Anodyne: 09/01/2017 - 10/01/2017

"I would love to read the fling-but-never-serious partner’s accounting of their perfect love and where it diverges from her likely more unique take on reality."
- posted by cjb @ 11:12 PM

Time Out interviews Walter Becker, 2008.

The best interview with WB I've found, asking questions I would have asked.
- posted by cjb @ 10:57 PM

- posted by cjb @ 10:41 PM

- posted by cjb @ 10:36 PM

"We were just looking for any kind of road where the trees would give way to a view like this. My production designer David Wasco and his team wound up changing certain aspects of the location. They added these old-fashioned gas lamps that you see in movies like 'Singin’ in the Rain.' They added the bench and altered the shrubbery in certain cases so you get a more dramatic drop-off and suddenly see a vista. That meant adding some trees and shrubbery earlier so that the vista was blocked and we could withhold it and then reveal it at a dramatic moment."

[....]

"In this case, that involved adapting a dance that had been developed in a studio to a slanted hillside road full of potholes and dirt. Once we got on the location to actually shoot it, what we really needed to choreograph and rehearse was the camera. I think the third dancer in this number that you don’t see onscreen is the camera."
- posted by cjb @ 7:00 PM

- posted by cjb @ 12:03 PM

- posted by cjb @ 11:04 PM

This is the place, all right.
Kiss me.
Once we cross, it could all be different.
Let's go.
- posted by cjb @ 10:34 PM

Turns out I have actually stayed at "Richard & Linda's" AM motel, which is not in Odessa TX, but Palmdale CA, in the course of trying (& so far failing) to make pictures after Hockney's Pearblossom Hwy., 11 - 18th April 1986, #2 (1986) and Wall's Property Line (2015). So I may be seeing those old friends -- if not already back in the prop room beside La La Land's lamp post -- sooner rather than later.
- posted by cjb @ 10:05 PM

"It's possible some people don't like all of your pictures either, Christopher."
- posted by cjb @ 9:56 PM

CJB v. 2017 so far
- posted by cjb @ 7:12 PM

Men at tech fair molest £3,000 sex robot so much it’s left broken and ‘heavily soiled’

Pretty sure Plato has something to say about this in his Republic. But I prefer Gordon Cole's advice, which in the end is maybe not so far from Plato's: "Fix your hearts or die!"

I know I am supposed to be thrilled that shy or kinky men will soon be able to fuck what is basically a high-end Fleshlight, but my animism makes me think of everything as alive, & hence my reaction is not, "You go, guys!" but "the poor fuckin' robot," which then makes me wonder what it would have to say about its experiences at the Tech Fair, if it could.
- posted by cjb @ 6:29 PM

- posted by cjb @ 10:05 PM

"Two familiar friends outside the new motel."
- posted by cjb @ 9:17 PM

- posted by cjb @ 6:58 PM

Innocent eye test, 2017
- posted by cjb @ 8:32 PM

- posted by cjb @ 6:52 PM

- posted by cjb @ 3:50 PM

ACT (Aesthetically Claimed Thing): Jack Shadbolt, Urban Dream, 1991
- posted by cjb @ 10:15 PM

Internet Comment Dude isn't wrong:

Here are books that are new.
Some are more popular than others.
Many other stores sell these same books.
If you like them I will be over there
Dusting books.
I will be selling them for more than I bought them.
You can get a free bookmark
We have a newsletter.
- posted by cjb @ 10:00 PM

Toddy Shop Fish Curry- Kerala Spicy Sardine Curry- Kallu Shappu Style Meen Curry

"A toddy shop is a drinking establishment seen in some parts of India particularly Kerala. I got this attractive recipe from a traditional toddy shop in Kumarakom in Kerala long back. During our boat cruise and travelling across the village, we can see a small thatched building with a black board and written "Kallu" boldly in white. The spicy fish curry or non-veg curries are served as a side dish for toddy. The toddy is extracted from coconut tree and is collected in a clay pot."
- posted by cjb @ 8:35 AM

"A West partially constituted of the products of diaspora..." (Naben Ruthnum)
- posted by cjb @ 8:30 AM

"He had heard this voice all his life, but now it spoke with more compassion."
- posted by cjb @ 8:22 AM

Chunks of concrete and rust hand-chiselled from the Lion's Gate Bridge in 1987 by Nardwuar the Human Serviette — then known as John Ruskin — are preserved in UBC's Rare Books and Special Collections.

Nardwuar: "You and anybody could do exactly what I do if they spent a bit of time — you followed a lead. A lot of people ask, 'How do you get your information?' That is exactly how I do it: I just follow a lead and have the time, it's not that hard."
- posted by cjb @ 8:15 AM

Cactus House, Volunteer Park Conservatory, Seattle WA, 2017
- posted by cjb @ 9:31 PM

Dogwalkers, 2017

Collaboration with performers
- posted by cjb @ 3:37 PM

"Long time Hawaii resident, Walter Becker of Steely Dan died yesterday. He lived quietly in [TOWN NAME REDACTED] since the 1980's. My daughter attended [REDACTED] Waldorf School at the same time as his son. One time when I picked her up from a 7th and 8th grade Friday night dance at the school, I could hear the crystal clear sound of the dance music emanating from the small gym all the way to the parking lot. When my daughter reached the car I commented on how good the music sounded and she said, 'oh yeah, that's Steely Dan's equipment.'

Walter was a great musician and a generous man."
- posted by cjb @ 11:27 AM

- posted by cjb @ 7:57 AM

Test panel from panoramic work-in-progress (click to enlarge). Big, c. 40" x 60", incorporating multiple exposures and complex lighting conditions.
- posted by cjb @ 7:50 AM

Rickie Lee Jones on WB: "Walter knew what he was doing. He planted music. It grows all around us now."
- posted by cjb @ 3:31 PM

Walter Carl Becker, 20 February 1950 - 3 September 2017

One of my very few role models. Writer, performer, arranger, studio wizard, laconic dad, master-of-ceremonies, someone I watched play 25+ times live but never spoke to. Eleven Tracks of Whack and Circus Money are brilliant records, brimming over with humor and invention.

In Boise once, outdoors, I stood fifteen feet from WB as he played. His "unspecified ailment" made it hard to get on and off the stage, but he still swung hard, wringing that lime-green electric guitar up and down with a huge grin on his face, totally blissed out. I gave him a thumbs-up between songs, and got a delighted smile in return.

Not much, but it's enough.
- posted by cjb @ 9:21 AM

- posted by cjb @ 11:21 AM