soundcheck rocks

You ever listen to Soundcheck? Its a music program hosted by John Scheafer on WNYC, they cover music and they leave nothing out, covering music from freak folk to chamber music. Yesterday they had a program about musical guilty pleasures- I don't subscribe to such forms of self torture, but I once did, and know several people who still do. He had two guests on, both music critics, I was blown away by how serious and deeply each of his guests had thought about this topic. They had some humorous insights. Its worth a listen. the following link will take you to the page where you can stream the show- you can also get it as a podcast. I subscribe and listen to it religiously. http://www.wnyc.org/shows/soundcheck/episodes/2007/02/13

Galapagos Art Space

First of all, I'd like to formally welcome whoever is reading to the blog that promises to be a steady (reliable) flow of drivel that will eventually reveal an essence and along the way facilitate a few friendships, and keep others posted on what I am up to and what's going on, a public diary. Don't come here looking for hardcore editorial journalism with a political agenda, don't come here looking for pertinent news, don't come here looking for any kind of useful information, but come here, come here...cumear...come just for the pleasure of coming, for the opportunity to read the high falutin rantings and ravings of a man who spends a little too much time in front of the computer and is always looking for more ways to bind himself more irreversibly the new medium. I will probably be getting above the raisin, so to speak, every now and again. Putting on the dog as it were.

I photographed Robert Elmes last night for the Brooklyn Paper (heretofore to be referred to in this document as BP, this abbreviation shall lawfully take the place of the previously mentioned name for the remainder of this document and future documents, any contracts entered into by the entity referred to as BP shall be also bound to the entity referred to as Brooklyn Paper, for they are one and the same) he was a gentle kind fella'. I was pleasantly taken aback at the humility with which he carried himself in his own creation, the Galapagos Art Space, a renowned and respected vehicle for young artists and fringe arts culture. When he guided me into the dressing room behind the small stage in the front room, he first introduced himself to a dancer who was stretching before her performance in front of the curtain hanging on the precipice leading to the dressing room "Hi, my name is Robert Elmes, I'm the director of the Galapagos Art Space, this man is taking photos of me for an article, is it ok if I show him the dressing room? Will you check to make sure everyone is decent?"
For the hour we spent together, he and I walked around the main floor of the building, exchanging ideas for places to shoot him and more than just standing or sitting and looking at me, he took the initiative of taking poses and making himself as poised and comfortable as possible in each setting.
I think this type of self-possessed confidence is also apparent in the mission of Galapagos Art Space under his direction:

The most basic function of the arts is to be relevant in the advancement of society.

Galapagos does not accept government grants or public funding of any kind. We believe that if the work we present is strong, communicative, and effective, we will survive.

If we don't produce strong, communicative and effective work then we won't survive - we're not feeding the hungry: we make art. If we can't be grown-up about that and stand up on our own, then we don't think we'd have anything interesting to tell you anyway.

This is New York City. One of the greatest cultural cities to have ever risen; perhaps the greatest. We're not sitting around dreaming of the grant we applied for.

We have our whole lives to live and that is terribly important.

Culture should reflect that clearly.

I saw bits of two shows- Little Buildings, a play about the absurdity of NYC real estate that takes the guise of a love story or maybe the other way around and a dance performance by the Painted Ladies, a moderately suggestive vaudevillian dance troupe. They did short dance bits to loud exciting music (Hank Williams III, Pat Benatar, DJ Shadow) with great humor and a confusing earnestness. It seems that either feminism in art hasn't proceeded past the deconstruction of gender roles or that it is desperately trying to exploit those tired ideas for a momentary chuckle and accept the risk of actually pandering to safe presumptions about women and men, yes I'm sure its very personal, just like this blog, but there's quite a bit more at work in determining a person's performance of the human folly and with a certain desire anyone can free themselves from it all (I'm not talking about suicide). What I am referring to is peices like "Bring in the hand models" a hilarious performance discovering the depths of absurdity in the vein treatment of women's appearance by our society and how such axioms force modern women into obsessing over the suppleness of their skin, their smell, and running from the signs of aging as if aging were a pack of salivating wolves. Well sure, I don't disagree, and maybe I am just scrutinizing costume choice or maybe the context of this discovery but it is only explored through the guise of a type of period peice set in what appears to be the 1950's. Modern women aren't trapped in the kitchen, and it isn't a given that when they marry they will simply become a trophy. These ideas are for the most part dead. Wake up. I feel that what I am saying is somewhat beside the point, but I guess essentially what I'm trying to express is I'm freakin' tired of seeing the same thing over and again and seeing how it languishes on the floor of the dancehall barely attaching itself to the 4 inch stilleto of the girl practically humping the beefy stranger at the bar, like a peice of stray toilet paper accidently picked up and not yet noticed. that said, I loved the show. It's something an audience can sink its teeth into, identify with, sip a beer or cocktail to and tip their hats and nod their heads and crack a sunflower seed between their teeth to and eat to and sleep to and gently tap their feet to