It's the end, the end of the century, and on the other side of December 31st is either a fresh, exciting Millennium of Internet-enabled refrigerators and other technological soon-to-be necessities, or the grizzled junkyard pileup of a nation of lemmings in denial felled like Achilles by their own tiny microchips.
But on Sunday, November 21 for a couple hours you can escape the weird worry and feeling of impending doom, be free from all that Y2K nonsense, and be safe(?) in the sights of manic mad-movie scientist, Craig Baldwin. That's right, Craig Baldwin arrives on the Tentacle Session stage determined to throw off the paralysis of Millennial Dread and jump into action AS IF THERE WERE NO TOMORROW! Watch him open an anti-gravitational space where loose cinematic signifiers ricochet to create ecstatic instances of sub-atomic charm and visual, musical & linguistic ideas frolic to a froth. Until it all goes super-nova in an ineluctable implosion of meaning, ego-death and, yes, cosmic entropy.
Sound complicated? You have no idea. Craig Baldwin casts arcane ana-logical spells over a pair of seemingly ordinary 16mm projectors, which are hiccup-syncopated into high energy dialog in a vocabulary of hypnotic loops and collage-ical jump cuts under the command of his famous roto-strobo super-shutter-system! Reflexively re-mixing, re-hybridizing, and footnoting his own works, peppered with spoken-word anecdotes, Craig Baldwin brings together a rhyming and resonant melange set in, and to, the not-so-subliminal throbs of DJ Pod, mixing it all up in a sketchy jazzbo stylee.
Filmmaker and Culture Katzen-Jammer Craig Baldwin is well-known for making films which turn found footage into loaded politic and culture-critical devices aimed at the lowest common denominator's collection of expectations and the status quo. His latest work "Spectres of the Spectrum" debuted this month on the opening night of the Film Arts Festival of Independent Cinema at the Castro Theater. The Other Cinema series which he curates has occurred on Saturday nights at Artist Television Access for as long as anyone can remember.
The Tentacle Session show on November 21 will feature glimpses and samplings from all of Baldwin's works including "Wild Gunman", "RocketKitKongoKit", "Tribulation 99", "O No Coronado!", "Sonic Outlaws" and the just released "Spectres of the Spectrum". Although the seicle may be coming to a fin, on this Sunday evening, for 3 hours at least, the Tentacle Sessions and Craig Baldwin give you a new lease on life. And at only $5-$10, it's the cheapest rent in San Francisco. You should be there.
About DJ Pod:
Pod(s) P. is a sound and theater greenthumb who composts player pianos and rotting monocultures for Pan Optic Radio and an eXotic variety of pinko communal gardens on the urban front...i.e. CELL and House of Zoka. Contact: eapod@yahoo.com
