It's Started.

Benefactress!

We have received, essentially, a Matching Grant -- a lovely large check from a Grande Dame appreciator of the crafty arts! We are beyond thrilled.

(It's especially welcome given that the Playa del Fuego arrangement is of the "send us your receipts and we'll reimburse you after the festival" variety.)

Thanks, Mom!!!

Roffco Glowstick Chapel & The Cabinet of Extinct Curiosities ALL SYSTEMS GO!

e.f.a.c. has just been awarded a Large Government Grant... no, wait, we mean... a Playa del Fuego Art Grant, for the Fall Burn (Oct. 4 - 8, 02012) in beautiful pH-balanced Delaware.

WE NEED ALL OF YOUR:

-- spent glow-necklaces / used cyalume glowstix

-- plastic six-pack rings

Other bits we're also hoping to reclaim from the waste stream as opposed to buying new:

- rugs and meditation cushions (we can slipcover shabby pillows)

- fabric of all kinds, but especially black and/or velvet

- jars with lids; wide-mouthed glass bottles for Extinct Curiosities

- unloved spice racks

- maybe a spare tarp or two

Random bits of carnival-barker attire or related accoutrements would not go unappreciated, either.

Alas, that does seem to be how it works...

[NSFW] http://instagram.com/p/No0_m6M-Pw/

(If link is broken... it's a self-portrait of 2 people's naked torsos; the woman's says ART and the man's says NOT ART.)

(They are wearing stickers from one of Amanda Palmer's kickstarter packages.)

Strawmen of Summer

I've noticed some folks expressing their miffedness that "50 Shades of Grey" became wildly, mainstreamily popular instead of anything GOOD, so they have been making lists of actually well-written erotica, some of which may contain realistic characters and/or responsibly negotiated BDSM scenes. Nice little trendlet -- I enjoy their lists -- but I consider it to be misplaced miffery.

"50 S of G" is terrible, yes. It's gushy and sloppy and improbable and trashy and train-wrecky. I'm pretty sure that's WHY it's so popular. It's the erotic-novel equivalent of "reality" TV.

People LOVE "reality" TV.

I know several very smart people in real life who watch VAST amounts of "reality" TV. It is not because they don't have a convenient list of better ways to squander their time, just as I do not reach for the spicy cheese-flavored tortilla chips due to any lack of proper food in the house.

I do enjoy the lists, though, and have idly contemplated making my own, though I don't expect any hypothetical mainstream ladies to start taking Georges Bataille's "Story of the Eye" to the beach as a result. It's a tricky algorithm to fiddle with, because succeeding as brilliant fiction and succeeding as hot dithering material are not necessarily that closely related. There's some kind of Venn Diagram here, and to each her own. Bad writing will throw me out of the spank-bubble, but really good writing can too.

Anyway... it is summer, it is tremendously and preposterously hot in DC, and I have received a sort of reviewer's copy of Tristan Taormino's ULTIMATE Guide to Kink (they need to find some way to make "ULTIMATE!!!" blink in different colors on the cover), so who knows, there may be further discussion of writing-about-sex in this space in the not-so-distant future. Comment with your favorite or least favorite books about or including sex, if you so desire.

damn everything but the circus

Tonight there is a fire show in the courtyard outside Artomatic. If it is long and fabulous enough, I may not make it back inside to re-glow-light the Black Room, but either way, it will be all glowed up tomorrow for the closing night party. The Black Room is on the 8th floor, through room 802 - just behind Fr.Defenestrato's photographs and next-door to the Palisades Museum of Prehistory exhibit.

a Singularity worth comment

singularity.caseydriessen.com

I already liked him from his YouTube videos, but then while Casey Driessen was setting up, he played a tape loop of the sound of a fiddle being tuned.

Bonnaroo is a big commercial music festival with lots of dust and beer and HUGE crowds (50,000+ for bands like the Red Hot Chili Peppers). So yes, I was predisposed to like the Casey Driessen Singularity just because he was a guy with a fiddle and some effects pedals and we could see and hear him and we were sitting on the grass in at least partial shade.

But also, he's REALLY fun. We caught over a dozen bands at Bonnaroo, plus bits and morsels from others as we wandered about; this guy's definitely a singularity.

He has a Kickstarter and I told him I would post a link. I didn't tell him no-one ever reads my blog. But the link is below, in case any of my dear friends want to buy me a CD. Also here is a link to the Sparrow Quartet (Abigail Washburn, Casey D., Bela Fleck, and Ben Sollee).

Fiddle/Sticks kickstarter: http://caseydriessen.com/about/fiddlesticks/