Admittedly, I’m a solar wuss. Granted between applying for scads of random administrative odd jobs, posing The Facebook Friend Challenge and otherness - I’ve been hard at work on both The Grid (for Milepost 5 in August) and SQFT (above; starting a lengthy tour at Blackfish Gallery’s Fishbowl in September), otherwise I’m sorta short, slowly single and sizzling. So.
To pass the hours I’m following shadows, finding area pools and drinking plenty H2O. If you didn’t notice, I also extended my bit on movies w/reporters (below), I’m still ready/willing/able to teach my class at Newspace (as long as I have enough students) and headed outta town for the Fourth with my new buddy Tracy to follow part of Maya Lin’s Confluence Project on the way to Long Beach.
CHUGGA: Oh, there’s a new curated cultural newsletter out called A Portland Conversation in Culture, and a new Artist’s Grant available called STOCK. And speaking of the coast - an exchange show between Portland/Astoria-based artists (July: 160 10th St, Astoria; August: 12×16 Gallery, Portland), and a leaner/meaner (good meaning, meaning good) David Eckard is back in town in a few weeks after many moons abroad!
FINAL ENROLLMENT DAYS: I’m slated to teach a second round of Deconstructing Criticism this Summer at Newspace Center for Photography. Last time out we had an incredible group of students. Some of the premise will remain unchanged, though the material will differ and the class will be more hands-on for photographers who are ready to meet their critics head-on. There is still room in this class for a maximum of twelve. Five consecutive Mondays starting Next Week!
STORIES STILL SELL SILVER SCREEN STYLE: As usual, when times are tough I end up behind the air-conditioned closed doors of some second-run comfy haven - and these two weeks have proven pretty good for all that’s fit to print in motion pictures, literally! As such I visited my favorite neighborhood triple-screen, The Academy, to see both State of Play and The Soloist. They have “Monday Movie Madness” (see two consecutive films for a total of $6!!!) and “Twofer Tuesdays” (admits 2 people for a total of $4!). That’s the absolute best deal in town people! Plus they offer good eats from their amazing neighbors, the BiPartisan Cafe and Flying Pie Pizza - not to mention sensible prices on all other goodies as well.
DEADLINES: Both films gave a sensitive inside look into the drama of an everyday newsroom. One in the east (DC) and one out here (LA). State of Play was a bit of an action packed political thriller with secret twists, all slowly unknotted. The well plucked cast, including a fuller-bodied Russell Crowe and the always stunning/amazing Helen Mirren were great characters. The supporting cast includes the whipsmart Rachel McAdams as Crowe’s sidekick saavy blogger, a carboardy Ben Affleck (though necessary for this role) and bit parts by great actresses like Viola Davis and Robin Wright Penn. Cast as Rep. George Fergus is Jeff Daniels who I’m usually mezza-mezza about - but if this were a more meaty role he would have stole the screen, I like him as a subtle badass.
EXTRA EXTRA: The movie sort of traces a story and relationship between a reporter (Crowe) and his college roommate (now state Rep, played by Affleck). There’s a love tryst outside his marriage and the intrigue begins with a mysterious murder on a subway platform. Governmental agencies and big power/$$$ relationships are at stake and it takes the news crew to retrofit the facts before the police, who they p-o in the process. There’s a lot going on here, so you have to pay heed to the action. What makes this movie pop is the exploration of how important and impactful the front page is, and its weighty struggle against the change of the guards (ie: recycling vs. the pixel).
IN BLACK/WHITE: Both of these stories certainly romance the power and passion of the poison pen. Well, its not all poison, it’s what they do - report first hand accounts, even getting directly involved in the action. Of course I write this wondering, hoping, wishing that arts writing were as full of such passion - but if it were all simply drama that could drive one to delusions and/or martinis. But further explored in The Soloist is a true story of an LA Times writer’s penchant for getting close to his subject in the streets of the big city. Whoa Nelly! Robert Downey Jr. as journalist Steve Lopez and Jamie Foxx as the homeless virtuoso Nathaniel Ayers are perfect foils for each other, their acting is exquisite in a riveting, moving story. Aside from Sunshine Cleaning (which I think is the flick of the year thusfar) this comes close and is one of the best I’ve seen about a difficult relationship built on the basis of respect for defining/understanding human difference (and its core struggles). This more defines a look at humanity outside the basic human interest story.
Talk about double features!
IT’S A TRIPLE….To escape the heat of the night one evening recently it was to the Laurelhurst to see Alan J. Pakula’s The Parallax View (1974) w/Warren Beatty. This one gets closer to home as Beatty plays Joe Frady, a local correspondent for a Portland OR newspaper. He’s following up on a story in which he was present when a Presidential candidate is assassinated during a fundraiser speech at Seattle’s Space Needle. Many scenes with a tint of Kubrick and a wholesome dollop of 70’s color, hair and paced cinematic timing ensue as Frady learns of the mysterious Parallax Corp. While rummaging through a sherriff’s domestic belongings he comes across a sorta mail-order intelligence/hitman agency after being nearly shot during an undercover investigation of another related murder. He enrolls in said corporation and things start to become a series of scearios of ‘who dunnit’, where implicating said reporter might not be outta range (especially after his editor/boss, played by Hume Cronyn, is mysteriously murdered after a late night snack in his office). The intriguing paranoia and shifting plot turns the viewer’s head in the direction of misguided fingers to the left and right. It’s most definitely an odd film, though I enjoyed the (drug) trippy interogation Frady withstands with its montage/brainwashing of images (good vs. evil) that is something ala Willy Wonka meets Clockwork Orange (two of my all-time favorite flicks).
As part of his North American Tour, Greek sound artist Novi_sad (aka Thanasis Kaproulias) will play a single show at Someday Lounge on Monday at 9PM (June 29). If you are interested in the overall deep listening experience this will be a very rare show to catch. If you miss it don’t tell me I didn’t say so. He makes an incredible blend of layered drones with a touch of dark ambience. $6 @ the door.
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Here’s what I had to say about one of his former releases: “a siege of encrusted razor tones builds to a drone that obliterates most anything in its path. It’s noisy, yet resilient, and Kaproulias smartly knows when enough is enough, and as such mediates his own table of elements.”
MEAN GREEN GENES: Green Oregon, organized by Justin Bland and Mia Nolting is the only show in a five mile radius of PDX that could have rivaled Town & Country (through July 11) for the attentive spotlight this month, applying the quirky cerebral aesthetics around all that is rootsy green and then some. It’s closing tomorrow. Over its due course not a single critic (or blogger) has yet to compare|contrast these two shows - and why pray tell? One wonders if the eco-art aficionados of The Bear Deluxe even trundled the path over to PNCA to see it. To the gallery baring the name of Spanish octogenarian sculptor Manuel Izquierdo that is. For such a place on earth that prides itself on all that it is in its many subtle and sublime shades I’m miffed that this show, in particular, was overlooked critically. This has been the third intelligent show attempting to address the environment in the past few years in these parts. Remember Rhoda London’s The Other Portland: Art & Ecology in the 5th Quadrant? That never made it into black n’ white. Why is media so shy, the inkwell dry, about delving into the crux of this land as our land (and ‘other’) through the eyes of contemporary art? It would seem disingenuous to overlook a vision of that which draws people here in the first place: our backyards, big old trees, waterways and other natural phenomena. The many roads travelled and diversions via our landscape and its changing horizonline. Talk about urban growth boundaries! Yeah, talk. The oats hath been sown and this is Last Call!
ORIGINAL ANGEL: Yeah, even I had the poster. She may be the epitome in my generation’s vision of timeless beauty. I took her seriously because she commanded attention through her looks somehow as the quintessential California blonde bombshell, femme fatale - even in our age of post-feminism (whatever that is). In the day she was known as FFM and married to the Six Million Dollar Man. Her visage was indelible in the days of yore until she suddenly dropped out of the big picture almost entirely. That was until her ferocious stint as Fancine Hughes in the completely horrifying Burning Bed, remember? Who can forget the iconic feathered mane! Well, over and above, as far as I am concerned besides for having the most awesome name in show business, Farrah Fawcett also had a bit role in one of the best retro cult flicks of all time, Logan’s Run which was released in the spirit of ‘76 (the NY Times obit oddly left this fact on their cutting room floor). On some level you might say Aaron Spelling did for Fawcett what Andy Warhol did for Marilyn Monroe, encapsulate a sense of deer-in-the-headlights sex symbolism. Her collectable (and fluoro-carbon enriched) Faberge hairspray aside, condolences to the love of her life, Mr. Ryan O’Neal, her family and many fans.
