Another reason to love my job.

Is there another female rock and roller out there who has ever reached the likes of Patti Smith?

Lean, bold, androgynous, she could howl and shake it like any man could but all the while still retained this fierce femininity with so much radiance and attitude. She's jammed with Dylan and Springsteen, she ignited the punk revolution, she's brave and creative and audacious and has always kept it real. She’s a legend and still rocking harder than ever today. And I got to write a press release about her upcoming concert here at the Opera House. Yeah. I’m floating.



'Sydney Opera House is delighted to present American rock legend Patti Smith in a “show to shake your world” on 15 October 2008, Concert Hall.

For the first time in a decade, the so-called “godmother of punk” will perform for Australian audiences, showcasing her critically acclaimed new album Twelve and the best of her back catalogue.

Bursting onto the New York music scene in ‘67 vowing to "kick poetry in the ass," Smith lit the spark that ignited the punk explosion with her ecstatic blend of free-form poetry and three-chord rock.

Her first album, Horses, was released in 1975 and is widely considered to be a staple in American rock music. In 2006, Time Magazine hailed it as one of the 100 greatest albums of all time, and Michael Stipe of R.E.M, who bought it as a high school student, said that it "tore my limbs off and put them back on in a whole different order.”

Today, Smith still possesses the same wiry physique and explosive stage energy that turned heads in the 80’s and 90’s and prompted numerous critics to dub her “the female Mick Jagger.” Even now, she revels in being likened to her pop idol: "You can't imagine…me being this skinny, weird kid from New Jersey, who saw The Rolling Stones in 1965 in a high school gymnasium, never thinking ever that I'd be performing a handful of years later being compared to him."

Throughout the late 80’s and 90’s, Smith not only increased her repertoire of songs but also authored a number of books containing original poetry and artwork. Recently, she staged her own exhibition in Paris entitled Land 250, a show of drawings, audio recordings, and videos which covered the last 30 years of her life.

With five albums out in the past 13 years and more to come, Smith has no intention of stopping. Next month, she plans to release a musical rendition of some of her 1996 poems. She doesn’t drink or smoke, and says that she still feels “healthy and strong.”

"I don't have any regrets in terms of how I've conducted my life," she says. "I've always respected my life and I'm not a self-destructive person."

Unlike other concerts, Smith will put a unique twist on her Sydney performance by creating her set list on the spot, choosing her songs only minutes before taking the stage. She will be performing in the Concert Hall, the Opera House’s largest venue, with a four-piece band.

"I'm not a real musician," she says. "I don't really play any instruments. A little guitar and I sing ... I'm more of a performer. I started as a painter and a poet. So my self-identity isn't as a musician. It's more as a writer.” '

-Charlene Kaye

i've got the world on a string...

Dear blog, i'm sorry I've neglected you. Oh god, where do I start? i think i'm just gonna gush in rapid spitfire mode....

First of all - I love my apartment, which looks out over Darling Harbor and the Sydney Tower. And I love my roommate, who COOKS twice a day for me without my asking her. So I come home from work at the end of the day and there's a table set with a 3-course meal totally ready, wine glasses out, napkins folded into cute little shapes. I feel like storming through the door when I get off the train and yelling, "Honey, I'm Home!" Basically, her husband is going to be a lucky, lucky man - seriously, I'm taking notes...I'm so easy to please with food that I'll just cook the same thing over and over again without getting tired of it and slop it on any old plate, but for her, it's all about the presentation. All the fruit is meticulously arranged in little stars or flowers (she's in graphic design, so...naturally), the toast is perfectly positioned on the plate, the spoon is always next to the knife. I'm learning.

So as for my work!!! Right now I'm typing this blog from my desk in the Sydney fucking Opera House (pardon my french). a week and a half into my job and I feel like I've been here for a year. I absolutely love it here. there's nothing cooler than being around good people who love art and helping to promote the most amazing world-class performances (and getting to see artists at work for free!!) Having this job has made me so aware of all the different kinds of "concerts" out there, which i'm continually amazed at. i'm already getting ideas for shows in the fall, so don't be surprised if you come to a show and my bandmates and i throw down our instruments and bust out in a coordinated backstreet boys-esque danced sequence mid-song, elbow thrusts and all....but anyway....

the cool thing about working here is that it's totally not an archetypal stuffy "opera house" - the performances range anywhere from opera to comedy, magic, pop singers, symphony orchestras, dance, and everything in between - so far i've seen a 1920s style cabaret show with mimes and on thursday i'm seeing a marlene dietrich tribute show. The next week I'm seeing My Fair Lady, the next a contemporary version of Hamlet. It's a dream to just be around good people and music and helping promote ART! and the performing arts. and after this job i know that no matter what I do, I always want to be around art of any kind, whether i'm doing it myself or helping others do it. It's made me think a lot about the importance of art in general in society and life and has raised a lot of questions for me about the purpose of art, why people do it if it's nearly impossible to make a living for it (film, visual arts, music, acting, or anything). ultimately i think there's some nobility in the idea that doing it for love is what keeps people doing it, not money or anything else. The office is as colorful as the people are, and maybe more so than the performances, what's blown me away me most about this place are my colleagues - everyone is genuinely excited to be here and to be working on the shows. they're all amazing people - they've got no walls, they have no ulterior motives (as far as i can tell), nobody's condescending in the slightest towards the little American intern, and i can detect none of the manipulative power hungry one-upping one another bullshit i've observed in american offices. They're just honest, easygoing, enthusiastic, generous, joie de vivre kind of people. and that's what I'm talking about.

On the weekends we've been wakling around the city, going to the aquarium, eating at lots of Irish pubs and going to the beaches. And I've been reading - I'm chipping away at Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close (Safran-Foer) and next in line is Me Talk Pretty One Day (Sedaris). I'm having a ball and this trip was just what i needed to get away from it all and have a much-needed period of meditation and regrowth after being in the wilderness for the past few months. already i feel better, healthier and more confident than i have in ages.

one downside...because there's no internet in my apartment and TIME magazine costs $17.00 (no joke) at the magazine kiosk...i have been completely disconnected with american life and news and politics. I have no idea what's going on with the election or whether Britney's still in rehab or how much will have changed when I come back. Australia is blissfully removed from the rest of the world's problems, it seems...makes me totally identify w/that ben folds song 'adelaide' (another city in australia) - "here you know the world could turn / and crash and burn / and you would never know it / going where the air is clear / there's better beer / in adelaide."

one last thing - can I just mention that my coworkers ACTUALLY say "G'day, mate!" when talking on the phone?!?! my life is complete.

i am

so happy here.

massive update soon.

Chocolat

Wow Chocolat was one of the best books I have ever read in my life.

i have arrived.

what? I'm sorry, I can't hear you over the calamari i'm eating.




dad.

Oh, and the Dalai Lama was apparently on our plane from Singapore to Sydney?!

Bleed American

Jimmy Eat World's "Bleed American" is one of my favorite albums of all time, as I concluded as I was packing for Sydney today and played the whole thing through after having not heard it for a while. It wrenched my guts when I was at 13 and it wrenches my guts still at 21. I've kind of lost track of what they're doing right now; I wasn't too crazy about Futures and I heard Chase This Light got unenthusiastic reviews, but Bleed American...man. If there were ever an album that came out within the past 10 years that's a display of powerful, emotional, unadulterated rock and roll, this would be it. Dueling electric guitars and sublime drums aside, I love Jim Adkins' voice, which can be totally raw and guttural on the more rockin tracks but also can morph into a soulful croon which works just as well over the acoustic numbers. There was a time in 9th grade where I would sit immobile on the floor in front of my stereo for an hour with a bowl of cereal and just listen to "If You Don't, Don't" over and over and again. God, I loved that song. The driving piano is awesome, and the passion in Adkins' voice over those lyrics makes it simultaneously one of the most uplifting and heartbreaking songs I have ever heard. Except for "The MIddle," (which I eventually found to be sort of grating after hearing it on every TV show, in every coffee shop and in every shopping mall for months in 7th grade) I can listen to every track from "A Praise Chorus" to "Hear You Me" to "Sweetness" over and over again. They are all fantastic. "Bleed American"'s optimism, romanticism, youth, mystery and energy will never get old for me. Hats off, boys.

Travelogue #5: Singapore

the view from my dad's apartment. wow, right?

I know a monster update is in order, but I've been having too much fun to actually sit and write it all down. First and foremost, I think it's hilarious that everyone here talks to me and regards me as a local even though I have no idea what the shit they're saying. People I meet are completely confunded that I don't speak the dialect here even though both of my parents are Singaporean. I keep trying to explain that I was born in the states, and even when I lived here I only went to American schools, and they just won't have any of it! Even so, I've managed to get by these past 2 weeks with the basics - "lah" is a word that is tagged on to the end of every sentence as emphasis, and when said in the right way, can effectively convey any emotion you're trying to get across with its appropriate sentence - "put the fish in the oven, lah." "Hillary finally pulled out, lah." "Why you so dark, LAH!?!?" (my aunts.)

last night I went to this music festival called Rock The Sub at one of the only venues in town that supports local music - this place called Timbre. On the whole it was a fantastic show save for the crowd full of old people and preteens that looked either scared, shocked, or just...bored. The bands were REALLY GOOD too, but nobody seemed to be feeling it. I was hooting and hollering throughout one band's (awesome) rendition of Zeppelin's "Dazed and Confused," and people looked at me like I was an axe murderer holding their kid's head in one hand and a bottle of beer in the other. It's really eye-opening experiencing another country's music culture on the other side of the world...there definitely is one, but there's absolutely zero support for musicians here in Singapore. You cannot make a living playing original stuff, the only way to make money doing it is to play covers at a bar for a hundred bucks a week. And even then, people are still only mildly interested in what you're doing, they consider it background music. And these people are WICKED good!! There was this Indian lady who could sing like a muthaf&*#@$ and had killer piano chops to boot, playing her own stuff at this bar... and do you know, people didn't even seem to care less. She could have been juggling chain saws along to Meat Loaf and they still probably wouldn't have turned away from their drinks. It was rather depressing. How do you make a living through art these days? Not even music, but painting, film, writing, theater, etc. There's definitely a way, but it's difficult as hell. Maybe there's some nobility in the fact that creating beauty isn't a basic need of society. Maybe doing it for love is the only reason after all.

What else...I went to my mom's old church on sunday and was introduced by my cousins as "Lily Lam's daughter" (maiden name). People FREAKED. "LILY LAM!?" Apparently, my mom was a BAMF at her church when she was my age...she was really pretty and popular and had a lot of boyfriends and was the star singer of the choir etc. Jeez. I had no idea she left such a legacy on that place. People were grabbing me and telling me how much I looked like her and I met a thousand people I had never seen in my life who were all incredibly interested in me, the spawn of Lily Lam, goddess among men. Damn, mom. Break me off a piece of that!

things are starting to blur again...it always happens that as soon as you get into the swing of things it's time to hitch up and go somewhere else. I'm going to australia on Tuesday and I haven't even begun to pack yet. Alas, the summer goes on and on...no time to think much today, am going to dinner with the aunties (all 6 of them). There is delicious homemade chinese food to be had, there is wine to be drunk. (drank?)

love!



^singapore's financial district.

and by the way.....Iron Man was SO GOOD!!!!!!