W2 - Wendy to the Second Power

First, the peppy and inventive music film:


Isn't it cute? It's CGI by Animusic. You can find lots of their music machine animations on YouTube, all with robotic arms, tubes and gears playing various music pieces.

But somebody started a thread where this clip is emailed out and here's what the story (HOAX!) says:

AMAZING!
Turn your sound on for this. Read this first, then watch.

This is almost unbelievable. See how all of the balls wind up in catcher cones.

This incredible machine was built as a collaborative effort between the Robert M. Trammell Music Conservatory and the Sharon Wick School of Engineering at the University of Iowa.. Amazingly, 97% of the machines components came from John Deere Industries and Irrigation Equipment of Bancroft, Iowa ...Yes, farm equipment!

It took the team a combined 13,029 hours of set-up, alignment, calibration, and tuning before filming this video but as you can see it was WELL worth the effort.

What kind of pissant takes what's a cool piece of art and technology and then blows all this smoke? John Deere parts, for pete's sake. And can people not see that the laws of physics don't let us use dropping, bouncing balls this way? Maybe for a few bars, which you'd set up a 100 times to get. Jeez!

While at the HWC, I, along with the ballroomful of attendees on the first day of the conference, was blown away by the opening ceremonies. The Kanaka'ole family (grandmother, daughter, grandson) did an incredible opening chant and dance, then Kaumakaiwa, the grandson, sort of emcee'd the rest of the event. The whole family is composed of scholars, PhDs, experts in Hawaiian myth, and they've taught a Pele-oriented form of hula for the past 400 years. This is during the time when (white male settlers from America made it so) doing so was illegal. They also did a presentation about their chants and songs the following day that I really enjoyed.

Kaumakaiwa ("Lopako") has a very feminine side to him, sort of flamboyant and swishy, but so cute as he talks and giggles. His hulas were also very graceful and feminine even though he's almost six feet tall. Then his soaring songs just tear your heart out with the emotion in them, but his chants are very visceral and guttural. Fascinating! Here he is talking about how/why he writes songs. Here's his record label page with a nice musical clip from him. I talked with him about the Mythic Journeys, Joseph Campell conferences (which, alas, seem no more), which is part of his background too. So I got the handshake when I greeted him, but then after talking, I got the full body hug with the nose rub --!

They also brought in the fabulous guitarist Makana, who's buddies with Lopako, so they sang/played and Welo danced. Makana was ranked one of the top 3 guitarists in the world, and his melodies on the slack string guitar often mimic the rain or the natural environment around him. He was GREAT! He also had percussion and bass guitar, with a well-known female hula dancer who traveled with him. The combination of guitar/strings and unusual percussion was very stirring -- reminded me a LOT of going to a Clandestine performance. That same sublime blending of tones and melody that can often make you weep.

Even the long-time Hawaiian residents were blown away and crying. They told me THIS was the authentic dance and music, and going to a pre-fab luau was nothing like this. Everybody talked about it for days.

Then they brought out the famous Hawaiian slam poet, Kealoha, aka Steven Wong. He had some interesting pieces that he performed somewhat acrobatically. I get bored with slam poetry easily (it seems like meaning and word play is subsumed to rhythm too often) but this guy was a great example of the good stuff. He seemed like a thin, young guy with his long flowing hair too. But reading about him and seeing him close-up later, he's probably in his early to mid-30s, and has a degree in nuclear physics from MIT. Plus he taught surfing for a while and must have some muscles under that too-large t-shirt he wore...

In LAX at the American Airlines gate yesterday, I saw a tall older guy with a mandolin case. He was wearing a Hawaiian shirt and looked familiar. When we got to Austin and I saw his buddy who'd obviously come to pick him up waiting with him at the baggage carrell, I realized who they were. I went up to the tall guy and...

ME: Excuse me, but are you a Lounge Lizard?
HIM: I'm ashamed to say that I am.
ME: Thought so! I've seen y'all play so many times over the years. But you know how you change out band members kinda regular, so it took me a while to be sure.
HIM: We're playing at the Cactus this weekend. You need to come hear us again. We got some great folks.

It was Tom of Austin Lounge Lizards -- folk music with goofy lyrics. What's not to love?

The Hawaii Writers Conference started early Friday morning, with incredible Hawaiian artists and scholars chanting, singing and dancing. Whoa! Very powerful, and I found that Kaumakaiwa and his family are from the Big Island and their chants and hulas are based on Pele and volcano-creation and lava, so are unusually visceral and powerful...!

Michael Arndt, screenwriter of LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE, did an incredible two-part course on movie endings: The Good, the Bad, the Insanely Great. He had clips and a really good analysis of warring value systems on three levels.

Liked hearing from Steve Fischer, a literary and Hollywood agent, and his perspective about what's going on in publishing and the movie biz. Long story short: Hollywood is offering low-ball deals and not honoring the "rates" that writers have worked themselves up to. It's like taking a big cut in salary now. Yeah, greedy.

Also went to lunch with screenwriter Diane Lake (FRIDA) who took me to task about what I had done or finished or promoted since last August in Cape Cod. She's very generously taken me on as a mentee --! I'll report to her, get advice... I had 4 ideas in my head, 2 scripts (from Margaret South's replotting), the supernatural mystery I began to enter the HWC contest, and a novel I'd started 5 years ago that had Hawaiian Kahuna magic in it. That last thing has gotten re-invigorated by being here, and also makes me wonder... So many times I've written a piece of fiction with a key element in it, only to have that element show up in my life powerfully within a few years. Hmmmm. More on that as I ponder! But Diane said to write the supernatural mystery RIGHT NOW because it has such market potential. And not to tell my pitch to too many people because it's so good. Yay! And useful to have one of the four ideas prioritized based on market stuff she knows better than me. Again, yay!

Today, just a final half-day and then I plan to take a tour to the north island side, and see Dole pineapples in the field too. Then back to the mainland and then to Austin by crack of dawn tomorrow.

It was enjoyable. I could totally see how the part of Galinda was written for Kristen Chenoweth. It had an intense perkiness, cuteness and self-absorption. I'd assumed the role of Ephalba was the main role, but it's really the two characters. And Galinda really has the bigger arc as she grows into the lifetime role of Glinda the Good. The actress who played the part was really playing Kristen Chenoweth playing the part.

I liked best the steampunk set design. That was fun, often with actual moving, whirling wheels as things shifted. The reconciliation song between the two main characters at the end was moving enough to get me crying. And the theater was full on a Friday night -- several people had seen the play performed elsewhere. (I made points with the neighbor to my left about going to a writers workshop where Gregory Macquire was going to be.) The full theater in a 10-12 night run is pretty impressive!

There's not really a musical motif or a tune or a song that sticks with me though. Nothing I feel I could learn to sing along with. The closest is "I-m-m-m- defying gra-a-a-avity." I'll be seeing it again next Sunday evening, so maybe being more familiar will make a difference.

This 2-3 week run of the Broadway musical WICKED starts tonight! I've got my ticket to the Friday performance. W00t!

Then J4 and I have tickets for a week from Sunday. I figured I know very little about this musical, and musicals are something I love, so why not one performance to be introduced to it, then another performance to get the juice out of it.

J4's nieces and nephew go to NYC a lot with their step/dad Butch Hancock (he's been on David Letterman several times now!) and they've seen it numerous times. That's why J4 surprised the heck out of me by asking me to see it with her. I usually beg people to do stuff like this, and get "mehhh."

Plus, I'm meeting Gregory Macguire, the author of the book (plus several other fairytale updates) when I go to Hawaii in two weeks.. Double W00t!

Update: No Greg Macguire at the HWC, and no statements about him missing the event.

Bonnie Tyler's "Total Eclipse of the Heart" had a truly insane, incoherent video. They literalled it up, like with "Take On Me" by Aha. That one's still my favorite because the literal song is even catchy ("Piiiiiiipe Wrench Fiiiight!"), but the images on this just beg for this treatment.

These funny white boy rappers come up with some funny lines. They get a bunch of their friends to make a land/water video for YouTube, ha! And the topic is a good one on this deadly hot day: "Put on your clothes and jump in the water."


Yes, I had nosebleed seats, so cramped even my short legs were pinched. Yes, I paid $175 to an evil scalper for those horrible seats, way up on the left in the 2nd balcony. Luckily I brought my mini-binoculars because Jemaine and Brett were cute and wonderful! What a fun Flight of the Conchorts Concert on Wednesday!

Full house, lots of enthusiastic people. We all roared at their songs and their patter. They are indeed just like their personas on TV, and they do fun things in messing with the audience. Also, Brett looks less scrawny in person, which is surprising. Jemaine is obviously the louder and quicker thinking, but he is subservient to Brett. Brett is the alpha conchord, you can tell.

Eugene Mirman, who plays their sloppy, odd landlord in the series, did a little of his stand-up routine. He had a funny story about how much he hates Delta Airlines, and then he passed out postcards for people to fill in and send to Delta to reinforce that they made a bad move when they screwed around someone who's clever and plays in venues with thousands of people. Ha, and he used his claims refund for the baggage of his they lost to print up the postcards!

Jemaine and Brett have been to Austin to play SxSW in their lesser-known days. This time they did a lot of songs from Season II, which I don't know. But they played many of the top hits I loved: It's Business Time, Hip-Hop-aPotamus, I'm Not Crying, and ... The Humans Are Dead!

The humans are dead
The humans are de-ad
We used posionous gases
And we poisoned their asses!

Binary solo!
0000001000011100000010000001

They sold colorful men's briefs at their swag table. Not sure what that was about... I never got through the huge crowd to see details. But anyway, it was one of the NIghts of Wendy's Birthday. In this case, it was the gift I got myself two months ago. So glad I did!

They talked about this on KGSR this morning, and someone posted about her on Herdomain too, so I found the YouTube clip of frumpy, spunky, 47-year-old Susan Boyle killing with a Les Miz song in a recent Britain's Got Talent (their version of American Idol). She's an overnight sensation, millions of YouTube hits, etc. Now the comments all seem to be how watching the clip makes everybody cry. I did. It's kinda amazing and a good human lesson.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9lp0IWv8QZY

I dreamed a dream in time gone by
When hope was high
And life worth living
I dreamed that love would never die
I dreamed that God would be forgiving.

Then I was young and unafraid
And dreams were made and used
And wasted
There was no ransom to be paid
No song unsung
No wine untasted.

But the tigers come at night
With their voices soft as thunder
As they tear your hope apart
As they turn your dream to shame.

And still
I dream he'll come to me
That we will live the years together
But there are dreams that cannot be
And there are storms
We cannot weather...

I had a dream my life would be
So different form this hell I'm living
so different now from what it seemed
Now life has killed
The dream I dreamed.

Update: Conversations about this woman and her unlikely success... That she challenged the youthful contestants on this show, for one. That she took the snickers and eye-rolls and made people reverse their opinions. A good comment was that the event was manipulated; the goofy music, the quick clips of her admitting cheerily to classic spinster details, the patronizing "How old are you Susan" from Simon in a tone more appropriate to a five-year-old. But even knowing and seeing that (it's one of the most manipulative of the reality shows, both in the US and England), you still get a lump in your throat and tears in your eyes from her voice and her phrasing. She's also not untutored; there's a clip on YouTube of Susan Boyle's song in a charity performance from 10 years ago, and she's great on that too: Cry Me a River.

But the discussions brought up for me why I don't like American Idol or America's Got Talent or those other shows. That part of the show where deluded contestants stand there, full of arrogance, and perform crappy auditions*, that's just mean. It's people laughing at the weakest parts of human nature as demonstrated by real humans, versus laughing at highly paid actors mouthing scripts by highly paid writers.

Those actors get to put off the deluded characters at the end of the day, but the foolish souls mocked on the reality shows go home with L-O-S-E-R tattooed across their foreheads. It makes me mad that there are such high TV audiences for that. It makes me furious that Simon Caldwell is making tens of millions of $$ from it.


*I find I can have some interest in watching the finalists perform in challenges; they're all acknowledged as good singers by that point, and loserdom is not part of the theme.