Integrity without knowledge is weak and useless, and knowledge without integrity is dangerous and dreadful.
— Samuel Johnson

I have lived among enough painters and around studios to have had all the theories—and how contradictory they are—rammed down my throat. A man has to have a gizzard like an ostrich to digest all the brass-tacks and wire nails of modern art theories.
— D. H. Lawrence

The mark of a good action is that it appears inevitable in retrospect.
— Robert Louis Stevenson

One shouldn't go to the woods looking for something, but rather to see what is there.
— John Cage



I Really Love My Work




BEYOND/IN WESTERN NEW YORK: ALTERNATING CURRENTS
DEADLINE EXTENDED: MARCH 31/09


Beyond/IN Western New York 2010



Nathaniel Freeman: Killing Rowlando
@ Hallwalls thru April 14
gallery hours Tues to Fri 11am to 6pm, Sat 1—4pm



@ Hallwalls Fri, Apr 3, 8pm
Gwen Haworth's SHE'S A BOY I KNEW

"Using archival family footage, interviews, and animation, She's A Boy I Knew follows filmmaker Steven Haworth's decision to come out to his wife and family about his life-long female gender identity. At turns painful, funny, and awkward, the doc explores the frustration, fears, and hopes experienced by Gwen and her family as they struggle to embrace her newly revealed identity."
My Space


@ Hallwalls Sat, Apr 4, 8pm
Jihye Chang solo piano

Hallwalls Music


CECIL TAYLOR
Solo Performance
Asbury Hall @ Babeville
Sat. April 18, 8pm

"Soon after he first emerged in the mid-'50s, pianist Cecil Taylor was the most advanced improviser in jazz; five decades later he is still the most radical. Although in his early days he used some standards as vehicles for improvisation, since the early '60s Taylor has stuck exclusively to originals. To simplify describing his style, one could say that Taylor's intense atonal percussive approach involves playing the piano as if it were a set of drums. He generally emphasizes dense clusters of sound played with remarkable technique and endurance, often during marathon performances. Suffice it to say that Cecil Taylor's music is not for everyone."
Wikipedia


MARK YOUR CALENDARS
ALFONSO VOLO: Thrifting For Beauty
Solo Exhibition
op @ Hallwalls Sat. May 2, 8pm




Opening Elsewhere
• Autistic Services Exhibition op @ WNED Horizons Gallery, op Tues, Apr 3, 6—7pm (thru Apr 29)
• Bill Gian @ Chow Chocolat op Fri, Mar 27, 6-9pm (thru Apr 23)

Three New Paintings by Bradley Butler

op @ Tap & Mallet, Rochester, Wed, Apr 1, 7-9pm
Bradley Butler website

Tom Hughes @ Sugar City end Apr 3

Opening TONIGHT @ CEPA March 27

Nathan Naetzker @ Studio Hart

op Fri, Apr 10, 6-8pm thru May 2)

Jackie Felix, Cathy Pardike, Coni Minneci

@ the Carnegie op Sat Mar 28, 7-9pm (thru May 2)


Geoffrey Krawczyk @ Church of the Ascension

Sat, Mar 28, 6-9pm


Michael Beitz, Letha Wilson

@ Buffalo Art Studio op Sat, April 4, 7-10pm (thru May 22)


NYFA Mark @ Artspace

op Sat, April 4,67-10pm



Continuing Elsewhere
• Amy Greenan @ the Castellani thru May 17 and Kara Walker thru May 31 and Jed Jackson thru Sept 20
• David Anthony, Jose Bello, David Tarsa, Sarah Schneider, Reana Artley, Patricia Schwimmer @ Merge (439 Delaware) thru Apr 4
• Kara Daving @ EcoCenter San Francisco thru June 20
• Naomi Marine @ UB Art Gallery thru Apr 11
• Dan Crews, Peter Demos, Gabriele Evertz, Pierre Obando, Shawn Powell @ Nina Freudenheim thru Apr 21
• Enrique Chagoya @ Anderson Gallery thru Apr 26
• Small Works by Regional Artists @ Market Street (Lockport) thru Apr 11
• WNY Artists Group @ Art Dialogue thru Apr 24
• The Camera I @ Artsphere thru Apr 17
• David Munson and Enrique Chagoya and First Year Undergrad Architects @ UB Anderson thru Apr 26
• Kathi Roussel, Karen Sardisco @ NCCC thru Mar 31
• Candace Keegan @ Queen City Gallery thru Apr 3
• Betty's 4th Annual Staff Exhibition thru May 10
• Glenn Murray, Robert Schultz, Michael Mulley, Jerry Greenberg, Amanda Giczkowski, Nick DeMarchi, Fran Amaya, Tim Raymond, Candace Keegan, Neil Maher, Joe Moran, Jax Deluca, Ran Weber, John Farallo, Robert Schulman, Joew Kewin, Sean Madden @ College Street Gallery thru Apr 1
• Women's Spring National juried by Coni Minneci @ Impact thru Apr 3
• Bruce Jackson at the Albright Knox thru May 10
• Saya Woolfalk, Ani Hoover @ UB Art Gallery thru June 20
• Andrew Engl @ UB Anderson thru April 12
• James Paulsen @ Burchfield Nature & Art Center thru Apr 11
• Lukia Costello @ Buffalo Museum of Science thru Apr 16
• Malcolm Bonney, Bruce Blair, Robin Mois, Rennee Oubre, Steve Rovner, Larry Griffis, Karen Sirgey in The Cartesian Divide @ Artspace thru March 29
• Healing of the Heart Through the Spoken Work @ Impact Artists Gallery thru Feb 28
• Rita Argen Auerbach at The Mansion on Delaware (until daylight savings time ends)
• Diane Baker at The Mansion on Delaware (indefinitely)


"A well-known museum curator sidled up and swooned, 'Lisa’s paintings are as rich as Vermeer’s and Boucher’s. They’re as sumptuous as the background of the Mona Lisa.' I blinked silently until she mentioned Courbet. Then I bitchily snipped, 'If you think these paintings have that kind of mojo, you’ve either never looked at those paintings or you know nothing about painting—which I’ve written about you.' We smiled at each other and parted. I love the art world.

artnet Saltz


"The question remains: does a room full of photos interspersed from all eras which monotonously beat the drums of depression (the mental kind) serve any purpose? I think not, except to remind us of the esthetic laziness which has regrettably marked the MoMA photography department as it has grappled with the hostile environment of a reconfigured building."

artnet Finch

Something I listened to this week...

I love that the album is called East Coasting and the bass always makes me think of a surf board. Standard hipster bebop fare—by which I mean very good. I've often fallen asleep to this dreamy album.

If you have something to say, then say it. If not, enjoy the silence while it lasts. The noise will return soon enough. In the meantime, you’re better off going out into the big, wide world, having some adventures and refilling your well. Trying to create when you don’t feel like it is like making conversation for the sake of making conversation.
— Hugh Macleod

The first priest was the first rogue who met the first fool.
— Carl Sagan

Sometimes the appropriate response to reality is to go insane.
— Philip K. Dick

There are new words now that excuse everybody. Give me the good old days of heroes and villains, the people you can bravo or hiss. There was a truth to them that all the slick credulity of today cannot touch.
— Bette Davis

When a man is wrapped up in himself, he makes a pretty small package.
— John Ruskin



Spring Continues to Sprung
Ladies and Gentlemen, Dutch Indo Rock, 1960




BEYOND/IN WESTERN NEW YORK: ALTERNATING CURRENTS
DEADLINE EXTENDED: MARCH 31/09


Beyond/IN Western New York 2010


@ Hallwalls TONIGHT 8pm
Sue Friedrich's HIDE AND SEEK

"A 16mm screening of Su Friedrich's award winning film that tells the story of Lou, a 12 year old girl coming to terms with her budding sexuality in the mid 60's. The experimental narrative interweaves found footage as interviews with adult lesbians as they recount their own adolescents. Several of Friedrich's films have screened at Hallwalls over the years. Gently Down The Stream was shown in 1985 as part of the Gay and Lesbian Film Series; in 1988 she presented The Ties That Bind and Damned If You Don't; Sink Or Swim was exhibited at the second Ways In Being Gay, 1990; Rules Of The Road was part of Skin Flicks in 1993."

Nathaniel Freeman: Killing Rowlando
@ Hallwalls thru April 14
gallery hours Tues to Fri 11am to 6pm, Sat 1—4pm



CECIL TAYLOR
Solo Performance
Asbury Hall @ Babeville
Sat. April 18, 8pm

"Soon after he first emerged in the mid-'50s, pianist Cecil Taylor was the most advanced improviser in jazz; five decades later he is still the most radical. Although in his early days he used some standards as vehicles for improvisation, since the early '60s Taylor has stuck exclusively to originals. To simplify describing his style, one could say that Taylor's intense atonal percussive approach involves playing the piano as if it were a set of drums. He generally emphasizes dense clusters of sound played with remarkable technique and endurance, often during marathon performances. Suffice it to say that Cecil Taylor's music is not for everyone."


MARK YOUR CALENDARS
ALFONSO VOLO: Thrifting For Beauty
Solo Exhibition
op @ Hallwalls Sat. May 2, 8pm




Opening Elsewhere
• Autistic Services Exhibition op @ WNED Horizons Gallery, op Tues, Apr 3, 6—7pm (thru Apr 29)
• Enrique Chagoya @ Anderson Gallery op Sat. Mar. 21 6—8pm (thru Apr 26)
• Small Works by Regional Artists @ Market Street (Lockport) op Fri, Mar 13, 8pm (thru Apr 11)
• WNY Artists Group @ Art Dialogue op Fri, Mar 20, 7:30—9pm (thru Apr 24)
• The Camera I @ Artsphere op Fri, Mar 20, 6:30—9pm (thru Apr 17)
• David Munson and Enrique Chagoya and First Year Undergrad Architects @ UB Anderson op Sat, Mar 20, 6-8pm (thru Apr 26
• Robert Holland @ NIchols School op Sun, Mar 22, 1:30-3:30


Dennis Maher is Clearing Out

Fri, Mar 20, 7—10pm, 506 Delaware Avenue
"For the past six years, Dennis Maher has been mining demolition sites, salvage yards, waste bins, and second-hand stores for discarded materials and objects. The recovered remnants have subsequently been assembled into a range of new spaces, places, and events that collectively delineate the contours of a city of re-used waste. This ongoing project proposes a host of urban territories that have been regenerated from cast-aside fragments. Maher’s work has established symbiotic relationships between acts of un-building and re-building, coordinating property owners, demolition/deconstruction firms, and contractors in the sustainable re-allocation of material resources, waste, and space. Through the raw and rough contours of detritus and abandonment, the outlines of an Undone Redone City begin to emerge. As the city of Buffalo intensifies its long battle to rid itself of derelict and decrepit structures, this work asks us to think critically about the place of waste and emptiness within our culture. While transforming presumed liabilities into unique urban assets, it offers glimpses of alternative possible cities and landscapes."

Woy Ubu

Fri, Mar 13, 8pm @ 1716 Main Street

"WoyUbu: An Intermedia Mash-Up is a collaborative production involving the Intermedia Performance Studio (IPS), experimental performance troupe the Real Dream Cabaret, and the Department of Computer Science at Canisius College. This performance and interactive installation invites audiences to watch or play as we upload Georg Büchner's prescient unfinished crime drama (begun in 1836), Woyzeck, and Alfred Jarry's perverse 1896 fantasy, Ubu Roi, to the digital world using virtual reality, performing robots, and surveillance technology. Mash them together, and you have WoyUbu, a play performed in separate but adjoining spaces, mediated through projections and video feeds. Individual audience members have a choice: either to watch Woyzeck’s crime drama as it plays out in live action and projection, while having little say in the events. Or, to venture to the other side of the wall, the interactive digital dream realm of Ubu, where low-resolution surveillance cameras and video game controls send feedback to and from Woyzeck’s grim reality. Will you watch … or PLAY?"

Tom Hughes @ Sugar City

Opening @ CEPA March 27

Jackie Felix, Cathy Pardike, Coni Minneci

@ the Carnegie op Sat Mar 28, 7-9pm (thru May 2)


Michael Beitz, Letha Wilson

@ Buffalo Art Studio op Sat, April 4, 7-10pm (thru May 22)


Persepolis Book Discussion @ Betty's

Monday, March 23, 7pm
"All are invited to join us for a discussion of The Complete Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi. UB Associate Professor of English Carine Mardorossian will facilitate a discussion about postcolonialism, feminist theory, and other themes from Satrapi's graphic novel. Wine and cheese, coffee, and other refreshments will be served. This event is free for Just Buffalo members; $10 for non-members. Betty's Restaurant is located at 370 Virginia Street; on-street parking is available. RSVP by calling 832-5400 or e-mailing lyman@justbuffalo.org."



Continuing Elsewhere
• Amy Greenan @ the Castellani thru May 17 and Kara Walker thru May 31 and Jed Jackson thru Sept 20
• David Anthony, Jose Bello, David Tarsa, Sarah Schneider, Reana Artley, Patricia Schwimmer @ Merge (439 Delaware) thru Apr 4
• Kara Daving @ EcoCenter San Francisco thru June 20
• Naomi Marine @ UB Art Gallery thru Apr 11
• Dan Crews, Peter Demos, Gabriele Evertz, Pierre Obando, Shawn Powell @ Nina Freudenheim thru Apr 21
• Kathi Roussel, Karen Sardisco @ NCCC thru Mar 31
• Candace Keegan @ Queen City Gallery thru Apr 3
• Betty's 4th Annual Staff Exhibition thru May 10
• Glenn Murray, Robert Schultz, Michael Mulley, Jerry Greenberg, Amanda Giczkowski, Nick DeMarchi, Fran Amaya, Tim Raymond, Candace Keegan, Neil Maher, Joe Moran, Jax Deluca, Ran Weber, John Farallo, Robert Schulman, Joew Kewin, Sean Madden @ College Street Gallery thru Apr 1
• Women's Spring National juried by Coni Minneci @ Impact thru Apr 3
• Bruce Jackson at the Albright Knox thru May 10
• Saya Woolfalk, Ani Hoover @ UB Art Gallery thru June 20
• Andrew Engl @ UB Anderson thru April 12
• James Paulsen @ Burchfield Nature & Art Center thru Apr 11
• Lukia Costello @ Buffalo Museum of Science thru Apr 16
• Malcolm Bonney, Bruce Blair, Robin Mois, Rennee Oubre, Steve Rovner, Larry Griffis, Karen Sirgey in The Cartesian Divide @ Artspace thru March 29
• Healing of the Heart Through the Spoken Work @ Impact Artists Gallery thru Feb 28
• Rita Argen Auerbach at The Mansion on Delaware (until daylight savings time ends)
• Diane Baker at The Mansion on Delaware (indefinitely)


Daily ImMEDIAcy

Artist Amy Luraschi has started a blog website as an open web diary of visual images captured by cell phone cameras. Everyone is invited to participate.
Daily IMmediaCY

"Grace is depicted as a lost soul, the sun shining through her see-through white dress, other photos highlighting her apparently chubby buttocks and thighs."

artnet Finch

"Hand it to the French. Who else would pick an economic collapse as a time to unveil one of the most audacious urban plans in recent memory?"

NY Times

"In tones alternately poetic or oracular, inflamed or numb, Big-Brotherly or tender, Ms. Holzer’s terse snippets of prose have warned of evolving threats to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. She has tracked the inner thoughts of bereft lovers or shellshocked survivors and articulated the baser instincts unleashed by social chaos."

NY Times Smith

"It is impossible not to like Dana Schutz and to root for her work."

artnet Finch

"Dogged, unreadable and enamored with risk, he has long held some of the best hands in the vast Texas hold ’em game that is the art market. But that was before Dow 6,600, before virtually everything with a price tag went on sale."

NY Times

Ernest Trova 1927—2009

NY Times obit

Millard Kaufman 1917—2009

NY Times obit

"Ms. Richardson was an intense and absorbing actress who was unafraid of taking on demanding and emotionally raw roles."

NY Times obit

Something I listened to this week...

I have four albums by Cafe Tacvba on my iPod, 49 songs, and I have no idea what they're about. But I love them to death. I got turned on to this quartet from Mexico City when I heard a pair of music podcasters make the point thaqt while many people call CT the Latin American Radiohead, they felt it was more appropriate to call Radiohead the English language Cafe Tacvba. I would take these guys over Radiohead anyday. (If cool factor issues are relevant to you, how about this—the band's original name was Alicia Ya No Vive Aqui, based on the early 70s Scorcese film Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore.) I can't exactly figure out how to pitch them to you, except to say that the 49 songs I have exemplify a crazy musical thrill ride full of all sorts of unexpected turns. They alternately fold in a wild array of stayles from punk, to Mexican ballads, to electronica with an impressive and energetic ease. If you cannot find something to love about Cafe Tacvba, it's time to take a leave of absence and hunt down your musical soul, which has obviously gone astray. I couldn't recommend these guys more highly. Love them, love them, love them.

That would be a good thing for them to cut on my tombstone: Wherever she went, including here, it was against her better judgment.
— Dorothy Parker

Delay is preferable to error.
— Thomas Jefferson

Use, do not abuse—neither abstinence nor excess ever renders man happy.
— Voltaire

If you explore beneath shyness or party chit-chat, you can sometimes turn a dull exchange into an intriguing one. I've found this to be particularly true in the case of professors or intellectuals, who are full of fascinating information, but need encouragement before they'll divulge it.
— Joyce Carol Oates

Feet, why do I need them if I have wings to fly?
— Frida Kahlo


Spring Has Almost Sprung
Ladies and Gentlemen, Otis Redding, Bigass Band, Slinky Go Go Girls



BEYOND/IN WESTERN NEW YORK: ALTERNATING CURRENTS
DEADLINE EXTENDED: MARCH 31/09


Beyond/IN Western New York 2010


Nathaniel Freeman: Killing Rowlando
@ Hallwalls thru April 14
gallery hours Tues to Fri 11am to 6pm, Sat 1—4pm

"Killing Rowlando is an immersive video installation that utilizes contemporary and archival footage to explore disparate constructions of masculinity across generations, as well as the decline of personal and political power that comes with age. The project is inspired by a family history that has produced both military generals and wards of the state within the same generation. Suspended between these two sides of his past, Freeman looks at the overlap between a seemingly organized mental state and pure bedlam, and the way these two conditions are not opposites so much as the transitory manifestation of a cultural need."




@ Hallwalls Tues, Mar 17, 7:00pm
On The Front Line: State Secrets and Journalist Shield Laws—What Next?
a Panel Discussion with Attorneys & Journalists on Constitutional Protections for Journalists and Their Sources • FREE ADMISSION

Hallwalls


@ Hallwalls Thurs, Mar 19, 7:00pm
Bill Graebner
Author reading, lecture, book signing

Hallwalls


CECIL TAYLOR
Solo Performance
Asbury Hall @ Babeville
Sat. April 18, 8pm

"Soon after he first emerged in the mid-'50s, pianist Cecil Taylor was the most advanced improviser in jazz; five decades later he is still the most radical. Although in his early days he used some standards as vehicles for improvisation, since the early '60s Taylor has stuck exclusively to originals. To simplify describing his style, one could say that Taylor's intense atonal percussive approach involves playing the piano as if it were a set of drums. He generally emphasizes dense clusters of sound played with remarkable technique and endurance, often during marathon performances. Suffice it to say that Cecil Taylor's music is not for everyone." ,a href=http://allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=11:fifyxqy5ldse~T1>All Music Guide


MARK YOUR CALENDARS
ALFONSO VOLO: Thrifting For Beauty
Solo Exhibition
op @ Hallwalls Sat. May 2, 8pm




Opening Elsewhere
• Autistic Services Exhibition op @ WNED Horizons Gallery, op Tues, Apr 3, 6—7pm (thru Apr 29)
• Jed Jackson @ the Castellani op Sun Mar 15, 2—4pm (thru Sept 20)
• Enrique Chagoya @ Anderson Gallery op Sat. Mar. 21 6—8pm (thru Apr 26)
• Naomi Marine @ UB Art Gallery op Thurs, Mar. 19, 5—7pm (thru Apr 11)
• Dan Crews, Peter Demos, Gabriele Evertz, Pierre Obando, Shawn Powell @ Nina Freudenheim op Sat, Mar 14, 6—8pm (thru Apr 21)
• Small Works by Regional Artists @ Market Street (Lockport) op Fri, Mar 13, 8pm (thru Apr 11)
• Dan Crews, Peter Demos, Gabrielle Evertz, Pierre Obando, Shawn Powell @ Nina Freudenheim op Sat, Mar 14, 6-8pm (thru Apr 21)

Tom Hughes @ Sugar City

Woy Ubu

Fri, Mar 13, 8pm @ 1716 Main Street

"WoyUbu: An Intermedia Mash-Up is a collaborative production involving the Intermedia Performance Studio (IPS), experimental performance troupe the Real Dream Cabaret, and the Department of Computer Science at Canisius College. This performance and interactive installation invites audiences to watch or play as we upload Georg Büchner's prescient unfinished crime drama (begun in 1836), Woyzeck, and Alfred Jarry's perverse 1896 fantasy, Ubu Roi, to the digital world using virtual reality, performing robots, and surveillance technology. Mash them together, and you have WoyUbu, a play performed in separate but adjoining spaces, mediated through projections and video feeds. Individual audience members have a choice: either to watch Woyzeck’s crime drama as it plays out in live action and projection, while having little say in the events. Or, to venture to the other side of the wall, the interactive digital dream realm of Ubu, where low-resolution surveillance cameras and video game controls send feedback to and from Woyzeck’s grim reality. Will you watch … or PLAY?"

Opening/Closing @ the Burchfield

Song of the Telegraph (opening) and The Art of Architexture (closing) Fri, March 13, 6:30—8:30pm
Buffalo News Dabkowski


"Soon enough, the trio became thick as thieves. Jackson took his young proteges on their first road trip to New York City — where they crashed on the floor of a friend’s apartment in Hell’s Kitchen — to check out the city’s galleries and museums. But as hard as Jackson tried to open their eyes to the art world, the pair was inexorably drawn to the music scene."

Buffalo News Dabkowski


Jackie Felix, Cathy Pardike, Coni Minneci

@ the Carnegie op Sat Mar 28, 7-9pm (thru May 2)


Continuing Elsewhere
• Amy Greenan @ the Castellani thru May 17 and Kara Walker thru May 31
• Monica Angle, Deborah Stewart, Kathleen Sherin @ Indigo thru Mar 15
• David Anthony, Jose Bello, David Tarsa, Sarah Schneider, Reana Artley, Patricia Schwimmer @ Merge (439 Delaware) thru Apr 4
• Kara Daving @ EcoCenter San Francisco thru June 20
• Kathi Roussel, Karen Sardisco @ NCCC thru Mar 31
• Candace Keegan @ Queen City Gallery thru Apr 3
• Betty's 4th Annual Staff Exhibition thru May 10
• Glenn Murray, Robert Schultz, Michael Mulley, Jerry Greenberg, Amanda Giczkowski, Nick DeMarchi, Fran Amaya, Tim Raymond, Candace Keegan, Neil Maher, Joe Moran, Jax Deluca, Ran Weber, John Farallo, Robert Schulman, Joew Kewin, Sean Madden @ College Street Gallery thru Apr 1
• Women's Spring National juried by Coni Minneci @ Impact thru Apr 3
• Bruce Jackson at the Albright Knox thru May 10
• Saya Woolfalk, Ani Hoover @ UB Art Gallery thru June 20
• Andrew Engl @ UB Anderson thru April 12
• James Paulsen @ Burchfield Nature & Art Center thru Apr 11
• Lukia Costello @ Buffalo Museum of Science thru Apr 16
• Biff Henrich @ Nichols thru March 16
• Kara Daving @ Charleston Heights Arts Center in Las Vegas thru Mar 14
• Malcolm Bonney, Bruce Blair, Robin Mois, Rennee Oubre, Steve Rovner, Larry Griffis, Karen Sirgey in The Cartesian Divide @ Artspace thru March 29
• Dave Gusman @ Starlight Studio thru Mar 13
• Len Kegelmacher, Linda MIchalek, Fran Noonan thru March 13
• Healing of the Heart Through the Spoken Work @ Impact Artists Gallery thru Feb 28
• Rita Argen Auerbach at The Mansion on Delaware (until daylight savings time ends)
• Diane Baker at The Mansion on Delaware (indefinitely)


"The unobstructed panoramic view of the complex, across a paved courtyard ringed by newly planted locusts, is enhanced by the pavilion’s climate-control system. The 5,600-square-foot main floor is heated and cooled by convection from systems located below ground. No vents or pipes interfere with sight lines."

Buffalo News Buckham

"I don’t blame losing the debate on the crowd being conservative. Rather, I blame myself and my team for having no idea how to debate, and for existing happily in what I consider a parallel art world."

artnet Saltz

"None of you seem to understand—I'm not locked in here with you, you're locked in here WITH ME!"

That one line, uttered by a maskless Rorschach in prison, resonates as one of the standout moments in all two hours and forty minutes of Watchmen, a film self-consciously wallowing in loads of visual panache and a healthy smattering of the ol' ultraviolence. With it, Jackie Earle Haley embodies the entire attitude of his character—from low simmering to quick boil to flash fire—and it's a thrilling example of an actor nailing the moment. In his New Yorker review, Anthony Lane—who seems to have some awareness of the graphic novel on which the film is based—hilariously misses the entire point by concluding that the film "marks the final demolition of the comic strip, and it leaves you wondering: where did the comedy go?" Wha?

One of the reasons the story was, and remains, so entertaining is that it posits a world in which super heroes exist and have both a cultural and political reality. The attitude of the world created by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons was such that adults in festive outerwear fighting crime seemed a ridiculous notion—as it is. Let's face it—even a Gay Pride parade isn't as gay as the collected ensemble of the Legion of Super Heroes. The gaggle known as the Watchmen are all pop cultural archetypes—the super brainiac, the vigilante with all the gadgets, the vampy fetish queen, the cynical asshole, the irradiated superman, and the lone detective in the rain. Lane criticizes Moore and his character Rorschach for a hackneyed, hardboiled interior monologue. Well, yes, but that's the point. It's a caricature of a particular trope.

The other ingredient to the work is to ask what if so-called super heroes were not irrationally ennobled but rather full of all the pride, venality, lust, and propensity for violence as anyone else? It's a deadly mixture, particularly when it leads to the idea of selected nuclear annihilation as the best among choices. It's a tough morality tale full of characters brimming with moral ambiguities. As my Watchmen co-viewer pointed out after the film, yes, Dr. Manhattan, a man so advanced he exists simultaneously in any point in time, was a total douchebag. That's Moore's take on Superman—how could a figure so ridiculously powerful maintain any connection to mere mortals? The figure who is painted, within the story by the other characters, as an unstable sociopath, manages to be the most heroic of the bunch. And if the absence of empathy is the key ingredient to those who become sociopaths and serial killers, Manhattan is the worst of all, far more deranged than Rorschach. Capable of so much, he spends most of the film pouting existential blue freak angst. Boo hoo.

I'm not sure whether it's reasonable to suggest that director Zack Snyder is any kind of auteur, but it would have been easy to butcher the material and he doesn't. Even his curious use of Dylan's The Times They Are A-Changin' in the title sequence somehow worked for me. It doesn't seem like it should and perhaps it's the unexpectedness of it that's so effective, torquing your perceptions just enough to get you into position for the genre skewing to come. Visually, Snyder has a thing for really making defined images that pop with clarity. As in 300, it's as though he would like everything to appear outlined, as it would be in a comic, just a subtle touch of unreality.

Alan Moore is, on the one hand, right in eschewing all film treatments of his work because it is an entirely different genre and different beast. To read the original work is to enter into a different space than cinema creates and it's one of the prime reasons comics will always have an aura that cannot entirely be replicated. That said, the author's choice to excise his name from even the credit for the original work in the film's titles, is a gesture of pomp and pretension. Utterly meaningless. And undeserved—Snyder did an exemplary job.

Something I listened to this week...

(vinyl) Mood-wise, the polar opposite to Watchmen. I've listened to this numerous times, but only recently learned that this was BW's debut album, from 1973, and it pretty much stamps out the template for the lush version of soul White would deliver in that deep, low whisper for the rest of his career. A lot of high moments here. A great album. Absurdly great album cover.

For one human being to love another—that is perhaps the most difficult of all our tasks, the ultimate, the last test and proof, the work for which all other work is but preparation.
— Rainer Maria Rilke