Dallas loses jazz icon Marchel Ivery

Just found out that Dallas tenor sax master Marchel Ivery passed away from pneumonia at Presbyterian this morning.  He was 69, and had been scheduled to play Terrilli’s this evening.  He’ll be sorely missed.  Robert Wilonsky’s got a nice write-up on him here, along with an MP3 of Ivery with Cedar Walton, Lyles West and Ed Soph doing Cole Porter’s “Every Time We Say Goodbye.”

Mark your calendars, kiddies

This Saturday at the Texas Book Festival in Austin, I will be moderating a panel on literary criticism (the online festival schedule is here). Specifically, the panel is “LitCrit: The State of Book Reviewing,” a topic that is sure to draw two or three spouses and maybe a janitor, especially when it’s up against George Saunders (humorous author of The Braindead Megaphone), New Yorker classical music critic Alex Ross (author of the terrific The Rest is Noise: Listening to the Twentieth Century), actress Marlee Matlin, The Onion Presents: Our Dumb World: Atlas of the Planet Earth and, of course, You Can Learn Magic, with the Kent Cummins Magic Camp Magicians!.

In our defense, I must confess that a panel on the troubles in book reviewing was my idea — almost a year ago, I pitched it to Clay Smith, the director of the festival. This was long before the dismissal of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s books editor, before the cutbacks at the LA Times and elsewhere, before the uproar in litblogs, before the National Book Critics Circle’s “save the endangered book page” campaign and before everyone else and his cousin had presented a panel on the same topic.

Our panel will just be better than everyone else’s. So there.

In our favor, we will have Alan Cheuse of NPR fame, Jessa Crispin, the Bookslut, the National Book Critics Circle’s Nona Balakian Winner Steven Kellman (that’s the highest prize a book critic can win, next to a Pulitzer) and Bloomberg News columnist, former Publishers Weekly editor and all-round nice guy Ed Nawotka.

See you there.

Cross-posted on book/daddy.

Galactic minx ‘Barbarella’ gets midnight treatment at OUTTAKES

The ten-day OUTTAKES Dallas Gay & Lesbian Film Festival kicks off this Friday at the Landmark Magnolia with several mark-your-calendar moments.  Two of my faves so far: a Del Shores reception and double feature of Daddy’s Dyin’…Who’s Got The Will? and the ever-uproarious Sordid Lives on Thursday the 8th - and - a midnight (well, 11:15 p.m.) showing of Roger Vadim’s 1968 intergalactic camp-tacular romp Barbarella on the 10th.  Sweetness.  If you’ve never witnessed the glory that was Jane Fonda in her pre-Workout days - or gazed upon the perfection of Anita Pallenberg in the role of The Black Queen - book your tickets now and make it happen!

A Concrete Addiction

Is ease of transportation a right or an addiction? Props to the Dallas Morning News and especially to Friends of the Katy Trail executive director Eric Van Steenburg for sharing a different perspective on the Trinity Debate in this morning’s paper. His op-ed, “Our Growing Highway Addiction,” might just motivate you to escape the rat race one of these mornings.

Crossing the Borders

Because I’ve been getting so many books delivered to my home the past year (note to self: dredge a path through the office library), I don’t visit my local Borders (Greenville at Lovers) as often as I used to. So the store’s complete layout change came as a shock this weekend.

And not necessarily a happy one. Yes, bookish people, and bookstore-ish people especially, tend to resist change. But two features that Borders has always had over Barnes & Noble in my estimation were its layout and looks. (A third one is that new clerks at Borders go through training to learn about books and the store inventory. On average, they tend to be more knowledgeable than Barnes & Noble’s clerks.)

The new Greenville arrangement is, I suppose, much more open and orderly with the rows of shelves no longer diagonal — they’re all squared off and ranked. But it seems infinitely duller, less cozy and nookish. It could be a food store. The magazine racks also now seem more tightly packed — more difficult to squeeze through, I found, if even just two other people are in the aisle. And, of course, all the cool graphic novels have been banished even deeper into the store.

But most surprising of all is that extra floor space has been carved out from somewhere else (the magazine racks?), so that the middle of the store now has a new digital equipment ‘display pod.’ Yes, there are online computers to use, you can buy and download music into your MP3 players right there, all very helpful to people who naturally visit bookstores to, um, do completely non-book-related things. But mostly, there are electronic gizmonics for sale: iPod accessories, compact DVD players, Sony’s electronic book reader, etc.

All rather nifty, but if I’d wanted to go to a Best Buy, I’d have gone to a bloody Best Buy. On the other hand — Best Buys do sell books. As do Wal-Marts and Krogers and tons of other retail outlets. One recalls Michael Moore’s remark in his film “The Big One,” when he’s scheduled to appear at some giganto-appliance-bookstore in the Midwest: Hey, come in to buy a novel and pick up a new refrigerator.

Such retailers have little to do with books but have significantly cut into booksellers’ business. So perhaps I should just chalk up all the appliance display at Borders to revenge competition — and hope it might prolong the life of bookstores.

Just as long as the stuff doesn’t take over the art books section.

And you will know him by his Beard.

Perhaps he’s examined your ID and taken your cash. Perhaps he’s convinced you to step inside the club to see a band you’d never heard of. If you’ve been to Club Dada - ever - you know John “Beard” Brewer. You may have heard that the longtime doorman has had some health problems lately, leaving him with some hefty financial obligations. Tomorrow’s Beard-A-Fit has been planned to help him out.

It’s all happening: ‘100 Fridas’ in Fort Worth on Sunday

A huge thank-you to Maria Solano at Artes de la Rosa and Marisa Treviño from Latina Lista/Pegasus News, and I know this is late notice but the details were just announced today and it’s also been a little busy around the office, as you’ve probably heard.

Anyway, 2007 marks the 100th anniversary of the birth of Mexican painter Frida Kahlo, so Fort Worth-based event producers Sound Culture are asking everyone to gather at the northeast corner of Magnolia and Henderson at 5 p.m. this Sunday (the 28th) for 100 Fridas, decked out in their most elaborate Frida finery and requisite unibrow, all in honor of the artist.  Pet monkeys and parrots are welcome, as are little ones, lawn chairs, food and drink, flores para los muertos, copal incense and cameras.  Email any questions to Tammy Gomez at sound_culture@hotmail.com, with ‘100 Fridas’ in the subject line.

Oh, and expect the full-on weekend happiness to resume next week.  Until then, I promise to make it up to you with a whole lotta Halloween love, while keeping my fingers crossed that Jeff W. and his wife are able to pull off their planned costume caper because it’s a rock ‘n’ roll tabloid trash dream come true, one I totally wish I’d thought of myself.

When Art & 80s Rock Collide

On November 9th, the Dallas Museum of Art will unveil the world premier of a work by British artist Phil Collins. Called the world won’t listen, the three-part video project features fans of the seminal British rock band The Smiths performing karaoke versions of tracks from their 1987 compilation album The World Won’t Listen. Sounds like fun…right? We hope to feature the exhibit in an upcoming episode of Think TV.

Halloween + Art = Fun

Get your costumes ready! Photographs Do Not bend Gallery will host an artist reception/costume party on Wednesday, October 31st from 4-9pm. Artist Michael O’Brien will take portraits of the ghouls, goblins, angels and rock stars who show up. I wonder what Laszlo will wear? (BTW - You should contact the gallery for details on getting your portrait made.)

DMA Rolls Out Fanfare for a King

King Tut, who has fueled romanticism about Ancient Egypt, continues to live in our imaginations, as the touring treasures from his tomb attract millions of visitors to museums around the world. The Dallas Museum of Art announced today that it will be the next venue for”Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs,” in October 2008. king-tut-exhibit-to-return-to-the-us-for-encore-tour.htm

The exhibit will come to the DMA after the current London engagement, and it will be the first time these artifacts will be seen in the Southwest. Comprised by over 130 materials from Tutankhamen’s tomb and other sites, Dallas is getting a selection of new artifacts that haven’t left Egypt before.

The DMA exhibit is the encore U.S. tour since it had been touring four American museums, starting June 2005 until last month. The last stop at The Franklin Institute in Philadelphia became the most popular exhibit in the state’s history according to the press release.

I remember when Dallas landed another Egytian exhibit on Rameses, shown at Fair Park and people flocked to it, but this is far more exciting because of the beautiful, gilded artifacts that make tomb robbers salivate. As a child I remember reading about Howard Carter, the British archaeologist, who discovered the tomb in 1921, and even he came to believe in the famed curse of King Tut for disturbing his tomb. All of this made me keep reading about Ancient Egypt in order to know what the art meant.

So this exhibit has everything: mystery, clues to the past and great artifacts. We’ll see where the Steve Martin dance fits in!