Thursday, September 19, 2013

Creative Loafing's Best of The Bay 2013

The Loafies have been handed out again. They come in two flavors, voted in by the public, or by the staff. In the former, there's a connection to the size of one's social networks, how much advertising they did on FB and there's always the few people with hundreds (or thousands) of freemail addresses. The latter is more about CL staffer's friends, biases, preferences and experience.

Let's not forget that a small magazine voted for Saint Pete as the #1 arts destination in the U.S.

In the non-arts category, a few comments...

A pat to Morgan and Morgan, the Midnight Tokers.

Channelside for er....channeling the St. Pete Pier.

Thump to Ed Turanchik for coming back more times than the undead with crazy projects.

In the Arts Department...

Props to:

Theo Wujcik, one of the area's living cultural treasures.

Katherine Pill, whose debut show at MFA, Colors Acting, served notice.

Mindy Solomon (sniff!) whom we were lucky enough to have for four years.

Tempus Projects. Consistent quality and pushing of the arts envelope without pretense.

Dominique Laubavie's talk at HCC Dale Mabry a perfect match of art, artist and setting.

Carol Mickett and Robert Stackhouse, living proof of why fusion produces much more energy than fission.

Duncan McClellan, not overlooking the fire in those fine new kilns: The real fire lies in his heart, vision and imagination.

Florida Craftsmen Gallery, who keeps raising the bar for itself.

Mark Aeling, for bringing a new sense of identity and unity into the WAD.

Community Stepping Stones and Sigrid Tidmore, for the really good mixed media work in the Beautiful Beasties show at HCC Ybor, but for forging living works of art and paying it forward.

The Exploding Chicken, for proving that the philosophy of separate but "equal" is still with us and applies to art.

Free Skool Zinefest @ The Roosevelt was the best zine fest here to date.

Rebecca Pulley...her voice is liquid poetry...

Venture Compound: Persistence, overreach, home of dreamers and doers, self-mocking and unabashedly humane. One of my tribe.

Whitey Alabastard, one of the great talents and wild spirits of our area. Frenzied, ecstatic, unbridled, passionate performer -- and humble. You can catch him out of context playing his squeezebox on Beach Drive in front of Pachiugo's some weekend nights. His rendition of the theme song from the movie Amelie is to love for.

Roosevelt 2.0's Tuesday Evening Market. Close your eyes, open them. No, you're not in California or Oregon. But you could be. Have a green smoothie or coffee at the bar, resist dropping to your knees and worshipping The Great Mother  in the form of the Seedling Wall. Nature's Cathedral in Ybor.

Star Booty and Rosie's Upcycle love and style flow from that space. The smiles are genuine, everything has or projects a history. Rosie should be having her baby any day now...can it get any better?

Vita DeVoid, more of a magician of all things sensuous, and a font of joie de vivre. We are happy to see her and leave better off than we arrived.

Tracy Kennard, who does a great job on the technical/social frontier, and does so with grace and elegance.

GeriX for being much more than just another rockstar (everyone is a rock or porn star these days....yawwwn!). I watched her once struggle towards the Ale n Witch carrying a huge amount of equipment herself. She just shouldered it and soldiered on. My kind of girl, and she can really sing and puts on a great show.

 Best Local Zine Creative Loafing? Looks like a voting irregularity.

Brian James, yes, see my recent review.

Cafe Hey...the best thing in town for a thursday evening. Consistently good people, food and poetry.

---  Luis


 






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