[Culture] Gate to Moonbase Alpha at the Rotunda

[Benseraglio2]

How appropriate, poignant and piquant to attend Moonbase Alpha during the very week that our President has suggested going to the moon again, to construct a perfect replica of his Crawford ranch and staff it with a hundred Texas Longhorn heifers, to be artificially inseminated by wholesome US bulls for the prevention of mad cow disease. In his statement at the Apollo 11 lunar landing module at the Smithsonian, attired in a bulky space suit, George Bush said, careful to avoid split infinitives, "it time agin to go boldly into the attmyosphere, to see if there be some o that thar yellow Tastykake under the lunar surface, and to git that green cheese afore the Chinee do."   Moonbase Alpha opened tonight with a stunning 45-minute movie, or visualization, by Near, accompanied by his live soundtrack which he produced by hunching over a gearbox and twisting dials. "Dislocation", "position", "try logic", and "331013" were the themes, accompanied by visuals of a long-barreled machine pistol, a shiny metallic spaceship, a supermagnified bacterium with knobbly spikes, a lunchbox, and other primary images. The film was entrancing and sophisticated, using 16 frames, rose windows and brain scans, and concluding with mesmerizing footage of a megalith and spacespeople tumbling and burning  through the atmosphere to the chant "from another planet." Put me in mind of 2001: A Space Odyssey.   David Garblestadt was back with his oily Funky Yellow Melted Butter projections, only this time he had about 17 slide projectors and an old movie projector in addition to his basic overhead and I must say the weird collages, not to mention the cutouts, reminiscent of Javanese wayang shadow puppets although not very much, made for a truly surreal atmosphere throughout the evening.   Farewell to Treaties produced some mellow trance tunes in the midsection; the violinist was particularly notable. I don't know what the proper classification for this type of music is, but personally I would call it jazz of some type.   Gank brought up the rear, with spoken word artist Mike Walsh fronting a quartet with an excellent sax man doubling on flute -- the sax and bass riffs were particularly fine. Don't know what to call this music either -- is it free jazz? Is it some kinda funk? Is it disco? Don't think so. Walsh had some memorable lines: "would you scratch my tumor again?" "Somebody let the demons out today." "Take no prisoners ... eat the dead" which put me in mind of Laurie Anderson although not all that much.   Many of the audience members sacked out on the floor, which raised the question of the proper posture for watching a show like this. Rigid traditionalist that I am, I spent most of the time in one of the comfy wooden armchairs. The second row comprised these chairs from hell, of the type I'm sure they make Saddam sit in during his interrogation; I sat through most of the show last time in one of these out of sheer politeness. But it reminded me of a show at Alice Tully Hall back in the seventies when they removed all the seats and spread out big foam cushions on the floor for the laid-back 70s crowd to sprawl in. If I remember correctly it was during the Mostly Mozart festival, and if I remember correctly they never tried that particular experiment again. But perhaps Gina oughta just hide all the chairs sometime and see what people do. I observed one young lady sitting in a rigid upright yoga posture and some audience members sort of clumped on top of each other. Groovy.   Chef Jeff was out in full force.     Ross Bender http://rossbender.org