lies like truth

The new song by the Chinese artist Ai Weiei, "Dumbass," seemingly has little in common with "Craftsmanship," a talk given in 1937 by Virginia Woolf, a newly released recording of which is being touted as the only known imprint of the British author's voice. It's fascinating, however, to listen to both recordings side by side. Despite the fact that thousands of miles and nearly 80 years separate Woolf's erudite and queenly-toned meditation on the power of words from Weiei's gruff, a-melodious crie de coeur about incarceration, the two … [Read more...]

The final part of my trip to Denver included a visit to The Clyfford Still Museum. This jewel-box of an art institution, which opened in November 2011 right in the middle of an otherwise rather barren section of downtown Denver overlooking several parking lots, is one of the most compelling museums I've experienced dedicated to a single artist. The grey, concrete building, designed by Brad Cloepfil and his colleagues from the Allied Works Architecture firm, provides vast amounts of natural light and interesting views at every … [Read more...]

I made the most of a sunny Saturday in the Mile High City. Here are some thoughts about a few of the cultural activities I undertook: 1. The Five Points Jazz Festival: This beloved street festival devoted to jazz music and related arts is in its 10th year. The Denver neighborhood was a jazz mecca back in the day, hosting the likes of Billie Holliday, Duke Ellington and Count Basie among others. This year's festival was a lively affair with hundreds of people of all ages and ethnic backgrounds milling about several blocks of Welton Street, … [Read more...]

Karaoke is a wonderful invention because of its power to unite complete strangers through that electric combination of booze and song. The Singing Room, a new comedy by Denver's Horse & Cart theatre company explores this notion with love and a light touch. Although playwright Sean Paul Mahoney's script could be tighter, the essential feeling that permeates this quirky comedy can't help but put a smile on one's face. The show basically evolves like an extended improv skit, with various different characters entering a karaoke bar and … [Read more...]

Radio Silence is a formidable organization. Founded by teacher-turned-writer/editor Dan Stone, the year-old, print, online and live magazine exists at the intersection between rock music and literature. It's about time that someone came up with intelligent content in this area of our culture. There hasn't been a ton of it since the early days of Rolling Stone. The contributors and discourse include gems like New Yorker editor David Remnick discussing Bob Dylan on a podcast and an essay by Tobias Wolff about his peripatetic musical passions. … [Read more...]

After a visit to the Piedmont Bird Calling Contest on Friday night, as detailed in my last blog post, my weekend took a more serious turn with performances of The National Theatre of Scotland's Black Watch at the American Conservatory Theater and Beethoven's Missa Solemnis and an excerpt from Palestrina's Missa Papae Marcelli at the San Francisco Symphony. A few words about each: First, to Davies Symphony Hall. The combined forces of the San Francisco Symphony and Chorus under the baton of Michael Tilson Thomas made a glittering, robust … [Read more...]

The annual Piedmont High School Bird Calling Contest has to be one of the hidden cultural gems of the Bay Area, like some rare species of owl. I say hidden, but in fact this eccentric and marvelous competition which has been going since 1963, get quite a bit of exposure: The winners appear every year on the David Letterman show to perform their winning calls to millions of viewers. Before Letterman started inviting the high school bird call aficionados to perform on air, they were annual guests on the Johnny Carson show. Yet despite this … [Read more...]

Experiencing the San Francisco's Ballet's new version of Cinderella created by Christopher Wheeldon to the music of Sergei Prokofiev in a co-production with the Dutch National Ballet last night made me think about how much better ballet does, in general, at communicating figurative ideas over literal ones. The weakest section of Wheeldon's darkly sublime take on the classic story happens at the start, where the dancers are forced to pantomime their way through tons of exposition explaining why poor Cinders ended up becoming a lackey to her … [Read more...]

On Friday, I was invited to take a specially organized private tour of  The Voice Center for Medicine and the Arts at the University of California, Los Angeles. The tour was carefully and skillfully arranged by Nina Eidsheim, an assistant professor in the university's musicology department, and Jody Kreiman, a professor at the Voice Center (along with Jody's team). Nina is editing a forthcoming volume of essays about singing from Oxford University Press to which I am contributing. Jody is the author, along with Diana Van Lancker Sidtis, … [Read more...]

When August Strindberg’s Miss Julie first appeared on the stage in 1888, people were understandably shocked by the author's unflinching tale about an upper class woman's affair with a servant and the ensuing power struggle that leads her to take her life. Making the play feel as raw to a 21st century audience as it did to theatre-goers in the 19th isn't easy, especially an audience as awash in "upstairs-downstairs" narratives as our post-Downtown Abbey-inhaling one is. But Neil LaBute manages to make Strindberg's masterpiece feel fresh … [Read more...]