Thursday, August 11, 2011

The American Dream: Wonder Fair's OurTube and Local Protesters / Literary Album of the Week: Richard Buckner's Our Blood /Tyler Gregory in the Pitch



The third installment of Wonder Fair's OurTube series arrives at Spencer Art Museum tonight with four showings at 6:00, 6:30, 7:00, and 7:30. This one seems to have a patriotic theme, with BARRR reported to be "merchandising" the event with flags of some sort. We predict a trenchant interrogation of American patriotism that nonetheless leaves us with a warm American glow and ends with a flag-waving parade down to Mass. Street.

Chip: "Will the Wonder Fair gang be serving any special all-American treats at this event, such as apple pie or chicken-fried steak?"

















And speaking of American values, local progressives banded together last night on Mass. Street in a poorly-publicized protest that nonetheless drew a decent crowd holding "Save the American Dream" and "Jobs Not Cuts" sign. Click to enlarge and see how many of your Eastside neighbors you can identify (notice how they are gathered in a clump for a class-photo-style picture).

















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As literary geeks, we like our songwriters to be super-wordy, so we're often drawn to stuff like The Decemberists and Okkervil River and Richard Buckner, who has returned with a much-praised new album called Our Blood, his first since 2006.

Even Pitchfork is impressed, bestowing an 8.0:

"Buckner remains one of the most intriguing songwriters working, using a style that's more likely to show up in anthologies of 20th-century literature than in other Merge Records liner notes. On paper, these tunes are collections of highly punctuated paragraphs (not verses), full of pauses and run-ons and fragments. Diaphanous closer "Gang" is a set of two tangled, 70-word questions that beg to be diagrammed."

Richard: "I plan to spend most of this afternoon diagramming those sentences. Join me if you like."

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We love Pitchweekly's column where local musicians offer a list of what they dig these days. This week's guest: prolific Larryville musician Tyler Gregory.

We're especially intrigued by his pick for best recent film:

"The Last One. A Popcorn Sutton documentary. Popcorn distills one last batch of moonshine in front of a camera before his passing. Quite a sight ... look into it!"


Based on this Youtube clip from the film, we absolutely do want to see (and WILL see) this film. Thanks for the pick, Tyler!

Go here to check out the rest of Tyler's interests and find some conversation-starters for the next time you see Tyler Gregory (which will almost certainly be at tomorrow's Replay matinee with James Dean Rose and Ashes to Immortality).

Here's Popcorn and Tyler!














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