Phantomimic's Blog

The Amazing Prague Quadrennial

7/17/2019

The Prague Quadrennial of Performance Design and Space is an event held in the city of Prague in the Czech Republic every 4 years. The quadrennial is sometimes referred to as the Olympics of design for performance, scenography, and theater architecture. I had the good luck of travelling to Prague while the quadrennial was going on, and I managed to visit a few of the exhibits. In the videos below I present some of my favorite ones.

The Hungarian Exhibit (Infinite Dune)

Stranded due to a storm, the end of which seems invisible: In this apocalyptic weather-project, the spectator peeks into a space where light, sound, and material all perform together and are synthesized into an immersive experience of transformation and memory. This exhibit won a prize for the Best Exhibition in the Exhibition of Countries and Regions.

The Danish Exhibit (Blood of a Virgin)

According to legend, the blood from virgins has magical properties. The person in the rotating box is a virgin, and every so often an aide would draw a little blood from him. Then they would have a raffle, and someone from the audience would win and take home the blood!

The Russian Exhibit (Theater of a Madman)

This installation by Shishkin-Hokusai and Olga Muravitskaya reflects the desire to abandon everything yearning for a solitude that would be similar to madness...an escape into the woods.

The Romanian Exhibit

This was one of the most surreal exhibits at the quadrennial with its themes of vision, visions, and time.

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The Mysterious Poe Toaster

7/16/2019

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The writer of the fantastic and the macabre, Edgar Alan Poe, is buried in the grounds of the Westminster Hall and Burying Ground in Baltimore, Maryland. For decades on the anniversary of Poe’s birth, a mysterious character would show up at his grave leave 3 roses and toast to the late writer. This character became known in the popular lore as the “Poe Toaster”, and his appearances over the years became the stuff of Baltimore legend. The Poe toaster appearances ceased in 2009 (the bicentennial of Poe’s birth), but the Maryland Historical Society decided to restart the tradition. They organized a competition and selected a new Poe Toaster, who still remains anonymous. This new Toaster shows up at more regular and tourist-friendly times. I went to see his appearance in 2018.

Left: The tower of the former Westminster Presbyterian Church now known as Westminster Hall. Right: The crowd assembles around Poe’s grave waiting for the Poe Toaster.

Left: Poe’s grave. Right: Inscription on grave.

Poe Toaster playing the violin (Left) and laying the roses (right).

The Poe Toaster emerged from among the graves in the burial grounds playing Saint Saens' Dance Macabre on a violin. He was wearing a fedora style hat and had a scarf obscuring part of his face. He walked up to Poe’s grave, lay down his violin, and pulled out 3 roses which he placed on the grave.

Poe Toaster toasting

The Poe Toaster then proceeded to pull out a bottle of cognac from his coat, fill his glass, and toast to Poe reciting the epigram from the Roman poet Marshall, “Cineri Gloria Sera Venit” (praises to ashes come too late).

Left: Poe Toaster leaving Poe’s grave. Right: The bottle of cognac he left behind.

The Toaster then picked up his violin and played “Happy Birthday”, after which he departed by walking back to the burial grounds and disappearing among the tombstones. Who is this man?

“Ye who read are still among the living, but I who write shall have long since gone my way into the region of shadows. For indeed strange things shall happen, and secret things be known, and many centuries shall pass away, ere these memorials be seen of men. And, when seen, there will be some to disbelieve, and some to doubt, and yet a few who will find much to ponder upon in the characters here graven with a stylus of iron.”

From Edgar Allan Poe’s “Shadow” (Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque, 1840)

The photographs belong to the author and can only be used with permission.

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The Restaurant at Patowmack Farm: A Culinary Adventure

7/15/2019

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My better half and I went on a culinary adventure to the Restaurant at Patowmack Farm in West Virginia. The restaurant menu changes every other day and features fresh produce from local farms. To go you have to make a reservation in advance. The place has a superb view, and the food was great. Every time that the server brought us our dishes he would spend a while describing the different components in the plates. What they serve here has both philosophy and art, and as I expected, it was also pricey. So this is not a place that we will visit often, but it's OK as a one-time adventure. Below is a photographic log of our explorations.

The photographs belong to the author and can only be used with permission

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Marv Ashby and High Octane Play Bluegrass Music

7/14/2019

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Marv Ashby & High Octane from the West Virginia Panhandle played traditional and contemporary Bluegrass music at the Black Rock Center for the Arts in Germantown, Maryland on July 6 2019.

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The Sedlec Ossuary (The Bone Church)

7/14/2019

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This is the Sedlec Ossuary outside the town of Kutna Hora in the Czech Republic. These are real bones. When the local cemetery got too full back in the middle ages, the bones of 40,000 people were moved to this chapel. Later on a woodcarver with an artistic streak named František Rint used the bones to make what you see in this video. They have things like a chalice or a coat of arms made entirely out of human bones, and even a chandelier that features all the bones in the human body!

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The Amazing Prague Quadrennial

The Mysterious Poe Toaster

The Restaurant at Patowmack Farm: A Culinary Adventure

Marv Ashby and High Octane Play Bluegrass Music

The Sedlec Ossuary (The Bone Church)

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