Midweek News, Philadelphia art leadership, Zoe Ryan, Jeffrey Stockbridge, Eileen Neff, grammar, late night pizza in Rome and more

Roberta: Hi everyone, it’s Roberta.

Ryan: And this is Ryan, and this is the Midweek News

Roberta: On Artblog radio. Ryan. Hello.

Ryan: Hi, Roberta. How you doing?

Roberta: I’m doing okay. I’m hanging in as they say. I have a bit of a cold and if I do break down and start coughing, you’ll excuse me please. I have four things to. Talk about in the news and they’re very brief.

And then I have one sort of general thing to talk about at the end that is a grammatical thing that I thought you’d be interested in too if you hadn’t seen it. Yeah. With something in a Gar guardian.

So the first thing I want to talk about is continual churn in the art leadership in Philadelphia, Zoe Ryan.

Who is ICA’s, Director Institute of Contemporary Art at Penn University of Pennsylvania has taken a position as director of the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles. So bye-Bye Zoe. She’s been there for five years now, I believe she came from the West coast. I believe she had experience out there, possibly. She’s from there.

Don’t recall exactly, but good luck to them. They’ll be filling that position for ICA directors sometime in the future, I’m sure. Next is a couple of things that I noticed about artists getting their art used in commercial settings. Jeffrey Stockbridge, a photographer who’s known for his very empathetic photos of the Kensington opiate users.

Kensington Blues is the name of that series. Anyway, he just did a photo spread for the New Yorker where he was invited to go to West Pennsylvania and photograph steelworkers and former steelworkers. And for an article by a writer named Eyal Press. About change in the electorate. And they were, it turns out they were, a lot of the steel workers were Biden supporters.

Biden is a huge union guy, you know, from Scranton. He’s a big, he walked the picket line. He’s just a big union guy and they’re not so sure about Kamala. Also, she’s been demonized so much. You know, she’s, she’s not their cup of tea. She’s not a guy. She’s not a guy’s guy. The way Biden was, “folks we’re going to do this” and “folks were going to do that”.

He was a real guy’s guy. Anyway, nice photos in a story and The New Yorker. And he’s had pieces of his photography used to illustrate New York Times stories in the past. So good for him.

Eileen Neff, another artist photographer who shows up. Bridget May Gallery, announced that she had her photo goat in a field. Which is this darling shot of a white goat looking at you with a beautiful greenfield behind it. You know, like portrait of goats is a co, was selected as cover art for a musician Will SAS for his debut, single Alicia, which is this synth. I listened to it. There’s we can put links into the transcript so you can listen.

It’s very synth, with synth and nice vocals, and it’s pretty. Congratulations to both Jeffrey and Eileen on getting their art out there crossing over, so to speak.

Next, I want to say Lightbox Film Center has become an independent nonprofit. Now, Lightbox has had a. Long history. They started in the seventies and for many, many years they were in International House in West Philly, part of the pen housing stock in West Philly on Chestnut Street.

And then that building got sold and the new owners didn’t want to keep up the relationship or they were going to totally. Remodel it. And so Lightbox had to move. They were homeless for a while, and then they found a home for themselves at University of the Arts at Brodsky Gallery, or Brodsky Center, I should say on Pine and south Broad Street. And they were there for five years. And then of course, University of the Arts closed. So they’re homeless again,

It’s very hard in the arts community and you know, they sought advice and counsel of all their best supporters and friends and whatnot, and decided that they would go the independent nonprofit route and they’re going to be, I think, popping up.

I think that’s the strategy. They’re going to be a popup, and the first place they’re popping up is at the Bok building. Bok evidently has an audience that has been an auditorium, rather that has been used for screening films in the past. Recent passed, and so they’re going to pop up there. We’ll put the dates in.

I think it’s sometime soon in October with, yeah, that could work. Yeah,

Ryan: It’s not a terrible space. It, it definitely has that Bok vibe.

Roberta: Like a do it yourself?

Ryan: Ah, just like old high school needs little updating little needs, cozy touches. Throw pillows like they should hand out, throw pillows as it come in or something.

Roberta: Beanbag chairs.

Ryan: Beanbag chairs would be good. Take out the whole right side, just like this is the beanbag section.

Roberta: I like that.

Ryan: Yeah, that’d be good.

Roberta: Anyway, those are my four news things, so everybody should get out there and see some art. Go see our art market. It’s really great. Market is, we do say so ourselves.

Ryan: We do say so ourselves is open till the first week of December, so there’s plenty of time left. But get it while it’s going. Get it while it’s hot. Yeah. We’d love to see you out there. And we’re going to be doing some of our podcasting live with our some other artists there too. So if you want to come and participate, you want to do a drop in or you ever want to be in a podcast?

Hey, no one ever interviews me. Oh yeah. Well then come down. Let’s get into a couple of things. So I’d like to keep it to three. This is the second Thursday of October already. Crane Arts will be open. And one show that I wanted to shout out specifically was Box Spring has another show, and obviously they’re the, one of the newer ones at Crane Arts.

There we’re shouting out, they have an opening reception Thursday, October 10th, and this is the opening reception for S. Lesser Kaleidoscopes. That will be open from six to nine. Most of those shows will be about then as well in, in Crane Arts Commonweal is now over in that neighborhood as well. And they also have an opening that it’s worth seeing.

That is Adam Lovitz wedged between day and night. Then the Ray Building also has a lot of different events that that kind of our popup as well. So if you’re in that neighborhood, there’s quite a few things going on. Second Thursday, clay Studios over in that neighborhood, so there’s quite a bit going on. Take a look at that.

Plenty of different things. Take a look at artblogconnect.org to see the different shows and venues that are, are specifically opening. But most of those will have their doors open.

And then my theater pick is the Strides Collective. That’s a queer focus group. Their show is opening also on Thursday. It’s called Confabulation, and that looks to be an interesting show that’s going to be at the Hamilton Family Art Center in Old City. That’s part of Arden Theater. It’s 62 North 2nd Street, and that runs from October 10th to the 20th. Stride Collective has been working hard to really bring some queer voices forward, and we support their work and their endeavors. Take a look at those tickets are available online now.

Preview is Thursday and then opening night. It’s technically Friday. That closes again Sunday, October 20th. Take a look for times and, and show availability for tickets. And those are my three picks for the week. A lot of good things happening. And then I also wanted to shout out, coming up on the 19th we here is the Port Public Forum and Sculpture Party Porter.

Is having an event on October 19th that’s from 11:00 AM to 3:30 PM well I’ll talk about that again next week, but I just wanted to give you a heads up now that that event is coming up. Their address is 2,600 North fifth, so put that on the calendar, October 19th. And that’s in collaboration with Mural Arts.

Roberta: Cool. Yeah, we love, we love Roberto Lugo and we love T Puerto Rican. You. And if you haven’t been there before, this would be a good time to go.

Ryan: So those are my three things plus something to look forward to next week. And I’ll mention that again next week so you don’t forget.

Roberta: Cool. Yes. Always, always mention it.

What’s the old saying? Say it once. Say it twice. Say it three times and people will remember.

Ryan: I aim for six.

Roberta: Six?

Ryan: I tell my students, when I’m coaching, I tell them, “I’m going to tell you, six times and it’s not going to hurt my feelings that you forget the first five times. But after that, I might feel a little raw about it.”

Roberta: Do they remember?

Ryan: I think they remember that I say six times.

Roberta: Yeah.

Ryan: I say that more than six times. But yeah, repetition’s helpful. I mean, you get good at what you practice, so.

Roberta: Alright, well let’s end here on a grammar note.

In The Guardian, there was a very interesting story and I’d just love picking up these oddball stories. There’s an apostrophe. Possessive apostrophe, like, you know, Rosie’s Pizza is R-O-S-I-E, apostrophe S pizza, but apparently in high German you do not use that apostrophe. It’s verboten, so to speak, except that now there’s something, the gatekeepers of High German called the Council for German Orthography.

They have a style guide and they issued an announcement. It is now okay to use the apostrophe, which is the Depo. Depo or idiot’s apostrophe, because they just caved in because it’s so prevalent that it was now sanctioned for use. And there’s been huge pushback from, you know, this place and that place saying that it signaled a genuflection to English that they were very upset with.

The victory march of English over their language. And you know, I shouldn’t laugh, I suppose people do take their language pretty seriously, but it struck me as amusing.

Ryan: Yeah, my experience with Germans both high and low, has been one of strong conceit towards their language and working to deride Americans in English when opportunity prevents itself. I spent some time with there and they don’t deride the Dutch in the same way, but the Dutch do it as well to their own lower kind. So the, the Germans will identify Austrian as lower and dirtier, and. Swiss as well, which is something else. And then the Dutch do that, they do the same to say South African people as well.

It’s interesting. Do you think the British do that to us?

Roberta: Oh yeah. Don’t you? They look down. The Kings English. We don’t use the King’s English over here,

Ryan: But they have such strange idioms and. The vernacular is different and the colloquialisms are so specific to each village or region, or, it doesn’t seem to have like the King’s English anymore, except for a, a small select few.

Roberta: Yeah. The Oxbridge crowd, well we have the same thing over here. Every little village over here has its own idiomatic vernacular in that respect. We’re very much like the English, you know, we, we like our language and we just sort of modify it the way it works for us.

I like that. I like a language that’s flexible.

Ryan: Yeah, it’s definitely a living language. Do America, do we look down on other English speakers?

Roberta: I don’t know. Do we look down on Canadians when they say “aboot”? You know, instead of about, that’s just a pronunciation. But we make fun of it.

Ryan: We make light of it, but we don’t think of them as lesser or foolish or, you know. You wouldn’t call them an idiot for saying “aboot”. You just, oh, that’s cute. Or that’s strange. Or like, when I’m in the south, people are like, Hey, Shug, (sugar) or Hun up north, or whatever. It’s slightly different, but it’s just colloquialism, it’s just different. But you wouldn’t say, oh, that’s ridiculous or foolish, or you’re less intelligent because you use such a word. I don’t think we necessarily do that.

Roberta: I don’t know. There’s, you know, the Philadelphia idiom is very particular, it’s a cockney kind of accent and people take poke fun at how people say water.

It’s water. And that’s sort of a putting down of the cockney accent and the people who speak it because there are definitely people that say water and it just is natural to them.

Ryan: Well I definitely, you know, the Germans taking it personally is, is not surprising. But English is the lingua franca of the planet at this point.

Roberta: It’s really a shame. English is.

Ryan: Why which language would you prefer it would be?

Roberta: Well, Spanish for one or Chinese. I mean, we should be teaching these languages in schools, right? Because we’re just, oh, absolutely. We are hegemonic about our English and we don’t, we expect everyone to speak English. You know?

That’s why Paris gets such a bad rap, because a lot of, and this is a huge generalization, but excuse me. A lot of Americans go to Paris and hate it because they say that the Parisians are snotty, but they refuse to try to speak the language, and so I think the Parisians get a little dent out of shape about that.

Ryan: Wow. They’re like western Germany. I definitely had that experience. My French is terrible and my accent is terrible. Even when I was in Canada, someone said, be careful poutine, because you can get poutine or you can get Putin. So it’s either like the, the French fries with the cheese and the gravy, or it’s a canoe.

I’m like, oh, okay good to know. But I think my favorite story with the English being lingua franca is I was traveling in Rome and I was just had the munchies and there was a, a late night pizza place that was open. So I went over to the pizza place and there was these couple of rowdy young 14, 15-year-old boys behind me.

They like kept jumping in line and jumping in line in front of you is pretty common, I find, unless you’re assertive and unless you speak Italian. So I learned enough Italian that I could like yell at people to get in line or I was standing here the whole time so you can move back. But my accent in Italian obviously is very American.

The three, the three boys stopped and looked at me and in perfect English. Just like, where are you from? They said to me and I thought, what, where are you from? And they’re like, we’re from Cairo. I’m like, what? You’re from Cairo? Okay. That was not expected. So these were three young boys who were just like snuck out of their hotel that they were staying in.

Because they were traveling at this international school in Rome and they study at an international school in Cairo and they, they all speak. Arabic and French and perfect English and a little bit of Italian, they said. Then they’re like, watch this order in Italian. I’m like, okay. I’m like, why don’t you get me something then?

Yeah. So rather than take offense to those kids, I, I’m like, use them to my own advantage to get the better pizza.

Roberta: I love that they were from Cairo. That is really unexpected.

Ryan: There’s definitely some tours. Some people are like, oh, so you’ve traveled a bunch. Where would you like to go next? I don’t know. I think, I think I would love to travel like Alexander the Great and retrace the steps would be interesting.

Northern Africa is high on my list. Tania, I would love to see. I. Really interesting, Carthage, whatever, you know, all of all of that historical area and, and wrap my way around Alexandria. So this is why every day I am like peace in the Middle East because I’d like to visit, but you all have to, you know, people are, people ask me if I’m really political about the Middle East.

I’m like, yes. I’m very political about the Middle East. I want peace in the Middle East, like everybody who lives there and everybody who wants to go there. You know, I have family there. So I’d like to see peace. They’d like to see peace, so, Yes

Roberta: Indeed, indeed.

Ryan: I’ve never been to Cairo. Maybe I’ll get some pizza.

So yeah. Grammatical errors.

Roberta: Yes and grammar. The grammar of the world. Okay, well you heard it here first folks. The apostrophe, the idiot’s apostrophe, has now been sanctioned by the German Council for German. Jen, reflect to your English, everyone all around the world who’s listening to this, and we’ll come back and see you next week.

Ryan: Yeah. Thanks for listening everybody. This is Ryan, and this has been Artblog Radio’s Midweek News.

Roberta: And this is Roberta. Thanks for listening. Bye-Bye.

Ryan: Bye everyone.