CollisionWorks

A message sent from Berit and I to the Gemini CollisionWorks email list, crossposted here for those few who might be reading here who didn't hear about this some other way . . .

HEY FOLKS!

Ian W. Hill and Berit Johnson are not only the respective Arts and Crafts of Gemini CollisionWorks, we are also the co-Technical Directors of The Brick, the best, scrappiest, most wonderful little Off-Off-Broadway theatre in NYC (can you tell we love our theatrical home?).

Every year, we get the month of August at The Brick to put up whatever we want. And, believe me, you'll be getting more emails soon regarding our four shows coming up this year, all designed and directed by Ian W, Hill -- A Little Piece of the Sun by Daniel McKleinfeld, George Bataille's Bathrobe by Richard Foreman, Blood on the Cat's Neck by Rainer Werner Fassbinder, and an original stage/video art work by IWH and David Finkelstein of Lake Ivan Performance Group. So, we'll be asking for your attention for (and tax-deductible contributions towards) those shows in the near future.

But first, we're asking for some support for the theatre that is our home and which we love . . .

Tomorrow night, May 2nd, The Brick is holding a benefit ball at Galapagos in DUMBO. In keeping with the theme of our upcoming Summer Festival -- The Antidepressant Festival -- which combines both ideas of being anti- personal depression as well as anti- Economic Depression -- we are creating . . .

THE BRICK'S SHANTYTOWN BALL

Come as a flapper! Come as a hobo! Come as whatever you want, but please, if you can, come! The more people, the more fun (as well as the more benefit for The Brick). 8 pm to 3 am!

Free beer and 2-for-1 drinks from 8 to 10 pm! Raffle tickets and great prizes! Games! Live music!

Too much to go into here -- read more about it at the above link, or at the Facebook page we've created for it.

Only $20 if you buy your tickets in advance HERE and use the code EARLYBIRD when buying! (and advance buying helps us a LOT in being sure we have the supplies we need, so if you can . . .)

We hope to see you there, and at the Festival, AND, of course, at at least one of our four August shows!

best

Ian W. Hill, Arts
Berit A. Johnson, Crafts
Gemini CollisionWorks
co-Technical Directors, The Brick

Had the first reading of Trav S.D.'s Kitsch, Or Double Dutch Dumbkopfs (he's changed the subtitle) last night at Theater for the New City, with a cast of 14 taking on all the parts (the final show will need another 4 to 6 actors maybe). Went quite well, for the most part, showing us that the show will work, but still needs some work and rethinking in both the text and casting. Trav and I will have our differences on both, I know, but hopefully we'll work it out without a lot of problems.

Trav sent me his notes this morning, and I don't necessarily agree with them, but I see his point, which is as good. It's actually very very nice being a hired hand as a director for a strong writer/producer, as my function becomes very very clean, clear, and defined: how do I best serve this text, with these actors, in this space? I have to answer this question with my own shows, of course, but messier questions of "why?" come up in regards to all of these issues that I don't have to answer in a gig like this, I just have to do a pure craft job, which is nice sometimes.

First reading tomorrow of the Fassbinder play, Blood on the Cat's Neck, with most of the cast. As I lose one, somewhat central, cast member for most of May, I wanted to be sure to get a little work in on it right away. Nothing then until a first reading of George Bataille's Bathrobe on Thursday, if I can finish off some of the casting on that in time.

And I'm looking to get some last work in on the project with David Finkelstein this and/or next weekend as well before my rehearsal schedule puts that project on hiatus until September or so.

So, the year of shows has been ramping up fairly suddenly, and has begun involving actors in rehearsal rooms. Here we go.

And here's a Random Ten for Friday out of 25,527 tracks in the iPod (with educational links):

1. "The Big Time" - The Tammys - Girls Will Be Girls Vol.1
2. "Creation" - The Image - Prae-Kraut Pandemonium vol. 11
3. "Inertia!" - The Hustlers - Surf Legends (And Rumors)
4. "Embodiment Of Evil" - Meat Puppets - Up On The Sun
5. "Tryin' To Get To Heaven (live, October 5, 2000, London, England)" - Bob Dylan - The Bootleg Series, Vol. 8: Tell Tale Signs
6. "Bad Habits" - The Monks - Bad Habits
7. "Birds Eye View" - Tony Barber - Oceanic Odyssey Volume 12
8. "Stuff Up The Cracks" - Frank Zappa & The Mothers Of Invention - Cruising With Ruben And The Jets
9. "I Like To" - Men At Work - Cargo
10. "Raining Raining" - Nick Lowe - Nicks Knack

And for cat blogging, nothing new, just some leftovers from the last shoot, but still representative of the home -- Moni's still in the space helmet for another few days, and not too happy about it . . .

Though she and Hooker and been extra affectionate with each other and us, which keeps making us wonder if something's wrong, or they're just reacting to getting some soft food every day, which they usually don't.

Moni still likes to look out at the birds outside, cone or no cone . . .

I still have two pieces in writing progress coming up here soon - one on the work with David (though I'm tempted to hold off on that until this "season" of work is done and I can think about the whole time) and a bit of the novel I've been writing for 25 years (as of this month) in homage to the late Mr. J.G. Ballard, who was inspirationally responsible for me continuing to work on it.

So, more soon . . .

Just found out from the great website Destructible Man, a place for the scholarly study of "the dummy death in cinema" (really!) run by The Flying Maciste Brothers, that one of the greatest photographers in all of film, Mr. Jack Cardiff passed away today at the age of 94.

The Maciste Bros' tribute is HERE, with the promise of more to come.

Cardiff began his career in film in the 1910s (as an actor, then clapper boy), and was STILL working as a DP as of two years ago!

He shot close to 75 films (and directed a few, including some good ones, notably Sons and Lovers), but will probably be best remembered and loved for his glorious camera work on the Powell and Pressburger films (three of my very favorites) A Matter of Life and Death, Black Narcissus, and The Red Shoes.

He also shot Hitchcock's Under Capricorn and John Huston's imitation Powell/Pressburger film The African Queen, and many other great films of that period. However, his career extended all the way to shooting such films as Death on the Nile, Ghost Story, Cat's Eye, Conan the Destroyer, and Rambo: First Blood Part II!

The man knew and loved film, and knew and loved light. He was a master, and he was a worker.

Sorry if you read this when it crossposts on my Facebook notes page, where the videos don't show up, but you can always come over to the blog, if interested enough. Here's 6 minutes of a TV profile of Cardiff, with a number of clips (unfortunately, part 2 seems to not be posted, dammit):

And, though it's a crime to reduce Cardiff's gorgeous work to a 480x385 pixel low-res YouTube reproduction (especially if you've been lucky enough to see any of these films in an actual dye-transfer 35mm print), even in this tiny form, amazingly, you get enough of a taste of his work, so here's the classic climactic sequence from Black Narcissus featuring Deborah Kerr and Kathleen Byron (SPOILERS, if you care):

And here's the opening to A Matter of Life and Death, with David Niven and Kim Hunter:

RIP Mr. Cardiff.

J.G. Ballard, from an interview conducted 10/29/82 with Andrea Juno and V. Vale for RE/SEARCH issue #8/9, published 1984:

So where will the next breakthrough come? It’s impossible to say – there may not be another one! . . .

That’s my big fear, actually. I was talking to my kids and some of their friends, all of whom are in their early 20s, and I was saying that if, as a science fiction writer, you ask me to make a prediction about the future, I would sum up my fear about the future in one word:

boring. And that’s my one fear: that everything has happened; nothing exciting or new or interesting is ever going to happen again . . . the future is just going to be a vast, conforming suburb of the soul . . . nothing new will happen, no breakouts will take place. It could happen – that’s what my fear is. I don’t know what one does about that – opens a vein or something – I mean in the sense of suicide . . .

Here are a few somewhat random videos seen recently that I wanted to share . . .

The Firesign Theatre (well, three of them - this was during a period without David Ossman) does the J-Men Forever treatment again on an old movie serial, transforming some of the Commando Cody epic Radar Men from the Moon into "The Last Handgun on Earth":

Continuing the "gun" theme, an animated flash video by David Lynch for a new instrumental by Moby, "Shot In the Back of the Head":

Continuing the "animation" theme, an early piece of animation by The Church of the SubGenius' Rev. Ivan Stang back when he was still Douglas St. Clair Smith, "Reproduction Cycle Among Unicellular Life Forms Under the Rocks Of Mars" (very influential on me when I was doing some clay animation at NYU):

And on the "Art School" theme, Father Guido Sarducci explains why YOU should become an artist in this promo for the San Francisco Art Institute:

And on the . . . uh, I dunno . . . "jobs" theme, maybe (I'm stretchin' it here to make the conceit work, I know), here's a German film about safety in the workplace, containing that fine sense of German humor we all know so well. Some places list this film as a "parody" of instructional safety films, which it somewhat is (it's more one made with humor and to be over-the-top), but it's actually used in classes and workplaces -- please meet "Staplerfahrer Klaus" (that is "Forklift Driver Klaus") on his first day of work:

And just jumping themes completely, here are two videos of cute cats, one a tough little kitten, the second, a cat just back from the vet and still coping with being sedated:

Hey, so, new Devo album coming out later this year! First new studio album since Smooth Noodle Maps, which I remember buying during my last term of college (that is, in 1990, ye gods).

No idea how good it's going to be (Devo, though one of my favorite bands, very rarely made a fully great start-to-finish album, though their great tracks would fill up several), but we now have a first track (single? are they even called that anymore?).

And here it is, "Don't Shoot, I'm a Man!":

Devo fanatics may remember that the orange-safety "Don't Shoot, I Am a Man" vest (as worn by Devo/Toni Basil/David Bowie backing dancer Spazz Attack) was first featured in a film shown to audiences at Devo live shows in the late '70s, where General Boy would guide the potentially devolved on proper attire for the modern urban mutant and spudboy or spudette. These are indeed REAL vests worn by hunters in hopes of not getting plugged by other drunk hunters in the woods on a weekend shootfest.

I looked for one of these vests to wear around NYC (or at least to punk shows) for years, but they seemed to have stopped making them with the words on them by the mid-'80s (I once went into the hunting gear room at L.L. Bean's in Freeport, Maine looking for one and was nearly blinded by a big room full of glowing orange vests and parkas). I just looked them up online however, and found that a Dick Cheney appearance was once greeted by protesters wearing "Don't Shoot, I'm Human" vests (I guess in the intervening years female hunters pushed for a gender-neutral version).

In any case, good to have the spudboys back, with a song and video that is definitely classic-style Devo, if not an instant classic in either case. I'd have loved to include some of the wonderfully disturbing original Devo videos here, but it looks like Warner Bros. has made sure that none of them are on YouTube, so here's something a little more rare, Toni Basil, backed by Devo (on the track, not in the video), performing their song "Be Stiff," from her album Word of Mouth (Devo backed her on two other songs of theirs on the album as well):

Well, here we are, Friday again, and I'm back with what has become a "necessary" once-a-week update.

There's been some rethinking going on, it would appear, in some of the other theatre blogs, with the writers doing some self- and soul-searching about "why am I doing this?" or "what am I trying to say?" or "have I run out of things to say?" or some such. That's not going on here. I know what I'm doing and what this blog is about, even if I'm not doing much of it right now. I'm just being . . . I dunno . . . lazy, perhaps? At least about taking on certain subjects to blog about.

I have many ideas each week as to things to write about here, but the more I think about any of these ideas, the more they grow out of control and I realize I'd be looking at having to write an actual united essay rather than a loose confederation of interesting thoughts and concepts, and I don't feel I'll get out of the writing enough useful data versus the energy I'd put into it.

The purpose of this place is to be a running account of someone who is making Art-stuff and thinking about it and how the more airy nothings of abstract thought about the work become practicalities in the real world of actually nailing these delicate pieces of creation into being, often with clumsy, rudimentary tools. Including running accounts of what things feed the process of learning about and making these things - other art, music, words, thoughts that come in and change or expand the mindset (with the additional thought that writing about these things may clarify for me what they mean to me and how I can use them in my own work).

Now, as it's been months since direct work has been happening on most of my own work, these thoughts have been somewhat in hibernation. I've been focusing a lot on input, but haven't had much to let go with about what I've been taking in.

But as my "season" of shows -- that is, the four August shows I'll be producing/designing/directing plus the show for Trav S.D. I'm directing in November -- swings into actual production, I think the energy to write about the process (and related issues) will return somewhat.

First thing of note with the August shows is that I've postponed Spacemen from Space until next year and replaced it with a new, smaller show (currently and very-definitely-working-titled BBQ). Spacemen was just becoming too damned big to do in rep with the three other shows -- it needed a cast of 22, lots of costumes, props, projections, and set pieces, plus I'd only barely begun writing it and wasn't sure if I was on the right track, tonally (it's a hard line to walk, being both pastiche-parody and social satire at the same time). When I do a month of four shows, I think only one of them can be an immense, two-act work, and this year that slot is taken by A Little Piece of the Sun. Also, I was writing the show with a lot of specific actors in mind that I wanted to be in it, and many of them couldn't do it this year, and replacing them would involve a large auditioning process I don't have time for.

BBQ is a smaller piece that comes out of the work I'm doing with (and at the suggestion of) David Finkelstein. David and I have been doing our improv work on an almost weekly basis recently, which he has been videotaping for transformation into video-art pieces -- something he has been doing for years with several different performing partners. I'll be going into more detail about our work soon -- I wasn't sure if David wanted me to write about it publicly until last week, but he has suggested I do so. His own posts about his work can be found HERE at the Improvisation Forum on his Lake Ivan website, which includes, as the last few posts, some of David's notes to me on the work we're doing.

From the work we've done so far -- five videotaping sessions after several weeks of learning the process and rehearsing -- several good "pieces" have emerged (as David has noted, and I agree, all of the work we've done would probably be interesting in a theatrical context, even when we're not at our best, but only certain improvs, when videotaped, become interesting fodder for David to make a video piece from).

David thought one piece we created together thus far was worth working on for his purposes, and suggested that it might be interesting if I transcribed the improvised text we spoke and used it as the text of a theatre piece I would create, which could run on a double bill with the video that he would be creating. I very very much took to this idea, and when it became apparent that SFS couldn't go on this year, I turned to this as a workable alternative, as I have been determined that in my month of shows I present each August, one of them at least had to be an original play (in this case, co-original, but that counts).

So in the piece of video David is working on, he and I keep using a lot of imagery related to barbeques and sacrifices, so we've just been calling it Barbeque and Sacrifice as a placeholder name (I assume), but it's become BBQ on all my scheduling documents, so that's what it is for me right now. Right now I have the show down for 7 performances in August, but I'm hoping to maybe get another 2 in. David notes that it usually takes a few months longer than he would have to make up a final version of one of his videos (they involve many, many layers of complex, computer-created imagery, plus an original score), but it's probably possible to have a "first draft" video ready to be used, which is fine.

Ah, yes, I just mentioned scheduling . . . I sent out a first draft of the proposed rehearsal schedules for the other three shows -- A Little Piece of the Sun by Daniel McKleinfeld, George Bataille's Bathrobe by Richard Foreman, and Blood on the Cat's Neck by Rainer Werner Fassbinder -- to the actors cast right now (Piece is fully cast; Blood is missing one person and I'm waiting for someone I want to decide yea or nay; Bathrobe is missing three people, two of whom I'll have to do an audition call for, still). More conflicts coming in, and a second draft will have to be made and sent out by Monday. Not too bad, though, not like last year, which was a nightmare of scheduling. So we're moving forward on those fronts. I have to remind myself, so I'll do it here, to email Mr. Foreman and mention I'm planning on doing a play of his this year and just check to be sure he's okay with it and can send me the letter I'll need for the Equity Showcase forms (Richard's never seemed to care too much about me just deciding to go ahead and do a play of his, but well, I should check).

So, shows move forward. We have a first reading of Trav S.D.'s Kitsch in another couple of weeks, and it looks like we'll have a good cast for the reading that we might be lucky enough to keep around for the final production.

Also, I'm writing a new play -- David's improvisation technique has actually opened up the creative floodgates for me in a number of ways, and I'm using the process to write something called Fat Guy Fall Down. The basic "feel" of the play came to me while trying to get to sleep last week, and thinking of The Brick's upcoming Fight Festival, and wondering what kind of show I would do if I were to try and make something for that Festival (there's no chance in hell I'll have time to do anything for it this year, so I'll have to save the script for a future FightFest or just some other occasion). Once there's more to it, I'll post some of Fat Guy as it comes together. It's kinda nasty and seems to be an abstract intellectual discussion told through the medium of dirty little fistfights and bloody noses.

Meanwhile, back in the iPod, here's today's Random Ten from the the 25,299 tracks in there:

1. "Snakeface" - Throwing Muses - University
2. "The Under Assistant West Coast Promotion Man" - The Rolling Stones - Singles Collection: The London Years
3. "Dark as a Dungeon" - Johnny Cash - Unearthed
4. "Taboo" - The Cramps - Fiends of Dope Island
5. "Birthday" - Martin Mull - Normal
6. "Hot Plate Heaven At The Green Hotel" - Frank Zappa - Broadway The Hard Way
7. "Dust And Dogs" - Pere Ubu - Why I Remix Women
8. "I'm Not Here" - Syd Barrett - download
9. "No, No Cherry" - Frank Zappa - You Can't Do That On Stage Anymore, Volume 4
10. "LSD Blues" - The Golden Cups - Volume One

And three cat shots -- first, Hooker and Moni, once again, staring out the window . . .

From just a short time ago this morning, Hooker curled up against the sleeping Berit . . .

. . . while Moni sits on the nice warm radiator . . .

The damned cold that has held me for several weeks now seems to be loosening its grip quite a bit, though Berit is still in the midst of it. There are two shows I want to see that close in the next couple of days (Power at The Metropolitan Playhouse and Times:365:24:7 at The Brick), and I'm still deciding if I'm feeling able to sit through an extended piece of theatre without having an extended coughing fit, or causing great distress to myself by suppressing one.

I'm sure it will be fine when, next week, I get to see my first (yes, FIRST!) Wooster Group piece. I can't explain, to anyone's satisfaction, including my own, the silly and bizarre combinations of inner and external reasons that despite living here for 23 years, with plenty of opportunities, I've never seen any of LeCompte's work, but finally this important gap in my education will receive a tiny bit of filling . . .

Oh, man . . . a bad sick has taken hold of me, bit by nasty bit, this week. Starting with a cough on Sunday, adding weakness and wooziness on Wednesday, then nasal problems yesterday, and now general fuzziness of mind and cloudiness of judgment. Great.

And on top of it, I had to deal with doctor appointments for myself and both cats, and also getting my car towed and dealing with two days of bureaucracy and a trip out to Far East Brooklyn to get the car back, which was pretty awful, except Berit and I saw some some inspiringly depressing landscapes and architecture while walking the long, desolate distance between the bus stop and the car impound . . .

For recreation, there is at least a ball field nearby . . .

Here's a little more view, down Flatlands Avenue, for context . . .

A friendly-looking place to live, right . . ?

. . . which I'd love to try and find a use for in some Gemini CollisionWorks film/video project at some point, Maybe I can write off the whole towing incident on the company taxes as a location scout. If I was ever able to fulfill my dream project of making a film of Jeff Noon's great dystopian novel Vurt, changing the location from Manchester, England to Brooklyn, I now have some definite shooting locales.

Wednesday, during the day, Bryan Enk (co-creator), Timothy Reynolds (set supervisor) and myself had to have a PRE-pre-tech for this weekend's FINAL episode of the Penny Dreadful serial at The Brick (and by the way, for those of you getting caught up online, the video for Episode 11 is now posted).

It's a complicated, double-sized episode, and we have a HARD changeover from the mainstage show up at The Brick right now (Times:365:24:7, which I hear is great and is getting pretty good reviews), so we have had to plan everything out carefully. That night, we ran the show and worked out kinks, but I had to leave after Act I (which ends with the scene I directed) as my illness was getting the better of me.

Today we had our standard pre-tech, setting the light and sound cues without the actors, so that hopefully at least 85% of the work is done before the brief time we have tomorrow to run the show with full dress/tech and make corrections. As has happened at least once before, we couldn't do the whole show in the time we had today, only about 3/4ths of it, so we're going to have to run the first act as planned tomorrow, send everyone off on a longer lunch break while we finish the tech for Act II, then come back and run the rest of the show (it'd be nice if we could call everyone later and finish before they show up, but we lose actors who are only in the first act at 1.00 pm).

At least the show is looking a lot better than I feared it would. The difficulty with Penny, always, has been that I'm stuck using the light plot that's up for the Brick's mainstage show for each episode. Sometimes, I get lucky (my light plot for The Granduncle Quadrilogy, which I didn't plan in any way to work for Penny, actually may have been better for the latter than the former). Times:365:24:7 uses The Brick (terrifically) in a very different, environmental way than usual, which means I don't have very many lights pointed at out stage area (which is where our seating area normally is, and vice versa). Somehow, though, it all worked out, and with the addition of the footlights I'm sharing with the mainstage company, it's actually looking pretty much up to Penny standard.

It's sad leaving Penny and its cast of characters behind, but it's been a good long run since November, 2007, and the story has run it's predestined course. If you are interested in seeing it and you don't have tickets, better get 'em now -- tomorrow night's 11.00 pm show is sold out, and the two shows on Sunday (2.00 pm and 8.00 pm) have between 10 and 15 seats left, and we CAN'T oversell with the setup for the show. And be prompt, there is and can be NO late seating. The door will be locked, you can't get in once it's started. Even if you bought a ticket.

So, today's Random Ten, from 25,641 in the still-being-cleaned-out iPod (with related YouTube videos, where available) . . .

1. "Cry" - The Malibus - Leave Me Alone! - USA Garage Greats
2. "Debbie Debbie" - Gary Wilson - Mary Had Brown Hair (Stones Throw)
3. "I'm Drowning" - Flaming Groovies - Super Sneakers
4. "Right Now And Not Later" - The Shangri-Las - Myrmidons Of Melodrama
5. "Big Leg Mama" - Little Walter - The Chess Years 1952-1963
6. "Mind Control" - Z - Music for Pets
7. "Willingly" - The Shannon Sisters - A Million Dollars Worth of Girl Groups Volume 3
8. "Slippin' And Slidin'" - Little Richard - 18 Greatest Hits
9. "Back To Front" - Stiff Little Fingers - All The Best
10. "Hey, That's No Way To Say Goodbye" - Leonard Cohen - Songs Of Leonard Cohen

(and now Berit is making fun of me for dancing along to the arrhythmic John Zorn track that followed the 10 above, and says I'm "weird" because of it . . .)

And as for this week's cat photos . . . here's the babies posing in the window again . . .

Here's Hooker planning to once again chew on my Crocs, as they offend his fashion sense (but dammit they're the only things I can comfortably work in all damned day!) . . .

Here's Hooker confronting his nemesis - the squirty-water-bottle we use to drench him when he's being bad . . .

And yet another sweet windowsill pose . . .

Back to work on Penny tomorrow morning at 8.00 am. Oy.

Well, I can't say anything right now about this last one (no spoilers here), but it's a BIG ONE, and I assure all the fans out there it's a more fitting finale than the BSG one (or, for that matter, most double-length series finales).

Now to make some ziti with extra-hot sauce (courtesy the bottle of sriracha sauce I got) to try and keep burning the sick out of me . . .

Another week done gone by.

Work has slowed up a little bit on the August shows while I've been concerned with some other matters (and been a hair burned out from too much/too fast on those ones). I've been going over the script for the show I'm directing after the August ones, Trav S.D.'s Kitsch, Or: Two for the Price of One.

Trav has sent me a 109-page draft, but I have an older, 146-page version he gave me many years ago to look at (which he was surprised to discover I have, as he doesn't seem to have that version himself). So I'm going through both drafts and seeing if there's any little things in the long version I might want to reinstate, though Trav and I have agreed that shorter is better with this show (but we're going to put back in the songs, which were all cut from the short, and I've already caught one of my favorite jokes gone from the short version I'll ask Trav about putting back).

Trav and I visited the space at Theater for the New City where we'll be doing the show, and it was a revelation to me, as it was a huge space there that I didn't know even existed at TNC (I'd seen shows in another fairly large space at the rear that I had thought was "the big one," but nope). Probably the biggest room I've ever directed something in, which is good, as the script calls for (and should have) several two-level sets. Not sure if they have enough lights there, but we'll see. Now we have to set up a script reading just to hear the thing - probably not with the final cast, but we both need to hear this out loud ASAP.

More work on everything going on this weekend, including a work call at The Brick on Sunday morning to cover everything we can in the space for the insulation people who will be coming in to make our place more efficient all around this Sunday-Tuesday. A pain to deal with - especially right as a new show opens there this weekend - but it was the best time we had to take care of it, and it'll be done, and both the heat and cool will stay in better when we want them to from now on.

And I have to get back to finishing up the casting on George Bataille's Bathrobe and Blood on the Cat's Neck and writing more of Spacemen from Space.

Meanwhile, here's today's Random Ten, with associated links, from 25,806 in the iPod:

1. "Deixe em paz meu coração" - Brazilian Bitles - Antologia
2. "Widow's Walk" - Van Dyke Parks - Song Cycle
3. "Friends" - Robert Ashley - Dust
4. "See Emily Play" - Pink Floyd - The Pop Side of The Floyd 1967-1972
5. "Licking Stick-Licking Stick" - James Brown - Star Time
6. "Police Call - Stan Ridgway & Drywall - Work The Dumb Oracle
7. "Lordy Miss Lupe" - El Vez - How Great Thou Art
8. "The Giant Toad" - The Firesign Theatre - Dear Friends
9. "Lotta Boppin' (alternate version)" - The Rock-A-Teens - Woo-Hoo
10. "Something I've Got To Tell You" - Glenda Collins - It's Hard To Believe It: The Amazing World Of Joe Meek

As for the kitties, Hooker continues to enjoy lying on Berit and I while we're sleeping, as each of us discovers when we see the photos we alternatively take of this . . .

When we're awake, he likes to play-fight, which is more fun for him than for us, as he doesn't get bitten . . .

Last night the two of them curled up with me as I took a break from reading and movie-viewing . . .

And for most of today they've been curled up together on the couch, variously hugging, or napping, or cleaning each other, or a combo, like here . . .

Now back to cleaning out the iPod for a while . . .

More video posting . . . Talking Heads edition . . .

A point from an LJ friend led once again to spending too much time with old clips of the Heads. For some reason, there seems to be more interesting live footage of them from their early days available on YouTube than any of my other favorite bands (except maybe Roxy Music at times when their clips aren't being vanished).

Today's focus was the 1978 Heads live -- one album out, another about to come out, three years of playing live behind them, 26 (Byrne) to 29 (Harrison) years old, knowing EXACTLY what they want to do and FOCUSED.

I used to be especially fond of the even earlier, almost acoustic, mainly 3-piece Heads, or the final immense Big Band Heads and tended to ignore the '78-79 era (and the More Songs About Buildings and Food album), but that time may have been the best for the Heads as a unified statement, rich and undiluted.

From that year, in England, on The Old Grey Whistle Test, doing "Psycho Killer":

Two songs in the sunshine - "Warning Sign" and "Pulled Up" - from Sproul Plaza, Berkeley, CA:

Finally, courtesy of that point by imomus, a 12-song set in its entirety (brief pauses between songs as it loads), gloriously recorded on appropriately stark Sony Portapak video, from My Father's Place, Roslyn, NY, May 10, 1978 (and if this is indeed the complete set as advertised, it must be one of the 3 or 4 occasions on which the Heads didn't play "Psycho Killer" at a gig, though Tina flirts with the bass line a few times between songs):

Enjoy.