Music / Sad anniverary for the quiet Beatle

Today is the fifth anniversary of George Harrison's death, as I found out when NPR ran a sweet tribute to him this evening. Back when such things mattered, George was my favorite Beatle. Why do such things not matter anymore? I mean, really, is there any question that is more revealing than "Who is your favorite Beatle?" Sure, it's dated, but any rational, music-aware person should have one, and if they don't, well, that says a lot right there.

Here's a cheat sheet for what you can expect from the people you ask, based on very unscientific "research" ...

• If they say "Paul," you can expect some (mostly superficial) charm, and a liberal helping of cheesiness. People who like Paul tend to see Sgt. Pepper as the height of Beatle achievement, and they probably enjoy "Yellow Submarine" and "story songs" about Beatles characters like Eleanor Rigby more than "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" or "Norwegian Wood."


• If they say "John," you can expect seriousness, outward lefty politics, a love of "meaningful" songs, and perhaps a disdain for both cheesiness and Paul. People who like John, I would guess, simply didn't like Paul to begin with, or liked him until they heard "When I'm 64" one too many times, and then dug around to see who wrote the lyrics to "A Day in the Life."


• No one ever says "Ringo" in this day and age, and that's too bad. He's charming, a good sport, and (I think) not as bad a drummer as people seem to remember. I challenge you: Listen to "Rain" and tell me that Ringo is an insufferably bad drummer.


• George, finally, will always be the favorite of people who you want to know. He represents humility, first of all. He's never mugging in the movies, and mostly he looks somewhat like you or I would look if we were thrown into the Beatles commercial juggernaut in the early 60's. On the creativity side, he wasn't Lennon/McCartney, but his guitar sound was an integral part of the Beatles appeal. It's always tasteful, and he never tries to get all Eric Clapton on any song, which is why I -- for one -- can listen to roughly 50 Beatles songs for every Eric Clapton song. Finally, George's solo stuff was way better than either Paul's or John's, and his low profile is endearing in a world in which the faces of rock stars' are perpetually up in your grill.

Beatles, Taxman -- from Alternate Revolver
[audio:http://www.douglemoine.com/files/beatles-taxman-mono.mp3]
Lately, I've been listening to Alternate Revolver, a bootleg album of demoes from the Revolver sessions. George's first contribution to the Beatles' catalogue -- "Taxman" -- is on Revolver; it's not my favorite Beatles song, but it's a little more straightforward and rockin' than later George songs. Is it contradictory to commemorate an artist by listening to a pirated version of his/her work? Hmm. I'll venture a guess that George would appreciate it, so check out Alternate Revolver's mono mix of the song, and toast the quiet Beatle.

Art / Robert Irwin, BS, and the importance of questions

My nomination for All-Time Best Moment In An Art Documentary has to be the "Bullshit!" scene in Concert Of Wills: Making The Getty Center. Abstract-artist-turned-landscape-designer Robert Irwin literally calls bullshit on architect Richard Meier during an important Getty Center planning session. [The object of their disagreement is Irwin's garden design, pictured at right. Thx, brewbooks.]

Design Observer's Michael Bierut sums it up nicely in an article called "On (Design) Bullshit:"

The [Getty Foundation], against Meier's advice, has brought in artist Robert Irwin to create the Center's central garden. The filmmakers are there to record the unveiling of Irwin's proposal, and Meier's distaste is evident. The artist's bias for whimsical organic forms, his disregard for the architecture's rigorous orthonography, and perhaps even his Detroit Tigers baseball hat all rub Richard Meier the wrong way, and he and his team of architects begin a reasoned, strongly-felt critique of the proposed plan. Irwin, sensing (correctly, as it turns out) that he has the client in his pocket, listens patiently and then says, "You want my response?"

His response is the worst accusation you can lodge against a designer: "Bullshit."

If I recall correctly, Meier is speechless, and the mood of the documentary shifts quite significantly. Meier's personality and viewpoint had dominated (is "domineered" a word?) earlier scenes, he maintains a sort of icy distance in subsequent scenes. (Disclosure: While I respect Meier, I'm not a fan of his work, especially the Getty, and the documentary makes clear that he is, umm, a dick). Irwin, on the other hand, I've always loved, especially his dot paintings. I'm currently reading Lawrence Weschsler's biography of Irwin, Seeing Is Forgetting the Name of the Thing One Sees, and it contains some useful background and context to the "Bullshit!" scene. It also complicates it; the more I read, the more Irwin and Meier seem to have quite a lot in common. I'd always assumed that Irwin's vision was the irrational, organic counterpoint to Meier's rational, geometric forms. The book makes clear that Irwin has quite a lot of the rational geometry on the brain himself. Perhaps they were just too similar to get along.

A large portion of the book is dedicated to Irwin's discussion of his own process ... My favorite passage involves Irwin's explanations of the fits and starts that characterized his output, especially during the dot painting phase:

"Most of the time, I didn't have any idea where it was going; I had no intellectual clarity as to what it was I thought I was doing ... Maybe I was just gradually developing a trust in the act itself, that somehow, if it were pursued legitimately, the questions it would raise would be legitimate and the answers would have to exist somewhere, would be worth pursuing, and would be of consequence.

"Actually, during those years in the midsixties," he doubled back on his formulation, "the answers seemed to matter less and less: I was becoming much more of a question person than an answer person ... The thing that really struck me as I got into developing my interest in the area of questions," Irwin continued, "is the degree to which as a culture we are geared for just the opposite. We are past-minded, in the sense that all of our systems of measure are developed and in a sense dependent upon a kind of physical resolution. We tag our renaissances at the highest level of performance, whereas it's fairly clear to me that once the question is raised, the performance is somewhat inevitable, almost just a mopping-up operation, merely a matter of time."

Kansas basketball / Jitters, a jinx, and a stinging loss

Question: What happens when a young college basketball team without a proven low-post presence somehow manages to secure a high national ranking then faces a really hungry, experienced team? The Hawks found out two nights ago, getting their rear-ends tanned by an unheralded and obviously hungry Oral Roberts team.

Where does this rank among the hardest-to-swallow losses in recent memory? I don't want to go overboard here; it's not as crushing as the two NCAA Tournament early exits. It also wasn't as demoralizing as losing to K-State (at home) and Missouri (after leading by 7 with a little over a minute left) last year. It's most reminscent of the 2004 home loss to Richmond, when the entire sporting nation could turn on ESPN to see the Hawks implode on their home floor to a team that wasn't even playing that well. ESPN didn't carry the ORU game on Wednesday night, THANK GOD, but the loss rippled through the sports press in a way that always seemed to emphasize the Hawks simply failed to look, umm, good. SI said simply: "Oral Roberts outplayed No. 3 Kansas the whole way."

Question: How in the world does SI rank KU above a team like Florida, the defending national champions who returned every starter from last year? Did they want to avoid jinxing Florida for some reason? (SI added KU to its list of cover jinxes). Maybe they settled on this arrangement before Sasha Kaun got hurt, and before CJ Giles pulled a Lawrence Phillips and got himself kicked off the team?[1] Even so, how does any front line arrangement compete with Gator paint-dominators Al Horford and Joakim Noah? We'll find out soon enough, I guess, since the teams will meet a week from tomorrow in Vegas. Gulp.

[1] Wikipedia's abstract on Lawrence Phillips: "Lawrence Phillips (b. May 12, 1975 in Little Rock, Arkansas), is a former professional American football and Canadian football running back who has had numerous conflicts with law enforcement." Sorta says it all.

Art / Olafur Eliasson in the New Yorker

Two winters ago, I traveled to London for work. It was cold as hell, as a witch's tit, as the blood that runs in Dwyane Wade's veins during the fourth quarter. The sky was deep gray, hard, heavy and forbidding, and it felt as if it wasn't more than 10 or 12 feet above my head, ready to come crashing down at any moment.
One afternoon, in a jet-lagged haze, I wandered over to the Tate Modern, where it seems they always have some thought-provoking installation (for instance, Anish Kapoor's gigantic levitating horn which blew my mind for a while), and as I descended the ramp into the museum, I was struck by the absolute inversion of wintry, outdoor London. I took lots of photos, but none could really communicate the immersive aspect of Olafur Eliasson's work, called "The Weather Project." It was all reds and oranges, all warmth and mist, enveloping you in a happy, gauzy glow. Cynthia Zarin recently profiled Eliasson for the New Yorker, and she comments that the Weather Project cemented Eliasson's reputation in the art world ... (Unfortunately, I can't find a link to the article online, but by all means dig through back issues of the magazine at the laundromat, if you get a chance. The article provides interesting insight into Eliasson's process, and includes some funny anecdotes relating to his impulse to immerse the viewer in an environment. For instance, in mid-long-distance-phone-conversation with Cynthia Zarin, he places his cell phone on the luggage conveyer belt at the airport, lets it go around the carousel once, then picks it up and asks her what the experience was like. Hmm.).

Architecture / Front porches, refuge and prospect

Last summer, NPR did a series on one of my favorite architectural elements -- the front porch. An installment from late July covered the use of the porch in contemporary home-building, specifically in New Urbanist (wikipedia entry) developments, such as Seaside, Florida and other pseudo-quaint "towns". (More on my problems with New Urbanism another time).

The most intriguing part of the show, for me, was an allusion to the psychology of the home, and the fact that a large part of recent home-building has focused on the home as a fortress, a defensible space, rather than a vantage from which to observe and interact with the world. This was my introduction to the prospect-refuge concept; prospect representing the ability to survey the surrounding landscape, and refuge serving as a hideaway from the world. It's simplistic, but I like it and I believe it, insofar as I can believe any theoretical concept can describe the fundamental needs of everyday life. Universal Principles of Design has a good overview, with lots of interesting related material as well.