Baron Landscape’s Broken Hours

David Abel, Marko Whens, Tony Christy and Leo Daedalus

We love what we do at Show and Tell Gallery Productions, and we ask for no more than a bit of attention paid to those whom we bring to the stage.  Melissa Sillitoe signs them up, Nikia Cummings spreads the word and I gruffly co-produce and capture things for posterity as best I can.

On May 4, 2009, The Three Scrapettes sont descendus parmi les vibreurs et le papier et les un bon nombre de mutant de cri avec des mots to bring us “2+2=3″ – Sound Poetry and Paraperformance with a variety of “non-acts, sound poems, peripheral pieces, audience impersonations and wrong solutions” that paid back in full the efforts we expend to make Portland a more caffeinated and arty placebo.  They offermade up some biographicallistic fallacies: Marko Whens falsely proclaims to be the first poet to misspell every language.  Tony Christy’s father was a scrap surgeon his mother a mitt mender.  Leo Daedalus imagines that the ideal expression of any particular art form would have to be realized in a different form.  David Abel studied with Massenet and Fauré at the Paris Conservatoire (1890-97), then lived uneventfully as a teacher and theorist.

Let loose in Three Friends Coffee House, the four of them made incomprehensible, joyous mayhem on indirect trajectories from Dada, Fluxus, Surrealism and Situationism.    The Broken Hours Remix is all spoiled up by Splice Finders with his little with ACID Pro 7.0c thingly in his basement area with his stuff in there and everything, he likes to say.  Roughed out and rhyming, the RSS feed leads the sojourning data file hefty onto your portable sound charmer off the media Montserrat iTunes grabbing burny onto the twine shall occasionally meet:

http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=295435468

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TS Brooks, Teresa Bergen and Ross Beach

“I was kinda sick of hearing myself sing – I wanted to put a record out that I could actually listen to and enjoy,” confesses Ross Beach towards the middle of the CD Release Show and Songwriter Revue for Ross Island Bridge – Volume 1: The Process Is Now The Work.  For this project, Ross pulled another eleven songs’ worth of hooks out of his hat and used them to reel in a cast of Portland, Oregon’s best indie singers.  The resulting lick-laden CD is immediately hum-worthy and totally deserving of an all-star party.

On April 22, 2009, Ross summoned The Hellpets and several of his friends who sing on the album, and arranged for Splice Finders and his digital audio lasso to bust the whole affair at Backspace to micromedia.  Here’s how she was taken down:

Dropping in from Blue Skies For Black Hearts, Patrick Kearns strums and works the frets in his moment alone onstage before he and Ross leap to the album rocker “The Way You Say Bye.”  Following her intense solo set, Ali Ippolito (Rainbow & The Kittens) and Ross seek the musical answer “What Should I Do.”  After abandoning us to the riveting Adrienne Hatkin’s (Autopilot is for Lovers) solo set, Ross joins her for “ifeelmyselfhoping.” Next, Kaitlyn ni Donovan lends her own beautiful pieces to us, and then her voice to Ross’ “Dreaming Of.”  TS Brooks (Minmae), who’s been playing lead guitar tonight, and whose own songs remind us of a crispier Lambchop, performs “The Exploding.”  Then come a couple of run-and-hits: Jon Ragel (Boy Eats Drum Machine) taking “A Pensive Moment,”  and the gleaming “We Met Too Soon” featuring Anne Adams.  A couple of chansons fortes de Ross and The Hellpets top off the mega-podcast (as in 195 MBs, gang, nearly five-thirds of an hour, so please be patient with the download).

One ought also to point to “The Countess” Teresa Bergen’s assured bass throughout the evening’s proceedings.  In the less-assured league, Splice Finders apologizes for that bothersome crackling when the reverberations of Backspace max out the recording level, which he’d assumed was dialed back to a modest gain; but Splice has much to be glad about, having witnessed this stellar array of Portland-area talent and also getting his own copy of the new CD.

In fact, the CD makes a fantastic souvenir even if you weren’t in attendance; and we just happen to have three brand new sealed copies to give away.  If you spin an email quickly enough to brokenhours@gmail.com (please put “Ross Island Bridge” in the Subject line) we’ll try to help one to reach you.

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(from left) Andy Collins, unidentified attendee, Jonathan Tweet, Rob Heinsoo

Long-time game developer Rob Heinsoo of Wizards of the Coast R&D led the design of the Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) 4th Edition game. Accomplished role-playing game developer Andy Collins is the Manager of D&D Development and Editing at Wizards of the Coast, LLC and co-designed the 4th Edition with his colleagues Rob Heinsoo and James Wyatt.  Renowned game designer Jonathan Tweet worked on the third edition of D&D.  Rob and Andy were Honored Guests at GameStorm 11 in Vancouver, Washington, and it’s obvious that they are passionate about what they do.  I was graciously invited to podcast some of the proceedings at GameStorm 11, a massive conference for game-players in the Pacific Northwest.  I’ll share more about my GameStorm 11 experience in a future post, I promise, but meanwhile let me thank Industry Outreach point person Mark Santillo, OSFCI and everyone at GameStorm for having me – it was truly memorable.  Here, now, is the one stand-alone audio piece that resulted from my efforts, and it’s a good one.  Presented in its 52-minute entirety, the panel discussion with Andy, Rob and Jonathan at GameStorm 11 on March 28, 2009, during which they discuss, with several enthusiats in attendance, the trials and the triumphs of dreaming and devising the role-playing game of our time.

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Josh Killiingsworth and K.C. Killingsworth

Here’s to the ongoing recherche pour le luxe des divertissements et des réalisations, Three Friends Mondays invited performance in the caffeinated confines loops its engorged growl of destiny, the Show and Tell Open Mic following in self-reference like a massage after a hot bath.  Came March 23 all chilly and wet Napolitan at the gates, the “Blind Dates” edition heralding a harmonious trio afterward espied engaged in small talk, so magical was the chemistry.  Phase One already brimming with a misty essence, a prompt on the command line, the reassuring Americana of KC Craine gathering our focus and we were in for an evening.  Second Phase volatility underway, perhaps some of the pieces shared by Josh Killingsworth lyrically dark, but his voice oh so sweet, the subtle fingerstyle of his dad (another K.C.) accompanying on guitar gorgeous.

Ashia

Safety glasses on, proceed to Phase Three, phenomena surge, careful, careful, the amazing cello and voice and brave musical endeavor of Ashia, molecules colliding, periodic table in question, theorem k.o.’ed by post-science, we’re learning again, observations reign.

Goodness gracious for spacious skies does The Show and Tell Open Mic strain at its leash on occasion, begun so on-time that even Splice Finders was caught in a half-assed leap for for the record button by the time Christine Honitsu White had begun in another language reciting.  Welcomed we the comedy stylings of Mike G reading Starlite Motel, then could Steve Williams and Constance Hall stake the pre-warmed own turf.  Patrick Bocarde brought us our monstre poétique knees with material by Rick J and Melissa Sillitoe.  ‘Twas Wendra who told us that all her songs are long, and it was Myrrh Larsen whose songs, including the aching “Homesick” which ends Part 1 of the Open Mic, are all about our longing.

Starlite Motel

Starlite Motel dove into Mike G’s “Deep End (for Dennis McBride)” and tagged relay Rick J baton sideways poem “When Nothing Gets Bored,” a restless play of words also by Mike G, scatters Melissa Sillitoe’s “Ashes.”  After Chad MD shares a little poem, Judith Fay Pulman springs into a poem by Rick J.  Then it’s bonus panels, accommodating Wayne Flower,  Michael lifting a Luke Lefler lyric, Wolfgang Reinhard, The Ambassador of Truth, Christian Kenseth and the new Three Friends Caffeinated Librarian, Mikey Golightly.

We’ll meet you at the “page” where we host the Three Friends Mondays: Caffienated Art podcast with good intention in our hearts, Wonderful, but you feeling the molten golden goose-flesh raised virtuoso upon hearing this fulsome audio feature you may wish then future clicks to save away, angled sense and hanging out iTunes in the dry of the tiger, though it collates unwell wethinks, and scruffy unrepentant links, this formula denotes:

http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=295435468

Last Thursday I was, as they say, “without portfolio” after the conclusion of a morning meetup and I happened to encounter Alex H. Williams.  As usual he was hatching a plot, but he was more enthusiastic than usual about this particular idea.  This thing was still gestating as it was being birthed, attitude fully-formed, into this cold, noisy world.  For my part, I had just told a whole group of somber but optimistic enterprise builders that I was “through with irony,” and here I was about to join the quintessential post-irony juggernaut of #notatsxsw.  I couldn’t refuse.  I was, in fact, already not at SXSW anyway.

Pronounced “not at South by Southwest,” #notatsxsw is a phenomenon facilitated by Twitter and brandished with the business-ends of social media’s many tentacles.  I immediately saw the appeal, especially since I had never been to SXSW, the high-profile, multi-day music, film and interactive festival that takes over Austin, TX every year, and which has more recently overtaken the collective mind of the Twitniscenti for whom it is a “be there, aloha” happening.  By the time I stumbled into the plot, Alex (who has been to SXSW in the past and would like to have attended this year) and his comrade and fellow SXSW ‘09 non-attendee Nate DiNiro had already secured the notatsxsw.com domain name and snagged the @notatsxsw Twitter handle, and they had scheduled the first #notatsxsw-specific event, the Portland Opening Feast.  All that remained was to help raise awareness and document “the first non-conference.”

We debated from the beginning:  What is it?  How to refer to it?  The spirit of compromise prevailed because, primarily, #notatsxsw is about the unity of the masses of people who, for whatever reason, were not making the pilgrimage to Austin this year.  Controversies could potentially undermine the whole thing — details such as whether the prepositional phrase “not at SXSW” is a noun like its more chic corollary “(at) SXSW,” or an adjective, comfortably interchanged with descriptive terms such as “sad,” “bitter,” “unemployed” or “couldn’t get the week off.”  These minor tweeting points became secondary to the need for a sense of community and an organizing principle for those of us who may or may not be feeling somewhat left out of the cacaphonous, hashtagged songs of the SXSW migration.

Ultimately #notatsxsw is a state of mind.  It may offer a return to one’s roots or simply the maintenance thereof.  “I like the carpet under my feet,” wrote Tot Taylor.  This writer, an acutely Cancerian homebody, putters similarly.  For those of us for whom a trip across town is a source of discomfort, wearing the #notatsxsw badge is plenty fashionable, notwithstanding that the prices are lower and the lines are not nearly as long.   And while there are plenty of gatherings, concerts and workshops #notatsxsw to attend, some of us even found time to clean the bathroom or clear some overgrowth in the woods.

For the second of three Show and Tell Gallery Productions events in one week the featured art was feeling multi-sourced and the touchable performers were  familiar and reliable.  Not so mit podcrash inducer Splice Finders feeling a patch of blackness, perhaps due to driving around Show and Tell Gallery Towers for half-an-hour looking for a parking place to touch, or perhaps due to the touched feelings of the besotted gentleman whom Richard Schemmerer astutely escorted “to another gallery.”  More likely it was Splicey’s maniacal desire to employ both mono- and tri-podal digital capturing thingies that distracted him just long enough that he did not notice the flashing standby light feeling like being touched on the stoic Olympus LS-10 until the middle of Eric McEuen’s set.  We’re afraid that you’ll need to go back to the Three Friends Mondays: Caffeinated Art #30 podcast to hear the one about the fish – that toe-tapping one about, ironically, disappointment – because the only part of his set that was captured consisted of Eric’s touching interpretations of, among others, Neil Diamond and The Beatles, and the Splicemeitser cannot afford even the few cents in heartfelt royalties that would be due those deserving songcrafters.

Feeling: A Touching Show was itself missing the work of Gary Aker, who was feeling a touch of the crud on March 5, 2009.   That left Patrick Bocarde, Brittany Baldwin and Rick J to flesh out the touching performance portion of the feeling presentation with spoken words, whilst the visual art by Rage Anders, Melissa Armstrong, Dave Benz, Brittle Star, Nicolas Hall, James Honzik, Chris Ives, Elizabeth Kuzmovich, Richard Schemmerer, Anna Todaro, Robin Urton and Cathie Joy Young remains tactilely available at the gallery through March, 2009 or monetarily yours at the sensualist shrine of your choosing indefinitely.  Attendees Wayne Flower, Michael Berton, Tom Mattox, Christian Kenseth, Benjamin Fisher, and Dan Tree and Emma (and Celestial Concubine, who touched down at the after chow) have all long since felt the sheets and touched the pillow.   The Show and Tell Gallery Podcast caress thine soft ears just there, no, there, yes, that’s the spot, and on the spong-iTunes-a-dermis subscribus so if you want to, and you feel like it, then it’s okay, you can touch its link:

http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=295435468

Christine Honitsu White

The premise is that we never know exactly what’s going to happen.  Safe enough.  However, Christine Honitsu White, host of the Blue Streak open mic poetry series, warned us that her stuff would go from “angry-sad to happier to neither/or,” so thus could we emit a littly sigh and ourselves prepare.  She proceeded to deliver a scathing indictment of February (”no guarantees”), and told us she was glad that it’s over.  And too soon she herself had progressed to the end of her sheaf of border-crossing billetes poetas.  Then Christine introduced her friend and local poetry legend, Doug Spangle, who said he had always wanted to read from the Three Friends Coffee House stage and proceeded to do so, emerging from the mythology lab, rinsing any trace of predictability off the green apples of  “Pers.doc” and “Perseus Pursuing,” two sections from his titanic series of poems about the Portland bridges.  Finally, music duo The Blair-Rich Project played a quartet of songs, de-sugared verses arranged for vocals, guitar and a drum, their power surprising us in our caffeinated harness.

The Blair-Rich Project

So it came to pass, churned flagrant and displacing reason’s flies and the butter fat of the mansion that is the Show and Tell Open Mic, it all-too welcoming the curiously strong new month and surprises it may bring, eh what? (yeah, man!)  Briefly filling-in for Melissa Sillitoe, the mortal caffeinaut Luke Lefler (how he mumbles! did he say she was having her ants photographed?) would kick-stab the engraving which began with poco diablo Dennis McBride who in the coarse dew of time ushered Pat Vivian to the landing to relive “Friday Night at the Maytown Tavern.”  Warn’t takin’ out the trash no more Mike (not a miso) G (ynist) – Saint Dick – alone, stalked by more poems of love and doom and death from Ric Vrana.  The male chorus line continued with J. D. Deverest and Christian Kenseth (kept us in the dark) unto another end which also had not as yet been determined: part one of the Open Mic podcast.

Lauren

Part two of the posted parade heard all attent to toasting birthday boy Wayne Flower ghosting, and continued with the finery of connoisseur of melancholy Rick J, songwriter Lauren who’d never really read his poetry, Tobiah, “better known as the Ambassador of Truth,” that being the truth that’s “out there,” and Michael gifted his militantly rhythmic poetry its open mic debut.  Hung at the extremity Patrick Bocarde with more strange creatures and Chad MD not displaying his queue card.

Michael

If you go away on a winter’s day then you might as well go to the “page” where we host the Three Friends Mondays: Caffienated Art podcast but, Fortunato, laying, please leave the Sun, because in the end, the pods you cast are equal to the pods to which you passed another brick in the wall of wonder that is whozits’ monstrous aggregation-purveyor known as iTunes, now with more tar and caffeine than the other pod pers.capita, as sure as links is links:

http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=295435461

Although he has been auditioning vinyl from The Leaf Label, Memphis Industries, Marina, Arable and Type Records lately, the details of DJ Baron Landscape’s first live set in a few years cannot be ascertained at WordPress time, except that it will take place at the First Friday reception for the March exhibit by photographer Dan Tree at Hopscotch Gallery, which is in the Three Friends Coffee House, 201 SE 12th Avenue, Portland, Oregon.

Dan Tree’s latest photographs take a gothic look at his friend’s MS diagnosis and how she feels to be living with a debilitating disease.  Dan lives in Salt Lake City, but he will be at the opening reception.

Musical eclectica from six to nine begins with DJ Baron Landscape from 6-7.  The warbling banshee Dina Rae, whose ethereal acoustic sounds simply must be experienced for oneself, takes the stage at 7:00 p.m., followed at 7:30 by Root Shocker, who disembarked from their home planet Curiose around the year 2299 touring their most recent album Ground Control.  At 8:00 p.m. it’s the hip-hop fusion stylings of 2010Gold, no es un hombre y no es buen dicho para hablar en el tercero persona.

Admission is free.  Certain special refreshments will be provided, other refreshments are always available at Three Friends.  Arrive early for optimal enjoyment.

Eileen Elliott, Toni Partington and Constance Hall

In changing, difficult times we lode our mothers and cling to our static, and these broken weeks are nothing if not changing, and cultish if not diffident.  You are reading this attentively, and we are grateful and starved for commitment.  While nicht nähernd the steady and inexorable keel of a cult, the ongoing series Three Friends Mondays: Caffeinated Art once again extended its thermal-fleeced fingerlimbs northward to the region known as Vancouver, U.S.A. – the ‘Couve,  the “Ghost Town” implicit in Christopher Luna’s observant munchings.  And veri-fiberly the invitation was extended pro looma towards Toni Partington, published in VoiceCatcher 3, Cascade Journal, NW Women’s Journal and others (her work, that is – not the humble invite from Show and Tell Gallery Productions).  Toni coaxed poet and award-winning artist Eileen Elliott and published writer/editor Constance Hall to turn a dreary late Winter evening into something of warm flickering ink and essence. Dalla memoria, nel carattere, Constance Hall shared from a prose poem drawn on her Sicilian family roots.  Eileen Elliott presented several elaborate pieces of visual art each varied in tone and texture and words to elaborate further the tale.  Then Toni Partington approached the accumulating ears with offerings from her upcoming poetry book, For the Love of Agnes, and other of her material that concluded with a poem for three voices, performed for the first time, all three writers onstage, Constance’s husband Steve Williams on bell; it was swell.

The Crash and Betty Show

Another two-parter, a garter-grabbing, rabble-arousing combination free speech festival and Spring training wake, the Show and Tell Open Mic always follows 3FM:CA and the mixed metaphors long afterwards.  After a brazen plug for Oregon Society of Artists we were treated to three poems (including the poignant and aptly-titled “In My Dreams”) from Mike G (fresh off his first sick day in six years).  Darest the parenthetical wouldst overtake, we enjoyed a coupla musical ditties from The Crash and Betty Show, followed by more spoken sword face-offs, the first part/round the Dan (Raphael) and Walt (Curtis, also number five-and-a-half) show.

Walt Curtis

Steve Williams rejoined the party with a Christmas poem and spotted the Stick Man.  Despite the bench-clearing brawl outside his flat Wayne Flower had just written “He Is Cruel,” whereas Chad MD had come to a realization and stepped up to the plate with “Honey,” and Christian Kenseth had dug out three poems and chose to share them after all.  End of Part One.  Simon Diamond shared a poem (”Return to Exile”) and an anti-poem (”Poets of a Technocratic Dreamcoat”) (in two parts) (yes, it’s often necessary).  Nathan Reynolds also delighted wtih a couple of new and adorable toss-offs.  Reinhard Wilhelm (Benjamin Fisher) imparted a dialectic dilemna “for everyone who calls themself a poet.”  Rick J commanded a uneasy quietude in the course of indeed being a poet, delivering three difficult pieces in the stillness.  Dwight Peters championed “A Merry Cause” and disturbing “Expressions of Joy (Paintings of 1,000 Different (Moans?),” and  purported rain boots stepped through the sharp distance tracing tears through “Sun, Salt, Sand and Time” with some guy’s rib (indeed there must be purpose in pain).  In extra innings, Garret Potter and “The Ambassador of Truth” (just a rectum his anger), off respective stints in the Texas farm system swing at the vacant space bubbles.  “There’s No Difference,” we’re told.  Viva le manque de différence!  Why did we stick around this late, then?

Oh, yeah, in order to record every at-bat for the podcast, naturally.  Watch out for the roadkill when you pass through here at the podcast home field advantage.  And peering over the DRM fence, waiting for one to fly out of the park, part and parcel of our spoken World Series, one of our biggest fans, iTunes chomps on a link, bun and relish the feed:

http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=295435461

Fresh out of the digital tinder box and into your analog hearth, a warm and sparking round-table discussion at the Blog Pavilion at Business Leader NW 2009.

Dawn Foster and Marshall Kirkpatrick elucidate, Alex H. Williams moderates, we aggregate.

What it is: thirty-five minutes of lively and informative discourse, among three preeminent thinkers and front-line doers in the mirrored hall of online community, covering current and future issues spinning within the social web and its function in your enterprise.  Whose insights do they find valuable?  And what is community management?  How are companies integrating social web applications?  Listen and discover how to assist your business with these growing online tools.

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