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15/05/2006 Davis, Music

Aaaah-tchooo!

There’s an awful lot of pollen in Davis. The air is disgustingly fecund right now, and my hayfever is the worst it’s ever been. Clarityn, my antihistamine of choice, is unable to stem the flow of phlegm. I can actually feel the sting of the pollen as it blows into my engorged eyeballs.

Now I have health insurance I can go to the doctor and get a prescription for something stronger then Clarityn, but it’s not at all obvious which doctors participate in my health insurance scheme. If I go to one that’s not on the list I have to pay in full for my consultation. Whatever its faults, I’ll take the NHS any day.

I’ve been spending quite a few hours lying in my darkened bedroom with wet paper towels over my eyes, which has one advantage. This enforced rest has given me time to listen to some new music.

Cover of My Life in the Bush of Ghosts (Remastered) by Brian Eno and David Byrne

First, there’s the fairly recent re-release of a record I first heard in Israel in 1999, My Life in the Bush of Ghosts by David Byrne and Brian Eno. In the process of making the record they experimented with new ways to make music from tape loops, trying to “[find] music where music wasn’t supposed to have been,” they invented what later became known as sampling. They took snippets of from late night talk show conversations, radio evangelist sermons and arabic pop records. To create the backing for their samples they drew on an astonishing range of music including, of most interest to me right now, the work of Miles Davis and Fela Anikulapo Kuti. The album they made sounded like nothing else in 1980, and it sounds unique even now. This re-release features excellent liner notes written by David Byrne that give a fascinating insight into the work without explaining it away.

The first time I heard the hysterical evangelist railing against MTV on Mylo’s Destroy Rock & Roll I thought of My Life in the Bush of Ghosts. Contemporary electronic musicians are still drawing from the well sunk by Eno and Byrne.

Cover art for Fab Four Suture by Stereolab

Second, I picked up Stereolab’s latest full-length CD, Fab Four Suture. It’s a collection of EPs released in the last year that you can find in the kind of bleeding edge ultra-cool record shops that don’t exist in Davis. Stylistically it’s trademark Stereolab, but I have a great appetite for complex arrangements of vintage synths, muted trumpets and jangly guitars and songs sung in French about the principles of Mutualism. There are some wonderful grooves on it, too. Particularly in the middle of Get a Shot of the Refrigerator.

I’m still getting round to devoting the right amount of time to the Cinematic Orchestra’s first album, Motion, which I downloaded from bleep.com and Belle and Sebastian’s latest, The Life Pursuit, on loan from Rev Rehash. There’s a song on it, Sukie in the Graveyard, that reminds me of Lloyd Cole & the Commotions. It’s in the vocal delivery, the hammond organ and the tone of the lyrics – so pretty much the whole song.

When I’m forced to rest my eyes I can still exercise my ears. Every cloud of powdery plant jizz has a silver lining.

27/04/2006 Davis, Film

The Varsity Story on DVD

I feel as if I was a little rushed trying to get this together two weeks after the grand opening, especially with all the hours I’ve been putting in at the coffee shop and the cinema, but on Saturday 22nd April DVDs of The Varsity Story went on sale. For $10 you get the DVD, complete with bonus materials in an attractive plastic case. That’s about five quid in real money.

In the process I’ve discovered that Apple’s iDVD program is a real pain in the arse to use if you want to do your own design rather than using the default templates. If in the future I want to produce my own DVDs, I will need serious pro-level DVD authoring software, which isn’t cheap. I also learnt that Kinko’s doesn’t configure its colour laser printers properly, and that if you want a good quality print it pays to hook your own laptop up to their printers rather than using the shoddy worn-out Dell computers they provide.

I’m fairly happy with the results. To my eye it’s not perfect, but as far as I’m concerned the project is finished.

Front cover of The Varsity Story

Back cover of The Varsity Story

It’s on sale in Davis, both at the Varsity and the Hattie Weber museum.

27/04/2006 Davis, Film

All Neon Like

Life has been hectic this past month, hence the lack of bloggage.

The neon lights of the Varsity Theatre, Davis, CA.

The big news is that the Varsity opened on Thursday 6th April to a capacity crowd, with all the usual paraphernalia. I didn’t have my camera with me, and to be honest I missed most of the fun stuff because I was busy changing into respectable clothes, but we had the Things We Like jazz trio on the roof of the box office playing to our guests as they walked up the red carpet and the Mad Cow String Band on stage.

Sinisa and Jon stood up, gave quick speeches and then called me on stage to introduce my documentary. I forced out a few words and then parted the curtains so my movie could run. It seems to have gone down very well. People laughed in all the right places, and even at bits that I didn’t expect to be so amusing. Afterwards I was nudged back on stage to take a bow. As I stood up I realised my buttocks had been clenched for the entire twenty minutes.

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03/04/2006 Davis, Film

Home on the Dynamic Range

I’m coming closer to a final cut of The Varsity Story, the documentary I’m making for the opening of the Varsity Theatre (cinema, really) on 6th April. I’m happy with the content and how I’ve orgnised it. I’m pleased with the colour correction. The one big thing I have left to do is tidying up the sound editing. I’ve never done sound editing before, and for me it’s probably the dullest part of the editing process. Nearly the whole project was recorded too “hot,” so I need to add compression filters to everything in order to narrow the gap between the loudest and quietest parts of the movie. If I don’t fix this people will turn their TV’s up for the quiet bits and have their ears blown off when an interviewee coughs. Additionally, the Varsity has a brand new sound system which will expose my shoddy sound mix workmanship if I don’t do a good job.

Of course, the compression filter is just one of a number of sound treatments I need to apply. I’m very glad I don’t need to serve coffee tomorrow.

26/03/2006 Travel

10,000 Feet High and Skiing

Looking down on Lake Tahoe from the top of the Heavenly ski resort, Wed 22nd March 2006

This week I learnt that skiing on powder is far more fun than skiing on slush. I have also discovered that it is in my best interests to cover the whole of my face when skiing from 10,000 to 6,500ft because the wind and cold lend one’s face the frostbitten Antarctic explorer look.

We spent four of the last seven days skiing in the mountains to the south of Lake Tahoe, which straddles the California-Nevada border. Mid to late March is peak ski season thanks to alternating waves of snow and sunshine. Some days it would snow during the evening and the next morning would greet us with bright sunshine and six inches of clean fresh snow to ski. The views from the top of the mountain are awesome, but almost impossible to do justice to with a little digital snappycam.

We were accompanied on this trip by Duncan, my biological father, who displayed an uncanny knack for finding good places to dine. The best of the bunch was a restaurant called Mirabelle, run by a real live authentic French chef who cooks divine soufflés and then wanders out of the kitchen to make sure he has a room full of happy diners. I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s the best restaurant in Nevada. Merci Beaucoup, Papa!

15/03/2006 Culture, Davis, Painting, Snaps

Dots

Painting of Katrina on the wall of Mishka's, Tuesday 14th March 2006

As promised, here’s a photo of my first painting. Click on it for a bigger view. I made this piece in response to the cafe manager, Alli, declaring that the only art on display in the cafe during the month of March would be created by the staff. As I couldn’t rig up a projector or a plasma screen I couldn’t contribute a piece of video art, so I had to think of another way of getting at least one image onto the wall.

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08/03/2006 Picture of the Week

Hairy Crabs

The newly discovered species of crustacean, Kiwa Hirsuta

Scientists said the animal, which they named Kiwa hirsuta, was so distinct from other species that they created a new family and genus for it. The divers found the animal in waters 7,540 feet deep at a site 900 miles south of Easter Island last year, according to Michel Segonzac of the French Institute for Sea Exploration. […] The animal is white and just shy of 6 inches long — about the size of a salad plate. In what Segonzac described as a “surprising characteristic,” the animal’s pincers are covered with sinuous, hair-like strands. It is also blind. The researchers found it had only “the vestige of a membrane” in place of eyes, Segonzac said.

To me Kiwa Hirsuta looks like an H.R. Giger creation. If I were Michel Segonzac I’d be very careful.

Source: Yahoo! News, Tuesday 7th March, 2006.

05/03/2006 Culture, Film

Drained (in a good way)

Today I edited video for about ten hours, and painted for a further hour or so. Consequently I’m too tired to blog anything particularly worthwhile, other than to note that I’m excited about both projects, and that it feels good to be so busy working creatively. I do, however, have the mental juice left to point everyone at the latest Doonesbury cartoon. I must confess it took me a long time to actually get into Doonesbury as so much of it is about US politics, but it’s generally perceptive and clear-headed.

The painting, if you’re wondering, isn’t freehand stuff and it’s not really pointillism, although I’m painting lots of dots. It will all become clearer when I finish the piece and post pictures on the blog. I think it’ll look pretty decent. It’s about all sorts of things, but quite a large chunk is about how our lives are becoming a convergence of the physical and the digital.

23/02/2006 Miscellaneous

Deep Thought

If this article means what I think it means, then Douglas Adams has been reaffirmed. It seems that a quantum computer has managed to find the answer to a question without knowing what the question was in the first place, just like a certain computer in Hitch-hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. The mind boggles.

20/02/2006 Miscellaneous, Travel

Hats Off…

…and coat, skirt, blouse, bra and knickers too, to the naked ramblers, Steve Gough and Melanie Roberts, who have just walked from Land’s End, the most southerly tip of the UK mainland, to John O’Groats, the most northerly.

Stephen Gough, the nudey hiker.

I’ve always harboured a secret desire to hike naked about the British Isles, or anywhere, really. But that’s not really news to anyone who knows me well enough. I’m tempted to replicate Mr Gough’s endeavour in the US, but I think I’d probably get shot as many times as he was arrested.

20/02/2006 Davis, Work Stories

Three Dollars

Quickest customer of the day in Mishka’s:

She: I’m gonna get a latte.
I: Certainly, what size?
She: A $3 one.
I: OK.

I ring her order into the cash register and look at her expectantly.

She: How much is that?

20/02/2006 Davis, Film

Varsity News

The Varsity's illuminated neon sign

We have an opening date for the Varsity, April 6th. I’ve also allowed myself to be roped in to promoting the opening night. All sorts of interesting plans are afoot, but for now you can check out the Davis Wiki entry for the cinema, and the official site, www.thedavisvarsity.com, a preliminary version of which is now online.

My movie, now titled The Varsity Story, is progressing fairly well. I’m shooting yet more material at some point in the next week. Any time I’m not in the coffee shop it seems I’m shooting or editing the movie, or promoting the cinema. It feels good to be busy working on something I care about.

20/02/2006 Culture

Unearthed

Promotional postcard for Jeff Palmer's exhibition, 'Unearthed'.

My good friend Jeff has an exhibition of paintings starting on 1st March in Gino’s cafe, Sacramento. Called Unearthed, it’s a series of abstracts ranging from the folksy to the formal.

19/02/2006 Music

Music from Norfolk and Belgium

Beth Orton - Comfort of Strangers album cover

I wasn’t a huge fan of Beth Orton’s previous album, Daybreaker, but I’m back in love with her thanks to the new one, Comfort of Strangers. Produced by Jim O’Rourke, who’s been working with Wilco recently, it’s pure Beth stripped of the lavish arrangements that characterised Daybreaker. Consequently her voice returns to the fore, complete with its endearing quirks and occasional flashes of Naarfolk accent. Folksy.

I also treated myself to a long-overdue Django Reinhardt album, 1949’s Djangology, recorded in Rome with Stephane Grappelli. I’ve been using a version of Django’s Minor Swing to time my editing of the Varsity Documentary opening sequence. I’m not going to be able to use it in the final film for copyright reasons, so I hope the musician who’s helping me out will be able to deliver something with a similar feel and exactly the same timing!

Django Reinhardt - Djangology album cover

I’ve been into Django since I was a little ‘un, thanks to Mum and David-Dad taking me to the Upton Jazz Festival every year. The event is always overburdened with mediocre old white beardy trad players, but there is always one stage dedicated to Hot Club style gypsy jazz, and that’s where we’d hang out. Over the years I’ve seen many, many excellent Djangologists, including Manouche gypsy Fapy Lafertin, but all of them had the use of all the fingers on their left hands (the tendons of Django’s pinkie and ring fingers were damaged in a caravan fire when he was eighteen). A couple of days ago I came across a video file of Django complete with a close-up on his two-fingered fretboard style. It was a pretty wonderful thing to behold.

Click here to see the movie, and click here to see where I got it from. The WFMU page also has a link to France Gall performing dirty old Serge Gainsbourg’s Poupee De Cire, Poupee De Son. Cracking.

14/02/2006 Davis, Food, Picture of the Week

The Way of the Barbie

Yesterday the sun was shining, the sky was blue and I was seized by an uncanny urge to buy a barbeque, so I did. Refusing to tell Courtney what was up I ushered her into the car and drove to a hardware shop in the town centre.
“Where are we going?” she asked, “I’m so confused.”
I did not reply. I just grinned and let her figure out what was up.

In the event, Courtney was just as excited as me to be buying a barbeque. We settled for a circular charcoal grill with three legs, two wheels, vents on the bottom and a round top. We bought metal skewers, a barbeque spatula, a metal cleaning brush, a bag of charcoal and a bottle of lighter fluid and returned home well pleased.

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29/01/2006 Miscellaneous

Chav Doppelgangers

The author wearing his Chav burberry hat. Thanks to Alex for the hat.

According to this slick-looking website, to which I sent the picture above, I look like a mixture of: Rosanna Arquette, Hrithik Roshan, Ralph Nader, Dave Mustaine, Pierce Brosnan, Hilary Swank, Doris Lessing, Neve Campbell, Nick Cave, and Arthur Rimbaud. Who’d have thought?

Of course, I tried a different photo, which proved conclusively that I am the bastard child of the moronic Dan Quayle and the magnificent Meryl Streep. So, who do I really look like? Answers in the comments if you can think of anyone.

During my link harvesting I discovered that Nick Cave was born and raised in the town of Warracknabeal, where a far-flung branch of my family owns a restaurant.