Do You Realize?!?!
On seeing The Flaming Lips (again) and reading about Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert
Having just turned 43, I fall into the age group of "Xennial", that generational subgroup born between 1977-1985 that’s old enough to remember a time before the internet and experience Generation X culture in real time. Since I saw Yo La Tengo last summer, I've been leaning more into the "X" side of the Xennial spectrum, at least musically speaking. In addition to seeing Lee Ranaldo's exhibition (who himself isn't Generation X, but I digress), I read Big Day Coming, Jesse Jarnow's biography of Yo La Tengo back in February. Both Kim Gordon and Kim Deal put out music this year, and the music they’ve put out is pretty good!
Which leads me to a concert I attended last week, Flaming Lips at Beak and Skiff Orchards in LaFayette, New York. This is actually my second time seeing them, and I actually saw them 14 years to the day I saw them last time. That time, they were at CMAC in Canandaigua, New York, and The Black Keys opened for them. The Black Keys were also pretty good. I got a lawn ticket for that show, but I was eventually able to sit in one of the seats. This show, however, was packed, and I think because of that, there was more real energy coming from the crowd. The first set—the theme of the concert and why I bought a ticket—was playing the entirety of their 2002 album, Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots. Yoshimi was released during my Senior Year of college, and I used the play the title track all the time. It’s still one of my favorite songs. Like with the last show, they had a fair amount of stage props in line with album's original concept, and a lot of big, bouncing balloons filled with confetti. When they performed "Do You Realize?", they broke out an inflatable rainbow.
Throughout the show, the lead singer, Wayne Coyne, made a lot of comments about apples and apple cider (this was at an orchard and cider facility, after all). Unlike the last show, there was also a lot of weed (Note: Beak and Skiff has a cannabis offshoot, Ayrloom) and smartphones. What a difference legalization makes! Because I came there by myself (like I did the last time) and had to work the next day (unlike the last time), I did not imbibe in anything. The second set kicked off with "She Don't Use Jelly", which, unlike last time, was not accompanied by a video clip of their Beverly Hills 90210 appearance, but still good. Another standout was "Flowers of Neptune", apparently inspired by Kacey Musgraves tripping on acid and featuring Coyne dressed in a daisy suit. Getting out of the venue was a pretty disorganized affair--I'm used to the filing out at a snail's pace, but there was no direction of traffic out of the venue whatsoever. Aside from that, I wish that I had been able to attend on a night where I didn't have to work the next day. But it was worth it.
While waiting for The Flaming Lips to take the stage (they had no opening act at this show), I read a chapter of Opposable Thumbs, Matt Singer’s biography of Siskel and Ebert. Siskel & Ebert was a very formative show as a young movie buff. Singer's biography details the ways Siskel and Ebert found their way to film criticism, and the chapter I read before the show detailed the history of film criticism and how it moved to television, with Judith Crist being the first to appear on New York television during a newspaper strike. Opposable Thumbs goes on to delineate Siskel and Ebert’s initial rivalry and how that became the arc of their partnership. Later, when the pair decided to move their production from Tribune Television, which was owned by Siskel's employer, over to Buena Vista, owned by Disney, Ebert vouched for Siskel to be brought over the Sun-Times in the event that Siskel got dropped by Tribune over the syndication dispute. It also detailed how the pair brought film criticism into the mainstream and popularized film culture, namely how an episode criticizing the coloration of movies ultimately stopped colorization, and an entire episode on the wonders of Black & White cinematography. In high school, I watched Siskel and Ebert religiously, and enjoyed their debates. As Opposable Thumbs illustrates, when they both loved something, they went to bat for it. As someone who'd had an interest in making movies, I loved hearing their takes whether I agreed with them or not. Given my ultimate trajectory up to this point, I should have paid attention for other reasons. Gene Siskel passed away when I was a Senior in High School, and I remember breaking the news to a classmate who was also a movie buff. He was devastated. So was I.
However, I did have the chance to meet Roger Ebert. At SXSW in 2011, I had a chance encounter with him and his wife Chaz in Austin front of the Paramount Theater on Congress Ave. By this time, part of his jaw had been removed and had lost his ability to speak, but Chaz did, and I recall her as being very friendly. I no longer recall the words I said to him, but according to the journal I was keeping at that time, I shook his hand twice. My entry is accompanied by a note that I saw director Andrew Bujalski, who had been sick. The following night, I went to the premiere screening of Todd Rohal’s The Catechism Cataclysm. At that screening, I sat next to Bujalski and Gerard Peary, then the film critic of the soon-to-be shuttered Boston Phoenix and who would also appear in Bujalski's next film, Computer Chess. That night, I had the thrill of seeing for the first time my name in the credits of a movie not directed by me.
On June 29, Singer appeared on a panel about Comic Book adaptations alongside a University of Rochester graduate student and a University of Rochester professor who specializes in comic books at the Dryden Theater at the Eastman House. I found out about this panel literally two days before it took place, and my reason for going was that I remembered Singer as the reporter for IFC during the Golden Age of Mumblecore™, something I've written a little about on this Substack already. I do not remember Singer being a huge hype man for those movies, but IFCFilms did release a few of them. Anyway, I purchased my copy of Opposable Thumbs on-site, and had him autograph it. I presented to him my Driver's License out of a fear of him misspelling my name, and he seemed a little weirded out (Sorry, Matt!), but he autographed the book for me.
My article on Vagabond Wines and Apollo's Praise, two new Finger Lakes Wineries owned by Millenial Veterans (not Xennial) of the Finger Lakes Wine Industry, has been published by FLX Libations. My most recent segment for "Eating Upstate", on La Cigogne, aired on my birthday. Previously located in Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn, it's now located on Main Street in Narrowsburg. You can listen here: