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Archive: March, 2010
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| artstarcraftbazaar.com |
| Want to submit? You've got till Tuesday. |
If you're an artist of any stripe in Philadelphia — whether you're a sculptor, dancer, musician, writer, painter, crafter, actor, photographer or multimedia artist — there's ample opportunity this spring to be part of the local scene. But you must apply! And deadlines, they are looming. Here's a chronological rundown of upcoming registration/application deadlines to help keep you organized; holler in the comments if you know about any other orgs looking for Philly artists.
- Tuesday, March 23: ART STAR CRAFT BAZAAR >> This year's weekendlong juried arts-n-crafts bonanza (May 15-16 at Penn's Landing) will feature more than 100 vendors, who must submit an application with images, plus a $10 fee; in return, selected artists will get a 10-by-10 space to sell, sell, sell at one of the most well-attended, lovely craft weekends all year.
- Friday, March 26: engAGE ARTS >> The Philadelphia Corporation for Aging is hosting a monthlong festival in May specifically designed to celebrate art created by the 55+ community. Everything from fabric art and jewelry to wood-carvings and paintings will be accepted, so long as the work's original and has been created within the past three years. It's free to apply, and you can sell your work at the fest.
- Friday, April 2: PHILLY FRINGE >> Holy guacamole, we can hardly believe Fringe is creeping up already. Arguably THE biggest two weeks in Philly's arts year, the Live Arts/Fringe fests (Sept. 3-18) teem with creative energy, the latter of which is "open to any artist who has a piece of work to present and can find a venue." It costs $80 to enter, and the rest is up to you, from finding a space to self-producing. It's a wild ride, and last year roughly 200 Philadelphians took it.
- Friday, May 14: DCCA RESIDENCY >> The Delaware Center for the Contemporary Arts announced its 2010 Art and Community Visual Arts Residency Program, an up-to-8-week stay at the Wilmington hub, where participants "collaborate with an under-served community group" and create artwork based on the experience. Applicants must submit proposals with a budget, and those selected will begin their residencies in the fall of 2011.
- Saturday, May 15: PMA PHOTOGRAPHY PORTFOLIO COMPETITION >> The Philadelphia Museum of Art's Women's Committee hosts this group show, where selected photographers' work will be displayed at the museum in fall 2010. It costs $40 to enter, and participants must submit 10 to 15 images along with the application.
- Tuesday, June 1: PHILADELPHIA OPEN STUDIO TOURS >> The Center for Emerging Visual Artists' annual walking-tour exhibit, scheduled for this October, is open to all artists, and applications — including photo upload and entry fee — must be completed online.
A screen grab of last night's 30 Rock courtesy of New York Times writer David Itzkoff's Twitpic. If only Kabletown really existed. So who is down for a viewing of Horny with a Chance of My Balls?
Speaking of Comcast (that would be the real Kabletown for anti-30 Rockers), the FCC has put out it's public notice about the Philly-based cable giant's acquisition of NBC. If you want to complain about it, comments or petitions to deny are due May 3.
Watch the full episode (which includes Esquire covergirl Tina Fey spewing Philly cliches) below:
RELATED >> 30 Rock takes on the Comcast buy-out
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| CREDIT |
| Fanning as Cherie Currie and Kristen Stewart as Joan Jett in The Runaways. |
Dakota Fanning is one of the most poised teenagers I've ever talked to -- either insanely mature for a 16-year-old or well-coached in the ways of PR spin. But she lets loose in The Runaways (opens today, see Shaun Brady's review), the biopic of the titular girl band, playing corseted teen sex pot singer Cherie Currie. Fanning talked with City Paper about playing a real person, shower singing and who she is rooting for on American Idol.
City Paper: You're in a really weird spot as an actress now, going from child star to fully-realized human being. Why did you choose The Runaways as a part of this transition?
Dakota Fanning: I thought the story had so much to offer and it was such a challenge for me and to play a real person was such a challenge in and of itself. The subject matter is pretty intense. But I really loved that Cherie was actually 15 when she went through this and I was 15 when we made the movie. It just seemed the thing to do: It was the perfect mix of something different that I've never done before and kind of things that people not expect from me.
CP: You talk about the challenges of playing a real person. All the tabloid fodder focused on Joan Jett and Kristen Stewart's relationship. What was your relationship like with Cherie?
DF: It was amazing. Cherie is such an unbelievable person. We have a really close relationship, she's become really close with my family and I've become close with her. She's just a really complex, strong, wonderful woman and it's really an honor to player her bring her story to people who didn't know her story before.
CP: I've seen videos of the Runaways perform and you move just like her.
DF: The "Cherry Bomb" performance was actually a choreographed dance that she did. And to actually learn part of it from her was so special and to have her there to re-live that time in her life. It was really amazing to watch and it was a huge honor for me to be able to give that to her again.
CP: There's definitely a benefit to having the person that you're playing there. But did you think there was a bias in any way toward Cherie and Joan Jett because they were there and had such a hand in the film?
DF: Well, the movie was produced by Joan and it was based on Cherie's book. They were the ones who wanted to be wanted to involved. I don't really know the specifics on everybody else. The other people weren't on the set like Joan and Cherie were. But it probably would have been different because you can't put everything into the movie. You have to pick and choose what can be pulled.
CP: One of the things about the Runaways that I loved was it totally brought me back to be 15 and hearing "Cherry Bomb" for the first time. Just like, jumping on my bed and screaming that song. I figure this is an experience that most teenage girls have; when they find that passion for music, they sing into their hairbrush to get the teenage ya-yas out. When it comes to your own experience, are you a hair brush singer? A shower singer? What's your mode for rocking out?
DF: For me, singing has always been something that I've guarded with my life. I'm really self-conscious about it — in front of my family, in front of my friends. I try to sing as softly as I can when a bunch of people are in the car and the music's playing. But I found that doing it in the movie, I can do it playing someone else. But when it's me, on my own, I'm a little nervous about it. I would say I'm more of a shower singer when no one is home, the door is closed and the shower is loud enough.
CP: Do you have any specific tunes that you go for when you're belting in the shower? You make sure you're all alone, shower's really loud, what are you singing?
DF: It changes all the time. I watch American Idol and I found the person that I like that week, that becomes my shower song for the week.
CP: I'm a huge Idol fan too. Who are you rooting for this season?
DF: I just love Crystal Bowersox with all my heart and soul.
CP: So you're definitely not a live singer, but it's the character that gives you the confidence to sing in front of other people?
DF: I think so. I've been an actor for so long that I'm used to taking a backseat to the character during the takes, during the scenes. It's obviously me. A lot of people would say it's the character, but it's obviously me doing it. But it is a different thing when you are playing someone else. You feel like they're with you and it's not all on you. Especially with Cherie there. When I was doing "Cherry Bomb" her family was there. Just seeing her gave me the confidence and the courage to do it the best I could for her.
CP: You're doing it for her, rather than for you.
DF: Oh yeah. This whole movie is for her. Like I said, a lot of people don't know her story and the story of her career or exactly who she is. It was my responsibility to bring her to those people. Because she is my friend and she means so much to me, I want to do the absolute best that I can.
CP: One of the reasons Cherie had such magnetism was because, as Michael Shannon [as mad impressario Kim Fowley] says in the movie, she's Bridgette Bardot with a kick-your-ass sneer. How did you work to balance the two parts of her personality?
DF: I think that's who Cherie is. She's such a badass but, at the same time, she has such an innocence about her, even today. That's why she why was able to do what she was able to do. She was able to wear a corset and being super girly but she was growling the songs and making people like it who didn't want to like it. She was going to make you like her songs. She was going to make you like her. She emulated David Bowie and that's how she got her confidence and her attitude on stage. You have to mix it with that vulnerability and that innocence that I kind of see behind her eyes. When I was watching those Live in Japan videos before I started filming, and especially once you meet her you can see that mixture. That's why she was perfect to be the lead singer of this band and became so iconic and was so good.
The Runaways opens today at UA Riverview.
Wow. Dakota grew up. She has boobs! Little ones, but they're boobs.
Awesome interview!
Here's what you'll miss if you don't pick up a City Paper this week:
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| philadelphiatheatrecompany.org |
FEATURES!
- A.D. Amorosi chats with sultry-voiced megastar Kathleen Turner, who'll play the titular role in Philadelphia Theatre Co.'s upcoming production of Red Hot Patriot: The Kick-Ass Wit of Molly Ivins. Says the actress: "I always tell myself I'd like to do something easy and soft ... but those roles never attracted me. I don't care for roles where women are victims."
- Mark Cofta reviews Language Rooms (about post-9/11 life for Arab-Americans), onstage at the Wilma Theater through April 4. The verdict? "Some scenes seem unnecessary, and the characters and issues walk a thin line between violence and absurdity ... but [playwright Yussef] El Guindi's ambitions are impressive."
- Shaun Brady reviews Mother in this week's edition of Flick Pick. Dealing "deftly in inconsistencies, in characters and tone," it's a film that "becomes a slapstick comedy, and both a melo- and psycho-drama without ever conceding its whodunit identity."
COLUMNS!
- Full Exposure heads to the Big Apple, where John Vettese waxes photographic on Philly-based Megawords' showcase at NYC's Printed Matter gallery (thanks for the headline idea, Printed Matter gallery!).
- Suite Spot shouts out the Academy of Vocal Arts, which celebrates 75 years of opera-making next Wednesday. Says Peter Burwasser: "It's a perfectly appropriate treat for a major anniversary.
AND THEN THERE'S ...
- Album Reviews of Ted Leo and the Pharmacists' Brutalist Bricks, Emma Pollock's The Law of Large Numbers, Seabear's We Built a Fire, Gorillaz's Plastic Beach and Acrassicauda's Only the Dead see the End of the War
- Arts Picks on Kun Yang Lin/Dancers, SCUBA National Touring Network for Dance and Macbeth and A Midsummer Night's Dream
- Kaleidoscope quick hits on Miro Mash-Ups, Shut Up & Dance, Little Dragon and Drive-By Truckers
- Movie Shorts on The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Neil Young Trunk Show, The Runaways and The Secret of the Kells
- Music Picks on Fruit Bats, Air and Joanna Newsom
Smart!
We pity the fool who doesn't go to this Friday's Soul Food Cinema courtesy of the fine folks at Reel Black. This month's offering is Death Drug, featuring Phillip Michael Thomas, aka Tubbs from Miami Vice as a musician addicted to PCP. Check out his supermarket drug freakout. "Don't you see it! Don't you see it!"
Reel Black's going old school and playing the movie on the 1986 VHS re-release, with an intro by Tubbs AND a break in the middle of the movie for the music video of Thomas' single "Just the Way I Planned It." Check out the lasers!
But that ain't all. Accompanying the classic Death Drug is Mr. T's anti-drug promo video Be Somebody or Be Somebody's Fool. Go or Clubber Lang will fuck you up and tell you not to do drugs.
For all your repertory film needs, check out citypaper.net/repfilm
Soul Food Cinema, Fri., March 19, 7 p.m., free with purchase of Soul Food Friday meal ($10.50 and up), The Point of Destination Cafe, 6460 Greene St., 215-849-7771, reelblack.com.
When the Cinema Alliance announced they were canceling their spring Cinefest, the Philadelphia Film Society stepped up to the plate with a spring mini-fest. Now with line-up! I'm all over The Good, The Bad, The Weird, a Korean Western from Ji-woon Kim who did the creepy-as-fuck Tale of Two Sisters.
All movies will be screened at the Prince Music Theater (1412 Chestnut St.) and get this: All tickets are free. PFS members have first dibs on Thu., March 25 but the general public gets the hook-up on Mon., March 29.
Here's the line-up:
Friday, April 9
I Am Love — 5 p.m.
Looking for Eric — 7:30 p.m.
The Square — 9:45 p.m.
Saturday, April 9
Tales from the Golden Age — 3 p.m.
Gasland — 5:30 p.m.
Holy Rollers — 8 p.m.
The Joneses — 10 p.m.
Sunday, April 10
His & Hers — 3 p.m.
The Good, The Bad, The Weird — 5 p.m.
No Crossover: The Trial of Allen Iverson — 7:45 p.m.
Harry Brown — 9:45 p.m.
Diplo and Al Bundy: A match made in heaven.
Thank you for this avoidantconsumer. A million times thank you.
fanfuckingtastic!
Molly, will you help me make a shot-by-shot remake of this scene?
We like American Idol. Too much.
Tommy Button: So, Lacey Brown went home last night. No fireworks or anything, just pure defeat.
Molly Eichel: Ding dong the witch is dead. Sorry, Lacey, I've been gunning for you since the beginning, and you should know that crazy-dyed 'do girls (save Allison Iraheta and Nikki McKibben) tend to fall out faster than over-bleached hair. There's always one, and none of them have taken home the big prize.
TB: It's really not a big deal. We're at the point in the competition where for the next four to five weeks there are always going to be at least two people who should go home. Every single person in the bottom three this week (Lacey, Paige Miles, Tim Urban) deserved to go home but Lacey Brown just happened to be the first to have her luck run out.
ME: I disagree, I still think Paige has some miles left in her (rimshot!). I think she needs one spectacular performance and she's back in the game. Can she pull it off? Probably not. Will I enjoy seeing her fail? Immensely.
TB: Do I think Tim Urban deserved the boot more? Fuck yes. But his time will come.
ME: Muhahahahaha.
TB: What's more important is who are the Lacey Brown voters gunna pull for now? Maybe they'll save Didi Benami from obscurity or just hop on the Powersox bandwagon.
ME: I think they'll go safe with someone like Katie Stevens who deserves the boot just as much as Tim does. What do you think Idol Handsies?
Former leader of the seminal band Big Star and frontrunner of the power-pop genre, Alex Chilton passed away yesterday at the age of 59. Chilton's influence was likely farther reaching than his own music. Without Big Star, the Replacements, REM and other bands with a sugary exterior hiding darker undertones would likely sound vastly different.
Michael Pelusi summed up the band's history while reviewing the Big Star box set, Keep an Eye on the Sky:
In theory, the whole idea of box(ed) sets exists for cultishly adored bands such as Big Star. For many rock nerds, their saga passed into myth long ago. In Memphis, TN, in the early '70s, Chris Bell, Jody Stephens and Andy Hummel — aspiring rockers obsessed with The Beatles, Kinks and Who — hooked up with Alex Chilton, former lead singer of The Box Tops. (Chilton sang that band's big hit "The Letter" when he was 16 years old.) The quartet made #1 Record (1972), a sparkling, chiming record that all but pioneered the power-pop genre. Commercially, it bombed. Bell quit the band. The remaining trio made the spectacular follow-up Radio City (1974), a darker, more disjointed record. Commercially, it bombed. Hummel quit the band. Chilton, Stephens and an assortment of Memphis players then made Third (aka Sister Lovers), which was even darker and even more disjointed. Record labels wanted nothing to do with it. By the time Third was finally released in 1978 — four years after it was recorded, and the same year that Chris Bell died in a car accident — the band had long ceased existing. And commercially, the album bombed of course.
Out of their three records, I'd say Radio City is my favorite, but would recommend #1 Record to new listeners.
My favorite tribute so far has come from Tennessee Rep. Steve Cohen (D), who eulogized Chilton on the House floor today, saying that Chilton's "hard, different, indentpendent and beautiful" music was exemplary of his home state. You can watch the video on CSPAN, starting at around 26:30.
Two of my favorite design blogs, Design*Sponge and DesignWorkLife, pleasantly surprised me this morning with their (unrelated) posts on Pennsylvania designers whose work serves as an ode to Philly (and Lancaster, respectively).
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| theheadsofstate.myshopify.com |
First up is Design*Sponge's feature on Philly-based artist Dustin Summers, who's just released an eight-city series of travel posters called The Heads of State. All the usual suspects — NYC, Chicago, San Francisco and Seattle — are there, but Summers would've been remiss not to include his own City of Brotherly Love, here represented by the requisite Liberty Bell and Independence Hall. Think fast if you want one — it's a limited-edition run of 100 prints ($30 a pop), so hustle over to theheadsofstate.myshopify.com.
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| ikhoor.com |
Farther afield, Lancaster designer Daniel Kent got a shout-out on DesignWorkLife for his work in general, and his Love Lancaster series in particular. He's created everything from coasters and journals to love notes and rubber stamps, all of which serve to "unite the community of Lancaster." You'll have to go to Fig Central in downtown Lancaster to hook yourself up, but wouldn't this gorgeous weekend be the perfect time to head west?
RELATED >> WANT IT NEED IT: Ork Posters' Philly Screenprint
And when you head west to Lancaster, be sure to check out BUiLDiNG CHARACTER, Downtown Lancaster's Creative Outlet with 30+ vendors selling architectural salvage, recycled name-brand clothing, handmade jewelry, local art and gifts and so much more! http://www.BUiLDiNGCHARACTER.biz
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