Mammaries go to the How Weird Street Fair

Sunday, May 7th, was the one fair I have loyalty to. The one on Howard Street, in the Soma district, in which most folks come dressed up pretty freakin weird. But this year, I noticed the trend is to move away from weirdness, even away from extreme fetish, and into just looking pretty darn good. So, my clothes apparently fit into the looking good category, while my prop and head gear was definitely on the weird side.

I wore my long platinum bubbly wig and my large falsies, which you, dear readers, have seen before in those posts, but not together. I put the falsies around my head like a headband, sticking up in their shocking nakedness.

I didn’t wear them on the way there so as to avoid offending any little children. When I was close to Howard street, I pulled them out of my bag, and looked over and right in front of me was a baby being pushed in a buggy. She was looking at me like: Wow! I can’t wait til my mama has that happen to HER!

People driving by raised their eyebrows and laughed as I transformed myself, tying on the falsies. I took out my strange doll with a mask and feather sticking out of it, and carried it. I carried it for a long time, but never once did anyone look down at it or comment on it. That just added to my playful point about some people seeing breasts when they see me, and not my other characteristics. Not looking anywhere where the breasts will be out of peripheral vision.

It is endlessly entertaining to see reactions, in that type environment, to breasts on the head. In the Sunset District, no one would flinch. No one would change his expression at all. I recommend How Weird because, there, they cracked up and pointed me out to friends, who then came over and posed with me for the camera, as I tweaked my nipples on my head. Then, they would grab them themselves. Passersby would lick them for the camera. I had my picture taken hundreds of times and of course, I have none of them. It’s fun to provide such luxurious humor for each other amongst the cameras of the weird clan. It’s a relief. It’s therapy. How Weird

The people I met that I spent substantial time with, however, barely mentioned my upward mammaries, and instead, did free, improvisational psychic healing work for me. They both picked up on similar things. It was comforting to meet people who, like me, work with intense, transformative energies for others. They didn’t have booths. They were free agents of change in a setting in which miraculous, bizarre, amazing things could occur.

There was a mandala of sod for people to sit on and relax. This year, the fair was part of ArtSFest, which is enlivening itself, with Brad Nye enthusiastically plunging into new artistic territory. San Francisco arts communities are coming together. The fair was originated by the CCC. Brad Olson, one of the founding members, began CCC publishing, which you can read about here. CCC Publishing and the How Weird Fair

Unfortunately, the Anon Salon afterparty was cancelled, and the afterparty moved to Mighty instead, becoming a traditional club scene. Anon Salon events are promoted by Mark Petrackis’s Party/Science blog in which he spoke recently about our culture in San Francisco in which we all dress up regularly in costumes, and said “How do we take our freaky edge talents and integrate them with others who are equally freaky and similarly edgy? How do we transform ourselves from the largely solo players we have been in our old life into the ensemble players we want to be in our new life?” Party Science

He has a new blog, Telecircus 2,in which he also recently posted some ideas about our San Francisco style freaky cultural scene, with the technologies that make for fascinating explorations of what is possible in creative parties. It is the follow up to his orignal site that was the first home to Anon Salon, Burning Man, and others. In it, he says, “Concurrently, we are seeing a dramatic culture-shift in the variety of ways that "user-generated media" is being created and distributed.

In many ways, it's a whole new ballgame for alternative sensibilities who are committed to the techniques of networked collaboration.”

Being part of the unique, Burner influenced art scene in San Francisco is not about putting paintings on the wall. It’s about dressing up in creative costumes week after week, and playing with friends, participating in multimedia collaborations, extravagence, absurdity, spirituality, and irreverence. What more can we do to push artistic parties even further? Let’s all put our heads together on this. And I have learned that having breasts on your head makes doing so more fun.

by Tantra Bensko
www.freewebs.com/tantrabensko

The Finch Mob Arts Collective

A new phenomenon is aflutter. A group of innovative artists and goofy theatrical inventors have been working together for a good while and now are focusing on group exhibitions and performances, with other artists invited as well. Will Chase, who also curated the recent Spectra Ball, and curated the Finch Mob show at a home turned into a temporary gallery, says their art falls in between commercial and noncommercial. They are calling for breaking down barriers that keep us from using our creativity to foster change in the world. Here here!

An extraordinary thing is occuring here, as they are not only thinking in terms of visual art, but guerilla art, silent movies, civic outreach, and mayhem.

I attended their gallery opening on the 29th. I was moved by the spiritual power of a large painting of a heart and its energies, painted by a circussy woman named Bonnie, or Bunnie, Reiss. I could stare at it for a long time, letting it expand my openness, feeling as if my own heart ckakra could reach the size of the painting.

The various circus performer types were doing contact improve and casually playing with difficult moves, as people cheered. I later discovered more about two Finch Mob participants through a CD of a travelling conceptual, twisted, idiotically brilliant circus by Ben Turner and Dattner that travelled through the country, performing in 20 cities in double that amount of time, making audiences into temporary circus performers, such as the Amazing Moderately Flexable Man. The lithe, ridiculously magnetic Ben Turner was adorable in a variety of roles such as the Self Taming Lion Man, and the Emotional Escape Artist. Dattner and Ben made use of the traditional circus obnoxious overacting and relentless flamboyant level of excitement, but their travelling circus was anything but conventional.

At the Finch Mob opening, I learned something new about fire, from the beautiful photos of Gary Wilson, capturing individual licks of fire that are intensely convuluted and striking. Who would guess flames looked like that?

An Immaculada painting by Susan Montana Murdoch explored the relationship between the Catholic imagery and the original Mexian imagery it was replacing, and using in order to take over the minds of the people they were conquering. Not enough attention is brought in art to the serpent religions and how they have always mutated throughout cultures. This painting is a beautiful example of how compelling the archetype can be made.

There was a one of a kind performance by Tim Barsky, who for many years has pioneered new musical territory by playing his alto silver flute while beatboxing. Alto silver flutes are not common instruments to begin with, and look surreal, as if blown on by Salvatore Dali, as they behave like normal flutes until the suddenly bend around to look back at their player. A very personable man, he has a true musician's passion for creating something new, with excitement. An educator, and storyteller, Tim has a lot of other projects that involve the community, such as the Vowel Movement, bringing together Bay Area beatboxers, and and Everyday Theatre, combining Jewish folklore and the hip hop cuture, and a play called As in Sleep. A new play, Dreaming in the Firestorm, comes to the Oakland Theatre on June 17th. He showed me how he does a type of circular dreaming that goes so far as to isolate each nostril as well as breathing at the same time through the mouth, so the flow of air is continuously going in three channells, to make sounds like multiple instruments. His performance brought energy to the already energized crowd, as he slapped the flute, played chords on it while humming, beatboxing,

Like the dream I always want to have, I was shown the alleyway down below, where people were playing the strange instrument in the narrow alley. It was based on the back of a piano which was splayed against the wall, but the strings went on and on, criss crossing over each other, with various levels of the wooden surface to strike powerfully. We played it with screwdrivers, which worked the best, keys, cups, which were not as successful, fingers rubbed with resin. Collaborating, picking up playful, surprising mini rhythms with them and and playing off of each others' constantly changing sounds was delightful. This instrument was created by brothers Chris and Marcus Guillard.

Check out the Finch Mob website to keep up with future shows and acts of mayhem mixed with genius.

by Tantra Bensko (www.freewebs.com/tantrabensko)

www.finchmob.com
www.mindfullight.com--will later have images of flames. Gary Wilson's site
www.timbarsky.com
www.marcusguillard.com
www.monkpunk.org--Dattner's site
www.susanmurdoch.com
www.bunniedesigns.com