WFMU's Beware of the Blog

Performa 09 Fires Up in NYC This Month

From November 1st through 22nd Performa organization is clobbering this town with it's third series of events. Over 110 of them in fact, spread out over 80 venues, all blurring lines between art, dance, music, film, graphic design and even some culinary action, magic, and Polish Futurism. It's an impressive calendar. A few events are especially exciting amongst WFMU staffers, one of which is a two night stand at the Gramercy Theater November 20-21 curated by renowned artist Mike Kelley (whose grown-man-baby-at Burning Man odyssey I just caught at SculptureCenter in Long Island City was a brainmelt), titled A Fantastic World Superimposed on Reality: A Select History of Experimental Music. Here, some historic works will be presented from John Cage, Fluxus, Fred Frith, Max Neuhaus and Bruce Nauman, with other contemporary performances by in-house heavies z'ev, Genesis Breyer P-Orridge, Jad Fair & Lumberbob, Thurston Moore w/Ryan Sawyer, Christian Marclay w/Shelley Hirsch, John Zorn, Tony Conrad, Arto Lindsay, John Duncan, and more. It's also a rare opportunity for New York to witness Destroy All Monsters, and I'm especially stoked to see a healthy showing of assorted players from the legendary Los Angeles Free Music Society. Co-founding member Tom Recchion appears as Extended Organ and also locks horns with Rick Potts, Joe Potts, Dennis Duck, and Frederick Nilsen for a set with Airway, who were total seed-planters for Japan's 1980's noise scene development. In fact, I'll be recording the whole Airway contingent during a WFMU studio visit, which will air on my show in conjunction with a whole 3-hour LAFMS retrospective on December 1st from 3-6PM (and you can hear/grab MP3s of Airway's 1978 Live at Lace recordings on our Free Music Archive). Kurt Gottschalk also just hosted enduring composer/vocal artist Joan La Barbara, who will also be part of the Gramercy proceedings (you can grab that special now as a podcast).

As if that wasn't enough in the realm of sonic delights, Joan also helps celebrate the 100th Anniversary of Italian Futurism at what's sure to be a jawdropping event at Town Hall this Thursday, November 12: it's a full-on noisefest featuring performances on the accurate replicas of the intonarumori, noise instruments originally built in 1913 by Luigi Russolo and perhaps accurately described as very primitive predecessors to the analog synthesizer. Luciano Chessa will direct (and play) in an orchestra consisting of Blixa Bargeld, John Butcher, Joan La Barbara, Nick Hallett, Pauline Oliveros, Mike Patton, Anat Pick, Elliott Sharp, Ulrich Krieger, Jennifer Walshe with Tony Conrad, Ghostigital with Skuli Sverrison, Finboggi Petursson, and Casper Electronics. It'll be an opportunity to witness the first ever performance of a segment of Russolo’s “Risveglio di una città”, “La pioggia nel pineto antidannunziana,” (a newly-discovered 1916 Futurist piece for intonarumori), and “Words in Freedom” by Futurist playwright and poet Paolo Buzzi. Again, this all is just a sliver of what Performa has on tap for November in New York, so give the full schedule a gander.

News of the Dead: Dead Me

Just in time for Halloween, I discovered my own grave today. Apparently I died in November 1918, age 31, and am buried in some little town in Pennsylvania. Sluggo and I are planning a road trip to go visit Dead Me very soon. If you'd like to find Dead You, then I recommend searching your own name at FindAGrave.com, one of my favorite websites. (My thanks to Find a Grave Member Beth for locating Dead Me, and to Patty Matthews for the photo of Nanticoke Cemetery.)

People usually think of cemeteries as peaceful places. Or maybe not, maybe they think of cemeteries as creepy repositories for dead, rotting corpses. Either way, I don't think most people think of the cemetery as the place to go for some hot hetero action. But that is because most people do not live in South Carolina, home of Roland Corning, 66, the former deputy assistant attorney general. Mr. Corning became a former etc. when he was found in a cemetery with an 18-year-old stripper, some Viagra, and a bag of sex toys. He claimed he was on his "lunch break," and I suppose he just must have grabbed the wrong bag—you know, he accidentally took the one with the crusty black strap-on instead of the one with the ham sandwich. Plus, he's in South Carolina, home of Governor Mark Sanford, who prefers "hiking the Appalachian Trail" to "hanging out in the cemetery with barely legal strippers." Also that douchebag who heckled the President is from South Carolina, and who knows what he's been up to. I guess if you want to have sex outdoors with old white guys, South Carolina is the place to go. South Carolina, home of the Gamecocks! South Carolina's got it goin' on!

Christmas Contest Update: Okay, so the special Disney's Christmas Carol AmTrak train was in Grand Central today because it's the day before Halloween, and I went through it mostly just because it was there and I think it's interesting the way the "property" has gone from being A Christmas Carol to   Dickens' A Christmas Carol to Disney's A Christmas Carol, and just before the exit from the train there were 4 people in Victorian costumes singing "Jingle Bell Rock" because that is what counts as a Christmas carol nowadays, I guess. But our contest is to be the first person to hear Christmas music being played in a store and I don't think being subjected to anachronistic performers on a marketing train counts. I did notice stores in Grand Central with all the Christmas stuff up, making this the first year I have ever seen totally Christmas-themed store windows before Halloween. Surely the Christmas music will not be far behind. As soon as you hear Christmas music in a store, email me at bronwync@wfmu.org. The winner will receive some not-yet-determined prize.

Thanks for reading my blogpost this time, and Happy Halloween.

Dia de los Angelitos Update: Not My Grave. The Nanticoke Historical Society has a helpful list of locals who died in the 1918 influenza pandemic, among them "Bronwyn Charleton (Mrs. John)." And the Wilkes-Barre Record of May 17, 1905 has an announcement of the marriage of Bronwyn Davis of Nanticoke to John Charleton of Alden. So it looks like that Nanticoke grave belongs to Bronwyn Davis Charleton--close, but not my grave.

The Way Out, A Portrait of Xentos Jones (video excerpt)

This excerpt of the 2003 film "The Way Out, A Portrait of Xentos Jones" by Kosten Koper and Luke Fowler recently popped up on YouTube. I hope that the whole thing will be released on DVD some day...

YouTube: [link] | More info on Kosten Koper's blog: [link] | More Xentos on the WFMU blog: Die Trip Computer Die - Flowerball (a whole album for free!) | King Leopold Of All The Belgians (weird half-improvised radio play)

Old Jersey vs. New Jersey, Part 2

Billy Jam sez:

In the first part of this series (posted a week ago) I included an MP3 of people on the streets of Jersey City speaking on their knowledge (or lack thereof) of the origins of the name of New Jersey. This time I am including an sample of what the folks I stopped on the streets of St. Hélier in "old" Jersey had to say when quizzed on their knowledge of New Jersey (MP3). I am also including my new favorite old Jersey song which sums up so perfectly the unique and special place that is the small island of Jersey, Hedley Le Maistre's "Jersey, Mon Vie!" (MP3).

Friday, October 2nd's WFMU live remote broadcast (during Doug Schulkind's timeslot) from Jersey's capital of St. Hélier during the Channel Island's 2nd annual Branchage Film Festival was an amazingly wonderful event to be a part of, and a rewarding one on many levels. First off it was a really great idea of the festival's director Xanthe Hamilton to link "old" Jersey with New Jersey via WFMU - something she presented to a receptive FMU station manager Ken Freedman about five months ago, and whose concept grew in scope since. And secondly for the dialog it began between the two Jerseys - one which we hope to keep going on the air here at WFMU. Expect to regularly hear "Jersey Bites" on Friday afternoons during the new WFMU Fall/Winter season which kicked into effect Monday, October 12th.

If you missed last week's broadcast it is archived - in playlist and audio forms - here, and includes a wide variety of guests getting on the FMU airwaves to share insights on the island of Jersey; a place that may only be 45 square miles in size but is incredibly rich in culture and history. A British Crown dependency the Bailiwick of Jersey, as it is officially known, is 100 miles south of England and lies only 14 miles west of the coast of Normandy, under whose rule it was once governed.

The WFMU remote show guests included Philip Malet de Carteret whose ancestors - several centuries ago - owned the land now known as the Garden State and were the ones responsible for giving New Jersey its name. The interview I conducted with him at his historic manor in the parish of St.Ouen (Jersey is divided into parishes, not counties) ran a lot longer than the segment included in the remote broadcast. Hence snippets of it will be played over the coming months on the air. Same for the organic Jersey dairy farmer Ian Mitchell, who was a live guest during the October 2nd remote but whose farm I visited the following day (see video below) and recorded more footage about the Jersey cow (a highly intelligent & unusally friendly animal) and its rich dairy product.

Henry Hills - SSS (video)

SSS is an video by experimental filmmaker Henry Hills. From the description:

SSS is composed from footage of movement improvised on the streets of pre-gentrified East Village by Sally Silvers, Pooh Kaye, Harry Shepperd, Lee Katz, Kumiko Kimoto, David Zambrano, Ginger Gillespie, Mark Dendy, and others, painstaking synched to music previously improvised for the project at Noise New York by Tom Cora (cello), Christian Marclay (turntables), and Zeena Parkins (harp). Beauty emerging from rubble.

Fiancée of Dracula - Jean Rollin (2002)

With a few notable exceptions (Stuart Gordon, Larry Cohen), my horror-auteur gods have been letting me down in recent years. Granted, artists like George A. Romero and Dario Argento are working with much bigger budgets, and greater public expectations than Jean Rollin has ever had to deal with, and maybe that, in and of itself, is partly the kiss of death for these comparative big shots.

Why do I consider myself a huge Rollin fan, yet I've never, until now, watched a film of his later than The Living Dead Girl (1982)? Maybe I didn't want to risk having the master of vampire chateaus, beguiling female malefactors, moody beach scenes and the darkly absurd shot down in my estimation. Boy was I wrong. It took the recommendation of WFMU / My Castle of Quiet super-listener Richard Ridden to coax me into taking a chance on Rollin's 2002 feature, Fiancée of Dracula, and I have nothing but good things to report.

First of all, it's amazing to me that the same, crumbling, ruined pier Rollin has been using as a location since the late 1960s has never been fixed up (perhaps that's French infrastructure for you), and in this film, he's used that craggy pier for one of his most compelling seaside visions ever. Secondly, the classic Rollin motif of grandfather clocks as a travel portal for the undead is employed here again, some 30 years after the director's phantasmagorical 1971 feature, Le frisson des vampires.

What other visual and conceptual delights fill out the body of Fiancée of Dracula? What say thee to a convent of mad nuns, who smoke pipes and cigars, don funnels and quote Jarry, and have a mean kick in the bargain? Or a salacious blonde ogress, who feeds on live infants? How about a mind-boggling scene—perhaps the best in the whole film—in which a nun, having been brutally slaughtered, suddenly rises up and carries around her own bleeding heart? All this and more, including a minor, but pivotal role, played by Rollin's long-time star, the lovely Brigitte Lahaie. I fear if I say too much, I will most certainly curb your surprise and pleasure in watching this film. It's enough to say that maestro Rollin has maintained the visual sense, absurdity, and moody, ethereal vibrations that have defined his filmmaking career from the very start.

Old Jersey vs. New Jersey: WFMU On Location

Billy Jam sez:

If you stop people on the streets of Jersey City and quiz them about the origins of the name of the Garden State, the majority will be unaware of the island of Jersey - the British Crown Dependency located in the Channel Islands off the coast of Normandy. I know because recently I did exactly this: I interviewed a sampling of Jersey City folks on the street near the WFMU studios (MP3). 

I will be playing back this vox pop on Friday (Oct 2nd) between 9am and 12 noon (NJ time) during the WFMU live remote broadcast from Weighbridge Square on the harbour-front in St Helier (Old Jersey's capitol), during day two of the four-day Branchage Film Festival in Old Jersey.

In addition to talking on the air with the film festival's director Xanthe Hamilton and many others about the festival that also involves music, I will be talking with several authorities on the relationship between Old Jersey and New Jersey. These will include Philip Malet de Carteret whose ancestors are literally responsible for New Jersey. Back in 1663 King Charles II rewarded the de Carterets for their loyalty during the Civil War by gifting them with a large tract of land in North America. That tract of land would become New Jersey.

Also to be interviewed will be Rod McLaughlin - an acclaimed Jersey historian who will speak on Jersey's status as a Crown Dependency, how it was once under French rule, its occupation by the Nazis, and its relationship to New Jersey. Jersey cow farmer Ian Mitchell, who will bring along samples of some dairy products derived from the rich creamy Jersey milk, will discuss Jersey's popular export.

And in conjunction with BBC Jersey, who are producing the festival's Shear Music showcase of local talent, I have invited numerous Old Jersey artists including Jjjiiim, Jersey Bob, and Wizard & Frog to come on the air live to perform. There are many more guests expected on this WFMU remote broadcast but who knows just what might happen on freeform FMU. Tune in to find out on Friday 9am to 12 noon (Doug's normal slot) on WFMU. For exact details on the Branchage Film Festival click here. And check back here on the WFMU blog for updates from Jersey on the Branchage Film Festival. 

- Billy Jam

RIP Arthur Ferrante

Arthur Ferrante, one half of the legendary piano duo Ferrante & Teicher, died last week at the age of 88, one year after his partner Louis Teicher passed away. While most of the later Ferrante & Teicher recordings are quite schmaltzy easy-listening fare, their early 1950s albums of prepared piano pop were masterpieces of the space age, goofy, inventive, catchy, and influenced by John Cage, something nobody had ever tried before. Here is a video of the song African Echoes from their 1956 album Soundproof (mono).

Originally, Soundproof was released in two different versions, stereo and mono, with completely different songs. To make the confusion complete, they concurrently released the album Soundblast, consisting of the same songs as the stereo version of Soundproof, but this time in mono. Negativland would have been proud of themselves had they had done this in the 1950s... And nobody should have lived without having heard their version of Tico Tico from Soundblast: Ferrante & Teicher - Tico Tico (mp3)

As an encore, here is Christian Marclay's remix-or-something of Ferrante and Teicher from his album More Encores: Christian Marclay - Ferrante & Teicher (mp3)

Bollywood Disco Dancer (video)

This could be filed under "Cheesy Euro-Disco" if only India was a part of Europe. But so it goes to show that Europe isn't the only continent producing cheesy disco videos. This clip is taken from the 1983 Bollywood movie Disco Dancer, a big success in India and the Soviet Union at the time.

YouTube: [link] (There is a higher quality version, too, and you will find more musical numbers from this film in the "related videos".)

Better Living Through Bad Movies - Werewolf Woman (1976)

I will happily wade through hours of 70s Euro muck just to get to one Werewolf Woman. For every three middling giallos that I watch, one Werewolf Woman makes it all worthwhile.

What makes Werewolf Woman stand apart from the pack (hehe)? Alchemy. Getting the horror-to-schlock preparation just right, with a combination of familiar and strikingly unique genre elements:

-Wild scenes of gore, ranging from the kick-ass to the comic, depicting shocking murders, perpetrated on victims of both sexes—by a female antagonist!
-A B-grade Morricone-esque score that's all over the map, from prog rock, to pulsating electronics, from creepy orchestral music to softcore sex pop
-A lead actress who clearly relished the opportunity to bite out a man's throat, throw his body into a ravine and shriek vengeful anger as his corpse rolled away
-Uncomfortably long, simulated scenes of lovemaking that somehow just go with the terrain and make me laugh
-Despite the above, a buyable sexual/repression/revenge subtext; in fact, there are several immensely weird sexual scenes
-Close-up shots of character's eyes, another European trash-horror staple that always makes me titter
-An eventual romance with a stuntman who lives in a pre-fab Western town—wait, what???

Yes, this is one of those....

The movie begins with a scream, cutting quickly to a frenzied, naked dance in a fire circle, and pretty much just ascends from there.

The film is also far from terrible technically, and it's obvious that the director and cinematographer knew how to create tension, and how to film scenes of horrific murder for maximum impact.

Highly recommended.

80s Action Movie Cliches Pt 3 & 4

Welcome back to my ongoing series exploring the mystique and joy of the 80s Action Film (approximately 1983 - 1992). This time, we feature two action film cliches.

First up is The Kick-Ass Fight Scene. This would be your classic mano-a-mano fight, with two guys toughing it out. I could have pulled clips together from almost every film of the era for this section, but really there is one scene that just says it all. And so, engaging in the awesomest buddy fight in cinema history, please enjoy Roddy Piper and Keith David in They Live.  

Which leads us nicely into our next cliche: Male Bonding and Homoerotic Subtext. Sure, you may argue that these scenes only seem homoerotic out of context, but even within the confines of tough guy macho Reagan-era action these moments really do play out like the love scenes that they are. The entire middle of this section is devoted to one film in particular, Showdown In Little Tokyo, which is so loaded with innuendo that I would actually recommend it for inclusion in any Gay & Lesbian Film Festival.

i love the segue

I love the segue.  I love to figure out which colors rock together (this summer is so yellow and magenta), which song picks up the tonality of the one previous, or the beat of the one previous to that.  What spicy flavor tastes best with what sugary flavor (have you tried mint and watermelon lately?).  Anyway, that said, I need to shout out about a huge problem in the world of movie theaters.  Why do the previews frequently have jack to do with the movie you have just paid to see?  If I am seated comfortably waiting for the credits to roll for "Julie & Julia", why are they showing me the trailer for "2012"?  What customer survey rates interest in Julia Child as overlapping with digital mayhem and seriously horrible acting?  I don't routinely tune in to the Mayan calendar, I thought we now used Fox news to predict the end of the world.  But according to Hollywood's copy of that ancient calendar, life as we know it will cease to twitter in 2012.  That's the year when the great CGI gods will transubstantiate giant buildings into melting piles of screaming rock and flesh.  I was surprised to see John Cusack had sunk so low that he is now co-starring with digital destruction.  And the destruction gets top billing.  Perhaps this has something to do with John Hughes' untimely death...

Upon closer inspection the trailers that day seemed to be broken up into two staggeringly awful categories.  Films made for dudes with an insatiable need for destruction and cars that go boom vs. films for chicks that love to weep in front of the Lifetime channel.   A silent scream is now filling the cinema in my head.  How did we fall this far from "Taxi Driver"?  Hollywood has determined that the Lowest Common Denominator here is adrenaline vs. weepy emotion.  I don't fit into either of those categories, as I am sure many people don't.  Do smart people not go to the cinema?  It seems we are obliged to merely rent old films and watch them in the quiet of our Netflix kingdoms. 

The next step is to ask you, the lovely reader, to suggest one or more of your favorite films from Hollywood's past that you imagine could never get made today.   Today being the era of Hollywood where ever more the choice of what movie to make is based on blockbuster potential instead of interesting plot.  I can't imagine "Touch of Evil" getting made in today's Hollywood.  The visuals alone in that movie are worth watching it over and over.  What's your pick?

Telecult Powers live set, 22nd July 2009

To say that Telecult Powers are a band after my own heart is to wallow in understatement. These guys brought me a double DVD of Asian horror, a red skull candle, and a copy of their latest tape. (Let it be known that I respond very favorably to such thoughtful tribute.) Then, they proceeded to carefully set up their home-built gear (which, by the way, made it into the building in one trip—no double-parking of car required!) Then, we rolled, and Telecult Powers proceeded to open a fissure in reality.

Telecult Powers are Mister Matthews and Witchbeam, synthesists extraordinaire, who very unassumingly make some of the best electronic music I've heard since MB or Con. Their sound pulls together so many things I like—soft noise, harsh noise, Krautrock, and occult electronics to name only a few—that their visit to My Castle of Quiet really just amounted to destiny fulfilled. I was gratified to have Mister Matthews write me the next morning and refer to the radio session as "some of our finest work yet," as their tapes are pretty fuckin' swell too (and packaged in Witchbeam's colorful, digital/occult/LSD illustrations.) These guys are just beginning to hit their stride...and they tell me there's some new vinyl coming soon.

Here is the entire Telecult Powers / My Castle of Quiet session, to download and enjoy, ideally by oscillating candlelight:

The Tushita Heaven
The Golden Shrine of Michael Aquarius

Live audio covered by a creative commons attribution-non commercial-no derivatives license.

Pneumershonic - The Mark of the Beast (video)

This is a shortened web version of Mark Jasper's documentary The Mark of the Beast about outsider musician Pneumershonic, grabbed from YouTube.

You can read more about Pneumershonic and download his album Frequencies of the Beast, in this earlier post of mine. If you want to obtain the DVD with the whole documentary, your best bet would be to contact Matt Jasper via the MySpace page.

This Week In Crossdressing: Manbras, Drug Addict Aliens and Pickle Surprise!

For a minute there I thought Japanese culture was odd.  Mostly because of facial saline implants.  Now I know they are visionaries, all of them - man bras have become a very hot (and hotly debated) item in Japan.  The Reuters report on the top left covers the emerging trand (you like that pun?).  On the top right is the trailer from a cult classic, 1982's Liquid Sky, about aliens who get high off of the endorphins in the brains of of heroin addicted models.  Anne Carlisle stars as both a male and female junkie models.  Fans of cinematic camp will be equally pleased by the film as fans of minimal synth - watch this scene and you'll understand.

Tom Rubnitz was known in the 1980s as a central artistic figure in NYC Village's drag queen scene.  His short on the bottom left, Pickle Surprise, features none other than RuPaul.  A whole bunch of his other videos are up on Youtube.  Bottom left are some highlights of an episode of Ring My Bell, a transexually themed internet call in show that tends to get pretty wild.  Is it too late in the post to say these videos aren't safe for work?

80s Action Movie Cliches Pt 2: The Diabolical Villain

Welcome to Part Two of my ongoing series exploring the mystique and joy of the 80s Action Film (approximately 1983 - 1992). Last time I presented some a selection of witty (and heroic) retorts, and now we continue the other side of the hero's journey: the villains.

And so, here are some moments from a rogues gallery of usually big-named actors who got a healthy paycheck for chewing up the scenery: from Major Dad Coach kicking karate ass, to Ben Gazzara kneeing a minion in the groin, to little-person tough guy Daniel Frishman (not the same actor from Head of the Class, obviously), to Lance Henriksen delivering one of the best bad-guy lines of all time. Though the baddest bad-guy of all has to be the last clip featured here, with legendary character actor Richard Lynch (oh so memorable to 80s film buffs for his role in The Sword and The Sorcerer). Now that guy takes evil to an all new level.  

Anyone care to name all the films?

Bingo!

 

Here's a nice little 8mm documentary about Grandma Belasco and her bingo habit.

80s Action Movie Cliches: The Witty Retort

Last year a friend loaned me his copy of Commando, the Arnold Schwarzenegger action film that may be the most pure and concise example of the manly-man manness that typified the action movies of my teenage years. I had never seen the film before, because during the rise of the Reagan-era Hollywood action hero I was too busy watching David Lynch films and being all arty and shit. Little did I know what I had been missing.

And so, I hit up the video rental store and filled my Netflix queue with nothing but action movies from those formative years (approximately 1983 - 1992, my cut off date being a combination of the influence of Terminator 2 and the rise of Michael Bay, which I think lead to a new era of action films that were more action-effects-explosion driven). For two months my brain was crammed with nothing but testosterone, ass whoopins, gun play, and witty quips. I decided to share a little of what I learned from this experience by putting together a few examples of the best of what the 80s Action Movies really have to offer.

Here is part one of a continuing series, which features a sampling of some of my favorite (and iconic) witty retorts. I'm sure I missed some good ones (and some I held back on purpose for use in upcoming videos), so please chime in with your own favorites in the comments.

If you would like a full rundown of the films of the era, check out the Ruthless Reviews Guide to 80s Action, which was pretty much my bible while submerging myself in the blood and guts and guns and muscles of the Reagan era hero.

SFL Mid-Season Review

The Summer Fun List is one of DJ Kelly’s more genius ideas: Sometime in late spring you make a list of all the fun things you want to do during the upcoming summer, so that the whole season doesn’t fly past without your having done anything fun at all. (This is especially useful for former Midwestern Protestants such as myself, who tend to forget that “fun” is not the same thing as “evil.” Or maybe it is, and that’s why it feels so jolly. But I don’t wanna get all philosophical about it now.) A few weeks ago I was feeling pretty unhappy about something and I drew a big X across the Summer Fun List page and wrote “KILL MYSELF” instead, but I’m sort of over that now, so I figured I’d take another look. Plus, it finally got sunny for three days in a row, and it’s starting to feel a little bit like summer at last. Here’s what’s on my SFL this year:

UConn Puppet Museum
Rosendale (more bees?)
Fireworks
Yankees game
Bruno
Musical Saw Festival
Book Arts Lounge and/or Class
Bacon Retrospective (& other art)

So far, this has not been a particularly successful SFL season. I used to try to go to one Yankees game a year, but now that tickets cost more than I make in a month, I won’t be doing that. And because of Global Economic Change, there weren’t any 4th of July fireworks anywhere near where I live: All the usual displays were canceled. So Sluggo and I went up on a hill near our house and looked down the Hudson toward New York City and saw just the tippy-top of the Macy’s fireworks—we wouldn’t see anything for two or three minutes, and then there’d be a little puff of red light, and then nothing for another couple of minutes, and then some silvery sparkles. Even though I tried as hard as I could, I wasn’t able to convince myself that it was actually “fun.” And I have been SO looking forward to this year’s Musical Saw Festival on Saturday, July 18. I went last year, and it was truly fantastic. I heard Satie’s “Gymnopedie” performed by a musical saw and the Trinity handbell choir, and I am not kidding when I say that it was life-changing. Seriously. It was great, and weird, and great-and-weird, and I have been looking forward to going again for a whole year—and I have an unavoidable conflict that day and can’t go. But you should. It’s in Astoria, it costs only $10, and this year they’re going to try to break the Guinness World Record for “largest musical saw ensemble.” This is a musical event I sincerely recommend for any WFMU Listener, so add it to your Summer Fun List and go.

That’s the disappointments so far, but there’s been some surprise fun, too. Sluggo and I got invited to cocktails at the penthouse residence of an ambassador to the U.N., which was clearly some kind of mistake but we went anyway and had a very nice time. We also went to the “Agitprop!” Book Arts Lounge at the Center for Book Arts, where we talked about Russian constructivist advertising art with polymath poet Mr. Jeremy James Thompson and letterpressed some little flyers that say “Money is No Object.” I got to take the “Brown Bag Bindery” class, too, and built my own piercing cradle, sewing frame, and finishing press. Sylvia Alotta, the teacher, used to be an industrial designer for GM, and has come up with the most beautiful, functional, simple designs for binding equipment. She is my new hero, and almost makes me want to move to Chicago just so I could study with her there. (*Almost.*) Now I’m looking forward to the “Embroidered Bindings” Book Arts Lounge on August 14. Maybe I’ll see you there.

My friend Miss Manytitles has arranged for me to attend a free screening of Bruno with her this week, but the movie I’m really looking forward to seeing is ROBOGEISHA. Here's the trailer, so you will want to see it too. OMG, I have to see it! My Grammy Carlton used to say, “The world is so full of a number of things, I’m sure we should all be as happy as kings,” and when there are movies like Robogeisha in the world, I think she was right.

Thanks for reading my blogpost this time, and may God bless.

"You all know me. You know what I do for a living."

Hello, Chris T. here. I'll be filing in tonight for Shut Up, Weirdo in the old Aerial View time-slot, 6 - 7 PM. What's the topic? "Chris T'.s Bargain Bin". With our current economic crisis on everyone's mind, my wife Janet and I will help you save a few bucks while having a few yucks...

Man, how often in life do you get to use the word "yucks"?

I'd also like to get just one person to re-enact the greatest scene from the greatest Summer movie of all, the Indianapolis speech from JAWS. I'll provide the music and sound effects, you channel your inner Captain Quint. Here's the speech:

Aboard the Orca:

Matt Hooper (Richard Dreyfus) - "You were on the Indianapolis?"

Police Chief Martin Brody (Roy Scheider) - "What happened?"

Quint (Robert Shaw) - "Japanese submarine slammed two torpedoes into her side, Chief. We was comin' back from the island of Tinian to Leyte. We'd just delivered the bomb. The Hiroshima bomb. Eleven hundred men went into the water. Vessel went down in 12 minutes.

Didn't see the first shark for about a half-hour. Tiger. 13-footer. You know how you know that in the water, Chief? You can tell by lookin' from the dorsal to the tail. What we didn't know, was that our bomb mission was so secret, no distress signal had been sent. They didn't even list us overdue for a week. Very first light, Chief, sharks come cruisin' by, so we formed ourselves into tight groups. It was sorta like you see in the calendars, you know the infantry squares in the old calendars like the Battle of Waterloo and the idea was the shark come to the nearest man, that man he starts poundin' and hollerin' and sometimes that shark he go away... but sometimes he wouldn't go away.

Sometimes that shark looks right at ya. Right into your eyes. And the thing about a shark is he's got lifeless eyes. Black eyes. Like a doll's eyes. When he comes at ya, he doesn't even seem to be livin'... 'til he bites ya, and those black eyes roll over white and then... ah then you hear that terrible high-pitched screamin'. The ocean turns red, and despite all your poundin' and your hollerin' those sharks come in and... they rip you to pieces.

You know by the end of that first dawn, lost a hundred men. I don't know how many sharks there were, maybe a thousand. I do know how many men, they averaged six an hour. Thursday mornin', Chief, I bumped into a friend of mine, Herbie Robinson from Cleveland. Baseball player. Bosun's mate. I thought he was asleep. I reached over to wake him up. He bobbed up, down in the water, like a kinda top. Upended. Well, he'd been bitten in half below the waist.

At noon on the fifth day, a Lockheed Ventura swung in low and he spotted us, a young pilot, lot younger than Mr. Hooper here, anyway he spotted us and a few hours later a big ol' fat PBY come down and started to pick us up. You know that was the time I was most frightened. Waitin' for my turn. I'll never put on a lifejacket again. So, eleven hundred men went into the water. 316 men come out, the sharks took the rest, June the 29th, 1945.

Anyway, we delivered the bomb."