I’m still delirious from a long, crazy weekend up at the Kutcher’s resort in Monticello, New York for the All Tomorrow’s Parties music festival. I want so badly to write a witty post about the David Lynchian hotel that played such a perfect role as venue…
the summer camp hanging out by the lake vibe…
the fun new friends we made…
the amazing music performances…
But I can’t. I’m too exhausted. But I know if I don’t post something now, I might never get to it. I’ll let me mediocre photos tell the story for me.
I will say this: ATP was hands-down one of the best, most fun festivals of any kind that I have ever attended. Yes.
[UPDATE: Pitchfork actually has a fantastic review of the weekend - and I agree with pretty much every point, for those of you music nerds interested in the finer points of the performances.]
Just returned from another fantastic festival. I met several great people, as usual, as this festival is one of the best ones for meeting filmmakers. Though I shook his hand, I didn’t actually get to speak with Jeff Goldblum other than the few seconds before taking this gratuitous photo for my blog. Yeah, I’m a fan boy. I admit it.
One of my favorite conversations was the 45-minute long chat I had in front of the coffee shop on Sunday morning with Godfrey Reggio, the director of one of my favorite films of all time, Koyaanisquatsi. I had the chance to really pick his brain about his films, his hometown New Orleans, the direction of digital media and the implications of the ubiquity of digital cameras on privacy and society. Fun!
I’m happy that I finally got to meet Karina Longworth, the blogger for Spout.com, after being Internet buddies for a couple years. And though usually a chore, my trips into and out of town were both great. On the way in, I met and had a fantastic conversation with Lee Kline of the Criterion Collection, who subsequently invited me to project video at their cinema at All Tomorrow’s Party (more on that later). And then, on my way out of town I spoke with the talented animator Matthew Talbot-Kelly about blogging, animation, business and family. Great stuff. If you have the chance, I also highly recommend his short, Blind Man’s Eye.
You might notice that I haven’t yet written about the films I saw. Honestly, there weren’t any that totally blew me away. Maybe I’m getting jaded. Or media-saturated. Or filmed-out. Not sure. But in any case, my favorite feature-length films I caught were:
Waltz with Bashir - an animated documentary about a soldier trying to piece together traumatic events during his experience in war
Happy-Go-Lucky - Mike Leigh’s humorous look at a girl who thinks the can save everyone around her through sheer will and humor
O’Horten - a quiet but cute film about a Norwegian train conductor who doesn’t know what to do with himself after retiring
Pirosmani - a 1969 film I was lucky enough to project about one of the most famous painters from the Republic of Georgia. It only ran once because the print didn’t come until the last possible minute and wasn’t included in the program. Unfortunately, not many people came to the screening.
Lastly, allow me to speak about one of the best things that happened during the festival: gondola karaoke. Whilst riding a fully loaded gondola with my friends up to the end-of-fest staff party at the Chuck Jones theater in Mountain Village, Beth says, “Say, what are your favorite songs? Let’s sing them!” which we proceeded to do with reckless, tipsy abandon at top ear-splitting volume. I think there were moments of Queen to Elvis Costello to Madonna. And then we did it again on the way down. Even drunker. Oh yeah.
My pal Becky digs my music blog and my thoughts on social media marketing so she wrangled me into sitting on a panel discussion at this conference the folks behind the Grammy Awards are hosting next weekend. If you’re into music, web 2.0 or marketing in general you might wanna come check this out. My panel is called “Music 2.0: The Umbrella - Digital Sales, New Outlets, Viral Marketing, Blogging…”.
We got to enjoy a very relaxing, sunny summer day listening to music outside at Drexel’s campus this past weekend (see all the photos here). The Popped! Music Festival got a lot bigger this year. Last spring we were cramming into small local venues watching great up and coming area bands. This year, it was a full-on festival complete with international musical acts.
My friend Alexis did a great job pulling this thing together over the past year. I helped her out planning a bit early on, so Audrey and I scored some VIP passes and had a good time watching the (ahem) mild debauchery going on back stage.
If you’d like to see some live music clips from the event, check out my music vlog yvynyl live.
We were lucky to spend the weekend up near Wellsboro, PA to celebrate our friends Andy and Darshana’s wedding. Andy’s folks have this amazing farm right on the edge of the Pennsylvania Grand Canyon, which I have never seen before. We camped out there, falling asleep to the sounds of wild nature - toads and owls and all sorts of cool sounding beasties.
We took a hike out to the rim of the canyon, swam in one of their small lakes, played mad bocce ball, ate awesome vegan goodies until stuffed to the gills, and built huge campfires. An A+ event, for an A+ couple. Happy day!
The basic premise of the thing is to ask some local innovators to get up on stage and give a talk about what they do. The catch? They can’t speak for more than 5 minutes and their powerpoint slides will only stay up 15 seconds max. Should be an excellent time for all us nerdz and non-nerdz alike.
You won’t want to miss the awesomeness of featured speakers like:
My friend Adam has a band called The War on Drugs. If you’re into psychedelic/country/shoegaze (whoa, that’s a description if I ever saw one), or bands like Panda Bear et al, head over to Ye Olde Pitchfork where you can download his EP for free. His new album, Wagonwheel Blues, is coming out in just a few weeks on Secretly Canadian, so stay tuned.
We’re going to see them play at the Khyber tonight in Philly. I’ll probably post some video on yvynyl live.
By the way, if you like music, I’ve been posting like crazyman over on my Tumblr site, yvynyl.tumblr.com, all music all the time. Check it.
Great party at Jeff Carpineta’s hacienda in lovely Kenso, New Years ‘08. I’ll let the photos do the talking. Here’s me, Maggie and Adam first thing in 2008:
Last night was First Friday here in Philly, and we went out to see my friends David Kessler and Candace Karch’s show at the Babmi Gallery in Fishtown. His show is “Shadow World” doing a multi-media instillation of his excellent art-video blog of the same name. If you haven’t watched any episodes, do yourself a favor and check ‘em out. Her show is “Lost and Found” and is showing absolutely amazing prints of surreal-looking x-rays with pen and ink drawing. Show is up until January 20, 2008. Go buy some art! Have a look at the short vid I shot there:
One of my favorite film festivals in the world is MountainFilm (I’ve attended 7 of the last 8 years!). It’s more than just a film festival, it’s a celebration of the indomitable human spirit. In an era of post-terrorist cynicism, these folks bring together some truly positive thinkers and media makers.
They’ve really been on the move over there in Colorado, launching a great new blog and making a bunch of big announcements today, including announcing their new festival director, David Hollbrook (.pdf). Congrats, David!
The next festival is their 30th(!) and it’s happening May 23-26, 2008. Lord knows I’ll be there. I’m one of the lucky ones who gets to work tech up in the projection booth at the festival and shake hands with all the amazing people they invite to speak. I got to meet one of my heros last year, Paul Hawken, and chat it up for a good five minutes while we worked on setting up his program. But it’s really that kind of festival. Hang out, chill with awesome folks with big ideas, change the world. You know. Fun.
If you’re a filmmaker and you’ve got work you’d like to exhibit in Telluride, head over to their Call for Entries form. They’re looking and they’ve got a $10,000 prize purse! Also, they send their films on tour, so check and see if they’re coming to your town soon. Chances are they are.
Here’s to hoping that the oppressed people can stand strong together and shake off their ugly military dictatorship! I’ve spent a good deal of time in South East Asia, but only got a mile from the border of Burma/Myanmar because of the terrible situation in that country and the border skirmishes with Thailand at the time.
Last weekend, at a very chill backyard hangout party, I made some hilarious and excellent new friends. Beth and Maureen are two super cool women, lifelong friends, who create an art comic called The 3:00 Book. It’s all based on notes that the two wrote back and forth to each other in high school. Raw, funny and flamboyant. They saved the notes and channeled their energies into this killer, tongue-in-cheek retrospective of the life of girls on the fringe. Them against the world. Believe me, these girls make you laugh.
Word has it, too, that they’re starting a video blog of their antics and adventures with one Pumpkinhead Head (a scary character from the comic). Can’t wait to see more!
If you’re nearby on Friday (Sept 7th) at 5pm, head over to their book signing to meet them and grab your own awesome signed copy! From the invitation:
Come see and purchase your very own 3:00 book! This is the first edition photocopied and bound with love for you! All the piss, blood and hair dye is hand colored by the artists, Maureen Cummings and Beth Heinly. A very special deification will take place at 7 p.m. with the 3:00 book’s own Pumpkinhead! I’m sorry I meant defication. Come and play and see!
So I’m hanging out in Telluride, Colorado this past weekend at MountainFilm Festival. It’s the last day of my time there, and my buddy Luigi and I are just minding our own business, hanging out enjoying a little mountain sunshine and springtime creek sounds when this fella comes up to us and says,
“Hey brothers, I hate to ask, but could you perhaps, if the Gods divine it, spare a small nugget for a travelin’ man?” We don’t have any, but he continues to entertain us with his interesting pressense. Apparently, he’s just in town doin’ a little fly fishing.
Oh, and speaking of fly fishing, if you’re a fan or even vaguely curious about the sport, you should really have a look at the trailer of my friend Ben Knight’s film “Running Down the Man” that debuted this year at MountainFilm. He and his buddies head down to Baja California to fish for the “uncatchable” roosterfish and tool around on a pretty wicked dune buggy. You can pick up a copy of his film on DVD from his website. You won’t regret it.
Here’s another plug for an amazing project that good friends of mine here in Philly are doing. Faithful readers of my blog will know I’ve written about them before. But they are truly doing such great work, the project has come so far, and I’m so proud of them. Really. They wrote and perform live a new original score to the 1970 Czech New Wave film, Valerie and Her Week of Wonders. But honestly, they don’t even need a plug from me as they were recently invited to show at Jarvis Cocker’s Meltdown in London this summer and at MOMA in the fall! Amazing.
If you are in Philly, make sure to check out this screening!
During the festival, we saw a bunch of great films, but also a lot of great music. The good people at True/False are big fans of busking hoboes (as are we, of course!). Well, maybe they’re not quite hoboes, but they sure love hobo music. In this part, we show a few clips of some of our new friends having sing alongs, review a couple films, and introduce you to the great people behind the film “Camp Katrina” and “Mardi Gras: Made in China”.
Audrey and I went to Columbia, Missouri this past weekend to participate in the wonderful film festival, True/False. We were thinking about getting a video up each day while there, but it turned out we just got too busy. I compiled some of the clips into two entertaining parts… Behold, the first… (ps - sorry about the weird clicking sound in the beginning… technical issues had, but later solved)
Man, it seems like every web site I touch these days goes BOOM! Even the Poverty Jet Set was down for a day. But, finally, we’ve shaken out the bugs, turned up the heat and everything’s niiiiiiiice and toasty again.
Audrey and I are enjoying the wunderbar festival der film, True/False Film Festival in beautiful and shockingly cool Columbia, Missouri (yes, you heard that right folks, shockingly cool.)
You’re in luck, too, cuz we’ve been video blogging from the festival and will have a vid up soon! Yay! Stay tuned…
My dear friend Brooke Sietinsons has been working for months on a new-fangled device that’s gonna throw some real pretty light up on the wall. I’ve been helping her brainstorm here and there, and now the final project is coming!
Unfortunately, I won’t be able to be there because I’m projecting movies again at True/False Documentary Film Festival in Columbia, Missouri that weekend, but I encourage the rest of you Phillies to head on out!
