The NYU Dept of Comparative Literature, NYU Tisch School of the Arts, Cooper Union Irwin S. Chanin School of Architecture, and NYU Dept of Media, Culture & Communication are pleased to present a public lecture by internationally renowned South African artist William Kentridge tomorrow night, February 9th at 8 p.m. at Cooper Union’s Great Hall (7 E. 7th Street at Bowery). The talk is free and open to the public. Photo ID is required for entry.
Kentridge’s talk “A Universal Archive … with Some Remarks on Black Holes” will explore visual memory, the need for dis-remembering, studies in the speed of light, and other topics and themes at the edges of the artist’s work.
William Kentridge is known for his stop-motion films of charcoal drawings as well as for works in etching, collage, sculpture, and the performing arts. An exhibition of three decades of Kentridge’s works will be at New York’s Museum of Modern Art (Feb. 24-May 17) later this year.
In March, Kentridge will direct a production of Dmitri Shostakovich’s opera The Nose at the Metropolitan Opera House. The production features Paulo Szot, who won a Tony Award last year for his performance in South Pacific at Lincoln Center. (Click here to watch a video about the Met’s production featuring an interview with Kentridge.)
I’m sure most of you are listed out by the last week of the year, but I’ve had a few “best of 2009″ posts I’ve wanted to put up over the last month without ever managing to pull them together. So bear with me.
Like most people who listen to and write about what’s still somehow called “indie” music, I was simultaneously pleased by and wary of the bigBrooklynbreakthrough, the culmination of five or six years of scene-building across the river. The three albums I played in 2009 more than any others — Animal Collective’s Merriweather Post Pavilion, Grizzly Bear’s Veckatimest, and Dirty Projectors’ Bitte Orca — have topped any number of lists, and they top mine too. If, like a close friend of mine, you don’t care for what he calls the “choir” bands, this music may not suit you. But I could IV these albums to my brain 24/7 and never quite tire of them; and as a cultural historian interested in “scenes,” I’m quite taken by the fact that these folks all know each other, and to greater or lesser degrees collaborate and cross-pollinate. (DP’s Angel Deradoorian, for instance, also plays in Department of Eagles, the side-project of Grizzly Bear’s Daniel Rossen, and over time there’s been a little inter-band romance among the Brooklyn triumvirate as well.)
I’ve followed all three bands since 2004 or so, which lets me off the hook from feeling like a media tool. I’m still a little disoriented that my tops coincided with Pitchfork’s so perfectly, though. Typically I see Pitchfork’s top choice as a little time-bound, something that won’t be around four or five years down the line. (Their top album of 2003 was by The Rapture, for instance. How long has it been since you’ve dusted off that CD, if you ever even owned it?) But folks are already covering the newest Animal Collective songs, which suggests there may be a future for this tribal soundtrack after the pot clouds have dispersed. I would have put both DP and GB ahead of AC in terms of songs and albums, but maybe that’s just me.
My fourth favorite NYC album of the year was the recovered treasure chest that is Connie Converse’s How Sad, How Lovely, which doesn’t appear on most critics’ end-of-year lists but really should.
Three of my favorite songs this year not only emerge from New York scenes, past and present, but also speak to conditions of apartment living in ways that complement one another nicely. I’d wanted to bring this trio together in a post about my favorite songs of the summer earlier this year, but never got around to it.
The first is a reworking of the song that topped Pitchfork’s songs list: Animal Collective’s “My Girls.” Amanda Petrusich’s spot-on write-up for the Pitchfork list pegs it as an anthem for new adults,
a life preserver for people tottering on the precipice of adulthood. Panda Bear might be apologetic about his craving (“I don’t mean to seem like I care about material things,” he hedges), but “My Girls” is ultimately a celebration of the simplification–of desire, of priorities– that comes with growing up.
Maybe so, but the pressures to provide are still fresh even for this old man. Maybe the song’s about the perpetual drive to grow up, something my generation’s done a good job resisting. While “My Girls” was very likely my most-played track this year — and comes with a video well worth watching in its own right — I actually came to prefer a mashup with the song “Your Love” by old-school NYC/Chicago underground dance DJ Frankie Knuckles. It makes me want to party like it’s 1989:
When I first heard the chorus to the Animal Collective original, I couldn’t quite make out the words and misheard the lines in the chorus — “I just want / Four walls and adobe slats / For my girls” — as “I just want / Four walls and an East Side flat / for my girls.” And I kind of like it better that way. Adobe? In Brooklyn? Or is the desire for a “proper house” eventually going to drive Panda Bear to New Mexico?
More songs about buildings and love: Here’s Connie Converse’s “Empty Pocket Waltz,” about the freedom to dance once you’ve scraped all your change together to make rent (sign-in to lala may be required to hear the full song, but it will be worth it):
And finally, a song from 2008, but one I listened to over and over again in the summer of 2009 — David Byrne and Brian Eno’s “Strange Overtones,” a song about hearing your neighbor singing through thin apartment walls:
With its throwback to 80s beats I thought of it as a nice companion piece to the Animal Collective/Frankie Knuckles mashup.
Byrne was involved in another of my favorite songs (and live performances) of 2009: his collaboration with Dirty Projectors on “Knotty Pine,” my favorite track from the almost uniformly enjoyable Dark Was the Night compilation:
Aside from the recent DP show at Bowery, one of my favorite sets from an NYC band came early in the year, when Grizzly Bear rolled out most of the songs from Veckatimest at BAM with the Brooklyn Phil backing. As much as I enjoyed the new stuff, I really dug what the orchestra did with some of their earlier songs. Back to the theme of apartment living, here’s Yellow House’s “Easier,” orchestrated by the wunderkind composer Nico Muhly, who’s playing piano on the far left side of the stage:
And as far as the Grizzlies themselves go, “Two Weeks” was deservedly the universally praised video, though the one for “While You Wait for the Others” is also pretty amazing. As is this one, for “Ready, Able.” In fact, maybe this is my favorite video of the year:
For the sheer thrill of it, though, I loved where Sonic Youth went for their video to “Sacred Trickster”:
And you? What were your favorite NYC-based songs/albums of the year?
Irving Berlin believed it was the best song he — or anyone else — had ever written. Maybe he’s right. It is, after all, the best-selling, most recorded song of all time. (The Bing Crosby original on its own was the world’s top selling recording for over 50 years.)
The tune debuted, along with a few other chestnuts, such as “Happy Holidays,” in the 1942 film Holiday Inn, about a country retreat opened by some Manhattan expatriates tired of the demands of the city’s night life. The eponymous resort only opens on major holidays, offering the opportunity for a whole slew of holiday songs to roll out. “White Christmas,” of course, outstripped them all. When the song first turns up in the film, Bing is teaching it to leading lady (and love interest) Marjorie Reynolds, whose singing voice is dubbed:
Lost in this version (which won an Academy Award for best original song) is Berlin’s original opener for the song, which locates the song not in the snowy Connecticut countryside but in sunny Beverly Hills. Apparently he hated spending Christmas in California:
The sun is shining
The grass is green
The orange and palm trees sway.
I’ve never seen such a day
In Beverly Hills LA.
But it’s December the 24th
And I am longing to be up North.
Berlin inaugurates the tradition of American Jews providing long-lasting expressions of Christmas cheer. (Here’s Babs’ version of the song, the most unselfconsciously Jewish and California-inflected one I know.) If this seems a little strange, consider Philip Roth’s take on the matter, quoted by Jody Rosen in his breezy, highly enjoyable book about the song:
God gave Moses the Ten Commandments and then He gave Irving Berlin ‘Easter Parade’ and ‘White Christmas.’ The two holidays that celebrate the divinity of Christ — the divinity that’s the very heart of the Jewish rejection of Christianity — and what does Irving Berlin brilliantly do? He de-Christs them both! Easter turns into a fashion show and Christmas into a holiday about snow.
Rosen has a little more fun along these lines; he also provides interesting commentary on the use of “White Christmas” as background for the lead-in to the film’s Lincoln’s Birthday number: a minstrel tune called “Abraham” in which Crosby appears as a blacked-up Honest Abe. Crosby’s character talks Reynolds into blacking up as well — in order to keep her hidden from a rival lover. Spike Lee features a clip from the start of this scene in his famous Bamboozled montage. Apparently “White Christmas” wouldn’t have been quite so white without a little blackface to throw it into relief:
A revision of Jolson’s backstage scene, blacking up for his shiksa girlfriend, in The Jazz Singer?
I’ve had a hectic couple weeks and not been able to post as much as I would have liked. All last week, in fact, I wanted to get something up about WQXR’s week-long Steve Reich festival. It’s over now, and unfortunately a good chunk of it doesn’t appear to be archived on the station’s website. But lots of amazing stuff is still there — including almost 30 years of local radio interviews — and I think I have a strategy for making the most of Reich’s introductions to several of his key pieces.
Take New York Counterpoint (1985), for example, originally written for a solo clarinet with additional pre-recorded clarinets backing. Reich’s introduction is here:
Although they don’t allow you to stream the piece from the site once you’ve listened to these intros, you can find most if not all of the pieces mentioned at Lulu, where you can listen for free (and find info about purchasing if you’d like to). For some of the more popular pieces, you may be able to find live performances archived on YouTube. Compare these versions of New York Counterpoint, for instance, one using clarinets, another using saxophones, all parts played live rather than having some of them pre-recorded:
It’s hard to think of a living composer more identified with New York City than Reich; the WQXR archives — though I wish they contained archives of the entire festival — will provide long-time fans and newcomers alike with several hours of distraction, er, background noise, while you’re doing something very productive. Such as updating your blog.
While “Silver Bells” may be the definitive mood-setter for Christmastime in the city, here are a couple cool contrarian voices: Bob Dorough, singing lyrics he composed for Miles Davis’s contribution to Columbia’s Jingle Bell Jazz (1962) — great mp3s at the link! — and Oscar’s show-stealer from Christmas Eve on Sesame Street (1978), in which we have our suspicions confirmed that Mr. Hooper is Jewish:
Continuing Bryan’s stream of Sesame Street posts last month, we present for your edification a priceless video featuring bass Samuel Ramey, a fan favorite at the Metropolitan Opera. Here Ramey sings about his love for the letter L.
Ramey appeared earlier this season in the Met’s production of Puccini’s Turandot and can be seen this spring as Don Basilio in Rossini’s Il Barbiere di Siviliglia (on February 26, March 1, or March 4).
Since Cyrus is getting a little loose with the Bowie references, and since Bowie is New Yorkey enough to fit this blog’s strict content standards, I thought I’d put up a video some friends and I watched the other night. My friend Derick has this on an old 45, but I’d never seen the TV special it came from. Apparently it was Bing’s last Christmas special — 1977 — and aired posthumously.
The special also apparently included this number, which I’d never adequately considered as a melodic forerunner of this new-millennium Christmas classic that has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with New York. I just like it and wanted to find some way to squeeze it in.
Exactly 29 years ago today, at 11:00 p.m., John Lennon was shot four times in the back in front of the Dakota on 72nd Street by Mark Chapman, a deranged fan who had asked Lennon for his autograph some hours earlier. Lennon was taken to St. Lukes Roosevelt Hospital, where he was pronounced dead. He was 40 years old.
Let’s remember him together:
Tomorrow, in my Conversations of the West class, I’ll be lecturing on love and friendship in Moby-Dick. I’ll be playing “Merry Xmas (War Is Over)” on the class’s final day.
Glad I made it out to Bowery Ballroom last night to see the last show of the Dirty Projectors’ four-night NYC stand. (Thanks again to those who conspired to get me in.)
I saw the show with my brother, who’d been to the previous night’s show at Music Hall as well. Together we’d seen Dave Longstreth play solo (as Dirty Projectors) back in 2003 or 2004, maybe earlier, when he was still working out the songs for The Getty Address. In those pre-Amber, pre-Angel, pre-Haley days it was just Dave, a cassette deck, and a laptop, if I remember right, but you kind of had an idea of how big — operatic, even — the stuff was that was going on inside his head. I don’t think I could have predicted that 5 or 6 years later NYMag would feature him as the centerpiece of the Brooklyn indie renaissance.
Full recap of the show at BV (where I nabbed the pictures above and below, too). Highlights, though: if night 3 of the hometown shows had been a Quaker Meeting, as Dave put it, all enlightenment and joy, night 4 turned out to be a dance party. Tune-Yards, opening, had the crowd in the palm of her hand with a set that helped clarify DP’s own African influences. Then the Projectors by turns rocked out — like choir kids doing Max Tundra tunes without the use of computers — and took some acoustic detours, including “Two Doves” w/ just Dave and Angel, which made me wish they’d gone on to play “Edelweiss.” Near the end of the set, The Roots made a guest appearance, folding the place inside out as they backed Amber’s solo vocals on “Stillness Is the Move.” ?uestlove was sporting a killer Cosby kids T-shirt. When they finished he tossed his sticks into the crowd.
Finally, for the second encore number, David Byrne, who through the whole show had been standing with Cindy Sherman against the wall near the front, like a humble presiding spirit, popped out from the wings to join in on “Knotty Pine,” their great Dark Was The Night collaboration. It’s a tricky song (aren’t they all?) and it seemed like a while since it had been rehearsed, which lent to the fun. Earlier I’d said to Nathan that DP seems to me to be the Talking Heads of his generation. Watching Byrne and Longstreth play off each other only seemed to confirm it.
Afterwards, through scenester cache not my own, we ended up in the green room for a post-show toast. Some kids from SNL were there, and my brother pointed out Michael Azerrad across the room. Years ago I gave my brother MA’s book for Christmas, so we shared a little sentimental fraternal moment over that. The first time I’d been in Bowery’s green room, coincidentally, Cindy Sherman had been introducing the act I was performing with. Crammed together into the room’s doorway, I told her so; she remembered the night, though surely not me in particular. (I was buried deep in the rhythm section, safely behind the star power.) And can I just conclude with an early New Year’s resolution? If I’m ever standing awkwardly in the same hallway with David Byrne again, I won’t chicken out from the chance to introduce myself properly. I kicked myself all the way home.
“Scholars for Haiti” is a fund-raising initiative that is collecting donations for the aid organization, Partners in Health, run by Paul Farmer and Ophelia Dahl. Click here for details and please consider making a contribution (be it ever so small!) if you are able to do so.
The initiative is also sponsoring a Facebook event, where you can post links and follow some discussion concerning the historical dimensions of the current tragedy. Click here to enter.
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