thenewobjective@gmail.com

Montreal to Brooklyn by Vespa

2010-09-03T04:12:00.002-04:00

Go here to read about my epic Vespa journey from Montreal to Brooklyn.

Fenn O’Berg- In Stereo

2010-05-28T14:12:00.000-04:00

buy

This admittedly silly name is a portmanteau of the names of its three incomparable members: weird music greats Christian Fennesz, Peter Rehberg (who runs the Mego label,) and Jim O'Rourke (Sonic Youth, Gastr del Sol, etc). Returning after an 8 year absence with In Stereo, the trio take a slightly different approach with this unexpected record. Unlike their initial two LPs, 1999’s The Magic of… and 2002’a The Return of…, which were both recordings of live improvisations, this new output is a studio effort, and one in which the three composers have managed to create a unique hybrid voice. Such ‘super-groups’ often run the risk of disappointing the listener, or of failure to compromise clashing egos’ signatures, but In Stereo will appeal to any fan of innovative electronic music.

Expand, Escape by Vadim Taver

2010-02-19T01:00:00.000-05:00

Check out the debut solo album from Vadim Taver (of This Day Forward, Superstitions of the Sky, Marigold, A Life Once Lost,) Expand, Escape over at bandcamp.com. I met Vadim in 2002 through a mutual friend, Bethany Spiers, who played in an excellent local band called Morgan Storm and who continues to make really lovely music solo under the moniker the Fever Few. At the time, This Day Forward had just realized their Kairos EP, and I really liked their prior record, the Transient Effects of Light on Water. So, I ran into Bethany at the Knitting Factory on my way to see a This Day Forward show sometime in that fall of 2002, my freshman year at Eugene Lang. She introduced me to Vadim, who opened the show as part of the duo Superstitions of the Sky. I was instantly impressed, and bought their 2 song CD-R demo. SotS was the vehicle for Joshua Jakubowski, who played in Hot Cross, Joshua Fit For Battle, the Now, and probably other bands I am forgetting. At the time I was really into all those bands, and TDF, so to see those two guys come out and play melodic acoustic music was really pleasant. I think versatility is a virtue, and besides, there is only so much heavy music one can take at a time. I believe the rest of the bill was: In Pieces, and On the Might of Princes, and possibly Little Yellow Box? Yea, I think Ian booked the show. In any case, it was an a amazing show.

But I'm not writing this to reminisce about the past. I do that often enough. Over the years, I got to know Vadim better, and followed his musical output post TDF. I booked Marigold, his next band, a few times at Purchase College, put the band up, and really dug what they were doing. Not long after that, Vadim moved to CA, and I've been waiting to hear what he would do next. Though I look forward to seeing him in a rock band again, I'm pleased to here his debut solo record, Expand, Escape is a more stripped down affair. Primarily he relies on guitar and voice, with piano and other tasteful accompaniments. Though he's told me on many occasions he doesn't think of himself as a front-man and doesn't like to sing and blah blah blah. I think you'll agree that it is a good thing he didn't mean it. Though it's hard not to hear echoes of Elliott Smith and the Beatles, Expand, Escape sounds unique, and I am looking forward to taking more time to take in the whole record.

Please check it out, and donate some money if you can.

Expand, Escape, by Vadim Taver
vadimtaver.bandcamp.com

1. Watching the Sun
2. Apples and Oranges
3. Little Paper
4. Net of Being
5. 12/8
6. So Soon
7. Reflections
8. The Truthful One
9. The Glass Conceals So Much
10. Happy Branch
11. The World
12. A Parallel Universe

Released 09 February 2010.

Caethua - The Long Afternoon of Earth

2009-11-25T02:38:00.000-05:00

http://bit.ly/8e4dns

Here is a link to my most recent review on The Silent Ballet. The initial paragraph was cut, but I'd like to include it here. I thought I was making a valid point about why it was appropriate to review a (seemingly, from one perspective) vocal-centered album on a site such as ours. Which in turn makes a larger point about 'post-rock,' again as distinct from mere instrumental music, which is a completely neutral term without the historical context implied by the former. The fact that I could make this point with Zizek and gay penetration was a bonus, but also relevant because the artist in question, solo artist no less, is a woman. I'm being a bit playful, but also making a more or less serious point, both employing Zizek and poking fun at him at the same time.

Caethua - The Long Afternoon of Earth

Most instrumental rock is characterized by its distinct lack of vocals (much the way the female identity can be said to have been constructed around the lack of a phallus). The difference between classical music and opera, for instance, is then distinct from the difference between rock and ‘post-rock.’ Throughout the late 20th century, concomitant with the ascent of ‘postmodernism,’ rock underwent a transformation; adopting drones, gradually retreating from conventional narratives and structures, abandoning vocals. To continue with the gendered metaphor, the Slovenian philosopher and rabble-rouser Zizek, following Lacan, suggests that “standard heterosexual sex is the most homosexual act. It seems to me that gay penetration realizes and confronts the phantasmic support of straight sex too directly.” That is, those engaged in the act are always already imagining a voyeur, a gaze directed at and observing the act. Similarly- and perhaps this connection isn’t as neat as I’d like- Caethua (aka the multi-talented, multi-instrumentalist Clare Hubbard) here presents us with a vocal driven album that, in it’s queering of the role of the vocals, is as ‘instrumental’ of an album as one actually lacking vocals, precisely because it does have vocals. Make sense? (I never liked Lacan anyway.)

read the whole review here

straight arrows and flashing green lights

2009-10-18T02:46:00.000-04:00

Well, it's about time for a venting post. The past few weeks have been pretty difficult. I've realized that I grew accustomed to being around people, having a pretty extensive social life. I went to work, saw my co-workers, advised my students, hung out with my friends, girlfriend, etc. Here, the amount of time that I have any genuine interaction with other people is far more limited. I think that's a big part of why I actually miss having a job.

Otherwise, despite all the things I've had to give up (hopefully just temporarily,) I'm glad I'm here. I've met some very interesting people, though I suppose I always do. I have the opportunity to read and think, hone my craft (writing,) and really engage in the issues in a way I've wanted to but have been largely unable. I am hoping to add some more activities to my routine, but in the meanwhile I have been playing more music than I should be. I recorded a song last week, on a late night, in one sitting. I called it "Static Learning," based on a chord progression I've been bumbling around with for a long time. I recorded it in that one sitting, and mixed it the following afternoon. Each track was recorded in one take. I am happy with the result.

I'm working on recording some other songs I've been holding onto for a while as well, those the one-take model isn't working on these because the skeleton of the composition isn't laid out. I have at least two more songs that should be finished in the next couple weeks, hopefully, and then maybe some different styles; more glitch, more beat-driven.

Which reminds me. Since coming back from a visit to NY a few weeks ago, I've been pretty busy, which was much needed. I worked at Pop Montreal, Lexy came up to visit for her birthday, then Molly and her friend came up for Canadian Thanksgiving. This weekend I'm on my own. I staid in last night with my roommate and her friends, and had a good night talking and not understanding French. I do miss NY a lot though. Some days are better than others. But overall I've had a great week.

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I wish I felt like talking about something important, sharing some news stories or something, but I'm falling short right now.

I guess I should encourage people to follow me on twitter.

@thesilentballet for all things instrumental music....

and @thenewobjective for random updates and interesting re-tweets.

That's all for now. Maybe I can make it a point to use this blog to force myself to explore Montreal more.

I worked at Pop Montreal just recently, and as a result got to visit more clubs than I'd already been too. I guess I should compile a list. I'm visiting Le National on Monday night, which is one of two important venues I have not visited yet, the other being Divan Orange.

I'm also trying to find out where the best loft parties are. I'll keep you posted. The Vice party next week is supposed to be impressive. We'll see...

TSB Goes to Digital Only Submissions, I Reflect on Materiality

2009-09-06T12:35:00.003-04:00

After returning from Ecuador, I managed to have a very satisfying week in New York before packing up and moving here, to Montreal where I am currently studying at McGill University. But instead of writing about any of that, which perhaps one day I'll have the urge to discuss, sooner than later I'd bet, here is an email I sent out to all my colleagues at The Silent Ballet in early July. We had recently switched to a digital only submission policy. TSB headquarters had to move, and it is becoming to difficult to mail out all the CDs we receive each year, not to mention ripping them and adding them to the FTP. In addition, digital only ensures a certain fidelity, and is 'greener.' I support the policy. But on the other hand...
______________________________

Have you ever gone back and read all your old reviews? I mean, I look at my music library all the time, but rarely do I pull out a physical CD any more. Sure, sometimes I’ll put on a vinyl record when I’m home, but I’m usually so often on the move or perpetually in front of a computer, that the mobile, CD popping days of my youth, mostly in cars it seems, is a thing of the past. There is a really important difference between the solid product and a digital library. Most of the discs Jordan sends me end up in a pile by my stereo.

Last fall, I had a rental car for a few work trips, and I’ve learned one must remember to bring CDs, unless you have a transmitter for your iPod. I do not, so I began carrying around a stack of CDs again, as I did in high school, and even a few years ago in college. I would have the pleasure of digging through piles of CDs and concocting a bizarre or fun combination. For the road trip cross country last summer, I had Metric alongside Johnny Cash, and Trane and Monk with Justice. When I’d go skiing, Boards of Canada and the Drift would fuel our late night drives to the mountain, and P Funk and house music on the way home. So the only time I ever look at my CDs are the off occasions when I'm driving a car. (I normally ride a Vespa, so no stereo, or I wear my iPod.)

So tomorrow I’m driving a rental car to Montreal. I am now digging through my CD piles. And as I dig, I find myself remembering reviewing this album three years ago, sounds and names I hadn’t called to mind since then, mostly. One artist I can remember what I wrote almost verbatim, but cannot remember the band’s name for the life of me! As I flip through mainly chronological stacks, I come across Sumner McKane’s latest album. But below it, is, out of order, McKane’s Two if by Sea, which is one of my favorite albums of recent memory. And it is still in the shrink wrap. So I have the uniquely 21st century experience of being surprised by having an unopened physical copy of a favorite album. Of opening my favorite album.

Or not. Perhaps I should keep it unwrapped, as something of a testament to an age.

I didn't think I'd miss CDs when we discussed going to digital only submissions, but really, without the packing, something is really lost.

Brisas del Mar

2009-08-04T20:14:00.002-04:00

Haven´t had the time to write much (electronically) on this trip.
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Lucy and I spent our fist three weeks traveling at a pretty rapid pace. We stayed in each place for only 1 t 3 nights. We arrived in Lima on the 14th, and spent our 3 days there walking around, seeing ruins, exploring the bohemian district of Barranco, and the affluent suburb of Miraflores, where we discovered an amazing Cafe called Cafe Z. Peruvians were somewhat frustrating, and we were excited to leave Lima. We went next to Ica, but stayed in nearby Huacachina lake, a dessert oasis. The next day, we went wine and pisco tasting in Ica, and dunebuggying and sandboarding in the dunes. Pictures when I return. The next day, we took a long bus ride to Cusco, and stayed at a nice rustic hostel, Sweet Daybreak, with an amazing view of Cusco. We visited KM0 at the recommendation of a friend. Altitude sickness was apparent, and I got a small stomach bug as well. After 3 days, we took the train to Ollantaytambo, and chilled there a few days, enjoying the charms of a once small town in the Sacred Valley. We then took the train to Aguas Calientes and hiked up to Machu Picchu. Sunset was spectaculor. After returning to Cusco the next day we took a bus back to Lima, and this time enjoyed Lima much more, attending a gallery opening, playing cards at Z, and visiting other galleries. Then we headed north, stopping in the shithole northern city of Piura. We did have a nice dinner at a Cuban place. Next we crossed the border at la Tina and stayed in Loja on night before going to Cuenca for 4 days, our favorite so far. Especially the restaraunt Tiestos and chef Juan Carlos. I can´t say enough about it, and will write a review when I return. We also hung out in a pleasant travelers hang called Wunderbar. Then we went to Guayaquil for one night, and finally met up with Bachi in Manta. We will be exploring the coast from here, but mostly are greatful to be hanging out with Bachi in a city with wonderful weather and beaches. Up next, is more Manta, Puerto Lopez and the coast, Isla de la Plata, Montanita, and more Manta. Then, Banos and Quito. More reflections and actual thoughts when I return.

Hola desde Peru

2009-07-16T11:15:00.002-04:00

Quick Update from the road. Lucia and I left on Monday for Peru. We´ve been in Lima, a city that has been enjoyable, however the weather is really dismal. It´s foggy and cold this time of year. It´s funny to see the Limeños reaction to ¨winter¨ though, as it´s still about 65 degrees. They dress their little dogs in sweaters. So, after exploring fine dining and bars in Miraflors and Barranco, we are heading to Ica, for a quick stay in an oasis, and then taking a long bus ride to Cusco, to explore the Sacred Valley and Machu Picchu. Then back north on our way to beach paradise in Ecuador! and volunteer work.

He Doesn't Realize there's another Option

2009-05-18T00:16:00.003-04:00

Well, I'm long overdue for an update. Somehow, between all my other commitments, I've never really taken to making this the kind of 'blog' that made blogs popular. Oh well.

My tenure at Purchase College is finally coming to an end. Last Friday was Commencement, so the official academic year has now ended, which means my last at Purchase. No more parties in the Olde, early morning rendezvous at Starbucks, no more sleeping in the dorms, no more classes in Humanities, no more VA shows,no more imbibing myself in Alumni, no more walking clumsily across the mall. I know I have done quite enough of this over the last 6 or so years, and it's also not the first time I've left Purchase, but it's sinking in, again.

But, for the best of reasons, and in order. I've accepted a spot in the Department of Art History and Communication Studies at McGill University in Montreal. I will be heading up to the great white north to check out apartments soon. June 5th I will be heading into Charleston, SC, to visit one of my bestfriends, Caitlin (!, who has been studying in Athens since last summer and so I'm quite excited to see her.) I'm then, finally, going to visit Atlanta (airport in 2007 apparently didn't count)en route to Bonnaroo, where I will be working as a volunteer. This is very exciting, for not only is it free since I'm volunteering, and not only will I see Al Green, Phish, MGMT, Mars Volta, BRUCE SPRINGSTEIN, and on and on, but, also, my old roommate and long long friend Ali, whom I haven't seen since leaving San Francisco almost 18 months ago, will be working security!

After Bonnaroo, I'll put in a few more weeks of work, and then... Lucia and I are off to Lima, Peru for the start of a month long backpacking adventure. We will leave Lima quickly, probably visiting somewhere on the coast on the way to Cusco (Ica, maybe Nazca.) After a few days in Cusco, we will hike the Inca Trail to Machu Picchu, maybe throw in some more hiking, and then head north, to Trujillo, and then to Ecuador. We will be staying in Manta, a coastal city, and occasionally exploring other destinations nearby. Before heading home, we will stop by Banos and the Amazon, with our last 3 days in Quito. This is highly subject to Change. It sounds like a lot, but mostly we'll be in Cusco and Manta, with travel days in between. The airfare was dirt cheap, considering we bought it recently (only 600 round trip! from JFK,) and we don't expect to spend much while traveling. We also, hopefully, have a place to stay in Manta.

After this, I'll sadly only have 2 weeks until classes begin in Montreal. But, I am ready! I have a few major themes I'll be exploring (technology and aesthetics, intellectual property law and new media art, the history of art of appropriation, transcultural communication and gov't funding for the arts, collaborative online international learning, blah blah blah.) I've already got my reading lists ready.

So, I know I haven't been writing here, but I haven't been traveling much, just around NY and such (well, and Chicago, and Dominican Republic, and cross country road trip...) I lost my camera, unfortunately, last summer, so I need a new one, but Facebook is my depository for visual records.

Once I get my new computer, I will try to incorporate some video and photos into the blog. In the meanwhile, my main creative outlet has continued to be The Silent Ballet. (www.thesilentballet.com. You can know follow us on twitter, sadly... www.twitter.com/thesilentballet/. Sad because I made and maintain it.) I do have a TSB NY music event in the works. More on that later.

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I'm always struck by what it is people seem to place value on. For some, it may be collecting things, for others it's sex, or drugs, or family, or tinted car windows. But for many, they don't seem to even be aware what it is they value, or why, and haven't the slightest that they, or others, can commit to a different set of values.

I, of course, do palce value aesthetics, but there is a line that is often crosses that goes beyond a judgment of beauty and is rather simply one of shallow impersonation. For these, there lack of taste, or their blind dedication to a style- style not being as empty as it seems, but rather as Nietzsche may use it, as in giving a style or shape to one's life- Sometimes we set goals for ourselves without even realizing it. It's not until actions have been taken, when we have the time to look back and we begin to shape our lives, in retrospect, and we see motivations. Are they real or imagined? I'm not even convinced it matters. Once these goals are met, they can seem completely useless, a waste of time and energy one wasn't even aware one was exerting. Entonces, it is so much more important that we really do take the time to examine carefully our lives, ourselves, our values. Because we do, in fact, posit our values, so do not let yourself be a one-way receptacle of moraes. For example, I noticed today how many CDs I have, and how much music I've accumulated on my external harddrive, how compulsively I organize my iTunes. At some point when I was younger, I decided I wanted to have a lot of CDs, I wanted to be the guy who knew more bands than other people. But, I didn't consciously or insincerely chase this goal. But, here it is. Now that I am moving, I've started sorting through some of my junk (articles, comic books, CDs, vinyl, books, clothes,) and I've realized how much junk I have. It holds me down. This is one reason I love to travel, to have all my possessions on my back, to be mobile.

I'm not thinking of any one person in particular when I say those who take there provincial styles too far. Of course, many of the kids I went to high school come to mind, with there silly, manufactured and replaceable music, lampoonable haircuts, beverages, and cars. A few incidents to come to mind as well. In Chicago recently, Sam introduced me to an acquaintance, who was in turn with a friend. After leaving these two, I remarked that I didn't know guys could be such bimbos. But, here was a gay boy, who couldn't even remember the name of the UNIVERSITY he attended, and could apparently care less. He didn't seem shamed, or embarrassed, but rather continued to futilely flirt. Another: I've had to explain what it is I'll be studying. And interdisciplinary cultural studies department is hard to explain, (though there are good reasons for why this is a good choice, particularly for me, I'll leave that for another time, after school begins most likely.) But I've often had to justify not just my decisions, but academia in general. Some people simply cannot comprehend anything other than salary. "Why waste so much time earning a PhD when you can just do occupation X and make 60k/year right off the bat?" People like this simply don't get it. I think the Hindu conception of souls is a good analogy here. People who think that may are on a lower plane of existence. They cannot see beyond there own selfish interest, beyond material attachment temporary conditions. They will struggle against death with all their might. It's almost not worth trying to explain it to them, I've found, because they are not capable of being made to understand.

FMTM interview Finally Finished!

2009-03-10T22:29:00.002-04:00

"Joseph Sannicandro hosts a discussion on politics, technology, and activism through music with From Monument To Masses, finding out why they love Mandy Moore and pick fights with Metallica. Part 1 of a 2 part feature."

Long in the works, though not quite as long as On Little Known Frequencies, themy article on/interview with From Monument to Masses is finally completed. The first installment is on TSB now! Let me know what you think. And check out FMTM's latest album, On Little Known Frequencies www.monument-masses.com

Madoff Continues to be a Disgusting and Unrepentant Human Being

2009-03-03T08:52:00.004-05:00

"Lawyers for Bernard L. Madoff have asked that prosecutors be barred from seizing the New York City apartment of the Madoffs and $62 million in bonds and cash that they say belong to Mr. Madoff’s wife, Ruth, and “are unrelated to the alleged Madoff fraud.”

The request was acknowledged, but not granted, in court documents filed on Monday both by federal prosecutors and the trustee overseeing the liquidation of Mr. Madoff’s estate for the benefit of his former customers." -NY Times
-http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/03/business/03madoff.html?_r=1

"Secretary of State William Galvin said Ruth Madoff, 67, withdrew $5.5 million on Nov. 25 and $10 million on Dec. 10 _ the day before Bernard Madoff was arrested _ from Cohmad Securities Corp., a New York firm co-owned by her husband.

..They also appeared to follow what authorities consider a disturbing trend on the part of the Madoffs to hide money that could be used to reimburse burned investors.

Prosecutors have already said investigators found 100 signed checks worth $173 million that Madoff was ready to send out to his closest family and friends at the time of his arrest in December. Two weeks later, during the Christmas holidays, Madoff sent more than $1 million in jewelry and heirlooms to family and friends." -Huff Post

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/02/11/ruth-madoff-withdrew-155_n_166019.html

I seem to have a slightly different opinion about the Madoff scandal than my friends and peers, so let me quickly share my opinion. I feel for those who lost money, of course, though I do think they share some of the blame. If you are investing money, particularly large sums of money, it is your responsibility to know where and how your money is being invested. Madoff's clients were always making money, at least on paper, and because of that they never looked closely enough. And they are paying for it.

Now, Madoff himself. He and his entire operation personify the worst of American business at the turn of the century. He is clearly unrepentant. He acted for himself and his family, with no regard for others. He's likely covered his tracks enough to protect his sons, who I have no doubt were involved, or at least greatly benefited. I'm an advocate for compassion, and though I think compassion should not be let go, Madoff and his family should all be in jail, or at least forced to live destitute. If our society is unable to offer this sort of justice, than something is deeply off balance. He is hardly on death's door, but he is still old enough that he can justify his actions to himself as having made a good run of it. Don't let him get away with it! When so many people are suffering, how are we letting this greedy man and his wife retain their assets and apartments? I don't care if he posted 100 million dollars for bail, that is dirty money, and he can't be allowed to buy his way out. He belongs in a cell. Let's hope the judges act justly.

http://wcbstv.com/business/bernard.madoff.ruth.2.948636.html

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=a2_7qBYOay6w&refer=home

SFMOMA and Waltz with Bashir

2009-02-07T22:01:00.005-05:00

On my first day back in San Francisco, my first full day anyhow, I woke up, walked around my old neighborhood (the Tenderloin, for those who are familiar,) and spent a significant chunk of my day at the SFMOMA.

I spent a good amount of time sitting in Yerba Buena park, reading, watching the old-folks practicing tai chi, other people working out and running around the small circular path, the young children playing. The weather was unseasonably warm, the sy clear, and I was quite happy to be in America sharing public space with so many people from various backgrounds and of various ages. The exhibit I was about to participate in was made all the more interesting by this mindset.

I spent several hours exploring the entire museum, which I had not visited since my first time there in October of 2007 for Olafur Eliasson's solo show. I spent most of this time viewing "The Art of Participation, 1950-now," though I also briefly took in Martin Puryear's retrospective, which was pleasant, but I won't discuss here.

The Art of Participation covers many different styles and movements, but the temporal distance is never jarring, and even the oldest works still seem fresh and relevant. The curator has more or less resisted the urge to organize works by decade, instead organizing them by theme; "Utopia Revisited," "Testing Authority," "Instructions for Use," "Calls to Action," "The Open Work of Art," and "Public Dialogue." I was pleased to see that much of the work was rooted in the philosophy of John Cage and the Fluxus movement, both of which began to orient our understanding of the work of art as involving not only the artist and the artobject, but also the viewer. It is important that I stress, for me at least, it is necessary to remember that only great art is capable of opening a space for community to be sustained, and much of this 'postmodern' art is incapable of being raised beyond the category of Thing, a site of temporary gathering. Nonetheless, many great pieces certainly were included, and not all from the big names like Abromovic and Rauschenberg.

I won't bother to explain each and every piece, but here is a stream of consciousness recap of my highlights. Upon first entering the exhibit, I saw a printer and mounds of paper, part of the Open Work of Art section. I cannot recall the artists name, but the piece actually made an impression on me. The printer was printing news headlines from around the world, and had apparently been doing this since the exhibit opened, creating a long steady stream of text and paper. A grand piano was in the middle of the room, and the score to John Cage's 4'33" was on a wall nearby. Apparently regular performances of the work are given.

I noticed on the sign that SFMOMA has createda rather ingenious alternative to carrying around those silly audioguides. Each work has a unique number on it. By pulling out your cellphone and dialing 415-294-3609, and then keying in the work number, you can have access toa free audiotour, from home or in the museum.

Before coming to this floor to see the exhibit, I had first gone to view a short documentary about the composer, adding to the secondary literature and films I've already absorbed about Cage's life and work. Somehow, it is still striking to see an original annotated score of a work that was so transformative in American music. On the wall across from the piano was one of Rauschenberg's White Paintings, (1951,) which Cage sighted as an influence on his creation of 4'33". Instructions for Use included pieces that tell the viewer to do something. This could include using your body to hold 6 objects against the wall (with your feet, knees, waste, stomach, chest, and forehead,) or to bat another object around the floor with a broom. Another exhibit asks your to merely take a print, which are stacked in a 2-foot-tall pile on the floor. As I grabbed my copy, which was a bird in the sky, a young man with a thick accent asked, are you sure you can do that?, to which I replied, after removing my headphones, yes, look at the instructions on the sign. "Take One." The piece which really stuck out however was an installation by Tom Marioni, made from the remnants of a performance piece he's been doing since the '70s called "The Act of Drinking Beer with Friends is the Highest Form of Art." Marioni would invite friends, and museum goers, to drink beer with him. The installation on view is a document of one of these performances, made of a shelf filed with hundreds of empty Anchor Steam bottles (a great beer brewed in SF,) a refrigerator, and a chair.

The next room, Utopia Revisited, consists mainly of digital/new-media/internet based pieces, some of which were pretty groundbreaking. Lyn Hershman Leeson's work in particular has stayed with me. Entitled "Life Squared," she uses Second Life as a way to explore her back catalog and to interact with her work in a way the traditional gallery space does not allow. Check out http://slurl.com/secondlife/NEWare/128/128/0 for more on her project. Along those lines, I was also impressed by Warren Sack's "Conversation Map," a work from 2000 which you can read more about at http://people.ucsc.edu/~wsack/conversationmap. I really enjoy seeing artist experiment with the internet as a medium, and have some ideas I'd like to try out on my own in this regard.

Another piece which was interesting, though I've forgotten who the artist was, was in the next room, a giant lattice of rubberbands. The spectator is invited to grab a rubberband and extend the grid, and then to do weird things with others with the rubberbands, stretching them out and whatever. The museum apparently hires folks to encourage the viewers to actually participate, and explain the works to the museum going public. The etiquette here is quite different than we have been trained to expect, and this is actually a bit discomforting, though ultimately it should be liberating. In the next section, Testing Authority, is a video piece by Francis Alys, a Belgian living and working in Mexico City whose work I was first exposed to in a Neuberger Show last year called "Person in the Crowd," which was also about performance art and sometime included participatory actions. Alys' work can be described as psychogepgraphic. (See his piece walking around Mexico City with a dripping paint can, something he's done in other cities as well. Also, here is a link to a web project he did for Dia, http://www.diaart.org/alys/intro.html.) His video in the SFMOMA consists of two shots projected side by side, in which Francis walks into a shop in Mexico City, buys a pistol, loads it, and then walks down the street until the police arrest him. One is of the actual event/walk, which lasted for almost 12 minutes, and the other is of a recreation of the event, in which the police agreed to take part. The recreation is heavily stylized to be reminiscent of a police/crime drama, with close ups of the gun and so on. In both case, particularly the 'real' walk, the attitude of the passerbys is astounding. It says a lot about Mexico City, but would be interesting in any city.

I should mention the pieces by Yoko Ono, Andy Warhol, Marina Abromovic, and Vito Acconci, but I won't. As much as I like all their work, they seemed more there for historical reasons, and I wasn't particularly enthralled, tho Yoko's "Cut Piece" was very interesting. Oh, that reminds me, of another film dramatization by Pierre Huyghe, called Third Memory, showing the reenactment of a crime on which the film Dog Day Afternoon was based, led by one of the actual participants... Lygia Clark's wearable objects bring to mind Charles LaBelle's similar work, and Joseph Beuys' piece was fantastic as well. An image of his signed by the artist, letting us know, in italian, that we are the revolution. Another was a cheap replicated box, empty, ready to be posited with meaning. The last is a TV address he made by satellite in the '70s, as a teacher, explaining his concept of social sculpture, that art has a social implication, and that art and politics coexist. The works themselves do not stand out in my memory, but his ideas do, and I think he'd be pleased by this.

Another interesting aspect of the exhibit was "Freecell," which was in th museums "D-Space." Modular cardboard which is intended to be folded and stacked to create tables, chairs, and other environmental components.

But the absolute highlight, easily my favorite, was an audio-video walking tour by Janet Cardiff. I took her audio walk of Central Park back in 2004 (?) and also had the chance to see 40-part Motet when it was at MoMA in NY. This piece is easily my favorite of the three. I would like to see more of her work, both av guides and installation, which are frequently collaborations with her partner George Miller. http://www.cardiffmiller.com/ So, she created this piece back in 2001 or so for SFMOMA. I checked out a video camera, but on my headphones, and began the tour. Her pieces instruct you to begin in a specific spot, and follow her instructions, letting her guide you on a narrative tour. In some ways, this piece was incredibly disorienting and at times uncomfortable. She lead me through a staff only door and up the stairs, while the sound of footsteps chased us. Where they real or in my headphones? She pauses in front of a window that is no longer there, musing about the beauty of the peaks in the distance, peaks I can only see through her lense. As we ascended the final stair case, I follow my camera in place with hers, paused on a large women singing soulfully. In front of me, I see a man wondering why I am 'filming' him, giving me a dirty look, while on the little screen of my camera I see the woman belting out the blues. These awkward moments make me love her work all the more, as they create real human emotions and interactions, often misunderstanding and disorientation. In this case, she is engaging with the museum setting as a space and imagining the lives of it's patrons.

Last spring, I took a course entitled "Aesthetics and Politics," and one of the texts we read was Nicolas Bourriaud's "Relational Aesthetics," a collection of critical pieces and curatorial explanations contextualizing a non-movement of '90s artists known as 'relational.' I later wrote a piece on pyschogeography and contemporary/performance/conceptual art, and Bourriaud's work was important in my understanding of the aesthetics behind these types of works. Lucia and I recently attended the "anyspacewhatever" exhibit at Guggenheim NY, and there was some overlap in the types of work presented in SF, though the scope and tone were completely distinct.

All in all, another impressive show at SFMOMA, one of my favorite art museums, and hopefully a future employer (?).

--------------------------------

Last night, Lucia and I went to the Jacob Burns Film Center in Pleasantville. I had decided to take it easy this weekend, so we took the train away from White Plains, had a nice dinner at Bollywood (contemporary indian, i had cocunut curry mahi mahi, which was delicious,) and went to see Waltz With Bashir. I had heard much about this movie, beginning with an interview Ari Folman, the film maker and lead character, on NPR months ago. Almost entirely animated, the film is a documentary of Folman's attempt to regain his memory of the massacres at Sabra and Shatilla in Beirut during the first Lebanon War. Folman was 19 and in the IDF at the time. The score is composed by Max Richter, a German whose work I've written about before, and who I am a big fan of. The movie begins with Folman meeting with a friend at a bar late at night, and listening to his friend's recurring nightmare of being hounded by 26 dogs, the ghosts of 26 dogs he killed to keep from alerting the enemy more than 20 years prior. At this telling, Folman realized he had no memories of his own from his war years, and begins to track down his friends and comrades from the war. We are presented with a diverse and imaginative look at the experience of being at war. Folman doesn't really get into the politics of it all. No attempt to rationalize or justify the otherside is given, nor are any of the enemy combatants ever presented as characters. A clear anti-war message is intended, but Folman focuses only on the actual horror of war as experience by these young boys, and any group of young people really. This is the most striking point, for me, and an important point often missed more generally. After Folman regains his memories, he is describing them to his therapist and friend Ori Sivan. He remembers the nights of the massacre. His unit was shooting flares into the night sky, lighting up the area so that the Phalangists could carry out their massacre. He cannot recall if he launched the flare himself, but he still regards his action as comparable to carrying out the massacre itself. As Sivan mentioned earlier, it was another massacre that has haunted Folman as well, the much more terrible and sustained massacre at Auschwitz. Sivan says to Folman that he "took on the role of a Nazi." He isn't judging him, though, but explaining Folman's own worry. Later, a friend of Folman's, or maybe it was the TV host, describes the scene of the Palestinians leaving the camp as being reminiscent of the line of Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto. They are not comparing the Israeli's to Nazis, however. Many lines of civilians who have been mistreated have looked like this. The point is an important one, however.

It has been argued that the concentration camps are the logical end of industrialization. The development of weapons, bombs, and other technology of death has made killing so much more efficient than in the past, and so it was inevitable that a people would develop a more efficient and industrial way of murdering. The camps, which were this but even more importantly were a means of dehumanization of the victims, were this end. But it's not just the Nazis. It is so easy to take on that role, it is inside all of us. That is the most horrifying thing about them, and about a movie like this. The last bit of the film is actual footage from the refugee camps after the massacre. Some film critics have suggested that the transition from animation to film is too abrupt and disorienting. I though I would agree, but it is actually necessary. Although much of the film can be disturbing, we have been lulled into a fantasy world. When the archival film footage comes on, we see actual dead bodies, murdered children, women crying out to god for help, and we are brought back to the realization that these events really happened. These poor young men were in some way involved in this massacre, though all they did was launch flares. No wonder they may have blocked out their memories of the event.

While I was in London back in 2006, I visited Oxford, and stopped by to a contemporary art museum. There was an exhibit at the time of Lebanese artists. I will never forget one of the pieces which showed a film of fireworks going off over Beirut. Or maybe they were rockets. It is hard to tell, but the point was just that. We often forget what fireworks stand for, but I doubt the citizens of Beirut do. So used to the shellings and falling rockets, the flares that light up the night sky so that their own citizens, Christians, can butcher Palestinians. And many other tragedies that occurred during the war that followed. About a week after I saw this exhibit, I was sitting in a cafe/laundromat doing laundry in Berlin, and my new friend came in to tell me that Israel has begun to bomb Lebanon. It never ends. Just like the line of refugees leaving the Warsaw Ghetto, or the Sabra camp, or Beirut in 06. I can't help but think of Nietzsche. What a crushing weight indeed if this is what we are meant to perpetually repeat. I think it is important that we recognize where we have gone wrong in the modern world, and that we understand that we are all capable of such things. We must therefore take steps to allow for authentic political engagement in society, but it seems naive to write even this after seeing such dreadful reality in this film last night.

Makes an exhibit about participatory art seem a bit hollow.

Family Suicide in LA Reminiscent of Cartier Incident

2009-01-28T18:38:00.003-05:00

With no job and 5 kids, 'better to end our lives,' man wrote

"It was described as one of the most grisly scenes Los Angeles police had ever encountered: the bodies of five small children and their parents, all shot to death, in two upstairs rooms of the family's home.
...
But even more incomprehensible to some was the story that emerged after the bodies were found Tuesday: A father who, after he and his wife were fired from their jobs, killed all six family members before turning the gun on himself."

I just came across this article on CNN.com, and was immediately reminded of the Cartier affair in France, back in 2002. I first heard of the Cartier's when I began more seriously studying the work of Bernard Stiegler last year. Stiegler is a French philosopher, who after discovering philosophy while inprisoned for armed robbery, began a serious study of technology called Technics and Time. Stiegler wrote about the Cartiers in Mécréance et Discrédit: Tome 2, Les sociétés incontrolables d'individus désaffectés (2006). An extract was published in English translation as The Disaffected Individual. (according to wikipedia.) The story goes something like this. After returning home from dinner, Patricia and Emmanuel Cartier had decided to end their lives, and the lives of their 5 children. Patricia was working as a caregiver to the elderly, and injected her children, aged 11 months to 13 years, with insulin, telling them they were being vaccinated before going on holiday. She then gave herself the same injection, and her husband attempted to slit his wrists. The dose proved not to be fatal, however, and only 11 year old Alicia would later die from the injection. Coincidently, on the same day that Alicia passed away, the children's grandmother, whose custody they were under, also died in a car accident. The Cartier's claimed that desperation from being over 250,000 Euros in debt led them to wish to end their lives. They claimed that they were caught in an "infernal spiral" of consumer spending and debt, and blamed societies consumerism for their actions. "After 15 years of marriage, the Cartiers, described by a psychiatrist as "immature, emotionally insecure and depressed", had six different bank accounts, 21 distinct consumer loans and 15 credit cards. They earned €1,300 (£900) a month each, with an extra €500 in family allowances." Patricia and Emmanuel were later convicted of attempted murder and murder, and sentenced to 10 and 15 years respectively. I'm not sure why Patricia, who took the insulin from her job and administered the injections, got a lighter sentence than her husband, who was also 7 years her junior (not that that's particularly relevant.)

The family in LA, who also had 5 children, claimed to be driven to despair by economic causes, being terminated from their jobs, though they didn't directly blame consumerism, and their method of carrying out their task was far more pragmatic, and effective. The things that struck me, aside from the superficial similarities, is the immaturity of the acts. I suppose things like this have always occurred, but it seems to me that there is something about modern life that not only creates citizens who are unable to take care of themselves, but also drives them to such deep despair that they see murdering their own family as the only way out.

-----------------------------------

On a lighter note, I spent two weeks in San Francisco (with brief trips to Davis, Los Angeles and Lake Tahoe,) seeing friends, visiting museums and galleries, and meeting with professors at the graduate programs I've applied to. I saw an excellent show at SFMOMA called the art of participation, in which I was blessed to yet again experience a Janet Cardiff piece. I also saw a wonderful show on Afghanistan at the Asian Arts Museum. I will try and post my reviews of these shows shortly. The Art of Participation in particular, which was a retrospective of works from the 1950s to the present, had many recent new media pieces with online components, so I think it will be quite fun for those who read it.

End of Year Wrap Up

2008-12-30T23:36:00.002-05:00

Top Albums of the Year, 2008

Over at the silent ballet, we recently posted out top 50 albums, top 30 tracks, top 30 electronic records, etc. Please check it out.

www.thesilentballet.com

Although it seems the years go by faster and faster as we get older (yet another thing our elders warned us about,) and usually I agree, something about 2008 has seemed to drag for me. Since returning to NY, on one hand it seems that the time has flown by, yet I’ve also been fairly busy, and when I think back to what I was doing at this time last year, it seems like ages ago. I’ve spent a lot of time this year playing music with friends, listening to music made decades ago, ohttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifr longer.

I realized that certain records just don’t do it for me, not because of any deficit on the composition or energy or virtuosity or fidelity, but because certain tones, certain sonorities, just don’t communicate anything to me. This isn’t necessarily a pure analog v. digital debate, although it is much harder for a record entirely made of digital sounds to speak to me. There needs to be something organic. Quantized dance music is great for it’s utility, of making a body dance, keeping a perfect time, but I’ve been much more impressed with fusions of the organic with the electronic.

I hate lists. I don’t have time to get drawn into message boards to discuss things that basically have no real world consequences. I’m more than happy to write about music all year and discuss in person, but the whole *this is better than this* stuff that goes on this time of year is silly. But, there are a good bunch of artists whom I’ve really enjoyed this year, and who I think should be shared. They don’t get enough attention, and they really do deserve it. Like others I’ve seen, I’m making no attempt at ranking. Instead, these are records released in 2008 that I enjoyed.

There were a slew of mainstream records that we all know are pretty great; Santogold, The Roots, TV on the Radio, MGMT, Eryka Badu, Death Cab, Wolf Parade, Fleet Foxes, Portishead, Bon Iver, Andrew Bird. These all got tons of attention in mainstream publications, so I will just basically ignore them. So, most of you, hopefully, will discover some lesser known artists..

Albums

A Silver Mt. Zion- 13 Blues for Thirteen Moons- I love Godspeed. I’m sure you do too. And I love all of ASMZ’s records too. This is a bit more controversial, apparently. He Has Left us Alone… has it’s own magic. Born of Trouble… is just downright beautiful. Pretty Little Lightning Paw EP sounds pretty shitty, but the songs are solid, and are some of my favorites live. This is our punk rock thee… seems to be the band at their most pretentious. However, people who say that don’t get their humor, just like those that accuse Morrissey of being depressing. (I really love the Smiths by the way.) Horses in the Sky has some great full songs. 13 Moons features a new drummer, and tons more energy and much better production. I have a full review of it in my blog here: http://thenewobjective.blogspot.com/2008/01/13-blues-for-thirteen-moons.html

Earth- The Bees made Honey in the Lions Skull This album was a huge shock. I remember being 16 or 17 and discovering Sunn 0)). (I still laugh when I think of the description of Sunn as “baby pleasing sounds” from initial records back then.) Anyway, I knew Earth in the context of Sunn, who formed to fill a void left by their decline. (The main figure behind Earth was a heroin addict, and is infamous for being the dude who bought Kurt Cobain his shotgun.) I was never a huge fan of Earth, although I do appreciate the occasional drone album. This record is surprisingly beautiful and majestic. The main reason this record is so much better than all their previous output combined is the addition of the lap steel.

Bersarin Quartett- s/t- I know nothing about this band. Except they are one of my best new things I’ve heard this year. New to me anyway. I guess they’re German. Or Austrian. Or maybe German-Swiss? In anycase, it’s… chill, electronicky horn piano music whtvr.
http://www.myspace.com/bersarinquartett

Emmanuele Errante- Humus What can I say? Italy is a strange country. So many amazingly talented musicians, and yet, the scene there sucks, and their artists (Port-Royal, Giuseppe Ielasi, Nicola Ratti, Giardino di Miro, etc) get more respect in other countries. Errante’s Somnia debut is a stunning. Check it out.

Mogwai- The Hawk is Howling- I love Mogwai. Have since high school. Have even more since I started to smoke weed. People like to give them a hard time, but they are fucking awesome. If you like any of their old material, I can’t see you not liking this too. They continue to evolve (The Sun Smells too Loud is a new direction) but they continue to be heavy and amusing.

Sparkle in Grey- A Quiet Place- Another talented group from Italy, this record was produced by Giuseppe Ielasi. Originally a solo project of Hue, this is their first release as a proper band. Not that that means much. A Quiet Place is a mix of found sound, field recordings, conventional instrumentation, electronics, and downright noise. Somehow, something beautiful has emerged.

Sigur Ros- Me_ su_ í eyrum vi_ spilum endalaust- Fuck you if you don’t think they are the best band in the world. You are wrong. That’s all. I see their shortcoming, I do, but it doesn’t matter. If this were a church, I’d be a preacher.
http://www.sigurros.com/main/home/

Max Richter- 24 Postcards in Full Color- This is a collection of 24 tracks. An experiment to see if meaningful music can be written for use as ringtones. I love the concept. I love the results.
http://www.maxrichter.com/

Sumner McKane-What A Great Place To Be – I think, more than any other artist, I want people to know Sumner. He sells himself, really, if people could just hear this stuff. Honestly, he blows me away. Please check this out, and see my reviews on TSB. Just, beautiful, talented, wonderful production, and full of soul and love.
http://www.sumnermckane.com/howdy_yall.html

Kayo Dot- Blue Lambency Downward- This is not an easy record to absorb, but with repeat listens, and close attention, it pays off. Most people will hate it. They’ve been on Tzadik, Robotic Empire, and Hydra Head, but that alone will not give you a hint of what they sound like. On tour 2 years ago, all the members but Toby and Mia quit, leaving the band a chance to reinvent themselves. Finally pulling out of the metal shadow of Maudlin of the Well, BLD marks a milestone for the group.

MGMT- Oracular Spectacular- You all know this shit. They’re huge, they’re played all over the place, everyone loves them. It’s silly, they’re having fun, we’re having fun. Sometimes we don’t need serious. There is still something sincere about what they are doing, though, not in the lyrics, or the sound, but just the energy. Fun fun fun.

Grails – Doomsdayer’s Holiday, Take Refuge in Clean Living- Many of us at TSB loved their last 2 records, particularly Burning Off Impurities which was our #1 last year. I first saw Grails at CMJ in 06, at Sin-e, and they blew me away. I loved their EP this year, and the new lp is pretty good. A bit different, doesn’t really top BOI, but still classic.

The Drift-Memory Drawings- Again, see my review for more on this. If you miss old DMST, you’ll probably love this. Organic, jazz infused post-rock from the Bay. http://www.thesilentballet.com/dnn/Reviews/2008/April/tabid/127/ctl/Details/mid/548/ItemID/1383/Default.aspx

Neil on Impression- ...l'oceano delle onde che restano onde per sempre- Yes, another Italian band. Yes, they are really great too. The thing I love is that each of these three groups are entirely distinct from each other. The Perfect Tango (2006) was pretty impressive, but they’ve really solidified their identity here.
http://www.neilonimpression.org/

This is Your Captain Speaking- The Eternal Return- Name checking Nietzsche in the title in a subtle way? They win. Glad to see Australia is still putting out great records too.

Samuel Jackson 5-Goodbye Melody-- Nice followup to 2005’s whtvr it was called. Good solid instrumental rock. Goes beyond the loud/soft dynamic, doesn’t rip off mono/eits/gybe/mogwai. Scandinavia ftw!

Beneva v. Clark Nova- Sombunal- I don’t know much about these guys, but another great electronic record. The cover of the album has a bunch of naked baby dolls all over it. Kinda creepy. But they turn what should be a bizarre inaccessible record into surprisingly catchy pop glitch.

Akira Kosamura- Tiny Music- Another TSB favorite. Japanese, very pretty. As opposed to last years collaboration with Haruka Nakamura, Aftetglow, which was composed of 2 long tracks, Tiny Music consists of many shorter tracks. Mostly Akira’s piano, and some classical and acoustic guitar.

Juxta Phone v. offtheky- !escape kit!- Wow. This was a great year for electronic artists collaborating to create amazing records. Offthesky releases a good deal of music, but we don’t seem to know anything about this ‘Juxta Phona’ cat. In anycase, it shows that these guys must have put an incredible amount of time into making this record. Slight tweaks, hundreds of filters and effects. The result is hard to define, but dense and smoky electrojazz comes close.

Kira Kira- Our Map to the Monster Olympics- Finally a female electronic/sound artist! Another original group from Iceland. She weaves together various toy instruments and recordings with guitar, glockenspiel, and laptop. http://this.is/kirakira

Autistici- Volume Objects- You know the drill. Italian. Careful electronic collage. Organic development of electronic sounds. Check TSB for the review.

Gang Gang Dance- Saint Dymphna - I won’t even try. Pretty original stuff. Out there. Lots have been written about this Manhattan it-band, and they deserve it.

DJ Spooky- Sound Unbound- Following Rhythm Science, his book on remix culture on MIT Press, and last years Africa mixtape for the Venice Bienniale, Sound Unbound is a collection of essays Paul D. Miller edited. The book comes with an accompanying CD, a collage mix culled mainly from the archives of Sub Rosa. Where else can you hear Iggy Pop reading Burroughs, and Dada mixed with Sonic Youth, etc.
http://mitpress.mit.edu/catalog/item/default.asp?ttype=2&tid=11401

Nico Muhly- Mothertongue - I’d like to hate him. 27 year old polymath prodigy. It’s hard not to be envious. But, he’s too talented. This album has some missteps, and is nowhere near as pretty as his last, but I think that’s the point. Everything shouldn’t be conventionally pretty. The album has three movements, each exploring a different idea. The eponymous piece is sung by Abigail Fischer, and was performed early this year at a Wordless Music show. Nico was trying to capture the incredible array of information crowding our brains, and succeeds by programming a sampler with all the numbers and addresses Abigail could remember, and creating an electronic backdrop of monotonous numbers that she then sings over. I’m a sucker for conceptual art. The piece with Sam Amidan is also very striking, a reworking of an old folk song whose mood had been altered to better suit the lyrical content.

I have also become a great fan of his blog. It is the most interesting mash up of intelligent fragments on pop culture, linguistics, classical and pop music, food, etc. www.nicomuhly.com

My Education-Bad Vibration- They are from Texas? I dunno. Mad chill though. These guys pull off the folksy-postrock aesthetic amazingly. Recommended.

Flying Lotus- Los Angeles- Phat intrumental hip hop beats!!!!!!!!!!! Did a great remix of Radiohead this year too. Signed to Warp last year, and his debut for them didn’t disappoint. Looking forward to future work.

Silian Rail- And I You, To Pieces I saw Silian Rail open for FMTM out in SF last year, and was very impressed by this duo, enough that I reviewed their debut EP of my own volition. Their proper debut was recently released, and was just what I thought it’d be. Amazing. Has some of my favorite tracks of the year. Just guitar and drums, with occasional glockenspiel, they manage to craft a really distinct sound. There is something honest and sincere about their music that is lacking is a lot of instrumental music.

Colin Stetson- I love jazz, but most of what I love was made from 1950-1976 or so. Obviously there are great players still playing, but most of them either had their hayday in those years (Wayne Shorter, Sonny Rollins, Freddie Hubbard, Mccoy Tyner, Anthony Braxton, Ornette Coleman, etc) or are young lions who don’t really know their history or are rather just trying to mime the same forms that have already been made. Stetson is in the jazz tradition, but is one of these young cats who is busting out doing something totally new. This record is pretty much unclassifiable. There is little I can say that would describe what it actually sounds like. Sometimes it’s hard to believe it is a single take with no effects of one guy playing horns. Stetson makes use of circular breathing, plays various horns at once, and has a great sense of composition, at times sounding akin to electronic artists. And it’s good too.

Bohren & Der Glub of Gore- Dolores These Germans used to be way heavier. Apparently they’ve been around since the ‘90s, influenced by Gore. Now they play beautiful chill music with horns and shit. TSB ranked them as album of the year. I wish I’d discovered them sooner.

Gifts from Enola/ y/m/d/i/t/d- Harmonic Motion. Hell yea. Best post-rock record of the year.

Peter Broderick- Homes Efterklang did not release any full length records or Eps this year, so I had to put Peter Broderick on the list. Honestly though, great record.

Ghostland Observatory- Robotique Majestique- I liked last years Lightning Paparazzi better, but I didn’t hear them until this year anyway, courtesy of my man Lee.

Machinefabriek- This dude puts out so many records, I’m sure one of them should be on this list. But I can’t remember.

The Very Best- Esau Mwamwam + Radioclit = the very best This record is really good. A singer from Mali fusing Malinese music with European dance beats and pop remixes. I do not hate Vampire Weekend. But their vague references to early ‘90s Paul Simon does not count as African. They are Ivy league white preppy boys. Which is fine, I aspire to be such a thing. Doesn’t make their music authentic. Anycase, why am I talking about them? Because THE VERY BEST (esau + radioclit) is way better. Download their record/mix tape here for free. http://www.myspace.com/theverybestmyspace

And some others that I’ve run out of momentum to write about.

Le Chat Blanc Orchestra
The Alps
ARP
White Denim
Helios
Te’
Sgt.
En Plein Air
Lykke Li
Haushka

Label

Somnia seems to be the stand out label this year, releasing fantastic records by Juxta Phona vs. offthesky, Evan Barthalomew, Evan Marc +Steve Hillage, Bluetech, and Emmanuele Errante, all just in 2008. Check them out. Some of the best chill out, ambient, psycbient, glitch, etc going out.
http://somniasound.com

Stand Alone Single

Redhooker- "Telling Time"- This is a group I discovered a few years ago after receiving their EP to review. Basically the sideproject of the guitar player from Slow Six, I really connected with their music, and had the chance to see a wonderful performance in a special place called Monkey Town in Williamsburg during CMJ. The Silent Ballet released a new song on our 9th compilation with Lost Children earlier this year. The track is called Telling Time. Download it here. www.archive.org/details/LostChildren051

Singles

Coco Tea- Barack Obama – What with Obama winning the election and all, this tune got a huge boost. The fact that it has been played all over the world makes it relevant enough, but it is also catchy as hell on it’s own.

N.E.R.D- All the girls waiting in the line for the bathroom- This single and accompanying video is pretty funny. Stand out pop song for me this year.

And Past Stuff

Max L. introduced me to a band called Kneebody. They are amazing. No proper releases this year, but their improvised electronic jazz blows pretty much everyone else out of the water. Mostly because they are compositionally mature and can play their instruments amazingly well.

I love the Smiths.

Music for 18 by Steve Reich is still one of my favorite pieces of music.

I really love Brazilian music. After getting some mix tapes from my friend Matt last year, I’ve continued my exploration of Brazilian music. Some of the best stuff I’ve heard ever, combining music with traditional roots, community, musical virtuosity and experimentation.

Reissues

Sonny Rollins- Freedom Suite

Nina Simone

Stars of the Lid, "Music for Nitrous Oxide"

Gavin Bryars “The Sinking of the Titanic”

Things to keep an eye out for in 2009

Saxon Shore

Bob Ostertag

From Monument to Masses

Moving Mountains- This is kind of out, but not really, so I’ll wait till next year. It’s awesome. I hope they don’t dilly dally on the next lp. Guys?

Looking Glass Wars

I took part in Rhys Chatham’s Crimson Grail this summer, but our actual performance got rained out. So, look for that this year.

The Watchmen movie- not music, but hey.

If I've seen a bit out of it lately...

2008-12-17T23:50:00.001-05:00

I sort of have been. I feel as though I haven't updated the world on
my happenings lately, so here's a quick recap...

After returning from the Dominican Republic this summer, I began
working full-time at uPurchase College as study abroad advisor/int'l
student assistant, a position I've held since moving back to NY in
January as a part-time employee. I decided to stay put and take this
position so I could save money and get caught up on paying off my debt (which
after all the traveling and moving I did last year, was adding up.) This turned out to be a responsible move, as the economy then continued it's downward spiral. I think this will be a good thing, creating lots of potential for change, and also for investment. And wealth re-distribution. (But that's another note.) I bought a Vespa and the rest is history... Sometime in October, they also appointed me as the inaugural Fellowship coordinator, to which the entire campus was notified, and for which many folks offered congratulations. I think most people thought that a) I got a raise (I didn't, part of my study abroad workload was redistributed, but that's fine because it is all clerical stuff) and/or b) that I can help them get funding.

Anyway, so I was living life as usual for a while, but things have gradual gotten busier and busier. In addition to work, I am still writing for the Silent Ballet (www.thesilentballet.com), volunteering on the Research Committee at the Neuberger Museum, taking a German class, applying to grad school, running the Cultural Immersion club, and trying to get a philosophy journal off the ground with Paula.

My recent countdown (currently 5 down, 7 to go) refers to my graduate school applications. A quick run down; UC Davis, Berkeley, Chicago, NYU, and Brown, with San Francisco State, Stony Brook, McGill, U Buffalo, CUNY, Central European University, and Domus Academy left. They are a mix of PhD and MA programs, mostly in Cultural/Communications/Media/Art History studies. CEU in Budapest is a History MA program. Yes.

So, work has been keeping me busier than I anticipated. In September and October, I did some traveling around the SUNY system doing recruiting for our summer programs. End of October we had a CIE meeting in Oswego, and I'm now part of a sub-committee to redesign the SUNY abroad website. Yay, more on the plate. November was NAFSA and COIL conferences, which were somewhat enjoyable, though time seemed to have accelerated at this point. My first application was due on Dec 1, and since then I've been non-stop. Now, I have a short break to look around.

Things I'm working on:

My favorite albums of 08; I cannot claim to have heard everything (even though I have head A LOT of music this year,) and particularly since I am so busy, there are tons of records I still haven't gotten around to giving a good listen too. So, I've compiled a list of my fav albums released this year, especially some things I think more people should check out. That will be up soon.

Meanwhile, www.thesilentballet.com will be releasing our 3rd annual Top 50 list before the end of the year, so check that out for the best postrock/electronic/instrumental/etc. I also have a long-overdue article/interview with From Monument to Masses and another interview with Italy's Sparkle in Grey coming out soon.

In the new year, I have two artistic projects, at least, that I intend on finishing. A) My paternal Grandfather, Alfonso Sannicandro, recorded a series of tapes in 1988, shortly before he was to have a stroke and ultimately passaway. He tells stories in a compelling style, the narrativ drifting with his mind, as characters come and go while he talks. He relates shining shoes at Yankee Stadium, loosing his wife to cancer, moving a piano, the changes happening in the Bronx, and in the nation. Earlier this year, I tracked down these tapes, and began to transfer them to digital. This project is two fold. One, I will eventually write a book based on his stories, while my family members will receive a copy of the digital transfer. Two, I'm using the tapes as source material for a musical project. It will sound strange. B) Almost one year ago I began saving all of my receipts. I noticed that receipts are ubiquitous, yet most people do not look at them or give them a second thought. Since they are printed, and since i often use my cards to pay for things, I decided to keep them all. As modern trash, as historical documents, as a record of my spending habits and life, of my travel habits. I will soon begin to weave these records into a narrative, which will be presented visually. I am utilizing something that would otherwise be trash, but also materializing a portrait. I don't want to give too much away, but I hope to complete this by May. Additionally, I have some songs I'd like to set down to 'tape' soon, so maybe I'll get around to that. And finally I hope that Lee and I can synchronize our schedules and bring the party this year too.

So, now, before I get back to work, finishing up my applications, studying German, polishing off my TSB assignments, etc, I'd like to catch up with some people I haven't seen often enough recently. I leave for San Francisco on the evening of January 8th, to visit professors/schools, see friends, and ski the West finally. So, let's make plans before then.

Love

j.

ps this post needs a picture, how about....

http://sandvig.mariegaard.net/wp-content/jorn_aelling_90228big.jpg

a detourned duck

and a potentially chilling vision of globalization. We live in financial times, eh?

http://www.stillad.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/01/ftcityscape.jpg

Just Keeping my Fingers Crossed

2008-11-02T23:00:00.002-05:00

I've started to feel a bit powerless here. Regardless of how I feel this moment, things are going well for me, and I hope for the country too. I have been keeping myself very busy, and have many things going on. Aside from work, which has been quiet these last 2 weeks or so, I am primarily focused on applying to grad school, which has been stressing me out in ways I don't feel like going into depth about here at this moment.

Instead, I will drink my chocolate soy milk, read some Cortazar, and maybe do my German hw. I'll probably do some yoga as well, and lord knows I need the energy. This weekend was great, but I need a slow day to recover. in any case, I wanted to drop a line before the election. Maybe tomorrow I will find time between work and class to say a little something about the election and so on. But, I really do hope we get to see a fundamental change in the direction of this country, and one for the better.

David Byrne and Brian Eno's latest record, Everything That Happens Will Happen Today

2008-08-19T13:05:00.005-04:00

David Byrne and Brian Eno have teamed up together for the first time since 1981's My Life in the Bush of Ghosts and Eno's work producing and co-writing with Talking Heads. Byrne is a New York based musician, writer, director, artist, and general polymath, best known as the man behind the Talking Heads. Eno is the founding father of ambient music, former member of Roxy Music, and producer extraordinaire, most recently of Coldplay's latest record, as well as classic record by the Talking Heads, U2, and others, as well as his own material. Coincidently, or perhaps not, I just the other day came across their first collaboration, released 3 years before I was born. And today I learned that their new record was released yesterday as well. Check it out at the links below, where you can also download a free track from the album. I am looking forward to getting paid so I can purchase a copy and listen to the whole thing. The record is also available for streaming on the site, though I can't check since I am at work. Speaking of which, back to work.
http://everythingthathappens.com/
http://journal.davidbyrne.com/

Oh, two more things though. David Byrne, who lives in NY, has an installation up at the Battery Maritime Building downtown. I've been trying to see/experience it all summer, and haven't made it down yet. This is the last weekend, and I will certainly be there. Check it out if you can. He has rigged an organ to resonate different parts of the building. For a better explanation, see the official site.

And lastly, keep your eyes out for Byrne's recent bike racks he designed and installed around NYC, which the good graces of the Transit dept, of course. More info in this excellent NY Times piece and on Byrne's website.
http://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gif

the oldest frontier in the americas (is untameable)

2008-07-25T11:46:00.002-04:00

I keep losing my posts before I post them, so I am frustrated and will keep this short.

I am currently in Santiago with Rob, after visiting Santo Domingo, Puerto Plata, Sosua, and Cabarete. Alex and ROb went to Cabareta while I was in PP, after meeting some girls on the bus. I went to see Lucia in PP but missed her by about 5 hours. Alex freaked and wanted to leave while I was gone, and after complaining the whole time and loosing the key to the apt he and Rob had, ROb was happy to oblige and put him on a bus. He JUST made it back to the states tho because of delays. Santiago is kind of a disapointment. We leave for Jarabacoa today,a nd then work our way down to Barahona.

I think this trip will produce a book. Lots to say.

If there's something you'd like to try...

2008-07-18T21:18:00.002-04:00

Well, by way of an update, I'm saying goodbye, which is funny because this will also serve as a re-introduction.

In January I decided to stay on the East coast. I had left San Francisco for the holidays and to spend 3 weeks with my friend Gianluca, who was visiting NY from Italy. Also, my friend in SF got evicted, and then my roommate decided she was planning a move to Austin. Since the apt with my friend Ryan fell through (they couldn't find a 4 bedroom) I had no guaranteed place to live. Conveniently, on the day I took my final exam, the week after I got back from LA and the week before flying home, I got a call from my old boss that a job had opened up for Study Abroad adviser. I knew I'd be doing them a favor, and I decided to take it, even though it was part time. Since then, it's been frustrating since I haven't had much luck finding part time work to work around my schedule at Purchase. I've temped and catered, but it's been sporadic. I have, however, been reading a lot, thinking, writing, hanging out, and figuring out how to relax, be happy, and find a direction. I've also been taking a grad level art history course and studying German.

So, I had applied to go to Sweden on a research grant. My proposal made the top 10 but ultimately wasn't funded; only 4 were chosen of the hundreds of applicants. I've thus decided to stay at Purchase for one more year. I will be able to save some money, have health benefits, take classes, work as a research assistant at the museum, continue studying German, ride my new Vespa around, and continue enjoying the music, art, and people of NY. I will also be applying for various graduate programs, mostly in NY and SF Bay area, so it is better not to travel too much.

But it's me, and my wanderlust won't let me sit still for too long. I spent 5 days traveling cross country in May. Paula and I drove overnight to Chicago, where we hung out with Sam, and then drove through Kansas and Colorado. I had fun, and maybe I will write about it one day. Basically, America is beautiful, and there are some nice people in the midwest, where it is cheap, but our cities are disgraceful and are values are way off.

I thus decided it was time finally to visit the Dominican Republic. I leave on Sunday for a two week trip, in which I will explore all aspects of the island. City life in Santo Domingo, beautiful tropical forests and a smaller city in Barahona complete with gorgeous beaches, wilderness in Jaracaboa, including the tallest mountain in the hemisphere outside the Andes/Rockies, and finally a resort in La Romana. Flight courtesy of JetBlue flyermiles, everything else dirt cheap. I'll explain everything I do when I get back. Internet access will be limited.

So, I'm looking forward to this, should be fun!

Waiting

2008-03-25T22:40:00.002-04:00

Everything seems to be fragmented, so.... fragments.

Still waiting. Italy or Bonaroo? Jobs or no Jobs? Sweden or NY? Or something else... stay here, go back to CA?

Still dealing with other things too.

German's going well. My grad class is great too.

Been having fun hanging out. Reading more. Working on paper/writing sample for grad school, trying to figure it out. Maybe I will join the Peace Corps after all. I don't know if putting off decisions is a good reason to do it, but I wouldn't be alone.

Had a great time in VT skiing for a few days. I really enjoy skiing. I also have more respect for mountain climbers now. I climed up a third of the mountain, with 80-100 mph wind, in my skiboots, carrying skis and poles. 7 degrees without the wind. Hardest things I've done in a while. Skiing in fresh powder was amazing.

Stress. I've been trying to spend time with all the people I missed while in CA. Life doesn't always cooperate though, does it?

Been keeping on schedule for the silent ballet, but my FMTM interview still isn't done.

Lots of cool things coming up (Alan Wallace at Columbia, Olafur Eliasson as well, tons of shows, plus I'm working the Stars of the Lid show, and maybe the Whitney Biennial too, or at least attending.)

Still, I feel.... lost. It's been over a year now, I should have figured this out by now.

i am responsible

2008-03-12T23:39:00.002-04:00

It's amazing how idle I feel, even though I am always doing something. Too much to do I guess. I want to do more. I also don't feel content like I used to. I'm not exactly sure why that is, but I guess I miss the direction I used to have, or the feeling of direction.

I finally begin the German lessons tomorrow. Next week I'm going skiing, and I've been good about working about, writing, and making art, although I wish I was doing more of each. I have quite alot of reading to do as well, but I guess that will always be the case.

I will be finding out about Italy and Sweden soon, in the next 2 weeks and 6 weeks, respectively. I think it will be nice to have some direction again. Not having a second job has been stressful too, one reason I've felt time is passing so fast I suppose. Not working kind of sucks.

where are we going?

2008-02-19T23:44:00.002-05:00

Well, what have I been up to? A recap, as much for my own sake as anyone esle. Writing is my therapy, so here I am. I've had access to a car for the last several weeks. I work at Purchase as a study abroad adviser two days a week, a job I'm finding I enjoy. I have been taking an art history class (aesthetics and politics, a grad course) and reading and writing. I have been making collages and pictures, and planning other projects. I'm starting german classes soon. I have played music occassionaly. Sometimes I cater or work a temp job. I've hung out with various friends here and there, which has been nice. I feel like I'm going out too much. I feel ungrounded. But I think that may just being around her makes me feel like everything I do is ungrounded. This isn't a bad thing, I mean, it's just how I feel at this point. Anyway. I've been working out as well, and meditating again, trying to figure out what's next. Where to go? What do I want? This has made me feel quite ungrounded as well. I am throwing more energy into writing and working on music. I have two shows coming up soon, and hopefully more will follow. If I stay in NY, I'm going to intern in some type of art invironment. I am also working for a concert series coming up, hopefully.

I like the radio. www.wnyc.org http://www.3garlands.com/davidgarland/

The Future of the Music Industry

2008-01-27T13:24:00.000-05:00

I've been chatting with many different people in the last year about the state of the industry, and how I believe techonology has always been the catalyst for change. From printed sheet music to radio to phonographic records and so on, the business has survived large scale paradigm shifts in the past. (I mean, seriously, from traveling troubadors to a commodified product, what can match that in terms of scale? If anything the internet is suceeding in reversing the commodification of music. I really believe we need to reconsider that idea. Is music a commodity to be bough and sold?) Between studying Marxist aesthetics and writing for the Silent Ballet, not to mention interacting with my friends in various sectors of the music industry, I have come to regard the interference of capitalist structures with the ritualistic side of music as very troubling. Anyway, for more of my musing on these issues, see my upcoming interview with From Monument to Masses (monument-masses.com) on The SIlent Ballet. (thesilentballet.com)

But now to the point. When people ask me, "well, what do you think is going to happen? People clearly are less inclined to buy music, blah blah blah" I've supported an idea that others have pitched, some form of subscription service, an updated library of sorts. People will go to live concerts, trade music, buy records and t-shirts as souvenirs, and subscribe to services that give them unlimited listening access as a reasonable price (like we do with cable or something.) An article in the New Yorker about classical music several months ago described a similar system in place for classical music enthustiasts. ("The Well Tempered Web," 10/22 http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2007/10/22/071022fa_fact_ross?currentPage=all)

So the in that context, check out the latest news from Last.fm. Very interesting.
(http://blog.last.fm/2008/01/23/free-the-music)

13 Blues for Thirteen Moons

2008-01-25T00:58:00.000-05:00

The Silver Mt. Zion Memorial Orchestra & Tr-la-la Band- 13 Blues for Thirteen Moons
Constellation Records (www.cstrecords.com)
www.tr-la-la-band.com

So it’s been almost 3 years since Horses in the Sky came out, and I’ve been fortunate enough to see SMZ play several shows since then, including their first ever show in the US. The same few days they were in NY, they also appeared on WNYC’s fabulous Sunday night show, Spinning on Air with David Garland (see my past post on that.) That recording remains the best recording we have of SMZ. It is well produced but retains the live energy I’ve found to be missing from their other recordings. The band thrives in the live setting, especially the more folk oriented music of HitS (which beg to be danced to) as well as the improvisation and extended versions of classic songs reinterpreted by the ever expanding line-up.

Recently the bands latest record leaked, their 5th full length entitled 13 Blues for Thirteen Moons. I’m afraid I cannot share this album yet, but I would love to share my feelings on the band and the record. And I am very excited to get my hands on the vinyl version.

This record begins with 12 tracks, over one minute total, of feedback. This is not a throw-away, and don’t think that it is. It is preparing us, like the first scene of a play, gathering our attention and establishing the proper mood. Each short feedback phrase is distinct from the others. The last four tracks, which are inarguably the meat of the album, are each about a quarter of an hour. “1,000,000 died to make this sound” begins, and it is clear from the opening words that the band is here, at their most political, angrier and noisier. Each release the various Silver Mt. Zion incarnations produce is distinct from the rest. HitS showed the band developing as a 7-piece, incorporating new instrumentation, and exploring protest-music and tradition folk rhythms and melodies. With the release, featuring new drummer Eric Craven of Hangedup, they are delving into what is almost psychedelic rock. These songs may make use of group vocals and employ similar compositional devices as their past record, but this is a clearly different beast. The focus is entirely on the distorted guitars, downplaying the strings, which are making use of more effects than in the past. “13 Blues for Thirteen Moons” and “Blue Waters Blowed/ Engine Broke Blues” are departures for the band, dark and bluesy, with off beat drumming and waves of noise. Of the new songs played live over the last 3 years, “Blindblindblind” seems to be the favorite, and it’s studio manifestation doesn’t disappoint. Though compositionally reminiscent of GY!BE in some ways, particularly the clearly demarcated movements within each song, 13 Moons also has satisfying climaxes that make use of repetition of melodies and parts effectively without crossing into pop territory.

Efrim sounds great. Of course his vocal style is not for everyone, but I feel it suits the mood in a way that no one else’s can. Have you ever heard anyone cover SMZ? He has honed his style with over 100 lives shows over the last three years. The lyrics are superbly developed, and the band continues to progress and evolve, tinkering with new arrangements and compositions. Many of Efrim’s detractors, often GY!BE fans, prefer He Has Left Us Alone… or Born into Trouble…, both records I love very much. These records have a completely different aesthetic, however, as the band had a different composition and premise. Let us not forget that this is The Silver Mt. Zion Memorial Orchestra & Tra-la-la Band, and not A Silver Mt. Zion.

Is this better than Horses in the Sky? I don’t think that’s a fair question, nor is it one really worth asking. It's a different record, with different aims and different, incommensurable styles. I have long thought that the band had yet to make a record that could capture their energy. The songs just hadn’t been translated properly on tape yet. Maybe the new version of Hotel2Tango did the trick it, because this record, whether you think it sounds HitS electric or not, fucking kills it. Many of the same lyrical themes, arrangements, etc, but this time fucking balls out, angrier, louder, looser, and with a new drummer, well produced. This is an achievement.

I anticipate reactions to this record will be mixed. Some people will be missing out. Play it loud. Blast it out of your speakers. Or put on your headphones and smoke a joint if you need to. And come and see them on their upcoming tour.

and it begins to come into focus...

2008-01-21T02:08:00.000-05:00

When I arrived back in New York, Gianluca was already here, and Lexy transfered him to me. We had a lot of fun, seeing the city, hanging out, catching up with old friends. While Sam was here on break from Chicago, we hit the city a few times, and I got to catch up with Hanna Jamie and Lex before they left for their respective trips. Gianluca finally left last tuesday, and I've been now forced to begin to figure out what my life here during the next four months is going to look like. I am working at Purchase, so far only two days per week, but hopefully that will change here. In the meanwhile, I will be catering and temping here and there. I am working on my graduate writing samples by taking a graduate art history course. In addition to applying for a job on a farm in Italy this summer, I will be applying for jobs in NY and maybe Germany too, so hopefully something will materialize. I've applied for a Fulbright grant to do research in Sweden next year, which I really hope I recieve, as it will set me on track for the future and help me get into good grad programs. I've also applied to teach in Japan, and have an interview coming up in a few weeks. To stay busy, I will be using the Purchase gym, playing music with Ghazi and maybe Nick, and attending meditation groups in New Rochelle, and maybe White Plains. I've been making more art again, primarily working on collage and drawings. I think I'm going to get into silk screen again too. I am starting to write again. Maybe I'll get some work done on my screenplay, but if not, at least my TSB articles and reviews are coming along. I am finally going to be taking a German reading comprehension course. I am looking forward to these next few months. Sure I need to pay off my debt, and direction would be nice, but I'm not ready for an easy better paying job that will ultimately go nowhere. It may not seem like it at the moment, but I am too ambitious, and need to plan ahead. For now, I am content knowing that when all is settled, and I am an older man who has adopted responsibilities, that I will look back at this time in my life, and be at awe at the amount I have seen and done. I can't imagine feeling that I've wasted these years, or that I will ever say "man I should have been working then." Fuck that.

Writing like this takes the place of therapy I think. Writing, screaming (as in music, ritual concerts), and drinking with friends.

Bands Who Put out Great Albums in 2007

2008-01-03T20:28:00.000-05:00

I am not going to group this by rank or genre or anything. But here are my favorites released this year, and some comments about them. Also check out out Top 50 Albums on www.thesilentballet.com

Efterklang- (I fucking love this band. Both records released this year, Under Giant Trees and Parades, have blown Mew away; now they are officially the best band in Denmark)

Rogue Wave-(After too much post-rock and classical, sometimes I need some good rock.)

Kings of Leon- (I heard it this year anyway)

Port Royal- (A great follow-up to the masterpiece of Flares, this Italian ambient group continues to impress.)

God is an Astronaut- (Amazing post-rock group, I think from Scotland. This release showed tons of growth.)

GRAILS- (Dark, moody, organic. Also one of the best live performances I've seen in a while.)

Explosions in the Sky- (Many people seem to have been disappointed by All of A Sudden I Miss Everyone, but I loved it, especially the remixes. I think it will grow on listeners over time, like all their music. I am hoping for something a little more ground breaking on the next release though.)

Caspian- (Probably the best release of the year that most people haven't heard. The Four Trees is phenomenal, cohesive and interestingly arranged with noticable thematic elements tying the instrumental release together. Beautiful special packing as well.)

Do Make Say Think- (In truth, I was a bit let down by this release, but it grew on me and DMST are still amazing, even if Rust couldn't top &yet and hymns, which were amazing records. At least they tried some new things.)

Feist- (I love Leslie Feist, and apparently so does the rest of the world now. It's ok; I've seen her live numerous times and it was obvious that someone with her talent and charisma would make it big. Cheers!)

Holy Fuck- (Awesome electronic group from Montreal. This ep was so much better produced than there other stuff, very cool organic/electro stuff.)

Battles- (Just check it out. Great live, very weird, total progression from the EPs, and not for everyone.)

Radiohead- (I have nothing to say about this really. What else can be said? Grew on me big time.)

World's End Girlfriend- (I first heard this Japanese polymath when he did a collab with Mono last year. His solo work is amazing. Crazy, glitzchy multi-instrumental genre defying beauty.)

pg.lost- (A promising unsigned Swedish post-rock band.)

Blonde Redhead- (A dreamy pop album)

Eluvium- (Beautiful)

Lights Out Asia- (After 4 years, the project began as Aurore Rien continues with LOA's second release, a stunning blend of ambient and post-rock.)

Stars of the Lid- (This is an album to sleep/to drugs too. Very slow, but masterful developed.)

Slow Six- (just go read my review on www.thesilentballet.com)

Circa Survive- (On Letting Go really appealed to me, though some other's didn't seem to like it over their debut, which I also loved. Along the same lines with a few more experimental songs.)

Aesop Rock- (Not his best, but still amazing, great lyrics, and some nice beats. Cool delayed guitar and spacey bits.)

Tulsa Drone- (This record was scary on acid.)

65 Days of Static- (Yea, it's no fall of math, but its still solid.)

Giuseppe Ielasi- (Another awesome Italian making ambient music.)

Moving Mountains- (Pneuma is a solid rock record with strong song writing, arrangements, and local kids)

Looking-Glass Wars- (I was shocked at how catchy and well written these songs are.)

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I've been putting off really listening to Bright Eyes, Devendra, and Panda Bear, and I suspect they will all be great, so I'll mention them too. In addition, I urge you all to check out

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The Fountain Soundtrack, written by Clint Mansell- Performed by the Kronos Quartet and Mogwai. Still amazing!

What am I doing here? / Why I'm Here/ The New American Saint

2007-11-28T23:43:00.001-05:00

I’ve made this argument before, but let me lay it out here again. Many of my peers have made money in investments, or graduated top colleges and went right into the work force, or are struggling to climb the corporate ladder, selling drugs/trinkets/movies/ads/etc. This world has never held much appeal to me, and that hasn’t changed. If anything, I know have deeper philosophical and spiritual commitments to resist American capitalism. I believe that technology is something to be used skeptically, and that one must constantly ask and revaluate what we are gaining and what has been lost. Our way of life is not sustainable. I also understand that there are certain things that I can get away with doing in my early-mid 20’s that will be impossible later in life, once I begin to have my priorities diverted by responsibilities. I view most things from at least two perspective; that of my individuality, and historically, in terms of communities. I know that I will look back on this time in my life, this chapter of the narrative, and will be glad that it exists. I am learning alot about myself, and people in general, not to mentioned collecting valuable life experience and things to write about.. I suspect most of those who jump right into marriage and work will regret their decision.

But, I am torn between staying here and struggling to make things work, and returning home. Friends, familiarity. A chance to save money. What harm can come from a few more months? But I worry so… I don't think I can save money, and getting a new place will require a longer commitment. I dunno. I'm starting to plan seriously for the summer, which I don't think I can do from here.
_
What a month this has been. It’s beginning to seem like every time I speak with someone at home I learn of another death. First Matt the Bat. Then Sean’s mom. Now. DiPrinzio died? He still owed me a dinner for getting a 5 on my AP. I wish I'd gotten in touch with him over the years. He really made an impression on me, and certainly increased my interest in poetry and language. RIP.
__

Do we become adults when our elders simply die off? Is it when we assume adult roles in the community by default, because they have gotten too old or have simply passed on? I wonder if anyone ever truly feels like they are worthy of their elders. I suspect that every generation in history has reservations about their ability to fulfill that role. When we are young, we don’t realize that they were in our place once, they were young once. We can’t really process the fact that they weren’t always around. We project that permanence into the notion of God, the proto-parent.

I’ve made the mistake of reading On the Road again. From the first chapter I can’t wait to just jump on a bus. Luckily, or not, I got a job offer to ride me out until the end of next week. After that though… Adeventures! Can’t forget that. Time for adventures, freedom, the open road, seeing my friends. Damn bills. Where to go? LA. Denver. Arizona. Atlanta. Chicago. Temping seems like a good way to finance this, and Italy is right around the corner. Sweden looks like a possibility in the fall, and if not, well there’s Greece or Thailand, Germany or China. The world presents itself to me, it’s time to have a time.
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“A new kind of American saint.” Kerouac was really onto something, reminds me of Dreyfus writing on Heidegger. A medieval European saint, our notion of what a saint is, is not the same as a Middle Eastern saint or an Indian saint. Or a Greek Hero, or Chinese sage, or whatever other archetypes exist. These figures all embody, and typify, the spirit, the geist, of their civilization. Well, America was founded on a mix capitalism, individualism, and freedom, and so the living heroes of our day aren’t the Puritanical ascetics or morally virtuous saviors, but adventurers, the wanderers, those who make good for themselves and live a stylish, unique life.

The Ghost of the San Francisco of Jack Kerouac. Even then, they felt the ghost of the past, in their case Jack London, now the Beats, and the Hippies, and the Queers, and so on. Time to make some times.
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So, my schedule. Last week I hung out with Kara a bit, doing Thanksgiving dinner with her and her friends. We also saw Heima, the Sigur Ros movie last monday, and it was amazing. There music is very powerful, and, though the live recordings were flawless and the performance stellar, actually being-there is unlike any other "concert" (if it could be called that) I've ever been to. It was like church, when it still meant something to me, when it was still filled with unknowns (and wonder.) I purchased the "Heima" dvd, (Heima means both home and homeland in Icelandic) but havent yet the new double EP (with re-recorded versions of old songs, which are fantastic, and acoustic versions of others, plus some new material which is pretty majestic.) The dvd is on two discs, and is worth the 33 bucks for the delux edition, which includes a beautiful 100 page hardcover book of photographs. The first disc, which is what was screened, is a 93 minute documentary, following a series of free performaces the band gave in Iceland last summer (06) after their Takk... world tour. They also played a protest concert in Snæfellsskála, where a dam to produce electricty (and power aluminium factories) has been built. They played completely acoustic. The whole thing is unbelievably gorgeous, and the commentary, performances, and locals are beyond description. I wouldn't know where to start. But there seemed to be so much power underlying it all, the concept, there love for what they do, their real authenticity and resistance to commodification (which, even though they are selling a product now, financed the free concerts, in a manner of thnking, and they also made sure to make the product a worthy souvenir (a 100 pages of stunning photos! and! a double dvd! you should see the package.) The second disc features the performances uncut, along with bonus footage and more performaces, totalling over 150 minutes. (I'm beginning to think that my attention to detail and precision, as well as social awkwardness, makes me appear mildly autistic...) The director, and the directors of photography, have done an amazing job. Dean DeBlois, the director, is a canadian who has made such films as Mulan, Lilo & Stitch, and the canadian tv series from the 80s the raccoons. He also made some of the bands other videos. He is actually incredibly talented. Then on Friday I hung out with the O'Reilly-Green's, which was too short. I wish I hadn't had work on Saturday morning. We did get to drive around and chat and see the Red Woods (finally!) and had a great dinner.
___
Hung out with Eliot the last two nights. He's been on tour with Through the Eyes of the Dead, All that Remains, Haste the Day, and As I Lay Dying. Interesting experience, I'll muse on it later. It was good hanging out with a friend from home. I;m going to LA in 2 weeks, and then Lauren will be in town, and then Caitlin too! I'm feeling better since I purchase my ticket home (Dec 23.) The rest will work itself out. I wish it would hurry up, though. I want to inspire, to create, and to influence. I am cultivating a public persona.
_____

So it goes.

Fight Fires, Not Arabs

2007-11-25T00:34:00.001-05:00

It's beena while. Sorry. Not that anyone really reads this, but just in case. I returned to NY for my cousin Chris' wedding, and it was a surreal experience, being a visitor in NY. Since returning to SF from NY, I have had quite a rollercoaster. 2007 has been a crazy year so far. Quick recap:

Worked in Int'l Programs
Traveled ALOT (Italy with Dad, SF to visit Kat and Ali, Budapest, Krakow/Aushwitz, Prague, Milan, Pisciotta, Roma, North Carolina Outer Banks and Charleston, SC, then moved to Florida, visited NY, and will soon be going to LA>)
Relocated here to SF, worked as Temp, bartender, and back to Sbux.
Took a class in South Asian Lit at Purchase last spring, and now global political encomony and EU politics at SFSU.
Doing alot of reading and writing, and getting ready for grad school
Sweden Fulbright proposal
Girls.

So, I am starting to get worn out here. No money, work sucks, dealing with too many things at once. Ali is thinking about leaving, and Kat and Roo may have already. I have few friends here, and I always feel like I'm bothering people when I call them. Plus, most of them are students and quite busy with school now.

I am considering returning to NY sometime in the winter, jan or feb, depending on situations here. I need to save some money, and I really miss my friends, and family too. I've accomplished alot, but have yet to make the splash I'd like to. hopefully I'll be back. This, like NY, would be a great city to be a young professional in.

Potential Plans for the summer, you ask? Well, I may stay in NY or SF and try and make some money. More likely, I'll travel some more again. I'm thinking about 3 months on a farm in Italy, with side trips to see friends. I am optimistic about being in Sweden next year, but if that falls through, I think I will go to Asia to teach as I'd planned this year. Or maybe stay in Italy or Germany, provided I can find work. I'm still feeling wanderlust, but less than in the past. Or really, I should say, I can appreciate the benefits of laying down roots somewhere.
____

So, my suject title. I'm just wondering why the fires in SoCal haven't created more controversy. It seems to me like a tragedy on par with Katrina, in so far as the National Gaurds absence made a real difference in containing the disaster. Maybe it's just me.

About 40 Years Too Late

2007-09-23T00:25:00.000-04:00

It's funny how a city's past accomplishments can over shadow it's present. This is of course the case in NY in so many ways, but NY is so fast paced, that the past is usually trampled, and new things are popping up all over the place in every concievable front. For the most part, I feel NYs already peaked, but who knows. I could be wrong.

Being here in SF, however, I constantly am aware of this spector of the '60's and especially seeing video from that time, I feel as though I am 40 years too late in coming here. Let's hope we can change that soon.

When a person does drugs in order to escape reality, which is likely the majority of users in the modern world, it is an unfortunate thing, and not something to be condoned. It is of course understandable, however it is not productive. When a person uses drugs in order to gain a deeper insight into the nature of reality, this can be a very productive thing.
______
I hope to have an apartment set up very soon. Once I am settled, my plan is to start exploring more of the city, especially those sights and activities which are free; the Sea Lions, the MoMA, the park, etc. I'm so sick of going to open houses. I'm a pretty reserved person, plus I am super busy with applications and school and stuff, and I feel as though I am falling behind. Since I've started working again especially, I feel as though I don't have the energy to do the things I'd liket to/need to do. The old me, the me who took at least 20 or more credits per semester, who worked 35+ hours a week, who balanced an active social life and long time girlfriend with road trips, intense school work and a fulltime job would kick this me's ass. I don't know how I did it back then. I'm really stressing about all these apps. I want to apply to grad school, as well as have some other options in place, but all the deadlines seem to be coming up. I think I may need another year to prepare for grad school.
____

I can feel the past tugging on me in many ways. The longer I exist here without putting down roots, the harder it becomes to escape, as old friends, acquaintances, and experiences are constantly on my mind. I have been dreaming a lot of home, and of people from my past, such as my Grandmother, and it only confirms my prior statement.
____

Andall this new responsibility, finding a place, paying for everything, juggling all my deadlines, work, etc, has really driven home the fact that I’m not in college anymore. It’s been a while. Not that I’ve ever been the typical student, having worked very hard for so long. Part of me wishes Saturday nights could be what they seem to be for others, a night to party and go out, not to sit in a coffee shop typing up proposals for a research grant.

Which reminds me, I need to get back to drafting up that proposal.

Self-Imposed Exile

2007-09-08T22:03:00.001-04:00

I am not an ex-pat. (I'm in the same country.) I am not a refugee, or an emigre, or a transient even, I am not on vacation. I have forced this exile on myself, knowing I would return gloriously at some point. I needed to escape from the mundane in Westchester, at Purchase, but I feel like my routine here is beyond mundane. I miss th excitement of my life in NY. Then again, I need to force myself to growup and confront reality, don't I?

I can't answer that. But I do know this;

It’s only defeat/failure if I see it as such.

commiting to something just for the sake of committing is... good/bad/a necessary evil?

2007-09-06T19:17:00.001-04:00

The crackheads here are not all as loveable as Tyrone Biggums, but they have their charm, I suppose, their own character. There is one guy for instance, I’ve seen him twice in the same spot. He has the characteristic whiteness around the mouth, telltale sign for sure. He stands at the bottom of the stairs leading to the Muni/BART station at Civic Center, playing the violin. But, well, he clearly has no clue how to actually play, but he is so intense and serious, so committed. He even has a stand set up, with music on it. Once I have a few bucks I think I’m going to go and interview him, bring my tape player. Someone probably beat me to it, but man, there’s got to be a story in that. I think I’ll do that tomorrow actually. And wait until I post that video, this guy is pretty funny.

Anyway, kinda had an anxiety attack yesterday. Not sure what to do. I got so frustrated in class yesterday debating big issues in global political economy, and now, I dunno, I guess I'm not sure if I want to commit to grad school. I'll always be stressed. I want to do something to help people, so I guess if I can work for development, or import/export, with an MA in IR it could work. I dunno.

This year has been one of admitting to myself that re-thinking, re-analyzing, re-adjusting, re-orienting, re-evaluating my plans is not giving up, is not quitting. I left Starbucks, I stayed in New York, Lex and I broke up, I came home early from Europe, I came to San Francisco. So, then, would staying here just for the sake of committing to something be intelligent? Would going home be giving in? I'm not ready to give in yet, but I am getting weary in this job/apt hunt, and these classes aren't enough to keep me here. Let's hope it falls into place soon.

Go West, Young Man...

2007-09-01T20:13:00.000-04:00

Well, not sure if that is meant to be taken literally, but, well here I am, in California. My reason for coming here is almost arbitrary; it's somewhere new that's not New York. I can always go back, and besides, this is where fortunes are made, innit? I am taking classes at San Francisco State, applying to grad school, and just chillin out, reading, playing music, etc. Not a bad way to spend a year, even if it's a waste otherwise, I'd say. I am positioned well to visit friends in LA and Arizona, as well as to explore the West Coast in general.

The past year... Cruising around Brooklyn with Lee, blasting music, goin to awesome restaurants and bars, working at Purchase with awesome people like Deirdre, Matthias, Pete, Brenda, Donna, Bryan, Adrian, Yohei, etc, getting crazy with Hanna, partying with my Puchase friends in Williamsburg, chillin with Jamie, showing Gina around NYC, going to conferences with Sam. Watching movies and drinking with Melissa. Just existing in Pisciotta with our big group of friends, going to the beach and chilling on the stairs. The beach house in North Carolina, shooting stars, Caitlin, Rachel, and Meghan, their Uncles and extended family, drinking in the hot tub. I had a great fucking year. But it flew by, and I’m trying out San Francisco now. The year’s fly by, so why not let one fly by in a different scene.

I think I may even try out some modeling and what not. Worth a try, eh?

__________

Today will be my 7th day in SF, and so far as I have two job offers, a few more I’m waiting on, and a bunch of numbers to call re: apartments.

I’m getting sick of the crack heads in this neighborhood though. Dudes across the street selling, watching people smoke out of their little glass pipes right on the street, scrapping together $5 for another rock. Just, tiring. I guess I need to get used to it. People smoke alot of grass out here too, it's almost like Amsterdam. But Time to get back to work...

Delays, Spas, and a fucking stupid language

2007-07-31T14:30:00.000-04:00

My trip to Eurpe this summer seemed plagued by ill omens from the get-go. My flight out of JKF was delayed, because of poor weather, and as a result, we were kept on th erun way for 90+ minutes. This in addition to the additional 90 minutes the flight was delayed. As a result, I missed my connecting flight at Heathrow to Budapest, and had tos it around Heathrow for 6+ hours, with only a 20 pound voucher, which goes not nearly as far as one might expect. I had a decenty breakast, and read/tried to sleep to kill the time. My new flight to Buda was delayed as well, and we sat ont he run way for another 90 minutes or so. I finally landed in Hungary around 7pm, checking into my hostel at about 9pm, a good 10+ hours after I'd estimated I would be arriving. As one might expect, I was not in the best mood, and my following two days mirroed the beginning. I won;t go into details, mostly cos they make me look bad, but basically I tried to be social and got ripped off. Not to make Budapest sound bad, but... well its a opoor post-Soviet nation, and, unless you love parying it up all night, it's kinda overrared. The baths/spas in Italia are way better, Ischia in particular. Yea. I said it. On Saturday evening, I took an overnight train to Slovakia, and arrived in Krakow, sunday morning. I'll tell that bit of the story soon.

change of plans- day 28 or so

2007-07-18T23:47:00.000-04:00

I woke up in Roma. Had breakfast. Took a plane to london, and now I'm in NY. And I'm not dissoriented. Something about modern travel doesn't sit right with me though... too fast for our own good. I'm a bit tired, but tomorrow I'll add some wonderful pearls of wisdom and anecdotes and maybe even pictures.

ho ritornato a pisciotta (ancora)

2007-07-11T11:56:00.000-04:00

I am currently at an internet point in Salerno, so this will have to be a short update. I arrived in Pisciotta, after a day each in Milano and Napoli, on Saturday night, the 30th I think. The American students arrived the following evening, and we have had a fun week and a half of creating a cosmopolitan social scene in pisciotta. mostly just been going to the beach and drinking. much the same as always. I leave tomorrow for Calabria, Rachel flies to London today, and Jaime goes back to NY tomorrow. I will try and update from Sicily. ciao for now

ships are the greatest reserve of the imagination

2007-06-30T08:58:00.000-04:00

So I have made it to Italia. I am now in an internet point in Napoli. Soon Iàll be meeting up with Rachel and Jamie and then we are off to Pisciotta. I spent yesterday walking around Milano, mostly chilling in the public parks, which are great. Ive said it before, but one of the best things about Europe in general is the abundance of great public spaces. Gardens, squares, parks, etc, and they are well utilized for arts and music regularly.

So Ive been listening to "the devil and god are raging within me," (or somesuch title) the latest Brand New record, alot on this trip, and it seems to be one of those albums that is perfectly describing how I feel at this point, much the same way "Through Being Cool" did in highschool. "I just wish I could inspire.." MOstly about love, regret, sleep...things I know about mostly.

Ive also been reading two books which have been really thought provoking. Autobiography of a Yogi, by Paramhanse Yogananda, and Eros the bittersweet by Anne Carson. Both have been realy relevant as well, and combined with the Heterotopia article i read recenlty by Foucault, have shaped much of what Ive been thinking about lately. Of course three girls have dominated much of my thoughts lately as well, and it should be obvious to most who know me who those three are. Carson has helped me put alot into context though, which is what I was hoping for. In others we come to realize what we ourselves lack. And if you already feel like you have lost something, meeting someone else can be one of those things that makes you that much more aware of the void. Carson quotes two things I would like to reproduce here, although really I would like to reproduce the whole book, but obviosuly I cannot, so just go read it.

"Such a longing for love, rolling itself up under
my heart,
poured down much mist over my eyes,
filching out if my chest the soft lungs-"
-Archilochus

"My astonishing victory over Menti did not give me a pleasure one-tenth part as intense as the pain she gave me when she left me for M. de Rospiec." -Stendhal, THe Life of Henri Brulard

I spent much of yesterday sunbathing by a river, listening to the darkskinnedman nearby playing guitar, while I read my books, and reflected. I also wrote alot, responding to a claim Carson makes about the unique inovations of the Greek language and also responding to Foucaultàs heterotopia article. I canàt wait to begin writing papers for school again. Lame. But I enjoy it. Ok, Im soo excited to get to Pisciotta.

This will be my last internet point until I get down to Calabria or back to Rome, in a few weeks at least, so until then, stai attento.

we hate your hate

2007-06-27T03:44:00.000-04:00

So, last night I took an overnight from Krakow to Prague (or Praha, as the locals call it.) It was a sleeper, and was pretty comfy. much better than the stupid old train I took from that backwater in Hungary... Well, Krakow turned out to be pretty interesting. I'm looking forward to Prague, but of course still can't wait to get to Italy. I'll be meeting up with Rachel and Jamie on Saturday. After 10 or so days in Pisciotta, I think I will head further south to Calabria and Sicilia, to see some relatives and the town where my Grandmother grew up. Not sure exactly what's on the agenda after that. Antonio, it turns out, will not be in Reggio, so I am going to see if Gianluca will come with me to Calabria to help translate.

I also think I hit that point last night where I became comfortable traveling alone again. I know I can make it how ever long I want now that I've gotten to that point. I do know, however, that I don't want to rush through anywhere.

I also realize that many things have gone wrong on this trip (delayed flights, screwed up money situations, missing the last bus to Krakow from AUschwitz, etc) and it's for basically two reasons; poor planning and I'm not in western Europe. Last year everythign went smoothly, and I had planned thoroughly. Also, the countries I visited last year have very well developed tourist infrastructures compared with the places I've been too so far, and that combination has left me a bit humbled. Which is good. I've been doing alot of writing, particularly in Poland.

One thing I realized; McDonald's in post-communists countries I've been to (China, Hungary, Poland, Czech) have helped me understand capitalism in a different way. These people all go to McDonalds liek its a big deal. For a long time these western chains and brands were not allowed, so it is seen as a sort of protest against the past, almost. Plus it costs alot, relative to local food, and isn't really as fast since the lines are so bloody long. I still think it's silly, but I see it is important that these people should have the choice to be self-destructive if they want. Is it the governments job to train people to make good decisions? I don't think it is, and it gives the elite something to look down on, so it all works out, doesn't it?

OK, I'm off to explore Praha now, since I cannot check into the hostel until 3pm. Until later...

stop me if you think that you've heard this one before

2007-06-25T19:14:00.000-04:00

these titles don't really match what I'm writing about, but make sense if one were to read my journal. anyway

Krakow is very nice, a beautiful old city with lots of churches castles and history. I arrived around 6am, check into my hostel, ate breakfast, showered and chatted with the girl runing th eplace. this hostel is fantastic, a wonderful house outside old city. my room is empty exceot for me. it began to rain once i was ready to leave, so i took a nap, feeling a bit tired after the train ride from Budapest. Crossing the Slovak border and then the Polish border kept me from sleeping very well, and thinking about visiting Auscwitz today unnerved me a bit. I eventually made it to Auschwitz/Birkenua, in the Polish town of Oscwiecim/Brznika today, arriving late around 520. I missed the last bus back into Krakow, 50 miles away, and had to pay almost $80 to take a cab. I walked into the city for dinner, and was invited to a hip dance club, but wasn't feeling up to it. Tomorrow will be lots of sightseeing and then a late train to Prague.

I forgot how much I hate blitzing cities. Next time I will travel with a friend for sure.

beware of female spies

2007-06-24T09:47:00.000-04:00

I miss caitlin.

And so far BUdapest has been mediocre. The baths in Ischia are wayyyyy better. I leave in a few hours for Krakow, and then Prague. Hopefully that's more fun. I can't wait to get to Italy. Tha's all for now.

First Stop

2007-06-22T19:39:00.000-04:00

It's so strange, once I get out on my own my mind instantly flashes back to London, Brussels, Paris, Venice..the last places I traveled alone. And I remember how much I like the feeling of being free to move around, not bound by jobs and lack of cars like at home.

My flight leaving JFK was delayed because too much air traffic, so by the time we landed in Heathrow, I'd missed my flight to Budapest. I had to sit around for about 6 hours, until 2pm GMT, and finally caught a flight to Hungrary, which was also delayed taking off. I arrived at my hostel around 9pm local time, and just settled in and went for a walk and grabbed some food. Spent some time speaking with some people here, but mostly kept to myself. Tomorrow I will explore the city and visit the famous Baths. I cannot wait to get to Italy though! I also cannot stop thinking about people at home, but my trip just started so I think once I get busy I'll get over it. I'm a bit tired from all the flying and sitting around, but at least I got an authentic English brekkie and Hungarian dinner. More soon!

On the Road Again

2007-06-21T11:07:00.000-04:00

So the time has finally come. I'm leaving for my trip today, and will
be back on august 8th. I am planning on relocating to San Francisco in
the fall, so I will probably be leaving NY around August 27th at the
latest, so let's try and make plans in that interval.

After the last few months here, I'm feeling pretty ready to leave. For a while I was really happy here, and then as things started to change again I realized that they always will and one cannot necessarily rely on other people to ground oneself. I had alot of fun, and part of me wishes I could stay here, but it's time to move on. This trip will be an amazing adventure, I'm sure, and when I get back here, I'm sure moving out west will be an even bigger adventure.

For those who don't know, I will be flying into Budapest, and then visiting Krakow and Prague before flying to Italy to meet up with somefriends in Pisciotta. (Rachel and Jamie, and all the kids on the program, and the locals, Gianluca, etc.) I may use this time to explore Calabria as well, but I'm not sure yet. On the morning of the 11th, I fly to Berlin, and thenwork my south to
Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia, maybe Macedonia, and eventually Turkey and Greece before taking the ferry back to Italy to meet up with Antonio and see some family in Calabria and then fly home. Because I shortened my trip, since Caitlin can no longer come, I will probably be spending less time in each place then I had wanted, and I may not get everywhere I intended. We'll see what happens. I'll be mostly on the road alone. I learned alot traveling solo last summer, so I expect this trip will be even more of a learning experience.

This trip will be different in several important ways from past trips. My first two trips were study abroad programs, the second one to china being with three good friends. Last summer, although I was by myself, I was expecting it and was going to meet up with friends. And all these trips I left knowing I'd be coming back to work at starbucks. This trip I no longer have a girlfriend, and have no job to come back to. Nor do I have school, or even a place to live really. I am free, yet feel so overwhelmed by the idea. I also do not really know how this trip is going to work. I'm a bit nervous.

I'll be updating from each new
location hopefully.

I'll see you all soon, take care! Love,

I'm sorry I'm leaving

2007-06-06T21:13:00.000-04:00

Wow. Where has my life gone? Since Lexy and I broke up, I've made lots of new friends, been going out frequently, and generally enjoying my life. I'm happy in New York, imagine that. Work is almost over, and I leave for a two month trip around Europe in 2 weeks. As excited as I am about going away, I will miss it here. I have good things going on. I can't get stuck here. Would it be so bad? No, not really, but I want to experience other places. I realize how much of my discontent was created by myself now though, but I'd still like nicer weather. I got accepted to a job in China. I am waiting to here about some others, but I still cannot decide. I can't get that excited about leaving here when I'm so content. I can't really see myself in China. I don't know. It feel like things are too perfect right now, and whatever I do, it's all going to fall apart soon anyway. I'm going to miss alot of people. I already do.
*********

This is from two weeks ago:
I just saw On the Might of Princes play their last date of their reunion show. I'm pretty sure they'll play more shows again one day, but maybe not. It was fantastic. I can still feel my heart beating. Even though I always feel somewhat on the outside seeing them play, it is an amazing thing to behold. The LI community is so tight and despite all the bullshit, there is still something to be said for community.

I feel old for feeling so nostalgic. But I'm glad I can feel nostalgic for the past. Senior year of high school and freshman year of college were an amazing time, again despite all the bullshit. Going to shows, hanging out with groups of friends. Yea the music was arbitrary and mostly meaningless, but that didn't matter. Going to shows was like going to church. Most of the time, neither are genuine religious/spiritual experiences, but their is still some kinda geist there, something that draws us together and makes us a community. I guess they are, or can be, Dionysian. A group of friends, screaming/singing these words together, abandoning, or at least suspending the usual social norms. yea, it's temporary, but ultimately everything is. While you're in that moment, it doesn't matter. That's what I missed.

After I started dating Lexy, things started to shift focus. My meaning became centered on us, and not on a community of friends. They are very different things. Being part of a community is a sort of humbling thing, in that we are only one of many. In a relationship we get focused on exalting the other person above others, and likewise being exalted by them. That's why trust is so important, and why cheating is such a terrible thing, because it insult the foundation, the very reason for existing, of a relationship. Point is, I got too wrapped up in my relationship with Lexy, I think, and drifted away from communities. I want a community again, but I don't think it can or should be what it was.

I really love shows sometimes though. I complete abandon of being in the crowd, pushing, dancing, screaming, singing along. For a long time, it's been one of my only true releases, if only occasionally. Time to find a new one. If I can just force myself to dance more...

Speaking of which, I went to a dance club in NYC last night, a debaucherous little club called Luke and Lerory's, on sat night, the rated-x panty party. It was pretty crazy. hopefully I can learn to dance without needing to be intoxicated. This relates back to what I was saying about Lex and community, by the way. Since Lex and I were together almost four years (I met her right before my 19th birthday) I haven't really been single as an 'adult,' if I am even such a thing now. I realized last night that I need to learn how to talk to girls and socialize properly, as I've been somewhat out of practice, and there are clearly unspoken rules and rituals for picking up girls in bars that have escaped my attention. I think I was a little too drunk last night ( i tried to play catch up and ended up getting too far ahead, plus those girls were'nt even drinking anyway) but still, I think I did alright considering.

too tired for titles

2007-05-13T22:39:00.000-04:00

Been a while. I've been going out way too much. Lots of drama these last two weeks, culminating in the craziness of last night. Beyond crazy, unbelievable. Still had a great night though, despite everything. A recap soon?

Meanwhile, my summer plans are coming together, and my fall plans are still up in the air. hopefully I'll know soon. It looks like Beijing or San Fran.

plugging mc steinberg

2007-04-14T14:30:00.000-04:00

http://www.myspace.com/mcsteinberg

So last fall I worked at CMJ. A few months later I caught an episode of New York Noise, an excellent indie rock show on NYTV channel 23, hosted by this cat named MC Steinberg, reporting on the festival and showing live performances. This episode was histerically funny low-budget indie rock hijink.

Example:

MCS to the Knife: Why are you so weird?

Check out these clips. Here are my two favorites, interviews with Fields where he raps about cows, and an interview with DJ Girltalk where he threatens to call ASCAP but gets phone nervous.

Other videos of MC Steiberg

http://mcsteinberg.blogspot.com/

MC Steinberg is a "famed rapper" who you may know from the The Jake & Jackie on 92.3 FreeFM (which is admittedly lame, I've never even heard of the show) in New York City or from the legendary "Best Show on WFMU with Tom Scharpling" on WFMU.

On another note....
Currently Listening to some fucking awesome new records: Arcade Fire, 65 Days of Static, modest mouse, Explosions in the Sky, Port-Royal, Interpol, Grails, DMST, lis er stille, efterklang, destroyalldreamers, world's end girlfriend, Pelican. Where did all these awesome records come from? I'm still looking forward to the new Feist.

I'm in love...

2007-04-09T00:31:00.000-04:00

with San Francisco! I had such a good fucking time. Although I really did very little, I still felt happier and more at home than I have anywhere in a while. There's such a great energy, and the people seemed much friendlier and healthier. I think I want to move there. For real. Come september, maybe I can be taking classes again and living of the SF.

So, recap of the week?

After work on Monday, I went down to NYC to meet up with Ali. We then hung out with Matty J and drank sweet wine and watched the NCAA game.

Tuesday Ali and I went down to get Fat Cats with Doug, Eliot, and Piucci, and it was alot of fun, of course. Smokin makes me antsy sometimes, tho.

Weds after work, we went down to JFK to catch our flight to SF. Luckily, the person sitting in our row left to sit somewhere else, so we got to lie down across the three seats, taking turns sleeping. The flight seemed wayyyy too long. Kat met us at the aeroporto, and we took the BART into the city. We walked up to the girls apt on Hyde, and I got to meet Beer'd (Thomas, he has a big beard) and Shane, both of whom were awesome. We sat around smoking and talking and what not until....really fucking late.

Needless to say, we woke up late on thursday. After going with Kat to Calafoods, eating an awesome breakfast (at 1pm) and going with Al to the bank/post office near Japantown, Kat, James, Shane, and I took the bus out towards the beach to check out an apt theyre looking at. Turns out it's fucking amazing, huge, clean, 5 min from the beach, right near the bus, and fucking cheap. I hope they get it. Then we walked to the beach and hung out, before Shane had to run to work. The three of us walked through Golden Gate Park, got some Taco Bell/KFC, and then went back to the apt, and watched videos on youtube (of a breakdancing baby) and looked at pics of cute animals for hours. James started playing a killer game of Tetris (he had the most lines, but Beer'd still had the high score...) and I took a nap. Somewhere around 10 or so, we decided to organize some shit. Ali stayed behind, but Beer'd, Shane, Kat, James, and I walked to Cory's and met up with their friends. On the way I got to see the midget hooker, who was cuter than I had thought. We bough some beers, and went with a bunch of kids to Squish Park (St. Marys) where we hung out and drank and played on the playground. I got to meet alot of different people, and it was great. On the way we set off some bottle rockets, and some dude in a car called us idiots. Poor Amber tried to follow Shane onto the little overhang, and fell trying to climb up. Luckily she was ok. Excitement! Finally the cops came around 230am and asked us to leave (asked! fucking sweet) so we went to another park. We got tired and left that around 330 or 4 maybe, broke some liquor bottles, and I lost my phone. Then we were knocking shit over, and I threw a coffee on a Mercedes and it splashed on Kat. James told her it was pee, so she chased me about 2 blocks downhill and then pulled my hair. Then the two of us walked back to the park to get my phone. I think we smoked and stayed up talking to Shane and Beerd and watching shit on the computer after that.

On friday I overslept again, and decided not to go to Berkeley, cos there was no way to make the tour group and the counselors hadn't gotten back to me. But I also appreciate being able to hang around with friends much more than seeing a college campus. I love the energy, and how generally happy everyone seems to be. And different. There just seems to be more possibility, a greater spectrum of human possibility out there. One of things I noticed is being away from home is when you can really come to understand the ways in which your home is inside of you, part of who you are. Everyone has a sort of love/hate relationship with their hometowns, but everyone always talks about the great shit about their cities, which is awesome. The interesting thing about SF is it is a magnet for wanderers and travelers, a polyglot town of immigrants and students and artists and hippies and domestic expats. Because everyone pretty much wants to be in SF, the vibe is way more relaxed and happy. The crackheads and bums too! are even instrumental in giving the city it's character. So friday was more lounging around and just hanging out. At about 4pm maybe Kat Ali and I headed up to Haight Street and checked out the legendary Amoeba Records. Kat wasn't feeling well, so she went home and Ali and I had some middle eastern food, but were too tired for hookah. Maybe this week? That night I went with Ali to the gallery/venue to see her friends band, but since they were going on too late, I met up with Kat and Shane and went to see Grindhouse, which was fucking amazing. Everyone was being loud and cracking jokes and being interactive, and no body got pissed off. Shane got too drunk though and had to leave during the second half of the second film, cos he was overheating. Good excuse to go see it again though. Even though we got out of the movie at 2am, we still stayed up until 4 again. Beerds friend Darion came by with his friend J. who had just come in from Delaware. He was fuckin wrecked, and passed out in the bean-bag, and then puked down the stairs. We stayed up talking some more, and it was awesome. Living with people, especially friends, is much better than being alone. I'm sick of being lonely in NY.

SO finally, Saturday, my last day. Again, no Berkeley. We went to Golden Coffee for breakfast, which was greasy and amazing. Then we hung around the apt for a while. I did some reading and we listened to music. At 4pm, I decided to walk around the city by myself. Kat was feeling sick still, and Ali was ... I dunno. So I walked down to Grant, saw the Chinatown gate, walked up and had Gelato were Chinatown and Little Italy meet. Then I hung out in the City Lights bookstore, a famous indie publisher and beat hangout. Even walked down Keruac Alley! Then I walked along columbus and chilled in Washington Park, passed the tattoo museum, and saw the most beautiful bay I've ever seen. I was supposed to get tattooed, but it didn't work out. In September tho! I can't wait to go back... So then I saw Alcatraz and the Bridge, and hung out for a while before walking thru North Beach, down Polk, getting some mexican, and going home. Saturday night we went to TI (treasure Island) for a wild house party. Total california house party, kegs, jungle juice, and wayyyyy too many people. Met alot of new people, as well as the kids from the park the other night. Walked down to the rocks with Caroline, and saw the amazing site of SF at night, with a thin bit of fog over the city. Beautiful. On the way out of the party, when most people had passed out, including Kat who was at Shanes, someone pissed on someones car, and next thing you know a bunch of big Filipino kids some outside with wooden katanas. Shane came out and tried to keep everything cool, but the kids came back and some loud mouths let it escalate. Everyone stared brawling just as the bus arrived. The driver wouldn't open the door, but did call the cops. She finally let us on the bus, and we're pretty positive an unmarked car followed us. We got off at the mission and walked a long way. At this point it was me, beerd, caroline, james, olivia. i took off my cons and threw em over the bus cable. then i took off my socks and walked home (about 20 minutes) barefoot. James and I knocked alot of shit over, and I think he peed somewhere.... Caroline crashed at the apt, and I woke up this morning to the most beautiful weather I'd seen on my trip. Unfortunately I had to go catch a flight home..:( But I can't wait to go back. I'm really going to plan on moving. I need to look into jobs and schools out there.

My flight home was good. I spent a good portion of the flight talking to the girl next to me, who was scared of the turbulence and needed to hang onto my arm. She was very interesting, actually. And on a related note, I must have passed some transition away from being depressed. Either that of pheromones are alot more important than I realized, because girls have been talking to me alot more. And I feel great, less nervous, more equipped to talk to people. Yay for new chapters.

More observations when I have the chance... plus pictures!

San Francisco

2007-04-07T22:31:00.000-04:00

Although I have accomplished virtual none of the things I set out to do while I am here so far (visit Alcaraz, hook up with some hot girls, bbuy new shots, get tattooed, etc...) I have still had an amazing time. I love this city.

O, Wonder!

I think I'm going to move here.

you can never go home again

2007-03-30T22:39:00.000-04:00

Home Sweet Home
Sooooo........ I flew into Newark on Friday night,(3/16) the last plane to land. We had to be towed in on account of the snow. Although we had no checked luggage, we were still delayed because the crowds of people who were displaced because of the storm. Since neither my brother nor my mother would come to pick us up, my Dad and I had to take a bus to the train so we could get to Penn Station to take a subway to transfer to the shuttle to get to grand central so we could take the train home. Reached my door about 4 hours after we landed. Over 30 hours after leaving Venice. Traveling is fun.

The trip itself was enjoyable. Not in the mood to talk about it much. I'm tired, and starting to feel mopey again. I posted a bunch of pictures in facebook, so check that out. I've got to get back into the swing of things, do some work. This weekend I just relaxed, and then drank beer and crashed on hanna's couch, and then did nothing on sunday.

.........................................

Free Mastrogiacomo (http://www.repubblica.it/speciale/2007/appelli/mastrogiacomo/english.html) OK, I waited too long to post that link, as he has been freed, but still, that's great news! I read La Repubblica almost everyday, at least when I was in Rome and Venice, and this story was all over the papers and on tv. Here's a short but on his being freed today. http://euronews.net/index.php?page=info&article=412318&lng=1

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Because this blog has become so sporadic, in keeping with my declining mental health (not really, just stressed and hating winter) here's a random part of a poem I love

"Requiem for a Friend" - Rainer Maria Rilke
...
For this is guilt, if it is anything:
to fail to increase the freedom of a love
by all the freedom we can raise within ourselves.
When we love, we have, at most, this:
to let each other go; for holding on
comes easily, we don't have to learn it.
...

"Requiem für eine Freundin" - Rainer Maria Rilke
[...
Denn das ist Schuld, wennirgendeines Schuld ist:
die Freiheit eines Lieben nicht vermehren
um alle Freiheit, die man in sich aufbringt.
Wir haben, wo wir lieben, ja nur dies:
einander lassen, denn daß wir uns halten,
das fällt uns leicht und ist nicht erst zu lernen.
...]

truer and truer.

*******************

And finally, Staying Busy to distract myself, as well as remind myself how to be myself, I have been going out alot and keeping busy these last 2 weeks since returning from Italia. I can barely remember the blur of the last two weeks, so I will try to recount it for my own future reference. Last week, after the trip to Spice Markey and the EITS show, which I think I wrote about, I saw Battles play at Purchase on wednesday, which was a blast. Luckily I have access to all this great music from working for TSB, so I have the new record already. THursday after work Hanna and I went to Patrycja's apt in Port Chester and drank mojitos and hung out, until about 9 or so when I went and hung out with Sam and Rachel for a while. A good night of not doing much. Friday after work was spent smoking with Hanna and then going to see a play at Purchase. Needless to say, I was deep in thought, and came to some stunning realizations, but ultimately was not impressed by the play. Perhaps it was my altered state of conciousness, but it seemed too real, needlessly real, to the point where the audience is simply looking at a reflection of their own lives, with nothing new being revelaved. May be more interesting to outsiders/ future viwers who have more distance from suburban american anxiety. Saturday I hung out with Drew and Sam and Rachel at Lee's restaurant, whcih was sort of fun. Sunday I can't remember... I think I just played music and hung out at home. I've been doing more ambient/electronic/dance music. I think DJing would be fun. At the same time I've been playing more acoustic guitar, and writing simple folk songs. Maybe I can combine the two? Monday night we went into Brooklyn, and I'm probably better off not recounting that evening. Lets just say Hanna is a mess, my face hit the grill of a cab, guys who work in delis are funny, and sometimes its freeing to defy the mechanisms of power and not get caught. It demonstrates that the surveillance and attempts at social control, disguised as self-discipline, aren't absolute. No that being stupid should be confused with a revolutionary action, but still, it was refreshing to see something so against the social order not be challenged. It really made me feel like there's more space for resistance than I'd feared. We just need to find a better way to exercise in that space then drinking wine.... anyway, so thatnight was fun, but it was late, and meant that I didn't get home until about 330, and I had class at 830. Long day. Tuesday night was spent mostly on campus enjoying the fabulous weather and climbing on the Henry Moore statue with Hanna. The school felt so alive that day, and I was in a good mood, enlivened by seeing the collective community emerging from the winter's hibernation. Purchase really relies on its students to animate it, and thus is at its best in the spring. Wednesday Lee and I went down to the city to check out another Jean-Georges restaurant, the Mercer Kitchen. We then did some shopping on broadway, (I got a sweet pair of jeans from Uni Qlo) and then we went to see Do Make Say Think at South Paw in Brooklyn. ANd drank more wine. Thursday night was the Venetian Ball, which was kinda lame, but I met some folks and played foosball all night. And here we are, friday... contemplating going down to Philly on a whim. Let's see what happens from here, as I'm feeling pretty good.

I'm trying to figure out what to do this fall, but no matter what this summer will be a blast. I'm waiting to hear about Fulbright, I started to apply for the Peace Corps, and I'm beginning to look into jobs overseas. I may get certified to teach before hand, but I'm not sure. Peace Corps seems like an excellent option. I have some other things on the table, but I need to think for a while about them before sharing.

On Wednesday I'll be leaving for San Francisco, and I'm very excited. Some philosophical waxing to come before then....

so i dont make myself into a liar...

2007-03-11T18:15:00.000-04:00

no time, no computets... rome was fun, went to napoli, pisciotta, back to napoli, now in Positano... not going to Bari... then going to Venezia... long story, will explain and ect upon returning. ok, vi amo

On the road again...

2007-03-04T12:57:00.000-05:00

On Monday, after sending out my Fulbright application, I will be leaving for Italy. I am traveling with my dad this time, for only 12 days. Should be a fun little trip, I'm starting to look forward to it. I'm also really excited for San Francisco next month! Can you believe I've never been to California? I'm falling behing in my TSB work, but I've been so distracted by personal stuff, and work, and applications. I'm going to get back on top of it soon.

Anyway, so I'm beginning to get excited about the future again. Multiple layers of rejection, percieved or otherwise, are hard to deal with, but I knew I'd get back up eventually. I have a few ideas for the fall, I just need to make it happen.

I'll update from Rome.

All of a Sudden, I Miss Everyone

2007-02-21T21:04:00.000-05:00

Last night, after work, Lexy and I drove down to the city, parked on our fav strip of Bleeker (secret info, sorry) and went to go see Explosions in the Sky! They were performing as part of the Wordless Music Series, which is an excellent showcase of musicians and artists who create ... music without words. It is designed to bring together audiences and break down boundaries (falsely constructed ones, of course) by pairing post-rock/instrumental/electronic/experimental bands with artists more generally associated with classical and 'new' music. Check it out, http://www.wordlessmusic.org/, there are some great shows coming up.

So the show was opened by Ayano Katoaka and Josh Quillen, who performed a solo peice for percussion, and two pieces for two marimbas, including one by Steve Reich. Very nice way to set the mood for the rest of the evening. Unfortunately, many members of the audience were whispered during the performance, and many others were entering after they had begun. Not the Lincoln Center crowd, that's for sure.

Explosions came on after a brief introduction by the series organizer, and played an excellent set. The third time I have seen them, they have again demonstrated why they rank amongst my favorite performers. They also are one of the few bands who I truly respect as composers, for their music is able to do something that few others can (Reich is amongst this group as well); they seem to open a space, and fill it with something amazing, something clearly created by man, in the most extraordinary sense, yet something that seems as though it must have always been, some form they pulled out of the void. I feel almost Heideggerian! (Aside from this talk of forms, that is.) Poetry without words. I think that is the most accurate description, for their arrangements and melodies seem to have a poetic quality without seeming lyrical. They do not need to pretend they have something they don't. That is to say, Explosions in the Sky do not lack vocals, they just do not have them. They connect to something deeper than language. Have you ever woken up from a dream, and remembered only the feelings, tones, moods, and trajectory, but no form or narrative by which to relate them? This is what happens during NREM sleep, as only REM sleep has a narrative functions. EITS seem to tap into this mode of thought; they are the soundtrack to NREM sleep. And they are more triumphant than ever.

Setlist:
It's Natural To Be Afraid
Yasmin the Light
Welcome, Ghosts
Six Days at the Bottom of the Ocean
Your Hand in Mine
What Do You Go Home to?
The Only Moment We Were Alone

Here is a video of them playing on Conan from last night.

http://www.mediafire.com/?7ztizzizv55

A quick word about their new record, which was also released yesterday: Like any EITS release, it has it's own identity apart from the larger body of work of which it is a part. It is hard for any band to write a follow up to a successful record, especially one of such genius as "the earth is not a cold dead place." Also, like any EITS record, it will take some time to grow on the listener. It suffers from one problem, however, and I feel the need to point it out. After listening to the remix album, it has become clear to me what it is. The song-writing is still strong and present, but some poor production choices have been made. Not engineering, or even necessarily mixing, as the record sounds great. There is simply too much ambient noise and distorted busy guitar underneath much of the record. Some songs focus too heavily on the new element of piano, which is basic, and distracts us from the real focus, the guitar. If the piano is lowered slightly, the guitars raised, as in a live setting, one can hear a very different feeling song. The piano should take a background role. Also, the album, although cohesive, seems to end abrubtly. This may have been done intentionally, considering the theme of the record, but still, it seems awkward. At times, Mark's guitar also seems too loud, which was certainly the case last night.

Despite this, All of a Sudden, I miss Everyone will surely be one of the years best. Buy it!

Rejection means increased possibility

2007-02-04T23:39:00.000-05:00

SO much has happened in the last week, I felt I needed to update. The last few months have been hard. I am so used to working all the time and going to school, that the month of december confused the hell out of me. I was neither working nor in school. I tried to read, I've been styding greek, trying to write and play music, but really I spent too much time sleeping and go depressed, I think. I've been worrying too much about money, and the fact that I still have not been paid yet makes it worse. I began working at Purchase College in the International Programs and Services office at the start of this month, which has been fun, but I need to learn how to balance my life all over again. I've been keeping up, more or less, with the Silent Ballet deadlines, and I've gotten an offer to write for a newspaper, but I haven't had time to finish the final drafts. I'd also like to do some creative writing, as well as shop my theses around for publishing. I need to develop a thicker skin for rejection, cos it's going to happen alot. I guess that's ok though, the trick is not to give up.

I did not get accepted to the program in Thailand. So now the next step is to figure out what the fuck to do. Keep working in NY? Apply for other jobs? Should I move to Europe or Asia? I plan on applying for Fulbright again, maybe a Rhodes Scholarship as well. I'll probably get rejected, but it's worth a try.

Things with Lexy have also gotten complicated. I'm not going to go into details, but things have been changing for a while now, and I think we both knew it's been time for a change. We got into a big fight last weekend, and as a result, it acted as a catalyst for accelarated change. Here we are. We reached a compromise I think, that makes both of us most happy. It wasn't easy, but I feel good, and she does too. I think we have each been torn in half, and hopefully this will resolves some internal confusion. Ok, that was all vague.

This is a personal entry... Oh well. Sometimes I need to vent and write down what's going on in my life to structure everything.

In other news... Rob and I finally made it to the Spanish Painters: El Greco to Picasso at the Guggenheim. Quick summary: The Guggenheim continues to be overpriced, the scafalding is still up around the building (over a year now), Russia! was way better than Spain..., shows that are themed geographically do not always make sense, and El Greco was so far ahead of his time I cannot believe those works have escaped my attention! Picasso is a bit hit or mess, and I have to agree with Rob in his assessment of Miro (he's a scam artist), while Velasquez is certainly one of the most powerful portraitists I have ever scene.

Coming Up: going to see Doug Aitken's Sleepwalkers at the MoMa (which is free! for purchase students.) I will likely be spending one weekend this month in San Francisco, so I'll review that whole experience. Explosions in the Sky are playing an amazing show at the Ethical Humanist Society, and I'll be covering it. And finally, the New York Comic Con, take 2. This time I'm getting in. February may be a good month. Let's see if I get to go skiing.

The Silver Mt Zion Memorial Orchestra & Tra-La-La Band live on WNYC

2007-01-28T16:34:00.000-05:00

I'm not sure how many people have had the privilege of seeing ASMZ live (many more than the last time I uploaded a live recording of them I'm sure) but they are certainly a band who shines more in the live setting than on record. This is especially true of their more recent material. There is a River in the Valley Made of Melting Snow, for example, didn't grab me until I had heard it performed live. I, as well as others, have posted various live recordings in the past, but this is among my favorites, for various reasons. Most importantly, I think it has the best sound of any of their live recordings, as it was engineered by the professionals over in the WNYC studio. The interview with David Garland is borderline amusing, but informative and interesting none the less. Some of you may remember when this was originally posted in fall 2005, but since it can now only be streamed on the web, here's the file.

Track Listing [59:43]

There's a River in the Valley Made of Melting Snow
Dead Marines
Horses in the Sky
Babylon was Built on Fire

http://www.mediafire.com/?bzucm2z2tge

Revenge

2007-01-21T20:32:00.000-05:00

I hate to plug an article by Christopher Hitchens, but when he's right, he's right. (As we all know, he is often wrong, although he won't admit it, and when he is confronted with the flaws in his logic, he resorts to childish name calling.) That said, I found some of his recent articles on the hanging of Sadam and TJ's Koran to be quite good. Slate

Hitchens also references a fantastic short essay by George Orwell. The writer is most well remembered for his novels, 1984 and Animal Farm, but many have unfortunately not read his other works. In highschool I read Down and Out in Paris and London, and found it to be an engaging and interesting read, full of historicity, insightful personal observations, and exciting narrative pace.

Orwell's talent as a journalist and short story writer is almost unmatched; his ability to communicate complicated ideas in straightforward and direct prose in a first-person narrative style no doubt influenced much of the 'new journalism' of the '60's and '70's (although I will admit I have not yet done the work necessary to demonstrate this. I may be wrong, but I suspect that this is so. Slate even had a recent article in which a famous art critic sites Orwell as his primary influence.)Here is a short piece by Orwell, on the nature of revenge, which focuses on his recollection of visiting a prisoner of war camp following the end of the Second World War. Like Hitchens, I agree it is wildely relevant to todays discussions on war and torture.

the universal tragedy

2007-01-15T01:34:00.000-05:00

"Though dead hands ring the garden/And these are violent times/And violence brings more violence/And liars bring more lies" -Efrim, ASMZ

"It is better to suffer wrong than do wrong."- Socrates

“Hope is important because it can make the present moment less difficult to bear. If we believe that tomorrow will be better, we can bear a hardship today.” - Thich Nhat Hanh quote

"Man must evolve for all human conflict a method which rejects revenge, aggression and retaliation. The foundation of such a method is love." -Martin Luther King Jr.

In the spirit of MLK, I think I shall use this space to renew a call for non-violence. Perhaps I will expand on this and provide arguments and citations and intellectual reasons. But I shouldn't have to. Maybe the above is enough to speak for me. People often ask me what I have faith in, if I do not subscribe to the commonly held belief in an anthropomorphic god who interferes in our lives. I have faith that one day we will all be able to realize that we are a community, like it or not, and that this fact is inseparable from our individual identites. I have faith that one day we will reassess our values and live in harmony with each other and our environment. That one day we will live rightly, live the message we preach, and that we will recognize institutionalization as a cause of dogma and restriction of freedom. Why do we waste so much energy defending out beliefs instead of living rightly? Why are we so sure our beliefs are right? Why do they have to be? Insecurity will fade when we bring back into focus love for the other. Violence always begets more violence. Non-violence, ahimsa, whatever you'd like to call it, is not a mere pacifism; it posits something much greater. Somethings are worth dying for. Unfortunately when most people say this, what they really mean is somethings are worth killing for. I renounce this attitude, one rooted in insecutiry and egocentrism. The variosu religions of the world all differ greatly; they cannot all be absolutely true. But they all urge us, at least in terms of there response to ontological questions, to submit to that which is greater than our meager selves. You can interpret that as you wish; call it god or nature or whatever. But as far as our being goes, we are a community, as a species, and it is time we submit to the truth of that and care for the wellbeing of all others as much as we care for the wellbeing of ourselves. Not just our kin, or our townspeople, or our classmates, fellow citizens, or whtvr. All. Loving others cannot be dependant on their being 'lovable,' but instead must be unconditional. On my readings, this is what Buddha urged, it is the message Jesus of Nazareth preached when speaking of the Kingdom of Heaven, it is essential to the concept of reincarnation, the god is love is all of sufi islam, and on and on. Be peace.

Why I don't have a problem with the expression y'all

2007-01-02T23:32:00.000-05:00

The English language, unlike Romance Languages, among others, does not have a distinctive second person pronoun for singular and plural. This leads to much confusion, and occasionally produces such awkward expressions as "yous." Ick. Y'all is a perfectly logical solution to this silly linguistic oversight.

Some southerners, however, have confused matters more by using 'y'all' as a singular, and 'all y'all' for the plural. That's wont do, although I appreciate the effort to awknowledge all of our inner multiplicity.

End of the Year Lists

2006-12-31T18:09:00.000-05:00

I was thinking about adding graphics and links, but I don't think I'll have a chance until after the New Year. For now, here are some of my favorite records and songs from 2006. I'm not wedded to the orders. Some are just arbitrary. I was never very good at ordering things in terms of favorites, plus that all changes so often, doesn't it? Anyway, here we are.

(expect album art, synopsis, and links to songs soon)

"Post-Rock" and other Instrumental Music

1. Laura- Radio Swan is Down
2. Mono- You Are There
3. Things Falling Apart- We Carry our Fate in Plain Site
4. Mt.- Lethologica
5. Mogwai- Mr. Beast
6. Grails- Black Tar Prophecy
7. Magyar Posse- Random Avenger
8. Kayo Dot- Dowsing Anemone with Copper Tongue
9. Amanda Handal and GF Seiler- Ghosts and Angels
10. Triosk- The Headlight Serenade

Records I Loved that are not "Post-Rock"

1. Clint Mansell, the Kronos Quartet, and Mogwai- The Fountain OST
2. Thursday- A City By The Light Divided
3. Cursive- Happy Hollow
4. Mates of State- Bring it Back
5. Thom Yorke- The Eraser
6. Cat Power- The Greatest
7. Brand New- The Devil and God are Raging Within Me
8. Man Man- Six Demon Bag
9. Yeah Yeah Yeahs- Show Your Bones
10. TV on the Radio- Return to Cookie Monster

Honorable Mention

Joanna Newsome- Ys
Yndi Halda (US)- Enjoy Eternal Bliss
Jeniferever- Choose a Bright Morning
Gotan Project- Lunatico
When They Know You They Will Run- s/t
Russian Circles- Enter
Battles- ep c/ b ep
Jakob- solace
Te'- naraba, imi kara kaihou sareta hibiki ha "oto" no sekai no shinen wo kataru.
Giants will fall- a state of nervous excitement
Because of ghosts- The Tomorrow We Were Promised Yesterday
Bent- Intercept
Ascent of everest- how lonely sits the city
The knife- Silent Shout
Appleseed Cast- Peregrine
Boy Sets Fire- The Misery Index; Notes from the Plague Years
The Most Serene Republic- Phages
Helios- Eingya
Natsumen- NEVER WEAR OUT yOUR SUMMER xxx !!!
Souvenir's Young America- Virginia

Top Singles

Instrumental

1. Clint Mansell- Death is the Road to Awe
2. Laura- It’s kind of like the innocent smiles you get…
3. Mogwai- glassgow mega-snake
4. Mono- the flames beyond the cold mountain
5. Mono & WEG- Untitled 5
6. Magyar posse- Whirlpool of Terror and Tension
7. Tristeza- en nuestro desafio
8. Helios- Bless This Morning Year
9. Gotan Project- Differente
10. giants will fall- from here on in
11. adriam klumpes- weave in and out
12. a lily- I am to you
13. yndi halda- Illuminate My Heart, My Darling
14. Grails- Stray Dogs
15. Appleseed Cast- mountain halo
16. because of ghosts- so quick
17. ascent of everest- a threnody
18. things falling apart- odessa
19. Amanda Handal and GF Seiler- the lure
20. Jenniferever- swimming eyes

Rock and non-insrumental

1. Cat Power- Living Proof
2. Thom Yorke-Cymbal Rush
3. Man Man- Engwish Bwudd
4. Nelly Furtado and Timbaland- Maneater
5. Thursday- Running from the Rain
6. Gnarls Barkley- Crazy
7. Boy sets fire- with cold eyes
8. Brand New- degausser
9. Yeah yeah yeahs- cheated hearts
10. Tv on the radio- playhouses
11. Gorillaz- Kids With Guns / El Mañana
12. Damien Rice- 9 crimes
13. The Knife- We Share Our Mother's Health
14. The Most Serene Republic- you're not an astronaut
15. The Delays- valentine
16. Emily Haines- detective's daughter
17. bent- the handbrake
18. The Appleseed Cast- Mountain Halo
19. Broken Social Scene- Puff The Magic Dragon
20. cursive- bad sects

Presents under the Bodhi Tree

2006-12-24T23:38:00.000-05:00

A buddhist at X-Mas

"The Winter Solstice

Of course the origins of Christmas long pre-date Christianity. The majority of the world's religions originated in relatively low latitudes (around 30�N) where the difference in day length between Summer and Winter is not particularly noticeable. However, for us folks who live further from the equator, the long dark nights and short dull days of midwinter are definitely a big psychological issue. That is why the Winter solstice has always been of such importance to Northern Europeans. It symbolises, if not the rebirth, at least the conception of the new year. In the Celtic calendar Imbolc (Candlemas) was the actual birth of the New Year, with the appearance of the first lambs and green shoots.

The early church failed to suppress the solstice celebrations and instead adopted them (much as they planted churches on pagan sacred sites), overlaying the scarcely concealed Druidic symbolism with Christian attributes. There is actually no historical evidence that Jesus was born on the 25th December.

The Celtic annual cycle of Imbolc, Halloween and Winter Solstice offers a rich source of symbolism and analogy for the process of rebirth, life, death, bardo and conception that would not be as apparent in traditional Buddhist countries, which are mostly at lower latitudes. So it is likely that as Buddhism continues to spread in the Anglo-Celtic cultural areas, it will adopt some of the Winter Solstice customs. There is no reason for in not to do so, for it is often remarked that unlike most other religions, Buddhism is not tied to a particular culture. It is effective for any sentient being, anywhere, any time."

im Geist

2006-12-24T16:52:00.000-05:00

This is a link to my Amazon Wishlist. When not arguing and pontificating, in addition to wasting time on the internet, I spend most of my time trying to better myself and/or maing art. As a result, most of the things I own are musical intruments, recording equiptment, music, and books. Amazon happens to be a great way to get music and books. I figured it couldn't hurt to get my list out there. If anyone feels like being generous, in the spirit of giving, I'd be very appreciative.

2006-12-23T21:45:00.000-05:00

At first glance, the stuffed Saint Nick looks a bit like a farmer’s scarecrow –– arms stretched wide, looming over a field. At second glance, that field sits empty and yes Virginia, that’s Santa nailed to a cross.
Wright, a Berkeley-educated economist turned painter, says Santa Claus represents an unbridled consumer culture that only becomes amplified and hysterical during the Christmas season.

“The season transcends just receiving a bunch of stuff,” Wright said. “This is a season that is supposed to be festive and happy, where you get together with your family. It’s supposed to be a season of joy, but they have turned it into a commercial orgy.”

Wright, 69, says he was raised Catholic, but doesn’t subscribe to any religion. He and his wife Pattie Cook don’t exchange gifts but celebrate Christmas with a big dinner with family and friends.

___________________

Check it out. Merry X-Mas kiddos.

PS Everyone here knows why we shorten Christmas to X-Mas, right? I didn't think so. Many people think the 'X' is related to the cross, or that the shortening is a 20th century phenomenon. Wrong and wrong. You see, the word 'christians' comes from the Greek, Χριστός Khristós which means "anointed one," which is itself a translation of the Hebrew word Moshiach (Hebrew: משיח, also written "Messiah"), (and in Arabic it is pronounced Maseeh مسيح). The disciples of Jesus of Nazareth were first called as such in Antioch, according to Acts 11:26. In Greek, the letter Χ, pronounced Chi, (CH-eye), is related to the Roman letter 'X.' Thus early on, Christians, or Χριστιανός (Khristianos) and variant Χρηστιανός (Khrestianos) were known as X-tians.

anna

2006-12-23T01:15:00.000-05:00

First of all, I'd like to say it is interesting that Time's person of the year is "you," of course alluding to YouTube. I'm glad I wrote my last entry when I did. Aren't I prescient? Haven't read the article yet, but YouTube was also their invention of the year, so I have some idea where they're going with this.

In other, related rants, I am deeply distrubed by the state of our culture. What else is new, right? I don't think we need government to regulate or anything like that, I just wish more people were criticizes the status quo, thinking about what they value, questioning in general. Uncertainty is a good thing.

Let me tie these two things together. Earlier I noted that I feared we, as a culture, were loosing our ability to make sound aesthetic judgements, that we may in fact be in the process of forgetting that such a judgement is valid. I recently came across a 19 year old girls blog. She is one of many who idolizes silly tarts like Lindsay, Paris, Nicole, Mischa, etc. She glorifies anarexia, her #1 interest is losing weight, she counts her calories (300 a day?) and her target weight is 85lbs. This is the flipside of obese America. Many Americans are terribly unhealthy, overweight, and have attrocious diets. Others are ridiculously obsessed with working out, eating healthy, 'organically,' blah blah. Most people are superficial, interested in material fashion, trends, exercise and diet fads, cosmetic surgery, and in general paralysed by a fear of death. Few people think about this, and thus our cultural anxiety over death is simmering under the surface of it all. What do we value? Survival. Youth. Material things. What are these worth if our culture has become so destructive and deriviative? Back to the point, these incredibly sick girls are the flip side. We, as a culture, seem disgusted by fat people. They embody laziness, lack of self-control, excess. They are almost openly made fun of in mass media. These poor girls, however, miss the point. Moderation is the key. I will not post any links at this point, but if you're interested, do a search for pro-ana, or just browse through teenagers blogs. It's scary. I think I'll write an article on this. Just my initial shock, but I don't think it's going to fade.

youtube

2006-12-20T03:57:00.000-05:00

I'm feeling very ambivalent towards youtube these days. Since google decided to buy the less-than-year old phenom, I've been pondering it's uses and it's new found role in our culture.

On one hand, it has changed everything, giving us access to millions of videos, adding context to news blogs, magazines, etc. We can watch old episodes of favorite shows, see why Jack Black is funny, or replay a particular scathing opinion piece by Keither Olbermann, or a funny bit by Stephen Colbert. Slate.com is infinitely more interesting with links to outside context such as videos on youtube, and is an excellent example of how the web can be harnassed by future journalists, and may just be how the industry adapts and finds its place in the future. We also have been given the ability to make millions of home made videos, some of which are histerically funny, creative, and worth sharing.

The downside that I've realized is that our culture has almost completely lost our ability to tell good from bad. We can surely voice our opinion, many do so quite rudely in fact, but this isn't quite what I'm getting at. As a culture, we have now allowed lonelygirl and "hey kid I'm a computer" become prominent members of our shared culture. These may fade quickly, but to be replaced by what? When Andy Warhol stated that in the future, everyone would be famous for 15 minutes, I don't think he really knew how right he would be. This raises several more questions. Do we really need access to all this information? Is it worth it? More has been produced in the last 50 years, in terms of writing and music, than in all of history prior to that. At this rate, who knows, maybe in the last 10 years! It's going to get to a point where the overabundance of crap completely kills our ability to make aesthetic judgements. This is scary, but I don't think that most of us can even comprehend such a thing. We're all already tained, myself included. It is heartening to see the masses take control of distribution and production, making films music (and blogs), yet at the same time disheartening, as most of us are turning out shit which will eventually choke us all.

The etimologically, the word fame descneds to us from the ancient Greeks, and was meant to refer to those whose memory would outlast them. Heroes, such as Achilles, Hector, Ajax, great thinkers such as Heraclitus, Socrates, and Plato, etc. Simply being well-known during ones life, essentially running in large social circles, is not 'fame' in the true sense. This is worth keeping in mind. The cult of celebrity, in large part a cultural reaction to techinology, has merely appropriated motion pictures and mass-market print to serve the function religion/myth once served. These celebrities, like our art, are temporary. On some level, Alan Bloome is correct. (I think we should diversify the cannon to include eastern classics as well, such as the Tao te Ching, the I Chine, the Vedas, the poetry of Rumi, Basho, master Dogen's writings, etc, but should focus on works who have established their literary worth.) There is something to be said for any work which can survive for centuries. Of course many great works have been lost for a variety of reasons, but I doubt very much that anything has survived that shouldn't have. This is of course a tricky thought-experiment, as any work which has survived for so long has surely influenced our culture and thus we are too biased to judge whether something 'should' or 'shouldn't' have survived. But that's sort of the point, no?

So, to conclude this rant, although I think there is great potential for distribution via the internet sans the corporations, I am fearful that the flood of crap being produced by the masses will so deteriorate our culture that we will no longer be able to recognize that such a thing as good and bad even exist as objective classifications of aesthetic worth.

More Fountain Stuff

2006-12-17T22:47:00.000-05:00

Aside from Clint Mansell's magnificent score, which I had the privalege of hearing before I saw the film, the unique nature of the f/x in the film was one of the factors that peaked my interest and got me excited and interested in the Fountain. Aronofsky stated that CGI, such as that used in (every film made following) the Matrix, can quickly look dated, whereas a film like Kubrik's 2001: a Space Odyssey still looks stunning and timeless. Like 2001, the Fountain is not a conventional sci-fi film, nor is Aronofsky a 'sci-fi' director, if there is such a thing. Both films tell us about ourselves and how we ought to live now. 2001 examined our relationship, as human beings, with technology, and the Fountain explores our fear of death. Eastern religion and philosophy, particularly Buddhism, is, in my opinion, much more open and healthy in their understanding of life and death, and in that way more advanced. Our basic value systems in 'the West' revolve around a fear of death; we indulge in our vanity and seek to live longer (although we have stopped trying to better ourselves and focus only and having and possessing material objects, facts, bodies, etc. ) Point being that Aronofsky and his colaborators found a way to make the Fountain look unique, in additon to embracing a style of f/x that is in harmony with the message of the film and the philsophy of the production team. The principles which govern the universe, whether you call it logos, the Tao, physics, or God, work on the infinite just as it works on the infintesimal.

"... Aronofsky's team discovered the work of Peter Parks, a marine biologist and photographer who lives in a 400-year-old cowshed west of London. Parks and his son run a home f/x shop based on a device they call the microzoom optical bench. Bristling with digital and film cameras, lenses, and Victorian prisms, their contraption can magnify a microliter of water up to 500,000 times or fill an Imax screen with the period at the end of this sentence. Into water they sprinkle yeast, dyes, solvents, and baby oil, along with other ingredients they decline to divulge. The secret of Parks' technique is an odd law of fluid dynamics: The less fluid you have, the more it behaves like a solid. The upshot is that Parks can make a dash of curry powder cascading toward the lens look like an onslaught of flaming meteorites. "When these images are projected on a big screen, you feel like you're looking at infinity," he says. "That's because the same forces at work in the water – gravitational effects, settlement, refractive indices – are happening in outer space." Read more, from an article in Wired

The Fountain, again

2006-12-17T20:15:00.001-05:00

So as my readers (if I have such a thing) may know, I was very impressed by Darren Aronofsky's new film, the Fountain. Although it has been billed as a sci-fi love story which spans the ages, the film is really nothing of the sort. It is visually beautiful, inovative, non-linear, poetic, and features a soundtrack that will haunt the viewer, and is likely the best of the year. The film is divided into three, and plays with imagery, metaphor, symbols, and circles. Rachel Weiss plays two characters, Queen Isabella, and Izzie; one a Queen who seeks eternal youth, the other a present-day writer, who has accepted death as necessary to life. "Death as an act of creation....death is the road to awe." Anyway, the film is stunning and sends a much needed message to our modern culture obsessed with youth, scared of death, and intent on merely surviving instead of living. It is ironic that near death experiences are the closest many people will come to really experiencing living.

Here is a link to some excellent artwork that Aronofsky had commissioned by a wide array of artists.

NYT Page, Artwork

The Fountain, again

2006-12-17T20:15:00.000-05:00

Legally Mandated Desegregation

2006-12-06T01:26:00.000-05:00

This is a hot-button issue, obviously, and one which is currently being debated by the Supreme Court. I have conflicting opinions. Race is a social construct, not something biological. This is a fact. Discrimination is real, however, and when this discrimination is used to negatively deny people oppurtunities, it is the place of government to ensure that such discrimination not be legal. How can 'racial balance' solve any of the problems in our schools? This skirts the issue, and posits the very difference the legislation is intended to deny. I feel that all racial legislation should be dropped. The job of the government isn't to level the playing feild or make sure that discrimination doesn't happen socially; discrimination (that is the ability to make distinctions between one group and another based on association, affiliation, ethnic origins, religion, etc) is a necessary and inherant componant of social life. It is in the political sphere (which is now unfortunately and possibly irreversabley intertwined with the social and economic spheres) that the body politic function, and it is their job to ensure that such discrimination isn't legally enforced. They cannot, however, force it to happen, just remove legal opstacles keeping oppurtunity unbalanced. For example, if a man wishes to marry another man, or woman a woman, the government should not be able to prevent this, as citizens should have equal rights, and marriage is a private matter.. Such a union is a personal choice and is one which is in the private sphere of one's home and is not the business of the government. (I imagine most of my readers are somewhat in agreement. The government has no place in telling a religious institution to honor said marriage, but again, the legal barrier must be removed.) Now if this occurs, should the government forcably marry gay men and women? In the case of marriage, this make's no real sense, yet with schools, we feel the need to desegregate and racially balance. I am all for desegregation, but it must be based on social and economic factors. We need to address the problems at hand perpetuating the system and these problems are not directly political. Racial segregation is not legal, and hasn't been for half a century, yet we still live in a largely segregated country, despite efforts to desegregate. Why is this? Progress has been made, but the real economic and social problems haven't been adressed. Every school in the state should have the same curriculum, and every student in the state should have the same amount of money spent on them. A federal office should recommend curriculums, but I don't think a country as big as ours, and founded on the principles that our Republic were founded on, should be or would be able to mandate a unified system. But perhaps, if the judiciary wants to get involved in our schools, they should start by funding every school equally. Perhaps it would cost billions of dollars. Maybe 10's of billions. But in a country where NASA gets $17 billion per year, and half our nation budget is designated for military costs (no even including the war in Iraq and Afganistan, which adds to the figure) we can surely find a way. Why is acceptable to bankrupt our country for militarism but not education? This is threatening to turn into a long Joe-rant about everything, so I'll end with a popular paraphrase by Socrates, from Plato's Gorgias; It is better to suffer wrong than to do wrong.

Update

2006-11-30T23:42:00.000-05:00

Last monday was my last day at Starbucks, hopefully, after over six years of employment. I am currently looking for a new job. I have a few potential positions, and one set top begin on Jan 1st. Hopefully I can land something decent soon. Tuesday Lexy and I met up with Lee and had dinner with Jamie at Zen Palette, a fabulous chain of restraunts in NYC that serve vegetarian and vegan food. We than met up with Caitlin Rachel and Sam and saw Thursday, Circa, and Rise Against, which I may or may not describe at a later date. I'm tired. Substance .... I may regain my energy next week. This weekend I'll be at some more Arendt conferences, this time at New School, and then later at NYU.

Babel

2006-11-14T14:03:00.000-05:00

Like the Fountain, Babel is a film that I can't yet write about, out of respect for the style of film, and not wanting to ruin it for those who have yet to see it. So this review will be of its strenghts and weaknesses, and generally critiquing it's style, not the specific plot points, etc.

Babel, the third collaboration between director Alejandro González Iñárritu and his writing partner, Guillermo Arriaga, is a stunningly beautiful, disjointed, emotional rollercoaster, ranging from charming, lovely scenes of familial bliss to down right sadistic personal tragedies. Babel follows four seperate groups, who each experience there own tragedy, connected to shooting of an American tourist in Morocco. Other reviewers have tried to make this event sound like the catalyst, but that's not quite true, as the web of interconnectedness has not origin, and that's the point. We focus on these four, but the story could easily go back further, and will continue. Such is life. The story is told in a non-linear fashion, and is so disjointed that the veiwer may not immediatly be able to pick up on the chronology of events, the interconnectedness of the four different stories, and may even forget that, for example, something is going on simulatneously in Mexico. When we one story we haven't heard from in a while pops up, we are thrust back into the Mexican Boarder, or the hills in Morocco, and the full emotional weight of what's happening is made more real. The transitions are not fluid, and this jarring effect works well in forcing the veiwer to emphathize with the characterts. In one scene, for example, in a Japanese club, the film switches back and forth between the perspective of Chieko, a deaf-mute Japanese girl who is the focus of one of the narratives, and the perspective of the narrator. In effect the blasting dance music becomes an unbearably silence, with a muffled bassline undectable. Uncomfortable and awkward though these transitions may be, we suddenly have more understanding with this troubled girl. Her deafness alone is only one facet of her character, and we quickly learn that her socialization problems are much more complex. Her deaf friends provide this contrast, as if Iñárritu is saying to us directly, she is troubled, look at her tragic life. Chieko's narrative has been criticized by other reviewers as being a tenuous connection, at best, to the other three, but they are looking to closely at the plot, and not grasping what Arriaga and Iñárritu are trying to accomplish. This isn't a thriller, or mystery, and the non-linear structure is necessary because we are following the trajectory of each tragedy, not the chronology of events or specific plot. This is a story about emotions, and about the mechanisms in our world which produce such tragic lives. The story ends with a beautiful shot of Chieko and her father on the balcony of their topfloor apartments, towering over the Tokyo skyline. Rodrigo cinemetagraphy is gorgeuous, as always, and worth the price of admission alone. He works amazingly well with Iñárritu, and scenes such as the afformentioned discotech scene, in which the strobe seems to reduce Chieko to a series of photographs, are executed perfectly.

When the fellow Western tourists on the bus refuse to wait for help to arrive, we may see them as terribly cold and uncaring, but we are, in my view, not meant to take them literally (as if no westerner would risk their lives to help an injured fellow traveler.) Instead they are an abstraction, representing prevailing sentiments of Orientalism in the wealthy western traveler. Morocco became too real once the comforts of home and tour group disapperared. Cait Blanchett's character seems to be in this mold, until she is shot, that is, forced to reimagine her life and worldview.

Chieko is the emotional center of this story, and her breakdown is it's climax. When we see a scuffle at the US Border crossing, or two poor Moroccan farm boys get wrapped up in an international incident after accidently shooting an American tourist on a far off bus, or the aftermath of the shooting as a couple seeking to fix their marriage after loosing a child to SIDS, we are not focusing on the specific tragedies necessarily, but instead on the mechanisms in the system of living in a globalized world, the relations of power which produce these missunderstandings. Chieko is central to this understanding of the film, as her inability to communicate is more apparent, and her failure to socialize makes this more tragic. Even the loss of her mother makes the parallels all the more powerful, as we learn in the end.

The actors range in how succesful their contributions to the film are, but this is to be expected in a film that is essentially four films wrapped into one, with three different production teams in Mexico, Morocco, and Japan. Standout performances by Said Tarchani, as young Moroccon sharpshooter Ahmed, and Adriana Barraza, as the nanny Amelia, are worth noting. Gael Garcia Bernal's role as Santiago was much shorter than I had anticipated, but well acted as well. Rinko Kikuchi, as Chieko, of course steals the show.

The score is performed Gustavo Santolallo, who does an excellent job of incorporating local flavor into his guitar playing in each scene. His one guitar manages to evoke Spanish style flamenco playing, Mexican folk, Arabic influence, and Japanese modes, subtely, uniting the pieces together in a common language.

The Biblical reference may be less central to the story than implied, for it focuses, as far as I can tell, on the misscommunications and obvious references to towers or biblical stories(Chieko's apartments, the hospital in Morroco, Amelia wandering in the dessert.) Perhaps this just showing us how stories of Biblical importance and moral lessons occur today, or perhaps it is a parable, warming us of the danger of striving too high. Man was punished for his great technology, attempting to build a tower to reach towards the heavens. It seems that we are being warned that with todays rapid technological growth and the era of globalization, we too are put in our place by mechanisms in the world. We are all connected, and the backlash from our hubris is inexcabale.

CMJ "Death is the road to awe."

2006-11-07T22:18:00.000-05:00

So after Halloween, I had to get up nice and early to commute to the city for CMJ at Lincoln Center. My first day was spent working on th efourth floor checking Badges for panels. For those who don't know, CMJ stands for the College Music Journal, and has hosted a music marathon in NYC every fall for about the last 25 years. Bands play showcases all over town, and panels on the music industry are held at Lincoln Center. Students and industry types some from all over the country (and world) and with the CMJ Badge gain access to all panels and shows. In the pasts many bands have made big splashes, and been signed or made a big break. The Arcade Fire, Clap Your Hands, etc. This year, I think the Annuals may be the buzz band to break this year, but I didn't see them. But back to my story... The panels were fun. Martin, my co-volunteer, was a nice guy, and the work was pretty much a joke. The panels were very interesting and informative. I went to some shows, but many nights I was so tired from working all day and what not, that I couldn't even enjoy it. We saw Saxon Shore play one song. We arrived late, and they played a short set, but the little we saw was good. No keys tho, which was dissapointing. The panels on thursday were good, and that night after Saxon Shore I crashed at Hillary's dorm at Barnard so I wouldn;t be late to work on friday morning. I was at Lincoln Center at 8am, and spent over alot of time packing bags, then directing traffic outside, working the panel, and directing traffic again. I met a bunch of cool volunteers, though, and actually had a good time. Friday night I saw Erase Erata and Derrhoof, and then missed ROsetta, buit saw Dysrhythmia. t Jucifer cancelled, and I left before Mouth of the Architech went on. Saturday I did some shopping, and saw the Fall at Hiro Ballroom. After that, which was kinda dissapointing, I went on saw Grails and MGR at Sin-e. I didn't stay for Kayo Dot, cos I was too tired to sit through Made out of Babies. When did I get so lame?

Thursday was the highlight for me, as I got to see The Fountain, the fantastic new film by Darron Aronofsky, the director of Pi and Requiem for a Dream. I saw Pi years ago, when I heard good things and bought the DVD. Then Requiem came out, but I didn't see it until much later than most. I think the Fountain surpasses both of these. Pi was excellent, and explored interesting themes, but doesn't come close to the Fountain in terms of its scope, not to mention the visuals. Requiem may have been well done, but it jus't doesn't resonate in the same way. The Fountain is, in some ways, a look at timeless concerns of love, life, and death. I am particularly interested in the discussion of death, for it seems increasingly clear to me that our cultures fear of death is a defining aspect of our world view, and it's troubling. I don't want to give anything away, so I will only recommend that everyone go and see the Fountain. I can't wait to see it again. "When a sparrow ate the tree's fruit, his father flew with the birds. Death was his Father's road to awe." I've seen many people refer to this movie as sci-fi, but that really doesn't describe it. Although there is a sci-fi component, it is free of the trappings of the genre, and isn't really an important point in the story. The science and mysticism is obvious just a device to explore a man's coming to terms with death, or more importantlly the death of a loved one. The movie is gorgeuous, free of CGI, as Aronofsky searched to transcend sated looking techonology, and used a microphotographer, I believe, to generate images. And my favorite aspect is, I think, the score, once again composed by Clint Mansell, and performed by the Kronos Quartet, with help from one of my favorite bands, Scottish post-rockers Mogwai. The score stands on its own, but really captures the mood of the film.

Sample

2006-10-28T01:57:00.000-04:00

It's late, and I'm tired, but I thought I'd mention what I've been up to for the last few days in order to set up my next few entries. On Wednesday afternoon, Judith Butler came to Purchase and delivered a lecture entitled "Transgender and the Spirit of Revolt." Sam and I attended a dinner with her and our former professors afterwards, and although we picked up the food, and were unable to speak with her, as a result of a perhaps insensitive and verbose acquantance, it was an enjoyable time nonetheless. I was going to go see her speak again at NYU on Thursday, but decided against it, although I'm very much interested in her lecture topic of the night, which was on secularism, torture, and the ways in which rhetoric is invoked and employed in our foriegn dealings. Today, the four of us (Sam, Rachel, Lexy, and I, who I will hereafter refer to as the Four of Us....) went up to Bard College for the Arendt conference. I wish I could make it tomorrow, but I need some time to do other things. Today was quite fun, despite the fact that we didn't get to hang out with Kiran or to visit Arendt's grave. Hitchen's keynote address was quite bad, and rather contrary to the spirit of Arendt's work, which was to be expected I suppose, although I don't think he would agree with me in that characterization. Like in other instances, however, he would be wrong. He comes off as a pompous blowhard, and he was not only rude, but made terrible arguments as well. Whenever he was asked a thoughtful question which brought into the light either his lack of familiarity with the material, or his own faulty logic, he would dodge the question, blatantly, in a manner which he must have picked up from the Bush Administration. Although he did have some interesting things to say, and I will give him credit for taking as many questions as he did in what he surely must have realized was a hostile environment, I nonetheless cannot excuse his rude remarks and refusal to engage the questions posed to him. A more detailed review of the conference later. Afterwards, we attended a dinner party, that he and other panelists were at. So Sam and I attended dinner parties with Judith Butler and Christopher Hitchens this week. Not bad, eh?

zen and music

2006-10-23T00:06:00.000-04:00

I recently read an article about a zen buddhist practitioner whose teacher would often ecourage to reflect on sound. He would strike a bell, be mindful of the creation of a noise, and mindful as it faded out, and eventually into nothing. "Do you hear the no-sound?" To many, this sounds like merely a throw away question, a useless Koan. I was reminded of this listening to Reich last night, and also found it an appropriate analogy for our lives. We are created by conditions, cultivated, grow, and eventually fade into nothing, with only the residual effects of our interactions living on in the emerging 'sound' of others. A piece will begin with only a pulse, seemingly randomly, but slowly evolves and grows. Reich's work, as suggested by a critic, holds up a mirror, showing us our thoughts, experiences, lives, indeed our very way of being. It causes us to be aware of listening, engaged in a way few pieces of art can do. Most music is passive, background music. Listening to Reich, on the contrary, is like reading a book. The experience becomes subjective; depending on where one's attention lies, the sculpture of sound shifts, as we become aware (and simultaneously unaware of other) phases and overlying harmonies.

This year has been full of amazing experiences for me; graduating, traveling Europe, visiting world-class museums, hearing Janet Cardiff's "40 part motet," seeing Explosions in the Sky Broken Social Scene, Mogwai, Mono, and others. The Carnegie Hall show is easily on par with any of those. I really can't overstate how revealing Reich's music is.

Reich @ 70- Carnegie Hall, Saturday 10/21/2006

2006-10-22T23:31:00.000-04:00

Last night, I attended a show at Carnegie Hall, with exactly the three people I had originally envisioned attending with when I first became aware of the concert many months ago; my girlfriend Lexy, my good friend Rob, who I met when I was 14, and who turned me on to jazz and other 'highbrow' experimental music, and my friend and bandmate Mike, a classical composition major. I learned of the Reich @ 70 event when looking through upcoming events in a Lincoln Center mailing. The show was simply phenomenal, absolutely transcendent. Reich music has a hypnotic quality, completely trance inducing, yet familiar and natural. His work captures the sound between sound, and forces the listener to meditate on how we think and perceive, and truly challenges what music is, while at the same time tapping into ancient rhythms and pulses.

The show began with Pat Metheny playing a piece which Reich wrote for him, almost 20 years ago, called Electric Counterpoint, where the guitarist plays a solo piece over tracks he has prerecorded, 10 guitars and 2 bass guitar. The phase evolves slowly, and because of the phase relation and slight changes in key and time signature, it is strangely ambiguous and swells like the tide. In the final of the 3 movements (fast, slow, fast) the time signature is shifting between 3/2 and 12/8, and between C minor and E minor, creating a phase as sets of 3 and 4 interlock. Watching Pat Metheny perform was a treat in itself, as he stoof in the center of Carnegie Halls' biggest stage, looking the part of the rock star, his long hair wild and with his feet apart, his guitar hanging in of him, yet playing a flawless piece written for a virtuoso. I'd say he was the most impressive opening act I'd ever seen. It would be hard to imagine anyone topping that performance, and I certainly wouldn't want to go on after such a brilliant rendition. Knowing that he was to be followed by the Kronos Quartet, I suspended judgment temporarily, and I was of course not disappointed. Different Trains was written specifically for Kronos, Reich's first piece for a string quartet. The work evokes America before the War, Europe during the War, and After the War. Reich uses the piece to examine his early childhood train rides across America, knowing now as an adult that if he had been in Europe, as a Jew, he would have been riding very different trains. He uses a series of taped vocal segments, recorded by himself interviewing his Nanny, as well as Holocaust survivors his own age. The pitch of the voices determined what he wrote for the Quartet,. as they echo the tape segments, all integrated with noises from American and European trains from the '30's and '40's. The evolution of the sound, as well as the ideas and meanings found in the words themselves, is breathtaking to witness. Reich's music sums up the mood and feeling of those times in a way that no book, film, or photograph is capable of doing. Finally, Steve Reich and Musicians played his classic and groundbreaking work, Music For 18 Musicians, with special guest Synergy Vocals. There's little I could say about Music... that hasn't already been said, and the hour long epic was as beautifl to watch as to hear. Reich and two of his co-performers simultaneously played the same Marimba for 5 minutes, one of the players facing the instrument upside-down, and none with sheet music. Despite this, they didn't miss a note. It was also incredible to watch, as Pulse, the first movement, runs through the 11 chords which make up the work, and each subsequent movement works off of one of those chords, finally progressing through all 11, and resolving the chord progression with a satisfying resolution. The length of the initial 11 chords is determined by the breath of the bass clarinetist, and the other clarinetist, strings, and vocalists follow his lead. Simultaneously, the marimbas and pianos are creating a pulsing phase which creates so many sub melodies and overtones it's hard to believe that Music... is entirely acoustic, and that no digital or analog effects are employed. The vibraphonist also acts as a sort of internal conductor, as he played his melody only once, in advance to cue the others for the chord-change, creating not only interesting harmony, but also freeing western music from the need for an outside, non-performing conductor. Reich picked up this technique from West African and Balinese drum music, where the gamelan or master drummer cues changes. The four of us were all left in awe, trapped in contemplation as we slowly shuffled down the staircase from the balcony, in what now seemed less like descending a staircase, and more like walking-meditation.

(Although I took several pictures, I could not, of course, take pictures during the performace. Not to mention that with low lighting and balcony seats, the photos are of no interest except in depicting the hall and set up of the instruments. I'll post those in my photoalbum soon, so check that if you are interested.)

just musing

2006-10-19T01:00:00.000-04:00

Hollywood loves to sell us this idealic, black and white vision of high school. The groups always need to be clearly defined, seperated, and maybe one character, the protagonist most likely, will be realistic and capable of navigating between them. Real life is course not like this, but somehow it has begun to conform to the image we've been fed. My guess is the '80's had alot to do with this. Anyway, I think most people who went to high school in the late 90's (or early 2000's, or whtvr we call them. infact, blog post on that subject soon....) can simply think of cheerleading. In hollywoodland, cheerleaders are the top of the food chain, the popular, hot girls, always parading around in their uniforms, snidley looking down their noses at the lesser students, those who can't make the squad or toss around a pig skin in some silly homoerotic wargame. In the real world, at least in the north east, cheerleading is generally for the unpopular girls, who gravitate towards it, as far as I can tell, in hopes that it will make them popular, granting them the power girls on tv and in the movies have. I've noticed a male equivalent to this trend. (I hesitate in employing gender binary and making such generalizations, but unfortunaly gender is still a prevalent and ubiquitous demarcation line. More on this later too, I suppose. But I've observed over the years many unpopular highschool age boys, 'uncool' almost unarguably, who have gravitated towards metal, usually the worst kinds, for similar reasons. The rebel sell, again. The whole rise of 'emo' and the alternative press/fuse crap has made it worse I think, as the verieties of metal which seem to make these kids seem cooler have gotten worse.

On a related note, I personally can never just skim the surface of a subject I'm interested in without feeling inauthentic, and thus i require a commitment most people are unwhilling to make. I buy too much music.... But look at this guy www.scaruffi.com I'm not that bad. Although, sadly perhaps, I aspire to be like him. Not a bad role-model, eh?

60 days

2006-10-15T16:26:00.000-04:00

I've been home for almost two months, and yet it feels like a lifetime ago that I was living out of my backpack, relaxing on the beaches of the Mare Teranneo. I also feel idle, and that I'm not accomplishing enough. I have been keeping busy, though. Visited Caitlin in Charleston, worked two catering jobs, sitting in on Morris's theories of sexuality class, went to a conference on Arendt at Yale, the Dodge Poetry Fest, saw tons of great shows in the city and other places, caught the Dada exhibit at the MoMA, saw ASMZ in Harrisburg PA, partied at Purchase, worked alot at Sbux, read a few books, and joined the gym. Hopefully I'll have some soings finished by the end of the year, but my schedule hasn't been regular enough so far. I've also been regularly writing for the Silent Ballet, which has been good. Deadlines! I think I'm going to start drawing/painting again, too. I need a car. CMJ is coming up, and I'll be working at Lincoln Center in exchange for a badge, so hopefully I'll have lots to report on that. I think I'm going to see the Knife, Steve Earle, Forward Russia!, the Shins/Album Leaf, the magnetic feilds, stephen brodsky/chromeo, the decemeberists, grails/mgr/made out of babies/kayo dot, longwave, and the fall. Blonde Redhead cancelled. I'm actually not too amped for this year, altho there are a few shows I'm looking forward too.

In other news my application is just about finished for the Fulbright in Thailand. Now we wait.... I'm going to begin looking into backup options, and may get certified, doing TOEFL online, perhaps. I am also applying for some jobs in the city, so hopefully one of those will work out. I need to get away from starbucks.

“They called each other tú again…”

2006-10-15T16:25:00.000-04:00

Love in a Time of Cholera or (El Amor en Los Tiempos de Cholera)- by Gabriel García Márquez

Garcia Marquez manages to create a touching and uplifting story about two lovers who manage to resume their affair after more than 50 years apart. It is in this unrealistic plot device, but the very suspension of the rules of reality, set in such a believable setting of turn of the century Colombia, is what makes Marquez’s narrative so compelling.

It is not often that a character’s complete life is followed so completely, and non-linearly. Despite this method of storytelling, and the tremendous and subtle foreshadowing, each new revelation is still a pleasure, and surprise, to read. I am reminded somewhat of the tone of Arundhati Roy’s God of Small Things, although perhaps this is just a stylistic element common is brilliant post-colonial fiction.

Marquez’s characterization is brilliant and believable, but is also a liability, as the introduction to the novel is, in retrospect, somewhat slow, as we seem to build attachments to characters who are not central to the books main narrative. This is acceptable, but throws the reader off somewhat.

Much like the character of Florentino Ariza, one gets the impression that Marquez is also an old man attempting to impart some of old ages wisdom on his readers, what little he may gleam from years of love. Through his three main characters, we are treated to ruminations on love and life, and although he occasionally offers us a troubling account of rape or religion, his insights in living are touching and valuable.

Pg. 207. Fermina Daza, referring to her first-born son. “…she discovered with great delight that one does not love one’s children just because they are one’s children but because of the friendship formed while raising them”

Pg. 209. Dr. Juvenal Urbino’s take on marriage. “…matrimony: an absurd invention that could only exist by the infinite grace of God. It was against all scientific reason for two people who hardly knew each other, with no ties at all between them, with different characters, different upbringings, and even different genders, to suddenly find themselves committed to living together, to sleep in the same bed, to sharing the same destinies that perhaps were fated to go in opposite directions. He would say: “The problem with marriage is that it ends every nights after making love, and it must be rebuilt every morning before breakfast.”….The only possible bond was something as improbable and fickle as love,…”

Pg. 211. Fermina Daza on Life, Public and Private. “Life in the world, which hard caused her so much uncertainty before she was familiar with it, was nothing more than a system of atavistic contracts, banal ceremonies, preordained words, with which people entertained each other in society in order not to commit murder…. “The problem in public life is learning to overcome terror; the problem in married life is learning to overcome boredom.”…she understood that her adversaries were not convulsed with hatred but paralyzed by fear. Instead of frightening them even more, as she was already doing, she had the compassion to help them learn to know her.”

“…think of love as a state of grace: not the means to anything but the alpha and omega, an end in itself.”

Marquez is also an astute cultural critic and historian, encapsulating the spirit of Colombian nationalism, its triumphs as well as its failures. He points out, almost humorously, how the high fashion of Europe, such as expensive shoes made in the style of the empresses, were rejected in the Caribbean as they were identical to those worn by poor black women in the house. He also crafts an interesting passage where Dr. Urbino and his new wife discuss the simplification of the human organism, which she claims “…has too many things on it.” It should be more simple, he says, and less vulnerable to assault, clarifying “It’s something only God can do, of course, but in any event it would be good to have it established in theoretical terms.” He also succeeds in conveying the deep importance of El Libertador to the national identity, as well as cultural institutions such as poetry, music, and politics. In telling the story non-linearly, we are able to experience broad shifts in culture over decades, as depicted in the changing public attitudes to a Chinese winning the poetry contest. At first, no one believe such a man could truly have been the poet, while later generations could not believe that such a poem was considered good enough for its authorship to have been in question. These cultural changes are subtly hinted at all through the novel, as the old regime is slowly dismantled with the rise of anti-aristocratic populists movements, magazines such as Justice, which attacked “families with long last names,” etc.

“I do not believe in God, but I am afraid of Him.” –Florentino Ariza. This character is essential a loser, living out his whole life waiting for a childhood love. He never marries, has numerous illicit affairs, and inadvertently not only gains wealth through naivety, but causes to the death of several women he loved without realizing it. Regardless, we come to care about Florentino, and this is no small feat. “Unfaithful but not disloyal.” Florentino’s musketeer motto, one which maybe we all are more likely to invert. “…Florentine Ariza learned what he had already experienced many times without realizing it: that one can be in love with several people at the same time, feel the same sorrow with each, and not betray any of them.”

“They can all go to hell,” she said. “If we widows have any advantage, it is that there is no one left to give us orders.” –Fermina Daza.

A book filled with much happiness and melancholy, one whose characters, if judged by the standards of the real world, would no doubt be condemned, and yet, one can’t help but be delighted when the two long lost lover’s are reunited, in control of there lives, and sailing into the sunset, so to speak, away from family, restrictive social norms, and even the fear of death itself. “That poor old couple…” Fermina keeps musing. Well, not them.

transcendence

2006-10-02T00:11:00.000-04:00

oblem with violnce, as i see it, is it is an action which is deeply animalistic, and thus our regression is immediatly satisfying in some way. like our anscestors, animal and otherwise, we feel as though we have some form of control, and seek to rationalize our decision to act on violence only after the decision has already been made. what makes us different is our ability to transcend our animalistic urges. we have created culture, granted much of which involves violence, but this is why violence persists. how can anything founded on violence not encourage its own violent demise? i think jefferson was perhaps recognizing this more than anything when he made his famous remarks on revolution. most people seemingly feel powerless, in many ways. so much of our lives have become beauracritized, politicized, economized.... often we just tell ourselves we are powerless, but really, we consent. somethings are worth more than our own life. our life is not all we have. those who think that indeed have far less. i'm reminded of a short passage from hegel's phenomenology. it is when we risk death that we first begin to assert ourself; when we recognize that it is in risking death that we become free, that we posit our lives with meaning at all. when we back down, when we fear death, is when we become slave. most of us are slaves. i though, culturally, we had gone far passed this stage in the development of our collective consciousness, but perhaps we've done some backpeddaling.

what are you so afraid of?

on the road again

2006-09-24T18:24:00.000-04:00

I'm currently down in Charleston, SC, visiting Caitlin. It's been a good trip so far, although I have been spending more money than I'd like to. I still have a lot of work to do, but relaxing, and not working, has been good for me, I feel. I'm actually looking forward to being home again, however. And to the upcoming conference at Yale. I'm going to get to work and then do some reading, just wanted to update my where-abouts.

things i wanted to do but have not

2006-09-19T00:27:00.000-04:00

-go to jazz at lincoln center's coltrane series and see wynton marsalis play alabama
-see the persian, which is once again being staged in NYC. once again i missed it.
-go to meditation yesterday
-go to tropico on sat.
-go to see tortoise
-go to sparklehorse/emily haines
-finish my application
-update this blog with things worth reading.

at least i still have time to finish my app.

Man Man @ purchase

2006-09-12T00:13:00.000-04:00

After work, Lex picked me up and we saw Man Man play at Purchase, plus we got to hang out with Cinelli, Cara, her brothers, Gabe, Lee, Cristal, Hanna, and a bunch of others. Man Man is a crazy fucking collective from Philly. Lotsa fun and tons of energy. Imagine if Zappa built some crazy robots and had them play Fugazi waltzes through a circus funhouse mirror.

And so much for my new format. ... One day, once I get caught up with work, reviews, applications, resumes, and updating photos. I think October. Maybe.

more pictures

2006-09-06T01:02:00.000-04:00

I uploaded pictures from Berlin, Munchen, and Wien. Italia and France are next.

The new mastadon is pretty decent so far. Not super into them, never bought Leviathon when it came out, but i can appreciate some fine metal guitar work.

Information Session at the UN tomorrow. Just the thought of going down to the city by myself make me feel free. I love traveling around alone. I think being in NY, and not having a car, makes me feel entirely too restricted. I need a city.

Anyone even realize how sometimes we let people have power over us without realizing it. It all comes down to power, doesn't it?

TRL shows at bowery

2006-09-04T04:26:00.000-04:00

This week was a great week for shows. On monday, Lexy and I drove down to Harrisburg PA with Zak to see a silver mt zion, and then lex and i saw 3 days of shows at the bowery this weekend, in honor of Temporary Residence, a brooklyn based 'post-rock' label, celebrating their 10th anniversary. Artists included Envy, Explosions in the Sky, and Mono, not to mention, Tarental, cex, eluvium, caroline, and others. We also hung out with Jamie and LeAnna this afternoon, and Laura for like 2 minutes... It's always nice to see those girls in the US. So great shows. I can't wait for more time in the city. I have, perhaps, only 4 more months in NY. 2007 I will be away from NY for, I hope, almost the entire year, so I'd like to do all I can while I'm here. I just need to relax and not get so stressed out over applications. Relaxing is part of this gap year thing. .... I'll see what i can do. I'm already not sleeping. Oh well.

This may read like gibberish...

2006-08-30T03:49:00.000-04:00

We strive for the divine. Just look to Aristotle for a proof of that argument.
Technology is knowledge, put to use. Technos. Virtue....skill. Greek words.
Now we are building machines. Which calculate. and compute. Old gods reflected old technologies....

Deus ex machina

God is in the machine. We are constructing god. With scientific advancement. God is in the machine. One and many. Centralized and decentralized. its all there, abstractly. In what we are doing. our actions reveal god.

I think i can buy the idea of memes,

Pictures

2006-08-30T03:48:00.001-04:00

Some pictures, from London and Amsterdam.

http://purchase.facebook.com/photos.php?id=46300994&l=97c0a

cos dead kids don't get photographed....the world's a mess and so are we

2006-08-29T03:34:00.000-04:00

Soooo Lexy Zak and I went to Harrisburg PA today (yesterday technically) and saw The Silver Mt. Zion Memorial Orchestra & tra-la-la band, once known simply as a silver mt zion, as i prefer to call them. Some of you may have heard them on NPR's spinning on air last fall, although I suspect most of my young friends listen to more NPR than our elders do. Oh well, that's culture for ya. Anyway, they are a group which spun out the post-rock neo-classical sort of rock group Godspeed You! Black Emperor. ASMZ have gone through many forms in the last 6 or 7 years, but they seem to be settling into a style, and it suits them. There old songs sound magnificent with7 players, i just wish theyd add keys and samples, but then they really would just be GY!BE with vocals... Anyway, I'll upload pics and bootlegs soon.

In other news, I helped Lexy move into her new dormroom with Cristal, in the new building, Fort Awesome, a name chosen in a student lead contest. Purchase for ya.... um... I can't decide if i like it or not, truly. I can't decide much of anything anymore. Could I ever? I have readjusted to being home, only to realize I don't know what to do here now that schools over. I need to leave, I think. I really have to go. I'm going to take Morris' class at purchase, which met this morning. I'm working at starbucks, and going to the gym with lee at least every weds, hopefully more. We're working on music too, if i can find the time. I'm also writing for a soon to launch website.

My plans are much larger, however. Im working on applying for the Fulbright to teach english, altho I am rather pessimistic. I hope to start tai chi, go on a meditation retreat, plan trips to montreal, california, and florida/the DR, and take courses in greek and italian, soon. In addition, I am going to find myself either a job or internship in NYC soon, for the fall/winter. Maybe I'll work on the elections? I have the time, I guess.

Tomorrow I will begin reconstructing my summer trip, on this blog, by going through my journal, and posting pictures. I have found myself reliving the experience often enough, in strnage ways, so it's time i get this stuff out there. Some essays will appear eventually also, although I may try and shop them to someone who will pay for them. We'll see. I really have no idea how to go about doing that. I guess one just needs to try.

home

2006-08-26T02:59:00.000-04:00

I am more or less settled in, back to work, etc. Went to a part at Trish' tonight, and saw.... Lee, Gabe, Justin, Jordan, Hanna, Jeff, Androj, and a bumch more. Talked politics, played guitar, drank beer, made friends. All in all, a good night.

Anyway, I'm settling into my new routine and my new schedule, so soon, as I said ealier, I'll have real updates, music, pictures, etc.

ho ritornato (anche)

2006-08-18T10:21:00.000-04:00

so I'm back in the states. real structured updates soon. I'm in the process of sorting out pictures, unpacking, etc. In September, I'm going to start my official new format... which will be reviews once a week on thursdays, and editorials on monday mornings. Also, I'm working with a music online zine called the silent ballet (www.thesilentballet.com) specializing in post-rock and instrumental music. Reviews will be posted weekday. Anyways...

for now i just wanted to let everyone know i got home ok. heathrow wasnt took bad. getting my bags from ny took almost 2 hours however.

im unpacking and cleaning. beach 2moro, work sunday. good to be back.

one last entry

2006-08-15T17:52:00.000-04:00

This will be my last entry from the road. I have managed to spend virtually all of my euros (i bough chocolate as i left belgium) and all of my pounds (i only had 25 and change) so this last pound for the internet is it. my oyster, via debbie, card is loaded. all i have to do is wake up and go to heathrow. nice and early. lookin forward to a long day of travel. cant be worse than wenezia to pisciotta, or firenze to paris. i cant wait to write out some of the stuff from my journal and tell everyone about my experiences that i have not had a chance to share yet. pictures will help. ive taken over 1000 on my digital camera, and shot maybe 4 rolls of film.

the baggage restrictions have eased at heathrow so at least i can bring on my ipod, camera, book, and journal. cant wait for ny. i feel like i just left tho. i feel like if i had a travel partner i could stay out for months and not even notice. traveling alone has been a good experience. i have learned alot about myself, and have a clearer idea about what aspects of myself i need to work on improving, and all that.

sleep beckons. goodnight. those of you i know and who are in the northeast of the us, ill be seeing you soon

on the road again...

2006-08-15T11:24:00.000-04:00

back in london. feels good. i know where i am. i recognize places. the tube is so simple and efficient. and the girl at the hostel said 'joseph! how are you?' home 2moro... long trip to heathrow. london is so expensive! i almost forgot... it is really truly terrible. i imagine it must be nice for brits to travel tho.

bruxelles/brussel is the most bilingual city ive ever seen (it even has two names!) altho (flemish) nederlands is more common language in belgium, french is also an official language and very popular in the cuity of brussels. all the sign have both languages. often flyers are doubled. anyways. thats my quick reflection on that.

im running out of time on this computer. my entries, once i get home, will be from my journal entries, mnixed with commentary and whtvr. im gonna have music/book reviews every thrusday and 'editorial' style articles every monday i think. ok, cya in NY!

bruxelles

2006-08-14T15:05:00.000-04:00

woohoo! going to get beer at the delerium cafe! fantastic, didnt even have to try to find it.

....

anyway, im in brussels, as should be obvious. Paris was chilly, but with sun when i left this morning.... the rain had apparently anticipated my coming here and surpirsed me by joining me on my travels. im am thoroughly cold and soaked. oh well. london 2moro. maybe a show at night. some interesting things going on in the city.

this hostel is fantastic, second only to the place i stayed at with lex in toronto.

brussel/bruxelles is a strange place. kind of low key, lots of bars, more steel/glass/concrete than i have seen since leaving ny. it seems, at first impression, to lack what makes other european cities distinctly so. as montreal/quebec city are the most european cities in NA, brussels seems to be the most 'american' in europe. little regard for preserving public space, something even london has done. i can now see why they put the EU seat here. anyways, beer time. until 2moro...

i lovve paris in the summer (when it rains all the time....)

2006-08-14T02:13:00.000-04:00

i dont remember that part of the song. anyway, once again, i hav limited time on the computer, timer and all, and anohter strange, difficult keyboard. im sure most ofu heard about the planned terrorists attacks. well apparently they wre scheduled to happen the day i am flying home (to ny) from heathrow. they say they got the guys, but severe restrictions have been placed on luggage. heathrow is more of a zoo than usual. i leave paris today for bruxelles, and fly home from london on weds, altho theres a chance with all this bs ill get delayed/stranded. welll see.

siena was really awesome. i likebeing in once place for a while, especially a beautiful place. lexy and i spent a day in the strattons apartment in the city, so we had anight off thefarm. we went to firenze on thursday, and saw anamazing harvest moon. at 550am lexy left for roma to flyto ny and apparently got home allright. i came to paris, but couldnt get a fast overnight train so ileft AFTER lex, tranfered ingenova and then nice. arrived in paris at 11pm, and it was cold cold cold, and my hostel refused to take my reservation cos the owner listed them as dorms when they didntexist. lonng story ill write later. anyway, paris has beengreat. ill hav to come bck and spendmore timehere,preferably when its not rining.

ok, well lets hopeall this nonsense with terror dies down andi get home ok. i keep thinking why did i do this or that, fly home then, go withlexxy, reerve the train toparis inadvanxxe, etc. and i keep reminding myself that if one thing changes, everythgin would hve to change. everything reallyis interconnnected. thatis, for me to hve made a different decision, something wouldhave had to be differentt to cause my deliberations/chemical rections to end up different. and likewise something elsewouldhaveto havebeen different to cause that thing tobe different aa weell. point is, there are no mistakes. it is what itis. we are veryoriented towardslookingat the future, cos its a source of unceertainty forus,t hus we tryto havvvecontrlby pretendeing we have more control than we really do. anyway, somethings are meant to happen. everything in fact, that does haappen.

update from burxelles later today (my today not urs... or ig uess ur tomorrow...butno oonne willreadythis now anyway....ok

toscana

2006-08-09T07:10:00.000-04:00

no time for long entry. have a lot to say about this place tho. Spannocchia, a sustainable farm in tuscany just outside siena, which is where i have been staying,... has been a lot of fun, mostly relaxing. ive read tom robbins 'villa incognito,' thich naht hahn's 'miracle of mindfullness,' (he is really incredible,) and oscar wilde's 'the picture of dorian gray.' we have spent some time in siena, but mainly just relaxing in the house, walking around the grounds, etc. it has been really nice to be able to relax in one place with friends. we go on to florence 2moro, and lex flies home, while i move on to paris for the weekend, and then on my way home. ill be back in one week. more updates soon

ho ritorno (anche) con lexy

2006-08-02T09:18:00.000-04:00

sorry for the lack of updates. I did not have the oppurtunity to update from pisciotta, because access to the internet has strict time limits on acount of the number of students. i miss pisciotta already, as do, of course the girls. I have returned, and already left. Jamie is lucky to be able to live there for a while.

So, a quick summary of the more memorable moments.
chicken fighting domenico e gianluca.
gianluca in general.
the beach
drinking absinthe with lexy sam and rachel (70 percent alcohol) and not having that be the drunkest night of the trip (burns worse than listerine....)
the roof
the girls friends
dinner and party at the apartment
luigi li gato eating an ice cream cone. (i have pictures to prove it.)

So we left pisciotta on sunday morning and spent a few days in roma with the group. roma was great, but i did alot of the same stuff i did last time, since i was with the same program. i also got the unfortunate news that young girl many of us were aqcuanted with, a friends e girlfriend, died of a drug overdose several nights ago. i think she had just graduated highschool. its very upsetting in a lot of ways. i hope that at least my other friends and acquantances will take this as a wake up call. at the same time, traveling here and seeing a continent living in the shadow of 2 great wars, and eastern europe in the more imediate wake of the communist bloc and the wars in the balkans, it seems so overblown when we get worked up over the young dying in suburban america. it is, of course, tragic, but so is life. in the states, we have this illusion that the universe is a moral place, and that were gaurenteed long lives simply for being alive. whole generations in europe have had there lives shattered by war after war. is it any wonder there are so many pacifists?

This morning, rachel sam lexy and i all left the group, sam and rachel to venezia, and lexy and me to siena, where we are now. were very tired and have yet to meet up with lexys friends here.

ok, i apologize for my lack of updates and poorly written updates, not to mention spelling and typographical errors. the keyboards change slightly from country to country and i dont have time to find the apostrphe.

this blog has served its purpose for my travels and keeping in touch, but unforunatly i have not been able to keep up quality entries. when i get back i will upload pictures and right out longer, more analytic entries based on my journal entries i write on the road. ill be in siena for about a week, and then i head to nice, paris, brussels, and finally fly home from london. im looking forward to traveling on my own, but also to getting home. i miss being able to play guitar, record, read, shower at my leisure, and just not live out of a backpack. i also cant wait to do it again next year. perhaps ill have a job by then. ok, more updates soon. namaste!

ho ritornato a pisciotta

2006-07-25T11:30:00.000-04:00

I apologize for the lack of updates. In Venzia, I was only able to access the internet from a bar, and did not have time to update. Very beautiful, astonishing really; such an amazing city in the middle of a lagoon. Much more impressive then i realized (i had imagined something more akin to what Amsterdam was like.) I took the train to Napoli, and had a typically Italian experience in having my train delayed and can elled twice. Chaos and ineffieciency are parts of the Italian way of life, as much as the Brits love to queue. Anyway, I arrived in Pisciotta last friday, around 5pm. It took me a while to get up to the town, and i didnt meet up with the girls until 730. weve been hanging out, cathcing up with the locals, teachers, students, etc. It has been really great being back here, such a higher quality of life. I cannot update too long, as the computer here has a time limit, but perhaps from roma, and certianly from Siena or Paris. I may also stop in Milan, or Nice, and I will prolly take a day trip down to Calabria this week as well, since I no longer plan on going to Prague on this trip. Hope everyone is doing well. Email me! Ciao

ps my italian language skills are shitty, but I am beginning to remember some things, and thus feel slightly better, and frustrated at the same time.

subathing on the danau

2006-07-18T11:37:00.000-04:00

can't beat that. yesterday i spent the day on a rented bike, riding around the river area, swimming and stuff. sunbathing. im burnt! finally something of a tan. Austria, Öscherreich, has been interesting. Very relxed, slightly more conservative than Germany, although it has more in common with what i saw of Bavaria then Berlin. Lots of Catholics. ALso, in Germany as well, I noticed that German speakers curse in Italian, and all say ciao for goodbye, instead of tsüß. closer culturally than you may expect, altho not nearly as fashionable. I leave for Venezia tonight, which mneans ill be in pisciotta on the 21, friday i think. I can´t wait, three more days.

ALso, the sky is bluer here. (seems to me...it seems to be. I think it is.)

biergartens and greek ruins

2006-07-15T17:31:00.000-04:00

things not to forget about münchen:

germans really do (or did) have a hard on for the greeks\romans. nmice touch painting the temple in the park tho.

the englischer garten.... amazing. makes central park look like a playground.

drum circles, people, animals, bikes. culture.

but still being alone kinda sucks. spent the last few nights hanging out with felix or sara, or reading. so tonight was kinda weird. enjoyable tho. sausage, potatoes. weiße bier.

as far as the greek thing goes, we all know the Nazis, or Hitler at least, had a thing for the occult, and played up the whole pagan thing. this didnt mean, however, that the Nazis rejected christianty; on the contrary they embraced, and understood, the pagan origins of so much christian ritual, and where attemtping to approprioate it, or perhapos reapropriatwe it, into the German conciousness. Spending the last 4 days in germany, it has become obvious that the pagan origins of the german people, and the affinity for the greek, goes back much further than the nazis. (we of course knew this, as im sure sam is thinking blah blah blah, hegel, nietzche, heidegger, hölderlin, temples, the istar, classical education, etc etc.) it is realy overberaring tho, being around it all. münich is more traditional than berlin, altho the parks reallz embrace roman style. this is interesting to me, as the germans were always so proud that they, unlike, say the anglo-saxons and the normans, were never conquered by the romans, and thus there language hasnt been ´poluted´ by latin, or is at least more authentic. yet they wish to be the successdoprs to the greeks and romans anywaz.

ok, tzoo much bier. sleep now. vienna 2moro. Wien. should be fun. eis cream and kafee!

dem deutsche volke...

2006-07-14T10:58:00.000-04:00

So I took a train to Bruxelles from AMsterdam, and overnighted from there to Berlin on tuesday night. I am thus in the middle of mz third day in Berlin, which has been fantastic. On Wednesday, I walked around, took a nap and showered, and decided to go on a free tour at 16:00 (4pm) figuring i should take advantage of the city, and its light out until after 10. so i did, and i ran into a friend of mines ex-girlfriend, who went to purchase. small world. shes here as a dancer, and happens to have interesting friends and know the insider locations. after the tour, we hung out at an awesome wine bar, 1 euro for a glass, drink and eat all u want, pay what u think is fare. sweet. then yesterday i walked around everwhere, went inside the Reichstag, shopped, saw the city, and met up with that girl again in order to see the Pergamonmuseum, which houses the Ischtar Gates, from which the Hanging Gardens of Babylon once hung, one of the 7 wonders of the world. Also the Anatolian Steps, with some amazing, intertingly broken friezes.

Berlin, especially in the East, where evrything is, is a really hip, cool city. Germans are slightly aloof, and build relationships slowly, but are very nice (mostly.) The city is filled with expats, however, all artists, musicians, and students. Id like to see Leipzig now, where there are students but fewer tourists. This must be siumilar to NY in the 70s and 80s. Warehouses, lofts, artists, freedom. History. Intellectuals. CUlture. and still AMericans, just the interesting ones. its nice. I leave for München late tonight, which I#m looking forward to, as well as Wien, which I keep hearing great things about.

I#m debating if I will go to Prague or not. Its up to Lexy, but I#m leaning towards putting it off until next year. I probably won#t update until I get to the hostel in Wien, so until then, Tsüß!

amsterdam, goodbye

2006-07-11T10:15:00.000-04:00

I leave for Berlin 2nite, via Brussels. Lond story, basically there were no direct trains to Berlin, and i didint want to use my rial pass 2 times, so i bought a ticket to brussels. i may have an extra day at the end, but ill use it up im sure. anyways...

Went out with Felix last night, bar hopped a lil, accidently stopped in a gay bar, and then found a jazz club. good quartet, surprisingly. trombone, double bass, drums, and piano. nice. hit up all the museums, visited the heineken brewery today. im ready to leave tho, these places are so packed with tourists. i feel that even tho everyone is nice here, the locals must hate the tourists. its the same kind of ambivalance i experienced in the carribean. they rely on us for econmic reasons, but resent us for it. we ruin the city. public spaces are great tho. community!

forza italia! or not...

2006-07-09T19:34:00.000-04:00

Well, it's late and since I slept in an airport (with a cold cold tile floor) I'd like to get to bed. But I feel the need to comment on the World Cup game. Writing here from Amsterdam, where the car horns have finally seemed to die down (are their italians everywhere?) I noticed that, although many people were rooting for France (since the Italians dispresepcted the Aussies and others) Italy's victory is still highly symbolic, for reasons I'll get to in a moment. I think a France victory would have been more positive for Europe, and history, and if it hadn't been for Zinnade's (or whtvr his name is) headbutt, I'd have flat out rooted for them too. The French team is, in my observation, the most mixed team racially of the European clubs. In this way, they have showed viewers, such as AMerican's who have watched this Cup more closly than in the past, that being 'French' doesn't have tp fit the stereotypical french ethnicity. It is thus really unfortunate that the match was won by a rather undecisive penalty kick. It's worth pointing out that of all the 9 shots taken, the goalkeepers failed to stop any of them; the win came from a French players shot deflecting off the goalpost and hitting the line. THis player also, if im not mistaken, is of Arab, or NOrth African ancestry. I hope this wont lead to negative things in France.
But the Italians did play well, with some amazing saves, good defense, and fancy footwork as always. Evive!

lexy still hasnt emailed me

2006-07-09T14:32:00.000-04:00

quick update from amsterdam,so i can go and watch the world cup. more later.

I have arrived in amsterdam, but only after suffering my first unexpected setback. I was not really bothered at all, however, and I expect these unexpected things to happen. Reminds me of that line from god of small things. maybe sam can look it up. the 2 things margaret kochama says when visiting the heart of darkness, or whtvr. so, i went to the bsf show, but they werent going on till 930, so i figured it wasnt worth the 12 pounds (22 bucks) since id have to leave at 10 to make sure i could get back to my hostel to get a train to the airport, since my flight was leaving early, and the trains didnt leave early on sunday mornings. i found out, however, at the venue, that a free festival in the park was going on, so i went and missed mos def, but saw the wailers. fun. and then an 0old punk rocker tried to steal my ice cream. london outside of zone one is totally differnt; its filled with londoners. no tourists. i felt out of place, altho most people were nice, i can only imagine what a truly ghetto neighborhood must be like.

also, on the aniverseray of the bombing, i, without realizing it, travelled more than any other day in london on the tube, and visited the station where the bombers met, twice, inadvertantly also. on that note, im a tremendous nerd, as most you know, alto it may not be obvious from looking at me. (collects comic books, music snob, played d&d, etc). ON that note, the british museum and british library were phenomenal. seeing the oldest copy of the bible, in greek, or original works by william blake, music by mozart and bach, etc. it made seeing joyces notebook and wordsworth original seem unimportant. plus i saw the rosetta stone, among other treasures at the museum, which was beautiful. i also got a british library card, for special research. ok, more later. mathc is on

a few truisms about london

2006-07-08T09:15:00.000-04:00

at least in the summer. this is what I've observed to be true.
-they really do like to queue.
-they really go love football and rugby.
-pubs are all over.
-they do have messed up teeth, for the most part.
-it rains quite a bit, but never really poors.

also, theyre are really a lot of muslims here, mainly from pakistan, i think. in greater london at least. veyr interesting. seemingly well integrated, but i could be wrong on that. kinda like hispanics in the states i guess, altho ive witnessed more racism at home.

BSF tonight. I haven't called anyone I said I would, gragory, morris, and i didnt try and get in touch with rachel's boyfriend. or whtvr. I've been busy. I feel kinda weird calling people I don't know, and I feel like hanging out with Morris outside of the school setting would be awkward, for me at least. I know, I'm silly and I have no excuses.

Well, I leave for Amsterdam early tomorrow morning. World Cup Game is 2moro. Today I'm gonna visit the London Buddhist Centre before goin to the show 2nite. Next update will be from the continent.

SO little time! (and less money)

2006-07-07T17:14:00.000-04:00

I have alot to update, but no time to do it in. The British Library and the British Museum are phenomenal, though.

Sorry to those who left comments. I haven't been checking the actual blog, and it doesn't alert me. I'll try and check now. I think i figured out how to use the fone card. More updates tomorrow or sunday. Love