A few weeks ago, I saw Ken Burns preview his new World War II documentary at the Museum of Television and Radio here in NYC. I bring this up for music lovers because KB & Co. are spending the following months painstakingly scoring the film with the music of Arvo Pärt, Olivier Messiaen, and others. From Messiaen’s oeuvre, they will have to use Quatuor pour la fin du temps (Quartet for the End of Time) which he wrote as a prisoner of war after being captured at Verdun. The documentary will be about 14 hours long and will air sometime next September on PBS. Apparently, the majority of high school students graduating today believe we fought with the Germans against the Russians during WWII. The readers of this blog will certainly realize the contrary is true; I encourage you all to find as many high school students as possible and force them to watch the entirety of this documentary Clockwork Orange style.
Party Shutdown #2 [Since publishing this post, I have learned that the party continued after the arrests.]
I was safely out of state, in the Grand Canyon, beyond the reach of cell phones for this one. To rehash: I know some people who have formed an arts organization and are currently testing the limits of party-throwing in New York. After their Halloween party, my friend Rob sent me a message stating that “those guys should be charged with endangerment of their guests” and “the third floor the bathrooms were overflowing and dripping down the stairs onto everyone’s head”.
With regard to the first point: this weekend, seven of them (a long-term lessee of the space, a few bartenders & barbacks, and two doormen ) were arrested and spent a couple of nights in jail. They were attempting to host the Decompression party, which is an extension of Burning Man. I have to admit that I had tried to help Third Ward stay out of trouble by getting them a TPA (a Temporary Place of Public Assembly permit issued by the Department of Buildings) by legalizing the first floor with the addition of exit signs, emergency lights, extra doors, panic bars etc. In the end, all of this doesn’t matter because the NYPD Vice Squad conducted a sting operation with undercover cops trying to buy drugs and posing as underage drinkers trying to buy alchohol. I’ve only spoken with one of the seven, and the most he can be charged with is Disorderly Conduct. At the time, he was actually trying to coordinate their security team to make sure that their wasn’t a mass panic. I am still puzzling over the wisdom of bringing a party which is normally held in a remote stretch of Nevada desert to an indoor space… Given the reputation of Burning Man, did they not predict there would be at least a few people on bad acid trips in their space?
As for the “overflowing bathrooms”, the water actually came from a standpipe at the top of the stairwell where two guests decided to hook up a firehose and turn the water on. It was therefore perfectly clean, potable water, not sewage.
Suggested Music to Take the Edge off Being Arrested (if you don’t have any Xanax handy):
Ralph Myerz & Jack Herren Band; A Special Album; Think Twice
Lemon Jelly; Lost Horizons; Return to Patagonia
Marvin Gaye; Mercy, Mercy Me or Inner City Blues
Ken Burns is using Messiaen and Part? I’m fairly amazed, considering his excising of virtually the entire jazz avant garde from damn near the sixties forward. This could be interesting.
Hell, I loved the Jack Johnson bio.
The story of Quatuor pour la fin du temps would be a great documentary on its own. I hope it is included in Ken Burns dealy. The music will be a much better soundtrack than would the theme to Hogan’s Heroes. Even if those two are always mixed up in my wacked out mind.
Yeah, Mr. Burns made a fairly gross mistake in relying upon Wynton Marsalis, Stanley Crouch, and the rest of the Jazz at Lincoln Center crowd for the treatment of recent jazz history. Funny thing though, most of my jazz friends loved his archaelogical research for the earlier stuff.
During the Q&A for the preview of the WWII doc, a historian nailed KB & Co. for simplifying history by omitting the fact that we fought with the Japanese against the Koreans in one battle for one key island at the beginning of the war.
It seems a lot of editing decisions are based upon an assessment of the tastes and education-levels of a general PBS audience. I’m glad at least some truly outstanding works will slip in below the radar.
Ah, the specter of compromise in creative work. Always a dicey idea. Oh well, who am I kidding, I’ll watch it. Oh, and Stanley Crouch is a douche.