But I will say I'm ashamed. And frustrated. I saw my first opera at 12, at La Scala theater, Milan, my hometown. It was Puccini's Madame Butterfly. Last act, how a butterfly dies: with an immaculate kimono, on an immaculate stage, the katana firmly pushed in her own belly, falling on her knees, bending over, opening a laquer-red fan underneath her body. From where I was sitting, it looked like a pool of blood growing and growing and growing...
"Three major Italian houses could face government takeovers because of growing financial problems, the London Times reports.
Venice's La Fenice has a deficit of 3 million euros; Genoa's Teatro Carlo Felice expects a loss of 4.6 million euros; Naples' Teatro San Carlo projects a shortfall of close to 7 million euros. Italian law says that any opera house with a deficit of over 5 million euros will be declared bankrupt and placed under the oversight of a government appointee.
The opera houses blame the government for their financial problems. Prime minister Silvio Berlusconi has slashed the country's arts budget, much of which is spent on subsidizing opera, by one third".
The again, the local scene is not turning my frown into a smile. What if I told you a Colorado music teacher tried to pique the curiosity of the first, second, and third graders in one of her classes about opera, chosing a video of Gounod's Faust, to teach the children about bass and tenor voices, the use of props, and "trouser roles" in opera, only to find herself facing the following accusations: being a lesbian (I guess in the Capital State of Evangelicals it's considered a crime), promoting homosexuality and devil worshipping? She was forced to take an administrative leave.
Friday, February 03, 2006
for Metaviz
... who enjoys posting visual stimulae, something along the line. Why? Because I sometimes feel just like this supernatural woman. And because it's beautiful.
EARPLUG ISSUE #61: Design Credit Decoylab
EARPLUG ISSUE #61: Design Credit Decoylab
For the young at heart
Kenny has always been my favourite South Park character... See what happens when I get my hands on a "create your own character" online game?
Ladies and gentlemen, meet ... Lenny.
Dedicated to alpha, who dared say I'm not funny when I blog. I didn't ring his neck just because we where at the Guggenheim museum and I already had enough on my hands - fans to fend off and Art to take in (Art, what Art? I was so sick for all I know it could have been a Dubuffet show, not the very good David Smith show that it actually was).
IN-YOUR-FACE alpha ;)
Ladies and gentlemen, meet ... Lenny.
Dedicated to alpha, who dared say I'm not funny when I blog. I didn't ring his neck just because we where at the Guggenheim museum and I already had enough on my hands - fans to fend off and Art to take in (Art, what Art? I was so sick for all I know it could have been a Dubuffet show, not the very good David Smith show that it actually was).
IN-YOUR-FACE alpha ;)
Monday, January 30, 2006
on the S-word
With regards to my previous post: one of my most faithful readers found it disturbing. Given the fact that she's neither prissy nor naive, I wondered what in hell could have caused her to pucker up and shake her head while reading it. I respect her opinion very much, you know.
Two options: option one, that she may have thought I actually tried the practice I discuss with my boss in said entry (inserting you-know-what you-know-where). .Well, if that is the case, no i haven't. Not that I think it would be despicable, I'm just stating a fact. Option two, that certain taboos are tough to beat, no matter how open-minded or experienced one is. In this country, I believe, there's a gap of knowledge, awareness, acceptance when it comes to ... the S. (I know I haven't discovered anything new. I know this is only true as far as the general public goes, we're not talking about Madame Styx here)
With regards to another S-word... as I told my man Avenger, someone at the New York Mag clearly isn't getting any: for the second time in a little more than a month their cover story is about sex. From the February, 6 issue: "Love and the Ambisexual, Heteroflexible Teen by Alex Morris - Researchers find it shocking that 11 percent of American girls between 15 and 19 claim to have same-sex encounters. Meet Alair, her unconsummated crush Jane, their friend Elle, her bisexual boyfriend, and the rest of the heteroflexible gang".
Off the top of my head, again, is any of this new? Or is there only more awareness, due to a greater media coverage (oh, the beauty of coincidences: see, the "Brokeback mountain effect") and an increased tendency to speakout (and showoff) among teens?
Two options: option one, that she may have thought I actually tried the practice I discuss with my boss in said entry (inserting you-know-what you-know-where). .Well, if that is the case, no i haven't. Not that I think it would be despicable, I'm just stating a fact. Option two, that certain taboos are tough to beat, no matter how open-minded or experienced one is. In this country, I believe, there's a gap of knowledge, awareness, acceptance when it comes to ... the S. (I know I haven't discovered anything new. I know this is only true as far as the general public goes, we're not talking about Madame Styx here)
With regards to another S-word... as I told my man Avenger, someone at the New York Mag clearly isn't getting any: for the second time in a little more than a month their cover story is about sex. From the February, 6 issue: "Love and the Ambisexual, Heteroflexible Teen by Alex Morris - Researchers find it shocking that 11 percent of American girls between 15 and 19 claim to have same-sex encounters. Meet Alair, her unconsummated crush Jane, their friend Elle, her bisexual boyfriend, and the rest of the heteroflexible gang".
Off the top of my head, again, is any of this new? Or is there only more awareness, due to a greater media coverage (oh, the beauty of coincidences: see, the "Brokeback mountain effect") and an increased tendency to speakout (and showoff) among teens?
Wednesday, January 25, 2006
Do I get a medal at the end of the Game?
(in case you were wondering, it IS a quote - Reality bites, Winona Ryder's line, kinda sorta)
The following conversation took place this morning, as I was massaging my boss' wife. Just before discussing the practice of inserting pieces of ginger root into the anus, bursting pleasure guaranteed (it's like Dentyne fire for ass), with my boss. No, I'm not an intern at Fleshbot, alas. And massage and discussion occurred at different times. And I don't have sex with my boss either although I happen to discuss it, for various reasons (preparing his interview with Hugh Hefner, commenting on the humongous hickey on my neck, courtesy of .amp).
M (Me). BW (Boss' wife).
BW (after 2 minutes of shoulder rubbing) - WOW, you're really amazingly good at this!
M (always the modest) - Thank you, thank you.
BW - No, seriously, it's fantastic! So, wait a minute ... your men get THIS?
M (trying hard not to crack up at the thought of what else my men get before, during and after massages) - Well, yeah (sigh)
BW - WOW. You spoil them.
M - Uh, you think?
BW - Yeah. I mean, too much, too soon. It's like with dogs in training, you know? You can't stuff them with treats when you just started teaching them not to piss on your 2K$ Persian rug.
M - Well, I guess. Of course, that would explain a lot of things.
BW - Such as?
M - My love life, for the past say TEN years?
BW - Share with the class.
M - Well, I'm always the best fuck they've ever had (I guess I was already transitioning to my following convo with boss here). The most arresting smile they've ever seen. The most beautiful face they've ever set their eyes on. The best cuisine they've ever tasted. The most supportive friend. The most elegant woman. The smartest brain.
BW - Ok?
M - Then how come I'm alone?
BW - Well, it's always you leaving them right?
M - Not the ones I really want. Those, for one reason or the other, slip through my fingers.
BW - Well, there you have it my friend.
M - Too much too soon?
BW - Too much too soon.
M - Yeah, I guess you're right. Sometimes I feel like I'm a a car-dealer trying to sell a used La Sabre. Actually, I feel like I'm the used car, trying too hard to sell itself.
BW (turning around, actually tearing up) - Aw... don't say so or you're gonna make me cry! If YOU are insicure, then there's no hope for the rest of us.
M - So, I mean, so WHAT? Like, I'm too perfect or something? Do I get a medal at the end of this game?
Because ladies, you know, it IS a crying game. Sans Forrest Whitaker.
Ok, off to discuss gingerized anuses now. See ya.
The following conversation took place this morning, as I was massaging my boss' wife. Just before discussing the practice of inserting pieces of ginger root into the anus, bursting pleasure guaranteed (it's like Dentyne fire for ass), with my boss. No, I'm not an intern at Fleshbot, alas. And massage and discussion occurred at different times. And I don't have sex with my boss either although I happen to discuss it, for various reasons (preparing his interview with Hugh Hefner, commenting on the humongous hickey on my neck, courtesy of .amp).
M (Me). BW (Boss' wife).
BW (after 2 minutes of shoulder rubbing) - WOW, you're really amazingly good at this!
M (always the modest) - Thank you, thank you.
BW - No, seriously, it's fantastic! So, wait a minute ... your men get THIS?
M (trying hard not to crack up at the thought of what else my men get before, during and after massages) - Well, yeah (sigh)
BW - WOW. You spoil them.
M - Uh, you think?
BW - Yeah. I mean, too much, too soon. It's like with dogs in training, you know? You can't stuff them with treats when you just started teaching them not to piss on your 2K$ Persian rug.
M - Well, I guess. Of course, that would explain a lot of things.
BW - Such as?
M - My love life, for the past say TEN years?
BW - Share with the class.
M - Well, I'm always the best fuck they've ever had (I guess I was already transitioning to my following convo with boss here). The most arresting smile they've ever seen. The most beautiful face they've ever set their eyes on. The best cuisine they've ever tasted. The most supportive friend. The most elegant woman. The smartest brain.
BW - Ok?
M - Then how come I'm alone?
BW - Well, it's always you leaving them right?
M - Not the ones I really want. Those, for one reason or the other, slip through my fingers.
BW - Well, there you have it my friend.
M - Too much too soon?
BW - Too much too soon.
M - Yeah, I guess you're right. Sometimes I feel like I'm a a car-dealer trying to sell a used La Sabre. Actually, I feel like I'm the used car, trying too hard to sell itself.
BW (turning around, actually tearing up) - Aw... don't say so or you're gonna make me cry! If YOU are insicure, then there's no hope for the rest of us.
M - So, I mean, so WHAT? Like, I'm too perfect or something? Do I get a medal at the end of this game?
Because ladies, you know, it IS a crying game. Sans Forrest Whitaker.
Ok, off to discuss gingerized anuses now. See ya.
Monday, January 23, 2006
what I want to see next at Moma
Pixar exhibit at Moma with my man .amp, had NO idea so much work went into the pre-production of animation. Before opening a door (a-ha! Monsters Inc's doors bridging the world of monsters with little kids' closets... genius) on John Lasseter's world I thought colorscripts were upgraded versions of the color palettes used by fashion designers and home decorators. Uh, nope.
Loaded with visual endorphins I asked myself: what exhibit-art installation would I like to see next? Easy. Movie posters. Must have been the conversation with Shepard Fairey, the mind and monolithic trait behind Obey-Andre the Giant. All he had to do to flip that switch was mention one name: Saul Bass. Because Hitchcock's "Anatomy of a murder" is not only Ellington's score. But also Bass' poster. The dream sequence in Vertigo? He directed it. Vertigo's poster? His. Etc etc etc.
And after that? Cd covers, all-time best.
(not an all-time best, but not bad either)
Loaded with visual endorphins I asked myself: what exhibit-art installation would I like to see next? Easy. Movie posters. Must have been the conversation with Shepard Fairey, the mind and monolithic trait behind Obey-Andre the Giant. All he had to do to flip that switch was mention one name: Saul Bass. Because Hitchcock's "Anatomy of a murder" is not only Ellington's score. But also Bass' poster. The dream sequence in Vertigo? He directed it. Vertigo's poster? His. Etc etc etc.
And after that? Cd covers, all-time best.
(not an all-time best, but not bad either)
Thursday, January 12, 2006
Best music writing
For beginners, aficionados, voyeurs and whatnot of that elusive genre that is Music journalism I warmly recommend my reading for this past holidays: "Best music writing 2005", Da Capo press. Provided they can get over the fact that it's edited by the artist formerly known as... JT LeRoy. Swallow, if you can, this jagged little pill. Swallow with grace, I'm sure you can, we've all swallowed much worse than that in our blazing, vicious lives. And you'll be blessed with two of the best features on the Clash - and the year 1979 as watershed in punk rock - I've ever read. Long live the Queen.
If on the other hand time is your problem and you only bite into what can be read during the average human crap (quote, "The big chill", Jeff Goldblum) then I URGE you to sit down with your sphincter and a copy of this week's New York magazine. Jay McInerney's cover story on The Strokes? Forget it. Makes me wanna bury myself in that bathroom - with MY sphincter thank you very much - and never resurface again, at least not to write anything about music.
Lines like: "it's always 3 a.m. in Casablanca's voice"
"I thought I was going to have a contact anxiety attack"
Just read the LEAD for Chrissake: "Hiding behind a pair of of big aviator shades and clutching the mike stand, Julian Casablancas can hardly tell if he's singing or not, the monitors are so murky, and lead guitarist Nick Valensi feels like the bass is some kind of malignant force swallowing all the music..."
IsItFinallyItForTheStrokes?
I mean shit like that makes you feel like shit. Makes your ego be that jagged little pill you can't seem to swallow.
If on the other hand time is your problem and you only bite into what can be read during the average human crap (quote, "The big chill", Jeff Goldblum) then I URGE you to sit down with your sphincter and a copy of this week's New York magazine. Jay McInerney's cover story on The Strokes? Forget it. Makes me wanna bury myself in that bathroom - with MY sphincter thank you very much - and never resurface again, at least not to write anything about music.
Lines like: "it's always 3 a.m. in Casablanca's voice"
"I thought I was going to have a contact anxiety attack"
Just read the LEAD for Chrissake: "Hiding behind a pair of of big aviator shades and clutching the mike stand, Julian Casablancas can hardly tell if he's singing or not, the monitors are so murky, and lead guitarist Nick Valensi feels like the bass is some kind of malignant force swallowing all the music..."
IsItFinallyItForTheStrokes?
I mean shit like that makes you feel like shit. Makes your ego be that jagged little pill you can't seem to swallow.
Thursday, January 05, 2006
Friday, December 30, 2005
My Dad, the artist
This morning: Caravaggio exhibit, quick tribute to il Duomo.
My Dad's comment on Caravaggio, I mean you can tell he's an artist by the comment he makes. All of us, the people, the commoners, go "Ahhh, Caravaggio, the light, those eyes". He looks at the armors instead and goes: "Wow, I'm impressed by the way he renders the color black".
Caravaggio, "La cattura di Cristo" (the capture of Christ)
Ok. Daddy. Chapeaux. (Hats off).
My Dad's comment on Caravaggio, I mean you can tell he's an artist by the comment he makes. All of us, the people, the commoners, go "Ahhh, Caravaggio, the light, those eyes". He looks at the armors instead and goes: "Wow, I'm impressed by the way he renders the color black".
Caravaggio, "La cattura di Cristo" (the capture of Christ)
Ok. Daddy. Chapeaux. (Hats off).
Italian kings of strips (and strippers)
Before leaving NYC I spent a couple of ... minutes observing a fascinating phenomenon I was unaware of, one of paramount anthropological value nonetheless: the crowd of tweens and teens slouching along the aisles of Barnes and Noble (Lincoln center branch) flipping through the pages of mangas. All the mangas those shelves can carry. All the mangas their hands can muster. Avid, pudgy, sweaty fingers and all.
I made a mental note: to further explore the power of sex as sociological denominator for the young and innocents, in this moment in this place - possible subject for a book. And once in Italy I found myself in rapture at the local version of B&N (Librerie Feltrinelli): but of course, OUR kings of strips and strippers, how could I have forgotten when I too was a slouching (never sweaty tho) set of vertebrae and fingers, learning the way of the fumetto erotico?
Thus the change of my icon on AIM to
and a suggestion for all my readers: to abso-fuckin-lutely check out, if they haven't yet
1) Guido Crepax: his Valentina is the national standard for comics hotness, cosmic, regal, ruthless hotness. AND *** Crepax began to work as a graphic artist and an advertisement illustrator, producing also covers for jazz LPs, including Gerry Mulligan, Fats Waller, Charlie Parker, Louis Armstrong!!! ***
From Wikipedia:
"...Valentina's stories are a weird mix of oneiric, science fiction, fantasy, espionage and (especially later) erotic themes. They met a large success in Italy and abroad, especially in France..."
2) Milo Manara: his ladies make you wanna have sex on the spot (ops, maybe we don't need further encouraging?), they're like... always wet, stripping, masturbating. A lot of miseducation of Ducati goes back to those strips. "Il Gioco" (the game), m-mmmm. He who could draw silicone lips when no one had even invented plastic surgery. Those lips, parting, the tip of those tongues, flashing behind sets of perfect teeth.
From Wikipedia:
"...Like his compatriot Tinto Brass, he evidently has a fixation with the female buttocks. Many of his comics have themes of bondage, domination and humiliation, voyeurism, the supernatural, and the sexual tension beneath various aspects of Italian society. The works vary in their explicitness, but the general mood is playful rather than misogynistic..."
3) Hugo Pratt: Corto Maltese, his masterpiece. For the historic research, the trait, the squinting of those blue eyes, lost in horizons, aboriginal, metaphysical horizons. Trivia: Milo Manara was a pupil and late collaborator of his. Trivia: Crepax's Neutron (Valentina's beau) was protagonist of a long solo graphic novel published in the magazine Corto Maltese. Don't you love it when artists cross paths? It's like jazz: small/big combos like magmatic cells exchanging particles by osmosis.
Wiki, again:
"...Due to his rather mixed family ancestry, Corto had learned snippets of things like kabbalism and lots of history. Many of his stories are placed in real historical eras and deal with real events: the 1755 war between French and British colonists in Ticonderoga, colonial wars in Africa and both World Wars, for example. Pratt did exhaustive research for factual and visual details, and some characters are real historical figures or closely based on them, like Corto's main opponent, Rasputin..."
4) Diabolik, well, the ideal man for all of us Eva Kants (trivia: a bunch of male designers behind it, yet it's the brainchild of two ... sisters!) >>> see image above, Diabolik and Eva.
Read them. You'll like them. With all of your brain, and all of your senses.
I made a mental note: to further explore the power of sex as sociological denominator for the young and innocents, in this moment in this place - possible subject for a book. And once in Italy I found myself in rapture at the local version of B&N (Librerie Feltrinelli): but of course, OUR kings of strips and strippers, how could I have forgotten when I too was a slouching (never sweaty tho) set of vertebrae and fingers, learning the way of the fumetto erotico?
Thus the change of my icon on AIM to
and a suggestion for all my readers: to abso-fuckin-lutely check out, if they haven't yet
1) Guido Crepax: his Valentina is the national standard for comics hotness, cosmic, regal, ruthless hotness. AND *** Crepax began to work as a graphic artist and an advertisement illustrator, producing also covers for jazz LPs, including Gerry Mulligan, Fats Waller, Charlie Parker, Louis Armstrong!!! ***
From Wikipedia:
"...Valentina's stories are a weird mix of oneiric, science fiction, fantasy, espionage and (especially later) erotic themes. They met a large success in Italy and abroad, especially in France..."
2) Milo Manara: his ladies make you wanna have sex on the spot (ops, maybe we don't need further encouraging?), they're like... always wet, stripping, masturbating. A lot of miseducation of Ducati goes back to those strips. "Il Gioco" (the game), m-mmmm. He who could draw silicone lips when no one had even invented plastic surgery. Those lips, parting, the tip of those tongues, flashing behind sets of perfect teeth.
From Wikipedia:
"...Like his compatriot Tinto Brass, he evidently has a fixation with the female buttocks. Many of his comics have themes of bondage, domination and humiliation, voyeurism, the supernatural, and the sexual tension beneath various aspects of Italian society. The works vary in their explicitness, but the general mood is playful rather than misogynistic..."
3) Hugo Pratt: Corto Maltese, his masterpiece. For the historic research, the trait, the squinting of those blue eyes, lost in horizons, aboriginal, metaphysical horizons. Trivia: Milo Manara was a pupil and late collaborator of his. Trivia: Crepax's Neutron (Valentina's beau) was protagonist of a long solo graphic novel published in the magazine Corto Maltese. Don't you love it when artists cross paths? It's like jazz: small/big combos like magmatic cells exchanging particles by osmosis.
Wiki, again:
"...Due to his rather mixed family ancestry, Corto had learned snippets of things like kabbalism and lots of history. Many of his stories are placed in real historical eras and deal with real events: the 1755 war between French and British colonists in Ticonderoga, colonial wars in Africa and both World Wars, for example. Pratt did exhaustive research for factual and visual details, and some characters are real historical figures or closely based on them, like Corto's main opponent, Rasputin..."
4) Diabolik, well, the ideal man for all of us Eva Kants (trivia: a bunch of male designers behind it, yet it's the brainchild of two ... sisters!) >>> see image above, Diabolik and Eva.
Read them. You'll like them. With all of your brain, and all of your senses.
Friday, December 23, 2005
to be fair
It has been brought to my attention that as a journalist i should be more accurate with my facts, particularly when I am the fact in question.
So, ok, I don't really sleep an average of 5 hours when in Nyc. Matter of fact, lately I've been sleeping even less. I know I'm not the only one. Does it make me feel any better?
Hell no.
So, ok, I don't really sleep an average of 5 hours when in Nyc. Matter of fact, lately I've been sleeping even less. I know I'm not the only one. Does it make me feel any better?
Hell no.
eleven and counting
First night of sleep in my childhood bed: eleven hours, straight.
How come I only sleep an average of 5 hours per night when I'm in New York?
Yes, in case you were wondering, it was a rhetorical question.
How come I only sleep an average of 5 hours per night when I'm in New York?
Yes, in case you were wondering, it was a rhetorical question.
Tuesday, December 20, 2005
the year of musical thinking
Joan Didion will forgive - I hope - the poetic licence I take here.
Her "Year of magical thinking" is a tale of mourning and a tribute and I concede mine may not be a tale of mourning. A tribute though - THAT, yes. It is a tribute to music, to what it has done to me, to what it has been for me, in the past twelve months. Formative, informative, cut deep and healed (not too) fast - and the scars I have will last me a lifetime.
Do i regret any of them? No.
Do I blame her? No. I could never blame her for all the things in C she brought me: C-chord suites and solos, cyanide breakups, courtship, care, cunning chivalry, curioisity cum cat. A conundrum. A C-section: and here I am born. Not better. New.
Check it out.
So, music. Jazz, hip-hop, funk, classical, opera. My favourite things for 2005? I leave it to those who compile "best of" lists and delude they will last more than the time to refresh the page. But I WILL throw a few bones to my ... dawgs. Not necessarily made in 2005. But relevant - for me at least - in the year that is almost to RIP.
Christian McBride's Live at Tonic, due March - what I've heard of it, over a dinner with McBride himself and no side dish of sleazy comons (amen and hallelujah), is worthy. No doubt.
Ethiopiques (Either/Orchestra), Live in Addis -- with the partecipation of Mulatu Astatke; his soundtrack for Jarmusch's Broken Flowers is a delicacy. Jarmusch told me Archie Shepp used to live in his loft in the Sixties. Schepp, invention and cirumvention of musical canons, one of the most elegant cats ever. I see a line from Shepp to Astatke, elegance, exotic elegance, the fun of deconsruction.
Gold sounds, Ali Jackson, Cyrus Chestnut, Reginald Veal, James Carter - because it was about time someone made the Pavement a jazz suit. Not a suit, a t-shirt more like. And yes because Ali and Reginald hold a special place in my heart. And yes I was wrong on James Carter.
Jeremy Pelt, Identity: because his is one experiment in jazzatronica we don't want to kill ourselves for. For once. Listen to Scorpio (naturally it would be better if you had access to Mr. Pelt's own live recordings of the 12' composition: he would play them for you and illustrate how the piece progressed as the quartet developed an ... Identity. Precisely. Then he would do something like asking for some fresh Electronic music to check out and you would say ... Telefon Tel Aviv. And he would go on iTunes and buy it and promise a sure quick death if he doesn't dig it. Well, I'm still alive)
Telefon Tel Aviv. Anything. Really. I'll drink it and pour it all over my body.
RJD2 (Deadringer), Caribou (The milk of human kindness), Prefuse 73 (One word extinguisher, Extinguished), The GZA (Word from the Genius), Dangerdoom (The mouse and the mask), Gostface killah (Supreme clientele). El-P/Cage.
4 hero.
The Roots.
Bill Frisell (East West). Metheny/Coleman (Song X reissue). The staged discoveries: Town Hall (Diz and Bird), Carnegie (Monk and Trane), One down one up (Trane)
Chemical brothers' Push the button (BELIEVE, perfect sountrack for the perfect public restroom fuck *pubic testdoom fuck*, SURFACE TO AIR, perfect sountrack for when you feel you don't have it in your lungs to breathe, for whatever the reason, cigarettes, inedia, pain)
Fiona Apple - she and Michael Chabon should put a new spin on Mensa and inaugurate a buen retiro for geniuses who happen to be unfairly, supernaturally gorgeous looking too.
Wynton Marsalis, Live at the House of tribes. For reasons I don't need to explain.
Carla Bley/Charlie Haden, Not in our name. Hasta siempre la LMO, Liberation music orchestra. Not in our name, and little does it matter that it once was Cambodia and now it's ... you pick: New Orleans? Iraq? Bolivia?
Bley/Haden, same flavor, same fervor, same fever as in 1969.
Bley on the critics who found the new album "weak", compared to the 1969 debut: "So it's not as fiery? Maybe we should take machine guns and shoot everyone in the audience. That would make it more of a frisky record. Maybe we could get some guns and go after some of those reviewers. Then we'd be true revolutionaries".
Bley on music: "it's a calling. We do music like breathing. We have to. That's how we wonder what life's about"
At the NYC School of rock (the inspiration for the movie with Joe Black, and no they weren't credited for that, and yes there were roumors of a lawsuit there, for like... 3secs), speaking with Gracie, 5 years old. FIVE. She looks like Dakota Fanning, she's as sassy and witty (and has as raucous a voice) as Frances McDormand. She already knows she wants to be a drummer. And her favourites bands, for 2005 and ever are, and I quote:
"Ramones, AC/DC, Led Zeppelin".
5 years old ladies and gentlemen. And to know what she wants. And for that to be music.
In the words of jazz "Blessed is the child"
*Of course it helps that we live in a country where unlike, say, Iran, a large body of music hasn't just been banned (did you read the news? Nothing like that had happened since the Seventies). Then again we do have the case for Intelligent design. So maybe we'll get there. To the musical Torquemada (remember the Spanish Inquisition?)
Her "Year of magical thinking" is a tale of mourning and a tribute and I concede mine may not be a tale of mourning. A tribute though - THAT, yes. It is a tribute to music, to what it has done to me, to what it has been for me, in the past twelve months. Formative, informative, cut deep and healed (not too) fast - and the scars I have will last me a lifetime.
Do i regret any of them? No.
Do I blame her? No. I could never blame her for all the things in C she brought me: C-chord suites and solos, cyanide breakups, courtship, care, cunning chivalry, curioisity cum cat. A conundrum. A C-section: and here I am born. Not better. New.
Check it out.
So, music. Jazz, hip-hop, funk, classical, opera. My favourite things for 2005? I leave it to those who compile "best of" lists and delude they will last more than the time to refresh the page. But I WILL throw a few bones to my ... dawgs. Not necessarily made in 2005. But relevant - for me at least - in the year that is almost to RIP.
Christian McBride's Live at Tonic, due March - what I've heard of it, over a dinner with McBride himself and no side dish of sleazy comons (amen and hallelujah), is worthy. No doubt.
Ethiopiques (Either/Orchestra), Live in Addis -- with the partecipation of Mulatu Astatke; his soundtrack for Jarmusch's Broken Flowers is a delicacy. Jarmusch told me Archie Shepp used to live in his loft in the Sixties. Schepp, invention and cirumvention of musical canons, one of the most elegant cats ever. I see a line from Shepp to Astatke, elegance, exotic elegance, the fun of deconsruction.
Gold sounds, Ali Jackson, Cyrus Chestnut, Reginald Veal, James Carter - because it was about time someone made the Pavement a jazz suit. Not a suit, a t-shirt more like. And yes because Ali and Reginald hold a special place in my heart. And yes I was wrong on James Carter.
Jeremy Pelt, Identity: because his is one experiment in jazzatronica we don't want to kill ourselves for. For once. Listen to Scorpio (naturally it would be better if you had access to Mr. Pelt's own live recordings of the 12' composition: he would play them for you and illustrate how the piece progressed as the quartet developed an ... Identity. Precisely. Then he would do something like asking for some fresh Electronic music to check out and you would say ... Telefon Tel Aviv. And he would go on iTunes and buy it and promise a sure quick death if he doesn't dig it. Well, I'm still alive)
Telefon Tel Aviv. Anything. Really. I'll drink it and pour it all over my body.
RJD2 (Deadringer), Caribou (The milk of human kindness), Prefuse 73 (One word extinguisher, Extinguished), The GZA (Word from the Genius), Dangerdoom (The mouse and the mask), Gostface killah (Supreme clientele). El-P/Cage.
4 hero.
The Roots.
Bill Frisell (East West). Metheny/Coleman (Song X reissue). The staged discoveries: Town Hall (Diz and Bird), Carnegie (Monk and Trane), One down one up (Trane)
Chemical brothers' Push the button (BELIEVE, perfect sountrack for the perfect public restroom fuck *pubic testdoom fuck*, SURFACE TO AIR, perfect sountrack for when you feel you don't have it in your lungs to breathe, for whatever the reason, cigarettes, inedia, pain)
Fiona Apple - she and Michael Chabon should put a new spin on Mensa and inaugurate a buen retiro for geniuses who happen to be unfairly, supernaturally gorgeous looking too.
Wynton Marsalis, Live at the House of tribes. For reasons I don't need to explain.
Carla Bley/Charlie Haden, Not in our name. Hasta siempre la LMO, Liberation music orchestra. Not in our name, and little does it matter that it once was Cambodia and now it's ... you pick: New Orleans? Iraq? Bolivia?
Bley/Haden, same flavor, same fervor, same fever as in 1969.
Bley on the critics who found the new album "weak", compared to the 1969 debut: "So it's not as fiery? Maybe we should take machine guns and shoot everyone in the audience. That would make it more of a frisky record. Maybe we could get some guns and go after some of those reviewers. Then we'd be true revolutionaries".
Bley on music: "it's a calling. We do music like breathing. We have to. That's how we wonder what life's about"
At the NYC School of rock (the inspiration for the movie with Joe Black, and no they weren't credited for that, and yes there were roumors of a lawsuit there, for like... 3secs), speaking with Gracie, 5 years old. FIVE. She looks like Dakota Fanning, she's as sassy and witty (and has as raucous a voice) as Frances McDormand. She already knows she wants to be a drummer. And her favourites bands, for 2005 and ever are, and I quote:
"Ramones, AC/DC, Led Zeppelin".
5 years old ladies and gentlemen. And to know what she wants. And for that to be music.
In the words of jazz "Blessed is the child"
*Of course it helps that we live in a country where unlike, say, Iran, a large body of music hasn't just been banned (did you read the news? Nothing like that had happened since the Seventies). Then again we do have the case for Intelligent design. So maybe we'll get there. To the musical Torquemada (remember the Spanish Inquisition?)
Thursday, December 01, 2005
What I want for Christmas
The Kenneth Cole AIDS Day t-shirt.
The gold-plated cokespoon01
And I'll have the first one shipped to whomever in the Vatican still believes using a condom is a mortal sin.
And the second one hung from the pinetrees around Turin -- the winter Olympics being the best way to call the attention to a local growing pain. Well, it's been a problem for the past 60 years or so: check the phonebook under, I don't know, "automobiles"?
By the way, cokespoon01 is the replica of the cap of the cheapest pen you can possibly buy in Italy. So blase'. Like drinking champagne out of plastic cups.
Makes me wanna throw up all the Krug and diamonds I just downed.
And this, I warn you, is as frivolous as my blog will EVER be. Now back to the usual gloom and jazz. Know you love it!
The gold-plated cokespoon01
And I'll have the first one shipped to whomever in the Vatican still believes using a condom is a mortal sin.
And the second one hung from the pinetrees around Turin -- the winter Olympics being the best way to call the attention to a local growing pain. Well, it's been a problem for the past 60 years or so: check the phonebook under, I don't know, "automobiles"?
By the way, cokespoon01 is the replica of the cap of the cheapest pen you can possibly buy in Italy. So blase'. Like drinking champagne out of plastic cups.
Makes me wanna throw up all the Krug and diamonds I just downed.
And this, I warn you, is as frivolous as my blog will EVER be. Now back to the usual gloom and jazz. Know you love it!
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