The New Year is before us. Here in Washington, people are girding their loins for battle and making plans for Inauguration Day. The DC Cannabis Commission will be making a lot of people feel better on January 2o when they hand out 4,200 joints near Dupont Circle, but I've got my own corner of the world to contend with and my own resolutions. Number one might be painting the living room. (I started this project two years ago but only finished two walls.)
Perhaps my bar is low, but so are my spirits. That's why I was happy to find a new role model in Taylor Mac. This dude is crazy creative.
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| Sara Krulwich /The New York Times |
Last October at St Ann's Warehouse in New York, Mac pulled off a glittering masterpiece of a performance called "A 24 Hour Decade History of Popular Music" which included 246 songs and spanned 240 years of music, history and commentary rolled into one truly elaborate and theatrical "sleep" over. This dazzling event sold out, and everyone stayed awake most of the time. Wesley Morris of the New York Times called it "one of the greatest experiences of my life."
Taylor Mac's vision, which I heard in this NPR interview, is what caught my interest the most.
"We didn't really say, 'This is the world that we want' on stage," Mac says, "but we were making it — with the ... audience and the music and everybody participating." Mac wants to continue making this kind of art: art that imagines new ways forward instead of just identifying the problems in society. "I think that's what the future holds for me," Mac says. "Making more work that is about making the world that I want as opposed to commenting on the world that is."
We've got a lot of creative people around our town and this Saturday you can find Tone at IOTA, and King Soul at Villain and Saint. Also please save the date- the afternoon of January 14th- people are coming together to celebrate the life of Robert Goldstein at the 9:30 Club.
And I need to buy paint.
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