Traveling Mobile Arts Platform — for SF Weekly

​When art comes into a public space, it's got to be accessible, right? And if its creators hope to invigorate a community, the experience has to operate at multiple scales, from the intimate to the universal. All this is understood by the people behind the Mobile Arts Platform (MAP), a traveling communal art space that for the past year has rolled up to neighborhood street festivals to bring art to the people, pop-up style.

MAP specializes in alternative ways to experience art in everyday life. Two interactive sculptures -- conceived and transported by artists Peter Foucault and Chris Treggiari -- are brought to festivals and the streets outside of galleries.

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Miranda July: A Beginner's Guide to the Artist, Writer, Filmmaker, and The Future — for SF Weekly

​This Thursday at SFMoMA, Miranda July will introduce her second feature-length film, The Future, a highly anticipated "antiromance" about a couple contemplating cat adoption and all its looming responsibility. This seemingly simple decision comes to seem terrifying, inspiring them to fixate on (and seek out) the lives they've always wanted but not yet achieved. It even encourages transgressions.

Full of quirky devices, such as voiceover from the soon-to-be-adopted cat, conversations with the moon, and one character's ability to freeze time, The Future heightens reality as only Miranda July can -- with that humanity that distinguishes the whole of her output.

Although her people are eccentric, terrifying, and misguided by their odd logic, they are still deserving of empathy, symbolic of our softer selves maybe: the me of me, the you of you. They are characters who mishandle their relationships, live their lives awkwardly, but go on trying, because: why not? Hers are characters who go on after all, and if they can do it, how can we be so wrong?

July does what she does without force but with conviction. Her avant-garde experimentation, and tendency for whimsy may come off as frivolous, twee, or self-indulgent to some of her critics. (How is it that when artists go on being artists, we balk when they appear to have indulged themselves?)For the haters and lovers alike, this cheat sheet on Miranda July (which is in no-way an exhaustive list), and her unrelentingly heartfelt works - this is for you.

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Sarah Palin, Accidental Poet: A Triumph from San Francisco's Byliner — for SF Weekly

​Anticipation has built since Byliner debuted in April with Jon Krakauer's "Three Cups of Deceit," an investigative piece on Nobel Peace Prize nominee Greg Mortenson's fabricated humanitarian efforts. The San Francisco-based publisher launched its full website just last month, going in strong with a heady topic and a serious mandate: to be a new source for long-form journalism, to hearten the blaze for the stories that matter.

But -- not all writers are created equal. Along with an impressive compendium of long-form journalism and politically charged pieces branded as Byliner Originals, one project stands out against the Krakauer investigation, a deep-dive into the Civil War, and a post-tsunami report of life in Japan.

The writer is Sarah Palin: the accidental poet.

First, let's get a little Workshop 101 and agree to say that there are all kinds of poetry, right? As many as there are good poets. The duty of the critic is to examine and evaluate, and when there's nothing really left to be said, often the type of poetry we still regard as "good" has at least this single, distinct quality about it: tension.

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Naked Girls Reading — for SF Weekly

In a city abundant with literary events, one must wonder: how do you keep an audience listening with rapt attention? You'd suppose disrobing would detract, would draw eyes below the collarbone, which for brief moments, it did, but Sunday night's Naked Girls Reading series demonstrated that nudity, when recontextualized, can be normalized into a sex-positive approach to public reading with a witty approach to sexuality.

Naked Girls Reading is a group of beautiful ladies who love to read without a stitch of clothing, save for a pair of rainbow knee-highs or a belly dancer's belt shimmying and jangling up to the mic. It originated in Chicago two years ago as a spontaneous moment between founder Michelle L'amour and her partner Franky Vivid where the husband caught the wife naked in repose with book in hand. The two agreed that there was something powerful and beautiful about the breast beside the book.

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Steve Albini on Mario Batali, Ham, Slider-Lust, Olive Oil, and Why Cooking Isn't at All Like Engineering a Record (Except Maybe It Is) — for SF Weekly

Legendary audio engineer (don't call him a producer) and Shellac frontman Steve Albini eschews name-brand technology in the studio, despises digital. He's analog; this is common knowledge, championing the visceral over the virtual. As a stalwart traditionalist, he's as uncompromising in his opinions on music as he is about food. At the end of March, he started (or, as it's been revealed, wifey Heather started) a food blog to chronicle the dishes he serves her, as told in the canon of famed chef Mario Batali. The blog, mariobatalivoice, encapsulates the Albini tenets of good eating: to forgo the use of any extraneous ingredients or instruments and to respect the craft. Hell, he can spin gold out of copper coil; how hard can it be to eyeball olive oil and egg yolk to perfection? He spoke with us to discuss his stance on food, and though he finds no correlation between his cooking process and sound recording, there's something to be said about a man whose treble crunch is as fundamentally simple yet compelling as the culinary craft he's taken on.

What spurred the idea to document everything you cook for Heather on mariobatalivoice?

It came about in a kind of organic way. When I would make her dinner, she'd take a picture of the plate of food and post it on her Facebook account. And then I started adding in the comments section in her photos a description of what I had made her in a kind of mimic of the way Mario Batali would present his food on his TV shows. That's the way I would bring it to her. I would present the food to her and describe it, mimicking Mario Batali's voice. So on her Facebook page, I started using a little HTML tag to close the comments to signify that I was shutting off the Mario Batali voice. So it would be like "bracket slash Mario Batali voice bracket". It was basically an inside joke. I would imitate Mario Batali when I was presenting her the food, and then she started the blog one day. I don't really know why. Just as a place to take pictures of all the food I'd been making her. In almost every way, my wife is responsible for me having a food blog. This gives me an excuse to write a more detailed descriptions of the food I've been making for her.

And you skew more towards Italian foods; is it the Batali influence? What's with all the Italian food?

My heritage is Italian, and most of the foods I had when I was a kid growing up were Italian, so I see food through an Italian food lens. And also, pasta is just really versatile, very quick to prepare. Most of the time, I have to make a meal fairly quickly or, at the very least, I'm making a meal at the end of the day to feed both of us, and I don't want to drag the process out. I also just feel like there's a lot of room to work with pasta; all the different shapes of pasta have different utility. I don't feel like there's anything you couldn't do with pasta. You can make a soup or a dessert or a main course or a salad or almost anything. And I can serve it immediately as opposed to stuff that requires any preparation.

And you don't own any cooking tools; you just eyeball everything?

Yeah, I don't really own any measuring equipment. I suppose somewhere in the bowels of the kitchen there are probably a set of teaspoons or measuring cups that somebody sent me as a Christmas present, but I've never used them...

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The Thrill of the Chase: Heather Shouse’s Hunt for America’s Best Food Trucks — for Poor Taste

Some foods are so delicious, a journey to the end of the earth would be a dietary mandate, or, on a smaller scope, would necessitate a cross-country road trip. Food is the impetus that makes us mobile; the hunter-gatherer in us tells us so. Traveling across the United States to find the best kitchens on wheels, author Heather Shouse captures a moment in time, during this new wave of food truck fever, to tell the stories of the people trucking along with their talents and traditions in tow.

Anyone who thrills to the chase of tracking down a kimchi quesadilla or a crème brûlée crepe should pack Shouse’s Food Trucks: Dispatches and Recipes from the Best Kitchens on Wheels, when embarking on the trek. Part travel companion, cookbook, and counterculture history book, Food Trucks delivers on more than 100 trucks and carts from coast-to-coast. By no means is it an exhaustive compendium, Shouse advises, as new trucks are coming and going, menus are rotating, and permits are changing, but it is a selective source. “I wanted to find distinct concepts and make sure the trucks weren’t duplicative,” says Shouse, a senior food and drink correspondent for Time Out Chicago and bona fide BBQ judge. But the most important thing was that the food she found had to be delicious. Inclusion in the book meant each truck had to meet Shouse’s criteria of serving signature, delicious dishes and being run by people with a story to tell.

In North Hollywood, she met Hortenzia Hernandez, the Oaxacan woman in her early sixties working the pestle and mortar at Antojitos Mi Abuelita. When asked for her mole recipe for the book, Hernandez declined. “That one is sacred,” Shouse explains. “People come every week just for her Oaxacan recipe.”...

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The “Do Something Reel” Film Festival: The Vanishing of the Bees — for Poor Taste

Throughout the country, honeybee colonies have been disappearing. Not only is this cause for concern over losing another species, but it devastates our plant life. “One of the most important parts of nature [is] pollination,” narrates actress Ellen Page (Juno) sweetly and sensitively over the opening of the eco-doc, The Vanishing of the Bees, as the list of crops that rely on the honeybee is a long one.

Steady shots capture the flights of the colonies in startling detail so that the big, inelegant viewer watches in amazement how a bee flickers its wings, pulls the pollen from the petal with static electricity, and holds it to its fluff. Shot with whimsy, these moments achieve artfully the goal of portraying the bees as beautiful, enduring creatures.

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Head of the Table: An Interview with Foodies Writer and Director — for Poor Taste

Today, the first installment of the new web series Foodies premieres. The pilot opens with a man sitting in his car, inhaling fast food like a dirty secret before arriving to a dinner club where the guests are eager to whip out their phones and snap pictures of a Wonder Bread consommé. We feel for him. The series is about a group of L.A. gourmands who come together to show off their culinary chops with absurd flare, each perhaps jockeying for place at the head of the table. They explore the pretensions of food culture, as with lead Danny Domenica’s (as played by Daniel Franzese of Mean Girls) pompous attempt to make the mundane into the molecular with his deconstructed peanut butter and jelly. One recipe by Tom (Jefferey Self) ventures into the repulsive with a durian fruit tart, which if you know anything from watching Bizarre Foods with Andrew Zimmern, it’s one of the few flavors the daring glutton cannot stomach. Tom’s ambition, it would seem, is to make a statement about the extreme dichotomy between that which is repugnant and that which is whimsical, or some uppity shit like that. As Iliza (Anne Lane) remarks that Tom is a genius because she’s never had anything so “delightfully revolting,” we think at least he knows his customer.

Admitting to actually owning a foam canister and affirming that food is the only art that employs all the senses, Grant can also grind down on some McNuggets – a self-referential projection, we wonder, onto one of his characters,But these characters, though absurd and somewhat out to lunch are not meant to be viewed with derision. “I love food,” says writer and director Japhy Grant. “It’s really rich territory and I hope when people see the show, they’ll realize that we’re not railing against food culture. We love playing with our food.” But are the recipes published on the site meant to be followed? “If someone makes a durian fruit tart, we’ll absolutely post it to the site.”

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Foreign Cinema’s Top 10 Film Feasts — for Poor Taste

A meal may be built similarly to that of a traditional film narrative: warm mixed Mediterranean olives set the scene, momentum builds with spiced, fried quail and tomato chutney, and the rising action culminates in a kobe bavette steak with Zinfandel butter. Dessert of course is the denouement. At Foreign Cinema in San Francisco’s Mission District, gourmands and cinephiles alike finesse oysters from the shells while an independent film flutters on the brick wall of the covered courtyard. The location is dramatic with stark concrete walls and high-ceilings, but the wood elements warm the minimalist decor; the foreign and art films cooking up the romance. With equal parts passion for food and celluloid, chefs Gayle Pirie and John Clark cater to those with an appetite for the visceral and the sensory. And as Sunday’s 83rd Academy Awards approaches, Foreign Cinema’s Cultural Director Bryan Ranere shares with us his favorites in food cinema:

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Chocolate and the Big Question: What Am I? — for Poor Taste

In 2004, MoMA art space PS1 presented a retrospective of 375 pieces by artist Dieter Roth, including some of his “decay objects,” sculptures made of edible materials. While then a coordinator at PS1, future artisanal chocolatier Josh Altman was especially influenced by Roth’s use of chocolate.

“I was interested in the audience’s reactions,” says Altman. “To the smells, to the properties of the chocolate.” Having studied fine art and photography, Altman didn’t set out to make chocolate his trade, but for the past six years, he’s been making small-batch bars for his beloveds. For an arts advocate and chocolate lover, the Roth exhibit hit Altman’s sweet spot.

Citing Edward Ruscha’s “Chocolate Room,” an installation made up of 360 sheets of chocolate shingles, as another influence, Altman is driven by the pairing of contemporary art and food. His fine arts background led him to do more conceptual work, preferring to curate rather than create. He curated his first show, Superfat, in 2005 to address the issues of food and consumption. “I was interested more in the research than the production,” he says. But with chocolate, he can still explore the concepts behind the food, the side of creating he’s most fascinated by.

“I’m interested in the politics of chocolate,” Altman says. “The material, the structure. You can look at it as a major production and how the cocoa bean is regulated. Just look at the Ivory Coast.” In 2005, it was reported that 200,000 children were working on cocoa labor farms in the Ivory Coast, and at this time, less than 1% of the world’s chocolate market was Fair Trade. Altman only uses Fair Trade and organic ingredients, finding his materials from a small network of chocolate lovers to create his modest, simple flavors.

Using organic agave as a sweetener and pure cacao mass, Altman delves into the spirit of the craft. He’s interested in infusions, not just oils or extracts, but in the steeping of the flavors, such as the warm kick from cayenne pepper, the savory twinge of cardamom or sea salt, and the delicate and mellow natural vanilla bean. After tapping into the element of research that goes into his craft chocolates, Altman has also found a way to draw inspiration from the art world. His limited edition bar, “A Fire in My Belly” takes its name from the art piece by the late artist David Wojnarowicz.

Last October, The National Portrait Gallery opened Hide/Seek, an exhibition focusing on sexual differences in modern American portraiture and exploring how art reflects society’s progressing attitudes toward sexuality. By the end of November, the museum censored the exhibit.

Just before he took control of the House, Speaker John Boehner demanded the museum pull one piece in particular: “A Fire in My Belly,” a tribute video and tormented response to the artist’s friend’s death from AIDS. For some conservatives, the Catholic League included, the video’s disturbing use of religious imagery demanded it be pulled from the exhibit. The Smithsonian Institution surrendered to Boehner’s threat that the museum’s funding would be reconsidered when Congress reviews the next budget.

Altman saw this as an opportunity to respond to the issue of free speech and censorship in the arts. So he created the vegan, Sriracha-spiced “A Fire in My Belly” chocolates (which are smaller chocolate cups) as a way to use his craft to feed a cause he supports. 10% of the proceeds go toward furthering tolerance and freedom of speech in the arts.

The Hide/Seek exhibit ends Feb. 13, but the Wojnarowicz video continues to play in other galleries as a response to the museum’s decision to remove the video, which is “a huge disservice to freedom of speech,” says Altman. HIDESEEK.org, which is not affiliated with the Smithsonian, provides a central list of all the screenings of the video along with related events.

So with Altman’s decision to create a socially meaningful chocolate, the name of the confection, “What Am I” sounds like a big question. “It’s really just a play on that old saying, ‘What am I, chopped liver?’ My grandmother used to say that all the time. I wanted to reference that,” he says. It makes sense that when Altman started making chocolates for his close friends and family that the name should reference a loved one, but with all the care, passion, and storytelling that goes into the chocolates, the name grows in meaning. Gastronome Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin once said, “Tell me what you eat, and I’ll tell you who you are.” By choosing to eat a Fair Trade chocolate inspired by contemporary art, supporting freedom of speech, you can’t help but answer part of the question: “What am I?”

Altman will continue to make contemporary art pairings and inspirations. His chocolates can be ordered at What Am I Chocolates.

Photos: Monica Abend
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Diner's Almanac: SPAM — for Poor Taste

Often considered food for a post-apocalyptic diet, SPAM holds a special place not only in the pantries of the future but in pantries past. Making its debut in 1937 toward the end of the Great Depression, SPAM was at once just another ambiguous pink brick trying to distinguish itself from other potted meat on the shelves. Determined to make a superior potted meat, inventor Jay Hormel used pork shoulder and ham while his competitors included lips, snouts, and ears in their tin pots. These were hard times, but Hormel would not sacrifice vacuum-sealable flavor or quality.

By 1940, SPAM aired its first commercial over the radio, which Hormel’s website claims to be the “first singing commercial,” though Wheaties might beg to differ. The lyrics went like this, to the tune of “My Bonnie Lies Over the Ocean,” so you can sing along:

SPAM, SPAM, SPAM, SPAM,
Hormel’s new ‘Miracle Meat’ in a can.
Tastes fine,
Saves time,
If you want something grand,
Ask for SPAM.

Because it doesn’t require refrigeration and can last for years, SPAM is “like meat with a pause button,” according to the company. Ah, how this adds greater depth to that “saves time” lyric.

During World War II, Hormel really stepped up its game, supplying more than 100 million pounds of SPAM abroad to allied troops. In a letter to the company, President Eisenhower even praised the product for its effectiveness. This letter is prominently displayed alongside images of Slammin’ Spammy, the WWII missile-launching mascot, in the Spam Museum in Austin, Minnesota. Want more inches of “pure pork fun”? The Spam Museum features a Cyberdiner, a ‘50s-style diner with internet-connected computers logged into the product site, where you can find out about SPAM’s history — rather than at the museum you’re standing inside.

In 1945, SPAM introduced The Hormel Girls, a 60-member all-lady performing troupe that toured the country singing Christmas songs on the radio, instructing listeners on dainty ways of serving ham, and insisting that “cold or hot, SPAM hits the spot.” After the war...

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Distill My Heart: When Fog Rolls In — for Poor Taste

Just over two weeks into the year, I’ve broken my unrealistic resolutions. I have been consuming ungodly amounts of hot cocoa with whiskey (topped with towers of Reddi-wip; I’m gross) while daydreaming of more temperate climates. True, the darkest days are behind us now, and the spurious sacredness of the season for eggnog and gingersnaps gone with it. But even though the light returns, the temperature’s still downshifting, and these are quiet days that call for something more romantic, beyond the common winter cocktails.

Flavors I normally find cloying, robust or way too aromatic for the summer find their ways into my cup (imagine that) on colder nights. Smoky, intense and heavy are the themes of the season, as opposed to the milder, more tender flavors of its summer counterpart.

And what I love most about drinking on these nights is that the city can feel pretty slow-mo in a filmic kind of way. When the buildings are fuzzed out in fog and I want to prolong this feeling of living in film noir (versus a summery pop song), I go for rich, comforting textures and winter fruits lolling in a bath of booze. These are my picks:

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QOTD

"The universe is winding down why shouldn't we?"

Food Banks In Need This Holiday Season — for Poor Taste

photo by Jeremy Toeman

For a food-loving culture, it’s understandable to feel some degrees removed from the threat of hunger. The conditions can seem abstract; unreal, even. But it’s not lack of supply that threatens the unluckier of our Bay Area residents. The problem is that hungry people suffer because of extreme poverty. They lack the finances to really nourish themselves, to eat healthily, and keep themselves well to work, to live.

With food banks struggling to reach their fundraising goals and meet the demands, up more than 30 percent from last year, this season, often the most productive time for food banks and charities, sincerely has to be one of giving.

You can help step it up by volunteering or donating to these Bay Area food programs:

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Distill My Heart: From Sickle to Swizzle Stick — for Poor Taste

Like so many of our San Francisco rabble, I’m picky and take pride in our sustainable “locals only” approach to noshing. The body, the temple — the co-op veggie box, the parish? Though I do admit, some days my body feels like a temple built over an ancient burial ground (hello, hangover!), I want to do right by my body. I love freshness, feel awakened and clean, if only psychosomatically, by verdant, leafy things at the farmers markets. I geek out over the deep and dusky blush of an enormous heirloom tomato and am charmed by the beads of bramble fruits. Oh, the romance!

This past summer, cradling lil’ bitty baskets of fruits lovingly, I plopped golden raspberries, strawberries, and yellow peach slices into a white wine sangria for my birthday and scattered rosemary over the bowl. Admiring my work, and thinking, “Well, isn’t this just adorable?” I couldn’t stop adding to the mix: red raspberries, nectarines, oranges. The sangria bowl turned into an alcoholic fruit salad, and I was totally into it.



That was the beginning of my love affair with farm fresh ingredients and booze. And of late, it’s progressed into an unhealthy obsession that I hope is circling back to healthy on account of all the organic produce I’m consuming. That’s how it works, right? As the cold months creep and the heirloom tomato crops dwindle from the booths, I’ve been scampering to discover bars that follow a farm-to-bar philosophy.

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A Conversation with Artist Erik Parra — for Art Slant

In April, I attended a weekend-long Creative Capital workshop with 23 other artists (I was thrilled to be among the group) selected by three San Francisco arts organizations. I attended thanks to Intersection for the Arts, where I’d interned two years prior, and artist Erik Parra repped Southern Exposure; both are Mission District art spaces. I wanted to blog about Erik for GEOslant because he’s been a great part of that support system and art community I’ve been looking for in San Francisco, why I attended the workshop. He’s been a great friend and kept me feeling (if only peripherally) tethered to the arts:



About Place

“It was totally bizarre, in El Paso in the desert, the traditional architecture is flat roofs because the Native Americans who lived in the region lived in mountains and built these settlements out of adobe and mud, and when you’re coming down the mountain, the bricks you build are rectilinear bricks. So there’s no need for a pitched roof, because a pitched roof has a function,” so begins artist Erik Parra in talking about his experience growing up in suburban Texas.

“After the 50s and the suburban model was fully entrenched, then that was what a house looked like. So I think it’s funny that children, even in the Bay Area, draw houses that are a square with a triangle on the top. That is the code for house. You don’t need to have that shape out here, but still in the suburbs, they build that shape. They don’t need it because it doesn’t snow.”

“But a rectangle makes the most sense.” I say, playing devil’s advocate. “You can easily measure it.”

“Well, that’s what it’s all about.” He pauses...

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Live Review of CocoRosie — for SF Weekly

Last Night: CocoRosie at the Regency Ballroom


photos by Gretchen Robinette

CocoRosie
Cibelle
@ The Regency Ballroom
June 29, 2010

Better than or equal to: Lisa Frank on steroids

You could spot the freak-folk believers from afar: in their pink tights, Navajo vests, and single-eared feather earrings, with each teal plume like a smoke signal calling, "Don't you kind of feel what I'm kind of feeling?"

And onstage, a makeshift tent of neon draping was plopped; gold garland cluttered the floor and wreathed the mic stand. It was like something Lovefest and B2B aborted, and a giant magpie came in with its frantic cabling of the twig, the hair, and the sparkly shit to make its nest / my childhood dream-fort. This was the -- inspired? -- backdrop for opener Cibelle's uninspired set.

Lost in reverb, the nuances of Cibelle's voice were hard to separate and the lyrics just a rattle in the echo-effect -- though a lovely and lush rattle. With such a beautifully breezy voice, she was drowned out by her own discordant beats and mismatched melodies, blurring each song into the next. Despite her amazing voice and penchant for a colorful, kitschy ambiance, Cibelle was pretty muted.



But perhaps she was muted so not to detract from the headliner; after all, Cibelle uses hip-hop beats and jazz melodies similarly to how CocoRosie uses them, juxtaposes ethereal vocals with electronica just the same. So when CocoRosie and its frontladies -- sisters Bianca and Sierra Casady -- took the stage, the sound increased considerably.

CocoRosie's newest album, Grey Oceans, is boring. But it's a vast improvement from The Adventures of Ghosthorse and Stillborn, which was a blundering mess. Disclosure: I was one of those aforementioned believers minus the groupie garb. I held the Casady sisters in my heart from La Maison De Mon Rêve to Noah's Ark. But when Ghosthorse came out, I cringed at the trite lyrics I had once excused; in the past I ignored them because I'd been so interested in the sisters' sheer energy, but after the gimmick exhausted itself, it was hard to see CocoRosie as anything more than art school whimsy.

But last night's performance renewed my belief, because, as with all their performances, they know how to put on a show. The crowd thrilled at their beatboxer, Tez, who never ceases to amaze, if not by the dexterity of his lips, then by his lung capacity. And each time Sierra's voice opened up operatic, the crowd praised her. At times, however, it was hard to make out Bianca's vocals; she sounded like an incoherent Joanna Newsom, drunkenly sing-telling you about her dreams. With a mouthful of marbles. But, still, she did the "grating" thing well.

Talented at building tension with dramatic crests and troughs, CocoRosie defended Grey Oceans. "Lemonade" was played with more heart live than on the album, and even "Hopscotch" was passable, despite the sisters' decision to indulge in a clapping game onstage.

Their cover of "Turn Me On" was more subdued however than in previous shows; in the past, Bianca and occasional opener Spleen would grind to the song; sans Spleen or any grind-buddy, the energy wasn't quite there this time. On the plus side, no matter how CocoRosie covers this song, it's far better than the original.

Though Grey Oceans is at times hard to sit through because of the word-association babble and vapid storytelling, the album comes through successfully live, though not as strongly as the first two. The ethereal thrums of the harp, lilting hymnals and insistent beats come together best live whereas they sound messy and benumbed recorded.
​


Critic's Notebook

California Love: Felt a little bit of u-n-i-t-y when Bianca announced, via auto-tune, that she lived at California and Larkin in "nineteen-ninety-sev-ehhhn."

YTMND: The video in the background was bizarre, per usual, with its neon dolphins and one-eyed cat, but skimming through submissions on YTMND would be just as satisfying, if not for the "levitating cat accelerates upstairs for a nap" gif alone.

Live Review of Holy Fuck Review — SF Weekly

Last Night: Holy Fuck at the Independent


Photos by Emily Savage

Holy Fuck
Nice Nice
@ The Independent
June 8, 2010

Better than: The halcyon moment when your ears stop ringing.

Stalking them on UStream for live sound checks and lurking on Chatroulette for chance encounters and album leaks may be what Holy Fuck wants you to do. But despite the Toronto quartet's savvy social media skills, Tuesday is still a hard night to put on a show. However, the crowd last night at the Independent would have you believe that Tuesday might just be the new Thursday.

First, there was that uncanny feeling of a stop at the local bar on a sleepy, lonesome night, with a few solo stragglers swaggering aimlessly about. When opener Nice Nice took the stage, the crowd began to huddle around the stage, drawn like ants to a crumb. Made up of one drummer and one guitarist, Nice Nice walked up to their instruments wordlessly. The boys then began clacking away on a pair of sleigh bells, blowing into a melodica and buzzing about on a kazoo before launching into an aggressive and insistent beat.



Starting off strong with their heavy beats and a persistent guitar riff reminiscent of The Police's "Bring on the Night," Nice Nice ventured into a bit of a psychedelic space jam by their second song. But they commanded the crowd's attention by the end of it with their penchant for ascension. Going into dub beats and strange Minnie Mouse vocals by song three, however, the band lost me with their jungle sticks, rain sounds and primal halts and chirps, sounding slightly New Age-y. Though each song melded into the other fluidly, I felt exhausted by the end of their four-song set, as if taken on a journey through the longest song of my life.

When Holy Fuck took the stage, they started off far away and spacey but didn't tip over into the psychedelic. They stayed focused on their noise, careful not to go off onto tangential drum and bass jams. And speaking of drum and bass, I appreciated their choice of live percussion and bass over machine loops. This added to the impetuous nature of their sound; their voracity felt valid.



As the guitar squealed against the breakneck drumbeats, the two frontmen mirrored each other as they hovered, swayed and bobbed over their soundboards, twisting and tweaking each dial and knob.

Only changing tempo towards the end, the band got speedier before switching to a more melodic, eerie song. Although the tempos felt pretty similar through the entire set, Holy Fuck pulled the whole thing off, switching between funk and noise without being overly abrasive. By the end, they sped it up again and the crowd got really excited, screaming and jumping along with the bands' frantic head-banging.

Critic's Notebook

Body Language, Pro: I appreciated the bassist's aggressive head-banging and the way he aimed the neck of his guitar, even if not purposely, towards thy sky like a rifle.

Body Language, Con: The popple-headed blonde dude smack dab in the middle of the floor and at the lip of the stage were a bouncy distraction in the undulating sea of bobbing heads.

Body Language, If You're Down: The crowd was heavy on the boy side, super drenched in dudeness. This could be a plus for hetero single ladies looking for some bro eye-raping, but I was not so down with the lack of lady representation.

Guest Editing — for SF Weekly/All Shook Down

From May 24-June 4, I hit the “publish” button on SF Weekly’s music blog, All Shook Down, while they transitioned to their new music editor.

I blogged about Wild Palms, Slipknot, a cover of ICP’s “Miracles”, a Lady Gaga fanzine, Peaches and the Creators Project, Birds and Batteries et al.

QOTD

"I will walk heavy, and I will walk strange."

Guest Editing — for SF Weekly/All Shook Down

From April 26-30, I hit the “publish” button on SF Weekly’s music blog, All Shook Down, while the music editor went to Coachella.

I blogged about Growing, Tempo No Tempo, Stars vs. Fucked Up and the Arizona boycott, The Morning Benders, Japanther, Lady Gagita, Southern Exposure… et al.

Album Reviews for Monster Movie and Slow Club — for Venus Zine

For the Spring Issue of VZ. Get your grubby lil hands on a print copy.



Monster Movie
Everyone Is a Ghost (Graveface)

...Similar to the shoegaziness of Slowdive, Monster Movie's sound is feathery and fuzzy-- ethereal yet never without dark undertones, mild distortion and insistent beats. Standout track "In the Morning" offers shimmering instrumentation...filled with light and space and deep sentiments that never get too melodramatic...

Slow Club
Yeah So

...The admirable but predictable dual harmonies and tempos, jangly guitars and shivery brushes and snares make it clean and well-executed poppy folk rock, so it's a given this album will become somebody's summertime soundtrack. The sweet twee ballads are insistent on youth and campfire tambourines... a pleasant album (aside from the cornball lyrics)... just begging to appear in a Target ad...

Album Review of Woodhands — for Venus Zine

Woodhands
Remorsecapade (Paper Bag)

...The first half of the album hovers in shallow water, with videogame sonics, synth loops, aggressive beats, and vocals that echo an angry Simon Le Bon / Robert Smith lovechild. By track three, however, the duo unearths their identity with a pleasing rawness...

Go to VenusZine to read the full review.

Interview with Artist Margaret Harrison — for ArtSlant

This interview was for the RackRoom section of ArtSlant.com.

Interview with Margaret Harrison

Margaret Harrison’s work is stylistically reminiscent of early 20th century comic and pin-up cartoon art— in color theory, line and convention. Recognized as a pioneer of feminist art, her work explores not only the notions of female equality but gender ambiguity and the arbitrary nature of an absolute identity.

I spoke with Margaret Harrison about her current show at Intersection for the Arts and her roots in the feminist movement.

Jolene Torr: Do you feel there’s still a resistance against feminist art? Is there still a place for this kind of dialogue?

Margaret Harrison: There is a place for these dialogues to happen. I think younger artists have been afraid to call themselves feminists because of possible damage to their careers and the sale of their work. What they don’t understand is that you can wait around forever to be recognized, but [also] you can put your toe in the water without drowning yourself. Also the hype around the art market disguises the fact that very few artists are making a good living.

There was definitely a backlash against the kind of work I was doing, but curiously...Continue to the full interview.

Write-up on Kukula — for SOMA Magazine

This piece was written for the White Noise portion of SOMA Magazine's Holiday Issue, December '09. The ethereal Charlotte Gainsbourg is on zee cover. Sidenote: I love her song "IRM," of which Beck gets all up in.

Ready for Wonderland

“I’m pretty much a gothic Lolita myself,” giggles Kukula. “But more grown up. I just got a Chanel suit, so I think that’s the more grown up way to do it.” Gothic Lolita can certainly be harder to pull off when you get older, but artist Kukula goes for the sophisticated interpretation. Asked about her inspiration, the 29 year-old thrills at the topic of fashion. Ready for Wonderland and dolled up in petticoats and platforms, the nymphs in her oil paintings allow Kukula to explore fashion in a way the real world tames...

Read the rest at SOMA Magazine.

Review of Walter Robinson — for ArtSlant

This review was written for ArtSlant.

A Candy Coated God and Other Strange Talismans

When I see the word “God” in gigantic letters and bathed under the blaze of flood lights, I usually run. But this particular logo is a beacon in the storm, chockfull of glittery resin. It is cheery and promising, beckoning me from the rain outside and constructed with Styrofoam and epoxy, made to look like misshapen doughnuts with sprinkles. It looks delicious, but it is bait.

Read the rest at ArtSlant.com/sf

Review of Micah Lebrun — for ArtSlant

This review was written for ArtSlant.

Below the Surface

In the sense of conventional storytelling, nothing is really happening in Micah Lebrun’s art; but the vitality of color and serpentine lines are all the drama he needs. Highly stylized with bold colors and dramatic angles and curves, his paintings rely on high contrasts to create..

(Continue to ArtSlant)

Review of One Day (ArtSlant)

This review was written for ArtSlant.

Everyday Stories

In “One Day: A Collective Narrative of Tehran,” the surprising details of the mundane are explored, as just one part of the story. I naturally go to politics to contextualize this, as if to say that this art is only symptomatic of the political climates; it’s not. The questions change to something like: well, is boredom a consequence of oppression? Is this a different type of oppression? In Ghazaleh Hedayat’s Taxiography, 2009, the artist maps the hours spent in traffic and public transit. She drops her pen, using different colors to signify different roads and lets her hand relax and travel along the paper. This surrendering of control reminds me of the hypotrochoid art set I had as a kid, where you let your pen roll in a roulette through a stencil. The artist of course is not stenciling but using the course of the road, with all its potholes and sudden traffic stops, as her guide. She seems interested in systems and in Process Art. The result is a series of realized and chaotic geographies, alike in abruptness and the capacity to puzzle. This makes me ask: is life really just as tedious over there?

Read the rest at ArtSlant.com/sf.

Review of When Lives Become Form (ArtSlant)

This review was written for ArtSlant.

With Fever, With Velocity

It’s all a rush, a sensory overload. If one sense isn’t fulfilled, another will be involved (to the point of abuse). From the spastic acid trip installation of assume vivid astro focus to Tomie Ohtake’s bold, strangly romantic geometries and radically abstract forms a la Mark Rothko, from the optical illusion of Lucia Koch’s photography to Erika Verzutti’s mythical fruit-animal hybrids, all the pieces are extraordinarily vibrant (!) and though they address many of the same themes, they never exhaust their impulsiveness towards the surreal.

Read the rest at ArtSlant.com/sf

Review of Pawel Kruk (ArtSlant)

This review was written for ArtSlant.com.

Crisis Moments
A review of Pawel Kruk's "Talking to Yourself Is Very Important" at David Cunningham Projects

The man is haunted by and obsessed with the limits of his ability as an artist; these thoughts are unshakeable. It feels we’ve come across an intense stage, a process of discovery.

But how does all this relate to the seemingly random stories of electrocuted sheep and racial lynchings that presumably don’t speak to the same issues? They cite elements that attract Kruk’s attention: the seemingly improbable, the fateful. These are crisis moments...


Continue to ArtSlant to read the rest.