"ELECTRODOMESTICOS" AT THE STARVING ARTIST STUDIO GALLERY

Time warps can be fun, especially when they take you back to your formative years. It's also interesting to see those times recreated by a younger generation. Who would have thought that attending an indie gallery opening in Puerto Vallarta in March 2013 would find me contemplating the ghosts of 1978 as rendered by six visual artists, some of whom were not even born then? But there they were, lingering on the walls and in the corners of the Starving Artist Studio Gallery. This was not just a slavish recreation of an ethos, however, but an unofficial reinvention of a controversial period in art, one that's not easily refined, like putting boulders in a blender and expecting them to come out smooth and polished. Yet here was Keith Haring revisited, with traces of Jean-Michel Basquiat and David Wojnarowicz reflected back in thoughtful, intriguing ways, photographic images that Cindy Sherman or Robert Mapplethorpe might have contemplated in the aftermath of punk's corrosive vision. Here, too, was Pop art without all the irony, and layered over with a queer twist. Even the casual, seemingly artless approach to appending work to the gallery walls (here sometimes painted directly on the walls in DayGlo colours or projected onto a loosely blowing screen) speak of punk and Pop's disdain for things too refined or carefully considered. Not quite as transgressive as the originals, still it's a brave choice amid all the decorative elements Vallarta churns out endlessly. If you missed it back then, here's your chance to see it now.

The Starving Artist Studio Gallery, Aldama #209, Puerto Vallarta, Mexico

http://www.facebook.com/TheStarvingArtistStudioGallery

LAMMIES, THE ACROBAT AND MARY WALSH GOES BOMBALISTIC

Wow, it was quite a day. First off came news of my Lambda Award nomination for Lake On The Mountain. (Yay, thanks!) Ceremonies in New York in June. Then I met up with poet/novelist Jim Nason at a fun and funky west end bar, No One Writes To The Colonel, for the launch of The Acrobat, an online zine from the hard-working folks at Tightrope Books, promising fabulous visual, aural and written art, and put together with a lot of love and enthusiasm. As if that weren't enough, writer Keith Garebian and I took in Mary Walsh's bombalistic Dancing With Rage at the Panasonic. All Canadian, All The Time, this is comedy at its best, as Mary tromps through her favourite characters and gives Canadian politics its comeuppance. ("I don't like political jokes anymore," Marg Delahunty laments. "I've seen too many of them elected.") Marg's search for the love child she gave up decades ago takes her to Ottawa, where she faces her fears that it might just turn out to be that "crypto-nazi" Stephen Harper. I'm with Marg when she laments that things get soft in middle age. Marg is referring to her body; I'm referring to my cultural heroes. I doubt Mary Walsh will ever get soft. As we say in the Maritimes, "She got some mout' on her, that girl!"

A LITTLE BENT

Seems to be my week for being coaxed out of the house to see things I might otherwise not experience. First up, with writer Farzana Doctor, I attended artist and agitator Gita Hashemi's fine piece of political dialogue at the A Space Gallery, Time Lapsed, about the British-US derailing of Middle Eastern democracy when the legally-elected Iranian leader Mossedeq was ousted in what was to become the blueprint for American political interventions that continues to this day. Then, no less trenchant, last night I went with friend David Tronetti to the Hart House production of Martin Sherman's epoch-making play, Bent, to see our friend Edward Karek as a very unpleasant Nazi. Edward, we hereby crown you The Queen of Nasty.

TIME LAPSED -- A SPACE GALLERY

Attended Gita Hashemi’s Time Lapsed at the A Space Gallery last night with Farzana Doctor. It was a last-minute invite from Far Out Farzana, so I didn’t know what to expect. Turns out it’s a performance work-in-progress about an important period in history that I’ve been writing about tangentially in a book that deals with, among other things, American intervention in the destinies of other nations. Iran, 1953, was the first time the US government, with help from Britain, removed a democratically elected leader from office in what would become a blueprint for interventions that continue to this day: first comes the financial and political destabilization of the country, followed by the demonization of the leader, and ending with his ouster. Sound familiar? When America complains bitterly about the current Iranian monster-president, Ahmadinejad, it strikes me as ironic since their interruption of the democratic process is the reason he’s there now.

ON THE ROAD -- AGAIN

Went to see On The Road last night, drawn by the promise of cheap movie night and the chance to see a couple of cuties make mincemeat of the Beats. I prefer to confront my art unarmed and without foreknowledge, just to give the semblance of a fair fight, though I went with a healthy dose of skepticism that much could be made from the long, rambling drama of Kerouac's book, which I read in my teens. I'm not much of a Beat fan, though I'm somewhat fascinated by all those artsy intellectuals, many of them queer, trying to live their lives tough. Still, I hadn't read any reviews, so went without expecting much, certainly not to be mesmerized. What a thrill then to see the era brought so richly to life (at least as much as it can for someone like me who wasn't around in the 'forties) and the characters evoked so convincingly. The casting is magical all around. Garett Hedlund as Dean Moriarty (Kerouac's buddy Neal Cassady in real life), the bisexual rebel with Jack Nicholson's voice and young Marlon Brando's sex appeal, draws focus almost effortlessly whenever he's on screen. Kirsten Dunst as Moriarty's wife Camille (and Hedlund's real-life amour) fares equally well. Either I missed it at the beginning or it wasn't there, but when I finally caught the director's name at the end, I understood why the film was so rivetting. Brazilian Walter Salles first came to world attention in 1998 with the haunting Central Station. He later drew from Che Guevara's memoirs (as undramatic as Kerouac's book) and spun them into The Motorcycle Diaries. This is one not to be missed, unless your idea of a great film is, oh, I don't know … Titanic?

THIRD DAN SHARP TITLE CONTRACTED FOR 2015!

Many thanks to Dundurn Books for the vote of confidence in backing my application for a Writers' Reserve grant from the Ontario Arts Council, as well as for contracting my third Dan Sharp mystery, The Jade Butterfly, even before it's finished. I look forward to working with the folks at Dundurn again on this title, as well as on the second book in the series, Pumpkin Eater, currently scheduled for a spring 2014 release. Stay calm and read on!

ROWER'S PUB READING SERIES

Glad to be meeting up with my writer friend Peter Dube for an evening of rocking readers! Pete will be reading along with Dani Couture and Shaughnessy Bishop-Stall. Monday, Feb 4, 7-9, at the Victory Cafe, 581 Markham St (south of Bloor, west of Bathurst.) It's a great series. Come out and support them.