Sounds Like Now
A blog by saxophonist Brian Sacawa
Archive for Film
February 1, 2007 at 1:38 pm · Filed under Blog: Winter 06, Film, Museum
As predicted, the Matthew Barney event at the Hirshhorn last night drew an overwhelming crowd. The make-sure-and-get-there-early-to-ensure-that-you-get-a-ticket warnings were heeded so Alex and I arrived at 5:30pm, well before advanced ticketing began. There was already a throng of ticket-hopefuls snaking around the lobby, but we took our place in line optimistically. It was around 6:15pm—when they were supposed to start handing out tickets—that we noticed the crowd thinning. However it wasn’t thinning out because people were being let into the auditorium, it was getting smaller because people were stepping outside. That’s odd, I thought, why are they leaving? It was then revealed that almost all of the tickets had been given out to well-to-do patrons and members of the museum well in advance (like days and weeks) of the cattle call so we were out of luck. I wish they’d made that a little more apparent on the website or something prior to getting everybody’s hopes up. At any rate, despite the lack of edifying lecture a good time was still had: I got to take some photos of the sculpture garden and Alex and I got to hang out.
N.B. Missed the event like me and didn’t see the live webcast? Check out the podcast.
January 30, 2007 at 6:49 am · Filed under Art, Baltimore, Blog: Winter 06, Experimental, Film, Improv, Music
All dressed up and no place to go? Allow me to suggest the following activities taking place this week in and around Baltimore:
+ Meet the Artist: Matthew Barney: The acclaimed artist and filmmaker best known for The Cremaster Cycle, and more recently for his collaboration with Björk in Drawing Restraint 9, will be at the Hirshhorn this Wednesday at 7pm with Guggenheim Museum curator Nancy Spector discussing the influence of Joseph Beuys‘ art on the evolution of his work. If you really can’t make it, dont worry: due to the anticipated overwhelming response, the musuem is offering a live webcast of the event.
+ Tim Feeney & Vic Rawlings: The better half of Non-Zero leads a double-life as an improviser and this Friday he comes tramping through Baltimore with fellow Boston-based musician Vic Rawlings (cello/electronics) for a 9pm set at the Red Room to make some sounds you’ve never heard before and will probably never hear again.
+ Cell Phone: Art and the Mobile Phone: Just-opened exhibit at the Contemporary Museum, featuring art created by/for small handheld devices.
January 22, 2007 at 11:22 pm · Filed under Art, Blog: Winter 06, Film, Museum
I’m temporarily blacklisting the MoMA (no link = no love). I deliberately made a late train reservation back to Mobtown so that I might be able to catch a glimpse of Doug Aitken’s sleepwalkers, which was going to be showing on (yes, on) the MoMA beginning at 5pm. A little before 4pm, I decided that rather than wait around in the cold, that I would be somewhat ridiculous and buy a ticket for the museum, so I could wander around and see something for an hour, which sure beat standing around in the cold. As I attempted to enter I was reproached by the door guard for my coffee, which was not permitted in the MoMA’s lobby. So I finished it outside and then went in, got in line, bought my ticket (saxophone fully visible, an important fact for reasons soon to be revealed, and about 4:10pm by now) and proceeded to enter the gallery, where I was promptly stopped by the ticket-taker and said that I couldn’t bring that (my saxophone) in and that I probably wouldn’t be able to check it either. Optimistically, I got into the coat check line, where the ticket-taker’s hunch was confirmed. I got a refund and left, lodging my silent protest against the MoMA by refusing to see the free films they were going to project on the sides of the building.
April 10, 2006 at 12:30 am · Filed under Blog: Spring 06, Cycling, Education, Film, Literature, Miscellany, Uncategorized
Where my mind’s been:
- Condi Rice gets reviewed in the Times.
- Andy Rooney talks about education. A generation of “cultural idiots”—haha.
- Ian Burama on Park Chanwook.
- Paris-Roubaix 2006: Cancellara attacks, Hincapie snaps, Boonen derailed delayed at the tracks.
- Hello Jesse and Joe—two Michigan MUSICOL 501 friends!
Recently Read: Invisible Cities and Difficult Loves by Italo Calvino, The Stories of Eva Luna by Isabel Allende, The New York Trilogy (yay) and Timbuktu (nay) by Paul Auster, A.H.W.O.S.G. (a book has never made me laugh out loud as much as this one) by Dave Eggers.
Reading: Here They Come by Yannick Murphy.
Practicing: Bach, Creston, Djupstrom, Sarasate
Grading: saxophone pedagogy midterm papers
Writing: my TAFTO contribution
Riding: my bike
Posting: new things to del.icio.us
Not: cleaning my house
Not: doing laundry
Need: a haircut
Will remember to: bring my suit to the dry cleaners
Procrastinating: Who, me?
Wasting: your time
Whee!
February 6, 2005 at 2:17 pm · Filed under Blog: Winter 04, Film, Literature
I recently watched the film Rivers and Tides: Working With Time (2001). It’s a portrait of the artist Andy Goldsworthy, who works exclusively with materials found in nature, like stone, wood, leaves, and ice. His work is stunning. Ephemeral. Fragile. Trascendent. Beautiful. It’s all of those things. But what also struck me about Goldsworthy was his absolute engagement with his sculpture. His concentration is immense. He is completely engrossed in the moment while at work, highlighting both the beautiful and ephemeral in his pieces. Time seems suspended even though as the sun comes up or the tide comes in you are acutely aware that time is indeed elapsing, while also threatening to destroy his creations.
Goldsworthy’s appraoch to his art reminded me of Slowness by Milan Kundera. In the novel, Kundera proposes that we not race from one thing to the next to the next to the next to the next and eventually on to “no thing,” as Eric Owen Moss puts it. There’s no focus in that race. No satisfaction. No destination. Only the next destination.
It’s important to be in the moment. To be completely immersed in and devoted to the task at hand whether it’s practicing, writing, composing, painting, sculpting, reading. If you ever have the sense that you’re becoming a part of the race—as I sometimes do—watch this film. It’s inspiring.
