Getting on TV

Sometimes I encounter arts stories that are incredibly compelling, but difficult to describe in words. Hoo-ray for the blog.

My Weekly cover story this week focuses on Joanne Kelly, whose video artistry mixes up playful images of nature and TV and dancers whirling and jumping and flipping into cobra pose-esque yoga positions. But instead of describing it more, I'll just have you watch a clip of her work "Vertivision." Blog, baby.

In this version of "Vertivision," Joanne trained three cameras on a dancer and then just set the dancer free to romp all over and around a passel of three TVs. Here, you can hear Joanne describing her work as part of a TV segment about it.

(I've added screen shots at the beginning and end to avoid the dreaded blog black screen.)

No strings attached

If a newspaper story gets really boring, the reporter should act it out with puppets. Or Muppets. Think of it. You could have Ernie and Bert analyze the redevelopment agency budget. Or those two codgers on "The Muppet Show."

(Actually, that sounds like me when I used to cover city council meetings that dragged on until my head fell off: "Why do we always come here? I guess we'll never know.")

Or, you could just go to a really good puppet show and watch a master artist at work. I have never seen Kansas City puppeteer Paul Mesner perform, but you have to have a warm feeling about a man who lets his ear be eaten by a dinosaur.

The traveling Paul is bringing his puppets to the First Presbyterian Church of Palo Alto this Saturday for two family-friendly performances of "Rapunzel." And because every good fairy tale needs a little kohlrabi, he's dramatizing the story with puppets that look like vegetables. As Paul says, they just may all "leaf happily ever alfalfa." Oy.

Pictured: Paul Mesner with a friend, courtesy of his website.

Battle of the bands

Thanks to my subject line, now I have a mental image of a crazed musician clocking someone with a Sousaphone. Apparently I have been watching too much CSI.

But I digress (from the subject that I never started talking about in the first place). What I meant to write about was the immense amount of jazz talent that has been coming out of local high schools for years. It's a thrill to see a kid get up and really wail on a horn or set fire to the drums.

When I was in high school I used to love to watch my brother play trombone with the M-A jazz band. Band director Frank Moura fostered an atmosphere of musical maturity that was truly remarkable. It takes confidence to be comfortable in a style of music where your part isn't written out note-for-note on the page, especially when you're a teenager trying to find your way in life. I always thought my brother seemed older than he was every time he stood up for a solo.

This Saturday, one of our local bands is hitting the Monterey Jazz Festival: Musicians from Gunn High School are set to take the stage in the Big Band division of the organization's Next Generation Festival, competing in the finals. The victorious band gets to play at the big Monterey festival in September.

"Only 12 jazz ensembles were selected from the nationwide audition pool, so it's quite an honor to participate," band director Mark Dungan said, noting that Gunn has participated in the event regularly for about the last two decades.

Gunn's musicians will be playing "swing music and Latin-style music in the tradition of Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Count Basie," he said. Mighty fine company to be in.

A green corner in downtown

I didn't expect to find a porch swing waiting for me in a halcyon public garden in downtown Palo Alto, but the little Museum of American Heritage is like that.

I've written about the museum before because I like its quirky gazes back at the past, from the history of cash registers to the 1915 San Francisco World's Fair. Today, for the first time, I rambled through the museum's garden and enjoyed a respite from my day. It reminded me of the quote about New York's Central Park being the lungs of the city. Everyone needs a green place to breathe.

Inside, in a room made to look like an old general store, I read an aging pamphlet titled "Mrs. John Cameron Swayze's Book of Household Hints." Apparently nails will go into wood much more easily if you rub soap on them first. Who knew? But this one takes the cake for most useful tip: "Try waxing the inside of your ash trays, and the ashes won't stick."

Pictured: The historic Williams house, which houses the museum. Photo taken from the museum's website.

Musical notes

I was recently on vacation in Carmel and thereabouts. Art gallery heaven. Hail-on-the-beach heaven too, interestingly enough.

Another highlight was on the way home, in Pacific Grove. There I discovered Bookmark, a shop billing itself as "devoted to printed material for the performing arts." It could have called itself "where people throw bricks at you," and I still would have had a fabulous time. This Broadway musical lover found new scores, old scores, scores galore. Songs sold individually, by show, by vocal type. Hi, I'm Becky, and I’m a soprano.

I could grouse (more than usual) about how the Internet is putting music stores out of business left and right. But then some smartie would point out that I'm using the Internet to point out Bookmark. Well. At least I'm not putting any blog stores out of business.

In other music news, I returned to work to find a note from the Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra, an SF group that frequently performs in Palo Alto. Thanks to an anonymous gift, the orchestra has just acquired an Andrea Guarneri violin, made in 1660 in Cremona, Italy.

The instrument will need some changes to put it into "true Baroque form," such as a shorter fingerboard, orchestra executive director Robert Birman said. After that, I'm sure we'll be hearing it sing once again.

In still other music news, I love the fact that the Peninsula Women's Chorus is doing a new commission based on the last poem of Lewis Carroll's "Through the Looking Glass." Written by Argentinean composer Marta Lambertini, it groups the human voice with cello, piccolo, piano and percussion. And Mark Foehringer and his Dance Project. Check it out this Saturday at a concert at Stanford's Memorial Church.

Pictured: The 1660 Andrea Guarneri violin just acquired by the Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra. Photo courtesy of PBO.