The Real Deal!

see the NYTimes article today!   Here's to leaders that are truly leaders!

a message from my neighbor

male bonding at La Mama

I went to the "Male Bonding" show at the La Mama Moves! Dance Festival 2008 which featured in particular new work-in-progress by John Jasperse and a new solo by Miguel Gutierrez.  (That's Miguel in the picture.)

I was kind of blown away by John's piece"Excerpts from Pure (work-in-progress) -- it was a sort of hyper design dance mixed with a documentary tendancy -- there is this exquisite liquid release trio by Erin Cornell, Eleanor Hullihan & Kayvon Pourazar -and then John comes and tries and talks about how he can't perfect this pirouette -- the way in which nothing can ever be good enough, or maybe, the way in which dance is a continuous process of redoing and continually looking for the ways in which ones body can find another avenue to move toward the elusiveness of perfection.   There're series of solo improvisations - timed and when the timer runs out the dancer talks - an improv ramble through what seems like the thoughts behind the dance.  Eleanor ups the ante by talking about the stairs at SUNY Purchase being riot proof -- and then Crosby Stills & Nash "Ohio" plays as the next section -- the 10 ft tall woman enters (Erin on Kayvon's shoulders- hidden under a long skirt) --there is that Janis Joplin song playing "Summertime"  and I thought about feminism and the 70's and the way in which women had to enter the scene so much larger than life back then or maybe just (Hillary) NOW.  It seemed it was a dance about the separation between the head and the torso....   And then  John in all black suit as Eleanor's shadow -- an idea that I found both charming and slightly raw...  It's all a jumble in my mind now but I was with the piece the whole way through....

Miguel's solo, "No, Nothing" (though it's identified in the program as "Nothing, No thing") starts hilariously, conceptually -- he checks his phone for what seems like a very long time -- reading his text messages? on state -- and then begins what reveals itself to be the same pattern - long dance followed by monologue -- perhaps that pattern is the way of the males (?) -- 

His dance began by showing his elbows -- a beautiful gesture -- the ultimate safe vulnerability - like giving blood... he takes a step - times slowes way down -- there is imaginary articulateness and then a kind of stamping ape of John's luxurious type of liquid release - where John is melty, Miguel has a sort of cyntriphical release force - he throws himself, Jennifer Monson-like, onto his knees and then the bottoms of his feet -- after a time it felt a bit long (indulgent) but just as I started really shifting in my seat the cellphone alarm went off and Miguel began his crazy dark monologue of dark self confessions - another kind of compulsive truth-telling trip into the dark edges of his childhood dream to become an artist and where that has taken him -- the monologue brilliantly ends into very loud what seemed like EuroClubDance music -- it's an extended ride through Miguel's imagination as if dancing in a club far away from home.... told in the second person - implicating us in his "deeply uncurious thoughts about others."  The lighting throughout, I might add, was brilliant -- Leonore Doxsee delivering a lighting shift at just the perfect moment to accentuate or create a new atmosphere.  

The monologue's poetry sailed above -- and into the angular jutting urgency of the dance.  "This thing of no value - you give it away repeatedly... why give it away - it's so private... like a soap bubble, the vibration of a cellphone or a baby's cry will destroy it..."

the wave

So, I went to a YANKEE'S game on Sunday and this amazing thing happened.  The home team, the bronx bombers, were down 5 to 2 against the Seattle Mariners.  And then this wave started.... one section of the crowd did the wave and it just kept sequentially going through the whole stadium -- it went around like 3 times!  It was amazing.  The stats on the board said there were upwards of 53,000 people at the game -- it started way up in the bleachers and then it was like a yawn, totally contagious -- it just kept going around -  it even went from the section before this big gap in the audience (batting cage & big scoreboard part of the stadium w/ no stands) -- and in perfect timing - the other part of the stadium picked up the wave and kept passing it around.  I don't know if I've ever seen anything like that.  But it did make me believe in the power of the crowd -- and after that - the Yankees scored big -- 3 runs, surpassing the Mariners and won.  It was the will of the crowd. 

 

That experience almost offset the sinking feeling I had when they announced all the military stuff and I realized that professional sports is just one more part of the military-commercialization-complex in which we live.

the tyranny of connectedness

'INDIANA JONES AND THE ACHES AND PAINS ASSOCIATED WITH AGING'

I love that they chose this cartoon to put in the midst of the amazing and beautiful article by Calvin Tomkins about Paul Chan, "Shadow Player."  (New Yorker, p. 40-45, May 26, 2008 edition)

somehow it softens the blows of the middle age regarding the ascendancy of the fierce youth in our midst --

other highlights include: the photo of him by Steve Pyke that makes the shadow of his projection look as if there's a japanese rising sun bandana tied around his forehead, chinese brush painted calligraphy on his chest...

and these inspiring & inspired Paul Chan thoughts from the article:

"Certain works of art resist our attempts to interpret or explain them, Chan believes, and that resistence - what he calls their 'articulate speechlessness' - is what gives them enduring power."

"Part of the pleasure of reading Derrida is precisely that I do not have to understand him. Comprehension is not the game. I don't care what he thinks he's saying _ I want to read word for word, and pay attention so much that I begin to hallucinate. Which I think is a very reckless way of reading, but for me a productive one."

internet access = "the tyranny of connectedness"

urban outfitter progress

I came upon this display at the Urban Outfitters on Broadway.

the green Obama t-shirt says "Obama says knock you out" -- what does that mean???  it's so weird!

The whole display included this too:

Stephen Colbert & the matching books "How to Win a Fight with a Liberal" "How to Win a Fight with a Conservative."  

I find this deeply creepy.  I think that the store people (liberals from Boston who genuinely support Obama???) think that they are supporting the Obama cause with this sort of thing.  Or are they just making fun of the whole "political" season.  I mean, maybe I'm over thinking this... but I feel like the emptying out of real content -- let's jump on the fashion bandwagon and make money off of the image... commercialization of 'hip' is exactly why people in the middle (age/america) don't 'trust' the "Obama thing" - as it's portrayed -- it's hip to be green, it's hip to like Obama -- let's spend money on the t-shirt so we'll be cool -- but don't worry, it's all for laughs - we don't really believe anything.

Yuck!  I did buy a pair of cute sear-sucker shorts there though.