whitetail

four million yearsmoving through this hidden placeit has always been yoursbut I share your secret nowdeep in your bloodyou know it by heartand your heart is my targetyou’re everywhere these barren dayssex-crazedleaving traces on hard ground, on treesmaking mistakesshowing yourself is your fatal flawyou’re giving yourself awayand you don’t know thatyou can not help yourself I understand this behaviorin my own flawed heartsensing mein your spaceI sense you in mineyou’ll die hereas will I one daybut you are more beautiful than Ithis is why you will be the firstto die

Down by the Riverside

One of the more pleasant things about this space is it allows me to encourage citizens to attend arts and culture events that strike me as significant. By now you know what is significant to me may be quite different from what is significant for other promoters of culture.

I like most the smaller-scale free public events in which all members of the community can participate equally with no barriers of economics, social rank, and so forth. Call me a populist in that sense and I shall not deny it.

I’ve previously indicated here that the free Bandshell Concerts in City Park are some of the best cultural events of the year here. However when asked for the number one venue of the city’s cultural calendar, I say it is Reading’s Riverfest.

This year’s Riverfest, bearing the poetic subtitle “The River Sings” may well be the final “old-style” version of this event. Next year, we’re expecting the Riverfront Project involving new lighting along the river, upgrading of the RACC Bridge to West Reading and an amphitheatre along the river. We’ll be losing a bit and gaining a lot. And I predict Riverfest will live on in some form in the new riverfront area and continue to get better every year.

Do yourself and your loved ones a favor. Come on down to where the town meets the river and enjoy “The River Sings”

I’ll see you there!

Here’s some of the info you’ll want to know to make the most of your visit.

Come and enjoy two days of fabulous FREE music at Riverfest – 2007 – The River Sings along the Schuylkill River on Riverfront Drive in Reading, PA on Friday and Saturday, 9/21 & 9/22.

One of the featured bands will be East Side Dave & The Mountain Folk Band with East SIde Dave, Dane Kline, Bob Entler, Mike Hertzog and Ted Fenstermacher.

Parking is free, all concerts are free; pay as you go for delicious fresh grilled food from the GTV Edelweiss Folk Dancers and refreshing beer from Stoudt’s Microbrewery, Spaten and other quality brands. Soft drinks will be served as well. Stoudt’s fresh brewed beer is delicious and a favorite of festival participant East Side Dave & The Mountain Folk Band!

You must have proper ID to consume beer, but people of all ages will be allowed to come and enjoy the concerts.

Concerts on Friday and Saturday will run from 4 to 10 PM in a gorgeous Beer Garden Tent, rain or shine. There’ll be plenty of seating, professional lighting and sound. There will also be a dance floor.

Friday’s theme is Bluegrass & Celtic Music Night featuring The Blue Mountain Junction Band, the high-energy of East Side Dave & The Mountain Folk Band, the fabulous Celtic fun of Canada’s Tartan Terrors, and the amazing music of Canada’s Tanglefoot Band.

Saturday’s theme is Oktoberfest & Polka Night; which also happens to be the same day that the huge Oktoberfest in Munich, Germany opens! Bands will include The Golden Tones Polka Band, The Rhinelanders and Joe Stanky and the Cadets Polka Band.

On Friday, East Side Dave & The Mountain Folk Band will be ushered across the river to the stage from the West Reading side of the Schuylkill to the Reading side in a symbolic crossing showing the unity of both sides of the river and the band will be singing while being escorted across the river so that the river truly will “sing” on this historic night! Dave and the band will be paddled across the river by members of the local canoe and kayak club with Don Moll at the helm of the lead boat!

More info here:

http://www.readingpa.gov/riverfest_2007.asp

AND:

While you’re at it, take the free BARTA bus on Saturday between Riverfest and Fall Festival on the Avenue!

Inside the Dying Body

Sunday evening marked the premier of a much heralded National Geographic Channel program entitled, Inside the Living Body.We are all familiar with this type of photo-documentary. There have been many similar productions since 1965, when Life Magazine published Lennart Nilsson’s photograph of a living human embryo.We are accustomed to the reverential tone accompanying the presentation of these images. Indeed there is something quite miraculous and awesome about extreme close-up views of our bodies – simply because of the utter alienation we experience regarding our mysterious innerness.Because we live in an age when technology gives access to real yet incredible realms, we are acculturated to experience and express awe and amazement when confronted with such scenes.This means that producers of such shows simply have to deliver the extraordinary imagery – with appropriate accompanying text – and we are automatically moved to respond accordingly. The problem with all this is our ability to think critically about what we are being shown is bypassed in favor of purely emotional responses.Inside the Living Body demonstrates that it takes more than a simple sequence of images to edify us. Presentations lacking qualities such as a sense of meaning, importance, inspired presentation, and appropriate narrative are merely bunches of words and pictures.Even worse, the messages delivered by “Inside the Living Body” reflect a purely materialistic view of life, a vapid adoration of youth, palpably mean-spirited ageism, and an atheistic sense of existential desperation.The show ultimately presents one point of view: birth is the beginning of death. Along the way we are told that youth, the biological imperative, and the continuance of the species constitute the whole of life’s meaning. And so naturally, the process of aging is depicted as the mere dissolution and material breakdown of the human body. No mention is made for example, of the gradual improvement of life experience as a result of processes of maturation and aging. In fact there is no indication our processes of thinking, creativity, inspiration, or any other higher faculties count for very much at all. The implicit messages here are meaningless : we are simply physical, chemical, and electrical entities and our inner selves are nothing more than plumbing.Although presented as an experience of the miracle of life, National Geographic Channel’s Inside the Living Body is DOA.*Images: National Geographic Channel

New Venue: The First Days of the Miller Center

*On Sunday evening, I attended the initial public offering staged at the new Miller Center of Reading Area Community College. It was a thoroughly satisfying and entertaining event.Cirque le Masque orchestrated the mise en scene with extraordinary human performance, moving multicolor sets, and a light-and-sound experience that showcased the visual and aural capabilities of the entire theatre as an aesthetic instrument in its own right.The “Masque” troupe is a more scaled-down vehicle than other similar, albeit more spectacular, troupes, such as Cirque du Soliel. Fortunately for me and many other audience members who do not require superstellar spectacle or extreme entertainment for our aesthetic enjoyment, this was a human-scale show. And as I and other members of my species are also human-scale, it was a perfect fit. There is still time to be a part of the start of this great new place for the arts in the heart of downtown Reading. The Miller Center is currently hosting five days of celebratory events.If you haven’t been down recently to where the river meets the town, you’ll be pleasantly surprised and duly amazed at the new sense of cosmopolitan culture that’s rising ‘round the banks of the old Schuylkill. It’s a veritable Reading Renaissance!*

drawing 090807

Image: TFD, 2007

ARTologyPOD Initialized

In conjunction with Reading Eagle Online Services and WEEU Radio I’ve launched ARTologyPOD, an evolving biweekly audio experience of all things art and culture. WEEU’s Dave Kline contributes the intro and outro for ARTologyPOD.The initial installments of ARTologyPOD are being produced as dialogs with Al Walentis. This format allows me to present content in a Socratic manner. Can’t go wrong with Socrates, I always say. Well, I don’t really say it much but I think I may start saying it more. ARTologyPOD lays a foundation for the understanding and critical appreciation of art and culture by focusing on their philosophical underpinnings. I address the nature of perception, experience, conceptualization, and processes of thought as well as the socio-cultural contexts that influence aesthetic experience.At that point, we’ll be free to explore new realms of perception, experience, and “reality” through a more finely-polished lens of artistic sensibility. The journey should prove exhilarating and exciting. I’ve always thought the best thing one person can do for another is to be an inspiration. As an ongoing and evolving series, ARTologyPOD seeks your input and feedback. Hopefully, we may inspire each other. E-mail me at TFD@TULLIOFRANCESCODESANTIS.COMAnd now, I’m pleased to present ARTologyPOD:From the Reading Eagle Website: http://www.readingeagle.com/podcasts.aspxAnd from WEEU Radio’s Website: http://www.weeu.com/podcasts.asp

a summer poem

cloud-flecked blue air above ussummer greensurrounding warm skinwe’re free herelike butterflieshawks, foxesdeer, serpentslike undulant trout we’re arms and legs splayed wideat play with each otherspead under radial boughsof wide open elmswe’re hot pink as thistlesand naked like the flesh of day liliespulsing nearbyas we pound each otherinto the ground*