Part I: The Contemporary Jewish Museum
Or the CJM, as I affectionately refer to it. The museum opened its doors on the 7th with much fanfare; DAWN 2008, the festival organized for its unveiling, was a huge success - according to local newspapers (after an hour of waiting in line in the freezing wind, it was announced that tickets weren't being sold at the door due to some unforeseen planning snafu... however, this is beside the point).
The current CJM exhibits bring a lot to the table. The William Steig exhibit showcases Steig's work through the years, and those of us brought up on his stories will relive fond memories of childhood as we see individual drawings from old favorites such as Shrek! and Sylvester and the Magic Pebble. However, the artist's cartoons from his many years at 'The New Yorker' - he began illustrating for the magazine in 1930 and produced hundreds of drawings, as well as over 100 covers, for it - round out the show and demonstrate Steig's talent with social commentary and his depictions of his own reality. Also of interest are his 'Symbolic Drawings,' which illustrate various states of mind with witty captions; you can see 'Man in a Deep Depression' here for a bittersweet example: http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2007/12/13/arts/1214-STEI_6.html
The John Zorn Aleph-Bet Sound Project is quite amazing, but its setup in the museum leaves a little to be desired. The music that the artists produced for the Project is quite the type that one would expect from them; each piece is a unique and thought-provoking interpretation of a letter from the Aleph-Bet and incorporates often industrial, always avant-garde jazz sounds. The space, however, is not ideal for this exhibit - presented in the 'Yud' gallery, located in the eye-catching metal-encased octahedron (I believe) section of the building, the incredible music is played at an underwhelming volume that leaves listeners fantasizing about a mass uprising involving the attack of the hidden schoolmarm holding the volume controller. I stuck around for the first 5 minutes of Erik Friedlander's 50 Gates of Understanding, based on the letter [Nun], then gave up on trying to hear the music over the deafeningly blank walls of the gallery space. Both the music and the room are awe-inspiring - just not in combination. I hope that a CD of this astounding collaboration gets published and is available for purchase later, making it possible to blast the music at high (or at least audible) volume!
The last highlight of the CJM is the presentation of various artists' interpretations of Genesis centering on the story of the Creation. The works range in style from Marc Chagall, to Auguste Rodin, to Tom Marioni, to Trenton Doyle Hancock, covering a wide range of takes on this fundamental passage of religious texts and showing how much we can gain, religious or not, from thinking about this - the artists themselves are creating a new, indirect way through which we can ponder Genesis and other aspects of religion. Each artist seems to bring new views and interpretations to visitors, and with over a dozen artists it certainly wouldn't do any of the work justice to try and describe it all here - it's something you've got to see along with the rest of the museum.
Part II: Islands at Bimbo's 365 with Crayonsmith and Despot
Crayonsmith, a group from Dublin, Ireland, stepped up first with a not-bad set. Initially, my mind turned to thoughts of "I think I like their bass guitarist's Built to Spill shirt more than their music..." but such ideas were proved wrong by their 3rd song, which got the crowd going with a more upbeat and wonderfully synthy sound. Although they have a number of audible influences - a concept justified by the plethora of bands listed under 'Influences' on their myspace page - they are bringing something of their own to their sound and have some definite potential and are worth a good listen. They're like a guitar-shot Notwist, or a higher-strung Casiotone for the Painfully Alone. The songs played were 'Anxious' and 'Scarytale' with 3 or 4 others, and the band closed with 'Lost in the Forest.'This aside, the band also gets some mad props for having the lead, Ciaran Smith, abandon his guitar mid-song (apologies for not knowing which) for a yellow-plastic-encased fold-up glockenspiel, on which Smith then proceeded to tap out some awesome harmony. And if that wasn't mind-blowing enough, Smith also changed mid-set into a polar bear suit with a Roman helmet. I'm not sure if this is some kind of metaphor for a war on global warming (hehe I'm clever) but it seems to be open for interpretation, since it appears on the cover of their album 'White Wonder' as well. Any suggestions as to what it means are welcome!
Despot, from Brooklyn, came onto the stage shortly after and generally surprised us all with his insane rapping skills and clever lyrics and song titles. From 'Crap Artists' to 'Get Rich or Try Dyin' ' to 'Puppets on a String,' Despot's got booming, instrument-rich bass lines that carry a wide range of genre influences and lyrics that not only have messages different from the ubiquitous sex/drugs/alcohol/anger topics of so much hip-hop and rap, but also bring wit and thought to the music with words like "Look Ma, two hands!" and "Home is where the heart is/That's a coffee cup and a subway token for the heartless."Despot also has some comedic talent, and didn't fail to omit it from his set - his DJ was/is (?) dubbed 'DJ Princess Harriet,' and about 3/4s of the way through the set a fake DJ (a disguised member of Islands) made his way onto the stage in sunglasses and a green sweatshirt with a "Hello My Name Is [DJ]" sticker on it to have a silent/funny-awk skit confrontation with Despot on the DJ Princess Harriet situation. Not to mention the most-necessary "This club [Bimbo's] was named after all your mothers" joke. And the mini audience-participation aerobics session. And Despot's lip-syncing to the backup vox. All in all, a great performance that definitely revved up the group for...
ISLANDS!! How to put this... The show started off dark, with the fake shrubs in the background of the previous photos glowing red as the only light onstage for the first song, 'In the Rushes.' Shortly into the 2nd song, 'Kids Don't Know Shit,' a huge wave of people shoved forward from the back of the crowd and the show exploded into full intensity - the entire club was jumping to the beat all the way through favorites from "Return to the Sea" and "Arm's Way" alike, like 'Don't Call Me Whitney, Bobby,' 'Life in Jail,' and 'Pieces of You,' and the sounds of vocals, guitar, drums, violin, and synth (as well as some ingenious percussion, like dropping chains) all soared out powerfully (without any one overpowering another) over the audience like currents in a sea of dancing people.
The show only got better and better as the night went on despite the fact that I had no idea where my bag, which I had idiotically placed on the floor by my feet, had been kicked to after the mid-2nd-song surge. This aspect of the show - the missing bag part - was refreshed in my memory when, before my very eyes, the copy of The First Word (my latest read) that I'd been carrying with me was lifted into Nick Thorburn's hands during an instrumental! After he flipped through it and showed it off to the crowd (why? I don't know), he lowered it down to someone in the audience. My response was instinctive and effective: "Hey! THAT'S MY BOOK! MOTHERF***!!!" Oh, mysterious brown-jacketed boy who helped me yell for my book, and man with the glasses who got it to me, thank you. You guys rock.
But I digress. Islands was kicking some veritable technical ass with soaring sound that built up and showered us with joy and all-around incredible and overwhelming emotion. "Arm's Way" shows new developments in the band, but Islands isn't afraid to keep the old with the new, and that's part of the show's beauty - everything was there, even at the most literal level. Sounds. Lights. Movement. A group entrancing the crowd with it all, and the crowd entranced. It was everything that a true concert is and should be. Outstanding show.
(For those who may fret about the missing bag, all was good in the end and it was worth it to get my cell phone screen broken in exchange for a legendary story of the Book Held By Nick Thorburn.)
Sorry I don't know how to post up freebies yet... so I'm going to have to let ya down with that bit.
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