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Death By Art

death-by-artLinks to descriptions of the final art installation at Death By Audio

  • Link to online invitation
  • Death by Audio Hosts 16-Day Art Installation Before It Closes Forever – artnet News –
    death by audio art
  • INSIDE DEATH BY ART text and photos by Rebecca Smeyne
    Death by Audio, the beloved music venue in Williamsburg that’s been tirelessly booking emerging talent since 2006, is sadly shuttering its doors this month. Vice is taking over the lease for the entire building on South 2nd and Kent, which is/was also home to like-minded establishments 285 Kent and Glasslands (a separate essay deserves to be written on the irony of this displacement). In addition to being a music performance space, Death by Audio is also home to 12 people and a popular custom guitar-pedal shop by the same name, run by Oliver Ackermann of the band A Place to Bury Strangers. For their final days, Death by Audio has no shortage of special programming in store, including a phenomenal 70+ artist exhibition, called Death by Art, which opened last night. For this immersive multimedia affair, they opened the rarely seen residential loft to the public, with installations even in people’s bedrooms, in addition to the building’s copious other nooks and crannies. The exhibit will be open from 2-7pm every weekend, and from 8pm-12am every night for patrons of the music venue, until they close for good on November 22nd. Check out pics of the scene at the opening of this diy mega-show, below. And special shout-out to EyeBodega for their creepy-cool holographic video (image 5), of ubiquitous DBA music curator/booker Edan Wilbur waving goodbye, which pretty much stole the show.
  • Death By Art: A Band Of Artists Takes Over DBA Not only has the venue shifted into overdrive and is hosting some truly incredible shows, but they’re taking advantage of some of the otherwise closed-off space in the building. The people at DBA have handed over “The Ranch” to more than 100 artists who have transformed it into a gallery and living shrine to DIY.
  • Photos: A behind the scenes look at Death By Audio
    Before we were mourning Glasslands’ announced closure, we were hit with the news that Death By Audio would be closing at the end of this month. The pedal company/venue/artist studios lasted 10 years, which is a pretty good run, all things considered, but it’s still a shame to see it go. Before they pack up for good though, DBA’s community will be hosting Death By Art for the rest of November, an art show that opens up the space behind the venue itself, which is rarely seen by the public. Before the show though, we got a look behind the scenes at Death By Audio’s studio space, whose chaotic, DIY aesthetic is an outlier in Williamsburg today instead of the norm.
  • Big Law Country Club featured in ‘Death by Art’ at Death By Audio “For non-religious orphans, the music venue can be a viable substitute for a religious establishment – it is a place to worship, a place to find community, a place to find hope and faith. As Death by Audio shuts its doors, it is, for many, not only the closing of the cultural institution but the loss of a home. It is the last candle blown out of a once colorful and artistic neighborhood.

    Taking the exhibition title ‘Death by Art’ on a literal and funerary level, Alison Sirico, Peter Fankhauser, and Mackswell Sherman  create ‘Audio Delphi’ – a shrine erected as a sanctuary for reflection, celebration, and mourning of the beloved venue.”

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Recipe links

Berries on a plant in the woods near home, Falmouth, VALooking for sweet potato recipes, I came across this collection

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View du jour. November 19, 2013

White Camellia  bloomSeveral years ago I bought a white camellia shrub at Roxbury Mills, a farm and garden shop in Fredericksburg. Since then we’ve been blessed with a prolific display of white double blooms  from November until the very hard freezes of January. Today is November 7, 2014. The bush started blooming a few days ago.  A pleasant reminder that Winter is not final and we can survive and enjoy a beautiful resistance.

The photo is also available on Flickr at https://www.flickr.com/photos/eca/14844243672/in/set-72157647696149382

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Brief review. Gaining Ground: A Story of Farmers’ Markets, Local Food, and Saving the Family Farm by Forrest Pritchard

Gaining Ground: A Story of Farmers’ Markets, Local Food, and Saving the Family Farm by Forrest Pritchard

A well-written story about the transformation of a farm and the people who chose to live on it from dead-end industrial farming to a sustaining natural and organically managed farm. A thoroughly enjoyable read.

“We buried my father on a magnificent hilltop, rising above the West Virginia valley where he had spent his childhood summers. Here the grass grew so tall that the seed heads bowed in the wind, nearly touching the ground before straightening again. Below, expansive views of hay fields and forests stretched to the horizon, mountains rising on all sides.”

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Obituary average age. November 6, 2014: 86.5

Tomatoes from front garden, home, Falmouth, VAThe average age of those listed in the four obituaries in the November 6, 2014 Free Lance-Star was 86.5. The median was 87.5 with a sample standard deviation of 7.681. The ages ranged from 78 to 93.

This is the fourteenth day I’ve been collecting this data.
The mean of  obituary average ages  using {77.375,64,74.143, 62.5, 55,66.8333, 74.11,71.27,68.82, 76.92,63,76.71} at Wolfram alpha is 70.55, up .4 from the previous day.

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Obituary average age. November 2, 2014: 80.64

Muir Woods, CaliforniaThe average age of those listed in the fifteen obituaries in the November 2, 2014 Free Lance-Star was 80.64. The median was 83 with a sample standard deviation of 11.49. The ages ranged from 56 to 9992.

This is the thirteenth day I’ve been collecting this data.
The mean of  obituary average ages  using {77.375,64,74.143, 62.5, 55,66.8333, 74.11,71.27,68.82, 76.92,63,76.71} at Wolfram alpha is 70.1.

Quotes from some of the obituaries that caught my eye:

  • Her other loves included her many animals: dogs, cats, raccoons, peacocks, chickens and possum; all plants and flowers; decoupage; bridge; Christmas; shopping; music and the ocean. She had a joy for life, and often said she wished she could “do it all over again.”
  • This event will be open to all who wish to come and pay respects to Lewis and give Alice a hug.
  • Sydnor was known affectionately as “Hop” by his many friends because as a youth, he contracted polio, a dreaded disease of the time, which left him with a distinct limp. [This struck me because we have been listening to a reading of Nemesis by Philip Roth in which the polio epidemic of 1944  Newark, NY serves as backdrop and the source of a major theme in the story.]

 

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“I listened to … A Place to Bury Strangers, which is a great name for a band..”

APtBS poster from show in GreeceA Place to Bury Strangers have been mentioned recently by Daniel Radcliffe (plays Harry Potter in films). He thinks their music is the type the character he plays in a recent movie would be listening to.

He also says “I listened to … A Place to Bury Strangers, which is a great name for a band..”

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Obituary average age. November 1, 2014: 76.71

Clothes at vintage store in Warsaw, VAThe average age of those listed in the seven obituaries in the November 1, 2014 Free Lance-Star was 76.71. The median was 76 with a sample standard deviation of 11.04. The ages ranged from 62 to 92.

This is the twelfth day I’ve been collecting this data.
The mean of  obituary average ages  using {77.375,64,74.143, 62.5, 55,66.8333, 74.11,71.27,68.82, 76.92,63,76.71} at Wolfram alpha is 69.22.

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View du jour June 15, 2014

Magnolia bloomI love to visit the gardens at Chatham Manor in Stafford County overlooking the Rappahannock River and Fredericksburg. This is a photo of a bloom past its prime on one of the large magnolia trees on the grounds.

Chatham is a Georgian house that was the manor house of those that owned Chatham Plantation before the Civil war. The owners were adamant secessionists. They the house when troops of the Grand Army of the Republic (the Union) appeared in 1862 for the ill-fated battle of Fredericksburg. The house was used as a hospital. The descriptions on site are quite graphic and somewhat gruesome, but the War itself was as terrible as all wars. Walt Whitman supposedly was on site as a nurse. The home was privately owned until the later part of the twentieth century when it was dedicated to the National Park Service.

The photo is also available on Flickr at https://www.flickr.com/photos/eca/14842131294/in/set-72157647696149382

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Obituary average age. October 31, 2014: 63

Ice on Chesapeake BayThe average age of those listed in the four obituaries in the October 31, 2014 Free Lance-Star was 63. The median was 63.5 with a sample standard deviation of 27.99. The ages ranged from 31 to 94.

This is the eleventh day I’ve been collecting this data.
The mean of  obituary average ages  using {77.375,64,74.143, 62.5, 55,66.8333, 74.11,71.27,68.82, 76.92,63} at Wolfram alpha is 68.54.

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