Vagina Monologues Performance to Support Local Groups

Unlike Puppetry of the Penis, the UNLV performance of the Vagina Monologues will be significantly more redeemable. In addition to providing its usual provocative material, the show at Artemus W. Ham Concert Hall will benefit some local organizations.

From their website, "This benefit performance of Eve Ensler's Obie-award winning play 'The Vagina Monologues' is part of V-Day UNLV, part of an international campaign to end violence against women and girls. All proceeds from the event will go to local women's shelters and support organizations."

The show will be performed on Sunday the 29th at 7pm, and tickets are $5 for students and $10 for everyone else.

Poetry In Vegas

For a relatively small city of 2,000,000, Vegas hosts a number of high quality poetry readings and events. In fact, we are host to the state’s only spoken word radio show, not to mention the Vegas Valley Book Festival, now in its third year. We even have a national poetry slam team that tours and competes with other cities.

Last year our slam team went to the finals in Chicago, Illinois to compete with hundreds of others. Team members were Andy Hall, Kari O’Connor, Mike Kiewel, and Andy Kenyon. Andy Hall also teaches at UNLV. Watch for him when he performs. He is guaranteed to make you laugh at least once! "Hey Andy, how many Goths does it take to screw in a lightbulb?" He has some great Haikus. This year’s team will be finalized March 22nd at the Seat Theatre inside the Arts Factory. For more information you can check Las Vegas Slam.

Vegas’ newest baby, the Rebel Poetry Spoken Word Radio Show, is on every Tuesday evening at 10:00 PM (PST) on 1230 AM KLAV radio, and there is a live webcast on the website as well. The station hosts local, national, and international poets via recorded CDs and live on air readings. To call in and read a poem you can call (702) 731-1230 or toll free at (866) 820-5558. The show is hosted by Bakeem Lloyd and Lim Subliminal and some of the best tidbits are often their humorous bantering. The show has received some local media attention and has a great variety of poets every week. Some of the show's features have been Bruce Isaacson, formerly of San Francisco, Saab Lofton, writer for City Life, Ashahed, and many, many more. Please check out their website and while you’re there, sign their guest book. It takes a community, people!

Bakeem & Lim also host Poetry on Ice at the Icehouse the first Sunday of the month from 7:00 PM to 10:00 PM, featuring live jazz and live poets. The Ice House is downtown’s newest hot spot. Tickets are $10.00 with a one drink minimum. The Icehouse is located at 650 S. Main Street, (702) 315-2570. This event helps to fund the radio show.

The poetry scene is alive and well this year, with a variety of choices. For a complete listing you can check the poetry calendar, Las Vegas Literary Calendar of Events. This calendar is updated monthly by Danna Botwick, who has been an organizer and host in the poetry community here for over five years. Danna also hosts a reading each Tuesday evening from 7:00 PM to 9:00 PM at The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf, 4550 S. Maryland Pkwy. Her readings include local and touring poets and authors and have included poets such as Richard Logsdon of the Red Rock Review, a nationally published poetry journal based here in Vegas out of the Community College of Southern Nevada. Danna has also organized fundraisers for September 11th victims and The Shade Tree Women’s Shelter. She can be reached at desertpoetess@yahoo.com.

Another great choice is A Sound Like Fire, hosted by Nakachi Clark, every Friday from 7:00 PM to 9:00 PM at Jitters, 2191 E. Tropicana. Nakachi is a talented story teller with a rhythm all her own. She can frequently be heard on the Rebel Poetry Radio Show as well.

The Iowa Cafe, located downtown at E. Charleston & 3rd St., also has a reading hosted by Megan Milligan and Mark Snyder. Megan is a news producer here at Channel 8 TV. Mark is a published poet. Together they host talent every week in a relaxed atmosphere. Iowa is a small, comfortable place that serves food as well. See their Yahoo group for events and times.

And lastly, please check for a complete listing of all readings and workshops at the calendar online. Or you can join the Las Vegas Poets Group.

Messy Exhibitions Show How the Body Works

Everyone knows that the body is a collection of vile liquids, nauseating smells, and messy and mysterious organs. Embarrassment and shame should follow any thought of your body. But for those who are strangely unashamed and interested in the body, here are some exhibitions.

First, Grossology: The (Impolite) Science of the Human Body at the Sloan Museum does a nice job of demonstrating how the body works. From their site...

"This sophisticated interactive attraction features animatronic robots, imaginative exhibits, games and challenges that explore the mysteries behind the mushy, oozy, scaly and slimy things our bodies produce to stay healthy. It's just plain gross and you are going to love it!"

But if it's the real thing that you would like to see, then the controversial Bodyworks exhibition is for you. Using real, live cadavers, Professor Gunther von Hagens uses a process of his own making to create anatomical sculptures, much like 17th-century anatomist Dr. Fredrick Ruysch. But Dr. von Hagens has had his fair share of critics and scandals. The British newspaper The Guardian has written about how Von Hagens was forced to return controversial corpses to China after accusations of the corpses being those of executed prisoners. He has also been accused of unethical dealings with various Russian medical institutions.

The Clark County Coroner's Office has added a photo-exhibition called: Las Vegas Unidentified. Alright, it's not a photo exhibition, but it's the edgy, artistic fare that some New York galleries would love to hang. However, the Los Angeles County Coroner has Clark County's site beat, with its own store selling chalk-outline beach towels.

Artist Alex Grey adds a spiritual sheen to anatomy with his "Progress of the Soul" works.

And finally, in a significantly tamer show, Barney Smith shows that a toilet seat to some is as a canvas to others.

Media Websites and Weblogs: Abroad and Local

Is this an article or weblog entry? Is it just semantics or a more important question? Some would say that the inherent nature of a blog, often individualist, undirected, and indulgent, leads them to being inferior or more prone to error than the more structured and guided means of publishing.

Free of editorial constraints and deadlines, however, blogs allow for immediacy that is missing with publications and websites that have deadlines, schedules and printing constraints. Some publications and journalists have embraced the medium's better qualities and used them to augment their more traditional methods. The Spokesman Review has added a blog to its website, Ask The Editors. The blog gives both readers and editors a venue to question and clarify without intruding on the format of the print version of the paper. And every answer has the name of the editor who provided the response.

It is the ego-bruising nature of corrections and retractions that may keep some publications from acknowledging past errors in articles. It is this subject that the Village Voice tackles in its Department of Corrections article. It talks about various publications and the use of their websites as a means of providing a place to make amends for mistakes. Or just ignore that they were made in the first place. Move along, nothing to read here folks.

Wired Magazine discusses the effect of adopting a reporter and blogging about their every utterance. Tim Withers has taken New York Times' political reporter Jodi Wilgoren as his journalist of choice in The Wilgoren Watch and critiques errors and bias as they appear. It is pretty evident that Withers takes issue with most any truly, or perceived, negative reported in Democratic presidental candidate Howard Dean.

Locally, the Las Vegas Media Site takes a similar tack, but more broadly. Using the internet as his podium, Jeremy Parker responds to just about anything he deems worthy of comment. See the "Weblog to Check Out" paragraph in the Las Vegas Weekly article for another review of his site. Additionally, the prolific writer has two other sites, Twenty-Four Frames Per Second and Las Vegas Weblog.

In Vegas both Rick Henderson and Mike Zigler have blogs that occasionally refer to or elaborate on articles they have writen for the Review Journal, Las Vegas City Life, and the Las Vegas Business Press.

Casey Kasem Retires from Radio, Profane Outburst Preserved for Posterity, and Mark Hosler Visits from Negativland, the Place that Kept Casey Safe

Founding member of Negativland Mark Hosler will be the guest of the SEAT Theater group on Feb 27th and 28th. Tickets are limited, so get a hold of them early. And now here's a little story about a man named Casey, his love of profanity and that band called Negativland...

American Top Forty host Casey Kasem retired in January 2004, after 34 years of hosting the radio music show. And while loyal listeners appreciated his unflagging support of bad music, he returned the love with his personalized dedications. From the ABC News article on Kasem's retirement, "You are a bit of a voyeur. You are hearing something that someone else is experiencing... ...When I do the letters, sometimes it takes me three, four, five times to read them until we get it exactly right. Every letter has its own feel, and none of them are just by rote."

However, some of his best readings never made it to the air. And for the owner of Snuggles, a deceased doggy, it was best that they didn't hear the first five times. The outburst that resulted was recorded for posterity and incorporated into a song that would never be aired on the show he hosted.

Negativland somehow found the Kasem outburst, covered the music of U2's "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For", released a single and promptly found themselves sued by both U2 and Kasem. Why did they choose U2? Did we mention that while Casey was dissing the dead dog, he also managed to slam U2 as well...

"...that's the letter U, and the numeral 2. The four-man band features Adam Clayton on bass, Larry Mullen on drums, Dave Evans, nicknamed "The Edge", on --this is bullshit! Nobody cares!

These guys are from England, and who gives a shit?"

After numerous lawsuits, they eventually told their story in the book Fair Use : The Story of the Letter U & the Numeral 2, made the song (and remixes) available online and continue to raise the ire of the RIAA and like-minded copyright enthusiasts.

Art Crimes, 1, 2, 3

1.) Wanted: Hot Artist w/ Sticky Fingers, Must Have Own Tools.

A strange innuendo-filled personal-ad from an arts fetishist? No, an even stranger request for an art thief. Artist Hans Winkler has placed a personals ad in the San Francisco weekly Bay Guardian as part of his "Crime Museum" installation for the New Langton Arts Gallery in San Francisco. As for how the criminal activity will be incorporated into the show, the artist remains mum.

2.) The war on terror has even imposed itself on agencies normally focused on the enforcement of art laws. The Art Newspaper reports, "The US Customs Art Fraud Investigation Center set up in 2000 to track and seize stolen art has been subsumed into the Department of Homeland Security... the agents who had concentrated exclusively on tracking and seizing smuggled art have now been redeployed to investigate cases related to the war on terrorism and financial fraud." Somewhere in a cave, Bin Laden is laughing while looking at a stolen painting hung on the wall.

3.) And speaking of Art Crime, Winston Smith is the man that wrote the book. Actually, he's the one who cut and pasted the book together. Winston is best known for his collaged album covers for the Dead Kennedys, Green Day, and Jello Biafra.

Get Ready for DVDs of DOOM!!!

This one's mainly for the VegasGoth list, and everyone else with a child-like love of all things dark and twisted.

Invader Zim, the animated brainchild of Jhonen Vasquez, is coming to DVD. Invader Zim is an alien bent on world conquest and the cartoon is one with a significantly black sense of humor. It made for an interesting contrast to the other shows it accompanied on Nickelodeon. Now off the air, the much-bootlegged show has been available on the internet fansites and eBay for some time. But now Media Blasters has announced in its press release that the much acclaimed show is due out on May 11.

On their Invader Zim Q & A page, they announced... "Yes, you will be able to pre-order the DVDs via this web site soon especially the DVD collector's box. Please check the web site soon for a link to sign up."

But fansite Room with a Moose has found that the Rightstuf.com is currently taking preorders for the Invader Zim DVD Volume 1. Additionally, Room with a Moose has found that Palisades Toys will be making Zim Toys. From their website...

"In this office, we have wanted to do this line for over two years at least. Everybody is really excited about it. We wil show painted prototypes of all the Series 1 characters at Toy Fair, but for now we can let you know what the Series 1 line-up is going to be. Series 1 (of DOOM!) includes Zim in Alien Form, Gir in Robot Form, Dib, Ms. Bitters and Almighty Tallest Red. Expect a few facial expression variants of Zim in Series one, along with a Military Mode Gir! If the line takes off we have a lot of other cool stuff planned for it."

Act Like You Love Me. I Mean, Really Act!

Valentine's Day + Cabaret + Dinner Theater = Valentine's Day Cabaret Dinner Theater.

Monet Continued

More fallout from the Vegas Monet show continues, with additional criticism skewering the Boston MFA for its involvement in the crass, artistic adventure that is "Monet in Vegas". Fortunately, Greg Crosby and Chuck Twardy popped out articles in the pro-Vegas camp for the CityLife and Las Vegas Weekly. They both offered articulate responses to the show and the arrangement's criticism and since they actually live in Vegas, both included actual reviews of the show!

Proving that a well-voiced argument will be listened to, Artblog.net's Boston MFA for Sale, Reconsidered article quotes our Mr. Crosby and finds that Vegas writers are kind of smart. Additionally, the site states that his "... opinion is the opposite of the Christopher Knight piece previously cited. Whether Knight or Crosby is ultimately right, you can be sure that you would rather have a drink with Crosby." How true.

All of this defense of Vegas and the Boston MFA will be seen as naive and uninformed by unconvinced critics of Vegas, and more proof that the city is no place for culture. To them I say...

Come for our strippers and shrimp cocktails and stay for the fine arts and culture. And then go home!

Angry White Man at Library

Author Chuck Palahniuk will be speaking at the Clark County Library in Las Vegas on Feb. 13th. Palahniuk has written such light-hearted fare as Fight Club, Choke, Survivor, and Lullaby, and will be reading from his short story Guts. For fans of Chuck, that Friday will be a good time to talk about the continuing likelihood of his books being developed into movies. However, if he starts discussing his love of children's lullabies, run away! Seriously!

Suzanne Scott, the Performing Arts Center Coordinator, has posted the following details on Palahniuk's official website, The Cult...

#1 - it's a free program
#2 - we actually seat 399, not 400 -- fire code -- seating is limited, so get here early
#3 - doors will probably open at 6:15pm with the program starting at 7:00pm
#4 - believe he's going to be signing as well, we will distribute free numbered tickets for the book signing at 5:30pm. People will get called up in groups of 10, ie: 1-10, 10-20, etc - keeps it a bit more organized and relaxed. UPDATE: If it looks like we'll be at capacity, we will probably set up our smaller black box with overflow seating (and a projected image/sound from the theater).
#5 - books will be available for sale -- B&N will have copies of the March issue of Playboy (think they ordered like 80) on hand as well as copies of his books.
#6 - our location is 1401 E. Flamingo Road, we're close to the airport and the LV Strip (about 5-10 minutes
away, depending on traffic - not quite walking distance but a fairly cheap cab ride)
#7 - any additional questions, call the programming office at 702.507.3459.

Henry Rollins Fitness Guru; What Next, Black Flag Football?

In what appears to be one of the lesser known signs of the apocalypse, rumor has it that Henry Rollins might be releasing a work-out video. The highly-pumped and highly-caffeinated Mr. Rollins apparently doesn't have enough on his plate, with spoken word releases, book publications, an American band tour, advisory board membership for the Raymond Scott archive, and a possible reunion with Black Flag.

However, Henry is behind the curve when it comes to punk rock aerobics. These people beat him to the punch. It's for "fun people with discerning taste. An hour and a half cardio and strengthening class that will have you pogoing and skanking your butt off!"

Oy, Oy, Oy my back!

Live Longer, Support the Arts

Stress can shorten your life. People that live in Vegas live in the 4th most stressful city in the United States!!! But there is something simple that you can do.

Leave it to the Swedes to find that attending the arts may add longevity to your life. For your consideration: Attendance at cultural events, reading books or periodicals, and making music or singing in a choir as determinants for survival: Swedish interview survey of living conditions.

News Flash: Live Nude Girls Come to Vegas

The topless review was one of the twin vices that the myth of decadent Vegas was built upon. And while gaming remains, the modern day topless choices are limited to the icky, sticky trappings of the strip club and the large scale professional reviews with talented, but unrecognizable dancers. Where are the Blaze Starrs, Chesty Morgans, Lili St. Cyrs, and Kitty West the Oyster Girls of today? If you are looking in Vegas, the Sin City Grind Kittens are a good place to start. Their site has pictures of their lovely ladies and blog notes on the troupe's current status and events.

If you wish to visit a museum dedicated to the burlesque arts and home to the yearly Ms. Exotic World competition, the Exotic World Burlesque Museum in Helendale, California is your place. Exotic World, registered with the California State Historical Society, has a large collection of burlesque-related memorabilia. Their website has info on the museum's history, a hall of fame with pictures of past legends, and a list of contemporary burlesque artists and troupes in their links section.

It's a shame that the Venus Lounge has moved away from its original retro fabulous look, as it would have made a great home for the Sin City Grind Kittens. But when Venus was in its finest form it often showed the Grindhouse Follies. While these movies are available from Something Weird Video, the original vintage burlesque and stag films themselves were never copyrighted, and can be legally downloaded from the Internet Archive. Most of the movies can be found by looking for "stripper" in the Prelinger Archives. Additionally, other gems include Sheree Tiger Dance, Peeping Tom's Paradise, and Malibu Mermaid.