Arts DEVO

The good fight Chico mother, wife, artist, educator and friend of Arts DEVO Janice Porter has been battling breast cancer since last April, and in an effort to raise money to help with her medical costs, several fellow local artists (Chunhong Chang, Robin Indar, David Sisk, Dylan Tellesen, Cynthia Schildhauer) have donated their artwork to a Win Art, Fight Cancer raffle. Tickets are $10 (available at Saturday farmers’ market, 1078 Gallery, All Fired Up/The Artistry and Chico Art Center) and the drawing happens Feb. 13.

And while we’re on the subject, I have to admit to a grievous error. Last week, while compiling the 2009 Arts DEVO awards, I accidentally edited out one of the awards on the list. The missing award:

BEST ALTERNATE REALITY: Jtown For two weeks in October, Janice Porter put on the most interesting event of Artoberfest. Porter turned the 1078 Gallery into a very public social experiment, an art town where she painted the scenery, local artists provided the structures, and everyone else contributed poetry, song and alter-egos to her “living, breathing, alternate universe.”

TV is so awesome Before you start shooting off your flaming, hippie arrows, let me first explain that this tiny section of newsprint is (mostly) not about the medium (which, I’ve been told, is overrun with soul-killing content, is ruled by serious jerkfaces and is rapidly dying). This, my friends, is merely a brief shout out to the seriously rad content humming beneath the white noise resonating from Laguna Beach to the Jersey Shore. Sure, when cable TV has completely melted atop the roaring media pyre, it’ll be sweet to be able to just close my eyes and unpack compressed digital reels of vintage Magic vs. Bird battles that beam into my head whenever I merely think about it, but until then I am cable TV’s bitch.

I do not normally watch a lot of TV, but right now I am amazed that there are no fewer than nine shows that I make a real effort to record and watch every episode of: Breaking Bad, Mad Men, Intervention, Big Love, The Office, It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, Anthony Bourdain-No Reservations, 60 Minutes and Frontline. In the name of interacting with other humans, I have had to force myself not to become invested in other acclaimed fare (The Wire, Lost) and I try to limit how much I indulge in other faves (The Daily Show, Colbert Report, 30 Rock, South Park, vintage basketball games on ESPN Classic).

The best of the new shows, as good as any documentary (on the big or small screen) I’ve seen, is A&E’s Intervention. It is seriously difficult to watch. Every episode dives into the life of an addict at the moment he or she is hitting bottom, then mines the person’s history leading up to the addiction, then puts you in the intervention room as families melt in front of you, then punctuates the hour-long experience with an after-story that alternately brings tears of joy or heartbreak. It’s a knife to the bone, cutting to the core of the misunderstood and ignored epidemic of addiction in America.

DEVOtions

•Friends of the Arts online: A new Internet home for Debra Lucero’s local-arts advocating is now live: www.friendsoftheartsupstate.org.

•Belly dance birthday: Chico belly dancer Rowena is turning 80, and she’s invited all her belly-dancing friends to Sultan’s Bistro Friday, Jan., 15, 6:30 p.m., for a special edition of the free, weekly performances.