In a podcast for the National Gallery, Turrell alluded to the problems encountered during the project. He was originally going to collaborate with famed designer/architect Philippe Starck on the lighting for this West Hollywood Hotel. Once the project was underway, Starck ran off with a model he met there, (if I’m not mistaken, Cindy Crawford’s husband Rande Gerber runs the nightclub in the hotel) and after six months Turrell completed the project himself.

It’s not clear who the model was, or where it fell in the chronology of Starck’s personal life. The designer, who may have designed the mouse in your hand, has designed about everything under the sun, including the offices of French President Mitterand. His daughter Ara, apparently a successful artist herself, told The Telegraph that her mother died when she was 14 of breast cancer, and her father recently married his fourth wife. ‘But my father loves to be married,’ she says happily. ‘He sees it all as such fun. He loves to have children. Anyway, he’s been faithful to all his wives. He was with my mother for 22 years.’

Starck claims on his website that he, “designs his hotels and restaurants in the same way a director makes a film, developing scenarios that will lift people out of the everyday and into an imaginative and creative mental world.” Indeed. Welcome to West Hollywood. I wasn’t sure if the steep price tag of a room there would transport me into Blue Velvet, Pulp Fiction, or Driving Miss Daisy, but the lobby’s fragrant synthetic carpets alluded more to Best Western than west of Crescent Heights. A google search for Piet Mondrian’s last name today will lead to more results for the hotel than the artist.

On each floor in the elevator lobby of the Mondrian is a small television-shaped aperture, with a translucent screen. Each floor’s aperture is lit by a television on the floor behind it, tuned to a different station. The claim is that each network broadcasts its own unique range of colors.

During my excursion, I shot short clips of the works on each floor, never expecting even to upload them to YouTube. This composite video allows you to compare the images of all twelve floor’s works to decide for yourself if each station has its own unique color range. (It’s a rather large Flash file (15 MB) and may take a couple of minutes to load.)

This high-profile project opened the door for Turrell’s involvement on the night lighting for the landmark Pont du Gard Roman Aqueduct near Nimes, France.

(Click for image source info and more wonderful pics by the photographer)

That exposure from that project subsequently led to extensive plans for a project along the Thames River in London, lighting the bridge and river banks. Unfortunately, the Thames project was ultimately scrapped:
“…the uncompleted and now abandoned Thames Light Project, a £3 million scheme to create a work of light art within 500 metres of the River Thames, London’s own Heart of Darkness. This would have defined the area by highlighting river frontages and landmark architectural features. The Square of Light would have linked buildings on both banks of the river from Somerset House, across Waterloo Bridge to the South Bank Centre site, encompassing Jubilee Gardens and the Royal National Theatre. Turrell’s idea was to choreograph an integrated lighting scheme installed in the water, under bridges, and on tops of buildings to be seen by aircraft passengers.”

Turrell’s earlier work with LACMA’s Art & Technology program led to a variety of pieces that explored the more personal nature of light perception and our environment. Some of these looked like salon hair dryer helmets, others were beds you would lie on, as you were slid into a light environment. He has described how man has used light to create an illusion of safety within his environment, and in the process, alienated himself from it. The architectural illuminations described in this post perhaps exist to traverse the territory between these more personal projects, and those which enthrall me, his Skyspaces. My favorite Turrell work that I’ve yet experienced is his Skyspace at Pomona College. His skyspaces strive to bring the sky down to the viewer, and of these, the ultimate epic work for Turrell is Roden Crater, an extinct volcano near Flagstaff, Arizona, that he has been gradually honing into an architectural calendar and camera obscura on the scale of the great pyramids. More on these next….

I sometimes harbor disdain for them too — well, the arrogant ones anyway. I find nothing as offensive as the art snob who responds to a curious inquiry about an artist with attempts to instill shame for not knowing the artist’s work. Of course this isn’t unique to the art world; many a music major has attempted to wield intellectual superiority in a similar fashion. A recent visit to a literary benefit sent me scuttling out the door with my tail between my legs. Yes, it’s true; I don’t know the majority of the writers on the shelves these days, and they let me know it.

In the realm of modern music, the problem is compounded by the fact that many modern composer’s works can only be found on compilations, so it’s quite a feat to compile a discography of their works. But in any of these realms, it’s a wonderful encounter with another person who simply loves to share their creative discoveries. So if you’re a “just the facts, sir” sort, I may not be your best resource. However, my musical and artistic quests are somewhat of an obsessive labor of passionate curiosity. My parents claim I’ve had this tendency since childhood. Apparently there’s no cure.

When the Metropolitan Museum of Art had its NYC O’Keefe exhibition, although I had ignored her works as cliched tourist illustrations while living in New Mexico, I was soon to be found trying to locate Steiglitz’s old studio to see what had become of it (a rug shop), trying to locate the buildings O’Keefe lived in and painted while in NYC, and eventually even visiting Ghost Ranch in Abiquiu. What I discovered when I arrived at her NM ranch was that the Mars-like landscape had been realistically painted by her, a discovery that shocked me.

And I got a few nice pictures of my own.

Small surprise, then, to find me sitting silently for an hour in the Orange Grove Quaker Meeting House in Pasadena.

Synchronicity has led me here, and ironically, as Quakers are notorious pacifists, later in the day the death of Bin Laden would be announced nation-wide.

This was the space where I found peace during grad school when I felt my world was un-ravelling, and the threads gradually wove themselves back together. What drew me back again was the discovery that this must’ve been the room where, 70+ years earlier, the child James Turrell was encouraged by his grandmother to “go inside and greet the light.” Today the light outside is spectacular, heralding Spring’s arrival with trees in full bloom, and there is light within those around me as well.

An octagenarian woman who bears an astonishing resemblence to an Edward Gorey illustration is celebrating her birthday today. Despite her somewhat severe posture, I know that she’s one of the sweeter members of the meeting. Over coffee and birthday cake, I’m tempted to ask if she knew the Turrells, but decide against it. Or rather, the choice was made for me by the visitor zealously informing me of the Quaker history of feminist and homosexual tolerance. Some day I may bring the subject up with the birthday girl. Time will tell.

Light is a familiar metaphor for spiritual realization in many religions, of course. We discuss enlightenment without giving this much thought. For the Quakers, there is a long-held understanding that every person has a divine personal intimate connection to this “light,” and sitting quietly becomes the first step in becoming aware of this presence. Then it becomes possible to let it illuminate the actions taken throughout the day. Early on, Quakers thought of this as the light of Jesus, but over time, the broader inter-denominational influences have included the teachings of many other faiths.

Turrell understood early on that going into the light was both a literal and metaphorical inspiration for his work. As his work has evolved, I believe it becomes less possible to just “look” at one of his works; you experience it. You become engulfed by it. You are changed by it. He has confessed a fondness for the liminal light of dawn and dusk. He told the New York Times, “My spaces are dim because low light opens the pupil and then feeling comes out of the eye as touch, a sensuous act. Sure, you surrender. You surrender when you go to the doctor. A doctor’s office is a body shop. We’re talking about healing the soul.” This points to a deeper aspiration within his art, and might give a clue as to the direction his life’s work has taken.

Turrell went to Pomona College, not far from Pasadena. Although the school’s alumni included many famous artists, including John Cage, Turrell enrolled in the perceptual psychology program, and that choice has unmistakably shaped his work. While many psychologists attempt to improve patients lives through discussion, or psychiatrists through pharmacology, Turrell works with perception, and you can bet your HMO plan won’t cover it. Optical illusions, implied planes and geometric shapes are often a major component of his installations. He was the subject of a lawsuit when a visitor fell and injured himself trying to lean against a wall “that wasn’t there,” leading to the first time that the “effect of a piece of art” had been the subject of a courtroom case. Time and time again, he has tried – and often, in my opinion, succeeded, in creating works that bring the sky into a room, transporting you into it.

Shortly before the Woodstock Festival would happen on the other side of the country, before man would land on the moon for the first time, he and artist Robert Irwin worked with an innovative program started by LACMA to pair artists with pioneers in the aerospace industry called the Art & Technology Progam. During this period, he moved into a building known as the Mendota Hotel, at the corner of Hill and Main Streets in Santa Monica.

The building still stands, and it’s my next destination.

I park a few blocks from Hill and Main, and make my way down the hill.

As I pass the church a block away, a film crew runs after me, begging me to play the part of “Doc” in the band “Set Your Goals’” music video adaptation of “Back to the Future.” The irony of my time traveling historical search isn’t lost on me, so I don a lab coat and run down the street after a Bricklin as the camera begins rolling.

When my 30 seconds of fame have elapsed, I proceed back to the future myself, snapping a few “Hill Street Views” exterior shots of the Mendota Hotel building.

The tree has gotten a little bigger.

This is where the foundations of much of his work first began to be realized.

Turrell painted over the windows in his studio here, and experimented with techniques to create apertures for light to enter his studio.

During this time, he became intimately familiar with the tungsten street lamps, the stop lights on the corner, the passing bus lights, and of course, the sun and moonlight. He also collaborated with a film lighting designer, experimenting with projected light.

He often had showings of his aperture experiments, and attracted quite a bit of attention.

Mere blocks from here, above the Santa Monica Pier, is the Camera Obscura, a landmark that has been bringing the secular light inside for tourists for over a hundred years.

Here’s a link with some information about it’s history, and here’s an interesting link showing a video of what you see inside it:

One can’t help but wonder if it helped inspire Turrell to try turning his own studio into a camera obscura as well — one of his many projects in the space, and an element that can be found in many of his later works. It’s highly unlikely he wasn’t already well familiar with the principle of a camera obscura, but perhaps this landmark prompted further light play.

I walk up to his old studio, open the door and walking inside. I walk up to the counter, greet my barista, and order a venti black coffee. Yes, it’s a Starbucks now.

I stay for a couple of hours until they close at 8PM.

The buses still run down Hill Street, the tree has gotten enormous, many more lights surround the building.

I become enamoured by the play of the light around the room as sunset approaches.

Light reflects off the walls of the room, and I see the figures of cars reflected across the room by their windshields. As the sun sets, the street lights come on, and the character of the light changes completely.

As last caffeine call is announced, I show a barista a 1969 image of the building. Fascinated, he informs me that the building is now owned by Bill Cosby. Then he kicks me out.

Next up: a visit to the Mondrian Hotel

Reflecting upon the 1994 suicide of photojournalist Kevin Carter, Gina asked, “how do these guys unwind when they get home?” Personal images in this exhibition provide a glimpse into photographer’s lives when they’re off the job, and are a welcome complement to the frequently traumatic incidents they’re forced to document and share.

Pulitzer winner Carolyn Cole’s photos document Iraq after the US occupation, including a mural of Saddam Hussein’s face being painted over. Her photos of the Gulf of Mexico after the BP Oil disaster include a huge sea turtle being lifted out of the muck, a dead dolphin being towed through oil coated waters, and an oil coated pelican struggling to move its wings.

Michael Robinson Chavez exhibited photos of families living in the dumps of Iraq, and personal shots of his travels in Peru.

Rick Loomis’s photos documented war victims in Iraq and Afghanistan who had lost limbs, including a soldier who still swims – with help – after losing both legs and an arm. His photos from the Burning Man festival were gorgeous.

Sports photographer Donald Miralle documented the Iron Man World Championships in Hawaii, and featured a bicyclist with two wooden legs who competed. Some of his photos were shot from underneath the swimmers in the water, and one particularly striking shot was of the swimmers diving into the water at the start of the race, shot from below them. He also showed a number of wildlife shots from Tanzania.

Sandy Huffaker takes the viewer underground, into the Mexican-US border drug tunnels. His lighter subject matter included all manner of people with their cel phones; kids at Comicon, a man on a Segway, on his cel phone, with Southland fires looming behind him.

Heidi Laughton’s photos documented her work with the Red Cross in China, and her own chemotherapy ordeal.

Deanne Fitzmaurice’s photos tell the story of an Iraqi child who picked up a bomb, thinking it was a ball, alongside a road. His father doesn’t have the heart to tell the armless boy that his brother died during the incident.

Fitzmaurice’s lighter subjects included the San Francisco burning of a Bush Effigy during the Obama election victory, a stunning surf photo, a beautiful image of the Golden Gate bridge reflected in a series of water droplets, and one of my favorites from the show, a man reclining by the Les Tuileries Garden Fountain, shot from the humorous angle that made him appear to be urinating to the height of the fountain.

Also included in the exhibition were photos of a Lakewood, NJ homeless tent city and Infrared images of Iraq army raids by Benjamin Lowy; Hazel Thompson’s series, “I am Jonas Myrin;” David Bathgate’s photos of Afghanistan and of his wife and Afghan hounds; Tim Wimbourne’s photos of Pakistan flood victims; and Abir Abdullah’s Bangladesh cyclone survivor shots, including a land-locked boat, complemented by shots of his son playing on a water slide.

Wide Angle View runs through March 26th. Orange County Center for Contemporary Art is at 117 N. Sycamore, Santa Ana, CA 92701 (714) 667-1517
 http://www.occca.org/

This weekend, perhaps to distract us from the anniversary of 9/11, Chinatown will be bustling. Among the events there, The Flock Shop is having their 3 year anniversary, and Micol Hebron and Ilene Segalove will be opening at Jancar Gallery. The Armory for the Arts in Pasadena will be opening a show of Steve Roden’s work. Roden is a talented sound artist who runs a great blog and is also included in the “Glow” event later this month in Santa Monica.

I’m eagerly awaiting the unveling of the Peace Project at Gallery 9 on the 25th, but a little frustrated to learn that a couple of my favorite light art events occur the same night on opposite sides of town. Illuminating LA will be the annual Glow event at the Santa Monica pier from 7PM until 3AM, and meanwhile, downtown at Pershing Square, Lilli Muller’s Autumn Lights festival will run from 7PM until 1AM. Both events have a plethora of innovative cutting edge light art – from illuminated static and interactive sculptures to more mundane, though genrally quite interesting, projected video art.

Here are some videos of last year’s Autumn Lights Festival:
 http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=…

I’m just back from this month’s downtown art walk. I had pretty high hopes for tonight, since LACDA was showing a collection of works, but wasn’t too excited by anything. There were so many bands and DJs on the street that my friends and I were hoarse from shouting at each other within just two blocks of meeting each other. At one point, my friend remarked, “I really have a problem with these people who see it as their privilege to dump their noise on me.” I’m usually pretty open minded about experimental music and sound, but the volume of the bands on the street seemed more reminiscent of a war zone, and I felt assaulted more than entertained.

What I did enjoy was the “Temple of Visions” at 719 S. Spring Street. Amid murals of visionary psychedelic art, a nearly naked model was glaring at the onlookers as her body was painted by the DJ, leaving me to wonder why she was doing this if she didn’t want everybody staring at her. But the psychedelic art was pretty remarkable, and doesn’t leave you with a physical come-down afterwards. One of the more interesting collections of works are by the bathroom in the gallery; three dimensional holographic paintings of psychedlic mandalas and creatures that morph into different images as you move around them. Some of these are for sale as postcards too, but seemed less interesting. Apparently the holographer worked with several artists to assemble composite images for these works.

So if anybody wants to meet up and check out some of these events, let’s go!

They say there’s no accounting for taste. Well, let me be your Deloitte & Touche; friends don’t let friends buy bad art.

You may not know the paintings of Joni Mitchell, Miles Davis, Jerry Garcia, Rik Okasek, or Paulina Porizkova. You might be missing out. But if you know them for other things, there’s a reason for that. Don’t get me wrong, I’m rather fond of Joni Mitchell’s paintings. But I like her music a lot better.

It may come as no surprise that Dennis Hopper’s works at Robert Berman Gallery in Bergamot Station practically scream “Don’t you fuckin’ look at me!”

This forgetable collection of works is a reminder that one might be better off peeling the sheetrock off the brick wall, knocking the back out of a frame, and hanging it over the wall than taking an actor seriously as an artist. Maybe it’s a case of the “Emperor’s New Clothes Art Syndrome,” but Berman has been known to occasionally show remarkable art by people famous for things other than their artistic creations. He probably is just showing this stuff because, well, it will sell. His better offerings include a recent glass-topped kneeling skeleton coffee table, I think by one of the members of Sonic Youth. This exhibit sure didn’t do much for me, and didn’t leave me chomping at the bit to attend MOCA’s show of Hopper’s works. Obviously Hopper knows more than a little bit about art, but these prints certainly aren’t masterworks. I’ll certainly miss his filmic efforts though.

Tucked in the back corner of Bergamot Station that night was another opening, blaring the Richard Strauss soundtrack from Kubrick’s “2001.” Copro Gallery was showing cartoon paintings inspired by Kubrick’s films and executed by Carlos Ramos. Also on display were mildly disturbing works by becca that verged between fashion illustration and hello kitty art, littered with splotches of paint suggesting a darker reality surging through these picturesque candies, like the monster in Alien emerging from the gut.
 http://www.copronason.com/beccaweb/pages…

There was something about these works that caught my fancy. But what I found myself more distracted by were the Laguna Art Museum’s In The Land of Retinal Delights catalog. And the candied pretzels. Not to mention the well-coiffed gals sauntering about the galleries.

Escaping Bergamot Station, my friend and I made our way to the more pedestrian 18th Street Art Center’s open house. The parties were dying down by this point, but I finally saw the Highways Performance Space. I have heard for years of friends having performances there, but had never seen the space, and didn’t realize it was housed in an artist’s community. They’ve got an intriguing little exhibition of Wagner-inspired costume designs, akin to illustrated novels. The art center hosts a number of resident artists, and two had open studios; maybe they’d have been better off waiting another month or two.

But what really made the evening worthwhile were the kinetic and light art works at Bleicher/Golightly Gallery, overlooking the beach in Santa Monica, near the 3rd Street Promenade. The exhibition, curated by Joella March, entitled, “Turned On – A Survey of Kinetic and Light Based Art,” is described as, “a group exhibition of 12 artists working in a variety of mediums and genres who incorporate light and technology in their finished product.” The works varied from Rube Goldberg-esque sculptures to cartoon doll sculptural fantasms to evocative translucent sculptures illuminated by video screens, and each work was utterly clever and brilliant.

Life Is A Dream by Tim Hogan

Recycled Childhood by David Brokaw

Waterfile #710 by Joella March

Angel Seat by Jim Jenkins

woMAN… by Stephen Anderson

South Jump by Kyle Chew

Nail by Kunio Ohashi

Blackbird by Brian Stotesberry

Two Happy Carrots by Jim Jenkins

By far my favorite work in the show, though, was Suitcase Project 2 by Kyle Chew. This piece was a suitcase on rollers that illuminated the floor as it rolled around through the crowd. Certainly cause for alarm during your next airport visit. Somebody call Homeland Security!

Suitcase Project 2 by Kyle Chew

So in summary, let me suggest you buy all the works from this exhibition instead of any of Dennis Hopper’s. If you like Hopper’s work, buy a Blue Ray of one of his movies. You’ll get more satisfaction out of it. Or hire a contractor to rip the sheet rock off your wall.

Pujya Swamiji, aka “Muniji,” runs the largest yoga ashram in Rishikesh. I have to admit, by nature, I’m a western skeptic about spiritual masters, yet my encounters with Muniji have given me a different perspective about him. He gave a series of spiritual counseling sessions at a home in the Sutdio City hills, and a lot of nervous neurotic frenetic preparation preceded his arrival, but the moment he walked in the door, a mysterious palpable transformation took place. Suddenly everyone became more friendly and peaceful, and it truly became a magical evening.

Tonight’s presentation might have been titled, “Living in the Holy Woods of Hollywood,” as Muniji described his experience living in the Indian jungle with snakes and scorpions, having to experience a spiritual surrender of trust; something he encouraged everyone to do in Hollywood. He spoke of the value of silence and carefully chosen words, and laughed about how people have to exhibit friendships on Facebook as they neurotically “twitter” away. “Why do I have to be your friend on Facebook? I already know who my friends are!”

Sri Shankaracharyaji, whose name I couldn’t say once, much less ten times fast, told funny tales about how people will ask what’s wrong if you’re sad, but not ask why you’re happy, and then proclaimed that the yogic path will completely enable you to conquer frustration and suffering, revealing the divine beings that we all are. I’ll try to remember that when I’m 10 minutes into a difficult posture.

The evening opened with a tale of a clay buddha that was being polished by monks, and one discovered a shiny spot under the clay. As they cleaned the clay around the spot, they discovered the entire buddha was gold underneath, and had been covered with clay when the temple had been overrun and looted. We’re all like that gold buddha, they said, if we clean away the clay.

Yes, that was model Kirsty Hume – how could you miss that hair? – and was that Donovan Leitch with her, paying respects in the green room afterwards? I think so, but what was really great was seeing all the beaming yogis and yoginis I hadn’t crossed paths with for years.

The Swami’s visit preceded their honorary presence at Peace Prayer Day, part of the week-long 3HO Kundalini Yoga Summer Solstice Celebration in Espanola, New Mexico. This event is held at the edge of sacred Indian land in the Jemez Mountains near Espanola. I’d heard strange reports about it, then I went, and began making those reports myself.

A group of Aztec Indians ran miles up the dirt road into the mountains, did a rain dance at Peace Prayer Day, and a thundercloud of rain followed them back down the road as they left – amidst one of the worst droughts NM had seen.

Then all the yogis and yoginis proceeded to do three 8 hour days of White Tantric Yoga, which isn’t a “sex yoga,” as the NY Times reported, but a form of meditation where partners meditate together, holding a posture and chanting for 31 or 62 minute sessions at a time. 2500 people were doing Sat Kriya, with interlaced palms extended straight above their heads for 2-1/2 hours, and as they continued, a thunderclouds formed over the roof of the shelter and torrential rain proceeded to fall. A quarter mile away, the security guards at the entrance to the grounds stayed dry. Go figure.

The Summer Solstice is actually Monday – the longest day of the year, and supposedly a great day to instigate major change in your life. If you’re in LA, can’t make it to NM, and are not up to a week of 4AM yoga, chanting, meditation, camping, cold showers, Bhangra Dancing, and a diet of potato onion soup and watermelon flavored with black pepper, there are still other fun options for the weekend.

Frank Lloyd Wright’s grandson, Eric and his wife Mary, hold a solstice celebration Saturday night on their spectacular ranch overlooking Malibu. This opens with a Native American Indian Medicine Wheel Ceremony, and is followed by a potluck dinner.

Saturday, June 19th, 2010 – 5:00PM – 9:00 PM
Summer Solstice Potluck Celebration
Potluck dinner, season greeting, music making.
Please bring your favorite dish to SHARE!
Gather together around 6:30pm
$10-20 suggested donation

If that is too “woo woo” for you, there’s the Summer Solstice Ballyhoo at the Santa Monica Pier Saturday and Sunday. If you’re scared of the beach, and downtown is more your flavor, you might enjoy the Cal Plaza concerts Saturday night, which include the wild Dakah Hip Hop Orchestra (8PM), Andree Belle (10:30PM), and Natives of the Dawn (11:45PM).

So here’s hoping you have a great weekend and solstice!

I ran into a neighbor in the hall, an old Irish lady in a bathrobe, and struck up a conversation. “Ow many people ya got livin’ up there? 10? 15?” she inquired. “You should tell those girls they shouldna go sunbathin’ up on the roof,” she instructed me, then leaned over and nearly whispered, “Somebody ‘ll rape ‘em and throw ‘em off!” Then she toddled down the hall and slipped into her apartment, like a roach into a wall.

Ah, the roof.

Yes, the roof was our salon. There would be easels with painters at work. The owner of the deaf cat hadn’t yet discovered that he was color blind, and his arrogantly self-effacing paintings all exhibited a strange palette of hues, laying testament to our skewed but lively lifestyle. Jam sessions with a constant stream of visiting musicians fueled the creativity, and yes, the girls were strewn about sunbathing.

Rob Gillespie, photo by Pam Newell

One day I entered the apartment, and Rob, a cynical but funny guy with a long ponytail, clad in an iconoclastic anti-prep de-riguer torn tweed blazer, was sitting by the window with a prized new book. He proceeded to rave about the Strand bookstore in Greenwich village, how he’d looked all over town for this book by Charles Bukowski, nobody had it, but the Strand did. He insisted I had to visit the Strand. He was astonished I’d never heard of Bukowski.

As he drank a beer from a paper container cup from the Park House bar at the corner, smoking a camel straight, he quoted Bukowski voraciously. All I remember now is the passage, “I always take a new job with the knowledge that I will either quit or get fired.” I didn’t like the poetry much, but I admired Bukowski’s spirit and the gall with which he espoused his ramblings as poetry.

As the year wore on, Mingus’s owner and I pushed everyone else out, cleaned the apartment up, painted it, and made it a rather nice place to live. Rob and a few others moved to another apartment down the street, where a similar parade of inhabitants constantly streamed through.

One day Rob walked into that apartment, saw two new guys in the living room, said “Hi,” and walked into the bathroom. When he came out, he discovered they weren’t visiting, they were robbing the place. They tied Rob up, put him in the closet, and stole the only things of value in the apartment; a saxophone and a typewriter.

Seven years later, I emerged from a secret gathering of misfits on the upper west side, picked up a copy of Interview magazine, and perused a larger-than-life Herb Ritts photo of Bukowski’s hideous face. “God, I hope I never end up like that guy,” I thought, before boarding the subway and heading into a new chapter of my life.

As the years progressed, like that apartment, those of us who survived cleaned up our lives and went on to various colleges or careers. Rob and I had never been close friends, but I heard that he had moved to San Diego, and hooked up with Amber, another girl from our high school. They had a son together. He became a Buddhist. Following a recent visit to that city, I realized I had stayed with another friend only a block from Rob’s home, but we only exchanged facebook connections after that.

Last Monday would have been Rob’s 50th birthday, but our friends discovered that he had taken his own life a month earlier. Apparently he had been sober for 20+ years, but had gone back to the cycle of drinking and trying to stop, had lost his job, and ultimately, lost hope.

I think the first time I heard Tom Waits it may have been in Rob’s dorm room – it’s all a blur now – but the album was “Nighthawks at the Diner.” It has always remained the quintessential Waits album to me.

Several months ago, I went to an art gallery in Santa Monica to see a friend’s show, and discovered that she was sharing the bill with Tom Wait’s daughter. Caught off-guard, I found myself a bit star-struck, and watched from a distance as the healthy looking Tom Waits carried on a seemingly clear-headed jovial conversation with a crowd of people, obviously happy for his daughter’s success.

Waits and Bukowski seemed to find the beauty in the darkness, and I think that’s why they resonated with Rob. Thanks old guy, for turning me on to them, and may your spirit find the beauty and peace we all seek.

Tom Waits Reads Bukowski’s “The Laughing Heart:”

Kloop Media Foundation offers the only vehicle for people to speak publicly about political views contradicting the reigning regime in the Kyrgyz Republic. During a recent election, one of his bloggers had spoken out about the party running for office. The blogger’s father was abducted by the KGB, and although the blogger escaped, he was warned that if he didn’t shut down his blog, his father’s life would be in danger. He shut down the blog. Not much later, the entire Kloop network was forced to shut down by the government, with death threats as well. A coup later overthrew the government, and the blogging victors were able to completely restore hundreds of blogs that voiced dissent, threatening the deposed party.

Frankly, I was embarrassed that although I’m rather well travelled, and was near his country during a summer vacation as a child, I still had absolutely no idea where it was.

I was also puzzled by his KGB references; I thought them an instrument of the former Soviet Communist party, no longer in existence. I gave my Russian friend Zoya a call, discovering that despite the existence of a new intelligence agency, the Federal Security Service, many former Soviet citizens still disparagingly refer to it as the KGB. Kyrgyzstan is just south of Kazakhstan, the country made famous by the movie Borat, and it was hard not to imagine Sasha Cohen as I listened to the speaker’s less than humorous story. In reality, Kyrgyzstan is one of the most corrupt countries in the world.

In it, a national network of hundreds of blogs was built for a mere 70,000 Euros, offering a chance for both community and freedom of speech in the shadow of a government that sought to abolish both. As someone that’s always sought companionship among the most freakish and outlandish folks, the notion of censorship chills me to the bone, and the ability to “let my freak flag fly” has come to be something I pretty much take for granted.

Political censorship is a horrible thing, yet it’s pretty clear cut; you have an idea what the rules of behavior are. Personally, I’m starting to get rather bothered by the evolution of a newer form of commercial censorship that, while not life threatening, is completely arbitrary and hence exceptionally frustrating. Last month, actress Ann Magnuson’s Facebook page, which boasts well over a thousand fans, was shut down, without explanation. Musician and writer Lisa Douglass had a similar Facebook encounter last year, leaving nearly a thousand friends puzzled and perplexed. Another musician, David Depalo, had just proudly unveiled his new website online when he discovered that Google had deemed it potentially harmful to people’s computers. With one fell swoop, it was as though his site ceased to exist. Ironically, there was nothing threatening hosted on his site, even without his knowledge. In all these cases, the victims were able to get their sites back, but no explanation was ever given.

Ann Magnuson came across Sweet Apple’s visual recreation of the iconic Roxy Music album cover, below, and decided perhaps she better share her own earlier tribute to the album, the photo shoot pictured below.

Ann Magnuson’s Tribute to Roxy Music

In Ann’s case, it was surmised that her new profile picture, a recreation of a famous Roxy Music album cover, was deemed indecent by the Facebook clergy. I found this ironic as I’d had an advertisement for a call girl served up on the Facebook sidebar the night before, much to my surprise. Apparently Facebook finds it excusable to offer confidential personal information to advertisers as long as it has its clothes on.

I’m of that peculiarly American outlook that hopes people are innocent until proven guilty, and I believe both Google and Facebook have good intentions. I think people should be spared the indecency of visiting a website that could download harmful applications to their computer, and children shouldn’t be subjected to inappropriate sexual content, but I don’t think Facebook has made any effort to institute age appropriate security settings on their site, and arbitrary profile shut-downs are inexcusable, especially without subsequent explanation. Furthermore, the cases I mentioned were barely sexual in nature to begin with. Perhaps provocative, but there’s much more sexually explicit content all over Facebook. Google’s policy in China was commendable. Yet our public marketing and social personas now lie largely under the control of these commercial institutions, with no accountability to the public that relies upon them. The internet has grown from an information pipeline for military scientists into something as essential to social life as the telephone. (I could rant about the phone companies too, but that’s another post.)

Getting back to Russian “free trade,” one of my last surprising discoveries was that Putin had enlisted the efforts of Washington D.C. public relations giant Ketchum, Inc., to enable him to snag Time Magazine’s 2005 “Person of the Year,” ultimately hoping to bolster public support of his political policies because he ironically couldn’t achieve that from Russian efforts alone. The word from the capitalist Russian block is that it’s now the businessmen with the most money and influence who sway political decisions affecting whole countries like Kyrgystan, so ultimately, perhaps Google and Facebook aren’t that much different. When corporate interests dictate the rules for a society, online or not, the community’s best interests can ultimately not be served. Or can they? What do you think?

After a frenzied scramble to find the new arts complex, the Casitas Theatre in Atwater Village, which houses two theater companies and a small performing hall, I took a seat and tried to catch my breath and discard thoughts of the pressing matters on my desk at home.

Maya emerged, clad in her usual stunning low-cut black leather ensemble, and sat down to play. No sooner had she played three notes than I thought, “uh oh… she’s cracking my heart wide open…” The piece was Osvaldo Golijov’s “Mariel,” which has haunted me from the first hearing. I made my best effort to choke back tears, and eventually realized I wouldn’t be able to win the fight.

Golijov “Mariel”

As she finished the Golijov work, a Mr. Nazarian, whom I believe arrived with a stunning blonde on his arm (Kristin Cavallari?) presented a certificate of recognition from from the City of Los Angeles to Maya Beiser for crossing cultural boundaries and bringing cultures together. Beiser’s work has a consistently humanitarian context, often fueled by travels to meet and learn from musicians around the world, sometimes in troubled countries. She was born and raised on a kibbutz in Israel, later attended Yale, and helped found the renowned new music ensemble, “Bang on a Can All-Stars,” which held pioneering 24 hour a day performances for ear-opening weekends in NYC in the late 80’s.

I first stumbled upon Beiser on MySpace a few years ago, when I saw her name and thought it familiar, some sort of déjà vu connection. Transfixed by the sounds on her page, I dug up her website, and saw she was due for a concert that month at UC San Diego, and attempted to reserve tickets when I realized the calendar was a year old. I periodically checked the site, and last year got to see her at UCSD for the first time.

At that small show in a lounge at the UCSD student union, I felt I had slipped into a dream, transported to a large gallery in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, where a large wall looms just above the eye of the viewer so that you can’t see out the glass wall beyond it. I felt I had levitated and observed the view through the window, descending back into my seat as the music stopped, unable to recall exactly what I had seen, but changed by the vision nonetheless.

Thursday’s LA concert accompanied the release of her new CD “Provenance,” which features music by contemporary composers from Armenia, Kurdish Iran, Israel, and the US.  The title means origins, referring to both Maya’s personal history and the intertwining cultural traditions that course through the disc.

It included pieces from her previous albums, among them a multitrack piece written for her by Steve Reich, “Cello Counterpoint.” Many of her works rely heavily on recordings of her playing several parts, often with electronic processing, and she acknowledged her sound engineer to be her accompanist. As she returned for an encore, she performed her wildly rousing version of Led Zeppelin’s “Kashmir,” arranged by Evan Ziporyn. Here’s a terrible quality video link, but it gives you an idea of the style of the arrangement. The album is available on iTunes or from her website.

Maya Beiser’s performance of Led Zeppelin’s “Kashmir”

http://mayabeiser.com/
http://bangonacan.org/all_stars

http://www.musicaviva.org/

One chilly dark night, years ago, I wandered through New York’s East Village, in an even darker mood. Nothing was going right in my life, it seemed, and somewhere between the avenues of self-pity and depression, I found my way into a small bookstore. On a table there, I began to page through a book of semi-psychedelic pseudo-medical illustrations, showing auric fields emanating from people, their chakras, and the typical veins and bones you’d expect to see in scientific illustrations — if the illustrations were copulating, praying, meditating, and wandering through outer space. Something began to change in my mood. I couldn’t explain it, but I began to realize there was a whole world beyond my clouded little problems. By the time I’d paged through to the end of the book, my whole attitude had been transformed. It was perhaps the first time I’d actually seen physical visualizations of the chakras and energy fields around our bodies, although I’d frequently heard them discussed. The artist was of course, Alex Grey. He’s not to some people’s liking, but I really felt an impact on my whole perspective just from reproductions in a book.

By sheer synchronicity, once I had relocated to LA, my good friends had arranged an exhibition of his work in their gallery. By the time of this opening, the impact of Grey’s paintings had diminished for me, but standing amidst them in the gallery, I was awestruck. Meeting the artist, I just found there wasn’t really anything I could say because I was so deeply moved. But I wanted to know more about him.

Grey has written a book on his artistic process, and recorded a tape of dialogues discussing the evolution of his work, entitled, “The Visionary Artist.”  He frequently gives artist’s workshops at Esalen and the Omega Institute. His work was spanned a wide gamut, from the dark photographic documentation of the decay of a dog he accidentally ran over to workshops designed to unite inner city kids in artistic collaboration. Psychedelic experiences play a large role in his life; he met his wife during an acid trip. While working as a medical illustrator in a morgue, he poured lead into the ear of a decapitated head (apparently a common procedure) and actually became haunted by the head’s spirit. This experience so deeply moved him that it opened up a whole realm of spirituality in his artwork. He’s a rather devout Buddhist.

Standing in the midst of a tryptych at the gallery, I found myself speechless in the middle of a crowd. I had felt that deeply moved only once before, at New York’s Museum of Modern Art. As I reached the end of the historical evolution of modern art on the second floor, before emerging into the lobby, a huge painting by Pavel Tchitichew, entitled “Hide and Seek,” loomed ominously. An enormous tree stretches into veiny arms, framing faces, and in its truck, a girl looks up into the trunk, a baby emrging between her legs. The painting is rather large, perhaps 6 feet square. Unlike Monet’s water lillies, there were no benches to sit on to try to digest the complexity of this overwhelming work. So I plopped down on the floor in front of it, transfixed, and probably stayed there a half an hour gaping. Then I returned again and again to the museum, to see it.

“Hide and Seek”

Hide and Seek was inspired by a tree Tchitchicew saw at an English estate during a visit in 1936, but it was nearly 6 years later that he began the painting, which took three years to complete. It is the second of a projected tryptych, following Phenomenon. The third was never completed. Phenomenon was ultimately gifted to a museum in Moscow, which apparently was rather non-plussed to receive it.

“Phenomenon”

Who was Thitchicew?  And how the heck do you pronounce his name? (“Chitch a’ Chef.”) A Russian painter, he emigrated to the US in the early 20th Century, and spent a good deal of time in Paris and Italy. He was friends with Gertrude Stein, who was a big supporter of his work. He was good friends with Balanchine and Diagalev, and painted portraits of them and contributed many of their stage sets. He was somewhat excluded from Getrude’s roundtable circle because of his homosexuality. The excuse given by curators for him not getting more attention is that they don’t know how to categorize him, or where he fits in the canon of modern art. MOMA apparently no longer exhibits Hide and Seek, following their renovation. The excuse is its large size and lack of context.

Hide and Seek is hallucinogenic. But there’s no mention of drug use in his history. Phenomenon isn’t nearly as psychedelic; in fact, it’s nearly a realistic montage. His other works vary enormously in style; some seem to be pale imitations of geometric constructivist photo illustrations by El Lizzetsky.

Check out MOMA Think Modern Lecture Podcast: “Brown Bag Lunch Lecture | Popular Favorites and Critical Disdain: From Pavel Tchelitchew’s Hide-and-Seek to Andrew Wyeth’s Christina’s World” on iTunes.