Midnight, the Stars and You

Overlook Hotel, July 4th Ball, 1921 (The Shining)

We've discussed haunted houses, but let's turn our attention to hotels. Although residency is usually brief, hotels seem to be ghost magnets. This reputation carries through into the ghostly fiction. In my estimation the best Haunted Hotel story is the cinematic adaptation of The Shining by Stephen King, directed by Stanley Kubrick.

The numerous ghosts, the long corridors, the dark history, these all combine to create a crowded and varied feel to the haunting that couldn't be matched by a normal domicile. It is as if the Overlook Hotel processes damnation in volume, skimming off the numerous guests who pass through its malign doors.



Red rum?! What could that mean?


Twin child ghosts, elevators full of blood, a snowy hedge maze, and haunting music, this movie has all the bases covered. ;-)

Half Sick of Shadows

The Lady of Shalott (1888) by John William Waterhouse

Alfred Tennyson was born on this date in 1809. His works have become the paragons of Victorian poetry. To commemorate his legacy of beauty, here are a few stanzas of my favorite Tennyson poem.

The Lady of Shalott (Stanzas 2-5)

Willows whiten, aspens quiver,
Little breezes dusk and shiver
Through the wave that runs for ever
By the island in the river
Flowing down to Camelot.
Four grey walls, and four grey towers,
Overlook a space of flowers,
And the silent isle imbowers
The Lady of Shalott.

By the margin, willow veil'd,
Slide the heavy barges trail'd
By slow horses; and unhail'd
The shallop flitteth silken-sail'd
Skimming down to Camelot:
But who hath seen her wave her hand?
Or at the casement seen her stand?
Or is she known in all the land,
The Lady of Shalott?

Only reapers, reaping early,
In among the bearded barley
Hear a song that echoes cheerly
From the river winding clearly;
Down to tower'd Camelot;
And by the moon the reaper weary,
Piling sheaves in uplands airy,
Listening, whispers, " 'Tis the fairy
Lady of Shalott."

There she weaves by night and day
A magic web with colours gay.
She has heard a whisper say,
A curse is on her if she stay
To look down to Camelot.
She knows not what the curse may be,
And so she weaveth steadily,
And little other care hath she,
The Lady of Shalott.



The Lady of Shalott (1905) by William Holman Hunt

 Absolutely beautiful.

Friday Flowers: Wildflowers for August

Wildflowers at the Madrona Marsh

Real Life

(By Lucie Brock-Broido)

Soon the electrical wires will grow heavy under the snow.

I am thinking of the fire of the possibility of fire & then moving

Across America in a car with a powder blue dashboard,

Moving to country music & the heart

Is torn a little more because the song says the truth.

Because in the thirty-six things that can happen

To people, men & women, women & women,

Men & men, in all these things the soul is bound

To be broken somewhere along the line,

That clove-scented, air-colored wanderer blushing

With no memory, no inkling & then proceeds

Across America

In the sap green of the tropics,

Toward the cadmium of a bitter sunrise to a new age,

At the white impossible ice hour, starving,

Past the electric blue of the rivers melting down,

Above the nude, snuff, terra cotta, maybe fire,

Over the tiny fragile mound of finger bones

Of an Indian who died standing up,

Through the heliotrope of a song about the sunset,

To live the thirty-six things

& never comes home.

Not much time tonight, so apologies for the brief post.

The Fire that You Light

Tany Ling displaying Michael Chabon's Yiddish Policemen's Union

I got to attend the second performance of the Hammer Museum's "Sing Your Favorite Book" series. This time the performer was Tany Ling, singing Michael Chabon's Yiddish Policemen's Union. I am so glad that I made it to the performance, back pain or no. Tany Ling has an angelic voice, absolutely breath-taking in its purity of tone and beauty.

I'm not familiar with the novel. It's an alternate history detective story set in a Jewish "reservation" in Alaska. That's sounds like it's made of fail to me, but I'm now fairly certain that I'm wrong in this shallow assessment. I had no narrative context by which to judge the passages chosen for the performance, but they were rich and evocative statements. This novel has popped up onto my "must read" list.

Because I was unfamiliar with the book, I focused more upon the singing and articulation of the words. When I heard Jessica Basta perform Lolita, my concentration was given to how she interpreted and arranged the narrative into a coherent performance piece. This made for a radically different listening experience. With Tany Ling, I was listening to the singer singing. With Jessica Basta, I listened to the song being sung. Both were excellent performances, but I was compelled to personally gush with enthusiasm to Tany Ling and take a photo so as to remember to write a blog post.



Michael Chabon's Yiddish Policemen's Union


I'm certainly looking forward to attending another performance.

Wherein the Twin Visage Appears

body 15, after Michael Joyce's "ivory" (2011) by Alexandra Grant

I've been thinking about the relationship between text and image recently. This line of contemplation started a few months back when I viewed the "Ed Ruscha: On the Road" exhibit at the Hammer Museum. I found the selection of Kerouac's text paired with Ruscha's painted patterns or imagery to be an interesting combination of the textual and pictorial.

A few weeks later, I attended the opening of the Torrance Art Museum's annual group show, Baker's Dozen III, wherein a saw a couple paintings by Alexandra Grant that gave me another example of text and image combination. Like Ruscha's work, these works are inspired by a literary text. In this case, Grant is expressing her aesthetic response to the poetry of Michael Joyce, specifically a haiku cycle.

Here's a sample of the work:

thigh [body 13]

we have come to this

hollow where the mist lingers

along the narrows

It's an interesting piece. The full text can be read at Grant's website page for the "Body Series". In any case, that is the haiku. Here is her response to it:

body 13, after Michael Joyce's "thigh" (2009) by Alexandra Grant

A very intense image!

The arcs, word bubbles, colors, and line patterns combine to form a visual commentary. They create a mood, a vibe, that elaborates upon the poetry. Specifically, the text become visual elements of the interior abstract landscape, depicting the state of the painter's inspiration. It feels as though this is an abstraction of the brain, with its two symmetric hemispheres processing the words from literal signifier to emotive imagery.

In Honor of Satchmo

Louis Armstrong, born August 4, 1901

It's been a while since my last Jazz post. But today marks the 110 year birth date of one of the greatest Jazz musicians, Louis Armstrong. Perhaps more than any other performer, Armstrong popularized the Jazz movement as an American and global style. With an instantly recognizable voice and charismatic presence, he became the first African-American "cross over" performer and media star.

Although Jazz techniques and styles have changed radically over the decades since Armstrong's time, his music retains its potency and charm. Not only does it capture the vibe of the era, but it still speaks to the listener with authenticity and resonance. He served as an inspiration for generations of musicians, even when his style become "old fashioned" and "moldy" as the Bebop musicians would describe it.



Armstrong and his ever present handkerchief


His time in the spotlight lasted nearly half a century, during which the Jazz movement went from an obscure regional style from New Orleans to a high style art form. Armstrong's influence through the course of this development was profound.

Weekly Wrap: Wednesday Night #3

Ferrari Show

It's time for our Weekly Wrap!

I'm going to be a bit brief. Since last Wednesday, we had eleven stories.

We covered three art shows: Abel Baker Gutierrez's "Swimming" on exhibit at the Luis De Jesus Gallery. David Trautrimas' fantastic architectural photographs based upon household appliances, "The Spyfrost Project", and Greg Miller's collage works, "Magnificent Seven", on exhibit at the William Turner Gallery.



White Dahlia


Spooky Sunday featured Amelia B. Edwards' classic ghost story, "The Phantom Coach". Meanwhile, Friday Flowers exhibited a variety of dahlias and poetry by Amy Lowell. Good stuff!!!

We had our normal music, movie, and marketing features. The music was a celebration of fifteen years of the Macarena. The movie was the marking of twenty-five years since the horrific Howard the Duck. The marketing was the Old Spice promotion featuring Fabio!!! Some bad memories were dredged up by these three topics. I suffer for your amusement.

Howard was not the silliest looking person in this movie. So sad.

In the miscellaneous posts, I gave a progress report on my health post vehicular collision. I reported on an envy-inducing display of Ferraris. And, finally, I reported on Jessica Basta's recital of Lolita at the Hammer Museum.

Well, that's the Weekly Wrap. Here's Fabio in a loincloth.



Fabio in a loincloth.


Enjoy!!!

At the Party Con las Chicas

Los Del Rio

It was fifteen years ago that the Macarena hit the top spot of the Billboard Hot 100. It go on to be the number one single of the year. A catchy Latin dance song, it was totally unlike anything else playing on the radio at the time, predating the Latin Pop sound of Jennifer Lopez, Christina Aquilera, Ricky Martin, and Enrique Iglesias by three years. Moreover, it didn't sound like anything from the Dance scene either, which was an eclectic mix of classic Trance, early Trip Hop, and Eurodance.

It was a fluke mainstream phenomenon, but it took off in a BIG way. It dominated the Billboard chart for three months and stayed within the Top 100 throughout the following year. It pervades popular culture in every way. Even the political figures made reference to the Macarena; sometimes, they'd even dance it. Oh, horror, horror, horror. . .



Instructions for dancing the Macarena


Constantly on the radio, I was unable to listen to mainstream Top 40 music stations, like KIIS 102.7, after a while. I kept the dial on either alternative, classical, or dance stations for my music fix. And that was a good thing. Keeping up on the newest popular musical trends is interesting, but sometimes one needs to take a break from the audio "junk food". There was a lot of good music in 1996, but most of it wasn't in the Top 40.

One Week Later

Hermosa Beach, South of the Pier

It's been a week since my accident. I'm feeling much better, but still have a few pains and kinks that I have hopes will heal up soon. It seems like the subgenre of "Surviving a Deadly Misadventure" requires that one reassess their existence, perhaps with a life-changing insight. Sadly, I'm too much of a creature of habit and compulsive patterns to give into such expectations.

So what did I do to recover from the collision? I spent a few days just vegging, listening to music. Music has always been my comfort activity. As indicated in the photo above, I took a trip to the beach. Weird, but I haven't actually walk on the beach since last September. Just as last time, it was a gloomy day, perfect for a sulky stroll upon the sand.



Vroman's Bookstore in Pasadena


"Retail Therapy" doesn't usually work for me, but browsing the books is always a good time. Vroman's is an independent bookstore, with one of the finest selections that I've ever seen. They have great history, science fiction, horror, science, and gardening sections. I could spend all day planning my selections. ;-)

Tip of the Tongue Taking a Trip

Promotional image for the film, Lolita (1997)


The Hammer Museum is doing a series of performances called "Sing Your Favorite Book" which is being held in conjunction with the current "Ed Ruscha: On the Road" exhibit. A few weeks back, I was able to attend Jessica Basta's reading of Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita. I really didn't know what to expect. The concept seemed primed for failure; librettists work hard to shape literary pieces into musical works. How likely is a performer to improvise a quality result?

On the other hand, Jessica Basta has a beautiful voice and a solid improvisational sensibility. Moreover, Lolita has many passages that lend themselves to quotation and dramatic presentation. The goal wasn't to recite the entire novel, but to sing select passages from it. That's got potential.



Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita


The performance was held in the Ruscha galleries. It was a bit surreal, listening to the singing while looking at quotes from Kerouac' On the Road, contextualized over Ruscha's images. As expected Basta's voice and improvisation skills delivered on the rich potential of the text. It was a satisfying performance.

Peel Back the Surface Layers

Splash (2011) by Greg Miller

I'm not a fan of collage works. I appreciate the effort involved in selecting and arranging the mixed media into a desired artistic expression, but it generally feels a bit gimmicky. It's as if we are meant to be impressed by the pain-staking process of collage, rather than the significance of the image created. However, I'm very enthusiastic about paintings that incorporate elements of collage. And that's precisely what Greg Miller's work does.

Miller is a Neo-Pop artist. His images are evocative of pop cultural elements, specifically from the '50s or '60s. These images are superficial, presenting a smooth facade under which images or texts are revealed through a thinning of the paint or a tear in the surface. This is where the elements of collage come into play. The selected mixed media elements play off of the superficial main image, reinforcing, elaborating, or undercutting its significance.



LA Y Bunny (2011) by Greg Miller


The current exhibit of Greg Miller's work, "Magnificent Seven" at the William Turner Gallery, displays this masterful technique wonderfully. With glamorous images of an idealized bygone Los Angeles, the collage elements create a rich counterpoint commentary and dissonant vibe to the work. The overall effect is playful but articulate.

Trapped In a World He Never Made

Detail of Howard the Duck #8 (Art: Gene Colan, Steve Leialoha)


With all of the superhero movies filling the cinematic release schedule, you might think that they'd run out of characters to feature sometime soon. If so, you'd be thinking wrong. They may be working through the B-List of superheroes, but there probably are not enough letters to cover all the levels of obscure characters that populate the Marvel or DC comic book universes.

In fact, a Q-List character was featured with a cinematic release on this date twenty-five years ago, Howard the Duck. Oh, that was a bad movie! It had bad acting, bad effects, bad everything!!! It was a failure beyond my ability to express. I still can't understand how anybody thought that this movie would be anything more than a paradigm of awfulness.



Detail of Howard the Duck #12 (Art: Gene Colan, Steve Leialoha)


You see, the source material was some bad stuff. Either it was a goofy anthropomorphic bit of buffoonery or it was a not so interesting bit of pretentious existentialist tripe. In either case, it was unreadably awful, the worst comic in publication. And, if you remember some of the comics of the late seventies and early eighties, there were plenty of atrocious comics to contend for this title of disgrace.