Sunday, October 29
Tom's paper dolls and drumming
Thomas Pynchon paper dolls, in honor (?) of his new 1,000 pager "Against the Day."
Speaking of challenging works, last night we went south to Somewhere and saw So Percussion (I can't find the little straight line to draw over the o in So, so so be it) in Denver, a foursome of drummers out of Yale who gave up the presidential career track to hit stuff with sticks. I'd like to say it was music, and I'm sure it was intended to be impressive, but it was trying to say the least, long repetitive mostly non-musical rhythms.
Living with a drummer as I do, I can claim to know a little bit about percussion concerts -- we troop over to the local university twice a year to see their drummers put on their recitals -- and can appreciate musical percussion or even capital-A Art drumming, but the second piece So played last night "Drumming" by Steve Reich ("One rhythm, four movements, one-hour...") was certainly an endurance test. A third of the audience had fingers in their ears (literally!), a third had fallen asleep, and a third were totally into it. I've never seen an aged audience run for the exits as fast as they did last night.
Still... you have to appreciate an artist who just goes for it, does what they want. Right? Right?
Speaking of challenging works, last night we went south to Somewhere and saw So Percussion (I can't find the little straight line to draw over the o in So, so so be it) in Denver, a foursome of drummers out of Yale who gave up the presidential career track to hit stuff with sticks. I'd like to say it was music, and I'm sure it was intended to be impressive, but it was trying to say the least, long repetitive mostly non-musical rhythms.
Living with a drummer as I do, I can claim to know a little bit about percussion concerts -- we troop over to the local university twice a year to see their drummers put on their recitals -- and can appreciate musical percussion or even capital-A Art drumming, but the second piece So played last night "Drumming" by Steve Reich ("One rhythm, four movements, one-hour...") was certainly an endurance test. A third of the audience had fingers in their ears (literally!), a third had fallen asleep, and a third were totally into it. I've never seen an aged audience run for the exits as fast as they did last night.
Still... you have to appreciate an artist who just goes for it, does what they want. Right? Right?
