

(Ed note: I appreciate the convenience of the BlogPress iPhone editor app, but jeez it likes the white space when fooling with pictures)
Just because you win the fightputs the whole notion of Socratic truth and Christian salvation under the spotlight (or maybe flashlight) . Doing it all correctly, following the plan, running with the groove doesn't intrinsicly mean anything. Social systems are ways to get along, not ways to thrive, but you first need to get a long to truly thrive, or perhaps by thriving we get along because our uniqiue thriving feeds back into the system, turning the soil. I am tempted say I am projecting all this into something as purposely stupid as Funkadelic can be, but isn't that part of the game? Is George Clintion the Falstaff of the Shaespearian tragedy of the 70s? Is he laughing at my hair and glasses?
Don't make you right
Just because you give
Don't make you good
Mostly I'm doing this to see how easy or difficult it is to peck out
my genius on this little picture of a keyboard than on the little
bubble buttons on my beloved yet suddenly obselete Palm device.
Wayne Coyne is crooning "suddenly, everything has changed" in my ear
and I supppose it has a little, even if it is in the self serving
sector of this blog.
I can't figure out to select a block of text for deletion, something I
do a lot despite the loquacious nature of the dispatches. I suspect
there are no easy means for italics in the future as it sits I'm my
hand. It does catch the lion's share of my typos so that's a plus.
Perhaps the ornate syntaxes of the past are growing quaint and will
only be tolerated while they are amusing. I do understand the Masters
are going to give us our cut, copy, and paste (how did they forget
that?) so maybe italics are not so far behind.
Sent from my iPhone
The coolest musical performance this week was not a show exactly. Field Day, the group comprised of Zenbilly’s Bill Calloway and his two sons performed a stream of undulating space rock as part of Mallory Fetz & Kit French’s smart installation Trip the Light Electric on Saturday night at the Shaw Center. One of the second-floor classrooms was done up in streamers and balloons to recreate a prom setting, and projected on one wall was an extended video of four wallflowers fidgeting uncomfortably on the sidelines as Field Day’s driving continuum bled in from the room next door, capturing perfectly the existential distance that occurs at the prom -- you are there but you are not participating. Calloway and sons would rotate among drums, guitar and keyboards throughout the night, sometimes mid-song it seemed, which I thought was nice incidental touch.
Not only do I want more of this from our eager cadre of art students at our city’s two universities, but I want the local music scene integrated into it. The two feed each other and create something greater than the sum of its parts. There are those that say nothing cool ever happens here; I would say those people are culturally myopic and need to get out more rather than let their grumblings become a reality.
For instance, I am particularly excited about "The Edge of the Earth: An Evening of Video, Music, and Poetry" at the Manship Theatre this Saturday, featuring the performance of selected movements Olivier Messiaen’s Quartet for the End of Time, a poem written and read by Jacqueline Dee Parker, and the premier of Bird and Squirrel a film by LSU art professor Kelli Scott Kelley. Programming Messiaen’s beguiling quartet for piano, clarinet, cello and violin, written for the musicians and instruments at hand during his time in a German prison camp during World War II, along with Kelley’s film (soundtrack by Culture Candy founder Bill Kelley) about the last boy and girl on earth, demonstrates the synergy an arts scene, music environment and performance space can create when they work together. And the event is free, starting at 7 p.m. I’ll consider it a present for my 40th birthday if you pack the house for this unique and inspiring event. Go see some art, see some live music and keep up the good work.
Oh and check out the Decemberists’ new album, The Hazards of Love, if you need another example of what high ambition can create in the right hands.
Wednesday, March 25
The Shivers, Like Trains & Taxis, and Wilderness Pangs at Spanish Moon
Thursday, March 26
Patti Austin at the Manship Theatre
The Moaners at Chelsea’s
The Winter Sounds and Dear Future at North Gate Tavern
Pat Green at The Varsity
Friday, March 27
HEALTH, Picture Plane, and Man + Building at Spanish Moon
Steve Riley & the Mamou Playboys at The Varsity
Randy Owen (of Alabama) at the Texas Club
Papa Grows Funk at Chelsea’s
Letters in Red and If I Were a Battleship at Click’s
Tin Horse, Johnny Firmin & American Heart, and Steve Bing & the Bayou Hot Shots at Boudreaux & Thibodeaux’s
Zoso at The Varsity
Kenny Acosta at Phil Brady’s
Randy Pavlock at Teddy’s Juke Joint
Saturday, March 28
“The Edge of the Earth” at the Manship Theatre
As Cities Burn at Spanish Moon
6 Pack Deep and Fatty Lumpkin at Chelsea’s
Sky Chief at North Gate Tavern
Maven and Devil & the Details at Click’s
Chris Himel & Outbound at Boudreaux & Thibodeaux’s
Aretmis at Phil Brady’s
Big Red & the Soul Benders at Teddy’s Juke Joint
Sunday, March 29
Big Red & the Soul benders at Teddy’s Juke Joint
Monday, March 30
Langhorne Slim at Red Star
This weekend, I found myself in a rare situation where artists liked and unliked were discussed, offered up and discussed. This was something I did in perpetuity as a student but do not do enough as an adult, so I figured I'd make mention here of one I really like - Greek arte povera artist Jannis Kounellis. He's one of those guys who enjoyed a heyday in the 80's when I first started studying art, often featured in enigmatic gallery ads in Artforum, whose name has slipped a bit from public consciousness. His art, comprised largely of steel and sheets and rope and famously, horsesAB: Among contemporary artists, which seem to you to be the most interesting?
JK: A living artist is not necessarily a contemporary artist. I love the artists drawn to adventure, to renewal, those that do not ever accept evidence or obligatory data. This takes courage. Before, I spoke of Pollock and Kline because in them there is no sign of weakness. In certain cases, this pushes them so far as to risk their lives. If you are weak or fragile as an artist, your weight diminishes and becomes interchangeable and decorative. On an intellectual level, in general, work that is born from a weak area is intrinsically negative, in the sense that you are driven to accept compromises.