October, 2007

 

Dear Friends and Readers,

 

            I received a lot of nice comments about my little tribute to Priscilla Alden last month and I appreciate them a lot.  You might have noticed I’m moving it all over to Priscilla’s own new entry on my Encyclopedia of Images.  I feel good about it.

 

            Then too, I thought I would let you know there’s another fond remembrance taking place now in Oaxaca.  “Chucho” Valle, one of the foremost actors in our Teatro Vivo de Oaxaca, a well-known figure in Mexico and a great friend to all of us, died last week.  We made some signs and masks and did a little “performance” at his wake.  He stared in many of our plays, including, below, “Luto, Flores y Tamales,” in a great photo by Russell which was used as the poster for the show.  We're thinking fondly of our Dear Chucho.

 

 

 

            Then just the other day, the Mexican Supreme Court ruled that the armed forces of Mexico cannot discharge a soldier for being HIV positive.  Wow! 

 

 

 

            And HOW ABOUT THIS?  Our very own “Gay TRI” soccer team is going to the “Gay World Cup” in Buenas Aires, Argentina!  Good luck, guys!

 

 

 

            Here they are celebrating a goal over London!  In the end, they didn’t win many games but as LA JORNADA reported, they all won great victories over discrimination and homophobia!  Congratulations, Team! 

 

 

 

            Then my wonderful sister Janet included, in a recent E-mail, two photos of her classroom in the Junior High in Madera, California, where she teaches, among other things, art to young kids.  She’s mentioned her students are almost all young Mexican girls.  I’ve placed the two side by side and am quite pleased to be used as an art teaching tool for those kids, as well as flattered to find myself in such good company, don’t you think?

 

 

 

            "Shading" is important, kids, as is "contour" and "texture," illustrated by my sketch of an impossible black pottery jar, my little study of a Michelangelo youth, a Bauhaus desk lamp from Berlin, my hunky, black boxer, my little Prague sketch of “defenestration” and my nice big drawing of the arches in a Mexican church.

       

 

 

            Of course, I hope the kids don’t confuse me with Calder, but I perhaps the Pat Nixon San Clemente Rose will clear up any minor mis-labeling.  E-hem.

 

 

            Thanks again, Sis!

 

           And I’m sure I mentioned that I’m always worried about putting too many pictures on my site and filling up all the space allotted to me on the server and the other day I said, again, to my wonderful techie who runs the server here in Oaxaca, I said, Chucho, I’m really putting a lot of stuff up on my site and I hope I’m not using up all my space.  And he said, again, Oh, for crying out loud, Bill (or the Spanish equivalent), I’ll send you the goddam graphic and you can see for yourself!  I said, thank you.

            So he sends me this little graphic which he printed out from the big main server.

  

 

 

            Like, WOW!  It turns out I’ve only used up some twenty percent of my space!  I called him right up and told him I loved him madly.  He said, we’ll talk.

            So, gang, there’s plenty more room and I’ll keep going on this end and you all keep sending me all those great stories and “jpeg” photos and we’ll get ‘em up, OK?  Good.

 

 

            Finally, I’d like to announce the coming soon of the latest big AAA / Teatro Vivo de Oaxaca Production, the Sixteen-Part Photo Tableau of Samuel Beckett’s "Happy Days," with:  Acting Director Sergio Santamaría, Photographer Ayax Cruz, Script Consultant s k dunn, and starring as "Willie," Stan Gotleib and as "Winnie," (did you guess?) Bill Wolf.

 

COMING TO YOUR FAVORITE INTERNET SITE REAL SOON!

 

 

 

            AAAAGHK!  But enough.  I’ll “p.s.” you a list of the new stuff from this month, if anybody’s got LOTS of time on their hands, but for now I'll just say:

 

            I love you all,

 

Your friend,

Bill Wolf

 

 

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P.s.  Here goes:  ALL NEW THIS MONTH!

 

On my growing “TIME-LINE” you’ll find:

Billy King’s THE BIRTH OF A CHEVY, Radical Theater Week in Seattle, 1969

The shooting of THE PAGAENT OF SALVATION promotional tableau, 1974

The filming of ROCKET TO MARS, 1975

The WORLD PREMIER OF ROCKET TO MARS, 1977

Our wonderful GETSTETNER MACHINE, 1977

Bill Wolf’s SALUTE TO THE 70’s, 1979

The first campaign of TOMMY FOR SCHOOL BOARD, 1980

The unforgettable Walk-In Tableau, CRIME OF PASHION, 1982

My limited edition book, NEW ARCHITECTURE, 1982

Jin Neu and s k dunn’s New York production of MUTUAL NARSISSISM, 1984

That light bit of “flier art,” 49er FOLLIES, 1985

The Napa Valley Theater Company’s HAPPY DAYS by Samuel Beckett, 1985

My paintings and drawings in the LAB GALLERY SHOW, 1987

The AIDS Emergency Fund’s HUG-A-HUNK BOOTH in the Dory Alley Fair, 1989

My male nude paintings show, HOT FROM MEXICO, St. Louis, Missouri, 1995

Dino Castro’s great show, INTERPRET MY SILENCE, 1996

Our touring, didactic drag show musical, LAS INTREPIDAS VS. SIDA, 1997

And just last year, Diana Ricci’s powerful VOICES OF THE WALLS, 2006

 

YOU MAY HAVE NOTICED:  At the bottom of each page in the TIME-LINE you can choose to go to the "NEXT" and go to the next entry on the time-line.  In this way you can sort of "surf" through the years.  At any time, a boring couple of years, for example, you can choose "BACK TO THE TIME-LINE MENU" and pick it up somewhere else.

 

Then too, you might like to notice a bunch of new images in Chapter 9, PORNOS, PORNOS, AND MORE PORNOS (!), in my “Memoirs,” as well as my regular batch of newly “Un-Sorted Images” below “Z” in my “Encyclopedia of Images.”

 

Check it out and tell ALL your friends!

 

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And finally, you know how I like to take a quick look at the “search-engine-keywords” successfully used to find my site.  Successful keywords during the month of September included, among others:

 

Tableaux Vivant

Pirate Ship Parade

Superwoman – Ms. Magnificent

Priscilla Alden

Blackglama ads

Judy Whitfield

Getstetner

Finoccio’s

Captain Pissgums

Steve Rehn

Steven Matlaga

Desiree Cousteau

Amores Criminales de las Vampiras Morales

Marge Rooney

Buster and Me

Karolyn Kiisel

Virginia Woolf

Thabo Sephuma

Foreskins

Carol Doda

Josh Koral

Lawrence Sanders

Triple Dick

Old 70’s pornos  (I don’t know if I appreciate that adjective which our reader somehow felt would facilitate finding my site.  E-hem.)

 

Later! 

 

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P.p.s.  And today, October 9, is the fortieth anniversary of the assasination of Cuban fighter Ernesto Che Guevara.  LA JORNADA ran a special insert on the revolutionary hero as leaders around the world paid him tribute.

 

 

 

            It's a good time to take a look at the beautiful, complete roll of film by Mexican photographer, Rodrigo Moya, in my Encyclopedia of Images.

 

 

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P.p.s. - Some people decry all the graffiti we have here in Oaxaca, which never seems to get painted out, except the political writings, of course.  It doesn’t really bother me.  I take it as part of the urban landscape and occasionally there's something eye-catching, especially the stencils, now much favored by the kids.  Some are quite good; a wonderful George Bush was up for a while, with Mickey Mouse ears and swastikas for eyes.

            And a couple blocks from our studio is a great Audrey Hepburn in “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” of which I’m particularly fond.  My friend Diana Ricci and I walked over and took her picture the other day.  I feel great; way down here in southern Mexico, that Holly Golightly still gives me a wink every day!

 

 

 

            I think I’ve mentioned, I’m proud of our little theater group here; from the beginning of the “resistencia” against the government last year, our Teatro Vivo has been in the front lines, with contingents in the marches, performance art in the streets and lots of promotion for the cause.  I think back so many years to our little Ensemble Street Players and our efforts against the war in Vietnam, performances in the street, Ferlinghetti routines in Pioneer Square and living tableaux of the Kent State killings and I feel a kinship with the movement here and all the good fights against injustice in this world.

 

            Sergio’s latest brainstorm that he’s coordinating with the kids from APPO is to rename all the streets of Oaxaca, especially the big four-lane highway around town, “Avenida de la Resistencia.”  Good idea, Sergio!

            I said I’d paint the first freeway sign.

 

 

 

 

            And I remember Miss Jacobson, my high school art teacher, for whom I was always something of a teacher’s pet, and all she taught me.  At our high school, like most, I guess, the sports department was far more important than the art deprtment, of course, and it was natural that the team football coaches could demand from the art department lots of big signs and banners for the Friday night games saying “GO TEAM!” and “WIN SANGER APACHES!” and things like that.  Well, Miss Jacobson hated it, of course, and tried to get it over with as soon as possible.  She would say, “Here, Bill, do this,” and instruct me in painting big, straight letters on rolls of butcher paper and “run it over to the gym as fast as you can!”

            I whipped out the above freeway sign in about twenty minutes.  Thanks again, Miss Jacobson.

 

 

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   ...LAST MONTH'S LETTER