No genre is the new genre
We are surrounded by tensions–art/life, simplicity/complexity, beauty/tragedy–and this short poetically offers all that profundity while skipping the cliche. That said, it’s cartoon about a mouse and a cat head. Roll the video.
Video/animation by Chris Ware, music by Andrew Bird, created for “This American Life–Live!”
Quick lesson on being yourself and being cool at the same time, even when those things don’t feel like they jive with mainstream culture’s definitions. (FYI: I hear a rumor that’s an actor, not actually Ajay Bhatt, which is sort of disappointing in the authenticity area.) The “I’m a PC” campaign never did it for me, but this one totally nails it.
I walked into Staples yesterday for some file folders and came out 12 minutes later with a new desk chair. Now, you hardly care that I have reluctantly traded in the small, hard piece of wood I’ve have sat on for the past couple decades (Seriously! My dad stained it to match my desk when I was ten.), but my entire work worldview has been drastically improved via lumbar support–and I don’t even know what that is! I was wandering in the wilderness of office supplies and BAM! I was saved. I had no idea such cushiony goodness was possible. Productivity is way up.
And that, indulgent readers, leads me to my actual point. I read Howard Mandel’s response to Amanda Ameer, and particularly noted the part where he suggested that one thing women may want when it comes to attracting them to jazz is “comfortable, clean and affordable music venues.” Based on personal observation, I’m not sure a good squirt of disinfectant is necessarily the issue, but it got me thinking about the question of comfort when it comes to experiencing art. Things that would seem on the surface to be trivial–I mean, who cares about leg room when profundity is on stage?–are the things we tend not to discuss but privately weigh when making decisions about how the ticket budget will be spent. Very long shows (four hours!), very late shows (doors at 11 p.m.!), shows in venues that are above my pay grade (what do you even wear to that?): Yeah, I’ve skipped a few of those out of concern for my own personal comfort. So is Mandel’s proposal for welcoming the ladies correct?
Of course, more than a well-mopped floor and a pretty bathroom, what Mandel is talking about in his post is the psychic comfort patrons experience–that feeling of belonging and being welcome, where you’ve already picked a favorite wine on the list and someone in the crowd knows your name. You know how things work in this tribe, perhaps even consider yourself a bona fide member. Free time is a scarce resource for most, and at the end of the day who wants to spend it in a place that makes you feel awkward and uncomfortable, no matter how intriguing the art on offer?
Now, you may argue that challenge is part of the deal when it comes to art. And I can go with you there, but when and why is it needed and when is it not? A few weeks ago I was a contestant in the Take a Friend to the Orchestra project, and here again I think if you’re at all concerned about the makeup of [insert art form here]’s audiences, offer yourself up as neighborhood welcome wagon. Not every venue posts the guidelines at the door. I love going to foreign countries; I love it best when there’s a friend on the other end of my flight who speaks the local dialect and makes sure I understand how to get around. It’s ultimately not the fact that I’m a married, middle-class white girl that keeps me turned off by certain events, it’s really more just that silly first-day-of-school concern that I’ll get lost on the way to gym and be stuck eating lunch by myself. Or that, like the desk chair incident, I simply have no idea how good the new will be and so have no reason yet to pay it any attention at all.
We’ve been watching the performing arts community adopt (and in some cases heedlessly lunge and in others scream and kick) their way into social media/web 2.0 technologies–revealing the wondrous potential and the scary, scary sinkholes we’re navigating. So this week’s question:
I love those moments when life reminds you to stop taking yourself so damn seriously. I find myself needing the direct tackle on this point quite a bit lately, and Baltimore (where this photo was shot) is a good place to be for that. Strolling down a city sidewalk past John Waters, as we did right after snapping this pic, also seems to help in that regard.
Anyway, further in the pursuit of keeping perspective and reducing myopic stress this summer, we put in our vegetable garden this weekend (my real-world, hands-in-dirt stab at creativity) and contemplated the installation of a backyard hammock. And that leads pretty quickly to thoughts of summer reading (which leads even faster to afternoon naps, but let’s leave that be for a moment.)
For anyone interested in exercising their library cards and reading along, blogger book club will be back next month, and so far on this season’s reading list is The Invisible Dragon: Essays on Beauty, Revised and Expanded by Dave Hickey and The Whuffie Factor: Using the Power of Social Networks to Build Your Business by Tara Hunt.
What books are you schlepping to the beach this summer?
NewMusicBox, the web publication where I have worked since 2001 (with time off in 2003 for good behavior and a quick jaunt to Nepal) turned 10 years old this morning! I made a little highlight reel in honor of the festivities, but there’s lots more celebratory content on the site today.
This morning, Baltimore woke to the disconcerting news that the staff of its local Sun was being slashed. Cruel.
However, I recently learned on the internet that news people have a talent for song, and as our local opera company has now filed for bankruptcy and is in the process of selling off its assets, is there an opportunity here? Hey, what nature hasn’t granted, it seems auto-tune will provide!
(T-Pain could not be reached for comment, but Couric is clearly rockin’ this format.)
Okay, I’m no Sherlock, but I have surmised that the whole “case of the amazing shrinking modern attention span” is bunk. Like Steven Johnson, I am comfortable arguing that contemporary pop culture actually expects more and more of our brain power, not less.
And I still basically am, but still: along with this morning’s coffee, I discovered that there are now :50 “official trailers” for 3:19-long songs. That’s what you get, indeed.
Elsewhere, the million and six plot twists of Lost slap us back the other way. Confusion is the new (substitute for) sophistication? Let us mull over these developments while taking in the Golden Girls marathons this week.
Stephen takes issue with the Pultizer committee’s selections.
an ArtsJournal blog
