Habib Mian, RIP

As part of my research here, I've been looking into lifespan and learning that there is little international consensus. Apparently the longest unambiguously documented lifespan is that of Jeanne Calment of France (1875–1997), who died aged 122 and a half years of age. The next ten longest authenticated lives range from 116 years to 120 - five from the United States, three from Japan, one from Ecuador and the Canadian Marie-Louise Meilleur. Meilleur was 117 years old when she died in Ontario in 1998, then considered the oldest living person on the planet.

There are many claims to longer lives, but The Guinness World Records consider them unsubstantiated. Ma Pampo of the Dominican was said to have been 128 at the time of her death in 2003, but the documentation has been called into question.

Today it was announced that Habib Mian of India died Tuesday morning after a brief illness. He was reportedly 138 years old. Mian was recognized as the oldest living man in the Limca Book of World Records 2005 edition, but the Guinness Book of Records claim this cannot be verified. He is pictured above, on his last birthday.

The oldest living animal is a clam found less than a year ago in 80-metre-deep water off of Iceland. Researchers determined that the ocean quahog (Arctica islandica) was 405 years old, besting the previous record (by the same species) of 220. The oldest living thing is a Norway Spruce (Picea abies) tree in the mountains separating Norway and Sweden, thought to be 8 000 years old.

Guerrilla Mix CDs

My friend Matt, inspired by the marketing strategy of Toronto indie band Craft Economy, proposes making mix CDs and stapling them to hydro polls, as a way to share music and avoid prosecution. John McCain recently revealed his technology platform and it includes a statement of intent regarding a crackdown on piracy. Obama (surprisingly, given the Democrats ties to the Entertainment industry) offers only a vague statement about rethinking copyright in the 21st century. But either way, music fans should expect it to get harder to share music online in the future. Plus there's something nice about taking virtual models and finding real-life applications. It reminds me of another friend, Lise, who was once offering a service where she would bring you the song of your choice, via her car stereo. If you had a planned date or 'special moment', for example, and wanted to hear 'your' song, you could pay her a small amount of money (five or ten dollars, I can't recall) and she would show up with the track at a pre-determined location, roll down her window and turn up the stereo.

Photos

A few more pics added to the Flickr page here, mostly cows.

Hey Jude

I have collected about two hundred Beatle covers over the years. None hold a candle to this one:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wgrrQwLdME8

Spiral Jetty

Fox News reports this week that an Alberta firm is still hoping to drill near Robert Smithson's Spiral Jetty. Pearl Montana Exploration, the Calgary-based company, drew protests earlier this year from art fans and environmentalists, led by Smithon's widow, artist Nancy Holt. Keith Hill, the company president, said that they are addressing shortcomings in their previous applications, in regards to water rights as well as cultural and environmental impact. He predicts millions of barrels worth of oil could be found beneath the lake. With gas prices rising, even the Democrats are rushing to reverse their previous opposition to over-drilling, so the Spiral Jetty may be in jeopardy. Hill says that once the permits are approved, drilling could begin in six months.

Strange Culture

I've been waiting a long time to see the film Strange Culture, about Steve Kurtz of the Critical Art Ensemble. I followed the story of his arrest, including the film, on Mercer Union's blog here, here, here, here and here. Kurtz is a professor of art at the University at Buffalo and a founding member of the CAE, whose work for the last two decades has explored the intersections between art, technology, and political activism. The projects they were working on at the time of the arrest were critical of the bio-genetic food industry, and patents on living organisms that would allow incredible food monopolies in the future.

In May 2004 (or 5/11, as it's called in the film) Kurtz awoke to discover that his wife of 27 years had died in her sleep. He called 911 and when the police arrived they discovered materials they considered suspicious and alerted the FBI, who quarantined the block and searched his home in hazardous material suits. At a time of deep mourning, he was detained for 22 hours and questioned about arabic texts, petri dishes and tin foil covered windows. He was prevented from returning to his home for a full week, during which his cat (who had been locked without food or water in the attic by the agents) nearly died as well. His wife's body was twice moved and autopsied without permission.

The Commissioner of Public Health for New York State determined that nothing in the home posed any sort of threat to public health and that Hope Kurtz had died of natural causes. Two months later a grand jury rfused to bring any "bioterrorism" charges against the artist. However, presumably to save face, he was indicted on federal criminal mail fraud and wire fraud charges. It is, as is pointed out in the film, likely the first time someone has been charged with fraud, where no party feels defrauded. A judge threw the case out last year, but the film was made while Kurtz was awaiting trial.

It's an utterly compelling story, with incredible political implications for all of us, and the film received a 94% rating at Rotten Tomatoes. But it may be the worst documentary I have ever seen. Tilda Swinton was brought in (for what looks like an afternoon of shooting, presumably as support for the artist) to play Hope, Kurtz' wife. Thomas Ryan Adams (probably the reason I hated Hal Hartley's Henry Fool so much) plays Hurtz himself in a few dramatic recreations. It's difficult to play a living (even somewhat) public figure, but even moreso when the actual person is interviewed in the film, extensively. Kurtz' lawyer had suggested that there were certain areas he should not discuss, so the filmmaker switches over to Adams for these scenes, all of which are about as believable as an after-school special.

The film would have been quite watchable if it were a straight interview with the artist. He tells some great stories including the fact that he covers his window with tin foil to help him sleep (a trick he learned from Elvis) and that the arabic writing found in his home was on an invitation card for an Atlas Group exhibition at the MASS MOCA. Best of all is the time he was approached by FBI narcs who first tried to buy drugs from him, then attempted to goad him into admitting he wanted to kill the president.

The New York Times called it, I note in the poster above, "a near perfect alignment of subject and form." This couldn't be further from the truth. The music, by the Residents, is appalling and obvious. The actors portraying the students, moralizing about our responsibility to stand up and do something, feel worse than an after-school special. They feel like the after after-school special, where the actors try to open up a dialogue with the viewers about what they've learnt. Even the choice of newscast footage was misguided - the film opens with Keith Olbermann (the left's answer to Bill O'Reilly) discussing the story on MSNBC, his voice dripping with its usual vitriol, as a kind of pre-indignation for the viewer.

Kristin Hersh

As with Genesis P-Orridge, I first met Sonja Ahlers at one of the Cocktail Fridays we held at Art Metropole. My girlfriend and I at the time both enjoyed her book Temper Temper which featured doodles, collages, snippets of text and drawings of bunnies. She started rifling thru the CDs I kept at work and got excited when she found the Throwing Muses. "I love Kristin Hersh, she said, and began to tell a story of a concert she attended a few years prior. "It was so good," she said, "that I cried and cried all the way through it". This sounded a little familiar but I couldn't place it. "Then afterwards I went up and told her it was the best show I'd ever seen". I then realized that I had heard this story before, but told from another point of view. It was an introduction to a song on a live bootleg cassette. Hersh found it odd that she could cause such loud sobbing, and then be thanked profusely.

Sonja's response might seem like an over-reaction, but it is not uncommon. Hersh's music can inspire simultaneous sadness and gratitude. Roula choked back tears all the way through her performance the other night, and then remarked that it would stay with her as a positive memory for years to come. We saw Hersh together in June of 2001, as our first 'date'. She hasn't been back in Toronto to perform since, and we were grateful to learn that our stay in Edinburgh coincided with a weeks worth of performances of her new show Paradoxical Undressing. Better still, her husband and manager Billy put us on the guest list when all we requested was a way to book tickets in advance.

Hersh still performs as a member of the Throwing Muses, with her more recent power-punk band 50 Foot Wave, and as a solo artist - sometimes accompanied only by her acoustic guitar, other times with guest musicians or string players. This evening, though, was a series of readings, punctuated with short snippets of songs from throughout her career (Fish, Hook in Her Head, Hysterical Bending, Your Dirty Answer, Cartoons). Hersh read from a forthcoming memoir, based on her diaries that were lost in a recent flood.

I remember a Kids in the Hall sketch where Bruce McCulloch is in a hospital bed after attempting suicide, indignant that his friends hadn't read his rather lengthy suicide note. Mark McKinney says "Look, I just skimmed it, looking for my name. I'm sorry." This is my general view of other people's diaries - that they're like other people's dreams - only of interest to me in the places where they intersect with my own life. Exceptions are few and far between and the phrase "a young girl's diary" is almost shorthand for self-indulgence. This is far from the case with Kristin Hersh, though. Beyond her ability to bring them to life on stage, Hersh's entries are profoundly compelling, extremely well written and with a self-awareness that belies her young age. Her storytelling is bravely candid, charming and frequently very funny.

The diary focuses on a single year from her late teens, but it was an eventful year - the Throwing Muses were signed to the influential British label 4AD, she was diagnosed as bipolar, and she became pregnant. She describes harrowing hallucinations, extreme poverty (living in squat made available when the owners died), and performing in clubs which she was too young to be in. Perhaps the most fascinating stories involve her relationship with the Hollywood actress and singer Betty Hutton, star of Annie Get Your Gun. The actress had fallen on hard times and returned to school where she befriended Hersh. Hutton would attend Throwing Muses concerts with her priest and then offer 'show-biz' advice to the band.

I've seen Hersh perform a dozen times, with and without the Throwing Muses, as far back as 1989. Even the weakest show (the Limbo tour, maybe) was still excellent, and this evening surpassed all of those performances. I can't recommend it strongly enough. A weeks worth of shows begin tonight. Ticket info here: www.theedgefestival.com and Ticket Master 0844 999 990

Also, Here's a five star review from the Guardian.



Lastly, a selected discography, with a quick rating system, coz I like to put numbers besides things.


Solo

Your Ghost EP 9.8
Hips and Makers 9.5
Strange Angels 8.5
The Holy Single** 7.5
Sky Motel 6.8
Murder Misery and Then Goodnight 7.6
Sunny Blue Border 9
The Grotto 6.9
Learn to Sing Like a Star 7.5

**Hersh's idea of a Christmas EP is to cover Big Star's Jesus Christ (haha).

Throwing Muses

Untitled 10
House Tornado 8.5
Hunkpapa 7.4
The Real Ramona 9.2
Counting Backwards EP 9.5
The Curse (live) 7
University 8.9
Limbo 7
Throwing Muses 6.5