venangago-go

Here's what I learned last weekend in Volant. If you eat food that was prepared by a stranger in a tent, there's a pretty good chance that you'll be curled up on the floor with cold sweats a couple of hours later.

Before that though, I had the chance to check out the new Barrow Civic Little Theatre last Friday, and while more than one person told me they felt like they were at A Steeler's pep rally due to the new yellow and black motif, and I miss the funky old tables (and the bar seemed to be closed. Is this permanent? I don't want to come over as a booze hound, but a glass of red wine from a box can really pep up an otherwise lackluster show...) now replaced by plastic card table looking things, it was great to see a crowd of about 35 turn out to support a night of One Acts and Monologues.

Yet another local book published without the benefit of an ISBN. Why do all that work just to make sure that no one outside of the area will ever be able to buy it?

Longtime readers know that this is one of my pet peeves. It's not a hard process! If we're so proud of our area, why do we only market it to ourselves, hiding our lights under bushels (or empty oil drums, I suppose). If you don't want to work with me, I'd be glad to recommend other consultants, but please, market your work!

On a much, much happier note, Clarion Venango Campus has released their cultural arts schedule for the fall and it's really impressive. Thanks for all you do there for all of us.

CRAFT-ED, a show crossing the line between art and crafts, will open the Fall 2007 exhibits in Clarion's University Gallery, Level A, Carlson Library.
The exhibit, Sept. 4 through Oct. 4, features the work of Sara Christensen Blair, Nicholas R. Schutsky, and Chris Wall. Call 814-393-2523 for hours.

A Voice Like Rhetoric is shooting a music video for "Please Don’t Call Me A Mindless Philosophy" this Saturday at Butler's Penn Theatre (149 North Main Street, Butler, Pennsylvania 16001). They want to pack the audience. The shoot and the show afterwards are free.

Gypsy Dave And The Stump Jumpers play a free show this Friday at 6pm at Meadville's Artists Cup Cafe (Market St, Meadville, Pennsylvania 16335). It's their last local show for awhile as they are heading out on the road.

Claudia Emerson, winner of last year's Pulitzer Prize in poetry, reads at Chatham University Friday at 8 p.m.

The University of Pittsburgh Press honors Ed Ochester for his 30 years as editor of its Poetry Series Oct. 3 with a reading by Gerald Stern at 7:30 p.m. in Pitt's Parran Hall Auditorium.

The Post Gazette talks some more about Pittsburgh based sitcom Back to You:
Pittsburghers sometimes complain that shows set here, like The Kill Point, never feature characters with a Pittsburgh accent. "So few people in the world know about it that when you tell them what the Pittsburgh accent sounds like, they're like, 'What the hell is that?'" [the producer] said.

The benefits I've enjoyed, courtesy of a .edu email address, are now available to everyone. The New York Times has stopped charging for access to much of its Web site.

The submission deadline for The Mountain Playhouse International Comedy Playwriting Contest the 2008 Playwriting Contest is December 31st, 2007. The prize for the winning play is $3,000 and a public reading of the play before the end of 2008 at The Mountain Playhouse. In addition, Mountain Playhouse will consider presenting a live stage production of the play during 2008 or 2009.
The rules for the contest are as follows:

No re-submissions of plays previously submitted unless revised 70% or more.

Must be a World Premiere Candidate

Cannot be produced before 2009

MUST be able to be performed by EIGHT actors or less

Must be a comedy

To submit your entry, you will need to download the Playwriting Contest Agreement, print and sign it, then mail your play with the agreement to 7690 Somerset Pike, P.O. Box 205, Jennerstown, PA 15547.

While I originally headed over to the Post Gazette site to read their take on the upcoming PBS Mexican Muralist show, but, just for fun, clicked on the byline of the author, Mary Thomas, and found this:
A continuing interest in social and cultural evolution, and the cognitive structures that promoted or resulted from such, led her to the academic pursuit of the object as visual manifestation of belief systems and values via art historic, anthropological and cross-cultural studies. Postmodernist ideas have in our recent history updated traditional connoisseurship. Notions such as identity, voice and deconstruction, which inform contemporary Western culture, also are interpreted by today's artists. Events and ideas reported in the news sections of the Post-Gazette find their parallels, expanded and embellished, in museum and gallery exhibitions. She finds it a pleasure to introduce the latter to the broader discussion initiated on the pages of the newspaper.

Now why would anyone ever say that writers and artists are out of touch with the common (wo)man?

I have some schwag to give out. A copy of Sam Sparro's Black and Gold album and a copy of Bass Ale's The New British Invasion CD featuring Badly Drawn Boy, The Kooks, The Aliens, Hot Chop, The Chemical brothers, Fatboy Slim and Tracey Thorn. First person to email me their postal address gets them both.

Starkville, Mississippi, Pardons Johnny Cash. Speaking of such, Spinner has an excerpt from Johnny Cash's first wife's book, I Walked the Line: My Life with Johnny.(via)