We cannot be stopped
Wednesday was a bit calmer than Tuesday. Lee came down with a cold and as it happens with superhero teamwork, Jon, Linda, and Michael made up for his deteriorated functioning.
Linda had a non-stop stream of guests featuring Jessica Hudson who directed a version of West Side Story with an all female cast (MP3) , the Hellcat Hussies came in for their interview after that and spoke of their experiences bringing Rubenesque Burlesque to Chicago.. their motto… “putting the ass back into sass” (MP3), and as if that was not enough Linda continued with Roxana Imam who played in the band Environmental Encroachment (among others) that rocked our home of Buddy Gallery on Friday night for the opening of this here Version festival (MP3).
Michael Starve interviewed Michael Hernandez deLuna who curated a recent show that was “reviewed” by the Secret Service here in Chicago (MP3) and for Poetic License Michael Trigilio interviewed his cousin Tony Trigilio about his work in one of the only graduate poetry programs in the United States (MP3).
Jon Brumit had his friend, curator Mitch Cope take the train from Detroit ($23) to come talk about some of his projects including “the International Shrinking Cities Project” and Detroit’s New Contemporary Art Museum, and by phone Mitch’s neighbor Jeff Karolski performed by mixing the audio from our stream with a stream from WBEZ (the Chicago NPR affiliate for those unaware) and WDET (Detroit Public Radio). (MP3)
Despite his weakened condition Lee managed a couple of interviews himself. Things began with the Estonian duo known as Avant Garde who were at Version to show 2 pieces, one documenting the good life of the artist, and the other fetishizing the mushroom cloud of a nuclear bomb (MP3). Jon and Lee then began talking about the work of Astra Price (MP3) (originally we were supposed to interview her directly, but timing just didn’t work out). Finally, we got some insight into the culture of live-work lofts/art spaces from two inhabitants of those spaces here in Chicago, Matt from Buddy (MP3) and Heather from Texas Ballroom (MP3).