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Saturday, December 18, 2010

The Carnival of Illusion.

"Which way's the magic show?"



"We don't have a magic show," insisted the concierge. "We have a 'Carnival of Illusion'!"




Leading the way to a nice doorgirl/promoter who pointed out my name on the reservations list ... without any hint of who I was ... even before the show began. (Just psychic? Or secret Italian gypsy strega princess? Hmmmm.)




Once through the curtains, low slung tables and pedestals show off trappings of historical magicians, sepia-toned daguerreotypes of serious people, peacock feathers in brass spittoons, and bejeweled boxes with unknown contents from dark corners of Asia. Implications of travel, a thick black and gold ticket, velvet pile and damask hangings all have a terrific RomantiGoth setpiece feel to them.




Yet for all its Victorian window-dressings, there's something almost postmodern going on under the ruffled hemlines at Sarlot & Eyed's "Carnival of Illusion". You know it's a magic show, they know it's a magic show, and because of this there's a mental combination of shrug and wink which occurs at that cognitive crossroads that are completely acknowledged during the first few conjurings. But in a very quick reversal this matching pair makes you feel like you've taken a mysteriously exciting wrong train a couple stations ago, the compartment door's locked, and it's too late to get off now.




The whole hour-long affair mostly doesn't stray too far from the conventions of clever math, decks of cards, linking rings, folding of money, slights of hand, and bladed objects, but it's not the tricks that are exceptional -- it's Susan & Roland's unique delivery of their material that will charm the socks and garters off anyone who meets them. Using stylized movements, sophisticated and warm patter, sketch character acting, leading questions, and a proper alchemy of grace and humanity, they renew and give personal context to tricks of the trade and illusions you may have seen before, but never with this palpable sense of affection for the art of illusion and matchless savoir faire.




And above this, Roland conjures a couple David Blaine moments, when your suspension of disbelief actually no longer needs suspenders and you slackjawedly wonder how he just managed to pull off that bit of miraculous weirdness. He's arch and has this knowing look about him, but not in a condescending way like some illusionists, more in an intimate here-let-me-share-this-with-you fashion.




Case in point, my personal brush with Roland's phenomena: Being selected from the audience is never something I shoot for, but if you're the Gothic with a top hat in a small parlour audience limited to 35 people, you're unavoidably going to get picked to go up front. During an illusion called "Postcards Around the World" somehow three cards from a stack of 10 were dematerialized out from under my very-secured-to-its-chair behind, and just as mysteriously rematerialized under a lady's derriere across the room. For my bafflement and cooperation Roland awarded me with a large box of M&Ms.




And as for the very winning Miss Eyed, there's an Uno Attack-like moment as cards aggressively launch themselves from a brazier and she even more aggressively skewers a five of hearts in midair on the tip of her sword -- a card drawn by an audience member only minutes before, and completely uneyed by Miss Eyed. She's lovely, energetic, quite the dancer, and possesses expressive orbs that more than merit her surname. All that, an aisle of chips, and she gives great email.




True magic has been resurrected in the parlour at the DoubleTree in Tucson, and if you want a taste of what might possibly be on the real supernatural wonder, you'll go place yourselves in the deft hands of Sarlot & Eyed's "Carnival of Illusion".





[Miss Eyed & Sir Sarlot. Go get a fancy ticket to see them at www.carnivalofillusion.com or book them for your next fête.] 

P.S. No, I'm not being paid to write ad copy, or comped in any way to endorse said performers whom I had never met until tonight. I'm up at 5 am, a whole nine hours later, writing this and still thinking about how brilliant it was, okay? Okay.






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Addenda/Updated Disclosure (4.21.14): So since posting this show review back in 2010, I've hung out socially with these local living performance treasures, played much Jenga, smoked hookah, and then had the honour of being hired to successfully draft the text of the new version of their current souvenir program! Recently watched their performance again with some great changes (mentalism, op-art costumes, & knife-throwing!) and building upon all the same strengths they already have in their show, plus the now much more poetic program. They rock magic socks!




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While a mostly happy bookstore fixture for over two decades, Guillermo Maytorena IV is currently willing to entertain your serious proposals for employment as a literary/cinema critic, goth journalist, castellan, airship pilot/crewperson, investigative mythologist, or assisting in a craft brewery. Should you be connected to any of the above or equally interesting endeavours, do contact him via LinkedIn or G+.

Friday, December 17, 2010

the Legacy of Tron.

The success of 1982's "Tron" was because it rode the crest of arcade culture. If you were a kid pumping quarters into those arcade machines back in the day, you ate, drank, and sweated pixels because underneath it all you felt as though something more important was being accomplished on the other side of the screen. It was split-second life-or-death reaction times, and the payoff was when Flynn ends up on the other side of the cathode glass, and you find out it's all horrifically true: That we as users are electronic caesars committing our progamme gladiators to fight it out and kill for us, again and again and again.



Given how well that ethos of translation played out, you'd expect this 3.0 (because 2.0 already happened in a PC & console release awhile ago), that the game grid and digital environs would now reflect the ideas of time-consuming MMORPGs, first-person shooters, real-time strategy sims, higher-speed internet communications, terragig storage, smartphone applications, sexting, and all the other bells and whistles such technology has gifted us with in the last 28 years since the original "Tron". Instead what we have are updated designs on much of the things in the first film, plus a few new vehicles that should fly off toy shelves in time for the holidays. (Yes, I bought a die-cast Light Runner.)



Perhaps the true Legacy here is this: The investment of $200 million into this sequel only supports the fact that the 1980s still and will always rule the cultural school.








[Excellent double feature art poster credit to Eric Tan.]

Best bit? The Score. Pounding threat, electronics laced with a nearly human jarvik heartbeat so you know something's at risk. While Daft Punk's never been past a fun and rarified novelty, if they don't win an Oscar for this soundtrack, there's no justice on the aural grid.



The strength of Tron is its setting with all that it implies. The moment of emotional reaction of user being trapped in a computer world, that emotionally neutral wonderland of cold blues and angry reds being the dominant factor. Contrast with the compounding of Sam Flynn's reactions, and pushed over the edge by Michael Sheen's over the top performance as Castor, and what was once the placid cyberworld is now upstaged and imbalanced. The only apologetic I can fathom would be that since programs are now more sophisticated their behavior would be more emotional to reflect that, but the film doesn't imply this, and I had to come up with it.



Olivia Wilde is the digital hotness, and on top of that every lady in tightly glowing striped pajamas in this film is. Notably, icy blonde Beau Garrett's the digital coolness as Gem.



Nit picks: Jeff Bridges young computer generated face looked like digital botox -- it just never looked organically believeable. The light cycle sequence didn't have the uncontrollably insane velocity that was so felt in the first movie. Yes, it had alot of clever dynamic changes, but if it'd been rendered differently it might have possessed the hammering-heart-pushed-up-into-your-now-choking-neck thrill it should have.



And for a movie encapsulating the currents of lightspeed electrons, pacing flagged in a few spots. In the first even when there were moments you were learning something about the digital frontier, and it was more the still hum of a machine that you knew could wake up at any second. Here in parts where the chase isn't on, it's more like the machine's i7 got swapped for a P1 and you're waiting for the flippy hourglass to turn back into a cursor so you can get on with it.

Visually everything's very, very pretty. Spatially well defined, imparting a sense of place one'd love to visit and is left wanting more of at the end of two hours.



As a sequel "Tron Legacy" doesn't stand alone, but it makes a worthy successor to one of Disney's most ambitious modern classics. Helmets off to the house of mouse. Now let's go play some deadly frisbee on the Wii!



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Post-Review Film-Influenced Addenda:



from 12.3.14:




Exciting Tron-esque teaser panel from "Batman Incorporated" issue #7 (July 2011).






Followed by Batgirl on lightcycle in issue #8 (August 2011).

Morrison & Clark may have partially wanted to homage 1990's "Batman: Digital Justice" (and "Dick Tracy" from the dialogue and catchphrase in that first panel [clever!]), the first completely computer illustrated graphic novel, but the lines of light, neon primaries, and the lightcycle are pure "Tron Legacy", and speaks alot for Tron programming our expectations of what a virtual reality version of the internet might look like as Bruce Wayne upsells it to potential investors.



A month before the film, Marvel did a few "Tron Legacy" style variant covers as promotion for Disney, its parent company:




[Thor.]






[Spider-Man. Note Tron City-scape.]



From 9.12.13:



And then they got in ... to the real world:








[Happy accident lightcycle race in foreground. Photo credit goes to yours truly.]

It seems "Tron Legacy" director & professor of architecture Joseph Kosinski's design sensibilities & lightline styling accents have influenced someone else, and actually crossed through an I/O tower to rez up as Tucson's aLoft Hotel at Speedway & Campbell. At night it really does look like a data construct from The Grid.



from 8.3.13 at 4:07am:



Then there's nights when one re-screens with your peeps:Yes, Stacia & I derezz programs for the MCP!




[February 2011.]

Below, note the bottles of blue & green energy for thirsty video warriors, bowls of red vs blue computer chips, and, um, data-salsa. Yeah, hot mexi-data-salsa.




[Melisszler Vs Gwyeniflynn. July 2013.
Due to Grid wavelengths being outside of the visual 3700-7000 angstrom range, this photo's blurry. Also, Sark Lives! {somewhere in this shot}]






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While a mostly happy bookstore fixture for over two decades, Guillermo Maytorena IV is currently willing to entertain your serious proposals for employment as a literary/cinema critic, goth journalist, castellan, airship pilot/crewperson, investigative mythologist, or assisting in a craft brewery. Should you be connected to any of the above or equally interesting endeavours, do contact him via LinkedIn or G+.

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