Bikes! and other fun stuff this weekend

Thanks to the Boston Cyclist's Union, MassBikes and a host of other groups, we finally have bike lanes along Centre Street in JP! A-mazing!

The Union is also giving free bike tune ups at Farmer's Markets across Boston. What a great idea that is.

This weekend is the Tenth Annual Bicycle Film Festival in Boston. Films are showing at the Brattle in Cambridge. Saturday night there is an after party with free beer at AdHoc. in JP- also a swell night cap for a day at Berklee's Beantown Jazz Fest.

Hittin' the Spot All Night

Tuesday night Sam and I met at Paradise to see the sold out Dirty Projectors show. When they first took the stage it seemed like they really didn't want to be there but as they loosened up and rocked out it turned into a really solid show. They played almost every track off Bitte Orca (bonus!), some from Rise Above, some I wasn't sure about, and then they ended their encore with "Knotty Pine" off Dark Was the Night. Solid.

David Longstreth is brilliant for sharing his limelight with the vocal harmonies of three beautiful ladies. And, they are all really talented kiddos, making their signature mash up of vocal and musical styles really work. I haven't always felt that way. A lot of the band's pre- Rise Above music is a little too wild for me to listen too all the way through.

Sam just gave me a New Yorker article about the band in which pop-music blogger Sasha Frere-Jones shares her similar struggles with the old material and new-found excitement for the band, given the accessibility of the most recent album. His more technical description of the music was illuminating for me, especially this bit: "Longstreth employs a method of arranging voices knon at hocketing, which stretches back to the work of thirteenth century French monks. To hocket, you split up a melody or a chord and assign the notes to different voices." I saw that in action on stage and it had a little, "so that's how they do that!" moment. It was cool.

I also liked Frere-Jones' description of Bitte Orca's opening track, "Cannibal resource" :

"Unaccompanied, Longstreth plays a series of small, torqued-up chords through tremolo and a phaser. We could be anywhere at this point - there's no telling what continent we're going to land on when everyone else shows up."
Frere-Jones is good. He makes me want to step up my game in real reviews. I believe he was also named one of the top 30 critics in the world. Someday.

Opening for the Dirty Projectors, the Tune-Yards really blew the crowd away. I already sent a mass e-mail about how much I loved that band so I won't elaborate here but they may be my new favorite and I hope I get to see them again very soon.

I also wanted to mention that Sam, who hates Halloween because you have to dress up, got into the rock show spirit by Robert-Smithing his hair, donning tighter clothes and even dog tags for the occasion. Damn Sam, we should go to shows every week. And clearly Amy Parker is a good influence.


Wednesday, Wyatt and I saw his buddy Ross' band The Painted Lights, singer songwriter Drew O'Doherty and Canadian folk rock trio Elliott Brood. Ross' drumming was good but the rest of TPL needs work. Headliners Elliott Brood, with harmonica, banjo, growley singing and fast guitar, made me feel a bit like I was train hopping in a wild west adventure movie. I liked them a lot and they looked great, all dressed up in black suits, and the fedora-sporting drummer sat framed by a ghetto, ahem, DIY but endearing light show. They also handed out plates and wooden spoons so the audience could join in on the percussion. Wyatt and I also got our first picture together. Unfortunately it's much too dark to save for the future grandkids.

Emily and I watched "Trouble the Water" earlier in the week. A brutal account of Katrina, anchored on amatuer footage taken by a female wannabe rapper in the Ninth Ward, it is easily one of the best documentaries I've ever seen. I didn't see Spike Lee's Katrina series but I can't imagine it's as good as this piece. "Trouble the Water" rules because it masters the art of showing, not telling. Be ready for it when you watch it. The 911 calls in particular will twist a hole in your heart.

On the upside, its almost Thanksgiving! Mmmmm. Stayed tuned for epic food descriptions and reviews of Ula's pumpkin pie and quince tart.

Where the Wild Things Are, Part 2

My mom sent me this article about WTWTA that clears up a couple things:

1. CGI technology was used for the faces of the Wild Things. Someone told me there was no use of computer technology. That person was incorrect.

2. Karen O. of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs put together the soundtrack for the film, hence the weirdness and awesomeness of the music.

3. The MoMA is currently running a film retrospective entitled Spike Jonze, The First 80 Years. Who's up for a trip to New York?

As part of the show, they are showing the classic tear-jerker, and one of my childhood favorites, The Black Stallion. From a description of the screening:

The Black Stallion. 1979. USA. Directed by Carroll Ballard. Screenplay by Melissa Mathison, Jeanne Roseberg, William D. Wittliff. With Teri Garr, Mickey Rooney, Kelly Reno. An enchanting yet rarely seen film adaptation of Walter Farley’s beloved 1941 book, about an American boy and an Arabian stallion who forge a nearly mystical bond of love and empathy when they are shipwrecked and forced to take refuge on a deserted Mediterranean island. “As soon as we started working on the script for Where the Wild Things Are, The Black Stallion was the first movie Dave Eggers and I watched. It was our aspiration to capture what Carroll Ballard had: a boy on an island finding his way with wild creatures and the camera trying to tag along—not to get in the way, but to capture the beauty of it all” (Spike Jonze). New 35mm print courtesy Academy Film Archive. 118 min.

Monsters

In support of 826 Boston, the 2nd floor of 34 Robeson attended an advance screening of Where the Wild Things Are last night. Author and screenwriter Dave Eggers and Oscar-winning actor Chris Cooper (the scary dad in American Beauty) spoke before the film, and there was a charming video of Martin Sendak, author of the original children's book, recounting a story from his youth. Eggers talked a little bit about how he and Spike Jonze spent the last 5 years unravelling the 388 word (or something like that) book into a feature film. I was pleased to hear that naps are a big part of Jonze's creative process. Got to love Eggers for letting you in on those special details.

So was is good? Yes. Should you see it? Fo sho. Is it the best movie ever? I didn't think so. I actually felt like there might be something wrong with me when I walked out of the theatre and found that I was the only person without tears in my eyes. I was less into the story and more impressed by high quality of craft.

Being a Spike Jonze film, WTWTA was artistically mouth-watering. That man did not spare one detail. (His budget for this film is estimated to be between $80 and 100 million.) I would watch it again for the cinematography alone. Each scene is like a weird but very well composed earth-toned photograph. The settings shift between an Australian forest, massive desert mountain, ocean and a huge fort made of sticks, among other awesome dream-like landscapes. And the sound! The banging of Max around his house as he chased his dog, the sighs of the monsters. I was distracted by the attention brought to even the smallest sounds in this film. I love it. And if that raving wasn't enough, I couldn't get over the incredibly realistic facial expressions of the monsters. They were so good that I knew the actress playing the character of KW was actress Lauren Ambrose, before I even heard her voice. This is partly because I spent much of last winter watching Six Feet Under episodes (she plays the little sister Claire), but mostly because the monster's face moved just the way hers does. Amazing! My guess is that the monster suits use computer technology to read the faces of the actors inside. I haven't been able to find a good article on this yet so I hope Jonze elaborates on the technology after the film comes out in theatres next week. Until then, read more about Jonze and WTWTA in this NY Times Magazine piece.

After the film, we went to a pretty sweet funk show at Wonder Bar in Allston. More on that soon.

September, busy busy

A lot has happened since the last post so I'll start with an update: work at the coffee shop is fun. Good people. Good music. All the good bread is definitely gonna make me fat. I always end up bringing some home so holla if you want a loaf. I just began interning at Corporate Accountability International, doing video work. On the side, I'm looking to get involved in Mass Powershift's Fall campaign, courtesy of Dan Abrams- my awesome former intern. Film Camp in Waldoboro, Maine was excellent. The guys (and girl) at Wicked Delicate are some fun, smart cookies and they've got some culinary prowess. We had lobster, blueberry pancakes and other Maine-tinted loveliness. I felt bad about the shoddy lemon meringue that John Carroll and I brought and even worse when they tried to tell me it was good. Unfortunately the beautiful topping (see photo) didn't make up for the fact that the filling looked and tasted like rubber cement. The next one will be better! This other photo is from inside the john at Swallow's Rise Farm, the site of WD Film School. The place is like a museum, with treasures in every nook and cranny. Highlights included a stuffed turkey, a framed photograph of Mr. Rogers, elementary school art projects and magazine advertisements from the 50's as decor.

In other news, all my veggies got the blight. But, while they all looked like they had plague for awhile, everything is producing again, or for the first time in the case of the patty pan squash. I've been waiting on those suckers for months.

Being busy and on my feet a lot has been a good distraction. Still, I struggle with feeling like an 80 year old woman, between the back pain, fear if loneliness and my intense need to feed other people. Are there other 24 year olds who cook and then feel sad when they've got no one to feed? I can only hope that I'm aging in reverse and at 40 I'll forget what it feels like to hurt.

I've been thinking a lot about the value of idleness. More on that soon.

Micropatronage

Many are familiar with the concept of micro-lending (a.k.a. microcredit) or giving people small loans to start local businesses. My hero Muhammad Yunus pioneered this idea with the founding of the Grameen Bank in his home country of Bangladesh. He found that many potential entrepreneurs, women in particular, lacked the start up capital needed to start small businesses. In many cases it was a matter of $20 or less, needed to buy materials to make baskets or other products that could be sold for profit. Yunus found that these small loans were effective in launching sustainable small businesses,and the recipients were very good about paying off the loans. In terms of fighting poverty, the rate of return was excellent.

In 2005, Brooklyn start up Kickstarter.com put a twist on this concept, pioneering micro-patronage: a way for anyone to financially back creative projects, in big or small way, via the internet. The projects are pretty diverse in scope and practicality. One woman wanted to raise $365 to send a homemade postcard everyday for a year. She's offered to send postcards to the people who give and its been so popular that she has raised more than her original goal. Another man is trying to raise $25,000 to complete a floating mobile clinic. A doctor and marine biologist, he's enlisted the help of 19 other doctors to sail to remote locations around the world and offer basic medical services. Artists and social entrepreneurs have struggled for centuries to find funding for their creative endeavors and it just makes sense to use the internet as a platform to do so.

I would love to use Kickstarter for my organizing film idea. Once you have a profile for your project on the site, you can e-mail blast, share and tweet the hell out of the link and anyone who likes your project can give online. It even syncs up to your Amazon account so you don't have to enter credit card info.

To get started on the organizing film, I figure we'll need upwards of $5,000 for a camera, mics and editing equipment (if I can't acquire these things otherwise). We will also need cash to buy some TV news footage. To take advantage of the Kickstarter model, I will need to figure out what I might offer people in return for their patronage of an organizing documentary. It seems the best Kickstarter projects offer patrons something in return. One musician offered givers upwards of $100 the chance to join him for some homemade gumbo and a preview of some unreleased tracks in his New Orleans home. I'm not sure I can lure people in with my shep pie so if you have ideas readers, let me know.