no character-driven dramatic arc? Because I found that in speaking with others, one friend wasn't so taken by all the bomb stuff because the character never changed, and another who's in the military spoke of all his buddies who hated the film because they were distracted by how unrealistic the military stuff was. In this film, I enjoyed the ride but didn't feel completely fulfilled at the end. It was a thrill ride in the way some really good fluff action films go (except this was supposed to be based on our current situation in Iraq). So as a story device, with each increasingly "insane" and dangerous bomb situation, where there are increasingly more lives at stake, more obstacles and less probability that the defuser would survive, we explore the extent of the character's singular pursuit and obsession. That's the point of the story - character doesn't change. He's that extreme.

Then for this film and for the former, can we draw the conclusion that this challenge to classical dramatic character-equals-plot arc, points the film's theme in another direction?... is the unchanging character then symbolic of the conditions in which that character thrives in? The police vs. criminal pursuit absurdities. War begetting more war insanity? Nothing changes. Is that the message of these films? And are they satisfying timeless expressions of that theme?

"Up In The Air" by Jason Reitman

2009-12-31T16:13:00.017-05:00

"Up In The Air" was up in the air. There were a lot of interesting "we're born alone die alone" variety themes in the film, including how technology furthers that reality, and funny moments. There's the commitment as a fear of living and dying theme, and love can save us if we can find it theme. But I think the tone of the film was way off. It felt too cutesy like it was trying to be a household comedy in that "Juno" or Hollywood holiday-season-film kind of way with its happity boppity soundtrack, without that dire-dilemma-as-absurd-comedy irony that "Juno" or Jacques Demy's "Umbrellas of Cherbourg" had, the bright colors and happy tone contrasting with darker issues of social-convention-challenging pregnancy. This film needed more grotesque realism like that of the Coen Brother's "Fargo"'s picture of the midwest and David Fincher's "The Fight Club"'s unrooted corporate/modern world alienation. There were a lot of heavy issues addressed, but ultimately were so watered down by the try-to-please-everyone genre, having too many themes of equal weight, and George Clooney's coolness, that the film felt wishy washy. A weak directorial effort, because I think the material could've been there but one theme needed to be more of a singular driving force, with a decidedly darker ironic aesthetic vision. Clooney also, his whole body language was too movie-star confident. I think his character had a confidence, but not that cool. As unbound as his character was to geographical space, his world still existed in the confined seating of an airplane seat and all the public spaces his body moved through throughout his traveling business life. Clooney, the at-ease actor, became a distraction. The one detail that I thought was so appropriate was Vera Famiglia's satin blouses. Yuck. I hate them with a passion. And I found they so perfectly expressed the world she portrayed. All we needed to also see was a shoe with a bad clunky heel on it. Ick.

[Aha! After writing this entry, I discover, Reitman also directed "Juno"!]

"The Road" (Cormac McCarthy) film by John Hillcoat

2009-12-31T13:54:00.019-05:00

This film can best be described as Vittorio De Sica's classic, "The Bicycle Thief" gone horror movie. It is a dark, in a "the horror the horror" sense, exploration into the heart of man in a post-apocalyptic setting. A father struggles life and death for his and his son's survival – and it triggers a whole series of moral dilemmas which tug at the question of 'what is the meaning of man?' 'What is the meaning of life?' The film, (I've not read the novel) offers no solutions but suggests that for the most part, we live in darkness and hell.

The story's plot hinges on the father's desire to take his son south, to coastal Florida, as if there's a promise of something different, of some hope for survival. Perhaps sunshine, warmth, safety, some food, perhaps other "good guys". But as the film unravels, we begin to get a feeling that it is also a senseless pursuit. That either they'll never reach this destination, or they'll get there, and it will be as bleak as where they've come from, and possibly another destination will have to be conjured. That's what we do to survive. Have a goal. A destination. Out there...and thus requires a journey. We seek and create roads. There doesn't seem like much purpose to their lives, just survival and a sense of a destination, and one day is as bleak and dangerous as the next. The struggles don't change. There's never a feeling of safety. And despite this, there's something internal, a will, a desire to survive, a hope for a future. Hope. Future. Two words that seem so absurd as we journey this "road" where everyday is wrought with the question of whether it will be their day to die, and the anxiety of 'what will be the quality of that death?'...by murder, cannibalism, torture...as images of Francis Bacon's carcasses and Hieronymus Bosch's hell on earth - are conjured.

A precise and weighted device in the story is the gun with the 2 bullets. It's as much a character in the film as the father and son. It's the gun that the father has meticulously taught his son to use, that if they were caught...one bullet for father, and one for son. In every second of the film, they have the choice to exist or not. And yet they remain, and struggle, and experience horrors, and suffer. And still they remain. Many had given up, as embodied by the mother character, or gone mad. Stubborn emotional and psychological hardiness and luck is required for survival. And this father has all the determination in the world. His purpose is his son. It is the symbol of his humanity: to do whatever it takes to protect his son. He is a "father." It defines him. Gives purpose for his own survival. The contrast though between he and his son is that he'll do whatever it takes, even at the expense of losing other aspects of his humanity. His son is the reminder of that which is innocent, compassionate, which transcends the brutal material realities. This dialogue between father and son about morality and goodness and what is required to maintain one's humanity, is the investigation of this film, even though it could've been addressed with more depth. I don't think one side of the argument wins over the other. It is in the active dialogue in the context of each dilemma, where this "humanity" is defined.

The film did not let up in its intensity, even in it's dark and dirty color scheme. Scene after gut-wrenching scene, shot after dusty desaturated shot. And as much as I'm a fan of narrative arc, I didn't mind that this film stayed on one note. The exploration kept me riveted.

After viewing the movie, I discovered that John Hillcoat also directed "The Proposition" which I hated with a PASSION, for this one-note reason. The film was a flatliner, superviolent, and for no reason, saying nothing. Dusty and bleak. Buncha white men playing cowboys and barbarians in the deserts of Australia. And with nothing changing, EVER, Nick Cave's soundtrack was a kind of hell on earth experience. Whatta jerkoff, I thought of everyone involved. I had just watched a buncha white men masturbate onscreen and call it art. I left the theater early and angry. But even as I watched "The Road" and thought the entire time, nothing's changed, the same dangers and violence, a moment of respite when the father-son find food and take a bath, but otherwise stakes remain the same hi value, the kind of dangers, the same quality throughout, I was riveted by the journey. I wonder whether I would've judged the work differently if I knew that this was "The Proposition's" director. Actually, had I known, I wouldn't have even seen "The Road."

There is a paranoia throughout the film where everyone fears they are being followed to destructive ends. But the ending offers a glimmer of hope in that one can be followed and pursued by those who want to help, by that which is good. But that glimmer is but a whisper in the world that surrounds, of darkness. But it is enough.

Kenna "Freetime," Directed by Tony Petrossian; Prodigy's "Smack My Bitch Up" by Jonas Akerlund

2009-12-03T16:08:00.003-05:00

Prodigy - Smack my bitch up
Uploaded by bebepanda. - Watch more music videos, in HD!

Kenna/Petrossian's Video, cool conceit. Reminiscent of Prodigy/Akerlund's xxx-rated classic.

N.A.S.A project: "Spacious Thoughts," featuring Tom Waits & Kool Keith, directed by Fluorescent Hill.

2009-11-28T20:25:00.003-05:00

Sooper Dooper

Richard Foreman's "Idiot Savant"

2009-11-26T14:51:00.007-05:00

EXPERIENCED this at the Public Theater yesterday matinee... Spectacular piece of theater. So inspiring. Conjures French Theater of the Absurd, and Beckett, but very very different. Very stream of consciousness. Very in the stream. Wading. Wading. Wading. Quack quack (If you know the play, you'd know why I'm quacking). Form=function. And a delight for the senses, meticulous execution of audio, visual, prop components, and razor sharp timing. What a gift to be able to experience Foreman's work directed by the man himself. The play is definitely a practice, an experience. I can't imagine another director taking this play off the page as a blueprint. The logic of the idiot savant, is so thorough, and not a color or detail extra. Willem Dafoe was amazing, breathed LIFE. Every single action, so clear, so motivated. Even though he was playing a character inside his own head. Again, the logic, clear all the way through, so so connected. It's a piece of theater that in one sitting, inspired so much for me as an actor, but moreso, as a director and writer. The possibilities! QUACK QUACK!

Mati Klarwein

2009-11-26T13:48:00.020-05:00

Haven't been in a verbal space, so no written entries in a while. Love what painter Mati Klarwein's conjures. I'm in the expansive state of his images, and the corpuscles. Except, his takes form. Mine is all still a messy milky way in my head. If only I can have the perspective of seeing Two Olive Trees, above, as I do, a whole form, a painting, with leaves tickled by the wind, as opposed to being stuck in the shade and tangle that clutch and struggles at the base of the trees. Klarwein obviously also did the Miles Davis' Bitches Brew cover, one of my favorite of all time, if not my most fave. Obviously he also did Santana's Abraxas cover, piece titled Annunciation, above. Love his take on Hendrix. Also above, Astral Body Awake. It's been awhile, but I think it's time to take a journey, at this transitioning time in my life. Hmm, then again, as a Sagittarian, when is my life not in transit?

Maison Martin Margiela Wedge Ankle Wooden (but not wood) Boots

2009-11-23T23:22:00.005-05:00

Saw this gorgeous shoe in person today. Phenomenal architecture. I would like to create a film in homage (and a bank savings fund) to this shoe.

Blonde Redhead's "23" Directed by Melodie McDaniel

2009-11-22T23:29:00.002-05:00

Blonde Redhead - New Music - More Music Videos

Love this throwback to experimental films.

Bjork "Oceania"

2009-11-02T18:43:00.005-05:00

Bjork my heroine. A song instrumentally constructed entirely of human voice. Timeless, epic, haunting. Video, not her best, but the song is unforgettable. Funny, I always thought it was a love song. Maybe I was projecting. But it's about the creation/evolution of the ocean. A love song of a different sort. But as big and sweeping as I had imagined, or as I was projecting I guess. I see no difference actually between these two kinds of loves.

Fleetwood Mac "Angel" & Documentary

2009-11-01T07:18:00.003-05:00

Noisettes "Never Forget You" and "When You Were Young"

2009-10-31T18:41:00.004-04:00

Beautiful voice. Great style. Gorgeous gorgeous gorgeous.

Roy DeCarava R.I.P.

2009-10-30T18:34:00.002-04:00

"Bourgeois in a Carriage" by Pavel Filonov

2009-09-28T13:53:00.005-04:00

I didn't see this piece in person, but even here on a computer screen, is exquisite (click image above to enlarge). A continuation of yesterday's entry... another painting by Pavel Filonov. Speaking of Pavel, loved being in Russia and hearing all these names as common as John, but for me, funny-sounding names I'd only known from Chekov. It used to be so hard for me to follow all those long-lettered character names with endless consonants, but now, am happy to have a context for them. Actually being in Russia was overall enlightening. While there, it just washed on me all the great Russian art, literature, philosophy, and drama that has influenced my life, just by seeing names, being in places of historical import, seeing the remnants of that history, and of course immersing myself in Tretyakov. Sadly, didn't have time for the Pushkin, State, Moscow and Revolutionary Museums. It took me a rushed day to even get through one floor of the Tret, which in no way is a large museum. Just so much information and beauty on those walls. What a journey of the mind and the senses. Another thing that was amazing to understand about Russia, is that it truly is Europe AND Asia. And by Asia, from the Siberian side all the way to the Caucus Mountains and Turkey. And by Europe, influence from France, Greece, Germany, and its own Jewish population. Just an amazingly rich country. I am amazed that the country has existed so large for so long with such traditionally diverse cultures that spans across so much earth, and then organized such a large-scaled revolutionary movement.

"Ships"by Pavel Filonov, Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow

2009-09-27T20:41:00.003-04:00

Saw a series of works recently by Pavel Filonov at the amazing Tretyakov Gallery (could spend weeks there) in Moscow. This is the only one of three that I could find from this series online. It not only resonates so much history that spans across time and geography, but has an amazing psychedelic quality to it. This reproduction of course does no justice to the real thing and the experience of it. You don't see scale, how small, varied and colorful each composite shape is, the details!!!, the eyes, the repetition of forms (eyes, pre-historic heads, feet, etc.) This comes from a series that is brown, with blue hues, as you can see above. Really gorgeous work. An artist I need to learn more about. And discover whether he experimented with some Siberian mushrooms of the magic shamanic variety.

One year ago today, Gomo's Transformation Day, 9/1/08

2009-09-01T00:25:00.010-04:00

In remembrance of the one year anniversary of our family matriarch's transformation day, gomo, my auntie, our family elder, who raised me. Thank you for teaching us so much because of your strength of character. Sometimes good, sometimes terrible. But always directed and strong and opinionated and absolute... a definitive starting point. I hope she is now the liberation she sought her whole life, tho, through the church. As I sit here remembering her and wondering how to celebrate her today, I recall and find my diary entry from a year ago today...

An achingly beautiful morning woke me up from my sleep in the late 8 o’clock hour. It was such a beautiful morning that it hurt. I took a conscious breath.

The drums were beating outside of my window in festivities for West Indian Day Carnaval. It made me excited to get up. I took another moment and breathed in the morning before I got up. Noticed my breath.

The sun beamed into my apartment and beckoned me to go outside. I got on my bike and tooled around, from Nostrand, to Empire to Eastern Parkway. The last was empty, but with such a feeling of anticipation, charged energy. All the vendors and police setting up, organizing. I biked uphill, it felt incredible, movement, up to the Parkway, then made my way into Prospect Park around the loop then back home, just feeling wind and sun. I felt free.

That light. That sky. A morning so beautiful it hurt. A strange thought entered my mind: if there was ever a day to commit suicide, this would be it. What could one hope in life for that was more than this? Then I began to really think about death, until I got to a place of fear, and made myself think of something else. I thought about 9/11 and how that morning also was so beautiful. Another morning where you take note at how incredible the morning was, the clear sky, something about the light. I thought maybe the angle of the sun in September is tilted differently, is changing from its summer position. The light is so specific. That clear sky is so specific. There is such a crispness in the molecules of air, and light. I celebrated the morning. Made breakfast and actually sat down, in silence, in the sunlight streaming in my living room, breathed and ate. It was delicious. I crawled back into bed watching the trees move, feeling the green, outside my window. I felt beautiful. I rolled around in bed just feeling.

Few hours later, I received a call that Gomo had passed away at 8:47AM..today 9/1/08

Gomo gomo gomo. I don’t believe it.

Kim Dae-Jung, Rest in Peace

2009-08-18T13:46:00.007-04:00

This year certainly feels like the the work of Kali's sword, from the current economic recession, a sense of house-cleaning, but also a sense of latent growth, burgeoning seeds under the surface, hybernation/preparation... all resonating a greater universal cleanup, with the passing of so many this year, for me, since September 1st. The weather in New York this summer has been dramatic. Rain, blinding visibility, comes with roof-shaking rumble and clatter. Winds that remind you of biblical stories. Today, so busy with work, I'm on the edge of mourning, but don't even have the time to mourn the death of this freedom fighter, Kim Dae Jung, who looms so large in my memory. He came to Laguardia Airport in my childhood, after being freed from so many years of house arrest and assassination attempts on his life. We went to the airport just to see him pass by. It was the first time I saw my father cry in my life, as he chanted with the crowd, fists pumping the air... KIM! DAE! JUNG! KIM! DAE! JUNG! Heroes come and go, and sometimes we are graced by merely witnessing them passing by. They leave their marks, inspire, plant seeds you carry and nurture for the rest of your life.

HAPPY vs. SAD

2009-07-26T20:34:00.004-04:00

HAPPY VS. SAD from Karen B. Song on Vimeo.

You thought the ULTIMATE battle was between GOOD versus EVIL. Well NOW, you can witness the EPIC battle between HAPPY versus SAD. Sometimes disguised as HI versus LO. Or LOVE versus HATE. Or FUN versus YUCK. Be forewarned though, it can get pretty ugly (or ugly pretty, depending on your point of view). Can our girl find freedom from its destructive path?

Film I wrote, shot, edited, did music for in 72 hours for the 2009 AAFL 72-hour film shootout. Entry from Team Singasong. Starring Karina Michaels, Roi King and Catherine Song.

Ryan McGinness' Fishing Party

2009-07-25T19:33:00.004-04:00

Last night I had one of those old skool New York nights, random and kewl. On my way home from an event, I noticed a bunch of objects floating and bouncing before me (I wasn't on drugs or drink, only Malaysian roti). On closer look I saw that they were tied to an end of a string. I looked far up to the top of the building to find a buncha folk with fishing rods. Of course, there was a guy sitting in a chair on the street. I asked what's going on? Then a folded up piece of paper fell in front of my face. I think that's for you, dude in chair said. So I take it off the hook. Alana wants to give you a warm hug. Well, um, ok. I ask dude, is Alana cute? He didn't know Alana. So I walk my way up I think 8 flights of stairs in this loft building. I get to the top floor and there are a bunch of smelly real fish hanging off hook & wire from the ceiling. Gone Fishing, was scrawled at the end of the hall. I made my way into the loft space, and was promptly tagged and led to the fish tank (an area blocked off by wall size plastic wrap) by the person who's line I took. Yes, I was the fish that was caught. And our fisherman came in often to check on us, make sure we had everything we needed to keep us happy in the tank.

I discovered that it was contemporary superstar artist Ryan McGinness' loft. He had proposed to do 50 parties in one year, every Friday, with a different theme. A custom-made-black-card carrying members only party. Last week was paintball. Last night's was fishing. The theme was delightfully thorough. He was dressed in overalls and a big messy straw hat, as were his friends. There was a bowl of fish. Snacks included swedish fish, goldfish crackers, fish sticks, breaded nuggets in fish shapes. At midnight, fish-shaped trophies were given to winning fishers in different categories. Most caught. Heaviest catch. Tallest catch. etc. Fish in the tank were given hefty tequila shots and told to drink like a fish. Since I just had surgery, I was granted leniency. Then there was the live fish eating competition. Middle-weight older dude swallowed his whole. Younger foreign hipster, chomped on his. They both went to ten. Chomp chomp chomp. DISGUSTING!!!!!! That part of the evening was unbearable. Other than that, it was a fun night. Met some cool folks. And went home with one of those red fortune telling fish! THAT, I was really psyched about.

An Ode to Character Actors: Edward Everett Horton, Jay O. Saunders, Jackie Earle Haley

2009-07-23T12:58:00.006-04:00

There are iconic actors whose names go down in history, and other actors who don't. I want to celebrate the ones that aren't household names, who've appeared in sometimes more films than any leading actor, in films with all those iconic names, sometimes unrecognizable from one work to the next, and whose contribution to arts and entertainment is immense. They are critical in defining the tone and genre, and the telling, of the stories they're in. Their work is always delicious. Especially in comedies, and equally bone-chilling in scary movies.

Lately I've been watching lots of classic black & white films with names like Fred Astaire, Ginger Rogers, Cary Grant, Katherine Hepburn and Clark Gable. And there's this guy you keep seeing, that's just so funny and delicious to watch. His name is Edward Everett Horton. You'd know him by face. And boy does he look familiar. Cause he's been in everything! Seeing him in a film makes "instant-happy."

Then seeing the brilliant and rip-roaringly funny (yeah, when done well, Shakespeare will have you bent over, holding your stomach) production of "Twelfth Night" in Central Park. I refer to him as "the drunk"... Jay O. Saunders. I could just watch only him through the entire show. I even followed his exit, studying his "drunkeness" waiting for it to crack. Nope, he was definitely drunk, through and through. Then reading the playbill when I got home, and discovering that he was "THE donkey" in the Park's horrible production of "Midsummer Night's Dream" 2 years back. He was the ONLY thing happening in that play, a performance I never forgot, and I studied him onstage too. I don't know what I hoped to find studying him, but I was completely mesmerized. I didn't realize that these two characters were the same actor! Today I discovered he was also the wife-envy neighbor in "Revolutionary Road." Again, didn't recognize him to be the same person as these other two.

And then there's Jackie Earle Haley. You couldn't convince me that he wasn't the person he portrayed in "Little Children," a tortured pedophile. Then to discover that he was the incredible actor who played Rorschach in the crap film "Watchmen"? He was so alive on that screen, so nuanced a performance, so real a person, I couldn't believe what I was seeing. He seemed so familiar. Then later discovered he was "the ped"! Mesmerizing.

I love these actors. Their presence, and their work. And especially character actors in older films during the studio system, where stock characters were a distinctive and colorful quality of the storytelling palate. It traces back to storytelling-entertainment roots in Commedia dell'arte, Shakespeare's theater, and vaudeville. Will write more later about stock characters and different forms of theater as extensions of folk storytelling and pagan ritual. Something I've been thinking about for years, while traveling, and studying pagan traditions, both, interconnected passions of mine.

Francis Bacon Retrospective; Metropolitan Museum of Art, NYC

2009-07-21T15:29:00.008-04:00

Francis Bacon's paintings at his recent retrospective at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, are powerful visual manifestations of a dialogue with mortality, loss, alienation, time, sanity, and the brief nature and struggle of life, form and decay. The viewer's struggle to grasp elusive "form," yet experiencing something material left behind by a man who is dead and in the ground, is overwhelming. His forms are as elusive, and frustratingly so, as trying to grasp this illusion we call "Reality." One takes grand comfort in the solidarity, of someone being able to express this intangible quality of life, in so tangible a form as painting with Bacon affirming so poignantly, form as a mere suggestion, a whir of energy translated into color. Each painting, a poem. His color palate, even dissected from an idea of form, is beautiful and viscerally meaningful, in the same way de Kooning's colors hit me.

Bacon's forms are tortured, struggling for solidity, struggling to come into being. Melting away. A whisper away from cascading into darkness. Light and color being a brief manifestation, a gathering of dust particles, if even. Form as an "event" in the way a firework explodes into the sky for a briefly beautiful, exciting yet violent and quietly disappearing moment.

There's nothing to grasp or hold on to. Meat and carcass, the fragility of the body. And yet, these forms exist in their own confined space, a stage, a ring, a glass box, not physical, defined by just lines...self imposed? Sometimes there's a door in frame. Exit or entrance? Freedom or hell? Can it even open? Or is it just a picture? A tease of the cosmic joke variety. Conclusion, we are a perpetual and delicate balancing act between extremes. Being and not. Spatial materiality and energy. Flesh and spirit. Love and torture. Beast/deformed and human form. Order and disorder. Becoming and receding. Scream and silence. Authority and powerlessness. I and the Other. Insane and sublime... The triptychs confirm relativity, perpetual change in spatial/time relationship, non-authority of a single take. Time and event is constantly being dissected like a film reel, and form within that, constantly disintegrating.

The only thing, the exhibit, although quite extensive and filling, was missing a lot of his works. I thought it would be a more thorough collection. Also reminds me, I have to watch "Love is the Devil" again for the umpteeth time, one of my favorite films, directed by John Maybury. It focuses on Bacon's life with George Dyer, his lover and muse, who ultimately killed himself. Yes, tragic. He did it in their hotel room on the night of Bacon's opening at the Grand Palais in Paris. Bacon was the only other foreign artist next to Picasso to have been given that highest honor. If ever the opportunity to see "Devil" on the big screen, do so. The film is very painterly, with a story as intense as Bacon's paintings, as intense as his life.

Little Dragon's "Twice" Directed by Johannes Nyholm

2009-07-20T11:17:00.009-04:00

This song sounds like falling in love in the summertime. Love the video. Beautifully poetic with Yukimi Nagano's ethereal voice carrying you, the timeless quality of the video's sepia color tone, and its simplicity (altho these puppets eye's blink) of the puppet imagery and backdrop. After seeing "The 39 Steps" on Broadway, an amazing show, using puppetry, prop ingenuity, and just amazing acting and imagination, I wanted to investigate puppetry. And here we have it again, so simple, beautiful...with an epic journey unfolding.

Listerine

2009-07-20T10:38:00.008-04:00

"Bunny Mellon, the reclusive 98-year-old Listerine heiress"... pulled from yesterday's Sunday New York Times Style Section... sounds like something I made up in one of my absurdist short stories I was writing years back. Above is an ad JWT São Paulo did for them, which I find kinda sick and hilarious. While the NYT's quote, just surreal and hilarious: the words are funny; the image too. If you can't see the details of this ad, click the image, or to see more in its series, click here. It'll show a Catholic altar scene of a germ bride, and the emptiness around her with the tagline "KILLS 99% OF GERMS."

Walter Kronkite, R.I.P.

2009-07-18T16:10:00.009-04:00

The passing of Walter Kronkite invariably reminds me of my father. Childhood memories of my dad in the 70's has him planted in front of the TV eating dinner watching the news, or not being home and driving his yellow cab around the mean streets of New York City. The City felt so dangerous back then. I remember always being relieved when my parents came home from work. My mom went out into the dark night for her shift at the hospital. My parents couldn't afford a babysitter for me so they watched me in shifts. She worked nights. He worked days. My fears were confirmed when once dad came home robbed and mildly knifed after a shift. Our 7-channel (if we were that lucky...channel reception depended on our jagged wire-hanger-bunny-eared antenna) black and white tv set, blared all the crimes of our graffiti-covered city. I used to sleep under blankets for fear of break-ins. We lived within a block of a busy elevated train track with the frequent train chuggs as our ambient soundtrack.

Life was so different back then. Despite having to sit in front of the tv set to hold the antenna in a certain spot or to turn the heavy channel dial, even tv was much simpler. I remember the ticking of CBS's "60 Minutes". I remember Walter Kronkite's mustache. He was a celebrity in our humble apartment--I think I was 4 or 5 years old. Years later, I remember when my father told me he had picked Mr. Kronkite up in his cab to take him to work one day. I asked him, did you say anything to him? I can't remember what my dad said. I think he said nothing, which would've been in character. Or maybe he couldn't resist and told Mr. Kronkite that he was once a journalist. What I do remember was that it was a memorable enough event for my dad, who doesn't communicate much, to have shared with me. Mr. Kronkite was a common fixture in our one-bedroom apartment in Queens, as common as those subway cars outside floating to and fro the city skyline, as common as my dad's yellow cab pulling up on our block at sunset, as common as that sunset spilling through Manhattan's skyline into our apartment with sherbert colors, past the smelly fish hanging in our kitchen window, that my dad put up to dry (amidst my mom's protestations), as common as the Twin Towers book-ending one side of the skyline, as common as the dreams my parents had of "making it" as struggling young immigrants to this country. With each celebrity passing, we also remember the lives we had that were intricately entwined with them.

Michael Jackson R.I.P.

2009-07-18T15:14:00.010-04:00

So much has happened since even before my last entry, that I haven't been able to put my head around it all to blog so casually. First being the passing of Michael Jackson, and the ensuing global ubiquitous celebration of his life. A time marker of my generation. Finding images or songs to re-post here felt inadequate. I think his memorial service covered all ground, and I was able to mourn the tragedy of his life, and celebrate the almost mythical heights he accomplished and how much he shared, as an artist and humanitarian, in his life. If I could (embedding on youtube turned off), I would now post his "Beat It" video.

I was in 6th grade, immersed in the "Flashdance" soundtrack, and wanting to be one of the kids in the movie "Fame," recording songs with my tape recorder in front of my transistor radio of Casey Casem's Top 40 Countdown, and staying up all hours of the night to catch music videos on tv's "Friday Night Videos". God forbid I went to a friend's house with cable tv...I want my MTV! No one had cable back then, so if we found it, we hogged it. Pre-internet days, we had to sit and wait, through commercials and other songs, by the radio, by the tv, until our cherished songs were played. It was the summer of Men at Work, Hall & Oates, the Police, Irene Cara, and of course, Michael Jackson. As far as pop-music was concerned, Cyndi Lauper, Madonna, Prince, Duran Duran, and break-dancing were still half a year away. We sat in front of the radio, and then that gong came on (OMG!!!!), then that beat came on, then the unmistakable whirring sound like the dropping of a bomb, then the guitar riff. Then the video...

I will never forget seeing "Beat It". Even watching it now, it is so amazing! The narrative is so well put, this impending battle just felt so dangerous! And that it ends in a dance peacemaking?!!! But not just any old kind, it was the precise MJ kind. Yes, his dance was just that big and dramatic enough to stop war! The precision of his moves, still keeps your eyes glued. I mean, in the pool hall, WHAT IS HE DOING?!!!! And the END SCENE?!!!!! When we first saw it, there was NOTHING like it, or him. He broke shapes and conventions. Knees and legs angled in the air, hips turning in 3 directions at once, head snap turns! We went berzerk! It still makes me a little crazy with giddiness watching it now. Oh how we imitated those dance moves...dealing those deck of cards out, so effortlessly. And that jacket! The introduction of that jacket! That also made us a little berzerk. Red leather with the metal net and studs, and just irregular. Silver socks?!!! And the endless changes in the music. The dramatic guitar riffs, the heavy breaths, the hiccups, the woohoo's, and eee'hee's! The whole experience was just overwhelming: on the radio, and then the big video debut on tv! (Yes, music video "debut's" were BIG events back then, at least for me). I wish I was a fly on the wall in that studio with him and Quincy Jones. To watch those artists at work at that time in pop music history.

How MJ sang and moved, there was nothing like it. Every time that song came on the radio, with the sound at the beginning of the gong!!!... I can remember the anticipation. And then again with THAT BASS LINE!!! for "Billie Jean". And I guess what we understand now, is that his music was so intricately married to visuals, imagery, movement, fashion. It all just helped to heighten and express the dramatics of the music. It was those early days of MJ's and music videos in general that planted my love for that genre that led me to a career in that field. There is so much more to say, but it's all been said. MJ's work stands on its own. Let us continue to celebrate the work of this artist who went to the farthest reaches. Rest in peace Michael.

Pina Bausch R.I.P.

2009-07-01T14:48:00.006-04:00

Frida Kahlo's "Henry Ford Hospital" and "Roots"; Ben Harper's "Alone"

2009-06-20T14:35:00.018-04:00

Alone - Ben Harper & The Innoc...

My awesome yoga teacher once advised me about some physical ailments I was having, to try and observe and address the pain and ailment without the emotional attachments. This reminder gets at the crux of our health and identification. Stuff is happening, but what are we emotionally attaching to that stuff? In essence, whatever "that" is, is the pain itself. Not necessarily the neuron signals, but how we interpret them emotionally. So if we can identify the emotions, we're on the road to recovery, by addressing the fear factor. This week was particularly hard to practice this belief... but at least I had his words in my head as a mantra so as not to get completely lost in the emotions, and dive into utter despair. When health is compromised, it makes you think of lots of things, mortality on many different levels, and brings images you've known to mind. Again, same yoga teacher in class yesterday, also told us a story that reminds me in this context, that perhaps those feelings of mortality are not misguided. It's just, not necessarily of the whole being. It's more about, what part of you needs to die?... And thus give way to another rebirth. That's my mantra for today.

"BitchesBrew" Miles Davis

2009-06-19T00:03:00.007-04:00

Bitches Brew - Miles Davis

What today's rain conjured. One of the best album covers of all time. I kept thinking, as I battled wind that changed its mind moment to moment and rain that followed it, that the storm felt like a witch's brew, and I heard this soundtrack with this visual projected in my head as I swam and beat my way through city blocks.

Jason Nocito, Photographer

2009-06-17T18:32:00.012-04:00

The top 2 images is what today feels like. The third (Cat Power) and fourth is what I wish today was instead. And the tubesocks-in-heels is just dope. Photographer is Jason Nocito, have no idea how I ran into his site, but I particularly like the collages/juxtapositions in the "The Ego Has Landed" section, and the Mumbai section. His colors tend to be muted, they feel like film gone bad by age and exposure, flat lighting, wispy. What I particularly appreciate is an artist with a website that's fast and easy to navigate, well organized, good looking, with good work. Oh, and I would also add the drill sound from my dentist visit today as the soundtrack for the first two images.

Daddy's Girl

2009-06-16T16:04:00.012-04:00

This daddy's girl
is still trying to accept
that she'll never get to know
her father. He's long gone.
He doesn't want to be known.
He's such a fragile thing,
he who was once her hero.

And when time
takes its bounty,
what will she be left with
for the rest of her heart-beating days?
Why is she holding on?
Today he beats his chest,
screams a torture from depths
that shake her to the core,
but she stands unmoved
she sees his pain.
He tries to break things,
he is forgiven but
his door is closed
and she must accept this
so that it is not her
he breaks, beats, tortures.
She screams in private

from where she sits,
she sees the expanse of gray
puff clouds
sun rays file into
the body of water
out yonder
reflecting silver
over there
green fluffer about
an excuse for trees
bees busy
in bees balm
birds shoot past
purposeful
two at a time
in times like these
one must look up,
and see beyond
the distance of
the screams

"Rabbit In Your Headlights" by UNKLE featuring Thom Yorke, Directed by Jonathan Glazer

2009-06-15T20:12:00.008-04:00

One of my favorite videos ever made. Directed by Jonathan Glazer, the music is UNKLE featuring Thom Yorke. Great story build through subtle shot edits and the amazing music. And who can deny Yorke's voice? Epic ending. I think the dude is Denis Lavant from Les Amants du Pont-Neuf, a great French film, where if my memory serves correctly, he plays the same character. The final image of the video reminds me of the Dali paintings he did later in life, such as Christ on crucifix that hangs at the National Gallery in D.C. That same quality of light. See a pristine version of this video on youtube... click here and hit the HQ button. The mega label Universal didn't "allow" embedding information on youtube so I couldn't post it above... don't get me started on the music industry. I'll just say, they, like Detroit, dug their own graves. Free potentially exponential publicity reach through the youtube posting, but they'd rather employ someone to search and destroy on the internet. How else would this video/song be known? I only saw this video years back because I had access to director reels in my past life. But the public doesn't get to see even a small portion of the great art (and commerce) videos and commercials that get made. What's the point?

Staggering statistics from an incredible book I'm reading now, Pepe Escobar's "Globistan: How the Globalized World Is Dissolving into Liquid War": only 7 companies dominate the GLOBAL film market, and only 5 companies dominate the music industry. The ramifications are scary. Orwellian.

"Embrace" performed by Shae Fiol 6/3/09

2009-06-14T17:17:00.005-04:00

"Embrace" by Shae Fiol from Karen B. Song on Vimeo.

Shot and post-production by yours truly. From Shae Fiol's "Catch A Ride" CD Release Party on June 3rd, 2009 in NYC. Mireya Ramos on violin.

"The Botticellian Trees" by William Carlos Williams

2009-06-14T00:22:00.008-04:00

I have no image for this entry. This poem, one of my favorites, in text, is enough:

The alphabet of
the trees

is fading in the
song of the leaves

the crossing
bars of the thin

letters that spelled
winter

and the cold
have been illuminated

with
pointed green

by the rain and sun—
The strict simple

principles of
straight branches

are being modified
by pinched-out

ifs of color, devout
conditions

the smiles of love—
. . . . . .

until the script
sentences

move as a woman's
limbs under cloth

and praise from secrecy
quick with desire

love's ascendancy
in summer—

In summer the song
sings itself

above the muffled words—

(click here for audio recording of the poet)

"Embrace" by Shae Fiol (Lyrics by Solange Foster); by Egon Schiele

2009-06-13T02:10:00.021-04:00

Embrace - Shae Fiol

em·brace
Pronunciation:
\im-ˈbrās\
Function:
verb
Inflected Form(s):
em·braced; em·brac·ing
Etymology:
Middle English, from Anglo-French embracer, from en- + brace pair of arms — more at brace
Date:
14th century

transitive verb1 a: to clasp in the arms : hug b: cherish, love2: encircle, enclose3 a: to take up especially readily or gladly b: to avail oneself of : welcome 4 a: to take in or include as a part, item, or element of a more inclusive whole b: to be equal or equivalent to intransitive verb: to participate in an embrace

he reached around her body
to the soft underbelly
and with a kiss pulled out a heart
that she had left unguarded
his attention was her intent
and her body was his instrument
and he played her
hypnotic rhythms up and down her spine
let the fantasy build and climb
craving in the maximum tension
stopping just short of completion

her rhythms lost his time
she fumbled to fix the broken with rewind
breathe the pain inside
he could never be her rhyme
the real hits hard
letting it all in to heal her scars
painting the heart shape over
embracing it all to move forward
and he played her...

his weight caused a break so deep it resonates
rebuild, embrace the heartache completely
and let the pain in sweetly

by Shae Fiol, lyrics by Solange Foster

"Your Childhood in Menton"/" Tu Infancia en Menton" by Federico García Lorca

2009-06-09T22:20:00.013-04:00

When no words or actions can comfort life's unthinkable presentations, one reaches for poetry. God in the evocation of images and in the spaces between words.

Your Childhood in Menton
Yes, your childhood now a legend of fountains.
The train, and the woman who fills the sky.
Your evasive solitude in hotels
and your pure mask of another sign.
It is the sea's childhood and the silence
where wisdom's glasses all are shattered.
It is your inert ignorance of where
my torso lay, bound by fire.
Man of Apollo, I gave you love's pattern,
the frenzied nightingale's lament.
But, pasture of ruins, you kept lean
for brief and indecisive dreams.
Thought of what was confronted, yesterday's light,
tokens and traces of chance.
Your restless waist of sand
favors only tracks that don't ascend.
But I must search all corners
for your tepid soul without you which doesn't understand you
with my thwarted Apollonian sorrow
that broke through the mask you wear.
There, lion, there, heavenly fury,
I'll let you graze on my cheeks;
there, blue horse of my madness,
pulse of nebula and minute hand,
I'll search the stones for scorpions
and your childlike mother's clothes
midnight lament and ragged cloth
that tore the moon out of the dead man's brow.
Yes, your childhood now a legend of fountains.
Soul a stranger to my veins' emptiness,
I'll search for you rootless and small.
Eternal love, love, love that never was!
Oh, yes! I love. Love, love! Leave me.
Don't let them gag me, they who seek
the wheat of Saturn through the snow,
who castrate creatures in the sky,
clinic and wilderness of anatomy.
Love, love, love. Childhood of the sea.
Your tepid soul without you which doesn't understand you.
Love, love, a flight of deer
through the endless heart of whiteness.
And your childhood, love, your childhood.
The train, and the woman who fills the sky.
Not you or I, not the wind or the leaves.
Yes, your childhood now a legend of fountains.

Tu Infancia en Menton
Sí, tu niñez ya fábula de fuentes.
El tren y la mujer que llena el cielo.
Tu soledad esquiva en los hoteles
y tu máscara pura de otro signo.
Es la niñez del mar y tu silencio
donde los sabios vidrios se quebraban.
Es tu yerta ignorancia donde estuvo
mi torso limitado por el fuego.
Norma de amor te di, hombre de Apolo,
llanto con ruiseñor enajenado,
pero, pasto de ruina, te afilabas
para los breves sueños indecisos.
Pensamiento de enfrente, luz de ayer,
índices y señales del acaso.
Tu cintura de arena sin sosiego
atiende sólo rastros que no escalan.
Pero yo he de buscar por los rincones
tu alma tibia sin ti que no te entiende,
con el dolor de Apolo detenido
con que he roto la máscara que llevas.
Allí, león, allí, furia del cielo,
te dejaré pacer en mis mejillas;
allí, caballo azul de mi locura,
pulso de nebulosa y minutero,
he de buscar las piedras de alacranes
y los vestidos de tu madre niña,
llanto de medianoche y paño roto
que quitó luna de la sien del muerto.
Sí, tu niñez ya fábula de fuentes.
Alma extraña de mi hueco de venas,
te he de buscar pequeña y sin raíces.
¡Amor de siempre, amor, amor de nunca!
¡Oh, sí! Yo quiero. ¡Amor, amor! Dejadme.
No me tapen la boca los que buscan
espigas de Saturno por la nieve
o castran animales por un cielo,
clínica y selva de la anatomía.
Amor, amor, amor. Niñez del mar.
Tu alma tibia sin ti que no te entiende.
Amor, amor, un vuelo de la corza
por el pecho sin fin de la blancura.
Y tu niñez, amor, y tu niñez.
El tren y la mujer que llena el cielo.
Ni tú, ni yo, ni el aire, ni las hojas.
Sí, tu niñez ya fábula de fuentes.

Lynn Nottage's "Ruined" at the Manhattan Theatre Club; Neil LaBute's "Reasons To Be Pretty"

2009-06-07T11:12:00.011-04:00

I experienced Lynn Nottage's (shout out Brown alum) Pulitzer-winning masterpiece "Ruined" yesterday, listening to the stories of the characters unfold, and how they came to be here at Mama Nadi's cafe. It's a place that serves liquor and women to soldiers in civil war-torn Congo. There is so much violence and the conditions in which the characters live prove a no-win situation. All are precariously perched in a world where whims have guns and cocks. None of the violence told happens onstage, but it's as vivid as the set and people you see before you. Each person has a story that is unimaginable. And as a collective, you sit wondering how can life possibly ever return to anything other than this? Especially after all they've seen.

You've heard the horrors before in the media. You've felt helpless and wonder how this situation will ever end and how could it even be in the first place. Young boys armed and machete-ing people's heads off and raising it in victory. A woman tied to a tree by a string to her foot "like a goat to a stake" and raped repeatedly for 5 months, returning home then being chased out by her family and community for the shame she brought to them. A woman "ruined" (by female circumcision) and chased out by her community because of the bad luck she brings. Sides in the war changing so fast, sometimes within a day... "leaders" and his men, rising, killing, falling, being killed. The cyclical violence. Chaos. Fear. And more violence. Life costing nothing. One trigger decisions. And you sit there keeping it all together. It's so horrible, you hold tight trying to keep your rational hat on, when nothing is rational. So you listen some more, all the while thinking about the nature of mankind, and how does this problem get solved? Are the conditions the result of post-colonial instabilities exacerbated by the land's wealth of gold and diamonds? Can there ever be any kind of peace on this earth until mankind has connected war with and transcends the conflict embedded within each person, manifested simply and partially in the 7 deadly sins? So many thoughts searching for an out, a solution.

Story after story. Men have it bad, but women have it worse. The men are at their tipping point, and women become their last bastion to empowerment, when there is no other source. By the time we get to the middle of the second act, to the climax of the play, we see blood for the first time, blood from a woman who's just committed her own abortion and screams "stop waging your war through my body." At this moment, you no longer have any control over all you've just experienced, all the information you've taken in, all the images painted in your head. The crushing weight of feeling like there's no way out. All the stories you've heard, the collective psychic pain of everyone in this war, culminate at this moment, and becomes real. I wept out loud. But the women, continue on. They continue to live with the scars of violence in and on their bodies, in their hearts and minds.

We see the girls who dream of love and tenderness through their romance novels. Despite all they've seen and experienced, they can still imagine love. And the most powerful engine of the story that hits you from left field is that of Mama Nadi, cool and strong-willed, hardened. Love has no place in her life. She believes, 'everything is taken away so what's the point?' It's a weakness and a luxury that one cannot afford at this place. She too is hardened by her own history. She fights and fights this traveling salesman who is trying to woo her through the duration of the play. And ultimately, she finally admits that she too is "ruined" and opens her heart to love and vulnerability and salvation.

Nottage is an incredible playwright, deftly weaving together this multi-charactered plot to completion. The interchangeable use of the same male actors covering all the different soldiers, is a very subtle and powerful way of making that statement of there being no sides in this ever-changing war, and no difference between soldiers for the women working in the brothel.

I did a double-feature yesterday and also caught Neil LaBute's highly acclaimed, "Reasons to be Pretty" in the evening. The play had some moments, but overall was subpar. LaBute's really good at breathless, stream of consciousness conversational language and portraying a certain kind of absurdity in relationships. It's enjoyable to watch. One can easily relate and laugh. Good scenes. But I think the audience is conned by this...they clapped after every scene change, egh...because there was no engine in the play. Are we supposed to be waiting for the "lovers" to get back together? Where are we going? Do these characters even really love each other? Do we even care? What's the point of the main story or the secondary story? Is it just to show the expectations of "pretty," the ugliness of people, and thus the irony of the title? The premise was precarious (I think the actors didn't sell it at all) and there was NOTHING at stake, if love or friendship was gained or lost. The characters were completely unsympathetic. I'll be really pissed if it wins anything in tonight's Tony's. There is way too much good work out there.

The Barkhor, Lhasa, Tibet

2009-06-06T01:59:00.005-04:00

The Barkhor, Lhasa, Tibet from Karen B. Song on Vimeo.

A small selection of my photographic series of the ever-changing Barkhor, in Lhasa, Tibet, 2002.

Francis Bacon at the Met

2009-06-05T22:59:00.006-04:00

In anticipation for the retrospective of one of my favorite painters. More soon.

Al Green "Jesus Is Waiting," "The Love Sermon" and "Let Me Be The One"

2009-06-04T04:02:00.013-04:00

Oh Rev. Al... you always leave me speechless, and in dire need of a big ole love hug.

"Joe Turner's Come and Gone" by August Wilson, Directed by Bartlett Sher

2009-05-31T12:29:00.016-04:00

Watching Joe Turner the second time around was just as emotional and powerful and breathtaking as the first. How could this play's Broadway run NOT get extended. I hope the visit by the Obamas last night would help in that cause. The ensemble of actors are all Tony-worthy and I'm sad that more didn't get nominated.

August Wilson is a master and his place in the canon that includes Shakespeare, must be. The poetry and musicality of his language is so beautiful and just gets you at that visceral level in the way that, well I guess, great music and poetry does. That musicality informs the differences between each character and what each represents, creating a rich and colorful tapestry. And Wilson even addresses this musicality in plot... in that it is a story about people finding their song. It's a world of wandering souls trying to find someone, something... oneself. On a quest. But more than as a thematic device, it is rooted in history, of the Great Migration and all the pained history that it entails. This work can serve as a historical document and further demonstrates how the history of slavery in this country and the aftermath, should and can never be forgotten.

This story of folks looking for each other reminds me of my mom's childhood war stories, and other stories of war and holocaust worldwide. The images. The kinds of repetitive questions asked and the answers to those specific questions that come to define one's life. The wandering. The search. A kind of spell. And when people find each other, what is talked about... the details of how it came to be that they missed each other on that fateful day, always said in a manner of disbelief. Dreamlike.

As a component of history, Wilson tugs at the underbelly of the human condition, the story of power by the disempowerment of another, the story of Joe Turner, someone who was physically strong and didn't "need" the labor, but kidnapped black men and held them captive for years, and you can imagine him chipping away to break them down, all just because he could. What is it that feeds this desire? By stealing someone else's song, someone else's soul, on a lustful mission to gain power for its own sake... an empty pursuit of god-hood, an expression of pure evil.

Bynam Walker played by Roger Robinson, is just a delight. His craft is seamless that you can't imagine he is not in real life, what you see on stage... a quirky old medicine man. He has some of the most wise and lyrical lines in the play. Harold Loomis played by Chad L. Coleman, takes the tortured journey through the duration of this play through to liberation. The vulnerability, the anguish. And my homie Aunjanue Ellis who plays the cynical Molly Cunningham, who in a look, can eat up a lover and spit him out... but you can see, she is capable of loving more than anyone and would have the farthest to fall. There is a secret hope for a love that spans the globe, that'll transcend the banalities of daily life.

As if the play wasn't enough, the Obamas were in the house and what a magical night it was as a result. Imagine, getting to perform your art in front of this president. Just cutting through the Times Square crowd, getting to the theater block, getting inside the theater through airport security being wanded in, was an odyssey, and further fueled the anticipation of seeing the President. Typically indifferent New Yorkers were so geeked out by Obama's presence and Meryl Streep, who was seated a few rows ahead of the Obamas, was all but invisible when ordinarily she would be "the event" as a theater audience member. When Barack and Michelle walked into the theater, we were all on our feet, on chairs, cheering. It was unforgettable.

"God of Carnage" by Yasmina Reza on Broadway

2009-05-30T17:06:00.006-04:00

Fearless acting... impeccable timing... incredibly well-paced. A brutal and comedic play by Yasmina Reza whose character study is AWEsome. The set is a fighting ring, the color of blood red, dressed up as a "civilized" and upscale apartment in Cobble Hill, Brooklyn. The tension created by the fact that two of the characters could leave the room, but don't for 90 minutes, keeps you on the edge of your seat. They put on their coats, make for the door, then something said reels them back in. Coats come off. They sit. Listen. Speak. Tensions rise. They get up to leave. Coats goes on... etc. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. And each time, it's completely motivated... these are all acting heavy-weights. Marcia Gay Harden moved from really good actor, to one of the greats. So fearless and SOOO creative! The choices! The embellishments! And all from a place of truth. (Sidebar: Janet McTeer was in the West End version!) And no one actor could shine truly without the weight of all the others. AWEsome.

James Longley's Documentary "Iraq in Fragments"

2009-05-29T00:38:00.020-04:00

I know I'm a few years late on this, but it's must-see! This film is an incredible documentary and journey. Gritty realism. Poetic imagery. Poetic story-telling. No talking heads. No reportage. Only the voices of the subjects as we see their lives unfold and their turbulent environments in these unspeakable times. Follows the life of a Sunna, a Shia, and a Kurd, and glimpses into each one's personal and cultural-specific struggle. 3 small stories that resonate on a broader collective scale.

The film has such a strong and "neat" narrative (with an impressionistic collage of visual data), that it almost feels scripted. Reminds me of Mira Nair's "Salaam Bombay," where the line between fact and fiction is almost non-existent, except instead of "actors" conforming to the director's narrative film, here, the director conforms to the lives of his subjects. The director/cameraman/editor/composer/producer James Longley set off and spent over a year in Iraq with 2 Panasonic DVX's, a shotgun mike, and a G4 laptop. Click this link for a great production article. A one man band, embedded in the lives of his subjects, resulting in a film so personal, powerful and beautiful. This film gives me much inspiration in making a great film even when flying solo with minimal technology, which is what I'll be doing when I set off to shoot a documentary in Russia this summer. Solo not by choice, but because of resources... but it also helps in the camoulflage. "Iraq in Fragments" is a great example of the saying, "necessity is the mother of invention."

Directed by Dougal Wilson: "What's a Girl to Do" by Bat for Lashes

2009-05-27T20:33:00.006-04:00

Bat for lashes | What’s a girl to do | Dougal Wilson

Simple. Lovely.

"Terminator: Salvation"

2009-05-27T16:55:00.006-04:00

What way to kick the summer off than with a summer blockbuster movie on Memorial day. "Terminator" and a popcorn-coke combo, I sat with excitement as the lights went down, watching each bang bang trailer, waiting for take-off. Opening credits...McG as director? I was shocked and disappointed. Even back in my music video days, I wasn't a big fan of his work. There was nothing behind his style and sensibility (surfer frat boy), just a look, and not one I liked, repeated through all his work ad nauseum. A one trick pony. Then he lands "Charlie's Angels" which felt so cartoony and off-brand. But I am happy to say, he did a phenomenal job with "Terminator."

It was meticulous in its detail without losing the story, which often gets sacrificed in fx-heavy flix. I had confidence in this one because of Christian Bale. I loved the introduction of new actors whose work I didn't know... where did they find Sam Worthington??!! I heard his Aussie accent peep in 2 scenes, and yes, he's one of those. It's like a secret base camp for Hollywood actors down-under. They just show up with all these tested skills and on-screen confidence. And despite her eye-candy status, very happy to see a (half) Korean woman, Moon Bloodgood, in an action flic with a relatively meaty role. Whoa, between John Cho in "Star Trek," and her, I think we've filled our quota for Asian-American actors in big films for the century!

I loved the simplicity of the story and symbolism, and how they filled it with all the tools of the trade (sfx was awesome) to aggrandize its scope. The action scenes were operas of machine, metal, dust and fire, physical manifestations of the conflict that raged within the main characters, or tests of those characters to reveal their true natures. I loved the intertwined dual character stories of John Connor (JC) on a mission to save humanity (he is a voice on the radio speaking to humans isolated and living in fear, to keep faith) and Marcus Wright (possibly ref. Marcus Aurelius?) who is given a big fat sci-fi second chance to make good of his immoral past life, the hell which was his first life. He died and is reborn.

Man versus machine. Man is complex, has a drive to love, has a drive for good, has purpose. The heart is the human side. Machine is our inhuman side, the side that acts without conscience... it is absolute death itself, thriving on annihilation, and appropriately, is built as an unyielding skeleton. These machines, the dark side, have a life of their own. We have no control over them. They seem overwhelming in their power. They are the cause of the apocalypse. We are no match for them. The sides seem so unevenly matched (thanks to sfx). But because of the divinity of compassion, empathy, love, everything we associate with having heart, humanity will always win against the machines/dark side.

"If we lose what makes us human, then what's the point of preserving it?" JC barks at the military commander, who wants to act on his ripe and fortuitous chance to destroy Machine headquarters, despite all the human civilians kept imprisoned there. It criticizes war when it is total annihilation, when soldiers/nations, lose sight of its purpose or greater mission... that chaos and thrust for destruction to "win" at any cost, ultimately is self-destructive. (Click for link to an in-depth and amazing article by Noam Chomsky here). The enemy has already defeated you. Think back to the immorality of Nixon & co. flatlining mass areas with no regard for civilians in Southeast Asia during the Vietnam War (in any case, in an already immoral war); Bush & co.'s campaign in Iraq and Afghanistan (also an immoral war); soldiers acting out: Japanese colonialism in South Korea and Southeast Asia, Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib...

On a lighter side, the Ducati's (see below) in this film and their movements were amazing! Made me wanna run out and get one.

"Astral Traveling" by Pharoah Saunders

2009-05-27T00:24:00.040-04:00

Astral Traveling - Pharoah San...

Thank goodness for my Sagittarianess for quick boredom... I got so bored about worrying about ailments I've had this year which sends me to the doctor, that the boredom has created a new path of seeing. How exciting!

Hypochondria matched with a year of loved ones passing, and my favorite aunt whom I heard yesterday, was diagnosed with a malignant tumor, plus a panicked sense of Time (seeing age in my parents), sent me down a nervous path where a fear of death ruled. I thought it through and through, I meditated, did different things to let go...it all helped... I knew better than to worry, but still, I worried. And ow! Does that worry hurt! It aches in the stomach. It tugs at my breath, squeezing my chest. It takes away restful sleep and loose shoulders. This worry exacerbates the original ailment I'm worrying about. This worry has me questioning faith. Thank goodness for my daily yogic and creative adventuring... they bring me back to center, and give me flight. But this worry bubbles in my subconscious, a volcano erupting in the depths of the ocean.

This evening, recounting such joy and wonderment of all the amazing things I learned today, through participation, observation, conversation... connected to growth and discoveries of the last few years... it dawned on me, and it stuck... why can't death also be an extension of my personality? Why can't I endow it with all the attributes of how specifically, I see and experience life on a daily basis! An endless journey of learning, curiosity, adventure, play, a dance, a song, a kaleidoscope of colors and smells, so many amazing things that keep expanding... can I apply it to death as well?

I am of the belief that in life, our filter, the outlook we choose to take on life, is what we see. The seer is what is seen. "God is what we make it," as the saying goes. And thus, who's to say we can't choose that as how we make our final journey through this body and beyond? So I have decided tonight, that I will now literally define death as an adventure, with all the joy that an adventure holds! The passion, joy and fascination I have for learning and experiencing this world, is also what death's journey is. Let's give it up for astral traveling! Close your eyes and listen to Pharoah. Let the pied piper take you on this sonic journey. Click here if music box doesn't show up above.

"Terminator: Salvation"

2009-05-27T00:24:00.031-04:00

Directed by Encyclopedia Pictura: Björk's "Wanderlust"

2009-05-24T11:49:00.013-04:00

Wanderluster is I... This music video by the duo collectively known as Encyclopedia Pictura is absolutely my heart. It takes me back to a month-long walk I took by myself around Annapurna, and time spent in and around the Himalayas, in Nepal and Tibet. The mountains, the god images/meanings, the wild yak's place in this environment, what all these experiences connect in your heart and mind... and this song just captures how big those mountains feel, the mountains' reminder of how expansive life is. I love the journey, the story of this music video. I love how lo-tech it feels by the puppetry/costume, and the hi-tech post-pro animation and color saturation. For example... the river as animated clay strands (I believe)... and how they animate! Check out the "Wanderlust" video in hi-res and in 3D, and without this weird cropping blogspot does.

And just a general note, Björk is just, simply put, amazing. Infusing an organic sensibility and a soul's openness through electronica and of course her unrestrained voice. There is no separation between all these realms. Her "Medúlla" album, which is entirely made up of human vocals done acapella, is a testament to this and a true wonder. The range of sounds and rhythms that the voice is capable of accessing is breathtaking. It makes the argument that electronica is not machine "noise," but is a range of sonic vibrations, frequencies that come from the depths of our being. It's a realm that we exist in and machines are just an extension of that. I mean, yeah duh, we know that, we created the machines, but to prove that experientially is a whole other story.

Directed by Chris Milk: Gnarl's Barkley's "Who's Gonna Save My Soul"

2009-05-24T02:33:00.012-04:00

Gnarls Barkley - Who's Gonna Save My Soul from Chris Milk on Vimeo.

Awwwesome short form film as music video... so conceptually poignant and powerful and HILARIOUS!!!!... is Gnarls Barkley, "Who's Gonna Save My Soul," directed by Chris Milk... also one of my favorite songs on GB's last album. This film gets right to the heart of the matter, yes, pun intended. Be forewarned, the images are very powerful -- know they'll forever change your experience of the song! Love directors who can do that with a song that's already intense in its own right. And love bands that dare to go there! GB--these guys are so good with their whole audio/visual package.

B-Hive Collective "Voter Registration Drive" October 2008

2009-05-20T01:29:00.013-04:00

B-Hive Collective "Voter Registration Drive" October 2008 from Karen B. Song on Vimeo.

Footage I shot/edited of the B-Hive Collective's Voter Registration Drive held at Club Deity on Atlantic Avenue, Brooklyn, in October 2008. The B-Hive is a collective of Brooklyn-based Independent artists/activists of various disciplines. It was a very special gathering that night with some great performances.
In order of appearance:
Pyeng Thredgill
Shae Fiol
Ainsely Burrows
Todd Woodward AKA "Woody"
Kevin Powell
Sparlha Swa
Drew Nix and the Elephant Army

Guruji Pattabhi Jois

2009-05-18T20:27:00.002-04:00

Today Guruji Pattabhi Jois passed away at the age of 94. I sit here in remembrance of the time, all too short, I was able to study Ashtanga Yoga with him in Mysore, India, in 2002. Always wanted to go back for an extended period of time, but "life just happened." I thought I would finally get to go back this year, but it was time for Guruji to go. He has generously and compassionately touched the lives of thousands of people and lives on through his students who continue his tradition. I want to dedicate today to all the great teachers I have been blessed to have had, overseas, in New York, those who wear the guru hat, as well as people and animals in my life who I've learn so much from, who enable me to experience this life more fully and more beautifully than I would without them. Namaskar to all my Guruji's.

"Mommie Dearest" & 24 Hour Play

2009-05-17T13:12:00.004-04:00

I was involved in a great event last night, "24 Hour Playfun." Groups of director/writer/actors were randomly selected and given 24 hours to write, rehearse and perform a play. It went up last night to benefit DCTV/Pro-TV and Dramatic Adventure's ACTion Ecuador project. The event reminded me of all the great talent that embodies this city. Just breathing, living, creating. AWE-some. A lot of the work and talents were absolutely brilliant. I had an all-female posse. I worked with Brooke Volkert who wrote a horror piece, B-movie, murder/revenge story... of course which was about a lesbian love story so great, that one would kill for the other... oh and it's set on the Jersey shore. Hilarious. I received it at 8am yesterday, like a gift on Christmas morning when I was a kid, not knowing what to expect, and got straight to work. John Waters, "Friday the 13th" series, film noir and pulp fiction genres, David Lynch, Parker Posey in "House of Yes," Joan Crawford in "Mildred Pierce,"and of course, as portrayed in "Mommie Dearest," all swam in my head. How to create the environment of this on an empty stage with no tech? Well, we start and end with Patsy Cline on the speakers of course..."I Love You So Much It Hurts"... then have those insistent film noir ocean waves crashing through the entire play. Shut off all the lights so the play happens in the dark, put flashlights in everyone's hand, make it about the human sound of fear and what you can't see, let the writer's unadulterated language bring the funny, and have the scared/tortured girl scream high shrills... a cheap gimick to scare the audience in the dark. End with the dead girl's animated arm flashing a flashlight to silhoette the final kiss, creating the classic 50's vignette ending, I think my memory refers to "I Love Lucy"? The only thing we could've used was rehearsing with the flashlights as the performance was the first time the actors used them in the dark. They had so much to juggle. And to make sure the flashlights are more directed, the quality of the light source, as well as how it is used for dramatic effect by the actors. Not all of it worked, but overall I was very happy and learned so much from the experience. I love this kind of instinctual improv work. The 24 hours was all about PLAY! What fun. Three rules of the game...1. Play starts with "It was an accident" 2. Has the line "I've always wanted to go to Australia 3. Use 1 of 3 props (mirror, metal box, sheriff badge)
An excerpt from the play...
Tricia: Oh, you want to go to Australia? Maybe I want to go places too.
Sally: What are you talking about?
Tricia: But I can’t, can I? No. I have to stay and take care of my brother.
Sally: Billy…
Tricia: My paralyzed brother.
Regan: And whose fault is that?
Sally: It was an accident.
Tricia: Everything’s an accident with you.
Sally: I didn’t mean to.
Tricia: You should have been paying attention!
Sally: I was only three!
Regan: Some people never change.
Tricia: You must have seen him crawling in the grass in front of your tricycle.
Sally: I didn’t. Not until it was too late. And by then I couldn’t stop. There was this sickening thud.
Tricia: You snapped his spine.
Regan: He never learned how to walk. And it’s your fault.
Sally: No
Regan: Now it’s payback time.

A Dare & "Enfant Géopolitique" by Salvador Dalí

2009-05-13T00:45:00.001-04:00

"It is not necessary for the public to know whether I am joking or whether I am serious, just as it is not necessary for me to know it myself." Salvador Dalí, 1968

Happy Birthday (a day late) Salvador! Wanted to share one of my favorite paintings, "Enfant Géopolitique" which either lives in St. Petersburg, with the gorgeous collection at the Dalí Museum, or was a part of his dizzyingly divine and ridiculously massive retrospective a few years back that I was lucky enough to have caught in Venice, of all places! Also it may be out of print, but if you can get your hands on Dalí's "Diary of a Genius," it's a must read. He has such a delicious voice. Hilarious, thorough, spiritual, theatrical... the diary is a lovesong to Gala, his wife, and an ode to poop. He's just amazing.

So... here's the dare. In the spirit of play (as in sandbox), I dare you to write a play (as in drama) with me, a conversation piece or a long joke, based on/inspired by the painting above. Or like Mad Libs. No rules. Or we'll make them up as we go along if even need be. Then we can try and structure a narrative later, or not. In any case, going for a collaborative group effort here. You can create your own character, or write in the voice of another character someone else introduced. You can add just a stage direction. A song. A sound effect. Character actions. As many items as you'd like to contribute in one shot. I'll start it off...

At rise: The dark sky illuminates dramatically as the sun burns through the passing storm clouds. We hear remnants of distant thunder getting farther and farther away. A mysterious figure dressed in red crosses the stage in a rush. A large elongated drop of blood falls in slow motion from the sky, lands on the desert floor. The blood puddle gets larger and larger. Enter Rishi, downstage. The figure in red passes through again in the distance.

Rishi: "Father! Where are you going? I'm hungry." Figure in red disappears. Rishi stops before the puddle and examines it.

Schiller's "Mary Stuart": A Universe of Inner Conflict

2009-05-09T13:06:00.000-04:00

While writing this morning, my father interrupts to tell me, with bright-eyed boyish enthusiasm, that the worst of the economic crisis is behind us! Ok, I respond reluctantly, how are you so sure? And with all manner of authority, he says that a "stress test" was done, and all indicators point in the direction of economic growth. Hiding my smile, I ask one of the most cynical and skeptical (and yet optimistic) persons I know (yes, my father is a Sagittarian)… um, "stress test?"…. Yes! Stress test!…. the term, a shield of security, inspiring confidence, hope and happiness in him. I ask, who and what dictates this “stress test?” He doesn’t answer, but repeats that the “stress test” results show great promise that everything is changing, at which point, he rushes back to the incantatory television set. We both knew that my dissection of the term was irrelevant. What I was calling into question was the absurdity of the system of thought that the “stress test” and his hope, was built upon. This newly coined "official" term, splashed across the financial world's latest news, gaining momentum, gaining a collective agreement, blowing winds to generate mass happiness and mass action!

Despite the plethora of economic "scientists" in the field who factor an interpretation of human psychology, nowhere does human aspiration, begin as whim, emotion, speculation, and transform itself with such determination, into something "concrete," as it does on Wall Street. Confidence is inspired and people act. Value is created, prices rise, capital moves, ground movements happen, people are hired/fired, and societies restructured. All based on a collective hope and self-generated momentum. A self-fulfilled prophecy. One can argue the parallels in political decision-making through the drama of last night's performance of "Mary Stuart" on Broadway.

In Mary Stuart's world that is literally painted black and white through the play’s art direction, absolutely nothing is black and white. We are presented with drama rife with human inner conflict, murky and grey: two Hamlets rolled into one play: Queen Elizabeth and Queen Mary. Every character onstage is struggling to lock in a clear-cut black-and-white sense of order and thus, a sense of security. But of course security is an illusion, especially when power of this scale is at stake. Nothing comes for free. There is no peace on either side. It's not even a battle of choosing the lesser evil. It's an even-handed game—either choice carrying equally dire consequences.

Queen Elizabeth is faced with the dilemma, to behead her cousin and commit regicide, or not to behead her cousin. On the one hand, she holds an insistent fear of losing power and her life. On the other, an eternal sin on her conscience. She's kept Mary in prison for 19 years at the onset of the play. Although forces challenge her in both directions, she is at an impasse; this standstill tempered by reason and a vision of her future. What ultimately tips the scale, and seals her fate, is a matter of impulse, speculation, and a momentary passion.

The whisper of “public opinion” to behead Mary is presented as gaining momentum, and is fed to her with urgency by her advisers who fear their own positions of power. When an assassination attempt is made on her life, it provides fodder to justify her "God-given" right to action: it is divine intervention that saved her and is proof of her rightful claim to the throne. Then in a manner of fateful timing, she also discovers the betrayal of someone who claimed to have loved her. She believes her “womanly” emotions betrayed her, and in an effort to gain safety again, and in an effort to be like her father, to be “manly,” she “hardens” and issues the order to behead. But this “hardening” is misguided since it also is of the realm of the emotions… namely fear.

The fateful timing of all these events initiates her move. The standstill of action to behead or not to behead, shifts when the catalyst of emotion… passion, anger, pride and fear…. takes speed. But even then, when it's time to cross the line, she can't give the concrete order: it comes off as subtle as an exhale, but that which carries with it the momentum of the butterfly that flaps its wings and generates a tornado on the other side of the planet. The breath carries with it the great hope of her absolute power.

When all is said and done, this fate seems to have been there all her life. It was just the ticking time bomb of her conscience (and the world she was born into), just waiting to go off and release itself into the material world. Despite years of restraint, she rides a non-stop train of a self-fulfilled prophecy that had but one track to travel on. She was destined to act and manifest in the material world, the stuff of her inner conflict and her greatest desire.

This is merely one aspect of the play. The hell and slavery of lusty guilt, power, and pride; the eternal struggle for humility, security, and peace of mind; the persistence of conscience, karma, and an inherited fate, are all among the investigations of this play. Right now, I do not have succinct words to describe Mary’s unfolding range of inner turmoil, more intense because of her lack of access to her power. I am still chewing that food. But I will say, the journey through her turmoil, was one of the most amazing experiences I've ever witnessed on stage. The magnitude of the guilt and pride she has to wrestle with, in having her husband killed early in life, and in losing the highest ranking of her times, matched with the fact that the position of power is tied to the idea of being chosen by God, is epic. Because of Janet McTeer's monumental performance as Mary, we see the evenness of rank and power between this imprisoned woman and the queen, and her soul's bloody wrestle with her karma.

Deftly performed by an ensemble of master actors led by Harriet Walter (Elizabeth) and my heroine McTeer (Mary), who changed my life as Nora in Ibsen’s “The Doll House” over a decade ago, for which she won the Tony Award, and she will win one again for this role, hands down; impeccably and judiciously directed by Phyllida Lloyd; scene and costume crafted with Anthony Ward's poignant hand; all these elements feed the fire of this powerhouse of a play. Witnessing these storytellers, these shamans, was something so awesome, it had me gasping for air and teary-eyed, left me trembling and breathless. The actors took me on a journey where I was able to live several lives through these characters and experience all the history they embodied. The experience so great that I had to sit and let all my bodily and psychic functions adjust as I re-entered the Broadhurt Theater, New York City, 2009, as the theater emptied out. Coincidentally, it was a full moon and I discovered today, that it was also McTeer's birthday! Aaah, the magic of it all.

The stage design was minimalist. The colors, monochromatic. It was designed by Ward who did last year's "Macbeth" with Patrick Stewart, but without the industrial quality of that production. When the actors moved through this space, there was this feeling of a seismic shift. The juxtaposition of actors in space, were such powerful events and created landscapes of meaning. There was nothing to distract from the inner conflict of each character and the movement of the story. And when color was introduced, and it only happened twice, it made me jump. It was epic.

Contemporary suits were chosen for the men and I believe it’s a strong choice. It avoids the distraction of period costumes, of our judgment of masculine shapes that hold different standards then and now, and bridges these male soldiers into the context of our century of conformist political and corporate power. At one point in the play, I imagined George W. Bush being advised by all these people who create this sense of urgency and fear. They ultimately sell this fear to the public, but it starts with collectively planting that seed of their own fears in the leader first.

The play’s fictionalized account of history is the story of Queen Mary and Queen Elizabeth wrapped in a cosmic dance with each other, as they are catalysts for each other’s immortal wrestle with her own conscience.

The Jesters and Gene Wilder

2009-05-08T14:32:00.002-04:00

Today I've been thinking about the dieties and spirits of the crossroads: the trickster gods, jesters, gatekeepers, Ganesha, Elegua, among them...they open doors, clear and pave new paths. I also found myself going back to something that makes me, my gut and brain laugh (my favorite pastime), time and time again...Mel Brooks' classic, "Young Frankenstein." Funny enough, what a coincidence, and not...Gene Wilder, is a gemini, the jester zodiac sign!

Sound, music, breath

2009-05-06T17:54:00.001-04:00

For the entire first half of the day (I think I fed the hour parking meter 4 times!) I had the luxury of having a lengthy and awesomely invigorating conversation about all kinds of environmental issues, storytelling and digital era ways of mobilizing communities to action, with an old friend. Jennifer Galvin is a documentarian and educator, to say the least, with PhD's in marine biology and public health. Her film "Free Swim" addresses in a beautifully unique way, how the "disconnection with one’s natural environment underscores many of today’s global health challenges." Mainly we were connecting the dots between all the movements out there that address this symbiotic human-environment relationship. Sound pollution came up as one issue that affected both of our projects which I think is currently beyond society-at-large's collective realm of consciousness. And the ramifications are profound, at least potentially, what we don't know.

A recent landmark victory won by Russian environmentalists, with a coalition of Chinese and U.S. environmentalists, stopped the oil and gas exploration in Siberia to save an endagered specie of the Western Gray Whale, where the noise pollution generated from these projects could potentially wipe out them out. It's a major win, but it also can prove temporary. More on that story can be found on Russia Today. Environmental noise pollution in our waters grows as our machine, gas/oil and military activities increase. This poses a serious threat to so many species of underwater animals. And the fact that we know more about outer space than we do about what's happening in our waters, provides no comfort. Water is our crucial ally to surival on this planet, which includes the maintenance of our oceans and the life in it.

So this investigation of noise pollution is just the tip of the iceberg. How will what is happening to animal species mimic our own well-being? What does this mean about our exposure to electro-magnetic fields through everyday objects and public spaces, and the introduction of new and more wireless devices? What are the ramifications of all these new kinds of vibrations to the planet?

I think about Sanskrit mantras where the sound of the word, is what the word means. So you say the mantra, and that is the vibration, the "thing" you are evoking in the universe. You say it 50 times, that's more of that vibration or "thing" you're creating. The ancients' acknowledged this realm of subtle vibrations. It's the realm of animals, insects and plants. But there's this drive that existed, which mirrors that capitalistic drive, of human civilization's drive and will to be with perhaps a new set of priorities? Or old priorities that gained momentum? And comes with serious tunnel vision, where we're out of touch. We're collectively disconnected from a conscious awareness of the sound/vibration realm, among other realms. We're just not listening. And that this drive of civilization spiraled upward, outward and forward motored by fear (and perhaps too much heartbreak?), creates this extreme imbalance. Like taking yin and yang out of it's womblike circle projected into linear space. (Sidenote: I love in the movie "Contact" starring Jodie Foster, how intergalaxy travel changes from a projectile rocket, to a womblike globe, and all the things it symbolized, including the shift of the idea of here/there separation to travelling within.)

Anyway I've been thinking a lot about sound and vibration these days. Discovering horses in the wild having the ability to hear 100 yards away the adrenalin-induced quickening heartbeat of their predator. How does our own heartbeat, a vibration generator, not affect the spaces we travel through, the people we come across? It is mainly as an actor and yogi, that I have had the gift of the opportunity to investigate this in a very personal, non-intellectual, experiential way, in my study and work on voice/breath, and through accent studies (and being a linguaphile), the creation of sounds with all the amazing tools we are born with. The vibrations you feel are mind-numbing, in the best possible sense, and fascinating. More on that later. Anyway, today's entry is devoted to the exploration of sound, breath, and ultimately the music that comes with faith. In the meantime, a singalong to the video posted above...

Sailing heart-ships... through broken harbors... out on the waves in the night...
Still the searcher... must ride the dark horse... racing alone in his fright...
Tell me why, tell me why... "Tell Me Why" by Neil Young

"Untitled" Watercolor on Paper by Koichi Enomoto

2009-05-05T15:19:00.001-04:00

I don't know much about this Japanese artist, but his work grabbed me. There isn't much info about him or his work out there in the internet world, despite the fact he has had exhibitions at the Saatchi UK and Deitch N.Y.C. where I glimpsed his work a few years back. His motifs beckons my obsessions with worldwide pagan and shamanic cultures. This creature most immediately reminds me of the ritual costumes of our indigenous Hopi peoples. But, I see motifs that point to a more global sensibility, a first-world metropolis' information-fed stream of consciousness, an arousal of many different cultures moshed together disconnected from their sources. I don't know much about Shinto-ism but I wonder whether these images tinker with his own traditions. It reminds me of Korean and Nepali shamans, faces obscured by fringy things, the color and ornamentation of Mongolian shaman's costumes, the firewall in Nepali/Tibetan/Bhutanese Thanka paintings of wrathful gods. The eyes and living surface remind me of Alex Grey's transcendental work. I love the transmogrification of forms. The little girl throws me though. Something very sinister-feeling about her. Perhaps throwing the cutsie Japanese girl icon of Hello Kitty world-isms into a tail-spin. These girls seem to come up in several of his works. Click on the image for greater detail.

"Dragzilla" by Lola Rock'N'Rolla

2009-05-05T14:52:00.001-04:00

Just yesterday I reconnected with Lola to shoot a job with me and I got to peep the trailer for her film for the first time. Thrasher horror b-movies are her thing. "Dragzilla"'s got a giant drag queen, drag king Murray Hill... short, midgets in pig/elf masks, and an army of Wonder Womans with lethal boobs. Didn't realize it til I saw it, but I think we all need a little daily dose of camp in our lives. Rock on Lola!

"The Blue Room" by Eugene Richards

2009-05-04T21:00:00.001-04:00

There are artists whose work you come across that leave an indelible mark. Photographer Eugene Richards with his 2008 book, "The Blue Room," is one of them. It's like Robert Frank's "The Americans," except it's of abandoned houses. Every frame perfectly composed, a story unto itself. There's a poetry of objects, of color, of decay, a life once lived... time and weather. What's interesting also is that he seems to be known for his human subjects, using a style of stark human realism as a means of raising social awareness. But here is a collection devoid of human form. Just presence, ghosts, and in the case of a few animals, beautiful forms left behind in the form of freshly half-eaten carcasses in the snow, or an owl, stuck in it's last flight, pre-decay. Perhaps it's an attempt to grasp at the elemental essence underneath all the "noise" of his life's body of work, of disease, poverty, addiction, suffering... the houses replacing human form, remnants of a carcass without its life spirit. He captures the life energy of decay itself, its unstoppable march.

I imagine what Richards' cross-country meanderings must've been like. Moving through that country where time moves slooowly. Breathing through these spaces. Looking and capturing time itself.

"Happpy-Go-Lucky" by Mike Leigh

2009-05-04T20:34:00.002-04:00

Ok, so here is my attempt at a blog. I've toyed with the idea of starting one. Got bored with the idea. Wasn't sure what I could blog about. But here I am and we'll see how long it'll last. It was Mike Leigh, one of my all-time director heros, who inspired this. On my way to L.A. finally got to watch Happy-Go-Lucky on Netflix DVD. If only they would show such an amazing film on the plane ("Yes Man" was playing, no thank you—although I do like the premise of it). All the actors, as in any Leigh film, were amazing. Sally Hawkins as Poppy, the heroine of this story and my new beacon saintess, won the Golden Globe and I'm outraged...how did she NOT get an Oscar nomination for this one? Anyway, I hope to see a lot more of her on the big screen. And the working class British language is just so colorful, poetic, musical, endearing. It's a world I love travelling to. What makes the story so powerful is Poppy's absolute faith in goodness. She's innocent in the deepest knowingest way. A Pure Faith. And through her, we are able to see the violence that tugs; the violence of the human condition, that rubs up against her, despite her rosy outlook on life. What an exploration.