Wor(l)ds of wander with friend and former client Dao Strom

Posted on November 20, 2014 by markweiss86
Dao Strom, Lincoln Meeker and Kyle McDonald sojourned to VN; photo by Kyle

Dao Strom, Lincoln Meeker and Kyle MacDonald sojourned to VN; photo by Kyle

Writing this at 12:03 past midnight although it is lifted from something called 3AM Magazine dot com. Not really writing just cut-pasting:
In the mountain town of Tam Dao, a man in the market points to the Chinese character tattoos on my right forearm – which are the ancient characters for my given name “Tiêu-Dao” – and says: “Not good.” I ask him why, try to indicate that they are my name, that they are “Hán script,” or chữ Nôm in fact, which, technically, is still Vietnamese. He says, “No good, this Vietnam.” I understand he is only citing the long well-known animosity – the resistance – the Vietnamese have harbored against China, due to the previous thousand years of invasions and warfare they have waged with the Chinese. But my understanding, as the daughter of former writers and scholars, is also that the Vietnamese language borrowed from the Chinese, and, even if it was controversial and at times not welcome, some of this intermingling was poetic and productive. Before Vietnam had her own written language, her scribes adapted the Chinese script into a form called chữ Nôm, or chu Hán. The Vietnamese also borrowed words and phrases from the Chinese; my given name, Tiêu-Dao, is one of those. My mother has said it is an unusual name to give to a Vietnamese child because it derives from a philosophical phrase about “wandering” – something Vietnamese people, who like to keep their families together, would not wish upon (especially) a daughter.

Check out the larger context here. Read her books. Some day I will , too. Maybe a tat too. Odd for a Jew.

The photo above makes Dao look a little tougher and meaner and sleazier than she is. She is channeling some kind of archetype Shirley. I will zip around my computer archive here and update this in a minute with a nicer photo, from our 2009 tour to Chicago, Springfield and for her Okemah.
IMG_0333
2009
Schuba’s (opening for Anna Fermin’s Trigger Gospel), Chicago IL
Hoogland Performing Arts Center (opening for Robbie Fulks), Springfield IL
12th Annual Woody Guthrie Folk Festival, Okemah OK
bound for glory u betcha!

edit to addao: dao strom is arguably the muse of Plastic Alto in that it started shortly after our official business relationship ended and I’ve mentioned her or wrote about her about 35 times. Better would be fewer than 1,040 posts slightly edited, I admit. Even E.B. White would say it: omit needless words. Thanks for the email exchange today, Tieu-Dao.

andao1:
(“edit to add” and “and1” are common to Plastic Alto structures wherein I add footnotes or some afterthought. Terry’s sister Grace who was big in SheBlog movement said people use that term. And 1 is sort of a basketball thing, an extra shot if you are fouled during the making of a field goal; here I add gratuitous and silly ao)
Sounds like it’ll be a fun event there. Tell Curtis I said hello and big congrats to him – I’m listening to his music now and he’s done well. Very cool to see that happening. 🙂

Small world. Sorry for my moodiness last time you called, just a bad day or something. Hope you’re well.

I’m working on recording and finishing stuff. I’m going to finally mix that Two Rivers song and include it on this EP album I’m slowly pulling together. & I just had an essay in this online mag this week if you’re curious what I’ve been up to:

(Notes) From the Other Shore

Hope you’re well!

dao

its not really that important to note that Worlds of Wonder was a toy company in the 1980s that made Teddy Ruxpin talking doll and LazerTag and my first job out of Dartmouth was an intern for their ad agency, fall, 1986 in San Francisco, the title steals from. When I visited Baltimore I left a Teddy Ruxpin pin on Poe’s grave
monument.

shortly after viewing Rory Kennedy’s documentary about Fall of Saigon I rang Dao out of the blue and we chatted briefly; I kept trying to spot her in the movie although my timeline may be a bit off; earlier she was circulating a photo from Newsweek of that era showing her brother in the crowd at a refugee camp here. A.O.Scott of the Times, in September, 2014.

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Ehren Tool w. Trevor Paglen

Posted on November 20, 2014 by markweiss86

insert photo of an Ehren Tool 2014 mug here

Adrienne Rich 1997 declining Clinton medal, before Ehren Tool quotes it:[Art] means nothing if it simply decorates the dinner table of the power which holds it hostage

Adrienne Rich 1997 declining Clinton medal, before Ehren Tool quotes it:[Art] means nothing if it simply decorates the dinner table of the power which holds it hostage


insert Amazon link to a Trevor Paglen book here, while watching PBS show

coda:
The Fact of a Doorframe
means there is something to hold
onto with both hands
while slowly thrusting my forehead against the wood
and taking it away
one of the oldest motions of suffering
as Makeba sings
a courage-song for warriors
music is suffering made powerful

edit to add, two months later, or Feb. 2, 2015: I checked “sex” in category because there is not a box for “feminism”. I have a feminist bumper sticker on my Chevy, however. I am preparing something with a distaff theme which made me notice this Ehren Tool mug again and I just sourced that the quote was included in Margalit Fox’s obit of the poet in 2012. Along with this photo:

Poet Adrienne Rich

Poet Adrienne Rich

Also, I wrote a misleading headline of a post yesterday “You’ve come a long way baby” which was used by a cigaret company to laud female progress, and I used it because I was plugging the ubiquitous soft drink which had a ridiculous yet somehow charming message at the Super Bowl broadcast; I did respond and drink one. Come a long way in that I am a refugee from the ad industry usually despise those ads. I admit I did buy said Chevy from the previous graph, above Adrienne, because of it’s nifty ad by OkGO. That plus my family was in the Chevy business from 1919 to 1988. I am human, hear me snore. I first heard of Adrienne Rich when Tom Sleigh taught us a reading class at Dartmouth. I had never heard of Makeba either.

some of this, especially the “edita” are prefatory to writing about Irene Young whose photos of musicians adorn not the doorframe but the interior walls of Freight and Salvage while surprise lasts.

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Shave and a hair cut, two bits

Posted on November 19, 2014 by markweiss86
back in my youth andy dieden and I would ride our bikes to the 5 and dime and buy pack of topps trading card for 10 cents ten cards and some gum too hard to chew

back in my youth andy dieden and I would ride our bikes to the 5 and dime and buy pack of topps trading card for 10 cents ten cards and some gum too hard to chew

edit to add: does the complexion of this change as I add
The Fact of a Doorframe
means there is something to hold
onto with both hands
while slowly thrusting my forehead against the wood
and taking it away
one of the oldest motions of suffering
as Makeba sings
a courage-song for warriors
music is suffering made powerful
?

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Guy Kasznik touchdown catch and run versus Los Altos for Gunn High of Palo Alto Titans, November 2014

Posted on November 19, 2014 by markweiss86

photo by Matt Maltz '82

photo by Matt Maltz ’82

Senior Guy Kasznik has stood out for Gunn of Palo Alto Titans football this season. He has close to ten touchdowns, most of which involve him breaking multiple tackles. He is an excellent student — I confirmed this with assistant Principal Tom Jacoubowsky — and also takes a competitive curriculum, plays club and varsity soccer and sings with the excellent chorus, I also caught a show recently.

I actually caught Dartmouth Coach Eugene “Buddy” Teevens in his office recently — he said they were about to go into a recruiting meeting with his staff –and mentioned Guy; I said he had a lot of “heart”. Ironically, Guy missed a couple games start of season because he had injured his back at Buddy Teevens football camp this summer.

Meanwhile Noah Riley his quarterback (brother of former Gunn basketball star David Riley ’06, nephew of Oregon State Beavers coach Mike Riley*) was honorable mention Athlete of the Week for throwing three TDs to Guy, versus Lynbrook.

The photo above was one of those pay dirtplays at Los Altos, in the Titans loss, 28-19, as they closed out a 1-8 season (they were a lot better than that record believe, and at times played like champions, or future champions, and winners at the game of life). Matt Maltz, who I’ve known since fifth grade at Fremont Hills, and was shoulder-to-shoulder to me on the Terman flag football team, has a boy Andrew Maltz who is a D-1 prospect mostly due to his size (6’3″ 285 as a sophomore) and also took some amazing pictures of the highlights this season. The above shot is part of a sequence of 10 that shows this play, exemplary of Kasznik. (Mr. Kasznik or Dr. Kasznik as the case may be, also has some good shots).

I saw all 10 Titan clashes and posted voluminously if distinctly here at Plastic Alto, plus the Palo Alto Weekly cribbed from my coverage against Carlmont for example two games. I got started because there were also two more dads, Scott Rothstein and Phil Bibo I knew well. That plus the Hollywood version of De La Salle of Concord “When the Game Stands Tall“. I am working on finishing or cumulative thoughts on the season and a title. (working title references either “The Seven Samurai” or “Ten Angry Men”).

Thank you coach Shinichi Hirano for his hard work on behalf of our boys and for nine post game interviews.

edit to add, and fact-checking above: due to the Saturday afternoon Gunn at Los Altos, I also caught most of Saratoga defeating Paly 41-33 and shot some snapshots mostly of the team rushing past me to the locker room while I chatted with a Saratoga dad named Sloan who is threatening to pull his freshman who he considers a D-1 prospect in 3 sports and putting him at Mitty. Then I posted this just now to Weekly site — it is undetermined if I will try to collect via small claims the $50 per week Keith Peters promised me start of season, issuing me a CCS pass.
Gunn would have beaten Paly this year no doubt even with only 14 players. And you refuse to staff it. For shame.

edit to add, about two weeks later: Matt Passell, co-captain of a Gunn 1979-1980 basketball team that went 22-5 and won the first of two SCVAL championships, and teammate of Kent Lockhart two seasons, and father of two boys at Gunn currently, says he recalls Guy Kasznik at the “Juana Run” beating his boys and all age-group comers in the sprints, a few years back. I chatted with Matt in our mutual participation in the Gunn Alumni basketball game; he played, and made a three, I sat on the bench, my customary spot, and was somewhere between Zelig and Zelmo Beatty, not quite a coach. I also ran into a young man, Steve Kressie, who is at UC Davis majoring in mechanical engineering, and his parents and admitted that I had a daydream about then-Dartmouth president Kim Jim meeting Steve and making a deal where they would bet his admission on one half-court shot by Steve. File this all under: Monroe Trout mess.

*I should edit to add or post a post-season wrap-up but Mike Riley, a former DB for Alabama during the Bear Bryant glory years, and national champ, uncle of the gutty and smart Gunn QB senior Noah Riley, is now head coach at Nebraska. Meanwhile sight-ems for former Titans FB in soccer (Kascnik, or so I read), hoops (Riley, I think went in at end of Summit rout, as wing or guard or forward) and wrestling Drew Maltz. I also did some screen captures of Cal Hi Sports 60 shot montage about the season Bay Area wide. I spoke at School Board in December lauding the team and their families and singling out Nozo Imanaka and Guy Kasznik, saying they deserved Athlete of The Week recognition. I was ragging on the Weekly.

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Beth Custer, my grandmother, Dina, Jess & David take New York

Posted on November 19, 2014 by markweiss86

Dina and Jessica my distant Jewish cousins, although neither of them knew my actual grandmother, who actually was from Georgia or within a couple thousands miles, "the pale"

Dina and Jessica my distant Jewish cousins, although neither of them knew my actual grandmother, who actually was from Georgia or within a couple thousands miles, “the pale”

Beth and I had breakfast Just For You yesterday and I bid her bon voyage as “My Grandmother” plays New York Saturday, part of a Georgian film festival with parts at Berkeley PFA and New York Museum of Modern Art.

David James the exquisite guitarist and all around nice guy sent this picture of two of the ensemble — there are 8 me thinks — the string section Dina McAbee (also known as half of Ramon & Jessica confusingly enough, and she is Ramon) and Jessica Ivry, cello.

The film is about bureaucracy in 1930s early Soviet-mess. It was banned by the powers that were, which sort of affirms our view on it post-glasnost. (I am very tempted to drop a DVD of this project — Beth wrote the original score for she and her colleagues — at Hoover, attention of my favorite son-of-musician diplomat professor scholar, and I happen to be only ten minutes away).

My Plasty brain flashed not to 1930 which was before my time, and not to Ronald Reagan’s re-election lobster dinner parties at Dartmouth which made me nausea even second-hand at Dartmouth in The Eighties but to 2008 and the Earthwise 15 party at BOTH in that Jessica Ivry although she did not appear I recall Lisa Fay Beatty saying they jammed together in El Fay.

Sadly I could not give Beth any ideas about what to see in New York not having been there since about 2005, with Walrath. Philly, maybe, Le Bec Fin for a splurge, the new Museum, Last Drop. New York, nyet.

We also caught up with JFY founder Arianne from Lafayette, LA and I reminded her of putting her on not cello just cell with a member of Magnolia Sisters, which earned me a yet-to-be-redeemed Free Beignets card. I’d like to hook her up in the 650.

I tried to book Eric Walzcak to cover My Grandmother for Plastic Alto. I could try my ops at Anthology Film Archive.

(Meanwhile I hope to escort Curtis McMurtry to see Stanford, and his hit Friday at Cafe Zoe, Earthwise@20 with RachelGarlin. I chatted up Joe Ed Dick of “Lubbock or Leave It” at KFJC, Sarah Bellum of “That’s Not Bluegrass” KZSU — who reminded me that Rachel Garlin was our in-studio guest once for “Fits the Format” the Jewish-themed show within a show of her “Jewish Music Alternative” at KZSU and Mike of KZSU who was nice enough to announce our little soiree twice and suggest my booking via old family friend Richard Foos of Shout! Factory Sussanah Hoffs and Matthew Sweet and turn Earthwise@20 into a campaign not just 50 hours from now for about two hours, duly noted. )

and1: just heard in real time in between drafts of this Rachel A. Sale a photographer from D.C. area who has traveled thru Peru shooting indigenous Nampas people (check that!) the Jaguar people and is raising money to promote that, I would like to help. Rachel and I met in 2006 or so at Beth Custer’s house when Beth was raising money to travel with Dina and maybe Jessica to Russia to show this film, and I bought a collage on credit from Matt Gonzalez and Rachel was there with Tom Erikson although this should be and3.

You don't know San Francisco if you don't know the work of Arienne Landry and or Beth Custer

You don’t know San Francisco if you don’t know the work of Arienne Landry and or Beth Custer

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Curtis McMurtry & Rachel Garlin to headline ‘earthwise@20’ Friday, Nov. 21 at Cafe Zoe Menlo Park

Posted on November 17, 2014 by markweiss86

curtis guitarAustin-based Curtis McMurtry and San Francisco’s by way of Berkeley singer-songwriter/activist Rachel Garlin headline a bill at Cafe Zoe in Menlo Park Friday. The event, open to all ages, is also known as the Earthwise Productions Twentieth Anniversary concert or “E@rthXXise” or “earthwise@20” rather.

More information to come.
Info: (650) 305-0701 or (650) 322-1926

Berkeley now Sf folkie to appear in rare 650 hit Friday, for e@rthXXise

Berkeley now Sf folkie to appear in rare 650 hit Friday, for e@rthXXise

Earthwise Productions is a concert and artist management company founded by Gunn and Dartmouth graduate Mark Weiss, as a spin-off of Bay Area Action and Earth Day at Stanford. It has produced nearly 300 concerts in Palo Alto, most notably The Cubberley Sessions at Cubberley Community Center, 1994-2001.

coda:
1) I advanced with Curtis McMurtry today, while he was driving to Eureka for a show, then Friday at Hotel Utah then here in the 650 Friday. I offered to show him around Stanford, where his grandfather, Lawrence McMurtry was once a creative writing grad student or fellow, working with Wallace Stegner. I joked that if his career takes off people will say “James McMurtry, Curtis McMurtry’s dad” but it came out “James McMurtry, Colin McMurty’s dad” which Curtis graciously said was even funnier. (There is a Jimmy Dale Gilmore, who played one of my shows in 1997, who has a son named Colin, if that explains it). Spoke by phone and left this message on the Stegner Fellows contact window doohickey:
Rachel Whalon-
Hey, I’m gonna come by with Curtis McMurtry Friday late afternoon just to show him the campus and your offices. His grandfather Larry McMurtry was part of the creative writing fellowship back in 1960-1961 under Wallace Stegner himself and wrote his first novel here or there, as it were. He also, the grandfather, wrote “Last Picture Show” “Lonesome Dove” and more. Curtis is 24 has a b.a. and is a songwriter. Maybe he is prospective Stegner fellow some day. His father James McMurty, also of Austin, TX is a better known songwriter and recording artist.
Fyi Curtis performs friday Nov. 21 2014 at Cafe Zoe in Menlo Park with Rachel Garlin, 7 p.m. 10$ all ages welcome.
I am inviting Nancy Packer another former Fellow and program staff person, who lives in my mom’s building. and herself begat two or more writers of sorts. excuse the run on.
mark weiss a Dartmouth .b.a and blogger and former neighbor on and off from 1974 to 1993 of Wallace and Mary Stegner knew them slightly

Rachel meanwhile, my Rachel, Garlin, said to excise future references to her Alma Mater. Duly noted. Veritas and all that. But not to make her blush crimson or sea red, parting.

edit to add, some time later: The event went well enough that Cathleen Daly the owner of Zoe Cafe of Menlo Park offered me a second date for another Earthwise@20 showcase, Friday, January 30, 2015 same format but acts to be announced. Meanwhile, Rachel Garlinr rocked it at her Z Space CD release for “Wink at July” and both she and I (and Terry, my Terry, and The Flying Cohens visited the Keith Haring show at De Young Museum and are all suitably inspired and optimistic about the season and new year.

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Gratuitos and random Cody Sanderson shout

Posted on November 17, 2014 by markweiss86
Cody Sanderson proposed monument over entrance to Palo Alto's Mitchell Center

Cody Sanderson proposed monument over entrance to Palo Alto’s Mitchell Center

I been workin’ today from Palo Alto’s Mitchell Center Library, near Mitchell Park, the new building, the one with the Bruce Beasley granite arch marking the automobile entrance.

I hereby declare that we raise a few extra bucks and replaced the granite monument with a giant silver span created by Santa Fe artist Cody Sanderson. See above (although above the piece is about 5 3/4 inches long and I am suggesting something close to 50 feet across that you can drive under).

Cody also has a boy who was in the Joel and Ethan Coen movie the remake of True Grit, he was a Native lad who was accused of mis-handling a mule and was consequently treated even ruffed-like my not Matt Damon but Jeff Bridges I think it was.

I met Cody back in my Santa Fe days, and also: Mateo Romero, Pat Pruitt, Melissa Talachy, Jody Naranjo, Jonathan Batkin, Diego Romero, Ryan Singer, people like that. I once offered or nearly promised Bill Hearne to fly him out here in a giant balloon to do some shows (I presented or Earthwise presented Bill and Bonnie Hearne in Santa Clara, at Cafe T or Cafe Trompe L’Oleil, circa 1998).

Yikes, I bet myself I could take five days away from the blog and “Platos Republic” but after two hours here at library I got restless and made this post, this one and the one about the developer with the firm handshake. I have wasted 20 minutes here. You, too, back to work!!!

edit to add, now that I am 30 minutes not 20 minutes awol from my tasks and takes I re-read Manoghla Dargis in The Times about “True Grit” and was duly impressed again. He quotes Coen “A Serious Man” the proverb about receiving with simplicity what you are offered. Also, I like to point out that Mattie the kid is the one with True Grit beyond the obvious John Wayne or Jeff Bridges icon manly man figure.

I also found this clip of my poster from the era about Bill and Bonnie Hearne.

i doubt there are many people who wear a cody sanderson cuff and booked a bill hearne show but who knows?

i doubt there are many people who wear a cody sanderson cuff and booked a bill hearne show but who knows?

This is also a perfectly swell place to declare that although this building is now called Mitchell Park Library more properly and simply it should be Mitchell Center, or Mitchell Center Library and Mitchell Center Library and Mitchell Center Park. We shall see. I will have satisfaction for my money as Ms. Hattie says. Also, Kudos and thanks to Becky Morgan and her family, lead donors on the library although it is a wee bit crass the name in such large letters “a gift in honor of Becky Morgan”) I hope that is temporal like, like all things. But in this case more so. I tend to think the Morgans (and their neighbors),and the Grove’s are classy in the way they support things without being showy. 35 minutes

and1:
If you got 3 minutes to spare, check out this film a nice lady made on tour in Cody’s studio, especially the thing at the end about “injun-uity” and his being able to solve a Rubik in 2 minutes and design an all-silver device based on such:

also not that i have to splain any of this but in deference to my grippa and Affordable Care Act I spent $45 which they took up front and met a new doctor Dr. Julia Fong (from Lowell High, UC Berkley and St.Louis medical school which put their arch in my head and later I guess this. She said she’s been to Chi-town but did not notice the bean or Cloud Gate). You see all this makes perfect logic in real world not just Plastic Alto.

for reference sake here is St. Louis Arch which reminds of the wedding of my cousin Jenny Moats in St. Louis Marriott the one with baseball theme we could see it form the ball room banquet room probably the last family trip my Momma will get to take:
stlouisnotcody

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Row row row the vote (John McNellis non-endorsement photo op)

Posted on November 17, 2014 by markweiss86

Mark Weiss, Palo Alto council candidate and John McNellis, notorious developer, at Peets the former St. Michael's Alley, fall, 2014

Mark Weiss, Palo Alto council candidate and John McNellis, notorious developer, at Peets the former St. Michael’s Alley, fall, 2014


John McNellis is a former rower and a developer in Palo Alto, although he lives in Atherton. I run into him at a local coffee shop. He kindly posed for this photo during my campaign (see also the photo but not endorsement from Rich Kelley, son of the founder of Hare Brewer and Kelley, Ry Kelley)

McNellis is most famous for his role in Alma Plaza Alma Village. He also was instrumental in the recent ordinance banning amplified music at Lytton Plaza.

We need development, don’t get me wrong, but we need to vet each project and not kow tow to power. (And speaking of power I’d rather be back to back with this guy in a bar room brawl than virtually anybody on City Council — not that I know bubkas about bar room brawls; but I have hired security crews for about 300 small concerts for what that is worth; McNellis says he is a former rower and I believe him, take him at his word).

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Titan gridders it shall come to pass

Posted on November 15, 2014 by markweiss86

IMG_20141115_155154002_HDR

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Rachel Garlin cd release Saturday, December 6 in San Francisco

Posted on November 14, 2014 by markweiss86

scrappy 5'9 guard for harvard her axe surrounds hate and loves it towards positive and inclusive change, like Keith Haring did

scrappy 5’9 guard for harvard her axe surrounds hate and loves it towards positive and inclusive change, like Keith Haring did

Rachel Garlin has been on my radar, and intermittently, like a comet, come to think of it, in my orbit for about 15 years.

I heard “Sweetly” on KZSU and tracked her down. The song was produced by a member of Rebecca Riots who had played The Cub a few times. Later I recall hanging at that punk Latin club in outer Missioin and commenting to Victor Little her bass player at the time that I was inspired by Rachel’s politics.

“What politics?” Victor posited.

She is descendent of Scottish and Jewish activists and educators, played basketball for both Berkeley High and Harvard, that’s what politics! Ok! Interrobang! Bang! I prefer her politics, I am certain, on any issue, to those I can only imagine of Monroe Trout. (Look him up. And marvel at the Weissian or Plasty seque).

Saturday December 6 at Z Space in San Francisco which I am not sure what this is. But I spoke to Rachel the other day and she has sussed it out.

On Friday, December 5,a “How many days” KK

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