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**Jazz** · 03-06-2007, 07:07 AM

More reviews. Linger and Intelligence of Failure.

Book Review: Linger Viggo Mortensen

by Richard Marcus

When we sit around the table with friends after eating a convivial meal; drinking coffee and smoking cigarettes; doing anything we can to prolong the moment so it won't end, we linger. When an image, thought, idea or scrap of song lyric stays with us for longer then normal, it is said to linger. When a moment in time, fleeting and impermanent, has pinned us like a butterfly in a display case for good or bad we linger over the memory.

There are lingering tell tale signs of a trail in all the good Western movies when the loyal Indian scout is helping the soldiers track the renegades. The smell of rain lingers on in the damp musty scent of the earth that rises out from the roots of an ancient tree, or in the dust of a city dampened on a hot summer's day and the steam that rises from the sidewalk.

Linger is also the name of Viggo Mortensen's 2005 collection of poems and photographs released through Perceval Press. Photographs of course are a means which we can all make moments in time linger forever. Simply a matter of pointing and shooting and presto: instant memory.

But through the lens of Viggo Mortensen, photographic memories are sometimes as indistinct as their real counterpoints. Blurred images in the foreground merge with background murkiness, and with enigmatic titles like "Fall 7" we're left trying to piece together the artist's memory fragments and to wonder about the nature of memories.

Then again look at the images that Mr. Mortensen has recorded as if shot through a tube. There in the distance, as if seen through the lens of an inverted telescope is an image that is in sharp focus. Some of the photographs in this series are entitled "hindsight". According to my old friends Funk & Wagnnalls this word has two meanings: the understanding of an event after it has happened, or the rear sight of a gun.

Looking at a picture of something that you remember, something that has lingered long in your head, will sometimes bring new clarity, about the whys and the wherefores of your history. But sometimes, lingering memories are like looking down the barrel of a gun, the gun of your past that has the ability to blow apart your present with feelings of guilt, remorse, anguish, or even anger either because of your own actions or past inequities.

Of course, Mr. Mortensen could also be using the word hindsight to describe his position literally in the process of composition. He is the final sight looking through the barrel of his lens. He is the one who has aimed his eye, and therefore ours, at certain images that he wants us to let our eyes linger on and be affected by.

If a photograph provides a literal view of something that is to be lingered over, poetry and words offer a different path into memories, a different means of drawing someone's attention to an incident. In some ways we might think they would be subtler than photos, as a photo presents a concrete image for us to look at, but that precludes the power of words.

Think how many times people have used words to convince others that black is white and vice versa. Words are a far more dangerous commodity than a photograph could ever be; they have the power to convince without needing to supply anything as mundane as the truth.

In the hands of Viggo Mortensen words are not a dangerous tool, unless you have objections to lingering over truths. Whether they are emotional truths about him, or truths about the world as he sees it. Linger with him as he recounts the cremation of his dog Brigit; the details leading up to he being put down are sparsely sketched, but the trip from the vet's office to the crematorium, the waiting for Brigit to be "done", the attempt to keep the bones together as he gathers them in the bag provided and places them in the cedar box when she is "ready".

The meaningless questions, "what kind of cedar is it?" which slip out of your mouth at times like these, that he dutifully records for us to hear him saying in our heads many years later, make the incident all the more powerful. It is a day for lingering for Mortensen the writer, as he lingers in the crematorium office waiting, writing about whether or not he should be writing about this moment. He doesn't want to record it on film because that doesn't seem right, but he knows he will want to linger over these moments later.

Of course it's possible to linger over beauty and fun just as easily as despondency and upset. The images of nature in this book, of the grey majesty of gathering thunderheads, sun through foliage, and nature's juxtaposition with the man made as she reclaims the ruins of an old fort in Spain.

A sequence of photos follows a boy through the steps he needs to take in order to complete a cartwheel. It appears Mr. Mortensen has left the lens aperture open and shot at a very slow speed, in order to preserve the moments of motion – the transitions from one point of being to another. How often is it we get to linger over the sight of a young boy's exuberance? Mr. Mortensen has captured that energy beautifully.

Linger invites you to join Viggo Mortensen lingering over images and words that have affected him in the past few years. Maybe we are the hind most sight, as we are the last ones looking at the lingering images and reading the thoughts that he would have linger in our brains.

An artist strives to create work that will linger, that will exert a pull upon those who read, see, hear, or watch what they have created. One could look for deeper meanings, deconstruct it in true post-modernist literary tradition, in an artist choosing the word linger as a title, but not this one. I'd prefer just to let the work speak for itself; it has a nice strong, clear voice that talks to the heart and the mind.

Music Review: Intelligence Failure Buckethead & Viggo Mortensen

by Richard Marcus

Probably from the beginning of military history the words Military Intelligence have generated hilarity among common soldiers. Learning not to trust anything except what they see in front of their eyes has become common for soldiers no matter how sophisticated the technology at the disposal of their "intelligence" sources.

Which when you think about it makes you wonder why everybody was so quick to believe the initial intelligence reports of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. With no actual eyewitnesses as of yet confirming the existence of even a bug bomb, let alone facilities to make nuclear weaponry, the question of their existence has long since passed into the realm of the less said about it the better by the American military establishment and its political masters.

This of course hasn't stopped those who have opposed the war from the onset forgetting what was originally given as the motivation for the invasion of Iraq. So the title of the latest collaboration between Viggo Mortensen and guitar virtuoso Buckethead (the man with the penchant for wearing an empty bucket of Kentucky Fried Chicken and a mask as a disguise while on stage to preserve his secret identity) Intelligence Failure can be read within that context quite easily, especially considering its contents.

The eight tracks contained on this CD are constructed utilizing excerpts from speeches and news conferences given by current and former members of the Republican administration. They are mixed down and overdubbed with new and previously composed music played by Viggo Mortensen, Buckethead, Henry Mortensen, Walter Mortensen, and Travis Dickerson.

So you get to hear some of the greatest "hits" from the past few years, including such favourites as Colin Powell's speech to the United Nations assuring the world that the weapons of mass destruction exist. Or how about George Bush's witty comment about seeing the first of the planes going into the World Trade Centre "I thought, there's a bad pilot".

Of course it's not all one liners, there's also the serious statement from such distinguished gentlemen like Karl Rove exhorting Republicans that's it their job to convince the American people they are the party to that will be able to win the war on terror. Or George Bush, again, explaining to America why other people hate them; not mentioning anything about the exploitation of natural resources, support of repressive regimes, or how living in poverty for generations can create resentment towards examples of conspicuous consumption.

Intelligence Failure makes no bones about its politics or where it stands on the issue of the Iraq war. Obviously this is not going to find favour among those who think that voicing an opinion contrary to the one held by the White House is anti-American or unpatriotic.

Aware of that, the creators of the disc also include the voice of American historian Howard Zinn at one point offering some timely reminders about patriotism, politics, and history. "Patriotism" he says "does not mean loving your political leaders it means loving your country" Or he asks what basis has history ever given us for having faith in the leadership abilities of our politicians in the past forty years.

He doesn't list the decisions of leadership over the past forty years that have brought about this state of affairs, but you don't even need to look back that far. It's been the mistakes since Vietnam that have brought the world to the situation we face now. The unstinting support of The Shah of Iran, supplying arms to the Taliban for their war against the Russians in Afghanistan, and turning a blind eye to Saddam's use of poison gas on Kurds when he was their ally fighting against Iran in the mid 1980s have all contributed.

The first time I heard a "found sound" recording utilizing the taped words of public figures offset with music was My Life In The Bush Of Ghosts put together by David Byrne and Brian Eno back in the early 1980's. Intelligence Failure is the first attempt at this type of project that I have heard since then that has been as innovative and inventive in its use of sound, voice and technology to create atmosphere and mood.

The music and the voices are worked together so that on occasion the music dominates to the extent that the voices become indistinct but remain as a persistent drone; an ever present reminder of their existence and persistence in our lives. The voices of George Bush and the rest of the gang have been the undercurrent that has sent repercussions throughout the world since they first came to power no matter if we hear them or not.

Like an undertow they exist under the placid surface of life creating eddies and whirlpools that continually threaten to suck us all under. At times the music is that placid exterior existing in counterpoint to the terror created by these men and women. At other times the music becomes discordant and jarring; a reflection of their effect upon the world as seen by the creators of the piece.

Intelligence Failure can be seen as a reference to the joke I talked about at the beginning of this review. Or it can be seen as a general commentary on the state of American society which suffered a collective intelligence failure as it got caught up in the emotional turmoil that surrounded the attack on New York City and the aftermath.

A third option is the possibility that it refers to our collapse as a species in terms of striving to create a counter balance to our ability to destroy. In the first track on the CD "Demolition Of The Willing" Viggo picks out Beethoven's "Ode To Joy" on the piano while Henry reads/sings/chants English lyrics of brotherhood and friendship to the tune. While to some this may be a sign of resistance, to me it feels more like a sign of how far we've fallen that no one has created anything near as beautiful or celebratory as Beethoven's 9th Symphony.

With all our technological advancements, our so called culture and society that others envy and covet, all we can do is produce is an atmosphere that frowns on original thought and puts down intelligence as some sort of aberration. Artistic creativity is dismissed as being less then manly and otherwise suspect.

Science and technology that if properly funded could eliminate our need for fossil fuels is ignored and under funded, but billions of dollars a year are spent on figuring out ways of killing each other. Money is available for creating passport-screening programs at the world longest friendly border, but doesn't exist to rebuild one of the oldest cities in continental North America after the devastation of Katrina.

Intelligence Failure by Buckethead and Viggo maybe seen by some, even its creators, as simply a commentary on the Iraq war and its circumstances, but that's just one symptom of a much larger intelligence failure. Buckethead and Viggo have created an aural sound collage with the intent of trying to open people's ears to a new way of listening to the same old words and maybe hearing something a little different then they heard the first time round.

Depending on how close people are willing to listen, they may even hear deeper then the creators hoped. This disc isn't going to end the war, or probably even change that many minds about it. Those who are still supporting it at this late stage aren't about to change anymore. But maybe what it will do is help those who did see some justice in it originally understand why they feel so cheated and betrayed now. Maybe it will encourage them to think a little and ask why the next time when someone comes waving a flag to lead them off to war.