la china everywhere

I am listening to Rihanna’s “Where Have You Been,” and Karen Walker is dancing to the beat. 

(via bohemea)

Florida this week.

New York City this summer.

Chi-town for the foreseeable future.

nevver:

Go Awol

nevver:

Shot by Billy Kidd

The final stage in cognitive development, according to William Perry, is the realization that commitments fluctuate and conflict, and that one must learn to live with the tensions involved. These days, this is something that I am constantly reminding myself of and something that I just as easily forget.

photo credits: ryancollerd.tumblr.com

These are photos from Dave Burrell and Han Bennink’s performance at the Philly Arts Alliance this past Monday. The seasoned pianist and virtuosic percussionist (not drummer, but percussionist) have never played together before. I’ve never seen Burrell live or heard his stuff before—I came specifically for Bennink, whose skill, theatrical hijinks and indelible charisma drew me in over five years ago, when I saw him perform with the ICP Orchestra in a dive-y LES venue called Tonic.

The Burrell-Bennink pairing was refreshing. In general, I’ve seen Bennink play with free improv, avant-garde greats and up-and-comers like Peter Brotzmann and Peter Evans. From what I heard at the Monday night show, Burrell prefers to write and play swing-y, bebop-inflected tunes. Besides two original pieces by Burrell, they also played Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn.

To hear Bennink actually follow the melody and play “straight-ahead” was refreshing. But of course, that didn’t last long. In the very first song, Bennink broke the drumhead of a snare drum. It wasn’t replaced until one-and-a-half songs later. That didn’t bother him though. Everything in the room became part of his drum kit. He slid a drumstick across the ridged column on the wall to his left. He stuck a stick in his mouth and scratched it with the other drumstick (a classic move of his). He laid one foot on top of the remaining snare drum to create a more subdued sound. He grabbed all the drumsticks in his toolkit (at least 15 of them) and threw them down on the kit, creating a rainstorm-y sound effect. He rapped on the wooden floors of the venue, eventually laying down on the floor, drumming with both hands—and tapping with both feet. In the encore (a Strayhorn tune), he went to the backroom to take a break and as Burrell started playing, he slammed the door a few times. Even the door became part of his instrumental repertoire!

The man sitting next to me told me that he had come to see Burrell. I told him I came specifically for Bennink, and I secretly hoped that by the end, he’d see it my way as well.

Just re-found this. Last summer, I worked at 1010 WINS, an all-news radio station owned by CBS Radio. For my final project, I did a story about Willie Mae Rock Camp, an awesome non-profit organization that empowers young girls and women through music. Every summer, they hold two weeklong day camp sessions for girls ages 8-18, teach them to rock out (drums, guitar, bass, DJ, vocals) and form bands. At the end, the bands play at a NYC venue. In the past few years, their home venue has been the Music Hall of Williamsburg.

This project, and the story of Dawn and Lizzie, is close to my heart, because I was a camper myself when I was 16. The following summer, I came back as a volunteer. And then, last summer, I made this news report for 1010 WINS. 

Yesterday, I went to the UCBeast for Totally J/K, a stand-up comedy show. The first comedian made a joke that basically went like this:

I’ve been living in New York for about ten years, and I called myself a New Yorker as soon as I got here…But I didn’t feel like a native New Yorker until recently. I was walking to work one morning, and I saw a man defecating in the middle of the street. In broad daylight. And when I got to work, I didn’t tell anyone. That’s when I knew I was a New Yorker—because a man pooping in public was normal. 

This was especially funny, because just before the show, I was having dinner with my friends Peter (a native New Yorker), Emily and Christy (both transplants from California, one working in NY, the other visiting), and I was telling them about all the ridiculous stuff I saw today while running around Manhattan. I am, by all accounts, a native New Yorker. I was born and raised in Brooklyn (and not even the hip part), I have encyclopedic knowledge of the subway system, I recognized every single New York street scene in Shame. But I guess I’ve been away for so long that I’ve become a tourist in my own city. And that’s fine with me. It’s just making me realize how much I love New York. So here are the things that a native New Yorker, according to that comedian, would think are commonplace and not worth talking about:

• Walking past MoMA, I heard “We Found Love” by Rihanna blasting from a hot dog vendor’s cart. He was bopping his head to the beat as he served his customers.
• There’s a Hollister on 5th avenue and it is the prime tourist attraction. Why? Because there’s a display case just inside the entrance where half-naked male models take turns smurking at the gawking tourists. 
• On the 6 train, a busker played an accordion rendition of “On Da Floor” by J.Lo. 
• At the 34th street station, a busker played a violin version of “In Da Club” by 50 Cent. 
• At Herald Square, I overheard a woman say, “Honey, we have to! It’s New York,” and then drag her husband into the Victoria’s Secret.

Edit: Oh, and Sarah Silverman was the guest performer at Totally J/K. Nbd. 

I saw Pina today. It’s a documentary about Pina Bausch, a German choreographer known for “dance theater.” She died two days before production began, so the film became a tribute to her instead. It was a beautiful film, of course, but also a bit disappointing. I wish the interviews with the dancers were more…substantive. They spoke about her in abstract and elliptical ways. She told me, just get more crazy. I never got a true sense of how Pina worked. Also, the transitions between the pieces on stage and the pieces performed outdoors, in natural settings, were choppy and incoherent at times. Overall, though, it was a beautiful documentary. It showed that live art can be be captured on film and still retain a certain vitality. I loved the dance performances that were set in the streets of Wuppertal, Germany (her hometown) and more natural environs (e.g. mountains, lakes). The juxtaposition between theatrical dance and harsh, industrial backdrops was especially striking.  

A few weeks ago, just before finals week, actually, my hard disk crashed. The folks at ITS told me that I had only two choices: replace the dying hard drive, or buy a new computer. I wasn’t that sad, because I had just backed up my files two days before and most of my important documents were written on Google Docs anyway. Besides, a hard-disk failure seemed like it might be a blessing in disguise. One, I would be more productive during finals period because I’d be forced to use the laptops and computers at the library (in the end, I still did a fair share of procrastinating). Two, I would have an excuse to replace my three-year-old laptop with a brand new one! I was already thinking about getting an iMac and supplementing that with a netbook or something. 

But then I went home for the holidays, dug out the Mac OS install disk and reinstall. It seems ITS was wrong—my computer seems just fine now. I guess that new iMac will have to wait. Instead of restoring my old hard drive (which, due to my packrat tendencies, was chockfull of music files and space-hogging applications that I hardly use), I decided to just start fresh. I mean, there are really only three things I use the computer for: internet, music and word-processing. With all the great cloud services out there now, I hardly have to go outside of my web browser to do all the stuff I want.