The life of Pete Seeger inspired a lot of wonderful words this week — eulogies, appreciations, retrospectives, think pieces, memories from Arlo, one singularly stupendous comic strip — and I could write a lot more. I’ll keep my belated memories brief, because Woody Guthrie’s own summation of his friend, below, is just about the best thing worth reading (and reading aloud) in remembrance of one of the greatest cultural figures this country ever produced, a living archive of every generation thus far of American folk music.
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My favorite former newspaper co-workers share lists of their favorite 10 movies each year. I hardly keep up with current film, and my participation has compensated in the past by being overly creative with my lists. Considering that I just chucked my journalism career to pursue a Ph.D., for whatever the hell it’s worth, here are 10 films and film-ish bits I saw this year — a few of them definitely not from 2013 — that are somehow related to the virtual performance, human-computer interaction, digital projection branch of my evolving research interests …
“Robot and Frank” From 2012. Nifty tale, if awkwardly constructed on screen. Frank Langella is an old burglar with advancing dementia. His family buys him a humanoid robot (with advanced AI, and Peter Sarsgaard’s smooooooth voice) as an assistant and companion, then alibi and accomplice. Can a human bond with a machine? More importantly, can the opposite happen? Even more importantly, is the love interest with Susan Sarandon somehow unnerving…? Life is great like this: I spent an afternoon this week unpacking the remainder of my library (delayed, as often happens, months after moving in), and basking in the intense comfort of having treasured volumes once again within reach; then, I sat down with a well-earned cocktail and opened Illuminations, a collection of Walter Benjamin essays recently added to my to-read shelf — and what to my wondering eyes should appear but the anthology’s first selection: “Unpacking My Library.”
I’m no longer a full-time critic, but a lifelong reflex still kicks in each December: gotta make my year’s top 10 list! So, for whate’er ‘tis worth, for whomever may still care: personal and critical faves from 2013 … Janelle Monae, “Electric Lady” (Atlantic) You might not think an Afrofuturist sci-fi concept album would be an easy project to follow up, but Janelle Monae — literally and figuratively — didn’t lose the plot on this year’s “The Electric Lady,” the continuation of the “electro-sophista-funky-cated” world of oppressed but soulful androids introduced on 2011’s flawless “The ArchAndroid” (my list-topper in 2011) She doesn’t just keep the narrative and groove going, she brings an elegance to it. This sophomore effort comes front-loaded with entertaining guest stars, from Prince to Solange, though they’re needless next to Monae’s natural and formidable songwriting and vocal talents. Yet another album for brain and booty. (Read more) Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi is the patron saint of finals weeks. The psyche prof developed the concept of the “flow” state. (Watch his TED about it.) You know it as being “in the zone” — that state of concentration where you become so deeply involved in an activity that you lose time. Csikszentmihalyi described it as being “completely involved in an activity for its own sake. The ego falls away. Time flies.” Flow is essentially an intense but positive and creative feeling of presence (Heeter, 2003). If, like me, you’re writing papers right now, flow-ing is where you want to be.
For this writer, background music has become essential to reining in my limbic system and achieving something like Csikszentmihalyi’s flow state. To that end, I’ve found a few resources pretty indispensable this year. “The difficulty is not getting bored with the central character.” This was Morrissey’s response last year to my question about the progress of his memoir. He was speaking as the author, though one might wonder if the same experience now can be said for the reader.
To be sure, the book is rarely boring. UCSD’s theater dept. is mounting a production of “The Grapes of Wrath” this month — Frank Galati’s superlative stage adaptation of John Steinbeck’s landmark novel. Galati won a pair of Tonys after initially bringing this story to the stage at Chicago’s Steppenwolf Theatre Co., and my former colleague, theater critic Hedy Weiss, described the adaptation’s faithfulness to the source material as “not only uncompromising, but devoid of sentimentality, and that it is flawless in the way it sweeps us into the lives of the characters, and their time, without a wasted word or motion.” Hard to go wrong with source material this great.
Just a couple of weeks ago, I was hanging with the Joads myself. A playlist of virtual pop stars (click here for full list)
Drawn from one of the historical sections of my research, here’s a hopscotch through six decades of virtual pop stars (non-corporeal, mediatized characters presented as a singular musical performer, whether an individual or group) you may or may not have encountered: 1. Alvin & the Chipmunks, commercial (1960) 2. The Impossibles, cartoon bump (1966) 3. The Archies, “Sugar, Sugar” (1969) 4. The Beagles, “Foreign Legion Flops” (1969) 5. The Banana Splits, theme song (1969) 6. Josie & the Pussycats, theme song (1970) 7. Silicon Teens, “Memphis, Tennessee” (1979) 8. Max Headroom, on “Late Night With David Letterman” (1986) 9. California Raisins, commercial (1986) 10. Jem & the Holograms, “Real Me” (1987) 11. Prozzäk, “Sucks to Be You” (1998) 12. Gorillaz, “Clint Eastwood” (2001) 13. One-T, “The Magic Key” (2003) 14. Vbirds, “Virtuality” (2003) 15. Crazy Frog, “Axel F” (2005) 16. Pikku Orava, “Maalaispoika oon” (2006) 17. Mistula, “Baptized” (2008) 18. Dethklok, “Go Forth and Die” (2008) 19. Hatsune Miku, “World Is Mine” (2008) 20. Studio Killers, “Eros and Apollo” (2012) 21. ODB hologram @ Rock the Bells (2013) In four decades I haven’t tired of Gene Simmons’ tongue as much as I’ve grown sick of seeing Miley Cyrus’ in the last four weeks. While I’d rather let her lick me than contribute any words about her ballyhooed but belabored and rather pathetic attempt at reinvention, I’d at least like to thank her for contributing to the great week I’ve had. Seeing all these photos of Cyrus skanking around with her faux flat-top and wagging tongue reminded me of one of my New Wave touchstones, Grace Jones (and obviously a new inspiration for Miley, though perhaps for the wrong reasons), which sent me spelunking back through her wonderfully snarling but celebratory catalog.
My early days as a rock scribe pre-dated most indoor smoking bans. I used to keep a separate wardrobe of club clothes — stuff I didn’t mind getting infused with ashtray aromas, since even repeated tumbles in the wash didn’t remove the smell completely. I stopped smoking at the dawn of the ’90s, but my transition was made easier by working within the clubs’ secondhand cloud. When I was a critic again in Chicago the last few years, it was always strange to be seeing a band clearly and exiting the club not reeking of cigarettes.
Nathan Jurgenson (he of the smart arguments against dualisms of online-offline, virtual-real, live-mediatized) recently tweeted: “lol-op-ed idea: ‘the rock club’s cigarette-haze has been replaced by screens & now we’re all coughing in the digitality.’” Funny, but true — and perhaps a useful metaphor: the eversion of cyberspace is an exhalation, a long stream of bits billowing into our various environments, from the backrooms of clubs to the backseats of cabs. Janelle Monae’s latest jams have been lighting up my social media feeds with exclamations of joyous discovery. Glad to know the girl’s finally getting around. Easily one of the most talented artists my generation has seen thus far, Monae has suffered a bit from exactly that kind of sudden, superlative praise. As Pitchfork noted in its review of Monae’s newest LP, “The Electric Lady,” “She arrived so thoroughly anointed by so many key figures in the entertainment industry that it has sometimes felt pointless to try and touch her.”
Two more dead rappers were resurrected this weekend: N.W.A.’s Eazy-E (died of AIDS complications in 1995) and Wu-Tang’s Ol’ Dirty Bastard (OD’d in 2004). Using the same technology that brought Tupac Shakur to the Coachella stage last year, both late MCs reappeared as simulated holograms to perform alongside their surviving cohorts at the L.A. stop of the Rock the Bells hip-hop tour.
An astute critic I know recently reminisced about the particular genius of Elton John’s 1975 album “Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy,” and it sent me reeling back through what is easily the peak artistic achievement of John and his lyricist Bernie Taupin. Sure the album was a hit (the first LP to debut at No. 1 on Billboard’s pop chart) but the scale of John’s eventual career — writing the very consumer-driven treacle he disparages on this album — has somewhat overshadowed its majestic legacy. A snobbish question: Does it take a writer to truly appreciate this album about writing?
The first time I saw Hatsune Miku in concert, I started scribbling notes. “It’s Rei Toei!!” was the first thing I wrote. That was the 2011 Live in Sapporo show, simulcast to movie theaters in nine U.S. cities. Last weekend, celebrating the Japanese digital idol’s sixth birthday (well, her sixth 16th birthday…), Miku’s Magical Mirai concert was broadcast on delay to just two cities here (LA and NYC) — but the show was a remarkable improvement and a blockbuster performance all around. I couldn’t help but scribble more notes, including this possibly more telling one as Miku appeared with a guitar: “Transformation to Madonna complete.”
Hatsune Miku turns 6 this month, the ol’ gal, and she’s celebrating with another global simulcast concert event — the Magical Mirai 2013, a concert at Yokohama Arena broadcast on delay to movie theaters around the world, including Los Angeles and New York. Fans gather in each venue to watch the same show at the same time — a world tour without the performer having to travel. But why is a “hologram” like Miku the only performer regularly doing this?
Because she can, of course. Digitally animated performers like Miku, or 2.0Pac from last year’s Coachella, aren’t actual 3D holograms — but they aspire to be. As such, they’re paving the way for a future (not necessarily the future) of live concerts. They hint at the possibility of one day alleviating the extraordinary stress of touring, for both musicians (oy, the schlepping) and fans (the sound sucks, the sightlines suck, the beer sucks, and would y’all shut up and please put your freaking phones down?). The alternative: intimate shows for those who want to be there, and beaming it into living rooms — seriously beaming it, in 3D — for those who don’t. |
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I'm THOMAS CONNER, Ph.D. in Communication (Science Studies) and culture journalist. Archives
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