Before it closed this past weekend, I visited the Carsten Höller: Experience at the New Museum. More entertainment than art, the exhibit included a mirror carousel, a slide that cut through two stories of the museum, upside-down glasses, a relaxation tank, and some suspect pills you could take with water. I’m not sure if was a great exhibit or groundbreaking for the museum, but it was definitely an experience.

The start of the “experience” required the signing of many waivers and the receipt of a wrist band, which would allow you on the art rides. The line was a little ridiculous, so we did not in fact ride the slide, which is okay, because I’m a generally edgy person and you were thrown out into a room with a pounding strobe light and prone, soft-looking creatures:

Startling, right? My iPhone camera seems to have been freaking out a little with the strobe lights. Don’t stare too long at the edges of that photo… or at the walrus’ eyes.

We did ride the mirror carousel, which went slowly, but quick enough to make it a little nauseating with its swaying motion, as you stared into the rides above and below you. We also went into a room that made you look like a ghost.

If you rode the slide, you were also prey to the camera vultures (like me) as they waited for your figure to streak by.

I wasn’t able to see Carsten Höller’s installation of slides at the Tate in London, but at least from photos it looks like a little more exciting. Oddly, even with everything being geared towards interaction, there was oddly little exuberance in the exhibit. Maybe it was all the wristbands and lines. Maybe it was also that I was visiting near the end of the exhibit and things were looking a little beat up. Anyway, I am glad that I went, and it’s always exciting when a museum tries something a bit different. Now if they put a slide on the Guggenheim ramp, that would be exciting!

Chimera was an unsettling piece about a woman who finds out she is her own twin, or more specifically, she absorbed her twin in the womb and contains her DNA. That DNA of her unborn sister is what is in her son, making him effectively her nephew. The three characters in the piece, including a sardonic narrator, the mother, and her son, were all played by one actress, Suli Holum, who created Chimera with Deborah Stein. It was all played out in the tiny HERE theatre, with a kitchen backdrop that had many secret openings. The digital effects and lighting were also surprisingly good, creating a strange sort of atmosphere and fit with the scientific/medical focus. As a fan of medical oddities, I was also interested in the exploration of chimerism and what that would do to your sense of self, to be technically to people at once, to have a child who was not your own, but that of someone who you never allowed to be born. Like I said, unsettling.

The next Under the Radar performance I saw was GOODBAR, created by Bambï & Waterwell. It was my favorite of the festival, an over-the-top glam rock musical based on the 1975 novel Looking for Mr. Goodbar, about a schoolteacher who was brutally murdered, and turned out of have a double life, one that brought her close to many dangerous men in many shady clubs. I’ve been wanting to see the band Bambï again ever since I saw them as the house band at Littlefield’s talent shows, where I was blown away by the two singer’s: Hanna Cheek and Kevin Townley. (Watch their video for “Primatology,” filmed in the Natural History Museum, that’s a factually accurate and glammed out rock tribute to Jane Goodall.) Both Cheek and Townley have amazing, chameleon voices, especially Townley who plays the series of increasingly lecherous, growling men in the show. There were also video cameos by Ira Glass, Reggie Watts, and Moby, as well as enthusiastic backup dancers to the band. I’ve been listening to the GOODBAR EP on Spotify at work all week, and hope to be able to catch the NYC-based Bambï again soon.

The last performance I saw was Word Becomes Flesh, a piece by Marc Bamuthi Joseph based around dance and poetry. It was originally a one-man show performed by Joseph, but for Under the Radar it was staged as a collaborate performance. Different actors would come forward to embody fathers composing letters to their unborn sons, focused mainly on black male identity and played out with dance punctuations. There was also a great DJ, which will always get points from me.

This month, I was also able to see Looking for a Missing Employee at the COIL theatre festival (read my review for Hyperallergic here), and have tickets to the spring performance of Gatz at the Public, which I’m thrilled about. (It’s a six-hour performance that revolves around a reading of the Great Gatsby.) And, well, I’m seeing Sleep No More for the eighth time in February. Maybe 2012 will be the year of theatre for me!

I haven’t been back in New York for two weeks, yet Oklahoma City and the wondrous long vacation of the winter holidays already feels far away. I suppose part of it is the quick shift from lazing around my parents’ house watching football and drinking scotch, to returning to the hectic life of subways and 9-5 work days in New York. It was great to have such a long visit to Oklahoma, and I did find time for some adventure, which will all be recapped soon. I thought I would start with some photos from wandering around Oklahoma City, beginning with this shot of the Devon Tower at night. It’s astonishingly tall for Oklahoma City, like some sort of alien ship that plummeted into the center of the city. It’s still not quite finished, but it’s at its final height, dwarfing the surrounding buildings.

Right across from the Devon Tower is the newly renovated Myriad Gardens with its Crystal Bridge. For the holidays, there were changing colored lights inside the greenhouse. Although it was quite cold (luckily no blizzards like in past Christmases), there were people out wandering among the lights and ice skating in a small rink in the gardens.

The best lights, of course, were at Chesapeake. The natural gas company meticulously covers all the trees on its campus with lights, creating a sharply illuminated forest.

Here is another view of the Chesapeake lights.

My parents and I visited the State Capitol building while I was in town (always a fun and free attraction), and explored its empty halls. Everyone, including visitors, it seemed, was on vacation. Here are some iPhone cheating photos I took with the Hipstamatic Disposable camera app:

Although the Oklahoma State Capitol was designed with a dome, it didn’t get a dome until 2002, over eight decades after the rest of the building was completed in 1919. The money that was originally going to fund the dome was diverted to WWI, and the dome that is now standing was finally funded with private donations. The colors are meant to mimic the blue skies of Oklahoma and the vibrant hues of the Indian Blanket, the official state wildflower.

The Oklahoma State Art Collection in the capitol building is pretty impressive, with works by Okies like Ed Ruscha, Woody Crumbo, Nan Sheets, and Doel Reed. The metal animal mask shown above is by Ken Little.

Here’s an exterior shot of the capitol, where you can just make out the American Indian sculpture that stands on top of the dome. It’s called “The Guardian,” and although he might look small from here, he is actually 17.5 feet tall. He also makes the Oklahoma Capitol five feet taller than the US Capitol.

In addition to “The Guardian,” there are a few other statues on the grounds of the capitol, including this dynamic cowboy sculpture.

I’ll end with a shot of Lake Hefner, which was built in 1947. Yes, this lake was built. Most lakes in Oklahoma are manmade, and Hefner was set up as a city reservoir. It’s popular with windsurfers and kite boarders because the wind on the plains just never stops in Oklahoma City.

More Oklahoma posts soon!

While they made it onto my favorite NYC concerts of 2011 list, I haven’t had a chance to give the Weakerthans’ December 10 show at the Bowery Ballroom a proper recap. It was my first time to see them play live, even though I’ve been a longtime listener of their music, which is led by the vocals and guitar of former Propagandhi member John Samson. They were performing a series of four concerts at Bowery, each featuring one of their albums in its entirety. I ended up with tickets to the Reunion Tour night. (Reconstruction Site seemed to be the first to sell out, of course, before I got into the ticket buying game.)

The Weakerthans have been around since 1997, which has given them plenty of time to amass a cult of fans, who turned out enthusiastically for the show. Reunion Tour was released in 2007, and has a lot of the well-crafted, lyrics-oriented indie rock that absorbs you while listening and murmurs back into your ears long after. “Night Windows” off Reunion Tour is one of theirs that sometimes feels like a soundtrack for your own life, with a personal accessibility that’s hard for music to pull off.  ”Sun in an Empty Room,” about moving out of an apartment, is another great one:

However, the song that most gets me off the album, and that I almost can’t even stand listening to, is “Virtute the Cat Explains Her Departure.” On Reconstruction Site, Virtute the Cat was introduced as a rescued stray, who is trying to get her owner up out of his misery. It ends: “All you ever want to do is drink and watch TV/And frankly that thing doesn’t really interest me/I swear I’m going to bite you hard/And taste your tinny blood/If you don’t stop the self-defeating lies/You’ve been repeating since the day you brought me home/I know you’re strong.”

So, that song nearly makes me cry every time I hear it, but “Virtute the Cat Explains Her Departure” is never nearly, it’s always a heartbreaker. In it, Virtute explains what made her run away one night, and how now she “can’t remember the sound that you found for me.” That line just kills me every time, because what else is a pet’s name to them but a sound that you discovered and make just for them? And what better describes the loss of their home than forgetting that sound to the greater vast noise of a city?

Anyway, their cat songs always get me. However, the whole concert wasn’t all emotional tearjerkers, and they also played some of their more fun and clever songs like “Our Retired Explorer” and “Civil Twilight.” If you ever get a chance to see them live, take it! I certainly plan to take every chance I get.

If you wander around Williamsburg close to the shore of the East River, you can find some pretty cool street art. Animals and strange creatures in vibrant colors seem to be particularly popular right now. On the same day that I explored 5Pointz with Bron and Mark, we took the East River ferry from Long Island City to Williamsburg to continue our street art photography expedition. Below are some highlights:

Finally, this isn’t street art, but a pretty silly pun that required photographing:

Oh, and you can never have too many shots of NYC bridges:

Apparently there’s nowhere I’d rather be on New Year’s Eve than in Oklahoma City with the Flaming Lips, because that’s what I’ve done for the past four out of five years. (Read about 2009/10 here and 2010/11 here.) (The missing year is when I celebrated NYE on a bridge in Paris, but that’s another story.) The Flaming Lips’ NYE “Freak Outs” can always be counted on for plenty of confetti, lasers, ballons, and hordes of happy people dressed as animals.

This year was extra special, because opening was not only one of my favorite bands from NYC, Phantogram, but Yoko Ono and Sean Lennon, playing with the Plastic Ono Band. I will get to that surreal element in a moment. First, Phantogram was AMAZING. I’d actually not had a chance to see them live, and they sounded great and there were plenty of strobe lights. If you’re unfamiliar with their music, start with their 2011 song “When I’m Small“ and their 2010 “Mouthful of Diamonds” (which was on my favorite songs of 2010 list). Play them at your next party and everyone will love you and probably dance.

Next was Yoko Ono and the Plastic Ono Band, featuring Sean Lennon. Feel free to arch your eyebrow here, because yes, Yoko Ono of all people was playing at a New Year’s Eve concert in Oklahoma City. I’m not exactly a Yoko Ono fan, but it was pretty awesome to see her freak out Oklahoma City, and I mean that in the positive way, although it did involve a lot of screaming. Later in the evening, Yoko Ono, Sean Lennon (yes, that’s John Lennon’s son), and the Plastic Ono Band came back to take the stage with the Flaming Lips and played “Happy Xmas (War is Over).” Can I just say how awesome Sean Lennon’s voice is? Wow:

Is your heart brimming with warmth? Awesome. Then enjoy this group sing-a-long to “Give Peace A Chance”:

Oh right, listen to Scott Booker read the mayor’s declaration that the day be Yoko-Lahoma Day first. Do we celebrate that every year now? I feel like December 31 is already a holiday of some sort…

About halfway through the Flaming Lips’ headlining set, the clock struck midnight (although it looked like 11:55 pm to me, but we were on Wayne Coyne time). There was a torrent of balloons and confetti and confetti filled balloons.

And there were then even more balloons! And we continued to celebrate with more Flaming Lips songs and more John Lennon songs, including “Strawberry Fields”:

And a cover of “She’s So Heavy” that seemed to go on for about half an hour while remaining awesome (it may have been more like 15 minutes, so much smoke and lasers and bass and I lost track of time):

Are you spacing out yet? Freaking out?

Of course, the Flaming Lips played a lot of their own music as well, music that somehow never gets old. They ended the long night with their beautiful “Do You Realize?.” And there’s no other way I’d rather start and end my year than in a shower of swirling confetti with friends singing along with Wayne Coyne to that song:

Awww, that’s what we all look like from stage. Or from the perspective of Kliph Spurlock. Happy 2012 you all!

[PS, it's a new year and a new blog theme! I'm still experimenting with it. What do you think?]

New York is pretty cleaned up these days and most tags and graffiti, even if they’re deep in the subway, get scrubbed away fairly quickly. However, up in Long Island City there’s an awesome place called 5Pointz where street artist can legally create their art. Almost every inch of the warehouse building is covered in murals and tags, with visiting and local artists regularly altering the walls, making every visit a new visual experience. During friends Bron and Mark‘s visit to NYC, we took the 7 train to Queens to explore the current paint on the 5Pointz walls.

Before the photos of the awesome art, I should mention that 5Pointz is unfortunately in danger of being closing and replaced with, of course, condos. However, I can’t find any recent information, so perhaps the plans have been stalled. You can read about the proposed demolition here on WNYC.

Okay, now the photos! I really hope 5Pointz stays around. There’s really nothing else like it in NYC.

[See also: Favorite NYC Concerts of 2011]

15. Other Lives – Tamer Animals

I’m not surprised that out of all the Oklahoma bands I saw while I lived in the state, Other Lives (then known as Kunek) are having the most success. They always had a very serious, professional approach to their symphonic music. The title track of their 2011 album Tamer Animals, is a carefully built wave of piano, percussion, and droning lyrics. (And has an unsettling music video to go with it.) I saw them perform earlier this year at a packed Mercury Lounge and the songs had the whole place in a trance.
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14. Nat Baldwin – Weights

I saw Nat Baldwin open for Chad VanGaalen (who will be making an appearance on this list) at the Music Hall of Williamsburg and was astounded by his performance. It was just him singing and playing the stand up bass, which, actually, doing those two things successfully at once is pretty crazy. I looked up some of his music the next day and found this cool video of him performing the eerie “Weights” in a basketball court in Brooklyn. I hope to have a chance to see him perform again soon.

13. Cut Copy – Need You Now

No, I don’t know what’s going on in the music video, some sort of sports war/Olympics commercial for the future, but perhaps you can’t have dance scenes for every dancey song. The Australian group Cut Copy’s 2011 Zonoscope isn’t quite as unceasingly lively as 2008′s In Ghost Colours, but the album, highlighted by “Need You Now,” is an equally contagious ear worm.

12. Hooray for Earth – True Loves

Sure, I’m a little sad that there are no dancing puppets in Hooray for Earth’s over-the-top music video for the title track of their 2011 album True Loves, like in their euphoric “Surrounded by Your Friends” video, but I forgive them for that. I’ve had this song on repeat for a few months and I imagine that it will be true for many of their songs in the future. Keep an eye on their 80s-minded music, because I think it’s reaching some sort of electro-nirvana.

11. Ravens & Chimes – Carousel

Why are Ravens & Chimes not more popular? They release striking and light indie rock and put on skillful live shows (I saw them open for Other Lives this year, and for Voxtrot in 2010, and their “Division Street” was on my favorites songs of 2010 list). “Carousel” is an winding song with a mesmerizing build. I love it so much I used it as a looping soundtrack for writing one of my latest short stories.

10. Beirut – Santa Fe

Oh Zach Condon, I can’t hate you, even though it would be so easy: you’re younger than me and insanely talented, already releasing three marvelous full length albums as Beirut, including 2011′s The Rip Tide. “Santa Fe” is a catchy song about Condon’s hometown, with plenty of Beirut’s usual brass and Condon’s lovely voice, and a few synths on the side. I got to see Beirut perform much of the new album at this year’s Northside Festival, the perfect music for a summer’s night in Brooklyn.

9. Deer Tick – Main Street

Deer Tick are quickly becoming one of my favorite bands, with their slightly unhinged, raspy rock fueled by old country. I was lucky to see them twice this year, once in an intense show as Deervana, their Nirvana cover band, and another out on Pier 54 as themselves, which meant more intensity, but of the more light hearted variety. “Main Street” is off their 2011 album Divine Providence, and is a steady ballad accompanied by a music video with plenty of dangerous-looking explosions.

8. Wye Oak – Civilian

The Baltimore-duo Wye Oak made my favorites list last year after discovering them late in the music game with “Die,” and they put out another thrilling release this year. Civilian and its title track are captivating from beginning to end, with just enough creepy lyrics about baby teeth to keep me listening over and over.

7. The Decemberists – Down by the Water

I hadn’t been keeping up with the Decemberists’ new music in recent years, although their early album were college listening staples. However, I found myself going to see them in Prospect Park this summer and instantly was enamored with their songs off their 2011 album The King is Dead. “Down by the Water” is my favorite track, with the amazing Gillian Welch on guest vocals and guitar by Peter Buck of R.E.M. (R.I.P.).

6. Destroyer – Suicide Demo for Kara Walker

So seeing Destroyer live for the first time back in April at Webster Hall was a little disappointing. He seemed to sleep walk through the set, used a lyric sheet for his own songs, had a general air of not caring. It also didn’t help that I was seeing him the day after LCD Soundsystem’s legendary final show at Madison Square Garden, a hard act to follow for anyone. But I love Dan Bejar and his wandering voice and will forgive him for just about anything, his music is that good. You might remember I had “Chinatown” from his 2011 loungey album Kaputt on my best songs of 2010 list, as it was released as a single that year, and this year I’m adding “Suicide Demo for Kara Walker” to my list of favorite Destroyer songs. Although most of Bejar’s songs make sense only to him, with obscure lyrics and references to his other songs, this song was derived from cue cards the artist Kara Walker sent to Bejar that he chopped up into a skillful collaboration between stark words and glittery sleaze.

5. Patrick Wolf – Together

The real strength of Patrick Wolf’s 2011 album Lupercalia really came out when I saw him play much of it acoustic at le Poisson Rouge. It was my first time to see him live and I wasn’t sure he could pull off the vocals of his albums, but he did not at all disappoint, and was an incredibly charming performer who made me like him even more, which I didn’t think was possible. “Together” was especially good, so much so that I wish he’d recorded the acoustic version for the album instead, which made the celebratory tone of the original version suddenly heartbreaking. But since it’s Patrick Wolf, both versions are of course wonderful. And there’s a music video where he sings it with taxidermy foxes on his shoulders, so of course you want to watch that.

4. The Mountain Goats – The Age of Kings

You know that if the Mountain Goats release an album it’s going to make my favorites list. Not just because they’re one of my most loved bands, but because everything John Darnielle writes continues to be great. I was able to see them play much of their 2011 album All Eternals Deck at the Bowery Ballroom in April and it was just as good played in the large venue as late nights in my headphones. “The Age of Kings” is a stand out track, with sonic layers under Darnielle’s evenly stated, ominous lyrics.

3. Chad VanGaalen – Sara

After obsessing over his music for quite a while, I finally got to see Chad VanGaalen play live this year when he stopped at the Music Hall of Williamsburg to support his new album. He played “Sara” on a guitar he might have built himself. “Sara,” like all of his best songs, has a simple beauty that stays with me.
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2. M83 – Midnight City

M83, the French electronic act mostly headed by Anthony Gonzalez, released another great album this year. Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming is a sprawling, starry album with the single “Midnight City” being the most addictive track. Once it happened to come up on my iPhone just as I was crossing the Manhattan Bridge one night on the N train. No song released this year is more perfect for speeding across the East River towards the towering glitter of the NYC skyscrapers.

1. The Antlers – No Widows

My favorite song on my favorite album of 2011. The Antlers’ 2011 album Burst Apart may not be as achingly haunting as their 2009 release Hospice, but it’s just as gorgeous and has a rich delicacy. While I love the whole album (and listening to whole albums is a rarity for me these Pandora/Spotify days), “No Widows” is instantly transporting no matter how many times I listen to it. I was also lucky enough to see them play a free “secret” show at the Ace Hotel this year, after seeing them play on Pier 54 in 2010. I can’t wait to hear what music they’ll create next.

I have a confession to make: I’ve never been to Coney Island in the height of summer, when crowds swarm the sunny boardwalk and beach. All my visits have been in winter, when most everything is closed and the rides are still. This is partly because I hate the heat, but mostly because I love how weird Coney Island is when the actual amusement park is shut down. It makes it so much stranger, makes it more like I’m traveling to another time and place when I get off the train.

Recently, friends Bron and Mark were visiting from Melbourne and we went on a photography adventure to Coney Island. Here are some of my photos: