28 Days of Sonido Americano

Over at Super Sonido, nuestro carnal aural Joseph Franko is indulging his visitors with digitized cuts from his massive collection of forgotten, though tenderly curated, Latin American and Latino music.  Franko’s latest blog project, 28 days of 45s, has him and guests such as DJ Lengua posting–among other things–yeh-yehs, Chicano beats, cumbias, metal riffs, rebajadas, psych freak-outs, and Tejano Soul throughout February.  What proceeds is an intensive course on the sounds of Our America(s).

Image: Pedro Lasch, Latino/a America, 2003/ongoing [Pedro Lasch, con gracias al Profesor Mignolo]

On Behalf of the Defense

Over the Thanksgiving holiday, news came of Alice McGrath’s passing.  Luis Valdez dramatized her work as an activist in the Sleepy Lagoon defense in his play Zoot Suit. Her L.A. Times obiturary is here.

Information on the photo from Calisphere below:

Title: Alice Greenfield McGrath, portrait, Alice Greenfield McGrath, back in the Bradbury building, where her work on Sleepy Lagoon defense began

Creator/Contributor: Los Angeles Times (Firm), Publisher; Barnard, Tony, Photographer

Date: May 2, 1978

Contributing Institution: Dept of Special Collections/UCLA Library, A1713 Charles E. Young Research Library, 405 Hilgard Ave, Box 951575, Los Angeles, CA 90095-1575

Incandescent Phenomena

Cai Guo-Qiang, Self-Portrait: A Subjugated Soul, 1985/89

From the first time encountering this image, the associations with a handful concepts were inescapable.  In one fell swoop, ideas of subjectivity, energy, temporality, the trace, eventality, halos, and (most interestingly) incandescence glisten in the flow of attention when standing before the Qiang’s image.

Multiple passages from Jean-Luc Nancy’s The Experience of Freedom speak to this flash of bundled energy in the act of taking-place or becoming that Qiang’s self-rendering seems to record.  In one particular instance, Nancy writes of the ontological dimensions of freedom’s flare (82):

…freedom is itself nothingness, which does not negate itself properly speaking, but which, in an pre-or paradialectical figure of the negation of negation, affirms itself by making itself intense.

The intensification of the nothingness does not negate its nothing-ness: it concentrates it, accumulates the tension of the nothingness as nothingness (hollowing out the abyss, we cold say…), and carries it to the point of incandescence where it takes on the burst of an affirmation.  With the burst–lightning and bursting, the burst of lightning–it is the strike of one time, the existing irruption of existence.

This radiance occurs at the border between the formless being that lays beyond representation and representations of humanity that take on a determinate form or another.  It is the most basic point of our existence where ontological and ethical categories blur and come into play with each other.

Qiang’s gesture shows a trace of a human being that at a point in time glistens with a particular intensity, radiates heat and energy, and warps and bends the field around him.  At some points the halo surrounding the figure crackles with electric flashes whose ardor match that of the body.

In the halo’s dark singes it is difficult to determine whether each ray is a wayward flash straying outward from the body or if the body is attempting to collect loose bits of energy from the surrounding environment to concentrate and make possible that blinding flash of light that burns the parchment of our world.  The halo allows itself to radiate and dissipate outwards in a faint light to reveal the dark, unknown form that captivates our attention.

Cross-posted at the brand-new tirado/thrown tumblr. Be sure to visit there, too!

Dispatches from Alla: Gary Garay

Gary Garay, The Last Buffalo, 2004

About a month ago, a discussion on the Art and Music of Post-Mexico by Josh Kun at Boston’s ICA got our juices flowing.  More than that, it gave us some considerable material to reflect upon, which we hope to share sooner or later on our pages here at tirado/thrown.  We hope to do so once we have a some more developed reflections ready to go.

Among the trove of exquisite finds Kun shared with those in attendance was the work of Gary Garay, whose evocative work retrieves and re-imagines some of the basic elements of Mexican-American life: paletas, Nike Cortez shoes, “Grandes Exitos” collections, sheepskin seat covers, brick cell phones, cinder blocks, pagers and so on.  He’s got a wealth of images to offer from the sources he draws upon.  A favorite of ours is The Last Buffalo (above), an ink drawing that almost immediately calls to mind the original Brown Buffalo, Oscar Zeta Acosta, and a painting by Eddie Martinez, Val Kilmer’s James Brown.  One part celebration and another part lament, it appears to melancholically announce the loss and disappearance of the Chicano as a robust cultural figure in American life.

Eddie Martinez, Val Kilmer's James Brown, 2008

As a part of LACMA’s Phantom Sightings show–which we hope to check out when it arrives at New York’s Museo del Barrio in March 2010– the county museum has an interview with Garay that goes into how he treats his source material.  More to come in time.

Image sources: Gary Garay, ZeiherSmith

Bidding the Summer Farewell: Revisiting Some of Its Finer Reads

Link dumps occupy an odd place in the blogging universe, and are to be treated alternately with curiosity, suspicion, and a modicum of heightened alertness.   For one, they are points of reference that fully haven’t been taken in by the poster of said links.  Had the person posting the link truly made the works they reference his/her own, then the poster could just as well dispense with the reference altogether and have the reference return as some artifact or remnant within another work the poster provides (preferably with a link if it’s online).

As with practically everything that is done here at tirado/thrown, the bullet points that follow are not meatballs, but barbecue: charred, gristly, messy, and nearly-indigestible.  However, as a way to look back at the summer that will have just passed on September 22, here are some links to short pieces to that helped make it worthwhile:

• Boston’s master of experience, James Parker, dwells in the marrow of the MBTA’s scorned jewel, the Orange Line.  Incidentally, the line passes through our beloved Jamaica Plain, where tirado/thrown calls home. [Boston Globe]
• Though tangled in the throes of a post-racial America (whatever that means), the term “Racism” has some words to offer the kind folks at We Are Respectable Negroes on its use and abuse.  [W.A.R.N]
• Theory spares us from disasters:  A brilliant interview with Sylvere Lotringer, co-founder of that most abrasive and alluring of publishers, semiotext(e)  .  He speaks with Nina Power on art, the academy, thought, and theory’s ongoing relevance.  [frieze]
• Our favorite blogs are the ones we are entirely jealous of when we come across them, leaving us wishing that this blog were only as good.  Planomenology is in fact one of those blogs that belong in the class ‘aspirational peers’. The posts can be lenghty at parts, but there’s some visceral and fascinating stuff going on there- not to be missed.  [Planomenology]
• Another philosophy blog worth paying attention to:  The Inhumanities launches with a discussion of Matthew Callarco’s book, Zoographies, which is sitting on the shelf waiting to be read.  We wish we were better readers, as much as we value our idleness.  However, work towards an articulation of being that includes the world of animals and tilts its spears towards unseating anthropocentrism as a philosophical paradigm is an admirable and necessary task. [Inhumanities]
• Having just mentioned in passing an outstanding blog with vegan links, we continue with a nod to our ethical impotence.   The New York Times discusses the Sonorense, the Chicano/Mexican contribution to the American hot dog landscape. How could something so wrong just be so good?  For our money, though, Daniel Hernandez’s LA Weekly piece on danger dogs from early 2008 remains the best treatment on the bacon-wrapped hot dog thus far. [NYT]
• Over at Buddyhead (when was the last we read that???), Chris Checkman offers readers a passionate, bile-laced appraisal of James Carr, whose rendition of “Dark End of the Street” lets us know the Flying Burrito Brothers could conjure up the soul, but not like Carr.  Checkman (aka Papa John, the former host of KXLUs infamous Blues Hotel) should be read with Carr’s music playing loud.  Conveniently, the article has samples of Carr’s output to allow readers just that pleasure. [Buddyhead]
• Our closer: What if Fantasy Island were actually set on Beirut’s Riviera instead of some tropical island?  We think that visitors would have been welcomed with the sounds in video Filastine Frequencies posted at his blog. There he invites us to imagine a Middle East not besmirched by crackpots, fanatics, and imperialists alike, and witness hybridity at its finest.  The video for the Bendaly Family’s “Do You Love Me?” also leads this post.  [Filastine Frequencies, with a big nod to WayneandWax]

Breaking Impasses with an Appeal to a Lethargic Drive

We here at tirado/thrown stand roundly accused of falling for the faddish, which we will attempt to neither defend nor justify.  Posting this video for Girls “Hellhole Ratrace”, we suppose, only advances the imaginary prosecution’s case.

Be that as it may, there’s something about the above clip that, aside from evoking loads of nostalgia,* temporarily forgives the hints of Ryan McGinley-esque aesthetics permeating it.  It’s our affinity for the kind of subdued, almost depressed disposition struggling to overcome isolation, despair, and misery that we’re quite familiar with.

The song begins with a folky sincerity that’s almost tongue-in-cheek because the lyrics are tough to pull off with a straight face.  Almost as if suddenly realizing that the lyrics had bordered on bad-faith bromides by the end of the song’s first minute, Girls changes tack altogether. They decide to move in the direction of a slow-burning, slow-motion escalator ascent from the basement.

From that point, the song takes on a life of its own and gives us a hazy headiness that tries to keep a lurking, ham-fisted aggression at bay.  By the end, we’ve been carried to a sunrise view of San Francisco by way of the least-jarring freak-out we’ve come across in a while.  “Hellhole Ratrace” wants a gentle, eased access to happiness and community.  Although these days, it’s difficult to gauge the feasibility of such a possibility.

More posts to come, we hope.  We’re working on some notes regarding Josh Kun’s discussion “The Ranch and the Network” at Boston’s ICA last Thursday, which we’d like to post within the next week.   There’s also a bundle of posts in various stages on the back end of this page, which we may slowly, though occasionally get to.  So thanks, and be sure to keep visiting.

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* For California and for keeping odd hours to hang out and fuck around, no less.

Virtual Pyramids and Cosmic Pixels

Rhizome, a favorite website here at tirado/thrown, directs our attention to these animated gifs from artist MDCCLXIV.  At first, they resembled little more the Mayan temple’s  ziggurat cousins to us.  But a close eye on the way the images unfold rewarded us with the deceptively simple geometric patterns that give structures like those in Tikal the austere rigidity to peek their tops out over the jungle canopy.  The contrast created by the crayon and pastel-colored gradations only heighten the possibility of grasping the geometry at work- breathing, pulsing, spinning, rising and falling.  From the name of the series from which these pieces belong, “About the Field of Statistics”, there’s quite possibly some mathematical ontology to be had here.

The initial allure of these pieces comes on the heels of a day where chats, discussions, phone calls, and re-established connections with friends and relatives from Guatemala and Honduras occupied a great deal of time.  They’re potent, abstract reminders of a land and culture that’s in our cells and are yet to discover here at tirado/thrown. On this occasion they were even more potent than photos of the pyramids themselves, in that their truth resided precisely in their rendering as virtual, which was more faithful to the nature of the highly mediated communicatons conducted via cell and internet than a photo or video of a temple itself (which served more as a secondary reference than anything).

[Image Credit: MDCCLXIV, via Rhizome.]

Very Short Cinema: Echek

From Adan Jodorowsky, son of auteur and tarot authority Alejandro, is Echek, a tiny portrayal of love’s enchantment. The short’s compact format calls to mind the description of the Beach Boys’ “Good Vibrations” as a ‘pocket symphony’.   It wouldn’t be a stretch to call this a piece of pocket film.

Noting the intersection of film and music in this post, it’s perhaps worth noting that Adan Jodorowsky is a musician and actor in his own right.  According to very preliminary research, he’s released records with the band Hellboy and  some more under the solo moniker Adanowsky. His film debut was in his father’s 1989 film Santa Sangre, which despite the obvious nepostism, is still not too shabby to claim.  And yes, that was him discussing the demerits of a certain female pubic hair style with Adam Goldberg in 2 Days in Paris. (0:55 in the linked clip)

As usual, posts to the blog will continue to be sporadic, but thanks for sticking around. We’re contemplating some possible changes, but nothing certain yet. There’s still the matter of getting out of the grad school application weeds.   Stay tuned for updates.

In the meantime, tirado/thrown will be paying attention to Adan’s work.  Here’s another short tidbit of Jodorowsky, singing his track “Estoy Mal” (I’m Ill) in the midst of the swine flu outbreak, respirator and all.

Summer’s Ashen Cast Over Boston

All anyone seems to be discussing here in Boston is how lousy the weather has been: overcast, wet, and gloomy. It’s the first thing that comes up in any conversation, whether it be at work, in casual chit-chat, or with loved ones. Nearly everybody agrees that the weather sucks.

Blakets of thick grey clouds have presided over skies during the month of June, already assuring us that at least a third of Boston’s brief, transitory summer will be without sun. For a city that lives and dies by the seasons, even the most hardened Bostonian is cursing the skies for the meteorological misfortune and pleading for more than just a short break to let the sun in.

The consistently lousy weather is cramping styles around here. Beach trips are being put off and otherwise vibrant neighborhoods are suffering because, really, who wants to frolic against a pallid background? Even local business are making the attempt to entice the area’s notoriously finicky shoppers to come out and buy, lowering their prices in an attempt to make it worth the effort. Yet, establishments who do most of their business indoors (and probably don’t rely on foot traffic) seem to find themselves with unseasonably good business. Something’s just not right.

The recently purchased bike (see photo above, far right) sits at the base of the stairwell, waiting to be used; but it’s not worth sullying the new wheels in the foul weather. As much as the machine is meant for commuting, I want to take a few joyrides first. At some point, the bici will get its time in the water, but not now. So as I walk, thunder rumbles overhead, constantly on the verge of freaking me out with the threat of a bolt slapping the ground nearby with a deafening crack. Recent developments only confirm that my fears are not unfounded.

With such a wet summer, it seems that Tlaloc has been vacationing in New England, with little intention of taking off anytime soon. All we can think of in light of all the rain is how Mexico City could sure use some of the water that’s getting dumped on Boston. It’s not fair for anyone, really.

Ya con la pinche lluvia!!!!

This Blog Also Plays Records in Public: Weekly Wax with DJs Tirado and Manny, 6/29/09

Radio silence could best describe the recent state of affairs here at tirado/thrown headquarters. Your staff has been negligent in its thinking and typing duties, and instead brushing up on high school algebra, cramming vocabulary, and learning strategies to tackle the monster known as the Graduate Record Examination. All this preparation, of course, is in the service of mounting a pending graduate school application campaign in the fall.

However, we’ve managed to cut through the thick wall of static generated by anxiety, study, exhaustion, and the repeated multiple choice questions to assemble some tracks and offer them up for the listening pleasure of the kind people who come to River Gods. On Monday June 29, as a part of the Weekly Wax series, DJ Tirado (yes, of this here tirado/thrown) will be teaming up with fellow traveler DJ Manny to showcase rolas from America Latina and Latino America spanning the decades. Inspired by the efforts of L.A.’s unparalleled Mas Exitos, we’ll be dispatching sounds like descargas, ballads, cumbias old and new, funk, psychedelic, and perhaps some electronic. All of it will come from Nuestra America.

Do come and join us for the dinner, drinks, and beatdowns that River Gods promises its patrons on Monday nights. The fare and the bar’s offerings are outstanding, and the locale is the perfect venue for a listening party. The sounds start at 8 p.m. and go on until midnight. Feel free to hit us up in the comments section for more information.

*Image: Hat tip to Joseph Franko at supersonido.net for the amazing pic. We couldn’t pass up using it for the flyer.