The sun is shining strongly this morning, the Village looks better and more inviting than ever out my window, and before I go out to get our coffee this morning (no more bagels at breakfast--well, maybe once a week, with poached eggs or lox on top... nope, it's more like cold cereal with fruit again these days, regular diet and exercise after 4 months hiatus for working out means I'm now back to trim, lean and mean, fit and fighting shape as it were--so necessary in a Grand Theft Auto 4 world), hey I actually love working out now with my iPod Nano set on stun (a typical playlist, which I put together recently for Rhapsody.com's "Celebrity Picks", can be found here http://www.rhapsody.com/playlistcentral/playlistdetail?playlistId=ply.20515998 , with my comments here http://blog.rhapsody.com/2008/04/beefheart-guita.html, now I wish I would have chosen Laura Nyro's "Save the Country" instead of "Stoned Soul Picnic" as more relevant the way things are going, but too late now, whatcha gonna do now (gonna do the best I can), "Save the Country" definitely gets my adrenaline flowing, "Stoned Soul Picnic" other neuropathways...

Last Sunday I went over to The Tank at Collective Unconscious on Church Street in Tribeca near the Knitting Factory, a great not-for profit Artist's Space (useta be the Harmony Burlesque Theatre), to see my friend lovely Marie Losier's new film about Tony Conrad, the great minimalist musician who worked once upon a trine with Lamonte Young and John Cale in The Dream Syndicate, I'd met Tony at the late lamented Tonic's John Fahey Tribute some years ago, a sweet good-natured guy who just happened to have helped change the face of music has been teaching upstate for some years (Tony's due to retire next year I believe)...Marie is the coolest young film maker on the planet in my estimation, she curates the programs at the Alliance Francaise here and also travels the world showing her beautiful whimsical and splendiforous films at festivals and art museums-- and her portrait of Tony was one of the most delightful, goofy, disjunctive and ever so relevant portraits of a master strategist at play bouncing around his Buffalo loft (teaches at Suny Buffalo) in an inflatable pumpkin suit, amongst other sartorial delights (polka-dot pajamas particularly fetching) while cracked 20's old timey music and novelty 78's from his collection fill the air, dancin' to the fiddle and saw he ran down along the knoll with Marie in tow and I grinned and chuckled with delight throughout this filmic portrait-- imagine a film combining the best of the Brothers Quay (some cool stop motion sequences, dear to my Harryhausen heart), Mike and George Kuchar, Richard Elfman's "Forbidden Zone", Guy Maddin, David Lynch too, and you would have some idea of the formidable arsenal of filmic whatsis Marie Losier flings at the screen like so much flying pigment (if pigments could fly)...they were showing other goodies that afternoon as well, films by Chris Marker, Balthazar Clementi (son of Pierre), Robert Frank and more, plus "Voice of Turtle:, music by Christina Courtin and friends, Christina has a beautiful unclassifiable voice and these were neat, quirky songs you couldn't label, her band was good as well--a definite find, she's singing again at the IFC Cinema on May 7th and 8th before screenings of I dunno, but its worth your while to investigate. the music was that good...

Thursday night Caroline and I were invited by our friend John Nichols, the brainy and witty and charming Washington correspondent for The Nation, to a reading of a great new play, " Don't Blame Me, I Voted for Helen Gahagan Douglas" up at Symphony Space on Broadway and 95th, as part of a special fund-raising event for the magazine, my favorite weekly must-read along with The New Yorker...the play was a fascinating new comedy/drama by Michelle Willens and Wendy Kout about the infamous 1950 US Senate race in which the young Richard Nixon destroyed the elegant Congresswoman Helen Gahagen Douglas (and wife of leftist activist actor Melvyn Douglas) which is how Nixon acquired his "Tricky-Dick" moniker...in light of Karl Rove and his ilk this play has an incredible relevance and resonance today... Christine Lahti and James Naughton were superb as the celebrity couple and Jason O'Connell was a fantastic Nixon, with all proceeds going to The Nation magazine...now Nixon was to me the man you love to hate, a villain of Shakespearean dimensions to rival Iago, I picketed him in 1968, walking out on his stock speech at the Syracuse War memorial during the Presidential campaign with my leftist buddies (members of MISC--the Multi-Issue Student Committee, my high school version of SDS founded by my friends Allen Sack, Peter Smith, Joe Ycas, Tom Karp, David Horowitz--not that David Horowitz--also David Feld, lovely Louise Feld, and others--red-diaper babies mainly, sons and daughters of various leftwing SU professors, iconoclastic visionaries, rugged individualists all-- these kids were some of the sharpest and coolest...wonder where they all are they now?)...
.

Afterwards there was a terrific party in the lounge/restaurant with the best catering by far in many a moon though I was trying to stick to the program and we got to meet the actors and some of The Nation crew, including the charming New York based journalist associate publisher Peter Rothberg, and also the Nation's star contributor the lovely and brainy writer/feminist/poet Katha Pollitt, whose work I have admired for ages (I loved her book "Learning to Drive"-- she is an old friend of Ernie Brooks as well), and also her English academic husband, who instantly bonded with my London-born wife as he it turned out he was best mates and co-authored a book with her former professor of philosophy at the University of East Anglia, Martin Hollis, the British pragmatist philosopher...

later on the lovely and fiercely intelligent publisher and editor of the Nation Katrina Vanden Heuvel swept in to the party coming straight from a big Magazine Awards ceremony being held earlier that night, where The Nation had racked up several, and instantly gathered a large coterie around her, I'd seen her give a talk last year at the Barnes and Noble on Union Square (which they are closing, for shame) and found her to be one of the most forceful and engaging speakers I've ever encountered, we chatted a bit, she was quite friendly and really hip (a Steely Dan fan!), afterwards John Nichols, Caroline and myself raced downtown to the White Horse for a late night snack and good and hilarious conversation (John is such a fun guy, and one of the most cogent public speakers and writers in America)-- I am really glad that The Nation is around to fight the good fight and roll back the darkness threatening to engulf this fair land, please do yourself a favor and subscribe, details at http://www.thenation.com/...

My live debut show with Najma Akhtar was like a dream, quite a beautiful night last Saturday at Joe's Pub, we had done several well received radio appearances during the week on John Schaefer's "New Sounds" program and Rob Weisberg's show on WFMU (both archived on my website homepage) in the run up to the show, we had a really good crowd, Dibyarka Chatterjee added his customary energy and good vibe on tabla, and Najma was in fine form throughout, we received an ovation and several encores for our hour plus set...special thanks to Shante and Jennifer at Joe's Pub and Bill Bragin who first set up the gig before departing for Jazz at Lincoln Center, plus all the friends who showed, including some new ones such as legendary producer/mixer Ron St. Germain who was there with his wife,also my friend the Emmy Award winning documentary producer Peter Bull who I'm working on a new score for, Shaista Husain and Gus, Karin Van Heek and Martine, Michael Taylor, Charlie Blass, filmmaker Eli Kabbillio and his wife, Bill Bragin himself who was loving it, we are nearly done recording our debut album and will put the finishing touches on it soon, stay tuned...

xxLove

Gary

--
Posted By Gary Lucas to Gary Lucas at 5/05/2008 07:49:00 AM