Comment Archives: Stories: Spoleto 2012
Re: “k.d. lang's sultry voice soared at the Gaillard”
I concur, Stephanie. "Hallelujah" sends chills up my spine whenever I hear it. But you haven't lived until you've heard it live. k.d. put on a great show. Only problem is it ended way too soon.
Re: “Monologist Mike Daisey's painful odyssey through the new media machine”
Smart, well-written comment, Sybil, though I think you went a little soft on Patrick. ;-)
"...a fundamental character defect, often something of no great importance..."? Make up your mind, is it fundamental or is it unimportant?
Re: “Mike Daisey presents a bold, updated performance of his infamous work.”
He "appropriated his wrongdoing"? I don't think you know what "to appropriate" means...but if you do that's just sad. (It means either to set aside for some special purpose or to claim as one's own.) The man outright lied, claimed he was telling the truth, and doesn't seem to understand why this might not fly in a journalistic milieu...and you seem to think this is somehow okay? And that Ira Glass is some kind of bully for taking exception to having been deceived? Really? That is just sad.
My objection is not to artistic exaggeration in order to get a point across, it's to justifying lying as a matter of course. If Mr. Daisy had not intentionally deceived the folks at This American Life I would have no problem with him. He's an excellent monologuist and his points have merit. Unfortunately, yours don't. Despite what you may think, "Art" and "Science" are not in opposition. (Ever heard of Leonardo da Vinci? You have? How about Joel Sartore?) False dichotomies are the bane of Western thought.
Re: “UCB returns to delight its devoted Charleston audience”
I don't know how I missed this..... it sounds as if it was a great show, kinda pissed-off that I missed it! (at least it was sold-out) =)
Re: “Call Mr. Robeson's inspiring portrayal of a brilliant but forgotten American”
I enjoyed this heartfelt tribute to Mr. Robeson, and how the writer relates Mr. Robeson's struggles with those of today:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zBCuxtdZTdM
Re: “Call Mr. Robeson's inspiring portrayal of a brilliant but forgotten American”
I saw this show on opening night. It was really powerful and worth your time during a busy Spoleto season. One thing Duffy Lewis doesn't say in the review is the Mr. Aluko had a Q & A session with the audience afterwards in which he answers questions about Mr. Robeson and what he did. Mr. Aluko wrote and stars in this production. Not bad for a guy whose professional training is as an architect from Nigeria! The show is about the man and his music is used to help explain his life. But this isn't a one man "Showboat". There is humor and angst. This show does what all good theater ought to do. It does entertain, but more importantly, it makes you think. Go see the show.
Re: “Martin Dockery talks faith and infidelity in The Holy Land Experience”
it really is hard to find funny the depths & lunacies of faith, maybe this is healing for some escaping from the cults, but many Atheists I know will skip this
Re: “Joy Vandervort-Cobb's bag lady takes a bow”
Thank you for all of your great coverage of our show - and all the others in Spoleto and Piccolo Spoleto! Your paper has been unmatched in the scope and quality of festival coverage. We LOVE the City Paper!
Re: “Top 10 Spoleto events to check out this week”
Everyone should also go see "Perfectly Normel People" at the Footlight Theater!!!
Re: “k.d. lang resurfaces with a sexy, swinging sound”
OMGosh, I have waited years to hear that perfect, bone-chilling, heart-melting voice in person! Counting the hours until Sunday night!
Re: “Monologist Mike Daisey's painful odyssey through the new media machine”
Smart, well-written piece, Patrick, though I think you went a little soft on Daisey. No one thinks that Sedaris is a journalist -- and after all, he is telling stories about his own life, so who cares what he embellishes. To the contrary, Daisey's most recent piece is about one of the most important and neglected issues among the topics involving global capitalism and corporate responsibility -- namely labor, production, and environmental conditions in places where Americans have their stuff made for cheap, with huge consequences. In a world in which corporations are essentially uncontrolled and left to dismally thin ethical guidelines, with critical fallout for people and the environment, it is important that stories investigating such issues clearly separate truth from fiction. In bolstering his investigation of Foxconn and his findings with fictional, albeit compelling, characters and facts, Daisey diminished the gravity of the facts -- which need no fictional bolstering -- and helped people dismiss them, doing a disservice to an enormously important issue. There are topics whose gravity requires no augmenting, such as diamonds funding civil wars, human trafficking, child slavery in the production of chocolate, the environmental fallout of industrial and pharmaceutical production. I am not sanctimonious about this, but no, truth has no agenda -- truth simply is. I am long gone from journalism -- but yes, I am a Columbia J-School graduate and I am proud to have learned that a really good fact-based story needs no lies. Certainly, this one does not.
Re: “Charleston: a love letter left us feeling like a third wheel”
They read what they want to and are exceptionally thin-skinned.
Re: “Charleston: a love letter left us feeling like a third wheel”
For the record, the word arrogant is not used once in the review. Sheesh people. Can't you read?
Re: “Charleston: a love letter left us feeling like a third wheel”
"There’s an ancient law of parsimony called Occam’s Razor, and it calls for a simpler explanation rather than a complicated one."
And then you go on for seven more paragraphs?
Re: “Charleston: a love letter left us feeling like a third wheel”
In the fall of 1967, the late American film critic Pauline Kael began her review of that year’s “Bonnie and Clyde” with this sentence: “How do you make a good movie in this country without being jumped on?” Ms. Kael was defending “Bonnie and Clyde” from other film critics’ detractions, in particular a condemnation that the film was needlessly violent.
When you place yourself within the line of sight of the public eye, it can feel like placing yourself within the line of fire – a prospect with its own brand of violence. When you suck in your breath and go ahead and do it anyway, you’ve joined other brave and ballsy artists who make a difference in our lives by expanding the horizons of our views of the world. I’m proud of Mr. Justin Nathanson for manning up and doing it anyway.
I’m a friend of Mr. Nathanson’s, but I’ll show my artistic impartiality by saying I agree that certain scenes could have been whittled down in time. I also agree there are scenes that were completely unnecessary in my mind’s own eye.
However, I do not agree that Mr. Nathanson was arrogant in highlighting locally grown and sustained coffee shops and restaurants. There’s an ancient law of parsimony called Occam’s Razor, and it calls for a simpler explanation rather than a complicated one. In this case, Mr. Nathanson simply filmed the places where he spends his time. The reviewer has over thought in this instance and I find her comments malicious and full of a need to control. I wonder if she feels it necessary to break into visual artists’ studios all over town and pull their paintbrushes from their easels if they choose to illustrate local establishments? This is his film of Charleston. When artists paint and writers write and filmmakers shoot, it is not their duty to think of their audience. It is their duty to think of their own wild hearts.
I also strongly disagree that the film was in any way arrogant and I very strongly object to the blatant inference that Mr. Nathanson himself is arrogant. On the contrary, I’d argue that his viewpoint was deeply personal and marked by humility. I noticed only two images in the film of his wife, Mrs. Erin Glaze Nathanson, and his camera shied away from these images or darted away from her quickly, as if anticipating his apology to the audience for including her at all. In others example of “darting,” there were several scenes in which he ran joyfully, with childlike wonder, down a pier, or through his apartment, to give the audience the gift of birds in flight, a gift I can say I accepted with gratitude.
In fact, “grateful” is another good word here. It is how I felt as an audience member, and it is how I believe Mr. Nathanson showed the truest part of himself. It is a simple fact that for the most of his life, he lived and worked both in the North and the West, and yet I felt a love of Charleston’s landscape and people in his chosen images and cinematography that those of us who are from here would be lucky to cultivate. It would make us happier people. Mr. Nathanson showed me parts of my hometown that I have never seen and will likely never see again. Most significantly, he showed me ways of seeing familiar places and people in new ways.
I also think the reviewer ignored the collaborative nature of this film in accusing Mr. Nathanson of arrogance. Never in this film’s marketing, nor in Mr. Nathanson’s interviews, did I feel that he expressed that this was solely his film. In fact, over and over again, he credited Entropy Ensemble’s Andrew Walker and the musicians performing as his teammates. This was never more clear than when he took a standing ovation with them, not apart from them. This is not arrogance, this is thankfulness.
I have dreamed, for the last three nights, of surfers and birds in flight – images directly from his film. These images have reminded me of why I live in a town that can be spoiled by a suffocating economy and small-minded people. Narrative was not needed here; these are dreamscapes – Mr. Nathanson is culling from art house films that I would suggest Ms. Pandolfi take time to view.
To reference another comment made here, I don’t agree that artists in this town are self-important and afraid of a critical review. I think they are frightened, as I am, of a review that is not well-thought out, which automatically carries its own kind of pretension. Mr. Nathanson was jumped on for making this film, but I will take my gloves off and ironically express my gratitude to Ms. Pandolfi. She may have expressed a viewpoint I believe is shortsighted, but she began a dialogue, and to me, that is the critic’s chief occupation. It is the only task of a critic where life can survive and bloom again. It is the only critic’s duty that matters.
To conclude - yes, Mr. Nathanson can face a firing squad and I believe he can take a bullet between his teeth. I, for one, was glad he handed me a love letter to read in order to remember the beauty of my town. This love letter will be a historical Charleston document that will be forever preserved by museum curators and librarians and it is a historical document that Charleston is not used to in its technological cleverness and collaborative spirit.
Thank you, Mr. Nathanson, for joining a league of fighting artists and giving us something that will last as long as human hands care for it.
And I can’t wait for Part Two.
Re: “Virginia Rodrigues hypnotizes her audience with stripped-down bossa nova”
@Sean A. Carter: everyone is entitled to their opinion. But for you to claim "the audience never embraced the one-note" is utter bullshit. She received a standing ovation, leading to an encore. Perhaps you were expecting another jazz ensemble. Personally, I enjoyed the fact that there was nothing to distract from the incredible range of her voice. There's beauty in restraint for those of us who can appreciate talent without needing to be knocked upside the head with it.
Don't lend your opinion to the entire audience.
Re: “Virginia Rodrigues hypnotizes her audience with stripped-down bossa nova”
A fan of Virginia Rodrigues I looked forward to enjoying her performance at Spoleto 2012. As an attendee to her debut performance during 2001 at the Cistern, her energy was magnetic, range commanding, voice crisp and Jazz ensemble filled that evening with electricity under the grand oaks. Though the Charleston setting was muggy, with the occasional sand gnat - who cared - the music was grand, the lights were bright, and all really had a blast and wanted the evening to last forever. My guests from Chicago were equally pleased with my selection of entertainment for the evening.
Last evening's concert at the Gaillard, however, was quite disappointing. Her somber voice, selection of song and veiled cold approach have certainly matured over the last decade, the audience never embraced the one-note. Mesquita's strings never seemed to climax, and musical endings faded into oblivion under the back-drop of static blues on graphite curtains. Early reviews in other cities proclaimed spell-bounding and spiritual, I must say that the Gaillard performance simply was not. One must wonder if the stage was just too difficult for these two artists to master. The magic simply was not present, and both seemed more often lost than at home. Or, alas, our local history wrought in the beauty and spirit of Gullah conditioned a Sandlapper to expect so much more in choir to lift-up the voice or in ensemble to showcase the guitar.
Sadly, the singular-offering concert rests mindfully more Refundable, than rewarding or repeating.
Re: “Charleston: a love letter left us feeling like a third wheel”
Hello all,
To clarify the use of the royal we: this is a stylistic choice, as you'll notice when reading other reviews in this paper. It is not intended to refer to the public at large, as that is hardly the role of any writer.
Also - I too thought the score for this film was outstanding, and played to perfection by the very talented musicians there.
Re: “Miles and Coltrane: Blue(.) will get in your veins”
i think there is a broken link to face book
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Re: “Monologist Mike Daisey's painful odyssey through the new media machine”
Good point! By the time i read the whole thing, I entirely forgot the opening quote, in retrospect used more to show cultural prowess than to illustrate an applicable point. Clearly incongruous with the rest of the argument!