Author: Julia

Lines of lightning

I’ve just returned from Columbia, MD, where I spent the evening with Rich at a Counting Crows concert.  I saw them twice last year but didn’t think I was going to make it this summer since my sister, my normal CC partner, is out of town, but Rich offered to accompany me, so a great tragedy was avoided.

I’d never been to Merriweather Post Pavilion before and was leery of an outdoor venue as they aren’t as intimate, but, although it’s a different experience to see a band outside, Merriweather has good acoustics and huge monitors.  The only drawback was that I absolutely could not see the stage, but we were so far back I would have been able to see only tiny figures even with an unobstructed view.

The music more than made up for the lack of visuals, though, as it always does.  They played a great set, more acoustic than I’ve ever seen them (as Adam pointed out).  Adam seemed genuinely happy tonight, not in the sloppy drunk way he has purportedly been in the past, but in an at-peace-with-the-world kind of way.  He’s originally from Maryland and his family was in the crowd, as were a number of his friends from Berkeley, so that may have been part of it; additionally this was the last show they’re going to be doing for quite a while, so he may have also been feeling relieved — but I’d like to believe that he’s just doing better overall than he was 10 years ago after he suddenly became famous.

They played beautiful renditions of ‘Richard Manuel is Dead’, ‘Mrs Potter’s Lullaby’, ‘Omaha’, a great acoustic ‘Accidentally in Love’, and…well, just go check out the setlist.  It was all fantastic, but the highlight of the evening for me was their ‘Rain King’/‘Raining in Baltimore’ medley.  I was hoping they would play ‘Raining’ as it’s one of my theme songs when I’m feeling the peculiar loneliness of a long distance relationship (a recurring theme in my life currently in full swing), and their “song sandwiches” (I know, these are called alts, a terrible non-descriptive term) are one of my favorite parts of seeing CC live.  ‘Raining’ is a bittersweet song, perfectly suited to Adam’s bittersweet voice and the bittersweet feeling, and tonight’s version captured it wonderfully.  “Three thousand five hundred miles away / but what would you change if you could?”

Their final encore, ‘Holiday in Spain’, was perfect as well, and another song I’d been hoping to hear.  The note of wishful desperation usually present in Adam’s voice for this song was absent in lieu of the anticipation of his upcoming vacation written plainly across his face.

I’m sorry they aren’t planning to tour again any time soon, but I’m glad I was able to make it to the show tonight.  Sometimes I think that as I become less angsty I’ll stop identifying with the Counting Crows’ music and Adam’s lyrics — but it’s been nearly eleven years now and they still move me in new ways every time I hear them.

Mom & Pop

Newport to lose an institution with appliance store’s closing

This article is noteworthy mainly because it doesn’t once mention that Home Depot or Lowe’s hurt the Shiffer’s business. I would guess that many people today aren’t interested in continuing their parents’ small shops, so as the proprieters age, it’s only natural that some of them are going to close. Of course the mega-stores have an impact, but I wonder if it’s as devastating as we often believe.

Missing

CNN.com – Find ‘Missing’ clues on Web sites, e-mail – Jul 16, 2004

This looks like an interesting twist on an idea EA had a few years ago — create a game that blurs the line between play and reality. Well, kind of.

This sounds less ambitious but perhaps more likely to succeed as it doesn’t require a monthly subscription. Also, I’m guessing that this game will allow players to move through at their own pace since a CD means everything’s already written — which didn’t seem to be the case with Majestic.

Even with its flaws, when I the guy I was living with, who was playing Majestic at the time, woke me up on September 11, 2001 with the words, “We’re under attack,” I thought he was talking about the game. If ‘Missing’ can create that kind of illusion and the *and* keep the momentum going throughout the game I can see this becoming a much larger genre.

Heavyword Poetry Slam

Last night marked the Fifth Annual Heavyword Poetry Slam, held at the Appalachian Brewing Company.  I didn’t take notes or anything so I can’t give you a lot of detail, but there were some good performances, and even a couple of great performances.  Chris August won the competition, as well as the People’s Choice award, with his theatrical narrative rants, a stylistic departure from most of the other performances.  It was clear that he is a seasoned slammer while many of the staples of the Harrisburg poetry scene are more accustomed to non-competitive lower-key readings.  I can’t complain too much since I didn’t enter the slam, but I would really love to see some Harrisburg poets work on improving their slam style so we can compete with the amazing performers from York and Baltimore. 
 
Kudos, though, to the Heavyword Society for putting on yet another fun and successful event!

To kill or not to kill

I arrived home from dinner this evening to an email from Marty.  “Tonight at 8pm, they’re messing– or YOU’RE messingwith a piano, playing or kicking or draggin’ down to theriverside…interactive performance thang,” the email said, among other things.   I got the message at 7:40, but since I’d just walked in the door, I was already all set to walk right back out — so I did.
 
I didn’t know what to expect.  I know very little about The Mantis Collective, the gallery holding the event, and, as Marty pointed out, they seem to do very little publicity.  The one opening I had previously attended there was unimpressive, both in terms of the artwork and the organization, but I have heard great things about other exhibits they have done, and I’m all for any kind of art in Harrisburg.
 
Due to traffic on I-83 I didn’t get to gallery until ten minutes after 8.  When I arrived the piano was situated in the middle of the small room that is The Mantis Collective with an assortment of tools placed just inside the door.  The piano had been beaten a bit but was largely intact at this point.  I was relieved to see Rusty Baker, director of the Susquehanna Art Museum, as a familiar face is always nice when you don’t know anything about an event.
 
As the crowd watched from the sidewalk outside the gallery individuals from the audience would walk in the door, select their tools, and proceed to interact with the piano.  Rusty hit the back of it over and over with an axe and a sledge hammer, creating a deep resonant sound that vibrated through my body, a rich and discordant noise.  One girl picked a flower from a planter down the street, ran her hands over the body of the piano as she circled it, then gently placed the white blossom on the splintered top.  Someone asked, “Can we do a duet?” and two men walked in, one with the axe, the other with the sledge hammer, and they alternated slamming their tools on what was left of the keys in a strange and destructive rhythm.  I used the prying end of a hammer to strum the now exposed strings of the piano, then silenced it with my hands before using the same tool to carefully remove even more of the keys.  It was interesting to see how people approached it — most used brute force and the biggest tools they could find.  Very few people acted with any appearance of deliberateness or purpose, instead looking very much like they were simply acting out their aggressions on the instrument.
 
I wasn’t sure whether or not the folks from Mantis would be okay with me taking pictures of the destruction so I didn’t pull out my camera until Marty arrived shortly after 8:30.  After I spoke to him for a few minutes I handed it to him.  He’d only taken a couple of pictures, though, when they announced it was over, at an apparently significant 8:44.  We took a few mroe pictures of the wreckage and the building and I heard one of the gallery employees say, “Oh good, someone has a still camera.”  I wish I’d pulled it out sooner.
 
I’ve posted the pictures I did get here, and Mantis is planning to send DVDs to everyone who participated, so it has been documented.
 
The thing I keep coming back to is that I don’t know if I consider tonight’s destruction to be art.  Could we pretend we were making some great statement as we walked up to that piano?  Sure, but I don’t think anyone with a sledge hammer in their hands was thinking about splintering the wood as a symbol of the silencing of creative voices or the destruction of traditional values or any of that.  Was it cool?  Certainly, because it’s always fun to smash things that are supposed to be sacred.  Somehow it almost feels like this could have been art if the piano weren’t already ruined, which I heard one of the Mantis folks say it was.  If the gallery, or some eccentric billionaire, commissioned a master piano maker to create the perfect instrument, had the best pianist in the world perform one song on it, then unleashed the crowds with their axes and sledge hammers and saws, then I would more easily be able to see it as art.  As it is, I like seeing stuff like this being done because it does push some people’s boundaries, but whether or not it’s art depends on one’s definition of art — as, I suppose, is the case for many things.  I don’t have a highly developed definition of art or Art, but what I keep coming back to is that it just doesn’t matter.  I had fun tonight, as, I think, did everyone else.  And that’s all that does matter.

Easton Museum of Pez Dispensers

sunset chaser :: Easton Museum of Pez Dispensers

Jared came down from Massachusetts yesterday and today we drove 2 hours to Easton, PA to visit the Easton Museum of Pez Dispensers.

You see, Jared collects Pez dispensers. I briefly dabbled in it without getting obsessed, so he knew I’d be a good person to visit the museum with. Plus, I’m probably closer to it geographically than anyone else he knows. But anyway, when he suggested it, I figured, why the hell not?

It was a lot of fun. If you ever happen to be in Easton (yeah, right), I recommend it. The museum is basically one big room with 1500 dispensers displayed in a variety of ways. A lot of the dispensers have been re-painted or otherwise altered to create what they call “Fantasy Pez”. These are less authentic, of course, but it was fun to see what some people did with them.

I won’t waste a lot of time describing the museum as I took nearly a hundred pictures, most of which are posted in the gallery for your enjoyment, but it was clear that the proprieters love what they do and had a blast putting together all the displays. Because of that care, and the energy of the museum, I had a blast.

Home again, home again

I have returned from my Rural Retreat vacation a little bit sun burnt but in one piece. I had a fantastic week but I’m not sure I can even begin to describe it without sounding like a hippie, which makes me not sure I should even try. I’m feeling centered, relaxed, inspired, and, now that I’ve been home long enough to take a shower, clean. I’ll have pictures up later (though, unfortunately, no breathtaking mountainscapes), but for now I’m going to go put lotion on my nose and call Johanna. Time to reconnect with the real world.

Bush & the Church

The Bush campaign has issued a “guide” to churches around the country asking them to support him and enumerating 22 “duties” each should complete. This, of course, raises a number of problems, not the least of which are separation of church & state and the requirement that non-profits not endorse political candidates.

Newspapers around the country all seem to have their own take on the issue, but the most comprehensive article I found in my brief search was this one from the NY Times.

This article from The Express Times, a Lehigh Valley/New Jersey newspaper, has some interesting information about Bush’s religion and the approach he’s taking.

And here are all of the related articles Google has indexed.

On a related note, this is a roughly transcribed interview with Huston Smith with a focus on the relationship between Bush politics and religion.