What’s Happenin?

Remember that show What’s Happening? I didn’t grow up watching the
original series but instead the  reruns (and a character by that name
too) on after school in 80’s. Why am I bringing this up?
Don’t know really but it seemed like an appropriate seguey for these
posts where I introduce a bunch of great things that are not quite
related and it’s my way of putting up one mega post instead a thousand
little ones that  get  sent down into the  lonely
archive of our 4F weblog world. 

I’m also in one of those contemplateive moods where I question the
evolution of 4F.  I originally intended this site to be a sort of
smorgasbourg of topics ranging from film to politics to musci, but I
sold out, sort of.  I noticed that my audience was more interested
in the music stuff, and yes, the links (By the way, I had a nice chat
with the developer of The Hype Machine,
who has a very sincere and healthy approach to the music blog
world.  He’s made it a point to direct his audience of aggregator
watchers to the actual posts instead of directly to the music
links.  Cheers to you Hype!) .  So in hopes of regaining my
original vision of promoting the things I find to be culturally
significant, I, for now at least, will present a series of pieces that
highlight great things from ALL cultural arenas. So here goes:

Coming to San Franncisco in November: “HE REMEMBERETH THAT WE ARE
DUST”.  A group show made up of two brothers, Grady and Riley
McFerrin.  You may remeber Grady McFerrin’s masterful show posters
from a previous 4F post here. Riley makes art using mostly wood which is best understood by going to this great interview done by the folks at fecalface in an intreview about his last show “can’t see the wood for the trees”.   In his own words he explains:

Basically after having become infatuated with wood working
via construction job sites, I couldnít stop thinking about wood, trees,
lumber jacks, forests, old school wood working tools etc. This led to a
thought process about nature and where materials come from. Because of
modern technology, we get stuff completely differently then those
before us. This started to make me sad.

The show takes place Friday November 11th 2005 from 5:30-8:30 at Tinhorn Public Works–511 Laguna Street. San Francisco, CA.

I finally got out to see a show.  It has been a long time. 
Some of my friends. TLXN who were playing at the new Knockout venue
deep in the Mission (see a previous post about them here).  They
opened for another fine group called The Very Hush Hush out of Oakland. 
They have this dark tinny sound that washes over the audience. The
vocals are hidden within, thus sounding very HUSHed.  Keyboards
bring out the more melodic sounds but also ass to the droning aura.
They’ve got a series of recordings out on the SBM
label.  Have fun trying to navigate
through their site which also portends a very muted experience.

Mp3’s:
TVHH : Love Like Love
TVHH : Ex Adult

And this brings us to our literature section.  I don’t think
I’ve ever included literature on one of these posts, but I will
now.  I’m reading a very good novel called Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides,
the author of the Virgin Suicides.  Unklike his previous book,
Middlesex takes on generations of history through the eyes of his
family as he follows the path of a mutant gene that eventually leads to
the main characters uniqueness, his/her sexuality.  Not since I’ve
read Updike’s Rabbit series or Ragtime by Doctorow
have I been so captivated by one: great writing and two: a look at
history through character development.  I highly recommend this
read.