Superman—Secret Origin

An alien infant crashes to earth in a rocket ship. His home-world has been destroyed, he is an orphan, but on his new planet, he has abilities far beyond those of earthlings. He assimilates to our culture and uses his powers to fight evil and do good works.

Superman is a modern American Myth, and we need myths. As Joseph Campbell said, “Myths are clues to the spiritual potentialities of the human life.”

Right now, DC is doing some great stuff with Superman comic books right now. The Superman books—there are several titles—are fun, exciting and one of the most compelling pieces of any form of popular entertainment right now. Quick update: Kandor has been freed, and New Krypton is now a planet in orbit parallel to earth but the Kryptonians are sort of militaristic, and the only Kryptonian allowed on Earth is Superman, who is being hunted by General Lane—he’s the father of Lois—with a band of former villains. And, then Mon-El has been released from the Phantom Zone because members of the Legion of Super Heroes. And, and... pshew, take a breath. Exhale.

Anyway, as part of this comic book superman renaissance, DC has just introduced a special 6-issue mini Series—Secret Origin, which explores the teen aged Clark Kent, as he learns about his Alien heritage and his emerging powers—a perfect metaphor for the passage between adolescence and adult hood. Why does Superman become a Hero—someone devoted to the social good and protecting the weak and helpless? Ma & Pa Kent instilled in him decency and good American values.

Question what Values means all you want. Believe the spin you see on TV ruining our political system. Indulge your cynicism. Ignore our common mythology. Truth, justice, and the American way are still ideals to aspire to, or at least hold dear and believe in, even when our nation, its leaders, and our fellow citizens have fallen short far more often than not.

Not only are Ma & Pa Kent instilling in young Clark these values, they are facing the challenge of being foster parents to a special needs child, one from outer space.

The first issue of Superman—Secret Origin—was one of the best Superman stories, ever. The young Clark is struggling to control his emerging X-Ray & Heat Vision and like all Teens, just wants to fit in and be with his girl friend Lana or play football with his buddy, Pete Rose.

Jonathan and Martha Kent realize that it is time to tell their son the truth and show him the rocket in which he came to Earth. Even though we know what is going to happen—this is a prequel—the story had surprises that make perfect sense. The back story we all take for granted is fun and exciting. Of course that is how he learned to fly!

The art is by Gary Frank, and while I read a few select DC titles, I don’t follow the artists like some, but his work here is so good I think maybe I should start. You don’t get the exaggerated spandex clad bodies—immense cleavage on the gals, muscles with muscles on the guys. Instead you get honest adolescent bodies—young Clark has the cheek bones of Christopher Reeves. Ma & Pa Kent are adults in their early 50s, and look it. The illustrations have a natural realism about them. Refreshingly plain when it comes to the figures, the backgrounds and settings invoke the small town America of that is the Smallville of the Myth without Norman Rockwell pretensions. These are people you like, people you know. The illustration have a soft and golden glow that reflects the collective idealized innocence of an American childhood.

This comic book is above the fray and I suspect it will be well selling “graphic novel,” when it is completed. Superman will always have meaning for Americans. He is one of our most important modern myths—perhaps the most relevant and provocative myth that has come out of comic books that we have. The other Superman titles, DC is making them filled with pulp action and science fiction concepts. I love them. But Secret Origin is filled with myth. Comic Books at their best.

Damp, Drab & Dreary

4th Street Art & Music Festival. Any Day Parade headline this event, playing as the last act in the evening, after which a keg was being carried in for what was a much deserved private party for fest workers. That show was after the rain, and I guess I’m blaming the rain for the dreariness when I spent time at the fest in the afternoon. A drab affair, but that’s how I always find this event. The music is good, music is always good, but the rain seemed to curtail some of the performances so I wasn’t able to experience much of it, except for the ADP set. Seemed the powers that be tried to spark the fest up some this year, adding a secondary stage at the other end of the fest, giving folks a reason to walk down (or is that up) 4th Street. Who wants to look at art in the rain? I always get the feeling that it isn’t about looking at art, but about being a flea market so our local artist can move some merchandise. I have no problem with that, but I guess I wish for a little more festive in the festival, not that I have an idea of what that should be. There was some outdoor painting going on, a kind of big balloon you walked into, some other activities that might be seen as inter-active, art-experience. Mostly, there were tables and stuff for sale. I’m pretty much outside even the fringes of the local art circles and I wasn’t in a reporter mood to jazz up a blog post. I had other things to do that made it impossible to tarry in the rain at the fest. There’s a clubby atmosphere to the whole deal—all the artists know each other, they are all young—seems like a closed loop to me. I didn’t see many people who weren’t of that generation, or of that generation and somehow part of this scene. This is not a knock against the scene (or generation Y), its members or their talent. Some awesome work is being done. But, if you are holding a festival, the purpose is to open up your scene to your fellow neighbors, share it with them for a while. Should we blame the closed-loop attitude of the young artists and organizers or is it the fault of the narrow-minded attitude of the older generation (X & Boomer) who seem interested only in youth they’re related to. Maybe it was the rain. Or the food (there were two or three vendors, everything looked unappetizing). I didn’t expect the selection you find at, say, the Italian Feast—but it is hard to believe the lack of support by the local restaurants—not much else besides the soggy shish kebob. Art is such a broad term, and but for the festival, it was mostly paintings. Maybe these things just work better in Williamsburg or Woodstock or New Hope, or maybe like much art, the 4th Street Festival is still a work in progress. It’s supposed to be the capstone event of the J.C. Artists Studio tour, but that tour is about as decentralized as an organized event can be. Saturday is the opening day of the two-day tour, and the artists were hosting their own private receptions into the evening. The artists who are part of the tour neglect the Arts Festival, the premier event of the tour, which reduces the festival to just another tour stop, not a destination. Hey, I’m just speculating here. Lots of reasons I’m sure, I could have just hit it during a lull and was too impatient to wait for the lull to pass. Let’s blame the rain for the drab afternoon portion of the festival.

Peter Delman Getting Medieval

Peter Delman in his studio on Jersey Avenue during the Jersey City Artist Tour, where he showcased his series, “Getting Medieval.” Several of the paintings portraits, including a self portrait, in an illustration style with devil wings and other gothic images reminiscent of religious and demonic iconography popular in the middle ages. He’s standing in front of one of Holy Toledo—View of Jersey City,” a city-scape of our beloved metropolis that according to Delman, “references El Greco,” who painted the View of Toledo (not the one in Ohio) and you can find the original in the Metropolitan Museum Across the river. Medieval, Middle Ages... didn’t El Greco live during the Renaissance. What’s a few hundred years here or there. Whatever the century invoked, the paintings were pretty fantastic, dabbling with classic imagery in a refreshing contemporary style and a distinctive playfulness. Besides, if Jersey City, downtown at least, is going through a Renaissance, Peter, who told me he moved to this studio in 1975, has seen not just Medieval Jersey City but its Dark Ages too!

Visit: http://peterdelman.com

Walkers & Bus

The walkers have wheels, some of them. Go to someplace where senior citizens cohabitate and you will see the array of walkers now available. The old women lined up for the bus early. They wanted to get out of there, assisted living center. They were going to lunch at the pancake house. Anything to do something different, one woman told me. I wish I could feel the same excitement for pancakes. They left the walkers for the driver, who folded them up and put them in the bus.

The One & Nines

The One & Nines. What a great name for a band from New Jersey. Caught their set at Groove on Grove, the last one of the year, last one of the season on the last day of September. The chilly breeze made early Autumn feel like early winter. I couldn’t believe what I heard. The band ran through several STAX influenced numbers and a few actual covers—it’s hard to keep all those Carla Thomas song titles straight but they were in there for sure—and the female lead singer, a raven haired beauty, playing tamborine with a voice that was rich and brassy like the best of the shouters but also smooth, articulate, easily slipping up into and down from high notes like, well... Carla (who note for note is the equal to Aretha voice-wise and Aretha would agree). It’s called Soul music ladies and genetlemen of the jury, and it’s not the kind of thing you hear a lot of these days on the so called soul and R&B stations. The One & Nines follow a tradition that has been sadly forgotten by too many, applying their considerable talent with style, enthusiam and dedication. Pre-Janis Soul, pre-Clinton Funk. The bassist and guitarist were Dunn & Cropper reborn. Sax & keyboard were spot-on. The band could lay down a groove like Booker T & the MGs in their hey-day. Holy cow, a review—or is that, revue! Good thing it was cold, because this kind of music heads to your heart and soul via your hips, vertebrae and hands. You must shimmy, you must clap, you must shake. It makes you want to move! It makes you NEED to move! We are talking unadulerated Gut Bucket and I could not believe I was hearing it above the Mason Dixon line, thousand of miles away from the Delta or Memphis or the Big Easy, much less at Grove Street by what what seemed like a bunch of kids from the Garden State two generations removed from the progenitors of this hallowed sound. They did the music justice. I’m bad with the titles on this post, and what I believe were originals among the set list, which were based on the aforementioned musical traditions, fit in well with a tastly selection of obscure masterpieces. One song about Walking in My Sleep was particuarlly moving, I think it was an original. What a miracle, to hear this bueatiful, timeless music, played so well and genuinely. Then, just as I was ready to kneel in thanksgiving, the soul of STAX was transformed into this truly awesome, kick out the jambs, version of Chuck Berry’s 30 Days. Rocked Out Totally. I thought the arrangement was closer to the Ronnie Hawkins version. The Hawk, in my opinion, does the best version of this under-played Berry anthem. I chatted with the band’s guitarist, who confirmed my impression, and turns out, is a Hawkins afficianodo. The Sax player and keyboard player took some searing solos during the Berry romp. From STAX to pure Rock & Roll, not that easy to manage and back then, unheard of (a few of the great 60s bands might have pulled it off). The One & Nines deftly navigated these shores of the deep, muddy river of American music with a high-level of musicianship and a ragged edge that enchanced the authenticity and genuine appreciation of the tradition they intently revived. The crowd cheered as the autumn teetered towards icy, but the One & Nines formed a hermetically sealed dome around the stage and we were in a back roads juke joint with a broken air conditioner and moonshine whiskey, sweaty and joyously dancing to songs about love—fullfillment, lust & heart break to be sure—but love, nonetheless. They aren’t just students of this material, they aren’t just well-versed in the nuances of these songs. They FEEL this music. THESE CATS CAN PLAY!!!

Visit: Face or Space

Con Vivo: Purity of Melody

Autumn seemed to arrive with unmistakable determination on the last Friday in September. The first Fall nips in the breeze reminded you to button your jacket. Gruelingly hectic week at the day job, capped off by a stress saturated Friday. Oh, did I mention the Economy sucks? Exhausted, frustrated. I felt sad and had no one to drink with. I ascended to Grove Street, remembering that it is indeed Friday and that means Art Market, which always has a nice vibe. Under a canopy, musicians were playing. That’s a new thing—usually just a DJ spinning tehno grooves on Friday. This music was acoustic. In fact, it was classical, the genre known as Chamber Music, which is played by a small group of instruments, not an orchestra. A violin, cello, clarinet, trumpet and a bassut (yes, I too thought it was an oboe at first). There was no amplification. Between the near deafening wheeze of the buses and trucks and the clatter of what appeared to be a more crowded than usual Art Market, I couldn’t make out what they were playing. A sudden wind knocked down one of the stands in front of the musicians, a flurry of sheet music scattered towards the sidewalk. The musicians picked up the sheets. I lingered, half-expecting a comedy. This could get funny. I sat down on one of these cement planters. I had to lean forward and make an effort to hear. This music, and the musicians, had to struggle against the din. I was not alone. A dozen or so folks seemed likewise enticed, including a couple of teenagers. Suddenly, I wasn’t rubber-necking at some debacle, I was compelled to listen, even though it required a strain to be attentive. Melody pulled me in. Drifting, lilting, accentuated by the natural sound of the instruments. The bassut had such a spooky tone, a compelling counter-point to the more jaunty tone of the clarinet. Subtlety and texture came to mind and I gradually realized, I am hearing beauty. I’m not sure what I recognized—I don’t know Schubert from sherbet—but alongside what I guess is called classic classical chamber music, were some Spanish numbers, from Mexico and Cuba, and from what I could make out of the announcements, they were from both composers and songs the cats picked up during their travels south of the border. Some melody lines were familiar—did I hear that in a Sam Pekinpah western, or Copeland or the familiar riffs of the variety of Spanish dance music one hears around the hood? Was that a touch of klezmar? I don’t know, I shut off that part of that brain that seeks recognition and identification. Our compulsive need to understand and analyze has to be obliterated sometimes in order to experience the moment. I suppressed the surrounding noise of vehicular and pedestrian traffic. I listened to the sound, the melody and the notes that make up that melody—melody is obviously the basic foundational unit of all music, but it is not the only component of a performance of a song. Sometimes, what touches you the most is the playing, or the individual performances within a context, or the harmonics, or the arrangement. What struck me from these cats was the melody. The melody was paramount, the melody dictated everything else. Like all art, music is a form of expression and music will often express the emotions that escape words or images. It is not like I had a life changing experience. You can still fit everything I know about classical music into a thimble and still have room for your thumb. I’m not about to burn my Bob Dylan and Elvis collection and begin to follow chamber quintets playing the tri-state area. But music is not a mutually exclusive love affair. I was down in the dumps and then uplifted by talented musicians. My heart was gladdened by the purity of melody. Never know what you’ll experience once you get off that PATH train.

Visit: Convivomusic.org

Luke (quote)

“If they hear not Moses and the Prophets, neither will they be persuaded though one rose from the dead.”

Gospel of Saint Luke
Chap: 17
Ver: 31