Women to women

That night, we went to see the Sa Dance Company perform.  The house was full and performance was full to bursting with life – streaks of color and movement that simultaneously pulse with celestial abandon and the down-to-the-finger precision of Indian dance.  So who am I to talk about Indian dance tradition? Nobody.  But it was fab to see this group of mostly amateur but highly trained and experienced women cover ground from strict classicism to Bollywood exuberance.

Then on Sunday we went to the Kara Walker “A Subtlety” exhibition at the Domino Sugar Factory in Williamsburg. As much great stuff as we'd read about this, it was more amazing than we’d dared expect.

The full title was: "A Subtlety, or the Marvelous Sugar Baby an Homage to the unpaid and overworked Artisans who have refined our Sweet tastes from the cane fields to the Kitchens of the New World on the Occasion of the demolition of the Domino Sugar Refining Plant."

Sugar baby, tar baby, Sugar Mammie Sphinx - sugar and molasses sculptures standing, melting, decaying and laying in wait, accusing and celebrating and remembering the people who worked, lived, and died in the sugar harvesting & refining industries. 

A history that stretches from the triangle of trade in slave, cash, and cane cargo from Europe to Africa to the Americas and back finds one end in this defunct Domino plant in Williamsburg, up and running until less than a decade ago.

There's so much written out there that I feel I can't add a lot to the conversation, especially since it's scarcely my story to tell.

There was a performance artist there, in green and black tiger print spandex, with a 'hidden' videographer (I didn't see him until later) getting footage of people's reactions to her as she walked the space.

At one point after she'd been there I don't know how long she let out a piercing scream standing in front of the sphinx who dominated the space (and most of the coverage of the exhibition).

She had a partner (also in spandex, black and yellow I think), who gave a simultaneous scream - no words, just an outcry - from the other end of the sphinx sculpture.

I don't know who they are or anything about them.  It wasn't this guy, who seems to have done something along similar lines, but including verbal statement and follow-up. But they were there. They were there on that day, as this art work was there, as generations of factory work happened there, and the work that built this place - this culture, this nation, this economy - happened, in the physical universe, for better and/or for worse, for a few hundred years.

Press Pause

Rally beard still going (for now). 

Among the Frenzied Return to Life After London, this weekend's hosting of out of town friends, including trips to Broadway to see No Man's Land, and Brooklyn to see the amazing Streb, and getting ready for T-Day next weekend, an afternoon pause in the 'boken to listen to Lucius, YLT, and Zappa, make leftovers into a meal, and read about the Dylan portraits we saw on Tuesday at the National Portrait Gallery.

Necessary.

Down by the River

Specifically, at the plaza outside the Winter Garden just behind the World Trade Center site, one of the venues of the River to River festival.

They had a great day of movement theater a couple weekends ago. The first of three acts was a singular dance ensemble from Australia called "Strange Fruit." While that name conjures dreadful acts from the American South as hauntingly related by Billie Holiday, this was, well, not that.


This was a troupe of three dancers who climbed atop 15-foot posts in colorful corsets, dramatic headdresses, pantaloons and stockings.

Then they hoisted up giant hoop skirts that Scarlet O'Hara could only have dreamed of.

The dancers struck poses and fixed the audience with expressions alternating among coy, coquettish and seductive.

And then, it got weird.

They dipped and swayed and swerved and defied both gravity and reason, at a pace somewhere between outer space and flying trapeze. Very dreamlike, very surreal.

I got some video that gives a sense of the act in motion, but technical difficulties prevent me from posting it (for now, anyway... Anybody know how to synch a Samsung Galaxy S loaded with Froyo to a Mac? I can't believe that that language makes sense to me. And it's annoying that knowing what it means doesn't help me solve the problem. Another chapter in the seemingly endless saga of upgrade frustration. But I digress.)

The rest of the performance was fab too - Michael Moschen up close and juggling-historical, and the Streb company performing Human Fountain, their interpretation of dancing waters brought to life with bodies, scaffold and some big ass mats. The River to River people encouraged us to grab footage (and if I had a better memory I'd know what hashtag to use when Tweeting about it), and I'll share what I got when I'm able to load the video.

OH! And while I'm still in the neighborhood of the subject of dramatic clothing: go see the Alexander McQueen exhibit at the Met before it closes. The crowd is insane, but it's totally, completely, 100% worth it.

Equinoctial

Happy First Day of Spring, everybody!

So far, I've been celebrating by not even leaving the apartment, but that just seems wrong, so I'll shift gears soon. but first I wanted to say I hope you all had a good winter (as uncooperative as the weather tended to be) and that you're in good health (no small wish in this era of earthquakes and tsunamis and wars and floods).

This week was a full one, with networking and socializing on Monday, a kind of a night off on Tuesday, Lucia di Lammermoor at the Met on Wednesday (great! It's part of the HD broadcasts too, so you can catch it at a theater near you...), The Motherf**ker with the Hat on Thursday (which evening included dinner with a couple of my good friends who had somehow managed not to be in the same room with Cory until now), the Premier of the Mel & El webisodes at Ars Nova on Friday (featuring yours truly as a Mean Man, according to the credits; my bitchy gay character was rechristened by Kevin and Carl as one of the Mean Girls. I'll take the career boost.) and the Martha Graham Dance Company at Jazz at Lincoln Center last night (featuring the company of out-of-town guests from both Virginia and Italia)

Whew!

How do we do it? The secret is to sacrifice cleanliness.

Anyway, it's clearly time to change over the wallpaper photo on my phone from the snow-covered branches outside our window to something more printemps. I'll try to grab something this afternoon.

Holly Daze

Well, I've been fairly lousy at keeping up with this particular outlet recently. I didn't even bother to celebrate (or even notice) that my last post before this one was my 500th post. And I am NOT one to miss out on an opportunity to celebrate something.

That said, I have my excuses (there are always excuses). The holidays were busy as all get out; I had out of town guests of various shapes and sizes; there were social engagements at every turn; we had to go to Paramus; we had a blizzard; I was short-listed for a Nobel Prize; it was chaos!

I'll fill in some of the blanks in the coming days, but for now, here are some headlines:

• Yo La Hanukkah - the annual Maxwell's 8-night orgasm of music and fun. We caught two of the shows: one was great, the other was unbelievably awesome
• Real Hanukkah - fewer latkes this year, but we still brought out the celebration for the Festival of Lights
• Alvin Ailey - I got to go to a few shows this City Center season, including by great good fortune both opening and closing night. Both were great, although Judith Jamison's farewell show was really over the top special and wonderful
• Julie! And her family. We had pizza and saw Lombardi. Nice.
• Davin! In town on a mission or three
• Wedding in Westchester
• Holiday music and movies - in both live and recorded form, it's an annual tradition and a half. This year's highlights included: the choral group Angelica on the UES; a Renegade Cabaret performance on 14th Street; Oy to the World, volume 13; The Bishop's Wife at Chome on Christmas Eve; Christmas in Connecticut with Kelly (at the beginning of the Blizzard!)
• True Grit in Bkln w/Dominic
• The Big Christmas Gathering
• Black Swan with Susan & Daniel
• The Big Parental Visit - delayed along with several thousand of our closest friends by the same Blizzard, but still very fun
• New Year's Eve - Ailey for the folks, Patti Smith for us (along with Sue and Steve and Beth B.) A splendid time was had by all, in spite of some in-crowd obnoxiousness (did they forget what show they were at?)

So - there that is. I'm sure I'm forgetting some really important stuff. More to come...

Checking In

Yes people, I'm still here. Busy as ever, keeping at least one hand on the wheel and keeping the show rolling. So, a brief recap:

Post Modern Living had its opening weekend (and is now 2/3 through its second weekend) which included the rare pleasure of my sister being able to attend the show and the opening night party. Think that has to have been the first time she has seen me on stage since, umm, high school.

The Red Sox have been struggling in a way that is odd for them for April. Many a year they have rocked the beginning of the season then let it crumble, so I'm taking the view that they are getting their sucking out of the way early on this time. Lately they have been finding ways to eke out one-run wins, often of the last-minute variety. A good skill to develop...

The dayjob plods on in its petty pace, which isn't always so petty these days. Lots going on and the stakes get ratcheted up more often than was their wont not long ago. So be it.

The television program 'Lost' (perhaps you've heard of it) is nearing its end, causing much discussion and headscratching and online research into arcane mythology. Also, we are planning an end-of-series viewing party for the finale. Make sure to let me know if you want in on that.

In the midst of all this, I find certain moments to be fascinated by discussions of equally arcane matters such as well-tempered tuning. Yes, it takes a certain amount of geekitude to get jazzed up watching an argument develop from:

...as Pythagoras discovered, intervals are also mathematical ratios. If you take an open guitar string sounding E, stop it with your finger in the middle and pluck, you get E an octave above. The octave ratio, then, is 2:1. If you stop the string in the ratio 3:2, you get a fifth higher than the open string, the note B. The other intervals have progressive ratios; 4:3 is a fourth, and so on.

to, a few paragraphs later:

What all this means in practice is that in tuning keyboards and fretted instruments, you have to screw around with the intervals in order to fit the necessary notes into an octave. In other words, as we say, you have to temper pure intervals, nudge them up or down a hair in some systematic way. Otherwise, you get chaos.

and on to:

There have been some 150 tuning systems put forth over the centuries, none of them pure. There is no perfection, only varying tastes in corruption.

continuing through:

One of those tunings was already known to the ancients: equal temperament. Here the poison is distributed equally through the system: The distance between each interval is mathematically the same, so each interval is equally in, and slightly out of, tune. Nothing is perfect; nothing is terrible. So now it's all fixed, yes? The laughter of the gods has been stilled, right? Are you kidding? You fools: The gods never lose.

And going on from there for another two pages, including musical examples of course...

In moments like these, I envision a life in which I live and work in an artistic research-and-performance laboratory where people appear who play instruments from various historical periods and bring to life these matters of microtones, and we explore their theatrical possibilities. If you know someone who is looking for help at such a facility, please let me know.

Meanwhile, Cory and I got to play host to our friends Claudia and Valter from Rome. Remember them? We took them and a couple of their friends out yesterday to see one of Emily Faulkner and Jody Sperling's Tea Dance incarnations. Our Roman friends will never acknowledge that New York espresso can stand up to comparison with Italian caffe, but we did have a lovely afternoon walking the High Line afterward.

Then it was on to the UES for me for a friend's wedding reception, then down to the East Village for the show. We crashed in the 'boken last night, as I needed to take Cory to Paramus this early morning so she could make a trek with part of her family to South Jersey for an MS walk. Now I'm enjoying some good ol' homemade coffee and telling you all about it. My Beatles phase (did you all know that I am currently going through a Beatles Phase? Well, I am.) has me on the mono master of the White Album this afternoon. I'll get some time with the Times and then head back to La MaMa for tonight's show.

And that brings us up to date on this rainy Sunday. I'll leave you with some visual stimulation courtesy of the Fab Four, and a bonus question:

Discuss visual and sonic collage elements in the Beatles eponymous 1968 "White Album" release. Extra credit: compare and contrast the dramatic results of the differences between the mono and stereo releases. Suggested starting reference points - visual: De Kooning, Rauschenberg, Rothko; audio: Cage, Ives, Wilson.

Alec, Steve and Oscar

Ok, I'll weigh in just a little.

The opening number would have worked if it had been funnier. But it wasn't.

Alec Baldwin and Steve Martin were good - very funny pros who did their homework and went to rehearsal. Makes a big difference. Some of the roast-y jokes got kind of old, but I love that Steve had enough presence to do things like save the awful moment in the wake of Geoffrey Fletcher's muddy acceptance for Adapted Screenplay (did he really neglect to mention Sapphire, who wrote the novel he adapted into his now-Oscar-winning script??) with a zinger: "I wrote that speech for him."



The interpretive dance would have had to be unbelievably extraordinary to work. I mean, Martha Graham-resurrected-from-the-grave good. And guess what? Martha Graham didn't rise from the dead.

Speaking of death - how could they leave Farrah Fawcett and Bea Arthur out of the Death Medley?? At long last, have they no sense of decency?

Meryl Streep is a goddess walking among us. She took all that borderline nasty material and just made it funnier with her reaction. George Clooney did a great job as Active Audience Member too (though I suspect he was at one of the rehearsals.)

All the best actor and actress noms getting stroked by their former co-stars, directors, mentors etc. was painful to watch. Really.

That said, I think that Oprah saying what she said last night may have helped Gabourey Sidibe's career more than an actual Oscar would have.

And that's saying something.

Catherine Bigelow breaking down the gender barrier (and Avatar not getting a titanic sweep): Two big thumbs up.

The orchestra playing "I Am Woman" as she walked offstage: major motherf*cking thumbs down.

I mean - really??

Ok, this all is reading a little bitchier than I like to be. But if you can't make fun of the Oscars, what can you make fun of?

On the whole, it was a good, fun Oscar broadcast, and I had the great good fortune to watch it at two fun parties (and Cory and I even picked the perfect moment to subway between the two of them). I do not trust that the votes were counted accurately at the party we left, but hope that Kim, the "winner," buys Cory's lunch today...

Ladysmith Black Mambazo

At the Highline the other night. So good.

Real roots music - voices clear, open, released, natural, exploring sounds and stretching possibilities. Finding and using all manner of sounds a voice can make. Reaching back to ancient African music through jazz through doo wop through bebop through hip hop to today and back again. Thoroughly playing with, in and around any given note until every thing they can get out of it in a single song has been squeezed and spun and swirled. Zulu dance moves that bring to mind nothing so much as Miracles (as in Smokey Robinson and the...) and Temptations.

Afrobeat forever.

More Fun with Movement and Art

As promised, here is some more on Cory's Dance Debut with Simone Forti.

First of all, why don't I link to Claudia La Rocco's rave in the Times. One of those love letter reviews that we all dream of. Which Cory gets her first time out. Nice! [They didn't mention her by name, per se, but she was most certainly a part of the "ad hoc group of dancers" mentioned in the review.] Of course, that fits in all-too perfectly with Simone's perspective on dance. She called these pieces "Dance Constructions" and they are tucked into the boxes of sculpture/visual art as often and as fittingly as they are labeled as dance (by those who enjoy putting decals on things - as with most achievements of importance, I tend to see this work as being elusive of pigeonholes, what Duke Ellington would have called "beyond category") A movement artist in the Proto-Judson Era (which term I may be making up, but you know what I mean), Forti was part of the group that presented at Yoko's loft, which is where Huddle was first shown in 1961. She wasn't terribly well known then; she's made her mark more by influence (Lucinda Childs, Yvonne Rainer, and of course Robert Morris) than recognition. Until recently! Simone is finally getting her due, and I hope she's enjoying it!

I had the great good fortune to attend this event with Ginger Spivey, a good friend of Cory's from Duke, who is a more than formidable resource on Simone, the Judson school, New York art in the 60s, and art in general. I can't link the full text here (go ahead and support indie press and buy the thing!) but she has an article about Forti in last summer's Women's Art Journal. So I've got some art world cred when I tell you that this show ROCKED!

Here's the promised viddie - it's just a portion of the Huddle that happened during the reception. This show happened on stage, on screen, and among the audience. That's Cory in the pink top. And you don't need to be a dance aficionado to recognize the guy commenting on Trevor crossing the Huddle near the end...

How cool is that?

[ok, here I have an issue with the good people at Blogger. I have tried to upload this video four times now - taking lots of time - and it continues NOT to work. So I'm putting it on youtube and embedding it from there; which is fine I guess, but shouldn't the video app work better?? If anyone has a fix, let me know]

Dance Debut!

What did you do last night?

I went to see Cory's Dance Debut. Yup. That's right. Not only was she performing live in New York, she was performing with dancer/choreographer/artist Simone Forti.

And not only that, but she did it at the Baryshnikov Arts Center. And not only that, but he (Mr. Baryshnikov) was there.

How many people can say that Baryshnikov attended their dance debut? Not that many, I'll wager.

I have to tell you, this was tremendously exciting!

Can't access my camera from this computer - will try to load up some video later on and post it with a more full account of the evening.

Holiday Fun

As promised!

Let's start off with yesterday evening. I was on my own for logistical reasons, but I tried to make the most of it. First, I walked past Bryant Park to see the people skating there under the tree.


As you can see, I didn't have my good camera with me yesterday, so these shots won't be my finest work. But I do love that Holiday-in-the-City energy.

Then I went to the farmers' market on 9th Ave. and got some provisions. Made a pretty good pasta and a spinach salad, and opened a bottle of vino for the occasion.

My sister was having something of a rough time last night (if you're reading this - I'm here for you, sis. Always.) so I talked to her for a while. And I wrapped some presents while I watched part of a Charlie Brown special that I'd never heard of from 2003 (?!?!) called I Want a Dog for Christmas, Charlie Brown (seriously, who knew? Rerun gets fired from kindergarten for sexual harassment. I'm not even kidding.) and part of The San Francisco Ballet's Nutcracker on TV. And I dug up some of the old Christmas tapes to accompany the task as well.

That's right. Tapes.




This morning I went to the post office to pick up the present that Grandma and Grandpa sent me. Don't know what it is yet, as she asked that I not open it until Christmas (so that's what's going to happen gol' darnit!)

Then, at work I finished up the birthday present I put together for Grandpa and put it in the mail - it's his birthday today! I know he's not reading this, but say it with me: Happy Birthday, Grandpa! As he approached 92, he shared with us all that he has a formerly closeted fondness for "that long hair violin music" (the "long hair" variety being the arty kind that happens in orchestras, as opposed to the fiddle kind that happens in the backyard jamboree accompanied by banjo, accordion and/or washboard percussion.) I had to put together a collection for the event. (And yes, I know he'll get his present late. I'll call him tonight to wish him a timely Happy Birthday.)



'Tis the Season for fun tasks!

*Oh, and if I'm reading my dashboard right, this is Love Minus Zero's 400th post. So, there's that.

New York November

There's been a lot going on so far this month, and we're just getting going.

Rehearsed for a reading on All Saints' Day (nothing like seeing the 'walks of shame' the morning after a New York Halloween.) The reading happened last Wednesday - a very academic play, but I was happy to do it, and got some really good response, including from the playwright, and one person who may make use of my services as a voice teacher.

The next night I saw Broke-ology, which features a friend of mine, at the Mitzi Newhouse. Then on Friday Cory and I met some friends for dinner at Westville East (wrap your mind around that.) Saturday was an engagement party for a friend in the afternoon, and Armitage Dance at BAM that night - got mixed response from the critics and from our group, but I quite liked it. Was especially apt to hear music by Lukas Ligeti after having seen Morphoses dance to music by his father the week before. (Oh yeah, I probably should have posted about that... we saw Wheeldon's company the week before. Wow, that was a really good show!)

THEN - I taught a voice class on Sunday (I'm teaching voice classes these days - feel free to send people my way) after which Cory and I went to the Giants game in Meadowlands. Oy. For lessons in how to lose a football game, check out the highlight reel from that disaster.

Monday was the Major Cultural Event of the New York Neo-Futurists Benefit performance/party. It's hard to believe that I've barely written about them here, since they've been kind of a big part of my life for a while. The event was good, and they raised some good bucks. Good food and drink; a fun, abbreviated performance; I won one silent-auction item, and donated another.


This photo is totally purloined, and kind of out-of-date, I think, but I need to give these guys the emphasis they deserve!

Went to a brilliant Schubert concert with Terry on Tuesday, and we hit a good new spot in Hell's Kitchen afterwards to talk about some potential projects for both of us. The place is called Stecchino, and I had a very nice cocktail and a good bowl of carrot orange soup and Terry had an anchovy appetizer and a beer. Liked it a lot. It's still really new, so get in on it to be ahead of the curve. Or something.

And tomorrow, we leave for T-day in Boston. Which is, of course, the most - won-der-ful time - of the year...

Talk to you when I get back.

Birthday Bruce

So, ok - you've heard of Cory, right? Well, she takes really good care of me for my birthday. (My birthday was October 7, for those of you who pay attention to such things.) This year the first way that took shape was in the form of tickets to see Bruce Springsteen at Giants Stadium.

This, it bears noting, is a pretty good gift. A pretty AWESOME gift.

He did a series of five concerts to close the stadium, which is getting demolished to make room for a shiny new stadium next door next season, so these are special, historic shows. And these were field tickets, which unless you have a broken leg or something are so the way to go. To get the best spot on the field you have to show up early, so it takes a pretty good chunk of day to do it. And we had to miss my good friend Lia's birthday party in the Bronx, which was sad in its way, but everything lined up so amazingly as to make up for all else.


It was predicted to be a really rainy day, so we weren't going to go for the extra special super early version of tailgating in the parking lot. Instead we went the the gym and then hit the grocery store to grab some provisions and Cory went uptown to get the tickets from her friend and to pop in on the Dan Graham exhibition at the Whitney (Cory got soaked on the walk from her friend's place to the museum. That would be one way the stars didn't actually line up too well.) Meanwhile, I put the cooler together with beer, soda and food, and eventually the weather cleared up as we hit the road.

Comedy of errors with the parking staff, and we found ourselves in a less-than-ideal lot, but after a little bit of E Street shuffling, we ended up in a great spot and had some food and drinks and took in the scene. The sun was even kind of shining by this point, and it turned into a pretty nice afternoon. A couple things I wasn't prepared for in today's world of tailgating: the amount of fairly professional sound systems people brought for sharing their tunes with the world; and more surprisingly - the proliferation of professional-looking beer pong tables.

Who knew?

At around 6 we went to the gate - they weren't letting people in yet (other than the first thousand, who'd been there since about midday to get the spots RIGHT up against the rail.) It wasn't that bad a line, and they let us in at about 6:30. We got wristbands of our own, which let us go up to the front portion of the floor they'd laid down on the field. We had a great spot! 20 yards or so from the stage, close enough that we didn't need those jumbotrons to see what was going on.

And what a show!!! The Boss knows how to do it up. Such an artist; such a showman. I didn't bring my camera, natch, so was limited to what I could catch on my cell phone.

As I said, these shows are going to be the last concerts that happen in Giants Stadium before they tear it down, so Bruce wrote a song for the occassion.


We got to be among the first to hear it! Ok, among the first several thousand.

For this series of shows, the band is playing albums in their entirety. We got to hear Born in the U.S.A., which of course was the record that took Bruce from stardom to Monster Mondo Mega Stardom. It was fantastic - of all his albums, this is probably the most stadium-friendly, the one that was kind of built to fill these ginormous venues. Here's the setlist, with the U.S.A. songs shaded red.

Wrecking Ball
Out in the Street
Outlaw Pete (does anyone else think the riff on this song sounds dangerously close to the Kiss song "I Was Made for Lovin' You"?)
Hungry Heart
Working on a Dream
Born in the U.S.A.
Cover Me
Darlington County
Working on the Highway
Downbound Train
I'm on Fire
No Surrender
Bobby Jean
I'm Goin' Down
Glory Days
Dancing in the Dark
My Hometown
The Promised Land
Last to Die
Long Walk Home
The Rising
Born to Run
Raise Your Hand (instrumental version, while he went out into the crowd to pick up request signs)
Jersey Girl
Kitty's Back
Detroit Medley
American Land
Waitin' on a Sunny Day
Thunder Road

Do you see that?? The first request he played was "Jersey Girl," which was AMAZING because a) he hardly ever does that song, b) hello - it's just a-ma-zing, and c) hel-LO? - I was there with my Jersey Girl! And then he did another rarity in "Kitty's Back" that completely blew me away, really let the band stretch musically: solos from Charles Giordano (rest in peace, Danny Federici) Curt Ramm (a phenomenal trumpeter who joined them for these shows) Roy Bittan and Bruce himself (people still underrate his guitar playing, in my opinion) just took the show way over the top. No Rosalita that night, but Thunder Road brought things home very very nicely.

One more blurry photo before I go. When he does "Dancing in the Dark" he usually brings someone up on stage to dance (a la Courtney Cox in that video way back when the song came out.) For this show he brought up this teenage gal who looked nervous for about a half a second and then totally tore it up with the Boss!


After they finished the song, Springsteen let her friends (her mom?) take their picture, then he showed us the sign that she'd held up to get his attention: "13th Birthday Dance?" Pretty rad.

Performing Arts City

Ok, as promised, more today about New York's Performing Arts season.

Going backwards a bit, last night Cory and I went to the new Anna Deavere Smith show at Second Stage - it's in previews and therefore still under construction, but it's already a brilliantly developed piece in Anna's signature vein: an amalgam of characters she interviewed herself and embodies live on stage. These people range from the famous (Eve Ensler) to the very famous (Lance Armstrong) to the not famous at all (Anna's aunt) and Anna of course inhabits them amazingly: physically, vocally, holistically. Eve Ensler has a riff about women who do or do not live in their vaginas - good stuff, funny and telling. Along those lines, it's fair to say that Anna lives and works in her whole body. Which can be a deceptively difficult thing to do, and most actors aspire to get better at it. I know I do.



I could go on and on about this show, but I have a lot of ground to cover.

Last weekend, I did the 4 shows in 3 days thing. Love it. So, to continue the backward path...

Sunday night Cory and I met with Richard, a director I've worked with a few times, and a couple of his friends to see a Fringe show called Powerhouse. It was about the life and work of Raymond Scott, who wrote the piece of music that shares its name with the play, and which was featured in tons of Warner Brothers cartoons you've probably seen. It featured some pretty well-worn notions but also some interesting staging and puppetry, and a shout out is due to Eric Wright for some good voice acting and puppet skillz.

Sunday afternoon was a show on the good ol' Broadway with my dayjob co-worker Kendra. We caught After Miss Julie, which is Patrick Marber's new take on Strindberg's classic set in post-war England. It's also in previews (and making good use of them, I hear) and offers up some Star wattage in the form of Jonny Lee Miller (whom you may know from the brilliant Trainspotting movie) and Sienna Miller (whom you probably just know, but if you don't, check out Factory Girl.)

Less well-known to movie audiences is the fantastically talented Marin Ireland, whom I saw earlier this year in Reasons to be Pretty and who burned it up in this show too.

Yay for you!



Saturday night was dance-y theater (or theatrical dance) at BAM. In-I, which was conceived and performed by Akram Khan with Juliette Binoche. Also worth mentioning is the score by Phillip Shepard. He's a composer/educator/musician who scores bunches of films and viddies and events and rocks an electric cello.


Before the show, we'd been to early dinner at the delicious Olea and had some fab java at Tillie's (both of those = yum yum yum!) as well as a long walk in Manhattan and a brunch with a friend of Cory's. It was a GORGEOUS late summer weekend and we tried to make the most of it.

Lastly/firstly - on Friday night I was at the Brick in Billyburg to see my friend and colleague Brad Fraizer in a clown show called Schaden, Freude and You. It was part of a larger clown festival and it was, as promised, very funny. I ran into a guy I know from the show I did with Brad, so that was a plus; and we got to see some good clowning. You may not think you like clowning, but remember that when I talk about this I'm not usually talking about some guy in whiteface with a red nose, but a more universal brand of physical comedy. And let me tell you guys - to do it really well is hard. And funny.

So there that was. Another weekend starts now. Tonight I'm gonna rock it.

Ave Atque Vale Merce Cunningham

You've probably heard by now that Merce Cunningham has died.

As it seems we've been doing a lot lately, let's celebrate a life as well as mourn a loss.



This Annie Liebowitz portrait is an iconic one, and seems to fit the bill.

I was fortunate enough to attend what must have been one of his last public appearances, and maybe his very final performance event at Dia Beacon. It was incredible, beautiful, stunning, moving. The program shared the oft-stated (Alastair Macaulay writes "almost routinely hailed") contention that Merce was The Greatest Living Choreographer, and I asked someone who is more than passingly familiar with the dance world if they could really do that. Make that claim? THE Greatest? And the response was: "Well, who else would it be?"

Good point.




Love these images from his 1958 piece "Antic Meet," which was designed by Robert Rauchenberg and photographed by Richard Rutlege



Now, while I 've said before and will say again that I'm not a fan of favoritism, so that whole 'The Greatest' thing falls a little flat, I think it's surely fair to say that Merce Cunningham was one of the greatest artists in any medium, not limited to dance/choreography, of the last century or so. I have the sense that if you gave him a paperclip, a ball of twine and a tuba he could turn them into something you couldn't take your eyes away from.

Various media outlets/newspapers have their own obituaries, of course. Among many many others are Macaulay at The Times, Tobi Tobias for Bloomberg, and one from the London Telegraph that has no byline, but that yields some choice commentary:

He was impatient with the quest to discover meaning in art; asked what one dance was about, he answered: "It's about 40 minutes."

...for many years he was derided. Fairly early in the life of his company, a New York reviewer wrote: "Last night Merce Cunningham presented a programme of his choreography, and if someone doesn't stop him, he's going to do it again tonight."

The reception was not always rapturous: in Paris in 1964, when the company was beginning to tour Europe, audiences threw tomatoes and eggs, and Cunningham later recalled that people would leave in the middle of the performance to go out to buy more.

Love those, for their display of his persistence, and for their revelation of his originality and passionate creativity as he worked with Rauschenberg, Martha Graham and (especially) John Cage as well as countless other dancers, artists and musicians.

And the obits (along with commentary as he was still working) make the supremely important point that his work continued to be vital, relevant, important, well past the time he was able to dance with full vigor, or even get around unaided. That event we experienced in Beacon was beyond remarkable: he was creating up until the end, and he'll be missed.

The Gangs of New Paltz

I think I've mentioned here that Cory and I went up to New Paltz a couple weekends ago for a visit with our friends Frank and Amanda and their kids before we headed over to Bard College for the incredible Lucinda Childs Company's performance/film Dance.

People may say (and some do say it) "Oh sure, Mick. Very performance-minded and artistic/edgy - you talk a good game with your Lucinda Childs/Phillip Glass/Sol LeWitt groundbreaking multi-media masterpiece, but you're really heading upstate to hang with your aging college friends and their kids." Well I gotta tell you - these upstate families are not messing around. Check out Callie and Daphne:



"Wait a minute," some of those same naysayers are now exclaiming, "that bartender can't be more than five years old!"

True that. And did you catch that tiger tattoo she's sporting?



And maybe you noticed that not only is a pre-schooler mixing the drinks, she's training her little sister in the fine art of mixology.



Still thinking of them as the Cleavers? Think they can't roll? These guys are hardcore - slapping tattoos on their toddlers and having them run the bar for the big boys.



And don't be fooled by that sweet smile. I'm not saying that she's been specifically trained to deceive by the street gang she calls a family, but this girl is a pre-K killer. I asked her how her summer was going, and she told me how she just passed the test for her green belt in Aikido. I said "Wow! You could probably really kick my butt!" and she gave the cutest little giggle and the next thing I knew I was looking up from the lawn at that smile with a sore shoulder and a headache. I muttered something about the suburbs being tougher than I thought and she put me in a chokehold and said "What suburb? We are an hour and a half from the City and are a self-actualized community with a thriving arts scene and a life of our own."

I stood corrected. Rather, I knelt corrected.

And then there's this one:



Sure, sure - she looks all innocent and pure as the driven snow. And she's too little to do any real damage yet, I guess. But I'd venture to say that her harmlessness (if she really is harmless) will last another 15 minutes or so. And then she'll get ink on her own arm (dragon? cobra? barbed wire?) and take her place at her sister's side protecting their turf.

When I first knew their dad he was working for Greenpeace. Guess those guys learn a thing or two about survival when they chain themselves to oil derricks and giant redwoods. Sheesh!

One Night in Rome

On this Saturday, I'm enjoying something I haven't had much of for quite a while - a little old-fashioned chill time. After listening to a live LP recorded in 1981 by a certain five brothers (one of whom may have been off the wall, but had not yet gone over the edge) and reflecting for a few moments on the angel who launched a million posters, I'm now watching the Red Sox take on the Braves (did Tim Wakefield really just slap an outside fastball up the middle for a single??) and figure I can pop out another quick post.

Think of this installment as a trailer for a film.

In a World where beauty and history meet, four friends meet on May Day. Two have lived in the Eternal City their whole lives, two are there for the first time.




Claudia

Valter

and Cory


... in "One Night in Rome". They meet at the Piazza Colonna for an odyssey that will take them to the Pantheon, the Piazza Navona, the Castel Sant Angelo, the Vatican, then off the beaten path to the Aventine (including a secret keyhole on a door to nowhere) and Testacchio before winding up in Trastevere for revels in the center of Roman hipster culture. Four people, four walks of life, "One Night in Rome" they'll never forget.

Ok, so it might not be ready for a theater near you (and apologies to 10cc), but it was a pretty awesome afternoon/evening. We met Claudia and Valter at a reception after a screening of a documentary about Lucinda Childs at the BAC (that event probably deserves an entry of its own, but I can't write about everything.) Valter is an Afro-Cuban percussionist (not a musical style typically identified with Rome, true, but he's been doing it since he inherited a congo from the drummer in his first rock band in high school, and he now performs with a couple of bands and teaches students of all levels. Claudia is a dancer/choreographer, trained at the Academia Nacionale, who has worked in all manner of dance; currently, she's working in television, being the assistant choreographer for Amici, which is a big hit Italian TV show in its 7th season: think mashup of American Idol, So You Think You can Dance, and Real World. It shoots at the legendary Cinecitta Studio, everybody sings and dances, and all the contestants live together in a big dorm, and rather than having the judges be 2 "good cops" and 1 "bad cop" there is a panel of more than 10 judges, who make Simon Cowell look like a source of gentle support. Or so they say. She gets more airtime than most of the choreographic team, because she works with the contestants in the dorm as well as in the studio. We didn't have a chance to watch the show, although I'm sure there must be a way to track it down online.

They took us all over the place and we had a fantastic time with them. For part of the evening, we traveled in their car, which meant we got to parts of the city we probably wouldn't have been able to manage on our own, including a beautiful park/orange grove that overlooked the city, and the aforementioned keyhole, part of an old monastery that is now adjacent to the German (?) Embassy. But most amazing of all was the swing through Testacchio, where we saw not only the Mountain Made of Pottery Shards for which it's most famous, but ate a meal unlike any I've ever had at Il Scopatarro. Valter used to live in Testacchio (they now live in Ostia with their two kids) and they've been going to that place for years. I may have to write a whole other entry about this dinner, but for now suffice it to say: 1) it's better to go there with Romans (or at least Italians - the waiter argued with them/us at every turn; evidently they are not used to serving Americans the authentic Roman feast) 2) the food went on for miles; 3) the artichokes were incredible - huge, delicious, and so tender you could eat every crumb from stem to leaves; and 4) we ate parts of animals that are not always considered food.

To wrap up, here is a photo of all of us that we took at a monument I can't remember the name of. It was kind of a make-out spot for Romans of all ages, but for us it was a photo op, using the camera's self-timer. It's a crazy exposure, and both Claudia's and my head is cut off, but I kind of like it.

Real Gone

Another much-belated post on a more-than-worthy event. Saw the Armitage Gone! dance company perform its Think Punk! progam at the Kitchen.



Raucus and rockin', the Armitage dancers celebrated the energy of punk culture and downtown art, and the place of their own company in that history, while creating work that is still hyper-vital today. The music came recorded from Jimi Hendrix, David Linton, Mozart and X-Ray Spex; and also from live musicians including the amazing TALIBAM! (All these exclamation points everywhere. Sigh. I think the energy of the artists is self-evident without added punctuation, but whatever.)

I loved this performance. Elegant, athletic, sexy, powerful, inspiring. Made me want to create pieces, stage them and perform them, especially in rooms as bitchin as the Kitchen.

Celebration City

I've had a lot to post about lately, but have been too busy/distracted to get to it. Massive shoutouts needed for the Martha Clarke Garden of Earthly Delights (running through April - go see it!) and The Cherry Orchard & The Winters Tale which were performed at BAM through The Bridge Project (those have closed - hope you had a chance to see them.)

But for now, let me take another swig of coffee and recap the headlines from this past weekend.

My sister was interviewing with a company in Philadelphia. SO let's start with the first big cause for celebration: she got the job! This wasn't really a surprise (we were pretty sure it was going to go down that way) but it's still REALLY good news. And may develop into even better news if one of her future promotions brings her and her family out east.

They love Lori so much (how could they not?) that they arranged for her to fly into Philly, but out of Newark, just so she could have a chance to come up and visit me. Which brings us to the second big cause for celebration: she came up to the city and stayed the whole weekend! Lori got into town at about 8:30, and we went over to a new wine bar near where I live that I really like for some formaggio e vino. Yum! Then back to my place for another bottle of wine and more catch up.

Next morning, we met Richard and Peter at Good Enough To Eat on the UWS for brunch. Peter mocked us for calling a Saturday meal with a 10:30 start time (which he couldn't be bothered to make) "brunch." Whatever, dude. We had things to do. You better watch out - you're on my sister's list.

After brunch, Cory met us and we walked with Richard across the park to the Met. Went in and checked out the Beyond Babylon exhibit as well as parts of the permanent collection, then grabbed a cup of coffee and went out to meet Rashmi and take a bus downtown past the sights of 5th Avenue until we arrived down near Union Square Park. Then we walked West and did some shopping (my sister is a paper nut, so we went to a couple of those stationers in Flatiron) and met a bunch more people at City Bakery: Sherin, Molly, Rudy, Susan, Daniel. Oy, am I forgetting somebody? We ran the gamut of their offerings, and even had a small confrontation with a guy who wanted to steal one of our tables. Silly nastiness. Then we split off in a variety of directions, with 6 of us headed over to 5 Ninth for dinner. Mmmm... I've written about that place here, and once again, it was SO good. Try the wild mushroom gnocchi. And, of course, the pot de creme with bourbon infusion.

Pause for a moment to look at an image from the Met exhibit, from the Hittite Empire, 14th–13th century B.C.


It's a mug. Those Hittites knew how to party.


Then we went over to the Village Vanguard for the Lou Donaldson Quartet. Lori got a "let's not think about what would happen if there were a fire" kick out of how much of New York happens in what are essentially basements, and this spot was the epitome of that for her. The show was fantastic, of course.

At this point, Susan and Daniel headed home, and Rudy went back to his hotel to nurse a sprained ankle. Lori was wiped out and crashed, and Molly & I walked with Cory for what was yet another cause for celebration this weekend: Kristin's birthday! The meal part of her party had happened at a Brazilian place in Midtown, but they were at the Half King at this point, so we went over there and met them all dressed up in their birthday regalia and reveling in the occasion.

And then we put Molly in a cab, and that was Saturday.

Sunday had some of the wrong kind of drama. We went to brunch at 202, which Lori really loved for its Nicole Farhi design elements. But we had a late start, given that we still had to accomplish the acquisition of souvnenirs for Lori's kids. Dominic met with us for a small slice of time, then we did a couple loops on foot through Meatpacking, the Village and Chelsea. We were under the gun, but we managed to grab the needed "I Heart New York" t-shirts, and the snow globes, and... well, we couldn't manage the 'teeny tiny koala bear' that Anna wanted, but we got her a pretty damned cute stuffed penguin.

Then, a little later than we'd hoped, I drove Lori to EWR for her flight. Which was cancelled. Yup. We didn't find this out until I had almost found myself a parking space in Hoboken, but there was some kind of mechanical error, and the airlines being the fonts of customer service that they are these days, they offered my sister nothing to make up for her time or inconvenience. Well, that's not quite true: they offered to put her up in a motel in Newark, from which she would have been able to pay her own way to JFK the next morning in time for her 7:45 flight (this would be a $100 cab ride, for those of you who don't know the area). Gee thanks USAir!

Instead, she took a train back to Penn Station (it wouldn't have made sense for me to pick her up and drive her to the 'boken so we could then take a bus into the city) where I met her and brought her back down to Chelsea, where... we had a fantastic evening! No friends, no schedule, we just went out for pizza and beer (And what pizza! You can almost believe the hype about Co.) and walked around the neighborhood and went back to Cory's place to play Scrabble and have some beer and Kentucky Chocolate. It was actually kind of perfect.

The next morning, Lori got up really early to take a car to Kennedy and the rest of us went to work. All was well with her trip, and it turned out that Annie was pretty happy about her penguin. I know I haven't put much into this entry in the way of images (kind of funny that two fairly avid photographers didn't want to be bothered with taking pictures this weekend), but hopefully this one taken from Lori's cellphone will help make up for that.

So that was our weekend. I'll sleep when I'm dead.

Oh, and by the way - Happy St. Patrick's Day!