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COVER STORY | IN THE NEWS | STAGE MATTERS | DIRT | ARTBEAT September 20, 2007
ELFS Family Night at The Alibi
For me, getting ready for a queer dance party usually means donning a sleek black outfit and pounding a few beers to get in the zone. This past Sunday started a little differently, however, since I had to skip the pre-drink. (I had ‘partied-a-bit-too-hardily' the night before. Walking, drunk, down Fickle Hill in the middle of the night can leave one quite battered. Curse that Jack Daniels!) So I got ready sans booze and headed over to that magical bar on the Arcata Plaza called The Alibi. Ah, The Alibi. That padded bar holds me up just right. Gotta love it on a Sunday night, too. I'm talkin' old friends, great bartenders and a plethora of hot peeps. Anya the Bunny Slayer was on the decks when I arrived, hitting hard with some funky '80s classics with some hip hop booty shakin'-type numbers thrown up in the mix as well. You know the kind I'm talking about. Culo! And hey, I'll say the hip hop and '80s dance music sounded much better in that bar than the live rock I've managed to catch there. Blancatron, the resident Family Night DJ, followed Anya's set with a ton of reggaeton and freak-inducing hits, like Ciara's classic "Goodies." Both DJs are from a local conglomerate called the Electronic Legion of Feminist Sounds, or the ELFS. The ELFS come to the Alibi courtesy of Feminasti Productions, which puts on the county's only weekly queer dance night. You know I've got mad love and respect for the lady DJs. As a woman who studied mathematics, I can understand the need for more gender balance in certain fields. It's good to see the women out representing. But, honestly, my music taste buds would have been more pleased by some beat matching. Most of the transitions I heard were just plain abrupt. Some were right on, though. The Madonna to Michael Jackson transition, for example, was flawless. Despite all the culo-shakin' numbers, my dance well just could not be tapped. My groove just wasn't turned on. I be-bopped by speakers intermittently, quasi-dance style, but I mostly found myself drawn to the barstool. Fortunately the other family members weren't plagued with inhibitions, so the dance floor was a sight to behold. At one time I couldn't distinguish one person from another amongst the mass of sweaty, grooving bodies. It was pretty hot. The small space designated as dance floor was utilized well, no thanks to me. Maybe next time some more ladies will come ask me to dance, wink-wink. Family Night at The Alibi: Epic? Sure. Body-movin'? For some. Worth the two bucks to get in? Absolutely. Additional info: Family Night happens every Sunday at The Alibi in Arcata. Music starts at 10:30 p.m. -- Emily Hobelmann, Journal calendar editor
The Case For Literature is the title of Gao Xingjian's address accepting the 2000 Nobel Prize for Literature, and also of this slim but powerful collection of his essays. Gao achieved his first success in China in the early 1980s with plays, and continued to write for the theatre, as well as fiction and literary essays through years of shifting political winds until he went into exile towards the end of the decade. His autobiographical novel, Soul Mountain, was published in the U.S. in the same year as his Nobel Prize, and remains his best known work in America. For Gao, the purpose of literature is simply the search for truth. "... its value lies in discovering and revealing what is rarely known, little known or thought to be known, but in fact not very well known, of the truth of the human world." But this truth is not in the realm of metaphysics or ideology. "Truth is perceptual and concrete. Full of life, truth is available for human observation at any time and in any place; it is the interaction between subject and object." It is the individual's "testimony of his times." "The language required by literature comes from spontaneous speech that goes straight to truth" -- and that language must sing: "The musicality of language is of extreme importance, and music provides me with more insights than any sort of literary theory." "If I fail to hear music in the sentences I have written, I acknowledge defeat..." But the individual expression Gao champions should not be confused with the self-indulgent and programmatic confessionals lining the bookstore shelves. "In this postmodern age, which is concerned only with consumerism, the unchecked bloating of the individual is already a far-off myth..." Though he rejects ideological purposes, he does believe literature has social benefit, in the creation of empathy. "Yet through literature there can be a certain degree of communication, so the writing of literature that essentially has no goal does leave people a testimony of survival. And if literature still has some significance, it is probably this." Gao writes about his own approach to fiction and theatre, and (especially in a terse but harrowing chapter near the end) his battles with Chinese authorities, but all within the context of this literary purpose. Agree or disagree with his assertions, this is about the activity of creating literature -- the single voice singing a surviving truth beyond the amorphous noise. -- William S. Kowinski, author and Journal theatre critic
These days, when much American independent film has devolved to formulaic low budget romantic comedies, adolescent Tarantino ripoffs and torture porn, it's hard to believe the promise that a new wave of filmmakers heralded in the '80s. More than 20 years after its original release, Criterion has just released a remastered version of director Jim Jarmusch's breakthrough indy Stranger Than Paradise, a package that also includes, as an extra, his rarely seen first feature. It's interesting to see how far Jarmusch progressed between Permanent Vacation in 1980 and Stranger Than Paradise in 1984. The two films share many elements -- the slacker protagonist played by a non-actor (perhaps protagonist is too strong a term for Jarmusch's principals, since they don't actually do a hell of a lot), a shambling shaggy dog story and a minimalism partly imposed by the filmmaker's limited means. Permanent Vacation tells the story of an annoying hipster named Allie (Jarmusch's CBGB pal Chris Parker) who wanders around Manhattan stealing cars, worshipping Charlie Parker, and visiting his institutionalized mother. (Perhaps the film should have been called Off the Road.) The pitfalls of low-budget films are seen here -- amateurs who can't act and scenes that go on interminably. It's notable for the presence of Frankie Faison, who plays one of the police captains in the current acclaimed television show The Wire, seen here in one of his earliest roles. His peformance stands out, if only because he actually can act. It's clear to see why this film has not been widely seen: It's a dud, the filmic equivalent of a trunk novel that should have stayed in the trunk. What a difference four years made. Whether its a matter of chemistry, added experience or just plain luck (or a mixture of all three) Jarmusch succeeded In Stranger Than Paradise in all the ways his first film failed. Making a stylistic virtue of necessity, Jarmusch shot the film with long takes using extra film stock provided him by Wim Wenders. The story's quite simple: Willie, a Hungarian emigre, is visited by his cousin Eva on her way to their aunt's place in Cleveland. A year later, Willie and his pal Eddie go to visit her in the dead of winter. Then they go on a trip to Florida. The interest (and the comedy) all comes from the elliptical way Jarmusch orchestrates their missed connections and deadpan dialogue. John Lurie (of the "fake jazz" group The Lounge Lizards), Richard Edson (then the drummer for Sonic Youth) and Eszter Balint were not experienced actors (Balint was the only one with any acting experience), but Jarmusch used them in a setting that highlighted their idiosyncrasies. Where his earlier film was tentative, here Jarmusch came into his own with confidence and a singular vision. He once described the film as "a semi-neorealist black-comedy in the style of an imaginary Eastern European film director obsessed with Ozu and familiar with the 1950s American television show The Honeymooners," which is not too far from the truth. Jarmusch never again quite matched the unpredictable charm of Stranger Than Paradise, and the film still holds up after all these years. Deadpan tends to age well. -- Jay Herzog, a frequent Journal contributor COVER STORY | IN THE NEWS | STAGE MATTERS | DIRT | ARTBEAT Comments? Write a letter!
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