Saturday, March 29, 2003
Statistical:
As promised, a re-cap of the SuperFreak Spring Break 2003 Mini-Tour is presented:
• 3/8/03 SUNY Brockport @ Boozin's Suite. All ages, 'though most lesser than mine. LI Toasted Lager in 64oz jugs.
Set List: 1. "Susan in the Rain" 2. "Highrise Suite for Cello and Beer" 3. "Big Bierce" 4. "Pool Remembered" 5. "Shots and Conversations" 6. "Everyone Has a Boyfriend" 7. "Sunday Again"
•3/10/03 I-90 (NY, OH, IN, IL) @ The Driver's Loosening Mind. Solo. All tolls expected: $15.
Set List: 1. "Holy Fuck, I Have a Long Way to Drive" 2."Ohio Can Suck It" 3."Indiana Deer Protection Sentinels of Love" 4."Driving Away from Those Who Hurt Me (but the Pain Travels with Me) 5."Whiney Self-Exploration Pt. 6" 6."Chicago Looms: Lakeshore Reverie"
•3/11/03-3/16/03 CHICAGO @ Love on Southport. All the money this amazing city can pleasurably coax from you. Harp, Sam Adams, "Car Bombs," Bells IPA (mmm), Goose Island Ale (bleh). Set List: 1. "Two Pans of Shepards's Pie" 2."Kyle and Julie's Smile" 3."Reetu and Me in Sunny Air" 4."Deep Dish" 5."Long Drunk Saturday" 6."Elevated Heat Lamp" 7."IM Wrong" 8. "A Realization"
•3/17/03 I-90 (added date!) @ The Longest Drive Yet. Coffee/ Mountain Dew. Same tolls: $15. Set List: 1."Continuous Jazz" 2."Affirmations: Letting Go Aloud" 3."88mph For A Mad Stretch" 4. "Home Again"
•3/18/03-3/21/03 Watertown, NY @ The Paddock Cell. Free for children of John and Judy Northrop (including meals). Saranac Pale Ale. Set list: 1. "Sweet Jesus, the First Bombing of Iraq Just Interrputed Dan Rather/ NCAA Tournament Intensity" 2."My Own Blaine" 3."Seeing Her When I Shouldn't Have (Awareness and Causality)" 4."The Bore Ring" 5."Allyson's Friends" 6."The Thick Nap Sequence" 7."I Can't Be Here Anymore (Right Now)"
•3/22/03-3/25/03 Cheshire/New Haven, CT @ The Flynn Compound/ The House of Cocktail Sermonry. Admission is free. Bud Ice, courtesy of General Flynn (ret.), Harpoon IPA, Magic Hat Fat Angel, Schaeffer Lager (cans), bar shots. Set List: 1."The Thicker Nap" 2. "Battering Bud" 3."First and Last Drag" 4."Almost Steering" 5."The Stratego Affair" 6."Her Crazy Cruelty (The Reason To Forget)" 7."CNN and N and N" 8."Etude: The Creation of K" 9."Notorious Dancing" 10."Guido's Circus" 11."Time Alone in Connecticut"
•3/26/03-3/28/03 Croton, NY @ The Em Spot. Free Chinese and Italian cooking and couchspace. Water, juice, the return to Chumley's in Manhattan for the best bitter this side of the Atlantic. Set List: 1."Driving on the Fly" 2."Interview Companionship Luck" 3."Croton-Mark-Harmon" 4."Best in Conversations" 5."Matthew Barney's Body and Expression" 6."Man Suit Riot" 7."Whisper Gene"
8."Closing Credits/ Opening My Appartment"
The road can be a tough place, but I've been counseled, warmed, and regenerated by all of you generous people who have taken me in, hoisted and passed me as I crowd-surfed between friends. You've all helped me analyze my/our situation in unique ways, and I have finally made a decision: I am working at The School again next year ('though it will be the last), with intentions toward graduate study beginning Fall '04 in Boston, Chicago, Syracuse, or wherever.
In shadowing you, I have been with the garrolous, the sleep-needy, the intimidating but philosophical parents, the young artistic, the young fools, the reserved, the accomodating, the close, the altruistic, the joke-humpers, the good-looking strangers of cities, the old and new friendly, the mad, the loved, the once-loved, the discontent, the true peers, the projection-cautious...thank you.
As promised, a re-cap of the SuperFreak Spring Break 2003 Mini-Tour is presented:
• 3/8/03 SUNY Brockport @ Boozin's Suite. All ages, 'though most lesser than mine. LI Toasted Lager in 64oz jugs.
Set List: 1. "Susan in the Rain" 2. "Highrise Suite for Cello and Beer" 3. "Big Bierce" 4. "Pool Remembered" 5. "Shots and Conversations" 6. "Everyone Has a Boyfriend" 7. "Sunday Again"
•3/10/03 I-90 (NY, OH, IN, IL) @ The Driver's Loosening Mind. Solo. All tolls expected: $15.
Set List: 1. "Holy Fuck, I Have a Long Way to Drive" 2."Ohio Can Suck It" 3."Indiana Deer Protection Sentinels of Love" 4."Driving Away from Those Who Hurt Me (but the Pain Travels with Me) 5."Whiney Self-Exploration Pt. 6" 6."Chicago Looms: Lakeshore Reverie"
•3/11/03-3/16/03 CHICAGO @ Love on Southport. All the money this amazing city can pleasurably coax from you. Harp, Sam Adams, "Car Bombs," Bells IPA (mmm), Goose Island Ale (bleh). Set List: 1. "Two Pans of Shepards's Pie" 2."Kyle and Julie's Smile" 3."Reetu and Me in Sunny Air" 4."Deep Dish" 5."Long Drunk Saturday" 6."Elevated Heat Lamp" 7."IM Wrong" 8. "A Realization"
•3/17/03 I-90 (added date!) @ The Longest Drive Yet. Coffee/ Mountain Dew. Same tolls: $15. Set List: 1."Continuous Jazz" 2."Affirmations: Letting Go Aloud" 3."88mph For A Mad Stretch" 4. "Home Again"
•3/18/03-3/21/03 Watertown, NY @ The Paddock Cell. Free for children of John and Judy Northrop (including meals). Saranac Pale Ale. Set list: 1. "Sweet Jesus, the First Bombing of Iraq Just Interrputed Dan Rather/ NCAA Tournament Intensity" 2."My Own Blaine" 3."Seeing Her When I Shouldn't Have (Awareness and Causality)" 4."The Bore Ring" 5."Allyson's Friends" 6."The Thick Nap Sequence" 7."I Can't Be Here Anymore (Right Now)"
•3/22/03-3/25/03 Cheshire/New Haven, CT @ The Flynn Compound/ The House of Cocktail Sermonry. Admission is free. Bud Ice, courtesy of General Flynn (ret.), Harpoon IPA, Magic Hat Fat Angel, Schaeffer Lager (cans), bar shots. Set List: 1."The Thicker Nap" 2. "Battering Bud" 3."First and Last Drag" 4."Almost Steering" 5."The Stratego Affair" 6."Her Crazy Cruelty (The Reason To Forget)" 7."CNN and N and N" 8."Etude: The Creation of K" 9."Notorious Dancing" 10."Guido's Circus" 11."Time Alone in Connecticut"
•3/26/03-3/28/03 Croton, NY @ The Em Spot. Free Chinese and Italian cooking and couchspace. Water, juice, the return to Chumley's in Manhattan for the best bitter this side of the Atlantic. Set List: 1."Driving on the Fly" 2."Interview Companionship Luck" 3."Croton-Mark-Harmon" 4."Best in Conversations" 5."Matthew Barney's Body and Expression" 6."Man Suit Riot" 7."Whisper Gene"
8."Closing Credits/ Opening My Appartment"
The road can be a tough place, but I've been counseled, warmed, and regenerated by all of you generous people who have taken me in, hoisted and passed me as I crowd-surfed between friends. You've all helped me analyze my/our situation in unique ways, and I have finally made a decision: I am working at The School again next year ('though it will be the last), with intentions toward graduate study beginning Fall '04 in Boston, Chicago, Syracuse, or wherever.
In shadowing you, I have been with the garrolous, the sleep-needy, the intimidating but philosophical parents, the young artistic, the young fools, the reserved, the accomodating, the close, the altruistic, the joke-humpers, the good-looking strangers of cities, the old and new friendly, the mad, the loved, the once-loved, the discontent, the true peers, the projection-cautious...thank you.
Thursday, March 27, 2003
"Why are you wearing that man suit?":
Alone in Emily's house, while her family was out among others earning money, defining themselves, or being educated, I screened Donnie Darko for the first time. It's affecting me intellectually in moderate-depth, but I am astonished at the pure experience of watching it. One reviewer I read correctly placed the tone of the film as a mixture of Spielberg/Zemeckis 80s teen-adventure with a more psychologically-subjective visual darkness. It inspires the "awe" of E.T., but adds eerie psycho-spirituality and believable parents; it's like schizo-realism. Anyway, it's one of few legitimately-creepy films I've seen, using the technology of the camera and visual effects for a more substantive purpose, in addition to chill-inducement.
It's similar to Cronenburg's new film Spider, although not as perspective-subjective. Cronenburg's picture allows the audience to remain antiseptic, mostly, or detached from the illness that affects Ralph Fiennes' title character, especially as we gradually (and I mean gradually, but not too slow-paced) come to understand his condition.
What might be astonishing about Donnie Darko are the fuzzy implications it initiates about teenage existence, perhaps the most frequently but accurately mined source of good independent filmmaking (and literature), and schizophrenia. While Donnie clearly suffers from the proto-symptoms of the disorder (that usually sets in hardcore during early adulthood), his skewed view of his society seems to rub off on some of the other characters (the Jena Malone character, the Drew Barrymoore character, the mother), but are ultimately erased. While I disagree with Ebert's generally-dismissive review, I take many of his points to heart: the film does astonish genuinely, not cheaply, to an extent that it successfully masks any depths or substantive statements it fails to make. I'm not saying there are no commications to pick up, but that they seemed less important to magnify to the director/writer than the tight-loop of the story and the entertainingly innovative visual-means of telling it.
I'm glad I finally got a chance to see it, given the credible hype generated at Joblo.com and by Flynn and the New Havenites. Great use of 80s pop/rock.
[on a personal level, I was interested by the "pedagogical" aspects of the film: the private school setting, the English class/teacher, the internal politics. I'm happy that The School, where I work, has yet, this year, to criticize or attempt to censor my teaching methods (if, in their embryonic/experimental state they can be called methods). I pretty much have complete control over the doings, seeings, and sayings in my classroom. (knock-knock)]
Alone in Emily's house, while her family was out among others earning money, defining themselves, or being educated, I screened Donnie Darko for the first time. It's affecting me intellectually in moderate-depth, but I am astonished at the pure experience of watching it. One reviewer I read correctly placed the tone of the film as a mixture of Spielberg/Zemeckis 80s teen-adventure with a more psychologically-subjective visual darkness. It inspires the "awe" of E.T., but adds eerie psycho-spirituality and believable parents; it's like schizo-realism. Anyway, it's one of few legitimately-creepy films I've seen, using the technology of the camera and visual effects for a more substantive purpose, in addition to chill-inducement.
It's similar to Cronenburg's new film Spider, although not as perspective-subjective. Cronenburg's picture allows the audience to remain antiseptic, mostly, or detached from the illness that affects Ralph Fiennes' title character, especially as we gradually (and I mean gradually, but not too slow-paced) come to understand his condition.
What might be astonishing about Donnie Darko are the fuzzy implications it initiates about teenage existence, perhaps the most frequently but accurately mined source of good independent filmmaking (and literature), and schizophrenia. While Donnie clearly suffers from the proto-symptoms of the disorder (that usually sets in hardcore during early adulthood), his skewed view of his society seems to rub off on some of the other characters (the Jena Malone character, the Drew Barrymoore character, the mother), but are ultimately erased. While I disagree with Ebert's generally-dismissive review, I take many of his points to heart: the film does astonish genuinely, not cheaply, to an extent that it successfully masks any depths or substantive statements it fails to make. I'm not saying there are no commications to pick up, but that they seemed less important to magnify to the director/writer than the tight-loop of the story and the entertainingly innovative visual-means of telling it.
I'm glad I finally got a chance to see it, given the credible hype generated at Joblo.com and by Flynn and the New Havenites. Great use of 80s pop/rock.
[on a personal level, I was interested by the "pedagogical" aspects of the film: the private school setting, the English class/teacher, the internal politics. I'm happy that The School, where I work, has yet, this year, to criticize or attempt to censor my teaching methods (if, in their embryonic/experimental state they can be called methods). I pretty much have complete control over the doings, seeings, and sayings in my classroom. (knock-knock)]
Wednesday, March 26, 2003
Last Stop?:
I'm in currently-balmy Croton-on-the-Hudson, New York, which could very well be the last stop on my Spring Super-Break 2003 Super-Freak Mini-Tour (full dates/venue-info and set lists to be posted soon). I'm the guest of the Taylors and their cats (Twinkle is fine, just not as fine as Bryce or PuffBall).
It's pleasant here. Come and be happy like this couple...in Croton.
We're off to Manhattan for Emily's interview, followed by rumors of free beer (perhaps the best two words ever to be placed adjacent to one another).
I'm in currently-balmy Croton-on-the-Hudson, New York, which could very well be the last stop on my Spring Super-Break 2003 Super-Freak Mini-Tour (full dates/venue-info and set lists to be posted soon). I'm the guest of the Taylors and their cats (Twinkle is fine, just not as fine as Bryce or PuffBall).
It's pleasant here. Come and be happy like this couple...in Croton.
We're off to Manhattan for Emily's interview, followed by rumors of free beer (perhaps the best two words ever to be placed adjacent to one another).
Monday, March 24, 2003
Collablogration, Part Two:
‘K’
I.
Something regarding bananas on the deck
while others worked on a Sunday
to make a Sunday. While the sky shifts low,
the trees undead, we consider the squirrel — tree
rat, scrounger; rolling over leaf and wood.
When it’s the squirrel that makes Sundays…
What is it to be in the underbrush, really
Or prone on the suburban drive?
To be in my own sensations,
to house parts of me in the space of others:
Can you market my happiness to me
like a backhand revelation?
Out. Drive. Windows down. Breeze through sleeve.
Radio low. Park; disembark. Select. Purchase. Unwrap.
Discard the waste. Select agaun. Lift, to mouth.
Illuminate and ponder.
The unwilling are the best conduits:
they channel their forgetting like ventilated smoke.
II.
And deluminate. And reach over. There’s smoke
and lit fires. Stoke these and gather. To the edge
is inevitable. If we were all Catholic,
we’d each have a chair where the word
would be seen. But we have our cigarettes,
and smoke to be witnessed.
Once, when we were fish
our allegiance was oxygen —
Truth is filling yourself with what falls from your home,
is anxiety, is closer to pavement than once wondered.
Plugged into roads, the possibilities
of human connection are governed only by tolls
and choice made: a thousand smells of bodies you
would gladly want to hug,
love, or bathe.
To carry the flesh, to announce it. To shield it
and trumpet. Interlude for skin, bone, and vein:
The boundary and frontier, the literal embody.
III.
We argued about the color of a lighter.
What was once orange became a disputably gray,
or something beyond our spectrum.
In the lap of banal observation
sparked an acceleration.
The fugue that carries us like fleshstones in the surf break.
While I was driving, the soundtrack made sense to the heavy stream.
I napped, dreamt, and woke to an evening.
I felt the chance of pain at every driveway.
I stuck to the parking lots.
My patience swelled like a new gland.
I cut my pineal, but never broke from the dream.
The gasoline whiff matched the gassy strangers at the rest stop. My mind saw the street signs, highway lights, the on-ramp of memory.
Anxieties, devils, facial oil and toll weariness, the cramp of thoughts loosening; but I rose past the booth and blessed them. I strode into metal and then the stars began moving.
\ | /
You’ll know your location, your vehicle, you’ll understand and agree to the cost of combustion, the petty hunger that taunts your worry. And you know it, and it grows. And what you carry you will forget that you carry; you wear it like creases in your skin when you wake past noon.
But the unknown: the unmonitored speed, the dream you lost — like a receipt that charted your progress across the six state sleep. What beings claim you, who remembers why you smell like your name. The stains on the steering wheel and when they’ll be cleansed. Who will never forgive your conquering them. The accents you loaned to diners who shuffled while they paid kindly. The effect of the tip.
[We only feel the erosion, failing to detect our polish,
our new policies, our bank statement anticipation dances,
our pet projects, our prisoners, our tie rack, coupon booklet, coffee table, art,
matchbooks, pet dandruff, modem lights, photo frames, the civil wars,
the Georgian textbooks
‘K’
I.
Something regarding bananas on the deck
while others worked on a Sunday
to make a Sunday. While the sky shifts low,
the trees undead, we consider the squirrel — tree
rat, scrounger; rolling over leaf and wood.
When it’s the squirrel that makes Sundays…
What is it to be in the underbrush, really
Or prone on the suburban drive?
To be in my own sensations,
to house parts of me in the space of others:
Can you market my happiness to me
like a backhand revelation?
Out. Drive. Windows down. Breeze through sleeve.
Radio low. Park; disembark. Select. Purchase. Unwrap.
Discard the waste. Select agaun. Lift, to mouth.
Illuminate and ponder.
The unwilling are the best conduits:
they channel their forgetting like ventilated smoke.
II.
And deluminate. And reach over. There’s smoke
and lit fires. Stoke these and gather. To the edge
is inevitable. If we were all Catholic,
we’d each have a chair where the word
would be seen. But we have our cigarettes,
and smoke to be witnessed.
Once, when we were fish
our allegiance was oxygen —
Truth is filling yourself with what falls from your home,
is anxiety, is closer to pavement than once wondered.
Plugged into roads, the possibilities
of human connection are governed only by tolls
and choice made: a thousand smells of bodies you
would gladly want to hug,
love, or bathe.
To carry the flesh, to announce it. To shield it
and trumpet. Interlude for skin, bone, and vein:
The boundary and frontier, the literal embody.
III.
We argued about the color of a lighter.
What was once orange became a disputably gray,
or something beyond our spectrum.
In the lap of banal observation
sparked an acceleration.
The fugue that carries us like fleshstones in the surf break.
While I was driving, the soundtrack made sense to the heavy stream.
I napped, dreamt, and woke to an evening.
I felt the chance of pain at every driveway.
I stuck to the parking lots.
My patience swelled like a new gland.
I cut my pineal, but never broke from the dream.
The gasoline whiff matched the gassy strangers at the rest stop. My mind saw the street signs, highway lights, the on-ramp of memory.
Anxieties, devils, facial oil and toll weariness, the cramp of thoughts loosening; but I rose past the booth and blessed them. I strode into metal and then the stars began moving.
\ | /
You’ll know your location, your vehicle, you’ll understand and agree to the cost of combustion, the petty hunger that taunts your worry. And you know it, and it grows. And what you carry you will forget that you carry; you wear it like creases in your skin when you wake past noon.
But the unknown: the unmonitored speed, the dream you lost — like a receipt that charted your progress across the six state sleep. What beings claim you, who remembers why you smell like your name. The stains on the steering wheel and when they’ll be cleansed. Who will never forgive your conquering them. The accents you loaned to diners who shuffled while they paid kindly. The effect of the tip.
[We only feel the erosion, failing to detect our polish,
our new policies, our bank statement anticipation dances,
our pet projects, our prisoners, our tie rack, coupon booklet, coffee table, art,
matchbooks, pet dandruff, modem lights, photo frames, the civil wars,
the Georgian textbooks
Blog-Stay-Motley:
Thanks for the feedback. However negative, they still made me laugh. If any of you know a code for a soothing, deep blue color, please let me know. If not, I'll keep experimenting with awkward grays, sweet-sixteen pinks, and Nickelodeon™ oranges.
Thanks for the feedback. However negative, they still made me laugh. If any of you know a code for a soothing, deep blue color, please let me know. If not, I'll keep experimenting with awkward grays, sweet-sixteen pinks, and Nickelodeon™ oranges.
Oscar, Oscar
Yeah, so I didn't watch in anything more than ten second snippets, since Flynn, myself, and the cocktail sermon bunch were "screening" Fellini's 8 1/2. I say "bleh" to any of the awards given, but am most pleased that Pedro Almodovar won an Oscar for best original screenplay (Habla Con Ella, sorry Erin...) It was interesting to note that three of the five nominated for Best Director were non-American (Almodovar, Polanksi, and the guy who did The Hours (I think he's UKish)). Emimen won for best-selli.....I mean best original song. Best supporting acting awards both went for performances in Adaptation, Chris Cooper and Meryl Streep. You know all this already, I'm sure, but these are the only tidbits that interested me.
Oh, and I regret missing the "Filmmaking Icons Who Died This Year Montage" which is always my favorite segment.
Yeah, so I didn't watch in anything more than ten second snippets, since Flynn, myself, and the cocktail sermon bunch were "screening" Fellini's 8 1/2. I say "bleh" to any of the awards given, but am most pleased that Pedro Almodovar won an Oscar for best original screenplay (Habla Con Ella, sorry Erin...) It was interesting to note that three of the five nominated for Best Director were non-American (Almodovar, Polanksi, and the guy who did The Hours (I think he's UKish)). Emimen won for best-selli.....I mean best original song. Best supporting acting awards both went for performances in Adaptation, Chris Cooper and Meryl Streep. You know all this already, I'm sure, but these are the only tidbits that interested me.
Oh, and I regret missing the "Filmmaking Icons Who Died This Year Montage" which is always my favorite segment.
Lost in Cheshire:
I've been in a default blog-out lately, as following a Flynn sleep/activity schedule (which I gladly do) affects my access to computadora.
So what have we been up to, we slackers, we aimless sleepers-in? Well, Flynn has been smoking cigarettes and we've been New Havening nightly. I've had a chance to explore his lovely (and I mean lovely) house more thoroughly. I was amazed to find a foot-pampering astro-turn patch on the floor of his shower/tub/. His new, black family f'ridge has a freezer on the BOTTOM, and it pulls out like a sock drawer and self-deploys its storage wings for all your frozen food stowing needs. Mrs. Flynn made up the guest bed with purple sheets, and while I slept last night, Bryce and Mirage (les chats du Flynn) kept me furry company.
Major progress was made on the great poetry project known as "collablogration," to be posted on both (?) sites soon.
I've been in a default blog-out lately, as following a Flynn sleep/activity schedule (which I gladly do) affects my access to computadora.
So what have we been up to, we slackers, we aimless sleepers-in? Well, Flynn has been smoking cigarettes and we've been New Havening nightly. I've had a chance to explore his lovely (and I mean lovely) house more thoroughly. I was amazed to find a foot-pampering astro-turn patch on the floor of his shower/tub/. His new, black family f'ridge has a freezer on the BOTTOM, and it pulls out like a sock drawer and self-deploys its storage wings for all your frozen food stowing needs. Mrs. Flynn made up the guest bed with purple sheets, and while I slept last night, Bryce and Mirage (les chats du Flynn) kept me furry company.
Major progress was made on the great poetry project known as "collablogration," to be posted on both (?) sites soon.
