popcorn youth

Just a friendly reminder that I will be out of Ithaca from Oct. 29 - Nov. 17. Here’s a quick look at shows in Ithaca that are coming up. So bummed I’m missing HEALTH, Real Estate and Sunny Day in Glasgow! Be sure to keep checking the Ithaca Times for articles on many of these shows, including interviews with Dar Williams, Park Doing, Dan Deacon, HEALTH and Maria Muldaur. Oh and Maroon 5. If you’re into that.

See you in November!!!!

Oct. 29 - Many Arms, SchnAAk, Treetrunkosaurusrex, Ballistic Shit Circus with Ithaca Underground [Community School of Music and Arts 3rd Floor Auditorium]
Oct. 29 - Michael Flower-Chris Corsano Duo / Ashtray Navigations / Directing Hand [Redhouse]
Oct. 29 - Hubcap / Geoff Boyd [The Shop]
Oct. 29 - Gov’t Mule [State Theatre]
Oct. 29 - Gov’t Mule afterparty [WildFire]
Oct. 30 - Caution Children / Autumn in Halifax [The Shop]
Nov. 1 - Jennie Stearns and Mike Stark [Felicias]
Nov. 2 - HEALTH [Fanclub Collective Big Red Barn]
Nov. 4 - Realicide / Bone Parade / Split Horizon / Genital Holigrams [The Shop]
Nov. 4 - Dar Williams [Castaways[
Nov. 5 - Real Estate [Fanclub Collective]
Nov. 6 - Helen Money [The Shop]
Nov. 7 - Maria Muldaur [Castaways]
Nov. 8 - Maroon 5 [Barton Hall]
Nov. 12 - Why the Wires / Atomic Forces / American Sphinx [Cornell Cinema]
Nov. 13 - Hee Haw Nightmare [Felicias]
Nov. 15 - Dan Deacon / Nuclear Power Pants [Ithaca College]
Nov. 16 - Sunny Day in Glasgow / Why the Wires [WildFire]
Nov. 18 - (((microwaves))) [The Shop]
Nov. 19 - Meat Puppets [Castaways]
Nov. 20 - Steve Selin and friends [Felicias]
Nov. 20 - Mike Doughty [Castaways]
Nov. 22 - Wingnut [Felicias]
Dec. 5 - Eilen Jewell [Castaways]

[Photo by Nate Dorr] It’s here: SOUND&SEASON: HALLOWEEN EDITION 2009.

The next edition of Sound & Season will be held at the Pantonal Cave — home of the Orbiting Art Ensemble and venue for previous PY shows like Sick Llama and Cotton Museum — this TUESDAY OCTOBER 27. The evening will featuring live music from Heavy Winged, Crush the Junta and more.

Portland, OR/ NYC heavy psych rockers HEAVY WINGED (aurora borealis, not not fun, three lobed) will headline. This gang of power-driving rock really have their flavor of overdriven high rise-style proto-metal-psych noise down flat. Heavy Winged have garnered a reputation for blowing out tuned-in eardrums with their urban retro-futurist DIY rampaging-giant-lizard noise rock. And deservedly so.

“…a vast blank wall of a monolithic windowless tower block, seemingly featureless from a distance, but so rough up close that it tears skin from flesh and flesh from bone.” - THE WIRE

Rochester-based trio CRUSH THE JUNTA (feat. mems Entente Cordiale, Joe+N, Blood and Bone Orchestra, Tiger Cried Beef) play a variety of instruments, but mainly stick to drums, synth/electronics/bass and guitar. This music is usually heavy and loud, hints of metal/stoner-rock/heavy-psych. Recent recordings have ventured into more varied realms.

local openers TBA.

PLEASE WEAR YR BEST COSTUME if you like and enjoy the halloween-inspired dinner. this is a feast that will be prepared by sasha and myself but we are opening the floodgates to potluck lovers as well so bring a halloween-inspired dish to pass.

6pm eat / 8pm start.
free / donations deeply encouraged!!

[Photo by elchicodelaleche] Popcorn Youth and Skipster are proud to present Diane Cluck, Ben Miller, Ken’s Last Ever Radio Extravaganza, and Autumn in Halifax live at WildFire Bistro. This is our first concert at the new WildFire space (formerly Lost Dog Lounge) and we are incredibly excited to bring these talented and diverse artists!

Friday, October 23
8pm doors / 9pm start

BEN MILLER >>>>
DIANE CLUCK >>>>
KEN’S LAST EVER RADIO EXTRAVAGANZA >>>>
AUTUMN IN HALIFAX >>>>

WildFire Bistro
112 S. Cayuga St.
Downtown Ithaca
18+ / $8 with Student I.D. / $10 without

Diane Cluck cooks, gardens, draws and loves, bikes and studies wild plants. All these activities inform her original songs, which she’s been performing since 2000. Known for dynamic vocals and close-fitting harmonies, her live shows focus on singing as a healing, physical experience, offering space in which others may wander, ponder or simply be.

Diane’s hauntingly clear voice weaves melodies full of love and pain through her intentionally sparse arrangements of piano, acoustic guitar and harmonium. A classical training and obsession with Erik Satie has instilled a tasteful minimalism. Cluck has been featured on Devendra Banhart’s watershed compilation ‘Golden Apples of The Sun’ (including Iron & Wine, Joanna Newsom, Vetiver etc), though she keeps a quiet presence in her home in NYC. Songwriting this powerful and music this good can’t be a secret forever.

“This record [’Oh Vanille’] is by my favorite singer-songwriter in all of New York City. I’m so happy to be alive at the same time she is because i get to see her perform. It’s her and guitar or her and piano or her and harmonium. Her lyrics are so good, when i play this for people they stop doing everything and are quiet for hours after.” —DEVENDRA BANHART

“A bona fide treasure… Diane demonstrates how little she needs to put the world on hold: just a voice, a guitar and some of the most spell-binding of words you’ll hear anywhere.” — MOJO MAGAZINE

American rock and avant garde guitarist Ben Miller has been a member of proto-punk and post-punk Michigan bands Destroy All Monsters, Sproton Layer, Nonfiction, and M3, a collaboration with his older brother, Roger Miller (of iconic Boston art-punk band Mission of Burma). As a guitarist / saxophonist, Miller has explored psychedelic songwriting, freeform-based improvisation and notated scores in quasi-tonality. His solo project Ben Miller/degeneration inhabits multiphonic guitar with treatment. Cultivating his technique since 1982, Miller creates a sonic stereo soundscape that defies standard guitar playing.

“This warped, questing music is sometimes like a game of blind man’s bluff in a rotting warehouse: you feel that Miller has set things up so that he too doesn’t quite know what’s going on… Miller’s guitar is heavily detuned and intonations are random…Miller doesn’t use guitar technique as such, he stays firmly in touch with the instrument’s sound, so if spokes are being forced through strings, that’s what you hear. The result is down and dirty with very little electronic trumpery.”
— WIRE MAGAZINE

Autumn in Halifax is the quiet guitar and voice of new york native David Merulla. Interspersed with delicate instrumentals that also include keyboards and singing saw he tells cinematic stories of birds, avalanches, water, hearts and silence with a haunting mixture of tradition and sometimes experimental aesthetic.

“His guitar lines drift back and forth, moving in and out of frame, disappearing only long enough to instill a sense of unease and anxiety, returning to both please and taunt… Like both architecture and nature, Autumn in Halifax’s songs deal with the role of space the space between people, the space between the past and the present, and the space between reality and illusions… Transitory and haunting, Autumn in Halifax’s songs sound like all those past moments that determine your present situation.” — POPMATTERS

Ken’s Last Ever Radio Extravaganza has been creating his ever-changing live improvised sound collage experiment for the past 15 years, weaving mesmerizing new soundscapes from found and collected materials right in the present moment, performed from stages, radio stations, cement bunkers, construction sites, experimental dance spaces, tree houses, and elsewhere.

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skipster
popcorn youth

American multi-instrumentalist, singer and songwriter Annie Clark makes art look effortless. After stints performing as a band member of The Polyphonic Spree and Sufjan Stevens, Clark released her first solo record under her moniker St. Vincent. Marry Me (2007, Beggars Banquet) was a lush, precocious record that earned her comparisons to her more established peers like Grizzly Bear, Dirty Projectors and Beirut, while many eagerly proclaimed that she was second coming of Kate Bush.

Since her solo debut in 2007, Clark continues to dazzle listeners with her innovation, winsomeness and unique writerly voice. Clark’s sophomore release, Actor (2009, 4AD Records), catalogs a rich array of her personal literary, artistic and filmic inspirations. With its sweeping narrative arcs and canny sense for theatrical flair, the record was influenced by her love of film scores, including Badlands, Pierrot le Fou, The Wizard of Oz and Sleeping Beauty. And the lyrical tone of the record, Clark told the Ithaca Times, was hugely indebted by the works of Philip Roth and Charles Bukowski. (Clark has also admitted that her nom de guerre was inspired by the hospital where the Welsh poet Dylan Thomas spent his last hours).

Clark’s songs are a beguiling, heady stew of dreamy pop, chamber rock and cabaret jazz, driven equally by her desire for ornate orchestration and more straightforward indie rock tropes. Clark’s presence — at once humble and disarming, intimidating and vaguely mysterious — feels as complex as her intricate art-rock records, in which melodrama and quirk reside synchronistically. The resulting product vibrates intently between something sweet and something ominous — even creepy.

Clark’s moment in the current cultural zeitgeist marches on, unabated: A new song, “Rosyln,” penned by Clark and Bon Iver, was written specifically for the Twilight: New Moon soundtrack, which was released earlier this week. The Ithaca Times recently spoke to Clark from the road, as she was winding through the farm land of Ohio-what Clark, who is Tulsa, Oklahoma native, called “the real America,’ tongue placed firmly in cheek.

From the interview: Clark: Well, when I think of good performers, obviously the master of that is James Brown. Obviously. He is the master of that, and probably will always be. I can’t see anyone being a better showman than he is. I just don’t know if it’s possible. So that’s one kind of extreme for a dynamic on stage. And then there’s another extreme, which is like, a total shoegaze situation.

Unfortunately, I’m more on the side of the shoegaze. (Laughs) I wish I were more like James Brown! But I play the guitar and have all these pedals by my feet, and I have to focus a little bit on what I’m doing.

Read the rest of our conversation in the interviews section here.

Ithaca Underground and Deep BeatZ are presenting a killer show tonight with Moldover (pictured here), Robot Detective, David Ezra Brown and Luddite Machine. It starts at 8pm, with doors at 7:30pm, and will be held at The Shop. I highly recommend you check it out.. read on for more info.

Moldover >> Known in the electronic music world as the “Godfather of Controllerism”, Moldover is famous for building, hacking and playing controllers with a virtuosic skill and dynamism rarely present during a Live PA. In his words, “controllerism is just like turntablism, but instead of using turntables and mixer to make music, I use software and a controller”. Moldover’s DIY controllerism youtube videos have gone viral, inspiring and educating hundreds of thousands of music makers who are seeking “the next big thing.” In addition to his awesome music, Moldover’s new album has a hand-made light theremin unit built right into the CD case, perfect for aspiring controllerists to play and make their own music with.

Robot Detective >> Robot Detective is a collaboration between Otis Rachtman (guitars / keys) and Chris Knight (electronics / keys). Together, they create soothing ethereal melodic soundscapes that are juxtaposed with fast, harsh, and destructive patterns and rhythms within the same composition. Using guitars and synthesizers both running through Ableton Live for sampling and effects, in addition to software drum machines, they meander through multiple musical styles such as: shoegaze, post-rock in its various forms, dance music, noise, glitch, ambient, just to name a few, ultimately arriving at a sound that is truly their own.

David Ezra Brown >> Deep BeatZ resident, David Ezra Brown, is a one-man beatmaking machine. Trained as a drummer and a composer, Dave is an extremely versatile musician, deftly weaving elements of jazz, hip-hop, idm, and noise. His luscious beats exist somewhere in realm between Luke Vibert and acid jazz. Armed with his usual arsenal of synthesizers and Ableton Live, Dave creates experimental sets that are engaging, fun, and always amazing.

Luddite Machine >> Luddite Machine is the solo project of Eric Laine, a founding member of San Francisco’s kaleidophonic pop deconstructors Here Are The Facts You Requested. He escaped California and now calls Ithaca home. FYI — Did I mention that he also happens to be the uber-cool proprietor of McNeil’s Music store???

My endless gratitude goes out to those of you that came to the Blues Control show on a MONDAY NIGHT. You guys are champions. It was worth it: this night of duos was one of the best shows of the fall yet. American Sphinx, Brian!, Expo ‘70, Blues Control: it was sonic excellence across the board!

Merch. Regret not getting a t-shirt.

Travis (of Why the Wires) and Bubba (of Brian! and Ithaca Underground). I wish I had some pictures of Brian! because it was this totally awesome John Zorn/Don Cab punk-jazz duo thing, where Bubba’s synth lines snaked around David’s bassoon like this weird, mathy tango.

Matt Hill of Expo ‘70, in a SERIOUS keyboard moment. Like Terry Riley minimalism meets very loud La Monte Young drone.

Joined by Justin Wright. Then things got Kraut-ier.

You know, just catching up on our reading. At a noise show.

Yeah, we went there.

Community chit chat.

The crowd! Tremendous. I love you.

Blues Control, nimbly holding audience rapt. Thanks for playing ‘Boiled Peanuts’ and ultra-extended version of ‘Tangiers.’

Russ, slaying.

Lea, shredding. With cup.

Go buy ‘Local Flavor’ right now. Seriously, go buy it and write Siltbreeze a love letter thanking them for putting it out because it. is. killer.

Expo ‘70 post-show chill. I think I need to own everything Justin has ever made now.

Last Saturday, Charlottesville, Virginia-based musician Alex Caton performed with clawhammer banjo player Pete Winne at The Shop in support of her latest and second solo album, The Sinners and The Saved. We recently spoke to the Binghamton native about her recent tour to the West Coast, recording at Levon Helm’s studio, and playing old time tunes with The Buvas. From the article:

“I like that it’s not a fussy album,” Caton says. “With my first solo album, I didn’t enjoy the process of recording it as much. This time, I wanted to enjoy the process, because it really can be incredible. You grow a lot when you record, and for me, it was huge. I haven’t been singing that long, and I really wanted to feel comfortable with my vocals. With the way most people record today, the vocals are overdubbed, and you’re separated from your bandmates. With this album, I didn’t want to do that.

“Justin [Guip], who helped produce it, said that he wanted it “with fur,’” Caton laughs. “He didn’t want a perfect album. He wanted it to fit the style of the music, and not be super polished. I really trusted his ear… The best compliment that I received on the album was that it sounded like we had fun doing it — and I was like, “Yes, we did.’ It was very open and free, and nothing about it was overproduced. We didn’t want to get too fancy.”

Caton is right. The album is a lovely, effortless mix of old time fiddle tunes, bluegrass, piano-driven gospel, ragtime and even a little country. Hopefully Caton will be back in town soon to charm us with her fiddle! Read the rest of the article in our interviews section.

Last Friday, Summer People hosted a benefit at the Spark Art Space in Syracuse. We went to check out the visual art component — Tien Chang, Agata Zietek, Meredith Towsand, Michal Wisniowski, Paul McDonough, and Thomas Ward all had pieces featured — and see live sets from Summer People, DJ Afar, Wooden Waves and Animal Plants. The space has tons of potential and apparently is available to rent at a modest fee.

Wooden Waves, sloppy indie-punk from Albany.

Acrylic on canvas by Meredith Towsand.

Chatter.

Amazing visuals during Wooden Waves set.

Bathroom has a mirror-non-mirror.

Look familiar?

Event organizer Steve Anderson (drummer for Summer People) with visual artist Meredith Towsand.

National Book Award Finalist, Cornell poet, acclaimed author and all-around wonderful lady Lyrae Van Clief-Stefanon will be reading a selection of her works with live accompaniment from two of my favorite Ithaca musicians: Johnny Dowd and Richie Stearns! J. Robert Lennon and H.G. Carillo will also be reading from their works. The reading begins at 7:30pm and will held at Barnes Hall on the Cornell Campus. Highly recommended — Lyrae is a wonderfully dynamic speaker, and ‘Open Interval’ is a truly masterful work.

Amazing Bronson Pinchot interview. Yes, THAT Bronson. [A.V. Club]

An interview with The Wire’s publisher, Tony Herrington. “So I think the people who read The Wire are the sort of movers and shakers out there — not just the artists, but the promoters, the record labels, people who own shops and so on and so forth, so it’s quite influential beyond its sales, and it’s certainly had an impact on the wider culture that the magazine is a part of — the festivals, live events, the networks of record labels and distributors that exist.” [Stack]

Sweet: Bubble ‘N’ Squeak Mix, podcast by London dubstep producer Kode 9, and comprised entirely of classic UK garage and 2-step from 1999-2002. [XLR8R]

Is it me, or is OM experiencing a resurgence in popularity? I feel like I’m seeing these guys everywhere. [Raven Sings the Blues]

Crisp American autumnal perfection, via Paris, of course. [Refinery29]

The Northstar Publick House is up and running. Run, don’t walk, to their kangaroo dip. [14850 Dining]

And the show calendar (the Popcorn Youth show is shamelessly bolded). Above photo from where else?:

Oct. 21 - Emmylou Harris / Red Dirt Boys [Auditorium Theatre, Rochester]
Oct. 22 - Moldover / Robot Detective / David Ezra Brown  / Luddite Machine with Deep Beatz [The Shop]
Oct. 22 - St. Vincent [Castaways]
Oct. 23 - Candypants / Hubcap [Castaways]
Oct. 23 - Diane Cluck / Ben Miller / Ken’s Last Ever Radio Extravaganza / Autumn In Halifax [WildFire Bistro]
Oct. 24 - The Hogwashers Square Dance [Close Hall]
Oct. 24 - Jesse Walker Insiders [The Shop]
Oct. 27 - Pearls and Swine [Maxies]
Oct. 28 - Dufus [WildFire]
Oct. 29 - Many Arms, SchnAAk, Treetrunkosaurusrex, Ballistic Shit Circus [The Shop]
Oct. 29 - Michael Flower-Chris Corsano Duo / Ashtray Navigations / Directing Hand [Redhouse]
Oct. 29 - Hubcap / Geoff Boyd [The Shop]
Oct. 29 - Gov’t Mule [State Theatre]
Oct. 29 - Gov’t Mule afterparty [WildFire]

Chicago quartet Califone plays tonight at Cornell Cinema, alongside a screening of Tim Rutili’s feature film debut, ‘All My Friends Are Funeral Singers.’ Earlier this month, they released an album of the same name, and it is excellent. What would Wilco have sounded like without Nels Cline’s wanky guitar solos? What kind of magic would Brian Eno make with a couple of acoustic guitars? What if Talk Talk still made albums? I can’t answer those questions, but I can say that this is a fine, complex album, and an appropriate follow-up to 2006’s ‘Roots and Crowns.’ Several members of Califone, as it happens, appeared at Cornell Cinema last year to perform live instrumentation to a screening of Brent Green’s works. If you’re curious about the nature of that collaboration, head on over to our interviews section.

From my interview with Tim Rutili:

“I had collected, like, 42 pages of superstitions, about babies or death or ridiculous things,” Rutili recalls. “Then I started interviewing people with a little video camera, and they would talk about superstitions they had. I started goofing around with the imagery, and out of that the story kind of unfolded.”Rutili’s fascination with superstitions began much earlier, as a child growing up with his grandmother. “So much of it came from my family, for me. There was a lot of superstition in my family, like if you dropped silverware, it meant company was coming. I thought that was total bullshit when I was four,” Rutili laughs. “But as an adult, it’s like, “Uh oh… someone is coming!’ I don’t even have control over it.”

Splices of those field recordings later were used as chapter breaks in the film, as a way to reference the idea of superstition and American folk traditions within a more traditional narrative-oriented format. “A lot of these superstitions, are, in a way, archetypal. They’re anachronistic. They feed into a certain kind of atmosphere,” says Rutili. “These beliefs are a part of people’s lives.”

Read the rest of the story here. The show begins tonight at 7:30pm.

Last winter, I interviewed Brooklyn musician Morgan Packard and artist Joshue Ott in conjunction for their appearance at the Light In Winter Festival, in an event co-sponsored by Deep Beatz and held at Castaways. The show itself was marvelous — a combination of intuitive, on-the-fly drawings and music that held the audience rapt — as was the elucidating workshop that they led at Cornell Univ., cosponsored by the Cornell Electroacoustic Music Center. From the interview:

Popcorn Youth: Have you always used of nontraditional spaces and other DIY methodology, such as the home-made software you mentioned?

Packard: I’ve had almost ten years of trying focus on making electronic music by much more “traditional” means, [like] off-the shelf software and hardware, rather than my own tools. At the beginning of the decade, I wanted nothing more than to be loved by all of my favorite British Drum and Bass DJs. I made some decent music, but was always trying to get good at someone else’s game. I’ve been on my current musical course for about five years. It’s now really tightly wrapped up with my software development, and I’m not sure where one begins and the other ends. Creating my own tools has been a way for me to make my own rules, to make my music a little more self-contained.

Ott: I studied at Pratt Institute, receiving a BFA in computer graphics animation. While there, I took a C programming class and had my first taste of how wonderful programming can be. I’ve always been interested in all forms of art, but am especially attracted to anything time based (music, film, video games, animation). I love video games and interactive art, and the idea of play is an important one in my art as well as the work that I do. I started working on superDraw as an experiment, but it has evolved into a platform for me to make art that involves all of the things that I love: animation, interactivity and music.

Read the rest in our interviews section.

A mighty congratulations are in order for Ithaca’s beloved poet, Lyrae Van Clief-Stefanon, who was announced as a National Book Award finalist for poetry, for her work ‘Open Interval.’ A work that is, by the way, tremendous. [NYTimes]

Annie Clark likes ‘Please Kill Me’ — and Arrested Development! (As she should.)

She also performed at Rachel Comey’s S2010RTW show. Ooof. (Style)

And can’t stop watching her video for ‘Actor Out of Work.’ (via Pfork)

Ray Cummings on Nautical Almanac. (Baltimore City Paper)

Michael Pollan’s food commandments. (NYTimes)

Go see Califone this Friday. Go. Run, don’t walk. (Ithaca Times)

Cornell: Increasing our apple pleasure one variety at a time. (Good Fruit)

Our beloved grocer Wegman’s opens its first full-service restaurant. Nom nom nom! (NRN)

Oct. 16 - Summer People [Sparks Gallery]
Oct. 16 - Califone [Cornell Cinema]
Oct. 17 - Shonen Knife [Fanclub Collective]
Oct. 17 - All American Hell Drivers [Chapter House]
Oct. 17 - Alex Caton [The Shop]
Oct. 17 - Bioneers Salon: (((EcoTones))) with Deep Beatz [WildFire]
Oct. 19 - Blues Control / Expo 70 / American Sphinx / Brian! [The Shop]
Oct. 20 - Science Cabaret [WildFire Bistro]
Oct. 21 - Emmylou Harris / Red Dirt Boys [Auditorium Theatre, Rochester]
Oct. 22 - Moldover / Robot Detective / David Ezra Brown  / Luddite Machine with Deep Beatz [The Shop]
Oct. 22 - St. Vincent [Castaways]

[By Brandi Herrera Pfrehm] As a kid growing up in the Pacific Northwest — where the coffeehouse is king, and there were drive-thru espresso joints on every corner before the idea was even a glimmer in Starbucks’ eye — I experienced my first green-siren latte in 1989. That was back when the company fostered an authentic Third Place kind of atmosphere: offering a space to foster community and expression just as much as it brewed coffee.

Since then, I’ve witnessed the rapid rise — and decline — of one of the world’s most powerful brands. From short and venti, to double shots and Frappuccinos, Starbucks managed to convince the public it needed to pay upwards of $4.00 for its morning cup of Joe. Bryant Simon, author of Everything but the Coffee: Learning about America from Starbucks (University of California Press, $25.95), wanted to get to the bottom of the cappuccino cup to find out just how Starbucks was able to pull this off. I recently spoke with the Temple University history professor about coffee-cachet, and what ultimately lead to the company’s recent downturn. Turns out, even the most powerful brands are subject to cultural scarcity and the most dreaded status of all: ordinary.

Ithaca Times: Tell me a bit about your background as a history professor at Temple and what led to writing this book.

Bryant Simon: As you pointed out, I am a historian. Until now, I practiced history in a pretty conventional sense. I wrote two early books and did research in the archives and wrote about the past. But I was also interested in contemporary American culture. I began to look at Starbucks as a window into the present, as a way to understand what we cared about and desired. That’s really what buying is about. We buy things that we think will make our lives better or easier, but also to communicate to others how we want to be seen and understood. Our purchases are really a form of symbolic communication.

IT: Why Starbucks? Why now?

Simon: I set out to study Starbucks to see what our coffee choices said about us. Starbucks is worth studying because it’s popular. What’s popular, again, is revealing.  We buy things because they have value to us. Really, what I tried to figure out in the book is why we were willingly of the sudden in the 1990s to pay $4 for a cup of coffee.  How did Starbucks get us to do that? What value did the drinks have? What desires did the drink fulfill?

In many ways this is exactly the right time to investigate Starbucks again. From the lofty heights of a few years ago, when it was the most respected brand in the world, Starbucks has started to stumble. People are no longer defining themselves by their Starbucks drinks, and cities aren’t flooding company switchboards with calls asking them to come to their towns. Starbucks’ stock has taken a hit, and last year the company announced plans to close 600 stores. So my book is the first book to explain why the company has floundered, the main reason is that it isn’t worth four dollars any more to a larger swath of the population. At the height of Starbucks’s popularity, you could walk down the street carrying a cup [of Starbucks] and people would think you were discerning, sophisticated, successful and well off.  Today, the audience might think you just needed a cup of coffee, or even worse, that you aren’t that imaginative, that you are a conformist.

IT: You talk about the lack of variation from one Starbucks to another in any given store around the globe, which no doubt played a role in their ability to become as large and powerful a corporation as they we able to become. But, what does this say to you, also, about their decline?

Simon; Actually, Starbucks claims that each store is unique, that each has an architectural or design detail that none other has and this seems to be, in fact, true.  But at the same time, this doesn’t seem to matter much to us, we see the green siren logo and those familiar natural color schemes, and we see “sameness.” Our perception speaks to how we see Starbucks taking over our spaces and creating not difference, but sameness.

IT: How has Howard Schultz’s return changed Starbucks? And, can it be saved?

Simon: Since his return to the helm of the company, Howard Schultz has been trying to reassert the company’s “coffeeness,” to tell customers that his firm buys high quality beans and knows how to prepare them. Customers in the past had been willing to pay the Starbucks premium because they believed that Starbucks knew coffee and this knowledge had value. That’s what Schultz is trying to get back; the sense his company has something special to offer. But behind the scenes, Schultz has been pursuing a kind of hidden McDonald’s strategy of discounting drinks, offering free refills and creating value meals. He has also introduced new labor saving techniques so that the drinks can be made faster. The question is, what strategy will win out: the coffee-focused plan, or the McDonald’s?

Bryant Simon will give talks at both Cornell and Buffalo Street Books on October 15 and 16.

I was walking home late last night and saw what I thought was a flashing mass of police sirens, spinning around at the intersection of Clinton St. and N. Cayuga St. As I got closer, I realized that it was an American flag made of whirling lights, part of an installation located in the bottom floor of the parking garage (the one next to Merrill Lynch). The garage was locked and the rest of the room was completely barren, as far as I could tell. I’ve seen group art shows in the 1st floor of that parking garage before, but haven’t noticed this particular installation until now. So: What is it? Who made it? How long has it been there? It’s a witty commentary on the blurry (literally) boundaries between the sirens that we commonly associate with tragedy and chaos (ambulances, police cars) and the iconography of the American flag. The mute sirens were simultaneously unnerving and surreal.

EDIT Oct. 12: MYSTERY SOLVED! It’s part of the To Let program for The Working Relationship. Read the article I wrote about them here. Carrie says: The merger of red, white, and blue police beacons into the American flag motif enhances the flag’s primary purpose as a means of identification and marker of territory (”This spot is American”) by heightening its visual impact with lights and motion. This merger also serves to reinforce the supposed ideologies of the United States that are already present in the flag’s symbolism on an international scale– things typically defined “clearly American.” Such ideologies include the belief in the rule of law, unalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, liberal democracy, legitimized authority, economic success, and acting “for the common good” of all people, among others.

So, that being said, I believe strongly that the intentions of the artist in creating a piece are unimportant compared to any meaning that is gleaned from a work by its audience. While I may personally think that the beacon flag is representative of one thing more than another, I think its audience could draw many different conclusions, both positive and negative. I hope the installation will facilitate this discussion.

Tomorrow I will be the featured guest on Tracey Craig’s radio broadcast ‘NONESUCH‘ on WVBR FM. I will be on the air from 2-3pm EST, and the program streams live as well! A description of Nonesuch:

Nonesuch is old folk, it’s new folk; it’s blues and bluegrass…the best of traditional music right alongside emerging songwriters. Sometimes you’ll hear Cajun or klezmer, celtic, maybe even conjunto… roots music that comes from folk traditions around the world as well as Ithaca’s homegrown variety. On the air since 1967, Nonesuch is one of the longest-running successful folk shows on the radio and draws its listeners from the Ithaca community and throughout Central New York.

Tracey is also the founder of Rootabaga Boogie Productions. And the bio I submitted:

NATASHA LI PICKOWICZ, arts & entertainment editor for THE ITHACA TIMES, and founder of POPCORN YOUTH, a nonprofit group that brings to town a variety of new “underground” music. She says she hopes Ithaca can support an infrastructure that encourages sonic experimentation–whether that occurs in the realms of avant garde composition, clanging noise rock, or free folk wanderings. Over the past three years, she’s brought in musicians from as far away as Finland, Germany, England and Spain as well NYC, San Francisco, LA and Boston; venues range from rock clubs and concert halls to private homes and record stores. “The only thing better than a healthy local music scene is a community of listeners who are eager to encounter and discuss the music around which the community of listeners is based,” says Natasha. Originally from San Diego, she’s a 2006 Cornell grad, with a BA in English. We’ll talk music — and give you a little preview of some of this fall’s POPCORN YOUTH featured performers.

I will be speaking on my birthday, so that’s fun, too! I’ll be spinning some old Popcorn Youth bands, as well as talking about future shows. Thanks to Tracey for having me, and please tune in!