Marshall McLuhan's Savage Village

A developed world view of traditional culture as profoundly uncouth?
At least Martin Denny knew better...

Bruce Conner was Beautiful

Sometimes just minimal exposure to someone with a beautiful spirit can make your whole life better. I am thankful to feel the spirit of Bruce Conner, as have many others.

Johnny Cash via Media

Just a singer with a guitar, but seen so differently over the decades by evolving media standards and entertainment industry protocols.

 

A 23 year old Johnny Cash performing "I Walk the Line" live at The Tex Ritter Show. (1957). Barn-dance-country-fried-Saturday-night-dude-ranch-ass-kicking deadly.

This is from the Johnny Cash show. (February 17, 1971). TV-hairspray-slick helps the cutting, cunning, brave, proud and free political message come out of nowhere.

"The Beast In Me" is a song written and originally recorded by Cash's former stepson-in-law Nick Lowe. BBC (July 9, 1994). Plenty of near-invisible artifice. Still, classy and powerful.

Johnny Cash's last public performance, "Understand Your Man". (Hiltons, VA, July 15, 2003).  Raw home video adds to the discomfort level. You feel his pain.

Children of Cage

Margaret Leng Tan performance exerpt of In the Name of the Holocaust from John Cage, I Have Nothing To Say, And I Am Saying It, PBS American Masters, 1990

 

 

 Margaret Leng Tan

"Cage liberated 20th-century American music from the almighty European tradition and gave American composers the confidence to be themselves. In fact, not only composers but American artists in general. One can go so far as to say Cage gave all artists the confidence to be themselves. In essence, we are all Cage's spiritual children."

Sarah Jane!

photograph ©2015 J. Shimon & J. Lindemann

Monday January 26 found us wowed by the presence of visionary high-art priestess, master of the video medium, and (former?) raccoon queen Sarah Jane Rennick. Not only has Sarah Jane managed to become a semi-productive artist less than a year out from LU, but she's also found the key to happiness in life. (low overhead, an art gallery in your bathroom, and high-paying, low impact, part-time work where you get to play with poop. oh, and someone to cover the $phone$) Make sure you submit to her Booty Town Gallery's

Sarah Jane Rennick: Celebration of a Visionary (w/ prizes!!!)

art show.

Robert Frank's Journey to the Outside

Robert Frank tells us it wasn't so much about art as it was about life in this 2008 interview, conducted on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the first printing of    The Americans.

 

Sarah Greenough discusses the structure of The Americans in this video. She authored the 528 page volume that investigates Frank's Guggenheim project and the resulting 180 page book, first published in the United States in 1959.

Stan Brakhage: Expanding the Language of Film, Frame by Frame

Stan Brakhage: Expanding the Language of Film, Frame by Frame

One may read infinite interviews with independent filmmakers whining about making a $3,000,000 film on a $750,000 budget, but can we really pity them after we consider how Stan Brakhage (1933-2003) expanded the creative potential of the entire medium using nothing but blank film stock and some felt tip markers? The immensely influential filmmaker completed over 300 films while living a low budget life, working with amateur equipment and discards. His films take us to the extremes of our emotional states while dismissing the tedium of narrative structure. He has opened the doors to new understandings of human experience to all willing to accept his art.