The End of Kodachrome, Pt. II: Getting Lunar

Another spectacular day in Bryce. We awoke to snow flurries, and as a bonus, we actually woke up in time for the complimentary breakfast. Yesterday we arrived late and got the dregs. Today, after loading up on eggs, French toast and oatmeal, we hit the road for a walk on The Navajo loop trail, which takes you to the Canyon floor for a walk through the hoodoos. Once again, there was majesty around every bend. The snow turned to rain, the walkways to red mud. Every step resulted in mounds of red mud sticking to your shoes. A light drizzle throughout, but no complaints. Too much beauty in all directions. Actually saw a handful of people on the trail. All wet, but all happy.

After leaving Bryce, we had planned on taking a quick trip to Kodachrome Basin State Park. Kodachrome is the guiding light of this trip, and wouldn’t you know it, just 30 minutes south of Bryce is a state park which honors the beloved film stock in its name. But the rains were coming down hard and we needed to haul butt to Monument Valley. Sad to say, we bailed on Kodachrome Basin.

Arrived at Monument Valley sometime after 8 pm. Our hotel was in the park. No street address, just GPS coordinates. Our room overlooked The Mittens and Merrick Butte. Unbelievable. An excited Mr. Granato was heard to exclaim, “Nature Boner!” We rolled into the hotel a mere two hours before the start of the lunar eclipse, which we could take in from our balcony. At the start of the evening, the buttes of Monument Valley glowed in the muted blue moonlight. By the end of the eclipse, total blackout. Quite a way to experience the heart of the West.

Jim G. is a time-lapse fanatic.We had two super 8s and one hd documenting the proceedings. I’ve attached the hd video, which I shot of the eclipse. The eclipse footage, as well as the footage of the valley floor that features The Mittens and Merrick Butte, were all taken from the balcony. That’s how unsane our view was.

Jim set the alarm for sunrise, which we could also view from our balcony, or in my case, from my bed. Granato manned the sunrise cameras in long johns and socks, taking the occasional nap for good measure. Talk about the life of leisure for a wildlife/nature photographer. Sheesh.

Next up was the 17 mile drive through the buttes. We made it as far as John Ford Point. Fitting for a bunch of film geeks. We probably only covered half the drive. What I’ve found interesting about this trip is that once you decide to spend a tremendous amount of time documenting the most beautiful vantages and uncovering hidden vistas, the distance you travel drops considerably. On every hike or drive we’ve taken, we’ve spent an inordinate amount of time on the trail, yet we’ve traded the amount of ground covered for a deeper look at the landscape. Sometimes that’s a trade worth taking.

Below is the attached view of the eclipse.Enjoy.

Lunar Eclipse, Monument Valley, Dec 20/21, 2010 from danny plotnick on Vimeo.

The End of Kodachrome, Pt. I: A Meandering Travelogue

Absolutely spectacular day at Bryce Canyon. Rainy, windy, and slushy, but majestic overlooks none-the-less. Spent three hours in the canyon shooting film and video. Didn’t see one tourist. They were up top at the overlooks, but no one braved the trek down. Only my buddy Jim and I were so foolhardy. Every turn of the trail offered yet another breathtaking, one-of-a-kind view. The light drizzle had me worrying about my camera a little. I must have packed it up 10 times, promising myself no more shooting. Yet at every subsequent turn, I pulled it out again to get some more footage.

This is a funny trip. Only last week did Mr. Granato plant the seed to head to the Southwest to burn through some rolls of Kodachrome, which will no longer be processed as of two weeks from now. My desire to shoot Kodachrome, or super 8, is strangely nil. I guess I’ve shot enough of it over the years. Not really feeling the need for one last hurrah. But what a gloriously brilliant excuse for a trip. I’m excited about playing around with an hd camera. So Jim is shooting super 8, I’m rocking the hd, and we’re having a blast. Not sure what the end result will be. One film? Two films? Zero films? Doesn’t matter. We’re out here shooting stuff, documenting nature, experiencing the winter majesty.

Flew into Vegas. Stopped at the Neon Museum, the bone yard for discarded neon signage. Beautiful. They don’t let you shoot any film or video. Jim tried to sneak in the super 8. The unmistakable rattle of the super 8 motor alerted the hip young vixens that run the joint that mischief was afoot. I don’t think Jim shot more than 5 feet of film before being busted by the man...who was a woman.

Almost didn’t come on this trip. Money and winter were discouraging factors. I would never think of coming to a place like this in the winter. Alison and I once went to the Grand Canyon in November. All I remember is cold, cold, cold. Now that we’re here, I’m ecstatic we pulled the trigger. The snow is beautiful. It’s a whole other look to this area that I’ve never experienced and would likely never have experienced. I can't wait to come back with my son, whose mind will be blown.

The rest of the trip could be cold and miserable, but today’s hike makes the whole trip worth it regardless of what happens from here on out…unless of course we drive over a cliff edge. That would not be cool, nor is it out of the question.


On the way from Vegas to Bryce, we drove over route 14 through The Dixie National Forest. 10,000 feet, near whiteout conditions. Not from snow, but from fog or clouds. Much snow build-up on the road. A little slipping and sliding during the night time drive. But the rental Hyundai handled it sans chains. I have to imagine those were the worst of the conditions we’ll face…other than Jim’s snoring…which hasn’t been as bad as advertised.

Right now, I’m hanging in the lobby of our Best Western. Hundreds of rooms. Ten cars in the parking lot. It has some Shining potential.

Tomorrow, off to Kodachrome Basin State Park and Monument Valley. Lunar Eclipse on Tuesday night.

The Magic of Radio II: With The Radio On

I never much listen to the radio anymore, but there is something inherently exciting about driving around in your car with the radio on. You may be alone, but if you’re listening to the radio, you’re having a shared experience. It’s exciting to think that while you’re singing along with the Temptations, at the top of your lungs, somebody else is doing the same. You’ll never meet them, you’ll never know them, but at that moment, you’re sharing the same mental space. I was reminded of that recently when I got a text from my wife to put on 103.7. Classic rock radio. Ah yeah. Burning For You by B.O.C. Awesome. She was listening, I was listening. We were both rocking. I was reminded of that again this past Saturday night when listening to my fave radio show, JJ On The Radio. KPOO. Saturday Night. Vintage soul sounds off of the original 45 rpm records. Scratches and all. JJ has been doing it for years. It’s always good. One of my favorite things about SF. Outta site.

It’s been awhile since I’ve seen it, but that feeling of the radio connecting us all lies at the heart of American Graffiti. Maybe it’s time to watch that again. I always did love Cindy Williams.

Guided By Voices-The Club Was Open & Elves Were Kicked. Live at the Warfield.

Totally blown away by GBV last night at the Warfield. Unfrikkinbelievable. I could talk about what a kick ass live band they are. I could talk about Bob Pollard’s scissor kicks, mic twirls, and his various rock school moves. I could talk about the bad ass set list, almost exclusively culled from my 3 fave GBV records (Bee Thousand, Alien Lanes, and Propeller). I could talk about the cavalcade of hits, starting with A Salty Salute, wrapping up almost two hour later with Weed King. But I won’t.

What I will say is that the crowd was going nuts. As my buddy Jimmy G said, “The club was indeed open and on fucking fire.” The balcony (usually pretty staid) was up in full-force. Everyone was singing every lyric to every song. I remember seeing the Blues Explosion, circa Orange, and being blown away by how the crowd erupted into a dance party, the whole audience shaking their tail feathers. In the “too-cool-for-school”, indie hipster rock universe, that outburst of emotion was something rarely witnessed. Last night’s GBV show transcended in a similar way. People unabashedly singing along at top volume, strangers hugging and high-fiving. It was like being a teen again, being supercharged by rock and roll, wanting to hear it loud, needing to share it with your friends, jumping around like fools and lunatics, fists pumping in the air. Wanting to shout to the world, “This is our music, man!” The club was open and the place was indeed on fire. GBV! GBV! GBV!

The photo is Jimmy Gs. I might have stolen his line about strangers hugging as well. The movie I pulled from youtube. It's a mess, but that probably makes it perfect!

Detroit Noir

Detroit is very much in the news lately. Marginalized. A joke on late night television. It’s constantly viewed as a symbol of all that has gone wrong in the country. Its history and its present state can be read as cautionary tale. Detroit Noir is a collection of seemingly dark short stories by folks who have lived in this former boomtown.

Interestingly, even though it's a noir collection and death and decay are ever present, Detroit Noir reads like a melancholy love story. In so many stories, we see a once vibrant city; characters holding on to memories of the places they grew up, of friends and family that inhabited the city streets; characters playing out the string, because there are no other options. The stories harken back to a time of possibility. It’s a portrait of a city that is home. It may not be an idealized home, but it is home none-the-less.

There are some really great stories here. Gotta make a comment about Megan Abbott, my fave crime writer. She delivers an awesome coming of age story, about the fascination with the wrong side of the tracks.

For what it's worth, Detroit is my hometown. I haven't lived there for over 20 years, but people still ask me what I think of it. In a way, it's not for me to say, but the last couple of times I've been back, there seems to be a lot of energy around revitalizing the city. It seems like a city that is in a "now or never" situation and folks are waking up to the possibilites. There seems to be a lot of exciting and/or radical proposals on the table. Shrinking the city, creating urban farms and the like. Some bold proposals. Will the city have the money to pull any of these ideas off? Will politics as usual spoil what hope remains? Who knows? But my gut says that a vibrancy is ever present. A vibrancy that the outside world does not see or report on in all the ghost town stories told about Detroit in the media at large.

Detroit Noir serves as a more homespun view into the world of a city that has meaning to those who live there.

My Week At The Movies--Inception vs. Exit Through The Gift Shop

Inception by Christopher Nolan
I can’t begin to express how much I disliked this movie. Unnecessarily confusing, incomprehensible, and ultimately boring. Two and a half hours of monotone acting. Every line uttered with an air of hushed-tone importance. 30-40 minutes of tedious explanatory sequences, meticulously detailing the rules of the dream world, all of which I couldn’t follow. The one rule I picked up, ‘If you die in the dream, you wake up,’ gets abandoned as soon as that rule hampers the plot. Oh well, I guess rules are made to be broken…if they become inconvenient. I felt pretty bad for all the poor souls on date nights, trying to make sense of this mess on the way out of the theater. If the writing, the direction, and the acting weren’t bad enough, I was pretty bothered by Leonardo DiCaprio’s mustache. I’ve seen 16 year olds with better upper lip coverage. And how come all the actors looked like they were in a neo-noir movie while Ellen Page looked like she was in a romantic comedy? Come on people. Yuck.

Exit Through The Gift Shop by Banksy
Just saw this last night and I’m still digesting it, but what an awesome movie. Exit Through The Gift Shop is a doc by street art hotshot Banksy detailing the street art scene from its roots in the 90s through its rise and acceptance by the fine art world in the 2000s. The movie is in parts fun, irreverent, insightful, and at the end of the day, perhaps a big hoax. The film follows the scene through the eyes of filmmaker Thierry Guetta, an affable Frenchman who tirelessly documents the likes of Banksy, Shepard Fairey (of Andre The Giant stickerdom fame), and other street art luminaries. Over the course of the film, we see Banksy and his cohorts move from quasi-legal artists playing cat and mouse with the fuzz while trying to avoid anti-graffiti laws, to highly sought after artists, selling their pieces for huge coin.

Over the course of the film Thierry moves from someone documenting the scene to someone who becomes a major artist (aka Mr. Brainwash) within the scene, much to the mystification of his peers. The film ultimately critiques the fine art world. Banksy seems to suggest that the curators snapping up street art at exorbitant prices don’t really understand the art, its value, and the quality of what they’re bidding on.

The success of the highly derivative Mr. Brainwash is at the core of this critique. But is Mr. Brainwash even real? He could be real. He could be a fabrication for viewers of the film. He could be an elaborate hoax played on the Los Angeles art world. I couldn’t figure it out, but regardless, it's brilliant.

Best film I saw this week!

The Ladies Are Bringing It!

Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work
Can’t rave enough about the Joan Rivers doc, Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work. It’s a truly revealing portrait of an artist at work. Honest, riveting, enervating, hysterical, and brutal, Rivers gives us a behind-the-scenes look at her life during a trying year. She’s 75, her career is on the downside, yet she keeps hustling. Why can’t she slow down? Why doesn’t she rest on her laurels? Why does she continue to subject herself to the trials and tribulations of the artist’s life when she’s 75? The film does a great job getting to the core of what makes Joan tick and why she’s so driven. The film deftly mixes the modern day neurosis with a look back at her seminal career, so those looking for a historical overview will not be disappointed. What’s most rewarding are the bits from her current show. Rivers is still side-splittingly hysterical. Sharp tongued, she remains current. She’s not hauling out material from 1979. She keeps it fresh and au courant. Go see this now.

Just Kids by Patti Smith
This book is awesome. It's inspiring and romantic. This is the kind of book you read when you’re fourteen that makes you want to be an artist. Smith beautifully recounts her years with Robert Mapplethorpe. Smith and Mapplethorpe are each other’s muses. They commit to a life of art and to each other. The book traces their time together, from nobodies who intensely believe in each other and what they each have to offer the world, to recognized artists. Mapplethorpe moves from collage to photography, looking to enter the Factory world and move beyond it. Smith does an amazing job tracing Mapplethorpe’s development as an artist and as a person grappling with his sexuality. She brings keen observations to his work and process and shines light on the beauty of Mapplethorpe’s “challenging” oeuvre. For her part, Smith has her beloved poetry. Watching her find a way to meld her love of Rimbaud with her love of rock and roll is truly fascinating. Over the course of the book you see the two find themselves, find their voice, and find a direction. Through it all, they have an unwavering commitment to each other, to push each other, to prod each other, to make sure their gifts find a place in the world. A beautiful story, beautifully written. Go Patti Smith.


Sharon Jones and The Dap Kings live at The Warfield, June 2010
It’s a party. It’s a throw down. Sharon Jones is on fire. The hardest working woman in showbiz. A non-stop, soul-shaking juggernaut. The band bills it as a soul revue, and they are not wrong. This is the second time I’ve seen Jones and she delivers full marks. Jones is a dynamo, bringing it full on for nearly two hours. Just goes to show, you don’t need to be young to know how to rock.