Saints & Haints of Baltimore: A Secret History of The Baltimore Underground, 1984-2014, Hidden In The Desk Drawer of a Dust Mote. Part 2 - Laure Drogoul

Okay, reality and the gravity of Fall have set in since the last post. My subjective worship of Baltimore folks, be they poets or poetic will probably never be finished or formed properly and if it were there wouldn't be enough interest in it for it to see actual print, but it will be gathered so that at least when Ganesh gathers me in his kindly trunk for a cosmic ride off this brutal planet it will be assembled so that hopefully master archivist Megan McShea will place it in her file cabinet.

And no history of the Baltimore arts underground of the last 30 years would be worth its cyber space if it didn't contain praise to Laure Drogoul, one of the most single-minded hardest working visionaries. I wrote this piece for as an introduction for the booklet accompanying Laure's incredible art show "Follies Predicaments and Conundrums" that was at MICA, hosted by another Baltimore art visionary who I met while having panic attacks working at Kinko's in the early '90s - Gerald Ross.

Even the flesh is a Mask; Reflections In The Cobbled Spookhouse of Laure Drogoul

One of the many superhuman skills that Laure Drogoul possesses - the power of invisibility luckily not being one of them - is the ability to lift phone conversation to the realm of high art. You could be on your way out the door to the dentist's with an inflamed molar when you receive her siren call - the next thing you know hours have passed and your brain has tunneled through miles of subterranean neon brilliance and you suddenly know everything about an arcane insect species of whose existence you were previously ignorant. Plus, when you finally awaken to the "real" world, the one at your fingertips, you realize your molar no longer aches. When you excitedly run to the mirror to take a look at it you discover you now have the enormous chompers of a beaver.

It was during one such call, when we were discussing the poignantly strange and melancholic stories of the British author Robert Aickman, that Laure said, "There is a thin line between neurosis and enchantment." This not only summed up Aickman's work neatly, but, I also felt it was a key to the heart of Laure's art.

Take a look at the sinister but playful tower called Bozo Prison (for four or more), with mortal wretched clowns yabbering trapped inside a cage with a giant pointy-eared head on top. The mouth of the head contains skinny threatening teeth that look like ice-picks and suggest the act of devouring. Below this frightening head with glazed eyes rests an innocent, dainty bowtie. At this point of postmodern carnival symbolism, as surely as clown equals psychotic, bowtie equals intellectual or effete gone horribly wrong. Is the Bozo of the title referring to the prisoner or the keeper? Which do you relate to more? This is part edgy amusement park attraction chiding goofballs, and partmonument to fear of Outside Authority ImposingMores. Inscribed on the pedestal of the piece is the phrase Reception Diagnostic Classification Center, words that can be found outside Baltimore prison facilities. It brings to mind the awesome responsibility laying on one human's shoulders to pass judgment on another.

There is a Latin American short story called, The Psychiatrist, by Machado de Assis, in which the title character arrives in a small, rural town and starts pronouncing citizens insane one by one until he is the only one on the outside of the psychiatric hospital. Looking at the eyes of the head atop Bozo Prison brings that story to mind.

The installation piece, Evidence of Fairyland, is also perched precariously on that disappearing line between neurosis and enchantment, particularly the two pieces within it called Elf Skin and Pinocchio - realistic, stretched, and apparently treated for preservation - the "skins" are pinned and mounted. Part of what makes the popular cultural myth of fairies and Fairyland a Fairyland is its airy lack of science, but here is an unsettling display of supposedly magical, mythical creatures trapped and pinned up for all to see.

Does this evidence of magic buoy our spirits or does a chill run down our spine as we nervously look around for the nimble psycho who has perhaps killed these ethereal beings? Or, does the presence of these skins mean that even magic, if it ever truly exists, dies like everything else? When I attempted to gain insight into Drogoul's craft on these pieces, asking what she made them with to create such disturbing sheens, she immediately said, "Oh -homunculus skins, homunculus skins!" her irritation at my asking such a thing only half put on.

A self-described "interdisciplinary artist, cabaret hostess, olfactory spelunker and cobbler of situations," she's also a master of the comic nightmare viewed through a skewed lens of oddball science, an invoker of spirits who I'm sure keeps The Other Side up all night talking, and a macabre Energizer Bunny of production who has been a touchstone of underground avant-garde Baltimore art for more than twenty years.

Drogoul grew up in Tinton Falls, not far from Asbury Park, New Jersey. Her entry into, and apprenticeship in, the craft of the art world was a classic one. Near one of her bus stops when she was in eighth grade was an old grain mill run by a Hungarian man named Geza DeVegh, who was a painter and also had a gallery in the mill. There was a lively arts community that met and worked and socialized in the mill, including the painter Alice Neel who Drogoul met there.

At the mill, Drogoul learned to paint figures and landscapes in oil. While she was learning the craft of art in her hometown, her aesthetic was also being influenced and formed by nearby decaying American fun-land Asbury Park. She spent a lot of time exploring there and frequented the music clubs and gay bars. You can see the thread of fading carnivals and old America run amok throughout the entire span of her work, up to the present day.

One of her earliest performances/installations in Baltimore was a madcap piece called Ha Hay Hay Hamburgers at the first Ad Hoc Fiasco in Wyman Park. The Ad Hocs were high-spirited, anarchic celebrations of art and oddness in the early '80s - subversive and loose, but organized enough to draw outsiders in. Some of the biggest pulsing brains and ids of late 20th century art in Baltimore were launched there. Her piece involved renting and transporting cows and a calf from a man in Hagerstown who normally rented animals out to circuses. She installed the livestock inside a hamburger stand, where they were fed hay as she and an assistant made free hamburgers for the festival crowd. "I love animals," Drogoul says. "I love 'em alive, I love 'em dead."

Miss Construct Demonstrates Simple Domestic Chores from 1990 is another piece that turns American stereotype - this one of the hardworking housewife - into carny sideshow. Dressed in girdle and cinderblock boots, Drogoul chainsawed sticks of butter and beat eggs with a jackhammer.

But for me, the mother of all of Drogoul's amusement park style pieces is Dolly, a giant sculpture of an ominous Kewpie doll, pink with black ice cream dip hair and black toenails. On the back of its neck is a large barcode. It lights up at night and with its outstretched, pudgy baby fingers it becomes a Godzilla of cuteness. Most historians say the modern concept of romantic love began in courtly Europe in the Middle Ages. Dolly is the monster that concept has devolved into - a baby conceived of Elvis' frozen genetic wealth, half a ton of fat liposuctioned and dumped behind a cosmetic surgery clinic in L.A. and a quart of Britney's pill-enriched tears, marinated in the cathode rays of fifty years of TV sitcoms. It is the embodiment of pop culture's neurotic obsession with possessive love. "I love you, I love you" it repeats over and over from its pursed lips. You don't hear it at first because your therapist is talking loudly about self-actualization, but then you can feel the earth vibrate beneath your feet. You turn to see it, but it's too late, a giant pink foot has squashed you and the last thing you see before losing consciousness is the black blur of its barcode as it mechanically reels away pronouncing its love to the next victim.

Drogoul's more contemporary work mainly focuses directly on communication - Eternity through rituals and fellow humans through the olfactory senses. Her 2- channel video installation, Invocation for The Last Full Measure of Devotion (séance for patriots' dreams), at Arlington Art Center invoked the spirits of dead soldiers through the use of every military uniform used in American battles since the Civil War, ritualistic hand movements based on those used in the ceremony of the changing of the guards, a pentagon painted on the ground, and Drogoul singing When You Wish Upon a Star (When your heart is in your dreams, no request is too extreme/When you wish upon a star as dreamers do).

She also held many séances, including Séance for The Queen of Romania - for Dorothy Parker and invoked the spirit of countless waitresses who worked for one of Baltimore's most beloved old restaurants, Haussners, by re-creating the famous enormous ball of string they wound together over the many years of the restaurant's existence. She found the exact type of string they used for the original and ordered it from the same manufacturer. She also used the same technique, tying small lengths of string together and attaching them to the ball.

Drogoul has also been an acting Ambassador of Smells to Russia and Japan. In Russia she took her Olfactory Factory cards and distributed them to the masses while also blindfolding herself and letting people come up and smell her. She created a Rolling Scentorium in Japan, capturing the smellscape there and collaborating with native artists. I have much more confidence in Drogoul spreading worldwide goodwill through people sniffing her than in any actions by a politician.

In the space allotted me for this essay it's impossible to pay proper homage to the complete universe that Psychic Cosmonaut Drogoul has charted and constructed. A whole book could easily be written on her performances and The 14Karat Cabaret space alone. The Cabaret has been nurturing native and national artists since 1989 - from Eugene Chadbourne and The Magnetic Fields to underground circus acts doing dubious things to their flesh and a Pride of roaring drag queens and kings. Not to mention a classic, creepy ventriloquist act enacting the timeless tale of the dummy wresting control from its master.

Drogoul sometimes even treats the crowds to her own eerie performances, such as Hal IGGG, a cabaret singer embodied as machine, a homage to 2001: A Space Odyssey or singing undulating behind a screen wrapped like a giant worm.

Small altars paying respect to the departed among revered world figures who died of AIDS and of local heroes who died way too young - like Peter Pan Zahorecz, Dawn Culbertson, and Mark Harp - line the wall across from the bar. Once, a cigarette girl patrolled the smoke-laden darkness offering assorted snacks and homemade art like paintings done on seashells.

Greeting audience members as they enter is a wildly whirling glow-in-the-dark carrot that will one day spin off into space like the ape's bone in Kubrick's most famous film.

When I asked Drogoul what may be the most important thread linking her work, she replied, "They are all masks. Even the flesh is a mask." A very fitting response for a person who worked for over a decade at A.T. Jones & Sons costume shop on Howard Street. Masks, with their flat emotions, leave room for more paradox and ambiguity. And perhaps Drogoul and her wild, playful menagerie of masks and assemblages, like Fontenelle's work, finally are more subversive to academics and societal constructs through their very act of asking not to be taken seriously.

The Blasterthon, Night Two

(Above - Lauren Ross portraying The Ling Master. Photos throughout, except the one of Francis Poole at bottom, are by Catherine Bennett)

There has been a well-oiled revolving door to the Beyond in Baltimore this year and the most recent to exit was slugger Blaster Al Ackerman. Every moment spent with him was a revelatory gift - other than when he was busting on some of my favorite grooves like Curtis Mayfield and Brigitte Fontaine, of course. I could leave Normal's for only ten minutes to make a bank deposit and sure enough I'd get back to ELO on the turntable.

But so many of my favorite books (including most everything by him), obscure movies and strange folklore I found out about through him. And his daily example of each day no matter what creating something new and " messing with the concept of time", pranking to create reality shifts, deflating the pompous or vampiric, will inspire me until I forget how to slip my hairy legs into trousers.

(Above - Blaster's most beloved and long running collaborator, editor of Lost and Found Times, John M. Bennett blowing Batworth's mind before the show).

Now that Blaster's gone I kick my gluey third eye for not running a tape recorder on at least a few of the days we worked together at Normal's, often hungover from an epic four hour Wig Night at Madame Drogoul's legendary 14 Karat Cabaret where Blaster would entrance the wild-eyed crowd with incredible output of new stories and poems. And Blaster was generally a pretty happy, fun loving guy - especially, of course, before the health woes that kicked in near the beginning of the new Millenium, but he was never happier than when he emerged from the back computer room of the store with a finished draft of a new story. Sweat, glowing skin, golden aura, the whole new poppa bit.

(Above - the set of Lauren and Gerald Ross' Ling Master playlet)

With Blaster dying when he did, though, right after two other close, beloved friends and the memorials and tribute nights that followed, my miserablist heart began to sag and I momentarily thought "Is another show a way to grieve? Shouldn't I just construct a large Shirker's Nest in Blaster's honor and eat only snackcakes and lose the resolve to defecate in receptacles?"

(Above - Eric Franklin performing with The Dirty Dozen)

Luckily, the thoughts and plans of a Miserablist are quickly scattered by the movement of life itself and with John Berndt doing most of the heavy lifting the Blasterthon was formed. In fact night two was my tiny contribution, organizationally speaking, JB did the rest.

(Above - The Dirty Dozen: Neil Feather, Bob Wagner, Eric Franklin and Dan Breen)

And through the acts of the great folks channeling Blaster and his work, once again it was made clear how fantastic, clear and distinctive his voice was, because it rang out chillingly and unmistakably like the creepy intro to the old Shadow radio show through John Eaton, Batworth, Megan McShea reading the gut busting recommendation Blaster had written for her to gain entry into a writer's retreat ("I wouldn't want to go anywhere where they didn't get Blaster," said Megan), Francis Poole, ex-Baltimorean and former Normal's star Courtney McCullough, who was the one who found Blaster post-stroke and convinced doctor hating Blaster to go to the hospital, singing George Jones' "The King is Gone"Catherine Bennett, John M. Bennett, Lauren and Gerald Ross' Ling Master play (wherein Gerald nailed the Ling Master's deranged nerdy secret master voice so well that I still belly laugh just thinking of it), The Dirty Dozen's new Orleans' style funeral march by way of Martian Harry Partch textured sound glory that built in exhilarating manic daffiness and then closed with a quiet spinning wheel of an energy that had to come to a halt and by Laure Drogoul's enchanting olfactory Blaster seance. Who that knew him doesn't have strong smell associations? Newly cracked beer can foam, tin of slightly impertinent tuna, musk of scalp oil basted bop cap. -

Blaster never went anywhere of course, other than to be everywhere still in the rich unforgettable voice of his large body of work. The Blasterthon brought him right up to the thin membrane of now for us to gaze once more with love on all he did for us and left us.

I will sign off with a beautiful email I received from Francis Poole, another beloved collaborator of Blaster's - in fact, I think their book Break Up My Water was Blaster's last printed book of his lifetime - after the soul salving Blasterthon.

"Every reading and performance flowed together seamlessly into one great celebration of Blaster Al's creative genius. While much of his work was playfully subversive it also had the power to reveal the sense of absurdity that lurks beneath the surface of much of what passes for reality and normalcy. The love and regard for Al and his works by those who read him or knew him is proof that his life and gifted imagination made a positive contribution to this crazy world. And ironically in sharing his vision he was able to show others that it's ok to give in to the undertow of one's own wacky universe. Blaster Al was an artist, a therapist, and a great guy. And like a mischievous ringmaster his spirit was there at the Blasterthon to keep the groove going. And it worked beautifully." - Francis Poole

(Below - Francis Poole)

Okay, actually I will wrap this with the lyrics to the Fitting George Jones tune that Courtney belted out for Blaster:

Last night I broke the seal on a Jim Beam decanter
That looks like Elvis
I soaked the label off a Flintstone Jelly Bean jar
I cleared us off a place on that
One little table that you left us
And pulled me up a big ole piece of floor


I pulled the head off Elvis
Filled Fred up to his pelvis
Yabba Dabba Doo, the King is gone
And so are you


'Round about ten we all got to talking
'Bout Graceland, Bedrock and such
The conversation finally turned to women
But they said they didn't get around too much
Elvis said, "Find 'em young"
And Fred said "Old Fashioned girls are fun"
Yabba Dabba Doo, the King is gone
And so are you


Later on it finally hit me
That you wouldn't be 'a comin' home no more
'Cause this time I know you won't forgive me
Like all of them other times before
Then I broke Elvis's nose
Pouring the last drop from his toes
Yabba Dabba Doo, the King is gone
And so are you
Yabba Dabba Doo, the King is gone
And so are you


Last night I broke the seal on a Jim Beam decanter
That looks like Elvis
I soaked the label off a Flintstone Jelly Bean jar

Perhaps This Is a Dangerous Fantasy, Booking A Show In Baltimore, City of Frankenstormshowflurriesclusterfucks

Fellow Cultural Warriors grappling with the loss of our dear comrade Chris Toll, the deluge of the last fiery lap of the presidential campaign, the rearing roaring head of the media-whipped-up-in-a-pricey-mouthload-of-gleaming-teeth frenzy known as "Frankenstorm", Dry Eye Syndrome, Too Juicy Orb Dilemma, Gretzky's Kneelock and other true and imagined heartbreaks, I am risking heartbreak and booking a new Shattered Wig Night in The City That Breeds Performance Venues.

Long ago, the sage Bald One, known as Buff Joe Medusa, predicted that soon Baltimore performers would have to pay audience members to get a crowd. I am gambling that it hasn't yet come to that if the show is ripe with delectable cultural essence! Plus, I got a beautiful letter from a young homie named Soft Serve who suffers from Short Arm Disease. He recounted how much The Shattered Wig has meant to him over the years and that he hoped I kept it going.

But the meat of this matter is an upcoming Shattered Wig Night on Friday, November 30th with the incredible poet Heather Fuller, author of Perhaps This Is a Rescue Fantasy and Dovecote. I first found out about her at one of the old sterling i.e. series readings, hosted by Michael Ball. I bought both her books and went home that night and read Rescue Fantasy straight through. Great stuff.



Also reading will be the noble and often darkly humorous (when not politically and socially fired up and righteous) Cort Bledsoe, who I first heard read at a refreshing Artichoke Haircut reading in the Dionysus on Preston St. Cort is the author of Anthems which has one of the darkest, most unsettling poems I've ever read.

And if you are a demanding, filthy whore (what the Republican party calls "woman", what we call a human of any gender who does not appreciate the good stuff ((well, at least what we think is good))), then you are saying "What else do you have for me?" We have two amazing musical guests lined up.

Headlining will be Good Guy Genius Nathan Bell, winner of the recent Baker Artist Award. His album "Colors" was my favorite album of the year that it came out and still frequents my turntable as often as a Ramone hits a glue tube. He plays solo guitar, banjo and bells, sometimes accompanied by cellist Kate Porter, electronics/theremin playboy Eric Franklin and enchanted warbler and banjoist Liz Downing. I'm not sure what all he's got planned for this night, but I'm sure it will leave your shorts fried in a pool of beer on the 14 Karat floor.

Before your shorts are fried, your ears will be hypnotized by solo guitarist occasional electronics musician Omoo Omoo. Here is his spot on Sound Cloud:
www.soundcloud.com/omoo-omoo

It all takes place at the legendary 14 Karat Cabaret at 218 W. Saratoga (not that far from the H&H, for you youngsters), the haunted mansion that Laure Drogoul built. Doors open at 9pm, cover charge is $5.

November Shattered Wig Night Sea Couch CD Release Party

Shattered Wig Night is very honored to be the venue hosting the CD release party for Baltimore's loving string duo Sea Couch. Original material on mandolin, banjo and acoustic guitar with a pleasing punk edge. Plus some beautiful servings of a few old traditionals and contemporary gems like Daniel Johnston's "True Love". Part of the Loveasaurus and Soulgasm collectives, Sea Couch keeps expanding their vision and sound.
Listen to songs and view video here:

https://www.facebook.com/seacouch?sk=app_2405167945



Pictured above is Her Fantastic Cats. Do not let his feet frighten you! This former Annapolis lad plays some of the most original stew of solo guitar with percussive feet beats that I've heard since Abner Jay stole my chicken cheesesteak. Part Delta blues, part post-punk angular sideways construction, part I don't know what because I'm not much of a music writer.




Bruce A. Jacobs is a poet, author, and musician. His newest poetry performances treat poetry and music as one. He founded the long-running First Tuesdays Poetry Reading Series at Irina's Cafe in Baltimore in the 1990s. He has won poetry slams in Baltimore and at the Nuyorican Poets Cafe in New York City. His books of poems are SPEAKING THROUGH MY SKIN, which won the Naomi Long Madgett Prize from Michigan State University, and CATHODE RAY BLUES from Tropos Press. His latest nonfiction book is RACE MANNERS FOR THE 21st Century. He has appeared on NPR, C-SPAN, Sirius, and elsewhere. His work has appeared in dozens of poetry journals and in many anthologies, including, unbelievably, one edited by Billy Collins. He also does a weekly Tuesday poetry blog at agonist.com and a race & politics blog at aliasbruce.typepad.com. He plays drums, poems, and saxophone. A friend has promised she will teach him how to whistle through his teeth.





Shattered Wig is also very happy to announce that Philadelphia author Kim Gek Lin Short will take our stage for the first time:

Kim Gek Lin Short is the author of two full-length collections, The Bugging Watch & Other Exhibits and the forthcoming China Cowboy, both from Tarpaulin Sky Press. Her chapbook Run was the 2010 Golden Gloves selection from Rope-a-Dope, and a previous chapbook, The Residents, is available from Dancing Girl Press. You can visit Kim at a reading at her blog or in Philadelphia, where she lives with her husband and daughter and co-curates General Idea.

http://www.kimgeklinshort.com/HOME.html

Buff Joe Medusa Has Left His Post at The Shattered Wig Empire Building

The job of "Door Man" is a brutal, thankless job. Frequent gunplay defending the bankroll that each Wig Night brings in, mopping up the frequent vomit of performers (Aye, we could fill the Baltimore Aquarium with Chris Toll's "green slushies" alone!), having to listen to angry paying customers demand their money back, or worse yet - read aloud their own poems, saying it should be them up there on that glittering stage.

And unlike some clubs (Not to name names, but let's say THE OTTOBAR, at least back when I was an active youngster), the door man at Wig Nights and Cabarets does not receive two or three times the pay of the performers. Buff Joe Medusa, who is himself an amazing theatrical performer and director (in fact, when my fancy new phone, with an extra very expensive "app" that the salesman hooked me where it tells you who is calling, told me it was Buff Joe calling my heart skipped a beat! Surely this is the big call I was hoping for, where he asks me to play the Richard Burton role in "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf"! But no....) has steadfastly worked the doors at 218 W. Saratoga Street for decades. But enough is enough! His doctor will no longer write the script to make this bearable and he has decided he has "better things to do on a Friday night"(??)(!!!)

We heartily thank Buff Joe for doing us the huge favor of performing this task over the years and do not blame him one bit for bowing out now in his Golden Years. We will miss him up there, but hopefully now he will attend Shattered Wig Nights as an audience member or performer.

We love you Buff Joe!

I Am Almost Weeping - The Most Comprehensive Write-up Of Shattered Wig Night & Review

Photo by James Hodges Shattered Wig Review 15 December 2010 (What Weekly) http://www.whatweekly.com/2010/12/15/shattered-wig-review/ Rupert Wondolowski Frequently, literary performances are confined to coffee shops, libraries or the odd gallery so it’s refreshing to see an event where the words were given a stage and an interesting venue in which to breath. Last Friday the 14 Karat Cabaret hosted the release party for one of Baltimore’s best literary magazines, The Shattered Wig Review. The event was hosted by the publication’s editor, Rupert Wondolowski. Photo by James Hodges, story by Dylan Kinnett.

Photo by James Hodges Ryan Walker featured in the current issue of Shattered Wig Review. Shattered Wig has been around for a remarkably long time, judging from its issue number, 28, and the editorial, which alludes to a recent two year hiatus. As it turns out, the publication has been in print for 22 years. That’s an impressive run for an independent venture of any sort. The first performer was R.M. O’Brien, an editor of the interactive literary magazine WORMS, which occurs monthly at the Bell Foundry. O’Brien’s stage presence is comfortable, casual and ideal for a first reading. His work is often an amusing and intelligent commentary on contemporary pop culture but he also reads the works of others. Tonight, he read a poem by Gregory Corso. Photo by James Hodges, story by Dylan Kinnett.

Books, Live Music, Art Gallery and more! Same block as Windup Space, across from Joe Squared. Plenty of room inside for your bike; FREE street parking for your car (well plug your meter before 6, after that its free anyway) come on over… 30 West North Ave. Baltimore, MD, 21201

Photo by James Hodges Becky Hunter - “I like the venue. I come to whatever I can, here.” The evening continued with a reading by Ryan Walker, whose untitled poetry is published in the new issue. He commanded the audience’s rapt attention with his playful series of stream-of-consciousness observations. Photo by James Hodges, story by Dylan Kinnett.

Photo by James Hodges Chris Toll In the latest issue of Shattered Wig Review author Chris Toll describes a magical encounter between Edgar Allen Poe and Emily Dickinson, involving a time machine. Exploring this notion, by itself, is worth the price of admission. Photo by James Hodges, story by Dylan Kinnett.

Photo by James Hodges Justin Miller There’s something uniquely independent about this publication. In an age when computerized desktop publishing has yet to reach the legal drinking age, the Shattered Wig Review holds true to a print sensibility that is rapidly fading. Its pages look and feel like those of a good ol’ zine, the kind we loved before blogs, with staples on the spine and strange drawings in the margins. Also reading this evening was Emily Peterson Crespo who had been a regular performer at the now-defunct “Speak Your Piece” series in Mount Vernon. Her performance this evening was an intricate blend of poetry and prose with all of the deliberate diction of the former coupled with the scenic detail of the latter. Photo by James Hodges, story by Dylan Kinnett.

Photo by James Hodges Ed Foster of The Baltimore String Felons. It wasn’t all words at the 14 Karat Cabaret during this event. The music began with a performance by former members of the band, Madagascar. The new band, called Nests took their current project out for a test drive for this, their first ever performance. The lineup retains much of the minimalist qualities of the original band though the new sound has more in common with contemporary ambient electronic music. The evening concluded with musical a set by The Baltimore String Felons. The Felon Family are a unique group of contemporary folk musicians who are making a strong case for music made with hand tools. Photo by James Hodges, story by Dylan Kinnett.

Books, Live Music, Art Gallery and more! Same block as Windup Space, across from Joe Squared. Plenty of room inside for your bike; FREE street parking for your car (well plug your meter before 6, after that its free anyway) come on over… 30 West North Ave. Baltimore, MD, 21201

Photo by James Hodges Geffery Sof’ Serve of The Baltimore String Felons. Don’t let the DIY look of the publication mislead you. Here, you’ll find sophisticated literature, with allusions to the visual poets, surrealist, automatic writing and stunning poetic lines like Stephanie Barber’s “one conducts electricity or symphonies, big bands or / trains or themselves with restraint.” There is plenty of worthwhile reading material in here all for only six dollars. The new issue, as well as a subscription, is available for purchase from Normal’s Books.. Full details are available on their website. Photo by James Hodges, story by Dylan Kinnett.

Baltimore String Felons and R.M. O'Brien to Foist Joy Upon The Shattered Wig 28 Publication Party

The lineup for what I hope will be the Shattered Wig Review #28 publication party (I would have gotten a hell of a lot done two Fridays ago if not for the damn BGE outage!) is almost nailed down. It looks to be a fine night of rapture.

Of course this being modern day Baltimore there will be tons of other cool things going on, including a Sea Couch and Forks of Ivy show (traitors), but we will have a shiny new issue sporting the menacing front cover you see smack dab in the middle of the top of this "page".

And although I truly have grown to hate the ubiquitous "Boh" man, I can stand him with a top hat and a banjo.........

Here is the lineup for the December 10th Shattered Wig party at the glorious, glamorous, forbidden, luxurious, decadent, legendary 14 Karat Cabaret:

R.M. O'Brien - poet, emcee/curator of the fantastic WORMS reading series
Emily Crespo - - poet, traveler, alchemist.
Ryan Walker - D.C. poet extraordinaire, friend to all.

The Baltimore String Felons. Fantastic timelessly weird old American folk music with a punk edge. It will Mikey the lead singer's birthday so don't be a weenie - buy him a beer!
Tests. Music featuring two members of the dearly missed group Madagascar.

Here is what the City Paper had to show about a String Felons show they did a while back with Balti Mare.

Earlier in the night, the Baltimore String Felons offered their own unique twist on folk traditions, theirs being more distinctly American. And what’s so refreshing about the weirdo folk acts in Maryland, as opposed to say New York or California, is that we’re not so far from Appalachia that the musicians seem more connected to those influences, and more likely to have actual family roots. The String Felons, with their fiddle and banjo twang, have a definite mountain sound in their so-called “inner city doomgrass,” even with its oddball twists, including songs that detail the assassination of JFK or choruses that howl “please don’t kill me.” And like Balti Mare, the combination of tradition and playful irreverence is what makes the String Felons work.

November 20th Shattered Wig Night

Screening of the film "I Will Smash You" by Michael Kimball and Luca DiPierro.
Music by Sweatpants.
Readings by Ingrid Burrington and Blaster Al Ackerman.

Last weekend's Tinklers Publication party was so solid and well attended by attentive responsive humans that it almost feels sacrilegious to already be hyping the next one, but I will just use this bliss as the new plateau from which to build higher to altered consciousness.
The November show should leave no one disappointed, either.

I WILL SMASH YOU (2009; 50 min)
a documentary from Little Burn Films www.littleburnfilms.com
CONTACT: Michael Kimball
michaelkimball@verizon.net; 410-467-0966; 410-205-0075

I WILL SMASH YOU started as an open call on social networking sites. Luca Dipierro and Michael Kimball invited people to choose an object that has some personal meaning for them, to tell the story of that object (Michael conducted the interviews from off-camera), and then to destroy that object. They filmed in Michael Kimball’s backyard for 2 days in the spring and the result is this documentary film.

A teenage girl destroys a papier-mâché version of her teacher's head to get the meanness out.
A man smashes his procrastination with a cement block.
A woman stomps on family heirlooms that have become a burden to her.
Another woman cuts up an intricate lace doily as a personal and political statement about the violence and hatred in parts of Bosnia.
A man sings a Christian hymn and then swings a baseball bat at the song’s notes in an attempt to resolve his complicated relationship with religion.
Another man burns his favorite double album, the one that he listened to over and over to get through his teenage years.
A man burns his discharge papers from the Army in attempt to exorcise his recurring nightmares about being forced to re-enlist.
A woman destroys a ceramic bust of Zeus that has an uncanny resemblance to her husband.
Another woman smashes her car with a crowbar because it is cursed.
Plus many more stories and much more destruction (and catharsis).

I WILL SMASH YOU is funny and moving, angry and strange (a clinical psychologist described it as a kind of smashing therapy). You have never seen a film like this.

Sweatpants is a vigorous band that brings the rock led by Publishing Genius magnate Adam Robinson. After they opened for Springsteen in Munich a year ago Springsteen said he was too shaken to do his five minute monologue opening to "The River" and instead he told the band to leave and performed a short acoustic set.

Publication of The Elements by The Tinklers

It was a busy week at Shattered Wig headquarters. Preparing our always capricious nerves for the big publication party for The Tinklers new book, The Elements, while also getting to open up for Tao Lin at a reading at Atomic Books on Oct. 8.

Due to the lightning quick quality work of Live Bait studios typesetting and layout on the book we actually had all our copies weeks in advance of the October 9th show at the 14 Karat Cabaret. This was a very welcome change from the usual nail biting waiting at the door in dirty robe for the UPS man on the night of the show scenario.

The book looks great, the show, featuring The Tinklers and Blaster Al Ackerman reading and music by Zomes and Ghost Life, was well attended by lively enthusiastic humans who were treated to some top notch performances. Not only all that, but we actually sold a goodly amount of literature. Not bad considering we almost had to greco-roman twist Chris Mason of the Tinklers into a Pennsylvania pretzel to let us publish it.

In a mere 78 pages the courageous Tinklers take on explaining the Periodic Table of Elements (Hydrogen to Argon), the strains put on love by economic hardship and the need for a unified ecology that protects Mother Earth. All written in their uniquely cosmic populist prose. The book is out now, a perfect bound paperback and available for $8 at Normal's Books and Records and Atomic Books in Baltimore or $10 postage paid from:

Shattered Wig Press
425 E. 31st St.
Baltimore, MD. 21218

"It is a rare thing when I am jealous of the concept behind a book, but I am jealous of The Elements, and you will be too." - Michael Kimball, author of Dear Everybody and The Way The Family Got Away.

The City Paper's Bret McCabe interviewed Chris Mason and Charles Brohawn of The Tinklers about the book and here is his story:

Every Story Paints a Picture
With the publication of The Elements, long-running Baltimore duo the Tinklers return to their spry narrative roots

Michael Northrup

Charles Brohawn (left) and Chris Mason have been the Tinklers for 30 years.

By Bret McCabe | Posted 10/7/2009

The Tinklers read from The Elements, with Zomes, Blaster Al Ackerman, and Ghost Life.

Shattered Wig Night at the 14 Karat Cabaret, Oct. 9

Consider: One morning Mary sees her husband Steven off to his first day at an aluminum beverage-container manufacturer. He returns looking broken, a shell of the man who left that morning. The next day, Mary meets a neighboring woman who tells her two very important stories. One is about how the manufacturer's greed led to layoffs and higher productivity demands, pushing the local workers to strike as the company brought in scabs. The other is about how lava cools to form granite, which includes feldspar--made up of aluminum, oxygen, and silicon--and briefly explains the long story of pressure and time producing aluminum silicate, which, when water-logged, becomes clay.

This story, one of 18 collected in the Tinklers' new book, The Elements (published by sometimes City Paper contributor Rupert Wondolowski's Shattered Wig Press), ends with Mary crossing the picket line to pull her husband out of his job and continue on their journey across a landscape that feels and sounds very much like America. "I was reading about a few different strikes at the times we were writing this," says Chris Mason, one half of the Tinklers, of the early 1990s. "I think it was one in Austin, Minnesota. And I was thinking about aluminum cans. This was all done before the internet, so we just had to read a lot of books to learn this stuff."

Mason sits next to his creative partner, Charles Brohawn, on the couch in Brohawn's eclectically decorated Idlewild home. A striking array of paintings hang on the walls, and the living room feels like an ideal incubator for creative whimsy. Mason pulls one of the duo's old rubber-band guitars out for a demonstration. And Brohawn need only walk a few steps to snag a 1950s/'60s era scientific textbook about the atom as an example of the sort of research they explored in creating The Elements.

"It's not really serious science, because we're not, you know, scientists," Mason says. "But we have researched it. Just like in ancient times people would look at the world and would be amazed by the winds and the stars and describe it to the gods, we're just amazed by what's happening inside the atom."

"The elements are kind of a frame to look at the world through," Brohawn agrees.

If authoring a book sounds like a change of pace for a musical duo, bear in mind that the idea of the Tinklers as a purely musical act is a 1990s phenomena. The pair recorded three albums for indie label Shimmy Disc between 1990 and 1993. Riddled with deceptively precious melodies and faux-innocent ideas--the immortal "Mom Cooks Inside, Dad Cooks Outside" off 1990's Casserole, "Dinosaurs Are Better" off 1991's Saplings, "Dog Sounds" off 1993's Crash--the band was, arguably, too hastily aligned with the primitive-punk naivetAc of Daniel Johnston, Happy Flowers, and the twee Pianosaurus.

When Brohawn and Mason first coalesced into the Tinklers in 1979, though, it was to create narrative performances that included songs, visual art, and theater. Brohawn was coming out of MICA's painting department, Mason out of Johns Hopkins' poetry program, and they encountered a rich Baltimore community of poets, performance artists, video artists, and punks, including City Paper photographer John Ellsberry and his brother Richard, provocateur tENTATIVELY a cONVENIENCE, and MICA poetry professor Joe Cardarelli. It was a hearty brew of art and DIY that, well, doesn't sound too far removed from what a different generation has discovered in Baltimore in recent years.

"That's why I wanted to start doing music," Brohawn says, recalling seeing a band such as Half Japanese deliver its goods. "Just seeing something like that and thinking, Why not?"

Early Tinklers shows were less concerts than performances that combined visual art, puppets, and songs played on homemade instruments. They performed their "History of the World"--illustrated on a gigantic single roll of paper and dramatized through songs and plays--in 1981 at School 33 and in New York. The songs themselves were often the products of free-flowing binomial idea trees that concatenate out into something else. Mason pulls out an early book of song charts to illustrate the point.

"Like, if you have 'scary things,' you can divide that into 'scary things that are moving' and 'scary things that are not moving,'" he says. "And then, scary moving things that get on top of you, that don't get on top of you; scary moving things that get on top of you could be buzzy or squirmy; scary moving things that get on top of you that are buzzy could be electric or flying; scary moving things that get on top of you that are buzzy and electric could be things that you could get your fingers caught in or things that shock you--and from that we did the song 'Don't Put Your Finger in the Fan.'"

It follows a rigorous logic, but one predicated on an outlandish idea. "On some level, we were kind of making fun of performance art by just telling these stupid stories in these stupid songs," Brohawn says. "There wasn't any mysterious aesthetic or anything going on."

Other narrative projects that became self-published books followed. "Manifest Destiny," which also involved The Elements' Mary and Steven, "was kind of an American history book with songs and performances," Mason says. "Our Childrens' Childrens' Worlds" followed in 1984, the story of Siegfried and his cousins--Marcia, Missy, Megan, Sam, and Simon--who get lost in a cave during a family picnic, during which time the world ends and begins again, and they emerge to be adopted by three utopias.

"It's kind of a poke at the post-apocalyptic thing, because the world ends while they're in the cave but starts up before they get out of the cave," Brohawn smiles. "But 'History of the World,' 'Manifest Destiny,' 'Our Childrens' Childrens' Worlds'--they were thought of as these stories with songs. I think we were thinking of Wagner or something--our own version of it."

Just don't mistake this irreverent streak for irony, and don't misjudge the Tinklers' seemingly simple sounds and drawings for insincere ease. "Simple" and "childlike" are two of the most overused adjectives when describing the band; "efficient" feels most accurate. The music and songs may sound easy, but they deal directly with sophisticated feelings and emotions. They're just delivered extremely directly. And while such economy may suggest the childish, consider how conflicted childhood is: a time period that adults nostalgically look back upon for being more innocent and idyllic, but also the locus of psychological and emotional trauma that lingers well into maturity.

The Elements is an equally complex document. It works on multiple levels: organized periodically, the stories offer basic science information, and those scientific facts frequently provide thematic structural elements to the stories themselves. The book also tells the story of Mary and Steven as they travel across the country; inside their journeys, though, they encounter the often difficult socio-political realities of an unsettled country. Given that each of these stories is but a few pages long at most--the entire book a mere 78 pages--The Elements starts to feel less like a simple, childlike tale and more like a surreal adventure of a couple set adrift across America's unstable time and space.

And it makes you curious as to what sort of big idea the Tinklers might next wrap their brains around. Brohawn mentions Darwin, and how 2009 is the 200th anniversary of his birth. Mason smiles at the idea of the Tinklers getting a grant to do research on the Galapagos. Since they've already done the history of the world, Manifest Destiny, and a good chunk of the periodic table, evolution is just the sort of small topic that fits into their bailiwick.

"And it's controversial," Brohawn smiles, before audibly deflating into the realization, "well, it is here."

Email Bret McCabe