© Frank H. Jump
© Frank H. Jump
November, 2010:
Thanksgiving Mantra – How Many More Have To Die? (Harmony Moore Has To Die!)
Pocono Turkey 2008 © Frank H. Jump
Back in the old days of ACT UP demos when I was an active participant in the endless chanting “How many more have to die?” – some of the more cynical of us (Ron Goldberg- are you listening?) would ask – Who is Harmony Moore and WHY does she have to die?
On a much lighter note, there aren’t as many turkeys being slaughtered as chickens – and most of the almost defrosted turkeys to be devoured tomorrow (can’t wait to get mine stuffed and in the oven) have already died months ago.
There’s another week until World AIDS Day and not one day goes by when I’m not reminded I’ve been living with a killer virus for over half of my life. That being said, I do have much for which to be thankful-
- I am gainfully employed & fulfilled by my career in a period of the worst unemployment in decades.
- I’m in a loving & committed relationship with the love of my life for over 21 years.
- My health, aside from producing outrageously high triglycerides, is better than the average fifty year old American man.
- And although I do experience the blues more than I ever have before, the bouts aren’t debilitating and I always manage to rebound.
It doesn’t look like I’m going to be releasing my Fading Ad book on World AIDS Day as planned. I don’t want to rush and I’ve been very busy with the service learning curriculum around HIV/AIDS I’ve been developing at my school. Perhaps after the holidays will be a more realistic goal, even though I would have liked the eBook out for the holiday buying season. Our recent loss of data with BLUEHOST (who takes no responsibility for the server failure) has been remedied. Fortunately I’ve been a digital pack rat and had almost all of my files backed up (somewhere).
Well, I’m not usually much of a talker [here] and posting daily photos (obsessively) is really my forté, so I won’t bore you with any more of my psychobabble. But do drop me a line and let me know it isn’t all for naught. Happily, my friends are no longer dying in droves and it looks as if I’ll be around at least until retirement. I must reiterate that The Fading Ad Campaign remains a metaphor for survival, if not just from AIDS but from disenchantment- from a wearing down of that naïve optimism that has buoyed me for these first fifty years – and a metaphor of surviving a rabid anti-Progressive, Right Wing movement that is hell-bent on causing this Administration’s failure. Turkeys!
World AIDS Day – December 1st 2010 – Give to an AIDS Charity
CLICK TO GO TO MY SCHOOL'S BLOG
Our school is sponsoring a Kenyan child orphaned from AIDS. They thought if they donated their ice cream money for one week, we could raise the funds without great sacrifice. Visit the site to see some of the posters they made for this fundraising event. One of my student’s grandmother volunteers her time on Mondays and Thursdays to help me out and she will match 50¢ for every dollar we raise on World AIDS Day. I think that is just grand. If you find it in your hearts to donate, please visit the SOS Children’s Villages website. What is one ice cream when it compares to giving a child in need a chance to have a home & an education?
John Kelly – Schiele~Kelly @ La MaMa – Tuesday, November 23rd from 7PM – 9PM
CLICK FOR LINK TO LA MAMA THEATRE: John Kelly 'Gravel', archival digital print, 30" x 45", 2010
Schiele~Kelly a solo exhibition by visual and performance artist John Kelly, will have an opening event Tuesday, November 23rd, from 7 – 9 PM at La MaMa’s La Galleria, 6 East 1st Street (between The Bowery and 2nd Ave).
After his recent (June/July 2009) retrospective The Mirror Stages: Self-Portraits at Alexander Gray Associates, Kelly again considered his relationship to both visual art and the work of the Viennese Expressionist artist Egon Schiele (1890-1918) in particular. This led him to create a series of photographic self-portraits based on Schiele’s prolific body of work, and turbulent personal life. Using his body as subject, with the camera as spectator, he continues his investigation into self-portraiture and its relation to performance.
In addition to the Schiele~Kelly exhibit, La MaMa will present Pass The Blutwurst, Bitte (Version IV) in December 2010 at The Ellen Stewart Theater. This landmark and 1987 Obie award winning work will incorporate four new scenes and film sequences that recreate the private experience of drawing into a theatrical language.
‘Schiele~Kelly’
November 23–December 12
La Galleria LaMaMa
6 east 1st Street (between The Bowery and 2nd Ave)
212 505 2476
