welcome to the pleasure dome

[yamamanama]

The Actors Shakespeare Project may have found their permanent home in Watertown, which would be nice if it was before 1969 (I'll give points to Karma and In The Court of the Crimson King and A Rainbow in Curved Air but my hot take is that the unmanned landing on Titan was a bigger deal than the manned Moon landing because there are rivers and lakes and weather) and the Green Line's A Branch still existed, but sadly no.

But at least there is Naya, a Lebanese restaurant nearby. I got a salad (spinach, arugula, and red cabbage), chicken kebab, jalapeños, sumac onions with parsley, feta cheese, cabbage slaw with dry mint, lemon, and olive oil, Lebanese pickles brined in vinegar and secret Lebanese spices, Kalamata olives, and zesty jalapeño sauce.
The people next to me were talking about “Mrs. Pac-Man! Mr. Pac-Woman!”

I’ve alreay summarized the plot to A Midsummer Night's Dream somewhere.
They maed a conscious decision to make Hermia, Lysander, Helena, and Demetrius a little older and then made the fairy realm into a 90s club, which existed as a sort of refuge from the war on drugs, Reaganomics, and AIDS no matter your race, sexuality, gender identity.

Oberon had on a lot of glittery black eyeshadow, a tassled leather vest, and leather pants. Robin Goodfellow had red pants and a tight shirt with cubist eyes and faces.

There was sparkly confetti, there were bubbles, there was a fog machine, there were those light tubes with colorful LEDs inside them. I think i heard some Massive Attack.

Lysander walked onstage explaining to Hermia just why the fellowship couldn’t just use the eagles to fly into Mordor.

The actor troupe did a pantomime during the introduction and wore those full-body bodysuits. When the actual play within a play happened, they all wore clothing the color of an amplified peridot over those suits. And, if you’re wondering, the moon was played by a guy in peridot-colored pants holding a lantern and the wall was a guy with a peridot-colored poncho with a brick pattern and various graffito designs. The moon brought out one of those flipsy puppy toys and the moon and the lion sung the music from The Lion King in unison. The opening chant, which is in isiZulu but I always thought the movie was set in Kenya or something and also Simba means lion in Kiswahili so maybe it should be that but I dunno.
The leader had a black tuxedo jacket, a white shirt, and a peridot-colored bow tie and matching peridot-colored kerchief in her pocket.

There were two art exhibitions.
One was a homage to Gorky. Not that Gorky (the one Nizhny Novgorod was briefly named after) but Arshile Gorky, Armenian abstract expressionist painter who pretended to be a Georgian noble and relative of said that Gorky.
It wasn’t the anniversary of his death or birth or anything, but when he came to Watertown.


Anne Russell - Red Handed


Jennifer Hicks - Time Frame 21


(title unknown)


Robert Siegelman - Vince Camuto


Marsha Nouritza Odabashian - Strata


Bill Flynn - Opening Books


Laura Lester - Parade


Anne Johnstone - Fish Caught In Plastic


Anne Johnstone - Anchors Away
(sic)


Nancy Brooks - The Raft


Emily Prosper - But Wait, It Goes For a Second Time
It looks like they were starting to take things down but then thought better of it. This was one of two paintings that weren’t there. So I just ganked it from her website.


Barbara Trachenberg - Ariadne’s Thread


Mark Younkle - Public Park, Private Access


Philip Gerstein - Paradise — What An Idea?


Martin R. Anderson - Low Tide 2
(above)

Martin R. Anderson - Rising Tide
(below)


Bill Flynn - Drawn, Scored, Torn, and Folded


Bill Flynn - The Oceans Are Getting Warmer


Bill Flynn - Unfolding Pages


Richard Zonghi - Ticket to Ride


Steven Muller - Paint #17


Bill Flynn - Gorky and Nabokov Exchanging Ideas


Richard Zonghi - Intrinsic
ps, fuck off, blob.


John Tracey - Trouble on the Horizon


John Tracey - Figure

here’s a poem.
I don’t like blobs
they don’t have noses
but if they did
their noses would be pink
get rid of them.


Cathy Wysocki - The Unconcoctor


Cathy Wysocki - Revised Distillation Device


Gerri Rachins - First Flying Machines To Take Off V1


Gerri Rachins - First Flying Machines To Take Off V2


Gerry Bergstein - Octopus’ Garden


Diane Norris - Gorge of Recession


Matthew Bielen - Three Masted Schooner


Marilu Swett - Swing Left


Joel Janowitz - Protected Growth


Jane Goldman - Rainey Day Roof Deck
(sic)


Deborah Kamy Hull - 04-19-22, Things I Can’t Find, completeted list, postmortem


Kathleen Wynn - Deco Rug


Emily Manning-Mingle - Sink


Diana Bailey - End Game


Kathy Soles - Remnants, Series no. 5


Kathy Soles - Remnants, Series no. 4

This is the art on the second floor. It’s fiber art for a world wracked by climate change.


Michelle Longe - Souvenirs
“Made from post-consumer blister packaging encapsulating natural objects to honor what may soon be a memory”


Nancy Crasco - Parched Fields
“the increase in drought frequency, duration, and severity has increased world-wide with climate change and has affected the availability of agricultural products, human and agricultural health and safety, and damage of our eco-systems”


Martha Heller - Torrential Rains
“sounds the alarm over the destructive floods caused by climate change.”
Made from natural dyes and recovered cotton.


Martha Heller - Under Siege
The blue is extracted from leaves.
Rust is a corrosive process.


Michaela Morse - Lifeline
“unrestrained matter cycles between living and dying. this malleable boundary traverses the horizons of topsoil, subsoil, and bedrock to be recast as fertile ground again and again”


Martha Heller - What To Wear


Alma Baumwoll - Coreopsis Snail
A basket frame made from invasive bittersweet, cordage from dried dandelion stems, cotton dyed with coreopsis.


Adrienne Sloane - Rubicon
“Rubicon: a limit or point that is reached when the result of one’s actions can not be changed.”


Lisa Barthelson - life’s a ball, sock it to me, family debris
outgrown socks, worn socks, socks with partners spirited away by the sock eaters inside washing machines.

This one is like “please do not touch” because you know you want to.


Rebecca McGee Tuck - Threshold-fast
Collected marine debris


Michaela Morse - Grab & Go (Variation 1: Tablecloth)
A school replaced their vended snacks with fresh food prepared off site and therefore require transit in thick plastic bags.
on the other hand, the students bring in their own reusable utensils.

so it kind of balances out.


Jeffrey Nowlin - Object 2
He ended up with surplus earbuds and needed to use them somehow else they’d be rotting in some landfill.
Or, you know, not rotting and just sitting there.


Lillana Folts - Meadows—The Gardening Revolution
A reminder to plant native flowers.


Lisa Barthelson - wired and worn on the wall 6, family debris


Alma Baumwoll - Family History no. 2: Working Mom
More bittersweet, along with the remnants of old toddler clothing and plastic waste.


Anna Pancoast - Interdependence


Adriana G Prat - Dreaming of Earth Regeneration


Michaela Morse - Hammock (2)


Alma Baumwoll - Invasive Krummholz
A German word meaning crooked wood, or trees exposed to harsh mountain winds


Jeffrey Nowlin - Object 1
A branch wrapped in found and reclaimed fibers


Nancy Crasco - Invasive Porcelain Berry

I ganked this from somewhere
burning question: why capitulate to the Trump administration when they've proven time and time again they'll just fuck you over anyway?