Category: Art & Culture

If you can find it, please grab a copy of Kitchen Sink Magazine, the bestest little indy mag out there. It ain’t cheap (like $5 or something) but the writing is first-rate, the design beautiful and these kids are all volunteers. If you’re a Bay Area person, they throw great parties too.

I have no time but I’m dying to find some to write a piece for them just so I can be a “friend of Kitchen Sink.” When busy people are extending themselves for you, you know you’re on to something.

The spoken word thing that Tantek and I went to last week was sponsored by Lurker Magazine which I neglected to mention but should have. Lurker’s a new Bay Area publication that’s looking to connect the visual arts and literature under a central theme. I haven’t seen an issue and the web site neglects to mentioned where they are available (not smart) but I dig the idea and the talent at the event was striking.

Remote blogging from the Canvas Cafe where Tantek has invited me to hear a little spoken word. It’s not exactly where I am, on a day when an old friend decided to get engaged, my agent decided to tell me that my book was a step closer to being real and some jerk decided to steal my bike. A day after a weekend of spiritual highs and lows like dragging yourself over gravel. I saw four movies in there somewhere as well.

Things are changing, I can tell. Suzan is moving the last her things in. My transition to being a fulltime writer is almost complete. Spring has technically given way to summer, the season of bright consistency that still seems to be fading before its really begun. It’s my fourth year in San Francisco and in 7 weeks, my 30th on earth.

It all looms up ahead like a party I’m not sure I’m invited to. I feel about a half-mile’s jog before it really happens, a scamper up a long, damp lawn in the dark. It reminds me of June in this city–cold, foggy, a hurricane eye of late fall before the real first act of summer.

I don’t know where I’m supposed to be today, folding laundry like I was before Tantek called, or working as I thought I would tonight, as I thought I should be doing and feeling lousy about it. I ended up here, listening to a helluva great love poem. Right now, if only right now, it feels ok.

Blogging live from Chicago.

Word.

My buddies and I took in a production of Concerto Chicago, a spoken-word musical performance about the racial and political history of the city at the Victory Gardens Theater. While the play was only ok, it reminded me that it’s just plain wasteful to be in Chicago and not take advance of the great theater happening all over town. And I’m not talking about week’s-pay-touring-broadway-tickets for a show you can see next summer in Topeka. I’m talking about homegrown plays to suit any taste and may cost you $15, if that. That’s the kind of entertainment bargain that wrenches me away from DVD’s and my ass indentation on the couch.

Word.

Kristin and I took in the Trash to Treasures show in Oakland yesterday which was way neat. Sadly there are no pictures on their website, which I just find silly. Then I came home and did a manic 2 hours of housecleaning which felt great.

Today I have the flu. Of all the luck.

Invisible Ink, the radio show I contribute to, has been invited to run a pledge drive this afternoon. I know as a listener, public radio pledge drives are downright annoying but actually, it’s quite an honor to be a brand new show and have the station run a drive during your program. It means they think its got a strong, loyal audience and is worth keeping around.

So should you live in the San Francisco Bay Area and listen to Invisible Ink (and I know you do), please consider joining KALW which produces an ungodly amount of quality local programming on a budget a fraction the size of, er, that other public radio station. I think by pledge there’s a nifty ‘Ink T-Shirt in it for you too.

Won’t you?

This is Kevin Smokler reporting live from the second floor of Baltimore Clayworks, one of the coolest little arts organizations in the nation. Should you find yourself in this part of the world, I highly recommend stopping by for whatever exhibition they have going on (they’re always great), and buying yourself a high quality yet strangly affordable piece of tableware: mugs, bowls, plates, ewers, they got it all.

I volunteered here in 1995, after getting fired from my first newspaper job. I made several friends, a few sloppy pots that I still have and was awakened to the importance of arts organizations in local communities. I stay connected as a donor and friend.

This is Kevin Smokler, from Baltimore.

Back to you, readers…

Raised Barn Press is a new publishing company that’s looking to capture diverse art mediums (photography, scultpture, the works) in books and multimedia form. Their first project is a photography book on the art projects at Burning Man and it also comes with a DVD. I was made aware of them when the photographer Holly Kreuter appeared on West Coast Live a few months ago. I’m glad she did.

So the panel on Thursday went well. Audience was pleased and the performers–Paul Flores, Emily Kagan and Tim’m West–were amazing. I’ve been asked a couple of times if I would have events like this in the future at the Commonwealth Club. The answer is I really couldn’t say at this point. The end result is highly rewarding but the workload leading up to it is huge. Plus, I’m not especially comfortable in the role of a special events planner which I feel is best described by my friend Jessa, “All of the grief and none of the perks. If everything goes perfectly, you shouldn’t even get noticed.”

I’m not sure if that’s me. We’ll see though. I’ve given myself a vacation for the entire next week, which I deperately need. I fear I may have suffered a little burnout, shifting into my new career without so much as a breath in between.

Thanks bunches to my friends Jish, Wendy, Tantek, Roman, and Kristin who all made a good showing at the panel. And since they asked, below are several excellent spoken word resources for the Bay Area.

SF Station’s Spoken Word Listings: A really fabulous catalog of different venues to see and hear spoken word throughout the region.

Youthspeaks: A youth spoken word and poetry educational group that has top flight performances around San Francisco often.

Black Box theater: A performance and theatrical venue in downtown Oakland that frequently hosts slams and spoken word events.

Berkeley Slam hompage: Also has a calendar of other slam events throughout the region.

Tonight’s Oscars cap off a furious season of celebrity award giving, each one more callow than the last. The New York Times had a solid examination of this phenom this morning.

I find myself even less interested in this evening’s festivities than last, maybe because Chicago looks like a shoe-in and I didn’t think it was all that good. And I know the awards are really just a big party for the entertainment industry but after seeing all the movies in question, I don’t feel all that obligated to come to their roast. Also I caught the Independent Spirit Awards on IFC last night and saw precisely what the Oscars lack–spontaneity, wit, and appreciation for movies instead of hype and most of all, fun. The Oscars, ccomparitively, are like a five-hour high school graduation with nicer clothes and no beach balls.

Should you be interested in a more levelheaded approach to the Season of Statuettes, may I recommend Fametracker (look past the attitude) and Gold Derby, which sees this time of year for what it really is, a horse race.