culture
Charlie Parr
Charlie Parr in Minneapolis this morning
Amidst such a perfect backdrop for his sound, the morning flew by listening to him sing and play his National down there along the river while we did our three-camera shoot. He has a new album out soon, too, so keep an eye peeled for it.
I’ll be sure to post the final edit here but, meanwhile, please enjoy this clip taken in ’09 while Charlie played Cheap Wine at the Victoria Pub in Birmingham, UK:
Beg Steal or Borrow
There’s no video in that there below thingy but I like it just fine with only the new single that plays from Ray LaMontagne’s forthcoming self-produced album, God Willin’ & The Creek Don’t Rise, being released, well, like it says, August 17:
So your home town’s bringing you down
Are you drowning in the small talk
and the chatter?Are you gonna step into line like your daddy done
Punching the time and climbing life’s long ladder?You’ve been howling at the moon like a slack jawed fool
And breaking every rule they can throw on
But one of these days it’s gonna be right soon
You’ll find your legs and go and stay goneYoung man full of big plans and thinking about tomorrow
Young man gonna make a stand
You beg steal you borrow
You beg you steal you borrowWell all the friends that you knew in school
They used to be so cool now they just bore youWell look at them now, already pulling the plow
So quick to take to grain like some old muleYoung man full of big plans and thinking about tomorrow
Young man gonna make a stand
You beg steal you borrow
You beg you steal you borrowDreaming of the day
You’re gonna pack your bags
Put the miles away
Oh, just grab your girl and go
Where no one knows you
What will all the old folks say?So the home town’s bringing you down
Are you drowning in the small talk and the chatter?
Are you gonna step into line like your daddy done
Punching the time and climbing life’s long ladder?Young man full of big plans and thinking about tomorrow
Young man gonna make a stand
You beg steal you borrow
You beg you steal you borrow
Elite Gymnastics @ the Medusa
James Brooks and Josh Clancy are Elite Gymnastics
Elite Gymnastics is James Brooks and Josh Clancy. The duo have been receiving quite a bit of national attention for their brand of chillwave tunage. From the New York Post to Pitchfork, these two are getting positive reviews. Minneapolis’ own City Pages had this to say:
…a trance-inducing quality to them, akin to sitting in a darkened opium den listening to ’80s dance hits stream out of a telephone receiver, off in the distance, softly yet persistently.
Check them out for yourself below and if you likey you can listen to more via their MySpace page and/or download their Real Friends EP for free here:
10 Second Film Festival: Sticks
More than 3000 enjoyed the 10 Second Film Festival
Thanks to the Soap Factory and MPLS.tv!
Watch ‘Sticks’ in its entirety below (14-seconds):
Life is but a Taco…
MPLS.tv created the credits for the Soap Factory‘s 10 Second Film Festival and did it so well this opening credit won the award in the ARTHOUSE category, and features the Mayor of Minneapolis, Chris Cloud:
‘sticks’ at the 10 Second Film Festival
The crowd at the 10 Second Film Festival
“Lars can eat carrots really fast” was a crowd pleaser, too, and when i didn’t hear the call to claim the award for ‘sticks’ evidently they chose this as the next winner, which i didn’t go up for either because i STILL couldn’t hear anything! : P
The Man’s Guide to Love
All over the country, these folks have been asking men:
“If you had one piece of advice that you’d give another man about love, what would it be?â€
Click the photo to see and listen to their answers:
fate and the wall
A wall is accidentally knocked over leading to a discussion about the roles of choice and fate across cultures.
Maria Montessori
In 1896, Maria Montessori gave a lecture at the Educational Congress in Torino about the training of the disabled. The Italian Minister of Education was in attendance, and was impressed by her arguments sufficiently to appoint her the same year as director of the Scuola Ortofrenica, an institution devoted to the care and education of the mentally retarded. She accepted, in order to put her theories to proof. Her first notable success was to have several of her 8 year old students apply to take the State examinations for reading and writing. The “defective” children not only passed, but had above-average scores, an achievement described as “the first Montessori miracle.” Montessori’s response to their success was “if mentally disabled children could be brought to the level of normal children then (she) wanted to study the potential of ‘normal’ children”.
She believed:
Scientific observation has established that education is not what the teacher gives; education is a natural process spontaneously carried out by the human individual, and is acquired not by listening to words but by experiences upon the environment. The task of the teacher becomes that of preparing a series of motives of cultural activity, spread over a specially prepared environment, and then refraining from obtrusive interference. Human teachers can only help the great work that is being done, as servants help the master. Doing so, they will be witnesses to the unfolding of the human soul and to the rising of a New Man who will not be a victim of events, but will have the clarity of vision to direct and shape the future of human society.
Montessori’s method emphasizes learning through all five senses, not just through listening, watching, or reading. Children learn at their own, individual pace and according to their own choice of activities. Learning is a process of discovery, leading to concentration, motivation, self-discipline, and a love of learning. Montessori classes typically place children in three-year age groups (3-6, 6-9, 9-12, and so on), forming communities in which the older children spontaneously share their knowledge with the younger ones.
The Music of Conrad Praetzel and Clothesline Revival
The best music you may not have heard of comes from the imagination and inspiration of Conrad Praetzel, an archaeologist-turned-musician living in Northern California, who makes soulful music under the moniker Clothesline Revival.
Collaborating with great musical forces in the world, including Charlie Musselwhite, Sukhawat Ali Khan, Robert Powell, Rounder Records, the field recordings of John and Alan Lomax, among others, Praetzel continues to turn out a unique sound. With timeless qualities of a simpler era and yet also a contemporary tone, his music has a singular style making it hard to categorize. Cinematic and real, perhaps.
Long Gone, Of My Native Land, Receive, EnTrance, Myths and Memories, Between Previous and Past are each a different feel and distinct combination of players, instruments and styles.
They Came From Somewhere is Praetzel’s first collection of all original compositions in over ten years, featuring legendary blues artist Charlie Musselwhite and is being released soon.
Highly recommended listening – some samples and links to purchase available via Conrad’s record label, Paleo Music.
Goodbye Solo
Every now and then a film moves me, lifts and tosses about my sense of the world, of knowing myself and my own culture, let alone the cultures of others and where mine fits in. Then, it sets me down gently, back in the place I was to begin with. Only then, the place looks a whole lot different. Better? Not necessarily. Worse? Not necessarily. Just – different.
Yesterday a good pal showed up and had brought me Goodbye Solo. I watched it not once but twice before falling to sleep with images of Souléymane Sy Savané, Red West and the road ahead of all of us, wherever or whatever our situation.
One of the most beautiful things about this film is how Ramin Bahrani chose to tell it visually. The cinema of the whole thing is masterful. The relationship between these two unlikely characters is developed elegantly without a hint of muscle-y force.
I could rant on and on about the reasons why I love it, why this is a film to be celebrated but for two reasons I will leave you in peace: 1) I do not wish to dilute it for anyone reading this who has not yet taken it in, and 2) I already did so at length to my pal who brought it to me, thanking him for the gift of spending 91 minutes of my life watching the work of a truly gifted filmmaker who should be an inspiration to generations of filmmakers to come.
Thank you, Ramin.
Cinematography: We’ve come a long way?
We don’t have to ask why we love videos and movies, visual literacy is becoming more important as time goes on.
Produced by Thomas Edison and directed and filmed by Edwin S. Porter, The Great Train Robbery was the first narrative movie ever made.
Thinking about today’s conventions I see in contrast to the silent films of the early years of cinema, the first thing is obvious: there are a lot of talking heads. The cinematic elements that make me love movies, especially silent movies, are mostly lacking, having given way to VFX and complicated dialogue. Cool effects work well in the right places but, as we learned from the great, early filmmakers, a story is best told with a visual, artful use of the tools to lead us to make connections on our own. This is what cinematography is. The American Society of Cinematographers defines cinematography as:
a creative and interpretive process that culminates in the authorship of an original work of art rather than the simple recording of a physical event.
The difference between a good film and a great one is that even with the audio removed a great film stands on its own. The audience can still make sense of the action because the cinematic elements keep moving the story forward.
Silent films didn’t have the luxury of audio tracks to bolster what was happening on the screen. Directors worked feverishly to keep the inclusion of cards with words on them to a minimum as audiences often found them distracting because they broke a certain rhythm to the visual story that was unfolding before them. The fundamentals of editing were more than enough for directors in those early days as they saw a seemingly infinite number of conventions that could be used to craft atmospheres, psychological experiences that led audiences to emotional heights and dramatic lows in response to the visual sequences taking place in front of them.
In contrast to now, when a majority of popular films have so many stylistic choices in common, produced with technology that can shoot high and low, inside and out, leave no stone unturned, no thought of a character unknown, possessing perhaps a similar cultural rhythm about them, too, that can at times make them feel almost like the same movie. Technology has certainly opened up many more options for modern day shooters, myself included. Shooting with a Canon 5D Mark II allows us to shoot cinema quality footage at 24p at a fraction of the cost. However, as in design, there is a time and place for whitespace, which is to say, to not exploit the tools for all they’re worth just for the sake of exploiting the tools for all they’re worth. Does it add to the story? Yes? Keep it. Does it not add to the story? Lose it.
I surely don’t mean to discount the work of the great cinematographers of our age, only to suggest that limitations are what create the opportunities for innovation, not a lack of them. The life pursuits and soaring accomplishments of a legion of great screen directors in the early days of cinema stand testament to it.
So how has the rapid deployment of these new tools impacted our ability to tell a story cinematically? Surely it’s both helped and hindered. A great story is still a great story, regardless of what tools are used to tell it.
