I just got back from Pittsburgh (with my friends Cakeater, Heather and Sarah), where we saw the Philip Glass Ensemble play two concerts: the first to a series of shorts that he scored and the second to the film Koyaanisqatsi. The night of shorts was slightly less impressive, only because it slightly lacked in cohesion, due to the changing films. I really enjoyed a short from Atom Egoyan. The music was all amazing, though I was critical of the use of electric drums. Their use was shocking to me. The score for the next nice was very fitting for the most part, as Glass’ trademark repetitive sounds wound their way to intertwine with images of nature as they turned into images of technology and people. The film focused on the pace of moden life, modern in the very early ’80s, showing space missions, factories, crowed NYC streets, smog in LA, many quickly paced images sliced together with the film’s only sound being the Philip Glass soundtrack. At one point, the images became so fast and my eyes/ears have been so conditioned that the score could not keep up without the use of drums, beats, or techno rhtyhms. I’m sure that the soundtrack was extremely successful for the period of the film’s inception, but here, the sounds, previously very current even 20 years later, somehow broke down. But, all in all, I was glad to have seen Philip Glass and his ensemble play live to film. We even had the privilege to sit in on a question and answer period with him after the series of shorts.
On Friday night, taking heed to the recommendations of Damien Jurado and Jason Molina, we visited the famour Primanti’s to experience deli sandwiches stacked high with coleslaw and french fries. I was really impressed by the atmosphere and the sandwiches were a worthwhile experience.
On Saturday morning, we were looking for a place to eat breakfast and kept coming up short. After much driving around, we went over near the Warhol Museum to find a place and were still not finding anything. Do people in Pittsburgh eat breakfast? This is a question we still ask ourselves. In any case, we finally found this super dive called Toula’s, with the charming motto “We don’t care.” It’s on the 1100 block of Federal street, if you ever happen to be in the city. It was a pretty dive-like lunch counter, but we went with the flow and sat down. The food was good and before too long, we were visited by Harry who started up a conversation with us. Then, we were in the middle of rock and roll trivia, playing for free lunches. We lost the first question…the top selling album of all time. I guess Thriller, he swears it’s the Best of the Eagles. I gotta verify this one. Then, we go on to a more opinionated round. Who is the best rock guitarist of all times? Some guy guesses Jimi Hendrix and gets a buck out of the register. I got a buck for the best rock band of all time…the Beatles. Cake got a buck for the second best…Led Zeppelin. Sex Pistols, the Doors, and The Clash rounded out Harry’s top 5. I challenged him on the Clash, trying to trump them with the Ramones. He ignored the challenged, but told us of seeing the Ramones and the show being so loud that he lost his equilibrium. Somehow, Cake got five bucks for guessing Layla as the greatest rock song after Heather missed on Stairway to Heaven and I angered Harry with “Space Oddity.” Heather got Harry and the other two folks working to pose for a picture, then Harry and Albert gave Heather and Sarah their money headrags as souvenirs. It was also Heather’s birthday, so her lunch was free. At some point, Harry made the claim that he was a millionaire. After that fun, I asked Harry for a good place to buy records and he decided to lead us to the best place. He did have a shiny new Toyota, which just may be a millionaire type car, certainly not the owner of a dive type car. I followed him and we made it to a really great shop. I found a couple of copies of Colin Blunstone’s solo album, One Year, which I am playing right at the moment, while I watch game 7 of the World Series. The owner was excited that I knew of the Zombies and claimed he had Odessey and Oracle on vinyl in the store, but when I asked where, he couldn’t deliver. Likely story. I left my phone number just in case. I am probably leaving out many important aspects and details, but Heather vows to put it up on the tangzine website soon.
So, we made it to the Warhol Museum. I’d been there before, but there were a couple of special exhibits, including one from Patti Smith and one on Americanism, exploring Warhol in the midst of an American style. The Americanism exhibit was extremely interesting because it juxtaposed ideas of pop culture, consumer product, and other’s contemporary art ideas with Warhol’s work.
On Sunday, we had a breakfast sandwich as Primanti’s and then went to the Mattress Factory. The Mattress Factory was a truly amazing museum, focusing on Installation artists, artists who transform a space to inhabit their work. James Turrell was the main exhibitor who used carefully constructed mostly empty spaces with controlled color lighting. The results were simply overwhelming. I am going to spend the week finding out a lot more about Mr. Turrell. He apparently has a project called Roden Crater in the Arizona desert where he is building observatory rooms to make use of sunlight as it affects the crater. Wow!
It was definitely a great trip, with lots of fun events, situations, and experiences.
Mike and Elizabeth Garson are visiting for a couple of weeks, so I hope to see them soon. I missed a sailing trip with them yesterday.
That’s all for now. It’s not looking good for the Giants, but I am still hopefull. And “One Year” seems to be a worthy album upon first listen.
:::scott:::