The PopCulteer
June 21, 2013

Okay, if you remember way back to last year, then you know this year your PopCulteer is not going to go full-out in his coverage of FestivAll. There’s no dark reason or anything negative. It’s just that, after producing over six hours of video and devoting thousands of words to FestivAll over the last three years, I wanted to take a year off to A) avoid getting burned out and B) do some other things that I’ve missed in order to record FestivAll events.

The plan is to return next year, rested, relaxed and ready to throw myself into the tenth edition of FestivAll with my usual masochistic obsessiveness.

I’m not shunning FestivAll this year. I will definitely be at the Streetworks Art Auction and Celebration on Sunday. I have a piece up for auction, “Tales of Wild Adventure” (seen at the top of this post, click to see it bigger), and I’m hoping that two or three bitter rival millionaires who hate each other will show up and decide that they just have to have my art hanging on their wall, driving the price up to ridiculous heights.

The auction happens at 6:30 PM this Sunday at Habitat ReStore, with, as your auctioneer, the ever-entertaining Ted Brightwell. A reception with foodish stuff, drinks and music by Sean Richardson, Mark Davis and Friends will begin at 5:30 PM. I am proud to be among the 35 artists whose work will be auctioned off to benefit East End Main Street. The works being sold will be reproduced as 30″ round metal signs, to be installed along Washington Street in the East End. Last year’s signs are already up, and here’s a short look at them…

I will also be at the screening of “Ladybeard” next Friday at 10 PM at Uncork and Create. I’ll tell you more about that next week.

I’m sure that I will attend other FestivAll events, but it will be on a pressure-free (and camera-free) basis. I want to take a year to just be a spectator, instead of being “the press.” For a full schedule of all the cool stuff going on in town for the next ten days, check out the FestivAll website and the Charleston Gazette coverage.

There are a couple of other reasons I’ve scaled back this year. My allergies have been assaulted by nature this spring, and shooting video outdoors has required me to plan for recovery time afterwards. Whether or not I’m having a good day in terms of not shattering windows with atomic sneezes will have a lot to do with which events I attend.

I will be missing the art parade for the first time. If anyone records it and posts it to YouTube, I will gladly post it here in PopCult. My reason for missing the parade is that, after not going for the last three years, I will be attending the Marx Toy Collectors Convention in Wheeling this weekend.

Hey, I’m a collector. I haven’t gone since 2009. I didn’t want to miss this one. You’ll get to see photos next Tuesday. There will be so much coverage of FestivAll this year, due to it coinciding with the State’s Sesquicentennial, that I felt they could spare me.

That doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t go check out the cool stuff happening as our City Becomes A Work of Art. Here, represented via graphics, are some of the coolest events happening in Charleston during the next few days…

 

We’re going to keep it short this week. Check PopCult for all our regular features. Go and enjoy FestivAll. And don’t forget to watch our latest episode of Radio Free Charleston.