More about that Mendel gig.

Panic time! We’re just two weeks away from our performance at the Mendel Art Gallery and we’re frantically assembling our set.

Here’s what’s happening. On January 16 a bunch of musicians, dancers, actors, and other flaky characters (under the non-flaky leadership of Carrie Catherine) will be taking over the Mendel for a pageant of wonder and whatzitry which we’re calling (for reasons still mysterious) LUGO.

It will be a jumble. Each performer will bring his or her own drum, metaphorical or in some cases literal, and at 8:30 PM we’ll all start banging away at once. At times it will be a riot of spontaneous creative expression. At other times it will get quiet and everyone will be encouraged to focus their attention on one thing for a few minutes at a time.

The band known as Sea Water Bliss will occupy one of those quiet interludes. We’ll be performing our Song of Syracuse, the story of the Athenian siege of Syracuse during the Peloponnesian War. As some context is necessary, we’ll be using reversible cardboard panels and cutouts (manipulated by longtime Sea Water Bliss associates Troy Mamer and Steve Barss) to help move the story along. We’ll try our damnedest to keep the whole shebang down to eight or nine minutes.

Right now Troy and Steve and I are deep in cutting-and-pasting mode. Steve’s basement looks like a bomb went off in a box factory, and between us we’ve inhaled several tumours worth of spray adhesive. Meanwhile Andrew and I are figuring out how to shift smoothly between 4/4 and 3/4 time. Luckily I’m taking the next couple weeks off, so I expect I’ll have time to get everything wrapped up, and maybe finally get my hair cut, too.

Anyway, if you’re in Saskatoon on the 16th, you should come to the show. If Thucydides isn’t your bag there’ll be lots of other entertainment on display, some of it bound to suit you. Seeya at the Mendel, art goons and history nerds!

M.

Flipapalooza & LUGO.

Here’s what’s happening with the band. A few days ago Andrew and I filmed some footage for our upcoming time-lapse binder video shoot. I’m in the process of breaking the video into thousands of still black-and-white images like the one on the left, which will be printed and assembled into binders. This Saturday we’ll prop the binders in front of a camera and flip through the pages at the rate of four seconds per page. Then when the video is sped up, if I’ve done my math correctly, the flipping pages will synch up with our song Clowns.

The flipapalooza will kick off at around 8 PM on Saturday Nov. 28th in the back room at Sig’s Place in Vonda, forty minutes east of Saskatoon. If you’re in the area, please feel free to drop by. If you ask nicely we might even let you flip a binder for us.

LUGO! (…whatever that means.)

I’ve also signed us up for an “arts happening” in January at the Mendel Art Gallery. Local folksy girl Carrie Catherine is organizing this shindig, which is called LUGO.

The provenance of the word “lugo” has not been explained to us, but it seems to summon images of an Italian street festival, which isn’t too far off the mark. In addition to music, Lugo will include video, drama, dance, and all things artsy and fartsy. I’m not sure yet exactly what kind of casserole Andrew and I will be bringing to this pot-luck, but you can be sure that it will be lumpy.

M.