The Skunkeye Consumer Guide

Tonight’s Academy Awards are looming kinda meh for me. I’ve probably seen fewer nominated films than ever before. Not much to be excited about, and, I’m sorry, but Jaime Foxx is really getting on my nerves these days. And I don’t think I can stomach Star Jones’s pre-show. Chris Rock should be refreshing as a host though. Chapelle, however, would really rock! I was going to finally see Hotel Rwanda today but I’ve been reading Paul Theroux’s Dark Star Safari all weekend and did not want to get more cynical and depressed about the world. So I was a perv and saw Inside Deep Throat instead. I’ve always enjoyed the World of Wonder productions, but this documentary was basically a zipless fuck for me- going through the motions. I halfheartedly watched the IFP Independent Spirit Awards and did enjoy the finale of the endearing Town Haul – Genevive has won me over with this project - last night, and I b-totally b-digged the b-repeat of the b-SNL’s b-Bush b-girls b-secret b-twin b-language b-routine. Poor Paul Giamatti…. anyways I liked him better in American Splendor.

I’ve been remiss in failing to plug my dear friend and brilliant choreographer Valerie Norman’s premiere of her dance composition Closer opening at the Merce Cunningham Studio tonight. Closer is running through the weekend, and features original music by Israeli composer and leader of the Talat trio, Alon Nechusthan, followed by a solo by Ms. Norman, Game Over, with music by Bjork. Its part of an evening of dance, music, video art, etc. under the umbrella of the InnerLandscapes company called Radiant Imprints.

I know nothing about dance, however...

As always, I’m so proud of my girl and angel (scroll down for portrait of bright young things), and those of you in the city to check out The Gates before they fold or in town for whatever else reason and have an interest in quality modern dance would be wise to attend.

Here’s the dates and times:
Feb. 24th and Feb. 25th, Thursday and Friday at 9pm
Feb. 26th and 27th, Sat. and Sun. at 8pm
RESERVATIONS: call 212-726-0660
The Merce Cunningham Studio, located at 55 Bethune Street, 11th Fl. Take the ACE or L trains to 14th and 8th ave.
TICKETS: $20 Students and Seniors $15 or TDF Voucher

For more details of the evening, here’s the site.

And check out Valerie Norman’s dance company, Vandance.

I’d wanted to make a pilgrimage to see Christo and Jeanne-Claude’s The Gates but I don’t think time and circumstance is on my side.  Actually, Denby and I had planned on reuniting and meeting up to volunteer for the project, but, alas, work and family matters got in the way for me, and Denby is gathering art in Zimbabwe.  Studying their work in art history courses in college, I was always a bit noncommittal about their projects.  Since then I have fallen head over heels in love with the couple and their mission, mostly as a result of seeing all of the Mayles’ brothers Christo documentaries. 

In the past I’ve been a bit meh about environmental art in general, but that has changed over the years. I’ve been very grateful to be able to stroll over to the National Gallery from time to time over the last few weeks to check on the progress of Andy Goldsworthy’s Roof.  I’ve been remiss for the last two weeks ago and I was surprised to see the installation nearly complete today.  I also got to see Goldworthy himself at work, measuring the slate mounds and giving directions to workers.  I may have seen him before; this time he was pointed out to me.  It appears the artist has a gaggle of groupies, mostly middle-aged women, who gather and gaze at him from behind the glass on a regular basis.  I also found out where he was staying (The Radisson on P), where he goes for cocktails every evening (the place with the singing wait staff, MiMi’s…yeeesh), and that he is a “gentleman.”

I highly recommend the view from up in the NGA’s mezzanine.  The final product will be amazing but the work in progress is more fascinating to watch – catch it while you can!

Off to The Beach House until Tuesday!

Trying to maintain the escapist mode for my own sanity so I’ll highlight two releases I received last week. Neither album is a complete, satisfying meal, but as amuse-bouche offerings, they are quite satisfying.

I guess Blue Note’s Keren Ann marketing in the United States succeeded swimmingly, because – this must be a first in recent times – the second album from Coralie Clement, Bye Bye Beauté, seems to appear on our shores in synch with European release. Clement’s 2001 debut, Salle Des Pas Perdus, was a breezy romp through decidedly pre-60’s French chanson, art song, Django guitar jazz, and a charismatic and easygoing café vibe.

Her vocal style is definitely a bit wispy but this has been selling in Europe and Japan for generations and is actually quite endearing. Besides, she’s always backed up by her big brother, Benjamin Biolay, master songwriter/arranger/producer/ and multi-instrumentalist.

So Bye Bye Beauté definitely reflects le frere’s current obsessions, psychedelic folk pop, trippy road movie vibe, and confessionals by candlelight. And I must say lil’ sis Coralie’s vocals rise perfectly to the part. And the album even rocks a bit…. And they say the French don’t know how to do that.

In the US, the album, out this week, is being marketed as “recommended for fans of Ivy, Stereolab, Nada Surf, and the Velvet Underground.” It all sounds a bit broad and dumb to me but I do know Kahimi Karie fans will eat this up.

Keren Ann collaborated with Coralie Clement several times and also famously went out with and was svengalied by big brother Benjamin Biolay, but oddly enough its her self-produced (post-break-up) work, Not Going Anywhere, and the soon to be released (?) Nolita, the product of her recent residency in NYC, that are finding a wide audience in the US. Maybe it helps that the multilingual Dutch/Israeli/Indonesian beauty raised n Paris can sing in an English that can resonate with US audiences. Or maybe the yanks are responding to her neo-Suzanne Vega vibe, which is actually something that I don’t entirely dig.

Which is why I much prefer Keren Ann’s collaborations with Bardi Johannsson from Iceland (yeah , props to my heritage!). In Europe, Johannsson is well known for his project Bang Gang. Well, in 2003, he teamed up with Keren Ann to produce the Lady & Bird project. By album name alone, initially it sounded to me like some French proverb, like La Cigalle et la Fourmi, or maybe some masculine-feminine heroin-jazz tribute, since the Lady & Bird seems to reference the popular titles attributed to Billie Holiday and Charlie Parker.

So-o, its actually more like the French proverb, and here’s the translated press copy:

The legend of Lady & Bird

Lady & Bird, two creatures whose origins are lost in the mists of time, have chosen to inhabit the bodies of human adults so that they might experience earthly pleasures. In recent times, they have been residing in the forms of two colourful characters: an Israeli-born Dutch woman named Keren Ann and Iceland’s Bardi Johannsson (Bang Gang). When the two musicians met, they chose to reveal themselves in a resolute attempt to summon up a magical world – born of music and amusement – so gentle and innocent that it inevitably conjures up images of childhood.

Sessions for this album (including covers of two timeless classics, The Velvet Underground’s Stephanie Says and Suicide is Painless, the theme from the movie M*A*S*H*) took place in Paris, Reykjavik, and Brussels.

Lady & Bird write, compose, and produce from within their own tiny paradise, which they give us a glimpse of: halfway between dream and reality, it is an inspirational place that, more than any other, tempts you to stay.

Listen to the story of Lady & Bird…
The legend of Lady & Bird

Whatever. Sounds pretentious. But the Lady & Bird project is actually really satisfying and beautiful psych/folk/pop. The covers of Lou Reed’s “Stephanie Says” and the M*A*S*H* song – yikes it isn’t clichéd anymore, has the theme to “Friends” replaced it in the public re-run consciousness? - are spot-on, poignant and oddly without irony, and the originals on the rest of the album are absolutely sublime! And it works well both as a concept album and as a collaboration. Divinely trippy and beautiful harmonizing.

Word is that the two have been working together quite a bit and I look forward to the product! And lets get some Bang Gang released in the US soon!

Well, the service for my grandmother yesterday was simple but heartfelt. I was, and still am, trying to keep it together; one challenge was that I did a reading after the clarinetist played Kurt Weill’s “September Song,” which was my grandparent’s courtship “song,” and one favorite that brings me tears under the most ordinary of circumstances – anyways I maintained my cool. The service was at Goodwin House, which has been her home since this past summer, and I was touched not only by the number of family and friends that showed but also struck by the impact she made on the community and caretakers during her short time there. Smither had an amazing effect on everyone she met. It still has yet to hit me completely – I still think I’ll be seeing her tomorrow – and I’ve just tried to keep busy. Which means showing up for work, where the conditions have taken an increasingly intolerable turn, and maybe now that my ceiling and floor are seemingly blown away, its time for a big life/work change, a proactive move to feel better about myself, my abilities, and what and whom I’m working for. If only it only were that easy ! Ummm, rent and bills…yikes! I’m a slave to The Man.

After the jump is a really dry write up from today's Washington Post, which hardly does my grandmother's spirit, warmth, and accomplishments justice.

To say the last few days have been bittersweet is an understatement. Long time readers of my site might understand that my grandmother has been the center of my universe. Late Friday night, after an amazing period of progress, she passed.

I haven’t allowed it to hit me yet and have been trying my best to keep busy. My parents were out of town and I am so grateful and blessed that I had very special friends staying with me at Casa Skunkeye since Thursday to keep me laughing and occupied and filled with warmth and love. I’m so thankful that they were around, that we still have this kind of intuitive repartee with each other even after long periods of separation and can make comedy out of the most mundane of things.

Having them here demonstrates why I go to such great lengths to maintain a nice home – there is no greater joy than just hanging out in the kitchen and cooking for your friends. Thursday night was Chinese New Year’s theme (a friend took the Dragon bus in from the city so I did a bit of grocery shopping in DC's Chinatown while waiting to meet her), Friday was the planned paella, chorizo and (a wonderfully narcotic) sangria fiesta with a few lovely guests, and Saturday was the clichéd Gen X ”Big Chill” (Grease songs anyone?) and mambo Italiano (lets just do gnocchi and pasta and a sundried tomato/pesto sauce too tired to reallycook, okay?) – its comforting to know that even though I live in the heart of DC’s nightlife district we didn’t even need to leave the house to have a full evening!
Actually we were much better off. My god we laughed so much! United in our dislike of Star Jones and other skanky media figures, and enamored of our own colorful bitch sessions about life, we even created a talk show called “The Spew”
Ummm, ©!!!
I will be the producer of course. Like Gelman. Vh1? Oxygen? Bravo? We know ya’ll been slumming…and there's a market!

Feeling a bit empty nest actually – especially since now more than ever I want to be distracted - but we know we can always have another weekend at my makeshift B & B!
Thank you girls for being there for me. You can always call the “Tropical Room” home!

Tomorrow’s memorial service will be difficult and the next couple of months will feel very empty indeed. I’ve always felt a bit uncomfortable sharing the personal stuff on this site – I’d rather be a pretentious twat and write about music, film, art, French stuff, Filipinos, whatever.
That said, for the record, my grandmother’s passing is an incomprehensible loss. The most amazing person ever. I guess I don’t want to trivialize it in a “blog.”
And I’ve got a eulogy to write tonight!

I'd wanted to do justice to Lhasa'a amazing show on Monday night with a half-decent post, but things have been pretty frazzled this week and are about to get even busier with houseguests arriving from out of town tomorrow for the weekend So, in brief, those who attended the performance experienced a truly magical evening! Lhasa plays to packed concert halls and stadiums throughout Europe and Canada. As a long time fan, I knew how fortunate we were to enjoy her live in such an intimate setting. Unfazed by the venue, a former bgael shop in a strip mall in Vienna - it was almost like she was gigging in a dusty cantina in rural Mexico - Lhasa delivered a generous and spellbinding nearly two-hour show. The audience, mostly unfamiliar with her material, was in rapture from start to finish - Lhasa and her two brilliant accompanists were spectacular in the way they connected with us and held us in sway. Lhasa is softer in real life than she comes off on record - she's disarmingly charming and engaging. For non-Spanish, Portuguese, and French speakers, she introduced each song with a brief story/backgrounder in English. Lhasa is up there with Patti Smith as a raconteur – absolutely delightful. One of the best live acts I’ve ever seen! By the way, Jammin Java is a really awesome place! It's a coffee shop/performance space and they give guitar lessons there as well – the owners are really nice.  If I were living in Vienna, Jammin Java would probably save my life!

Feist talks to the Toronto Star; prepare for the invasion.  Offered a McDonald's commericial - yikes! 

This mild, sunny weather is fantastic!  It was great to stretch my legs this weekend and get some sun and fresh air.  On Sunday,– I walked from Arlington Cemetery, across Memorial Bridge, along the Potomac  River through Georgetown, and then all the way Uptown to AU Park to catch the game.

On Friday night, I caught Jessica Yu’s documentary, In the Realms of the Unreal, at E Street. The visionary work of Henry Darger has been wildly faddish over the last decade and now once again now with the release of this Oscar-nominated movie, so I’m inclined to be little “over it.” I did enjoy the film and highly recommend it to all who might be interested in these sorts of things.  The project succeeded in bringing some narrative structure and biographical background to his hundreds of beautifully detailed watercolors/drawings and his 15,000 page yarn.  I never had the patience to make sense of Darger’s story – Yu’s documentary is the perfect Cliff’s Notes! The epic artwork - his evolving technique and unique extrapolation of twentieth century popular press imagery – is always fascinating to look at. I like to think of Darger as an “American” William Blake, and the documentary does a good job of illuminating the artist’s spiritual and moral universe. 

I’m about to trek out to the uncharted territory – Vienna, VA - to catch the Lhasa show.  I came to the conclusion after my last post that my city snob attitude is really quite unattractive - and unsubstantiated since DC ain’t all that – and, besides, I really I want to see the show!