Some years we need it to beat the heat. This year we need it to get away from the evil State Budget and the idiotic politics and discourse related to health care.

The 2009 Live Arts/Philly Fringe arrives tonight, not a moment too soon and wow, does this year’s festival look amazing. Mad art, frequently in mad spaces. World class performers, international and local performers, at their best: good art is its own kind of health care.

But it looks to me like a lot of the really great shows from reliable artists are early.

So I’ll make some suggestions now, and then you check out the site to make some further choices. When you see something great, post about it. Ok?

For those of you who appreciate efforts by churches to practice what they preach a bit more, Broad Street Ministry (the congregation I participate in) is having an anti-death penalty event on Good Friday.

Here's the official description:

"EXECUTE ART, NOT PEOPLE" is a unique way to remember the death of Jesus on the cross at the hands of his government. BSM will gather Philadelphia to hear from two former death row inmates, Shujaa Graham and Darby Tillis who were exonerated by DNA evidence, will be speaking about their personal stories and reflections on the penal system/death penalty. There will be music, art, conversation, and ways to get involved in this issue that makes our society more brutal and less just.

315 South Broad Street b/t Spruce and Pine
6:00pm -8:00pm

The event is a collaboration of Pennsylvanians Against the Death Penalty (PADP), Broadstreet Ministry (BSM), and Witness to Innocence (WTI).

We want different artists to showcase their vision for a different society, a different world, beginning in Philadelphia.

Details are a little hard to piece together right now, but there's a protest happening tonight over an art show at the Art Institute. Art Students decided to put together a show featuring six artists on the theme of gun violence. Apparently, the President of the school decided to shroud one of the pieces, an installation by Steven Earl Weber, with a black curtain.

In an email I just received from David Kessler, another artist in the show, apparently the rest of the artists will shroud their work in the same way, to express their opposition to censorship.

I haven't found any photos of Weber's piece on-line, but you can see other examples of his work at the link above. Dealing with gun-violence is nothing new in his work.

Here's David Kessler's letter to the University president:

Dear Dr. Larkin,

I am one of the artists in the current Art Institute student curated exhibition ‘Killing Time’. I am writing to you to address your decision to censor fellow artist, Steven Earl Weber’s work from the show.

Sir, censorship of any sort is offensive and abhorrent and at an art school it is doubly so. The fact that artwork should be censored in an institution of higher learning in a major US city is disgusting and backwards.

Shadow World is a project by David Kessler to document the lives of real people living under the El Train in Kensington, a neighborhood in North Philadelphia. He gives people a chance to give a first person account of their lives. It's political work, giving a voice to people that aren't heard from as much.

I thought Jennifer had written about this guy at some point, but I couldn't find it. Anyway, a lot of times, political types have a hard time with political art. What's the message? Where's the demand? Artists are taking on a different project than we are, though. They are moving consciousness and perspective and causing unusual juxtapositions that shake up our comfortable realities. Kessler's video work is pretty simple, but that's because his subject is so rich that he doesn't need to dress it up.

As you can see, there is an opening tomorrow night at The International House, 3701 Chestnut St, 6PM - 8PM. As long as the weather is bike-able, I'll be there. Maybe I'll see some other Philadelphians I know there, too? Let me know if you plan to go.

Cross-posted at ThisTooWillPass

Sometimes this city makes me sick.

In the last two years, the citizens of Philadelphia has seen what can only be called "Too Much Government!" I have always been aware of the fact that we as citizens must constantly ask ourselves some rather basic questions about our government, namely this: What is the roll of government in a democracy? To some, the roll of government is meant to be nothing more than a "thing", something that sits as an obelisk and sometimes intervenes. To others, it is a constant babysitter.

But to me, and to those who want freedom and liberty, the roll of our government is to simply be there when we need them! The roll of these employees of ours, the roll of those we hire and have decided to put in charge, the people we are in charge of... their job is to be our safety net. They are here to enforce OUR laws and OUR ideas. They are not here to tell us what to do and when to do it! We all live in a constant fear of a Big Brother Government, where those in the government can look up anything and everything we do, that they track our every move.

Yet, we allow them to do just that!

No, there are not cameras in your houses. No, there are no bar codes on your neck. And, no, your not forced to stand in front of a TV screen for 5 minutes and told to hate the enemy or face ridicule from everyone and possibly be called a terrorist. But we ARE allowing our government to control us, and we are simply letting it happen!

In the last two years in Philadelphia, the rights of citizens have been stripped away! Layer by layer, pound by pound, we are falling prey to our fears of criminals, of murders, and allowing those fears to govern our ways of thinking and our politics! Yes, Big Brother is here, and the signs have been there for you to look out for!

The smoking ban. A lot of people supported this as a way to clean up the air in Philadelphia, to make our city a shining example of what a pro-health law can do! But the reality is that it was just the beginning of a slippery slope, one that many who opposed the ban warned us of but many chose to ignore. Lets consider this fact: A large number of restaurants and businesses have taken it upon themselves to ban smoking. Before the ban, it was nearly impossible to smoke in most restaurants in Philadelphia. If you did, you were put in an uncomfortable and awkward smoking section. That alone should make you want to quit but, at the very least, you had the freedom and your right to smoke.

But City Council with Nutter at the helm said that wasn't enough. They decided, not us, that there needed to be a large ban on this. That this ban must apply to bar and outdoor restaurants. They, not us, decided what was better and healthier for us. We, as grown adults, were declared too foolish to do so. They decided that businesses were inept at deciding their own policies. Thus began the slow decay.