Difficult Listening Hour: William Kentridge To Direct Shostakovich, Redeem Winter in NYC @3:10 PM
Sweet fuck, am I ever tired of this wind and snow and cold and sniffling. I've been eating over half my meals at the diner that's 20 steps away from my front door, because walking anywhere—save for the subway line that takes me to work—has become untenable. The gym? The one that's two blocks away? Haven't seen it since January. And yet, this week, I plan to leave my apartment, post-sundown, for a non-work related engagement. It better be worth it. My whole reason for persisting through that entire awful month of February is riding on it. I suspect we're talking about the kind of awesome that makes a city with as many petty annoyances as this one actually worth the navigating. Talking Boredoms-with-77-drummers amazing, here. Serious. READ MORE 25
The "TV Event" As Bipartisanship, or, How the Super Bowl Helps Kill Health Care Reform @2:40 PM
It was totally great that New Orleans got to celebrate last night. Now, are you ready for your Monday come-down? The Super Bowl–or more specifically, the way we watch it–is connected to the possibility that Democrats won't pass health care reform this year. Or that the two Democratically-controlled chambers of Congress that have already passed some version of health care reform might not manage to send a unified bill to a Democratic president's desk for his signature. The lessons, as always in America, are to be found in a reading of what happened on the teevee. READ MORE 45
"People on the Internet Like to Argue About Music More Than They Like to Enjoy Music": Maura Johnston and Seth Colter Walls on Genre, 2009 and Pazz + Jop @4:20 PM
Seth Colter Walls: Maura! You have an excellent essay in the Voice this week, which accompanied this year's Pazz + Jop music critic's poll. Since you and I both submitted ballots for that—and since music critics like nothing more than to talk about what they've done and said—I naturally thought we should talk about what we've done and said! Let's start out by telling the people about your essay?
Maura Johnston: Well, ha. I don't like to start off with self-promotion, but let's give it a go…
Seth: It's called "Down With Music Racism," your piece. That's very provocative. READ MORE 38
Here Are Some Things That You Could Put On the TV What With All the Extra Time That the TV Has Now, with Seth Colter Walls @2:00 PM
So there's that thing with the TV people and TV timeslots you've no doubt heard about, and how pretty soon there's gonna be more time on TV for one TV network to fill, because that one guy who was on TV at one time, for awhile, didn't want to be on TV at another time? So now people are saying that the one guy probably won't be on TV anymore, or at least not on this same TV place, and the other guy who used to have his TV time, before, will just go back to it now, leaving his other TV time available for something. Oh, it's all quite amazing, these minutes of the day still with TV left to be crammed into them. READ MORE 12
The End of the 00s: The Experience of Dishonorable Debates, by Seth Colter Walls @11:30 AM
"'The world is my idea:'—this is a truth which holds good for everything that lives and knows, though man alone can bring it into reflective and abstract consciousness."
—Arthur Schopenhauer, The World as Will and Representation
"We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality — judiciously, as you will—we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study, too, and that's how things will sort out."
—Anonymous Bush 43 aide, to Ron Suskind READ MORE 9
'Avatar' Part 1: How We Deal with Iraq War II, with Seth Colter Walls @11:31 AM
Fun reviews are fun. You know how much fun? Sometimes we start writing them before we see the movie. The other afternoon, I started thinking about an Avatar piece headlined "Avatar Is the Greatest Movie of All Time For People Who Love Wearing Glasses." Right? I had a whole set piece ready about how, during hour 17 of the movie, I got distracted and started wondering if friction from the Costello-grade thickness of the 3D specs was causing a zit on the patch of skin between my skull and left ear. I thought this was fine to conceive ahead of time, because Avatar is obviously just a mass entertainment, and don't get it twisted: let's all have some fun, no? READ MORE 10
Difficult Listening Hour: Beck's Harry Partch Tribute @1:05 PM
Of course NME and Pitchfork are trying to make it all about a beef with Radiohead (who, by the by, do tend to get overpraised even though, no, they don't blow) but the point is: Beck has a new song up for streaming on his website. Be patient if it takes some time to load (as it did for me). The new track isn't actually "10 and a half minutes of insanity," though "Harry Partch" is indeed a very engaging and lovely tribute to the American oddball composer of the same name. READ MORE 5
Difficult Listening Hour, with Seth Colter Walls: I Let You Touch Me Every Now And Then: Last Chance for Isabelle Huppert in 'Quartett' at BAM; First Chance for Annie's 'My Love is Better' @3:15 PM
Coming up as a cinema snob in adolescence, your average hetero boy's sexual desire—the hyper-wattage of which tends to outstrip FCC broadcast regulations, thereby causing a lot of, um, fritz on the signal—is thankfully managed by a chronological succession of fantastic Parisian lips. Anna Karina (in early Godard), Deneuve (in everything), and then: bam. The modern era. It belongs to Isabelle Huppert. Forget Courtney Cox's insulting Cougartown weaksauce. It's enough to make you believe in a God, the way Huppert gets more dangerous—and more unbearably desirable—with every passing year. You thought she was peaking as a labial cutter in Michel Haneke's film adaptation of Jelenik's The Piano Teacher back in 2001? That was dumb of you. Naturally, Huppert upped the erotic ante by signing on for a film adaptation of a Georges Bataille incest tale, Ma Mere. READ MORE 7
So A Democrat Walks Into NY23 And Wins An Election…. @12:20 PM
One of the more oft-observed problems with political reporting is your lesser analyst's impulse to over-interpret a couple of data points. Yes, you know what I'm talking about. AP, do your Drudge-bait thang, complete with a "GOP Sweep" headline!
WASHINGTON – Independents who swept Barack Obama to a historic 2008 victory broke big for Republicans on Tuesday as the GOP wrested political control from Democrats in Virginia and New Jersey, a troubling sign for the president and his party heading into an important midterm election year.
Showed Up, with Seth Colter Walls: Robert Lepage's "Lipsynch" at BAM @1:55 PM
Late one evening last week, while seated on the Wall Street 2/3 subway platform, a 30-something Caucasian woman in glasses and sweatpants interrupted my reading of Taylor Branch's The Clinton Tapes.
"Excuse me," she said. "Can I ask you a question?"
"Surely," I replied, probably a little over-happy because my life is plainly more enjoyable than Bill Clinton's was when he was president.
"Oh," the woman said, stopping herself. "Are you a New Yorker?"
"Yes," I replied. "Why do you ask?"
"Because your hair is neat and you said 'surely.'"
"Oh. Well, yes, I live in New York. But that wasn't your original question. What's up?" I said, eager to move this subway conversation along.
Difficult Listening Hour with Seth Colter Walls: Come Ye Despondent Cable News Watchers, And Restore Your Faith In Things @12:22 PM
So have you ever started writing your annoyingly irregular music column for some website, and been sorta bummed about the long delay between your last post and the one you're about to work on, but still remain enthusiastic because you've lined up some sexily exclusive audio you're pretty sure people will be interested in… only to discover the same night you were gonna send everything over to Choire that the label in question released the mp3 for free on the internets in an uncoordinated panic over an illegal leak of the entire, soon-to-be-released album?
Oh, wait. Maybe not enough people can IDENTIFY with this opening. Well, don't worry, I found something else for us all to listen to. And probably I should back up and explain my aborted train of thought. But while I do that, go download what is, for my money, the highlight of Sufjan Stevens's BQE project over at the Asthmatic Kitty website, why don't you? The whole suite is worth hearing, but I actually enjoy the mp3 they've posted—"Movement VI—Isorhythmic Night Dance with Interchanges"—more than anything else on that joint, which is why I'd wheedled with them to have it here first, supposedly. READ MORE 0
Flicked Off: Two Things Not To Get Wrong About "Inglourious Basterds" @1:39 PM
Choire Sicha: I have a question. At where did you see the new film by Quentin Tarantino?
Seth Colter Walls: Battery Park City, which was very clean. And very weird.
Choire Sicha: Oh yes! Oddest theater ever. I saw "Soul Plane" there. Crowded?
Seth Colter Walls: Yeah, it appeared to be sold-out or nearly so. The theater may have been unprepared. At one point after the previous crowd finished exiting, the people waiting for our showtime just sort of made a mad dash for the theater!
Choire Sicha: This is where I would insert an offensive joke about Europe and World War II. READ MORE 33
RIP Rashied Ali, Coltrane's Free-Jazz Rhythmic Conspirator @11:40 AM
So according to Rashied Ali's website, the legendary free-jazz drummer is dead. He was 74. There are no details regarding the cause just yet, but a French-language site seems to date Ali's death as occurring on Wednesday, July 12. (Either that, or the 12th is when they learned about it.) His passing will probably only rate a footnote—at most—in this, our star-studded Summer Of Death, but you know what? Ali was a titan. And at least one album that features his skittering, complex drumming will prove to be immortal: John Coltrane's Interstellar Space. You can listen to "Venus," from that record, on the YouTubes. The Amazon mp3 download is here. (And why not shell out for quality?) READ MORE 6
Difficult Listening Hour: The BBC at the Stone, Newspeak, and Things To Hear This Weekend–Plus Bonus MIA Cover @10:31 AM
By avant-music metrics, last night was pretty star-studded over at The Stone on Avenue C. Someone said Mike Watt of Minutemen and fIREHOSE fame was all up in the joint. And I spied Ches Smith from Xiu Xiu, in addition to club doyen John Zorn. Jenny Scheinman, a talent in way too many musical genres, was on the guest list. There were about a hundred or so other lesser-known folks crowding the tiny venue-which employs only a single, stationary electric fan for AC purposes. That fan at The Stone, it's almost like a really genius art installation that calls into question and then subverts the very construct of cooling off indoors during summer-that's how little it helps when the place is at standing-room capacity. But so: why were we all eager to endure that kind of punishment on a non-monsoon July 2009 eve? Maybe because Time Out and the Times both gave The Stone some love this week. Or was it due to the fact that last night's guitarist has a day job with Wilco? I can't say what impact these data points might have had in terms of the place being packed. I just listed them to get your attention, in case you normally tune out writing about avant-garde music. See how I did that? READ MORE 6
Listicle Without Commentary: The 30 Best Punk Songs Since 1979 Available on YouTube, In Order @2:30 PM
30. Increase The Pressure, Conflict
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