Back to the grind

My Barbarian, The Night Epi$ode

It must be time to get out of vacation mode and lumber back to reality. It’s only Monday, a holiday Monday at that, and my inbox is already crammed full of interesting invitations.

TODAY at 4pm, as part of PhotoLA in the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium, Nic Rad of The Celebritist Manifesto performs a stirring defense of James Franco as the greatest artist of this generation if not all time. It’s an 18-minute prose monologue, and thank God the full text and an audio recording are available online, thus obviating your need to actually go see it (not that you were going to anyway).

(On a related note, I recently watched the movie Date Night and I have to admit, Franco’s scene with Mila Kunis was by far the best thing in it. “Fuhgeddabout the anal!!” The boy is a very capable actor, no doubt. He’s just… spreading himself a little too thin, I guess.)

TONIGHT at 9pm, the amazing Killsonic invades Mustache Mondays at La Cita bar downtown. Killsonic is a bona fide musical happening, and what better place to set them loose than LA’s coolest nightclub event of the moment?

Wednesday, January 19, 7pm: My Barbarian presents Death Panel Discussion, the closing event for their Hammer Projects exhibition, The Night Epi$ode. I sometimes feel ambivalent about My Barbarian’s work, but I really loved this video installation, which was clever, campy, beautifully executed, and resonant after the fact (I have told several people about the hilarious toxic yoga pose episode). The death panel performance will no doubt be stunning.

Thursday, January 20, 6 to 9pm: The much anticipated Collective Show LA opens tonight, with performances from The Sterio Blak, Corey Fogel, DUBKNOWDUB, and LA Pedestrains. The show is only up for a week; there will be more events which you can keep track of here.

Thursday, January 20, 7:30 to 9pm: LACE will screen several alternative videos from the Bay Area that capture post-conceptual performance from 1977 to 1997. The event celebrates the recent release of the book, Radical Light: Alternative Film and Video in the San Francisco Bay Area, 1945-2000.

Thursday, January 20, 8 to 11pm: The wonderful {open} in Long Beach, one of the few cozy alternative bookstores remaining in the greater LA area, hosts a meeting to discuss the possible formation of a SoCal chapter of the American Society for Acoustic Ecology, followed by a listening salon, a discussion, and a performance by the Southern California Soundscape Ensemble (SCSE). More details here.

Friday, January 21, 8pm: Poet Aaron Kunin and musician Corey Fogel will read and fidget at Machine Project, enacting a sort of performance duel, or rather dual interpretative harmonies from Kunin’s new book, Sore Throat and Other Poems.

Friday, January 21 and Saturday, January 22, 8pm: Highways Performance Space presents somatic SENSOR, curated by Micha Cárdenas, Elle Mehrmand, and Dino Dinco. This multifarious and decidedly queer show will have works in the gallery as well as two nights of performance by Robert Crouch, Micha Cárdenas, Dino Dinco, Dawn Kasper, Frankie Martin, Elle Mehrmand, Zac Monday, Yann Novak, Phil Skaller, Samuel White and Dorian Wood. Tickets are $10-15 and can be purchased here.

Saturday, January 22 at 7, 8, 9, and 10pm: Vaginal Davis performs dejecta/protecta at MOCA Grand Avenue, in conjunction with The Artist’s Museum. Looks like tickets are still available.

Sunday, January 23, 7pm: Also at MOCA Grand Avenue, Simone Forti presents Forti on All Fours, which comprises Sleep Walkers and Striding Crawling, based on her animal movement studies of the 1970s, and an improvisational News Animation.

I have a feeling more event notifications will trickle in during the week, so check back here for the latest version of this listing.