Who else for today? Damien Hirst and Jeff Koons.

Yesterday and today the Guardian has had a blitz of coverage on Hirst's new exhibition, the media highlight of which is his diamond-encrusted skull for sale for 50 million pounds. Who'll buy it? The first name the Guardian throws out is Paul Allen. My first thought was: nah, considering the conservatism of what he owns, I doubt it.

But is the skull a conservative or a progressive work? Will it be a joke on the one who buys it, or a genuine treasure? In a quick interview with one of the several Guardian writers dispatched to deal with the spectacle, Hirst says, "To me it seems gentle, quite soft. I would hope that anybody looking at it would get a bit of hope, and be uplifted. We need to line the world with beautiful things that give you hope." What's with the naif-speak? Sounds blank, just like Koons. But back to that.

Guardian critic Jonathan Jones today declares a totally immoderate love for the skull (he compares its stature to Picasso's Demoiselle exactly a century ago), and even asks Britain to shell out the 50 mil to keep it within the isle's borders.

Jones, for all his overzealousness, makes a convincing case for Hirst's grand gesture. He sees something besides stale references to Warhol and Duchamp, something ancient. Which is why I find Hirst's tone in the quote to be so disappointing. I'd love to believe that this object is, as Jones calls it, the "King of Death," something high and mighty and low and dirty all at the same time, but something not funny, not a joke, not ironic, not about that sorry old little subject of art.

I wish I could be over there to see for myself. (Conversely, I haven't had a regret about missing that other big show that a major publication's critic has raved about in the last few days: Richard Serra's retrospective at MoMA, oddly fawned over by Michael Kimmelman. Is it the art or the critic? Goes to show the lasting power of rhetoric.)

And what about Koons? Most of his work irritates me, and his persona certainly does. Many people see it as an update of Warhol. Who ever needed an update on the endgame that was Warhol? (Reminds me of what Alec Soth so simply uttered on his blog today about another artist, "Certainly only one photographer is allowed to bury his photographs"). And B, Koons achieves profundity simply by being confusing. This isn't a living koan, it's a lazy American.

But for a piece that ran Sunday, Koons told The Observer something that struck a nerve with me, having just seen the new show Sparkle Then Fade at Tacoma Art Museum:

Too verbose to be oracular, too random to be eloquent, Koons nevertheless releases the occasional pearl of sense. The real readymades he's interested in, he says, are not the objects, but the people reflected in them. Inflatable toys, which have influenced him since the beginning of his career, 'turn everything inside out. They're dense on the outside, and everything that's ethereal is on the inside. We inhale air, that's a sign of life, and when you exhale your last breath that's a sign of death. When an inflatable has a hole in it, it's deadly.'

In that case, there's more than one potentially toxic work at TAM these days (the first is Jack Daws's bubblegum machine filled with prescription drugs), because the yellow-flower Koons inflatable in the gallery has a slow leak. It sags on its pedestal and has to be re-inflated from time to time, but it wouldn't be right to patch the hole, because that would compromise the original object, Rock Hushka, the show's curator, told me. The owners (the Jordan Schnitzer Family Foundation) are stuck between a flower and a soft place.

Even to this day, I can find no quick way around this image:
It's the cover for Natalie Merchant's 2001 album Motherland. What kind of power is this? It's a power that is opposite that of the ascetic. And as the rich once admired the ascetic's power of nothingness, of restraint, of absolute self-control, here we admire Merchant's power of abundance, of unrestrained production. The production of milk, of life, of the universe. Here in this moment under the tree she is pure positivity.

This is a picture I took of Kaige Chen:
I would do anything to have under my own eyes the bags that are under the eyes of this famous Chinese director. Just look at them! So heavy, so sad. These eyes have been exhausted by the whole world they have seen and can't stop seeing.

20 Years of Artist Trust
(Hit Parade) Artist Trust has been giving out money for two decades, and here are the results. Jaq Chartier's bleeding dye experiments, Patrick Holderfield's roaring flames and shipwrecks, the flesh of Brian Murphy, the discipline and restraint of Victoria Haven and Robert Yoder—it's all here, along with a new installation by Mandy Greer (of bloody beaded-stag fame) for the gallery's University Street window. (SAM Gallery, 1220 Third Ave, 343-1101. 10:30 am—5 pm, free.) JEN GRAVES

I just received this press release from Landmark Theatres:

“METRO CLASSICS” Landmark's Metro Cinemas is proud to announce the launch of Metro Classics, a new repertory film series that will run every Wednesday night from June 27th through August 22nd.  This initial experiment presents a decade-by-decade survey of film history from the 1920s through the 2000s. Each film is a representative example of the types of cinema being made at that particular moment in history. From the heights of Silent Cinema in the late 20s, through the Classical Hollywood Studio period, the radical re-imaginings of cinema in the 60s, 70s and 80s in both Europe and America, to the self-conscious postmodern style of the 90s and the explosion of Asian cinema at the dawn of the 21st Century. Nine classic films exemplifying the wide-range and depth of film history. 

Feeling the heat from SIFF Cinema's summer programming, perhaps? Here's the lineup--nothing too adventurous, but intriguing all the same. (Well, except Crouching Tiger.)

Wed June 27 at 7 and 9 pm: Sunrise

Wed July 4 at 6, 8, 10 pm: Duck Soup

Wed July 11 at 7 and 9:15 pm: Casablanca

Wed July 18 at 7 and 9:30 pm: The Searchers

Wed July 25 at 7 and 9:30 pm: Blow-Up

Wed Aug 1 at 7 and 9:30 pm: Taxi Driver

Wed Aug 8 at 7 and 9:30 pm: Do the Right Thing

Wed Aug 15 at 7 and 9:30 pm: Miller's Crossing

Wed Aug 22 at 7 and 9:30 pm: Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon

This morning brought this I, Anonymous to my inbox:

The last 24 hours have been very difficult for me...Currently, I'm recovering from an overdose of modern dance. I love that I have friends who appreciate the arts, because then it feels like I don't have to. I don't need that kind of pressure in my life. Last night was a benefit for a local modern dance studio. There was complimentary champagne being served from 5:15 to 5:23, followed by a catered "gourmet" buffet (a contradiction in terms), intermingled with spastic performance art commonly referred to as Modern Dance. Evidently, all you need in order to be a modern dancer is to have an ego the size of Montana and a mild to severe case of epilepsy. The seizures are accompanied by digital recordings of gastrointestinal phenomena backed by a horn section. Japanese cartoons are no longer a pre-requisite. Truly, a very fucked up evening.

Actually, egotists with epilepsy writhing to digital farts sounds like the kind of modern dance I like...

The press release hasn't gone out yet, but here's what it will say: Margit Rankin, the executive director of Seattle Arts & Lectures, is stepping down. We just spoke on the phone. She's stepping down for personal reasons and doesn't have any particular next career move planned. She's looking forward to some time off.

After four years of her leadership, the organization appears to be more stable than ever. She is an excellent administrator. The lecture series hasn't changed much under Rankin's leadership, but SAL's several educational programs have grown. (Rankin's background is in academia.)

A representative from the search committee that will find her replacement couldn't immediately be reached. I'll post the press release here as soon as I get it.

I'm soooo very sorry that I suggested:

Moscow Cats Theatre

(Feline Acrobatics) Most hotels won’t accommodate 35 cats, so everywhere this awesome traveling company goes, its animals stay in their own apartment. They wear bow ties and hats. They walk on tightropes, dance, and leap—little kitty gymnasts for a group of weirdo Russian clowns. There is also one dog, which is somehow depressing. (Seattle Repertory Theatre, 155 Mercer St, 443-2222. 1 and 5 pm, $49—$57.) ARI SPOOL

I was prompted by a comment on this post to investigate the performances lack of bowties and possible suckage. While sucking is relative, I can confirm that there were no bowties or hats on the cats this weekend. This is a vile disappointment, leaving me with no choice but to consider suicide and de-suggest the event.

I am so upset right now.

'For the Bible Tells Me So'
(SIFF) The gulf between Biblical literalists and real-life homosexuals is packed with irreconcilable differences, and Daniel Karslake's brilliant documentary goes where those differences matter most: within families, where fundamentalist parents and queer kids can remain locked in battle unto eternity. As infuriating and heartbreaking as you'd fear and more inspiring than you'd imagine, Bible is the best gay doc since The Celluloid Closet. (SIFF Cinema, 321 Mercer St, 324-9996. 6:45 pm, $10.) DAVID SCHMADER

Georgetown Music Fest
(A Lot of Local Bands in Just Two Days) Now that Capitol Hill Block Party is huge, maybe you want summer fun that's smaller, still neighborhoody—not about the big names but more about good bands, good folks, and beer. Go to Georgetown, friend, for this weekend's Georgetown Music Fest featuring locals like Patient Patient, the Lonely Forest, the Young Sportsmen, For Year's Blue, Idiot Pilot, and the Supersuckers. You're welcome. (Georgetown Music Fest, 1200 S Vale St, www.georgetownmusicfest.com. Noon—6 pm, $12.50 per day adv/$15 DOS, $25 weekend pass, all ages.) MEGAN SELING

Moscow Cats Theatre
(Feline Acrobatics) Most hotels won't accommodate 35 cats, so everywhere this awesome traveling company goes, its animals stay in their own apartment. They wear bow ties and hats. They walk on tightropes, dance, and leap—little kitty gymnasts for a group of weirdo Russian clowns. There is also one dog, which is somehow depressing. (Seattle Repertory Theatre, 155 Mercer St, 443-2222. 1 and 5 pm, $49—$57.) ARI SPOOL

'The Cloud'
(SIFF) First, The Cloud is a sweet (but not simpering) teen romance. Then it's a terrifying ecodisaster thriller. Then it stitches the two genres together in a surprising and heartbreaking way. There is a brooding heartthrob, a tragic heroine, mean boys, a nuclear accident, mass panic, mass death (the scenes of mobbed train stations and gridlocked highways are chilling), an epic bicycle escape, fatal rain, and young, irradiated love. It's a German take on the Hollywood blockbuster and it's ausgezeichnet. (Pacific Place, 600 Pine St, 324-9996. 6:30 pm, $10.) BRENDAN KILEY

Hate SIFF? Love movies? (It happens.)

Opening today:

This fabulous image...

... is from the Japanese softcore "pink film" The Glamorous Life of Sachiko Hanai, playing all week at Northwest Film Forum. Andrew Wright has a titillating capsule at Get Out.

For a slightly more intellectual rollercoaster, turn to Grand Illusion, which has a brutal double-header from Michael Haneke, the Austrian director of Caché and Code Unknown. His early films The Seventh Continent and Benny's Video are screening through Thursday, two for the price of one.

In On Screen this week: several quick turnarounds from SIFF--Judd Apatow's Knocked Up; the excellent slasher comedy Severance; Once, a much ballyhooed Irish musical that actually sucks ass; and the pretty, dim-witted omnibus embrace of all things Paree, Paris Je T'Aime. Plus: blue-collar Sundance import Steel Dreams, dumbass Kevin Costner serial killer movie Mr. Brooks, and the girl power sports movie / Shue family vanity project Gracie. We received notice too late for the print edition, but Hollywood Dreams is no longer opening in Seattle.

For complete Film Shorts and Movie Times, see Get Out. For exhaustive coverage of all things SIFF, see SIFF Notes Online at www.thestranger.com/siff.

Barack Obama
(Political Starfucking) Whatever, John Edwards. Barack Obama is so the Democratic hottie of the moment. Oprah loves him. Clinton fears him. Everywhere he goes, he's mobbed. Expect no less when he shows up in Seattle for this "kickoff" event, during which he's sure to talk about the "audacity of hope," flash his megawatt smile, and mention that local connection of his—Stanley Ann Dunham, his feisty atheist mother, lived for a time on Mercer Island. (WaMu Theater, 800 Occidental Ave S, www.barackobama.com. Doors at 5:30 pm, $25—$100.) ELI SANDERS

This book is presently displayed in the window of a small bookstore, Spine and Crown, on Pine Street.

This is the author of the art book, Contemporary Art in France:

Catherine Millet is also the author of a pornographic memoir called The Sexual Life of Catherine M., which was published in 2002 and reviewed in this paper by the Marxist philosopher Nic Veroli. Here is the opening paragraph of that review, "Sex Boredom, Death: Looking For the French Fuck":

Between the moment you are ejected from your mother's womb, screaming and covered in blood, and the moment you die, groaning and on your way back to the primal muck, you have to find some way of passing the time. That is the human condition and there is no haggling with it. Some people get into politics or art or they go bowling. Catherine Millet picked sex as her existential hobby and that is what she writes about in her memoir, The Sexual Life of Catherine M.

I read the book about the time the review was published and found it amazing, not because of the amount of sex Millet had experienced in her life but because her writing made all of that sex sound boring. When she sucks a penis it's with the feeling of a cold sea creature; she simply does it because the thing is in front of her face, at a party or in a park. This is her rhythm: She meets a man, sucks/fucks him, has a few dull sensations, finishes, and moves on to the next encounter with no hope or desire that it will be better than the previous encounter, or other encounters in her near and distant past. One wonders if a woman who has almost no passion when it comes to writing about sex can have any passion when it comes to writing about art. And writing without passion is not writing at all.

I wanted to have a quick look at the inside of Contemporary Art in France, but the closed store imprisoned the book. Nevertheless, Ellen Forney did a nice illustration for Veroli's review of Millet's dry sex book.

'a deer in the headlights'
(Art) Toronto artist Stephen Andrews didn't lowercase the title just to be twee. His sentence fragment points the way to his drawings—based on photographs, and rubbed on over layers of mesh—as bits of information massed together and longing for meaning. Since his 2005 show of war drawings, he has switched to advertising. His latest animation is a symbol-packed 45-second car commercial in which you play the driver, the deer, the pedestrian, and the road itself. (Platform Gallery, 114 Third Ave S, 323-2808. 11 am—5:30 pm, free.) JEN GRAVES

This is how it happened:
I was seven, spending the summer in Seattle (from DC), and expending a large amount of mental energy in the doomed project of removing the African accent from my developing American English. I was tired of classmates, particularly black American classmates, making fun of it and wanted to return to school that fall sounding just like Flip Wilson, my hero at the time. For complicated reasons--busy parents, culture shock, lack of friends outside of the family circle--I had reached the age of seven without seeing a single movie. The whole business was a mystery to me. What is it people saw in those big boxes?

Because everyone was talking about Star Wars that summer, I begged my Maiguru Sana (Auntie Sana, my mother's sister) to take me to a screening of it in Ballard. She agreed. She too had never seen a movie in her life--she was 33. Because her husband's time was completely occupied by a doctorate dissertation, she had the free time to watch this Star Wars with me. We went to Ballard, we entered the theater, we sat near the front row, the screen opened, the spectacle began, the spectacle ran, the spectacle ended, and I was totally transformed. (My Maiguru, on the other hand, slept during the whole movie--even the loud space battle couldn't wake her up.)

Now to explain the meaning and cause of the great transformation. I went into Star Wars a Christian and walked out of it an atheist. Before seeing the movie, I understood the war of Good against Evil to be an entirely Christian one: God vs. Satan. The war happened on the ground, in the sky above, and the immense dark space beyond the moon. The universe was ordered by heaven and hell. So imagine the shock of seeing on the screen a whole different order, a whole different war between the forces of Good and the forces of Evil; a war, furthermore, that made no mention of Jesus, or Lucifer, or the star of Bethlehem, the Romans, the beasts in "The Book of Revelations," the Last Supper. Yet, in the absolute absence of these Christian codes of goodness, I still sided with these other codes and acts of goodness taking place in a faraway galaxy.

In the bright afternoon light of that day, I realized that God was limited, and what was infinite was the Good itself, and that the Good could take on different shapes (Ben Obi-Wan Kenobi, John, Luke Skywalker, Jesus, Princess Leia, Mary). In the bus back to the University District, my head was on fire. It was like seeing the world for the first time. I was born again.

Can Can Castaways
(Cabaret) The Can Can is an intimate, subterranean den with an old-time speakeasy feel, rich food, and reasonably priced liquor—an enchanting hideaway any night of the week. On Wednesdays, the cabaret's small cadre of captivating dancers take to the tiny stage and spin eerie fables to a cirque noir and vaudeville-flavored soundtrack by the Bad Things, Dresden Dolls, and the like. (Can Can, 94 Pike St, 652-0832. 9 pm, $5, 21+.) Amy Kate Horn

SIFF's spotlight country this year is Germany, for reasons I can discern only dimly. The program page on their site notes that The Lives of Others won an Oscar this year. (Pan's Labyrinth wuz robbed!) Or here's Carl Spence expounding on the choice in the German spotlight press release:

“Germany has a rich and bold history of cinema. The current resurgence of German films infuses tradition with innovation for some of the most uniquely powerful films anywhere in the world,” says Carl Spence, SIFF Artistic Director.

Meh. History, sure, but recent German cinema ain't all that inspiring. Turkish Germans are mixing things up, but there's only one such example in the lineup. (Running on Empty plays Saturday and Monday at SIFF.) Meanwhile, Volker Schlondorff sneaks by with another heinous clunker about the Polish Solidarity movement, in which a German actress is dubbed into Polish to play the "mother of Poland." Geez. Can't Germany leave Poland well enough alone?

I mused in the capsule for the German shorts package that Austria or Romania would've been more interesting.

Check out the welcome Romania got at Cannes: prizes and analysis. And see SIFF Notes for reviews of the remaining Romanian features in SIFF.

There's a decent Austrian doc in SIFF, but the real action lies elsewhere.

Starting Friday, Grand Illusion's got the clenched precision of Austrian filmmaker Michael Haneke packaged in double features for the next two weeks.

Only two months ago we were posting about Susan Trapnell stepping down and Jolanne Stanton stepping up as the new managing director at ACT Theatre, which was generally read as a sign that the theater was healthy and confident again.

As of this afternoon, Jolanne Stanton has become the "interim managing director," a euphemism for she's quitting or she got canned. ACT's Karen Bystrom says "the search for a new managing director has begun immediately."

There were questions, two months ago, about Stanton not having much theater experience, about her short one-year tenure on ACT's board. At the time, those questions were deflected with answers like yes, well, we think she's the right person for the job anyway. Looks like she wasn't the right person for the job after all.

After watching Paris, je t'aime:


And SIFF's 2007 Fly Filmmaking Challenge, which contained three short films by local directors (Lisa Hardmeyer, Matt Daniels, and Dayna Hanson), I have come to conclude that film, as an art form, requires length if it is to be meaningful. Short films, unlike short stories, are mostly empty and consistently end in disappointment. To make a short film is to make something that is bound to fail. Even the best short films are barely worth the effort required to make them. For example, Hanson's "Rainbow," the second film shown in the Fly Filmmaking Challenge, has great (even magical) moments, but nothing substantial can be drawn from the brief experience of watching it. As for Paris, je t'aime, what a mess of a movie. Only two of its 18 shorts can be classified as any good. The rest are dust to the mouth and dull to the mind.

This Obama doodle, commissioned for a charity fund raiser, just sold for more than $2,000 on ebay.

Pictured: Charles Schumer, Harry Reid, Dianne Feinstein, and Edward Kennedy. Obama apparently drew the picture while he was presiding over the Senate.

For more Obama-gawking, and at a much cheaper price ($25-$100), there's an opportunity coming up this Friday: Obama will be holding his "Seattle Kickoff" at the Qwest Field Event Center starting at 5:30 p.m.

Bionic bamboo can be found near Fourth and Jackson:
Let's for a minute be in a mind partially molded by the scholastic causes. What is it we now see? All that the artist has removed. And what has the artist removed? Everything in the metal that was not a bamboo. And what is the final purpose of this piece of art made from metal? Feeding the artist. The philosopher says: "Seek for food and clothing first, then the Kingdom of God shall be added unto you."

Secret Chiefs 3
(Music) You don't have to be a Sufi mystic or student of Pythagorean tonal theory to dig Secret Chiefs 3, but it helps. Brainchild of multi-instrumentalist, occultist, and genius Trey Spruance, the nine-piece collective smashes trance-inducing Middle Eastern song structure, tuning, and instrumentation with stabs of death metal, surf jazz, and electronic deviance, making modern traditional music as bazaar as it is bizarre. Recommended if you like Ennio Morricone, Mr. Bungle, or opium binging. (Neumo's, 925 E Pike St, 709-9467. 8 pm, $12, 21+.) Jonathan Zwickel

'Monkey Warfare'
(SIFF) Shot in two weeks for just $30,000, this paranoid pot romance—which is also an urban-guerrilla comedy—is pleasantly disorienting. First it's about a couple of burned-out radicals. Then it's about a siren with easy access to huge amounts of marijuana. Then it's about a pack of bicycle anarchists and a Molotov cocktail. Monkey Warfare is a Canadian movie, but it looks and feels dirtier and sexier than you thought contemporary Canadian cinema could be. (Harvard Exit, 807 E Roy St, 324-9996. 2 pm, $10.) Brendan Kiley

Sasquatch!
(Festival) Why the fuck would I suggest that you drive 3 long hours only to spend 12 hours baking in the blazing-hot sun of Eastern Washington? Sasquatch!, of course! If you didn't go yesterday, you missed Björk, Arcade Fire, Mirah, the Hold Steady, and a bunch of other awesome shit. For shame. But the goodness continues today with Beastie Boys, the Polyphonic Spree, Blackalicious, Bad Brains, Spoon, and so many more. (Gorge Amphitheatre, George, www.sasquatchfestival.com. Noon—midnight, $75, all ages.) Megan Seling

I attended the first show in the Swashbuckler Saturdays program at SIFF, and—as a side note—the projection problems that plagued the Egyptian last year are back. No fire this time, but the film went out of focus at the first punch and the projectionist didn't notice until the brawlers had straightened their uniforms and shuffled off to the next scene. Way to dampen the swashbuckling, dude.

The show was Gunga Din, a 1939 George Stevens action-adventure film, and one of those archival presentations that really could've used a scholarly introduction. The movie is still relatively entertaining, but it can be hard to get into the fight scenes when you're having second thoughts about all that Jewish-to-Indian blackface...

... not to mention the cheery British imperialism, homosocial misogyny, California mountain ranges, and Yank accents peppered with probably ahistorical British slang. That post-lashing Cary Grant lounging about with his shirt calculatedly unbuttoned was also distracting.

But the rampant blackface in Gunga Din--which pretty much anybody would recognize as objectionable today--also reminded me of the new Michael Winterbottom film A Mighty Heart, which I saw earlier this week. Here's Angelina Jolie as the French-Cuban wife of murdered journalist Daniel Pearl:

Her skin is clearly pigmented, she wears dark contacts, and the wig is Africanized too. Now, the character she plays in the film is more a caricature of Jolie herself than any stereotype one might have about persons of Cuban ancestry raised in Paris. She spends most of the movie being very pregnant, playing with adorable children of other nationalities, and worrying about her man. In that sense, her blackface get-up is in no way comparable to the abject character of Gunga Din, a childlike would-be soldier more loyal to the Queen of England than any of his darker-skinned countrymen.

But Jolie was undoubtedly cast in the role of Mariane Pearl because the producers needed a star, and there are no French-Cuban actresses of equal stature wandering around Hollywood. Why else was Sam Jaffe cast as Gunga Din?

'At What Point Is the Wax No Longer Wax?'
(Art) Wax is so different under differing conditions that only thinking makes it wax, Descartes wrote. California artist Amir Zaki makes trees and photographs seem just as contingent. Are these oddly shaped trunks and stumps suburban mutants that have been caught in a strange light at night, or did Zaki alter them? It's a well-trod theme in photography, but Zaki's images are fresh, neither stagy nor naturalistic, but alien in a surprisingly familiar way. (James Harris Gallery, 309A Third Ave S, 903-6220. 11 am—5 pm, free.) Jen Graves

The ultimate Trustafarian:

This weekend is all about SIFF (and SIFF Notes Online), of course, but say you don't feel like braving the dead stare of Platinum pass holders and the anxiety of watching a film with the director nervously anticipating your every titter. What are your options?

Seattle True International Film Festival: The scrappy underdog festival kicks off this weekend. Andrew Wright has the lowdown. (Actually, many directors will indeed be in the audience at STIFF, but the fanciest pass holders only paid $50.)

Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End: Sean Nelson reviews the juggernaut.

Ping Pong: Grand Illusion has a "manic, wonderfully overwrought manga adaptation about the fierce competitive drive of dudes with names such as Peco, Smile, and Demon," says Andrew Wright.

The Freshman: The Paramount's Silent Movie Mondays series wraps up on... a Friday? Yes, indeed, The Freshman and For Heaven's Sake play tonight at the Paramount.

And check out Get Out for complete movie listings. Drown yourself in cinema!

Another tribute to Star Wars, on this, its 30th anniversary--Hair Portraits!

On the far right, you find this:

Thanks, Tyler!

1)
Few things in life make me happier than watching my daughter walk up the metal steps of the school bus. It is the passage for her transition from the family to the state. As the philosopher points out in almost all of his books: the ethical substance (society) is made up of two laws--one which is divine (the family) and one which is human (the state). Put another way: one which is oikos (the house) and one which is polis (the city). The steps on the school bus lead Delphinium (my daughter) from her father or mother (family) to school (state). For her, I'm nothing more than the given, the natural, the home (in short, all that Aeschylus' trilogy, The House of Atreus, designates as bad); the polis, the fashioned, is the social space in which she gets to decide the self she wants to be (which is the self that will overcome the given). The house is about the underworld, the night; the polis is daylight and clarity. Her leaving me is leaving the dark limits of birth and death and entering the open universal, the larger community, the longer course of social history. Each step my daughter makes up and into the bus negates me. When the doors close behind her, I'm totally negated. The state is the power she has over me, the family, and nothing makes me happier than to see her little power grow.

2)
When beautiful Cassandra steps down from the chariot and sees Agamemnon's house, she screams: "No . . . no . . . a house. [a] house full of death, kinsmen butchered . . . heads chopped off . . . a human slaughterhouse awash in blood . . ." To Greek eyes, the home was a dark force because of its direct connection with the life and death forces of nature. And in Late Antiquity, Christianity began its long war against the home, the site of terrible crimes: fornication, murder, incest. When it completely defeated the family in the High Middle Ages, the powers of death were transferred from the home to the church. To understand this long struggle between the church and the home is to see one of the main reasons for the continuing Christian resistance to abortion rights. It is for the church a kind re-empowering of the home, which, as the the philosopher says in almost almost all of his books, is the domain of the woman. The substance of the popular novel The Da Vinci Code is this struggle that dates all the way back to the The House of Atreus.

3)
My father to me, while driving to my mother's grave: "In traditional Manica [or African] society, there were no big churches. Your hut was your church. The altar was in the hut. You didn't leave the hut to pray. You prayed in your hut. When Christianity arrived and settled, that's when you left the house to pray in the church."

'Objective Sound'
(Art) Bill Fontana, based in San Francisco, is a pioneer of sound art and a guy to pay attention to. His latest installation is a resonation-portrait of the industrial area hugging the Duwamish River in South Seattle, near the art gallery Western Bridge. Fontana will pipe sounds from the neighborhood (machinery, trucks, trains) into the darkened gallery, where steel and glass objects found nearby and brought inside will act like musical instruments, shaping the sounds. (Western Bridge, 3412 Fourth Ave S, 838-7444. Noon—6 pm, free.) Jen Graves

Also...

'Life in Loops'
(SIFF) If you didn't shell out 50 bucks for yesterday's official opening film and party, your SIFF should begin with this terrific experimental documentary, a "remix" of Michael Glawogger's controversial 1998 film Megacities, about members of the urban underclass. The sampled footage (including some new outtakes) becomes electric in this pulsating, rhythmic edit: A dye-sifter in Mumbai turns purple and green after a day spent crouching over his powders, a junkie in New York demonstrates his various hustles, and a young man in Tokyo seems in danger of going hikikomori, given his inordinate affection for huggable girl-shaped pillows. (Northwest Film Forum, 1515 12th Ave, 324-9996. 9:15 pm, $10.) Annie Wagner

Japanther
(Music) This Brooklyn duo is one of the most electrifying bands alive. Their shows are massively amplified, sweat-soaked punk-rock revivals. Ian Vanek's inspirational ranting—delivered via modified pay-phone-handset mic and frequently from atop his drum kit—will make you want to ride a bike, vandalize a condo, and quit your job, while Matt Reilly's scuzzy bass riffs will just make you want to rock the fuck out. With DD/MM/YYYY, Little Party and the Bad Business, and Sam Rousso Soundsystem. (Vera Project, Seattle Center, www.theveraproject.org. 7:30 pm, $7, $6 w/club card, all ages.) Eric Grandy

When I saw this image from this article about Jim Rittman's Paradise Insects/Symbiotic Relationships,

I instantly thought of this slideshow from the New York Times this week, which contains this image:

Humans can create nothing more crazy or beautiful than what already exists in nature, in my opinion.
Also, I love this little guy, from the same slideshow:

1) At lunch time I discovered the difference between the hot foods at the Whole Foods Market in Vulcan land and the Whole Foods Market in Portland. The one down south is much better than the one down the road. The reason? The Whole Foods up here somehow lacks the natural (even erotic) love you find in the other, smaller Whole Foods in downtown Portland.

2) Last night I chanced to enjoy a meal at One Pot, which happened in a not yet open gallery space, Vermilion, on 11th ave, next to the dying Backstage Thrift. The theme for the evening was Apicus, a Roman cookbook complied in the late 4th or early 5th century AD. The dishes, prepared by Morgan Brownlow, were drawn directly from the ancient text. Served to a long and packed table: chicken wings in cumin sauce ("it's sweet and vinegary and salty taste is due to food preservation"), sticky chicken feet, balled sausages, farro ("which fed the Legions"), and peas in the style of Vitellius. Absolutely Roman.

3) As for this block of architectural science fiction, it's up north, in Vancouver.
Ice, ice, baby.

I keep seeing ads for the 5th Ave. Theater production of West Side Story (May 26-June 17).

Just Like Amazing Spider-Man #1-200 is the great American novel, WSS is the great American opera.

Guy Davenport's translation of a fragment by the pre-Socractic philosopher Heraclitus:

By cosmic rule, as day yields night, so winter summer, war peace, plenty famine. All things change. Fire penetrates the lump of myrrh, until the joining bodies die and rise again in smoke called incense.

How superior it is to Kathleen Freeman's translation of the same fragment:

God is day-night, winter-sumer, war-peace, satiety-famine. But he chances like (fire) which when it mingles with the smoke of incense, is named according to each man's pleasure.

Now, what is it about selection and approach that makes one writer better than another? More importantly, how is it that the choices a writer made in another context, another language, culture and time, can be recognized by us as poor or rich, bad or good? As with Parmenides, one suspects that literary change might be an illusion. The real (the good) might always be the same, always the one.

^{A still from Marie Jager’s 12-minute 2006 collage film The Purple Cloud.}

Jen Graves's latest In/Visible podcast is online now. She talks with contemporary film artist Marie Jager, and she points us toward a screening tonight curated by Jager:

At 8:00 p.m. tonight, Wednesday, May 23, as part of the Henry’s “Artist’s Cinema” series at Northwest Film Forum, the L.A. artist offers a glimpse of her influences by choosing historic films and contemporary works for a two-hour program of short films that share “a profound wonder of both nature and absurd fictional premises” (the roster includes Dudley Murphy’s The Soul of the Cypress [1920], Jean Painleve’s The Love Life of the Octopus [1965], Jack Goldstein’s 46-second film Butterflies [1975], Dr. Jean Comandon’s The Movement of Plants [1927], At the Winter Sea Ice Camp [part of the National Film Board of Canada’s Netsilik Eskimo series], and Jean Rouch’s Mad Masters from 1956).

This also is your chance to see Jager’s Purple Cloud on a big screen in a dark room (the little screen at the entryway to the Henry is slightly window-addled). It’s a three-part work presenting fragments of the book’s narrative, moving from gemstones in deserts to tomb boats at sea to a city of doomed survivors who’ve only escaped the stalking of the toxic purple cloud temporarily.

As if BAM hasn't been through enough, Regina Hackett reports this morning that the museum has sent a letter to its members announcing that the museum's chief financial officer has stolen $200,000.

The museum has let the employee go and didn't name names to the P-I. It's conducting an internal investigation, and viewing this as "a fundraising opportunity," director Michael Monroe told Hackett.

While I've been busting ass to get The Stranger's annual SIFF Notes pullout together (don't you just love working twenty hours over a single weekend?), my attention has more than occasionally wandered to the the Cannes coverage currently pouring out of southern France.

The best stuff is at The New York Times (no blog this year, sadly, but there are some OK podcasts) and The Guardian's film blog.