Newspaper Page Text
Page 18
Flagpole Magazine
February 21, 1990
Art Bureaucrat...
Dear Comrades,
This week your faithful art bureaucrat
submits a civic art project. Architects of the
sphere and revolution, sculptors who ride
the whimsy, the carnival musicians of our
tiny town, and painters: let’s construct a
MERRY-GO-ROUND. The arabesques of
horses & saddle, gigantic ducks or even a
carriage via ladybug, elephants and tigers
and monstrous flying dragonflies, perhaps
strange creatures for the kids. A merry-go-
round installed in a public park, wouldn’t
that be fun? Just a goofy wish from a very
rainy day.
Or maybe I had too much happiness
from last week’s music!! My earthy little soul
hasn’t climbed down from the heavens
where the spontaneous polka parade by
BRAVE COMBO sent me. This amazing
Texas outfit welded Yiddish wedding
dances to The Doors, salsa and Haitian riffs
with tuba boogie, and clarinets and cheesy
organs for miies and miles of wild music for
squares. The parade after the 40 Watt show
left for total street party, honking cars at 2
AM; we circled the financial district and
barged into Georgia Theater whereupon
BRAVE COMBO delivered a version for
“Somewhere over the Rainbow” in cha-cha
moonbeams. Seems that Kyle never would
let these enormously talented polka heroes
play Tne Uptown Lounge, so they made
miracles happen in his face.
Of course, Kyle & crew at GATH had a
marvelous St. Valentine's with Camper Van
Beethoven and The Ordinaires. The gypsy
dervish of the violin was evident in the
wacky cover of a Hindi movie theme and
other assorted mischief by The Ordinaires,
and then the violinist for the Folk Beethov
ens carried the crowd into thrills after bliss
after creative genius. Camper Van B. is a
remarkable band and Santa Cruz is a lucky
place for having spawned 'em.
When the music gets that good, spirits
start to soar all over town. It’s feeling like a
time to hit the streets and party for our
imaginative survival, to have parades &
When the music
gets that good,
spirits start to soar
all over town.
demonstrations, to organize NOW for out
lasting the troubles sure to come calling
tomorrow.
Comrades, don’t forget there’s a state
wide art grant deadline on April 1, 1990.
That’s for the “artist-initiated grant" via GA
Council for the Arts for art enterprises, in
cluding exhibitions, publishing books &
stories, making catalogs, videos, or trav
elling performances of almost anything.
The grant may be as valuable as $5000. Call
the Council at 404) 493-5780 or ask the folks
at Clarke County Cultural Services at 354-
2670 to mail you an application. The Art
Bureaucracy wants you to have (at least a
little) MONEY!
A poet has dug her way into the entrails
of mythology, classical art and the twisted
catacombs of modern language to produce
a dark portrait of timelessness.
Alicia Stallings has printed a chapbook,
“The Sidelong Glance.” A constant refer
ence point is her focus on the changes that
Death brings, whether the sensual rush into
pain and obliteration in “Acrophobia” or the
sight of a sarcophagus of a woman who
died in childbirth:
*And we think, inside her flesh
Has given way, stomach sunk to spine
And bone by bone the child dropped
Through the cage.
Pregnant death. Christ
It is cold."
from “Crucifix. A Church in Rome. "
These are poems made from the world
that doesn’t vanish: the blood, the snake
and the fire, primal women and men who are
food for eternity, and a good drinking song.
Ms. Stallings has made a deft stab against
safety and the gilded words of a useless,
consuming society. May her verbal archae
ology bring more glimpses of the other
side of the obvious, the unseen darkness.
That’s all for this week, comrades. Next
week I promise an update on the visual arts
garden of exhibitions,
so long,
COMRADE PULCHRITUDE
FANTASY FUTONS
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&.Furniture Designs
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Mon.-Sat 10-6 • In the Old Athens Flea Market
364 W. Thmas St. • Athens, GA
353-1218