A couple months back, I read about a novel from the ’60’s that wasn’t bound as a book but as individual chapters that could be read in any order. The novel was about memory and as such the form mirrored the content’s non-linear nature. The playfulness of form has stayed in my mind (and on my agenda).
Part of technology’s promise is that we will find new ways to express ourselves. I definitely like some of what Jonathan Harris is doing, which is quite a bit.
Thanks Geralyn!
Here’s another experiment in telling stories, but now in One Sentence. It’s a good way to practice your pitches, you screenwriters you.
I got the album for Christmas the year it came out. I had matching glasses. I played the album over and over and stared at the photos and the poster. Every song entered my being, and is still there today. By the time this day rolled around 24 years ago, I felt that John was someone I need to move on from. My music had changed, but I was not truly ready to move on; I was only acting the angry young man part, a part that I had partially lifted from John. I am glad he lives on today. Imagine…
As Ted’s mind was blown by Captain Beefheart (see previous post), I had a similar mind-melt one day in 1990 in SF when someone played me a song called “The Old Man’s Back Again” by a fellow named Scott Walker. ( I discovered Ted is also a Scott fan – so thanks for sharing this space with me.)
The Walker Brothers: “The Sun Ain’t Gonna Shine Anymore”:
Inspiration is the thing, isn’t it? The older we get it seems it is harder to be truly blown apart and transformed by music. Those sorts of transformative spells seem easier to fall under in our youth. But no. Time and time again, I have found that Scott Walker will really mess with someone’s head, with their whole life, as it did with mine. So much so that I went and made a film about him. “Scott Walker – 30 Century Man” is my cinematic mix-tape designed to convert you, to shake you up, and to put the fear of Punched Meat in you (you’ll have to see the film…).
The core thesis was “inspiration”. That first song, recorded (I soon discovered) in 1969, seemed to contain in it the seeds of everything that I loved in music; all that dark, cinematic bliss and mystery – where did he get it and how did Bowie, Ferry, Eno, Marc Almond, Tindersticks, The Smiths, Pulp, Divine Comedy, Radiohead, Goldfrapp and countless others get their hands on it and how has it moved through their lives, their music? But as Scott moved from 60’s orch-crooner to contemporary avant-gardist (this is where the meat punching comes in) the inspirational power he transmits is not just about what singer is copping his croon, but about a very intense and focused dedication to craft, pure and simple.
Scott today: “Jesse” a video created by Graham Wood for the film:
Here is a man who moved through fame and into his ART and has never, ever looked back. That this man found fame and than infamy in the UK while his home-country has all but ignored him (he was born in Hamilton, OH and cut his teeth on the Sunset Strip in the early 60’s) has inspired me to do my damnedest to bring him home, to get America to wake up and take note of one of our great, great musicians, composers, and poets.
Trailer for the film:
(Film starts a limited theatrical on Dec 17th at IFC Center in NYC before moving on to SF and LA and beyond.)
Alternative Reality Games and other new media ventures that included a social impact message really hit home this year. There is tremendous opportunity within this field to make something beautiful that means something.
World Without Oil, debuting last year in 2007, set a high standard and had participants from all over the globe.
FATWORLD is a video game about the politics of nutrition. It explores the relationships between obesity, nutrition, and socioeconomics in the contemporary U.S. The game’s goal is not to tell people what to eat or how to exercise, but to demonstrate the complex, interwoven relationships between nutrition and factors like budgets, the physical world, subsidies, and regulations. Existing approaches to nutrition advocacy fail to communicate the aggregate effect of everyday health practices
There has been very few things that have truly blown my mind. And those that have, I cherish. For some reason, I expect more from the music world, to have had that power. The first time I heard X’s “Johnny Hit And Run Pauline” certainly charts. I will come up with a few others.
Captain Beefheart’s wail did it regularly. And for me it was alsways solo too, in that I never found other fans wanting to get lost in his crazy blues. Borders will blown wide open everytime he opened his mouth though, even alone in my apartment. Definitely driving.
I never came across this doc before several weeks ago. John Peel narrates. There are six parts up on YouTube. Here’s Part One:
