“Ingen mer Mr. Trevlig Stöttan!”
The best comment I ever heard about improvisation actually came from Phish keyboardist Page McConnell when he very simply stated that if the band had not been venturing out into the Great Unknown for 15 minutes, they would not have reached that point where everyone was in sync, a new form of music was being created on the spot and the entire audience was part of that process. There are numerous examples from a 20-plus year career where Phish did, indeed, find this passage of space after the 10- or 12- or McConnell-branded 15-minute demarcation mark. Suffice to say, it required the band and fan to be patient through quite a bit of improvising before one got to that sweet spot.
Ahh…but we get ahead of ourselves, and so close to the 50th edition of our little south bound saurez. Like some homeless, eccentric genius with an inability to find a purpose, or a way to fit into modern society, after centuries of peddling his interests for the elites and unwashed masses in various timeframes and locales, she finds herself, the very face of her being, changed and altered for a modern audience. What if someone’s temporal core remained somewhat constant, but the scenery changed as the calendar pages flew from the wall like some mad cartoonish time travel of a different sort? An interesting question to ponder in this edition of Hidden Flick as we investigate the masks worn by someone who never appears to age, let alone lose the ability to adapt with the times in the wonderful stream-of-consciousness-enriched Orlando.
The film is based on Virginia Woolf’s novel of an individual who lives through centuries of experience—the first half of his life as a man, and the second half, a woman. And you thought you had problems figuring out the opposite sex. Imagine being both, AND being somewhat of a fucking immortal without the craving for blood like some regal vampire. Well, our tricky little beast turns 49 this edition, and the penchant for improvised conceptual continuity throughout season 4 of Hidden Flick kicks into high gear, as we now look at not only time and space, but the eternal battle of the sexes.
READ ON for more on this week’s Hidden Flick – Orlando…
