ah, the joys of my transient life:
even though the zone was several weeks ago I've yet to have a quiet
moment to complete this missive; I jot whenever I can, sentences are
completed over hours and sometimes days. I am
smoking the dregs of a hell bending project that has capitalized
most of my life for the better part of a year. I am
looking forward to sleeping and overall escaping, come august.
so on to the missive, which I started to write some time ago...
all I can say is wow.
one of the best zones yet. why? I don't know.
maturity, consistency, just everybody wanting it to be great, willing
it, the space and the time was filled with one on the most relaxed
and
creative vibes that I can remember. here's the deal: this
one was
deep. things evolved over time and if one hung on
long enough there
was some sweet experiential nectar there
for the sipping. some of the
hugest thanks goes out to bean and ann,
who's wildly creative efforts
literally rocked the house. after the prior zone, bean contacted me
and told me about an invention/art piece/interactive percussion video
instrument that she help develop at the erstwhile interval research.
she called this thing the jam-o-drum. we of course came up with
alternate names during it's several hour long installation, like the
'freakass video drum thang' and the jama-roid.
to describe it? well
it's a table that computer video is projected upon and you hit it
(with
your palms) and it plays sounds or a sample and the video image changes
and evolves in relation to what is played; pretty trippy stuff, very
interactive and fun, better than a video game and way way cooler.
this particular unit was being debugged for presentation at siggraph
and
there is a larger one installed at the experience project up in seattle
(which is the jimi hendrex museum.) extra thanks goes out to greg
and
tim for their programing
expertise, and shultz and ed
for their roadie
efforts (setup and schlep), also to stalwart
steve who helped to set
(and clean up) and birthday boy jeff
for the video projector.
and then there is ann.
ann is my new roommate in sunny southern cali,
sado monica for short and if you are just logging into my personal
soap
opera, it goes like this: I am a new condo owner six blocks or so
from
the beach and even though I actually live in the bay area (contrary
to
popular belief: really I live in emeryville, I do I really do), I
seem
to spend way too much time down in lala, working, so unfortunately
I've
had to became an adult. I have a mortgage now. how weird it is, I
mean, I don't want to grow up, I wanna play forever but this other
world keeps calling, that work thing that keeps me in cash (so I can
play) and the buying a home no where near where I actually live, sort
of made sense. so I had a place in sado monica for a while and with
the end of rent control I more or less got booted from my cheep little
crash pad. ann was my neighbor in the same soon to be a yuppified
(as
if I could I talk...mr stupid utility vehicle, homes in two cities,
clearly making too much money (but in dead media, not a dot commie
here) sorry my cell phone is ringing, bla bla bla) pleasure palace,
and
like me got evicted (sort of) and she also needed a place to live,
being a struggling actress-comedian, and we chat about burning man
and the abstrakt zone and I invite here to come a do a bit of standup
at my place, she jumps in her car and six hours later she arrives
with some audio tapes and launches into a piece she calls, beauty,
brains, brahms, backpacker,
blowjobs.
wow.
45 minutes later she runs out of words, literally as the piece isn't
quite finished and we are left at the top of a mountain. ann and her
new beau (a accordion concertmaster and composer) have just had (for
her) completely unsatisfactory sex, and
yet he consoles her with his
passionate playing (of course on an accordion that she unknowingly
lugged up the mountain) and she is trying to reconcile his split
personality; has she found true love (she who loves music and
backpacking and male body odor) or has she fallen again for (obviously)
the wrong guy. I loved watching the enrapt audience of 50 or so hang
on her every word, the room floating in that
special deep space where time has no meaning and we are shuttled between
images as diverse as an extended (and loud) orgasm (to a piece of
music he has written for her) and the description of a coming storm,
the soft breeze caressing the tops of the trees, escalating.
so as if two orgasms weren't enough, there was an extra special
surprise; bean in her other (real) life is a kick ass percussionist
and
she dragged along (willingly I hope) to the zone a group that she
performs with called RhythMix,
an all female percussion collective. ok, get this taiko, conga, djembe,
marimba, hand percussion and some very sweet vocals
kicking rhythms from all over the place: afro cuban, caribbean, japanese,
sometimes all at once, there was so much fantastic energy generated,
people screaming, clapping and
danceing and can't tell you how lucky I feel to have such
great artists perform at my place. the vibe had a dark
musky quality
with some sweet overtones of violence, there was a fierceness of
playing that comes from going to an extreme. super big thanks to bean,
janet, naomi and terrie, girrls you are welcome in
my home anytime.
wow times four
clearly there was an uncommonly deep passion
riding through the
evening. hot and intense is the only way I could describe it, like
good sex, both playful and fierce with a big crashing finish, this
is
why I think it was one of the best. so on to number 25, yes twenty
five, as the zone nears the end of it's life, Y
is Y? --
z
o n e s
