Year Dispactké2003                                                           p. 2 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Black Belt, The Studio Museum in Harlem, October 15 - January 4
R. Kelly - "Chocolate Factory" (Jive)
Trouble begets passion. Trouble brings one humbly back to one's roots. Trouble makes you want to remember those things once dear to you, that brought you joy. Mr. Kelly comes correct with Chocolate Factory, a tour-de-force. If not his best album (or best contemporary soul album in years) it is surely the most soul engaged the black community has collectively gotten into in a long while. It is uncanny how this record so sums up the last 50 years in soul music: Marvin Gaye, the blues, Al Green, Prince, every-slow-jam-you-ever-knew-and-loved from Al B. Sure to Jodeci, the Isleys to R. Kelly himself, pre-'83 Michael, Chicago stepping jams, even a little dancehall thrown into the mix. Fun, crazy as hell, heartfelt, nasty (!!?), bleeding, "performance art", crying. Ron Isley-"Mr. Biggs"-is here in the epic "Showdown". "Step In The Name Of Love" has got to be the most brilliant appropriation of a culture I've heard in a while, up there with the "Twist", souls all through the Midwest just eating it up. My mother mentioned this track to me long before I'd even heard it myself, which is telling. And has R. Kelly ever made a song as solid as "Imagine That", causing me to consider that mug might really have Prince-like talent after all. R. Kelley pandered to, and pleaded with the black community for forgiveness of his (never admitted to) sins, and the community rallied around this record like he was O.J. under attack from Mark Fuhrman. Kelly paid the love back with this record (and the extra Loveland disc with "Heaven I Need a Hug" and "The World's Greatest"-pure R. Kelly), thankful for the support, maybe a little more humble. I can't remember the last time I felt a pure soul record was this good. (Wait, that was "Voodoo", okay.) This is in no way an endorsement of cavorting about with sixteen-year olds, on video nonetheless, if indeed that was what occurred. Chocolate Factory was a phenomenon unexpected, it may not keep him out of jail, but it's a sure Grammy whore, and the source of much creative respect from a lot of heads if not the whole of the streets, young, old, "intellectual", whoever. Blacker than chocolate.
Millennium Mambo by Hsiao Hou Hsien
Dizzee Rascal - "Boy in Da Corner" (XL Recordings)
Paradise? by Kari Hoaas, P.S.122 November 6-11
Raw, lyrical, unnerving, logical in the purest of movement senses, Kari's dance movement piece went from the collected dancers' quiet contemplation sitting in chairs to standing variations on a theme, and finally to slow movement and then vigorous dance. Beautiful. Insane. Narrative moments with each dancer/performer at a mike reciting words from a postcard (in foreign languages) wistful about lost happiness. Sexy. Searching. Logical (again its own logic). Searing, disgusting, nonsensical. Solos that searched through the mundane nature of the lives we lead. Duets that question the nature of "duet", lyrical, stupid. The music in "Paradise?" was so on - flowing big band salsa,
downtempo techno, big beat flowing hip-hop, opera, thrashing speed metal, all lyrical. Dialogue, "Freakouts". Later there was a sweeping lyrical group dance that reminded me of something from Ballett Frankfurt's "Eidos: Telos" or maybe that dance moment in Godard's "Band of Outsiders" aped by so many. It would have been an easy place for Kari to end the piece but then she moved on to a mesmerizing coda where the dancers stripped off their clothes and sashayed across the stage, naked, contemplating the passion they had siphoned through us, sexy, alone in unison, a madness and beauty betrothed.
Raising Victor Vargas by Peter Sollett
A simple, beautiful film-beyond touching. Kids on the lower east side posing, "thugging", learning to love. Striving to understand the meaning of family. Dealing with poverty and its entrails. Moral maturation. The performances gotten out of some of the kids here were astounding-you just can't script that kind of truth. Director Sollett filled the screen with dozens of close-ups, long stretches of the film filled with beautiful faces and the project tenements in which they live. I have never beheld such restrained yearning in the faces of characters. Don't talk to me about "Elephant" or "Lost in Translation", this film was the wonder to watch.
Haydée Schvartz, Tonic, July 8
This Argentinean pianist held her first New York recital at Tonic, the downtown experimental music space. The set's headlining piece was a performance of John Cage's "Four Walls", an hour-long abstract tour-de-force that Schvartz banged out with intense, poignant elegance. Her second set was more genial: a selection of "tangos" from Yvar Mikhashoff's International Tango Project (which Schvartz has now inherited the direction of), Gabriel Balverde's "Resplandor de los Surem", and then a selection of Claude Debussy's "Preludes", the second of which, "Voiles" I think it was, was so warm, stirring, and beautiful as to have caused the woman sitting next to me to begin crying. I too felt something inner leaping through the room, towards the beautiful Haydée and the mournful notes flowing from her hands. I kid not.
New York City War Protest, February 14, 2003
This was the first of the big war protests in New York, over a month before the war even began. Feels like epochs ago now. Man, the people were beautiful. For all who got out into the streets that Saturday, though they tried to hold us back, the cops tricking and diverting people onto streets far away from the U.N. rally (and helping to minimize the official count of those who were out there), the presence was overwhelming. Many, so many were held back on 2nd and 3rd avenues. There was no "march" allowed and yet they forced the throngs to walk up and down second and third avenues until many were tired and freezing. It was cold.
It took me over an hour and a half and much cunning and weaving through barricades (are these kind of blockades legal?) to get to the rally itself. Once there I was shocked to find how few of the people who had been herded onto second and third avenues were actually being allowed to get through to the rally itself. Mobs packed the streets but only a tiny portion of us were actually let near the rally. Still it was a massive crowd to behold, beautiful. 500,000 in New York City. 100,000 in Sydney. An astronomical 1 million in Rome!! 750,000 in London. 660,000 in Madrid. 500,000 in Barcelona. (Several million throughout Spain itself-they say the biggest demonstrations since the death of dictator Franco.) More than 70,000 people marched in Amsterdam. Berlin had half a million. Paris (those wonderful French) about 100,000. And these are just conservative estimates. These were the largest total one-day protests EVER RECORDED IN HISTORY. For Mr. Bush and his war. In New York the protesters, old and young, students, parents, families, fellow Americans, a myriad international contingent, small business owners, religious leaders, people of color, the curious, scared, unemployed, those with family members in the military, "socialists", even some of the cops(!), and those just failing to understand the concept of hasty, indiscreet war bringing security. They stretched 20 blocks deep and two blocks wide. Inspiring speeches-Bishop Desmond Tutu, Angela Davis, playwright Tony Kushner, Danny Glover, and Susan Sarandon, amongst others. If not televised, the revolution must in the least be contemplated ('cause it's needed).
J Mandle Performance, VARIABLE CITY, Downtown Brooklyn, October 1 - 25th
Lebron James & Cleveland Cavaliers vs. Chicago Bulls, Saturday, Dec. 20, United Center
A nothing game in the middle of a month of games in which no one pays attention or plays hard really. I could have used one of those "coming out" games that Lebron had while still in high school, you know, like the one televised nationally on ESPN where he busted for 31 points, 13 rebounds and 6 assists, satiating the early hype, but we won't go into that crazed high school madness (what is the world coming to?). I could have gone with one of the first Lebron vs. Carmelo Anthony matchups in this the first of their NBA seasons, but both games were overblown and disappointing shows for the two of them. I could have chosen his first versus T. Mac, on Christmas Day, or the Lakers, or against my man Iverson. Instead I choose this December game at the United Center in Chicago against the lowly Bulls. Added drama: Jordan was in the house, up in a skybox with old teammates Charles Oakley and Will Perdue, and Bull-of-the-future (hopefully) Jay Williams. Lebron lit the joint up, "Jordanesque"-32pts, 10 assists, 6 rbs, 2 steals, 2 blocks. Could have racked up a dozen more points but decided to get his teammates involved early. (This kid is eighteen?) Late in the game, with the Bulls making a run, as NBA teams will do eventually, King James laced 'em up, dropped a couple of gorgeous jumpers, leaving the crowd awestruck, threw down some tenacious D, gorgeous shake 'n dunks, then calmly sank free throw after free throw. Pure poetry. (This kid is eighteen?) The heir apparent, perhaps, indeed.