am here at work finishing up a book of info about the history of new wave, and looking through these pictures is making me excited about the prospect of making music again. tomorrow caleb and get on the road back to the east coast, stopping in ohio for the historic canfield fair, unfortunately too early to see the mangled-mind of Bill Cosby or the truck and tractor pull, both of which will fuel the imaginations of my hometown to, I'm sure, constructive thoughts in these pressing pre-election days.
i've fallen deeply in love with seattle in these two months, although the torment of rain and miserable fast rolling clouds of the last four days have given me some idea of what the 'rest of the year' must be like here. apparently it was named the city where you get the least value for your money, but this does not take into account the vistas, the innumerable parks, well-planned roads and sidewalks, wealth of interesting new architecture and other apparently valueless things that make walking around on the streets here so humane and charming.
that said, the seattle central library should be on every book and design lovers to visit list - we went there yesterday (yes, on my birthday...) and wandered through the flourescent escalators, the downward spiral of books and soft, rubbery plus chairs that make the library every northern europrean aesthete's eyes tear. by that i mean it's totally ikea plus, not very practical i imagine for hard wear, not meant for sitting (?). maybe i'm wrong. c and i bought matching 'i read a book in a koolhaus' t-shirts. Clement Greenberg be damned.
8.25.2004
8.24.2004
borges, huguenots, and me
in addition to the massacre of 70,000 French Protestants in 1572, this day has the honor of being my birthday. i'm closer to 50 than unborn, icck! to celebrate this day, am listening to Alter Bridge, quite possibly the most uninspired open contraction of two bland religious symbols ever to enter the market. later, i am going to drag the beau on the EMP roller coaster and then we'll go to the top of the space needle to look out into the pre-night haze that is seattle on this rainy day. i had key lime cheesecake for breakfast, and got my pretzels stuck in the curly-que end of the vending machine a few hours ago, so all is about even in my mental state. listened to the ballad of john and yoko and toxic this morning to put me in the perfect birthday mood.
8.23.2004
the retrofuture
for a while, that's what i wanted to have as my url. the site there is pretty cool although i could do without the ubiquitous church of bob heads on any type of website ever again. there's just so much kitsch of this nature existing in the world, it's hard to schelp thru it all.
that said, i attended, gave a paper at and was the snack goddess for the Society for Commercial Archeology's Seattle Conference. There was a serious 'I've found my people' vibe to the three-day event, where I could hear thoughts I'd only had buried in my head voiced articulately by those dear to preservation, photography, and idle worship of design and architecture of the American roadside. my paper, naturally, was on the Wildwoods and how demolition is changing the density of neon signage along the roadside, and thus the character of the town. among the many great folks i met were Laura Russell, an amazing photographer dedicated to neon, amusement parks and 'ghost dogs,' or the brick-painted signs that become ghosts over time/wear; Carol Ahlgren of 2020 Omaha, a great preservation group with a dada-esque approach to getting their buildings landmarked (they made mustaches to wear to a hearing for a neon sign boasting a Mexican character named "pepe"), and Richard Gilbert, who along with Leonard Garfield of the Museum of History and Industry, gave a fabu tour of the old rt. 99, including the gun shop where St. Cobain's death wish was purchased. Fun!
that said, i attended, gave a paper at and was the snack goddess for the Society for Commercial Archeology's Seattle Conference. There was a serious 'I've found my people' vibe to the three-day event, where I could hear thoughts I'd only had buried in my head voiced articulately by those dear to preservation, photography, and idle worship of design and architecture of the American roadside. my paper, naturally, was on the Wildwoods and how demolition is changing the density of neon signage along the roadside, and thus the character of the town. among the many great folks i met were Laura Russell, an amazing photographer dedicated to neon, amusement parks and 'ghost dogs,' or the brick-painted signs that become ghosts over time/wear; Carol Ahlgren of 2020 Omaha, a great preservation group with a dada-esque approach to getting their buildings landmarked (they made mustaches to wear to a hearing for a neon sign boasting a Mexican character named "pepe"), and Richard Gilbert, who along with Leonard Garfield of the Museum of History and Industry, gave a fabu tour of the old rt. 99, including the gun shop where St. Cobain's death wish was purchased. Fun!
8.19.2004
a sight to behold
devendra banhart's 'rejoincing in the hands' has become something of a warm blanket for me, and when he says "my flesh sings out, it sings come pour me out' on the song "the body breaks" i always think he's saying 'my flesh sings cole porter songs,' which i wish were the lyrics. would it be that my flesh sung such things. other than irving berlin's "blue skies," i think my favorite standard of the moment isNight and Day. i love the false front of a song like this, 'the beat beat beat of the tom-tom'
8.14.2004
master musicians
today i interviewed dave meinert, who part-owns the Mirabeau Room here in beautiful Seattle. Who cares, you say? Because after the requisite trade pub chit chat we got to talking about how he manages bands, and I had read online that he was the manager of the master musicians of the jajouka, and that he'd been to the small town of Jajouka where they, the royal court musicians of Morocco, lived. When I was there I had wanted desperately to go to Jajouka but couldn't convince my San Fran runaway french-speaking crustie backpack pal to accompany me through the rough times out to the village. Meinart said that the town can't really accomidate tourists, and that the hippie types that end up out there can't support themselves which must make it hard for the prestige-rich and materially poor musicians.
His talk reminded me of the Ted Levin book The Hundred Thousand Fools of God, which charts the problems of being a traditional musician and Uzbekistan and Tajikistan. Should there be schools set up in Morocco to teach this art form, traditionally passed down from father to son by repetition, a music with no prescriptive notation? Should such musicians' futures lie in ethno-tourism? In boho retreat accomidations for the romantically minded American eco-tourist type? well, you know my answer to this, and yet what of it that there are resources that could sustain these musicians, but that these resources are exchanged for an invitation into the private world of another? blah blah commerce and tradition, culture in change...
am listening to Linda Perhacs "Parellograms" which is a throwback to my psych-folk days but sounds like Blue-era Joni Mitchell than I remembered, with the arrangements and the way the voice is recorded - so far up. Am I the only one suspicious of vibrato? Maybe if I notice that it's 'vibrato' rolling off hackneyed then yes...still, as a string player I know that it is a choice, and that choice is towards smooth, warm, nostalgic fermatas.
His talk reminded me of the Ted Levin book The Hundred Thousand Fools of God, which charts the problems of being a traditional musician and Uzbekistan and Tajikistan. Should there be schools set up in Morocco to teach this art form, traditionally passed down from father to son by repetition, a music with no prescriptive notation? Should such musicians' futures lie in ethno-tourism? In boho retreat accomidations for the romantically minded American eco-tourist type? well, you know my answer to this, and yet what of it that there are resources that could sustain these musicians, but that these resources are exchanged for an invitation into the private world of another? blah blah commerce and tradition, culture in change...
am listening to Linda Perhacs "Parellograms" which is a throwback to my psych-folk days but sounds like Blue-era Joni Mitchell than I remembered, with the arrangements and the way the voice is recorded - so far up. Am I the only one suspicious of vibrato? Maybe if I notice that it's 'vibrato' rolling off hackneyed then yes...still, as a string player I know that it is a choice, and that choice is towards smooth, warm, nostalgic fermatas.
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