 A musical performance by New Orleans-based cellist, vocalist, songwriter and improviser Helen Gillet
Date: Monday, September 19th
Time: 8:00 PM
Night Two of the New Atlantis 2020 Series
Please join us on Monday September 19 for a return performance by New Orleans-based cellist, vocalist, songwriter and improviser Helen Gillet, whom music critic John Swenson has described as “among the most versatile and creative musicians working in the Crescent City.”
Helen Gillet is a Walloon born in a Flemish hosptial. Raised in Singapore, Belgium, Illinois and Wisconsin, Helen landed in New Orleans in 2003. Helen threads her tri-continental childhood web into her performance, notably with the instrument she picked up at age 9: The Cello. Recent collaborations have included working with Leroy Jones, Cassandra Wilson, Mark Southerland, Clint Maedgen, Marianne Faithful, Ed Sanders, Georg Graewe to name a few.
Helen Gillet has performed twice at Observatory, eliciting rave reviews.
Helen Gillet (b.1978) grew up in Belgium, Chicago and Singapore before settling in New Orleans. She first studied improvisation in 1998 with North Indian Classical cellist Nancy Lesh. Gillet moved to New Orleans in 2002 and began performing with James Singleton (3now4rkestra), Johnny Vidacovich, Brian Coogan, Rob Wagner, Dave Capello, Jimmy Hobbs, Tim Green and groups such as the Improvisational Arts Council, the Naked Orchestra, Diesel Combustion Orchestra, the Arabic-jazz fusion group Mafouz and New Orleans New Music Ensemble. She performs regularly at the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival, Chaz Fest, The French Quarter Festival, and the New Orleans Noize Fest. She can be heard on a wide variety of recording projects, including the Ed Sanders 2007 “Poems for New Orleans” recorded by the award winning Mark Bingham at Piety Records. Other recent recording projects include James Singleton’s String Quartet “Gold Bug Crawl” (2008) and a ballad recording with the great New Orleans trumpeter Leroy Jones entitled “Sweeter than a Summer Breeze” (spring 2009). Her work was the focus of OffBeat Magazine’s cover story last February; You can hear some or her work at www.myspace.com/helengillet.
 Thomas Rowlandson, 'The Persevering Surgeon', late 18th century, from the collection of the Hunterian Museum, London An illustrated lecture with Dr. Simon Chaplin of the Wellcome Library, formerly of the Hunterian Museum
Date: Tuesday, October 4
Time: 8:00 PM
Admission: $5
Presented by Morbid Anatomy
In his watercolour of a ‘Persevering Surgeon’, the British artist Thomas Rowlandson made no bones about the darkly erotic nature of anatomical dissection. Poised over the body of a naked woman, erect knife in hand, Rowlandson’s anatomist conjured images of the other solitary vice that consumed later 18th century moralists and medical men. But like Rowlandson - who combined popular satirical illustration with a more discreet trade in pornographic imagery - anatomists maintained a delicate balance between personal pursuits and public propriety. In this lavishly illustrated lecture, Simon Chaplin explores the sexual undertones of the anatomy schools of Georgian London, in which students dissected grave-robbed bodies in the back-rooms of their teachers’ houses, while their masters explored new strategies for presenting their work to polite audiences through museums and lectures.
Dr Simon Chaplin is Head of the Wellcome Library in London. Before joining the Wellcome he was Director of the Hunterian Museum in London, one of the world’s oldest anatomy collections. His research interests include the history of anatomy, surgery and museums, and his doctoral thesis explored the relationship between dissection and display through the work of the Hunterian Museum’s founder, the surgeon John Hunter (1728-1793).
 Photo: © Dr. Paul Koudounaris, from his book The Empire of Death Lecture and book signing with Dr. Paul Koudounaris, author of The Empire of Death
Date: Thursday, October 13
Time: 8:00 PM
Admission: $5
Presented by Morbid Anatomy and Atlas Obscura
** Books will be available for sale and signing
For five years, Dr. Paul Koudounaris has traveled the world to document a largely overlooked history: the decoration of religious shrines with human bones and remains in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. His newly published book The Empire of Death (Thames and Hudson) presents a collection of Koudounaris’ photographs and texts chronicling these incredible sites, many of which are not open to the public and have never before been photographed.
The research for this unique book took the author to over 70 preserved charnel houses and skeletal shrines on four continents to document the once common use of human remains for the veneration of the dead in Christian culture. Among other tribulations, in the course of completing his research, the author was pursued by malevolent spirits, handcuffed to a table in a striptease bar by a prurient monk, forced to undergo a religious pilgrimage and exorcism, and arrested by the Austrian police.
Tonight, join Dr. Koudounarishis for an illustrated talk in which he will provide historical insights into the sites and people who created these marvelous objects and spaces, a discussion of the veneration of the dead in Christian culture, and fantastical travel anecdotes, all illustrated by his breathtaking photographs of these unforgettable artifacts.
Paul Koudounaris received a PhD in Art History from UCLA in 2006, which a specialty in the Baroque. He has taught at major universities in the Los Angeles area, and has written for dozens of magazines and newspapers in several countries, specializing in articles about veneration of the dead.
 Date: Sunday, October 9th
Time: 1-4 PM
Admission: $60
*** Please RSVP at morbidanatomy [at] gmail.com
In today’s class, learn the mummification process as described in the “Egyptian Book of the Dead” (Book of Coming Forth By Day). Instructor Sorceress Cagliastro will guide students in the use of the traditional materials–such as natron salts, canopic jars, oils and herbs, dried flowers and linen or gauze wraps–and traditional ritual–such as ritual of the opening of the mouth–in the creation of an authentic and perfectly respected animal mummy. Each student will leave class with an animal mummy of their own making.
Please note: No animals are harmed or killed for this class; the materials are found already deceased, obtained either from a food service such as a meat market that serves a clientele seeking intact animals, or from a pet feeder supply.
Sorceress Cagliastro has a background as a teacher, author, and forensic reconstructionist. She worked as a trade embalmer and spent many years of work at the office of the Chief Medical Examiner. She currently lives in Brooklyn with her husband, daughter, and two dogs.
Date: Sunday, August 7th
Time: 1-4 PM
Admission: $60
*** Please RSVP at morbidanatomy [at] gmail.com
In today’s class, learn the mummification process as described in the “Egyptian Book of the Dead” (Book of Coming Forth By Day). Instructor Sorceress Cagliastro will guide students in the use of the traditional materials–such as natron salts, canopic jars, oils and herbs, dried flowers and linen or gauze wraps–and traditional ritual–such as ritual of the opening of the mouth–in the creation of an authentic and perfectly respected animal mummy. Each student will leave class with an animal mummy of their own making.
Please note: No animals are harmed or killed for this class; the materials are found already deceased, obtained either from a food service such as a meat market that serves a clientele seeking intact animals, or from a pet feeder supply.
Sorceress Cagliastro has a background as a teacher, author, and forensic reconstructionist. She worked as a trade embalmer and spent many years of work at the office of the Chief Medical Examiner. She currently lives in Brooklyn with her husband, daughter, and two dogs.
 “Mechanical Singing Bird Jardiniere,” made by the firm of Bontems, Paris, France, circa 1880 & recently restored A live automata demonstration and illustrated lecture by Jere Ryder, Conservator of the Guinness Collection of Mechanical Musical Instruments and Automata at the Morris Museum
Date: Friday, July 29th
Time: 8:00 PM
Admission: $10
Presented by Morbid Anatomy
The Guinness Collection of Mechanical Musical Instruments and Automata at the Morris Museum in Morristown, New Jersey is one of the finest collections of automata–or moving mechanical toys popular in the 18th Century and 19th Centuries–in the world. Compiled over 50 years by heir to the Guinness beer fortune Murtogh D. Guinness (1913-2002), the collection features scores of immaculately preserved historic automata–many of them produced in 19th Century France–with subjects ranging from snake charmers to magicians, singing birds to anthropomorphic monkeys, Cleopatra in her death throes to a waltz-playing Mephistopheles; it also includes a number of mechanical musical instruments and a variety of programmed media ranging from player piano rolls to pinned cylinders.
Earlier this year, Observatory brought a group to visit this collection in person; for those of you who were unable to join us–or who are hungry more!–we are bringing the automata closer to home. Tonight, we invite you to join Jere Ryder, Conservator of the Guinness Collection of Mechanical Musical Instruments and Automata at the Morris Museum, for a live demonstration of antique automata drawn from both the Guinness Collection and his own personal collection. Mr. Ryder will detail the history of these bewitching toys with an illustrated lecture on their history, show an introductory video, and demonstrate and describe the mechanics that bring them to life.
Bio: As Conservator of the Murtogh D. Guinness Collection of Mechanical Musical Instruments and Automata, Jere Ryder brings a lifetime of involvement within this specialized field. A keen interest developed after being introduced to them by collector parents, whom Mr. Guinness had encountered in the 1950s. He became a family friend, and served as mentor and inspiration for later study within the field. With no specialized teaching institutions dedicated to this particular realm, it was Jere’s father, Hughes M. Ryder, who introduced he and his brother to major European families, collections and related museums, assisting his ability to enter into studies/apprenticeships to surviving, established field masters, modern manufacturers and successors of original firms dating to as early as 1800. Throughout junior high and high school he received objects for repair from regional dealers and distributors. He and his brother Stephen created a business partnership in 1973 and since have repaired, restored, appraised and advised for some of the finest collections, acquiring objects on behalf of state and privately-owned museums worldwide, and are internationally renowned for research projects and the ability to source rare instruments offering new paths of study.
 Photo: Jason Falchook A Screening & Panel Discussion featuring Prof. Amy Herzog, Mica Scalin, Ilise “The Lady Aye” Carter and Bambi the Mermaid
Date: Thursday, July 21st
Time: 8:00 PM
Admission: $5
Presented by Morbid Anatomy
Forget vampires, werewolves, and zombies! All across America–at least according to USA Today’s Carol Memmot, who recently documented the explosion of high-profile books, blogs and movies devoted to modern “mermadia”–mermaids are emerging as “the next big thing.
Tonight’s screening and panel discussion will investigate the new wave of mermaid imagery and lifestyle being created by individual artists and the culture industry at large. We will begin with a preview screening of the new documentary “Mermaids of New York,” followed by a panel discussion featuring professor Amy Herzog, filmmakers Mica Scalin and Ilise “The Lady Aye” Carter, and practicing mermaid Bambi the Mermaid. The aim of the evening is to investigate the explosion of interest in these elusive mythical creatures expressing archetypes ranging from bright childhood whimsy to dark sexual intrigue, with an eye to discovering why these creatures? And why now?
Amy Herzog is associate professor of film studies at Queens College and The Graduate Center, CUNY. She is the author of Dreams of Difference, Songs of the Same: The Image of Time in Musical Film, which includes an extended study of Esther Williams and “water-based” musical cinema. She recently presented a new project on the history, aesthetics, and politics of underwater amusements and roadside attractions at this year’s Congress of Curious Peoples at Coney Island.
Filmmakers Mica Scalin and Ilise “The Lady Aye” Carter, the creators of the ongoing documentary video project “Mermaids of New York,” which follows some of the truly amazing, beautiful and genuine mermaids that live on and around the island of Manhattan by weaving together anecdotes from some of New York’s most renowned mermaids as a jumping off point to explore the connections between New York City, the individuals who choose to call it home and the water which surrounds it.
Bambi the Mermaid is a professional mermaid performer, acclaimed photographer and organizer of Coney Island USA’s Mermaid Parade whose art deals with pop culture, Americana and the strange places beauty and perversion meet.
 A short video by Jeffrey Kurosaki & Tara Pelletier with Live Musical Accompaniment
Date: June 28, 2011
Time: 8:00
Admission: $5
“Oh, river, were you not so close by these cliffs and banks, you could be the ocean.”
“Oh, river” is a narrative video project about a unique harmony that can be found in egalitarian relationships. Set in the wilderness, the city, and the passageways made to travel between these environments, two people are on a quest for synchronicity.
The music and script for “Oh, river” is based on a poem written while overlooking the Hudson River at Wave Hill Garden in the Bronx. The video will be screened with a live musical accompaniment of original songs performed as their musical collaboration, “The Wind & Good Things.”
Kurosaki and Pelletier met in graduate school at Cranbrook Academy of Art in Michigan and have been collaborating since 2006. Combining picturesque landscapes, natural phenomenon, and personified animals with their reactions to particular sites, they create multi-layered narratives of sculpture, drawing, music and performance. They have exhibited and performed internationally, including a self-organized European and Scandic tour in 2010. They were recipients of the Toby Devon Lewis Award and were artists-in residence on Governors Island through the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council. For more information visit: www.friendlyfalcons.com
 Codex Buranus (Carmina Burana) Wheel of Fortune (Schicksalsrad) Source: Wikipedia Date: Monday, July 18th
Time: 8:00 PM
Admission: $8
Presented by Morbid Anatomy
Carl Orff’s Carmina Burana–full title Carmina Burana: Cantiones profanæ cantoribus et choris cantandæ comitantibus instrumentis atque imaginibus magicis (”Songs of Beuern: Secular songs for singers and choruses to be sung together with instruments and magic images”)–was written not in the depths of the dark ages as one might assume, but in Nazi-era Germany, premiering to great acclaim in 1937 Frankfurt. The piece sets to music a selection of poems drawn from a subversive medieval manuscript of the same name which had been discovered at a Bavarian Benedictine monastery in 1803; primary themes include the popular medieval trope of the Wheel of Fortune (a literal example of which controls much of the action), the ephemerality of life, and the allure and peril of drinking, gambling, gluttony and lust.
Carl Orff ’s original conception for Carmina Burana incorporated orchestral music, acting, dance, masks, costumes, and sets in a kind of “Theatrum Mundi” in which music, movement, and speech were equal and essential pieces of the whole. The few contemporary performances that have staged the production according to Orff’s original conception have a fascinatingly uncanny, unsettling, Hieronymus Bosch-ian feel, as if something deep in our collective past were attempting to speak to us in a symbolic language beyond the reach of reason. By turns epic, bawdy, surrealistic, monstrous, bizarre and sublime–and always utterly compelling–these are very special productions not to be missed.
Tonight, join us for a screening of just such a production; The piece is performed in the original Latin but includes English subtitles, and will be broadcast over our astoundingly great new PA system.
 A series of live performances, visuals, readings and discussions curated and moderated by John Swenson, author of New Atlantis: Musicians Battle for the Survival of New Orleans
Presented by G. F. Newland
New Orleans is under siege from a lethal combination of natural and man-made disasters. The effects of the flood which depopulated the city after the massive levee failures 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. Musicians have also led the economic recovery of New Orleans after the flood by returning quickly to restore the city’s cultural identity. 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. New Atlantis 2020 is a series of multi-media presentations about the ongoing recovery of New Orleans including live performances by key musicians covered in the book along with visuals, readings and discussions moderated by author John Swenson. More on John Swenson and his work can be found at http://johnswenson.net.
Featured performers:
July 23 — Andy J. Forest, musician, songwriter and author of Life In Hell.
Sept. 19 — Helen Gillet, cellist, songwriter and singer.
October 14th — Blake Leyh, musical supervisor for the HBO series Treme and The Wire. Blake will screen excerpts his favorite episodes of Treme, and will talk with John about the music and musicians featured in Treme and in New Atlantis.
TBA — Davis Rogan, singer/songwriter and model for “Davis” played by Steve Zahn on the HBO series, Treme. Davis will perform songs from his latest album, “The Real Davis”, and talk with John about his experience as a writer, consultant and musical composer for Treme.
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