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Tuesday morning’s Famous ArtsWatch Link Post

By Barry Johnson
April 17, 2012
Culture, Featured

The “future” took another step forward this weekend at the Coachella music festival with the appearance of famous murdered rapper Tupac Shakur (who was killed in 1996) via hologram projection. He looked a lot like the video game representation of the real Tupac, so the stage was the perfect place for him. And the crowd went wild. Amos Barschad was there for Grantland and wrote:

“At first I think about whether or not I’d be cool with it if I had famous rapper friends that wanted to bring me back from the dead for a high-profile festival appearance. I decide that, yeah, sure, fuck it, bring me back as a hologram. Later I think about how I might have been able to make good money selling “I’m only here for the hologram” T-shirts.”

Which expressed the proper degree of youthful nonchalance and cynicism about the business of the art of rap.

But then I started thinking, too, and not about coming back as a hologram myself. Because with the proper computer muscle, a theater near you could cast Brando or Vivien Leigh in its own little production of “A Streetcar Named Desire”! That Oregon Shakespeare Festival production of “Animal Cracker” could cast the real Marx brothers. How about Richard Burton and Liz in “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf’? Heck, Johnny Depp as Hamlet or Cate Blanchett in whatever little theatrical I cook up in my basement. And yeah, this is going to get creepy really quickly, if it isn’t already…

Matt Wuerker, Pulitzer Prize winner

The Puliters were announced yesterday, and Portland was dominated the cartooning category. Matt Wuerker won the Pulitzer, and Jack Ohman and Matt Bors, were the other two finalists. Wuerker went to Lewis & Clark College, and I remember him huddling with Phil Keisling, then a reporter/editor at Willamette Week in the early 1980s, to talk about his latest creation. He now works for Politico. You can see Ohman’s work in The Oregonian to this very day. And Bors’ work adds some visual (and political) punch to alt.weekly newspapers around the country. Our congratulations to all concerned!

Because of “Portlandia,” the IFC channel has become a fervent fan of Portland indie bands, including Horse Feathers, whose new video, directed by Brian Danielson, they released on their website.

Have we mentioned that painter/educator Arnold J. Kemp won a Guggenheim Fellowship? Well, we should have. Lisa Radon, who works at PNCA where Kemp educates, wrote a fine summary of Kemp’s career for the school’s “Untitled” online magazine.

Quick hits

We heard from Mark Powell that Cappella Romana’s latest album has entered the top 25 Classical Recordings on iTunes.

The winners at the Ashland Independent Film Festival last weekend were announced. Great selection of movies!

Third Rail Repertory Theatre has announced its new season of plays, and the company continues an exciting trend: I don’t think we’ve ever seen a theater season with so much new and adventurous work from so many different companies. Once we hear about a few more companies, we’ll do a sift for you and report back. Meanwhile, Third Rail is offering two West Coast premieres (“A Bright New Boise,” “That Hopey Changey Thing”) and one World Premiere, Portland playwright Susan Mach’s “A Noble Failure,” along with the Obie-winning “The Aliens.”

Oregon ArtsWatch Archives