Category: Art & Culture

While listening to an interview with Kurt Vonnegut on Bookworm this morning, he, in the course of making an unrelated point, sad this. In place of “When the shit hits the fan.”

“When the excrement hits the air conditioner.”

I thought that was brilliant.

I’d really like my Canadian Blogging Friends (CBFs) opinion on this here article in the NY Times Magazine last week about the cooperative ethos in Canadian music. Right on the mark or a lot of “Oh those nice folks to the north” stereotyping?

Canada, the floor is yours.

Los Angeles has gone comics crazy. Two major museums, the Armand Hammer and the Museum of Contemporary Art have featured exhibitions on American Comics. I won’t be getting down to L.A. soon enough but if you’re in the Southland and partial to the sequential arts, check it out (via Art Talk).

Director Noah Baumbach of the new film The Squid and the Whale had this to say on “The Treatment” last week. I’m paraphrasing…

“I read an interview with Ingmar Bergman where he said writing the first draft of a script is like throwing a spear into the woods.” You know you have to say something but you’re not quite sure what. So you just chuck. Successive drafts are about finding the spear.”

I friggin love that. It makes the hardest part of writing (starting) seem like instinct rather than cleverness or a surprise vist by your muse.

I’ve got something brewing. I need to go throw.

KQED, San Francisco’s gianormous public radio and TV station has launched a video podcast called Gallery Crawl wherein they visit different galleries around the Bay Area and see what’s doing. Seems to be a shorter, portable version of their Spark! which profiles 3 area artists but extends to theatre music and literature as well.

I don’t jump too high for KQED or their offerings but here they might be onto something. San Francisco’s gallery scene is notoriously user unfriendly, with few shows appearing on Upcoming.org, important organizations lacking even basic mailing lists and local impressionarios reporting way after the fact. It’s a scene clinging to audience principles of 20-30 years ago, a “you’ll know it if you need to but we won’t help any” attitude that would seem like benign neglect if it weren’t so rude.

Although I haven’t watched any episodes yet, Gallery Crawl seems just what an amateur art lover like me needs. It’s bite-sized and comes right to ya. Do you need a video iPod though?

Paris Review editor Philip Gourevitch discusses the new design of the legendary literary journal. Philip Gourevitch and I will be on stage together at the Wisconsin Book Festival, Friday, October 14, 8 PM at the Orpheum Theatre. I’m really looking forward to it.

In other news, I won’t have a laptop while travelling so blogging will be light for the next nine days. See you when I get home on the 15th.

August Wilson, one of the shining stars of American dramatics has terminal liver cancer and reportedly, has 3-5 months to live. The two time Pultizer Prize winner has spend the last two decades on a ten play cycle, one for each decade, that chronicles the the African-American experience in the 20th century.

In honor of Wilson, the NY Times reported yesterday that the Virginia Theater will be renamed the August Wilson Theater this fall. It’s the first Broadway theater to be named after an African-American. The honor puts wilson in a league with stage icons like Eugene O-Neil, Helen Hayes and George Gershwin.

I’ve been lucky enough to see several of August Wilson’s plays including Two Trains Running (1960s), The Piano Lesson (1930s) and Seven Guitars (1940s). He and his work were a gift to American Theater. They both will be deeply missed.

How in the world did I miss Road House – The Play? (via my budddy Ernie)?

JPG Magazine, the all-photo, all-visual-goodness magazine published right here in my neighborhood is accepting submissions for Issue #3. The theme is “Fabulous.”