Artica traditionally ends with the burning of the big wooden effigy, traditionally Our Lady of Artica but modified for this year’s new location. The organization takes fire safety very seriously - it has to. Permits are required from the city fire department and one of their big pumper trucks is always on standby. There has to be insurance. There is a group of well-trained volunteers in full protective gear to manage it all.
What? I didn’t expect Papageno and Papagena to be attending Artica. May they be blessed with lots of little chicks - if that’s what they want. duck://player/87UE2GC5db0
Suprise! Looks like the DJ at Artica got his finger stuck in the wrong circuit. I don’t understand how these set-ups work, but then I do better with violins and clarinets and that sort of thing.
Lots of children at Artica. The unseasonably warm weather (is that even worth mentioning any more?) encouraged them to tear all over the place. One father and daughter brought a large foam (I think) glider. The kid had a mighty hurl. The wings often fell off on landing but she would pop them back in and promptly relaunch.
Another loose association in an old brain: https://youtu.be/6c1BThu95d8?si=BryfJhcCdCxRjs96 . The lyrics are light weight but the official 1967 video is top-of-the line psychedelic pop. Return with us now to those thrilling days of yesteryear. Looks like the tradition carries forward.
An installation at Artica. Is the word trash here a noun or an adjective? Create art made of trash, or elevate trash into art? There is a long, complicated history about this question over the last century or more. Think of Marcel Duchamp and Louise Nevelson, but the list could go on and on.
Okay, I’m old by most standards. Everybody knows about old people’s puzzlement with young people. ('Twas ever thus.) Still, I look at these four and think about questions of class, culture, privilege and society. I was roughly their age in the geologic era known as the 1970s. I spent the first part of it as a cheaply dressed, if not ragged, graduate student. My three sibs did about the same. We were not wealthy but our parents insisted on education and we did what was expected, ending up with four bachelor’s degrees, a J.D., a Ph.D. and an M.B.A.
For the rest of that decade, thanks in no small part to the woman who kept us financially afloat early on, I wore cheap suits, then better suits, and had a couple of kids. We bought a station wagon. I forgot I had read Jack Kerouac but then read Zen And The Art Of Motorcycle Maintenance. I would have loved to have sat down and talked to these young people about their lives, but I was out cruising for images.
