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Wednesday, January 04, 2006
I'm on the screening committee for a local film festival and during one of our meetings, someone used the phrase "spinach cinema" to describe a film (usually, but not necessarily documentary) that you watch because it's good for you (educational), but not necessarily because it's fun or entertaining. In this instance the term was used to describe a documentary about local activism that was neither well-made nor innovative, but had strong ties to the community and told an important story. I argued that film festivals were designed to show such work -- films that wouldn't readily find an audience in more commercial venues -- and that although I understand the desire to make community-based film festivals appeal to a wider audience and the necessity to do so in order to stay afloat, that it couldn't be all about entertainment value, or even artistic merit. Sometimes you need to compromise your standards of technical/artistic quality in the service of interesting or important content. Did I just say that? I know it sounds like anathema coming from a designer and art critic, and perhaps indie filmmakers have reached a level of technical virtuosity that we need no longer make excuses for poorly executed work. But the discussion made me think about the role that such "spinach-y" products play.
In the age of iTunes,* for example. When you can buy music by the song instead of by the album ("The Death of the Album" much discussed elsewhere), you never need to listen to a song you don't like. There's nothing intrinsically wrong with that. As my husband Oliver has noted, it's just a return to a previous marketing model, in which the single, not the album, was the unit of consumption. But as someone raised in the era of the album, I kind of miss the "spinach" songs -- the songs that might be a little out there, a little boring, a little hard on the ears -- those 12 minute guitar solos, wacky waves of sonic dissonance, odd robotic voiceovers. The songs that might expand the concept of what a song could be. Or fall flat on their faces. Of course, lots of albums are filled with fluff designed to stretch a few songs out to album length. But every once in awhile the album form allows the artist to take some chances that s/he wouldn't have attempted if every song had to be a hit.
I'm not sure that music services like iTunes are actually changing the way that artists write and record music, but I wouldn't be surprised if they did. The question is, will the ability to purchase individual songs put pressure on artists to make every song a pop hit? Will it eventually do away with the concept of the album altogether, or more precipitously, the "concept album?" It doesn't seem to have dissuaded R. Kelly, for example. :)
In any case, give me spinach. As much as I like the songs that I like, I want -- need, even -- the songs/films/books/shows that I'm not likely to like. When we only experience stuff we already like, we limit ourselves to what we know and feel comfortable with. We lose the experience of being patient, of letting something unfold without knowing where it's taking us or whether we will enjoy it. We're less open-minded, less adventurous. Our faith in others and in the power of communication diminishes too, I think. Of course, inevitably we're going to get burned sometimes. Not every path is a productive or interesting one, but the impulse and opportunity to follow it in the first place is good for us.
*Full disclosure: I work at Apple.
10:41 AM
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Tuesday, January 03, 2006
This exhibit at the National Japanese American Historical Society commemorates the 60th anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Includes new work by my cousin, painter Lawrence T. Yamamoto, as well as works by Chiura Obata, Nancy Hom, Tomie Arai and others.
10:29 PM
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