The Lost Review

If Graphic Traffic had continued as an Artvoice feature, this would have been my next contribution:

                            ASTONISHING X-MEN

By Joss Whedon (Writer) and John Cassaday and Laura Martin (Artists)

Published by Marvel Publishing, Inc.

Reviewed by Jack Dumpert

 

By 2002, Joss Whedon had achieved acclaim as the creator of the very successful TV series “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” and the not as successful but equally admired series “Firefly.” So it was somewhat astonishing when Marvel Comics announced that Whedon would write an X-Men comic book series. For the series Marvel revived the title “Astonishing X-Men” and teamed Whedon with multi-award winning artist John Cassaday and multi-award winning colorist Laura Martin. Whedon proceeded to create three story arcs that stand as one of the best comics series ever. The X-Men, created in 1963 Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, had by the time Whedon came along morphed into a huge unwieldy cast of characters. Whedon narrowed his scope to a half dozen core characters. He then employed his considerable story telling talents to create three engrossing six issue episodes. But what sets the series apart from others in the long X-Men corpus is the very real depth Whedon brought to characters previously known mostly for their powers.

Whedon’s run on “Astonishing X-Men” has been collected into three paperback collections and a single deluxe oversized hardcover omnibus edition, a treasure in anyone’s collection of graphic fiction.

MEDITERRANEAN

 

“Do you notice anything different here from what you’re used to at home?” Bill asks. 

 

We’re in line for tickets to see John Wick, Chapter 2…which turned out to be just as much fun as the first one and even better on a huge screen with pumped up sound and the comfy seats that the Arclight in Hollywood features. But I digress...

“Yeah,” I reply, “this line is glacial.” 

That was it alright. The line although short was poking along. It was my introduction to the pace of LA. I’m telling ya, things go slowly here. Movie lines, supermarket lines, get in any line and expect to wait a while, a long while, before you get to the front. 

That's when I began to notice more examples of an absence of urgency. 

There are two major residential construction projects underway in our immediate neighborhood. I pass them just about every day. I’m a guy who knows a thing or two about construction and these projects are construction at a snail’s pace. 

On a beautiful day in LA, Sandi Amtraks up from Rancho Magnifico. After a leisurely lunch we walk to the Geffen Contemporary where a guard opens a door to tell us it’s closed until April while they mount a new exhibit.

“But the website says the new exhibit opens today,” we protest.

“They really should change that,” says the guard. “The MOCA on Grand is open”

We set out for there.

“We’re partially closed while we mount new exhibits,” we’re told. “Only the permanent collection is on view. We’ll compensate you with a voucher for a free admission when the new exhibits open in April.” Late in the game, this, so we opt in although we’ll be long gone before the vouchers are any use to us. We give two vouchers to Alvaro, two to Sandi. We head inside.

The permanent collection is small but mighty, a room fulla Rothkos, lotsa Pop and a fine Pollock. We’ve just enough time to toss it. Then it’s time for Sandi to catch her train home.

And that’s it. Or should be. But heading back to Silver Lake it occurred to me that it’s all part of a piece. Once again we’d encountered that Los Angeles dearth of determination to get things done quickly.

You know who is in a hurry here? Nobody. Why, I wondered. I suspect it’s climate related. Look up SoCal climate and you’ll find it described as Mediterranean, typified by relatively mild winters, warm summers and lotsa sunshine. The old adage, “Make hay while the sun shines,” doesn’t really apply here. When there’s one nice day after another, there’s really no need to hurry to get things done.

Not that I’m complaining exactly. It’s just that I’ve had to gear down my expectations. That's proven to be easier than I would have thought. It’s not a matter of patience, one of the few virtues I try to practice. Instead, it’s more of fitting in and going along with the slow, slow flow. Hustle and hassle? Forget it, Jack, it’s Mediterranean.

CODA

Mediterranean is not about traffic. For all the years I’ve been coming here I’ve defended LA traffic as heavy at times but bareable because it rolls along. However, during this visit and my last one a year or so ago, I’ve been forced to rethink this, mostly while stuck in interminable bumper to bumper, stop and go, mostly stop, traffic. Clearly, traffic’s gotten worse. I suspect it's got something to do with LA’s quite low for a large city density. It's the  source of so much of the city's charm. But it also means putting everybody out on the road for everything. More and more.

Way back in this blog at the conclusion of a driving in LA piece, I copied in a poem by Bill. This visit I learned he’s written a second stanza:

 

                 

    Getting There

                            by William Tutton

 

Cars

cars  cars

cars cars, cars

cars cars cars cars

cars cars cars cars cars

cars cars cars cars cars cars

cars cars cars cars cars cars cars

plus a bus

Winter in LA 2017 Pt II

Jessica Lang Dance, Ahmanson Theater, February 17 

We weren’t familiar with Jessica Lang Dance. But the company’s appearance at a major downtown venue, The Ahmanson Theater at the Music Center encouraged us to attend. So glad we did. We discovered Lang’s innovative choreography performed by an exceptionally strong company in a theater perfect for dance.

Tesseracts of Time, the opening piece, a collaboration with architect Steve Holl performed in four parts to music by contemporary composers won is over immediately.  The opening dance to music by Pulitzer Prize winning minimalist David Lang, really just a series of clicks and tones, quickly established Lang’s gift to find the movement in the music. Buffalonians are familiar very familiar with Morton Feldman’s deliberately arrhythmic compositions. It was a daring choice to choreograph the second part to his music, a challenge met by employing video to create an otherwise physically impossible dance where onscreen performers appear and disappear among unfolding geometric patterns.

We’ve seen ever greater use of video in dance. Much of White, A Dance on Film is video on a full stage sized screen. This allows seeing dance larger than life, to see the dancer’s movements in ways never possible otherwise- close up or sped up or in slow motion.

All of the dancers in this company are exceptional. Two in particular stand out. Kana Kimura is slight and extraordinarily lithe. Milan Misko is the biggest dude I’ve ever seen in a dance company. His strength combined with her elasticity allows Lang to create astonishing duets.

This is a young company, just five years old. Choreographer and Artistic Director Jessica Lang is in her forties. As her creativity continues to evolve and her company continues to prosper, world class status is certain.

 

 

 

“Salome” by Richard Strauss, LA Opera, Dorothy Chandler Pavilion. March 2

 

 Our first disappointing LA Opera production, mostly for lack thereof. Instead of the stagecraft we’ve come to expect we got a marginally employed lackluster set. I blame director David Paul for the poorly posed presentation and for soprano Patricia Racette’s portrayal of Salome as more of a petulant princess than a sensuous seductress. Characters addressing each other stood at opposite sides of the stage facing the audience and declaimed. Only Allan Glassman as Herod showed any real acting chops.

(Racette redeems her performance with her long, powerful, erotic and perverse song to the served to her on silver head of the prophet, Jochanaan) 

The evening was saved by the glorious music of Richard Strauss. I mean, how often does one close one’s eyes during the dance of the seven veils so as to concentrate on the music.

 

 

 

Jane Monheit, Catalina Jazz Club. March 3.
It took a coupla numbers, probably until her first ballad, before I tumbled in. From then on it was a total groove hearing this superb singer live. What pipes!
What an extraordinary sense of style! She’s truly in the great tradition of chick jazz singers.

 

 Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, March 8

 

Last big ticket this tour. A big deal: six performances over five days in the largest venue in LA. Because pretty near everyone who knows me has heard my Alvin Ailey story at least once, I’m pledged not to repeat it. The gist of it is I know what to expect from this venerable dance company – challenging choreography performed by some of the best dancers in the world. All those expectations were met and exceeded. Again.

They performed four pieces:

·       R-Evolution, Dream- My personal favorite. In the company’s tradition: street dance and balletic dance and a least a coupla breath taking moments, all of it steeped in African-American culture. Choreographed by company veteran Hope Boykin and inspired, she writes, by the speeches and sermons of Martin Luther King. I’d advise anyone who might be put off by the politics to just watch the dancers.

 

·       Untitled America – hard core choreography, intense, much of it performed to thrums and clicks or spoken word. The piece asks a lot of the dancers; they excel. Inventive and compelling and crucial to the advancement of the art.

·       Ella – the only dance on the program choreographed by Artistic Director Robert Battle. Two chicks dance out the one and only Ella scatting. Great fun

·       Revelations by the late Alvin Alley. I’m sorry but this signature piece seems dated to me now. What once was ground breaking choreography seems light and uncomplicated in view of all that came before it this evening. And there is that touch of watermelon. Still, the LA audiences loved it. Cheering wildly at every turn. No really, I’ve never encountered that in a dance audience before

Winter in LA 2017

 

Picasso and Rivera LACMA February 1

 

Our second only in LA experience (the first involved driving forty-five minutes on busy Freeways to catch a flic…one that will likely never play anywhere near Kenmore…but I digress.) We took in the pricey but all together worthwhile Picasso and Rivera: Conversations Across Time at LACMA. Who knew they knew each other? Not I. We learned that both had been admitted to their country’s academies at an early age, both showed similar novel approaches to the classicism in which they were instructed. (I’d seen Picasso juvenilia before; Rivera’s, seen in this show, are remarkably similar.) We learned that Rivera moved to Paris in the early 20th century and fell in with Picasso, Braque and Gris where he took up cubism. Picasso and Rivera cubist paintings, hung by each other are remarkably similar. Each, of course, went their separate ways and are best known for the work they did subsequently. Rivera is best known for his murals and since they can’t be put on display here, the elaborate cartoons that went into the murals’ creation sufficiently substitute.

This is one of the best curated shows we’ve seen. That includes a very large screen video that lovingly pans over details of Picasso’s Guernica and Rivera’s mural at the City College of San Francisco then finishes with each successively full screen.

 

 

   

“The Abduction from the Seraglio” by Mozart

 LA Opera, Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, February 8

Rivera is best known for his murals and since they can’t be put on display here, the elaborate cartoons that went into the murals creation sufficiently substitute.
This is one of the best curated shows we’ve seen. That includes a very large screen video that lovingly pans over details of Picasso’s Guernica and Rivera’s mural at the City College of San Francisco then finishes with each successively full screen

We’ve come to expect superior staging from this company and we weren’t disappointed. The opera is transposed to the 1920’s. The set, the interior of a lavish railcar on the Orient Express, can slide side to side revealing attendant cars. Scenery rolls by outside. The costumes, lighting, the direction, all of what is stagecraft was world class. The performers were all technically terrific if not exceptional. Best in the cast: Basso Profundo Morris Robinson as Osmin (right) and Soprano So Young Park as Blonde (far left). Canny opera goers Shelley, Jennifer, Erik and I, were, if not blown away, left pleased that we’d been there.


Los Angeles Philharmonic, Walt Disney Hall, February 10.

 

We’re back in the magnificent Disney Hall. It’s a chance to hear new music in one of the world’s great music venues. Composer Thomas Adès is at the podium. He opens with Sibelius, “The Bard”, light but lovely harp dominated, followed by Saint-Saëns lively “Danse Macabre”. Then it’s the US premier of his own “Lieux Retrouvés” re-orchestrated from a piano-cello duo into a full on four movement cello concerto. Collaborator Steven Isserlis plays cello with abandon. Potent stuff and in its third movement, moments of incandescent beauty.

 At intermission we explore the ever so many contrasting parts of this striking Frank Geary structure. We discover that the reason the section in which our seats are located is called the garden level is its doors open to a charming garden. It’s a cool rainy night so we don’t linger but mark where, when next we’re back here, we’ll head with our intermission flutes of champagne.

 The second half of the program is given over to Adès’s “Totentanz”. This is the West Coast premiere of Adès’s 2013 composition. The original soloists, mezzo Christianne Stotijn and baritone Simon Keenlyside, are here. Set to an anonymous 15th Century text, Keenlyside intones death calling out the highest to the lowest to his lethal dance while Stotijn replies as each faces his or her fate. It’s at times powerful, a knight meets death in a barrage of percussion, at times breathtakingly beautiful, a young maiden’s lament in duet with death soars to Wagnerian heights. This is a unique and powerful composition, a strong candidate to rank with the best new music of the new century.

 

 Steven Isserlis plays cello. Potent stuff and in its third movement, moments of incandescent beauty.
At intermission we explore the ever so many contrasting parts of this striking Frank Geary structure. We discover that the reason the section in which our seats are located is called the garden level is its doors open to a charming garden. It’s a cool rainy night so we don’t linger but mark where, when next we’re back here, we’ll head with our intermission flutes of champagne.
The second half of the program is given over to Adès’s “Totentanz”. This is the West Coast premiere of Adès’s 2013 composition. The original soloists, mezzo Christianne Stotijn and baritone Simon Keenlyside, are here. Set to an anonymous 15th Century text, Keenlyside intones death calling out the highest to the lowest to his lethal dance while Stotijn replies as each faces his or her fate. It’s at times powerful, a knight meets death in a barrage of percussion, at times breathtakingly beautiful, a young maiden’s lament in duet with death is Wagnerian. This is a unique and powerful composition, a strong candidate to rank with the best new music of the new century. Steven Isserlis plays cello. Potent stuff and in its third movement, moments of incandescent beauty.
At intermission we explore the ever so many contrasting parts of this striking Frank Geary structure. We discover that the reason the section in which our seats are located is called the garden level is its doors open to a charming garden. It’s a cool rainy night so we don’t linger but mark where, when next we’re back here, we’ll head with our intermission flutes of champagne.
The second half of the program is given over to Adès’s “Totentanz”. This is the West Coast premiere of Adès’s 2013 composition. The original soloists, mezzo Christianne Stotijn and baritone Simon Keenlyside, are here. Set to an anonymous 15th Century text, Keenlyside intones death calling out the highest to the lowest to his lethal dance while Stotijn replies as each faces his or her fate. It’s at times powerful, a knight meets death in a barrage of percussion, at times breathtakingly beautiful, a young maiden’s lament in duet with death is Wagnerian. This is a unique and powerful composition, a strong candidate to rank with the best new music of the new century.