“The best slam poetry organization in the nation,” is what I heard Brian Omni Dillon say about Richmond’s Slam Nahautl at its 11/2/2011 “End Hunger Slam Series” at SPARC.
 

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Ever heard k.d. Lang’s album, “Drag”? Every song relates to cigarettes: “Smoke Dreams,” “Smoke Rings,” “Don’t Smoke in Bed,” and so forth. I cranked it up on 10/20/2011 after visiting the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts’ remarkable exhibition, “Xu Bing: Tobacco Project” – an artistic celebration and interpretation of tobacco by one of China’s most important contemporary artists.
 

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Ever seen that 1994 Johnny Depp movie, “Don Juan DeMarco”? He plays a Brooklyn-born 21-year-old who claims to be the incarnation of the original Don Juan and wears the complete costume including mask and sword. The penetrating theme of the movie is PASSION.

On 10/22/2011 – a few days after I’d discovered and watched “Don Juan DeMarco” – I attended theLatin Ballet of Virginia’s production of “Macondo” at The Cultural Arts Center at Glen Allen.

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On 10/22/2011 I saw dozens more precious artworks (all small) by lots of artists at the “Small Tapestry International 2: Passages” exhibition at The Cultural Arts Center at Glen Allen.
 

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The word “precious” can have some negative connotations, but here I mean it to mean “beloved” and “dear.” I met artist Tracey St.Peter on 10/21/2011 at the opening of her exhibition entitled “Quiet Monkeys, memory objects” at Eric Schindler Gallery.

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What do Inva Mula-Tchako and Andrea Green have in common? Each supplies an operatic voice for an enigmatic artwork that I love. The former is the voice of Diva Plavalaguna in the movie, “The Fifth Element,” and the later is the voice and face for Stefani Byrd and Wes Eatin’s projected artwork entitled “Diva” that I saw at 1708 Gallery’s InLight exhibition on 10/21/2011.
 

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