Retired Material

Considered Connoisseurs: From Feb. 24 to March 28

Overdue. A new connoisseur, yes? So, I give you two! Here I captured hairstylist Lori Huitron (on the left) with salon co-owner Dionne de la Vega, right, at the newest, most ultra-mega-über beauty salon in Long Beach, Flaunt Salon. Lori left my hair in top-notch shape after I visited her for a haircut recently, while Dionne fluttered about the salon, trying out new looks created from their new Napoleon cosmetics. Dionne later shared with me that she worked in the fine art world for 10 years before establishing Flaunt last December. I liked them both, and the salon, that I’ve put the girls here, as my most current Connoisseurs, and my honest remarks in a review of the salon published in the Feb. 21 issue of the Daily Forty-Niner.

Cold War Kids: Distorted in Tinted Shades of Grays and Reds

It’s a group of men, living and working in and around Long Beach: the four-man band Cold War Kids and their photographer/poet/artists friends. They're producing a wealth of artistic goods while hitting bold, battered-out notes across international airwaves.

And it's way cool and raw in the end.

Looking at the Cold War Kids, many might just stop at “Hang Me Up to Dry,” the hit single from their 2006 debut record, “Robbers and Cowards” that sprinkled the airwaves all last year in irritatingly excess doses. (Yes, irritating—just listen to lead singer Nathan Willett’s feverish screams over a repetitive, wrinkly bass-guitar hook "way too many times.") But that’s not all the Cold War Kids should be known for. Even their band name comes from bassist Matt Maust’s graphic design Internet company from about a decade ago, which is just the start of the band's deep roots.

To be even more amazed at how vast and boundless Cold War Kids actually are, turn off your radio. With only “Robbers and Cowards” to their name (and rare, hard-to-find EPs from way back when), they’ve shot themselves farther and wider into the world by producing other musical compilations and putting out some avant-garde book and art projects. Some may not understand it or even get it or want to get it. But it’s exactly what so many fans around the world love about them.

Some have described the indie-artists as creating a “repertory of craggy guitars, verge-of-a-nervous-breakdown vocals and elliptical songwriting,” while the band describes itself as "[striving] to make honest songs about human experience in orchards and hotel rooms, Laundromats and churches, sea ports and school halls.”

Most recently, bass guitarist Matt Maust made an appearance in the Long Beach area (where he still lives today) with poetry readings and art shows. In February he accompanied his author friend and fellow East Coaster companion Derrick Brown with a show at the Found Theater for a reading. In early March, Maust debuted one of his solo gallery shows at {open} bookstore on Fourth Street, which closed on Sunday.

The show, “Five Easy Pigliano Pieces,” was an interesting fusion between photography, graphic design and Maust’s genuine celebration to traveling the world, touring as a Cold War Kid and then a poet.

It's nice to figure it all (or some of it) out. The Orange County Performing Arts Center has done it—and they’re quite a success for it. Wanting to reach out to the college-aged crowd, the usually posh-and-all-sophisticated center invited the Cold War Kids for a performance March 27 in a music series called Off Center. Peter Bjorn and John, The Walkmen and We Are Barbarians have also been part of the series since it began in late January.

Coming along with them to the OCPAC (or, more precisely, the Samueli Theatre at the OCPAC) is one of Cold War Kids’ friends: photographer Matt Wignall from Long Beach and the band's official photographer. Wignall’s art springs from his interest in Malawi’s environmental conditions, something he’s been apart of with an organization called Water Wells for Africa.

It’s a pretty hot ticket, especially when you consider the size (500-seat capacity) and location (a lush neighborhood in the bright Costa Mesa) and the other entirely fun stuff happening.

WEEKEND: COLD WAR KIDS

1. LIVE The Long Beach-based Cold War Kids make their return to the OC tomorrow night (Thursday, March 27); it's been way too long—the last performance was at the Detroit Bar in Dec. 2006. The Kids will be at the Samueli Theater at the Orange County Performing Artscenter in Costa Mesa. The show is sold out. *Look forward to my review after spring break.*

2. ART Bassist Matt Maust and the band photographer Matt Wignall show their artwork through Monday at Found Gallery in Echo Park. The show's name is "Matt Maust + Matt Wignall: Your Alimony Check Won’t Buy a Bigger Room." Hmmmm... Sounds like a must. Check Found Gallery's website for more details.

3. READ Maust also collaborated with friend Paul G. Maziar for a book called What It Is: What It Is. You can find the book for sale at {open} in Long Beach. Interviews with Maust and Maziar are sprinkled throughout various underground-esque publications around town, like LA Record and ISM. Look for those at {open}, too.

Photos by Barbara Navarro. Band photo via OCPAC.

{open} closes CWK's Matt Maust's show today

Photos and video below by Barbara Navarro.

Whether you've heard the name Cold War Kids or have all their records (and books), you MUST visit {open} bookstore in Long Beach today, Sunday, before bassist-guitarist Matt Maust's tiny but thorough collection of his recollective art from touring the world packs up and leaves the little space where it's been so nicely put together in the LBC. Where is it all headed next? Perhaps the OC Performing Arts Center. Perhaps Silverlake. Perhaps a new, foreign destination.

{open} has a few collectible items for sale that are a part of this exhibit, "Five Easy Pigliano Pieces." Fans must see this! But anyone can appreciate Maust's careful attention to typography and style.




{open}
2226 E. Fourth Street (near Cherry Ave.)
Long Beach, CA 90814
562-499-OPEN

Sunday's Hours: 11 am to 6 pm

Wallpaper like WOW!

Start the video. The sign in the first few seconds says:

Aaron Morse is a genius. He understands that, like time and space, there is no up and down or back and forth. There just ins't a way of putting it in order either. This is something wild and true that he's accomplished to portray via "Timeline," a one-of-a-kind floor-to-ceiling chain of murals showing in the lobby of the spacious and polished Hammer Museum in Westwood. And, just as the title suggests, Morse sticks to using historical (and futuristic) ideas for this epic wall masterpiece. See the surreal, imaginative configurations this 30-something-year-old Los Angeles artist (he's originally from Tuscon, Arizona) has created, before the walls go back to nude in mid-June.

And for the record, that sign doesn't say all that.

Video and photos by Barbara Navarro

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Read art show reviews by other Daily Forty-Niner writers featured in Diversions...

• Lauren Williams reviews "Kara Walker: My Complement, My Enemy, My Oppressor, My Love" (The Hammer Museum will host on their signature Hammer Screenings dedicated to selections by Walker for every Tuesday in April, starting with "Body & Soul.")
• Cynthia Romanowski reviews "California Video," now at the Getty Center

Notes on the CSULB Fashionistas

The Los Angeles Mercedes Benz Fashion Week wisped through town last week. After reviewing the videos and pictures posted by the Los Angeles Times, however, I was left uninspired. It’s not like I dream of seeing Nina Ricci goddesses or statuesque Chanel models in high-society, high-dollar gowns coming to town. But I more or less agree with headlines like “tabloid runways,” when referring to the scene and the people who put on the LA shows. The heartbeat of this town’s fashion sense: Getting lines from talentless designer-stars, à la Whitney Port, or all the other stars from “The Hills” and all other reality TV series, for that matter. Gross. Gag. Barf.

With the additional factor of a bitter, crumbling economy (I'm being extreme in my description), some major LA fashion designers, like the real fashion designers, (Louis Verdad, anyone?) pulled out of this year’s annual spectacle.

The Wall Street Journal, moreover, continues to report on declining retail sales (in February, the Commerce Department reported a falling 0.6%, for example, and that's severe in the ever nonprofitable world of fashion) and the overall slowing economy, adding fluff to Verdad’s recent statement that the economy had something to do with him not showing. (But if I had to share headlines with Nikki Hilton and the “tabloid runway” newcomer Benji Madden, I think I’d also turn off.)

As any smart fashionista student, I know that the success of the fashion business lies in the careful balances between finance and creativity. Curious of how my fellow schoolmates were coping in this headline-popular economical slump, I set out to campus to find student-fashionistas who looked great, despite, you know, our already tight student budgets.



Notes on the Fashionistas...

Go International: Ayaka Mori, 22, a studio art student who lives in San Pedro, imports her favorite labels from Japan. Her inspiration for what to wear comes from Japanese magazines, too. She enjoys reading Non-No, Cutie, P.S. and Mina, all publications from her native country.
Be Bright: Yasmineh Kafai, 25, from Los Angeles, likes to work bright colors into her outfits. Instead of wearing complete, solid colors, she'll wear a sweater with colorful stripes, for example. This graphic design student says, "What you wear is a reflection of your personality."
Do-It Yourself: Skateboard in one hand and cell phone in another, Gaberiel Martinez, 29, knows a thing or two about balancing technology with more ol' fashioned ambidextrous ways. For example, with his Danger skateboard, Martinez used grip tape to make the eye-catching pattern we see in the picture. Very cool.
Be Yourself, or Not: Freshman Mahogony Yarde goes to the pretty extreme of wearing bright colors both in her clothes and jewelry. She's definitely a communication and black studies student, but when it comes to what she wears, Yarde says, "I love the fact that I can be a million different people by changing my outfit." (And I'm still wondering if she gave me her real name.)

Come with Your Own Soundtrack: Jingles. Clunks. Heels, dangling necklaces. Don't you love it when music plays inside your mind when you meet someone new? These girls, clad in colorful prints and shiny accessories, not only caught my eye, but called to my ear with their very own wearable sound machines. I couldn't help but admire the details they came adorned with, either. Sarah Olson (left), 21 years old and an international business student, pointed out to me that one of her bracelets was actually a souvenir from her encounter with Mexican rock band Kinky, who made their way to Los Angeles for a show Monday night. Sarah's friend Camila Jimenez (right), also 21 and a fashion and marketing student, wasn't shy to add that the dolled-up pair got noticed right away and were invited to meet the band backstage for the after party. I can already tell you, these Calexico girls have a lifetime to make more memories like that, because they're actually cousins!

All photos by Barbara Navarro.

Green, Green, Everywhere Green

The Green Scene on St. Patrick's Day, CSULB
Happy St. Patrick's Day!
Saint Patrick. Does anybody know the true story behind this patron saint's life?? I'll share the bits of what I know—like, how he traveled around Eastern Europe before finally ending up on a tiny island called Ireland, his native country, now where Scotland is; like, how, actually, he lived in southwestern Britain before he was literally carried out of the land by pirates and sold into slavery in Ireland; like, how he might've lived to be 120, according to legend; or, according to another legend, how there were no nights for 12 days after his death on March 17, 461—and I'm not sure staying-out-all-night-long, green-fashioned barflies would like that. But then again, I wasn't in bars looking for who was wearing green today. I found plenty of students, faculty and professors looking cute in a festive green all over the Cal State Long Beach campus!

Who are they? (Click photos to enlarge.)

Column No. 1: Economics Professor, Russ Arslan; Ruth Fabela, 24, San Pedro; Friends Allie Russi, 23, from the OC, and Ryan Sharp, 24, from Laguna Hills, both business marking students; Colleen Donnelly, 21, journalism major (the managing editor at the Daily Forty-Niner, in fact).

Column No. 2: Bonnie Shaw, 48, of Cerritos, studying for teaching creditials; Kevin Forest, 25, San Clemente, pyschology student; Kacy Jacobsen, 22, Napa Valley, political science student.

Column No. 3: Bikes!; Allison Baldwin, the design coordinator for the Daily Forty-Niner, 21, journalism student; beautiful green gardens throughout CSULB campus.

Column No.4: Andy Franks, 21, a journalism student and the top news editor for the Daily Forty-Niner; CAPS faculty member, Kirsten Chun.

Substituting an 8th century bishop for a 20th century drunkard—and a German at that

"It was a joy. Words weren’t dull, words were things that could make your mind hum. If you read them and let yourself feel the magic, you could live without pain, with hope, no matter what happened to you."
Henry Chinaski, Ham On Rye
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How big of a fan of Charles Bukowski are you?

I've read so many of his books and own some of his newer poetry anthologies. I've been to his grave at Green Hills and I live in the town where he died, San Pedro (but, I was born here, so I didn't have a choice; it was just a coincidence that the ol' Buk and I ended up in the same place). Plus, I toured with Esotouric recently!

Bukowski doesn't fit a genre in literature, because it's a lifestyle. I loved reading his books a few summers ago (after I was introduced to John Fante's Ask the Dust) and I loved watching "Barfly." It's a classic movie and it captures L.A. in a way I've never seen before, either with my own eyes or by movie. I definitely recommend you try touring with Esotouric if you're interested in beating your friends out on who's the better fan of Angeleno authors and their history here. Rumor is, they'll be visiting Vroman's in Pasadena this summer, a place where Bukowski was a usual. But if that's too far off, they have trips focused around Raymond Chandler and the Black Dahlia scheduled for pretty soon.

PHOTO: With the Esotouric group on March 9th, celebrating Bukowski's 14th year death anniversay. Here we stand in front of the Reading Room at the downtown L.A. Public Library, where Buk disvored his God, John Fante.

{Visit ESOTOURIC online. Just click HERE.}

Also be sure to visit the library's Special Collections (2nd floor, to right off the elevators) where you can find Gerald Locklin's memoirs on how he got to know the great ol' Buk in "A Sure Bet." Locklin, a retired English professor from Cal State Long Beach, helped me create today's '5 to Try,' which was dedicated to the greatest barfly of all times, Charles Bukowski.

Cheers!

Weekend: LB Museums Celebrate Women

The University Art Museum invites opera singer Melodee Fernandez for for a special Spanish Operetta (or Zarzuela) performance and discussion tonight from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m.

Click here for the UAM official flyer.

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On Saturday, from 2:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m., An Afternoon Affair: Women in Contemporary Society, will take place at the Museum of Latin American Art. Two different panels will discuss the role of women in contemporary society and the arts. Various performances will also take place on that day.

Click here to see the official notice on MoLAA's website.

On Sunday the festivities continue when, from 1:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m., A Women’s Family Festival will take place, offering guests hands-on art workshops as well as the opportunity to enjoy a variety of live performances.

Click here to see MoLAA's official notice.

A Week in Art at Cal State Long Beach

Smitten with Kelly Nye's Jewelry Food

Consumption, desire and superficiality came together in form of Kelly Nye's pieces, a few tasty-looking, fashionable makings of wool and metals to show just how sweets and accessories bring basic things in life to excess levels. Kelly Nye, the creator of this exhibit, along with her committee members, Susanna Spiera, Carol Shaw-Sutton and Karen Kleinfelder, explained in the show notes, "Food is a staple of daily life. However, sweets are a superfluous part of a meal, an indulgent afterthought giving no real sustenance. They are a luxury craving similar to jewelry is to a wardrobe."

'Green Light' District, It's Tucked Away at the Design Building

Surrealism + Shiny Materials + Worst Nightmares + Light Design = "Green Light Sculptures," Brainy Expressions by Neil Pappone's Design Students! This Lighting and Interior Architecture design class assembled the latest artistic objects on display (or floating) in the glass showcase at the south entrance to the Design Building. This Green Light Sculpture project required students to create fixtures equally strong with beam force to our modern-day bulbs that waste too much of our earth's precious energies. Recycable or renewable materials were used instead to make their sculptures, inspired by their "worst nightmares."

Photos by Barbara Navarro

In Focus: This Week @ the Student Art Galleries

My highlights for this week's art event at the Student Art Galleries are here! Here's a glimpse to what you must see.

1.

The Circle Painting Project will leave you smudged with paint and with inspiration for communal art. Visit the Max L. Gatov Gallery, where project leader and Cal State Long Beach MFA student Hiep Nguyen sticks to his catchy motto: "Art for All. All for Art." (There's a lot more to this than the picture you see above, but you've got to walk into the gallery for yourself. It will wow you!)

2.

Juicy bits of souvenirs from a trip into a foreign land are nicely lined up in the Max L. Gatov Gallery East for The Cambodian Project's multimedia show, "Art and Social Action 2008." Amazingly, 20 CSULB students traveled to Phnom Penh, Cambodia, in January, where, upon encountering the city's schoolchildren, the Long Beach students employed non-verbal communication lesson plans, which helped developed their new young friends' sense of self, relationship to their community, gave some inspiration to dream and, well, helped build this colorful medley of art.

3.

It's more about listening in the Dennis W. Dutzi Gallery, where tiki-esque melodies ride through along the background of this installation. Although I'm not sure of the creators of this art piece, I'm sure that the music sounded as if it was composed by a factory line of workers hitting on pots or banging on rails. Hints of piano interspersed in the layers of this tricky music made room for a whimsical moment of observation. Update: This is Laura Duphily's "fiber works" collection.

4.

On display in the Merlino Gallery, the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transexual (LGBT) Artist Collective "uses interactive installation to explore issues of Freedom and Imprisonment." While I'm not clear on how those precise issues of freedom and imprisonment were translated in this group show, I collected a sense of release in all the artists' works, especially in Robin Anne Lynch's "Eyes Within." In the desriptions of her work, Lynch says that her art pieces, which are horizontal cut-outs of her eyes in multiple technoligically-altered tones, are an "introspective look into the mystical world of a catlike and aloof young artist." I like her spirit.

5.

Dozens of artists are featured in the Marilyn Werby Gallery for the Art Education Student Group Show, "Windows." But I especially enjoyed this "Busy Work" by Lydia Simson. Made of pencil, watercolor and gouache, I think Simson's work is so incandescent and cool that I'll have to visit the galleries one more time to see it, before it's all gone Thursday.

All photos and video by Barbara Navarro.

This week's art event will end on Thursday.

To view higlighlights of last week's art event at the Student Art Galleries, please click here.

Hours for the galleries:
Monday, Tuesday, Thursday — 12 p.m. to 7 p.m.
Wednesday — 12 p.m. to 7 p.m.

Opening receptions for the student art galleries are on Sundays from 5:00 to 7:00 pm.