L.08.5: Monomaniacal Masterpiece

Kyle Warez

  • hublot replica
  • hublot big bang replica
  • rolex replica
  • breitling replica
  • fake breitling
  • omega replica
  • replica watches
  • swiss replica watches
  • fake watches
  • gucci replica
  • hublot replica
  • hublot big bang replica
  • rolex replica
  • breitling replica
  • fake breitling
  • omega replica
  • replica watches
  • swiss replica watches
  • fake watches
  • gucci replica

  • –from New on DVD

    Maxim Magazine

    September 2008

    The Children of the Dawn is now available on DVD, and one might learn some very interesting things by studying the demographics of the people who actually choose to purchase this exceedingly strange but admittedly monumental experiment in digital video recording and do so with the expectation of being entertained. This eight-disk set contains the complete work as it was first shown on a video monitor in a small room within MOMA in the autumn of 2007, and even in that urbane and adventurous setting, one would wonder about the motives of the few viewers who one could always see camped out in that very tiny space, those who had requested the special overnight passes and had committed to almost a day and a half of continuous viewing. Indeed, as with the original gallery installation, The Children of the Dawn on DVD will provoke for most of us questions about the mystery of what constitutes an audience and what compels a desire to consume something as entertainment or art. Those exclusive few who have made the full commitment are strangely silent about the mysteries with the work itself. Perhaps the control available in watching a DVD to stop viewing at will and resume at will might bring more viewers into willing contact with the work, but one must still wonder.

    Just as one must wonder why writer and “performer” Marc Honea would choose such an eccentric form to “record” what is essentially a sprawling semi-historical novel. Honea’s method involves recording himself in a single static close-up shot on a digital camera. Addressing the camera lens directly, he acts out the entire story, speaking as over a hundred different characters, all addressing themselves directly to the camera. The sensations of scenes among characters and dialogue exchanges are created by cutting, but the shot never changes. Honea has merely adopted the face and voice of a new character who is, in turn, addressing the camera. Often the cutting among faces and voices is diabolically fast and creates a strange disorienting effect in the viewer that ‘must be experienced to be understood or, at least,…experienced. As a literary comparison, one is reminded of the almost exclusively dialogue-driven works of William Gaddis, and as with Gaddis there are occasional descriptive passages, but Honea delivers them to the viewer in the same fashion as he performs the story’s characters, adopting what he has called “physiognomaniacal abstractions,” a more extreme method of delivery which contrasts with the very believable playing of characters. And if one takes the work in small doses, which the DVD allows, you cannot help but be drawn in by Honea’s acting which, though relying much of the time on extreme facial and vocal manipulation and contortion, does draw the viewer into a kind of unique reality. Honea perfected this method in his 2004 digital video treatment of Thomas Costain’s 1955 novel The Tontine. As to the “why” of this method, it is hard to know how to interpret what Honea said in an interview from 2005: “The only thing I’ve ever worked at consistently is making faces in the bathroom mirror while talking in funny voices. Everything else has felt like pretending.”

    Such is the method that Honea uses to perform The Children of the Dawn, and he persists with it without wavering for thirty-three and a half hours, for fifty-seven chapters and an epilogue. Part of Honea’s intent is to create a kaleidoscopic, surreal cavalcade that makes stops through most of the twentieth century, but most of the story’s action takes place in London in the late Sixties and focuses on the lives of two prominent musicians in two very prominent and legendary rock and roll bands. Honea has offered the following on the story’s origins:

    “I was at a party and people were trying to compare Led Zeppelin with The Rolling Stones, and as a result some people were led to say some really stupid things about both bands. I begin to feel a knot in my stomach and had to say that comparing Zeppelin and The Stones was like comparing apples and oranges. The hostess of the party agreed with me and I felt a tremendous amount of relief. That got me to thinking about how one might go about describing accurately the difference between the music and the overall vibe of these two bands. My shorthand distinction became ‘material and mystical.’ And I was rather happy with that until I started thinking about Mick Jagger and Jimmy Page in particular and how they both rubbed shoulders with American filmmaker, “magus,” and Aleister Crowley acolyte Kenneth Anger. In other words, two very different imaginations were dipping into the same pools, not only through a reverence for the Blues but also through this very theatricalized occult sensibility. How did my neatly formulated ‘material and mystical’ divergence fit into that? I came up with a few fictional identities and some imaginary discographies and let it start to play out…”

    And play out it does. On and on it plays. For hours. A maddening, crazed, brilliant exercise; a naively simple technique etching out an exceedingly involved, panoramic epic tale…

    L.08.5: Act Like You Mean it

    Al Saunders

  • hublot replica
  • hublot big bang replica
  • rolex replica
  • breitling replica
  • fake breitling
  • omega replica
  • replica watches
  • swiss replica watches
  • fake watches
  • gucci replica
  • replique montre de luxe
  • replique montre suisse
  • replique de montre
  • replique hublot big bang
  • montre replique tag heuer
  • montre replique

  • Art Critic, U.S. Daily News

    As you know I have been on vacation for the past week, but I hope that has not deterred any of my readers from critiqueing some art on their own. What does an art critic do on vacation? Well this one sampled Terry Maiers’ new play, “Act Like You Mean It”. Maiers is known more for his short comedy sketches, so this is his first attempt at a full length pass4sure “serious” play. I use the paranthesis because there is a lot of humor in this play but overall I would have to say there is no way to call this a comedy.

    The play begins showing a rehearsal of a play where the main character Ralph Brooks cannot remember his lines. Obviously it is late in the rehearsal process and the cast is frustrated with Ralph. Maiers is pass4sure exams clever with his lines in this pat of the act and draws humor from the situation. However Ralph continues with his line phobia after the rehearsal is over, contending he can’t remember what he is supposed to say when having conversations outside the theater. We see him with his wife and a few friends. Agaiin there is humor there, although it felt like author was obviously stretching this act out some. Finally we are given a surprise ending to explain George’s lack of memory at the end of Act 1.

    But when the Seond Act begins and George continues having trouble remembering what to say and appears more nervous things begin to take a more serious tone in the play. The intent seems to be for the audience to have sympathy for Ralph, and even though there are still some humorous lines, it is more nervous laughter from the audience than belly laughs. By the end of the act Ralph seems to be having some serious problems and again we are given the surprise reason for these at the end of the act.

    In the Third Act Ralph is now seriously questioning things up to the point as to just what is real and what isn’t. His questioning leads up to him seeing a psychiatrist. What seemed funny at the beginning of the play now seems very serious and the audience questions Ralph’s sanity. Maiers sticks to his old tricks and after a few meetings with both George and his wife, the pyschiatrist comes up with a surprise solution at the end of the play. However the audience is left wondering if this is really a solution for Ralph or if Ralph was perhaps the only sane one in the play.

    Obviously Maiers has a fondess for gimmicks such as the play within the play and the surprise endings. These work to a certain degree but after a while one is wondering more what he will spring on the audience rather than focusing on the play itself. Also the change in Ralph is so drastic, going from a humorous character to one that questions reality itself, I was left at times wondering just what the author intended. But this is the type of play that needs to be thought about some after seeing it, for looking back at Ralph’s struggle I realize it was meant to model all our struggles with who we are, only on a grander scale.

    Although flawed, this is a play worth seeing for its humor and more for the questions raised and left unaswered at the end.

    L.08.5: McGil

    HEROES magazine

    Nov., 2007

  • hublot replica
  • hublot big bang replica
  • rolex replica
  • breitling replica
  • fake breitling
  • omega replica
  • replica watches
  • swiss replica watches
  • fake watches
  • gucci replica
  • rolex replique
  • replique breitling
  • replique omega
  • replique hublot big bang
  • montre replique tag heuer
  • montre replique

  • ‘McGil,’ 240 pages, Dark Horse

    A REVIEW by Ric Moore

    The ‘Epic of Gilgamesh’ as a Western? In graphic novel format? How could such a great idea go so wrong? It’s not difficult to understand when you see the writing credit. W. Jeff Bishop hasn’t done much right in the comic book world since his genre-pushing glory days of ‘End of Ism.’ That early-90s heyday of top-rack status and massive pre-orders is far behind him, now, however and, by the looks of this latest jaunt, Bishop is getting no closer to finding his lost muse.

    The graphic novel’s story begins in the desert, which is an appropriate metaphor for the work as a whole. McGil, an Irish gunslinger, searches for his lost kinsman, Inkidiyu, who is a Cherokee shaman in this version of the overworked Biblical-era tale. Latent homo-eroticism abounds, but that is not the problem (actually it is the one aspect of this jumbled tale that actually works). Right from the start, Bishop sandbags what should be a simple tale of love and loss with unnecessary and inflated “hero’s journey” underpinnings that render what should be a sublime tale of self-discovery into a stilted, pretentious mess. (Bishop, please take note: Joseph Campbell died in 1987. Let his Jungian-crazed psychobabble die with him.)

    The story, such as it is, involves McGil reluctantly coming to the aid of some vaguely ethnic villagers, who are being terrorized by a “tree troll” who calls himself “Humbaba.” The names are different, but this is the same plot we’ve seen re-hashed again and again in everything from “Seven Samurai” to “A Bug’s Life.” I don’t even have to go into the particulars because you KNOW where this is going.

    There are moments where the work dances around profundity — for instance when McGil visits the sprite with the lost Incan treasure on the edge of the desert — but Bishop can’t seem to be honest with himself when it comes to issues of mortality. It’s almost as if he can look into the abyss, creep up to its edge, but then think of nothing better to do than to spit. For $39.95, I expect more. From the writer of “End of Ism,” an incontrovertible turning point in the medium, we have every right to demand it.

    But Bishop, like his protagonist, remains lost in his own creative desert. Like McGil, he’s shooting blanks in the darkness. And even the magnificent art of Bob Goodall, who has never been better than he is here, cannot make up for what is so sorely lacking in this, mankind’s oldest story.

    As a former fan, I hope Bishop finds that lost muse again. But he hasn’t done so in this particular work. And with each passing attempt, I’m less optimistic that he ever will.

    Wherever your bliss may be, you certainly won’t find it here.

    Two stars (out of six)

    RM

    L.08.5: Critical Review Assignment

    Leonard Maltin’s Movie Guide

    pp 665-667

  • hublot replica
  • hublot big bang replica
  • rolex replica
  • breitling replica
  • replica montre
  • rolex replique
  • replique breitling
  • replique omega
  • replique hublot big bang
  • montre replique tag heuer
  • hublot replica
  • hublot big bang replica
  • rolex replica
  • breitling replica
  • fake breitling
  • omega replica
  • replica watches
  • swiss replica watches
  • fake watches
  • gucci replica

  • Article: “The Road to the Netherworld”

    Considered by a largely cult following to be one of the most undersung films of all time, Mike Funt’s The Road to the Netherworld definitely deserves honorable mention in pass4sure EC0-232 the category of dark comedy. The film is a comic retelling of The Ancient Egyptian Book of the Dead, under the guise of a Hope and Crosby “Road” picture of the 1940’s.

    The film begins with Benny Stern and Flash Hollins having just shed their mortality, pass4sure 000-998 when the ship on which they are song and dance entertainers crashes into a rocky shoal during a storm. The two are find themselves wisecracking their way through the afterlife as they face trial upon tribulation on their journey to the hereafter. One comic highlight involves the pair huckstering their way past the god Re during a tap-dancing number with lyrics like “Off we’re gonna shuffle, shuffle off our mortal coil.” This is a parallel to the song given to sing to appease Re in the ancient text.

    The fast-paced, one-liner dialogue is a forte of Funt’s, and if there is nothing else to be said for this film, it is funny. However, if your looking for strong characters or a plot not chock full of holes and inconsistencies, this might not be the film for you. Although, if you are a fan of the Hope and Crosby films, you pass4sure MB2-867 know those things aren’t the strong suit pass4sure 1Z1-520 of this genre.

    Overall, very fun, and slightly educational.

    B+

    L.08.5: “Odd Man” In!

    ModBerMan Trio: Odd Man

    CD review
    The Atlantic Monthly
    Charles Serittella, critic

  • hublot replica
  • hublot big bang replica
  • rolex replica
  • breitling replica
  • fake breitling
  • omega replica
  • replica watches
  • swiss replica watches
  • fake watches
  • gucci replica
  • replique de montre
  • replica montre
  • rolex replique
  • replique breitling
  • replique omega
  • replique hublot big bang

  • The great philosopher Georg Christoph Lichtenberg once opined, “When we read odes our nostrils expand and so do our toes.” I never knew what he meant until recently, when I heard Lyles’ “Trio for Piano, Trombone, and Soprano Saxophone” performed by the ModBerMan Trio and originally recorded at the New York Public Library’s “Odd Man Out Series.” Not only my nostrils and toes, but as the work itself dilated to fill the universe of its three movements, my brain and soul expanded as well.

    I was well aware of Lyles’ symphonic output, disturbingly familiar as it has become in recent seasons, but this is the first of his chamber works I have come across. No doubt my lack of awareness can be attributed to the lack of recordings of this part of his oeuvre, a lack I call upon our recording industry to rectify: more, more more!

    Working in what he has chosen to call his “post-minimalist” style pass4sure 140-420 (a label that has unfortunate associations, particularly as it is misapplied to his work), Lyles has crafted a stunning if difficult canvas for three widely disparate instruments. Indeed, without the skill of Maila and David Springfield and their colleague Joren Cain, it would be easy to imagine this work falling to pieces.

    However, it did not fall to pieces: it cohered, it jumped, it soared to its ethereal conclusion. But I get ahead of myself.

    The opening movement, labeled “Andante,” is a lovely nocturne, pass4sure ST0-075 beginning with Lyles’ trademark arpeggiations in the lower piano. Soon joined by the saxophone and, improbably, by the trombone, the figures change colors like watercolored fireflies until the wind instruments are released into a rhapsodic theme that hovers about the piano’s continued swirling. The whole thing eventually dies away the same way it came, and we are left thinking that this movement alone should have been enough.

    That feeling is an illusion, disproved by the impish scherzo that follows. The winds play hide and seek with a quirky little theme that dives in and out of the irregular rhythms of the piano’s chordal accompaniment. I was reminded of the peasant dance of the scherzo of Beethoven’s 6th, where the peasant band can’t quite keep the beat and neither can you. Without having seen the score, I presume Lyles resorted to multiple time signatures to achieve the same feeling, but I could easily be wrong.

    A wild, horrid, downward rush in the piano announces the opening of the final movement, labeled “Allegro agitato,” and it is clear the music has a dark message to impart. All three instruments pound and repound the descending theme without regard to meter or key until surely, one thinks, neither the composer nor the musicians—nor the listener—can stand any more, and then suddenly, gratefully, the whole piece bottoms out with what sounds as if it might be the longest note ever held by a trombone. (My brain rattled with the dreadful anticipation that it might be yet again assaulted by the main theme.)

    But the piano begins to rebuild its arpeggiations from the first movement, and the winds play an inverted form of the downward theme that allows us to rise from the ashes of the opening conflagration, lifting higher and higher until they are playing softly repeating notes, calling one to the other as the piano floats toward them, above them, and away.

    It left me quite breathless, and if you admire Lyles’ symphonic output, you will be quite astonished as well. He has crafted, from three unlikely instruments, a completely winning work.

    The other two works on the disc, while as effectively played by the ModBerMan Trio, do not offer as…