Hope for the Future

Photo ©Jeremy Clowe. All rights reserved.

One of the most memorable events for me this past year was taking part in the People's Climate March in New York City on September 21. The largest climate march in history, an estimated 400,000 people took to the streets to show concern and support for measures to combat the threat of a changing climate. 

In addition to the good will, there was an incredible amount of creativity on display. Enjoy the slideshow (below) of some of my photos from this historic day, which I was proud to take part in. 

Related Links:

"2014 Brought Lasting Action on Climate Change Policy," NPR, December 30, 2014

Cutting Through The Noise

Back to the Museum again today. I think the Berkshires were more affected by the "super storm" than we were, but I didn't have any problems during my hour-long commute... the skies, in fact, were vividly blue... with interesting cloud formations.

After taking care of some emails and other matters, I finally hunkered down on my video project, working on the "puzzle" of editing my transcript to come up with some logical,  short narrative. I don't know if it is normal, but at this stage I literally take my typed transcript (all 35 pages) and cut and paste them on to colored sheets of paper... I know, I could easily do this on the computer too, but I somehow feel more engaged by starting my editing process this way... it's also more fun to leave the computer behind, and work in a more tactile way (I guess that's my artistic tendencies shining through). 

Also, to be perfectly honest, it's good for me to work in this manner. I could instantly feel the difference from being away from the computer screen, with the distracting emails and search engines. I laid my materials out on a table, and felt a calm focus that is difficult to maintain while sitting in front of my pretty Mac. 

But at work I'm the "manager of media"... so these moments seem in short supply. There must be a way to have more structure, though. I'm the first to admit that I can get easily distracted by news, and working on an exhibit about comic books is just inviting trouble for me... 

Up until yesterday I was all about the election (happening in just a week!), but now it has been Hurricane Sandy. It really has been hard to not want constant updates in this instant information age... and the media can certainly feed into that anxious frenzy. At the gym tonight, some of that seemed founded...

As I took my hour-long jog on the treadmill, I watched NBC Nightly News... I couldn't believe my eyes, looking at the damage that the storm has wrecked... especially in areas like New Jersey and New York City! I heard Queens mentioned several times, and wonder how I would have fared if I still had my place in Astoria. I also heard some talk today about global warming, and the "new normal"... some areas in the Hudson Valley are actually still struggling to get back to normal following Hurricane Irene...

So, I'm torn... I'm a curious guy by nature, and certainly want to be informed (especially during an election season and national emergencies!).. but I know that I could probably be more productive if I just turned down my media consumption... losing power, in this way, wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing. In the meantime, I wish all dealing with Mother Nature here on the east coast, a speedy recovery.

Bachelor Daze

The sun always shines on JC!
Photo © courtesy M to the T.

Survived New York! We had a great time in the city—dinner, dancing and, yes, karaoke. Sarah also enjoyed her bachelorette party, with a wine-tasting tour and apparently ended the night by riding a mechanical bull-!

I'd say the wildest it got for me was accidentally falling on someone while doing karaoke (don't ask), and climbing to the top of the bar during one of my songs (I always did like to set the bar high for my performances). 

Thanks to my friends and family for a truly memorable evening!

co-efficiency!

Today Sarah and I drove out to New York City, and met up with the rabbi who is co-officiating our wedding. Since she lives in Queens, we decided to meet in Astoria, where I had an apartment a couple years ago. I like the area... it is a little toned down from Manhattan, and has a nice ethnic mix, with great food! We met at the local diner that I used to frequent.

future's so bright...
photo ©Jeremy Clowe. All rights reserved.

Planning a wedding is like putting together a theater production... good fun! We talked with my friend Tom, who is a reverend and the other officiant, about a way to blend our Christian and Jewish traditions into a single ceremony. I think this is going to be beautiful and quite meaningful for both of us... it is all coming together.

After that, we took the subway down to Greenwich Village, and did a little shopping. Sarah found some good gifts through street vendors, and I ducked into Record Runner, an independent record shop that used to stock The Swing of Things, an a-ha fanzine I created back in the 1990s--I was happy to find Morten Harket's latest solo album, Out of My Hands, which is now in my hands. 

We wandered around a bit more, finding interesting galleries and more shops, and organic juicers... I think we're going to become addicted to making our own healthy green drink diet... so wild in the city, knocking back wheatgrass shots laced with ginger, and kale/apple drinks... we felt energized anyway, enough to get back to the Hudson Valley to see the tail-end of fireworks... yay... everything always seem to work out with my girl.

Related Links:

http://healthygreendrink.com

Process

We had a great time in the city yesterday. Sarah and I met with a woman we have been considering as a rabbi to co-officiate our wedding, and she seems quite warm and accommodating. Things are coming together, but we are aware that there are exactly six months until the big day--there's quite a bit more to do.

round and a round and a round
we go... where the world's heading
nobody knows...

During our visit we stopped at the Museum of Art and Design. Located near Columbus Circle, the museum explores the blur between art, design, and craft. We were impressed with the variety of objects they had on display--everything from jewelry, metals, wood, fiber, and videos documenting many of the artists' process.  It became clear that this was the main focus of the museum--to showcase the skillful development of art in its many different forms. To further drive home this message, the museum offers visitors the chance to observe and even interact with a live artist set up in one of their studio spaces. Both being artists, we appreciated the creativity on display, and admired the presentation.

Afterwards we ducked into an Irish pub, further courting luck (this time of the Irish), on Friday the 13th. Dinner hit the spot, and the impromptu Irish folk singing by some customers was a welcome surprise--you could tell that their hearts were really into it.

Later that evening we met up with one of Sarah's college friends, whose husband was showcasing some of his own video production work during a networking salon being held at a bar in Greenwich Village. There were some real characters there, as well as people with a variety of creative talents. We were treated to filmmakers, actors, singers--some of it was hit or miss, but it was cool to see what people were developing.

Breik, Kim Hyun Soo, 2008. Human hair, oil color,
waterpaint, epoxy, steel. 61 x 59 1/16 x 36 1/4"
Courtesy of the artist, and Museum of Art and Design
website. All rights reserved.

I believe that this was the through-line of the day, and what made it so enjoyable--we were witnessing the process of creating work, from both visual and performing artists. Even if I was not completely won over by all of the artists work, I still must respect the time and effort they put into their own creative exploration-- you can't fault someone for that, and must appreciate that there are true moments of beauty found along such journeys. Yes, it is worth it--and so was our trip.

Force To Be With Reckoned With

I had a great time in New York City yesterday. The Spoken Word Almanac Project (S.W.A.P.) 2011 encore show went over very well, and we performed in a beautiful theater called Wild Project. This venue had a different feel than the Nuyorican Poetry Cafe, where we had performed our year in review show last month. Both sites had their advantages-- The Nuyorican is a renowned poetry club, where the audience really responded to our work; and Wild Project was more of a theater setting, with stadium seats and a separate lobby area (the venue actually reminded me of the former Main Street Stage theater in North Adams, Massachusetts, where I had performed over the last ten years as a company member).

Wild Project also had a huge back wall, where we projected my visuals. They looked great-- particularly the Debt Ceiling piece performed by poet Advocate of Wordz. For this poem, I chose to run footage I had shot of the debt clock in Manhattan. It was a more simple, "abstract" visual, and I find myself wanting to move more in this direction, when possible.

After our tech rehearsal in the morning, I had some time to kill before picking up Sarah at Grand Central Station. I decided to run over to The Museum of Modern Art and have a quick look at their latest offerings and permanent collection. The Diego Rivera show was interesting, and I also enjoyed looking at some of the Pop Art on display. I think this was the first time I had been back to the museum since their renovation, and the place really looks great. I even stumbled upon a unique video presentation-- it looked as if it was documenting an artist's day on dozens of screens lining the gallery space. I'll have to look more into it. As I said, this was a quick trip to get inspired, and I was happy for the reciprocal program between my museum and others, which lets me take in such things for free.

It was fun to do the show again after a couple weeks off. I spent some time talking with the producers about the next steps for 2012, and enjoyed hanging out with the performers after the show. Sarah and I got back to the Hudson Valley very late, and so today has been a rather sleepy, laid-back day-- perfect for watching movies.

On that note, here is a film-related clip from the December 17th S.W.A.P. performance at the Nuyorican. In 2011, filmmaker George Lucas once again updated his original Star Wars trilogy with enhanced computer generated imagery. Now, a lot of us were greatly inspired by these films growing up, and take great exception to their need to be updated... including yours' truly! I have a lot of problems with CGI in general-- it is so overused, and really distracts from the moviegoing experience, in terms of story and quality. Bring me back to the innovative days of the 70s/80s where such incredible sci-fi films had an organic quality, and just as much care has been put into their story!

The "Open Letter to George Lucas" poem, co-written by S.W.A.P. poets Adam "ShadoKat" Bowser, Justin Woo, and Caroline Rothstein, was a lot of fun to work on. I found some fun images, including a cryogenically frozen George Lucas-- take that! I hope he soon learns that we don't need his "excessive use of Force" (pun intended), and would like our childhood inspirations kept intact.

The poem following this is by the talented Scott Raven Tarazevits, and deals with a recent trip he took to Ireland to shoot an infomercial for the country's Tourism Bureau. As he filmed a scene about the local cuisine, where the producers had laid out an unnecessarily gluttonous feast, he opened the newspaper to find a story about the ongoing famine problem in Somalia. A little different in tone from the Star Wars piece, obviously, but just as interesting. We actually updated this one for the encore show, including a few personal photos from Scott's trip to make it more clear.

So, that's a wrap for another year of S.W.A.P. I once again enjoyed my time being a part of the artistic scene in New York City.

One Last Look...

The death of bin Laden and Gaddafi

The tsunami in Japan

The rise of the Arab Spring

The U.S. economy

The Occupy Wall Street (and #everywhere else) movements

...2011 was some crazy year, huh?

Imagine trying to turn the year's top headlines into poetry. That is what The Spoken Word Almanac Project (S.W.A.P.) is all about. This group of New York City-based poets sets out each year to come up with their own insightful observations about the stories everyone is talking about. The group then selects the best of these poems to perform in front of a live audience, with visual support from yours' truly.

For the last couple years I have been working as S.W.A.P.'s official media designer. It is my job to create visuals to accompany each poet's words, so in a sense I am interpreting their interpretation. Ironically, I worked in TV news for several years as a cameraman and editor... but this is a whole new ball game. I like to think of S.W.A.P. as the news on acid... or antacid!

Starting in January, I listen to and read each poets' submissions, and then start brainstorming on a possible visual concept. Then, I start searching for existing still photos and video footage. Let me say that Google Images has become my new best friend-- it is sometimes amazing (and ridiculous) what you will find just by searching for a word like "gun rights." Depending on the tone and pacing of the poem, I might choose to use very literal images to match the words... sometimes I find myself steering visuals into a more abstract realm. Other times, I head out to film my own video, or take my own photos. It has been a fun and challenging exercise for me, and I certainly don't look at these news stories in the same way (hopefully, neither does the audience).

We just performed three high-energy and well-attended shows at New York's Nuyorican Poetry Club last month. I saw "we" because I was right there working alongside the poets-- not literally on the stage, but from behind-the-scenes, running the visuals in time with each poet's performance. What fun to be back working in live theater... a little different this time, since I am used to being the one performing. I do think there is some element of performance in running the visuals though-- like a musician, I try to respond to the rhythm of each piece... like an actor, I try to hit my marks and respond to the lines. Over the course of several performances, I might decide to run the visuals at different times, or switch things up completely... that is part of the fun of learning how to interact with what is unfolding.

S.W.A.P. is presenting an encore performance of its year-end show this Friday, January 6, at Wild Project, 195 East 3rd Street, New York City, starting at 9 p.m. The show is being presented as part of Poetic License, a larger festival promoting social justice through spoken word, hip hop, and slam poetry. If you are in the area, I encourage you to come check us out-- including all the topics listed at the top of this blog posting (and more), this year's show is funny, sometimes dramatic, and always entertaining. Please stop by and say hello... and let me know what you think!

Learn more about S.W.A.P. on the group's Facebook page: www.facebook.com/swappoetry

Purchase tickets to S.W.A.P., and other shows featured in this year's Poetic Theater Festival at www.poetictheater.com

Here's a video of S.W.A.P. founder Darian Dauchan performing "She's Just Not That Into You" at the July 2010 show. Visuals courtesy of yours truly (with thanks to Pete Souza and the other talented White House photographers!).