"Subterranean Homesick Greens" (4/14/10, MTL, Mural by Henry Buszard, photo by Ezra S.)
"He's a huge Bob Dylan fan!," said a worker at a veterinarian's office in NDG about her boss who commissioned this fine mural of Bob Dylan on the vet's building.
To see Mr. Dylan in the original 1965 video upon which this mural is based, click here. Good for a pick-me-up anytime. Look for Allen Ginsberg looking highly rabbinic in the background.
Oh, and to see the Weird Al Yankovic cover of this song, click here!
I have not been able to post as often as I'd like due to busyness all around.
What's keeping me most busy is the amazing daughter that Alexandra and I had almost 6 months ago.... Lulu!
Here's a pic of me and Lulu above. You can see many more pix below too.
I'll be back with more Ez Sez blogging in the not too distant future. If you sign up for Email Alerts towards the top left, you'll be in the loop when the pix, poems, film news and general fun start churning out again.
("Oh, death..." Feb. 2006, Bowery Ballroom, NYC, pic by Ezra S.)
...and when the crisis passes when the coast is clear I'll be buffed down to a liquid and the world, world, world it is a sponge
Throughout this entire ugly outing I've been mumbling the convex of what I should be shouting but I'll soon be silent you'll soon hear nothing 'cause the world, world it is a sponge... (From "Sponge" by Vic Chesnutt, 1992)
He sang from his wheelchair like a steam-powered locomotive boiling to leave the station at noon sharp. This train has just now left the station. A few minutes early too.
I had the pleasure of meeting Vic Chesnutt on a several occasions before or after some of his concerts in New York and Montreal. We also bumped into each other and chatted coming out of a Bob Dylan show at Madison Square Garden one night.
I always thought he was a vastly talented performer and poet and knew that someday others would catch up with his shockingly honest music and and savour its jagged and dark, yet upliftingly twangy angles like I had these past fifteen years or so.
Maybe now that he is gone more people will.
One can start with my two favourite albums Little and Is The Actor Happy for an easy-wrenching way in. I started with Little. I vividly remember buying it at the now gone Tower Records on Broadway in The Village and not even being able to make it all the way home with it I was so excited to have the CD a friend had sampled for me the day before. I was hooked from the first second.
After leaving Tower with the CD, I was compelled to duck into a schlocky discount electronics store not a dozen doors up Broadway to ask if I could have a listen to some speakers in their demo room. I politely asked the salesman if I could put on my gleaming copy of Little into the CD player.
The salesman put it in, had a listen to Vic singing "I dreamed I was a-dancin' with Isadora Duncan" and swiftly drifted out of the room rolling his eyes. I listened undisturbed in that soundproof room for nearly the entire album. I may have even tried to get Vic's key-twisting voice to come out of all the stack of speakers in the room at once. The salesman never returned. I ended up buying every one of Vic's 15 or so CDs from that point on.
Vic died at the age 45 on Christmas day. People are saying it was suicide related to depression and being hooked on painkillers after years of post-car crash pain and disabilities. They're saying he was also in debt from medical bills. (Read NY Times article)
Whatever they say, I'll say this... here was a totally one of a kind artist who will live on through his prolific piles of albums. Nobody sounded like Vic and nobody, really nobody, wrote like the guy. Not even Dylan. I humbly and proudly say it.
Dylan wrote like Dylan, Vic wrote like Vic.
His songs will always tickle my mind and punch at my heart.
Vic, I'll miss you.
Ez
P.S. Right after writing this, I opened up iTunes and in 2 seconds flat called up the 122 Vic songs in there and hit Shuffle...
the song that came on...
"I'm Through":
"I'm through living my life for you/ yes, I hope for both our sakes, I'm through, through, through."
("Because I'm Through" Feb. 2006, Bowery Ballroom, NYC, pic by Ezra S.)
I am a man I am self aware And everywhere I go You're always right there with me
I flirted with you all my life And even kissed you once or twice And to this day I swear it was nice But clearly I was not ready
When you touched a friend of mine I thought I would lose my mind But I found out with time That really I was not ready
Oh, death Oh, death Oh, death Really, I'm not ready
Oh death, you hector me The death some make, those dear to me Tease me with your sweet relief You are cruel and you are constant
When my mom was cancer sick She fought so hard but then succumbed to it But you made her beg for it Lord, Jesus, please I'm ready
Oh, death Oh, death Oh, death Really, I'm not ready
Oh, death Oh, death Oh, death Clearly, I'm not ready No, no...
***
(Filmed live by hmc1410 on Nov 4th, 2009 at Lincoln Hall in Chicago)
In an interview in the online magazine Aquarium Drunkard, Vic had this to say about about "Flirted With You All My Life":
"Well, this song just kind of happened. It is very personal. During run-through, when I was showing it to everyone, in the first couple of takes, I had tears in my eyes. It was very emotional to me. I’d never sung this song out – it was only on paper. But when I sing it out loud, it was very emotional for me and very personal. I wanted to write a song about a suicidal person. It’s about me – I have suicidal tendencies. So it’s about a suicide who wanted to live...The song is about realizing that I don’t want to die. I want to live."
In an interview with NPR's Terri Gross on Fresh Air: "This is a joyous song. It's a heavy song, but it's a joyous song. It's a breakup song with death."
***
Vic,
You told me your late grandpa once said, "Woody Guthrie music's good but you can't dance to it."
Please tell Woody we're now dancing to it down here. Tell your grandpa we're now dancing to your music too.
I think they'll both be proud of the true gems you created.
Thank you for making me cry and laugh and always think, Vic.
Two farmers, two activists, a clothing designer, and a soapmaker.
Kudos to these six brave leaders of the hemp industry in the United States for driving up to the lawn of the DEA (U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency) in Virginia and planting hemp seeds.
They did this to make a statement about the fact that the USA is still the only industrialized nation to prohibit the growing of industrial hemp.
The six men were swiftly arrested by police, but not before snapping some excellent pix and shooting a short video commemorating the historic event. See them HERE.
The Washington Post did a great job capturing the event in a big article that came out today. You can read it HERE.
On Monday, September 21st, 2009 at 2:52pm, my sweet wife Alexandra gave birth to our sweet daughter Talula Anne Feigeh Rivke Lulav Soiferman (we call her "Lulu" for short).
Lulu was 7lbs and a few ounces at birth.
Mom n' baby gal are doing wonderfully.
Send telepathic diaper changes anytime!
Love to all from Montreal,
Ez
P.S. Here, from the future, is Lulu's first year in pictures...
La famille
(1 hour old)
(13 days fresh)
(4 weeks bouncy)
(5 weeks fuzzy)
(6 weeks sleepy)
(7 weeks cute)
(8 weeks warm)
(9 weeks giggly)
(10 weeks portraity)
(11 weeks bobbly)
(12.5 weeks Muppety)
(16 weeks Curious)
(17 weeks serious)
(19 weeks squeakety clean)
(21 weeks wide-eyed and sun-lit)
(6.5 months King Tut and Queen Tush)
(7.7 months "aaaaaaaaaaaaah!")
(8 months silly daddy)
(9 months pointy)
(10 months fresh-faced)
(11 months strawberried)
(12 months wavilicious)
This Luluness can go on forever but you've got other blog postings to get too!
Here's my old NYU buddy Marc Ostrick featured in a big new video interview on Blip.tv. The interview has Marc talking about his new project eGuiders.com, a site that brings the finest web videos, handpicked by media mavens, right to your digital doorstep.
I'm one of the core eGuiders on the site so you can be sure I dig what's going on over there. I think you might too. Have a peek.
I created this photo/poem montage not long after 9/11.
When I lived in NYC (91-95) I used to take walks down to the Twin Towers and go to the observatory at the top to see the city from the perspective of a drop of water in the clouds. It was a great way to humble oneself.
I also used to photograph the Twin Towers regularly, doing that had a bit of the opposite effect. So grand and photogenic were those buildings, one would think he or she was just maybe the very best photographer in the world.
Alexandra and I are expecting a baby any day now. At a party recently someone said, "Yikes, I hope it's not born on September 11th!" Someone else cut in, "Actually, I think that would be the most beautiful thing. That day needs more souls."
I leave you with that as I head out on a jog on this special day.
"It's a big world out there. It's an Ez Sez Blog in here."
.
Visit EzraSoiferman.com to see some of Ezra's many photo series, get info on his films & more. Ez sez: "Come for the flicks, check out the pix!"
.
In 2016-2017, Ezra served as the first Artist-in-Residence at Tweed - a division of Canopy Growth, one of the world's largest legal cannabis companies - and the world's first artist-in-residence at a cannabis company. Click HERE to see the press kit featuring articles on the groundbreaking year-long residency.
.
Follow @EzraSoiferman on Instagram today! It's a colourful world in there...
Ezra Soiferman is a Montreal-based artist with a few cameras and a bunch of ideas. He shoots documentary films, does street photography, and shares some of his coolest news via the Ez Sez Blog and shares his best photo series and videos at EzraSoiferman.com.
If you want to say hello, would like to purchase a copy of a film of his, if you’ve found a photo you absolutely must have up on a wall, or if you want to offer one as a present to a friend, drop a note to ezrasoif at gmail dot com.
To get EzSez blog posts by email whenever they are published, leave your address in the Subscribe box above.
Watch "The Walls of Montreal", the inaugural project from Ezra's Tweed Artist-in-Residence year
.
Read about about and order Ezra's acclaimed book “Last Game at The Forum” released on the 20th anniversary of the last Canadiens game at the Montreal Forum. (Click HERE to view)
GRASS FED (2015, CBC Documentary Channel)
Read about and learn how to watch Ezra's latest doc, Grass Fed. More info here.
Ezra is the Director and Co-Founder of the Montreal Film Group, a 2500+ member film and TV industry networking group.
.
In 2007-2010, Ezra created and served as the director of CinemaSpace, the 77-seat (first in the world with hemp upholstered movie theatre seats), HD, surround-sound film screening room at Montreal's Segal Centre for Performing Arts.
.
Ezra co-produced Film Pop in 2007, the film festival section of the Pop Montreal International Music Festival.
The Montreal Film Group featured as a 2007 Noisemaker. Read article
.
Ezra featured as a Quebecer of the Year, 1998
Ez with a few friends...
Ezra interning at Jim Henson Productions while attending NYU
DOCKSIDE TO BEDSIDE: 100 YEARS OF HERZL (2013, CityTV/Air Canada))
Narrated by Dennis Trudeau & Denys Arcand. Watch the film for free here
POSTHUMOUS PICKLE PARTY (2012 Vision TV / 2007, Canal D)
Co-Produced by Matt Zimbel and Ezra Soiferman. Winner of the 2008 Ville de Montreal Prize at Eurofest. More info.
COD HELP US (2005, NFB/CBC)
MAN OF GREASE (2000, TVO, CBC Newsworld, Air Canada, CTV, etc.)
"Yes, yes... I call you Azik one time!" Tony Koulakis of Cosmos Snack Bar in NDG. Read about the film and purchase a fresh copy.
TREE WEEKS (1998, CBC Newsworld/SRC/RDI)
Chuck & Randy in Tree Weeks, co-directed by Ezra Soiferman and Adam Steinman. Read about the film.
PRESSURE DROP (1994, NYU thesis film, 20+ Film Festivals)
Co-directed by Marc Ostrick and Ezra Soiferman. Winner of the NYU/Warner Bros. Production Award. Watch the film.
For More Peace...
Slogan and drawing by Ezra on September 12, 2001. As featured on Woody Harrelson's VoiceYourself.com. Ezra met him in NY a few years later and Woody said "Start Art, Not War... I like that!" View full size drawing.
"Bear With Me"
Photo by Max Beer, 2003
Ez with David Suzuki, 2005.
Ez with Scott Thompson (Kids In The Hall) and a hemp cookie.
Alpacas In Alpaca Hats - Official Ez Sez Mascots
Peru, 2004; concept and pix by Ezra Soiferman. Click here to learn why these guys are the Ez Sez mascots.
Recordings
Ezra writes and records country-folk music whenever there's a free moment. Stay tuned for new songs coming soon... a collaboration with his old friend Dylan Silverstein.
"Self-Portrait with alpaca hat and a bag of free snacks at a swanky airport lounge"
Ciao Mein!
Pick a random date and enjoy the trip deep into the Ez Sez Archives!
"Subterranean Homesick Greens" (4/14/10, MTL, Mural by Henry Buszard, photo by Ezra S.)
