“The power of Love borne in my lady’s eyes imparts its grace to all she looks upon.” ~ Dante, Vita Nuova
Monthly Archives: March 2010
disappearing and breaking\/\/remembering the past
Performance is often labeled a disappearance. By the time it’s happening, it’s already done. The moment performed is always already in the past. My present performance has already happened. And sure, we can wax philosophical all day long about such a statement but it feels like it’s just another way to say that it’s really hard to talk about what performance is. Performance scholar Richard Schechner says that performance is “restored behavior,” that when we perform, we’re always performing that which has been performed before, albeit in a slightly different way, if for no other reason than the space and time has disappeared. In this way, performance is about bringing the past into the present. It’s about remembering. Now this remembering is often unconscious. When the President, for example, gives an inaugural address, he is very clearly calling on the performances of presidents past, restoring the genre of the address but putting his own flair on it. Now, there’s no doubt that the whole thing is about pomp and circumstance, but it is a pomp and circumstance that is American. In this framing of the event, we forget (as a public) that the restored behavior of past president’s is a [...]
paris calling
Featuring Lané Jo, and the makeup and hairstylings of Lauren Marler. Music (“Paris 4 AM”) by The Legendary Pink Dots. Location courtesy of Hotel Congress. . . . . .
this week on the avant guardian \/\/ london calling!
Musical reviews were a popular form of entertainment during the first third of the 20th century. Reviews usually involved a short series of sketches with a variety of comedic and romantic themes running through, but above all they were known for their spectacle. And really, who doesn’t love a good spectacle! In 1923, London Calling! premiered at the Duke of York Theater in London, with music and lyrics by Noël Coward. Though there is little information on the show available (at least that I have been able to find), It seems to be Noël Coward’s first major work as a musician and lyricist and whatever it looked/sounded like, it no doubt influenced his later work. In case you’re not familiar with Coward’s work, he wrote plays and musicals. Among his most famous works is the play Private Lives in which a divorced couple finds themselves honeymooning with their new respective spouses at the same hotel. They see each other and hilarity ensues! And by hilarity I mean they ditch their new spouses, run away to Paris where they fight and fuck all day long. At least that’s the gist of it. During World War II, Coward headed up the British [...]
i wish we could write titles in capital letters
CAUSE THEN I WOULD SAY THAT COMIC BOOKS ARE AWESOME I’ve always wanted to be Batman. Batman is pretty much my hero. Although, I’m not sure I could take on more than 4 guys at a time. So maybe Robin? Ugh Robin is totally lame. Alfred? Maybe. I guess being Superman would be cool, but Superman is really a frat boy. Have you ever met anyone from Iowa? I can’t relate to that at all. I always thought kryptonite looked sweet. But. If you bling out with kryptonite are you actively projecting the image that you are NOT Superman? Plus, it almost definitely gives you cancer. Cancer of the everything too. Back to the task at hand. Spiderman? Too snarky. Hulk? Can’t speak properly/is green. The Flash? Running: that’s it. Green Lantern? All it takes is a ring. Maybe I should think more realistically. If I had to actually BE a superhero I’d probably go with Reed Richards. Mister Fantastic of the Fantastic Four. A sensible choice I would say. Super smart, super bendable and stretchable, leader of men, and he’s married to the hot girl of the group. Though I just now considered the potential caveats of having a [...]
i love you, i love you not\/\/the ethics of eros
Slavoj Zizek is insane. He is also brilliant. In the short clip from the documentary “Zizek!” Zizek contends that love is evil. Love is about excluding one thing to focus on another. A part of me wants to say, right on Zizzy! but then another part wants to say, wtf, mate?! Love is exclusionary. We shift our focus to the object or subject of our affection and in so doing we necessarily exclude other objects and subjects from our gaze. Is this a violent act? Is it evil, as zizzy suggests? I think not. Can it lead to evil? Without a doubt. There are two ideas at play here: 1. Love is necessarily exclusionary 2. By loving one thing more than an other, we do violence to that other. I agree with zizzy on the first note, but I have to disagree with the second. To love is not a difficult thing. We experience the pangs of love everyday. We are continually disappointed by the actions of others which suggests that we expect certain things from the actions of others. We expect the world to be a kind and caring place. If we didn’t, there would be no disappointments. We [...]
navelgazing
“Sit and contemplate your navel.” A Flash movie featuring Phototapestries 1–79, in chronological order. All artwork and music copyright © 2002–2009 Michael Lujan. (Please wait for a few moments for the movie to load.) . . . . . . . .
this week on the avant guardian \/\/ simplify the universe
Here’s the raw truth: simplification involves destruction. The world is place of clutter and sprawl. To simplify is to kill the clutter. Back in 1985, the DC comics universe was a case study in clutter and sprawl. An expansive roster of characters inhabited a number of parallel universes. Earth 1! Earth 2! Earth 3! Earth B! Earth X! and so on. Different Supermen with their own storylines? Batman has a daughter? Lex Luthor is a hero on a different Earth? The kahunas at DC were concerned, rightly, that potential readers would be turned off by having to navigate a fictional universe choked with a half-century of comic jetsam. So they masterminded a 12-issue story arc that would, in the words of writer Marv Wolfman, “simplify the universe”. This meant constructing a narrative that would compress the out-of-control multiple universes into a single neat one. So, from the brain of Wolfman sprang the “Crisis on Infinite Earths” and in an epic comic cleansing, billions of fictional people were scoured from the pages until just a single accessible Earth remained. To show their dedication to this simplification, some fan favorites had to get killed off too, most notably Supergirl and Barry [...]
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