Culture Nuggets by Laura Palotie

03:31 pm | 0 recommendations | Be the first to comment

Complaining in Song

I recently paid a visit to the P.S. 1 Contemporary Art Center in Queens that, through the summer, has hosted an exhibit entitled Arctic Hysteria: New Art from Finland.  As a native Finn, I generally consider it my patriotic duty to demonstrate interest whenever anything Finnish makes it across the Atlantic, but this time my interest was also fueled by the exhibit's title itself. How would the stubbornly internal, dreamlike madness of the Nordic winter translate in the self-conscious and status-driven city of New York?

Between a stuffed rabbit staring into a pool of water and a video segment of a semi-nude woman boxing, the exhibit's visuals would certainly cater to a visual arts junkie, but I wasn't sure which part of Arctic Hysteria would feel relatable to local visitors.

While each of the featured artists certainly deserved this showcase, there was only one work that I immediately found to be universally relatable. One segment of this video installation took place in Singapore, the other in Chicago, and both featured a group of locals singing about their dissatisfaction with their city. Conceived by Finns Tellervo Kalleinen & Oliver Kochta-Kalleinen in 2005, the so-called Complains Choir concept has since spread from Helsinki to Budapest, Jerusalem, St. Petersburg, and an assortment of other cities worldwide.

At each location, organizers have issued an open invitation for locals to gather and vent, after which a composer has assembled the complaints into one, cohesive lament. Although singing skill is not a participation requirement, the relatively simple melodies and a sense of bona fide enthusiasm have made most of the projects sound quite enjoyable.

The New York Complaints' Choir was initiated in early June, in conjunction with the P.S. 1 exhibit. A group has gathered several times for rehearsals throughout the summer--one in mid-August was covered by The Village Voice. The official Complaints Choir web site hasn’t yet made note of a performance date, but I encourage checking back in for more information. Video segments of past performances can be viewed at P.S.1 until September 15th, and on the Complaints Choir web site.

Steven Kaplan who blogs for The Thing, a Manhattan-based cultural nonprofit, attended the choir's first rehearsal in June. His description of the resulting music itself sounded ideally suited for a New York crowd:

"The music is very Noo Yawk, very old school rock and roll, with a call and response structure and rhyme reminiscent of 1950's Doo Wop. A little Carole King, a little Dion and the Belmonts, the declamation of "Runaround Sue" and Italian-American outer borough stoop singing combined with the lilt of "Under the Boardwalk," he wrote.

You can read a preliminary draft of the lyrics in Kaplan's post here. Times Square, JFK, hipsters, Whole Foods and Giuliani all receive a wag of the finger, as expected.

10:40 pm | 0 recommendations | Be the first to comment

The Return of the Boy Band

With the early success of the newest Jonas Brothers album, the American teen idol--as opposed to kid idol--has finally dusted itself off. So-called bubblegum pop last ruled in pre-9/11 and pre-TMZ America, when high schoolers still stood in line at midnight to greet a new album's arrival rather than browsing through new releases song-by song on itunes. The recent popularity of Zac Efron and Miley Cyrus has been seemingly contained into a much more limited demographic--one where concert outings still require a chaperone and celebrities still seem deserving of their fans' adoration. Even before her public fall from grace, Miley Cyrus was severely limited in her reach as an artist. Was anyone over her own age ever listening?

Enter the Jonases, sibling pop rockers sporting dark, dreamy locks, rings declaring their chastity and a long array of songwriting credits. The Disney Channel may have launched them to fame, but the trio has done just fine in the world beyond: While Miley's first publicized photo shoot for a grown-up magazine (Vanity Fair, of all places) was a major PR blow, the Jonases verified their status as artists to watch for when they appeared, sexy and untouchable, on the cover of Rolling Stone. Even music critics have been generally approving of their latest release, A Little Bit Longer. Mouse ears or not, this group seems to be for real.

Of course one glaring difference remains: While N'Sync's No Strings Attached sold 2.4 million copies in its first week in 2000, A Little Bit Longer has brought in 525,000 copies to land on the No. 1 spot this week. The age of the album is, simply, enough, over. But it seems that there are room for teen idols even in the age of ipods and badly behaving celebrities. With their new release, The Jonas Brothers became the first band since N'Sync to have two albums simultaneously in the Billboard Top 10. Because the Jonases, in fact, have a triple presence on the chart (including the soundtrack to Disney Channel's Camp Rock), they have set an all-time record.

"A Little Bit Longer could be a significant generation-gap closer; it's not difficult to imagine a scenario where Dad is demanding that Sissy put the Jonases back in the CD changer, right after he's chucked less-deserving labelmate Jesse McCartney out the car window," declared Chris Willman in his Entertainment Weekly review. "Assuming each generation gets the teen idols it deserves, then today's kids must have done something good — God knows what — to have merited the Jonas Brothers," he says.

04:53 pm | 0 recommendations | Be the first to comment

New York's annual Fringe Festival Turns the Spotlight on Independent Theater

Off-Off Broadway is the perpetual underdog of New York's arts scene, but to a non-theater aficionado, exploring the wide-spanning thespian scene beyond Broadway can easily feel intimidating--like sitting away from the hipster kids' table. Indie theater projects are seemingly everywhere, from obscure black box theaters to restaurant back rooms and neighborhood parks, but how should an unfamiliar audience member distinguish between a low-budget gem and a failed vanity project?

Each August, however, the New York International Fringe Festival brings a fresh touch of accessibility into the city's low-budget theater scene. Some 200 plays are featured at 20-something venues during a two-and a half-week span, so the festival 's presence is difficult to avoid. Although the featured musicals, traditional plays, experimental works and one-man shows naturally include some hits and misses, each has gone through an initial quality check: the lineup is selected from roughly 1,000 applications each year.

The festival's web site, www.fringenyc.org, includes descriptions and show times of each production in an alphabetical list, but if scrolling through the roster feels too daunting, various local media outlets have published abridged lists of their favorites. It should be noted, however, that whether a show gets reviewed or not is often a matter of clever PR skills (works with attention-grabbing titles like Becoming Britney and Perez Hilton Saves the Universe (or at least the greater Los Angeles area) have gotten a fair bit of coverage this year).

Below is an abridged roundup of shows recommended by critics this year:

• The Umbrella Plays, written by Stephanie Janssen and directed by the multitalented Daniel Talbott, whose Rising Phoenix Repertory group won several Innovative Theatre Awards last year (read Theatermania's review here). Rising Phoenix's own Fringe production, an adaptation of Antigone entitled Too Much Memory, has received a stamp of approval from The New York Times.
• Big Thick Rod, an absurdist comedy written by Stanton Wood and directed by Edward Elefterion. Theatermania's review can be found here.
• The Complete Performer, Ted Greenberg's comedy routine. Read The New York Times review here.
• Krapp, 39, written by Michael Laurence and directed by George Demas, incorporates theater and multimedia in a meditation on aging. Starring Michael Laurence, the show received a glowing review from The Times.
• The Alice Complex, a dark hostage story written by Peter Barr Nickowitz and directed by Bill Oliver. The play stars Xanthe Elbrick, who was nominated for a Tony Award for her work in Coram Boy. A Village Voice review is available here.
• I would also recommend The Disappearance of Jonah, a crisp, affecting play written by Darragh Martin and performed with a real sense of commitment by a group of young actors.

Starting August 27th, three days after The Fringe Festival wraps, The Fringe Encore Series gives an extended run to some of the festival's most successful shows. The lineup will be announced on August 25th and will be available at www.FringeNYC-EncoreSeries.com .

01:01 pm | 0 recommendations | 1 comment

Paris Hilton, a Political Force

It's not just Project Runway contestants that hope to get into Young Hollywood's good graces: If The White House Correspondents' Dinner this year was any indication (The Hills' villains Heidi Montag and Spencer Pratt were among President Bush's honored guests), the nation's political elite also aims to play nice with reality TV stars, party-prone socialites and other E! Channel regulars.

Which is why, FunnyOrDie.com's Adam McKay says, John McCain's campaign ventured into dangerous territory when one of its campaign ads mockingly compared Barack Obama's celebrity to that of Paris Hilton. In case you haven't yet seen the original ad, you can view it here.
"McCain made one huge mistake: He drifted into the world of pop culture. And that's Paris' world. She owns that world," McKay told The L.A. Times to explain the inspiration behind his much talked-about Paris Hilton comeback video (In case you've been in a newsfeed blackout, McKay shot the video, in which Ms. Hilton outlines her own campaign promises, and posted it on FunnyOrDie earlier this week in response to McCain's ad).

Embarrassingly, The Hiltons have given large donations to the Republican nominee's campaign. And even though we are talking about Paris Hilton here, the unofficial punching bag of our celebrity-addicted culture, she has truly emerged from this debaucle as the more sympathetic of the two. Hilton: 1, McCain: 0. Even Obama hasn't managed a more persuasive, or a better-publicized, counterpunch.

Sure, while Paris delivers her video monologue with surprising eloquence and a charming, self-mocking glimmer in her eyes, she appears tensely focused while outlining her energy plan that would combine the best of Obama's and McCain's platforms. I assumed her to be concentrating on cue cards, but according to McKay, she appeared in his video without compensation, and memorized the entire script.

Whether you trust McKay or not, it's clear that he and Paris have taken the slightly lagging campaign coverage to a new level. Obama-buttons still haven't lost their cool-factor, but thanks to the combined exposure of Paris's fictional campaign and Scarlett Johansson's private email to Obama, the rest of the E!-channel crowd may just be inspired to enter 'energy plan' into Wikipedia.

04:08 pm | 0 recommendations | 1 comment

A Tale of 'The Hills'

MTV's larger-than-reality phenomenon, The Hills, is about to return with its fourth season. Spot-on reflective of this twenty-something generation of self-made celebrity, the show's cultural impact is undeniable--even if many of its fans (including myself) don't claim to even find its cast of characters particularly loveable. It's all about our evolving sense of voyeurism, you see--we initially tuned in to witness the private heartaches of the popular kids' table, but as its cast has grown more and more famous, we've become more interested in catching the surprisingly mundane social dramas of young Hollywood and debating how much of the production is actually real.

One could even argue that we've made The Hills into our very own generational epic.

In the latest issue of Entertainment Weekly, Tony DiSanto or MTV Networks goes as far as to give the show Dickensian dimensions. ''It's almost becoming like a novel at this point, like this generation's A Tale of Two Cities or Oliver Twist," he says.

Quite the statement--but to a demographic that usually prefers snarky, three-paragraph blogs to investigative essays and blurry Youtube-clips to polished documentaries, The Hills can feel poignant, dreamy, and one-of a kind: Its seemingly private window into the lives of the rich is glistening and meticulously produced, from its sitcom-esque opening credits to its candle-lit VIP rooms and sun-tinted L.A. landscapes. Somewhere between witnessing Britney shaving her head and Lindsey climbing panty-less out of a car, we have begun hoping for Hollywood to re-instate a shred of its old magic. It's a call that MTV happily answers

If The Hills wasn't so original, it could easily feel almost retro: today's celebs, from Rosie O'Donnell to Miley Cyrus, maintain their own Myspace pages and spit out blurry, obviously self-produced video content into the entertainment vacuum. No-one is holding their webcams, and it shows. The Hills, however, involves multiple cameras and production team members in each shoot. The show takes its time, often spending several episodes to untangle story lines that never quite land anywhere and showing its starlets chitchatting over Pinkberry and cocktails (frequently, not much is said). A single 30-minute episode takes several weeks to film.

Because Lauren Conrad, Heidi Montag and other main players on The Hills have become arguably as recognizable as Lindsay Lohan, Nicole Richie and the like, the avenue of their fame also represents something truly unique. This weekly reality drama is the only place in which we see the objects of our curiosity both be themselves and act unaware of the constant presence of cameras.

In the case of The Hills, of course, both are likely to be an illusion--but knowing that's the case only deepens its allure.

For more on The Hills' glossy appeal, see Rolling Stone's May cover story.

03:18 pm | 0 recommendations | 1 comment

What Gotham City Says About Us

Two polar ends of the glitzy blockbuster--Sex And The City and The Dark Knight--have been entrusted with quite a bit of cultural weight this summer. While one has been mocked for advocating materialism in the face of recession and the other hailed as the pinnacle of an oversaturated genre, both have sent millions to the multiplex and fueled a rhetorical storm on the web.

Consequently, questions have arisen among journalists. What does the execution and success of these films say about their creators and the culture that embraces them? And, whether a critic declares a frantically publicized film historically significant or deems it a waste of our attention, what's the role of a film reviewer in a culture that prints the public's critical ramblings for free?

Sex And the City was easier to mock for brand-centricism and anti-feminist undertones, while The Dark Knight, driven by Heath Ledger's sinister and heartbreaking performance as the Joker, has been tougher to tackle among those who weren't crazy about the film.

Two trends have emerged in the past week: A number of professional critics are countering The Dark Knight's colossal success by questioning the effectiveness of its narrative, while another discussion is taking place about the state of film criticism in general (fittingly, this is also the week that critics Richard Roeper and Roger Ebert chose not to renew their contracts as hosts of At The Movies).

Salon, one of my daily reads, encapsulated Batman's battle with the critic this week. In a post entitled The Saga of George W. Batman, Andrew O'Hehir makes note of critic Dave Kehr's argument that the combat strategies of President Bush and Batman seem to be strangely parallel; over 100 highly argumentative reader responses follow Kehr's post on his site, O'Hehir notes.

"The perspective of fans who are outraged by any pinhead-intellectual attempts to rain on the pop-culture parade does not go unrepresented, even in this rarefied zone," Says O'Hehir, referring to the relatively small amount of debate that The Dark Knight has spurred on--perhaps because the 'haters' are too afraid to speak up.

"Is there some uniquely Yank quality to the irrational bile directed at the insignificant handful of commentators who, for whatever reason, have disliked what may well turn out to be the most popular motion picture in history?" he continues. "Raising even the feeblest of objections to the worldwide (and Web-wide) adulation of this murky action flick will get you not just disagreement but kilobytes of hate by the butt-load."

Salon critic Stephanie Zacharek, who, by the way, was one of the few reviewers to dislike The Dark Knight, described film criticism as a dying profession in yesterday's issue of Salon. Fittingly, A.O Scott of The New York Times used similar lingo to describe the overexposed superhero genre.

"I don¹t want to start any fights with devout fans or besotted critics. I¹m willing to grant that ³The Dark Knight² is as good as a movie of its kind can be," he writes, continuing to say that Nolan and his brother Jonathan were able to create an affecting world thanks to a $185 million budget that few artistically inclined filmmakers dream of.

"But to paraphrase something the Joker says to Batman, ³The Dark Knight² has rules, and they are the conventions that no movie of this kind can escape,"
he continues. "Those poor, misunderstood crusaders must turn big profits on a global scale and satisfy an audience hungry for the thrill of novelty and the comforts of the familiar. Is it just me, or is the strain starting to show?"

The strongest critical voices in journalism are certainly finding ways to place the summer popcorn flick under serious cultural evaluation--and thankfully so, considering the emotional weight of The Dark Knight as a film (a week after seeing it, I'm still mulling it over in my head).

But as long as their criticism is followed by the infuriated responses of Batman-loyalists, (see for yourself here, here, and here), it's no wonder that some writers are going on the defensive.

03:10 pm | 0 recommendations | Be the first to comment

Meet The Real Craig Stevens

In early March, thousands of Youtube-surfing Broadway aficionados discovered Craig Stevens, a recent college graduate from Tennessee who, shortly after the new year, had followed his theatrical aspirations to New York.

"I decided to make a video blog about my experiences here in the Big Apple, like they say," the aspiring Broadway star said, gazing with eager eyes into a shaky camera lens. "If you guys have any questions, I'm looking for a job right now and I'm going to start going to auditions, so I can start talking about auditioning in New York, finding an apartment, and finding a job," he went on with cartoonish earnesty.

As the viewer numbers grew, anonymous responses began coming in. Many declared Craig as a closeted homosexual whose mention about a girlfriend was a cover-up, while others wished him good luck with multiple exclamation points. "Please tell me this is a joke," one said.

The blog's intended point seemed to escape at least those who vocalized their opinions. Craig was, in fact, the creation of New York-based actor and singer Kevin Murphy, who had envisioned the character after beginning an improv theater course at the Upright Citizens Brigade. That anyone suspected Craig to be a real person came as a shock to Murphy.

"I do weird voices and joke around with my friends, and this was one character that I played around with. For me it was an exercise in taking a weird character and trying to make him true in his own existence," he told me. "I didn¹t think that people were going to think of this as a real person. It didn't occur to me. I just thought that people would see this as something that was funny and then when they [thought of it as real], I sort of felt bad and guilty."

That his character spurred such an avid fake-versus-real debate, however, brought the video series more widespread attention, and Murphy continued to post new videos. Later in March, Gawker ran an article inviting viewers to decide if Craig and his girlfriend Janine were genuine or made up, and just a few weeks later the two were invited to flolic backstage at Broadway's 'Spamalot.' Murphy was also invited to have a meeting with VH1 producers, who had caught wind of his character and wanted to find out about his future projects.

For Murphy, who graduated from NYU's MFA program in musical theater last year, Craig has provided a much-needed alternative to the more conventional actor's routine of daily auditions. In addition to filming new posts, he plans to launch a joint blog with Title of Show's star Hunter Bell, and was recently encouraged by his agent to write a sketch comedy show around Craig's character.

"From an agent's perspective it's great, because their clients are getting themselves out there in a free way," he says. "It's one of the biggest lessons I've learned, that especially for those of us who don't fit in a mold, doing things the traditional way isn't really going to work," he says.

"[Without Craig,] I definitely think I would have been stuck a little more in the audition world, feeling like I needed to make myself a chorus boy or a dancer. It's something I could do, but it ultimately wouldn't be as satisfying," he continues.

Murphy is currently in an Off-Broadway production entitled Fragments, playing at Midtown Manhattan's Matthew Corozine Studio until Saturday. See more details here.

01:15 pm | 0 recommendations | Be the first to comment

'Title of Show' Opens on Broadway

Almost three months ago I interviewed writer-singer-actor Jeff Bowen, whose musical about the making of a musical, Title of Show, was picked up for a Broadway run (see my post here.). Much of his and co-writer Hunter Bell's success, Bowen told me, was due to the pair's self-made marketing campaign on Youtube. The concept: Shoot and launch a web series about taking a small-time festival show to the glitsy epicenter of Manhattan's theater scene.

Title of Show is set to open on broadway on Thursday. The New York Times included a feature on the musical in its Sunday issue.

10:46 am | 0 recommendations | Be the first to comment

Theaters Prepare for 'Dark Knight' Release

The Hollywood blockbuster hero--from a whip-wielding archeologist to a Blahnik-sporting sex columnist--is alive and well. And come next Friday, Robert Downey Jr.'s Iron Man is likely to face a dethroning from the top of 2008's box office (over $312 million to date) by late Heath Ledger's interpretation of the Joker.

The Dark Knight is perceived by much of the moviegoing population as the most anticipated film of the already blockbuster-friendly summer, thanks to not only the critical acclaim of director Christopher Nolan's first shot at the Batman Franchise in 2005, but by a posthumous performance that has generated Oscar talk ever since Ledger's death early this year.

To add to the fanfares, critics at publications like Time and The Hollywood Reporter have already praised the unusually adult superhero film. Where a serious, reflective take on a character resulted in widespread mockery for Ang Lee (see 2003's The Hulk), Nolan's signature grimness has encountered nothing but fan admiration.

Multiplexes are now taking extra steps to gear up for a record-breaking opening, The New York Times reports. In addition to offering midnight and 3 a.m screenings, theaters around the country have added a 6 a.m Friday morning screening onto their lineups.

Expect a productive summer Friday at the office.

10:05 am | 0 recommendations | Be the first to comment

In Finland, the Accordion is Still Cool

I'm currently on a short vacation in my home country of Finland, and
even through the relative isolation of a television set at my parents'
summer cottage, have been reminded of the country's famed musical
heritage. Last night's television news depicted Tuska-Festival,
an annual gathering of metal bands in Helsinki, while the night before,
the nation's cultural headlines focused on--yes--accordions.

Sata-Häme Soi
is an annual festival in the small town of Ikaalinen, Finland,
dedicated entirely to the art of the accordion. Although the
instrument's bouncy, melancholy twang can still be occasionally heard
on Helsinki's street corners, the accordion is also often associated
with a fading tradition. If the international crowd at Sata-Häme Soi is
any indication, however, the esoteric art form is alive and well.
Yesterday's winners of the annual Primus Ikaalinen-accordion
competition included young musicians from Italy, Russia and France, in
that order.

The local TV news even featured a 17-year-old girl who is part of a
musical movement to modernize the instrument; her repertoire includes
nontraditional arrangements of old pieces, as well as foreign
compositions. The youngest accordion prodigy this year was a
seven-year-old.