All posts by REB
Night Bloom: the Hot House Experience
Chosen One
La Bruja
Morton Subotnick at URBAN-15
The legendary Morton Subotnick visited the URBAN-15 Studio in February of 2013. Here is the encore of his performance. Earlier in the day he gave a workshop, touching on his workflow (such as using his Buchla synthesizer in conjunction with Ableton Live software), as well as a wonderful presentation of his life in electronic music.
Little Altars Out the Passenger Window
There’s a lonely stretch of road on the south side of San Antonio between the old Spanish Missions of San Juan and Espada. It’s a mile-long straight shot running parallel to the Southern Pacific Railroad tracks. Many people in town are familiar with this region, as the southern reach of the road crosses the notorious “Ghost Tracks,” a railroad crossing purportedly haunted by the children who died when their school bus was struck by a train. The problem is, no one seems to be able to track down any newspaper report of this event. I ride this road maybe three times a week on my bicycle, and from my experience, if there are ghosts haunting this area, most likely it would be from the carcasses of the family pets dumped out here. It’s no doubt easier than digging a hole. Every few days I encounter a new box or trash bag surrounded by a cloud of flies and stench. There are also live pets abandoned here–I see them eyeing me hopefully as they cringe at the fence-lines of the surrounding farms. There are also three roadside altars along the road: markers where some drunken or dozing driver lost control of his car and perished unseen and alone.
I had wrangled a photography show at an Alamo Street gallery for Día de los Muertos, which was just a week away. The plan was to shoot a dozen of the more interesting roadside altars around town, but I hadn’t yet done a single photo.
I decided to begin with one of the alters about half a mile from the “Ghost Tracks,” as it was the only one of the three on that road which showed any signs of upkeep. It was early afternoon when I pulled off the road in my truck. There was still a chill in the air and the trees clustered across the road from me were still dripping from the heavy rains that morning. I grabbed my tripod and camera and walked up to the large live oak tree. There were four tall votive candles at the base of the tree each with about an inch of rain water in the glass holders. Further up the tree trunk a heavy iron grill that looked like it belonged to a backyard barbecue had been hung with huge nails driven into the tree. Attached to the bars of the grill were all manner of sentimental objects: a little weathered and sodden teddy bear, white silk flowers, plastic beaded necklaces, some cards with pictures of saints, a tiny gift shop acoustic guitar, and a rosary with pink beads and a silver-painted crucifix.
The clouds, which had been running low and fast on my drive out, were breaking up and the sun began throwing some pleasing shadows. I set up the shot with the grill in the foreground–I was zoomed in as tight as my lens would allow, so that the train, when it finally made its appearance, would be massive and imposing in the background. A slow shutter would leave it’s motion smeared like a river surging by.
Now it was just a matter of waiting. I was toying with the idea of reframing the shot to include a crude carving on the tree which read “Yolanda 4 Ever,” but I wasn’t sure if it was part of the altar. At the sound of a car approaching, I turned around. It was an old green El Camino. I watched as it slowed and rolled to a stop in the grass between me and my truck. Conjunto music with a heavy bass line and a strident accordion came from the open windows. A young woman sat in the driver’s seat watching me from behind sunglasses. Beside her sat an old man in a baseball cap reading a newspaper. The twisted front bumper was held fast with a large link chain and bailing wire.
The music stopped abruptly and the woman cut off the engine, which dieseled onerously with a low throaty cough before finally dying. That’s when I heard the long, wavering train whistle. I looked back toward the tree, and the train track beyond. I could see the bright headlight from the train–it had just turned that little bend near the cemetery across from Mission San Juan. It was coming in fairly fast, and I tried to ignore the woman as she climbed out of the car and began walking toward me. I needed to get this shot, because who knew when another train would come along. I could see, from my peripheral vision, that she had come to a stop about fifteen feet from me. She took off her glasses and crossed her arms.
The train was about to enter the frame–the rumbling of steel wheels along iron rails and the whistle screaming all came crashing into me like physical thing. That’s when I squeezed off a shot. I took another three exposures with slightly different settings and placements. Then I put on the lens cap, like a diner placing his napkin on the table, to indicate he was done with his meal. I turned to the woman with what I hoped was a pleasant and cordial smile.
As we stood there, facing one another with the train lumbering by, she pointed with her folded sunglasses at the tree.
“You’re not messing with that, are you?” she shouted over the noise. I didn’t make out the words at first.
“What? Oh, no,” I said slowly and loudly. “I’m just taking pictures.”
She furrowed her brows. At that point the final train car sped past, snatching with it all the thunder and high-pitched metallic squealing.
“It’s for a photography show.” I added: “At an art gallery.”
“Oh,” she said, with an understanding dip of her head, as if art explained everything. “It’s just that if my mother saw anyone messing with this, she’d be sick. This is for my sister, Yoli.”
She walked to the tree and fussed with the silk flowers by reshaping the petals with the wire inside the fabric.
“You should come back out with your camera next week. Me, my mother, and my nieces, we’ll redo it. We freshen it up every few months.” She was wearing an orange t-shirt, faded jeans, and flip-flop sandals. Her hair was held back with what looked like a strip torn off a dish towel. She looked like she was about twenty.
“She was in a car accident?” I asked.
“What?” She turned around and was looking down at my camera.
“Your sister.”
“Oh.” She slipped her sunglasses into the front pocket of her jeans. “It was up there,” she said, pointing to the rise of the train tracks. “She was walking along the tracks with her boyfriend. They were drunk. Someone said they saw them pushing each other when the train was coming up. You know, pretending. Kids do stupid stuff. Sergio, her boyfriend, well his parents sent him to live with his grandparents in Laredo. It was an accident, everyone knows that, but, you know, the kids at school and everything.”
She bent down to empty the water from the candle holders and stood up with a sigh. “Come on back next week, it’ll be pretty.” She smiled at me and nodded and walked back to her car.
“Hey,” I said. “When did this happen?”
She turned. “On her birthday,” she said. “On Yoli’s birthday.” And I watched her get in the truck with the old man and drive off.
Trompillo
Wappo Pick-Ups
Hetaerae is coming along well. This is the upcoming Jump-Start performance written by Laurie Dietrich, and co-directed by Sandy Dunn and myself. Laurie will star as the narrator. There will be three other women in the cast. Yesterday, we received commitment from our final cast member, one of my favorite people and an amazing performer. Next week Sandy and I will meet with our cast in an informal gathering. Then we all jump into the work of character-building, rehearsals, and whatever else one does when putting on a play. I’m glad I’m surrounded by seasoned professionals.
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I haven’t been biking much lately, so when the temperature got up into the 80s back on Tuesday, I had no excuse. I hoped on my bike and headed south to Mission Espada. The wind was coming in strong from the south, so I had to fight it all the way. At least it meant that the return trip would be fun and fast with a strong tail wind.
The construction on the river redevelopment is still plodding along throughout that section between Military and Mission Espada. Construction crews are completely chewing up the area around Mission San Juan. The old, abandoned bridge over the canal is being dismantled. Sad. I shot a couple of films on it. It was handy because if you set up the shots right, you could give the illusion of shooting on a two-lane blacktop bridge without having to deal with traffic.
On the return trip, I fell afoul to a blustering northern cold front. I hate when the wind changes, creating head winds both coming and going. These were some feisty gusts, and I found myself constantly down-shifting, even on level ground. I noticed a fellow cyclist pull over. I’m not sure if he was exhausted fighting the wind, or just wanted to use his phone to photograph the whitecaps the wind was raising on the river.
I took a break under a pavilion near the Roosevelt Street bridge, to watch the clouds and see if the wind would die down. As I was trying to post this picture to Instagram —
— I got a call from Gustavo. He needed to shoot some more on the Wappo vs. the World film. CineFestival wants their sponsors mentioned in the film. We’d already done a few, but needed to included more. Would I be able to help out Wednesday afternoon. I said sure, hung up, and fought the winds all the way home.
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Wednesday I met up with Gustavo, Jim, Robb, and Yvonne. We headed over to la Casa del Alebrije, at 1601 Guadalupe. It’s an old house on the westside which, in March, will open as a place providing snacks, art shows, backyard performances, and so on. Gustavo put on his mask and, in character of Wappo, did a short commercial for the business which will be placed at the end of one of the Wappo webisodes which will begin to air online next week.
Next, we drove out to Lisa’s Mexican Restaurant, way out on Bandera Road. They treated us very cordially. We shot a Wappo spot for Indo beer in the bar. And then we shifted over to the restaurant side to do the plug for Lisa’s. Finally, we broke for a late lunch.
Not a bad day’s work. I just need to figure out how to get paid for this sort of stuff (with something other than enchilada plates).
Here’s Wappo with some Indio Beer.
And here we have Yvonne Montoya (Program Director at the Guadalupe Cultural Arts Center) and Jim Rodriguez (DP on this project), they’re standing beside the cool metal beaded curtain separating the bar from the restaurant at Lisa’s.
Wappo Wrappo
Well, last night we wrapped on a short project, Wappo vs. the World.
Gustavo Stebner contacted me a couple weeks back to help out on a project. He was coming to town to put together a short film to be used as promotional material for CineFestival (the nation’s oldest and longest running Latino film festival). The piece will be broken up into a few webisodes, building up to the opening night of the film festival, which runs February 23 – March 2, 2013. Gustavo wrote, directed, and is currently busy editing the episodes. The story involves a masked wrestler, Wappo, as he transitions from a career as an underground wrestling sensation, to greater fame. Along the way he battles vampires, zombies, and the wrath of a spurned woman.
Some of our actors remarked on what a calm set we were all working on. I found myself pointing out, on no few occasions, that when you spend eight days to shoot fourteen pages, you can maintain a certain relaxed atmosphere. True, it also helped that we all like one another.
I keep finding myself on these pro bono gigs. But I did realize the other day that I am getting better at being selective — if the project isn’t financially rewarding, it is always fun. Here are some random pictures of the shoot.
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Years ago, back when my friend Pete and I were working on our digital feature (Vaya Con Dios, Asshole) I was playing around with Garage Band. I built up an industrial drum and bass sort of tune and laid down some dialogue from the film. Specifically some semi-ad lib rants from Marc Daratt, in the guise of a televangelist. I quite liked the outcome. (I have no idea if it still exists on a hard drive somewhere….) I had this idea that I would do a playful musical collage for every project. Sadly, this never happened.
However, I began playing around with the program Ableton Live recently. I built up some dubstep-esque track and began layering some of Martha Prentiss’ monologue from my recent short film with her (“Celebrating the Solstice”). The rough edit is parked on Soundcloud. “What’s the Soundtrack to Your Apocalypse?”)
[soundcloud url=”http://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/75268253″ params=”” width=” 100%” height=”166″ iframe=”true” /]
I put it on my iPhone and it’s in my playlist I listen to while running. Twice. Surrounded by the likes of the Flaming Lips, Cafe Tacuba, the London Apartments, and the rest of my workout miscellany. It amuses me in that, if I take the River Walk route downtown to HemisFair Park and back, I inevitably hear my Martha song whilst running past a location we shot at in the film.
Insert Stigmata Here
Wednesday
It got down to 28 degrees last night, if I can believe my iPhone. At least there’s sunlight out this morning. Yesterday was cold and dark and miserable. I don’t think I even bothered to leave the house. Probably I should find a better way to heat this place than my kitchen stove. Also, it wouldn’t hurt me to get my water heater finally fixed. I know I’m not looking forward to forcing myself to take a shower before my noon meeting. I suppose if I had something resembling a real job I might be able to address some of these issues more easily; but, damn, it’s been so long since I’ve pulled a regular paycheck that I’m not really sure how one goes about getting a job. On occasion I might look for employment opportunities online. Always I give up once I come to the qualification portion. I’m not really qualified to do anything. And, really, I’m much too old to get in at an entry level position (particularly in fields I really don’t care about). I’m slightly heartened that though this meeting I have at noon isn’t for a job, as such, it probably will result in a moderate stipend.
The meeting is at Jump-Start. I’ve been asked to co-direct their next show. Laurie Dietrich invited me to team up with Sandy Dunn to direct her upcoming play, Hetaerae. I’m looking forward to working with the both of them. There will be a portion of the piece presented a week from today at the W-I-P, so it will be nice for us to hear feedback from that night’s audience.
Here’s a picture of Laurie, to promote the next W-I-P. I believe Dino Foxx took the picture, and as such, we’ll just assume he digitally inserted the stigmata.
I’ve never directed for the stage before. Probably I have more experience than I think, though. The three full-length pieces I’ve worked on, allowed me to observe the process from pretty much the beginning of working with actors through to the striking of the set. Each production had different directors, so I’ve seen how various people manage similar tasks differently. Ultimately it’s a spare production, with only four performers, and most likely a minimalist set design. Laurie, who wrote the piece, will be the central performer. She’ll be of great help, as she’s one of the city’s most accomplished directors for the stage. And Sandy’s been working in theater for, I assume, over thirty years. They are also kind and polite (more or less) and won’t make too much fun of me when I do or say something stupid.