Bunuel was everything

From Pasolini's Medea

Rupaul's last mini challenge was a drag version of Samuel Beckett's seminal "Not I"

yes

best movie ever made

Warhol's Chelsea Girls

Apparently the whole thing is on Youtube!

Ursula realness

found on this Tumblr.

NIX NIX NIX NIX, Friday 24.2.12 @100GRAD

A little shtick we're doing with another Berliner jew, on this weekend's "100 degree" festival. Featuring some song, dance, death, Wittgenstein and something white.

History of cool #3: Tilda Swinton

Or as D-listed put it, the alien goddess from planet Bowie.


She calls people "dude" and says she's "a man of my word":

this one is from Jarman's Wittgenstein, referencing Nijinska by Man Ray

Death proofing me softly

Subi just saw "Death Proof" yesterday for the first time, so I had the joy of watching it again. I think it's the best thing madame Tarantino shot. The way it lifts you up at the end is exactly what I wanna figure out how to do with my own theatrical shit.

This scene for example is so amazing.

And here's a little shout out I found on Youtube to the editor (yet another proof to support the argument I'm sticking with for years already: the guy is a real feminist):

History of cool #2: Catherine Deneuve

The woman owns the concept of "style"

Fire in my belly by David Wojnarowicz

Another unexpected turn the day took. The Video consists of two films: Wojnarowicz's piece titled "Fire in my belly" (1986-7) and another excerpt that didn't make it to the tim, which he defined as a work in progress. I recommend the first one, it's much more interesting and evocative, in a very simple, direct way but still somehow with a very nice touch to it.

History of cool #1: Josephine Baker

Starting a new in-blog series exploring the history of cool.
Kicking off with this master of performance

Herzog + Lynch =

Just saw this one two days ago, it's a Lynch (producer) and Herzog (director) collaboration, and it's brilliant as expected.

This part features the Caetano Veloso song that Almodovar used in Hable Con Ella, and of course Herzog's interpretation of the typical Almodovarian kitsch is so much better than the original one. A wonderful example to this wacko's flirt with Holywood since he moved there. Pure gold.

short visit to Londres

So we just got back from 4 adventurous days in Landan town, where we went to celebrate two occasions: Romm's Birthday and the last concert in Maya's series "Hit & Run" in Dalston's Experimental music venue Cafe Oto. The gig was a proper free-form impro featuring some musicians that Maya invited, including the sweet, brazilian born amsterdam based Saxophonist Yedo Gibson and my dear beloved friend Keren Rosenbaum, who just came back with Maya from Amsterdam where they performed Keren's new composition, as part of the Notations 21 festival, exhibition and book launch. Check it out:

At the Barbican, there is a historical, retrospective-ish exhibition featuring three pioneers of the NY 70's scene: Gordon Matta Clarck, Trisha Brown (they love her in London - last year there was a huge tribute in Dance Umbrella Festival - probably because the UK's dance scene is somewhat dull, not to say lame) and one of my all time favorites, Laurie Anderson. Some of the works that ms. Anderson made in the 70's remained beautifully relevant, and also some of them bear funny resemblance to stuff that Maya, Reshef and me did recently, when we worked on "Chikos" and "Friday". And actually this makes me think it's a good opportunity to put some of these stuff here in the blog.
So here is a short clip from Chikos:


And here's a little moment from Friday (also Spartacus Chetwynd's performance which I'm mentioning down here reminded me how much I actually enjoyed that thing we did last year in the CCA in Kalisher and made me realize we should definitely explore it more):

"The way you moved through me" is the text that Anderson assigned to the installation, which consists of a table that upon placing one's elbows on plays music through the wood up the hands to the ears

the schub listening to the table

And here is a later thing by Anderson, from her seminal "Home of the Brave" (1984):



Continuing the line of sound-art, one morning Dus showed me this amazing video:


Another dear friend I was very happy to meet again was the lovely James Unsworth, artist whose responsible, among many other scandals, to the initiation of the world's first Ninja Turtle Sex Museum:


James invited us to join him to the opening of Spartacus Chetwynd's exhibition @ Sadie Coles Gallery. Chetwynd makes very cool performances and this was definitely one of them. A clearly cool factor was the fact that the gallery's smoke detectives couldn't really deal with the smoke machines she brought in and the opening was accompanied by the alarm. This and the huge rubber slide you could use to get to the lower level were the highlights. And the free beer.

Here are images and vids from other performances by Chetwynd, made in recent years and selected randomly:

A Tax Haven Run by Women from Charlottenborg on Vimeo.

The BFI at Southbank is having a Russian season this year, and we were there as they screened Eisenstein's "The Old and The New", a very weird, almost surrealist in style and approach, epic about the collectivization and mechanization of agriculture in Russian Villages in the 1920's. Filmed in various villages around Moscow from 1927, the work on the film was interrupted when Eisenstein was called to shoot his well known "October" that marked the 10th anniversary of the revolution. Being aware of the new sound technologies introduced during the 20's talking era, Eisentsein wrote instructions to what he thought would be a suitable soundtrack for his film, but he couldn't find the funding to record this score. The BFI gave these instructions to two british composers and commissioned the score from them. So far so good, only thing that went wrong is that these guys are slightly too boring and their music was way behind of this exceptional film. Here you have the entire thing, next time you have free 120 min. I especially liked the bride-cow scene.


And here's just a nice pic, showing Romm, Omer and Iris performing their signature personas:



All in all it was fun, and it's also very nice to be back "home". Funny this word is.

Suddenly Seymour (1986)

Remember this wonderful thing? lately I'm watching this quite often. There's something very special in the set, the two ugly protagonists, the shameless blonde-n-boobs of Ellen Greene, Rick Moranis. Frnak Oz was a great man, directing this and giving the world the gift of Miss Piggy!

Hollywood is an amazing place

I love this trailer and can't wait to see the film. It's so fucked up it almost looks like one of these pseudo-trailers Tarantino likes to shoot. We live in crazy times indeed

Fight For Your Right Revisited

WOW

Possum Trot - the life and work of Calvin Black

A short clip from an amazing documentary made by Irving Saraf and Allie Light, about the incredible Calvin Black. I first saw his amazing creepy dolls at London's Museum of everything, and later on found the entire film online. Now it's gone but this trailer alone is still wonderful. Something Yotam Feldman posted today on Buzz reminded me of this.

images make sense

Three examples from recent years of music videos that put together beautiful systems of building visual narratives.

"Heaven can wait" By Charlotte Gainsbourg and Beck, directed by Keith Schofield


Charlotte Gainsbourg - Heaven Can Wait from Charlotte Gainsbourg on Vimeo.

"Bombay" by El Guincho, directed by Nicolás Méndez


EL GUINCHO | Bombay from MGdM | Marc Gómez del Moral on Vimeo.

"Heathen Child" by Grinderman, directed by John Hillcoat. This one is slightly different than the other two, as the images in it correspond to the lyrics, but I think it's merely inspiration and the logic of the video is still strictly visual.


Grinderman 'Heathen Child' - Director: John Hillcoat from Tom Lindsay on Vimeo.