Waltzing With John Cage: A Performance of 49 Waltzes for the Five Boroughs

I'm hearing a taxi come rumbling up Jane Street, and it's going Ka-Thunk and Ka-Thunk and Ka-Thunk over a cobblestone stretch of the West Village. Now comes a pair of pedestrians, walking past me and chatting in a language I do not know, and when their shoes hit the pavement, one pair goes Clunk Clunk Clunk, and the other goes Swish Swish Swish. Here comes another taxi, going Ka-Thunk and Ka-Thunk and Ka-Thunk, and here comes a helicopter whirling overhead, blades going BOPBOPBOPBOPBOP, faster in tempo than the taxi and at a higher pitch.

As I'm listening to these sounds and many others - car engines, slamming doors, honk honks, along a block of Jane Street in the West Village last Saturday afternoon, I'm sitting on the top of the steps leading down to an unoccupied basement apartment. I'm recording the sounds on GarageBand on my MacBook, and I can watch the visual images of the sounds as they record. While taxis look like a blurry Rorschach blob, human steps render as straight vertical lines, simple as the lines signifying measures on a music page.

When music writer Kurt Gottschalk emailed a few weeks ago, asking if I'd be interested in participating in a rare performance of John Cage's 49 Waltzes for the Five Boroughs For Performer(s) or Listener(s) or Record Maker(s), 1977, I jumped at the chance. As a longtime fan of experimental music genius John Cage, I looked forward to Saturday's event. Kurt let us pick out our own spot in the five boroughs and decide what role we'd like to play. I decided on Jane Street and that I would be a record-maker.

The 40-minute performance started at 3 p.m. so I got there a few minutes early to seek out a good place along the block. Finding a place at street level where I didn't think I would be disturbed, I started the recording at exactly at 3 p.m. and then listened. About ten minutes in, the sounds that I described at the outset, especially the repeating rhythmic sounds of taxis rolling across a cobblestone street going Ka-Thunk, took me into a higher state of consciousness. The sounds got louder, more subtle, varied, with differing rhythms and tempos, and it was marvelous to hear the sounds of everyday life in such a concentrated way.

Kurt invited us to meet at the Chester A. Arthur statue at Madison Square Park after the performance to share our stories, and I had fun hearing about the experiences of others in several far-flung sites in the city. He's documenting the project to share with more people, so please find the link following this post to find out more.

A bit of mystery unfolded later in the day as I sat down and listened to my recording. Yes, there's the Ka-Thunks and the Swish Swishes and Clop Clop Clops, but where did the high-pitched CHIRP CHIRP CHIRPs come from? I hear birds chirping and calling now throughout the recording, as if they were recorded on a different track I couldn't previously hear. Why didn't I hear the birds then, from 3 to 3:40 p.m. on this recent Saturday on Jane Street? And why am I hearing them just now?

Please visit Kurt Gottschalk's Spearmint Music blog to read more about it.

Also, see on this website a You Tube recording of John Cage's performance of Water Walk on I've Got A Secret.

UPDATE: New York Times article in The City section, May 4, 2008. Careful readers will note that the section about the self-described flâneuse (who could that be?) omits the facts that she made a RECORDING in addition to just listening. I'm sure the Times regrets the error.

The Pogues' Shane MacGowan at 50: "Fairytale of New York"

After so many lessons, it's time for a carol.
Happy birthday to Irish singer-songwriter Shane MacGowan, born December 25, 1957, who will turn 50 on Christmas Day. He is currently touring Ireland with his reunited Pogues. Kirsty MacColl, who sings the duet with MacGowan on "Fairytale of New York" from 1987, died in a boat wreck off the coast of Cozumel in 2000. The song has legions of fans, with many claiming it as the best Christmas song ever written.



See a story about hard-drinking MacGowan's miraculous approach to 50 in The Guardian.

Happy Hour You Tube Party with Art Ford and Cy Coleman

The following You Tube excerpt comes from a kinescope recording of an episode of Art Ford's Greenwich Village Party, an unscripted entertainment program that aired on local New York television in the late 1950s. The program featured Broadway composer Cy Coleman on Fridays. Here he sings, "Why Try to Change Me Now."

Then We Take Berlin: Berlin in Lights Festival Underway

The Berlin in Lights festival is now underway at many venues throughout the wider New York area, celebrating the emergence of Berlin as a dynamic changing city. The rise of Berlin as a cultural center gives those of us in the New World Metropolis a chance to compare and contrast these artistic hothouses. I can't think of any event quite like this one, where one major city pays such an homage to another, but I'd like to see many more festivals like it.

For those who would like some access to the festival but need to stay close to home, I recommend tuning to WNYC's Evening Music all this week for special broadcasts about Berlin cabaret hosted by famed singer Uta Lemper.

The Center for Architecture on LaGuardia Place opens Berlin-New York Dialogues: Building in Context on Thursday, November 8. The exhibition focuses on the political, cultural, economic, and social forces that affect urban planning and design.

Carnegie Hall serves as the host of the many partnered and many mediated events of Berlin in Lights, so their website is the best source for the full schedule and online special features. I've learned quite a bit just reading the schedule. The festival continues through November 18.

Image: Last season's Weimar Portraits exhibit at the Met and a visit to the Neue Galerie inspired me to make carnival masks of my dogs. This is my interpretation of Macheath from Brecht's The Threepenny Opera.

Weekend Frivolities: The Ho' Made Cupcake Melting in the Rain Edition

CHORUS
MacArthur's Park is melting in the dark
All the sweet, green icing flowing down...
Someone left the cake out in the rain
I don't think that I can take it
'cause it took so long to bake it
And I'll never have that recipe again
Oh, no!
-Jimmy Webb, MacArthur Park

Image: Photo of one of Bruno Bakery's Easter Cupcakes from the Spring of 2007)

Once upon a time, I lived for a few years in the Upper Midwest, the land of the Frozen Tundra (and a nightmare for me on a personal level), where I explored many of the area's villages and hamlets. Driving through one tiny town on a snowy evening, a merry group of us stopped at a local café for some dinner. On the sign above the door, under the café's name, were the words "Ho' Made." This greatly tickled us all.

Furthermore, the menu at this comfortable establishment featured all the usual Upper Midwest favorites - fried perch, bratwurst, cheeseburgers, and pasta alfredo, and the dessert part of the menu printed a list of candy bars along with their prices. This was the first menu I had seen listing Snickers, Mars Bar, Butterfingers, and the like. So when the waitress came, I said something like, "I'll have a salad, the bratwurst, and some Junior Mints. Bring two forks."

It's raining today in New York, and for once the weather promises to turn a little chilly. I can tell you that thousands of New Yorkers will stay inside today to perfect their costumes for Wednesday's Village Halloween Parade. As this year's theme is Wings of Desire, I'm pulling together an avenging cowgirl angel outfit. For the dogs I'm thinking of dressing them like Truman Capote and Katherine Graham at the Black & White Ball. (See pix here at Bold Type's George Plimpton scrapbook). Whaddya' think?

I have holiday cupcakes on my mind, so today I plan to put on the slicker and galoshes and search for the most beautiful cupcake below 14th St. I will report back with the results. I'm going to be hearing Jimmy Webb's MacArthur Park song in my head the whole time.

In the meantime, enjoy this feature of wholesome ho' made cupcake madness. And don't worry about the calories just now. We'll walk it off later.

Halloween Cupcake Links:

Halloween Cupcakes

Weekend Music Bonus: Maynard Ferguson Big Band

Items From the Lost & Found: Exhibits, Lectures, Etc.

While out on my walks, I accumulate a lot of information that I would like to pass on to readers but later misplace. On occasion I recover these tidbits, large and small. I'm starting a new feature today titled Items from the Lost & Found. It goes something like this:

• I like the Hypnotic Brass Ensemble from Chicago. I first heard them play in Washington Square Park, and listening to the CD that I brought home makes me sleep better.
  
• Other exhibits I liked in Chelsea – André Kertész: The Polaroids and Randy West bird rabbit snake at Silverstein Photography, and Amir Zaki at Perry Rubenstein Gallery.
• My favorite artwork of the week – a watercolor by Marlene Dumas at Cheim & Read titled Klaus Kinski Meets Ensor, Andy Warhol Meets His Maker (2002).
  
• The Municipal Art Society's exhibit Jane Jacobs and the Future of New York seems so important that I will probably write about it soon. Visit the exhibit or the website and pick up information about the many upcoming lecture programs related to the exhibit.
• Bloomingdale's is currently featuring an in-store boutique that benefits the New Museum of Contemporary Art. I bought an Artware Editions 70 x 60 inch beach towel with an Alex Katz painting on it.
• I think that if I had $350 for a night to spend in a hotel in New York, the Hotel Elysée on East 54th St. would be lovely.
• The Cornelia Street Café is a reliably good choice for brunch.
  

Weekend Frivolities: Movie Trailer

While I put on my dark glasses and floppy hat to venture up Madison Avenue, you may be interested in a visit to the picture show. The colonel and I strolled up Broadway to the Regal Union Square Stadium 14 last night to see Across the Universe, the new Julie Taymor movie, and we enjoyed it for all kinds of reasons. I thought that the movie was the perfect end to the British Invasion Walk, as it involves a romance between an American blonde and a cute John/Paul Liverpudlian boy. The action goes back and forth from Greenwich Village to Liverpool. The movie is set in the turbulent sixties, and we enjoyed seeing our neighborhood in its psychedelic glory. Taymor is part of a creative group that attended Oberlin College in Oberlin, Ohio in the 1970s, and fellow alum Bill Irwin makes a cameo appearance in the movie. Her use of gigantic puppets also references those creative days. You might wonder why WOTBA knows all this, but I don't need to go into all that right now. Enjoy the show.

See the trailer and more at the official website for Across the Universe.

John Cage Performs Water Walk on I've Got A Secret January 1960

Related Post:
Waltzing With John Cage: A Performance of 49 Waltzes for the Five Boroughs

British Invasion Walk: John Lennon

I waited until Happy Hour, EST, to disclose a startling fact, so if you're a member of the drinking classes, I would recommend that you go to the kitchen, get something and then come back. If you don't drink alcohol or have forsaken demon rum, maybe a good yoga pose is in order right now.

(music interval while I wait for you...la la la la la...I'm listening to Billy Bragg, by the way.)

OK. Let's relax. Ready?

Statement of fact: The year is 2007. Many eighteen-year olds, the age of most college freshmen, were born in 1989.

There. I said it. Think about it. John Lennon, who many of us miss so much because his music and ideas gave so much definition to our lives, was shot and killed at The Dakota Apartments in 1980, nine years before these freshmen were born. John was 40. He would have been 67 next Tuesday, October 9, 2007.

His music is still here. His intelligence is still with us, just like that much much older Shakespeare fellow (or the collective entity known as William Shakespeare) who is so alive in Central Park.

I'm glad that we have memorials such as the one on the west side of Central Park near 72nd St. - the perfectly-named Imagine memorial and the adjacent Strawberry Fields, for people to connect with the Lennon of their own imaginations.

Celebrate, all who are 18! You have so much to do! 1989 was the year ushering in the reign of America's George I, but it was also the year the wall came down.

Time is immaterial. Imagination is alive.

See British Invasion Walk.

Walking Off ALL the Big Apples

I work hard to establish Walking Off the Big Apple as a major brand in the culture industry. The greater corporate entity that is known at WOTBA, Inc. even envisions a vast global empire of storefront WOTBA franchises to advance the brand.* These stores will be staffed by coquettish overeducated women past their prime in cute outfits reminiscent of the Harvey Girls and will offer aid and sustenance for the weary flâneur in the form of strong coffee, absinthe cocktails and portable bags of Frito Pie. We will, of course, have our own record company, signing our songwriter friends to the WOTBA label.

So anything that involves a dispute over the Apple name interests WOTBA and its sole shareholder:

“We love the Beatles, and it has been painful being at odds with them over these trademarks. It feels great to resolve this in a positive manner, and in a way that should remove the potential of further disagreements in the future.” - Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO, February 2007

"The opportunity to head up Apple Corps Ltd is a dream come true! I have been a huge Beatles fan from the moment they appeared on the Ed Sullivan show. The music The Beatles created remains as vital and relevant as the day it was recorded. The multiple opportunities to reach music lovers, both new and old, with The Beatles spectacular body of work makes this position incredibly challenging and exciting." - Jeff Jones, American-born manager of Apple Corps. Jones replaced Neil Aspinall, manager of the Beatles business for 40 years, who left the company in April 2007 after coming to a settlement with Steve Jobs

In March, a month before the change at Apple Corps, Sir Paul McCartney announced his decision to leave EMI after 43 years and join the Starbucks label, Hear Music. One problem for McCartney is that the label is not registered with the Official U.K. Chart Company, so CDs bought in Starbucks UK locations do not count in the top 40 there.

Sorry, girls.

* including Walking Off Big Ben, Walking Off Big Tex, and Walking Off the Big Rock Candy Mountain.

Walking Video

On YouTube I've found some lovely vintage footage made by the Dutch beat band, The Motions, as the group toured the US in 1969. Several clips fall under the title Walking in New York. I'm charmed by their NY street interview with Micky Dolenz and Davy Jones of The Monkees.

Here they come, walkin' down the street:

P. Diddy: Show Some Love (2006)

I've viewed this video over and over again. You can tell that P. Diddy genuinely loves walking in New York - how he plays with his removed necktie and how he pulls up his shirt and rubs his body. Feels so good just to watch him!