SHE WALKED THROUGH THE FAIR

If you are in NYC this weekend make sure to pop by both these events. Arts Under The Bridge, is Dumbo Art Center's 11th annual art fair. On the West Side is The NY Art Book Fair, where art books, art catalogues etc are for sale. Book Fair first, then train to Dumbo late afternoon, plenty of high jinks till the wee hours. Of course call into my friends Steve West's "Jay Street" bar on Jay Street. It will be jammers, usually live music and tons of fun.

NYC-TAIWAN

Regular Pelicula 64 reader and photographer Peter Biaimonte has decided to spend September in Tiawan. Yesterday was National Typhoon day so go here now NYC-TAIWAN and often to see what the day to day living on the other side of the world is all about. Pete just got there and likes his food so the first few days sound like doing the rounds in Chinatown. No General Tso? what's up with dat.

THE WEEKENDER / SPENCERTOWN

The Weekender Spent this Saturday with the great people who run Spencertown Academy. This arts run center is based in Upstate NY and has an arts-in-education program, musical events and a terrific gallery among many other assets. Right now it is showing Graduate work form the Cornell University Studios. Pretty interesting. It was time for their annual Fall Book Festival and and my wife and I were happy to help out in the fund raiser, the culmination of the weekends festivities being the Harvest Dinner. This was held at the farm of Karen and George Jahn with Columbia County and the Berkshires getting ready to blaze with Autumn, Spectacular. Of course a photograph of this would tie all this together but no such luck. Guests, Ruth Reichl, editor of Gourmet magazine, John Orloff, screenwriter of the Mariann Pearl story A Mighty Heart, Peter Biskind, writer of Easy Riders, Raging Bulls, were in attendance. At our table were author/artist Marc Rosenthal, his beautiful book PHOOEY is now out, and his wife Eileen. Also photographer/mixed media artist Linda Soberman and her husband Carlos. Dinner was veg corn chowder, followed by butterflied leg o lamb and everything was harvested with twenty miles of the academy. Boggle Merlot went down very easily as all our table can attested to, by sending me off to procure another bottle before they shut the barn down. Many thanks to board member Al Vink, who got us involved in the academy.

Here's another

100 YEARS IN LIVING COLOR

Nice piece in the Smithsonian magazine this month about the photo process unveiled 100 years ago by the Lumieres, them again, the Autochrome. With all the different and excellent writings and shows on the history of color photography, (Martin Parr, Christian Patterson,) this seemed complementary. The photos in the Magazine are far better than on line so if you get a chance to sneak a peak somewhere its worth it. The process seems quite outrageous, potatoes and silver bromide, but what photographic process isn't and the outcome is wondrous, as if Seurat himself picked up the camera and said this is what I want it to look like. The way things are going in the sheet film world I may have to farm a couple of acres of spuds, see if the wife will give up the spaghetti squash in her garden.

VANS FRIDAY

A little bit of history behind this one. Taken from Martin Scorsese's 1978 film "The Last Waltz", Van plays Caravan from his album Moondance accompanied by The Band. Its rousing performance to say the least and you can catch glimpses of Robbie and levon lashin' into the songs structure. Apparently Van at this time had touches of stage fright, it took his manager Harvey Goldsmith to kick him on stage, even after he had been announced he was back peddling. No need to worry as you can see from the performance, he leaves the stage strutting like a peacock. According to musical historians this is where Van was bestowed with one of his nicknames, Van the Man. You can see Robbie Robertson beaming as he shouts the name to the audience at Van's departure from the stage. Apparently The Band also gave him the name Belfast Cowboy. Nick Hornby in his book Songbook about his 31 favourite songs, names "Caravan" from the live album, It's Too Late to Stop Now as the song he wants played at his funeral. He says that "in the long, vamped passage right before the climax Morrison's band seems to isolate a moment somewhere between life and its aftermath, a big, baroque entrance hall of a place where you can stop and think about everything that has gone before." Then he humorously realizes that this is also the place where Morrison introduces the band and wonders how the mourners will feel about hearing all the unknown people's names being called out as they file out of the funeral, but says "I'm not changing my mind, so there. "Turn it up, Turn it, little bit higher, its got soul."