A Handful of Thoughts

I was supposed to spend this afternoon with my BBBS match, Mitchell today. But he called me yesterday to say his mom didn't want him on the train because of the bomb threat. It bums me out, the way we give up our lives because of this acute fear. On one hand, there would be outrage to have a successful attack and discover people weren't warned. But on the other, officials haven't done much to convince us that an attack was prevented. We are slaves to chatter and the poor judgment of our lamest jokers.

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It was great to hang out with Bennett and the guys of Pyramid. A guy from Breakthruradio.com came to do a profile on them Sat. Their MO is give an audience to great unsigned bands. After 3 nights with the boys, my sleep schedule is all messed up. I'd never make it on tour... although I loved the shows, and got in some quality foosball.

During one of our chats, Ben argued well for improvisational music, largely based on a tension of failure, and an excitement of passing through it, topped off by true synergy and communication among the ensemble. He best described it as a conversation among instruments.

Bennett Kennedy at cello for Pyramid

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Despite the soggy drippyness of Saturday, Joe and I hit some galleries... highlights included Yuken Teruya, whom I wrote about earlier, the ever reliable Diane Arbus, and Daniel Rozin 's digital/analog "mirrors" (the picture above is from his show at Bitforms).

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My blessedly persistent friend Anna Hayman, got me out to see a show. We failed at getting to the Wooster Group's Poor Theatre, but had the great concession of Spirit at NYTW. What started as a mediocre war story, became a delightful study of storytelling and theatre in general. Done by three men of Improbable on the steepest raked stage ever, they did a fair bit of physical theatre and puppetry based work.

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I saw Capote on Friday. Seymour Phillip Hoffman and Catherine Keener were their usual splendidly chameleon selves. The shows the powerful conflict on interest Truman Capote was navigating in creating a work, in a new genre, "the non-fiction novel," while getting personally involved in the lives of those he wrote about... particularly Perry Smith. It's a relationship that remains messy... in particular I remember Janet Malcolm's "The Journalist & the Murderer." These pieces continue to aim for a portrait of reality while discarding various measure of objectivity that audiences expect.

It was also interesting that the film began with some assumption of familiarity of who Capote was, particularly by highlighting his vanity early in the film, and quick references to Breakfast at Tiffany's. Eventually we begin to see more of brilliance (his 94% memorized recall). But then the film ends with a text epilogue as if we have no idea who he was... that In Cold Blood made him the most famous author of his day, that he never finished a book afterwards, that he drunk himself to death.

The Delicate Forests of Yuken Teruya

At the close of the summer, Jason, Joe and I went to PS1 to the Greater New York exhibit (as well as soak up the WarmUp party in courtyard, and chill in James Turrell's room). The sprawling exhibit had several gems peppered about, but the stand out was Yuken Teruya's diaramic trees, set in and cut from shopping bags. Ranging from Krispy Kreme to LVMH, the trees are exquisitly executed, while retaining serveral layers of meaning surrounding packaging, luxury, trash and so on. One of my favorite features is how the hole left from the cutting of the tree allows a spotlight for the tree inside. Here is another good example (pdf).

I was pleased as punch to see that Teruya has a solo show at Bienvenu (529 W. 20th Street) through Oct. 15. To paraphrase, let's go to the woods and marvel deliberately.