White Tank Top's Top Three City Arts Fest Memories

Belle and Sebastian

At Heineken City Arts Fest 2010 I found out that Belle and Sebastian’s Stuart Murdoch (shown above) can freaking move! Justin Timberlake would have been impressed by Murdoch’s cross-stage capering. Even if none of the audience members invited on stage could quite duplicate his efforts, I loved the spirit.

Death of Fiction Fireside Chat

There’s nothing better than national treasure Eileen Myles saying, in her trademark Boston cadence, that she felt “violated” by the novels of Jonathan Franzen. I disagreed with many of her and David Shields’ criticisms of contemporary fiction, but that didn’t stop me from grabbing a copy of Myles’ new “poet’s novel” Inferno. She inscribed it “my pleasure,” but it was all mine.

Metropolis with Alloy Orchestra

I gasped upon seeing the first robotic steps of mad scientist Rotwang’s Maschinenmensch (Man-Machine) on the big screen in a packed SIFF Cinema. The shot, and a whole lot of Metropolis, remains uncanny and fresh eighty-five years later. To think a bunch of spray-painted “plastic wood” with a suffocating actress inside would be so iconic — it’s cinema’s moon landing.

Photo by Nate Watters

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