Cowboy Jack Clement
Hershel mentioned that he was excited to work with “Cowboy Jack Clement” while in Memphis with Chris Isaak so I was pleased to notice him last night watching a Johnny Cash documentary on PBS, “Johnny Cash’s America.”
In a parallel world, I am sitting here now watching the Shout Factory dvd about Jack called “Shakespeare.”
http://www.shoutfactory.com/browse/147/cowboy_jack_clement.aspx#axzz1FMgBcX4w
Watch it to learn what all the foos is about.
mine not much worse
Steve Cohen (of “The Flying Cohen Brothers” and “Ally McBeal” Dancing Twins fame) sent me the below photo of Careful at the Roxy in January. I believe the side-persons are Ysanne Spevack and Miwa Metrayek.
I had sent an obscure note to the L.A. Times drama critic Charles McNulty about Eric Lindley, based on the critic’s pan of the traveling version of “West Side Story.” I said “Speaking of ‘wooden’, you should check out Eric Lindley’s puppet show at machine project.” I had seen the Broadway show in SF, and happened to be in LA when McNulty’s story came out, so immediately sent a text to to his email in-box about what I was purporting ex parte to be a hotter ticket (and indeed Erics’ sold through, with or without McNulty ever actually noticing).
ai ai ai ai eric ysanne and miwa methinks
I’ve got a David Gilhooly.
I’ve got a Superchunk.
I’ve got a combination David Gilhooly Superchunk bumper sticker.
David Gilhooly Smith-Andersen bumper sticker circa 1985 over-laid with Superchunk sticker circa 2010, on 2004 white Toyota Highlander, as seen in or around Palo Alto, California
I saw some knit folk art left on a stop sign pole near Stanford Cantor Museum the other day. I saw Shepard Fairey “Andre the Giant Has a Posse” on a pole near Eric Cohen’s place in LA (Franklin Ave., area, near Upright Citizen’s Brigade) and on steps on tarmac for Southwest out of Burbank. I caught this wheat-paste job on the way to said airport. I thought it was by “See Her Hed” but may be confused. The Melrose/Fairfax blog could be a place for more info. Go, Banksy, at Oscars!!
http://melroseandfairfax.blogspot.com/
http://losangeles.ucbtheatre.com/
see her head sticker near Burbank airport
edit to add, December 31, 2011: Kimberly Chun of the Chronicle had a column item of a possible (read: doubtful) Banksy in Oakland.
My girlfriend Terry Acebo Davis is an artist and arts administrator in Palo Alto. This backlit beauty I snapped shortly before take off when we were returning from our New Year’s trip to Santa Fe.
Here is an older link to a show she did a few years back, called “Diwata.”:
Terry Acebo Davis on flight to or from San Jose or Albuquerque, Dec., 2010
This is a photograph of a photograph of a new Mateo Romero painting
from his “Rain Series”. He actually sent me a (better) photo of his young son Rain (no coincidence) holding the painting, a work of paint on panel, about 6″ x 8″. I also today (coincidentally, I think) saw reference to an “Indian” painting by a German artist named Rainer Fetting, that was in an old 1986 Sotheby’s catalog I bought for two zuzim at Know Knew Books.
The actual painting depicts an Eagle Dancer.
detail of Mateo Romero "Rain Series" paint on panel, Feb. 2011
edit to add: I have to admit that at first glance, via a jpeg, I thought Mateo had depicted a man pulling his freshly fired pots out of the ground. Meanwhile, my mom thought it was a man petting his dog. For reference sake, here is a video of some actual Eagle Dancers. (I should post a better version of Mateo’s painting):
The Santa Fean magazine said that that group painting by Mateo Romero, Marla Allison and Ryan Singer can be shown in 32,000 different ways. I spoke with math whiz clan Cohens who easily corrected us that there are billions of ways to show the puzzle-shaped piece of art, not thousands. (Charles said the answer is more like “two to the thirty-second times two to the 31st”).
I rang Mateo on this topic — he is a Dartmouth grad you know, and they made even art majors take intro Math courses, which means calculus, years ago — and he feigned interest. More interestingly, he added detail that Pat Pruitt the jewelry artist and spouse of Marla Allison cut the elaborate interlocking “canvas.”.
This self-portrait obscures the riddle even more but that is Mateo’s work (and MA and RS) in the background, at the Terrace Room, of the La Fonda, in Santa Fe.
Mark Weiss in front of Romero et al at La Fonda Santa Fe
I texted this view (detail) of Gerhard Richter’s “Stontium” (2005) at the Wilsey Court of the De Young Museum in San Francisco with the cryptically terse message “Halo” to a few choice viewers/victims. “Halo” in my world being a pun on “hallo” or “hello.” My indoctrination to Richter was when Bill Frisell (with Jenny Scheinman) wrote and performed a commission piece for SF MOMA a few years prior, based on a series of paintings called “858.”(2002) Please feel free to view this in the same sitting as my slide of, thanks to the University of Southern Illinois in Springfield pathology department, a vas deferens.
http://deyoung.famsf.org/about/gerhard-richter-strontium-2005
http://www.billfrisell.com/merch/richter.html
Gerhard Richter large installation at De Young
I shot a cell phone photo of a block of copy from the New York Times to remind myself to look into the program at Brooklyn Academy of Music curated by Village Voice film critic J. Hoberman pertaining to science fiction films and especially “Invasion of the Body Snatchers.” It reminded me of my professor of film studies at Dartmouth Al LaValley who wrote a nice introduction to the Rutgers Press version of the Jack Finney novel. The image below also calls to mind a Gerhard Richter work. As I am off to Noise Pop at Public Works on Erie (14th and Mission, according to Zeitgeist’s agent Leslie) to hear and perhaps interact with Wesley Stace pka John Wesley Harding (“By George”, something else re music recently reviewed in NY Times), I do not have time, dear cheated and short-changed reader, to suggest which GR’s fit the bill: the Sonic Youth album cover with the blurry candle flame?
I found one blog that referenced both LaValley and Hoberman.
Also working on a political post regarding the civic meeting I attended last week in which a rep from a huge corporation was telling the representative government how they were going to have their way with us wee John Q. Public types. I mean to compare it to “The Day the Earth Stood Still” with the formidable robots from outer space as the corporate mouth piece. LaValley’s thesis re science fiction is that a lot of the work was paranoia about the cold war, and the link between conformity and McCarthyism. Don’t become a pod, dudes.
http://www.bam.org/view.aspx?pid=2925
from NY Times about Hobermania at BAM Brooklyn
Time is of the essence of this agreement in that I don’t believe that Memphis Vic had permission to shoot this cell phone video of Chris Isaak band in Sun Studios. Speaking of time, time present and time past, which are both present perhaps in time future (to rif on ‘”Burnt Norton”), quickly doing the math tells us that Hershel Yatovitz and I go back at least 37 years; we met as ten year olds, our parents were about our age now. Our family outings revolved around softball games at Foothills Park more than music performance; sports of any stripe were a strong suit of mine in my youth, less so for Hershel. I have this great photograph, however, of 12-year-old H-man jumping up on stage in the Beth Am social hall to stand in with the lounge lizards hired to play Chuck Berry covers at my Bar Mitzvah: he was the man. That would be January of 1977. Then later I recall thinking I was so cool as a 15-year-old sneaking into a high school / college party up Page Mill Road then seeing Hershel in the garage band at that event. The week I moved to North Beach I recall popping in to Caffe Trieste on Christmas Eve day in 1988 and seeing Hersh in their house band. When I started my music series the Cubberley sessions in 1994, Hersh was a co-leader (or at least co-writer) for what became Geffen artists Black Lab (with Paul Durham — they were known first as Durham, in a Nadine Condon BMI showcase at Bottom of the Hill, etc) — he played one of the early Cubberley shows. (Later replaced by another Palo Alto guitarist Michael Belfer when he left the unsigned band for the sure thing, the major touring act side man, to be in Silvertone, joining the succession that included first Jimmy Wilsey then, briefly, quick now, here, now, always, Spooky Arakanes).
I’ve caught the H-Man with Chris a few precious times over the last ten years or so, once notably on a co-bill with Natalie Merchant at Mountain Winery when I was friendly with her drummer Allison Miller. I nearly caught up with Hershel and Chris (and Kenney Dale Johnson, et al) in summer of 2009 in St. Louis, while Dao Strom was in Springfield, IL and Chicago, but opted capriciously to zip back to Chicago to catch Robbie Fulks and Jenny Scheinman at Martyrs. I was pleased to hear tell therefore that Hershel and Dao met up recently in Portland. Perhaps gratuitously, let me recap all these proper nouns in alphabetical order: Ally Miller, Beth Am, Black Lab, Burnt Norton, Caffe Trieste, Chicago, Chris Isaak, Chuck Berry, Cowboy Jack Clement, Cubberley, Dao Strom, Durham, Foothills Park, Geffen, Jenny Scheinman, Jimmy Wilsey, Kenney Dale Johnson, Martyr’s, Memphis Vic, Michael Belfer, Mountain Winery, Nadine Condon, Natalie Merchant, North Beach, Palo Alto, “Ring of Fire,”, Robbie Fulks, St. Louis, Scout MD, Silvertone, Springfield, Sun Studios.
edit to add, January 10, 2012: Hershel and Chris jammed with Conan on live tv last week; the set came out in October and All Music claims it is the seventh appearance of Hershel Yatovitz for Chris Isaak:
| Douglas Tatelman on Zasu Pitts at the New Varsity,… | |
 | pbridge130 on Life as strange as fiction in… |
 | Rob Murphy on Anita Wheeler Raiderette Fan C… |
 | Timothy Girard on RedVette Band, 1981 |
 | petriverse on Don Cherry at Dartmouth |
Plastic Alto with Mark Weiss 