XXI. Baseball “Humm Rhyme Derby” songwriter project for CA/TX

Posted on November 1, 2010 by markweiss86

flat screen lyle

v/o A LA Scooter Rizzuto on the Mealoaf album:

Batting first, for the visiting Texas Songwriters, an independent artist, from Texas, by way of Monterey County, California, Matt “The Electrician”, “Baseball Song”

VO, continues

And in response, batting first for the home town WORLD CHAMPION Giants of NorCal song, Conspiracy of Beards singing the Leonard Cohen classic, and befitting the first pennant in five decades “Hallelujah”

Working title: “Humm Rhyme Derby”

One of my reactions to watching the World Series was dreaming of a songwriter project that would honor the cultural contributions of both the San Francisco music scene and the Austin, Texas music scenes. While watching Game Three I could not resist group-texting some people to announce such a proposed project. Working title “Humm Rhyme Derby” playing on “Home Run Derby” also “hums” as a colloquial term for songs and rhyme as a common but not necessary element of song lyrics. I spoke so far with two artists about this and an agent.  I also thought of Chris Kiefer’s “Presidents” project. Not sure what the window is to work on this, but my goal is, if I cannot solicit 18 new songs about or around baseball (i.e. nine batting for SF, nine batting for Texas; proceeds to Austin Soup Kitchen “soupstock” series or Glide), then I will hopefully at least have 18 conversations on the project, its strengths and weaknesses, creativity, where songs actually come from, and the like. Venerable music agent Laura Thomas suggests that merely licensing existing baseball songs would fit the bill.

Maybe I can license Conspiracy of Beards version of Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah.”

http://hungryformusic.com/cds/diamond-cuts/diamond-cuts-seventh-inning-stretch/

http://www.chartattack.com/features/2010/sep/29/nine-great-songs-about-baseball

http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2009-09-11/entertainment/0909090221_1_joe-pernice-pernice-brothers-songs

Barbara Manning and the SF Seals (itself a baseball reference, to the PCL team that played in the Mission) were part of the Cubberley Sessions so maybe I should ask her about including her Doc Ellis song in this proposed set.

To reiterate: if you are a singer-songwriter and like baseball and were moved in certain ways watching SF and Texas, maybe you’d like to pen something new for this proposed project. Even if you HATE baseball, maybe you can write a song about that.

Edit to add, May 20, 2011: this project is in the doldrums, but I was encouraged when I saw that there is something called The Baseball Project in which members of Minus Five and Peter Buck tour performing songs about Our National Passtime, and record for Yep Roc.

Also, when “Giant” played at Stanford Theater, and I saw SF Giants ads on back of buses, with slogan “Together we are Giant” it made me want to rename project that TOGETHER WE ARE GIANT  and have the Texas and SF songwriters fete both the World Series and the classic film, which takes place in Texas.

Willie Mays just turned 80, and Harmon Killebrew passed, so it seems appropriate to add here this classic glimpse at their primes via “Home Run Derby” show, circa 1968:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mQBKtDp9cJA

edit to add, July 27, 2011: when jazz guitarist Charlie Hunter played at Stanford Jazz series last week he noted from the stage that his 10 year old son was at the Giants’ game; makes me want to invite Charlie into this project. I recall his music (in duo with Leon Parker) appeared in a Ken Burns baseball documentary, as did the phrase “Can he hit Uncle Charlie?” referring to a curveball.

edit to add, January, 17, 2012: this project is dead in the water, but I thought about it today while visiting San Francisco when I stumbled across a hole-in-the-wall called HRD which the partner Greg Lew said stands for “Human Resources Department” but owing to it’s baseball themed decorations I wonder about approaching them to sponsor a Texas versus NorCal songwriter contest with baseball overtones. I had barbecued pork and scrambled eggs over rice, which rocked but was enthralled by either the kimchi burritto or pineapple chicken tacos. If it’s fusion, why not fuse some beisbol into the mix?

Posted in austistic, film, music, sports, words | Tagged , , , , , , , | 5 Comments

XX. Koufax a star

Posted on October 31, 2010 by markweiss86

is it just me or does sandy look like a swastika?

The image is from the catalog of Krevsky Gallery baseball show.

Posted in art, ethniceities, math, sports, Uncategorized | 1 Comment

XIX. Mere surmise slurs

Posted on October 31, 2010 by markweiss86

not a vas deferens either (Brian E. Moore)

My friend the filmmaker/pathologist Dr. Brian Moore sent me, apropos of nothing, a quote attributed to Kojiro Tomita, a famous curator of Asian Arts at Boston’s MFA:

“It has been said that art is a tryst, for in the joy of it maker and beholder meet.”  ~Kojiro Tomita

I wrote him back this terse not terribly clever slur:

I came I saw I concur

Meaning I agree with Mr. Tomita’s statement (which was new to me; HE was new to me) and I thought referencing the idea of going to a museum and seeing (or trysting, as the case may be); and referencing the famous “I came I saw I conquered”.

It reminded me, perhaps perversely, of the bit in Coen Brothers’ “A Serious Man” in which Gopnick accuses his student of cheating and the student replies “Mere surmise sir.” (its funny, at least to me, because the professor doesn’t hear him properly; he hears “mereser mizer?” or something equivalently non-sensical). The Coen’s are playing on racism and cultural differences although they claim to be doing so conscientiously, if that is possible.

A lot of Jews hated the film and thought it was “self-hating” (which would make their reaction redundant) but I thought it was great. Not that that excuses their feeble and perhaps unkind depictions of Asians (think also of the guy in “Fargo” who admits his breakdown to Frances McDormand).

It also reminds me that at the gallery show (I wrote about below, at Nina Dresden Gallery) I ran into a recent acquaintance the Mexican poet, writer and professor Juvenal Acosta and he said the Michele King’s work “was a nicer price.” They were about $3,000 each for her paintings, but since we had been discussing a $110,000 painting at a gallery across the street, that would be “nicer” meaning within reach of more people, perhaps even Juvenal or myself. What he actually said was that he had met Michele previously and liked her as a person and was relieved that he liked her work likewise; it was a “nice surprise.” I told him this story, my mistake in hearing. (Juvenal’s English is appreciably better than my Spanish. His Spanish I’m certain is better than my English).

Jumping to last night, Terry and I were debating the merits of checking out a “Charlie Chan” movie at the Stanford Theatre and we opted against it. Boris Karloff plays the Chinese-American detective. Is it playing because this is Halloween weekend? I.e, a European actor playing an Asian is good programming because we can think of it as his costume? Charlie Chan is Dead, guys!

Meanwhile, the Chron today had an item about the 1935 filming of “The Good Earth” starring Paul Muni and Louise Rainer, and 500 Asian extras, filmed hereabouts.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/10/31/PKOD1FO6SO.DTL

I was also mentally riffing on Jeremy Lin in the NBA, the film “Ping Pong Playa” by Jessica Yu and the fact that a Chinese computer company now claims the world’s fastest supercomputer (using chips by Intel and Nvidia) and the even odder oddity that that article in Friday’s Chron was next to a legal notice by a Joseph Lin (but not Jeremy’s brother) abandoning his fictitious business name of “Joe 88 Construction” — who in the world could possibly notice or find meaning in these things besides moi?

(I also remember thinking the other day while watching a rerun of “The Office” that I am one of the few people in the world who saw Mindy Kaeling in “Matt and Ben” AND saw Nathan Ford play catcher in the CCS Championship game for Palo Alto High — the show had Rainn Wilson pretending to be a Cornell guy and namedropping Ford who was a two-sport star for the Big Red)

Somewhere in here I wonder about the shard of porcelin vase that Yoko Ono handed out to the crowd at Stanford a couple years back — she said that we should all meet up again and rebuild the vase, like the Jewish concept of “tikkun olam”.

This blog entry is a chop-suey of topics, but not a kama sutra.

edit to add, two years later: for what its worth, someone deems it important enough to post transcript of the scene:

Messages, Professor Gopnik.
Yes, thanks for coming, Clive. Have a seat.
We had, I think, a good talk the other day,
…but you left something…
I didn’t leave it.
Well, you don’t even know what I was going to say.
I didn’t leave anything.
I’m not missing anything.
I know where everything is.
Well then, Clive…
Where did this come from?
This is here, isn’t it?
Yes, sir. That is there.
This is not nothing.
This is something.
Yes. That is something.
What is it?
You know what it is, I believe.
And you know I can’t keep it, Clive.
Yes, sir.
I’ll have to pass it on to Professor Finkle,
along with my suspicions about where it came from.
Actions have consequences.
Yes. Often.
No, always! Actions always have consequences!
In this office, actions have consequences.
Yes, sir.
Not just physics,
…morally.
Yes.
And we both know about your actions.
No, sir. I know about my actions.
I can interpret, Clive I know what you meant me to understand.
Meer sir my sir.
“Meer sir my sir”?
Mere surmise, sir.
Very uncertain.

Speaking of which, uncertainties, I read thru the self-comments below — and those early days of “Plastic Alto” I would footnote via the comments section rather than “edita” — I could not recall Pauline Yao “the new Tomita” – not that I had retained Tomita, either — and the link had collapsed, but when I re-search-injuned it I saw a picture of said Yao with Stephanie Syjuco, who Terry and I met at Montalvo.

edit to add, more than a year later: check back and eventually there will be an addendum here, apropos of re-blogging this (or “self-reblogging” a first for me) in honor of the Tara Donovan show at PACE Gallery of Menlo Park, across the street from Guild Theatre showing the Gia Coppola James Franco vehicle “Palo Alto” — about 2,000 words, bounces around way too much, even for “Plastic Alto”; I am not sure I am making progress even 600 posts onwards. I could summarize the long list of name-checks and shout-outs, many of whom have links. Even links, unless you have susses thru a bunch of them are somewhat gratuitous, as if the reader did not know HOW?! to speak to the Search-Injuns —and by the way, by neologism “search-injun” is sort of a Claes Oldenburg reference, according to Jed Perl. RIYL: Claes Oldenburg, Jed Perl, James Franco, Gia Coppola, Tara Donovan, Stephanie Syjuco, Pauline Yao, Yoko Ono, Rainn Wilson, Mindy Kaeling, Nathan Ford, Joseph Lin, Jessica Yu, Jeremy Lin, Louise Rainer, Paul Muni, Boris Karloff, Juvenal Acosta, Nina Dresden, Michele King, Kojiro Tomita, Brian Moore, ….back up to John Arrillaga et al, Tara Donovan, Rachel Kushner, Elizabeth Sullivan, Terry Acebo Davis, Diego Romero, Enrique Chagoya, Miho Morinoue, Kara Maria, Alexander Calder, Bradley Leong, Laurel Nakadate, John Yao,

Posted in art, brain, ethniceities, film, jazz, math, media, music, Plato's Republic, sex, sf moma, this blue marble, words | Tagged , , , | 11 Comments

XVIII. Even Reggie Jackson buzzing for Amendola session

Posted on October 26, 2010 by markweiss86

Jeff Parker Moog petal et al

I guess the World Series is playing heavily on my mind in that I could not help but twist my Scott Amendola post into a Jeff Parker riff that somehow wants to recall the old Saturday Night Live skit about the Killer Bees….I know, it’s kind of a Stretch (McCovey):

Reggie Jackson and The Chicago Honeydripper:

Scott Amendola Trio, featuring SA on drums, South Bay stalwart John Shifflett on acoustic bass and Chicago by way of twangy-accent Virginia Jeff Parker on guitar and effects rack, made a rare 650 appearance Sunday night at Dana Street Roasting in Mountain View, for an appreciative group of cognescenti, including yours truly. The jazzbos were celebrating the release of Scott Amendola’s fourth solo outing, this one entitled “Lift” (SAZI Records — his imprint, following two previous releases on the venerable Cryptogramophone label), one of about a half dozen West Coast shows the group would work up, (including Kuumbwa in Santa Cruz, Thursday.

First off, I want to give kudo to KZSU jazz dj Wedge and his Memory Select blog which pinged me that this was going down. Here is his informative and insightful preview:

http://wedgeradio.wordpress.com/2010/10/25/yeah-scott-amendola-was-good/

Also, here is a link to Andrew Gilbert as usually excellent story in the Mercury:

http://www.mercurynews.com/music/ci_16371138

 

And for good measure, my memory select (it’s a Tim Berne reference) was correct that I had seen Scott getting some love from the New York Times recently (2007). Nate Chinen here lauds the cd release show for the previous “Via Amendola” which featured Jeff Parker trading licks with Nels Cline; he also theorizes that Scott soaks in a lot of Berkeley color which helps him channel Tony Allen and a world of diverse influences.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/03/arts/music/03toni.html

I’ve known Scott for about 15 years. I first met him when I produced a rare TJ Kirk/Charlie Hunter double bill at Cubberley Center in Palo Alto in September, 1995. I also booked Scott’s Amendola bands once each at Cubberley (splitting the bill with Blue Note pianist James Hurt) and at my short-lived series at an art gallery in downtown PA. Through Scott’s suggestion, I also once booked Jenny Scheinman band into a free show at Stanford’s CoHo — I used to think that if Scott, Jenny and Todd Sickafoos ever stayed exclusive to each other (rather than covering the girdled Earth 27 times each) they might rival Medeski Martin and Wood in buzz, or the Bad Plus. When you’d book any of their bands in those days you’d get basically the same personnel but with a different book, yet always excellent and highly entertaining.

At this point, at age 41, Amendola is just about the dean of the young lions of Bay Area jazz, for a drummer. And it was a rare treat therefore to catch him in the flesh without having to drive an hour and fight traffic.

But I was psyched to finally see Jeff Parker. And here is a nice synopsis of his work off the Thrill Jockey website by the redoubtable John Corbett (I don’t think he will mind if I quote him verbatim):

If you went looking for a poster-child for Chicago’s multidirectional, cross-pollinating, interstylistic music scene, you couldn’t find a better one than Jeff Parker. Parker: jazz guitarist with pro credentials, widely travelled and prized by top soul-jazzers and hard-boppers. Parker: inveterate rocker who revitalized Tortoise with his ferocious improvising and tasty licks. Parker: experimentalist willing to try new dub, hip-hop,electronic, collage, free, chamber – anything worthwhile, irrespective of genre or orientation. Community expander, boundary buster, restless explorer – Jeff Parker is constantly trying out new things with new partners. A man on the move.

http://www.thrilljockey.com/artists/?id=10056

The show I saw the sidemen were working from charts; I’d like to see how this sounds after a few more shows together. Also, I dig that Amendola is indeed cross-pollinating with the Chicago scene. It’s too bad that Reggie Jackson, Walter Matthau and Hal Willner probably will not be there to feel the fruits of their labor, a la this October Classic:

http://snltranscripts.jt.org/78/78gbees.phtml.

Okeh, finally, while quickly searching for his “gear page” before Palo Alto Library’s time share computer system logs me out ,  this little interview on some other dude’s WordPress blog is too cool to resist linking:

http://glowsinthedark.wordpress.com/2008/07/16/ten-questions-with-jeff-parker/

Have a great tour, guys!

edit to add, July 15, 2011: I submitted a post to Patch Palo Alto AOL about Scott Amendola and then wrote these notes and corrections to my editor there:

“Fade to Orange” is name of his piece, not “Orange is the Color”

In graph 12, “Regarding the drummer…” I misspell “communicating”

Also, I mean “feel him” and not “feel me” in my little joke about Wallace Stegner (who I comment on in other parts of Patch, with LA Chung) not liking the use of the term “feel” for “understand”. Should read “I am glad that Wallace Stegner is not here to not feel me write “feel him”” etc or something.

I deliberately mis-identify the Dave King band Buffalo Collision as Buffalo Collusion as an obscure Cole Porter “Let’s Do It” allusion. (as in birds do it, bees do it, buffalos might do it, it would be a collusion as much as a collision, or better). I was gonna post later to correct the record, in comments, and explain how sly or clever I was being.

also, i may submit another piece between now and july 31 about bill frisell in that he has recorded and written scores to silent films of buster keaton and Stanford theater is doing a run of Keaton with Dennis James.

Plus, I wanted to ask Scott about Ava Mendoza and vice versa. I suggest they play together either under the name Amen or Amend. Or Amen or Amend. Also, it seems Amendola is due extra love from Plastic Alto in that he has an Ornette project, The Good Life.

Posted in art, ethniceities, jazz, media, music, sports, words | 16 Comments

XXVII: Stew and The Negro Problem problem

Posted on October 26, 2010 by markweiss86

welcome, black

Stew and Heidi (and presumably some side-men or -women, but probably not Aaron Kierbel who could be in the Netherlands doing advance work for Rupa and The April Fishes) are playing the San Francisco Jazz Festival  (aka SFJAZZ) Thursday night at the Yerba Buena Center and Andrew Gilbert wrote an excellent preview for the San Jose Mercury:

http://www.mercurynews.com/ci_16380541

Although I had promised myself not to write impulsive blog entries — I am working on a longer, better-researched, more discipline potential entry — I could not help but comment on Stew on the Mercury’s website. I will reprint here verbatim my post but I strongly encourage you to follow the link to Andrew’s report — or GO TO THE SHOW.

(I am still curious whether Andrew was familiar with Stew during his LA  days — he worked for the Jazz Bakery. Also, I am curious whether he would have written about Stew even if I had not left him a voice mail suggesting such, or will admit it).

Good story, Andrew. You might have added the South Bay local interest angles that “Passing Strange” workshopped at Stanford before opening at Berkeley Rep. Stew subsequently came back post-Broadway, in winter of 2009, to teach songwriting, at Stanford — not bad for a guy who never got his college degree. Also, in terms of the timeline, The Negro Problem performed locally in September of 1995, on a co-bill with Cake, at the Cubberley Community Center in Palo Alto. In terms of the interplay between the respective projects Stew, The Negro Problem and his Broadway oriented work, I believe this is the first time being billed as “Stew and The Negro Problem” which is a litle like saying, for clarity, Sting and The Police. There are still certain ways that Stew tries to obfuscate his identify and background, as part of his mystique.

On the point about Stew and The Negro Problem, it is complicated and confusing. In 2003, while they were in the initial stages of negotiating and conceiving what became “Passing Strange”, a cd “Something Deeper Than These Changes” was released on Image Entertainment audio division under the name Stew. At the time the band was saying “We are a duo called Stew featuring Stew and Heidi.” The Negro Problem was definitely a back-burner project because all the growth and acclaim came via the Stew shows, and with the two previous “solo” cds, especially “Naked Dutch Painter” which foreshadows thematically a lot of the themes found in “Passing Strange.” Of course, when the duo opened for John Mayer/Counting Crows for 10 dates playing sheds, they added drums and keys to form a band, but they still weren’t really TNP because they were playing Stewsongs. In short, when Stew went to the duo format he also focused more on funnier and more direct songs — compared to the complex, Pet Sounds influenced ironic TNP book — and that was how the Broadway folks spotted him, how the Panther changed his spots, how the Cat got his new coat, the Emperor got his godspeed, how Julian and Maria put the black on black, et cetera. Something deeper indeed.

I noticed that “Stew and The Negro Problem” list it as “STEW + HEIDI + the negro problem” on their site but of the nine venues on this tour all but one list it as “Stew and The Negro Problem.” Even in LA, their home town, the Getty gets it right but Echoplex disses Heidi with the ommission.

It kinda reminds me of The Donnas and the Electrocutes (Ragady Anne) taking the long way back to what they were, become what you are as Julianna Hatfield said.

http://www.mercurynews.com/ci_16380541

Posted in ethniceities, jazz, math, media, music, sex, Uncategorized, words | 5 Comments

XVI. Alli Paypaly

Posted on October 22, 2010 by markweiss86

allison miller

Allison Miller, the amazing drummer, composer and bandleader, has two prime dates set for December out here, at Kuumbwa on Dec. 9 and at Yoshi’s on Dec. 14. But the economics of jazz are such that her tour will not recoup. She will be doing these dates as an investment in her future, for fun, for her fans, for the gods and goddesses of art, jazz and music (but not, apparently, for the gods of commerce), etc. So she sent out this plea to her fanbase, which I am reprinting,  to be her, ahem, ally:

Hi Friends!

I’ve got a really fun event coming up in Brooklyn (at Littlefield).  We are throwing a fundraiser party called BOOM BOOM OR BUST! We hope to raise some money to help get my band, BOOM TIC BOOM, out west for our December 2010 West Coast Tour.  High travel costs and tour expenses are putting us deep in the red.  But, I am determined to not let this stop us!  So, I am throwing a little party.  Come out and party with me!  There will be dancing, special performances from my favorite artists, yummy treats, raffle prizes (grand prize… a weekend at a beautiful B&B in Vermont), a silent auction, and more dancing!

Emcee: Elizabeth Ziff from BETTY
Performing:

Toshi Reagon and Allison Miller, Catherine Russell, Shelley Nicole, Pyeng Threadgill, Christina Courtin and Ryan Scott, BETTY, Victoria Libertore, Mayra Casales, Christelle Durandy, Jeff Lederer/Tina Richerson/Rene Hart/Art Hirihara
… and, a very special secret guest! and… the most electrifying DJ on the planet! DJ Rimarkable… “The DJ who saved your life last night!”
Wednesday, November 3rd. (8pm-1am)
performances starting at 9pm
Littlefield
622 Degraw St. (between 3rd and 4th Ave in Gowanus)
Brooklyn, NY 11217
www.littlefieldnyc.com for details and to buy tickets in advance
$10*** IF YOU CANNOT ATTEND BOOM BOOM OR BUST BUT WANT TO CONTRIBUTE TO THE CAUSE–CLICK ON THE PAYPAL LINK TO MAKE A DONATION.

https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_s-xclick&hosted_button_id=Z7HB2LQFZ6H7AANY AMOUNT IS SO GREATLY APPRECIATED! 5 bucks, 10 bucks, 20 50 100 bucks… ANY BUCKS WILL DO! You might even get a postcard from the road!

Thanks for all the support over the years.
Take care.
Alli
She does not mention that her West Coast tour band will include Myra Melford on piano, Todd Sickafoose on bass and Jenny Scheinman on violin — quite a crew. They are also playing LA, Portland (at Jim Brunberg’s Mississippi Studios) and Mill Valley.
If I have more time I will go back and research who all those people are. I am guessing the “special guest” is either Ani DiFranco or Natalie Merchant, Alli’s most famous employers — she gets great sidework when not leading her own crew. Or Brandi Carlisle even (does SHE jazz?)
I met Allison Miller in October, 2000 when as part of the Rachel Z Trio she played my Cubberley Series, and we have enjoyed a nice correspondence in the ensuing ten years.
So be a pal and hit Paypal for Alli, whether or not you can make one or more of those gigs. (If my links don’t go through, there is a better link on her homepage).
Edit to add, June 22, day after Solstice, about 8 months later: This is my least-read blog post, so I thought I would give it a little more love. Allison Miller is playing at Yoshi’s later this week, behind vocalist Kitty Margolis, June 24. Then she is artist in residence at Jazz Camp West, in La Honda, which sounds like a great program, put on I believe by the founders of Oakland Interfaith Gospel Choir. I am tempted to enroll on the strength of the fact that my girlfriend Terry Acebo Davis, the visual artist and arts commissioner, gave me a set of bongo drums for my birthday. The camp takes musicians of all levels, so I can work on my hand-drums. Also, I do occasionally do that Beat Hotel Rm 32 tribute to Howl thing, which is basically reading a poem aloud, to improvised accompaniment so maybe I could sit in on some vocals or performance anxiety workshops. (I did also sing with the Foothill College chorus, in 2002).  I thought of Alli also while watching a lady from Berkelee who plays drums and dances, on a tv reality show.
When I met Allison in 2000, she also played Pete Douglas’ Bach Dancing and Dynamite that same visit — they were probably their anchor, for Rachel Z trio. Allison and I somehow hit it off, although she was in a relationship at the time, our friendship was musical, professional; we ended up jogging together up in Half Moon Bay, on the airport runway there, strangely enough. So I hope she recalls all that while hanging in nearby La Honda, although it was many moons, and twice as many half-moons ago. Kitty also played the Cub, on a bill with Danilo Perez (featuring Luciana Souza) during that same season.
I have recently fantasized about going to Europe with Cake, going to Chicago to see Rupa Marya at Millenium Park, so I can at least pretend to more realistically play bongo drums in La Honda at Jazz Camp West.
Alli, Myra and Sick at Ars Nova Philly somwhat recentlike:
Posted in jazz, media, music, sex, this blue marble | Tagged , , , , | 4 Comments

XV. Meet The Beatles meets Stella Brooks ’69

Posted on October 21, 2010 by markweiss86

Happy 100th Birthday, Stella Brooks!

I found a youtube post of a Beatles recording session from 1969 that purportedly included the mythical version of the Fab Four doing 38 seconds of “Little Piece of Leather” supposedly while rehearsing or learning or working up “Octopus’ Garden”. I listened (the visual is just a flat image — it purports to be an actual album cover — the material is listed as unreleased) but did not hear what was advertised. I did post on someone’s Beatles blog — I am hoping someone more in the know responds or hips me to this.

Stella has been feted recently by being the focal point of a play at the Tennessee Williams Festival in Provincetown “Jazz Funeral for Stella Brooks” by Terry Abrahamson and David Kaplan. I am hoping to help them bring this production to the Bay Area.

Stella will be turning 100 this November, around Thanksgiving. It would be a great birthday (centennial) present for her for her fans to hear this Beatles ditty, ie where Stella Meets the Beatles.

Eric Cohen made this rudimentary social network profile for Stella:

http://www.myspace.com/stellabrooksjazz

Posted in art, ethniceities, jazz, math, media, music, sex, words | 4 Comments

X. King, Brown, Mandelbrot and Mickey

Posted on October 15, 2010 by markweiss86

Mickey or Mandy?

I met briefly and was introduced to the artist Michele King, at her opening at Mina Dresden Gallery last night in San Francisco. I myself had just entered the show, had approached a friend I recognized, and he beckoned for Michele to come over.

“I like your work,” I said. “This may be off the mark but it reminds me of a piece by Roger Brown I saw recently at the Stanford art museum.”
I showed her a tiny little detail of his work, Another Shitty Day in Paradise, on loan for a show about human form, from my cellphone photo archive.
“Are you familiar with Mandelbrot?” (she wasn’t).
I had noticed that beyond the obvious comment that Roger Brown’s piece seems to reference Mickey Mouse that the hills seemed to have little mouse-head-shaped protrusions — the flora seemed to repeat the main image; it had some self-similarity. And of course, move obviously, the “mouse ears” in his piece resemble the “mouse head.”

Michele’s piece barely demonstrated my point but she took my rather obtuse comment in good humor. Her piece depicted a large curved body in the foreground — the moon? earth? her boob? — and little protrusions growing out of it on the horizon, but at irregular intervals and more pointy and hair-like than rounded — like trees more than bushes.

Ok, so if I had seen the body of work there instead of just a quick glimpse at this one piece as a starting point maybe I would not have connected those synapses and uttered that inanity: none of the other pieces had anything close to the mandelbrot set image.

On the other hand, her pieces do often remind us of flowers and flora; the self-similarity concept is often seen on tree leaves and wildlife. A leaf resembles a branch. The shoreline repeats itself in pattern, that sort of thing.

She joked to her friend “He’s calling my work ‘mickey mouse” — an insult, simplistic, cartoonish, trite.
I apologized and tried to straighten the record.
But then, again, her name is Michele — does anyone call her Mickey?

Good article on Roger Brown from artnet by Alexandra Anderson Spivey, including the piece in question:
http://www.artnet.com/magazineus/features/spivy/spivy6-4-08.asp
To my mind, several of his pieces exude the mathematical qualities consistant with the Mandelbrot idea. Escher is a more obvious artist to discuss here.

Michele King’s homepage (although I do not see the piece in question):
http://www.michelemking.com/newwork.html

This is a version of Mandelbrot image created by Wolfgang Beyer and uploaded to Wikipedia:

I started following this stuff, especially apropos of the environmental movement, via Fritjof Capra, “The Web of Life”:

Posted in art, this blue marble, words | 3 Comments

IX. So Syrett

Posted on October 13, 2010 by markweiss86

Quick kudos for Palo Alto artist Rob Syrett for creating this cd cover for the artists Matmos So Percussion.

Posted in art, music | Tagged | 1 Comment

VIII: Min ordbog Dansk

Posted on October 13, 2010 by markweiss86

“in a better world” director susanne bier gets haevnen

I am starting an American-Danish dictionary, truncated, quite primitive. Here it is, 20+ words.
Eyes ojne
Lies logne
Twilight tusmorke although some prefer the more poetic skumringstimer
Foam skum
dusk skumring (perhaps because in certain parts of Denmark you can see the foam of the ocean better as the sun is going down?)
poetry poesi
poem digt
old gamle
world verden
dreams drommer
distant fjernt
see ser
more mer
have fa
and og
as som
the den
field mark or felt
mark maerke
zeal iver

My revised edition will be perhaps better alphabetizied, have a few more entries, and be more accurate.

I started this exercise because I had surfed over to a poem by a contemporary Danish writer named Stinne Hedrup.
The first stanza of the piece reads like so (and contains most of our “words of the day”:
I disse skumringstimer
kan længslerne få øjne
der drømmer om at elskes
og spinder gamle løgne.
De stirrer fjernt på verden
som de slet ikke ser
på det som er forsvundet
og aldrig bli’r til mer’.

Using a convenient computer function, I was able to create this derivative work (when I say “primitive” above, it is ironic since I am still using this billion-dollar computer page application):

In these twilight hours
can longings have eyes
who dreams of loved
and purrs old lies.
They stare at the distant world
they do not see
of it as the disappearance
and never just can not wait for more.

And from that my dictionary, or ordbog dansk. Leaving aside meaning, context, pronounciation, beauty. Just an exercise in words.

My own version of this would go something like:
It is twilight
When I see foam
I think of having a beer.
Perhaps in a glass, mug, stein or in my dreams, a skull.

Or in my fledgling Danish:
No dis to skumringstimer
som ojne beer.
skum
“skal”.

My favorite Scandinavian word is skol, the drinking toast. It appears to derive from the practice of celebrating your victory by using your vanquished opponent’s skull as your chalice. I cannot help wandering from my original train of thought of Danish poetry to skull or skol ( or skal) because of my recent fascination with Gerhard Richter (not a Scandinavian, but an East German). The bottom line is that I am simultaneously looking into the relationship between jazz and art (for example, Bill Frisell’s 858 commission inspired by a Richter series of paintings, abstracts, not one of his skulls), and jazz and poetry — the poem here by Stinne Hedrup is actually part of her collaboration with the composer and bassist Anne Mette Iversen, who I recently found reason to contact out of the blue, and that sparked an interest.
Anne Mette’s first cd utilized poetry from her friend Stinne. Anne Mette is from Denmark but has been based in New York for a number of years and is associated with a group of emerging jazz artists clustered geographically and calling themselves Brooklyn Jazz Underground. And spending five minutes on her site, or with any of the BJU artists I promise to be much more rewarding than having read this blog entry.

edit to add, about 400 posts later, October, 2012:

Pretty in pink, Tennis player Caroline W from Denmark (and thank you to Paula Kirkeby for passing on the clipping about Anne Mette Iversen, which is were this began).

Posted in art, ethniceities, jazz, music, sex, sports, this blue marble, words | Tagged , , | 6 Comments