Premio “Rimbaud” 2009
Le opere finaliste

La giuria del Premio Rimbaud, composta da Piero Pacchiarotti, Enrico Maria Falconi, Andrea Giannasi e Dario Falconi, dopo attenta lettura ha selezionato un gruppo di opere finaliste che saranno nuovamente lette.
Dopo una prima valutazione sulla forma e sulla “storia” narrata, la giuria passerà a valutare la messa in scena dell’opera presentata.
Entro la metà di novembre sarà reso noto il nome del vincitore, che vedrà la sua opera rappresentata a Civitavecchia a fine marzo 2010 nel Teatro “Nuovo Sala Gasmann” dalla Compagnia Teatrale Blue In the Face diretta da Enrico Maria Falconi.

Sono giunti in finale:
La ballata di Mcheath di Carlo Barbera
Non sarà domani di Marina Regno
Anti-gonia di Elena Fanucci
Mistero profano di Giacomo Ripari
Il derelitto perfetto di Marco Bertoncelli
Il lavoro rende liberi di Daniele Angelucci
Allarme in polveriera di Eugenio Calsamiglia
L’altoparlante di Giulia Donelli
Il mio Tessoro di Lucia Berardinelli
Radiotaxi di Michel Franzoso
Dove futuro di Antonio Giordano
Classe Novecento di Massimo De Nardo
Gli odori dei miei ricordi di Pasquale Ferro
La morte di Scardanelli di Gerardo Caputo
Il risveglio di Marco Bufarini
Grimfandango di Riccardo Vaghi Piricò
La promenade des Anglais di Walter Da Pozzo
Non ho mai avuto una macchina nuova di Vincenzo Montenero

I barely remember this movie, or buying this CD. Huh.

When was the last time you played your Blue in the Face soundtrack album? Goodbye Yellow Brick Road? Or one of the obscure Tears for Fears CD’s, after the hits stopped?

Yeah, it’s been awhile for me, too. Which led to my current musical experiment.

During the Chicago years (my god, I already sound like it was eons ago), I kept some of my less-played CD’s in storage back here in CT, along with all my albums. I’ve already written about rediscovering the joys of vinyl, though truth be told, I haven’t played that many. Actually, over the last few years, I’ve noticed a disturbing trend: I just don’t play music much anymore.

From 1975 - OMG I think I had this one...

A painful admission, coming from someone who has defined so much of his life by the music he bought and played, the concerts he saw, the time he spent as a roadie. That lifelong importance of music was one of the conceits of the heralded solo show that, among other things, set off C?WC? I cherish those vivid memories of bopping to my older sister’s 45s in the living room, playing DJ at grade school and in the neighborhood with my little portable phono, scouring Creem and Rolling Stone and Circus for musical tidbits I could include in my first-ever published writing gig, as musical maven for the Glastonbury High School newspaper. (God, what was it called? Something Indian-themed, I assume, since we were the Tomahawks [“on the warpath, ooh, aah,” as the cheerleaders reminded us]. Any alums reading — help me out here, guys!)

EVerybody's favorite mid-70s band, Sparks!

Then there were the early concerts: Three Dog Night at Hartford’s Bushnell Auditorium – a birthday gift for my sister, with our parents by our side; outdoors at Dillon Stadium when I was 12, the first show sans parents, and the first time I think I ever smelled pot (just smelled, mind you…); the efforts to get the best seats possible the day tickets went on sale, which meant precisely timing my mailed check, since there was no Internet and no way my mother was going to let me camp out; Sparks at the Bushnell, with 246 others who actually knew who these crazy guys were; the abysmal failure of trying to produce a bluegrass show while a member of the GHS student council (and yet I still tried to stage the solo show. What the hell was I thinking…). The list could go on and on.

I noticed my personal music dearth in Chicago, especially on the live side. Oh, I saw plenty of great shows, but over five years – and given the amount of good music so close at hand – the average was pretty pathetic. I tried to at least keep up with new artists, buying CD’s strictly based on reviews, but then found myself drifting back to an ever-shrinking selection of the tried and true. Which shaped the little experiment now underway.

With the stored CD’s added back into the collection, I decided I would play them all, once, in order from A to Z. Now, I made some allowances for previous lapses in taste: If a CD really seemed to suck to me now, I’d play just one or two songs and consider that disc done. But what I really hoped was to find some hidden treasures, especially in the genres I tend to neglect: classical, jazz, blues.

I realize this endeavor is not exactly groundbreaking. Not up there with reading every page of the Encyclopedia Britannica or living for a year like an Old Testament Jew (amazingly, or insanely, both done by the same guy). But it’s not a parody of those efforts either. My goal is to reconnect with “lost” gems, and just reintegrate music into my life on a more regular basis. Of course, I know there are dangers; I imagine one day I’ll scream “Oh my god, why did I buy so much Foghat?! Why did I keep it?!” (Actually, the only album I had was on vinyl, and it was purged from the collection ages ago. But you get the idea.)

I am now amidst the B’s, having just completed Bach. I got to hear my favorite piece, the Brandenburg Concerto #3, and some organ music that sounded like it came from a horror-flick soundtrack. The A’s had some delights – I forgot how much I like Laurie Anderson’s Home of the Brave. But I did wonder, apropos of Foghat, why I have so much Asleep at the Wheel. No, that’s not fair – they’re lots of fun live, and their tributes to Bob Wills, especially the first, are killer. But three or four CD’s in a row is a little much. I should have invoked the one-or-two-song rule, but I let them play through. We’ll see if I’m as generous with some of the older Dylan and mediocre Elvis (I gotta lot of Dylan and Costello…).

This effort might lead me to get rid of some things I have outgrown or bought on some inexplicable whim. I hope it leads to more moments like the one with Home of the Brave, or uncovering something cool I had no clue I even owned. We’ll see. At the least, I’ll hear if there’s anything decent on Blue in the Face, which  should be coming up pretty soon. I’ll keep you posted.

Photo by Rankin via Oxfam

We’re increasingly understanding that the environmental movement is not just about hugging trees and saving the whales, it’s about people too. That’s why musicians like Fatboy Slim, Jarvis Cocker, VV Brown, and Little Boots are lending their faces – painted blue – to Oxfam’s “Blue in the Face” campaign.

The new campaign urges world leaders attending the climate summit in Copenhagen this December to address the needs of poor communities dealing with the impacts of global warming. From the destruction of homes to limited access to clean water to food shortages, the poor are especially hit hard by the effects of more frequent and severe natural disasters caused by climate change.

Photographed by fashion photographer Rankin, these celebrity pics are just the beginning of an online photo gallery of supporters. That’s right! You too can join in the face painting fun and “take action on climate change until you’re blue in the face.”

Oxfam will be at festivals all over the UK to help with face painting and photo snapping. They’ll present the petition to the UK government just in time for the summit, asking for reduced global carbon emissions and funds to help poor areas adapt to environmental changes. The big kickoff starts this weekend at Glastonbury.

People often describe Bev Hogue’s art as very collectible. I can definitely see why.

Bev’s creations are widely known because of their signature shades of ‘blue’ style. Her series of paintings called ‘Blue in the Face’ capture women in original scenes that are rich in diversity.

Bev’s work is exhibited and collected around the world. The complete catalogue of her creations is distributed by Beluxe Inc.

Check out more of Bev’s paintings and prints here.

In Santa Monica, in the winter time,
The lazy streets so undemanding
I walk into the crowd
In Santa Monica, you get your
coffee from
The coolest places on the
promenade
Where people dress just so
Beauty so unavoidable, everywhere
you turn
It’s there I sit and wonder what am I
doing here?
But on the telephone line I
am anyone
I am anything I want to be
I could be a super model or
Norman Mailer
And you wouldn’t know the
difference
Or would you?

In Santa Monica, all the people got
modern names
Like Jake or Mandy
And modern bodies too
In Santa Monica, on the boulevard,
You’ll have to dodge those
In-line skaters
Or they’ll knock you down
I never felt so lonely,
Never felt so out of place
I never wanted something more
than this

But on the telephone line I
am anyone
I am anything I want to be
I could be a super model or
Norman Mailer
And you wouldn’t know the
difference
On the telephone line, I am
any height
I am any age I want to be
I could be a caped crusader, or
space invader
And you wouldn’t know
the difference
Or would you?

E’ tutto confermato: dal 24 febbraio al 3 marzo 2009 la Blue In The Face di Civitavecchia si esibirà alla Santa Monica Playhouse di, appunto, Santa Monica, CA!!

Ora non resta che chiedere il permesso al Boss…

p.s.

la canzone è “Santa Monica” dei Savage Garden

Despite having many friends there, I’ve yet to visit Brooklyn. I hear it’s a lot like The Mission without the tepid weather. Apparently, when a hipster leaves the Bay Area, he ends up in Brooklyn.

One of my most favorite films of all time, “Blue in the Face” is a love letter to the place.

New York, Manhattan en film is een fascinerende cocktail, vooral in de handen van Woody Allen. Voor mij blijft hij de nummer 1 als het erop aan komt om de ziel van Manhattan tot leven te wekken, al is dat in tegenstelling tot Martin Scorsese vooral uptown Manhattan. Allen Stewart Konigsberg werd geboren in Brooklyn en heeft een imposant oeuvre uitgebouwd rond zijn favoriete thema’s zoals relatieproblemen, seks, jood zijn, filosofie en New York, allemaal gelardeerd met heerlijke jazz- en andere standards. Als late tiener raakte ik in de ban van ‘Annie Hall’. Woody Allen speelt er een Joodse neuroot, Diana Keaton in baggy pants en das is la-di-da zijn even geschifte tegenspeelster en Manhattan is het decor van deze moeizame relatie. Oneliners als “A relationship is like a shark. It has to be constantly moving or else it dies” of “Mastubation is sex with someone I love.” hebben ongetwijfeld bijgedragen tot één van de 4 Oscars.

16 jaar later herneemt hij heel wat materiaal uit Annie Hall in ‘Manhattan Murder Mystery‘, een komedie over twee typische Upper East Side intellectuelen die denken dat hun buurman zijn vrouw heeft vermoord. Een grappige film vol postmoderne referenties naar ander films, zijn eigen werk én zijn eigen leven (was toen net in mediastorm geraakt toen Mia Farrow hem ervan beschuldigde hun geadopteerde kids te hebben misbruikt). Deze film opent (in kleur) met helicopteropnames van de omgeving van Madison Square Garden en bevat heel wat beelden van de Upper West Side, diverse parken (het fragment hieronder opent op de tonen van de schitterende drum & bas solo Big Noise from Winnetka om te eindigen met een mooie scène aan de fontein in Bryant Park) en binnenopnames in oa The Chelsea Hotel, Elaine’s & The 21 Club.

In die andere topper van Woody Allen, ‘Manhattan’, is de stad zo prominent aanwezig dat de stad een personage op zich wordt. Het verhaal over gebroken relaties bevat de vaste Allen-ingrediënten en is gedraaid in zwart-wit. Met oa mooie shots van de Queensboro wandelbrug en Zabar’s, de smakelijkste store van NYC, maar de max is de openingsscène, nog steeds een onnavolgbare liefdesverklaring aan Manhattan op muziek van Gerschwin.

Toont Woody Allen in ‘Manhattan’ de stad van de jaren 70, in ‘Basquiat’ krijg je de underground scène van de tachtiger jaren in beeld. ‘Art from the gutter’, zo werd de kunst van Jean-Michel Basquiat ook wel eens genoemd. Je krijgt in de film niet alleen de hele entourage rond Andy Warhol (uitstekende vertolkt door David Bowie die voor de gelegenheid de pruiken van de echte Warhol mocht opzetten) te zien, ook SoHo (South of Houston Street), waar de kunstenaars de oude industriële panden omtoverden tot ruime ateliers, komt uitvoerig in beeld. Een geladen film met een ijzersterke soundtrack die zowel jazz van Miles Davis en Charlie Parker bevat als eighties muziek van The Stones, Iggy Pop en Tom Waits.

Ook op mijn lijstje met NY-favorieten en alweer met David Bowie: ‘The Hunger‘. Catherine Deneuve is een bisuexuele vampier, veroordeeld tot het eeuwige leven. In het New York van de 20e eeuw leeft ze samen met David Bowie die echter snel aftakelt. Ze lokt Susan Sarandon in haar netten om haar lange leven met haar verder te zetten. Tenminste, dat hoopt ze… Vanaf de sterke openingsscène in een undergroundclub waar ze samen met haar partner op zoek gaat vers bloed, grijpt dit koele maar fascinerende spektakel je naar de keel.  Een heel gestyleerde vampierenfilm die ook in zijn muziekkeuze door de tijd heen waart, van opera (het wondermooie bloemenduet uit Lakmé, de vergeten opera van Delibes) tot Gothic (Beauhaus met ‘Bella Lugosi’s Dead’). Door sommige gekraakt, voor anderen een gekoesterde cultfilm.

In het lichtere genre is ‘Hitch’ wellicht de beste beeldintroductie tot de stad. Will Smith denkt terug aan zijn tijd op Columbia University, ontmoet zijn belangrijkste klant op de trappen van het Metropolitan Museum of Art, neemt je als ‘Doctor of Dates’ mee op een jetski naar Ellis Island of probeert in het City Hall Park van de voedselvergiftiging af te geraken die hij opliep in de Fulton Fish Market, aan de voet van Brooklyn Brigde. Eva Mendes rekent op een symbolische manier af met een man onder de bull on Wall Street en gaat naar Madison Square Garden voor een game van The Knicks. En passant krijg je nog een blik op de jachthaven, de zoo in Central park en uiteraard helicopterbeelden by night. Daar kan  ‘When Harry met Sally’  niet tegenop. De babbelzieke komedie over de (on)mogelijkheid van vriendschap tussen mannetje en vrouwtje ademt een New York state of mind uit, al krijg je de stad (op Washington Square in Greenwich Village na) amper te zien. De spitse dialogen en de heerlijke standards uit the great American songbook (Harry Conick Jr. met big band) maken veel goed. Dames die in New York naar Katz’ Delicatessen, een diner in East Village, gaan, moeten wel opletten wat ze bestellen.

Bij wijze van uitsmijter ‘Blue in the Face’, het vervolg op ‘Smoke’ van Wayne Wang over de tabakswinkel van Harvey Keitel in Brooklyn. Van de stad krijg je niet veel te zien, maar ter compensatie wordt er heel wat afgekletst over relaties, baseball, Belgian Waffles, New York, en uiteraard roken. Lou Reed komt nog eens haarfijn uitleggen waarom hij al 35 probeert de stad te verlaten, zonder succes. Jim Jarmusch die sedert zijn 17e in de stad woont, rookt zijn laatste sigaret…

Het wordt een dagtaak om al die filmlocaties te bezoeken. Meer info op de pagina Movies.

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blue in the face – Lou Reed und Jim Jarmusch