Here’s great interview with Philip Glass in the Atlantic.
About that time—I’m talking about the early ’70s—the part of New York called SoHo now, it was mostly buildings that housed factories that made clothing. But about this time, artists were buying spaces in that area, and my cousin and I began to help build. We were putting in heating systems and putting in kitchens and bathrooms. We learned how to do that. We would put an ad in the paper, and we’d get to your house, and we’d do it. When it was time to go back on tour, I just closed up for about three weeks and [would] come back and go to work again for two or three months sometimes.
Also, at that time, I was a composer in residence at the La MaMa theater on East Fourth Street, so I was also writing music for plays, and I had my ensemble. I was starting to become a professional composer. I had been out of Juilliard by that time. And eventually, by the time I was 41, 42, I was actually making a living playing music.
I was surprised it happened so quickly, actually. I expected to have a day job for the rest of my life.
One of the points of the interview is how you could afford to work and bit and then work on your art…in NYC. We are losing a generation of artists because people are slaving away just to pay rent.
Here’s 90 frikkin’ minutes of pop culture garbage related to Star Wars, curated by the loons at Cinefamily.
I am a big supporter of sex worker rights, so watching this whole FOSTA/SESTA legislation fiasco is infuriating. Best intentions (outlawing child sex trafficking) has instead turned into a wide-ranging punishment of adults offering sex (and not even that sometimes) for money. And it’s happened in a bipartisan way. This Reply All podcast episode is great work, as even the people who started the FOSTA/SESTA campaign didn’t know this would happen. Worth the listen.
Here’s “Grease” director Randal Kleiser breaking down the final number in the film and basically pointing out how much they completely made up on the spot. I love this kind of stuff.
1080p footage of Tokyo in 1992, the year I first visited. I remember the hazy sunshine. Two years later I would move there!
I’ve never eaten jellied (or stewed) eels, although my family’s British and I have been to the seaside many a time. This interesting Taste article shows how tradition (and grumpy owners) are killing off the business they love.
The first opened in 1844, and as photographer and historian Stuart Freedman tells me, pie and mash shops were the first de facto working-class restaurants in London. “It was aping the bourgeois idea of a restaurant,” he says. Freedman has long documented the sociology of pie and mash shops, culminating with his book The Englishman & the Eel.
These places served hot, cheap, and sustaining food: eels stewed or jellied, mincemeat pies, plain boiled mashed potatoes and “liquor.” The latter is not what you’d think, with no alcohol in sight, but an oozy boil of eel juice and parsley, thickened with flour—a pallid green sauce with briny depth. As Freedman emphasizes, these early restaurants were sparkling establishments: White tiles winked, and sawdust was sprinkled on the floor to stop patrons slipping on spat-out eel bones.
Read the whole thing. You…might be hungry after?
Bunny Christie says Michael Clark’s performance in “I Am Curious, Orange” (The mighty, mighty Fall did the music) is one of the best things she’s ever seen:
There was a rock’n’roll excitement to the night – it felt more like a gig or a party than a show. Clark’s classical movement amid the striking set and raucous music made for an electric spectacle.
Clark’s composure was luminous. Despite the wild and frenetic scene – the band onstage, the Houses of Parliament as a backdrop, Brix Smith [a member of the band the Fall, who did the music] and guitar atop a giant hamburger – he had this sense of calm about him. He emerged with a shaved head and a low-cut top exposing his chest. He glowed in the darkness.
The Fall were either going to break through into a different part of the arts world after this or break up. As usual Mark E. Smith blew up the band (and his marriage) and started again.
One of the most unrelenting, menacing songs The Fall did. “Anti Papal Power Pop Music” as one YouTuber calls it.