Preparation for the first POLYSEMY Podcastposted by MD
The POLYSEMY Podcast series will soon be debuted. The Podcast Series overall will be provocative, free-wheeling, and in-depth staff discussions of topics concretely relevant to artists. The Podcast Series is another way we at POLYSEMY are seeking to support a community of working artists who prize depth in their work, and who are interested in insightful dialogues with artists across the various artistic disciplines.
The first topic which will be discussed is the recent performance by violinist Joshua Bell in a Washington, DC subway entrance. This fascinating experiment was described in this article in the Washington Post. And last week, Victoria Lansford, Thom Morgan, Dan Allison, and myself talked for well over an hour about this experiment, from several important angles.
A metalsmith, a playwright, a multimedia artist, a composer — these are the four of us (and more). We had no trouble finding much in common to discuss, and we are confident any artist can find much to contemplate in this Bell experiment for their own artistry.
When the Podcast Series debuts on The Woodshed, we would love to hear your comments, reactions, and questions regarding the experiment, our discussions of it, and any larger or related issues having to do with artistry. Each Podcast will have its own blog entry on The Woodshed, and comments and questions can be submitted there.
I gots two of 'em, and both thrill me to fashion their announcement:
1) POLYSEMY is in process of producing our Podcast Series. Provocative, free-wheeling, and in-depth staff discussions of issues concretely relevant to artists. Stay tuned; looks like in mid-May the first one will be ready.
Podcasts will be posted at The Woodshed, and readers are invited to offer comments and pose questions — to be part of the POLYSEMY community of working artists.
2) My most recent record, A Bird in the World, will be available to purchase and digitally download very soon at iTunes, eMusic, and other online sites. The estimate release date looks to be July 26; Twyla's second birthday.
My lovely wife Hannah is showing a selection of her photographs at Village Church art gallery, starting tonight and running for a month. She's sharing the bill with two other Chicago photographers, Eileen Molony and Benjamin S Rogerson. The opening is tonight, and we'll also be there tomorrow.
This is the first such for Hannah; she's showing a selection of photographs from Italy, when we were there in September 2004. This is also the first such for Benjamin. Eileen has had plenty of gallery exhibitions (Here's her site.)
Hannah and Ben will also have several of their short films screening on a television in the gallery.
And a selection of my music will fill the air. Including my brand new EP A Bird In The World, making its first appearance. It will soon be available on this site as a flash album.
CJ Smith have engaged in a rather free-wheeling dialogue about postmodernism. Emphasis on free-wheeling. My position is that the term is effectively meaningless. I'll probably cull together my perspective expressed in the dialogue into a new essay for POLYSEMY. If you are interested in the raw, organic material, check out the dialogue here.
At the wonky level, I'm particularly interested in the interdisciplinary question of whether the tendency to find the term "postmodernism" meaningful is a symptom of socialism. In other words, whether those who might buy into postmodernism's viability as a term also buy into socialism's viability as a social system. That appears to be the contention, for example, of this book: Explaining Postmodernism: Skepticism and Socialism from Rousseau to Foucault. Until I research that question more, the essay will wait.
It's official — this blog has another authorposted by MD
Hannah made her first post to The Daily Goose, late last night. It is her update about our twins in utero, whom we've dubbed "Hall & Oates" until both breathe earthly air. Check her update out. It has pictures.
She did, if memory serves, monthly such updates when she was pregnant with Twyla. Who knows how it will go this time around the mountain, but stay tuned. As we approach September (when Hall & Oates are due) as well as surely after, our lives are going to get more and more complex. And one of the ways we manage that is to write and tell our friends, such as through the blog. Maybe it is weird to blog as coping mechanism; but it works for us.
That's the name of my newest column for POLYSEMY. It is a close-reading of the popular film directed by Zack Miller, based on the graphic novel of Frank Miller (and, loosely, on the classic tale told by Herodotus in his The History). My column focuses on something it seems many critics have either dismissed or overlooked; namely, its narrative device, the way the story is told. That device, it turns out, renders most of the criticisms of the film categorically moot, which I explain in the column.
See up top. Now you can scroll through all the topics that my posts thus far deal with (on this version of The Daily Goose, not the old one). It is an easy way to see what I have to say about a topic, through the months and (soon) years.
A good friend and fellow Chicago artist (a comic who works at The Second City) called me today to say how much he enjoyed the i-chat conversations between me and colleague Paul Salamone. (So far, we have three: here, here, and here.) It is always nice to hear positive feedback like his.
One of the thoughts he wanted to share was that where he previously thought "classical artistry" to be narrow, in fact it seems the opposite. Classical artistry encompasses so many ideas, perceptions, conceptions, that one presumably could never run out of source material. I couldn't agree more.
Part of the challenge of making "classical/integral artistry" a movement is taking out the sense of "stuffiness" people might have with the word "classical". Of course, some people act all "highbrow" about things classical, but it really need not be that way. I mean, I love Hildegard von Bingen and The National; medieval Christian painting and Marc Chagall; Citizen Kane and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind; Sophocles and Sam Shepard; and so on. Because, in my view, contemporary stuff that is good is good in large part because (consciously or not) the contemporary artists have tapped into something of an imaginative tradition, that great artists of the past were likewise tapped into. In other words, continuity with the great conversation is vital. I think it goes a long way towards making art great.
Anyway, he asked whether it would be possible for POLYSEMY to publish a list of books that would constitute something of a "where to start?" guide for artists interested in adopting a classical artistry approach of their own. This sounds like a very good idea.
We at POLYSEMY are also trying to put together a series of resources both audio and visual that would support classical artists-to be. We want to offer a Podcast, as well as Video Dialogues (ala bloggingheads.tv, only for working artists).
So look for those two in the hopefully not-too-distant future. And look for the "where to start?" guide pretty soon.
My colleague Bill Harryman, who curates Elegant Thorn Review, published a good short story on his blog, one influenced (as the title suggests) by the Old Testament. Read it here.
Pictures of T-bird, of the carnivorous bird in our backyard this morning — Check it out — well as this note, which announces a new direction for this blog, The Daily Goose. Hannah will be blogging here, in addition to me:
Matt and I are considering joining blog forces. We both don't want to have to come up with tons and tons of content (and I certainly have not been able to post daily, much less weekly!), so it might be a fun experiment. I'm sure my stuff will be all about home life and such, and he'll post things about politics and baseball among other things! Who knows, maybe we'll suddenly switch roles, though, and my posts will be about how post-modernism threatens admiration of great heroes like Brett Favre. Tee hee.
An ad campaign for the company International was profiled in that paper, yesterday. The advertising/design agency where I work (Bagby and Company) leads this campaign, and the president of my company is quoted at length. My day-job is as a proofreader. And, yes, I proofread both print ads featured in the article. Thankfully, both ads are reproduced too small for any of you to find something I may have missed. Ha.
The dates for best rock festival in the country have been announced. Saturday, July 14 and Sunday, July 15 — at Chicago's Union Park. The Dallmans will be there.
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