Sunday, March 18, 2007

Animusic

It seems that I'm averaging one post per month. Well, the highlights for March have been: a quick trip to California for sun, blue skies, and Chinese New Year; one 70-degree day in Chicago, which felt beautiful (even if it still looked dead and wintry, and was surrounded on either side by days in the 40s); and Animusic. Animusic!
I saw less than a minute of this dazzling performance on my local public tv station before being interrupted by the pledge break. "If you liked Animusic 1, you're going to love Animusic 2!" Someone went to the trouble of creating animations of stick-like robots playing instruments, and other instruments playing themselves, as visual accompaniment to various classical and rock favorites. It's weird. And not actually a highlight of the month.

Hung LiuCranes at OAK

But here's a real highlight. My Bay Area visit started auspiciously, you might say, with a flight that got in more than half an hour early! And I was greeted in the terminal with lion dancing, complete with cymbals and the big drum. Thanks, Southwest! I also like the art installation in the Oakland Airport right now. A woman named Hung Liu painted some cranes on the windows. It's beautiful. There's a segment featuring Liu on SPARK, an awesome KQED show on arts and culture. You can watch streaming video here. She has an interesting process, and an interesting history. She shared an episode with Nathan Oliveira, who I met once when he donated some prints to CSMA, and Robert Bechtle, who has been painting San Francisco for decades. Enjoy the program.