Comic Books, Drag Race, & Life in New Zealand
I want an Uma Thurman action figure.
Also, next time i hear someone brag about how they used a computer to animate an “impossible-to-shoot fight sequence,” i will refer them to my Uma Thurman action figure.
I wonder if they come in lifesized models…
I think most people enjoy attending concerts where they know all the songs. I know i do. As much as going to a concert is for experiencing art in motion, it is also a selfish pursuit: you want to hear your favorite songs, and you don’t want them fucked with. There is a certain thrill that comes with the anticipation of a crashing bridge, or the appreciation of an understated vocal ad lib.
This approach is sometimes prohibitive to hearing new music, whether it be a new band or a performer debuting new material. But, no matter how well prepared you are, there can always be an opened band or a strange tune that punches past your lack of karaoke intimacy with to make you fall hard into aural love.
I found myself at the NorthStar Bar with a motley assembly of some of the most talented people i know to see just such a stranger: Kaki King. Anthony had described her to me by email earlier in the day – “Imagine Ani DiFranco on crack … She uses her right hand on the fingerboard to tap out bass lines, and her left hand on the fingerboard to play melodies simultaneously. It’s pretty impressive.”
I’ve come to accept my mediocrity as a guitar player — i’ve been playing only two years less than both Anthony and Kaki, but i am still easily impressed by simplistic guitar pyrotechnics. I was prepared to see a few interesting tap solos and some intricate picking, and to generally have my playing be humbled.
Really, though, i was not prepared.
I’ve seen a lot of random opening bands, many of whom i’ve derisively blogged about the next day, but Kaki King is the first artist since Peter Mulvey (and, to a slightly lesser extent, Erin McKeown) to ever leave me with my eyes unblinking, my jaw hanging loose, and my fingers twitching just in contemplation of my inevitable attempt to replicate the performance before me.
Kaki is, in short, the most astounding acoustic guitar player i have ever witnessed. It wasn’t just the casually arrived at alternate tunings, the tap & hammer solos, or even her simultaneous strumming & drumming on the guitar. It was her personality — quiet and simply smiling, but with a quick wit hidden beneath her swath of out-grown bangs. It was her ease — the way that after the audience’s obvious favorite song of the night she remarked to the effect of “That isn’t really finished yet; sometimes i just play the songs live and let them go in the directions they want to.” The way that, as opposed to how people joke about it with me, i really could not tell when her casual tuning and fretting ending and her songs began because at any point her hands were on her guitar the performance was underway.
Kaki has some MP3s on her site for your perusal, and while they will not replicate the awe that i was in on Tuesday night, i think they still speak adequately for themselves. And, please keep in mind that i typically range from indifferent-to-resistant when it comes to instrumental music, so Kaki must be pretty damned good.
Must be? Hell… she is.
It occasionally comes up, between Elise and I, that we might eventually live with one another. It isn’t such a strange and alien topic: we’ve dated for a year and a half, enjoy roughly similar means of entertainment and standards of cleanliness, and both of our current leases end sometime next summer. However, similar standards do not a happy household make. And, so, I have discovered the next best way (after the Ikea catalog) to proactively predict and resolve the problems associated with co-habitation while evaluating the important similarities and differences in our styles of living.
I am, of course, speak of The Sims. It has been running on the computer-shaped-debt for more than 72-hours straight, courtesy of Karen. We each created our own pair of us as our test-pilot families, each surfed meticulously for the right clothes and balance of traits for our virtual avatars. And, without any argument, we arrived at the unspoken agreement that our collective goal was to become both rich and famous.
Our paths to have been slightly divergent. In my version of events, Elise is a successful computer programmer by night, while by day she practices in the mirror until her big break arrives. In her reality, Elise is a up-and-coming star who goes to photo shoots and hob-nobs with celebrities. Interestingly, both of our Peter’s have the same job as a lobbyist, and are currently stuck in the same mid-level position because they/we/I do not have enough networking connections (ie: Friends) to climb higher up the corporate ladder.
Our pairs mingle: the Peters are not fond of each other, but my Peter enjoys the company of her Elise — the two of them are both incredibly charismatic — funny how we focused on that trait in our own characters. My Elise is typically in need of social contact because she is busy practicing her skills, while their family has a huge nest-egg saved from my daily work and her occasional print ads. My house has been ruthlessly arranged and rearranged to maximize mood and efficiency, while hers is more aesthetically pleasing. And, notably, neither of us have had me quit my moderately-paid job to attempt to become famous.
It is at once amusing and very telling. I suspect that I only have a few more days of playing in me; only for so long can modeling my virtual life hold my attention captive from my real one. The appeal lies in the ability to see our separate ideals co-existing in the same virtual neighborhood, complete with subtle differences and less obvious similarities. However our experiment in collective house-keeping turns out, rest assured that the major points have been taken, with the chief amongst them being: No matter what you hope, wish, plan, or virtually model, you only have one chance to get it right; don’t waste it.
