A quote from Yale student Aliza Shvarts, excerpted from the Yale Daily News:
For the past year, I performed repeated self-induced miscarriages. I created a group of fabricators from volunteers who submitted to periodic STD screenings and agreed to their complete and permanent anonymity …
Commentary roundup:
The Harvard Crimson
Ars Gratia Artis?
By Lucy M. Caldwell
April 25, 2008
Wall Street Journal: In the Fray
Art and (Wo)man at Yale
By MICHAEL J. LEWIS
April 24, 2008
The Huffington Post
Aliza Shvarts Insists Miscarriage Art Project is Real
April 17, 2008
My earlier post inspired this interview with Elaine Ficarra, Director of Marketing for the International Festival of Arts & Ideas, excerpted from The Art Agenda. Originally broadcast on 88.1fm, WESU, Middletown on April 24, 2008. This recording also includes audio of Zachary Schomburg reading from The Man Suit, as well as references to previous posts.
Courtesy of Weekend Party Update (all real quotes, in real order, with many omissions)
“How are you doing? How are you doing? How are you doing. Art you having fun? It’s really great. Are you having fun? I’m having fun. Absolutely. We’re having a great time. Are you having a good time? Having a great time. Do you love [name of arts organization]? Uh, yeah? It’s a great place. This is a wonderful night. Are you having a great time? I’m having a great time! It’s a great place. You always look great. No you look great! You’re not leaving. [Martini break]. So, you’re having an okay time? We’re having a great time. We’re having a great time. We do a lot of corporate events. This has been wonderful. Everyone’s so excited. You’re doing a great job, and you look great. You look really good. So, are you having an okay time tonight? It’s really cool, yeah, it’s really fun. Well, you look good. Thanks. You’re welcome. You look good too. Thank God you’re here. I’m out of cigarettes. We were at the opera gala before this. People love opera. [Silence]. [Dancing]. [Making out while dancing]. Okay, so we’re saying good night. Have a good night. Buh-bye.”
It’s national poetry month, so I don’t feel too bad about writing three “Black Ocean” posts, but I promise I’ll move on soon. Zachary Schomburg’s The Man Suit arrived in the mail yesterday and it is that brilliant book of poetry I have been waiting for since, oh, Ariel Dorfman’s brilliant post-9/11 book, In Case of Fire in a Foreign Land. Which came out in 2002.
In a strange convergence of good playwright and good poet, here is Harold Pinter reading Dorfman’s “Last Will and Testament.” As someone recently pointed out to me, it is kind of unsettling to hear someone read a poem after you have heard it in your head so many times.
Then again, maybe it is not so strange, since Dorfman is a playwright as well.
Last week, Andrew Taylor at The Artful Manager posted an entry about “progressive disclosure,” a tech-savvy design strategy for conveying complex information to audiences.
Andrew invited readers to post their success stories, but—no surprise—there were none. Using technology effectively is hard! Most arts organizations are only beginning to look beyond basic e-marketing and websites to think about how the integration of technology on a subcutaneous level could serve their mission.
That is why I was so surprised to find DAISY close to home, in New Haven. DAISY, or the Dynamic Arts & Ideas Search Yielder, is a new tool for the International Festival of Arts & Ideas. Not only does DAISY illustrate the many links between all events of the festival, it provides numerous ways to access information about events. Online browsers can view an alphabetical breakdown of events, or a list that is segmented by theme or genre. For example, Event: Bike Tour has connecting Themes: Environmental, Global and Spirituality. I was curious about how a Bike Tour connected to Spirituality, so I clicked, leading me to a tour of Sacred Architecture. It is more fun than a list, and if you don’t know where to start, there is even a “random” feature that will help you get going.
In the spirit of most ambitious projects, DAISY is not perfect. A simple search of “Bike Tour” in the DAISY system came up empty, and the back button on my browser pulled me back to the homepage instead of my previous search. I am curious to find out who’s behind DAISY, and where else it might be popping up. Stay tuned for an Art Agenda interview in the near.
Lex Leifheit is the Executive Director of SOMArts Cultural Center, co-host of Feast of Words: Literary Potluck, and has an insatiable appetite for art. She lives in San Francisco.
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