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Vitro NasuIconoclastic Incubator
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Chistopher DeLaurenti 
and four protesting turtles. (These turtles are not afraid)
Congrats to Chris!
In honor of May Day, ubuweb is featuring my “Four Protest Symphonies.” (via email)
Go listen here at Ubu
Previous post - NYtimes coverage of his Favorite Performances
Listen to David Lang Cheating, Lying, Stealing
He was awarded the 2008 Pulitzer Prize for Music for The Little Match Girl Passion, composed in 2007 and based on the children’s story by Hans Christian Andersen.
Together with Julia Wolfe and Michael Gordon, Lang co-founded Bang on a Can in 1987 (Wiki)
NPR on David Lang and hear an excerpt from The Little Match Girl Passion’ from Carnegie Hall
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(What holiday is today? Today is April 30 - not April 1 - so the Jeff Koons iGoogle artwork first spotted in the UK this morning is no April Fools Day joke.)
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Jeff Koon IGoogle remixed
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My Prostate Belongs to God (image source)
More paintings at his Gallery with great soundtrack from John Lurie’s Strange and Beautiful homepage
John Lurie has been ill for the last many years. He has been exhibiting and selling his paintings. (These paintings have saved his life)
M: People are most familiar with your work as a musician and actor/director. How did you make the leap to visual artist?
JL: I believe you have me mistaken with someone else. I am mostly known for being an excellent dancer, in some neighbourhoods more than others.
Big Heart Music Video by John Lurie and the Lounge Lizards
John Lurie and the Lounge Lizards (Big photo of John included from European Jazz Net)
John Lurie is huge in Russia (A post from two years ago).
Kronos Quartet plays Sung Rings composed by Terry Riley
(Fresh from youtube, this clip was added just a few days ago on Feb 18, 08.)
This is a multi-media work for string quartet, chorus, and pre-recorded sounds. Those sounds include recordings by NASA spacecraft journeying through space e.g. ambient space sounds found in plasma around the planet Jupiter. The sounds have been a part of Don Gurnett’s research at the University of Iowa. Willie Williams did the visual design. Williams was notably the visual designer on U2’s Zoo tour among other rock shows.
Riley also sought inspiration after the events of 9/11, seeking meaning from the universe.
Dracula Enters
Several years ago we saw Kronos perform this piece by P. Glass while they sat behind the huge film screen. Instead of paying attention to their music, we had to stay focused on this famous silent classic. It was an annoying concept where music becomes just a soundtrack or background music.
Yesterday on Feb 22,08, Kronos Quartet played John Adams at Carnegie Hall
Tonight, they perform world premieres that hammer this point home. John Adams, that longstanding titan of American minimalism, brings gravitas to the program with his compact, exhilarating new work, Fellow Traveler.
Nixon in China by John Adams is here. (Previous post)
I have been watching old elegant skating by John Curry on youtube. Today is Philip Glass’s birthday; a good way to celebrate his birthday is with a piece done by two great skaters from the forgotten past. Curry wanted to introduce the idea that figure skating can also be an art form, not just a sport with medals, winners, and losers.
He was light on his feet like Fred Astaire, see here. Today Sasha Cohen, Johnny Weir, and Matt Savoie have inherited Curry’s elegant skating.
Here is a piece by Twyler
His life was cut short with AIDS.
Found this article claiming that he died in the arms of Alan Bates.
Zhou En Lai greets Nixon. (Act I)
This funny opera was composed by John Adams, produced by Peter Sellers, and choreographed by Mark Morris.
Judging from these clips on youtube, Pat Nixon is the only non political person in the mix of power hungry world leaders, providing the audience with maternal warmth and humanity.
The Bad Boy provides us with more clips (one clip is missing).
As a big fan of the opera Nixon In China, I was so excited to find the following clips from it on YouTube. As the title implies, NIC is about the historic meeting between Richard Nixon and Mao Tse-tung. The composer, John Adams, once described it (jokingly) as an opera for “Republicans and Communists.” Well, I’m neither and I still love the hell out of it.
This third clip is one of my favorites. Kissinger (as Lao-Szu) whips a peasant woman half to death in a stage play. Pat Nixon comes to the woman’s aid and then the music gets better.
Today January 8 was the day China lost their beloved leader Zhou En Lai. in 1976.
How do you assess Zhou’s achievements in China’s tumultuous history?
Some accuse Zhou of going along with Mao and not protecting the Chinese people; others show gratitude to Zhou for saving China from Mao’s tyranny.
Zhou was first and foremost a survivor. Most of Zhou’s contemporaries died directly under the hand of Mao or died in mysterious accidents. Zhou alone, of his stature, survived. Mao was determined to outlive Zhou and did so by a few months.
Perhaps my favorite image of Zhou is from footage of Richard Nixon’s visit to China in 1972. As the US President blathered on about ‘friendship and mutual respect,’ the jaded premier shifted in his chair unable to contain a mighty yawn at the dog and pony show onstage. Zhou’s work with Kissinger was done and in the books. That had been the important part.
Perhaps, he was simply tired. (This date in history: The Death of Zhou Enlai)
Goodbye Oscar Peterson
Sushi Oscar Peterson
Quote: “It makes you want to sing.” - Ella Fitzgerald, at 74, about Peterson’s piano work.
Some facts about pianist Oscar Peterson, who has died at age 82
Let us celebrate September 11 birthday boys - D. H. Lawrence, Arvo Part and Adorno.
Helen Mirren plays Frieda Lawrence
Paasion and Heartbeat (previous post on Lawrence includes a photo of Frieda and Lorenzo and the list of adaptation of his novels to cinema.)
Arvo Pärt: Silouans Song / Vienna Philharmonic Women
Touch, Sunday and Solitude with Japanese subtitles on youtube.
Arvo Pärt : 24 Preludes for a Fugue (2, 3, 4 of 29)
(documentary film (2005) films by Dorian Supin about Arvo Pärt to be released on DVD. )
Arvo Pärt : 24 Preludes for a Fugue (5, 6, 7 of 29)
Tabla Rasa-Miguel Robles/Arvo Part (Dance on Youtube)
In his book “The Jargon of Authenticity,” Theodor Adorno discusses what he considers to be a major fallacy with all of society: the way we talk. It is his opinion and observance that we speak in such a way as to bring others down while at the same time raising ourselves up. “The jargon — objectively speaking, a system — uses disorganization as its principle of organization, the breakdown of language into words in themselves.” The jargon is a tool used by society in order to distinguish the few from the many, to distinguish “my” class from “your” class.
I would like to draw attention to this great collection of reflections on a damaged life, wherein Adorno writes like a tragic poet, occasionally far away from the hassles of Marxism and Commodity Fetishism. Dedicated to his friend Max Horkheimer, the book begins with an epigram, life does not live. The book is in three parts with small chapters, the first of which is called For Marcel Proust. The book was written in America, when Adorno was in exile, when he became known as Teddy. The book has numerous anecdotes, parables and aphorisms and mostly reflections on exile, on damaged lives.
Adorno’s Minima Moralia is a favorite of this poet -12 or 20 questions: with Joshua Marie Wilkinson
The enigma
“I think there were a lot of misconceptions about Glenn and it was partly because he was so very private. But I assure you, he was an extremely heterosexual man. Our relationship was, among other things, quite sexual.”
Cornelia Foss - (read more here)
Two paintings by Cornelia Foss and more here.
His secret love affair has not been translated into another film project as of this date. Now Youtube has a great film on his journey to Russia, divided into six parts.
Gould’s 1957 trip to the Soviet Union, when he became, at age 24, the first North American to perform behind the Iron Curtain
part one
Part Two
Bach was banned in Russia, his music considered to be a church music. Glenn seemed to have come from Mars, Moscow’s public were electrified.
Part Three
Glenn introduced Viennese school to Russian musicians, Schoneberg Berg and Webern.
Glenn’s post card includes his observation about the dogs (or lack of them) in Moscow.
Part four
Conquering Leningrad
Part five
Plays Dimitri Shostokovich and Prokofiev.
Part six
He will remain the greatest communicator of Bach in our time.
The “Next Glenn Gould” is a young mother living in Brooklyn.
Her name is Simone Dinnerstein.
(Read The Goldberg Variations Made New from Slate.)
Visit her space here.
Max Roach was an intellectual — the best kind of intellectual. He was constantly pushing against the boundaries of what was expected of him as a drummer, as a jazz musician, as an African-American artist. (Darcy Argue on Max Roach -3quarksdaily)
Max Roach, a founder of modern jazz, dies at 83.
Max wrote music and performed for How to Draw a Bunny - Ray Johnson
1) Warhol vs Banksy (Less depressing than Hillary vs Obama? - A youtube allegory)
2) A- Jonathan Rosenbaum vs Roger Ebert
Or B- Tavernier vs Rosenbaum
Or Bb Harry Tuttle vs Rosenbaum
Or C-Bergman vs Antonioni
Or D- Auteurs On YouTube vs. Liam Lacey
Or E - “Landmarks in the History of Taste” (Elusive Lucidity)
3) Jean Seberg and Peter Sellers (How strange not to remember her in this film The Mouse that Roared)
Finally a beautiful duet by Gould and Menuhin.
Gould & Menuhin play Schoenberg Fantasie Op.47
a green and a red ball
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