Featured eBook of the Week: The Red Scorpion
Wednesday, May 16, 2012
Tuesday, May 15, 2012
One More Time Around: More Dylan Talk with Gene Lafond
May 7 I posted part one of a very warm conversation I had with Geno, as his friends call him, on the topic of all things Dylan. Here is another portion of that conversation.
Geno: I’ve been trying to learn several new songs for this gig and man, it’s a lot of work. I need a teleprompter. Scarlet’s excited. There’s a couple from Desire, one from Oh Mercy that we’re going to do. I think we’re going to do "Man with a Long Black Coat."
EN: "Most of the Time" is one my favorites.
I don’t know how he does it. I’m lucky if I get one or
two a year. He probably writes one or two a day.
We’d be walking down the street and I’d see him pull out
a little piece of paper that’s just jammed with words, and he’d start writing
something down and put it back in his pocket.
It’s an honor to have been able to do that. But I have to
credit to Larry. I wouldn’t have been able to be part of all that if it weren’t
for Larry. He and Bob were very close friends. Larry broke his neck when he was
sixteen and he was in the hospital for a long time. Bob would visit and bang on
the piano. Then one day he said, “I’m going to New York” and Larry said,
“You’re crazy. You’ve got to get a job. You’re flunking out of school.” And Bob
said, “No, I’m going to New York to make music. That’s what I was born to do.”
EN: If it’s O.K. I’d like to hear your impressions of
some of his albums. Let’s start with the first one.
GL: I remember hearing it when I was fifteen or sixteen
at the time. I remember my parents had an old console record player and I
remember laying on the floor with my ear to the speaker and saying, “Holy
mackerel, who is this guy?” I remember having the feeling, “This is the brother
I never had.” That’s a fabulous album.
EN: Second album: Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan…
GL: He was really on fire at that time. Those albums…
it’s just amazing.
GL: How do you write something like that, I just don’t
know. He was certainly on fire, no question about it.
EN: Another Side of Bob Dylan
GL: I think what has impressed me most is his total
confidence, the way he sings a song with total confidence…. And it just makes
it come alive. He’s not about to let things go.
I’ve been told that there are lots of songs in the vault that never got
recorded. Who knows how much there is,
but when he passes there will probably be a lot of new stuff coming out.
EN: Bringing It All Back Home / Highway 61 Revisited /
Blonde on Blonde
GL: I can remember being into folk music when I was young
and I remember thinking, “Oh man, what’s he doing playing electric guitar?” It
took me about two or three times of listening before I said, “Oh yeah.” That’s
what he’s doing.”
That’s happened to me several times where I’ve listened
to an album once and say gee, I don’t know. It takes a while to sink in.
EN: How about the bands he played with over the years?
GL: They were professionals. He hired the best there is.
EN: You were also with him during his Gospel period and then Infidels.
GL: We went into the studio in New York with him at that
time and hung out while he was mixing the album. I remember he brought us into
the studio and played a song called “Angels Flying Too Close to the Ground.”
I’d never heard it before, and I think it had only been released in Europe and
I said, “Oh Bob, that’s the best thing you’ve ever written.” He looks at me
with this scowl and says, “I didn’t write that. That was Willie Nelson.” I laugh about it now but I was embarrassed as
hell.
EN: There’s still so much great material coming out in
later years. Time Out of Mind won a grammy. Love and Theft, Modern Times,
Together Through Life…
GL: You wonder why he keeps pushing himself like that,
but he says, “It’s a business. I’ve got a lot of people who depend on me.”
I say, “You’ve got such stamina.”
He says, “No, stamina is guys like you who get up every
day at six and go to the same job day after day. Me, I’ve got this beautiful
bus and they take care of me and they feed me and I go from town to town and
play my songs and they give me a bucket of money. That doesn’t take stamina.”
 |
| Gene Lafond and the Wild Unknown with Scarlet Rivera at the Cabooze |
Monday, May 14, 2012
A Few Thoughts About High Priced Art
For many people, myself included, the question "What is art?" has been wrestled with from many angles over the decades. But only recently have I thought about, and not very deeply, the value of art in terms of worth. With so many art sales making the broader news these past few year one has to wonder what to make of it. I decided to pose a variation of this question to the Twin Ports Arts Align because I guessed (correctly) that some there had already dredged this question a little more than I.
UMD professor David Beard replied, "Every piece of art has a potential "exhibition value" -- the value someone will pay to see it, right? I'd pay a fiver to see the Scream... Walter Benjamin differentiates exhibition value from cult or traditional value in The Work of Art essay."
Artist/writer/critic Ann Klefstad share a little fable about art values that she had written a couple years ago. I will close today's thoughts with that fable.
Peter Spooner, curator at UMD's Tweed Museum, threw us his two cents. "What I have discovered over the years is that most people have a tendency to want to over complicate any discussion about art. Art objects are objects. Objects have many kinds of value, and they function for us in many different ways, including exchange (monetary) value. Subjected to a market (auction) the monetary or exchange fluctuates based on the same supply and demand process as any other good or service for sale. Art objects tend to be pretty fluid and less fixed in their functions than other classes of objects, so an art object may satisfy multiple functions at the same time. For instance, Edvard Munch's "The Scream" may be a sign of great wealth and status to an individual owner, and at the same time be an historical symbol of modernist angst, and at the same time be a personal emotional touchstone for an individual viewer, and at the same time be a concept applied satirically in a comedic sense."
Somehow the valuations do tend to make heads spin. Picasso created tens of thousands of paintings, sculptures and art objects, and someone once said about 4,000 were masterpieces. Now let's suppose that the average valuation for the masterpieces was 10 million dollars. This would add up to a whopping 40 billion dollars, which is more than the GDP of many nations in the world.
Weird thought: What if each poor country invested in training young artists, perhaps one great artist from each of the world's poorest countries could support the rest of the country with their paintings. Maybe people from rich countries would visit the poor countries to see their art studios, thereby increasing the tourist trade in these places.
Another thought I had when thinking about these things pertained to Jeff Koons. I was critical of Koons in an essay here last month, but am already re-thinking the guy. He's audacious, and has even infuriated people with his work and attitude, yet... when all is said and done isn't he just taking a chapter from the Warhol playbook? Who is to say what is and isn't a valuable work. Here's a short article on Koons' latest show.
For an entertaining perspective on this theme, I strongly encourage that you read Ann Klefstad's fable of a painting. Afterwards, think a bit about what has value to you.
Sunday, May 13, 2012
Duluth Dylan Fest Schedule Announced
Here's a verbatim reproduction of the announcement I received regarding events surrounding our upcoming Dylan Fest celebration. If you can't join in nightly, mark your calendars for at least a few of these events.
I am writing to share with you the exciting line-up for the 2012 Duluth Dylan
Fest. I hope you can join us for some of the festivities. The
Duluth Dylan Fest will kick-off on Friday, May 18th with a benefit
concert for the Armory Arts and Music Center featuring renowned Dylan violiest
Scarlett Rivera. Tickets are going fest but ares still available at Please click GET MY
TICKETS NOW to order your tickets today.
 |
| "Blowing in the Wind" by Ed Newman, 36"x 24" acrylic on masonite panel |
Other
exciting events include:
Sun, May 20 | 7 p.m.
Dylan
Trivia Contest [Carmody
Irish Pub]
Live
music by Cowboy Angle Blue 7:00 to 9:00 p.m.
Trivia
Contest @
9 p.m.
Mon, May 21 | 6 p.m.
Dylan
Effect
[Tycoons Alehouse]
Moderated
by Karen Sunderman of WDSE’s The Playlist
Social
at 6:30 p.m.
Discussion
begins at 7 p.m. and closes at 8:30 p.m.
Live
music by Jim Hall 8:30 to 9:45 p.m.
Dirty
Horse @
10 p.m.
Tue, May 22 | 7 p.m.
Bob
Dylan’s Million Dollar Birthday Bash [Fitger’s Brewhouse]
7
p.m. Live DJ set by John Bushey of the Highway 61 Revisited Radio
Show
8
p.m. Toast to Duluth’s Native Son by the Honorable Mayor Don Ness with Fitger’s
Brewhouse Highway 61 Hefeweisen + birthday cake
9
p.m. to close: The Freewheelers
Wed, May 23 | 7 p.m.
5:30
to 7 p.m. cocktail hour with Unnamed Stream [Zinema2]
7
p.m. No Direction Home [Zinema2]
10
p.m. Charlie Parr [Tycoons Alehouse]
Thu, May 24| 6 p.m. to 11:15 p.m.
Blood
on the Tracks Express [boards at the Fitger’s Brewery Complex]
5:30
p.m. All Aboard!
6
p.m. Train departs for Two Harbors
Train
music: The Black-eyed Snakes, The Freewheelers, Dirty Horse, Silverback
Colony, Sarah Krueger, Jim Hall, The Bitter Spills
11:15p.m.
Train Returns to Fitger’s Brewery Complex
10p.m.
The Brothers Burn Mountain [Fitger’s Brewhouse]
Fri, May 25 | 10 p.m.
10p.m.
Erik Koskinen Band [Tycoons Alehouse]
Sat, May 26 | 8 p.m. & 10 p.m.
8p.m.
Rising Stars Songwriter Showcase [Beaner’s Central Concert & Coffee
House]
Acts:
The Murder of Crows, Gallus, Kyle Ollah and Colleen Myhre
10p.m.
Paul Metsa and Friends [Tycoons Alehouse]
Ticket
Information
· Tickets for the Blood
on the Tracks Express are available at the Electric Fetus, Fitger’s Beer Store
and www.ticketfly.com
· Scarlet Rivera with
Gene LaFond & The Wild Unkown concert tickets are available at www.ticketworks.com
· All other tickets are
available at the door only.
· For more information
visit us on facebook: www.facebook.com/duluthdylanfest or Bob Dylan Way
info: www.bobdylanway.com
Finally,
Hibbing Dylan Days will be held Thursday, May 25 through Sunday, May 27.
For more information on Hibbing Dylan Days events visit www.dylandays.com
Materialistic Intentions at the PRØVE
With the Homegrown Music and Art Festival behind us, it was back to business for the PRØVE Gallery at 21 N. Lake Avenue with the Collective's sixth show titled Materialistic Intentions. It was another nice exhibit with some pretty exciting pieces by a variety of artists. Their showbill described it an "international showcase of art that embraces and speaks through the materials that comprise the exhibition." I personally found much of the work exciting, but would like to have a little more information about the artists without having to ask. Nevertheless, I mean it when I say there were some exciting things happening.
The distribution of the 31 objects and paintings is comfortable throughout and the lighting bright for easy engagement.
On the left wall a set of Bouquets from Grandmas, again by Amada, led the way to several pieces by Aaron Kloss. Kloss, a recent addition to several local galleries, has been painting small and medium sized canvases with paint daubs, usually trees and sky, a form of large-brush pointillism. His paintings have been selling, perhaps because there is a comforting quality in the colors. At this show he took his stylized approach into a new direction by combining painting with tapestry. I found it an interesting divergence from his other work and liked the piece very much as it replicated something I attempted to execute many years ago but with less success.Josh Ostroff's large paintings on wood panels carried a forcefulness that belied the simplicity of their designs.
The paintings gave me the repressed tension of a Francis Bacon exhibit I once attended in New York. I was told that not all of Ostroff's work was about conflict but that the gallery collective found these pieces especially interesting. I agreed.
The show included works by Jon Billing (the Tower in the window), Kevin Bierbaum, Jon Billing, Maia Berzenadze, Shane Warren, Emily Newman (no relation, though I like her initials in addition to her work), Haley Prochnow, John Adamiak, Jeanine Malec, and Karen Searle, in addition to those mentioned above.
The wine and beer tasted good, with a suitable ambiance created again by the Crunchy Bunch. Not sure what's in store for June, but catch it if you cane.
Saturday, May 12, 2012
Uprooted: A Story of Estonia (Part VII)
THIS IS A CONTINUING STORY ABOUT ESTONIA DURING WORLD WAR II
FROM THE POINT OF VIEW OF RALPH KAND, A YOUNG MAN WITH A WITHERED LEG.
Without
hesitation Ralph plunged head first into the water holding the saw, remaining
under water as long as possible. After an unbearably long time he came up for
air, shivered, and dove. Again and again Ralph filled his lungs and descended
into the ice-cold waters. At last Ralph emerged triumphant from the water’s
edge holding a network of roots.
They
walked without saying much until they reached the spot where they’d hidden
their bikes. Because Ralph's left leg was bad, he’d invented a method of riding
a bike with one leg. Using a large, heavyweight rubber band, Ralph would bind
his right foot to the pedal of his bicycle.
CONTINUED
In the months after Eitzi had been sent away by her parents
to Sweden Ralph often thought about some of the special moments they had shared
together. On one occasion they were walking lazily along a river bank that
flows into the Baltic Sea near Pirita Park.
The late afternoon breeze and overcast autumn sky foreshadowed prospects
of rain.
The tree-lined stretch of river was famous for its walking path
that invited young lovers. The cold, clear water slaps the bases of ancient
trees whose wild roots spire downward in elegant tangles beneath the surface. The two stopped to watch a pair of kayakers go
by and then Ralph began to unbutton his wool shirt to remove it.
Ralph was unusual in a lot of ways, so Eitzi hadn’t given much
thought to Ralph’s bringing a pruning saw along on this afternoon stroll. “When
you set your heart on something there’s no stopping you is there?” she said.
Ralph
hardly heard her as he looked eagerly into the water, finally handing his shirt
to Eitzi in exchange for the saw.
“Isn't
it beautiful?” he said.
Eitzi
smiled and shrugged, not certain what to say as Ralph, dripping wet and
shivering, held out the treasure.
“It'll
be the base for a lamp.”
As
they walk back where they stashed their bikes Eitzi said, “I can't believe you.”
“What?”
“Do
you always see things no one else sees?”
Ralph
laughed. “You have to look beneath the surface of things. Even when they see
something they want, most people are afraid to go after it.”
They
walked without saying much until they reached the spot where they’d hidden
their bikes. Because Ralph's left leg was bad, he’d invented a method of riding
a bike with one leg. Using a large, heavyweight rubber band, Ralph would bind
his right foot to the pedal of his bicycle.
Later
that evening, as a sliver of moon hung suspended above the horizon, Ralph and
Eitzi sat on a porch swing wrapped in a blanket.
“You
know I love both of you,” Eitzi said.
“I
love Mutti, too. He's my best friend,” Ralph replied. “And I can't imagine
anything better for him than to have you.
“Then
you know he's asked me to marry him?”
“And
you haven't said yes?”
“How
can I? I know it would break your heart. Oh Ralph.”
They
tightly squeezed each others' hands. As Ralph looked up at the sky, Eitzi buried
her face in the nape of his neck.
“It’s
O.K. You have my blessing, Eitzi. You two will be good for each other.”
But
it never came to pass. Mutti was taken during Stalin’s historic midnight raid.
Two weeks later Eitzi’s parents sent her away to her cousin’s home in Sweden.
@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@
This story is based on a true account of events
that occured in Eastern Europe from 1939 to 1944. For narrative purposes the time frame of
these events has been condensed without — this writer believes — violating the spirit of that time.
Friday, May 11, 2012
A Long Dialogue with Artist Ann Klefstad (Part 3)
"Art enables us to find ourselves and lose ourselves at the same time." ~Thomas Merton
The contemporary situation is fragmented for various reasons. One, the
visual arts world is no longer in the cultural forefront, as it truly was for
centuries in a number of cultures. So the economic force has shifted to other
forms of creativity—digital, filmic—which tend to rely on the same kind of
complex infrastructure and funding that an entity like Raphael's studio had
need of. Those worlds are somewhat centralized: Seattle and Silicon Valley are
certainly creative centers in much the same way Rome or Paris were in their
days. Los Angeles or Mumbai are creative centers in that way too.
Also, the rise of replicable imagery over the past 200 years,
culminating in the wide availability of the entire art history of the world in
studios from Latvia to subSaharan Africa to Beijing to Fargo to New York, and
the availability of blogs and forums to discuss all this, means that the Cedar
Bar is everywhere, and there is no dominant style. All bets are off; critical
mass is irrelevant; and transient memes are as relevant as signature
styles.
Benefits are obvious: communities can have artists in residence that are
as formidable, as talented, as committed, as artists in the capital used to be.
If they're lucky in the artists who live there. If they can support them.
Drawbacks are perhaps less obvious. The Cedar Bar, and studio visits
back and forth, supported a mode of artmaking in which people couldn't do such
a part-time, back-burnered practice as is often now done. In those days, you
were on. You had to produce, or people wouldn't take you seriously. Now you can
be far more surreptitious about your art life. I think that may mean that
people sort of hobbyize it. That's fine, but not if you want your work to make
a difference in the world. I'm guilty of this myself.
EN: You made reference to the manner in which Duluth really has
something to offer as a cultural model to emulate, chiefly due to the manner in
which it has both a rural and urban sensibility. Can you elaborate on this a
little bit.
AK: Duluth's oddly rural components are good for artists, as people have
a habit and a value of made things, of making things. They are not only
consumers.
Duluth also has, considering its size, a surprisingly urban sensibility.
It's an old-fashioned, not much sprawled or malled, city. A fair number of its
people look for cultural experiences that are challenging and skilled.
It also has such intensity in its setting and weather that people are
sensually more alive than in some places, I think. This is good for artists
too.
AK: The artists of the world have always been border scouts! That is, most people do not have the luxury or the desire to roam the edges of their psyches, or the borders of what’s possible. But the collective human enterprise needs to have news of those edges, those borders, for a number of reasons: new discoveries; keeping a culture from being overwhelmed by lies; and allowing individuals access to collective truths.
New
discoveries come from the borders of the psyche, the edges of experience, new
knowledges of what makes us human. Someone needs to bring news of the realms
that tie us to the nonhuman world, those conduits to our animal natures, or our
soul-natures, or our object natures, that we don’t consciously focus on but
that do form huge and necessary parts of our psyches. But that exploration has
risks. Not everyone wants to run the risks, or thinks that it’s worth it to do
so.
Artists are
often those who invite those risks, both psychic and physical, who are willing
to patrol those borders, and bring back the news to the rest of their people.
Nowadays, in the post-shamanic era let’s call it, that isn’t how the artist’s
role is often described, but it is a very old role, probably the oldest role of
the artist, and one that is still current, I believe. In the modern era people
as different as Joseph Beuys and Andy Warhol (who were fans of each other) have
performed this role. When Beuys spoke of his life as “posthumous” what he meant
was, he had resolved to leave his old life of reasonable expectations and
self-centered accumulation and enter instead a life of exploration, in which he
gave himself to whatever he might find. Warhol was not so different, although
the wilderness he explored was the urban and social one of New York.
EN: It seems you have thought about these issues for a long time. Who have been the primary sources of the ideas that form the foundations of your thinking?
Arthur
Danto’s ideas on what makes art art were influential. And I found Panofsky’s
film writings interesting— film being a medium that incorporates visual
signification, story, temporality, all that.
But I was always more invested in making art than in doing philosophy, and so I looked mostly among sculptors for good thinking about art. Joseph Beuys, Richard Serra, and very much Robert Smithson were important for me. Fluxus artists like Dick Higgins, Yoko Ono, and Ken Friedman. Though arts critics like Rosalind Krauss were also important. In later years, Dave Hickey’s writings about art in the context of daily life as well as the artworld have been important—and they’re a gas to read.
And you’re
right— this has been a continuous study for nearly 40 years. I’ve fallen away
from art-magazine reading in part because they seem repetitious at this point—
the issues they address have gone round and round in the culture . . . It’s
like watching the dryer at the laundromat. There’s that shirt again! (For people
who aren’t so damn old, it’s likely fine. They’ve maybe never seen the shirt
before . . . ) What I’ve been reading now is online stuff like “Dazed Digital”,
the online instantiation of “Dazed and Confused,” a London arts-and-culture
magazine that covers everything from ad culture to poppy music to weird music
to photography and sculpture and design and shoes, all in the same context. And
not as a shoppers’ guide, really— they write about things as actions and not as
objects. That seems fresh.
EN: Thank you, Ann, for enriching us this week.
CLICK IMAGES TO ENLARGE
EN: Thank you, Ann, for enriching us this week.
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