Empathy in the strangest place

Russell Banks, The Lost Memory of Skin

Superb novelist Russel Banks braids wonderous prose into his latest novel, Lost Memory of Skin, that deepens appreciation and empathy for his characters even though the subject matter itself  - in this case the dark world of convicted pedophiles - is discomfiting.  It's not an easy read, but its rewards are ample.

"His panic has passed.  The music, as it has always done, helps to separate his mind from his body.  For most people it's the reverse.  Especially for people who, like the Professor, listen to classic American Jazz.  Jazz is one of the few subjects he never explains to other people.  He's perfectly willing to hold forth on the subject of European classical music from the Baroque to Post-Modern serialism or disco or funk or raga or reggae.  But jazz is like a secret drug to him.  It alone has the power to alter his brain waves and neurotransmitters such that he feels autonomous, immunized against the contamination of his body, which otherwise is nearly impossible to make go away."

1-900-VANITY (the remix)

1-900-VANITY (the remix)

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Thinking of Beckett

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Thinking of Beckett

Do you know where to begin
when you've yet to start?

I haven't a clue. 

Or how to end
before sight of finish?

I'll give it some thought.

Do you know what to say
before you open your mouth?

Sometimes it's true.

Does your speech bear repeating
and impart a meaning?

Say that again.

Are you on a straight line
with the horizon in sight
or on the curve of an arch
blind round' the bend?

I'm not sure I follow.

Will the day count
beyond fall of night?

I wish that I knew.

Do we share the
same doubts?

Sadly, we do.

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Sounding Beckett, Classic Stage Company, 09/23/2012Inspired by Sounding Beckett 

"-- a singular evening of theater and music that pairs three plays by Samuel Beckett from his "ghost period" with new works by contemporary composers written expressly in response to those plays."

"Comprised of Beckett's one-act plays "Footfalls," "Ohio Impromptu" and "Catastrophe" -- written from 1975 to 1982 in the twilight of the playwright's career." 

Classic Stage Company (136 E. 13 St.) in Manhattan.

Einstein on the Beach

Einstein on the Beach, Brooklyn Academy of Music, 09/19/2012 Although I'm not and have never been a Phillip Glass enthusiast, I have to give credit where credit is due.

Einstein on the Beach (link to program notes - pdf) - performed at the Brooklyn Academy of Music and not staged in New York since 1992 - is spectacular as theater, as dance, as music, as spectacle; each constituent element draws inspiration from the others.  I didn't leave my seat for its entire four and half hour length.

The synthesis of Robert Wilson's bold theatricality and Lucinda Child's perfectly synced dance movements to Glass's endlessly variegated arpeggios remains fresh, fertile and daring.

The work was created in 1976 during a time of artistic ferment when anything seemed possible. I was reminded of how distinctly estranged that climate is from the prevailing winds of today when everything is possible and therefore sometimes less interesting because of our constant need to (pre)validate our experiences using an increasingly ersatz sophistication that's insufficient, anti-corporeal and unsatisfying. The fissure between anything and everything is treacherous.

Einstein on the Beach is maverick in the best American tradition and belongs in opera's historical canon.

Ain't nothin' funnier than the truth

Clemency

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I woke up this morning in a cloud of vague familiarity. My place suddenly identifiable and nameless. Life's epistemological DNA had vanished in the minutes between REM and rising.

The sunlight? The city's topography seen beyond the bedroom window? The woman lying next to me? Recognizable and alien. Can you reminisce coincident to the moment? I would not have thought so previously.

Was this an aberrant strain of deja vu? Mild dementia? I don't think so; more a genial amnesia floating on pillowy, if inexplicable detachment. The opacity of my cognition a reprieve.

This fog blurred detail, blunted anxiety, turned the mania for order into frolic, offered amnesty from crippling exactitude.

Instead of measuring decline, the creaks of my aging body sounded pleasantly ambient and its lumpy contours felt agreeable.

Money's incessant cranial echo of presence and absence ceased to boomerang.

All the defects and foibles the world reminded me of implacably were suddenly devoid of potency (gauzy and therefore harmless).

I became a child who comes to know that the gift is in the unwrapping and once revealed ceases to be.

Miles in the air

Miles Davis Forever Stamp, Source: USPS.comThe finest Jazz and Creative Improvised Music never loses its potency, its cultural currency, its ability to inspire when and where you'd least expect it. The scholar Whitney Balliett called it the "sound of surprise." Indeed it remains so.

"In 2012, the U.S. Postal Service is partnering with La Poste of France to celebrate the musical talents of Edith Piaf and Miles Davis with the Miles Davis/Edith Piaf (Forever®) stamps." June 2012

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"Humm and Guidara [co-owners of Eleven Madison Park, one of the finest dining establishments in NYC] say that they were inspired by Miles Davis's willingness to reinvent himself - abandoning the minimalism of "Kind of Blue," one of the most popular jazz recordings ever made, for the electric experimentation of "Bitches Brew." Annals of Gastronomy; "Check, Please" by John Colapinto in the September 10, 2012 issue of The New Yorker (subscription required)

Attracted to the light

From the Gehry Bldg. courtyard 09/12/2012 12:45am

Impressions of Guelph 2012

...and so ends the 2012 edition of the Guelph Jazz Festival in its 19th year.

The programming is always innovative and varied and the charming university town setting is a respite from the clamor of city gigs despite the whirlwind velocity of performances.

A few favorite concerts included Rob Mazurek's Sao Paulo Underground (2 clips), Peter Brotzmann / Jason Adasiewicz Duo (2 clips), Fred Frith solo and the Matt Shipp / Darius Jones Duo.

Sentimental Brutality

Jenny looks like a serial killer

with wide Reservoir Dog eyes

denoting
 —

"you're next, fucker."

The saccharine anesthetic of her fiddling

doesn't fool me.

I'm keepin' one eye on the EXIT sign

plotting the clearest path of egress

to daylight —

while mawkish, folksy tunes

lull victims into facial pleasantries

and satiated immobility

in preparation for beheading —

with a violin bow,

Tarantino style.

(Inspired by violinist Jenny Scheinman's performance at the Guelph Jazz Festival 09/08/2012)