Book(list)keeping.
I was thinking about the stuff I read this year, and I only came up with the following underwhelming list, in no specific order:
(1) El llano en llamas by Juan Rulfo.
(2) Cuentos de amor de locura y de muerte by Horacio Quiroga.
(3) Pinocchio by Carlo Collodi.
(4) The Chosen by Chaim Potok.
(5) The Promise also by Chaim Potok.
(6) The Proof by Agota Kristof.
(7) The Third Lie again by Agota Kristof.
(8) A shitload of Fables by Bill Willingham.
(9) Also a shitload of Y: The Last Man, by Brian K. Vaughan, but I haven’t finished the series yet.
(10) Alan’s War by Emmanuel Guibert.
(11) The Dirty Girls Social Club by Alisa Rodríguez-Valdés, definitely the worst book I read all year.
(12) The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie.
(13) And Both Were Young by Madeleine L’Engle.
(14) The 33 1/3 on Nas’s Illmatic by Matthew Gasteier
(15) The 33 1/3 on Wire’s Pink Flag by Wilson Neate
(16) The 33 1/3 on Celine Dion’s Let Talk About Love by Carl Wilson
(17) About a dozen One Story issues, I still have a few to catch up on. My favorite one was “Frost Mountain Picnic Massacre” by Seth Fried.
(18) I can’t remember anymore, but I’m pretty sure I read some more comics, like Gipi, whose artwork I really love. I read a shitload of magazine articles. I also tried reading more poetry, and hardly anything stuck, which makes me sad. Maybe I’ll have better luck next year. Finally, I’m currently on Mala onda by Alberto Fuguet, which I thought was gonna be lame, but it’s been really enjoyable and as it’s progressed it’s gotten increasingly juicy (or, actually, increasingly jew-cy…).
I already have a brief list of things to read for the next year. I hope my “to be read” mission goes better in 2010. I’m such an undisciplined reader. My mom bought me a copy of Janice Y. K. Lee’s The Piano Teacher, and my brother got me a copy of Brave Story by Miyuki Miyabe for Christmas. When I saw the cover for Brave Story I thought it was a comic, and I was also excited by how weird it was. (So much for not judging books by their cover, heh…) It made me feel a little better about having bought The Squirrel Machine for him, which I thought he’d find too freaky. But maybe he’ll like it. I hope he does.
Also on my list is Joy in the Morning by Betty Smith. Yes, that Betty Smith. You wouldn’t believe how shocked I was to realize she’d written more than A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. I have such a huge pile of unread books, though, I really need to curb my spending on books because they accumulate and I don’t get enough of a chance to read them. For the next year I’m gonna lay off war-related books. The Agota Kristof stories did a serious number on me; I read that shit in the Spring and I’m only just recovering. That’s why I read so much light stuff after that. I’d like to go more humorous next year.
I’d like to begin this new decade with a smile.
Favorite Songs of 2009.
Or, the year I spent too much time watching MTV Tres. Way to kiss off the decade, right? Heh…
1) Lady Gaga – Paparazzi
2) Phoenix – 1901
3) Jay-Z ft. Alicia Keys – Empire State of Mind
4) Annie – Songs Remind Me of You
5) Bomba Estéreo – Fuego
Their recorded stuff doesn’t compare to the live shit, so initially I was disappointed by Blow Up. But after a few spins I couldn’t stop listening… They did a MBE set just a while back, you can listen/watch here. I didn’t know how they would handle the interview portion because it’s very clear that they don’t know English well, but Simón handled it deftly.
6) Sean Kingston – Fire Burning
7) Bat For Lashes – Daniel
8) Alexis & Fido – Ojos que no ven
9) Daddy Yankee ft. Jowell & Randy – ¿Qué tengo que hacer? (Remix)
Which I’ve already mentioned like a million times, IDGAF!
10) Aventura – Su veneno
11) Gepe – Las piedras
Unfortunately, I find this Gepe video incredibly goofy. The song is really good though. His label, Quemasucabeza, has the Las piedras EP for free here, if you wanna hear a more polished version.
Some others, in no order:
Plastilina Mosh – Pervert Pop Song
Gustavo Cerati – Déjà vu
The Gossip – Heavy Cross
Shakira – Lo hecho está hecho
Los Amigos Invisibles – Mentiras
Inbox Issues.
Holy mother of god! What is the deal! I don’t get a lot of mail except for a few subscriptions, one of which is One Story. It comes with just enough regularity so I’m always excited to wait for it. (The quality of the stories has, in general, been pretty good, and some have even been excellent.) On top of that, I always feel anxious about whether the issues are really gonna make it to my doorstep because I don’t trust the US Postal Service.
Well, it had been a while since I received a copy but not too long; I was still in that period of decision where I couldn’t figure out if I should write to the One Story peeps, and today I received an issue… but not the one I’d been expecting. Crap. I got issue 129, but the last one I’d received was 127. What happened to 128?? Sigh. I really don’t want to write to them. But I want my issue! Damn it. I mean, I doubt that it’s their fault since it’s Christmas season after all, but they’re gonna have to pay for it, and that sucks. Bah.
I highly recommend the magazine, though. And I’m really happy that 129 made it to my house safely, don’t get me wrong. The issues are perfectly pocket-sized, and the subscriptions aren’t too expensive compared to some quarterlies that are chock-full of advertisements and content I wouldn’t read.
Fuck Queue.
Oh man. I got an email from the Public Theater about the cast list for The Merchant of Venice, which they’re doing for Shakespeare in the Park. At first I was way excited: Jesse Tyler Ferguson! And then more excited: Jesse L. Martin!
And then my heart sank:
Al Fucking Pacino?
Don’t get me wrong, I understand it’s AL PACINO. But that’s the problem. He’s a real star. Not even a Broadway-level star, which would have been problematic enough. I mean, my mom knows the name Al Pacino, y’know? Okay, she couldn’t pick him out of a lineup, but she has heard his name. Not only that, she knows he’s a big deal. And you know what happens with big deal stars when they decide to sashay their way across the Delacorte Theater? The lines to get a ticket are fucking massive. Ohhh I’m gonna have to wake up so early for this shit!! I’m not looking forward to it.
(Don’t you love how I’m worrying about this five months in advance?)
On the other hand: I can’t wait to see a latter-day Pacino chew up the scenery. He’s already done Shylock on film though, I wonder how he might read the character this time around? We’ll see what he and Michael Greif come up with. And to think, I was already so thrilled they chose to do The Merchant of Venice!
What Is Wrong With Me?
I caved and finally started crying over not owning this fucking box set that Zoé just released. I hate it, I hate feeling so strongly about a piece of fucking pop music. I feel like such a slave to it. I know I should want more important things, like world peace or a cure to cancer. No, instead I’m cranky and frustrated over some vinyl records. I don’t even care how expensive it is, I will pay! I just want a fucking copy… I can’t believe how distressed I am over this. I mean, I was just staring at that Twitter picture, and I just started shaking.
I need sleep.
Broken Commandments.
Shakira’s vid for “Lo hecho está hecho,” watch it here while it’s still embeddable, hehe.
This is a recent post from the new Idolator.
Like many, I’ve been pretty irked by the recent change of editorship on Idolator. One of the cool things about the site was its seriously in-depth look at the music industry, and much of the fun for me was reading about all the different ways the music industry has been imploding this past decade. Another thing that I loved about their departing editor, Maura, was that she was so pro-Sugababes and pro-Amerie. I’m a huge fan of both, and knowing that there was a high-profile ally out there made me feel less alone in digging them.
The posts so far have been pretty ho-hum, and I’m still trying to figure out whether the Idolator n00bs are just trying to mark their territory and settling in, or if this is just the way things are gonna be. I see that the topics of choice have been relatively similar–lots of top 40 shit, including a lot of American Idol stuff. Which would be fine, but…
Please refer to the aforementioned link. That’s not analysis. Saying, “I don’t really dig Shakira’s hair like this, I like it more like Taylor Swift’s pretty straight white girl hair,” is so superficial… Never mind that as a longtime Shakira fan, I’m very very touchy about her hair. I mean seriously, there’s no reason I should be so consumed and busy scrutinizing a stranger’s hair, but there you go, here’s my confession: the blondeness? Listen, to me, the blond hair is still a bad dream. Okay? Like, I’m still waiting for the dark hair to come back with a vengeance. I’m getting stressed out right this second just by posting about it. You wouldn’t believe how many people I’ve talked to who see this light mane as a symbol of selling out, of conforming to American beauty standards, of of of (I’m just gonna say it!!) good hair. Not that Shakira’s hair is naturally kinky, but it sure as hell ain’t that light, and it’s curly, you know? I know that pop stars have to change constantly, but the controversy that her blond hair has brought through the years distresses me to no end! I’m so conflicted about it, about how it looks, what it means, why I should give a damn…
So I’m sorry, Idolator blogger lady, I’m sorry Shakira doesn’t look like a complete güera in the Letterman performance. FYI, it’s not even the first time she’s dread-ed her hair (and that link is a more recent example, too).
Jesus, I just reread my post. Why am I so angry? I need to sleep and calm down and stop trynna start shit. It’s not like the new blogger was implying anything in terms of race… or was she? Ack! Fuck it, I don’t ever wanna talk about Shakira’s hair ever again.
Playing “What If…?”
Here are some thoughts, unorganized, maybe inflammatory, but sincere and very much based on my own experience growing up.
I was reading this post on Racialicious on Excuse My Gangsta Ways, a documentary short about a young woman who was involved in gang life from the ages of 12 to 17 and her journey to transition out of that subculture and into being a “normal” person.
Oh, and the young woman, Davina Wan, happens to be Chinese-American, so for some reason I just looked at the picture and I really had to wonder if at one point in my life I could have been that girl in the picture.
To elaborate: when my family first moved to the US, one of the things my parents emphasized over and over and over to me and my brother was that we should be careful to make good friends. At this point in my life, I’m still struggling to be a good friend, but the people I’ve chosen and with whom I’ve connected have been, by and large, really positive and inspiring and fun friends. But for a short while there, my parents really worried about whether our adjustment to American life would be a success or a failure. They knew they had to work a lot and couldn’t necessarily guide our every decision the way they did when we were 2 years old.
One of my parents’ concerns was that my brother and I would end up in gangs. Of course anyone who has met me would LOL their hearts out, partly because I could pretty much get beat up by a fucking six-year-old but also because I’m not much of a “joiner.” I don’t blame y’all, it’s easy for me to chuckle about it too.
But I look at the picture of Wan and I’m like, well, she doesn’t seem like the type of girl who’d “attend 35 funerals before the age of 18.” This young woman joined her gang when she was 12! Can you imagine what sort of pressures led her there?
What my parents kept telling me about gangs is that they only pretend to be your friends, that it’s conditional love. For some people, the conditional love of a gang is better than no love, better than no stability. These gang members will tell you they’re gonna be your second family (or sometimes your only family), but ONLY if you succeed in your initiation. ONLY if you carry out whatever tasks the higher ups want you to do and ONLY if you don’t get out of line. And don’t even think about getting out, this shit is X VIDA. My parents would try to scare me straight with all sorts of stories: “You know what they have you do to join? They have everyone in the group beat the shit out of you until you’re barely breathing, and your face is unrecognizable,” and already being so sorry-looking, I was all like, “Erm… yeah, I’ma go back to reading my BSC books.”
Now, you’d think my parents would know me well enough to know that gang life was never gonna be a career move for me or my brother, but if things had unraveled the way they did in Davina Wan’s life, who knows what kind of shit trouble I would have gotten into.
I don’t know. I mean, in my case, the whole issue of growing up in one country and then having to transplant your entire life to another country where you don’t speak the language–that’s a huge deal. And I guess my parents thought that I’d look for a support group with people who looked like me. My parents knew that public school in the Bronx wasn’t gonna be easy-peasy, especially when you were the only Asian kid in the Spanish/English bilingual class. My parents had already heard of other immigrant families who had struggled to have their kids succeed.
Oddly enough, this led me, and I think my brother as well, to set ourselves apart from other immigrant Korean kids. A lot of them tended to run in groups, they would all fall in line and they all seemed to like the same music and all dress the same way and to me it was just such a joke. I couldn’t muster up the enthusiasm to pretend that I liked H.O.T. and S.E.S. and dye my fucking hair red and all that shit that was happening in the late 90s/early 00s. Most of these kids obviously end up fine, because they know there’s so much at stake to have your parents abandon their old lives just so you can have better opportunities. Most of these immigrant kids end up having pretty healthy interests and friendship circles, they join church groups or sports teams bands or, I don’t know, knitting groups. My brother and I fall into that category, but at the same time I think it was very necessary for us to set ourselves apart from other Korean-American kids because we thought that, even though most of these kids are good and not in violent gangs, there was still a group mentality that was stifling to me.
When you’re 12… It’s not even a strictly immigrant kid life narrative, though the immigration situation played a major part in my life story. But at 12, you just want to find a reliable group of friends and you’re looking to define who you are because if you don’t know who you are and what your interests are how are you gonna find friends who connect at your level and blah blah blah. A lot of times you’re not sure of who you are anymore so you wonder where you should turn. So sometimes the whole idealized concept of a gang, of protection and loyalty, can look real fucking alluring. I can see how shit can go really wrong in a kid’s life.
What am I trying to say? This is all so muddled, I’m sorry. Well, reading the Racialicious post, all I could think was, “Damn… I’m really lucky.” I doubt I might have ended up in a rough position like Davina Wan, but who knows if, at a particularly low point, I would have resigned myself to make a decision as drastic as joining a gang. I see how lucky I was, to have a stable home life with overworked but vigilant parents who really made me into a priority in their lives. I’m just acknowledging that I’m really grateful to my parents, that for every times I’ve bitched about them being overprotective, there’s way more times that I’ve felt thankful that they care about my safety and health and that they love me (unconditionally!). That’s a privilege that sadly not everyone gets, and I’m aware of that. C’est tout.
Oh wait, actually–I wrote all these words without even having seen the short. So obviously this is way less a commentary on the film or on Davina Wan’s life, and more about myself. I do want to see it on a big screen, it’s the sort of life narrative that you don’t hear about enough…
WFMU Record Fair 2009.
I went to the record fair today, a nice closing punctuation mark to CMJ. Not that I did anything CMJ-related this year, whereas I seriously waited all year long to go to the fair today. Thinking I’d learned my lesson last year, this time I decided to budget myself and also made a mental list of things I wanted: God Is For Real, Man, Del Shannon and Roy Orbison, and maybe some Carter Family shit.
So how did I end up dropping $40 on just two records? Obviously it’s not that much, but I was really hoping to find a shitload of beat up $5 records, so an average of $20 per record is a little much. I just entered the place and was immediately overwhelmed, as usual. After sweeping up and down the aisles, I decided there were definitely some things I wanted (and could afford, cos God knows how much shit I really really wanted and couldn’t pay for it).
I specifically want to bitch about this Ska Au Go Go album that I wanted. I saw it, noted in my mind to come back to it, and kept looking for other cool shit. (Leonard Nimoy reading HG Wells, anyone?) Anyway, when I finally finished making my round of all the exhibitors about 20 minutes later, I went back to the spot and looked all through the crate and… it wasn’t there! No–it was in the hands of some guy standing right next to me. So I kinda waited a couple of minutes to see if he was gonna let go of the record so I could swoop in on that shit. Alas, he held on to the LP pretty tightly. Damn you, dude!! Heh, just kidding. I understand how these things go: you snooze, you lose. That’s okay, I was mostly intrigued that there was a track called “I Should Have Known Better.” Well I just downloaded that shit, and indeed, it’s a cover of the Beatles song. Yeah, it’s pretty sweet. Sigh, if only that record was in my hands…
Well, the more expensive one is a double LP, which inconveniently doesn’t even come in a gatefold sleeve. It’s just a greatest hits called A Arte de Tim Maia. It’s hilarious, almost every song sounds fine except for “Não quero dinheiro,” which skips a bit. I imagine that whoever owned the record first played the shit out of that song, and who am I to blame them? My dad looked at the record and pointed out that title, to which I asserted, “THAT’S THE BEST SONG IN THE ENTIRE THING!!” even though this statement might not be true. Anyway, I felt kinda wack about having paid “so much” for the record when I’d gone into the Metropolitan Pavilion looking for deals, but by the time I got to side B of the second LP, I was just crying and crying from the thrill and the honor of getting to hear this seriously beautiful music. In conclusion, it was totally worth the money and I’m very happy with this find, even if it’s a minor Best Of.
The less expensive (but still kinda costly) record is a compilation of Chilean jazz from the first half of the 20th century. I haven’t listened to it and I’m kind of scared to. The seller had several records that seriously caught my eye, including a nice copy of a Joe Cuba Sextet record that cost less than the Chilean jazz one, but I wondered, “Which album is more likely to be here next year?” I understood that Chilean jazz ain’t as in demand over here as, say, bugalú, but at the same time it’s more rare to see a record of Chilean music at all, so I decided to go with it. Plus, the Chilean record is sealed! Do I dare open it? Of course! I can’t wait to see what treasures it contains.
I don’t know that my experience was wild as previous years–for some reason the whole affair seemed a bit more muted today, did I imagine it–but I still had a lot of fun. The best genres to check out were the kids’ albums. My friend and I found a Topo Gigio record!! He was da bomb.
I’ve been all right, just listening to a lot of this and that. One of my classmates burned me a copy of The Saturdays’ Chasing Lights, which is surprisingly excellent. So many of the songs could have been major singles, really! I’m smarting from the Sugababes breakup fiasco, so at least it’s nice to see that there’s a new generation of pop tarts bringing cute escapist ditties to the masses. They don’t write their own songs, but they do sing live!
Also, I’ve gone back to obsessing over Zoé. Mostly because I randomly developed a crush on Sergio, their guitarist? Mostly because I get the feeling that he’s one of those betas who could really be an alpha if he wanted, but he can’t be bothered because he already knows he’s fucking awesome and doesn’t need that validation? Regardless, I’ve been going through their old stuff and I’m loving it. I found an episode of Verdad y Fama on YouTube featuring the band and they pretty much verify that the band members, especially León, are pretty much fried out of their minds, not that it was too hard to tell.
Dude, watch that video! It’s not even their best song, but look at the way people are singing along. It’s a huge fucking crowd and they all know all the fucking words. It’s amazing. I love this band so much, I wish they’d come to NYC more often.
I’m finally looking forward to stuff, too, after a long funk of not caring about what was next. First, I can’t wait for the new Shakira, which seems like it’s becoming an unmarketable dud for her label. I can’t believe “She Wolf” hasn’t really taken off, “Loba” is doing pretty well on MTV Tr3s and I personally fucking love that song. Awooooo…!! The last English album of hers I bought was Laundry Service, which in hindsight I find a bit blah, but this single has me really excited and I’m totally gonna buy the new album. I also found out that Gustavo Cerati, god bless his Jewfro’d self, just released a new album and I can’t wait to track it down and listen to it. Not only that, Javiera Mena is finally gonna release her second full-length (about time!!) and apparently she did a song with Jens Lekman! Hope it turns out well. She’s also busy at the moment opening for Kings of Convenience, who also have a new album out and I’m trying to decide whether I want to hear it. My undying crush on Erlend tells me to do it, but half of the time I find their shit beautiful and the other half I find it boring.
Y’know what I mean?
Who’s Watching?
Last year I heard about Antonio Campos’s Afterschool and I thought it sounded lame. Like why would I care about angsty privileged teenagers desensitized by the technology that surrounds them blah blah blah. But now it’s in a theatrical run and the reviews are out, there’s been plenty of press… and they’ve been pretty damn positive. So it seriously caught my attention.
Impulsively, I went to the movie theater after work and bought myself a ticket even though I have a test tomorrow. It was my first time at Cinema Village. Can you imagine? I passed by the theater almost every week for four years (the school newspaper offices were across the street) and as much as I love movies I never fucking went in! I was also very curious by this Vulture post about Antonio Campos, which mentioned that he’d be willing to meet with audience members for coffee if they couldn’t make it to a screening with a Q&A. I just wasn’t sure if it was for real, but I can confirm that it’s actually true. Not sure if anyone has tried it out though. I’m gonna call him tomorrow and see if I can talk to him about the movie.
The movie was really good and I’m pretty sure I liked it, too. Maybe. I mean there were definitely uncomfortable scenes, like this one sequence where this kid talks shit about another kid’s sister and it’s just long and lewd and you’re just like, “Please, just put a bar of soap in this kid’s mouth so he’ll shut the fuck up” and all the other kids sitting around the lunch table are like trying to ignore the filthy kid and… I don’t know, I was just squirming.
The subject of the movie and the way it’s handled is pretty heavy, too. But I never felt bored, I was always wondering what was going to happen next. And there were a couple of familiar faces–Rosemarie DeWitt, who barely shows her face, and Michael Stuhlbarg, whose Hamlet did nothing for me at Shakespeare in the Park last year so it was pretty awesome to see that he’s actually a good actor when not doing drastically “interesting” interpretations of Shakespeare. (Wow, that last sentence makes me sound like a bitch… Sorry dude! Congrats on the Coen Bros. movie!)
Fuck, okay, my post is already too long. I want to dwell on the movie extensively but basically, the movie was cool and you should go see it and feel uncomfortable. Also, there was a Q&A after the screening I attended; Campos wasn’t there cos apparently he was too busy partying hard with Michael Haneke (heh), but he sent his producer Josh… Josh something. Unfortunately I didn’t catch his last name. Well, the sucky thing is that by the time he came to do the Q&A the credits were over and almost everyone was gone. The producer guy seemed kinda bummed. There were literally four of us with him in the theater, so we just had a heart-to-heart about art and inspiration and la-dee-da.
Okay, not really. But it was seriously fun and since the producer dude wouldn’t answer any questions about the content of the film (and believe me, I have plenty of questions about the story itself), I asked him a lot of questions about just the more business-y stuff. It was a nice Q&A, if only because it really felt more like a conversation. Some Q&As can be quite lame, but this one was pretty sweet.
Yes, I’m Around.
Been busy, clearly. Mostly classes, commuting to classes, work, a lot of TV, too. A lot! Quickly ran through all of True Blood, which I can assure is half a waste of time, with the other half being at turns tolerable, fun, and downright awesome, depending. Wish there was more consistency in quality, but then, not every show can be a highbrow masterpiece. As long as Alexander Skarsgård and Ryan Kwanten bring on the LOLs I’m satisfied with the show.
Been watching Mad Men (excellent!), Glee (needs to pick up a bit), and Flashforward (undecided). I tune into Project Runway when I remember but the season has been lackluster.
What other stuff has happened? Well, watched the Emmys and didn’t hate it, and I was particularly happy about Kristin Chenowith and Michael Emerson’s. Went to the Brooklyn Book Festival which was really fun, got to see Thurston Moore and Lupe Fiasco, among others, chatting about music and poetry and it was way more interesting and enlightening than I expected. Also saw Jonathan Lethem and Mary Gaitskill have a heart-to-heart and that was great, too. Why am I not shocked to find that Gaitskill likes Natsuo Kirino? Got to see Wallace Shawn up close (very exciting!!) and I also saw some nut hassling Chuck Schumer as he got into a car–seriously! It was so unexpected, too.
Yesterday I had a pretty nutty day. After finding out that the Angelika was no longer showing The Baader Meinhof Complex because it was devoting 2 of its theaters to Coco Before Chanel and 3 theaters to the new Michael Moore (with the last theater left for the new Clive Owen movie that no one is gonna watch), my friend and I decided to watch Bright Star which turned out to be an excellent decision. As far as chick flicks go, this was pretty sublime–definitely no Love Happens. When I came out of the movie theater I just “liked” it but the more I think about it, my memory of the movie gets fonder. Heh. Though I have to say, the movie is set in an era where they don’t have the concept of sanitation that we do, so I was really horrified to see John Keats coughing all over his lady. Yikes. But the two leads were great, as was the guy who played Keats’s BFF Brown. They were really fun when they weren’t being intense, makes me wish I’d been friends with all of them. There were these kids in the movie, too, but they weren’t annoying so that was a plus. I found the music and sound to be really well utilized. I enjoyed the film a lot, and I kinda want to see it again.
As if that wasn’t depressing enough of a spectacle, I went to see Hamlet after that. I showed up at the box office 2.5 hours after it opened and I was nervous they’d be out of student tickets, but I got one no problem. Mind you, this was the farthest seat I’ve gotten in a while (I was in the mezz), but still, I got my ticket with no fuss. The play was looooong. But generally very good! I liked Jude Law a lot and it was nice to see him acting instead of, er, y’know, cheating on assorted significant others. Just sayin’.
I found myself comparing a lot to the one other version of the play I saw at Shakespeare in the Park last year. Even though I was tired during both plays, this one succeeded in keeping my attention. It was a more straightforward version of the play, too, at the park they had “interesting” interpretations of the work. Here, it was more traditional but executed deftly and with confidence. The actors were generally good, they used the stage well. There was a lot of laughter, too, and not because the production was laughable but because the cues were right. Like I was surprised by how funny Jude Law was, I haven’t seen him in a lot of stuff to be honest.
A lot of the directorial choices made a difference, too. Like at one point, Hamlet’s uncle is confessing his crimes and Hamlet is ready to stick the dagger into the sorry motherfucker, but Hamlet stops himself. The way the two of them were lit, it created this huge shadow against the set that made Hamlet’s actions way more menacing, it was so cool to watch.
Up in the mezz everyone gave a standing ovation… except me. I thought it was solid, but not ovation worthy. I clapped really hard, though! And I kinda do want to see it again, even though it was super-long. But was I moved so intensely that it shook me to my core? Nah. And so I didn’t stand up and cheer.
Body count in Bright Star: 2. Body count in Hamlet: 6, I think, and that’s not counting Hamlet’s daddy, neither. Total “deaths” witnessed yesterday: 8. Man, maybe I’ll end up watching something frivolous like Love Happens after all. Just kidding.
In general I thought the Broadhurst Theatre, which is housing Hamlet at the moment, is pretty wack. I understand that managing crowds is hard but those usher were seriously tough cookies. They had these lights they would shine on rule-breakers, which they wielded as a shaming device. I was pretty mortified and scared to do anything other than to sit in my seriously tight seat. There was absolutely no leg room. At least the bathroom had a lot of stalls. But really not my favorite theater experience.
I’ve been missing a lot of music. My fauxpod died and there are no AA batteries in the house so I can’t listen to my CD player either. I’ve been listening to my regular stereo which is okay but, well, not portable. I “discovered” the Flaming Lips. I read Jim DeRogatis’s bio on them, and it wasn’t that fascinating until I saw a picture of Dave Fridmann when he was younger and I thought he was the cutest guy ever… and obviously that lead me to buy The Soft Bulletin? Okay, my purchase was irrational but still totally worth it. Also been listening to Adele’s 19 and The Eraser, both of which I love for very different reasons. I don’t know, there’s a growing hole in the part of my life that is composed of music, and it’s dragging me down. Gotta get back into it.
Read On.
Finally! The Brooklyn Book Festival site updated and now the events schedule is up. Click here. I was mad that they were taking so long to organize themselves, which I understand is harsh because when you’re organizing such a huge event and not able to pay any of the people you want to appear, it must be extremely hard to confirm all the invited authors. Anyway, they’ve come up with good stuff. Since the next NY Comic-Con is really far away, they’re gonna have a few events at the book fest. I’m also excited about seeing Thurston Moore again! And hey, unlike the New Yorker Festival, which is also gonna have cool peeps like James Franco and Rachel Maddow speak (so I gather), the Brooklyn Book Festival is completely free… So all in all, although I was irritated and antsy waiting to see what they’d come up with, I’m very excited about September 13.
Tick tick… BOOM!
Fuck, I totally forgot to write about Voy a explotar, which I saw at the Walter Reade a couple of weeks ago. The director, Gerardo Naranjo, was there and he did a Q&A with Richard Peña. Although I forgot to post about the movie, I was definitely left with a strong aftertaste for this movie, and it took me a long time to decide whether this aftertaste was good or bad. I think the fact that it left such a mark on me is a great thing, but the narrative arc definitely bothered me.
But I can’t discuss it without spoiling it, yeah? So go away if you don’t want to know all the details; I definitely recommend you watch the movie and then come back.
Well, in the story we have Maru and Román. They’re teenagers, with all the crazy hormones that come with being one. They’re full of angst and lack of direction and plenty of time in their hands. Román has pulled plenty of pranks and gotten kicked out of plenty of schools, and his father’s pretty fed up with it. When Román and Maru decide to “run away,” Román’s father, a conservative politician, isn’t very concerned because this sort of shit has happened before, but Maru’s mom is definitely more freaked out about it. This gave me the sense that Maru, although bored of going through the motions of being in high school and being a regular girl, she doesn’t really transgress significantly until she finds Román and he’s this sort of catalyst for her to finally act out.
So they “run away,” which is only a pretension. What they really do is get camping equipment and pitch a tent right on the roof of Román’s house. In a land full of abductors looking to make a quick buck out of rich kids, these two kids are pretty safe. They even enter the house while their families go out during the daytime to go searching for the kids, and the two have plenty of fun. But of course, there’s this recurring thread of memento mori throughout the film. The sense of nihilistic doom is palpable from the beginning.
Part of this is the question of how strong Román and Maru’s bond is. Like with Romeo and Juliet, you have to wonder if it their connection is exclusively lust-driven, or if they really understand each other in a way to which the viewer isn’t privy. And hey, they ain’t exactly explaining themselves eloquently in iambic pentameter (o en endecasílabos o versos alejandrinos o lo que sea). Even Maru really wonders, and asks Román several times how he feels about her, until he finally answers in a somewhat silly way, “Te aaaaamo. Te. A. Mo.” He does look at her when he says it, so part of me feels like maybe he was sincere. Part of me worries that he may have felt pressured to say the L word to her, but he also seems to have a hard time articulating his feelings about anything, so the fact that he admitted his love indicates that maybe it was real for him. Because of instances such as this, he remained a bit of a mystery to me.
We do get glimpses of their inner thoughts in the form of voiceovers. Maru keeps a journal, and she writes to a close friend who lives in DF. We hear her thoughts and she shows quite a bit of self-reflection. Most of the voiceovers come from her perspective. Román only has one voiceover and it happens in the beginning of the film. It’s meant to be some sort of suicide/confession letter, but it quickly becomes clear that he’s just acting out. It’s performance art, words carefully chosen for full dramatic effect, and his actions, well, they get him sacked from school. Sure, flinging around a firearm at your school teachers doesn’t help either, but that’s only part of the act. It’s just severe enough for the school to take action and for him to get out of a place he hates, but it’s hard to tell how serious he is about shooting anyone. Mostly it just sets this idea in us that he’s got a thing for guns. Whatever he reveals in his voiceover is some sort of sinister farce, and we don’t get to the core of who Román is.
Maybe he’s hollow.
I am going to tell you what happens at the end. Shit hits fan, et cetera, Maru is accidentally shot with Román’s gun and lands herself in the hospital, and Román, well, he ends up in another sort of hospital altogether. Maru’s friends come visit her, but she doesn’t care, she’s still thinking about him. So even though she’s still severely wounded, she runs away from the hospital to reach their predesignated hiding place. Román runs away from the loony bin, too, and goes to the hiding place as well. But the journey for Maru is too taxing, and as we see her become paler and paler we see that her wound is basically chorreando blood, right? The two kids do meet up, but by then it’s too late, she’s dies in his arms, and you see him freaking out, which really cemented that he felt something deep for her PEEEEERO…
Here’s the thing. During the entire movie, I thought that the casualty was going to be Román. I was just waiting for him to off himself, exasperated with this world. In fact, I feel like if the movie had run a bit longer, I’m positive he would he would have reached his real breaking point and experienced the full effect of Maru’s death on the boy. I think he really would have committed suicide.
That was it. That’s what bothered me. It’s not so much that I wanted Román to die; rather, I was bothered by the fact that Maru did die. Because to me it just became another instance of a girl stepping out of her place and being punished for her actions and for hanging with the wrong person. Claro que (sobre)vivir también es una forma de castigo, but since I’m so sure that Román would have killed himself regardless (whether it was during or after the length of the film), I felt very sore that we had to lose Maru.
Why care so much about Maru? One, I felt misguided since most of the voiceovers are in her POV. The self-reflection she shows reveals that she is reaching out for something more. Two, she reaches out to her family and her friends when she and Román “run away.” She leaves her mom and her sister a video, apologizing and showing them that she’s okay. When things get rocky, she makes a pit stop at a friend’s house, and her group of girl friends gather and support her. Maru has a lot more to lose, she has people who care about her, unlike Román’s father, and I think as the movie moves along, she realizes this. It’s true that in those final scenes she chooses Román, but there are also instances when we see her awareness that the world doesn’t just revolve around her. That’s why I see her death as a punishment, because I could sense some growth and potential for redemption in her. To a lesser degree, too, I felt she was being punished for taking action and choosing to do something bad like running away, being with a bad guy, and (ahem) having sex with him. Man, it’s not like she was easy about it either, shouldn’t she have gotten bonus points for making him wait before having sex with him? Or is it that any girl who has sex has to end up bleeding to death? To see her life cut short without having the chance to change and mature… after the credits rolled all I wanted to do was grab Gerardo Naranjo by the collar and scream at him, “¡NO ES JUSTO!” Bah!
Actually, the Q&A was really great, though I think it would have been better to hear him in Spanish. He could speak English very well, but I got the sense that I was missing some of the complexity of his answers and he’d be way more eloquent in his native language. He spoke of how he had major issues with authority as a kid, so he got kicked out of quite a few schools himself.
He also spoke of how this movie was mostly improvised, with the kids especially just using slang with which Naranjo isn’t familiar, since he’s a bit older. I was surprised by the overusage of the term “mamar” (in all sorts of ways) and the relative lack of “chingar,” which I always thought was apex of foul language in Mexican. But what the hell do I know!
I think the statement I found most interesting was when he said that there seems to be a void in Mexican cinema that needs to be filled. The best known Mexican directors at the moment are Alfonso Cuarón, Guillermo del Toro, and Alejandro González Iñárritu, but that all three of them haven’t worked in Mexico for a long time. Naranjo mentioned that there are some directors like himself who are trying to keep their artistic integrity and to challenge themselves, and he mentioned others such as Plá and Reygadas, but that these newer directors are having difficulty getting recognition within their country because their works aren’t the most people-friendly and/or pandering to the lower common denominator. There are a lot of issues with funding and shit because of that. But at the very least, some of the more outstanding artists get a chance to shop around their films internationally and maybe even get a small run at the Film Society at Lincoln Center, right?
The Bacchae @ Delacorte Theater (Shakespeare in the Park).
Almost forgot that The Bacchae is opening that the Delacorte. I went to see it on August 15, and although I worried that maybe it was too early in previews to get the fullest sense of the production, the production was slick and fully formed when I saw it. Unfortunately, it left me quite unmoved.
I’ve never actually seen a Greek tragedy on stage, I’ve only encountered a couple on the page. My knowledge of theatrical conventions is very limited. And the story? I had no clue. Except not quite–I read some press before I went to see the show, and realized the storyline was similar to one in Sandman. In the comic, however, the Bacchae only appear briefly in a retelling of the Orpheus myth. The bloody ending is pretty much the same, though. Regardless, I just want to point out that this is further proof that Sandman is much more complex and sophisticated than the average civilian is willing to admit.
But back to the production. The stage structure was kinda cool, there were these risers, staggered, so that this structure mirrored the seats in which the audience sat. In a lot of scenes we could see the supporting players sitting there, listening in to whoever had the floor and reacting silently to what they heard. There were a lot of instances when the actors would run up and down these risers, and, being the asshole that I am, I kinda wish I’d gone on a rainier day, because the entire night I was just waiting for someone to fall. I’m not even sure why, I guess I thought it would bring more excitement than whatever was happening on stage, you know?
The narrative, I was disappointed to realize, was just that: a lot of telling and not showing. And I had to accept that those were the conventions of the day, that this, being a violent tale, would have all this violence happen off-stage. Oddly enough, I compared notes with a coworker who hated the play, and she said the opposite, that they’d showed too much. I think what she meant to say is that the show lacked in subtlety and just banging it over our heads.
It wasn’t just the telling-and-not-showing that bothered me. There were several people on stage, and I couldn’t fucking tell you who these people were. So not getting a true sense of who they were, how could I feel closer to them and feel their pain? It was such a mystery to me. Was something lost in translation? Is Euripides a hack? Or maybe the production didn’t do justice to the source material.
I liked the music a lot. It was a surprise to me. I’ve seen Philip Glass before, but I have no grasp of what I heard the first time around. I don’t know if I hated it or what, but the fact that I don’t remember much of it can’t be good. I found the music here more memorable, though some of the chorus’s lines were delivered in a goofy manner. But as background music I thought it had good momentum. It was probably the best part of a lukewarm show. I also want to point out that the chorus wasn’t awful; I liked their costumes, which were in a really popping orange, and I liked how they executed the choreography.
I don’t know that most of the directorial choices were the wisest, though. Like I really looked forward to my first time seeing Jonathan Groff on stage, and it was just… I’m just going to pretend that he’s a good actor and that I didn’t see him in the right thing. I was actually impressed by how he managed to prolong his evil laugh, but it was a very obviously broad evil laugh, which only made me think that he’s too nice. Unless it’s that he’s incapable of doing something more subtle and sinister, for the moment I’m going to blame the director. Darn you, JoAnne Akalaitsis!
Oh, and unlike what happened in Hamlet last year, the use of fake blood here was disappointing and silly.
Time to go to sleep, sorry if this post was overly crabby, just thinking about the time and money that went into this less-than-stellar production upsets me.
A Long Walk on the Beach.
Last year, after a screening debacle downtown at the Quad, the management gave me a free movie pass to appease me. The pass was good for a year and just as it was about to expire, I finally found a movie that I wanted to see. I mean, I tried using the pass at the Hola Mexico event for Desierto adentro, but since they wouldn’t let me redeem it, I used it last week to see Les plages d’Agnès. It was a movie by Agnès Varda reflecting on her life. I don’t know anything about Varda but I remember hearing about this specific movie a little while ago and being absolutely charmed and entranced by the trailer.
Of course I really hoped the movie would live up to the awesomeness displayed on the trailer, and I’m happy that it’s pretty much what I expected. I must mention it was my third time at the Quad, and this was by far the most crowded screening I’ve attended at the theater, partly because it’s been well-reviewed and partly because I went on a date night.
I don’t know how other people feel about biographical films but I liked that this work, though loosely chronological, still had these sort of tangents and pauses that made it feel far more organic than the typical Humble Beginnings-Rise to the Top-Reflections on the Good Ol’ Days narrative arc that biographical works tend to have. There were a lot of moments to experience rather than being told by this or that talking head about a memory or having this or that individual reenacting some past event. I also liked that she acknowledged the role of memory in the making of the film.
Even though it was clear that Varda was posing one reading of her life for the cameras, it still felt authentic and honest. It may have a lot to do with the fact that she got to tell her story her own damn way, thankyouverymuch. I found that very inspiring and empowering, like when she stated that one of the reasons she had to quit her Hollywood aspirations was because the studios wouldn’t give her final cut. It’s just that how many women artists do you know who forge their own paths for most of their life and then get to tell you about this life on their own terms? Refreshing. If only more women were given the chance to do the same.
I think one of the greatest charms of the movie was just seeing the incongruent image of the older Varda and seeing bits and pieces of her photography and film work. In her work I detected a real independent spirit, a bit of a punkass. But seeing her at 80 year old, her hair haphazardly dyed, wrinkles on her face… and hearing her speaking softly about Jacques Demy, the love of her life, and how she loves her children and grandchildren, you think, maybe that’s all a person wants and needs in life. To have children, and to care for them and love them, and to see them grow and fluorish into their own selves, and all of one’s achievements don’t seem as important and crucial as much as spending your life loving and being loved.
She didn’t even seem very keen on discussing the French New Wave as much as talking about her friends and family, some of whom just happen to be famous.
It was a very sweet movie, and fun, too. But thinking about it leaves me melancholy, too. I was in a room full of old people–I guess all the young’uns went to see 500 Days of Summer or something? Maybe I’m going absolutely batty, but watching Varda on the screen reflecting on eight decades of life, I could kinda feel this… I don’t know that I’d call it tension, but they were really really quiet, as if wondering about their own lives and how they’d choose to tell their stories. Like that one time I went to see Julia Cho’s The Piano Teacher at the Vineyard theater, here I also felt like the mood just changed into something deeper and more personal as the film went on.
Pure speculation. Or maybe not.
Teacher Man.
Oh my god. Frank McCourt actually died. I’d recently read he was really ill, but I didn’t expect him to die so soon.
Angela’s Ashes actually had a huge impact on me as a kid. I read it in middle school, and it was one of the first “grown up” books I read. I also hadn’t mastered English completely, so it was a huge thrill to know that I could read and follow a book that didn’t even use quotation marks for the dialogue. It was as if McCourt was committing a sin, and that I was in on the joke. I haven’t reread the book in years and years, but I still have very fond memories of reading it.
(Of course as I’ve grown up I’ve encountered plenty of books that don’t denote dialogue with quotations or emdashes, but Angela’s Ashes was the first.)
I remember going to a Korean cram school, a rival to the one I eventually ended up attending, and seeing his picture up on the wall. Mind you, there was no caption on the picture stating that this was Frank McCourt, Famous Memoirist of Angela’s Ashes. But believe me, I knew it was him. It didn’t surprise me at all to see a picture of him teaching at a cram school.
Calle 13, Bomba Estéreo + Eric Bobo @ Central Park SummerStage.
Yesterday I went to SummerStage to see Calle 13. It wasn’t as crazy as I expected in terms of the crowd. Maybe it’s because they played for free just a few years ago, but I feel like it took a while for the place to be packed with people. When I got there the doors weren’t even open, and I didn’t want to bum around for two hours in the sun, so I actually left the park and cooled off in a bookstore for a while.
When I returned, although the venue wasn’t packed, it was crowded enough that I didn’t want to push my way to the front. I decided to watch just a couple of yards away from the bleacher seats, right behind a barricade. This means I really couldn’t see anyone on stage, really.
The first act was Eric Bobo, son of Willie Bobo. He played percussion along with a DJ. It was okay. The DJ played pretty much all the famous old school breakbeats ever, except no one declared that there was no problem they couldn’t fix since they could do it in the mix. Eric Bobo performed well, but I thought the set was better suited for a club.
Bomba Estéreo fared better than Bobo, for a number of reasons. This is a band, so that there was more happening on stage. The music itself was better, too, more hooky, with more momentum, plus the arrangements were a lot more dynamic. Eric Bobo was limited to his percussion, and although he pulled out all his tricks, at the end of the day, I feel that it didn’t compare.
Bomba Estéreo played a similar set to the one at the Bowery, full of energy and great stage presence. They also go to try some more songs, since the Bowery set was pretty short. I wasn’t sure how well they’d sound in an outside, daytime show, but they were excellent again. I didn’t know how well the rest of the audience would respond, since I myself had no clue who they were just five days ago and I imagined most of the crowd was the same. But people really took to them. The band got the crowd’s attention and the crowd obliged them with plenty of attention, and I found that really impressive. Hope they make it big, whatever “big” means nowadays.
When Calle 13 took the stage, the audience was plenty hyped up. It was pretty overwhelming. I just don’t have enough people to talk to about this kind of music. Not in real life, anyway. It gets lonely. So it was incredible to see thousands of people roaring approvingly at the band. I was feeling the triskaidekaphilia, y’all, haha.
That’s what was really great, too, there was a huge band. Rhythm section, horns, the works. It made me realize how well the music lends itself to a live setting. The sounds just took over and my body could only respond by dancing. It was amazing.
Residente was pretty awesome, really funny and really appreciative of the audience, though with mad attitude, too. That’s one thing I gotta give him, I think his rhymes are kinda lame sometimes, but he’s a great performer. I couldn’t really see Visitante though at one point I saw him playing the accordion and I was just filled with glee. I’m sure René contributes, but I still consider the music to be Eduardo’s domain, and I’m constantly amazed by some of the sounds with which he comes up. (Sorry for switching in their real names; for some reason I don’t think of them by their stage names!)
Not gonna lie, one of the biggest thrills for me was hearing their little sister Ileana singing live, even if she looked like a pulguita from where I was standing. I just think she’s incredibly talented. Are you pumped for her solo stuff? Cos I am. I mean, I’ve pretty much come to the conclusion that “Hormiga Brava” is my favorite Calle 13 song, but I didn’t expect them to play it because it was never a single or anything. They went through all their hits and I loved every moment. But then they DID play “Hormiga Brava” and I almost fainted from how beautiful it was. I felt like they were playing it just for me, you know? Sigh.
They finished the set with “Atrévete-te-te” and everyone went batshit crazy and the band left so everyone was clamoring “¡Otra! ¡Otra!” and obviously we were all being silly because the concert was planned so that there would be enough time for an encore but we all got into shouting for them to come back anyway and when they did we was all cheering so loud and then, and then, and then! I could kinda see them all lining up in a row together, and “Thriller” started playing and they started doing the zombie dance and everyone was like, “AHHH!!!!!” cos it was awesomesauce. They did play an encore (“Electro movimiento,” yeah!) but that MJ mini-tribute pretty much took the cake.
I think I can die a little bit happier now.
Aubele, Niña Dioz, Bomba Estéreo, RH+ y la Lafourcade @ Bowery Ballroom, 7/9.
Qué onda, I have to keep this short. Long story, but obviously don’t have a chance to do my usual let’s-make-the-post-as-long-as-possible thing.
Okay, last night I went to the Bowery for the LAMC showcase, mostly to see the most lovely Natalia Lafourcade. I actually sat at a table in the upstairs section for a bit, but I learned my lesson: the best way to go is to be out on the floor. I had a pretty sweet time. There were a lot of acts so here are a few words about each of them.
First off was Federico Aubele, hailing from Argentina, and I was surprised because I thought he had a bigger following. Unlike all the other artists (aside from Natalia) he was the only one with whom I was familiar. I hadn’t been impressed by the stuff I’d heard before, but I was pleasantly surprised by his brief set. I’m definitely going to revisit his recorded stuff.
Second was Monterrey’s Niña Dioz, and I swear to god, I was tickled by her presence. I just didn’t expect her and her sound… she mostly reminded me of Lady Sovereign, mostly cos she was tiny, too. Wow, I was just shocked that she was rapping for real, but I still couldn’t help that just last year (it was just last year, right??) La Mala Rodríguez was kicking LAMC ass. Niña Dioz was an oddity, but after two songs I got over it.
Next was Bomba Estéreo, from Colombia. By this point I saw the floor filling up and I decided to join in because I wanted to be right up front for Natalia. Bomba Estéreo were EXCELLENT. I knew nothing about them but the lead singer girl just comes out and she’s like, “¡¡CUUUUUMBIAAAAA!!” And you can imagine what came next. Or not! She wasn’t joking about their sound as “psychedelic cumbia.” The only thing that sucked is that they got too into their music, so that they would just draw out the psychedelic sounds to the point that it tested my patience and also felt kinda masturbatory in their part. Obviously it would have been fine if they’d been headlining but c’mon, son! If their music hadn’t rocked and if they hadn’t had such a punkass attitude I would have jumped on stage and punched them into silence.
I’m pretty sure Hector Buitrago was there!!! I love him. It’s too bad I missed him tonight at Celebrate Brooklyn. I saw him pop up at the venue when Bomba Estéreo came on.
After that was Chile’s RH+, who were okay. That’s all. Of all the musicians, I think they were the oldest, either late 20s or early 30s. (At least that was my perception.) I don’t know, man. I just couldn’t believe they came all the way from Chile when there are plenty of bands with their sound right here in the city. Underwhelming, though confident and well-rehearsed.
AND THEN: Natalia. And two band members, one who was on synth and xylophone and backup vocals, and also a drummer. Natalia was so beautiful and er, Lilliputian. Como una muñeca de porcelana, pero no como las extrañas que me dan heebie-jeebies. She was so full of joy, every statement she made was pretty much followed with a giggle. Her thank yous were so sincere and she genuinely seemed to want everyone to just love her new material.
I think bands like Grizzly Bear would just seethe with jealousy if they heard her music. They would go into a small room and weep to themselves, “Why didn’t I think of that melody first??” Her music is a refreshing pop delight, and I think I left the venue with cavities she was so damn sweet. I can’t fucking wait to hear the new album and I hope she comes back to the city real soon. The music was so uplifting.
I just want to say that her bandmates were right on. It wasn’t just that they were competent and focused in doing a good job, or that they were happy to be there. It was more like, they were so ecstatic to be with Natalia and when she played a couple of songs alone, they would bop their heads and mouth along to the lyrics–they clearly LOVE the new songs. It was so great. Especially the drummer, I loved him so much! He was this flaco who looked like a mouse and you could tell that he’s one of those dudes who drums because he can’t mofuckin’ sit still. Even during the songs when he wasn’t drumming his ass off, he was just swaying along happily.
After their set was one more artist, León Polar. Unfortunately, it was already past 1 am by the time Natalia finished, so I couldn’t stay. (In fact, I got home at around 2:40.) As Natalia and her buds cleared their way, I waved to her drummer “¡OYE!” and when he noticed me I asked, “¿Me puedes dar el setlist?” He was kind enough to do so, and even though I said gracias, I kinda didn’t get to say it loudly enough, and there were other concertgoers behind me clamoring for a setlist, too, so he was distracted and didn’t hear me. I wish I’d had a chance to ask him his name, so I could thank him appropriately. Oh wells.
I don’t have a scanner or whatever unfortch, but here is what the setlist says:
Bowery Ballroom
Natalia L
Cursis Melodías
Ella es Bonita
No Viniste
Hu Hu Hu
Azul
-o-
Casa
I will say, however, I don’t think they followed the order quite as it was. They definitely did NOT play “Casa,” probably because they were running out of time and they were too nice to be like, “I don’t care, I’ma do what I want!” Ah well. La próxima vez, right?
BTW! I thought I saw Jon Pareles at the show, but it was from a distance so I wasn’t sure. Turns out I was right! Do I get points for being geeky enough to recognize him? No? Boo.
Jesus, my post still turned out in epic length. I’m so sorry.
I’m Not Ready to Give Up.
Um, it’s Independence Day and I’m home. My parents are already asleep. They both worked today. I have my window open and I can hear people in a nearby house partying. I’m six floors up, but it’s impressive how well I can hear them. If I looked out I could probably see them, even. Well, in recent days I’ve been bumming around reading blogs and there’s been a lot of (fabricated) buzz about how reggaetón is dead. I don’t know about that. The people partying were just blasting “Lo que pasó pasó,” and I found myself singing along to it–and hilariously enough, I could hear people trying to shout along to Daddy Yankee. I could even hear them tripping along to the lyrics, since Daddy Yankee has that rat-tat-tat delivery style. Sure, it’s an older song, but the enthusiasm for the track is still there.
Ooh, they’re listening to a remix of “Qué tengo que hacer” now.
Anyway, I wouldn’t be so worried about reggaetón being dead. I don’t get where this is coming from, or why we’re worrying so much about it agora. It’s true that the sound of reggaetón has changed, it’s even more club ready, yeah? More synth-happy, less reliant on the dembow beat, and so on. But it’s like, don’t you want your favorite genres to grow and develop? I sure as hell don’t want my favorite musicians to get lazy and for their music to become stagnant. Like, I can’t wait to see 10 years from now how much the genre has changed. This is a great time for reggaetón: the novelty is over for the masses, but that is just invitation for innovation, don’t you think?
I think the weird thing, too, is that calling a music genre “dead” just invites nostalgia. See, the problem with nostalgia is that a set of people will grab onto this genre and proclaim that it can only sound “pure” if musicians stick to a set of rules. If people make reggaetón-by-the-numbers (FruityLoops, anyone?), it barely leaves room for creativity. And maybe less brave musicians will settle for this, probably at the suggestion of their label peeps or whatever, but you know that only the ones who expand on the sound will really shine.
Anyway, I guess this is my quite unfortunate semi-response to the following folks: W&W, Unfashionably Late, Marisol LeBrón, Raquel Rivera, and Racialicious. Clearly these posts dwell on all sorts of aspects in regard to the demise of reggaetón, and I haven’t really responded adequately to any of them in any sort of timely manner (then again, no one asked me to). But I do recommend that y’all read these posts if you haven’t already. Really thought-provoking, and I feel like they bring up questions relevant to all genres of popular music, not just reggaetón.
Aw, the music is being drowned out by all the (illegal) firecrackers. Okay, off to my continued non-celebration of my nation. Hope y’all have a good weekend.
Hola Mexico Film Fest: Desierto Adentro (Rodrigo Plá) @ Quad Cinema.
Well, the Hola Mexico Film Festival ended today. I almost forgot about it, just as I pretty much forgot about TeatroStageFest this year. Seriously, I’ve just been so out of it. I feel really bad about missing the TeatroStageFest events, too, cos a couple of weeks ago I even got a call from one of their peeps reminding me about the shows. But of course at that point I was like, “Meh, there’s still time to figure out my schedule,” and of course just last night I was like, “Holy shiiiiit.”
Luckily, I remembered to attend the Hola Mexico fest. I was torn between watching Voy a explotar (I’m Gonna Explode) or Desierto adentro (The Desert Within). A while back I read about the former on Super45, and the soundtrack listing excited me, but the storyline seemed kinda boring. I was interested in the latter because it was directed by Rodrigo Plá. Last year I saw La zona, which he also directed, which was quite memorable, if not exactly perfect. If you couldn’t tell by the title for this post, I ultimately decided on checking out Plá’s new one.
This movie wasn’t perfect either, but as it happened with La zona, it’s given me a lot to think about. Both works are lacking in hope and infuriating, which I see as a good thing.
On a superficial level, Desierto adentro could not be more different from La zona, which makes me appreciate Plá’s willingness to try different things. Whereas La zona is wrapped up in modernity, the urban and the secular, Desierto adentro is steeped in the olden days, the rural and in Catholicism. La zona, too, focuses on a close-knit community that chooses to close itself off from the corruptions of the greater society, whereas in the newer film, isolation is imposed upon the individual, and it’s never voluntary; rather, it’s meant to be experienced as a punishment.
The story is broken into four clearly marked acts, and we get cues to the main theme of each section. We meet Elías, whose choices lead to a series of events that lead him to be cursed out by a priest and disowned by his mother. A deeply religious family man, Elías understandably takes this very badly. Even worse, he loses his wife and one of his sons, Aureliano–and this is only the beginning of his troubles. (BTW, Cien años de soledad vibes, anyone? Aureliano is not a name I hear thrown around very often…)
The rest of the movie we see Elías trying to show penance for his errors, growing increasingly desperate as time passes, but what complicates things even more is that his 7 children suffer right along with him… some more than others.
We experience most of these events through the eyes of Elías’s son, Aureliano. No, not the Aureliano who dies. See, Elías’s wife was pregnant, and she died giving birth to a boy. To honor the memory of Aureliano, the baby is named after his brother. Elías sets Baby Aureliano (literally) apart from the other six surviving children, nurturing an artistic side. Some scenes feature animated versions of the pictures Baby Aureliano draws. To a degree, Baby Aureliano thrives and finds comfort in this, but he soon comes to understand that Elías’s excuses of wanting to protect Baby Aureliano are rooted in more complex and sinister motives.
I’m sorry, I want to keep talking about it but I’m really tired and I need to work tomorrow. I’ll try to edit it and update it mañana, maybe. :( Before I go to sleep, I want to mention the music in this movie, which was used to great effect. We only hear music intermittently, which makes it more conspicuous when it does appear. It just shows up on occasion, a naked chorus of voices, no accompaniment. It’s so creepy.
What’s Left to Say?
So odd, just a few days ago, I was checking out Ta-Nehisi Coates’s (excellent) blog, where he wrote some posts on Michael Jackson. Inspired, I went on a YouTube binge checking out his old videos.
The sad thing about hearing of Michael Jackson’s death is that not even a minute after finding out, all I want to do is make a shitload of jokes about it. I mean, it’s been so long since anyone has taken him seriously, you know? So it’s kind of hard to remind myself that here was this really influential, talented musician under all the weirdness. I’m trying my hardest not to make fun of him though, because frankly, he had a huge impact in popular culture. He made some fine music.
He was very successful and became very very wealthy, yes, but he didn’t have the easiest life. So all I hope is that he is at peace. Hope his kids are okay, too. Ugh, I’m not looking forward to the tabloids going crazy over this.
Shit, Michael Jackson and Farrah Fawcett in one fucking day, this is so crazy. I know you’re going to tell me people are dying every minute, but you’ll have to excuse me, my mind is totally blown right now.
Twelfth Night @ Delacorte Theater (Shakespeare in the Park).
[EDIT July 6: I am getting several hits from people wondering how early to line up for the show. My coworker's girlfriend had Friday July 3 off so she decided to try for a ticket. She lined up around 6:30, but apparently, about 100 people showed up around the same time... she did NOT get tickets. Since this is the final week, you're probably going to have a pretty tough time. I'm speculating that Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, being workdays, won't be as bad, and that Friday, Saturday and Sunday will be particularly difficult. I'll leave you to decide when to show up. I wish you the best of luck!]
For weeks I’d been planning on going to see Twelfth Night at Shakespeare in the Park on June 18, because it was a week day I had off and before the reviews came out, so I figured the lines wouldn’t be as bad. But when I woke up on Thursday, the weather was just drab. Rainy all day. I watched some of The View; Anne Hathaway was on and all I could think was “Damn… I guess today’s a bad day to go.”
But as the hours passed I kept checking the weather, and by 5 pm I noticed that by 8 pm, there would “only” be 50 or 60% chance of precipitation. So even though I’d spent all day resigned with not being able to go, I decided that a little rain was not enough to keep me away. In fact, I imagined that plenty of people would be hesitant to go to an outdoor theater on a rainy night, so I decided to take my chances and see if I could get a ticket.
Well, the girl at the box office gave me my ticket and all I could do was throw my fist in the air and cry ALLAHU AKBAR! Why? Because my ticket was in section C, row CC: front row, in the best section of the theater. Although it’s sucky to go to the theater alone, the fact is that it’s more likely you’ll get a better seat. I just didn’t expect it to be that good!
I went off and grabbed me some dinner, and then I came back for the show. They opened the doors a bit late, and the show itself started past 8 (not unusual). The theater was about half empty, and I’d guess that a good number of the people there were (1) people who are familiar with the rain policy at the Delacorte Theater, (2) people who, like me, made sure the weather cleared out before they got a last minute ticket. As I waited for the show to start, two thoughts ran through my head. The first was, “Shit, I hope the production doesn’t suck,” and the second was “Muthafuck, I hope this doesn’t turn into some participatory production.” That’s what freaks me out about first row, that maybe an actor will try to interact with you and shit. That just sent me into a panic.
On the first count, I can confirm that the production was good, a solid B. I feel like it was time well spent, and I felt a pang of sadness I didn’t have anyone to share the experience. I’d say the entire cast was pretty good, committed, well-rehearsed. I’d even say that they really embraced their roles and were having a lot of fun, which, in turn, made it fun for me to watch.
It was drizzly the first half hour but the actors soldiered on, and I felt particularly bad for the ladies who wore gorgeous, short-sleeved dresses. The clothes were seriously rocking. I’d peg them very Napoleonic-era (maybe?).
A good half hour into the play, the drizzle finally got a little too hard to bear, so the Voice From God (okay, the dude who does the announcements) said that there would be a pause while the rain passed through. It didn’t take long for the rain to weaken, and so the actors went back to their places, kinda rewound a few lines to remind us where we’d stopped, and just went on as if nothing had happened.
I should mention that, when I first read the cast list, I really hoped there would be singing involved. Now I can say I’ve heard lovely people like Audra McDonald and Raúl Esparza sing to me live onstage. Er, well, the music was fairly good and the musicians were totally right on, but I did feel like the compositions were a bit long and dragged the pacing a bit. So part of me was like, “Damn, these songs are so pretty,” and another part of me was like, “Damn, can we get on with the ~*CRAZY ANTIX*~ already?”
But I didn’t hate this as much as I hated the fool, Feste, walking over to the front row right as the second half of the show started, and putting out his hat for money. Holy shit. I mean, I was totally laughing on the outside but weeping in the inside, and the only thing that made me feel a little better was that he didn’t put out the hat in front of my face, just the people next to me. It was a very close call, though, and lucky for the actor, David Pittu, because the couple sitting next to me was a lot more gracious about the unscripted moment than I would have been. Ack!
Another aspect of the show I didn’t dig too much was that the humor was played very broadly. The thing is that, in terms of execution, the actors did a great job, so my beef is with the directorial choice to deliver the lines with a clear wink and a jab with the elbow. At the same time, I infinitely preferred this more accessible, enjoyable production over last year’s Hamlet, you know? So I ain’t complaining too much on that element of the show.
I have to admit I wasn’t too hot with Esparza in the part of Orsino. He wasn’t bad, but I’d say miscast. Then again, I was basically expecting Pushing Daisies all over again. Sigh! Not only that, he had like, superintense sideburns–they really distracted me. I’d love to see him in another production soon, though!
McDonald was pretty good, though I found her far more watchable in her funny moments than in her brooding ones. Her timing is really good. Anne Hathaway held her own, and it’s probably the most physical thing I’ve seen her do since like, The Princess Diaries. She even gets into a sword fight. The choreography was all right, nothing major, but it’s still always cool to see a sword fight in a live production. By the way, the dude who played Viola’s twin brother looked acceptably similar to Anne Hathaway, but even more eerie, he seriously reminded me of the youngest Jonas brother(!). The actor’s name is Stark Sands (for real…?). Surely it was just from seeing him from a distance, but I was still like, “WHOA… Where’s Miley Cyrus, dude?” That said, I thought he was pretty good in his more minor role.
I really loved Jay O. Sanders in this; he was in A Midsummer Night’s Dream a couple of years ago as the head of the rude mechanicals, easily the best part of a so-so show. Again, he did not disappoint. He has a great voice, too. But I think my favorite cast member was Julie White, who played Maria with mischievous glee. Even though Maria plays a pretty awful trick on Malvolio, I still felt like she was totally awesome, and Julie White really made her a very inviting and sympathetic character.
The play itself is so funny. I had very faint memories of reading it in school and then watching the version with Helena Bonham Carter. I couldn’t remember anything except that there was a mistaken identity plot that centered around cross-dressing and that there was a funny servant lady named Maria but whose name was pronounced Mariah. Also, I remembered feeling more than a little awkward with the weddings at the end because of all the gender-bending. I’m not even gonna consider the political statement that the Public Theater may or may not be making by putting on this show at this moment in American history cos my mind would explode, yeah? But back to the words: there were some hilarious lines, that had everyone tittering and at times howling. Really bawdy lines. The weird thing was realizing how badly I’d needed to have a good laugh, and the production did the trick. All in all, a good night at the theater, especially since it was free.
The show will officially open on June 25, and will close on July 12 to make room for The Bacchae.
Let’s Leave the Past Behind.
Since we got cable in our TV my dad has flip-flopped several times on which programming package we want, though I think we’ve finally settled on a Spanish-language + fútbol dealio. This means that I got MTV, MTV2 AND VH1 taken away, but now I have MTVTres and mun2, which are pretty much identical in their content. I’m pretty ecstatic about it. I didn’t realize how much English-language material was included in these channels, but I like that I can get both the “best” of US American pop while getting the “best” of Spanish-language pop.
Anyway, back in those final days of having MTV (so long ago!) the video I used to wait for was Lady Gaga’s “Poker Face,” but these days I wait around a lot more for Daddy Yankee’s “¿Qué tengo que hacer?” The remix for the song with Jowell & Randy has been making the rounds, and the results are pretty spectacular.
I have a love/hate thing for Daddy Yankee, but right now it’s more on the love side of the spectrum. I like that his best wasn’t “Gasolina,” and that he’s kept things interesting.
Daddy Yankee’s not the only one to keep releasing quality shit. Don Omar has been a lot more ambitious in his latest incarnation as some sort of futuristic electro-freak, which kinda makes me wanna LOL but mostly makes me want to track him down so I can shake hands with him for having the balls to change his image so drastically. But the more things change, the more they remain the same! What he’s doing now really suits his over-the-top, melodramatic persona. His current single is called “Virtual Diva,” and has an awesome hook. “¡Chequea como se menea!” he exclaims in his usual booming voice. I’d definitely put it in the running for Song of the Summer. You can catch the ridiculous video ici.
My favorite part is at the end, when he leaves some final remarks:
¡Sencillo! Estamos trabajando encima de sus expectativas… de eso se trata. Algunos años luz antes que ustedes. Siempre voy a vivir ahí–no miren pa’ mi galaxia.
Loose translation: “It’s simple! We’re working beyond your expectations… that’s what it’s all about. Some light years ahead of you. I’ll always live there–don’t check out my galaxy.” Haha. Oh my god, Don Omar is da bomb.
One Last Trip.
Last night I decided to go shopping at the Virgin since it’s closing. This means I missed So You Think You Can Dance, so I spent the last few hours tracking down the performances (many props to Rickey!) and although there were a couple of clunkers, I’m really excited about this group of dancers. I’d give you a breakdown of my favorite dancers but at this point I feel like my judgment is clouded by all the handsome dudes. Seriously, the whole group of dancers is stunning. By the way, there’s a reason why I had to go hunting for the performance clips: Fox doesn’t put them on the show’s site. Travesty! You’d think that Fox would be kind enough to post the stupid show on their site, but apparently they can’t be bothered. Good move, you morons!
Anyway, the Virgin had hit the 70% off mark last night, and shockingly enough they’d moved enough units to have the lower level closed off! I don’t think I’ll go back again before Sunday, which is its final day. So here is a list of the things I bought in my final trip to the Virgin at Union Square:
- Crash, JG Ballard
- The Jim DeRogatis bio of the Flaming Lips
- Doubt, John Patrick Shanley
- A History of Violence, David Cronenberg
- A Scanner Darkly, Richard Linklater
- That Arctic Monkeys DVD with that video for the one song of theirs I really dig and that features Stephen Graham
- Primitive Love, Miami Sound Machine
- A Talk Talk Best Of
- A Stray Cats Best Of
- Lotofire, Ely Guerra
- Los de atrás vienen conmigo, Calle 13
- Te quiero…, Los Temerarios
- Citizen Boris, Golem
- Vôo de coração, Ritchie
I need to explain my purchases. First, they’re pretty much down to shit now! There really isn’t a lot of great stuff so I do feel very happy and lucky to have gotten what I got. Seriously, even all the Spanish language Pop/Rock section is pretty much depleted. Second, the fact that everything is 70% off meant that I was willing to take more of a chance. The last three items listed, well, I’ve never listened to any of their stuff, but I thought I’d be adventurous. I’m especially curious about that Ritchie guy, who looks pretty goofy on the album cover–muito 80s, LOL. It’s too bad that I have a tendency to go for flashy and tacky, but I just couldn’t say no!!
Actually, there were definitely some items to which I said no, for various reasons. Sigh. They included a busted copy of an Illya Kuryaki and the Valderramas album, as well as a Gram Parsons bio and Queens Reigns Supreme. Also, there was a Green Day bio I was eyeing… Yes, yes, my taste in music books is even odder than my regular taste in music. Now shut up about it.
I do feel ambivalent about this specific store closing, because as far as megastores went, its stock wasn’t so bad. Obviously it’s because the crowd around Union Square skews younger and more “indie,” so there was always a relatively decent vinyl section and stuff. (The Tower at Lincoln Center, in comparison, tended to have a more extensive classical/Broadway section.) I hope that a store like this closing means that the smaller, more specialized stores get to survive, whether it’s Other Music or, I dunno, Turntable Lab. Brick-and-mortar music and video stores are becoming a rare breed, that’s for sure, and you know something? It is really fucking inconvenient. Especially because the Virgin was the #1 choice for me to meet up with my friends when we hung out.
I leave you with a few highlights of my experience at the Union Square Virgin. I bought my Langley Schools record there, as well as the Young Liars EP. I got to see Franz Ferdinand throw a really nice in-store performance back when their first album came out. And perhaps the highlight of the highlights is this: I was in the store on August 14, 2003, when all the fucking lights in the city went out. Actually, I can easily say that it was one of the Top 3 worst days in my life, so it’s a shitty memory, but it’s a vivid one regardless. Stupidly enough, I didn’t steal anything from the store when the blackout happened. Haha. Damn my integrity.
Hm, I guess I kinda will miss the store. But I’m not surprised that they’re closing, c’est tout.
Speaking of music stores: Next Thursday, June 18, Insound is having a Warehouse Sale for the first time. So if you’re in NYC, you should definitely definitely check it out. I’m sure the deals won’t be massive, but imagine the shipping charges you’ll avoid! The details here. I’m not sure if I can go yet, but I’m gonna try. I highly recommend it! Although they push a lot of new stuff on their site, they still have plenty of back stock that is worth sifting through. I should know, because I used to pack everyone’s orders there. :D
MoCCA Fest 2009.
[Edit: My friend from work wrote a li'l something on MoCCA too. Clickety click here. Also, I was lurking around a day or two ago looking at other people's posts, and someone mentioned how annoying it was that there didn't seem to be any trash cans in the fucking armory. I agree! I kept looking around for a place to dump my trash, and eveeeeentually I found a receptacle.]
Went to the MoCCA fest, which was moved from the Puck building to the Armory between 25th and 26th Streets. The space was striking, absolutely massive–everyone fit under one space, instead of having to split the exhibitors into several large rooms. On one level it was easier to have everyone under one roof, but on another level it also felt a little less personal. I don’t know what could be done about it; the fest had long outgrown its former space, and the move was necessary. The one thing that actually sucked was how humid it got, people were just sweating left and right.
It was just overwhelming to have so many exhibitors and fans in there. Even though there was a floor plan, it was easier for me to just get a feel for the space, so I literally walked up and down every aisle to see who was there and what they had to offer. Then, once I finished doing that, I just returned to the tables that really caught my eye, which was mostly the international artists.
It remained crowded almost all day, so I didn’t get a good glimpse at certain tables. As it happens every year, I saw Adrian Tomine, and his buddy Seth was there, too. I didn’t get anything signed by him, but seeing Adrian was comforting, like, “There’s a familiar face!” Haha. Jason showed up and signed shit, as well as Tom Gauld and I think Kurt Wolfgang too, among many many others. Everyone was so friendly and eager to engage in sweet conversation while enticing us common folk into buying their creative output and in my head I was like, “AHHHHH TOO MUCH I CAN’T HANDLE IT!” but mostly I just smiled politely, said hello, glanced at some of the comics here and there, and just moved on.
Listen, I was on a budget, okay? I really wanted a copy of Joann Sfar’s Piano, but by the point I saw it, I was down to less than $30… And the book was going for $40. There were some other really cool from L’Association and this Belgian publisher named Bries. Bought a couple of titles from the latter.
I was hoping (it was a wild and futile hope, really) that maybe they might have Papa est un peu fatigué but they didn’t. I bought another Ville Ranta comic instead. Bought some other comics from the Scandinavian contingent. I got a mini-comic signed by one of the artists, and I thought he was just gonna give me his John Hancock but he was nice enough to draw me a little something. So I just want to declare this artist, Simon Bukhave, as totally awesome for taking the time and effort to do so.
There was also a Romanian table. I shit you not. Like, of all the random places… They were featuring a series called Hardcomics and I bought a couple, including one that wasn’t even translated. But that’s okay, because I really love the artwork.
The one panel I attended was called “Scandinavian Comics 101,” and the panelists included: Åsa Ekström (Sweden), Mattias Elftrop (Sweden), Johanna Rojola (Finland), Thomas Thorhauge (Denmark), Ib Kjeldsmark (Denmark), Erik Falk (Norway), and one more artist whose name I didn’t catch (also from Norway). If you know his name, or if I misspelled anyone’s name, please let me know! The panel was moderated by Steffen P. Maarup, who is Danish. As soon as I saw how many artists were participating in the panel, I realized we weren’t going to get too far into some deep dialogue from the artists of the various countries they represented. The allotted time was just too brief to get very far… However, the panelists were all very charming and made some great points. For example, I had no idea that so many of them were deeply influenced by French and Belgian comics as opposed to American ones. There was a curious audience member who posed a really interesting question about race and whether the POC in the Scandinavian countries were active at all in the comics scene. The panelists didn’t have much of an answer other than that POC are not really visible. Honestly, there was plenty said during the short time and I’m sure someone who took more copious notes will hit every bullet point discussed… but unfortunately that someone isn’t me. Sorry!
Dude! I do wanna give props to MoCCA for putting out refreshments at the panels!! I feel like my admission money mostly went to good use. Hehe. I had fun, and I got some really cool comics that I’m probably never ever gonna see again, so… it was worth it. Hope all the international artists are able to come next year, too!
On the Idiot Box.
Hello my treacherous friends! I am still recovering from watching the season finale of Lost. Did you feel dicked over by the last shot? I did! But after thinking about it and reading a shitload of comments on the AV Club about this last episode of the season, I can gladly say that the rest of this episode was pretty right on! Especially Michael Emerson’s last scene in the episode, where he just starts bitching–”WHAT ABOUT ME??” What about you? You should get an Emmy for that, that’s what.
Watch at your own risk! (Then again, it’ll probably get pulled soon.)
Seriously, isn’t his hissy fit hilarious?
Since this show has a terrible fondness of dispensing of cast members, I expected a few casualties, but I was pretty pissed about one in particular. Mind you, he’s not confirmed dead, because this show also has a terrible fondness of faking deaths, buuuuut at the moment I’m mad I’ll have to wait until next January to find out. Arghh.
—
Today I gladly rotted my brain on Freaks and Geeks.
If you can’t tell, Bill Haverchuck is my favorite character, and it pisses me off that Martin Starr is not the most successful F&G alum. Not that I hate anyone in the cast, they were all fucking amazing. I just didn’t expect Seth Rogen of all people to be considered leading man material. C’est tout.
