Indicative solution

You've heard of greenwashing, yes? This tendency to make a company, industry, government, etc. appear environmentally friendly by using a small percentage of green materials and/or paying lipservice to energy concers, while pretty much keeping up the same destructive processes.

Well, they've taken it to a new level. Laoshu mountain in yunnan, china was looking pretty grim: it had been quarried heavily, and the trees weren't making it. So naturally the local authorities took action: by spray painting the mountain green.



Yup. They sure did. Evidently residents of a new government building now have a better view. Or something.

Read all about it in this article.

In other news, britney spears got a haircut.

What are blogs for?

I was wondering why we do these things, and for whose benefit. Typing onto some website that some few or some many, or maybe no one will ever look at. And it may or may not mean anything to any of them, even yourself. Not exactly like a journal or a diary, because there is the possibility and even the hope that others will read it (as opposed to the presumed privacy of the thoughts one puts in that notebook he totes around in a satchel along with a subway map and this week's village voice; or some cleverly and maybe cutely bound book [with a lock?] one keeps in her top desk drawer next to photos of her last five boyfriends...)

And by some random turn of the psyche, that got me thinking about william arrowsmith. He was a serious classicist, by which i don't mean he taught priviledged white kids how to read homer (although he did that too). No, the thing is that he wrote important and alive translations of euripides and seneca and many others, while also writing plays and film criticism and teaching ancient languages, poetry and drama. He also turned me on to antonioni - via a simple twist of free association: a line in a lyric in a play i was in led me to a film director, who just happened to be the subject of a course taught by one of the greatest minds of his generation the following semester. So i took his class and opened up a visual aesthetic in myself. (i knew college was good for something)

Of course i wasn't aware of any of this until it had already happened. Odd like that. Anyway, he was one of the best teachers i ever had. Hero worship? No, fuck that. He taught me a lot about film and literature, drama and art (and more about writing than almost any english professor i ever had) and we got along well. But we didn't stay in touch much, and then, well, he died (may he rest in peace).

But one thing he used to refer to came back to me today - the 'great western intellectual butter slide.' Pretty self-explanatory, and perhaps a tad alarmist; but it's true that what is considered genius, brilliant, smart, even competent has, well, slid. We're at a point where starting and finishing a book, i mean reading one - in your native tongue - can be considered a significant intellectual achievement by altogether too many people.

SO maybe these blogs are an attempt to reach out to others, and bust out of this pattern. To escape from the habit of tv, mass-produced, commercially-driven advertainment. To cease to be a passive observer/consumer and actually do something, make something, say something.

Or maybe not. Maybe it's just some shit that people do.

Cause what are they saying? I had an entry typed out reacting to an article in the eyebeam journal on open source theory as it relates to fashion design (two areas about which i know almost nothing at all) but figured that it would be boring, not to mention ridiculously uninformed. But maybe that is just what this forum is best suited for. And after all, what do i typically end up posting? Plenty of nothing about haircuts and the shows i've seen lately. Not that there's anything wrong with that...

And of course, all of this rant may just be part of the butter slide. I could go on, but instead - one last quote from arrowsmith: “an alarmingly high proportion of what is published in classics—and in other fields—is simply rubbish or trivia.”

How 'bout that?

Happy V-Day

Which causes just a little bit of bile, given my single status and the fact that one of my exes is celebrating her anniversary with her new boyfriend on this most commercially, forcibly 'romantic' of all holidays.

No, i'm actually cool with the valentiny biz, especially since i'm in love with my new sweetheart chan marshall. Tee hee! This video is worth watching just to get to the point where she talked about being 'so enwounded with self hate.' Darling, i love your music, and you are hot as a match - just keep on making up words if you want...

Plus, there are links to some other ny times-tepid vids as well, including lady sov.

Weekend and then some

A lot went on this weekend, in a good way.

Saturday - Met up with yana et al. at the metropolis in motion dance marathon in madison square park (24+ hours of dancing to change the cabaret laws). Then headed to the museum of the city of new york with lori for the robert moses (urban planner/dealmaker/get things happen-er) exhibition. This had the added benefit of a program on the roots of hip hop dancing given by pop master fabel, of the rock steady crew. Really excellent, and expecially rad in that the room was full of kids who had come on a school trip or with their parents - learning their history in a fun way. Then sherin & i went to hear the improvisational quartet attention screen at merkin. Good, not great; the kind of thing that usually happens in downtown lofts. Recording expert/techno geek from stereophile was hosting/recording the gig. Finally we went to meredith's bon voyage surprise party way over on the east side. Great seeing her, and kelly and rob, and mj - it had been a loooong time.

Sunday - Met lisa from the book club for avenue q. Hadn't seen it before - very fun show! And as a totally surprising added bonus, evan, a guy i worked with in summer stock like 8 years ago was in it! Didn't have a chance to say hi, but i'll stop by the stage door sometime soon. Then i met sherin once more for the armitage gone! ligeti essays at the joyce. Superbitchen! Dancers on that level amaze me in so many ways: ability, strength, flexibility, commitment, beauty, endurance, expression.

Then yesterday was back to auditioning. That frustration is starting to get a little brutal, especially since i'm now at the point where i'm sending out dayjob resumes. If you know of any work, let me in on it...

And kelly is back in town even yet once more. Was going to be just in for today, but due to the snowstorm threat he drove the miata up yesterday, and since pennsylvania is getting slammed, he'll be hanging out until at least tomorrow, probably thursday. Thank god he's a good houseguest.

Movie Week

This week i saw three movies in three different commercial cinemas in three days. Don't know that i've ever done that before, certainly not for a long long time.

Tuesday was factory girl with jessica, about which i've already written. Wednesday was blood diamond, which i saw with kelly, beth and sherin. Good movie, heart in the right place, maybe didn't live up to the hype. Emotionally manipulative, fairly implausible at times (man it's lucky that our leading men are so good at dodging bullets - both of them; and those journalists sure ended up in the middle of a lot of gunfire fights), but a well told important story of a horrific and brutal situation in africa that is humanity's shame (or should be). Last night was pan's labyrinth with dawn. First rate film in some ways, but i must say it was emphatically NOT for dawn - jqln, wish you and jeffrey had been able to join: you definitely were the folks to see this flick with. Dawn is fab, but this was a graphic film with very very brutal subject matter (fascist spain in 1944) and she is more about looking at the positive side of things. The design work was bitchen, as were the fx and makeup. And del Toro paints the screen and tells the story quite well, just with many intentionally cringe-inducing moments.

Along the way i got a new hairdo, and beth and i sent a message to one of our college theater advisors in honor of her 70th:


Happy Birthday Leila!

Finished matthew pearl's the dante club today. Worthwhile read in the historical fiction/mystery vein. Will discuss it with lori's book club in a week and change; looking forward to the discussion.

Finally broke down and started sending out dayjob resumes. Well, hell. And of course several auditions - a shakespeare-heavy week, replete with interesting convos with other actors. Now that's some work i want to be back on the inside of: x your fingers that one of the shakespeare festivals hooks me up in the next season or two.

Tonight, i'm watching yet another movie, but this one on dvd solo at home (kelly rolled out this p.m. after another extended audition visit) - the unbelievable truth. This will be the first time i've watched adrienne since, well, you know...

Eternal Factory Girl

Saw Factory Girl last night - very mixed feelings. Sienna miller is great, and oh so yummy, but much of the rest of the casting was perplexing: they worked hard at uglifying guy pearce (which takes some doing) to be andy warhol; and then hayden 'the bad star wars movies' christensen as dylan? Really? Not that either of them were that bad, but better casting couldn't have been that hard to come up with.

Then again, those were only two of a whole bunch of questionable choices made in the making of this film. A couple of my major complaints would involve big-time spoilers, so i will forbear. But the whole thing went out of its way to make odd demonizing decisions, and felt a bit like an overblown, r-rated, anti-drug picture.

That said, parts of the film were super-effective and the style was damn good.

I think the hype of 'were sienna and hayden really having sex on screen? Like, for real?!' is hilarious! Now that was a good choice by some publicist somewhere...

And apropos the Isis inscription, in the seemingly endless stream of sychronicity/coincidences that make up my life, here's something i ran across yesterday, from The Inferno:

Before me nothing was made
If not eternal, and I will last eternally.

And if you know your Dante, you know what comes next...

Isis

Still in full-out audition mode. Hitting them like i mean it on a regular basis; something good will come eventually by sheer persistence, presumably. Economic realities look like i may have to go the dayjob route pretty soon (blah, i know, but it's one of those things that you have to do to get through this life).

And on another note:

Written beneath a statue of Isis in Sais - "I am everything that was, that is, that shall be... Nor has any mortal ever been able to discover what lies under my veil."

Which strikes me as being pretty fucking cool.

super what?

Oh yeah, there's a big football game this weekend. What is everybody doing for that?

Went to a reading last night - celebrating galway kinnell's 80th birthday. Bunch of great poets read a bunch of his poetry, and then it wrapped up with kinnell himself reading a few - as frank said, it was one of those nights when if sombody blew up cooper union it would decimate contemporary american poetry. Unfortunately, frank couldn't make it last night, for a super-unfortunate reason: amanda's grandmother died this week. She had been pretty ill for a while, and hadn't been expected to live into the new year, but it was still a shock and a very very sad turn of events.

This may not be the best eulogy, but i think galway would approve:

Daybreak

On the tidal mud, just before sunset,
dozens of starfishes
were creeping. It was
as though the mud were a sky
and enormous, imperfect stars
moved across it as slowly
as the actual stars cross heaven.
All at once they stopped,
and, as if they had simply
increased their receptivity
to gravity, they sank down
into the mud, faded down
into it and lay still, and by the time
pink of sunset broke across them
they were as invisible
as the true stars at daybreak.


And oatmeal is probably too long for putting in a blog, and certainly not an epitaph, but it was one of the highlights of the night.

Tonight is J.P.'s birthday party in astoria - happy happy, bro!

Poker twice in two nights

First with aaron, j.p., sherin and brendan at my place on friday night. Fun, natch; such cool people - won a little bit during dealers choice, but was first out in the hold 'em tournament. D'oh!

Then last night with brandon and jason (not his brother jason, but jason from north carolina shakespeare, etc.) We'd been out catching mcclain at dive 96 - met with maria and a bunch of her friends (birds of a feather and all) - and at the end of the last set we wanted to continue the night, and rather than walk up to smoke in the rain to see if some jazz guys were blowing a late-night jam, we chose to hit brandon's place in inwood for poker till about 5 this morning. Not the highest quality poker, i must say; we were pretty tired by the end. But i won a couple bucks and it was GREAT hanging with my boy - hadn't seen him in a long time. Speaking of great, that's pretty much how things are going for b: married crystal this summer; big triumphs in atlanta, including starring in his own 6-actor cutting of 'othello,' to raves; and, oh yeah, his job in new york? That'd be prelude to a kiss on b-way. Couldn't happen to a better, kinder, more talented guy.

Does shine a light on the audition stage i'm going through. This is definitely the hard part of the job of being an actor, for me at least. Not that the prep, rehearsals and performances are necessarily easy. They can be really hard at times, although like most trades it's usually a matter of learning how to do certain things and then just putting in the work and doing them. Which can be said about the audition/self-promotion process too, i suppose. But i find those processes harder, or maybe just harder to enjoy. Or maybe those two things are the same.

And in other news, i've been thinking about open source a bit lately.

Also, and somewhat along the same lines, i wanted to make clear that i'm not against podcasts - on the contrary. In fact, here's one from somerville called cindycast in the alt/folk/acoustic vein i've been listening to a little bit lately. Nothing life-changing maybe, but kinda fun; some familiar names, some new ones.

Talk Radio...

Coming to b-way, with liev schreiber in the eric bogosian role. Bogosian is on dave rothenberg's show on wbai right now as i type this. Nomi and i are going to see it on feb. 15th - wanna come with?

Bogosian rocks, natch. And i've got to say i'm thankful that rothenberg is still doing his thing: i mean it can be a little slow at times, and he's always shilling for something but nobody else out there plays the tunes he plays, or speaks with his knowledge and experience. Where have you gone, bob fass? Oh yeah, you're now two thousand people making podcasts.

Just saw this on overheard in new york:

Starbucks: Where Six of One is Not a Half-Dozen of the Other
Employee: Ma'am, can I help you?
Woman: I'd like a half dozen of your chocolate chip cookies.
Employee: We only sell them, like, 1, 2, 3...
Woman to friend: Is she serious?
Friend: She'll take 6.

--Starbucks, Rockefeller Center Concourse

Now why would people not like that fine establishment?

Yes, i remember 'Webster'

And 'the facts of life' and ronald reagan and alex p. keaton. And yes i remember reo speedwagon, loverboy and the soundtrack to 'rocky iv.' I'm not pretending it was a decade of unalloyed brilliance; i'm just saying some of what went on was pretty rad.

Ok, magic 8pod - what's your take on the 80s? Greed by Fugazi. Well, that couldn't have been more perfect, could it?

If you haven't seen it, check out Fugazi's Instrument. It's netflixable, i think, and totally worth your time.

Since the 8pod is so right on today - what is this dream job of mine going to look like? Goodbye (finale) from WIlliam Finn's Elegies Beautiful celebration of magnificent lives - 'the living was the prize; the ending's not the story' To which i would add:
'Time present and time past
Are both perhaps present in time future,
And time future contained in time past.
If all time is eternally present All time is unredeemable.'

Maybe not exactly what i was looking for, but there it is.

The 80s

Which people have been dissing lately - as in: 'all the music from the 80s sucked!' To which i reply, curtly:

the replacements
r.e.m.
prince
u2
husker du
fugazi
the police
talking heads
joe jackson
elvis costello
modern english

This list goes on and on, people. And that's assuming that you don't have a taste for the cheese factor represented so brilliantly by this particular decade (and really, who doesn't appreciate it at least a little. You're telling my that tommy tutone's 867-5309 doesn't make you smile at all? Cyndi lauper doesn't impress you at all???

Even hall and fucking oates had some good songs, if you can get past 'maneater'.

margins and fringes

Many signs lately pointing to outsider living; people on the margins (bearing in mind, as always, that the "margin" means both the edge of the print and the space on the outside of that edge); life on the grid/net/web and off; human interaction vis a vis digital networking, revolutionaries (people, communities, ideas); and buddha-like, the illusion/interconnectedness of all.

Small sample of examples:

children of men
wallace shawn's 'the fever'
happy sunshine kung fu flower
pete townshend's 'lifehouse'
jesus, kidnapped
days of war, nights of love

And while i'm on the subject (or near it), i like the sound of bill moyers for president. No, this does not mean i suddenly believe in the presidency as a platform for real good human development, i'm just saying that hillary is a bad joke and that moyers has that tendency to speak the truth that pisses off so many of the right people.

The Fever

Just got back from watching Wallace Shawn's The Fever at the acorn on theater row. Very intense, and worth going to, imho. Privilege, responsibility, closing yourself off to what goes into everything that is part of your life (or opening yourself to it), turning the lights on the audience literally and figuratively. Making you think about how you spend the time you have in this life.

And in case you want a little more evidence that texas is, um, in need of attention:

DALLAS - In a case that has renewed questions about the quality of Texas justice, a man who spent 10 years behind bars for the rape of a boy has become the 12th person in Dallas County to be cleared by DNA evidence.

That is more DNA exonerations than in all of California, and more than in Florida, too. In fact, Dallas County alone has more such cases than all but three states — a situation one Texas lawmaker calls an "international embarrassment."

Hmm, ya think?

No direction home / houseguests

Ok, it's been a while since i've given a shoutout to the guy who wrote the song this blog is named after.

Yesterday i started re-watching 'no direction home,' the scorcese movie about dylan. SO good. Great intro to bob if you don't know him, and full of layers if you do.

Speaking of dylan movies, has anyone out there seen 'renaldo and clara'? What do you think? It appears not to be netflixable...

Meanwhile, after one whole day of not hosting someone, another houseguest is arriving tonight. Looking forward to it though. Besides just the desire to visit new york, she's also scouting out potential theater spaces for a clown show she plans to do maybe this fall.

Auditioned this morning; at least two more tomorrow. I can feel a dream job around the corner... can't tell yet if it will be in town or not, but it's coming soon and it's going to be really really good.

Why can't i put url links in this blog??? Is it a safari thing?

party post partem

The end-of-the-holidays gathering happened this saturday - much work, building up to much fun. Good group of folks, from many near-perennial faves to first-timers to a greater-than-usual number of people i'd never met.

Great additions to the panoply of snowflakes - this year with hipster haiku inscriptions. Kelly was in town for the party and some auditioning; stayed with me from friday until a couple hours ago. Great having him around, as it was bitchen having a number of the xmas carolers in for the party. The menu was roanoke-themed (you won't hear that often), mostly culled from the fab cookbook secret santa martha gave me. And i was rather proud of the giganto playlist i put together - provoked some dancing, and just general revelry.

Oh - one of yana's projects for 007 is to legalize dancing in new york - dare say they won't ever be as hip as critical mass, but they look even more fun. Here's a pic of yana & friends with one of our more reasonable men in blue.



And check them out

metropolisinmotion

linguine + martini

What was for dinner last night - didn't even think about the rhyme, thanks for pointing it out, sherin. Much fun!

Check this out: jqln

It may be the raddest blog i've seen. If i grow up to be as smart as jqln, i'll be downright dangerous...

make way for the 007

That's what this year shall henceforth be called: 007.

The new james bond movie isn't bad, btw.

Preparations for the party are in full vigor - the menu is set, more or less; the decor is up in its random glory, the playlist has been created, the shopping list has been made. Tick tock until... clap your hands, say a salty salute, the club is open.

My cable tv
just went out. The bill is paid,
as far as i know

That's my haiku entry for today. E-beth gave me a book of hipster haiku by siobhan adcock for xmas - very funny stuff. She definitely wins the prize for best gifts of books given to me this year: what with the fauxetry, the bigfoot memoir and the kandinsky coloring book, it's hands down, not even close. Thanx!

I'll close with a good example of siobhan's hipster haiku:

Your puffy ski vest
has lift tickets on it. But
mine's from junior high

In with the new

2007 has begun in fine fashion: the fantastic boston party weekend, with the attendant music trading - picked up the new sonic youth and cat power 'greatest' collection, both first rate, and culled a whole bunch of 80s nostalgiatunes of varying quality (who knew that the fixx made such bitchen records?! Or that modern english was so experimental?) And of course i hooked up steve & sue as well - neko case, lady sovereign, etc.

One quick word on music sharing: i do it guiltlessly and often. Guiltless because i continue to spend a ridiculous percentage of my disposable income on music, and tend to share with people who do the same, paying particular attention to directing funds toward the independent artists who need it most. And i ask ye, is leah siegel better or worse off for the fact that now a couple more serious music fans in boston have access to some of her songs?

Now i'm back in the city for the foreseeable (with the exception of some audition trips), and making my unemployment work for me. Filed with the dept. of labor; hopefully checks will be showing up soon. Auditions have begun, and i have a new monologue i'm psyched about. I've sent the party invite out to all and sundry (let me know if you didn't get it) and have begun to prep. Have a reading set up for tomorrow night that i'm way psyched for (for a playwrighting workshop, not open to public, unfortunately), and a rehearsal for it tonight. And what should be a very nice weekend is just around the corner...

Happy New Year

Haven't written in a while - caught up in moving back to new york and getting things going back there: auditions, reclaiming the crib, getting with old friends and connecting with new ones.

But right now i'm in boston (ok, waltham, at the home of sue and steve, chilling in on a new year's morning in the wake of their predictably awesome party of last night, the LAST night of last year. Happy 2007 music lovers...

Oh magic 8pod, what will 2007 be like? 'I grew up in Arkansas,' by Good Ol' Country Railroad. Huh? This is a fun enough song, though i should admit i don't even know where i got it (probably from steve, actually; they do have a boston connection). Trucks and drunks and fights with imaginary enemies and stealing alligators out of refrigerators... Why not start the new year with a strong dose of surreal? But maybe stay out of arkansas for a while.