Mysteries Abysmal

Rourke-o-Ram-a

Darren Aronofsky's The Wrestler is gobbling up all the end-of-the-year accolades, so my pushing it here is a little of the nothing new. But so what: Rourke's "comeback" performance is the best I've seen in years and yet some people won't see this because of biases towards pro wrestling or longstanding grudges against 9 1/2 Weeks. (Good reasons I might add, but not in this case.)  If anything, go for the first scene where Rourke (an impoverished, washed up wrestler named Randy the Ram) has to work behind the deli counter at the ACME grocery store.  A man asks him what ham he recommends to which Rourke hesitates and almost unknowingly responds, "honey glazed." That might seem pretty banal here, but it walloped the hell out of me. 

Heir Jordan

I wonder how the higher ranked Amazon reviewers stack up against those whose writings appear in regional publications.  If we're talking about the size of readership, the former would certainly have to own an edge. Doncha think? I guess it depends on the popularity of the item they're sizing up.  In high school, I found a modest reviewer of few words named Joseph Jordan who became a quiet idol of mine.  (Although rereading his reviews 10 years later have put my adolescent enthusiasms into perspective, but still...)  As an ardent skeptic of Led Zeppelin, I found his iconoclastic Zoso review empowering and revelatory.  His Jewel takedown was a perfect lesson in cruel brevity.  His Third Eye Blind shredding was critically pretty awesome. But Jordan hasn't written a word on Amazon in 8 years, and I don't suspect he will again.  

Transcendental Iowa

"It's a very special place. I think it's the future of universities. I don't see self-centered, tormented, stressed, anxiety-ridden students. I see very strong powerful brilliance. And so I like supporting this university and I like supporting the peace-creating groups here in Iowa." --David Lynch

"In Keosauqua, however, at the hour when night is on the river and the cultivators have stopped rumbling across the old iron bridge at the edge of town, sociological cool reasoning is hard doctrine to take in. There are reasons why people stay here. Somewhere on the river bank, the Caruso of all whippoorwills is making sounds that stand the hair on end. Looking from the bridge, past the old steamboat Gothic hotel--veteran of four floods--there are the lights of the quiet town--"all three of them," to quote a local wag. Sociologist go home. This is the happy place, the blessed land." -Leslie Hanscom, writing about my hometown in Newsweek Magazine, July 8, 1963.   

Brass and ditties

I spent most of my day Thursday at Orchestra Hall for an enjoyable double feature of the famed CSO brass along with the assorted talents of guest maestro Fabio Luisi.  Chicago Sun-Times, December 20, 2008.  

The soul, the passion

Nothing quite stirs the passions within me as much as the prospect of a new Yanni record.  It’s something like that of a spiritual fire in my heart.  I should think I’m not the only one! It appears the mustachioed Greek-American is going to complement his keyboard-of-desire with a quartet of young and attractive singers in an album to be released next March.  These behind-the-scenes videos are ESSENTIAL VIEWING  (Particularly "Nathan Pacheco," "Ender Thomas," “Yanni Voices,”).  As always, Yanni, his producer, and his guest artists speak as if their music is the greatest divine gift to mankind.  As George Carlin used to say, "Ho-ly shit." 

Rear view 08

Here's my so-called "Best of" piece for the year that was, including a brief coda on Studs Terkel.  I also gathered ten recordings I really liked as well.  I wouldn't pay too much attention to the numerical values assigned to each disc.  

5 questions

I recently chatted with Michael Lewanski, who is the assistant conductor to Cliff Colnot at the Chicago Civic Orchestra, the conductor of dal niente, a DePaul instructor, and head of several other ensembles.  This Q&A was arranged exclusively for this blog.  

You're a young conductor and you hinted earlier that the hiring of Gustavo Dudamel to LA might hinder the young maestro's artistic growth.  Explain.

This seems to be just the latest unhealthy manifestation of a culture that is desperately youth-obsessed.  There's a good reason great conductors tend to be old dudes.  Standard orchestral rep, one of the greatest of human achievements (along with democracy, Paradise Lost, college football), is an incredibly huge responsibility to conduct and requires that the person doing it have an incredible amount of knowledge and experience.  When you combine knowledge and experience with amazing talent, special things happen.  But I don't think any one of those things is enough.  Ending up with all three takes some combination of luck, lots and lots of time, and an environment that is conducive to learning.  Being music director of a major American orchestra isn't really that environment.

What are some new works that you're diggin' on these days?

My friend Kirsten Broberg writes really awesome music; she's a huge talent.  I'm a big fan of Mark-Anthony Turnage, too.  Chicago Remains, which the CSO premiered last year, threatens to make the symphony orchestra relevant again -- watch out!  Though he's a bit older, people should really check out Giacinto Scelsi, basically an Italian hippy who died in the 80s, and who isn't played as often as he should be.  He has an awesome string piece called Natura Renovatur, as well as Four Pieces on One Note Alone.  Salvatore Sciarrino is a guy who knows how to turn extended instrument techniques into formally convincing pieces.  Check him out.  Also, anything by Tristan Murail.

What does a devourer of musical scores say about the 12-tone method?  

It's mostly stupid.  There is good 12 tone music (Berg's Violin Concerto, Wozzeck), but the goodness is in spite of its 12 tone-ness rather because of it.  I don't think the artificial restraints it places on itself are conducive to expressivity, and I think it makes unreasonable demands on a good faith listener.  Also, it seems to me that it presupposes that equal temperament is a good idea all the time, and it definitely is not.  Why divide the octave into twelve equidistant pitches when you can have things be in tune?  I don't get it.

As a controller of orchestral sound, you mentioned that Chopin is actually an underrated composer. An admission that was very refreshing for me to hear.  Explain yourself. 

I think that when Chopin sneezed, a nocturne came out.  Every time he broke a sweat, a mazurka was born.  He just oozed notes, and his music is of such a preternaturally unique quality that it makes you want to go to church.  His use of tonal harmony is sophisticated in strange ways that only a very gifted person with a certain lack of training could accomplish -- he has some way of making the functionality of certain chords both clear and unclear at the same time.  It's as if he won't give you the chord you're expecting, but but then retrospectively the chord you got seems like the only one that made sense.  

Oh, and those last two sonatas -- I didn't know sonata form was allowed to do things like that, did you?  I still don't know where beat 1 is in the first movement of the B-flat minor.  

You're as big a Georgia Bulldog football fan as I am of the Iowa Hawkeyes. Tonight Shonn Greene of Iowa won the prestigious Doak Walker award for the nation's best running back.  Yet for all Greene's superiority, your guy Knowshon Moreno is by far the more popular back.  Why is that and what the hell is so great about the Dawgs?

The Dawgs are just inherently awesome.  If you study the works of the great philsophers -- Plato, Aristotle, Aquinas, Emerson, Heidegger, Georgia head coach Mark Richt -- you will find broad agreement that part of the concept of "awesomeness" includes "Georgia Bulldogness."  It's a self-evident truth kind of thing, right up there with that all-men-are-created-equal stuff.  I mean, seriously, we have a bulldog named Uga and hedges in our stadium.  

Moreno rushed for over 1,000 yards for two seasons in a row in a conference where defenses actively try to keep the other team from scoring, unlike some other conference whose name I won't mention but which starts with a "B" and end with a "ig Ten."  (We have these funny concepts in the SEC -- "blocking" and "tackling" -- kind of weird I know, but y'all should check 'em out -- you might win a bowl game one of these decades.)  Last guy to do that for the Dawgs was St. Herschel Walker, and even he didn't jump over people (though he did run over them).  Also, Knowshon Moreno likes legos.  What more could you want?!

Um, Knowshon should be renamed No-(it's) SHONN!  Good luck against my alma mater on New Year's Day. No, I don't mean that. I now hope the Spartans will be voiding themselves of SEC dawg-meat on Jan 2.  

Bedhead cinema

Let Them Chirp Awhile, Time Out Chicago, December 11-17. 

Jonathan Blitstein's new film about wannabe twenty-something artists is eerily similar to Jane Spencer's atrocious masterpiece Little Noises.  The latter is probably the funniest film I know, yet was universally panned and has since been forgotten (Tatum O'Neil doesn't even mention it in her biography!).  I see Blitstein's listed his influences but failed to mention Crispin Glover or Spencer--a real shame if you ask me.  If he ever comes across this blog through google updates or whatever other newfangled internet-alert contrivances are out there,  he's certainly welcome to confess in my comments section.  I liked his film and will be on the lookout for the next one.   

O RLY?!

(Hung on a chapel at the intersection of Diversey & Wilton)

Employee picks

On a tiny index card at the Borders Books on State Street, a staff member has written a thoroughly strange recommendation for the new Roman Polanski biography:

"This is the biography of one of the best known directors in America. This biography shows a dark side of the director which no one would honestly believe to be his."