Agrifolk Art Movement

PART 1

On an recent artist-hunt, Google-Wunderkind ODA "discovered" a new and exciting movement sweeping the South: Conceptual artist Jonathon Keats exploits the last true folk artists remaining: 50 leyland cypress trees. Watch the drama unfold as these trees, outfitted with easels, paper and pencils, communicate through art.


PART 2


PART 3

Nuts No More

This past January, Elizabeth Tashjian - the one, the only Nut Lady - died in her room at Gladeview Health Care Center in Old Saybrook, CT. Her story is a long one and the final chapters are rather depressing. A few of us who knew Tashjian in her final years recently got together for a de-briefing of sorts (I hadn't spoken with her for a couple of years when I got the sad news). We talked about our first meeting with the eloquent octogenarian, our slow rise to near-friend status with her, and our quick but inevitable fall from grace with the notorious Nut Visionary. As with many truly original personalities, Tashjian was difficult to access and maintain, which is probably why we're drawn to her. However, while potentially known to millions through her former Nut Museum and appearances on late-night TV, not surprisingly only about 15 people attended her funeral service. Now, her museum is gone and a new tenant resides in her room at the nursing home. A complex and mysterious individual, in her absence we are left only with her unique message - one that she may have preached more than she practiced.

Zombie Doc

My pal's once ultra-secret zombie documentary has finally been unveiled and is screening in LA next month. I urge you to see it! Lots of important issues are covered regarding this under-represented community of Americans.

I Like Lemurs & Lemurs Like Me, vol. 3

"The city began to stir yesterday, as if at some unheard signal, or perhaps at the many signals of ubiquitous birdsong, giggling children and flowering trees.

New Yorkers shed their winter garb — the Ugg boots, the turtlenecks, the long skirts, the overcoats, the parkas, the gloves, the hoodies and the fedoras — and exchanged them for flip-flops and dishabille...

As befits New York, spring is theater. In other places where troupes of the fit and the comely can also be found, like Miami, Los Angeles and Hawaii, the curtain rarely rises because it hardly ever falls. There, it is always butterfly weather. But in New York, the curtain has drama because the cocoon is never far away."

—Anthony Ramirez, The New York Times, 4/22/07

I Like Lemurs & Lemurs Like Me, vol. 2

"I-a screama, You-a screama, we all-a screama for ice-a creama"

—Roberto, Down By Law

Commuter Complaint #3

Not a complaint, really. Just an observation...

A man and a woman on the Manhattan-bound F train yesterday morning. They seemed familiar, but I couldn't place where I'd seen them before. Maybe down at Coney Island? Both in their mid-thirties, they had pile of bags strewn around them on the subway. They did not talk. The man sat there, slumped over on the woman's shoulder. She paid no attention to him, but focused her eyes on a stuffed sock she held in her hands. Her face was fixed in a state of pain - not crying, just frozen. A few stops later, I noticed a small kitten had partially emerged from the sock, head tilted back, it's little arms limp. It, too, was frozen still. As we descended under the East River, the woman and the kitten remained motionless. It was obvious that the infant cat was dead. The man drooled onto the woman's shoulder. Occasionally, he half-opened his eyes to gaze up at his traveling partner. We reached East Broadway. No movement. Delancey, 2nd Avenue, Broadway-Lafayette. Nothing. At W4, I pushed my way out of the crowded subway car. Just as I was heading out the door, the man coughed - startling the kitten in the sock. Standing on the platform, I watched the tiny animal through the car window as it stretched and went back to sleep. The woman didn't flinch.

I Like Lemurs & Lemurs Like Me, vol. 1

The word “lemur” derives from the Latin word, lemures—meaning specters or spirits of the dead—and was given to these prosimians on account of the animals’ ghostly faces and nocturnal habits.

The evolution of this Latin word has its own haunted history. According to ancient mythology, the city of Rome was founded by twin brothers Romulus and Remus, who had been suckled by a she-wolf as babies. Arguing over who should rule the new city, Romulus murdered Remus and named the city after himself. But the ghost of the fallen brother haunted Rome from then on. Every May, citizens of Rome would hold a festival—first called Remuria, but later corrupted to Lemuria—to expiate the ghost of Remus and other ancestral spirits. From this tradition grew the word lemures, one of several Latin words—including larva, the shell of a ghost—used to refer to various forms of phantom.

“Lemuria” also is the name of a mythological sunken super-continent, akin to Atlantis, once believed to lie in the Indian Ocean—coincidentally near the real lemur’s native home.

—Alex Hawes and Sue Zwicker, Smithsonian National Zoological Park

When I Grow Up...

During an impromptu class activity on careers, I remember some kids in my 5th grade class announced that they wanted to be a:

A. Fireman
B. Policeman
C. Lobsterman
D. Nurse
E. Bank Robber
F. Vampire

Had I known mythical creatures were an option in this exercise, I would've chosen Werewolf without hesitation. However, in considering actual monetary compensation, I declared my goal in adult life to be an Illustrator. (ODA also has proof of her artistic desires at a young age.) While others excelled in sports or bullying weaker classmates, drawing was my sole talent. I eventually learned to use it to distance myself from said jocks and save myself from the bullies ("Surely you'd rather have an original drawing of Chewbacca than the pleasure of pummeling me on the playground, right?")

My hero at that time was legendary "concept artist" Frank Frazetta (made popular by his Molly Hatchet album covers). This, no doubt, was one of my early avenues into heavy metal music - but, more importantly, it also served as my introduction to art.

It started with generic animals and cars...


Then, the drawings progressed into characters, mostly Conan the Barbarian types, or

in-depth graphic novel series not-so-loosely based on Star Wars or Battlestar Galactica.

Between the ages of 8 to 13, I drew all the time. I skipped gym class and hung out in the art room. Eventually, my phys-ed teacher decided to take advantage of this strange delinquency and said he'd pass me if I drew a picture of his new house. I did. My science teacher got so frustrated with me doodling in his class, he hired me to illustrate his nature column in the local newspaper. Later, the paper did a profile on me entitled "Young Artist Puts Imagination on Paper."

I simultaneously blame/thank my high school art teachers for spoiling my potential career as a famed fantasy artist. Instead, I was taught to channel my creative energies into still lifes of plants or pinhole photos of parking lots or lopsided ceramic bowls. Then, the pretension of art school took hold. Video Art was in, Fantasy Art was out. One one hand, I might be making a lot of money doing creature design for some animation factory in California today. On the other hand, I could still be living with my parents, sketching Hellboy wannabes in my basement bedroom.

Name That Hair Band!

OK. One last heavy metal entry. Really, I promise...
Test your headbanger history skills on this quiz - Name That Hair Band!
I got 10 out of 11. Sad.

Dan's Metal Memory of the Month: 4/07

To ween myself off the barrage of heavy metal entries of late, I offer one last for a spell: April's metal memory. Van Halen was my first "loud" concert. As memory serves, my two older sisters had literally worn out their VH1 album (AC/DC's Back In Black and Queen's News of the World were to follow) and could no longer settle for staring at David Lee Roth in poster form. After hearing that Eddie and the boys were coming through town, they'd convinced my Mom and stepfather to chaperon them. Long story short: my sitter bailed and I was in tow to see VH open for Foghat! (I think... Although I may be getting 2 shows mixed up? VH in 1979 and Foghat in '81? Done some research and no one recalls exactly... In any case, still seems like an odd pairing, but apparently pre-VH bands Mammoth and Snake used to play Foghat and Lynyrd Skynyrd covers on stage at small clubs.) They were definitely a product of 1970s hard rock. As you can see in the video, early Roth was Robert Plant reincarnated. It took a couple albums for VH to shed their old rock, Zeppelin roots and develop their own form as a California frat-rock band. I don't recall too much about the VH show. I was 9 or 10. We were back in the nose-bleed section of the Cumberland County Civic Center and I still hadn't heard anything so loud since my first excursion to see the Blue Angels. Afterwards, I remember my sisters were an excited, sweaty mess of big hair and runny mascara - they'd had a blast. Even my Mom enjoyed the show, inquiring repeatedly about the singer with the hairy chest.

The Road to Heaven and Hell: Epitaph

Born Again... again. Who would've thunk it?

(PS: "If you listen to fools, the mob rules!")