Last night we wandered over to Bedford Avenue for the Found Footage festival presented by Rooftop Films. These guys spend their time rooting in thrift shops, dumpsters, HR offices and other spots for old footage that people would rather forget, and put them all together into a sort of montage. It sounded like it would be good, maybe along the lines of what the Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players do with their found footage, and since we're both Super 8 film nerds, we were also hoping there'd be some of that kind of thing in there. There wasn't - the sixteen they screened were all strictly of the 1980s VCR variety, not to mention of the freakin' hilarious variety. This was all the kind of stuff that those involved would probably prefer to be destroyed...in fact, when it comes to Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and the "I'm coming day and night" bodybuilding movie, Pumping Iron (1979), forget the "probably". When his career turned from pumping to politics, Arnie tried to ban the screening of this footage, apparently, but he didn't succeed. Personally, I think he should have been more worried about Carnival in Rio, from 1983, a travel guide to Rio hosted by Arnie in which he loses the run of himself somewhat, gleefully pawing every bit of naked "mulatto" ass he can get his hands on, and giving his female co-host an English lesson which necessitates her to suck slowly on the carrot in his hand...you've got to see this.
There were other gems in there too, chief among them How to Seduce Women Through Hypnosis (1983), which seemed to be an entirely sincere guide to basically raping a woman by putting her in a phony trance; Strong Kids, Safe Kids (1984), a well-intentioned educational video teaching children about how to keep the bad guys away from their "private parts" and starring Henry Winkler in character as the Fonz (and featuring the genius that is the Proper Words Song); and a medley of patriotic videos by gleefully insane people, my favourite of which doesn't even have the excuse of dating from the '80s but was made last year by someone called Denis Madalone. You can experience its joys, tears and stars-and-striped-infused waters here. It'll make you cry. With happiness that you don't live here. Or with terror that you do.
Oh, and while you're at it, get yourself some unhinged preacher men: Wayne David Meyer and Jonathan Bell (the later swiped from a Daily Show clip).
Saturday, August 19, 2006
Americaaaaaaay-yay, United Against Baby-Melting Candle-Makers Everywhere
Friday, August 18, 2006
Frank Bascombe, Older and Hardly Wiser...
The new Richard Ford novel, in proof form, just arrived on my desk (wait, I don't have a desk. I mean, my kitchen table.) I haven't read it yet, obviously (at 485 pages, it will probably keep me going for a while) but I'm looking forward to seeing whether Ford has managed to convincingly get back into the voice of the narrator he first created 20 years ago, with The Sportswriter and returned to for Independence Day. Like each of those novels, it's set on a holiday, this time Thanksgiving, in the year 2000. So it's America before 2001, and before Bush (the Florida votes farce is still ongoing), and that in itself will make for an interesting read.
Something else I'm looking forward to reading today is the rehearsal script of Stuart Carolan's new play, The Empress of India, which opens in Galway and moves to the Dublin Theatre Festival. Carolan's first play, Defender of the Faith, was perhaps the strongest new work (in terms of "straight" plays) to open on an Irish stage in 2004, and perhaps even since then. When I was in the Abbey over the summer I noticed that the script was still for sale in the lobby there for something like €8. That's a recommendation, in case I'm being too subtle...The cast for the Galway/Dublin production looks terrific, including Sean McGinley in his first stage outing in five years, Aaron Monaghan, Catherine Walsh and Tadhg Murphy. It doesn't open until Sept 12, but I'd be interested to hear the views of anybody who gets to see it.
What else...slipped into my bad habit of listening online to RTE Radio 1 again while working (too depressing listening to NPR these days, most of the time...Israel or nothing) but today wasn't too bad; caught the excellent Rattlebag special on trad, and am now listening to the RnaG live stream ( I was going to write there, "I'm not a smug gaelgóir, I just listen for the music" but if I was a gaelgóir of any sort, rather than a head-hanging-shambles of an Irish speaker, it would be the smug sort, so forget about that). My neighbours probably hate me. But then, I hate them too, with their constantly appearing newborns and enormous dogs. That sounds very uncharitable. I like dogs and babies. But in a building which, even if it were a house, would arguably not be big enough to hold one of each, the apparent presence of several of them tends to grate on the nerves. Which reminds me. We're getting a kitten (now that it's in my blog, A, it has to happen. Ok?). Names suggested so far: Spling, Doodlemunch (long story) and Wee Thomas (short story...ok, downright theft). The eventual name, however, will depend on the unique personality and litterbox-related delinquency of the kitten itself.Dandelion, maybe?
Oh yeah. And the view is completely gone now. I don't want to talk about it...
Monday, August 14, 2006
Photos from McCarren Park Pool
Sonic Youth were amazing; the Yeah Yeah Yeahs weren't worth the hype. Pretty boring, actually. But the venue was what made it for me, with its vast flaking floor and its rusted diving boards...
Sunday, June 18, 2006
You'll Never Clear Your Desk Alone
It's not just in Ireland that matters to do with the arts are vulnerable to being sidelined by the media. One of the biggest media stories here this week concerned Erik Wemple, the newly-appointed editor of the Village Voice, who, on Thursday, "changed his mind" about taking the job and went back to Washington, where he was previously editor of the City Paper.
What could possibly have forced him to make this drastic decision, given that he'd just accomplished an enviable jump up the career ladder? Some vague noises about ”management differences” were made in the aftermath of the announcement. But turns out that our old friend, De Arts, may really have been the reason for Wemple's sudden exit, as Gawker explains:
From what we hear, Wemple held a two-hour meeting with the staff that went reasonably well until staffers asked if the paper would be asked to use other New Times writers. Wemple said that bringing in outside writers wasn’t in his plans, but the staff informed him the practice has already been imposed, as the Voice has been more or less forced to use film and music reruns from other New Times papers. That’s where things started to sour, because Wemple looked absolutely shocked that this had been going on. He also said he wanted to focus on more arts reporting and criticism, unaware that the arts sections had been significantly reduced.
Long story short, the New Times has hacked things up to the point where the Voice is no longer the paper Wemple thought he was signing up for. Management wanted Wemple, who’d been assured of autonomy — but then he got smacked with an alternate reality upon arriving in New York.
You can’t blame him for walking right back out the door.
