.:Feb 01, 2005:.

There are few times in life when one can say he/she has witnessed greatness. I felt that way tonight.
Tuesday, not a promising day to have a day off and try to unwind by doing something fun. I realized that a guitarist called Kaki King, who I had seen on tv show a few days back, and who has intrigued me since will be performing at the Knitting Factory here in NY.
For those of you who don't know the Knitting Factory, it's the kind of place that will stamp your hand as you walk in as proof that you have paid, it never has enough seats for everyone, it has to kick the drunks away from the bar so paying concert goers can go in to see the show, and tonight in particular had its only unissex restroom divided into the following categories:
Two broken stalls, one working stall without a door side by side with one working stall with tape to hold the door together. Both require that you put your hand inside the broken open toilet tank to flush it. So you get a nice view of the butt next to you as you walk in, after having to wait for a long time (considering there are hundreds of people in the house nightly) to use the one with the tape holding the door.
Yet, in spite of it all, they manage to gather some of the greatest emerging musicians in NYC.
Well, tonight the main attraction was Kaki King, and what an show that was !
Sonya Kitchell opened the show, with a delightfully rich voice and a freshness on stage that made her and her group a real pleasure to watch.
And then Kaki king made her way to stage. The petite 5 foot guitarist looks too young to know what she is doing, but once she starts playing you realize genius is at work. The brightness of her playing translates in the short monologues with stories of her tours and small talk of her "old" days in NYC ( three years ago, when she played the subway ).
She goes from one guitar to the next with so much familiarity it is hard to believe it when she says that until 9/11, when she needed to find a way to supplement her income, she thought of herself as a drummer.
She interlaces beautiful heartfelt guitar playing with ways to use a guitar that almost make it a percussion instrument.
Click HERE for a video sample (real player)
Keep an eye on this girl. Probably the most original and accomplished guitarist of our generation is in the making. She is going far...

.:Jan 12, 2005:.

BROOKLYN BOY, new broadway play

Brooklyn Boy by the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Dinner With Friends and Sight Unseen. Directed by Tony Award® winner Daniel Sullivan (Proof), starts previews tomorrow on Broadway.
Brooklyn Boy is about a writer, played honestly and movingly by Adam Arkin, who has finally written a best selling novel and is now dealing with how that has affected his life and how his past has shaped what he is today.
From his relationship with his father, played by the superb Allan Miller to his dealings with old friends and the Hollywood machinery, the plays displays a tenderness rarely seen on Broadway nowadays.
Using a well balanced mix of humor and sincere dialogues to give the audience insights into these so familiar characters, the play manages to make you care for the them without oversentimentalism or hypocrisy. Worth checking it out!

Brooklyn Boy opens on Broadway tomorrow at:

THE BILTMORE
www.manhattantheatreclub.com
261 West 47th Street (between Broadway and 8th Avenue)
New York, NY 10036

.:Oct 9, 2004:.

CHINA DOLLS by Tony Ayres

(Can be currently seen on the Sundance Channel)

China Dolls is one of those movies that by description represents a very particular group of people. It is a documentary about gay chinese men who grew up in Australia and their relationship to sexuality and prejudice.

The beauty of it comes from that fact that rather than giving a generalized view of the problem, the movie chooses to dwell very intimately in the subject, and brings us all, with our insecurities, angers, frustrations and stereotypes into their world.
A world we find later, we all belong to, in one way or another.

"We make a lot about being asian and where we don't have that much option. How we are not attractive to the rest of society, but actually, most people aren't. And being asian is just coming from a position in which you might be old, or you might be fat or bald and you are equally rejected.

We live in a culture which equates power and status according to the way we look. Being asian is only one catch that puts you in the margins. In reality very few of us can live up to the ideal. We are all outsiders, foreigners, struggling to be part of someone else's dream."


Written and directed by Tony Ayres
Produced by Helen Bowden
YEAR 1997
28 MINS, Color

.:June 24, 2004:.

Excerpt from EMBEDDED by Tim Robbins:

Scene 20

Hatred cures loneliness. It'll be lonely without the prime-time war. Hopefully there'll be a new sensationall murder trial with graphic tragedy for us all to unite to oppose. Or a new health manace to keep us hostile. Without it, loneliness, despair. Staring at the dark nights, the magazine shows with (bletch) human interest stories. War is the friend of the lonely. It unites us with a community. It gives us purpose, a clear defined evil. It gives us community in our lonely rooms in the flickering cathode light. War is a noble porno. And your friends, your confidantes, are those that beat the drum, those clearly focused talking heads. The ones that pursue a truth without getting weak kneed about lying, about bending the truth or changing rationale for war. Your stalwart hate buddies, that value you, the ignored, the wage slave. You, the patriot, the forgotten man. Your hate buddies will stoke your anger, your fear and motivate you to spread the invective, the distrust, the disquiet that will keep us in war mode, that will keep us in compliance with the ultimate noble divine domain. Amen.

About Embedded:
The work by Robbins—who has written several plays— is described as "a ripped-from-the-headlines satire about the madness surrounding the brave women and men on the front lines in a Mideast conflict. [It] skewers cynical embedded journalists, scheming government officials, a show-tune singing colonel, and the media's insatiable desire for heroes." The term "embedded" was used during the war in Iraq to refer to journalists who were allowed to accompany American troops as they marched toward Baghdad.
Should be available on dvd soon.

.:June 7, 2004:.

BARAKA

A film that starts out with images that make you believe you will be taken into a world where still photography comes to life in the most magnificent sense, but when you are about to believe it will be nothing but a shallow feast for the eyes you realize it doesn't end there.
Within this movie with no words, no subtitles, no specific geographic boundaries, no real descriptions and no apparent storyline, you discover the tales words cannot tell.
The story is everywhere, not following the typing on a block of pages.
The trees, the rocks, the dirt talk and grunt, silently... the candles whisper...the buildings venerate the past and the clouds flow like streams amidst Himalayan mountains.
Factory workers in Asia or subways riders in New York City, all become ants in an anthill, forces of nature, as powerful as they are helpless.
And people tell tales of their happiness, beliefs, religions, customs, despairs. About all that makes us different yet inwardly so much the same without having words get in the way.
In a world of mediocre MTV filmmaking and noisy, fast, empty and completly content lacking movies of the week, Baraka's murmuring trip through the excessively detailed or broad grandeur of moments in 24 countries might take some getting used to. But whether I was fascinated by the choreographical goofiness of the Balinese Monkey Chanters, by the familiar pain in the eyes of Brazilian homeless children, by the quiet scream of of a Butoh dancer or the mesmerizing shot of the most glorious eclipse,
the music invites you to stop watching it as a movie and just let yourself experience the small worlds it's bringing to you.

Reality has never been as cinematic, nor cinema as poetic as BARAKA.


Thank you Kathi, for sending it our way :)

 

.:April 10, 2004:.

ok, so I'm back to Sarah Mclachlan. Somehow she always manages to say what I feel exactly the way I feel it. Thank goodness for artists who are still willing to bear their souls.
Almost every song from her latest cd, "Afterglow" is very beautiful.
You can watch the video for the single " Fallen" by clicking HERE.

If you like the songs, please support the artists by buying the cd or downloading the songs from a paid service like Napster.

Click Here to buy Afterglow

.:April 07, 2004:.

Jokes...jokes, who am I kidding? A song from one of my favorite singers.

CLICK HERE to download song
If you have a slow connection, please right click on the link and chose "save target as" and save to your computer.
( wma 1.9 mb )

DO WHAT YOU HAVE TO DO
by Sarah Mclachlan
(Mirrorball)

Click HERE do download the song

What ravages of spirit
Conjured this temptuous rage
Created you a monster
Broken by the rules of love
And fate has led you through it
You do what you have to do
And fate has led you through it
You do what you have to do ...
And I have the sense to recognize
that I don’t know how to let you go

Every moment marked
With apparitions of your soul
I’m ever swiftly moving
Trying to escape this desire

The yearning to be near you
I do what I have to do
The yearning to be near you
I do what I have to do

But I have the sense to recognize
That I don’t know how To let you go
I don’t know how To let you go

A glowing ember
Burning hot
Burning slow
Deep within I’m shaken by the violence
Of existing for only you

I know I can’t be with you
I do what I have to do
I know I can’t be with you
I do what I have to do
And I have sense to recognize but I don’t know how to let you go
I don’t know how to let you go
I don’t know how to let you go