To describe Brendel as an intellectual is rather like describing Leonardo da Vinci as a good all-rounder. Honoured last week with the award of one of the world’s top cultural prizes, the Praemium Imperiale. He’s best known, of course, as one of the finest pianists of our times. But many would say that the only positive aspect of his decision to retire from performing last December, at the age of 78, is that he has more time to write his wry and provocative essays, lectures and poems.
“It was the greatest bonus of my later aesthetic life that this happened,” he says. “Writing poetry has enormously brightened my outlook. It is something productive, whereas as a musician I was reproductive: always trying to feel and understand what was already there.”
How and when did he start writing these poems? “More than a dozen years ago,” he replies. “But to be accurate, they started to write themselves. I was somehow involved, but I’m not quite sure how.”
Brendel may have stopped playing in public, but his public appearances are hardly diminished. Now, however, he is giving poetry readings, masterclasses and lectures. One of his favourite lectures asks the question “Does classical music have to be entirely serious?” — which Brendel (who once declared that his favourite occupation was laughing) answers with a resounding no. But would he really like to hear laughter in, say, a piano recital? “Certainly. If you can’t make an audience laugh at the end of Beethoven’s Piano Sonata Op 31 No 1, you should become an organist.”To describe Brendel as an intellectual is rather like describing Leonardo da Vinci as... more
This is a short segment from the nationwide project HIV: USA. This project empowers participants living with HIV/AIDS, encourages testing and works with agencies to expand their prevention and educational messaging.This is a short segment from the nationwide project HIV: USA. This project empowers... more
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Peer of the gods he seems,
Who in thy presence
Sits and hears close to him
Thy silver speech-tones
And lovely laughter.
Ah, but the heart flutters
Under my bosom,
When I behold thee
Even a moment;
Utterance leaves me;
My tongue is useless;
A subtle fire
Runs through my body;
My eyes are sightless,
And my ears ringing;
I flush with fever,
And a strong trembling
Lays hold upon me;
Paler than grass am I,
Half dead for madness.
Yet must I, greatly
Daring, adore thee,
As the adventurous
Sailor makes seaward
For the lost sky-line
And undiscovered
Fabulous islands,
Drawn by the lure of
Beauty and summer
And the sea's secret.Peer of the gods he seems,
Who in thy presence
Sits and hears close to him
Thy... more
If you follow contemporary poetry but you haven't been following "Project Runway," the popular cable TV show now in its sixth season, you might be surprised to hear that the show holds lessons for poetry critics. To learn them, you first have to know how the TV show works: aspiring fashion designers compete for a chance to show their work in New York's Bryant Park alongside couture's big names, among other prizes. Each week contestants design clothes to meet a challenge: successful designers and guest judges rate the results. The lowest scoring contestant gets eliminated. The highest scorer usually gets immunity (he or she can't be knocked out next week) along with kudos from the viewers and from Tim Gunn, the dapper adviser. In one recent challenge, contestants made dresses, tops, jackets or skirts out of newspaper. The winner, Irina Shabayeva, came up with a coat whose thick cuffs looked like curly meringue; one runner-up, Christopher Straub of Shakopee, Minnesota, made an ankle-length skirt like the tail of a tropical bird.
Many poets, like many designers, love technical challenges; some poets have organized books (Robyn Schiff's baroque "Worth," Angie Estes's nimble "Chez Nous") around haute couture. No wonder, then, that "Project Runway" counts poets among its fans. Ron Silliman has examined the show at length more than once on his popular blog: "Project Runway," he says, "does a better job of showing creative people being creative than any television show ever." Another poetry blogger, Tim Jones of New Zealand, proposes a show, "Poetry Runway," involving made-to-order verse
On Jan. 11, 2010 Gil Scott-Heron will release a brand new album entitled ‘I’m New Here’ on XL Recordings.
imnewhere.net contains 4 excerpts from the album.
These tracks have been recorded in New York over the past 18 months.On Jan. 11, 2010 Gil Scott-Heron will release a brand new album entitled ‘I’m New... more
Culture is a little more complex than black and white issues. Ethnic pride can often collide with nationalism. Haitian-Americans often time struggle with assimilation, both in the White and African-American communities.Culture is a little more complex than black and white issues. Ethnic pride can often... more
"Diary Of The Reformed" Will "da real one" Bell (Def Poetry) Def Poetry Season 5, Episode 2 (S05 E02) Air Date: 2005
He is also a host and owner of Literary Cafe in Miami, Florida."Diary Of The Reformed" Will "da real one" Bell (Def Poetry) Def Poetry Season 5,... more
Miami based Poet, Asia, performs "The Waiting Hour" on Russell Simmons' HBO Def Poetry Season 6. He also host a weekly open mike called,"MellowMondays" in South Florida.Miami based Poet, Asia, performs "The Waiting Hour" on Russell Simmons' HBO Def Poetry... more
The new website PoetrySpeaks is aiming to serve as a social networking hub and online marketplace for poets. Visitors are greeted with a sleek, jukebox-style display of poet portraiture and an unpretentious atmosphere. And it's immediately clear that PoetrySpeaks casts a wide net: among the home page's collage of clickable poet heads, spoken word poet Kevin Coval appears next to William Butler Yeats.
Click on your poet of choice, be it a hipster or an Irishman, and you'll be taken to a web page that includes a list of audio (and maybe even video) recordings. And here's where things get interesting. As with iTunes, you can preview each recorded poem then decide if you want to spend 99 cents to download it ($1.99 for a video version). The site is, quite literally, banking on your interest in poetry.
Here are a couple of the poems for sale: "Annabel Lee" by Edgar Allan Poe and "Wild Nights, Wild Nights" by Emily Dickinson.
After celebrating the 20th anniversary of its pop-punk classic Doolittle with thankful fans across the pond, the legendary Pixies has returned to America to share its noisy love of surreal sonics and eye-candy visuals. That deafening blast you hear is thousands of Pixies monkeys gone to heaven.
Not that the quartet is being met only by longtime fans. After fracturing in the early ’90s upon the release of blistering full-lengths like Doolittle and Surfer Rosa, the Pixies — guitarist and shrieker Black Francis, bassist and vocalist Kim Deal, guitarist Joey Santiago and drummer David Lovering — are more popular than ever. And judging by the joyous crowd that sold out Wednesday night’s rowdy set at the Hollywood Palladium, the first stop on the U.S. leg of the Pixies’ Doolittle tour that wraps Dec. 1, die-hard fans and new adopters alike have spent time since the band’s 2004 reunion memorizing its brilliant songs and esoteric B-sides.
Doolittle was always the artiest of the band’s releases, from the biblical estrangement of the record’s lyricism to the dark and suggestive sleeve art from graphic designer Vaughan Oliver and photographer Simon Larbalestier (exhaustively collected in the Pixies’ recently released mega-box Minotaur).
That spirit was celebrated before the concert with a screening of Luis Bunuel and Salvador Dali’s infamous 1928 surrealist short Un Chien Andalou (mashed at right with the Pixies’ “Debaser”). The film was met with cheers that escalated into howls once its ending bled into the groovy boogie of the B-side “Dancing the Manta Ray.”
By the time the Pixies had galloped through rarely performed B-sides like the sinister “Bailey’s Walk” and the spastic “Weird at My School,” the crowd was ready for the A-list.
Francis and crew didn’t disappoint, quickly blazing through Doolittle’s abrasive opener “Debaser,” whose Andalou-inspired surrealist lyrics about “slicing up eyeballs” matched perfectly with the banned silent-film clips of the 1920s compilation Forbidden Images, which was projected on a massive screen behind them. The synesthetic merge brought a measure of high-end live production the band never received in its earlier, less appreciated life. Spearheaded by the Pixies’ trusty lighting designer Myles Mangino and Paul Normandale, and complemented by 11 new films from Judy Jacobs, Tom Winkler, Brent Felix and Melinda Tupling, the viz added eye-candy dimension to Doolittle’s deranged sonics.
The hybrid hits kept on coming. The screen bled red to the Pixies’ jagged dirge “I Bleed” (pictured above). During the twisted love song “Hey,” key phrases came to life in Tom Winkler’s hand-drawn animations. A rousing rendition of “Monkey Gone to Heaven” mashed Oliver and Larbalestier’s photography into the song’s performance, drawing hoots and screams from an ignited audience shouting “God is 7!” at the top of its lungs.
Things turned stranger during the split-screen video accompanying the band’s hit single “Here Comes Your Man,” where four digital Pixies bobbed happily behind their real-time counterparts on the stage. The goofy reel was an odd backdrop for a song the Pixies once seriously disliked, and hardly ever played live back when they were tearing into each other during the late ’80s. But the cognitive dissonance did nothing to erase the show’s momentum.
In fact, by the time the band landed on Doolittle’s galvanized closer “Gouge Away,” the audience’s love had amplified to the breaking point. Its unrelenting applause and shouts brought the Pixies out for two encores, to play remaining Doolittle-era B-sides like the hypnotic “Wave of Mutilation (UK Surf)” and epic “Into the White,” as well as Come On Pilgrim and Surfer Rosa winners like “Isla de Encanta” and “Gigantic.”
A parody on pretentious video art and poetry, taken from our twenty minute comedy sketch show pilot 'Chocolate Moon'. The show was made by young filmmakers in Merseyside, England. The show includes several sketches with pop culture references, including Saw, the Pope and Hollyoaks. Influences include Big Train and Monty Python.A parody on pretentious video art and poetry, taken from our twenty minute comedy... more
Ah, the Irish and the Irish-blooded will be drinking their Guinesses, and Kilkennies and whiskeys deep this night as they sing songs of a battles lost, heroes martyred, whiskey plundered, potatoes ungrown, and women’s hearts stolen. Nothing becomes an Irishman more than defeat and hardship. The Irish (and to a degree the Scots and Welsh) remember more the battles they lost than the victors do who won them. This proud tradition carries on in the Scots and Irish descendants in Southern America where old swords still hang above fireplaces and a long ago lost war is vividly remembered.
An old Irish toast:
May ye be a half-hour in Heaven
Before the Devil knows your dead!
Ah, the Irish and the Irish-blooded will be drinking their Guinesses, and Kilkennies... more
The previous Levi's ad campaign was titled "Live Unbuttoned." It featured smiling, attractive people dancing around to jumpy pop music. Watching those ads now (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ym_Z9tFv650), it seems clear they were conceived before the fall 2008 financial plunge. They already feel irrelevant—an attempt to capture a zeitgeist that's evaporated.
In December 2008, Levi's ditched its old ad agency and signed on with Wieden + Kennedy (the talented ad makers responsible for creating many of Nike's epic, stirring, one-minute anthems). The spots that W+K came up with—this new campaign is labeled "Go Forth"—have been running since the summer in movie theaters and, increasingly, on television. From the moment we see that "America" sign half-sunk in inky water, we know we're watching something new. The campaign inhabits a different universe from the one depicted in "Live Unbuttoned."
For one thing, it's a universe in which the ever-present soundtrack is Walt Whitman poetry. This spot uses a wax cylinder recording believed to be audio of Whitman himself reading from his poem "America." The second spot in the campaign employs a recording of an actor reading Whitman's "Pioneers! O Pioneers!"
Whitman is an involuntary spokes-celebrity here, and perhaps you deem this ad a desecration of all he stood for. I can't say I blame you. But were you forced to choose a clothing line for our favorite barbaric yawper to rep, you might choose this one. Levi's is the rare American brand that was actually around when Whitman was alive. And there's logic to this match between a quintessentially American poet and a quintessentially American product. Whitman's verse allows Levi's to evoke not only its proud history but a forward-looking present—the pioneering, American mindset that Whitman captured and that Levi's hopes to embody.The previous Levi's ad campaign was titled "Live Unbuttoned." It featured smiling,... more
