Crossroads

So I've had this business idea since college...

I think it would be really cool to open up an art gallery that turns into a lounge in the evening. The art would still stay up, but the mood of the lounge and the kind of music played would correspond to the style of the artist(s) displayed in the exhibition. They could rotate out every 2-3 weeks to keep the mood fresh.

I like to imagine that people who are attracted to new, interesting art also have tendencies - or at least, an open mind - toward non-mainstream, experimental music, and vice versa. Speaking as someone with synesthesia, I have always attributed images and colors to sounds, moods, and words; the numeral "4" is green, Nelly Furtado's voice is magenta, Autechre's "vose in" is a dark textile of a repeating filigree...like wallpaper. You could say my brain has a built-in universal translator that encodes all incoming sense perceptions as images, even if a bit fuzzy. It's a cool effect. Trust me.

But anyway, back to the original idea. A huge part of its appeal is the routine mental challenge I would get in mating visual art and music; not only would I be interpreting the creators' messages, but I would be doing so through another medium entirely - and a firsthand sensory one at that for the sake of the audience. I wouldn't be creating anything from scratch, but the reciprocity of what each medium can give to the other creates ... an Escher-like back-and-forth, if I were to paint a picture for you, that takes on an experience of its own. A polygon becomes a crane. A shuffling beat looks like a brushstroke. In marriage, they become something just a bit different.

I'll conclude this with an example of what I mean.

Enjoy.

Muscial Artist: Alva Noto
Album: Transform






Francois Morellet. "6 chance divisions of 4 black and white squares from odd and even numbers generated by Pi." 1958

















Sol LeWitt. "Serial Project #1, from Aspen 5+6." 1966
















Richard Serra. "Path and Edge #12." 2007

Singularity

I feel a vivid joy soaking into me,

being whipped out of me, fooling me

into thinking they are sensations different altogether.

I let the roiling afternoon clouds rile me up.

On the balcony, eye level is where those translucent

ombré fists – bright white, graying smudge, dirtied cotton –

nudge their way into the oily greens of the tree line,

intruding gently without guilt,

rippling verdant scales with

an infectious, tittering flutter.

Glissandos fan, its keys perk up my skin,

as liquid as the sky is blue.

Leaning into the edge, I feel the railing

restrain and hold me back from that saturated, maddening bliss.

It is the lure of being dashed into a million pieces,

joining a million leaves, back into the earth.

(August 2009)

Winter, Kiss My Giant Ass

This week I've been seized by the paradoxically titillating and paralyzing thrill of baseball beginning and Star Trek on the horizon.

First things first -

Yes, the Phillies are defending World Champions, and no, they still can't win a non-post-season game that's broadcast nationally. It's not that we don't do well under pressure because last September we ripped it up pretty damn hard. But pretty much unless Harry Kalas is speaking directly to local fans through the t.v. screen, it seems like the game is going to go to the other team. Also, as Manuel pointed out, the pre-game WC celebratory hoopla was a big distraction for players that thrive on consistency.

Bottom line is: good for the Braves that they looked good on opening day. For the first time since helping the Dodgers lose hold of the postseason last year (and to the Phils, no less), Derek Lowe gets to smile and feel like a big boy again, Smelly Johnson didn't commit any cringeworthy goofs, and Jeff Francoeur's hip swivel changes from last season were all that the ESPN commentators could talk about. I don't give a crap because winter is really over (unless you're in Chicago and your opening day got snowed out), and baseball is baaaaaack.

OK, now for the other thing that's really getting me in a tizzy.

Have you seen the trailers for Star Trek?

Have you?!

It's like God took all of my secret unmentionable fantasies and wove them together with his dextrous surgeon fingers into a visual (and I'm sure excellent storytelling) orgy that, come May 8 for $9.50, I can request to have explode directly into my face. And the fact that J.J. is directing this - J.J. of those Alias nights when I fell to my knees screaming his name in frustration over another edge-of-my-seat cliffhanger, J.J. of a little show called "Lost" known to about 99% of the U.S. population - is just enough to make me go completely, out-of-my-mind, on goofballs, crazy.

It's too much. All this in one week, it's just too much.

It Was a Very Good Year

Possibly my last complete year in Philadelphia, 2008 will always be remembered as one of the first fullest years in my memory. Replete with historically long-awaited events, new beginnings, travel, and my first true appreciation and awareness of the short-lived moments of one's life, my 2008 is documented here with photographs of the highlights.

Spring 2008

















This photograph does not do justice the freshness and potential of spring, but it was one that I had been itching to take for weeks when the weather started getting warm. For me, the strongest sensation brought by spring was the gradual but tangible excitement of the children in my kindergarten classroom. Their restlessness was infectious, and it was an upstream swim to keep them focused. Especially when I knew that this would be my last season in a classroom.

In March, Grundton was afflicted with a serious bladder infection that luckily was caught and dealt with before its damage progressed. After weeks of antibiotic treatment and worry, the infection finally went away, and Chris and I were able to enjoy the season again, both indoors


March 2008, Caribou @ Johnny Brenda's
April 2008, Autechre @ Transit

and out.


Spring 2008, Narberth & Ardmore (Philadelphia suburbs)

It can be easy to take for granted the ephemeral beauty of the transitional seasons. I don't know whether I was truly touched by the lushness of the Pennsylvania arboreal landscape, or felt that something in me would be lost along with the delicate petals of spring as the heat of summer swept in. Whatever the reason, for the first time, I felt obligated to take photos of a season.

April also kicked off baseball season. It was an unsettling feeling to watch a team that I only marginally recognized. With Jimmy Rollins injured at the start of the season, Eric Bruntlett played shortstop and Geoff Jenkins and Pedro Feliz would be new fielders. Aaron Rowand had gone to the Giants, who would barely make a blip on baseball's radar that season. Of course, the fruits of the 2008 season for the Phillies would not be enjoyed for several more months.

To be continued...