Dec 29 : "Hothouse Shorts" - Wilma Theater (Philly)

Here are six theater pieces that, if performed on stage before the pandemic, could very well have been called "performance art". But when the pandemic came along, theaters, like everyone else, had to adjust. And a couple of the things some theaters did was to start streaming some of their productions, as well as moving some of the performances themselves off stage to rl settings. And it wasn't long before some theaters added digital enhancements to the streaming productions. And, as we're coming out of lockdowns, some of the new streaming productions seem to have retained those changes as a matter of course.

Such seems to be the case with Wilma Theater's current streaming productions, "Hothouse Shorts", which is a collection of six engaging but unrelated pieces. Some of the digital enhancements include rapid changes of scenes as well as one of the shorts going way off into its own territory and bcoming an interactive experience with the viewer. Fun clicking all the icons! The theater's website describes them as: These shorts are as varied in style as they are in content, reflecting both the diversity of passions and variety of talents of local Philadelphia artists..

Should works like this be encompassed in the larger generic category "videos", or, since they're being created and performed by a theater company, still be called "theater pieces"? Or do they deserve a new name entirely? Technological advances are bringing a blurring of the lines. (or creating new ones?)

"Hothouse Shorts" is playing through this Friday, December 31. The event is free although a donation is requested (Make a donation!), and registration is required. You register only once for all six pieces. And you can even view them a second time if you like. I liked these stories; they make an interesting event as we wrap up the year. Here is the click to Wilma Theater's "Hothouse Shorts" ::: Hothouse Shorts (CLICK HERE).

All pics on this page were "screenshots" I took as I streamed the productions on my device.

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Dec 22 : "Thanks" - Sam Seeger (New York)

New Music / Freshly Written and Recently Released

WHOA! Another call is coming in! Another dicey phone message from Sam's brother Ben!

This is another voicemail video that make up a collection unique to New York musician Sam Seeger. Pre-pandemic I saw Sam do live shows with his full band, but, with these changing times, the videos and animations are turning out to be an area of his concentration.

To visit Sam on Facebook, here is the click ::: Sam Seeger on Facebook (CLICK HERE).

Dec 19 : "War Is Coming" - The Nude Party (Livingston Manor NY)

War is coming ...
... Coming for your sons

War is coming ...
... Coming for your soul

The Nude Party · War Is Coming

A few weeks ago I was able to catch part of The Nude Party's show when they came to Philly and played at Johnny Brenda's. I've seen them several times; they always put on a good show. Here is the link to their Soundcloud page where you can hear more: The Nude Party on Soundcloud (CLICK HERE).

pic from the band's Bandcamp page

Dec 01 : "Dreams" - Scantron (Philly)

SOME DREAMS ARE LIKE A FIRE

Philly Music!

We're getting involved with some complex relationships and maybe with one or two dicey characters along the way. Such is the setup in "Electric City", the most recent album by Philly garage band "Scantron". A few weeks ago I saw Scantron open up the night at Johnny Brenda's. I had seen them once before, several years ago. This time they were much more powerful, instrumentals way more complex.

The band has been in business for several years. While they've always been a "badass" garage rock band, the instrumentals back towards their beginning had more of the characteristics of other traditional rock and roll, with maybe a slightly more easy-going look at life as conveyed through both the lyrics and instrumental arrangements.

Fast forward to now, and the characters and relationships in the songs are becoming more complex, more complicated, less easy, as are the melodic lines in the instrumentals' support. In "Dreams" we want to see our love object cry, in "Tip Top Inn" we're ready to pull out our 45. Not to mention the guy we meet is ready to pull out his knife. This is a most foreboding rendition of the legend of Stagger Lee.

Overall I like the increasing complexity of the music's insttrumentals in the new work. More nuanced while ramping up the force and power, and even moreso with the live performance. (and I hope I never meet the guy with the knife in the song). :) But here is "Dreams", the lead song on Scantron's album "Electric City". Bad-ass no-holds-barred garage rock from South Philly. (p.s. ... Listen for an interesting but brief interlude on the keys at 1:25 on the clock).

SCANTRON · Dreams

Scantron doesn't have any other shows coming up soon, but here is the click to their Bandcamp page where you can hear a full range of their work: Scantron on Bandcamp. Pic at the top is from the band's page.

Nov 28 : "The Swimmer" - Joakim Zander

LOSING A MORAL COMPASS TO FOREVER WARS

Sometimes it can be effective to visualize a scenario through a piece of fiction. While my previous posts, "Jesus Loves Fighter Jets" and "Disaster Capitalism" talked in broad brushstrokes about the justifications that are used to fight and maintain our "forever wars", Swedish writer Joakim Zander puts some of these themes into stories where the reader is emotionally invested in who the characters are and what they're doing.

"The Swimmer" is the first book of his Klara Walldeen trilogy. Each book has some motif that deals with Afghanistan or wars in the Middle East. In each book one or two of the main characters somehow gets drawn into drama, espionage, or even jihad going on at the time (either willingly or unwillingly). And the characters in question always somehow seem to cross paths with Klara, the unifying personality, who has held various positions in the books including an affiliation with some non-profits and the European Union government.

Zander's story itself says that he "has lived in Syria and Israel and graduated from high school in the United States. He earned a PhD in law from Maastricht University in the Netherlands and has worked as a lawyer for the European Union"

I'm mentioning Zander's work as a followup to my previous posts because there are some similar themes. In Zander's second book, "The Believer", private security companies are themselves causing civil disturbances and civil unrest in the attempt to make the police forces look weak, so citizens will think the police are ineffective and then will be more receptive to calls for privatization of the police. The war profiteers we hear about in "Disaster Capitalism" are definitely present in "The Swimmer". How often is any unrest that we see today initially caused by disaster profiteers as a means towards their own financial ends?

And the incongruous religious zealotry that supports murder and mayhem in "Jesus Loves Fighter Jets" is mirrored on the other side by that of the Afghan fighters in "The Swimmer" who try to keep a rigid oppressive society based on their distorted religious views.

The books have very believable and engaging, multi-dimensional characters, many likable, others not. In "The Swimmer" itself, one of the main characters, Mahmoud Shammosh, is in the process of writing and developing a book based on his dissertation, "The Privatization Of War". Will he himself become a target?

I highly recommend "The Swimmer" as well as the trilogy's two that follow ("The Believer" and "The Friend"), so I don't want to give too much away, but I would just say that corporate entities running amock with no credible supervision from the government are frequent players in Zander's books. But, much to the relief of the reader, Klara Walldeen in the end is successful in helping to extricate several characters from their bad situations. But, while we say whew for the characters we have come to love, we all know that the overall threats in real life still remain.