The Styrous® Viewfinder: 11/01/2012

November 21, 2012

Winter Art Walk @ Gray Loft Gallery

. click on image to see details

Winter Art Walk

December 1st & 2nd, 2012
11 AM to 6 PM

Gray Loft Gallery
2889 Ford Street, #32
Oakland, CA 94601

OPENING RECEPTION
at the 420 Gallery:
November 30th, 2012
6 PM to 9 PM

420 Gallery
420 Peterson Street @ Ford Street

Artists showing at the Gray Loft Gallery:

Susan Brady, mixed media Artist Books
Eben Ostby, photography
Ginny Parsons, mixed media
Styrous®, photography
Jan Watten, photography
Karyn Yandow, photography

The Winter ArtWalk will hold an opening reception on Friday, November 30, 6:00 pm to 9:00 pm at 4:20 Gallery, 420 Peterson Street, between Ford and Glascock Streets, Oakland, 94601. Music will be preformed by Deja 2. These events are free and open to the public.

The annual winter open studio event will highlight the work of more than 35 artists who live and/or work in the area known as Jingletown, which is situated between the Park and Fruitvale Street bridges bordered by the estuary separating Oakland from the island of Alameda. Gourmet food trucks will be parked on Peterson Street Saturday and Sunday, a tour of Jingletown will be held both days, and on Sunday the annual T-Sisters parade will wind through the four-block neighborhood.

Among other notable artistic enterprises, it is the location of the Institute of Mosaic Art, Gray Loft Gallery, Apples & Oranges Gallery and Float Gallery, as well as studios of many other notable artists who are living and working in one of the most established arts districts in the Bay Area.

BE there or . . . you know the rest!

Styrous® ~ November, 2012

Art/Exhibitions Articles

MAIN MENU - Blog Articles

November 14, 2012

20,000 Vinyl LPs 14: Like "Picasso at the Lapin Agile"

"Picasso at the Lapin Agile"

illustration by Sarah Paolucci

Wander through my vinyl LP garden. It's a garden sixty years in the making. It's kind of like the brilliant stage play by Steve Martin, "Picasso at the Lapin Agile"; incongruous personages meet up with each other in my vinyl garden.

Madonna lunches with Bartók

Béla Bartók

photographer unknown

Elvis shakes it for Frederica von Stade. Ella visits Blue Oyster Cult from time to time and Alice Cooper has been blessed by Soeur Sourire (The Singing Nun).

Joan Baez winks at Johnny Rotten and Benny Goodman has a cool pad in Jazz Alley as well as a sumptuous apartment on Classical Blvd.

Both Woodie Guthrie and Sade listen to Marcel Marceau (yes, I have a recording of him TALKING).

John Steinbeck reads from his novels to
Julie Andrews who jumps with joy!

The Sound of Music

photo of Sound of Music album cover by Styrous®

Judy Collins has a cozy spot she goes to when meeting with John Cage (they affectionately call each other JC). Lotte Lenya finds great delight in the antics of the Stones. Mahatma Gandhi discusses the world and its woes with Pink Floyd.

Pink Floyd's Pulse album cover

photo of Pulse album cover by Styrous®

And Albert Einstein shows
David Essex how to Rock On.

Albert Einstein

Associated Press -

photographer unknown

Willie Nelson . . .

Willie Nelson

photo by Larry Philpot

. . . Maynard Furguson . . .

Maynard Furguson

photographer unknown

. . . The Residents . . .

The Residents
in concert at the Berkeley Art Museum
photo by Styrous®

. . . Sonny Terry, Canned Heat,

Leopold Stakowski . . .

Leopold Stakowski

photographer unknown

. . . Big Black, Lead Belly . . .

Lead Belly
photographer unknown

. . . Porter Wagoner, Frédéric Chopin, Yello . . .

Yello
photo by Francesca Fiovanelli

. . . Divine and Leontyne Price
all rub elbows together.

Leontyne Price
photo by Louis Melancon

The wonders and achievements of the men and women who have given us so much beautiful music/sounds/words mingle together like one huge happy family in my collection. It is like a dream to wander from one to the other at my discretion. To choose what I want to hear when I want to hear it. It's ecstatic pleasure to read the liner notes and see where performers mingle/collide with each other, usually with brilliant success, sometimes stunning disaster. But they live with each other and give pleasure in ways far beyond description.

My 20,000 vinyl LP collection is beyond listening enjoyment or pleasure; it transcends money and fortune. It is a Garden in Paradise.

And Paradise is for sale.

Interested? Contact Styrous®

For more info, see:
20,000 vinyl LPs (intro): Doris Day

and 20,000 Vinyl LPs 6: Categories

Paradise

by Jan Brueghel the Younger (c. 1620)

Styrous® ~ November 14, 2012

20,000 Vinyl LPs Archive
101 Reel-to-Reel Tapes Archive
MAIN MENU - Blog Articles

November 8, 2012

Doubt: A Parable

(click on any image to see larger size)

I had the great fortune to attend a production of Doubt: A Parable, a 2004 play by John Patrick Shanley. To say I enjoyed the play would not be the right word to use. It is not a theme to be enjoyed. A nun suspects a priest of molesting an altar boy.

To give some indication of how I feel about the play, before it started, a woman came on the stage and announced that the play was 90 minutes with no intermission. I thought, "Oh, my God! I'll never make it!" The play started and the next thing I knew, it was over. It had gone by in a flash and I had been riveted to my seat the whole time. I was blown away.

The cast turned in stellar performances and the production was a brilliant example of economy of lighting, staging, timing, set and dialogue.

The set for Doubt: A Parable as designed by Marion Williams

for the PlayMakers Repertory Company,

Chapel Hill, NC in 2008

photographer unknown

The interesting thing is the word, molested, is never used. The theme is a study of intolerance and bigotry. The irony is that the production was scheduled to be performed at San Francisco's Our Lady of Lourdes Church. It was not performed because it was banned by the Arch-Bishop. Life imitating art?

The performers:

Sister Aloysius Beauvier (Jean Wilcox)
Father Brendan Flynn (Aaron Murphy)
Sister James (Loretta Casalaina)
Mrs. Muller (Mary Chapman)