(Mark Rothko, No. 14 1960. Can be found along with lots of other stuff (including a Richard Long sculpture!) at the SF MoMA.)
[Brief introductory spiel: I've been in Northern California (San Francisco, Napa and Yosemite, if you're interested) for the past two weeks, as you'll probably be repeatedly and nauseatingly reminded in the following few paragraphs, so this post is broadly about all that junk: a rough summary of reading and listening habits whilst abroad. More detailed and hopefully more insightful stuff will follow in the next few days- book and record reviews and unorganised reflections on America such.]
BOOKS.
So, whilst I was away I managed to plow my way through about half the reading list in the previous post, and some other stuff too. The following were polished off: The Unbearable Lightness of Being; Burroughs' Naked Lunch; A Crisis of Brilliance; Alex Ross's (fantastic) The Rest Is Noise: Listening to the 20th Century; a collection of George Steiner's essays onvarious writers/thinkers, entitled At The New Yorker; David Foster Wallace's A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again. The Neruda and Ginsberg were dipped in and out of, too, and the book on the Nuremberg trials turned out to be rather dull.
I can't really say anything particularly insightful about all these books in this (relatively) short space, but I will, as I intimated above, hopefully write something about most of them soon. My favourite, though, was probably the Alex Ross; he's fully fired up my interest in 20th Century classical and avant-garde music, and the book is wonderfully engaging and surprisingly quite funny.
I can't really say anything particularly insightful about all these books in this (relatively) short space, but I will, as I intimated above, hopefully write something about most of them soon. My favourite, though, was probably the Alex Ross; he's fully fired up my interest in 20th Century classical and avant-garde music, and the book is wonderfully engaging and surprisingly quite funny.
This is also a shout-out to the fantastic shop City Lights Books, which was, originally, simply a vehicle for Lawrence Ferlinghetti to publish Ginsberg's defining collection Howl, and somehow sprawled into a three-storey bookstore on the edge of Chinatown. An excellent, cramped selection (think the shop in Black Books, but much, much bigger), with an entire floor devoted to poetry, and one of the finest philosophy sections I think I've ever seen outside of specialist philosophy bookstores. If you're ever in SF, a visit is pretty much obligatory; I ended up going twice and purchasing three or four books there, plus a few postcards.
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MUSIC.
Not suprisingly, this's been influenced by the Ross, and any and all vaguely modern classical music on my music box was devoured: Stravinsky, Part, Reich, Glass... Being home now is rather a boon, and I've been mercilessly exploiting Spotify's (often confusingly mislabeled) archives. Other listening consisted mainly of Mingus's The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady, Ms. Newsom, and The White Album (many, many times over), among other stuff I can't remember. I seem to recall listening to the last few tracks on The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust quite a lot, too.
Anyway. Below is one of the Newsom tracks I've been obsessing over. From her incredible album Ys, this track has possibly one of the most wonderfully sibilant lines I've ever heard: "a scrap of sassafras, eh sisyphus?" It really isn't hyperbolic to describe her as a poet: just that one line is so perfectly judged, with the other sounds modulating around the steady 's's... Brilliant.
Not suprisingly, this's been influenced by the Ross, and any and all vaguely modern classical music on my music box was devoured: Stravinsky, Part, Reich, Glass... Being home now is rather a boon, and I've been mercilessly exploiting Spotify's (often confusingly mislabeled) archives. Other listening consisted mainly of Mingus's The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady, Ms. Newsom, and The White Album (many, many times over), among other stuff I can't remember. I seem to recall listening to the last few tracks on The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust quite a lot, too.
Anyway. Below is one of the Newsom tracks I've been obsessing over. From her incredible album Ys, this track has possibly one of the most wonderfully sibilant lines I've ever heard: "a scrap of sassafras, eh sisyphus?" It really isn't hyperbolic to describe her as a poet: just that one line is so perfectly judged, with the other sounds modulating around the steady 's's... Brilliant.
AND! AND!
One of my favourite 'new' artists, the wonderful Gold Panda, who I may or may not have mentioned on here, is releasing his debut album Lucky Shiner Oct. 12th. Free download of new track Snow & Taxis and information available at this website right here: http://luckyshiner.com/
His (for Gold Panda is the work of but one man) music is a wonderfully evocative mixture of nervy, cut-up samples, nifty little drum patterns and synths. Part of the reason I like him so much is that it's hard stuff to pigeonhole: it has a sort of future-nostolgia I can't quite articulate; the static that seems to hang around his tracks (and especially teh beats) kinda feels like the visual noise on a polaroid, and the constantly flickering, never quite identifiable, chopped and changed around samples carry a rich collection of sub-conscious assosciations, whilst the synths are close to that great misnomer IDM and the current crop of post-dubsteppers. A very, very talented young man, and I'm looking forward to the album a great deal. He's kind of similar to Mount Kimbie and James Blake, although not in any way that's easily pinpointable; it's more of an approach thing.
And as I can't believe I haven't posted this already, his original breakout track Quitters Raga, with a wonderful fan-made video. Pretty much the perfect visual accompaniment. Enjoy.
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His (for Gold Panda is the work of but one man) music is a wonderfully evocative mixture of nervy, cut-up samples, nifty little drum patterns and synths. Part of the reason I like him so much is that it's hard stuff to pigeonhole: it has a sort of future-nostolgia I can't quite articulate; the static that seems to hang around his tracks (and especially teh beats) kinda feels like the visual noise on a polaroid, and the constantly flickering, never quite identifiable, chopped and changed around samples carry a rich collection of sub-conscious assosciations, whilst the synths are close to that great misnomer IDM and the current crop of post-dubsteppers. A very, very talented young man, and I'm looking forward to the album a great deal. He's kind of similar to Mount Kimbie and James Blake, although not in any way that's easily pinpointable; it's more of an approach thing.
And as I can't believe I haven't posted this already, his original breakout track Quitters Raga, with a wonderful fan-made video. Pretty much the perfect visual accompaniment. Enjoy.
_____
ART an' ting.
So, after a pretty extensive visit, I can reveal SF is pretty good for galleries: the amusingly named MoMA's collection is generally really, really good. A great number of pieces from Warhol, a fantastic Wayne Thiebaud nude (I think) which I can't remember the name of because I stupidly didn't write it down, a Rothko (seen at the top) and a lovely, peaceful rooftop sculpture garden with the aforementioned Richard Long sculpture, among many others. You can bet I was pleased.
The De Young museum in the Golden Gate Park is less impressive, but not for want of trying. Lovely building, but a rather less inspiring free collection and stupidly long queues for the (expensive) temporary exhibitions. They did look good, but I had neither the money nor the time to wait. Having said that, the free stuff is probably quite good if you like that kind of thing: lots of native American art, pieces from ancient civilisations and a lot of 17th & 18th Century stuff from American painters, but none of these are really my bag, and the comparatively small modern art section was mostly quite bland. They seem to have invested quite heavily in some boring expressionist Bay-area painters, much to my dismay. A lovely Oldenburg sculpture and a Thiebaud painting, though- his choice of colours for shadows is just wonderful, and there also a few lovely works by contemporary landscape painters I'd never heard of.
Oh, and the food there is absolutely stunning. Seriously. I'd recommend going just for the soup, regardless of the art.
______
FILMS.
The flights (both to and from) were something of a Pixar fest, which (obviously!) was brilliant. It also solidified, at least as far as I'm concerned, Pixar's preeminence in the world of digital animation: comparing Toy Story 2 with the latest Shrek offering (both were available on the flight back, and I watched Ratatouille about three times on the way over) pretty much confirmed Mark Kermode's views of the respective film series*: which, in essence, is that Pixar rules.
The crux of the it seems to be this: whereas Shrek is a flimsy, plot-light husk with references bolted on (in the later films, both to itself and to pop culture in general), the Toy Story films, and Pixar films in general, have at their heart a story. As Kermode points out, look at the first Shrek film: already it's seriously dated, because a lot of the references either don't mean much anyway or are so conspicuously pointing to a very time-specific (and thus now time-stamped) pop-cultural thing. Or indeed both. And Toy Story just doesn't have this problem, because they don't insist on alluding to anything and everything, or engaging in blindingly obvious story-archetype deconstruction (an ogre! But good at heart! Oh how smart of you!): the original film is still as watchable as it ever was, and ditto with number Two; I found Jessie's story just as heartbreaking as the first time I saw the film. Indeed, there's something incredibly warm and lovable about these films, and it's almost certainly the reason why Toy Story 3 (which I haven't yet seen, sadly) is doing so well: they're done immaculately, and inspire large amounts of devotion- even amongst otherwise jaded teens. Again, following Kermode's analysis, Pixar don't separate viewers into 'children', who apparently want only slapstick, and 'adults', who want references to famous films, famous people, etc. etc. Rather, they make me smile- not pat myself on the back for getting the joke. Referencing is a very tricky balancing act anyway, and Shrek totally overloads its seesaw in this respect.
Shrek's problems are kinda borne out, albeit in a slightly different light, if one compares them to the Wallace & Gromit films. W&G is jam-packed with allusions (to both high- and low-culture) but they're fun, too. The nods are normally too manifold to spot on first viewing (especially the cheeky little puns in the book and record titles- Fido Dogstoevsky, anyone? Poochini?) but again there's a kind of warmth emanating from the films, and often the nods aren't particularly time-bound, or that contemporary. They're just lovely, and clearly incredibly well thought out- in comparison, Shrek just feels like an empty set of gestures, of pointing at things ("I know this! and this! and this!"); there's nothing to anchor it all together; no centre around which to coalesce, or indeed particularly intelligent usage of the referentiality they employ. In W&G, the massive Aliens hat-tip at the end of A Matter of Loaf and Death is a central, hilarious plot point, whilst in Shrek nodding to Monty Python's Holy Grail is just nodding to Monty Python's Holy Grail. At root, I think it's a problem of audience connection: one must have a base of goodwill upon which to build, and I feel no connection with Shrek (or indeed any of the film's other characters), whilst Woody and co, or indeed Wallace and Gromit charmed their way into my heart first, and drew upon other works a distant second. It's this lack of connection that's the Shrek series' central, critical failure. And don't even get me started on the gaping plot holes.
(*If you're looking for a good, regular film review podcast, Mark Kermode and Simon Mayo's weekly film reviews on BBC Radio 5 Live are wonderful. I'd go as far to say I can't really recommend them enough: the good Doctor Kermode is insightful, interesting and occasionally infuriating, and his reviews are normally spot-on.)
_____
GENERAL REMARKS.
Two, further, brief (and unrelated to anything above) addenda: firstly, the apparently in vogue airport trend of wearing training shoes with a suit most distinctly does not make one look insouciant and cool; as a matter of fact it makes one appear a sortorially clueless buffoon. Secondly, suit jackets and shorts never work. Please, all concerned: cease and desist.
So, after a pretty extensive visit, I can reveal SF is pretty good for galleries: the amusingly named MoMA's collection is generally really, really good. A great number of pieces from Warhol, a fantastic Wayne Thiebaud nude (I think) which I can't remember the name of because I stupidly didn't write it down, a Rothko (seen at the top) and a lovely, peaceful rooftop sculpture garden with the aforementioned Richard Long sculpture, among many others. You can bet I was pleased.
The De Young museum in the Golden Gate Park is less impressive, but not for want of trying. Lovely building, but a rather less inspiring free collection and stupidly long queues for the (expensive) temporary exhibitions. They did look good, but I had neither the money nor the time to wait. Having said that, the free stuff is probably quite good if you like that kind of thing: lots of native American art, pieces from ancient civilisations and a lot of 17th & 18th Century stuff from American painters, but none of these are really my bag, and the comparatively small modern art section was mostly quite bland. They seem to have invested quite heavily in some boring expressionist Bay-area painters, much to my dismay. A lovely Oldenburg sculpture and a Thiebaud painting, though- his choice of colours for shadows is just wonderful, and there also a few lovely works by contemporary landscape painters I'd never heard of.
Oh, and the food there is absolutely stunning. Seriously. I'd recommend going just for the soup, regardless of the art.
______
FILMS.
The flights (both to and from) were something of a Pixar fest, which (obviously!) was brilliant. It also solidified, at least as far as I'm concerned, Pixar's preeminence in the world of digital animation: comparing Toy Story 2 with the latest Shrek offering (both were available on the flight back, and I watched Ratatouille about three times on the way over) pretty much confirmed Mark Kermode's views of the respective film series*: which, in essence, is that Pixar rules.
The crux of the it seems to be this: whereas Shrek is a flimsy, plot-light husk with references bolted on (in the later films, both to itself and to pop culture in general), the Toy Story films, and Pixar films in general, have at their heart a story. As Kermode points out, look at the first Shrek film: already it's seriously dated, because a lot of the references either don't mean much anyway or are so conspicuously pointing to a very time-specific (and thus now time-stamped) pop-cultural thing. Or indeed both. And Toy Story just doesn't have this problem, because they don't insist on alluding to anything and everything, or engaging in blindingly obvious story-archetype deconstruction (an ogre! But good at heart! Oh how smart of you!): the original film is still as watchable as it ever was, and ditto with number Two; I found Jessie's story just as heartbreaking as the first time I saw the film. Indeed, there's something incredibly warm and lovable about these films, and it's almost certainly the reason why Toy Story 3 (which I haven't yet seen, sadly) is doing so well: they're done immaculately, and inspire large amounts of devotion- even amongst otherwise jaded teens. Again, following Kermode's analysis, Pixar don't separate viewers into 'children', who apparently want only slapstick, and 'adults', who want references to famous films, famous people, etc. etc. Rather, they make me smile- not pat myself on the back for getting the joke. Referencing is a very tricky balancing act anyway, and Shrek totally overloads its seesaw in this respect.
Shrek's problems are kinda borne out, albeit in a slightly different light, if one compares them to the Wallace & Gromit films. W&G is jam-packed with allusions (to both high- and low-culture) but they're fun, too. The nods are normally too manifold to spot on first viewing (especially the cheeky little puns in the book and record titles- Fido Dogstoevsky, anyone? Poochini?) but again there's a kind of warmth emanating from the films, and often the nods aren't particularly time-bound, or that contemporary. They're just lovely, and clearly incredibly well thought out- in comparison, Shrek just feels like an empty set of gestures, of pointing at things ("I know this! and this! and this!"); there's nothing to anchor it all together; no centre around which to coalesce, or indeed particularly intelligent usage of the referentiality they employ. In W&G, the massive Aliens hat-tip at the end of A Matter of Loaf and Death is a central, hilarious plot point, whilst in Shrek nodding to Monty Python's Holy Grail is just nodding to Monty Python's Holy Grail. At root, I think it's a problem of audience connection: one must have a base of goodwill upon which to build, and I feel no connection with Shrek (or indeed any of the film's other characters), whilst Woody and co, or indeed Wallace and Gromit charmed their way into my heart first, and drew upon other works a distant second. It's this lack of connection that's the Shrek series' central, critical failure. And don't even get me started on the gaping plot holes.
(*If you're looking for a good, regular film review podcast, Mark Kermode and Simon Mayo's weekly film reviews on BBC Radio 5 Live are wonderful. I'd go as far to say I can't really recommend them enough: the good Doctor Kermode is insightful, interesting and occasionally infuriating, and his reviews are normally spot-on.)
_____
GENERAL REMARKS.
Two, further, brief (and unrelated to anything above) addenda: firstly, the apparently in vogue airport trend of wearing training shoes with a suit most distinctly does not make one look insouciant and cool; as a matter of fact it makes one appear a sortorially clueless buffoon. Secondly, suit jackets and shorts never work. Please, all concerned: cease and desist.
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