We all had a couple of days here to recover from ferocious jet lag. T and I rented bikes and after lunch with my friend Darcy we rode along the Pacific coast up past the cliff house to the Presidio. It was one of those gorgeous SF days when I had to keep reminding myself this was in the middle of a city.
One afternoon I caught 3 art shows at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts — one consisted of photos of pretty severely mentally and physically impaired adults — all had been given art therapy by a common teacher — and there were examples of some of their work. The glyphs of a man named Dwight, now passed away, I had seen before — they're powerful, as were some bound objects by a woman who was pictured burying her face in one of her constructions. Her pieces consisted of ordinary objects, more or less appliance size, bound tightly with multicolored yarn, bits of cloth and anything else that seemed to be available — they resulted in powerful talismanic objects, at least that's how they appeared to me... and judging by her photo she wants to merge with them — she was pictured hugging one, her face half submerged in the loops and layers of yarn.
To be honest, the photos of the artists were pretty intense. As much as I love and am inspired by some of this impassioned desperate work I maybe find it easier to feel the humanity of these folks by looking at their works rather than at their person. Obviously their therapist is beyond this stage. But for the person not accustomed to looking at these folks it's disturbing at first glance. That's not very PC, but it's the truth.
A second show was of large labor-intensive contemporary works, some of which were great. One was a wall of fans in a room that you activated by sitting down and breathing into a miniature version of the same thing on a desktop. It was as if your breath was being amplified, made more powerful and louder. A third show was lots of 18th and 19th century posters and handouts from the collection of Ricky Jay, the magician. There were flyers for mesmerists, automatic writing machines, the pig faced woman, and in one instance, an elephant — the first one to tour North America. The typography was amazing.
Barnum ("there’s a sucker born every minute") was represented by a small poster for a man he claimed was 161 years old. It turned out to be a fake, and Jay claimed that the European image of Americans and America were partly formed by this showman who was less show and more con man. Maybe not much has changed in that respect.
We did 3 nights at the Fillmore. It was a way to balance the budget (The Australia/NZ part didn't quite break even), break up the jet lag and it's loads of fun, it's such a great place. I had already invited the Extra-Action Marching Band to join us — and to join us more extensively than they did 2 years previously — Tony Fino did an arrangement for "Burning Down The House" and it was sent ahead of our arrival for them to look at.
As before, they entered the room after our set — how could we possibly follow them? — they entered from the back doors, wading into the audience and eventually making their way to the stage where we re-emerged to join up with them. Some of their cheerleaders (male and female) were pretty close to naked... which added another layer of headiness to the incredible grooves they were playing. (I think some of the rhythms and riffs must be Balkan, there are some odd time signatures going on.)
(Click here to link to an audience member's video posting of the Fillmore show.)
After our last show (our last for a LONG time) we went to the rehearsal/living space in Bernal Heights neighborhood where the Extra-Action folks and their pals were having a party with live music — one set was a guy playing cello through electronics accompanying a young woman who managed to smile almost all the time as she sang. Tracy said they teach you that in chorus class, but I think she was just genuinely enjoying herself. She said hi afterwards and she was still grinning. And...there was a genuine San Francisco light show — 2 movies projected onto the same screen — and on another wall oil and water made old school light show blobby shapes. The Extra Action band did a short set — how they had the energy after playing earlier and it was after 2AM at this point I don't know — though their music and show seem to generate energy rather than suck it up.
Once again, as happened 2 years ago, with this bunch I have the feeling of entering a chaotic and somewhat sexy utopia. People are wearing all sorts of outfits — Victorian hats and mustaches on some of the men, wigs on some of the women, and some folks wear not much at all. Haircuts are all over the place. I myself am in a baby blue western jacket and golf shoes. The music is varied and made with and generates sheer joy — that singer wasn't the only one smiling.
Why do scenes like this develop here? One of the players has some connection with Survival Research Labs, which is maybe another slightly more dangerous variation on this impulse. Maybe there's something in the weather, in the water, the light, the unstable land?
What is it about certain cities and places that fosters specific attitudes? Am I imagining this? Do people who move to L.A. from elsewhere lose a lot of that elsewhere and eventually end up making L.A.-type work? Does creative attitude seep in through peer pressure and causal conversations? Or is it in the water, the light, the weather? Is there a Detroit sensibility? Memphis? New Orleans? (no doubt) Austin? (certainly) Nashville? London? Berlin? Düsseldorf? Vienna? (yes) Paris? Osaka? Melbourne? Bahia? (absolutely)
Does New York foster a hard-as-nails no-nonsense attitude? Not exclusively, but maybe a little bit. Here creativity is a career, a serious business, something that can be achieved only by absolute focus — and sometimes by what seems like paradoxical means — silliness, sloppiness and studied anti-seriousness can all be serious pursuits.
Is it in the layers of historical happenstance that make up a city? The politics and local laws? The socio-ethnic mix? The evanescent weight of fame and glamor that weighs upon all of L.A. mixed with the influence of the Latin and Asian populations that are fenced off from that zone — that and the hazy light on skin might make certain kinds of work more appropriate. Yes? No? Maybe?
Maybe in some cases, but not all, this is a bit of a myth, a willful desire to give each place its own aura. But I think every myth at least stems from a kernel of truth... which might be as slight as the need for that myth to exist. The myth of urban character and sensibility exists because we want it to exist — in order to lend meaning and order to a sometimes senseless world.
George W. Bush is in the news preaching democracy to the Russians. From a grade school civics kind of mindset this might seem to have some basis in reality, but in fact it is pure arrogance coming from a man who was not even elected, has established a string of illegal penal colonies around the world, illegally invaded a sovereign nation and rejiggers zoning lines to disenfranchise half the population. The recent revelation that more and more "journalists" and white house press conference "reporters" are actually Republican plants — and are not even reporters at all, is an old Soviet trick. The pot calling the kettle black, as they used to say. That doesn’t mean it isn't in fact black, but... (and isn’t this a sort of racist aphorism?)
