venangago-go: Giant Rice Krispie sculptures

I spent the last two days doing research at various area university libraries. There is nothing so wonderful as a college campus in the summer. All the amenities, no students. Beautiful. In the bookstores you can see the college's students' lives reflected. Allegheny sells martini glasses and shakers while SRU sells branded hats that look exactly like a camo skoal gimmee hat.

Why do you continue to taunt me Matt Pond PA? I just found out about their Pittsburgh show last night, which means I'll miss them. Again.

Lauren Urbschat's opening for "Marshmallow Meditation: Take One," an installation for the Three Rivers Art Festival is tonight from 5:30 p.m.-7:30 p.m. 937 Liberty Ave., Downtown Pittsburgh. Free. 412-281-8723. Yep. It's sculptures made of rice crispie treats.
Kellogg's donated 3,192 boxes of cereal for the project. That left for purchase more than 50 pounds of butter, 300 pounds of marshmallows and multiple cases of concentrated food gel. But the main shipment of marshmallows never showed up, and a new order had to be FedExed less than a week before the opening."

Ah Western PA. Where a man can wake up and find the headline,
"Students told not to drive tractors to school" in his paper.

I've never liked Sharon Olds' poetry, and now I know why:
"You can't find a first-grader who writes bad poetry" she says.
Spoken like a woman safely contained in academe who has never spent any time in an elementary school or listened to a child tell a story about, "ummmm...my uncle....he has like, 400 ferrets!"

Writers are still chewing over Poe's death. Hic Tandem Felicis Conduntur, indeed.

While a pissing contest amongst glass artists might seem tedious at best, what it reveals about the contemporary art world is fascinating:
The suit . . .offers a sometimes unflattering glimpse at how high-powered commercial artists like Mr. Chihuly work. The two glass blowers say that he has very little to do with much of the art, and that he sometimes buys objects and puts the Chihuly name on them, a contention that Mr. Chihuly strongly denies.

He acknowledges that he has not blown glass for 27 years . . . Still, Mr. Chihuly said, he works with sketches, faxes and through exhortation.

And he wears a bitchin' eye patch. Which makes him artist enough for me. Or pirate. I forget.

The NYTimes is asking you to nominate the best summer cocktail. Boilermaker did you say? hmmm.....

And yes, the concept of a beer sommelier makes me itchy.

I'm not sure how I missed the death of Peter Viereck, who was one the only American writers to win Pulitzer prizes for both history and poetry. It could be my polical bias showing through . . .