Hard Like Algebra

NOT (2009)

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POSSIBLE HEADLINES FOR UNWRITTEN STORIES INVOLVING THIS DEER STATUE

–Neighborhood Hoodlums Collecting Statue Ears; Protesting the “Sanitization” of Modern Life
–Neighborhood Watch ‘Ears the Call: Gardens Under Attack
–Deer God!
–Statue Seen as Comment on State of Homeowner’s Life
– What? WHAAAAAATTT??!!

Today I went to see Ben Kulp play at Scratch PDX, which the organizers bill as “Portland’s Performance Playground.”

Like a lot of performance nights in that vein, Scratch PDX had a range of talent, depth, and quality. Some stuff was pretty *wink wink* but overall, the performers were committed and the audience was generally apt to love what they were seeing.

I’m always fascinated by how the audience for something like this (or really anything) has a core group of regulars. It’s amazing because you think about this shared, communal experience, people going weekend after weekend to see 30 plays in 60 minutes, or, in this case, once a month for the non-summer months of the year to see the community at large perform works of varying polish. I found myself wondering what would happen if I decided to go for a year without listening to or viewing anything that was prerecorded.

[Side note: Ben was great. It was nice to see his first performance ever. It was fun to see public reaction, and see him control what he could and shrug when he couldn't.]

A night like this does two things for me, and I doubt I’m the only one who would say these things. First, it makes me realize there is a community out there for performance, and gives me a bit of a “wow, this was here all along, why have I never gone before?” response. Secondly, it inspires me to make work of my own–and in this case, it reminds me that I’ve got a background and a lot of training in this, and that I could so something worthwhile.

That’s exciting stuff. I’m glad I was there. I might be there next month, if they’d have me, to perform.

Take on the 17th, posted before bed on the 19th

Bill Callahan’s “Sycamore” exemplifies the kind of song that completely derails your intention to listen to a full album. I swear, I still fully believe that Woke On A Whaleheart is a brilliant album, but when you put “Sycamore” fourth (right after the stellar “Diamond Dancer,” too) on it, you’re basically asking a listener raised on CD’s to listen to the first four songs on the album over and over.

The song starts out with the looping, swirling, complicated-but-not guitar lick that Callahan comes back to again and again, and then straight into the lyrics:

There’s sap in the trees if you tap ‘em
There’s blood on the seas–if you map ‘em
Christian, if you see your papa–tell ‘im I love ‘im

And he goes from there, short pithy sayings that make you feel so much like he owns his lyrics, like he can pull them off and make them amazing and no one else could. He’s like a one man mythos every time out, and “Sycamore” is no exception.

Other than that, you’ve got the basic drumbeat, understated gospel backing vocals (how often can someone say that?), and lyrics that just continue to somehow be killer and yet not wordy at all. Callahan doing “basic” equals simple that defies you to write something so great. He’s also got the guitar solo that fits somewhere between caffeinated country and the cherry music from Mr. Do!, a man playing guitar that sounds like 8-bit video games…and also, aw hell. Eff the critic-speak.

You know what?  It’s just a damn good song.  A great song.  The one song that I remembered from the time I saw him open for Joanna Newsom to the time the album came out.

Simple, complex, catchy, twangy, clean.

It’s perfect.

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***

I’ve got about 10000 songs in iTunes, and about ten of them have made the “Perfect” playlist. This is one of them.

Me and You and No One Needed to See That

Today’s “piece of art” will actually be a “bit of a rant” about the direction of art and an ongoing conversation that has included, this week, me, my girlfriend, Steven Pinker, and a Miranda July movie.

Because seriously, I really, really like Miranda July. Learning to Love You More is one of the best things that ever happened to the internet, and her short story book kicks so many kinds of ass. 

But man–MAN–I am not feeling good about Me and You And Everyone We Know.

[btw some spoilers are kind of necessary below, so stick with me. the movie is 4 years old after all]

Erin and I had a pretty big discussion the other day about art and what makes something art, and it has been bouncing around in my head.  I came off as a goon when we really sat down and talked about it in reference to the Guerilla Girls, but that’s because I do that defensive man thing instead of that “appear to actually be actually listening” thing, sometimes.  It turns out that I was listening, and she raised a lot of good points, and then we watched Steven Pinker talking about* how one big shift in the arts in the last century or so was a shift away from beauty and pleasurable art.  His contention is essentially that actually, we are pretty much hard wired to have a predilection towards certain things, genetically, and it might be in the last 50 years or so that artists have stated working against that instinct. 

Now, as he points out in that talk, art folk have totally scoffed at this idea. I’m sure it goes something like “how can you say that you know what is pleasurable or beautiful? Maybe I find Carolee Schneeman’s Interior Scroll to be not only a daring and seminal feminist performance piece, but also to be quite pretty!”  Or something. And that’s fine.   I have my art degree, and one of the things I’ve been thinking about is that training in the arts actually helps to prepare you to understand art, and, perhaps, expand your definition of beauty or pleasure in art.

It’s also what has moved people towards elitism, towards not being satisfied with a simple, joyous song, or a pretty landscape painting, or, say, a movie that  doesn’t include a six year old kid (however unknowingly) engaging in cybersex with someone who turns out to be a grown woman that’s another character in the movie.  For instance.

It was definitely gorgeously filmed, but here was a lot to squick about in this movie, and I’m not going to get into all of the details, but when one of the most redeeming moments is a grown man deciding not to act upon his fantasy of a threesome with two underaged girls despite being given the chance,** you have to ask yourself …actually I can’t decide what to ask myself.   Here are some questions that I considered, though I’m not sure they are hitting the mark:

• Was that necessary?
• How did this movie get made in Hollywood?
• How did this movie win all of these awards?
• How did all of this crazy shit just…fly under the radar?
• How come I had read enough about this movie to be so intrigued that I still wanted to see it, four years after it’s release, yet I had no idea about all the creepy stuff in it?
• Can I get someone to make a movie that takes the awesome stuff about her submissions to the museum and pulls that out and makes a movie about that?  

I am now on a tangent but I think you get the idea.

Anyway, at this point, I wonder if I’m just getting old, or too far removed from the Cool Knowing that results from immersion in contemporary art culture, or maybe just “mellowing out.”  But I think the success last year (worldwide, and in my own house) of Vampire Weekend proves that in many ways, people finally want artists of all kinds to stop making things that are ugly, unlistenable, angry, mopey, and unpleasant. 

I’m going to go put some wholesome fun like Vicky Cristina Barcelona on my holds list now.

*I am paraphrasing here in the hopes that if I got it completely incorrect, Erin will tell me.
**Yes, yes, American Beauty is one of my favorite films of all time.  I recognize the inconsistency here.

I decided to show you the kind of writing that pours out of me when I let my words go. This also means that I wrote more today, hooray!

However, I couldn’t get this image post to show up properly in the blog post itself, so I gave you a tease above. 

To read it properly, please click to view, full size, with a black background.

Thanks for clicking.

Click on the image to see it without distortion caused by my wordpress theme.

Props to Nate for showing me this site a while back.

Un-props to strip generator for not letting me login under my first login simply because I didn’t verify it when I first signed up.

Title: Casio SK1der

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“Springtime” (2009)

The next time that it feels a LOT like springtime outside, bring a friend and a camera to a park that holds many memories for you.

Have your friend take pictures of you jumping in the air, yelling “it’s time!”

Onlookers may ask, “time for what?” 

***

“Mending Wall” (2009)

The next time you purchase or pay for something, strike up a small conversation with the other person involved in the transaction.

Do not rush, and do not force interest.  

Do this in your neighborhood, daily, for seven days.

On a day when you don’t purchase anything, there are probably other strangers you could converse with.

***

“Hover (2009)”

Travel to the nearest significant body of water.

Take off your right shoe and right sock.

Walk to the edge of the water and come as close as possible to touching the water with your foot as you can, but be sure not to get your foot wet.

Pause.

Head home.