Mobile Post: Fleet Foxes at the Santa Barbara Bowl
Posted by ws1 on:
Couldn't be much better than this. Moon rising over the Bowl. And well-crafted, smart music drifting up through the stands. And beer.
Categories:
Posted by ws1 on:
Couldn't be much better than this. Moon rising over the Bowl. And well-crafted, smart music drifting up through the stands. And beer.
Categories:
Posted by ws1 on:
September 11, 2011.
Categories:
Posted by ws1 on:
As a friend of mine on Facebook said only a few minutes ago, "This is the first thing I watched this morning! This should put a smile on your face...".
And while it doesn't appear to have happened locally, I am personally writing to testify to that truth. My day has improved.
It's almost as good as THIS from last year's fiesta.
I am also writing to provide links to the Fiesta Schedule pdfs:
2011 Santa Barbara Fiesta Schedule
Now get out there and Cumbia. Or something.
-- Update: Lemonjelly has added a few great Alternative Fiesta Tips on her latest few posts. Check 'em out if you're in the mood for something different, which I'm guessing you are (you're reading my blog, duh!).
Categories:
Posted by ws1 on:
Another lovely performance by the Gardens. Even more chops than usual. Off to tour once again.
Categories:
Posted by ws1 on:
I swear, one of these days I'm going to do a survey of tags and markings in SB. This one appears to say 'BM'. Not sure I want to know.
Categories:
Posted by ws1 on:
I finally made it down to CAF to see Nymphaea, a video installation put together by Ted Mills and friends. I had been seeing and hearing good things about it since the reception last Thursday.. but even the lovely photos I had seen didn't really do it justice. Mine don't either.
It's nice to see the Forum so filled-out with gracefully floating screens sporting Lotusland imagery. One of my favorite pieces was Ethan Turpin's kaleidoscopic projection in the Patridge Gallery (side room) set to vintage opera music (I can't remember 'who' the singer is, but it's a nice reference to Madam Ganna Walska, who was an opera singer herself).
The show is only up for another day before installation begins on CAF's annual Valentine's Show - so get in there before 5 tomorrow (the 2nd) if you haven't seen it yet.
Categories:
Posted by ws1 on:
Note: There is little in the next few paragraphs that isn't hinted at in the official trailer. BUT, I urge you to go see this one blind. Don't watch the trailer. Don't read my review (yet). Just go see it (it's good). It's playing Friday at the IV Theatre at 6pm.
If you live in Santa Barbara, then you've probably driven by Oak Park a t some point seen a small group of young and not-so-young adults running around in medieval costumes hitting each other with padded swords. Like me, you probably thought something snarky to yourself, like, "I knew a few kids in high school who were into that stuff..but..really?". To be honest, ever since my friend Dieter monologued for an hour in a futile attempt to to explain D&D (Dungeons & Dragons) to me back in middle school, I've been a little curious what role-playing games were all about.
So I was excited when I heard about The Wild Hunt. Having only briefly scanned the one sentence synopsis in the festival brochure, my motivation to go was based almost exclusively on a single sentence that I overheard while waiting in line to buy milk at Ralph's. The guy in front of me said, "yeah, I think I'm going to check out The Wild Hunt tonight - I guess it's like...a D&D Viking thriller or something".
Awesome. Because Vikings are almost as cool as Ninjas or Pirates (and maybe even Dinosaurs), I needed no more convincing. The films unusual elements sounded odd enough to be worthwhile.
Despite knowing that there was a D&D/LARP (live action role-playing) element in the film, the opening sequence (an 'epic battle' Vikings and Celts) still caught me off-guard. In diminishing believability, an almost authentic looking Viking battle scene morphed quickly into something very B-movie-ish, complete with less-than-convincing fight choreography, bad wigs, and uncomfortably clichéd dialogue (think 'The Seeker' but worse).
My friend Steve and I momentarily wondered if we had picked the wrong film, until a fight scene (between a cranky 'King Argyle' and a loud and feisty Viking berzerker) reached it's climax, and ended with a burp ( Argyle yelling 'Whoa whoa whoa! The fight's fuckin over OK? I hit you like ten times! Ref!?" ). There was an audible sigh of relief from the audience (who must have been as concerned as we were that we'd all stumbled into the worst film ever).
Happy, realizing we we'd been playfully duped, we scooched deeper into our seats knowing that the film we were watching was (a) not necessarily horrible, and (b) charming because it was off to a good start poking light fun at.. uh.. the type of people who take LARPing a little seriously - withou t making them seem like idiots.
TWH quietly lulls you into thinking you're watching an indie-romantic-comedy-drama-type- film (something like "Away We Go") as it sets up it's sympathetic and frustrated protagonist Erik (Ricky Maybe), who lives with (and takes care of) his mentally disabled father. His flaky older brother Bjorn (an emotionally arrested Norse-God-Obsessed 30 something, played by Mark Antony Krupa) has more-or-less abandoned Erik and his father to frolic indefinitely in a role-playing camp in the Canadian back-country. Unfortunately for Erik, his aloof and emotionally distant girlfriend ( Kaniehtiio Horn) has a sort-of simultaneous relationship with one of the LARPers ('Shaman Murtagh', played by Trevor Hayes) at said camp. By the time she tells Erik that she's leaving for some 'air' to go role-playing with some other dudes in the mountains, the little voice in the back of my mind telling me that the film is supposed to be a thriller had all but faded - and the bleakness and quiet dysfunction of their 'relationship' had taken center stage.
Director a nd Co-writer Alex Franchi's genius is in allowing us to invest ourselves emo tionally into Erik's character, and his charming and slightly pathetic 'love quest' to go talk some sense into his cheating girlfriend, which he can only do by (reluctantly) playing along with his brothers geeky friends who constantly insist on him staying in 'decorum' so as not to ruin the game. We trust the films smart and witty storytelling until we learn the hard way that it's not out to make us feel warm and fuzzy.
Of course, eventually, everything goes horribly, horribly wrong (it really goes terribly wrong). The film pivots instantly from an increasingly tense romantic tug-of-war, into very real-feeling panic and disorienting violence. Brilliantly, the quirky and harmless emotional momentum of the film (which by this point has flirted with danger and returned to safety many times) extends slightly past the point of no return - leaving the audience (or at least me) flinching.
It's hard to miss the director tipping his hat to William Golding. But unlike Lord of the Flies or Apocalypse Now, Franchi places mans capacity for acts of horror much closer to everyday life. He makes us watch as his carefully-crafted, charming and emotionally familiar narrative get's convincingly ( and unapologetically) torn limb from limb.
And just in case you were wondering, though I'll cry in a theater at the drop of a hat, (or more likely when a dog is hurt or dies) I'm the kind of guy who is almost never bothered by 'scary' movies. Of course I've jumped once or twice - but never too far. I thought the Saw was campy and a little stupid (duh). Silence of the Lambs was excellent, but more intriguing than scary. And the Blair Witch Project was what it was - but I never lost sleep.
The Wild Hunt terrified me.
During the last 15 minutes of the film, I felt my heart race uncontrollably. I squirmed, cringed & flinched until my whole torso and neck actually tingled with adrenaline (which is usually reserved for getting stalked by hungry bears in the dark on a camping trip in Yosemite).
In the brief calm that follows the films climax, it manages to blend together the banal and the mythological. It articulates a fascinating connection between role-playing games with the horrific realities they romanticize, and somehow erases the gap between typical contemporary real-life breakup drama and Shakespearian tragedy.
The film is a brilliant, emotionally complex and believable piece of storytelling, with compelling acting (especially by Ricky Maybe, Nicholas Write & Mark Anthony Krupa).
Driving by Oak Park will never be the same.
9 out of 10 stars (aka 'go see it').
Categories:
Posted by ws1 on:
This picture is from the back of the room (at CAF) during the 'Amazing Animated Jukebox Vol 2' show (consisting of animated videos compiled by Ted Mills for 2010's first Forum Lounge). The show consisted of a series of hand-picked music videos with exceptional/artful and progressive animation.
This reminded me of how easy I have it as a mostly still visual artist. Animators work their asses off.
For example, Birdy Nam Nam's video directed/created (?) by Willy Sweeny (see first video below) was a very interesting and artful combination of elements I can't even begin to describe here ('cause I'd say something unintelligible like retro-HeMan-Atari lasers meets acid-trip-orbiting-sugarcube-shooting-katchina-hero narrative).
I think I was more-or-less smitten by everything except for the very last video of the evening (not to be confused with the last video on this page), which felt a little too similar to a lot of post-modern animation that I've seen (think hairy, slimy, extra-appendage-laiden, crooked toothed cartoon characters). I can't remember the name of the artist or director at the moment, but I was slightly sad to see it end on that note. I'm being nit-picky though. It was an impressive and fun show.
I've embedded a few of the highlights below (though there were a few more that I'll have to look up because I stupidly didn't take notes).
Birdy Nam Nam - The Parachute Ending
"Myriad Harbor" by the New Pornographers
"E-Pro" by Beck
"Happy Up Here" by Ryoskopp
"Evil Bee" by Menomena
My apologies for not including more of the director/animator credits.. If I can, I'll ask Mr. Mills for the playlist.
Here are some more pics:
Categories:
Posted by ws1 on:
I know I haven't been posting lately. But I am gearing up for a few new posts in the next month. Before I do, I wanted to share the first of what will hopefully be a new series of posts (to compliment the normal random stuff I send in and write about).
For those of you who don't know what an animated gif is. A gif is a type of image file (like a jpeg). What's special about gifs is that they can let you include more than one frame (like the image below).
As an artist, I get hyperfocused on a lot of strange things. Lately, I've been interested in abstracting what is familiar to me, like this picture of the sewage/creek water flowing out into the ocean at Hendry's ( aka the Pitt, aka Arroyo Burro). When I was a kid, I used to play in this thing.. Now, there's a sign about 20 feet away warning of sewage contamination.
If you think I'm on drugs, or feel like you are after looking at this image, you can see where I'm taking a bit of inspiration from by visiting this site, which has a lot of wonderfully artful and intriguing animated gifs. What I like about them is that they often focus on just a few limited frames of something, which forces you to think about it a bit more than you might if it was a still image.
I think it'll be fun to play with local imagery in the same way.. hopefully I can do this (barely existent) genre some justice. :)
Categories:
Posted by ws1 on:
Categories:
Posted by ws1 on:
A picture from Forum Lounge at CAF during 'Outward Model' - A multimedia performance designed to (supposedly) expose the politics of celebrity, politics & contemporary art. I wasn't totally convinced, but it is good to see art like this in our sometimes contemporary-art-deprived town.
Categories:
Posted by ws1 on:
Cofounder and Executive Director of the San Francisco Museum of Craft + Design, JoAnn Edwards leading a discussion about the merging of 'arts' with 'crafts' in recent years. Most of these open end lectures are very interesting and engaging. This weeks speaker left a little to be desired, but as always, the CAF crew were especially adept at starting up a meaningful group discussion.
I'm looking forward to the next lecture in this series.
The current exhibition (An Expanded Field of Possibilities) at CAF is also very worthwhile, and features: Amy Bessone, Nicole Cherubini, Mari Eastman, Jessica Jackson Hutchins, Klara Kristalova, Franco Mondini-Ruiz, Kristen Morgin, William J. O’Brien, Eduardo Sarabia, Anna Sew Hoy, and Stephanie Wagner.
Categories:
Posted by ws1 on:
Categories:
Posted by ws1 on:
Categories:
Posted by ws1 on:
Categories:
Local culture, happenings, news, art, and other miscellany.
