My Architect at Cinema Village

It has been out for some time, but I finally got a chance to see My Architect on one of my Sunday solo movie trips into Manhattan. The film is poignant on the relationship (or lack thereof) between visionary architect Louis Kahn and his son Nathaniel. It also beautifully captures the monumentality and spirituality of Kahn's later work. The architecture critic Vincent Scully contends that Kahn was channeling the divine spirit in creating his vast church-like buildings, such as the Salk Institute, the Philips-Exeter Library, the Indian Institute of Management, and, most grandly, the capital buildings in Dhaka. A Gujarati architect named Doshi who shared a last meal with Kahn, believes that Kahn was a mystic who understood the spiritual meaning of matter and nothingness.

A Bangladeshi architect named Waras brings this aspect of Kahn's work to a brilliant and extremely poignant summation at the end of the movie. As he is speaking to Nathaniel, Waras starts to cry in appreciation for Kahn's gift of the bricks and mortar foundations of democracy in Bangladesh. He says (paraphrased), "he loved us so much to give us this gift, and though he did not give you the kind of love you seeked, his love was for all people."

It was particularly ironic that Kahn was given the opportunity to build a mosque as part of the Dhaka capital complex, while being deprived of commissions for synagogues in Philadelphia and Jerusalem. In this time of fundamentalist polarization it was especially beautiful to hear the call and see Muslim men praying in Kahn's mosque.

I am generally suspicious of the personalization and anecdotalization of ideas and politics (even as I engage in a form of it here and in my work). However, it seems to me that Nathaniel Kahn has succeeded in illuminating the ideas in Kahn's work through his personalization of its discovery. It's a moving journey.

In addition, it seems clear that Kahn found in India and Bangladesh the kind of support and engagement with his ideas that he never found in his home city of Philadelphia. I think this is due partly to the remnants of internalized racial inferiority felt by subcontinentals and partly to the grand aspirations of these countries to remake themselves in the wake of indepedence, led by visionary statesmen such as Nehru. They seemed to understand and respect what Kahn was trying to do and helped the son understand it as well, twenty-six years after the death of the father.

A Fan Falls in Iraq

Learned of this soldier's death on a Pearl Jam fan board that I check periodically.

"Kevin Kolm, a former lacrosse star, was a music fan so passionate about the band Pearl Jam that he had the title of one of the grunge group's earliest hits, 'Release,' tattooed on his back, his father said.

Yesterday, four of his friends emblazoned that same word, as well as the date of their buddy's death, on their arms in an act of remembrance, Thomas Kolm said."

Corporal Kolm and his friends sound like the kind of fans who I might stay away from at a Pearl Jam concert -- big, white, potentially hostile, etc. However, his untimely death makes me focus on the war that is raging and that claimed 68 American lives and many, many more Iraqis last week. While the media is getting better about sharing the consequences of the violence, the war is so far from urgent in most people's minds, even for the activist students with whom I work. I think this might partly be due to the class and race stratification separating people I spend a lot of time with from those who are serving in the military. It also might be due to the stratification within activist movements into pigeon-holed categories divided by "issue." The anti-war march that I attended in New York in March was largely white and seemingly upper middle class, with very few people of color in attendance, unlike the post-9/11 immigrants rights rallies that I have attended. Amongst progressives, there might also be some satisfaction in seeing Bush's war go so badly. Whether it is apathy, class or "cause" stratification, or the progressive wish for the fall of Bush, our inattention to the war has made us complicit in the deaths of people like the 23-year-old Kevin Kolm.

Here are a few lines from "Release" for the late Cpl. Kolm:

i see the world, feel the chill
which way to go, windowsill
i see the world's on a rocking horse of time
i see the birds in the rain
dear dad, can you see me now
i am myself, like you somehow
i'll ride the wave where it takes me
i'll hold the pain...
release me...

Long Winters at Northsix

I went to see The Long Winters at Northsix in Williamsburg last night and came away as a sort of fan. Generally, I stay away from seeing shows when I haven't heard the records (which is a damn stupid way to take in the music scene in New York in light of the terrible radio options). I went to this one because of the connection of the band with the post-grunge Seattle scene that includes Death Cab for Cutie. I'm crazy in love with the new DCFC record, Transatlanticism, as well as the Ben Gibbard "side project," The Postal Service. (For the record, all the cool kids (like my purported friend ____) were into DCFC at least 3-5 years ago; they're too popular now but I don't care. This is what happens when you go to shows based on what you happen to hear in the atmosphere, but I digress.)

Anyway, Long Winters is led by this incredibly funny doofy blond guy named John Roderick. He's literate and amusing and kept playing corny classics by request from the audience between his own music, like Hot for Teacher and Barracuda. I don't have any of their records, but a song named Cinnamon (with a Neil Young tag in the middle) and another called New Girl just took off and propelled the young hipsters in front to bounce to the music. I saw a guy with long hair put his arm around his friend because the music was making him so happy, it was pretty damned sweet. This tall promoter dude was called to the stage because it was his birthday. He had been swaying with his uber-pregnant girlfriend throughout the show. The band also called up some guy from Brooklyn named Andrew, who was decked out in full Beacon's Closet ware, to sing along for a song. Yet another sweet young man, who hesitated to sing into the mike at first and eventually was enthusiastically harmonizing with Roderick.

As usual, I was self-conscious because I was there alone and was once again the only person of color in the hall. Today I find out that John Roderick is older than I am, which makes me feel slightly better about my solo Friday nights, while some friends are putting their kids to bed or working on computer theory papers or law review articles. The thing I usually get from these small shows is a great deal of respect that the folks have on stage for their craft. Maybe because I cannot play music (yet), watching them "at work" inspires me to pay more attention to my craft (whatever that may be). So, okay, I was not at home writing my life's work, but I was inspired by the band and the joy of the crowd.