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| October | november | December | archive | |
This special live performance in the beautiful sanctuary of Trinity Episcopal Church is being jointly presented on the occasion of their milestone anniversaries by three of Buffalo’s preeminent alternative cultural enterprises: Hallwalls (celebrating its 30th this year), New World Record (celebrating its 20th), and P22 Type Foundry (10th). |
MUSIC / SPOKEN WORD Thursday, November 4 • 8:00 P.M. SPECIAL TRIPLE ANNIVERSARY CELEBRATION! Hallwalls, New World Record, & P22 present Legibly Speaking: A Live Collaborative Performance by David Greenberger with 3 Leg Torso 
Main Sanctuary, Trinity Episcopal Church, 371 Delaware Ave. $10 general; $7 members, seniors, students Legibly Speaking is the new CD (release date October 5 on Nail Records) by David Greenberger and the musical ensemble 3 Leg Torso. It features 11 new stories derived by Greenberger from conversations with residents of elderly housing in Portland, Oregon, collected as part of an artist’s residency sponsored by Portland Institute of Contemporary Art (PICA). 25 years ago (make that a quadruple anniversary!) Greenberger started a magazine using stories he collected from residents of the Duplex Nursing Home. The Duplex Planet magazine still continues today, and selected stories have been collected in the recent book No More Shaves: A Duplex Planet Collection (Fantagraphics, 2003). Greenberger (also a music reviewer on NPR) has made a career out of talking with old people, writing down the conversations, and presenting them as both performance and literature. Formed in 1996 as a violin, cello, and accordion trio, 3 Leg Torso creates original modern chamber music for their unique instrumentation. In recent years the band has expanded both generically and in size to become a quintet performing an eclectic synthesis of chamber music, Tango, Klezmer, Latin, and world music. The two founders—Courtney Von Drehle (accordion, bazouki, soprano saxophone) and Béla Balogh (violin, trumpet, mandolin)—are joined by newer members Gary Irvine (drums & percussion), Michael Papillo (double bass), and Craig Martin (vibes, marimba, xylophone.) With subtle wit and nuance the music introduces changing characters reflecting on universal subjects: everything from gambling (“Single”) and pets (“How Whivet Got Her Name” and “Another Brunt”) to painting and the foundations of Western thought (“Perpetual Motion”). The dreamy, chilling retelling of a stroke (“Two Strokes”) and the shadows cast on a diminished life (“A Condition of the Heart”) reveal not only the darker side of aging, but the depth of emotion those losses arouse in all of us. Ultimately, Greenberger’s goal is to reveal, with genuine tenderness, the richness of the whole person’s intelligence and humor. On September 1, the unique Buffalo-based company P22 launched its newest original electronic font, Ed Rogers. Rogers (1925-2002) was an unlikely and unintentional art figure. His art career began in 1981 when he met Greenberger. As a resident of the Duplex Nursing home, Rogers became a contributor to The Duplex Planet magazine. Greenberger included his drawings in many issues. Rogers’ dynamic lettering was a primary focus of nearly all his drawings. Later, Rogers was commissioned to create album-cover lettering for R.E.M. and other musicians. Since 1994, his drawings have been featured in a traveling exhibition of outsider art. Ed Rogers' vibrant lettering is compelling in its characteristic inconsistency. The Ed Rogers font set features digitized versions of his hand lettering and selected doodles. As the subject of a P22 font, Ed Rogers joins the ranks of Cézanne, Duchamp, Frank Lloyd Wright, Edward Hopper, M.C. Escher, John Cage, Van Gogh, Monet, Rodin, and other artistic geniuses. |
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FICTION Tuesday, October 26 • 7:00 P.M. EXHIBIT X presents a reading by Ben Marcus Marfield Room, Trinity Episcopal Church 371 Delaware Ave., FREE Ben Marcus is the author of Notable American Women and The Age of Wire and String. Most recently he has edited The Anchor Book of New American Short Stories. He teaches at Columbia. "I don't use the word lightly, in fact, I don't use it at all, but Ben Marcus is a genius, one of the most daring, funny, morally engaged and brilliant writers, someone whose work truly makes a difference in the world. His prose is, for me, awareness objectified — he makes the word new and thus the world." (George Saunders). Exhibit X is a co-presentation of Hallwalls and the UB English Dept., which funds the ongoing series. Writers are selected and introduced by Christina Milletti. |
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“In IN & OZ, Steve Tomasula writes as though the English language were his own invention. I'm far from certain he's wrong about this. But if we could still imagine a surrounding in which destiny lay within creatures and stones, or recognized the unconfinements of words, we might know fiction as he does. Next to being wholly new, IN & Oz is the best there is” (R.M. Berry). |
FICTION Thursday, December 2 • 7:00 P.M.  EXHIBIT X presents a reading by Steve Tomasula Chapel, Trinity Episcopal Church 371 Delaware Ave., FREE Steve Tomasula's short fiction has appeared widely and most recently in McSweeney's, Fiction International, and The Iowa Review where he received the Iowa Prize for the most distinguished work published in any genre. His essays on body art and culture appear in Leonardo (MIT Press) and other magazines both here and in Europe. He is the author of the novels IN & OZ (Ministry of Whimsy Press, 2003) and VAS: An Opera in Flatland (Station Hill, 2003/ University of Chicago Press, 2004). Exhibit X is a co-presentation of Hallwalls and the UB English Dept., which funds the ongoing series. Writers are selected and introduced by Christina Milletti. |
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