1st Thursday tonight!
There's lots of good new art out there tonight, and new steet poles (pictured, although they aren't "on" yet) to see. I'm too tied up at work to give you a blow-by-blow art breakdown on my lunchbreak, but I'll wrap it up by diecting you to Walled City for John Michael Gill, the Sandra Low show at the Warschaw (corner 6th & Pacific), Jan Govearts at Goose Drank Wine and Uran Snyder at the Loft (4th & Mesa - performance at 7:30). See you in the streets.
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Well, I, for one, was impressed with the quality of the vendors this time around. Admittedly, I only breezed through on my way home from Long Beach, but even on this brief stop I was able to take the time to guage the increase in quality. And what an increase! The sunglasses for sale at the sunglasses-for-sale table, for example. No-name crap? Hell, no: West Coast Choppers! That's quality! You can tell, because West Coast Choppers is a famous brand name that everybody has heard of!
I am certainly thankful for the new street lights, especially for those little auxiliary lights that help protect people from violent crime. That must have been quite some study that those were based on--you know, the study that shows that the sort of people who might cut your throat under a normal streetlight will leave you alone if the same streetlight has a little extra light closer to the sidewalk. Who knew that hardened street criminals were so sensitive to lighting? No wonder those guys hate jail! Nothing but flourescents in the pinta, homes.
(There was such a study, right? I mean, whoever came up with this idea didn't just pull the rationale out of his or her ass, right? Right?)
So the knockoffs are now knockoffs of more popular brands! Woo hoo! Were there more vendors? We were told there would be 32-38 vendors. I was pinned down at Walled City all night, and wasn't able to get out there and survey them myself.
I thought the pedestrian lights were intended to make it easier for flashers to expose themselves to people at night. Shows what I know.
There's no doubt these vendors add a lot to First Thursday Art Walks. And I think I had a quality vendor sighting last night: this vendor had an installation of bags of nuts on a simple table. The bags of nuts were stacked in rows and sort of resembled small plastic sand bags, which I think might have been a reference to the flooding after Hurricane Katrina, with an implied critique of the "nutty" government's response. Or perhaps the nuts themselves were meant to evoke nut-producing countries like Iran (big pistachio exporter) and how foreign cultures are packaged by corporations for the American public. Or could the nut show be an ironic and deeply pessimistic view of the role of arts in our country, that it's all basically just mental and spiritual snack food, with no enduring value? I'm not sure what the nut-man really intended, but it raised so many disturbing questions; maybe that's what makes his installation so dynamic. Perhaps next month, he can persuade Sharon Corsaro to return to San Pedro for another vocal interpretation: "Giving Voice to Nut-Bags." I'd go.
In terms of nut production, I think we're giving the Iranians a run for their money these days...
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