SHARKFORUM: OPINION WITH TEETH

Sharkstock 2006 is only hours since past, and by all accounts it was a tremendous success. Early estimates place crowd figures somewhere around 500, and a good time seems to have been had by all.

And why not? Happy busy sharks are friendly sharks, and who could be anything but happy when you've got the likes of Mucca Pazza, The Nicholas Tremulis Orchestra, Rick Rizzo and the issues playing?

While that's all a happy memory, there's no reason to stop now. Sharkforum is not just about making merry, it's also about artists helping themselves and others. To that end Wesley Kimler and David Roth will be giving a presentation tomorrow (Sunday) at 2:00 PM at Art Chicago (Chicago's Merchandise Mart, 8th floor) entitled "Promotional Bootstrapping and Self-Publishing for Artists in a Brave New World."

Come say hello! ~

Posted by ed at 11:58 PM | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBacks (0)

Sharkforum's own John Kruth blows the doors off the Bowery Poetry Club:

In the face of rising oil prices, religious fanaticism and the threat of nuclear devastation

THE BOWERY POETRY CLUB PROUDLY PRESENTS:

Reckless Optimism
featuring:
JOHN KRUTH – mandolin, guitar, harmonica, voice
JOY ASKEW (Peter Gabriel, Laurie Anderson) – keyboards, voice
DAVE DREIWITZ (Ween) - bass
ANDY DEMOS – drums, tabla
&
IBRAHIM GONZALEZ (AKA the Mambo Dervish) - congas

SATURDAY, APRIL 29TH @ 8 PM - $8
THE BOWERY POETRY CLUB
308 BOWERY, NYC
(X the street from CBGB)

FUNKY, FOLKY, PSYCHEDELIC, SOUL

~

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Note: I wrote the below before the turmoil of Art Chicago 2006 that still hasn’t completely played out at the time of this article’s posting. I hope everything works out, but I have to admit, I wasn’t planning to attend the opening night no matter when or where it takes place. Just too many memories….

Dave asked that we all put forth our best stuff this week, as Sharkforum is participating, due to the generosity of Tom Blackman, in Art Chicago. I thought for a moment, wondering what my best stuff might be, and with a cut of dread realized it is probably Nostalgia.

Last week I was a guest speaker for a undergraduate class at UIC. I was there to talk about the inner workings of museums. In introducing myself, I was appalled to hear myself say “I’ve been at the MCA probably longer than most of you have been on this earth.” Of course I wasn’t appalled because I was exaggerating or anything like that. I was appalled because when I was ‘their age’ I would have squirmed to hear anyone saying such a thing. How old-fogey can you get. (Now that’s a term you don’t hear much these days.) How does saying such a thing do anything except point out the obvious while using a really really embarrassing cliché? But the truth of the matter is I have been around a while now, and yes, I remember the ‘old days.’ In the course of my speechifying and exhorting of the ten or twelve earnest young people, including a girl who brushed her hair during class, which of course catapulted me far enough back to realize, with a start, that my self-conscious, how-do-I-look, hairbrushing-in-public days were so long past as to be terrifying obscure to me, I even mentioned the old days of the art fair. Yes, the art fair, for it wasn’t always Art Chicago, having started out at the Chicago International Art Exposition. Tom Blackman’s Art Chicago was in fact the upstart, much like Nova is to Art Chicago, begun with great excitement and anticipation cheek-by-jowl with the Navy Pier’s CIAE, in a tent on a parcel of real estate on Ogden Slip that surely now sports at least one, maybe even two, sixty-story shiny condo highrises. For this class, interested as they were in the inner workings of museums, especially the one I work for, I pointed out that in the 1980s and well into the 1990s the MCA routinely scheduled its ‘best stuff’ in May, when the international art world came town for the Fair. (The late April dates being a function of the “new” incarnation of Art Chicago, returning to its roots to a tent as it did last year).

It was glorious, as I’m sure you who were there remember and you who weren’t have heard a hundred times or more. Opening night of Art Expo at Navy Pier, before it was turned into the hell hole of a tourist attraction it currently is, was positively magical. It is not only I who waxes nostalgic for the ramshackle series of sheds and broken-down warehousing facilities that was the “old pier.” I’ve not heard a single person say, “Oh, it’s much better now. A tent in the middle of a park really is a more intriguing location.” You would walk arm-and-arm with your companion for the evening, undisturbed except by seagulls, your finery ruffled by the still chilly early May winds, past the ghosts of maritime shipping and the UIC which called the pier home in the 1960s. Or perhaps you didn’t even know about this history. You instead walked blissfully in some twilight zone of timelessness the length of derelict, abandoned structures, admiring the offerings of Mayor Byrne’s Mile of Sculpture, (which evolved eventually into Pierwalk, which is on its last leg too, and hasn’t been on the pier itself for years now) to enter into the Grand Ballroom, the one part of the pier that apparently resisted renovation into a lame mall reeking of cinabons and the grease from a hundred different deep fryers. After all the dereliction, it was a wonderland, the dome of the ballroom soaring magnificently overhead. If you looked closely, yes, the Grand Ballroom was in disrepair too, various holes letting in birds (and yes, rain) that swooped over the floor of the space which had been transformed into a maze of booths.

It was one of the first of the international art fairs, and it certainly transformed Chicago. Europeans who had never before been to the city were effusive in their praise for our town, and this was before the current Mayor Daley ‘beautified’ it with all the median plantings and wrought iron. I remember one German dealer (yes, that was in the old days when they were called dealers) expressing amazement that Chicago had so many trees. I realized later it was because he had only experienced America in the form of New York, which had and still has none. I remember walking past the Castelli booth and seeing Leo Castelli himself holding forth with various of Chicago’s collecting luminaries. There couldn’t have been anything more glorious that Leo Castelli feeling it was important for his legendary gallery to be represented at the Chicago art fair. I remembered Chicago’s legendary collectors, Joe Shapiro, Edwin Bergman, and Jerry Elliott, now all deceased, scooting from booth to booth with almost maniacal energy, so stimulated they were by the opportunity to see so much art, and so much of it very very good. Angela Flowers always brought museum-quality works by twentieth-century masters. Carl Solway Gallery, an outpost of incredible international art located in Cincinnati, would routinely mount amazing major works by Nam June Paik. And on and on.

And if during the gala opening night you ended up with two dates, you could leave one stuffing himself with shrimp while you snuck out of the ballroom into the magnificent night air, the sounds of Lake Michigan drowning out the art bustle not twenty yards away. Out at the end of the pier you could look to the east and see stars in the sky, and look to the west and see Chicago’s skyline, and the splendors of the night would juxtapose with the splendors of the art you'd seen to create a state of mind that made everything vital and alive and utterly memorable. The location was as important as the event. There was nothing like it, not in Basel, New York, Miami, Los Angeles, San Francisco, or wherever art fairs sprang up. And that’s not nostalgia, but the truth.

Enough has been written about the importance of the art fair to the growth of Chicago’s art community. What hasn’t been explored, I think, is how the Chicago International Art Expo, Art Chicago, and the other incarnations of “the fair” changed the international art world. Would Basel Basel be the same art fair it is today? Perhaps. But Basel Miami probably wouldn’t. Would the New York Armory show draw collectors and curators from around the world as it has for the past five years or so? Probably not. New York for years thought mounting a huge international art fair was unnecessary, as the international art world routinely showed up there anyway, didn’t it? And is it too much to suggest that the explosion in the art market of the 1980s and the explosion of attendance at international biennales had something to do with the fact so many American, European, Japanese, Korean, Mexican, South American art world players got to know each other at those early Art Expos in America’s heartland?

We’ve all known Chicago’s Art Fair has been seriously ill for a number of years now. MCA pulled out of the benefit opening night a while ago now, and no longer programs with the opening night of the fair in mind. What seems important is not to lament that the good old days have passed, but to keep in mind what we are currently reaping from those good old days. A hugely expanded art community, a different profile for contemporary art in the minds of the larger community, and so many artists and galleries that it is impossible to know them all. But for me, I’ll float for a while in my nostalgia, and let others tell me of the news from the Mart and the City Suites Hotel on Belmont.

More later,

Lynne.

Posted by Lynne Warren at 07:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Press Release
April 18, 2006


SHARKFORUM PRESENTS SHARKSTOCK 2006

Chicago, April 18, Sharkforum presents Sharkstock 2006. Sharkstock is a celebration of the new Sharkforum (www.sharkforum.org) and will feature live music by Nicholas Tremulis Orchestra, Mucca Pazza, Rick Rizzo, The Issues, poetry by Simone Muench and Special Guests to be announced. On display will be original art by Wesley Kimler, David Roth, Ursula Sokolowska and Ray Pride.

Sharkstock coincides with Art Chicago in the Park 2006 in Grant Park, where Sharkforum will have an information booth and where Wesley Kimler and David Roth will lead a discussion titled, "Promotional Bootstrapping and Self-Publishing for Artists," on Sunday, May 30, at 2 p.m.

EVENT DETAILS
Friday, April 28, 2006
8:30 p.m.
Wesley Kimler’s Studio
2046 West Carroll, Chicago

ABOUT SHARKFORUM
Sharkforum.org, Opinion with Teeth, is a collective of artists and like minded individuals, working under the premise that artists, like carcharodon carcharias, are apex in their environment.  Sharkforum is a work in progress, working towards creating infrastructure, both virtual and analog; to promote its members, their interests, as well as work that shares the forum’s values.

“Sharkforum is about artists taking back the art world. It is about artists deciding what is important and interesting.” – Wesley Kimler

ABOUT ARTCHICAGO
Art Chicago in the Park 2006 will return to its spectacular downtown location at Butler Field on Chicago's beautiful lakefront. The fair will take place from April 28 - May 1, in a gracious tent structure across from the Art Institute of Chicago and adjacent to the world famous Millennium Park. Visit www.artchicago.com for details.

Posted by ed at 06:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBacks (0)

The Progressive Department at Atlantic Records was tucked away in a corner of the label headquarters in New York’s Rockefeller Center offices. Why they called it progressive, I’ll never be certain; there was no plan for progress. The bands were not well-known; The Subdudes, Map of the World, Lemonheads (before Mrs. Robinson). The department was there because indies were getting too popular. Just in case there was money to be made, the majors wanted to make sure they were the ones making it. When A&R rep Bettina Richards came to see Eleventh Dream Day for the first time at Cabaret Metro, she walked up to the dressing room moments after our guitarist Baird Figi had hurtled a folding chair down the stairs in disgust at what he thought was our worst gig ever. After sidestepping the chair she assured us in her inimitable affability that we were great and that no band was ever signed or not signed because of one gig. By January of 1990 we had remixed our Beet record at Fort Apache in Boston with Lou Giordano and were ready for our first major tour. When I first saw that classic green, white and orange Atlantic label with our name on it I felt as excited as I would have making my pitching debut with the Chicago Cubs. Led Zeppelin- Houses of the Holy and Eleventh Dream Day.

Lord, we were green. When Atlantic asked us to send the artwork for the dust cover, Catherine Irwin sent in her wonderful beet drawing and handwritten song list on the back, and was so thorough that she also drew the spine for the record. The art department in New York thought it was some kind of a joke. We needed a lawyer to work up the contract. When we were mixing in Boston, we had dinner with writer Byron Coley and met this fellow, Michael who had managed Mission of Burma in the early eighties. And he was a lawyer-what luck! That’s the only resume we needed; he was hired. I loved Burma! Where do we sign? According to Bettina years later, the contract we signed for the whopping figure of $25,000 was apparently more than our lawyer asked for. They had to convince him to take more. See, if you took less money, you could recoup faster on your royalties. He was a genius! After paying our lawyer and $10,000 to Amoeba to alleviate our guilt for jumping to a major; do the math, we were flush! That went down so well, we hired our lawyer to be our manager too. You know, to make it easier.

Note to any band thinking of signing to a major label- First of all don’t. If you must though, get the biggest damn advance you can possibly get. Ask for a gazillion dollars. Buy a house. Buy a round for all your friends. Buy another house. No matter if you get $25,000 dollars or $250,000 dollars, you ain’t recouping. No way. No how. You’ll get your mechanical royalties, you’ll get your publishing money, but you’ll never recoup on your advance- ask for the world. Of course, we felt like dweebs. Who were we to ask for the sky? Lesson one: Get a lawyer who at least owns a good suit.

That first tour was amazing. We went on the road with the Meat Puppets. They were as wacky as the kooky cartoony figures gracing their record covers. Very sweet guys though. They were driven around by Chris’s girlfriend in a big rv. The funniest thing I’ve ever seen was sitting inside the restaurant at Maxwell’s in Hoboken watching her try to parallel park that thing. We got great press on that tour; we were selling records and getting tons of college airplay. At one point we were number two on the CMJ charts. Curse you They Might Be Giants! If we were that high on the CMJ charts nowadays it would mean we were selling boatloads of records. Back then, it meant college radio was playing you. That’s all. Since we were top ten on the Gavin Report it meant that MTV would play us on 120 minutes. We got Testify played six weeks in a row and did an interview on the show. All told, we did our job for Beet. We got our name out there, we rocked on our first European tour, and sold somewhere around 25,000 to 30,000 records. It was an absolute blast. I loved touring. I would get to a gig, sound check, then walk miles around exploring whatever town we were in. Promotion was a bit of a drag, but we played the game. We used to have to eat dinner with local retailers and marketing people- meet and greets. Doug pulled my favorite rock star move ever. He asked the waitress for the most expensive beer on the menu. She brought him a ten dollar bottle of cherry lambic which he promptly put his cigarette in, using it as an ash tray.

Touring wasn’t a blast for all of us. Baird, who was newly married was somewhat tortured by having to leave his wife. He asked if we could take her with us on our first trip to Europe after the 5 week Meat Puppet jaunt. After one week it was almost unbearable. Our roadie Michael hated her with a passion. She was bored silly. She had no idea just what touring entailed- it’s not exactly sightseeing, it’s mostly waiting for hours inside of grotesque, smelly dressing rooms getting drunk and waiting for your one hour to play. She refused at first to help by selling t-shirts. She spent a lot of time whispering her discontent to Baird. We plotted ways to lose her. On the next record, it was no surprise that Baird would bail mid-tour to go back home. Poor guy. She was the kind of woman that makes a man want to hit the road.

After the moderate success of Beet, Atlantic was geared up for our second record. This one could break us out big time. When I say Atlantic was happy, I mean our little corner of the building. The Atlantic of Phil Collins didn’t know who the hell we were. I remember them flying us out to L.A. to do some press. Great hotel. We went down to the offices to meet the head honchos. We went in to say hi to the vice prez. He was on the phone screaming at someone to get that effin Debbie Gibson tape on his desk pronto. “Hi guys,” he turned. “Great stuff. Sorry, I got to take this call. Nice to meet you.”


We got to choose a producer and a place to make the record. Cub Run, Kentucky. We brought Timothy Powell’s mobile truck down to KY. and plopped it down next to a barn on an idyllic farm in the middle of silent nowhere. They were running Civil War reenactments close by, that was about it for excitement. That was a fun record to make- whiffle ball and loud guitars. We made the record we wanted to make- it was mastered like crap, but we were happy. Then Bettina left Atlantic. Peter Koepke, one of the good ones and Bettina’s boss, jumped ship to London Records, and although she felt bad, Atlantic had no desire for this “post-modern rock”. When we asked about a video, they told us that MTV wasn’t going to play videos anymore. We made one on our own anyway. The new A and R guy was no Bettina. It was hopeless. We were totally hung out to dry. We did another 15 weeks of promotion and touring. We were at our peak sonically, our tour in Europe with Yo La Tengo was wildly fun and successful. In the end, we moved up modestly to about 35,000 records. A smashing disappointment.

That summer, I noticed a loophole in our contract. If the label didn’t send a letter by such and such date, the contract and eight record deal was null and void. We were free and started to contact other labels. Why Atlantic called and asked us to stay I’ll never know. The new Prez himself, the man with the dead fish handshake, scheduled a lunch and flew to Chicago.

By the time we resigned with Atlantic we had seen both Nirvana and the Smashing Pumpkins open for us at Metro and begin meteoric rises. Why did we resign? For one, the Prez agreed to forgive our mountain of debt. We would get a clean slate. In retrospect, this was meaningless. Remember, under no circumstance would we ever recoup royalties anyway. It was a moot point. The sweet talk that got me though was the schtick about Sonic Youth. Like Geffen working Goo for months until it finally broke, Atlantic was going to stick with us for the long haul. My logic worked like this- if the label was willing to bring us back they must have believed they could do something with us; otherwise, why bother? The cool thing is, we booked one month at Sorcerer Studios in New York City to work with the engineer who we believed was responsible for the Matthew Sweet Girlfriend sound. We had an amazing apartment rented at Mott and Prince in Little Italy next door to a Ray’s Pizza joint. We also had a baby in tow, Matthew Beveridge Rizzo. When we walked in to the studio on the first day, we passed a row of vintage amps. The name written on masking tape- Television. The next day we started tracking the record. Our producer told Doug and I that, don’t look now, but Tom Verlaine is upstairs in the lounge. Needless to say, we went up to play some pool. The session seemed blessed. As much as I enjoyed living in New York, I was not used to having so much time to make a record. I got fidgety. New guitarist Wink asked to have a whole day for himself just to play on top of everything; the producer could splice and dice what we didn’t want later. I quickly saw that most of the extra time would be used by the producer to do his magic. Unfortunately most of his magic was spent on the phone. Future deals were rolling in, they couldn’t wait. One afternoon, when I was ready to overdub a solo on the song Rubberband I became so flummoxed by an interrupting call that I threw my Les Paul against the control room glass window. The guitar bounced off onto the floor. Strong stuff,that studio glass. I went back to the apartment for the day. I have to give the producer credit; I think it’s a great sounding record. I truly thought we had a hit record. El Moodio in my mind had the goods. In less than three months we were through. After our final Dutch show Wink and our roadie, Jimmy rode in the back of the van drunk and naked. I’m sorry Matt if that traumatized you as a one year old. I still don’t know why it didn’t work out. There was good press, good touring. Blame the manager? Didn’t throw enough payola at the radio stations? Most likely, it was that we were irrelevant. In the nineties there was music before Nirvana and music after Nirvana. The Catch-22 for Eleventh Dream Day-“ B.N.”, the industry had bands like us on the pay no mind list. “A.N.” the listeners’ taste had us on the pay no mind list. I didn’t stick around to blame anybody. I knew by the end of the last tour that music would not be the way I would support my family. Atlantic felt the same way. The nineties continued without me. Grunge and the internet got kind of big.

Next: The Naughts- state of the nation

Posted by Rick Rizzo at 11:48 AM | Permalink | Comments (5) | TrackBacks (0)

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Posted by Ursula Sokolowska at 10:32 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

There's an old saw employed by artists, actors and musicians when they can't find work: "I can't even get arrested in this town." Well my earnest young aspirer - fret no more! Here's a fool proof way to get your name in print, and you know what they say - it's not bad PR if they spell your name right.

Forget that painting of Mayor Washington in lingerie, or that American flag on the floor, or even that ever-so-reviled Crucifix in urine.

No sir or ma'am, you can now use the nail-biting reality of the post 9/11 security state to your advantage. Take a sad song and make it better!

Courtesy ITV News:

Security alert sparked by 'artist'
1.47PM, Wed Apr 26 2006

A woman has been arrested in connection with a security alert sparked by the discovery of a number of suspect packages.

Police said the 36-year-old told them she had planted the packages as part of an art installation.

Parts of London were brought to a standstill as four packaged were found in the Shepherd's Bush and Hammersmith Grove areas of west London.

Roads were sealed off and London Underground was forced to suspend services on the Piccadilly and District lines as the bomb squad were called in.

Scotland Yard said the woman was arrested on suspicion of causing a public nuisance.

"While officers were responding to the incidents a 36-year-old woman attended a west London police station," said a police spokeswoman.

"The woman who is from the Shepherd's Bush area and who described herself as an artist was then arrested on suspicion of causing a public nuisance and taken into custody where she remains."

Posted by ed at 11:09 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

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Posted by david roth at 03:42 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Here's a "Covers Bunch" which I made as a sort of editorial cartoon commenting on our artworld. It is a collage of paintings of mine with some added verbage in the center. It is intended as a comment on the entire little, international art scene as I see it at the moment, not only Chicago or New York or Europe or wherever.

-------------->Click This Image to Enlarge!<-------------- -------------->Click This Image to Enlarge!<--------------

Posted by Mark Staff Brandl at 06:34 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

While Tom Blackman and the good people at the Chicago Merchandise Mart have managed to salvage Art Chicago, Michael Workman and the gang at the NOVA Art Fair have been making busy as usual. We at Sharkforum think that shows like NOVA are exactly what the Chicago scene is in need of - spirited advocates who are prepared to help others and themselves as well.


We'll wait for the dust to settle on this week's controversy, but the smell of change is in the water. Regardless of all the competing views about museums, galleries, shows, academies and artists, one thing is certain - the Chicago art community had better find a way to move forward and institute some real change.

There's been a lot of talk around these parts lately, much of it heated, regarding the nature of our "problem." Many feel that the "tastemakers" are overtly doctrinaire and self-serving, while others feel that the problem is excessive dissent and rancorous in-fighting between people who have more to gain from cooperation and collaboration.

My personal feeling is that there's likely a smidge of truth in both, and the problem is greater than both of these positions. As always it's clear that artists need to take back art, need to take an active role in their career, and need to take some responsibility for our current condition. Additionally, it's becoming increasingly obvious that dealers had better realize that things are much different than they were in the late 80's. The advent of the web, in addition to the fact that we no longer enjoy a centralized gallery district have provided powerful opportunity and daunting challenge.

The Chicago scene seems to have become top-heavy, ponderous and brittle. And while we fight for the remaining deck chairs on the Titanic we're all going to be chillin' in Davey Jones' Locker if we don't get some movement happening.

So go to the fairs, enjoy the art - and remember that art is basically Soylent Green - people.

Posted by ed at 11:58 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

She certainly ain't singin':

"Art Chicago in the Park announces a change in venue!

With the generous assistance of the Merchandise Mart Properties, Inc., Art Chicago has been given the opportunity to mount its International Exposition of 104 dealers in one of the Mart's massive exhibition halls!

Please join Art Chicago 2006, April 28th - May 1st. at Chicago's Merchandise Mart at 350 N. Orleans."

And Sharkforum will be there as well - come see us - the Chicago River will be teeming with sharks. ~

Posted by ed at 11:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

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The ghosts won’t come to rest. For months, I’ve culled their mythology, steeped it in Chicago history and flashes of abrupt beauty. Close my eyes—their tale dodges me. Open my eyes? I see the passways of their restless circling. I frame and then run as the image materializes.

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Day, night: there are doors to be opened, barriers finessed.

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I will not tell you how they died but if you know Chicago's twentieth century back to almost its start, you would know their cries.

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They live here. They remember heartbeats in blood that once flowed freely. They do not sleep.

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They hide in rain, they play in darkness.

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They were only ever children.

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Posted by Ray Pride at 10:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

After another short night, and another drive to the airport at Kloten, we dropped Julie off… Sergio talked her into taking the Zimmerman accordion back to Nashville with her.

We played a trio gig at the Palazzo Mysanus in Samedan on the 29th, a ski town about as far to the southeast as you can go in Switzerland, and accessible this time of year only by a train ferry. It’s not always easy to play for the locals in a resort town, and this was one of those nights. We played for ourselves and at the end we won over a small crowd. Stopping once for coffee, and again when Hans-Ruedi pulled over to fish an apple out of the back, we returned the way we’d come, by Bregenz, around the southern shore of Lake Constance, on past St. Gallen to Frauenfeld where we made a final stop at the music store for strings and a new ‘G ’ harmonica. Heading home by the back roads, we had one night to get ready for Scotland and Netherlands. The phone rang while we were packing: it was my sister telling me our mother had died that morning in Dallas, about nine-thirty their time. Slipped away, she said. Counting ahead I figured we were somewhere close to home, about the time we stopped for the apple. I didn’t feel anything at the time, no kind of preternatural trans-oceanic signal to tell me she was gone. I thought about canceling, but it wasn’t only me involved; there were others, and plans long set in place. We had said goodbye in Dallas in January. Mom would have wanted us to finish the tour, I reasoned. I didn’t have to think about it for too long.

She never really left me over the next few days. The first leg of our flight up to Edinburgh was delayed on the ground in Zürich, so that we missed our connecting flight in Amsterdam. We hooked up with our host-agent-driver-raconteur John Thompson who drove us to our first night’s lodging, the Glenfarg Hotel, near Pearth. The Bein Inn, our venue the next night, and our headquarters while in Scotland, was full. We played the State Bar in Glasgow, The Village in Leith, Edinburgh, the Lochailort Inn far to the northwest followed by an all night drive to the airport in time for a 5:55 flight to Amsterdam, and four more Netherlands gigs back-to-back.

Sergio had picked up some kind of flu bug that kept him under the weather, sleeping in his room most of the time when we were not actually playing or driving to the gig. Rallying after a nap he took me by surprise on a long afternoon walk that left me dragging behind in his wake. We were headed for the hash-bar, reason for his sudden burst of speed and energy.

I looked hard to peel away the years, to reveal The Hague as it had been after the war. That’s what they called it then, when my sister and I were eight and six, before the other wars came along to sow confusion. Huge swaths of the city had been reduced to rubble, bombed by the Germans. We walked to school, an English school where they hated my Texas accent. My father, a young engineer with Shell Oil and my mom, still in the bloom of her youth… we came over on the Holland-American Line on a ship called the Westerdam, our pictures there with hers on her passport. No one had cars after the war; throngs of bicycle riders gathered at every red light waiting for the signal to change. We lived in an upstairs flat for awhile, with a balcony where we put milk and cheese out to keep cool. Later we moved to a bungalow in Scheveningen near the sea. I had no inkling where to find this place, though it had to be close by. I did recognize the domed hotel, the Kurhaus, now obscured by newer buildings. And the beach, that had not changed; a memory came to me there, a day long ago with my mother and sister. We played in the sand but the water was far too cold for swimming. Sergio and I watched some guys surfing with para-sails. A chilly wind blew off the beach and we stood in the lee of a building. We bought a herring sandwich, raw with chopped onion. My parents had taken to things European, but they had stopped short of raw herring.

We had added a new song to our repertoire. Sergio called it up, and I was afraid at first that I would not be able to get through with it without choking up. Once long before I had written a song called ‘Piece of Wood and Steel’. A line in there had hurt her feelings and I had set out to write another to make amends, called ‘But for Momma’. When I called my sister she asked for something to read at the service. I asked Edith to look the song up in the catalogue and to email the lyrics to my sister.

But for Momma I’m still the gleam in her eye
But for Momma I wouldn’t be
I’m still her son, her number one
And she’s mighty special to me

And the final chorus:

Momma, can you hear me, this one’s for you
Momma, your boy’s on the line
In a world full of Mommas I’d still pick you
And lately you’ve been on my mind.

It happens sometimes that a tour ends just when you’re peaking with the music. That’s the way it seemed. Playing a Telecaster, Sergio used a small amp and a rack of pedals that gave him a variety of sonic textures—grinds, growls, moans and howls—he used with taste and precision. He could sound like pedal steel, or Johnny Cash, or Neal Young when he wanted. Often interrupted by spontaneous bursts of applause, he sometimes he went to Mars too; but I never tried to rein him in. We played our last gig Sunday at a place called In the Woods, near Amsterdam. Monday I sold my pounds to Sergio in return for Euros to change after I got back to Switzerland. We paid Joanna our hostess, and agent. Menno our driver came by and we settled with him before we went out together for one more trip to the hash-bar. Then having smoked ourselves silly, we found a real bar where we drank a couple of beers. I rode with Joanna the next morning to take Sergio to Schipohl where he was flying to Edinburgh to catch his flight back to Nashville the next day. I’d had enough of airports by then and elected to return to Switzerland by rail. I still had a piece of hash from the day before which I took the precaution of swallowing. I changed trains at Utrecht, and again at Frankfurt, finally a last time at Basel, pulling into Schaffhausen about ten that evening. Edith was there to meet me at the platform.

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1. An inscription placed usually at the end of a book, giving facts about its publication.
2. A publisher's emblem or trademark placed usually on the title page of a book.

“My favorite colophon reports that another monk
designed Carlyle over two centuries ago. Its letters
sit round and open as fishbowls on a windowsill.”

Aimee Nezhukumatathil, “In Praise of Colophons”
Read at canwehaveourballback

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Art Chicago exposition opening in doubt

By Alan Artner and Charles Storch
Tribune staff reporters
Published April 25, 2006, 12:45 PM CDT

"Two days before the scheduled opening night of Art Chicago, the international fine arts exposition's prospects appeared dim Tuesday because all work apparently had ceased at the fair's Grant Park site."

We're holding out our best hopes for the fair. We all know that Tom Blackman has his detractors (we are not among them), but no matter how you feel about Tom the demise of this fair, in this way can only be bad for our local art scene and Chicago in general.

Let's hope they manage to pull the weenie out of the campfire. If they do, come see us at the fair, wherever it is - we'll have a booth.

~

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cuspidor, n.


A spittoon.

James Joyce claimed that to him, 'cuspidor' was the most beautiful word in the English language.

Read more at Wikipedia

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It's Sunday, and I am cleaning up a big stack of digital images burned to disc,
that I am just realizing Casey DIDN'T file as she was supposed to have done....
But it led me to this next post which is a random one.
It is made up of images JUST from THAT stack of burned CD's.
(next week is a post on Alejandro Escovedo,
my brother in the war of the artist for the last 20 years.)

So, I have no idea what I am about to post...
about to go through the pile...
this should prove to be FUN !!!!!

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Recently I began reading an old book that traces the history of art criticism as a discipline, which the author starts much earlier than I would have ever imagined -– in Greek times (‘Chap. 2: Art criticism in Greece in the third century before Christ and its conditions,’ etc.). I had come across this book as I have the labor of love of sorting through (with the help of a very able assistant) the library of Joseph Randall Shapiro, which he donated to the Museum of Contemporary Art upon his death in 1996 at age 90+ (being of a heritage and era where exact birthdates were often obscure). I loved Joe Shapiro, his passion for life and art, and the obvious sustenance he drew from art. I even loved his undisguised delight in and appreciation of “the fairer sex” (which disturbed many) and felt it was a privileged view on a courtly time that was fast disappearing rather than some sort of rude affront to my gender. Joe did not disguise that he loved to lunch with “his harem,” mostly curators and other museum people — female of course — at those dreary sorts of middlebrow restaurants that sprang up in the 1950s and 1960s, i.e. The Homestead in Oak Park. Very few of these places exist today and thus can exist in some sort of rosy glow of nostalgia. In reality they were pretty awful. When invited, however, I always attended, and when I had business with Joe, as I often did, I would bring along other female MCA staffers who had not heard his repertoire of humorous stories which would slowly wind into the realm of bawdy jokes if his listener(s) seemed comfortable. Of course it wasn’t so much that he enjoyed the food at these restaurants. It was the company and conversation that he craved, and it was as much sustenance to him as the daily special. He was an esthete who could converse on the highest levels about art, yet what really tickled him was to author an advice column for the MCA staff newsletter titled “Joe Sez” (which was compiled, incidentally, into a bound volume and presented to Joe, who is often called the “father” of the Museum of Contemporary Art in appreciation for all he did).

To handle his books is to be overwhelmed by memories of his Oak Park home, stuffed with Balthus (five or six of them), Cornell, Matta (including his masterpiece The Earth Is a Man), Klee (his tiny work Tod im Garten ), Dali, Delvaux, Ernst, (including the stunning Spanish Physician), Kupka (the spectacular [for Kupka] Reminiscence of a Cathedral of 1913 which surely every Disney animator who worked on “Fantasia” must have been familiar with), Magritte, Gorky (including his absolutely heartbreaking Scent of Apricots on the Field), and Francis Bacon, most of which he donated to either the Art Institute of Chicago or the MCA. In fact, he donated much of art collection during his lifetime, for he loved his artworks like children (an increasingly old-fashioned notion as well). He understood that the ultimate expression of that love was to send them off into the world. He even gave his paintings and sculptures nicknames. For years the signature Magritte masterpiece of “men-fish” in the MCA’s collection was called “Song of Love” rather its proper name, The Wonders of Nature (Les merveilles de la nature), because Joe looked at the stony, cold figures as they crowded against one another and saw only love.

The books are not fancy, fine editions. They are all fairly ordinary: the cloth covers and brittle, acidy paper of the commercial press. Many are paperbacks. Somewhat to my surprise, they are not adorned with bookplates, tho’ many are signed as gifts from dear friends, including artists. A Modern Book of Esthetics, Rader, copyright 1935, is adorned, rather, with pencil marks and notes in Joe’s hand, especially the essays by Jung (‘Psychology and Literature’) and Hume (‘Of the Standard of Taste’). Another example is The Meaning of Modern Sculpture by R.H. Wilenski (?), published in 1932, with the subtitle ‘An essay on some original sculpture of the present day together with some account of the methods of professional disseminators of the notion that certain sculptors in ancient Greece were the first and the last to achieve perfection in sculpture’ that makes me realize Chris Ware is probably reading the same sorts of books as Joe did. There was James Thrall Soby’s Modern Art and the New Past, (1956), an anthology of the critics writing first published in the Saturday Review, another dusty relic of times gone by. And a Modern Library edition with the price tag of $2.50 penciled inside the cover (a used book perhaps?) of Philosophies of Art and Beauty, featuring ‘Selected Readings in aesthetics from Plato to Heidegger.’ (Ah, to have aesthetics stop with Heidegger, what an opium dream….) And then Lionello Venturi’s (?) History of Art Criticism, E.P. Dutton & Company, Inc., New York, 1936, with the tattered dust jacket folded up and stuck between the final pages and the back cover.

I don’t know what I was looking for when I picked up this book and decided that rather than relegate it to the “book sale” pile, I would bring it home and read it. But upon flipping through it, toward the end of the book, I came across these passages:

"The opinion that in the nineteenth century there was not an art so great as in the preceding centuries is a stupid one…at least eight painters of the nineteenth century were of supreme greatness: Goya, Corot, Daumier, Manet, Renior, Cézanne, Seurat, Van Gogh. These are enough to give us assurance that art is not dead; that our aspirations, our ideals of yesterday have found their perfect pictorial expression. And they direct us to what is produced of authentic art at the present time.

It is evident that so long as we refer to information of sources…without re-living them, without transforming them in our thought, without having reduced them to present life, there is no history but only chronicle." (p. 312)

The thought that there is no history, only chronicle, without deep knowledge of and authentic reconsideration of the past (and let’s definitely not make the mistake of using the word “history” here as a synonym for the past) fell on particularly receptive soil. It is something I think about a lot, but recently I have been thinking about this very thing in regards to Chris Ware, as I am doing a show of his work at MCA that opens in May. Mr. Ware does not claim to be an artist, but that does not disqualify him from making art, as Joe Shapiro himself might have intoned in his unique voice, breathy, and rather high for a man of his size, for he was tall, especially for his generation. I have been trying to grapple with the fact that Chris Ware’s work affects me so deeply, given that I am hardly in what might be thought of his ‘demographic’ (being old enough, as Joe Shapiro might have quipped, to be his older sister who was well out of the house by the time he came along). I even have wicked thoughts like, Is Chris Ware merely the Saul Steinberg of the current contemporary art scene? for, looking to Joe and his contemporaries who formed the post-war generation of arts patrons, one found Saul Steinberg cartoons in virtually every collection. And then I come to my senses and go, “Nawhh.” For one thing the ‘hip’ collectors are not really hip to Chris Ware. Thank goodness, as Magritte might say, for the Wonders of Nature.

Excuse my cynicism. I don’t mean to imply that Saul Steinberg suffered by being collected by collectors like Joseph Randall Shapiro. He didn’t. It is only his reputation, not the works themselves, that twisted about to become the guy who did “those spiky, weird, beloved illustrations, er, artworks,” in the minds of the general art world, where things like reputations are as slippery yet important as earthworms are to healthy soil. Chris Ware’s works are bullets to the heart. Saul Steinberg’s are diversions that went well with the books in the library, whether they be tattered utilitarian volumes like Joe Shapiro’s or an untouched set of leather-bound classics from the Franklin Mint (which incidentally got out of the book business in 2000; I guess the desire for leather-bound classics can be met by the resale market via eBay).

Let me say it again: Without a deep knowledge of and reconsideration of the past, there can be no history. There can be only chronicle. A chronicle is a perfectly fine thing, but a history makes life worth living. A chronicle would be a listing of all Joe Shapiro’s acquisitions and when he made them, how much they were worth, and how much they got at auction when he sold some of them because he thought his beloved wife Jory would certainly outlive him and needed to be taken care of (she passed several years before he did). A history is that Joe loved his wife Jory more than anything, even those many considerable paintings that he thought of as his children, and one of his proudest possessions was a portrait done of her when she was young by an obscure local painter. He would never fail to point it out when yet another first-time visitor was given “the tour.” He would challenge the visitor to identify the painting. Usually there was panicked silence. This certainly wasn’t a Delvaux or a Balthus. A sly, delighted smile would gradually spread across Joe’s face as the visitor continued to sputter and squirm. “That’s my girl,” he would finally say in his breathy, gentle voice, “That’s Jory.”

More later,

Lynne.

Posted by Lynne Warren at 08:47 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

There are some trespasses which cannot be allowed to stand unpunished. The exquisite order of nature instructs us in more ways than can be named that nothing may interfere in the relation of a mother and child. The primacy of this bond is the glue that has kept humans on the planet. The feelings I had struggled to comprehend began to take a tangible form. I took to playing only loud, fast Rock ‘N’ Roll. Husker Du, Flesh Eaters, Naked Raygun, The Germs. I polished my anger like an ice ball and waited for my opportunity to present itself. I never worked as hard on anything as I did on this plan, but then again, I never cared about anything nearly so much. At first Melanie found my old school rediscovery amusing; she was a head banger herself from way back. But over time she grew weary of the 2/4, and she’d try to slide a disc or two into the mix.

“No!”

“But Bucky, you love the Velvet Underground.”

“Not now.”

I didn’t share my plans with her. Even at the beginning I recognized plausible deniability as a crucial element of any plan. We were still living together at the time, and I still had my job at MSW. Over time she began to suspect that my attention was focused on something other than her, and she’d ask small, indirect questions trying to suss me out. I shrugged off her queries and steeled myself against the solitude of mission. Nothing mattered more than this, nothing.

Needless to say Mel picked up the clue that there had been something of a sea change in my psyche, and she left me. She moved out. She split. She moved in with Roger, taking over his roommate’s lease. She had her own bedroom, and Roger was never there. He was practically living in the studio.

Melanie left, but I invited her to go, in a way.

“Look, if you have such a problem with my esthetic, why don’t you just go live somewhere else?”

“It’s not your taste that bothers me,” she said, “it’s the narrowness of your focus.”

“Narrow...”

“Man cannot live on bread alone, Buck.” she said, trying to keep things lighthearted.

“Watch me.”

“No thanks.”

“Look, Melanie, I don’t tell you what to listen to.”

“You don’t have to,” she said quickly, “I can’t get within 5 feet of the stereo.”

“I don’t get it,” I said, “some of these discs are yours!”

But it was no use. She took me at my word that I couldn’t be swayed, and she bolted. I told myself I didn’t care, but it really bothered me to see her living with Roger. Even if they weren’t romantically entangled, it just seemed wrong somehow. She knew how I felt about him; how could she do this to me?

Meanwhile, Roger had turned his end of the studio into something of a voodoo groove shrine. There were literally dozens of candles. He hung beads. He burned incense. He grew his beard and started wearing loose fitting clothes, printed in the style of an Indian camel dealer. He smoked bad pot and stinky little cigars.

As my creative energies were increasingly focused on the deft application of justice, the boost of energy in the real business of the studio began to fade. I found it harder and harder to focus on sculpture. My muse had been seduced by a far more potent agent of expression, and I must admit to a bit of pride in the magnitude and variety of my plans.

There were so many little ways to get to him. His sense of personal hygene may have ditched him, but he was obsessive when it came to his brushes. While attempting to epoxy his paint brushes together once he almost busted me. I heard the jingle of his keys as I was opening the tube, and barely managed to cover the action.

Winter had given way to spring, and my promises to stay off the roof proved disingenuous. The tower called to me, and I found myself up there, alone, quite a lot. I had been tossing around various notions of retribution through the tail end of winter, but it wasn’t until I started making the climb up the tower that a truely poetic solution began to present itself.

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Next week: Next Week - Act 10: Back To Square One

<< Last week - Act 8: Wherein the Author is Humbled, and Offers Several Mea Culpas

Posted by david roth at 07:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Carolyn Guinzio's book West Pullman won the 2004 Bordighera Poetry Prize and appears in a bilingual English/Italian edition. Her work has appeared recently or is forthcoming in Indiana Review, Luna, New American Writing, Octopus, Colorado Review, Willow Springs, and elsewhere. She earned a Master of Fine Arts from Bard College and has received awards from the Fund for Poetry, The Illinois Arts Council, the Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs, and the Kentucky Arts Council. She currently resides in Fayetteville, Arkansas with her husband, the poet Davis McCombs, and their children, Warren and Charlotte.

from West Pullman
VII.

One small night
in what might be the middle
of history, helicopters floated
low over West Pullman,
searching the streets for Sheila.
Down Princeton, up Harvard,
down Yale; and slow,
in its faint shadow, the car
with a police megaphone:
[red jacket, blue shoes.]
And it was for this
that light finally poured from the sky,
beams that could burrow through steel,
like the bright-pointed star
we all waited for, calling "Sheila."
Red jacket, blue shoes,
and a delicate neck
in the dark, billowing
and not held.
How many things ended
that night, and yet,
Sheila was buried
with forty-five words
in the back of the Monday Metro.
Then it was quiet again for a while.

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Architecture
1. A double curve with the shape of an elongated S.
2. A molding having the profile of an S-shaped curve.
3. An arch formed by two S-shaped curves meeting at a point. Also called ogee arch.


“The double-curve ogee (oh-jee) was introduced from the Arab world in the 14th century and became popular throughout medieval England. It was also a favorite in Venice, Italy from where it derived its other moniker - the Venetian arch.”

Read at New York Carver

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Of or characterized by the clipping or trimming of live shrubs or trees into decorative shapes, as of animals.

“Topiary gardeners clip discreetly
inside the maze of swelling hedges.”

--Ander Monson, “After You’ve Gone on and Through”

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Congrats to Sharkforum's own Jim Lasko and all the fine folk at Redmoon Theatre!

THE GOLDEN TRUFFLE officially opened last night to a sold out house, and is also newly Jeff Recommended! Audiences throughout the run have been celebrating the unique mix of original musical theater served in style with a four-course truffle tasting by Vosges Haut-Chocolat.

For those eager to receive more information about THE GOLDEN TRUFFLE, Redmoon has been receiving wonderful press that provides insight into the history and making of THE GOLDEN TRUFFLE. Both articles listed below include talks with Artistic Director, Jim Lasko and CEO and Founder of Vosges Haut-Chocolat, Chocolatier Katrina Markoff.

Read a preview article from The Chicago Tribune by clicking here. Another great preview article from The Chicago Sun-Times is available here.

If you have not done so already, visit our website to purchase tickets for THE GOLDEN TRUFFLE. All TICKETS include a deluxe, four-course truffle tasting menu by Vosges Haut-Chocolat!

To visit THE GOLDEN TRUFFLE official website, please click here!

Order THE GOLDEN TRUFFLE Tickets Now!

From TONIGHT through June 18, Redmoon Central has been transformed into a lavish dessert lounge for the first musical in Redmoon’s history, THE GOLDEN TRUFFLE. A musical spectacle extravaganza of colossal imagination, audiences will be treated to celebratory song, DAZZLING dance numbers, SURREAL service apparatus, frenetic live music, flashing PAPARAZZI AND four unique and inspiring courses of exotic truffles by Chicago’s most luxurious chocolatier, Vosges Haut-Chocolat!

Created by Artistic Director Jim Lasko;
Original Music and Lyrics by John Fournier;
Co-Directed and Art Directed by Frank Maugeri;
Co-Directed and Choreographed by Vanessa Stalling.

At REDMOON CENTRAL, 1463 W. Hubbard St., Chicago
WEDNESDAYS, THURSDAYS, FRIDAYS, and SUNDAYS at 8:00 pm
SATURDAYS at 7:00 pm and 10:30 pm

To ORDER TICKETS please click HERE or for INFORMATION please call 312-850-8440 x111.

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Nick Tremulis: As she’s not one to toot her own horn and as I’ve brought her on board to this nasty little pirate ship that is Sharkforum, I thought I’d take a minute to write a brief intro to you all about my pal Kim.

Kim’s poetry came to prominence in her home state of Arizona, although her work and herself, for that matter, have been featured on both coasts as well as in England. She’s taught at a couple of colleges over the years but “can’t stand bossing people around”, so you probably won’t see her at the front of a lecture hall or an army brigade in the near future.

My friend, Alejandro Escovedo, had read some of her poetry and sought her out to see if he could set some of her poetry to music and/or possibly collaborate on something. The collaboration led to love, a baby, a marriage, a life.

Three of Kim’s extraordinary spells of poetry can be heard on the forthcoming Alejandro Escovedo CD, including the title cut: “The Boxing Mirror”. We are pleased to have her join Sharkforum.

A Starfish Swirled From Its Underwater

The equestrian trail leered off before
we noticed our path would soon be lit by the same
tumbling light the Scandinavian boys gambled against.

The sun knowingly would go down, making fools
of the castle guards, half-serious passing notes through
open windows. In a moment, they will disappear
and their frozen versions of themselves will grow

tall where the thinning irises
cling to the banks and grow in the absence of light.
Where teenage girls outside lean against
the blanketed thatch to watch their breath evaporate.

Yesterday, we wagered at the pier
if the fairy heads for Sweden or ends
at the dock of the business district....
And watched the pull in the ice.

Posted by Kim Christoff at 09:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

1. A figure of speech in which the speaker expresses or purports to be in doubt about a question.
2. An insoluble contradiction or paradox in a text's meanings.

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Misconduct in public office.

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The new CDs arrived in time for our show at the Albisgüetli Country Festival in Zürich on March 15th where we opened for Albert Lee and Hogan’s Heros. One of the best bands I ever heard, these guys blew me away. You can hear world-class pickers any night in Nashville, ad hoc ensembles put together for the occasion. But watching a real band work is to observe a whole different class of animal, with precision and dynamics that come with years of playing together. Named after the steel player Paul Hogan—likely a joking reference to the television series— they go back over twenty years. Albert has played with Eric Clapton, the Everley Brothers, and Emmylou Harris. Just for starters. Sergio tells me Albert Lee’s influence on country guitar players has been major. I believe him. And keyboard Pete Wingfield… have mercy. Albert had his own piano on stage as well. The music was still ringing in my ears when we got back to the house about two. We stayed up ‘til four just winding down. Sergio and I smoked a fat one.

How did we do? This was our third appearance at the festival without Thomm Jutz, wunderkind from the Black Forest. The core group, Richie Schörnig on bass, Peter Götzman on drums, Mätze Schulz on keyboards and accordion, have backed Thomm in a blues rock group, fronted an Elvis entertainer, and a soul singer from Brooklyn via Berlin named Sidney ‘Guitar Crusher’ Selby. I played with them for five years— and made as many records— before Thomm won the U.S. State Department green card lottery and moved to Nashville. Richie is a German from Romania, part of a diaspora from two centuries before. Peter fronts a jazz group. They both teach. Mätze produces music for video games. Nobody makes all their money gigging. The old outfit is still intact. With Sergio and Zürich guitarist Giampiero Colombo trading leads they worked like a Swiss watch—or a Schwarzwald cuckoo clock. Albert and a couple of his guys congratulated us afterwards and seemed genuine enough; after all, they didn’t have to. We racked up good CD sales for an opening act.

Sergio had his eye on an accordion at the Heilsarmee Brocki, the Salvation Army store in Schaffhausen. Displayed in a glass case it was gray mother-of-pearl, a diatonic model with two rows of pearl buttons. The finish was chipped away in a couple of places. It looked old, with a silver-plated screen. They were asking 250 Swiss Francs. Edith asked the woman behind the counter to open the case and let us have a look. The notes all seemed to work but an important piece was missing, the valve that allows you to close or open the bellows without pushing air through the reeds.

“Man, this thing could tell stories.”

“Did you ever read Accordion Crimes, by Annie Prolux? If you buy the accordion you’re going to have to read the book.”

Sergio considered his predicament. “It’s worth the money, but I don’t know if I can afford it. I’m going to have to think it over.” We made arrangements with the woman to reserve the accordion for a week while we pondered.

A Google search, revealed there had been an accordion maker named Zimmerman in east Germany, who moved to Philadelphia in the late 1880’s.

We were booked for a duo gig on the 17th, the beginning of a series of duo and trio gigs in Switzerland before heading on to Scotland and the Netherlands. From heroes to nobodies—the best gig in Switzerland to what must be the worst—we were booked for a night at the Bonanza, a line-dancing club deep in Canton Thurgau. They were paying 600 Francs. I looked at the contract. They wanted three sets; PA provided; sound check at 1700 hours; show to begin at 2100, or nine o’clock.

Sergio and I talked things over. “Holy shit, that’s four hours we have to wait before we even go on.”

“We don’t need no stinking sound check.”

“Let’s call the club and tell them we only need a couple of minutes, with just a duo.” I called the number on the contract, telling the man who answered that we didn’t require an hour to sound check. He had no English, grounds for suspicion of someone running an American-style country saloon. Maybe he was only the bartender, I thought. Running out of Swiss German, I called Edith to the phone. I soon understood there was no PA at the club. Edith held his feet to the fire…. “The sound is your responsibility,” she said. “I have the contract right here in my hand.” The conversation went on. Suspicious from the beginning, I had never liked the sound of this place; their cheesy Western theme-park web site, nor the cheap price. Had they offered us a better deal we might have played as a trio with Hans-Ruedi and used his sound system. A landscape gardener by trade, he had already knocked off work by the time I reached him. I could tell he was already a beer or two beyond the .05 alcohol limit. We have a little more room in our new Fiat but we could never have carried three people, guitars, and a sound system. We cancelled—or they did— by mutual agreement.

We played as a trio the next night at the Dolder 2, a club just down the road in Feuerthalen, our first trio gig. Hans Ruedi did a credible job on upright bass, despite all the new songs we threw at him. Sunday the 19th I turned 64, and the four of us had raclette, melted cheese over new potatoes, with bacon and little sausages cooked at the table. We sat around picking until late. Sergio’s wife Julie flew in from Nashville Monday. On Tuesday we drove back to the Brocki and looked at the Zimmerman accordion again. Edith pointed out to the guy behind the counter—a man this time— that it had a piece was missing. He is a poor musician, she said, referring to Sergio. “I am also a poor musician,” he countered. “That is why I’m working here; I’m a drummer.”

“And I know accordions; and I’m telling you that you cannot play this instrument until this piece is fixed.”

“Okay, you can have it for two-hundred.” Sergio had his money ready.

We played a Bierria down in Ticino, the Italian part of Switzerland the next night, returning the following afternoon. We played a line dancing club in Canton Zürich where I met a friend named Werner, a photographer and close follower of the Swiss country music scene. He asked how I was feeling. “Me? I feel good, why do you ask?”

“I was at the Bonanza club last week. They said you had cancelled because you were sick.”

Never mind what I told Werner… We had some decent record sales at this gig, and even had the line-dancers listening to the last set; we’d only sold one CD down south, and that at a discount to the sound man.

Looking for a bag or case to hold Sergio’s accordion, we made another run of the Brocki houses. Edith found another accordion, a red Hohner, also diatonic, not nearly as old as the Zimmerman. The synchronicity—and the price— was too hard to ignore; she bought it for 30 Francs. Sitting on a chair behind me, it looks to be in fairly good shape. “Play me,” it seems to say, “I dare you”. Huh? I read somewhere that bizarre travel suggestions are dancing lessons from God. Is this a place I want to go, to accordion land? ….Right; and I could take up bungee-jumping. Two days back from Scotland / Netherlands, and still catching up, I don’t know if I can summon the nerve.

Posted by Richard Dobson at 01:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

A FAVORITE PASSOVER FOOD.



PEANUT BUTTER AND JELLY ON MATZOH
PORTRAIT OF A LUNCH APRIL 15, 2006

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I really like PEANUT BUTTER & JELLY ON MATZOH..
I like it FRIED, with SUGAR on it.
Sometimes I just dip pieces in SOFT WARM MARGARINE.

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RACHEL LOY, BIRTHDAY PORTRAIT BY STREETLIGHT,
MOMO'S PATIO APRIL 15, 2006

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WILL SEXTON, "THE NEW PROMO SHOT",
MOMO'S TOILET @ AROUND MIDNIGHT APRIL 15, 2006

Posted by Todd V. Wolfson at 12:56 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Garin Cycholl teaches writing and literature at the University of Illinois at Chicago, where he also works as co-editor of Near South, a journal of experimental poetry, fiction, and drama. His recent work will appear this spring with Admit2 and Keep Going. He is author of Nightbirds (moria books 2006), and Blue Mound to 161, a book-length poem on geological and historical displacements in Southern Illinois (Pavement Saw Press 2005).



from Blue Mound to 161

into the south of it
      Illinois
how from any road, Geff
seemed south to me
Wayne City, too
not the crux or
"at the center" but

      on this side
      on that side

not even "border states"
then but roomfuls of voices
debating secession in
Union and Alexander
downstate counties Federal
guns already come down from
Chicago to hold the
rivers at Cairo

          or trucks
crossing the bridge there
Corollas running I-24 into
Kentucky Cadillacs flying
I-57 north coal barges
slipping locks, dodging
catfishermen tanker cars
of acids passing through
the East St. Louis yards
these things' momentum

staggering

        these girls
singing in place their
songs testing the memory

      in rocks
      in sedges
      in seeds
      in the reptile itself

as the song says,looking
at my own bad
attitude toward the
pastoral the here-
ness of it ground
measured out in
spoil heaps and

the world begins
in a ditch – light, air,
aluminum, water –
no quack grasses, these
yellowfruit sedge, cuplike
and sick-brown, blooms
hidden, nerves running
the convex face "The only
station in Southern Illinois
for this grass is a wet ditch
near the junction of Illinois
highways 3 and 144."

Posted by Simone Muench at 11:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

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Posted by Joel Dorn at 11:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

When I finally got home I fell down on my bed and slept. I didn’t sleep long, and even though I wasn’t physically ill I was incapable of even passing out. The answering machine was blinking an insistent staccato. Every light in the apartment was on; what’s up with that? I sat down next to the answering machine and put my ear to the speaker. The volume knob had been acting up, or the recording tape was just too old, or something else was wrong, but the volume had been almost too low to understand lately.

The voice that nearly broke my eardrum belonged to our landlord. I’d never heard him even raise his voice before. The speaker distorted. Seymour sounded like he was piloting a bomber, and they’d taken heavy enemy fire over hostile territory. I crushed the answering machine and went back to bed, figuring to just lay there until slept washed over me.

Amazing but true, he gave us a second chance. We agreed to pay for the damaged doors upstairs. We promised to clean up all the bottles on the roof (“WHAT WERE YOU DOING ON THE ROOF?!”), we promised to stay off the roof for good, and we promised to never, ever have another party.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry. Really and truly I’m sorry Seymour.”

“Okay, Okay. I’m not a young man! Take it easy on us seniors.”

“You’ll outlive us all, Seymour.”

Our Halloween party had gotten me thinking about how badly I wanted a space of my own. I wasn’t quite ready to exact revenge from Roger, but I was getting there. Part of the problem was that I was having trouble figuring out just what I wanted from him. At first my anger took the form of simple, primal urges. I fantasized about launching him off the roof. I considered clobbering him senseless with a ball peen hammer. All of these nightmarish ideations gave way to reason, and the understanding that I didn’t actually mean him any real harm.

It wasn’t his success that bothered me. It wasn’t the fact that, in the end, he got closer to Mel than I had ever been. It wasn’t his encroachment, or the fact that he was always late with rent. And it wasn’t the stupidity of his philosophical cloud readings, or the fact that he no longer told me that I was a great artist, and I should make tons of money. It wasn’t any of that. I began to plot my revenge the day Roger Murray met my Mother.

She adored him, and he milked it for every drop. She thought that Urban Baroque was the “cat’s pj’s.” It was the “bees knees.” It was the “real thing.” She said these things. These were phrases once used to describe my work. Now he had co-opted them, and he didn’t even know what it was worth. Who was he to her? He wasn’t of her! How in the world could she lavish such praise upon a complete stranger? What of my Minimalist symphonies? What of my detailed and cogent angles on the primacy of sculpture? What of all that? What about Urban Archaelogy? Roger Murray was focused on one transient style in a long history of art. I was investigating an entire scientific discipline! The Baroque is trivial when compared to the Archaelogical.

“Oh, honey, you’re so serious sometimes.”

“I’m what?”

“I must say, sometimes you worry me. I think you got that quality from your Father.”

“Why would you want to go and bring him into it?.”

“Joey, he’s still your Dad.”

“Joey? Phyllis did you say Joey?”

“Oh no. Here we go...”

“Where did Bucky come from?”

“I haven’t the vaguest.”

“Mom, please...”

Roger popped me one on the shoulder “Hey, lighten up, Buck ... er Joey.”

“Thank you very much.”

She smiled and changed the subject. “I would just love to take you boys to lunch before I head downtown to shop.”

I groaned. I seethed. The room starting to spin a little. Roger, of course, was enthusiastic about the idea. We drove down to Mitchell’s. Mom ordered a salad and Roger followed suit. I ordered a bacon cheeseburger. And as I placed my order it happened - she gave me the look. I’d seen her give the look to others, but never me. My father had been the victim of that look, and I can only imagine how it must have contributed to his leaving us. It’s not a hostile look, really, but it’s cold. It’s empty. It sent a shiver up my spine.

“What?”

She sighed and looked at her nails. “Roger, tell me more about Urban Baroque.”

I groaned again, and again, I got the look. I opened the current edition of New City, trying to adjust to my brave new world.

“Well,” he began, “it’s really impossible to draw a clear distinction between the urban landscape and the people who populate it, y’know? My theory is that’s it’s just all one big organism...”

He kept going, but then he always just kept going. Mother was rapt. I felt like Papillon. By the time we got back to the studio Mom and Roger were deep into discussions of individual pieces.

“You know,” she said, “this one would be lovely in my dining room”

“Where?” I wondered aloud. “The only wall in your dining room has my senior year independant study final hanging on the wall.”

“Now, now, Joseph. I’ve got dozens of your pieces hanging in my house.”

“Uh, I made that piece specifically with you in mind, Mom.”

“I’ll find another place for it, sweety.” She was digging in her purse for her checkbook. “Roger, don’t you dare give me a deal. How much for this one?”

And that, as they say, was that. The enemy had invaded my home. Much more than art and money had been transacted. If it was the only thing I ever succeeded at, no matter what, I was getting even.

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Next week: Next Week - Act 9: Anger Is An Energy

<< Last week - Act 7: Rock Yer Block Off!

Posted by david roth at 07:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Strong yellowish pink to moderate orange; reddish.

"There was something sly about his smile,
his eyes so black and sharp, his rufous hair."

--Neil Gaiman, “The White Road”

Posted by Simone Muench at 03:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Charles Boetschi, 48, painter, died of a heart attack on April 4 in Thurgovia, Switzerland.

Boetschi was -- is --- one of the best artists I have ever encountered. Certainly the best working within, with and against the geometric tradition. I switched from the past tense to the present there, for when discussing artists as artists that is the correct tense in the English language and I agree. They may be gone as people, but their work lives on.

Charles Walter Boetschi, 24 April 1958 - 4 April 2006

Boetschi's acrylic paintings combine rigorous, gridded geometric compositions formed of rectangular "color units," as the artist referred to them, with remarkably eccentric and purposefully associative choices of hue, creating a decidedly postmodern and personal extension of Minimalism. He had an exotic life history, being born in Calcutta of an ex-patriot Swiss father and English mother, raised in Hong Kong and Japan, and studying art in New York City and Basel. A speaker of English, German, Swissgerman and Japanese, Boetschi began his art career by winning the illustrious Eidgenössisches Kunststipendium, the top Swiss Federal Art Award. He exhibited widely and internationally, showing regularly at Brigitte Weiss Gallery in Zurich among others. He is survived by his wife Karin Boetschi.


I had reviewed Charles in Art in America, and written about his art elsewhere too. A few of his most recent works can be seen here.

Charles was a good friend of mine. He was healthy, happy, happily married, successful, and truly an upbeat person who believed in art. When it was first suggested to me by my printer, the famous master stone lithographer Urban Stoob, that I go see Boetschi's work, long before I met him, I resisted. I disdain most geo art, finding it over-polite, ornamental yet hypocritical about the fact, boring, petit bourgeois. And Neo-Geo is usually even worse, oh-so-snotty-college-boy with the "correct" references. Illustration of the curatorially correct. I was dragged kicking and screaming to Boetschi's show and my mouth dropped. I loved the paintings! Following that, I got to know the artist as a person and found him wonderful therein as well.

Boetschi's paintings are both idiosyncratic and revelatory. They are idiosyncratic in that they ignore the pressures of current art world fads, but also in their very compositional reasoning. Each work is a subtle and sophisticated combination of tropes critically utilized in a unique way - one which points viewers toward possible personal revelations of vision.

Boetschi displays unadulterated and courageous antithetical awareness. His paintings make clear reference to the minimalism of Donald Judd and earlier geometric abstraction. Nonetheless, he denies and inverts several of their key premises. In his paintings he acknowledges geometric art's tradition, but also shows that he has taken postmodern doubt to heart. Boetschi extends the metaphors of this style, sometimes by "backing-up", sometimes by leaping forward. He paints, a method Judd abandoned to go into a three-dimensional form between painting and sculpture, which he termed the "specific object." Yet, Boetschi's surfaces are immaculately smooth. The only evidence of the object being hand-painted are the infinitesimally raised edges due to paint thickness where fields of color meet. The choices of hue are unique and playful, not pedantically balanced as in art concret. The materials are traditional, unlike Judd's work. The artist forswears both the utopian aspirations of hard-edged purist painting and the Dada-fathered theatricality of presence in Minimalism. Therein, he is able to regain something important with early geometric painters such as Piet Mondrian, yet scorned by Postmodernists - striving after integrity.

Yes, Charles was not afraid of the "i" word --- integrity; and not of the "s" word, sincerity, either. I, you and art are the richer for it. In the face of such a short life, in the face of death, I praise God for what Charles did.

You little career lap dog quasi-artists out there --- if you dropped dead this moment do you think anyone would care that your illustrations of pedantic artworld trivia even exist? Change now. Think for yourself. Do what YOU believe in. As Charles Boetschi did.

Posted by Mark Staff Brandl at 12:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Every year in October the Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs presents Chicago Artists’ Month. Various cultural institutions and galleries partner with the city of Chicago to offer exhibitions, open studios, demonstrations, workshops, neighborhood art walks, and a variety of additional events in art communities throughout the city.

During the 2004 CAM I was given the opportunity to photograph the artists chosen to represent our city. The images presented show the artists with their work projected onto them. Although there were 15 artists total, I have included the images I feel were most successful.

Von Kommanivanh

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Karl Wirsum

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Layne Jackson

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David Philpot

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Zhou Brothers

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Alpha Bruton

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Posted by Ursula Sokolowska at 06:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

The College Art Association has a nice blurb on Mark Staff Brandl's recap of their recent event in Boston:

"The American-born, Switzerland-based artist Mark Staff Brandl has written probably the longest and fullest account of the conference—who he met, what he heard, and what he saw—at the blog collective Sharkforum. Brandl offers detailed summaries and informed criticism the panelists’ talks for the many sessions he attended, as well as the one he in which participated. Brandl’s conference experience really exemplifies how busy, vigorous, exhausting, yet extremely rewarding, the CAA meeting can be.

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Posted by ed at 02:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

There's a great photo of Sharkforum's very own Rick Rizzo by Wes Pope in the Tempo section of today's Chicago Tribune. You can see Pope's photo folio of Eleventh Dream Day here. ~

Posted by ed at 11:22 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Day 2 SXSW
Nicholas Tremulis: Our first full day at SXSW started out a little on the rough side. My gig at Maria's Taco Express was called off due to the rain. After an 18 hour drive and a morning of gearing up to perform at one of my favorite picnic style of gigs, it was hard not to feel a little let down. But when the going gets tough, the tough go shopping. The Shark, Alejandro, Kim, and I spent the morning checking out Texas wear at a friends store. After the Shark purchased some charro pants, the only pair of pants not camouflaged with oil paint stains that he owns, we headed over to catch a few bands playing at a tent party off of 6th street. I should also say that The Shark bought me a pair of white sunglasses. Did this make me his bitch? I'm still not sure.
We hit the party just in time to catch a set by Steve Wynn and band. It was a great band playing a great set. Just the way you like to start the day. Had a couple of friends on the bill, so this seemed like the gig to hang at for a while. It was great to see Willie Nile there. Just 9 months earlier I was trying to put together a three headliner solo tour with my friend Ivan Julian of the Voivoids fame among numerous other outfits.(Shreikback, Mathew Sweet...) The idea of this was largely based on the fact that I own a van.

As good a reason as any. Ivan new Willie and we both thought he would be the the perfect 3rd wheel. Willie'd come up in the early 80's under the dreaded "New Dylan" marquee the major labels used to employ as what they thought was a good marketing technique. It turned you into a human dart board. Both he and Steve Forbert suffered dearly for this bit of "Eighth Wonder of The World!" propaganda campaign. He'd been doing great work since the bullshit parade had ended, but as anyone who's been on a major label knows, it's very hard to revive a career once the big boys have signed your death certificate. But his latest release, "The Streets of New York" is getting more attention than an octuplet birth announcement and has put him back on the radar screen. He sounds great. Good to see somebody beat the odds every once in a while. Nice man.

Mathew Sweet was now performing a duo show with Susanna Hoffs. Matthew's an old friend and another non-stop song writer with a studio in his backyard. They'd just finished an album together of cover songs from the 60's largely featuring Susanna on lead vocals entitled "Under The Covers Vol. 1" and were taking it around the block before a SXSW show at the Drake that evening. He'll be finishing off his latest record when he gets home. A lifer.

Now it was time to eat. Real Food! Alejandro and Kim took us to a great Indian restaurant. But this is Texas. Probably the only time you'll find 80% percent of the cuisine on an Indian menu made up of steak. Hindu cowboys rustled up some grub for us.

While we were there, got a call from Charlie Sexton saying he dug the new album and wondered if I wanted him to back me up at my Continental appearance the next night. I told him to fuck-off and get his own band, at which, point he burst into tears and began pleading with me until I finally gave in and let him back me up for a couple numbers. If you believe this... I should also mention that in China, I am a huge pop star! I was thrilled and flattered of course. Took the sting off the cancelled days gig.

That night, with my manager Heinz, we hit the center of the action: 6th Street. During SXSW this area resembles N.O.'s quarter on a busy almost Mardi Gras type of scene, only without the mojo and also the victim and prey thing you watch in action when the night gets especially late and the rubes are to drunk to realize they're about to be rolled. Austin has a safer vibe to it. Less of the beyond poverty down on your luck vibe you find in a lot of the South. It's here too, but not as desperate.

Anyway, the mission of the evening was to catch a rare set from the Brooklyn 70's master of modern, gritty soul music: Garland Jeffries. We entered a fairly large club and caught a pretty good Austin band with a more than a pretty good drummer behind the tubs. The group was named after it's leader: Guy Forsythe. I told Alejandro I saw and liked them the next day and he said, "Ah, he's a God damn actor!"

All musicians hate actors who become musicians. It pisses us off. We just don't like the idea of somebody acting up there. Anyway, he played to good to have learned the instrument for a role, so I cut him a break. the drummers last name was Hooper, I believe.

Then came Garland. Kicking ass...taking no prisoners, with a vibe to him that made you feel like taking chances. You could feel him all through the room, like some giant love magnet. Great set. The payoff was that Heinz told me he was going to sit in with Alejandro at tomorrow nights gig. Even better! At this point, both The Shark and I were beginning to feel a little over easy for the evening and drove back to our hotel room and Dr. Wal-mart for a nightcap.

Le Shark:
Well you've pretty much covered it Nick, The Shark was happy again with his food source restored, Charlie Sexton -what a great guy -so unpretentious, and such a terrific guitarist - I was eagerly anticipating closing night at the Continental -speaking of which -the Ed "Big Daddy" Roth show upstairs at the club really is something- the whole muscle car Rat Fink thing The Shark can relate to....it doesn't hurt that the work is all so well designed and illustrated, that it has content and context which are discernible without the prerequisite hence ubiquitous wall plaques so much contemporary art now leans on in attempting an epistomology..it would be nice to see this show come to Chicago -perhaps the MCA -I don't see why not.

as for actors.......well of course they are the least of all artists -as they never play themselves -and if they did, who would want to watch it? -which is probably why bio-pics -of, say painters for instance usually fail -actors can't play brilliance brilliantly because they aren't -which is not to say they can't play lesser roles with brilliance...but ....did you see Pollock?.......what a tepid and grating piece of taxidermy that was.......simply put, there isn't a guppy that's been born that can convincingly play Carcharodon Carcharias......but put them on a stage and then just try and get them off of it...its always interesting how so much emptiness can one actor at a time, be the center of the universe............or perhaps I'm still bitter about the Jaws films where when they had the real thing, they chose to go with a rubber dummy.........if I didn'tknow better I would have thought it was an actor directing that thing........

DAY 3 SXSW

Nicholas Tremulis:
The last day of SXSW is on Sunday and is also my favorite day of the festival. Most of the people who attend the conference usually hit the road or air on this day to head back to their music type jobs in some other town, country... whatever. Those who know better stick around for the final gig at the Continental Club Alejandro throws for some charity organization or friend. (The first year, we did it; it was to help the then ill drummer Frosty)

There's a saying about this gig in Austin: "It ain't over until the little Mexican sings."

The gig is part final throw down and part sigh of relief for the performing musicians and certainly the Austin community. Every year they are invaded by hundreds of thousands of music industry types and now more and more, spring breakers and music devotees whose idea of seeing 150 or so bands in 5 days is the perfect vacation. This is why playing SXSW is such a superior experience to playing any of the other music biz festivals around the country. It's somehow devoid of the tiresome attitude that drags all other music conferences down. Those of you in bands out there who've played a showcase at say, the Mercury Lounge in NYC knows what I'm talking about. It's like performing at a Thorazine assisted halfway house. Everyone's busy trying to hide from your manager while finding a good dark corner from which to vanish from. Just enough show to say they were there. Odds are no one's going to stick their neck out and toss a contract on the stage either.

It's like taking your sister to the prom. You're not going to score. (This analogy may not be as clear to those of you residing in some parts of Tennessee or perhaps a castle in London.)

Anyway, the gig, as always went great. Charlie Sexton played my songs like he grew up next to me all my life, not to mention handing my guitar down to an insistent Garland Jeffries, "A set like that deserves a man to hand his guitar to when he leaves the stage." The other bands were all as diverse as ever and mesmerizing, particularly the great Liverpudlian, Peter Wylie, (Remember Wha?) John Langford and Sally Timms, (Perhaps you've heard of them.) Word Association, (A great rap group.) Grady (Austin's nitro-fueled power trio.) and maybe the best set I've ever heard Alejandro and band perform, as well a chance to jump on stage and join them backing Jeffries for his beautiful song, "35mm Dreams." The perfect ending to a perfect trip.

The next day the Shark and I headed for home. The weather seemed gentle for most of the morning across Texas. Then, somewhere in Oklahoma, the sky began to change. I'll leave the rest for "fish boy" to dream up.

Le Shark:
Today was the day The Shark swam out to Alejandro's compound say, 20 miles outside of town -we visited with the chickens and chiwawas, hung out on the porch overlooking a dried out creek -not a rivlet of water anywhere, walked around a peyote circle and headed back....I remembered thirty years ago racing out of Austin on a Yamaha 500 looking for psilocybin mushrooms to eat -and then, trying to relocate Austin on some warm summer night....

The Shark was afraid no one could follow the ZZ Top -on steroids, sonic (and completely fun) onslaught that is 'Grady'....but Mr. Tremulis aided and abetted by Charlie Sextons beautiful steel dobro playing handled the situation with mastery and ease........Alejandro Escovedo's Orchestra is simply one of the finest bands playing today - as noted here on Sharkforum previously, they will be performing in the next while here in Chicago -we will make note of these performances do not miss these upcoming dates. Here is a band is employing string arrangements/dissonance, and some really hard rock, led by a great songwriter -and I don't use that word lightly, with stellar musicianship in all quarters - exploring areas that bands like Wilco have also attempted to plumb; what I am liking about this group is the sheer variety of approaches - all hinging upon what is being expressed, and, with an emotional clarity that seems paramount to Alejandro's vision -just engaging to watch how they are exploring this musical terrain/ a synedoche of complex conceits, attitudes/ how this is all being arranged and executed - with a sense of ease and abandon, that was readily apparent at The Continental. Exciting stuff; much excellence.

The Killer Tornado that had you, Nicky-poo, reduced to a mound of quivering nicotine stained jello, sunken in a puddle of tears, whimpering to your maker? That is until The Unflappable Great Shark saved the day and told you to in no uncertain terms, calm down? Is that the 'change of weather' you are referring to?



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All images © Todd V. Wolfson 2006

Posted by ed at 10:03 AM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)

Soul Asylum
Closer to the Stars: The Best of the Twin Tone Years
Rykodisc

The hipsters who worship at the altar of the Replacements and Husker Du seem all too reluctant to give respect (or even props) to the mighty Soul Asylum.
Perhaps that attitude will gradually change with this latest retrospective repackaging; you won't find "Runaway Train" on this one. When that song became a runaway hit in the early 1990's Soul Asylum was widely said to have Souled Out. It wasn't fair then and it doesn't matter now. The work they did for the quintessentisl Minneapolis indie label Twin Tone Records in their earlier years is so solid it justifies any alleged subsequent mistakes.

This anthology is made up entirely of songs from the band's three Twin Tone albums and the odd EP "Clam Dip and Other Delights" (with a cover parodying Herb Alpert's famous "Whipped Cream and Other Delights" -- Alpert was a founder of the label, A&M, that was about to sign the band) from the brief period when Twin Tone and A&M were partners. That means there are a few tracks each from the Bob Mould-produced "Say What You Will," and the two superior follow-ups, "While You Were Out," and the near-masterpiece "Made to be Broken." From these life affirming releases have been culled some true (and truly unheralded) songs that are absolute classics: the title track, "Closer to the Stars," "Another World Another Day," the ballbusting "Tied to the Tracks," and the elegantly aggressive closer "Ship of Fools." The previously-almost-impossible-to-find tracks from the Brit edition of "Clam Dip" are "Juke Box Hero" (the Foreigner song) and a Janis J cover. Both are pretty much superfluous.

What is significant is the fact that Soul Asylum has a new recording scheduled for release this summer. The thusfar untitled record includes bassist Karl Mueller on all tracks. Karl died of throat cancer about a year ago. He was sort of the Sterling Morrison of Minnesota. Definitely not a flashy guy, his sturdy playing anchored the group even when it went unnoticed, when the bass guitar wasn't exactly the loudest, most dominant instrument in the mix. Nevertheless, Karl was an important and powerful presence and his passing garnered little or no notice (let alone grief) from the far too fickle and forgetful rock community.

Posted by Paul K at 08:47 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

The ability to see in darkness or dim light; dark-adapted vision.

Posted by Simone Muench at 12:11 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

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Posted by Ray Pride at 12:18 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

1. An unimportant or insignificant thing; a trifle.
2. A short, light piece of verse or music.
3. A game played on an oblong table with a cue and balls.

Posted by Simone Muench at 12:11 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

1. Relating to or composed of right angles.
2. Mathematics.
a. Of or relating to a matrix whose transpose equals its inverse.
b. Of or relating to a linear transformation that preserves the length of vectors.

“Soul, multilingual in the same tongue.
And as the orthogonals roll back to a trace
between us, intention comes to be
the dead rose in a vase cloying with leeches.”

—Forrest Gander, “The Ceremony of Opening the Mouth and the Eyes”
Read at Boston Review Posted by Simone Muench at 03:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Okay, okay...I am going to do a current piece next week, but here is something from my digital archives.
My digital photography archives only go back a liitle over 4 years ago.

These photos are of musicians I have been lucky enough to work with in the past few years......

so here goes........



Daniel Johnston with cotton candy. This is not a digital photograph. It is a scan from slide. A magazine lost my original. A scan is all I have left, no original.

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Ian Hunter from Friday of SXSW2005. A day spent with John Cale, Alejandro Escovedo, Jody Denberg & Ian Hunter. I was up close and emotional at radio station performances and a live concert.

A photo of Alejandro & Ian singing "I Wish I Was Your Mother" appeared on the cover of The Austin Chronicle's Saturday Daily edition....of course i shot it.

One of my days like no other.

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Do I really have to make a link to Neil Young? No link!

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The Flaming Lips have a new CD out....."At War With The Mystics".....Lotsa cool synthy and guitar tones..... .....This photo was taken at a soundcheck for an Austin City Limits taping, after which I was getting a portrait session with the Lips....it paid well...my friend Dutch Rall made a wonderful music video of me shooting them, called "GO TODD, GO!"....and the piece ran in a national COMPUTER music magazine called PLAYLIST....we are all Okies, and have one degree of seperation, as my brother, Stevo and the guys know a mutual friend in Norman, OK where they all went to OU, back in the late 70's...

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Richard Avedon

Posted by Todd V. Wolfson at 12:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

An aquatic celebration the likes of which are rarely seen is now in progress here at Maintop Bay, Farallon Islands, marking this auspicous day......The Shark and friends are busy lighting candles, sticking them on the backs of hapless members of the indigenous seal population, blindfolding themselves, and rocketing up from the depths playing chomp the head off of the sea lion! ~

Posted by The Shark at 06:09 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

We threw a party. A party of epic proportions. A party people talked about for years. And we threw that party, at least indirectly, because I was growing dissatisfied with the studio arrangement. I no longer felt that Roger was showing me the appreciation or respect I deserved, and he was starting to take over the studio. He took to painting these giant portraits. “Urban Baroque” he called this new style. The canvases were 8 to 10 feet on a side. They were stretched around two by fours. He would move them around, and there were at least a dozen of these works in process. He’d lay them on the floor, lean then against walls and stack them. He really got quite good at it, setting one end on my skateboard, steering form the other end. He’d gotten pretty burly, which only added to his similarity to Fred Flintstone. The likeness was arresting.

The canvases were always in transit; I’d never know from one day to the next just what state the studio would be in when I got there. He even started moving my workbench! No one can be expected to sit by passively for this type of abuse. I tried to talk to him. He looked at me as if I’d expressed an interest in painting on his canvases myself.

“Whoa.” He took a step back, pushing his hands away at belt level.

“Why is that a problem?”

“Do you know what you’re asking of me? You’re stepping on private and personal territory dude.”

“We’re sharing this space, Roger!”

“Come on.”

“‘Come on’ what?”

“You know?”

“I do?”

“We both know who makes best use of this space.”

“Huh?”

“You’re barely ever here.” He paused. “When’s the last time you finished a piece?”

“What are you talking about?” I arced my arm wide behind me, toward my bench. “What do you call those?”

He smirked and rocked on his heels, stifling laughter. An eyebrow bumped up and down.

“What?”

“Oh, nothing.”

“What?”

“I guess we just have differing understandings of the word finished.”

“Fuck off.”

“Okay. Alright.” he was backing away casually. “Forget I said anything, you’re right.”

I stewed for a week, and made it a point to be there every night past midnight. I brought a Walkman and I turned it up. We didn’t talk that whole week, and it was into the following week before we had something resembling a conversation.

“Let’s have a bash.”

“A bash.”

“Yeah,” he said, “we should have a bash. Melanie’s band could play.”

“Jesus Roger, I think I know that Mel’s band could play. Hello?”

“Don’t get territorial,” he showed me his teeth, “we should throw a bash.”

So we threw a big, big party. I drew flyers, and printed 500 copies at Kinko’s. We billed it as “Rock Yer Block Off.” We went way overboard, and it got out of hand. Melanie was furious because we couldn’t turn off the fluorescent lights, so the performance aspect of the night had a weird vibe. Melanie and her bandmates were bathed in a sickly blue light that was far too bright. They were unhappy about it, and I understood why, although we couldn’t have predicted it. There’s a certain amount of anonymity required in order to really lose yourself in live music, and that’s made easier when you’re in a dark club. No Faux, Mel’s band, was exposed to the focused attention of hundreds of visible eyes, and what made it worse was that they were standing on the same level. The whole thing was awkward and weird, and I think it’s part of the reason things got out of hand.

I drank tequila all night and collected one dollar bills from kids who couldn’t have been older than 18. They got warm Schlitz in return for their hard won bucks. By 2:00 am the kids were bored and restless. They broke our work benches and pieces of art. They stole tools and roamed The Belly looking for entertainment. The landlord called to kick us out the next morning, but neither of us were home to take the call. We were up the tower, watching the sun come up and drinking. We smoked joints and watched the traffic swell. We got too blasted to get down.

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Next week: Act 8: Wherein the Author is Humbled, and Offers Several Mea Culpas

<< Last week - Act 6: It’s All About The M-O-N-E-Y

Posted by david roth at 04:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

1.
a. A song for two or three unaccompanied voices, developed in Italy in the late 13th and early 14th centuries.
b. A short poem, often about love, suitable for being set to music.

2.
a. A polyphonic song using a vernacular text and written for four to six voices, developed in Italy in the 16th century and popular in England in the 16th and early 17th centuries.
b. A part song.

"Like a madrigal, a pastoral
In the pocket of my houndstooth vest,

You are the only beauty in this
Celestial torture I will call my own."

—Lucie Brock-Broido, “Boy at the Border of his Own Allegory”
Read at Boston Review

Posted by Simone Muench at 02:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Catherine Daly was valedictorian of her class at St. Teresa of Avila High School in a small blue collar city in the American Midwest. An Illinois Scholar at Trinity College and Merit Fellow at Columbia University, she has worked as a technical architect, officer in a Wall Street investment bank, engineer supporting the space shuttle orbiter, software developer for motion picture studios, and teacher. She lives in Los Angeles, and is also the author of another book of poetry, DaDaDa. You can visit her blog at cadaly.blogspot.com. Locket is available from Tupelo Press.

Driving a Dream Car Intoxicated with You
A slipper for champagne sipping,
not a scuff; a maribou-trimmed slingback for marimbas,
or a mule; a tuxedo slipper

sported by a tenor martinet pinching the cool stem of a gin
martini between thumb and forefinger, dangling his cigarette from his lips;
yogi or djinn ashing on the magic carpet;

pretty Chitty Bang Bang, lovely substitutiary locomotion
above everywhere, velocitation in a vehicle for afar, in a dream car.

He starts to talk, drops off midphrase, vernacular
is spectacular, carried along by passing locutionary archetypes.

I try to yield to a better illusion,
the ground you prefer, actually your body,
but this darned Packard won't pause when I pump the brakes.

Posted by Simone Muench at 11:49 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

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Posted by Ursula Sokolowska at 06:09 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I love vinyl, and still buy it when I can. Just last month I wandered into Dr. Wax in Evanston looking for the Seed's classic "Pushin' Too Hard," and voila! It was there on vinyl. Aside from the fact that WLUW is a really great radio station, their record fair is really cool. For more you can go here.

Date: April 8-9, 2006

Time: Saturday 10am-6pm and Sunday 10am-5pm
(Saturday Pre-Admission 8am-10am entitles free admission for entire weekend!)

Cost: $7 each day or $5 with this flyer. $20 for Saturday pre-admission.

Location: Pulaski Park Fieldhouse 1419 W. Blackhawk, Chicago, Illinois
For more info: wluwrecordfair@gmail.com or our voice mail 773-508-8076

WLUW-Chicago will be hosting our fourth annual record fair, a benefit for 88.7fm. The people have spoken and we have listened! This year's fair will be two full days filled with the best selection of vinyl, CDs, posters, 'zines, and art available under one roof in the entire Chicagoland area! Past dealers have said that this is a "super show for both sides of the table", "best organized fair I have ever attended", and "I wouldn't consider missing this fair!" Do you really want to be the only dealer on your block NOT to be at this fair? Didn't think so! Located at the Pulaski Park Fieldhouse in Wicker Park, this event will have aisles and aisles of everything a music aficionado could possibly want! We'll have vendors offering rock, pop, psychedelia and folk, to soul, jazz, country, international, R&B, hip-hop, rock-a-billy and everything in-between! If it's rare or weird, we'll have that too. Also, videos, DVDs, posters, art, and anything that isn't nailed down...We hope this annual event will grow to be the largest and most diverse music collectors' convention in the Midwest!

There will be live music and special guest DJs scheduled throughout the day on both days! Keep checking the website - An updated schedule of bands and DJs will be posted regularly! Food provided by Uptown Cafe and Alliance Bakery.

Posted by david roth at 11:33 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

THE GOLDEN TRUFFLE, a musical extravaganza of colossal imagination, previews tonight!

From TONIGHT through June 18, Redmoon Central will be transformed into a lavish dessert lounge for the first musical in Redmoon’s history, THE GOLDEN TRUFFLE. A musical spectacle extravaganza of colossal imagination, audiences will be treated to celebratory song, DAZZLING dance numbers, SURREAL service apparatus, frenetic live music, flashing PAPARAZZI AND four unique and inspiring courses of exotic truffles by Chicago’s most luxurious chocolatier, Vosges Haut-Chocolat!

Created by Artistic Director Jim Lasko;
Original Music and Lyrics by John Fournier;
Co-Directed and Art Directed by Frank Maugeri;
Co-Directed and Choreographed by Vanessa Stalling.

Posted by ed at 11:16 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

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After the Protest. 2004. Oil on canvas. 48" x 60"

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Tea Bag. 2002. Oil on canvas, 12” x 9”

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Tea Bag with Saucer. 2002. Oil on canvas, 11” x 14”

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Kitchen Sink. 2002. Oil on canvas, 11” x 14”

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Windowsill. 2003. Oil on canvas, 12” x 16”

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Drainboard with Plate. 2003. Oil on canvas, 16” x 20”

Posted by Norbert Marszalek at 09:28 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

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Chicago is steeped in the atmosphere for a ghost story I've spent months on. If it's all there, in the turn of the head or blink of an eye, then why should it be anything but a joy to turn images into the words that will prompt the making of a story?

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Day, night: there are doors to be opened, barriers finessed.

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Serial 02-009 1300

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Serial 02-008 5781

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I will not tell you how they died but if you know Chicago's twentieth century back to almost its start, you might have heard their cries.

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They live here. They remember heartbeats in blood that once flowed freely. They do not sleep. They hide in rain, they play in darkness. They were only ever children.

Posted by Ray Pride at 12:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Norbert Marszalek
"Dialogue"
Gillock Gallery Evanston
April 1 - 29, 2006
Reception: Saturday, April 15
6-9pm
Gillock Gallery

~

Posted by ed at 03:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

This is why i try my hardest to move forward. This is electricity.

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In the coming weeks, I will bring you photos of musicians (sometimes FAMOUS), actors, artists...people who inspire me. My goal here is to show you some of the people who make my life as a photographer interesting. I hope you enjoy this, as I know that I will enjoy bringing it to you, the viewer!

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Mickey's light !

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the BEST thing about SXSW2006

Posted by Todd V. Wolfson at 11:47 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

...like Mr. Curator for instance! Lets hurry and finish up with our foray to Austin tommorrow Nick. I'm ready to chew on something with absolutely no substance!
~

Posted by The Shark at 05:59 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

The absence of pleasure or the ability to experience it.

Posted by Simone Muench at 12:03 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Ander Monson draws from his life in Michigan, Illinois, Iowa, the Deep South, and Saudi Arabia. He has an MFA from the University of Alabama. He edits the magazine DIAGRAM and the New Michigan Press, and publishes widely. He teaches at Grand Valley State University and lives in Grand Rapids, Michigan, with his wife, Megan, and three cats. His novel in stories, Other Electricities, has been newly released by Sarabande Books. Vacationland is available from Tupelo Press.

Implied Love Poem
Tine, affix
yourself to vein:
let pewter spine
of light-caught, lentil-spear
collectible utensil
complete its jab and hanker
for my fragrant wrist.

Your wish for immersion
in the bone, and tilling of the skin
fairy-granted, bruise-blue and true
since all is hole and graft and fail.

Since my love, my errant burr,
my deft and arctic tern,
my reverberating Iowa,
my plain, my pop-up girl,
is gone and off and dead,
caught like a ball, aloft
just before the final buzzer

circling like a bird for wire,
a nasty black and addled grackle,
all cylinders afire for roost
on any electric line.

How elegant they are,
aggregates of feather and utility,
prooflike and stream-thin,
made for the swoop and milky
crap, that loose bomb,
that car glass splat.

Terse and tensile buzzard,
how do you perch prehensile
with all the fiber optics
(the land’s Ziploc bag and freezer burn)
humming just below
(or are those cords buried, and those above
just antiquated, old
like past-date soup,
like cans and string)?

How can you chirp
and hack and mock
while I wind and moan
below, gnash enamel
down to gum,

and proceed to shit
in the designated spot,
the whitest life
of toilets
that appear to me
perhaps overly
bleach-loved,
disinfected,
tended to,

when all information is an omen,
every bulletin, a bone
a hull a bullet.

Posted by Simone Muench at 09:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

In August my life changed dramatically. I’d been working for almost a year at a place called Monahan Screen Works, printing t-shirts, satin jackets, baseball hats, beer coolers and the like. Working as a professional screen printer is like rowing a boat all day, but you get used to it after a while. For all the skill and attention required to do it right there’s a mindless quality to this kind of work once you get past a certain level of ability.

The other printers at MSW were cool, but some of them spoke very little english. Whether they were from south of the border or eastern Europe, they worked their asses off. The shop boss was an aging hippy named Peter Thomas. He never told us his last name, and I used to tease him about it.

“Why do you think they call it dope?” I’d shout above the hum of the dryer.

“How’s life in the witness protection program?” I’d holler above the pneumatic rhythm of the automatic press. The other printers would laugh, even though they understood only every other word.
So everyone called him Peter Thomas, as if it were one word, and he was a good guy. During lunch we’d talk about the hipsters form the 60’s and early 70’s, and some of the little-known bands from that era.

“Hey Peter Thomas,” I’d ask slyly, “did you ever see The Flaming Groovies?”

“Oh, man.” He’d roll his eyes. “I think so.”

You could never be entirely sure with Peter Thomas whether or not he was stretching the truth, and I’m not sure he was quite certain himself. We got along really well, and he’d always file the more difficult and interesting jobs on my clip board.

“This one’s a 4 color front and back on a satin jacket, m’man. You’ll need to lay down an underprint of white and flash it. The jackets are $80 each, and we don’t have any extras.”

A tough job, but nothing new. Screen printing ink is basically liquid plastic that cures when exposed to heat. The plastisol used to imprint satin jackets gets a little epoxy goo mixed in for added durability. The challenge with these jackets is that the satin shell can move around under the silk screen. You can restrict the movement with a framing clamp which holds it down, but you’ve still got the fiber lining under the satin and over the platen.

After a while you get the feel for it. You practice on heavy sweatshirts, which can move a bit, too. Eventually you move up to satin and nylon. Because plastisol is relatively thick you can print colors on top of and next to each other with very little bleeding, but printing light colors on dark backgrounds can be tricky. The cure is to double print, or under print, the art work. The underprint needs to be dry before you can print on it again, and you can’t remove the jacket from the platen and run it through the dryer, so you use a small swivelling thing called a flash dryer to take care of it on the press. Too much heat and the satin shrinks, rendering the jacket worthless - you’ll never get the other colors to print in register.

All of these jobs were printed on my press, and I took more than a little pride in that. Peter Thomas had put in a good word with the Monahans for me, and they gave me a raise. A week later I got another, much larger raise when Peter Thomas fell down dead on the factory floor. Heart attack was the named cause, but I think it was too many years of hard living. He left a wife and two small kids.
The Monahans called me into the big office the day after the funeral. The shop had been closed for the service, and it was odd to walk amongst the idle presses and dryers.

“Look,” said Bruce Monahan, “you’re the man for the job. Can you handle it son?”

“Yes,” I replied, “I think so.”

“Think so don’t cut mustard, son. We need a confident man.”

“I’m confident...”

“Alright, then. Let’s see how you do. Your first job is to find your replacement on the floor. Your hours will get a little longer now, but you’re gonna make a lot more money. Are you ready for that?” He grinned.

As my financial reality swelled, Roger’s dwindled. He quit his real estate job and took a bartending gig. This allowed him more time in the studio. I bought his Cherokee, and he bought an ‘81 Chevy Custom Deluxe pick up for $600. It wasn’t rare to find him under the thing out in front of the Belly, wrenching on something or other. His confidence seemed to outmeasure his knowledge.

My eight hour work day expanded to ten, but I still managed to get a lot of sculpture made. It was increasingly difficult to leave work at work, but I helped the process along with loud music and heavy drinking. I took to drinking coffee, something I’d never done before, and I returned to my cigarette habit. This allowed me the opportunity to hang out with the other guys in the shop during their breaks in the alley.

As summer slid in to fall I began to dread the impending gloom and chill of winter. I had gas service brought to the studio, and Roger promised to cover half the bill. He was polite, but it became clear that he had developed a healthy disregard for his financial responsibilities. I’d try to confront him, and he’d weasel out of it somehow. I had disliked him almost from the beginning. Now I was starting to experience something stronger. Around Halloween I started to sense a loudening voice in the back of my mind. The voice told me that I needed to level the scales of justice.

++++

Next week: Act 7: Rock Yer Block Off!

<< Last week - Act 5: The World as Viewed From The Water Tower

Posted by david roth at 02:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Having beautifully proportioned buttocks.

Posted by Simone Muench at 12:06 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Shark News Service, New York
Similar to the totally unexpected collapse of Communism in the years around 1989, a complete rearrangement of the power structure in the world of fine art was announced today.

The rapid and unexpected collapse of the Communist systems of the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe continues to mystify scholars and citizens alike. A parallel phenomenon seems to have occurred today. All curators in a massive guilt-ridden attack of moral conscience have simultaneously renounced all claims to leading, directing or educating the artworld. They have decided to return to what they do best, if agonizingly --- fundraising, aperitifs and putting up with difficult artists.

To prove the point, the next directors of Documenta, the Venice Biennale, the Whitney Biennial and all other large "top o' the pops" art exhibitions will be presided over by practicing artists, with curators as assistants. Additionally, the curators have enforced self-disciplinary measures in collaboration with art critics. In the future, speeches at art openings will be less than 15 minutes, only one speaker will be allowed and the content will not consist of telling viewers why the work is so important even though they don't like it. Reviews and catalogue essays will never have more than one reference to Derrida, Lacan or Nietzsche per paragraph. Furthermore, all curators and critics have promised to take creative writing classes under well-known authors and editors in order to learn how to actually compose essays. This will include meetings in a newly founded group "Clichés Anonymous," following a 12-step plan for the abstention from delusions of dictatorial control. A special sub-group has been founded for curators in the German-speaking world, focusing on a detox program helping them withdraw from the abuse of Large Romantic Abstractions in writing.

Collectors have voluntarily joined in, saying that their actions till now had actually been "ironically intended" anyway. From now on, instead of hiring curators to tell them what to buy for investment sake, they have decided to actually read books and visit exhibitions on their own, deciding what they like, and buying that! The auction houses have proclaimed that in a spirit of detente, they will cease attempting to replace galleries. Finally, with the pressure removed, all gallery dealers have announced that they will begin to make discoveries of new artists themselves, not waiting for curator, that they will even seek out mid-career artists, not only juvenescent ones. They also plan to form long-lasting relationships with artists.

The artists we have contacted are completely astounded and confused. Most living artists have never considered the possibility of actually having control over their world and have no plans for "Post Kowtow" as it has been dubbed. It appears many curatorial favorites have already committed suicide. Various artists have openly admitted to considering giving up brown-nosing on the one hand and whining on the other.

Oppositely, however, in other news, the world of stand-up comedy has decided to take over where the previous artworld left off. From now on, comedians will not appear on TV, other than as assistants. Instead, agents and managers will take their place. In place of comedy routines, these "comedy facilitators" will discuss the ways in which they arrange for comedians to appear. Or did so, previous to the change, that is. According to one former 10-percenter and now star, this will "result in a far more critical, deconstructive and analytic comedy-world." He went on to quote Foucault, Derrida and Nietzsche.

Posted by ed at 12:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)