"Hey, Fred!" 05/22-05/28/2024
Goings On in Columbus OH: Nancy Fest | Two Exhibits Opening at Urban Arts Space | Jesse Daniel | Debra James Tucker Record Release | The Oracle Turns 6
Visual Art
05/24/2024
Nancy Fest
Billy Ireland Cartoon Library and Museum, 1813 N High St
May 24-25
Free with RSVP, Waitlist Available at https://cartoons.osu.edu/events/nancy-fest/
Since its expansion, the Billy Ireland Cartoon Library and Museum has repeatedly hit it out of the park, with terrific exhibits and a stunning program that explores the various elements of comics—not just treating it as a literary form or as a graphic design feeding trough like too many academics still do, but understanding it as its own form, using everything else.
Working with Brian Walker—whose father Mort Walker provided one of the principal seed collections for the institution, if I remember correctly—Billy Ireland is lined up for another high water mark with a day celebrating Ernie Bushmiller’s groundbreaking study in deadpan surrealism, Nancy.
The opening reception on Friday night is a must-visit - everything I’ve done around the museum socially has been packed with kind, interesting people, and it’s a joy to have a drink and talk about the exhibits with people who are just as geeked about it as you are - but Saturday is highlight after highlight. Starting at 10 am with Denis Kitchen (of Kitchen Sink Press which was massively influential on me as a kid/teen) leading a panel of greats talking about what Nancy meant to them, and including an online interview with Olivia Jaimes, who revitalized Nancy with a fresh, contemporary take and the same anarchic energy that characterized the golden age of the strip (Anne and I use variations on “Sluggo is lit” more often than is maybe appropriate); Bill Griffith (Zippy The Pinhead) who learned to read through Nancy - I saw Griffith talk at one of those triennial Cartoon conferences the library used to throw back when I was a teenager, and it burned into my brain; Tom Gammill (Seinfeld, The Critic, It’s Garry Shandling’s Show) world premiering a play about Ernie Bushmiller; and Paul Karasik and Mark Newgarden presenting their Eisner-winning How to Read Nancy.
05/25/2025
A Love Letter to the Bridge Called My Back
Freequency
Urban Arts Space, 50 W Town St
May 21-June 29, opening reception May 25, 4-6 pm
Free; Hours and More Information available at https://uas.osu.edu/
I’ve long admired the potential of Urban Arts’ Space and have been a big fan of OSU putting some arts outreach into the center of town, plus repurposing a chunk of the old Lazarus building. In the last few years, UAS has capitalized on that potential and grown into one of the arts institutions in town to be reckoned with. I look forward to everything they’re bringing these days - except the drink options; avoid the wine if possible, but that’s both a minor gripe and something I’ve said out loud/to their face.
That excitement goes double for the two exhibits opening this weekend. An exhibition of works from the 2022 anthology created by gloria j. wilson, Joni B. Acuff, and Amelia M. Kraehe A Love Letter to This Bridge Called My Back - itself paying tribute to the groundbreaking 1981 feminist anthology This Bridge Called My Back edited by Gloria Anzaldúa and Cherríe Moraga. In a post celebrating a reissue of the original anthology in 2015, Long River Review wrote, “The text is a collection of essays, poems, personal narratives, interviews, and visual art, all attempting to respond to the questions, “what are the particular conditions of oppression suffered by women of color?…How has the special circumstances of her pain been overlooked by Third World movements, solidarity groups, ‘international feminists?’…How do we organize to survive this war? To keep our families, our bodies, our spirits intact?”” The new anthology extends those concerns and dialogues with everything we’ve learned - and how much society hasn’t learned - in the intervening 40+ years.
Freequency is a continuation of the Irrepressible Soul series of exhibitions and programming, curated by Iyanna Hill with April Sunami as co-curator and Dr. Terron Banner, who created Irrepressible Soul. The previous exhibit was one of the puzzle pieces falling into place for me, and I’d been a big fan of Afrofuturism in various forms, for years, so I can’t wait to see this follow-up.
Music
05/25/2024
Jesse Daniel with Alex Williams
Rumba Cafe, 2507 Summit St
May 25, 9 pm
$20 tickets available at https://www.columbusrumbacafe.com/event/?event_id=13418823
Jesse Daniel carries on the California country tradition exemplified by Buck Ownes, Merle Haggard, Wynn Stewart, and the ‘80s/’90s wave including Dwight Yoakam, Rosie Flores, and Big Sandy, and does it as well as anyone I’ve heard in many years. He fuses a sweet-and-smoky vocal to a driving groove and ear-catching arrangements full of pedal steel and searing telecaster. He comes through Rumba - my favorite room for any roots music you want to dance to - in support of Countin’ the Miles, which isn’t out yet, but the opening single “Comin’ Apart at the Seams” smokes.
Daniel’s New West labelmate Alex Williams opens, supporting a gritty, sweeping debut Waging Peace. It’s a terrific record carrying on the also vibrant country music and roots-rock traditions of Williams’ home in Indiana. A killer bill kicking off summer.
Debra James Tucker’s Voices Release
Natalie’s Grandview, 945 King Ave
May 25, 8:30 pm
$20 Tickets available at https://nataliesgrandview.com/events/debra-james-tucker-voices-album-release-party/
Debra James Tucker is one of our finest singers in any genre she turns her attention to - from a one-woman show paying tribute to her brother and taking the church to task for homophobia, to extended tributes to Mahalia Jackson, to work with Opera Columbus and the Columbus Symphony Orchestra. Her new record Voices - teased on her site as “[continuing] her exploration of early black church forms in contemporary contexts,” - should be a reason to celebrate. This release party also features singers Tia Harris, Vicki Saunders, and Janeen Holmes, along with spoken word artist Stevi Dearmsstevi Knighton.
The Oracle 6th Anniversary Party: Hurry Up and Die, DJ Trueskills, Hearts in Exile, Tres Divorce
The Oracle, 1159 Oak Street
May 25: 9 pm
Free
The Oracle does the best job of anywhere I’ve seen combining an often packed dancefloor, a sophisticated cocktail program, and the feel of a neighborhood hangout. I don’t get there as often as I would if I lived closer, but in the six years it’s been open, The Oracle has made my life - socially, musically, culturally - better.
The bar is celebrating that anniversary with the mix of entertainment it’s known for: longtime DJ/pillar of the Columbus music scene DJ Trueskills, two bands I’ve been trying to check out for a while, the grinding shoegaze of Hearts in Exile and Donny Monaco’s collaboration with Jordan Tolford, Hurry Up and Die (I’ve been a huge fan of anything Monaco does going back to The Bravado and there’s a terrific article on this new project in Matter News), and one I hadn’t heard of, Tres Divorce. I can guarantee a good time’s going to be had over here.
I couldn’t find any of these four on YouTube, so preserving the mystery.