I'm Assuming There Are No Wooden Puppets In Inception

All this talk about Inception and the way dreams are portrayed or used as plot devices in movies reminds me of the most dream-like movie I've ever seen, Jan Svankmajer's Faust.  It's not about dreams, and there are no "dream sequences", but it feels the way a dream feels.  The logic, the rhythm, the repetitions of certain actions, all seem more akin to a dream than to a mainstream movie, as if Svankmajer replaced conventional film grammar with dream grammar.  There's something about the way stairs are used in Faust that is key to its convincing dream-ness, but I don't think I could explain that without seeing it again, if even then.  Thinking about how images, scenes and, most of all, the feeling of the thing have persisted in my mind, coming to the surface with surprising frequency, it's hard for me to believe that I've seen it only once, in or around 1998.  I like the form it has, the place it inhabits, in my memory, and I'm a little afraid of the way a second viewing might alter that.

As a side note, another thing I remember about that screening (here comes some name-dropping) is that Jeff Mangum and a bunch of the Elephant 6/Orange Twin gang were there.  They all showed up together in a van.  Which, now that I'm typing it, kind of sounds like a dream I would've had.  But that, kids (here comes some nostalgia), was Athens, Georgia in the late '90s.

A Useful Tip From Ted Leo

The phrase "leaving it all onstage" was coined for performers like Ted Leo.  I was in the audience the night in 2003 when, unfortunately, his voice was one of the things he left onstage, partway through a set in Urbana, IL, the resulting strained vocal cords forcing him to cancel several tour dates.  He did his damndest, though, to give us our money's worth, and I think everyone came away from the show admiring the effort he made.  He's always a very high energy, "on" performer, and thanks to the food diary he just wrote for New York Magazine, his secret is out:

"It's a really good, quick pick-me-up: mix, say, two fingers of Jameson, a packet of Emergen-C, and a dash of hot sauce. You're best off doing the orange or tangerine flavors; anything else doesn't work so well. It's not the tastiest thing in the world, but it gets the job done."

Drummers, Trios

I'm probably way behind on this, but I recently found out that there's a trio featuring drummers Eric McPherson and Nasheet Waits (the other member is Abraham Burton on tenor).   As it happens, these are also the drummers on two new piano trio albums that I've been listening to a lot lately, Fred Hersch's Whirl (McPherson) and Jason Moran's Ten (Waits).  Whirl and Ten really showcase Hersch and Moran's strengths, with major, distinctive, and highly collaborative contributions from McPherson and Waits.  Both of these albums would be excellent "start here" recommendations for new listeners, which is saying something considering that both Hersch and Moran have extensive catalogs (especially Hersch, who, as far as I can tell, has put out close to 30 discs as a leader).  If you hadn't heard a note of their music, these new albums would give you a pretty clear idea of what these guys are about.

Bonus Links
Waits gives an insightful tour through the Max Roach discography, along with some personal reminiscences, here.  Unless you are some kind of world-class percussion master or scholar, you will learn some things about drums reading this.  After I read it, I was inspired to pick up a couple of Max Roach albums from a vendor at the Brooklyn Flea on Saturday, The Max Roach 4 Plays Charlie Parker and The Many Sides of Max Roach.  They were from a cheap, not attractively packaged, reissue series, but they sound OK and the music is definitely more than OK.  Many Sides is perhaps the more interesting recording.  There's no way for Max Roach Plays Charlie Parker to improve on Max Roach playing with Charlie Parker (even with Kenny Dorham on the session); Many Sides has Booker Little on trumpet and a nicely eclectic group of compositions, including tunes by Bill (father of Spike, bassist on Bringing It All Back Home) Lee, a young Muhal Richard Abrams (so young that he's referred to as just Richard Abrams on the sleeve), and Consuela (aunt of Spike) Lee Morehead.

Yesterday Was Thoreau's Birthday

[Note: I did not realize it was Thoreau's birthday at the time the following incident occurred.]

Last night, I saw a small fly on my closet door.  I picked up the nearest book to swat it.  Then I realized that the book I was holding, the book I was about to kill the fly with, was Walden.  This doesn't feel right, I thought.  So, I put the book down, picked up a copy of the Brooklyn Rail that was lying nearby, and killed the fly with that.

Roundup of Recent Live Music, Part One

Oliver Lake Organ Quartet at Jazz Gallery

I hate to use such a hacky analogy, but hearing Oliver Lake's version of "organ jazz" was like eating an updated version of a classic dish by a master chef.  Maybe a dish that was popular in the '60s and '70s and has since fallen out of fashion (Steak Diane?).  The brilliance in the reinterpretation is that it still has the taste of the original, but there are different elements, and just more of something, but it's all so well-integrated that you find yourself savoring the overall effect, the pleasure of it, instead of trying to identify all the ingredients. I don't think it would be inaccurate to use the terms groove, blues, funk, or hard bop to describe aspects of the quartet's music, but there is still the vital avant-garde streak that one would expect from an Oliver Lake group, mainly apparent in the leader's own alto playing.  Rather than try to put a label on this group and its music, I'll just defer to this fine, concise description (of their new album, Plan) from Lake's website, "Oliver with three young cats exploring a whole new language together".

As a sidenote, I recently discovered that there is an Oliver Lake, as in a body of water, in Indiana.  Sounds like a great setting for a jazz festival.  I was also excited to discover that Oliver Lake has a Twitter.


The New Pornographers w/ the Dodos and the Dutchess & the Duke at Terminal 5

I've seen the New Pornographers several times, and they always impress.  One thing I've only noticed recently, though, and especially at this show, is how Dan Bejar's songs, which often start out sounding like the odd men out, the square pegs, on a new NPs album, have gradually become my favorites.  And, judging by the crowd at Terminal 5, I'm not alone.  Every time DB took the stage (a few times to the strains of Darth Vader's "Imperial March", to his almost totally imperceptible, and perhaps non-existent, amusement) and stepped to the microphone, it meant it was time for a show highlight.  Of course "Myriad Harbor" was going to be a crowd pleaser - New Yorkers' love of self-celebration is well-known - but I'd forgotten what a MF'er "Jackie Dressed in Cobras" is.

The Dodos must surely be the only acoustic guitar/vibes/drums (and sometimes acoustic guitar/drums/drums) trio ever, and their sound is even more rhythm-dominated than you'd except from that lineup.  Meric Long is a very percussive guitar player, though he can and does get more single-note "picky" and melodic in certain songs, and the vibes function more as a tuned rhythm instrument (they are technically percussion, after all) than as a melody/solo voice.  Also, Long yelps a lot as punctuation, another percussive element.  I appreciate what this band is doing on a conceptual/intellectual level, but haven't really warmed to them.

By my estimation, the Dutchess and the Duke's music is about 50% based on their ragged-but-right, unique-but-familiar vocal blend, 35% on their folky, vaguely roots/Southern/country-filtered-through-the-British-invasion sense of melody, and 15% on their rudimentary-but-evocative electric guitar playing, so that it wasn't a big deal that they had to bring along a substitute guitarist due to a hand injury.  D&D have created a wonderful sound world, and I'd love to see them as headliners in a small club (they played Union Hall in Brooklyn earlier this year, but I missed it).  Also, I finally caught up with their second (and latest) album, Sunrise/Sunset, after seeing them live, and I expect I'll be returning to it more often than their (very strong) debut.  The first was bare bones basic; this one adds a bit of orchestration/arrangement/production, but still feels winningly modest and homemade.

Beeswax

Finally got around to seeing Beeswax.  I liked both of Andrew Bujalski's previous films and will continue to see whatever he puts out until such time as he starts making end-of-days thrillers with Nic Cage (actually not sure I wouldn't see a Bujalski-Cage joint).  I don't know if Beeswax is my favorite Bujalski (I'd have to rewatch the others to be sure), but it does clearly represent another step forward in his development as a director.

Beeswax made me think about Bujalski's approach to comedy, so low-key as to be almost unrecognizable as such.  I found myself thinking "that was really funny" a lot, but only laughing (or, really, half-chuckling) a couple of times.  And even then, there wasn't a clear sense that the scenes or lines or moments I found funny were intended to be funny.  I suspected that most of them were, but there was no way to be sure, and certainly no "laugh here" cues.  That's the kind of sub-sub-level Bujalski is working on, but even so, I think Beeswax is, in essence, a successful comedy.

Although the primary pleasure I found in Beeswax was simply watching the two (real life and movie) sisters, Maggie and Tilly Hatcher, especially their reactions and facial expressions, there was a satisfying, and perhaps surprising, wholeness (artistic unity?) to the film that suggests that Bujalski has matured into something of a young master.  His ambitions may seem small, bafflingly so to some viewers, but he seems to have reached the point of being in complete command of his art.  You may not know where he's going, or why, in Beeswax, but if you pay attention, you can tell that he's guiding the action with a sure, confident hand.

Who(se building) You Callin' Ugly?!?

Wow, the AIA just got smacked down really hard for calling the New York Times building NYC's ugliest.  Meanwhile, I enjoyed reading the results of Vanity Fair's architecture survey, which includes some praise for the Times building. Knowing what everyone knows about architects and their egos, I shouldn't have been surprised by how many of the architects polled voted for their own buildings, but I was still a little surprised by how many of the architects polled voted for their own buildings. Self-promotion is part of the job, though, especially ITE*.

*in this economy