Mid-Week Libation: Beauty and Ingenuity
Remembering Ace Farren Ford & Judy Henske, unsung hero Zephyr Wright, the art of Barbara Walker, wise words from Nalo Hopkinson, and decompressing with relaxing footage from Planet Earth III.
Mid-Week Libation is our weekly curated splash of inspiration and culture! Click above to listen to this weeks’ audio segment!
In Loving Memory of Our Dear Friend & Brother: Ace Farren Ford (1957-2023)
Untitled
by Ace Farren Ford
the darkened copper of a fresh cigar
Simon Rodia collected fingertip fragments
burning in the cinderground
grey oval smoke malted roast brown ghost
and trembling
counting spark
glowing nothing
no night train by knight time
no silver pockets of windowbox shadows
and toxins
grown over coals flame flecked digital
in ambient heat
lethargic dog echo yip saliva
and where, Horace, has this left we?
in there, Horus end INRI
glass shiny with the pouring
thorns and wounds gape open
for fallen breath and dense clouds
for amber
for jade
forsaken
i enter the tunnel unfettered
breathe in thick dusts
and cough out knots
lumps of thistle
songs burn louder than dawn
why shouldn’t they?
To order Ace Farren Ford’s latest book, Thursdays: Poems and Collages, click here.
For most of his life, Ace Farren Ford has stretched the limits of sounds and visuals to a point beyond reasonable identity. A founding member of the Los Angeles Free Music Society (LAFMS) and a very early member of the pioneer noise rock band Smegma, he has played with such varied ensembles as Crowbar Salvation, Rancid Vat, the Mystery Band, EXP, Heltir, AIRWAY, the Hangar Quartet, DAFT and his Artificial Art Ensemble. He published 4 chapbooks of poems between the years 1991 and 2002, has had 3 books published focusing on his art, and his first book for Moloko+ (along with Sea Urchin Editions) published in 2017 Memoirs from Monrovia, which abstractly described his time in the early 1980s when he worked in an adult bookstore.
In the edition Thursdays Moloko+ compiles the poems that Ace Farren Ford published in his 4 Thursday chapbooks: A Year of Thursdays, Escape from beneath the Valley of Thursdays, Exiled once more to the Island of Thursdays and Love Theme from Thursdays plus a chapter of previously unpublished poems Beyond that farther Mountain of Thursdays. These older and newer poems are combined in the book with a fine selection of Ace’s collages done between 2010 and 2022. Beautifully designed by rag from Vienna, this edition presents a wide view of Ace’s long practice as an artist and poet. Thursdays pays tribute to this multi-talented West-Coast legend. [Source: Sea Urchin Editions]
Celebrating The Life & Music of Judy Henske (December 20, 1936 – April 27, 2022)
Zephyr Wright: White House Chef & Unsung Hero of the Civil Rights Movement
Zephyr Wright Fed a President, Changed the Nation (via Epicurious)
Zephyr Wright’s Famous Recipe for Shrimp Curry! (via Hey Sistah)
The Art of Barbara Walker
See work by Barbara Walker at Leda and the Swan: A Myth of Creation and Destruction at the Victoria Miro Gallery in London (on view until January 13, 2024!)
See work by Barbara Walker at Black Atlantic: Power, People, Resistance at The Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge, U.K. (on view until January 7, 2024!)
Need to Decompress? Watch This: 15 Minutes of Relaxing Footage from Planet Earth III
Artists Born Today: November 20th
Visual Artists:
Today is the birthday of Clodion, Helen Mabel Trevor, Kazimierz Alchimowicz, Otto Sinding, Thérèse Schwartze, Julia Beck, Jan Toorop, Elsie de Wolfe, Antoon Derkinderen, Ivana Kobilca, Feodora Gleichen, Takeuchi Seihō, Queena Stovall, Alice Halicka, Nikolay Diulgheroff, Hans Burkhardt, Lon Hanagan, Robert Colquhoun, Tú Duyên, Natalia Dumitresco, Beverly Pepper, Tony Vaccaro, Svend Wiig Hansen, David Levine, Víctor Delfín, Hiromi Tsuchida, Frank Creton, Hugo Heyrman, Matéo Mornar, Dessa, Made Wianta, Christopher Le Brun, Ken Duncan, Konstantin Dimopoulos and Vik Muniz!
Writers, Philosophers & Scholars:
Today is the birthday of Laura Smith Haviland, Edwin A. Abbott, Marie de Régnier, Susanne Langer, Claudia Lars, Yevgenia Ginzburg, Hortense Calisher, Aziz Nesin, Gonzalo Rojas, David Bohm, Joseph Payne Brennan, Aurora Venturini, Aco Šopov, David Markson, Claude Pélieu, William Julius Wilson, Abdulrazak Gurnah, Susy Delgado, Marta Russell, Kate Atkinson, Sandra Cisneros, Nalo Hopkinson, Doug Wright and Alain de Botton!
Musicians & Composers:
Today is the birthday of Henry Kimball Hadley, Cousin Joe, Paul Francis Webster, Arne Domnérus, Pat Hare, Judy Henske, John Harbison, Kim Weston, Larry Willis, Pete Levin, Walter "Wolfman" Washington, Alan Parsons, Mitsuko Uchida, Arturo Márquez, Anita Ward, Billy Bragg and Bugzy Malone!
Film/TV/Stage:
Today is the birthday of Charley Grapewin, Irene Dunne, George Roy Hill, Errol John, Charlie Callas, Terry Sanders, Kathryn Joosten, Dick Wolf, Kim Ki-duk, Byun Young-joo, Eduardo Sánchez, Todd Phillips and Ron Leshem!
This Week’s Words of Wisdom: Nalo Hopkinson (born December 20, 1960)
I’m so sorry to hear that. You lost another dear friend, Ace.
I love the story and photos of your dad and beautiful stepmom, Kathy
And thank you for these delicious recipes!
I hope you two have a lovely Christmas and New Year’s! ❤️
So sorry to hear about the death of your friend & fellow artist Ace Farren Ford. May he rest in peace.