Last Sunday I attended the latest Lost Gospel show, which featured local Portland favorites Explode Into Colors. Lost Gospel is a loose knit group of artists and musicians who organize free underground shows in unique locations throughout the city without permission or permits. Basically, they’re (we’re?) guerrila-style facilitators of fun and music.
The plan for the show was genius: lay out a huge tarp behind a local middle school, tape down some canvases, fill some tubs with paint, get the band ready to go, and have at it.
Within seconds of Explode Into Colors starting their set, the canvases were well on their way to a Pollockesque state.
Rather than focus on one canvas, I grabbed a can of paint and began wandering around the tarp, adding drips and drops wherever I felt they were needed.
Meanwhile, the band played their catchy, bass and percussion heavy song bursts:
Lisa Schonberg on drums, and Heather Treadway on keys and percussion.
Claudia Meza on bass and vocals.
Pretty.
I ended up focusing my efforts on two of the canvases. This one:
And this one, which I later bought because I liked it so much:
Proceeds from the canvases went towards the cost of the generator rental and the next Lost Gospel show. Done with painting, it was time to catch the rest of Explode Into Color’s perfomance:
It was a great show, a great concept, and a great way to spend a Sunday afternoon.
With Nilina Mason-Campbell, photographer and one of Lost Gospel’s coordinators.
On New Year’s day, I slept until 4 in the afternoon, got up to eat some pasta that the Italians had prepared, went for an evening stroll with Liz, and then went back to bed. It was an utterly unproductive and yet completely satisfying day.
I woke up to the sunset.
While in Vienna, Liz introduced me to two local specialties: kartoffelpuffer, a fluffy fried potato pancake topped with garlic butter and käsekrainer,a cheese-filled sausage stuffed into a roll that invariably ejaculates its molten contents all over your face, hands, and coat when you bite into it. I enjoyed them both!
January 2nd, 2009
On my second full day in Vienna, I got up before everyone else and went out to explore the city. I ended up taking a tour of the Vienna State Opera, which is where I would be seeing The Nutcracker performed later that evening. I figured a tour would give me a better look at the theatre than simply wandering around during the intermission, and it did.
The first thing I did on my second day in Prague was head directly to the Obecní dům, or Prague’s Municipal House. Built in 1911, the building once served as Prague’s City Hall, and remains a major cultural landmark and concert hall. It is also Prague’s premier example of Art Nouveau architecture.
I went there to buy a ticket for that night’s performance of Mozart’s Requiem, which I figured would give me a nice opportunity to experience a little culture as well as tour the building a little bit. Just what I saw in the lobby put most buildings to shame whet my appetite for what was to come.
After purchasing my ticket for the concert I went directly to the Alfonse Mucha Museum. Alfonse Mucha was a Czech painter and decorative artist who played a major role in what would come to be known as Art Nouveau.
a softer world is a webcomic I discovered recently. It’s not really a comic, though. It’s more like photos and text that are alternately funny, poignant, or both simultaneously. Why not check it out?
Today we visited the National Gallery in Dublin, and were most impressed by the fantastically detailed illustrations and stained glass of artist Harry Clarke. See Wikipedia for more info, especially the images section.
During the week we spent back east, a lot of time was spent visiting with family and friends. We were catching up on all that had happened since our last visit, sure, and although no one ever said it, we were also saying our protacted goodbyes. When we flew into LaGuardia on July 1st, we were not planning to spend any more time in New York City than was necessary to enter and exit. We just had so many other plans that it didn’t make sense to try and cram anything else in. But when the weather turned foul on the day we were planning to be at a beach in Rhode Island, Brianne and I decided to hop on the next train out of Stratford and head into the city.
That’s what people throughout the Tri-State area call New York: The City. Even halfway between New York and Boston, there is no confusion about which city is being referred to. New York City is a dirty, humid, crowded, challenging, spectacular, beautiful place. Once we stepped off the Metro-North train onto a sweaty concourse inside Grand Central Station, I felt foolish about ever planning to snub the setting of so many of my favorite memories, among them:
A visit to the Natural History Museum with my father at the age of 7, seeing everything and leaving with a plastic Siberian tiger covered with spray-on felt, and the sunroof of the car leaking rain during the drive home while falling asleep …
Buying two half-dollar sized turtles in Chinatown, and raising them until I moved to Portland, by which time they were each nine inches across…
Much later, driving with my father to see Elliott Smith for my first time at Tramps, discovering the band called Quasi (who were there as Elliott’s backing band), which bolstered my growing affection for Portland and the kind of people it produces. Long story short, the engine of my father’s car exploded while we were driving home and we ended up walking through Stamford, CT at 2 a.m., unsure if we’d catch the last train home…
Spending hours unsuccessfully searching Mott St. for the Globe Canvas shop, but ending up with a red Manhattan Portage messenger bag that I still use every day…
Learning early one morning that The Smashing Pumpkins (a favorite band during my teens) were playing at Radio City Music Hall the same day, riding the train into New York while hoping that I’d brought enough money for a scalped ticket, getting there, snagging scalped tickets for $25, and then entering the theatre and walking down, down, down the aisle, eight rows away from the stage…
A year later, seeing the same band at Tramps during their nine date, small club “Arising” tour, surrounded only a few hundred other fans…
Six weeks later, spending a week exploring The City with my beautiful new girlfriend Brianne and her infinitely patient friend Jen…
Six months later, proposing marriage to Brianne while standing atop the (current) tallest building in New York, as the wind howled around us and the city lights stretched all the way to the fading horizon…
I could list many, many more. In fact, the only other city that has produced a comparable list of good memories is Portland, and those memories are both more recent and less imbued with such a strong feeling of independence. My solo visits to New York during my teens were the first real opportunities I had to experience the sensation of getting lost in an unfamiliar place and enjoying it. I think the word for that feeling is Adventure, and soon I wanted more of it, which is the reason just after turning 18, I drove alone all over the country, met a girl who enjoys getting lost as much as me, took her hand and held on tight.
At this point, our time spent in New York is like visiting an old friend. There is no reason to wear ourselves out trying to get everything in. We’d much rather simply catch up and be reminded of what we’ve always liked so much about the city in the first place. In fact, visits to New York are usually more rewarding the less you plan in advance, so we set out on that day with only two items on our list: visiting the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and seeing an improv comedy show at the UCB Theatre.
The Met
After reaching Grand Central Station, we immediately caught the subway to the Upper East Side, and emerged from underground to find the pouring rain that we had hoped to leave behind in Connecticut waiting for us. Considering the dank humidity that settles over Manhattan and coats every surface duing the summer months, the rain, even at its heaviest, felt pleasant. I happened to be wearing a very overpriced Mountain Hardwear t-shirt that I was given while in CT and was extremely grateful to have. Within minutes of entering the museum the shirt was dry and cool. A cotton shirt would have stayed damp and gross for the rest of the day. It’s nice to have little opportunities to test some of the gear that are bringing on the trip, and in an effort to not look like a complete tourist, I do want to break this stuff in before we leave.
Just as we limited the scope of our visit to New York, we tailored our time at the Met to two main interests: armor for Brianne and contemporary art for me. Trying to see everything at the Met will leave you tired, disappointed, and skeptical of the museum’s greatness. If you visit, TAKE YOUR TIME. Plan on coming back again. The last time I was at the Met we also visited the Museum of Modern Art, and I had a much better time at the MOMA simply because it wasn’t such a scattershot of eras, collections, and styles. When visiting the Met, you are presented with the opportunity to see Egyptian carvings, Renaissance tapestries, engraved Civil War pistols, beautiful Gauguins, and a 30′ Jackson Pollock, but much like different liquors, you’ll get into trouble trying to mix too many.
Another reason to take it slow is the cavernous building itself. Each section of the museum has been specifically designed to match the kind of art being displayed, so as you walk through the rooms you are meant to feel as if you’re passing through time, with medieval art displayed with dim light and in small alcoves, pre-revolutionary French art in suitably luxurious spaces, and modern art presented in bright, airy rooms containing lots of natural light. As we made our way around the museum, I found myself admiring the walls themselves (and the windows, and the floors) almost as much as what is hung from them.
As I said, Brianne wanted to see armor, so we went straight there and checked out all of the pretty means man has used to intimidate, impress, kill, and avoid being killed. We both really enjoyed the large collection of Samurai armor, and Brianne especially liked the Moorish and Indian ceremonial weapons, all of which were gleaming gold and encrusted with jewels. Weapons and jewelry appeal to very different but equally important aspects of Brianne’s personality- she likes the prettiest and deadliest weapons best. One of the 250-year-old Japanese swords we saw had a shark skin scabbard. Shark skin! That kind of thing says, “If I killed a shark, I can kill you too.” The only thing more badass would be a Samurai skin scabbard.
After finishing the armor we spent a few minutes sitting in a large atrium, surrounded by sculptures and in view of a gigantic stained glass window designed by Louis Comfort Tiffany. One of the bronze sculptures depicted a nude woman, her back arched dramatically, with thick vines and grape clusters surrounding her body. Brianne studied the piece for a moment and then said, “the vines are growing out of her body.. or, I mean, she’s the vine.” The title of the sculpture? “The Vine”, by Harriet Whitney Frishmuth. Later I realized that the Batman character Poison Ivy was totally stolen from it, but this would not be the only time that day that we would discover contemporary pop culture reflecting works of art 100 years older or more.
There was also this 18th Century self portrait. On the sheet music is written something like, “The devil does not tease, no, the devil does not jest”. The fact that the artist chose to depict himself just before being destroyed by his own foolish actions (by an offscreen creature with sharp red nails, no less) says a lot about his ability to laugh at himself. Brianne and I walked away wondering if 200 years had needed to pass before anyone else got the joke, or if people have always enjoyed similarly themed theatrics.
Also, the featured exhibit when we visited was a collection of works by French Romantic painter and pupil of David, Anne-Louis Girodet. One of the highlights of the collection was a large, complicated piece depicting recently fallen French soldiers being greeted by long dead heroes. Since realistic representation of the human form was seen as one of the highest measures of technique, the fact that Girodet chose to depict the long dead as glowing and ephemeral was seen by his contemporaries as a terrible waste of talent. Seeing Girodet’s dead kings, I couldn’t but think of the king of the dead as seen in The Lord of the Rings.
Later, as we were strolled through a hall of older Italian works, Brianne pointed out a painting of San Marcos Square, in Venice, Italy. It depicted a bustling market, children playing and couples strolling. “It looked just like that when I was there,” she said, “except…” she laughed, and then pointed at a blotch of paint, “for them.” Both of us giggled maniacally as we continued through the hall, the glares of several ushers hurrying us on.
Following the Girodet exhibit and several other galleries, we entered the Modern Art wing, which I don’t even remember visiting the last time we were there. I was mostly interested to see if they had any Mark Rothko or Chuck Close, and I was not disappointed. Curiously, Mark Rothko, like Elliott Smith, attended Lincoln High School in Portland, and both men eventually killed themselves. Also, I really, really like both artists. Coincidence? The Portland Art Museum had a couple of Rothkos on loan the last time I was there, and I actually preferred those to the ones I saw at the Met. But like live Dylan bootlegs, part of the fun is trying to collect them all. Which probably means that at some point I’ll find myself in Austin, Texas, if only to visit the Rothko Chapel.
My reaction to Rothko’s work is deeply emotional, as he intended it to be. From an art appreciation standpoint, I’m far less interested in the juxtaposition of colors or level of transparency than I am in the strange sense of knowing, really knowing, that you’re feeling exactly what you were intended to feel, as clear as hearing the notes a composer wrote on a sheet. I get that from Pollock’s work, too, but not as much. In any case, visual art and it’s historical context is the one area of creative endeavor that I’m the least knowledgeable about, but I plan on changing that. A few days each in Madrid, Paris, and Florence should help.
Chuck Close is a photorealistic painter whom I admire greatly. The two works below were done by the same person using the same basic technique- create a photograph, break it up into thousands of pieces, and paint the pieces onto a canvas. Close simply left the seams showing in the first painting. Sometimes you hear people deride modern art with the claim, “I could do that”, but even using a very systematic and simple approach such as Close’s, when I stood before a 10-foot canvas covered in acrylics and couldn’t see a single brushstroke, I seriously doubted that just anyone could have done it.
Towards the end of the Modern Art section we came across Gustav Klimt’s “Mäda Primavesi”. I adore her and the rest of his work immensely, and I’m looking forward to seeing more of it in person. Even the samples of his work found at Wikipedia are beautiful. I love how the faces he paints are always so natural and human, but the clothing and backgrounds are totally whimsical and often abstract. As with Rothko, I intend to begin a visual catalog of Klimt’s paintings wherever I can find them.
One area of the museum that we skipped was the Temple of Dendur and all of the Eqyptian and Ancient Greek galleries. Due to the Met’s enormous size, something is always going to be missed. At least this time we left feeling satisfied, but not gluttonous.
The Walk
It was early afternoon when we left the Met, and though the rain had passed, the air remained extremely humid. We decided to walk south through Central Park, and soon discovered a huge Alice In Wonderland sculpture that neither of us had ever seen before. A discovery in Central Park is not suprising, though, considering the fact that it covers over 800 acres of Manhattan.
The rats in New York are gigantic.
We headed east and then hopped on the subway, and soon found ourselves deep in Greenwich Village, where we strolled around, looked in shops, and chatted for the rest of the afternoon. Ducking into a small, sleepy bar, we watched the end of the France/Portugal World Cup Match, shared a few beers. At one point Brianne suggested that soccer matches be played shirts vs. skins, or just skins but with different colored shorts. I made a mental note to erase Portugal from our itinerary. In the end, Brianne’s support was not enough, and France moved on to the final they would lose a few days later. We had several short conversations with some locals, and then headed back into the warmth of late afternoon.
For dinner we stopped into Mary’s Fish Camp, a “legendary” seafood place that I especially wanted to visit due to it being a kind of mecca for Amy Sidaris fans. I also wanted to try their lobster roll, so much so that I payed way, way too much it. Mostly I ordered it because I didn’t want to leave wondering, for all time, how good it was. Yes, it was good. No, it wasn’t that good. But at least now I know, and from that perspective it was worth it. I think a good rule of thumb is that if you pay more than $20 for any meal, a hotdog bun should not be one of only three ingredients.
After dinner we walked around the lower east side, enjoying the cool evening, people watching and window shopping. At one point we went into the shop of a coffee importer where the air was thick with flavor, and we just walked around breathing deeply for a few minutes. It was cheap but effective aromatherapy.
The Show
At 10 we reached the Upright Citizen’s Brigade Theatre at 307 W. 26th St. The last time we were back east we went to the Sunday night show that actually features Upright Citizen’s Brigade cast members such as Amy Poehler and Ian Roberts. The reason I was especially excited to see that night’s show was that one of the improv groups performing, “Flux Capacitor”, was captained by Charlie Todd, the creator of Improv Everywhere, which is a website dedicated to causing scenes, playing pranks, and generally introducing more benevolent chaos into the universe. There’s already enough of the other kind.
The show was good. A full synopsis wouldn’t do it justice, but I was especially impressed with how the group managed to manipulate time, as in, they perfomed for twenty minutes but were only covering the same two minute section of time, just throughout different “rooms” and perspectives. So a scene at the start of the show might have someone yelling something into another (nonexistent) room at some point, and then later, during the scene taking place at the same time but in that other room, the person would pop their head in and yell the same thing, weaving the whole thing together. I’ve never seen any other improv group attempt anything like that before, but they are called “Flux Capacitor”, so maybe it’s their gift. The thing I like most about well done improv is how readily a bare set and a couple of chairs can be transformed into an IHOP, karaoke bar, or parking lot. Good improv is an all too rare chance for adults (both the actors and audience) to play make believe, if only for an hour.
The Night
Leaving the theatre, Brianne and I decided to walk the twenty or so blocks back to Grand Central Station, passing Times Square along the way. “The City That Never Sleeps” is a bit of a misnomer. In reality, New York is “The City That Leaves It’s Lights On”. By the time we got there things were already winding down, but the glow of multimillion dollar advertising technology continued bathing the cars and pedestrians who remained in the kind of light that makes for great photographs.
Taking a right on 42nd St., we soon found ourselves back at Grand Central Station, 14 hours from when we’d last been there. With the Chrysler Building shining nearby, we went inside.
It turned out that the next and last train back to Stratford didn’t leave for over an hour, so we spent much of the time admiring Grand Central’s gorgeous ceiling. By 1999, the ceiling had turned coal black from what turned out to be tar and nicotine deposited by cigarette smoke. This grime was removed to reveal a green field covered with elaborate astronomical symbols that had been painted in gold in 1912. While I was standing at an upper balcony and stargazing, a young couple asked if I would take their picture. I enjoy being involved when memories are being made, even when they’re not my own.
The train ride home was uneventful. Brianne and I slept in ten minute intervals, waking at each town to ensure that we didn’t miss our stop. Across the aisle, a tired looking businessman openly drank two beers during his commute home, but the conductor said nothing about it, which I liked.
Exiting the train in Stratford, Brianne and I walked quietly back to my mom’s house. The streetlights cycled six times by the time we reached the first intersection, but not a single car passed us while we walked. I stopped in the middle of the street just long enough to capture a shot of an entire town in slumber. Then we continued up the rain slicked steets, savoring the silence and looking forward to the moment that we could join it.
