Engineer's Daughter

a raisin in the sun

Through June 15 - A Raisin in the Sun at California Shakespeare Theater.  I confess that I have lived in the Bay Area for almost 17 years and yet this was only my first visit to Cal Shakes.  It was such an idyllic experience that I know I'll be back soon, at the very least to see A Midsummer Night's Dream complete with movement by Erika Chong Shuch (swoon) at the end of their season.  As for Raisin, there are many reasons the play is such a classic of American theater, and this stellar ensemble cast really does it justice.  On its surface the plot is a simple domestic drama where the tragedy is brought on by poor choices in the name of big dreams, but I was struck anew at how the issues Lorraine Hansberry integrated into her work in the late '50s are still way too relevant today, including up-to-the-second topics like feminism and race relations.  The only white character in the play is a fellow sent by his neighborhood association to keep the African American family from moving onto his Chicago street, and this Oaklander got a shiver down her spine.  I also love how the trio of strong female characters really rule the script, even if they do still find themselves subject to a man's decisions.  And the actors were so good that there were moments I really felt like I was on South Side of Chicago, not wrapped up in a blanket in the gorgeous hills of Orinda.

burning plastic

A Place To Bury Strangers / Ceremony split (LAMC #1) Famous Class

I've already plugged a number of these awesome LAMC split 7-inches, but this is the one that started it all oh so many years ago in 2012.  A Place To Bury Strangers bring the skitter and the drum machines on the A-side, toning down their trademark wall-of-noise approach just ever so slightly.  They selected Ceremony for the B-side, who deliver a psychedelic swirl of delicious shoegaze dirginess.  Check it.

gravitas

Black Rock Desert.  July 5, 2007.

go see this

Jeramy DeCristo

Jeramy DeCristo: Document/in the Hold at Siete Potencias Africanas Gallery.  Sadly I did not write about this installation in time for you to actually go see it, but DeCristo hopes to show it again in the Bay Area in the coming months (listen to a podcast with him here).  In the meantime do imagine the piece as I experienced it: It is night and you are climbing the stairs in a dimly-lit Tenderloin gallery, moving towards the source of a glitchtastic sonic racket.  The sounds are emanating from a large crate-shaped object, and you can barely make it out because the only light in the room is coming from a flickering window pane cut into its side and ambient street light.  One side of the crate is draped with burlap painted black, and as you lift it the noise suddenly shifts into identifiable breaks and beats and then just as quickly switches back into processed noise (the timing is nothing but wonderful coincidence).  A video is playing inside and you can make out a hazy cityscape, a sunset, visual static, and there are also documents scattered on the floor.  You think about how incredibly claustrophobic it would be to crouch inside that space for any amount of time.

 

Clare Rojas

Through May 31 - Clare Rojas: Caerulea at Gallery Paule Anglim.  Rojas leaves behind the figuration and folksiness of her earlier work in this excellent show of purely abstract work.  There is a lot of pleasure in simply observing how she lays paint down on a canvas, what colors and forms she chooses to explore.  Everyone I have talked to about the show also mentions the compelling series of works on one wall that are all slight variations of each other, the same basic lines but with slight changes here and there.  I felt like I was seeing her inquisitive artist mind made visible.

 

Ali Naschke-Messing

Through June 1 - Thresholds of Faith: Four Entries into the Beyond at Manresa Gallery.  This is a really beautiful group show, and it doesn't hurt one whit that Manresa is situated inside of St. Ignatius Church, itself an extraordinarily gorgeous edifice.  The four alcoves of the gallery were turned over to a single artist to treat almost like a studio space, and each of the quartet of women displays work influenced by her faith tradition: Buddhist, Christian, Jewish, and Muslim.  Lynn Marie Kirby pays tribute to the many devoted Sisters throughout history in the Catholic church, including her own aunt, while Taraneh Hemami has built the elements of a mehrab right onto the floor and wall of the church.  Ali Nascheke-Messing invites visitors to lie down on a mat and contemplate the shower of gold leaves she has hung from the rafters, and in the room next to her Cara Levine has created an ever-shifting tableau consisting of set pieces that reference her grandmother's artworks which were in turn influenced by Jewish mysticism.

the thrill spectacle of the year

 

Foreign Correspondent is one of my favorite Alfred Hitchcock films, released in 1940 just as he was offically transitioning from Britain to Hollywood and of course also as World War II was on everyone's minds.  It's got everything you could hope for from a classic Hitchcock including his trademark suspense, in this case of the wartime variety.  Laraine Day as Carol Fisher infuses the film with romantic intrigue, though why her love interest is Joel McCrea's swashbuckling reporter and not George Sanders's much more dashing Ffolliott I'll never understand.  Hitchcock proves himself all over again as the master of tension too, with several scenes so gripping I always catch myself holding my breath.  Quite the exciting (and witty) European adventure, this one.

gungru tarang

Residual Echoes Secret Museum of Kind Men Vol. 3 (Casual Acid Tea)

The Secret Museum of Mankind compilations of ethnographic recordings are invaluable documents, capturing as they do rare sounds from around the world, and I love that Casual Acid Tea has been releasing this series of 7-inches with bands covering select tracks from the comps.  Residual Echoes here take on a song each from India and Tajikstan with wonderful and psychedelic results.  Previous installations of the series have Ramble Tamble visiting Epirus and Tunisia, and Gongtrain having a wander through Greece and Japan.  Collect 'em all.

show 301

playlist

benedict

Black Rock Desert.  July 5, 2007.

go see this

Bryan, Vita, and Rhiannon Hewitt

Through May 22 - Bryan, Vita, and Rhiannon Hewitt: The Trees at Savernack Street.  Savernack Street offers one of the more unique art-viewing experiences in the city, as the "exhibition" is glimpsed only through a reversed peephole set into the front door of the gallery.  The Hewitts (Bryan, Vita, and their daughter Rhiannon) have contributed an evocative photograph that looks like it could have come right out of the ouevre of Julia Margaret Cameron and is a tribute to the sort of imaginative play that many little girls like to enact.  Looking at it through that peephole only makes it more magical.

 

Maral Hashemi

Through May 24 - 2014 MFA Thesis Exhibition at CCA.  Omg it's already MFA season again.  This show is so vast (and much of it tucked into the labyrinthine nooks and crannies of CCA) that it's hard to process it all in a single visit, especially when I was there during the tumult of opening night, but at the same time it's always a pleasure to see what our newest crop of art stars has to offer.  I found myself most attracted to the sculptural and performance-based installations as well as the artists working with fiber and cloth, and you will no doubt find your own favorites.

matokie mix 05.18.14

mix