Issue 31 • September 2020 • Facebook.com/TalkArts
IT’S ALL ABOUT
ARTS
Jocelyn Chemel
September 2020 In This Issue • Feature – Jocelyn Chemel by Janice Williams • Curator Lucas Cowan: The Rose Kennedy Greenway is his canvas for art of all cultures by Mary Ellen Gambon • A Tribute to Asa Brebner: “I Am Not Gone” by Curt Naihersey • Asa’s Thoughts & Words compiled by Curt Naihersey • Local Music by Perry Persoff • Pandemic Cooking and Cocktails by Linda Cuccurullo • Film Review (Part 2) - When You’re Strange (documentary, dir. Tom DiCillo, narr. Johnny Depp, 2010) by Robert G. Spilsbury • Pictorial Spendor by Curt Naihersey • Poetry – How My Friend Woody Got His Name by Michael Gallagher and Light Touches & Fishing with Ramsey by Mike Ball compiled by Curt Naihersey • Tess McColgan Shares Her Macramé • EXPOSED - Secrets of An Art Rep by Suzanne Schultz • CREATE by Gena Mavuli • Afterland Part 9 by Edward Morneau
It’s All About Arts Magazine September 2020
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Jocelyn Chemel complex simplicity in art and jewelry By Janice Williams
Born in South Africa, artist Jocelyn Chemel came to America at the age of 24. She came to my attention through Suzanne Schultz of Canvas Fine Arts. At that time, Chemel was working on a barbed wire series about her homeland. “I am interested in barbed wire as a symbol of political violence left over from the apartheid era. Barbed wire is once again becoming more prolific globally as a fence that cuts up the landscape, creating arbitrary borders”. For more about this deep and acclaimed work visit Chemel’s website at jocelynchemel.com Her diverse work emits an aura of exquisite design executed with precision and sensitivity. You might also say that her art is contemporary yet timeless in its many forms. According to Chemel, “The message portrayed in my work is the juxtaposition of beauty untouched and the unraveling, mutation and manipulation of nature”. Chemel is a fine artist, jewelry maker and photographer. Chemel practiced for a few years after getting a master’s in counseling psychology from Lesley University. She turned to painting after taking courses at the Museum School. She became a decorative painting teacher, teaching adults for many years and after school art enrichment classes to children. About 15 years ago she focused on being a jewelry designer and mixed media artist. Her mixed media work over the years has included encaustic, inks, oil sticks and photography. While her wholesale jewelry business continues to supply stores across the US, her art is multilayered. She says, “I have always worked out of my house in newton and now have two studios, one for jewelry making and one for art. I have found that I go back and forth and that the one really informs the other”. Today, Chemel in response to the current environment of living within a pandemic, brings new creative energy and light to us with digital photography and manipulation of organic matter. “I am interested in the breath, and how it is essentially lifegiving and (continued)
It’s All About Arts Magazine September 2020
Jocelyn Chemel – complex simplicity in art and jewelry by Janice Williams (continued)
death inducing, if you catch someone else’s infected breath. These photos were taken mostly during the spring, a time of rebirth and the irony has not escaped me that when the dandelion was in full bloom and ready to spill its seed with one puff of air, we were locked down deathly afraid of being breathed on.” Some of Chemel’s exhibits include: Group Show, State of the Planet, Youngblood Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa, October-November, 2016; Group Show, Juried, Newton City Hall, June 2016; Solo Show, Mayor’s Gallery, City Hall, Boston. Feb. 2016; Group Show, Motherbrook Open Studios, Dedham, Nov. 2015; Group Show, Boston Neighborhood Network, (BNN) May 2105 and Solo Show, Barbed Beauty, Holzwasser Gallery, New Art Center, MA, Oct. 2014, curated by Kathleen Smith Redman. Jocelyn donates art supplies to the township schools in Cape Town, South Africa, through Art on a Mission inspirational Artblocks. Her favorite artist is Cy Twombly. She says, “There is an order and chaos that I love in his work, a playful, childlike scribble that is deliberate and powerful”. WEBSITE jocelynchemel.com INSTAGRAM @consciousbreathart jocelynchemel@gmail.com
It’s All About Arts Magazine September 2020
Curator Lucas Cowan:
The Rose Kennedy Greenway is his canvas for art of all cultures By Mary Ellen Gambon Lucas Cowan’s passion for art is almost unmatched by his enthusiasm for bringing works of different cultures to people from Boston and beyond. And what better venue – particularly during the confines of the COVID-19 pandemic – than the lush expanse of the Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy Greenway.Cowan is the Director and Curator of Public Art at the Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy Greenway Conservancy, a position he has held for nearly six years. He is also the first person to ever hold the title of curator for the organization. “My focus has always really been with public art structures and public-private nonprofit or government structures,” Cowan said. He explained that, in the case of the Greenway as well as in Millennium Park in Chicago, they are both considered transportation projects as well as public art projects. Therefore, there had to coordination among several intragovernmental entities for exhibits to be engaging and integrated. “The Greenway, as you know, is the site of the Big Dig,” Cowan said. “And Millennium Park is built over the railroad system. And both are public-private non-profits essentially.” Cowan begam his artist journey at the Maryland Institute College of Art, where he earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in Fiber, Weaving and Textile Arts. He said he became inspired to engage in the community aspect of the arts after becoming involved in an afterschool program called Community Arts Partnership in the Baltimore City Public Schools. “We developed this program where we would teach them how to create documentary films, then we’d take them into the news studio to show them how things are produced,” he said. Across from the Eutaw-Marshburn Elementary School, where Cowan worked with the students, was the thencalled the Marlborough House, an elderly residence which contained the largest collection of Henri Matisse paintings in the United States. This sparked his desire to create an intergenerational and cross-cultural bridge between these two communities. He decided to pursue the concept of community arts partnerships in his master’s program. He traveled to Chicago to pursue a Master’s in Arts Administration from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago. At that time, Millennium Park was being built. Cowan became the first intern during the creation of the arts activities program at Millennium Park, which was the ideal outlet for his passion. “This was a really new concept at the time,” Cowan explained. “Cultural parks didn’t really exist. I was really excited about pulling the whole community together at all different levels – whether it’s state or city or federal or private – and be working towards the same goal.” At that point, his supervisors began the concept of building outdoor galleries and gave him increasing responsibilities as to programming them. He worked his way up to becoming the curator. “I love that because the ideas are forever changing, the problems to be solved are forever changing, and it’s just really wonderful,” he said. In 2012, Cowan switched gears, returning to Maryland to become the Director of Public Art Programs for the Maryland State Arts Council. “It’s hard to convince a body that the arts are needed and that you need to delegate funding to them,” he explained. “It’s nothing new in the arts world, I will say that. But it creates civic pride. If you see (Continued) It’s All About Arts Magazine September 2020
Curator Lucas Cowan: The Rose Kennedy Greenway By Mary Ellen Gambon it growing up, you have an appreciation for it.” His experience led to the Greenway, which he described as “a really magical place.” It has given him the opportunity to weave all of his previous talents into a comprehensive program that showcases artists from Boston to around the world all along this urban landscape that stretches from Chinatown through to the North End. “To be able to have a mile and a half park that has no beginning and no end – there’s multiple intersections,” Cowan said with excitement. “We go through five different communities, and we’re bookended by two immigrant communities at the same time, and very economically different communities at the same time. “My curatorial ethos for the Greenway specifically is local, national and international, always at the same time,” he continued, “and not that one is better than the other.” For example, he strives to bring in local artists who do not usually display their work in the public art arena so that they can be recognized as peers to their colleagues around the country. Cowan also chooses themes for exhibits that will resonate with both Boston’s population as well as tourists who will – once COVID-19 is no longer a factor – return to Boston. “I think it’s a really amazing gift that the Greenway is able to give to the artists,” he added. “And we don’t own the artwork, so they can show it or sell it.” A national artist currently on display is Mexican-American master folk artist Catalina Delgado Trunk. Her commissioned work, “Global Connections: Mesoamerican Myths, the Domestication of Nourishment, and its Distribution,” was unveiled in early June. The papel picado, or “cut paper,” artist has used a traditional Mexican art form to draw images of her cultural heritage. Her works were enlarged to a monumental scale, reproduced on vinyl and affixed onto The Greenway’s 30-foot “Light Blades,” cast with color-changing lights. The Albuquerque resident’s work, which is situated near the Rings Fountain at Milk Street, will be on display until March. They are complemented by signage with historical interpretation. “The axis of the Mesoamerican belief system was that each one of us has the responsibility to balance the scale of opposites in accordance with the balance of the universe,” Delgardo Trunk said. “I have always taken that mandate quite seriously and, though I fail more often than succeed, it serves me well as my guide through life. The scale is way out of balance during these dark days of ethnic, social, political, economic, and environmental inequality and abuse which we have brought upon ourselves. “I hope that, as the visitors to the park view the light blades, they will reflect on the message that we are attempting to convey,” she continued. “It takes love, respect, and a lot of effort to create a better world with justice and equality for all, peace, respect for one another, and wise oversight of our environment. Let us trust that, from the small village such as the one you have invited me to join, we can sow some seeds that will grow into the vision that the United States of America represented for me and my family in Mexico.” “I love to think about the celebration of food in culture, and how food transcends one specific culture,” Cowan said. “With Catalina’s work, let’s talk about how food has moved across the globe and used in different ways.” He explained that paper cutting is one of the most ancient forms of artwork in both Meso-American and Asian cultures. He wanted to bring her “out of her silo” and put the septuagenarian into a new (Continued) It’s All About Arts Magazine September 2020
Curator Lucas Cowan: The Rose Kennedy Greenway By Mary Ellen Gambon medium where new generations can see her work on a grand scale. “And then I have a friend on the other end as well,” Cowan added. The second major installation that took place in July was by British-Nigerian artist Yinka Shonibare. The Conservancy commissioned his Wind Sculpture SG(V), displayed in a garden just north of Dewey Square. Twenty-two feet tall, it features a new variation of the classic batik, an African cloth Shonibare uses in his works. The cloth originally came from the Dutch East Indies and was exported to Africa, eventually becoming a staple of that culture. “My work is about celebrating the diversity of communities and highlighting our connections” Shonibare said. “I do not ever underestimate the importance of public access to such basic principles of inclusion.” Cowan said he curates exhibits two years in advance to try to keep in touch with the societal issues that are flowing. While they were meant originally to deal with the theme of immigration, these two exhibits happen to have added resonance in 2020 with the cross-cultural importance of food security and race. “You can look at Yinka’s work and see that it’s very vibrant and lush in the summer and that it will pop in the winter months among all the steel and concrete,” Cowan said, noting that it also reflects African culture and the theme of colonialism. Cowan also keeps tabs on what is going on in the field, attending conferences and networking with colleagues and artists everywhere to create an expanding rolodex of resources. The next year will focus on the Greenway as a canvas for photography, he said, giving a preview. He also wants to explore the topics of climate justice, Black Lives Matter and identity. “What better way to use the arts than to educate and to understand?” he questioned. “That’s what public art – and all art - is supposed to do is to make you think and have a conversation with it. And maybe you will question your own ideals.” Because the art is on a living space, Cowan also has to micromanage. The Greenway Conservancy runs more than 450 programs a year, he said, and he has to coordinate with landscapers and food trucks to make sure that artwork is not disturbed and that the environment is kept in a viable state. “I feel like my job is just constant conversation,” Cowan said. “It’s 30 percent curation and 70 percent administration and balancing those needs. And then I can connect you to these works in other venues as well. And trying to find a programmatic way that opens up the public to a new way of thinking.” His biggest joy, according to Cowan, is the ability to work with any artist and translating the work to another format for public viewing. Cowan gave this advice for anyone going into the field – which could be applicable to virtually any life situation: “In life, a bunch of keys are going to fall into your lap,” he said. “Don’t be afraid to turn those doors. Whether or not you feel that you can do it, you don’t know unless you try, so always turn that key and walk through the door.” The art is funded through grants as well as private donations. For more information, please visit the website at https://www.rosekennedygreenway.org/art. It’s All About Arts Magazine September 2020
A TRIBUTE TO ASA BREBNER “I AM NOT GONE” by Curt Naihersey
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release in 1996 was Prayers of a Snowball in Hell, and after that I Walk the Streets, Best No Money Can Buy, Ragged Religion, Hot Air, Abbey Lode, and Suenos De Los Muertos. The Family Jewels put out two CD’s; Saturday Night and Rockin’ Strong.”
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!! ! Asa Brebner passed away in March 2019 at
photo: Carol Fonde
the age of 65. As local scene writer A J. Wachtel noted, this tremendously talented
singer/songwriter/guitarist/cartoonist/ author/producer was the go-to guy for many of the most well-known bands of Boston’s early punk era: his great musical presence went from The Mezz (Mickey Clean) to The Modern Lovers (Jonathan Richman) to The Chartbusters (Robin Lane) to David Knopfler (Dire Straights) to Angeline (Emily Grogan & Linda Viens) to his own bands: The Grey Boys, Asa Brebner’s Idle Hands, The Family Jewels (a r&b/doo-wop group ) and The Naked I’s.
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Asa grew up listening to his father’s jazz 78 records, blues, The Stones, folk music, The Fugs, Mothers of Invention, and groups from the British invasion. His first solo
Asa continued his extraordinarily diverse career in the entertainment scene. Journeymen with diverse résumés like Mick Taylor, Peter Green, Rick Derringer, or Larry Knetchel - elite rock & roll side players and artists in their own right - have a certain luster apart from the popular work they participated in. Asa Brebner was in that league, though the records he performed on didn't invade the Billboard charts or reign too long on MTV with gold/ platinum status to become tunes recognizable to the masses. But as a rock guitarist, he was a most intuitive player, able to go from premium Johnny Thunders'-style slashing leads to Keith Richards' innovative rhythms. Of his early career with Jonathan Richman and the Modern Lovers, Brebner once told the Globe: “I was 20 years old when Jonathan Richman walked into the health food store I was working at, and before I knew it, I was playing bass for him.” A prolific creator well beyond music, he was also noted as a visual artist, painter, and a cynical (but gracious), wry author. In fact, with writer Bill Flanagan he created some cartoons that appeared in High Times and other magazines and was about to publish his first novel with the working title Revenge.
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Many tributes made mention of a Facebook prose-poem Brebner posted shortly after
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the Burren shows [see addendum*]. “Whenever you ran into him he’d have some witty, cynical observation that would put everything right into focus,” wrote Brett Milano, veteran music critic and author of the 2007 book The Sound of Our Town: A History of Boston Rock and Roll, on Facebook. “He kept playing music and making art because that’s what he was born to do.”
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In the wake of his passing, the tributes became reality. A sold-out concert in June 2019 @ The Regent in Arlington was organized by Tim Jackson (the Chartbuster drummer) and Chris Dierdoff. One of the evening’s performers was Larry Newman, a longtime friend and musical associate. That night, he announced the idea of a tribute album of Asa’s material performed by many of his friends and that is where we are now. Released this month, I AM NOT GONE is a fourteen track summation of his friend’s extraordinary songwriting talent. A brief chat ensued:
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1. Larry, please tell us a bit about yourself and your connection to Asa. Asa and I met in late 1974 through THE INFLIKTORS [local rock band from mid/late 70’s], who introduced us when he was visiting & jamming with them at their place in Allston. He then introduced me to everybody in the Boston rock scene, I was just about 17 at the time. We had been friends for 45 years when he passed.
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2. What do you think about his musical talents, having played with him & such? Any great memories? Asa was one of the most versatile musicians I ever met. A first-class bass player and guitar player who was a master of all musical styles. My favorite memory of actually playing with Asa was doing some
gigs as a duo upstairs at The Rat. We weren’t worried about the crowd, we just had fun playing whatever we wanted.
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3. Who are some of the performers on the album? Did you receive even more renditions - enough for Volume Two? In addition to myself, there is Robin Lane (of Robin Lane and the Chartbusters), Frank Rowe (Classic Ruins), Richie Parsons (Unnatural Axe), Linda Viens (Angeline), Gary Shane (Gary Shane and the Detour), Jon Macey (Fox Pass), Malcolm Travis (Human Sexual Response / The Zulus), and Natalie Flanagan just to name a few. >> There were a large number of performers who initially expressed an interest in submitting recordings for the CD. The fourteen cuts that made it onto this CD were people who produced recordings that were ready for mastering and up to the quality I was looking for and met the deadline that I extended several times. The response so far has been so great that I am definitely interested in producing another album. Some of the musicians that want to be part of Volume Two are Willie Alexander, Kit Dennis, Artie Plumber, George Hall, Andy Pratt, and Billy Loosigian.
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4. You mentioned the possibility of a book of his writings. How would you arrange that? I would love to see a collection of his Facebook posts. I think that would give the reader a real insight into what Asa thought about and how he viewed the world. [see following addendum]
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5. Asa was also an amazing construction artist, who exhibited frequently in local boho galleries. Can
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you touch on this aspect of his creativity? I have seen Asa’s sculptures for over 30 years and it never ceased to amaze me how he could turn junk into art with social comment. His later works involved transforming junk guitars into works of art.
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6. How can people purchase the CD? People can order the CD by messaging me on my Facebook page, or through email: DELTALJN@ NETSCAPE.NET >> The cost is $16.00, postage included. Payment can be made to me through PayPal to my email address, or send a check or money order to: Larry Newman, 10 Whippoorwill Lane, Kittery, Maine, 03904. Thanks to everyone!
photo: Ms. Donna
our huge phenomenal Asa-construction at home, made from scraps of his dad’s wood cuttings and various army toys
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ASA BREBNER’s Thoughts & Words
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April 25, 2018 - Cambridge, MA
IDENTITY. This goes out to a friend of mine who recently shared with us on Facebook her depression and a bout of identity crisis that we, as fellow musicians, from time to time, all share.
In this world where financial success often vindicates the exalted. And sometimes not so great.
When you are asked in a social situation what you do and you tell them you are a musician, the responses range from polite curiosity, or fake declarations of envy or “I had a band in college" to veiled condescending remarks like “Oh, do you play with anybody I might have heard of?
I love the story of my friend Stu Kimball being asked that question at a cocktail party:
“Have you ever heard of Bob Dylan?” Ah - the little rewards.
Those of us who stuck it out in the trenches or share their time as musicians with other jobs, as software code writers or dog walkers or substance abuse counselors know sometimes that vague anxiety of not having quite pulled enough fans to a gig, the diminishing returns of getting older and still struggling to maintain an ego identity as time marches on.
A poor musician always exudes the suspect patina of the “remains to be seen”. In a way he feels left behind from those who have entered adulthood even though he/she may also be holding down a 9 to 5 job.
I like the term "futility of result” coined, I think, by anti-guru J Krishnamurti. Having children helped me absorb this concept in it’s entirety. You simply have to do it for the love of it
Because in this life or the next, there are no solid rewards and beware the shyster, the priest, the televangelist or booking agent that assures you there are.
Vincent Van Gogh never sold a painting in his lifetime. That’s a fact that an artist sometimes uses to comfort themselves as they wage war against the iron plated juggernaut of commerce with only their bare hands.
I also like what David Lee Roth said; “Money won’t buy happiness but you can pull your yacht right up next to it.”
That being said, maybe sometime in history Justin Bieber will take his place on the scrap heap of ”music that aged poorly" as well as many other popular artists of the day or those pitch perfect clones who warble their ambitions on “The “Voice” or "America’s Got Talent" will be revealed as ciphers and my friends in the lower tiers of art or show biz who populate my social strata will finally get their props, long after they are gone.
Great rockers and song writers (and I will only name a few because the list is endless) like Dennis Brennan, Phil Haynen, John Felice, Steve Cataldo, Pete Cassini, Natalie Flanagan, Tony Kaczynski, Paul Caporino, David Champagne, Mike Gent, John Powhida , Tim Carey, Andrea Gillis, Michelle Paulhus, Jen Dangora, Chris Cote,Tanya Donnely, Doug McDonald, Trick Wallace, Randy Black, Robin Lane, Richie Parsons, Laurie Sergeant, Willie Alexander often spend their lives creating great music in relative obscurity.
I know… tough shit… you bought it - you own it.
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ASA BREBNER’s Thoughts & Words I am going to trot out my modest tunes at Sally O’ Briens (335 Somerville Ave.) tomorrow, Thursday April 26.
Right after Hamel on Trial. After me, the Trick Wallace Trio
Music starts around seven…I play at 9:00
Sally O’s has good food and booze and is growing, not shrinking and that is a good thing.
Be there or be square.
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January, 2019 What I was thinking when I woke up this morning at 4:00 AM. Do you remember a time maybe a gazillion light years ago when time crept by like a tiny ant that bumped into things as if it were blind but kept going and made progress but was slow; excruciatingly slow. It was almost unbearable to watch the big clock on the wall make barely one revolution from port to point and then inexorably on again. And maybe you remember the smells when you thought time stood still and you assumed that it would all go on forever. Just getting to the next grade seemed an impossibility; the smell of milk breath and library paste and somebody’s pee pee pants and your pre-adolescent body was full of life. And now you look back on it and you can barely remember how it happened and your first brush with love that would somehow never be as pure and heartbreakingly alive. I have been working with an old love. My first love really, in the wilds of New Hampshire. I collected her in Portland Maine where her brother had recently died and I helped clean out his apartment. Reams and sheaves of carefully collected and processed bills, credit card statements down three floors and into the recycle…the paper data of a life instantly gone. Carol and I took 40 years of her photography to my house down a dirt road of Bethlehem. Its spooky and quiet in the hushed snowy tundra. I am no longer afraid of ghosts. We are going through boxes and boxes looking for needles in a haystack of images that may have had an emotional context for us in the precarious now. Boxes of contact sheets and negatives from the the pre-digital universe. Bands that she photographed that never made it. We don’t remember who they were. Pictures of The Real Kids, Mathew Mackenzie and Lou Reed, Jonathan Richman when he was twenty seven. Some are going right in the fireplace - negatives and all. Carol worked for every major photographer in New York city and was good friends with many: Robert Frank , Richard Avedon, Hiro, Francsco Scavulo, Annie Lebowitz to drop only a few famous names. There are pictures of us in black and white when we were lovers and all the friends we had then back in the late seventies. Many or most are dead. Drug ____________________________________________________________________________!
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ASA BREBNER’s Thoughts & Words overdoses, AIDS, cancer. A few in car wrecks or simply vanished into the unknown. It’s strange really. Carol and I went through a period of estrangement. She broke my heart. I don’t remember that pain any more though it seemed crushingly real at the time. Its buried at the bottom of so many layers of pain and joy and other lovers and deaths and births and triumphs in the world of commerce and fame and obscurity and the gradual place that many of us are at now. With the nagging awarenesses of our mortality. Death is an adviser said Don Juan. Time to get your shit together. I cast this pebble into the river of Facebook that leads to the sea and in this way I am in touch with the rest of humanity. The grid of one and the rest. I prostrate myself to the great “strand-entwining cable of all flesh". I’m beating to the punch all those who might like me or love me or hate me or steal my identity in flesh or in date-ta or in the realm of the spirit.. Mark Zuckerberg joined us all together and this engine of interconnectivity is endless like the ticking of the vast clock that we were aware of in Kindergarten. Mark Zuckerburg invented a printing press that enabled all of us to leave some sort of legacy. Whether it’s pictures of our cats, our dead relatives, or your innermost musings. He looked like a big sorry penis head when he appeared before Congress. But I thank him for Facebook anyway…its really just a tool and it can be used or abused and manipulated for profit or bullying or or embarrassed like ringside seats at the Emperors new clothes, or meeting your next lover who, in the flesh, fulfilled every fantasy of love you had dreamed of or were disappointed by in the happenstance of your physical life. All things are still possible. Things have different colors and relationships as life continues to heat up at breakneck speed. But we are closer now…..to the end than the beginning. I went to buy scones for a playdate. I scowled at the Asian girls who served me the the bag of five that cost eighteen dollars. I was as invisible to them as were the Hostess cupcakes I inhaled in Kindergarten - what was the price of them then? 25 cents? We had Eisenhower to toast with a glass of milk and who said things with the eloquence of the English language. Now we have an idiot in the White House who can barely string a sentence together and who serves McDonald’s cheeseburgers to guests when he could serve Filet Mignon and Duck D’orange Or Fejohada or lobster and steamed clams or Turkey Mole Poblano... It’s come to that. So, all of you that tell me I should write a book..…I have written a book. It may take some time to put a few finishing touches on it but I am going to seek a publisher or publish it myself within the year of 2019. Art or writing is the only thing I’ve ever been any good at. I thank my parents, Win and Dell for that. ____________________________________________________________________________!
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ASA BREBNER’s Thoughts & Words I’m aware of the impending darkness so I’ve gotten busy. I'm leaving a legacy, I suppose, for my kids. Or whoever might be curious. Maybe someday it will even make them some money. Andy Warhol said: "Art is something that you want to give to people who may not want or need it but you feel like it is a good idea to give them anyway.” Recently I’ve decided that that motivation is good enough for me. I don’t have a gig to promote right now. This will be something I feel is a good idea to give you anyway.
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March 3, 2019 A week before his death, Asa reunited with Robin Lane & the Chartbusters to play two sold-out shows at The Burren in Somerville; the concerts celebrated Many Years Ago, a career-spanning retrospective that collects the band’s albums, session releases, singles, and live performances across three discs. As was his wont, he reflected on the shows:
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Well, we pulled it off - it’s hard. It seems to be hard. Don’t you know? Trying to go back 30 years and replicate a carbon copy of yourself. A self that was unformed even then: I was nimble back in the days of Watergate and Night Rider. Hell; I wasn’t even myself then. I had not been poured into the shoes that I would consent to wear for the rest of life - myself till now. Are we done? Ouch - they are too fucking tight. Can I send them back? I wouldn’t kick them off and, in fact, we never quite kick them off till we die …… Then all bets are off. And then they tell us; there’s the fucking afterlife. In that space do we still have to pay parking tickets? if we want to contest them, where do we go? Are white people allowed to say the word n***** again? I hope not. The fact of the matter is evolution has us all figured out. It wants us to have offspring, I did and now they rule my roost. If I become violent; if I want them to clean up their mess. I am the object of the scrutiny of social science…and the DYS. I step on a Leggo on the way to the bathroom. It hurts, and trust me - the Leggos they make now include currare tipped arrows. I might be dead and writing this from my own memories of Leggos. Let’s be honest. Scott was a bit out of tune on his harmonies. He had lost a hearing aid. Shit, I don’t even remember where I left my walker. I hope I don’t find it with a thirty dollar ticket. We loved each other. Rehearsed twice at Jamspot to the tune of money. Tonight I drank beer with Jimmy Harold. Robin has to go back to California. We play again tomorrow. Oh – its already tomorrow. Another shoe might drop from now till then Billy Conway is on chemo. I keep forgetting who has died and who is making an appearance in my dreams as a cameo or has been signed on for the next season. ____________________________________________________________________________!
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ASA BREBNER’s Thoughts & Words And maybe in a billion years my six self-produced CDs will have taken the position that Mozart occupies now in our Gabapenten brains. If so, my wishes are this: Don’t re-animate me to duplicate what I did in the recent past. it hurts too much “now” But is now just a memory? if you read this and it resonates please destroy it. now
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photo: Carol Fonde!
[RIP dear friend]
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It’s All About Arts Magazine
September 2020
THE LOCAL MUSIC CORNER
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by Perry Persoff
Summer is much more my kind of thing. It’s encouraged me over my twenty-three years in Boston to hear native Bostonians…shall we say… ”enthuse” about how they hate Winter. This has had the beneficial effect of letting me, a California emigre, off the hook during nasty cold snaps. As in, it’s not just me!
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But this summer has easily been the most brutal of my Boston years. How long did we have a solid heat wave with high humidity two months? Maybe a couple weeks more? Anybody experience delirious visions of creatures from Venus looking at us saying, “Noooo that’s okay, we’ll just stay here at home this summer - where it’s comfortable.”?? Hey Stevie Wonder, how about making an album for this year called Hotter Than Venus? I still don’t want to give up the summer. But if I don’t see 90+ degrees with high humidity for, hmmm, maybe the rest of my life, it’ll be too soon.
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Maybe you’ve found yourself coming up with creative ways to feel cooler this summer (besides taking four showers a day). Former Somerville musician Dan Blakeslee has perhaps come up with one. Now residing in the more rent-friendly haven of Rhode Island, Dan has been having Christmas in August. That is, he’s been making an album of Christmas oriented songs during the August heatwave. Fellow musician and stillhanging-on-in-Somerville resident Amy Kucharik sings on some of the tracks. According to Amy, the album is all original, “…quirky and fun,” some of it being upbeat and some pensive. Which sounds to me like par for the Blakeslee course. And having original songs certainly makes me
look more forward to a holiday album. We shall see what Mr. Blakeslee & Company come up with. He is wrapping the project up as we read. This includes the album art. Dan says that the art work has been difficult to do in a heatwave. But fortunately he started it in January, so he says “it still has that holiday glow.”
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Besides the various larger annual summer traditions that have been lost to precautions against COVID, one of the smaller summer moments for me used to be the parking lot of a grocery store across the street from a particular music club. This grocery store used to be open twentyfour hours. So the routine that developed was you go see the band at the club. After the show ended at 1 or 2am, go across the street to the grocery store - then see faces from the club in the check-out line for latenight munchies. Even after the store’s closing moved to midnight, that parking lot seemed to have a sense of life to it on warm summer nights, or in a warm summer night rain. Now you look out at the lot on a summer night and it’s just a random space. Sad.
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But this brings up the notion that in the social and occupational COVID situation, bitching about what (for the time being) we cannot change ultimately does not improve things. Like complaining about the Red Sox pitching in 2020. We have to change our mindsets to find ways we can operate in this different paradigm.
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In the context of being a musician, this has lead to online “live” music. You know, “livestreaming” over internet channels (e.g; artists’ You Tube channels, Facebook live, etc). While the buzz of audience response
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September 2020
is not there with live-streaming, the musician does avoid the vagaries of physical touring. No need to drive six hours to play that club in Philly. No need to unload/load up the gear. No need to put another 15,000 miles on the little old hatchback and its squeaking struts. And what of the tradition of making sure you get paid at the end of the night depending on what kind of club owner you deal with (cue Mojo Nixon’s song “Where The Hell’s My Money” for the wrong kind of club owners that musicians unfortunately are reputed to sometimes face)? Thanks to their generous subscribers/tippers, I have heard from at least one musician who has experienced making more money on certain gigs…and not had to drive, load/unload, get back home at 3am, etc.
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So maybe the new way musicians have to do things is not all bad.
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Now from your and my perspective as fans, we won’t get the same buzz as feeling that performance in person. We won’t get the same buzz as being out at the show with our friends. But as a musician who spoke with me recently pointed out, in the 21st century what do you see when you look out in the audience? People looking at their phones. People holding up their phones to video the show. People experiencing the show through the 3-inch screens on the back of their phones that they are taking videos with. Not that everyone does this. But you and I have both seen this being “Normal” at live shows. [ed: UGH!]
Together Now.” Sure, he is the host and does most of the entertaining. But besides playing music himself, he has guest musicians, a video segment recently added to the show, and fun graphics. So in addition to live music streaming, it is potentially a variety type show streamed on the internet...available wherever the proper internet connection is accessible. Speaking of which, here’s where you can find the show: www.youtube.com/ KlymaDotCom, www.twitch.tv/ SocialKlyma, and www.facebook.com/ SocialKlyma.
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Once again, someone embracing the possibilities of the technology for our public performances and attendance during these days of COVID. As in embracing the possibilities of what we can do, more than wallowing in what we can’t do. I guess it takes a pandemic to switch our frame of mind to that.
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Congratulations and thanks to all you musicians who are doing live-streams of your shows and staying creative. Good luck to all of us that we may keep doing what we can.
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Although I still don’t know what the Red Sox are doing about their pitching…..
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But let me get off the editorial schnide here. Musician Greg Klyma is embracing the technology in this COVID era and considering the creative possibilities beyond streaming live music. He calls his weekly Thursday night streams “All
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September 2020
Pandemic Cooking and Cocktails by Linda Cuccurullo
I’ve struggled, like everyone, to find a purpose during this devastating pandemic. It’s been six months now for me, isolating at home, not working, not seeing anyone, essentially alone, exposed to the unending stream of bad news. I’m a photographer, so I was already in the habit of documenting and “prettifying” some of the more mundane moments of my life. But with the pandemic I was really lost, especially in the cold and dreary winter months when there wasn’t much life, or much of interest, to document. I knew I had to take control of the situation or I would lose my mind! So I began to create my own pleasurable moments by focusing on things I could control - in particular the planning of cocktail hours and meals. These became daily projects - starting with deciding on the day’s project, gathering supplies, executing the plan, and then photographically documenting it. The process took up a lot of mental bandwidth, keeping me relatively happy, and somewhat distracted from the state of the world! I like to lose myself in these projects - experimenting with techniques, flavors, and presentations (a challenge in an apartment with limited staging opportunities!). I have a bartending certificate, so creating cocktails was the easier part. But, for someone who spent most of her evenings before the pandemic grazing on hors d’oeuvres at social events, getting into a cooking routine (and actually COOKING!) was much harder! I tackled the folder of recipes I saved but never had the time or motivation to prepare, and, with some variation based on the ingredients I had available, I managed to create and present unique versions of some classics – including croque monsieur, baby back ribs, homemade limoncello, and a special cocktail to celebrate the 4th of July. In case you’re inspired, I’ve included a few recipes for you to enjoy yourself! STAY SAFE, STAY HAPPY xoxo About Linda Linda’s photography has been exhibited extensively, including group shows at Gallery Sitka, the Liberty Hotel and the Four Seasons Residences, in addition to over a dozen one-woman shows in the Cambridge and Boston areas, Shirley, MA, and Martha’s Vineyard. Contact info: linda@lindacuccurullo.com Instagram: @armommy 617-966-7170
It’s All About Arts Magazine September 2020
Pandemic cooking and cocktails by Linda Cuccurullo
Creme Caramel Ingredients 1 c. milk 1/2 c. sugar 1/2 tsp. vanilla extract 1 egg yolk 3/8 c. cream lemon zest 2 eggs Instructions In a saucepan, bring to a boil 1 cup milk with 3/8 cup cream and 1/8 cup sugar, the lemon zest and vanilla. Drizzle in 2 whole eggs and 1 egg yolk beaten together with 1/4 cup sugar, mix together and allow to cool. Melt a scant 1/4 cup sugar with 1 tablespoon water until it begins to turn darker; pour it into 4 ramekins, then pour in the cooled cream mixture. Place the ramekins in a cake pan and fill it with hot water to half the height of the ramekins. Bake at 250°F for 45 minutes, then turn off the oven and leave it in the oven for another 10 minutes.
It’s All About Arts Magazine September 2020
Pandemic cooking and cocktails by Linda Cuccurullo
Croque Monsieur Ingredients 2 T. butter 2 T. flour 2/3 c. hot milk 3/4 c. grated Gruyere sea salt 1/4 t. grated nutmeg 4 slices white bread 4 thin slices ham Instructions 1. Make bechamel/cheese sauce: Melt 2 T. butter over low heat in a small saucepan and add the flour all at once, stirring with a wooden spoon for 2 minutes. Slowly pour the hot milk into the butter/flour mixture and cook, whisking constantly, until the sauce is thickened. Remove from heat, add salt, pepper, nutmeg, half of the grated Gruyere and set aside. 2. Lightly brush 2 slices of bread with bechamel/cheese sauce 3. Add 2 slices ham to each slice 4. Top each with another slice of bread 5. Generously slather the tops with the cheese sauce, sprinkle with the remaining Gruyere 6. Bake at 400 until bread is toasted and cheese is melted (about 5 minutes) 7. Broil for about 3 minutes, or until the topping is bubbly and lightly browned. Serve hot
Dark and Stormy (Rum cocktail) Ingredients Ice 1½ ounces dark rum Ginger beer Maraschino cherry for garnish Instructions Fill a glass with ice Add the rum Top off with the ginger beer Garnish with cherry It’s All About Arts Magazine September 2020
Film Review
When You’re Strange - Part 2 of 3 (documentary, dir. Tom DiCillo, narr. Johnny Depp, 2010) by Robert G. Spilsbury The complete “Celebration of the Lizard,” with Morrison’s spoken poetry included, would eventually surface in some of the band’s extravagant live performances and did wind up on their platinum-selling Absolutely Live record of various live performances throughout 1969 and 1970. But the fact that the masterpiece was never recorded for Waiting for the Sun, or any other record The Doors produced, remains a great loss in the band’s short but incredible career.
When The Doors recorded Waiting for the Sun, they were still
in peak standing with fans and critics. They had produced two incredible albums—The Doors and Strange Days—which song-for-song didn’t really have a single bad track, so critics were hailing the band as America’s answer to the Rolling Stones and as the greatest young American band in the country. Writers and reviewers grabbed every opportunity to get into the studio during the recording of Waiting for the Sun. The public was about to get exposure to another side of The Doors that the members other than Jim were trying in earnest to cover up. Author Joan Didion wrote about Morrison in her famous book about the 1960s, The White Album. She describes Morrison’s antics during the recording of Waiting for the Sun, and it’s not a rosy picture. Drummer John Densmore describes Didion in his book, Riders on the Storm, which was written well after the band broke up in the late 1980s. He says she was “a nosy, thin, mousy little lady with glasses, in our studio, notebook in hand, ready to sniff though our dirty laundry—Jim Morrison.” Didion seemed intent on uncovering the band’s secrets, according to Densmore. “There seemed to be a secret unspoken pact to cover up the fact that something was wrong with the band. Jim was turning down the darkest road available, short of suicide, and the tension was in the air. Jim’s decay was the dark side of an already dark vision. The writer Didion picked up on that. She must have had some angst of her own.” In The White Album, Didion writes: “The Doors are different, they have nothing in common with the gentle Beatles. They lack the temporary conviction that love is brotherhood and the Kama Sutra. Their music insists that love is sex and sex is death and therein lies salvation. The Doors are the Norman Mailers of the Top 40, missionaries of apocalyptic sex.” (continued) It’s All About Arts Magazine September 2020
When You’re Strange (documentary, dir. Tom DiCillo, narr. Johnny Depp, 2010) by Robert G. Spilsbury
Didion also wrote about Morrison coming late to the studio and how it was affecting the rest of the band.
“Right now they are gathered together in uneasy symbiosis to make their album, and the studio is cold and the lights are too bright…. There are three of the four Doors…there is everything and everybody except one thing, the fourth Door, the lead singer, Jim Morrison, a twenty-four-year-old graduate of UCLA, who wears black vinyl pants and no underwear and tends to suggest some range of the possible just beyond a suicide pact…. It is Ray Manzarek and Robby Krieger and John Densmore who make The Doors sound the way they do… but it is Morrison who gets up there in his black vinyl pants with no underwear and projects the idea, and it is Morrison they are waiting for now…. Morrison arrives… sits down on a leather couch silent. Manzarek watches him coldly but no words are spoken. The other two band members do not acknowledge Jim the slightest bit at all. There is still a dead silence, and a sense that no one is going to leave this room ever. It will be some weeks before The Doors finish recording this album. I do not see it through.” number one album when it was released on July 3, 1968. “Hello I Love You” was also a number one hit, giving The Doors their second number one single, and first since “Light My Fire,” a little over a year earlier in 1967. The critics called the new album cotton candy for the masses and did not praise Morrison at all, even though he was still writing great songs. Some writers pointed out that many of the best songs on the album had been written earlier, during the first two recording sessions for The Doors and Strange Days, and had been held onto by Rothchild, as if he knew Morrison would eventually get writers block and be unable to fill an entire record. “Hello I Love You” and “Summer’s Almost Gone,” two of the best songs on the record, had apparently been waiting on a shelf since 1966 and were only now surfacing. Still, the album had great and new highlights written by Jim, proving he still had the poetic, lyrical power his fans craved. Songs like “The Unknown Soldier” showcased his genius. It’s a song about the Vietnam War and is Morrison’s first political song, with a message that war brings death, not glory and victory: “Breakfast where the news is read. Television, children fed. Unborn living, living dead. Bullet strikes the helmet’s head. It’s all over for the unknown soldier....And it’s all over, war is over.”
One can’t help but ask, was Jim writing this song for his father Steve Morrison, who had now become
an admiral in the Navy and was commanding a huge fleet out at the Gulf of Tonkin? Then there was “Love Street,” written for the love of his life, Pamela Courson. The two had been together on and off since before the formation of The Doors in 1965. They had a wild relationship that included constant fighting and infidelities with others. Still, Jim wrote love songs about her and nobody else, “She lives on Love Street, lingers long on Love Street. She has a house and garden. I would like to see what happens…. She has wisdom and knows what to do. She has me and she has you.”
“Five to One” was also a new type of political song for Jim, in which he finally identifies with the 1960s
counterculture, rather than being morbid, as with “Strange Days” have found us and “People Are Strange” when you’re a strange guy. “Five to one, baby. One in five. No one here gets out alive, now. You get yours, baby. I’ll get mine. Gonna make it, baby, If we try…. They got the guns. But we got the numbers. Gonna win, yeah. We’re taking over. Come on!” Despite the critics dismissing the album as a waste of talent, Waiting for the Sun received platinum-status sales, as had the first two Doors records. (continued) It’s All About Arts Magazine September 2020
When You’re Strange (documentary, dir. Tom DiCillo, narr. Johnny Depp, 2010) by Robert G. Spilsbury The Doors had a successful tour of Europe in 1968, following the release of Waiting for the Sun, although Morrison did suffer an incident onstage in Amsterdam. Earlier in the day, well before the concert was to begin, Morrison was walking the streets of Amsterdam saying hello to fans and signing autographs. A fan stopped him and offered him a block of hash. Morrison surprised the fan by taking the whole block, stuffing it in his mouth, and swallowing it down. That was a lot of hashish to take in at once. By the time Jefferson Airplane went onstage, Morrison was already acting wild, and he insisted on making a guest appearance with Jefferson Airplane, although he did very little singing, mostly wild dancing around Grace Slick. Right before The Doors were to go onstage, Morrison passed out cold and had to be taken out on a stretcher to an ambulance and rushed to a hospital. The band performed without him, with Manzarek handling most of the vocals and Krieger doing others. Drummer Densmore was disappointed in Morrison’s behavior but thought it was the right thing to do for the fans to go on with the show.
The Doors fourth record, The Soft Parade, took an even larger toll on the band than the previous
record. Jim had begun coming into the studio drunk more often and seemed to be losing interest in songwriting. Robby picked up Jim’s role and wrote more songs than he ever had before for the band. For the first time, Robby insisted on separating song credits with other members of the band, and Morrison did the same, as the two argued in the studio over how certain songs like “Tell All the People,” “Wishful Sinful,” and “Touch Me” were to be written and arranged. The Soft Parade was supposed to be The Doors response to The Beatles Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, which was released in 1967 and had become the quintessential album from the British Invasion for American rock bands to try to top. Paul Rothchild brought in a whole orchestra for songs like “Touch Me” and “Running Blue,” so that the band sounded different, more operatic and symphonic. The sound was good, but was it still The Doors?
Morrison went along with the series of changes in the band, probably because regardless of the long
recording sessions and the fights with Krieger, he spent most of those eleven months drunk, including in the studio. Nobody liked talking about the “elephant” in the room (Morrison), Rothchild said. “As long as we can get him to work, if this is how Jim wants to be, let him be this way.”
As Depp says in the film about this 1969 period of recording The Soft Parade, “It was at this time Jim
quit doing LSD for the most part. He took a hard turn from psychedelics to booze.” The songs Morrison did write on the album, such as “Shaman’s Blues,” did possess a certain longing sadness for a relationship to return to the way it once was. The song seemed to be written for Pamela as a pleading for them to stay together. “There will never be, another one like you. There will never be, another one who can, do the things you do, oh. Will you give another chance? Will you try, little try? Please stop and you remember. We were together, anyway, all right…. How you must think and wondered. How I must feel, out on the meadows, while you run the field. I’m alone for you. And I cry. The sweat, look at it. (continued)
It’s All About Arts Magazine September 2020
When You’re Strange (documentary, dir. Tom DiCillo, narr. Johnny Depp, 2010) by Robert G. Spilsbury Optical promise…. You’ll be dead and in hell, before I’m born. Sure thing, bridesmaid. The only solution. Isn’t it amazing.”
John Densmore was starting to break out in a rash that covered his entire body during the recordings of
The Soft Parade. He could not handle the stress of dealing with Morrison anymore. One day when Jim showed up drunk at the studio and couldn’t perform to his full potential, John walked out, telling the band, “I can’t take it anymore, I quit.” The next day, he was back in the studio ready to drum. The rest of the band didn’t say a word, and the album was soon completed.
As Depp points out in When You’re Strange, “Sometimes the booze helped Morrison, sometimes it
didn’t as a performer. As time went on, it more and more became a wrench in his side and something not even the Lizard King could control.” The band was realizing around this time how adept they had become at keeping Jim alive onstage when they toured, and a big tour was planned for across America after the release of The Soft Parade.
Morrison’s first onstage arrest had come in New
Haven, Connecticut, on December 10, 1967, and even before that The Doors had a reputation as a “dirty and dangerous band,” according to Depp. The arrest occurred backstage, when Morrison was Maced by a police officer who did not recognize him as a member of The Doors. He had discovered Morrison making out in a shower stall with a female groupie and had asked them to return to their seats in the arena. Morrison told the cop in his unsubtle Mr. Hyde manner to “fuck off.” He was immediately sprayed with Mace and cried out in pain. Densmore writes in his autobiography, Riders on the Storm, “When Morrison came onstage, I could sense that something confrontational was going to happen. His eyes were red and he looked mad.” It didn’t take long before Morrison interrupted the opening song of the night—“Back Door Man”—to tell the story of what had just happened to him. The cops, facing and guarding the audience, turned around and frowned at Jim. Jim continued to bait the crowd, daring them to do something about it. Three officers then came out from the wings, and Morrison pointed the microphone at one of them. “Say your thing man!” he said. The police dragged Morrison offstage, handcuffed him, arrested him, and brought him to the police station. Densmore says about this period in the band’s history, “The group was too out of hand. Jim was crazy. And I wanted escape from the growing fear that this was just the beginning that we were seeing. Robby says that it was around this point that he began to dislike Jim intensely, thinking the band’s future was a day-today thing. Ray later said, he too, was worried that New Haven was the beginning of erosion of everything the band had worked so hard for to achieve.” To be continued next month
It’s All About Arts Magazine September 2020
“Heart Scramble”
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Janice Williams is our beloved editor/publisher, whose artwork has filled these pages since the beginning. Her dedication to uplifting creativity has been at the forefront of her ambitions. Through her efforts, a twenty-two year BNN-TV program brought thousands of local artists recognition. Her Roslindale Arts Alliance (w/ husband Glenn) has offered academic scholarships to youthful students. She still manages to create some form of art during her waking days. Here are a few of her recent watercolors. She’s like a vampire with a never-ending thirst. Mmmm-mmm great! And she’s
ours!
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“Untitled”
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It’s All About Arts Magazine
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! HOW MY FRIEND WOODY GOT HIS NAME
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This is a story about how my friend, Woody Ring, got his name. If you don't like the poem, you know who to blame. Stop guessing. It was not Woodrow Wilson, nor Woody Guthrie. Not college football's Woody Hayes. No, none of those three. Actor Woody Harrelson is way younger than my friend. Couldn't be him. I will tell you now, bring speculation to an end.
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Woodbury Kane (1859-1905) was a Newport swell. He had lots of money. Where did it come from? Hard to tell. Harvard grad, classmate of Teddy Roosevelt. Bon vivant America's Cup yachtsman. Big game hunter, New York socialite, dilettante. John Jacob Astor was a cousin. Tuxedos? He owned a couple dozen. He was with the Rough Riders going up San Juan Hill. They needed a $7,500 machine gun. He paid the bill. A bachelor all his life, he got married in March, 1905 He was dead by December just past age forty five He died without children, and that fact pained him immensely He wanted his name to go on; he felt it intensely.
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In the days before automobiles, in the Gilded Age, George Ring drove a hansom cab, made a decent, not great, wage. His customers were the wealthy summer people on Bellevue Avenue Newport's long street of gigantic "cottages," then shiny and new. Captain Kane was one of his frequent fares Often they'd talk about all sorts of topics and affairs ________________________________________________________________________________________________________
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It’s All About Arts Magazine
September 2020
! George mentioned that his wife was about to have yet another baby Said Captain Kane, "I'll give you $500 if you name the child after me." Well for George that was a no brainer. He did not have to think twice about such a generous retainer. He took the money, of course he did. 500 bucks just for naming a kid?! With 17 children already and another one the way He was running out of ideas for baby names anyway.
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Woodbury Kane Ring (1906-1993) grew up, worked in a hardware shop And when he had a son himself, he did not stop or hesitate in any way. He named him Woodbury too Nicknamed Woody, he became a Newport cop.
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For such a small city (population just under 25,000), Newport has had a fascinating history. The wealth of nearby New Bedford was founded on whaling; Fall River on knitting mills. The wealth of Newport was founded on the transportation and sale of enslaved Africans and the closely related rum industry. For decades Newport ships accounted for 70% of the enslaved people imported to the American colonies and the Caribbean sugar islands. The three way trade went like so: enslaved people brought from the west coast of Africa to Charleston and the Caribbean. Bring long-lasting salted cod from New England to feed the island enslaved workforce. Pick up sugar or molasses, bring it back to Newport, distill it into rum. Take the rum to Africa in payment for more enslaved human beings. During the American Revolution, the British blockaded American shipping, causing mass starvation in the sugar islands when the cod could not be delivered. Southern planters and later New York society people established Newport as a summertime seaside getaway. The Vanderbilts, the Astors and many other of New York’s upper-crust built huge mansions (called "cottages") on Bellevue Avenue. President Eisenhower had a summer residence there. JFK and Jackie were married there. A whole bunch of novels are set in Newport. Eudora Welty lived there for a decade and wrote “The Age of Innocence” there before decamping for the Berkshires. My favorite is “The Sirens of Titan” by onetime Barnstable resident Kurt Vonnegut. The action takes place in Newport and other parts of the galaxy. Rhode Island was founded by Roger Williams, escaping the theocratic rule of the Massachusetts Puritans, on the principle of religious tolerance. Newport became home to a large colony of Portuguese conversos -- Jews whom the Spanish and later Portuguese Inquisition had forced to convert or leave. Many nominally converted but continued to practice Judaism; these were continuously investigated and persecuted for their ongoing faith. Sadly they became merchants and ship owners and participated in the slave trade as enthusiastically as their Gentile peers. Converso Aaron Lopez made his great fortune that way. Newport was the site of the first synagogue in North America. Newport loved its hometown pirates when they were preying on French and Spanish shipping and menacing Madagascar and the Red Sea sultanates, but turned on them when they started to disrupt their own commerce. On July 19, 1723, twenty-six pirates were hung in Gravelly Square, one of the largest mass executions in our history. Captain William Kidd was frequently in and out of town. One story is that he left his fabulous treasure in the hands of his friend and fellow privateer Thomas Paine on Jamestown Island just across the bay from Newport. Kidd went on to Boston to plead his case that he was not a pirate but a legal privateer. But he was arrested, shipped to London, where he was tried and hung at Newgate Prison. According to the 1900 US Census, the average annual wage for a worker was $449, so Woodbury Kane's naming inducement was the equivalent of a year's pay. George Ring did not have to think too long.
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! My friend Woody Ring was a Newport beat cop for 23 years. He was one of the first on the scene when tobacco heiress Doris Duke - either accidentally or on purpose - ran over and killed her decorator at the gates of her estate. You can read more about it in the July 16,2020 edition of Vanity Fair. Woody is not quoted directly but supplied background. Spoiler alert: she did it. With its e-nor-mous deep harbor, Newport was home to the US Navy for generations (until Nixon closed most facilities). The portside Thames Street (now home to kitchy nautical tourist boutiques) was full of seedy dive bars, tattoo parlors, brothels and drug dens. That was Woody's beat for years, and with the assistance of the Shore Patrol, he tried to keep order on raucous Saturday nights. Whenever he saw trouble brewing, Woody's strategy was to get the combatants to move the action a couple blocks further down the street to some other cop's jurisdiction. Retired for the last 30 years, Woody, now 80, lives with his wife Ann in Little Compton, RI and keeps a boat he loves in Westport, MA - a couple moorings over from us.
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Woody on his beloved boat
- MICHAEL GALLAGHER
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LIGHT TOUCHES All at once, three warm fingertips press lightly on your left forearm — the faintest flesh-to-flesh contact, soft enough not to cause recoil. The shadow world of sales spirits floats around and among us all. They mingle and manipulate we weak mortals (a.k.a. marks). We who do not sell do not grok. We naïve ones are unaware.
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It’s All About Arts Magazine
September 2020
! We do not know of the power of sales touch. It is their M.O. Sales folk must touch, literally and figuratively to start the latest negotiation. They alone know of pending deals. Cheerleaders, student council, and class play were just sales training drills. People skills have clear purposes. Sales’ constant goal remains to close. When we marks now fear human touch, how do sales sorts survive and thrive? Whither sales types in these plague times? Believe them, they connect by stealth. Their fingertips leave no blisters. Once they close the sale you may feel pleased at the deal you accepted. After all, you two connected.
! ************ ! FISHING WITH RUMSEY !
The creased and the smooth, ripened man and nearly new boy, sit in silence. Neither feels their mutual love of fishing in the Potomac or the age of his companion is remarkable. Others do. Sixty-four years and three feet on the bank separate them. They share worms and swap lures but do not chatter. Rumsey and Mike are relatives by marriage, a few generations apart. They are molded by the same laconic culture. They come to the Harmison farmstead to fish, not jabber. No deep-sea behemoths are caught that day and none is even available. That is the same every time they sit together. Small-mouth bass, perch, carp and trout oblige the pair by nibbling, biting, fighting and dying. They give plenty of amusement to the quiet pair. In their worlds of boastful men and prattling women, the creased and smooth are content with each other.
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- MIKE BALL ________________________________________________________________________________________________________
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It’s All About Arts Magazine
September 2020
T
ess’s September To-Do List
I’m taking a break from bringing you to-do’s this month to share my favorite craft right now: macramé. If you’re not familiar with it, macramé is a craft that involves knotting strings or cords to produce a textile. It’s become popular in home decor in the form of hanging plant holders and wall art. Last holiday season, using some videos I found online, I taught myself how to macramé so that I could make plant holders as gifts for one of my best friends who I pulled in our Secret Santa. After making a few plant hangers for my friend, I was hooked! I made plant hangers for other friends & family members over the holidays and then, in the beginning of the year, I invited my best friends over for a crafting party to teach them how to make their own plant hangers using all of the extra cord I’d accumulated. Now each of them has a macramé plant hanger in their home that they hand-crafted!
I’ve recently started exploring macramé wall hangings, as well, experimenting with different varieties of string or cord and knot patterns. While string, cord, or yarn are typical materials for macramé, I’ve also seen pieces made using old items of clothing cut into strips, strings made of leather, shoe laces tied together, and more. I enjoy the craft of macramé because there’s plenty of room for creativity and originality, but there is a formula-based component to your design being successful, as well. It’s All About Arts Magazine September 2020
“Tess’s September To-Do List (continued) Because it requires both imaginative and methodical thinking, macraméing feels like an intersection between the left and right brain. If you’re looking to try macraméing, there are a ton of free video tutorials on Pinterest. This is a helpful guide on basic knots that I came across: decorhint.com/basic-macrame-knots-step-by-step-guide/
Tess McColgan has been working for Roslindale Village Main Street as their Program Manager since April 2018. In this role, she plans community events, uses marketing to promote local businesses, and supports the projects of volunteer-led committees. Coming from a large family full of artists & musicians, she’s always had an enthusiasm for local art, and in October 2018, Tess started as Glenn William’s co-host for the It’s All About Arts TV show until its final episode in June 2019. In her free time, she continues to seek out local art, learns new crafts, explores museums, practices yoga & gets out in nature as often as possible. Photo: Bruce Spero Photography at brucespero.smugmug.com Sojourner Truth, Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton break the bronze ceiling as the first real women to have a monument in NY’s Central Park’s 167-year history. These women devoted their lives, and often worked together, for the abolition of slavery and for women’s suffrage. Sculptor Meredith Bergmann portrays them in mid-discussion, almost twice life-size, truly monumental women! For more information and to watch the unveiling ceremony, please go to www.monumentalwomen.org.
It’s All About Arts Magazine September 2020
EXPOSED - Secrets of An Art Rep by Suzanne Schultz Calm in the Chaos I’m sitting in my gallery looking at the work of artist Joel VanPatten and thinking about the title of his show. “Calm in The Chaos”. This pandemic is like nothing we have ever seen in our lifetime. It has affected every aspect of our lives and has hurt our communities, businesses and sense of well-being. For example, even simple daily pacifiers, like going for coffee, shopping for art supplies or going to a museum were not options for months and some still are not. How do we manage our thoughts when there is no escape from them? How do we bring them under control and make them work for us, and not against us? Finding the calm in a chaotic time is a choice we make. How can we use this time to make life better? One way is to reevaluate things in our lives both professionally and personally. Here are 5 ideas to get back on track and stay focused: 1. Create a new business plan. The world will never be quite the same. This is a great time to be creative and get ahead of the crowd. Just because something worked in the past does not mean it is the best way to move forward. 2. Learn ZOOM. It is an incredible way to stay connected with clients and grow your audience in a way that is not possible “in person”. This is an example of an opportunity that this environment brings to reach even more people from your studio. 3. Learn online. Perhaps it is time to learn a new painting technique, learn to make your own frames or even new computer skills. 4. Improve your social media platforms. Be strategic in your posting and even MORE strategic in your connections. 5. Look online. Look for shows, press, or podcasts you can remotely participate in as a guest, and any way to improve your presence as an artist. I am told that the Chinese word for chaos also means opportunity. The choice of definition is yours today. I hope you will find “Calm in the Chaos.” and take advantage of this opportunity to make your life and business better. Suzanne Schultz is the founder and CEO for Canvas Fine Arts (CFA). Suzanne started her business of promoting and coaching artists over 14 years ago. She has helped 100’s of artists manage and expand their art careers using a combination of entrepreneurial coaching, focusing on the right opportunities and using her multiplicity of business and art connections. She has presented her EXPOSED – “Getting Seen and Getting Sold” seminar multiple times to individuals, schools, art associations and nonprofits across New England and New York. She writes for a number of publications including ArtBeat Magazine, ART511 Mag and It’s All About Arts Magazine. Contact: suzanne@canvasfinearts - 617-470-1889 Facebook:facebook.com/cfagroup Website: canvasfinearts.com
It’s All About Arts Magazine September 2020
Gena Mavuli Create is an answer to a yearning, a demonstration of a deep idea that’s been marinating. It is the response to a world with screens, a world of “connection” through isolation. Pre-COVID, I was feeling the drain of spending too much time on a screen through work, unrelenting email communications, and nearly unavoidable social media. Now as we adjust to life with the pandemic around us, the availability of a physical space to use our hands is ever more necessary. When I opened in February, I had a vision for the village, indeed all main street districts, as places where the community can go for experiences. While I certainly want great food, a great hair stylist, and cute little shops, I still long for more from our downtown area. When I was a young(er) parent, I sought a place where kids also could to go, where there was a draw for them. In a community so rich with children such as Roslindale, they were hardly represented at all in the business community. I had hoped someone would open something kid-oriented for years. The potential was there! Why didn’t someone take the leap?! So, why not me? With loads of experience running non-profits and programs, most recently working at a local community arts center, my skills lay in creating space and experiences for people to enjoy. Create is a place to explore the arts in a non-threatening way, to learn new techniques, new ways of expression, in an area of the city that very much needs such a space. The more accessible the arts are, the more people participate. Create is meant to be nimble, responsive to the community’s needs, and flexible in programming and forward thinking as a business deeply invested in the health and strength of the community. To that end, we’ve donated 10% of June proceeds to the MA Bail Fund, and we’re donating 5 hours of time at Create each week this school year to local BPS parent (Continued)
It’s All About Arts Magazine September 2020
CREATE by Gena Mavuli communities to use to help support those who need it most in their school communities. Our role, and that of every business, is to use whatever skills and resources we have to ensure the community thrives. Often I see Create as the catalyst of huge change. I see it as a bright open space full of potential, fertile soil for collaboration, growth, and ideas. Most days it is simply a lovely space where I get to spend my days making things, helping kids explore their imagination, and guiding adults along their journey. I am finding it is a lovely way to ensure that life is never dull, that there is always something dynamic happening, and creativity never gets put on the backburner. The number one requirement for a new business owner is a love of adventure. While I suspected this on some level, I didn’t know this so profoundly when I opened Create in February 2020 as I do now, seven short months later. I know well that nothing goes as planned, and still I thought I had planned for every imaginable contingency. Yet what happened this year was unimaginable! The first week I simply closed my doors and laughed at the utter lack of control we have over our lives. Since I had been running on adrenaline for the previous few months, I welcomed the break. I baked an extremely elaborate pastry I’d been dreaming about for over a decade, and then I began to dream once again. Early on in the pandemic, before things closed down and after having a wonderful first six weeks, I sat at a local restaurant with my husband, drink in hand, as we chatted with the owner. Nobody had ever seen anything like this, although he sat with a confidence I had yet to gain at Create. After all, Create had just opened. He offered one set of wise words: “if you can get through this, you’ll get through anything.” Getting through it we certainly are! Inventing and pivoting along the way, Create looks very different now, and better, than the original vision. We’ve pared down the offerings to the core of who we are In this time. Innovation has been the name of the game. I consider myself lucky that due to our novelty, we were able to adjust our programming, add-in new ideas, and even allow myself to open up to a personal passion: ceramics. Although it wasn’t part of my initial vision and I resisted it for a while, person after person came in asking for ceramics. Combined with the fact that I was only rarely making time for my own ceramics practice at a local community arts center, I look the leap to get a few wheels, sort out firing logistics, and launch our first wheel-throwing and hand-building ceramics classes this fall! That combined with our core after-school and daytime classes, we have a wonderfully full fall schedule of programming. We look forward to more in-person adult programming (Continued) It’s All About Arts Magazine September 2020
CREATE by Gena Mavuli in 2021. We continue to value in-person experiences above all others, however we know that some people are still seeking classes from the comfort of their own home. You’ll notice that our online classes this fall look different than the spring. We’re offering seven weeks of creativity, seven weeks of learning in concert with an online community. Here we are in September, working successfully through this unfathomable and unbelievable year. I like to think this studio is a refuge, a place kids and adults can come to make things, get their hands dirty and explore. Here the community can forget about whatever it is they want to forget about while they turn mud into art, create abstract paintings, carve prints, move paint around a page and see what it uncovers. Here you can celebrate a birthday, design your own patterns, hand build your own holiday gifts. More at https://www.createartincommunity.com
Let this place be a place of generation, regeneration and gathering. Let this place be whatever it is we all need and want it to be. Let this place be a catalyst for us all to create the community we want to live in, together.
It’s All About Arts Magazine September 2020
Afterland by Edward Morneau Part Nine: A Walk Through Hiroshima From Part 8: And underneath that statue was the open casket of Sadako Sasaki—the Folder of Cranes. Zorwell walked to the casket and the soul of Sasaki sat up and spoke to him: “Welcome to Hiroshima.”
H
er ghostly apparition stepped down from the casket onto a pedestal of the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum, folded her hands, and bowed to Zorwell, who was still <loating a few feet above hallowed ground. When their eyes met, Sasaki’s ghost closed hers and recited this poem:* I come and stand at every door But none can hear my silent tread I knock and yet remain unseen For I am dead for I am dead I’m only seven though I died In Hiroshima long ago I’m seven now as I was then When children die they do not grow My hair was scorched by swirling flame My eyes grew dim my eyes grew blind Death came and turned my bones to dust And that was scattered by the wind I need no fruit I need no rice I need no sweets not even bread I ask for nothing for myself For I am dead for I am dead All that I need is that for peace You fight today you fight today So that the children of this world Can live and grow and laugh and play * Hiroshima’s Child by Turkish poet Nazim Hikmet
It's All About Arts Magazine September 2020
As the poem faded and Sasaki’s ghost returned to her casket, Zorwell could hear what he had heard just moments ago in Afterland—the collage of sound and music and noise that was his brief heaven. As a crescendo of Stravinski’s strings swelled and decayed, Zorwell blacked out and when he awoke found himself back in Afterland proper, curled into a fetal position near the feet of Mollie Bailey. He could barely speak, but he tried: “What just happened? “Hiroshima was your brief moment as the Sun. We heard you, but had no way of answering until now.” “You’ll have to stop with the riddles.” “We took a walk through Hiroshima and Nagasaki and decided that we had to lift the curse—turn back this holy hubris that threatens you. Things are not going well here. Your Sun has a mere <ive billions years left and the idea of prematurely rushing into oblivion as a white dwarf is a bit daft to us.” “Who is ‘us’?” Zorwell sat up and contemplated the impossible. “I have see enough science <iction <ilms to surmise what you are about to claim.”
Mollie folded her arms anticipating Zorwell’s next words. “You think we are aliens, don’t you?” She laughed. The App Master shrugged, indicating af<irmation. “You mused once that maybe Afterland may be a <ilm. After all, this app you invented is the only thing on Earth that can see us. It sees what is happening in Detroit. It has access to an inventory of souls-in-waiting and those still wandering. Too bad it wasn’t around before you dropped the bomb on Hiroshima, then maybe you wouldn’t have dropped another one on Nagasaki. And now you just visited the soul of Sadako Sasaki, the Folder of Cranes. There are millions like her. And you think we are doing that?” “My app can’t invent what it sees. It just…it just sees.” Zorwell had never considered that the unimaginable combinations of ones and zeroes is in<inite and that what he had built within a cell phone married to a Virtual Reality Viewer (VRV) was not a portal in Purgatory, but a…what…? Maybe there was no name for it yet. He was aware of the spectacle and possibility of arti<icial intelligence, but never considered it could arrive at the crossroads of contrived consciousness; that somehow there was an algorithm that could accumulate the full panorama of humans being and reveal being itself as a <ilm reveals suspended disbelief as something believable. “Let me show you something else that even your app can not see.” With the slightest of gestures Mollie cut a square into Afterland and its spectral essence disappeared from the frame and revealed the darkness of space. “Come closer, Zorwell. Look.” From an impossible distance an object was moving closer, possibly traveling at the speed of thought, until it hovered before this window into Afterland. Zorwell’s eyes opened wide. He put down the VRV and saw before him Voyager 1—a spacecraft that had left to explore the solar system years ago. It was now in Michelangelo’s Capella Paolina—the Vatican’s Chapel of UnDinished Works. How did it get here? Zorwell thought. How did Mollie get here? She’s dead! And Sadako Sasaki, the Folder of Cranes, was also here. “A lot of your <ilms express great insight into things that are beyond entertainment.” Mollie and young Sadako were walking around in the <lesh—Mollie looking at Michelangelo’s un<inished frescoes; Sadako folding Michelangelo’s rough drafts into cranes and tossing them in the air where they remained. “Your art is a trans-conscious connection to everything around you. It tells your story. The record and a plaque on board Voyager—the time capsule recording of what humanity is —we sent your Voyager back with a reply. We sent it to your moon many years after you launched it in 1977. “Why the moon?” Zorwell was reeling with apprehension. He could accommodate this feeling in Afterland, but the reality of Afterland coming into his of<ice unnerved the App Master. “Once we found out what you left out of your message to us, we were afraid you would blow it out of your hemisphere.”
“Which was…what did we leave off the recording?”
“Hiroshima.”
It's All About Arts Magazine September 2020
Zorwell somehow understood that the intended benevolence of the great minds of science, their aching desire of science for humans to be connected and understood by intelligent life elsewhere could be easily undermined by the reality of human behavior on Earth. “Hmmm. Got it. So you sent it to the moon…" “Yes. In 1969 you visited the moon to retrieve it, thinking that it was an alien vessel. But time is strange, as your <ilm visionaries surmised. We sent Voyager back in time. Your President Kennedy mustered every resource possible to retrieve it, but was met with a lot of resistance from his own military and from the church to which he and billion of others belonged. Do you understand?” Zorwell was piecing this insinuation together, as Sadako’s cranes were <lying around the Vatican chapel, one of them hovering above the fresco of the CruciDixion of St. Peter. “I believe I do.” And he did: The military was pursuing its ceaseless appointed rounds and the church was doing the work of the creator, which was exclusive to Earthlings. Nothing must interrupt these things. “Are you saying that the Vatican was in on the assassination?” “We don’t contemplate; we mitigate.” “I don’t understand. Could you have prevented the assassination?” VOYAGER 1 DISC
“You don’t understand.” Mollie’s eyes pleaded for patience.
“We could not intervene. We knew the idea of going to the moon was now spiritualized by your timeless stories, <ilms, and speculations, and captured the imagination of the world and nothing could prevent the mission to the moon. The assassination gave birth to this Child of the Moon…rub your rainy eyes.” Zorwell straightened up. “Child of the Moon…rub your rainy eyes”? This is a song. It’s a Stone’s song. Love the Stones! Was that on the Voyager recording?” Mollie had to bring him back to Earth. “No, it wasn’t, but all those sounds your heard napping in Afterland were on the record. Everything is connected, young man. The tears of sorrow—the rainy eyes of the world— shed for your young President, quenched the thirst for exploration. Death once again made discovery inevitable. Just like your Afterland.” What a benevolent view of death, thought Zorwell. “So…did they retrieve it? We went there three or four times…”
“They did.” Mollie turned away for a brief moment. “Alas, they could not yet read what we wrote.”
“What do you mean by yet?” The App Master was confused. He was also distracted and threatened by the array and number of <lying cranes Sadako was folding and launching in the Capella Paolina. Mollie motioned for Zorwell to be seated. “Your species was <loundering around with ones and zeros at the beginning of your Third Industrial Revolution, and had no way of reading the disc we sent to the moon. Even as late as the turn of the century, you could not penetrate the speed of our language. Until now.”
“What do you mean?”
“Your Afterland is the app that can unlock the density of the language on that disc.”
It's All About Arts Magazine September 2020
Zorwell leaned back and it <inally dawned on him: He was in grave danger. “Is that possible? That was not my intention. I only wanted to make a buck and venture into exploring the persistence of energy, which I believe to be the real estate of the soul that exists in the collective memory and consciousness and…” Mollie let Zorwell go on and on explaining what could not be explained unless he was from the future and understood just how far the human mind had reached into the mysteries of time and the rippling tides of thought. Maybe his invention was an accident or maybe he was guided by others who had at some point grasped the parallel ealities of existence. The cranes where <lying madly through the Capella Paolina, some crashing into Michelangelo’s depiction of St Peter’s Cruci<ixion. Suddenly, Zorwell stopped his meditation on mental traveling and returned to his rationales regarding Purgatory as a vast energy <ield reachable through ones and zeros, using a primer device —the digital cell phone—married to a Virtual Reality Viewer. He got up, staggered over to Mollie and gently touched her shoulder. The <lying cranes stopped when he asked her: “What…what is eality?
Mollie decided to let him in.
E
lgin Fast was on his way to Detroit to blast away at the Entity and spoil the future for those unlucky souls who crossed him. The Vatican Attorney did not want Mr. Fast to even attempt the impossible. Bob had seen Zorwell’s own video of the Orb and Cube Sentinels guarding the Resurrection of The Entity, and poor Elgin was no match for Fate. He blithely imagined the spectacle of a female deliverer coming down from her own CruciDixion, unbothered by the thousands who had made a pilgrimage here to see the Resurrection, not yet knowing the deliverer is a she. She would raise her hand in blessing, beckoning the masses to rethink all of history—many of whom would be quaking in their suits, knowing that the jig is up for guys with bad attitudes. While they could see nothing just yet, Bob was, of course eternally skeptical, but in his imagination, he was certain of The Materialization and its profound signi<icance was somewhat unfathomable, except that it would be a simultaneous deliverance for believers and, a defeat for The Vatican, and an end to his career, unless he represented nuns who were suing for their proper status in the eyes of God. Elgin Fast had an unusual appearance. A cross between G. Gordon Liddy—Nixon’s Watergate Trickster—and Pee Wee Herman, he appeared both insane and playful, but was neither. He was determined, as all commercial cowboy bootstrap tycoons are. He was able to cajole and muscle his way past the endless newly-awakened gawkers and truth seekers parading day and night past the ruins of The Mansion. The Entity would allow itself to be shown at precise times during the day—3 O’Clock AM, 9 O’Clock AM, 3 O’Clock PM, 9 O’Clock PM. The Orb and Cube Sentinels would part their spectral curtain for approximately twenty-seven minutes so the solemn and ululating pilgrims, as well as the rigid skeptics could see it slowly materializing. By the time Elgin got close enough to see the Sentinels part, The Materialization revealed half of its left arm, a complete right foot with a hole in it, a clump of blazing auburn hair, a blue eye, both ears, a quarter of the torso, and a few patches of emerging skin, muscle, sinews, and arteries with blood <lowing into nothingness.
It's All About Arts Magazine September 2020
The hordes cheered, but fell silent when the Orbs and Cube Sentinels stopped swirling above the top of the cross as a sign to keep it down and be patient. “That’s my favorite part of this. I’d love to hear a burning bush boom away and say, “You’ve waited two thousand years, what’s few more?” The attorney laughed. “I’m sorry, do I know you?” asked Elgin, his dark concentration leavened by the humor of a stranger. He disliked strangers. Everyone to him that bought boots without straps was a stranger. “I don’t think so. I’m Bob. I’m here like everyone else—just to see the Second Coming.” He extended his hand. Fast looked positively reptilian. Bob withdrew his hand. There was silence. Bob now had the upper hand. “Do you believe this?” “Why are you here if you don’t believe?” Elgin was snide—another bootstrap-related vice. “Good question. I’m an eologist.” Bob calculated that few people on Earth knew what an eologist is. “I study the letter E. E is the most prominent vowel in the universe. It also stands for ‘energy,’ and weirdly enough, E at the end of ‘lovE’ stands for ‘loss of energy.’ Who’d a thunk?” Bob was enjoying this. Venturing out of the Vatican to do the bidding of Big Catholicism was always a bargain when it came to toying with the faithful and those who pretended to be. But Elgin was not a pretender. “Of course, you know that E is equivalent to the the of the,” Elgin replied, his eyes deliberately avoiding contact. The of The? Bob stopped smiling. “Do I know you? Do you know the pop group The The?”
“Of course. Matt Johnson. Soul Mining: Drifting in circles in the depths of your soul.”
Bob needed to stop his own ruse. “I know why you are here, Mr. Fast. I know what you are planning to do, but I will not let you.” Elgin tried to suppress a laugh, but couldn’t. Instead, while fake chortling, he reached down into his boots, replete with beautifully embossed rawhide straps, and pulled out a nine inch dagger. He could only raise it above his waist when two very tall Vatican Switzers emerged from the crowd, dressed as Anglican monks. Wearing hooded tunics, adorned with scapulars and cowls, they seized Fast’s arm and dislodged the dagger from his grasp. The monks disappeared into the faithful masses, who had stopped their pilgrimage and looked upon The Entity. And for a brief moment, The Materialization was complete…and they saw that it was…it was…they did not know what it was. In the grip theological resubstantiation Elgin screamed: God is the ?law in ourselves, the ?law in his own plan. Alien—lift the curse. God will recant. Alien Is the Child and the Father to the Man. Creation is complete. And once again The Orb and Cube Sentinels shrouded her from the world. It was 9:27 PM. _____________________________________________________________ To be continued… _____________________________________________________________ Afterland and Collages Copyright 2019 by Edward Morneau
It's All About Arts Magazine September 2020