Girls in Trouble

Now Playing: 'Juno' and 'The Virgin Suicides,' double feature at The New Beverly.

Oh the Guilt

Beck + Danger Mouse,'Modern Guilt,' July 8.

You can listen to tiny clips here.

Also click here for the comment where a 19 year old young man calls Beck a new Dylan.

Elsewhere... the other New Dylan

Wall-E

Sweet, satirical, foreboding, visually-compelling, mysterious, and childlike...a subversive call to action and a must-see.

Pirates & Graphic Tees @ LB Sea Festival

MEG mentioned pirates in her post the other day....
I ran into some on Saturday, and I figured I might as well share my recent experience.

For some reason I was compelled to attend the Pirate Festival held this weekend on the Belmont Pier in Long Beach. "Why?!?" you might ask... Because it's PIRATES! If you knew there were pirates about 5 blocks from your home... I bet you'd be there too!

Well...
Maybe I had too high of hopes, but the Pirate festival was lame.
Entertaining maybe (the "pirate" to non-pirate ratio was remarkably high).
But still... really lame.

Except for this beautiful lady:

It kinda felt like the "Pirate Festival" was just an excuse to get advertising in front of all the local pirates (more than I knew existed). In addition to a few vendors selling "actual" pirate wares, there were numerous distinctly pirate vendors such as: artificial lawn installers, local gym memberships, baseball tickets, inflatible bounce-houses for kids, and cable TV.

But it wasn't a total waste...

I did catch this killer local T-shirt vendor... TeedOffTees.com

Not a real exciting website, but great shirts nonetheless.

Now for my rant about Long Beach's "Sea Festival" which organized this atrocity... suffice it to say that this pirate event was in my opinion rather typical of the "The Sea Festival" (which costs the City of Long Beach serious cash every year) which supposedly has organized "more than 90 events" over the course of this summer... such unique and distinctive Long Beach events as the 4th of July!!! Why are my tax dollars paying for 3 different "fireworks watching" parties... At places that are generally open to the public anyways! What the hell! I'm having a 4th of July party! I want to get city funding! The only difference is that corporate sponsors are going to show up at their event and try to sell you stuff! But guaranteed the "Sea Festival" is going to claim that thousands of people showed up just because of their awesome organizing skills and this justifies giving them more money next year. And someone is getting rich on corporate sponsorship in the process.

I'm so over it.

(RAR) LACMA - Philip-Lorca diCorcia

Introducing Jeff Rau...
Long Beach artist/photographer/blogger/etc...

Kicking off the Tragically Hipster Rau Art Reviews (RAR)...

Just visited LACMA today, so I figure I'll kick this off with some comments about a couple of exhibitions currently on display there...


First off...

Philip-Lorca diCorcia
May 23–September 14, 2008

This is a remarkably powerful show for the relatively small space allotted for it.

The exhibition covers several bodies of work by the noted photographer Philip-Lorca diCorcia (aka "PL"). These bodies of work include the projects known as: Hustlers, Streetwork, Heads, Lucky 13, and Thousand. But the exhibition largely intersperses the projects (with the exception of Thousand).

Hustlers and Streetwork are older projects working in varying ways capturing fleeting moments (often vulnerable moments), but approaching the work in two entirely different ways. In Hustlers PL carefully stages these moments in hotel rooms or on the streets of Los Angeles casting hustlers as his protagonists, and in Streetwork he captures these fleeting moments in a more candid way on the busy streets of major cities worldwide.

By contrast, both Heads and Lucky 13 take a much more systematic approach. In Heads PL sets up a system by which he candidly captures portraits of pedestrians on the New York City sidewalks. Entirely unaware of the photographer's presence, isolated and captured in extraordinary detail, and thus left vulnerable to our observation, these pieces seem to quitely speak volumes about their subjects. Lucky 13 on the otherhand depicts lone pole dancers in the midst of their seductive act... but this is project is far more than just T&A (see more below)...

To round out the bodies of work included here, Thousand is a collection of 1,000 Polaroid images produced over years of PL's art and commercial practice as a photographer. Though 1,000 seems somewhat unimpressive by today's digital standards, the idea of producing and exhibiting 1,000 instant images was huge at the time of this undertaking. This collection of images displayed somewhat randomly on several shelves extending across 3 walls, produces an unparalelled peek into the working practice of a photographers. Test prints, lighting trials, camera experiments, personal moments, random points of interest, and curious textures all share equal billing as the work product of an active artist (akin perhaps to a painter's notebook of sketches).


I have always loved PL's Heads. I am facinated by the people depicted as well as the complicated system derived to capture them in their most natural, unsuspecting, and vulnerable moments. As a photographer, I am further impressed with his technical acuity in all of the remaining projects, and I thoroughly enjoyed seeing so much of the "behind the scenes" work in Thousand. But honestly, most of the remaining bodies of work didn't resonate with me as strongly as Heads.... Until I heard PL discuss his work at LACMA earlier this month....

I attended an artist discussion with PL on June 10th, and while most of the discussion was entirely un-earthshattering, one huge revelation forever transformed my understanding and appreciation of Lucky 13...

Philip-Lorca diCorcia lives and works in New York. The events of 9/11 affected him deeply, but one image haunted him more than any others... The image of desperate persons diving head first out of the burning towers and flying through the air to their death. PL is deathly afraid of heights (afraid of falling from heights), and this image truly haunted him. Yet somehow, he was inspired to view these pole dancers as a related image, an allusion to flight, but infact a descent, often head first, spinning down to the floor.


Perhaps he sees these dancers as somehow reenacting the event, giving the victims' suffering a martyr's romatic allure. Perhaps by turning the violence of the original on it's head with the seduction of the latter, it allowed him to deal with the horror. PL didn't expound on this inspiration for the work... but it undoubtedly provided a compelling context to critically re-evaluate it.

Secondly...

BCAM - The Inaugural Installation
February 2008 - Way too freakin' long

The new Broad Contemporary Art Museum located at LACMA... I'm bored.
Why the hell does this exhibition need to be up for 9 months!

For my full rant... go read the entry on my personal blog...
I can't be bothered to copy it here... I'm too bored...

Post the First (by some girl called "MEG")

Hi. So...

I'm not sure what to call myself when I make my introduction. My initials are MEG, my burlesque stage name is Kate Fox, as an actor I use my real name, and I may even add another alias as I dip into other projects. I guess I feel more comfortable with just a dash of anonymity, a bit of good, old-fashioned role-playing. But I'll be sharing my actual, really-real opinions, however inane they may be, and you're free to call me pretty much anything, as long as its not derogatory or fascism-related. Good?

Subjects I like: O.C., L.A., theatre, burlesque, Disneyland, concerts, art exhibits, movies, music, books, adventures with Douglas Dodgson, my friends' art projects, style, love, fairy tales, job vs. artistic work, pirate history, and so on.

I hope reading the posts by these lovely bloginators will clue you in on cool events, restaurants, albums, art shows, and what have you. And whatnots.

For now, here are my favorite SoCal haunts:

• New Orleans Square, Disneyland - Anaheim
• Continental Room - Fullerton
• Hunger Artists Theatre Co. (for OC Underground Burlesque Society shows) - Fullerton
• The Old Ship - Fullerton
  
• Gypsy Den - Santa Ana
  
• The Lab "Anti-Mall" - Costa Mesa
• South Coast Repertory - Costa Mesa
• Westin lobby bar - Costa Mesa
• Downtown Seal Beach
• Queen Mary - Long Beach
  
• Skylight Books - L.A.
  
• Greek Theater (Rilo Kiley! The White Stripes! Yeah Yeah Yeahs! Damien Rice!) - L.A.
  
• Orpheum Theater (Flight of the Conchords!) - L.A.
• BCAM @ LACMA - L.A.

I can go more in-depth on these things at a later date, but for now, I leave the intensive research to you.

Happy Trails!
[Insert name here.]

Weezer is the M. Night Shyamalan of music

I was 15 when Weezer's Blue Album came out. My friends and I all learned all of the "dialogue" in The Sweater Song and we would recite it together. The video for that song was so rad, even though I didn't know who Spike Jonze was. I understand now that Weezer were nerds, but at the time they just looked like the coolest, funniest guys - like that part where Pat Wilson is squatting over the drum stool and wiggling his hips, then a bunch of dogs ran through - they were, literally, what I wanted to be when I grew up. 'Say It Ain't So' was oddly moving, since I had no idea what it was about, somehow an emotion came through the music to me. I loved the cover, and tried to dress like them. I should make this clear though: I was also trying to dress like Kurt Cobain and Billy Corgan. I loved Weezer, but I loved "Alternative" music and Weezer were not my saviors, they were a very fun, very cool part of it that I loved.

That time seems so weird to me now - maybe older people will know different, but my friends and I thought that our music wasn't that popular. We didn't listen to college radio and had never heard Pavement (who I heard shortly after and came to love much more than Weezer) or Guided by Voices (who I didn't, and didn't). We listened to KROQ here in Los Angeles and it felt like a lifestyle choice. We made friends and chose girls based off of music taste.

I didn't like all of the Blue album, I would say I enjoyed half the songs on it. But those songs I enjoyed I loved so much that the tape was on frequent replay in my car for years.

Then two things happened: that lifestyle quality about "Alternative" seemed to evaporate around me, and I totally lost touch with Weezer. I don't remember hearing any songs from Pinkerton on the radio, and literally did not know it existed until after I heard the Green album. I still loved Weezer, but somehow I never wondered what happened to them. The Blue Album was enough, I still loved it.

Then - 'Hash Pipe.' This song is probably second to 'SIAS' in my favorite Weezer songs. A song from the point of view of a transvestite prostitute? Now that's 'Alternative.' I loved the crunchy guitars, the falsetto descending melody, and the weird balance between something that seemed kind of sad and kind of funny. It felt tough, brave to me. I felt like I was weird in all the ways I loved to sing along with it. Remember: I had not heard 'Pinkerton' at all. I bought 'The Green Album,' again in love with the cover, and loved the songs. Driving with the windows open listening to 'Island in the sun,' the incredible rush of the loud-quiet dynamics throughout, and the line 'Open your heart and let the good stuff out,' I was thrilled to hear Rivers' voice again, but I still wasn't really creating a "Weezer Story" in my head, I just liked a lot of fun, cool songs from two albums.

So I started reading about Weezer when I saw something about them, like in Rolling Stone and SPIN. I learned about 'Pinkerton.' I bought it and loved it. Fun, weird, tough.

Then - The Strokes. The White Stripes. The "lifestyle" quality of the music I loved was back, and I felt that feeling again like my interests were more common and might one day take over the world, or the music world at least.

More reading about Weezer in 2002 - preparing a new album, fans listen online, etc. I looked into it abut was late, so only got to hear a bit of that. Loved a bit of what I heard and put it on CDs for my friends. Suddenly everything about Rivers' writing clicked for me: His melodies, phrasing, chords - it sounded like the most perfect music. I listened to more Beatles and then 'Pet Sounds,' because Rivers did. My friends and I, in our early 20s, started playing in a garage. Among with 'Smells Like Teen Spirit' and 'Cannonball,' we played 'Hash Pipe' and 'SIAS.'

I had a few fun singalong moments here, such as being at a Reel Big Fish concert where pre-show the entire audience sang along to 'SIAS' from the sound system, and then at a friends party I was surprised to hear 15 people sing along with the guitar solo from 'SIAS' note for note.

Then 'Maladroit:' I loved this album. I loved the ambience of the production, the incredible drum sound, and drum playing, the guitar solos (which I had always hated but now sounded so musical to me) the wide variety of styles, I would say I was crazy about 90% of the songs on it. It must be one of the most played albums of my life.

Then: My iPod, which has literally changed the way I listen to music every day. Music purists will go crazy here, but there are many albums which I consider my favorites where I have never heard all of the songs in track order. I felt weird about it, but I love music so much and listen to it hours every day so I decided that however I wanted to enjoy it was fine.

In 1995 my parents had another boy, so I have a brother who is 17 years younger than me. When Maladroit came out he was 6, so I played him 'Keep Fishin,' and he loved it (Not to mention the Muppets music video). He's twelve now and Weezer is still one of his favorite bands: alongside 'Hotel Yorba' and '7 Nation Army' on his hand-me-down-iPod are "'My Name is Jonas,' 'Buddy Holly,' 'Island in the Sun,' 'Photograph,' "'Keep Fishin,' 'Beverly Hills"' and 'Pardon Me.' He was at a friend's house playing Guitar Hero or Rock Band and saw My Name is Jonas and couldn't wait to tell me. Weezer is one of my favorite bonding things with him.

Then 'Make Believe.' I loved 'Beverly Hills' and used to listen to it on repeat. This album was when I fist was introduced to the "Weezer used to be different" story. I had literally never heard it. They were a band I loved, and I all of my friends either liked them or didn't. I didn't know there were people who had liked them but didn't anymore. It seemed like the complaint was largely about lyric writing. I can see a change - there's a literal and poetic maturity to 'El Scorcho' which doesn't seem to be in 'Pardon Me.' But I didn't hate it, it was just different. One was for one kind of mood, another for another. This was also when I head the "Rivers is crazy" story, which when I was in high school would have been the "this guy is weird" story - a slight but maybe important change?

Anyway, I didn't really like 'Make Believe' - I liked a couple songs, but I didn't like them as long, and some I didn't like singing along with at all, so it just kind of fell out of listening. I wondered: is it true? Is this "worse" than their early stuff? Do I not like it because it isn't as "good"? (An experience which since I've had with 'First Impressions of Earth' and 'Get Behind Me Satan.' Everyone said they were worse, and I didn't like them as much, so should I start thinking the band I liked was somehow "bad"?)

Now this one. I love 'Pork and Beans' - a great beat, great sounding guitars, idioms, and a video which made me feel better about the world, literally - like everyone could have fun together (corny I know) - but I look to online reviewers whose reviews I really like, and they seem to be reviewing a band instead of an album - and band who is different in their heads than mine. I've listened to this CD for a couple weeks now and it still sounds fun. Will I like it? Will I not? If I don't, is the band "bad"?

Tonight: The Man Who Knew Too Much, under the stars

From cinespia.org:



Saturday June 28

directed by alfred hitchcock (1956, 120 mins)

Gates at 7:30pm. Film at 9:00pm.
$10 donation tickets available at gate. parking $5.
On holiday in Morocco, Jimmy Stewart and Doris Day learn of an assassination plot, and when kidnappers blackmail them, Stewart must stop the conspiracy without the help of the police. Hitchcock's canonical masterpiece was made at the height of his powers of suspense and with one of his favorite stars. Lush photography, bernard hermann’s score and characteristic nail-biting mystery and tension make this one of his best.

dj chris curtis spins before and after the screening

for more info see cinespia.org