Harpist -check
Spoken Word Poetry- check
Old Growth Redwoods -check
Goddess Worship -check
Tree Hugging- check
Topless Performance Artist -check
Flummoxed Loggers- check
Striptease to Save the Trees, the movie.
you’ll have to click here to watch this gem, courtesy of Earth Films.
Guatemala
Recently I got mailed this book of paintings by elin o’Hara Slavik called, Bomb After Bomb. I figured that I’d be looking at either a series of calculated flow charts of casualties or a grotesquery as it comes with a forward by Howard Zinn and the conceptual hook of the book, subtitled “A Violent Cartography”, is that it’s made up of paintings of maps of places the United States has bombed. I was surprised to see a book full of fairly abstracted and fairly “decorative” paintings. Though slavick’s paintings rely on a kind of information graphics approach, portraying clearly and exactly countries, towns, regions that the US has blown up, all of these paintings take a much more formal approach. Quite often they are dominated by a game of color, line, pattern, and abstraction. If it weren’t for the title, at times we wouldn’t know the deaths and crimes being masked here.
These paintings reminded me of the work of LA painter Jill Newman, who equally chooses to paint politically charged sites. Instead of working in a social realist form, both painters use their representations as a place for formal departure. Early this year, at the recently closed Park Projects (now resurrected as Sea and Space), Newman exhibited a lush painting of the South Central Farm called Endless Numbered Days.
Endless Numbered Days
Luminescent in oil, the large painting depicts the tree at the center of the struggle. This is the walnut tree that activists camped in to defend the garden. The significance of the tree within the conflict is visible only by a faint banner and the tree-sit platform painted with the word “SAVE” on it. Otherwise it’s a color and lightfest. At a recent show at Taylor De Cordoba, Jill continued her South Central Farm trilogy with a series of watercolor paintings of improvised architectural forms constructed by the farmers. Like the oil of the walnut tree, these paintings use the political context of the farm as an invitation for aesthetic play with color. Rather than a retelling of the tragedy that has befallen LA, it is as if saved in Newman’s painting is a little bit of the spirit, biodiversity and creativity lost when the place was plowed under.
Chatting with my friends Kimberly and Melissa about these paintings, we came to a quote by artist Andrea Bowers regarding Vija Celmins, an artists who spent hours drawing meticulous, formally perfect photo-realistic. Bower’s said:
When you work this way, imagery is not chosen lightly; it is considered for a very long time. The dedication of her labor is an act of generosity toward the viewer. Her work shares a record of time in relation to production and to imagery. Whereas cynicism is prevalent in the art world today, she instead chooses to believe in human motives, so obviously displayed in Untitled #9 (For Felix) (1994–95), a drawing of a comet dedicated to the memory of Felix Gonzalez-Torres, whose own work focused on generosity despite his dealing with the horror of AIDS.
In an age of intellectual coolness and emotional distancing, Celmins’ work reminds me that the artist’s personal position in relation to her subject matter has value.
untitled, #10
Howard Zinn writes in o’hara’s book “if the drawings of slavick and the words that accompany them cause us to think about war, perhaps in ways we never did before, they will have made a powerful contribution towards a peaceful world”. If Zinn is refering to a kind of conscioussness raising frequently performed by political art, I find this unlikely to occur. Slavick’s is an art that doesn’t seem to circulate in the appropriate environments, and its postion seems to be more about painting than convincing. I don’t however think this makes her kind of political art useless. Though representational and political in subject, it takes a differen’t approach than someone like Leon Golub, who is political becuase he can bludgeon. By taking scenes and places, battle zones which we think we know so well, and transforming them for creative fodder for trips into other realms, Newman’s and slavick’s paintings do a bit to reclaim wonder and imagination from the death machine. And here is the peace.
From the 10 July 02007 Los Angeles Times
Preaching the anti-shopping gospel
Under the guise of the Rev. Billy, activist, actor and writer Bill Talen targets consumerism and big corporations.
By Erika Hayasaki, Times Staff Writer
NEW YORK — Familiar in his clerical collar, cream-colored suit and dyed-blond pompadour, the Rev. Billy has spent much of the last decade parading through the streets of Manhattan, shouting through a megaphone messages such as: “Mickey Mouse is the anti-Christ!”
Accompanied by a robed choir belting out gospel songs, the Rev. Billy condemns the “Disneyfication” of Times Square and warns that Wal-Mart is part of the “consumer axis of evil.”
To passersby, the preacher who shouts: “Can I get a change-a-lujah?” might seem like just another colorful character in New York’s backdrop. But the Rev. Billy does not promote religion and he is not actually a reverend. He is the alter ego of Bill Talen, an activist, actor and writer who has become nationally known as Rev. Billy, a character inspired by televangelists, for his fight against consumerism and big corporations.
At the end of June, police arrested the Rev. Billy in Manhattan’s Union Square on suspicion of harassment after he repeatedly recited the 1st Amendment through a megaphone during a bicycling rally. His arrest sparked outcries from supporters who said his free-speech rights had been violated.
“Rev. Billy has a 1st Amendment right to recite the 1st Amendment,” said Norman Siegel, former head of the New York American Civil Liberties Union and attorney for Talen, who has called for the charges to be dismissed.
Video of Talen being handcuffed was posted on YouTube. After his release from jail, he criticized police for violating his rights and took his moment in the spotlight to bring new attention to his crusade against megastores, consumerism and gentrification.
“We’re addicted to shopping,” said Talen, in an interview at an independently owned East Village cafe. It’s near St. Mark’s Church in-the-Bowery, where his congregation, the Church of Stop Shopping, holds services.
“Don’t go shopping in a big-box store if you can help it,” he said. “Don’t go to a chain store if you can help it. Those are sweatshop products. Those are union-busting companies.”
Big businesses targeted
Talen used to live in the East Village, paying about $400 a month for rent. But he said he was forced to move to Brooklyn as rent in the neighborhood climbed to $2,000 a month. He pointed to a Chase Manhattan Bank across the street from the church.
“That used to be the Second Avenue Deli, with the Yiddish Walk of Fame in front of it,” he said, noting there was another Chase branch around the corner. “I’m embarrassed that’s there.”
Though many admire Talen’s passion, his critics — including corporations that he targets and customers who shop there — say it is unrealistic to ask the public to stop shopping at their favorite stores. Others complain that the Rev. Billy’s dramatic protests, which sometimes include barging into stores with his bullhorn, are disruptive and don’t contribute to meaningful discussion or debate about the issues.
Talen’s mission to curb consumerism began in 1997, when he felt that megastores and corporations were overrunning Manhattan streets where family-owned shops and restaurants used to be. Meanwhile, he said, “poor people, eccentric people, vendors, people of color” were being priced out of the neighborhoods they had lived in for years to make room for wealthier people and businesses where they shopped.
Talen bought a pulpit from a thrift store and planted himself in front of the Disney store in Times Square, just as the area was beginning to transform into the glitzy commercial center of the city that it is now. He delivered sermons in a Southern accent denouncing big businesses.
“At first it may have been a parody,” said Talen, “and you probably could have taken it right out of ‘Saturday Night Live.’ “
But Talen said he believed in his message and it resonated with people. As his following grew, he met Savitri Durkee — now his wife. She also came from a theater and arts background and had grown up in a utopian commune. He was raised a Dutch Calvinist in the Midwest, a faith he rejected as a teenager.
He and Durkee partnered in writing political theater featuring the Rev. Billy, which he performs with his choir and band.
“It resembles religion in certain ways,” she said. “We have a regular group of people who come to our shows. They are exactly like a congregation and our relationship to them is very much like a congregation. The expectation in the room is a prayerful one, a hopeful one.”
In his book, “What Would Jesus Buy?” the Rev. Billy offers prayers and songs: “We believe in making more than money. Beyond big debts there’s a super value. A Wal-Mart crushed by a great green storm, a new town rising from the logos to be born.”
Coffeehouse banishment
Talen’s work has been captured by producer Morgan Spurlock (of “Super Size Me”) who followed the Rev. Billy and his entourage — including a 35-member choir and band — as they traveled on two biodiesel-fueled buses across the country in late 2005 for a soon-to-be-released film. Among the stops: Disneyland’s Main Street U.S.A., where Talen was arrested on Christmas Day.
Another frequent target of the Rev. Billy’s is Starbucks — a judge has barred him from coming within 250 yards of the businesses in California.
In a statement, Starbucks spokeswoman Bridget Baker said the company was aware of the Rev. Billy and his criticisms. “We understand that activists use many vehicles to express their opinions,” she said, adding that Starbucks has a record of social responsibility.
Talen, who often takes his performance on the road, remains undeterred. He keeps financially afloat with donations and the sale of his book and CDs.
He traveled to Iceland last week to take his message to a conference on saving the country’s landscape from heavy industry. When he returns to New York, he is scheduled to perform his anti-consumerism production, the Rev. Billy’s Hot and Holy Highline Revival.
“We have humor inside our prayers, inside our hymns,” he said last week, his voice shifting into his sermon style as he recited a line he has told tourists at Times Square:
“I want you to take your little family away from this den of iniquity!”
erika.hayasaki@latimes.com
This photo is believed to have been taken in 1968 at the Brighton Arts Festival. From the left, Michael Moorcock, Brian Aldiss, Mike Kustow (director of the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London), JG Ballard (photo courtesy Michael Moorcock).
“He inspired his contemporaries, like Aldiss and Brunner, for instance, to concentrate increasingly on contemporary imagery and issues. He was so far removed from even the best genre writers, such as Dick or Pohl and Kornbluth, that he was our finest model in showing new writers how to develop their own vocabularies. I didn’t want to write like Jimmy any more than the rest of our best writers, but he showed that it was possible to write idiosyncratically about what we saw as the urgent issues of the day, that genre conventions need only be employed where they were useful to the individual. Previous to that I think Jimmy would argue only Bradbury had managed that transformation. Bradbury was Jimmy’s inspiration before Burroughs. I had seen Bester and the Americans who influenced him as a similar inspiration. Neither of us could read what is generally called ‘Golden Age’ SF.”
(…)
“I think we were all part of a broad movement which was rejecting, as I said, the played out conventions of Modernism. We were looking for methods which worked for us. Some were eventually abandoned. Some were modified. We now live in a world where many of our innovations, techniques and subjects we considered our own, have become so commonly used nobody even knows where they originally came from. We’ve probably, therefore, achieved what we set out to do, to establish fresh conventions better able to deal with contemporary life.”
One great contemporary writer discussing another at Ballardian.
The Los Angeles Urban Rangers announce
‘MALIBU PUBLIC BEACHES’ SAFARIS
August 4-5 & 11-12, 2007
“Tired of Zuma and Surfrider? Want to find and use the other beaches in Malibu? The twenty miles that are lined with private development? The ‘Malibu Public Beaches’ safaris will show you how to find, park, walk, picnic, and sunbathe on a Malibu beach. Each 3 1/2-hour safari visits two or three beaches and explores natural history, jurisdiction, and the identification of public and private property. Skills-enhancing activities include a public-private boundary hike, an accessway hunt, sign watching, and a public easement potluck.
“We will offer two safaris in west Malibu and two in east Malibu:
** West Malibu beaches – SAT Aug 4 (9:30am-1pm), SUN Aug 12 (1:30-5pm)
** East Malibu beaches – SUN Aug 5 (9:30am-1pm), SAT Aug 11 (1:30-5pm)
“Safaris are free, but space is limited. To sign up, please email info@laurbanrangers.org with tour date, name, and number of people. For further information on the safaris and the Los Angeles Urban Rangers, visit http://laurbanrangers.org/.
“A ‘Malibu Public Beaches’ guide will be downloadable from our website in
early August.
“The Los Angeles Urban Rangers is a collective of artists, writers, architects, and urban designers. We adopt the park ranger persona – friendly, knowledgeable, direct, and a tad gee-whiz- to explore the workings of our home megalopolis, and to give people the interpretive tools to do the same.”
When my wife Nancy was 16, she listened over and over to Mort Sahl’s first album until she memorized it, just as she had done with the score of My Fair Lady. Last week, we sat behind Sahl, watching him enjoy and appreciate a tribute to him by a gaggle of comedians at the Wadsworth Theater in Brentwood.
There were the original gang members: Jonathan Winters (in character as an aging baseball star); Norm Crosby (master of malapropism); and Shelley Berman (doing his classic rotary-phone call, still dialing a number rather than pressing buttons).
And there was the newer breed: a surprise appearance by George Carlin (his set piece on contemporary schizophrenic man followed by a film clip of his 1962 impression of Sahl); Jay Leno (fat jokes); Richard Lewis (dick jokes); Drew Carey (referring to the bus driver who told Rosa Parks to move to the back of the bus as “the father of the civil rights movement”); Harry Shearer introducing Kevin Nealon; and Bill Maher re-introducing political incorrectness.
Woody Allen and Don Rickles sent their good wishes via video. The program mentioned that “Comedians scheduled to appear are subject to personal availability.” Thus, David Steinberg and David Brenner were no-shows, and Larry King was replaced as host by Jack Riley, one of the patients in Bob Newhart’s TV group-therapy ensemble.
Paula Poundstone, the only female comic, resorted to her forte, asking an audience member, “What do you do for a living?” He was an attorney–giving her the opportunity to talk about her own problems with the law–and he turned out to have started the first Mort Sahl fan club in 1956. She asked if all the members of his fan club wore those cute red pullover sweaters like Mort did.
Although all the performers topped off their regular schtick with praise for Sahl’s comedic breakthrough, Albert Brooks was the most original and unique to the context of this occasion.
“I’m embarrassed tonight,” he began. “And angry. And I’m confused. I don’t know the people that produced this show at all. But I would strongly suggest that when they do an event like this again, they spend a little extra money and hire a real publicity firm to disseminate the information correctly. I was told that Mort Sahl passed away. So you can imagine my shock, my dismay, and quite frankly my disappointment, when I arrived here this evening and saw him standing there.
“I worked very, very hard on this eulogy–and unlike other comedians tonight, I don’t have a current act, I just can’t pull ten minutes off the top of my head–so I do this, or I have nothing. I asked myself, ‘What would the late Mort Sahl say?’ I think he would have said, ‘You do it.’ Nobody appreciated a turn of a phrase, a beautifully-written sentence, as much as he did. But then again I say, to the people that produced the show, ‘If you don’t wanna spring for full-blown publicity, please get someone who will talk to the talent.”
And he started to read aloud:
“Mort Sahl–1927 to 2007. Mort? We hardly knew you. I remember the last time I saw Mort alive. It was at a Starbucks near where I live. And now I wish I’d said the things that I really felt. I wish I’d said how much he influenced all of us here. How brave he was. I wish I’d have told him how much of an innovator he was. I wish I’d have told him how much I loved listening to his records. While he was here. But I didn’t. All that I think I said that day was, ‘Are you gonna finish that latte?’
“This should be a lesson to all of us. If you see someone that you love, don’t ask for their food. Tell them how much they mean to you. Do you know what? On a night like this, I think we need to look on the positive side. From what was told to me, Mort didn’t suffer. He died as he lived. In his sleep. It’s at times like these that I think of what the great Alexander the Great said to his brother in the middle of a fierce fight. He said, ‘I’m going home. I don’t wanna fight anymore. You can take over. And try not to die.’
“If only I’d said that to Mort Sahl! That day in Starbucks. But I didn’t. Actually I think, along with the latte comment, I also asked him if he were going to eat the scone. But you know what? I’m sure he knew what I meant. I’m sure he read into that freeloading comment, the fact that I loved him….”
Finally, Sahl himself took the stage–wearing, of course, his signature red pullover sweater.
“I’ve been very moved by everybody tonight,” he said. “And I had a good time laughing. I want you to know it really did knock me out. And I also want you to know that I’ll do it as long as they let me. I didn’t want this to be a retirement party, you know. I’m still in business. And to reference that business–when Bill Maher came down to so graciously keep us company, was talking about the Bush administration–you know, I know the president, and he told me that he doesn’t drink. And he said, ‘I don’t need it, because I’ve been born again. And what occurred to me in the moment was: If you had the rare opportunity to be born again, why would you come back as George Bush?…Cheney went to the hospital. Got an aneuryism in the right knee. You know, the one that replaced the left knee. Also he’s had four heart attacks and also a pacemaker. They’re reconstructing Cheney, a Halliburton corporation. And they’re overcharging him.”
At one point, someone shouted, “Hey, Mort! You avoid 9/11 in your act. You always talked about the Warren Commission. You were all over it!”
“You hear that?” Sahl asked the audience. “It was something to do with the Warren Commission. Well, you know that’s how I went out of business for about twelve years. But I stuck to my guns, because I remember something [Bobby] Kennedy said: ‘To all you with the guns out there. You may be able to slay the dreamer, but you haven’t slain the dream.’ I came to this because I really thought I was an American and really had the capacity to dream. You all know that if you watch Turner Classic Movies. That’s what the movies were about–it was a dark place where people could fall in love and moral issues could be resolved. My grandfather came from Lithuania, although Lou Dobbs tried to stop him….I dreamed that dream.
“When I started this act,” he concluded, “although I was just lonesome and looking for a family, in a larger sense I saw it as a rescue mission for America…but I believe it more than ever, in spite of the odds. That the good guys’ll win….I tried to get to your funny bone and get into your head, but apparently I also got into your heart.”
———
Satirist Paul Krassner will perform at M Bar in Hollywood on July 20.
More info: paulkrassner.com
2023 UPDATE: Stream the entire film here.
“Huldufólk 102”
Nisha Inalsingh, 2006, 74 min., doc
Iceland
NEW YORK PREMIERE! – July 22 at Anthology Film Archives
“Set against the backdrop of Iceland’s breathtaking rural landscapes, Huldufolk 102 explores the country’s incredible attitude towards a supernatural phenomenon most of us associate with Walt Disney, JRR Tolkien and five-year-olds. Entitled, quite literally, ‘Hidden People 102’, Nisha Inalsingh’s film debut tackles parallel universes, fairies, elves and all things three feet tall. Interviews with farmers and academics, politicians and priests, the young, the old, the superstitious and the rational, bear testament to the survival of ancient folkloric traditions in all segments of Icelandic society. Men in suits talk very seriously about the huldufolk’s invisible houses inside rocks and stones. The matter is taken so seriously, in fact, that parliamentarians agree to divert roads around potentially ‘inhabited’ rocks! It’s not, the interviewed invariably stress, that everybody believes in these invisible beings (though 10% of the population do admit to it), but rather that most refuse to deny the possibility (80% to be sure).”
More info: www.huldufolk102.com
link courtesy Astrid Quay (Winter Flowers)!
From L.A. Record:
“I don’t remember a whole lot after the face-melting set Entrance
performed on Wednesday night. The trio walked on stage and played
their signature fuzzed-out blues-rock. It was at times distorted
beyond recognition and at other times so tightly locked in grooves and
riffage that the entire theatre was entrenched in full-on head
nodding. But let’s back up for a second… Wednesday night’s benefit
was exemplary of what makes Arthur so great. In one of L.A.’s offbeat
landmarks, a host of noise makers and poets and outsider freaks paid
tribute to the best magazine that’s been in existence of late, and
with any luck we’ll be getting a new Arthur issue next month! Arthur
(and L.A. RECORD) stalwart Oliver Hall spent the evening introducing
acts, offering bits of musical wisdom and hodgepodge, and occasionally
staring into the crowd causing patrons to squirm uncomfortably in
their seats. The line-up featured the old, the young, and a few
performers of indeterminate age. Forever youthful Ruthann Friedman
took to the stage and amidst plucks on her guitar reminisced about the
’60s, spending time with the Association, and reminding the crowd why
she is a folk legend by playing her hit “Windy.” The evening began
with Lewis MacAdams reminding the young ‘uns about the simplicity of
poetry. The founder of Friends of the Los Angeles River read several
brief and sweet selections from his book before making an early
getaway. Other younger poets and musicians would take the stage and
noise and dissonance and a singularly magical typewriter would add
entertaining affectation to their performances (and there was that
overwhelming Entrance set). It was a prolonged evening of
entertainment and a beacon of hope from an already legendary magazine.
(AG)”
All photos by/courtesy Ned Raggett unless otherwise noted.
Humorist Oliver Hall (E.S.P.S.), the evening’s emcee, surveys the full house…
…accompanied by Lavender Diamond‘s Steve Gregoropoulos on electric keys.
Poet/author/Friends of the L.A. River co-founder Lewis MacAdams reads from his latest collection, The River.
Singer-poet-action hero Paloma Parfrey in performance…
…accompanied by Tamala Poljak (right) on guitar and treats.
Timeless ’60s/now singer-songwriter Ruthann Friedman.
The Entrance Band (pictured: Guy Blakeslee and Paz Lenchantin; not pictured: drummer Derek James) in electric power trio formation by JENNIE WARREN
Entrance, again.
Elisa Ambrogio (Magik Markers) reads.
Author Joseph Mattson reads.
Six Organs of Admittance, featuring Ben Chasny at center, with Steve Ruecker (left) and Joseph Mattson (right).
Elisa Ambrogio and Ben Chasny, in their USA performance debut as a duo.
Venue: Silent Movie Theater (thank you Dan Harkham and Hadrian Belove!)
Poster by Alia Penner
Stage production by Zach Cowie
Back patio deejays: Buzz and Chad Brown (Small Town Talk)
Special thanks: Mandy Kahn, Laura Copelin, Sammy Harkham, dublab
Bedtime reading for Fox News commentators.
(Well, it’s cheaper than a sexual harassment lawsuit.)
"O'Reilly Factor" claims lesbian gangs taking over America
by Sarah Warn
Attention all AfterEllen.com readers: the jig is up! Our secret "national underground network" of violent lesbian gangs aimed at criminal activity and recruiting girls into the homosexual lifestyle has been exposed, and we must now move to Plan B (colonizing Mars).
Yes, that’s what Fox’s The O’Reilly Factor actually suggested last week (except for the Mars part, although I’m sure someone will suggest shipping us all there any day now) in a segment they aired about the growing problem of lesbian gangs terrorizing heterosexuals by stabbing and beating them, and brandishing pink guns (as if any self-respecting lesbian would carry a pink gun).
The claims were made by host Bill O’Reilly and "Fox crime analyst" Rod Wheeler (picture above, right), a former homicide detective who is clearly either mentally unbalanced, confused, willing to say anything to get on camera, or thinks every woman who isn’t interested in him is a lesbian (or D, all of the above).
I could analyze how ridiculous and unsubstantiated Wheeler’s claims are, point out their similarity to the outrageous stories the Nazis made up about the Jews back in the day, or question how such clearly inflammatory and inaccurate assertions based on distorted information got past even Bill O’Reilly’s fact-checkers, but other bloggers have already done so quite handily (see here, here, here, and here, plus check out this gay male take, and this well-researched rebuttal).
Instead, I’ll just make fun of it. Because what else can you do in the face of such insanity? (Well, besides telling Fox what you think about these outlandish claims, boycotting companies that advertise on The O’Reilly Factor, and reading more about O’Reilly’s record of distortion, all of which I plan to do shortly).
Here are a few of the choicer statements made in the segment:
O’REILLY: In Tennessee, authorities say a lesbian gang called GTO, Gays Taking Over, are involved in raping young girls. And in Philadelphia, a lesbian gang called DTO, Dykes Taking Over, are allegedly terrorizing people,
as well.
Yes, and here in my New York apartment, we have regular meetings of LSOC (Lesbians Sitting on the Couch), where we brandish hard plastic remotes menacingly at our television set while cruelly biting down on popcorn kernels. Quick, catch us before we strike again!
O’REILLY: When they recruit the kids, are they indoctrinating them into homosexuality?
WHEELER: Yes, as a matter of fact, some of these kids have reported being forced into performing sex acts and doing sex acts with some of these people.
That’s right, don’t be mislead by the fact that 97% of pedophiles are male — it’s lesbians who are the real danger to your children!
O’REILLY: …it makes sense that, if you had lawless gay people, they would do this kind of thing, but you don’t associate it, you associate homosexuality more with a social movement, not a criminal movement, but you’re saying this is all over the country, detective?
WHEELER: It’s all over the country. It’s mainly in your larger cities, you go from New York to California to wherever you want to name, you can see these organizations.
Um, hate to break it you, Ron, but those "movements" happening "all over the country" are called "pride parades," and the only thing criminal about them is the sports bra-only look some lesbians try to pass off as actual outfits.
WHEELER: "We’ve counted, just in the DC area alone, over 150 gangs or crews or networks."
Yes, it’s true, we’re just one cell short of being a full-fledged terrorist network. Don’t bother asking us where bin Laden is — we’ll never tell!
(Read the full transcript).
Book jackets from Strange Sisters. For the male equivalent, see Gay on the Range. For more egregious bullshit, just switch on your TV.
Arthur Magazine 