Archive for March, 2007

Edward Suzuki – Int’l Tokyo Architect

Thursday, March 29th, 2007

Edward Suzuki

Edward Suzuki won the Chicago 2007 Int’l Architecture Award for best new global design for his Eddi’s House.

Eddie was the Brad Pitt of St. Mary’s in Tokyo. I, among the high school students who attended catholic school at St Maur’s in Yokohama, admired him from afar. Like Brad Pitt, Eddie is humble, good, smart and accessible. Unlike Brad Pitt who is trying to become an architect, Eddie is a prominent, successful International architect (went to Notre Dame and Harvard). Eddie is hapa (German-Japanese) who took his Mother’s name to help him navigate in postwar Japan.

His new astro profile – Virgo/Pig THE BOHEMIAN PURIST (9/18/47)

Edward Suzuki applies his principles of “anarchitecture” to three recent projects. (includes related articles) (New Design in Japan) – via

His gallery is here.

George Delerue – Youtube La Tendresse

Thursday, March 22nd, 2007



The trailer of Le Mepris (the Contempt) by Jean Luc Godard with Delerue’s soundtrack.
Two contrasting comments from the youtube audience.

See I love this trailer, I hate this movie!
I hate this trailer, I love this movie.

RIP Guillaume Depardieu is set with this same theme by Delerue.

  • Hiroshima Mon Amour directed by Alain Resnais –soundtrack (youtube)
    (More about this film see previous post, Hiroshima Mon Amour or Futon and Cropped hair).

  • Wes Anderson’s copy of “Day for Night” and the background music by George Delerue.

    He was responsible for the sound of Platoon (with Barber’s adagio),
    The Conformist, The Two English Girls, A Man for All Seasons and the Day of the Dolphins and many many more memorable films.

    His film scores

  • 1adelerue
    Merci George Delerue!

    Favorite Intermissions – Christopher Delaurenti

    Sunday, March 18th, 2007

    Favorite Intermissions a new CD by Chris Delaurenti is out!

    Chris Favorite Intermissions by Christopher Delaurenti Delaurenti

    Christopher DeLaurenti is a Seattle based composer, improvisor, and phonographer. A new music rabble-rouser, he also writes music reviews and articles.

    (See previous post on Chris on his Live from RNC Protest in NYC here.
    Visit his homepage and read his writings on music.)

    Elsewhere…..
    Don’t smoke during the intermission!
    Put Down your Cigarette Rag – Allen Ginsberg boogies on stage.

    Gunvor Nelson’s “My Name is Oona” was made in 1969, a film without an intermission with a recognizable soundtrack work by Steve Reich. Watch the film at Bright Lights film. (Not to worry, a very short film.)

    Needing a Claire Denis fix? She directed some videos for Sonic Youth. (via Another Green World)

    Happy St Patrick’s Day

    Saturday, March 17th, 2007


    The wind that shakes the barley…
    Happy St Patrick’s Day google St Patrick's Day

    ( For Neil Jordan’s Breakfast on Pluto” see previous post.)

    Go here for Patrick MaCabe’s new novel Winterwood (Irish Psycho).

    What is your favorite Irish film? The Butcher Boy? Magdalena Sisters? My Left Foot or In the Name of My Father? (See sidebar menu Irish Film under Film)

    Correspondent (Kabul) – MacYuen

    Tuesday, March 13th, 2007

    Charles Yuen‘s new video is out.
    See my previous post on Charles, also at my sidebar menu under futen-psychographic.

    How It Was and Baka Banana

    Sunday, March 11th, 2007

    Let’s Google How It Was

    Hard to see those ducks panel of 3 photos
    How It was digital image by Fung Lin Hall

    How it was with Miranda July at Kitchen – by David Byrne.

    How It Was from an Englishman’s Castle.

    Or this? These two need dancing lessons from Fred Astaire.
    (Here is how it was with Fred on youtube)

    It was not hit by an airplane.

    Just received this image from my sister Fung Ching. (via email, not by banana phone.)

    Bakabanana by Fung Ching kelling

    Baka means “stupid” in Japanese.

    How did he get there?
    Why are we at war?

    RIP Jean Baudrillard 1929 – 2007

    Tuesday, March 6th, 2007

    There is a misunderstanding of course, that is the reason why I previously hesitated to talk about The Matrix…. ( via greencinedaily.)

    Jean Beaudrillard Jean Beaudrillard (via)

    The pataphysical spirit is the nail in the tire — the world, a wolf’s mouth (lupo vesce). La gidouille is also a hot-air balloon, a nebulous or even a perfect sphere of knowledge — the intestinal sphere of the sun. There is nothing to take away from death. Does a tire die? It renders its tire soul. Flatulence is at the origin of the breath.
    1ooo days of theory – Pataphysics by J. Baudrillard via Ctheory.

    Pataphysics is the absurdist pseudo-philosophy/ideology devised by Alfred Jarry.

    By way of the understanding Artaud’s impact on the young Baudrillard, it may be valuable to recall Artaud’s proposal in Le Théâtre et Son Double (The Theatre and its Double) that art (in his case drama) must be a means of influencing the human organism and directly altering consciousness by engaging the audience in a ritualistic-like trance.
    Reviewed by Joseph Nechvatal

    The Spirit of Jean Baudrillard – an obit from Arthur Kroker of Ctheory

    In his thought there was always something simultaneously futuristic and ancient: futuristic because his theorization of the culture of simulation ran parallel to the great scientific discoveries of our time, specifically the radical transformation of culture and society under the impact of the speed of light-time and light-space; and ancient because Baudrillard was haunted by the enigma of pataphysics, namely the magical ascent of the reality-principle itself into the language of artifice, seduction and terror.

    ‘My death is everywhere, my death dreams’ – K-Punk

    Antigram

    In any case, what eventually transpired was the monstrous birth of a New York “Simulationist” school, principally composed of the artists Peter Halley, Jeff Koons, Ross Bleckner, Sherrie Levine, and far more principally marketed and masterminded by freelance curators Collins & Milazzo.

    Jean Sees Dead People by Scott McLemee (Jan, 2001)

    Remember Baurillard by Scott McLemee (March 14, 2007)

    …And death made him laugh.

    Continental Drift (via Cyrano)

    (Question to J.B) – France chose not to send soldiers to Iraq, which has real meaning for countless individual soldiers, for their families and for the state.
    J.B. Ah, yes. We are “against” the war because it is not our war. But in Algeria, it was the same. America didn’t send soldiers when we fought the Algerian war. France and America are on the same side. There is only one side.

    Sainte Beuve Saint Veuve photo by Jean Beaudrillard

    Then, on one of my trips to Japan, I was given a camera, and I began to try it out a bit, taking photographs from the plane on the return journey.
    I like photography as something completely empty, ‘irreal’, as something that preserves the idea of a silent apparition.
    Baudrillard’s Photography: A Hyperreal Disappearance Into The Object?

    Artwork: happy famous Artists
    tractatus logos philosophicus – baudrillard/disneyland
    embroidery on canvas

    Bumpin’ with Gabo and Wes

    Tuesday, March 6th, 2007

    Happy Birthday, Gabo! He turns 80 today. (BBC)

    Gabriel Garcia Marquez (El amor en los tiempos del colera)
    Gabo on youtube here
    For non-Spanish speaking people one of the commenters on youtube helped translate Gabo’s words.

    he says, the men have three sort of lives: the public live, the personal live and the secret live; the women are present in three of them.
    En general the people think in their relationships: the comunication is the solution of all troubles,but Gavo thinks when the couples have a talk they end fighting; is better to forget and to continuo.
    After he understood that, he never had discussion with any woman!!

    The mysteries of Bill Clinton by Gabo from Salon

    During his first campaign, Clinton had mentioned that his favorite book was “One Hundred Years of Solitude.” I said at the time — and I was quoted in print — that I thought he had said it simply to pull in the Latin vote. He had not forgotten — after greeting me on Martha’s Vineyard, he at once assured me that what he said had been quite sincere.

    Gabo vs Mario Vargas Llosa – Two giants of literature, one black eye and 30 years of silence

    Gabo shares a birthday with Wes Montgomery, the great Jazz innovator. Wes (John Leslie “Wes” Montgomery born 6 March 1923 in Indianapolis, Indiana; died 15 June 1968, also in Indianapolis)

    William James On the Character of Artists

    To artist Sarah Wyman Whitman, William James said; “Looked at from one point of view, the artist was like any other man, except for the greater rapidity of his intuitions; what he saw at once others saw more slowly.”

    Agog has a new post:
    William James: In the Maelstrom of American Modernism, Robert D. Richardson, 2006

    Pinter, Paul Weitz and Shakespeare

    Saturday, March 3rd, 2007

    If you missed Harold Pinter on Charlie Rose, go here.
    If anybody, it is Pinter who can handle Charlie’s obnoxious questions and turn them into gold. (See my previous post on Pinter – Master and the Caretaker)

    The Lovers – Clip from 1963 TV Play by Pinter

    Harold Pinter without dialogues? Vivien Merchant, Pinter’s first wife
    plays the character. (She was great in Alfie. Got nominated for the Oscar but did not win – not winning is almost an honor).

    Yesterday was a day of connecting the dots in today’s film/theater pop culture world, I found out from Hal that the playwright he introduced me as his neighbor in the early 90’s is Paul Weitz who later directed “About a Boy”, “In Good Company” and others.
    I have seen two of his films and did not know that he was the director.

    Hal, Masayo and Paul Weitz by Fung Lin Hall
    Here is a bad picture at Paul’s apartment of Hal, Masayo, and Paul with one of Hal’s paintings in the background. I have another picture somewhere in the pile of my old photos of them in exactly the same position and pose with dark glasses off.

    The only thing I remember from the meeting was that Paul Weitz did not like Gus Van Sant’s sudden foray into Shakespeare in the middle of “My Own Private Idaho”. Paul Weitz is a sweet guy, and his films shows the same goodness.

    Speaking of Shakespeare, I came across this article.
    Playwright of the Globe

    From all around the globe—from Frankfurt to Tokyo, from Prague to Moscow—we have testimony to Shakespeare’s power, his ability to move people of all nations, to inspire them, to shake them out of ingrained modes of thought and feeling, to give them the strength to question and challenge authority. Above all, we see how Shakespeare remains politically relevant to a wide variety of situations around the world; he seems to be taken most seriously by people who find themselves in the middle of a crisis and, in particular, who feel their liberties threatened.

    I have seen Maximilian Schell playing Hamlet in German with Japanese subtitles. I was introduced to the greatness of Shostakovich’s film scores through the Russian Hamlet film.

    La regina , mio signore , è morta (The Queen, my lord is dead).
    Here is Macbeth in Italian from dlsan, the web artist who was a
    part-time Shakespearean actor.

    (Maximilian Schell is the prominent collector of Josef Albers squares. How revealing!)