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Let Me Entertain You

Michelle Marchesseault

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Michelle Marchesseault

What is this book, you ask?

Last summer, I was lucky enough to receive a Temporary Outdoor Projects grant from the City of Austin’s Art in Public Places program. In conjunction with the 2009 Texas Biennial, curators Michael Duncan and Risa Puleo commissioned seven artists to make art that temporarily utilized public locales around Austin.

My proposal, a multimedia performance work of about an hour’s length, seemed a logical match for a venue that contained some kind type of stage or stage-like space. With its 20' x 30' concrete bandstand overlooking Town Lake, the Fiesta Gardens outdoor courtyard seemed to fit the bill. And with that, a dream was born and the show, recently titled Let Me Entertain You, went into production.

I am thrilled to have the chance to work on such a substantial live performance project right out of school (I graduated from UT’s MFA program in May of 2008) where my focus tended to be more on performance for video. In some ways, I am returning to my roots with this project. Right up until I left New York City for school in the fall of 2005, I had been performing in the downtown clubs and cabarets, with a scene well known for it’s late night, no-holds barred attitude.

Since then, I have missed being in front of an audience. It’s one of the main reasons I do what I do. In other ways, this project is a departure. While I have produced many solo videoperformance and live, collaborative works, I have never produced a live solo show. And in all cases, my performances and videos have been well under 15-minutes. Durationally speaking, this is brand new territory for me.

Because of that and the other new challenges I faced, I had to figure out an approach to developing this project that was familiar enough to get me up and running.

In addition to my solo practice, I have always worked and performed collaboratively. There is something wholly rewarding and celebratory about teamwork, and I value the collaborative experience for its ability to teach me new things about those with whom I work. Many important friendships that could have dissolved or fallen by the wayside as I grow older continue to thrive and grow based on our collaborative work together. For these reasons, it was natural for me in the beginning stages to turn to a selection of writer-friends, some of whom I’d worked with before and others with whom I felt confident that I could, to get my juices flowing.

Within these pages, you will see some of the results of a cold call to eleven of my talented writer friends—many of whom are also performers, filmmakers, musicians, and/or visual artists themselves—that went something like this: On 6/30/08 12:11 PM, “Jill Pangallo” <turnitloose@mindspring.com> wrote: I was hoping you would consider “donating” a piece of writing for me to perform. The most obvious format would be a monologue, but I am open to all sorts of things, ‘specially if I have to be naked. Just kidding…about the last part. I hope to build a larger show around your pieces—likely finding and highlighting a thread between them—which is in keeping with my obsession with artistic collaboration. The theme is identity. Yours, jillp

In the end, I received a variety of responses, both straight material and less tangible fodder, all of which has stimulated me beyond belief. Some of it will be used in the show and some of it won’t. Either way, it has all been equally important in forming my ideas about this project. Wanting to share those ideas in conjunction with the finished product (i.e., the performance) was the primary reason I wanted to produce this book. I have never been one to keep a journal or blog. Frankly, I lack the discipline. So this book, in a very special way, is an important record of my artistic process, which I would otherwise not have. And for that, I am deeply grateful to the eleven people who contributed.

While you can read their bios in the back of the book, you might wonder who these eleven people are in relationship to me and why I chose to include them. Mike Albo, a brilliant performer, amongst other things, has been camping it up with my collaborative NYC duo The Hohos (along with Cathy Cervenka) for years. D&D enthusiast, Dan Boehl is my neighbor, sometimes gym buddy and the husband of one of my best friends here in Austin. Brooklyn neighbor and collector of bizarre and unexplainable clip art, Eric Bryant and I worked together for years and occasionally perform as The Darligans, an earnest, but excruciatingly out-of-touch magician couple. Talented new friends, Karen Davidson and Diana Welch are both part of the extended group of people I refer to as “The Compound,” a haven for magic creativity and excellent socializing on the East side of Austin. Filmmaker and supermom, Hilary Weisman Graham and I went to college together for one year in Boston. Even after I moved away we managed to stay close and once completed a trek together through the Grand Canyon at possibly our most unfit (I’d have to confirm that with her). Novelist, goat farmer, designer and former drag queen, Josh Kilmer-Purcell and I found each other at work where we regaled one another with morning-after stories about the previous evening’s adventures (sometimes piecing together details if we had been out together).

Renaissance woman, Michelle Marchesseault fell into my lap (my keyboard?) on Facebook™ after responding to a request that I made for help with the set. Now back in Cali where she flourishes, Holly McKinley and I tore it up in Manhattan for several years and spent collective months together in the bowels of downtown club, Don Hill’s. Stylish in her writing and every other way, Ann Stephenson is part of an extended group of friends based out of Atlanta. Ann and I finally got to know each other, while jogging of all things, when she moved two blocks away from me in the East Village. Multitasker and super-confidant, Alex P. White (also from the Atlanta crew) and I finally found our lycra-clad rhythm together as the collaborative performance group, Skote.

It is my hope that you will enjoy this book: a celebration of process (thanks to Diana for that phrasing), a tribute to collaboration, and small piece of this artist’s search for self.

Jill Pangallo

February 2009

1/6/09 Oprah told me I need to put myself back on my list.

From “The Gallery of Extraordinary Clipart” curated by Eric Bryant

Yr a Nkd Movie Star

by Mike Albo [phone message: dial tone, dial number, ring, “Hello this is Giancarlo.

Leave a message after the brief beep.” A beep. ] Wow! What a curt message! And your beep is so short. It’s so curt. Short.

Curt. Short means curt. Hi! Hi! Hey. It’s me It’s me. Mike Albo.

I’m calling at the designated day you said you’d be less busy.

So. I got home fine that night. OK. There actually was downtown service.

The A Train. You know? Remember us laughing about the A Train?

God I will never figure out the New York City Mass Transit Association.

Authority.

I can’t even believe their public address system. It’s like...so...garbled.

It’s like: (imitating a distorted p.a. voice) “All trains will be delayed 15 minutes. We are sorry for the inconvenience.” You Know, you can’t hear a thing!

[Dead silence] Anyways. [Pause] I was just wondering if you got those weird leaves off your skylight. What’s the story with those leaves?

Oh, and did you end up going to that like roofgarden party?

Must be nice to have a roofgarden! I can’t even afford a bowl of dirt. I don’t know about you, but I can’t even afford a bowl of dirt much less a roofgarden.

Oh my God I was so tired at work yesterday. My boss was like, “Why are you so tired?” And a couple of people I work with were like, “Why are you so tired?”

Soooo, but I’m pretty still fine.

I mean I shouldn’t complain or anything about work. Sitting and xeroxing my brain away is fine. I feel like there is like two kinds of jobs: handling food and xeroxing, handling food and xeroxing, handling food, xer–OX ing. And that’s all I do, one or the other, back and forth, back and forth.

The unnatural passing of green photocopier light over my pale pale face, or looking down at my dumb TGIFridays overexuberant suspenders and buttons, holding a plate of orange, glowing, hopeless nachos.

So...um...I. Am. OK. ...I’m thinking of having this “dinner” party. My friend Keith who's like the personal assistant to Juliet Lewis. Or like the associate assistant, and his boyfriend are coming. And actually this friend of mine Gina weirdly is Gina on Loving. I don’t know if you watch that show but that’s who she is. I know your probably a big fan of Loving but it’s called The City now they changed the whole plot and everything and...Oh my god!

And a really close friend of mine from high school, Marta, who you would LOVE. You guys kind of remind me of each other. [Pause] Not in looks.

She’s Spanish. In Spain. You’re both from Spain. No wait, You’re Italian? Oh no are you from this hemisphere? Like Brazil or something? Oh god I’m having one of the worst global panics right now...Whatever, one of those damn European countries, right? [Gulp] Marta told me that in Madrid, people don’t go out until 6 a.m. and then everyone takes naps at 3 in the afternoon, and then you all have this big Eat Drink Man Woman meal at a big long table, and your entire family is there, and you sit next to your dad’s mistress Penka, and nobody cares that she’s there because you are all so open about adultery, and she turns and offers you a plate of dates... dates...

Anyway, so Marta is pretty cool and she’s coming Friday. When I was living at home, me and Marta worked together at The Pianoman, this really cool Billy Joel bar?

We would go out after work all the time. We would get so fucked up together. This one time she drove by and picked me up because I couldn’t drive because I lost my license because of stupid DWI and we went to Ruby Tuesday’s and she had a malibu and pineapple and I had a Sex on the Beach or a Zombie I can’t remember and then we did like 10 shots of Cuervo, and 9 lines of coke with the bartender and then we went back to Marta’s place and did some Freon shots from the air conditioner...

And then we got in her car and drove around and Marta was weaving all over the road and hitting mailboxes. And we had the windows down and we passed by our old high school and I just looked out the window and I just rolled down the window and I just stuck my head out the window and went “WOOOOOOOO Hoooo Hooooo!” GOD, We were so fucked up...hahaha. [pause] Marta’s a lot calmer now... she’s really gotten her life together.

She’s the day manager of a Contempo Casuals. She was dating this marine for a while but thank God that’s over. I think you’ll really like her.

So I’m going to actually make food and everything. And my specialty dessert, DumpCake! It sounds weird but it is soo good. Dumpcake as in “take a dump,” haha— And I’ll use my cutting board this time. Because you have such an amazing assortment of cutting boards in your kitchen....I noticed....In your kitchen. [pause] And a lot of cutlery! You’ve got a lot. Of. Nice. Things.

Anyway it’s going to be at 8 on this Friday. I live between B & C on 6th, apartment #2...the address is 650 but the 6 fell off the door so it looks like 50, and just call to let me know if you are actually coming? My # is 677-0722 if you can’t find it on that Harpers Bazaar I wrote it on.

Let’s just both face the facts Giancarlo. I’m pretty much dancing in the pretty posies of life thinking you’re actually going to come to my dumb desperate dinner party, aren’t I? Ugh! I can so much tell that you’re one of those guys who I mention to all my friends, planting your name in their heads and then you totally blow me off.

And then in about two weeks I’ll see you on 7th Avenue coming out of Urban Outfitters with your dalmatian and abdominals in your Structures shirt that sexily exposes your tan barbell collarbone. You’ll be so casually holding sunflowers to stick in your blue blue Barney’s vases. “I was sooo Beeeseee,” you’ll say to me.

And then, and then years will pass, 5, 10, 20, We’ll develop paunches and receding hair. Mine will become bald on top and I’ll grow the back long and put it in an icky ponytail like a jazz musician, and you will get those Mike Albo

From “The Gallery of Extraordinary Clipart” curated by Eric Bryant

horrifying implants that will grid your scalp with plugs like an aged, out of the closet Ken Doll.

And then more years will pass I’ll see you at some dumb Lifebeat benefit at Industria. And we’ll be totally friendly to eachother, as if we actually dated once instead of having this one grimy one night stand. And you’ll be like a visual consultant and I’ll be teaching literacy workshops. Or even scarier I’ll have just given up and become something even queenier than your stupid job, like a wigmaker for Starlight Express which will probably be in revival on stupid Broadway. And everybody will be like “Did you see Starlight Express? Did you see it? Did you see it?”

So Mr. Giancarlo, we’ll just pretend this is a wonderful pretty rainbow gumdrop candy cane tootsie roll world where everything works out and your actually going to have a soul and come to my stupid dinner party, OK? So! I’ll see you this Friday! Tee hee hee! Why don’t you fly over on a magic chocolate star and bring some beaujolais, OK? [Pause, collect] I’m sorry. I’m sorry. Well, so I guess just give me a call. Well I gotta let you go now. I’ve got a lot of things to get ready for. I’ll just see you Friday. OK, I’m going to hang up now Ok Alright OK Alright OK Alright here I go.

Bye. [Hang up phone] Shit.

Mike Albo

Me and Mike and the Dazzles backstage at BB Kingâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s, 2003. (photo: Wilson Chan)

From “The Gallery of Extraordinary Clipart” curated by Eric Bryant

From “The Gallery of Extraordinary Clipart” curated by Eric Bryant

SPORTS ZONE

by Mike Albo I just want to tell you guys about something its called ESPN Sports Zoneâ&#x20AC;&#x201D; [whisper] Disney Entertainment Initiative Number 473NHQ Imagine having the best seat in the house to watch the game of your choice on a 50 hectar translucent 7,000 pixel radiation screen and a chance to practice your slap shot with your little brother, dormmate, or best friend tending goal, or experience the experience of a live ESPN telecast from behind the scenes while dining on football steaks in the Sportcenter Studio Set!! These are samples of the entertainment, excitement and experience designed for sports fans at ESPN Zone the most exciting place in sportscentered athleticism experiences Choose from Sports challeneges, Sports attractions, Sideline sports areas!

Or go to Beergoggles, the first fully functional Calvin and Hobbes themed optical virtual date enhancer sports themed restaurant where you can date rape or have regular sex with yr girlfriend and eat potato skins with some of your favorite stars as live action artificial artificial intelligence fully functional robots like Huey Lewis, Mary Lou Retton, Old Milwaukee's Scoops the dog or baseball great Bobby Bones.

ESPN Zone is the place where fans can just get up on the tables and be like HUH or Yell the name of the team or player or fucking freak out when someone scores a touchdown. ESPN Zone finally a sports bar with more sports, a sports screen, sports guys and sports.

ESPN Zone And now ladies sportlovers will love ESPN Ladies Sportzone. Where you can tap into your essence of winning. Where you will play sports and shout for victory, with the wind flying from behind you like Valkerie's wings or whatever! I am strong. I will be me. Ladies Sportszone. Where you deserve to be.

From “The Gallery of Extraordinary Clipart” curated by Eric Bryant

Dan as "The Footballer," Halloween 2008.

Self Improvement Poems

by Dan Boehl I couldn’t sleep all night, being nervous about this job interview.

Apparently I want to be more normal, apparently I am going to show up at my office first, and wear the wrong suit. Apparently my boss is going to berate me, and I am going to get lost in the rain. Apparently I am going put myself in the office supply closet and I am going to cry.

— I’ve been trying to remember all the new people’s names, but they remind me of other people I know, so I keep screwing up. Jeff looks like a guy I know named Bill, and the gray haired lady looks like Nancy Littlejohn, but she doesn’t wear braces. My new boss has the same name as my old boss, so that one is in the bag. The New York Times screwed up Ashbery’s name, spelling it Ashbury, so all day Sunday I thought I had got it wrong like my entire adult life.

— A man answered his phone in the library. Annoying, I know, but I do it too. He said into it, “Hello. What is my name supposed to be? John Norris. What is my name supposed to be,” as if he has been living under the wrong name his entire life. Sometimes I miss the museum, but then I write the book that I should have finished three years ago and I feel like calling them up and saying, “What is my name supposed to be? Hello?”

— I was at a party with almost everybody in the world, or at least this part of liberal Texas: fat grandmas and grandpas bald with hearing aids, 13 year old girls with sex growing in them, babies in light up shoes, and some parents that reminded me of friends. We won Pennsylvania. We won Ohio.

For some reason it didn’t feel real, and I got that hopeless feeling that writing will never touch anyone ever again. It may have been the margarita machine. It may have been the bottle rockets. A gay man gave me his phone number, said I would look great in drag.

“I should very much like to know It was the first day of spring, though it may just be the way it feels to me now. It was, in some regard, the first day of everything, for all recollections from that day forward are inextricably linked to my impressions on that fine morning. Of a sky so bright, so beautiful, my eyes had to rearrange themselves to take it in. Of flowers in the garden: Iris, Wisteria, Daffodils, caught up in a fragrant dance of color such as I had never seen. It was just before the waking hour. I was alone. Soon, Nurse would tip-toe to my bedside, as she did every morning, the feather she kept in her skirts drawn like a dagger as she leaned over me, prepared to tickle an ear, or a nose.

But this day, a faulty window latch had prematurely thwarted her plan, and the sweet air of spring had reached my bedside before she did. It drew me up, toward the window, half-dreaming, or perhaps just awake for the first time in my life. With every ounce of strength my petite hands had to offer I attempted to burst that crack of air wide open, so that the sweetness may wash over me, so that the blue of that sky might purify me of any ugliness in my being. But my hands were far too delicate, as if I, too, was a Daffodil, a tender stem pushing against that pane. The pane was winning. But a daffodil in spring is not to be outdone. I maneuvered a tall, though unreliable, step-stool to the window—an act which Nurse had often cautioned me against—and mounted the rickety steps one after another, shaking all the way up that hazardous climb but exhilarated by the knowledge that once I reached the top, I would drown happily in that river of sweetness. I would swallow it whole, and it would swallow me. I would be pure.

That final step was most precarious but so excited was I, so near the sweetness, I forgot myself and, daresay, leaped to the top with utter abandon. I landed square on the plank, with impeccable form. I was exuberant and had just swallowed my first taste of spring when the stool began to shake, just a tremble at first. Then came a violent rocking, as if the earth itself was being cracked wide open, and I was about to be sucked to its bowels. A heavy red velvet curtain framed that fine picture of spring which I reached out for though was barely able to grasp its cord, a heavy burnished gold braid with tasseled ends. I tried to right myself though I was too offkilter. The step-stool faltered and I realized there was nothing beneath me

what has become of Sophie…” but a panicked air that soon reached my feet and rose up through the rest of my being within seconds. I dangled in the curtain, hovered mid-air it seemed, before my body took on the traits of vicious flailing. In the space of a moment, I was tangled in dark velvet, the curtain’s cord round my neck like a snake. I dared not move for every breath, every thought of a breath, made the cord coil tighter. I could no longer smell the sweetness of spring. Though I knew it was there, just beyond my gaze. Daffodils, Iris, Wisteria. All around me was black, a deafening silence. ‘This is Death” I said, but it was not me who said it. It was Sophie, just before the fall.

Karen Davidson

From “The Gallery of Extraordinary Clipart” curated by Eric Bryant

>>From: Hilary Graham <hilarywgraham@hotmail.com> >>Sent: Nov 17, 2008 5:06 PM >>To: Jill Pangallo <turnitloose@mindspring.com> >>Subject: RE: IDEAS 1) Non-Voluntary Nudity I think there could be a whole host of personal stories connected by this topic (perhaps told by different characters) including: -- when my uncle was a freshman at Yale (in the 1960’s) they did this weird “study” where they took a class photo of all the boys, together, naked. This apparently went on for several years and Yale still has the pix to prove it.

--getting naked at the doctor’s office --the last scene in the movie “Fame” (“Tres jolie, Coco”) -- a funny anecdote re: a personal experience of “accidental or non-voluntary nudity” --many other areas to explore here

“Trés jolie, Coco, trés jolie.”

Hilary and me in my dorm room, 1987.

I want to sell head enlargements to celebrities.

Chapter 2: For Those of You Who Care, This is How it All Began

by Holly McKinley The Glass Slipper really did put on quite a show. The last show in the Zone, to be exact. The Naked Eye had closed and a parking lot now stood in its place. This paved the way for The Glass Slipper. Formerly known as the stripper’s graveyard due not only to the lack of attractive dancers but the lack of patrons, the Slipper now had the advantage of being the last man standing. If you were in Boston and looking for a show it was the Slipper or nothing. And after a few months the Eye’s former employees burned through their savings and showed up at the Glass Slipper looking for work. Stocked with pretty girls and extra customers, the Slipper was no stripper’s graveyard any longer.

The club’s name perfectly reflected the illusion with which we all surrounded ourselves. Every night was a Cinderella story for each and every person. Even for the club itself. No one noticed the duct tape holding together the ripped booths and bar stools. The burgundy velvet curtains that hung crookedly behind the stage framing the mirror looked plush, not like the smoke darkened rags they really were. Everything about the dark club said burlesque, not dive. Customers became whatever they wanted to be—leaving debt, wives, families, unwanted lives far in the recesses of their minds. At the Slipper they could be charming business men, lonely sensitive souls, wealthy tycoons—all with the lovely lady of their choice sitting by their side.

And the girls. Here was the greatest transformation of all. We were glamour incarnate. We were whatever we sensed our audience wanted us to be. We held them in the palms of our hands. Our make-up a carefully applied mask. Our music a siren song. Shame did not exist inside the walls of the Glass Slipper. This was our playground and we were the bullies. Think what they may, the men were not exploiting us. They were clearly the victims.

Rosie was the first stripper I ever saw. She was not round in any ordinary sense of the word. Her body did not simply form one large orb.

Instead she was composed of many orbs of various shapes and sizes. Her thighs were plump and oblong. The loose roundness of her belly was the result of two children. Her breasts hung heavy, each punctuated by a large, dark nipple. It was on these nipples that she was stacking dollar bills by folding them in half lengthwise, tearing a small slit across the center, then opening them and inserting her nipple through the newly formed hole. This

gesture she completed each time with the casual precision of a bank teller.

Rosie graced the stage when I arrived at the Glass Slipper at 7:30 one Wednesday evening for an audition. I didn’t know why I was there. I had never set foot in a strip club before, so I had no idea what to expect. The day before I had seen an ad in the local rag. “Come join the good times at the Glass Slipper!” it read. “Home of the famous bunny hop!”-- whatever that meant. And most importantly, “Now hiring.” The Glass Slipper was always hiring, as it turned out. But the ad conjured a mysterious sense of urgency. As if an opportunity were presenting itself that might disappear if I didn’t take action. Familiar boundaries quickly become dull, and it was time to push mine. For good measure I gave myself a couple of rational reasons for being interested. Working at night would leave all my days free for classes. I would be making enough money to pay for my final film project. I could bolster my savings account.

I had been sitting on my bed for an hour with the ad in front of me and the phone in my hand. So I warmed up my best professional voice. It was still, after all, a job. I couldn’t shed my deep rooted, upper-middle class sense of duty and responsibility simply because I was applying for a job as a stripper.

“Glass Slipper,” a gruff voice barked at the other end of the line.

“Yes, I’m interested in dancing?” My voice rose at least an octave in an attempt to sound like the agreeable, good employee that anyone would be proud to have as a part of the team.

“You gotta audition, honey. Come in at 7:30 tonight. Bring your own music” The voice at the other end was not mean, but lacking the buttered up quality I was used to hearing in polite conversation. Put simply, it had dispensed with the bullshit of false interest and sincerity. I intuited I would not be receiving any helpful hints for my audition. I thanked the voice and hung up.

It was only then that I mentally digested what I had just been told.

Audition? I wasn’t sure exactly what that entailed. Maybe they just wanted to see me naked and assure themselves I did not exhibit any abnormalities that might turn away business. Perhaps I was to be judged on a series of maneuvers. My curiosity about the nature of the audition, as well as the fear that I would not be attractive enough to be hired tugged at me the whole way downtown. My image of strip clubs was much the same as anyone else who had only seen them on TV or in the movies, in which a perfectly formed female swung expertly around a pole with skill that rivaled an Olympic gymnast. But armed with my only pair of stilettos, a teddy, and one CD, I entered the club at 7:30 as I had promised. And there on the

stage was Rosie.

She shattered every myth and illusion I had carefully formed. But she also gave me the courage to walk through the door. She seemed completely ordinary in every way. Her eyebrows were thick and needed grooming.

She laughed as she took another dollar, and I could see the gap between her two front teeth. If there was a place on that stage for her, surely there would be a place for me.

A man half my height approached me. His red clip on bow tie refused to sit straight under his sagging chin. A large belly pushed its way out of his black vest and over his equally shabby black pants. The cordless microphone he held made him look like the caller of the carnival sideshow into which I had just arrived.

“Whaddya need?” he asked. It was not the same voice I had spoken to earlier, but it showed the same impatience for unnecessary niceties.

“I’m here to audition. I spoke to someone who said I should come at 7:30.”

“Follow me.”

I was unprepared for immediate action, as I had expected there would be more conversation about the basics: name, age, past experience—the usual sort of pre-job banter. But none of this was necessary here. So I did as I was told and was led down the one narrow aisle which ran the length of the small club, separating the bar stools from the booths. At the end, opposite the single occupancy Men’s and Women’s restrooms, a small door led to an equally small space lined by lockers. A girl still half dressed in street clothes was rifling through a bag of velvet and lace costumes. My leg brushed against the warm skin of her bare back as we squeezed past.

Stairs led up to a slightly larger dressing area with more lockers and a make-up counter. At the opposite corner a silver piece of fabric covered the opening which led to the stage stairs. It was through this fabric that she appeared, pulling her stacks of bills off of her nipples.

“Hey, Rosie,” my escort called. “new girl here to audition.” He jerked his head in my direction. “Show her what to do, alright?”

“Sure, Gil,” she replied.

Rosie raised one eyebrow and looked me up and down as she counted her money out onto the counter. A half smile played on her lips.

A disturbing realization seeped into my mind. “Is my audition going to be on stage?”

“Ya nervous?” she asked laughing. “Don’t be. They’re mostly all assholes anyway. And you’re a pretty thing, so they’ll like you alright.”

I choked on my own laughter.

“Ya ever dance on stage before, honey?”

Holly McKinley

“Not exactly.”

“What’s this ‘not exactly’? Either ya did or ya didn’t.”

“No.” “Ah. Well, welcome to the Glass Slipper, now go home!” She laughed, then noticed the panic reflected in my eyes. She held my hand like a mother preparing her child for its first day in Kindergarten. “It’ll be OK, honey. They don’t expect much. Just go out there and do what comes naturally. It’s not like they’re gonna be scorin’ ya.”

I felt as if I had known Rosie my entire life. She dove right into the middle. There was no need to waste time with introductions and background details when all that mattered was here and now. Her solid body and soft eyes could have led me to the edge of hell that night and I would have trusted her every second of the way. Instead she led me through the silver curtain to the CD player at the top of the stairs. From our vantage point we had a bird’s eye view of the stage, but the audience was invisible.

“Put your CD here, press play here. You can come up between songs to change the music if ya want. Not exactly brain surgery, right?”

“I think I can handle it.”

The dancer on stage had just finished a song and was coming up the stairs. Rosie pulled me inside out of the way.

“You have a fifteen minute set. Start picking up your money a minute before the end of your set so you don’t run into anyone else’s time. You wouldn’t want someone doin’ it to you,” she mock scolded with a wag of her finger.

I was half listening to Rosie, distracted by the dancer who was getting ready to go back on stage. She had turned her back to the mirror and bent over 90 degrees, hooking her thumb into her thong and pulling it aside. She pulled and prodded, snapped the thong back in place, and ran back down onto the stage. I nodded at Rosie, but was more fascinated by the mysterious ritual that had just taken place at the mirror. I figured she wanted to get one last look at the goods she was selling before she put them on display, but I couldn’t figure out why.

“OK! You’re on in ten. Good luck.” Rosie scooped up her money and costume and was gone.

I pulled my own costume out of my bag along with a pair of white 6-inch stilettos that tied around the ankle. I strapped them on and found that I was more excited about finding a practical use for the shoes than I was nervous about stripping for the first time on stage. I spent the next five minutes obsessing over the shape of my lip liner while I waited for the dancer on stage to finish. When she climbed the stairs I put in my CD, pushed play, and headed down.

Holly McKinley

Holly, me, Justin and Sammy Jo at Fez, 2000. (photo: Headstrong Pictures)

Your hole sounds more exciting than my hole.

25 Things About Me

by Jill Pangallo Rules! Once you’ve been tagged, you are supposed to write a note with 25 random things, facts, habits, or goals about you. At the end, choose 25 people to be tagged. You have to tag the person who tagged you. If I tagged you, it’s because I want to know more about you. To do this, go to “notes” under tabs on your profile page, paste these instructions in the body of the note, type your 25 random things, tag 25 people (in the right hand corner of the app) then click publish.

1. Once dropped a tampon in the cat litter and used it!

2. Used to be a mannequin model at the Fashion Valley Mall!

3. Secretly wants to be famous. Secretly!

4. Didn’t recognize that time because you were backlit and you were wearing preppy clothes!!!

1. Always, always, always get mistaken for Canadian when I travel.

2. Once found a $100 bill on the subway and totally gave it away to a homeless person.

3. Recently did the master cleanse, just to flush, you know, flush…

4. Didn’t wear underwear from the ages of 18 – 31.

1. As a child, suffered from many rare muscle and bone diseases do to my extreme athleticism.

2. Currently only eats foods that are white.

3. Once bought 400-thread count sheets online, while intoxicated. Don’t worry…they were on sale.

Jeannie sent a kittie request using Save Shelter Cats & Kittens: Here is Britney, a kitten for you to care for in your cat alley. Can you help me by sending me a kitten? Together we can save shelter kittens from being killed!

10 Songs. Write down 10 songs you can’t imagine going very long without listening to. Don’t take more than 10 minutes to do this. Then choose 25 friends and tag them. Don’t forget to tag me back.

1. No Woman No Cry, Bob Marley 2. With or Without You, U2 3. Abbey Road, The Beatles… wait, can I put a whole album on here?

Jill Pangallo is no more wire hangers for you! Approx. 40 wooden hangers to a good home, FREE! If you come get them, they’re yours!

Make your band’s album cover: Step 1. G o to Wikipedia. Hit “random” The first random Wikipedia article you get is the name of your band.

Step 2. Go to Quotations Page and select “random quotations” The last four or five words of the very last quote on the page is the title of your first album.

Step 3. G o to Flickr and click on “explore the last seven days” Third picture, no matter what it is, will be your album cover.

Step 4. Use Photoshop or similar to put it all together.

Step 5. Post it to FB with this text in the “caption” or “comment” and TAG the friends you want to join in.

In this photo…

Are you done tagging?

Take the quiz!

I’ve read a lot! 100 Best Books as voted by BBC viewers. The BBC apparently says most people will have only read 6 of the 100 books here.

Mandy is cleaning up the interwebs: just killed her friendster(!) account.

Benjamin T. Satterfield has an apartment.

Kristy Thompson found a laser glove at the thrift store. Trés cool.

You have an event invitation: Diagonals at the Beauty Bar. Monday, February 23rd, 9:00pm at Beauty Bar. You have been invited by Monofonus Press. Will you attend this event? Will you?! Yes. No. Maybe.

Networks: Austin, Texas Faculty, Parsons, Lang, New York – WAIT! You can only be in one regional network at a time. You can only change regional networks twice every 60 days.

Roger forced you to eat some food. Click Here.

Negin sent you a love letter. Click Here.

Archie REALLY wants you to accept this hatchling. Click Here.

Connect with more friends. Share the Facebook experience with more of your friends. Use our simple tools to invite contacts and start connecting.

Enter your friends’ e-mail here.

Jill is putting on the Pantsuit.

Jill is done putting on the Pantsuit.

Jill plans to attend.

Holly, Donaly, Kate, and Kiko like your link!

Alex sent you a 70’s homosexual cliché.

James has sent you a Dawn doll.

Lance sent you good karma.

Kiki sent you one Muppet gift, a Chihuahua, A seasonal bouquet, an appletini, a garbage pail kid, 80’s high school flashback, wacky Japanese food item, sexy shoe, little angel and a Nagel for you!

Karri sent you a condescending IT guy AND a Boring Faculty Meeting from Shite Gifts for Academics.

Today is Bruce’s birthday, Teresa’s birthday, Devon’s birthday. fTomorrow is Risa’s birthday.

One superhumans request!

When you’re done tagging, click here.

Add flowers.

Hug friends.

Write a note.

See all.

Refresh. Refresh. Refresh.

Jill is 40 wooden hangers still FREE to a good home.

Jill is the Hangers to the Hunger. Béla Lugosi’s dead. David Bowie is undead. Lock up your monkeys. Jill CAN’T BELIEVE no one wants 40 free wooden hangers.

Jill Pangallo

Roger mailed this to me with a card that said, â&#x20AC;&#x153;This reminded me of you.â&#x20AC;?

Performance Now that we continue lying in bed I return to thinking with my skin I begin to appreciate the extra air After mourning the bullet holes for so long They made me what I am today Despite the loss of pinkness Touching feels good I mustn’t return to water Before properly taking the air Mustn’t I have no father Only an assortment of stones in a bag That resembles skin I call the secrets that live around here Onto the field of play They also season backwoods and alleyways Reset myself to zero My craning neck They’re leaking into the gutter Down the sluice to state property I ratchet myself up to ten Secrets are more than misguided wishes Many ways of not seeing Old dreams broken down Dumped into gutter water Having had my ears boxed

I never heard the command To stay, stay afloat The answers to my questions They are what collapsed the table Shattered the glass I’ve considered other options Jobs offering an ugly form of insurance I manage your life Much better than my own Consulting with the committee That hangs outside our window Our instrumentation has been assessed We would have separated the sounds If not for the listeners Thanks for the needlepoint sampler Hang it on me Now I know how to spell abecedarian We must prioritize No need to pick the dead leaves When the planet has no water They don’t look dead at night Someday I’ll climb down from this scaffolding That casts its shadow over the forest And run without stopping The shift will break the night in my head I will sleep in all four corners

Ann Stephenson

The Collections

by Ann Stephenson My collection is heart shaped. It’s about good times.

My collection is about treating children as mini-adults. They love the bright colors.

If my collection is about anything, it’s about masculine variety and its infinite possibilities.

My collection is about fantasy backgrounds.

Every knot of my collection is about different facets of life.

My collection is about 85% ripped CDs and 15% online purchases, he beamed.

I think my collection is about 2000 strong, and reaches across all genres.

You embody much of what my collection is about: the reckless, restless youth; the tomboy; the effortless and the pastoral.

My collection is about my vision of the future, what clothes will look like when the world is destroyed.

My collection is about world specimens bought or swapped with collectors from all over the world.

My collection is about forty-two inches in length, and is used for propelling the long stone-headed spears.

My collection is about that same size, but its performance is swift and without problems.

My collection is about contrasts, harmony within disharmony.

My collection is about 4000 albums, depending on if I’m counting doubles.

My collection is about reality, so clearly elements of sportswear are indispensable.

My collection consists of about 60 watches.

My collection is about an eighth of what most people’s are.

My collection is about 19 different kinds that I enjoy researching and shooting.

My collection didn’t see it coming.

My collection is about evolving, refining and going back to the roots, then emerging with a whole new collection.

My collection is about 20% prog-rock, 25% classical.

My collection is about 20 books I’ve never seen anywhere else, and if I have...well that’s not what my collection is about.

My collection is about energy and a new minimalism, the ’80s and space in lamé, stretch tulle, plastic, and jersey.

I do not agree that my collection is about protest.

My collection is evenly divided.

My collection is about covering up luxury.

My collection is about necks framed with collars.

Before you ask, my collection is 3 inches in diameter and 12 inches thick in the middle.

My collection is about 50 flutes strong.

My collection is exactly like that except better.

My collection is about strong features, the look of natural beauty.

My collection is about women being sexy without knowing it, he said in his uniform of white.

My collection is bigger than yours.

My collection can only take so much.

Anyway, my collection is piddly at best compared to some of you guys.

My collection is complete.

My collection is new and revolutionary, web-based.

One key feature of my collection is the influence it gives collectors.

The rarest book in my collection is The Atrocity Exhibition.

My collection is continuing to grow.

My collection can and will.

video stills from “Collections” (Jill Pangallo, 2005)

video stills from “Collections” (Jill Pangallo, 2005)

Real Witch Seeks Same

by Diana Welch ON VIDEO: A Craigslist ad.

REAL WITCH SEEKS SAME to cast midnight spells in the woods. No experience necessary, just a willing heart and an open mind. So mote it be!

Blessed be!

CHANGE TO: Night. Full moon. Woods.

ONSTAGE: Woman walks onstage in white dress, ill-fitting bra, carrying a big bag. Puts bag down, lights a candle. Places candle on stage.

WOMAN SITS, SIGHS, DISAPPOINTED: So, I brought some, uh, stuff.

OPENS BAG, SIFTS THROUGH IT. PULLS OUT DARK-HANDLED BUTCHER KNIFE: This knife here, I mean, it’s an athame, and it’s supposed to help me direct energy. It’s my best knife, my sharpest. I use it to cleave meat. I don’t think you’re supposed to. But, I guess I’m a kitchen witch. That’s what they call it, I think.

PULLS OUT A STICK THAT LOOKS NATIVE AMERICAN CRAFT FAIR-ISH: And here’s the wand. I put some feathers on it that I got at Hobby Lobby. Have you ever noticed they play Christian music in there?

All the time. It’s weird. It burns my pagan ears. I should do a spell on the place. Try and break their speakers or something, or ooze a plague out of the air conditioning ducts. Then, of course, I’d be stuck going to Michael’s, which is no better. SHAKES WAND. The feathers were all dyed, which probably takes away from the shamanistic power of the whole thing, but I figured, what the hell.

SETS WAND DOWN NEXT TO HER PULLS OUT A METAL CUP. COULD BE A TROPHY: And ah, yes, the chalice! This is witchy, right?

I got it at Pier One. I’m supposed to fill it with wine and share with the circle, but, well, you know. I could put saltwater in it, too, for cleansing purposes. I thought maybe I could pee in it and drink it, because that just seems super-witchy, but then I thought I might get sick. But I think they do that in India for medicine, I really do. It’s like, ayurvedic or something.

WHILE DIGGING IN BAG: When I was a teenager, I tried to cast a spell with my menstrual blood. I wiped it on the wall of a bathroom stall at school. I only did an X because I’ve never bled all that much so I couldn’t write out a whole spell. I had time, though. I was in that stall all period.

Ha. If I had been a real bleeder I would have written: Curses to all who enter! And if I had been brave I would have done it in the boys’ bathroom.

That would have been the ultimate. That would have been the talk of the bus. That would have really freaked them out.

PULLS OUT WHITE CHALK: Ok, the pentacle kind of spooks me.

DRAWING IT: I feel like I’m about to get busted for something. It’s so Satan-y.

DIGGING IN BAG: And, I don’t have a cauldron, but I brought this Tupperware.

PULLS OUT BIG TUPPERWARE, WITH LID: And I’m supposed to have a broom, but it just seemed like too much to bring a broom all the way out here. I mean, what the fuck, a broom? I don’t know.

PULLS OUT LAST THING, A BIG BOOK: The Book of Shadows. This thing is for real. They say you have to keep it secret within your coven, but since I’m new to this I had to download mine off the Internet. They said it was ok to share the secrets at this point, because we had moved so far from the Burning Times, so.

PUTS BOOK DOWN IN LAP: There was a book I read when I was a little girl, about witches on Hallowe’en, all getting together for a party in the woods. They filled the sky, buzzing flies, and landed in a clearing with their cauldron bubbling and they tossed stuff in it and cackled the night away. It looked like so much fun.

I have a cat, of course. So I’m halfway there. He’s black and he hates water and he shows strangers his asshole whether they like it or not. I don’t show anybody my asshole, whether I like it or not. I’m lonely. Women with cats are lonely. Witches with cats are powerful.

CLAPS TO PSYCH HERSELF UP: Let’s get powerful!

WAVES HER HAND IN FRONT OF HER FACE AS IF SWATTING A FLY: Ah, nobody hears me when I say it, anyway. I’m that tree in the woods. I’m that one hand. I got married on the Fourth of July, on Independence Day. Who does that? A stupid, fat idiot and his silent, bloodless wife. Anniversaries go like this: Him: Let’s put a couple dogs on the grill.

Me: I prefer cats. Nobody laughs. It makes me mad, but what can I do? Go cackle alone in the woods like a crazy person? LAUGHS. LOOKS IN THE BOOK, POINTS: Ok, so, here’s one for anger. READING FROM BOOK: “Find a smooth dark pebble, hold it to your third eye, close your eyes and project all the anger into the pebble.”

SHE DOES SO THEN OPENS HER EYES AND LOOKS INTO THE BOOK AGAIN, FOLLOWING THE RECIPE: “Then, dig a shallow hole and bury the pebble with a flower of some sort.”

STOPS. LOOKS UP: Ok, well, that’s not gonna work. I don’t really have a flower on me. It’s not, like, in the kit.

LOOKS AROUND. PUTS BOOK DOWN AND WALKS AROUND: I mean, maybe there’s something around I could substitute, but magick’s like baking, you know? You can’t really mess with the ingredients. It’s science.

FINDS TWIG: Well, this stick’ll have to do.

SCRATCHES STAGE WITH STICK. DROPS STONE AND STICK. GOES BACK TO BOOK, CHECKS IT, WALKS BACK OVER TO THE STICK AND STONE AND STAMPS THREE TIMES WHILE SAYING: Anger be gone! Anger be gone! Let Earth bind it, Let no one find it...

Anger be gone!”

LIFTS HER ARMS UP, DROPS THEM. SIGHS THROATILY, CREEPILY, LIKE PEOPLE DO IN A YOGA CLASS: Much better. I find this to be very therapeutic.

WALKS BACK OVER TO THE BOOK WHILE SAYING: I took a stripper aerobics class to gain strength, you know, in my body and in my mind, and it made me feel something, but I’m not sure what it was. I was hoping it would make me feel powerful but it seems like this stuff works better in that regard.

Diana Welch

FLIPS THROUGH BOOK TO FIND: Like for instance, here’s one for power.

PUTS BOOK DOWN AT HER FEET, FACES THE MOON, CLOSES HER EYES, OPENS HER ARMS AGAIN AND IN A DEEP, POWERFUL VOICE: “I am wolf. It is my cry you hear at night, my eyes that gaze at you from the shadows. It is my heart that beats in your soul, my strength that makes you whole. I am wolf. I am in you. You are in me. We are wolf!”

TURNS TO FACE AUDIENCE, OPENS EYES AND SAYS, TENDERLY: I love that one. I want to FEEL sexier and stronger and BE sexier and stronger, and there really isn’t anything sexier than coming out to the woods in a white dress and calling out to the Goddess, is there?

OPENS HER ARMS, CALLS OUT. A MOAN, LIKE A WEIRD ANIMAL NOISE. BREATHES DEEPLY, HEAVES HER BREASTS. DROPS ARMS SUDDENLY: To be honest, this isn’t really doing it for me right now. I don’t know, maybe it’s hormones. I’m getting older.

Things get out of whack. And you know, if I can be candid with you, and I think I can, I gotta say that really, I just kind of resent the Goddess. With her blonde hair and big boobs, walking around in no bra, thinking she’s cute. I feel judged. Inadequate.

LOOKS DOWN, AT HER ILL FITTING BRA: Look at me, all strapped in. My breasts look all lumpy.

FACE EAST: I call upon Air (YELLOW SCREEN) to carry my words past the whispering leaves!

FACE NORTH: I call upon the Earth (GREEN SCREEN) to hold me up!

STOPS: No, that’s no good.

FACE WEST: I call upon Water (BLUE SCREEN) to hold me up! I’ll float, a real witch, green-faced and warty, while my husband holds the fucking broom. Brooms are for suckers. Green is for envy. Warts are for secrets, secret hates and secret needs that bubble up to the surface, pimples, desperate to break out. Ha. Diana Welch

Michelle Marchesseault

BREAKS STANCE: You know, the last time I remember really feeling magick, like really truly feeling it, was when I was eight. I was at a slumber party, and we were telling ghost stories and trying to freak each other out, and one girl said her sister taught her something really awesome, like a magic trick, and that someone had to lie down. I was like, “I’ll do it! I’ll do it!” We already had the lights off and candles lit and everything, and so I got down on the floor and all my friends, these little girls, gathered around me and started chanting “Light as a feather, stiff as a board” over and over and over again until I actually was. I was floating on their fingers. I was levitating. They lifted me above their heads. Afterwards, we all knew that we had witnessed something truly remarkable.

LOOKS AROUND: I don’t know. Do you think it’s weird to recreate it?

Is that pathetic?

LIES DOWN, CROSSES ARMS OVER CHEST: Can some people up here and help me, please? Anyone?

SIX PEOPLE COME UP FROM THE AUDIENCE. THEY EACH STICK TWO FINGERS OF EACH HAND BENEATH WOMAN’S BODY AND BEGIN TO CHANT, REPEATEDLY: Light as a feather stiff as a board.

VIDEO SCREEN: Feathers floating. The words EVERYBODY NOW! appears on the screen. Then: LIGHT AS A FEATHER then STIFF AS A BOARD repeats until woman is floating.

LIGHTS.

Diana Welch

From “The Gallery of Extraordinary Clipart” curated by Eric Bryant

From “The Gallery of Extraordinary Clipart” curated by Eric Bryant

From: Diana Welch Sent: Aug 3, 2008 2:52 PM To: Jill Pangallo Subject: cocktail sand dreams The Slanted TV Ranch of Las Vegas, New Mexico. This is a real place, someone’s private ranch that I drove by last month. I though it would be funny to imagine a bunny ranch type place where people go to live out their TV dreams (though I can’t decide what would be funnier: reality show fantasies or sitcom ones. Maybe the ranch could offer both.

Another thing I was thinking about was how, recently, there has been a couple incidents of natural mummification, which is so cool and so sad: In one, neighbors called Con Ed about a house that had sprouted a cascade of ice, the result of busted water pipe. Inside the house, the repairmen discovered one man sitting at the table in his kitchen, mummified, with the TV on. Neighbors said he was a widower who rarely had visitors, and none of them could venture a guess as to how long he had been dead. The other was a woman in Spain whose body was preserved by the salty air in the seaside town of Roses. She was only discovered after her house was sold by the bank at auction; she hadn’t paid her mortgage in six years.

Both of these things deal with, among other things, the human desire to be seen: what lengths people will go to be seen, and alternately, what could happen to you if you’re not.

From “The Gallery of Extraordinary Clipart” curated by Eric Bryant

Alex P. White

Alex P. White

If...

“It seems that bad art is theater.”

Chris Burden

does it follow that

“Bad theater is art.”

Jill Pangallo

???

Contributors Bios Mike Albo is a writer and performer who lives and loves in Brooklyn. His first novel, Hornito: My Lie Life came out in 2000 from HarperCollins. He collaborated with his longtime friend Virginia Heffernan for his next novel, The Underminer: The Best Friend Who Casually Destroys Your Life, which was published in 2005 from Bloomsbury. His performances of The Underminer can be found on youtube. He’s performed numerous solo shows including Spray, Please Everything Burst, and My Price Point. His work has appeared in many anthologies, including The Worst Noel, Girls Who Love Boys Who Love Boys, and The Show I’ll Never Forget. Selections of his “Junk Mail” poetry appear in Tin House.

Albo is The Critical Shopper for the New York Times Thursday Style section, and regularly contributes to Details, GQ, New York Magazine, as well as many other websites and publications. He also maintains a website, mikealbo. com with video clips, a spaced out blog, writing archive and current performance dates.

Dan Boehl is a poet. His chapbook, Work, won the 2006 Pavement Saw Press Chapbook Award. It is about working in an art museum. His current project, The Kings of the F**king Sea, is about pirates. He is a staff writer for ...might be good and works for the University of Texas at Austin.

Eric Bryant is a writer and designer living in Brooklyn, New York. He has worked on many major motion pictures and television shows, and in his spare time enjoys playing guitar, eating good food, and dressing up in spandex.

Karen Davidson holds an M.F.A. in Screenwriting and Fiction from the Michener Center for Writers at the University of Texas at Austin. She has written several narrative shorts and produced two short documentaries that focus on the eclectic voices of East Texas. Through her work as a screenwriter, she has garnered numerous writing awards including selection as an Emerging Narratives finalist at the IFP Market in NYC. She lives in Austin, Texas.

Hilary Weisman Graham has been making films since the debut of her first feature, “Life’s Too Good”, which premiered at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston in 1994. Her second feature, “I Love My Movie” aired on WGBH (PBS in Boston) in 1998 and 1999. She is also an Emmy-nominated broadcast television producer with credits including WMUR-TV’s nightly half-hour program “Chronicle”, the nationally syndicated television show “Wild Web” (CBS/Eyemark), as well as freelance work for The Discovery Health Channel, “Access Hollywood”, A&E, and PBS’s “Zoom”.

Hilary’s most recent achievement was being selected as a contestant for the Mark Burnett/Steven Spielberg-produced reality series “On the Lot.” Out of a pool of 12,000 submissions, Hilary made it onto the show as one of the eighteen finalists, and from there, she stayed in the competition as the ninth remaining director. She currently lives and works in New Hampshire.

In the 1990's Josh Kilmer-Purcell was a world-renowned drag queen by night and an award-winning advertising creative by day. He is the author of a popular monthly column for Out magazine and a screenplay based on his New York Times bestselling memoir, I Am Not Myself These Days. His debut novel, Candy Everybody Wants, was published in 2008. Kilmer-Purcell and his partner divide their time between Manhattan and a goat farm in upstate New York.

Michelle Marchesseault (b. 1974 Indianapolis, Indiana) is an Austin, Texas based artist who has worked primarily as a muralist and collaborator on large-scale interior paint installations. Michelle’s set work has been featured in productions such as The H2Ho’s Synchronized Swim Extravaganza, monthly queer performance night Camp Camp, and a number of independent films and videos. Michelle relocated to Austin in 1999, after having attended The Herron School of Art for painting in Indianapolis.

She has been a partner in the paint installation and design firm Redstart Paint Design for the last seven years. Her talents have also manifested as a performer, touring musician and composer.

Holly McKinley is an Amazon Goddess from the Planet Zor who in her earthly travels has enjoyed several pursuits of the intellectual, not so intellectual, professional and recreational varieties. It is writing about one of one of these pursuits to which she currently dedicates her (admittedly somewhat addled) creative mental faculties. She counts this particular pursuit—stripping at the Glass Slipper—as one of the most entertaining, educational, and inexplicably inspiring pursuits of her journey thus far.

She currently resides in Venice, CA with too many animals and continues to poke into the darkest nooks and crannies of the human existence at every opportunity.

Jill Pangallo is a video and performance artist who has shown, screened and performed at a variety of galleries, film festivals, and venues since 1998. Born in Baltimore and raised in Southern California, Pangallo headed to New York City at 17 and in 1993 received a BFA in Communication Design from Parsons School of Design and a BA in Psychology from

Eugene Lang College. For the next 12 years, she spent her days working at a major advertising firm in New York City and her nights performing on the downtown club and cabaret circuit. In the fall of 2005, Jill relocated to Austin to pursue an MFA in studio art at the University of Texas, which she received in May of 2008. As one half of the performance duo, the HoHos, she performs with long running NYC show, Losers Lounge, as well as at the annual Stevie Nicks tribute event, Night of 1,000 Stevies. She is currently organizing “public, performative interventions” for the collaborative group, Skote, which codirects with Alex P. White. Additionally, she is a founding member of the Austin Video Bee, a multimedia video collective that seeks to promote experimental and innovative work by underrepresented artists.

In 2007, Jill received an ArtsReach grant from the University of Texas. In 2008, the City of Austin’s Art in Public Places program, in conjunction with the 2009 Texas Biennial, awarded her a Temporary Outdoor Projects grant.

Ann Stephenson is the author of the chapbook Wirework (Tent Editions, 2006). Her poems have recently appeared in The Brooklyn Rail, Coconut, Forklift, Ohio, Gerry Mulligan, MIRAGE#4/PERIOD(ical), Sal Mimeo and Shifter. She received her MFA from Bard College in 2007 and currently resides in Atlanta, GA. Diana Welch is a former reporter for the Austin Chronicle. Her first book, The Kids are All Right, is forthcoming from Harmony Books, September 2009. She currently resides in Austin, Texas.

Alex White is a video, performance and installation artist currently living in New York City. Since 2003, the artist has been involved with the Glass and Trees Project, a series of artist initiated, collaborative projects that address utopian desires with in an apocalyptic framework. As a founding member of the performance group Skote, White continues his dedication to an experientially diverse and collaborative practice. The artist has shown in museums, galleries, and alternative art spaces including The Contemporary in Atlanta, Georgia, The Brogan Museum in Tallahassee, Florida and The Weatherspoon Museum in Greensboro, North Carolina. Most recently, his work has been shown at GoGo Gallery in Miami, Florida, Chashama in New York City and Rock, Paper, Scissors in Oakland, California. Some of White’s most notable awards and honors include; an Honorarium for Public Art from the Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport, a project grant from the Georgia Bureau of Cultural Affairs, and an endowed fellowship to The Atlantic Center for the Arts.

Photos By: Russell Etchen

Cookies By: Becca Cohen

Let Me Entertain You is an assortment of monologues, poetry, creative writing, e-mails, drawing, and miscellanea collected by Jill Pangallo on the occasion of and as inspiration for her show of the same name.* Including contributions from the talented: Mike Albo Dan Boehl Eric Bryant Karen Davidson Hilary Graham Josh Kilmer-Purcell Michelle Marchesseault Holly McKinley Ann Stephenson Diana Welch Alex P. White

Cover Photography: Everett Taasevigen Cover Illustration: Michelle Marchesseault * â&#x20AC;&#x153;Let Me Entertain You,â&#x20AC;? an original work by Jill Pangallo, was generously commissioned by the City of Austin and the 2009 Texas Biennial.