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August 8, 2008

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Praxis

Maz Jobrani

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Glass/Ware

“HE’S A BASTARD, and he would say the same thing about me,” laughs public radio’s Ira Glass of comix novelist Chris Ware. “By working with Chris, I understood a lot better what it’s like to work with me, and it’s not pretty.”

The New York Times describes Glass, who produces and hosts the popular show This American Life on Public Radio International, as a journalist and storyteller with “a distinctive literary imagination, an eccentric intelligence, and a sympathetic heart.” The Times also praised Ware’s best-selling graphic novel, Jimmy Corrigan: The Smartest Kid on Earth, as “arguably the greatest achievement of the form, ever.” Glass and Ware became friends after Ware did artwork for the This American Life greatest hits CDs.

Then, two years ago, the two began collaborating on a Lost Buildings, story of Ware’s friend and Chicago historian Tim Samuelson’s childhood obsession with architect Louis Sullivan’s ornate buildings—many of which have since been demolished. The onstage slide show and radio performance was later turned into a popular pledge-drive DVD and book. But the project tested the pair’s bonds. Both are perfectionists and accustomed to having the final say.

Show_ChrisWare

“We got into a huge fight,” says Glass. The tug-of-war was over the length of one pause. Glass felt story timing was his territory, but Ware wanted control over how long his image sat on the screen. “I was pretty sure he wanted to punch me,” admits Ware.

Despite clashing over control, the joint venture left both men more inspired than frustrated. “He taught me more about storytelling than I’d learned in 10 years on my own,” says Ware. “I felt like we were nerdy high school kids staying up all night to finish our final project, to impress the girls in English class the next day.”

Glass has since persuaded Ware to publicly discuss their different storytelling methods and manias, and they will appear in Visible and Invisible Drawings, part of Cal Performance’s Strictly Speaking series, on Saturday, November 12, at 8:00 p.m. in Zellerbach Hall. Journalism Dean Orville Schell will be on hand to make sure they fight fair.

—April Kilcrease

Lunch Poems, a noontime series directed by Professor Robert Hass, continues November 3 with readings by California Poet Laureate Al Young. City Lights Bookstore founder Lawrence Ferlinghetti, whose iconoclastic voice influenced a generation of American poetry, follows on December 1. Morrison Library in Doe Library, from
12:10 p.m. to 12:50 p.m.

San Francisco Contemporary Music Players honors music professor emeritus Richard Felciano’s 75th birthday by performing his An American Decameron. The ensemble, which features many voices celebrating American diversity, is based on the interviews of oral historian Studs Terkel. Hertz Hall, November 7, 7:15 p.m. pre-concert talk, 8:00 p.m. concert.

Department of Theater, Dance and Performance Studies personifies the conflict between developed and developing countries through the dark comedy, Harvest. The play, set in India in 2010, features a desperate man who deliberates on selling his body parts to a wealthy client in exchange for a “Western’’ lifestyle for his family. Durham Studio Theater, November 11, 12, 18, 19, 8:00 p.m.; November 13, 20, 2:00 p.m.

Cal Performances celebrates, in music, the crossroads of the ancient Silk Road, featuring Ensemble Kaboul. Founded in 1995 by expatriates who fled the Taliban, the ensemble weaves Indian, Persian, and Arabic melodies with traditional Afghan music. Ustad Farida Mahwash, known internationally as Afghanistan’s greatest female singer, joins the group. Zellerbach, November 18, 8:00 p.m.

Center for Buddhist Studies presents Harvard art historian Eugene Wang’s Thinking Outside the Boxes: Nesting Reliquary Caskets from a Ninth-Century Chinese Monastic Crypt. Professor Wang displays caskets and relics discovered in a Tang dynasty pagoda basement to reveal an ancient and medieval Chinese imaginary cosmos. Institute of East Asian Studies conference room, 2223 Fulton St., December 1, 5:00 p.m.

Mark Morris Dance Group performs The Hard Nut—The Nutcracker with a Twist. The famously maverick dance troupe combines hip with heartwarming in its version of the classic holiday ballet, featuring Barbie dolls and G.I. Joes. This rendition enjoyed a sensational debut in London last December. Cal Performances, Zellerbach, December 9–18.

Further information at Cal Performances; Institute for East Asian Studies; Department of Theater, Dance & Performance Studies; Lunch Poems.

Red-Color News Soldier: The photograph above, a rare documentation of China’s Cultural Revolution, survives because Li Zhensheng hid his negatives from authorities in a hole cut in the floorboards of his home. Li was born in the northeastern port city of Dalian while it was under Japanese occupation, and his older brother died while fighting for Mao Zedong’s People’s Liberation Army near the end of China’s civil war. Trained as a cinematographer in Beijing, Li was nonetheless sent as a news photographer to the city of Heilongjiang, where he took this photo. At first a young backer of Mao’s Cultural Revolution, Li was awarded an official red armband that read: “Red-Color News Soldier.” But he soon ran afoul of author-ities for photographing “beyond the assignment,” was set upon a stage and publicly denounced, and then sent, with his wife, to one of the notorious “reedu-cation” camps in the countryside. The Cultural Revolution, which killed hundreds of thousands of people and ruined the lives of millions, ended with Mao’s death in 1976. Twelve years later, Li revealed the existence of the photographs and now, working with Robert Pledge of Contact Press, Phaidon has published a book of the pictures. A selection is on exhibit at the Graduate School of Journalism through December 17. For more information, visit contactpressimages.com.

WHAT TO SEE ON CAMPUS

SHOW

Photograph of Ira Glass by Richard Frank (above).
Illustration from Chris Ware's Lost Buildings DVD slide
show (left).

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• Cover Page
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• Shangri-la-la
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• Also: Berkeley 911
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• Editor's Note
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• In Memoriam
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• Twisted Titles

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