Indy Little Secret:

Big kudos to my buddy Josh Benton for pointing out Pitchfork's Media's Top 50 Singles of the Year and how the list isn't top heavy with white indie bands who all look and sound like a 3-day coffee hangover [simile mine]. Pitchfork attributes this to the ease of buying songs from services like Apple Music and the ubiquity of file sharing. Music fans are now able to dip their toes in different styles and genres without the prohibitive financial commitment of a $17 CD attached.

This is wonderful news. I think the dirty little secret of services that claim to be arbitors of musical taste and outlets like much of the nation's college radio stations is that, in the name of promoting independent, non-corporatized music, they skew almost unfailingly toward all white, guitar-based bands. Funny, I thought musicial diversity was the whole point. It's also only gotten worse since these days, much of pop music is rooted in the acendency of hip hop to mass culture. As I've said before, the latent racism behind the whole "Rock is Back!" movement of the last few years can best be described as "Thank God we don't have to listen to all that black music anymore."

So bravo to Mr. Benton and sites like Pitchfork and Epitonic for embracing music beyond the narrow confines of "indy" or "alternative." Since I'm in the middle of overhauling my own catalogs, it's nice to know I'm not alone.

Land That 'Fish!'

Pretty much all I did on my vacation was watch movies and read (you can see what I read over here) which explains the uniformity of posting lately. One more time, though..

See Big Fish. Lovely film. Especially if you're one of those new fangled "sensitive guys." I've been told I am and since I cry a lot and didn't know Brett Favre still played for the Packers when someone asked last week, I'm inclined to agree.

Basically the plot is an excuse for a series of flashbacks as a dying father (Albert Finney) tells his son the stories of his life for the 9 millionth time. They're probably flagrantly untrue but director Tim Burton and novelist Daniel Wallace (it's based on his book) argue that life if you don't augment it with your fantasies and dreams is a) dull and b) pretty hard to remember. By telling stories, we light up our lives from the inside, leaving the tales behind when we go and since animals can't embellish in this way, relish in our gifts as human beings.

Big Fish is mostly a story about men, how men tell stories to achieve our own immortality because we can't bear children. I probably appreciated it most on this level. After sitting through fistfuls of movies this past few years where relationships between women are seen as empowering and life affirming (Divine Screts of the Ya Ya Sisterhood, Waiting to Exhale and just now, Calendar Girls) and male relationships are seen as junvenile foolishness (Old School, The Brothers), it's more thn refreshing to see a movie where the nature of men is taken seriously and not assumed to be killing time until the next kegger.

This is an improtant film for Tim Burton. I've never been much of a fan since I think his amazing visual eye is often a stand-in for concise storytelling and memorable characters (Ed Wood was an exception but between it and Fish stands the barren set pieces known as Mars Attacks, Sleepy Hollow and Planet of the Apes). Here he has an idea at work, something to say besides "isn't this neat?" And since Big Fish is very much about what happens to our memories after we die, its only the kind of film Burton, the eternal boy fancier of cimena could make as a middle-aged man. His maturing is overdue and more than welcome by me. Although rumor has it, his next film is a remake of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory so we'll see how long that lasts.

Elephant:

See Elephant. Now. Gus Van Sant's fictional retelling of a high school shooting (structured like Columbine but not a faithful adaptation) offers no insight into why these tragedies happen but instead says that the sickness in our soul is how ordinary they are. It's a moody, hypnotic, enormously disturbing day at the cinema but worth every minute.

P.S. Anyone know why the film is called Elephant?

Culture Jolt:

Gems from Utne Reader's Indie Culture 2004 issue (includes a CD!)

• Temporary Services: A Chicago-based artists collective that, among other supercool projects, secretly placed 100 art books on the shelves of the Chicago Public Library and gave them call numbers so they could be checked out.


• Storage Artspace: A non-profit art center and the locus of the rapidly growing newest artists neighborhood in New York, the South Bronx


• Princeton Architectural Press: Has nothing to do with Princeton Univeristy and only partially to do with architectural. Instead publishes beautiful books on design and material culture such as visual studies of lost pet posters and homes built from found materials.


• Oi-Va-Voi: Klezmer meets techno meets loungy jazz.


• Magic Carpet/Home: A giant magic carpet sculpture in a public park in the Watts neighborhood in Los Angeles. You're supposed to climb on it.


• A fantastic interview between Ani DiFranco and Bruce Cockburn.

Okay I'm back.

WTS has finally been switched over to TypePad with only a few posts lost. Which is okay by me. I'm going to reconceive this space anyway.

Here's the deal. Ever since shutting down Central Booking in February, I've been migrating slowly away towards work and projects online and trying to devote myself more to to my writing. I've got a book to finish editing in this coming year and want writing, for newspapers, magazines, radio and live performance. I've still got some plans for the Virtual Book Tour and I'm going to keep this site going but professionally and energywise, more of myself will be spent over here.

So what to do with Where There's Smoke? I have no desire to become a celeb blogger (as if I could) or use this site as a piece of an empire. Rather, I think I'm going to flesh out what it has always been, a map of my mind, a sketchpad for ideas, a guide for me to both the scary and bright hallways of my mind. I forget 90% of what my brain whispers back to me in a day. I'd be nice to have some record of it.

The design will most likely look the same but I'll overhaul the links. What I post will be less professional, more personal. I might have a space to indicate what I'm working on, but other than that, career stays elsewhere. That might make it less interesting to read. So be it then.

Look for changes sometime in the new year. I'll just be lighting an occassional candle here until then.