April 27 — August Wilson
Noted Black American playwright, social critic.
APRIL 27, 2009 HOLIDAYS AND FESTIVALS
*Festival of Art Sabotage
ALSO ON APRIL 27 IN HISTORY…
1521 — Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Megellan killed Phillipines.
1759 — Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin born, London England.
1882 — Philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson dies, Concord, Massachusetts.
1945 — Premier Black American playwright August Wilson born, Pittsburgh, PA.
1963 — Cuban leader Fidel Castro visits Moscow, Soviet Union.
April 26 — Julius Augustus Wayland
Agrarian socialist, pacifist, Appeal to Reason publisher.
APRIL 26, 2009 HOLIDAYS AND FESTIVALS
*Festival of Individual Sovereignty
ALSO ON APRIL 26 IN HISTORY…
1607 — English Jamestown colonists make landfall near Port Henry, Virginia
1854 — Appeal to Reason publisher J.A. Wayland born, Versailles, Indiana.
1889 — Language philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein born, Vienna, Austria.
1905 — French surrealist filmmaker Jean Vigo born, Paris, France.
1937 — Fascists condust first-ever aerial massacre of civilians, Guernica, Spain.
1968 — John Heartfield (Helmut Herzfeld) dies, East Berlin, Germany.
1986 — Chernobyl nuclear disaster occurs, Ukraine, USSR.
The first time I saw MV + EE was at the Arthurdesh benefit at 3A.M., where those who had stayed til the end shuffled out of the room visibly stunned after their full-on raw psychedelic performance. If you’re in Fishtown this weekend, take the advice of Baby Huey and get mellow one more time… then go to Kung-fu Necktie, where Matt Valentine and Erika Elder will surely proceed to blow your lid.
Sunday, April 26th, 8PM Kung-fu Necktie 1248 North Front Street / Philadelphia, PA 19122 $10
Do you dream of a room filled with one-of-a-kind zines and art books made by amazing people, where you are free to spend long, contented afternoons perusing at your leisure? Consider Printed Matter your fantasy library. Currently on view is a collection of 100 + titles by Swiss publisher Nieves, ranging from “limited edition, photocopied zines, to more-formally recognized hardcover, perfect-bound and offset books.”
APRIL 24, 2009 HOLIDAYS AND FESTIVALS
*Mangum, Oklahoma: Rattlesnake Day
*Alton, Illinois: Native Son Day
ALSO ON APRIL 24 IN HISTORY…
1731 — British writer Daniel Defoe dies, London, England, hiding from creditors.
1897 — Cultural anthropologist Benjamin Whorf born, Winthrop, Massachusetts.
1947 — American prarie novelist Willa Cather dies, New York City.
1990 — Hubble Space Telescope launched from Space Shuttle Discovery
2006 — Nasreen Pervin Huq, feminist activist, dies, Dhaka, Bangladesh.
Iraqi Jawza player Salih Shemayyil at the First Cairo Congress of Arab Music (1932)
When London-based Honest Jon’s Records compilation Give Me Love: Songs of the Brokenhearted – Baghdad, 1925-29 appeared last year, it was a ear-opening and mind-expanding glimpse into a world few of us in the U.S. had even imagined – the glorious music of Iraq as it was recorded generations ago by musicians long since gone. For many, it and the Choubi Choubi comp on Sublime Frequencies may have provided a first look at Iraqi musical culture, since so little else (Munir Bashir and Rahim AlHaj excluded) has ever been available in the West.
But just in the past few week and seemingly out of the clear, blue sky comes the staggering Iraqi Maqam blog and its accompanying YouTube channel which focus exclusively on the uniquely Iraqi take on maqam, the umbrella of elevated Arab classical musics. Drawing mainly from exceedingly scarce recordings of the 1920s-30s, already Iraqi Maqam has provided a dizzying wealth of musicological, biographical and anecdotal information in both Arabic and English to hours and hours worth of virtuosic and deeply moving recordings (including truly precious translations of the poems sung), profusely illustrated with period photographs. That such a monumental, thoroughly-researched and thoughtfully-presented body of work even exists, not to mention that it is appearantly a free gift to mankind, is fortifying and exciting stuff in a hard, old world.
A message from the good people of Thanky, a temporary arts space in Richmond, Virginia devoted to bringing positive vibes and quality visuals to the community over the space of one year (September 2008 – August 2009):
“Thanky is proud to present “The Cartoon Utopia”, a show of new work by Ron Regé, Jr., a cartoonist and musician from Plymouth, Massachusetts. Ron Regé, Jr. began publishing his own minicomics while attending Massachusetts College of Art in 1988 and has since been published by Kramer’s Ergot, Buenaventura Press, Drawn & Quarterly, Highwater Books, Fantagraphics, and McSweeney’s. His illustrations have appeared regularly in The New York Times and Canada’s National Post. Ron Regé, Jr. currently lives in Los Angeles where he plays drums in the band Lavender Diamond. Regé possesses a big heart and a steady hand, creating intricate lines and patterns, cute cartoon people and creatures that inhabit a fantastic universe with stories that dive into the deepest or darkest notions of our experience. His perception of human nature is always keen and precise and his work vibrates with a joyful energy. He has exhibited at The Hope Gallery in LA and at the Librarie Drawn & Quarterly in Montreal. As a performance art act, Regé performs solo as the Discombobulated Ventriloquist.”
A description of “The Cartoon Utopia” in the artist’s own words:
“At the beginning of 2008 – I started to create a series of numbered 4×6” drawings as an exercise – to start to flesh out ideas for a kind of “science fiction universe” that I’ve been slowly imagining over the last few years – the idea of a “Cartoon Utopia.” So many imagined futuristic “fantasy worlds” seem to be “dystopian” in nature –dark and pessimistic. I thought it would be nice to imagine a “futuristic” fantasy where humanity had progressed in a more positive way.”
Ron Regé, Jr, “The Cartoon Utopia”, Opening Reception Friday, May 1, 6pm-9pm Featuring performances by Discombobulated Ventriloquist and Dearraindrop 407 Brook Road, Richmond, Virginia 23220 (off W. Broad Street) Complimentary cupcakes will be on hand
Arthur Magazine 