“What you make?” I knew she had me, I had been found out.
“I was just coming around by the Rodenberg when a panther sprang out of the woods and knocked me off my Velo.”
“You are a Luftgucker.”
“That means my head’s in the clouds?”
“Something like that.”
“No, it was a panther, I swear.” I didn’t want to tell her I had fallen in the full dazzle of light, in a fresh rain-washed sky, drinking in the sweet air… when Hans-Ruedi passed and honked; when waving back, regaining my attention too late to adjust, I hit the curb, spilling ass-over-teakettle in a heap up on the sidewalk. Disentangling myself from the bike, I was okay; not even shaken, really, with only a leaking silver-dollar sized strawberry on my elbow to show. The bike seemed fine. I wasn’t going very fast. But Edith would notice; that was for sure.
It hardly seems possible, but it's been exactly one year since my father took his life. Rather than serving as a creepy, public rending of shirts, the following is meant as a loving tribute to a truly unique man.
My father, Robert David Roth (Sr.), was a complex man - equal parts Marlon Brando rebel and Norman Rockwell conservative, Ray Charles hipster and James Taylor americana, Lenny Bruce iconoclast and Johnny Carson classic. He was a lover of jazz, fine chianti, travel, movies, gadgets, children and animals (in small doses), science. The Simpsons, The Sopranos, Stanley Kubrick, literature, art, ladies, history and blue humor. He was the most charismatic person I've ever met, and he was my favorite Republican. (Elvis Presley is a distant number 2)
Kristy Bowen’s work has appeared in Diagram, Caffeine Destiny, Cranky, Another Chicago Magazine, and others. She lives in Chicago where she dabbles in collage/text/book art, edits the online zine, wicked alice, and runs dancing girl press. Her most recent chapbook, errata, is available from her website, and her full-length collection, the fever almanac, is due out now from Ghost Road Press. Her book, in the bird museum, is forthcoming from Dusie Press, and a chapbook, feign, is being released by Diagram Press.
sangria
Not red, not exactly. More like dawn,
or the illusion of it. Hummingbirds, humidity.
Nostagia has never served me well. Perhaps that’s why until recently I’ve been ambivalent about the closing of CBGB’s, which has been a fixture on New York City’s Bowery for over 30 years.
For the last 11 years I’ve lived just a few blocks away from the club. And for at least as long I’ve listened years to the stories of friends who experienced a rite of passage at CBGB’s. Whether it was being pelted with spit from the audience while playing on a stage sanctified years earlier by the likes of the the Ramones, Patti Smith, Television, or Blondie, or simply getting drunk and vomiting in the bathroom or on the sidewalk outside, where know your favorite punk rocker once did the same.
BIRDS WERE DIVING a quarter-mile from the Farallones, and the Salty Dog headed for the commotion. It wasn't long before the charter boat crew spotted a deep red slick widening in the water.
Here's some themes I've been rolling around in my head for potential development as forthcoming posts on Sharkforum. Let's see which ones interest readers the most.
Brandon Downing is originally from San Francisco, California, where he was co-founder and director of Blue Books, a non-profit literary bookstore and performance space in the city's Mission District. Since 2000 he has lived in New York City, where he works as an exhibit designer and researcher and spends his time on planes. A photographer, collagist and filmmaker as well as a poet, his books include The Shirt Weapon (Germ Monographs, 2002) and Dark Brandon (Faux Press, 2005).
Night of the Blood Beast (1958)
Most of the men disapeared from an open garage.
It is 7pm Thursday, workers are out together, afloat.
The morning in gloss, its hiding young.
The woodpecker's loose
robe in halves, until it writes
a paragraph inside a velvet pocket.
A fat lipstick smack for a head
took my throat when it flew.
And being sadly helpless allows you to realize that most people are kind and will lend assistance, even if being helped makes you feel more pitifully vulnerable than you ever wanted to feel. I’ve noticed that men are particularly kind, which makes perfect sense as I am a female and would thus tend to bring out a male’s protective qualities, while women, except one’s truest friends, tend not to want to be bothered, really. I understand this as well. Women generally have a lot of caring and helping already on their plates. And perhaps the supply of caring and obligation grows ever more limited in our modern times.
Judith Arcana is a former member of Chicago's pre-Roe underground abortion counseling service ("Jane"). Her newest book is What if your mother (Chicory Blue Press); others are Grace Paley’s Life Stories, A Literary Biography; Every Mother’s Son; and Our Mothers’ Daughters. She has taught literature, writing, and women’s studies in high schools, colleges, libraries, living rooms, a prison, and a jail. Her work has recently appeared or is forthcoming in 5AM, Triplopia, Poetica, Junctures, Passager, Diner and three anthologies: Women’s Lives, Not What I Expected and Fresh Water. She currently lives in Oregon.
Snow, Fall
That one time you hit the baby, that one time
out on the street when the bus was so late
The first, official offshoot of SHARKFORUM! Can European and especially Swiss artworld denizens actually discuss and analytically argue about art? I think so.
I would like to announce the founding of a new, East-Swiss on-line art magazine. Titled "Swiss Art Sharkforum," it is, in fact, a so-called "blog-zine" or "blog collective," meaning a group of contributors will be semi-regularly posting their thoughts on art and culture, with an emphasis on Switzerland and an even stronger emphasis on the eastern, German-speaking part of the country. And it is inspired by SHARKFORUM, with special thanks to Wesley "The Shark" Kimler and Dave "Shark Ed" Roth.
CUT IT OUT! and NO, That's not a really bad toupee you see floating by -thats my dorsal fin- sheeesh! We, are at the beach, just out of reach of my screaming fans, NOT, as you presumed falsely, floating around the Chicago Art World...
The Hypocrites theatre company invites you to join us for DADA CABARET, the first event of The Hypocrites 10th season. Please join us as we celebrate this milestone in our ten year tradition of innovation.
October 14, 2006
2046 West Carroll Ave., Chicago
A limited number of tickets will be made available for this event. Advanced ordering is recommended.
General admission is $75 and includes live performances, hors d'oeuvres, a silent auction and our 10th anniversary champagne toast. Ask about our $150 Patron Level.
To purchase tickets please visit www.the-hypocrites.com or contact us at 312.409.5578 for more information.
If you cannot attend DADA CABARET, please consider making a tax deductible contribution to The Hypocrites Annual Fund, accessible via
www.the-hypocrites.com.
Your donation will support the day-to-day operations of the company. The Hypocrites is a not-for-profit organization under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code.
The gallery Art Forum Ute Barth in Zurich, Switzerland is currently exhibiting its second show of works by the American–Swiss artist Judith Trepp, presenting new, large-sized paintings, works on paper and prints. Trepp is a wonderful painter. She is mid-career, with many shows and sales, yet I would assert that she is still under-exposed — the quality of her paintings should be far more widely known and discussed.
1957 West Chicago, through November, and will be part of Saturday's
"East/West" Ukrainian Village art walk. "Chicago 1900-1959 West"
is comprised mostly of pictures taken on the 1900 block of West Chicago Avenue,
and are part of a larger project capturing daily life in the neighborhood.
The comments by Bill Dolan, Newbie and others on The Shark's previous post may have swerved away from his point, but they raised an intriguing issue — the pressure on artists caused by simply having to make a living. This discussion reminded me of a fascinating blogsite, and a post on it. The site is called "The Intrepid Art Collector." It is by Lisa Hunter. Her mission is to create, encourage and assist new collectors. A worthy cause and she does it with panache on her enjoyable and readable site.
Two recent books make the same powerful case against the current administration in diametrically opposite ways.
“Destined for Destiny”
the Unauthorized Autobiography of George W. Bush
by Scott Dikkers and Peter Hilleren
pub. by Scribner, 167 pp., $19.95
“Out of Iraq”
by William Polk and George S. McGovern
pub. by Simon and Schuster, 143 pp., $15.00
It takes neither Sherlock Holmes, nor Dr. Watson, nor one of the Hounds of the Baskervilles to sniff out the foul stench that has come to comprise the American political debate. Two recent books make this point in different ways. “Destined for Destiny,” by Scott Dikkers and Peter Hilleren, and “Out of Iraq,” by George McGovern and William Polk offer, by turns, gut-busting and sobering views of our current malaise.
Geoffrey Nutter was born in Sacramento, California. He is the author of A Summer Evening, winner of the 2001 Colorado Prize, and Water's Leaves and Other Poems, winner of the 2004 Verse Prize (Wave Books). His poems have appeared in The Best American Poetry 1997 and The Iowa Anthology of New American Poetries. He lives in Manhattan with his wife, daughter, and son.
The Black Dog
When I was walking in the woods
with a gun and a great and undulating V
Please check your local listings for YOUR air-time.
Link to the Austin City Limits page.......
Art in Display, a storefront art exhibition October 13-15, 2006
Opening Reception: October 13, 2006 6-9PM
Meet the Artists: October 14, 2006 3pm
Location: Participating stores on W Division Street between Damen and Ashland
Chicago, IL – Art in Display is an art exhibition curated by Kristyna Comer composed of storefronts along W Division St between Damen and Ashland. Art is Display features art installations by local and national artists in the stores’ display windows, placing art in a new, public venue. Media include photography, sculpture, drawing, fiber, video, mixed media, and more.
Art in Display is participating in the eleventh annual Chicago Artists Month, an event that showcases emerging and established local artists. The Chicago Artists Month featured artist and participant in Art in Display, Ursula Sokolowska, will be exhibiting her work that combines installation and photography at D/Vision, an optical boutique, located at 1756 W Division.
Art in Display is a curatorial experiment that utilizes commercial space for its visual dominance and accessibility to a wide audience, placing art exhibition in a public-viewing domain. The storefronts offer new installation possibilities and activate a new space for art exhibition.
The opening reception will take place at the stores along Division St. on Friday, October 13 from 6 – 9 PM, including Habit, Cattails, Casa de Soul, D/Vision Optical, Alliance Bakery, An Je Nu, Lola, Pump, Noir, and Nina. Artists include Peripheral Media Projects (Brooklyn, NY), Natalia Ivancevich, Karin Patzke, Ursula Sokolowska, Dee Clements, Uninhabitable Mansions (Brooklyn, NY), Ben Durham (Midway, KY), Package Deals (New York, NY), Kim Hoffman, Eric Portis (Denver, CO), and Anne Lass.
Please visit www.artindisplay.com for additional information and a complete listing of events.
Over my head, I see the bronze butterfly,
Asleep on the black trunk,
blowing like a leaf in green shadow.
Texas-size career decision awaits Nicholas TremulisAndy Downing
Published October 6, 2006By most standards, Nicholas Tremulis has lived something of a charmed life. The Chicago-born singer has recorded with Keith Richards at the Rolling Stone guitarist's house, performed live with Rick Danko just days before the Band bassist's death in 1999 and organized a series of charity shows for Neon Street for Homeless Youth dubbed "The Waltz." The annual event, which took place at the Metro from 2000-'04, drew the likes of Billy Corgan, Alejandro Escovedo and Jeff Tweedy.
For more of this piece go here.
I get more people asking, “When are you guys going to play another show with Blondie?” than just about any other question.
And I am not discussing that particular species of bland, tepid and unaccomplished, even unskilled, academic abstraction 'The Ren' trots out in various guises every year or two in lieu of anything even mildly interesting- You know, the same psuedo-conceptual innocuous drech that has been foisted upon us for the last two decades by a small group of academics, and dealers, and collectors -(think Howard Stone, and unfortunately (given his brilliant international collecting)-Lou Manilow)- and last and definetly least , the recipients of this unwarranted attention, the pet artists known collectively here as, 'The Smart Set' and/or, 'the Kirshner Clones'. Lets face it, the last painting exhibition with enough of anything worth sinking ones teeth into at the 'Ren', being Albert Oehlen over a decade ago in 1995.............
Brigitte Byrd was born in Paris, and worked there as a dancer before moving to the U.S. in 1988. She received her Ph.D. in 2003 from Florida State University. Currently, she is Assistant Professor of English at Clayton State University. Her book Fence Above the Sea was recently released by Ahsahta Press (2005).
From requiem series
in memory of Bernard Fourneron (1932-2002)
1. (a breath)
And then, there is another day
Admittedly its a little early yet for Thanksgiving -nonetheless, -you can never predict when something smelly and blubbery to chomp on will come floating your way...and there I was circling around that bloated, boring and bland -(will this guy ever figure out that my argument pertaining to him as well as all Kirshner clones is essentially political, not, esthetic -I mean, aren't members of the smart set supposed to by definition actually be smart?)Tony Tasset interview on Bad At Sports trying to whet my appetite for an attack, when along comes this far more interesting and enticing rancid whale carcass...
Thank God for small or in this particular instance, rather large favors...saved by the smell-
MySisterThatIsNotMySisterAndItIsJustSoWeirdThatWeEvenGetToBeFriends
BecauseSheLivesThousandsOfMilesAwayIAmSoHappyWhenSheComesToVisit
AndMickeyKnewHerRightAwayInHerHeartTooMySister...