I am deep in the editing of a new live cinema piece that will premiere on Aug. 2nd at the Whitney Biennial in NYC. The piece is called Don’t Call Me Gay Zelig and is a 30-minute live cinema portrait of Jim Fouratt. JD Samson will be performing a live soundtrack! Jim Fouratt is a fascinating and controversial person whom I’ve known for many years. More info about him here.
Kronos Quartet and I will be doing a show of A Thousand Thoughts next week at one of the world’s great theaters––Bellas Artes in Mexico City!!! I’m incredibly excited about it. Tuesday June 11th – please come if you are anywhere nearby.
I’ll be doing an event at the International Documentary Association in LA on May 8th. I’ll be in conversation with Kim Yutani, the head of programming at Sundance. I’ll be showing clips and Kim and I will be gabbing about this. I’ll also screen an old live cinema piece about Louis Armstrong and the hundreds of tape recordings he made of himself hanging out with friends over the years. Hope to see you there.
I’m hitting the road with the Kronos Quartet, doing screenings all over of our new live cinema piece “A Thousand Thoughts”! We’ll be doing shows in Nashville, Austin, Detroit and, finally, New York City! Get info here
I’m honored to be included in the 2019 Whitney Biennial. This is the second time for me. I was in the 2004 Whitney Biennial as well. It’s a big honor.
I’ve made a new short live cinema piece for Pop-Up Magazine, and we will be doing shows in the next few weeks in LA, SF, NYC and DC. Pop-Up is a “live magazine” – i.e. a bunch of different writers, filmmakers, artists, etc doing short presentations. My piece is about Casa Sanchez, a little burrito place in SF that during the ‘90s did a promotion: if you got the Casa Sanchez logo tattooed anywhere on your body, you could have free food for life!
Heartbroken to hear about the death of Bill Siegel. Bill and I were old friends and collaborators – we made “The Weather Underground” and traveled many miles together. Bill was a lover of life and people and the world and probably got more pleasure from being alive than anyone I’ve ever known. Bill made a number of strong films, carried on deep and lifelong friendships, and also had two kids whom he loved and was thrilled by. The world will miss him badly.
Here’s an interview Kronos and I did at the Houston Cinema Arts Festival recently. I was happy because normally it’s just David Harrington and I who do press. This interview involved all five of us, and it was great to hear John, Hank, and Sunny’s thoughts.
We had a great show of A Thousand Thoughts the other night at the ACE Hotel Theater in Los Angeles! One of the best so far. First of all, that venue!! The theater was built in 1927 by Charlie Chaplin, Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks as the flagship location of their United Artists studio. It changed hands many times over the years, but eventually the crazy televangelist Dr. Gene Scott owned it for a long stretch. That’s why it was never ‘renovated.’ It’s a fantastic room for live performance, and the sold out crowd was great. Thanks to Kristy Edmunds and the Center for the Art of Performance at UCLA for putting it on.
My short film, Julius Caesar Was Buried in a Pet Cemetery is a Vimeo Staff Pick! The Atlantic also featured the film with a little article about how it all came together. Check it out here.