CULTUREPHILE: PORTLAND ARTS

Slideshow: OBT’s Petrouchka/Carmen

Posted by: Anne Adams on Oct 10, 2011 at 11:00AM 0 Comments

View Slideshow » Illustration: View Slideshow » Illustration: View Slideshow » Illustration: View Slideshow » Illustration: View Slideshow » Illustration: View Slideshow » Illustration:

Oregon Ballet Theatre’s latest production, a double-header of Bizet’s Carmen and Stravinsky’s Petrouchka, premiered this weekend and continues next. Carmen is staged with a classic “maidens and woodsmen” look, while Petrouchka seems to build from the bold explorations of last season’s Stravinsky Project, with a minimalist, dark aesthetic (view slideshow, left). A sense of visual urgency pairs well with the music of Stravinsky, an innovator and iconoclast in his time.

For more about Portland arts events, visit PoMo’s Arts & Entertainment Calendar, stream content with an RSS feed, or sign up for our weekly On The Town Newsletter!

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Artists Apply, Diners Decide

Portland STOCK invites you to apply for a time-based arts grant—or plan to attend a dinner party where the entries will be judged.

Posted by: Anne Adams on Oct 08, 2011 at 06:00AM 2 Comments

A group of PDX tastemakers will review time-based art grant proposals over dinner, and pick a winner.

Culturephile: What’s your latest project, Mack McFarland [arts curator]?
Mack: Well, I’m helping Portland STOCK get grant proposals.
CP: Do you want us to blog that? You might get flooded….
Mack: Open the floodgates.

Okay, here goes:

Portland STOCK is seeking proposals from artists for an open call project grant. STOCK funds artists through hosting a series of dinner parties where the diners pay for a great meal and the right to discuss and vote on which artist’s proposal will win all of the profit from that night’s event. Past awards have ranged between $400 and $700 dollars per granting dinner.

STOCK* is looking specifically for time-based art project proposals due October 23 at midnight for the dinner event on November 6th. Performance, film, video, dance and other time-based projects will be included. Application guidelines can be found on the website.

The first five proposals that STOCK receives, which meet the proposal criteria, will be included in the running for a STOCK grant. Five other proposals will be selected from the applicant pool by a guest curator.

Portland Stock Dinner Grant
Time Based Art
November 6th, 6:00pm

Pacific Northwest College of Art
1241 NW Johnson St
Portland, OR 97209

*A collaborative creation by Katy Asher, Amber Bell, and Ariana Jacob

For more about Portland arts events, visit PoMo’s Arts & Entertainment Calendar, stream content with an RSS feed, or sign up for our weekly On The Town Newsletter!

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Occupy Portland: Read The Signs

On the first day of an indefinite “occupation” of downtown Portland, here are some messages that protesters wrote on their placards.

Posted by: Anne Adams on Oct 06, 2011 at 05:50PM 4 Comments

Signs, signs, everywhere signs….

We heard it was coming, from the internet, phone-pole flyers, and even the office of Mayor Sam Adams: a Portland protest in solidarity with the Occupy Wall Street movement. By noon, helicopters were circling the waterfront as a large crowd carrying placards began to converge for a march that sojourned at Pioneer Square and then processed through the city. By 4pm, an estimated 10,000 people* reassembled around Lownsdale Square and revealed plans to move to Terry Schrunk Plaza and set up a long-term occupation site.

Organizers huddled against a statue pedestal and delivered their intended message in two- to five-word sound bytes, pausing after each phrase so the massive crowd could repeat their words a few times. This epic game of “telephone” allowed most of the audience to catch roughly half of what was being said, but phrases about unity and fairness won the biggest cheers. The organizers also hinted that they were in talks with official factions of the city to facilitate the peaceful protest, a sentiment that echoed Sam Adams’ statement earlier today: “I support Portlanders in their right to protest and exercise free speech rights, and I encourage all who participate to do so peacefully and with respect to the rights of others.” Adams also met up with the march and walked alongside protesters for a block or so as they passed City Hall. Later, city officials forbade the occupation of Schrunk and threatened arrest, but conceded that the demonstrators could remain in Lownsdale overnight.

In the shadow of this oversight, protest organizers aren’t taking any chances. They’ve announced a phone number to call in the event of assault or arrest, and repeatedly begged the crowd to remain peaceful and stay on the sidewalks or in the designated occupation areas.

Culturephile has never seen fewer frills at a Portland parade. The city that usually loves to “Keep It Weird” seems determined to keep this event no-nonsense, and at the time of this post, there’s hardly an offleash dog or a zany hat in sight. Portland, you seem to mean business today, and in honor of your effort, Portland Monthly cedes the floor to your sometimes differing, sometimes dissident—but largely overlapping—political views.

The following statements have been transcribed from placards designed by members of a public protest. While they are in no way intended to reflect the opinions of Portland Monthly or its parent company, Sagacity Media—they do represent individual voices from the multitude at today’s Occupy Portland event.

SIGNS:

THIS IS OUR VOICE, THE VOICE OF THE PEOPLE
STOP FORECLOSURES
TAX THE RICH
I’M JUST HERE FOR RADIOHEAD
REVOLUTION
WHOSE SIDE ARE YOU ON? THE RICH, OR THE REST OF US?
WE THE PEOPLE; TOO BIG TO FAIL
AMERICA, STOP PAYING CRIMINALS TO STEAL FROM YOU [BANK LOGOS]
FIGHT GREED
CAPITALISM IS A PYRAMID SCHEME
GREED RULES A NATION OF FOOLS!
THE JERK STORE CALLED; THEY’RE OUT OF CEO’S [SEINFELD REFERENCE]
THEY TOOK OUR JERBS [SOUTH PARK REFERENCE]
STOP THE WAR ON WORKING PEOPLE
DEBT IS SLAVERY
END CORPORATE PERSONHOOD
WALL STREET GAMBLERS CRASHED THE ECONOMY, NOT AMERICAN WORKERS
YOU’RE AFTER THE WRONG GOLD
STOP FUNDING ISREALI APARTHEID
END THE OLIGARCHY
HOLD WALL STREET RESPONSIBLE
UNF-CK AMERICA
WPA NOW! REAL REFORM
IF THE SYSTEM IS ONLY WORKING FOR 1%, THE SYSTEM ISN’T WORKING
BAIL OUT THE PEOPLE
END CORPORATE WELFARE
THE 1% CREATED THE PROBLEMS, THE 99% WILL CREATE THE SOLUTIONS
WAGE PEACE
RISE UP
NO BORDERS, NO STATES, NO WARS, NO BANKS, NO DEBT, ANARCHY
TRABAJOS CON JUSTICA
EAT VEGGIES LIVE LONGER
REMOVE THE CORPORATE REGIME
HEALTH CARE IS A RIGHT
REMEMBER MARIE ANTOINETTE?
LET JUSTICE ROLL DOWN LIKE WATERS
KNOW YOUR FOUNDING FATHERS; THEY SAW THIS COMING
DELETE THE ELITE
THE SKY IS FALLING [CHICKEN SUIT]
WORKING FAMILIES. I WANT MY COUNTRY BACK
TYRANNY ROBBED US OF OUR FUTURE
NEVER GIVE UP
AL QUAIDA IS CIA
GET $$ OUT OF POLITICS
JOB CREATOR
THE POLICE ARE PART OF US 99%
99% SOYLENT GREEN [FILM REFERENCE; DEPICTION OF DOLLARS]
CAN ORDINARY PEOPLE REALLY CHANGE A GOVERNMENT?
_
POVERTY MUST NOT BE A BAR TO LEARNING; LEARNING MUST OFFER AN ESCAPE FROM POVERTY
–
TO PRESERVE INDEPENDENCE, WE MUST NOT LET OUR RULERS LOAD US WITH PERPETUAL DEBT; I AM FOR A GOVERNMENT RIGOROUSLY FRUGAL AND SIMPLE
_
OUR LIVES BEGIN TO END THE DAY WE BECOME SILENT ABOUT THE THINGS THAT MATTER ~MLK
–
CLEARLY YOU CAN’T HEAR US, CONGRESS, SO WE CONTINUE TO RISE & UNITE
_
END FRACTIONAL RESERVE BANKING WITHOUT THE GOLD STANDARD, END THE FED, ESTABLISH FULL RESERVE BANKING OR ENABLE A GOLD STANDARD, CREATE AN HONEST MONEY SYSTEM
–
WE EVOLVE W/ THE HELP OF CRISIS

*Unofficial early estimate cited by speakers at the event.

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First Thursday Sampler

Posted by: Anne Adams on Oct 06, 2011 at 08:00AM 0 Comments

New Gallery Opening

Graeter Art Gallery

This brand-new contemporary gallery kicks off with a bang, presenting a large and diverse group show.

Minimalist

Pascale Ticheler’s Guiding Force at Victory Gallery

The Dutch artist’s layered oils in variations of white are both evocative and soothing.

Mixed Media/Texture

Jeff Fontaine’s New Painting On Steel at Butters Gallery

The viscosity of paint against the slickness of steel, creates a unique and exciting texture for color studies.

Celebrated Cartoons

Shannon Wheeler’s One-One-One-One at PCPA

The Portland cartoonist shares outtakes from the New Yorker, and speaks about his five newly-published titles.

Modern/Traditional

Japanism at Compound Gallery

Tadashi Ura will be on-site to present his and Senjiro Nakata’s “new form of Japanese painting.”

Sculpture

Robert Hess at Waterstone Gallery

Willamette University’s professor emeritus presents bronzes that are inspired by bones, but also incorporate ornate violin-like curves.

Arts Insider

Philip Iosca’s Hopefully I Become The Universe at Izquierdo

Envelope-pushing contemporary artist Iosca’s latest exhibition should be full of surprises.

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Tags: galleries, overview

5 Questions for Too Much Coffee Man’s Shannon Wheeler

The almost unbelievably prolific cartoonist talks shop about his 5 titles.

Posted by: Anne Adams on Oct 05, 2011 at 04:00PM 2 Comments

Too Much Coffee Man is probably the “Portland-est” comicbook character there is: Perpetually underdressed and prodigiously overcaffeinated, he splashes through puddles staging wordplay battles and withstanding countless bouts of neurotic, unrequited love. Coffee Man’s creator Shannon Wheeler has recently added one more TMCM title, Omnibus, to the 12-high pile, incorporating a forward by punk provocateur Henry Rollins*—but that’s not all. In the current calendar year alone, Wheeler’s work has been published in 5—that’s right, 5—different books. If everyone who drank too much coffee were this productive, just think what a wonderful world it would be!

Culturephile catches up with the unstoppable Wheeler for five questions on the eve of his upcoming One-One-One-One show at PCPA, which will show off and sell off one-hundred-and-one of his one-panel cartoons from The New Yorker‘s cutting room floor. He’ll also be on-hand at a First Thursday reception to address whatever we don’t cover here—which, with five titles, should be plenty.

Tell us about each of the titles you’re currently promoting, and the upcoming talk:

I have 5 books coming out now; Too Much Coffee Man: The Omnibus, Oil and Water, Grandpa Won’t Wake Up, God Is Disappointed In You, and a second printing of I Thought You Would Be Funnier. It’s just weird timing that they all came out together. What’s weirder is how different each project is. The Omnibus is a collection of cartoons and comics going back 20 years. Oil is a serious graphic novel written by Steve Duin about the BP oil spill. Grandpa is a kids’ book that isn’t really for kids, written by Simon Max Hill. Disappointed is a condensed retelling of the Bible by Mark Russell. And Funnier is a collection of New Yorker-type gag cartoons. I imagine that the First Thursday talk will focus on the Oil and Water book, because the idea of using comic books (or graphic novels) as a tool for social justice really interests me. Overall, it’s the avenue I’ve explored the least.

In Omnibus, you seem to obsess a lot about the actual process of making comics. Would you characterize yourself as a “comicbook artist’s comicbook artist,” and how does the mainstream reader relate to this facet of your work?

Most people say that a particular part of the comic relates to something specific in their own life. If people have made comics, they tell me about their drawing/staple/distribution adventures. People also love talking to me about their coffee drinking habits. Lately I’ve heard a lot of stories about magazine subscriptions to the New Yorker. The mainstream reader…usually it’s the coffee they relate to.

Besides “God Is Disappointed In You,” how would you summarize the overarching themes of the Bible?

Besides disappointment? That’s tough. There’s a lot of “why you should dedicate yourself to this or that way of living.” Fear is a big motivator. Ecclesiastes is my personal favorite, even though it’s a relatively small part. It’s an odd bit of philosophy that feels like optimistic existentialism. I could relate.

What’s your favorite Bible story and why?

Hosea made me laugh. A guy with a slut for a wife and a town that mocks him. He’d say that he loves his cheating wife because God loves mankind even though they cheat on him. My cartoon is Hosea explaining that he loves his wife because she makes a great metaphor.

What inspired Oil and Water?

A group of Portland folk when to the Gulf to see the damage from the BP oil spill, but there wasn’t much oil to be seen. BP had erased the obvious evidence of the spill with chemicals and beach cleaning. But talking to scientists, environmentalists, fishermen, bar owners, politicians, musicians, et cetera, we found that the damage was profound. Fishermen couldn’t fish, plants were dying, scientists didn’t know what the effects were, and tourism was crippled. In addition to the environmental damage, there was damage to people’s lives that is profound. We very much wanted to tell the human story.

*In his own book Get in The Van, this legendary straight-edge loner recalls going to diners and ordering not a cup, but an entire pot of coffee for himself. A man after TMCM’s own racing heart.

You can catch Wheeler at PCPA at 6pm on Thursday, or view his work at the gallery through December.For more about Portland arts events, visit PoMo’s Arts & Entertainment Calendar, stream content with an RSS feed, or sign up for our weekly On The Town Newsletter!

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Tags: Interview, 5 questions, five questions, comics

Guggenheim Curator Visits YU

Posted by: Anne Adams on Oct 05, 2011 at 10:00AM 0 Comments

Suzanne Cotter, curator of the Guggenheim Museum’s Abu Dhabi division, will speak at YU tonight about her general philosophies and particular experience in art curation—and the fledgling gallery will no doubt lend her eager ears. Meanwhile, enjoy this video, in which Cotter explains an “open arms” exhibit she helped coordinate while serving as Senior Curator and Deputy Director at Modern Art Oxford:

For more about Portland arts events, visit PoMo’s Arts & Entertainment Calendar, stream content with an RSS feed, or sign up for our weekly On The Town Newsletter!

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Wordstock 2011 Preview

Portland’s literary shebang is back again! Rebecca Waits and Kate Degenhardt highlight some can’t-miss events.

Posted by: The Culturegang on Oct 04, 2011 at 10:00PM 0 Comments

Don’t you dare mistake Wordstock for a mere “book fair.” Our city’s annual celebration of all things writerly has always been something much more nebulous and stimulating, and it continues to grow enthusiastically in scope and scale with each passing year. In addition to our local literary heroes, Wordstock 2011 will overflow with talent from all over the world—plus lively lectures and talks, films, vendor booths and workshops. And in response to growing demand, this year’s lineup will include more childrens’ books and authors, as well as more kid-friendly events within the fest, than ever before. Is trying to choose between 170 presenters giving you a bookish brain-splosion? Relax; we’ve assembled a short list of our top picks of events and speakers you can’t afford to miss. So put on your glasses—prescription or poser—and hop on the Booklearnin’ train!

Events

Wordstock presents
“To Be Heard: A Documentary”
McMenamins Bagdad Theater
3702 SE Hawthorne Blvd
Tickets will be available at the door and online.
Opening night event Oct. 6th- $10

“Half of what we do is all about education—teaching teachers how to teach writing to kids. We put writers in the classroom to work with kids, K-8, occasionally high school classes.” With executive director Greg Netzer’s passionate mission, it only makes sense that this year’s opening night event is something completely different—a documentary about the power of words. Shot by a team of socially-geared documentarians, “To be Heard” follows three teens over the course of four years in a Bronx high school while they participate in a “Power Writing’ program, which works with inner-city youths teaching valuable performance and writing skills. This moving journey shows how strongly poetry can change lives, and stresses the importance of empowering young people through creativity.

Wordstock Book Fair
Sat Oct 8 & Sun Oct. 9
10:00 a.m. – 6:00 p.m.
The Oregon Convention Center
777 NE MLK Jr. Blvd
$7 for one day or $10 for both days. Children 13 and under free of charge.
Tickets will be available at the door and online.

This delightfully chaotic weekend is truly the heart and soul of the festival. Half performance festival, half trade show, 75,000 sq feet of the Oregon Convention Center will get taken over by hundreds of nonprofits, magazines, bookstores, writers’ collectives, and publishers. The fair also houses three large stages, which lends to a lot of interplay between booths and presenters. This year, 36 of the scheduled performance slots are going to be moderated “talks” between more than one writer.“Whenever we put groups of writers together on a stage, no matter who they are, people come out to see them interact,” says Netzer. Panel topics include “censorship/self-censorship”, “the elusive male reader”, “America’s sexual literary issues”, and many more.

“The Life and Times of Allen Ginsberg” With Director Jerry Aronson
Sun Oct 9, 7:00pm – 8:45pm
The Portland Art Museum’s Whitsell Auditorium
1219 SW Park Ave.
7pm Tickets: $6-9
Tickets will be available at nwfilm.org

After Eighteen years and 120 hours of footage to root through, filmmaker
Jerry Aronson finally finished his opus of sorts in 1994: a kind, moving tribute to Beat Generation founding father, activist and history-changing poet Allen Ginsberg. Aronson will travel to Portland to give an in-person Q&A at this screening of his long-awaited portrait of a man who became a key artistic figure in our nation’s sexual and spiritual liberation.
Aronson will also be speaking about the film at the bookfair on Sat, Oct 8, from 5:00pm – 6:00pm
at the Attic Institute Stage at the Oregon Convention Center

Speakers

Jennifer Egan
Literary superwoman Egan conquers every realm of writing that she enters. Her career has culminated in the heavily lauded novel “A Visit from the Goon Squad,” winner of the 2011 Pulitzer Prize for fiction. She has written acclaimed articles including “The Bipolar Kid,” and a New York Times cover story on homeless children that received the Carroll Kowal Journalism Award. She is a master of characterization and dialogue, and her background in nonfiction solidifies her reputation as a formidable Jill-of-all-trades in the writing world. Appearances:
Oct. 8th, 1-2pm. Reading-National Endowment for the Arts Stage
Oct. 8th, 4-5pm. Panel- “Pushing the Limits of Form in Fiction” with Charles Yu, John Freeman, Elissa Schappell. Wordstock Community Stage at the OCC
Oct 8th. 8pm-Livewire! Radio live taping. At the Aladdin Theatre.

Colin Meloy & Carson Ellis
Arguably one of the most Portland-y couples in existence, Decemberists frontman Colin Meloy and his wife, illustrator Carson Ellis, have teamed together to create a series of children’s books inspired by Forest Park—The Wildwood Chronicles. A decade of incubation and collaboration produced this gloriously-designed, visually dense tale of a little girl whose baby brother is stolen away by a murder of crows, and her subsequent adventure into The Impassable Wilderness, a secret forest-world of fantastical beasts and warring creatures.
Sat Oct 8. 5-6pm. McMenamin’s Stage.

Ursula K. Le Guin
Le Guin attracts a whole lot of labels for an author who defies normalcy so completely. She is called feminist, anarchist, environmentalist, Taoist, queer theorist, anthropologist. Best known for her science fiction and fantasy novels, Le Guin has also published poetry and children’s books, and in 2009 she withdrew from the Authors Guild in an open, daring opposition to the direction of corporate Internet publishing and copyright (ahem, Google books). This woman can tackle important and complex theories while blowing your mind with richly detailed universes and plot lines that call everything about human society into question—all in one short story! She once said of her gift, “My imagination makes me human and makes me a fool; it gives me all the world, and exiles me from it.” Leguin might agree that labels can be dangerous and limiting, but at least one label should stick—the woman is nothing if not imaginative.
Oct. 9th. 11am-12pm. Reading with Emily Warn. Attic Institute Stage at the OCC

Craig Thompson
After massive critical acclaim (and numerous industry awards) for his 600-page autobiographical opus, Blankets, local graphic novelist Thompson has taken seven years to finish his long-awaited newest work, Habibi, “[A] love story between a prostitute and a eunuch” within an Islamic culture. This moving work about the politics of love and religion will be released just the week before Wordstock, with plenty of time for you to grab a copy.
Oct. 8th. 3-4pm. Mcmenamin’s stage.

Daniel Woodrell
Woodrell is the author of eight novels, most of them set in the Missouri Ozarks. Most notable is Winter’s Bone (2006), which was adapted by Debra Granik into a highly-acclaimed 2010 film. Woodrell has, appropriately, termed his self-invented genre of dark and gritty crime fiction “country-noir”.
Appearances:
Oct. 9th, 3-4pm, Reading-with Chelsea Cain, McMenamin’s stage at the OCC
Oct 9th, 5-6pm, Panel-“Writer as an American Citizen” with Steve Almond, David Biespiel, David Marin. National Endowment for the Arts Stage.

Lili Ristagno
In an attempt to continue expanding their genre base, Wordstock has added graphic novelists to their speaker list in the past couple years. This roundtable includes local artist and writer Lili Ristagno, whose debut work, Short Fuse, recounts the fascinating true tale of Charles Starkweather and Caril Anne Fugate, two teenagers in muskrat love who embarked on a strangely motiveless, eight-day killing spree in 1958 Nebraska (kind of a Natural Born Killers for the poodle-skirt set. If this story sounds familiar, you may remember it from the 1973 Terrance Malick dramatized film version, Badlands, starring a very young and eerie Martin Sheen and Sissy Spacek). Ristagno’s well-researched graphic adaptation is brought to life by haunting, lovely watercolor illustrations and a mixed-media approach that lends to the feel of leafing through a particularly disturbing scrapbook.
Oct 8th, 1-2pm Panel- “Graphic Novels: Not Just for Geeks” with Darren Davis, Shannon Wheeler, Vera Brosgol. Oregon Cultural Trust Stage at the OCC.

Wordstock 2011 will be held Oct. 6-9 at various venues around Portland. For more about Portland arts events, visit PoMo’s Arts & Entertainment Calendar, stream content with an RSS feed, or sign up for our weekly On The Town Newsletter!

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Talkdemonic Album Release

The long-running viola-and-drums duo release Ruins today at Music Millenium.

Posted by: Anne Adams on Oct 04, 2011 at 08:00AM 1 Comments

Those of us who’ve been kicking around the Portland music scene for 10 years or so already know Talkdemonic, and may have even had to explain to our fretting moms that no, they don’t actually sound as evil as their name. While a thousand earnest singer-songwriters and an untraceable number of experimental noise bands have risen and fallen, Talkdemonic has consistently brought its ornate, resplendent and egoless compositions to the eager ears of a burgeoning fanbase.

Check out this video of Kevin and Lisa on a recent tour, and listen to the new album for yourself .

For more about Portland arts events, visit PoMo’s Arts & Entertainment Calendar, stream content with an RSS feed, or sign up for our weekly On The Town Newsletter!

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James Franco’s Private River

The insatiably versatile actor has given Gus Van Sant’s 90’s cult classic My Own Private Idaho an overhaul with some refreshing new takes.

Additional reporting by Stephen Person

Posted by: Anne Adams on Oct 02, 2011 at 05:00PM 2 Comments

River Phoenix’s disheveled pompadour, furrowed brow, and guilty sidelong glances. Keanu Reeves’ puppyish open-mouthed grin as the wind ruffles his feathery mane. Recut by doe-eyed fanboy turned fledgling director James Franco, Gus Van Sant’s My Own Private Idaho footage has never looked better than it does in My Own Private River.

This past Sunday, a nearly sold-out crowd (replete with male and female Marla Sokoloff wannabes) welcomed silver screen Adonis James Franco and renowned Portland-based director Gus van Sant to the Hollywood Theatre. The duo, who forged their friendship on the set of 2008’s Milk, prefaced Franco’s recut with a 30-minute discussion followed by a Q&A session (Read: Franco induced swoon-fest). What were we going to see? Almost all cutting-room-floor footage, pieced back together to create a vignette of the original narrative from its negative space. What else is new? Well:

Less Talk, More Silence, More Stipe
For a novice director, Franco has made some really astute decisions. Seemingly with no fear of offending his hero Van Sant, he’s wisely omitted the pseudo-Elizabethan dialogue that had been a key feature of the original film. Choosing longer takes and more disorienting angles, he lulls the audience into a meditative right-brained reverie. With the addition of a couple custom-crafted Michael Stipe songs, the mood is set for motorcycle rides and leaf-strewn park romps.

Less Romance, More Family
The temptation at the time of its 1991 release was to look at Idaho as a young gay romance—after all, it was one of the first “mainstream” pictures that even implied same-sex love, released in the same year as the sapphic Fried Green Tomatoes, and predating the more overt Brokeback Mountain by 13 years. At the time, the notion of two Hollywood hunks in a cuddle puddle overshadowed all subtler themes. But in his pre-film talk, Franco confessed a different reason that the original film had meant so much to him as a teenager: “I guess I was really fascinated by this idea of forming your own family,” he said. “I come from a great family, but when I was younger, I definitely had this feeling like, ‘where are my people? where are the people who truly understand me?’” Hence, in Franco’s edit, Pheonix is more orphaned urchin, than he is jilted lover. A failed quest to connect with his father or find his mother also ends up robbing him of his brother-in-arms, and in the final scene, we see him sleeping alone on the streets, and trying in vain to hit up his former hustler friends for food and drugs.

Don’t open that door!
Watching River Phoenix snort (what looks like) cocaine is, in 20/20 hindsight, almost exactly like watching a nightgown-clad horror movie heroine investigate a strange noise. You know what’s going to happen next, and you know it’s gonna hurt.

Meanwhile, Keanu Reeves…
Though they’ve set a permanent place at the table for River Phoenix’s ghost, Van Sant and Franco made little mention of costar Keanu, whose (Dog) star seems to have lately faded. One wonders if Reeves was really too busy promoting his new depressive picture-book Ode to Happiness to join this conversation, or if he wasn’t invited because Franco (a new feathery-haired stoner-role actor made good) is essentially “standing in.” Better to burn out than to fade away, eh? (Well, for the purpose of the next part of our analysis, the kid’s back in the picture.)

Back-stories
Born in Beirut to a costume designer and a heroin dealer, Keanu Reeves began his career at age nine during his mother’s short-lived marriage to Hollywood director Paul Aaron, the second of her four husbands. Meanwhile, River Phoenix’s “hippieish” parents spent his childhood following the Children of God cult as far as Venezuela, before doing an about-face to Hollywood and getting all 5 of their children hooked in with a casting agent when River—the eldest—was just 10. So when Reeves and Phoenix “acted” like disoriented kids navigating a landscape of existential confusion and exploitation in Idaho—in all likelihood they were just revealing their personal truth.

But whence James Franco’s edge? Compared to the actors he champions, he comes from a place of privilege. At 20, the son of well-connected Stanford grads dropped out of college against his parents’ wishes to pursue acting. He took a night job at McDonald’s to fund his alternative education—only to be quickly relieved of his debt by his professor the moment he showed promise. While Phoenix’s and Reeves’ entry into acting seems to have brought them in from the cold, Franco’s looks more like an attempt to escape middle-class conformity by experimenting with deprivation and challenge. But even through this concerted effort, it seems that can’t-lose Franco couldn’t shake his safety net.

Ironically, folks on the societal fringes (like the hustlers portrayed in this film, or quite possibly the men who portrayed them) share a key trait with the socioeconomically blessed—in short, an “I can get away with anything” attitude. Beggars have nothing to lose, and choosers have nothing to prove—so both groups tend to have fewer inhibitions than the workaday compromisers in the middle. Why bring this up? Well, when Franco says he used to yearn for “people like him,” our best guess is that he was resisting the professorial types who raised him, as well as his fellow workers in fast food, because in their way both groups represent the middle ground. He seems to identify more deeply with characters like Phoenix and Reeves on both far ends of the socio spectrum, bonding on their mutual lack of inhibition. (Deftly demonstrated in Franco’s nervy request that Van Sant hand over this film footage.)

Fries With That
Franco’s aforementioned fast food experience must have haunted him as he cut the movie’s final scene, in which most of the erstwhile hustlers (besides Phoenix’s down-and-out character) have taken day jobs as fry cooks. The dialogue and pacing are so realistically mundane, they practically give a documentary feel, and Franco’s choice to use them hints at his having “been there.”

Private LA?
In addition to making the new cut out of old footage, Franco decided to exhume one of the screenplay’s rough drafts, and shoot it on Super-8 film. Ghosts is the story of two younger Chicano hustlers in LA, one of whom suffers an inconvenient affliction: narcolepsy. Nodding off at dangerous moments, George relies on his capable friend Ray to rescue him from scrapes. As in Idaho, there’s a motorcycle ride, a bathtub scene, and a creepy German older-man client (played by the original Idaho actor, Udo Kier). Although it’s very nicely shot, this script, especially when compared to Franco’s River, feels repetetive and incomplete—and hence the film presents as more of an exercise in variation and mimicry (and, incidentally, a screen test for one of Leonardo Dicaprio’s godsons) than a viable work in its own rite.

The entire tableau of youthful desperation, puppy love, gritty street b-roll and scenic splendor was a lot to take in—really almost too much—and it took Culturephile a week to chew through. But overall, self-styled film student Franco earns a gold star.

For more about Portland arts events, visit PoMo’s Arts & Entertainment Calendar, stream content with an RSS feed, or sign up for our weekly On The Town Newsletter!

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TBA 2011: There’s Still Time

Posted by: Anne Adams on Sep 28, 2011 at 12:00PM 0 Comments

Although the 10-day TBA intensive has wrapped, exhibits at The Works run through October 30, with a lot of different live events, including artist talks, musical events, and open rehearsals. Occupation/Preoccupation will lead a series of lectures, workshops, and concerts all month long, Ohad Meromi will work with local choreographer Tahni Holt in his gallery installation, and Anna Gray & Ryan Wilson Paulson will be talking about their work with curator Kristan Kennedy on Sunday, October 2 at 2pm. For a complete list of open exhibits, and hours of operation, visit the TBA Calendar.

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Tags: galleries, TBA, tba2011

Craig Thompson Releases New Title

The author/illustrator of acclaimed graphic novel Blankets talks about his latest title, Habibi.

Posted by: Anne Adams on Sep 28, 2011 at 11:00AM 0 Comments

Last night, graphic novelist Craig Thompson regaled a packed Pearl Room at Powell’s Books with a detailed slide show and a few words about his newest title, Habibi, an Arabesque epic that reportedly folds religious and political implications into its narrative. Best known for Blankets, an intimate Midwestern memoir, Thompson admitted that he wanted Habibi to be “bigger than himself.” As he detailed his 6-year process of illustration, translation, and hand-brushing calligraphy in a language he still doesn’t read, the humble and hilarious Thompson blurted some choice turns of phrase. Here are a couple that Culturephile caught:

Blankets = “Mundane Midwestern snowscapes and High School Craig.”

New title, Habibi = “Desert-scapes and Arab slaves as elements of sensationalized Arabesque, the same way cowboys and Indians were sensationalized in the wild west.”

Fantasy genre = “Dragon bullsh*t.”

Classic comicbooks = “Superhero fantasy explosion stories.”

Arabic calligraphy = “Music for the eyes.”

Persian belief system = “7 layers of heaven above, 7 layers of hell below, and between them, a 15th layer of human existence, where elements of both heaven and hell bleed through.”

Judaism, Christianity, and Islam = “The Abrahamic faiths. They have a lot of the same characters.”

Rumi poems’ core message = “Keep breaking your heart ’til it opens.”

Long periods of writers’ block = “A spell the book cast on itself. And within the story, you see themes of drought—emotional, sexual, spiritual—and in my case, creative.”

Endings = “Something real life doesn’t have. I struggled because I didn’t want to write a fairytale ending, and I also didn’t want to write an unfulfilling French ending, if you know what I mean.”

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TBA 2011: Zoe | Juniper

The Seattle dance company’s A Crack In Everything Exposed made an indelible impression on multidisciplinary artist and Culturephile correspondent Kat Seale. She describes the surreal scene.

Posted by: Anne Adams on Sep 27, 2011 at 08:00AM 0 Comments

Photo: Juniper Shuey

Adorned with white paper booties, I stepped into the alternative world of the Zoe/ Juniper installation: a world brimming beauty, juxtaposed with momentous fits of passion and pain. Upon entering, a man is seated at a white table, his hairless body covered in a paste of white, his chest gilded metallic silver. He’s playing “five-finger fillet” with a large spike, hammering it between his splayed fingers, each strike of the rhythm an implied risk. He misses, and a glimmering red bead of blood gathers on his finger, standing out as a visceral variation of the minimalist composition of the room.

The narrow walls are lined with white paper, projections, and strands of red yarn. An ornate arabesque silver platter sits to the man’s left containing a foreign substance that resembles translucent spheres of egg yolk. Accompanied by strains of minimalist cello, a row of performers forms a straight line in front of the man with the spike, patiently waiting for a turn to play. Slowly, each takes a turn with the knife game while our main character looks on blankly. As each member of the entourage moves forward in line, the tempo of movement becomes more rapid, until all patience is exhausted and the once-orderly group begins violently pushing and shoving each other in an attempt to arrogate the spike.

Shaking off his distant stare, the main character grips the left hand of the girl who has managed to acquire the spike. He slowly places it on the table and she begins to play. With clandestine glances, company members quickly consume several of the yolk-like spheres. Gradually, we notice that an area to the rear of the room is partitioned by clear plastic, which is embellished with red contour drawings of a body in motion. Two men sitting on white chairs don masks of soft white and pink fur and begin violently barking at each other in a battle of dominance, yellow gel streaming rabidly down their chins. Behind this growling display, our once-main figure gracefully dances, creating a sense of peace and serenity adjacent to a violent rage—a recurring motif that will translate over to the main performance. The intensity of the cello increases, then suddenly stops. Everyone is frozen in time; thrust into the vicissitudes of the environment. Quiet comes over the audience as the once-beastly men cross paths and the original knife-player exits.

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Tags: Dance, TBA, surreal, contemporary, tba2011