thoughts on the Film...
You know...I must be one of the few who gets where Zorn is coming from. Zorn gives you little clues throughout the entire film, but...he never gives them all at once. He's like one of those wise masters in the old KungFu movies. If you have read many of the interviews (which most of you have) then yo know other insights into his thoughts on art. Here are just some key points to consider: *Zorn believes in HONESTY. He doesn't do things because they're different, he does things because they're honest. What's the difference between what Huermann did with this film and what Zorn did with the Naked City compositions? He didn't write those to be different. He wrote those because of the way he "felt" at that time. It was an honest move. So was Huermann's. Personally, I didn't like her being in so much of the film...but...that's who SHE is, and who are we to judge her honesty, and what she "felt" needed to be in the film? *The film opens with Zorn saying "Nobody knows who I am except my inner-circle...am I a quiet meditative person, or an angry, obnoxious son of a bitch?" So...the point here is...he may love the film, he may merely respect Huermann's efforts and artistic license that she took with the film...he also may just feel that there's enough footage taken to represent his take on music and what others perceive about him. The point is...only Zorn knows. And seeing that it has been issued and released on his label...its kinda like this list is disemboweling his artistic integrity for releasing it, since the majority dislike the film. If artists like Zorn were to EVER cater to whatever the public wanted...then they wouldn't be who they are...they would be as guilty as every other bubble-gum pop sensation a la Britney Spears. So, let's let the artists be who THEY are...not whom we want them to be. *In an interview Zorn has been famously quoted as saying "I'm not concerned with the way things sound...as much as how they 'work'." This is a classic point to bring up in this debate about the film. Perhaps this reason alone is one of the reasons he took a liking to this film. Perhaps he didn't care as much about what all the film was saying...but how it was being presented. (i.e. lecture footage, sure...but seeing it through a monitor, from your own tv monitor...the fact that he used filecards to create various albums, and that she was documenting a file card composer with file cards...its kinda like those pictures you see of a person standing within a mirror of another mirror within another mirror. So maybe he was just impressed with the way the film "worked". *As one listed earlier...Zorn says...this film must go out and take a life of its own. When he writes something, Frisell would put his weird twist on it and it becomes something else. Zorn also says that parents make a similar mistake in that they raise a child to be something "they" want it to be, not let it go and make a life of its own. So...knowing that this film makes a little more sense. Also in the film, Zorn said...you can't wait for the support of others. You have to do your work, believe in your work, find a close friend-base that believes in you and your work, have "them" for support, and say "Fuck You!" to the rest of the world. Good advice. *Fact: Claudia Huermann's film is released on Tzadik records. Fact: many people on this list have been to www.tzadik.com. Fact: Many people have either forgotten or never bothered to read the quote at the bottom of the opening page that says "what you hear on Tzadik is the artist's vision...undiluted" Huermann's film was undiluted...who are we to say what is acceptable or not, or what the artist's vision "should have been"? *Lastly...Zorn is a man who's reputation and art thrives on the mysterious and the unknown. It's a pretty bold move to jump from duck calls to a Morricone album then to a 20th cent. classical album to a game piece, to an Ornette tribute to Naked City to Masada to Painkiller to the Gift to Electric Masada to IAO and everything in between and since. No one knows what his next move is...and that's what's so great about him and his art. The ever-changing and the unknown. But we respect his integrity and his vision....otherwise we wouldn't pour so much of our time, ears, and wallets into the Tzadik catalog. So...let's just chalk Huermann's film as the only current Zorn documentary, with an honest perspective from the "director's" point of view. And just knowing that whether we like ot or not...for better or worse...its honestly Huermann, and its her vision undiluted, and she has every right to say "Fuck You" to every one who doesn't accept, or enjoy her film. ----Nathan Holaway _________________________________________________________________ Dont just search. Find. Check out the new MSN Search! http://search.msn.click-url.com/go/onm00200636ave/direct/01/
Fuckin, rock on man. Brilliant piece of work. Couldn't agree more. It's all about the artist. Their story, their vision. The Tzadik vision. Anyone who's ever tried to produce something of their own knows that pressure to make it ACCESSIBLE or POPULAR. Everyone around you becomes an expert. 'You can't do that' or 'You have to do it this way, this is the way it's always been done' or 'You need a solid readership/ fanbase/ audience' blah blah blah. It takes real nerve, real balls of steel to put something out there that's going to alienate people, and that you believe in 110%. Teaches you things about your work & yourself. If there's one lesson to be drawn from Zorn & his success it's that compete artistic integrity has its rewards. In his case, global acclaim - which is a bit of a bonus - but there are other rewards. (I'm listening to the magnificent Jacques Brel right now on radio 3's Late Junction - another artist with total integrity.) Every Zorn fan had their own version of the film they thought Bookshelf was going to be, but Claudia Heuremann had the NERVE to release her own film - and as Mr Gottschalk's excellent interview on squid's ear showed, it wasn't the film she intended to make but the film that circumstances forced her to make. Another truth about art right there. c
Yeah, but. Is it really the artist's vision undiluted when she wanted something for her film and couldn't have it — because Zorn wouldn't give it to her? It's Heuermann's film insofar as she made the final edit, but Zorn made a big early cut. There's your artist's vision undiluted. William Crump
<< Every Zorn fan had their own version of the film they thought Bookshelf was going to be, but Claudia Heuremann had the NERVE to release her own film - and as Mr Gottschalk's excellent interview on squid's ear showed, it wasn't the film she intended to make but the film that circumstances forced her to make. Another truth about art right there. >> That's all very well, but does that mean we have to say the same thing every time something bad comes out? That the person had the NERVE to release it?
--- Julian <germtheory@optusnet.com.au> escribió: > <<
That's all very well, but does that mean we have to say the same thing every time something bad comes out? That the person had the NERVE to release it?
That summarizes what I've been trying to say here for a long time. If only I could say to my clients "Man, this was an awful translation, but I did it with great courage and integrity". Best, Efrén del Valle ______________________________________________ Yahoo! lanza su nueva tecnologÃa de búsquedas ¿te atreves a comparar? http://www.viralbusquedas.yahoo.es
Efrén del Valle <efrendv@yahoo.es> wrote: "That summarizes what I've been trying to say here for a long time. If only I could say to my clients "Man, this was an awful translation, but I did it with great courage and integrity". A bad translation is very much one thing, a bad piece of art entirely something else. The values that are used to judge each one are totally different. With art, values like integrity are crucial. Not so in translation. Simply because someone puts out a piece of work that you happen not to like does not a 'bad' piece of art make. That's about taste. Me gusta musica = Me it pleases music is a bad translation. I don't like "Radio" = "Radio" is a bad piece of art is nonsense. The 'nerve' is in bringing something completely new into the world, something that didn't exist before. It's about investing your time, effort, energy, money, and love into it, making untold sacrifices, and being prepared for a cadre of critics to come along and tell you how 'bad' they think your work is. Then continuing to do it all again. Sometimes you have to have the "fuck you" mentality. The road is littered with artists that gave up because they couldn't suffer the negativity that people like to hurl at artists. And unfortunately it's not always the ones who produce 'bad' art that crumble, either.
--- COLIN CLARK <colin.clark1@btinternet.com> escribió:
A bad translation is very much one thing, a bad piece of art entirely something else. The values that are used to judge each one are totally different. With art, values like integrity are crucial. Not so in translation.
This was just to exemplify how we tend to look at artists as if they were extraterrestrial entities. They are obviously made of a different pastry in most cases, but there's a big difference between "admiration" and "blind idolatry". You can consider this soccer player pure crap and no one will feel outraged, but never touch an artists' aura or you're a dead man. You not only need talent to paint or write music, but also for daily life things that remain underrated. Also, we (fans, critics, etc) seem to have tacitly set categories that establish which musicans and records are criticizable and which are not. Would you admit that you don't like "Kind of Blue" in public? We tend to forget that artists' also want to make a living, and they've chosen a way that can be unsuccessful or totally satisfying. Making a living includes earning some money. It irritates me like hell when some artists make me want to believe that they're in this just for the sake of art and that they hate stupid journalists that know nothing. Ask some of those "commited artists" to play for free at a benefit and you'll hear the most incredible excuses. If you add the fact that some of them firmly state that they don't care about their audience at all, my question is: Why don't they just stay at home and enjoy their art in their purest form? The answer is obvious. They want to make a living (which is something entirely respectable) and somehow, many of them want to have their work exposed Within this group, some will accept negative responses and some others will not, and that will probably turn you into an ignorant. This is what Derek Bailey said to Nick Cain about the subject: "Well, I always assume that the good reviews are written by intelligent, perceptive, keen-eared, decent likeable fellows who are a credit to their profession, and the bad reviews are written by tone-deaf, ignorant, corrupt, know-nothing motherfuckers who should stick to slicing salami, or whatever they do for a living." Despite the likely ironic tone of Bailey's reply, there's something inherently true about it, I'm completely sure.
Simply because someone puts out a piece of work that you happen not to like does not a 'bad' piece of art make. That's about taste.
That's very obvious and I insist, nobody said that.
It's about investing your time, effort, energy, money, and love into it, making untold sacrifices, and being prepared for a cadre of critics to come along and tell you how 'bad' they think your work is. Then continuing to do it all again.
Many people do that every single day of their lives with jobs that don't mean a thing to them and nobody kneels down in front of them. They just gotta eat. If we take that attitude maybe we'll have to revise our whole perception of things. Best, Efrén del Valle ______________________________________________ Yahoo! lanza su nueva tecnologÃa de búsquedas ¿te atreves a comparar? http://www.viralbusquedas.yahoo.es
Why don't they just stay at home and enjoy their art in their purest form? The answer is obvious. They want to make a living
...and, less cinically, because unexposed art isn't art. An artist who's never gonna show, present or somehow expose anything because he doesn't want to is simply not an artist even if he's the truest, has the best integruty and talent in the world. But what about the artists who don't make a living out of it and who are choosing it? Would you say, as I heard often from art historian or sociologist, that they are not artists just because they do have a day job to pay the bills? Olivier
At 3:00 PM -0400 7/28/04, Olivier Borzeix wrote:
...and, less cinically, because unexposed art isn't art. An artist who's never gonna show, present or somehow expose anything because he doesn't want to is simply not an artist even if he's the truest, has the best integruty and talent in the world.
So what are we to make of Duchamp's _Etant Donnés_, then? -- Maurice Rickard http://mauricerickard.com/ | http://onezeromusic.com/
Regarding Etant Donnes, what is your point exactly? I've seen it at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Is it really the case that Duchamp never wanted it shown? Seems unlikely. Even if that were true, there's a difference between concealing all of your art from all audiences and working on one piece for many years that you may or may not have wanted to show. Duchamp had plenty of other artworks out there for us all to see and his place in the art world was secured regardless of Etant Donnes. What I make of it is that it is an astounding, moving, disturbing piece of work, regardless of Duchamp's motivations, integrity or talent. Maybe a better example would be the work of Henry Darger? I don't know too much about him, but he seems to me to be a more likely candidate to be making art for himself. Rob Quoting Maurice Rickard <maurice@mac.com>:
At 3:00 PM -0400 7/28/04, Olivier Borzeix wrote:
...and, less cinically, because unexposed art isn't art. An artist who's never gonna show, present or somehow expose anything because he doesn't want to is simply not an artist even if he's the truest, has the best integruty and talent in the world.
So what are we to make of Duchamp's _Etant Donnés_, then? --
Maurice Rickard http://mauricerickard.com/ | http://onezeromusic.com/
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-- "Bones heal. Chicks dig scars. And the United States of America has the best doctor-to-daredevil ratio in the world." -Capt. Lance Murdoch
At 3:18 PM -0500 7/28/04, Robert Pleshar wrote:
Regarding Etant Donnes, what is your point exactly? I've seen it at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Is it really the case that Duchamp never wanted it shown?
Well, no. But he did work on it in secrecy for ~20 years during which he gave all the appearances of having "given up art" to play chess. I'd think his behavior during that time passes Olivier's "not artist" test, even though his activity during that time was clearly artistic activity. That's why I bring it up. -- Maurice Rickard http://mauricerickard.com/ | http://onezeromusic.com/
Robert Pleshar <rpleshar@midway.uchicago.edu> wrote: Maybe a better example would be the work of Henry Darger? I don't know too much about him, but he seems to me to be a more likely candidate to be making art for himself. Or Emily Dickinson. Interesting questions about the cultural capital value of art. Is it only art if someone buys it? (Or publishes it, or records it . . .) Come on. c
At 11:38 PM +0100 7/28/04, COLIN CLARK wrote:
Robert Pleshar <rpleshar@midway.uchicago.edu> wrote:
Maybe a better example would be the work of Henry Darger?
I'm not familiar with Darger's work, but I'll have to look up what's available.
Or Emily Dickinson.
Definitely a good example. Duchamp just came to mind first, but Dickinson is even more appropriate. -M -- Maurice Rickard http://mauricerickard.com/ | http://onezeromusic.com/
dunno what is Étant Donnés so I cannot comment on that... but if you're able to name it and talk about it it's because it reached you somehow. And as you thought I should know it it means it's pretty public. Olivier Le 04-07-28, à 15:13, Maurice Rickard a écrit :
At 3:00 PM -0400 7/28/04, Olivier Borzeix wrote:
...and, less cinically, because unexposed art isn't art. An artist who's never gonna show, present or somehow expose anything because he doesn't want to is simply not an artist even if he's the truest, has the best integruty and talent in the world.
So what are we to make of Duchamp's _Etant Donnés_, then? --
Maurice Rickard http://mauricerickard.com/ | http://onezeromusic.com/
Hi again, --- Olivier Borzeix <oborzeix@sympatico.ca> escribió:
dunno what is Ãtant Donnés so I cannot comment on that... but if you're able to name it and talk about it it's because it reached you somehow. And as you thought I should know it it means it's pretty public.
Yes, it's one of Duchamp's most famous works. Do you have Zorn's "Duras/Duchamp"? You can find it there if you look for it! Best, Efrén del Valle n.p: JZ "Filmworks VII" ______________________________________________ Yahoo! lanza su nueva tecnologÃa de búsquedas ¿te atreves a comparar? http://www.viralbusquedas.yahoo.es
You have to know that it's there or you may miss it. I've been to the museum many times, being a Philly native, and even to the Duchamp room several times, but it wasn't until the most recent trip (this summer) that I saw Etant Donnes. It was only because of a staff member of the museum that we got to see the work--which was the highlight of the trip. Zach -----Original Message----- From: zorn-list-bounces+zsteiner=butler.edu@mailman.xmission.com [mailto:zorn-list-bounces+zsteiner=butler.edu@mailman.xmission.com] On Behalf Of Olivier Borzeix Sent: Wednesday, July 28, 2004 3:39 PM To: Maurice Rickard Cc: Efrén del Valle; zorn-list@mailman.xmission.com Subject: Re: thoughts on the Film... dunno what is Étant Donnés so I cannot comment on that... but if you're able to name it and talk about it it's because it reached you somehow. And as you thought I should know it it means it's pretty public. Olivier Le 04-07-28, à 15:13, Maurice Rickard a écrit :
At 3:00 PM -0400 7/28/04, Olivier Borzeix wrote:
...and, less cinically, because unexposed art isn't art. An artist who's never gonna show, present or somehow expose anything because he doesn't want to is simply not an artist even if he's the truest, has the best integruty and talent in the world.
So what are we to make of Duchamp's _Etant Donnés_, then? --
Maurice Rickard http://mauricerickard.com/ | http://onezeromusic.com/
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Hi Zachary et. al., Yes - it's easy to miss if you don't know what to look for. You have to realize that you have to approach the wooden door in the room and peer through the holes. When I went there were many people around, and I expected there to be a queue to view Étant Donnés, but despite the people, no one was looking. I spent five or so minutes looking at the installation, and during that time no one queued up behind me. Maybe no one realized it was there. When I passed by later, no one was looking either. On completely different note, I once spent several minutes 'appreciating' a dirty outline of a rectangle on a gallery wall (at Los Angeles County Museum of Art) before realizing that the 'real' art was missing (removed for some reason or another), and I was looking at the shadow of dirt that had accumulated around the edges of the now-absent painting. -whit np - Charles Lloyd, some live show from 2000 On Wed, 28 Jul 2004, Zachary Steiner wrote:
You have to know that it's there or you may miss it. I've been to the museum many times, being a Philly native, and even to the Duchamp room several times, but it wasn't until the most recent trip (this summer) that I saw Etant Donnes. It was only because of a staff member of the museum that we got to see the work--which was the highlight of the trip.
Zach
-----Original Message----- From: zorn-list-bounces+zsteiner=butler.edu@mailman.xmission.com [mailto:zorn-list-bounces+zsteiner=butler.edu@mailman.xmission.com] On Behalf Of Olivier Borzeix Sent: Wednesday, July 28, 2004 3:39 PM To: Maurice Rickard Cc: Efrén del Valle; zorn-list@mailman.xmission.com Subject: Re: thoughts on the Film...
dunno what is Étant Donnés so I cannot comment on that... but if you're able to name it and talk about it it's because it reached you somehow. And as you thought I should know it it means it's pretty public.
Olivier
Le 04-07-28, à 15:13, Maurice Rickard a écrit :
At 3:00 PM -0400 7/28/04, Olivier Borzeix wrote:
...and, less cinically, because unexposed art isn't art. An artist who's never gonna show, present or somehow expose anything because he doesn't want to is simply not an artist even if he's the truest, has the best integruty and talent in the world.
So what are we to make of Duchamp's _Etant Donnés_, then? --
Maurice Rickard http://mauricerickard.com/ | http://onezeromusic.com/
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-whit np - Charles Lloyd, some live show from 2000 i saw charles lloyd earlier this year and he was great, although john abercrombie was kind of boring. geri allen on piano and some really young guy on drums. don't recall bass. anyway, one of the best things about the show were lloyd's raps between tunes. he's still totally cosmic, and told a really funny story about taking acid with jimi hendrix at the grateful dead's compound (or maybe kesey's). i guess hendrix ate a ton, and they both ended up spending the evening hiding under a table. any such stories on your tape, whit? sean
Hi Sean Unfortunately, no in-between banter at all. Maybe it was edited out...? -whit On Thu, 29 Jul 2004, Sean Westergaard wrote:
-whit np - Charles Lloyd, some live show from 2000
i saw charles lloyd earlier this year and he was great, although john abercrombie was kind of boring. geri allen on piano and some really young guy on drums. don't recall bass. anyway, one of the best things about the show were lloyd's raps between tunes. he's still totally cosmic, and told a really funny story about taking acid with jimi hendrix at the grateful dead's compound (or maybe kesey's). i guess hendrix ate a ton, and they both ended up spending the evening hiding under a table.
any such stories on your tape, whit?
sean
The 'nerve' is in bringing something completely new into the world, something that didn't exist before.
What world are you talking about? Are you really believing in that? How can you (or anyone) say "This has never been done before"? Why should you (we) care about this anymore? The obsessive will for novelty in art is the worst part of occidental megalomaniac psyche.... Novelty is always a matter of context, perception, levels of appreciation... therefore it doesn't exist in culture or art. I'd say that "challenging" is a far more appropriate word to qualify what you (and so many others) call "new"... I find this word is more true to the contextual relationship of art and the environment it's received in. When Duchamps brought an "Urinoire" everybody some screamed of disgust others of genius, and now we take this event as a novelty of it's time, well it was certainly a challenge to established ways of exposing art or art itself but only in the given context of early twentieth century occident. I guess we're still trapped in dated formalism and this exclusively linear way of seeing time is leaving us thinking that novelty is criterion for art criticism. Olivier
Hi Olivier I mean that before the film was made, it didn't exist. I'm not saying it's 100% original, and I'm not talking about novelty, you know, just that she made it. It is an act of creation. Which is on a different planet from criticism. I get where you're coming from with our culture's "obsessive will for novelty", but it's a different place from where I'm coming from. For me it still takes guts to make something, to create something. In the context of our western civilisation where it's absolutely cool to buy things & to subscribe to lists like this which fetishize consumer products like CDs (like the recent "how big is you CD collection" strand!), it's too easy to diss the makers, the artists, because they make something we don't happen to like. c
Hi, --- Olivier Borzeix <oborzeix@sympatico.ca> escribió:
The 'nerve' is in bringing something completely new into the world, something that didn't exist before.
The obsessive will for novelty in art is the worst part of occidental megalomaniac psyche.... Novelty is always a matter of context, perception, levels of appreciation... therefore it doesn't exist in culture or art.
I might be wrong, but I think he didn't say "new" in the sense of "avantgarde" or "advanced". Simply something that didn't exist before and now is available for enjoyment or distaste. At least that's what I understood. Otherwise, I'm afraid we would be restarting the doomed, cyclic, endless "innovative/non-innovative" thread. Best, Efrén del Valle ______________________________________________ Yahoo! lanza su nueva tecnologÃa de búsquedas ¿te atreves a comparar? http://www.viralbusquedas.yahoo.es
Hi, --- Nathan Holaway <jazzdecheshire78@hotmail.com> escribió:
You know...I must be one of the few who gets where Zorn is coming from.
Hmmm... Could be...
Zorn gives you little clues throughout the entire film, but...he never gives them all at once. He's like one of those wise masters in the old KungFu movies.
Do you really think that Zorn doesn't give it all away? In which sense? Have you read his liner notes? I'm pretty sure you have. Doesn't that list on "Radio" give it all away? And a piece entitled "Duras", is that so cryptic? I have always thought that Zorn, at least in terms of influences, is pretty straightforward, and influences are critical to his work, imho. Besides his secrecy about Cobra and the other game pieces, I can't think of too many mysteries about his persona, to tell you the truth. Or maybe I just care about the music.
*Zorn believes in HONESTY. He doesn't do things because they're different, he does things because they're honest. What's the difference between what Huermann did with this film and what Zorn did with the Naked City compositions? He didn't write those to be different. He wrote those because of the way he "felt" at that time. It was an honest move.
How do you know everything's an honest move? I probably think just like you, but I'd be glad to know the reasons for such an statement. So was
Huermann's. Personally, I didn't like her being in so much of the film...but...that's who SHE is, and who are we to judge her honesty, and what she "felt" needed to be in the film?
If we all thought like this, this list would be dead from the very beginning. I'll always defend the fact that non-artists (or non-publicly at least) have the same right to speak their mind about anything as artists do. This has been discussed one hundred times here, but I still get the feeling that a musician must be considered beyond the realms of the average human being, which is ridiculous. Of course, they're probably more creative than me, etc... but I think that most of the people from this list can tell the difference between a good album and a complete piece of shit even if they've never picked up a saxophone or written a Sonata for piano. What do you do when you get out of the movies? Don't you comment on what you've just seen? Do you need to know about lightning to perceive that the movie was too dark or whatever? Furthermore, nobody's questioning Heuermann's honesty or courage, but the final results themselves, and there seems to be a consensus that "Bookshelf" could have been better, to say the least.
If artists like Zorn were to EVER cater to whatever the public wanted...then they wouldn't be who they are...they would be as guilty as every other bubble-gum pop sensation a la Britney Spears. So, let's let the artists be who THEY are...not whom we want them to be.
The problem is that certain artists can't stand getting negative reviews or comments about their work, even if they're made in a constructive way (which they can be, believe me) Saying you don't like this or that album makes you an ignorant to those people's eyes, which is obviously quite irritating. Zorn's always talking about how he prefers to talk to an artist than to a journalist. That's totally respectable unless you start reading between the lines and smell the cornful air of it all.
This is a classic point to bring up in this debate about the film. Perhaps this reason alone is one of the reasons he took a liking to this film. Perhaps he didn't care as much about what all the film was saying...but how it was being presented.
Or maybe he didn't even care about that. Perhaps he thought "Man, this could sell well. There are people eager for this stuff out there" Is that possible? Remember why he still plays with the Masada Quartet every once in a while? Remember why he likes playing in Europe? I've got nothing against that, but as honesty and integrity go, let me question it.
*As one listed earlier...Zorn says...this film must go out and take a life of its own. When he writes something, Frisell would put his weird twist on it and it becomes something else. Zorn also says that parents make a similar mistake in that they raise a child to be something "they" want it to be, not let it go and make a life of its own.
If he's so convinced about that, maybe he shouldn't give advices to Heuermann to be coherent with his theoretical convictions.
So...knowing that this film makes a little more sense. Also in the film, Zorn said...you can't wait for the support of others. You have to do your work, believe in your work, find a close friend-base that believes in you and your work, have "them" for support, and say "Fuck You!"
"Fuck you" to whom? To those who don't like your work? Does he care about what the others think or not? Does he only care about what other musicians have to say maybe? (That would make sense to me)
*Fact: Claudia Huermann's film is released on Tzadik records. Fact: many people on this list have been to www.tzadik.com. Fact: Many people have either forgotten or never bothered to read the quote at the bottom of the opening page that says "what you hear on Tzadik is the artist's vision...undiluted"
Heuermann's vision was to make a movie in close collaboration with John Zorn, including in-depth interviews, live & studio footage, etc, but the composer let her down halfway through the film. That's an awful gesture from Zorn, in my opinion, particularly considering how much he "loves" artistry. Tzadik is my favorite label by far, but this time I think that the artist's vision has been more than diluted, I'd rather say amputated. Huermann's film was
undiluted...who are we to say what is acceptable or not, or what the artist's vision "should have been"?
Again, no one says what the movie should have been like. Some of us HAVE mentioned aspects of the film we don't like, as plain as that.
So...let's just chalk Huermann's film as the only current Zorn documentary, with an honest perspective from the "director's" point of view. And just knowing that whether we like ot or not...for better or worse...its honestly Huermann, and its her vision undiluted, and she has every right to say "Fuck You" to every one who doesn't accept, or enjoy her film.
Do those who have been saving money for the whole month to buy that expensive Dvd have the right to say "Fuck You" too? Best, Efrén del Valle n.p: JZ "Masada: Live in Middleheim" (Tzadik) ______________________________________________ Yahoo! lanza su nueva tecnologÃa de búsquedas ¿te atreves a comparar? http://www.viralbusquedas.yahoo.es
Do those who have been saving money for the whole month to buy that expensive Dvd have the right to say "Fuck You" too?
well first, nobody forced anyone to buy any DVD or CD, it was your choice to buy, and your expectations that were not met. So to say "Fuck You" or "complete piece of shit" and "HATED" is not at all apropriat. This is not really to you Efrén, but some formulations regarding Heuerman and her film where a bit harsh on this list. As for my sake, i didn't intend to buy the DVD and will not buy it. I haven't seen it. I will not see it. arthur
Hi,
well first, nobody forced anyone to buy any DVD or CD, it was your choice to buy, and your expectations that were not met. So to say "Fuck You" or "complete piece of shit" and "HATED" is not at all apropriat.
Politeness plays a major role in these things, I agree with that. However, if an artist who's getting his work exposed is not ready for criticism he has two options: retiring to a cave in the mountains or getting used to people's opinions. As such, they're not so dangerous: they're subjective and, fortunately, ever-changing, unless you're really stubborn, brainless and narrow minded.
This is not really to you Efrén, but some formulations regarding Heuerman and her film where a bit harsh on this list.
Sure, I generally try to keep certain qualifiers for more intimate environments. But let's be honest, sometimes, when we say "it's not my cup of tea" we're thinking something else. Best, Efrén del Valle ______________________________________________ Yahoo! lanza su nueva tecnologÃa de búsquedas ¿te atreves a comparar? http://www.viralbusquedas.yahoo.es
You have to do your work, believe in your work, find a close friend-base that believes in you and your work, have "them" for support, and say "Fuck You!"
"Fuck you" to whom? To those who don't like your work? Does he care about what the others think or not? Does he only care about what other musicians have to say maybe? (That would make sense to me)
In a pre-concert interview at Miller Theater (NYC), Zorn literally claimed that a great piece of art says "fuck you!" It's quite a different model than, say, art as "communication." He seems quite ready to offend or disappoint - as long as he is making himself happy first and foremost. (I wonder if any of his voluminous output makes him unhappy in retrospect. I wouldn't be surprised if he had trouble even remembering some of his projects.) Zorn is interesting and appealing because he does seem totally unfiltered and honest, and on the surface he seems to not care what anybody thinks. If you told him you couldn't stand a particular record he made he'd probably say something like "then don't listen to it." This is an appealing image of freedom - freedom for the artist, freedom for the audience. But of course, you have to be particularly successful or antisocial to *afford* this kind of freedom. HowEVER, he must care on some level when it comes to how he is represented as a person -- I would guess that all the controversy in the 80s with Asian-American groups had to have hurt him somehow. (And, given that mess, which ultimately I think was a bunch of PC shit, I don't blame him for being skittish.) In the film he says something to that effect, that an interview "is not him." (He's also said that his pieces are not him.) Who knows, maybe Heuermann faxed him one question that put up his defenses, and thus we have Bookshelf and not something else. Actually, Zorn is one of the few artists I really like who I'll personally forgive for not pleasing me. As for the film, Heuermann gave me enough to stay off my shit list, but I'm not going to start obsessively following her around either.
participants (13)
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Arthur Rother -
COLIN CLARK -
Dave Smey -
Efrén del Valle -
Julian -
Maurice Rickard -
Nathan Holaway -
Olivier Borzeix -
Robert Pleshar -
Sean Westergaard -
William Crump -
William W. Schonbein -
Zachary Steiner