The Human Experience

Directed by: Charles Kinnane / Written by: Michael Campo / Featuring: Jeffrey Azize, Clifford Azize and Michael Campo / Grassroots Films





















"It's about the human experience; it's about the beauty of life--all the good things in life--no matter what you went through, no matter what happened, no matter what happens in life...life is still good. Life is a gift."
~ Jeff Azize


Family.

Planet Earth

Elizabeth Bishop

"American poet Elizabeth Bishop (1911-1979) falls on the side of responding directly to humanity. She has become one of the most widely praised poets of our era as a chronicler of the fusion of self and culture. Critic David Orr could not contain his praise in 2008 when he wrote in The New York Times: "You are living in a world created by Elizabeth Bishop."

Bishop--a poet, a woman, an alcoholic, an expatriate, an orphan--"she left behind a body of work that teaches us, as Italo Calvino once said of literature generally, 'a method subtle and flexible enough to be the same thing as an absence of any method whatever.'"

Bishop's method is to be attentive. "She never once affects a rhetorical flourish, never affects a voice that is anything but conversational, never confesses the chatter of her life. Instead, she writes with distilled, shy discretion."
(source: www.oregonlive.com / by Special to The Oregonian; 12/24/2010)

The Fish
I caught a tremendous fish
and held him beside the boat
half out of water, with my hook
fast in a corner of his mouth.
He didn't fight.
He hadn't fought at all.
He hung a grunting weight,
battered and venerable
and homely. Here and there
his brown skin hung in strips
like ancient wallpaper,
and its pattern of darker brown
was like wallpaper:
shapes like full-blown roses
stained and lost through age.
He was speckled and barnacles,
fine rosettes of lime,
and infested
with tiny white sea-lice,
and underneath two or three
rags of green weed hung down.
While his gills were breathing in
the terrible oxygen
--the frightening gills,
fresh and crisp with blood,
that can cut so badly--
I thought of the coarse white flesh
packed in like feathers,
the big bones and the little bones,
the dramatic reds and blacks
of his shiny entrails,
and the pink swim-bladder
like a big peony.
I looked into his eyes
which were far larger than mine
but shallower, and yellowed,
the irises backed and packed
with tarnished tinfoil
seen through the lenses
of old scratched isinglass.
They shifted a little, but not
to return my stare.
--It was more like the tipping
of an object toward the light.
I admired his sullen face,
the mechanism of his jaw,
and then I saw
that from his lower lip
--if you could call it a lip
grim, wet, and weaponlike,
hung five old pieces of fish-line,
or four and a wire leader
with the swivel still attached,
with all their five big hooks
grown firmly in his mouth.
A green line, frayed at the end
where he broke it, two heavier lines,
and a fine black thread
still crimped from the strain and snap
when it broke and he got away.
Like medals with their ribbons
frayed and wavering,
a five-haired beard of wisdom
trailing from his aching jaw.
I stared and stared
and victory filled up
the little rented boat,
from the pool of bilge
where oil had spread a rainbow
around the rusted engine
to the bailer rusted orange,
the sun-cracked thwarts,
the oarlocks on their strings,
the gunnels--until everything
was rainbow, rainbow, rainbow!
And I let the fish go.

Insiduous

Directed by James Wan
Written by Leigh Whannell


A well-crafted horror film.

"...that was one of the things we really wanted to give Insidious. We wanted a lot of the scare sequences to play really silent. But, what I like to do with the soundtrack is set you on edge with a really loud, sort of like, atonal scratchy violin score, mixing with some really weird piano bangs and take that away and all of a sudden, you’re like, “What just happened there?” And then you’re following a character through a house and it’s just dead silent. Right? (Excitedly) Then, when you smash something in there, it really gets you and, um, one of my favorite (sequences) in the movie, without giving anything away, is when the alarm in the house goes off. Piercing alarm that goes off. Then, when he switches it off, it’s just (barely audible for effect) dead silent. You know? And I find it is that [juxtaposition] between loud and then silent is what sets you on edge. Horror filmmaking, it doesn’t get the kind of recognition, I, I feel like it (deserves) because there’s a lot of craft involved and it’s not just about someone jumping out with a knife or whatever and then the music goes all crazy and nuts, right? And your actors [are] screaming away. It’s not just about that. I think, to create a genuine, creepy, suspenseful movie, takes a lot of craft and that’s why I really admire what Alejandro Amenabar did with The Others and I really admire what (M. Night) Shyamalan did with The Sixth Sense. Those are both movies that are very controlled."
- James Wan interviewed by Ron Messer on 4/11/11

"Smile in your liver" - Ketut Liyer

Eat, Pray, Love
Directed by Ryan Murphy
Screenplay by Ryan Murphy & Jennifer Salt
Book by Elizabeth Gilbert

Liz Gilbert: In the end, I've come to believe in something I call "The Physics of the Quest." A force in nature governed by laws as real as the laws of gravity. The rule of Quest Physics goes something like this: If you're brave enough to leave behind everything familiar and comforting, which can be anything from your house to bitter, old resentments, and set out on a truth-seeking journey, either externally or internally, and if you are truly willing to regard everything that happens to you on that journey as a clue and if you accept everyone you meet along the way as a teacher and if you are prepared, most of all, to face and forgive some very difficult realities about yourself, then the truth will not be withheld from you.

(photo source: Heather B Smiles, Flickr)

"Smile in your liver" - Ketut Liyer, Balinese Healer




"Love, Pray, Eat" - Roger Ebert

Masuru Emoto

"Vibration is life and I think giving life is giving love. So you can give life to anyone, everything on this planet because you can generate every sound, every note."
- Masuru Emoto

Taxi to the Dark Side

Oscar-winning documentary, Directed by: Alex Gibner

"Part of what I have to do in the film is to take people through the process so that by the time they get to the end of the film, they may question some of their preconceptions." - Alex Gibner



"We should be concerned with what we do and what we can do. If there's an elementary moral truism that's it." - Noam Chomsky

"Growing numbers of us are yearning for the light." - Roger Ebert

a meeting of great minds

Classical meet Hip Hop; Hip Hop meet Classical

MASON BATES

Mason Bates: "For me, classical music can engage the mind like no other art form, but at the beginning of any piece of music, it’s a visceral experience. As the piece unfolds, your brain gets engaged. What makes [my wife] my ideal listener is she knows what it means to feel music." (source: interview by Richard Nilsen; The Arizona Republic)

DJ RADAR
(Bombshelter DJs, Furious Styles Crew)

"TURNTABLE BRINGS CARNEGIE HALL TO ITS FEET
WORLD PREMIERE OF CONCERTO FOR TURNTABLE

October 2, 2005 - DJ Radar and the Red Bull Artsehcro received a standing ovation at Carnegie Hall today when they performed the world premiere of “Concerto for Turntable”. This three movement piece was conceived and composed by Raúl Yáñez to help legitimize the turntable as an instrument, and at the same time push the boundaries of classical music. “The Concerto format and classical music is very strict; Raul had taken a lot of chances, not only with the turntable but with just the form of it. He’s really kind of opening Pandora’s Box,” Radar stated.

The Red Bull Artsehcro’s tuba player, Angelo Kortyka described the night as, “A glimpse into the future of classical music, and having done it at Carnegie makes it the best.” This landmark event was one of the first times a turntable has been on-stage in Carnegie Hall’s Isaac Stern Auditorium."

connect

SKID ROW
Directed by Ross Clarke, Niva Dorell

Orlando Ward (Midnight Mission) spoken to Pras (Fugees): "that's part of your quest--connecting with people, man. You know...how do you get the heart-to-heart thing going on [...] connect, same family, same, tribe, same folk...it's a real basic thing man, we search for commonalities [...] whenever we connect on a human level and let people see that there's something different than they expected, then we got a chance to work together and do something" 32:00

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"It takes people to have hope..." - Mike Rodriguez, R.I.P.

Last Exit to Brooklyn

51:49 -- Hubert Selby Jr.

"I will rise now, and go about the city
in the streets, and in their broad ways
I will seek him whom my soul loveth."
Song of Solomon 3:2,3

Directed by: Uli Edel
Written by: Hubert Selby Jr. (book), Desmond Nakano (screenplay)

"There is more of humanity in a prostitute trying to truly love, if only for a moment, than in all of the slow-motion romantic fantasies in the world." - Roger Ebert

what he stood for...

Photo by: Jeff Widener

Hedwig and The Angry Inch

Directed by and starring John Cameron Mitchell



...a love story that illustrates the construction and deconstruction of creation which leads to "gnosis" of oneself.

The Natural History Museum

visit on 1/1/11

The Tree of Life

Written & Directed by Terrence Malick

_____

On what it's like working with Terrence Malick..
The Rough Cut Interview with Jim Caviezel (The Thin Red Line); 1999

"He is an extremely kind, kind man. You would see an extra walk along and he would treat the extras as well as he would treat me or Sean Penn or Nick Nolte or anybody. As far as a director is concerned, he's like a farmer. He likes to make sure the soil is tilled right and we're, like, his crop. He really takes care of his crop. He works real hard. He works from, like, 4:30 in the morning till 12 at night, and it's never done. And he's always calling you up and saying that, "Well, let's work on your accent a little bit more." He's got this way about him that's wonderful. He's a great listener; [he] doesn't forget a name. You could be some complex five-syllable name and he'd remember [it]. He's extraordinary that way. As far as a director and his techniques, no two days were the same. One day you could come out there and it'd be real intimate and another day he's giving you line readings. I enjoyed not knowing what he was going to do. One day he'd say, "Jim, we don't have a scene yet put down today, I don't have anything written, but maybe I know something needs to be done there between you and Sean (Penn), and so we're gonna try our best to figure it out." So, we'd sit down and thoroughly think through a scene that's not even there yet. It could be real controlled chaos, some days. He likes to keep the actors around him, like we're paints. Some of the guys would complain. Maybe we're up a hill and have to hike and it'd be like 40 minutes away from where our trailers were, so he needed us right there. But it was really hard because of the heat -- you know, 100 degrees every day, humidity was real hard -- and he'd keep you by him like you were a paint and that's how he did it. And then, when he was done, he'd just kind of painted this piece of art, this film."

Memoirs of a Geisha

Memoirs of a Geisha
Directed by Rob Marshall
Written by Robin Swicord (screenplay) and Arthur Golden (book)
Produced by John Deluca
Starring: Ziyi Zhang

on preproduction...
Rob Marshall: "...its sort of a documentary, sort of authenthic style...I saw it as a fable. We did an enormous amount of research so we would know from where to depart. And I only felt we needed to depart from the reality of this world in order to serve this story. And it's told through a child's eyes and it was important to really see it that way."

John Deluca: "That was the one blessed freedom Ron gave all of the creative team was that he wanted us to do the research as if we were filming a documentary but then let it go and let our own artistic sense come in."

RM: "That's all we can really do as artists--is your own impression of the world."

Chris Cunningham

While he has a knack for getting adult fingers wagging, the desire to tap the fears and free imagination of childhood is at the heart of Cunningham’s creative process. He explains: “When I draw, whatever comes out is what comes out naturally. I don’t see it as ‘dark’. You’re trying to work instinctively, to make stuff as you would when you were 12.”

(BBC Interview; Skye Sherwin 17 June 05)

"caught a rush on the floor from the life in my veins"

Atmosphere


Slug: I didn’t know I was going to have another [kid], honestly. But then two years ago, my wife was like, ‘Let’s have a kid.’ I was hesitant at first. I had all these reasons why I wouldn’t have another kid. Any excuse you could think of: I’m too busy. I’m too selfish. The carbon footprint of having a child. And then she said something to me that clicked. She said, ‘If you really want to make the world a better place, you’ve got to have kids and raise ‘em right. You’ve got to balance out all of the idiots that are having kids.

I was like, I can’t argue with that. It just is so logical to me, because really, I recycle, but that’s not saving the f—in’ people. It might be helping the deer in the long term. It might be helping the bears that we recycle, but we’re not gonna save the people because the people are still on a self-destructive mission. So it’s like, yeah, she’s right, the only way to save the f—in’ planet is to make f—in’ awesome kids.

(source: interview by Ben Salmon; Turning the page: Slug on Atmosphere’s new babies, new music)

kitchen sink

Dir. Alison Maclean, 1989

Burial

"Inspired by the darkside drum'n'bass of the Metalheadz label, Burial decided at the outset to avoid at all costs the rigid, mechanistic path that eventually brought drum 'n' bass to a standstill. To this end, his percussion patterns are intuitively arranged on the screen rather than rigidly quantized, creating minute hesitations and slippages in the rhythm. His snares and hi-hats are covered in fuzz and phaser, like cobwebs on forgotten instruments, and the mix is rough and ready rather than endlessly polished. Perhaps most importantly, his basslines sound like nothing else on Earth. Distorted and heavy, yet also warm and earthy, they resemble the balmy gust of air that precedes an underground train." - Derek Walmsley, journalist

visual poetry