Thu, Apr 16
7:00 pm	to	8:00 pm

Edgar Arceneaux: Old Man Hill
The Old Mission Drive-In Theater
April 16 – April 16, 2009

Linda Pace Foundation will debut artist Edgar Arceneaux’s performance piece and eight-minute film, Old Man Hill, from the Linda Pace Foundation collection. The performance will be in celebration of the late Linda Pace’s birthday, and will be held at the now defunct Mission Drive-In Theater, located on Roosevelt Avenue on the San Antonio’s South Side. The work will be shown only once and not screened again. Arceneaux was an Artpace resident in 2006. Linda Pace purchased Old Man Hill that same year. Arceneaux will release metallic balloons into the night time sky, which spells out the name Old Man Hill translated into Bosnian.

The Old Mission Drive-In Theater

San Antonio, TX

2 Comments »

Sun, Mar 29
12:00 pm	to	4:00 pm

From Sor Juana to Selena: a Family Day Celebration of Latina Women Phantom Sightings’ Artist Panel
Sunday, March 29th 12 p.m.-4 p.m.
Free and Open to the Public

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Sat, Mar 28
5:00 pm	to	8:00 pm

5th Annual Dignowity Hill Pushcart Derby Dignowity Hill Park March 28 – March 28, 2009 Head to Dignowity Hill Park, rain or shine, and root for your favorite pushcart! You can still enter your own pushcart until Mar. 24.

Dignowity Hill Park 700 Nolan San Antonio, TX 78202

5th ANNUAL DIGNOWITY HILL PUSHCART DERBY (2009) On Saturday, March 28, 2009, San Antonio artists and local organizations will enter their uniquely-designed pushcarts in Cruz Ortiz’ public art project. Teams will test the laws of science at the fifth annual Dignowity Hill Pushcart Derby. Cruz Ortiz, creative mastermind behind the event, hopes his public art intervention will continue to strengthen the east-side community and show other San Antonians that this part of the city is a dynamic and safe place to live and play. “I designed this relationship between crazy pushcarts and community cultivation as a creative way to stimulate the rebuilding of urban decay. Art is the interactive bond and its success is reflected through the yearly increase in pushcart teams and Derby attendance. So, put your good chanklas on-bring the suegra y los kids and let the races begin!” Pushcart teams will compete in several areas including: speed, audience favorite and creativity in design. To enter your pushcart, please email . Entry deadline: March 24, 2009. Free to attend ~ Concessions available ~ Car pool or take the bus to the event Emceed by actor Marisela Barrera, the event includes live entertainment by DJ JJ Lopez. Past derby participants include internationally-renowned artists: Katie Pell, Juan Miguel Ramos, Cruz Ortiz and Hills Snyder. Other former pushcart groups include: Witte Museum, Southwest School of Art & Craft, Martinez Street Women’s Center and the Current. ………….. WHEN …. 5th ANNUAL DIGNOWITY HILL PUSHCART DERBY (rain or shine!) Saturday, March 28, 5:00pm-8:00pm …. Schedule of Events…. 5:00pm Food, fun and registration…. 5:30pm Opening Ceremony…. 6:00pm Drag Races …. 7:00pm Track Races, Bracket-Style …. 7:45pm The Main Event Race…. 8:00pm Awards Ceremony …. WHERE …. Dignowity Hill Park …. (corner of Nolan and Hackberry Streets) …. 700 Nolan, San Antonio, TX 78202….

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Thu, Apr 2
7:00 pm	to	8:00 pm

Artist Ed Ruscha To Speak
As Part of Harry Ransom Lectures

EVENT: As part of the Harry Ransom Lectures, artist Ed Ruscha discusses his life and work.

WHEN: Thursday, April 2, at 7 p.m.

WHERE: AT&T Conference Center, 1900 University Ave.

BACKGROUND: Born in 1937 in Omaha, Neb., Ruscha moved to Los Angeles in 1956 to attend the Chouinard Art Institute. He had his first solo exhibition in 1963 at the Ferus Gallery in Los Angeles. He shows with the Gagosian Gallery in New York, Beverly Hills and London. Encompassing photography, drawing, painting and artists’ books, Ruscha’s work has been the subject of retrospectives at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (1983), the Centre Georges Pompidou (1989) and the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden (2000). In 2001, Ruscha was elected to The American Academy of Arts and Letters as a member of the Department of Art. The following year a major exhibition of Ruscha’s work opened in Spain at the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia. “Leave Any Information at the Signal,” a volume of Ruscha’s writings, was published by MIT Press in 2002.

This lecture is free and open to the public. Doors open 30 minutes before the program begins. No reservations required, but seating is limited.

This program will be webcast at www.hrc.utexas.edu/webcast.

1 Comment »

Sat, Apr 11
2:30 pm	to	4:30 pm

Art and Censorship: What Does the Artist Owe the Public Space? at the Central Library Auditorium, 600 Soledad, April 11, at 2:30 to 4:30 pm? Kate Green of Trinity University is moderating. The San Antonio Office of Cultural Affairs is hosting a reception following the discussion.

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Tue, Mar 24
6:30 pm	to	9:00 pm

Free after 4pm and open to 9pm on Tuesdays.

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Well, after a good deal of rain, some unexpected cold, and a little bit of worry, Luminaria 2009 turned out to be a really nice night in San Antonio.  Aside from my experience with the overbearing police force (who wanted to tackle me for riding my bike down an empty LONG stretch of closed off road) I found this Luminaria to be much better organized and more satisfying to take part in.  I carried my camera and photographed the projects I was able to come into personal contact with.  Heres a selection of those photos, with my garbled commentary.

Laura Varela & Vaago Weiland collaborated on the Alamo this year.  Vaago (from Mönchengladbach, Germany) said, in doing research on the Alamo, he kept coming across these photos with tents in the surrounding area.  He was determined to surround the old Mission with 200 tents, however, upon closer inspection of the site was only able to squeeze in 54.  Lauras video projection played alongside Vaagos sculpture, within the top of the Alamo.

Hyperbubble was the only real music I stood still and watched an entire set from.  Not for lack of interesting options, but more in awe of the reaction of the crowd to their music.  I heard more than several proclamations of “WHAT IS THIS?” and “THIS is the best band EVER!!” loudly from behind.  I couldn’t have been happier.

My own piece (shamelessplug) was projected onto this old building(I was told it might have been called the Turner Magika Theatre?) facing out into the Hemisphere park, I showed the current version of my “Portrait of the Artist as a City,” a project I took up as a result of receiving a grant from the Artist Foundation.  The video is made up of a constantly shifting set of over 9000 still photos, and encompasses more little parts of my life than I can begin to explain before losing your attention.

This year, the real showstopper for me was Ansen Seales 100 ft photograph of the San Antonio River.  Contained inside the San Antonio Convention Center, It set the tone for the more conventional “walled,” section of the show.  After talking to Ansen for a few minutes I was able to extract from him that this image was composed of 86,400 individual “slitscans,” made by his own homebuilt digital camera, and weighed in at a whopping 1.2 gigs for the file itself…and I thought trying to get my computer to juggle 9000 still photos at one time was tricky.

This fantastic ghost image of a dancer is local artist/instructor Rebecca Dietz.  She was one of the roving performance artists, and a recent FL!GHT Gallery featured artist.  I nearly missed her moving by me, and was glad I noticed who it was at the last minute.

John Mata, part of Leslie Raymonds New Media program at UTSA, built a cardboard room and filled it with books and media discussing…New Media.

Judith Cottrell & Gary Smith built this human like glowing form, and scared children for the duration of the night.  I enjoyed watching.

Holly & Bryson Brooks decided it was best to be “Married with Paintings.” So they walked in at 6 on the dot, started working inside their makeshift studio(replete with audience the entire time), and by the time I rolled around with my camera, they were already at this point within each of their portraits of the other.

Back out on Alamo Street, Ethel Shipton had filled these two store front windows with her characteristic puffed objects, this time being birdhouses.

Kelly O’Connor was just a few windows down.  My camera was having trouble not blowing out the detail in this one.

I stumbled upon this projection by Victor Pagona & his wife Sarah Susan, an artist I’ve heard of for years, but never met in San Antonio.

Sadly, I could only get this much of the smaller Leigh Anne Lester window displays without the detail of the sculptures being blown out by the harsh jewelry store lighting.  These window displays will be available for all to see for the next month along Alamo Street.

I stumbled over this Michele Monseau projection right across the street from the Alamo, hidden on a side wall.

These patterns & lights can give you a general idea of what everything else looked like, that was not affected in some way by an individual artist or group of artists.

These two large scale Thomas Cummins Lightboxes, while difficult to do justice with a photograph, were mindblowingly detailed in person.

Another fine example of the general lighting scheme found that night.  Its almost like that time I had to shoot photos at a certain laser light show..

Jenny Browne gave away 4 shopping cartloads and a truck bed full of books, for FREE, as her piece.  It was awesome to see people swarming the truck and carts, trying to get at free books, while Jenny sat on the roof watching & laughing.

..and finally to end the weekend, Tom Otterness made an appearance with his newly unveiled(in our locale at least) public art piece, “Makin Hay’,” mentioned a few weeks back here at Emvergeoning.  Some things I’m sorry to say I don’t have good photos of, the first being the EXCELLENT Contemporary Art Month installation by Randy Wallace in the basement of the old Beauty College building on Travis Street.  I shot many photos of it, but none of them quite did it justice.  I was also sad to miss crazy Mel Feldman and his cultural arts Kaleidoscope.  Somehow 1000 artists all in one place on one night is just a LITTLE hard to keep track of.

7 Comments »

Sat, Mar 21
1:00 pm	to	8:00 pm

MARK D. ASHWORTH San Francisco 7:00PM
MELLOW OWL Red Hunter 6:15PM
BRAZOS Austin 5:30PM
CALLERS Brooklyn, Western Vinyl 4:45PM
THE WEIRD WEEDS Austin 4:00PM
CANOPY Austin 3:15PM
THE SHIVERS Brooklyn 2:30PM
THE WOODEN BIRDS Austin, Barsuk 1:45PM
PEEL Austin 1:00PM

———————–

Free entry, brews, and b.y.o.
Organic drinks courtesy of Steaz.
Okay Mountain Gallery
1312 E. Cesar Chavez 78702
Navasota St. Corner
5 blocks east of I-35

if you can’t make this day party, Autobus’s official SXSW showcase is Wednesday Night at the Hideout.

Wed. 03/18 | 8:00PM-2:00AM
The Hideout Theatre & Coffee House, 617 Congress Ave

w/ Canopy (8pm), Weird Weeds (9pm), JC & Co (10pm), {{{Sunset}}} (11pm), Mark David Ashworth(12am), and Brazos (1am).

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Tue, Mar 31
8:00 pm	to	10:00 pm

SlabCinema will be Tuesday night screenings at La Tuna this spring while we wait for Movies by Moonlight to start (June-August). Showtime is 8 p.m. Bring your own chairs or blankets.

March 31
Detour (1945)
Hitchhiker gets involved with femme fatale and murder. Film Noir.

Detour (1945 film)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Detour
Theatrical poster to Detour
Directed by	Edgar G. Ulmer
Produced by	Leon Fromkess
Written by	Martin Goldsmith Martin Mooney (uncredited)
Starring	Tom Neal Ann Savage Claudia Drake Edmund MacDonald Tim Ryan
Music by	Leo Erdody (credited as “Erdody”)
Distributed by	Producers Releasing Corporation
Release date(s)	November 30, 1945
Running time	68 min.
Language	English
Budget	$20,000 (estimated)
IMDb

Detour (1945) is a film noir cult classic that stars Tom Neal, Ann Savage, Claudia Drake, and Edmund MacDonald. The movie was adapted by Martin Goldsmith and Martin Mooney (uncredited) from Goldsmith’s novel, and was directed by Edgar G. Ulmer. The 68-minute film was released by the Producers Releasing Corporation (PRC), one of the so-called “poverty row” film studios.

Although made on a small budget and containing only rudimentary sets and camera work, the film has garnered substantial praise through the years and is held in high regard. The film has fallen into the public domain and is freely available from online sources. There are also many DVD editions.

Contents [hide] 1 Plot 2 Production 2.1 Editing 2.2 Censorship 3 Cast 4 Reaction 5 Quote 6 Cultural references 6.1 Remake 7 See also 8 References 9 External links

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[edit] Plot

Al (Tom Neal), a piano player, sets off hitchhiking his way to California to be with his fiancee. Along the way, a stranger in a convertible gives him a ride. While driving, Al stops to put the top up during a rainstorm. The owner of the car falls out and onto the pavement, dead (it is unclear whether he has died in his sleep or due to the fall). Al panics and dumps the body in a gully; takes the stranger’s money, clothes, and ID; and drives off in his expensive car. After spending the night in a motel, Al picks up another hitchhiker, Vera (Ann Savage) (a femme fatale), who had earlier ridden with the stranger and threatens to turn him in for murdering the stranger unless he gives her all the money. In Hollywood, they rent an apartment and, while trying to sell the car, learn from a newspaper that the stranger was about to collect a large inheritance. Vera demands that Al impersonate the stranger, but Al balks at this notion. When the two get drunk in the apartment and begin arguing, a snubbed Vera takes Al up on his earlier dare to call the police, whereupon Al accidentally strangles her with a telephone cord. Al starts hitchhiking back east, but is apprehended by the police near Reno.

The story is narrated by Al, who may be an unreliable narrator.

[edit] Production

Conceived as a B-movie, Detour was shot in six days with a budget of approximately $20,000.^[1]

[edit] Editing

With re-shoots out of the question for such a low budget movie, director Edgar G. Ulmer made the decision to place storytelling conventions above continuity.

Detour’s famous example of this is the reversal of the hitchhiking scenes. In order to parallel the westbound New York to Los Angeles travel of the character with right-to-left movement across the screen, many scenes had to be flipped. This caused the cars to appear to be driving on the wrong side of the road, and the hitchhiker to enter the car on the driver’s side.

[edit] Censorship

Because the 1945 Production code mandated that “murderers… must be brought to justice,” director Ulmer satisfied censors by ending the movie with Al being picked up after predicting his arrest earlier.

[edit] Cast

• Tom Neal as Al Roberts
• Ann Savage as Vera
• Claudia Drake as Sue Harvey
• Edmund MacDonald as Charles Haskell Jr
• Tim Ryan as Nevada Diner Proprietor
• Esther Howard as Holly, Diner Waitress
• Pat Gleason as Joe, Trucker at Diner
• Don Brodie as the Used Car Salesman

[edit] Reaction

In 1992, Detour was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant”. Critical response to the film today is almost universally positive. Most reviewers contrast the technical shoddiness of the film with its successful atmospherics. Film critic Roger Ebert wrote:

“This movie from Hollywood’s poverty row, shot in six days, filled with technical errors and ham-handed narrative, starring a man who can only pout and a woman who can only sneer, should have faded from sight soon after it was released in 1945. And yet it lives on, haunting and creepy, an embodiment of the guilty soul of film noir. No one who has seen it has easily forgotten it.”^[2]

He also included it in his list of great films.

Sight and Sound reviewer Phillip Kemp would later write:

“Using unknown actors and filming with no more than three minimal sets, a sole exterior (a used-car lot) to represent Los Angeles, a few stock shots, and some shaky back-projection, Ulmer conjures up a black, paranoid vision, totally untainted by glamour, of shabby characters trapped in a spiral of irrational guilt.”^[3]

Novelists Edward Gorman and Dow Mossman wrote:

“…Detour remains a masterpiece of its kind. There have been hundreds of better movies, but none with the feel for doom portrayed by … Ulmer. The random universe Stephen Crane warned us about—the berserk cosmic impulse that causes earthquakes and famine and AIDS—is nowhere better depicted than in the scene where Tom Neal stands by the roadside, soaking in the midnight rain, feeling for the first time the noose drawing tighter and tighter around his neck.”^[4]

[edit] Quote

“

Man, she looked as if she’d just been thrown off the crummiest freight train in the world.

”

“

I know. Someday a car will stop to pick me up that I never thumbed. Yes, fate, or some mysterious force can put the finger on you or me for no good reason at all.

”

[edit] Cultural references

Filmmaker Richard Linklater named his production company after this film.

[edit] Remake

A remake of Detour was produced in 1992 starring Tom Neal’s son Tom Neal Jr. and Lea Lavish along with Susanna Foster’s first acting appearance in 43 years and her final appearance on film. Produced, written and directed by Wade Williams and released by his distribution company, Englewood Entertainment, it has not been released on DVD, but a VHS release has been available.

[edit] See also

• Lost Highway

[edit] References

[edit] External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Detour (1945 film)

• at Google Video
• Detour (full movie) at archive.org
• Detour at the Internet Movie Database
• Time Magazine All Time 100 Movies
• The Films of Edgar G. Ulmer

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Tue, Mar 31
7:00 pm	to	8:00 pm

The Southwest School of Art & Craft invites the public to an artist talk on Tuesday, March 31st at 7 p.m. The president of the Sanbao Ceramic Art Institute, Jiansheng Li, will speak about the rich history of ceramics and porcelain in China. For more information, the website is www.swschool.org

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Tue, Mar 31
7:00 pm	to	9:00 pm

The Westside Arts Coalition invites the public to hear Mayoral Candidates on Tuesday, March 31st at 7 p.m. in the auditorium at the Central Library. Mayoral Candidates Trish DeBerry, Diane Cibrian and Julian Castro will discuss “The Role and Importance of Arts & Cultural Communities in San Antonio’s Future and Economy.” Participants are invited to bring a 12-ounce donation of food to support the San Antonio Food Bank.

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Tue, Mar 17
1:00 pm	to	2:00 pm

A Conversation with Richard Linklater & Todd Haynes

Austin – South by Southwest

Room 16AB

Tuesday, March 17th

1:00 pm – 2:00 pm

Add this to your SXSW Calendar

Writer/directors Todd Haynes and Richard Linklater hardly require introduction. As two of modern cinema’s great standard-bearers, they’ve spent the last couple of decades forging filmographies as aesthetically rich as they are thematically diverse. Join us at SXSW Film Conference to witness a rare discussion between these fierce independents as they discuss their influences, inspirations, their innate sensitivity to actors, and their working methods; both within and outside the system. We can’t wait, and hope you can’t either!

Moderator: Richard Linklater , Detour Filmproduction

Richard Linklater Detour Filmproduction

Todd Haynes Killer Films

from http://sxsw.com/film/talks/schedule?action=show&id=FP060236

1 Comment »

Tue, Mar 24
8:00 pm	to	10:00 pm

SlabCinema will be Tuesday night screenings at La Tuna this spring while we wait for Movies by Moonlight to start (June-August). Showtime is 8 p.m. Bring your own chairs or blankets.

March 24
Road to Bali (1952)
Bing Crosby and Bob Hope play a vaudeville duo who are run out of town to avoid a double wedding. They find employment as deep sea divers in the South Pacific. Cameo appearances by Martin and Lewis and Jane Russell.

Road to Bali

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Road to Bali
theatrical poster
Directed by	Hal Walker
Produced by	Daniel Dare
Written by	Frank Butler Hal Kanter
Starring	Bing Crosby Bob Hope Dorothy Lamour
Distributed by	Paramount Pictures
Release date(s)	November 1, 1952 (US)
Running time	91 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English
Preceded by	Road to Rio
Followed by	The Road to Hong Kong
IMDb • Allmovie

Road to Bali is a 1952 comedy film starring Bing Crosby, Bob Hope and Dorothy Lamour. It was released by Paramount Pictures and is the sixth of the seven Road to… movies. It was the only such movie filmed in color and was the first to feature surprise cameo appearances from other well-known stars of the day.

Contents [hide] 1 Plot 2 Production 3 Cast 3.1 Cameos 4 Songs 5 Release 6 In popular culture 7 Miscellany 8 Notes 9 External links

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[edit] Plot

Having to leave Melbourne in a hurry to avoid various marriage proposals, two song-and-dance men sign-on to work as divers. This takes them to an idyllic island on the way to Bali where they vie with each other for the favours of Princess Lala. The hazardous dive produces a chest of priceless jewels which arouses the less romantic interest of some shady locals.

[edit] Production

Road to Bali was the first “Road to…” picture since 1947’s Road to Rio, and was known during production as The Road to Hollywood. It was the sixth film in the series, and the next to last to be made, as well as the last “Road” film to star Dorothy Lamour. The film was a co-production of Bing Crosby Enterprises, Hope Enterprises and Paramount.^[1]

The giant squid that threatens Bob Hope in an underwater scene was previously seen attacking Ray Milland in the Paramount production Reap the Wild Wind directed by Cecil B. DeMille and the erupting volcano climax was taken directly from the Paramount production Aloma of the South Seas (1941) also starring Lamour.

[edit] Cast

• Bing Crosby as George Cochran
• Bob Hope as Harold Gridley
• Dorothy Lamour as Princess Lalah McIntovish
• Murvyn Vye as Ken Arok
• Peter Coe as Gung
• Ralph Moody as Bhoma Da
• Leon Askin as King Ramayana

[edit] Cameos

Among the celebrities who made token “gag” appearances in this film are bandleader Bob Crosby (Bing’s brother), Humphrey Bogart, by way of a clip from The African Queen, Jerry Lewis, Dean Martin, and Jane Russell, as her character from the 1952 film Son of Paleface. The cameo by Martin and Lewis were part of a ‘comedy trade’ where they made an appearance in this movie, while Hope and Crosby appeared in Martin and Lewis’s Scared Stiff the following year. Martin and Lewis also made films for Paramount at the time.

[edit] Songs

• “Chicago Style” – performed by Bing Crosby and Bob Hope
• “Moonflowers” – by Dorothy Lamour
• “Hoot Mon” – Bing Crosby and Bob Hope
• “To See You Is To Love You” – Bing Crosby^[2]
• “The Merry-Go-Run-Around” – Bob Hope, Dorothy Lamour and Bing Crosby

Music for all songs is by Jimmy Van Heusen, with lyrics by Johnny Burke.

[edit] Release

Due to irregularities with its copyright, Road to Bali has lapsed into the public domain. Columbia Pictures Television once had the television rights to this film in the 1980s, along with other Bob Hope movies from the 1940s and 1950s. This is evident in a home video release from the mid-1990’s, where a CPT logo can be seen at the beginning and end of the film.

Because the film is in the public domain, there have been at least a dozen DVD releases from a variety of companies over the years.

[edit] In popular culture

Road to Bali was parodied in 1953 in Universal Pictures‘ animated short Alley to Bali, with Woody Woodpecker and Buzz Buzzard in the Hope and Crosby roles.

[edit] Miscellany

In keeping with the film’s Commonwealth setting, which takes Crosby and Hope from Melbourne, Australia, to the exotic island of Bali, many of the jokes contain references to Argyle socks, Australian opera singer Dame Nellie Melba, Tasmanian-born Errol Flynn, and a dance routine featuring Scottish bagpipes.

As with the other Road movies, Bob Hope breaks the “fourth wall” several times to make side comments to the audience, for example, as the music for a song sung by Bing Crosby begins, “He’s gonna sing, folks. Now’s the time to go out and get the popcorn.”

[edit] Notes

[edit] External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Road to Bali (film)

• Road to Bali at the Internet Movie Database
• Road to Bali at the TCM Movie Database
• Road to Bali at Allmovie
• at Google Video
• Free to download clips from the movie in Windows and Real Media formats

Road to… refers to a series of seven comedy films starring Bing Crosby, Bob Hope, and Dorothy Lamour. They are also often referred to as “Road pictures.”

[hide] v · d · e Road to… series Singapore • Zanzibar • Morocco • Utopia • Rio • Bali • Hong Kong

[hide] v · d · e Martin and Lewis
My Friend Irma · My Friend Irma Goes West · At War with the Army · That’s My Boy · Sailor Beware · Jumping Jacks · Road to Bali (cameos) · The Stooge · Scared Stiff · The Caddy · Money from Home · Living It Up · 3 Ring Circus · You’re Never Too Young · Artists and Models · Pardners · Hollywood or Bust

1 Comment »

Wed, Mar 25
7:30 pm	to	9:30 pm

Robert Hass, Pulitzer Prize-winning poet, “Reading with Robert Hass”

Mar. 25 8 p.m.

Ruth Taylor Recital Hall

Charles Krauthammer, Pulitzer Prize-winning syndicated columnist and television commentator

Mar. 25 7:30 p.m.

Laurie Auditorium

3 Comments »

Tue, Mar 24
6:30 pm	to	8:00 pm

Filmmaker Ken Burns will give a lecture on Tuesday, March 24th at 6:30 p.m. at the Lila Cockrell Theater. Ken Burns and co-producer Dayton Duncan will discuss their latest PBS film, The National Parks: America’s Best Idea. For details, the phone number is 207-9000.

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Thu, Mar 26
6:30 pm	to	8:00 pm

2 to Watch: Adam Bork and Jo Ann Yolanda Hernandez
This program pairs a visual artist and a writer in an evening of words and images, gathering literary and visual arts audiences for a critical discussion and examination of crossovers between the genres. 2 to Watch features emerging talents, those new to the community, or established artists with new bodies of work. This program is held in collaboration with literary center Gemini Ink.

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Fri, Mar 20
8:00 pm	to	10:00 pm

Fresh Music First: Edie Sedgwick and Medications Rooftop Concert
Two of Dischord Records finest artists will grace the Artpace Rooftop for a night of live music. A must-see for the local music enthusiast and anyone who enjoys a good energy-filled show. Free for Artpace members, $10 for non-members. Get in free with a friend when you join at the door! Doors at 8 p.m.

No Comments »

Tue, Mar 17
4:00 pm	to	9:00 pm

No Comments »

Thu, Mar 19
4:00 pm	to	9:00 pm

Free after 4pm and open to 9pm on Thursdays.

Lawson Gallery
Gallery Talk: Fifty Years of Print Masterpieces
Gifts from the Friends of the McNay
Lyle Williams, Curator of Prints and Drawings

1 Comment »

Tue, Mar 17
8:00 pm	to	10:00 pm

SlabCinema will be Tuesday night screenings at La Tuna this spring while we wait for Movies by Moonlight to start (June-August). Showtime is 8 p.m. Bring your own chairs or blankets.

March 17
Brother from Another Planet (1984)
A black visitor from another planet impresses most of the people he meets because he doesn’t say a word and lets them do all the talking! Directed by John Sayles

The Brother from Another Planet

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Brother from Another Planet
Theatrical poster
Directed by	John Sayles
Produced by	Peggy Rajski Maggie Renzi
Written by	John Sayles
Starring	Joe Morton Darryl Edwards Steve James Bill Cobbs David Strathairn
Music by	Mason Daring John Sayles Denzil Botus
Cinematography	Ernest R. Dickerson
Editing by	John Sayles
Distributed by	Cinecom Pictures
Release date(s)	September 7, 1984
Running time	109 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English
IMDb • Allmovie

The Brother from Another Planet (1984) is a film written, directed and edited by John Sayles.^[1]

Contents [hide] 1 Plot 2 Cast 3 References 3.1 Notes 4 External links

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[edit] Plot

Joe Morton stars in this dramatic comedy, set in New York City in the early 1980s, as “The Brother,” an alien and escaped slave who, while fleeing “Another Planet,” has crash-landed in Upper New York Harbor.

Picked up as homeless, he is deposited in Harlem. The sweet-natured and honest Brother looks like any other black man, except that he is mute and – although other characters in the film never see them – his feet each have three large toes. The Brother has telekinetic powers but, unable to speak, he struggles to express himself and adjust to his new surroundings, including a stint in the Job Corps at a video arcade in Manhattan.

He is chased by two white Men in Black (David Strathairn and director Sayles himself); Sayles’s twist on the Men in Black concept is that instead of government agents trying to cover up alien activity, Sayles’s Men in Black are also aliens, out to re-capture “The Brother” and other escaped slaves and bring them back to their home planet. Unlike the many human characters in this film, the aliens themselves are oblivious of skin color, and screenwriter Sayles has one of the Men in Black utter an epithet “Three Toe” when describing their quarry, in attempt to prove that skin color is just as arbitrary as number of toes or any other human characteristic that would make one different from another.

[edit] Cast

• Joe Morton as The Brother
• Rosanna Carter as West Indian Woman
• Ray Ramirez as Hispanic Man
• Yves Rene as Haitian Man
• Peter Richardson as Islamic Man
• Ginny Yang as Korean Shopkeeper
• Daryl Edwards as Fly
• Steve James as Odell
• Leonard Jackson as Smokey
• Bill Cobbs as Walter
• Maggie Renzi as Noreen
• Olga Merediz as Noreen’s Client
• Tom Wright as Sam
• Minnie Gentry as Mrs. Brown
• Ren Woods as Bernice

[edit] References

[edit] Notes

[edit] External links

• The Brother from Another Planet at the Internet Movie Database
• The Brother from Another Planet at Allmovie
• The Brother from Another Planet at Archive.org for on-line streaming or free download.

[hide] v • d • e Films directed by John Sayles
Return of the Secaucus 7 • Lianna • Baby It’s You • The Brother from Another Planet • Matewan • Eight Men Out • City of Hope • Passion Fish • The Secret of Roan Inish • Lone Star • Men with Guns • Limbo • Sunshine State • Casa de los Babys • Silver City • Honeydripper

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Justin and I made it up to the third Texas Biennial last weekend, and managed to catch everything except Buster Graybill’s giant catfish, which was buried in some kind of enormous boating competition. The big picture take-away is that the Texas Biennial is committing itself to a more unified curatorial vision than in previous years, and to that end brought in writer / curator Michael Duncan from LA to curate the two group and four solo shows. The group shows were, however, not very unified, and I’ve found it difficult to tease overarching themes out of the scattered media, aesthetics, and ideas represented. One theme that did emerge for me is that much of the work expresses a kind of personal mythology, and hews away from overtly political statements. We also saw a lot of the more “traditional” media on display: well-crafted paintings, drawings, and sculptures were everywhere, and few installations or “post-media” sculpture-collages to be found. By my count, there were five videos, one sound sculpture, and one PowerPoint presentation out of hundreds of works. I haven’t quite figured out if this springs from the tastes of Michael Duncan or is supposed to be a reflection of the state of Texas art (although one catalog essay hints at the former: “This is not your average Whitney Program/Cal Arts/Artpace project” says the curator in reference to Lee Baxter Davis’ solo show) [UPDATE: This brief interview with Michael Duncan explains his approach to curating the Texas Biennial].

Here’s the run-down, with photos by Justin Parr:

The group show at the Mexican American Cultural Center (run by Marfa Ballroom alum Simon Orta) was spacious and well-lit, with a lot of paintings, but also a nice sound sculpture by Justin Boyd outside the entrance:

This sound sculpture plays recordings from the nearby river and powerlines to represent the flows of energy around the building — the physical sculpture references the architecture of the MACC itself. We didn’t get any photos from the opening of the group show at Women and Their Work because it was insanely crowded (and, searching on Flickr for “texas biennial 2009″, I get a bunch of photos… from the MACC, so maybe this wasn’t just a problem for us). Check out this slideshow at Women and Their Work’s website for some pics of the art.

The solo shows certainly felt more focused, and for the most part fit together better as a group than the group shows did. I’ll start with Jayne Lawrence, San Antonio artist and co-director of the Cactus Bra gallery, who represented the east (?) south* with a beautiful exhibit at MASS Gallery:

This is a huntress, although if you look closely you’ll see a large phallus between her legs — although Lawrence refers to all these creatures in the feminine, they are transgendered. This show consists of three human-size sculptures and a number of smaller drawings playing with ideas of mutation, a sort of biological collage across genders and species. Hunting and sexuality play big roles in these pieces as well, generating some really striking sex-and-death imagery. Here we have a creature who has been bitten in half by her lover, praying-mantis style:

Lawrence combines textile, ceramic, plastic, papier mache, and other media in these highly textural and disorienting creatures. The drawings play with very similar organic themes, although some include architectural elements, hinting at a twisted Maker behind the scenes.

Lee Baxter Davis’ solo show at Pump Project consists of larger watercolors, embodying a mythology as dark as Lawrence’s, although of a somewhat less fantastical and more historicized nature:

Strange narratives slip through the viewer’s fingers in this dense, magical-realist universe. It isn’t clear to me whether Davis is fictionalizing historical vignettes like Walton Ford, or spinning fresh tales out of a broad cultural experience. In any case, these works carry the tragic weight of a civilazation cutting into the wilderness, and fighting to stake out a stable place in the midst of chaos.

Moving on down to Big Medium, we encounter some large paintings that don’t have as much of the mythological or fantastical feel of Lawrence’s or Davis’ shows, but do play with the sexuality, violence and moral ambiguities contained there:

Representing the south east*, Vance’s beautifully rendered paintings from photographs depict psycho-sexual lesbian encounters, which, as Duncan points out in the catalog, are fraught with ambiguity. Themes of violence and humiliation are played against expressions of pleasure in ways that resist moral judgment. Vance is opening up private spaces that feel pure in their honesty, more direct than Lawrence’s fantasies or Davis’ narrative mazes. These scenes are radically intimate, without the weight of history or the complications of the world to get in the way of the pure relation.

Finally we come to the West Texas show, Will Cannings at Okay Mountain. And here’s where the thematic development falls apart for me:

This is a steel sculpture inflated like plastic, or rather, over-inflated in this case, and burst along the inner seam. Personally, I couldn’t help thinking of Jeff Koons’ metal inflatable sculptures, although Michael Duncan was careful not mention those in the literature. It is largely a Pop affair, and it’s difficult to see how this show fits into the larger Biennial. The craftsmanship, though, is very tight, and Cannings put together a strong group that bridges the divide between Pop and Minimalism to some extent (one piece even directly references Brancusi):

This post is getting pretty long, and I’ve got some other obligations this evening, so I’m going to save the outdoor pieces for another post. But in the meantime, I’ll leave you with some nice graffiti we stumbled on when we took a wrong turn on Shady Lane:

* Corrected thanks to commenter Salvador. That’s what I get for trusting the catalog…

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Fri, Mar 13
6:00 pm	to	8:00 pm

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Thu, Mar 12
8:00 pm	to	10:30 pm

This is an original work by San Antonio artists exploring the border relations in Texas and the walls within our own communities. In the style of Augusto Boal’s community-based theatre, audience participation and discussion is a key element in our performance.

We will be performing March 12 and March 13 at 8pm in the Attic Theatre.

In the spirit of our community outreach, admission is free and we will not be taking reservations. Please arrive 30 minutes prior to the performance to receive your ticket for admission.

On March 14th, we will be performing at Luminaria, an all-day and all-night arts festival in downtown San Antonio.

We will be performing at the Convention Center Stage at 10.30pm.

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I’ve spent the last two weekends in Austin for the No Idea Festival and then the Texas Biennial (I hope to have impressions from those up this week, so stay tuned). This weekend San Antonio takes the stage with with some massive events: LACMA’s Phantom Sightings (featuring San Antonio artists Alejandro Diaz and Cruz Ortiz) travels to the Alameda on Friday alongside Caras Vemos, Corazones No Sabemos, the same day SAMA opens a Ry Cooder-commissioned piece by Vincent Valdez and an installation by John Hernandez. Saturday brings the second annual Luminaria arts night, which seems to be more expansive and better-organized than the first.

For background on the well-received Phantom Sightings, see Christopher Knight’s review in the LA Times, and some photos on Flickr.

We’ll do our best to post reactions and reviews in a timely manner, but we’re getting blasted with art from every direction down here in South Texas…

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