It was like this

An exquisite poem, from a recent collection (After) by Jane Hirshfield -- quickly emerging as one of the most significant voices in contemporary American poetry.

It was like this: you were happy

It was like this: you were happy,
then you were sad, then happy again,
then not.

It went on.

You were innocent or you were guilty.
Actions were taken, or not.
At times you spoke, at other times you were silent.
Mostly, it seems you were silent–what could you say?

Now it is almost over.

Like a lover, your life bends down and kisses your life. It does this not in forgiveness– between you, there is nothing to forgive– but with the single nod of a baker at the moment he sees the bread is finished with transformation.

Eating, too, is now a thing only for others.

It doesn’t matter what they make of you or your days: they will be wrong. They will miss the wrong woman, miss the wrong man, all the stories they tell will be tales of their own invention.

Your story was this: you were happy, then you were sad, you slept, you awakened. Sometimes you ate roasted chestnuts, sometimes persimmons.

A nice profile of Hirshfield can be found here.

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Antonioni & Bergman

While I wouldn’t go so far as to suggest parity between the talents of these two towering figures in the history of 20th-century filmmaking, nevertheless there is something fitting in the news that Michaelangelo Antonioni has died just a day after the death of Ingmar Bergman -- in the fact that his death will be obscured by the parade of tributes and retrospectives given in Bergman's honor.

While both of these directors (along with Fellini and Godard) came to symbolize foreign, “art house” cinema for American audiences of the 50s, 60s, and 70s, Antonioni’s stature and notoriety paled in comparison to Bergman’s. That’s undoubtedly appropriate. The depth and significance of Bergman’s work are (arguably) second to none in the history of film. Period. But whilst Antonioni’s films were light and accessible by comparison -- no chess-matches with death for this Italian -- they have been, I think, somewhat short-changed.

Dumbfounded by Vanessa Redgrave and the swinging mania of 60s London, it is not difficult to overlook the fundamental questions raised in Antonioni’s Blow-Up (1966). At its core, this film is a remarkably deep interrogation of our preconception that perception is essential to the apprehension of reality: as deep a topic as any raised by Bergman. Not that you’d know it from the trailer ...



Likewise, the incandescence of Jack Nicholson’s presence in The Passenger (1975) obscures (as he does in all of his appearances) the light Antonioni is attempting to shed on the dangers of a fluid conception of identity.



These are serious issues worthy of -- dare we say it -- Bergman. And so they were, but so were they also for this Italian auteur, dead at 94, just hours after the Swedish master.

Other Antonioni films of note:

• L'avventura (1960)
• L'eclisse (1962)
• Zabriskie Point (1970)
• Beyond the Clouds (1995, with Wim Wenders)

A few recent tributes, etc.:

• Woody Allen on Bergman (NYT)
• A Bergman quiz (The Guardian)
• Antonioni's obituary (NYT)
• Notable Antonioni scenes (The Guardian)

UPDATE: The Guardian picks up the scent.

Die Harry

Busy days, these, so I can't really justify devoting the time necessary to articulate precisely why I find Harry mania to be as stomach-turning as I do. Fortunately, Ron Charles (senior editor at The Washington Post) has done a marvelous job of it himself, thus relieving me from my duty. (Similarly minded discussions from literary heavyweights A. S. Byatt and Harold Bloom appeared previously.) Charles' insightful discussion begins with the following anecdote:

Harry Potter and the Death of Reading
By Ron Charles
The Washington Post
July 15, 2007

It happened on a dark night, somewhere in the middle of Book IV. For three years, I had dutifully read the "Harry Potter" series to my daughter, my voice growing raspy with the effort, page after page. But lately, whole paragraphs of "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire" had started to slip by without my hearing a word. I'd snap back to attention and realize the action had moved from Harry's room to Hagrid's house, and I had no idea what was happening.

And that's when my daughter broke the spell: "Do we have to keep reading this?"

That's as priceless as the rest of Charles' analysis is insightful. It reminds me of this fabulous moment from the Simpsons:



In fact, the parodies may be the best thing about the Harry Potter series. Some of the fabulous Mad Magazine titles from this sub-genre:

• Harry Plodder and the Kidney Stone
• Harry Plodder and the Sorry-Ass Story
• Harry Plodder and the Lamest of Sequels
• Harry Plodder Has Gotta Retire
• Harry Plodder and the Torture of the Fanbase

Simpsonize Me!

Well, with the new Simpsons Movie opening this weekend, it seems as good a time as any to unveil my Simpsonized self ...

Get yours here!

Richard Rorty (1931–2007)

In the polite company of analytic philosophers, it is not fashionable to avow an appreciation of Richard Rorty. The man who famously defected from mainstream analytic philosophy in the late 1970s is today widely viewed as intellectually irresponsible: glib, self-serving, unconcerned with rigorous argument.

Rorty has long been a spectre looming over my own intellectual development. I was 18 years old when I enrolled in my first graduate seminar: a term-long discussion of Rorty’s controversial Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature (Princeton, 1979). Only later did I come to appreciate that to begin one's study of philosophy with Rorty's work was about as advisable as beginning with Nietzsche’s Twilight of the Idols. I hadn’t worshipped all of the idols that Rorty was keen to hammer into oblivion -- I hadn’t yet done my due diligence with Plato, Descartes, Kant, et al. -- and I recall having the acute sense that I was skipping straight to the last few pages of a long novel the rest of which I hadn't read.

Maybe that’s why I haven’t felt the betrayal that many philosophers seem to have felt over the years. Or perhaps I just admire the maverick that Rorty was. And he was a maverick. Analytic philosophy is rather short on mavericks. Now that Rorty is gone, Peter Singer is about as close as we get -- especially since Cornel West doesn’t seem to identify as a philosopher anymore.

In any case, I for one will miss his presence.


Stanford University's obituary can be found here.

UPDATE: A wonderful collection of reflections and reminiscences can be found at Slate.com here.

Make Me Fries!

I used to think that I was alone in struggling to understand Pearl Jam lyrics. It's comforting knowing that I have company ...



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Hallowes’ Ground

Check out this remarkable tale ... Harry Hallowes, a North London local, has squatted on a 90-ft.-square plot of land on the edge of Hampstead Heath in Highgate for more than twenty years. Following an attempt to evict him from his shack, Hallowes was recently awarded the deed to the land when he claimed “squatter’s rights.”

I'm not sure what's more surprising here: that Hallowes won his case, or that there's actually undeveloped land in Highgate!

More details in today’s Daily Mail, as well as The Times of London and BBC News.

Tonic Update: Ribot to Jail

In a previous post, I told you that the fabulous Lower East Side club, Tonic, was -- very much against its will -- soon to shut its doors for good. Well, it seems that one of Tonic's most notable regulars wasn’t going to take this lying down ... or standing up. Whatever one doesn't do when one protests. I think he was seated when the police arrived, so I suppose that means he wasn't going to take it lying down or standing up. Whatever. What's important is that our hero wasn't going to take it ... in any position!

Details and interview here:

More A Semiotician Than A Guitarist: Marc Ribot Goes to Jail
By Jesse Jarnow
Jambands.com
May 11, 2007

Marc Ribot went to jail so you could keep rocking. Or listening quietly, dancing, or however you enjoy live music. Though he wasn't dragged from the Tonic stage playing his guitar, the former squatter came awfully close, refusing to leave on April 14th, the day the new tenants took over the lease from experimental music's largest Manhattan home. Ribot and Take It to the Bridge -- an organization he co-founded with musician Rebecca Moore -- are demanding that the city provide a new venue to the Lower East Side avant-garde community that has occupied the neighborhood for a century.

Like many of Ribot's other projects, his musical sit-in also employed Tonic's red velvet curtain as a backdrop. Instead of angular jazz, though, Ribot played the trespasser. "I've always considered myself more a semiotician than a guitarist anyway," the frequent Tom Waits collaborator told JamBands.com in his matter-of-fact Zappa-like deadpan. Point taken. Playing Hoagy Carmichael's "The Nearness Of You" unamplified, police officers looking on, Ribot and Moore were soon hauled off.

...

Once a leather-jacketed/spiky-haired young lion of the New York jazz scene, Ribot has transformed into something of a still-restless statesman, now more often seen in a blazer and spectacles. Though he leads a half-dozen projects of his own (including Ceramic Dog, Los Cubanos Postizos, and ongoing collboration with bassist Henry Grimes), plays often with Tom Waits, John Zorn, Medeski Martin and Wood, and others, and has done session work with everybody from Allen Ginsberg to Trey Anastasio, Ribot is still exactly who he was when he started: a Manhattan jazz musician. And, right now, real estate developers are getting in the way of him making a living. Forgive him if he's pissed.

Click here for the rest of the story, including a length interview with the man himself. And his fascinating blog entry from last year concerning the downtown music scene can be found here. Finally, sign the protest here. Go on: sign it!

Re-Run

You missed Tom on Conan, didn't you? Shame. But what more could I have done? Weren't you paying attention when I told you about it? I can't watch the damn thing for you, you know?

Well, fortunately for you, Youtube comes to your rescue yet again. To wit:

Mothers Day

So, we celebrate Mothers Day this weekend. The provenance of this "holiday" is somewhat disputed, but I am partial to the following version of its history:

According to local legend, Albion pioneer, Juliet Calhoun Blakeley, stepped up to complete the sermon of the Rev. Myron Daughterty, who was distraught because an anti-temperance group had forced his son and two other temperance advocates to spend the night in a saloon and become publicly drunk. In the pulpit, Blakeley called on other mothers to join her. Blakeley's two sons, both travelling salesmen, were so moved that they vowed to return each year to pay tribute to her and embarked on a campaign to urge their business contacts to do likewise. At their urging, in the early 1880s, the Methodist Episcopal Church in Albion set aside the second Sunday in May to recognize the special contributions of mothers.

The source of my sympathy for this account is two-fold. First, given the opportunity, my own mother would, no doubt, also welcome the opportunity to express her displeasure at my long evenings in the saloon. (Is 'anti-temperance group' a euphemism for "peer-pressuring teens"?) Second, Blakeley's sermon took place in Albion, Michigan: professed home of Mothers Day, and former hometown of ours.

Happy Mothers Day, mom!

The Queen

A number of years ago, while a graduate student in Oxford, I had the opportunity to meet the Queen. No, not Queen -- though a conversation with Freddy Mercury probably would've been more interesting. (Who else can cite the oil-and-water duo of Jimi Hendrix and Liza Minnelli as his two favorite performers?!) Meeting HM was definitely cool, and I got some nifty photos of she and me out of it. (Must remember to dig those out at some point.) But one of the details of the whole affair that I remember most vividly was the unsavory positioning and back-biting acquaintances displayed in order to secure one of the select invitations. Something about the little lady in the big hat -- with the even bigger sceptre! -- makes folks nuts ...

So, it's with no small amount of interest that we review the guest list for last night's state dinner at the White House, at which the Queen and Prince Philip were the guests of honor. Check it out here.

No one seems to have seized on it yet, but the cross-section of folks in attendance is quite striking. Until I saw it, I expected that the list would include the predictable "who's who" of the Washington elite. But, while there's no shortage of politicos and cronies, more remarkable is the selection of non-Washington folks. A few examples:

- Marta Domingo (wife of Maestro Placido Domingo)
- Elisabeth Hasselbeck (host of "The View") & Timothy Hasselbeck (professional football player)
- Peyton Manning (professional football player) & Ashley Manning
- John Marion (honorary chairman, Sotheby's North America) & Anne Marion
- James W. Nantz III (CBS sportscaster) & Ann-Lorraine Nantz
- Arnold Palmer (professional golfer) & Kathleen Palmer
- Itzhak Perlman (violinist) & Toby Lynn Perlman
- Rohan De Silva (pianist)

Mind you, I have no objections to any of these people per se. But how exactly are they selected? (I’m reminded of a similarly incredulous tone from years ago.) And what exactly do they represent? Surely not America. Is this a glimpse into Bush’s circle of influence? Is the sports world’s aristocratic family, the Manning’s, tight with the political world’s aristocratic family, the Bush’s? And why would Marta Domingo attend without her tenor husband? And does Domingo’s presence mean that Bush isn’t a Carreras or a Pavarotti man? And do we really want Elisabeth “I believe that life begins at the moment of penetration” Hasselbeck speaking for the American public?! And what the hell is Jim Nantz doing there anyway?!

We need a bi-partisan Senate commission to look into this!

Windows on the World

For the past year or so, Andrew Sullivan (of The Daily Dish) has invited readers of his blog to submit photographs of the view from their windows. Every day, Sullivan posts some of those photographs, and they are -- almost without exception -- fabulous!

Well, now he’s compiled them (and many that haven’t been posted) into this flash-animation site. His introduction to the site is worth a quick read here.

I highly recommend it. And if you zoom in on Oxford, England, the first photo you’ll see is mine!

Set Your TiVo & Batten the Hatches

Conan O’Brien will be hosting his late-night show from San Francisco next week, and Anti- confirms that his musical guest on Friday, May 4th will be none other than Tom Waits.

Here is the press release:

Tom Waits Performing On Conan O'Brien
Wednesday April 25, 2007

Tom Waits will be performing on 'Late Night with Conan O'Brien' on Friday, May 4, taping in San Francisco.

Make sure you tune in!

Conan’s calendar suggests that Snoop Dog will also appear. Now that’s a pairing you don’t see everyday!

While I'm looking forward to Tom's appearance next week, I'm quite certain that it won't surpass this hysterical showing on now-forgotten Fernwood Tonight:

Look Around You

If you’ve never seen the BBC’s “Look Around You” (2002, 2005), you’re missing out. Here is the first episode (8:46) – “Maths” -- in all its hilarity:

London is the Place for Me

Life has been extraordinarily hectic recently, hence the quiet. Throughout it all, I've occasionally found myself day-dreaming of London, which in turn put me in mind of the wonderful tune, "London Is The Place For Me," by the "Grandmaster of Calyso," Lord Kitchener (1922-2000).

But when I searched YouTube for some video of Kitch, there was very little to be found. The best footage I uncovered -- in some ways, better than what I went in search for -- was this sixth-former's marvelous stop-motion animation video.



P.S. It turns out that another hero, the great Australian folk singer Paul Kelly, has posted a spin-off on this tune, riffing on the life and times of the enfant terrible of world cricket, Shane Warne. Here's what PK says:

Hi all -

I was watching this year's Sydney Ashes test on TV around the same time as listening to Lord Kitchener's (aka Aldwyn Roberts) great calypso song London Is The Place For Me. The Kitchener tune suggested to me a new set of lyrics based on the adventures of Shane Warne.

My friend, Andy Doherty, filmed the live recording of the song at my place with Sian Prior playing clarinet and Ray Pereira on congas and djembe. Adam Rhodes engineered it in the shed.

Paul Kelly
Feb 2007

Check it out:

The Tristan Project

It would take quite a lot to dispose me to move to Los Angeles -- or anywhere in California, for that matter -- but more events like this would certainly help. Based on Richard Wagner's extraordinary opera, Tristan und Isolde, The Tristan Project is a collaboration between video artist Bill Viola, Los Angeles Philharmonic music director Esa-Pekka Salonen, and theatre director Peter Sellars.

Following the success of its premiere in Los Angeles and the subsequent staging of the complete Tristan and Isolde in Paris during the 2004/05 season, the Philharmonic's Tristan Project returns in April before its East Coast premiere in New York City. The cast for the Tristan Project in both Los Angeles and New York features soprano Christine Brewer as Isolde, tenor Alan Woodrow as Tristan, and bass John Relyea as Marke, and mezzo-soprano Anne Sofie von Otter debuts as Brangäne.

The creative team of Esa-Pekka Salonen, video artist Bill Viola, and director Peter Sellars collaborate again to present Tristan and Isolde: the complete opera in two full evenings, and performances over three evenings with one act per night, each paired with a different work by Debussy, who was heavily influenced by Wagner's work. Viola's video images, which offer literal, metaphorical, and spiritual complements to one of mythology's most famous and tragic love stories, are again projected on specially designed screens during the performances.

From all that I've read, seen, and heard, this project is extraordinary. More information and images can be found here.

Gender Genies

I recently had an article accepted by an academic journal. When I showed one of the referee reports to my wife, she suggested that the reviewer was clearly male. When I asked her why she thought so, she said that it was the confidence of the referee's tone that gave him away. Her thought wasn't that women aren't confident, but only that a male voice can seem more empowered by language -- more able to assert himself through words. I didn’t believe her at the time, but perhaps -- as usual -- I should have ...

The very next day, this discussion commenced over at Thoughts, Arguments, and Rants. It concerns this proposal made by Ross Cameron (Philosophy, Leeds):

As I understand it, women are under-represented in the major journals (I mean, even given their under-representation in the profession - that is, woman are even more under-represented in the journals than you’d expect them to be, given how many women there are in the profession). Why is this? Well, we’d need a study on this, but the following seems likely to me. Since women are under-represented in the profession it is very likely, for every paper sent to a journal, that it will be refereed by a man. Men and women vary in their styles of writing and arguing. So while when a man submits a paper it is likely that it will be reviewed by someone who writes and argues in a broadly similar style, with women this is very unlikely. Hence, women face a disadvantage in trying to get papers published.

Okay - it’s hardly likely to be that simple. But I bet there’s something to this. And if there’s some truth to this then there’s a good case to be made, it seems to me, for journals implementing the rule that papers by women should, other things being equal, be reviewed by women. (The ‘other things’ packs in a lot, because it seems far more important that papers be reviewed by experts in the subject.) Is there a good reason why this shouldn’t happen?

The comments in this thread have been interesting. Worth noting is that Sally Haslanger (Philosophy, MIT) will be presenting some noteworthy results on the subject later this month at the Central Division of the APA. (According to this comment, Haslanger’s investigation reveals the disturbing result that “the percentage of papers by women in the top journals falls far short of the percentage of women at the top 20 research universities.”)

Also noteworthy is the so-called “Gender Genie” -- a website that purports to be able to determine the gender of any text’s author. (The site is based on an algorithm developed by academics at Bar-Ilan University and Illinois Institute of Technology.) I’m inclined to regard with some suspicion the presuppositions of such an endeavor, and this comment on TAR suggests that its results might not always be accurate.

Still, if Haslanger is right -- and assuming that submissions really are blind-reviewed (lest more sinister prejudices be at work here) -- perhaps the Gender Genies -- both the website and my wife! -- focus our attention on an issue worthy of further consideration.

Waits in Buenos Aires

Tom Waits attended the Festival Bafici in Buenos Aires this past weekend. Apparently, he performed "You Can Never Hold Back Spring" (from the recent Roberto Benigni film, La Tigre E La Neve) as well as the crowd-favorite "Tom Traubert's Blues." Lousy recordings of these performances can be found via a quick search on YouTube.

The following clip isn't all that swell either, but, if you can make it out, the story of fronting for Frank Zappa is worth a listen:


Incidentally, if you've never seen the wonderfully stylized opening to La Tigre E La Neve, in which Waits performs "You Can Never Hold Back Spring," check it out:



I love the clarinetest sitting in the wheelchair with the rainbow blanket over his legs: classic.

Tonic

A sad day for New York City’s avant garde music scene ... The lower east side club, Tonic, has announced that it will close its doors for good next Friday night (Friday the 13th).

A regular venue for such folks as Marc Ribot, John Zorn, John Medeski, Arto Lindsay, Yo La Tengo, and many others, this is -- was -- my favorite club in the city. For the past decade, its existence -- coupled with the Knitting Factory -- proved that lower Manhattan could support not one, but two downtown musical venues featuring music that pushed the envelope seven nights a week.

Recent highlights include John Zorn’s 50th-birthday celebration, which featured a month-long series of performances at Tonic, as well as the live recording of the Medeski, Martin, and Wood album, Tonic (2000).

And one of the best shows I've ever attended was at Tonic in 2001, where I heard the extraordinarily elusive but marvelous Belgian singer, Catherine Jauniaux, accompanied by Marc Ribot. Jauniaux's young son spent the entire evening crawling around under the piano, while his mother and Ribot made extraordinary sounds together: just the kind magical night one could only find at Tonic.

This club will be dearly missed.

From the press release:

After more than 9 years as a home for avant-garde, creative, and experimental music, Tonic will reluctantly close its doors on Friday, April 13th, 2007. We simply can no longer afford the rent and all of the other costs associated with doing business on the Lower East Side.

The neighborhood around us has been increasingly consumed by "luxury condominiums", boutique hotels and glass towers, all making the value of our salvaged space worth more then our business could ever realistically support. We have also been repeatedly harassed by the city's Quality of Life Task Force which resulted in the debilitating closing of the ))sub((tonic lounge in January. Coincidentally, this campaign began as our immediate neighbor, the Blue Condominium building - a symbol of the new Lower East Side - prepared to open its doors.

As a business, we take responsibility for mistakes made along the way. If profit had been our chief motivation we could have changed our programming to something more mainstream and financially lucrative. Instead we were more committed to a certain type of music and loyal to the community that supported us. As a result, we've always just survived but never really prospered. It is, however, unfortunate that it is so difficult for small businesses to operate in this city and that a chain store that can afford a high rent is more desirable than a place like Tonic that has a different kind of value.