blurred vision

I think there's something wrong with the lens on the projector in one of the theaters at DeVargas. Every time I go there the movie seems to be just a touch out of focus. Last night, at the Film Festival's showing of Control, it was really bad--giving me a headache until this morning.

The movie is good. Could use a bit of trimming and more music, but still enjoyable. The actors are fantastic. Unfortunately, the copy that we got to see had an entire reel in sepia, not to mention the focus problem.

After the movie a friend went to talk to the theater manager, who blamed the problems on the Festival. I'm sure the Fest folks would blame it, at least partly on DeVargas. I suppose it doesn't really matter who is at fault for the people who paid their money and spent nearly two hours straining their eyes.

Tonight I was going to head back over to DeVargas for another film, but I think I'll pass on the cinema for awhile.

movie time

Well, after a lot of hard work Emiliano Garcia-Sarnoff and I finished up our story on the Santa Fe Film Festival, and now have some free time to enjoy it.

I didn't make it to the movies last night--saving that for tonight--but I did get over to the kick-off party at the Cowgirl. I got there about 1/2 hour before The Santa Fe All-Stars played and the place was already pretty busy, especially for a Wednesday. By the time the band started it was pretty packed, though there was still room on the dancefloor for a few couples to get their groove on. Singer/guitarist Joe West encouraged people to keep dancing and seemed to be really enjoying the mix of locals and out-of-towners at the show, pointing out when certain characters from Santa Fe showed up. For anyone who hasn't seen the All-Stars they play great straightforward bluegrass and a few strange covers (ie: "Shake Your Booty").

As the recent recipient of a mandolin I was super stoked to see Sharon Gilchrist, who everyone says is one of the best in town. I can't disagree with that at all. I think I learned a little bit by watching and listening to her, but I found myself forgetting to pay attention, instead carried away by the speed and skill she showed on the instrument.

When the band took a break I turned around and saw the the place was packed. Friday or Saturday night packed, with more people showing up. At that point I decided to split, it'd been a long day and was getting to the point where I couldn't see the musicians anyway. Apparently after I left there was a celebrity sighting (Jake Gyllenhaal and Tobey Maguire), but I probably wouldn't have spotted them in the giant mass of people.

Tonight it's to the actual movies, Control, and perhaps Diving Bell and the Butterfly tomorrow after the Underground Gallery opening.

Radius Books!

So I'm out and about looking for books for this year's gift guide, when I fall in love with one particular book (not gonna tell you which one and ruin the suspense). Lo and behold, I see it's from a new local press, Radius Books. The name sounds vaguely familiar, but it took me several days to realize it's the new press started by my friend Darius Himes. And, yes, I'm still including it because I didn't realize it was his press until days had passed (and I just had to doublecheck how to spell his name, which is not a good sign). The launch for the press is this Friday, 6 to 8 pm
in the old Luna Building, 519 Cerrillos Road, (between Paseo and Manhattan and next to Sage Bakehouse) and I hear it's going to be lots of fun. So take a break from movie watching, be sure to stop by!

Not yo' Robin Williams toy show

A little birdie told me that someone we all know and adore is going to have a toy exhibited at this show:

3 ring circus

On Thanksgiving weekend the Circus comes to town. But this being Santa Fe that doesn't mean ringmasters and lions (or animal rights activists slowing down traffic with protests). It means performance art--aerial artists, trapeze, capoeira, that kind of thing. And good music. Hooray for Circus Luminous--which SFR's performing arts writer Angelo Jaramillo wrote about here. I'm most excited to hear The brilliant Dullards (yes that's lower case b), one of my favorite local bands.

I recently discovered that I'd lost my copy of The Defector and wanted to hear it again. (I used to have a purple one, but the new one is black. That's pretty too.) One of my favorite things about this album is my own karmic tie with it. I missed them play at the 2006 High Mayhem fest (the only thing I missed) and had to hear about it for months. Then I got the album, fell in love, reviewed it, spelled the name wrong initially, and promptly lost my copy. But then I drove all the way to Taos to spend the night, saw them play and have almost never missed a performance since. So when I wanted to hear it happened to be the night of show at High Mayhem. I had my $10 for a new copy, ran up to the merch table and felt my face drop when there was no dullard's album for me to pick up. Next step: Track down a Dullard. Nope. Two of 'em told me they had lots of them at home, which was nice and all, but didn't help me out in my obsessive musical craving moment. Next High Mayhem show, there it was, on the table. One copy. I grabbed it, handed over my 10 bucks and made a comment about how "I believe this is here for me." to Mike Smith (of We Drew Lightning), who had no idea what the hell I was talking about, and bounded around like an idiot with my new CD. It's so much nicer to listen to than the tracks on the Dullard's myspace page.

Anyway, I think they're great. And the music they play will go very nicely with all the movement work. I can't wait for Saturday night.

Ray Charles Ives is also playing (that's 2/3 of D Numbers) and also great. They make me want to dance, so it'll be interesting to see if I can stay in my seat and quell my desire to hop on stage with the real dancers!

full weekends

There are times when I hear people, especially young people, complain that there's nothing to do at night. Or that it's too expensive. This weekend though there were a lot of good events all with low or no covers.

Friday night I hit up Cate Cosler's show at Back Road Pizza. Cosler grew up here in Santa Fe, moved away and has recently moved back. For Friday's show she was joined by a friend from Colorado, Ramaya, on guitar. The two sounded great together, despite the fact that they hadn't played out together in about a year and he learned several of the songs that afternoon.

Saturday it was over to High Mayhem for a benefit for local producer Quincy Adams, aka Q!. Q has mastered a good majority of High Mayhem's releases and has been a big part of that, as well as Albuquerque's, musical community for a long time. Unfortunately, he's very sick and his friends were working to raise some cash for his medical bills. A lot of really great art was donated by artists, my favorite, though I couldn't afford to take it home, was a small gold leaf piece by Yozo Suzuki. Apparently a pretty decent about of cash was gathered and everyone seemed pretty happy. High Mayhem is run by local artists and mainly supported by such. It and its patrons don't have the million dollar bank accounts behind them that a few other organizations do but it was nice, sitting by the entry table, to see people give as much as they could to help out a member of their community.

Date with Cate

OK, so I only heard about this performance this morning. Tonight, friend-of-the-Reporter Cate Coslor will be performing at Backroad Pizza at about 8pm. Stop by if you're free.


Cate Conslor with her band Slowrosa

In the meantime, though, check out some of her tunes on her Myspace page.

Amuse Boosh

Man... Architecture in Helsinki was great last night. They played the New Old Luna, which, if you can take the promoter's word, will be the site of a lot more great shows in the coming months. That is, assuming the Santa Fe's hipster contingent continues to turn out en masse.

Those of you in attendance may remember that mid-way through the show back-up singer (and everything-else-player) Kellie Sutherland took over the mic to promote their favorite comedy show, The Mighty Boosh, which has a new TV season coming out this week on BBC 3.

I whooped at that reference: I've been a huge of fan of the comedy duo ever since discovering their radio show about two zookeepers: a self-proclaimed "jazz maverick" and his sidekick, "the king of the mods." The TV show probably won't be available in the US for quite some time (though full episodes were on YouTube for awhile). However! All is not lost.

The entire original radio series is online, for free, as downloadable mp3s. Just follow this link.