Archive for January, 2009

If you want one, send me an email.

thorburn.jeff@gmail.com

The good thing about being a bit of a pack rat is never saying, “Damn, I wish I still had that [insert useless item here].”
Well, it’s paying off in spades because I dug up an old Concrete Skateboarding (formerly known as Concrete Powder) that had a Calgary feature and here are the fruits of my digging:

The caption only says “Ben from Skaters”.

Enoch krooked grinding at Gulf.

Dwight Pineau on the Chi-Twelve. The inset is Dwight and Mike (unknown last name) with a hooker.

7 PM, Thursday, January 22nd

Plaza Theater, 1133 Kensinton Road NW

$12 General Admission, $10 Members/Students/Seniors

Directed by Douglas Gordon and Philippe Parreno

90 minutes, 35mm

With an Introduction by Nancy TousleyAcclaimed visual artists Douglas Gordon and Philippe Parreno transform spectacular footage of French soccer star Zinédine Zidane-recorded by multiple cameras during a match between Real Madrid and Villareal-into an innovative film closer to visual art than sports documentary.

Over the course of one, 90-minute match at the Santiago Bernabeu stadium in Madrid during a regular la Liga championship game, Gordon and Parreno capture Zidane up-close using 17 cameras supervised by cinematographer Darius Khondji (Se7en, Delicatessen) to track Zidane’s every gesture, move and glance.

As opposed to the traditional broadcast of a game, these synchronised cameras (combining different film formats, from super 35mm to High Definition and including the first commercial use of two Panavision HD cameras with specially modified zooms) are positioned around the stadium at the level of the spectators, all focused on Zidane.

It’s a real time portrait of a great sportsman in action that also turns the star player into an objet d’art. In view of the background of the makers – Douglas Gordon and Philippe Parreno are video artists and not sports reporters – this is no surprise: they are pursuing a portrait tradition from classical painting. There is no analysis of play, there are no interviews.

Adding to this sensory experience is the blending of the roar of 80,000 strong voices in the stadium with a subtle and menacing score by Scottish band Mogwai. The result is a gloriously rigorous experiment with cinematic form and an arresting study of a sports icon.

“This movie is a must-see for everyone interested in football, and anyone interested in how cinema is capable of stillness and portraiture, how it can do without the various conventions of fiction or documentary.” -The Guardian (UK)

“Sublime, the only film to lift me out of my seat and inject that buzz of discovery for which Cannes is usually so cherished. It’s the greatest film about football ever made …and one of the great films about sport…. There was no more soulful an examination of the human condition to be found at Cannes than in watching Zidane at work.” The Observer (U.K.)

Director Douglas Gordon is one of the most acclaimed British artists of our time. Through his work in video, photography, and sculpture, Gordon addresses and explores universal dualities: life and death, good and evil. Since his first solo show in 1986, he has exhibited extensively, including the Stedelijk Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven, The Netherlands; the Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, Centro Cultrual de Belém in Portugal, and the DIA Center for the Arts in New York. A 2001 retrospective organized by the Geffen Contemporary in Los Angeles traveled to the Vancouver Art Gallery, Canada; the Museo Rufino Tamayo, Mexico City; and the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, D.C.. In 2006, his work was the subject of exhibitions appearing at the Fundació Joan Miró, Barcelona; the Museum of Modern Art, New York; the National Gallery, Edinburgh, Scotland; and the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Trento, Italy. Gordon was the 1996 recipient of Britain’s Turner Prize, in 1997 was awarded Premio 2000 at the Venice Biennial, and in 1998 he was presented with the Hugo Boss Prize at the Guggenheim Museum in SoHo. He was also included in the SkulpturProjekte in Münster in 1997.

Director Philippe Parreno is an internationally acclaimed French artist whose work explores the different ways in which subjectivity moulds our experience of the real. Embracing a variety of media from the traditional (drawing, sculpture) to the more experimental (animation, ventriloquism, performance), Parreno consistently debunks the idea of a singular, authentic reality, instead exploring a number of different – but equally valid perceptions of it. Parreno recently had major shows at the Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, the Museum of Modern Art in San Francisco and the Kunstverein Münich. His work is included in the major collections of the Museum of Modern Art New York (MOMA), the Walker Art Center (USA), the Centre Georges Pompidou (France), the Paris Museum of Modern Art (France), the Guggenheim Museum New York (USA), the Museum of Modern Art in San Francisco and the Museum of the 21st Century (Japan).

Just watch this and you will understand Calgary.
 Video on Calgary, Alberta

I meant to tell you this earlier but the holidays have been insane:
We (the CanadaIsAwesome.com network) are one of the sponsors for this Clipse show tomorrow night!

Click HERE to see the video version of the promo! See you at the party, you don’t want to miss this….

Over 30 artists, performance, sculpture, paintings, drawings, photography, YOU NAME IT!

Bands:
Sharp Ends
Beija Flor
Thee Thems

DJs:
Teddy Celebration
Wax Romeo
Noah York City
Kid_Champagne
Biz Cazh
Dan Solo
Sandro Petrillo
Kamil Krulis & Melyssa Nielsen

+ MORE MORE MORE!

*not an actual photo of a Calgary gang.

Being a gangster in Calgary these days must be a difficult task. First of all, the budding gangster must decide which gang to join—Fresh Off the Boat or the Fresh Off the Boat Killers. I’d like to believe there’s some kind of aptitude test to determine which gang suits one’s personal gangsterism best.
I can see a little G saying, “At first I thought I was FOB material but I tried it out and then it just felt wrong. Being an FOBK was a much better fit for me.”
Then, once gang life begins, things sure don’t get any easier. Differentiating between rivals and fellow gang members must be nearly impossible:
“Can you see that guy’s tattoo? I can’t quite see it all… he might have a ‘K’ in there but I can’t be sure. Wait, no it’s just FOB. There’s no ‘K’. Good! We can shoot him!”
Do these gangs have logos? Maybe the FOBK are waiting for the FOB to get a logo so they can just put “killers” under it. That would be quite an insult in the honour-rich gang culture, would it not? 
Do they have merchandise for purchase? I would imagine that FOB key fobs would be a great seller. I know, I know– that was too easy.

I think both gangs would be more successful if they forgot about the whole “name beef” and just got down to business. Maybe investing in a marketing/PR department would be prudent…

Clean Calgary Association is running EcoLogic 201! This is a 20 hour course for individuals who feel they are already doing a lot to reduce their footprint and be good environmental stewards but are interested in doing more. Graduates will become EcoCalgarians joining the newly established EcoCalgarian community for ongoing learning and sharing.

Many people approach Clean Calgary Association staff and say “I’m already recycling, saving energy, conserving water and trying not to use my car. What’s the next step?” The answer is EcoLogic. This course is designed to expose participants to a variety of issues and give them practical actions they can implement in their lives. The topics are presented both by experts in their respective fields and by Clean Calgary Association staff and include:

Over-consumption and waste
Consumerism and food choices
Water issues and conservation
Energy and climate change (including transportation and energy efficiency)
Indoor air quality, toxins and green cleaning
Global citizenship and influence
The idea is to start off with a global overview and then start to focus on the local level. The course will also cover how to discuss environmental issues with friends and family and how to get involved with positive change projects in the city.

Cost: $350 or $150 plus a 25 hour time commitment to volunteer

***Some subsidies available!

Location: Bridgeland Riverside Community Center

Dates: The course runs on Tuesday nights starting Feb 10 and ending Mar 31, 2009. There will also be one optional field trip.

To register or for more details please contact Lindsay Lunhau at (403) 230-1443 ext 225 or by email at lindsay@cleancalgary.org

I took this course last year, and honestly it was SO AWESOME! You will learn so much and leave feeling like you really have the power to make some positive changes in our world. You will LOVE it!

if you’re anything like me, monday nights are for staying in to shamelessly watch MTV’s The City, oogling over 20 something’s fashion sense and their horseshoes-up-the-ass ladders’ to success. as someone in advertising, i was impressed with the promotion of music throughout the show, including plugs to the artist and their latest album.

well monday’s episode just got a little better because the lovely anita athavale‘s song “on and on” from her latest album “in the noise” was featured!

you can download her cd off her website at: www.anitaathavale.com

Chad VanGaalen (Soft Airplane): He is a composing -instrument inventing -animating -skateboarding quadruple threat and this, his debut record for Sub-Pop should be considered a Calgary landmark. Let the hopscotch plucking, groggy horns and haunting falsetto of the first single, Willow Tree thieve your thought.

Women (WOMEN): Signed this year to Jagjaguar (Okkervil River, Black Mountain, Bon Iver etc.), this self-titled debut is a must have for new wavers. Women- who may also have the best band name in 60 years of popular music- have an airy and acidic ambiance somewhere in between the Zombies and Rogue Wave. Check out the tune, Black Rice.

Ghostkeeper (Children of the Great Northern Muskeg): An imaginative new sound in town that is plump with danceable electro beats, blues guitar, pop-hooks, romantics and tales. The album’s single, “Mr. No Show” is an infectiously playful duet that can quite possibly convalesce being stood up repeatedly.

Azeda Booth (In Flesh Tones): They are Calgary’s answer to the visual pop epidemic pioneered by acts like Animal Collective. Like their hypnotic live performance, each listen to this debut full-length seems to interact with a new sense. Listen to In Red while watching Planet Earth on mute to see what I mean…

Jain Vain and the Dark Matter (Love Is Where The Smoke Is): The long-awaited release from local songstress, Jamie Fooks received critical acclaim over the summer. They delivered an emphatic outdoor performance at Sled Island and did some spot touring in Canada. C’mon Baby Say Bang Bang will always remind me of last summer- my fingers are crossed that this hiatus ends soon.