Silverlake Blvd.

Just added: "Six conversations on Flann O'Brien"

I just added to the Writing section an appreciation of Flann O'Brien, another thing that has taken me 30 years go getting around to doing. Cheers!

 

Ojai Music Festival

The end of the UCLA academic year seemed like a good occasion to check out the Ojai Music Festival. It's been happening for 64 years and I'd never been.

Ojai was not what I expected. I had braced myself for a heavily art-directed resort, full of Republican millionaire hippies. But happily it turned out to be an small country town, with everything lined up along the main drag. There were some fancy shops, and a superior restaurant—Suzanne’s Cuisine—but it felt like a step back into a quieter, slower-paced time.

 

The atmosphere was so relaxed, so different from the usual logistical steeplechase that is part of the typical evening out, that the Ensemble Modern was halfway through the Soldier’s Tale Suite before I realized I was at a concert.

There is a campaign currently underway to renovate the Libbey Bowl. I hope they don't renovate it too much. It's so  sweet, I can't think of anything nicer. Even the wooden benches were OK. The whole event couldn't have been more civilized--the park full of the local pottery guild selling their wares, tents with food and drink, even a tent for Penguin Books.

The idyllic setting got shook up by George Benjamin’s chamber opera Into the Little Hill. Anu Komsi and Hilary Summers, playing all the parts, presented a parable about lying politicians based on the Pied Piper story. The music concisely conveyed the weird fable. Summers acted up a storm.

By accident on Sunday we came across Bart’s Books, “the world’s greatest outdoor bookstore.”  Stupefying. And so intimidating that it was impossible to focus.

Also appreciated the unofficial town motto: I'MSOJAI

 

  

Merce Cunningham Dance Company, the Legacy Tour, last night @ WDCH

Watching the 15 dancers on the big white rectangular mat while a multi-channel tape of John Cage’s Roaratorio boomed from all sides, was, on one hand, a simple pleasure, like watching the wind blow leaves around, or watching kids in a playground, or dogs in a dog run.

 

Both the music and the movement had snatches of Irishness—jigs, step dances, all kinds of recreational dances. But where the audio immersed you in an ocean of everything—baby cries, traffic sounds, bird caws, Cage mumbling unintelligibly as well as snatches of Irish-sounding music—the movement was more focused. There were 7 couples. They each came out to dance, to show their steps. Then they were joined by the others. Couples parted and recombined.

 

Then it happened again. Attention shifting from couples, to the group, and back to couples. And more often than not, one dancer would sit down on a stool on stage, and watch the others.

 

There wasn’t a story, but there was a lot going on. It was blithe and often funny—a distracted glance at kids goofing off on the dancefloor—but there were moments when it suddenly became drama. Melissa Toogood was not as slim and acrobatic and weightless as the others, but when she moved, you knew something serious had just happened to her, and she was telling you about it.

 

There were these amazing guys—Daniel Madoff, Brandon Collwes, and Rashaun Mitchell, who moved like bubbles in a fizzy drink, and made hyperspeed step dancing funny and beautiful, besides a major athletic accomplishment.

 

After about an hour there the hall filled with the squawking of seagulls, and the dancers picked up their stools and walked off. That’s all. After a final performance New Years Eve 2010, they’re disbanding.