Suyama Space Garage Sale

The Suyama Space Benefit Garage Sale is a wondrous and completely irregular event in which the eccentric architecture firm Suyama Peterson Deguchi clears out its curiously curated attic, basement and gallery space. After a two year hiatus the sale is finally back, and includes an incomprehensibly weird and satisfying mix of objects including (but hardly limited to) one of a kind handmade furniture, taxidermied animals, transistor radios, foreign language typewriters, splendid textiles, objets d'art and many more unnameable treasures.

The sale takes place this weekend only, on Friday from 9 to 5, Saturday from 10 to 4, and Sunday from 10 to 4. At 2324 Second Avenue in Belltown. Bring cash!

Missing Links

* Book collector Richard Hell in the New York Times.* W. H. Auden was a professor of literature and history for one year at the University of Michigan for one year." His syllabus required over 6,000 pages of reading including "The Divine Comedy," "The Brother's Karamazov" and "Moby-Dick." * Here's a short film of Michael Jackson dancing, made with Legos * In 1977, when Jean-Luc Godard was invited on an assignment to Mozambique, he refused to use Kodak film on the grounds that the stock was inherently ‘racist’. * PennSound hosts a large archive of poet John Ashbery’s recorded work and performances dating back to 1951 * I could look at shit like this all day: Magnifying the Universe. Full screen is best.*

Hands

The project Hands, by a 4-man team from Barcelona, is some darn clever street art. The installations spreading through Barcelona's streets are well suited for an online presentation, complete with a video for political context. People's reactions to the art, not to mention the creation and installation processes, are also very well captured. Nicely done.

Yo La Tengo Murders the Classics

The world's greatest radio station, WFMU from East Orange New Jersey, is in the midst of their annual fund drive, and I am happy to promote them as a worthy cause.

Also on the list of supporters, the world's greatest cover band, Yo La Tengo, are playing your cover song requests in exchange for a minimum pledge of $100. This Thursday from 9am to noon East Coast time, the Yo Las will be beaming in live from Berlin. Good Samaritans can use this link to get your request in early, and listen here to see what they do to your favorite song.

If you can't play the radio at work, or don't have $100 to contribute, you can buy a ticket for just $20 to see Yo La Tengo live in Seattle on May 17th. But they won't be taking requests.

Dinosaur Saints & Humble Robots

Speaking of Adam Ende, what has that guy been up to?

As it happens, Adam has been traveling with his son Cornsnake as part of their father and son puppet troupe, Jawbone Puppet Theater. Together they adapt stories of Franz Kafka, reinterpret African American folk tales with dinosaurs, explode in Spanish political rants, and share a gorgeous story about 16th century Peruvian saint San Martin de Porres. Adam designs the puppets and 5-year-old Cornsnake serves as love interest and musical director.

The two of them have been crossing the United States in a van along with Puerto Rican puppet troupe Poncili Company, who present their own subversive, thought provoking and occasionally shocking spectacles made of cardboard.

The 5-person circus recently wrapped up a two-month multi-city tour of New England, the Atlantic coast and the deep South, and are gearing up for their Spring and Summer tour across the northern states, Pacific Northwest and California. Touring libraries, farm markets, left wing book stores, underground enclaves and parking lots, they are probably headed your way before you know it. Watch their regularly updated facebook page for exact dates and locations.

Charles Burnett's Wedding

The 2007 theatrical release of Charles Burnett's 1977 drama Killer of Sheep was a landmark cinema event. The poetic and raggedly beautiful portrait of a Watts slaughterhouse worker was rescued from obscurity, and the director was catapulted into a long overdue fame.

Now, Burnett's lost second feature My Brother's Wedding, from 1983, has been released and is being shown as part of the Northwest Film Forum's L.A. Rebellion retrospective of African-American indie cinema. Set and shot in South Central L.A. with a largely nonprofessional cast, the film offers a world of complex family dynamics and social relations, shot before a complicated background of a loving neighborhood riddled with violence. The film remained unfinished until 2007, when Milestone Films - who also rescued Killer of Sheep - acquired the rights from its German financiers.

Charles Burnett will attend the screening at NWFF on Friday night, and on Saturday he will be at the screening of Bless Their Hearts which he shot for director Billy Woodberry in 1984. Saturday's screening is preceded by a free talk between Burnett and UW Professor of Social and Behavior Sciences Clarence Spigner. A bargain at $10, and tickets are available here.

Don't Hug me I'm Scared

Thank you Adam Ende for sending me this!

A trippy piece of puppety something from This Is It film-making collective out of London.

Collage O Rama

Nice show of strong eye-catching images by Matt Dinniman. He manipulates photos, stock images & clip art, and digitally prints them on the pages of old books. Simple and surprisingly effective. At Cupcake Royale on Capitol Hill, or you can see and buy copies of the prints real cheap at Dinniman's Etsy shop, Collage-O-Rama.

The Great Flood

Guitarist Bill Frisell created a live soundtrack of howling saxophones, Thelonious Monk hooks, American Folk Music and Stephen Foster songs to accompany Bill Morrison's new film, The Great Flood. The film is a silent and solemn procession of archival movie images from the Mississippi river disaster of 1927. In closeup, it shows trickling streams and rain on cotton plants swelling into torrents; cigar-toting politicians making grand gestures;  the destitute lived in shanties, and the wealthy lived like kings.

The footage is authentic and sometimes amateur. The bleached-out glare or throbbing shadows merge with scenes of displaced farm workers and churches full of worshippers, while Frisell leads trumpet, guitar, bass, vibraphone and purcussion through a lush and imaginative score.

The performance was a highlight of the 2012 London jazz festival, and is coming to Seattle's Moore Theatre for one night. Tomorrow night, March 2. Tickets are still available and just $32.50. Available here.