“How High Are Your Moons Today?” reviewed by Julia W. Rath

June 26, 2021

Somewhat Recommended **  Chaos Hands’ 15-minute film “How High Are Your Moons Today” is dizzying, but not in a good way. Based on a poem by Nicole Patrick, the moons seem to be conflated with magic mushrooms. While Patrick poses some interesting questions in her poetry –such as “How do you know that you’re special?”, “How do you know how tall you are?”, and “Ain’t it wonderful to be surrounded by family?”—the randomness of her wordplay is often over-the-top. (When was the last time you heard the words “booger” and “diabetes” in a poem?) Her stream-of-consciousness runs in circles, and this is often amplified by non sequitur video elements, which simply make your head spin. The constant and intentional rotation, strobing, whirring, and jerking of the camerawork and editing make it nearly impossible to enjoyably watch the livestream: I often found myself taking my eyes off my computer monitor to get some relief. Then I made myself stare at the show regardless (because after all, I’m reviewing it); but by the end of the fifteen minutes, I was shaking from the frenzy. Thank goodness for the warning at the start of the short film (with its giant exclamation point) that implies it could give you a headache or worse.

By far, the best part is the audio. Allison Wright is the amazing talent of the Chaos Hands’ trio. She was able to take Patrick’s drumming bits (yes, Patrick is a drummer as well as a poet) and add meaningful audio tracks behind them. She is definitely the visionary of the group, who can develop perfectly appropriate music to suit anything, including inane sentences having to do with corns and prunes. She and Patrick worked together to come up with unusual sound effects to back the verses as well. Cogent in her understanding of what the gift of audio can bring to a production, Wright admitted afterwards that she had not yet seen the final video that we watched today. Much of that was the work of Xuan, who added it to the audio tracks, which were created first. Note that some parts of the video were very good: I particularly liked the effect when the image of live scenery was placed on the back of a person’s clothing. I appreciated the quiet scenes with an empty chair on top of the snow and then watching the same scene with the same chair in the midst of the budding spring season. But as a whole, the extreme and intense video distracts us from everything else, such that all I could think about was “When will it be over?” The last bit of writing in the film says, “We hope you found what you were looking for.” Yes, I did. I could hardly wait for the end, and then it suddenly happened.

During the subsequent discussion led by Lisa Kaplan, of the Chicago Artists Workshop (CAW), the three artists stated that this was a work-in-progress and something creative that they could do during COVID. What I found most enlightening was the discussion separate from the aftertalk, where the three (each in their own Zoom box), explained how they pulled this entire piece together working from their homes across continents. It was interesting to see how Patrick and Wright collaborated using a program like ProTools to organize, insert, and mix musical tracks and sound effects. They admitted that doing this was fun but not a good substitute for getting together in person. It was Xuan, the third member of the trio, who later added the wildly exaggerated video effects and suggested that each of the three should be included in the video itself; therefore, we see separate sequences of them in the final cut.

What Chaos Hands will do next with this short is anybody’s guess, even to themselves. I have some suggestions as to where to start. Regarding the video effects, the first thing to do is internalize the expression, “Less is more.” The second thing is to realize that producing an experimental film is not solely for the pleasure of making it but involves an audience watching it—and there’s absolutely no need for any of us to become dazed. Finally, maybe it’s time to turn to some other libretto.

Sponsored by the Chicago Artists Workshop (CAW) and Eighth Blackbird, this remote performance by Chaos Hands took place on Saturday, June 26, 2021, and was available on live streaming video from the CAW/Eighth Blackbird website. For more information about this performance, please visit https://www.eighthblackbird.org/.

Tickets for this one-time event were $20 or available via tiered pricing.

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