Date: Thursday, March 29
Time: 8:00 PM
Admission: $5

Inspired by Migration, the year-long exhibition at Proteus Gowanus, music writer John Swenson suggested  we do a series about British rockers who come to America seeking fame and fortune. John knows quite a few, and the first on his list is Tony De Meur!

“Think Pink”: Comedian Ronnie Golden, aka Tony De Meur of the Fabulous Poodles, relives the golden days of 80s post-punk and New Wave. De Meur has agreed to do an exclusive presentation at the Observatory while in New York for the opening of his latest project, “The City Club,” a musical at the Minetta Lane Theater in Greenwich Vilage. The self -described “Swiss Army Knife of Entertainment” and writer of such memorable hits as “Mirror Star,” “Think Pink” and “Stompin’ On the Cat” will reprise his career as rock songwriter, TV star (”The Young Ones”) and Edinburgh Fringe performer. John Swenson will MC and will sign copies of his latest book, New Atlantis.

BIO: “Ronnie Golden” is the alias of Tony DeMeur whose musical career began at age ten with his crooning “No Other Love Have I” to Akela in the Turkey Street Cubs’ hut. Nine years later and he’s touring round Britain in “The Corsairs” with his old school chums, opening shows for Tom Jones, Englebert Humperdinck and Scott Walker. Hair was dutifully grown and an altogether more experimental concept was born - “Ugly Room” - playing ‘pig-stabbing music’ opening onetime for debut of “David Bowie’s Hype” after recommendation from wife-to-be Angie.

Such childish things were put aside for a couple of years while he worked at the Tate Gallery and then “Daddy Stovepipe” was his next incarnation, warbling ancient blues songs and music hall ditties in cheap suits and strumming a ukulele.  Then South London theatre-based twenty-strong aggregation “Silly Balls” asked him to join and he was soon working alongside mime genius Lindsey Kemp dressed up in a foam rubber garden wall declaiming “Some Enchanted Evening.” It was a living (actually it wasn’t with twenty other fuckers on the payroll!)

After this period of certifiable madness Bob Suffolk invited him to become a “Fabulous Poodle” and his world shifted on its axis. Almost imperceptibly. From cult status in the UK to Top Forty in the U.S. supporting Tom Petty, Sha Na Na and The Ramones all across that demented continent. Three albums and then came the predictable rock’n'roll hari kari.

A short period of rampant paranoia ensued, followed by a new identity and - voila! - “Ronnie Golden” was born.

Invited to Soho’s ‘Comic Strip’ one rainy midweek evening in 1981 he was blown away by Alexei Sayle, Rik Mayall, Nigel Planer et al and one week later was on the show alongside a very raw but hilarious Dawn French and Jennifer Saunders and the world premiere of twenty-one year old Ben Elton. An appearence in BBC 2’s “The Young Ones” followed and then a whole bunch of other comedy shows including “Saturday Night Live” and “Stomping on the Cat” (named after one of Ronnie’s more sensitive tunes.)

He then joined The Actor’s Centre, got himself an agent and took occasional acting work notably as a heroin addict in C4’s “How Much Is Too Much?” and as an MI6 agent in “The Fourth Protocol” with Pierce Brosnan and Michael Caine.

There were other musical ventures like the acappella doowop of the “Dialtones” but when he was asked to put together a band for the ‘graveyard shift’ in The Gilded Balloon at The Edinburgh Festival in ‘89 he jumped at it and called up a bunch of his favourite alcoholics and the rest, as they say, is………hysteria.

Presented by John Swenson and GF Newland, and brought to you by Observatory’s Things-That-Move Department.

Stop-motion set for The Quay Brothers' film "Bruno Schulz's Street of Crocodiles"

An introduction to stop motion animation with Hayley Morris of Curious Pictures
Date: Saturday, November 12
Time: 1:00 - 4:00 PM
Admission: $50
*** Class size limited to 12; please RSVP to Gfnewland [at] gmail.com
Part of the Oxberry Peg Presents Series

Hayley Morris, animator and director with Curious Pictures, will teach the fundamentals of movement and timing through clay and object animation. The class will include an introductory lecture and then will proceed to hands-on experimentation with movement, materials and lighting. Three professional animation work stations will be provided. Students will come out of the class with a basic understanding of the animated process, an appreciation for the art form and a dvd of their animated film.

Hayley Morris is a director, animator and artist. She received her B.F.A in Film/Animation/Video from the Rhode Island School of Design where she specialized in stop-motion animation. At RISD she developed a love for the tactile and hand-made. Her senior film “Undone” got the attention of Curious Pictures in NYC, and she was added to their roster of directors shortly after graduating. “Undone” went on to screen in festivals around the world and won the Grand Jury Prize for Best Animated Short at Slamdance in 2009. Hayley has been featured in Boards Magazine’s “Directors to Watch” issue and SHOOT Magazine’s “New Directors Showcase.” She has been bringing her unique style to commercials and music videos, and is in the process of developing a new short film.

Emily Collins has created and collaborated on music videos, plays, sculptures and illustrations. Her work has been shown at the Museum of Contemporary Sculpture in Matera, Italy, Anthology Film Archives, The Children’s Museum of the Arts, etc. On a regular basis, she works as a teaching artist at the Children’s Museum of the Arts, where she brings animation to young people throughout New York City. She graduated from Rhode Island School of Design in 2008 with a degree in Film/Animation/Video.

Capuchin Catacombs in Sicily, photo by the author

Illustrated talk and book signing with Sarah Murray, author of Making an Exit
Date: Thursday, October 20th
Time: 8:00 PM
Admission: $5 Presented by Morbid Anatomy
*** Thematic DJed after-party will follow the lecture; Books will be also available for sale and signing

Sending off the dead is something mankind does spectacularly well. There’s perhaps no human condition to which more attention has been devoted—faced with death, we create elaborate ceremonies and build great architectural edifices. We bury our loved ones in the ground or burn them in fire. We leave corpses as carrion for the birds, hang them in trees, or stow them in caves. We arrange for riderless horses to accompany the cortege to the cemetery or toss the remains of our fellows into sacred rivers amid the sound of bells and the swirl of incense.

In researching her latest book, Making an Exit (St Martin’s Press), Sarah Murray traveled the world in search of the best send offs. She will describe her encounters with everything from a spectacular Balinese royal cremation and a chandelier in the Czech Republic made entirely from human bones to the American death care industry’s biggest road show and a ghoulish Sicilian crypt where mummified corpses line the walls. Join Sarah for an engaging and highly personal discussion in which she will also present some of the unusual objects and artifacts she collected on her travels (she might even tell you about the plans for her own eventual send off).

Sarah Murray’s new book is Making an Exit: From the Magnificent to the Macabre—How We Dignify the Dead (St Martin’s Press, October 2011). She is also author of Moveable Feasts: From Ancient Rome to the 21st Century, the Incredible Journeys of the Food We Eat (St Martin’s Press 2007, Picador 2008). A longtime Financial Times contributor and freelance writer, she lives in New York City.

Stop-motion set for The Quay Brothers' film "Bruno Schulz's Street of Crocodiles"

An introduction to stop motion animation with Hayley Morris of Curious Pictures
Date: August 21st
Time: 1:00 - 4:00 PM
Admission: $50
*** Class size limited to 12; please RSVP to Gfnewland [at] gmail.com
Part of the Oxberry Peg Presents Series

Hayley Morris, animator and director with Curious Pictures, will teach the fundamentals of movement and timing through clay and object animation. The class will include an introductory lecture and then will proceed to hands-on experimentation with movement, materials and lighting. Three professional animation work stations will be provided. Students will come out of the class with a basic understanding of the animated process, an appreciation for the art form and a dvd of their animated film.

Hayley Morris is a director, animator and artist. She received her B.F.A in Film/Animation/Video from the Rhode Island School of Design where she specialized in stop-motion animation. At RISD she developed a love for the tactile and hand-made. Her senior film “Undone” got the attention of Curious Pictures in NYC, and she was added to their roster of directors shortly after graduating. “Undone” went on to screen in festivals around the world and won the Grand Jury Prize for Best Animated Short at Slamdance in 2009. Hayley has been featured in Boards Magazine’s “Directors to Watch” issue and SHOOT Magazine’s “New Directors Showcase.” She has been bringing her unique style to commercials and music videos, and is in the process of developing a new short film.

A Lecture, Performance, and Party hosted by John Swenson, author of New Atlantis: Musicians Battle for the Survival of New Orleans
Date: Saturday, July 23rd
Time: 8:00 PM
Admission: $5
Night One of the New Atlantis 2020 Series
•• Books will be available for sale and signing

“In New Orleans, it was the culture of the city—its musicians, its second-liners and Mardi Gras Indians, its chefs and trumpeters and sissy bounce rappers—who asserted for the future more than any political leadership or economic imperative. It was the refusal of the artists to let go of the idea of New Orleans that saved the city. NEW ATLANTIS tells this remarkable story and does so clearly, with considerable detail and affection.”
—David Simon, Producer of HBO’s Treme

New Orleans is under siege from a lethal combination of natural and man-made disasters. The effects of the flood following hurricane Katrina in 2005 are still being felt throughout New Orleans, while the rapid destruction of the south Louisiana wetlands that protect the city from hurricane surges brings the threat of future inundations.

Musicians have been in the forefront of efforts to educate the public about how to combat this threat even before Katrina; they have also led the economic recovery of New Orleans after the flood by returning quickly to restore the city’s cultural identity. Award winning author John Swenson’s book New Atlantis: Musicians Battle for the Survival of New Orleans (Oxford University Press) details the struggle musicians have undertaken to rebuild New Orleans and speak out for its future.

Tonight, join us for the inaugural event of the new Observatory series New Atlantis 2020; this series, curated and moderated by John Swenson, will feature live performances, readings and discussions that will explore the relationship between the musicians of New Orleans and the rebuilding of the city after Katrina. Tonight’s event will will begin with a lavishly illustrated introductory lecture by Swenson, introducing us to the key themes and characters of the book. Next, award-winning New Orleans based musician and songwriter Andy J. Forest–who figures prominently in the book–will perform live at Observatory on guitar and harmonica. Following this performance, Swenson will moderate a Q and A with the musician, after which he will DJ a rich variety of New Orleans music while we enjoy some beer and wine.

John Swenson has been writing about popular music since 1967. He edited the award-winning website jazze.com for Knit Media and has worked as an editor at Crawdaddy, Rolling Stone, Circus, Rock World, OffBeat magazine and been published in virtually every popular music magazine of note over that time. He was a syndicated music columnist for more than 20 years at United Press International and Reuters. Swenson has written 14 published books including biographies of Bill Haley, the Who, Stevie Wonder and the Eagles and co-edited the original Rolling Stone Record Guide with Dave Marsh. He is also the editor of The Rolling Stone Jazz and Blues Album Guide. In another role Swenson is a veteran sports writer who covered the New York Rangers for 30 years, writing pieces for outlets from Rolling Stone to the Associated Press. Swenson is also a veteran horseracing columnist and handicapper who covered the New York racing scene as a columnist for the New York Post and the New Orleans Fair Grounds meet for The Daily Racing Form. His profile on jockey Steve Cauthen, “Rise To Stardom, Fall From Grace” in Spur magazine was nominated for an Eclipse Award.

Swenson’s account of musicians returning to New Orleans after Katrina, The Bands Played On, appeared in Da Capo’s Best Music Writing 2007. His Every Accordionist a King won the 2008 Best Entertainment Feature award from the Press Club of New Orleans. Swenson’s latest book, New Atlantis chronicles how musicians battled to rebuild New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina.

Satisfied Nicotine Freaks, Dennis Corrigan, Oil on Canvas

An exhibition curated by G. F. Newland
Exhibition Opening Party: Friday, June 17, 7-10pm
On View: Friday June 17 - July 23, 2011
Hours: Thursdays & Fridays 3-6pm; Saturdays & Sundays 12-6pm

Greetings Art fans! In celebration of Father’s Day, the Observatory Things-That-Move Dept. invites you all to take a peek at procreation! In nature, talents can be predisposed, and passed on from generation to generation. Families like the Gentileschis, the Peales, the Bachs, the Wyethes, and most recently, the Kominsky-Crumbs have all made a strong case for this heredity thing; the Bush presidencies, not so much, but hey, it’s a crap shoot! Anyway, our latest show is about a wee dynasty of painters named Corrigan, and through their family oddments, we will examine art, eccentricity, and the vagaries of genetic code.

The Corrigan Family Oddments features the work of Dennis Corrigan and his two adult daughters, Sara and Becky. Dennis Corrigan–the family patriarch–rose to prominence in the art world of the late 1960s after returning from his tour of duty in the Philippines during the Vietnam war. He continues to pursue an active studio life involving the production of intricate and creepy yet humorous paintings, and film projects based on puppet characters derived from those paintings. His work resides in museums and galleries around the world, including the Metropolitan Museum or Art and the Brooklyn Museum. Sara, his oldest daughter, is a filmmaker and film-editor who has worked with such luminaries as Woody Allen; her fine art work consists of bizarre images of an imaginary and desperate Marilyn Monroe wannabe. These delightful yet deranged little paintings are created in oil on canvas. Becky, the youngest daughter, works as a singer-songwriter and physical therapist while creating very simple line drawings of ludicrous characters and more complex oil portraits of people on the edge.

This promises to be a most enjoyable show revealing the concepts and skills, similarities and differences of a very talented and humorous family of artists.

Oxberry Pegs Presents: Animators Are God?
A series of screenings, lectures, and presentations on the illusion of life
Organized by GF Newland and Trilby Schreiber

Animators are god? Meet them in person and decide for yourself when Oxberry Pegs Presents the “Animators are God?” Series at Observatory, co-hosted by GF Newland and Trilby Schreiber.

From time immemorial, some mere mortals have sought to play God! They have “pursued nature to her hiding-places” like a bunch of Dr. Frankenstein’s, driven by a bold desire to create life. They are the Animators, and somehow, they have done it, but how? How do they do it? How will they do it in the future, if any, and for God sake’s why??? For answers to these and other questions, don’t miss a night of this scintillating series of lectures, screenings, and presentations by the gods themselves! From Winsor McKay to Ren and Stimpy, the Golem to video games, automata to Avator, phantasmagoria to animatronics, Pygmalian to puppet theatre, this series will examine the ways in which animators play god, (with a little g).

Participants of this series include

• Signe Baumane, Animator; Thursday, July 15
• Kevin Brownie of Beavis and Butthead, SNL TV Funhouse
• Bob Camp of Ren and Stimpy; Friday, July 9
• Jonny Clockworks of the Cosmic Bicycle Theatre
• John Dillworth creator of Courage the Cowardly Dog; Friday, June 3
• Joanna Ebenstein on The Golem
• Ted Enik Children’s book Illustrator on Character Evolution and Cultural Pollution; Friday, June 25
• Tryrza Goodeve, Animation from Eastern Europe; Monday, August 30
• Eric P. Nash, Manga Kamishibai: The Art of Japanese Paper Theater, 1930 to 1960, Monday, August 23
• Nina Paley creator of Sita Sings the Blues; Thursday, July 1
• Jimmy Picker, Academy Award winning clay animator, 1983; Saturday, May 29
• Bill Plymton showing his new film The Cow Who Wanted to be a Hamburger; Date TBA
• Trilby Schreiber, Get Animated! The History, Future and Techniques of Animation, Monday, August 16th
• R. Sikoryak, Masterpiece Comic and Cartoon Parodies; September 23
• Debra Solomon, Co-creator of the Disney Channel’s Lizzie McGuire; Thursday, July 29
• Mike Zohn on the History of Automata

any many others

Series Organizers
GF Newland is a freelance animator and illustrator, guitarist, and a member of several student loan consolidation programs. He is employed by The School of Visual Arts, where he earned a graduate degree in animation.

Trilby Schreiber is a designer and producer of digital media and a professor of digital art and animation at the School of Visual Arts in New York City. She serves as a judge and curator of animation for several festivals, including the Brooklyn International Film Festival and Vienna’s Tricky Women festival, and is on the board of NYC ACM SIGGRAPH and the New Media Committee of the Producers Guild of America.

Calling all animators!
If you have a project, puppet, or golem you want to share as part of the Oxberry Pegs Series, contact organizer GF Newland at gfnewland@gmail.com.