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.
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:
I read about my fellow Dartmouth graduate Eric Lindley in the Alumni Magazine and happened to contact him while he was en route to the West Coast for an arts residency in LA. I caught up with him over lunch at Canter’s and was suitably impressed. He is a rare Dartmouth / Cal Arts grad. When in Hanover, he opened for Jamie Stewart pka Xiu-Xiu, who I had booked twice into the Cubberley Series, as IBOPA (Indestructible Beat of Palo Alto. IBOPA sideman and producer Cory McCulloch worked on our crew several times, notably during a Bill Frisell show. Jamie helped out once or twice as well, I recall).
Eric performs under the name Careful and has two cds put out on a little label Sounds Super run by a Dartmouth contemporary of his. His recent one “Oh, Light” got favorable notice in both the New York Times and NPR “All Songs Considered” a quite rare feat for even an excellent product on a tiny label. Eric reports that his publicist Howard Wuelfing was a former member of the influential indie punk band Half Japanese. He said his influences include: Xiu-Xiu, James Tenney, Bill Callahan pka smog, Will Oldham pka Bonnie Prince Billy and Lady Gaga (whom he covers here:)
Hearty wah-hoo-wah and rah-rah-ah-ah-ah-ah to Eric Lindley and Careful.
Dartmouth Cal Arts double grad Eric Lindley pka Careful at Canter's on Fairfax, November, 2010
East Bay Delta folk singer Elliot Randle at UCSF Childs series
I caught Elliot Randall doing a nooner at University of California San Francisco (UCSF) med school library last week. He was appearing with Victoria George. I was quite impressed with both these acts, and hope to follow their ascent (you know, get high).
The room had a beautiful view of much of the north-west part of San Francisco. It was part of something called the Childs endowment which provides free music to students, patients, staff and the riff-raff like me.
I was surprised that Elliot did not play his KFOG single (included in their local music compilation) or at least did not announce it as such. (He might have said something like “Hey, you might have heard this next one on KFOG” which is more informative than bragging; and it’s not bragging if you can back it up; which Randall does more than, even in a solo acoustic med school library environ).
Here is a link to Elliot talking over his own songs while fielding questions from KFOG’s Renee Richardson (who is also known to some as Renee Rottenbucher; when she was at Live 105 she was known as Renee Rotten — she had a pierced tongue but had to remove it and the sexy lisp because a reaction was making her jawbone implode, speaking of med school library wonders).
If I had more hours in the day I would check out more of the KFOG archive on vimeo, more than 100 little tapes (this one of Elliot lasts about five minutes). I would check out: Matt Nathanson, Jackie Green doing “Gone Wanderin”; Steve Earle “Poncho and Lefty”, Chuck Prophet “Summertime Thing,” Andrew Bird, Belinda Carlisle with my friend the drummer Allison Miller, Andrew Bird and then Matt N. again this time being interviewed by the lovely aforesaid Ms. Renee Richardson.
Good luck to artist manager Dianna Arnspiger who hipped me to said performer. Watching Oscars last night I thought DA looks a bit like Gwyneth Paltrow doing “Country Strong”. I also thought that James Franco (who they call Teddy Franco here in the 94304) and Anne Hathaway should be cast in the movie version of “Just Kids” about Patti Smith and Robert Mapplethorpe, but I really digress.
edit to add, May 18, 2011: Tonight at Hotel Cafe, Victoria George has a cd release show. When I met her I had a vague idea about producing a side project for her called “Limey Down” or “Limey Dawn” playing up the anglophile nature of her first and last names. Sort of a revenge of them sending us Wesley Stace; maybe she could learn sea chantey’s (as Tim Bluhm of Motherhips has) or hip versions of “Greensleeves.” Or a tribute to the Steven Soderbergh film. I think the “new weird America” scene does include people with fake British accents. And of course the Decemberists.
edit to add, a year later: Elliot Randall new video of Clapton cover:
Terry and I are obsessed with Frida Kahlo. She named her dog for the iconic Mexican artist (see below). While in Palm Springs I stole this view of a beaded vision of Frida, at the Imago Galleries sister gallery. On a previous trip (to their main space) we met the artist Charles Arnoldi, who said his daughter was here at Stanford.
I had promised myself, while walking the dog, to post a brief blog item that linked to the New York Times review yesterday of Andre Dubus III, and his memoir “Townie”. The writer says that the author “growls” like a mixture of Stephen King, Ron Kovich and Bruce Springsteen. Frida, on the other hand, despite her nickname “Grr Grr” (short for “girly girl”) never says boo.
Frida the cocker spaniel enjoying a sunny Palo Alto afternoon walk
EDIT TO ADD, two months later, April 25, 2011: I never met Andre Dubus (1936-1999) but felt a second hand kinship via my good friend Brian Moore. Dubus was scheduled to talk once at Stanford, at Kresge Auditorium, but when I got there — and was hoping to meet him, and remind Brian to him — there was a noticed taped to the door saying that the author had taken ill. In this moment, I don’t recall how close this was to his actual and ultimate demise, but I am sure it was somewhat near the end. I remember seeing my friend Star Teachout there on the Kresge lawn, and telling her about my idea of installing Foucalt Pendulums nation-wide to promote consciousness of the Copernican nature of the cosmos (i.e. these devices, like the one in the science library at Dartmouth College, demonstrate how the Earth rotates, or that it does; I worry that too many people might be ignorant or misinformed about cosmology and have a dark ages view of an Earth-centric universe, and that there is a corresponding mass acceptance of things like war, hate, fast food and television, if you will excuse my generalism and plastic thinking). Both Star and I had ridden our bikes that day, if memory serves. (Certainly she did, at least). I first heard about Andre Dubus because my friend Brian Moore had met him at a reading in Massachusetts. Andre punched Brian in the stomach, in a friendly, manly, teasing way, and remembered his name upon a subsequent meeting. With that, Brian and I became his fans.
I just looked it up to learn, thanks to my fav search-injun, that the Dubus lecture at Stanford’s Kresge Auditorium was scheduled for April 15, 1996, three years before his ultimate death. (So Star would have been a newlywed, and this was before the birth of her three kids, with Dan: Zander, Leo and Felix; Dan and I met in junior high and I was once the manager of his band, Oxbow, if you excuse the digressions, and name-dropping, and they do).
The briefest telling of the Andre Dubus story is that he was a former Marine turned Iowa Writers Workshop-trained author and writer, but he was crippled when struck by a car, while acting as a Good Samaritan; he was trying to assist after coming upon a highway accident. I bought what was then a front-list book, “Broken Vessels” (1992), a book of essays, from David R. Godine press. He is also the father of the writer Andre Dubus III (1959), one of whose stories was made into an excellent film called “House of Shadows and Fog.” What triggered this somewhat “dog” or “shaggy dog” of a blog post was my seeing the New York Times review of AD3’s memoirs. Here is a link to the part of this narrative I am most sure about, that the father’s book of essays, if you can find them, are worth the read (although, surely, and by Amazon metrics, the son also rises, and eclipses his dad):
I didn’t know or recall until just now — thanks to wiki — that Dubus (pronounced “duh BYOOS”, rhyming sadly with “abuse”) was from Lake Charles, LA — the geography referenced in my post about Ann Savoy (sa FWAH) and The Magnolia Sisters.
EDIT TO ADD, APRIL 25, PT. 2:
I caught recently this movie adaptation of an Andre Dubus story, “We Don’t Live Here Anymore” with Mark Ruffalo and Laura Dern, on our local paid-media hookup:
EDIT TO ADD, APRIL 25, 2011, PT. 3:
For comparison sake, here is the trailer from the movie based on Andre Dubus III novel, “House of Sand and Fog” which I caught in the theaters and which I still occassionally think of if I fall behind in paying my bills, or when I catch myself being xenophobic:
And this is a bit of a digression (except they all deal with New England, or my New England) but here is a link to a Janet Maslin review of a Ellen Hovde / Muffie Meyer film that Charlotte Gerstein and I saw as undergraduates at Dartmouth in the nineteen-eighties, and the author Grace Paley was there too, I recall. This film, if you can find it, features a screenplay by John Sayles and acting by Ellen Barkin and Kevin Bacon:
Lastly, it kinda reminds me of the recent film “The Fighter”, which deals with boxing (and Andre Dubus III became an expert in fisticuffs, he tells Emily), and takes place in Lowell, about 20 miles from the Haverhill, Mass. of Dubus.
But since what struck us about the Dubus’s in the first place was a punch to Brian Moore’s belly, I guess it is somewhat fitting that this narrative dances around the ring a bit and goes nose to nose with a lot of the sweet science.
Link to the actual topic of this (and I am amazed that his most famous novel has been reviewed 771 times on Amazon):
This is the world’s greatest soccer player, Messi, who I caught on the airport lounge bar on my way back from Burbank. I think I am invited to watch soccer today March 1 or tomorrow March 2. I am invited to watch Cal vs. Stanford basketball Saturday in Berkeley. I like the image of Messi because of not in spite of the visual distortion.
It also reminds me that I met a curator from Barcelona named Betty Bigas of Public Works SF.
Burband airport lounge tv tuned to Barcelona match and Messi close-up
edit to add, Sept. 19, 2011: compare the film of “Zidane” with music by Mogwai:
I heard Barbara Hoffman speak at the De Young recently, on art law and provenance, and then walked with her around the AOA galleries. AOA means “Africa, Oceana and Americas.” Provenance is not a neat part of France but the story of how a piece of art ended up in the museum, who owned it previously. This African folk carving, from the 1930s, looks like it features a soccer ball, but maybe that is a depiction of the planet we live on.
Speaking of balls, when I name-dropped the counsel of one of my former New York jazz clients, Noel Silverman, Ms. Hoffman stated that she and him won a tennis tournament together.
Aleta Hayes leads a new project called The Chocolate Heads Band (or as I call it The Chocolate Head Bands) that is performing a run of three more shows this weekend at Roble Studio 38 at Stanford University. Madly do tap a panoply of keys on your machine of choice (or so you think, they want you to think) to find out more info or reserve your place or your raisin or reason in the sun. I made a weird flyer based on this photo (of Aleta returning from a hunting trip to find costumes, a la June Omura in Brussels circa 1990) that I hope to have time to run off and then run around with. Aleta among the other debts I due her got me in to see Yoko Ono at Stanford. I met her initially during Stew’s residency on the Pharm or Frame or Firm.
Aleta Hayes of Stanford and The Chocolate Head Bands and a lot of bags
edit to add, May 27: I noted that the LA Times ran an article about the Peter Wegner art installation at the new Business school at Stanford. Cross referencing, I had just visited the Lokey Stem Cell Center and took a few shots of their giant Chihuly. Also, I noted that Irv Weissman was a eulogist at Nathan Oliveira’s memorial and stated that he hoped to put a bronze on campus. What do you Stand For, Stanford? In at least these few cases, you stand for or throw down for, the arts, and we community members thank you.
Further, on the same digression, I notice John W. Gardner aphorisms both at the Jen-Hsun Huang Center (where I was sneaking into Ike’s Sandwiches — center is for the founder of Nvidia who got his Master’s on the Farm) and at Palo Alto City Hall lobby art installation: I am now slightly tempted to apply for the open job listing to be the pr manager of the Gardner Center at Stanford, part of the Education department I think, and clarifying that is perhaps part of the job of the incoming proposed job. John W. Gardner, founder of Common Cause and not to be confused with Chance the Gardener in “Being There.”
I had a nice chat with the De Young’s artist in residence named Alaagy. Besides painting, the Marin-based Ghanaian enjoys bike racing and soccer. I hit him with a barrage of names including Major Taylor, Ama Ofusu Barko, Nya Jade and Corey Harris. I did not have time, owing to the hungry cocker spaniel in my charge, to sit and work on a collage, but I did get a swatch of fabric as a souvenir of my visit.
Here is more info courtesy of the Marin I-J and Richard Halstead:
Plastic Alto with Mark Weiss 