We played at Bonnaroo festival on Sunday. We arrived in the
neighboring town in the morning having driven overnight from Asheville, NC and
awoke to find ourselves surrounded by big box stores—all of them, all around
us, in one place: Home Depot, Wall Mart, Target, Staples… on and on. There are
no independent stores anywhere to be seen.
On arriving at the festival site, I pull my folding bike
from the bay and set off to get the lay of the land; which stage is where, that
sort of thing. I have done this in the past, and it’s a really speedy way to
get from area to area, via the behind the scenes paths that staff and artists
use, and one can then see many acts in a day. It’s fun and super efficient. But
this time a security guy (their shirts say SAFETY) stops me and says there’s no
bike riding anywhere in Bonnaroo. Woah. OK. I don’t challenge him, but WTF. I
guess I’ll be walking today.
I manage to catch a few
acts before we have to get ready for our 7:30 show….we’re the last act on the
Which stage for this festival. Tom Petty, who goes on after us at the larger
What stage, has no one playing against him. Same went for Paul McCartney and
whoever was headlining last night.
I caught quite a bit of Macklemore’s
set. Some of our horn guys sat in on his Thrift Shop song. For the bulk of his
set, it was mostly him, a DJ/laptop guy, and a trumpet player. He was good! A
real showman and improviser (or so it seemed). He doesn’t have many songs so
far, so he padded out the set with entertaining patter and clever spoken bits
that were funny and sometimes quite serious—there was a long spoken
word/unaccompanied poetry thing that was impressive—a bold move.
Made it over to the comedy tent where I caught David Cross’
set—really good, though he did go to some iffy places: jokes riffing on Sandy
Hook? Really? Well, to be fair the jokes were about the NRA’s response to Sandy
Hook. Brave move here in Tennessee.
Kendrick
Lamar was pretty much what you would expect. If you know his material—as
the huge and vocal audience did—you were in it 100%. I was impressed by the
emptiness of his stage setup. It’s a common hip hop thing—the vast empty stage—no
amps, instruments, cables, singers, musicians. Visually it’s closer to a stand
up comedy look, or a serious dance performance than it is to a stage associated
with the rest of the musical traditions represented here. I’ve tried to come close
to this, and in recent years I’ve managed to eliminate a lot of cables and mic
stands. About a decade ago I switched to in ear monitors, so I don’t need any
of the monitor speakers that line the front of the stage here and block part of
the audience’s view of the artists. Monitor speakers—especially when they’re
loud—also make it difficult for sound mixers to get a super clear mix as well.
Swans were a
revelation. I didn’t see them back in the day, maybe I wrote them off as Glenn
Branca or Rhys Chatham clones, but they were great. While there are elements of
the guitar drone orchestra that they share with those guys, Gira has taken the
thing into a more expansive place. There are songs, or bits of songs, and the
look is of a bunch of characters out of a dark Flannery O Connor story—men in
black come to tell you that the end is coming soon, and here’s what it sounds
like. I stayed for 40 mins. and was right up close in front, but then I had to
leave, fearing that my ears might close down (our ears “close down” when
assaulted by loud or sustained loud noise—they re-open after awhile, usually)
and we still had a show to do.
Anyway—amazing set.
Our show goes well. It’s shorter than our normal set—fewer
ballads as the festival crowd has been out in the sun most of the day. I sense
that the reception to our show carries less baggage than our theater shows. In
other words, there isn’t a contingent of folks who mainly want to hear my old
material. I enjoy doing some of
those songs, but what was nice is that this mainly young festival audience is
hearing much of our material, mine and Annie’s, maybe for the first time, so their reactions are visceral—based on
how they liked the songs and performances right there and then. Sometimes an
Annie song that maybe got an OK reception in our typical theatrical settings
got a big response here. That was nice—there was a more level playing field.
Despite the hills in this town, I go for some bike rides.
Down by French Broad River (yup,
that’s the name), it’s especially scenic.
One day there is a Celtic
heritage festival in a riverside park. I can hear songs about drinking sung by
men in kilts.
I stop at a farmers market—there are black honey and pork
butts.
Some of us go for a tour of the Moog factory. I
remembered using a minimoog on some Talking Heads songs, and Bernie Worrell was a forerunner using
the fat bass sounds on these Moog oscillators to do some of the bass parts on
P-Funk tunes. Unfortunately, those early synths were tough to use on stage, as
their pitch “drifted” a bit over time, but great sounds.
Now many of those problems have been solved, and on some of
the gear you can save your settings…which is a huge help as well.
Here are a bunch of bass synths getting burnt in—they leave
them on for a while to see if any parts burn out.
Previously, Annie had acquired a guitar they made that uses
acoustic synthesis. What does that mean? It means their device activates the
strings of the guitar rather than synthesizing sounds. It makes the guitar a
whole new instrument—you can’t play it like a regular guitar, well, you could,
but it would be weird. Imagine something like a set of E-bows, one for each
string that can keep them sounding once activated or touched. It has way more
options—filters, arpeggiators, mutes, etc—than an E-bow, but that analogy might
allow you to picture it.
Anyway, it’s nice to see them developing that and some of
the other gadgets that have no obvious market. I doubt there are players out
there asking for something like this, but some might figure out a way to make a
new kind of music on it. You have to figure out how to use them or play them
from scratch (sort of). A guitar virtuoso wouldn’t be able to jump onto this
thing for example—it requires a re-think.
Some of us jammed briefly on some of their gear that they
had set up in a back room.
I saw other synths in a used gear store—some made by former
Moog factory employees—that were equally bizarre. One had no keyboard, or way
to input a keyboard, and it had alien glyphs to assign patches. Another had
many buttons that were completely unlabeled. What’s going on down here?
Southern Foam
Some of us went to a very tasty restaurant called The Admiral in a cinder block building in
West Asheville.
There has been an explosion of foodie places around here. Some
are impossible to get into. We had to book ahead for this one, and we just got
in for the last orders before the place turns into an innovative and fairly
small dance club! (They remove all the tables)
There was local cuisine with foams—all very tasty, but not
sure I approve of the Southern Foam concept…this (below) is probably the reason
a lot of restaurants discourage food photography…sorry guys. It WAS really
tasty.
Carter (Trumpet and Flugelhorn) was at the same music store,
and after leaving he witnessed a local cyclist get into an altercation with a
driver. One of them (the driver or the cyclist) had cut off the other. The
angry cyclist pulled around to the driver’s window to exchange words, only to
throw his hands up and quickly back away when confronted by a gun.
It sounded like this cyclist has a little bit of a short
fuse, which might need to be addressed, but it also shows the ease with which a
gun comes into play in many parts of this country. Easy to see how a random
stupid confrontation or bit of road rage could quickly escalate into someone’s
death. Scary.
The audience here in Asheville was incredible! They were on
their feet from the beginning of the show. Wild Wild Life is going over
well—OK, it is pretty familiar, but Kelly’s arrangement and Annie B Parson’s
choreography really helps as well….not to mention the willingness of the band
to go somewhere completely new on that song.
This image was captured by one of the cast members, Evan D'Angeles, in a moment when our rehearsal was interrupted by the fire alarm
The story follows former first lady of the Philippines Imelda Marcos, from her childhood up to the moment at the end of the People Power revolution when she and Ferdinand Marcos flee Manila (the infamous shoes were yet to be discovered, so they are not mentioned). Here Lies Love is entirely true and much of the lyric content comes from speeches and interviews the various characters gave over the years.
The production is a disco musical that I (with occasional help from Fatboy Slim) have been working on for many years. The production is directed by Alex Timbers and features a mostly Filipino cast of amazingly talented actors and singers. To make a long story short—it went amazingly well. Yes, there were problems, but all of them seem fixable. The main issues we were concerned with before the series of live performances were the following:
Can a story be imparted with almost no dialogue, and
Can we stage this "beast" (as Oskar at the Public Theater refers to it)—the reason Oskar calls the staging a “beast” is because the audience stands (and dances!) in the middle of the room while the action of the production takes place all around them.
The answer to both concerns is yes—the staging and the concept work. It works so well that I sort of cried at every performance. I attended all six performances, as we kept making small changes. To be honest, my tears at one show were because the sound mix was so atrocious, but at the others I cried because I was deeply moved by the story and emotions that the actors depicted. Now, one might say, “Sure, he knows the story inside and out,” and some might think that I got emotional because I was simply thrilled by seeing my vision finally realized—but I think some others may have had the same experience. In the end, I'd say it's the best thing I've done since the Stop Making Sense tour—which I guess is saying something.
The music, much of it done in collaboration with Fatboy Slim, is influenced by about 4 decades of dance music, much of which I have posted on this months’ streaming radio playlist. Funk, electro, disco, house, go-go, techno, samba, zouk, dubstep... I could go on and on. The score doesn't follow any particular club style—it hops all over to better represent each character's moment. This playlist is long (over seven hours of inspiration!) and it could have been longer—but this gives you an idea of the many beats and styles that fed into this thing.
I was recently asked to do a conversation/talk with Janette Sadik-Kahn, our commissioner of transportation, at the AIA New York Center for Architecture Center (American Institute of Architects). Since I imagined there might be some architects or designers in the audience, I took some time to share some of my notes and photographs from my summer Latin American bikes and cities tour. I also took this opportunity to finally organize some of the notes I had taken and post them. So here it is, many months late.
Flashback to July 23, 2011—Oscar Diaz is my host here in Bogota. He worked closely with Enrique Peñalosa, the former mayor of the city (from 1998-2001 and currently running this year with the Green Party), on various projects to improve Bogota’s system of parks, bike paths, road construction, and mass transit system. He suggested we take a field trip so he could show some of the projects they had initiated. A few of us piled in a van in the morning and headed towards the outskirts of town, to the Kennedy District. In this district there are several small neighborhoods like El Tintal, Bellavista, and El Recreo. Bellavista is a small community that was formerly illegal. It was a place of dirt streets, no sewage, no water, or electricity. There was no property ownership or the various rights that go along with that. Much of that has changed, for the better, since that administration implemented a number of interrelated schemes.
There are lots of these illegal communities around Bogota and other cities here. Invasiones ilegales or piratas (illegal or pirate invasions) are what these communities are called when they begin forming—as they’re completely illegal. They’re called favelas in Brazil, townships in South Africa. They don’t hook up to city water, sewage, or electricity (not legally anyway), but there are still entrepreneurs who will develop real estate in these settlements, if you can call it that.
This is the way they used to look (Oscar took this in 1997):
One might call this old view of this community an example of crowd-sourced architecture—as there are no regulations or governmental guides. The patterns—streets and basic infrastructure—that comes into being could be considered to be emergent. But without sewage or water it’s pretty sad. Maybe that crowd principal can’t really be applied in all areas? Or maybe it needs a framework and set of principals and then it can form and grow around those?
This is the way it looks now (I took this July 2011):
We biked along these bike/ped paths that have been built here. We passed many improvised bike repair stations that have sprung up—a guy with a set of flat fix gear and other tools sets himself up as a pop-up business. Little shops have appeared on the ground floors of many of the buildings since the paths have been built. Needless to say in the intervening years this area got electricity and sewage, streetlights and schools.
Unfortunately, because of the current administration, the neighborhood has gone back to being a tough and dangerous area though it didn’t look it—I was advised to slip my big camera into my bag rather than letting it hang on my neck. Whenever I went off a little on my own, someone from the group would appear close to me, watching out. But now, at least there are possibilities for the residents—the local schools, the library and other centers provide educational services, and the TransMilenio buses that now reach here can connect these folks to employment in town—all of which didn't exist until the bus system (BRT) was created under Peñalosa’s administration.
The bike and pedestrian passages that former Mayor Peñalosa and Oscar instigated go through these communities and provide a network—they give the communities a street-type focus. Also, the “roads” serve as a link to other communities and to the TransMilenio—the rapid bus network that goes to, among other places, the center of the city.
The TransMilenio system, was begun some years ago as a cheaper and less socially and ecologically damaging alternative to the 600 million dollar highway scheme that was ready to go. The buses run really fast and, because you buy the tickets before getting on, there is no time wasted doing ticket business after you board the buses—which pull up to specially built stations along the existing highways as well as inside the city. They pull up, exchange passengers, and then zoom off. Only a masochist would decide to drive his or her own car to work... but there are plenty of those.
In the Americas terminal the station has indoor bike parking, as the inhabitants of that zone get around mainly by bike or by walking.
Would this kind of bus system work in some place like Atlanta, Georgia, where people spend hours and hours stuck in their cars getting from one side of the sprawl to the other?
It was pointed out that the improvements in Kennedy (schools and the bike/ped paths), and those in other barrios, were funded by the savings that accrued after the decision to build the TransMilenio system—a much more cost-effective solution than building the massive highway that had previously been proposed. There are 84km of exclusive corridors in the TransMilenio system. 1.7 million people are transported every day. 7 million people live in Bogota.
Many of the inhabitants of these squatter towns had never been outside of those places. These bike/ped "roads" coupled with the bus system allowed them to get out, get jobs in town, go to school, university etc. The storefront businesses that sprung up along the paths changed the communities in other ways, not only by creating jobs—people began to be more motivated, feel better about their situation, and about the future chances for their kids. My point to the architects was that here were fairly cheap and simple improvements that (coupled with some other changes described below) radically transformed people’s lives.
In order for these "townships" to receive basic city services—sewage, city water, electricity, schools, etc.—the settlements had to be legalized. Usually, previous city administrations would legalize about 12 of them a year but under Peñalosa and Oscar, they legalized 600. To kick the process off, the city would buy some of the vacant land and sell it to developers, as well as putting in some infrastructure such as the bike paths, pedestrian walkways, and public parks—all the stuff the “developers” in those zones would not ordinarily put in but made the areas attractive and more livable. The developers, seeing that clients were drawn to those amenities, began to advertise their future developments as having those features. Here is a developers’ billboard—their advertising features apartments with public spaces and green zones:
The public education in these areas was terrible. According to Oscar, that was partly due to the unions, who were mainly interested in holding onto their positions and increasing their benefits. The city took an initiative and began to build schools and then open them up to bids for private management at the same cost allocated per kid in a public school. In other words, if a kid were allocated $500 a year for a normal public school education, that was what the bidders would receive—but often under private management they could accomplish a lot more for the same amount of money.
It was a way of getting around the unions, and it was very successful. Some of the management of these schools was by Catholic schools that do not really aim to make a profit on their schools the way others might—breaking even is considered OK by the religious schools. The grade results and SAT scores are now equal those in the established private schools.
Critics say this system is privatizing education—a dangerous precedent, but Oscar counters that the parents don't have to pay tuition as they would in a real private school. It has brought a vast improvement in the quality of education to these poor neighborhoods. My friend Sally wrote me: “The education stuff sounds dangerously close to arguments made here for charter schools and the evils of the teachers' unions; I would say [to you] to be careful and be specific, but then again I am wary of such semi-private endeavors in education and you may not be...” I too am wary of the privatizing of education—it could turn into something driven by profits, like prisons are in the US. Can you imagine if a basic service like water were privatized—as is being discussed in some places? Scary. However, Oscar claims in this situation it worked because the education remains public for the children and the city pays the same per student. What changes is the administration, teachers and program—all managed by the private schools and universities that won the public bid.
Next we toured Biblioteca El Tintal—which is a library, auditorium, meeting rooms and cafeteria complex that was built on the site of former garbage dump. In the past, the trucks would go up the ramp and dump their loads, and the resulting heap was eventually carried off to the distant landfill. It was an unsightly dump, and certainly didn’t make the area attractive. These new library complexes—and quite a few were built based on this model—are usually located near a bus transit hub and surrounded by green. They were built by respected local architects and were the sort of eye-catching buildings any city would be happy to have downtown, but here, they were being built in the poorest neighborhoods. Needless to say, besides being a social, educational and cultural center, these places became sources of pride.
Here is an aerial view—the library complex has now been there for a while, and as a result the shanties that used to sprawl out in the area have been replaced by apartment blocks and row houses—all still linked by bike paths and pedestrian walkways:
(Image Source: Oscar Diaz)
Peñalosa fought to keep the former garbage truck ramp as a reminder of what it once was. When it was built there was not much around here—the illegal communities were springing up all around in a kind of squatter anarchy. The parents in those days would plop their kids in front of the TV. Now, the kids are going to schools and can use computers at this center—and teach their parents how to use computers as well.
Here’s an inside view:
Here is one of the other libraries in another outlying area:
This concept of the library as community hub, and as a transformative catalyst in a community was also picked up by the former Mayor of Medellín, Sergio Fajardo. His realized version was even more spectacular looking, though the effect was similar.
He brought in Giancarlo Mazzantito as an architect to build Biblioteca España on the edge of a hill, as part of a funky barrio, Santo Domingo, that had been dangerous and was considered a sort of dead-end for its citizens. The newly created plaza soon became a place for folks to meet, mingle and shop in the kiosks that sprung up—a focal point the barrio didn't previously have. The library became both a local and international architectural landmark, and is an example of both how architecture can transform a community, as well as being an example of serious architecture being introduced into a poor neighborhood, as opposed to where it usually is—in city centers where the well-to-do are entertained.
Fajardo did something similar to the BRT bus system connection as well—he linked this formerly isolated community to the main city by public transportation. Though in this case, it wasn’t possible to tag a bus line onto existing roads because the way up that hill is too twisty. So, instead, they made a gondola that takes folks to and from town.
Fajardo managed to transform Medellin from a place of squalor and despair into a liveable open city. He resorted to architects and urbanists, many of them Colombian (Rogelio Salmona, Giancarlo Mazzanti who designed the Parque Biblioteca Espana, Alejandro Echeverri who was responsible for the spatial development strategy, Sergio Gomez for the Botanial Garden), to realise “our most beautiful buildings in our poorest areas.”
His strategy was to begin in the most deprived areas, gain the trust of the poorest with the lowest chances of succeeding in life. Santo Domingo Savio which houses some 170,000 people was the starting point of the regeneration of Medellin from where it has spread elsewhere. Places for learning, schools, a library were deliberately designed as landmarks to signal a brighter future. Parks (of Wishes, of Bare Feet), internet facilities, an art gallery and a day care centre form part of the public realm open to all, together with new connections to the city at large. Converting dilapidated spaces into places where people can meet without fear and the very young population can play triggered improvements to the precarious abodes.
Openness and, most importantly, beauty was brought to these areas, for which the inhabitants started to feel civic pride.
The locals participated actively in these transformations. Youngsters and the unemployed were given the opportunity to learn building trades. Not only were they able to improve their own abodes, but their skills provided them with jobs and a new lifestyle.
Oscar and I had lunch with Alexandra Rojas, former Deputy Secretary of Finance, who is involved in a program of national accident prevention. She was also involved in a big campaign (Fondo de Prevención Vial—FPV) to reduce road, pedestrian, bike and car accidents. She said that the prevailing attitude is that accidents are destiny—that they come upon us at random and unexpectedly—black swan events that we can’t predict. There is a feeling that you, therefore, can’t do anything about them. Their program, fronted by a very well known TV presenter, was called Epidemic of Excuses. Interesting that when they tested they found that this presenter had a credibility rating of 80%—so she was perfect for getting this difficult message across.
Rojas says all studies show the opposite to the prevailing perception of accidents as random or fate—it showed that traffic accidents, and especially those involving pedestrians, are indeed mostly avoidable, and therefore preventable. However, to prevent them, there would need to be some compromises for drivers such as driving slower (which may mean more traffic jams, though), along with additional crossing stations, more lights, etc. The number of lives that would be saved is not random—it’s completely predictable. Janette Sadik-Khan is figuring out how to do a similar program here in NY to get drivers to slow down. In Colombia, as in the US, it’s an uphill battle. In Colombia, 80% of the population does not have cars, but, as in the US, most of the infrastructure budget goes to accommodate the other 20% who do own cars. As Peñalosa and others have pointed out, these fiscal policies are counter democratic—they privilege a minority, a wealthy minority, of course, over the bulk of citizens. It would be as if sections of public parks were lopped off to create helipads for wealthy businessmen, or as if hire cars were allowed to stop and park wherever they wish. As in many parts of the U.S., lots of roads in Colombia have no place for pedestrians—there is no sidewalk. If you don’t have a car, tough luck. When the largest part of a nations funds go to accommodate a small, wealthy portion of citizens (the drivers, in the case of Columbia), democracy and the rights of the citizens are being subverted in the most profound way—at the level of the pocketbook.
Back in the U.S.A.
In a similar effort to those that Peñalosa, Salas, and Fajardo have done, an organization named Studio H has been active in North Carolina. I read a piece the other day that Alice Rawsthorn wrote for the NY Times in which the organizers were quoted as saying that, similar to Fajardo’s scheme, they focused on young folks becoming involved in the building effort. Many of these folks were around 17 years old and had never made anything in their lives—never held a hammer or sawed wood. So this was a big step that not all of them wanted to take, but for those who did their sense of self was radically changed.
Last week I was in Lido, adjacent to Venice, where the annual Venice Film Festival is held. I had been invited to be on the jury and, naively thinking it would be a kind of summer holiday—Venice and movies? Why not?—I agreed to participate. It was hugely enjoyable—Marco Mueller, the festival director, and his team gathered an amazing selection of movies for the competition—it was almost too much of a good thing for us on the jury, so many of the films were worthy.
We watched 23 films in about 10 days, which actually meant 3 films a day on many days, as the opening and closing days were just one film each. There were some breaks—time for local wine and Venetian cuisine—but in general time was tight. I did get to spend a couple of days exploring the art Biennale, which is still up.
I reserved some bikes, as Lido, the island where the festival takes place, is absolutely flat and has few canals. There's an abandoned hospital complex at one end, completely open, WWII bunkers, and even a farm down at the far end of the island.
Most of our time though was spent watching movies, along with the public, sometimes with the filmmakers, actors and producers not too far away.
We were pledged to secrecy, a policy that Jury president, Darren Aronofsky, articulated at our first meeting. He had some previous experiences with leaks and rumors when Black Swan had its debut a year ago, so our meetings after many of the movies were intentionally set apart from others and we never had our big jury meetings at restaurants, as other patrons might overhear our comments.
The jury was a wonderfully mixed bunch; Darren, already mentioned, director Todd Haynes, actress Alba Rohrwacher (I Am Love), theater and film director Mario Martone, director Andre Techine, Eija-Liisa Ahtila, a fine artist who works in film—and myself. Surprisingly, we agreed on most of our choices and favorites, and though there was some dissension, there were no absolute splits or divisions—no animosity.
The choice of winners was hard—there were some great films that could have been included and hopefully those will not vanish or remain obscure for long. Though we tried to be objective, it is a subjective task. Despite claiming we were not prejudiced against popular films or big US productions, we ended up with a pretty artsy selection—very rigorous films that play by their own rules, which we felt all did so beautifully once that world and its rules were established. Many of these are not "easy" movies and I hope we didn't pick them because we thought they were "deserving" or would get overlooked otherwise... or to show how refined and arty we are.
Here we are, at a particularly difficult moment— happily resolved—though I look pretty annoyed in this photo! Maybe I was just squinting in the bright sunlight. (Thanks Alba for forwarding this.)
Here are the winners:
The Golden Lion Award—A re-imagining of Faust using much of the original German text by Russian director Aleksandr Sokurov. I met the actor who played Mephistopheles, the devil, after the awards ceremony—he was a dancer, not an actor and used to play in a band. Sokurov made an impassioned speech at the press conference in which he pleaded for more state and foundation support for the arts and humanities, saying that if we lose our deep culture we are nobodies, nothing. He ended by saying, and this could be a bad translation "We don't need the audience, the audience [the public] needs us!" It bordered on arrogance, but he's certainly got a point.
After the awards he got calls of congratulations from Putin, the first of which he didn't pick up, so Putin called again! Word has it that he said the same things to Putin—that without support, much art and culture will not survive.
The Silver Lion Award went to People Mountian People Sea by Shangjun Cai. It's a film that follows the lead character's descent into Hell in search of the killer of his brother. We see a side of China most of us have never seen before—junkies, shantytowns, illegal mines and a criminal underclass—so not surprisingly this film was not announced in the running until it was certain that the director and the film had made it to Venice. Even so, the first screening was cancelled due to glitches in the download of the film file from China, the second screening was interrupted by a fire scare in which the theater was evacuated and the third screening was interrupted as well, for technical reasons. One might be tempted to look for a conspiracy...
Special Jury Prize (effectively 3rd place) went to Terraferma by Emanuele Crialese. This was the most accessible and popular of our selections, a film that deals with changing economics on a small volcanic island off the coast of Italy and the influx of African immigrants/illegals. A timely subject and beautifully shot. Many of the "actors" were real fishermen and recent African immigrants who had gone through similar experiences. One of the main actors, an older man, is, in real life, a clown. The young male lead was worthy of a prize, though we decided early on to "spread the wealth" and not double up prizes.
Best actor went to Michael Fassbender for his work in Steve McQueen's Shame. As with his work with McQueen on Hunger, Fassbender goes places most actors wouldn't touch with a ten foot pole. This film is about a sex addict, so you can imagine. Carey Mulligan is surprising as well, miles from the sweet girl we've come to know in recent movies.
Best actress went to Deanie Yip for her role in A Simple Life, a film by Ann Hui. In this film she plays an aging woman (much older than the actress) who is cared for her doting son in a Hong Kong retirement home.
The Marcello Mastroianni Award for best new young actor went to Shota Sometani and Fumi Nikaido for their roles in Sion Sono's Himizu. This film, as Todd said, captures the violent mood swings and alternately inflated and deflated world of adolescence in a way that is sometimes crazy, sometimes brutal and sometimes funny. The film also reflects the increasing disaffection and alienation that young Japanese feel for their elders and their government, especially in the wake of the tsunami and the nuclear events that followed.
Best technical award went to Robbie Ryan for his work as DP on Andrea Arnold's new radical reworking of Wuthering Heights. If you've seen her previous films, Red Road and Fishtank, you know she has strong visual ideas and Ryan has been instrumental in realizing the varying looks in all of those. This one, set on bleak moors of England, was stunning.
Best screenplay went to Yorgos Lanthimos and Efthimis Filippou for Alps, Lanthimos' film about a secretive group who offer to substitute themselves for the deceased for grieving parties. Anyone who has seen his film Dogtooth (which I loved) will know what they're in for. Fairly affectless acting and lots of serious ideas about identity, acting, and some very dry humor as well. Pretty much unlike any film you've ever seen.
Here are some of my favorite quotes from our jury meetings. Maybe I will reveal the film and author of the quotes later. Maybe not.
“It gives the point of view of the occupied, using the visual codes of the occupier.”
“A film in a straightjacket.”
“It is an autistic film.”
“I liked his head shape in profile.”
“It keeps stroking the same spot.”
“It's about what is visible and what is hidden.”
“Messy, combustible and out of control.”
“It captured my bad LSD experience very well.”
“ET as the ideal Italian woman.”
“A chicken leg, well done.”
“In Italy we have problem with the mother.”
“A fairytale in reverse order.”
“The bum stroking represented a kind of contact with nature.”
“The end of the world happens every time somebody dies.”
Bernardo and I arrived Sunday night and were met by Scott Muller, who works for the Clinton Foundation here. They’re involved in projects that combat global warming. Part of that effort involves advocating for more efficient and sustainable transportation (that’s where I come in) and for use alternative energy sources (geothermal and methane from landfills are 2 possibilities there).
We checked into the hotel in Miraflores, the upscale district overlooking the beach and then we headed out to a local restaurant on some folding Dahon bikes we were leant. Chilean wine and local ceviche—one almost can’t go wrong food-wise in Lima.
One major strand of Scott’s lunch conversation was that Lima is in a real pickle. A former president allowed the importation of a lot of cheap used cars and combis to be used as taxis and buses to combat unemployment -also a kind of populist vote-garnering move—they now have one of the largest per capita taxi fleets in the world! All of these vehicles ran on diesel—really low-grade diesel. The emissions from these vehicles with their super low-grade fuel are 100 times higher than anywhere else. That combined with a few other factors—the extent of the sprawl here, the lack of transportation alternatives (like bikes), and more BRT bus lanes or rail—has resulted in a huge amount of particulate pollution. The pollution rose up, blew east and landed on the glaciers in the Peruvian Andes. One glacier in particular melted super fast as a result—it is now nearly gone due to rapid melting, and that particular glacier was the principal source of Lima's water supply. It took 200,000 years for the glacier to form— a generation to lose. They're now looking at plans to recycle wastewater for irrigation. I'll drink to that.
These places are being forced to take climate change and energy and water issues really seriously, if they don't they are totally fucked—if they aren’t already.
Peru also semi-privatized their water—under Fujimori or his successor, I'm not sure. This didn't raise any flags among the public here, until a Chilean consortium tried to buy the privatized part. Only then did the Lima folks suddenly realize their lives would be at the mercy of a gaggle of Chilean investors whose primary interest would be to see a profit on their investment. 1.5 million residents of Lima don’t have access to piped water.
In reference to the incredibly rapid melting glaciers in this area of the Andes, I was sent a paper detailing the issue. It's from some heavy-duty glaciologist, Lonnie Thompson, in Ohio. Having this stuff made concrete in a place like this makes your skin go all funny.
That, and some other similarly tragic stories, and one can see that places like this—rapidly expanding or already expanded urban regions in countries without deep pockets—are going to get hit by these environmental changes really hard and fast. It's going to happen way sooner than most of us think, and it's going to be more tragic than we can imagine. Lima is home to 8.5 million people. Can you imagine if a city that size that you know—Tokyo, NYC, Mexico City—were suddenly faced with having no water? The Peruvians have therefore been forced to initiate a lot of fairly innovative programs—more on that later. Many of the places on this tour don’t have the financial resources that the U.S., for example, used to have (the U.S., as we know, doesn’t have those resources either, not any more). In New York, we used to build massive and very expensive highway systems, tunnels, underground trains and Tunnel No. 3 to bring water from upstate. Europe and China are spending, or have spent, the cash to upgrade their rail and other systems, but I suspect the U.S. doesn’t yet have the political will to do that. War spending has taken precedence.
Anyway, many of these countries, not having funds to draw on, are forced to find cheaper alternatives, and to be somewhat more innovative and imaginative. Here is their relatively new BRT system-the Metropolitano, the high-speed bus line that goes from Miraflores and other districts into the center city—very quickly. We took it once—it’s fast and it runs on time. As in other cities, it eats up two lanes of an existing highway and the median strip, but runs as fast and efficiently as a train or subway—and is many, many times cheaper to install. The Metropolitano runs on 100% domestic source CNG (natural gas).
OK, one more bit from Scott’s lunchtime download—due to this same rampant use of low-grade diesel, the asthma and lung disease rate here is astronomical. As pointed out by the Mayor, three kids die daily from air pollution or some horrible figure like that. The fog + pollution combo is atrocious, and the new president, Ollanta Humala, is the first one to stand up to the various lobbies and say, “Look, this is happening—we need to respond to it and not just accept it as the price of rapid expansion.”
The car that Scott used to pick us up from the airport runs on compressed gas. They're trying to get a methane extraction system working here, as the piles of garbage on the outskirts of town generate tons of it. At a later dinner we met Matt Evans, a garbage expert from HDR Engineering in Minnesota. He stuck a tube into the landfill and lit it with a lighter and it burned. Needless to say, that same methane is currently leaking into the atmosphere, so tapping it is a great option. Not every landfill is a good candidate for methane extraction—some are too dry (no fermentation/breakdown) and some too wet (in danger of suddenly slipping and shifting), but the climate here seems to be suitable. It doesn’t pour rain very much in Lima, but the sky is light gray and overcast for many months of the year (a look that is referred to as “donkey’s belly”), and there is sufficient dampness to keep the breakdown of waste going.
Scott was an Olympic kayak guy, and later on he used to lead kayak tours in northern Greenland (!) for enthusiastic adventurers. Apparently there are Nazi weather stations up there that are completely intact.
The next day we agreed to go surfing—or have lessons, more accurately. The beach is right next to Miraflores. It’s below a crumbly cliff that runs along the coast—exactly as in Santa Monica.
There is a nice park and bike path that runs along the top of the cliffs, which is not of much use as a mode of transportation, but it is safe and scenic. We rode along it for a few miles to a lunch spot after surfing. There’s the beginning of a similar park n’ path down below, along the beach, but much of that awaits development. As with Santa Monica, much of that area was given over to a narrow highway that runs along the water.
It gets choked with traffic a few times a day, so occasionally there are murmurs about the road being widened. This, of course, would not solve anything, as it would cost a fortune and usurp public land from the beachfront. The few existing developed areas are hugely popular—people hang out, bring picnics and up above there’s a lovers park, too. In a country like this one where a minority own cars, usurping public spaces for cars is in effect privileging a minority of the population over all the others. It’s stealing from the lower larger portion to allocate the smaller wealthier group of car owners.
As we drove along a road coming in from the airport, Scott pointed out the streetlights, saying there’s a huge opportunity to switch out the sodium for LED lights. Then, further on, spying a clump of LED traffic lights, highlighted that they use 90% less energy than incandescent, and won’t burn out for +10 yrs. Here’s a quote from the C40 (a group of large cities committed to addressing climate change) website:
If all 220 million street lights around the world were retrofitted to more energy efficient technologies, we could reduce their energy consumption by 50 percent; cut carbon emissions by more than 40 million metric tons each year; and save approximately $8 billion dollars annually in energy costs.
The surfing was fun! It’s winter down here, so I’m happy to report that the wet suits worked. The “beach” is stony, so getting to the water was painful without booties. Surfing uses a whole different set of muscles and breathing than jogging, so after about 1/2 hour I was totally winded. This time, I managed to get one leg all the way up and the other part way—caught a couple of long rides, so I did a little better than my first attempt in Oz when a group of us went surfing on the last tour.
On the way back to our hotel (we biked to the beach), it was pointed out how far the water receded after the Santiago earthquake—about 1/2 kilometer, I think—and it stayed out for about 20 minutes. The expected tsunami never arrived (there are tsunami evacuation routes posted here). The crazy locals rushed out, scampering over the rocks to gather the fish that had been left flopping on the seabed.
Later, we got onto the ingredients in Inca Cola (which is foul, bright yellow, and tastes like bubblegum), and then ayahuasca and other hallucinogens found here. I was told that that one, at least, is bound to the culture—the preparation is elaborate and requires combining two substances derived from roots and vines—so it unlikely it was travel or be easily exported (though it will probably be synthesized). The name means “spirit vine” or “vine of the souls.” (I like that second translation better—it’s way creepier.) Speaking of synthesized, there was talk of other drugs that are sold as incense (K-2, it is called) in the U.S. and it’s catching on with teenagers in the meth belt. You can buy it legally. There’s also another substance being imbibed in the U.S. sold as “bath salts,” though the users and sellers know it’s not for getting yourself clean.
Bernardo and I rode off along the malecon on Tuesday morning, as I was scheduled to do a TV interview overlooking the water. The new mayor, Susana Villaran, dropped out of doing the intro at our presentation—which is a shame, as she's great and has initiated a lot of good projects, but my guess is she had to make an appearance at some football-related event, as the whole country was waving flags with Peru in the Copa America semi-finals. Even if they don't win, they'll be thrilled they made it this far. The “big” Latin American teams have all been knocked out—Brazil, Argentina, Venezuela— and Peru, Paraguay and Uruguay are left standing. It’s rumored that the superstar players on the other teams have forgotten it’s a team sport.
We rode back along the malecon to an early lunch at restaurant named Sonia—a little family owned place (Sonia is sitting a table near the entrance).
It’s in Chorillos—a less upscale neighborhood than Miraflores (which is nice, but Miraflores does feature mysterious casinos that we all think are mainly for money laundering) or more bohemian Barranco.
A street in Barranco, almost a Peruvian Greenwich village:
The place is all about seafood, of course. It seems the big chef in town—Gaston, who has several restaurants in Lima, two in Bogota and one in San Francisco (hint)—also has a cooking show here, in which he visits small family-run restaurants all over the country, highlighting unique dishes that each one features. Naturally, these places immediately become hugely popular. We had an early lunch so hardly anyone was there at first, though some North Americans arrived, so this place must be in the guidebooks or food blogs or something. Nothing spectacular, but really nice and totally unpretentious—they let us bring our bikes into the restaurant, and I don't mean into a back room—into the restaurant proper.
The meal was (as was typical with most meals in Lima), some assorted ceviches and then some cooked fish and shellfish.
Here is how the coffee is served.
You get a cup of hot water, and of course you immediately think "Uh-oh, here comes Nescafe," but, then comes this from the Peruvian science lab—super duper strong brewed coffee. You just pour a little in your hot water, and you've got a cup as strong or weak as you want it to be. It tasted great. Milk was not offered.
Sonia was not as good as the place the singer Susana Baca and her husband, Ricardo Perriera, took us to on Tuesday night. It’s called Rafael. It was described as "fusion," though what that meant no one could say, but you could sense Japanese influences (Fujimori, right?) with the local fish, ceviches and seasonings. Really amazing food, one of the best meals I’ve ever had. Apparently Rafael is a protégé of the well known chef mentioned above—Gaston, who put Peruvian cuisine on the world map not too long ago. Roberto, a local graphic designer who is also involved with all this transport stuff, said his kid, and many of the others his age, have two ambitions—to be a skater or a chef. Those are the only cool options here.
After dinner we stopped by Susana and Ricardo’s house and had a discussion that began with mention of the current generation of youthful protesters in Chile—kids whose parents were either too timid or too beaten down to rise up publicly. It’s a special moment. Ricardo asked me, “What happened in the U.S.?” He was referring to post 9/11, the Afghan and Iraq invasions and now the financial meltdown.
Wow, I thought—was that the last time I saw them? Susana was in New York, at a studio in what is now the meatpacking district recording a record, when the planes hit. I lived nearby, and after sorting out some family matters, I biked over (there were no cabs downtown) to see if they were all right. Did they want to go home and recommence recording at a later date? No, was the answer. “We’ve lived with Shining Path for decades. This is not enough to stop us.” They finished a beautiful record that week. I rode home and saw people sitting in a sidewalk café—oblivious to the cloud of asbestos and human remains that I could see drifting their way across a lovely blue sky.
I told Ricardo that since then there is a lot of wonderful work being done musically, though much of it isn’t massively popular. There is a lot of art being made too, though much of that world has to be taken with a grain of salt, as there is a lot of money and posturing there. I said that a generation of talented and creative graduates got seduced by the quick power and riches of the financial sector. A smart kid could make a fortune overnight and not have to really make or create anything. It was a waste of a generations’ talent, I told him. But there is still great stuff being made, sung, written, danced and created.
A few days after leaving Peru, I got an email from Scott notifying me that Susana was just named minister of culture for Peru.
There have been a lot of huge demonstrations in Santiago recently. Most of them are focused on education—the government wants to begin charging for public secondary school and universities. Public education, higher education in particular, is often very cheap in much of Latin America. As a result, there are at least a few generations of very well educated folks. One piece of graffiti I saw on the street said, in rough translation, “If we had the copper, we wouldn’t have to pay.” I had to ask what this meant. Minerals in Chile are big business—part of the reason President Salvador Allende was toppled by the U.S. decades ago was because he nationalized the mines. And don’t forget the trapped Chilean miners from a few months ago. Anyway, the copper mines have been at least partially privatized after the Coldelco Law was passed in 1992, so the profits from them don’t go to the government. Much of those profits don’t even stay in Chile—they go to multinationals, as in many other parts of the world. Hence the wording of the graffiti, which ties together the privatization of the mines with the lack of a budget for education.
The demonstrators are incredibly creative here. They don’t just shout, make speeches and wave banners. One group organized thousands of people to dress as zombies and learn the choreography to Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” video. The zombie image links to the education system, since they view it as dying and rotten. Here's a zombie/thriller demonstration link:
Local TV reported that there were three thousand students dancing. In the news clip below one can see a few of the ubiquitous Santiago dogs, lolling about as the zombies dance around them. The city seems to be filled with feral dogs. In India and elsewhere such dogs are usually small and fairly emaciated, but here they’re large Mastiff and German Shepherd blends. It’s a frightening sight if one is used to aggressive and crazy street dogs—crazy with hunger or abuse. However, these seem gentle—most simply lie around, peacefully. One tailed us for a bit. I saw a man in a black cape, a gaucho hat and ponytail reach down and pet one—something I’d never risk doing with a street dog, but maybe these have learned to be docile, and the locals treat them accordingly.
The other things the demonstrators do are what is called a ‘besaton’— a kissing marathon. Here’s a photo set. And they do a jogging thing, where they run circles around the palace.
Sally and I went out in the evening to a local fish restaurant. There is fairly abundant seafood in the Pacific coast of Chile, and the seafood menu is like a wine list. The fish are listed according to whether they are deepwater, shallow water, river fish or caught around a group of nearby islands.
The next morning we decided to go find out what a local breakfast is. Seems we picked the wrong time—Saturday morning. We made it all the way into the old city center and nothing was open, except a funky diner on Plaza des Armas. So that’s where we went. The waiter asked us which we wanted—brewed coffee or Nescafé. As we headed back to the hotel, and I to my tech check, a few places were beginning to put out chairs on the sidewalks for a brunch or lunch crowd.
The event was held in a spanking new cultural center called Centro Gabriela Mistral or GAM for short.
It has a story behind it—a political story, naturally. On this site was once a cafeteria that also served as a small cultural meeting place. When Allende took office, he made that cultural element official, and it was outfitted to be more accommodating as a cultural center for all classes of people. After he was overthrown by General Pinochet and the Americans, it was remade as a headquarters for Pinochet. Then, after a return to democracy, it burned down. Now, it has been returned to its previous incarnation, but much improved. A well known architect, Christian Fernandez, designed this new incarnation that houses multiple theaters, cinemas, rehearsal rooms, art exhibits (a show of photos of Neruda and his circle was up) and, of course, a cafeteria. The ministry of defense towers above and behind the cultural center—a not so subtle reminder.
The event was early, as it occurred on a Saturday. I got some laughs (good), and I have begun to incorporate more images of local initiatives that have transformed various Latin American cities. The incredible library that former mayor Sergio Fajardo had built in a poor barrio of Medellín, the super graphics that Hass & Hahn, the Dutch artists, did in some favelas in Rio (both of these were featured in the New Museum’s Festival of Ideas for the New City earlier this year). I plan to add more as I visit other cities along the tour—the rapid bus system in Quito, the libraries in Bogota (the inspiration for Fajardo’s initiatives) and other projects that generally improve the quality of life in various districts.
Patricio Fernández, a writer who is one of the founders of the magazine The Clinic spoke last, and both Bernardo and I found him very eloquent. The Clinic is a satirical magazine that began publication when Pinochet was captured—at a clinic in London, hence the title. It’s a cross between The Onion and Private Eye maybe—more on The Clinic later.
After the event, we took the metro (very clean and quiet) to a bike shop run by Claudio Olivares, one of the panel participants, to pick up loaners and find a place to have lunch. In the metro we saw a diorama of the first encounter between the Spanish and the indigenous Chileans.
Their last minutes of innocence:
A few minutes after picking up the bikes, we were off. I couldn't help thinking—are there bike lanes? How hard is it to ride here? I didn’t remember any lanes networking though the town proper from previous visits, though there are some that border the park alongside the river. There is a BRT (bus rapid transit system) here, which Loreto Araya, the organizer here, complained about—though it seems to be busy and there are lots of busses. We stopped for lunch in the Recoleta neighborhood—an area of low buildings that used to be a red light district, but is now filled with cool restaurants and sidewalk cafes. My lunch was a giant seafood stew, and Sally’s, a massive chicken strew. Delicious, but could have done with just one order and shared. A highway threatened this neighborhood not too long ago, but there was resistance from the residents and others. In the end, the big highway that runs through town is now buried and runs in tunnels alongside the river. Grassy lawns cover much of the top of it—FDR drive, take note.
After lunch, Sally and I took off on our own, roaming aimlessly though other parts of this neighborhood and past lots of Bavarian looking houses, but with tin roofs.
Then we wandered into another mostly residential neighborhood—Conchalí—that features other architectural styles that I can’t identify. How would one describe this style? Hobbit deco cottage?
Mental Maps No, not loony maps, or maps of how our brains function, but maps we construct in our heads as we become familiar with a place.
The Bavarian homes above might seem slightly incongruous looking here, and slightly puzzling, unless you know the immigration history. The Law of Selective Immigration of 1845 encouraged middle class Germans (and some Austrians and Swiss) to settle and colonize the ‘undeveloped’ southern parts of the country. They blended in after all those years, and many of the leading artists, musicians, business people and tennis players were of German descent. The British settled a little earlier, around Valparaíso, and one of the big avenues here is called O’Higgins. They got involved in saltpeter (used for gunpowder) and the Atacama mines.
Some of the Austrians who settled in Chile were fleeing Prussian persecution. Later, waves of German Jews were fleeing the Nazis, and only a year ago Paul Shaefer (not the Letterman guy) passed away. A former Nazi accused multiple times of child abuse, Shaefer founded a religious utopian community (Colonia Dignidad) with the blessing of Jorge Alessandri who was then president of Chile (1961). Shafer had abused two children at another religious ‘charity’ organization he founded in Germany. He disappeared from Colonia Diginidad after twenty-six kids accused him of abuse. He died in prison.
On a wall were plastered a grid of collages, like the ones that might be seen in a young person’s bedroom. But there they were, proudly displayed, someone’s private loves and obsessions, made totally public.
It was nice to have a chance to ride on the side streets and through the neighborhoods, as my past experiences of this city were almost exclusively of office buildings and generic, almost North American, looking edifices. The only structures I saw then that retained some character were downtown. I’m seeing more this time—even though it’s another quick visit. As was the case in Sao Paulo, I’m unconsciously forming a mental map of this place that is very different than what existed in my head previously—an expanded and more complete version than it was previously. The bikes help with that. Walking or cycling gives one a sense of the physical, visual and other relationships between the neighborhoods—how the river runs through the city and where the landmarks are. It’s amazing how fast that mapping process happens—how quickly one develops a sense of where neighborhoods and landmarks are, and how they connect to one another. After just two days I could almost get around Santiago without a physical map and just rely on the one that has appeared in my head.
Sally flew back to NY on Sunday morning and that night there was a dinner for the event participants and others at The Clinic. Not the magazine offices, (though that may be here too), but at a lounge, bar, and now a restaurant that has spun off from the magazine and is like nothing I’ve ever seen anywhere else in the world. It’s a really interesting mix of an obviously hip or fashionable club (no one dressed like what we might imagine as overly fashion oriented, though they did seem to all be wearing black), combined with the intellectual and political satire that the magazine is known for.
The walls are painted black, with blow ups of wittily captioned old B&W photos on the walls (a giant one of Allende), as well as humorous statements and collections of quotes from politicians and others painted in white type—a Joseph Kosuth installation turned into a bar, but funnier. Where else would one find this mixture?
Outside there was a blackboard with a 'quote of the day' scrawled across it.
When I left around 11pm, to walk back to the hotel, there was a line outside waiting to get in to the lounge on the ground floor. If it isn’t clear yet, it should be—politics is very much alive here. The trauma of the years of dictatorship, combined with the now relatively successful economy and high levels of education make for a potent mix. It’s manifested in the humor and politics of The Clinic and the Thriller dance as a creative form of protest. There’s an optimism and hope here that won’t be squashed—it keeps resurfacing over and over.
Speaking of creative protests, Chile isn’t alone there—the protesters in Belarus, one of the last truly repressive Eastern bloc dictatorships, have resorted to standing still (!), spontaneous clapping, strolling or arranging for their cell phone alarms to go off simultaneously. The government there has adopted new measures to enable them to throw folks in jail for protesting in this way.
Monday Morning I ate breakfast in the hotel and then went off for a quick ride around before my flight to Lima. Sally’s friend, Daniel, emailed her a list of spots in Santiago that he checked out when he came down for Lollapalooza here earlier this year. Maybe The Clinic hadn’t opened yet—as it was significantly absent from the list.
There’s a great farmers market alongside the river and the park adjacent to it. Look at the size of those stalks of celery!!
I rode on, through a relatively upscale neighborhood, with houses that could have been lifted from any North American suburb.
On to another zone of high-rise offices, with more of them on the way, and the Andes in the distance—a rare view, given the usual amount of pollution here.
The mountains are close to Santiago. There was a tremor the morning we arrived, somewhere near Valparaiso, on the coast. It registered around .6, so no one here paid any attention. Part of the protests concerns a proposal for a hydroelectric damn in a pristine area. Chileans are proud of their amazing countryside—the Andes, the Atacama Desert, the beaches. So, a giant damn with high-tension wires strung across the pristine landscape is a hot and very symbolic issue. It fucks with people’s image of what their country is, what it represents—even if they only see those pristine areas rarely and sporadically. In the U.S. it might be likened to building a damn in the Grand Canyon that caused the canyon to disappear, or building a lucrative casino around Old Faithful.
I biked back to the center of town, to Bellas Artes—the Beaux-arts style museum here (the contemporary museum is behind it). Free entrance. Some rooms of contemporary Latin artists and others filled with colonial portraits. Hardly anyone here (so I can take pictures!). A silent temple for contemplation. Here are some of those immigrants mentioned earlier:
Over the last couple of years I participated in bike events, usually titled “Bikes, Cities and the Future Of Getting Around,” all over North America. Usually these would be in some small (800 seats or so) theater and the format would always be the same: 4 folks on stage—a city person (sometimes a mayor), a local advocate for bikes or new transportation ideas, a historian or urbanist of some sort, and myself. We’d each talk and show slides for about 15 minutes each, and then take questions. The whole thing usually lasted about hour and a half. The events began as an alternative to a book tour. I refused to do readings from Bicycle Diaries, but signed books were available in the lobby, so the publisher was happy.
My presentation evolved to be a kind of background and introduction to the subject. I’d show early 20th century ideas about what our cities could be—utopian or dystopian visions, depending on your point of view—which, coincidentally, were not heavily influenced by car and oil companies. There is a way to accommodate the automobile into our lives, but I think that in the 20th century, the scales tipped rather heavily to accommodate the car at the expense of almost everything else. The question then becomes how can we make our cities more livable again, without denying the occasional value of the infernal combustion engine or other forms or private motorized travel. How do we tip the scales towards cities that are more people-centric, more enjoyable, more sustainable and easier on the eye?
My short bit then usually segued from background into positive examples of what various cities around the world are trying—which are succeeding, which are experimental. I do have an axe to grind, I can’t deny that, but I try not to make it a rabble-rousing talk, or to position myself as some sort of expert. My talk tips more towards informative stand up comedy, with a little bit of a take away. Generally though, it is the other speakers who deliver more of the concrete local information—what is actually planned for their town, what is being discussed and what are the next steps.
Overwhelmingly, the questions afterwards go to the city person. The audiences were all much more interested in what’s happening in their town than asking me about a Talking Heads reunion, for example. That is as it should be, and a relief—and a bit of a surprise sometimes to the city people, who, except for the mayors, might not be accustomed to talking to a live general audience (they might usually have more experience addressing press scrums and TV cameras).
Question from an audience member at the Boston event.
I did 16 cities in the US and Canada: Philadelphia, Providence, Boston, Atlanta, Minneapolis, Chicago, Washington DC, Seattle, Portland (are you kidding?), Vancouver (went for a bike ride with the mayor) Ottawa, Toronto, LA (a long shot, there), San Francisco, Austin and NYC. In New York, I also did an edited version as a way of introducing a panel of mayors, who were speaking on sustainability at the New Museum’s Festival of Ideas event. Some cities are fairly active, trying new ideas, while others are awash in rhetoric and mired in politics. Others—Atlanta and LA are obvious examples—are cities so thoroughly given over to the car, that only small pockets of what one might view as city life are ever going to be possible.
So, though I’m loath to view myself as an activist, I might accept the idea of being a catalyst, as the folks assembled at these things may have used me (in the nicest way) to get folks together to discuss their own situations—as it should be. And, I think I’ve done as much as I want to do of those events in North America.
Through the NY organization Transportation Alternatives and Janette Sadik Kahn, NYC’s DOT commissioner, I met Enrique Peñalosa, the ex (and possibly future) mayor of Bogota, who made sweeping, economical, successful and popular changes in that city’s transportation and urban infrastructure. It’s become a model that others look to. Helping Peñalosa, and sometimes Sadik-Kahn as well, was Oscar Diaz, who asked a while back if I would consider doing some of these events in Latin America. Oscar is the go-to guy down there when it comes to these issues, and he gets called to various countries as an advisor, so this would also help his agenda (or so I would imagine). I said I’d love to (it’ll be a whirlwind trip, but I love Latin America, so why not?), and mentioned the idea to Bernardo Baranda in Mexico, who is the Latin American Director for the Institute for Transportation and Development Policy (ITDP). He joined in the planning and organization of the tour as well, and now we have dates and venues coming up—just around the corner!
Will Oldham and I wrote songs for director and writer Paolo Sorrentino’s new film This Must Be The Place. Needless to say, that Talking Heads song is in the film as well, in various versions, one of which is a live performance by my band and me. The film stars Sean Penn as a version of present-day Robert Smith of The Cure—an aging rock star who still wears makeup and dresses all in black.
They had a screening in NY recently, but I didn’t want to see the film in rough form, as I figured they’d eventually want me to be present for some public screening when it was done. I offered that they could pick a later screening for me to attend. They picked Cannes—whoa.
I flew Thursday night, arriving the day of the screening. Took a nap, got up and showered, dressed all in white (they said it was OK) and headed towards a rendezvous with the rest of the film people. In the hotel elevator on my way to meet up, two guys entered that looked like private security, but something was off. Their outfits were impeccable, perfectly tailored to their trim physiques—a little odd for cops. Their patches, upon closer inspection, said Beverly Hills Police. I thought to myself “this is probably a precursor of the unreality to come.” I walked to the hotel down the road and in a room were the sound editor, the picture editor, the DP the American line producer, the many Italian, French and Irish producers, Paolo the director, some LA agents and of course some of the actors.
The sound editor advised me that he had been asked to make the live performance of the song “bigger,” and he hoped I wouldn’t be shocked by what they’d done. I’m glad he prepared me! When the song started during the screening, it was more or less as I remembered us playing and recording it in Detroit, but then, as the camera pulled back and you saw more of the “audience,” the sound got bigger and you could hear audience members shouting and some singing along. I bought into it. I believed the crowd was actually that excited and rambunctious, though I knew they were not. They did a good job with the mix to create that illusion, but I wondered how he did it, as none of the extras sang along during the filming.
The sound editor said he was working on another film in London and had about 35 actor/performers on hand in a recording studio, so he threw up a karaoke version of the song and asked them all to sing along. He’s from Sarajevo, and said he was a refugee during the war. His family was totally mixed—Serb, Croat, Muslim—and thus didn’t fit into the emerging post-war situation there, where each of these ethnic groups are now more or less assigned to their own region. What was beautiful about that place before it fell apart was that families like his weren’t uncommon—families in which all the ethnic groups were represented and were cool with one another. Now he’s pretty much permanently relocated to London.
The other songs, the ones Will and I wrote, were meant to be demos that a young character, a singer, hands to Sean’s character, who listens to the CD sporadically as the movie progresses. This conceit wasn’t all that apparent, or so it seemed to me, but the songs did get heard, in bits and pieces, providing a kind of emotional commentary along the way—which was what Paolo intended.
Anyway, back to the screening ritual. There were about 20 town cars lined up at a side door of the hotel, and we were assigned specific cars—Paolo in #1, Sean in #2, me in # 3… These cars drove the 10 blocks or so along the seaside promenade up to the festival building, where crowds, a red carpet and security awaited us. There were no quickie interviews on the red carpet as one sees at the Oscars. This red carpet was carefully managed by a couple of men in formal suits. As if we were being choreographed or conducted by these guys, they directed us using hand signals to face one bevy of photographers, and then, by making a turning motion with their hands, let it be known that we were now to turn to face the photographers on the other side of the runway. Then they used other gestures to herd us a few meters further down the runway, where the same dance would be repeated. Eventually this conducted procession was led up the stairs, and we were directed to stop at various levels and once again turn and face the photographers. Then we entered the theater where there was applause for Sean and Paolo, as a voice of God spoke their names and the title of the movie for all to hear.
Our names were on our seats, so no confusion there. In the row in front of us was Pedro Almodovar, who has a new film in the festival, and we all said hi.
After the film, the lights came up and the applause started—and didn’t stop. The audience stood, as did we all, and a man with a video camera appeared in front of me, shooting Paolo and Sean receiving the applause. It went on and on…is that common here? Does it mean they REALLY liked the movie? On and on it went. I look around, beginning to fidget. Oh, there’s Rosario Dawson in the row in front of Pedro—wow, she’s gorgeous—and oh, that’s Jane Fonda, and there’s some Hollywood exec whose face looks familiar. A publicist motioned for me to go congratulate Paolo, which I did and then I tried to invisibly step to the side so the attention can go back to him.
Eventually the applause died out, and we began the parade back to the waiting cars. Inside the theater women in matching brown outfits confine the audience to their seats while we filed out into aisle. They did this by standing along the sides of the aisle, all holding hands with one another—like some strange feminine cult. They said nothing, smiling, but only a little.
Outside the security was more robust—burly men in gray suits formed a phalanx between us and the photographers, who were no longer confined behind the barriers. As we slowly advanced (and the sound system segues from Saint-Saen’s mysterioso Aquarium movement from The Carnival of the Animals—we were the animals, I suspect—into the Talking Heads version of the title song), this human barrier advanced in front of us, physically pushing the photographers back. The photographers were used to this I guess, but inevitably one or two tried to squeeze in one more snap, and the pushing became a little more forceful. At one point I was distracted as one photographer was somewhat violently shoved back in with his own kind. He slipped to safety behind a barrier.
How did all this feel? Umm, slightly surreal to be sure. Not to be taken too seriously. Flattering, yes—the ovation, of course—but even that might be taken with a grain of salt. This is show business after all, and even the audience is a willing participant in the show. That might sound cynical—their enjoyment and appreciation of the film was largely genuine—wasn’t it? But the cars and the security and the red carpet—it’s all engineered to pump up the glamour and distance the “creators” from the “consumers.” The latter is something I’m a little uncomfortable with.
One works on these things (movies, songs, whatever) often alone, or with relatively small groups. The cast and crew that were present during the couple of scenes I was on set in Detroit was small, and there’s almost no glamour during that creative production phase. The contrast with what happens here is simply hard to imagine, though who would deny that it isn’t flattering? Seductive too, I’d imagine—it’s easy to see how this monster could get a grip on one’s sense of reality.
Onward. Into the cars again and down to a large tent set up down the beach. The entire beach was covered with these white tent things. You can’t see the sand in this town—there’s the promenade, the tents and then the water with its luxury yachts floating nearby. The tents are all party spaces, clubs and restaurants, aligned one after another. A security gal at the tent asked who I was, and looked for my name on her list. I told her my name, and one of the producers jumped in and told her I’m “OK.” Inside girls in VERY short skirts offered everyone champagne. The same group as before gathered in the tent, but we were supplemented by even more invitees. I chatted with a few folks—the head of the Venice Film Festival, whom I met just recently—and then headed to the back area where I was told we folks from the movie are to go. I chatted with Judd Hirsch and his agent. He plays a Nazi hunter in the movie. The women in skirts brought out raw oysters. I heard that Luca, the film’s DP, and some of the crew (production design, costume, etc) are shooting a low budget movie in Napoli, so they would go back to work the next day, just like me. He did an amazing job on this film.
Many American directors and DPs have a habit of covering a scene to death, shooting every angle and approach as a hedge, since they often don’t have a preconceived concept of how each scene will look. I’m generalizing of course, but I think the factory approach of much American filmmaking encourages this, as do the producers who can then have scenes re-cut if they don’t get a good test result. Luca and Paolo didn’t do that. They pretty much knew how each scenes shots would piece together, so, although there was certainly coverage, it wasn’t excessive. Their approach is generally cheaper too, and though I heard the budget bloomed a bit, I suspect it was still done fairly efficiently.
I made my way to the back room, behind the back room, where Sean and some others were sitting around a giant low table chatting. He was engaged in conversation with a tall woman with bleach blonde hair—a singer, I think. She said hi to me after a bit, but I didn’t catch her name. I sat next to some business guys, and we slurped more oysters. Someone ordered a cheeseburger and fries! Courtney Love waltzed in and plunked herself close to Sean, who was at the far end of this massive lounge table, but he didn’t seem to pay much attention. She spotted me and shouted something about “I wish it went for more money!” I didn’t know what she was talking about at first, but then realized she was referring to some of her late husband’s LPs that she donated to Creative Time, an NY arts organization, for a benefit auction—among them were some Talking Heads LPs, I was told. She moved to our end of the table and began to engage with an agent sitting on the other side of me, as well as some other folks—carrying on about 3 conversations at once, all at high speed. She mentioned to the agent that she was clean, except for sleeping pills sometimes and something else—cigarettes? Wine?
She doesn’t look as botoxed and surgically enhanced as I suspected, at least based on recent photos, but when she put her hand on my knee (we’ve never met before), I figured I’d better go. So, when she was fully engaged with the agent, I slipped off, saying I needed the toilet.
I walked back to my hotel along the Croisette (the promenade), which was packed with people. On the other side of the street were luxury shops and soon another screening would be letting out. Some people in the hotel lobby recognized me from the live video feed from the festival screening and shouted “bravo.” In my room I read a New Yorker article on my Kindle about the crazy expansion of the NSA post 9/11, which I think I blogged about at one point, and then I fell asleep. It was a little after midnight, and I wondered if the party would be getting more interesting now.
On Sunday I rode with my daughter, Malu, and her boyfriend, Will, along the path that runs beside the Bay here. We passed a marina and a horserace track, and then ventured out to a peninsula that seemed to be composed entirely of concrete rubble. Trees and bushes and a fair amount of earth on top, so I questioned my idea that the rubble was all bits of the collapsed Cypress Freeway from the Loma Prieta earthquake in 1989—though that’s exactly what it looked like. Could the trees and dirt grow and accumulate so quickly on top?
Near the end of the peninsula we saw a man on a bicycle dragging an empty shopping cart with a skinny rope. I mused that he might be going into town for supplies, but Will said how would he get a full cart back with a bike. Hmmm. We saw the cart abandoned a little later, as we pedaled around this area. Here and there we saw tents in the bushes, and others tucked in the shade of trees. There were no other folks about, but it was obvious this was a hobo village of sorts. One path to a tent read “private property.”
This has to be the most bucolic hobo village ever (The unseasonably warm weather helped give this impression.). If one didn’t know better one might mistake it for a recreational campsite. New York City used to have more homeless people on the streets than I saw in India—Calcutta on the Hudson—with at least one person per block, which makes 4, if you count all sides of the block. With the economic crash (crash for some, windfall for others—still unregulated!) you’d expect to see more homeless folks on the streets, but they’re not there. The relentless grooming of Manhattan in particular, begun under Giuliani, has cemented into policy. All seaminess gets taken away to present a pretty face.
We rode on, past an industrial building that seemed to have a kind of half finished crossword on it.
We rode around Alameda, an island slightly south of Oakland that used to house a massive Naval Air base. About a third of the island is still mostly abandoned air base buildings, acres and acres of them. The rest seems to be developer-built retirement homes and homes of former navy employees. We passed a few massive hanger-type buildings.
There was a bike path and promenade that went for miles along the beachfront. It was very nice, though the occasional inspired bit of topiary work was the only thing that saved the unremarkable houses on the other side of the street:
