As part of Äppärät, Ballroom Marfa’s current visual arts exhibition, we have partnered with Marfa Public Radio for a serialized broadcast of a specially commissioned short story by Ned Beauman. Entitled Workspace Ergonomics Assessment, the story explores tool use among animals, from ravens to crabs, over five daily installments on Marfa Public Radio. Beauman is the author of the novels Boxer, Beetle (2010), The Teleportation Accident (2012) and Glow (2014).

The serialized Workspace Ergonomics Assessment, read by Beauman, will air Monday, December 28 through Friday, January 1 at 3:18pm and 5:18pm (CT) during Marfa Public Radio’s broadcast of “All Things Considered.” If you miss the afternoon broadcasts, it will play daily just after the 7pm and 10pm NPR newscasts in the evening.

On Friday at 6:30pm the entirety of Workspace Ergonomics Assessment will be broadcast as part of “West Texas Talk.” The series will be archived on the Marfa Public Radio and Ballroom Marfa websites, and rebroadcast in early February.

Marfa Public Radio can be heard across West Texas at KRTS 93.5 FM in Marfa; KRTP 91.7 FM in Alpine and KDKY 91.5 FM in Marathon; and on KXWT 91.3 in the Permian Basin. Listeners can also stream the broadcast live at marfapublicradio.org.

Curated by Tom Morton, Äppärät is a show about the mammalian hand, and the tools it touches, holds and uses. Taking its title from the name of a fictional, post-iPhone device at the centre of Gary Shteyngart’s 2010 near-future novel Super Sad True Love Story, Äppärät is concerned with labor, play and the uncertain zone between the two; and with the extension of the body, and the self, through technologies ancient and contemporary.

Äppärät is on view at Ballroom Marfa through February 14, 2016.

Aujourd’hui, Marie Fran Barbera, 54 ans, dirige une autre locale: Les Affaires culturelles rebaptis Le Th suis en formation permanente affirme modestement celle qui n’est pas issue du s artistique1, 2, 3, 4 We hypothesized that these abnormal immunophenotypes, that are defined on the malignant progenitor population, might also be present on the leukemic CD34+CD38 stem cell compartment which would enable the detection of the malignant CD34+CD38 stem cell compartment after chemotherapy. “Death, abuse and official misconduct is rampant in Florida’s criminal justice system and nowhere is it more pervasive than in our law enforcement and correction agencies,” he said, noting that his organization has received a stream of complaints from inmates’ families in the past few years. In the group presentation competition, 13 finalist teams were chosen from the regional competitions,

Äppärät guest curator Tom Morton spoke with Tom Michael of Marfa Public Radio about the group exhibition that opens this Friday at Ballroom Marfa. Stream or download the Äppärät edition of “West Texas Talk” from Marfa Public Radio.

Students exploring the ranch. Photo by Suzy Simon.

 

As part of MISD’s Summer Shakeup program, Ballroom Marfa and Marfa Public Radio have been hosting a workshop series utilizing Mimms Ranch as a site for the exploration of our lives as cinematic material. At the end of the program, each child will produce a short video and audio piece.

Here are some photos from the fun first day on Mimm’s Ranch, all images taken by Ballroom intern Suzy Simon:

To learn more about the program, please visit Ballroom’s website.

Tune in to KRTS, Marfa Public Radio, this Sunday night (1 September 2013) from 9-11p (CST) for a very special Inter-Dimensional Music featuring an hour of fresh tunes from Marfa-based electronic musician Celia Hollander, aka $3.33.

Plenty of Texas heads are still ringing from her recent psychedelic desert R&B AV collages in Austin and here in Marfa with William Tyler; regular ID Music listeners will recognize some of her more ethereal compositions from past shows.

Celia will be joining ID Music host Daniel Chamberlin from 9-10pm. Chamberlin plugs his computer into the soundboard from 10-11p, delivering the usual mellow set of kosmiche slop, maybe some Terry Riley or something from the Holter/Barwick-dominated genre of angelic slow jams.

Listen at 93.5FM if you’re out here in the Big Bend, otherwise point your computer at marfapublicradio.org for the live stream. We’re also intermittently active online at interdimensionalmusic.wordpress.com.

Marfa Public Radio summer campers came in earlier this morning to do some investigative reporting. For your consideration, some photos of the kids in action, including Exhibition & Programs Coordinator Rosa McElheny facing intense questions such as “Do you like cheese?”

Thanks to intern Berry Stein for the snapshots!

Hyperallergic is asking a number of questions about the new neon Playboy sign that was installed on highway 90 west of Marfa earlier this week. They’re not alone either, and curious readers looking for more local perspective would be well-served to lurk around the expectedly heated debate on the Marfa Public Radio Facebook page, or read in-depth local coverage from the Big Bend Sentinel.

While the Playboy installation is apparently curated by Neville Wakefield, Playboy’s Creative Director of Special Projects — who was also the curator of Ballroom’s 2011 AutoBody exhibition — it should be said that Ballroom has no direct connection to the installation. Or, as Hyperallergic puts it in their discussion of the inevitable threats of vandalism,

Prada Marfa, the now iconic piece of sculpture by artistic duo Elmgreen and Dragset (which has drawn a fair share of undue comparison to the Playboy project particularly by people outside the art world), was disfigured mere days after its opening and has sustained
numerous acts of vandalism over its eight odd years in existence. When prompted for comment, some speculated on the KRTS Marfa Public Radio Facebook page that the Playboy installation would be “vandalized to the extent of non-use within a month,” while another was more succinct about his thoughts: “target practice.”

This also means that the mildly NSFW spambot Twitter account @sexynudes is now showing up for the first time in our Google Alerts with their coverage of the Playboy project, a somewhat less than auspicious development when it comes to monitoring Marfa’s online presence.

Lucas, 49, had spent the previous six years as a Midwest League pitching coach for the Twins and had been in the Twins organization for 15 years, the same length as former hitting coordinator Bill Springman, whose contract was not renewed

He sat out Friday loss in San Antonio, the first game he missed because of a coach decision since days before broke out in New York three years ago.
He was killed along with four others at a house party early April 15, 2014.
Regardless there was a lot of celebration happening when the final horn went, officially making it the first back to back men’s hockey gold medals for Canada at the Olympics since 1948 (St.

Auburn prides itself on its “family” atmosphere, which means fans who have been around the longest often benefit most.
Well, for a brief but very memorable historic moment, we experienced the real Harper unplugged.

Nick Parker tied the game 1 1 just 1:10 later, but Pat MacIsaac would give the Wildcats a 2 1 lead after one period with a goal of his own with 19 seconds remaining in the opening frame.

For the 10th anniversary of her “arrival” at the Tom Dispatch online journal, Rebecca Solnit contributes “Too Soon To Tell: The Case for Hope, Continued“, a deeply inspirational essay. An excerpt …

“If you take the long view, you’ll see how startlingly, how unexpectedly but regularly things change. Not by magic, but by the incremental effect of countless acts of courage, love, and commitment, the small drops that wear away stones and carve new landscapes, and sometimes by torrents of popular will that change the world suddenly. To say that is not to say that it will all come out fine in the end regardless. I’m just telling you that everything is in motion, and sometimes we are ourselves that movement.”

It’s a moving piece of writing from a thinker with such a wide range of influence that she’s credited as one of the leading lights of the anti-war movement, contributed profound essays to photographic catalogs by Richard Misrach and James Evans, and is cited as possible inspiration for the christening of Beyoncé and Jay-Z’s daughter. She’s also the author of such modern-day classics as A Field Guide to Getting Lost, A Paradise Built in Hell and Infinite City: A San Francisco Atlas.

Solnit was a participant in the 2012 edition of Marfa Dialogues: You can listen to an interview with her while she was visiting us out here in the Big Bend at Marfa Public Radio. Her new book, The Faraway Nearby, comes out on June 13.

Michael Pollan’s new book, Cooked: A Natural History of Transformation, is now available for purchase, and the self-described “nature writer who writes about this particular part of nature that we don’t think of as nature” is popping up all over the place, from The Colbert Report to the Field Lab.

In September of 2012 Pollan joined us here in Far West Texas for the second Marfa Dialogues symposium. He and Hamilton Fish had a sprawling conversation in front of a packed house at the Crowley Theater, the entirety of which is available for your viewing pleasure up above.

The move comes as lawmakers are looking to rein in Medicaid spending

The Wildcats took a 42 38 halftime lead, having held UCLA to just 38.

Zardari is saying do not expose our corruption otherwise we will expose yours.
Cameron also comes with the bonus that he knows new offensive coordinator Kyle Shanahan’s scheme because Shanahan was the Browns’ offensive coordinator last year.
Super Bowl XXXVI was the most memorable Super Bowl for Patriots’ fans, and for patriots in general.
8 yards per attempt; passer rating of 106.

Outlook: Third team All Area catcher Christiana Roberts is a big graduation loss, but considering the Spartans return, virtually, all the rest of last year’s squad, things are looking quite promising for Immaculata.

Michael Pollan’s new book, Cooked: A Natural History of Transformation, hits the shelves next week. Here’s an excerpt from his excellent Q&A with New York Magazine‘s Adam Platt, available in full on their website …

“Did you ever dream that you’d find yourself as a sort of high priest of food?

I’m a little troubled by that role. I don’t want to be the food superego for people. I don’t have the answers, and I really want people to work this stuff out on their own.

I’m not a scientist. Like a lot of journalists, I go out and talk to a lot of people who know much more than I do. And I’m always surprised when they think I’ve got something new to tell them after I’ve published. You’ll talk to a bunch of scientists, you’ll write a story about what they’re doing, and then they’ll invite you to their next meeting as if you have original information. You don’t. What you have is the ability to synthesize and tell a story.

What’s that story?
That food is ecological as well as sociological—that the way we eat is connected to the environment and to the health of the land.

My early work really did grow out of gardens. My idea was that you could understand a relationship to the natural world by looking in these places Americans hadn’t looked very much—the garden, the dinner plate, the farm. In general, when Americans want to think about nature, they go to wild places. And I’ve always thought of myself as a nature writer who doesn’t like to go camping or go too far from home. But nature is right here. It’s right under our noses.”

There’s so much more over at New York …

Pollan spoke to a packed house here in Far West Texas as part of Marfa Dialogues 2012. If you’re in the mood for more, take a listen to Joe Nick Patoski’s interview with him over at Marfa Public Radio.

Palestinian-American journalist Ali Abunimah’s coverage of Israeli soldiers’ photos on social media has gotten worldwide attention since he first reported on a disturbing image on February 15. Abunimah is a co-founder of the website The Electronic Intifadah — where he first covered the story — and a current Lannan writer-in-residence here in Marfa. His piece about an image of a Palestinian child’s head framed in a sniper’s scope has led to coverage from The Guardian and the BBC, and has also attained viral status following coverage from news outlets such as Gawker and Buzzfeed.

His follow-up blog post from February 20, “Stoned, naked, armed and dangerous: more disturbing images from an Israeli soldier’s Instagram“, is an expectedly unsettling read, complete with somewhat NSFW images.

Abunimah’s talk at the Marfa Book Company on February 2 featured excerpts from his current work looking at the influence of Israeli policies on the practices of U.S. security thinking, and the following discussion suggested many parallels between the border politics of the U.S., Mexico, Israel and Palestine.

Click here to listen to Abuminah’s interview on Marfa Public Radio.