HappySquared

Aw, that's sweet. Do we get pictures of Henry? He's all huge now.

Jazz

Surprisingly NO pictures of Henry! I'm curious to know what he looks like now!

HappySquared

Oh no pictures of him? Me too, I'm curious. The last time I saw a picture he was so really all grown up.

Jazz

I imagine he looks like his mother. Cause that's the last time I saw him, he looked like his mom.

Jazz

Okay, I went nuts...I bought Hole in the Sun and Miyelo.

HappySquared

Aw, you're not nuts! Those books are must-haves! I want them too.

Err... I like it better if Henry looks more like Viggo.

Jazz

Me too, I would love it if Henry was a spitting image of his dad. Unfortunately, not so. I wonder if personality wise he's like his dad?

The Miyelo book is HUGE!!! Man, there is no room for it on my shelf, it's just an awkward shape. Then Hole in the Sun is so smaller, smaller size than the other books. My Viggo books look so weird on the shelf, they are all different shapes and sizes.

Jazz

Book Review on the latest book, I Forget You Forever

by Richard Marcus

There is something about poetry and photography that seems to keep them both on the fringes of their respective areas of expression. While most writers and visual artists are considered as somewhat suspect by the mainstream of society, poets and photographers appear to occupy their own special niche even further removed.

While writing prose for a living is still considered a slightly freakish thing to do with your life, especially if your not the one in a million who makes a fortune from it, at least you write in plain English which most decent folk can understand. But poetry hardly ever makes sense and when it does its always about emotions and things that you're not supposed to talk about in public.

How can photography be an art? Everybody has a camera and takes pictures of trees and people - what's so special about some guy taking photos that he can't even get in focus? At least with those painter types you can see that it might be difficult to pick up a brush and paint a nice picture of a flower or a bowl of fruit. But my Aunt Mavis has a camera and she doesn't get her pictures hung on a gallery wall even though she takes some pretty snaps of flowers and the kids.

In spite of those attitudes, and the fact that fewer and fewer people seem willing to make the effort to appreciate and/or see beyond what's in front of their faces, there are still men and women out there willingly laying bare their emotions on paper and offering glimpses of how they see the world via the viewfinders of their cameras.

Admittedly they are a much more difficult medium to appreciate than say television or the majority of movies. The instant gratification factor is noticeably thin on the ground in poetry and in photography, but with a little effort the rewards are significantly greater.

One need look no further than Viggo Mortensen's recent book of poems and photography, I Forget You For Ever for confirmation of that fact. On a purely visceral level alone the work in this collection has an immediate impact through the sense of urgency that pervades the whole collection.

This is how we pass the little time we have, what we do in our waking hours while we may or may not be dreaming, planning, rehashing, regretting, and occasionally feeling that we understand what in the world is happening. Mortensen, Viggo; "With These Hands While We Can"; I Forget You For Ever, Perceval Press 2006, pg. 6

In the paragraph directly before these lines is a listing of the numerous things we do to "pass the time". What little time we do have to accomplish anything, is being wasted by our willingness to fill it with trivia and inconsequential activities. We have lost sight of our own mortality and its significance in regards to our actions and therefore don't pay enough attention to what is important.

Open the book to any page, photograph or poem, and you'll either be given a moment stolen out of the while of time and frozen for you to look at and think about. Or there will be a presentation of time speeding by so fast as to be nothing more than a blurring of light or the flicker of images from an old super-eight-movie camera.

In "Leaves", the books opening poem, he uses missed opportunities to play with his son when a small boy as an example of a failure to realize that one day there won't be another day for you to do that thing you've been putting off. Sometimes the deadline on later comes due and we're not ready for it but it doesn't matter because clichés are right some of the time and time really doesn't wait for any man no matter how many regrets you have.

In the same poem Mr. Mortensen also reflects on how even when time is made, we are jealous of sharing ourselves, surrendering our valuable time, and parts of us are off somewhere else. In his case it's his imagination thinking about images for photos or ideas for poems. He says of himself that "I am what I imagine, not what I what I am". In other words he's living with his next creation somewhere in the future, not in the here and now with his son.

The photographs that stick out for me the most are the ones like "Toronto, 2004" where the lights of the city speed past and everything is a blur of visual noise. Toronto Canada isn't the only city to be depicted in this manner; Sao Paulo Brazil appears a few times as bright oranges and reds blurring past your eyes.

Time can vanish in cities on occasion and gets eaten up by distractions. It's very easy to lose track of where you are, where you're going, and even to an extent, who you are. Any time that I have ended up in a foreign environment it has taken me a certain amount of time to adjust to my new surroundings. When they are a city it's even harder for all the reasons listed above. Sometimes it really does feel like everything is a blur whizzing by you because you feel so out of your depth.

In contrast are those photos that Mr. Mortensen has taken of places he is familiar with, or comfortable with. The series known as "Winter Light", which depicts him and a group of other artists going out into the desert and each using his or her own media, recording the winter light. If one wanted to stretch a point you could say they are an example of an attempt to freeze a very specific moment; immobilize time so to speak. Why else call it "Winter Light" if not to immortalize that specific moment in time?

In the final long poem of I Forget You For Ever called "Forever". (You could make a real meal out the fact that poem uses one form of forever and the title of the book the two word format, but I figure why bother, just ask yourself what you feel is the difference, or if there even is a difference) Mr. Mortensen talks about feeling like he's on borrowed time, or has gone into extra time.

It's not that he feels his life is any imminent danger; it's just that perhaps if we stopped taking it so much for granted we would get more out of it. "Surely we could learn to look at our entire life spans that way...?" As a fluky bonus gift from creation we are given the opportunity to be on this planet, which quite frankly couldn't care less about us. Except perhaps it may wish that we didn't all hold on so tight. It's not like she is about to throw us off into space or anything so there is no need to cling to her like leeches.

I Forget You For Ever cements in my mind that Viggo Mortensen is a poet and photographer to be taken seriously. This isn't the idle passing fancy of a bored star; this is the work of a dedicated and thoughtful artist, who at a way station in his life, his child leaving home to go out on his own, reflects on his life and career.

It's probably a topic that quite a few people would be able to relate to if they would take the time to sit and read the pieces in this book and then look at the photographs keeping the words in mind. Poetry and photography really aren't what you think them to be; one is a lot more sophisticated then you think, and the other a lot simpler. Give them a try, especially the work of this man as he does speak to universal themes that we can all identify with.

I Forget You For Ever doesn't seem to be listed on Amazon.com yet so you'll have to pick it up from the publishers Perceval Press I think it's running for $38.00 US, but considering that its trade paper back size and full of colour and black and white photographs, plus the poetry, you're getting good value for your money.

Richard Marcus is a long - haired Canadian iconoclast who writes reviews and opines on the world as he sees it at Leap In The Dark and Blogcritics

Jazz

Music review for 3 Fools 4 April:

by Richard Marcus

There is something about poetry readings that I've always found slightly off-putting. It's not the poets or the poems; I can usually be counted on to be quite civil to most of them. No, what usually gets to me are the audiences.

Oh, I'm sure that most people at a reading have come to listen to the poetry and I have no problem with that. It's the ones who have come for the "event" that usually get up my nose. The two types that I find the most aggravating are the ones who feel that everyone has really come to see them so they have to be part of the show, and the ones who act like they're doing everyone a huge favour by showing up for the reading.

The former sit up close to wherever the poets are set up and have to make noises of some sort before, during or after the poem and sometimes if you're really unlucky all three. There's the murmur of agreement that shows they approve of the choice of poem or the subject matter, which is a close cousin to the exclamation of disbelief, and finally the strident laugh at something only they find funny.

The latter has either accompanied the first type or is sitting in close enough proximity that they can work in counter point to each other. When the first is silent the second can make small harrumphs of disquiet to show how much of a waste of their time this truly is, complain about the quality of the coffee being served, and whisper to whoever is unfortunate enough to be sitting beside them all about the really wonderful reading they went to the last time they were in San Francisco.

So I don't get to hear or see much poetry being read, which is a shame, because good poetry can really be brought to life by the person who wrote it. When you hear the writer's inflection, or see the expression on his or her face, and listen to the tone of their voice, so much that never makes it onto the page is revealed.

Which is why I sent inquiries about a review copy to the Perceval Press about a new release they are currently offering. 3 Fools 4 April is a CD/DVD set of a poetry reading given by Scott Wannberg, Hank Mortensen, and Viggo Mortensen in support of the Beyond Baroque Foundation in Venice, California. I would be able to see and hear three poets performing their work and not have to deal with the usual drawbacks.

Of the three the only one who's poetry I'm familiar with is Viggo Mortensen's, having reviewed an earlier work of his, Coincidence Of Memory, quite a number of years ago. I had been very impressed by both his poetry and his photography. He's also a fair hand at acting, so I was interested to see what he'd do with his poetry.

As the DVD, with a few alterations, pretty much duplicates the CD I decided to listen first, then watch and listen. I also hoped that by listening I would be able to obtain a level of impartiality toward the three men by creating the illusion of anonymity and be able to judge their presentation on what they did not who they are.

One thing I appreciated right off the bat with both the CD and the DVD was the format that the three men decided to follow, of informally following one after the other with no fanfare or build up. Each poet would introduce what he was going to read, offer a preamble if required, and start reading.

Listening to forty-one poems is a rather overwhelming prospect even when some are no longer then twenty-five to thirty seconds. If it had only been one poet reading that many pieces it could never have worked. But having three distinct voices to listen to meant there was sufficient variety in tone and style to keep you interested.

Scott Wannberg reads like a roller coaster ride, climbing and descending hills and valleys of emotion with us hanging on for dear life. Either you're laughing hysterically, screaming enthusiastically, or shivering silently depending on what peaks he's had us scale and how deep he has plummeted us in the descent.

There are two of his poems that stick out in my memory from both the CD and the DVD. First was the short poem "Hunter's Anonymous" which is a beautiful joke at the expense of Dick Cheney's hunting skills, or lack thereof. As this was only the second piece I had heard from Scott, and his second comedic piece of the disc, I wondered how his bruising delivery would sound with a more emotional work.

The answer came when he read a piece about making a mad dash across the state to be at the bedside of his mother before she died. It was only then that I heard the emotion that hid behind what some might call bluster, but is truly an over abundance of feeling that just can't be held within the confines of a normal sized voice, and that has to be let out in some form or another.

In contrast to Scott, Viggo's son Hank offers a nice respite from turbulence. His poems are intelligent and show signs of what must be a lighting quick humour. His first poem "Freedom Fighter" is a brilliant piece that makes use of the words freedom and fighter to create a meaning contrary to our normal interpretation and expectations.

The second piece of his that caught my attention was "second chance, give or take a few". It was a very witty and intelligent take on a typical utopian political conversation "let's get rid of all the borders and live in peace and harmony". His reading showed a fine ear for timing, and his handling of the subject matter showed intelligence and perception plus something I consider essential for a successful poet: an ability to laugh at himself.

While both Scott and Hank are gifted presenters and writers, it became quickly obvious when Viggo Mortensen read that he was in a league of his own. Not necessarily for anything spectacular he does with the readings of his poems (in fact he almost delivers them in a monotone) but in his ability to let the poem shine through him like a beacon.

He acts as a conduit for his poems so that we are free to make our own interpretations of his work, rather than him feeling it necessary to impose an emotional reaction on us.

Viggo's poems about relationships leave one guessing as to who is to blame for its end or for its success. Even when they are highly personal, or have the appearance of being about himself, he won't take sides and play the broken hearted lover or the jilting *******. Like a pathologist, he offers up a full dissection and autopsy, but instead of vital organs it's emotions that are being laid out on the table as we, inspectors of life, probe them for clues about the human condition.

He can be funny too, and although it was only included on the CD, "Everything Is Really Water", shows that Hank came by his sense of humour honestly. Of course I wonder if he ever has trouble explaining to people that his dad wrote a poem extolling the virtues of peeing in sinks. Actually it's more about the joys of peeing all around, but it's just that sinks get special mention; proper etiquette and cleaning requirements are very important.

One thing that worried me before I put the DVD in was that I had noticed there was quite a bit of audience noise bleeding through on the CD, including a female version of "I'm the show not those guys on stage". Thankfully she didn't make the cut on the DVD or it would have ruined it.

What was nice about the DVD was that you were able to clarify some things that you weren't certain about on the CD. Scott really did break down into tears in the middle of reading the poem about his mom dying. You get to see Viggo giving his son encouragement, or looking at him with pride.

While the CD probably has slightly better sound quality then the DVD, I return to what I said at the beginning of the review about seeing a poet live, and what the advantages of that are. All the little clues that you normally get from watching a person come through on a DVD. Whether body language or eye movement, it all helps to us to inter-operate the poem all the better.

3 Fools 4 April is a wonderful opportunity to see and hear three great poets and support a fine arts centre in Los Angeles. 3 Fools 4 April is available for sale through Perceval Press and is well worth every penny of the twenty dollar asking price.

HappySquared

Now I want I Forget You Forever after reading that review.

Jazz

You should get it, it's really good. I have 3 Fools 4 Aprils.

HappySquared

Once my credit card isn't maxed out.

Enigma

Thanks for the reviews. I'd love to check them out.

Jazz

You should check out his books [b]Mel/b], they are really good.

Gay - I have the same problem with my credit card. Gotta pay them off!

Jazz

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.