Arts DEVO

Fall color It’s Tuesday, and it’s cold, and all I want to do is rake. Or maybe watch college basketball. Or practice playing an E chord on my ukulele. Or just listen to the Blood Brothers really loud on headphones. I guess since I am late writing this column, that I’ll just do the last one on the list. Cue up track 2 on Crimes and shriek along as I write for you: “And I know my division: Trash into trash equals trash-flavored trash!”

Nothing says autumn like wool fetishists on bikes What tha? I guess Arts DEVO’s gonna have to postpone the Tandem Rally for Furries he had planned for this weekend. There’s a competing group of cyclists hitting the road in their fursuits.

On Sunday, Nov. 18, at 11 a.m., the Chico Tweed Ride will kick off from the Chico City Plaza, and then wind its woolen way on vintage bikes through Bidwell Park and end up at Sierra Nevada Brewing Co. for a proper pint. Fashioned after similar group rides around the country (inspired by the Tweed Cycling Club in London), the event will feature riders dressed in “traditional Early American or British cycling attire, particularly tweed suits.” At press time, organizers already had 69 committed riders on its Facebook events page.

Stand down, Furries. We shall ride another day.

The end of the monde is nigh! You may have already heard the rumblings. After nearly a decade of spinning through space on a sonic exploration, La Fin du Monde, Chico’s favorite instrumental experimentalists, are about to end their journey. The band will be checking in at various outposts as they make their final descent: Friday, Nov. 30, at Caf” Coda‘s six-year anniversary show; Friday, Dec. 7, with Judgment Day at Thee Parkside in S.F.; and finally, la fin, Saturday, Dec. 8, at the El Rey Theatre. Of course, the actual end of the world happens a couple weeks later (12.21.12), but you can get a taste of the apocalypse as the band invites its friends—West by Swan, The Americas, Aubrey Debauchery—to an epic CD-release/finale at the El Rey. Buy your $10 tix now at the Music Connection.

Zen of kids Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once we grow up.—Pablo Picasso

Over the past month or so, as I worked on this week’s cover story about the Blue Room Theatre‘s production of The Little Prince ("From page to stage,” p. 22), I’ve spent a lot of time reading and thinking about Antoine de Saint-Exupery‘s classic story about the always-questioning little man and his interplanetary encounters. I remember reading the book as a kid, but I had since forgotten what it was about. Of course, back then, like most kids, even if I knew the story, there’s no way I really understood any of the ideas at work—about love, selflessness and staying true to yourself.

It reminded me of other stories—Maurice Sendak‘s Where the Wild Things Are, A. A. Milne‘s Winnie-the-Pooh tales—made for children by adults returning to their kid days to dig up meanings long buried under the weight of adult concerns.

Probably the best lines from The Little Prince are the secrets told to the prince by the Fox: “It is only with the heart that one can see rightly. What is essential is invisible to the eye.”

I think I’m going to spend the holidays going back to the kid books to see what else I’m forgetting. “Let the wild rumpus start!”