I love the intimacy of the live show. There's something very Tennessee Williams about it, something urban and gritty, yet classy and beautiful. Renegade Cabaret!
I think it's settled and the next thing I'll be doing for Drag City will be an audio version of the book "Victory Chimp" (published in 1997.) So, the score is the text, I start with that.
A lot of things have changed since 1997-- like: 'hook up' doesn't mean the same thing anymore, it used to mean attaching a trailer to some stationary utility source.
At any rate, I have some colored pens and I've been going thru the book assigning passages to various voices. I have posted a few want ads on voice-over talent sites. The first voice I'm looking for is described as an older women-- now I have 20 audition tracks to examine.
I'll be pretty busy but I think I'll post up here now and then to track the progress of the process, as it were. How long will this take?
I walked into the art gallery and I saw an old display from 1981. Mike Kelley and Kim Gordon were constributors to the decades-old show that was advertised. I recently saw a Mike Kelley piece uptown at some swanky gallery. It was a flag with all different icons on it. Kim Gordon's solo work I haven't seen in a couple of years.
There was a minimal music score coming from the speakers. But before I could investigate that alluring sound, I was struck by a TV featuring a girl french kissing herself. It was a TV trick.
I made my way to the private room the sound was coming from, it was a three minute dvd called Opticks V -- rituals. It was of a dancer moving her arm and massaging her feet. I thought the focus of the piece was pretty intense and the tri-color optic sheen of the image added a sensory trick that was nice: dancer in red, dancer in blue, dancer in yellow.
I looked at a bunch of art today at the gallery. It was loaded with over a hundred pieces, all from different private collections.
Anyway, I look forward to seeing you tomorrow, if you are a member of the ACT team.
On a rainy evening in Manhattan the iPods and cellphones were safely tucked away in one small quarter in the East Village. It was poetry night at the Bowery Poetry Club. Rows of chairs which had been set up by Bill Beachboard earlier that afternoon were now in use. (Bill was at the movies with his girlfriend.) The lights went down in the old room and a spotlight was shined on a podium at the front.
A middle-aged, forty-something man entered from stage right and walked up behind the podium. "Tonight we bring you the finest Eastern European poetry from the last few years. It is an honor to witness the celebration of these poets. My name is Al Berenson." Applause erupted from the audience. This was New York's finest poet, after all. Fine and elusive. The crowd was thrilled to see him. When he wasn't teaching or shoppng for appliances, Al was hard to track down.
A beam of red light centered on Al's head. One of the people in the front row stood up and pointed his electronic pointer at Al's nose. It was the Joker, from Gotham City.
"Arch-criminals can recite fine verse, too, Al, my boy." The audience gasped. Al ran to the backstage and suddenly reappeared dressed as Superman. Flying right into the Joker's seat he grabbed the crown prince of crime and removed him from the building. Out on the street he made a quick cage out of a few delivery bicycles stationed around the front of the building.
Inside, terror prevailed. I was writing this all down in my notebook. The crowd was shocked and didn't know how to behave. The criminal had been removed and the world-class poet had revealed himself as Superman. Was this a good thing?
I opened my cellphone and called my friend Augustine. He was shuffling papers before taking off from work for Independence Day weekend.
"You'll never believe who I just saw," I teased him.
"Oh yeah?" He was game.
"AL Berenson, the Joker and Superman." All I heard on the other end was disbelief, "What else is going on?" he inquired.
"I'm at a poetry reading and this super caper just evolved out of nowhere. I might go to Whole Foods and score some dinner. Are you headed to the Hamptons?"
"Pretty much. That's amazing. You'd think Al Berenson wouldn't have time or the strength to wrap up super-villains."
"I don't know what to say. I'll call you tomorrow."
I hung up the phone, removed my iPod and played the 2005 Howling Hex album as I left the club with civilization firmly entrenched in my mind for a little while, at least.
feeling better, really better, like after eating nothing pretty much but raw vegetables for a week can make you realize how individual you are because nothing really changes except how you feel. you still have to open the door. but you're happy when you do it. it is like you are feeling what it's like to be a person again, for the very first time.
ARE things changing? yea and nay. the more things change the more they stay the same. we are tiny grains of sand in a carton of unwashed spinach leaves. it's good to be sand. bonk.
the state senate is in lockdown. iran is simmering down thanks to military crackdown. this is the rundown. i just ran an errand for my neighbor. it was just a quick trip for some milk and soda water. we sat on the stoop and chatted. it's a warm breezy day in new york. i read the paper and some russian poetry. no news on the state senate. iran is headed in the same conservative direction it has been in for years. they say democracy and islam contradict each other there. it reminds me of the middle ages in europe. abbas kiarostami is the saving grace as far as i can see. his films are powerful. i should rent them again. just to affirm the vision of certain people in iran. this is a record.
I am playing with myself. I think I might stop doing this. Bad timing. OK, I won't stop quite yet. Did you ever see Ghostbusters? The one with the Saturday Night Live guy? Ghosts are for idiots? Some woman who dated my friend and lived in my house for a while said she believed in ghosts. I always think of that. Why does she believe in ghosts? I see ghosts as metaphors for bad destructive emotions like nostalgia or homesickness. Ghosts! Busters?
Proofreading on a computer is way different than proofreading handwritten texts. One is typos the other is bad spelling or worse.
This is not a record. It is an expression. Hello to members of the ACT team (if they are reading). What to say? Just that I walked to the Chelsea Market and looked at some art. The piece I focused on was c-print from 2008. It showed a dog in a yard. It was surly. The dog is big. He was sticking his head through a fence (see title). The composition was very shallow. Everything was pushed to the front, wih cars in the back. Reminds me of a photo I shot of two co-workers at the Embarcadero in SF. I like cars. Now I am back at the pad, waiting for the change in climate between outside and inside to balance.
