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Presenting “Big, Bent Ears”
Image: Natalie F. Smith Many of you know Sam Stephenson from his excellent contributions to the Daily over the years. But he also has, with Ivan Weiss, a documentary nonprofit called Rock Fish...
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Big, Bent Ears, Part 1: There Are No Words
From Joseph Mitchell’s collected objects. Photo by Ivan Weiss We’ve posted the first chapter of Big, Bent Ears, Sam Stephenson and Ivan Weiss’s “Serial in Documentary Uncertainty.” If you missed it, we...
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Big, Bent Ears, Part 2: Borderline Religious
Photo: Kate Joyce “Every now and then, when I’m tuning, I can make myself cry,” he said at one point. How can a piano tuner make himself cry? I thought to myself. What in the act of tuning would cause...
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Big, Bent Ears, Part 3: A Documentary on Nazoranai
A still from the Nazoranai documentary. For the third chapter of Sam Stephenson and Ivan Weiss’s “Big, Bent Ears: A Serial in Documentary Uncertainty,” we’re premiering their documentary on Nazoranai,...
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Big, Bent Ears, Part 4: In Search of Lost Time in Knoxville
Michael Gira and his band, Swans, sound check before their Big Ears set. From a video by Mika Chance The fourth chapter of Big, Bent Ears, Sam Stephenson and Ivan Weiss’s “Serial in Documentary...
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Big, Bent Ears, Part 5: Alien Observers
Liz Harris of Grouper. Photo: Richard RothmanThe fifth chapter of “Big, Bent Ears,” Sam Stephenson and Ivan Weiss’s “Serial in Documentary Uncertainty,” features the work of Richard Rothman, a...
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Big, Bent Ears, Part 6: Treatise on the Veil
Cy Twombly Sr., back row, far left, with the swim team he coached at Washington & Lee University. From the 1950 W&L yearbook, Calyx. Photograph courtesy of the Special Collections &...
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Cy Twombly, the JACK, and the Morgan Library
On November 24, 2014, the JACK Quartet performed Matthias Pintscher’s Studies for Treatise on the Veil in a gallery at the Morgan Library, in New York, before a thirty-three-foot-long painting by Cy...
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Big, Bent Ears, Part 7: Anatomy of a Sequence
Tape markings on the stage of the Tennessee Theatre indicating equipment placement for tUnE-yArDs’s set at the Big Ears Music Festival in 2015. Photo: Kate JoyceWhat do crushed tulips, baseball, and...
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Big, Bent Ears, Chapter 8: Surrender to the Situation, Part 1
Photo: Ivan WeissOren Ambarchi and Tyondai Braxton lead parallel lives in the world of experimental music. Ambarchi, an avid collaborator and one-third of the noise trio Nazoranai, played at Big Ears...
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Big, Bent Ears, Chapter 9: Surrender to the Situation, Part 2
Photo: Ivan Weiss When I was going to school for classical music … I had about a month to get … my reading together. But I still learn by ear a lot faster. I can feel what I need to do. You can’t write...
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Big, Bent Ears, Chapter 10: Surrender to the Situation, Part 3
David and Julia on the Carolinian 80. Photo by Ivan Weiss.In his prose poem “Rounding Off to the Nearest Zero,” Albert Mobilio writes that “Driving, or at least driving alone, is, I’ve always found,...
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Big, Bent Ears, Epilogue: We’re Not Actually Here
Joseph Mitchell amid the wreckage of Lower Manhattan.“Big, Bent Ears,” our ten-chapter multimedia series with Rock Fish Stew, has come to a close. Over the past seven months, this “serial in...
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Big, Bent Ears, Chapter 3: A Documentary on Nazoranai
A still from the Nazoranai documentary. For the third chapter of Sam Stephenson and Ivan Weiss’s “Big, Bent Ears: A Serial in Documentary Uncertainty,” we’re premiering their documentary on Nazoranai,...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Big, Bent Ears, Chapter 4: In Search of Lost Time in Knoxville
Michael Gira and his band, Swans, sound check before their Big Ears set. From a video by Mika Chance The fourth chapter of Big, Bent Ears, Sam Stephenson and Ivan Weiss’s “Serial in Documentary...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Big, Bent Ears, Chapter 5: Alien Observers
Liz Harris of Grouper. Photo: Richard Rothman The fifth chapter of “Big, Bent Ears,” Sam Stephenson and Ivan Weiss’s “Serial in Documentary Uncertainty,” features the work of Richard Rothman, a...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Big, Bent Ears, Chapter 6: Treatise on the Veil
Cy Twombly Sr., back row, far left, with the swim team he coached at Washington & Lee University. From the 1950 W&L yearbook, Calyx. Photograph courtesy of the Special Collections &...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Cy Twombly, the JACK, and the Morgan Library
On November 24, 2014, the JACK Quartet performed Matthias Pintscher’s Studies for Treatise on the Veil in a gallery at the Morgan Library, in New York, before a thirty-three-foot-long painting by Cy...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Big, Bent Ears, Chapter 7: Anatomy of a Sequence
Tape markings on the stage of the Tennessee Theatre indicating equipment placement for tUnE-yArDs’s set at the Big Ears Music Festival in 2015. Photo: Kate Joyce What do crushed tulips, baseball, and...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Big, Bent Ears, Chapter 8: Surrender to the Situation, Part 1
Photo: Ivan Weiss Oren Ambarchi and Tyondai Braxton lead parallel lives in the world of experimental music. Ambarchi, an avid collaborator and one-third of the noise trio Nazoranai, played at Big Ears...
View Article