> Whatever it takes to have a nice day: James Franco, Gus Van Sant screening + artist talk!

>
> James Franco is everywhere. Including Portland! "Milk" collaborators Franco and director/Portland darling Gus Van Sant are gonna show up together at the Hollywood Theater this Sunday to screen Franco's assemblage of outtakes and dailies from Van Sant's 1991 film "My Own Private Idaho," a River Phoenix, Keanu Reeves odyssey with loose ties to Shakespeare's Henry IV plays and strong ties to John Rechy's City of Night. As the project's title suggests, Franco leaves Reeves out of the collage for the most part-the film functions as a two-hour homage to Phoenix's dramatics in the role of gay, narcoleptic street hustler. What we'll witness is a mere fraction of Franco's 12 hour editor's cut entitled "Endless Idaho," which has screened, in New York and LA, as an installation audience members may enter and exit at will.
>
> Elaborated Franco via The Paris Review, "[Van Sant's] films now are much more spare in story and dialogue; they involve longer takes and fewer cuts. We were naturally led to wonder what Idaho would be like if he made the film now, and Gus offered to let me make my own cut. It was overwhelming to be able to cut the raw material of my favorite film, a film that had moved me, that had helped shape me as a teenager. The only way I could justify cutting such material was to do what Gus and I had discussed: I cut it as if Gus had made it today."
>
> $35 bucks to see all these favorites in one room ($30 for Hollywood Theater members), and if that weren't plenty R.E.M.'s Michael Stripe contributes the soundtrack! Holding our breaths for "My Own Private Reeves-12 hours of "Bill & Ted" outtakes!
>
> September 25, 12:30 P.M. (12 P.M. Showing sold out.) Hollywood Theater 4122 NE Sandy, Portland, Oregon

> Links:
> http://vimeo.com/29396555
> http://hollywoodtheatre.org/one-night-only/private-river-gus-van-sant-special-guest/

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Plazm 20th Anniversary Event photos

On a Plazm schedule, it's been a month - here are some photos from the 20th Anniversary event. Album on Facebook:
http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10150319263774557.359677.48648579556&type=1

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Flying home on 9/11.10

Flying home on 9/11.10

This year, my route home from residency in Vermont took me to the skies on the 10th anniversary of the attacks on the World Trade Center.

Last year, my route home was on 9/12, metaphorically the day after. Last year, I sat in the Burlington airport and watched two families await the arrival home of servicemen fathers. I had to choke back tears, watching the emotions of the reunions and thinking about the symbolism and all the meaning behind those uniforms and where these men had been.

This year, there were a few people in the airport dressed in flag ensembles, and a snippet of news coverage was overheard in passing. On one flight, the attendant asked for a moment of silence in remembrance; most complied—except for a few people who were laughing. Really? Yes.

Given my long lay-over, I had time to think about my own feelings on this war. I am adamantly opposed to war, so the fact that this one (or two, but who’s counting?) has lasted so long when we the people were promised it would be six months, tops, is inexcusable. I can’t really say much more than that. Well, I can, because I can debate the socio-political what-not of the situation, but I won’t. I did remember some writing I did just after the attacks, and want to share it.

This piece incorporates a motif from Gabriel Garcia-Marquez’s novel, One Hundred Years of Solitude. In the novel, the patriarch, Jose Buendia, goes crazy at the time his son goes to war, for an indefinable cause. In Buendia’s words, the time machine has stopped. Here are my words, originally written in November of 2001. It is a patchwork sort of piece. The lack of capitalization, minimal punctuation, and random paragraphing are intentional:


I.

My mind has been quite disjointed in it’s flow since the outbreak of war. I see a dangerous cycle that has been with man since time, and in parallel contrast I see a movement toward other ways of living side by side, of resolving conflict, of getting along. Is terrorism, in any way, right or excusable? No. Yet, I believe in Peace. Those are the two voices in my head—the fear and the longing. So, in writing this piece I wanted to organize my words around this cacophony. I wanted to convey what my heart feels on this day—the day on which the time machine broke.


II.

It’s a beautiful morning it’s a beautiful morning a beautiful morning it’s a beautiful morning. I’m on my bike to school. birds sky clouds cracks in the street leaves begin to turn leaves fall…leaves it’s fall. whisssh whisssh my tires on the road.

I can’t believe this is happening…did you hear? A bomb the towers are down we’re at war. leaves fall in my heart. two months later I would remember the war planes fly by the window as I teach. two months later friends and I walk to the park I would see flames in the leaves of the trees—the colors of the WTC explosion must have been like those of the beautiful maple trees. flame orange and red that I saw with Sean & Sophie on the way to Wilshire park.

Leaves fall buildings crash life ends and my life goes on. those trees the reds so translucent so vibrant a melon-rich red orange flame orange and the next day and the next as I bike by the leaves fall and fallen are on the ground. I would remember that day when dad told me, Neva even the oldest trees must die.

Wednesday morning I awoke, I stepped onto the back porch into the singing of backyard birds, I watched the squirrels and it was calm just like any morning I choose to check. it was calm and peaceful.

I’m trying to hold onto the Dalai Lama’s notion that peace begins within the person. imagine all the people living in the world…war is over if you want it…give peace a chance…it’s been a month and I watch the tribute to John Lennon and NYC and cry.

It was a beautiful morning. the time machine broke. it will always be Tuesday in America.

I’m on my bike again and with the whissh whisssh of tires this echoes in my mind thou shalt not kill thou shalt not kill and we chant at Christmas…let there be peace on earth and let it begin with me.

It’s a blue, blue sky (the same sky covers Afghanistan).

Back on my bike and I remember watching MASH last night the episode ended with Colonel Potter blowing out a candle on a cake and wishing peace on his staff.

Peace I see the message everywhere peace whsssh leaves fall it’s a beautiful morning birds cracks in the street whssssh peace peace peace whssssh it will always be Tuesday peace can begin with me as leaves fall the spring brings new growth and even as the oldest trees die war will end peace whssssh whssssh peace.


III.

..the list line of the last song on the last Beattles album: the love you take is equal to the love you make…

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Signs, Signs, Everywhere Signs...

I've always loved the line from the song Signs by Five Man Electrical Band,

"...So I got me a pen and a paper and I made up my own little sign...". That's what we did when we created Plazm. I stood in the 20 Year Anniversary party, and looked around--it was a room of sign makers, and it made me proud.

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Psycho-Geological Fantastical Ice Cream/Book Launch

Free ice cream launch and history lesson brought to you by Junior Ambassador (a.k.a. Rudy Speerschneider) this Thursday from 6-8 PM. Speerschneider is known for his work in a collective project(s) known as Mostlandia, which appeared at TBA and did many interesting things around Portland.

For the current occasion, on-demand art book builder Publication Studio has chronicled the life of the no longer extant/newly legendary Junior Ambassador’s Food Cart in a 400-odd-page album of surveys, to do lists, sales sheets, love & friendship indexes, journal notes, recipes, menus, fliers, drawings, emails, maps, photographs, poems, forms, business plans and thank you’s, now on U.S. tour as an installation with The People’s Biennial.

The big book and the latest batch of no-two-scoops-alike Universe Ice Cream are to be released in tandem under the last of the summer sun. Says Speerschneider of the homespun ice cream he continues craft despite the shuttering of his cart, “First, and most recently, it is: ‘A Portal to Mostlandia’...and still: ‘The Official Dish of Mostlandia’...and always ‘the "Oldest and most Famous frozen treat provisioner in Mostlandia’ oh, and it's ‘Sweet Awesome’ too.”

Says Speerschneider of Mostlandia, “It was founded by the four members of the arts group the M.O.S.T. on the floor of our friend's apartment, and after much map making, meetings, citizens and portal spectrometry, has come to be referred to, in one way or another, as: 'a psycho-geological fantastical place, not-place place...when it's not a matter of where, but how...it is nowhere, and now here.'"

Psychedelic sweets, tender moments, music, honoring the past, daydreaming of the future: September 22nd 6-8 @ the old cart spot on the grassy lot at 4734 N. Albina in Portland, Oregon. Free pints of Universe Ice Cream for buyers of the book. ---Elizabeth Pusack

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