Arts Devo

To die in style If you heard the word “inoperable,” and the prognosis was for death to come sometime between today and a day in the very near future, how would you want to spend the precious last days/hours of your suddenly short life?

If you are on Medicare, like local mortician and storyteller (nationally regarded poet, local stand-up comedian, winner of CN&R’s 2015 Keep Chico Weird Talent Show and frequent contributor to the Snap Judgment radio show/podcast) Kyle Bowen, you don’t have a lot of choices for care. He’s facing death due to a failing heart and/or kidneys. However, if you are like Bowen, and you have spent much of your life inspiring and caring for others, you might be able to harness enough collective resources to die with some dignity.

With the help of a wide community of friends and fellow artists, Bowen’s been able free himself from the stifling bureaucracy of a bare-bones nursing home to the peace of a local motel. The goal is to keep that peace and the positivity it breeds, and to that end his friends have started the Help Kyle Bowen Die in Style fundraiser (search “Kyle Bowen” at Gofundme.com). Give if you can, and check in with Bowen on Facebook as he shares this very natural part of life with a spirit of “adventure and an appropriate amount of tears.”

Fear the strid “Do sinkholes, deep caves and bottomless pits scare you?” They scare MaryRose Lovgren, to the point that she’s become sort of obsessed with researching the dark and dangerous corners of the natural world. And this past summer, the educator/artist/writer/naturalist/musician released a book on the subject. Scary Places, Illustrated brings together Lovgren’s research and wide range of skills in a presentation of nine different scary sites—from the sinkhole that swallowed a Florida man sleeping in his bedroom, to The Strid, a section of an English river with a stream-like appearance that belies a massive, dangerous “deep canyon filled with water” that has sucked unsuspecting bathers to their deaths below.

The book is available locally at Blackbird (1431 Park Ave.) or online through Amazon. Visit littlemessyillustration.com for more information on Scary Places as well as Lovgren’s other illustrated books.

Music with with feeling There are two very intriguing and unique presentations from distinct corners of Chico’s musical matrix on the calendar this week:

• Friday, Oct. 26, at 8 p.m., the Emo Night Tour hits The Maltese. The Sac-based emo dance party comes to town with a DJ who’ll spin “all the angst your teenage dirtbag heart desires all night long.” Best of all, the night will also feature a set of live emo covers by local metalcore superstars Gigantes. You’ll laugh, cry, hug and sing your broken heart out all night long!

• Sunday, Oct. 28, 2 p.m., at Zingg Recital Hall, Chico State music instructor and musical innovator David Dvorin is putting aside his usual jazz/chamber/electronic approach to experiment with his roots. For his Blues Is … recital, Dvorin will collaborate with three other musicians on four compositions that explore the blues of his youth, including a “piece for modular synthesizer and guitar that draws its inspiration from Blind Willie Johnson’s 1927 recording of ‘Dark Was the Night, Cold Was the Ground,’ which was included on [NASA’s] Voyager.” And the show is free!